[lbo-talk] The Wind Will Carry Us Away (was Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Get the Blame)

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Wed Mar 14 13:20:43 PDT 2007


On 3/14/07, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Yoshie
>
> > We won't run out of oil, but we can very well run out of time to
> > prevent the worst climate disasters if Hansen is correct. That is
> > especially the case since there is no Left to speak of in the USA, the
> > US working class are mostly politically inactive
>
> Discourse analysis of the above would suggest that <climate disaster> has
> replaced <economic catastrophe> in the eschatology of the left, so that now
> we must take to action to save the planet, rather than to save humanity.

James, if you have forgotten it, we live on the same planet, and we won't be here without it, but you sometimes, on certain matters, sound like . . . A Brother from Another Planet. :->


> Quite apart from what the science says, the sociology says that political
> movements need to believe in some kind of impending disaster, a Heideggerian
> being-towards-death, to undergird their imperatives.

Here's a poem for you, on the theme of impending doom and revolution, by one of the most celebrated modern Iranian poets, Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967), who, by the way, was very pretty:

The Wind Will Carry Us Away

by Forough Farrokhzad

In my brief night, alas,

The wind is about to meet the leaves,

In my brief night

There is fear of ruin.

Listen!

Do you hear the dark wind whispering?

I look upon this bliss with alien eyes

I am addicted to my sorrow

Listen!

Do you hear the dark wind whispering?

Now something is happening in the night

The moon is red and agitated

And the roof may collapse at any moment.

The clouds have gathered

Like a crowd of mourners

Awaiting the birth of rain.

A moment

And then, nothing.

Beyond this window

The night trembles

And the earth

Will no longer turn.

Beyond this window

A stranger worries

About you and me.

Oh you, in green,

Lay your hands -- like a burning memory -- in my hands.

And trust your lips that are warm with life

To the loving caresses of my lips.

The wind will carry us away,

The wind will carry us away.

You might think that people who exalt such a melancholic spirit can't be very good at revolution, but the Iranians pulled off two and a half revolutions in one century -- the first and last classical revolutions in the South, in fact. Why? That is perhaps because only the night of proper mourning can prepare the dawn of revolution.

On 3/14/07, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> Be Generous and Grateful. Instead of wasting money on surplus goods give it
> away as "sadaqah" (charity) to the poor. Thank God for what you ahve and
> remember, making sure you do not cause harm when using his gifts is showing
> gratefulness to God."
>
> [WS:] This is where our ways part, comrades. I think subsidies on
> consumption are not only a waste of resources, but also proliferation of
> structural inequalities. My preferred use of the extra resources is
> investment in fixed and human capital, or better yet, not letting excess
> resources accumulate in private hands but instead being administers by
> public institutions for public benefit.
>
> Fuck charity and Robin-Hoodism. Invest.

Moderate consumption, moderate structural inequalities, a lot of investment in fixed and human capital, but little charity and Robin-Hoodism. That sounds very familiar. Why, it's Japan. :-> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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