<nettime> the green and the black digest [seymour/byfield x2, hart]

[nettime's_charterhouse <nettime@kein.org>]

Re: <nettime> scattered thoughts on Obama's green empire and black

     Benedict Seymour <ben@kein.org>
     t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
     Benedict Seymour <ben@kein.org>
     t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
     "Keith Hart" <keith@thememorybank.co.uk>

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Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:27:31 +0000
From: Benedict Seymour <ben@kein.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> scattered thoughts on Obama's green empire and black

Actually, I take that email back, i don't think the celebrations of 
Obama's win simply, uncontradictorily, represent a nationalist, 
implictly racist euphoria - this is too simplisitc, there may be 
something in the energy and enthusiasm displayed here that goes beyond 
nation, elections, party political branding coups etc. But this email, 
with its claims about Obama's administration and some New Deal (a 
totally different affair from the potential some might see in the 
jubilation of as yet undisappointed voters and non-voters) was so 
annoying that i was swept away on a wave of anger. It's a form of 
optimism - ie - it says: perhaps now we wont have to put up with anymore 
demoradical bullshit, no more Bushes and no more anti-Bushes. A crazy 
dream, but one worth dancing in the street for).
Sorry - we all get carried away at times like these, it seems.
Ben

Alex Foti wrote:

> Obama's victory brings a wave of optimism and after all these years of
> darkness and obscurantism it is refreshing. His administration should
> also chart a fairly liberal, ecokeynesian course in socioeconomic
> policy. The gross inequalities created by three decades of free-market
> theology are likely to be reversed.
 <...>

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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 22:30:23 -0500
From: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> scattered thoughts on Obama's green empire and black

If Obama were sufficiently radical it'd be OK to enjoy his election,
but he isn't so it's not. The celebrations are racist. The old New 
Deal ended in WW2. 

Anything else we should know before we, as you put it, kick it down 
rather than engineering the next wave of destruction?

Cheers,
T

ben@kein.org (Sat 11/08/08 at 02:51 AM +0000):

> Are you on drugs? Three decades of free market theology are about to be 
> ramified over the dead and unemployed bodies of black and white working 
> class americans (not to mention whoever else the next round of wars take 
> as their humanitarian aid victims). This sickening, almost 1930s-style 
> explosion of nationalist and racist 'euphoria' is bad enough, but seeing 
> the demoradicals of europe celebrating it as the beginning of some new 
> new deal (remember the original New Deal ends in WW2; You don't get one 
> without the other - and, this little detail aside, FDR's policies were 
> as racist and punitive to blacks - eg on housing - as Obama's will be) 
> is a grotesque joke.
 <...>

-- 
http://b1ff.org!!! 

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Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:37:05 +0000
From: Benedict Seymour <ben@kein.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> scattered thoughts on Obama's green empire and black

No, that's all I have for now, and I hope everyone enjoys the party a 
lot. But when the party's over we're all going to have to deal with the 
policies. And that, to me, is already a very sobering prospect.
Ben

t byfield wrote:

> If Obama were sufficiently radical it'd be OK to enjoy his election,
> but he isn't so it's not. The celebrations are racist. The old New 
> Deal ended in WW2. 
>
> Anything else we should know before we, as you put it, kick it down 
> rather than engineering the next wave of destruction?
 <...>

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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 23:11:14 -0500
From: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> scattered thoughts on Obama's green empire and black

ben@kein.org (Sat 11/08/08 at 03:37 AM +0000):

> No, that's all I have for now, and I hope everyone enjoys the party a  
> lot. But when the party's over we're all going to have to deal with the  
> policies. And that, to me, is already a very sobering prospect.

Uh, living under Bush was a sobering prospect for the last eight years. 

I know us Americans have been in a bad way and a bit difficult at times, 
but do you mind if we have a pint before heading off to our second jobs? 

I see from your subsequent mail that you're stepping back a bit, which
is a fine thing. But, as you do, meditate on this: the eruptions of 
election night in the US were, I think the first manifestations I've 
ever seen in the US. Protests and demo are a dime a dozen here (OK, well, 
not really), but *manifestations* never. Deeply, deeply armored people -- 
generals, commentators, normal types who've been bottling up a lot their
entire lives -- were shedding tears not just in public but on primetime
TV. And a really diabolical legacy of the GOP doing everything it can to
spread FUD about the legitimacy of elections came to an abrupt halt. And
Obama, who ran on a platform of 100% organic kumbaya extract, wasted not 
one second on making it clear that he intends to govern, as they say,
like a bad-ass motherfucker. Watch.

I don't have a lot of use for visions of history so heroic that they need
to trash entire peoples and eras just to make some asinine point. If that 
point will ever be realized, the vast, vast majority of what transpires 
between now and then will be normal -- for generations, probably. Since 
that's the case, you might want to ask yourself by what machinery will 
your ideals be realized; as milquetoast as it may sound, the answer is 
probably closer to Obama than not. 

Cheers,
T

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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 13:25:23 +0100
From: "Keith Hart" <keith@thememorybank.co.uk>
Subject: Re: <nettime> scattered thoughts on Obama's green empire and black new deal

Thanks, Alex. And here was me thinking all we were going to get on nettime
was a string of 'extreme left' rants trying to justify why they weren't
going to let a changed world alter their own cherished ideas.

K

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Alex Foti <alex.foti@gmail.com> wrote:

> Obama's victory brings a wave of optimism and after all these years of
> darkness and obscurantism it is refreshing. His administration should
> also chart a fairly liberal, ecokeynesian course in socioeconomic
> policy. The gross inequalities created by three decades of free-market
> theology are likely to be reversed.
 <...>

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