There is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek experience at its source, or rather, above that decisive turn where, taking a bias in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience. (Bergson, 1991: 184).
ReadWhat we've learnt from the Net and how we can extrapolate it to all spaces of struggle.
(Some thoughts geared towards action, compiled for the Radical Community Manager courses that we organise at X.net)
"In August 1996, we called for the creation of a network of independent media, a network of information. We mean a network to resist the power of the lie that sells us this war that we call the Fourth World War. We need this network not only as a tool for our social movements, but for our lives: this is a project of life, of humanity, humanity which has a right to critical and truthful information."
These were the words of Subcomandante Marcos, speaking in 1997 from Chiapas in the midst of the Zapatistas' guerrilla information war against the Mexican state and the neocolonialism reflected in NAFTA. Marcos's powerful statement and Zapatista stories of struggle were circulated from the jungle of Chiapas on mailing lists, listservs, and websites, capturing the imagination of activists around the world and galvanizing a wave of new grassroots media projects. Perhaps no project more purely embodied this response than the Indymedia network, which was launched in November 1999 at the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings and quickly grew into a global network of news websites.
Simple steps to take before hitting the streets
Mass protests have broken out across the United States after a Minneapolis police officer killed black Minnesotan George Floyd while he was in police custody.
One thing demonstrators should be aware of before they head out is that their cellphones may subject them to surveillance tactics by law enforcement. If your cellphone is on and unsecured, not only can your location be tracked, but your messages and the content of your phone may also be retrieved by police either if they take custody of your phone or later by warrant or subpoena.
A dangerous new legal doctrine is lurking:
The unrestricted Trade Secret protection
Xnet launches a video campaign at European level, in collaboration with numerous civil society organizations such as Corporate Europe Observatory, EDRi, la Quadrature du Net, Health Action International, P2P Foundation, Initiative für Netzfreiheit, Commons Network, to expose the threats of the new legal doctrine on Trade Secrets for whistleblowers, freedom of press and information, workers and consumers, health and the public interest.
In Antoine de Saint Exupéry's tale the Little Prince meets a businessman who accumulates stars with the sole purpose of being able to buy more stars. The Little Prince is perplexed. He owns only a flower, which he waters every day. Three volcanoes, which he cleans every week. "It is of some use to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them," he says, "but you are of no use to the stars that you own".
Read"They say it's a joke they say it's a game." The slogan was launched on the Chicago streets by the group We Charge Genocide, in the middle of a demo demanding reparations for victims of police torture. The folks on the street chanted those words, we hurled them out of our mouths in staccato bursts, while looking round at the passers-by who pretended not to notice. What the chant means is either enigmatic, or it's painfully obvious. There is a kind of disdain that minimizes a death or a beating or a torture or a life sentence for black people in the name of lawfulness, efficiency, morality and humanist ideals. That kind of disdain has made democracy impossible in the US - and other places too.
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Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison! Show Him He Still Has Our Support!
Jeremy Hammond is a 28-year-old political activist sentenced to 120 months in prison, with an additional 3 years probation upon his release,
after pleading guilty to the Anonymous conspiracy to hack the private
intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor). A longtime proponent
of "hactivism," his actions are a form of electronic civil
disobedience. He believes that "people have a right to know what
governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors."
Restore the Fourth to hold protests on July 4th for Fourth Amendment Rights. We're protesting to restore the Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
Call to Action: Reclaim Pride From the 1%
#OccuPride #OccuQueers #Tranarchism #PinkBloc
Global Facebook event
Pride 2012: The Struggle for Sexual and Gender Justice Continues
This summer, communities across the world will celebrate Pride Festivals
commemorating the birth and victories of the Gay and Trans Liberation
Movements. Despite the profound social change these movements have
accomplished since the first high-heels were thrown over the barricades
at Compton's Cafeteria and the Stonewall Inn, it is clear that the
struggle for queer, trans, and gender-variant liberation is far from
finished.
The latest issue of The Occupied Times of London is devoted to the question of technology in contemporary forms of political contestation. The main question thrown up by the editors is to ask: "What is technology for?" (TMF editors)
ReadA demonstration in solidarity with Anonymous Hacker Jeremy Hammond occurred last night (December 3, 2013) at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where he is temporarily being held. Just two weeks ago, the 28 year old was sentenced to 10 years in federal detention for cyber crimes. Amongst other high-profile breaches, he leaked confidential intelligence data to Wikileaks from a private intelligence firm known as Stratfor. Many consider Stratfor to be a "shadow CIA" operating under even less regulation and oversight than a government entity.
ReadLONDON - Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files - more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods.
ReadProtest Signs, Graffiti, and Street Art - a special issue of Shahadat
This issue takes as its focus the popular literature of the Egyptian
Revolution. Drawing on protest signs, graffiti, and street art in Tahrir
to read the culture of resistance particular to the Egyptian
Revolution, the curators examine how protesters changed the political
narrative through the use of images, memorials, and expressions of daily
life. Featuring examples from an extensive gallery of online images
culled from the collections of several prominent Egyptian journalists
and activists, the online piece is a visual tour of some of the creative
production of Egypt's Revolution. A collaborative curation project
split between New York City and Cairo, this is ArteEast's first critical
look at the cultural production related to recent political
developments in the Middle East.
- Co-curators, Rayya El Zein & Alex Ortiz.
10 solutions/facts plus one.
A citizen response to the recent attacks on freedoms in the name of an
incoherent concept that carries the name "intellectual property".
WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks.
ReadBorders are there to be crossed. Their significance becomes obvious only when they are violated--and it says quite a lot about a society's political and social climate when one sees what kind of border-crossing a government tries to prevent. Everybody knows that it is increasingly easy for money, goods, and capital to cross the borders of nation-states and territories; that the spreading of information can no longer be restricted; that social, political, or economic conflicts cannot be reduced to national affairs anymore.
* What's all this campaigning about?
* The structure of the CCC
CCC AREAS OF ACTIVITY
* Putting Pressure on Companies
* Consumers: Raising Awareness and Pressing for Change
* Legal Possibilities?
* Solidarity Work
* Frequently Asked Questions about the CCC
* Where you can find us
If the left has learned anything from resistance against capital driven technocracy, it is that the democratic process is only minimally useful for slowing the profit machine of pancapitalism. Since corporations and other capital-saturated institutions own the process, and tend to function outside national democratic imperatives, other methods of power appropriation have to be developed. In the case of biotechnology, the resistance is unfortunately in a position of reactivity. Corporations have already infiltrated most governments and markets at such a furious pace that all that can be done is attempt to slow them down, while cells and organizations regroup and decide on a way to address the many problems that have already arisen, and the many potential accidents that are in front of us.
The events of the century's turn, from Seattle to New York, have shown that a sweeping critique of capitalist globalization is possible, and urgently necessary-before the level of violence in the world dramatically increases. The beginnings of such a critique exist, with the renewal of "unorthodox" economics. [1] But now one can look further, toward a critique of contemporary capitalist culture.
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