Sixth Annual New York City Anarchist Book Fair
Judson Church, Saturday, April 14, 2012

http://anarchistbookfair.net/

New York City, a center of anarchist life, culture, struggle, and ideas for 150 years, will host its 6th annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair, a one-day exposition of books, zines, pamphlets, art, film/video, and other cultural and very political productions of the anarchist scene worldwide, on April 14, 2012 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan.

Review of Paul Mason's 'Why It's Kicking off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions'
Mark Kosman

Some people may dismiss Paul Mason as just another journalist, especially since he advocated more effective policing to contain the 'Black Bloc' after the 26 March TUC demo.[1] Yet, this is no reason not to read Why It's Kicking off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. Simply by bringing together insightful reports from the uprisings of 2010/11 - in Egypt, Greece, Israel, Spain, the UK and the US - Mason helps the reader get an overview of the present state of global class struggle. But, more than this, he puts these struggles in a historical and theoretical context and so provokes more interesting questions than any other recent book.

Occupy the US! Horizontal Decision Making in the Occupy Movement
Marianne Maeckelbergh

The year 2011 has breathed new life into horizontal models of democratic decision-making. With the rise of the 15 May movement and the occupy movement horizontal decision-making became one of the key political structures for organising responses to the current global economic crisis. While this decision-making process has arguably never been as widely practiced as it is today, it has also never seemed as difficult and complicated as it does today. At its height there were 5,000 people at the general assemblies in Placa Catalunya in Barcelona and even more in Madrid. It is no longer just activists trying to use and teach each other these decision-making processes but it is hundreds or thousands of people who have a far greater disparity in terms of backgrounds, starting assumptions, aims and discursive styles. This is incredibly good news, but it is not easy.

Issue 1 of Lateral online now

Lateral is the publishing platform for the Cultural Studies Association (CSA). Its aims are to support, leverage, and organize the capacities of those affiliated with CSA to develop critical forms of publishing that are commensurate with innovative approaches to knowledge making, political intervention, and material forms of cultural expression. Lateral focuses on providing a place of experimentation in the range of material forms so that the knowing, feeling, sensibility ascribed to the cultural can find an elastic and sustainable outlet for expression. In short, Lateral is interested in recasting both the form and content of what cultural studies can be. Lateral is an online and open access journal published under the Creative Commons license. Lateral is organized in research threads; Issue 1 consists of four threads: Theory and Method, Mobilisations, Interventions and Cultural Policy, Universities in Question and Culture Industries. Patricia Ticineto Clough, Randy Martin and Bruce Burgett compose its curatorial board; design editor is Jamie “Skye” Bianco.

Leap Second Festival 2012

Call for entries: Works lasting one second or less. The festival is also
interested in texts and essays.

The festival takes place on the leap second which occurs 30th June
2012 23:59:60 UTC.

Submission at festival website
http://noemata.net/leapsec/

See full announcement below.

Worker Co-operatives and Democracy
Bernard Marszalek

Members of worker co-operatives necessarily live schizophrenic lives. On one hand, we must function as owners of small businesses and contend with all the insidious forces of capitalism – the anti-ethic of profits before people. At the same time we are members of an egalitarian corporate entity that most people can’t imagine existing, much less thriving. Here we are, a diverse group – some friends, some OK folks and some who we don’t socialize with after hours – working together day-in-and-day-out dealing with all the tensions arising from individual personality quirks, the aforementioned forces of the marketplace, unexpected emergencies, and, when everything else is under control, the boredom of daily tedium.

A collective life like this for those who have drunk the Kool-Aid of individualism – also called the Great Ape theory of human nature – think that it must be hell. Of course, when we face “challenges” in our co-operatives, especially during contentious meetings, the thought crosses our minds that, in fact, hell is other people. We all have doubts and wonder, at times, if we have taken the wrong fork on the path of life and have foolishly placed ourselves on a trajectory heading towards a nervous breakdown. Luckily for most of us, this fear passes and we realize that we wouldn’t want to trade our bizarre lives for confinement in a cubicle of some “friendly fascist” enterprise – even if it paid more.

Communisation and its Vicissitudes
London, March 18, 2012

Endnotes and Blaumachen are holding a discussion on communisation with
a presentation of the journal Sic (International Journal for
Communisation).

Next Sunday (18/3) 6pm at Colorama (52-56 Lancaster Street, London SE1).

We will also talk about:
- Communisation and politics
- Struggles in Greece

Please join us and distribute to all those you think will be interested.

Rage Against the Rule of Money
A Talk by John Holloway

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 | 7.00 – 9.00 PM
Concourse Level, Room C203
CUNY Grad Center
365 5th Avenue, NY, NY 10016

JOHN HOLLOWAY is a Professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico. His publications include Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010), Change the World Without Taking Power (Pluto, 2005), Zapatista! Rethinking Revolution in Mexico (co-editor, Pluto, 1998) and Global Capital, National State and The Politics of Money (co-editor, 1994).

His latest book, Crack Capitalism, argues that radical change can only come about through the creation, expansion and multiplication of 'cracks' in the capitalist system. These cracks are ordinary moments or spaces of rebellion in which we assert a different type of doing.

John Holloway's previous book, Change the World Without Taking Power, sparked a world-wide debate among activists and scholars about the most effective methods of going beyond capitalism.

Free and open to the public

Occupy The System: Confronting Global Capitalism
A 3-day Left Forum @ Pace University, NYC

About the Theme:
http://www.leftforum.org/conference/conference-theme

Registration:
http://www.leftforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=632&reset=1

Occupy Wall Street To Besiege Romney at Waldorf Astoria Fundraiser
Activists Crash Luncheon, Confront Income Inequality, Corporate Personhood

What: Rally & March
When: Wednesday March 11am - 2pm
Where: Waldorf Astoria Hotel
(Rallying Point at 51st St. & Park Ave. at 11am)

[NEW YORK, NY] A pop-up occupation will confront Governor Mitt Romney as he arrives in New York for a fundraising luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel at 11am on Wednesday, March 14th 2012. This event targeting the presidential hopeful and his fundraising base of special interest lobbyists is one of the first in a series of actions some occupiers are calling "The American Spring."

Occupy Wall Street, along with a broad coalition of community advocacy organizations including UnitedNY, the Strong Economy for All Coalition, Occupy the Dream, New York Communities for Change, Dream Act Scholars / NY Dream Act Coalition, Rebuild the Dream, Community Voices Heard, Move On, Vocal New York and Make the Road New York have signed onto this large event, uniting themselves around a message that our elections are not for sale and that corporations (unlike voters) are not people.