Society for Psychoanalytic Inquiry

SPI member Greg Gabrellas is running for office in his healthcare workers union on a platform that includes Medicare for All! Please help keep the political revolution going by bringing the labor movement along for the ride 🤩 Contributing $27 will be a big help! Solidarity 🌹

CIR Housestaff for a Democratic Union organized by Greg Gabrellas Across the SEIU Committee of Interns & Residents (CIR), members are supporting ne… Greg Gabrellas needs your support for CIR Housestaff for a Democratic Union

Political Potential of Psychoanalysis This is a very short segment of the film Psychoanalysis in el Barrio, which is being made public for free for the next two weeks. You can watch it here: http...

The CIR national convention this weekend is online! On Saturday there will be a special organizing session for University of California led by UCLA residents Anna Yap and Greg Gabrellas. Free and open to all: https://bit.ly/CIRConvention2020

Why Psychoanalysts should endorse/vote for Bernie Sanders The psychoanalysts’ couch has gone out of favor for more short forms of treatment. With the upcoming primaries in the Democratic Party i...

Doctors and Health Workers Endorse Senator Bernard Sanders for President of the United States We, the undersigned, are members of Doctors for Bernie, a volunteer group of doctors and health workers, who believe that Senator Bernard…

The UCLA residents union is fighting for a fair contract that protects our health insurance from cuts. Please support the UCLA residents TODAY by participating in the “100 calls” action.

Below are the phone numbers to call, a script, and background info. Please call both numbers Monday between 9:00 am- 5:00 pm PST.

310-267-9315 Johnese Spisso, President of UCLA and CEO of UCLA Hospital System

310-825-2699- John Mazziotta, Vice Chancellor of UCLA Health

FOR COMMUNITY CALLERS

Hello, may I speak to (________), my name (First Name). I am calling to support the UCLA residents in bargaining to retain all of their healthcare benefits, proper access for their union and their basic union rights. What is UCLA's plan to ensure that Resident's benefits aren't cut and that they have proper access for their Union?

FOR RESIDENTS

Hello, may I speak to (________), my name (First Name). I am a (PGY__), from (____ Department). I am calling to let you know that I stand with my 1400 Co-Residents to demand that UCLA prioritize our health and the health of our families by not cutting our health insurance benefits. We also stand firmly that OUR Union should have access at our hospital. What is your plan to ensure these ask are met?

Background

1,400 UCLA Resident Physicians are continuing to fight to ensure their first contract has adequate access to health care and basic union rights.

Healthcare: UCLA wants to change the structure of their healthcare plan to make residents pay for their health care co-pays.

Union Access: It is standard to allow union representatives access to members during breaks and lunches. UCLA has refused to bargain over any union access language.

Orientations: AB119 mandates employers give unions access to general new employee orientations, departmental orientations, and provide them with the information of all new employees. UCLA refuses to abide by the law and will not bargain a process to allow access in the contract.

Health care workers unite! The University of California has a new labor force to contend with, its physicians in training, as the class struggle in the Golden State intensifies

UCLA Residents File for Union Recognition, Seek to Join CIR/SEIU – Committee of Interns and Residents A clear majority of interns, residents and fellows at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have completed a months-long organizing campaign to form their union and join 15,000 of their fellow residents nationwide who are represented by The Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU (CIR)....

For awhile now the idea of a publication has been floated around, and we're proud to announce today the launch of Damage Magazine, which looks at the subjective impediments to thinking and psychological damage wrought by capitalist society. Today is the "soft" launch of the magazine, which essentially means that it's just out there now. Over the summer we'll be adding an article or so a week to the site, honing our social media, fixing bugs, etc., and then in the fall we plan to do "hard" launch events in NYC and LA. In the meantime, please share widely with friends, colleagues, family, and otherwise. And of course, if you haven't already, please consider contributing!
http://damagemag.com/about/

About In view of the actual and potential damage that at present can be wreaked upon humankind by its administrators, the need to protect s*xuality has something crazy about it. Theodor Adorno, Sexual Ta…

"We have a much better chance of making it past the 22nd century if environmental regulations are designed by a team of people with no formal education in a democratic socialist society than we do if they are made by a team of the most esteemed scientific luminaries in a capitalist society.

Opinion | The Climate Crisis? It’s Capitalism, Stupid The work of saving the planet is not technical, it’s political.

Russell Jacoby:

"Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can't bear to see it."

Bertolt Brecht, socialist playwright and poet, died on this day in 1956.

Politics and porcupine love:

Kansas’ other Republican senator, Pat Roberts, offered an assessment of the Senate bill strikingly different from Mr. Moran’s: Kansas, he said, “fared well under this draft.” Before the recess, according to The Associated Press, he offered an evocative description of how Republican senators were trying to come to agreement.

“Once in Glacier National Park, I saw two porcupines making love,” Mr. Roberts said. “I’m assuming they produced smaller porcupines. They produced something. It has to be done carefully. That’s what we’re doing now.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/us/politics/unlikely-holdout-underscores-challenge-for-senate-health-bill.html

Unlikely Holdout Underscores Challenge for Senate Health Bill At a constituent meeting in Kansas, a state President Trump won by 20 points, Senator Jerry Moran faced probing questions about the bill — and had some of his own.

"Yet this was the only panel that transfixed the entire crowd, and it was clearly what they came for: the chance to see and hear Paltrow and her peers gush over each other’s fabulousness, marvel at how each of them does it all (with no nods to nannies, personal assistants, household staff, managers and agents) and reinforce the notion that every woman out there, if only they wish hard enough and buy enough GP-approved product, can be a member of her clique too, an inhabitant of her world — and there’s no denying that Gwyneth Paltrow is on her own planet."

http://nypost.com/2017/06/11/inside-gwyneth-paltrows-ridiculous-goop-summit/

Exasperated attendees give up on Gwyneth’s Goop summit LOS ANGELES — Gwyneth Paltrow’s inaugural health-and-wellness summit on Saturday kicked off just as you’d expect: well-groomed women wearing yoga pants and expensive handbags hooking themselves up …

https://patch.com/new-york/bushwick/s/g33e6/federal-judge-sees-new-york-state-conspiracy-to-thwart-care-for-mentally-ill

Federal Judge Sees New York State Conspiracy To Thwart Care For Mentally Ill Judge who oversaw landmark case involving troubled homes for mentally ill sends word to NY that efforts to undermine care must end.

"It is incumbent upon us to speak out beyond the consulting room to help bring about the broader systemic social change we so desperately need.

First 100 Days: Donald Trump and the Illusion of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism By Allan Scholom Contributor Perhaps nowhere is the illusion of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism more evident than in the election of Donald Trump. “Make America Great Again” was his …

"In March 15, there will be general elections in the Netherlands — and it seems the country will not escape the trend of a rising radical right and the crisis of the center-left. Left-wing political parties as well are having difficulties, and social movements are struggling to find their way. A radicalizing far right with a virulent Islamophobia at its core has succeeded in altering the political and social landscape.

It is no use denying that for the Left, the situation is bleak. How did we get here?"

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/netherlands-dutch-elections-pvv-geert-wilders-sp-greens-islamophobia/

The Right’s Model Nation | Jacobin

Aesthetic sublimation:
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/35047/1/looking-at-george-bush-portraits-of-courage-paintings

Looking at George Bush’s strange oil paintings Now that he’s not president, Dubya has been busy doing some portraits of veterans physically or emotionally wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq – wars that he started

"Herzog brings fascinating documents to bear to show how US psychoanalysts formed alliances with Christian clergy who themselves wanted treatment. In 1952, Pope Pius XII even granted his imprimatur to analysis – as long as it didn’t arouse too many s*xual appetites. It was against this cold war analytic ethos that the women’s movement reacted so vociferously, often blaming Freud for a practice that wasn’t his."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/01/cold-war-freud-an-intellectual-biography-dagmar-herzog-joel-whitebook

Cold War Freud and Freud: An Intellectual Biography review – the politics of psychoanalysis A pair of rich, illuminating studies epitomise a new wave of thinking about the father of psychoanalysis

"The question is: do nationalist responses have enough strength to effect the kind of change that happened in the 1930s? That is, can globalization be halted, world trade eroded, financial flows stopped, and the ever growing search of capital for new regions with even lower wages come to an end? I seriously doubt it."
http://freudians.org/trump-the-lefts-desperation-to-characterize-him-and-the-end-of-the-world/

freudians.org

An (over) analysis of Julia Hahn's talk on Bersani, Freud and Foucault at a 2014 SPI conference.
An odd situation and an odd write up:
https://thepointmag.com/2017/politics/uchicago-bannons-bannons-bannon

UChicago: Bannon's Bannon's Bannon? | The Point Magazine In order to enact its vigorous agenda, the Trump administration is aggressively recruiting bright new talent to fill what the New York Times referred to as “a darkened, mostly empty West Wing.” The latest…

Some very psychoanalytic reflections from James Baldwin beginning around 10:00. A great breakdown of identity at the end too.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2017/02/malcolm-x-debate-with-james-baldwin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+3quarksdaily+%283quarksdaily%29

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/the-great-god-trump-and-the-white-working-class/

The Great God Trump and the White Working Class | Jacobin The political and social war that is now inevitable in the United States could shape the character of the rest of the century.

This graphic, based on my interview with On the Media, explains how Trump uses Twitter as a weapon. Please share widely and tag your favorite journalist. http://www.wnyc.org/story/taxonomy-trump-tweets/ Special thanks to Greg Gibilisco ( on Twitter) for creating this.

Fantasies of origin never go out of fashion.
https://thebaffler.com/blog/originalism-is-dumb-hartman

Originalism Is Dumb Donald Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Gorsuch will replace Antonin Scalia, whose death a year ago has left a …

The eternal return of the Same:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/chimpanzees-murder-cannibalism-senegal/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20170130news-cannibalchimps&utm_campaign=Content&sf53484259=1

In Rare Killing, Chimpanzees Cannibalize Former Leader The rare incident may have been all about s*x, researchers suggest. Warning: graphic content.