Spanish Bank Occupied by Workers Hildy Johnson In the southern Spanish city of Granada today, a powerful workers demonstration has been taking place. It includes the simultaneous occupation of the offices of a local developer/estate agents and the main branch of the BBVA bank. The Sindicat Andaluz de Trabajadores (Andalucian Workers Union) has been out in force on the streets of Granada today. This small activist union was formed in 2007 owing to disatisfaction with the representation offered by other larger trade unions. So far today city centre roads have been blocked and the offices of Osuna (major Spanish estate agent and developer) and BBVA bank have been occupied by several hundred protestors.

An Expose of the Abuse Perpetrated by Bob Black, Written by One of His Victims Bill Brown One of the worst things about abuse (physical, emotional or verbal) is that the victim can rarely be counted on to come forward, identify his or her attacker, and describe what he or she was forced to endure. The victim was originally chosen because of perceived weakness. There is shame in realizing this, as there is shame in the very fact of being abused. There are fears about being abused again. And so, many victims of abuse find it easier to suffer their abuse in silence. Unfortunately, many abusive people are aware of this all-too-human tendency, and take advantage of it. Not only do they remain unpunished; they become brazen. They know that their crimes won't be reported to the precise extent that these crimes are shameful; victims of shameful crimes are ashamed to come forward; thus their victimizers feel comfortable with attacking them again and again, for many years in some cases.

Terrorism or Tragicomedy Giorgio Agamben Free the Tarnac Nine On the morning of November 11, 150 police officers, most of which belonged to the anti-terrorist brigades, surrounded a village of 350 inhabitants on the Millevaches plateau, before raiding a farm in order to arrest nine young people (who ran the local grocery store and tried to revive the cultural life of the village). Four days later, these nine people were sent before an anti-terrorist judge and “accused of criminal conspiracy with terrorist intentions.” The newspapers reported that the Ministry of the Interior and the Secretary of State “had congratulated local and state police for their diligence.” Everything is in order, or so it would appear. But let’s try to examine the facts a little more closely and grasp the reasons and the results of this “diligence.” First the reasons: the young people under investigation “were tracked by the police because they belonged to the ultra-left and the anarcho autonomous milieu.” As the entourage of the Ministry of the Interior specifies, “their discourse is very radical and they have links with foreign groups.” But there is more: certain of the suspects “participate regularly in political demonstrations,” and, for example, “in protests against the Fichier Edvige (Exploitation Documentaire et Valorisation de l'Information Générale) and against the intensification of laws restricting immigration.” So political activism (this is the only possible meaning of linguistic monstrosities such as “anarcho autonomous milieu”) or the active exercise of political freedoms, and employing a radical discourse are therefore sufficient reasons to call in the anti-terrorist division of the police (SDAT) and the central intelligence office of the Interior (DCRI). But anyone possessing a minimum of political conscience could not help sharing the concerns of these young people when faced with the degradations of democracy entailed by the Fichier Edvige, biometrical technologies and the hardening of immigration laws. As for the results, one might expect that investigators found weapons, explosives and Molotov cocktails on the farm in Millevaches. Far from it. SDAT officers discovered “documents containing detailed information on railway transportation, including exact arrival and departure times of trains.” In plain French: an SNCF train schedule. But they also confiscated “climbing gear.” In simple French: a ladder, such as one might find in any country house.

The Double Crisis of the University and Global Economy 28/11 London FRIDAY 28 November 2008 at 3pm QUEEN MARY University of London Physics 602 with: Paolo Do – Stephen Dunne – Matthew Fuller – Gerard Hanlon – Stefano Harney – Celia Lury – Noortje Marres – Matteo Pasquinelli – Nirmal Puwar – Gigi Roggero – Stevphen Shukaitis – Tiziana Terranova For a number of weeks in Italy the entire education system – from universities to elementary schools, from students to researchers and from parents to teachers – has been mobilizing. Marches, occupations, demonstrations, pickets and blockages of the metropolitan flow have replaced the dreary rhythm of school timetables and university courses. The protests are directed against the new budget cuts implemented by Berlusconi’s government last summer, which seriously undermine the public nature of education and research. The university movement – self-named the “Anomalous Wave” – acts within a specific context, such as the long crisis and decline of the Italian higher education system. However, it also critically underlines common trends in the transformations affecting the university at the European and transnational level: i.e. the Bologna process, the corporatization of education and the changes of the welfare system, the central role of knowledge in the mode of production, the rise of casualized labor, the emergence of a new type of student-worker figure.

Zapatistas Call for Worldwide Festival of Dignified Rage Mexico, September of 2008 To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign: To the adherents of the Zezta Internazional: To the People of Mexico: To the Peoples of the World: Compañeras and Compañeros: Brother and Sisters: Once again we send you our words. This is what we see, what we are looking at. This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart. I. Above they intend to repeat history. They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction. When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them. They steal our work, our strength. They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life. The cities pursue and expel us. The countryside both kills us and dies on us. Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police. We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world. We are pursued. Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life. And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment. Here below we are being left with nothing. Except rage. And dignity.

Opening the Doors to autonomy: Worried about the credit crisis, rising rents, food prices and mortgage repayments? Ever wondered about DIY alternatives this mayhem? On the 29th of November Bristol Space Invaders present a day of workshops, activities and artwork on urban survival – credit crunching strategies for getting through hard times - from the legalities and practicalities of squatting and resisting repossession/eviction, to urban foraging, radical recycling, a bike workshop, Tai-Chi & self defence, screenprinting and DIY wireless internet and much more - this will be a day of sharing skills and building the networks to not only survive the current economic crisis but to begin to collectively shape what may replace it. Food and kids area will be provided. Come along, learn and share skills. We've tried leaving it to the experts and 'authorities' - it didnt work - its time to rescue ourselves. Event Details: Where: The Red Factory, Cave Street, St Pauls. (Just off Portland Square) When: Saturday the 29th of November 2008, 11am - 6pm Cost: Free Children Welcome.

Subversive Action Films presents a documentary about the legacy of the military dictatorship in the territory known as Chile—from the student revolt and neighborhood conflict to the Mapuche resistance in Wallmapu. The collective tells a story about fallen combatants in struggle, a narrative about yesterday and today. People with an older system may need to turn HD off, but we recommend keeping it on if you can. The trailer SubversiveActionFilms.org

Hope in Common David Graeber We seem to have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. Organized resistance appears scattered and incoherent; the global justice movement a shadow of its former self. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Faced with the prospect, the knee-jerk reaction—even of “progressives”—is, often, fear, to cling to capitalism because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse. The first question we should be asking is: How did this happen? Is it normal for human beings to be unable to imagine what a better world would even be like?

The city from below: call for participation March 27th-29th, 2009 Baltimore http://cityfrombelow.org The city has emerged in recent years as an indispensable concept for many of the struggles for social justice we are all engaged in - it's a place where theory meets practice, where the neighborhood organizes against global capitalism, where unequal divisions based on race and class can be mapped out block by block and contested, where the micropolitics of gender and sexual orientation are subject to metropolitan rearticulation, where every corner is a potential site of resistance and every vacant lot a commons to be reclaimed, and, most importantly, a place where all our diverse struggles and strategies have a chance of coming together into something greater. In cities everywhere, new social movements are coming into being, hidden histories are being uncovered, and unanticipated futures are being imagined and built - but so much of this knowledge remains, so to speak, at street-level. We need a space to gather and share our stories, our ideas and analysis, a space to come together and rethink the city from below. To that end, a group of activists and organizers, including Red Emma's, the Indypendent Reader, campbaltimore, and the Campaign for a Better Baltimore are calling for a conference called The City From Below, to take place in Baltimore during the weekend of March 27,28,29, 2009 at 2640, a grassroots community center and events venue.

What’s Left After Obama? Simon Critchley From Adbusters Obama’s victory marks a symbolically powerful moment in American history, defined as it is by the stain of slavery and the fact of racism. It will have hugely beneficial consequences for how the United States is seen throughout the world. His victory was also strategically brilliant and his campaign transformed those disillusioned with and disenfranchised by the Bush administration into a highly motivated and organized popular force. But I dispute that Obama’s victory is about change in any significant sense. Obama’s politics is governed by an anti-political fantasy. It is the call to find common ground, the put aside our differences and achieve union. Obama’s politics is governed by a longing for unity, for community, for communion and the common good. The remedy to the widespread disillusion with Bush’s partisan politics is a reaffirmation of the founding act of the United States, the hope of the more perfect union expressed in the opening sentence of the US Constitution. It is a powerful moral strategy whose appeal to the common good attempts to draw a veil over the agonism and power relations constitutive of political life. The great lie of moralism in politics is that it attempts to deny the fact of power by concealing it under an anti-political veneer. At the same time, moralism engages in the most brutal and bruising political activity. But the reality of this activity is always disavowed along with any and all forms of partisanship. Moralistic politics is essentially hypocritical.