Friday, July 13th, 2012 
 In 2011, protests across the globe placed contentious politics at the heart of media attention. From the Arab Spring to the global Occupy movements, the world was caught in a rapid of rebellion. The role of new media in sparking, diffusing and connecting these protests did not go unnoticed.
But it’s not only the younger generations of protesters who increasingly have recourse to digital and mobile media in their activism. Old-timers are discovering new media technologies as well. This was exemplified in the recent publication of a series of photo albums on Facebook, containing hundreds of snapshots of Italian activists from a 1970s student movement, the so-called “Movement of ’77.” This was not the first attempt to reunite the 1977 generation, and yet, it has never been so successful. What makes Facebook different? Are we dealing with plain nostalgia here? I would rather argue that these digital photo albums, which open up a whole new perspective on the 1970s, as they turn attention away from dominant memories of terrorism and violence, have potentials in that they contribute to a more inclusive, alternative “history from below.”
In 2011, Time Magazine elected global activists “person of the year”. That same year, Italian student protests which had occurred 35 years ago revived on the web as photographer Enrico Scuro – class of ’77 – uploaded his photographic collection to Facebook. In doing so, he unchained enthusiastic reactions from former protesters, who tagged themselves into the photographs and left comments of all sorts. People also sent Scuro their own photographs, thus contributing to what has become something of an online family album, currently containing over 3,000 photographs. As they narrated personal anecdotes, complemented by other people’s recollections, the former protesters collectively reconstructed the (hi)story of a generation, a history not tainted by traumatic memories of terrorism and political violence – typical of the official and public version of the Italian 1970s. Furthermore, the Facebook rage led to a series of reunions outside the virtual world and, a few months ago, to the publication . . .
Read more: Facebook and the Digital (R)evolution of a Protest Generation
Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 
I am now in Wroclaw, Poland, having just arrived from Paris – at home abroad, to borrow from one of my favorite New York Times columnist of the past, Anthony Lewis. I find following American politics and culture from afar particularly illuminating. I enjoy being in the middle of things at home, sometimes in the middle of politics, and then moving out for a while and looking back. Special insights result. With regular teaching and lecturing in Europe, I have been doing this for over thirty years. Being away has offered special critical insights, even as it has sometimes obscured important political and cultural details.
This was most dramatically the case when I lived in Communist Poland in 1973-4, when I was doing my research on independent politics in culture there, while the Watergate scandal raged in the U.S. I got my news from old issues of The New Yorker (given to me by a junior officer at the American Embassy in Warsaw) and from the Voice of America. Access to western news was severely restricted. The New Yorker supply was a prize, which I passed on to my Polish friends. Voice of America came in with some irregularity thanks to jamming by the Polish authorities. Yet, even when it got through, it was not reliable. Part of the Watergate revelations was that VOA was heavily censored back then. Long articles by Elizabeth Drew provided my basic information and perspective. I read accurate updates, a bit delayed. Because of distance and time I didn’t really appreciate how severe the constitutional crisis of that time was.
But on the other hand, by living in a truly undemocratic society, I came to appreciate the way democratic norms and values persisted in American life even in a crisis. There was Nixon, but there was also the Watergate hearings and the eventual forced resignation of the President. The way “high crimes and misdemeanors,” democratic ideals, propaganda, skepticism and cynicism interacted and defined the American experience helped this then young New Leftist to learn about political complexity and its importance.
This . . .
Read more: At Home Abroad, Thinking about Murdoch v. Romney
Monday, July 9th, 2012 
In this post Malgorzata Bakalarz deliberately responds to my posts on Polish Jewish relations from the point of view of a young Polish scholar studying in New York. I deeply appreciate her update. Jeff
At the end of his text “Why Poland?” Jeff recalls the exchange between Adam Michnik and Leon Wieseltier about Polish-Jewish relations and the public discussion about Jedwabne pogrom. He makes a statement that could become a title of a new book on Polish-Jewish relations (or, perhaps, on Polish-Polish relations). He summarizes the exchange, acknowledging the importance of the Jedwabne discussion and concludes: “but something is missing.”
Something, indeed, was missing, and that was patience and sympathy.
The debate around Jedwabne, although groundbreaking and influential, was still in most cases elitist and center-oriented. Observing it, I was under the impression that default ways of framing the Jedwabne discussion were established very early on, and it was somehow impossible to contribute outside of them. And the situation was extremely sensitive: content-wise, it was urging Poles to embrace their difficult past, to admit it’s not exclusively heroic character, when there was still a largely unsatisfied need for the public acknowledgment of the Polish suffering: from the Soviet system, from the WWII, from the 19-century partitions.
“Formally,” the official narratives about Jedwabne ignored familiar Roman Catholic rhetoric, known and trusted as the “language of truth.” Dry, factual descriptions of the event, and the discussions about it, left no room for dramatic, stilted (but familiar), ceremonial, timeless narrative, which had been framing anti-communist discourse for so many years.
The legacy of Communist “parallel realities,” with corrupted and not trusted public discourse confronted with the private, (mainly) Roman-Catholic, reliable one, made this “linguistic estrangement” of Jedwabne debate an important issue. It contributed to the fact that many dismissed the debate altogether: unacceptable content confirmed by unacceptable “official” (read: not ours) language.
Not enough time was spent to translate and make available the discourse about complex Polish-Jewish past, and, in particular, about complex Polish war history. Not enough time was spent to listen to the voice of people from the outside . . .
Read more: Why Poland? 3.5, Confronting a Difficult Past
Thursday, July 5th, 2012 
While most art institutions have wound down for the summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit has been busy cranking things up. The companion exhibitions now on view, “Vertical Urban Factory” and “Post-Industrial Complex,” are arguably the most timely and thought-provoking in recent memory. Running through it all is the simple yet profound question: “Who owns the future?” This question not only applies to Detroit, although arguably this is the place where its implications are most starkly presented, but to the United States and indeed to the rest of the world. The exhibitions capture a dialectic of opposing forces at work in the city as it looks to reboot for the twenty-first century.
One force is working from the top down and it’s what might be termed the “Techno Utopia.” The other works from the bottom up and can be called the “Postindustrial Arcadia.” The former seeks to catch the wave of postmodern capitalism; the latter exists if not in outright opposition then at least in resistance to it. One reinforces the typical gentrification model, the use of the so-called creative economy to drive speculation and investment, basically the purview of what post-OWS is known as the 1 percent. The other operates within the cracks of the capitalist system to open up new ways of thinking and living for rest of us. Tied together, the shows explore the potential for realizing what sociologist Eric Olin Wright terms “the real utopia.”
The summer exhibition (“Vertical Urban Factory” and “Post Industrial Complex” are a curatorial yin and yang and thus need to be discussed as a single case study) pick up a narrative that began five years ago with the “Shrinking Cities” project, exhibited at MOCAD in conjunction with Cranbrook Art Museum. In that exhibition and its surrounding research, Detroit was posited as an extreme example of the abandonment of the urban environment in the wake of the demise of the modern mass industrial system AKA Fordism.
“Shrinking Cities” . . .
Read more: Detroit Museum Debates the Future
Monday, July 2nd, 2012 
A Cynical Society Update Part 3
When I wrote The Cynical Society, I was guided by two opposing propositions: that democracy was deeply ingrained in American everyday practice, and that cynicism was as well, presenting a major challenge. This dynamic between democracy and cynicism was clearly evident in the case of the recent Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of “Obamacare.” Chief Justice John Roberts demonstrated how individual action matters. He apparently acted in a principled fashion, defying cynical interpretation. In my judgment, he made a significant principled contribution to the health of the body politic, as well as to the health of many American bodies.
I had an inkling that this could happen in April:
“I worry that this [cynical] kind of attitude has even become the common currency of the Republican appointed justices of the Supreme Court, as they express Tea Party talking points about the health insurance mandates, with Justice Scalia pondering the forced consumption of broccoli and the like. But I have hope. It seems to me that it is quite possible that the Court, with Chief Justice Roberts’s leadership, will seek to make a solid decision based on the merits and not the politics of the case, in the shadows of the Citizens United decision and Bush v. Gore. The integrity of the court, its reputation as a judicial and not a political institution, may very well rule the day.
The way the Court handles this case is a good measure of the degree cynicism has penetrated our politics and culture. My guess is that the health care law, in whole but more likely in part, will be overturned in a political 5 – 4 decision, or if the Court wants to fight against cynical interpretation, attempting to reveal principled commitment, the decision will be 6 – 3 upholding the law, with Kennedy and Roberts, joining the liberals. If the law is overturned, from my partisan point of view, the chances for a decent life for millions . . .
Read more: Chief Justice Roberts and the Health of the American Body Politic
Friday, June 29th, 2012 
The ruin has had a prominent place in Western culture going back to at least the Renaissance. As Brian Dillon notes in his Cabinet essay “Fragments from a History of the Ruin,” in Quattrocento Italy the ruin functioned as an indexical sign of classical culture, a trace of the Elysium that was lost with the fall of Rome and left to lie in pieces during the long night of the Dark Ages, legible only to those who had access to the redoubts of preserved knowledge. Early Renaissance paintings of St. Jerome, for example (see these works by Ercole de Roberti, 1470, and Giovanni Bellini, 1480/90), often depict the Great Doctor of the Church reading amidst a landscape of ruins, fasting, meditating, and otherwise preparing himself for the task of translating the Bible into Latin.
For the Romantics, the ruin was a symbol of artistic creation, a marker of irrepressible natural genius pushing through the strictures of academic form. Western civilization’s vestige of the Noble Savage, the artist was seen to possess intuitive knowledge that wells up solely from within. Through what Raymond Williams terms “the green language” — reveries on the natural in words, images, and sounds — Romantics sought to reverse the disenchantment of the world that came at the hands of industrial modernity, and in Romantic paintings, such as those of Caspar David Friedrich, the ruin serves as a harbinger of what is to become of its edifices.
Sociologist Georg Simmel presents a similar idea in his 1911 essay “The Ruin”:
“According to its cosmic order, the hierarchy of nature and spirit usually shows nature as the substructure, so to speak, the raw material, or semi-finished product; the spirit, as the definitely formative and crowning element. The ruin reverses this order.”
For Simmel, the ruin is a symbol of the dissolution of moral codes and social structures, of estrangement and alienation, key aspects of the modern urban condition under capitalism. It’s a theme that carries through much of his writing, in . . .
Read more: Clinton Snider: Painter Among the Ruins of Modernity
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 
To skip this introduction and go directly to Minas Samatas’s In-Depth Analysis of the Greek Election, click here.
It is clear. The recent election in Greece was of critical importance. The fate of that country, of Europe and the global economy all seemed to be in the balance. The establishment reading of those in power in Berlin and other European capitals, and in Washington, as well, was that a victory by the leftist party SYRIZA would be a disaster. On the day of the election, we presented an alternative view by Despina Lalaki .
Today, Minas Samatas deliberately considers the results, suggesting that even though SYRIZA did not win the recent contest, it is winning in the long run and that this is a good thing for very sober reasons. He explores the unprecedented interference in the election by European media and officials. He highlights the way the old guard parties and their supportive media framed the election. He presents the results in some detail. He maintains that the present political configuration will not last. And he thus concludes on a hopeful note:
“The revival of the parliamentary left in France, Italy and Greece, plus the sorely needed, from the point of view of Greece and Europe, re-election of President Obama in the U.S., bring some hope for a developmental turn against the irrationality of austerity in the European crisis and democratic reforms in the European Union. The concept of a unified Europe has been shaken to the core. If the Greek election serves as a wake up call and has promoted a recognition of a necessary change of course, it will be a real democratic win for the people of Europe, and beyond.”
To read “The Greek Election, June 17th, 2012” click here.
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 By Minas Samatas | In the May 6th Greek elections, the established ruling parties, the conservative New Democracy and the socialist PASOK were punished, unable to form a government. The voters blamed them for Greece’s debt crisis, and for destroying the country in their attempts to address the crisis.
The subsequent general elections of June 17 led to a flood of attention in the international media and blatant foreign intervention due to their potential economic implications for the Euro currency zone and the global economy. Observers were concerned that a Greek exit from the Euro would have a catastrophic impact on other ailing European states, damaging the US and the entire global economy. There was an unprecedented campaign orchestrated by the Eurocrats, the German government and the German media, which amounted to the blackmailing of the Greek electorate to vote against the parties that want to end the draconian austerity and neoliberal policies.
E.U. officials disregarded the norm of neutrality concerning an independent national election and expressed their opinion about their preferred outcome of Greeks’ vote, threatening “Grexit,” i.e., forcing Greece out of Euro zone, if the radical left wins. The intervention crescendo came on the eve of the election with an open letter of Germany’s Bild newspaper to Greek voters. The tabloid warned:
“Tomorrow you have elections but you do not have any choices….If you don’t want our billions, you are free to elect any left- or right-wing clowns that you want…For more than two years, though, your ATMs are only issuing euros because we put them there. If the parties that want to end austerity and reforms win the elections, they will be breaching all agreements and we will stop paying.”
But it was not only threats by the media and the Euro-area governments. After the May election results, part of Greece’s next aid payment (1billion Euros) was postponed as a warning to Greek politicians and voters to stick to the austerity program.
Repeated Eurocratic interventions over the month before the election of June 17 implied a deep disapproval of potential choices by free citizens. This began in February, when German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble made the incredible suggestion that Greece should hold off the election and allow the interim government led . . .
Read more: The Greek Election, June 17th, 2012
Monday, June 25th, 2012 
On a bright June 15th President Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security to use their prosecutorial discretion to discontinue the deportation of those young undocumented immigrants under the age of 30 who had arrived in the United States before they turned sixteen, had lived here for at least five years, had not been convicted of a crime, and had graduated from high school or are currently in school. The standing rhetorical trope was that these youngsters should not be punished for being brought to America “through no fault of their own.” While some complained that the president did not have the right to determine which laws should be enforced or that the policy turnabout was cynical, so close as it is to a hard-fought election, much of the response, including the reaction from many Republicans, was that the policy, if not the process, was right.
Again and again we heard the mantra that children should not be punished for acts that were not their fault. How could a three-year-old decide whether to live in Tampa or Tampico? How could a seventeen-year-old valedictorian decide to return “home” to Veracruz when her family lived in Santa Cruz? According to surveys, most supported the idea that it was fundamentally unfair to prosecute and persecute these children.
This rare bipartisan comity raised an underlying issue. Many things happen to children through no fault of their own. Do we as a society have the responsibility to respond to these generational fault lines? Most dramatic are the pernicious effects of poverty. Just as some children are brought across the border in violation of immigration laws, other children are born into home-grown poverty through no fault of their own. Or they are brought up in familial environments of violence, drugs, neglect, and abuse. Does society have any responsibility in ameliorating the damage?
Perhaps we claim that these are fundamentally different matters. In the case of undocumented children, we are merely deciding that, if they pass our moral hurdles, they be left alone. This seems like a sturdy . . .
Read more: “Through No Fault of Their Own”: Immigration, Social Injustice and the Bank Bailout
Friday, June 22nd, 2012 
After the dismal employment numbers reported by the Labor Department for May, media attention has begun to focus on the summer job shortage for teenagers. According to one AP article published in news outlets around the globe, “Once a rite of passage to adulthood, summer jobs are disappearing,” which appeared under the heading “US teens now get adult competition for summer jobs.” A central theme has been the job competition from immigrants. Experts are quoted about the severe long-term consequences: lower skills, reduced labor force attachment, and rising inequality.
None of this is wrong, but we need a strong dose of common sense about priorities. Our labor market crisis – now in its 5th year – is centered on the inability of vast numbers of adult workers to find full-time jobs that pay living wages. That there is a major summer jobs shortage for teens is real, but it’s importance pales next to the costs of the employment problems of prime-age workers. If there is a teen crisis, it has much more to do with academic preparation and college completion than with the availability of summer jobs.
Yes, the job market for teens is likely to be as bad as last summer – we won’t know exactly how bad until the June and July numbers appear. But we do know that teen employment rates are at an all-time low. The employment rate for 16-19 year olds has collapsed since 2000, with similar huge declines in the early and late 2000s (from 45% to 36.2% between 2000 and 2004, and then from 34.3% to 25.5% between 2007 and 2010). Particularly worrisome is the sharp decline for 18-19 year old black teens: from 31.8% in 2007 to 23% in 2010. If there is any good news in these numbers, it is that between 2010 and 2012 these rates at least didn’t get much worse.
And yes, in the worst jobs collapse since the Great Depression, teenagers will face increasing competition from adults, and some of these will be immigrants. But this is nothing new – decades ago, Katherine . . .
Read more: The Teens Summer Jobs ‘Crisis’
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