Radical media, politics and culture.

Anonymous Comrade writes:"This important discussion going on at Infoshop.org at the moment. The link at the bottom will take you there.


The Sad Decline of Indymedia


by Chuck0

for Infoshop News


It was a great idea when the Independent Media Center opened up its first website for the Seattle anti-WTO protests in December 1999. The first IMC website came out of years of alternative and grassroots media activism. By a strange quirk of fate, the Seattle IMC also included something called the "open newswire," an experiment that allowed every reader to be a reporter, if they wanted to get involved in DIY, participatory media production. The IMC network recently observed its 3rd anniversary and the 100th IMC went online, but the IMC project is facing some serious problems which, if they aren't addressed by the supporters of the IMC network, will eventually destroy the wonderful idea that is Indymedia.


There are some that would argue that the Indymedia network needs a stronger organization to address its current and persistent problems. This may be somewhat true, but those of us who have pressed for reforms find ourselves at the mercy of a network of people who are afraid to step forward and make tough decisions. It might help if there were some more organized processes, but I see the chief problem with Indymedia these days to be a political one, not an organizational or technical problem.


Read the rest of this article."

hydrarchist writes:

The following is a dialogue with Anne DuFourmantelle from Negri's recently published "Abecedaire Politique" (Calmann-Levy 2002), and was translated by Thomas Seay.

"B" as in Red Brigade [Brigades Rouges]


Toni Negri: One should be careful not to think of the
Red Brigade as the sum-total of the 70s movement; nor
should one think of that movement as set off in
historical parentheses, an absolutely isolated,
singular separate phenomena. In reality, the movement
was rather a trajectory, a common route taken by a
large part of my generation. There are still people --
some of them ingenuous, but more often stupid -- who
continue to present me as chief of the Red Brigade,
the malevolent brain behind the organization. Being a
professor and political activist or, better yet,
university professor and communist could mean none
other than that: the bad-boy teacher, cattivo
maestro.
It's a source of consternation.

hydrarchist writes:

The following is a dialogue with
Anne DuFourmantelle from Negri's recently published "Abecedaire Politique" (Calmann-Levy 2002), and was translated by Thomas Seay.


E as in Empire


Anne DuFourmantelle: What can you tell us about the
concept of Empire that you developed with Michael
Hardt?


Toni Negri: Our work together has been most of all a
work on linguistic clarification. Indeed, the word
"Empire" might seem ambiguous. It immediately
appeared in political and journalistic vocabularies
and rapidly became static. Nevertheless, by "Empire"
we intend something very precise: the transfer of
sovereignty from Nation-states to a superior entity.
This transfer has almost always been understood in
terms of an "internal analogy", that is to say, as if
Empire were implicitly a nation-state the size of the
world.

Anonymous Comrade writes "


Struggle against Value in a Swedish Hamburger Restaurant
[prol-position]

[Marcel, member of Kämpa Tillsammans/Sweden]][1]


This text has two goals. The first is to try to create an interest in the daily ongoing class struggle that is waged everyday in every workplace. I will try to show that something as completely unglamorous and ordinary as working at a restaurant, or rather the small hidden struggles that are waged against wage labour there, is part of the communist movement. [2] The other goal is to show that theoretical notions like capital, communism, use value and exchange value are not something abstract and academic, but rather something concrete that influence our lives and which we in turn influence.



Making hamburgers

My last job was at a privately owned hamburger restaurant. Although the restaurant didn't belong to any multinational company like McDonalds or Burgerking, it was quite big and was open every day in the week, only being closed between 7 and 10 in the morning. Most of the people who worked there were teenagers or people like me in their twenties, mainly girls. The majority had another job or went to school at while they were working at the restaurant. People came and went all the time. They didn't cope with the work conditions or they thought that the wage was too lousy. The majority of the staff were employed illegally and you had to work more than a year to get an ordinary contract and an ordinary wage. Before that, you were an apprentice with a much lower wage. Being an apprentice also meant that the boss could give you the sack whenever he felt like it. Most of the people who worked there chose not to work at the restaurant for more than a couple of months. We were all constantly looking for other jobs or other ways to get money.

"Misinformation About Iraq

A Fantastical Future, Predicted by the Terminally Disengaged"

By Edward Said, Counterpunch, December 3, 2002

The flurry of reports, leaks, and misinformation about the looming US war against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq continues unabated. It is impossible to know, however, how much of this is a brilliantly managed campaign of psychological war against Iraq, how much the public floundering of a government uncertain about its next step. In any event, I find it as possible to believe that there will be a war as that there will not. Certainly the sheer belligerency of the verbal assaults on the average citizen are unprecedented in their ferocity, with the result that very little is totally certain about what is actually taking place. No one can independently confirm the various troop and navy movements reported on a daily basis, and given the lurching opacity of his thinking, George W Bush's real intentions are difficult to read. But that the whole world is concerned -- indeed, deeply anxious -- about the catastrophic chaos that will ensue after another Afghanistan-like air campaign against the people of Iraq, of that there is little doubt.

"Sibling Rivalry, Bretton Woods, IMF and the World Bank"

Henry C.K. Liu

The so-called Bretton Woods twins: the IMF and the World Bank, because
of recent noises made by Stiglitz, appeared to be at odds in their
policy focus. But this is mere sibling rivalry.

hydrarchist writes Welcome to Part 2


Moral Economy definition

What was Thompson's moral economy then, and how did it relate to the food riots? What were its' features and can we identify the same sorts of ideas into modern history? This 'Moral economy' theses is perhaps the most well known formulation of the social crime debate. In particular it speaks of the relationship between the rulers and capitalists, and the people within certain types of crowd.

Tension Collective writes:

Here is some anarchist anti-war propaganda that anarchists in New Orleans have distributed hundreds of. Distribute at will.

Fuck the war! Steve Stuart, Tension Collective

RESIST THE WAR! RESIST BUSH!

Once again the government is beating the drums of war calling us to kill people in far away countries. So are we supposed to just get in line and salute the flag? Or should
we take the more courageous path, the path of resistance? Most people in America are unconvinced by the President's (make no mistake, he is not "our" president) rhetoric
about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's supposed plots to use them to attack the US.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"Don't Trust Anybody, Not Even Us!"

A Brief History of Czech Anarchism

The motto in the title, attributed to the anarchists of the 20th century,
is typical for the anarchist movement in Bohemia, not only in the
way that it warns against considering anarchism as a dogma.
Czech anarchists also propheticly warned against themselves. The
history of Czech anarchism is a history of a development of
libertarian radicals, who left their ideas and moved into high policy
posts, or became propagandists of the Bolshevik totalitarian
ideology. And even after the revival of the anarchist movement we
can see how the movement politicizes and forms stable
organizations, at the other hand also its cutting-off into activistic
ghettos. The history of the Czech anarchism isn't just black and
white -- and that way perhaps more interesting and instructive.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"November 26, 2002

The War Against Reason


Harold Pinter's anti-war speech (delivered in House of Commons)

There‚s an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After he had taken the Irish
town of Drogheda the citizens were brought to the main square. Cromwell
announced to his lieutenants: "Right! Kill all the women and rape all
the men." One of his aides said: "Excuse me, general. Isn't it the other
way around?" A voice from the crowd called out: "Mr Cromwell knows what
he's doing."

That voice is the voice of Tony Blair - "Mr Bush knows what he's doing."

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