A Democratic Multitude
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
In These Times
November 22, 2002
A Democratic Multitude
By David Graeber
Any way you measure it, November’s European Social Forum was
a spectacular success. After the nightmare of the G-8
meetings in Genoa a year and a half before, the prospect of
any large-scale convergence of globalization activists in
Italy was a matter of widespread trepidation. Almost as soon
as organizers named Florence as the location, Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi announced that "police intelligence" had
discovered that activists were planning to wreak widespread
destruction in the ancient city. The announcement was backed
up by an endless campaign of scaremongering on Italian TV
and in print media, much of which is owned by Berlusconi.
The organizers--who had selected Florence partly because its
citizens had just elected a radical mayor--demanded an
audience with government ministers, where they presented a
simple proposal: We are not intending violence or
destruction, they said, but we are also determined to hold
the forum in Florence, with permission or not. If police
tried to shut it down by force, some activists would
certainly defend themselves; it was really up to the
government whether they wanted there to be violence. So the
government gave in. For the moment.
One might say that the idea of a Social Forum is to create a
new conception of the public, not as voters or passive
spectators, but as the kind of public that might exist in a
truly free society. A "democratic multitude" is the
currently popular phrase in Italy (it originally goes back
to Spinoza). Instead of old-fashioned talk of "the masses,"
with its implications of faceless uniformity--a sea of gray
faces rallying behind some great leader or glued to some
giant screen--"the multitude" is inherently heterogeneous,
an endless colorful array self-organized groups converging
for some purposes and going their separate ways for others.
The Social Forum was a place for such a multitude to
converge: In this case, to imagine what Europe might look
like if the principles underlying these groups were
generalized. It would be, among other things, a Europe of
open borders, networks of cooperative enterprises connected
by complex systems of barter or social exchange, in which a
massive diminution of certain forms of ecologically
destructive consumerism would be compensated by guaranteed
incomes, drastically reduced hours of work and frenetically
intensified cultural production.
--------------
And the forum itself? Imagine if you will something halfway
between a carnival and the largest academic conference in
world history, with 60,000 delegates--but the average age
was in the mid-twenties, and at least half the delegates
sported dreadlocks, piercings or kaffiyehs. Ancient
arsenals--all part of the Renaissance fortress in which the
conference was held—were packed with audiences of up to
6,000, listening to discussions of the Argentine barter
economy, strategies for civil disobedience, or the relation
of sexuality and revolution. The whole event culminated on
November 9 with one of the largest peace marches Europe has
ever seen, an enormous festival of music and costumes that
even the police estimated at 500,000; organizers claimed
more than a million.
Without the support of the city government, Berlusconi and
his allies were unable to manufacture another Genoa, and all
the scare tactics came to nothing. There are dangers here,
however. The main Italian organizers of the event were
political parties like the Greens and Rifondazione
Comunista, along with the Disobédienti (formerly Ya Basta!),
which have been criticized for their reliance on top-down
organizational structures. They and reformist groups like
the French ATTAC dominated the speeches and seminars; the
anarchists and most other actual practitioners of
self-organization found themselves exiled to the margins
(the Italian Independent Media Center along with most
anarchists ended up operating out of a space called the Hub
half a mile away from the fortress).
Media campaigns endlessly represented them as the "violent
fringe," although these were almost the only groups in
attendance that rejected any idea of imposing their views by
force. But that propaganda made it much easier for some on
center stage--like Alex Callinicos of the British Socialist
Workers Party--to lecture the crowds about how foolish and
destructive it was to imagine there was ever something
fundamentally new about the current movement (some nonsense
about new organizational forms coming out of the Zapatistas,
or whatever), insisting instead that the core of the
movement has always been established labor unions and
political parties. Those who would like to reduce us to
faceless masses are never far away.
As if to highlight such dangers, almost as soon as the event
was over, the government struck back, hauling off some 20
activists in raids all over Italy, accusing them of
conspiring to disrupt the government during previous
protests in Naples and Genoa. Organizers of events like the
Social Forum must stand behind such people--and ultimately,
that means not only demanding their release, but letting
them into backrooms where agendas appear to be made or,
better, democratizing the process altogether. No movement
can survive if it allows itself to be cut off from the
sources of its own creativity.
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
All my fiction through 2001 and more. Intro by S.T. Joshi.
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord We˙rdgliffe and Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News for Anarchists & Activists:
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Said Smygo, the iconoclast of Zothique: "Bear a hammer with
thee always, and break down any terminus on which is
written: 'So far shalt thou pass, but no further go.'"
--Clark Ashton Smith
Oliver Kamm
>
> A Democratic Multitude
>
> By David Graeber
>
> Any way you measure it, November's European Social Forum was
> a spectacular success. After the nightmare of the G-8
> meetings in Genoa a year and a half before, the prospect of
> any large-scale convergence of globalization activists in
> Italy was a matter of widespread trepidation. Almost as soon
> as organizers named Florence as the location, Prime Minister
> Silvio Berlusconi announced that "police intelligence" had
> discovered that activists were planning to wreak widespread
> destruction in the ancient city. The announcement was backed
> up by an endless campaign of scaremongering on Italian TV
> and in print media, much of which is owned by Berlusconi.
>
> The organizers--who had selected Florence partly because its
> citizens had just elected a radical mayor--demanded an
> audience with government ministers, where they presented a
> simple proposal:
[snip]
Note that these groupuscules demanded an audience with government
ministers having been elected by no one and being accountable to no
one. They are, in short, much less representative than the government
leaders they riot against, and are not remotely accurately described
as 'a democratic multitude'.
G*rd*n
| > A Democratic Multitude
| >
| > Any way you measure it, November's European Social Forum was
| > a spectacular success. After the nightmare of the G-8
| > meetings in Genoa a year and a half before, the prospect of
| > any large-scale convergence of globalization activists in
| > Italy was a matter of widespread trepidation. Almost as soon
| > as organizers named Florence as the location, Prime Minister
| > Silvio Berlusconi announced that "police intelligence" had
| > discovered that activists were planning to wreak widespread
| > destruction in the ancient city. The announcement was backed
| > up by an endless campaign of scaremongering on Italian TV
| > and in print media, much of which is owned by Berlusconi.
| >
| > The organizers--who had selected Florence partly because its
| > citizens had just elected a radical mayor--demanded an
| > audience with government ministers, where they presented a
olive...@tiscali.co.uk (Oliver Kamm):
| Note that these groupuscules demanded an audience with government
| ministers having been elected by no one and being accountable to no
| one. They are, in short, much less representative than the government
| leaders they riot against, and are not remotely accurately described
| as 'a democratic multitude'.
According to the story, however, the groups were demanding
only ordinary rights of assembly and association, which had
been threatened by the said government ministers. Who they
were accountable to or represented was irrelevant.
It seems odd, though, that Berlusconi and company did not
simply provide as much violence as necessary through the
time-honored fashion of _agents_provocateurs_. It would be
interesting to know how they were warded off.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 11/14/02 <-adv't
Guilherme C Roschke
> > citizens had just elected a radical mayor--demanded an
> > audience with government ministers, where they presented a
> > simple proposal:
>
> [snip]
>
> Note that these groupuscules demanded an audience with government
> ministers having been elected by no one and being accountable to no
> one. They are, in short, much less representative than the government
> leaders they riot against, and are not remotely accurately described
> as 'a democratic multitude'.
>
would have all been part of the system if they were donors.
-gr
Josh Dougherty
news:Pine.GSO.4.44.021124...@unagi.cis.upenn.edu...
Are you questioning the sanctity of one dollar = one vote democracy?!? How
elitist of you.
Josh
Giorgio Torrieri
> > Any way you measure it, November's European Social Forum was
> > a spectacular success. After the nightmare of the G-8
> > meetings in Genoa a year and a half before, the prospect of
> > any large-scale convergence of globalization activists in
> > Italy was a matter of widespread trepidation. Almost as soon
> > as organizers named Florence as the location, Prime Minister
> > Silvio Berlusconi announced that "police intelligence" had
> > discovered that activists were planning to wreak widespread
> > destruction in the ancient city. The announcement was backed
> > up by an endless campaign of scaremongering on Italian TV
> > and in print media, much of which is owned by Berlusconi.
> >
> > The organizers--who had selected Florence partly because its
> > citizens had just elected a radical mayor--demanded an
> > audience with government ministers, where they presented a
> > simple proposal:
> Note that these groupuscules demanded an audience with government
> ministers having been elected by no one and being accountable to no
> one. They are, in short, much less representative than the government
> leaders they riot against, and are not remotely accurately described
> as 'a democratic multitude'.
As an Italian citizen, I do not find a Governament headed by the guy who
owns 60% of the Italian Media, and which committed grevious human
rights abuses against protesters (Genoa, 2001) rapresentative at all.
People who get off their butts and put their their time and their
personal safety at risk for a better world are far more rapresentative.
Martin Luther King, the Freedom Riders and the Antiwar protesters
were a democratic multitude PRECISELY because they took to the street.
GT
M J Carley
>It seems odd, though, that Berlusconi and company did not simply
>provide as much violence as necessary through the time-honored
>fashion of _agents_provocateurs_. It would be interesting to know
>how they were warded off.
The rumour in Florence was that the local police (employed by the
city) had said that they would be on the side of the ESFers if the
Carabinieri attacked.
Of course, the Economist claims it was because hundreds of outside
agitators were prevented from entering Italy in the first place.
--
`Al vero filosofo ogni terreno e' patria.'
BHaLC #6
No MS attachments: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
Home page: http://staff.bath.ac.uk/ensmjc/
Oliver Kamm
"Giorgio Torrieri" <luno...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9ce9c325.02112...@posting.google.com...
> olive...@tiscali.co.uk (Oliver Kamm) wrote in message
news:<40cd7d30.02112...@posting.google.com>...
>
> owns 60% of the Italian Media, and which committed grevious human
> rights abuses against protesters (Genoa, 2001) rapresentative at all.
Indeed, who on earth supports the man apart from, erm, the electorate?
>
> People who get off their butts and put their their time and their
> personal safety at risk for a better world are far more rapresentative.
>
> Martin Luther King, the Freedom Riders and the Antiwar protesters
> were a democratic multitude PRECISELY because they took to the street.
And Mussolini too, given that he got off his butt and marched on Rome?
Once again, we see the contempt for democracy and the inherent fascism of
the Chomsky cult.
M J Carley
>"Giorgio Torrieri" <luno...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:9ce9c325.02112...@posting.google.com...
>> olive...@tiscali.co.uk (Oliver Kamm) wrote in message
>news:<40cd7d30.02112...@posting.google.com>...
>>
>> As an Italian citizen, I do not find a Governament headed by the guy who
>> owns 60% of the Italian Media, and which committed grevious human
>> rights abuses against protesters (Genoa, 2001) rapresentative at all.
>
>Indeed, who on earth supports the man apart from, erm, the electorate?
Well, no, actually.
Election result breakdown:
Camera dei Deputati
Casa delle liberta': 45.4% 282 seats
Ulivo: 43.7% 184 seats
Votes for parties not integrated in one of the alliances:
Democrazia Europea: 2.4%
Italia dei Valori: 3.9%
Partito Radicale: 2.2%
Rifondazione
Communista: 5.0%
http://www.iic-berlino.de/culturita/11.9.htm
(The total percentage comes to 102.6, which I can only attribute to
rounding error, probably in adding the contributions from the
different parties within the electoral alliances.)
Guilherme C Roschke
> > As an Italian citizen, I do not find a Governament headed by the guy who
> > owns 60% of the Italian Media, and which committed grevious human
> > rights abuses against protesters (Genoa, 2001) rapresentative at all.
>
> Indeed, who on earth supports the man apart from, erm, the electorate?
what was his vote in florence?
-gr
Giorgio Torrieri
> > As an Italian citizen, I do not find a Governament headed by the guy who
> > owns 60% of the Italian Media, and which committed grevious human
> > rights abuses against protesters (Genoa, 2001) rapresentative at all.
> Indeed, who on earth supports the man apart from, erm, the electorate?
With 60% of control of the Media, record abstentions, and persecution
of protesters, still don't find this very "rapresentative".
The governament in the '60s was "supported by the electorate".
MLK and the anti-war protesters still marched ("rioted") on 'em.
The fact that they were indeed democratic (dangerous PRECISELY because
they
were democratic) was confirmed by none other than Samuel Huntigton,
who
wrote, in 1975, that
" some of the problems of governance in the United States today stem
from an excess of
democracy... Needed, instead, is a greater degree of moderation of
democracy."
> > People who get off their butts and put their their time and their
> > personal safety at risk for a better world are far more rapresentative.
> >
> > Martin Luther King, the Freedom Riders and the Antiwar protesters
> > were a democratic multitude PRECISELY because they took to the street.
>
> And Mussolini too, given that he got off his butt and marched on Rome?
Sorry, wrong call.
Mussolini marched at the behest of power, his "getting off his butt"
was approved and supported by the king. The protesters ,including
the
million in Florence, marched to challenge power.
I guess the difference for you is insubstantial.
GT
Dan Clore
> David Graeber:
In case you don't know, G*rd*n, Oliver Kamm is one of the
trolls currently infesting alt.fan.noam-chomsky. It's no
surprise to discover that his vision of democracy begins and
ends at the ballot box, nor that he condemns the idea that
one might request assurances that one will not be attacked
for exercising the rights of free speech and assembly as an
affront to their "democratic" authority.
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
All my fiction through 2001 and more. Intro by S.T. Joshi.
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe and Necronomicon Page:
G*rd*n
|>|> A Democratic Multitude
|>|>
|>|> Any way you measure it, November's European Social Forum was
|>|> a spectacular success. After the nightmare of the G-8
|>|> meetings in Genoa a year and a half before, the prospect of
|>|> any large-scale convergence of globalization activists in
|>|> Italy was a matter of widespread trepidation. Almost as soon
|>|> as organizers named Florence as the location, Prime Minister
|>|> Silvio Berlusconi announced that "police intelligence" had
|>|> discovered that activists were planning to wreak widespread
|>|> destruction in the ancient city. The announcement was backed
|>|> up by an endless campaign of scaremongering on Italian TV
|>|> and in print media, much of which is owned by Berlusconi.
|>|>
|>|> The organizers--who had selected Florence partly because its
|>|> citizens had just elected a radical mayor--demanded an
|>|> audience with government ministers, where they presented a
|>|> simple proposal: ...
olive...@tiscali.co.uk (Oliver Kamm):
| > | Note that these groupuscules demanded an audience with government
| > | ministers having been elected by no one and being accountable to no
| > | one. They are, in short, much less representative than the government
| > | leaders they riot against, and are not remotely accurately described
| > | as 'a democratic multitude'.
G*rd*n wrote:
| > According to the story, however, the groups were demanding
| > only ordinary rights of assembly and association, which had
| > been threatened by the said government ministers. Who they
| > were accountable to or represented was irrelevant.
Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org>:
| In case you don't know, G*rd*n, Oliver Kamm is one of the
| trolls currently infesting alt.fan.noam-chomsky. It's no
| surprise to discover that his vision of democracy begins and
| ends at the ballot box, nor that he condemns the idea that
| one might request assurances that one will not be attacked
| for exercising the rights of free speech and assembly as an
| affront to their "democratic" authority.
Trolls can sometimes be used. In this case, Oliver obligingly
played the role of mainstream dogmadroner, putting forward
exactly the sort of line I'd expect to see from the mass media,
where the meaning of _democratic_ is reversed into "capitalist".
In popping off this move -- easy play -- I got a chance to
subvert the minds of all of the eight people who were reading
the thread, and sow doubt of the established order in their
ranks. Surely the revolution is just around the corner.
David Graeber
In article <40cd7d30.02112...@posting.google.com>,
olive...@tiscali.co.uk (Oliver Kamm) wrote:
I don't normally respond to trolls - it's perfectly
obvious Kamm is not on this newsgroup to engage in
discussion, but to prevent it, either by distracting
attention away from the purposes the newsgroup was
set up to serve (discussion of Chomsky's political
analyses and related libertarian socialist ideas) or
dissuading those who might be interested in finding out
what Chomsky's positions actually are from doing so.
Why anyone would spend hours of their work time every day
to _prevent_ discussion, endlessly repeating the exact
same bogus charges no matter how many times they have been
disproved, is an interesting question - in the absence of
some obsessive mental condition (always a possibility
on usenet), one has to wonder if someone is paying him to
do this. So playing along is playing into his hands -
really one should just ignore him. But the irony here
What I find interesting here is Kamm's support for
fascism. There is nothing Kamm likes so much as to
figure out some incredibly elaborate and labored way
to associate someone with Nazism (ie, they asked for
evidence when Kamm said someone else is pro-Nazi; they
cited a text cited on a series of different web sites
one of which is run by a Nazi, etc etc) - the moment
he can produce such a prize, he will hold it out
triumphantly and use it as a way to libel said
person every time their name appears on the
internet, saying "this person thinks the fact someone
is a Nazi is no big deal" or what have you. An
excellent way to prevent actual discussion of ideas
and positions, which is of course what Kamm is
(I suspect) being paid to do here.
So you'd imagine Kamm would be a real, major, anti-
fascist, huh? Not exactly. Consider his defense of
the Berlusconi government above. Berlusconi's coalition,
which received a plurality (not a majority) in the
general elections, despite the advantage of Berlusconi's
owning 60% of the Italian news media, is exactly that:
a coalition of parties. Prominent in the coalition is
the Alleanza Nazionale, which is variously described by
the foreign press as "ex-Fascist" or "neo-fascist",
and whose current leader, Gianfranco Fini, is currently
the deputy prime minister. The party traces its roots
directly back to Mussolini, recalls the former fascist
dictator fondly - Mussolini's daughter, in fact, is
a prominent party member and always celebrating her father's
legacy. While Kamm likes to represent matters as a
bunch of tiny undemocratic "groupsicles" (who somehow
managed to turn out 60 thousand _delegates_ to their
last meeting and put perhaps a million people in the
streets) "rioting" against their democratic representatives,
accounts in the Italian and international press after
Genoa revealed that Fini - who has, in the past, openly
called himself a fascist - took personal charge of much of
the "security" arrangements before the G8 summit in Genoa,
which, as it turns out, involved having the police work
with neo-nazi and fascist groups from across Europe
(interviews with such Nazis later appeared in
Italian and foreign newspapers, I particularly remember
a British Nazi who called himself "Snoopy" who admitted to
masquerading as an anarchist and wreaking havoc; he professed an
ardent admiration for Adolf Hitler) to act as provacateurs,
giving police an excuse to attack pretty much every
group of demonstrators they could find, ranging from
the pacifist Lilliput groups to feminist pagans doing
spiral dances to the padded Disobedienti, all of whom were
gassed and clubbed and many left seriously injured. (This
did eventually lead to street battles with enraged
protestors, though the protestors mainly struck back
against empty buildings; there were hundreds of seriously
injured protestors but I don't remember hearing anything
about seriously injured cops.) As Fini and other National
Alliance deputies dallied in Carabinieri HQ in Genoa,
arrestees were systematically beaten, made to stand for
hours on broken limbs, and otherwise tortured, and forced
to sing fascist anthems and shout fascist slogans.
A later investigation found serious abuses:
"Using physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, critics charge that the
Italian police engaged in systematic beatings and human rights abuses,
leading some to compare the conduct of the Italian police to the Chilean
security forces under Pinochet. At an August 3 press conference, lead
investigator Francesco
Meloni said' "The reports of violence, and the identical testimony of
scores of persons who passed through jails in diverse hours and days
during the G-8, suggest a systematic method of torture and genuine
violations of human rights."
(http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Fascism_Face_Genoa.html)
I could go on, and talk about the posters of Hitler and
Mussolini observed in Genoa police stations, or the spectre
of Italian police (and this I saw myself) all raising their
arms in fascist salutes to intimidate protestors. But the
point is pretty simple. Here we aren't talking about some
net loony who runs a white supremacist web page - evil
and dangerous though such a person undoubtedly is, they
are pretty small fry, probably lucky to have a dozen followers
if that - but a real, genuine, fascist party, the kind that
actually could seize power, that actually has seized a share
of power through its alliance with an extreme
right-wing government, engaged in the classic Nazi techniques
of instigating brutal violence against political dissidents
and then manipulating the media to blame the victims. And
Kamm is totally behind them.
Of course in Florence the police did not attack or use
provacateurs so everything went peacefully, demonstrating
clearly who the actual "rioters" are.
But here's the point. Kamm will bend reality and logic
into pretzels to associate those whose opinions he
dislikes with Nazis, even what's probably some isolated
nazi crazy with no political power. But when Nazis actually do
achieve some kind of political power - they become part of a
government (even though the party of Fini and Mussolini
received far smaller a percentage of the vote, this
time 'round, than Hitler did when he became Chancellor)
then lo! Kamm is their supporter. If it's a contest between
those who believe in direct democracy and fascists who believe
in employing thugs (some police, some nazi youth just along
for the ride) to assault and torture them - well, Kamm
is on the side of the Nazis. He doesn't just cite their
web pages. He actively supports them and justifies their
violence against political dissidents.
I strongly suggest people on this group to follow Kamm's
lead, and to do what he would have done - to make sure
that any time his name is mentioned or he suggests any
opinion ever again, we all immediately reply that he is
a person who supports violence on the part of fascists and
nazis. That's all we should say about him. That's it.
Kamm: backer of fascist violence. Kamm: supporter of
Mussolini (Mussolini the younger, anyway). Kamm: who believes
a nazi is a legitimate member of a democratic government.
Kamm: who believes that when nazis torture people under
portraits of Mussolini, that's a legitimate expression
of democracy - far more legitimate, apparently, than
insisting on your right to hold a conference on how to
create new more democratic institutions even though the
fascists try to stop you. Kamm: pro-Nazi.
DG
Brain Death
wrote:
>I don't normally respond to trolls - it's perfectly
>obvious Kamm is not on this newsgroup to engage in
>discussion, but to prevent it, either by distracting
>attention away from the purposes the newsgroup was
>set up to serve (discussion of Chomsky's political
>analyses and related libertarian socialist ideas)
Libertarian socialist? Now that is an interesting oxymoron!
BD
Guilherme C Roschke
> >obvious Kamm is not on this newsgroup to engage in
> >discussion, but to prevent it, either by distracting
> >attention away from the purposes the newsgroup was
> >set up to serve (discussion of Chomsky's political
> >analyses and related libertarian socialist ideas)
>
> Libertarian socialist? Now that is an interesting oxymoron!
>
-gr
Oliver Kamm
"David Graeber" <dgra...@rcn.net> wrote in message
news:dgraeber-301...@204-74-0-116.c3-0.nyw-ubr2.nyr-nyw.ny.cable.r
cn.com...
>
> I don't normally respond to trolls - it's perfectly
> obvious Kamm is not on this newsgroup to engage in
> discussion, but to prevent it, either by distracting
> attention away from the purposes the newsgroup was
> set up to serve (discussion of Chomsky's political
> analyses and related libertarian socialist ideas) or
> dissuading those
[snip]
It is a pleasure to exchange words with Mr Graeber after a long absence
since he left the Chomsky ng. The last time we did so he got into a terrible
muddle over the enlightening concept that a country's current account is -
w'addya know? - balanced by its capital account: hence the term 'balance of
payments'. I hope that in the intervening years Mr Graeber has managed to
hone his skills in the esoteric branch of knowledge (i.e. simple arithmetic)
that escaped him then.
Unfortunately, the ability to structure an argument and assemble empirical
evidence still eludes him. My only comment - ever, to my recollection -
about the Berlusconi administration is that it is the elected government of
Italy, having won the support of the electorate (and I carefully didn't say,
when making such a reference, that it had won the majority of the vote: this
rarely happens in advanced democracies, other than under electoral systems
such as the French that deliberately engineer such an outcome). It thus has
democratic legitimacy, whereas the anti-Third World campaigners (except that
they call themselves anti-globalisation campaigners, the better to avoid
thinking about their culpability in campaigning for increased poverty in the
Third World) have none. I do not begrudge them the right to demonstrate
peacefully, but it is a matter of observation that they don't generally do
so; in the circumstances they have been treated with great fairness and
leniency.
I should add that, for all my affection for Mr Graeber, the sight of a rich
kid with an embarrassing lack of economic awareness campaigning for the
Third World to be denied the means of lifting itself out of poverty is not
one that elevates. That he should then complain because he hasn't been
treated with the deference and gentility he believes he merits is, however,
very funny indeed. Go, Italian police.
Josh Dougherty
the uniquely American, and sheltered, impression that the term "Libertarian"
implies the same as "Anarcho-capitalist".
Josh
James A. Donald
Guilherme C Roschke
> try googling it.
The fact that lots of people call themselves libertarian socialists
does not make it any the less an oxymoron.
As I say in my web page http://www.jim.com/cat/blood.htm :
As usual, Catalonia demonstrated once again the contradiction between
liberty and socialism, with the usual rivers of blood that accompany
such demonstrations: To the extent that they were libertarian, they
were not socialist, and to the extent that they were socialist, they
were not libertarian.
Publius2k
***
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org>:
> | In case you don't know, G*rd*n, Oliver Kamm is one of the
> | trolls currently infesting alt.fan.noam-chomsky. It's no
> | surprise to discover that his vision of democracy begins and
> | ends at the ballot box, nor that he condemns the idea that
> | one might request assurances that one will not be attacked
> | for exercising the rights of free speech and assembly as an
> | affront to their "democratic" authority.
>
> Trolls can sometimes be used. In this case, Oliver obligingly
> played the role of mainstream dogmadroner, putting forward
> exactly the sort of line I'd expect to see from the mass media,
> where the meaning of _democratic_ is reversed into "capitalist".
> In popping off this move -- easy play -- I got a chance to
> subvert the minds of all of the eight people who were reading
> the thread, and sow doubt of the established order in their
> ranks. Surely the revolution is just around the corner.
:)
Guilherme C Roschke
>
> The fact that lots of people call themselves libertarian socialists
> does not make it any the less an oxymoron.
>
> As I say in my web page http://www.jim.com/cat/blood.htm :
>
> As usual, Catalonia demonstrated once again the contradiction between
> liberty and socialism, with the usual rivers of blood that accompany
> such demonstrations: To the extent that they were libertarian, they
> were not socialist, and to the extent that they were socialist, they
> were not libertarian.
like the factory workers taking over in argentina. or maybe not
like them.
-gr
David Graeber
<jgl...@letsroll.com> wrote:
Try checking out the history of the term
"libertarian".
DG
David Graeber
<olive...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> "David Graeber" <dgra...@rcn.net> wrote in message
> news:dgraeber-301...@204-74-0-116.c3-0.nyw-ubr2.nyr-nyw.ny.cable.r
> cn.com...
> >
> > I don't normally respond to trolls - it's perfectly
> > obvious Kamm is not on this newsgroup to engage in
> > discussion, but to prevent it, either by distracting
> > attention away from the purposes the newsgroup was
> > set up to serve (discussion of Chomsky's political
> > analyses and related libertarian socialist ideas) or
> > dissuading those
>
> [snip]
>
> It is a pleasure to exchange words with Mr Graeber after a long absence
> since he left the Chomsky ng. The last time we did so he got into a terrible
> muddle over the enlightening concept that a country's current account is -
> w'addya know? - balanced by its capital account: hence the term 'balance of
> payments'. I hope that in the intervening years Mr Graeber has managed to
> hone his skills in the esoteric branch of knowledge (i.e. simple arithmetic)
> that escaped him then.
This is clearly a figment of the fascist-supporter's
imagination: the only exchange about economics
I ever had with him turned on his (feigned I believe)
ignorance of the common usage of the term "neo-classical".
>
> Unfortunately, the ability to structure an argument and assemble empirical
> evidence still eludes him. My only comment - ever, to my recollection -
> about the Berlusconi administration is that it is the elected government of
> Italy, having won the support of the electorate (and I carefully didn't say,
> when making such a reference, that it had won the majority of the vote: this
> rarely happens in advanced democracies, other than under electoral systems
> such as the French that deliberately engineer such an outcome). It thus has
> democratic legitimacy, whereas the anti-Third World campaigners (except that
> they call themselves anti-globalisation campaigners, the better to avoid
> thinking about their culpability in campaigning for increased poverty in the
> Third World) have none. I do not begrudge them the right to demonstrate
> peacefully, but it is a matter of observation that they don't generally do
> so; in the circumstances they have been treated with great fairness and
> leniency.
>
> I should add that, for all my affection for Mr Graeber, the sight of a rich
> kid with an embarrassing lack of economic awareness campaigning for the
> Third World to be denied the means of lifting itself out of poverty is not
> one that elevates. That he should then complain because he hasn't been
> treated with the deference and gentility he believes he merits is, however,
> very funny indeed. Go, Italian police.
Rich kid? The fascist-sympathizing troll is now reduced
to simply making things up. Actually my father was a
plate-stripper and my mother a seamstress but what this
has to do with anything is beyond me. Just a desperate
attempt to come up with some smear or personal slur to
throw out by someone caught with his pro-Nazi
pants down. Notice how in the whole post, he does not -
despite the obvious challenge - manage to bring himself
to say a single word disassociating himself from the
fascist party in Berlusconi's coalition or the fascist
activities of the Italian police, much less condemning
their brutal behavior. My accusations of Kamm's fascist
sympathies are entirely confirmed.
As for my "ignorance" - well, I would ask the troll
what university conveyed a Ph.D. on _him_ and where he
is currently a professor - why he, the know-it-all, is
reduced to posting hysterical smears to usenet while I the
ignorant fool somehow got to be a professor at Yale - but
why bother? No one takes Kamm seriously. What most people were
not fully aware of were his active sympathy for and
support for fascists and nazis. Having pointed this out,
I must return to my actual job which is teaching and
researching on subjects about which our nazi-loving
troll is so embarrassingly ignorant he probably doesn't
even know they exist.
Bye all,
DG
David Graeber
Just for documentary purposes, before signing off from this
discussion, I would like to point out for the benefit of
anyone our neighborhood troll Kamm slanders on some bizarre
bogus charge as a sympathizer with Nazis in the future,
that by now, Kamm has now openly admitted to supporting
both overt fascists and overtly fascist tactics as
practiced by fascists. Since Kamm is an extremely stupid
person it is actually pretty easy to goad him into
displaying his true colors. I'm afraid it will be necessary
to include the full text Kamm is responding to (sorry
about the space) in order for people to see clearly
just how openly Kamm has now admitted to supporting
fascism.
------
the original post
------
I don't normally respond to trolls - it's perfectly
obvious Kamm is not on this newsgroup to engage in
discussion, but to prevent it, either by distracting
attention away from the purposes the newsgroup was
set up to serve (discussion of Chomsky's political
analyses and related libertarian socialist ideas) or
---------
---------
now here is Kamm's bizarre, incoherent reply:
> [snip]
>
> It is a pleasure to exchange words with Mr Graeber after a long absence
> since he left the Chomsky ng. The last time we did so he got into a terrible
> muddle over the enlightening concept that a country's current account is -
> w'addya know? - balanced by its capital account: hence the term 'balance of
> payments'. I hope that in the intervening years Mr Graeber has managed to
> hone his skills in the esoteric branch of knowledge (i.e. simple arithmetic)
> that escaped him then.
Ignorant? Kamm is ignorant of his own posts! No such
discussion took place and a simple check of the archives
(check under "Kamm, Graeber, balance of payments" for
example) will show this to be the case. The usual pathetic
slurs with no content. If the man was capable of
embarrassment he would be weeping now but clearly he is
doesn't care how many times he is caught lying or making
a fool of himself, so long as he can disrupt the group and
prevent people from actually learning something about the
subject
>
> Unfortunately, the ability to structure an argument and assemble empirical
> evidence still eludes him. My only comment - ever, to my recollection -
> about the Berlusconi administration is that it is the elected government of
> Italy, having won the support of the electorate (and I carefully didn't say,
> when making such a reference, that it had won the majority of the vote: this
> rarely happens in advanced democracies, other than under electoral systems
> such as the French that deliberately engineer such an outcome). It thus has
> democratic legitimacy, whereas the anti-Third World campaigners (except that
> they call themselves anti-globalisation campaigners, the better to avoid
> thinking about their culpability in campaigning for increased poverty in the
> Third World) have none. I do not begrudge them the right to demonstrate
> peacefully, but it is a matter of observation that they don't generally do
> so; in the circumstances they have been treated with great fairness and
> leniency.
Well, if you consider torturing pacifists to be
"fairness and leniency", sure. Well, I guess one does,
if one is, as Kamm has now revealed himself to be,
a Nazi. (See below)
>
> I should add that, for all my affection for Mr Graeber, the sight of a rich
> kid with an embarrassing lack of economic awareness campaigning for the
> Third World to be denied the means of lifting itself out of poverty is not
> one that elevates. That he should then complain because he hasn't been
> treated with the deference and gentility he believes he merits is, however,
> very funny indeed. Go, Italian police.
As I remarked in a different post, the "rich kid" slur
is something Kamm apparently just made up off the top of
his head - in fact my dad was a plate-stripper and my mom
for many years a seamstress. He also has no idea what
economic policies I advocate, other than that I oppose the
IMF, so unless he believes that no policy other than the
current IMF policy could possibly help the poor in the global
south (eventually - it surely hasn't done so yet!) he is just,
as usual, making things up. But here's the critical thing. The
ending. Here Kamm just can't help himself. I have documented
that
(a) a significant portion of Berlusconi's coalition is
made up of overt, self-declared fascists
(b) those fascists were involved in planning the
police policy in Genoa
(c) that police policy involved intentionally using
fascists and nazis from Italy and abroad as provacateurs,
then directly assaulting protestors, including the vast
majority of strictly non-violent ones; in one particularly
bloody raid, using sticks and clubs to shatter bones
and teeth of over a hundred activists who they found
sleeping in a local schoolroom, offering no resistance
whatever, putting all of them in the hospital and leaving
clots of blood, flesh and teeth littered all over the
building...
(d) that they then proceeded, with the help of their
fascist auxiliaries, to systematically torture those they
had arrested, while touting fascist symbols and shouting
fascist slogans, or forcing their victims to shout them
as they beat them
And what is Kamm's reply? "Go Italian police!"
So he admits it. He is in favor of fascism. All this
nonsense about accusing others of being Nazis is nonsense.
He's the Nazi. When members of Mussolini's party order
the Italian police to join with Nazis to kick in the
teeth of sleeping protestors, or to break their bones
while demanding they chant "vive il duce" or whatever,
Kamm's response: "go Italian police." He admits it. He's
a Nazi and he thinks that it's a fine thing when Nazi's
beat and torture people.
I'm out of here - but please, guys, don't let him
forget it. He has admitted to being pro-Nazi. That is all
anyone should ever say to him ever again.
DG
iHĞ
wrote:
[big snip]
> And what is Kamm's reply? "Go Italian police!"
> So he admits it. He is in favor of fascism. All this
>nonsense about accusing others of being Nazis is nonsense.
>He's the Nazi. When members of Mussolini's party order
>the Italian police to join with Nazis to kick in the
>teeth of sleeping protestors, or to break their bones
>while demanding they chant "vive il duce" or whatever,
>Kamm's response: "go Italian police." He admits it. He's
>a Nazi and he thinks that it's a fine thing when Nazi's
>beat and torture people.
>
> I'm out of here - but please, guys, don't let him
>forget it. He has admitted to being pro-Nazi. That is all
>anyone should ever say to him ever again.
> DG
This will do nicely, David. ;-)
Oliver Kamm
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
[snip]
> Ignorant? Kamm is ignorant of his own posts! No such
> discussion took place and a simple check of the archives
> (check under "Kamm, Graeber, balance of payments" for
> example) will show this to be the case. The usual pathetic
> slurs with no content. If the man was capable of
> embarrassment he would be weeping now but clearly he is
> doesn't care how many times he is caught lying or making
> a fool of himself, so long as he can disrupt the group and
> prevent people from actually learning something about the
> subject
This is delightful: Graeber confirms my point exactly by showing that,
extraordinarily, he still hasn't worked out what a balance of payments
is; he doesn't even know what the term means. If he had tried entering
'Graeber, Kamm, imports, capital' he would have come up with the
exchange he seeks, and rather devastating it is too. It demonstrated
he hadn't worked out that a country that runs a current account
deficit must simultaneously be a net importer of capital. Amusingly
enough, Graeber then insisted that I address him as 'Dr Graeber';
facts are inconvenient things, and they're always liable to smoke out
someone of intellectual insecurity like Graeber.
>
> >
> > Unfortunately, the ability to structure an argument and assemble empirical
> > evidence still eludes him. My only comment - ever, to my recollection -
> > about the Berlusconi administration is that it is the elected government of
> > Italy, having won the support of the electorate (and I carefully didn't say,
> > when making such a reference, that it had won the majority of the vote: this
> > rarely happens in advanced democracies, other than under electoral systems
> > such as the French that deliberately engineer such an outcome). It thus has
> > democratic legitimacy, whereas the anti-Third World campaigners (except that
> > they call themselves anti-globalisation campaigners, the better to avoid
> > thinking about their culpability in campaigning for increased poverty in the
> > Third World) have none. I do not begrudge them the right to demonstrate
> > peacefully, but it is a matter of observation that they don't generally do
> > so; in the circumstances they have been treated with great fairness and
> > leniency.
>
>
> Well, if you consider torturing pacifists to be
> "fairness and leniency", sure. Well, I guess one does,
> if one is, as Kamm has now revealed himself to be,
> a Nazi. (See below)
Poor dears. Did they expect to be able to attack people and property
without hindrance?
>
>
> >
> > I should add that, for all my affection for Mr Graeber, the sight of a rich
> > kid with an embarrassing lack of economic awareness campaigning for the
> > Third World to be denied the means of lifting itself out of poverty is not
> > one that elevates. That he should then complain because he hasn't been
> > treated with the deference and gentility he believes he merits is, however,
> > very funny indeed. Go, Italian police.
>
> As I remarked in a different post, the "rich kid" slur
> is something Kamm apparently just made up off the top of
> his head - in fact my dad was a plate-stripper and my mom
> for many years a seamstress. He also has no idea what
> economic policies I advocate, other than that I oppose the
> IMF, so unless he believes that no policy other than the
> current IMF policy could possibly help the poor in the global
> south (eventually - it surely hasn't done so yet!) he is just,
> as usual, making things up.
Here's someone who lives on an Ivy League campus boasting of his hard
life while demanding the developing world doesn't have the ability to
specialise in its areas of comparative advantage and thereby improve
their standards of living. I make no value judgement on this, I merely
report the facts.
But here's the critical thing. The
> ending. Here Kamm just can't help himself.
[snip incoherent flail]
Graeber notes with his usual striking investigative work that I
support the Italian police in defending the rule of law against mobs.
Dead right I do, because I'm a supporter of democratic government, the
rule of law and - incidentally - Third World development. I am, in
short, a leftist of democratic views. Members of the various ngs will
note that, having had it pointed out to him that I have never at any
time expressed support for the parties that make up the current
Italian government, Graeber decides not to answer the point but to
scuttle. Nuff said, and not a surprise.
Oliver Kamm
>
> This is clearly a figment of the fascist-supporter's
> imagination: the only exchange about economics
> I ever had with him turned on his (feigned I believe)
> ignorance of the common usage of the term "neo-classical".
Graeber has a usefully selective memory, and it gives me no pleasure
to remind him of his howlers. He welcomed as an entirely appropriate
contribution to the ng we were engaged in the incoherent delusion that
a country with a crrent account deficit (viz. the US) simultaneously
was a net exporter of capital to set up industrial plants overseas and
exploit the impoverished masses etc etc. All stuff that is not only
factually inaccurate but is ARITHMETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Graeber
complains that I have applied the term 'ignorance' to him; I don't
think I have, but if I have it is undeniably an accurate designation.
Almost as amusing is his belief that post-Keynesian economic theory
(about which I particpated in some mailing list discussions, which
Graeber being a curiously obsessive man found on entering my name into
a search engine) is a branch of neo-classical economics. I'd encourage
Graeber to keep posting this type of stuff; there has been little to
laugh about in the past 15 months, and he certainly has the ability to
provide it.
>
> Rich kid?
Yup. A tenured Ivy League academic telling the Third World they
mustn't try to better themselves.
The fascist-sympathizing troll is now reduced
> to simply making things up. Actually my father was a
> plate-stripper and my mother a seamstress but what this
> has to do with anything is beyond me. Just a desperate
> attempt to come up with some smear or personal slur to
> throw out by someone caught with his pro-Nazi
> pants down.
Just a point of factual information.
Notice how in the whole post, he does not -
> despite the obvious challenge - manage to bring himself
> to say a single word disassociating himself from the
> fascist party in Berlusconi's coalition or the fascist
> activities of the Italian police, much less condemning
> their brutal behavior. My accusations of Kamm's fascist
> sympathies are entirely confirmed.
Unsurprisingly, Graeber, having failed to find (and believe me he's
looked) a single statement of mine expressing support for Berlusconi,
attempts the cunning - actually rather dumb - elision whereby the
police become honorary members of the governing coalition. I certainly
support the police, who seem to me to have behaved with great leniency
against a rioting mob, and certainly support the sovereignty of
democratic government, while opposing the particular political parties
that constitute the current government. Graeber is so confused about
political concepts that he assumes that if you're a democrat you must,
ex hypothesi, support the parties that exercise government in a
democracy. We're not in Iraq here, old bean - much as you might regret
it.
> As for my "ignorance" - well, I would ask the troll
> what university conveyed a Ph.D. on _him_ and where he
> is currently a professor - why he, the know-it-all, is
> reduced to posting hysterical smears to usenet while I the
> ignorant fool somehow got to be a professor at Yale - but
> why bother? No one takes Kamm seriously. What most people were
> not fully aware of were his active sympathy for and
> support for fascists and nazis. Having pointed this out,
> I must return to my actual job which is teaching and
> researching on subjects about which our nazi-loving
> troll is so embarrassingly ignorant he probably doesn't
> even know they exist.
> Bye all,
> DG
Well, well, well: here is someone with an advanced case of
intellectual insecurity. I've noticed it before: Graeber just can't
stop telling us that he's an academic, presumably on the grounds that
we'd never be able to work it out otherwise. Suffice to say that his
subject is anthropology (I know this because he can't stop telling us
), not politics or economics, which are subjects about which he
certainly, demonstrably and comprehensively lacks not only training
but knowledge, erudition and insight. These are not soft subjects, Mr
Graeber: they involve empirical research, and it's time you buckled
down and attempted to get to grips with them if you wish to contribute
to these ngs.
Dan Clore
And the history of the term "socialist".
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
All my fiction through 2001 and more. Intro by S.T. Joshi.
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
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