A new book is out. The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence, 1954-1978: Dialogues on Hegel, Marx, and Critical Theory, Edited by Kevin B. Anderson and Russell Rockwell.

From the blurb, we learn that:

‘Among the thinkers discussed in the correspondence – some of them quite critically– are V. I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong’

Quite critically. Imagine! Wonder why Stalin isn’t rated as ‘a thinker?’ His work on linguistics cut the mustard, no? It gets you thinking…

Greece is subjected to the crisis of the economy, the increase of unemployment, an abyssal debt, repetition plans of austerity, progression of suicides, increase in poverty, the entrance of neo-nazis in Parliament. Now you may have the eighth plague which may beat down on the country, which is sinking every day a bit more into depression: that is to say locusts.

The authorities of Pella, in Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, have officially sounded the alarm, on Thursday the 10th of May, against “an invasion of locusts”, after the apparition of swarms of insects in the west of this agricultural region, known for its crops and orchards. “It is not yet an enormous problem and we are trying to keep it under control”, explains a local official to the daily Kathimerini. For the moment, if the insects have started to devour the crops, the orchards seem to be spared. Pesticides have been sprayed , and the authorities recommend to sulphate every morning, in order to spare the bees. And thus to avoid that the disappearance of the crops stop, on top of that, the harvesting of honey.

The epidemic is for the moment limited, but the mayor of the small island of Agios Efstratios, in the north of the Egian, between Lemnos and Lesbos , ancient place of house arrest for political prisoners, has also sounded the alarm, after an invasion of locusts.

In the Book of Exodus, locusts are the eight of the ten chastisements sent over Egypt to punish the Pharaoh for not having given freedom to the Jewish people. Are they sent today to the Greeks to punish them for having let their deficits spin out of control excessively(…)

The next plague of Egypt, the ninth, is darkness. The Greeks who have voted in great majority against the locusts of the “troika”, during the elections of the 6th of May, are now without a government . They are nearing the political darkness.

Alain Salles
(Athens, correspondence) in Le Monde, 13/14 May 2012.
(Translated from the French by M. Prigent).

Greece

“Grexit will happen much more quickly than politicians think”.

Editorial of City Am (14 May 2012.) The editor of that free paper – a certain Allister Heath – is adamant that Greece will leave the Eurozone.

The current paralysis in Athens does not help. Daniel Cohn-Bendit even warns of a possible military coup d’Etat if a solution is not found. But according to other reliable sources, we are told the Greek military have been vaccinated against such coups…

Nappy sales in Japan

Some people could not work out why nappy sales in Japan were so high. Then someone found out that old people use them.
The average age of a man in Japan is 80, a woman is 85.

Bedroom tax

The coalition of CAMCLEGG is introducing a bedroom tax. People who receive benefits and who have more rooms than they use will see a cut in their allowances..Hence many people might end up turfed out of their homes.

All this reminds you of the window tax that was put carried out in the reign of William III. That is why you see so many houses in Britain with windows bricked up.

Crocker’s Folly

This building has been empty for years. It was one of the most interesting public houses in London. Situated in Aberdeen Place, NW8. Today it is still boarded up. Incredible.

It was built by a Mr Crocker who thought that Marylebone Railway Station was going to come opposite his public house. Mr Crocker went ahead with his project, but the planners of Marylebone Railway Station had other ideas. The station was erected nearer to Baker Street.

Hence Mr Crocker’s pulbic house became known as Crocker’s Folly. It is a beautiful building inside. It is being left to rot. Three or four doors down Aberdeen Place, a probable customer of Crocker’s once lived – Guy Gibson, VC. (1918-1944) . Of the Dambusters fame. If Gibson was alive today you can be sure that Crocker’s would still be there. He would make sure of it!

What makes a bad radical?

Certainly not accepting the status quo and all the worn-out ideologies as accepted by Ian Bone of Class War, (ie. simplistic scenarii from last century) and the reformism as accepted by Susanne Moore of the Grauniad.. UPDATING ONE’S CRITICAL THEORY IS A MUST.

A review of a recent essay, here.

Fortunately Francois Hollande became the new President of France a few days ago. Many will automatically expect something better – something more progressive and something more presidential than Nicolas Sarkozy.

Soon after he included a special comment in one of his public addresses: that the U.K. treats the EU like a self-service cafeteria. A few days later the National Union of Farmers supplied one of their calculations (former NFU Youth in Farming EU representative talking on “Farming Today” BBC R4 12/05/12). Since the start of a special EU scheme for giving financial assistance to young people who want to enter the beleaguered farming industry there have been 13000 French and just 2 U.K. beneficiaries.

The U.K.’s self-service culture includes its government’s willingness to permit U.K. utility industries to be owned by overseas ones. The pro-nuclear, state-owned Electricite de France owns the former London Electricity and other French utilities own water and railway companies in the U.K. These utilities are, after all, closely entwined in any possible, future, ‘green’ infrastructure, as indeed are the vacant crofts and smallholdings dotted around the U.K. and the rest of Europe, therefore it is important to point this out. Conversely, French utility companies cannot be bought by an overseas company – EU or otherwise.

If the author’s experience is anything to go by, this may be due in part to the way some local Members of European Parliament in the U.K. dissuade people from applying for EU grants et cetera because there is an impenetrable bureaucracy to navigate. We just do not know who to nod to or who to wink at in either the U.K. or the EU. There is of course a more complicated explanation and it includes the fact that the EU is basically a capitalists’ club with a veneer of social agendas.

Nicolas Holliman

Coming up in June 2012. At some shit university. Seminars include:

Is it ethical to buy Situationist art? – Panel chair: My mum, artdealer

How to get funding to do a Phd on the Situationists – Panel chair: My mate, teacher at university, whose written a crap book on the Situationists

What is alive and what is dead in the Situationist dialectic? – Panel chair: A dead bloke

A guide on how to prattle on about the Situationists while avoiding talking to normal people – Panel chair: Dead bloke again

The Situationists and Why the Working Class are always a Really Beautiful Revolutionary Working Class – Panel chair: This bloke in the SWP who won’t leave me alone, always hassling me, so to shut him up I gave him this panel to organise

Stewart Home: Why is he such an expert on the Situationists? – Panel chair: Stewart Home

Situationists and their relationship with Sand – Panel chair: Some bloke who has just done a Phd on Situationists and Sand, and is hoping Verso will publish it because they are the kind of tossers who would

Send a cheque payable to Me to my address at my university bedroom if you want a ticket. Thanks, you loser. And don’t expect me to talk to you even once during the whole day, because Me and my mates are too fucking cool to be seen with a loser like you. Now fuck off

Amazing scenes around Wasteminster; the police and prison officers on strike.. When was the last time these people were people on strike? It must have been a long time ago. (1919 – Ed) The coalition has brought this about – the worst government in years, apart from Heath’s 3 day week. To be governed is a real disaster. The master and wage-slave syndrome. We need a new form of non-government, that is to say a management of the entire planet by the people themselves. It will take time. Read Pannekoek’s text on Workers’ councils, it is not a blue print, but it contains some ideas. Anton Pannekoek was an amazing guy, he was an astronomer. All this leads us to an excellent prog on BBC 4 this week, on the first computer that was built more than 2000 years ago. First it was developed by the Assyrians, and then the Greeks took over that idea and perfected it. Archimedes was involved, the machine could predict eclipses. Some people hate computers, but they existed 2000 years ago. Greece was at the forefront of technology, today Greece is a real mess. The FLAME AT OLYMPIA WENT OUT – A BAD OMEN!

Wahhabism

Over the last 30 years, the Saudis has distributed over $35 billion dollars abroad into projects supporting its own particular version of Islam.

The USA

“God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”.

American redneck conservative commenting on same sex marriage , on Channel 4/ 10 May 2012. The backing of same sex marriage could cost Obama dearly. Mitt Romney, the Mormon candidate will exploit this vote. Once again the USA is cut in two.

Camel Light

Jonathan Dimblebox calls Vince Gable , Vince Camel on Radio 4. Gable is chuffed that the shareholders are revolting against the fat cat chairmen (and woman – at Trinity Mirror at least). The shareholders are exercising power in the Alice in Wonderland world of liberal capitalism. Utter balls. They want the chairmen to squeeze more profits out of the workforce. What a scummy ideology Gable peddles.