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jlfeldman.bsky.social
j.l. feldman
@jlfeldman.bsky.social
360 followers 260 following 100 posts
political theory - general strike and democracy
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jlfeldman.bsky.social
I love this little passage on memory that Edmund White drops in the middle of his memoirish novel “A Boy’s Own Story”
FOUR Like a blind man's hands exploring a face, the memory lingers over an identifying or beloved feature but dismisses the rest as just a curve, a bump, an expanse. Only this feature-these lashes tickling the palm like a firefly or this breath pulsing hot on a knuckle or this vibrating Adam's apple-only this feature seems lovable, sexy. But in writing one draws in the rest, the forgotten parts. One even composes one's improvisations into a quite new face never glimpsed before, the likeness of an invention. Busoni once said he prized the most those empty… passages composers make up to get from one "good part" to another. He said such workmanlike but minor transitions reveal more about a composer-the actual vernacular of his imagination-than the deliberately bravura moments. I say all this by way of hoping that the lies I've made up to get from one poor truth to another may mean something-may even mean something most particular to you, my eccentric, pa-tient, scrupulous reader, willing to make so much of so little, more patient and more respectful of life, of a life, than the author you're allowing for a moment to exist yet again.
July 23, 2025 at 1:47 AM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
A remarkable moment from an interview with Brad Lander on the Jewish Currents podcast: two ICE officers who arrested him are immigrant New Yorkers, one of whom was considering voting for him and Mamdani

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...
“I get arrested at 26 Federal Plaza. Pretty rough arrest as everyone could see in the video, and they take me back in a hallway, and then they take off their masks. The first guy is a Pakistani Muslim immigrant who lives in Brighton Beach. The first ICE officer, and the second guy is an Indo-Gaianese immigrant who lives in South Ozone Park. And one guy says, yeah, my wife really wants me to quit my job. I don't know how I'm going to pay the mortgage. And then the Pakistani Muslim guy says, what's Mamdani like? He's been to my mosque a couple of times, and I'm thinking of ranking you guys. And I'm just like, I don't know what to make of this. I mean, there's a whole broader issue. Like these guys were not born brown shirts, but Donald Trump and the times that we're living in are making them brown shirts.”
July 11, 2025 at 5:50 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
“fellowship is heaven, & lack of fellowship is hell: ... & the life that is in it, that shall live on and on for ever, and each one of you part of it, while many a man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane.”
–William Morris, A Dream of John Ball
archive.org/details/McGi...
FORSOOTH,ye have heard it said that ye shall do well in this world I that in the world to come ye may I live happily for ever; do ye well then, and have your reward both on earth and in heaven ; for I say to you that earth and heaven are not two but one; and this one is that which ye know, and are each one of you a part of, to wit, the Holy Church, and in each one of you dwelleth the life of the church, unless ye slay it. Forsooth, brethren, will ye murder the church any one of you, and go forth a wandering man and lonely, even as Cain did who slew his brother? Ah, my brothers, what an evil doom is this, to be an outcast from the church, to have none to love you & to speak with you, to be without fellowship ! Forsooth, brothers, fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack offellowship is death: and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship’s sake that ye do them, and the life that is in it, that shall live on and on for ever, and each one of you part of it, while many a man' s life upon the earth from the earth shall wane. Therefore, I bid you not dwell in hell but in heaven, or while ye must, upon earth, which is a part of heaven, & forsooth no foul part.Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him, shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when his heart failed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms, & how that his fellow heard him and came, and they mourned together under the sun, till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them. This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is nohelp because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself. Therefore, I tell you that the proud, despiteous rich man, though he knoweth it not, is in hell already, because he hath no fellow; & he that hath so hardy a heart that in sorrow he thinketh of fellowship, his sorrow is soon but a story of sorrow, a little change in the life that knows not ill. Beautifully engraved frontispiece to A Dream of John Ball featuring Adam and Eve in Eden with the slogan “When Adam Delved and Eve Span, Who Was then the Gentleman”
May 16, 2025 at 12:15 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
this is nuts... not sure if this is what you’re asking, but as I read it he is substituting “uighurs” for “whites”, suggesting that the endgame of anti-racism is something like Chinese domination of Uighurs but with black/non-white people dominating whites? see his other tweet making a similar move
a tweet from Darren J Beattie: “Britain treats its own native white people far worse than China treats its muslim Uighur population”
February 3, 2025 at 3:54 AM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
“The weight of the entire animal kingdom [...] is around 0.5% of Earth’s biomass, or around 4 gigatons of life. As of 2020, humans have produced 8 gigatons of plastics. By 2040, it will be double that.”
newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
The scale of cybernetic waste is difficult to grasp. One insightful study found that at the beginning of the 20th century the mass of human-produced objects – concrete, bricks, asphalt, metals, plastics and so on – was equal to about 3% of the world’s total ‘biomass’, the combined weight of the web of life: every plant, bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists and animal. It revealed that the mass of anthropogenic materials has been doubling every twenty years across the last century. At this rate, 2020 was the year in which human-made mass reached 1.1 teratonnes, exceeding the entirety of global biomass. The stuff we have made, in other words, now outweighs the web of life. The weight of the entire animal kingdom – every cow, coral and krill, every person, pigeon and all 350,000 different species of beetle – is around 0.5% of Earth’s biomass, or around 4 gigatons of life. As of 2020, humans have produced 8 gigatons of plastics. By 2040, it will be double that.
January 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
Please share this call for abstracts!

The Revolutionary Spirit: Hannah Arendt & Black Political Thought

A conference at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics & Humanities, Bard College – March 27-28, 2025

Feat. a keynote by Prof. Neil Roberts & a talk by Prof. Ainsley LeSure
bit.ly/HACSpring25
Call for abstracts In On Revolution, Hannah Arendt celebrated what she called “the revolutionary spirit”: a set of political principles that combines a commitment to invent new institutions with a concern for those institutions’ durability. Arendt believed that all genuine revolutions in the modern world had been inspired by the revolutionary spirit, though “the failure of thought and remembrance” had, time and again, led to its disappearance. Indeed, a focus on the act of collective foundation—and a grave worry about the disappearance of the conditions under which such founding can take place—can be found across Arendt’s oeuvre, from Origins of Totalitarianism to her writings on American politics in the 1970s. Black revolutionaries working under conditions of extreme repression to transform the societies they inhabited also found they had to rework and reinvent revolutionary theory and praxis. Retelling the history of the Black liberation struggle and working alongside the decolonial movements of their day, thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Kwame Ture—to name a few people whose work can be found in Arendt’s library—as well as C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney, Cedric Robinson, June Jordan, Angela Davis and many others—breathed new life into the concept of revolution. Like Arendt, these thinkers confronted a legacy of loss and disappointment. They also sought to reclaim from the history of revolutions past meaningful insights that might inspire and renew contemporary revolutionary movements. Arendt was often harshly critical of such movements, particularly those claiming the mantle of Black power. Nevertheless, in a testament to the power of Arendt’s ideas, a number of political thinkers working in the revolutionary tradition of Black political thought have found her a valuable thinking partner. This conference aims to bring together scholars engaged with—and in the spirit of—Hannah Arendt’s work in theorizing Black revolutionary politics, to address such questions as: How has the concern for beginning and durability animated Black political thought? What encounters between Arendt and Black political thinkers have been hitherto overlooked or misunderstood? How might concepts from within Black political thought illuminate the phenomena, events, and texts central to the Arendtian “archive” (e.g. the council system, 1956 Hungarian Revolution, or the work of Franz Kafka), and how might Arendt’s concepts illuminate revolutionary phenomena and events in the “archive” of Black political thought? How have the critical interventions of Black political thinkers challenged or enhanced our understanding of Arendt’s theory of revolution and vice versa? Where, if anywhere, do we find the revolutionary spirit today? Please submit abstracts to this Google Form (bit.ly/HACSpring25) by December 1st, 2024. We encourage submissions from early-career scholars. Acceptances will be communicated by January 6th, 2025. Conference participants will be expected to pre-circulate papers by March 14th, 2025. We encourage prospective participants to seek external financial support for travel and lodging, as HAC has very limited funds to provide such support. Please reach out to jfeldman@bard.edu with any questions you may have.
November 14, 2024 at 2:52 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
a poignant and perceptive passage from Rancière’s essay for the recently deceased publisher Eric Hazan
For a long time, Eric saw in the very ignominy of the powers that govern us a reason to hope for the coming revolution. Their world, he thought, is so decrepit that the slightest blow here or there is bound to bring about its collapse. This is the logic, perhaps a little too cursory, of good craftsmen and sons of the Enlightenment. They believe that rot causes buildings to crumble. Unfortunately, it is more like the glue holding the system together. And this imposes a long and painstaking task on those who first and foremost need air that is more breathable and more conducive to the preparation of other tomorrows.
June 14, 2024 at 2:12 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
Reminds me of this classic poem by June Jordan, “Letter to the Local Police”
Dear Sirs:// I have been enjoying the law and order of our/community throughout the past three months since/my wife and I, our two cats, and miscellaneous/photographs of the six grandchildren belonging to/our previous neighbors (with whom we were very/close) arrived in Saratoga Springs which is clearly/prospering under your custody// Indeed, until yesterday afternoon and despite my/vigilant casting about, I have been unable to discover/a single instance of reasons for public-spirited concern,/much less complaint// You may easily appreciate, then, how it is that/I write to your office, at this date, with utmost/regret for the lamentable circumstances that force/my hand/ Speaking directly to the issue of the moment:// I have encountered a regular profusion of certain/unidentified roses, growing to no discernible purpose,/and according to no perceptible control, approximately/one quarter mile west of the Northway, on the southern/side// To be specific, there are practically thousands of/the aforementioned abiding in perpetual near riot/of wild behavior, indiscriminate coloring, and only/the Good Lord Himself can say what diverse soliciting/of promiscuous cross-fertilization// As I say, these roses, no matter what the apparent/background, training, tropistic tendencies, age,/or color, do not demonstrate the least inclination/toward categorization, specified allegiance, resolute/preference, consideration of the needs of others, or/any other minimal traits of decency// May I point out that I did not assiduously seek out/this colony, as it were, and that these certain/unidentified roses remain open to viewing even by/children w or w/out suitable supervision (My wife asks me to append a note as regards the/seasonal but nevertheless seriously licentious/phenomenon of honeysuckle under the moon that one may/apprehend at the corner of Nelson and Main// However, I have recommended that she undertake direct/correspondence with you, as regards this: yet/another civic disturbance in our midst)// I am confident that you will devise and pursue/appropriate legal response to the roses in question/If I may aid your efforts in this respect, please/do not hesitate to call me into consultation// Respectfully yours,
June 9, 2024 at 5:01 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
compare with this encounter between Ishmael and Queequeg in “Moby-Dick”, ch. 10—a story told by someone who experienced and survived a kind of apocalypse?
If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan’s breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply.
May 30, 2024 at 3:19 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
Chart from the Committee to Protect Journalists showing top jailers of journalists (in order of numbers of journalists jailed): China, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, Vietnam, Iran, Israel + Occupied Palestinian Territory, Eritrea, Egypt, Turkey
January 18, 2024 at 2:21 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
This forum on Solidarity is great—esp. Mie Inouye’s essay (the responses are great and thought-provoking, too!) This moment—interweaving Mie’s personal experience, reading of texts, & the history of organizing—is but one example of what is amazing about her piece www.bostonreview.net/forum/solida...
Excerpt from essay linked, regarding Bob Lee’s organizing tactics featured in the documentary “American Revolution 2”
September 22, 2023 at 5:21 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
when my girlfriend asks how often I think about ancient rome
machiavelli’s letter to francesco vettori (“On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day's clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them.”)
September 18, 2023 at 1:06 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
I haven’t yet gotten to Moyn’s book. But though there are some indisputably correct claims about Arendt here, I hardly recognize in this picture of Arendt the champion of the revolutionary councils who found much to praise in the 20th c. revs as well as much to criticize in the American rev.
Paragraph on Hannah Arendt from George Scialabba’s review of Moyn’s latest book in “Democracy Journal”
September 16, 2023 at 9:22 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
I was really hoping this was going to include a call for a return to the great tradition of the debt jubilee
The headline of an article by Deborah E. Lipstadt titled “Want to Fight Antisemitism? Embrace Jewish Traditions”
September 14, 2023 at 11:08 AM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
Now That’s What I Call Translation
“Seabreeze,” a translation by Richard Wilbur of Stéphane Mallaremé’s poem “Brise marine”: The flesh grows weary. And books, I’ve read them all. Off, then, to where I glimpse through spray and squall Strange birds delighting in their unknown skies! No antique gardens mirrored in my eyes Can stay my sea-changed spirit, nor the light Of my abstracted lamp which shines (O Night!) On the guardian whiteness of the empty sheet, Nor the young wife who gives the babe her teat. Come, ship whose masts now gently rock and sway, Raise anchor for a stranger world! Away! How strange that Boredom, all its hopes run dry, Still dreams of handkerchiefs that wave goodbye! Those gale-inviting masts might creak and bend In seas where many a craft has met its end, Dismasted, lost, with no green island near it… But hear the sailors singing, O my spirit! Stéphane Mallaremé’s poem “Brise marine” in the original French: La chair est triste, hélas ! et j’ai lu tous les livres. Fuir ! là-bas fuir! Je sens que des oiseaux sont ivres D’être parmi l’écume inconnue et les cieux ! Rien, ni les vieux jardins reflétés par les yeux Ne retiendra ce coeur qui dans la mer se trempe Ô nuits ! ni la clarté déserte de ma lampe Sur le vide papier que la blancheur défend Et ni la jeune femme allaitant son enfant. Je partirai ! Steamer balançant ta mâture, Lève l’ancre pour une exotique nature ! Un Ennui, désolé par les cruels espoirs, Croit encore à l’adieu suprême des mouchoirs ! Et, peut-être, les mâts, invitant les orages, Sont-ils de ceux qu’un vent penche sur les naufrages Perdus, sans mâts, sans mâts, ni fertiles îlots … Mais, ô mon coeur, entends le chant des matelots !
September 11, 2023 at 6:37 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
Excellent piece on the use of RICO against left political movements. This part of the story—about feminist org NOW’s use of RICO against anti-abortion groups and how it helped intensify the criminalization of left movements—is particularly disturbing
September 11, 2023 at 4:08 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
The state demands a monopoly not only of legitimate use of violence but also of manipulating the media to up as much column space or television time as possible
September 6, 2023 at 11:33 AM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
Violence is part of the anarchism in some anarchist beliefs
www.fultonclerk.org/DocumentCent...
September 6, 2023 at 11:25 AM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
a lovely and ironic approach to this theme by Wisława Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska, “Under One Small Star”
September 3, 2023 at 10:25 PM
jlfeldman.bsky.social
I was having trouble figuring out what my first post should be and then realized I can post a favorite poem, by Amiri Baraka
The poem, “A Note to Sylvia Robinson...” by Amiri Baraka: “What beauty is not anomalous/ And strange, what love is not/ In danger and fragile, what goodness/Is not sometimey and sweet, what grand/Joyousness not shy and seeming incomplete/We are what we can be together never enough/Though without each other we don’t know ourselves/And would spend the rest of our days looking over our/Shoulder at where we thought we saw ourselves/Crossing another street”
August 21, 2023 at 12:50 AM