Another Deal

 “A People’s Green New Deal,” by Max Aji, 2021

This book deals with various versions of the “Green New Deal” from a left perspective.  How left seems to be the question.  It rejects a Pol Pot-like barracks’ socialist response or an anti-industrial Deep Ecology response.  It attempts to analyze the various GND proposals put out by capitalist think tanks, the main Social Democratic plan introduced by AOC/Markey, and short mentions of others’ plans – Sanders, Chomsky, etc.  Aji proposes his own ‘eco-socialist’ version - a Peoples’ Green New Deal, whose main focus, in a table-pounding and repetitive way, is on technology transfers and restitution for the global ‘South’ and secondarily, on a new/old paradigm for agriculture – agro-ecologic, small-holder agriculture. 

In the process Aji paints a picture of an Edenic eco-socialism that is very much a modern version of utopian socialist William Morris’ “News From Nowhere.” (Reviewed below)  It also pictures the transition to eco-socialism somewhat like Social-Democracy on steroids – rejecting DSA electoralism and Naomi Klein’s ‘movementism’ in favor of … good ideas and good plans?  In other words, how do we get there from here?

Aji challenges the capitalist versions of the GND, as all the talk about ‘carbon neutral’, carbon capture, carbon trading, carbon offsets, net zero, zero emissions, carbon taxes, etc. actually have a prerequisite of maintaining capital.  This means swapping out carbon sources for wood, biomass, nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric power.  This can mainly be seen in the present massive move to electric cars and trucks.  The bourgeois assumption is that ‘growth’ and commodity consumption will stay the same due to new technology – this is the real goal of green capitalism.  What the techno-optimists do not note is that there are not enough minerals - lithium, cobalt, tantalum, etc. -  to replace all vehicles, homes, ships, planes, scooters with electric batteries and storage units, even with asteroid mining.  Aji understands that the proletariat and small farmers actually have to ‘degrowth’ society, providing all the necessary basics but not the frills.  This is rare among socialists.  Green capitalism will actually wreck the world while claiming otherwise. 

Aji’s analysis of the AOC/Markey GND is more brief than it has to be.  He does highlight how their GND addresses nationalist military and ‘security’ issues.  This is something the Pentagon is also dealing with, as imperial rule is not stupid.  The simple domestic impression of their GND is as a ‘green jobs bill’ – while leaving everything but the carbon sector in place in the U.S.  This clash with the carbon sector is actually one of the main economic sources of the faction fight between the capitalists in the Republican Party and those in the Democratic one.  

CENTER/PERIPHERY

Aji’s basic reference is Samir Amin’s ‘center-periphery’ analysis that Amin proposed almost 50 years ago.  He also uses ‘3rd World’ and ‘North-South’ as terms.  The problem is that since Amin proffered this view, world-wide capitalism has somewhat changed.  The G20 is one of the most powerful institutions in the capitalist world and it doesn’t just include the imperial center countries that are English-speaking, in the EU or Japan - it also includes the BRICs, (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia and South Korea.  China especially is no longer a ‘periphery’ – nor are these smaller economies completely peripheral.  Saudi Arabia controls the world oil price; South Korea is a fully-developed manufacturing center; India has become one of the largest economies in the world; Turkey has imported products and built buildings from the core, and is now dealing with inflation and debt. The development of more sophisticated capitalist sectors and a larger middle class go hand-in-hand with these developments in each nation.  Only this year did the G20 finally address climate change.  Aji’s basic framework, while still true as to the strongest imperialists, is a relic of the past.  The ‘center’ has recruited allies in the global 'South.'   

AGRO-ECOLOGY

Aji makes a case for a planned agro-ecologic agriculture, based on small farmers, pastoralists and secondarily, on cooperatives.  No mention of the word ‘commune’ or of socialized or nationalized land is made.  He praises Cuba as a leading practitioner, although my guess is most land is still owned by the state in Cuba.  He does call for breaking up big farms and ranches, as well as urban farming and local sources of food instead of an export model.  

Oddly, he makes weird claims about some “mandatory global veganism” and conflates vegetarianism with ‘lab-grown meat’ and other straw men.  This while admitting that those in the 'core' will probably have to eat less meat.  In a way, veganism and vegetarianism are part of a 'degrowth' pattern.  Aji soft-peddles the carbon impact of present animal agriculture and even methane, making false claims or trying to ignore it.  He does oppose industrial feedlot operations, where the vast majority of U.S. meat comes from.  Feedlots have also spread overseas.  He doesn't mention the amount of corn and soybeans in the U.S. grown for animal feed instead of directly for humans, nor the carbon efficiency of that kind of ag.

Missing from Aji's food analysis is any mention of industrial fishing or the oceans - which are undergoing the same damage that the land is suffering from.  The oceans are also a source of storing carbon even greater than trees. 

While generally correct in a focus on agro-ecology and smaller farms, Aji seems to want a massive revival of the family farm or ranch, i.e. a petit-bourgeois economic form.  Agro-ecology will revitalize land ruined by carbon-based corporate agriculture.  His sections on agro-ecology, permaculture and agro-forestry are extensive and enjoyable.  Organic and agro-ecologic farming will certainly return people to the rural areas, repopulating areas emptied by large capitalist meat, dairy, monocrop and biofuel operations or evicted by capitalist oligopoly.  He does not mention the fact that many large farms in the U.S. are now staffed by rural proletarians.  In fact the numbers are almost equal between farmworkers and farmers.  He is adamantly against all biofuels, as they remove land from food production and lead to deforestation.  But he never mentions hemp, which absorbs more carbon than almost any other crop, while not needing as much water as sugarcane or corn, and can be grown in the most infertile areas – even arid and non-arid cow pastures. It would be an excellent source of bio-fuels for those old motors that still exist, along with many other products.

Not Green Enough

Aji’s last chapter is on the need for some kind of restitution to be paid to poorer nations, whose carbon footprint is light, yet are taking on some of the heaviest consequences of global warming and climate change.  He hopes that, like the jump from hard-wired telephone lines to cell phones, perhaps the poorer parts of the world can leapfrog over oil-based transport, power and heating.  This is also called ‘global climate justice’ – which even the Biden administration has adopted but not followed.  

Aji sees this is all based on the 'national question' for 'periphery' countries with 3 aspects: - 1, climate debt; 2, demilitarization; 3, regaining sovereignty from imperialism.  Technology transfers and government grants are his main methods to deal with the first point. In Aji’s analysis, instead of a social revolution, he seems to think the national state system will remain the same, that the rich countries will give technical and monetary aid to the poorest, that the solution is a global version of social work.  Or that nearly all nations will all pull together, one and all, against imperialism and the vestiges of colonialism.  

The 'national question' has greatly changed since its heyday in the 1960s-1970s, as most countries are now split up by classes and dominated by capitalist groupings, which complicates his simple picture. Above them is a transnational capitalist class, with 147 key transnational corporations, aided by computer technology and transnational state organizations.  These now control the overwhelming majority of finance and production supply chains across the world - something that was only beginning to come into existence in 1973.  The 'national question' has become a different beast all together.      

The biggest gap in this book is the absence of a method to implement this transitional demand - a “People’s” Green New Deal.  After all, the New Deal was Roosevelt’s idea.  Aji seems to have no method.  Certainly the tiny socialist groups in the U.S., or the DSA, or the larger and established Labour/SD/CP groups in Europe do not have the power to do this either right now.  Another problem is how will somewhat left-led countries like Peru and Bolivia that pay attention to the environment break with the imperial system – as they saw what happened to Cuba, Chile and Venezuela?  No one wants to have their economy ‘scream’ and this has limited national defiance.  It is going to take more than rhapsodizing over artisanal manufacture or the periphery to overcome the international capitalist system.  

At any rate, a useful book and you will learn something from it, especially if you are unfamiliar with agro-ecology and how capitalist industrial agriculture needs to be replaced.  (Aji is a post-doctoral fellow in the Netherlands who works on dependency theory, food and agriculture issues and de-colonialization.)

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive:  “News From Nowhere," "Giants - the Global Power Elite," "Fully Automated Luxury Communism," "Foodies' Guide to Capitalism," "Dead Epidemiologists," "A Redder Shade of Green," "What is the Matter With the Rural U.S.?" "Civilization Critical," "Seaspiracy," "Planet of the Humans," "Climate Emergency" or "John Bellamy Foster" or "Samir Amin."

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

August 8, 2021

Cosmonauts

 “The Crisis in Cosmology:  A Marxist Analysis,” by Adam Booth, In Defence of Marxism magazine, Summer 2014

This is an excellent summation of the terminal problems in the mainstream cosmological view of the “Big Bang,” dark matter and dark energy, pure math science, bad versions of infinity, multiverses, multiplying ‘fundamental’ particles, string theory and applying Newtonian physics to cosmology.  Booth includes some mainstream critics who are realizing some of the problems, Jim Baggott and Lee Smolin, but also cites Engels excellent works, “The Dialectics of Nature” and “Anti-During.”

MAINSTREAM CLAIMS

Booth starts with the missing existence of dark matter and dark energy, which would provide the gravitation and energy to make the standard model ‘Big Bang’ (BB) expansion theory work.  Only 10% of matter and 5% of the energy for this process have been located, yet careers are built on finding these magical substances and forces.  He looks at the BB theory itself, which postulates that an ‘infinite’ density in a ‘singularity’ exploded, creating the Universe.  All the laws of physics evidently were not operative at this point.  Nor is there a real explanation of what ‘caused’ this explosion or what existed prior to the explosion.  Mainstream cosmology says it was a ‘quantum fluctuation’ – which explains nothing.  Engels pointed out that to go from complete stasis to dynamism can only happen through an external ‘God’ force.  This is why the Catholic Church has endorsed the BB, as Genesis 1:1 agrees.

Mainstream cosmology treats time and space as ‘things’ – not the products of matter in motion.  What we are really talking about is the missing concept of change – not a static entity.  All 4 – matter, motion, time and space - are actually interrelated and cannot be separated.  We are supposed to believe that Einstein’s ‘space-time continuum’ is like a rubber sheet – finite and fixed, a bit flexible. In fact Einstein had to adopt a closed Universe. This is a Newtownian conception of the Universe as a mechanical ‘thing,’ not an infinite collection of processes, interactions and relationships related to matter.    

Booth takes on idealism in ideas, especially string theory and its big brother, M-theory and a cyclic Universe.  Both are based on pure math calculations, not observation or facts – in other words, idealist methods, not scientific methods. They include 5 different theories, with either 10 or 11 dimensions for the Universe, all discovered through math.  The theorists behind them receive publication, grants, publicity and acclaim.  Science writer Jim Baggot, in his book “Farewell to Reality,” especially hits at the purely theoretical nature of so much of this mainstream cosmology, calling it “fairy-tale physics,” identifying “mathematical structures” as a “wrong turn” in cosmology.    

INFINITY

In all of these theories, we run into the problem of infinity, as mainstream cosmology postulates a finite Universe, with an edge, a beginning and an end in entropy.  The obvious question is “What is beyond the edge of the universe? Monsters?” If this idea of the ‘beginning’ of the Universe seems like a Christian origin myth, you’d be right.  An end is also appropriate, see Revelations. To try to include ‘infinity’ in their ideas, some theorists claim the BB was just a ‘phase change’ in the evolution of the Universe, as if the Universe was a Newtonian ‘thing’ that evolves.  It is matter that changes and evolves, not the Universe.  The Universe is just another name for all that is. Another theory is that of ‘eternal inflation,’ in which this Universe is an inflating bubble in a vacuum within another Universe also inflating inside a vacuum.  Booth calls these various ideas ‘bad infinity’ for trying to incorporate infinity and failing.  Many infinities or multiverses do not make even one.  I’d call these ideas science fiction. 

Some theories claim that all events are infinitely ‘random’ or that all events are based on hard-and-fast ‘laws’ – when it is obvious that randomness and patterns interact dialectically, as chaos theory demonstrates.  The idiotic randomness postulate that a million monkeys with a million type-writers would eventually write Shakespeare is an expression of an abstract possibility, not a real one.  Another line of thought, Neils Bohr and the Copenhagen School, posits that the observer changes reality, hence reality itself doesn’t exist, only the observer does.  This is an overeager attempt to analyze mistakes in observation. The fake problem of the ‘tree falling in the forest’ without anyone to hear it fall comes out of this.  Schroedinger created his both dead and alive ‘cat’ to make fun of Copenhagen’s fantasy.  Theirs is another level of idealism, claiming reality is just what human’s do, think or feel.  The earth existed long before humans appeared – though fundamentalist Christians do not believe this either.  There is a reality independent of the observer, even if observers sometimes get it wrong or interfere with what they are testing.

The Infinity Clock is Ticking

Booth puts the blame on these various theorists for following Newtownian ideas of the universe, not religion or bourgeois idealism.  Newtownian physics operates on the assumption that all events are isolated and mechanical, which works in certain contexts, but not others – especially not on the cosmological level.  This is why it is understood that not all scientific approaches work in every area – also the reason electro-magnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces and gravity will never be ‘united’ in a bogus ‘theory of everything’ according to Booth.  Booth analyzes the concept of ‘mass’ which was seen as the property of each thing, but in an advance is now seen as a relationship between things, thus rejecting Newtownianism. 

If you follow cosmology, you will be aware of the many multiplying ‘quarks’ being discovered or guessed at, in the search for the basic ‘God particle.’   This has been claimed for the Higgs boson, but Booth understands that no ‘basic’ particle will ever be found.  Booth also looks at the present incompatibility between quantum mechanics and the standard model of particle physics and general relativity.  He thinks combining them is impossible as well, as they deal with different levels of reality, different scales of motion, even though the BB demands this combination. 

SMOLIN

Cosmologists are well aware of the problems by now.  Mainstream theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, in his book “Time Reborn,” has thrown in the towel on present mathematical or Newtownian cosmology, though he advances his own version at the end of the book.  Smolin points out that the “aesthetic” beauty of math equations is not the guide to reality, nor is isolated systems’ analysis applicable to the study of the Universe.  Smolin understands that the ‘laws’ of physics are not imposed on reality, but that they emerge within reality. Smolin thinks a main problem is a removal of ‘time’ from mainstream cosmological theories.  Booth makes his point more accurately, as it is really change that has been removed.  It is interesting that ‘change’ – which most people understand is ever-present, everywhere – is in bourgeois cosmology, sidelined.  Hmmmmm…      

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

Dialectical materialism guides a theorist, scientist or those interested in science in the direction of seeing the universe as infinite, as always existing, as a dialectical unity of the finite and the infinite, where time and space are properties of matter in motion, where change proceeds from quantity to quality through internal processes and relationships.  This is not a static, closed or ‘steady-state’ view, it is dynamic and open.  This is a far more sophisticated and yet at the same time factual and grounded view than the religious, idealist, science fiction-y or mechanical methods of modern cosmology.  Booth uses dialectical materialism throughout this 13 page article to analyze these theories and developments in more detail than I describe here.  If you want a good introduction to critical cosmology, this would be a good place to start. (It is also available on-line.) 

https://www.marxist.com/the-crisis-of-cosmology-part-one.htm

Another mainstream cosmologist questions the "Cosmological Principle" based on the BB, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JETGS64kTys

P.S. - The 2022 NASA Webb Infrared explorer is proving how big the universe really is and how old it really is. It is pretty clear no 'edge' is showing up.  They've already had to double the age of the universe too.  

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive:  “Reason in Revolt” (Woods-Grant); “The Big Bang Never Happened,” (Lerner) “Seeing Red” (Arp) “The Philosophy of Space-Time,” “The Dialectical Universe,” “The Einsteinian Universe,” (all 3 by Malek); “Big Bang Goes Boom!”   “The Big Bang is a Situation Comedy,” “Dialectical Materialism versus the New Physics” (Gimbel), “Ten Assumptions of Science,” “The Tragedy of American Science” (Connor).

And I bought it at May Day’s excellent periodicals section!

Red Frog

August 2, 2021

Aaargh Me Hearties!

 “Life Under the Jolly Roger – Reflections on Golden Age Piracy” by Gabriel Kuhn, 2020

This is a political and anthropological look at piracy, buccaneering and privateers in the late 1600s and early 1700s in the Caribbean, Atlantic and Indian oceans.  It’s not some rollicking tale of treasure chests, parrots and peg-legs, though real pirates always liked to frolic.  Anarchists and many others have thrilled at the exploits of these pirates, but Kuhn carefully evaluates what their lives were actually like.  The anarchist black flag is possibly based on the black skull and crossbones design of the Jolly Roger and that link continues to this day.  Some direct-action environmental groups like Sea Shepard continue to use it, so Kuhn also discusses the pirate legacy for the present.

Kuhn carefully delineates the various European characters that inhabited the Caribbean, Madagascar and central America during this period; their temporary bases in Tortuga, Nassau and Madagascar; and their actual actions and ideas. 

Definitions:  Privateers were mercenaries hired by various countries to raid enemy ships. Buccaneers and log-cutters were land-based ‘primitives’ who had left the service of any nation, living on islands and coasts.  Pirates were privateers or buccaneers who decided to go it alone in sea robbery.  Pirates raided wealthy merchant ships from Spain, Britain, France and any other country, not really preying on small fry or ordinary people.  This garnered them “Robin Hood” sympathy from many ordinary island-dwellers and coastal dwellers in the U.S.  Oddly, it was the end of the wars fought between European nations that turned some government privateers into independent pirates.

THE PIRATE PLUSES

They were a motley crew of former indentured servants, ex-sailors, criminals, bankrupts, adventurers and the flotsam of various European countries who decided to form a Brotherhood opposed to all nations.  Their ‘salty’ swearing and youth were rampant.  An early pirate iteration was called “The Brethren of the Coast.”  The Jolly Roger itself indicated their independence, rejecting kings and countries and many times rejecting nationalism.  The crews decided things democratically on the ships, as captains and other ‘leaders’ of the boats were decided by vote.  Booty was divided almost equally.  Targets were voted on.  Captains could be removed and crews split up, also by vote.  They dispensed a more equal justice, unlike the European or U.S. courts.  Pirates stood together as required, as this was part of the pirate ‘code’ – articles of agreement which were actually written down on each ship.  Because of the clothing codes forbidding nice fabrics to commoners, pirates dressed as colorfully as they could, in the best clothing they could steal.

In some ways Kuhn compares these small groups to ‘primitive communism,’ as wealth was not accrued or hoarded.  Pirates blew their doubloons in a few days after coming onshore to drink, visit prostitutes, gamble, dance and listen to music, fight and the like. Tortuga and Nassau, the Mosquito Coast, Madagascar and even the U.S. east coast were havens or partial havens for them.  Even captains did not get rich, so those tales of 'treasure chests' are bogus. Except for necessity, no pirate wanted to be told what to do, given their experience with cruel merchant ship captains.  Kuhn praises this ‘anti-authoritarian’ attitude as free individuals.  They abhorred work, except when necessary, and attempted to enjoy their short lives to the maximum.  They lived in conditions far better than the Royal Navy or any crushing job on a commercial merchant ship or whaler of the day.

Sea Shepard on the Watch

Ever the intellectual, Kuhn references Foucault, Guevara and Mao, Guattari and Deleuze, Hobsbawn and Nietzsche in his analysis of pirate ways, including warfare.  Pirates practiced a form of ‘guerilla’ warfare, but on water.  Know the water and land, strike quickly, strike terror, use surprise and light-arms, fight ferociously, then disappear. The difference between this and socialist guerilla war is they never developed a real ‘base’ among the islanders or coastal inhabitants or anyone else, so their resistance was relatively short-lived.  Nor did their failure to 'breed' help their cause, as they avoided women except for sex. 

NEGATIVES

The negatives?  Kuhn punctures the myth that they had equal indigenous or African pirates on board the ships.  This issue is not totally clear, but many were probably servants or slaves, though their lives would have been better on a pirate ship than in a sugar-cane plantation or being killed by Spaniards.  A good number of pirates actually engaged in the slave trade, which was one reason nations were irritated with them - as competitors.  This was one of the rationales for bases in west Africa and Madagascar.  In Madagascar the well-armed pirates were eventually driven out of their colony by the inhabitants. 

Occasionally Mosquito Indians from the Nicaraguan coast were on ships as fisherman, fighters and guides, but there is little indication they were there as permanent pirates.  Nor did the pirates have a view of liberating everyone oppressed by colonialism or uniting with island-based Maroons (ex-slaves) – a myth done up quite nicely in the excellent pirate series “Black Sails.” They were incapable of that kind of vision or organization.  Nor is there record of many women pirates – only two – and they had to pretend to be almost like men.  This was a nearly all-male brotherhood.

The pirates never produced anything, so hints that they are ‘proletarian’ are false.  They lived off the backs of colonial enterprises, taking a piece for themselves.  Lumpen-proletarian might be closer to it.  If this all reminds you of present day ‘gangs’ – motorcycle or otherwise, that would not be amiss.   

THE END

The ‘golden age of piracy’ began in 1690s and ended in the 1720s when the most successful captain, Bartholomew Roberts, was hung along with his large crew.  It is estimated that at its height golden age pirates involved at least 4,000 men.  The nations which had at one time tolerated pirate activities because it hurt their competitors and brought trade items, along with gold and silver, into their communities, turned against it as European (and U.S.) merchant capitalism grew and expanded.  Sea roving rogues like this could no longer be tolerated in a more orderly commercial structure, so national navies flooded seas and oceans to kill, turn or capture the freebooting pirates.

According to Kuhn, their legacy is seen in such things as ‘pirating’ movies, even if stealing “Pirates of the Caribbean” would not be appreciated by the Disney© Corporation.  Pirates occupied temporary spaces, and these are replicated in various short-lived ‘autonomous’ zones, such as George Floyd Square in Minneapolis or other temporary counter-culture places.  In 2009 the “Pirate Party” gained votes and seats in the European Parliament.  Rum runners and ‘bootleggers’ owe their moniker to this old crew. To this day, Sea Shepard, the ocean-going environmental group fighting illegal fishing and whaling, flies their version of the Jolly Roger on their ships.  Then there is always culture - Keith Richards, who styles himself a rock-and-roll pirate or his silly shadow, Johnny Depp. The pirates seem to be living on…    

Kuhn has read every source there is on pirates, though much detail is missing in the histories.   This is an excellent introduction and compendium from a left point of view on these lefty and anarchist fore and aft-runners. 

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14-year archive:  “Black Sails,” “Vultures’ Picnic,” “History of the World in Seven Cheap Things.”  Or other books by Kuhn:  "Playing as If the World Matters" and "Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety." Or the words slavery, gold or colonialism. 

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

July 30, 2021

Apocalypse Now

 “The Tragedy of the Worker – Towards the Proletarocene” by the Salvage Collective, 2021

The key point of this book is to explain how the proletariat – even if it takes power across the globe – will inherit a world dissimilar to what Marx, Lenin, Trotsky or even Mao had to deal with.  A world of ‘abundance’ for all is going to be more difficult because of the wreck capital has made of the environment in the ensuing period.  This decay has not been strictly limited to capitalism of course, though the USSR understood for awhile that nature had to be preserved. That is the tragedy for the workers of the world.  Sort of like when capitalist bosses sell their company to its workers because the company’s market niche is almost dead.  Or when Democrats elect a dark-skinned mayor in a failing, decrepit city, such as happened in Newark, Detroit and elsewhere. 

While deep green ecologists think industrialization dating back to the 1700s is the problem, and hark back to a reactionary world of small farmers or hunters and gatherers, Marxists see that the real problem is ‘the capitolcene’ – whose ‘great acceleration’ took place just after WWII – 1946.  This was the beginning of the car culture, industrial agriculture and other practices, where the need for gasoline became imperative.  This is also the dating of the beginning of the ‘Anthropocene’ by many geologists.  The Salvage Collective (SC) point out that global warming began rocketing up even further after 1991, when neo-liberal imperialism became dominant. These ‘turns’ are not so long ago.

RESPONSES

With somewhat elegant turns of phrase, the SC suggests the proletariat is going to need ‘disaster communism,’ where semi-Promethean methods will be necessary.   They even discuss geo-engineering, but are not specific.  They point out that nature worship and Eco-Theology, absent concern for humans, has emerged in some precincts of disaster fascism and environmentalism, the latter from Deep Greens.  The parallel block between new age ‘naturism’ and Republican libertarianism is also seen in their joint opposition to masks and vaccines.

Green capitalism, as pushed by the Democratic Party, is only extending the disaster, according to the SC.  ‘Adaptation’ is now the mantra of continued profiteering.  The Kyoto and Paris accords, along with the IPCC, made conservative and inaccurate global plans and estimates of global warming.  Market-based carbon trading has been a bust.  The inconsistent, dithering and ‘all of the above’ mentality of the Dems complemented this failure, which was intent on maintaining capitalist normality.  The complete ‘do nothing’ approach of many Republicans and evangelicals is now consciously part of hurrying the world toward the Christian apocalypse and disaster capitalism.  As part of this, a number of governments are salivating over a trade path through the melting Arctic.  Both these parties are, of course, tied to various corporations who profit from unlimited production and extraction, no matter the cost.  The SC calls them all a death cult. Even Extinction Rebellion accepts capital, thinking moral pleas and civil disobedience will force corporations and their politicians to change.

No.

According to the SC, there are also isolated Marxists who still think ‘luxury communism’ and “3 snowmobiles in every pot” (more stuff!)  are reasonable goals.  The latter is an example of ‘productionist’ Marxism, which is unable to see beyond labor as the source of value, opposing Marx’s view.  There are some that think talking about ‘catastrophe’ is a mistake – even though the obvious emergency is bringing many people around to eco-socialism.  The SC’s literature review and advocacy of ‘salvage communism’ or ‘vegan communism’ or ‘life-boat communism’ ends up in a new stage according to them – the Proletarocene.  But it is a very dark scenario:  Given the overwhelming numbers of proletarians on the earth now, they put it this way:  “Capitalism has, 150 years after Marx predicted, finally produced enough diggers to complete the grave, but in doing so it ensured that all that was left to inherit was the graveyard.”

Let’s act before it is a complete graveyard.  Not so much a book with new facts, it promotes one somewhat new outlook, which anyone paying attention to modernity is already dimly aware of.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left to investigate our 14 year archive:  “Luxury Communism,” “Catastrophism,” "Ecological Revolution," "The Monkey Wrench Gang," "Planet of the Humans," "The Robbery of Nature," "A Redder Shade of Green," "Stop Tar Sands Oil," "This Changes Everything," "Green is the New Red." 

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

July 26, 2021

Patriotic Orgy Again

 The American Team and U.S. Olympic Coverage

Watched the opening ceremony. (Peacock/NBC)

When the U.S. team came out they were chanting “USA, USA, USA” like a Trump rally.  15% of the players are not inoculated from CoVid.  Once in the stadium, some took off their masks for selfies and photos.  They were wearing more ugly Ralph Lauren clothing creations.  The most nationalist team of all.  May they lose.

NBC’s lame narrators broke into the parade of nations several times to have useless chats with Megan Rapinoe and other U.S. athletes.  We were treated to photos of the team on the bus, chanting USA again, while other nations entered the stadium.  Then there are the ads ... as other nations walked in.  NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie castigated China and several other U.S. government enemies in their introductions, but not one unkind word about the many dictatorships favored by the U.S.  Viewers will be greeted by coverage of events where U.S. athletes are competing or are expected to place well, but no one else.  In spite of all the hokum about ‘living in peace’ and internationalism, at bottom this is another orgy of nationalism, waste and advertising.  From what I could tell Lennon’s song “Imagine” was censored related to the lines about “no religion, no countries” and “no possessions.”  It’s a commie song, folks.

The Japanese contributions – including a great piano solo by Hiromi, a funny tech bit of turning on all the lights in Tokyo, a drone ‘world’ hovering above the stadium, a performance of pictograms – were at least uplifting.  This in spite of all the public monies wasted on venues and other niceties of the Olympics.  Make Greece the permanent home of the Olympics and remove the advertising, profiteering and product placement, professionalism, hero worship and national flags.  We need a proletarian Olympics once again.

After watching some events (NBC shows mostly swimming, gymnastics, track and maybe basketball...):  When did it become practice for winners to wrap themselves in their national flag?  It is also now the practice that big winners get corporate advertising contracts, which seems now to be the point of winning.

Here is more detail on nationalist and racist coverage by Brit and U.S. media:  https://nomadicthoughts.blogs.sapo.pt/sinophobia-russophobia-and-western-124071?fbclid=IwAR3hmPJPnMA9mSeoZe5-928ENGkkT-h4mmkUBpYyKh1CriDbAN0MeQzjfDQ

Prior blog reviews on this issue, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive:  “Reflections on the 2012 Olympics,” “Playing as if the World Mattered,” “Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety,” “Hey, how ‘bout that NFL?” “Rich People Things,” “Missoula,” “The English Game,” “The Football Factory,” “Concussion,” “One Night in Miami.”  

Red Frog

July 23, 2021

What Did You Expect?

 U.S. Cities With the Lowest Life Expectancy – May 2021

While thinking about the U.S., the bourgeois media describes politics in ‘red state/blue state’ terms, like some simple Dr. Seuss story.  Others have seen beyond this to see it is ‘rural/urban’ terms, with suburbs splitting either way.  Usually the closer-in suburb is more ‘progressive,’ the exurb less.  Another way to see what is happening is regionally – the South and prairie or mountain areas are many times the most right-wing, dominated by hard-right Republicans who are either business owners, ranchers and farmers or evangelicals.  All of these actually combine.  None of this looks at class, but underneath there are class ramifications.  Actual proletarian areas lean left.

A recent You Tube video asked the question “What U.S. cities have the lowest life expectancy?”  The U.S. average life expectancy dropped 1.5 years in 2020.  Prior to Covid, life expectancy was dropping in the U.S. due to ‘deaths of despair’ – suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol deaths. In the world, average female life expectancy is now 75+ years, while average male life expectancy is almost 71.  In the world the U.S. ranks 46^th.  That’s right.  According to the recent drop, the U.S. average is now 78.5 years.  Many of the countries above the U.S. are in the 80s, with Hong Kong at 85.29, the top. Hong Kong is not a real ‘country,’ but number two on the list is Japan, a real country.

DYING EARLY

So what U.S. cities are the worst, and does this say something about regional and rural issues?  This is a somewhat shallow list related to ‘reasons’, as the reasons listed are mostly ‘blame the victim’ types.  But they are still indicators of a certain kind.  Factors like working conditions, unemployment, lack of unions, education and environmental racism are not included as reasons, but they are operative.  Poverty is also mentioned less than it should be.  Notice the prominence of ‘lack of health care.’  The privatized and optional U.S. health care system is indirectly killing millions every year.

#10.  Rocky Mount, North Carolina – 74.6 due to obesity, lack of health care and smoking.

#9.  Alexandria, Louisiana – 74.6 due to obesity, smoking, little exercise and lack of health care.

#8.  Florence, South Carolina – 74.1 due to obesity, smoking and lack of exercise.

#7.  Springfield, Ohio – 73.8 due to obesity, smoking, lack of health care.

#6.  Huntington/Ashland- Kentucky/Ohio – 73.6 due to obesity, smoking, less exercise and lack of health care. 

#5.  Pine Bluff, Arkansas – 73.6 due to crime, obesity, smoking, poverty, less exercise.

#4.  Charleston, West Virginia – 73.3 due to smoking, poverty, obesity, lack of exercise and lack of health care.

#3.  Anniston, Alabama – 73.00 due to crime, poverty, obesity (40%), smoking and lack of health insurance.  This is one obvious example of environmental racism, as Anniston sits on a toxic waste area.

#2.  Gadsen, Alabama – 73.00 due to crime, obesity, smoking, lack of exercise and lack of health insurance.

#1.  Beckley, West Virginia – 72.9 due to obesity (40%), smoking, lack of exercise and lack of health insurance. 

(Source – World According to Briggs - 5/21)

So if you are following the numbers, if 78.5 is now the national average, in Beckley residents will die on average 5.6 years earlier than the national average. That is a large gap.  National averages are not specified by class, but working-class people are dying at much younger ages than the average – something that is behind all these figures.  At one point a number of years ago, only half of African-Americans were reaching retirement (62-65), which tells you something. The gap for men in 2016 was 15 years between the poorest male workers and the wealthy.  It has probably grown by now.

Mississippi State Capitol flag changed 1/21

POVERTY

Regarding ‘official’ poverty levels, here are the 10 poorest states presently, based on same You Tube site.  You’ll notice the connection with life expectancy.  Nationally, Maryland is the wealthiest state, with New Hampshire having the smallest number of poor at 7.19%. 

10.  Georgia – 14.11%

9.   Tennessee – 14.36%

8.   Oklahoma - 15%

7.   Alabama – 16.13% (Anniston, AL, from top list, has an unemployment rate 75% higher than the national average.)

6.   Arkansas – 16.36%

5.   Kentucky – 16.67%

4.   West Virginia – 17.54%

3.   New Mexico – 18.63%

2.   Louisiana – 18.83%

1.   Mississippi – 19.75%

The poverty of Appalachia is still existing - even though one of the 'targets' of the 'War on Poverty' in the 1960s was Appalachia.  Of the 10 lowest-income counties in the U.S, 3 are in Georgia, 2 in South Dakota (probably indigenous reservations) and 1 each in Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania based on 2019 figures.  Again, the South and rural areas figure prominently.   

If you look at the first locations, they are nearly ALL in the South or close to the South.  Springfield, Ohio is the only outlier.  They are also smaller, rural cities. The second list almost matches them.  There is no ethnic coding, but some of these cities are mostly African-American. So unless you aren’t paying attention to actual metrics, you will notice that the South – mostly dominated by reactionary Republicans backed by some large capitalist corporations – have the worst statistics.  But we can't forget Jim Machin, Democrat of West Virginia or the Democratic governors of Kentucky, New Mexico and Louisiana. It is an inheritance of slavery, Jim Crow, white supremacy and upper-class control.  God seems to have abandoned some parts of these areas.  It is really rabid capitalism doing it’s thing.

Red Frog

July 23, 2021

Doppelgang

Kill the Assassins!

If you follow streaming content or movies, after the endless formulaic detective shows (small town, damaged cop, dead or missing women or girls, etc.) come assassins in numbers.

John Wick Again & Again

Let me count, starting with the granddaddy of them all, Jason Bourne.  Then Killing Eve, The American, Hannah, Pulp Fiction, John Wick, In Bruges, The Mechanic, No Country For Old Men, Nikita, The Accountant, Kill Bill, Jack Reacher, Road to Perdition, Ghost Dog, Gross Pointe Blank, Columbiana, Prizzi’s Honor, Arya in GoT, Fargo’s Malvo, now Gunpowder Milkshake or Black Widow … one website has 152 movies about assassins and hitmen.  I only name the ones I’m familiar with here.  I’m sure there are far more than 152.

There are more movies and series about assassins than blue or white collar workers, farmworkers, the precariat, or anyone in the working-class. Some reject the job.  Jason Bourne threw heavy antagonism towards the CIA and their role in making him an efficient robot killer, but he’s a bit of an outlier.  Black Widow borrowed concepts from Bourne, Hannah and Killing Eve - only now sexy women can be killers too!  The middle-class feminists love this 'advancement.'

What does this say about capitalist culture?  In a recent book that compared East and West Germany (A Socialist Defector) the minute the Second World War was over, cowboy films and crime movies started playing in West Germany and West Berlin.  It was flooded by cheesy Hollywood productions.  In the East they rebuilt the opera and theater scenes, listened to classical music or world music and watched films about WWII.  There was a huge qualitative difference in culture, even if the East German one was also somewhat limited.   Maybe the fact that Nazis still saturated West Germany didn’t help.  Or maybe it was the Marshall Plan, which “Americanized” Europe.

In assassin and hitman films, the killers lead glamourous lives, are paid huge sums, drive nice cars, visit every city on the planet, bathe in champagne, have regular sex, mostly with beautiful women (and for the women, handsome men or other beautiful women) and always have the best guns, tech gear and hideouts.  They are lumpen petit-bourgeois because crime pays really well!  And they are ‘cool.'   Revenge is their credo.  Assassination seems to be the only thing they are good at. Really?  There are always regrets, but even the retired or retiring ones can’t help but pull off one last job.  This is like nearly all the bank-robber movies too.  Many times stoic, super-human, quick as cats, loners but sexy, revenge-minded, bullet-proof, never miss, we end up cheering them on.  Weird, huh?

Now what normal person would admire a hitman or woman?  No one. But in Hollywood and Netflix?  Heroes.          

In the films they are hired by national secret agencies, crime bosses, shadowy international bodies, political sects, corporations – a whole web of invisible and visible crime syndicates, mostly motivated by profit.  These crime organizations are doppelgangers for above-ground capitalism and sometimes they use the same methods.  They reflect the real assassins and hit-men that run amuck in the world, killing journalists, environmental activists, labor leaders, political enemies, peasant activists, socialists – anyone who stands in power’s way.  The recent killing of the president of Haiti was probably carried out by a far-right grouping, using thugs from the repressive right-wing government of Columbia.  Bolivia just had a failed coup and failed assassination plan coming from the Bolivian religious right.  Assassination is one of the main weapons in the arsenal of repressive governments and the Right.  This is because they have no raison d'etre except force. And yet on celluloid or pixels they are cool heroes.     

So I’m waiting for a movie that casts a really cool working-class assassin who guns down rich men, fascists, corporate leaders, military thugs and the like, working for peanuts with old Soviet or Chinese weapons.  But it will be a long wait, as that movie won’t get made.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left to investigate our 14 year archive of reviews:  “The Story of My Assassins,” “The Plot to Kill King,” “All the King’s Men,” “Hannah,” “Redbreast,” “Game of Thrones,” “Fargo,” “The Devil’s Chessboard.”

The Kulture Kommissar

July 22, 2021

The Contradictions of Doing That Thing

 “Hard Like Water,” by Yan Lianke, 2001

This is a satiric novel of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in a backwater town in China, led by a somewhat intense ex-soldier who has returned to ‘make revolution.’   Aijun is a married man with delusions of grandeur, who meets and falls in love with a young married woman, Hongmei.  Their sexual attraction to each other is especially spurred by the hearing of certain revolutionary operas, which is one of the continuing jokes.  Sex and 'the revolution' are intertwined for them.  Aijun is intent on bringing the GPCR to his town, Chenggang, and having a career as a great revolutionary leader.  He had been promised a cadre job in the town by his wife’s father, the Party branch secretary, a former 8^th Route Army PLA soldier.  When that falls through, he becomes intent on replacing the old man, becoming Party head and putting his young allies in positions of power.  In a way, it begins as an obvious battle of the young versus the old.

Aijun thinks in clichés derived from the writings of Mao Zedong, imagining that what he is doing is like the Long March; that the “east wind must prevail over the west,” that “revolution is not a dinner party.”  His first plan is to tear down an old arch entrance to the town, put there by its’ feudal founders.  He is stymied, as the fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers come out and stop the youth from wrecking the ancient arch.  His next plan is to expose his father-in-law, the local Party branch secretary, by finding trivial incidents or comments that incriminate him over his insufficient love for Mao and the Party. 

Aijun takes advantage of the suicide of his own wife in this way, as she damaged a bust of Mao in his house, tore down a Mao poster and soiled one of his Collected Works before hanging herself.  This becomes ‘a counter-revolutionary suicide’ - which incidentally also makes her father look bad.  Don’t laugh.  This and the 17 ‘denunciations’ Aijun has weaseled out of his young followers enables him to ‘overthrow’ her father, the old man.  One of the denunciations is he used a page from Mao’s sacred Quotations to roll a cigarette and gave another to his grandson to use in the toilet. 

After this Aijun becomes head of the local GPCR revolutionary committee; his beautiful, slim, alabaster helper Hongmei becomes #2.  Aijun’s job consists of putting up posters of Mao’s sayings all over town and in every house and tree, which is creepy in itself.  He mandates that all villagers memorize many Quotations, including school children who need not learn anything else.  This becomes a typical idealist exercise, substituting Mao’s sayings for Confucian or Biblical quotes and thus expecting reality to change.  Aijun is also in charge of the farm production brigades, which he has no clue about.  This food and production issue is the most concerning for the poor peasants of rural Chenggang.  Not for Aijun however.  He believes that hunger strengthens ‘the revolution.’

Burning some joss sticks to celebrate ancestors becomes a GPCR crime which Aijun uses to intimidate and then win-over the Cheng family, the most populous in the village, some of whose members had done it.  His long-range plan is to destroy the Chen temple in the center of town, starting with its musty, yellow documents, even though the building is protected as an historical monument.  After being stymied by the mayor, Aijun denounces him anonymously.  He also kills a witness to his affair.  And so it goes in a story of Maoist rhetoric and careerism.

This too-long story is sometimes told in the language of nature, using similes, personification and metaphors that give it an odd and humorous distance from reality. Everything in Aijun’s mind and every event is filtered through some revolutionary aphorism, giving it a grandeur it does not deserve.  In this way the author ridicules the events in town, including the arduous building of a secret underground tunnel by Aijun whose purpose is to facilitate sexual congress with Hongmei.  Ultimately Aijun’s illicit but passionate affair with the married Hongmei creates problems for ‘the revolution,’ even if their love-play also inspires new slogans.  In politics, sex is a stumbling block and the GPCR is no exception.

If you are an orthodox Maoist who believes the GPCR was some kind of perfect struggle against ‘capitalist roaders’ you will not like this book.  If you are an acolyte of the present Chinese CP, you won’t like it either. Lianke’s work is mostly banned in China as you might expect, though this prolific writer still lives in Beijing.  Lianke would have been 8 when the GPCR started and 18 when it ended, so he lived through it as a young person.  Most leftists familiar with Maoism will recognize many of the ideas in the book, which never let up.  If you want some insight into China during this period, including a level of dogmatic and ultra-leftist absurdities and barbarities, you might like it. The book is somewhat overlong but the ideological pokes and jokes keep coming, which helps a reader get through to the very dark end.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14-year archive of reviews:  “Maoism & the Chinese Revolution,” “The End of the Revolution,” “China’s New Red Guards,” “Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism,” “The Rise of China,” “Is the East Still Red?” “China – the Bubble That Never Pops,” “China 2020,” “From Commune to Capitalism,” “Jasic Factory Struggle,” “The Fall of Bo Xilai,” “Striking to Survive,” “Class is in Session,” “China on Strike” or the word ‘China.’

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

July 17, 2021

Religious Obsession in Japan

 “Silence,” film by Martin Scorsese, 2016

This is an odd film about the attempt to turn Japanese farmers and fishermen into Christians by missionaries from Europe, mostly Portugal or Italy, in the 1600s.  It is somewhat relentless, dull and overlong, with beautiful landscapes and some tricky discussions about religion – Christian and Buddhist alike.  It is based on a novel by Shusaku Endo set near Nagasaki.

You too can be crucified

The key characters are 3 Portuguese Catholics – one who has disappeared in Japan, rumored to be an ‘apostate’ priest who denounced Christ.  The other two are his young disciples, who cannot believe this rumor and set out to find him.  They start out in China and are smuggled onto some Japanese islands off Japan’s coast.  There they meet terrified but loyal Christian fishermen, who greet their coming with hosannas.

Thus begins a long – too long – series of gruesome attempts to punish the villagers and find the two young Jesuit priests.  It is reported that 300,000 Christians have already been killed. If government soldiers find them, they are allowed to ‘trample’ on a picture of Christ or spit on a cross and they can leave and live.  If they don’t, they are wrapped in reeds and set on fire; tied to crosses in the surf to drown; hung upside down in a hole with a cut letting blood drip out of their necks; or have their head chopped off.  Yeah, the Japanese feudalists are brutal – but no more brutal than the Crusades, the Catholic / Protestant wars or the Inquisition.

The most interesting character is the Japanese Inquisitor, who is both deadly and kind, intelligent and trying to get the priests and peasants to ‘apostatize.’  He realizes that killing everyone is not the best solution.  His grin is memorable as he discusses religion with one of the young hard-headed Jesuits, who won’t denounce ‘god,’ telling him Japan is a ‘swamp’ in which Christianity will not grow. 

Ultimately that Portuguese missionary meets his mysterious missing priest, who now works for the Japanese, teaching some science topics and reviewing 'suspicious' religious materials.  He has denounced Christianity, though underneath still believes in a way.  The missing priest (Liam Neeson) ultimately convinces the stupid hot-head that renouncing Christianity - which will also save a lot of villagers lives - is the most merciful thing to do, and he finally complies.  He also begins to work for the Japanese.  He secretly still believes of course.  As the original missionary puts it, the Japanese Christians think ‘god’ means the sun and cannot read the Bible, so their grasp of Christianity is limited.

One Japanese peasant renounces his faith several times, saving his life, while his whole family will not and die.  He also turns the priests in, again under pain of death or for money.  His sad story of betrayal, guilt and attempts at forgiveness runs through the whole film.

Scorsese’s obsession with Catholicism led him to make 3 films about it, this being the last, but his focus is solely on moral issues. Scorsese certainly thinks this film promotes religion in a way, especially Christianity.  But to an atheist or agnostic viewer, it only shows how crazed or cruel it is.

Behind this simple story is feudalism and colonialism – subjects only an astute viewer will think about, as Scorsese did not.  The Japanese shoguns clearly did not want an alien ideology among their peasants and fishermen, which might lead the peasants into opposition to the feudal landlords and royal/religious Buddhist hierarchy.  It actually did, in the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637.  Nor did they want to be penetrated by a European colonial power in this way.  The Dutch only wanted to trade, similar to the French in North America.  They did not want to ‘convert,’ and so the Dutch are allowed to visit Japan.  The Japanese understand trade as a maritime nation located on an island.  But this has also isolated them from cultural matters and people.

As an actual leftist in the U.S. and certain other countries, you do not proclaim your politics in many jobs (unless you perhaps have union protection) because you can be easily fired, or in places like Saudi Arabia, killed.  You don’t even announce it to neighbors unless you know them well. In a way, some communists and socialists are ‘in the closet.’  Leftist organizations also have ‘non-public’ work, in which hidden members work in broader ‘front groups’ or unions to recruit secretly.  This is the effect of the continual Hooverism and McCarthyism that still reigns in the U.S., at least since 1917.  So viewing this dull film brings up odd thoughts for some Marxists.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive:  Use terms like ‘religion,’ ‘colonialism,’ or ‘feudalism’ or “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” “Seaspiracy.”

The Kulture Kommissar

July 13, 2021