polo writes

What Is A Terrorist?

by Jeff Cohen

ter·ror·ist (ter'er-ist) n.

1. One who engages in acts or an act of terrorism.

2. One who leads an armed group that kills civilians as a means of political intimidation -- unless he terrorizes Haitians while on the CIA-payroll, as did 1990s death squad leader Emmanuel Constant, in which case the U.S. refuses to extradite him to Haiti, even after Sept. 11, 2001.

3. One who targets civilian airliners and ships -- unless he blows up a Cuban civilian airliner, killing 73 people, and fires at a Polish freighter, like Orlando Bosch, in which case he is coddled and paroled by the Bush Justice Department in 1990, and his extradition is blocked.

4. One who leads a group that engages in kidnapping and murder -- unless the victims are Hondurans attacked by CIA-backed death squad Battalion 316, in which case Battalion architect Gustavo Alvarez becomes a Pentagon consultant, while the then-ambassador to Honduras who downplayed the terror, John Negroponte, is appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations days after Sept. 11.

5. One who uses rape and murder for political purposes -- unless the victims are four U.S. church women sexually assaulted and killed in 1980 by members of El Salvador’s U.S.-backed military, in which case excuses and distortions pour forth from then-U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick (“these nuns were not just nuns; they were also political activists”) and Secretary of State Al Haig (the nuns “may have tried to run a roadblock”).

6. One who designates civilians as “soft targets” to be attacked in the cause of political transformation -- unless the targets are Nicaraguans killed by Contra guerrillas armed and directed by the U.S who, according to Human Rights Watch, “systematically engage in violent abuses…so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war.”

7. One who facilitates a massacre of civilians -- unless the victims are 900 Palestinians shot and hacked to death in the Sabra and Shatila camps by Lebanese Christian militia as Israeli soldiers stood guard, in which case Israel’s then-Defense Minster (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon remains a U.S. “War on Terrorism” ally after being censured as indirectly responsible for the massacre by an Israeli commission of inquiry."

hydrarchist writes

Extracts from

WHOSE ASTRONAUTS?

Imagination and the Multitudes in Italy in the Days of the Global Cacerolazo

by Wu Ming, February 2002



[the following essay was featured in /Giap/ - 2nd Series - #7, February 10th,
2002. It was reviewed by French magazine Les Inrockuptibles <http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/rasse gna/inrockuptibles_wm.html>]





It is true that the "movement of the movements" - albeit sorely-tried - has
survived the 2001 butcheries of Genoa, Gothenburg etc. Indeed, it has started
over in spite of the many attempts at wiping it out, in Italy and possibly
the rest of the planet.

It is true that even September 11th and the following Fifth Reich ideological
flocking failed to stop the mobilization of myriads of people. Indeed, the
opposition to the enduring global war provided one more reason to take the
streets and organize.  

It is true that millions of exiles from the old "official" left are crowding
on the borders of this manifold movement. These people are demanding to take
part, they need issues, ideas, words and action to restore their hope in the
opposition to the present and allow them to figure out the future.

It's all true. That's why we have found ourselves facing a lot of new problems.


The first and bigger one is the problem of imagination, i.e. the relationship
between this movement's imagery and its imagination, the way the movement
thinks of itself and the way it figures out that new, possible world it talks
about [...]

So far, nobody has managed to interpret the multitude. At best we managed
to evoke the multitude, as happened in Genoa [July 2001], always semi-consciously,
the way apprentice sorcerers do.

THE ORIGINS AND TRADITIONS OF MAYDAY

By Eugene W. Plawiuk

The international working class holiday; Mayday, originated in pagan
Europe. It was a festive holy day celebrating the first spring planting.
The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the day of
fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the sun.

Anonymous Comrade writes "This is a technical critique of Mike Albert's theory, I point out the positive aspects of his reinterpretation of Marxism, then tell what I think is wrong, and then offer a few suggestions for viewing his contribution in context of what I've said. This is technical but hopefully not BS

The article's legitmacy depends on the truthfulness of a certain type of perspectivism,
but I really hope that it rises above what latter day Nietszcheans have produced. But like them it focusses a lot on the roots of the percieved problems, hopefully the roots are not contradicted too much by the leaves, as it were.