Radical media, politics and culture.

"Lefty" Hooligan writes "

TOWARD A MAXIMUM

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT


Are you outraged with the US government's arrogant practice of policing the rest of the world, yet are you leery of having your outrage exploited b y obsolete Leftists for their own bankrupt agendas? Are you pissed off that the US military is once again bullying tiny Third World countries and preparing to slaughter innocent civilians, yet are you hesitant to give any credibility to the Paleolithic Left's claims to leading a mass anti-war movement? Are you disgusted with America's imperial business-as-usual, yet are you also bored to tears with the Left's protest-politics-as-usual? There's a simple, do-it-yourself alternative that effectively challenges the US government's military adventurism while denying the fossilized Left its organizing and leadership pretensions. This strategy is based on the idea that thousands of grains of sand can cause even the largest, most powerful machine to grind to a halt by becoming wedged in the gears and stuck between sensitive parts to gum up the works. The goal of this alternative strategy is to put our anti-war activism and movement to maximum effect.

Anonymous Comrade writes "WHY NOT SHOW OFF ABOUT THE BEST THINGS? A Few Quick Notes on Social Conflict in Italy and the Metaphors Used to Describe It (*)

A match used to show off like this:

- I'm able to set a barn on fire! I can set fire to a petrol tank, the seat of a ministry, an Etruscan museum, whatever!

- Why not just say you're able to light the gas and boil the soup?

We always show off about the worst things.

Gianni Rodari, "Minimal Fables"

A tradition

Some people have called the Italian insurgence of 2000-02 "la Primavera dei movimenti", the Springtime of Movements. That is also the title of a video documentary that was sold in newsstands enclosed with L'Unità daily paper.

In 1969 the biggest struggles of factory workers were described as "Autunno caldo", the Hot Autumn. Recently, it is quite normal to hear such comments as: "It's like the Hot Autumn!" or "It's the Hot Autumn again!".

James John Bell writes:

"Emblazoned within a circle, the words "Scientia Est Potentia"—knowledge is power—are inscribed underneath the familiar all-seeing-eye pyramid that dwarfs a round Earth, while bathing it in fiery light from its eyeball.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"America's Pathetic Liberals"

By John Chuckman, YellowTimes.org, Canada

You might think from the way the progressive press laments Al Gore's decision not to run for President again that there had been a genuine loss to liberalism in America.

But that's not quite the way I see it. Although few candidates ever came better groomed for high office than Mr. Gore, it is his performance in the 2000 presidential election that must be lamented.

hydrarchist writes:

This is Part II of "The Perverse Perseverance of Sovereignty" by Anthony Burke. You can find the first part here.


40. Yet we can reasonably ask whether this subject is so ripe for fruition, or whether the continued operation of modern technologies of sovereignty and identity might not be in danger of crippling its emergence; likewise we can ask whether in order to liberate the multitude we need to continue to critique and fight modern sovereignty, to fight its hold on subjectivity, its violence, and its complex enabling relationship with global capital. Only then can we begin to grapple with the irony William Connolly identifies: 'the more global capital becomes, the more aggressive the state is with respect to citizen allegiances and actions'. (1995: 135) In short, the teleological metaphor is the wrong one. We need instead to think in terms of a strategic coexistence of imperial and modern ontology whose objectives are somatic and spatial: the control and production of bodies, land and space as a necessary (but not always umbilical) adjunct to the flow and exploitation of capital.


Tactical Sovereignty: Post-Soeharto Indonesia


41. Contemporary Indonesia certainly provides one of the most stark examples of the work of Empire, but it is also an example of the perseverance of sovereignty. Pressed to open its capital markets during the 1990s, and long influenced by the liberal development advice of the World Bank (which chaired the aid consortium the Consultative Group on Indonesia), tens of billions of short-term capital flooded in during the 1990s, much of which was channelled into property and sharemarket speculation and the corrupt business practices of the Soeharto family and other cronies. Such capital account liberalisation, with its complex interrelationship with currency speculation, corruption and political crisis, was a major factor in the terrible crash of 1997-8. (Robison et. al. 2000; Bello et. al. 2000)

I usually reject submissions like this one. Crackpot, delusional ideas that might be great in sci-fi novels. Ignoring the lack of reality and the authors taking themselves way too seriously, I gave in and decided to post this one. --U.F.


Anonymous writes "Why was the World Trade Centre at least twice chosen as a target to be attacked? It probably was perceived as a symbol of America's pride, success, arrogance and capitalism and the Towers were by their sheer size and shape easy to hit. It could be a grave mistake to recreate such a challenge by building another high-rise, that would be perceived to symbolise the above all over again.


Instead we could build something which is a living testimonial to what happened and which symbolises the value of internationalism and becomes an icon for a desire to learn from what happened and to prevent a repeat. A beacon of hope for the future.



The CUBE.
Imagine a super giant CUBE, as transparent as possible, with many cubes inside it, which perform/enable different functions 24 hours a day. Each inside cube ought to have a 100% international orientation. There could be cubes dedicated to the visual and performing arts, books, travel, clothing, body culture, health, sex, music, food and drink, furniture & housing, religion & rituals, government systems, law practices, sports, entertainment etc. Perhaps even include a hotel facility from one to three star rating.

dr.woooo posts a long essay, in two parts. The second part can be found here.

"The Perverse Perseverance of Sovereignty"

Anthony Burke,
University of Adelaide

1. It's a familiar story: the withering away of the state under globalisation, or if not so much the state, the withering away of a certain idea and formation of sovereignty. A sovereignty that no longer possesses the fullness and power of its Westphalian ideal: a bounded territorial realm in which national authority is absolute, which provides a representative and political principle through which states and their people can manage and control the forces that affect their lives. With the increasing globalisation of capital and trade, the growth of supranational regimes of economic governance such as the WTO, the interventionist zeal of the World Bank and the IMF, and the might and influence of the transnational corporation, sovereignty appears to be a thing of the past - the nostalgic ghost of a world transformed.

2. Such views, with more or less sophistication, are visible across the political continuum. We can recall the Economist's stunning headline of 1986, 'The nation-state is dead', or point to the respected critical scholar of globalisation, Jan Aart Scholte, who maintains that, even while 'the state apparatus survives' and 'is more intrusive in social life than before…the core Westphalian norm of sovereignty is no longer operative'. (Economist 1995/6; Scholte 1999: 21) Even one of the most intriguing and profound discussions of globalisation in recent years, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's book Empire, falls prey to this logic. 'The passage to Empire', they write, 'emerges from the twilight of modern sovereignty'. (2000: xii)

Anonymous Comrade writes "Mike Alewitz is a mural artist. This piece is a brief for the use of mural art in building the labor movement. In it he recounts historical instances of the close relation between art and politics in the U.S.. Alewitz recently produced a "coffeetable" book of his work called "Insurgent Images" (Monthly Review Press 2002) which combines his mural images with photos of demonstrations, showing the clear context of organizing within which his work is made.


Art Can Help Create a New Labor Movement

The following article is based on a speech by Mike Alewitz, Artistic
Director of the Labor Art and Mural Project (LAMP.) It was delivered
to the Collective Bargaining Convention (CBC) of the American Association
of University Professors (AAUP.) The convention took place in
Washington DC, on December 6. 2002.

__________________________________________________

This meeting takes place at a critical juncture in history. The US
government stands poised to launch a horrible new war against the
people of Iraq. Actually "war" is something of a misnomer - that term
implies the capability of both sides to inflict damage. This is really going to be a massive bombing campaign and invasion of a virtually defenseless country.

The war is occurring in conjunction with serious new assaults on
working people here at home. It's going to create some big changes in
this country. It's going to change the labor movement, and force us
to confront who we are and where we come from.

We are going to have to relearn some lost traditions. One of those
traditions is using art and culture as a method of struggle. Art can
help create a new labor movement. As we discuss this tonight, I am
going to use slides of murals and banners from recent projects to
illustrate these ideas.

hydrarchist writes:


Here is the last of a set of three articles on Sex from the anarchist journal Organize. The previous two were "Interview with An Anarchist Dominatrix" and "Interview with the International Union of Sex Workers".


Anarchism and Sex

Safe, Free, Diverse and Consensual


Within the broader anarchist movement,
attitudes to sex and sexuality tend to be pretty varied.


Anarchist views on sex can range from the
idea that `anything goes' between
consenting adults, to the more traditional
approaches of what constitutes free
love between individuals. One thing these
diverse opinions do have in common,
however, is the idea of sexual freedom and
the opposition to sexual exploitation.
Nevertheless, being pro sexual freedom
and anti sexual exploitation is open to
wide interpretation and can encompass
diverse, and sometimes conflicting,
analyses from one anarchist to the next.

hydrarchist writes:


This essay was published in the most recent New Left Review.

"New Revolts Against the System"

Immanuel Wallerstein

I coined the term "antisystemic movement" in the 1970s in order to have a formulation that would group together what had,
historically and analytically, been two distinct and in many ways rival kinds of popular movement -- those that went under the
name "social", and those that were "national". Social movements were conceived primarily as socialist parties and trade unions;
they sought to further the class struggle within each state against the bourgeoisie or the employers. National movements were
those which fought for the creation of a national state, either by combining separate political units that were considered
to be part of one nation -- as, for example, in Italy -- or by seceding from states considered imperial and oppressive by the nationality
in question; colonies in Asia or Africa, for instance.

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