Saturday, December 30, 2006
20 minute holiday roundup
I really should post a vacation notice on this thing.
Astute readers will notice my blogging has been intermittent - well, non-existent - these past couple of weeks. This is not only because of essay pressures and the general malaise that comes over atheist socialists during a holiday devoted to religion and/or consumerism. It's also because I have no internet service at home, due to mistreatment at the hands of the evil Bell oligopoly. The brief empowerment I felt upon calling them liars and cancelling my service has now turned to frustration, and I have to find a smaller, friendlier corporation to be my ISP. In the meantime, blogging consists of minutes stolen at libraries.
Saddam Hussein was executed this morning. This is bittersweet. Of course the state - and an Occupation state in particular - has no business executing anyone. Hussein should've been joined at the gallows by his partners-in-crime in the U.S. administration who propped up his regime and sold him his chemical weapons. For many reasons, his execution isn't a victory.
But I'm dissatisfied with Human Rights Watch's response that this is a blow to the rule of law - that it sets a bad precedent. Surely the deaths of 655,000 (or is that 700,000 by now?) Iraqis sets an even worse precedent. Saddam's death is a drop in the ocean of blood the U.S. administration has spilled.
Moreover, Saddam was responsible not just for the deaths of civilians, but of thousands of civilian communists during his reign (another reason the U.S. government loved him.) It's a shame he wasn't executed by a popular tribunal, or just strung up by partisans like Mussolini. But at least he's gone.
My disaste for hipsters is crystallizing into something short of hatred - maybe intense dislike. I consider hipsters, and the 'creative class' in general, as the vanguard of urban neoliberalism - the bright, pretty coating on capitalism's brutal machine. I will write more on this as my thoughts develop on the matter; but in the meantime, here's an excellent review of Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemia, by Forest Perry, another recovering hipster. Lloyd says hipsters are low-paid workers who allow themselves to be exploited for the chance to 'be themselves' i.e. work crummy jobs with their tattoos showing. Their lack of class consciousness, their fetishism of 'art for art's sake' allows them to ignore the real exploitation that they and the working class as a whole suffers. They're modern-day Mr. Blocks.
Finally, on a brighter note, I've joined the New Socialist Group. As a free agent, I considered myself worth a bidding war, and got them to throw in some books - in this case, the hardcover, 3 volume set of Theories of Surplus Value, often called the next three volumes of Marx's Capital. This probably confirms people's impression that socialist groups are dens of armchair academics. I don't condone building a socialist group by giving away Marxist theory - getting involved in activism is far more useful - but there are worse ways to recruit someone (e.g. horizontally). And I can always bring them along to a picket and use them as a portable seat.
Sorry for the lack of pictures - download restrictions.
Astute readers will notice my blogging has been intermittent - well, non-existent - these past couple of weeks. This is not only because of essay pressures and the general malaise that comes over atheist socialists during a holiday devoted to religion and/or consumerism. It's also because I have no internet service at home, due to mistreatment at the hands of the evil Bell oligopoly. The brief empowerment I felt upon calling them liars and cancelling my service has now turned to frustration, and I have to find a smaller, friendlier corporation to be my ISP. In the meantime, blogging consists of minutes stolen at libraries.
Saddam Hussein was executed this morning. This is bittersweet. Of course the state - and an Occupation state in particular - has no business executing anyone. Hussein should've been joined at the gallows by his partners-in-crime in the U.S. administration who propped up his regime and sold him his chemical weapons. For many reasons, his execution isn't a victory.
But I'm dissatisfied with Human Rights Watch's response that this is a blow to the rule of law - that it sets a bad precedent. Surely the deaths of 655,000 (or is that 700,000 by now?) Iraqis sets an even worse precedent. Saddam's death is a drop in the ocean of blood the U.S. administration has spilled.
Moreover, Saddam was responsible not just for the deaths of civilians, but of thousands of civilian communists during his reign (another reason the U.S. government loved him.) It's a shame he wasn't executed by a popular tribunal, or just strung up by partisans like Mussolini. But at least he's gone.
My disaste for hipsters is crystallizing into something short of hatred - maybe intense dislike. I consider hipsters, and the 'creative class' in general, as the vanguard of urban neoliberalism - the bright, pretty coating on capitalism's brutal machine. I will write more on this as my thoughts develop on the matter; but in the meantime, here's an excellent review of Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemia, by Forest Perry, another recovering hipster. Lloyd says hipsters are low-paid workers who allow themselves to be exploited for the chance to 'be themselves' i.e. work crummy jobs with their tattoos showing. Their lack of class consciousness, their fetishism of 'art for art's sake' allows them to ignore the real exploitation that they and the working class as a whole suffers. They're modern-day Mr. Blocks.
Finally, on a brighter note, I've joined the New Socialist Group. As a free agent, I considered myself worth a bidding war, and got them to throw in some books - in this case, the hardcover, 3 volume set of Theories of Surplus Value, often called the next three volumes of Marx's Capital. This probably confirms people's impression that socialist groups are dens of armchair academics. I don't condone building a socialist group by giving away Marxist theory - getting involved in activism is far more useful - but there are worse ways to recruit someone (e.g. horizontally). And I can always bring them along to a picket and use them as a portable seat.
Sorry for the lack of pictures - download restrictions.
