Re: <nettime> the great re-alignment

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

I doubly agree with Felix - both the diagnosis, and let's not argue about
style. Living in the US has given me a real dislike of polarization. Of
course it exists in reality but I do not want to engage in it. Resistance
comes from building the power of coherent collectivities.

Responding to the substance of Christian's comments, there may be some
confusion about what is intended by the phrase "liberal internationalism,"
and therefore about its retreat and possible collapse.

Liberal internationalism is conceived as a rule-governed framework allowing
multilateral negotiation as a means of solving disputes without recourse to
war. This is the credo of the European Union and behind it, of the United
Nations system set up after WWII, with the Declaration of Universal Human
Rights as its cornerstone. However, "liberal" has a double meaning, because
in addition to its proposal of freedom under law it also refers to the
kinds of global free trade regimes operated in particular by the British
across the long nineteenth century, then by the Americans after WWII. Here,
freedom is conceived as free trade, and its benefits disproportionately
accrue to the largest players, who have historically used their wealth to
build up large armies and violently suppress any collective actor seeking
("unfairly," according to the liberals) to change the fundamental terms of
trade. Thus, liberal internationalist regimes have tended to collapse due
to conflicts over power disparities, as in the world wars of the twentieth
century, and potentially in the looming conflict between the United States
and China.

There's no way to know if the liberal internationalist framework will
entirely break down, but obviously, both free trade and multilateral
negotiation are threatened by Trump. The real question is what are the
dangers and also, what are the possibilities of such a breakdown?

The danger of war is clear. Because it is already happening and it is
gradually internationalizing. The trade barriers proposed by Trump are also
extremely threatening, because as school kids used to know, the US in the
early 1930s instituted such trade barriers (the Smoot-Hawley Act), and
historians since then have pointed to them as one of the causes of WWII. In
our time, if China were not able to continue selling its goods and growing
its economy, then it would almost necessarily have recourse to war as a way
to control its own impoverished citizenry and win by military force what it
has lost in the economic arena. Here you have the recipe for full-scale
world war.

But you gotta look at the other side of the coin. Unbridled free trade of
the kind promoted by, say, Bill Clinton, has little to do with the
constitutionalism that David Garcia mentions. It is simply capitalism,
whose vocation is to burn every last ton of coal and barrel of oil in
search of profits, with no respect for consequences. There is an urgent
need to scale down, and to recover the linkages between healthy
territories, coherent communities and democratic institutions including
responsibilities as well as rights. I don't think the left can be
cosmopolitan and internationalist without much more concern for the
national and local scales of coexistence. There has never been a workable
international democracy and the technocratic EU is not really an exception,
as we saw during the Eurozone crisis. If there is to be a left in the
future, it must inhabit the national-popular dimension and turn its rage
into the courage to overcome inequalities, refuse war, mitigate climate
change and promote some form of democratic eco-socialism.

In that regard, I really appreciated David's post about maintaining the
collective ownership of housing in Britain. Knitting such concerns into a
framework of national well-being does not necessarily mean aggression
towards other nations and peoples. Instead it could ease the tensions that
cause wars, and lead to a new internationalist framework, without the
hypocritical contradictions of liberal internationalism.

Yeah, I know we are headed in the opposite direction, particularly in the
US. But if you have no idea where you want to go, how could you possibly
ever get there?

empathically yours, Brian


On Fri, Nov 8, 2024 at 11:33 PM Felix Stalder via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> tone it down. All easy here. I didn't get offended by Christian's post,
> but also not entertained or informed. So nothing to get worked up about.
>
> all the best. Felix
>
>
>
> On 11/8/24 22:18, Menno Grootveld via nettime-l wrote:
> > Because Christian did not take anything that Felix wrote seriously and
> > just decided to make fun of it ('irony'). I think that doing that is
> > quite typical for people that are only out to ridiculize the opinions
> > (or feelings) of others, and sadly that appears to be a favourite (and
> > fairly succesful) tactic of the radical right.
> >
> > Op 08-11-2024 om 22:03 schreef Joseph Rabie via nettime-l:
> >> Menno, instead of pontificating about things that don’t really have
> >> anything to do with what you are replying to,
> >> please
> >> please
> >> answer the question, why was what Christian wrote “utterly degrading
> >> (sorry, condescending) and abusive language” ?
> >>
> >> Changing one word for another does not cancel the fact that you
> >> accused Christian of being a neo-Fascist and FPÖ-supporter, out of
> >> hand, and that you should apologize for that.
> >>
> >> Joe
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my lawn-mower
> >>
> >>> Le 8 nov. 2024 à 21:32, Menno Grootveld via nettime-l <nettime-
> >>> l@lists.nettime.org> a écrit :
> >>>
> >>> Well, as far as I am concerned, there are times that call for irony
> >>> and there are times that don't. And these particular times that we
> >>> are living in certainly DO NOT call for irony.
> >>>
> >>> I've just been watching all the Dutch media reports about the events
> >>> that took place yesterday night and the night before in Amsterdam.
> >>> There is much talk about 'deporting' the assailants of the Maccabi
> >>> Tel Aviv-supporters and about the need for harder repression and so
> >>> on. I fail to see the irony in that, just as I fail to see the irony
> >>> in the slaughtering of innocent civilians by the Israeli military
> >>> (already for more than a year now!) or in the fact that most
> >>> countries in the so-called 'free world' are now governed (or about to
> >>> be) by the radical right or worse. Maybe there is some irony in the
> >>> picture that was shared on social media after the Trump-victory of
> >>> Trump with two guys sitting next to him in his campaign headquarters
> >>> watching the electon results coming in: Elon Musk (of course) and a
> >>> rather Vulcan-looking type who turned out to be Dana White, the
> >>> president of a martial arts company. This second guy represents in my
> >>> view what we are up against, and once more, I fail to see the irony
> >>> in that.
> >>>
> >>> But you're right, I should apologize. I should not have used the word
> >>> 'degrading.' I meant 'condescending' instead.
> >>>
> >>> Menno
> >>>
> >>> Op 08-11-2024 om 21:04 schreef Keith Sanborn via nettime-l:
> >>>> Irony is dead! Long live irony! Maybe the post and the critique were
> >>>> both? Intentionally or not.
> >>>>
> >>>>>> On Nov 8, 2024, at 2:58 PM, Joseph Rabie via nettime-l <nettime-
> >>>>>> l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
> >>>>> Personally I found that what Christian wrote brings a welcome note
> >>>>> of humour, given the morosity of the times. Christian’s sense of
> >>>>> irony is always welcome.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Menno : you find this “utterly degrading and abusive language”, and
> >>>>> accuse Christian of being a neo-Fascist, which is (mildly putting
> >>>>> it) outrageous, and definitely calls for an apology on your part.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The LEAST that you can do is provide an argument laying out why you
> >>>>> find it “utterly degrading and abusive language”. Then we can
> >>>>> discuss it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Joe
> >>>>> (Je suis Charlie)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Sent from my lawn-mower
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Le 8 nov. 2024 à 20:42, Menno Grootveld via nettime-l <nettime-
> >>>>>> l@lists.nettime.org> a écrit :
> >>>>>> Sorry, but this is the kind of utterly degrading and abusive
> >>>>>> language that makes me a little suspicious: are you perhaps a FPÖ-
> >>>>>> supporter? A neo-fascist, in other words?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Op 08-11-2024 om 20:34 schreef Christian Swertz via nettime-l:
> >>>>>>> Hi Felix,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> thanks for the precise overview. I also like apocalyptic
> >>>>>>> perspectives. The apocalypse is - according to the Wikipedia -
> >>>>>>> translated to revelation in Christianity. Apocalypse describes
> >>>>>>> the revelation of divine knowledge. In other terms: Your
> >>>>>>> description promises the approach of the final truth. Didn't we
> >>>>>>> pray for this all the time? Redemption is near! And we will see
> >>>>>>> it happen. That's great! We should storm parliament to get more
> >>>>>>> momentum to the movement. See you Sunday after coffee at the
> >>>>>>> Parliament?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On the other hand: Governments have been collapsing since I
> >>>>>>> remember political events. That makes me a little suspicious. But
> >>>>>>> maybe this time it will work. To be on the safe side, I will pray
> >>>>>>> to god and ask for speedy salvation. I just have to choose the
> >>>>>>> god to pray to. One moment please - I think I have to google that
> >>>>>>> briefly ...
> >>>>>> --
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