OK, that doesn't really tie together. But it caught your interest, right?

Reading group conquers all

This is a chart of my blog traffic for the past week. On Sunday I posted the review of Perry Anderson. Who could've predicted "Considerations on Western Marxism" would prove so popular? Even more incentive for people to host a chapter!

I support ads in public space

A local 'public space' group is mounting a campaign against ad trucks - those trucks that drive around pulling huge billboards. They argue "All gas-powered vehicles that serve no productive purpose should be banned from our streets." OK, fine, I don't need to see another giant perfume ad at eye-level. But their approach is bourgeois, because it misses the complexities of public space, and it would be used by the state to ban everything. For example, how would the public space people feel about this?

This is from Unite Against Fascism, a British anti-nazi group. I can guarantee the government would call it 'unproductive'. You can't use the state to censor: the porn law debacle shows that what gets banned is not the bad stuff, but progressive, gay and lesbian material. For public spacers to get serious, they need to drop their naive liberalism and start thinking seriously about how the state and capitalist power are two fingers of the same glove; if they want to cut off a finger, they better be prepared to deal with the whole hand.

Anti-whatnow?

Speaking of cutting off fingers, I'm continually amazed by the excuses peddled for the Israeli invasion. In recent days I've heard the shocking news that Hamas & Hezbollah are anti-Semitic. At the anti-war demo I attended on Saturday, many Lebanese cheered the news of Israeli military deaths, to the horrified silence of onlookers. And I had the privilege to read Michael Walzer sharing the sad news that everyone wants to destroy Israel, and this forces Israel's hands.

I also picked up Noam Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which in 6 pages demolished these straw arguments. He can do that because they've been around for years: they're trotted out by the neo-cons every time Israel launches another atrocity. Chomsky explains that Israel started Hamas as a counterweight to the secular PLO. Israel invaded Lebanon to wipe out PLO bases and secular opposition to its regional dominance, allowing Hezbollah to gain the upper hand. Chomsky feels this is poor planning on behalf of the Israeli military, but I'd give them more credit. A fundamentalist opposition is easier to discredit than a secular one.

Anti-Semites? - Israelis demonstrating against the invasion

Here's a proposition. Anti-semitism is a dangerous social phenomenon. It arises when bigots are able to draw false connections between the actions of some Jews, and Jews as a 'race' - a completely false concept, like all races. For example, in 1917 there were bankers who were Jewish, but that didn't mean Jewish bankers controlled the banking system or started the Bolshevik revolution.

Today, there are Jewish generals ordering the slaughter of Palestinians and Lebanese, and the wholesale eviction of Lebanese from their land. What do you think might combat this 'bad impression'? Calling the national resistance fighters anti-Semites, or holding these Generals and leaders to account for their war crimes?


Anti-Semites? - Lebanese victims of the Israeli bombing

I'll go one step further. Is it easier to fight anti-Semitism by calling all opponents of Israel anti-Semites? Or is it better to question the ideology and practice of Zionism, which is based on implanting a colonial settler state in the Levant and terrorizing the inhabitants into submission?

The Palestinians and Lebanese are facing a ruthless enemy much powerful than they are, which has shown time and again how willing it is to murder civilians and imprison an entire people. I'd humbly suggest that Hamas and Hezbollah, not Israel, are defending themselves, no matter how unpalatable this may be to our liberal sensibilities. Under these circumstances, cries of 'anti-Semitic' have nothing to do with defending Jews, and everything to do with discrediting the military opponents of Zionism. If you want to defeat anti-Semitism - and I certainly do, having a personal stake in the matter - drive a wedge between Zionism and Jewishness, and defeat the movement that conflates the two.

Here's a fine analysis of the conflict, courtesy of the Tomb.

Commie Funk

As a respite from the bad news, here's evidence that communist funk actually existed. It's from the Progressive Labor party in the States. I don't vouch for their politics, but anyone who can work "Under socialism the workers and patients will run the - hospitals!" into a funk song deserves kudos. The socialist soul sistahs do a great job:

Workers Get Ready

And, while it's not funk, check out their The Ballad of racist Blairs - not about the UK Labour party, but a community campaign to stop Blairs, a grocery store, from raising its prices on welfare cheque day. This is so lovely:

The people fought back when the cops attacked
Black women took the lead
And a traffic cop ended up in the deep freeze
next to the meat and cheese

It's black women workers who hit the hardest, year after years
And it's black women workers who will lead the fight
Against these racist profiteers

Are the singers still around? Did they record anything else? Can I get their autographs?

Find these and more PL songs here. But be warned, the white socialist folk singers are shrill and clownish compared to their black comrades.

Apparently the Soviets didn't 'understand' what Communism is - but luckily the PLP do