It’s rare to go to an action and leave with the certainty that we’ve achieved a victory. No footnotes, no relativising it: when we went to Dresden to take part in mass blockades intended to stop Europe’s biggest Nazi-march from going ahead, we won. Some ten thousand people shut down the area where the Nazis were planning to march, making it impossible for the police to ‘guarantee the safety’ of the Neo-Nazi demonstration, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the allied bombing of Dresden in 1945.
The mass-blockades were organized on the initiative of the antifascist alliance No Pasaran? a german-wide
network of antifascist groups and were supported by civil society groups, [left/liberal] parties and unions. In the run-up more than 600 organizations and more than 2000 individuals signed a list of support, declaring that they would come to Dresden to block the nazis. Some weeks before Dresden Authorities confiscated posters of the Alliance, which mobilized for the mass-blockades and forbid rallies, nazis attacked supporters of the Alliance and the police proudly announced the acquisition of american pepperball-guns.
The liberal media in the UK &em; and for all I know, the illiberal media as well &em; is up in arms about the alleged use by the Mossad of apparently forged British (and other) passports in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month. This reflects the summoning of Ron Prosor, Israeli ambassador to the UK, to the Foreign Office, and the fact that David Milliband, UK foreign minister, has referred to the assassination as ‘an outrage’.
I must confess that I find it difficult to think that Mr Milliband is so naive that he considers either state-sanctioned extra-judicial killings or the use by intelligence agencies of forged passports to be ‘outrageous’.
Bernd Sommer “Anti-capitalism in the name of ethno-nationalism: ideological shifts on the German extreme right” Patterns of Prejudice, Volume 42, Number 3, July 2008 , pp. 305-316(12). Abstract: “Sommer examines the (re-)emergence of anti-capitalist and anti-globalization themes within the ideology and discourses of the German extreme right. He argues that it would be short-sighted to interpret this development simply as another opportunistic attempt by the extreme right to incorporate Zeitgeist issues into its political agenda in order to appeal to a broader spectrum of supporters. An analysis of the latest campaigns of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD)—the most successful extreme-right party in recent years—as well as the activities of groups that exist within the larger German extreme-right milieu, the so-called freie Kameradschaften, reveals that the taking up of social questions as well as anti-capitalist and anti-globalization themes marks a deeper shift within the political agenda of the extreme right in Germany. However, the analysis shows that racist and antisemitic issues do not disappear with this shift, but are linked with and incorporated into anti-capitalist and anti-globalization discourses.”
Werner Bonefeld, Kosmas PsychopedisHuman dignity: social autonomy and the critique of capitalism (Chapter by Bonefeld: “Nationalism and AntiSemitism in Anti-Globalization Perspective” – a Marxist analysis of the issue). See also Werner Bonefeld and Sergio Tischler “What is to be Done? Leninism, anti-Leninist Marxism and the Question of Revolution today“. See also Bonefeld, W. (1997), ‘Notes on Anti-Semitism’, Common Sense, no.21, pp. 60–76. Bonefeld, W. (2000), ‘The Spectre of Globalization’, in Bonefeld, W. and K. Psychopedis (eds), The Politics of Change, Palgrave, London. Bonefeld, W. and J. Holloway (1996), ‘Conclusion: Money and Class Struggle’, in Bonefeld, W. and J. Holloway (eds), Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money, Palgrave, London.
Andrei S. Markovits “European Anti-Americanism (and Anti-Semitism): Ever Present Though Always Denied“. Extract: “It is by dint of America’s proximity to Israel that the latter has become such a bogeyman to the anti-globalization movement. We were all witnesses to that ugly – but telling – political theater by demonstrators at the Davos meeting in 2003 when one person sported a Donald Rumsfeld mask and a yellow Jewish star of David (the kind the Nazis made the Jews wear everywhere in German-occupied Europe) with the word “sheriff” on it. His companion was dressed like a cudgel-wielding Ariel Sharon. They and their colleagues danced around a golden calf embodying money and wealth. And surely most, if not all, of the anti-globalist protesters in that scene viewed themselves as leftists, not as rightist. Similar openly anti-Semitic iconography was commonplace at anti-globalist meetings in Porto Alegre and Durban among others.”
Antiglobalism’s Jewish Problem, by Mark Strauss Foreign Policy 2003. Abstract: “Anti-Semitism is again on the rise. Why now? Blame the backlash against globalization. As public fears grow over lost jobs, shaky economies, and political and social upheaval, the far right and extreme left are seeking solace in conspiracy theories. Modern anxieties are merging with old hatreds and the myths on which they rest.”
Mark Weitzman “MAGICAL LOGIC: GLOBALIZATION, CONSPIRACY THEORY, AND THE SHOAH” Simon Wiesenthal Center. Extract: “I have used Duke’s writings to sketch out some of the newer themes that have become part of the current far-right discourse. These motifs, such as the emergence of anti-globalization or ecology were often seen as part of the left or liberal agenda. They have been reworked to fit into right wing extremist discourse, retooled by giving them an antisemitic cast.” (p.1)
Robert WistrichEuropean Antisemitism Reinvents Itself, American Jewish Committee 2005. Extract: “[In Germany,] Israel-bashing emerged as a highly popular mass spectator sport and as a point of convergence between far-right and left-wing anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. It enabled “pacifist” antiglobalists from the far right and left to embrace Osama bin Laden and the radical Islamists as part of a coming “anti-Zionist” and anti-American revolution.” (p.25)
‘The Anti-Imperialism of Fools’: A Cautionary Story on the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard of England’s Post-9/11 Anti-War Movement.!
By Camila Bassi
In ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies http://www.acme-journal.org/vol9/Bassi10.pdf
Anti-German Translation
A blog about the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and anti-globalization movements, analysing the convergences between right-wing thought and false forms of anti-capitalism, drawing on the German “anti-German” communist current.
Aufheben
The proletariat’s revolutionary negation of capitalism, communism, is an instance of this dialectical movement of supersession, as is the theoretical expression of this movement in the method of critique developed by Marx.
Entdinglichung
… alle Verhältnisse umzuwerfen, in denen der Mensch ein erniedrigtes, ein geknechtetes, ein verlassenes, ein verächtliches Wesen ist … (Marx)
Letters Journal
With this journal we wish to better understand and analyze capitalism and its critics through the distorting lens of a rigorous anti-political experimentation and soul searching.
Chicago Political Workshop
a reading group interested in developing a critical understanding of contemporary society through the categories of labor, value, and time, as specifically capitalist forms of domination. We seek to develop new theories that can adequately grasp the prese
Platypus
focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.
