Capitalism is Working Just Fine…That’s the Problem
Midway through the book Jameson makes a compelling case for why “Marx alone sought to combine a politics of revolt with the poetry of the future and applied himself to demonstrate that socialism was more modern than capitalism and more productive.” For Jameson, “To recover that futurism and that excitement is surely the fundamental task of any left discursive struggle today.” [Download article]
Author of "Pity the Billionaire"
Maps Our Ideological Fantasy World
Interview with Thomas Frank….It is flying precisely in the face of reality - the reality that we all
agree on. The way they deal with that is by retreating into an alternate
reality of their own. In some ways, "Pity the Billionaire" is about -
though I did not have time to go far enough down that road - the social
construction of reality.
Review of Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine
When Mao Tse-Tung was alive he was cast alternately as bandit, communist leader, ruthless dictator, elder statesman, and mass murderer. Since his death the characterization is less ambivalent: hedonistic despot, reckless utopian, unbridled monster. The change is anchored in the twists and turns of history. The unfettering of capitalism in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s manic opening to western capitalism has no interest in seeing Mao in shades of grey. He is part of the troika of twentieth century “Evil:” Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung. more
Occupy political change. Report from Communism: A New Beginning? conference in NYC
It was one of those ‘snap to attention' statements. Political theorist Jodi Dean was asked, "What is the point of theory?" Her response? "It is to provide weapons." Dean was speaking metaphorically of course, but the quote resonated. The world we find ourselves in needs a theory that can cut through the leaden fog that says we have, for better or worse, the best world we can hope for.more
New York minutes: Observations and aims in Occupy Wall Street
There is a growing contention over what Occupy Wall Street is all about, "its core message" as the news media says. Advice is coming from every quarter about this, some good, some well meaning if naive, and some with a pronounced agenda. So perhaps it would be good to look at things a bit more sweepingly. What is happening here? What is the message? more
Review of Tacit Subjects: Belonging and Same-Sex Desire among Dominican Immigrant Men
SOURCE: Special to HNN (9-14-11)
One learns many things in Carlos Decena’s book, Tacit Subjects, but the most revealing perhaps is that gay men living in the Dominican Republic tend to stay in the closet. There are many reasons for this, but the greatest is because the culture of that country—it is macho in a most awful way. What does that mean? As one of Decenas’ informants (the men he interviewed for the book) put it, quoting his father, “If you turn out to be a faggot I’ll kill you.” More
Review Essay: Twilight Saga of the American Empire?
The “American Century” has been a parade of horrors: Korea, the invasion of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Iraq I, Afghanistan, Iraq II, along with coups, assassination and other dirty work. Yet neither Bacevich or Johnson want to entertain the idea that the problem — rather than Washington Rules or the military industrial complex — is the American ideal itself. The idea of America as a ‘shining city on the hill’ that exists as humanity’s highest achievement — stands against the actuality that that achievement has always been driven by rapacity. It led to the expropriation and near elimination of the native population, the enslavement of multiple generations of slaves, the grabbing of country-sized swaths of land from Mexico, taking the Philippines and Hawaii, down to the ‘empire of bases’ today from Germany to Okinawa, to Colombia to Guam. A frank look at this would suggest we aim to achieve something higher. What that is exactly is not at all clear, but such are the questions that people of good will like Chalmers Johnson and Andrew Bacevich ought to be asking. More
One was the founder of communism, the other a pillar of American democracy. That, along with many other things, made them as different as night and day. Yet they occupied the same historic period and profoundly affected their times. They both opposed slavery, though perhaps not on the same moral grounds one would wish for by today’s standards. They also both supported the principle of free labor—a concept that was essential to the emergent industrial economy that would soon transform the world. The men were Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx. They are not often thought of together, but as Robin Blackburn’s new book makes clear there are important ways in which they should be. More
Interview with Norman Finkelstein: The Goldstone recantation
On April 1, the Washington Post ran an op-ed piece by Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who chaired the UN fact-finding mission on the 2008-2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza. In it he suggested he'd gotten things wrong, writing, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document." The op-ed led to an immediate flurry of articles and commentary suggesting the entire report -- and by implication the very notion that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza -- was suspect. Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu declared: "It's time to throw this report into the dustbin of history." Knesset member Tzipi Livni, told the media, "Better late than never, but the rectification must be stronger than a newspaper article." continue