Category / politics

by kariflack

just a thought on conspiracy vs anti-conspiracy

i was going to post this on tumblr but it broke. ah well.

what this anti-conspiracy leftish crowd seems to be defining as conspiracy is a very popular media fueled version. eg “They are doing x BECAUSE” (they want to control this or that aspect of you just because)

this is wrong because the most important aspect of looking at conspiracy is the power relations it fosters. people move up or out of the political structure based on their knowledge of how it works. this is not always positive for them which is why more deaths are likely assassinations within, and even if you don’t ideologically align with whoever’s targeted, just looking into the facts of one case alone can open up much with regard to how it functions.

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by kariflack

representation and media history in context with #BringBackOurGirls

ok i just want to lay down a couple of things i’ve looked at, not very in depth to a degree i can speak on at length mind you, about the situation in american context over the kidnapped Nigerian girls. here are a couple of posts whose framework i agree with in how lefts generally view this call. but then i happened across this Salon piece that really blew me away, and is one of the things i allude to in my commentary on the second aforementioned post above. i’m going to pick apart this Salon article a bit, written by Brittney Cooper of Crunk Feminist Collective, that illustrates the problems within not only a theoretical approach as guided by the above framework, but a basic refusal to consider what the material reality is in a historical framework — and we don’t even have to go back that far. some of the same players that are being quoted in different articles about the urgency from a military standpoint cut their teeth on the Somalia UNOSOM I mission.

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by kariflack

surveillance and privacy under patriarchy or why (some) feminists are right

when Twitter became more abuzz with concerns of the “surveillance state” a few years ago, i noticed how concentrated this was among males of a left-ish variety, including libertarian, anarchist, and progressive types. as i like to do, i made some snide remarks toward this trend. first of all i find “surveillance state” to be a fetishization itself of what the state actually encompasses as well as somewhat limited historically. the state’s ability to carry out and reliance on gathering information has been institutionalized for quite some time thinking in terms of surveillance and infiltration of radical groups (eg COINTELPRO); as far as competition for capital goes, dealing in the trade of it has probably been more of a focus since the 70s.

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by kariflack

class consciousness

the other day i got into a conversation (debate, whatever) with @Damn_Jehu (therealmovement on wordpress) which actually started out as an objection to what he had to say about Marx and Engel’s views on the supposed interests that the ruling class and working class(es) share. some further thought on this reveal a synthesis of two of my own posts that i’ve been trying to connect in roundabout ways.

it may seem pretty obvious to some, but i think that currently among the left, and i do not mean simply the celebrity left, there is theory being used and geopolitical currents being read that don’t always amount to admitting what class consciousness looks like in the struggle we see now in our immediate context(s). to be completely clear, i think that academic theorizing is pointing in a lot of different directions (and i don’t mean this in a purely pejorative manner, there’s a lot of great stuff being generated right now outside the platform institutional lib-left) with the absence of a larger media presence that Occupy …once occupied. that being said, it can be a confusing time for many people newly coming into left and radical thought who see a number of intriguing and useful ideas online but who find difficulties applying them in practice.

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by kariflack

commodified-porn-everything in militarized society

also posted on my tumblr blog in case you ever venture toward that part of the internet…

i really do hate the attachment of the word “-porn” to describe everything from scandalously photographed food to filtered images of galaxies and photos of cute animals, etc. i do have exceptions to my rule here — if we think of pornography in a very basic sense, of women being turned into dehumanized sexual commodities, i don’t think it’s a gross exaggeration to discuss how other forms of violence are commodified by the media that also largely affect women more than men globally.

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by kariflack

ideological non-belief

here is an argument, dutifully employed by those whom, i think, have good intentions in their actions in working toward an equality or equity for all: “if god is [omniscient, all-powerful, loving, not psychotic, not a sociopath, and so on], then why doesn’t [usually he] do anything about the state of the world?” and then, often, “i cannot give my faith to or belief in a god that allows this to occur on earth.”

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by kariflack

Dorner, Biden, and the production of pseudo-resistance

I suppose I followed the Christopher Dorner “situation” as closely as any schmuck with their own situations going on. Admittedly, I haven’t read anything in depth yet because I’m just not convinced there is anything out there worth my time, really. Lots of muckraking and shallow analysis. I followed Jukebox Jones’ (on facebook) commentary, and I tended to agree with what a pretty active organizer friend had to say along a more leninist line.

I did catch the television coverage of the housefire of the spot he was reported to be holding up in while I was getting my hair cut at the barber shop, and interestingly enough the state of the union address followed immediately after CBS’s coverage (and the LAPD ended up being responsible for killing a woman in that as I understood it).

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by kariflack

why do I even look at Jezebel

Well, I guess it’s because I think it’s important to get a handle on what’s going on in “mainstream feminism” from time to time. I still get their email forwards and give them a glance occasionally. I opened one particular post today entitled “What We’re Really Talking About When We Talk About Hillary Clinton Without Makeup.” Hey, guess what it’s about?

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