Capitalism Archives - Steve Salaita

Renouncing Israel on Principle

How to answer the question, “Do you affirm Israel’s right to exist?”

When anti-Zionists discuss the Middle East, the topic of Israel’s existence rarely arises. It’s almost exclusively a pro-Israel talking point. We’re focused on national liberation, on surviving repression, on strategies of resistance, on recovering subjugated histories, on the complex (and sometimes touchy) relationships among an Indigenous population disaggregated by decades of aggression. That a colonial state—or any state, really—possesses no ontological rights is an unspoken assumption.

Ripping the Headlines

What do corporate media headlines tell us about ruling class agendas? As always, Palestine provides an answer.

Headlines are critical and often decisive elements of any news cycle. They inhabit a specific rhetorical genre—being a kind of art, as well—one reason why most publications don’t allow contributors the honor of writing them. They can be tantalizingly vague, purposefully misleading, or notoriously sensational (looking at you, Salon). But, like any textual phenomenon, they’re never neutral. Even headlines that aim to be functional omit infinite possibilities; editors select certain words over others, limit description according to ideological need, and influence a reader’s focus. (These conventions aren’t inherently bad, but they preclude objectivity.)

Left-Rights

Random thoughts on carting around schoolchildren

Driving is a poor way to learn a place. Walking enables a person to discern the minutia of lawn design, roadside detritus, home disrepair, fraying utilities, and domesticated wildlife. It adjusts perception of civilized habitats. Bicyclists become familiar with grading, pavement conditions, wind patterns, shoulder clearances, and shortcuts inaccessible to cars. Both modes of transport provide an intimacy with physical surroundings precluded by the speed and structure of a vehicle.

Decolonization : Survival :: Water: Life

Why does Palestine matter to Native Americans? How can Palestinians help liberate Native America?

During the summer of 2016, thousands of people representing dozens of nations converged on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in the American state currently known as South Dakota. They arrived to prevent the destruction of land and water by a foreign oil company. Energy Transfer Partners of Dallas, a regular in the Fortune 500, was constructing an underground pipeline to deliver crude oil from near the Canadian border to southern Illinois, where it would hook up with extant transport infrastructure to the Gulf of Mexico. The convergence at Standing Rock, a nation existentially threatened by the pipeline, earned the world’s attention and became an extraordinary site of multinational organizing. The Palestinian black, red, and green could be seen in the spectrum of colors.

Except for Palestine

Progressive Except for Palestine (PEP) is a myth. Adherence to Zionism inhibits comprehensive political decency.

Progressive except for Palestine, PEP (or PeP), is a familiar appellation. Palestine solidarity activists have been using it for a long time to describe the kind of leftist who professes support for racial and economic justice without extending that concern to Palestinians. In other words, the appellation describes standard-issue liberals in the metropole.

In recent months a cognate has emerged: feminist except for Palestine. This species, often indistinguishable from the PEP, locates in settler colonization a space for women’s liberation. In some cases, FEPs affirm Zionist civility by highlighting male barbarity among Israel’s enemies. They have a cozy relationship with US intervention in backward regions of the globe and imagine that gender equality can be realized through Zionism. Lately, they’ve been trying to rid the Women’s March of radical affectations.

An Honest Living

What is it like to go from a tenured professorship to an hourly wage driving buses? This piece tries to make sense of an unusual transition.

About halfway to the lot, a ribbon of cobalt rises on the horizon; when it’s cloudy, a common occurrence in the mid-Atlantic, the darkness stays pure. The spectrum of color will change with the seasons, but now it is winter and the sun comes slowly, if it appears at all.

Upon arrival, I exit my car, leaving it unlocked, and strap on my hazel backpack, which holds a bottle of tap water, a book (usually detective or spy fiction), lens cleaner, Imodium, a pen (I hate being anywhere without one), cough drops, hand sanitizer, two granola bars, and a banana. Garden mat and flashlight in hand, I begin my safety check, circling the vehicle for anything suspicious. Then I inspect rims, lug nuts, and tire tread before kneeling on the pavement to check the frame, slack adjusters, fuel tank, steering linkage, bushings, shock absorbers, brake lining, and a bunch of other doohickeys, a task that age and temperature make especially unpleasant. I open the door, examine the stairs and handrail, click the interior lights, unlock emergency hatches, and walk the aisle to make sure seats are properly bolted, exiting again into the cold morning, its cobalt replaced by the lucent bloom of dawn, where I check tire pressure, light covers, and compartments. After lifting the hood, I shine the flashlight on belts and engine parts and fluid tanks, finally removing the floppy dipstick to verify proper oil level. An elaborate brake test, three more walk-arounds, some additional prodding and dickering, and I’m done.