Plunder Blog! Chilly comics
Barack Obama holds a mirror in his hannds. The mirror is all dirty of fresh blood. The face of Barack is surprised, perhaps a little disgusted. Someone might spot a little grim. He is not smiling. The mirror reflects the face of a white man with a very dumb look and a smile in his face. George W Bush and not Barack Obama is what the mirror returns to the latter holding it. Afghanistan: one hunndred civilians killed is written behind the comic.
This comic by Vauro has appeared on the Italian "Il Manifesto" of a few ddays ago and can be seen in www.ilmanifesto.it
As it is usually the case the comic conveys a very deep message. Continuity in imperial power. Do we want a nice emperor or should we be happier with a very nasty one? I believe George Bush did much more than most political movements to the cause of anti-imperialism just by existing being as awful, stupid, arrogant and blood-thirsty as he proved to be. I wonder if the nice guy as the emperor, the outsider at least as far as ethnicity is concerned, Barack Obama can do much for the anti-imperialist cause. I wonder what we should prefer.
And I wondr what he feels, if he is at all the good guy he looks, when these kinf of things of which he is now DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE happen. I really wonder it. Being the number one in a murderous imperial organization and perhaps being a nice guy. How must one feel?
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Vicki Nikolaidis says:
an imperial leader with a conscious?
What a horrible shock. . . continued use of drones, support of Pakistani air bombings, ad infinitum.
The massacre of innocent people is pure idiocy, purely criminal.
Even the murder of suspected 'terrorists' with no trial, no justice . . we'll never know the count of innocents killed because there was 'no time' for a trial.
There are benefactors, of course, the military arms manufacturers, their investors, and their bankers.
I looked for the cartoon on Il Manifesto but couldn't find locate the correct page. I guess I've lost most of my Italian.
Very vivid visual, definitely.
John Haskell says:
I wanted to raise something
I wanted to raise something that is intimated in the earlier post by Ugo, or maybe two things. First, the idea of 'responsibility' and second, what are the possible implications of sustaining a more radical critique of imperialism.
Responsibility...
Scott Veatch recently wrote a book, Law and Irresponsibility, where he demonstrates how the call for personal responsibility/liability (i.e., singaling out Bybee, Yoo and Gonzalez) is often a simultaneous effort to avoid any systemic complicity. Moreover, the very notion of personal responsibility attempts to locate the cause, and then to ascribe costs to that party. In doing so, however, it takes other options off the table - for instance, reform that would make whoever could best cover the costs be assigned damages, rather than trying to hold the causal agent liable. I am absolutely sympathetic to the call for holding officials accountable, but this can easily slip into a conservative argument whereby the rule of law is reaffirmed, purged of its excess.
Imperialism...
Of course, Lenin gave the famous definition of imperialism. More generally, when I think of 'imperialism', I think of a critique coming from the Marxist tradition. This carries some interesting implications, I think, that challenge our strategies as well as our beliefs. With the fall of the Soviet Union, global capitalism was seen triumphant over Marxism/communism. This was not just a victory of territory and resources, but more importantly of ideas - the fall of the Soviet Union marked the demise of a counter-ideology that provided both experimentation in the 'third' world, and a more tempered capitalist foreign policy.
Yet Marxism/Communism, as it played out in the Soviet Union, actually reproduced the core fantasy of global capitalism: the promise of endless production towards human advantage (albiet in a more egalitarian form). In many ways, however, to break down global routinization of capital, the systemic exploitation and reproduction of inequalities and oppression, it is exactly this challenge that faces professed radicals today. On the one hand, do we wish to put forward a vision that looks to a world where industrialization is reconceptualized, where global systems are de-routinized, where class operates locally on a more level of exchange, and so on? On the other hand, do we look instead to reform industrialization, or to open it up to more agents, proposing a cosmopolitan sensibility? The problem with putting forward cosmopolitan virtues is that much of this is itself dependent on the very system it criticizes. Moreover, it tends to only call for the liberal promise to be fulfilled, rather than offering any new vision. This is compounded by the tendency to retreat into some sort of local, more authentic idea of governance - itself a version of nostalgia for an imaginary pastoral ideal.
If there are necessarily winners and losers. If we are actually not able to give up much of the comforts we are accustomed to. If we are not willing to take personal risks to enact change. The question is, then what do we do? This seems to me where much of the 'left' resides today. We want change and are sympathetic sometimes to the reasons for violence, but we do not wish to take an active, hands-on role in violence ourselves. We are willing to make some sacrifices, but it is difficult to imagine that these sacrifices would go too far before some retrenchment (i.e., trade unions talking about 'the American dream') seizes the movement. And when we realize that we have to pick winners and losers from our privileged positions, it becomes increasingly difficult to not become a paranoid structuralist, questioning ever moment of 'emancipation' as simply a new ideological framework not yet visible - beneath all virtue are the politics of the will to power. What is the challenge, and what are the projects for progressives/left today that would rise to the times?
Vicki Nikolaidis says:
new frame of reference to better reach desirable goals
I understand the concept of removing punishment of personal blame when real positive reform is possible. I'm not sure I'm comfortable about how that could happen. For example, in cases where a toxic site has been identified (in the U.S.) the most recent owner of the property with the resources to pay for the clean up and damages (such as health costs) is tapped for payment. So if the corporation which caused the problem goes bankrupt, the government goes back to the previous owner and so on. With the example of the lawyers you mention I think they should be punished for their very damaging mistakes and not be allowed to carry on as lawyers or teach law. But too punish them further, say with jail, doesn't seem proper unless the those in the hierarchy above them are also judged against the law and also punished. Punishment starting at the top and assuming Bush/Cheney are the top of the hierarchy would be more fitting. I have a hard time swallowing the premise that Bush/Cheney should could unchallenged for their unlawful actions so that the country doesn't have to experience the tit for tat that conservatives have as a reaction.
I have an open mind though and I if you could explain the concept a bit further that would be helpful!
I suspect that the possibility of local commerce and local factories can mesh very well with a global trade economy so that each area of the world has access to those products or services which aren't available in the local community. I haven't thought of it in terms of industrialization so much as I think of it as entrepreneurship and original ideas. In other words, a factory building wind turbines in the SW U.S. will be different than one building wind turbines in the Canadian NW because the design needs to be different to fit local needs as well as the process will be different to fit the needs of the community and the workers. Yet the availability of tools, parts, or raw materials on the world market are easily tapped.
Yes, we absolutely need to make sacrifices but it's not the sacrifice itself that are difficult for people: it's the change. For example, all over the u.S. are found homes running with alternative methods of gaining electricity. Yet the idea of a change is hard for people to accept and perhaps the idea of having to take personal responsibility for generating some or all of the energy used in the home.
The seemingly simple act of accepting night as a dark part of the day and Turning off the majority of lights, could make a very big difference in energy needs in the u.s. Yet even in the 70's during the "oil crisis" the amount of brightness at night was really incredible and nonsensical. I don't know if this is fear of change, denial, or some psychological hang up of fear of change and accepting the american dream of whatever, whenever we want has failed.
I also agree that right and left labels have never been helpful. Each trade union has a personality all it's own and some with self defeating attitudes.
I see the challenge and projects for progressives/the left/liberals, etc. as being facing reality and building on a basis of common sense. the leaders in D.C. are not going to lead, that is a reality. But there are very wise leaders in other parts of the country, by region or by local community that we need to embrace and promote.
As for projects, the most important would be to build local health and recovering clinics, as many as there are churches and as there are liquor stores. Giving people the ability to act responsibly means no addiction that sucks money from the community and leads to personal failure which enriches those that are pushing drugs (legal and illegal) and bad health and homelessness. The clinics must be built at the grassroots level. There are examples of small successes that can be used to start the process. Such as doctors that refuse to deal with insurance companies.
On a larger level - Harvest and buy all the poppies from Afghanistan, make hospital grade morphine and give it to hospitals.
Help the farmers rejuvinate their soil, help communities harvest water. Once people have a means to feed themselves and enough water available - people have strengh and they start their own projects, solve their own problems.
In the U.S. and Africa the same process: build up the soil (not with chemicals or chemical companies involved, of course, not involved anywhere). Teach people how to harvest water, use water efficiently, reuse water, etc. Make sure water and soil management are excellent - and let people get back to the business of living decently and with dignity.
The reason good, wise water and soil management are so important is because these are the two natural resources humans can not live without. With this goal people will be fed and the stress on the environment will be relieved to manageable levels.
I hope my comments address some of the issues you raise! Please let me know your thoughts.
John Haskell says:
All the ideas about how we
All the ideas about how we could move towards a more sustainable environmental future make a lot of sense. I'm with you, and it seems that especially with the environment, while there are a lot of battles that seem very uphill, there are a lot of battles that can be won. The environmental concerns often cut across political classes (or perhaps are a preoccupation of the middle class and the cultural elite). I completely stand with you on this.
But I think there are still two questions that aren't answered, at least not unpacked enough.
First, while learning new consumptive habits feels like a necessary step (if not by choice, perhaps just circumstantially forced into this position), it does not get to the problem of the vastly unequal distribution of wealth/privilege - poverty/suffering. In other words, is the problem we face today merely an issue of habitual over-consumption, or is it something more systemic and political, and that cannot then be merely corrected by a change in behavior. In fact, it seems that the only people who would have to change their behaviours are those who cannot afford to do otherwise, so once again the costs of environmental reform will be born primarily on the backs of the working classes. We can assume that in the future there will be a move towards increasing environmental reform, but the issue is who will be paying the costs of this reform?
Second, what I was getting at concerning how to attribute responsibility for torture is that 1) we should have prosecutions, but realize that the individuals prosecuted merely stand in for a systemic failure that is always present with us and that demands more sweeping and broad reform, 2) rather than focus on holding the perpetrator liable, which turns us to having to try and prove cause/effect and so on, we should instead assess the costs and attribute the financial obligation to the parties that are most able to pay for it, and 3) the idea of torture invokes criminal law, but what is fascinating to me is thinking about how torture has also acted to quaranteen criminal law so that it doesn't get broadened to apply to, say, corporate crime.
Finally, more on the first point, it seems to me that much of our cosmopolitan lifestyles are ultimately not sustainable for everybody, and that the system we enjoy, and that facilitates our lifestyles, requires great disparity of privilege - in other words, there are a lot of dark sides to our cosmpolitan virtue. Chief among these is the reliance still on endless production (environmental reform itself would come with new costs as it opens up whole new industrials and closes down others, along with lots of jobs in the process). I agree with you that the leaders in DC are largely obstacles to enacting the kind of changes needed, but this just highlights how entrenched the current power structure is, which actually enjoys heavy support from the public, and which leaves progressives simply unable to compete with major financial agents. We are simply outspent, outproduced, outmarketed, and so on... So, how do we get from being the loyal opposition, to actually changing the stakes of the debate/politics, and how can this be done without violence?
jdh
Vicki Nikolaidis says:
For anyone to survive everyon must participate
Poor environment has affected the poor and the middle class more dramatically in the U.S. But rich and/or powerful are effected by air pollution, unhealthy food, and sometimes even poor health care.
I don't know what you mean by 'cultural elite', sounds interesting though.
The problem isn't only a problem of overcomsuption. Characteristics such as greed, entitlement, arrogance, recognizing anyone different as less deserving, the political structure of letting bankers and corportations have control of the political system, the willingness to use addiction, weapons and prisons as the largest money making ventures, the ability of mining and oil companies to murder without punishment, the ability of mining and oil companies to stop R&D on renewable resources and sustainable agriculture, etc.
I must not have a lawyerly mind, but I'm still thinking about the second point having to do with what to do about preventing torture. Respecting interantional law would make a big difference.
Let's keep talking about the subject and I'll be able to grasp the idea at some point!
No question distribution of wealth is critical. I don’t agree that enivronmental reform would be particularly expensive unless the government tries to nationalize production of solar panels, etc. That would probably be a disaster! Everything can be handled at a smaller level. Factories and industries can be refit for reasonable production goals without starting over, jobs could be reoffered, products that are needed could be produced. . .
Anything is possible, even change, without violence. Although fear of change is more powerful than I had ever imagined!
The two areas which are related and which the government is failing miserably are the environment and healthcare. I don’t see heavy support from the public, only heavy support from bankers and corporations for many powerful “public representatives” in D.C. on these two issues.
We have to support those politicians who are really working for us. They do exist! But mostly we have to take the necessary work and activities into our own hands.
The violence will continue against citizens demanding a democratic right to be heard, journalists, people with cameras, by-standers, but I have hope this may be turned around within the United States, anyway. Well, the possibility is pretty unlikely but I have hope from looking at examples in the recent past.
I’ve written some essays about these subjects. I’ll put some things on my blog ASAP. Come visit me there!
I enjoy discussing these subjects because they are really hard to chew on without somebody else’s input!