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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Assessing Murray Bookchin’s legacy

Posted in Eco-culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2016 | 5 Comments »

Damian White has posted an excellent review of Janet Biehl’s book Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin at the Jacobin blog. Bookchin’s legacy has undergone something of a revival of late thanks to the efforts of Kurdish eco-socialist communitarians in Rojava.

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The I=PAT of mass murder, and its antithesis — joy

Posted in Cultural politics, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

Just as I=PAT serves as a handy, if problematic, formula for thinking about the causes of environmental impact, so I think there is a similar formula underlying tragedies like the massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. It goes something like this: Hate + Technology + Distress = Carnage/Chaos

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Wark on the geopolitics of the Anthropocene

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , on May 7, 2016 | 2 Comments »

McKenzie Wark has written a very provocative piece on the geopolitics of the Anthropocene, or what he calls “The Geopolitics of Hibernation.” A quote: 

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Following the (in)action in Paris, updated

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , on December 15, 2015 | 5 Comments »

This article has been revised since it was first posted. It consists of a list of useful sources providing ongoing coverage of, and initial post-conference reactions to, the COP21 conference and mobilizations in response to it. Please suggest any other helpful sources and links in the “Comments.” (Previously suggested links have been added and the comments removed.)  Originally published: Dec. […]

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Post-Paris thoughts: The beginning of the end?

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , , on December 13, 2015 | 7 Comments »

The Paris climate talks were successful in that they resulted in an agreement that is both better than nothing and better than most of us expected. They were a failure in that even if they are followed to the letter — and there’s no provision for enforcing whether anyone follows them or not — they would […]

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Climate Justice for dummies

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , on December 9, 2015 | 1 Comment »

Here’s how I would explain the concept of Climate Justice in four easy steps: The wealthiest 1% emit 2500 times more greenhouse gases than the poorest 1%. Those greenhouse gases are in the process of changing the Earth’s climate to render it uninhabitable for the kind of mix of human & nonhuman species that exists […]

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To bother (with protest), or not?

Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, Politics, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2015 | 2 Comments »

Writing in The Independent, “Left accelerationists” Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek make the case that we need not bother protesting the Paris climate summit. There are better things to do than that. They argue, first, that the negotiators won’t change anything under pressure, and probably won’t even notice that pressure coming from the streets. (Especially […]

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The Rojava Experiment

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2015 | 3 Comments »

Wes Enzinna’s New York Times Magazine article on “The Rojava Experiment” finally gives mainstream recognition to what has been happening among the Kurds of northern Syria. As he writes, “In accordance with a philosophy laid out by a leftist revolutionary named Abdullah Ocalan, Rojavan women had been championed as leaders, defense of the environment enshrined […]

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The climate connection

Posted in Climate change, Politics, tagged , , , , , on November 19, 2015 | 1 Comment »

How connected are the recent Paris attacks with the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 21 (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)? At first glance, the targeting of Paris for ISIS’s act of war on civilian populations would seem to be motivated by other things: France’s role in […]

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A time for grieving, a time for analysis

Posted in Cultural politics, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2015 | 1 Comment »

Sometimes discussions in social media feel like the internal conversations of a person with severe multiple-personality disorder trying hard to give equal voice, or at least free rein, to their many voices. And I find I can agree with all or most of those voices; and at the same time disagree. In a facebook debate […]

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What’s happening?

Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , on November 9, 2015 | 2 Comments »

The beginning of COP 21, the UN Conference on Climate Change, is three weeks away. So what else is happening, you ask? 1) The Campaign Against Climate Change‘s Time to Act! campaign, 350.org, Reclaim Power, and various other formations are preparing actions around the world on the eve of the summit (November 28-29) and a huge demonstration in Paris […]

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Global disorder, the left, & a new democracy

Posted in Cultural politics, Manifestos & auguries, Politics, tagged , , , , on November 1, 2015 | 1 Comment »

The following is something I wrote a while back that I have not had a chance to do anything with. I’m sharing it here simply because it will otherwise languish. It is a reflection on the political left and its failings in a changing global situation, a situation marked by inequality on a global scale, by increasing, […]

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