Art-House Uprising

“The Age of Uprising – the Legend of Michel Kholhaas” film directed by Arnaud de Pallieres, 2013

This French-German film is about a ridiculously handsome horse trader living in a rock-walled countryside maison who is insulted by a local Baron.  It is the 1600s in France.  His valet is attacked by the Baron’s two dogs and two of his horses are abused for 3 months and he finds them broken and bloody.  When he sues the Baron over this, his case is turned down three times due to the Baron’s influence with the judges.  His wife goes to plead his case to the “Princess” – the sister of the King of France, the Queen of Navarre – and she is killed by the arrogant Baron’s men.

Moody leading man with sword in gauzy countryside

So Kholhaas decides to begin a jacquerie.  He and his 4 servants assault the Baron’s chateau and kill all his soldiers, but the Baron escapes to a nunnery.  They assault the nunnery with flaming arrows and the Baron escapes disguised as a nun.  Instead they attack an armed convoy guarding a decoy.  Kholhaas’ group grows from 5 to 7, then 18, then 100s, as displaced and angry peasants join the fight.  As he is about to assault the Princesses’ town with equal numbers to her soldiers, a priest/preacher (Martin Luther in the original) convinces him to lay down his arms.  This in exchange for his horses being restored to health and compensation paid for his valet, who has already been killed in the fighting.  This is a deal brokered by the Princess.  Kholhaas tells his men to disarm too.  Their weapons are brought in and the small army disbanded. 

Of course, the bargain is not kept, as one peasant kills a landlord.  So the whole deal collapses.  Kholhaas is arrested.  A deal with the Princess leads to him getting his horses and compensation, while the Baron gets two years in jail, which is not believable at all.  Kholhaas himself loses his head to the axe-man in 'exchange.'  His young daughter is left motherless and fatherless.

That is the story the film tells.  It is ultimately dark, dull and pointless.  The film is fatally flawed.  Why?

It is based on a true story about a German merchant who was abused by a Saxon noble in the 1500s.  The merchant ultimately got a group of criminals behind him, raiding Saxony, and was finally arrested and killed in Berlin.

So this film is really a wholly fictional creation – hence an ideological creation.  What is the real story it is telling?  Mention is made of many peasant uprisings in the past, but no reasons or grievances are mentioned for these uprisings.  No brutality against peasants is shown.  The men following Kholhaas are merely extras.  Only his loyal valet stands out.  The reasons the poor peasants join Kholhaas are mysterious.  We are to assume they are fighting and dying because they are upset that he lost his wife and his horses were abused – that is it.  Then he buys into the pacifist lie told by the preacher/priest to lay down his arms. And he does, for he is a religious fellow… As a result he loses his life and abandons his followers, some of whom have already been killed. 

The story is really about middle-class outrage, small-mindedness and short-sightedness, dressed up as a drama or tragedy.  It represents the clash between the rising commercial strata and the weakening royal strata.  The key point here is that the perspectives of the peasants are completely ignored by the filmmakers and Kholhaas himself.  We don’t even know what happened to them when the disarmament deal collapsed.  Certainly the Church is exposed once again as an ally of royalty.  Royalty itself is displayed as either vicious or duplicitous. Yet if you are going to go to war, then you have to prosecute the war to the fullest - and not for narrow, personal reasons alone, but for broader ones.  The filmmakers are afraid to get away from this solely personal lens and link the story to others.  It is an isolated ‘uprising’ of one.

The film is more like a fool’s errand, as his fight for ‘honor’ ends up bereaving his own daughter twice.  The emotional subtext is that anyone watching will think to themselves – why ever fight?  You only lose.  That pessimism is ultimately the film’s other point.

Oh, and the film contains a moody French countryside, lots of wind, beautiful horses, constant buzz of flies, time inconsistencies, flinty lead actor looks and cross-bows! 

Red Frog

March 31, 2017

Horatio Alger Kicks Down

“Hillbilly Elegy – a Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” by J.D. Vance

This book is a memoir of a still young man about his life in Middletown, Ohio, and its roots in the coal country of southeastern Kentucky, just north of Harlan.   Vance became a marine, then a Yale Law school graduate and lawyer, and is now a boss in a Silicon Valley investment firm.  So the book reads like a twisted Horatio Alger tale, as his early life could have led him into addiction, unemployment or jail instead.  Vance’s ultimate point is that there is something wrong with ‘hillbillies’ (his word) that jobs or education or a better social structure won’t help.  He wants hill people to stop blaming government or businesses and look at themselves.  As such, Vance is another in a long line of people focusing on the ‘culture’ of poverty.  But this time he’s white.  This fits into a narrative that upscale conservatives have been pushing for several years now.

AK Steel in Middletown, OH where Pawpaw worked

To start, there is no such thing as the ‘white’ working class, a phrase he uses frequently.  There are 'white' people in different strata of the working class that come from different geographies.  The impact of the 40-year decline in real wages and solid blue-collar jobs is now impacting layers of the working class that never had to deal with it.   And this is happening especially in Appalachia, which had poverty even in the ‘go-go’ 1960s.  It is now being decimated, as are many other rural towns and “Rust Belt” blue-collar cities like Middleton, where Vance’s family moved.  Vance frequently compares some of the impacts of his life story to what also happens to black people, and that is certainly legitimate.  Economics knows no ethnic barriers when it decides to make itself known. 
  

Vance’s narrative is not really about Appalachia, but about the people that left it.   The migration looking for work from the South to the North in the 1920s and 1960s didn’t just a happen to black people.  It included many Appalachian 'Scots-Irish' families who wanted a better life, and moved north above Cincinnati on the ‘hillbilly highway.’  Vance’s grandfather (Pawpaw) got a job in the AK steel mill and they and many others were able to buy cars, homes and stuff that would have been impossible in Breathitt County, Kentucky.  But they brought with them cultural values that clashed with those in their new northern communities.   

Vance insists that the Appalachians were different from the Ohio working class as their culture was far more extreme – though I do not see any comparisons in this book.  Vance’s mother became a drug addict; his steel-worker grandfather was an alcoholic.  Heavy drinking, as we know, is a point of pride in certain varieties of maleness.  The families engaged in constant violent arguments - yelling, hitting and getting arrested.  Strangers who insulted their ‘honor’ drew fights.  ‘Hillbillies’ were always praising work verbally but some did not want to work at all.  For males, education and wimping out on a fight to defend one’s honor was ‘sissy,’ though his own grandmother and mother encouraged him to do well in school.  Vance’s mother ran through a long string of boyfriends and husbands to the point where he had to move constantly from one house to another.  His own father quickly left, and he took the name of another step-father, who also left.  This instability is particularly damaging. Early pregnancies, dropping out of school, early drug use, large quantities of guns, arrests - all typical markers.  

This is where Vance’s story is valuable, as it describes the difficulties of growing up ‘hillbilly.’ The constant instability and emotional stress contributed to many human failures.  Things like doing a budget, not blowing money on Xmas presents and buying things carefully; what food was healthy; how ‘social capital’ works or wearing a suit to certain job interviews were beyond his experience.  His life at Yale was as a token working-class student with a southern accent who basically got to hobnob with very rich students and top professors through Yale’s generous endowment.  Yet it still never made him feel like he belonged.  He sees that the culture of the wealthy that he now inhabits and the one he came from are almost completely separate.  Vance pinpoints his grandmother (Mamaw) as the key to his survival – a swearing, gun-toting woman who stood by him, especially in the last 3 years in high-school when he left his mother to live with her.  He credits her with his ability to become an ‘anomaly’ in his community – not just one of the only ones to go to college, but the Ivy League at that, and later a capitalist.   

Vance is now a conservative – but perhaps one that thinks he is ‘compassionate.’  He supports pay-day lenders, for instance, because they provide a ‘valuable service’ to impoverished people who have no family or money to turn to.  Not a word about their extortionate interest rates or perhaps an alternative like Post Office loans.  Vance has written for the National Review, an arch intellectual journal of the elite.  He went to Iraq as a PR officer and has not one negative word to say about that disastrous war or the billions doled out to war profiteers.  He just felt lucky that he wasn’t Iraqi.  (You want to see poverty, he muses…)  Ostensibly a man of the world, he still calls the U.S. the "best country in the world” and seemingly wants to ‘lift up’ his people… sort of a George Washington Carver of Appalachia.  He is an atheist that upholds the church as a possible savior, given it is about the only institution in some towns that can provide practical help to parishioners - and only hints that its irrationalism is part of the problem.  Vance celebrates the Marine Corps for teaching him things he never learned at home, but ignores its real role in the world.  To Vance the lack of coal mining jobs does not mean that government should have a program to provide guaranteed jobs for coal miners, such as installing solar or wind or maintaining infrastructure.  Not a word.  

Vance’s approach ignoring government will ultimately fail, as you cannot pull yourself up ‘by your bootstraps.’  Try it sometime – you body doesn’t get lifted, only your boot.  Culture is a condition of economic life and, while mobility is possible, even he recognizes that it is less possible in the U.S.  Working class life in Appalachia is one of the hardest in U.S. rural areas… the recent opioid / suicide / alcohol statistics show that.  Yet conditions in Appalachia come in second to rural areas in Mississippi, Alabama and other southern states with large black populations.  ‘Hillbilly’ culture comes with cultural, emotional and educational baggage that cannot be changed overnight just by getting a job.  Conservative cultural definitions of being a 'man' or a 'woman' create problems in themselves.  Because sometimes ‘emotional poverty’ can lead a person to lose that job, and those stressors do not go away.  Oppression oppresses…and culture can crush.  

What is apparent from the book is that, while having a job is not a magic bullet, having one provides economic stability which can translate into emotional stability at some point.  It is no accident that conditions in Middletown have become worse as AK Steel has downsized.  The two interact dialectically, but one cannot exist without the other.  Ultimately, cultural conditions for Appalachia cannot change until there is a movement that politically unites these communities against capital.  As you might remember, nobody was bitching about opioid use during the battle of Blair Mountain or during the Pittston coal strike.  Class struggle brings out the best in people and is the real road to revival.  It's opposite, represented by Vance, only continues the problem.

P.S. - Vance in 2024 is now the V.P. pick for the Trumpists, bringing in billions in Silicon Valley money from Peter Thiel and others.  No longer a 'redneck!'  Sometimes the worst capitalists are former 'down and outers.'

Reviews of books on a similar topic, below:  “White Trash,” “Chavs,” “Rich People Things,” “Class Lives,” “Factory Days,” “Gray Mountain.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

March 26, 2017

Managed Chaos

“The Death of the Nation – and the Future of the Arab Revolution,” by Vijay Prashad, 2016.

Prashad is a leftist historian and journalist closely linked to Marxist ideas.  This book is a reportorial journey through the recent bloody history of Egypt, Syria, Libya and Turkey. The sorry events in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Chad, Tunisia, Somalia, Sudan & Afghanistan hover on the edges.  Its focus is on the aftermath of the “Arab Spring,” which has been defeated by the forces of reaction in the Middle East and their imperial backers. 
 

Libya: Creating failed states, one bombing and intervention at a time

What is most noted after reading this is the key role of Saudi Arabia & Qatar in destroying the left and even Arab nationalists in the Middle East, and their subsequent building of a Sunni sectarian religious politics rooted in Wahabbist-Salafist doctrines.  This is the same policy followed by the U.S. government - its own version of ‘identity politics.'   

Prashad’s basic thesis in this book is that Arab nationalism, strong under Nasser and various other 3^rd world leaders like Qaddafi, is now completely shattered.  States have been destroyed, to be replaced by various versions of Sunni or Shia sectarian dictators or warlords.  All of this masks the rule of the oil kingdoms in the Gulf and their block with the U.S. and Europe. Prashad says the book is about ‘…the slow political death of Arab nationalism in the fires of sectarian war.”  He further states:  “…it is a counterrevolution funded by petrodollars.” The destruction of Hussein and attempt on Assad are certainly part of this strategy. Israel supports the dismemberment of its opponents in quite the same way as do the Saudis or the U.S.  Israel is also backing Al Quaeda / Nusra Front in Syria from the Golan Heights by giving them medical support and refuge. 

The political logic here is that even a return to nationalism would be a step forward.  However nationalism and ‘anti-imperialism’ have already failed if you consider that the present is the result of their replacement. Or that some of the nations ‘formed’ might not even be real nations at all.  Like Samir Amin, Prashad 'might' hanker after a return to ‘Bandung style anti-imperialism - but he does not.  He does not define what should be the content of the new Arab revolution.  Perhaps Arab nationalism itself has come up short in an increasingly totalitarian, neo-liberal and imperialist world.  Nor is it absolutely clear in the book that the destruction of these states is intentional.  But given the track record, you can only conclude that it has been beneficial to international capital and IS intentional.  Yes, it wasn't about stupidity or militarism run amok, though those certainly play a role. The term for it is 'managed chaos.'

I will cite some facts in the book that are illuminating or that we should not forget:

1. Daesh (Prashad calls it ISIS throughout the book) is a product of the U.S. war on Iraq.  Daesh = Blowback.  Prashad:  “The ‘war on terror’ did not erase the terrorists; it manufactured them.” 

2. In his reading of the successful overthrow of the Tunisian dictator, it was the Tunisian working class through their unions that provided the anchor upon which the political revolution and its aftermath became successful.

3. The World Muslim League was founded in 1962, with complete U.S. support.  The WML worked to oppose secularism, Arab nationalism and socialism, seeing them as ‘anti-Islamic.’

4. The Muslim Brotherhood became an asset to Western intelligence in the fight with Arab nationalism and socialism.  A section of the Brotherhood in Egypt later split to form one of the roots of Al Qaeda. The links between Islamic political organizations and the U.S. is long.

5. The rebellion in Egypt was sparked by youth, organized labor and the precariat in the slums.  One key organization was the 6 April Youth Movement, which joined with striking textile workers on 6 April 2008.  This was an example of a ‘worker-student’ alliance.  Prior to that, 2 million workers went on strike in 2006 in Egypt and there were later strikes in 2007.  In Tunisia, the initial cadre of the rebellion were the Gafsa phosphate workers, who went on strike in 2008 – mostly young men.  These proletarian roots are ignored by the bourgeois press. 

6.  Youth form the recruits for many movements in the Arab world, given the high levels of unemployment in all kinds of occupations.  This is the economic cause of many of the conflicts – an economic, not a religious detail that cannot be overlooked. 

7.  Liberals, as shown in Libya and Egypt, cannot handle either military dictators or Islamist radicals, and must lean on dictators or the West.  They have no consequential independent forces in Arab countries. 

8.  The leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini:  “Economics is for donkeys.”  Actually, the mullahs are backed by mercantile businessmen in Iran. 

9.  At one point in the 1970s-1980s, Communist Parties had strong roles in many Arab countries.  In the Sudan, the CP was the largest in Africa.  As Prashad points out, even the nationalists imprisoned and sometimes killed them. 

10.  A Pakistani governor, Babar, was one of the key players in the creation of the “mujahedeen’ in Afghanistan.  As Prashad says:  “The line between Babar’s creation – with Saudi and U.S. assistance – to the mayhem in Iraq, Syria and Libya is unbroken.”  Thank you, Jimmy Carter. 

11. The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia – disguised as a religious one – is really over who shall dominate the Middle East and its oil and gas.

12. In 2014, the Iraqi government under al-Maliki overturned Law No. 188, which “gave Iraqi women the greatest freedom in the Arab world.”

13. “Syria, where the educational systems had once been the pride of the Arab world, now sees children oscillating between trauma and illiteracy.” 

14. In Syria, “There is no longer any reliable force that carries the ‘moderate’ banner for the West.”

15.  Prashad has good things to say about the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).  40% of the PKK-allied Peoples Protection Units (YPG) are made up of women fighters. 

16. The Russians and various journalists tracked Turkish support for Daesh, Al Nusra (the Al Qaeda section in Syria) and other Saudi/Qatari backed units fighting in Syria, including involvement of Erdogan’s son, Bilal. Airplanes, oil transfers, weapons, food, ammunition and fighters found easy transit across the Turkish border.  As a Kurdish PKK leader said”  “Turkey is to Syria what Pakistan was to Afghanistan.” 

17. Qaddafi was trying to organize an African currency union in 2012, which threatened French imperial investments in their former African colonies.  NATO pounded Libya with 10,000 sorties, destroying the Libyan state and much of its infrastructure. Hillary Clinton was the main U.S. mover behind this crime and the resulting takeover of a good chunk of Libya by Al Qaeda and Daesh.  THIS should have been the focus of the ‘Benghazi’ hearings.   

18.  As an example, 30,000 black people that ‘might’ have been supporters of Qaddafi in the city of  Tawergha were expelled from the city by Arab Islamist militias, with no peep on ‘ethnic cleansing’ by NATO.  Liberals believing in women’s rights in Libya are also killed, also with no mention.

19.  All prior attempts at negotiations re Libya by the African Union, Brazil’s president de Silva, Latin American states and even the Arab League were ignored by NATO.

20.  Erdogan was briefly jailed in Turkey in 1998 for ‘inciting hatred based on religious differences.”  Turkey’s application to join the EU was a cover to insulate his political party from a coup by the secularist Turkish military.  It succeeded. 

21. The Turkish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) is similar to Podemos or Syriza, combining many different left and pro-Kurdish views.  This was the party that Erdogan has basically outlawed.  The Turkish CP, formed in 2014, stands apart from the HDP.

The book reads easily, is detailed, reflecting a large breadth of knowledge on the forces, figures and events that have shaped the region since 2011.  A good round-up of the vicious conflicts in the Arab world, even for those who are familiar with it already. 

Reviews and commentaries of similar interest, below:  “Rojava,” “Female Genital Mutilation,” “What is the War on Terror?”, “Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire,” “Charlie Hebdo,” “Dirty Wars,” “The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism” and “Russia and the Long Transition From Capitalism to Socialism.” 

And I bought it at Mayday Books!

Red Frog

March 19, 2017

Bits & Pieces, Part Deux

Bits & Pieces – the “Ark” of Culture Edition

“Arrival” film by Denis Villeneuve.  Intelligent female linguist meets ugly but advanced aliens, who transmit the secret of all bogus science fiction – ‘linear time does not exist.’  Back to the future, Marty!

“Fences” film by Denzel Washington.  Force-of-nature black garbage man gives his wife and children pain. No wonder Denzel cringed at the Academy awards when he lost.

South Korea's Idea of a cultural "Arc"

“Citizen” a play at the Frank Theater.  Micro-aggressions fail to link to macro-aggressions. Poetic methods in vain.

“Anna in the Tropics,” a play at the Jungle Theater.  Cuban cigar rollers listen to ‘Anna Karenina’ and unfortunately reflect its melodrama. A thin tale, oddly praised.

“Vikings,” series on History Channel.  A little bit of paganism goes a long way.  Get on the long-ships with Ragnar Lothbrok!

“Black Sails” series on Starz.  Rebellion in the Bahamas against British rule prior to the American Revolution led by pirates and escaped slaves.  Real and literary pirates abound.

“Purge,“ book by Sofi Oksanen.  An Estonian woman survives Stalinist rape and capitalist pimps over 50 years.  Slow going, especially for her.

“Independent People,” book by Halldor Laxness.  A harrowing socialistic tale of rural Icelanders braving poverty, the elements and the ‘spirits.’  Shades of O.E. Rolvaag and Knut Hamsun and the Scandinavian immigrants of Minnesota.

“MBongwana Star,” at the Cedar.  Kinshasa street musicians rock out, then high-life their Afro-pop.  Wheelchairs no problem.

“Blue Oyster Cult and Mark Farner of Grand Funk” at the Medina. Retro ethereal metal and heavy Flint Michigan make a geezer return.   Fear the Reaper! 

Red Frog / March 16, 2017

Chunking & Lunking

Bits and Pieces:

Finance:  A. “Animal spirits” are back on Wall Street.  Irrational exuberance is 'justified.'  Which means look out.  B. Banks don't care if you can pay your debts.  They only want the interest. Look at mortgages for an example.  (The latter point by Trotskyist economist Michael Hudson.)  Islands like Puerto Rico, nations like Greece or that poor soul who just bought an over-priced house - take note.  C.  Universal basic income proposals will come in below what is already being paid out for most people, though not all.  For most it is basically a way to launder public tax monies into the coffers of corporate interests, who want their debt and rents and interest paid.  This instead of making housing or food or health care a right.

The partially hidden state.

Global Warming:  Bill McKibben (350.org) describes UnDemocratic Party (UDP) climate change denial:

“In fact, one of the lowest points in my years of fighting climate change came in late June, when I sat on the commission appointed to draft the Democratic Party platform. (I was a Sanders appointee, alongside Cornel West and other luminaries.) At 11 p.m. on a Friday night, in a mostly deserted hotel ballroom in St. Louis, I was given an hour to offer nine amendments to the platform to address climate change. More bike paths passed by unanimous consent, but all the semi-hard things that might begin to make a real difference—a fracking ban, a carbon tax, a prohibition against drilling or mining fossil fuels on public lands, a climate litmus test for new developments, an end to World Bank financing of fossil fuel plants—were defeated by 7–6 tallies, with the Clinton appointees voting as a bloc. They were quite concerned about climate change, they insisted, but a “phased-down” approach would be best. There was the faintest whiff of Munich about it.”

This goes a long way in explaining how electing ‘Democrats’ to save the environment is a false hope.  A radical solution is required if you actually understand what is happening.  The ‘Democrats’ do not.

The State:  The term ‘deep state’ is now in fashion, which is an improvement over the fairy tale that ‘your’ elected representatives ran everything.  The CIA still denies it is part of this state, but then their policy is deception.  The ‘deep state’ is what Marxists have called the ‘capitalist state’ for a long time and it's not really deep.  The existence of this state gives the lie to anyone who thinks voting is the sole panacea to implement change.

However, most TV definitions of the deep state only include the repressive apparatus – the CIA/FBI/Military/NSA/The Offense Department, etc.  But it also includes the legal system, laws and courts, the various federal departments like State, InJustice, Bureau of Land MisManagement, Transport, (Big) Agriculture, Big Pharma (FDA), Wall Street Commerce, etc., the state versions of these departments, the Federal Reserve, the SEC, prisons, etc.  This is the true state that exists before, during and after various politicians take office.  While its personnel may have small changes, the overall policies remain the same – responding to who rules America, the capitalist class.

The Election:  Trump was elected by about a ¼ of the voting population, which shows that ‘democracy’ in the U.S. is about on-level with a normal high school class president campaign.   Yet Trump and the Republican Party are preparing to lay waste to all of the capitalist ‘welfare’ state.   As such, no one can be a-political anymore.  No more ranting on Facebook and never showing up at a meeting, demonstration, occupation, independent electoral campaign, union meeting, confrontation or strike or joining a real resistance group.  The question is what kind of politics will emerge as a reaction - leftist or liberal pablum?

Because the mask of civility has dropped, Trump’s election has thrown the bi-partisan ruling elite and their system into a crisis.  The UnDemocratic Party (UDP) itself is paralyzed and disoriented.  We have not seen the UDP so weak in awhile and the UnRepublicans will soon follow.  Socialists, anarcho-syndicalists, labor, community organizations and the various mass movements are the best ones able to defend immigrants, black, indigenous & Latino peoples, workers, Muslims, the elderly, the sick and women. 

The UnDemocratic Party:  The election of Perez to UDP chair and the shutout of all Sanders electors should send a message to those who think the UDP will move to the left – even at this historical juncture.  As Pelosi said:  “We’re capitalists!”  Duh!  Have a donut. 

Hillary Clinton’s favorability rating is now below Trump, according to Counterpunch. 

Russia and Warmongering:  NATO and the U.S. conducted massive military ‘war game’ maneuvers in the Baltic states and eastern areas of Europe in 2016, the biggest since the Cold War.  These involved tanks, ships and 31,000 soldiers.  Almost no coverage of this in our corrupt mass media.  Obama, the ‘peace’ president, also ordered a very expensive ‘upgrade’ of U.S. nuclear capacity.  This same strategy is now being followed up by the national UDP and their MSNBC propaganda network, but their political version goes even further, slandering anyone here at home who does not want to wage war on Russia.  Even Obama, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out early this week, did not want to send troops directly into the Ukraine, as do the UDP and the majority of the UnRepublicans. 

Multiculturalism:  An older but relevant quote from Cornel West about the last administration, who was a sponsor of the Labor Party in the late 1990s: 

“Multiculturalism, when it means nothing more than having a president who is a ‘black mascot for Wall Street,’ betrays the disenfranchised and endows the ruling elites with a false progressivism, a false humanism and a false inclusiveness.”

Love:  One of the most bizarre and de-politicized slogans of the last few months has been ‘Love Trumps Hate.”  “Love” as a slogan has been used in the past by UnDemocrats, UnRepublicans, corporate executives, swarmy religious leaders, corporations, corporate advertisers, personal life coaches, bad singers and actors and just about anyone who wants to say something by saying nothing.  Its roots are in Christian ‘love thy neighbor’ rhetoric.  Anyone who has lived with actual ‘neighbors’ knows just getting along and cooperating with most neighbors can be a challenge, let alone ‘loving’ them.  That can happen sometimes, but not in quite the way it is meant here. 

Yet the modern Democratic Party chooses this inane slogan as an expression of a vague ethical superiority, seemingly battling with the Republicans to see who is the real Christian!   Perhaps something like ‘defend Muslims and immigrants against racist policies’ is too wordy or too wonky? I’m sure you can think of a better slogan. But doing this might mean looking into the Democratic Party’s own immigration practices or actions in Arab countries.  So ‘love’ reigns supreme, to coin Coltrane.   Keep it vague, baby! 

The Environment:   Fracking releases methane, which is 10 times more of a global warming chemical than carbon.  Fracking is not a 'bridge fuel' except to oblivion.
 

Trump:  After Trump, Mike Pence is waiting in the wings, theocratic Christian that he is.  The simple ‘dump Trump’ movement could usher in another reactionary more acceptable to the power structure. While you wait, here’s a song by Woody Guthrie about Trump’s daddy, showing the apple does not fall far from the tree:  

Old Man Trump 

Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Ryan Harvey.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmZnlGBhwKg

“I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project

Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

I'm calling out my welcome to you and your man both
Welcoming you here to Beach Haven
To love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place
To have your kids raised up in.
   
Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!”

Prior commentary and book reviews on Love, Wall Street, the UnDemocratic Party, global warming below:  Use blog search box, upper left.

Red Frog

March 13, 2017

“La comuna o nada!”

“Building the Commune – Radical Democracy in Venezuela,” by George Ciccariello-Maher, 2016

This illuminating little book goes a great way in explaining how socialism might advance in the present day.  It illustrates how a combination of a mass Socialist party, repeated electoral victories by that party and progressive legal/government law changes intersect with a mass movement on the ground, intent on creating communes, cooperatives and collectives across a country.  In a sense, how both a national and local approach to socialism can be successful if joined together.  In Venezuela it has created a socialistic political and economic ‘dual’ power challenging an entrenched capitalist state backed by a bourgeois counter-revolution.  
  

Commune members on the March in Venezuela

Ciccariello-Maher combines a Marxist analysis with in-depth reporting and interviews on people’s developments in Venezuela.  On the U.S. terrain we have only these things in embryo, which shows the incredible weakness of our society of de-politicization.  What the U.S. propaganda network shows about Venezuela is uniformly negative.  This book is highly optimistic about the possibilities for radical social change, even in the present dire circumstances in Venezuela.  As communistas say in the book, the revolution will not die even missing Chavez or Maduro.

The reason is the communes formed and forming across Venezuela, combining economic self-sufficiency and production with political mass democracy and socialist goals.  Mostly organized in geographic zones, they exist in barrios and rural areas, defended by armed 'collectives' comrades on motorcycles, Chavista-era laws and some state money.  They exist against the right-wing in the Chavista United Socialist Party (PSUV), as well as the capitalist political organizations.  The do not oppose the general to the specific, the local to the national, the large to the small, the top to the bottom, the central to the decentralized, the island to the sea, but dialectically attempt to combine the two.

This movement towards collective organization all started in 1989 in Venezuela during the ‘Caracazo,” when the right-wing pro-imperialist government’s army killed many during a mass uprising against the economic and social system.  The Caracazo was a stimulus to Chavez and the subsequent growth of Venezuelan socialism.  Collectives began to develop based on self-defense of certain geographic areas, which became no-go areas of the police.  After Chavez was elected, a law in 2006 gave governmental support to the development of communes.  This allowed them to take over unused land or buildings or the property of renegade capitalists, and which allowed them to receive some governmental financial aid.  This aid, which most left communistas know can weaken a commune, spurred them to become even more self-sufficient.  Since 2013, 1,546 communes, 45,000 communal councils and 1000s of ESPs were registered in Venezuela.  An ESP is a ‘social property unit.’  Squatters, the landless or land poor, the homeless, the mass of barrio dwellers, the proletariat and precariat, the street vendors and some peasants (Venezuela is 90% urban, but there is a leftist ‘back to the land’ movement developing) all were drawn into communes. 

The communes produce manufactured goods, rural foodstuffs or materials, host television, radio and sports programs, form retail outlets like restaurants and super-markets, rely on democratic elections to control their activities, form a base for the left in the Socialist Party and include links to armed ‘collectives’ that protect the communes.  These collectives helped corral the drug trade in some barrios and will not lay down their arms, in spite of demands to do so.  The communes attempt to bypass the import sector, the source of a culture of upper-class consumerism centered around expensive whiskey, electronics and cars.  The goal of many of their leaders is not simply to exist, but to grow and eventually lead to a socialist Venezuela. 

In a sense, this is the Venezuelan version of Paris Commune, the ‘soviets’ of Russia, the ‘workers councils’ of Germany or Italy, the ‘communes’ of China, the liberated areas of India, the ‘peoples’ assemblies’ attempting to launch in the U.S.  They are no historical accident, but the inevitable development of a new society attempting to be born out of the old.  As Ciccariello-Maher says: “Still capitalist, not yet socialist, Venezuela stands uncomfortably between two economic systems and two different states…”

As part of the book, Ciccariello-Maher does in-depth work undermining of the upper-class rebels in Venezuela – the only thing known in the U.S. about this country  The 2014 upsurge by the wealthy and middle-classes involved only 19 of 335 municipalities nationwide.  He explains the present ‘capital strike’ whereby food is diverted from the population by Venezuelan food corporations to be sold overseas or to create hunger.  The rebellions and discredited leaders are funded by the U.S. State Department through USAID, the NED and the IRI.  This was the policy of the ‘progressive’ Obama administration, which was trying to turn back the ‘pink tide’ in Latin America, specifically focusing on Brazil, Honduras and Argentina, in favor of U.S. corporate ownership overseas.  No different than former U.S. governments helping United Fruit, but with a more sophisticated ‘fox’ as the cover.

The main issue in Venezuela then is to move forward toward a communal society and state or be destroyed by local reaction and it's big brother, imperialism.

Other books on Latin America or involving it:  “Anthology of Writings of Jose Carlos Mariategui“, “Open Veins of Latin America,” “The Diary of Che Guevara,” “Drug War Capitalism,” “Secret History of the American Empire,” “Dream of the Celt,” “The Daminificados” and “The Structural Crisis of Capitalism.”

And I bought it at Mayday Books!

Red Frog

March 9, 2017