There is a whole new generation of kids, mostly racially mixed, ethnically diverse, economically lower middle class-working class who are at the cusp of political awareness. They are not going to get that great job in Silicon Valley and be rich. They are headed for marginal work lives and they know it. They are going to struggle at state and city colleges and they don't like their prospects. They are treading water and that can not last. Many have openly gay or lesbian friends and they all are for full rights, affirmative action, higher taxes on the rich, anti-military, anti-gun, anti-drugs, anti-war and so forth. They are headed left and don't know it.
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Yes, this is what I'm seeing.
From time to time, Dennis Redmond will mention some element of the current technopop scene or reference the differences between Euro, Asian and American styles of capitalism and related topics.
It seems that, more often than not, these things are dismissed as insignificant, misunderstood or a diversion from more important matters (for example, classic Marxist analyses or themes).
It's a shame this is the response. I think what I'm hearing when I read these posts is the relayed sound of a parallel superstructure being created, right in the midst of the present one's slow yet steady twist into purposelessness. No guarantees of course - it's not certain some "better world" will come of these things but various subcultures are gaining intriguing kinds of self-awareness, sped along the evolutionary path in part by the communications/mobility grid capital has created for planetary command and control.
The invasion of Iraq - which, to me, looks more and more like the desperate act of people with zero ideas (in spite of their pretensions to being neo-imperialist visionaries) is the very best the most audacious members of the ruling class can offer. They have failed. They will fail again and again because they're trapped in fantasies of limitless power. They believe their force gives them deep 'street cred' but they've played themselves, they've been found out.
If we want to defeat them, we must be firmly grounded in the 3-dimensional realities part of which is the emergence of left-like groupings that, due to their youth and unfamiliarity to over-focused minds, are hidden in plain sight.
We should not beat up on ourselves for having no solid answers, no perfect programs for this superfluidic age. We have to tune our situational awareness (as the combat theory geeks say) and build theory and practice from the crazy world we find.
I firmly believe this. This is why I look to Gibson and Sterling at least as much as Marx and Foucault. This is why Transmetropolitan (a comic) means as much to me as Hardt and Negri.
All are needed; all are welcome.
There is no other viable way.
.d.