LEFT CURVE No. 32 EDITORIAL

 There is a palpable sense of relief in the air, as the Bush regime limps through its final year. The corporate media, as well as the presidential candidates, now use buzzwords like “change,” “hope,” “a new direction,” “authenticity.” Feigned sincerity, even humility, has replaced the strident, bombastic arrogance that was prevalent earlier in the decade. The sound-bites of the earlier Bush years—”dead or alive,” “you’re with us or with the terrorists,” “they hate us because of our freedom and values,” “axis of evil,” “shock and awe,” “dead-enders,” “evil-doers,” and the like—have been quietly set aside. But given the historical amnesia that is endemic in this country, I doubt that the necessary lessons will be learned—much less that the Bush regime will be held accountable and prosecuted for all their lies, assaults on civil liberties, torture and war crimes. In any case, the segment of the ruling class that has been clamoring for an in-your-face, aggressive, military solution to “threats” to its power (masked as “national security,” of course, since the U.S. defeat in Vietnam) has had its opportunity to implement its agenda—and it didn’t work. So the shift now is “back” to the usual realpolitik, subtle maneuvering and “be nice” approach—which the Democrats, if they win the presidency, will no doubt continue. In the meantime, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and against “terrorism” continue with no end in sight. The change in tactics is well illustrated by the propaganda campaign surrounding the “surge,” and the policies outlined in the U.S. Army Field Guide to Counterinsurgency <http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/Repository/Materials/COIN-FM3-24.pdf>, with its doses of “cultural sensitivity” injected by professional anthropologists—the effect of which, dutifully promulgated by the corporate media, has more or less successfully pushed the war below the radar of popular anxiety. Nonetheless, the policy goals remain the same: secure the Middle East for the U.S. and Israel, serve the needs of neo-liberal corporate capitalism and counter any challenges to U.S. hegemony. However, the fallout from Bush’s illegal attack against Iraq has shown the world that the haughty power of the U. S. is pretty shallow and, rather then stalling its decline, the Iraq invasion has accelerated it.

The above tries to describe what’s going on at the level of current events. But to better come to grips with our times, it’s essential to dig deeper. The essay by Gene Ray, “History, The Sublime, Terror: Notes on the Politics of Fear,” presents such an analysis, locating the current wars as “products of capitalist modernity itself. That is: of techno-productive power and instrumental reason developed within the frame of the modern nation-state and capitalist economy and under the dominant logic of capitalist social relations.” And the “global logic of this totality is war: an unceasing and unforgiving war of all against all,” which flows from the “core rationality of capitalist competition,” wherein states, corporations and individuals “must tirelessly exploit and dominate the others” or “be exploited and dominated out of existence.” Consequently, “…reserves of repressed rage that accumulate inevitably break out in eruptions of violence.” It’s not possible to adequately summarize Ray’s nuanced argument here. I’d just like to point to one of his salient conclusions: “…only system change… based on a non-capitalist logic: in short, a revolutionary process—could get us out of this vicious circle.” Working to contribute to the development of such a “non-capitalist logic” has been a primary purpose of this journal, which we continue in this issue.

Apart from the obvious horrendous physical destruction that wars produce, the psychic damage to the participants on the ground (and to those close to them) can also be very devastating. But such psychological trauma can take on unique forms on soldiers of an aggressor nation, when the rationale for war is masked by willful deceptions, such as war’s being sold as “defending our freedoms and way of life,” or “we have to fight them there so we won’t have to fight them at home.” As in all aspects of life, the disconnect between the rationalization for one’s actions and the actual forces that underlie and permeate acts can cause serious psychic disequilibrium, which often lead in destructive behavior. The two stories, “A Bridge in Iraq” and “After School and After the War” by G.D. McFetridge and Ron Savage respectively, touch on such themes. Similar issues, focusing on the effects of war on soldier’s family members (mothers in particular), are raised by Susan Galleymore’s forthright and sincere article, “Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror,” which is an excerpt from the introduction of her book in progress.

Since the collapse of state socialism as an alternative to capitalist modernity, the issue of the place of Islamic culture within modernity has come to the fore. This is so regardless of what are the actual geo-political and economic forces that underlie the current conflicts with and within Islamic countries. That relationship has been framed from a “world war against ‘Islamo-fascism’” by neo-cons and Zionists on the right, to how can Islam best be integrated into the global “project of modernity” on the left. Absent in much of that “debate” is an awareness of the particularity of Islam, specifically within its “jihadist” elements, which in fundamental ways diverge sharply from the dominant rationalistic, scientific world-view as it has developed since the 18th century or so. The article by Iain R. Edgar, “The Inspirational Night Dream in the Motivation and Justification of Jihad,” is a noteworthy analysis that reveals a radically different approach to the (un)conscious that is still operative within aspects of Islam. Dreams as being prophetic, revelatory or guides to life, had been a common part of all pre-modern cultures prior to the ascendancy of the scientific worldview; that they should still be so within segments of Islam is a sign of a significant chasm that separates Islam from western views of consciousness.

The dire situation of the Palestinians continues unabated, as the Zionist expropriation of all of historic Palestine grinds on relentlessly. A small ray of hope has been the emergence from within Israel of serious scholarly investigations into how the Zionist state was actually created. Uri Davis has been in the forefront of such research, exposing the intentional falsification of Israel’s “founding myths.” His article, “In Search of the Abu Sitta Sword…” is a good example of such work.

Jim Rogers’ article, “Copyright and the Erosion of Sovereignty: The Legal Shaping of the Music Industry,” is an excellent historical exposition of the transformation of copyright law, from its original purpose of protecting and encouraging independent creative work, to becoming “the driver of cultural industries [that] has evolved into a core constituent of the lifeblood of neo-liberal capitalism.”

With the disintegration of the “Fordist subject” (bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and proletarian consciousness) since the 1960s, through the shift from a heavy-industry, state-welfare, structured society to one dominated by service, consumer and information (so-called “immaterial labor”) sectors, a significant issue has been the nature (or even possibility) of a collective agency that may potentially confront neo-liberal capitalism with a viable alternative that doesn’t fall back to instrumental economist, nationalist or religious forms. The problem often takes the form that, even though we are all in the same boat, it’s very rare to have a sense of genuine connectedness from which a common consensus may emerge. Instead, fragmentation and “identity politics” of self-interest have prevailed. However, occasionally, something unexpectedly bursts forth, reminding us of what is missing—as absent potentiality momentarily forms into an unnamable sense of being-together. Something like that happened at the 2007 San Francisco International Poetry Festival. Organized by S. F. Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman, poets from around the world came together to share their words. Their voices, while remaining distinct, merged, the usual atomized chasms dissipated, creating a sense of communality among all present: something effervescent yet palpable came into being—flowing, perhaps, from deep well- springs of an eclipsed destiny. So we are pleased to present a special section from the readings of the festival. For lack of space and to convey the festival’s international scope, we have limited our presentation to poets from non-U.S. countries.

The nature of national border regimes, migration and precarious labor have been loci of instability in the neo- liberal regime, which the latter has sought to contain by increasing transnational controls and police actions, as the article, “From Borderline to Borderland: The Changing Border Regime, Transnational Labor, and Migration Struggles in Europe”, succinctly demonstrates.

Since around the 1950’s the dominant “art world” has touted itself as a space of “free creativity.” In fact, such “art” has well served the logic of capitalism. What is a new development of late is the incorporation (of course, selectively based on the “right connections” and knowledge of how to play the game) of anti-institutional, “alternative,” and critical artwork into the dominant “art-world.” The group, Radical Culture Research Collective, addresses such issues, as their essay on Documenta, “The Sublime Whiff of Criticality”, demonstrates.

Reinterpreting Gramsci’s work, and arguing against the tendency to dismiss national issues by many postcolonial theoreticians, E. San Juan, Jr.’s article, “Antonio Gramsci’s Theory and Strategy of the ‘National Popular’ and its Revolutionary Potential”, argues that “…as long as the Philippines is a deformed or inchoate ‘nation-state,’ without real sovereignty, the nationalist project […] remains pivotal and decisive in socialist transformation.”

Lastly, I want to mention the concluding article, “Reflections on the Question ‘Is History Over’,” by Chris Wright. It is a clear, accessible meditation, based on an admirable grasp of history, on the draining of substance
and meaning in our lives by the commodity system.

Lack of space prevents me from commenting on the many fine works in this issue, so I encourage people to make their own discoveries. Finally, please feel free to send us your ideas, criticisms, submissions, as well as support by ordering copies or subscribing. —the editor