through europe - revolution

Squandering: the case for disrespectful opportunism

Federico Campagna — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:38:15 +0000

Hitherto you have believed there were tyrants.

Well, you are mistaken: there are only slaves.

When nobody obeys nobody commands.

Anselme Bellegarigue, 1850

Promises

Why do people work? If they are not insane, they do it for the money. And what do they need this money for? To buy freedom from work. At the same time, money seems to be necessary to escape from the money-obsession of the poor, just like work seems to be necessary to escape from the work-obsession of the unemployed. The apparent non sequitur of these connections is the description of the logical loop in which most humans live and function in today’s society. Strangely enough, the very origin of their endless tail-chasing seems to be their desire to achieve a state of freedom, that is, an escape form the loop itself.

How could the human desire for freedom turn into a self-perpetuating and enslaving mechanism? Within the contemporary landscape, the answer lies in the way capitalism, as it always does, manages to take our requests to the letter, and to return them to us realized, if slightly modified. That slight modification, as we all know, is the tiny poison pill that turns all our ‘realized’ demands into even stricter chains. This is how, over the years, capitalism realized the requests for flexible work, sexual liberation, democracy, and so on. Capitalism always gives us what we want, but it does so in such a way that brings to reality the darkest warnings of the old saying, ‘be careful what you wish for’.

Turbulence of Radiation and Revolution

Sabu Kohso — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:01:38 +0000

An Ex Post Facto View of 2011

When we reflect upon the year 2011, especially the situations surrounding 3/11 and the global uprisings, everything that happened before appears to have been in preparation for these two extreme moments. All events in the recent past seem to have been proceeding toward or engulfed into these currents: radiation and revolution. This is mainly due to our habit of thinking itself that always thinks things ex post facto rather than ex ante facto. But at the same time this most deadly disaster and the insurrections across the globe, the extreme poles of despair and hope, are framing our present as the accumulation of all temporalities past and present and what they portend for possibilities we are confronting now. The impossible mix of the two currents is, as many of us are forced to experience, now causing a global turbulence whose dynamics and orientation are unpredictable.

For one thing there are unprecedented crises in the lives of the majority on the globe. All key components of the apparatus that capitalism and state power have been building up are now on the verge of collapse and are turning against and attacking the people with sheer violence, as a last resort for the maintenance of financial capitalism, industrial/military conglomeration and the governance: precarious labor conditions approaching either servitude or disposal (expendability), debt of various scales imposed upon entire populaces, genetically modified or poisoned food products widely distributed for daily consumption, environmental contamination by various production and mining affecting the locals everywhere, escalading joblessness and homelessness, budget cuts in every corner of public services, recurring racial and gender discrimination, police brutality or war against civilians in all nation-states, and the radiation-spread instigated by a government itself… Jobs, money, housing, energy, food, medicine and environment – everything we rely on as our lifeline turns into a weapon against us. This is a total war of those in power waged against the commoners.

Investimento libidinale. Amore e rivoluzione ai tempi della crisi

Stefano Dorigo — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:19:05 +0000

Appoggiato sulla balaustra del palazzo dei congressi, vedo il bus partire.
Ho evitato di attendere la partenza alla fermata per non sembrare troppo… diciamo ridicolo, anche se non è il termine migliore. Voglio evitare di dare l’idea di quello che si prende subito per la prima ragazza che gli presta attenzione, ma… se ho passato tutta la notte in giro per Parigi assieme ai compagni di Rimini è perché Sabrina e i suoi occhi mi avevano stregato. Meglio non starci a pensare.

History is made of tweets

Adelita Husni-Bey — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:35:00 +0000

Andavamo dal macellaio a Fueihat, nella zona Est di Bengasi. Non mi piaceva entrare dal macellaio, c’era un odore pesante, le carcasse appese a grossi uncini di acciaio, il sangue gocciolava sulle piastrelle chiare dei pavimenti, le teste di pecora scuoiate ci guardavano con gli occhi sbarrati. Preferivo stare in macchina, a Milano i macellai non erano così, a Milano la morte era celata. Invece alla macelleria di Saad andavo volentieri, Saad aveva incollato delle vecchie foto in un angolo della vetrinetta, lo scotch era ingiallito, pensai che le foto dovevano avere un gran freddo nel reparto frigo, che qui paesaggi della Bengasi antica, pieni di palme verdeggianti e giovani in maglietta non dovevano passarsela bene a 6 gradi, da 30 anni…

Il terrorismo del desiderio

Francesca Coin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:03:14 +0000

ovvero di rivoluzione e miele
ovvero lettera ai compagni (e a Jung)

Vorrei parlare di una storia d'amore, quella tra Carl Gustav Jung e Sabina Spielrein. Il mio scopo in realtà è provare a discutere con un pò di cognizione di causa il cosiddetto scandalo sessuale che attuttoggi nella sua miseria eccita i media. Premetto che poco m'importa della cosa in sè, m'importa il fatto che tale scandalo abbia in realtà ben poco di scandaloso, anzi costituisca la prassi stessa in cui muovono oggi destra e sinistra istituzionale e non, ovvero buona parte dei potenti insieme ai rivoluzionari.