No Bullshit

The pro-Trump slogan "No More Bullshit" perfectly exemplifies the total and absolute incoherance of today's conservatism. It is the thing you call for when you are incapable of articulating actual grievances. Or are too cowardly to openly declare your xenophobic, nationalist racism. For those promoting this vacuous expression, Trump stands in opposition to all the things which...well...just aren't right...are in some way corrupt and un-American...veiled and obscure...but subverive. Academia, with all its jargon, science with all its studies, politicians (except Trump) with all their lies, the media with all its fakery, antifa with all their hoodies. Liberal elites (except for Trump) with all their pretensions and "isms": feminism, sexism, socialism, etc... All the data and facts that runs counter to "common sense" and tradition. These are all "bullshit". End of argument. You know who wasn't bullshitting? Ted Kaczyinsky. The una-bomber. Much of what he had to say in his manifesto was as incoherent as conservative ideology ( far better at math than psychology) but his critique of "technological- industrial society" was pretty spot on. Unchecked, this Promethian drive will leave nothing for the future. Capitalist Man is raging over the landscape in a catastrophic fury, and while sending letter bombs is not a strategy, something better happen. Soon. In a recent interview, Andreas Malm agreed with yours truly that the Breakfree action of 2016 was the most promising example of what needs to happen on a giant scale. Far from perfect in execution, but the right path. Ende Galende. Extinction Rebellion. Student Strike. All in one.

Never Work

Electoral politics is a contest to see who can promise the most jobs for Americans. In the presidential debates, one candidate will protect existing fossil fuel jobs while another will create "millions" of new renewable energy jobs. To sell their Green New Deals, campaigners must always include these same promises of jobs, jobs and more jobs. The DSA ecosocialists want to focus energies on a Federal Job Guarantee for a displaced workforce. Americans are traumatized by work. Pathetically, for many it is a thing which gives life meaning. The Situationist International was in fierce opposition to this valorization of work. Raoul Vaneigem noted how the "cult of work is honoured from Cuba to China...wherever submission is demanded, the stale fart of ideology makes its headway, from the Arbeit Macht Frei of the concentration camps to the homolies of Henry Ford and Mao Tse-Tung." My point is that there is an ecological problem with all this demented love of jobs and work as well. All those workers with those millions of new jobs are going to spend their paychecks on tons of useless, earth destroying crap. Most of which will end up in the atmosphere, the oceans or the landfill. Work is the promise and the threat, the carrot and the stick, that Capital uses to control the worker. No work = no money = misery. A form of tyranny libertarians never seem to notice, by the way. But what we will need to survive our current confluence of crises is fewer jobs and less work and less consumption. And more life. The late David Graeber pointed out how most of those jobs were "bullshit" in the first place, just as a giant part of the workforce in China is kept busy building ghost cities and superfluos infrastructure. Of course there are necessary tasks that need to be accomplished. And work can be creative and fulfilling. When profit is abolished, work will be rational and a job will be a small part of life

Productive Apocalypse

I have long argued that (unfortunately) things sometimes need to get worse before they get better. It is in this sense that Trump the disrupter has succeeded in shredding many of the fantasy illusions Americans have never truly had challenged before. This process is what Paul Butler, African American author of Chokehold, calls "productive apocalypse". Along those lines, the current brouha over a Trump coup is "productive" in the way it is forcing to the surface uncomfortable questions elites would prefer stay repressed and buried. There won't be any coup attempt. All the same, the very notion lays bare the ugly truth that we are just another bannana republic with lipstick. Armed camo knuckleheads roam the streets protecting our liberty. Their ass clown leader retweets nonsense about Bin Laden to those still hoping to find the weapons of mass destruction. No doubt people will get hurt in isolated, useless confrontations and the aftermath of a "peaceful transfer of power" is going to be a full display of uniquely American wierdness. But as Mao put it: "Everything under heaven is utter chaos. The situation is excellect." What the Left needs needs to figure out is how to describe capitalist "democracy"; that is, to what degree, if any, it is still useful for creating positive change. All too often, well-meaning leftists tell us we live in an oligarchy and then ask us to work for progressive legislation, all in the same sentence. They are pumped up about defending the mythologized "sacred" institutions and rule of law blah blah, instructing oppressed people that "the best thing you can do is vote", poking fun at the "patriots" while promoting their own nationalist fantasy. A stylized kubuki theatre of the absurd that is dissolving into discordant chaos as the band plays on.

Disobey

It was refreshing to come across a document-in-progress called the Glasgow Agreement, named for the city where the next UN COP will take place. Folks from the Global Ecosocialist Network have been discussing the types of opportunities this COP might present and the "agreement" presents a radical departure from past organizing and a new way forward. It also incorporates some new-old tactics which I have been promoting for some time. This is from the work of Erica Chenowith: "Second, contemporary movements tend to over-rely on mass dem-onstrations while neglecting other techniques—such as general strikes and mass civil disobedience—that can more forcefully disrupt a re-gime’s stability. Because demonstrations and protests are what most people associate with civil resistance, those who seek change are in-creasingly launching these kinds of actions before they have devel-oped real staying power or a strategy for transformation. Compared to other methods, street protests may be easier to organize or impro-vise on short notice. In the digital age, such actions can draw partici-pants in large numbers even without any structured organizing coali-tion to carry out advanced planning and coordinate communication.21But mass demonstrations are not always the most effective way of applying pressure to elites, particularly when they are not sustained over time. Other techniques of noncooperation, such as general strikes and stay-at-homes, can be much more disruptive to economic life and thus elicit more immediate concessions. It is often quiet, behind-the-scenes planning and organizing that enable movements to mobilize in force over the long term, and to coordinate and sequence tactics in a way that builds participation, leverage, and power.22 For the many contemporary movements organized around leaderless resistance, such capacities can be difficult to develop. Very possibly related to movements’ overemphasis on public dem-onstrations and marches is a third important factor: Recent movements have increasingly relied on digital organizing, via social media in par-ticular." They also call for a shift in focus; away from "institutional struggle" ( UN climate negotiators, governments,multi-national corps, etc) and towards direct action to disrupt fossil fuel infrastructure,"shift from symbolic disobedience in city centers" to the places of production. Andrea(s) Spreck lays out the case in an article from Waging Non-violence.