#insurgent notes

[swamp-wanderer]

Hopes for Syriza’s negotiations with the banking troika in the EU simmered and even boiled over among elements of the left, especially after the vaunted “No” referendum vote suggested that the Greeks would not succumb to another wave of austerity measures but would instead stand firm, even if this meant potentially leaving the EU. We have seen these hopes dashed by the subsequent “negotiations,” in which Tsipras seemed to have negotiated backwards, arriving at an agreement that was worse than the one rejected by the Greek voters in the referendum vote. This development has been characterized by some on the left as a blow to the working class, and to the leftist, world-historical opposition to neo-liberal capitalism.

[eveyveveryv]

My response to the problematic described by Insurgent Notes (and anyone else reflecting on the uptick in struggle here in NYC):  intermediate layer groupings.

We must emphasize the extent to which the mobilizations in this period ran ahead of even the most radical wings of the organized left. One of the few exceptions—the break-away march that split from the Millions March—proves the rule: despite its high intensity and militant chants, it lasted little more than 20 minutes and failed to spread beyond people already affiliated with NYC’s radical scene. If anything, the Millions March served to highlight the increasing distance between the radical scene and militants that are organically part of anti-police (or anti-police brutality) movement. Moving forward, one of the pressing questions for the anarchist and left-communist milieu will be how to build tangible relationships with the new militants coming out of this cycle of protests.

[eveyveveryv]

While the wealthy dance and drink fine wine in a futuristic playground, working people suffer on the outskirts -- hungry, heavily policed, and struggling to secure basic subsistence. Once there was the chance for revolution, but now it’s a distant memory, a discarded hope kept at bay by brutal police, aching poverty, and the separation of working people into small segregated areas afraid or unable to talk to each other in a meaningful way.  Is this Panem of The Hunger Games, or the America of 2014? Questions of whether The Hunger Games belongs to the “left” or “right” typically inhabit the same old partisan sideshow where answers are determined in advance and politics is a matter of arguing opinions. This is not the domain of revolution, which in 2014 must be the site of unanswered questions and argumentation by action. Join a group of activists, organizers, and revolutionaries to discuss the meaning of The Hunger Games to the class struggle in America. What does the popularity of this book and movie series tell us about the popular imagination? How is it read and understood by young people about to enter the job market with little hope of success? Think ahead to what an American revolution could look like, what do we make of Katniss’s struggle against not only the unjust class society she inhabits, but the authoritarian alternative that calls itself the revolution?  Join activists, authors and revolutionaries John Garvey, Jasmine Gibson, Jarrod Shanahan and Yuko Tonohira for a discussion moderated by Jocelyn Cohn and sponsored by Unity and Struggle and Insurgent Notes. Bring questions and points for discussion.

https://www.facebook.com/events/779599785419799/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

[eveyveveryv]

What about credentials? Hiring practices in what might be considered the primary labor markets effectively exclude large numbers of people from consideration for better-paying jobs because they lack credentials—adversely affecting those who have been least successful in schools. This is in spite of the fact that there is frequently little evidence that what’s been learned during the acquisition of the credential has much to do with successful job performance or even with the more effective acquisition of technical skills (see Collins, Credential Society ).

...

Let’s put two and two together. The civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s initiated a process, uneven to be sure, to end legally sanctioned race discrimination. But, the election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, it is evident that black, and many Hispanic, individuals and communities live in deeply oppressive circumstances rooted in high rates of unemployment and low incomes. There has been a lot of handwringing as well as lots of vicious drivel about why this is so. But it should be clear that the combination of credential inflation, massive educational failure, especially in black and Hispanic communities, and the elimination of millions of industrial jobs, has all but guaranteed the reproduction of a racially stratified society.