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Culture

February 10, 2003 - 3:42pm -- hydrarchist
Announcements
Culture

Anonymous Comrade writes


"A Civilian Occupation

The Politics of Israeli Architecture

Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman

February 12-–March 30, 2003

Opening reception: February 12, 7-–9 p.m.

Storefront for Art and Architecture

97 Kenmare Street

New York, NY 10012

t. 212.431.5795

e. info@storefrontnews.org

February 5, 2003 - 8:28am -- jim
News
Culture

Basil Valentine writes "The impending auction of surrealist Andre Breton's collection, featured recently in the New York Times, has provoked much controversy. A petition addressed to the French Minister of Culture, asking the State to acquire the collection and to establish an official Andre Breton Surrealist Museum(!) and/or Foundation, has garnered 1500 signatures. The following collective statement is the response by the Surrealist Movement in the U.S. to this malicious, statist hypocrisy. A French translation of this text has just appeared in Maurice Nadeau's Quinzaine litteraire."

"Surrealism Is Not for Sale!"

The Gold of Time in the Time of Gold

If you think wearing this season's shoes will make you more attractive, or that paying a stranger for sexual contact will gratify your passions, then you will probably agree with the clueless New York Times journalist who summed up the impending auction of the contents of Andre Breton's Paris apartment at 42 rue Fontaine as "Surrealism for Sale, Straight from the Source." In this snide, dishonest article from mid-December 2002, the New World Order's "newspaper of record" predictably distorted and slandered Breton and the entire international surrealist movement, reducing them to the 5,500 "lots" of objects, books, photographs, manuscripts, and artworks scheduled to be sold this April to wealthy dealers, investors, and museum acquisition officers.

January 19, 2003 - 1:18pm -- Uncle Fluffy
Announcements
Culture

Although I think that activist groups using yahoo for this sort of thing is a bit insane (yahoo sells info on list members to anyone) I decided to post this anyway-- U.F.


Anonymous Comrade writes "If you are interested in anti-fascist, lefty music and politics,
please feel free to join the UrbanRebel Yahoo newsgroup. It focuses on
anti-racist music, particularly streetpunk, punk and Oi! and on
anti-fascist politics and news, primarily from North America. Recent
postings include information on ARA events, anti-WCTOC news, updates on
anti-racist bands and labels, and more. To join the group, head on
over to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UrbanRebel

Cheers!"

January 12, 2003 - 7:58pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

hydrarchist writes:


"Rick Prelinger is a tireless agitator against copyright laws, and is responsible for the placing on line of a huge volume of public domain films that others can appropriate for their own ends. This essay is his contribution to The Anti-Capitalism Reader, edited by Joel Schalit."


"Yes, Information Wants To Be Free, but How's That Going To Happen?:

Strategies for Freeing Intellectual Property"

Rick Prelinger


Why Worry About IP While Chaos Rules?


As I write in late February 2002, the United States has declared itself to be in a state of war. But even as our government asserts anti-terrorism as its first priority, corporations hustle to make the world safe for business. The courts are clogged with intellectual property lawsuits. Lawyers are busy churning out cease-and-desist letters to alleged copyright infringers. Entertainment conglomerates are consolidating their control over the fibers, cables and switches on which programming is distributed. Hackers are equated with terrorists and are forced to defend their ability to explore, reengineer and retool hardware and software. Content and advertising continue to combine into a tediously promotional happy meal. The limits of permissible speech in the mass media tighten every day. Not a quiet time, not a happy time, and under wartime cover decisions are now being made that will affect all our futures as producers and consumers of information, culture, and the arts.

December 29, 2002 - 10:29am -- jim
Announcements
Culture

Daniel Young writes:

"NewZoid is a countercultural artwork that automatically fabricates up-to-the-minute news headlines. It is a great source of relaxation and inspiration for those engaged, in one way or another, in the endless task of making the world a better place.

NewZoid has been the world's leading source of false news information since April, 2001. It proudly claims to produce more falsehood than all governments, corporations, academic institutions and artistic enterprises put together.

December 23, 2002 - 10:07am -- jim
News
Culture

Punk Legend Joe Strummer Dies

Jon Dennis, London Guardian

Monday December 23, 2002

Joe Strummer, frontman with the Clash, has died at his home aged 50. Strummer, who was the band's guitarist, singer and songwriter alongside
Mick Jones, died yesterday.

December 22, 2002 - 11:13am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

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.

December 3, 2002 - 5:47am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

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.

November 30, 2002 - 9:28am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

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.

November 29, 2002 - 12:16am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

hydrarchist writes

"This is part III, go back to Part 1".

SHOPLIFTING - Very Generalisable…

Time and again research has shown that shoplifters and shoppers are one and the same. See the incredible 200% rise in offences known to the Police in America from 1973 (349,283) to 1989 (1,059,765) And remember that this is the tip of the iceberg - most shoplifting offences are not detected by the private security, and then again not all cases they detect are passed onto the police. Whilst nobody knows how many people security let go either side of the Atlantic there are similarities in the process, stereotypes and prejudices. Whilst it is acknowledged that because of the private nature of the ownership of stores the

"Police involvement in the detection and apprehension of
shoplifters, however, is minimal." [34]

We should not discount the amount of shoplifters who are let go annually. Some idea of the scale of this issue can be gained from Segrave

"Police in [the whole of] New York City arrested 3,177 shoplifters
in 1963; in 1962 they arrested 3,061… [security] personnel picked up 6,200 pilferers in its two Bronx stores in 1963, against 4,900 in 1962." [35]

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