Looking forward to watching this.

Oh dear. I read: "Cows: protecting the people from the powerful." I couldn't quite grasp the message...

Douglas, you are so right. We show dissent and wash our hands of everything. I love the "down with this sort of thing" picture! But I question if just working on individual attainable issues is the right way either. Maybe we need to be working on a change of ideologies, a retraining à la Gramsci. We need to develop that faith, to develop that confidence. And most importantly change our deep rooted attachment to this current paradigm. Basically I don't think we're ripe for revolution because we haven't suffered enough yet. Only those with nothing to lose will really make a revolution. While the white, middle class intellectuals remain unable to lift a single finger that will contribute to their own demise. We will clap and show dissent and do all that we can to be a part of the movement without really being part of anything. When a real movement starts (the next Black Panthers of sorts, say) will we clap our hands or call them terrorists? http://thefayingsurface.blogspot.com/2011/01/dusting-off-hegemony.html

Time to move to Detroit. Any space for a family of five?

A riot may not be a revolution but it has often been part of revolts, which have been historically significant. I see a riot as part of the picture of dissent and modern riots as simply often missing the proper framework of organization. I, too, feel sometimes dismay at "pointless and destructive" rioting. But I have to ask myself if that isn't just the influence of a moralizing media.

In a new AlterNet article called "Do We Need a Militant Movement to Save the Planet (and Ourselves)?" (http://www.alternet.org/story/151918/do_we_need_a_militant_movement_to_save_the_planet_%28and_ourselves%29?page=8) a new book, Deep Green Resistance, by Aric McBay, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen is presented. In this article (page 8) Aric McBay describes upheaval as two-pronged and writes, "If you are talking about building democratic communities then that is something that people do above ground, by building networks, building coalitions. On the other hand if you are talking about disrupting or destroying systems that are killing the planet and people then that is something that is traditionally done by the underground wing of the movement, by clandestine groups. Especially now with the amount of surveillance in our every day lives, people who want to take direct action against systems of power have to do so secretly. That is the smaller part in terms of numbers, but an essential part of the strategy.” A major problem I have with Jensen-style anarchy is the lack of large-scale organization. Your presentation of a communist horizon to steer towards could fill that gap. But in your description of communist revolution (one million followers and fifty hackers), you mention nothing about the (anarchist) tactic of clandestine direct action. Is the direct action and revolution of communism to be clandestine, too? If so is there really so much difference between anarchist and communist revolt? Are you taking into account this militant direct action of anarchism, or just dismissing "main-stream" community-building anarchism as being one of the three major faults in leftist organization? Does the difference between anarchist and communist revolution lie in organization? And how could a communist militant movement be organized - i.e. networked in larger groups - in light of current surveillance? Anarchism may lack organization and structure but (at least militant anarchism) focusses realistically (if not always effectively) on tactics. Is the communist movement - the communist horizon - also to focus on concrete tactics? Or are we still in the era of just awakening the often academic communist dialog?

Jodi, thanks for posting this talk. I'm inspired by your mention of a very tangible and detailed revolutionary model of upheaval in the U.S. And I'm looking forward to reading your book! You've presented solid arguments about the structure of the left, debunking the worship of democracy, anarchy and liberalism. I'm afraid I couldn't follow (acoustically?) if you got an answer to the question of terminology: "dictatorship of the proletariat" vs. "sovereignty of the people." I find proletariat to be very loaded and think it only fitting to use if completely rehabilitated (is that possible with such a rich yet rigid word?). However "sovereignty of the people" is common language for democracy. I fear that using this over-used, almost pithy language is weakening. At least proletariat is powerful and clear.

I, too, am inspired by your theory of communicative capitalism and see it as a lens that brings the opaque media world to clarity. But I also have experienced quick and far-reaching transformation through participatory media. It is not only my ideologies which are changing, my hopes, my knowledge, my cyber activity, my writing. I am also changing in the physical world. My counter-hegamonic activity is small so far but has great impact on family and acquaintances. I dumpster dive. This enables us to live about 70% outside of the capitalist food economy. The remarkable aspect of such activity is that it not only perpetuates itself, it actually makes my willingness to engage in other tactical anti-capitalistic struggles grow. I quite imagine that I will be able to track back my future involvement in community building directly to participatory media. Such personal transformation is an invaluable step. But I agree that we are riddled with fragmentation. It is as if there is a missing link between personal transformation and revolutionary action. Perhaps that link is suffering. We just haven's suffered enough yet. We just haven't been abused enough yet. At the rate things are going, however, this moment will come.

Jodi- Thank you. My name is Fay. I'll have to change that profile name of F Furness. At the risk of setting off your intimacy trap trigger I offer my e-mail address: f.furness@gmail.com. There are many things I would wish to discuss, but do not wish to fill your blog comment space with. I've searched your blog for a "personal message" button and found nothing. I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds.

When I was a kid and my parents fought, my mother would tell me, "never get married, never have kids." She had 10 kids and stayed married for 60 years. Now, when I read the news I tell my 10-year-old daughter, "never have kids." She agrees with me that that's the best option. We spend hours in the afternoon working through long division. Her life plans? She and I are going "into the wild" when she turns twenty, after my other two kids reach adulthood. She never questions why she should do long division. When I say that I can no longer relate to society, she says, "but Mommy, you ARE society, you can't escape society even in the wilderness." She advocates degrowth ideologies without knowing it and says the problem with the world is that people are too smart. She, too, is perky and happy and looks forward to the fall of civilization. When I was cold-war pre-teen, I feared the fall of civilization. I feared everything. It was a similar emotion to what one might feel upon learning one has a terminal illness. Our children know that the illness is terminal and seem to be accepting it with grace. Indeed, they will be needing this grace.

Jodi- Yours was the first blog I came across four months ago (I'm a late bloomer) that I found socially and politically inspiring, which moved me to start writing my own blog. What you repost are signs on a highway, stops I could choose to make, new directions I could choose to drive. If I have no time to read them, I skip them. But I take the time to read your personal entries. I don't fully understand why the "boring stuff about" you interests me; perhaps it's like how the light falls in a Caravaggio painting. If it weren't for the light I wouldn't bother with it. I wouldn't see that there's anything more there than just another nice painting. As to women, I find folds and wrinkles highly desirable. But where's the trap? Is it the subject of intimacy and how to steer it? Or is it the obligation to be intimate? I could see the obligation to write personal entries as a trap, but can only beg as a reader, "more please." But intimacy in general, the demands and needs for it, is always muddy. One day one could wish for more and feel utterly connected, and the next day wish to torch it all. This has nothing to do with Facebook or the cyber world any more than the real world, except that the virtual torch seems more alluring.