http://hydrarchy.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-is-left.html What is the Left? An excerpt from The Paris Commune: A Political Declaration on Politics in Polemics, Verso, 2006.

Civil Society, Citizenship and the Politics of the (Im)possible: Rethinking Militancy in Africa Today by Michael Neocosmos Abstract The contemporary critique of neo-liberalism has concentrated overwhelmingly on its economic theory and socio-economic effects. Very little has been written so far on its political conceptions, particularly of the limited thinking which it imposes on political thought and practice. This paper makes a contribution to the latter endeavour by making a case for thinking an emancipatory politics in contemporary Africa. It shows that civil

Kurt Cobain's Zombie Identity http://www.notbored.org/kurdt.html

Venezuela 2008: A Libertarian Proposal for the Current Situation * The Collective Editorship of El Libertario, www.nodo50.org/ellibertario, expounds its vision of which path to follow in the current situation in Venezuela, summed up in the slogan, “Against the (B)oligarchy, demagoguery and corruption: Autonomous struggle of the underdogs!

Democratic Aesthetics: Actual, Radical, Global Call for papers for a themed issue of the journal Culture, Theory and Critique to be published in April 2009 Since Walter Benjamin equated aestheticized politics with fascism and war, projects to conduct politics aesthetically generally have been regarded as inimical to democracy. Yet, given the role of the US as a hegemonic world power exporting democracy by force of arms, it is timely to re-examine the potential of productive relations between aesthetics and democratic politics. There are many different notions of “aesthetics,” ranging from a philosophical discourse about art (often understood as distinct cultural practices, objects, experiences, perceptions and judgments), to its original broader sense (by Baumgarten) of the study of sensory, bodily aspects of cognitive interactions with the world. Moreover, ongoing processes of globalization generate and intensify tensions among culturally variable ideologies of the aesthetic, even as they problematize the presupposition of democracy’s universal value. It thus becomes at once more difficult and more urgent to think the relation between democracy and aesthetics.

http://www.abahlali.org/node/3388 http://www.newleftreview.org/A2705 THE COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS Alain Badiou

"The Communist Hypothesis"
Alain Badiou

What is the communist hypothesis? In its generic sense, given in its canonic Manifesto, 'communist' means, first, that the logic of class—the fundamental subordination of labour to a dominant class, the arrangement that has persisted since Antiquity—is not inevitable; it can be overcome. The communist hypothesis is that a different collective organization is practicable, one that will eliminate the inequality of wealth and even the division of labour. The private appropriation of massive fortunes and their transmission by inheritance will disappear. The existence of a coercive state, separate from civil society, will no longer appear a necessity: a long process of reorganization based on a free association of producers will see it withering away.

From Ken Knabb: Dear Friends, You might find of interest the two webpages linked below. "2007 and I" is a text by a British contact of mine, Wayne Spencer, recounting his recent personal and political trajectory. "A Discussion with Ken Knabb" is an email exchange between us that followed. http://significantfailure.blogspot.com/2008/02/2007-and-i.html http://significantfailure.blogspot.com/2008/02/discussion-with-ken-knabb.... Cheers, Ken Knabb

The American economy is in shambles, with a spiraling debt crisis, a vanishing industrial base, and a plummeting dollar. And, as the debacle of the occupation of Iraq continues to demonstrate, the US is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the rest of the world under its hegemonic thumb through military intervention. Giovanni Arrighi's new book, Adam Smith in Beijing, situates this global decline of US power within the context of a epochal shift in the world-system away from North American dominance and towards Asia. Is China the real winner of the "War on Terror"?

New Issue of The Commoner Released

The Commoner N.12 - spring/summer 2007

Value strata, migration and “other  values”  

This issue proposes some lines of enquiry around three interrelated themes: the migratory flows of people in today global factory, the dynamics and hierarchies underpinning the production of value for capital, and the production of values other than those for capital. The search for the connection among these themes is what allows us to weave together these papers so much different in style and subject matter.