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In the Streets

January 21, 2006 - 12:26pm -- autonomedia
News
In the Streets

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Santiago, Chile: Bomb Exploded Against the National Intelligence Agency

Hommodolars Collective

A bombing against the National Intelligence Agency (ANI) occurred this Wednesday, January 18th. The attack intended to prove vulnerability in the repressive methods of the State, and by this, it directly attacked this institution located at 115 Tenderini Street in downtown Santiago.

Sadly, the attack lead to the injury of a municipal worker while carrying out cleaning labor. Around 7:00 in the morning, the worker found a bag which contained a package in front of the building where the ANI “works”, and he transferred it from Tenderini street to the corner of Agustinas in order to deposit it into a container. After closing the container, he continued walking, and during this moment, the package exploded. The explosion caused light burns in his flesh, splinters in his back, and hearing damage. The worker was taken to the “Worker’s Hospital,” and he was released by noon.

The subversive movement, “Leon Czolgosz Autonomous and Destructive Forces”, took credit for the explosion at the headquarters of the ANI. The group had left the message, “Before against the CNI, today against the ANI.” (They also left the message in the bourgeois newspaper La nación). For their part, the “specialists” of the ANI indicated that they summarized that the origins of those responsible were principally from groups of anarchist character.

January 17, 2006 - 12:45pm -- autonomedia
News
In the Streets

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Announce Formation of a National Organization

Several chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
announced today, Monday, January 16, 2006, their intent to form a national
organization and hold the first SDS national convention since 1969.

"It
seemed appropriate to make this announcement today, on the observed
Martin Luther King day", said SDS regional organizer Thomas Good. "We
have an anti-war movement that is addressing the issue of stopping the
bloodletting in Iraq but the civil rights issue remains unaddressed",
he added.

The national convention is scheduled for Summer 2006 and
will be preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring on
the Memorial Day weekend.

January 16, 2006 - 1:06pm -- autonomedia
Announcements
In the Streets

Waseda University Arrest, Tokyo

A Statement of Protest

Around noon on December 20th 2005, on the campus of Waseda University in
Tokyo, a person was distributing flyers protesting some university reforms.
Suddenly seven to eight professors and officials of the Literature
Department surrounded him and took him to the office of the security
services. The police were called in by the professors to arrest him on the
claim of intrusion of private property.

We believe that this incident is more than a local episode and should
be cause for alarm: it is not just a matter of one university, but of the
entire university system and Japanese society today. Moreover, the action
taken at Waseda University recalls an earlier history of university
repression that had taken place on a worldwide scale. What the event at
Waseda dramatizes is a sad and instructive example of how the last remaining
stronghold for protecting the freedom of expression simply decided to
abdicate its responsibility and abandon its principal vocation. The larger
consequence of the Waseda incident reveals a dangerous tendency today of
society’s determination to erase the last ethical line between the domain of
free inquiry and critical space from the interest of the state that needs to
be defended.

January 6, 2006 - 2:18pm -- nolympics
News
In the Streets

Frank Wilkinson, 91; Civil Libertarian


The L.A. housing official, imprisoned for refusing to testify before HUAC, became an advocate of 1st Amendment rights.

By Dennis McLellan, LA Times

Frank Wilkinson, who began his half century as a national civil liberties leader after being fired from his job as a Los Angeles Housing Authority official during the McCarthy era and was later imprisoned for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, has died. He was 91.

Wilkinson, the former longtime director of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, a civil liberties activist and lobby group, died from complications of old age Monday at his home in Los Angeles, said his wife of 39 years, Donna.

January 2, 2006 - 3:44pm -- autonomedia
News
In the Streets

Please spread far and wide! Get this to alternative, local or
mainstream news outlets if you can...the Lower Ninth Ward of NOLA is
under a dusk 'til dawn curfew and media attention for this action may
mean the difference between arrest or being shot for resisters in New
Orleans. Thanks!


Occupation to Defend the Lower Ninth Ward

Common Ground Collective, New Orleans

The Common Ground Collective (CGC) announces that it will lease and
occupy a building in New Orleans' lower Ninth Ward. This is being done
in defiance of the city's attempt to bulldoze that area in response to
Hurricane Katrina's damage. In spite of a moratorium on bulldozing
structures until January 6th, the City is in violation of its own
stipulation, according to Brandon Darby, CGC's Ninth Ward Organizer
and Coordinator.


CGC believes that if the residents' properties are confiscated through
eminent domain laws, without due process allowed to its owners, it
will render private property rights null and void in America. Instead,
CGC demands that the city, state, and federal government extend the
same courtesy to Ninth Ward residents, as was allowed St. Bernard
Parish's property owners; that is FEMA trailers to home owners, while
their houses are restored and property cleaned up.

December 13, 2005 - 9:17am -- jim
Announcements
In the Streets

DonQuijote writes:

"Artivism"

Don Quijote

Permitidopermitir


An intervention in streets sinalization in Brazil, South America.

Saudações

Don Quijote

December 11, 2005 - 4:01pm -- jim
Announcements
In the Streets

Jay Critchley writes:


"Holiday Greetings from The Maskuerade Ball"

Bush, Cheney & Santa


The Maskuerade Ball

Protect/Protest

Let’s play with masking and disguise, and redefine its significance.


The Maskuerade Ball aims to activate people and elicit a deeper understanding of what our real concerns and problems are in our lives. The simple, ubiquitous surgical mask has recently become a visible, worldwide emblem of fear and panic. But who’s fear? Who’s voice? Should the media’s spoon-fed, Flu-of the-Month scares direct our energy and attention?


Masking is an ancient practice. Anthropologically, masquerading with costume and mask engenders a ritualized transformation of the self into the spirit world of nature and creates communion with the supernatural − often honoring our ancestors. Culturally, Mardi Gras, Al Hallows Eve and the Day of the Dead have continued our communal need to purge our fears and the evil forces in the world. These rituals reconnect us with our deep emotional and psychic identity and release us from the burdens of the human condition.


Who Is Protecting Whom?


Artistically, masks are a vehicle for visual expression, creating illusions, characters, multiple personalities and disguises — sometimes to protect, sometimes to play. And now, to create fear. In a global environment of war, hunger, ecological collapse, global warming, poverty, pathogenic illnesses and media saturation, the simple surgical mask has become a symbol of both the state of the planet and our inability to address its ailments. The mask has become a symbol of facelessness, isolation and political silencing. We are being told what the dread of the month is and are expected to step in line. Terrorism? — Stop talking with strangers, don’t trust anyone. SARS? —You better watch out, it’s coming. Avian Flu? — Stop breathing deeply, avoid chickens, farms, birds and nature.


To participate in The Maskuerade Ball:


— Acquire a trove of cheap surgical masks and non-toxic markers or oil sticks

— Create or join a political, cultural or social gathering

— Ask individuals: What are you terrified of? What is intimidating to you?


— What threatens you?

— Words are then inscribed on the surgical masks and participants are requested

to wear them, and the fun begins


— The masks and the messages will elicit comments, conversation, and a sense

of connectedness ± a new fashion statement! At political gatherings or

demonstrations the masks can make a unified visual statement by activists,

and a great photo op.

Protect/Protest.


For more information contact:

The Maskuerade Ball

Jay Critchley

November 15, 2005 - 5:20pm -- stevphen
Announcements
In the Streets

CALL TO PARTICIPATE
IN THE FORMULATION OF
THE ANARCHISMS RESEARCH GROUP

When: FRIDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2005 AT 5 PM

Where: THE SOCIOLOGY LOUNGE, Room 6112 on the sixth floor of the CUNY
Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, NYC.

(Directions
and maps available here:

).

Throughout its history anarchism as a theory and a socio-political
movement has gone through periodic peaks and troughs in popularity
and notoriety. Over the past ten years anarchism has again been on
the rise.

CUNY students call for the formation of a new student group to pursue
interests in anarchist thought, and to advance its legitimacy in the
academy. The new student group, which is applying for incorporation
by the Doctoral Student Council at the Graduate Center, has three
proposed aims:

1. To promote the analysis of the history, plurality, and
trajectory of anarchism as a theory and practice.

2. To facilitate the development of anarchist research and theory
at CUNY and in the academy at large.

3. And to promote the study and teaching of anarchism within CUNY
and the academy at large.

We will have our first meeting to discuss the mission, projects, and
organization of the new student group (to be named "The Anarchisms
Research Group") on Friday, 2 December 2005 at 5 PM in the Sociology
Lounge, located in room 6112, on the sixth floor of the CUNY Graduate
Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, NYC. You must have photo
I.D. to enter the building if you are not a CUNY Grad Center student.

We invite students from various disciplines, backgrounds, political
practice and struggles, and CUNY campuses to join our first meeting.
Please bring ideas, proposals for projects, and your enthusiasm.
Vegetarian pizza will be served at the meeting!

For more information, please contact Yvonne Liu at YLiu5@gc.cuny.edu.

November 13, 2005 - 4:57pm -- stevphen
Events
In the Streets

Bluestockings Popular Education Project Presents:

New Strategies for People’s Power in the 21st Century

A Two-Day Seminar

When: December 3rd & 4th from 3-7pm

Where: Meeting Place TBA (near Bluestockings)

Registration: Required $50 in advance @ Bluestockings (scholarships available) space
limited

Contact: events@bluestockings.com

No other issue has divided anti-capitalist and Left-wing movements more, than the issue of power. Communists, Syndicalists, Social-Democrats, Anarchists and Autonomists alike have given different answers to, and even fought for life or death over questions on whether a radical movement should aim to take power, to leave it alone, or to dissolve it. For more than 150 years, the issue of power has been seminal in the development of strategies for radical movements.

As we now we find ourselves beginning the 21st century with capitalism stronger than ever, it is clear that none of these strategies have been successful. The Communists taking of state-power lead to tyrannical dictatorships, the Anarchists and Autonomists refusal of power lead to impotency and irrelevance, and the Social-Democrats working with state-power lead to the long march away from socialist principles. What is needed today are new answers to the question of power, based on the lessons of the past and the challenges of the future.

Together with guests from the Scandinavian organization Democratic Alternative, we will discuss the political strategies of Communalism – founded on transforming and democratizing municipal government and creating a confederal dual-power – as a means of creating a new popular movement. We will look at the horrizontalist Assembleas movements in Argentina and at new theoretical concepts of “anti-power” and “the power of the margins.”

October 22, 2005 - 5:32pm -- stevphen
Analysis & Polemic
In the Streets

¡Viva San Precario!

In transit-Entránsito through MayDaySur

Colectivo Entránsito

1> Yes, we can! Determination and construction of a post-identitary common sense

It is no comfortable to inhabit a territory where the big truths are falling down to pieces, where impotency, conformism and fear are
tonalities that accompany contemporary life. In that very territory, we decided to grab strongly the proposal of MayDaySur without really knowing clearly how it would work. It was in fact a political experiment that arouse lots of doubts and some bad auguries. In the process of gestation of this creature we shared many moments of vertigo and indecision. However, some odd trust had installed among us. "Odd" because it didn´t provide us with a clearly defined plan, it was more a kind of instinctive gesture. and a "trust" due to the organizative capability of our
movements, to the intelligence, desire, creativity and strength that we are able to deploy when connecting and working together. We also did trust the "multitude", that experiences directly the "precarization" and still carries, in its ambivalence, the power of rebelliousness and disobedience. We think that the building process of this MayDaySur has proved us that the collective, excited about creating a new "common" and generous work, going beyond rigid identities is able to produce very powerful
connections. We celebrate the intuition and determination in the
beginnings of this process, as well as the generosity and enormous disposition to collective working demonstrated by the movements in Seville in particular, and by all those who composed this true event.

2> New political animals: flexgeneration

-"Not a single worker in here. We should have gone with the Unions. This is a 'botellón' (spanish term for young meetings to drink alcohol in the streets)!"- shouted indignant a union mate.

-"Behave yourself, fuck! This is no demonstration, this is a 'puterío' (disrespective Spanish term for sex work)!"- cried an overflowed policeman.

The composition and the way of being-in in a demonstration left many perplexed. All those fierce-looking people, that music, those
watchwords and, to make matters worse, demonstrating the 1st of May!, the traditional working day. These two personages share, everyone in his way, a feeling of strangeness towards the new and singular expression forms of the precariat. It gets difficult, both for the Order forces and for a certain leftist sector, to understand the codes and modalities of action of those bodies. What are we celebrating? The joy of taking back the streets and giving a contundent visibility to that precarity as conjugated in 1rst person. We demonstrate that we are blazing a trail to get things upside down. We feel that we are thousands who share similar situations and that together we can overcome them. For us the political practice, even at the hardest working time, is a joyful passion. In the words of Gilles Deleuze : "don´t you think that you ought to be sad to be militant, even if what you fight against is abominable. What does possess a
revolutionary force is the bond of desire with reality (and not its getaway under form of representation)". We talk about a new generation of workers and that means that those living today from their work cannot be reduced to an unique identity.

Today the soundsystem, the beats, the dj´s and the "speakers" are to the new generations what country orchestras, the bass drums, the noisy tracks and the megaphone were for the former ones. It would be a bit absurd to maintain that expressive forms, communicative codes, the "ways of feeling" and even the "class aesthetics" would remain the same throughout the history.

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