slackbastard

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Anarchism

Anarchists in Vancouver have been celebrating the Winter Olympics in style. Some independent journalists from San Francisco have been digging beneath the snow to provide ongoing coverage here. (Choice words: Angry Bystander: “You don’t have the support of the public”. Calm Anarchist: “We are the public”.) Otherwise, The Media Co-op is there. Note that there has been some Broken Windows, and speculation is rife that a ‘Black Bloc’ of 40 New Zealand anarchists — the self-appointed “ninjas” of the anarchist movement (The Canadian Press) — have once again crossed tragically under-policed international borders to cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.

See also : In defense of the black bloc: A communique from Olympic resisters.

Antifascism

A qualified success for antifa in Dresden as a march by over one thousand (some media claim up to 5,000) neo-Nazis was prevented from reaching the city centre as scheduled. Police managed to avert any major clashes, although in a few nearby towns including Pirna (a town some 25K south of Dresden where neo-Nazis have a strong presence) some disappointed swastika-lickers attacked an office belonging to an antifa group; other accounts suggest there were a number of small-scale clashes between isolated groups and individuals on the periphery of the main rallies and actions.

schalomlibertad writes: “today, the governing coalition of the conservatice CDU (Christian Democratic Union) and the neoliberal FDP (Free Democratic Party) want to ban the black bloc. this is part of a larger trend of equating neo-nazis with the radical left under the label of “extremists.” in german: http://www.taz.de/1/nord/artikel/1/friede-wird-buergerpflicht-1/.”

See also : Dresden – Germany: Nazi-march stopped, UK Indymedia, February 15, 2010.

In the UK, the BNP has opened the floodgates (BNP scraps whites-only member rule, The Age/AP, February 15, 2010) and according to one silly Sikh (and likely first non-White member) ‘Every Hindu and Sikh should be praising the BNP’ (Jenny Kleeman, The Guardian, February 11, 2010) for its decision.

As anarchism is to an umbrella full of holes, so Marxism is to a large block of Swiss cheese. Enzo Traverso examines some of The Aporias of Marxism in relation to Nazism and the Holocaust here. Speaking of Antisemitism, Antisemitism: medieval and modern is discussed by Steven Katz @ SlowTV (March 2009). Also of interest is Martin Thomas’ interview with Marxist historian Moishe Postone: Zionism, anti-semitism and the left (February 5, 2010).

Art

For some reason, the website belonging to “an organization of dubious political bandits” — aka the International Committee of the Fourth International — has decided to re-publish resident Trotskyist art critic David Walsh’s 1993 essay on Bolshevism and the avant-garde artists (1993)—Part 2 (February 15, 2010).

It makes reference to artists who had smarts.

Broken Windows

See : Anarchism.

Cats

Oscar The Ordinary Cat has finally had a book published about him, written by David the Ordinary Doctor. (See : Cats are a w e s o m e, July 27, 2007.)

My own cat has a preternatural ability to sense when it’s dinner time.

In other late-breaking news, Egypt finds ancient cat goddess temple, while from the Department of A Million Reasons Why Western Civilization Especially Car Culture Must Be Destroyed comes Casper the commuting cat killed by hit-and-run driver.

Collingwood

Around the Grounds : “a web documentary about the original twelve Victorian Football League grounds.” Also : Magpie headshots for 2010. Pies in 2010!

Death

An estimated 25–30,000 children die every day from starvation, malnutrition and disease — but don’t let that stop you from partying!

In St Petersburg, two men, Valentin Mumdzhiev and Georgy Timofeev of the National Socialism-White Power organization, have been charged with the murder of a Ghanaian man last year while two others, Igor Gritskevich and Vladimir Smirnov of the Slavic Community, have been charged with terrorism for their alleged involvement in train bombings (Russian Extremist Group Members Charged With Murder, Terrorism, February 13, 2010): “Yevgeny Vyshenkov, an official with the Investigative Journalism Agency, told RFE/RL these two neo-Nazi groups differ from regular bonehead organizations. He said members of these groups do not shave their heads, wear leather jackets, or have many of the distinguishing characteristics of other boneheads.”

Film

The Hurt Locker is due to be released in Australia on February 18. If I’d seen it, I’d recommend it. The film is directed and produced by Kathryn Bigelow, who also *ed in Born in Flames (1983). Otherwise: The Pinky Show : Miaow miaow-miaow miaow purr purr purr-purr-purr-purr purr-purr purr-purr purr-purr purr-purr-purr-purr-purr miaow miaow.

History

Melvyn Bragg asks some pointyheads about The Frankfurt School (In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, January 14, 2010) while dodgy-as-fuck ‘libertarian’ Michael C. Moynihan makes a perfectly reasonable attempt to sink the boot into dead guy Howard Zinn in The People’s Historian? Howard Zinn was a master of agitprop, not history (Reason, February 3, 2010). Otherwise, CONELRAD: All Things Atomic | The Golden Age of Homeland Security is a neat-o site, “the creation of writers who grew up in the shadow of the BOMB and all its attendant pop culture fallout”, much of which is highly amusing.

See also : theoryandpractice.org.uk: “…part of a personal project which aims to develop a clear understanding of the world as it exists today; and through the use of this knowledge, discover what might be needed to change it for the better. It is an attempt to learn from the successes and failures of the past and to formulate better methods for acting on the present.”

Media

Some items of interest. Malwebolence: The Trolls Among Us, Mattahias Schwartz, The New York Times, August 3, 2008 and Leak-o-nomy: The Economy of Wikileaks, Medien-Ökonomie-Blog, January 4, 2010.

Music

Lookout Records. I didn’t even know it was unwell. Kerplunk: The rise and fall of the Lookout Records empire, Rob Harvilla, East Bay Express, September 14, 2005. On a more positive note: Songs about Leaders: Lenin and Stalin.

Poetry

Missing. Believed Dead.

Sex & Sexuality

See : Death.

State / Politics

For Paul Justo: Sinomania, Perry Anderson, London Review of Books, Vol.32, No.2, January 28, 2010.

Capitalist Solutions for Global Warming: More Wood for the Fire, Peter Gelderloos, Counterpunch, Peter Gelderloos, February 1, 2010. Peter Gelderloos is the author of How Nonviolence Protects the State and the forthcoming Anarchy Works. Nonviolencenet provides another perspective on violence… and the state.

Echoes of John Zerzan: Anti-Marxist myth of our time, Weekly Worker, No.803, February 4, 2010. “Chris Knight examines Noam Chomsky’s ‘scientific’ fairy tales about language and its origins.”

Student movement

Boredom is always counter-revolutionary : Angry young man.

Television

In Treatment *s Gabriel Byrne. It’s really good and, like The Wire, set in Baltimore (I thunk). Byrne also *ed in Jindabyne, which is also really… good. (Hear also : Gabriel Byrne and The Art of Listening, Fresh Air, NPR, April 30, 2009.)

The Moar You Know.

Trot Guide / Sectariana

In the UK, longstanding SWP leader (and failed candidate for Mayor of London) Lindsey German has resigned from The Biggest and Bestest Revolutionary Vanguard of the Working Class with the Great-Grandson of Lord Acton As Chief Brainworker (Exit stage left, Splintered Sunrise, February 11, 2010). In the US, Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Invasion of Haiti, The Internationalist, January 2010 while in Ireland Red Plough Flouts Science, Monkey Smashes Heaven, January 27, 2010. (On Spartacism ~versus~ Haiti, see also : Disintegration in the “Post-Soviet Period”: Spartacist League Supports US Troops in Haiti! by some guy called ‘Revolutionary Regroupment’ / Imperialist Troops Out of Haiti! by the Bolshevik group with its leadership in New Zealand aka The International Bolshevik Tendency and for the correct line Haiti Earthquake Horror: Imperialism, Racism and Starvation, Workers Vanguard, No.951, January 29, 2010.)

Otherwise : Oil-slick divisions, Weekly Worker, No.804, February 11, 2010. “International Marxist Tendency has suffered a damaging split. Not a new phenomenon, notes James Turley.”

War on Terror

Anger, venom and hatred, Sally Neighbour, The Australian, February 16, 2010. “One of the most dangerous men in Australia is now behind bars.” Note: This is NOT John HoWARd.

Alcohol – enemy of the production!

EXILE ON MOAN STREET : ‘Moan inside my empty head.’