watcha readin, crispy? something i've been meaning to for years: hardt and negri's empire. i must say so far i am not very impressed. now you may speculate that that's because i am a reactionary, and just possibly you have a point. but it's not necessarily that i disagree; i'd say there haven't so far been any sufficiently definite assertions to make agreement or disagreement possible. the book is beset by extreme wooliness. i am left grasping for an explanation of its instant classic status. one thing is that by the time 2000 rolled around, the left was desperate for a theory or an ideology: to say that marxism is played-out and riddled with problems - including the monstrous history of people's actual attempts to apply it - is an understatement. however, hardt and negri are still throwing around "proletarian revolution," "the masses," etc. (the fucking masses! an undifferentiated human goop.) i'm serious when i say y'all got to get out from under the vicious stultifying spell of such ancient abstractions and on to something else. people seem to think h&n is that new phase, but to please the left you've still got to be a marxist, and the inspiration h&n provide comes largely from the slightly displaced revival. my honest advice to you is: blow that shit up and start again.