The words “evangelical” and “conservative” are waiting to be reclaimed by many more people than those who pretend to be so. Let the latter lose their disguises and power over imaginations and souls. The first word means “good news” and can be adopted broadly since the story, without the necessity of church of any kind, including our modern mega versions, is about the real costs of fostering life and the recognition of everyone in need as self. The second one means “to save.” It has long been clear that so-called conservatives are all but people who save, in any broad financial or bodily sense, except for their own narrow designs. They are on a radical, destructive reactionary mission and movement the “forwardness” of which alone—completely backward looking—justifies itself. I’m struck by the imaginary and literary aspect of the political question. So much money is invested in using words in a proprietary way. I think part of the present work of resistance demands a renewed, stubborn claim on our vocabulary and thinking. They are our most public goods. Words like “god,” “moral,” “Christian,” and many more need to be acid-cleaned. Let’s get to it.

I’ve signed a petition to the Santa Cruz City Council regarding a new parking garage project. In the space for comments I wrote:

Parking garages are behemoth of the past. The advent of intelligent automated transportation, use of adaptable public vehicles, concentration of habitat, all of these and more that you are much more aware of than I am, mean that we don’t need another very expensive, single-use parking garage. What strikes me about parking garages is their lack of adaptability and the weight they put psychologically on the minds and wallets of people, including our children and grandchildren. Nothing else can be done with these expensive constructions than park cars that are going to become part of much more fluid networks. PLEASE, consider the best transportation and public policy management before committing to such a massive, unmovable project.

I sent the following message re. the tax bill’s last spasms to my representatives, Feinstein and Panetta. Please edit, add, circulate, and send:

I know that you don’t support the tax bill and will do all you can to stop it. It will increase the deficit without obvious economic benefits for the nation. Many corporations have accumulated enormous capital that they are not willing or able to invest productively. They should not be rewarded for removing it from the reach of taxation. Furthermore, adding more capital to this capacity by lowering their tax rate will increase dangerous speculation. The economy is working without it, in part because social net protections have been dangerously eroded and provide much cheaper labor, as well as frustration, fear, and anger, whereas they should be strengthened. PLEASE, do all you can to prevent the Republican party from having the excuse of a deficit that this tax bill will soon put even more deeply in the red, an excuse that will likely be used to try and erode even further the social protections needed for a free, productive, sharing, and peaceful society.

This is a comment triggered by the language used in an update on UCSC’s strategic academic planning (EVC M. Tromp’s email of Dec. 1, 2017). Academic planning is a periodic necessity, given demographic changes, scientific evolution, political shifting background, institutional fatigue. No question about that. The language used in the present cyclical exercise is what interests me, specifically the use of the word community that appears at the top of the message, since it is addressed to the UC Santa Cruz community. I take the word “community” to echo a sense of common endeavor and real, practical sharing of work, risk, benefits, in an atmosphere of generous give and take, trust, peace, and respect. It is being used in that sense, I assume, but the insistence on deploying the word everywhere is a correlate of the disappearance at UCSC as elsewhere of the real good denoted by the word. It is now used in all communications because a university like UCSC has effectively become a competing institution of our capitalist world. Like all those other institutions, it still needs to squeeze references to old fashion values in the hope that some juice is left in them (for comparison, think of “fidelity” or “trust”). The logic of development of the school itself and the long-developing hostile political environment—diminished taxes for common, public goods—has done away with the values of “community.” Yet, in a magic gesture not all that appropriate for a scientific institution, it finds itself needing to reach out for the mythic charge of the word and hope for the best. I don’t think that the consultants hired to help with this year’s strategic planning can recharge words like “community” and resurrect its old entangled mojo. Whence then?

Hike along the beautiful Clinton River north of Troy (MI). From the road that leads to it, I see huge suburbs with identical houses, surrounded by greenery and trees. Two levels of salary, it seems to me, from the dimensions of the houses and the number of garage doors, as well as the area of the lot. Here and there, I get a glimpse of the regime above, for example vast mansions on lakesides, or the regime below, usually mobile home parks or very modest houses that preceded these new suburbs built in the seventies to the nineties. Difficult to imagine living there: where to walk to meet others, how to make friends if not in the malls or perhaps places with religious themes punctuating this huge space from at least the tenth mile until the fifteenth or sixteenth. Going to work, to school, to shops, everything has become transport outside oneself. No more “home” where one has the sense of residing, of transforming what one has in what one can be, of appropriating landscape and construction as being of oneself, at least partially. One is more and more intensely projected below and beyond a self that escapes the reach of tools of communication which to the services of research (Google) or of self-promotion (Facebook) add refinement upon refinement of desires of presence that they sell to the highest bidder. The stock market value of these smugglers, carriers and marketers of images and desires, according to what I read recently, is about two trillion dollars, just over half of the annual budget of the US government, or about 10% of the country’s economy (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet-Google, Facebook).

French

Balade le long de la belle rivière Clinton au nord de Troy (MI). De la route qui y mène, je vois d’énormes banlieues aux maisons identiques, entourées de verdure et d’arbres. Deux niveaux de salaire, ce me semble, à la grandeur des maisons et au nombre de portes de garage, ainsi qu’à la surface du lotissement. Ici et là, j’ai un aperçu du régime au-dessus, par exemple de vastes demeures au bord de lacs, ou du régime au-dessous, généralement des parcs de maisons tractées (= mobilhomes) ou des maisons très modestes qui ont précédé ces nouvelles banlieues construites depuis les années soixante-dix aux années quatre-vingt-dix. Difficile de m’imaginer y vivre: où aller à pied à la rencontre d’autres, comment se faire des amis sinon dans les malls ou peut-être les lieux à thèmes religieux ponctuant cet espace énorme depuis le dixième mille au moins jusqu’au quinzième ou seizième. Aller au travail, à l’école, aux magasins, tout est devenu transport au dehors de soi. Plus de “home” où on a le sens de demeurer, de transformer ce qu’on a en ce qu’on peut être, de s’approprier paysage et construction comme étant de soi, au moins partiellement. On est de plus en plus intensément projeté en-deça et au-delà d’un soi introuvable par les outils de communication qui aux services de recherche (Google) ou de “rapprochement” (Facebook) ajoutent raffinement sur raffinement de désirs de présence qu’ils vendent aux plus offrants. La valeur en bourse de ces trafiquants, transporteurs et fomenteurs d’images et de désirs, d’après ce que j’ai lu récemment, est d’environ deux mille milliards de dollars, soit un peu plus de la moitié du budget annuel du gouvernement des États-Unis, ou environ 10% de l’économie du pays (il s’agit de trois grandes compagnies de messagerie et deux d’électronique: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet-Google, Facebook).

Postscriptum by George Bensoussan to his Les territoires perdus de la République where he repeats his cry for help—help for everyone—by everyone, I mean the children, the vast segments of the population that feel abandoned, and even the so-called elites. It took six months for the initial book to be heard, or reviled. In it, he and his collaborators detailed the main reasons they saw for the catastrophic events in France since 2000 or so.

The most important reason, from his point of view, is the long, secular antisemitism found in Maghreb Islam, which became more virulent already at the end of the nineteenth century when Jews chose to be integrated via the schooling system, administration, political identity, and even army. and thereby escaped their fate as “protected minority” within Islam. The root for this is religious: the claim that Islam, after Christianity and Judaism, makes to be the only faith with access to final truths. This antisemitism was worsened by the resentment caused by having lost control of their own affairs and being demeaned and abused by colonial powers. It reached new levels in the French situation especially since the nineties. The author argues in this postscriptum that even without the existence of Israel, this antisemitism would still exist. I don’t disagree completely, but I think it would not have the murderous force it has taken in the past twenty years. The policies of Israel regarding Palestine cannot be factored out. Still, it remains that the author is right to insist that one cannot explain the surge of violence only by the memory of colonialism and the terribly unequal socio-economic situation found in many banlieues.

He sees a number of social factors at work, mixed with cultural aspects. The Maghrebi family and community model has seen paternal and male power diminished and humbled. I would tie these new forms of abasement to the historical humiliation of colonialism and modernist heyday associated with enlightenment and separation of powers. Education in public schools threatens the structure further. Girls may emancipate themselves in all sorts of ways. Integration and rationalism undercut or sap tradition. The return to a more virile, anti-rationalist, original, salafist version of religion and culture is tempting. Add the civic and economic troubles, the absence of jobs, the difficulty in landing one when they exist. Legal, educational, and political institutions lose completely their meaning and are replaced by criminality and violences, including among Muslims themselves (inter-gang and inter-family territorial fights).

Lastly, there has been the silence and avoidance cultivated especially by intellectuals and elites, though perhaps not at the highest level? Out of mauvaise conscience regarding WW II and especially the terrible crimes of colonialism, as well as regarding social inequities? and a cheaply acquired bonne conscience translated by minutes of silence, Shoah reminders and plaques, etc., that become occasions of revolt and insults on the part of angry, radicalized youth. Contempt, or rather mauvaise conscience also regarding the large majority of the rest of the population that has to live with a feeling of losing it. The Front national has become the first “working class” movement in France, no matter Macron’s victory… Elites and middle class avoid having their children in at-risk areas, schools, or jobs.

Dans le brouillard, sous les branches ballantes des séquoias sombres,
j’ai retrouvé la bibliothèque où deux livres m’attendaient:
le rêve mosaïque d’un vieux savant allemand
et le cri d’un juif français sur la faillite de la république.
Les pruniers sont en fleurs dans la cour du Pharaon,
On attend les cerisiers.

Large demonstration in Catalonia yesterday, perhaps 350,000 people, double or treble that number according to some participants. The images are extraordinary. Hundreds of thousands of people reached for the Spanish flag as symbol of unity, while being well aware of its fraught history. Another demonstration in Madrid called for dialogue and cooperation. Its flag was white. On which side would Casals be today? The present prime minister of Spain is a right winger who has long showed but contempt for autonomy and independence. Hate and scorn are now increasing on all sides. What will happen if, as is still possible, the parliament of Catalonia declares independence tomorrow (Tue) and starts moving toward the formation of a new state? Does Catalonia’s government immediately follow with an application for membership in the EU? Not surprisingly, The German chancellor supports the prime minister of Spain. She calls for the dialogue that has been missing all along but declares she is against the independence of Catalonia, which means that the first item of a real dialogue on independence is off the table. Her call also implies that Catalonia’s application to EU membership is doomed from the start. Offices of several banks and large companies might move out of Catalonia. No discussion in the papers I read this morning of the economic pressures that global interests put on national states and their constituencies. Could Catalans in an independent Catalonia stay the global logic of labor exploitation, automation, and inequities better than Madrid and Brussels—which is not saying much—, or would their independence accelerate the logic at work? What is going to happen?

Our present government is not populist but slouching toward fascism. In appearance, it is proto-fascist, as presidential “executive orders” are not dictatorial orders. These orders cannot quite mask and do away yet with the rule of law. The situation is evolving day by day. We are in a struggle that is a world-wide expansion of the conflict between elites and workers. It has been going on for over a century and a half now. Demagogic, racist, antisemitic appeals to middle and lower-middle class have long been used to counter socialist mass movements. For a while, particularly in the aftermath of world wars in which armies were made of global levies of whole nations, economically stressed workers could appeal to social democratic elites and demand that the most negative effects of the capitalist system be blunted. Rule of law, basic financial protections, regulated pensions, free or cheap public education systems, universal health-care systems were devised in such a way that the privatization of profits and socialization of risks could proceed, though somewhat held in check. These protections and more generally a sense of shared social obligations and security are being systematically erased since the late seventies. Cooperative and socializing movements have been systematically marginalized. To unionize has been disparaged, attacked, radically weakened. The result is that many wage earners today see little alternative to exploitation and insecurity, except brutal, racist, nationalistic fascism. Trump et al oblige.

Trump got a hearty welcome two days ago in Phoenix from an audience that had been selected among his most fervent supporters. It was a strange campaign event, with the president fanning hate of the elites, news media (whom he seeks for broadcasting), duly elected Republicans, and above all immigrants. Build a wall, a transparent one, a see-through wall! Two political representatives were on hand. Trump wanted to have them on stage. One got up, shook hands, while the other remained seated for a while then got up, awkwardly. Worried about shaking hands with someone who can turn against them, worried about the 2018 elections? Whom do they represent? Many middle-class people retire in Phoenix. The city has a big share of expansive suburbs, apartment complexes, retirement homes, entertainment venues. How many retirees in this audience? They are not threatened by emigrants, at least economically. If anything, they are served by them. Yet, they choose to be led by feelings of hate rather than thought and, gasp, reason. Trump has been using the fascist playbook all during his campaign and resorts to it everytime he needs consolidation of his “base.” He tried it with the boy-scouts and got some results. The appeal to the gut works. Are we on our way to a new form of fascism? I would like to safely believe that the passion of a football-like event will die soon enough and cannot compete with the draw of sofas and Fox watching. And yet, I also know full bellies and guts can rage the more they silence hearts and heads.