Rage Against the Machine: Revolution in the Head and the Art of Protest

Mohatama Gandhi: On Civil Resistance

An out-and-out civil resister argues to himself, that a state allows personal freedom only in so far as the citizen submits to its regulations. Submission to the state law is the price a citizen pays for his personal liberty. Submission, therefore, to a state wholly or largely unjust is an immoral barter for liberty. A citizen who thus realizes the evil nature of a state is not satisfied to live on its sufferance. Thus considered, civil resistance is a most powerful expression of a soul's anguish and an eloquent protest against the continuance of an evil state.

-- Mohatama Gandhi

Journal of Aesthetics & Protest #7: Conversations and Theory in Practice

Journal of Aesthetics & Protest

Conversations and Theory in
practice. go practice!!!

issue 7editorial
Green is the New Red: An Interview with Journalist Will Potter: by Dara Greenwald

Food Justice Now! by Mark Vallianatos

Two Notes on Art and Class (Composition)

Never Art/work! by Stevphen Shukaitis & Erika Biddle

The Power Class: by Michael Parker

Notes for an Artist Run Credit League: by InCUBATE

Protests Past and Protest Futures: a conversation with Benj Gerdes, Gavin Grindon and Rodrigo Nunes

The Aaron Burr Society: by Jim Costanzo

Between Art and Anarchism; Horizontalism in New Social Practices: Revolutionary Autonomous Communities and Artists For Social Justice: by Sue Bell Yank

Gathering The Fruit Together: a conversation on gleaning with Hynden Walch and Asiya Wadud

The Free Store: by Salem Collo-Julin

Clump Camp, Real World and the web 2.0 Social Remix: a conversation with tobias c. van Veen, Kate Rich and Kayle Brandon

The Participant: Scenes from Time Banking: by Elana Mann

A Conversation: Scott Berzofsky(Participation Park Baltimore) & Jennifer Renteria

(Starlite Swap Meet LA)Coop 57; It Is Possible To Undertake Projects Outside The Market: by Amy Franceschini

web Special* Welcome to the Cultural Goodwill Revolution: On Class Composition in the Age of Classless Struggle: by Marc J Legerweb

Special* gardens of utopia: by Jennifer Breckner, Robin Hewlett, Mark Tribe

A critical look at issue seven: by our intern Lucy Dinnen

To Read Issue #7

Protesting the Gunns Pulp Mill

From the USA--solidarity!



Gunns Update

Sublett: Why We're Winning

Why We’re Winning.
By Sublett of the BAAM Newsletter
Decentralize TV

A curious property evident in the discussion of insurrection in the United States is that it gets more respect the further it occurs from home. Anarchists who would never dream of complaining that the Thessaloniki Food not Bombs is being neglected while its members amuse themselves burning banks, who could never conceive of suggesting that the Somali pirates stop seizing ships for ransom in order to start a bike repair collective, have no problem criticizing their own friends and comrades for shortchanging local projects to attend semi-annual mass mobilizations. This is a shame, because a look at the broader picture reveals that summit demos are taking an ongoing toll on the ruling class, even when they are tactically unsuccessful.

Just for starters, any city hosting a summit has to impose de facto martial law for the duration of the meetings. Miles-long steel security fences, bag searches on the subway, black helicopters in the sky, armor-clad riot cops on every corner, among other measures, make a mockery of the myth of “civil rights.” By employing such repressive tactics just to keep a few summit delegates from being confronted by those they claim to be helping, authority reveals its true nature, undisguised by the usual lies and propaganda. People who claim that we should abandon summit protests because we can never replicate the WTO (World Trade Organization) riots in Seattle are missing this point. While it’s true that the cops will never again allow themselves to be defeated on the street the way they were in Seattle, the things they have to do to win in the short term erode the perceived legitimacy of the entire ruling system in the medium term. If all they had to do was stop the protests they could just shoot the protesters. But since they must also maintain the illusion of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, their problem is complicated immensely. They have no good options, so it’s not a matter of whether we will win, only of how.

Their situation becomes all the worse when, after turning the host city into a militarized encampment for a week, the cops can’t even stop a few kids in black from breaking windows. The resulting frustration often leads them to attack and arrest defenseless groups and individuals who have minimal connection to the protests, further compounding their problems when the videos hit Youtube. Then to justify their own brutality, the cops make an example of a handful of protest organizers by hitting them with ridiculously inflated charges, usually for actions that most people would consider perfectly innocuous. As an added bonus, the lawsuits generated by blatantly unconstitutional arrests and searches strain city budgets, consume prosecutors’ time, and extend their PR nightmare. For authoritarians, the only thing worse than appearing brutal and repressive is appearing brutal and repressive and ineffectual. Cops, by their nature, will fall into this trap every time, as long as we show up and set it for them.

While not every big demo conforms to the above pattern exactly, the dynamic was illustrated to perfection at the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh September 24 and 25. The city imported 3,000 outside cops and 2,500 National Guard troops to augment its meager force of 877. In addition, the Pittsburgh municipal government launched a fear mongering campaign aimed at demonizing protesters, only to see it blow up in their faces when many businesses and schools drank a little too much Kool-Aid and shut down and boarded up for the week rather than face the black-clad hordes. The army of cops kept an unpermitted march of at most 2,000 from getting anywhere near the convention on the 24th, but couldn’t stop protesters from escaping back eastward and damaging stores in the Shadyside shopping district. Later that night, a Bash Back! march broke more windows in Oakland, even attacking some in a police substation. Despite being substantially outnumbered, both actions sustained minimal arrests. Unlike their counterparts at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul, Minnesota in September 2008, Pittsburgh cops didn’t retaliate by attacking permitted events. They did, however, beat, teargas and arrest protesters at an impromptu rally against police brutality, of all things, including a number of University of Pittsburgh students who were only hanging out watching. While this sort of behavior is routinely ignored in low-income communities of color, it generated an enormous amount of bad publicity for the police when applied to majority-white college students with video cameras.

And sure enough, as if following a script, the Pennsylvania cops found innocent people to scapegoat for their own incompetence. They arrested two members of the Tin Can Comms Collective, Elliot Madison and Michael Wallschlaeger, for broadcasting updates about police activity over Twitter. The two are charged, as of this writing, with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communications facility, and possession of instruments of crime. A week later, Madison’s home in New York was raided by the FBI, who seized stuffed animals, Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs, and a picture of Curious George, among other incriminating items. The feds then tied Obama even more tightly to the case by launching a grand jury investigation of Madison and his wife. Madison and Wallschlaeger’s case is reminiscent of that of the RNC 8, eight anarchists who are being prosecuted under the Minnesota Patriot Act for helping organize protests against the RNC. But unlike the RNC 8, whose case has only been covered heavily in Minnesota, Madison and Wallschlaeger’s arrests were featured prominently nationwide. Jokes about “Twerrorism” began circulating almost immediately after their arrests, and many commentators pointed out the hypocrisy of the Obama administration supporting the use of Twitter by protesters in Iran while repressing the same thing in Pittsburgh. The incident tarnished Obama’s reputation as a supporter of civil rights, and future developments in the case will only exacerbate that problem.

But wait, there’s more. The Daily Show covered the anarchist protesters at the G-20—twice, no less. John Oliver’s “Tea Partiers Advise G20 Protesters” segment was a particularly biting attack on the disparity in police response between right-wing and left-wing protests. And, lest anybody be tempted to dismiss The Daily Show as mere comedy, a 2007 University of Louisiana study found it to contain as much, if not more, actual news than the average television news program, and at least one poll has shown Jon Stewart to be the United States’ most trusted newscaster. Not to mention he’s a lot funnier than Walter Cronkite ever was.

To Read the Rest of the Essay

Juan Cole: Student Protests Erupt in Over a Dozen Iranian Cities

Student Protests Erupt in Over a Dozen Iranian Cities
Juan Cole

The protests against the regime in Iran on Monday were remarkable in several ways, I conclude on reading Borzou Daragahi's account in LAT. One is the sheer number of cities where students came out for rallies: "Esfahan, Shiraz and Kerman, in the eastern city of Mashhad and in the western cities of Tabriz, Kermanshah, Hamedan and Ilam as well as in Rasht on the Caspian Sea."

Another is that Iranian Kurds joined in the protests in Sanandaj and other cities, throwing a scare into the regime, which is said to be sending armored vehicles to help restore order. Iranian Kurdish dissidents have been targeted by the regime for harsh treatment in recent months. The rise of a semi-independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq has increased worries in Tehran about Kurdish separatism. It is alleged that PEJAK, the Iranian-Kurdish guerrilla group, has carried operations against the regime with US encouragement.

Protesters chanted 'Death to the Dictator,' attacked Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for destroying the country, and burned photos of Khamenei. AP says, 'Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi declared the clerical establishment was losing legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians. "A great nation would not stay silent when some confiscate its vote," said Mousavi, who claims to be the real winner of the June 12 election. . . '

Monday's rallies were bigger than the ones of November 4 and these protests are the largest since last summer.

Basij paramilitary intervened on motorcycles with batons. The regime used tear gas to dispersed the crowds, and some protesters were beaten. Reports of killings by the police have not been verified.

To Read the Continuing Updated Post and to access videos of the protests

The Battle of Seattle 10 Years Later: David Solnit and Ananda Tan Reflect on 1999 Shutdown of WTO Talks and the Birth of a Movement

The Battle of Seattle 10 Years Later: Organizers Reflect on 1999 Shutdown of WTO Talks and the Birth of a Movement
Democracy Now



Ten years ago, on November 30, 1999, tens of thousands of people from across the country and the world shut down the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle. Police responded by firing teargas and rubber bullets. Hundreds were arrested. On this 10th anniversary, we speak with two organizers of the protests: David Solnit, co-author of “The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle” and Ananda Tan, of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

David Solnit, Direct Action Network organizer in Seattle. Co-author with sister Rebecca Solnit of “The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle.” He is also with the Mobilization for Climate Justice.

Ananda Tan, North America coordinator for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and organizing with the Mobilization for Climate Justice coalition. He led a group of 4,000 Canadian workers to the protests in Seattle 10 years ago.

To Read/Listen/Watch

10 Year Anniversary of 1999 WTO (World Trade Organization) Protests in Seattle

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the 1999 WTO Protests in Seattle:



To find more videos on this subject

More Resources:

From Geneva, Greg Palast on the current activities of the WTO

Anti-Capital Projects: The Necrosocial

(Courtesy of Brian Holmes, on Continental Drift, reporting on the continuing University of California Protests)

Excerpt from the The Necrosocial

In the university we prostrate ourselves before a value of separation, which in reality translates to a value of domination. We spend money and energy trying to convince ourselves we’re brighter than everyone else. Somehow, we think, we possess some trait that means we deserve more than everyone else. We have measured ourselves and we have measured others. It should never feel terrible ordering others around, right? It should never feel terrible to diagnose people as an expert, manage them as a bureaucrat, test them as a professor, extract value from them their capital as a businessman. It should feel good, gratifying, completing. It is our private wet dream for the future; everywhere, in everyone this same dream of domination. After all, we are intelligent, studious, young. We worked hard to be here, we deserve this.

We are convinced, owned, broken. We know their values better than they do: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. This triumvirate of sacred values are ours of course, and in this moment of practiced theater—the fight between the university and its own students—we have used their words on their stages: Save public education!

When those values are violated by the very institutions which are created to protect them, the veneer fades, the tired set collapses: and we call it injustice, we get indignant. We demand justice from them, for them to adhere to their values. What many have learned again and again is that these institutions don’t care for those values, not at all, not for all. And we are only beginning to understand that those values are not even our own.

The values create popular images and ideals (healthcare, democracy, equality, happiness, individuality, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, public education) while they mean in practice the selling of commodified identities, the state’s monopoly on violence, the expansion of markets and capital accumulation, the rule of property, the rule of exclusions based on race, gender, class, and domination and humiliation in general. They sell the practice through the image. We’re taught we’ll live the images once we accept the practice.

Laurie Essig: Lessons from the University of California student protests

Lessons from the UC student protests
by Laurie Essig
Class Warfare

UC Santa Cruz students are still occupying a building after rate hikes were announced across the University of California system last week.

A system wide, 32 percent fee increase approved Wednesday amid the state’s budget crisis sparked protests at several UC campuses, including both Santa Cruz and Berkeley, where groups of students seized control of several administration buildings.

These 32% rate hikes, we are told, are unavoidable. The students have their doubts. So do I.

The ugly truth is that universities have become mini-versions of Neoliberal corporate America. The people at the very top- the presidents and provosts and countless vice presidents- make a quarter million or even a half million dollars a year. A good chunk of all teaching is done by “Adjunct” professors, meaning that getting their PhD has landed them a job where they teach 4 classes a semester (more than full-time faculty) at a couple of thousand dollars a class with no benefits. And the staff- always underpaid- remains so.

To Read the Rest

More Resources:

Infoshop Archive of Reports