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“I have learned, little by little, that the persistent weakness, in popular subjectivity, of the international dimension of class struggle has been, and remains, the principal obstacle to the construction of the new communism, and therefore the principal cause of the global immovability of capitalist hegemony.”

“Capitalism, whose financial internationalization is the 'supreme stage' - as Lenin said, incorrectly - of imperialism, goes wherever proletarian labour power is abundant, cheap and exploitable, abandoning entire regions along with their worker population, leaving them with nothing to do but wander the colossal ruins of disused factories.”

It’s impressive how aware Badiou is of his own political shortcomings without compromising the integrity of his political position. That he considers himself to be an isolated communist without abandoning convictions when there is no way forward is remarkable.

“For these chains are not of meaning but I’d enjoy-meant [jouis-sens]…”

Motherfucker.

This book is great. Labor organizing from one of the Amazon Labor Union workers. Very grounded in class struggle, written didactically. The barcode tag is “Social Science / Political Science” but this is about how to fight for a Union and win.

“To refuse all consensus on this sequence, to assess it carefully, is today an ideological necessity of the utmost importance. Anyone who refuses to do so has already capitulated to the dominant ideology, whatever claims to intellectual independence they might try to make.”

“Life is too short, and science too vast, to permit even the greatest genius a total experience of humanity.”

*to the tune of Olivia Newton-John*

Let’s get clinical.

Chapter 3 of this book raises the all important moral question ‘is it morally permissible to build a time machine with the purpose of targeting union leaders who supported Zionism?’. The extent to which the American Labor movement was sold out to fund and build the State of Israel is nauseating.

“Believe it or not, I forgot the notes for my lecture!”

What stands out most about this book’s first two chapters are the way the Zionist project was founded on Labor. The way Unions in America were used as both fund raising vehicles for Zionists to buy up land in Palestine so that a nascent settler colony could be formulated and also a political advocacy tool to alter US policy. The Nakba was the result of this groundwork laid by US Labor.

One has to appreciate seeing a plan come to fruition, especially when it has to deal with contingencies. I also appreciate how knowing the rules of the game allows you to break the game.

It’s not a bad idea to take over an organ of the labor movement no matter how diseased and dysfunctional it has become. As a practical activity it provides work to be done and experience for those needing to learn lessons in organizing. It provides a strategic point to hold so that workers can build independence from mainstream politics.

A great book about some shitty things.

Exemplar.

“All history can therefore be read under the
sign of classes, but by observing the rules set forth by Marx, and bearing in mind
that classes are the "negative" of castes and ranks.”

Uhh…

Reading Žižek or reading block quotes by Kant?

I can see what Laruelle does with the One, separating it from Being and allowing it to be without the philosophical burden, but I’m still not seeing the big picture and so I’m keeping my judgment in suspense.

“…whereas he doesn't know all that much himself - is he who takes upon himself the task of propping up the subject-supposed-to-know.”

“What constitutes an effect of the symbolic on the field of the imaginary?”