On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Chuck0 wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > This afternoon I did a workshop on the state of the global justice
> > movement at a Democratic Socialists of America youth conference. We
> > chatted about agendas and organization, or the lack of both. Several
> > points came up that deserve wider circulation:
I've read some YDS discussions on mailing lists. Here is what I imagine the conversations to be like in person:
---- http://listhost.uchicago.edu:443/pipermail/yds-theory/2002-August/000224.html
Now, as you read Deleuze, it sounds to me as though liberation is purely negative, i.e., liberation is defined in terms of what we are free from, which for you seems to be capitalism, modernity, platonic thought, the state, all that "is", etc. What is troubling in this is that this sort of negative freedom can never exist because at least some sort of restriction is required in order for us to even experience a functional selfhood. And it is this functional selfhood in you and I that desires liberation in the first place.
[which is countered with]
1) you refer to something as Deleuzian without reading Deleuze enough to recognize a deluezian (do any really exist?) if she kicked you. 2) You can lump Cixous, Irigaray, Griggers, GUattari, Deleuze, Derrida, Kristeva into the 'postmodern.' 3) 'postmodern' actually signifies something coherent. ---
I'll leave these intellectuals to help prepare the revolution by continuing to argue about what or who is and isn't really Deluezian, I'm too busy giving solidarity to local (and non-local) labor struggles to help in this important work...
> > * One of the newcomers, originally from Texas, dismissed all talk of
> > anarchism or Greens, saying that has no resonance in Texas (where he's
> > from) or any other of the "red states." He said the only place for
> > remotely progressive politics in the U.S. heartland is the Dem party. I
> > don't know if that's true, but that's what he said.
>
> I guess that is one guy's opinion, but we anarchists are seeing plenty
> of growth in our numbers in the south. It kind of helps that some of us
> have been organizing the south for years as part of a bigger strategy.
In New York it seems like there are more anarchists originally from the South and rural areas than from urban or suburban areas. I remember in Richard Linklater's low budget movie Slacker, the wise old man in Texas was an anarchist, not some DLC lackey. From the people I know, I'd say anarchism has more resonance for them than the Democratic party. Kerry does not seem all that inspiring or "resonant". Of course, if he sees that he needs to go through the Dems to do some stuff around where he is in Texas, he may be right, and should do that,
> > * Out of about 25-30 people, about 2/3 or 3/4 said they'd vote for
> > whatever Dem is nominated for president (again, this was DSA-sponsored,
> > but not DSA-dominated). Most of the rest said they wouldn't vote. There
> > was *no* support for Ralph.
>
> The liberals and radicals in the ABB crowd who have a simplisitic
> understanding of politics can't see at this point that Nader is a big
> problem for the Republicans. Nader's presence in the race will shift the
> election discourse to economics and corporate power. It will be much
> harder for the Bush campaign to manipulate the campaign with Willie
> Horton stunts or a focus on culture war distractions like gay marriage.
I just read the Z magazine article about the Newsom/Gonzalez mayoral race in San Francisco. The Democrats have a lot of balls to pull what they did in San Francisco and then accuse Nader of being a spoiler.
Why don't the Democrats try and go register and inspire and get to the polls the 50% of Americans who don't vote, whom collectively are poorer than the 50% who do vote? Because that is not the function of the Democratic party, it's much, much, much more important for them to try and kill off any non-corporate, non-bourgeois left-wing popular candidate who might get at most 2% of the general population's votes than to go after that 50% of non-voters. Killing off the 2% is what they will focus all their energy on since the fact that 50% are disenfranchised and alienated is a success for them. That's why they will send out Clinton to help a millionaire Democrat running on a "get the homeless of the street" platform to beat a candidate running to the left of him, then sending Clinton to some less important contest like a Democrat/Republican race.
-- Lance