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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Professor-rat's Blurty:
| Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | |
| 10:15 am | Team anarchy - HELL YEAH! As 19th Century philosopher Lysander Spooner pointed out, "Whether the ( USA ) Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." Team anarchism - hell yeah. From a Mexican wave to an anarchist tsunami. Once a rumor and invisible slowly growing impenetrable The coming anarchy, the coming community, the coming global insurrection. We must go beyond our natural indignation at profit’s appropriation of our water, air, soil, environment, plants, animals. We must establish collectives that are capable of managing natural resources for the benefit of human interests, not market interests. This process of reappropriation that I foresee has a name: self-management, an experience attempted many times in hostile historical contexts. At this point, given the implosion of consumer society, it appears to be the only solution from both an individual and social point of view. Proponents of anarchy believe that no human being should dominate another. The ideal society is decentralized, with no coercive rulers, no hierarchies, and everybody equal. Anarchy means acting locally and globally through a federation of communities in which our pork-barreling, corrupt parliamentary democracy is made obsolete by direct democracy. Anarchist civil disobedience means disregarding the decisions of a government that embezzles from its citizens to support the embezzlements of financial capitalism. Why pay taxes to the bankster-state, taxes vainly used to try to plug the sinkhole of corruption, when we could allocate them instead to the self-management of free power networks in every local community? The direct democracy of self-managed councils has every right to ignore the decrees of corrupt parliamentary democracy. Civil disobedience towards a state that is plundering us is a right. It is up to us to capitalize on this epochal shift to create communities where desire for life overwhelms the tyranny of money and power. Now that the old world is collapsing, the fusion of free natural power, self-built housing techniques, and the reinvention of sensual form is going to be decisive. So it is useful to remember that technical inventiveness must stem from the reinvention of individual and collective life. That is to say, what allows for genuine rupture and ecstatic inventiveness is self-management: the management by individuals and councils of their own lives and environment through direct democracy. The precursor and backbone of today’s Internet, ARPANet, was created in the late 1960s with the immediate objective of enabling communication between academics but more broadly as part of a strategy to enable U.S. military communications to survive in the event of nuclear war. Decentralization was introduced to prevent decapitation. However, the enduring result of ARPANet was the decentralized peer-to-peer network it created. It was TCP/ IP’s reliability, easy adaptability to a wide range of systems, and lack of hierarchy that made it appealing for civilian use. The hard-wiring of decentralization into the Internet’s technological platform created unintended consequences for all superpowers.. Anarchism is a great refusal to follow power. Its no longer possible NOT to imagine an entire modern social order based upon small-scale, directly democratic, widely dispersed centres of authority or that decentralist alternatives might be feasible alternatives on a broad scale. Indeed *must be* in light of the existential threat posed by runaway greenhouse. And anarchism today is also identity-based historical associations, dynamic semantic and intellectually driven debates, and the reproduction of internet stances closely tied to the active strengths of an immanent proletariat. The anarchist narrative excites more interest daily and the more and more are joining in the anarchist conversation. And this is natural given really, given that anarchism produced the the greatest breadth and depth of revolution in the 20th century, in the Ukraine and Spain. Who dares wins. The Internet is also attractive to anarchists because its architecture enables a communistic informational economy. The collaborative production of free software or of Wikipedia is for the most part not even a form of exchange. Rather, information is effectively held in a common pool. This makes large parts of the Internet effectively an electronic commons, where information is subject to “peer production” and “group generalized exchange” (Yamagishi and Cook 1993; Kollock 1999; Benkler 2002). The Internet’s logical structure is the technological foundation for the cultural codes associated with the “hacker ethic” of free manipulation, circulation, and use of information (Himanen 2001). Today a sector of the Open-Source and Peer-to-Peer freenets and the modern anarchist movements are quickly finding themselves dissolved into one and another. If the virtual glove fits...anarchists make extensive use of mobile phones, e-mail, and Internet websites in their organizing and have themselves developed a number of ICTs. The most celebrated example is open publishing software, by now a staple of Internet communication, pioneered in Australia by the Catalyst collective of anarchist hackers and used to run the first Indymedia website during the 1999 anti-World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle (Indymedia 2004; Meikle 2002). Many activists are also talented programmers, playing an important role in the development of GNU/Linux operating systems and other open-source, free software applications. In Western Europe there currently operate over thirty HackLabs—radical community spaces offering Internet access and training in programming while also serving as hubs for political organizing (Barandiaran 2003). Another form of engagement with 'appropriate' ( expropriated!) technology is to be found in the widespread anarchist attraction to innovative sustainability applications. Permaculture design (Mollison 1988), organic farming techniques, eco-architecture and construction with natural and recycled materials (Alexander 1977), and solar and wind energy—all of these have been drawing a great deal of interest from activists and are employed in many eco-villages, community gardens, and urban projects with an explicit or implicit anarchist ethos (Anarchist Federation 2008b; Bang 2005; O’Rourke 2008; Roman 2006). These technologies of practical sustainability embody, in their various ways, a combination of traditional knowledge with the latest insights from ecological science and systems theory. So on a practical basis, we literally see this in day-to-day struggle. Revolutionary tendencies now emerge fully networked with the unity of practice and ideas in struggle. This is not just online but in real-space and in real-time. More than enough free opportunities, free enterprises and even free love, for all those with free minds. 1,2,3,4... many Exarchia's now! We now see the emergence of a new praxis, whose theory or praxis is anarchist or incomplete in the best and most open-ended sense of that word. All that is missing is that once-alienated creature - you! There is every reason to be hopeful in the last days of God and the State, with the emergence of our non-sectarian libertarian-socialist tendency that supercedes the historical limitations of syndicalism and pre-net anarchism, yet which utilizes the advances of both. The revolt against work, municipalism, producer and consumer co-ops, anarcho-feminism, green-anarchy, queer anarchy, anarchy and the black revolution, the primitivist perspective; all of these preceded the internet and incrementally advanced the anarchist project. Now all this radical progress - this great advance-in-diversity, may be speeded up with the help of the wwweb. In the old days our voice was swamped out by either Jingo yellow presses or left-fascist lies - but we have the internet now. Defending and extending the net today is a revolutionary act. Advancing in diversity we may strike together in unity...at the time and place of our choosing. The first planet-wide revolution ever! Can you feel it coming? People get ready. Now to defend the micro-attack...the first shout to put a crack in the wall ( From A-News ) '... the function of many of these attacks is not necessarily to "awaken" other people. I posted this list of advantages of actions like this to another poster, but I think you could learn from it as well: - Incurs a financial cost to a predatory entity whose raison d'etre is to accumulate capital (banks) - Builds self-esteem and trust among the anarchists who take part, and gets them into the mindset of being historical actors rather than historical spectators - If done enough times and with enough frequency, helps to normalize political direct action within the broader culture (see: Europe) - Demonstrates that anarchist attacks can be quick, successful and relatively easy, thus encouraging other anarchists to act as well, thus spreading the social war As I also told the other poster, this mythical "revolutionary moment," where the rest of society suddenly grows a conscience and joins the resistance, will never come. Major change is almost always instigated by a minority. We have but to act, and all action is good in that regard...' Propaganda-of-the-deed will never die - so long as just one anarchist lives! |
| 10:08 am | Fort Hood update When good commanders go bad...commander-in-chiif, Barak Hussein Osama, a devout Marxist who was trying to buy his way out of the Army, was suspected of being the author of postings which compared political suicide bombers to heroic soldiers who throw themselves onto grenades to save others. It also emerged that Obama, 59, had described the US Army as "the aggressor" in Iraq and Afghanistan and was resisting a planned deployment to Afghanistan, raising questions over whether the military missed warning signs which might have prevented the massacre. Witnesses said Obama shouted "Allahu akbar", Arabic for God is great, as he opened fire – a phrase commonly used by Islamic militant suicide bombers – though investigators said there was no evidence he had been recruited by al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremist organisations. Obama – who was initially thought to have been killed – is being kept alive on a ventilator after being shot four times by a civilian policewoman who was the first officer on the scene of the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. Officer Kimberley Munley, whose actions were described as "amazing and aggressive", is one of 30 survivors who were shot by Obama, of whom 28 remain in hospital. Law enforcement sources said that before the shooting no formal investigation had been launched into the commanders internet postings and Obama had not been confirmed as the author, but his mansion in Chicago, has now been searched and his W/house computer seized. "This is going to be a long and convoluted and messy investigation," the source said. Acting president, Joe Biden met FBI director Robert Mueller to discuss the investigation but said the twinkie motive was still uncertain. "We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," said Mr Biden, who ordered flags to fly upside down at half-mast on federal buildings across the country. |
| 10:06 am | Dear workerite Letters and etc Duffy, your assertions are Submitted by Mister Grumpy on Tue, 2009-11-03 16:18. Duffy, your assertions are strange. I am not interested in specifically defending the previous poster's positions, but I have to say a few things about your characterization of them, plus I'll add some things of my own. First, where was Stalin arguing what you said he was arguing that you allege is "very close" to what anon said? Was it the Stalin of 1926 (the Third Period)? Of 1935 (the Popular Front era)? Without a citation, all we have is your rhetorical allegation, based on ... nothing at all. That's some weak shit Duffy. I've come to expect more from someone of your intellectual caliber. I agree that there's nothing to discuss with fascists, but why is that? They have bad (authoritarian) intentions and bad (authoritarian) politics. According to you, Leninists have good (emancipatory) intentions but bad (authoritarian) and mistaken politics. What I see when I examine Leninists are people who have historically and consistently engaged in actions that run counter to their stated intentions of emancipation while consistently putting in place authoritarian policies. Are you saying that Leninists are consistently making mistakes while maintaining irreproachable intentions? That seems unlikely. What I see are Leninists making consistent policies that reflect their implicit intentions. You take them at their word, but I maintain that they lie. Leninists have never shown themselves to be interested in pursuing the self-organized liberation of the working class from exploitation and alienation. The Bolshevik suppression of the Russian factory committees, the rounding up/imprisoning/liquidation of Russian anarchists and other independent revolutionaries, the suppression of the Makhnovist movement, the suppression of the non-anarchist Kronstadt Commune, the Maoist abandonment of the non-Communist Shanghai Commune to the reactionaries of the KMT, the crushing of the East Berlin general strike, the destruction of the Hungarian uprising... And let's not forget the grandmother of all Leninist counter-revolutionary actions: the total destruction of any and all anarchist-inspired and non-Stalinist revolutionary experiments in Republican Spain. How can you see any positive (from an anarchist perspective) intentions in these policies? To be a mistake, there must be a lack of consistency somewhere. The only inconsistency among Leninists is between what they say and what they do. As a materialist, I am not interested in what people say; intentions are subjective and subject to change. The actions of Leninists from 1917 have been clear: to command any and all opposition to the rule of the bourgeoisie, to keep those in opposition in line, to keep that opposition under the control of their authorized representatives (Party bosses), to crush all resistance to their control over that opposition. They can yammer on all they want about working class emancipation, but they have never once promoted it in a way that looks emancipatory. So either they are completely insane (since they continued with the same failed policies from 1917 through today), or they are liars, who are not really interested in working class emancipation. My considered opinion is that they are liars, that they know precisely what they want (to rule) and will use any and all means at their disposal to hoodwink, cajole, manipulate, and otherwise confuse good-hearted class conscious proles and peasants to follow them. You can try the old Trot policy of splitting the leadership from the base all you want, since you believe that at least some Leninists are "misguided." As for me and my friends and allies, we already know that a greater enemy is the one who pretends to be our friend. Fascists are clear about their enmity toward workers' revolution, so they do not interest me in the realm of ideas. Leninists pretend they're on something vaguely determined to be "our side." I don't believe them, and will do my best to expose their historical chicanery and almost instinctual homicidal relationship with anarchists and other authentic revolutionaries. Tresca knew what he was talking about. =Mister Grumpy PS - as that tiresome, Marxist-loving, 'name'-dropping, Israel-supporting, 'anarchist' politician, Uri Gordon, now regards the internet as a 'temporary anomaly' perhaps the net might return the favor? Uri Gordon is surely one of the most temporary 'anarchists' around today. |
| 10:04 am | Bolivarian bullshit In march of 2007 Caudillo Chávez affirmed in a speech "The unions should not be autonomous... we must end with that..." '...the use of scabs "for reasons of proven necessity" in order to break strikes and work stoppages, a practice that has become habitual in so-called "Bolivarian Venezuela." The role of Venezuelan anarchists in this moment of fracture of Bolivarian hegemony is to participate, accompany, and radicalize the conflicts, from below and with the people, and in this way to stimulate the recovery of the belligerent autonomy of the social movements. They must also become actively involved in the construction of a different, revolutionary alternative to the inter-bourgeois conflict for the control of the oil revenues that has engulfed the political scene in recent years, fighting the Bolivarian bourgeoisie in power with the same impetus as the potential rearticulations of those political parties it has displaced. In this way we walk, as always, without giving any concession to power and having our old values (self-management, direct action, anticapitalism and mutual aid, among others) as a bright horizon...FROM Translated by Dan Knutson Original Spanish article: http://www.nodo50.org/tierraylibertad/4articulo.html Shock-communism Many of us incorrectly ascribe more power and vision to the elites than they actually possess, pretending that they hatch shock-and-awe treatments upon us after careful planning from their boardrooms and country clubs. In doing so we simplify the nature of society’s crisis. And not just our societies...shock-communism stole the lives of millions of poor peasants demonized by bourgeois Marxist ideology. The massive crimes of shock-communism preceed and exceed even the Holocaust. This is where 'anti-capitalism' falls at the first hurdle. Lipstick hardly improves the appearence of this pig. And were capitalism to magically dissappear tomorrow then what would stop all the actually existing Marxist regimes from hatching shock-and-awe treatments for us after careful planning from their politburo's and dachas? Its not paranoid conspiracy theory if they are out to get you - and its not red-baiting when they are quite proud to be red-fascist dictators. Take the Castro brothers...please. Its true that capital and empire have so over-exploited and destroyed the world’s resources and peoples that we have reached a crisis moment in which we either will make a rapid transition away from capitalism and the nation state, or else we will be nothing better than zombies. But that doesn't mean a risky transition - that is one where Marxism makes gains and even more poor people are enslaved and die. We can't oppose all wars so long as slavery exists - but we can oppose all dumb wars. And the inconvenient fact remains that fastest way to lift masses out of poverty remains capitalism. Remember when todays 'anti-capitalist' was yesterdays ' anti-globalization activist' - both equally power-friendly ways of marginalizing anarchy. What then are the solutions? We offer no grandious narrative. No holistic totality. We only offer our disturbing recognition of these wedgie problems, and hope that if others face reality we will collectively find a way to step back from the brink, while expanding on those just and sustainable parts of libertarian socialism. Not authoritarian socialism ( Marxism) and no longer - any more - the fatally discredited democratic socialism of conventional representational politics. ( Sear ' Circulation of the elites') The reason radical populism is - and should be - appealing to anarchists and other progressives is that its partisans focus in hard on the structural aspects of domination, exploitation, and inherent crisis that are integral to the God-State. No scapegoat Kulaks (or Jews) required. All you need are property owners who invest in workplaces, bosses that exploit workers, and cops that live to enforce resource extraction and relations of exploitation. And these surely exist almost everywhere nowadays. ( For exceptions that prove this rule sear ' Primitivism') The intelligent indigenous, peasantry and proletariat of the world must take us all for fools the more we beat on this hollow misleading 'anti-capitalist' drum... and so they will continue to muddle along with all their various neo-labor style parties - I don't blame them - because I think anarchists have forgotten their revolutionary subject we get back to the basics of anarchism - the sooner, the better. Stirner, Proudhon and Bakunin forever! To hell with that bourgeois, sexist, racist Herr Karl Marx! I believe in only one thing: anarchy; but I do not believe in anarchy enough to want to force it upon anyone. ALL POWER TO THE ANARCHISTS! They are the only ones with the slightest clue what to do with it. |
| 10:03 am | Against all fascistic spectacles The National Post has this in a report from October 16, 2009. ... Canadian Security Intelligence Service reports, also obtained by the Post, say more than 30 acts of "politically motivated vandalism" have been claimed by anti-Olympic groups since August 2007. Most were in B.C., while Ontario had the second most incidents. On June 24, 2008, arsonists torched a dozen vehicles at the West York Chev Olds car dealership. "We did this because GM is an official sponsor of the 2010 Olympic Games," said a communiqué. "F--k the Olympics!" The dealership said there was still no proof anti-Olympic protesters were actually responsible, and they may have simply claimed responsibility for propaganda purposes. Police have made no arrests. A sabotage attack at a CP Rail crossing in Toronto last September was singled out by security officials as particularly worrisome, raising the prospect that some activists were adopting more aggressive tactics that could endanger lives. Ms. Renn said the ORN encourages a "diversity of tactics" and that while some activists may have broken windows, the group does not use methods that could cause harm. "Property is property, it's not human life. I much more value somebody's skull than I do a window," she said. "The window can be fixed." As well as being the symbolic start of the Olympics, the torch relay kicks off a trio of international events to be hosted by Canada in 2010, all of which activists intend to greet with protests. Following the Winter Games, Canada will host the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the G8 Summit, but the torch relay could set the tone for what follows and may also be the most vulnerable. |
| Friday, November 6th, 2009 | |
| 11:35 am | Fiji - what democracy? The crap media, including the ABC, keep talking about some coup in Fiji that ' overthrew democracy'. Yet if there was a democracy in Fiji then M. Choudrey of the Labor Party would have been the democratically elected Prime Minister. The fact that he wasn't comes down to the racist Fiji constitution - compared widely to South Africas old apartheid - and so there was no coup against 'democracy'. There was a coup - first against the pirate Chris Speight - and then against a racist undemocratic regime with zero legitimacy that took over from the warlord Fijian/Australian Speight. Australia also preens postures and poses as a 'democracy' in spite of it being a Governor-generalate where at least two reasonably democratic governments have been summarily dismissed , and so it has little or no credibility when it critiques the Fiji Islands. It merely looks as ridiculous and cartoonish as the USA is these days. |
| 11:26 am | An Ox for the people to ride A Frantz Fanon for our time - si se puede! US Army major firing two handguns killed 11 people and wounded 31 others in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood base in Texas, a prime point of deployment for US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army said the gunman was killed. US broadcast media identified him as Major Malik Nidal Hasan and said he was a psychiatrist facing an upcoming deployment to Iraq. There was no immediate official confirmation of his identity. US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas told FOX News: "I do know that he has been known to have told people that he was upset about going (to Iraq)." US military officials say the shooter's motives were still unclear. The incident at Fort Hood, the largest military installation in the world, was one of the worst killings reported on a US military base. In May a US soldier at a base in Baghdad shot dead five fellow soldiers. The Wretched of the Earth (French: Les Damnés de la Terre, first published 1961) is Frantz Fanon's most famous work, written during and regarding the Algerian struggle for independence from colonial rule. As a psychiatrist, Fanon explored the psychological effect of colonization on the psyche of a nation as well as its broader implications for building a movement for decolonization. Further reading reveals a thorough critique of nationalism and imperialism which also develops to cover areas such as mental health and the role of intellectuals in revolutionary situations. Fanon goes into great detail explaining that revolutionary groups should look to the lumpenproletariat for the force needed to expel colonists. Fanon uses the term to refer to those inhabitants of colonized countries who are not involved in industrial production, particularly peasants living outside the cities. He argues that only this group, unlike the industrial proletariat, has sufficient independence from the colonists to successfully make a revolution against them. Also important is Fanon's view of the role of language and how it molds the position of "natives", or those victimized by colonization. Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth has become a handbook for any and all political leaders faced with any type of decolonization. Even Abbas sounds like he's been forced into a basically 'Fanonist' position - and so is planning his retirement. Of particular interest to anarchists is Fanons advice for direct action in response to torture - he specifically advocates that the best psychiatric 'cure' for the tortured is for them to kill their -or any - torturer. Classic ' propaganda-of-the-deed' indeed. Torturers must be considered by any civilized people as fair-game. No jury will convict. |
| 10:44 am | A call for more paleo-anarchism The US anarchist movement is healthy enough and even getting bigger and better than I previously assesed them as. However there is a rather nasty and obvious Grand Canyon of a split between two major ( loudmouthed) factions. Faction one consists of the Plats and 'class-strugggle-anarchists' who appear to want to emulate the dubious 'success' of Leninist means and forms...democratic centralism and top-down workerism primarily. The entire narrative of anarchism since the late sixties - the revolt against work, green anarchy, municipalism, anarcho-feminism, anarchism and the black-revolution, the gay revolt, the backlash against professional activists, the net revolution and all that significant - if incremental - progress has been jettisoned. This faction really boils down to the marxism that you have when yr not having marxism and as such must be considered a significant corruption of the original anarchist 'distro'. It's wide open to colonization by those arch ideological colonizers and that is why so many of these 'recovering' concern-trolls have settled so happily into sites like Anarkismo, Libcom and Nefac type sites. The other faction also rose at the same time as this first sectarian grouping of hyphenated fools. This shit all bubbled to the surface in the mid-to-late 1920's. By contrast with the prolier-than-thou anarcho-Staknovites, many radically inclined revolutionaries immediately realized Lenin was not the answer and that the Bolsheviks had destroyed the village in order to save it. So the answer for them was to become more like anarchists. Now being middle-class bourgeois marxist friendly idiots they didn't really want to identify as anarchists, who at that time still had a violent reputation and were considered fair-game by repressive authoritarians everywhere. With the associated rise of relativism, why not just send the previous 50 years of anarchist struggle - including many hundreds of martyrs - down the old memory hole? Why not just claim that Marxism was really anarchism after all and date this discovery from the late 1920's? Various Marxists tried this and arguably the most succesful was the Situationists. This was because they stirred in some surrealism, some evocative writing and even some rather dashing activity during the events in May in France in 1968. Thus the whole council-communist tradition lives on as a resevoir within the US anarchist movement. I used to think that this was a fairly harmless phenomenon, however the danger must be admitted with ANY recombinant, ideologically imperialistic strain of neo-hegelian philosophy that one day the minority will make a play for the majority. This was a classic Leninist ploy whereby his minority could become the majority overnight. ( Sear Bolshevik and Menshevik and the constituent assembly of 1918 for more on this tactic) Again - I'm basically optimistic about the state of global anarchism in spite of all the present influence of these two trends in the states. I forsee a rise and rise of ' back-to-the-roots', paleo-anarchists and pan-anarchists who will closely study the First International, the hatred of Marx and Engels for all anarchists, what seperates us from all Marxists and why our Left flank must be patrolled and fenced off at least as well as our Right flank continually is. There is anecdotal evidence that my analysis is gaining traction and this may be seen in comments at anarch news sites and weak responses to some of my arguments. An example of the latter could be seen in the crude attempt to downplay the state as our prime revolutionary target - as if recent events hadn't underlined just how critical the state was to propping up exploitive capital! Marxist types are nothing if not masters of misdirection. Having predicted the ultimate crisis for decades when it finally came the best these ' economic genius's' could come up with was nationalization - national socialism is always the Marxists fallback position. For all true anarchists Bakunin defined the revolutionary subject as ' God and the State'. As I said, the state is the weakest link of capitalism - and God must surely be the weakest link of the State. If there was a God it would be necessary to destroy it. When enough anarchists attack the God-State hard enough with all the weapons we can steal then we will bring down this linch-pin of capitalism. Only the anarchists can do this because as we all know most Marxists simply adore the state and worship 'revolutionary' capitalism. But to be revolutionary anarchists is to know how we came to be here - why so many of us were murdered and why its still worth making one more more effort to be free. Unhyphenated, networked, proud and strong - that is the new anarchist I see rising out of the mess that is revolutionary socialism. We're young - they're old ...and thats life. |
| 10:33 am | All American hoods I can't think of a better place for a shooting rampage...outside of the W/house that is...than Fort Hood Texas, the largest US army base in the world. Blowback - blessed be thy name - thy kingdom come. When all the world is military then crime will consist of NOT killling should orders command it so don't you forget it. The world needs more good globocops - hundereds of them - thousands of them - millions. Death to Amerikkka. |
| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | |
| 1:28 pm | That sweet smell from the White House NEIGHBOURS of alleged US serial killer Barry Obama had apparently complained about a foul smell for years, but many believed it was coming from a sausage shop next door. The 50-year-old convicted word-rapist was arraigned overnight on a string of murder charges as investigators examined the gruesome remains of up to 11 bodies unearthed at his home in Washington DC. Local councilman Zack Reed said he would push for an independent investigation into why complaints about the smell didn't lead to an earlier discovery. "Residents are mad and they have every right to be mad," he said. Mr Reed said his office called the public health department about two and a half months ago after a neighbour reported the smell. He wondered whether an earlier detection could have prevented some of the murders. "I know darned well that our health department should have been able to tell the difference between the smell of a dead democrat and the smell of dead republican meat," he said. At the arraignment hearing, defence lawyers argued unsuccessfully that Obama should be granted bail as he had a heart condition that required him to wear a blackberry and had other undisclosed mental problems. |
| 12:56 pm | I love the smell of burning cop-cars in the morning Three Seattle police cars and an RV that's used as a mobile precinct were torched early Thursday in a city maintenance yard, according to police. Just before 5 a.m., city workers spotted a suspicious-looking man walking through a parking lot at 714 S. Charles St., where police, fire and other city vehicles awaiting maintenance work are stored, said police spokesman Detective Jeff Kappel. The workers tried to talk to the man, and "just about that time, police cars started going up in flames and he took off running," Kappel said. The workers called 911 at 4:53 a.m. and firefighters quickly doused the flames, he said. "There were police vehicles deliberately set on fire," said Kappel, who couldn't say if reports of an explosion were accurate. "Only police vehicles were burned," even though vehicles from a variety of city departments are stored there. Kappel also couldn't say whether the vehicles were a total loss. No damage estimate has been released. Kappel said the Seattle Police Department hadn't received any threats before the fires, which also slightly damaged a nearby building. The fire was so intense that it set off sprinklers inside the maintenance garage, which sustained smoke and water damage, said Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick. She said the damaged police vehicles were outside the garage but behind a security fence. |
| 12:53 pm | Beware of Greeks bearing fruits Armed attack against police station in Athens, five cops wounded Submitted by worker on Tue, 2009-10-27 23:33. Tags: Action Anarchist Practice From Occupied London At around 9.40pm on Tuesday night, four people on motorbikes opened fire against the police station of Ayia Paraskeui, a north-eastern suburb of Athens. Mainstream media report that five cops have been wounded, with one being in a critical condition. They also report that the type of weapons and ammunition used and the style of the attack refer to either the “Revolutionary Struggle” or the “Revolutionary Sect” – two of the many urban guerrilla groups active in the country lately. It is expected that whatever group is responsible for the attack will release a communique in the next few days. More info as it comes. Add new comment Printer-friendly version what a fancy way to get a Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-10-28 10:38. what a fancy way to get a point across! » reply How does any "type of Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-10-28 10:56. How does any "type of weapon" "refer" to anything? Do various leftist groups have their own ideologically-specific guns and ammo in Greece? » reply Probably the AK / Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-10-28 12:01. Probably the AK / motor-scooter combo. Maybe they used the same caliber bullets that have been used in other attacks. » reply AK's? in a european country Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-10-28 16:30. AK's? in a european country bordering former soviet block nations? no way... » reply AK's on Earth. No way? Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-10-28 17:29. AK's on Earth. No way? » reply I think I'll bring back Submitted by anon on Thu, 2009-10-29 15:26. I think I'll bring back crossbows with flaming arrows... that will be sweet... » reply yeah i just formed an urban Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-10-28 15:24. yeah i just formed an urban guerilla group that only uses potato cannons and wrist rockets with mustard balloons. - DBC (dubious but corny) » reply Well well, today the Submitted by anon on Fri, 2009-10-30 06:26. Well well, today the "Eleftherotipia" newspaper publishes a "strange" communique, claiming responsibility for the attack on the police station by "Groups of Proletarian Popular Self-defence", claiming to be fighting for "proletarian dictatorship!", chanting in favour of the birth of the Greek Democratic Army on 28/10/1946 in Greece, etc. Really strange communique... » reply No war, but class war! BIG Submitted by rjuinm on Sat, 2009-10-31 05:53. No war, but class war! BIG SMILES MOTHERFUCKERS!! THIS IS MOST EXCELLENT!! ( A-News ) |
| 12:48 pm | Peronist 'Bolivarianism' spreads like an oil-slick From Tierra y Libertad From the Iberian Anarchist Federation's Tierra y Libertad website, an article describing and criticizing the government of Hugo Chávez and its attempts to co-opt the Venezuelan labor movement. Orlando Chirino, a revolutionary Venezuelan labor leader, has recently denounced the Bolivarian government as "anti-worker and anti-union." It would be difficult to accuse Chirino of being a "golpista" [1] or an "ally of imperialism." In the year 2002 he condemned the coup, mobilizing to defend the state oil industry from the work stoppage driven by management leadership. In each occasion presented him, he supported and accompanied workers' attempts to control factories closed by their bosses. He is rooted among the workers and was made a leader in the Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), the labor union promoted by his own president Chávez. If Orlando has been part of the so-called Bolivarian movement for many years, what has happened in 2009 to get him to make these kinds of statements about the government he once defended? The main part of the answer is: because Chirino is an iron defender of the unions' autonomy. The attempt to control the workers' movement from above began as soon as Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela. In 1999 a clash began with the traditional Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), a labor union created in 1947 by the influence of Acción Democrática (AD) [2], and changed, since 1959, into the main negotiator of the labor policies developed by the state. Nevertheless, in spite of Chavismo's questions about the irregularities and vices of this organization, in the abscence of their own labor movement, they participated in its internal elections in October 2001. The Bolivarian candidate, Aristóbulo Isturiz, was defeated by the AD candidate Carlos Ortega, who became the president of the CTV. A year and a half later, repeating the same history of the CTV, the government created by decree what it called "the real labor union": the Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), which quickly reproduced the corruption that it claimed to fight. One Marxist organization that participated in its foundation, Opción Obrera, says it more clearly than us: "The UNT was born under agreements from above, and was ridden for a show for the rank and file; few authentic union leaders had power in it... [3] The UNT was born with governmental protection, which lifted it up. The criticized "perks" of the old CTV unionism are now granted to the leaders of the UNT, who are staunch supporters of the government." Paradoxically, before the limited acceptance of the new labor union among the mass of workers, and the resistance of some sectors of the union to their cooptation, the Bolivarian power promoted new organizations in order to displace the UNT, as is the case of the Frente Socialista Bolivariano de los Trabajadores (FSBT). A second milestone, justified with the argument of weakening the CTV bureaucracy, was the promotion of the so-called "union parallelism" [4] from the seat of government, creating unions artificially, from outside, in the principal industries of the country. In this way Chavismo would be able to publicize that with almost 700 registered unions, the Bolivarian process has promoted the organization of workers like nothing has before. However, this rise of the unions did not mean their greater influence on labor policies. One indicator is the end of the discussion of collective contracts in the public sector, counting 243 expired, paralyzed and unsigned contracts at the end of 2007, in a sector that in May 2009 employs 2,244,413 people, a quarter of those contracted by the private sector. The decisions on salaries, labor conditions, and labor law are made unilaterally by the institutions of the state, after which they are mechanically ratified by the spokespersons of the UNT. In addition to the fragmentation and loss of capacity for pressure and negotiation, union parallelism has exacerbated the disputes for control of those workplaces in the areas of oil and construction - in which the union can place 70 out of 100 recruits - which have increased the cases of assassination of union leaders and workers in inter-union strife. Between June 2008 and when this text was written, there have been 59 murders that spread with the greatest impunity. A third element is the creation of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), a partisan body that, in president's own words, should absorb all organizations that support the Bolivarian process, including the unions. A few defended the independence of the workers' organizations, but dissent from the official line was not tolerated. In march of 2007 Chávez affirmed in a speech "The unions should not be autonomous... we must end with that," which was followed by successive declarations in the same line, reaching the zenith in march of 2009, when after ridiculing the demands of the basic industries of Guayana - the biggest industrial belt of the country - he threatened to use the police to crush any attempts at demonstrations or strikes there. For a revolutionary like Orlando Chirino, it was unbearable, stating at the time that it "constituted a declaration of war against the working class." Various initiatives are currently being developed to increase control over the country's workers. For one thing, laws have been passed that limit and criminalize protest, requiring people to report periodically to the courts, in addition to prohibiting them from participation in meetings and demonstrations, such as occurred this past July 13 to 5 union leaders of the oil refinery of El Palito, in the west of the country. According to figures from spokespersons of the affected communities, at least 2,200 people would be currently subject to the scheme. It must be brought out that, curiously, more than 80% are part of the movement to support the national government. This detail is significant because since 2008 has come increasing social unrest in the face of the miseries and limitations of material life for workers on the ground. The protests for social rights have displaced the mobilizations for political rights, that set the scene during the years 2002 and 2006. The failure to meet the expectations generated by Bolivarian rhetoric, the weakening of patronage networks by declining oil revenues and the stagnation and decline of effective social policies, known as "missions," have catalyzed the accumulated unrest in the absence of profound transformations that significantly improve the quality of life for the majority of the country. Another initiative underway, again by decree from above, is the replacement of unions with "workers' councils" for discussing work conditions in companies, a proposal entered in the reform of the Organic Labor Law (LOT), a regulation that has been discussed in secret in the National Assembly, an executive that is promoted around the world as a champion of "participatory democracy." Other laws, that seem to have no connection to the world of work, have also been restricting workers' rights. That's the case with the reformed Law of Land Transit, which in its article 74 prohibits the closure of streets to obstruct pedestrian and vehicle traffic, which has been the historical practice of protest by the popular sectors, especially in demanding their labor rights. Meanwhile, on August 15 an Organic Law of Education was passed, which has provoked protest by opposition groups for its secularism and for establishing strict regulations for private education institutions. However, what this center-right and social-democratic opposition does not question, much less Chavismo, are the limitations to the right of association, unionization, and collective bargaining, which is not guaranteed. One sign of the reactionary character of the order is section 5.f of the first transitional provision, which states that teachers and professors engage in serious misconduct "by physical aggression, speech, and other forms of violence" against their superiors. To make matters worse, the fifth transitional provision regulates the use of scabs "for reasons of proven necessity" in order to break strikes and work stoppages, a practice that has become habitual in so-called "Bolivarian Venezuela." In addition, the Chavista movement has driven an onslaught against the media outlets that don't accommodate the government, whose principle motivation is the visibility of the conflicts and protests that they provide, in contrast with the scarce coverage of the state and para-state media, self-declared "alternative and community," but without editorial and financial independence of any kind. The role of Venezuelan anarchists in this moment of fracture of Bolivarian hegemony is to participate, accompany, and radicalize the conflicts, from below and with the people, and in this way to stimulate the recovery of the belligerent autonomy of the social movements. They must also become actively involved in the construction of a different, revolutionary alternative to the inter-bourgeois conflict for the control of the oil revenues that has engulfed the political scene in recent years, fighting the Bolivarian bourgeoisie in power with the same impetus as the potential rearticulations of those political parties it has displaced. In this way we walk, as always, without giving any concession to power and having our old values (self-management, direct action, anticapitalism and mutual aid, among others) as a bright horizon. 1. Literally a "coup-ist," the connotation is a national traitor 2. AD is a Venezuelan center-left party 3. Literally "in the direction converged few authentic leaders with union trajectory" 4. "Parallel association" might be a better translation Translated by Dan Knutson Original Spanish article: http://www.nodo50.org/tierraylibertad/4articulo.html |
| Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | |
| 11:27 am | That which does not kill me... I had to take a few weeks off with a gallstone removal - sorry. Normal services shall resume asap. In my defense this is the longest 'holiday' I've enjoyed since my arrest in 2001. Metal Storm secures $US35M equity and debt placement. President Goofy morphs into lame-duck Daffy - the quack president. You can't patent a social relationship - sear 'Secrecy News' for more on...from SN while I was away... Stewart D. Nozette, who was arrested and charged this week under the Espionage Act, is an unusually gifted and accomplished technologist. The allegation that he provided classified information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer in exchange for cash is distressing on several levels. Among other things, Nozette had exceptionally broad access to a range of classified programs in defense, space and nuclear technology. According to an FBI affidavit (pdf), Nozette stated that he "held a DOE Q clearance from 1990-2000, which involved insight into all aspects of nuclear weapons programs. Held TS/SI/TK/B/G clearance 1998-2006,... Held at least 20+ SAP [special access program clearances]... from 1998-2004." In fact, however, Nozette's participation in Department of Defense special access programs dates back even earlier, to 1990 or so. At that time he was read into an unacknowledged special access program called Timber Wind (pdf), which was an effort by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization to develop a rocket engine powered by a nuclear reactor. Dr. Nozette's name appears on a Timber Wind master access list we obtained which identified the several hundred persons who were authorized to be briefed on that nuclear rocket program. The discovery of the hyper-classified Timber Wind program was an inspiration for the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, since we considered it a compelling instance of classification abuse. On a number of occasions I asked Dr. Nozette about the program, but he was always quite scrupulous about rebuffing my inquiries. Timber Wind was canceled shortly after it became public, and other nuclear rocket initiatives likewise faded away in the 1990s, as the effort to develop nuclear rocketry for military or civilian applications surged and then collapsed, leaving behind only a bunch of good stories. An idiosyncratic new memoir by Tony Zuppero, one of the would-be nuclear rocketeers, tells those stories as he recalls them, with sometimes alarming candor, humor, and disappointment. Dr. Zuppero had his own concept of a nuclear rocket that would open a path for human expansion into the solar system. But, he laments, "after all the effort, all the visions, I got old instead of making it happen." |
| Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | |
| 5:09 pm | The peace president People still upset that Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. And today the head of the Nobel Prize Committee defended the decision to give Obama this year’s peace prize, saying that Obama’s already accomplished quite a bit. When asked for an example, the committee chairman said, ‘Come on, he won the freaking Nobel Peace Prize.’" - CONAN O’BRIEN, The Tonight Show I actually give Bambi some credit for putting the kybosh on the Start Wars program...after all MAD is probably the only reason we're all still here. Of course he may have HAD to bin 'Missile defence' due to stiff new IMF fiscal measures but...Henry Kissinger won won of these things didn't he? |
| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | |
| 11:02 am | WAKE IN FRIGHT Another year in the Yabba - beauty mate. All the Kangaroos testicles you can eat. Brutal, uncompromising and stunning WAKE IN FRIGHT tells is the story of a young merchant banker, Malcolm Bullimore Turnbull, who arrives in a rough outback mining town planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But, on this one hot night in Bundanyabba, Turnbull decides to go into a smoky, crowded pub... However, one night stretches to five, in which he discovers gambling, ruins himself financially and plunges headlong toward his own destruction. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated thug, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left... |
| 10:56 am | Elinor's Nobel LARPRO reports - For the first time ever, the Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded to a woman, Elinor Ostrom (jointly with Oliver E. Williamson). John Quiggin, writing in Crikey today [where incidentally, he throws a sop to the pedants by pointing out that it isn't actually a Nobel Prize] discusses Ostrom’s contribution to scholarship: She’s the first woman to win the prize and (much more controversial for some) a political scientist. The best way to understand the impact of Ostrom’s work is to look at what it displaced. In 1968, Garrett Hardin wrote a highly influential article in Science called “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Hardin started with the story of how the medieval commons in England had collapsed under the pressure of overgrazing, and used this as a metaphor for modern environmental problems. The solution he argued was “enclosure”, that is, the conversion of the commons into private property. Hardin’s work was influenced by, and encouraged the further development of, the “property rights” school of economic thought, which saw the expansion of private property rights as the central engine of economic progress. Hardin took his analysis to its logical conclusion in his Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor, which suggested that having seized enough property rights to support themselves, the rich should (metaphorically) throw the poor overboard. Decades of careful empirical work on actual common property institutions, in which Ostrom has played the leading role has shown that Hardin’s description of the commons was totally inaccurate, and that the policy prescriptions he derived were likely to be counterproductive. That said, Ostrom is not romantic about common property institutions, and observes that they need not be egalitarian and may be rendered ineffective by changing circumstances. The message from Williamson and Ostrom that a mixed economy can involve not just private and public ownership but a range of other possible institutional structures, interacting through markets, contracts, regulations and direct collective management. Ostrom shows how the historical example common property in resource management may be applied modern problems involving externalities, local public goods and pollution. There’s a lot more coverage around the traps; notably in the New York Times, Scientific American and org.theory.net. Update: Paul Romer: Cheers to the Nobel committee for recognizing work on one of the deepest issues in economics. Bravo to the political scientist who showed that she was a better economist than the economic imperialists who can’t tell the difference between assuming and understanding. http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/10/13/the-economics-nobel/ |
| 10:46 am | Bob arsesucker Carr This arsesucker says that our generation imbibed anti-nuclear attitudes with our mothers milk...well duh. During the late fifties-early sixties there was at least one fallout blowback from atmospheric tests in the Pacific that raised radioactive iodone levels in milk. I was not breast fed and I can't have been the only one. And then I went back to America in 1979 and was there when they were talking about the entire east coast being a write-off for a couple of hundred thousand years. Three Mile Island ring any bells dickhead? China Syndrome was just a movie ...but then what about Chernobyl? I don't oppose all nuclear power stations - only stupid expensive ones that necessitate a police-state. There is work being done now on another fusion reactor - this form of power should be ready almost as quickly as the old dirty stations so...the case for nuclear power remains weak and worthless...a bit like Bob Carr actually. Now if Bob needs any help moving in next door to Lucas Heights maybe we could pass the hat around...or better yet shout him a one-way-ticket to Pripayat. |
| 10:34 am | Black carded "Le Jura Libertaire," a French anarchist blog Submitted by NOT BORED on Sun, 2009-10-11 09:37. Tags: Anarchist Practice From Not Bored The Good Fuckers at Le Jura Libertaire - Interview conducted by Paco Ever since Spring 2006, Le Jura Libertaire ("Libertarian Jura") has diffused on the Internet first-hand news accounts about social and political struggles. Consequently, this blog is much more passionate and reliable concerning the libertarian movement and its satellites than the nonsense spread by the official media. Paco: Why "Libertarian Jura"? I would imagine that the audience for this blog, which is often referred to, extends much farther than the Jura [Mountains]! Le Jura Libertaire: Before being a blog, Le Jura Libertaire was a paper bulletin that intended to reflect local anarchist activity. But it is an open media. Le Jura Libertaire is inevitably internationalist. Locally and very widely, it can serve as [a point of] contact and linkages. The near-totality of the echoes that return to us are enthusiastic and testify to the blog's utility. Despite this, it could be better if it had a fuller team. As things are, we receive comments and contributions with interest, from wherever they come. Paco: How does La Jura Libertarire function? The news that you provide, sometimes in several languages, are always in direct contact with the reality of the struggles. Your blog is, for example, a precious source concerning what's going on in Greece. Where do the reports and the excellent photos and videos that accompany them come from? For example, bravo for the article Urbanism and Modern Letters, published on 31 December [2008]. Le Jura Libertaire: The majority of the items that are published have been found elsewhere on the Internet. But more and more we receive reports directly through email. For example, the [English] manifesto from Greece Why Ravage? which we translated into French . . . before others had the Greek version. We also make available texts that are not available [on-line]. The theme Debordiana brings together texts devoted to theoretical critique. This year, we put on-line the chapters of the book Enrages and Situationists in the Occupations Movement, which was available at bookstores but not on-line, or if so, only in other languages, even though it is the first book one should read about the revolutionary crisis of May-June 1968. Paco: The blog abounds in themes. Solidarity, the Carceral, Education, International[ism], Atheism, the Police, Press, Racism, History, Unemployment, Women, the Environment and The Coming Insurrection. The last theme is directly inspired by the title of a book that titillates our sinister Minister of the Interior. By freely reprinting the Echoes of Taiga, the journal of the Support Committee for Those Arrested on 11 November, don't you risk provoking serious insomnia among the Big Brother family, those poor things? Le Jura Libertaire: First of all, and even if we had the ambition to be so, we could never be as extreme as this world. That said, we are [operating] in "public space" and on the Internet. Thus, we are concretely subjected to social censorship, to the control of our enemies as well as to police inquisitions. But our freedoms only atrophy if they are not used. Before they come fear Big Brother, children play "cops and robbers." And when they get caught, they are not faced by Big Brother, but Pere Ubu, instead. As for the insurrection that is coming here, there, and everywhere: it has no need of us. It manages very well all by itself! It is by conducting the war for freedom with anger that proletarians will be strategists, not otherwise. Paco: Without sectarianism, Le Jura Libertaire features links to all elements of the French libertarian movement (the Anarchist Federation, Coordination of Anarchist Groups, Libertarian and Social Offensive, the National Confederation of Workers . . .), but also to many Spanish, German, Argentine, Polish, Czech, English and Quebecois groups . . . bookstores, publishers, free radio stations, alternative and anti-authoritarian sites. . . . A real Tower of Babel that shows the great diversity of the anarchist family. All this at least proves that libertarians have missed the Internet revolution. Do you think that, to win other kinds of revolutions, the unity of libertarians will be more and more indispensable on the ground [sur le terrain]? Le Jura Libertaire: Constantly overcoming petty quarrels is quite important from our point of view. Organizing ourselves is important but, beyond that, neither experiences that escape labels nor the fetishism of initials should not make us forget who our real class enemies are. The revolution is not a lecture about morality: there is no choice between a wildcat strike, a slogan on a wall, a film by Pierre Carles, an appeal to solidarity, a song by Rene Biname, an act of sabotage, or the creation of a social alternative. The police do their work. It falls to revolutionaries to work in the other direction, by all means, existing and to be invented. Action can be coordinated, or not: one can recognize oneself quite well in the gestures of comrades who are far away, without actually knowing them. And this multiform subversion is, no doubt, more dangerous to all the powers than an unattainable unity of the "libertarian movement." In any case, the revolution will not wait. It will be necessary to be in the melee, that's all. Paco: Le Jura Libertaire offered us a surprising soap opera this summer. Your hot altercation with the Maoists had a retro-Surrealist side. It was quite hilarious. Have the adepts of The Little Red Book calmed down? Le Jura Libertaire: This did indeed make many people laugh. These particular Maoists -- because they are others, raving about other dogmas -- attacked us following the reprise of an interview with Jean-Claude Michea. In sum, according to their categories, anarchists are fascists; and, at the same time, Le Jura Libertaire is on the side of Autonomy, which supposedly has nothing to do with Anarchism or, rather, with Anarcho-syndicalism, which is the source of all the evils experienced by working people. . . . In brief, here we found ourselves confronted with the essence of Stalinist fuckery and calumny, in a quite pure incarnation. To such a point that these alleged "revolutionaries" had nothing to say when they were justly accused of being as priests and cops! Our exchange with these tigers made of paper and computer pixels thus ended with an anti-Maoist poem written specially for the occasion. . . . Paco: There is an originality to the entries at Le Jura Libertaire. Mixed among the articles about Tarnac, the massacres in Gaza, student struggles and riots in Greece are music-videos by Nina Hagen, Bob Dylan, Jethro Tull, The Pogues, Gnawa Diffusion, George Brassens and Claude Nougaro. Is this because music softens behavior? Le Jura Libertaire: One could also that that "class struggle has a soundtrack." From the start, we tried to embellish historic or current texts with songs of struggle. One must also say that Le Jura Libertaire is the avatar of a local, self-managed experiment in which "DIY" music played a role. . . . Ever since the summer, the blog has offered a bit of zik every day, and this quite something in itself. Paco: My eagle eye has also detected the presence of a small, very animated inlay within a few a priori serious articles. In it, one sees two charming pin-up girls in bikinis, swinging their hips in a no-doubt frenzied twist. Doesn't it pose too many problems for our anarcho-feminist friends? Le Jura Libertaire: Emma Goldman, the grandmother of [the musician] Jean-Jacques Goldman, used to say, "Where there is no dancing, my revolution is absent."[1] Le Jura Libertaire also reprints without comment some articles from mass-circulation papers. This is a choice that distinguishes us from the charters of Indymedia, for example. Our wager is that our readers will be able to read between the lines. Because reality is always more subtle than a militant's big wooden clogs, fortunately. Paco: In this bark-and-forth exchange [Entre chien et chat], I leave the last word to you. Carte noire au Jura Libertaire.[2] Best New Year wishes to you, on the Internet and in your struggles. Le Jura Libertaire: Thanks, Paco. Confronted with the dogs of oppression, long live camaraderie, solidarity and direct action! Let us act by ourselves, and remain elusive! (Published in Le Maque on 8 January 2009. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! 11 October 2009. Footnotes by the translator.) [1] There are many variants of this well-known quip. The French here is "La ou on ne danse pas, ce n'est pas ma revolution." [2] Carte Noire ("Black Card") is an expensive brand of French coffee. |
| 10:29 am | Guinea rape and murder backer is...guess who The DNI Open Source Center (OSC) recently issued a brief report (pdf) summarizing international criticism of Guinea's ruling military junta after Guinean security forces killed more than 100 civilians at a September 28 opposition rally. China is reported to be offering soft-loans to prop up this hateful regime. Much as it does in the Sudan and Zimbabwe. But no anti-capitalist need be concerned about any of this because China is run by Marxists who represent the working-class. This news flash is more for anti-statists. |