Posted by: lettrist on: November 12, 2009
The Paris Commune, that pervasive theme of French leftist history, hangs like a shadow over European politics, indeed, world politics.
Just like in the 1870s, 80s, and 90s — the heyday of leftist anarchism — we seem to be reinventing ideas of the anti-authoritarian, anti-political left today, such as ‘the commune’. Our [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: November 5, 2009
It’s amazing how much people in general can shift their views with enough time and psychic manipulation. “Communism is weakness on stilts” is something I wrote in an online forum four years ago here. I was apparently debating “religion vs. the will to power” on philosophyforums.com. I got the phrase from Jeremy Bentham who once [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: July 3, 2009
This is a reading list I am putting together for a discussion on hipsterism.
Why Hipsters Aren’t All That Hip, Forrest Perry, Monthly Review, 2006
On the Poverty of Hip Life, Raoul Vaneigem, Situationist International, 1972
Fiorucci Made Them Hipster, Lettrist, Utopia or Bust, 2009.
Why Hipsters Suck, Kerry Da Silva, Hybrid Magazine, 2008
Hip Hop Legend KRS-One Seizes New [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: May 1, 2009
This is a pamphlet I put together for a reading group. I can link to the printable .pdf file in the future, but for now all the articles can be found from here.
Part 1
Workers Councils – Anton Pannekoek 1936
Council Communism & The Critique of Bolshevism – Cajo Brendel 1999
The Factory Committee: Motor of the Social [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: April 22, 2009
I was reading some Ho Chi Minh the other day, from a book called The Selected Works of Ho Chi Minh, and came to the conclusion that communist writing – the style of communist dispatch writing (in general) – is so very good! and worth emulating.
Ho Chi Minh – first of all – is not [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: April 14, 2009
BBC Hardtalk interviews Alain Badiou about the “reality” of France, and the necessity of pragmatism during the economic crisis. He’s asked, “Are you or are you not a communist?” The BBC dismisses Badiou as an anti-Semite, a wide-eyed radical who took up a barricade in 1968, an anti-pragmatist, a communist, a romantic, and charlatan.
I think [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: February 3, 2009
La Commune (2001) – a self-reflective film about the short-lived commune that arose out of social tension and upheaval in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. This is a groundbreaking film that did not show up on too many radar screens.
The film asks you to imagine you’re walking in the shoes of Paris [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: October 20, 2008
I just got back from a great party in Portland, one of my favorite cities in the U.S.
A light rail system connects Portland to the suburbs, something “environmental” Seattle barely has.
We spent the night at a friend’s house and found a copy of Portland’s “Gay and Lesbian Yellow Pages” on the doorstep when we woke [...]
Posted by: lettrist on: May 9, 2008
I found this comic strip on a communist discussion board. Can you believe this dirty capitalist pig? Sucking the surplus value of labor right off their backs, what nerve.
Don’t get me wrong, I love propaganda. But would the workers necessarily have higher wages if they were the owners of that capital? No, I think even [...]
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