[Reader-list] [Fwd: <nettime> PNW errata-tat-tat digest: Kshama Sawant and her discontents

Sun Feb 2 03:21:30 CST 2014

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: <nettime> PNW errata-tat-tat digest [x4: gehl, miller, goldhaber,
rossler]
From:    "nettime's_factotum" <nettime at kein.org>
Date:    Sun, February 2, 2014 02:17
To:      nettime-l at kein.org
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Re: <nettime> How Silicon Valley's CEOs
     "Robert W. Gehl" <lists at robertwgehl.org>
     Eric Miller <eric at squishymedia.com>
     Michael H Goldhaber <mgoldh at well.com>
     martha rosler <navva at earthlink.net>

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Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 12:20:02 -0700
From: "Robert W. Gehl" <lists at robertwgehl.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> How Silicon Valley's CEOs

Clarification: Sawant is a city council member, not the mayor. However,
she is a most excellent socialist. See her response to the SOTU:

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2014/01/29/kshama-sawant-responds-obamas-state-union-address/

- Rob

On 02/01/2014 11:41 AM, Brian Holmes wrote:

> On 01/31/2014 04:26 AM, d.garcia wrote about:
>
>> the wider problem of how to re-connect political activism to some form
>> of re-booted labor movement able garner credibility from the workforce
>> in these van garde creative economies exemplified by Silicon Valley
>
> Well, if the Valley is the hivemind of global management, maybe we
 <...>

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Subject: Re: <nettime> How Silicon Valley's CEOs
From: Eric Miller <eric at squishymedia.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2014 11:21:44 -0800

Speaking as a Pacific NW'er, I'll note that Ms. Sawant is a City
Council member (one of nine) not the mayor, and she represents a
community which is active and noisy but not terribly effective.  That
minimum wage they passed up there, for example, really only applies to
airport workers (not all of Seattle) and is already being challenged.

Just down the road here in The People's Republic of Portland we've
got two out of five city council members who are arguably solid lefties;
but for the most part their policy approaches are marginalized by the
more mainstream centrist progressives who tend to run the urban centers
up here.

Short version: don't hold your breath for a Great October Revolution
led by Cascadia.  There's a pragmatic undercurrent that's likely to
keep us more in the center-left.  By Fox News America standards, though,
we are card-carrying Communists, so there's that...

Eric

On Feb 1, 2014, at 10:41 AM, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 01/31/2014 04:26 AM, d.garcia wrote about:
>
>> the wider problem of how to re-connect political activism to some form
>> of re-booted labor movement able garner credibility from the workforce
>> in these van garde creative economies exemplified by Silicon Valley
>
> Well, if the Valley is the hivemind of global management, maybe we
 <...>

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Subject: Re: <nettime> How Silicon Valley's CEOs
From: Michael H Goldhaber <mgoldh at well.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2014 13:02:52 -0800

Sadly, Brian misspoke (or miswrote); Kshama Sawant was only elected to
the  Seattle City Council, not the mayorship. And Bernie Sanders was
Socialist mayor of Burlington, VT, and is now an independent
(officially) in the US Senate, so she's not the only elected socialist
in the US.  A better minimum wage would be a small step. Only about
100,000 more socialist officials would be needed to pass it.

Orsan's suggestion that a new kind of overclass might emerge is
certainly worth pondering, especially considering that the universally
invasive snooping of the NSA could so easily be turned to a tool for
such rulers. What goes unmentioned is that more and more labor, both
manual and mental is being automated, probably at an accelerating rate.
Any sort of labor resistance adds impetus to that trend. A guaranteed
minimum income is thus just as necessary as a minimum wage, if not more
so. Old-fashioned capitalists who see the need for consumers of their
products might end up allying with labor and socialists to achieve this.
Otherwise, who exactly would the new rulers rule? And for what?

Best,
Michael

On Feb 1, 2014, at 10:41 AM, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 01/31/2014 04:26 AM, d.garcia wrote about:
>
>> the wider problem of how to re-connect political activism to some form
>> of re-booted labor movement able garner credibility from the workforce
>> in these van garde creative economies exemplified by Silicon Valley
>
> Well, if the Valley is the hivemind of global management, maybe we
 <...>

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Subject: Re: <nettime> How Silicon Valley's CEOs
From: martha rosler <navva at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2014 17:41:45 -0500

slight correction:

Sawant is a City Council member (menber of the Trotskyist Socialst
Alternative Pty), not the mayor of seattle. that is a Democrat named Ed
Murray, just elected as well.

martha r

Minimum wage would have to be about $22 to match what it was in the
early postwar years.

On Feb 1, 2014, at 1:41 PM, Brian Holmes wrote:

> On 01/31/2014 04:26 AM, d.garcia wrote about:
>
>> the wider problem of how to re-connect political activism to some form
>> of re-booted labor movement able garner credibility from the workforce
>> in these van garde creative economies exemplified by Silicon Valley
>
> Well, if the Valley is the hivemind of global management, maybe we
 <...>

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