Published at: 06:03 pm - Tuesday March 09 2010
| From Crimethinc
Anarchists in the US have been slow to respond to the economic crisis, missing many of the opportunities it has offered. One of the exceptions is the recent participation of anarchists in the student movement protesting budget cuts and austerity measures. This came into the national consciousness in December 2008 when students occupied a building at the New School in New York City. NYU followed suit in February, and the following fall students in California began occupying schools up and down the coast.
The most recent phase of the student movement came to a head on March 4, when protests took place all around the US. The Bay Area was perhaps the epicenter of this day of action, seeing thousands of people on the streets—but at this epicenter, the tensions and contradictions around anarchist participation in the student movement came to the fore. Here, we present an eyewitness report on March 4 actions in the Bay, and complement it with a set of discussion questions we hope will help anarchists and others in the student movement hone their strategies. We’re seeking responses to these questions—email answers to rollingthunder@crimethinc.com or post them in the comments section here.
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Published at: 12:03 pm - Tuesday March 09 2010
| Operation Knock Over Recycle Bin and Strew The Contents All Over The Street!
Just say no to Recycling! If you Reduce and Reuse, there is no need to Recycle. Recycling is just a way for capitalism to ride the back of environmentally conscious people with out ever having to actually change their fundamental system.
In Seattle during the anti-WTO convergence, in 1999, we set a dumpster of cardboard recycling on fire. This action was widely misconstrued as a bunch of hooligan police provocateurs attempting to besmirch the good name of respectable protesters and rioters alike.
Our goal in Operation Set Cardboard Dumpster On Fire was to prevent the recycling trucks from coming to pick it up, using fossil fuels and ever increasing road networks to bring it to the recycling depot, process it then transport it in more trucks to factories to manufacture it into goods consumers would drive their cars to malls to yet again purchase, starting this whole ‘recycling’ charade all over again. How many times can one recycled box be recycled before the recycling process itself becomes just another toxic pollutant! |
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Published at: 11:03 am - Tuesday March 09 2010
| From Rocktown Rebel
The following statements are the opinion of Rocktown Rebel and not of Steven Thomas or anyone involved in his legal representation.
Yesterday morning, in the Augusta County Courthouse, [located in Staunton, VA] Steven Thomas stood for what is certain to be one of his many court proceedings in the next few months, and a member of the Rocktown Rebel editorial board was there, among others, to observe.
Steven’s judge discarded the transparent pretense of “service to democracy”often employed by the legal managers of our sick society – choosing to indulge in the perverse joy of openly and cynically wielding the sword of bureaucratic destruction against another sincerely committed social revolutionary. |
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Published at: 04:03 am - Tuesday March 09 2010
| Fuck martyrdom, I wasn’t trying to get caught. I ran from the pigs and dodged them until I realized they had me trapped.
Jail sucked, twenty-three hours inside of one is both too long and long enough.
The plan didn’t work cuz we got caught before it was finished, so that sucked a lot too.
And yet…A lot of barriers were broken down on March 4th and that makes me happy. For one, I mean shit have you ever walked on a freeway before and actually stopped traffic?! This invisible boundary that we, prudently, allow to block us from part of our world was transcended and transgressed as 150 or so of us took it over. There is a lot of nay saying about “adventurism” and things of the like, and to a point I do agree that if we are in it to win it our tactics must go beyond simple pleasure seeking. At the same time if the revolution ain’t fun then fuck it. The taking of 880 was an escalation that went beyond the campus, brought together students and non-students alike (in fact I think I saw one or two anti-students) and cost the state a whole lot of fucking money. I’m sorry to all those kids with circle a’s that wanted to do a bit of trashing but honestly, us getting all flossed up on the freeway had the majority of OPD on duty attending to us; use the situations that present themselves. |
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Published at: 03:03 pm - Monday March 08 2010
| Since when is Common Cause against Sectarianism? - by: Testament (an ex-common cause organizer)
While the anti-Olympics convergence and the militant actions in Vancouver have been celebrated as successes by local anarchist organizers and their comrades around the world, two so-called anarchists from Ontario's 'Common Cause' have joined the corporate media, police, and IOC in publicly condemning the black bloc. The traitors names are MS and AD, and they have a history of publicly insulting other anarchists, dominating Common Cause's discourse with their own opinions, and even kicking people out of Common Cause for not adhering to their 'party line'.
After dedicating much of my time and resources into opening a new branch of Common Cause in London in the hopes of seeing it grow into a larger more effective force for spreading anarchism in South-Western Ontario, the higher-ups in this so-called non-hierarchical organization decided to strip me of membership in their euro-centric, academic, male-dominated anarchist club. The reason they cited for kicking me out was my refusal to participate in the extreme sectarianism of denouncing any and all perspectives that were not platformist. They told me I could not support any anarchist projects other than platformist ones and insisted that I break my ties with other non-platformist groups; specifically Crimethinc. |
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Published at: 01:03 pm - Monday March 08 2010
|
ARRIVAL:
I traveled to Berkeley, California from a strange, anonymous land. I mingled with the desperate and the insane on my journey. People broken by the economy, the police, and society. Strangers amidst strangers, sharing what little they had with me and with each other. I traveled alone, just like all of the others, heading to our various failures, disasters, and dreams.
When I arrived at UC Berkeley, I knew very little about the planning of the events of March 4th. I knew nothing about how the unions, workers, students, and unemployed came together. I knew nothing of the divisions, the drama, or the infighting which had taken place before, nor did I know the context for the infighting which was to happen later.
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Published at: 02:03 pm - Sunday March 07 2010
| If you have shopped till you drop and would like to know what else anarchism has to offer please join us at the 2010 BASTARD conference. This year we have an exciting theme planned "an anarchist theory of everything!" We look forward to your participation.
Where: UC Berkeley, Dwinelle Hall
When: Sunday March 14th from 10 am - 6 pm (remember daylight savings time!!!)
In alphabetical order:
Comedy!
Anarchist funnies by a panel of folks from a wide range of histories and perspectives.
Come laugh, chuckle, titter, or sit back and look smug (depending on your hipness quotient).
presenters: Jason Mcquinn, Apio, Audrey Goodfriend, Doug the MAC |
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Published at: 10:03 am - Sunday March 07 2010
| From Occupy CA
Once again there is debate on the nature that mass rebellion should take as anger grows in the face of colonial, economic, racial and gendered violence. On three occasions in the last year—the first Oscar Grant uprising, the recent UC Berkeley protests and now the takeover of Hwy 880 in Oakland—the race, class and gender of those who participated in the rebellions has come under fire.
On all three occasions individuals have tried to denounce these rebellions as white, middle class outsiders “leading” the youth of color. Reports and analyses from the first two uprisings have already exposed these assumptions as completely false:
Regarding the Oscar Grant rebellions:
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Published at: 07:03 pm - Saturday March 06 2010
| Hereby, I gave you my email to Roger Peet--who edited the piece about Taring Padi in the book published by AKPRESS "Art Against Authority"-- and his reply . This is a matter to ignite discussion and how i think that if people from abroad wants to write or making report about anything in Indonesia should do more in depth research, otherwise they will make themselves look naive or rather stupid. There's some emotional rants, but i really need to make this polemic more into public. As for Indonesia, I already wrote similiar things about Taring Padi on Amor Fati journal issue 3...i will asked my friend S to translate it to english.
the book: http://akpress.com/2007/items/realizingtheimpossibleak
Dear Roger,
Aside from my personal sentiment of the Art-World, I come across a book belongs to my friend "Art Against Authority". Its a wonderful book, I really like about the Black Mask thing...but about Taring Padi? I think you have to make some clarification about that, otherwise I'll provoke other comrades to write an open letter concerning that publication. Did you know that most of the answer in the interview are sort of bullshit? Arent you suspicious of an artists collective describing themselves "anarchist and communist" and still running more than a decade? Did you know that they now wanted to start a foundation? Did you know that they cooperate mostly with NGO's? Neo-liberal Ngo's? Did you know they are very close to Ford Foundation people? My friend, Tjuan, who was an inhabitant in Taring Padi's squatted house more than a decade a go read that piece of yours as naive and lack of research. And most of the thing they accomplish hardly gets on the grassroot, well if its an NGO project, of course they will say its successful..and if you research carefully, NGO in Indonesia are the most corrupted ones, we're fighting them in the grassroot level and sometimes in violent means. You can call this a black propaganda, its up to you. But its very dissapointing to read that piece of crap interview... next time, if you want to write something or promote something, you'd better do in depth research rather than glorifying something that you didnt really know. |
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Published at: 05:03 pm - Saturday March 06 2010
| From Berkeley Liberation Radio.
Following Thursday, March 4th's Berkeley to Oakland march and rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza for the statewide strike and day of action against budget cuts, layoffs and furloughs to public education, a second march commenced. 200-250 students, educators, and activists marched from the close of the rally to the exterior of Mark Yudof's office for a street dance party. The group then made their way toward the I-880 freeway, where 150-200 elected to enter on foot to shut down traffic. |
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