Preoccupied: The Logic of Occupation The Inoperative Committee Someone stands on a table and yells, “This is now occupied.” And that’s how it begins. I. Days and nights of conspiracies beforehand, materials in waiting, meetings folded within meetings, tension dripping like sweat from the palms of individuals who a week earlier never believed they’d be at the front of the barricades in their very own school. A panopticon of consumption and labor turned into a zone of offensive opacity. Identities that clouded our communication evaporate before our eyes and we see each for the first time as not who we are but how we exist. Adverbs replace both nouns and adjectives in the grammar of this human strike, where language is made to speak for the very first time without fear of atrophy. An occupation is not a dinner party, writing an essay, or holding a meeting; it’s a car bomb. The university is our automobile, that vehicular modem of pure alienation, transporting us not outwards across space but inwards through time. If our goal is the explosion of time, then occupation is our dynamite. We use our spaces and bodies as bombs and shields in this conflict with no name. Indiscernible, we sever the addiction to visibility that only guarantees our defeat. Thought has no image, and neither shall we. Shards of words bounce off inoperative objects and reverberate through the occupied halls, telling a story of accomplished impossibilities and undecidable victories.

3rd Annual Finding Our Roots CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS April 24-26 2009, Chicago The theme of this year’s conference is SPACE. Why and how is space important to anarchists, and so often central to our struggles? What do we mean when we talk about “anarchist space”? What different spaces have anarchists created and struggled to keep and maintain; how have these spaces functioned and thrived, or failed to do so? What kinds of anarchist spaces exist currently, and how are they serving anarchist community as well as contributing to larger struggles for liberation and against capitalism? Examples could include infoshops, multiuse spaces, housing collectives, squats, farms, gardens, parks, free schools, workers’ collectives, or any other space dedicated to radical purpose and used by anarchists as a focal point or staging ground of struggle.

The Commoner N. 13 Released on Energy Crisis THERE’S AN ENERGY CRISIS (AMONG OTHERS) IN THE AIR… Edited by Kolya Abramsky and Massimo De Angelis There seems to be a general consensus, left and right, that we are in the midst of a new energy crisis. Either, “Peak Oil” is to blame, based on the argument that oil resources are about to peak bringing about serious constraints on future use of energy. Or, climate change is highlighted, warning that the sustained use of fossil fuel is heating up the planet and bringing about catastrophic changes in climate patterns. With this issue of The Commoner we have sought to create a space to discuss the current energy crisis from a perspective that considers technology and energy within the social relations that they are part of, both being shaped by these relations and also shaping them. The editors of this issue do not believe this crisis is simply one of finite resources (“peak oil”), or that there is a technological path out of these crises, despite the indisputable fact that both resource scarcity and technology are nonetheless important factors. Instead, we understand the use, production, and distribution of energy as moments of capitalist social relations of production. As such, energy and technology are both important sites of struggle, and are shaped by these struggles. Like all phenomena, the basis of the current energy crisis does not have one but many converging “causes”. A politically essential one is the many resistances against capital’s appropriation of natural resources, beginning with oil and gas but not limited to these.

Debt, Violence, and Impersonal Markets David Graeber If The Great Transformation will be remembered for anything a century from now, it willbe as the definitive rejoinder to the great liberal myth. This is, of course, the assumption that there is something natural about what Polanyi called "self-regulating markets", that they arise of their own accord as long as state interference doesn't prevent them. Polanyi examined the very period when this ideology first emerged, and managed to demonstrate just how crucial government interference was in creating "the self-regulating market" to begin with—just as it has continued to be necessary to maintain it. One need hardly point out that in the current, neoliberal age, Polanyi's insights are more relevant than ever. The ideology that Polanyi felt was gone forever in the '40s has returned with a vengeance—returned to reap a terrible vengeance, in fact, on the most vulnerable of the people of the earth. Yet at the same time the intellectual landscape has shifted dramatically. Among what passes as the intellectual opposition, grand sweeping theory in the Polanyian tradition has fallen largely out of favor. At the same time, the high theorists of neoliberalism—at least, the most sophisticated of them—often appear more than happy to incorporate many of Polanyi's insights. Most will, if pressed, be happy to admit that "the market" isn't really an empirical object at all, that when they refer to "markets" they are really talking about abstract models, constructed by selecting only certain features of reality and intentionally ignore all others; and that of course one needs constant political work to maintain conditions where those models will take on any semblance of empirical form. Of course, when giving policy advice, these same economists will then turn around and declare that "the market"—now transformed from an abstract model to a quasi-deity—will punish those who disregard its sovereign dictates.

Oakland on Fire: Anarchists, Solidarity, and New Possibilities in the Oakland Rebellion Kara N. Tina Counterpunch "I'm sorry my car was burned but the issue is very upsetting." -Ken Epstein, assistant editor of the Oakland Post, who was finishing an article about Grant's death, watched from the 12th story of his office at 14th and Franklin streets as his 2002 Honda CR-V disintegrated in a roar of flames (Oakland Tribune) The murder of Oscar Grant by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer Johannes Mehserle early New Year's morning sent a wave of grief throughout the Bay Area and reminded all that racism and police violence continue to be endemic components of US society. During the following days, that pain transformed into overflowing anger as multiple videos of the execution recorded by witnesses emerged on the internet and in the media. One week later on January 7, over a thousand people from diverse communities across Oakland and the Bay Area gathered to show their anger and be in the presence of others feeling similar grief. This hastily planned rally shut down the Fruitvale BART station where the shooting took place as speaker after speaker addressed the crowd. Without any plan or organization, the vast majority of those who patiently listened to speakers for over two hours took the demonstration into the streets with a spirited march that made its way towards downtown as the sun set. As the march reached the Lake Merritt BART station and headquarters of BART police downtown, clashes immediately broke out leaving one police cruiser destroyed alongside a burning dumpster. Marchers dispersed down side streets to the sounds of police weapons discharging and the sting of tear gas in the air. The following hours witnessed waves of rioting and demonstrations throughout downtown Oakland that even forced Mayor Ron Dellums to come out into the streets and promise the opening of a homicide investigation in a failed attempt to subdue the angry crowds. Hundreds of businesses and cars were damaged or destroyed and dumpsters were left burning. The next day, a BART board of directors meeting was filled beyond capacity and overwhelmed with community members expressing indignant rage, clearly feeling validated and empowered to speak up by the previous night's rebellion.

The War Against Preterrorism: The ‘Tarnac Nine’ and The Coming Insurrection Alberto Toscano Support the Tarnac 9 I. The Case* On 11 November 2008, twenty French youths are arrested simultaneously in Paris, Rouen, and in the small village of Tarnac (located in the district of Corrèze, in France’s relatively impoverished Massif Central region). The Tarnac operation involves helicopters, one hundred and fifty balaclava-clad anti-terrorist policemen and studiously prearranged media coverage. The youths are accused of having participated in a number of sabotage attacks against the high-speed TGV train routes, involving the obstruction of the train’s power cables with horseshoe-shaped iron bars, causing material damage and a series of delays affecting some 160 trains. Eleven of the suspects are promptly freed. Those who remain in custody are soon termed the ‘Tarnac Nine’, after the village where a number of them had purchased a small farmhouse, reorganised the local grocery store as a cooperative, and taken up a number of civic activities from the running of a film club to the delivery of food to the elderly. In their parents’ words, ‘they planted carrots without bosses or leaders. They think that life, intelligence and decisions are more joyous when they are collective’.[1] Almost immediately, the Minister of the Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie, brushing aside Republican legal niceties, intervenes to strongly underline the presumption of guilt and to classify the whole affair under the rubric of terrorism, linking it to the supposed rise of an insurrectionist ‘ultra-left’ (ultra-gauche), or ‘anarcho-autonomist tendency’ (mouvance anarcho-autonome), filling in the vacuum left by the collapse of the institutional Left (the PCF). Invoking anti-terrorist legislation, the nine are interrogated and detained for 96 hours; four are subsequently released. The official accusation is that of ‘association of wrongdoers in relation to a terrorist undertaking’, a charge that can carry up to 20 years in jail; what’s more, the accused might be detained for as long as two years before their case goes to trial. On December 2, three more of the Tarnac Nine are released under judiciary control, leaving two in jail, at the time of writing (early January 2009): Julien Coupat and Yldune Lévy.

The Paris Declaration We won't pay for your crises - it is time for change! More than 150 representatives of trade unions, farmers' movements, global justice groups, environmental groups, development groups, migrants' groups, faith-based groups, women's groups, the have-not movements, student and youth groups, and anti-poverty groups from all over Europe gathered on the 10th and 11th of January 2009 in Paris to analyse collectively the current crises, to develop joint strategies and to discuss joint demands and alternatives in response to these crises. As the financial and the economic crises intensify, millions of women and men are losing their jobs, houses and livelihoods. Tens of millions more are forecast to join the 1.4 billion people already living in extreme poverty. The crises worsen the social, ecological, cultural and political situation of the majority of people on our planet. Despite the evident and foreseeable failure of the current economic model, world leaders are responding by trying to preserve the system that is responsible for the crises. Governments have been quick to bail out bankers, corporate share holders and their financial backers with hundreds of billions in public money. To solve the problem, they put into place bankers and heads of corporations: the same actors that created the crises. The workers, the jobless, the poor - all those affected have received no help in their daily struggle to make ends meet, and to cap it all, they are now supposed to pay the bill.

Announcing the 3rd Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair When: April 11, 2009 Where: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, Manhattan New York City, a center of anarchist life, culture, struggle, and ideas for 150 years, will host its third 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 11, 2009 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. In addition there will be two days of panels, presentations, workshops, and skillshares to provide further opportunities to learn more and share your own experience and creativity. The goal of the book fair is to enable people to connect with one another as well as to provide broader access to the rich and varied field of anarchist ideas and practices. We're living in interesting times; as they say, crisis equals both risk and opportunity. Now is the perfect time to be exploring those ideas and practices and bringing them into play in our communities and the world.

ASCII .- ... -.-. .. .. Amsterdam Subversive Code for Information Interchange --- Internetworkspace --- 1998 - 2..? Harv Stanic :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Internetworkspace - A free and open place with free internet access, aggregating point for all people interested in hacking together, or simply hanging around or on the net while learning Free and OSS, creating and mixing chaos for all people interested in free flow of information across any new or old medium. .................................................................. The idea of ASCII was conceived in late 1998 as there was the need for a non-profit 'internetworkspace' running on free and open source software, and spreading the word of it's necessity to enable, educate and prepare people for the upcoming internet age, on-line privacy, as well as need for people to meet and exchange ideas and information face to face. .................................................................. click start to stop ..................................................................