fearandwar

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I come back to Tumblr and people are still reblogging that damn Sally Ride tweet.

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For so long mainstream economists and policymakers have denied the very existence of such a thing as neoliberalism, dismissing it as an insult invented by gap-toothed malcontents who understand neither economics nor capitalism. Now here comes the IMF, describing how a “neoliberal agenda” has spread across the globe in the past 30 years. What they mean is that more and more states have remade their social and political institutions into pale copies of the market. Two British examples, suggests Will Davies – author of the Limits of Neoliberalism – would be the NHS and universities “where classrooms are being transformed into supermarkets”. In this way, the public sector is replaced by private companies, and democracy is supplanted by mere competition.

The results, the IMF researchers concede, have been terrible. Neoliberalism hasn’t delivered economic growth – it has only made a few people a lot better off. It causes epic crashes that leave behind human wreckage and cost billions to clean up, a finding with which most residents of food bank Britain would agree. And while George Osborne might justify austerity as “fixing the roof while the sun is shining”, the fund team defines it as “curbing the size of the state … another aspect of the neoliberal agenda”. And, they say, its costs “could be large – much larger than the benefit”.

Aditya Chakrabortty, You’re Witnessing The Death Of Neoliberalism

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In our intellectual way, we think that the world will collapse as the result of a logical contradiction: this is the illusion of the intellectual - that ideology must be coherent, every bit of it fitting together, like a philosophical investigation. When, in fact, the whole purpose of what Gramsci called an organic (i.e. historically effective) ideology is that it articulates into a configuration different subjects, different identities, different projects, different aspirations. It does not reflect, it constructs a 'unity' out of difference.

“Gramsci and Us,” Stuart Hall

This whole essay, which reflects on Thatcherism and Gramsci, is really useful for thinking about Trumpism.

To win over ordinary people to that, not because they're dupes, or stupid, or because they are blinded by false consciousness. Since, in fact, the political character of our ideas cannot be guaranteed by our class position or by the 'mode of production', it is possible for the Right to construct a politics which does speak to people's experience, which does insert itself into what Gramsci called the necessarily fragmentary contradictory nature of common sense, which does resonate with some of their ordinary aspirations, and which, in certain circumstances, can recoup them as subordinate subjects, into a historical project which hegemonises what we used — erroneously — to think of as their necessary class interests. Gramsci is one of the first modern Marxists to recognise that interests are not given but have to be politically and ideologically constructed.

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I returned to tumblr for this.

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I had 9 page views last week but 3 new followers.

Most companies would kill for conversion rates like that.

Seriously, though, I’ve had an upsurge in followers. Did someone famous reblog me?

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I clicked on a link on facebook and was suddenly on Perez Hilton.

What the hell. There should be some kind of warning before your browser sends you there.

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“Leading British Intellectual”

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I just started reading Bad Feminist. Yes, I am like a year behind the times but it is so good so get ready for a flood of quotes from it tomorrow.

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It’s really interesting to see all of the liberal commentators mocking the idea of polyamorous marriages as they defend same-sex marriage.

So in 30 years, when polyamorous marriage maybe reaches the same status as same-sex marriage, will they act as if they supported it all along? Or will they be honest and admit that they weren’t the liberal champions they always thought they were but were instead as reactionary as many of the conservatives they mock?

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So, yes, let’s take the figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people’s joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way? The feminist subject “in the room” hence “brings others down” not only by talking about unhappy topics such as sexism but by exposing how happiness is sustained by erasing the signs of not getting along. Feminists do kill joy in a certain sense: they disturb the very fantasy that happiness can be found in certain places. To kill a fantasy can still kill a feeling. It is not just that feminists might not be happily affected by what is supposed to cause happiness, but our failure to be happy is read as sabotaging the happiness of others. We can consider the relationship between the negativity of the figure of the feminist killjoy and how certain bodies are “encountered” as being negative. Marilyn Frye argues that oppression involves the requirement that you show signs of being happy with the situation in which you find yourself. As she puts it, “it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signify our docility and our acquiescence in our situation.” To be oppressed requires that you show signs of happiness, as signs of being or having been adjusted. For Frye “anything but the sunniest countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous”.

Sara Ahmed, “The Feminist Killjoy (And Other Willful Subjects)”

Just read the whole thing.

(via fearandwar)

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So I dislike Obamacare for not going go far enough (single payer is the solution) but it is still kind of amazing what it has accomplished.

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Has anyone read anything by Joshua Cohen?

The Intercept gave a fairly positive review of his newest book and the reviews on Amazon are slamming it for its style, both of which are pluses are in my book.

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So accurate.

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It is incredible to think that 12 years ago it was legal to outlaw homosexual sex.

Now it’s unconstitutional to deny marriage equality for all.

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I always find it weird that a country that was founded in armed violence against the state over taxation without representation can’t understand why black protestors would use violence to protest the daily violence and murder enacted against them.