Dérive

Every so often, the national spotlight turns to Oakland, California, a city of about half the population of its better-known neighbor San Francisco. For the past three years, that spotlight has come courtesy of the NBA Finals, where the Golden State Warriors, led by the god-fearing "baby-faced assassin" Stephen Curry and an all-star crew, have met the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James. Along with the Finals come a slew of celebrities and other sports personalities, plus the teams' billionaire owners: Joe Lacob of the Warriors, with a $1.5 billion fortune accumulated as a venture capitalist at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; and Dan Gilbert of the Cavaliers, who wrangled his $5.9 billion as founder of the notoriously criminal Quicken Loans Inc . These two men--not to mention Warriors minority owner Peter Guber at a mere $800 million--are well within the super-rich 1 Percent. As the league's PR slogan goes : The NBA Cares--about the ...

On Friday, 40,000 AT&T workers in phone sales (mobility) and landline and cable installation went on strike across 36 states. In California and Nevada, workers (unionized with the CWA) have been on the job without a contract for over a year. The company's CEO, Randal Stephenson, was recently given a raise and now makes over $12,000 an hour. Meanwhile, mobility workers are being offered a 40 cent wage increase that means nothing in the face of increasing living costs, especially in the Bay Area. In addition, the company wants to relocated call center jobs to Mexico, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, increase the amount workers pay for health insurance, cut sick time, and increase a highly punitive points based penalty system in which workers would face disciplinary actions after using a fourth sick days.  Journalist David Bacon reports that "AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the country with $164 billion in sales and 135 million wireles...

One day in 2010 I was walking in downtown Berkeley and came across a group of people projecting a video on the wall of a building. The footage was low-quality and colorless, but the subject - radio chatter voice-over and an exploding van, bodies flying - was arresting. "Just fuckin,' once you get on him just open up - Roger that... - Let me know when you've got them. Let's shoot." "Light 'em all up. Come on, fire!" "Keep shoot'n, keep shoot'n'" "Got a bunch of bodies layin' here." "Yeah, we got one guy crawling around down there, but, uh, you know, we got, definitely got something." I later learned this was footage of US airstrikes in Baghad on July 12, 2007. The video, Collateral Murder , was published by Wikileaks and shows a live feed from Apache helicopters gunning down 16 people, including two journalists, and injuring two children. Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning), a 22-year-ol...

"Despisers of life are they , decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so ... 'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink ."

"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society." - Albert Einstein, Why Socialism? Over the weekend, thousands of people gathered across the country for the March for Science. National organizers of the march said the event was calling for “political leader...

  This article draws heavily from a much longer piece - “ Origins of the Police ” - by David Whitehouse. I’ve summarized some important points and added original thoughts, including quotes and bits of history from other sources. I've also added a "present" and "future" section to the discussion, in order to discuss contemporary points about the police and take a few haphazard shots at what be coming down the tracks. What follows in not a substitute for a close reading of Whitehouse’s work, which I consider a must-read. Nothing can be properly understood without historical context, and the police are no exception. Whitehouse’s article lends important insight into such questions as: Why do police exist? Can the police be reformed? Are police a part of the working class? Can the police be won over in times of revolutionary upheaval? What is the relationship between the police and the capitalist state? Throughout, Whitehouse stresses a Marxist perspect...

At risk of selling more hard liquor , I'm going to talk about an advertisement for Jose Cuervo called "Last Days." The tagline, complete with hashtag, reads: "A group of fearless bargoers enjoy their last moments together, as civilization crumbles around them. As the impending doom worsens outside, inside they are doubling down on the Cuervo (and the Elvis), as for these brave souls #TomorrowIsOverrated." The purpose of this ad, like any other, is only to sell Jose Cuervo. All talent whatsoever is consumed by this one goal. It looks pretty and sounds good so that people will buy the commodity. For now I'm less interested in dissecting advertising (done wonderfully here ). I'm more interested in the ad's theme - it's the end of the world but "tomorrow is overrated" - and how our current social climate is used to sell more commodities. Among its many talents, the ad industry takes the social decay of our society and packages it ...

Streetcars pass through Saint Charles St. in New Orleans, 1900. The New Orleans General Strike lasted five days and completely shut down what was then American's 12th largest city. The strike involved 25,000 workers and is considered the first general strike to include skilled, unskilled, black, and white workers. It's this final distinction - the first biracial general strike - that makes the strike stand out as worthy of discussion so lessons can be learned for today's struggles. A grand narrative  The 19th century is full of many important events that must be understood as part of a larger narrative - the cementing of capitalism as the dominant economic system in the world and the attempts of one class to maintain control over - and extract profits from - another class. But this is a much larger topic for another time. Our scope of focus must be narrowed to the United States and finally to the city of New Orleans in 1892. But no event can...

"99 cent II, diptychon" - Andreas Gursky, 1999. "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation of commodities, ' its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity." - Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1  I've mentioned commodities in past post. But what exactly is a commodity, and why did Marx place the commodity at the center of his analysis of capitalism and capitalist society? What's the big deal? This person on YouTube has a great description.