What in the hell …

This weekend I was a trainer at this thing at a lefty library space. I stumbled across a photocopy of “As We See It” and “As We Don’t See It” in a stack of pamphlets. These are by the old UK group Solidarity. (These were the Castoriadis people in England, with links to S ou B, not to be confused with the soft trot — ex trot? — US group called Solidarity who are around today.) I started leafing through. I read this years ago but had forgotten it. It’s really quite good. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s pasted here. (more…)

Angela’s recent post on restless democracy is quite interesting. I started to respond in the comment box at Long Sunday but my remarks got long enough that I thought it’d be better as a blog post. (more…)

This is a short piece by a friend of mine. He and I translated it a while back and keep meaning to something with it. It’s now up here at least. (more…)

New piece out by the Free Association. I had a small hand in it, wish it’d been a bigger hand. I like those folks very, very much.

I cut some of this material from my post to Long Sunday. It’s a set of notes, trying to spin a red thread on the subject of democracy and proletariat. I’m also going to paste up the post to Long Sunday here below, after it’s been up over there for a bit. (more…)

This weekend I picked up a copy of the book Fellow Worker: The Life of Fred Thompson. Thompson is a much storied former member of the IWW. The book is compiled from letters and writings into something like an autobiography. There’s an anecdote I like very much on page 19, from a time when Thompson was 18 or so. (more…)

For starters, read their manifesto. (According to a note, in addition to Miguel Benasayag both Balibar and Badiou were members of the group, which I didn’t know. Must get more info on that.)

From Makeworlds, Deleuze on human rights (via) -

“Law isn’t created through declarations of human rights. Creation, in law, is jurisprudence, and that’s the only thing there is. So: fighting for jurisprudence. That’s what being on the left is about. It’s creating the right.”

This quote is a briefer excerpt of a brief excerpt worth reading in its entirety. I’m not generally fussed either way about human rights, I figure if that’s an idiom people use to express something I agree with then great. If not, then not. But this bit about fighting for jurisprudence, being on the left is about creating law, creating right…? What’s with that? Left wing of capital-and-sovereignty, perhaps? It reminds me of Negri (which reminds me, I need to chase up the reference where he says movements always express a juridical aspiration). I’m all for this perspective tactically, if it makes sense and has an aggregation power or effect, but I don’t take the long term goal to be the production of right, creation in law, but the rupture and breakdown thereof - law destroying rather than law preserving violence.