Challenging the Music Industry's Commodity Complex
An Interview with Punk-Rock Guerilla, Justin Pearson
Mimi Soltysik
I wish there was an easy answer. For me, what I end up doing, or being
part of, usually stems from my subconscious, or comes from something that
might include elements that I am not initially aware of. It's the
retrospect where I can fully study the outcome of something that I was part
of. I can breathe and dissect it with ease and in peace (with myself). I
think over the years, while everything that happened, tons of weird energy
was exchanged and moved. It made sense to some degree, but it took time to
really see the broader picture or possible understand the magnitude of
something. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not. I suppose, the
simplistic way to answer that part of this question would be that
fortunately things seem to come organically, for the most part. However
with that being said, organically doesn't mean that it's a simplistic way,
or a peaceful experience, or that it comes from a natural space. So moving
into the later part of your question, about the era that we are in, it's
grim in many respects. It's more and more absurd. I feel a great deal more
anxiety than what I felt in recent years. It seems that time might be
running out. I can feel the tension in the air, and smell the shit that is
lingering. But with that being said, I can see new ideas, I feel rad power
from people, and change is being birthed and evoked in a lot of creative
and powerful stuff. Man, this is a massive, massive topic to try to
articulate and nail down in a simple answer. I guess over all, I see things
being polarized. I do think that might be what was and is needed, to avoid
the stagnation that seemed to keep everything at bay. For so long, I could
see that nasty band-aid on everything was gonna fall off eventually. It
sure seems to have fallen.
The Significance of Karl Marx
Chris Wright
The explanatory (and therefore strategic, for revolutionaries)
primacy of class can be established on simple a priori grounds,
quite apart from empirical sociological or historical analysis. One has
only to reflect that access to resources-money, capital, technology-is of
unique importance to life, being key to survival, to a high quality of
life, to political power, to social and cultural influence; and access to
(or control over) resources is determined ultimately by class position,
one's position in the social relations of production. The owner of the
means of production, i.e., the capitalist, has control over more resources
than the person who owns only his labor-power, which means he is better
able to influence the political process (for example by bribing
politicians) and to propagate ideas and values that legitimate his dominant
position and justify the subordination of others. These two broad
categories of owners and workers have opposing interests, most obviously in
the inverse relation between wages and profits. This antagonism of
interests is the "class struggle," a struggle that need not always be
explicit or conscious but is constantly present on an implicit level,
indeed is constitutive of the relationship between capitalist and worker.
The class struggle-that is, the structure and functioning of economic
institutions-can be called the foundation of society, the dynamic around
which society tends to revolve, because, again, it is through class that
institutions and actors acquire the means to influence social life. These simple, commonsense reflections suffice to establish the meaning and
validity of Marx's infamous, "simplistic," "reductionist" contrast between
the economic "base" and the political, cultural, and ideological
"superstructure." Maybe his language here was misleading and metaphorical.
When Fellow Workers Can No Longer Find Work
A Talk with the Long-Term Unemployed
Devon Bowers
The entire time I have been unemployed, I have not remained idle. I have
labored. Intensely. I have: raised my children, grown gardens in my
backyard in a step towards self-sufficiency, I have worked my family
member's land and houses. I have done handiwork in my own home. I have
constructed things. I have educated people, adults and children on a
multitude of different issues. While on CalWorks, I have gone to college,
increasing my own knowledge, and working towards my goal of becoming an
educator; a history teacher to be specific. I have volunteered with
countless organizations, including Western Service Workers Association
(WSWA), which is a mutual aid organization and a "para-union", or a union
for non-unionized workers, like IHSS workers or farmworkers. I am currently
a coordinator for their food procurement program, which entails me going to
different grocery markets and taking donations for our food bank, so that
it may be fully stocked and ready to help other families and individuals in
need. I have become an organizer for the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA).
I have organized protests against the DAPL and other such pipelines. I have
organized demonstrations in support of universal healthcare. I have
organized demonstrations of solidarity with the LGBT community when our
local mega-church Bethel openly declared themselves a hate group in support
of conversion therapy and told their congregation to vote against a CA
Assembly bill which would grant members of the LGBT community greater
access to healthcare and would ban the practice of billing people for
conversion therapy.
South Carolina Prisoners Reflect on Causes of Violence in Prisons, and Solutions
Jared Ware
On April 22, I interviewed three individuals from various prisons inside
the South Carolina Department of Corrections. One of the prisoners identified himself as a member of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a
group of imprisoned human rights advocates that has made national calls to
action for a prisoner-led strike in response to the conditions they feel are truly responsible for the
violence and hopelessness within prisons across the United States. The
strike is expected to begin on August 21st, 2018. Throughout our conversation, these three individuals, who are identified
only as D, S, and E to protect their identities and prevent retaliation by
prison officials, highlight the impacts of policies pushed by President
Bill Clinton's administration and implemented by states across the country.
They also point to the dehumanization of prisoners and challenge our
conception of "gangs," which does not take into account the ways in which
incarcerated people are forced to create their own collective means for
safety, survival, and camaraderie in a situation where hope is the scarcest
commodity. They also urge the public to reconsider the nature and source of violence
within prisons and the absence of human dignity and a rehabilitative
environment within our nation's prisons. They present actionable solutions
to mitigate some of the harm caused by prisons on our ultimate path toward
shedding carceral responses to legitimate societal needs. As I write this introduction on May 2nd, 2018, South Carolina prisoners
have confirmed that all Level 2 and 3 facilities have remained on a
statewide lockdown since April 15th. This means people imprisoned..
