jane dark's sugarhigh!

sugar we're going down

Don't want an "apology from Wall Street," don't even need punitive compensation for executives. These are what will be given over as sacrifices in return for retaining the veil over the theological concept of ownership on which capital depends. The axis of revenge is the weakest form of opposition. Today's only pragmatic slogan: equity or barbarism.

One thing the Paulson bailout scheme makes apparent is the indivisibility, in late capitalism, of primitive accumulation and real subsumption. The bailout appears as primitive accumulation: the looting of taxpayer assets to be entered into the self-valorizing circuit of capital. However, insofar as the taxpayers don't actually "have" the loot on hand, they are obligated to pay over time, via work to be done (thus they are doubly looted: both of the surplus value extracted from the general labor process in which they participate, and the concrete value of the tax burden from their diminished pay). This is a core logic of financialization; it renders real subsumption to come as primitive accumulation now.

notes on the conjuncture

• "Dazed Capital Feels Its Way, Eyes on Election"
• welcome to the Palindrome
• “There are no atheists in foxholes and no ideologues in financial crises,” Mr. Bernanke told officials last week. [most insensible syllogism ever? discuss]
• defeat gardens
• "It all depends on when and where I am. In that sense I'm a man totally without prejudices, like history or the weather — completely unbiased. And since I am, I can transform into a kind of system."

downward to darkness on extended credit

In times of miracles and wonders, our thoughts turn to anthropology. And so it is that, because you can't spell TED spread without Canary Wharf, we are especially grateful to the efforts of Infinite Thøught. If anyone with their wits and camera about them cares to go down to Wall Street, sugarhigh! will be pleased to publish your findings.

our analysis of 1989-2001 reveals...

...that the current climate is not ideal for teenpop to essay a comeback. It's better for belle époques.

What will be the soundtrack of capital's auto-da-fé? What song are you trending downward to this week?

Here's one obvious candidate.

impracticalities are possibilities

You will have read some version of the claim: By not voting, you are simply giving more weight to the votes of those who do bother to vote....In practical terms, you are voting for whoever happens to win.

Perhaps this is so. Of course, by the same logic, by not fighting, you are simply giving more weight to the violence of those who do bother to fight. Moreover, by not shopping, you are giving simply more weight to the purchases of those who do bother to shop. By not laboring, you are simply giving more weight to the value of those who do bother to labor. So we can dispense with the doctrine of pacifism. Boycotts should be avoided at all costs. General strikes should be mocked at every turn. And so forth.

In short: you are free to make any choice except the choice not to participate. Yes, who could disagree? In practical terms, that is exactly the logic everywhere on offer.

white nights/red army

Today, filing the collection of Poems by Mao Zedong after having finished reading them, discovered that the volume fell next to Mallarme in the library.