things along the way

Operation Walking Man

2011-11-28T12:27:00.008-05:00

My husband, Bill Foltyn, died unexpectedly on November 27th, 2011. He did not die due to his health condition, but because of unrelated circumstances that caused him to become sick, which completely overwhelmed him. He was challenged many times over the past few years and especially the past 12 months. And although he felt discouraged for a short while, he overcame any doubts and became energetic, robust, and confident in his own progress and abilities. He was determined to reclaim himself, body and mind. During the past month we began working together on what we called Operation Walking Man. This video, from a few weeks ago, captures just a bit of his lovely, happy spirit.

I am so very grateful for all of you whose loving natures touched him during his recovery and made that spirit possible. You all know who you are as he was always so glad to see you.

#Anonymous Message to #Occupy Police

2011-11-23T14:41:00.003-05:00

Mario Savio's "put your bodies upon the gears" address -- UC Berkeley, Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

2011-11-20T09:10:00.001-05:00

Speech Audio

Speech Text (see below video)

You know, I just wanna say one brief thing about something the previous speaker said. I didn't wanna spend too much time on that 'cause I don't think it's important enough. But one thing is worth considering.

He's the -- He's the nominal head of an organization supposedly representative of the undergraduates. Whereas in fact under the current director it derives -- its authority is delegated power from the Administration. It's totally unrepresentative of the graduate students and TAs.¹

But he made the following statement (I quote): "I would ask all those who are not definitely committed to the FSM² cause to stay away from demonstration." Alright, now listen to this: "For all upper division students who are interested in alleviating the TA shortage problem, I would encourage you to offer your services to Department Chairmen and Advisors." That has two things: A strike breaker and a fink.

I'd like to say -- like to say one other thing about a union problem. Upstairs you may have noticed they're ready on the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall, Locals 40 and 127 of the Painters Union are painting the inside of the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall. Now, apparently that action had been planned some time in the past. I've tried to contact those unions. Unfortunately -- and [it] tears my heart out -- they're as bureaucratized as the Administration. It's difficult to get through to anyone in authority there. Very sad. We're still -- We're still making an attempt. Those people up there have no desire to interfere with what we're doing. I would ask that they be considered and that they not be heckled in any way. And I think that -- you know -- while there's unfortunately no sense of -- no sense of solidarity at this point between unions and students, there at least need be no -- you know -- excessively hard feelings between the two groups.

Now, there are at least two ways in which sit-ins and civil disobedience and whatever -- least two major ways in which it can occur. One, when a law exists, is promulgated, which is totally unacceptable to people and they violate it again and again and again till it's rescinded, appealed. Alright, but there's another way. There's another way. Sometimes, the form of the law is such as to render impossible its effective violation -- as a method to have it repealed. Sometimes, the grievances of people are more -- extend more -- to more than just the law, extend to a whole mode of arbitrary power, a whole mode of arbitrary exercise of arbitrary power.

And that's what we have here. We have an autocracy which -- which runs this university. It's managed. We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received -- from a well-meaning liberal -- was the following: He said, "Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his Board of Directors?" That's the answer.

Well I ask you to consider -- if this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the Board of Directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something -- the faculty are a bunch of employees and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be -- have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean -- Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!

And that -- that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!

That doesn't mean -- I know it will be interpreted to mean, unfortunately, by the bigots who run The Examiner, for example -- That doesn't mean that you have to break anything. One thousand people sitting down some place, not letting anybody by, not [letting] anything happen, can stop any machine, including this machine! And it will stop!!

We're gonna do the following -- and the greater the number of people, the safer they'll be and the more effective it will be. We're going, once again, to march up to the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall. And we're gonna conduct our lives for awhile in the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall. We'll show movies, for example. We tried to get Un Chant d'Amour and [they] shut them off. Unfortunately, that's tied up in the court because of a lot of squeamish moral mothers for a moral America and other people on the outside. The same people who get all their ideas out of the San Francisco Examiner. Sad, sad. But, Mr. Landau -- Mr. Landau has gotten us some other films.

Likewise, we'll do something -- we'll do something which hasn't occurred at this University in a good long time! We're going to have real classes up there! They're gonna be freedom schools conducted up there! We're going to have classes on [the] 1st and 14th amendments!! We're gonna spend our time learning about the things this University is afraid that we know! We're going to learn about freedom up there, and we're going to learn by doing!!

Now, we've had some good, long rallies. [Rally organizers inform Savio that Joan Baez has arrived.] Just one moment. We've had some good, long rallies. And I think I'm sicker of rallies than anyone else here. She's not going to be long. I'd like to introduce one last person -- one last person before we enter Sproul Hall. Yeah. And the person is Joan Baez.

-- UC Berkeley, Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

WW II Vets Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-07T14:52:00.003-04:00

http://i.imgur.com/GmSFY.jpg

The one demand: "what really matters is not a what at all, but a how"

2011-10-06T20:18:00.005-04:00

Wall Street occupiers inch toward a demand—by living it

by Nathan Schneider | September 30, 2011, 7:52 pm

By Adam Roberts.

When, in July, Adbusters called for an occupation of Wall Street starting on September 17, it asked, “What is our one demand?” Online discussions began about what that might be, in the hopes that it could be settled ahead of time, and Adbusters even suggested a few of its own, like calling for a new anti-corruption commission (a la Anna Hazare’s controversial proposal in India) or the revocation of corporate personhood. There has also been talk about a Tobin tax, or the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, or other wonky policy proposals.

After almost two weeks of occupation in renamed Liberty Plaza, the protesters have yet to settle on any one demand, or even on the idea that they want one. (This doesn’t mean it isn’t rather obvious why a bunch of angry Americans would be making a fuss at the exact center of their country’s concentrated wealth and reckless corruption.) Still, their evening General Assembly meetings—which are devoted to big-picture items like demands—have been busy. The Assembly has so far approved two significant documents about what it stands for, documents that are indicative of what the experience of the occupation is doing to those taking part. Many who came with a particular demand in mind, even, are changing how they think about what politics, and political activism, can look like.

“This is not about the demands,” said occupier Amin Husain at a General Assembly meeting on Monday night. “The demands will come. It’s about the beautiful thing we’re doing here.” The demand, so far, appears to be a process—one in which all people can speak and money can’t.

Last Friday, September 23, in the rain, a statement called “Principles of Solidarity” was passed by consensus by the General Assembly as a working draft. (This qualification is important—again, process.) The “Principles” states in its preamble a complaint about “the blatant injustices of our times perpetuated by the economic and political elites.” The principles themselves, though, are all about method:

Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy;
Exercising personal and collective responsibility;
Recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;
Empowering one another against all forms of oppression;
Redefining how labor is valued;
The sanctity of individual privacy;
The belief that education is human right; and
Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source.

These, one might notice, have as much to do with what the occupiers are doing in their encampment as with any change they might want to make as the society as a whole. They’re practicing direct democracy in the General Assembly; they’re talking a lot about privilege and oppression; nobody is being paid for labor, but all are benefiting from it; teach-ins and a library provide for makeshift education; open-source software and methods are fueling the movement’s websites and other media. (With seemingly more cameras around the plaza than people, though, privacy is still only an ideal.) The “Principles of Solidarity” promises, at the end, that “demands will follow.”

The document that, in turn, followed it was a “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” passed with the usual cheers in September 29′s evening Assembly meeting:

THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!
We will vote on that now. Straw poll. Looks good!
CONSENSUS!
WOOT WOOT!

Yet this contains no demand either; instead, it’s a litany of injustices perpetrated by “corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality” and which “run our government.” More than that, though, the “Declaration” is a call to action, an insistence that “it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors.”

After the litany—which mentions such concerns as workplace discrimination, poisoning the food supply, corruption of the legal system, media manipulation, militarism, and more (footnote: “*These grievances are not all-inclusive.“)—the “Declaration” addresses the “people of the world”:

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!

By Adam Roberts.

People do indeed seem to be joining. (WNV contributor Alyce Santoro has echoed this call with one of her own for people to “Occupy Everywhere.”) Currently, the website OccupyTogether.org lists 85 cities and towns in the United States where occupations have begun or are in the works. In many of these cases, too, it appears that horizontal, directly-democratic assemblies are being used to organize and self-govern, just like at occupied Wall Street.

The occupation is becoming more than a discrete action with a single demand, as Adbusters first conceived of it. Instead, the occupation seems to be swelling into a movement, a mode of organizing that is capable of handling many kinds of complaints, at many levels of society. After the economy collapsed in Argentina in 2001, assemblies like this formed to govern neighborhoods, factories, towns, and national movements. One of their slogans was, “Occupy, Resist, and Produce.” What started as a protest turned into a lasting way of life.

Like the refrain of the Indignados in Spain—“Real Democracy Now”—these new assemblies are enunciating a demand by carrying it out for themselves. They are being the change they wish to see in the world, as Gandhi said, working for justice with methods worthy of their goal.

During the day, crowds gather around the collage of hundreds of cardboard signs that lines the northern edge of the plaza. Each makes its own separate demand, but together they have a certain coherence: “Peaceful Revolution.” “Bail Out the People.” “Wall Street Is Our Street.” Those who stop to read them are transfixed, as if having a silent conversation with each other over the blaring of drums and the plucking of banjos. They seem, somehow, satisfied.

The Demand is a Process

"A lot of people have seemed impatient that the movement now occupying Liberty Plaza near Wall Street has not stated an explicit demand. What a visit to the plaza reveals, though, is that what really matters is not a what at all, but a how." by Jaisal Noor

We Are the 99%

2011-10-03T23:29:00.000-04:00

Alienation

2011-09-25T12:56:00.002-04:00

freereality.org

2011-06-15T14:48:00.006-04:00

From the 'About' page:

Freereality.org is a one-person operation, so the content comes little by little. What does end up here is vailuable information - a concerted effort is made to be sure that the integrity and quality of the information on the site is the highest possible.

Basically the site is here to give people access to truly free information regarding many areas of interest. I hope that people eventually come here to seek out quality information about everything "free".

free reality dot org

Some topics from the list:

Freedom
Free Education
Free Energy
Free Information
Free Language
Free Medicine
Free Music
Free News
Free Photos
Free Science
Free Software
Free Travel
Free Thoughts
Free Web Design
Free Web Services
Free Wikis
Free Yourself

What Ethan McCord saw when he rescued the children...

2011-05-26T09:25:00.003-04:00

Incident in New Baghdad is a short, award-winning documentary about the Apache helicopter strike shown in the Collateral Murder video allegedly leaked by Bradley. Ethan McCord, the soldier who rescued the wounded children from the van, spoke at the film premier in April. He describes his experience in-detail and works to contextualize the attack. If you have not read one of Ethan McCord’s interviews yet, you should absolutely check out the video:

From the video:

That was one incident of many that you guys got to see. Things like this happen almost on a daily basis in Iraq. It may not have been an Apache… it may have been a Bradley (type of fighting vehicle). I saw a Bradley fire on a van load of children, nothing more than children, and watched the Iraqi police pull bodies out. Pieces of children. And the whole time they were just looking at us and shaking their heads. Again, that was one incident. And you guys can see from that one incident that we shouldn’t be there.
Original at Bradley Manning Support Network (BradleyManning.org)

While we were shopping...

2011-05-23T10:30:00.005-04:00

British women today enjoy freedoms undreamed of a century ago. There is a widespread sense that all the big battles have been won. But have they? In the first part of a three-day series on feminism, Katharine Viner asks how liberating these 'freedoms' really are - and says it's time we stopped being so complacent.

Guardian article by Katharine Viner

Anorexic women targeted by ‘super-skinny’ porn websites

2011-05-23T09:33:00.002-04:00

"As you know, beauty has one name: being thin. Our models are underweight, skinny, thin, bony – just like you. We want you. Regardless of the costs, we want you to join our agency. Let's face facts, on anorexic porn websites, men are masturbating watching your pictures. You are a superstar of starvation and if you were selling and marketing your frame you would be more wealthy than most of us because men would pay any price for watching those pictures."

Full Guardian article by Nicola Hobbs, The Guardian - Wednesday 6 April 2011

Below Commentary From The AntiPornMenProject BY EDDIE, ON APRIL 16TH, 2011

Last week the Guardian exposed a horrific example of how the porn industry keeps its ‘edge’ in the market. Well recorded in the porn industry is the continuous movement towards more and more hard-core, violent and degrading content. As time goes on what counts as mainstream porn becomes normalized in the quest for more shocking material making yesterday’s extreme, today’s mainstream. It is indicative of the capitalist model that traders in the market attempt to out-do each other to the next new and exciting product. This operates the same way in pornography.

‘Super-skinny’ porn sites are another example of this. Blatantly exploiting people who are unwell in order to feed an appetite for porn that is not only more shocking but that also strongly plays to the masculine obsession with dominance and control over women. Not only do those who suffer from anorexia nervosa often look younger they are also obviously weaker than the non-anorexic male porn performer they are shown with in porn. Women’s comparative physical weakness to men is accentuated to the extreme in ‘Super-skinny’ porn. Not only does the industry move to more hard-core and violent ground, this new ground is often importantly about power and dominance over women.

Radical Feminist Seminar in Boston on June 25 – 26, 2011

2011-05-21T09:26:00.000-04:00

For our US readers particularly, a Radical Feminist Seminar at Wheelock Media Institute, Boston, MA.

Come to Boston on June 25 – 26, 2011, for two days of radical feminist education, organizing, and networking. Women from all over the world will be exploring classic and contemporary radical feminism as well as developing local and international strategies for building cultures of resistance. We will have presentations, workshops, and discussions on:

* Globalization and the exploitation of women’s labor
* Fighting the global sex industry
* Theoretical and activist splits in contemporary feminism
* International strategies for radical feminist organizing
* Movement building through social media
* Radical feminist critiques of Third Wave feminism, Postmodernism, and Queer theory

Presenters include Gail Dines, Sheila Jeffreys, Cynthia Enloe, Lierre Keith, Saba Malik, Samantha Berg, and more. Special guest appearances include feminist activists from Norway and other countries to talk about their extraordinary successes in fighting the sex industry.

link

MARCH 26TH: MEET THE ANARCHISTS

2011-03-15T22:20:00.004-04:00

Freedom will be constantly updating all the anarchist activities and various feeder marches and radical blocs organised for the March 26th national anti-cuts demo. If we haven’t included your activity, action or event get in touch: copy@freedompress.org.uk

We will also be producing a ‘demonstration special’ issue of the paper for the day and will be having a stall at the two feeder marches at ULU and Kennington Park. Pick up a copy there.

See the Freedom Press site for more details.

Egypt Supports Wisconsin - One World One Pain

2011-02-20T14:12:00.004-05:00

@kalimakhus

Underheard in New York

2011-02-20T10:45:00.010-05:00

Homeless People Start Tweeting in New Awareness Initiative

It’s easy to ignore someone when you don’t know or care to know anything about them. But it’s different when that person shows up in your social media stream, telling you about a lonely day on the street or simply wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day.

Underheard in New York is an initiative to help homeless New Yorkers speak for themselves through Twitter. Four homeless people — Danny (@putodanny), Derrick (@awitness2011), Albert (@albert814) and Carlos (@jessie550) — were given their own prepaid cell phone, a month of unlimited text messaging and a Twitter account.

Article reprinted from Mashable.

Instructions For Obtaining Dial-Up Internet In Egypt [PLEASE REPOST!]

2011-01-30T10:34:00.004-05:00

by Operation Egypt on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 10:14am

International Internet Dial-up

Normally a computer connects to the local ISP and then establishes a connection, so that you can send and recieve data through the phone line to and from the provider. This is the fuzzzy sound we hear when we pick up the phone on someone who is connected to the internet.

In a nutshell we need to dial another international ISP, but since most of our homes back in Egypt have no international phone-call capability we will by-pass this by linking to the mobile-phone network which by default has international capability but unfortunately a little pricey (~2 LE a minute) but sufficient to make urgent communication on internet.

What you will need is:

- Regular Mobile Phone with Bluetooth.

- Computer with Bluetooth Dongle or any of laptops that has built-in bluetooth capability.

- Remote ISP number, username and password which I will provide at the end.

For simplicity I chose windows Vista (or XP) steps and I didn't put steps for other operating systems.

Steps:

1- Turn on the bluetooth on your phone.

2- Switch on bluetooth detection on your laptop.

3- From Start menu->Run and write this command: telephon.cpl (there is no "e" at the end of telephon)

4- A window will popup, if it asks for area code just write for example: 757 in united states.

5- Choose "Modem" tab from top.

6- Click Add button then click Next for automatic detection of your phone

7- If your phone is bluetooth modem-capable it will appear in the list, choose it.

8- If it requires a pass key just write "123" for example and on your phone it will ask the same question so press "123" or the same number you chose and finalize the pairing.

9- Now it is supposed to say "Already connected" beneath the icon of your phone, right-click on the icon and press properties.

10- A window will appear, in Services tab make sure that the "Dial-up Networking" is present and enabled (checked)ho.

11- Press ok and it will turn you to the first window and now you will see your phone appearing in the modem list.

Your phone now is connected as a modem to your computer...you are doing great so far.

Phase 2: Dialing up a remote ISP.

I chose a website that provides numbers to remote ISPs in the US. I signed up with:

username: hany

password: egypt

Bainbridge: (206) 312-1000
Bainbridge: (206) 312-1500
Bainbridge: (206) 312-2500
Bainbridge: (206) 312-3700
Bellevue: (425) 786-1000
Bellevue: (425) 786-1111
Bellevue: (425) 786-7777
Bellevue: (425) 786-5073
Black Diamond: (360) 469-1000
Black Diamond: (360) 469-1111
Black Diamond: (360) 469-2000
Black Diamond: (360) 469-2222
Buckley: (360) 761-6000
Buckley: (360) 761-6111
Buckley: (360) 761-6101
Buckley: (360) 761-6102
Centralia: (360) 523-1000
Centralia: (360) 523-1111
Centralia: (360) 523-1001
Centralia: (360) 523-1002
Graham: (253) 780-1000
Graham: (253) 780-1100
Graham: (253) 780-2000
Graham: (253) 780-2020
Hoodsport: (360) 717-1000
Hoodsport: (360) 717-1111
Hoodsport: (360) 717-1122
Hoodsport: (360) 717-1133
Olympia: (360) 515-3000
Olympia: (360) 515-3001
Olympia: (360) 515-3030
Olympia: (360) 515-3131
Seattle: (206) 495-1000
Seattle: (206) 424-1111
Seattle: (206) 337-5050 *
Seattle: (206) 337-5252

Land Line dial-up services

Those dial-up services should have been tested as accepting calls from overseas numbers

* French Data Network (www.fdn.fr) : +33172890150 (login 'toto' password 'toto')

* Telecomix dialup modem service at +46850009990. user/pass: telecomix/telecomix

* “free” PPP dial-up access on Madrid, Spain: +34 912910230 user:internetforegypt@trovator.com / pass:internetforegypt

Important note : if the connexion is unstable, try to force your modem to a lower speed (eg. a 56kbps modem should be locked down to 33,6kbps, 28,8kbps or 14,4kbps). 9600bps is considered to be the "safe rate".

With such bandwith, avoid using webmails or social networks : rather an IRC client to connect to irc.telecomix.org, channel #jan25, someone will be there to relay any message.

وقد أدت الاحتجاجات في مصر أمس لقيود معينة في شبكة البنية التحتية للاتصالات. على الرغم من أن الشبكات لا يزال حتى ومعظم المواقع والأماكن لا تزال متاحة ، وهنا بعض الكتل وأكد أن الحاجة التحايل. يرجى ملاحظة أن هذه المعلومات يمكن ان تتغير بسرعة كبيرة ، وما هي إلا دقيقة لبعض الوقت. تغريد هناك جدل حول ما إذا كان يتم حظر التغريد بنشاط أو لأسفل فقط بسبب وجود خطأ في الشبكة. فودافون مصر ونفى عرقلة التغريد ، ومع ذلك ، تور المطور يعقوب أبلباوم يجادل بأن هناك تصفية مستمرة . هذه الكتلة من السهل التحايل باستخدام طرف ثالث updaters التغريد. على سبيل المثال brizzly.com أو خدمة Telecomix status.telecomix.org . يمكنك تعيين هذه الخدمات طرف ثالث لتحديث التغريد الحساب ، ومن ثم كنت من خلال.

كتل أخرى تشمل موقع أخبار dostor.orgوبعض وأفادت مواقع اخبارية قناة الجزيرة لتكون قابلة للوصول. الفيديو أيضا تدفق موقع Bambuser تشير التقارير إلى أن سدت. التحايل وذكرت البرمجيات هو تور للعمل ويتوفر لل تحميل . استخدام تور مع توربتن . ومن أوصى لرأب الصدع في المتصفح مع الشبكي في كل مكان ونوسكريبت إلى النفاذ في حركة المرور المشفرة أكبر قدر ممكن وتجنب البرامج النصية الضارة من خطف حساباتك. المتطابق الحق الآن خدمات الفيديو (مثل يوتيوب) ويبدو للعمل داخل مصر. ومع ذلك ، فإن فريق سترايسند هي قبل تحميل ملفات الفيديو لقائي المتطابق سريع إذا كتل سوءا. إذا كانت الخدمات اذهب الى الأسفل ، وسيكون هناك ألف نسخة. هذا كله كان التقنية جدا. لكن الأمن يأتي دائما في المقام الأول. حتى تبقي العين على هذه الشهادات ، الشبكي! (إذا كان هذا بلوق وظيفة مفيدة ، أي شخص حر في توزيع / ترجمة / ريميكس ذلك.)

Operation Egypt page

Egypt - Revolution

2011-01-27T10:58:00.000-05:00

300 migrants on Hunger Strike in the Athens

2011-01-26T12:50:00.002-05:00

300 hundred migrants are on hunger strike since Sunday 23/01/2011. The 300 migrants demand every migrant in the country to get documents. They also demand for migrants in Greece to get equal political and social rights -but also equal obligations- with the Greek workers. For many years now the workers’ and migrants’ rights movements in Greece are requesting equal rights, and viable and humane policies for migrants who want to get the legal documents to stay in the country. Nevertheless, the Greek authorities announced recently the building of a new wall in the borders between Greece and Turkey, while every year on the borders of Greece thousands of migrants die in their effort to come to Europe.

The 300 hunger strikers moved recently in the new building of Athens School of Law (University of Athens) in the center of the city -another group of 50 migrants-hunger strikers moved in Thessaloniki’s Workers Center. The Athens Law-School’s facilities are not being used as yet for teaching – while the executive of the Law School’s students union supports the hunger strikers who moved in their School’s grounds along 20 other political groups. However, the Law School’s Vice-Chancellor locked out the School since the first day. Suddenly the Greek government of PASOK, the conservative ND, the extreme-right LAOS and the Greek president united and agreed that the regime of University Asylum is being abused by the hunger strikers and they proposed a renegotiation of the Academic Asylum.

The Academic Asylum is constitutional provision which defends academic freedom and freedom of speech within universities. It means that police and army cannot intervene within Greek Universities. For many years now Greek governments have tried to cancel the academic asylum while police have attacked to protesters within University grounds several times. However various movements -students, left academics, anarchists, workers etc- have managed to defended physically the academic asylum.

The hunger strikers blogs:

http://hungerstrike300.espivblogs.net/

http://allilmap.wordpress.com/

Article reprinted from: From the Greek Streets #479 - Occupied London Blog.

Message from Egypt - People Don't Need Leaders to be Civilized

2011-01-26T11:50:00.008-05:00

January 26, 20011

@oshaokhtmeligi

بالامس كان الشعب المصري بلا قيادات، متحضر، ثابت، كان الشباب ينظفون مكان الاعتصام، لم يحدث حادثة تحرش واحدة، لم نميز المسلم من المسيحي #jan25

Translation assisted by google translate:

Yesterday, the Egyptian people, without leadership, were civilized, stable, young people have been cleaning the place sit, there has been one incident of harassment, did not distinguish Muslim from Christian # jan25

Anonymous - Operation EGYPT DDoS Attack Instructions

2011-01-26T09:37:00.003-05:00

Click image to enlarge.

link

The Love Police

2011-01-25T19:51:00.001-05:00

Best George Carlin - Teach Children to Question Everything

2011-01-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Debra Sweet: Why I Oppose a Grand Jury Investigation of Anti-War Activists

2011-01-24T22:18:00.005-05:00

Read Debra's excellent article here.

Three of the anti-war activists targeted by the FBI

Sarah Martin is a 71 year old mother of 3, grandmother of 5 and great-grandmother of 1. She was born and raised in Duluth and has lived in the Twin Cities for 40 years. She is a retired nurse who worked at Regions Hospital in St. Paul for 25 years. She said of herself, "I have been peace and justice activist since the '60s when my eyes began to open when I learned we'd been duped and lied to about the justifications for going to war against the people of Vietnam." Sarah joined WAMM (Women Against Military Madness) in the early 80s and has actively opposed every war the U.S. has waged. For the past 10 years she has been mainly focused on the middle east. A year ago she attempted to visit Palestine but was detained and deported by Israel when they learned she wanted to see the reality of Palestinian lives under Israeli occupation. She is currently on the WAMM board and an active member of the WAMM Mideast Committee.

Tracy Molm is 29 and was born and raised in MN. She grew up in Richfield and was a member of the her high school debate team. She went to the University of Minnesota for college with a major in women's studies and minor in political science. She has been active in the peace and justice movement since 2000 when she joined to protest the impending war on Iraq. Tracy works as a union organizer for AFSCME Local 3800, the clerical workers union at the University of Minnesota. She is an energetic and enthusiastic auntie to many of her friends children. It has been remarked many times that she is more of a kid than not.  

Tracy joined the Anti War Committee through debate, where she learned to think critically about public policy and met others who were politically active. Her love for people motivated her to do more for the peace and justice movement including learning about Palestine and its over six decade long occupation. From there she had the opportunity to learn more and see for herself the reality that Palestinians in the West Bank live through every day on a delegation in August of 2004.

Anh Pham immigrated to the U.S. from Viet Nam with her family in 1975 after the end of the war. Her family raised her with a strong sense of community service and she taught Sunday school to toddlers at the first Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Minnesota. In high school she participated in Amnesty International where she attended a protest against the Persian Gulf War, conscious of the impact of war and separation on her own family. Upon entering the University of Minnesota, she was active in the local MPIRG (MN Public Interest Research Group) chapter and then worked with the YWCA, which included chaperoning a group of at-risk young girls to study border issues between the US-Mexico at El-Paso and Juarez, Mexico. That same summer she also became active in the Progressive Student Organization and went to Cuba to the World Youth and Student Festival. She was also active in student governance and served on the Student Services Fees Committee.

After leaving the University, she joined the Anti-War Committee (AWC). As a member of the AWC she helped organize local forums, pot-lucks and teach-ins as well as buses to Washington D.C.for protests. She traveled to El Salvador to attend an anti-globalization conference and then to Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine where she met with NGO workers and activist who shared their struggles. Upon returning she spoke out about what she saw to share stories that she didn't think were being communicated to the collective consciousness. She continues to believe to this day that the most important work for anti-war and solidarity activist to do is to speak to our own leaders about our military spending and foreign policy here in the U.S. Currently, she has returned to work that is close to home by advocating for the rights of all immigrants in this country.

Two videos detail two different ways police across USA are ignoring rape.

2011-01-24T21:28:00.013-05:00

It appears that Baltimore police have decided that they are capable of determining when rape victims are lying about rape. I read elsewhere that they claimed that they receive a high number of false rape cases. Apparently, it is their biases against the victims, not any special skills, that lead them to the presumption that they make about the victims being liars: Rape cases dismissed by Baltimore police later found valid.

The decrease in rape since the 90s may be a result of police failing to write reports. According to the first video below, Baltimore's rape rate allegedly dropped 80% since 1992. It has been discovered now that Baltimore police fail to file reports for at least 60% of reported rape cases. This article, describes how Baltimore's drop in rape rates coincides with the amazing number (four times the national average) of 'unfounded' rape cases Baltimore police claim they receive. A hotline, set up for victims, immediately received numerous calls from victims whose cases were ignored by police. An post in late 2010 reveals: Half of rape reports thought false reinstated.

Below: "Rape victims tell Congress that police have been ignoring case after case."

Below: Half a Million Rape Kits Not Tested - Victims speak out against unprocessed rape kits throughout the country.

Follow up: The two videos below demonstrate that the phenomenon of police bullying/invalidating of rape victims is not just limited to U.S. police forces, but seems to be an inherent part of police culture. In these examples are interviews of victims from Ottawa, Canada.

Got humanity?

2011-01-24T09:53:00.003-05:00

Bobby I just realized something...

…I can’t be in touch with my own humanity if I’m taking someone else’s humanity
away. It’s obvious those girls in the lad mags don’t really like being reduced to
faceless, nameless holes, called abusive names, and forced to perform painful sex
acts – all to personally gratify ME. It’s not right. Today I kick the porn habit. You
should too.”

Got humanity? Give women back their personhood. Stop consuming porn...

Kiva Lending Team: Anarchists for Empowerment

2011-01-11T13:15:00.004-05:00

Join here: Anarchists for Empowerment

Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending.

Anarchists for Empowerment: We loan because - Capitalism as well as the foundation of modern economics is rooted in dehumanization. We must work proactively in anyway possible to lessen the wealth disparity and rampant poverty afflicting the greater human community.

I don't know...

2011-01-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

"Corrective" Rape

2011-01-04T13:53:00.001-05:00

WikiLeaks: Texas Company Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops

2010-12-24T12:22:00.000-05:00

Is this freedom?

2010-11-18T19:17:00.000-05:00

anarchism
Uploaded by morsnoami. - News videos hot off the press.

Hypocrisy as a Way of Life

2010-10-17T15:11:00.004-04:00

From her book, Yurugu by Marimba Ani

(A review of Yuguru by Josh Wickett)

Within the nature of European culture there exists a statement of value or of "moral" behavior that has no meaning for the members of that culture. I call this the "rhetorical ethic;" it is of great importance for the understanding of the dynamics of the culture. The concepts of traditional European anthropology are inadequate to explain the phenomenon to which I am referring here, as it has no counterpart in the types of cultures to which anthropologists have generally directed their attention in the past. But with the concept of asili, which facilitates an ideological approach to the study of culture, the rhetorical ethic becomes visible; even compelling. It fits the logic of the European asili, assisting the culture in the achievement and maintenance of power. Without this interpretation certain manifestations within the verbal iconography of the culture appear to be inconsistent with its underlying ideological thrust. And that simply would not make sense. Let us see how the mechanism of the rhetorical ethic works.

The related distinction used traditionally in anthropology is stated in terms of "ideal culture" and "actual behavior" and is said to be characteristic of all cultures, thereby helping to confuse the issue of the uniqueness and problematical nature of European culture. The conventional distinction is illustrated in the following manner by the authors of a recently published anthropology textbook.

For example, an idealized belief, long cherished in America, is that all doctors are selfless, friendly people who chose medicine as their profession because they felt themselves "called" to serve humanity, and who have little interest in either the money or the prestige of their position. Of course, many physicians do not measure up to this ideal. Nevertheless, the continued success of television programs that portray the average American M.D. as a paragon of virtue indicates how deeply rooted in our collective psyche the ideal of the noble physician is.

This is a common misconception that has led to a mistaken view and superficial understanding of the nature of European (Euro- American) society. To refer to the images offered above as "ideal" is a misuse or at least a misleading use of the term "ideal." The projection and success of the image of the committed, altruistic doctor do not indicate that it is a "deeply rooted" ideal in the American psyche.

It is rather an indication of the fact that this is how Americans want to appear to others, most often to non-European peoples-their "objects.'' In this case it is the way that the doctor wants to appear to his patients, or ''objects,'' because this appearance works to his advantage. On the other hand, an image that projects him as a potential exploiter can lead to the possibility of malpractice suits and to the institutionalization of socialized medicine-neither of which is lucrative for him.

An ''ideal'' should be understood to be some thing that functions normatively and something that is emulated; that which has meaning for those who share it. It is the European experience that encourages the confounding of meaning and commitment with mere verbal expression. (It was within the incipient European experience that "rhetoric" came to be regarded as art.) In African culture words have power. The European mind is a political one and for this reason constantly aware of the political effect of words and images as they are used for the purposes of manipulation. By "political" I mean to indicate an ego that consistently experiences people as others; as representatives of interests defined differently and, therefore, as conflicting with this "ego." The individual is concerned, therefore, with the way in which his verbal expression and the image he projects can influence the behavior of those to whom he relates, be they patients (would-be consumers), neocolonial subjects, an opposing candidate for office, or an African selfdeterminist/nationalist. This is what is "deeply rooted" in the American mind-the psychology of "public relations," "salesmanship," and political strategy. It is in the Euro-American vernacular that the word "image" is used so frequently. To be concerned with one's image as opposed to one's self is a European characteristic.

To be aware of the strategical advantage of appearing to be altruistic when one is operating out of self-interest does not mean that altruism is a meaningful "ideal" in terms of one's value-system. It is, instead, an outgrowth of the propaganda that the Europeans have fed "non-European" peoples since they first sought to conquer them. Because they exported ("sold") this altruistic image so successfully, they have had to project themselves as adhering to this "ideal"; similarly, the projection of themselves or their motives in this way has been essential to the successful imposition of this "ethic" on others.

The basic principle to be kept in mind in order to understand this dynamic of European culture is that the major contributing factor to the success of European nationalism has been its projection as disinterested internationalism,

The use of "ideal" in the passage quoted above is simply an inadequate concept for the ethnological analysis of European culture. Hoebel, in an earlier textbook, offers his version, which is similarly inadequate: "Ideal Culture consists of a people's verbally expressed standards and behavior." The examples that these anthropologists offer from other cultures to explicate the distinction between "ideal" and "actual" in no way represent the phenomenon in Western culture under consideration.

Hoebel describes "normative postulates or values" as "deep- lying assumptions about whether things or acts are good and to be sought after, or bad and to be rejected." This is precisely what the "rhetorical ethic" is not. Hoebel's definition can be used to get at the converse of the phenomenon I wish to describe. A "rhetorical ethic" is not a "deep-lying assumption." It is a superficial verbal expression that is not intended for assimilation by the members of the culture that produced it. The "rhetorical ethic," a European phenomenon, has been neglected in conventional ethnological theory, which has consistently offered concepts devoid of political significance.

Anthropologists talk about the gap in all cultures between thought and deed, between ideas and actions. The gap to which I am referring, however, is between verbal expression and belief or commitment; between what people say and what they do. Nowhere other than in European culture do words mean so little as indices of belief. It is this characteristic that is of concern here and this characteristic for which the concepts of traditional anthropology are inadequate to explain.

As a cultural trait it has, however, been described by others, particularly those who have been made victims of European cunning. Below an indigenous American describes European behavior:

They would make slaves of us if they could; but as they cannot, they kill us. There is no faith to be placed in their words.

They will say to an Indian, "My friend; my brother!" They will take him by the hand and, at the same moment destroy him.... Remember that this day I warned you to beware of such friends as these. I know the Long-Knives. They are not to be trusted.

It is an inherent characteristic of the culture that it prepares members of the culture to be able to act like friends toward those they regard as enemies; to be able to convince others that they have come to help when they, in fact, have come to destroy the others and their culture. That some may "believe" that they are actually doing good only makes them more dangerous, for they have swallowed their own rhetoric-perhaps a convenient self-delusion. Hypocritical behavior is sanctioned and rewarded in European culture. The rhetorical ethic helps to sanction it. European culture cannot be understood in terms of the dynamics of other cultures alone. It is a culture that breeds hypocrisy-in which hypocrisy is a supportive theme a standard of behavior. Its hypocritical nature is linked to the Platonic abstraction, to objectification, to the compartmentalization of the person and the denial of the emotional self. Below Havelock characteristically understands the case:

Another thing noticeable about them [pre-Platonic" Greeks] in this period is their capacity for direct action and sincere action and for direct and sincere expression of motive and desire. They almost entirely lack those slight hypocrisies without which our civilization does not seem to work.

The distinction and definitions that can lead to a better under- standing of the Europeans and their culture can only come from a perspective that is not one of European chauvinism; for it is the method of European chauvinism or cultural nationalism to conceal European interest. As I use it, "value" is only meaningful value; it is that which motivates behavior and is the origin of human commitment. Value determines what is imitated and preserved, what is selected for and encouraged. "Avowed values" on the other hand, which are merely professed, which find expression only verbally, which are not indicative of behavior, belong to what I have called the "rhetorical ethic."

The European rhetorical ethic is precisely that-purely rhetorical- and, as such, has its own origins as a creation for export; i.e., for the political, intercultural activity of the European. It is designed to create an image that will prevent others from successfully anticipating European behavior, and its objective is to encourage nonstrategic (i.e., naive, rather than successful) political behavior on the part of others. This is the same as "nonpolitical" behavior.) It is designed to sell, to dupe, to promote European nationalistic objectives. It "packages" European cultural imperialism in a wrapping that makes it appear more attractive, less harmful. None of these features represents what can culturally be referred to as an "ideal" in any sense. The rhetorical ethic is, therefore, not dysfunctional in European culture.

It does not generate nor reflect conflict in European ideology or belief-system; but it is, rather, necessary to the maintenance and projection of the utamaroho and performs a vital function in sustaining European cultural nationalism in the pursuit of its international objectives.

The rhetorical ethic is made possible by the fact that hypocrisy as a mode of behavior is a valued theme in European life; the same hypocritical behavior that its presence sanctions. Again, "value" refers to that which is encouraged and approved in a culture. European culture is constructed in such a way that successful survival within it discourages honesty and directness and encourages dishonesty and deceit-the ability to appear to be something other than what one is; to hide one's "self," one's motives and intent.

People who are duped by others and relate to a projected image are considered fools or "country bumpkins." Hypocrisy in this way becomes not a negative personality trait, not immoral or abnormal behavior, but it is both expected and cultivated. It is considered to be a crucial ingredient of "sophistication," a European goal. European intracultural, political behavior is based on hypocrisy-as are business relations, the advertising media, and most other areas of public, and social interaction. It is merely a manifestation of this theme when Americans claim that politicians are basically honest. The claim itself is hypocritical, and the public expects it to be so. We all know that the objective of commercial advertising is to convince us to buy products so that manufacturers can make large profits, but the slogans attempt to persuade us that the product is beneficial to our well being, as though the producer has our welfare at heart.

This hypocrisy touches the lives of every member of the culture in their dealings with one another, and yet it originates in part in the nature of their intercultural relationships. It is a part of the mechanism of European expansionism, All of these factors must go into the understanding of the rhetorical ethic and not an overly simplistic distinction between "ideal" and "actual" culture; perhaps a relevant distinction with regard to other cultures that create and are created by very different "cultural personalities." Let us look more closely at this "ethic" and see how it has functioned historically.

The above excerpt from chapter 6 can be found here.

Toxic Culture

2010-10-14T18:06:00.001-04:00

Here's a link to the pdf containing this article and a few others. Click the images below to enlarge.

Is the western world more advanced in its attitudes toward women?

2010-10-09T12:19:00.008-04:00

When teaching English in Cambodia, a country with a pervasive, exploitative sex industry, Laura Carr was shocked to discover that almost all her western male friends were happy to participate.

the reason so many men paid for sex was because they could

Unfortunately, the reason so many men paid for sex was because they could: the girls were freely available to them and the social restraints didn’t exist; questioning their behaviour was not the done thing. Everyone’s doing it… you can’t question what we’re doing, we’re in Cambodia and it’s normal here… don’t be such a spoilsport (you stuck up bitch)… you’re only jealous ‘cos you’re not as beautiful or skinny as they are and we don’t want you… you haven’t been here long enough - this is just how things work…

...so many men (from what I could fathom, the majority of men), even socialized in a western culture, are so willing and eager to become part of a culture that exploits women and sex as a commodity. They quickly come to value beauty, subservience and effectively ownership over equal companionship...

many western men are willing and eager to become part of a culture that exploits women and sex as a commodity

Click here for Laura Carr's article.

NPR Interview with Ariel Levy (3 part video)

2010-10-06T15:03:00.007-04:00

Ariel Levy provides an excellent discussion of sexuality as it is commodified in our culture and how women contribute to this. I'm very excited about finding Ariel Levy. I really feel her viewpoint.

Ariel Levy cleverly leads us to explore the role models women aspire to emulate. We are not pursuing the confident, powerful, free ideal the women's liberation movement would have dreamed for its daughters.

Instead our icons are porn stars and strippers and prostitutes. Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson flaunt their successes in the pornography industry, and in doing so seem to earn our adulation.

The reality that we model ourselves on images whose 'individuality is erased' is harsh, yet Levy's work is imbued with hope that women can celebrate their uniqueness instead of their 'hotness', explore their sexuality as delight rather than consume sex as currency, and succeed professionally because of their personalities, not because of their brilliant bodies.

--Megan Jones Ady

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Howard Zinn on Civil Disobedience

2010-09-27T12:51:00.002-04:00

The AntiPorn Men Project Launches

2010-09-25T12:07:00.007-04:00

http://www.antipornmen.org/

"A definition that we find useful is that pornography is that which ‘sexualizes hierarchy, objectification, submission, and violence’ (Andrea Dworkin)."

- AntiPorn Men Project

About the Project

The AntiPornMenProject aims to provide an online space for (mainly) men to write about and discuss anti-porn issues, providing others who are perhaps only just arriving at anti-porn thoughts a place to read, ask questions and feel part of a wider movement. We also hope to effectively provide and sign-post anti-porn resources and news articles concerning pornography. We hope this website will be used as a place to find opinions and resources for those who are genuinely interested in respectful engagment and -we hope- adoption of an anti-porn attitude.

It is the general opinion of those involved in the AntiPornMenProject that pornography is one of the most important social issues that we face in tackling both violence against women and wider gender inequality, as well as an important personal issue in the lives and relationships of many people. It is for these reasons -and not out of any conservative or religious sentiments- that the AntiPornMenProject is anti-porn. Our mission is to help develop a wider knowledge and recognition of the harms of pornography. We hope this will help bring about a greater level of public questioning of pornography.
From - http://www.antipornmen.org/about/

The End of Poverty?

2010-09-24T22:36:00.003-04:00

If you would like to understand why some are rich and some are poor, how it started to be this way, what perpetuates it...you'll want to watch this.

"Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again."

Synopsis:

Global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, the problem persists because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries taking advantage of poor, developing countries.

Renowned actor and activist, Martin Sheen, narrates The End of Poverty?, a feature-length documentary directed by award-winning director, Philippe Diaz, which explains how today's financial crisis is a direct consequence of these unchallenged policies that have lasted centuries. Consider that 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate. At this rate, to maintain our lifestyle means more and more people will sink below the poverty line.

Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, The End of Poverty? features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia's Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania . It is produced by Cinema Libre Studio in collaboration with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.

Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again.

The film has been selected to over 25 international film festivals and will be released in theatres in November 2009. Directed by Philippe Diaz, produced by Cinema Libre Studio with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 104mins, 2008, USA, documentary in English, Spanish, French with English Subtitles.

The End of Poverty? is a daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not an accident. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of poor, developing countries.

The End of Poverty? asks why today 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate?

Video from: hulu.com

Text taken from: theendofpoverty.com

This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons

2010-08-30T14:09:00.008-04:00

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common.
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
-Folk poem, circa 1764

A Film Coming Fall 2010

For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons -- everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and cultural works. In This Land is Our Land, bestselling author David Bollier, a leading figure in the global movement to reclaim the commons, bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests. Placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Bollier shows how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.

This film was previously titled Silent Theft.

David Bollier is an author, activist, blogger and consultant who has spent the past ten years exploring the commons as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. He has pursued this work as an editor of Onthecommons.org -- a leading website about commons-based policy and politics -- and in collaboration with a variety of international and domestic partners. He speaks widely about the commons, and recently co-founded a new international organization, Commons Strategies, dedicated to developing and promoting commons-based public policies and initiatives. In 2010, Bollier taught a course on the topic as the Croxton Lecturer at Amherst College.

Bollier's latest book, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own (2009), describes the rise of free software, free culture, and the commons-based movements seeking to advance open business models, open science and open educational resources. His first book on the commons, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth (2002), is now widely used in colleges around the world. It surveys the many market enclosures of people's shared resources, from public lands and the airwaves to public spaces, plant and animal genes, and knowledge. Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture (2005) documents the vast expansion of copyright and trademark law over the past generation.

Bollier has worked with American television writer/producer Norman Lear since 1984, and is Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. He is also Co-founder and board member of Public Knowledge, a Washington policy advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the information commons. Bollier lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Visit David Bollier's site at www.bollier.org.

Related Links:

Let's Reclaim the Commons | from Section Z

The State of the Commons | from OnTheCommons.org

Speeches by David Bollier

Reposted from Media Education Foundation: This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons.

Why the Feds Fear Thinkers Like Howard Zinn By Chris Hedges

2010-08-03T15:51:00.002-04:00

Why the Feds Fear Thinkers Like Howard Zinn
By Chris Hedges —

By the end of Howard Zinn’s 423-page FBI file one walks away with a profound respect for the historian and a deep distaste for the buffoonish goons in the FBI who followed and monitored him.

Posted on Aug 1, 2010 on Chris Hedges' Columns

Business

2010-07-31T22:27:00.001-04:00

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." - Jay Gould, 19th century American financier and railroad businessman.

Spanish Anarchists Interview Exiled Kurdish Anarchists

2010-07-18T15:39:00.002-04:00

Interview with Kurdish anarchists, 2010

The spanish anarchist site alasbarricadas.org interviewed last month members of the exiled Kurdistan Anarchist Forum. Here is the full interview:

Where are you based? I mean, are you living in Kurdistan or in exile or have you emigrated to other places inside Turkey or abroad?

KAF We are mainly based in different countries in Europe: UK, Germany, France and Sweden. We are Kurdish but originally from Iraq not from Turkey. We all immigrated to Europe at different times but all for political reasons.

How did you become an anarchist? And other Kurdish anarchists? Is Kurdish anarchism old? Do you ‘fit into’ any particular tendency inside anarchism [anarchist-communism, insurrectionalsm, anarchist-syndicalism, eco-anarchism, etc.]?

KAF We all came from different left organisations, for example, communist parties that were controlled from Russia and China, and other Bolshevik organisations. We became Anarchists the hard way, after first being in a number of different political tendencies like:Maoist, Stalinist, Marxist and Leninist. Our ideas and activities changed gradually within these movements. Then when these struggles failed we looked for a different direction. Eventually we realised that Anarchism is the only way to achieve proper Human Liberation. This is what we mean by we became Anarchists the hard way.

As far as we know there were no Kurdish anarchist groups, organisations or parties, but that does not mean there were no individual Anarchists. Do not forget that Iraqi society at the time was almost a prison for its people, and the entire society was suppressed and oppressed by the Regime. The only political books and information available at the time were Communist Party ones coming out of Russia. These views, as you know, were against anarchist ideas and full of propaganda against them. As far as we know there were no anarchist books in Iraq except one from Joseph Proudhon, and the reason why this was available was because Karl Marx had rejected Proudhon’s politics, philosophy and economic ideas.

The names or terminologies for us are not very important. What is important for us is setting up local groups within local communities and making connections with other groups whether on a national or international level. We are happy to have links with all types of anarchists and anarchist groups as long as they do not intervene in our work and struggle against this current system and its representatives (i.e. the state and corporations). Saying that, we would say we are closest to Anarchist Syndicalism and Anarchist Communism.

Do you support national liberation / self-determination for the Kurdish people ? [I'm not necessarily meaning if you support the creation of the Kurdish state]

KAF We are fighting for Social justice. We are against every type of discrimination, sexism or racism or exploitation whatever its basies, whether it is nationality, sexism or religions [Exportation whatever on the ground of sexism, sexism that has its basis in sexism?]. We fight to create an anarchist society that is free of all types of exploitation in order for its citizens to enjoy their full rights and duties.
However, we don’t support any type of state and we would not participate in any activity whose idea was to create any type of state. But we are in favour of breaking the centralization of the state.

What are your relationships with Turkish anarchists? Are you close to any particular group?

KAF We have contact with one of the Turkish Anarchist Groups based in Switzerland (Karakök Otonomu Türkiye / Isvicre ). They operate a radio station there. We also have contact with a Kurdish Anarchist Group that are more Anarcho-Communist.

In addition, we have contact with a group of anarchists from Jordan (Jordanian-anarchists) and Iran (Anarchist Geography ) but in practice we are not that close to them for different reasons.

Do you have any relation with other foreign groups [Germany, Greece, Armenia, etc.] ?

KAF Yes, we have contacts with anarchist groups in the UK (Haringey Solidarity Group (HSG), Germany (Anarchistisches Forum Köln and anarchosyndikalismus.org ) and France (CNT-AIT info). We actively work with them.

As to the Kurdish movement, could you explain to us the present situation in the area? Is there [cultural/ethnic/political] repression? how hard is it?

KAF You question is not clear as to whether you mean in Iraq, Iran, Syria or Turkey. However, if you mean the Kurdish movement in Turkey, there are a few Kurdish organisations, but among them the PKK is the most active and largest party. However, since their leader was arrested their tactics and strategy have changed. Currently they have split into 4 organisations: Iraqi Kurdistan, Irani Kurdistan, Syrian Kurdistan and Turkey Kurdistan. In each, they have their own party and Freedom Fighters. In Turkey at the moment the PKK have stopped militant fighting against the Turkish state, and are in a position of no war, no peace.

There is a lot to talk about in response to your question which cannot really be answered here.

Are there any Kurdish anarchists in prison? What for? have any Kurds become anarchist inside prison?
KAF We cannot answer this question as we do not have specific information about this.

In Spain we know PKK, because the Basque nationalists (among other leftists groups) have some links with them. What can you tell us of that political organisation? How big or important is it? Is there still some guerrilla warfare? Are there still mousiest/Maoists?

KAF We touched on this in the previous question. We believe that the PKK is a Stalinist, Maoist and terrorist organisation that was created in the climate of terror, suppression and oppression. The military, fascist and racist government in Turkey pushed the situation further and further until the announcement of the birth of a radical, popular but suicidal organisation, the PKK. In our opinion they serve neither their cause nor that of the working class. In fact, what they do by their actions is give justification to the military government to damage the Kurdish question nationally and internationally. they ( PKK & Turkish Government) have caused the destruction of so many Villages and small towns, displacing million of people, killing so many innocent people.

The Turkish government and the PKK actually help each other. The PKK makes the Turkish government stronger, and the working class issue much weaker. At the same time, the way the Turkish government has tackled the problem has made the PKK stronger - at least in some parts of Kurdistan.

These actions by both of them have made the working class and anarchist movement in Turkey weaker and weaker.

Are there other groups apart from PKK acting against Turkish army/state in Kurdistan?

KAF There are certainly other Kurdish Groups active against the Turkish government but these do not use guerrilla tactics. They believe in struggling against the government through peaceful ways. They will use any possible kind of struggle that serves their cause but avoiding armed struggle. We are not sure there are any groups apart from the PKK using armed struggles against the Turkish government.

What is your relationship with other leftists groups?

KAF We do not have any relationships with other leftist groups.

What has been the influence of Iraq's war in Turkey/Kurdistan? Has political repression risen? Has the Kurdish autonomy in Iraq [virtually independence] improved the desire for the independence of Kurds in Turkey?

KAF The Iraq war period was probably not a good time for the PKK. During this particular period, all the PKK’s enemies, including the USA, Western countries, Iraqi and Kurdish main parties (PUK & PDK) and their forces, got together and controlled the territories as they were happy to fight the PKK if it was necessary. In fact, the PKK was surrounded by all the forces mentioned above. At the same time Turkey was in a good position to fight the PKK without fear from USA. America was happy to support this dirty war and closed its eyes to it and its victims as long as Turkey let the big powers use its land as a base for the occupation of Iraq.

We do not think that during the Iraqi war the repression & suppression was beyond its normal levels. This was because the PKK kept a low profile and stopped any major operations or attacks.

The spirit for Kurdish independence in Iraq might have increased with the setting up of Kurdish self-rule in Iraqi’s Kurdistan but did not help or support the Kurdish question in Turkey for two reasons:

The Kurdish Self-rule in Iraqi’s Kurdistan, as before, has always been very much in a compromised position with the Turkish government for political, trade and economic reasons. so that they did not mind to sacrifice all Kurdish and their cause in Turkey for their own safety and survival.

By setting up Kurdish self-rule in Iraq it meant Iran, Syria and Turkey became very close as there is a ethnic Kurdish minority in each of their countries. With an alliance between the three of them the PKK became a major enemy, and this squeezed the PKK movement in Turkey. Further, Turkey managed to force the leaders of Kurds self- rule in Iraq to cooperate with them in fighting against the PKK although most of the time the Kurds would fight them alone, but with the military support of Turkey especially By Fighter Planes.

How is the economic situation there? Is there any kind of labour resistance / radical unionism in Kurdistan?

KAF The economic situation for Kurdish self-rule, until the war, was very bad. But, since the collapse of Saddam Hussein it has been getting much better. The USA have spent a lot of money there to bribe people and also to isolate Islamic terrorist groups and the PKK as well.

After the uprising in 1991 many organisations emerged and most of them were leftist - from women’s movement, union, student – and they tried to unite. In addition to this a strong worker movement emerged at the factory level which they organise themselves. There was also very good links between them and the unemployed organisation (Unemployed Trade Union in Kurdistan). These groups could never overcome their leftist influences, and their methods of struggle, organising tactics and their strategies were exactly the same as the Bolshevik and Social Democrat parties who were gradually getting smaller and smaller until they completed disappeared.

You have talked about the Uprising in 1991. Could give us more information about what have happened?

KAF To answer this question we need a brief explanation of the Iraq situation before the Uprising in general and Kurdistan in particular. There was no doubt that Iraq-Iran war brought a disaster on Iraqi and Iranian people and at the same time it weakened the regime in Iraq. Both governments in Iraq and Iran have had their motivation to go to war and for different reasons while both of them were in a big crisis.

During the Iraq-Iran war there was a feeling that the Iraqi regime had lost power over its own people. This was to some extent was right when people in Iraq saw their life had got worse, things had got very expensive and we had to wait in a long queue to get it, every day hundreds or more dead bodies returned to the parent and relatives, the hospital, schools, the rest of the offices, factories , companies with many more of offices or the administration were getting empty either because they had been called by the regime to join the military service or because many of them refused to join the military service and had gone underground or had been transferred to protect the streets, public places in case of riots or uprising. In addition to this people were very well aware of the propaganda machine about the war, aim of the war, the future of the war that all was a pure lie.

The regime on one hand tried to bribe those families who had lost their son, daughters, parent in the front lines of the war, on the other hand tried to suppress and oppress any opposition voice by using a very heavy hand.
In Kurdistan, because of the existing Kurdish movement, although it was becoming very week and many of them had abandoned their struggles by moving to the neighbouring countries or Europe, USA or Canada, the regime has used a few different tactics from what he used it in south and middle of Iraq, like: using chemical weapons, the Campaign of Anfal(1) and moving all the far villages from the town to a concentration camps and destroyed all the original villages and the people’s belongs even their cattle, animals whatever they had in the villages.

The situation in both parts of Iraq, south and north became intolerable and pushed people to make complaints, small protests in different areas.

When the war finished the regime in Iraq became weaker and its crisis was getting deeper and deeper. So Saddam Hussein tried to find a way to get out of these crises. So the only way to get out of this was launching another war in the gulf. Of course this happened with approval and the support from America, CIA. The consequence of the war was terrible as thousands and thousands of soldiers and ordinary people were killed and made the situation unbearable.

By the time when the war ended the situation were getting ripe for emerging so many different organisations against the regime in south, middle and north of Iraq, particularly in north, Kurdistan. The Iraqi forces have already evacuated in many places and have lost control over the distance Areas from the main towns. At this time the whole Kurdish movement became very week and was almost about abandoning its entire army struggles.

By 1991 the time had arrived for uprising, A few months before March 91 some of the lefties organisation prepared themselves for something like, later called Uprising by contacting most of the rest of the origination and the individuals, collecting weapons and bringing them to the big towns, publicity preparation and the starting points with the starting places. In the end the uprising happened and almost whoever was able to get out of home has taken a part in it. In a matter of a couple of days most of the small towns and a couple of big towns had fell under the control of people. The people had used revenges against the regime agent and spy and people from the Intelligence organisation (Istkhbarat) in a barbaric way by killing and executing so many of them that people thought they had a contact with the regime and have blood on their hands without trial, court or any thing.

When the people realised that the regime’s force completely defeated then the Soviets ” Shura”(2) in the neighbourhood, school, hospital and the rest of places of work have been set up by the workers, student, the local people and the member of the lefties, communist organisations to carry out the necessary work in the community. The situation was getting serious and dangerous for the high class, the bosses because this experience was about to spread in everywhere in Kurdistan and even in Iraq. The US, Briton and the regions especially the neighbouring countries have observed and examined the situation very closely and seriously. So they tried to abort the Uprising before completely succeed and spread in elsewhere. The first step was to revive their agents in Kurdistan in getting close to whole organisation and fraction that involved in Kurdish movement while at the time of uprising and before that they almost disappeared especially in the army way. Then they intervened directly to send their own spy and agents and give advice to the forces that were in the opposition against the uprising because they have already lost control and influences among people. Many of the individuals who have already left Kurdistan went back and gradually with the support and help of CIA and MI6 took control on almost every administration. At the same time they created a situation and persuaded people or at least did not mind when people had taken whatever was valuable including most of the equipments in hospitals, schools, universities and the rest of the government’s building. To stop this disorder, they organised the police and soldiers forces. At the same time they tried to weaken the Shuras by using various propaganda against them, taking over their buildings, asking the organisation to register themselves with the government and getting permission for protests, rallies and demonstrations.
This new administration by 1992 became stable and almost was in control everywhere with the entire support of US, Briton and Europe. There was the first election in May 1992 for Kurdish self-rule parliament. The election was fake and both major originations PUK (Kurdish united patriotic) and KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party) between themselves decided they won the election by 50% each of them and they set up their own government. By 1994 when the Kurdish self-rule was completely established with the support of west and USA, the Shuras had been disappeared and the trace of Uprising you could only find in the history museum. And now it was the time for the internal war between PUK and PDK over money, power and influences. This war lasted until 1998 and ended under the threat of USA.

Of course there was another factor for defeating the people’s movement and its Uprising. The threat of the lefty’s organisation to the Shuras was no less danger than the USA & the rest as they used this threat in a different way. The struggles between themselves to control the people’s movement and its achievement, the Shura, were a great threat and badly damaged the movement by making it very week. They all were happy to sacrifice the Uprising to their politics.

(1) Anfal: It was a campaign was launched by the government against Kurdish people in 198os (the first Anfal was in 1982 and second Anfal was 1988) in this campaign the regime evacuated the entire people for the far villages, the number estimated by 180,000 people who are completely disappeared.

(2) ” Shura” Soviets, The Council of the worker

What is your opinion on the so-called revolt in Iran? Is it possible that from that reformist’s fighter could arise a solid anarchist faction?

It might not be realistic for us to be so optimistic to expect from current revolt a solid Anarchist movement will be emerged. But before we are coming to that conclusion we need to remind ourselves that the CIA and the West brought Ayatollah Khomeini and his party to power in a reluctant way. We say in a reluctant way because almost everybody in Iran was involved in the Uprising, therefore USA and the West was between couples of choices: Ayatollah Khomeini or people’s power. In other words between a minor enemy and a major enemy, so they have gone for the minor enemy. In the same time they thought it will be easy to control the Mullah s power or tame them especially after involving Iran in a long war with Iraq. They knew that the war given them a great benefits and advantage as first the war is the best weapons to defeat the powerful resistance that had existed there before the uprising. Secondly the war makes both regimes in Iran and Iraq very week and through this they can play a big role in controlling the situation and finally bringing back the USA & the West forces, their politics into the region, in addition to achieve financial gain .

And now 30 years is too long and USA could not have big influences over the regime to achieve what they wanted in the first place. In the same time people have had enough with the regime. People’s life in respect of freedom, economic has not got better and certainly their Social life has got worse, this is apart form that almost every family in Iran lost one of its beloved during the long war between Iran and Iraq that lasted for 8 years.

This situation is getting worse day by day and people lives in a big fair there when they hear that the so called “ international community” using sanction against them or the idiot regime may involve them in another long war.

We can say that the people were looking for some sort of crisis that can be happened and opens a door for them to protest against the regime. We believe that the election was a perfect pretext for people especially when some powerful people with the support of USA and some countries in the west could be seen supporting the protest. However, the protest has become very bloody but surely no everybody is on the side of the “Green revolution”. As we said above the majority of people in Iran have been fed up with the regime and the situation and they want changes. The demonstration and the protest were emerged from every section of the Society. We believe the vast majority of the protests are nothing to do with Mossawi or his supporters, but while the regime is very brutal as we saw it in oppressing the protester, it was difficult for people to come up independently and in obvious way demanding the regime change. They need to express there unsatisfaction and their hatter against the system through or under umbrella of the powerful people that who are a part of the System because of a couple of reasons: 1- if they came out without connecting themselves to the main stream of the protester they would have been faced a savage, brutal; suppression that cause so many death. 2- Again if they came out as independent groups there was a possibility for Moussawi and the rest of the powerful people who supported the protest to reconcile with the government. This could be happened because both of them, the government and the opposition, would face a very serious danger that threats the entire regime and their politics.

However, we think the protest will be continuing, stronger and goes forward that may some major changes take place by the end of the year. We are aware of that the Anarchist movement in Iran is strong but we are not sure whether they can organise themselves against the authoritarian, the power to achieve what they have been struggled for in the past and also whether they have got a lesion from the past.

We have noticed that some Kurdish Social movements are more and more fed up with those Maoists parties, leftist political groups and their practices and they are being progressively substituted by an anarchist/ grassroots practice. Is this affirmation?

That is true. People are fed up with them and from their experience they realised that these originations have already bankrupted but as we mentioned in our answers to your previous questions we have not seen the Anarchists movement neither in Kurdistan nor in Iraq. While everybody is fed up and wants changes, a huge number of the population has organised themselves in the movement called “Changes, movement for changes”. This has not yet formed it selves in the party or a proper organisation yet. They are not really different from the old organisation or the current one that is leading the Kurdish Self-rule. We believe that this like the many before will be a failure experience as well.

Whether later on people substituted by anarchist/ grassroots practice? It is difficult to be optimistic about this. But we are very much sure the grassroots movement in the nearest future will organise themselves and may form some Anarchist or libertarian origination. Please refer to our answer to your previous question for as to why we believe there is a ground for emerging Anarchist movement.

Do you think anarchists ideas can develop well in Kurdistan? Are there some communitarian traditions similar to the anarchist practice? [In some places this situation happens; Kropotkin put it well in Mutual Aid]

KAF We definitely believe anarchist ideas could develop in Kurdistan. It is not just that we believe in anarchism. Anarchism is the right struggle and will be a very strong movement in the near future because:
All the old ways of struggles from guerrilla war, to sham voting, to relying on the various kinds of leftist organisations from PUK, KDP, Communist party, all Islamic groups, liberals and Communist Worker Party have all been shown to be bankrupt and cannot escape from complete defeat as they lose the confidence and trust amongst poor and ordinary people.

There are many, many basic rights that have already been won in the Western, US, Canada and Scandinavian, but in Iraq or Kurdistan these basics are still a main or daily demand among the ordinary people. Again the corruption that infected every level of administration from the bottom of society to the very top (like Parliament) has recently become a major issue and has become the top priority of the list of demands that people are struggling for.
The relationship between individual people within the community is still extremely strong and this makes it very easy to trust each other and have collective action or struggles.

Final words... you can say what you want …

KAF We are trying to do our best to write on different Kurdish websites to persuade people of our politics, going to Kurdish Seminars, and translating old Anarchist texts and articles. We are also making people there aware of what is going on in the rest of the world.

Reposted from libcom.org

Corporate Power, Politics, War, and Greed: Designs by Heather Ault

2010-07-07T13:08:00.009-04:00

"I designed these logos to describe the connections between corporate power, American politics, war, and greed." -- Heather Ault

Printable graphics for the production of stickers and other uses are available at World Can't Wait

Gaza Freedom Graffiti in the Warsaw Ghetto

2010-06-30T11:46:00.006-04:00

Monday 28th 2010

Yesterday, Israeli and Polish activists met in the ruins of Warsaw’s old Jewish Ghetto.

The activists sprayed ‘Liberate All Ghettos’ in Hebrew, followed by ‘Free Gaza and Palestine’ in English on a wall of an original block in the ghetto. The block is across the street from the last fragment of the remaining perimeter wall of the Ghetto. They also hung Palestinian flags from the wall.

This was first time such an action took place in the ghetto.

Yonatan Shapira former Israeli Air Force captain and now refusnik and BDS activist said:

‘Most of my family came from Poland and many of my relatives were killed in the death camps during the Holocaust. When I walk in what was left from the Warsaw Ghetto I can’t stop thinking about the people of Gaza who are not only locked in an open air prison but are also being bombarded by fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones, flown by people whom I used to serve with before my refusal in 2003.

I am also thinking about the delegations of young Israelis that are coming to see the history of our people but also are subjected to militaristic and nationalistic brainwashing on a daily basis. Maybe if they see what we wrote here today they will remember that oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza’.

Ewa Jasiewicz, activist with Kampania Palestyna and one of the co-ordinators of the Free Gaza Movement who just returned from participating in the Freedom Flotilla said:

`Yonatan could have been the pilot in the Blackhawk that dropped commandos onto the Mavi Marmara that killed nine activists from our flotilla. I could have been one of them. Poland is full of the ruins of ghettos and death camps and shrines to those who sacrificed their lives in the defence of not just their communities but in resistance to fascism.

People here need to wake up and realise that occupations and ghettos did not end with the end of the second world war. These tactics and strategies of domination and control of other people and lands are present in Palestine today and are being perpetrated by the state of Israel. We have a responsibility to free all ghettos and end all occupations’.

Poland continues to deepen its’ military and political alliance with Israel whilst ignoring its obligations under international law to stop the ghettoization of the West Bank by Israel’s apartheid wall and to ensure the protection of civilians.

Kampania Palestyna together with the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, calls for an end to Israeli impunity and degradation of human rights and international law.

Ewa Jasiewicz said, ‘Poland can no longer be a Greenzone for the normalisation of Israeli apartheid. We all have the responsibility to end the occupation and ghettoization of the Palestinian people’.

Yonatan Shapira said: ‘I was always taught growing up that the atrocities that happened to the Jewish people here happened because the world was silent. And therefore I cannot be silent. The Jewish people needed to be liberated from the ghettoes, and now Israelis need to be liberated from the crimes of their own government. Each one of us can take part in this global struggle for justice, and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for the sake of not just the Palestinian people but for Israelis too’.

www.kampania-palestyna.pl

www.bdsmovement.net

Original article www.kampania-palestyna.pl, found via Window Into Palestine.

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

2010-06-19T14:39:00.002-04:00

CHRIS HEDGES' COLUMNS

AP / Elizabeth Dalziel

This Country Needs a Few Good Communists

Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism will come with the return of the language of class conflict. It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, but we have to speak in his vocabulary.

Posted on May 31, 2010

AP / Petros Giannakouris
The Greeks Get It
Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out.
Posted on May 24, 2010

Human - The Killers

2010-06-17T17:22:00.015-04:00

Brandon Flowers of the Killers, says the song was inspired by a comment made by Hunter S. Thompson about how America was raising a generation of dancers.

A dance is a choreographed pattern, which is learned and then followed, the moves proscribed.

Are we human or are we dancer?

I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes
Clear your heart...
Cut the cord

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance,
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye
Wish me well..
You've gotta let me go

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we're receiving
Let me know is your heart still beating

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer

You've gotta let me know

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Online Video Lectures and Classes in Marxian Theory by Richard D. Wolff, UMass Amherst

2010-06-16T12:22:00.005-04:00

In addition to the video lectures, class readings are linked in these free online courses. Prof. Wolff has a clear and accessible style. A great way to learn about Marx's theories.

Click here for the Online Lectures and Classes page.

Marxian Class Analysis Theory and Practice Online Course - Run time: 7 hours 45 minutes (in 5 parts)
There are two basic purposes of this intensive class taught by Professor Wolff at the Brecht Forum in New York city in the Spring of 2010. The first is to teach the specifics of Marxian class analysis (its history, different interpretations, and basic structure). The second is to show in detail how to apply Marxian class analysis and what unique insights it achieves both in terms of understanding society and strategizing for social change.

Economic Crisis and Globalization - Run time: 10 hours, 30 minutes (in 8 parts)
This eight session lecture series, from Spring 2009, is taught by Dr. Wolff, in the context of the same name graduate course, offered by the Graduate Program for International Affairs (GPIA) of the New School University in New York. Not only does Dr. Wolff challenge the conventional thinking of the crisis, he provides one of the central frames which links all of our projects: the role and influence of capital as a structuring force in our daily lives

Marxian Economics: An intensive introduction - Run time: 7 hours (in 4 parts)

This four part course provides a working foundation in the core concepts of Marxian economic theory – necessary and surplus labor, labor power, surplus value, exploitation, capital accumulation, distributions of the surplus, capitalist crises, and the differences between capitalist and other class structures. In addition, these core concepts will be systematically used to understand current social problems (including political and cultural as well as economic problems). The goal is to enable students to apply Marxian economics in their own efforts to analyze society and to strategize politically today.

This course was taught in the Spring of 2010 at the Brecht Forum in New York.

Obama Summed up on The Daily Show

2010-06-16T11:53:00.009-04:00

This clip succinctly demonstrates how Obama's attitudes and actions are at complete odds with what he claimed as he campaigned in 2007. He claimed he would restore America's moral high standing that was lost in the 'war on terror'. At 1:00 in, clips of Obama's campaign interviews evidence the disparities between what he said then and does now on issues such as Guantanamo, rendition, habeas corpus, warrantless wire-tapping.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Respect My Authoritah

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

National Feminist Antipornography Conference 2007 Selected Speakers

2010-06-14T23:50:00.004-04:00

Google Video has not fixed the embed problem. The videos below can be accessed here.

Gail Dines - Pornography & Pop Culture: Putting the Text in Context Gail Dines at the Feminist Antipornography Conference: Pornography & Pop Culture - Rethinking Theory, Reframing Activism Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007

Robert Jensen - Real Men, Real Choices Robert Jensen at the National Feminist Antipornography Conference: Pornography & Pop Culture Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007

Rebecca Whisnant - Not Your Father’s Playboy and Not Your Mother’s Feminist Movement: Contemporary Feminism in a Porn Culture - Rebecca Whisnant at the National Feminist Antipornography Conference, Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007

Teen Poetry Slam

2010-06-03T10:21:00.004-04:00

"The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can continue to prescribe." -- Paulo Friere from The Banking Concept of Education (Myra Bergman Ramos, trans.)

My hope is that more and more children will look at their culture and say, "We are not your canvasses. We are not your soldiers. We are not your target market. We are not yours. Period." --Cat

Teens talk back to the dominating culture. This is great stuff. I am very excited about finding this.

Quote from: The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception

2010-05-31T15:18:00.001-04:00

“Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work. It is sought after as an escape from the mechanised work process, and to recruit strength in order to be able to cope with it again. But at the same time mechanisation has such power over a man’s leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself. The ostensible content is merely a faded foreground; what sinks in is the automatic succession of standardised operations. What happens at work, in the factory, or in the office can only be escaped from by approximation to it in one’s leisure time.

All amusement suffers from this incurable malady. Pleasure hardens into boredom because, if it is to remain pleasure, it must not demand any effort and therefore moves rigorously in the worn grooves of association. No independent thinking must be expected from the audience: the product prescribes every reaction: not by its natural structure (which collapses under reflection), but by signals. Any logical connection calling for mental effort is painstakingly avoided. As far as possible, developments must follow from the immediately preceding situation and never from the idea of the whole. For the attentive movie-goer any individual scene will give him the whole thing. Even the set pattern itself still seems dangerous, offering some meaning – wretched as it might be – where only meaninglessness is acceptable. Often the plot is maliciously deprived of the development demanded by characters and matter according to the old pattern. Instead, the next step is what the script writer takes to be the most striking effect in the particular situation. Banal though elaborate surprise interrupts the story-line.”

— Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, 1944

Commodification of Sexuality

2010-05-28T01:00:00.003-04:00

"We need to recognise that pornography is, and can only ever be, a commodification of our sexuality; genuine sexual liberation cannot be purchased, it does not come in a consumer package." --antiplondon

Comment by Tim: "...all too often, people aren’t ready to face that truth. They claim to agree with anticapitalism but aren’t ready to challenge consumerism. They say they are feminist or pro-feminist but then deny that what they watch/buy/endorse has anything to do with the oppression of women."

The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships

2010-05-24T12:33:00.005-04:00

"Nothing shows any better than pornography what you get from capitalism." -- Richard Wolff

"Pornography delivers patriarchal messages to men’s brain by the penis." -- Gail Dines

"To us, pornography presents an opportunity to examine the roots of the problems we are facing – patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy – in their most blatant, naked and rawest forms. When this exploitation can stir and stimulate our most irrational and uncensored sexual core, we know how deep we have internalized and naturalized such inequality." -- The Filmmakers

A full-length 'watermarked' video, as well as copies for purchase, are available at Media Education Foundation.

The film web site.

WHAT THE FILM IS REALLY ABOUT

From the statement of the film's director Chyng Sun

During the "porn war" in the 1980s and early 1990s, the feminists focused on the harm that pornography has perpetuated on women through its producers and consumers. Although some of the interviewees did experience or witness such horrendous sexual violence done to women that was connected to pornography, we think for the majority of men and women the effects of pornography were less overt and dramatic but still no less profound. That is why the focus of the film is on sexuality and relationships. But when we explored deeper and deeper into the issues, what concerned us the most was beyond how pornography affects, but what it reveals about the world we live in and the mechanisms that shape and maintain it.

J.M. Productions' Gag Factor is indeed hard to watch when the female performers choke and cry because the male performers' penises are inserted in their throat so deeply. The crucial issues are not whether a woman freely "chooses" to work in the film, but why an economic system would pay the women who are willing to be gagged 50 times more money than her McDonald's job and whether this is the best way to organize our labor system. Also, condemning the producers as being particularly misogynistic does not go far; instead, we should question: why would a system reward private enterprise to make a movie like this; why there are so many consumers who would watch it and gain sexual pleasure? Pornography is where patriarchy and capitalism meet.

Theme-wise, this whole film can be summed up by two short statements: "Nothing shows any better than pornography what you get from capitalism," by Rich Wolff (Professor of Economics) and "Pornography delivers patriarchal messages to men’s brain by the penis," by Gail Dines (Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies).

The defenders of pornography like to say that pornography is just a symptom or a reflection of a male-dominated culture. But pornography does more than passively "reflect;" it represents masculinity in such a way that male dominance and aggression becomes natural, normal and even beneficial. As pornographer Ernest Greene puts it, "There is a natural component of power as an erotic stimulant in all sexuality." Or in the same vein, pornographer Joe Gallent states, "Every woman I have ever met has had a rape fantasy at some point. Men have violence fantasies about domination, and that’s just how it is." Pornography indeed perpetuates, reinforces and normalizes sexism, but burning all porn will not end male violence and sexual exploitation.

To us, pornography presents an opportunity to examine the roots of the problems we are facing – patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy – in their most blatant, naked and rawest forms. When this exploitation can stir and stimulate our most irrational and uncensored sexual core, we know how deep we have internalized and naturalized such inequality.

So we go to the roots. The ambition of the filmmakers may seem very modest but actually no less profound: we want people to really see what they have been watching all along. It is fascinating that almost without exception, the porn users who were interviewed admitted that they felt uncomfortable or guilty when they watched certain scenes because they knew the women on screen were not treated right, and they did not want to be there. Greg, a 20-year-old college student, said at the end of the film, “The second I have an orgasm and that passion kind of sinks out of my body and you’re still watching the movie, you start to really see what’s going on and it’s kind of just foul… and you just kind of wonder like, this is not sexy, this is not sex, this is not how I want to experience sex."

We wish that viewers of our film do not ignore the discomfort – not turn down the volume, not fast-forward the bothering scenes, and not use "This is free speech," "She chooses to do it" or "This is free porn, I didn't buy it" to justify their consumption. Let's just simply and honestly see what exactly turns us on.

European Bureau for Conscientious Objection

2010-05-23T08:39:00.004-04:00

European Bureau for Conscientious Objection

61, rue Henri Stacquet, B-1030 Brussels, Belgium

Tel: +32 2 230 6813 / Fax: +32 2 245 6297

Barcelona, May 15^th 2010

PRESS RELEASE

May 15, World Conscientious Objection Day in Barcelona

On World Conscientious Objection Day EBCO board held its annual meeting in Barcelona and supported a series of activities organised by EBCO’s Catalan member organisation,Moviment per la Pau (Movement for Peace), to commemorate the anniversary of 10 YEARS WITHOUT MILITARY SERVICE IN SPAIN AND 25 YEARS OF THE MOVIMENT FOR PEACE, a key actor in this process. The representatives of conscientious objectors in Europe were received by the President of the Catalan Parliament Mr. Ernest Benachand held a one day conference in the Open University in Barcelona.

“The abolition of military service was a popular and democratic conquest, as a result of social and civic participation, and it’s important to extract good practices from the results obtained with the abolition of military service for other dynamics, analyze the role Catalonia played in its abolition and serve as a platform to set out the peace agenda in the European Union”, stated Mr. Jordi Tolrà, Representative of the Movement for Peace.

“We are deeply disappointed that the E.U. gives no solution to the grave human rights violations persisting in Member States and Candidate Member States regarding conscientious objectors, although the right to conscientious objection is recognised under Article 10 of the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights. Conscientious objectors in the E.U. should be able to exercise their right to refuse to kill without facing any discrimination or prosecution. Conscientious objectors from third countries should be granted refugee status when they are seeking asylum in E.U.”, said Mr. Gerd Greune, EBCO President.

"It is not the time to split the Union because of self-made financial crisis as politicians and media in various countries are trying, but to end the waste of resources for military spending and to reduce the number of soldiers within the E.U.. Tax payers in the E.U. are spending more than 400 billion Euros for the military. 1.2 million soldiers in Europe are more than unacceptable", Mr. Greune added.

EBCO criticises Britain where a former professional soldier, Joe Glenton, had refused to serve in Afghanistan "for reasons of principle", is still imprisoned, having lost his appeal against a nine-month sentence. EBCO urges Britain to fully recognise the human right to conscientious objection and stop the prosecutions of conscientious objectors.

EBCO criticises Greece where already in 2010 two conscientious objectors were convicted to prison sentences by military courts: Giorgos Monastiriotis, former professional soldier who refused to participate in the war in Iraq on ideological grounds in 2003, was convicted to five-month suspended prison sentence; and Evangelos Mihalopoulos, ideological conscientious objector who refused to serve the punitive civilian service in 2007, was convicted to eight-month suspended prison sentence. EBCO urges Greece to stop the prosecutions of conscientious objectors and fully comply with the European standards on conscientious objection. EBCO welcomes the decision of the Greek Minister of Defence to review the Greek law on civilian service and calls for a purely civilian service of equal duration to the military service, with no restrictions and exclusions.

EBCO criticises Turkey, where Enver Aydemir, is still in prison sentenced to ten-month imprisonment because of his conscientious objection based on his religious beliefs as a Muslim. EBCO urges Turkey to fully recognise the human right to conscientious objection, stop the prosecutions of conscientious objectors and implement the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in the Ülke case.

EBCO criticises the last 7 out of the 27 E.U. member states which are still imposing conscription this year (Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Germany), and especially Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece where civilian service remains punitive (in the northern part of Cyprus the right to conscientious objection is not even recognised).

EBCO welcomes the recent Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)4 of the Council of EuropeCommittee of Ministers to member states on the human rights of members of the armed forces (24 February 2010). The Recommendation stipulates amongst others that “professional members of the armed forces should be able to leave the armed forces for reasons of conscience” and that they “should not be subject to discrimination or to any criminal prosecution”.

Capitalism Hits the Fan: A Marxian View (Airdate May 8th - see below)

2010-05-06T13:15:00.004-04:00

Capitalism Hits the Fan: A Marxian View from UVC-TV 19 on Vimeo.

Lecture by Professor Rick Wolff, Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst on October 7, 2008.

Full version (1 hour) available at OneBigTorrent.org

Capitalism Hits the Fan
Airdates
Timezone: P M C E
Saturday, May 8th
03:00 am
DIRECTV Channel 375 | DISH Network Channel 9410

Category: Documentaries
Regions: Europe, North America
Topics: Economic Development / Poverty, Globalization, Political Institutions / Systems
In the 1950s, the economy was booming and America was flourishing. Wages were rising, and shopping malls had to be built to keep up with our mad desire to consume. Production and wages led to abundance. And when we couldn't afford to buy it, we started to borrow to get it. Capitalism ruled the world; we were living the American dream.

Now, after all those years of blissful prosperity, we suddenly find ourselves waking up in an economic twilight zone. What happened? Is this a normal bust, or is it what happens when "Capitalism Hits the Fan?"

To answer these questions, we turn to renowned economist Richard Wolff. Clearly and understandably, he explains the origins and scope of the economic meltdown we're in. Is it almost over? Or are there further catastrophes ahead? Find out in Capitalism Hits the Fan: Richard Wolff on the Economic Meltdown.
Available in a full format at OneBigTorrent.org.
.
LEARN MORE:
Visit Capitalism Hits the Fan's official website
Richard Wolff's official website
Media Education Foundation

Peace of the Anarchy: Ammon Hennacy and Other Angelic Troublemakers

2010-05-06T10:58:00.001-04:00

Google Video is having problems lately. I'll keep this here to hold the place until I can get video that works.

The Yes Men

2010-05-02T12:35:00.006-04:00

Everyone needs to know about the vigilante justice of The Yes Men. In these two great articles, Richard Marcus does an excellent job of introducing them. The first is an interview with Yes Man Mike Bonnano and the second is a review of the DVD.

Check out Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men on Gonzo Political Activism and Troublemaking for a Cause and The Yes Men Fix the World

Media Education Foundation

2010-05-02T09:40:00.008-04:00

Media Education Foundation, which makes "documentary films, challenging media" is a great resource for materials that expose and examine the effects of capitalism on the human psyche. Below is a tiny sampling of their videos, many of which can be found online free.

Consuming Kids
The Commercialization of Childhood

"Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine..."

Generation M
Misogyny in Media & Culture

"The film tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena: including the hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, the explosion of violence in video games aimed at boys, the near-hysterical sexist rants of hip-hop artists and talk radio shock jocks, and the harsh, patronizing caricatures of femininity and feminism that reverberate throughout the mainstream of American popular culture."

Tough Guise (Unabridged)
Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity

"While the social construction of femininity has been widely examined, the dominant role of masculinity has until recently remained largely invisible. Tough Guise is the first educational video geared toward college and high school students to systematically examine the relationship between pop-cultural imagery and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century."

Killing Us Softly
Advertising's Image of Women

"One of the films that struck me the most was 'Killing Us Softly', the documentary on how advertising and the whole media in general can basically run this entire world." --Essayist

Killing Us Softly 4 is available at OneBigTorrent.org

Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Politics

2010-05-01T16:52:00.002-04:00

Documentary featuring Tom Ferguson, Noam Chomsky and other prominent thinkers...

...another must see by Jonathan Shockley (aka mr1001nights)

How Capitalism Constructs Reality for Children

2010-05-01T10:58:00.002-04:00

COVER GIRL CULTURE - Trailer

Complete documentary available at OneBigTorrent.org

Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession With Thinness

Mario Savio's "put your bodies upon the gears" address...

2010-03-26T12:35:00.003-04:00

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!" -Mario Savio

Speech Audio
Speech text: (see below)

You know, I just wanna say one brief thing about something the previous speaker said. I didn't wanna spend too much time on that 'cause I don't think it's important enough. But one thing is worth considering.

He's the -- He's the nominal head of an organization supposedly representative of the undergraduates. Whereas in fact under the current director it derives -- its authority is delegated power from the Administration. It's totally unrepresentative of the graduate students and TAs.¹

But he made the following statement (I quote): "I would ask all those who are not definitely committed to the FSM² cause to stay away from demonstration." Alright, now listen to this: "For all upper division students who are interested in alleviating the TA shortage problem, I would encourage you to offer your services to Department Chairmen and Advisors." That has two things: A strike breaker and a fink.

I'd like to say -- like to say one other thing about a union problem. Upstairs you may have noticed they're ready on the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall, Locals 40 and 127 of the Painters Union are painting the inside of the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall. Now, apparently that action had been planned some time in the past. I've tried to contact those unions. Unfortunately -- and [it] tears my heart out -- they're as bureaucratized as the Administration. It's difficult to get through to anyone in authority there. Very sad. We're still -- We're still making an attempt. Those people up there have no desire to interfere with what we're doing. I would ask that they be considered and that they not be heckled in any way. And I think that -- you know -- while there's unfortunately no sense of -- no sense of solidarity at this point between unions and students, there at least need be no -- you know -- excessively hard feelings between the two groups.

Now, there are at least two ways in which sit-ins and civil disobedience and whatever -- least two major ways in which it can occur. One, when a law exists, is promulgated, which is totally unacceptable to people and they violate it again and again and again till it's rescinded, appealed. Alright, but there's another way. There's another way. Sometimes, the form of the law is such as to render impossible its effective violation -- as a method to have it repealed. Sometimes, the grievances of people are more -- extend more -- to more than just the law, extend to a whole mode of arbitrary power, a whole mode of arbitrary exercise of arbitrary power.

And that's what we have here. We have an autocracy which -- which runs this university. It's managed. We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received -- from a well-meaning liberal -- was the following: He said, "Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his Board of Directors?" That's the answer.

Well I ask you to consider -- if this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the Board of Directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something -- the faculty are a bunch of employees and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be -- have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean -- Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!

And that -- that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!

That doesn't mean -- I know it will be interpreted to mean, unfortunately, by the bigots who run The Examiner, for example -- That doesn't mean that you have to break anything. One thousand people sitting down some place, not letting anybody by, not [letting] anything happen, can stop any machine, including this machine! And it will stop!!

We're gonna do the following -- and the greater the number of people, the safer they'll be and the more effective it will be. We're going, once again, to march up to the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall. And we're gonna conduct our lives for awhile in the 2nd floor of Sproul Hall. We'll show movies, for example. We tried to get Un Chant d'Amour and [they] shut them off. Unfortunately, that's tied up in the court because of a lot of squeamish moral mothers for a moral America and other people on the outside. The same people who get all their ideas out of the San Francisco Examiner. Sad, sad. But, Mr. Landau -- Mr. Landau has gotten us some other films.

Likewise, we'll do something -- we'll do something which hasn't occurred at this University in a good long time! We're going to have real classes up there! They're gonna be freedom schools conducted up there! We're going to have classes on [the] 1st and 14th amendments!! We're gonna spend our time learning about the things this University is afraid that we know! We're going to learn about freedom up there, and we're going to learn by doing!!

Now, we've had some good, long rallies. [Rally organizers inform Savio that Joan Baez has arrived.] Just one moment. We've had some good, long rallies. And I think I'm sicker of rallies than anyone else here. She's not going to be long. I'd like to introduce one last person -- one last person before we enter Sproul Hall. Yeah. And the person is Joan Baez.

-- UC Berkeley, Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

"The Crisis in Greece", a 1-hour discussion on Steal This Radio 105

2010-03-23T14:10:00.002-04:00

Here is a link to the archived show: It's number 105 on this page.

Announcing "The Crisis in Greece", a 1-hour discussion on Steal This Radio 105
heard only over the Internet (not on regular radio):

Tuesday, March 23rd at 7 pm, and repeated
Friday, March 26th at 11 a.m.

Go to http://NYTalkRadio.net at those times and
Click on "LIVE"

with guests

- Costas Panayotakis, Dept. of Sociology, CUNY -- NYC College of Technology

- Neni Panouryia, Dept. of Anthropology, Columbia University

- Poulikos Poulikakos, previously at the left newspaper "PRIN" ("before"), and

- Ingo, Technical University, Berlin

and hosted by

- Mitchel Cohen, Steal This Radio

You can also leave comments directly on the website as you're listening .....

Greece General Strike Info

2010-03-19T20:07:00.001-04:00

"On Thursday 11th March, a massive demonstration took place in Athens and in several other major cities in Greece. In Athens and Thessaloniki, more than 50.000 people took part in the General Strike against new governmental decisions and measures, while anarchists and youths clashed with riot police."

See Indymedia Athens for more info.

UC Berkeley Protest

2010-02-27T18:31:00.001-05:00

Support Anarchoblogs

2010-02-19T15:45:00.001-05:00

Click here for the Anarchoblogs web site.

The Evilness of Power: An Examination of the Effects of Power and Hierarchy - by mr1001nights

2010-02-19T14:58:00.003-05:00

"Those who have or seek more power than others, do not apply to themselves, the same standards they apply to others."

Commodities

2010-02-11T10:34:00.002-05:00

I found this image on some guy's tumblr blog. From what I gathered, based on his other choices, he thought this was appealing. I saved it because it spoke very clearly about objectification of women. I wanted to use it as inspiration for writing. I haven't yet. Perhaps it is powerful enough that it doesn't require any further explanation. The image of woman half-dressed and crouched next to the oil drums...like she's waiting to be used.

Wake Up Warriors - Take Your Power Back!

2010-01-29T15:59:00.000-05:00

The Dirty Fucking Hippies Were Right

2010-01-28T22:26:00.004-05:00

Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again

2010-01-24T15:24:00.001-05:00

MLK Day IWW March Against Wage Slavery in NYC

2010-01-17T12:16:00.003-05:00

IWW Notice: MLK Day March Against Wage Slavery!

Mon, Jan 18th
STARBUCKS
11:30am
15th Street and Union Square East

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a tireless fighter for social justice. Every year, the IWW marches on MLK Day to honor his legacy.

We march on the workplaces in which we are organizing to show solidarity with our fellow workers and send a clear message to the bosses that we stand united against all forms of slavery!

We are calling on Starbucks to pay the holiday premium on MLK Day.

We are calling on K-Mart to choose a socially responsible ad firm and drop MPG.

To find us at any point, call 347-281-3228.

* Can’t make it to NYC? Organize a solidarity action in your city! Get in touch for more info.

An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

For more info: Industrial Workers of the World

347-281-3228 (English) // 917-577-1110 (Español) // 917-463-7123 (Mandarin & Cantonese)

www.wobblycity.org // www.iww.org // wobblycity@yahoo.com

Viva Palestina Convoy's Live Map

2010-01-02T13:55:00.003-05:00

Follow the Viva Palestina Convoy via their live map as they make their way to Gaza with supplies.

What it's all about...

2010-01-01T19:13:00.006-05:00

Occupation 101 (full documentary)

2010-01-01T13:10:00.003-05:00

Capitalism

2009-12-29T13:22:00.002-05:00

Simon's Cat

2009-12-14T19:00:00.002-05:00

UC BERKELEY “OPEN UNIVERSITY” RAIDED BY UC POLICE, 65 ARRESTED

2009-12-11T16:35:00.007-05:00

From LiveWeek: PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

Contact: Elias Martinez (559) 999-4964 and Ianna Owen (570) 977-0487

This morning, on the fifth and final day of a weeklong “Open University” held at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall, University of California Police stormed into the building around 5am, arresting 65 people without provocation, witnesses said.

“People were not given a final warning – police burst in while people were sleeping and immediately started locking doors and arresting people. Many students have papers due today, and finals to take starting tomorrow,” said Elias Martinez, an undergraduate from Political Science. “There had been cops in here all week, they were acting like it was okay. We had no idea.”

The police raid at UC Berkeley came one day after students participating in an occupation at San Francisco State University, also railing against budget cuts to public education, were arrested by SFSU Police at 3am.

Douglas Virgos, an undergraduate student, spent the night in the UC Berkeley building but then left on a food run in the early morning. “I got back and saw that the police had put handcuffs on the doors. I was there all night and never heard police tell us we had to leave.”

Students and faculty supporters who gathered on the scene shortly after raid alerts went out say they saw the students, some of them without shoes and wearing only their underwear, being loaded onto Alameda County Sheriff’s buses headed to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

“We’ll be shuttling people out there all day on caravans to do jail support and camp out there until the protesters are released,” said Melissa Barker, an undergraduate of Interdisciplinary Studies and parent. “The fact that the cops drove 65 people all the way to Dublin makes me think that the charges will be way more than misdemeanor trespassing. We’re worried, but we’ll do everything it takes to support our folks. We’ll be there all weekend if it takes.”

Students have been holding public events, including teach-ins on the UC budget, study-ins, and live music shows as part of a “Live Week” of Open University events since Monday.

The week of events was scheduled to end with a free concert in Wheeler Hall, where the Oakland-based political hip hop artist, Boots Riley, would perform tonight.

“We are going to proceed with the event today, and this show will be larger than ever. We’ll continue to organize with students from other schools and build a worldwide movement of students fighting to retain and expand public education,” said a student who withheld their name, fearing university reprisals. “The police attack only makes us angrier.”

Links:
Occupation Maintenance Council on Facebook
UC Strike web site
LiveWeek

Just like real life....

2009-12-10T02:44:00.002-05:00

This would be truth in advertising...

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work

Infoshop.org Offline

2009-12-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

Infoshop.org will be offline until they can pay their internet bill. Help them out by going to Paypal and sending a donation to chuck@mutualaid.org

John Lennon: October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980

2009-12-08T21:38:00.002-05:00

Children don't create this reality. We bring them into it. What they ultimately do as they grow is what they learn to do from us. They are possibility and potential. They are still free. Something I was thinking about on this anniversary of John Lennon's death. - Cat ☮

Alexandros is every child.

2009-12-06T21:54:00.007-05:00

When each of us matters, the whole community is as outraged as a mom or dad, an aunt or uncle, sister or brother. We have grown used to a society where no one really matters, except to those closest to him...no small insignificant one should matter to everyone. People are news, not individuals who each had a life.

When Alexandros was 15 and was murdered by the police, my nephew was 15 and alive. This made it very personal for me as I began to study my nephew throughout the month his face, his thoughts...thinking about 15-year-olds and their dreams and how very young they are. And though I am a pacifist, all I could think of was what if it was my nephew? I began to think violence is justified. I was confused. I understand better how people can become confused. I think if someone killed my nephew, I could kill them. And if I didn't kill them, I could surely burn down everything they stood for. I am still a pacifist. Those who participated in the uprising, they heal my heart as an aunt. They say this child mattered. Every child matters. Every person. Every life.

Love in the Ruins of Democracy - The Greek Uprising of 2008 - by Tolstoy's Cat

2009-12-06T14:16:00.004-05:00

On the evening of Saturday December 6th, 2008 the police shot and killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos and left him for dead. Today is the anniversary of the 2008 Greek Uprising, which started with the death of this young anarchist boy and ended with Athens and other cities in flames after over a month of insurrection.

Love in the Ruins of Democracy - The Greek Uprising of 2008 - Blogcritics Politics

The Quest...

2009-12-04T18:42:00.001-05:00

Obama

2009-12-03T15:47:00.001-05:00

give thanks every day...end poverty, hunger, scarcity

2009-11-28T00:36:00.001-05:00

Poster via: Estudiante Insurgente

Happy Birthday Silas...

2009-11-25T18:50:00.022-05:00

Your birthday begins with a magic trick...

Next, of course, is a Jesus birthday joke...

Then, I am making you an honorary anarchist! To make it official here is your anarcake...

To wrap up your birthday, a dance, featuring a surprise encore performance...

Happy Birthday! Have a good time! ♥

IWW Interviews Noam Chomsky

2009-11-24T12:56:00.004-05:00

"The editor of the Industrial Worker, Diane Krauthamer, spoke to Noam Chomsky at his MIT office in Cambridge, MA, on October 9th, 2009."

Inspired by b9AcE...

2009-11-24T02:30:00.006-05:00

all you need is love...
b9AcE

(click photo)

The War on Kids

2009-11-22T21:29:00.005-05:00

Someone just passed it along to me. The documentary just opened in NYC. I will review this after my torrent downloads (maybe). Meantime, a press release and a repost of the NYT review follow. If you'd like to have the film, you can buy a copy from www.thewaronkids.com.

Press Release:

The award-winning feature documentary, THE WAR ON KIDS, launches a nationwide grassroots screening tour that will bring the debate about public education to dozens of campuses and communities nationwide.

In 95 minutes, THE WAR ON KIDS exposes the many ways the public school system has failed children and our future by robbing students of all freedoms due largely to irrational fears. Children are subjected to endure prison-like security, arbitrary punishments, and pharmacological abuse through the forced prescription of dangerous drugs. Even with these measures, schools not only fail to educate students, but the drive to teach has become secondary to the need to control children. Not only do school fall short of their mission to educate, but they erode the country’s democratic foundation and often resemble prisons.

School children are interviewed as are high school teachers and administrators, and prison security guards, plus renowned educators and authors including:

Henry Giroux: Author of Stealing Innocence Corporate Culture's War on Children
Mike A. Males: Sociologist, author of Scapegoat Generation
John Gatto: New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year
Judith Browne: Associate Director of the Advancement Project
Dan Losen: The Civil Liberties Project, Harvard University
==============================================================================
The New York Times review:

The War on Kids
November 18, 2009
What Ails Public Schools? Better Ask, What Doesn’t?
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: November 18, 2009

A shocking chronicle of institutional dysfunction, “The War on Kids” likens our public school system to prison and its disciplinary methods to fascism. At least now you know why little Johnny won’t get out of bed in the morning.

Arranged in sections that range from merely interesting to downright horrifying, this provocative documentary suggests a system regulated by fear and motivated by the desire to control. Tracing the evolution and application of zero-tolerance policies on drugs and violence, the director, Cevin Soling, amasses overwhelming evidence of institutional overreaction. When an 8-year-old can be suspended for pointing a chicken finger and saying “Pow,” we know that common sense has officially left the building.

Impassioned interviews with educators, authors and medical professionals — and some very perceptive students — warn of the consequences of surrounding children daily with armed security guards and surveillance cameras.

“They don’t really prevent anything; they just take pictures of it,” says Jessica Botcher, a student at Columbine High School. Those pictures, however, are electrifying: an armed SWAT team terrorizing high school students in South Carolina; a tiny, terrified girl being handcuffed by burly police officers. Offering neither balance nor solutions (a segment on the overuse of medications like Ritalin is especially powerful, but especially in need of counterargument), “The War on Kids” questions what kind of citizens we are producing. Parent or child-free, we all have a dog in that particular fight.

Daniel Parker's Reply to Free Market Anarchism and Private Property

2009-10-23T15:34:00.002-04:00

(Editorial note: This was a response by Daniel Parker to an individual. I've generalized the comment. --Cat)

I'm an anarchist and I completely disagree with this...conception of private property or of reality for that matter. I think [it] conflates private property with possession. I don't think [this perspective recognizes] the fact that private property means 'ownership' over stuff the owner cannot use to the extent that owners become a class by the monopolization of the means of production and this scarcity induces people to become wage slaves, simply because there is no place left for them to go. The Earth is finite and so are its natural resources - considering that we all depend on it for life, that we have all become wage slaves, and that we are all subjected to the consequences of decisions we didn't make but were made for us by hierarchies of bosses, owners, and politicians. It would appear to me that not only should the people affected by decisions be the ones making them, but that the people producing and servicing should be the ones defining the terms of these activities.

I honestly am appalled at the notion that market forces are acceptable for anti-authoritarians and anti-statists to base economic models on.

Even in social anarchism, a person has a right to possession and free association. How agorists, mutualists, capitalists, and other marketeers could ever misconceive of social anarchism to be authoritarian is beyond me - however I have tried sincerely many times to understand it.

Maybe propertarians and marketeers will snort at me, "But no one forces you to work for them!". Well, except for the case of private prisons or other forms of slavery, sure. I'll concede that. But generally you do have to work for someone. And that's what propertarians always like to gloss over, seemingly unaware of the monopolization of productive resources which induces people to submit to wage slavery and the resulting plunder and destruction of natural resources.

If anything, I consider them only to be concerned about the right to make a profit. Profit, of which the fact eludes them that it is distinct and generally disconnected from the cost of production, is something which people historically have gone to great lengths to protect, even using violence, deception, and certain other forms of general malevolence and ill will...(including the creation of states--if I may add. --Cat)

Support the Young Israeli Conscientious Objectors - The Shministim

2009-10-19T20:50:00.015-04:00

Tell Israel to Free the Shministim.

Learn more about the teenage conscientious refusers who call themselves the Shministim.

FBI Arrests and Raids of Twitter Anarchist Activists

2009-10-18T13:28:00.010-04:00

Friends of Tortuga (reprint)

"On October 1st, 2009, at 6:00am, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (a union of local police departments and the FBI), kicked out the front door to our home—an anarchist collective house in Queens, NY, affectionately known as Tortuga.

The FBI spent 16 hours ransacking our house before carting off boxes of our personal belongings, everything from computers, passports and even stuffed animals.

The apparent reason for this predawn raid was the arrest of two members of our household a week earlier in Pennsylvania. Our two friends were arrested and charged with several felonies for sending twitter messages during protests against the G20 in Pittsburgh."

Further information:
Friend's of Tortuga Blog
Twitter Revolution Solidarity Action: Free Elliot Madison! Allow twitter for protests in USA, not just Iran! Set your avatar red & black!
Story Oct. 6, 2009: Attorney: Info sent to G-20 protesters via Twitter was public

Democracy: America’s Oldest Spectator Sport - Noam Chomsky

2009-10-17T13:41:00.002-04:00

Human nature and the study of humans. Intellectual Machines. (1)

2009-10-14T15:47:00.010-04:00

Preface

We are not intellectual machines, but the creators of social reality. We are complex analyzers, and interpreters--each one of us a synthesizer of incoming information into a personal knowledge that interacts with, influences, and is influenced by others who are each doing the same thing and on a variety of levels from person-person to person-culture/group.

These cultures are many, as well. One individual may belong to a larger society, but also many smaller cultures and subcultures of subcultures. I am a person, but also a female, white/brown/yellow/red, considered beautiful or not, smart or not, old or young (and maybe all of these things in varied circumstances and by different groups). I may be a student or a scientist and each of these memberships, itself, results in still more subgroups, ingroups, and outgroups. Each group and subgroup has its own culture that creates a social reality. What is relevant and salient and useful to one may not be to another.

Human nature and the study of humans - a work in progress. Read at your own risk.

2009-10-14T13:07:00.016-04:00

Warning to readers: I am a messy writer and thinker. My world is a chaos of larger pictures lost and found as I muddle around looking at the smaller pictures, while also losing and finding them. I contradict myself and back up to correct, forget half the evidence and can't seem to get all my ideas down in an orderly or comprehensive enough fashion to feel comfortable. I forget much of what I, myself, know on any given day and have to refer back to what I write to find out. This leaves even less room for remembering all the details of the evidence or the ideas of thinkers who've influenced me. I am more like a process than a destination. I write in fragments of ideas. I will experiment with trying to write, anyway.

1. Intellectual Machines

Everything is OK

2009-10-12T22:45:00.013-04:00

"The only chains that exist are in your mind."

This is wonderful, hilarious, and full of great stuff! "I am not protesting, I am just speaking through a megaphone. And what I do is give people like you hugs." "Capitalism is a wonderful system. Okay, a few billion people get nothing. But still, think of all the people that get lots." "Everything is OK." "Please go back to your jobs."

"You were born free. You will live free. You will die free. You're allowed to make a scene. You're allowed to scream for joy. You're allowed to complain. You're allowed to cry. You're allowed to love people. You're allowed to hug people. And we're starting to live in a world where we're starting to feel scared. We're starting to forget just how divine and special we are as human beings. Every single one of you is the only example of you that will ever exist. And there is not a single authority in this world who can tell you how to behave at any time, any place, anywhere. You are free. You will live free. You will die free. The only chains that exist are in your mind."

Playing for Change - War/No More Trouble

2009-10-11T21:50:00.004-04:00

Playing For Change | "War/No More Trouble" - Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

playingforchange.com - As we made our way around the world we encountered love, hate, rich and poor, black and white, and many different religious groups and ideologies. It became very clear that as a human race we need to transcend from the darkness to the light and music is our weapon of the future. This song around the world features musicians who have seen and overcome conflict and hatred with love and perseverance. We don't need more trouble, what we need is love. The spirit of Bob Marley always lives on.

This is the fourth Song Around The World video released from the CD/DVD Playing For Change: Songs Around The World and the follow up to the classics "Stand By Me," "One Love" and "Don't Worry." This unforgettable track was performed by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.

Sign up at playingforchange.com for updates and exclusive content. You can also buy cool stuff in our new online store!

Join the Playing for Change Online Street Team.

Join the movement to help inspire people from around the world to come together through music.

Andrej Grubacic 'Wobblies & Zapatistas'

2009-10-01T19:47:00.001-04:00

Andrej Grubacic - Wobblies and Zapatistas from Jamie LeJeune on Vimeo.

Operation 'Hey Mackey!'

2009-10-01T12:43:00.004-04:00

I am really liking the idea of protests that involve dancing.

Operation Hey Mackey! - Whole Foods, Oakland from Jamie LeJeune on Vimeo.

short-cuts to happiness

2009-09-28T13:23:00.005-04:00

THIS VIDEO IS FIXED! (11-25-09)

"Great dancers aren't great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion. There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them."

RESIST! on Oct. 6th - We Are Not Your Soldiers - High-School Resistance

2009-09-28T01:03:00.007-04:00

Oct 6th will be a National Day to Resist Military Recruiters for high-school students. Iraqi Veterans Against the War and World Can't Wait invite you to be seen on your high-school campus along with students on campuses across the country on October 6th to resist military recruiters. For more information visit WeAreNotYourSoldiers.Org.

No matter where you are, you have a voice! Whether we resist military recruiters has everything to do with the future we’ll get.

On Tuesday, October 6 students can:

* Wear an orange bandanna or ribbon (the color against torture and war) to show there's a movement
* Show a film of Iraq veterans telling about the war crimes the US military committed. Invite anti-war veterans to talk to your class or assembly. WeAreNotYourSoldiers.org
* Confront military recruiters at your school or in the mall, telling them why you refuse to sign up, so that other students hear your side.
* Protest at a military recruiting office and call the media to let them know why.

things along the way

Operation Walking Man

#Anonymous Message to #Occupy Police

Mario Savio's "put your bodies upon the gears" address -- UC Berkeley, Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

WW II Vets Occupy Wall Street

The one demand: "what really matters is not a what at all, but a how"

Wall Street occupiers inch toward a demand—by living it

CONSENSUS!

We Are the 99%

Alienation

freereality.org

What Ethan McCord saw when he rescued the children...

While we were shopping...

Anorexic women targeted by ‘super-skinny’ porn websites

Radical Feminist Seminar in Boston on June 25 – 26, 2011

MARCH 26TH: MEET THE ANARCHISTS

Egypt Supports Wisconsin - One World One Pain

Underheard in New York

Homeless People Start Tweeting in New Awareness Initiative

Instructions For Obtaining Dial-Up Internet In Egypt [PLEASE REPOST!]

by Operation Egypt on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 10:14am

Egypt - Revolution

300 migrants on Hunger Strike in the Athens

Message from Egypt - People Don't Need Leaders to be Civilized

Anonymous - Operation EGYPT DDoS Attack Instructions

The Love Police

Best George Carlin - Teach Children to Question Everything

Debra Sweet: Why I Oppose a Grand Jury Investigation of Anti-War Activists

Two videos detail two different ways police across USA are ignoring rape.

Got humanity?

Kiva Lending Team: Anarchists for Empowerment

I don't know...

"Corrective" Rape

WikiLeaks: Texas Company Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops

Is this freedom?

Hypocrisy as a Way of Life

Toxic Culture

Is the western world more advanced in its attitudes toward women?

NPR Interview with Ariel Levy (3 part video)

Howard Zinn on Civil Disobedience

The AntiPorn Men Project Launches

The End of Poverty?

This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons

Why the Feds Fear Thinkers Like Howard Zinn By Chris Hedges

Business

Spanish Anarchists Interview Exiled Kurdish Anarchists

Corporate Power, Politics, War, and Greed: Designs by Heather Ault

Gaza Freedom Graffiti in the Warsaw Ghetto

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

CHRIS HEDGES' COLUMNS

This Country Needs a Few Good Communists

Posted on May 31, 2010

AP / Petros GiannakourisThe Greeks Get ItHere’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out.Posted on May 24, 2010

The Greeks Get It

Posted on May 24, 2010

Human - The Killers

Online Video Lectures and Classes in Marxian Theory by Richard D. Wolff, UMass Amherst

Obama Summed up on The Daily Show

National Feminist Antipornography Conference 2007 Selected Speakers

Teen Poetry Slam

Quote from: The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception

Commodification of Sexuality

The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships

European Bureau for Conscientious Objection

Capitalism Hits the Fan: A Marxian View (Airdate May 8th - see below)

Airdates

Peace of the Anarchy: Ammon Hennacy and Other Angelic Troublemakers

The Yes Men

Media Education Foundation

Consuming KidsThe Commercialization of Childhood

Generation MMisogyny in Media & Culture

Tough Guise (Unabridged)Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity

Killing Us SoftlyAdvertising's Image of Women

Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Politics

Documentary featuring Tom Ferguson, Noam Chomsky and other prominent thinkers...

How Capitalism Constructs Reality for Children

COVER GIRL CULTURE - Trailer

Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession With Thinness

Mario Savio's "put your bodies upon the gears" address...

"The Crisis in Greece", a 1-hour discussion on Steal This Radio 105

AP / Petros Giannakouris
The Greeks Get It
Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out.
Posted on May 24, 2010

Consuming Kids
The Commercialization of Childhood

Generation M
Misogyny in Media & Culture

Tough Guise (Unabridged)
Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity

Killing Us Softly
Advertising's Image of Women