[The first part of the Ten Thesis is here.]

"Ten Thesis on Post-Fordist Capitalism (Part II)"

Paolo Virno

6.8. Thesis 7

In Post-Fordism, the general
intellect does not coincide with fixed capital, but manifests itself
principally as a linguistic reiteration of living labor.

As was
already said on the second day of our seminar, Marx, without reserve,
equated the general intellect (that is, knowledge as principal
productive force) with fixed capital, with the "objective scientific
capacity" inherent in the system of machines. In this way he omitted
the dimension, absolutely preeminent today, in which the general
intellect presents itself as living labor. It is necessary to analyze
post-Fordist production in order to support this criticism. In
so-called "second-generation independent labor," but also in the
operational procedures of a radically reformed factory such as the
Fiat factory in Melfi, it is not difficult to recognize that the
connection between knowledge and production is not at all exhausted
within the system of machines; on the contrary, it articulates itself
in the linguistic cooperation of men and women, in their actually
acting in concert. In the Post-Fordist environment, a decisive role is
played by the infinite variety of concepts and logical schemes which
cannot ever be set within fixed capital, being inseparable from the
reiteration of a plurality of living subjects. The general intellect

includes, thus, formal and informal knowledge, imagination. ethical
propensities, mindsets, and "linguistic games." In contemporary labor
processes, there are thoughts and discourses which function as
productive "machines," without having to adopt the form of a
mechanical body or of an electronic valve.

"Operaismo, Autonomia, Settantasette in
Translation: Then, Now, The Future" (1)


Steve Wright

Originally published in Strategies, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2003

Interest in the work of Antonio Negri is considerable these days, and can be
measured by a variety of means. For the past few years, the prestigious Italian
leftist daily Il manifesto has published the 30 most-searched-for terms within the
newspaper’s online edition. Of these, the word “Negri” ranked fifth in 1999, 14th
in 2000, ninth in 2001, 11th in 2002, and ninth again for the month of May 2003.(2)

Engagement with Negri’s work has also been on the rise in the English language
press, as reactions to the success of the book Empire (co-authored with Michael
Hardt) attest. Within the various circles active against global capital, interest in
Negri has also been marked, with his ideas concerning the changing nature of
the world capitalist system widely debated.

"A Man and His People"

Uri Avnery

Wherever he may be buried when he passes away, the day will come when his remains will be reinterred by a free Palestinian government in the holy shrines in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat is one of the generation of great leaders who arose after World War II. The stature of a leader is not simply determined by the size of his
achievements, but also by the size of the obstacles he had to overcome. In this respect, Arafat has no competitor in the world: no leader of our generation has been called upon to face such cruel tests and to cope with such adversities as he.

Gideon Polya writes:

"Non-Reportage of Huge Iraqi Civilian Deaths"

Gideon Polya

Aside from the sustained lying, massive public deception, illegality, the horrendous "collateral" civilian casualties and immense US corporate benefit (nearly US$400 billion extra military expenditure by the US alone since 9/11), there is a further outrageous scandal associated with the post-9/11 US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, namely the NON-REPORTAGE of horrendous civilian casualties by mainstream global mass media.

SOME mainstream global media have FINALLY permitted their readers to glimpse the horrendous reality of Iraq civilian deaths thanks to a scientific article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet — however the figure typically quoted of "100,000 over 18 months" is a MINIMUM ESTIMATE as outlined in estimates #1-4 below.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Theo Van Gogh: His Views and After

Theo van Gogh, murdered in Amsterdam. Was he a hero, anti-Semite, misogynist, or Islamophobe? To find out, we have to look at his own words, translated for English speakers. What will be the consequences of this murder?

The murder of Dutch film maker and columnist Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004 in Amsterdam shocked many people. Not only in The Netherlands, but also abroad, reactions were, understandably, often emotional. Many of them described Van Gogh as a martyr for free speech. That leaves the question: free speech for himself and people of his views, or also for his targets?

Many reactions by people in, e.g., England, were by people who didn't know the writings of either Van Gogh or his critics first hand in Dutch. I will try in this article to help provide this information, necessary for a rational assessment.

Bush's 'Incredible' Vote Tallies
  Sam Parry
Consortium News

  George W. Bush's vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable.

While it's extraordinary for a candidate to get a vote total that exceeds his party's registration in any voting jurisdiction - because of non-voters - Bush racked up more votes than registered Republicans in 47 out of 67 counties in Florida. In 15 of those counties, his vote total more than doubled the number of registered Republicans and in four counties, Bush more than tripled the number.

  

hydrarchist writes: "This text was originally published in Green Pepper's 'Information Issue', December 2003. You can find the other articles online at their web-site."

"Pirate Practice, Information Insurgency and Its Limits"

Alan Toner

Autonomous communications systems require three
functional elements: the means of production, transmission
facilities and informational raw materials. The
spread of the commodity PC has taken care of the
first. The second has been confronted through innovative
digital techniques — peer to peer [p2p] networks
to pool bandwidth and streaming technologies — and
through the illegal occupation of the airwaves by
pirate radios and more recently street televisions
[Telestreet], and in some countries through public
cable access and even independent satellite broadcasting
initiatives [DeepDish TV, NoWarTV, Global
Radio].

The last element has proven the most challenging
as access to the audio-visual lexicon that can
engage a wider public is constrained by a system of
property rights — copyrights and trademarks — that
denies the possibility of recycling the works of others
— whether to convey our argument or contest that of
another.

"On Media and the Election"

Robert W. McChesney, FreePress.net

Perhaps the most important function our media serves is to provide voters with the information they need to make sound decisions in the voting booth. If people don't know what they're voting for, our democracy is in serious trouble.

Unfortunately, it appears that we're in serious trouble.

"Ten Years Into the Zapatista Rebellion"

John Ross and Chris Arsenault

[John Ross has written several books on the Zapatista struggle including
Rebellion from the Roots and The War Against Oblivion. La Journada,
Mexico’s foremost independent daily, describes Ross as “the new John Reed
covering the new Mexican revolution”. Chris Arsenault is coordinator of Students Taking Action in Chiapas. He is
currently on a speaking tour talking about Chiapas ten years after the
uprising, and promoting participatory Zapatista economic structures. Arsenault sat
down with Ross at his home on the first floor of the Hotel Isabel in
Mexico City to talk about current realities in Zapatistas territory.]

It’s been ten years since the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico, launched
their rebellion to create ‘a world where many worlds fit’. Once the
darlings of progressive movements around the world, the continuing
struggle and development of autonomous institutions in Chiapas is taking
place with little media fanfare.

M.Kressi writes:

"I've Got You Under My Skin:

Digging Kerry Out and Burying the Bones(men)"

Morrissey Kressi, Co-founder, Jerry Fohn Kuck Society

A telling event happened in the theater a few months ago when I viewed "The Manchurian Candidate" remake. An audible gasp and bodily revulsion rippled throughout the audience during the scene where Raymond Shaw receives his updated brain implant. Now, this in itself is unsurprising, as an extreme closeup of such an invasive procedure often provokes such results. The event is odd, however, when juxtaposed with a succeeding scene in which Bennett Marco uses a knife to dig out an implant in his own shoulder blade. This scene produced some mild reactions, but remarkably subdued in comparison. The crude, awkward, bloody, and self-inflicted invasion of the second scene provided a stark counterpoint to the clinical, precise, bloodless, and other-inflicted invasion of the first.

So what can "The Manchurian Candidate," and especially these two scenes, tell us about the current stage of spectacular politics? For one thing, the film reminds us of the pageantry of the electoral process. "Let's put on a good show," says an anonymous spectacle planner just as the campaign victory party is about to get underway. Both the two-bit children's theater and the hyperreal victory pageant take place on election day, acting almost as a condensed history of the spectacle.