What in the hell …

Yusef has been challenging me on some of my comments in my post on Negri. He also has been defending Negri in the discussion on a post at Steve Shaviro’s. To Yusef’s credit (much more than mine, I’m sad to say), he rises above some of the unpleasantries in that thread to try and have a real and substantive conversation. (more…)

Like I said I sort of hit a wall writing that other post. Along the way I remembered this piece my friend Chris wrote a while back and posted to the aut-op-sy email list back when we were both still on there, it was part of discussions about a book. Sadly I’ve pretty much lost touch with Chris. The piece is a taxonomy of organizations. (more…)

Matt asked me to write something for a zine he’s doing for the upcoming protests against the RNC here where we live. He suggested several things, I’m still not sure what I want to write. I was thinking of trying to write something on organizations (mass and political) and on organizing, as those are things I want to get clearer on. I’m not sure I can get that done by the deadline, though. (more…)

I just realized: I started this blog 3 years ago (3 years and 2 days since the first post on here, dated August 21, 2005). As of now, the blog now contains 602 posts, counting this one, and 2351 comments. Neat.

They’re the questions you’ve all been wanting answers to, I know.

So I think I’ve said this on here, but I’m making a disciplinary move, academically. Into history. Or should that be History? Anyway, making a move. Have made it, officially, but don’t yet feel like it’s fully taken in substantive terms - I don’t yet feel like a historian. As part of this, I’m trying to get used to … like … empirical … stuff. Among that stuff is archival research. This week I spent some time in an archive in Iowa and in Wisconsin. It’s neat. I’m bad at it - that’s part of why I’m trying to do more of this, to get better at it.

Below are some notes from stuff I found in Iowa, tossed up here for the sake of arguing some more about immaterial labor and the periodizing claims - and the relevance of the periodization(s) - made by Negri et al. There’s some Foucault quote that I like but that I can’t remember the citation of, describing his own work: “philosophical fragments put to work in a historical field of problems.” I’d like to think of what I’m trying or plan to try to do with the stuff below as the converse, using historical fragments to make a theoretical point about all this immaterial labor and real subsumption.

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In a rush so telegraph style. Have heard much said about 1934 Teamsters strike in Minneapolis. Turns out there was a wave a strikes in the US in 1934. (more…)

The following is a parody video by some friends of mine, about getting out of debt. I post it here because I think it’s funny and because I dearly love these folks. I post the disclaimer stuff because people have occasionally stumbled onto this blog looking for serious help with serious problems, and it makes me sad to think of people in a rough spot bumping into my nonsense. Anyhow, here’s the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk6xYFmI6gs

At least two. And now I can only see one. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

EDIT:

The story so far:

Trent and Angelica and I were up late playing Boggle (more…)