Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
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20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
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True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Weekend Edition
February 26 / 27, 2005
Ready for Your Close-Up, Slavoj?
Zizek
Seen Over the Handlebars
By
JUSTIN TAYLOR
Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle
By Slavoj Zizek 188 pgs;
Verso, 2004
There's one particular episode of Buffy
the Vampire Slayer (just stick with me for a moment) that I kept
thinking of while reading Zizek's Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle.
They're preparing to fight some apocalypse cult or other and
Buffy asks her mentor, Giles, if he knows why the cult has shown
up at this place and time. Giles launches into a lengthy account
of the metaphysical esoterica underscoring their problem-"Giles,"
Buffy cuts in after a few moments, "I don't need to see
the math."
So Zizek is among the smartest
critic-philosophers currently working. So his sweeping rejection
of both rightist populism and bourgeois liberal pretensions comes
as a balm in an age where George W. Bush can pass for a president
and John Kerry could pass for an opposition candidate. So he's
maybe the most succinct and astute exponent not just of Lacanian
and Marxist thought, but of the notion that those two modes of
thought can still lay claim to some relevance in contemporary
cultural politics and analysis. So he can do a pretty kickass
reading of any given Hitchcock film. All of that comes to nothing
if we can't get him to stop talking about Antigone.
"Let's take yet again-what
else?-the case of Antigone," Zizek writes, acknowledging
how much time he's spent laboring over this "case".
The problem is that the quote doesn't come from Iraq: The
Borrowed Kettle, it comes from Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?,
which came out in 2001 (before 9/11). So you'll forgive
this reviewer if he rolled his eyes when a subhead on page 74
of Iraq the BK announced we would now be discussing "Act,
Evil, and Antigone". His reiteration here of the theses
and theories of his main text comes in the form of a rebuttal
by Zizek to something that someone else wrote about something
else Zizek wrote about Antigone. As such, it not only reads like
an angry letter to the editor-which is what it should have been-but
the information it conveys is both obfuscatory and redundant:
the former because it is a jargon-heavy dredge through digressive
minutiae; the latter because he's merely showing us another "proof"
of his theoretical formula in action.
When Zizek writes that "the
sound barrier-the qualitative leap that occurs when one expands
the quantity of resistance from local communities to wider social
circles (up to the state itself) will have to be broken,"
you want to agree with him, in fact you should agree with him.
He's right. On the other hand, what about the "sound barrier"
of his own theoretical insulation? He gets close to addressing
the realpolitik beyond the theoretical horizon-and for sure he
gets a lot closer than most theorists-but at the moment where
the qualitative leap of theory-into-praxis seems most likely
he pulls back into the quietude and ease of deep-space theory.
"[I]n the style of Magritte's
Cest n'est pas une pipe," writes Zizek in his introduction,
"I should emphasize that Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle
is not a book about Iraq." He's being playful with this
phrasing, but he's more right than he knows. The intro and first
essay provide a masterful look at the long-lasting changes to
the socio-political landscape being effected by the current White
House, ideological conflicts between the USA and the EU, and
the many mutually exclusive reasons offered by the USA for going
to war ("the three 'true' reasons for the attack on Iraqshould
be treated like a 'parallax': it is not that one if the 'truth'
of the others; the 'truth' is, rather, the very shift of perspective
between them"). In the other two essays Iraq doesn't come
up very much. Maybe this is why he titles them "Appendix
I" and "II," but these "appendices"
comprise the back 2/3 of the book's content.
What of this other material?
As it says on the back jacket of his book, "Zizek will entertain
and offend, but never bore." True. The pace is fast, and
the text is peppered with the standard Zizekian mix of high and
low cultural references, personal anecdotes, and provocations.
Take this passage from "A Cup of Decaffeinated Reality"
from Appendix II: " '[S]afe sex' a term which makes
us appreciate the truth of the old saying: 'Isn't having sex
with a condom like taking a shower with your raincoat on?' The
ultimate goal would be here, along the lines of decaffeinated
coffee, to invent 'opium without opium': perhaps this is why
marijuana is so popular among liberals who want to legalize it
it already is a kind of 'opium without opium'."
Not really. I know Zizek hates
self-described "Third Way" socialists, but condom sex-flawed
as it may be-is a much better deal than either celibacy or pregnancy/AIDS/etc.
Ditto for the marijuana question - pot makes a lovely compromise
between the rigorous dangers of opium addiction and the flat-line
of sobriety - but Zizek's dedication to his own hermeneutics
have blinded him to the fact that "marijuana" is more
than a shade in some conceptual spectrum; it is a actually-existing
drug that is considered, consumed, and enjoyed on its own merits.
(As to the decaf coffee, well I'm with him on this, but my grandparents
seem to like the stuff so maybe Slavoj and I are both missing
something.)
Again - you agree with him
at the beginning of "The Liberal Fake," which leads
off Appendix I, and as he offers increasingly complex iterations
of his argument you're still with him (for a theorist he's lucid),
but then he suddenly declares, "Today's predicament is that,
if we succumb to the urge of directly 'doing something' (engaging
with the anti-globalist struggle, helping the poor), we will
certainly and undoubtedly contribute to the reproduction of the
existing order. The only way to lay the foundations for a true,
radical change is to withdraw from the compulsion to act, to
'do nothing' thus opening up the space for a different
kind of activity."
Who should do nothing? For
how long? Who are "we" and why are "we" different
from the anti-globalist movement? What of the sinister implication
that the group "we" in this scenario is free of any
poor people, leaving "us" the luxury of figuring out
whether or not to help "them"? Since I like Zizek a
lot, I'm going to let that indiscretion slide. Instead, let us
attempt a Zizek-style reading of Zizek.
I'm going to presume that his
"we" covers Zizek himself and a generally like-minded
readership. The seeming least common political denominator among
"us" then, is that "we" are anti-capitalists.
(Or theory-heads, maybe, but whatever.) Given that, is there
not something wholly regressive in Zizek's "radical"
notion that we should "do nothing"? Is he not merely
advocating that we hurry-up and-wait for the collapse of the
system and then scramble to fill in the power vacuum? If so,
then he's just being silly. Marxism has described capitalism
as being in its "late" or penultimate stage for going
on 150 years now. But just like the thief in the night of Revelation
3:3, it seems we know not the hour at which critical mass will
be reached and the Revolution come. Should we wait as long as
the Christians have been waiting? Given that Zizek is also the
primary exponent of the "radical core" of the "Christian
legacy," (see his The Fragile Absolute) one might
be rightly concerned that this is just what he has in mind. Of
the anti-globalization movement, Zizek writes "perhaps,
in the Deleuzian opposition between schizophrenia and paranoia,
between the multitude and the One, we are dealing with two sides
of the same coin." I'll give him this much: He's right that
fighting the globalization of capitalism while still trying to
retain it on a national level is a losing proposition. It's like
dating a vampire on the condition that it behaves nicely and
doesn't attack anybody. As Buffy and her friends learned time
and time again, that's a dangerous game and it winds up getting
people killed. On the other hand, the anti-globalization movement
represents the most active faction of the Left right now, and
there are plenty of dedicated anti-capitalists in said movement
who don't deserve Zizek's derision, to say nothing of the scores
who might be his allies if he would only have them. It's disappointing
that he doesn't see the potential in that group, preferring instead
to offer up odds on whether it will be Lenin or Jesus that returns
first, seeing as how in his mythology they represent more or
less the same thing.
Meanwhile, in the real world,
it seems more like he's waiting for Guffman. Given all of this,
I hope Zizek won't be offended if I take up sides with the pragmatic
incarnation of Critical Mass. Those battalions of punk rock kids
on bicycles who organize interruptions to the traffic flow in
cities all across the globe just to remind "us" how
dependent "we" are on gas-guzzling, fume-spewing automobiles.
Granted it's no October Revolution, and we all know bike tires
come from the same nasty rubber plant as car tires, but it's
anti-capitalist organization and mobilization in the public sphere
and we should be happy about it - if nothing else at leasta person
can stretch their legs, get their blood pumping, maybe make a
friend.
Justin Taylor is a writer, living in Portland, Oregon.
He can be reached at justindtaylor@gmail.com
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