Inspired by the daily litany of depressing news (and by reading Latour’s Down to Earth), I’ve succumbed to the temptation of writing a manifesto. Manifestos are cheap, I know, but we have to start somewhere. (And so many questions arise as you write one: about the proper balance between critique and vision, between generality and […]
Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
On cultural civil conflict
Posted in Cultural politics, Politics, tagged affect, affective contagion, civil religion, civil war, cultural civil war, cultural values, cultural war, culture, mass murder, politics of affect, red states-blue states, Trumpland, United States on October 5, 2017 | 8 Comments »
I think it’s fair to say that the United States is in a state of cultural civil war. It is cultural war in the sense that it is a war fought with signs and symbols rather than with guns — signs and symbols intended to elicit affiliation, allegiance, and identification with one or another party to the […]
Hysteria, or hope?
Posted in Cultural politics, Politics, tagged Charlottesville, cultural left, democracy, fascism, hope, hysteria, left, left politics, political left, Trump era on August 29, 2017 | 20 Comments »
Based on its title and on the snippets I saw being quoted, I fully expected to dislike Lee Jones’ article “Charlottesville and the Politics of Left Hysteria,” posted a few days ago at The Current Moment. Instead, I’ve found it nuanced, cogent, and well worth reading. I myself have tried to broach this topic of the […]
Inequality and environmental crisis
Posted in Eco-culture, Politics, tagged causes of environmental crisis, Danny Dorling, economics, environmental crisis, environmental economics, equality, global justice, inequality, neoliberalism on July 5, 2017 | 18 Comments »
As part of its Ford Foundation supported Inequality Project, The Guardian is providing a provocative glimpse of Oxford geographer Danny Dorling’s important research into inequality and the environment. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the complexities surrounding causes and potential solutions to the environmental crisis. Read the article here. No surprise that the US […]
Trump vs. the world
Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged Nicaragua, Paris climate accord, Trump, U.S. politics on June 2, 2017 | 2 Comments »
Trump’s speech on his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord included so many questionable statements, it’s hard to know where to start. Fortunately, others have. Among the better fact-checks are the Washington Post’s (this one and this one), FactCheck.org’s, NPR’s, PolitiFact’s, and the Huffington Post’s. Foreign Policy’s summary (which comes from a partisan source, but […]
On political volatility
Posted in Politics, tagged France, French elections, Le Pen, Macron, Melenchon, Sanders, Zizek on May 3, 2017 | 3 Comments »
While the French elections arguably offer little choice for those looking for radical eco-political options, there is a tendency to see in them — as in other recent political shifts — something that is altogether more negative than it need be. Slavoj Zizek, for instance, argues that the choice between Macron and Le Pen is a […]
May Day thoughts: on labor & livelihood
Posted in Manifestos & auguries, Politics, tagged Beltane, green movement, green politics, labor, labour, left, May Day, neoliberalism, revolution, revolutions, right livelihood, Walpurgis Day, Walpurgisnacht on May 1, 2017 | 4 Comments »
May Day (Beltane, Walpurga’s Day, et al.) is a good time for reflecting on politics, ecology, and possibility. The following can be considered part of a series on this blog. When neoliberalism is understood as the alliance between economic liberalization and social liberalization — that is, between those who would “liberate” capitalist markets (who sometimes get called fiscal […]
“We interrupt this programming…”
Posted in Politics, tagged Aleksandar Hemon, catastrophe, CIA, classified documents, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, hope, Inauguration Day, ontological destruction, Politics, William Connolly, X-Files on January 19, 2017 | 12 Comments »
Not that this blog has been very active recently, but with Inauguration Day upon us, a little reflection on our situation seems warranted… So, here’s where I see us. If a Clinton-led Democratic administration would have brought to power a coalition of neoliberal plutocrats and social and environmental progressives (with the balance probably tilting towards […]
In search of silver linings
Posted in Manifestos & auguries, Politics, tagged 2016 elections, alt-right, ClimateJustice, Donald Trump, Dugin, future of the university, Garrison Keillor, global environmental catastrophe, liberalism, meme magic, memetic warfare, Naomi Klein, neoliberalism, post-cinema, progressivism, Republicans, Tom Frank, Trump on November 10, 2016 | 8 Comments »
So, Donald Trump will be president of the United States and both Congress and Senate will be dominated by Republicans. Environmentalists and social justice activists, almost universally, find this idea horrifying. But there are silver linings to be found amidst the wreckage. Let’s explore a few of them.