a question of timing…
revolutionary temporality has always been a difficult issue. great thinkers have devoted a great number of pages to the subject. here at the wrong side of capitalism, we do our best to tackle these and other difficult questions, so in the spirit of this monumental task, we pose the central question of revolutionary time:
do we round up the capitalists first, and then cut the guts out of the bureaucrats? or, alternatively, are the guts prepared before we catch the capitalists to string them up?
a new slogan for the movement?
it’s just come to my attention that there was an obscure pulp fiction novel from the 50s/60s entitled “no wings on a cop.” feel free to fill that with whatever referential content you wish. it’s a shame i can’t find a picture of the cover, because it has a picture of a presumed cop wearing a cast on his arm…
this makes me think we could learn a lot from such novels. perhaps the black bloc central committee can put a working group on it asap.
Badiou on summit protests
Not really, but if I ever write anything at length on why we _do_ summit protests, I hope I’ll be able to work in this quote from ‘Politics as Truth Procedure’:
> Egalitarian politics can only begin when the State is configured, put at a distance, measured. It is the
> errancy of the excess that impedes egalitarian logic, not the excess itself. It is not the simple power of
> the state of the situation that prohibits egalitarian politics. It is the obscurity and measurelessness in
> which this power is enveloped. If the political event allows for a clarification, a fixation, an exhibition of
> this power, then the egalitarian maxim is at least locally practicable.
And the preceding paragraph is just great whatever way you look at it:
> Non-egalitarian consciousness is a mute consciousness, the capitve of an errancy, of a power which it
> cannot measure. This is what explains the arrogant and peremptory character of non-egalitarian
> statements, even when they are obviously inconsistent and abject. For the statements of contemporary
> reaction are shored up entirely by the errancy of state excess, ie the untrammelled violence of
> capitalist anarchy. This is why liberal statements combine complete certainty about power with total
> indecision about its consequences for people’s lives and the universal affirmation of collectives.
quote from Behan
I’ve just finished reading Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan. Here is a good quote about the troubles of a particular prison governor:
>…the PO looked at the governor who looked up slowly and said:
“You - er - heard that - er, Behan? That charge that the officer has just read?”
>’I did, sir,’ said I, with my hands at the seams of my trousers and looking manly, admitting my fault to to this tired old consul, weary from his labours among the lesser breeds, admininistering the King’s justice equal and fairly to wild Irish and turbulant Pathan, teaching fair play to the wily Arab and a sense of sportsmanship to the smooth Confucian. In my ballocks, said I in my own mind, you George-Arliss-headed fughpig, dull scruffy old creeping Jesus, gone past the Bengal Lancer act to where you started, like a got-up gentleman with a Curragh cap. Bejasus, any decent horse would drop dead from the shame if he managed to get up on it’s back. ‘I did, sir.’
Religion
just to balance out my quotes from prayers, here is marx on religion. I hadn’t heard the full quote before, but it is pretty cool:
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Karl Marx - Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
and here is emma goldman:
The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.
Emma Goldman - The Failure of Christianity
The Nicene creed
After Tim’s comments about the catholic hierarchy below i thought it would be good to print a prayer that is normally said at mass on sundays - it almost makes me want to be a catholic again…and it is even better in Latin.
>I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
>And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, by whom all things were made.
>Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
>And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
>And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen
A couple of people have convinced me that the Nicence creed is also said by people in the church of england (which really is religion-lite), so here is a prayer that I very much doubt is said by the C of E. It is to Michael the Archangel:
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in our day of battle; protect us against the deceit and wickedness of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.
And you, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God banish into hell Satan and all of the evil spirits who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Paul Lafargue
The proletariat, the great class embracing all the producers of civilized nations, the class which in freeing itself will free humanity from servile toil and will make of the human animal a free being, – the proletariat, betraying its instincts, despising its historic mission, has let itself be perverted by the dogma of work. Rude and terrible has been its punishment. All its individual and social woes are born of its passion for work.
(A reminder, if it were needed, that the Marx family were fucking fantastic)
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William Morris
It is necessary to point out that there are some Socialists who do not think that the problem of the organisation of life and necessary labour can be dealt with by a huge national centralisation, working by a kind of magic for which no one feels himself responsible; that on the contrary it will be necessary for the unit of administration to be small enough for every citizen to feel himself responsible for its details, and be interested in them; that individual men cannot shuffle off the business of life on to the shoulders of an abstraction called the State, but must deal with it in conscious association with each other.
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Karl Marx
“The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie.�
(I should thanks Socialism in an age of waiting for encouraging me to read the Communist Manifesto; it’s been a year or so since I last did, and I’m surprised and pleased to discover how sympathetic it is to a subjectivist reading. More quotes on this theme later, possibly)
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Dead Prez
“See I’ll be like John Wilkes Booth was to Lincoln – BLAM!�
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