Skip to content

RAIM-Denver: Review of a talk by Robert Jensen

July 10, 2009 by Anonymous

Review of ‘The Old Future’s Gone: Progressive Strategy Amid Cascading Crisis,’ a talk by Robert Jensen

http://raimd.wordpress.com

Last month, author and activist Robert Jensen spoke in Denver at an event sponsored by Argusfest entitled “The Old Future’s Gone: Progressive Strategy Amid Cascading Crisis.” It was based on a writing that has circulated among left-liberal websites. A professor of journalism at the University of Texas in Austin, he also has written many books and articles on topics such as imperialism, capitalism, white privilege and patriarchy.

He doesn’t quite go to our line, but he at least asks the right questions and approaches the right topics. Because of this, a few members of RAIM went to check out the event.

At best his talk could be summed up as eclectic with a sub-reformist emphasis.

Jensen also carries a sense of honest despair, admitting he sees little in the way of widespread, fundamental change. Rather than seeking out revolutionary means to revolutionary ends, he instead prefers to deal in ways in which he feels he’s made a more immediate, though irrelevant and fleeting, impact.

In talking about strategies for change, Jensen sees the Amerikan left engaged in three types: electoral politics, movement politics and local projects. He sees no use in electoral politics. Movement politics have their limits also, especially in their emphasis on protest marches. Bringing up the February 15, 2003 worldwide marches against the invasion of Iraq, the largest coordinated protest in history, which the New York Times said made world opinion a second superpower, he noted that they did nothing to stop that war. He sees more hope in local projects, things like community gardens and such. According to Jensen, the potential for dialogue and debate among others is increased in local projects, though he didn’t specify to what concrete end. The example he raised as his own efforts with local projects was a worker-owned cafe in Austin, though he admitted this effort failed to get off the ground.

While we understand the frustrations in observing the seemingly immovable state of Amerika and the world, the lack of radicalism in Amerikan mass politics, and the inability for radicals to act effectively in a minoritarian context, there were limits to Jensen’s insights beyond this.

When prodded by a RAIM comrade, Jensen admitted that the First World benefits from the exploitation of the Third World. When asked how this phenomenon of entire populations benefiting from others related to and could perhaps be overcome by local projects, he didn’t have an answer. When asked about a solution in putting local projects to tackling this global issue of exploitation, he said the question was too big and too complicated to solve.

Jensen’s inability to answer straight questions were illuminating to the level of confusion within the Amerikan left, even amongst its intellectuals. Jensen is one of the better intellectuals on the left, as he critiques metaphysical liberal ideas in favor of more radical analyses. Jensen’s desire for revolutionary change is in some ways genuine, though Jensen himself is unable to come up with an effective model for widespread fundamental change. Instead he promotes feel-good sub-reformism in the form of local projects, something he himself admits won’t work all the time. As once stated by Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), “Confusion is the greatest enemy of revolution.”

Much of this confusion can be seen in the trappings of left’s First Worldism. Many on the left nominally go against imperialism while simultaneously campaigning to make Amerikans even better off. Jensen falls in this camp: he wants a better world but doesn’t want to alienate Amerikans. The truth is, Amerikans benefit from the global capitalist economic system as it is and have little material interest in working to create a new one. This in part explains why revolutionary change seems so untenable within Amerika, even to those who genuinely desire it.

Unlike Jensen, we at RAIM apply global class analysis fully. Doing simple math, Amerika is only 5 percent of the world population but the consumer of over 25 percent of the world’s resources. The poorest half of the world lives on less than $2 a day, and the bottom 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day. Although Jensen admits this, RAIM-Denver plainly says the obvious truth and takes it to its logical end: Amerikans are part of the problem; they are a force which must be overcome during the course of progressive change. Unlike Jensen who is fruitlessly engaged in various forms of pandering to a population of petty exploiters and polluters, RAIM champions the cause of the world’s exploited and oppressed majority as the most direct route to creating a new world.

At one point, Jensen said that he struggles to identify as part of humanity and not Amerikan, white or male. In reality, to stand with humanity is to stand against Amerika and the First World.

The First World is destroying the planet and exploiting its people. On a structural level, this mean that the principal antagonism is between imperialism and the people of exploited nations. Exploitation-driven consumption and related environmental destruction affect the Third World the most, while benefits, even indirectly, trickle up to the First World. The solution for this problem isn’t for those in the First World to engage in local projects. Rather, real change will come when Third World peoples wrestle stolen wealth out of the hands of First World imperialists. While this includes worker-owned industry on the part of currently exploited people, history has proven that this itself requires a fight and involves actual confrontations. Amerikans are not simply going to stop being exploiters: unlike the fluffy revolution of values Jensen dreams up, revolutions actually require revolution.

Comments

Wow.

July 19, 2009 by Anonymous, 18 weeks 1 day ago
Comment id: 3686

Like Ward Churchill, RAIM speaks the truth that no-one wants to hear. Bravo

Post new comment

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
Sorry we have to ask, but are you a spammer?
11 + 3 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Open Newswire

FREE GLUCOSE METERS + AMERICAN DREAM PROGRAM FREE 800 306 0990 24HRS
1 hour 27 min ago
Anonymous

Government Diabetes.Org located in Washington, DC has reported, "There are free watches for every state plus billions of dollars in assistance earmarked for people previously diagnosed as diabetic. Public and private funds are now available for them to repair homes, start a business, consolidate debts and any worthwhile purpose." In addition, he reported how new financial resources have been committed to help diabetics get job training and re-enter the job market.
"Now is the time for diabetics to act if they need money, Wall Street has no effect on theses funds," urged Greene. He also revealed that several reduced-cost and free programs now exist to help diabetics and the economically disadvantaged who have been diagnosed with diabetes. Such programs include energy assistance, free prescriptions, free diabetic watch,home repair and legal aid.

Free-Glucose-Meter-Rx.Com offers the free diabetic watch program that provides the latest information on assistance for diabetics. It covers job training, financial assistance, phone bill assistance, diabetic recipes, free grants, scholarship and loan resources available for a wide variety of purposes, including business start-ups for diabetics. The kit also includes a list of more than fifteen hundred professionals offering diabetics free advice and business guidance.

For additional information on Government Diabetes.Org, contact Charles Greene or visit http://www.government-diabetes.org http://www.free-glucose-meter-rx... , Diabetic-Testing-Supplies.Orgfor news on diabetes visit , http://www.free-diabetic-supplie... . . Government Diabetes.Org offers a free diabetics watch and a free glucose meter to qualified beneficiaries with diabetes. Free diabetic watch offers are available in all 50 states while supplies last.

Zhibin Gu: China entrepreneurship, open society revolution vs Communist dynasty: history, politics, economy, and corruption
16 hours 30 min ago
Anonymous

George Zhibin Gu summarizes the history of China's Communist Dynasty:

(George Zhibin Gu of China is an author of several new books, including: 1. China's global reach, 2. China and the new world order, 3. Made in China.)

The past 60 years of China's Communist history can be divided roughly into two phases.

The first phase, between 1949 and 1978, was this: the Communist bureaucracy had totally destroyed society, the economy and the culture. This was done by a total bureaucratic monopoly over all of nation's wealth, labor, markets, organizations and institutions. Furthermore, it completely destroyed the free press and the law. But this unprecedented bureaucratic domination immediately produced unprecedented man-made disasters in world history, not just China's. The disasters include endless violence and terror, the creation of the state sector and people's communes, the total bureaucratization of media, education, and thought.

In the end, beginning in 1958, the regime wanted to have a total bureaucratic miracle in the so-called Great Leap Forward (1958-60), and record disasters emerged all at once. Record deaths of some 50 million people occurred in the period of 1958-62, killing some 50 million people by an unprecedented famine as well as a record oganized violence.

What is more, these unprecedented miseries turned out to be the very beginning of bureaucratic disasters. Worse than the famine, three bureaucratic wars emerged against society and the people in the period of 1959-78, which ended to destroy countless millions of lives, or even more, by organized violence, not to mention a near total destruction of culture, education, thinking, wealth and all other good things in life.

Responding to Harmful Government Inaction, Protestors Stop Blasting on Coal River Mountain
2 days 4 hours ago
Anonymous

PETTUS, W. Va. – Early this morning two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. Two others, Grace Williams and Laura Von Dolen, joined them in direct support, holding a banner with the message “Save Coal River Mountain”.

These nonviolent protestors have taken this action to bring attention to the extreme danger facing residents of the Coal River Valley from blasting near the Brushy Fork Impoundment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforcement removes them.

Resident of Rock Creek, W Va., Delbert Gunnoe, stated his concerns with the blasting, “You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the windows over here, at what, ¾-a-mile distance, imagine what it does over there.” Gunnoe continued, “if [the impoundment] did bust…what would be the destruction? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist.”

The four are fearful of the blasting that Massey Energy began in late October. These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impoundment, permitted to hold nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. The impoundment sits atop miles of hollow, abounded underground mines, further endangering its integrity. By Massey’s own estimates, roughly 998 people will die should the dam break. The emergency evacuation plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, cresting at 72 feet, will flow through the valley, reaching 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road. Apart from the initial flood, the impact of this potential spill would be felt along the Coal River’s 88 miles.

EVIDENCE THAT UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS WELCOMES FBI INTEL OPERATIONS AGAINST WHISTLEBLOWER
3 days 4 hours ago
gsosbee

The universities across the nation (and AG) do more for the fbi/cia than assist in the search for foreign terrorists; today our colleges and universities directly encourage their campus police and civilian employees to engage in unlawful intel operations against whistleblower
GERAL SOSBEE.

 

 

 

In November, 2009, the Texas Attorney General (AG) grants near blanket authority (in Case number OR2009-16316 & Case ID#367454) to the University Of Texas Police (UTP) and Harlingen, Texas (HTP) Police to withhold from Open Records (OR) disclosure the key data in their possession relating to Geral Sosbee. The AG also states in each opinion that the AG has no authority beyond the scope of the OR statutes. The AG thus hides from his responsibility as a citizen and human being for civil and human rights violations behind the the OR guidelines ( which are designed to allow the police to engage in witch hunts, stalking, harassment, fraudulent stings and other crimes as I have documented at many pages of www.sosbeevfbi.com.) I have also provided the AG with evidence of ongoing felonies against my person (continuing in Texas and other locations for the past decade); by the AG letters referenced above the fbi now gains the AG approval and authority to use UT employees (including UTP) in efforts to silence or kill me; see for example the specifics of some of my reports at

http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/affidavit2007.html

 

Evening of Solidarity for Dr. Mutulu Shakur
3 days 4 hours ago
denverabc

An Evening of Solidarity for Mutulu Shakur
Presented by Denver and Aurora CopWatch, Sisters of Color United for Education, and Denver ABC

Saturday, November 28th
Sisters of Color 2895 8th Ave, Denver, CO (8th and federal across the street from the bus yard)
7:30-12ish
Sliding Scale 1-5$ (if you ain't got it don't let it stop you from coming)

Teach-in by Professor Ward Churchill

Live Music by:
Mike Wird
Ietef
Debajito (of Debajo Del Agua)

Hosted by Shareef Aleem

Please join us on Saturday, November 28th to stand in solidarity with Dr Mutulu Shakur before his appeals hearing on Monday, November 30th at the super-maximum Federal prison in Florence, CO.

Dr. Shakur is a New Afrikan (Black) man whose primary work has been in the area of health. He is a doctor of acupuncture and one of the most prolific, committed and conscious freedom fighters and political prisoners to whom the Black liberation struggle has given birth.

Since the age 16, Dr. Shakur has been a part of the New Afrikan
Independence Movement. As a part of this movement Dr. Shakur has been a target of the illegal Counterintelligence Program carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (COINTELPRO). This was a secret police strategy used in the U.S. starting in the 1960's to destroy and neutralize progressive and revolutionary organizations. It is believed that Dr. Shakur's resistance to this program led to his arrest and trial.

"Straight ahead, stiff resistance"

contact info: 970.302.7349/miketruswell@yahoo.com
www.mutulushakur.com
www.dare2struggle.org

The Shortwave Report 11/20/09 Listen Globally
3 days 22 hours ago
Anonymous

 Dear Radio Friend,
The latest Shortwave Report (November 20) is up at the website
http://www.outfarpress.com/outfa... in both broadcast quality (13.3MB) and quickdownload or streaming form (4.9MB) (28:59)
(NEW! If you have access to Audioport.org there is a higher quality version posted up there {26.7MB} http://www.audioport.org/index.p...)

Water and Imperialism
4 days 2 hours ago
NickB

(www.raimd.wordpress.com)

Water is essential, in various ways, to all human activity. Water is something that humans, literally, cannot do without. Every human needs water in order live and to have a good life. Societies need water in order to be provide for the survival of their populations. Usable water, as a resource, is finite and distributed unevenly across the planet. Most societies have difficulty providing water to their populations, especially in the Third World. The inability to access water is referred to as the water crisis.

la virgen de Guadalupe y los curas
4 days 4 hours ago
Anonymous

LA VIRGEN DE LA GUADALUPE ES DE TODOS LOS MEXICANOS, NO DE LOS CURAS

La Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano (CEM) no está de acuerdo en que los Mexicanos utilicemos a la Virgen de la Guadalupe, como sucedió en la marcha de SME el pasado 11 de noviembre (2009) por “manipular el sentimiento religioso”, se ha afirmado en varias ocasiones desde que concluyó la 88ª Asamblea Plenaria del CEM. Los curas, junto con los políticos y las grandes transnacionales se han adueñado de nuestro país y de nuestros símbolos.

¿Ya se les olvidó a los curas que la Virgen de Guadalupe es el único símbolo religioso auténticamente Mexicano? ¿Ya se les olvidó que ellos llegaron con Hernán Cortés a robar y a imponernos su cruz a sangre y fuego? La Virgen de Guadalupe es Tonantzin y es nuestra, aunque no les guste a los extranjeros como ellos.

Lo que los curas del CEM no quieren es que el pueblo Mexicano, unido al SME, siga la trayectoria de don Miguel Hidalgo y les arrebate la jugosa ganancia.

Yo les pido a los curas del CEM que ya no nos “salven”.
¡¡Larguense de aquí!! ¡¡Larguense!! ¡¡Larguense!! ¡¡Larguense!! ¡¡Larguense!! ¡¡Larguense de México y de todo este continente!!
Josefa Ortiz
http://josefaortiz.hpage.com/sme...

 

PRESIDENT OBAMA ~ TAX EXEMPT U.S. FOUNDATIONS OF OUR AMERICAN WEALTHY ELITE HAVE BECOME TAX EVASION FOUNDATIONS THAT NEED NEW FEDERAL GUIDLINES.....
5 days 21 min ago
Anonymous

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAX EXEMPT SLUSH FUND CHARITIES(FOUNDATIONS) FOR OUR U.S. WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS WE ALL KNOW  are QUITE COMMON AND COSTING THE U.S.GOVERNMENT BILLIONS IN POSSIBLE TAX REVENUE.

***MANY OF THESE SAME AMERICAN WEALTHY ELITE NOT ONLY HAVE FULL CONTROL OVER THEIRTX EVADING  FOUNDATIONS BILLIONS,BUT ALSO FIND IT NECESSARY TO HIRE LOBBYISTS TO ATTEMPT THE DIRECT CONTROL OVER VARIOUS USES OF AMERICAN TAX PAYERS TAX $$$ ???

WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER OUR U.S.CONGRESSIONAL TAX DOLLAR SPENDING WITH THEIR BEHIND THE SCENE LOBBY MONIES... AND ARE CONTINUING TO DENY MIDDLE~CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS PROPER HEALTH ~ CARE , PROPER LEGAL PROTECTIONS IN AMERICAN FAMILY COURTS,CIVIL COURTS,& FEDERAL APPEALS FROM STATE COURTS. **THOUSANDS OF POORER AMERICANS ALL ACROSS AMERICA ARE LOSING PARENTING AND VISITATION RIGHTS WITH THEIR CHILDREN, ARE BEING FALSELY IMPRISONED, WRONGFULY EXECUTED,LOSING THEIR HOMES OR APARTMENTS ETC...

** IS THIS REALLY WHAT MANY SAY APPEARS TO BE THE FORMATION OF A NEW WORLD ORDER IN AMERICA THAT IS ATTEMPTING TO BREAK DOWN AND DESTROY AMERICAN FAMILIES AND ESTABLISHED FAMILY VALUES ACROSS OUR GREAT COUNTRY ???

Chickenhawk Hall of Shame
6 days 3 hours ago
Anonymous

<p>Compiled by <a href="http://www.nhgazette.com/">The New Hampshire Gazette</a></p>

<p>When an American male (or an especially belligerent female) makes the challenging transition from late adolescence into early adulthood, he is faced with many decisions. One certain, specific combination of choices will result in his becoming a chickenhawk: choosing to “support” war, while also choosing not to serve in the military. His motto becomes: “Let’s you and him go fight; I’ll hold your coat.”</p>

<p>Depending on external circumstances, such an individual may become one of three varieties of chickenhawk:</p>
<p>• If there is no draft, and the nation is at peace, the individual becomes a Common Chickenhawk;</p>
<p>• If there is a draft, and the nation is at peace, the individual becomes a Chickenhawk First Class;</p>
<p>• If the there is a draft, and the nation is at war, the individual becomes a Chickenhawk First Class with Distinguished Fleeing Cross.</p>

<p>We currently have 132 Chickenhawks listed in our database. Here they are, listed chronologically by date of birth. <a href="http://www.nhgazette.com/chickenhawks/?sort_list=0">CLICK HERE</a> to see them listed alphabetically.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nhgazette.com/nominate/?id=-1&action=new">Nominate a Chickenhawk</a></p>

<p>posted by the <a href="http://wintersoldier.org">Thomas Paine Project</a> (FYI: the organization is run by veterans)</p>

AdaptiveThemes