Second-wave Situationism? Gavin Grindon, Fifth Estate Last year saw, at least here in London, a plethora of commemorative events to mark the 40 year anniversary of the events of 1968, with pundits and talking heads emerging from everywhere to offer their accounts and experiences of that year, in which a multitude of movements remade and reclaimed the terrain of everyday life in a variety of ways from the jaws of capitalism. These accounts often mentioned the Situationist International, and the many groups whose ideas – if not directly related – were often very close to them. The list of these groups who attempted to fuse art and everyday life in a rejection of capitalism and the creation of autonomous spaces will be familiar to most readers. In New York, the Yippies and Black Mask, in California the Diggers, in Chicago the Rebel Worker Group, in the UK King Mob, in Amsterdam the Provos...

Italian Pirate Bay Trial in the Making Ernesto, from Torrent Freak Following the Swedish verdict, Italy is now considering starting its own trial against the people involved with The Pirate Bay. This would be the first criminal prosecution against the Pirate Bay ‘founders’ outside their home country. During August last year, The Pirate Bay was “censored” in Italy when ISPs were ordered to block access to the worlds largest BitTorrent tracker. The Pirate Bay appealed the block and eventually won the court case. In October the Court of Bergamo ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement. However, with the Swedish verdict against The Pirate Bay in hand, the Italian justice authority is now looking into the possibility of starting their very own trial against the Pirate Bay ‘operators’. Interesting to say the least, because The Pirate Bay and those involved with the site have no direct link to Italy.

Last Week of "House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence," May 5-7, 2009 The “House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence” informational exhibit on European squatted social centers finishes its final week of programming at ABC No Rio. Then it will be boxed up and moved to Queens for the summer. After this week we'll be working on the catalogue zine, which will be a PDF posted in June.

Academic Freedom Controversy at the University of California Santa Barbara Leading Radical Scholar Accused of Anti-Semitism Professor William Robinson, a world renowned Jewish scholar, is facing charges of Anti-Semitism at the University of California Santa Barbara. A list of his publication and other information about his work can be found at: http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson/

‘‘A Laughter That Will Bury You All’’: Irony as Protest and Language as Struggle in the Italian 1977 Movement (Anonymous Submission) Summary Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the Italian ‘‘1977 Movement’’ in its conflict with the grey, humourless political system was its use of irony to ridicule its opponents. Irony was central to the identity of the movement and its cultural and political break with the institutional old and vanguardist new lefts. Its use, particularly by the ‘‘Metropolitan Indians’’, the transversalists and other ‘‘creatives’’, marked a social revolt by mainly marginalized young people, who invented a new political counter-culture based on linguistic experimentation in circumstances far from the optimism of 1968. The paper, based directly on primary sources from the movement and on interviews with former participants, reassesses a movement usually characterized as ‘‘violent’’ by Italianist social history. It concludes that the movement’s ‘‘ironic praxis’’ contributed to a fundamental change in Italian society in the late seventies and has influenced the political style of contemporary alterglobalist and anti-capitalist movements.1 Introduction ‘‘The revolution is over. We have won.’’ (Zut/A/traverso, Bologna, June, 1977)2 The 1977 Movement (known as settantasette – ‘‘Seventy-Seven’’ – in Italy) marked the end of Italy’s ‘‘long sixty-eight’’, which had lasted for a decade, as compared to a few weeks in France and elsewhere. While the iconoclastic punk movement screamed ‘‘No future’’ in Britain, perhaps the main weapon of the revolt of ‘‘Year Nine’’3 against the austere, humourless, bureaucratic authoritarianism of the Italian Communist Party (ICP), and its ‘‘Historical Compromise’’4 with the corrupt Christian Democrat regime, was its caustic irony and satirical wit. This was particularly the case with the ‘‘Metropolitan Indians’’ (indiani metropolitani: largely non-violent demonstrators who used face paint and headdresses to signify their break from the ‘‘seriousness’’ of politics and emphasize the theatrical and ludic aspects of protest.

"Resisting Degradations and Divisions" in South Africa S’bu Zikode interviewed by Richard Pithouse S’bu Zikode is the elected president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a radical and radically democratic shackdwellers’ movement in South Africa that has committed itself to waging its struggles independently from party-political and NGO control.[1] Richard Pithouse: What is your understanding of a living politics?

Reclaim the Heights! Bury the G8! Bring Your Shovels! The Diggers 2.0 APPEAL TO THE GLOBAL MULTITUDES: Seize this chance to build sustainable autonomous community structures! Capital merely engineers destruction and myths of future prosperity. Its crisis should be met with the shock and awe of the full energies of the multitude. Break your backs creating a post-industrious commons! A call to the global multitude to descend upon Abruzzo for July 7-11, and help rebuild it in the image of the future! We've negotiated, we've demanded, we've blockaded, we've gone global, we've tried being glocal. We've smashed -- now it's time to build the commons -- our future. Ten years after Seattle what we build is what matters. Let's ignore the spectacle of the summit. Let them see how it's done. A sustainable form of life, where solidarity issues out of the rubble like bluebells in the spring. Build a self-renewing power.

"OVNI 2009: Rhizomes, Liberated Spaces" Abu Ali, OVNI 2009 Barcelona [Editor's Note: This text introduces Barcelona's OVNI ARXIUS DE L'OBSERVATORI (Observatori de Video no Identificat) radical documentary film festival, May 26-31, 2009. Click above for archive and schedule of screenings.] "OVNI 2009: Rhizomes, Liberated Spaces" lays bare the subterranean, rhizomatic points of contact between worlds and experiences that seem very different from each other. The remembered image (1) is that of a rhizome, or rhizomes, it doesn't matter which because it is both at once, the singular and plural do not affect it.

"Bail Out the People" Movement Announces Three Important Projects ATTENTION ACTIVISTS AND ORGANIZERS! The Bail Out the People Movement is announcing three important projects: Endorse the call | Become a local organizer/volunteer FIRST: PROTEST THE G20 SUMMIT IN NEW YORK CITY! Saturday, September. 19 & Sunday, September 20, 2009 (tentative dates) ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE– BUT WE MUST FIGHT FOR IT! Bail Out People - Not Banks Money for Social Needs - Not War and Greed Jobs, Housing, Healthcare & Education are a Right Organize - Mobilize - Resist - Unite - Fight Back! The third G20 summit is going to be in NYC on or around September 20, 2009. The G20 summits are taking place in response to the greatest worldwide economic crisis since the 1930s. However, the purpose of these high-level meetings of governments and bankers is not to rescue the people of the world from depression level unemployment, evictions, homelessness, poverty, social and economic inequality and war. These summits are about fixing the economic and financial order that puts profits before people-and fixing that system by creating more poverty, misery and suffering. The last G20 Summit held in London in early April was met with massive protests both in London and throughout Europe. Now that the G20 is coming to the U.S., it is up to activists and organizations here to take up the challenge of uniting and working together to organize the widest protests possible. BOPM urges activists and organizations to endorse the call for protest at the G20 Summit in the fall, and to begin organizing for it. The potential for mass mobilization in September is truly infinite. So let’s begin the work required to realize that powerful potential.