Greek Crisis, Our answer: REVOLT EVERYWHERE

Everybody to the Constitution Square, the White Tower, squares and streets

Statement of Greek OKDE

Every day until victory – CONTINUOUS GENERAL STRIKE

The Government, the Troika, the Memorandums must go

The Debt must be Canceled

“Bread – Education – Freedom, the junta didn’t end in 1973”. This slogan was shouted, in 15/6, by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, who remained at the Constitution Square, determined and took it again under their control to keep it free for the people, despite the orgy of suppression, the tons of chemicals and tear gasses, the attacks of hordes of police special forces.

For more than 22 days, the street referendum –the only original one- has concluded to a clear verdict: We are not represented by any of them! Off they go, all of them, together with their memorandums and the Troika, and first of all, the troupe of Mr Papandreou’s collaborators, who believe that he can still play ridiculous political games and mock us.

Papandreou’s hated faction is falling apart. Very soon he will have to go home. We are justified to feel great joy, but, be careful: No matter how many elections they hold, no government (either of New Democracy, or an all-party government, or a government of “personalities”, or one of “technocrats”, etc) will be able –or should be able– to be legitimized in the eyes of the labour, the people and the youth- all of us who strive against the rotten political system, with the aim of taking our lives in our hands, faced with the intolerable situation of the crisis and bankruptcy of the Greek capitalism, the successive memorandums and the cruel measures.

We will bury “Memorandum II”, the memorandum of plundering and impoverishment.

The “Medium-term Program”/ Memorandum II, which the collaborator government of Troika has brought to the Parliament, is aimed at snatching 78billion euros from us, through:

A vast unprecedented tax-raid: transfer of almost all the goods/ services to the highest tax rate of 23%, tax imposing to almost every property, increase of vehicle taxes, abolition of almost all the tax exemptions (such as medical expenses, mortgage payments, etc).

The transformation of workers into slaves: abolition of overtime payment, complete flexibilisation of working time with the decision of the employer only. Massive lay-offs in the public sector, abolition of collective agreements in the private sector and generalization of individual contracts.

Abrupt decrease of the civil servants’ payments through the abolition of almost all the benefits and allowances Decrease of the payments by many hundred euros …in solidarity to the unemployed (!).

Cuts in the supplementary pensions or even in the 300 euro, farmers’ pension and a new anti-social security bill in September.

Butchering of the Labor Housing Organization expenses, unemployment benefits, education and health expenses (which lead to massive closing down of schools, universities and hospitals), medicine allowances. The unemployed (over 2.5 million) and the immigrants are excluded from hospital care and led to slaughtering.

More than that, they are selling off all the public property to collect 50 billion euros: water and electricity services, public transport, streets, harbours, even parks, monuments, forests, beaches and islands!

Memorandum II leads to the complete disintegration of the economy and society itself. Payments will fall a further 30-40%. The unemployed, who have already surpassed the 1.2 million people, are going to be more than 1.5 million by the end of 2011 and, along with the part-time workers, they are going to consist the great majority of a destructed society. For the youth, unemployment is 42.5% and is about to surpass 50% -rates existing in Egypt or Tunisia! All these are going to take place until the next memorandum, which is undoubtedly coming, as the failure of Memorandum II is certain, as well as the sharpening of the economic and political crisis.

Our answer: REVOLT EVERYWHERE

They are blackmailing us posing the dilemma “Memorandum II or Bankruptcy”. Memorandum II leads nowhere but to a wrecked society. On the other hand, if we go back to the old current (drachma), our payments will indeed decrease by 30-40%, the Greek capitalism will go through a tsunami of shut- ups, lay-offs and collapse of the education, health and social security systems. Therefore, what we have to expect is barbarism whether we choose to “sane ourselves” and remain in euro (for as long as we can), or we go bankrupt. Between the Bitch of Memorandums and the Charybdis of bankruptcy, we only have one thing left: the ceaseless struggle for our interests against a handful of Greek capitalists and European businessmen and bankers. It is either us or them. For this whole bankrupt economic and political system to go away; for us to start taking back the wealth that we produce, all those that they have plundered from us to create their mythical fortunes, like the 600 billion (much more than the public debt) of the Greek billionaires at the Swiss banks; to make a really new start through our own solidarity and organization, to make way for a different society with our needs in its centre, a democratic, radical, socialist society.

The first step is to overthrow this lousy crumbling government (whether it manages to pass Memorandum II or not). If we smash the predatory hands that they lay on our lives and our future, if we “break” their legs and rips, whatever governments comes next, will be feeling our hot breath on its neck if it dares to introduce measures of this kind.

The official reformist left (KK and SYN/ SYRIZA), paralyzed in the face of the needs to organize and expand the struggle, it does nothing but begging for elections. KKE, especially, has been attacking this enormous movement against the junta of the government – troika, using every kind of slander.

This is why we need to grow massive and reinforce the movement of the squares, reinforce the surrounding of the Parliament and the other public buildings in every town. We need to struggle for a Continuous General Strike to be called for, to completely paralyze the economic life of the country. For a strike like that to succeed, we have to organize it ourselves, from below, not the trade-unionist bureaucracy which has paralyzed our trade unions. We are not going to leave the squares or stop the surrounding of the Parliament, nothing is going to go back to normal in this country, unless this collaborator government of the Troika goes away!

Immediate Release of the Arrested

Banning of Lay-offs. Abolition of any kind of flexible job. Nationalization of every enterprise that shuts up or fires workers, confiscation of their owners’ property and operation under workers’ control. Less work, work for all, with 35 hour- 5day – 7hour daily work.

Abolition of taxes on the popular consumption goods. Workers control on the prices and immediate decrease of them.

Increases in payments – pensions. Our aim is 1,400 euros minimum basic salary for all. No worker without a collective agreement

Increase of the social expenses, public free education and health, school, hospital and labour accommodation construction schemes, environment protection schemes, decrease of the military and police expenses.

Immediate return of all the stolen money and the state and employers’ debts to the social security funds. Abolition of all the anti-social security laws.

Cancellation of the debt.

Nationalization of all the banks, big enterprises and the Social Benefit Public Enterprises, under workers’ control.

19 June 2011 Organization of Communists Internationalists of Greece www.okde.gr – ergatikipali@okde.gr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9I0nZb3qHw&feature=player_embedded#at=24

Marx and Engels: Give me a bowl of wine/ In this I bury all unkindness

The Sovietesque image of Marx and Engels chiseling themselves out of granite as they set about creating the edifice of ‘scientific socialism’ was always grotesque. And not even a caricature of reality. In truth, they loved nothing more than a good party; an evening with family, friends and comrades around a table of shared joys telling stories, singing and all night conversation. While Engels has the reputation as the bon vivant, it is clear that Marx was no slouch when it came to the occasional tipple, nor his wife, children and the ‘housekeeper’ Lenchen. When Karl and Fred were together, sometimes locked in conversation for days, the booze invariably flowed freely. Their letters are replete with hints of youthful, drunken escapades (and not so youthful), with odes to special vintages, appeals for port, with complaints about the claret, the planning for parties, with head-holding hangovers and toasts to life’s victories and defeats.

A visit to Marx in England by comrades from the continent was often the stage for a night out. Wilhelm Liebknecht tells a now famous story of a ‘beer trip’ with Marx where the aim was to visit every pub along a road in London. At the end of the line the night was definitely getting late and an argument started between the German party and the local English pub-goers. Liebknecht picks up the story…

The brows of our hosts began to cloud […]; and when Edgar Bauer brought up still heavier guns and began to allude to the English cant, then a low “damned foreigners!” issued from the company, soon followed by louder repetitions. Threatening words were spoken, the brains began to be heated, fists were brandished in the air and – we were sensible enough to choose the better part of valor and managed to effect, not wholly without difficulty, a passably dignified retreat. Now we had enough of our “beer trip” for the time being, and in order to cool our heated blood, we started on a double quick march, until Edgar Bauer stumbled over some paving stones. “Hurrah, an idea!” And in memory of mad student pranks he picked up a stone, and Clash! Clatter! a gas lantern went flying into splinters. Nonsense is contagious – Marx and I did not stay behind, and we broke four or five street lamps – it was, perhaps, 2 o’clock in the morning and the streets were deserted in consequence. But the noise nevertheless attracted the attention of a policeman who with quick resolution gave the signal to his colleagues on the same beat. And immediately countersignals were given. The position became critical. Happily we took in the situation at a glance; and happily we knew the locality. We raced ahead, three or four policemen some distance behind us. Marx showed an activity that I should not have attributed to him.

Marx was into his forties at the time of this anecdote.

The entire Marx-Engels social circle, with routine Sunday evening dinners and drinks late into the night, enjoyed a life’s pleasures as they suffered a life’s pains. It should be noted that women dominated this social scene and the festivities and outings were marked by their impression. Lenchen, the keeper of the Marx house, was also in attendance and, by accounts, was the heartiest imbiber of them all. Through all of the years of grinding poverty and personal tragedy the Marx family lived through in their London exile it was Engels, in his humble, gracious gallantry, who kept the wolf from the door (or at least from entering). Part of the stipend Engels provided the Marx family in those lean years was a healthy ration of wine; it wasn’t good enough for Engels to help make ends meet, it was necessary to provide joys as well. Life without the simple pleasures of a good meal and glass(es) of wine with friends were, to Engels and to Marx, not a life worth living.

The General (as with all of the extended Marx family Engels was referred  to by his nickname, except by Marx’s wife Jenny who, though on close, personal terms with him kept propriety and addressed him as Mr. Engels) continued the Sunday dinner party tradition in the years after Marx’s death and all the way until his own. He had a mighty constitution, even in his old age (see a  previous post Engels In America: The 11 AM Tipple), and would often be the last one standing early Monday morning. I’m not sure, given the possibility of time travel, I would rather journey anywhere else in the past than the Regent’s Park parlor of Fred Engels for a Sunday evening soiree in the 1880s.

Below is just the barest sampling of reference in the letters of the Marx circle to inebriants. It can’t all be at the coal face (or writing Capital), comrades.

Red Jenny to the General

….7 January 1852

Dear Mr Engels,

How can you imagine that I would have been angry with you over that little drinking spree? I was very sorry not to have seen you again before you left, for that would have enabled you to see for yourself that I was only somewhat sulky in respect of my liege lord. Besides, such interludes often have quite salutory effects, but this time père Marx must have caught a bad chill during his nocturnal philosophic excursion with ‘the archbishop’s nephew’ [i.e. Engels], for he fell seriously ill and has up till now stayed quietly in bed.

….31 July 1857

Dear Mr Engels,

The wine has just arrived. The children’s exultation knew no end. The girls examined the bottles very closely and found the sherry settled in green and the port in pale lilac. The Bordeaux cheers us with its red smile. Tussy [Eleanor] set to work at once on the hamper and now she is sitting in it as in a little hut packed in straw and hay. Let me convey to you, dear Mr Engels, our warmest thanks for your great kindness. I am so weak and wasted. The wine will do me a world of good.

….14 August 1857

The wine suits me splendidly. The sherry is truly excellent. The port seems not quite so good, but I like it particularly on account of its sweetness. It will put me to rights again.

With warm regards, Jenny Marx

….23 or 24 December 1859

My dear Mr Engels,

My most heartfelt thanks for the Christmas hamper. The champagne will be a tremendous help in tiding us over the otherwise gloomy holiday, and will ensure a merry Christmas Eve. The sparkling bubbles of the champagne will make the dear children forget the lack of a little Christmas tree this year, and be happy and jolly for all that.

….24 December 1866

My dear Mr Engels,

The hamper has just arrived, and the bottles have been put on parade, with the Rhenish to the fore! How can we thank you for all your friendship! The £10 which arrived on Saturday will avert the harshest storms of Christmastide and enable us to celebrate a Merry Christmas. The wine was particularly welcome this year, as with the young Frenchman [Paul Lafargue] in the house we like to keep up appearances.

The General to Moor

….6 June 1853

at worst he [August Willich] will tell the story about Marx and Engels arriving drunk one evening at Great Windmill Street.

….5 May 1862

How is little Jenny [Marx's daughter] placed for wine? Tell me which kinds Allen usually recommends. I can now send you some port as well, old, light, no spirits, which I highly recommend; but only after it has been well filtered, for the crust has loosened.

…23 May 1862

Dear Moor,

The wine was delayed for the same reason as the letter. In such matters I have to attend to everything myself and, before getting to the stage of buying the hamper, etc., I’m frequently distracted. I have had to dispense with port on this occasion too, since it is at my lodgings and I wasn’t able to get it sent over to the warehouse. The hamper is leaving today. The red wine and 1846 Hochheimer are specially for little Jenny. The 3 bottles with the red seal and no label are 1857 Rüdesheimer (the same as we drank up here); too stimulating for invalids, though excellent for those in good health.

….15 November 1862

Dear Moor,

You’re right, I am very broke and, like the Prussian government, intensely preoccupied with ‘saving’. In the hope that, by leading a domesticated life in Hyde Road, I shall be able to make good the deficiency, I enclose herewith a five-pound note, O/L 28076, Manchester, 28 Jan. ‘62. At the same time, I am sending you a hamper of wine per Chaplin and Horne, containing about one dozen claret and 2 bottles of old 1846 hock for little Jenny, the rest being made up of 1857 hock. 24 bottles in all.

….21 April 1863

I have no port at present nor is anything good in that line to be had on the spur of the moment. However, I’ll look out for some, and meanwhile go down into the cellar to fetch up some hock and some claret (the former for the healthy, the latter for the invalids). For which reason I shall now close this letter, enclosing a few stamps for little Tussy [Marx's daughter Eleanor].

Your
F. E.

….7 November 1864

I must close now, as I have to go to a Directors’ meeting of the Schiller Institute, of which I am chairman, as you know, to Mr Borchardt’s annoyance. Happily, beer has been introduced.

….3 March 1865

I have in my hurry not managed to find any decent port, but sent claret yesterday. Will keep looking…

….15 July 1865

how does it [Marx's Capital] stand? The ultimate and final date for completion was 1 September, and the price, you remember, is 12 bottles of wine. [Capital was not completed for another two years]

….7 August 1865

I’m so pleased the book [Capital] is making rapid progress, for I had really begun to suspect from one or two phrases in your last letter that you had again reached an unexpected turning-point which might prolong everything indefinitely. The day that manuscript is sent off, I shall drink myself to kingdom come, that is, unless you come up here the next day so that we can seal it together.

….24 October 1869

Dear Moor,

My grippe has happily — in the main — been conquered by limiting beer consumption, staying at home in the evening and consuming linseed tea with lemon and honey.

….28 May 1876

It is all very well for you to talk. You can lie warm in bed and study ground rent in general and Russian agrarian conditions in particular with nothing to disturb you — but I am to sit on the hard bench, swill cold wine, suddenly interrupt everything again and get after the blood of the boring Dühring.

Moor to The General

….27 February 1861

Nota bene. I presume you got a letter from my wife (about a week ago) in which she thanked you for the wine? She is a little worried lest it should have fallen into the wrong hands. The children, too, are greatly obliged to you for the wine. They would seem to have inherited their father’s fondness for the bottle.

….9 April 1863

My wife has now been confined to bed for a fortnight and has gone almost completely deaf, heaven knows why. Little Jenny [Marx's daughter] has had another attack of diphtheria of some sort. If you could send me some wine for both of them (Allen wants little Jenny to have port), I’d be most grateful.

….3 June 1864

The books have arrived, ditto the wine, for which many thanks.

….25 February 1865

[After a long complaint, a request to Engels] Some port wine and claret would do me a world of good under present circumstances.

….4 March 1865

Your wine came yesterday; received with thanks.

….20 May 1865

Edgar’s reappearance did, of course, surprise us greatly. Quite the fellow I thought him, and his career quite as I expected it. It is a pity that he could not always have been right-hand to Garibaldi He would have suited him to a tee. But the poor devil is still very weak. He will be staying here for some time, apropos of which you could be doing a good work by contributing to the replenishment of my wine-cellar.

….20 November 1865

Dear Engels,

Little Jenny [Marx's daughter] is on the mend again now and thanks you very much for the wine.

….2 April 1867

Finally, before I forget, all the money that I could afford to spend on Laura’s [Marx's daughter] champagne-treatment has gone the way of all flesh. She now needs red wine, of better quality than I can command. Voilà la situation.

….22 June 1867

My children are obliged to invite some other girls for dancing on 2 July, as they have been unable to invite anyone for the whole of this year, to respond to invitations, and are therefore about to lose caste. So, hard-pressed though I am at the moment, I had to agree to it and am counting on you for the wine (claret and Rhenish), i.e. on your supplying me with it in the course of next week.

Marx to Francois Lafargue

….12 November 1866

My sincere thanks for the wine. Being myself from a winegrowing region, and former owner of a vineyard, I know a good wine when I come across one. I even incline somewhat to old Luther’s view that a man who does not love wine will never be good for anything. (There are exceptions to every rule.) But one cannot, for example, deny that the political movement in England has been spurred on by the commercial treaty with France and the import of French wines.

Engels to his brother Hermann

…2 November 1864

Dear Hermann,

No joy with the Niersteiner. The wine arrived here with a distinct sourness to it, it does not taste at all as it did at your house, and I shall therefore have to forgo any more orders.

Marx to his daughter Jenny

….17 May 1864

I address these lines to you, because you will probably have to make room for Engels, your room being, I believe, the only disposable one. You don’t want to care about wine which we bring with us, but a dozen bottles of Pale Ale for our Manchester man [Engels] will be welcome.

Tecumseh Valley

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

The very definition of ‘philistine’ is one who thinks that the actor, poet and playwright Harold Pinter was over-rated. They are wrong. Late last night I watched, in a fit of insomnia and for the second gruelling time, Pinter perform in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. An old man, alone in a room drinking and listening to tapes made of himself many years earlier when he was in his latter thirties (my age now). Staggering. This morning, still staggered, I picked a slim volume of Pinter’s late, overtly political works from the shelf called Death etc. Pinter increasingly worked through poetry toward the end of his life; poems that are as short, sharp and brutish as the deaths, personal and entirely impersonal, that they chronicle.

Now here I am, drinking coffee comfortably on a cloudy morning in quiet Ypsilanti and reading words inspired by cluster bombs, blood-spattered basements and the cheap, anonymous murder specialized in by powers great and small and feeling queasy for doing so. So, in the spirit of solidarity, I thought I would share my discomfort. Most of us will not be confronted with death today, not immediately anyway. Most of us will not be tortured. Most of us will not be murdered. Most of us will not be raped. Most of us will not be beaten. Most of us will not be gagged or tied up or shocked with cattle prods. But some of us will, as will the loved ones of some of us. This very mundane morning there are people getting their teeth kicked in. Four by Pinter then.

Order (1996)

Are you ready to order?
No there is nothing to order
No I’m unable to order
No I’m a long way from order
And while there is everything,
And nothing, to order,
Order remains a tall order
And disorder feeds on the belly of order
And order requires the blood of disorder
And ‘freedom’ and ordure and other disordures
Need the odour of order to sweeten their murders
Disorder a beggar in a darkened room
Order a banker in a castiron womb
Disorder an infant in a frozen home
Order a soldier in a poisoned tomb

After Lunch (2002)

And after noon the well-dressed creatures come
To sniff among the dead
And have their lunch

And all the many well-dressed creatures pluck
The swollen avocados from the dust
And stir the minestrone with stray bones

And after lunch
They loll and lounge about
Decanting claret in convenient skulls

God bless America (2003)

Here they go again,
The Yanks in their armoured parade
Chanting their ballads of joy
As they gallop across the big world
Praising America’s God.
The gutters are clogged with the dead
The ones who couldn’t join in
The others refusing to sing
The ones who are losing their voice
The ones who’ve forgotten the tune.
The riders have whips which cut.
Your head rolls onto the sand
Your head is a pool in the dirt
Your head is a stain in the dust
Your eyes have gone out and your nose
Sniffs only the pong of the dead
And all the dead air is alive
With the smell of America’s God.

Finally, here is Pinter reading 1997′s ‘Death’ from his monumental Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Death (1997)

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

Some Blogs I Read

I have a stable of blogs that I get to at least every week. I go there for the news, yes, but also for the writing. I’m not sure of the future of blogging, revolutionary or otherwise, but a couple of things coming out of the left blogging world need to be taken note of. The most important consequence is that a kind of regroupment takes place between like-minded bloggers, or bloggers that like each other’s minds. This sometimes happens through reference, but usually just through the linking of sites. Along with reaching past geographical boundaries it also has helped, a little at least, in breaking down some of the false organizational barriers we throw up. Communities can grow on-line around linked blogs creating a scene that our, largely secondary, differences can prevent on the ground. In deed, these communities have helped to create some new dynamics on the ground as well. Not enough, but some.

While most of the discussion on left-wing blogs still tends toward the sectariana, there is reason to be hopeful. I learn a huge amount about the world from both the posts and the comments of comrades. I couldn’t get through a day without clicking through some of my favorites and even though I have never met in person many of these comrades, I look forward to their voices and am proud to engage the enemy, in our own small way, with them from our different vantage points.

One of the reasons I occasionally find it hard to come up with something decent to say on this blog is that there are so many good revolutionary bloggers out there writing compelling posts day in and day out. I am in awe at the output of some bloggers; both quantity and quality. There are so many more deserving blogs than these and no slight is meant by any lack of inclusion. If readers have favorite blogs or know of ones that the Rustbelt should link to, by all means raise your voice. Here then are ten blogs picked almost at random; these are the last ten blogs I looked at.

The Solidarity Webzine (OK, not the best, most original name for a blog) is the blogroll of the US socialist group Solidarity, of which this writer is a proud, if occasionally frustrated, member. In my opinion the site really took off during the events in Madison earlier this year. It was my go-to place for the news of the day regarding the rebellion in Dairy Land. For the latest installment see Andrew’s Wisconsin: Three Months Later. And yes, I should post more on the webzine and comrade, so too should you.

Splintered Sunrise may have taken a different path recently, posting irregularly and often on the internal goings on of Catholicism, upsetting some of his Marxist audience (you can almost hear the cry ‘Judas!’ from some of his readers). I, too, admit to some bewilderment at the politics of the Church, but find myself reading along no matter. Splintered’s writing is splendid and humbling for those of us with pretensions. His run through the north’s constituencies in preparation for the last UK general election set the gold standard. Paid journalists were left in the dust. If there were any justice in the world Splintered would be well paid for his efforts and could devote full-time to his genuine talents. Whether your patron saint be Trotsky or Thomas, Splintered Sunrise has a story to tell. Read his review of Mark Steel’s ‘What’s Going On?’ to get a taste of his talents.

Sometimes the wade through the left blogosphere can be overwhelming. When I want a run down of what some of us are saying from day-to-day I head over to Swiftspeech! whose group of posters keep on eye on things across the spectrum. If you want to be introduced to new writers on the left stop by for the day’s juiciest quotes with links to an ever-expanding chorus of voices.

Madam Miaow, AKA Anna Chen, blogs from London on culture and politics. She is terribly funny, sometimes brutally so. This is no more true than when she is demolishing the male pretense, especially the one wielded by men of the left. Though I would not want to be on the receiving end of one of her eviscerations, I certainly enjoy reading them. Even if not the target, she keeps this male leftist on his toes wondering at his own ridiculous maleness. Anna’s specialty is the Asian experience in Britain and the west’s continued racism, hypocrisy and myopia regarding the Yellow Peril. She has her own, sharp perspective on the journey of the People’s Republic and even when I occasionally disagree with her on China ignoring what she says would be an act of willful ignorance. For a taste of where she’s coming from read Ai Weiwei: the Monkey King goes missing.

Having a hard time figuring out what to read? If it’s left-wing (and more) book reviews, both new and old, you are after look no further than the Resolute Reader. Here’s why taken from the bloggers ‘About’: ‘We all read for many reasons – entertainment or education perhaps. But I have to be clear that I also read to arm myself with knowledge and argument. Fundamentally I believe that we live in a world of vast inequality, a world whose priorities are not those of the people who live therein, but are those of a tiny percentage at the top of society. For me, reading is more than entertainment, it helps to illuminate the world around us and its history – all the more to make it easier to change things for the better. After all, in the words of one famous author “The Philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways. The point however, is to change it.” See, for example, a review of a (fantastic) book I just finished this week: William Cronon – Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England.

Mike Ely’s Kasama is the most important project coming out of the Maoist movement in some time. Even though my tradition be Trotskyist I constantly find myself challenged by Mike’s thinking. He may not win me over, but he has won me to the discussion. It is also one of the few places that get a lot of traffic where I often find the comments to be really valuable (too often you have to wade through snide point-making in a blogs comment section to get to something of interest). I, frankly, wish we had something like a Kasama project for Trots. For an example of Kasama’s discussion see Perp-walking into the Future: Problems of tankie fantasy.

When the Egyptian masses rose in rebellion there was one voice that I found to be essential in navigating the great events in Cairo and beyond. Egyptian blogger, activist and revolutionary Hossam El’Hamalawy is the most articulate, principled and charismatic voice of the Egyptian left. Finding news in English was difficult, finding leftist analysis from the ground in English almost impossible…until I came to 3arabway. Full of photos and videos, news and analysis this is essential blogging comrades. It has been my primary portal to understanding the Egyptian revolution and the role and position of the working class there. Updated daily and culled from Arab language sources as well as original material this brave revolutionary (recently summoned to the courts for his anti-police activism) represents the best in our tradition, in my opinion; a revolutionary Marxism deeply rooted in the aspirations and conditions of the working class. Check out the photos section (Hossam is also a keen photographer) for a taste of what you might have been missing.

Louis Proyect, former SWPer and Marxmail moderator, has been in the forefront of revolutionary blogging since it’s beginnings. I read Louis every day and, even though I agree with him 83% of the time, the 17% I don’t  (often over film) makes me want to tear my hair out. That said, Louis has done more than most to cajole recalcitrant Trots from their pretensions. Even when I find Louis guilty of some of the SWP navel-gazing he derides so well, I find him to be open and, for the most part, genuinely fair. In any case, Louis has stayed true to his calling, pointed a well-deserved finger at the faux Leninist disaster that was the 70s party building movement and has occasions of real brilliance. I wish Louis were more open to the possibilities of youth and had less of a ‘been there, done that’ dismissive attitude towards folks of my generation and younger, but we can all learn a lot from Louis and this blog certainly considers the Unrepentant Marxist a comrade. For a sample of where Proyect is coming from see his The Laurie Penny-SWP dispute.

Not only is Come here to me! the best blog about Dublin, it is the best blog about any city that I know of. It covers the genuine culture and history of the city, it’s working class pubs, its music, its football, its monuments, its posters and much, much more. According to the site ‘‘Come here to me’ is Dublin slang used to mean “Listen to this” or “I’ve something to tell you”. These phrases tend to imply a secretiveness or revelatory importance to the upcoming piece of information.’ Having been to the city just a few times, CHTM! makes me wish I had spent more time there (every time I’ve been to Ireland it seems I am leaving Dublin- not my favorite city) and got in on the secret. Any city with a history as rich as Dublin’s is bound to have a multitude of stories, most invariably get lost along the way. Come here to me! rescues them and redefines the parameters of folk history and folk culture with a ton of vignettes, images and minor postings that add up to such complex, thorough view of the city. Go to the site and wander around, it’s like a visit to the city, the real, working, Dublin. Every city needs their own Come here to me!, but alas, there is only one.

…And finally, perhaps the most esoteric blog I know of is Norn Iron’s own Professor Billy McWilliam’s 1690 an’ all thon. I always thought that Ulster Scots was joke until I came across the good Professor’s site. There McWilliams, who doesn’t bother to translate into English since it is English, takes us on a ruralist journey through ‘Ulster Scots stuff, Culture an’ the like when ah can be arsed.’ If you ever wanted to know the mind of ignorance and bigotry that has made the north of Ireland such a humorous and funny place this is your stop. The only blogger who has actually made me fall from my chair in pains of laughter, the Professor is no better than when explaining the history of Ireland in 14 parts (‘Thus the histerical histry o’ the Ulster Scot gaes back even fairther than the maist o’ us wud imagine til oorselves, and even mair the trueness o’ Ulster Scotsness has been proved by scientific larnin’.) or how a good Orangeman might celebrate the Glorious Twelfth if they happen to be away from the province ‘so that ye can ensure that yer culture an’ heritage dinnae go adrift jist because yer far frae hame.’

Our March

The great Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky speaks across the decades to our moment. The poem below was written in 1917, in the midst of events that the parlance of today would have called something like #October25Rev. If comrades have not yet had the great pleasure of making Mayakovsky’s acquaintance, though dead now 80 long years, there is no time like the present. He was, after all, a Futurist. The tramp of revolt on the square is echoing these hopeful days. And it is demanding to be taken up to heaven alive!

Our March

Beat the tramp of revolt in the square!
Up, row of proud heads!
We will wash every city in the world
With the surging waters
of a second Flood.

The bull of the days is skewbald.
The cart of the years is slow.
Our god is speed.
The heart is our drum.

Is there a gold more heavenly than ours?
Can the wasp of a bullet sting us?
Our songs are our weapons;
Ringing voices — our gold.

Meadows, be covered with grass,
Spread out a ground for the days.
Rainbow, harness
the fast-flying horses of the years.

See, the starry heaven is bored!
We weave our songs without its help.
Hey, you, Great Bear, demand
that they take us up to heaven alive!

Drink joys! Sing!
Spring flows in our veins.
Beat to battle, heart!
Our breast is a copper kettledrum.

2011 and the Distant Shore

Readers will forgive some of the abstractions and pretenses of this post; sometime the only possibility I have of making even a limited sense of the world, especially one in tumult, is to stand as far back as possible, finding a vantage point where the world can be seen painted in broad, thick strokes. Though, from a proper distance and a sufficient squinting of the eye, those broad, thick strokes can seem, and are, as supple as the most lithe calligraphy. The simplicity elegant rather than rude, even if the story it tells is incomplete.

Half the way into this momentous 2011 and already the year is surely to be placed alongside other dates down the centuries that have come to signify rebellion, transformation and, above all, the open possibility (even if it is only the promise of possibilities) to change, utterly, the conditions in which we find ourselves. I’ll leave to others to detail how we might have gotten here; what currents bubbled along, what old moles were burrowing, what new forces emerged, what spent forces faded and what the economic crises and political impasse of liberal, capitalist ‘democracy’ have placed on the formation and elaboration of these events. In the end, all are rooted not in the new or the novel, but in the decrepit and the rotten. The past is made modern as the modern is made past. If we seek to escape from this intolerable present it is only by (re)appropriating our past in that process that we have a chance.

As we are in the midst of great events, observation is often cursory, the outlook clouded by a myriad of variables and accidents. The mighty motive forces of collective and individual interest, of class and social reproduction, the conflict they engender and the environment in which they operate are the canvas on which contingency paints. In the world of revolution the outcome of certain moments are as determined by trade union resolutions and party organization, by the subjectivity of the masses and the objectivity of the situation, as they are by an unintentional stubbing of a toe or a missed bus or a mistranslated metaphor.

The forces of history can be contingent in their realization on the most mundane, the most unforeseeable of events; yet history moves with its laws and within certain parameters. In short, history [in its future tense] is not only unwritten, it is largely unwriteable, even if trends and certain of their consequences are clearly discernible and probability circumscribed by the material; subjective and objective. History is made by us, by our will and by our actions; as iron as this or that law of history may be a powerful collective and conscious agency can forge that iron in a furnace of our own making. We might, with the hammer of solidarity and the anvil of reaction, make a weapon to wield sharp enough to cut the throat of humanity’s common enemy. It would be an act of sublime mercy, it is the hope of the ages.

Waves do not cease. We are condemned to contend with wave after wave after wave, each one altering the shore, the ground we wish to, at least for a moment, plant our feet upon and build something solid. Here, on an alien(ated) and brutal shore, we might gather with comrades and look out to an immutable ocean made utterly mutable by the ever-changing swells and surges and declare ‘this is now, we are here, we are alive’ and again set out to the horizon, where a whole continent can be seen, and, with whatever confidence, knowledge and skills the experiences of the past have given us, embark to make a home there.

If we are lucky as well as skilled enough we might, surfer like, ride the waves of history, whose ebb and flow is as sure as its form is unpredictable, with our feet still on the board, controlling our response to the roil we ride that we might not drown, that we might reach the shore, that land where we might make ‘conditions most favorable to, and worthy of, [our] human nature…’ That we might carry others with us, though too many are destined to drown along the way.

This year, 2011, is a year of rebellion. A year where the masses of people, those whom ‘democratic’ institutions are supposed to be accountable to, have risen in a dozen countries and more to demand a new accountability in its most timid voice. But there are other voices rising far less timid, far less circumspect in their vision. These voices wish to extend democracy well beyond the limits and bourgeois ‘right’ and the entrepreneurial definition of the ‘franchise’. What we are seeing around the world, ignited in the Maghreb, but whose kindling has been gathering everywhere has a true universality; the underbrush which fuels the inferno has innumerable local and specific origins, but conflagrations merge; firestorms jump across valleys and meet on the ridges of history.

If this year marks a turning point, and I think it does, it is now up to us, to those who seek not be firefighters but erectors of funeral pyres around which a ‘carnival of the oppressed’ will dance and sings hymns in celebration, throwing into the flames those ‘tradition[s] of all the dead generations [which] weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living’ to act and act with all of the fearlessness, energy, radicalness apropos the moment, this very moment. In the process creating new traditions; in part continuous elaboration of the old and in part the creations of the utterly contemporary and the entirely present.

I think we are too experienced in the chorus of reversal to now sing such optimistic hymns, but we are fully justified in the humming of them, one hundred Tahrirs have have made it so. A faith in the future? A decisive break from the fetters of the ‘end of history’? Already the reaction and counter-revolution is consuming thousands of lives, attempting to cut off the hands grasping at their future in towns and villages across the landscape of revolt. Movements will be diverted and subsumed, the hope now made manifest, made real, may well be met by an assassin who, holding a cudgel over the broken skulls of rebellion proclaims for all of history to hear; ‘here I am, here is the future in which you placed your hopes.’ To which we have every right, no, duty to those who come after, to proclaim with the Old Man (then a very young man) in the years that opened the last blood-soaked century:

– Death to Utopia! Death to faith! Death to love! Death to hope! thunders the twentieth century in salvos of fire and in the rumbling of guns.

– Surrender, you pathetic dreamer. Here I am, your long awaited twentieth century, your ‘future.’

– No, replies the unhumbled optimist: You, you are only the present.

Dum spiro spero

Marxist Voices

Forgive the light postings as of late. Sometimes, even when ‘Th’ whole worl’s in a terrible state o’ chassis”, one can lose one’s voice. In lieu of my voice I present others far more capable. Last week in Zagreb (Zagreb?) at the Subversive Film Festival were a number of interesting lectures and discussions. Among them were Terry Eagleton on ‘The Mythologies of Marx’ and David Harvey discussing ‘Emancipation From What and From Whom?’ below. And finally the first in a multiple video panel discussion on ‘The Meaning of the Maghreb’ with David Harvey, Slavoj Žižek, Samir Amin and Zygmunt Bauman (István Mészáros was meant to be there, bu fell ill, I hope he is improving). Follow the link for the rest of the discussion. One of the reasons Marx will always be around is that his work tends to engage some of the more fertile minds among us. I’ve been to any number of branch meetings over the years where half the comrades in the room were, in their own way and in one way or another, brilliant. Even when I disagree with these folks, I find them terribly engaging and all these talks are well worth checking out.