You Are Being Lied to About Pirates Johann Hari Huffington Post Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.

SPECULATING ON THE CRISIS The Free Association 'We are an image from the future' (graffiti at the occupied University of Economics and Business in Athens, December 2008) When we wander the streets of Leeds, Mexico City, Mumbai the wealth we see seems somehow familiar, yet we wonder where it has come from. That wealth is familiar because we produced it. But we feel disconnected from it because it has come not from our past, but from our futures. It is this problematic, this peculiar relationship between the past, the present and the future, that offers one of the keys to understanding the present crisis of capitalism.

Faced With Snowballing Legal Woes, Starbucks Settles Case Over Lawyer's Illegal Interrogations of Union Workers Just days after Starbucks suffered a decisive defeat in a lengthy Labor Board trial in New York, the embattled coffee giant has settled a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board here over the unlawful interrogation of baristas by a company lawyer. The Board investigation was triggered by charges from the IWW Starbucks Workers Union that alleged one of the company's anti-union law firms, Varnum, Riddering, Schimdt, and Howlett, illegally interrogated baristas set to give testimony in a Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration hearing. In addition to revealing law-breaking from Starbucks' counsel, the settlement is significant as the first where the Labor Board did not allow Starbucks to deny guilt - - a sanction for repeatedly violating the rights of baristas seeking secure work hours, a living wage, and respect on the job. The company is still set to stand trial on Wednesday in Grand Rapids on a separate count of illegally firing outspoken union barista, Cole Dorsey. "The union is very pleased the Labor Board agreed that Starbucks' repeated violation of workers' rights precluded it from obtaining a non-admissions clause," said Dorsey. "As the economy continues to tank because of corporate wrongdoing, it's all the more critical that companies like Starbucks respect the right of working people to stand together and make their voice heard." In three previous settlements over conduct in Grand Rapids, the Twin Cities, and New York, the company pledged not to interfere with the organizing rights of its employees. Last week, a judge in New York found Starbucks guilty of extensive violations of workers' rights including firing pro-union workers, interfering with union communications, and discriminating against union supporters.

Rebranding Fascism By Spencer Sunshine Public Eye On September 8, 2007 in Sydney, Australia, the antiglobalization movement mobilized once again against neoliberal economic policies, this time to oppose the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. Just as during the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle,Washington, in 1999, the streets were filled with an array of groups, such as environmentalists, socialists, and human rights advocates. And also just like in Seattle, there was a “Black Bloc”—a group of militant activists, usually left-wing anarchists, who wore masks and dressed all in black. In Sydney, the Black Bloc assembled and hoisted banners proclaiming “Globalization is Genocide.” But when fellow demonstrators looked closely, they realized these Black Bloc marchers were “National- Anarchists”—local fascists dressed as anarchists who were infiltrating the demonstration. The police had to protect the interlopers from being expelled by irate activists. Since then, the National-Anarchists have joined other marches in Australia and in the United States; in April 2008, they protested on behalf of Tibet against the Chinese government during the Olympic torch relay in both Canberra, Australia, and San Francisco. In September, U.S. National-Anarchists protested the Folsom Street Fair, an annual gay “leather” event held in San Francisco. While these may seem like isolated incidents of quirky subterfuge, these quasi anarchists are an international export of a new version of fascism that represent a significant shift in the trends and ideology of the movement. National-Anarchists have adherents in Australia, Great Britain, the United States, and throughout continental Europe, and in turn are part of a larger trend of fascists who appropriate elements of the radical Left. Like “Autonomous Nationalists” in Germany and the genteel intellectual fascism of the European New Right, the National-Anarchists appropriate leftist ideas and symbols, and use them to obscure their core fascist values. The National-Anarchists, for example, denounce the centralized state, capitalism, and globalization — but in its place they seek to establish a system of ethnically pure villages.

Young Muslims Build a Subculture on an Underground Book David Ahntholz The New York Times Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo. Noureen DeWulf and Bobby Naderi, both actors, with Jay Verkamp, center, the sound mixer for the film version of Mr. Knight’s novel. The film was shot in Cleveland. “This book helped me create my identity,” said Naina Syed, 14, a high school freshman in Coventry, Conn. A Muslim born in Pakistan, Naina said she spent hours on the phone listening to her older sister read the novel to her. “When I finally read the book for myself,” she said, “it was an amazing experience.” The novel is “The Catcher in the Rye” for young Muslims, said Carl W. Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springing from the imagination of Michael Muhammad Knight, it inspired disaffected young Muslims in the United States to form real Muslim punk bands and build their own subculture. Now the underground success of Muslim punk has resulted in a low-budget independent film based on the book.

New Marie Mason Support Site Announcing a new website and listserve for Green Scare prisoner Marie Mason. Mason is facing 20+ years in prison for two acts of environmentally-motivated property destruction in which no one was injured or killed. Mason is a long-time writer for 'Fifth Estate' magazine and a former editor at the 'Industrial Worker'. www.supportmariemason.org

ephemera 'University, Failed' issue released The new issue (8.3) of ephemera: theory & politics in organization entitled 'University, Failed' has just been released at www.ephemeraweb.org. This issue is a call to discussion regarding the modern university, and what we seek to achieve with it is to highlight the discussions already taking place within the university, and to spurn on some new ones. Yet, as the entrance to today's Humboldt University tells us, such interpretation is not enough. What counts is change.  Such change cannot, we believe, be achieved solely by the university itself. This insight creates huge challenges for other issues and interventions regarding the university of tomorrow: to open the discussion to other shareholders and constituencies within the knowledge factory, to pave ground for other residuals, where a university may take place. Where are these places? And what do 'the people' – the students, the politicians, the medias, the immigrants, the elderly, the people – want with the university? Underneath the seductive toasts and touching speeches that the university enjoys again and again, unmistakable signs of mistrust secrete. A dialogue about this mistrust (which dwells well, also, within the university itself) may be what lies ahead, meshed up with the ongoing grand failure of the university.