AMERIKKKA STAYS SAME OVERNIGHT

Marxism is centered on the idea that classes can be abolished through the liberation of the proletariat.

The world-historical consequence of the Occupy movement needs to be put in this perspective. This is the same world and involves one of the same powers. So far, the Occupy movement has involved a tiny minority of Americans, and at very little expense for these people. There are attacks with irritants on protestors, but most violence has been one-sided and limited. Importantly, what are the changes in business-as-usual that this movement seeks to put into place?

A strong point made by Peter Hallward is simply that "waiting" has never made a revolution happen. If you consider capitalism a transformation of slavery, and existing capitalist society to be unjust, then it doesn't matter if the legal paperwork has been done. John Brown didn't leaflet for abolitionism, he tried to arm the people and destroy the institution he despised. "Waiting" for a parliamentary majority, or a well established consensus around some economic alternative, seems like it concedes all the ground to the opposition.

At the end of March 2011, the Bloc Quebecois polled at 36.8% of the Quebec vote, which would give it about 45 seats in an election if it were held that day. Alas, the vote was held just over a month later: in the May 2011 election, the Bloc Quebecois won just four (4) of Quebec's 75 seats. It received 23.4% of the Quebec vote. With Bloc Quebecois fading from relevance, the future direction of the Quebec Sovereignty Movement is up for grabs.

In 2003, in the wake of massive protests against austerity, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said, "The street must express itself, but the street does not govern." This encapsulates the bourgeois view of democracy, with a passive public that is governed by an elite. Its negation is quite simple: Rule of the street. That is, communist-oriented democracy is the public governing itself through direct action. The emerging democracy must be best thought of as insurgent, as interrupting the normal flows. Importantly, insurgent democracy seeks to end the state's monopoly on regulating flows, pulling these tasks down to affected communities and to a restored commons.

I've basically been working through some books on poststructuralist marxism and friends. Mostly stuff about Laclau and Mouffe, but some stuff about Zizek as well. Mostly I've been thinking about the three-part set "liberalism -Chantal Mouffe-, marxism -Slavoj Zizek- and anarchism -Richard Day-", and trade-offs that each one makes. So basically a convergence between Lacanian psychoanalysis (which all three lean on to different degrees) and certain situated traditions within (pots)modern society.