Thursday, November 28, 2024
Uneven Development and COP
The poor countries are a bit verklempt because the wealthy countries are being stingy with their climate finance. I guess there was some expectation they would be willing to share in the name of fairness and equity? Really? I might be missing something but this seems like a profound misreading of global capitalism and its imperatives.
Another COP concludes with the so-called "developed" countries putting forth yet another last second proposal, so as to avoid what the media would call a failure. It's a "promise" of some paltry sum of public money which they have no intention of paying ( especially the U.S.) combined with a bunch of loans and some fantasy of private capital filling the gap.
The whole premise of the COP negotiations is that "we are all in this together" but nothing could be further from the truth. Some have a great deal of wealth and power and some have shit. Winners and losers. This is not a bug in the system, this is a feature, how it is designed. Will the rich throw out a few crumbs to keep the teeming masses strong enough to labor and allow themselves to feel noble? Sure. But they ain't about to share. Those calling for a "new global finance architecture" believe the rich will be incentivised to pay now because of the threat of paying much more later. In other words, a rational approach. Please.
That has never happened before and is unlikely to happen now. As Bruno Latour put it, the rich have no interest in saving anyone other than themselves. Sitting on the top deck of the Titanic, they have reserved all the lifeboats for themselves. The champaign is flowing, the band plays on, Elon is filling spaceships with caviar.
I would argue that even those in the bottom berths or working down in the hull reject any notion of "equity". In their understanding it's a competitive world and the rich outcompeted the poor. The natural order, like Darwin and Ayn Rand. The poor countries should take their 300 billion with a smile and a curtsy. Thankyou for your generous largess master. We will try not to squander it, so sorry to trouble you.
Eighty years of "developmentalist" programs have led to extreme inequality and massive debt around the so-called "third world". Think World Bank loans, IMF, structural adjustment, neoliberalism. But let's not forget the obscenely rich within those countries. You can ask but I suspect it will take them looking at the barrel of a gun before they cough up any dough.
Sunday, November 24, 2024
Something Somehow Must Be Done
I'm trying hard to sympathize with the well-meaning progressive reformers I have tried so hard to find common ground with, it aint easy. To build alliances with these local folks I have purposely kept the anti-capitalist rhetoric to a minimum. I have listened politely to their plans for "campaigns" toward building "local solutions". I have gone out of my way not to dampen their enthusiasm for the Inflation Reduction Act or COP agreements or the price of renewables coming down.
But at some point you have to wonder if they can ever be shaken from their liberal theory of change. How many times does Lucy have to pull the ball up at the last second before Charlie Brown understands the program?
They now tell us to "go ahead and feel sad" but then keep organizing- using the same strategy that has failed for 80 years. Vote harder. Send out better petitions. Come up with fresh chants.The 350.org website is a perfect example. "Join our campaign to demand climate ambition". Yes indeed, demand our leaders get more ambitious around Nationally Determined Contributions! How? "Sign our open letter!" Send us money. Get more involved.
It's a form of pathology to suddenly expect different results from a tactic you have tried and failed at thousands of times. Look at Jon Stewart, at Oprah, at Rachael Maddow, all the liberal opinion makers grasping at excuses.
The big problem is that liberal incrementalism started late and ran out of time. This was predictable but ignored by those who lack the capacity to envision actual justice at scale. The ticking clock has always meant delay increases cost. So now we reach tipping points and daily cyclone bombs and atmospheric rivers ( Oblivion's Cross, anyone?) and on and on and....
Wait a minute, I know what we can do! What if all the celebrity muscicians got together for a big fundraising concert? "We are the world..."
Friday, November 22, 2024
Not Stupid, Just Ignorant
Having read mainstream pundit critique for the last three weeks, I have to add my two cents to the post-mortem. Where I live, people are jubilant that the Great Entertainer is filling his cabinet with freaks and billionaires. Watching the stock market sizzle, they sense that America is already greater! And what fun watching libs mourn!
These are people who drive around in brand new 70,000 dollar pickups and bitch about the price of eggs. These are people who are still looking for the Weapons of Mass Destruction, are fearful of a woke communist takeover and the imposition of Sharia Law. They have no idea of the U.S. role in the Middle East, no idea of how we intervened in Latin America, no knowledge of history. They couldn't find Iran on a map.
These people, trying hard not to gloat too much, are plastering their hybrid cars with bumper stickers that say: "I'm saving fuel so I can buy more guns". They believe climate change is either a hoax and/or uber-wealthy high tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk will fix it. Whatever.
It turns out the low paid exploited worker craves status and enjoys a "share in mastery" over neocolonial subjects like starving Africans or Palestinians, just as poor whites lorded it over black slaves in antebellum South. Voting for the "change" candidate they desire tradition and its sedimented roles. Go figure.
We can sympathize with these fellow workers but shouldn't condescend or patronize. As Roxanne Gay puts it, these people: "are granted a level of care and coddling that defies credulity and that is afforded to no other voting bloc." Making excuses for them only demeans them futher. They believe stupid things because it is in the interest of the capitalist state, which wants wants consumers, not citizens. They believe as they are told to believe and because they are convinced more treats will come their way.
Plus, they are enjoying the thrill of being successful revolutionaries ( yes, I'm jealous) and having something like a political community, no matter how incoherent and contradictory its manifesto. Joisannce mixed with schadenfreude, what could be better!
According to Left pundits, Ye shall know the revolutionary subject by her education level/wage and she shall overturn the power structure by withholding her labor in a general strike. Also, "youth" are workers. In other words, keep waiting for Godot.
Ye shall not engage in incremental reformism but the stready march through institutions (building a Party, running for office) is fine.
Workers will embrace transgender athletes in collective struggle because they both are oppressed.
Somehow, this time around, the transitional demands of social democracy such as public services, living wage and progressive taxation( not to be confused with incremental reforms) will lead to socialism rather than the usual backlash ie..capitalist strike and reaction, and/or worker compacency.
Unlike the history of mass mobilization and protest in the last two decades (Iraq war, Occupy, BLM, Womens March, abolition, Palestine ) this time around the tactic will lead to revolutionary change. Grab a sign, learn a chant.
Somehow, ecosocialists can challenge capitalist cultural production through political education.
While the Left manifesto advocates adaptation, it promotes a program that would be recognizable to revolutionaries 20, 50 or 100 years ago. This despite the fact our adversary, capitalism, has revolutionized itself in profound ways.
On Saturday, Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of the board at Saudi Aramco, the state petroleum company, sat ringside with Mr. Trump at a U.F.C. fight in Madison Square Garden in New York City. Investors are fleeing renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is sabotaging the pledge from the last COP to transition away from fossil fuels. The current COP is failing to find the money to help that so-called transition. That's enough for tonight.
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Thursday, November 21, 2024
Disaster Nationalism
Just starting Seymour's latest book and I ran across this: "Patriotic rituals revere it( the flag) as the embodiment of a bloodthirsty totem god who organizes killing energy." Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle
I'm thinking of the militaristic displays before football games, the fly overs by gunship helicopters or fighter jets right after the national anthem is sung. The crowd roars with patriotic zeal and bloodlust
He also explains how "conspiracy theory...is responsive to the depression and boredom of late capitalist life, suggesting hidden or unexhausted possibilities in an Exhausted Age. The title of my next book!
Seymour is not afraid to mix in a little Lacanian psychoanalysis with his political economy and I find it adds a lot to his explanation of hard Right ascendancy. We have to think of MAGA and Trumpism in a global context, as a symptom of a widespread dis- ease. We are dealing with a pathology and saying the price of eggs was too high is to avoid the problem. Again.
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Israelis or Jews?
As more details about the attack of Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are released, the murkier the dominant narrative of "antisemitism" becomes. As I read it, beligerant Israeli soccer hooligans came to town to cause trouble; shouting "death to Arabs" (which is technically anti-semitic). Being assholes, they hassled cab drivers and waved flags until other fans had had enough and began to beat them down.
Of course the media and certain politicians went full ADL, claiming the idiots were targeted because they were Jews. But all we know, and all the those doing the beating knew, is that they were Israeli and proud Zionists. They could have been Christians. Or athiests. Or Hindu, for all anybody knew. Those doing the beating didn't ask for identification to make sure it was only Jews they were chasing. But just as they did with the campus protests over the genocide in Gaza, the media immediately latched on to "anti-semitism" as the cause of violence.
I don't know what it is about soccer culture that attracts violent, xenophobic morons, but this is hardly the first such episode. What I do know is that if you are an Israeli or a Jew or anybody who supports that genocide, you should expect some harsh reaction. Because you deserve it. And if you shout your hate from the rooftops...yeah.
"In real subsumption, territorial empires gave way to empires based on control of market access, reshaping labour processes and supply-chains on a more consistently capitalist basis and incorporating workforces into financial and consumer systems to an unprecedented degree." Richard Seymour
Friday, November 15, 2024
Bomb Bomb Iran
Some may remember John Mc Cain's little ditty. With Rubio, Stefanik and Huckabee running the Middle East desk, he may, posthumously get his (death) wish. It appears Biden/ Harris were punished for accomplishing the barest minimum ie infrastructure, climate. It turns out the less competent the government is, the more it is rewarded. Getting nothing done is the whole point. Petty squables, government shutdowns, endless ethics hearings: there's your "wrecking ball".
Wrecking ball to the fantasy of a "two state solution". Wrecking ball to the fantasy of "international law". Wrecking ball to the fantasy of "green capitalism". Yes it's terrible and there will be untold death and misery and suffering but these are your choices: terrible or horrible. But hey, at least it's not Somalia!
Some on the far left are defending the rubes who voted for the real estate/tech-billionaire government, saying their protest votes expressed legitimate dissatisfaction. Whatever. Their revolution will not be televised. The fun and games will only last so long. David Brooks sees the education divide - highschool vs college - as the best explanation, but neither team, nor most NYTimes pundits, understand the current conjuncture. Symptoms are not the disease.
Some of the biggest suckers are the "Muslims For Trump" who thought he would help their cause. Right. Then ask your waiter at Applebees what he thinks of Project 2025. Then ask him what big event is happening in Azerbaijan this week. Then ask him to find Azerbaijan on a map.
Craig Singleton, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies", believes if Trump can "stay disciplined, he just might be crazy enough to confront China — and win." And if unicorns can fly, we can ride them to the moon! You can't spit without hitting a psychotic moron today. This freak served for decades in the defense establishment. The Kubuki continues unabated.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Better Late Than Never?
Not really. The dominant post-election narrative promulgated by both U.S. "political" parties and the vast commentariat is that the Dems lost the socio-economic group known as "the working class" to the Repubs. A group, by the way, that never got much airplay prior to this bizarre election. Now it's all you hear! We abandoned the Working Class! Win back the Working Class!
For the last several decades we heard a lot about the "middle-class". Until a few weeks ago, this was who all the "politicians" were supposedly fighting for. The class everyone wanted to see prosper. This class is different from workers even though they work. They are simply better educated and make more dough and are willing to help the environment as long as there is no cost to them personally. According to sociologists and people who study these things.
The problem, unfortunately, is that the working class is so thoroughly atomized and individuated, they have no class consciousness nor sense of class belonging. They are alienated consumers and totaly transactional in their "politics". Sadly, appeals to solidarity or economic justice or even "democracy" fall flat. Like everyone, they simply want treats. Promise them treats, even fossil-fueled treats, especially fossil-fueled treats and you get their vote. A chicken in every pot works but a guaranteed family vacation to Disneyworld will make you Emperor For Life. Try asking them if they identify as workers and see the funny look you get.
The reason I put "politics" in scare quotes is because in a liberal capitalist "democracy" ( more scare quotes), the sphere of The Political is so truncated, so denuded, as to debase the true meaning of the term. It is used (constantly, repeatedly) to make people believe they are self-governed. A lovely thought, right? "Of the People, by the People, for the People!" Legislation and policy! As Master of your own destiny you get to choose between a Party who offers you a trip to Disneyworld or one who offers sex-reassignment surgery and cities without cops. No brainer!
Of course all of this post-election analysis assumes you would really want to win control over this free-falling shit show. That takes a certain breed of sociopath or deluded moron. As the COP resumes in Azerbaijan you won't hear two words about climate change in all the Post-Election Analysis. Because it was never an issue during the election. We heard a lot about the wars, a lot about inflation, a lot about immigration. So the workers voted for Hope and Change! Why wouldn't they. Cheap fossil-fueled treats for all! Deal with the floods and fires as they come. That's what insurance is for , right?
What this all boils down to is a huge pile of what Mark Fisher called ideological rubble. Mixed with a large dose of repressed and subsumed psych-social trauma. We know it's a facade but act AS IF it's real. Thrown in a cynical fuck-the-future attitude and some Christian millenialism and hang on to your hats, we're in for a wild ride.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Face to Face
Richard King, author of Here Be Monsters, has a new piece in the magazine Arena titled Standing Ground in a Turning World. He argues that "identity politics" has been detrimental to Left organizing because it lacks a sympathetic understanding of how people's lives have been turned upside down by the pace of techno-scientific change. He recommends tolerance for small c conservatism and the traditional values that help anchor people people tossed about by modernity. He sees signs of this "moral maturity" in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations which have avoided the purity tests seen in other recent protest movements.
I've tried to make this case for some time, insisting that technology tends to run out ahead of culture's ability to absorb and assimilate it resulting in the kind of incoherent "politics" we are seeing globally. This incoherence shows up on the Left in the form of pronoun policing and snow-flake hysteria over cultural appropriation. On the Right it manifests as looney conspiracy theories and "passionate intensity" ranging from populism to fascism.
The question for me is how you find the sweet spot between a provincialism that can be reactionary, racist, xenophobic etc and a cosmopolitanism that is alienating. You want to tolerate religious belief but also challenge chauvinistic sex-gender prejudice. We can appreciate "face to face" interactions but still value the internet. It is the question of how much time these adjustments take.
Capitalism moves at the speed of light and "all that is solid melts into air", regardless of the cultural dislocation
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