2008 was the year the Global Minotaur expired.
2009 was the year of the post-Minotaur bailouts.
2010 was the calm before the storm.
2011 was the year of the Arab Spring.
2012 was the year of the indignados.
2013 was the year of Taksim and Rio.
2014 was the year of Maidan, Kurdistan, Occupy Hong Kong and Jokowi.
2015 is going to be the Year of the Witcher.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
"Swallow us -- and your Empire dies."
The ruble is imploding, which is not a surprise to anyone who follows geopolitics seriously. In fact, the collapse was accurately predicted all the way back in February 2013 by Yuri Romanenko, who wrote this scintillating essay, The Steel Jaws of History. Historians will probably regard it as the manifesto of the Maidan -- the moment when Eurasia's anti-colonial nationalisms finally converged with its anti-neoliberal mobilizations. My own rough-and-ready translation of the essay (corrections are welcome in the comments):
The Steel Jaws of History
by Yuri Romanenko
February 2, 2013
Ukrainians, we are a great nation. We pulverize everyone who gets in our way.
That's not to say we have our own Napoleon or Alexander the Great.
They're not necessary.
We take the fortress through the side gate.
We act like a sweet poison – we're pleasant to drink, but then you slowly and painfully die.
We effortlessly gave birth to [Valentin] Glushko, [Natasha] Korolev, [Ivan] Paskevich and [Pavel] Rybalko.
Such a captivating empire.
They love our immense people.
But we're bait. Swallow us, and your empire dies. Sooner or later.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Austro-Hungary, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union.
Our wake is everywhere.
If you're an expanding empire – don't touch Ukraine.
You'll die.
Inevitably. Inexorably. Instructively.
Ukraine – the pulverizer of meaning. The acid of history. The devourer of prospects.
The Edge of [Stephen King's] Langoliers. The Damned of Chernozem. The Anteroom of Chaos.
That's our unique position in the global arena. Note: not a bad position to have.
We only need to understand it. And take advantage.
It's time to understand the main contradiction of the Ukrainian character.
We have just enough: resources, crazy people.
The only thing we've lacked: an understanding of our own strength.
Really, we are the quintessential vitality of the people.
We know how to adapt.
Occupy niches.
We know how to win.
We don't attack by rushing ahead. This much, history taught us. We attack the flanks.
Bore from within.
When we realize we are powerful, then sooner or later we come to imperial forms of thinking.
Strength generates scale thinking.
We have the power, but not the scale.
The world is the scale. If you want to own the world – master its scale. No other way.
When we get things together at scale - we will have tremendous prospects.
We just need to get rid of whatever doesn't cut it worldwide.
We need less victimization, less sleaze, less meanness, less stupidity, less envy, less stubbornness.
More openness, more reciprocity, more trust, more perseverance, more persistence, more curiosity.
What is to become of Ukrainians?
If you want to become stronger, and to change things – you need to get others together.
It's time to change.
Those who can't change – have no future.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Biji Kurdistan
From the heart of Eurasia, from the soul of one of Eurasia's greatest peoples, the gift of song from Heskif Orkestra: "I Am Kobane".
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Wage Slavery
New frontiers in US corporate innovation: wage-slaves have no right to be paid.
After 35 years of falling real wages, the time has come for US workers to junk this failed Empire and start organizing democratic, membership-run unions.
After 35 years of falling real wages, the time has come for US workers to junk this failed Empire and start organizing democratic, membership-run unions.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Geopolitics, the Laugh Track
Joke:
One fine day, the EU and the US decided to have a competitive race over which geopolitical entity would find a way to destroy their middle-class through plutocratic looting and dumbass imperial wars the soonest.
So who finally won?
Putin's Russia.
One fine day, the EU and the US decided to have a competitive race over which geopolitical entity would find a way to destroy their middle-class through plutocratic looting and dumbass imperial wars the soonest.
So who finally won?
Putin's Russia.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
All Tomorrow's Blog-parties
It's fascinating how would-be radical blogs in the US blogosphere mimic the life-cycle of the authoritarian Left parties which historically preceded them. These blogs first emerged out of scattered, desperate moments of individual resistance to neoliberalism -- a textual Leninism, as it were, borne of the irreconcilable confrontation between the critical consciousness and the thorny contradictions of neoliberalism.
During moments of neoliberal crisis, and if the blog founder has the requisite talent and energy, the blog quickly expands. It soon hits its peak with a slew of fresh contributors, each contributing something new and useful to the conversation.
At a certain point, however, the intellectual reach and managerial capacity of any single founder (or even group of founders) begins to run aground on the sheer amount of information aggregated by the site. That information requires a collective set of skills, theories, and experiences, and most of all a cooperative division of labor which must be slowly and painfully constructed over time (think of the effort required to create and maintain the average university department).
This necessity comes into conflict with the original mandate of the blog, which was to showcase the particularity of the founder's voice. The inevitable result is a wild oscillation between information bloat -- useful items are buried under an ocean of trivia -- and trolling -- the recourse to lazy epithets, idiotic cliches, and foolish propaganda. Both poles of the oscillation drive out thoughtful posts and rigorous critical thinking.
At a certain point, it becomes a chore to sift through the dross to find the gems. Suddenly, textual Leninism generates the inevitable recoil of administrative recentralization, a.k.a editorial Stalinism. The critique of neoliberal dogma turns into a new kind of doxa -- as stagnant and unthinking as what it once claimed to critique. The same bloggers who once shared their insights on topics they know better than anyone else suddenly turn, as if by magic, into the most provincial and ignorant blowhards, whenever they are confronted with concepts or experiences outside of their professional competence. They stop doing original research, reading new books, or engaging in any contemporary cultural activity, and retreat to an inner circle of long-time experiences, arguments and cronies.
The most characteristic sign of this new doxa is the intellectual regression away from class struggle and back into conspiracy theory. In the realm of the US blogosphere, this new doxa critiques the lies of the US plutocracy - by declaring the lies of non-American plutocrats to be truth. It critiques the genocides of the US empire - by denying that the genocides of the numerous other empires in the world-system ever happened. It complains endlessly about the foolish voters who vote for the Reps or Dems - by denying that any other country has elections worth paying attention to, or democratic processes worth learning from, or actual citizens with their own opinions and modes of political organization.
The laudable attempt to democratize information recoils into its opposite: into yet another information monopoly, where the self-selected few know all -- because the masses are, by definition, too stupid to know anything, and anyone who disagrees is obviously a CIA agent. That is why the single most prevalent emotional tone of such blogs is a chaotic, insensate despair -- leavened with rage at the occasional dissident and heretic who dares to contradict the doxa.
To paraphrase Brecht, even if has a thousand posters, such blogs end up having only one-tenth of a brain.
Conversely, the task for we digital commoners of the 21st century is to do just the opposite: to enable a network of one hundred to think with the productivity of one thousand. One of the most intriguing models for this productivity is the transnational videogame studio, where small groups of three to four hundred talented developers are creating game-worlds and interactive experiences far richer, more detailed, and more satisfying than the multiple thousands of personnel and hundreds of millions of dollars required by the average Hollywood blockbuster.
During moments of neoliberal crisis, and if the blog founder has the requisite talent and energy, the blog quickly expands. It soon hits its peak with a slew of fresh contributors, each contributing something new and useful to the conversation.
At a certain point, however, the intellectual reach and managerial capacity of any single founder (or even group of founders) begins to run aground on the sheer amount of information aggregated by the site. That information requires a collective set of skills, theories, and experiences, and most of all a cooperative division of labor which must be slowly and painfully constructed over time (think of the effort required to create and maintain the average university department).
This necessity comes into conflict with the original mandate of the blog, which was to showcase the particularity of the founder's voice. The inevitable result is a wild oscillation between information bloat -- useful items are buried under an ocean of trivia -- and trolling -- the recourse to lazy epithets, idiotic cliches, and foolish propaganda. Both poles of the oscillation drive out thoughtful posts and rigorous critical thinking.
At a certain point, it becomes a chore to sift through the dross to find the gems. Suddenly, textual Leninism generates the inevitable recoil of administrative recentralization, a.k.a editorial Stalinism. The critique of neoliberal dogma turns into a new kind of doxa -- as stagnant and unthinking as what it once claimed to critique. The same bloggers who once shared their insights on topics they know better than anyone else suddenly turn, as if by magic, into the most provincial and ignorant blowhards, whenever they are confronted with concepts or experiences outside of their professional competence. They stop doing original research, reading new books, or engaging in any contemporary cultural activity, and retreat to an inner circle of long-time experiences, arguments and cronies.
The most characteristic sign of this new doxa is the intellectual regression away from class struggle and back into conspiracy theory. In the realm of the US blogosphere, this new doxa critiques the lies of the US plutocracy - by declaring the lies of non-American plutocrats to be truth. It critiques the genocides of the US empire - by denying that the genocides of the numerous other empires in the world-system ever happened. It complains endlessly about the foolish voters who vote for the Reps or Dems - by denying that any other country has elections worth paying attention to, or democratic processes worth learning from, or actual citizens with their own opinions and modes of political organization.
The laudable attempt to democratize information recoils into its opposite: into yet another information monopoly, where the self-selected few know all -- because the masses are, by definition, too stupid to know anything, and anyone who disagrees is obviously a CIA agent. That is why the single most prevalent emotional tone of such blogs is a chaotic, insensate despair -- leavened with rage at the occasional dissident and heretic who dares to contradict the doxa.
To paraphrase Brecht, even if has a thousand posters, such blogs end up having only one-tenth of a brain.
Conversely, the task for we digital commoners of the 21st century is to do just the opposite: to enable a network of one hundred to think with the productivity of one thousand. One of the most intriguing models for this productivity is the transnational videogame studio, where small groups of three to four hundred talented developers are creating game-worlds and interactive experiences far richer, more detailed, and more satisfying than the multiple thousands of personnel and hundreds of millions of dollars required by the average Hollywood blockbuster.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Panda-monium
China's summer internet sensation: the Chopstick Brothers' Little Apple. It's outrageously, deliriously good, brimming with more postcolonial smackdowns than you can shake a camcorder at. The song is Chinese, while the video is South Korean, making this one of the first East-Southeast Asian transnational blockbusters.
If you downloaded the video or teach media, feel free to download these English-language SRT subtitles (I've slightly corrected them and cued them to match the video), available here.
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| The Chopstick Brothers (筷子兄弟) |
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| Bae Seul-Ki (배슬기) All But Steals the Show |
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