CRACK CAPITALISM

I anything done for its own sake. A hike that takes a man out
(1f 11\(\ I Y t the banks of a river or a mountain top would be irrational
"I j Idl tl ,judged by utilitarian standards; he is devoting himself to a
',Illy r d structive pastime. In the view of formalised reason, an activity
I r onable only if it serves another purpose, e.g. health or relaxation,
will h helps to replenish his working power. (Horkheimer 1946/2004: 25)
Is go ing for a hike, or sitting down and reading a good book,
or going out for a wild all-night party to be seen as an act of
I' 'b Ilion to be placed beside the Zapatista revolt or the uprising
of December 2001 in Argentina? This is a crucial question that
recurs repeatedly. It is clear that spending a quiet afternoon
reading a good book does not have the same impact on society
as organising the occupation of several towns by thousands of
indigenous peasants, and yet we ignore the lines of continuity at
our peril. Subcomandante Marcos makes a related point when
he says:
Marcos is gay in San Francisco, a black person in South Africa, Asian in
Europe, a Chicano in San Isidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel,
an Indigenous person in the streets of San Crist6bal, a gang-member in
Neza, a rocker on campus, a Jew in Germany, an ombudsman in the
Department of Defence, a feminist in a political party, a communist in
the post-Cold War period, a prisoner in Cintalapa, a pacifist in Bosnia, a
Mapuche in the Andes, a teacher in the National Union of Educational
Workers, an artist without a gallery or a portfolio, a housewife in any
neighbourhood in any city in any part of Mexico on a Saturday night, a
guerrilla in Mexico at the end of the twentieth century, a striker in the
CTM, a sexist in the feminist movement, a woman alone in a Metro
station at 10 p.m., a retired person standing around in the Z6calo, a
peasant without land, an underground editor, an unemployed worker,
a doctor with no office, a non-conformist student, a dissident against
neo-liberalism, a writer without books or readers, and a Zapatista in
the Mexican Southeast. In other words, Marcos is a human being in this
world. Marcos is every untolerated, oppressed, exploited minority that
is resisting and saying 'Enough!'13
/\ nd y t the practice of the left is repeatedly to commit suicide
hy ignoring, denying or destroying these lines of continuity:
34