Time for some hot, fresh links! This week’s roundup is extra special because it includes zero (0) articles about the Bernie Sanders campaign. This was a personal struggle for me but one that I undertook for you, the reader, who have probably read 100 pieces on that particular topic already and are ready for something new. (Or maybe not? Don’t worry, we’ll return to regularly scheduled Bernie programming next week.) Instead, this week’s roundup explores the contours of sexual desire and self-knowledge, the emergence of a new social movement in Chile, and the rort of Centrelink.
First up is an excellent piece in Jacobin by Alex North, national coordinator of the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union, on the nightmarish logic of unemployment benefits in Australia. ‘Kafkaesque’ is a bit of an overused term when it comes to Centrelink, but sometimes there is no other description. North likens Centrelink’s JobSeeker Payments program to a ‘digital workhouse’, “managed by the unholy triumvirate comprising government, the private employment services industry, and businesses that run sites that absorb some of the reserve army of labor at a profit.”
Thanks to Dave for bringing to my attention this piece entitled ‘Revolt in Chile: Life Against Capital’. Pierina Ferretti and Mia Dragnic describe Chile’s long experience with (and struggle against) neoliberalism, and the emergence of a new “broad and transversal movement” of people that “are not represented by the classic structures of politics; they exceed the capacity of existing organizations and threaten the narrow limits of post-dictatorial democracy, as much for its forms as for the social interests that it represents.” This one is long and detailed, but never becomes boring or theory-heavy. An invigorating read on one of the more invigorating social movements of the past few years.
“A disobedient society has emerged, above all a universe of young people that have made contempt a form of inhabiting the present. In their subway turnstile jumping that began these protests, in their frontal challenge to the military and police, and in all of the forms of irreverence toward the establishment that has filled these more than 80 days of revolt, a generation without fear has revealed itself, conscious of class inequality and with the ability to spread its rebellion to society as a whole. ”
As part of Verso’s Valentine’s Day content, Katherine Angel has written an excellent essay on sex, consent, self-knowledge, desire, and the limits of thinking about all these things. She queries the usefulness of relentlessly emphasising women’s sexual confidence and positivity, noting that the exhortation to ‘know’ one’s own desires can be more burdensome than liberatory.
“When did we buy the idea that we know what we want, whether in sex or elsewhere? This idea assumes that desire is something that lies in wait, fully formed within us, ready for us to extract. But a sexual ethics that is worth its name has to allow for obscurity, for opacity, and for not-knowing. Sex is social, emergent, and responsive; it is a dynamic, a conversation.”
OK, I’m now at the point where I am just about ready to begin reading things about UK politics again, so I hope you are too. This article by Labour MP Zarah Sultana, about why the Labour Party can’t return to ‘moderation’, is a total banger, beginning by tackling the false divide between ‘class’ and ‘race’ politics with incredible clarity. “Two truths have been lost,” she writes. “Firstly: that the working class whose sweat and intellect made Britain a global power always came in many hues. Secondly: that the full fruits of our labour were never ours. Workers all have that in common. Rediscovering these truths means embracing clear anti-racist class politics.” (Side note: can you possibly imagine, even in your wildest dreams, an ALP politician writing anything even close to that?) “Anti-racist class politics is the politics of Jeremy Corbyn,” she goes on, “and learning from the last four years we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater.” OK, I could quote the entire article, just go and read it yourself, it’s well worth your time.
Until next week!
Photo by Andrei Slobtsov on Unsplash