MayDay MayDay

A date would be like the gnomon of these meridians. -JD

Portals, CTAs: EuroMayDay | US Roundup | London MayDay Parade | Huelga! | iMigrate | la Marche des Indigènes | Grassroots Women

Multimedia: Video collection of migrant protests and MayDay. | Sonidos del Precariado Rebelde | Precarity mapping | DtB MayDay zine | MayDay Milano | EuroMayDay SpanishScratch

Articles: Pete Linebaugh, "MayDay with heart" | Juan Santos, "Immigration Endgame"

Blogposts: Quinlan Vos | Commie Curmudgeon | WhatInTheHell is MayDay? | Cat blogging, MayDay edition | Icite on the lameness | Against Moderation

A belated question: Was Mayday 2006 the first national general strike in US history?

Past, passages?

So, the CPE did not pass!

There is some skepticism regarding the withdrawal of the CPE, with decisions to continue occupations of some universities and schools, as well as blockades of two ports by CGT unionists in the early hours and a couple of train blockades. Although (perhaps not unsurprisingly) the CFDT seems to have declared "the objective acheived" (via libcom). 

Tim gets up on the wrong side of ontology.  And some initial, though since updated, remarks here. What do others think of the scrapping of the CPE?  Is it a zero-sum game of 'victory-defeat' or a significant moment of strategy, of movement and obstacle? Are there other questions to ask? (picture via)

One important lesson that November the 30th, 1999 taught us

Courtesy of Infinite Thought, from an article in Socialist Worker:

The movement in the universities crossed a symbolic threshold with the occupation of the Sorbonne university, at the very centre of Paris. This hadn’t happened since May 1968.

Even the mainstream media sees that the government is in a difficult position. Opinion polls show that the government’s popularity has fallen to abysmal depths and that the CPE is overwhelmingly rejected.

The brutal evacuation of the Sorbonne, the standard lies about the supposed actions of a “radical fringe” and the rising internal dissent in the ranks of the Tories show that it has started to lose control of the situation.

The evolution of the struggle will depend on two factors – the capacity of the student movement to react on the streets to the brutal attitude of the government, and the strength of the demonstrations called for Thursday and Saturday of this week by the youth organisations and trade unions.

The call of the national student coordination for a day of nationwide strikes and demonstrations has not yet been followed by the main unions.

It decided instead to prioritise the Saturday demonstration and only to support the student actions from the outside on Thursday.

But the key to victory lies in the level of unity and coordination between the youth and the workers’ mobilisation. This is what is at stake in the streets, universities and workplaces of France.

You don't say.  Consider this an open thread to post links on current happenings in France.

difference without apologies

It's a well-worn argument to suggest that the Left (whatever exactly that is) should spend more time learning from the Right (ditto), taking a few leaves out of the books of Reagan, Wall Street, Madison Avenue, the Southern Baptist Convention, Bush, the Republican Party, Harper, what or whomever have you...

Continue reading “difference without apologies”

Why Not Vote?

Pro-democratic, anti-vote posts on the recent Canadian election:

Archive "Canada Elect"
Leiter Reports "Thoughts from Canadian Readers on the Election Results?"
Long Sunday "Why I'm Not Voting Today"
Out of the Driver's Seat "Why I Hate Elections", "Canadian Election Results"
Posthegemony "Election"
Theoria "January 23, 2006"

If you're the sort of person who likes to vote:

Tilting At Windmills "A Brief and Brutal Voting Guide", "Our Election Endorsement"

And the stakes in the election:

Conservative Party "Stand Up for Canada" [pdf]
Green Party "Platform 2006" [pdf]
Liberal Party "Red Book" [pdf]
New Democratic Party "Getting Results for People " [pdf]

Finally, our new Prime Minister:

Blogging of the President "The Conservative Platform"
Christian Coalition International (Canada) "Rediscovering the Right Agenda"
rense.com "God Bless Canada?"

Please reply with any other links.

Why I'm not voting today

  election 
  Originally uploaded by Sohrab Kabuli.

I’m not going to vote today.  If I did, I’d feel better.  I’d feel like I was part of some kind of democratic nation, like I was voicing my opinion.  But the candidates have never been worse, and though I’d still vote for the social democratic party here as the least evil, a lot of other people who will want to vote this way won’t for fear of the Conservatives getting in.  They’ll vote strategically for the Liberals, even when they really wanted to vote NDP (the social democratic party).  Without proportional representation we are disenfranchised.

I don’t want to feel better.  I’m really upset by the state of this so-called democracy, and I think I should keep feeling that way.  If I go to vote, I can step back from this pathos and think that I’ve done my duty (no need to worry for the next 4 years).  We all agree we hate this system as it now stands, and then we go to vote.  I think people that vote are really quite dumb.  If you hate the whole system, why reproduce it as such?

Go spoil your ballot, then, you might say.  A very good suggestion, but the problem is that the media still include that in their reports of how many people came out to vote, so that they are included in the percentage of the electorate who came out to vote.  And so, they add to the number of people who take part in the system, when the point would be to see less than half of eligible voters actually vote (or, of course, for everyone to spoil their ballots – it’s easy to see how even if half of the electorate spoiled their ballots, the consequences of this would be under-reported, and/or blamed on some technical difficulty with the voting procedure itself).

One’s duty is not absolved by stroking a pencil once every 4 years.  I’m getting very aggressive with people who say or infer they’re disappointed with me for not voting.  “You can’t complain if you don’t vote”.  Oh I see, you’re only voting to maintain your Beautiful Soul position. 

If you step back from voting, then you suddenly want to actually do something for the transformation of the system – and you acknowledge your own place within it.  This is the precise opposite of “voter apathy”; it is precisely because I feel so much pathos that I won’t just make myself feel a bit better by voting.  I’m willing to suffer this hell for the sake of something Other.

Katrina Related Remix

Louisiana 1927

Hell on Earth (NPR)

George Bush Don't Like Black People

Cornel West

The Militarization of New Orleans

"He [President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks.  They key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."  -H.R. Halderman, cited in Lockdown America by Christian Parenti

Ottawa Citizen

Notes on Universal Experience and Difference

Project Censored

Reporters Gone Wild

Crooks

New Orleans to be rebuilt without "underclass"

Continue reading “Katrina Related Remix”