What in the hell …

Hola amigos, so I know I was just rapping at you a little bit ago but I had something else I wanted to say (more…)

The cradle will fall. As in, the line from the movie Cradle Will Rock. I really should be working but my wife put on the video and I’d forgotten how much I like that movie. I bought the book about it just now, and a recording of a performance of the theatrical production.

I’d really like to teach a class on this film, like teach all or as much as possible of the historical material required for folk to get all the references. I’ve not read the books, but in poking around a bit I found references to the CIA encouraging abstract expressionism. There’s a scene in the movie along those lines - Rockefeller and friends talk about how it will serve their interests to promote art which is non-representational. Now, the film complicates this by its criticism of Rivera and Orson Welles and by implication the play itself - these form counterpoints to the art the industrialist connoisseurs want to see - but I think there’s a legitimate complaint voiced there. I don’t want to get into politics and aesthetics in general. I think the relationship between the two is always contextual, and I’m skeptical of political claims about various realist and political art works, in terms of political efficacy. Those caveats aside, I think there’s any parallel to be made re: my tipsy complaints about academic marxism in my last post - taking ‘aesthetic’ and ‘philosophical’ interchangeable for the purposes of this post.

Probably nothing, I bet it’s always been like this, but let me just ask: what the fuck? When did it become (or, why is it) acceptable that marxism not have a link to the labor movement and/or other mass organizations of the working class? Or you know what, fuck it, forget “a link” how about “basic familiarity with.” Jesus fucking christ. “Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

Should note, many a marxist actually does have these sorts of links, more often those who belong to parties (cue one of my favorite Marx quotes, dissing Feuerbach and proclaiming the importance of organization) and including some who work as academics but I’d bet the percent’s a lot lower. Anyhow, surely renewing marxism means rebuilding those ties (and rebuilding mass working class organizations).

So one of the crappy things about my job is that it’s hard to clock out - I regularly feel stressed, it’s hard to feel like I’m not working or at least to not always feel like I ought to be working. Tonight I had two lovely hot drinks, though, which helped me punch the time clock in my head - a hot toddy and a hot brick (the latter is 1 shot of whiskey, 1 teaspoon butter, one teaspoon sugar and a couple or three total pinches of cinnaman and/or nutmeg and/or cloves; serve in a coffee mug, it’s delishush).

AND my brother told me joke I like quite a bit, though I didn’t get it at first. It’s a pun in spanish.

Que hace el pez? Nada.

Ja ja ja!

Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I been busy kicking ass and taking names. And it’s surprisingly hard to get people to give you their names after you kick their ass. They tend to run and to try and hide. Plus they’re all sobbing and it makes them hard to understand. So finding them and getting their names is a lot of work. Almost enough to make me stop maintaining my “List of Names of People Whose Asses I’ve Kicked.” But I’m not one to give up in a project mid-way through. Except sometimes, like if the project is really hard, or really boring, or I decide I don’t want to do it anymore. But that’s different.

Anywho, I know none of you could sleep without knowing exactly what I’ve been up to lately so I figured I’d fill you in. Here’s a brief run down. (more…)

Somebody was nice enough to post this in the comments here a while back. it’s Negri’s take on the U.S. elections. I think it’s worth reading. Negri’s right about three important points. 1. Obama’s election is good in terms of race (it could be put to bad use as a denial of structural racism, we should expect this, but a black president is a blow to white supremacy to some extent). 2. War and the financial crisis are major problems. 3. Obama’s election is the result of a long history of struggles. (more…)

This came out of a conversation with a friend of mine recently. My friend works at a place that has a company policy along the lines of “you can’t talk to your co-workers about your wages, hours, and conditions and you can’t talk to your co-workers about workplace discipline.” To the best of my knowledge this is a legally unenforceable policy in the U.S. There may be exceptions for people who have a collective bargaining agreement at work. The relevant legal language is in section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which says “Sec. 7. [§ 157.] Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3) [section 158(a)(3) of this title]..” If you work somewhere that has a policy like this – especially if your employer has disciplined or threatened you for violating this policy – consider contacting the local office of the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB is like a free lawyer agency for workers who have had their rights violated.”

The important bit for the purposes of this post is this line: “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” That means the right to do stuff with co-workers to improve our lives. If we can’t talk with each other about wages, conditions, and so on, we can’t take concerted activity.

I’ve never really liked section 4 of chapter 1 of Capital v1, the section on the fetishism of commodities. I think this is one of the most over-rated sections of Marx, and certainly the most over-rated in v1 of Capital. The reception of the passage bugs me too, as it’s often (mis)read in isolation from the rest of the book. The passage is also commonly read as if the point were objects - commodities - rather than the social relations of capitalist society (this reminds me, I need to put up my notes on Raymond Williams), and as if Marx’s analysis didn’t turn around that ‘peculiar commodity’ called labor power. (more…)