Comrades!
In a month in which Mr
George Walker Bush's speechwriters have been busy fetishising "evil"
nation states, the Turtle has been busy grinding its own axes of revolutionary
fervour, with Articles, Reviews and New Technology to show for our
efforts.
From the fires of our Articles
Section we have cast a troika of new essays, of varying revolutionary
mettle. In the red heat of revolutionary flame, Aziz Choudry cautions
us to listen
critically to the tunes played by think-tank pipers, while Editor
of the Turtle Raj Patel plays Scrabble with the New
Partnership for African Development at the expense of Mr Tony
Blair's smug missionary zeal. And from the ashes of revisionism, Jim
Murphy dares us to think Third
Way thoughts, and to let go our childish attachments to comprehensive
social welfare provision.
Our Reviews Section has
a keen edge this month, for Sasha Abramsky has been a loyal supporter
of The Voice of the Turtle since the Summer of 1993, and the
sparks flying off his preferred Machine Tool present a coruscating
analysis of the US Prison Nation in his new book, Hard
Time Blues, here reviewed by Raj Patel, and Leo Zeilig shows
no mercy in kicking Ridley Scott's Black
Hawk Down -- and he will kick it when it is down, for it was
an appalling piece of work about which he is duly scathing. Leo's
review usefully revives our somewhat moribund Film and TV section,
after a gap of too many months, and for that we are particularly grateful.
Karl Marx reminds us that
if things really were as they seemed, there would be no need for social
science. And while superficially the Turtle may look the same as it
always tends to do, the surface calm masks turbulence in the substructure
beneath, which is experiencing violent, progressive tumults. For Comrade
Paul Dundon, September 2001 Stakhanovite
of the Month -- and now surely deserving of even greater honour
-- has been hard at work on the digital guts of the Chelonian Pleasure
Monster, putting in place an automated content-management system that
will make everyone's lives, especially the Editors', much, much better.
Lest we be accused of distorting the importance of this, we must remember
that the Turtle exists through the goodwill and the hard work of its
contributors alone, with only an occasional credit card payment or
expenses claim to smooth our collective path. The labour bestowed
upon this site is about as unalienated as it comes in this day and
age, and given our ever increasing list of subscribers, writers and
accumulators of books for review (at some unspecified date), the contradiction
between the forces and relations of production has clearly been experiencing
a small amount of fettering of late, prompting a crisis which can
only be resolved -- and which now, we like to think, has been resolved
-- through a transformation in the technological and organisational
base to cope with the new energies unleashed by ongoing struggle.
And we do not take such
energies for granted. Which is why we end with our usual plea: the
Turtle can only continue to plough a not-so-lonely furrow through
the aether of cyberspace arm in arm with you, the reader and -- we
always remember -- potential writer. We are, as ever, keen to relay
your thoughts on the Books, Films, Music and events of the day in
your part of the world to a wider audience, and poetry, polemics,
propaganda for your non-profit organisation of choice and even the
occasional lazy memoir are always much appreciated by the Editors
of the Turtle, whose extra-chelonian activities are rather hampering
their ability to be as productive as they'd quite like.
Let the polymorphously
perverse Turtle be your Valentine -- this and every month -- and teach
yourself to sing the contrarian words which she/he/it so loves to
hear!
And if you are stuck for
something to write about, may we suggest joining in our symposium
on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, which we hope
to put together in early March? As with past symposia, there is no
onus on anyone to write about anything in particular, just as long
as the submission can be plausibly connected with some theme in the
book. Luckily, given the scope of Empire, this isn't hard to
do.
Avanti popolo!
The Editors
