Radical media, politics and culture.
March 6, 2006 - 5:41pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Gender

Anarchafeminist Manifesto

8 March, International Women's Day, is a specially relevant day to remember the Anarchafeminist Manifesto.


The origin of the Anarchafeminist Manifesto is in Norway. The Anarchafeminist Manifesto is the summary of the feminist political program unanimously agreed upon by the third congress of the Anarchist Federation of Norway, 1–7 of June 1982. The manifesto was first published in Norwegian in Folkebladet (IJA) no 1 1983 pp. 4–5. Soon after the "Manifesto" was published in CRIFA-Bulletin no 44 mars–avril 1983 in French (p. 12) and English (p. 13). Later on the French version was used as the basis for a translation to English that was published on the Internet. The "Manifesto" is also translated to other languages.

Anarchafeminst greetings from Anna Quist, co-writer of the "Anarchafeminst Manifesto." Translated from French (Bulletin C.R.I.F.A. No 44 mars–avril 1983 p. 12).

All over the world most women have no rights whatsoever to decide upon important matters which concern their lives. Women suffer from oppressions of two kinds: 1) the general social oppression of the people, and 2) secondly sexism — oppression and discrimination because of their sex.

There are five main forms of oppression:

— Ideological oppression, brainwash by certain cultural traditions, religion, advertising and propaganda. Manipulation with concepts and play upon women's feelings and susceptibilities. Widespread patriarchal and authoritarian attitudes and capitalistic mentality in all areas.


— State oppression, hierarchical forms of organization with command lines downwards from the top in most interpersonal relations, also in the so-called private life.


— Economic exploitation and repression, as a consumer and a worker in the home and in low-salary women's jobs.


— Violence, under the auspices of the society as well as in the private sphere — indirectly when there is coercion because of lack of alternatives and direct physical violence.


— Lack of organization, tyranny of the structurelessness which pulverizes responsibility and creates weakness and inactivity.


These factors work together and contribute simultaneously to sustain each other in a vicious circle. There is no panacea to break the circle, but it isn't unbreakable.


Anarcha-feminism is a matter of consciousness. The consciousness which puts guardians off work. The principles of a liberating society thus stand perfectly clear to us.


Anarcha-feminism means women's independence and freedom on an equal footing with men. A social organization and a social life where no-one is superior or inferior to anyone and everybody is coordinate, women as well as men. This goes for all levels of social life, also the private sphere.


Anarcha-feminism implies that women themselves decide and take care of their own matters, individually in personal matters, and together with other women in matters which concern several women. In matters which concern both sexes essentially and concretely women and men shall decide on an equal footing.


Women must have self-decision over their own bodies, and all matters concerning contraception and childbirth are to be decided upon by women themselves.


It must be fought both individually and collectively against male domination, attitudes of ownership and control over women, against repressive laws and for women's economic and social autonomy and independence.


Crisis centers, day care centers, study and discussion groups, women's culture activities etc. must be established, and be run under womens's own direction.


The traditional patriarchal nuclear family should be replaced by free associations between men and women based on equal right to decide for both parts and with respect for the individual person's autonomy and integrity.


Sex-stereotyping in education, media and at the place of work must be abolished. Radical sharing of the work by the sexes in ordinary jobs, domestic life and education is a suitable mean.


The structure of working life must be radically changed, with more part-time work and flat organized cooperation at home as well as in society. The difference between men's work and women's work must be abolished. Nursing and taking care of the children must concern men just as much as women.


Female power and female prime ministers will neither lead the majority of women to their ends nor abolish oppression. Marxist and bourgeoisie feminists are misleading the fight for women's liberation. For most women it is not going to be any feminism without anarchism. In other words, anarcha-feminism does not stand for female power or female prime ministers, it stands for organization without power and without prime ministers.


The double oppression of women demands a double fight and double organizing: on the one hand in feminist federations, on the other hand in the organizations of anarchists. The anarcha-feminists form a junction in this double organizing.


A serious anarchism must also be feminist otherwise it is a question of patriarchal half-anarchism and not real anarchism. It is the task of the anarcha-feminists to secure the feminist feature in anarchism. There will be no anarchism without feminism.


An essential point in anarcha-feminism is that the changes must begin today, not tomorrow or after the revolution. The revolution shall be permanent. We must start today by seeing through the oppression in the daily life and do something to break the pattern here and now.


We must act autonomously, without delegating to any leaders the right to decide what we wish and what we shall do: we must make decisions all by ourselves in personal matters, together with other women in pure female matters, and together with the male fellows in common matters.

March 2, 2006 - 10:22am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

NOT BORED! writes: "You'd think the translator of a text that shows that people can't understand texts that have passages left out of them would NOT leave any passages out of his/her translation. But Ken Knabb may not be as good a translator as we'd like to think, because he failed to translate a full third of the situationists' crucial essay "How Not To Understand Situationist Books"!

"How Situationist Books Are Not Understood" [1]

Unattributed (Guy Debord?)
Translated by Not Bored!

If the action led by the SI had not involved several consequences that were publically scandalous and threatening, it is beyond doubt that no French publication would have reviewed our recent books. Which was naively confessed by Francois Chatelet in Le Nouvel Observateur for 3 January 1969: "Confronted with similar works, the first sentiment is to purely and simply exclude them, let them have the absolute point of view where they place themselves in the absolute, exactly, in the non-relative, in the non-related." But as a result of letting us have the non-related, the organizers of the conspiracy of silence have, after several years, seen this strange "absolute" fall upon their heads and show itself as not being distinct from current history, from which they are absolutely separated; without being able to prevent this "old mole" from making its way towards the day.[2]

March 2, 2006 - 10:10am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

"Rachel Corrie, A Message Crushed Again"

Katharine Viner, Los Angeles Times

Three years after American activist Rachel Corrie died under an
Israeli bulldozer in Gaza, her words are being censored for political
reasons.

The flights for cast and crew had been booked; the production
schedule delivered; there were tickets advertised on the Internet.
The Royal Court Theatre production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," the
play I co-edited with Alan Rickman, was transferring later this month
to the New York Theatre Workshop, home of the musical "Rent,"
following two sold-out runs in London and several awards.


We always felt passionately that it was a piece of work that needed
to be seen in the United States. Created from the journals and
e-mails of American activist Rachel Corrie, telling of her journey
from her adolescence in Olympia, Wash., to her death under an Israeli
bulldozer in Gaza at the age of 23, we considered it a unique
American story that would have a particular relevance for audiences
in Rachel's home country. After all, she had made her journey to the
Middle East in order "to meet the people who are on the receiving end
of our [American] tax dollars," and she was killed by a U.S.-made
bulldozer while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes.


But last week the New York Theatre Workshop canceled the production —
or, in its words, "postponed it indefinitely." The political climate,
we were told, had changed dramatically since the play was booked. As
James Nicola, the theater's 's artistic director, said Monday,
"Listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that
after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas in the recent
Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation." Three years
after being silenced for good, Rachel was to be censored for
political reasons.

February 28, 2006 - 12:28pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Independent Media

The Cuban Five

Noam Chomsky, ZNet

After a recent screening of "Mission Against Terror", a new film documentary about the Cuban Five, Noam Chomsky answered questions from the audience. For more information on the on-going case of the Cuban Five, visit www.freethefive.org.

Woman: Since we are in the business of torture, and the country has swung very far to the right, what are the realistic chances of getting a fair trial for the five?


Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all it is not really true that the country has swung far to the right. Though the press systematically refuses to report it, there are extensive public opinion studies taken in the United States. We know a great deal about public opinion, and I can give you some detail if you like. But what the studies shows, consistently, is that both political parties and the media are far to the right of the public on issue after issue, on a host of issues.


To give one example, the Federal Budget came out yesterday and today. Well there hasn't been time yet for a study of public attitude towards this budget, but it's about the same as the budget that came out a year ago, February 2005. Right after that the most prestigious institute that studies public opinion in the world, based in the University of Maryland, carried out a study of what people thought the budget ought to be, okay. And it was very striking. It was the exact inverse of the budget. Where federal spending was going up, the public wanted to go down: military spending, supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan; where spending was going down, the public wanted to go up: social spending, health, education, veteran's benefits, renewable energy, support of the United Nations peacekeeping missions, on and on.


Furthermore, they were an overwhelming majority; and the scale of cutback and rises…. increases the public wanted, were enormous. Well, in a democratic society, one of the things you want to know is what your neighbor thinks. I mean if each person says "look, I am some kind of a lunatic, everything I read is something else," you are not going to get a functioning democracy. So we, therefore, want to know what happened to this information. I am willing to bet that almost none of you saw it. The reason is it was not published in a single newspaper in the United States, at least a single newspaper that's accessed by the stadard database. Well, okay, so people don't know about it. I suspect the same is true of this budget. And you'll probably have the same study and the same suppression.


So it just isn't true, I mean there is case after case like this, it's just not true that the population has swung to the right. The government has, the parties have, the media have, the public hasn't. And does that mean they can get a fair trial? Well, yeah, I tend to agree with Leonard Weinglass on that, it's possible. Not in Miami, of course. But can you get fair coverage of it? Well, that's really up to people like us. If there are delegations at the Boston Globe day after day saying why don't you publish some of this stuff, then chances are it'll get published. It's the same elsewhere. If there is public engagement and involvement, things change, otherwise, they don't. They'll keep drifting to the right, and the public will be somewhere else, with a huge gap between public opinion and public policy. It's startling, in fact, when you look at it.

February 28, 2006 - 11:14am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Prisons & Prisoners

Al D. writes:

"The Green Scare:
Memory Against Foregetting"

Al D, for Rebel Cascadia

"The struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." —Milan Kundera

Two weeks ago I found my name on a government list regarding the current "Green Scare," also known as the FBI's "Operation Backfire" against the grassroots ecology and animal movements.

The mysterious "No Contact" list contains the names of many radical, wonderful people—the people that perhaps would be the most outspoken in their support of those charged in this case—and for some unknown reason these people are supposedly banned from communicating with the defendants. I have tried to find out exactly what the list means, yet I've found no solid answers, but instead a general sense of paranoia, confusion and unease. I've come to view this ridiculous list as symbolic of the whole Green Scare campaign. Check it out here.


The U.S. government excels at dropping down on people's lives like a ton of bricks, and of course that's what it has done with this witch hunt. In the last couple months, it has incarcerated or otherwise hammered many amazing radicals, thereby traumatizing them, their friends, families, and movements. Federal prosecutors have also set a new standard for potential sabotage penalties: life in jail plus, oh, say, about 300 years.

February 28, 2006 - 11:00am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
The State

"Rumsfeld Zeros In on the Internet"

Mike Whitney, Informatin Clearing House

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was warmly greeted at the recent meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR is the hand-picked assemblage of western elites from big-energy, corporate media, high-finance and the weapons industry. These are the 4,000 or so members of the American ruling class who determine the shape of policy and ensure that the management of the global economic system remains in the hands of U.S. bluebloods.


As the Pentagon’s chief-coordinator, Rumsfeld enjoys a prominent place among American mandarins. He is the caretaker of their most prized possession; the high-tech, taxpayer-funded, laser-guided war machine. The US Military is the crown-jewel of the American empire; a fully-operational security apparatus for the protection of pilfered resources and the ongoing subjugation of the developing world.


Rumsfeld’s speech alerted his audience to the threats facing America in the new century.


He opined: “We meet today in the 6th year in what promises to be a long struggle against an enemy that in many ways is unlike any our country has ever faced. And, in this war, some of the most critical battles may not be in the mountains in Afghanistan or in the streets of Iraq, but in newsrooms—in places like New York, London, Cairo, and elsewhere.”

“New York”?

February 27, 2006 - 1:51pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Mainstream Media

"Capital Ideas:

Jacques Attali, Banker and Champion of Marx"

Stuart Jeffries, London Guardian

Jacques Attali has changed. When he was the special economic adviser to François Mitterrand in the 1980s, his name was a byword for pomp. In the Elysée Palace, Mitterrand had the most coveted office, but Attali had the best desk, one that had been designed for Napoleon. Mitterrand may have been the French president, critics said, but Attali — for all the brilliant banker's socialist credentials — had the airs of an emperor. He is even Napoleonically short.


That reputation followed Attali to London, where, in 1991, he became the first president of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and sparked controversy by lavishly marbling the halls of its headquarters. Critics suggested that the £750,000 makeover would have been better spent on the bank's founding purpose — namely to ease former Soviet Bloc countries' transition to capitalism by supplying small businesses with loans. Under Attali, though, the EBRD got a reputation for being the bank that liked to to say "yes" — to itself. He left early in 1993, trailing a reputation for profligacy.

February 27, 2006 - 7:20am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
In the Streets

The following is an article published as a feature on Indymedia Ireland, reposted for its lucidity in the moment when the proverbial 'carnival of reaction' is in full swing. To read the accompanying comments, check the original article.

Dublin Riots: What Happened and Why

by Indy Photographer - 1 of Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group


A political analysis of the Dublin riots and why nobody saw them coming

I, like almost everybody I know, didn't predict the events of Saturday. In fact the only person I know who did predict a major riot was a friend of mine who happens to hail from the wee North - in retrospect I should have realised that he had his finger on the pulse, for not only does he have much more experience of sectarian marches, but through his job he knows many of the people who were involved and has an unusual insight and sympathy for those people who most Dubliners write off as 'scumbags' and 'knackers'. This article is an analysis of what happened and why almost everybody got it so wrong. This article is a companion piece to the photo essay which I published yesterday.

February 26, 2006 - 8:39pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
The State

"Eat, Drink And Be Merry, For Tomorrow..."

Philip Greenspan, Swans

The sole superpower's economic condition continues to deteriorate to levels that can only presage major problems ahead. The once number one creditor has now descended to the number one debtor. Last year's trade deficit hit an all-time high of $725.8 billion. The savings rate — there ain't none — has become negative, at minus 0.5 percent. Americans are now digging into their capital or are borrowing more heavily, spending $42 billion more than they earn. Only twice before in the depths of the depression, 1932 and 1933, did the savings rate become negative for an entire year. Bankruptcies rose to an all time high. The federal deficit with the increasing wartime expenses keeps soaring as well, now exceeding eight trillion dollars.

February 26, 2006 - 7:02pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
The State

The Circle of Greed: Who Wants to be a Congressman?

Mark Faulk, The Faulking Truth


Call it what you want. Naked short selling. StockGate. Fail to delivers. Stock counterfeiting. Financial terrorism. By any other name, it’s still the same thing. Fraud. Millions of Americans being robbed by hedge funds and multi-millionaires utilizing loopholes built into our stock market system.


This is no longer news. No one in Congress can claim plausible deniability, no one in the SEC can say that is doesn’t exist. The White House, and even President Bush himself, can no longer claim ignorance when it comes to the financial raping of our country that has driven thousands of young companies into bankruptcy and ruin, the same companies that our economy depends on to provide the jobs of the future, the same companies that we depend on to keep our workers and our money right here in America. Even the media, who, controlled by the brokerage firms, investment banking companies, and New York Stock Exchange representatives who sit on their Boards of Directors, until recently has either turned a blind eye to this massive scandal or actually seemed to side with the criminals, has begun to realize that this is an issue that, to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas, will “not go quietly into that good night”.


How long have our country’s elected officials known about stock counterfeiting, how long have they turned a blind eye while countless retirement accounts, college funds, and small businesses have been bled dry by an industry that seems to care only about its own, and by “its own” I don’t mean the millions of investors who they are pledged to protect and represent, I mean the chosen few who have a large enough net worth to buy influence and control, and the industry itself, who profits to the tune of billions of dollars a year from buying and selling shares of stock that don’t exist?

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