Links

French Elections

Link to an article by Diana Johnstone summarizing the French presidential election environment:

“The Main Issue in the French Presidential Election: National Sovereignty”

(see also: “Slavoj Žižek: Dear Britain”)

Plus, here is a link to an interview of Raquel Garrido conducted by Cole Stangler about the most promising candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon:

“France Rebels”

Another contextual link:

“The Meaning of France Insoumise”

Don Hazen & Jonathan Taplin – The Massive Monopolies of Google, Facebook and Amazon

Link to an interview of Jonathan Taplin, author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy (2017), conducted by Don Hazen:

“The Massive Monopolies of Google, Facebook and Amazon, and Their Role in Destroying Privacy, Producing Inequality and Undermining Democracy”

Bonus link: The People’s Platform

Bonus Quote – Slavoj Žižek, Revolution at the Gates:

“[Adapting a statement of Lenin regarding central banks,] can we also say that ‘without the World Wide Web socialism would be impossible . . . . Our task is here merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive?” (p. 293)

“However, does capitalism really provide the ‘natural’ frame of relations of production for the digital universe?  Is there not also, in the World Wide Web, an explosive potential for capitalism itself?  Is not the lesson of the Microsoft monopoly precisely the Leninist one: instead of fighting this monopoly through the state apparatus (remember the court-ordered splitting up of the Microsoft Corporation), would it not be more ‘logical’ simply to nationalize it, making it freely accessible?  So today, I am thus tempted to paraphrase Lenin’s well-known slogan ‘Socialism = electrification + the power of the soviets’: ‘Socialism = free access to the Internet + the power of the soviets.’  (The second element is crucial, since it specifies the only social organization within which the Internet can realize its liberating potential; without it, we would have a new version of crude technological determinism.”  (p. 294).

See also The Communist Manifesto (“6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”) and “Steve Bannon’s Brussels Plans Threaten Europe’s Liberal Legacy”

Anatoly Shtyrbul – The Autonomous Industrial Colony “Kuzbass”

Link to an article by Anatoly Shtyrbul:

“The Autonomous Industrial Colony ‘Kuzbass'”

Bonus links: Project Kuzbas: American Workers in Siberia, “Descendants of Dutch Colonists Visit OAO Koks,” “From Stalingrad to Kuzbas: Sketches of the Socialist Construction in the USSR,” “The American Industrial Colony in Kuzbass in the Years of 1922–1927,” “Capitalist Restoration in Russia: A Balance Sheet (Part 1)”

David Broder – Being Anti-Trump Isn’t Enough

Link to an article by David Broder comparing Silvio Berlusconi to Donald Trump:

“Being Anti-Trump Isn’t Enough”

Bonus Quote:

“all the Leftists’ and liberal democrats’ worry about the danger of neo-Fascism lurking beneath Berlusconi’s victory is misplaced and, in a way, much too optimistic: Fascism is still a determinate political project, while in the case of Berlusconi, there is ultimately nothing lurking beneath, no secret ideological project, just the sheer assurance that things will function, that he will do better.  In short, Berlusconi is post-politics at its purest.  The ultimate sign of ‘post-politics’ in all Western countries is the growth of a managerial approach to government: government is reconceived as a managerial function, deprived of its properly political dimension.”  Slavoj Žižek, Revolution at the Gates, p. 303.

Bonus links: “Donald Trump’s Travel Expenses in 10 Weeks Cost US Taxpayers as Much as Barack Obama Spent in Two Years” and “On the Differences of Comedy in the Time of Alt Right Transgression”