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<DIV><FONT size=2>== please share widely! ==</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Dear Folks--</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Joel Kovel is in the Boston area next week and will be
discussing</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>his book "Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic
State in</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Israel/Palestine" at Coolidge Corner Theater, Tue night, Jan
22, 7pm,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>sponsored by Bostonians for One Democratic State </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>(<A href="mailto:peace@texnology.com">peace@texnology.com</A>
for more info or to get on the One State mailing list)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>His other strong interest is Green and Left Politics including
a <FONT size=2>run for Senate on the Green</FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=2>ticket in NY in 1998. All you GRP members may find it
interesting to hear of</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>his experiences, and his thoughts on EcoSocialism, another area in which he
is</DIV>
<DIV>a leading theoretician. He also has a critique of Green politics from the
point of</DIV>
<DIV>view of an EcoSocialist. For a long exposition on EcoSocialism you can
see</DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Kovel">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Kovel</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If you would like to meet and discuss these issues with him,</DIV>
<DIV>he will be at Mel King's brunch, from 1pm to 3pm, and</DIV>
<DIV>then will speak at Lucy Parsons at 4pm to discuss</DIV>
<DIV>EcoSocialism, the Green Party, and show his</DIV>
<DIV>film "A <STRONG><EM>Really</EM></STRONG> Inconvenient Truth" with ample
time</DIV>
<DIV>for discussion.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=3><STRONG></STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=3><STRONG>4pm Sunday Jan 20</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#000080 size=3><FONT color=#ff0000>Lucy Parsons Center
<BR>549 Columbus Avenue <BR>Boston, Massachusetts</FONT> <BR></FONT></STRONG><A
href="http://www.lucyparsons.org/directions.php">http://www.lucyparsons.org/directions.php</A><BR></DIV></DIV>
<P><A id=Critique_of_capitalist_expansion_and_globalisation
name=Critique_of_capitalist_expansion_and_globalisation></A></P></FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT size=4>A quick sketch of his position would be
that</FONT></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>we will not solve the problem of Climate Change or ecological
degradation</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>unless we understand the basic cause: the world capitalist
system.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>His 2002 book, which he is now in the process of updating is
"The</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the
World"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>The DVD is called "A Really Inconvenient Truth" </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>"What is "really inconvenient" is the truth that global
warming is directly</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>related to the uncontrolled growth of the dominant world
capitalist system-- a system in </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>which Al Gore has played a leading role, for which reason he
(and the whole movement he represents) avoids the heart of the matter and
distracts us with moral uplift and technological</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>fixes. <STRONG>Joel Kovel insists, rather, that we need to
address-- and transform-- the</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG>basic social dynamics that lead to the regime of
cancerous production and mindless consumption. </STRONG></FONT><FONT
size=2><STRONG>Only by facing up to what is "really inconvenient" can we win
through to</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG>a livable future."</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<P><IMG src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v734/LegumeSam/kovel4.jpg"><IMG
src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v734/LegumeSam/teon22.jpg">
<P><STRONG>Review of The Enemy of Nature from Amazon:</STRONG></P>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.5em">
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top>By </TD>
<TD><A
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2F6NONFUDB6UK/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp"><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Malvin</SPAN></A> (Frederick, MD
USA) <BR><A
onclick="return amz_js_PopWin(this.href,'AmazonHelp','width=340,height=340,resizable=1,scrollbars=1,toolbar=1,status=1');"
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#VN"
target=AmazonHelp></A> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV>
<P>Joel Kovel's "The Enemy of Nature" offers a powerful and unflinching
eco-Marxist critique of the capitalist system. Concluding that the path of
accumulation must inevitably lead to a world wide ecological crisis, the author
theorizes about the type of "ecosocialist" system that must supplant capitalism
in order to ensure humanity's survival.</P>
<P>Kovel is part of a growing "Red/Green" movement that also includes the
outstanding Marxist scholar James O'Connor. Kovel's arguments seem to build upon
and indeed are closely aligned with many of the ideas in O'Connor's excellent
book "Natural Causes," but I personally find Kovel's writing to be a bit more
accessible than O'Connor's. Perhaps this pragmatism can be attributed to Kovel's
political sensibilities, as he was a candidate for the Green Party Presidential
nomination in 2000.</P>
<P>Kovel believes that various forms of so-called "Green economics" are doomed
to failure because they do not address what he sees as the root problem driving
the ecological crisis: namely, capital's need to continuously expand. He points
out that whatever gains might be realized from the introduction of
environmentally-friendly technology will be quickly outweighed by the expansion
of the economy. For example, fuel cells might be less harmful than internal
combustion engines, but if the technology merely enables the manufacture of
hundreds of millions of new automobiles, the planet will ultimately be much
worse off. </P>
<P>But Kovel acknowledges that the current Green movement is in fact helping to
lay the groundwork for what is yet to come. The Green's emphasis on local
democratic control of the means of production will help free labor from its
bondage with capital, which is essential for socialism to succeed.</P>
<P>Of course, Kovel devotes a section to readers who may need to be reminded
that really existing socialism as practiced in the Soviet Union and elsewhere
was NOT what Marx intended. Kovel shows that these countries actually
substituted the state for the market, in the end merely proving that markets
were superior to centralized planning. The ruined environments left behind by
the Communist states were testaments to a failed attempt at accumulation, in
much the same way that the West is currently degrading the air, land and sea in
its ongoing frenzy of accumulation.</P>
<P>Kovel speculates on how collapse might occur in the capitalist nations. He
understands that a breakdown of the financial system could easily lead to
fascism, or possibly "ecofascism", as capital seeks to hold on to power. But
Kovel thinks it may be plausible that the pockets of production growing outside
the bounds of capital may be strong enough to resist the counter-revolution.
Indeed, Kovel points out that up to 20 percent of the world economy already
exists in the "informal" sector, although most of this is comprised of criminal
activity and much less of the positive kind (such as the Bruderhof communities
of the U.S.). </P>
<P>This latter part of Kovel's analysis bears similarity to Nick
Dyer-Witheford's "Cyber-Marx", although Kovel does not appear to be aware of
this book nor is it referenced in his bibliography. In short, Dyer-Witheford
theorizes that technophiles will appropriate the means of production in order to
empower a society that eventually achieves autonomy by existing outside the
bounds of capitalist control. Like Kovel, Dyer-Witheford envisions that the
post-capitalist society will choose to apply its surplus value to the cause of
freeing labor and restoring its ravaged social, physical and natural
environments. In my view, the convergence of these two authors' thoughts --
albeit arrived at from different angles, but perhaps more compelling because of
this -- bolsters both of their arguments and suggests that the possibility of
radical change may not be as elusive as one might suppose. </P>
<P>I strongly recommend Kovel's book for anyone who may be concerned about the
future of our society or for those who may be contemplating how a more humane
world might come about.</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>