Family & Friends of Daniel McGowan writes:

Info Session on Daniel McGowan's Case
New York City, July 6, 2006

Location: Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen Street, Manhattan. 7PM
Info session, a short film and letter writing on Daniel McGowan's case.

We will be starting with the short piece on the Green Scare entitled "#1 Terrorist Threat?" by Source Code. More on that piece at
http://sourcecode.freespeech.org/sc302EcotageDL

Who is Daniel McGowan?
Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice activist, unjustly arrested and charged in federal court on multiple counts of arson, property destruction, and conspiracy, relating to two incidents that occurred in Oregon in 2001. Daniel has asserted his innocence by pleading not guilty to all charges. He is facing a minimum of life in prison if convicted.

Daniel is from New York, and has been an active member of the community, working on diverse projects such as military counter-recruitment, demonstrations against the Republican National Convention, Really Really Free Markets, and supporting political prisoners such as Jeff "Free" Luers and others. Daniel was a graduate student earning a Master's degree in acupuncture and was working at WomensLaw.org, a nonprofit group that helps women in domestic abuse situations navigate the legal system, which is where he was arrested by federal marshals on December 7, 2005.

Daniel had originally been indicted separately, but his arrest comes in the context of a well-coordinated, multi-state sweep of numerous activists by the federal government, who has charged the individuals with practically every earth and animal liberation case left unsolved in the Northwest. Many of the charges, including Daniel's, are for cases whose statute of limitations were about to expire.

In order to help Daniel, his family and friends have created a support network (Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan) to assist in raising funds for Daniel's legal representation which is expected to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. We are asking friends and supporters to donate what they can to help Daniel's family with the legal bills.

http://www.supportdaniel.org
friendsofdanielmcg@Yahoo.com

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"This is Forever" Autonomist Discussion Series
New York City, Summer & Fall, 2006

‘This is Forever’: From Inquiry to Refusal

A Discussion Series Dedicated to Understanding the Current Composition of Political Movements and Struggles Using the Lens of Autonomist Thought.

@ Bluestockings Books, Cafe & Activism Center

172 Allen St. NYC

Bluestockings

‘This is Forever’ presents two upcoming events in the series:

Friday, July 21st — 7pm — $5 to $10 donation

Discussion: Will Weikart “Critical Mass, War Machine: Anarchy on Wheels? (or, What the Left can Learn from a Bunch of Bicyclists)”

On August 27 2004, just before the anti-RNC protests, the NYC critical mass bike ride reached its largest numbers here and possibly anywhere worldwide (est. 5000+). Nearly 300 were arrested, this also marked the beginning of an NYPD crackdown against the monthly phenomenon and now discourse, itself, about the ride. The presenter will give some background on the CM phenomenon (globally, but mainly locally, via his participation in NYC-CM). Why it is that NYC-CM has been the object of so much concern by local law enforcement?

His thinking here is influenced by theories of affect, Deleuze and Guattari's notion of nomadic war machine and smooth/striated space, and by Eugene Thacker's article "Networks, Swarms, Multitudes". He will go on to theorize critical mass-type movement (relatively leaderless and spontaneous, joyous) as an invaluable tool for Left tactics and praxis, one not characterized negatively by lack. The constant cry of "we need more organization!" is challenged and the inverse is argued — that we need more willful disorganization and "noise" to open the spaces of radical potential.

Book Sale for Daniel McGowan's legal defense June

On Saturday June 24th (rain date Sunday, June 25th) we’re going to have an all day book sale to raise money for Daniel McGowan’s legal defense fund. The sale will be held at the Book Thug Nation book tables on Astor Place and 4th Ave. We’re going to be putting out some good books and we’re asking that people donate books that can be sold to raise money for Daniel.

Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice activist, unjustly arrested and charged in federal court. Please go to http://www.supportdaniel.org to learn about his case.

Donations - The sale is only one day so we really need good, hip, popular books that will sell as soon as we put them on the table. Contemporary and classic literary fiction, easten religions and radical politcs/sociology books sell well. We don’t want textbooks, cookbooks, pulp mass markets, bibles or old moldy books that no one would ever buy. We won’t accept anything that is pro-military, sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. Please contact us if you need more info about donation specifications. We can recieve donations in advance at the table or early the day of the sale. Contact us to make arrangements. All book that don’t sell will be returned or donated to Book Through Bars.

Please stop by our table on Saturday June 24th to donate and buy books and help raise money for our good friend Daniel’s legal defense. Along with great books at cheap prices, there will be music, a table with Daniel t-shirts, merchandise and literature and maybe even some free food! A good time and a very, very important cause!

Contact: krazdale@gmail.com

NLG Green Scare symposium: What Lawyers Need to Know

How the government is targeting eco-activists

Monday, June 26th, 6:30pm

Location: Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, 55 Fifth Avenue [at 12th Street], Moot Court Room, New York, NY

Free

Speakers include Lauren Regan, founder and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Oregon; Andrew Erba, attorney for one of the SHAC7 defendants, Brendan Story of Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan, and New York civil rights attorney Daniel Meyers. Sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild-National Office and National Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter.

Contact: nlgno@nlg.org

Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army Training in Brighton

The next Basic Rebel Clown Training will be held over the weekend of
June 24th and 25th in Brighton on the south coast of England. The address and
all other details will be supplied upon registration.

What is it?

A two day intensive training in becoming a Trickster, Fool, Rebel Clown
and Open Hearted Idiot.

A few things you should know about the trainings -

- The training is for adults (16+)

- We are sorry that we are currently unable to offer child care.

- There is no charge to the candidates for the training.

- You should bring - Clothes you can move in. Lots of water. Food to share and
an open heart.

- You are expected to attend both days.

- You will not be asked to do anything you feel unable to do, but you should be
prepared to push yourself from where you feel comfortable.

Rebel Clowning Trainings

Like all armies, people who wish to join the ranks of CIRCA have to undergo
training. Before going into baffle with CIRCA, recruits take part an intensive
"big shoe camp" where they learn Basic Rebel Clown Training (BRCT). At the end
of the BRCT you will be capable of taking on any CIRCA mission but will be
advised that further training is necessary as learning to be truly stupid and
discovering our clown is a longer process. Becoming a clownbattant can be
challenging, but it's a rewarding life.

The training will involve games and exercises which develop a spirit of
subversive play, help us work efficiently as a group, become more
spontaneous in life and during actions, and begin the process of finding
the clown that resides in all of us.

There are five phases of BRCT:

* Finding the Inner Clown

* Subversive Play

* Civil Disobedience and Direct Action

* Buffoon Manoeuvres

* Marching and Drilling

If you are Brighton-based and can accomodate rebel clown trainers or trainees
coming from afar, please let us know! Prospective clowns come from all around
to take part in the training, and we hope to be able to find beds for all for 1
or 2 nights.

Please email training@rebelclown.net to register or for more information...
Places are very limited...We look forward to hearing from you 8-)

"‘This is Forever’: From Inquiry to Refusal
- A Discussion Series Dedicated to Understanding the Current Composition of Political Movements and Struggles Using the Lens of Autonomist Thought.

Presents the First Event in the Series:

Conricerca as Political Action

Friday, June 16th - 7pm - $5 to $10 donation

'Conricerca as Political Action: Inquiry and Italian Social Movements'

@ Bluestockings Books, Cafe & Activism Center

172 Allen St. NYC

After the researcher photographs reality, the moment arises where one can transform it.

This is the main thesis put forth by the concept of conricerca, or co-research, which is yet another concept that draws its origins in the rich history of Italian autonomia, Italian social movements of the 60s and 70s, and the tradition of workers and militant inquiry.

Conricerca is an inquiry into the contemporary class composition of the working class and social struggle. It is not a sociological or academic tool, but rather one for political and radical action.

The discussion will focus on two aspects of conricerca: first on the roots of conricerca as concept and practice inside the history of Italian operaismo of the 1960s and 1970s; the second part will show the contemporary experiences of militant inquiry, primarily the Precarity WebRing, a project within the EuroMayDay movement.

Join Italian activists Gigi Roggero and Anna Curcio for this discussion as part of the ‘This is Forever’: From Inquiry to Refusal discussion series to be hosted by Bluestockings Books. Visit www.teamcolors.blogspot.com for more information on, and an events listing for, the series.

Speaker Bios:

Gigi Roggero (1973) is a movement activist and a Ph.D. student at the University of Calabria. Roggero is co-author of Futuro Anteriore, Gli Operaisti, and Precariopoli, and author of Intelligenze Fuggitive. He was part of editorial collective for the militant review DeriveApprodi.

Anna Curcio (1971) is a movement activist and doctor in the department of sociology at the University of Calabria. She is co-author of Precariopoli, and author of La Paura dei Movimenti and other articles on Global Movement and Labour Conflicts. Curcio participates in the editorial board of the journal PW_R."

"Anarchism, Workers' Liberation and Economic Vision for a Post-Capitalist
Society"

Tom Wetzel, Workers Solidarity Alliance — Bay Area

TUESDAY, MAY 30 — 7 p.m.

A.J. MUSTE ROOM

339 LAFAYETTE STREET (corner of Bleecker Street)

NEW YORK CITY

Tom's talk will deal with alternative models for a future society posed by
class struggle anarchists, including participatory economics (parecon).


Please bring your ideas and inspiration to contribute to the
discussion.


Tom is a long time labor and community activist, and is a founder of the
San Francisco Community Land Trust, and orgnizer of the recent fare
strike in SF.


He is currently a free lance writer and a regular contributor to ZNet.


He is working on a book about self-management and the labor movement.

Workers Solidarity Alliance

339 Lafayette Street-Room 202

New York, NY 10012

tel. (212) 979-8353

workersolidarity.org

Taking Back the Dollar: Alternative Economies

New York City, June 2, 2006

Friday, June 2nd, 6:30 p.m.

Wollman Hall, enter at 66 West 12th Street.

Admission: $10, free for students and New School alumni with ID

Economies reflect what is considered valuable, and for some, what is
ethical, or even fundamentally human. They marginalize or exclude what
is considered detrimental to the system, those things that get labeled
as parasitic or contraband. In order to change these definitions and the
populations they point to, we can try to depose, reform, or diversify
our notion of economies. This panel discussion includes artists,
organizers, writers, and activists who reject or slyly compete with the
capitalistic system of buying and selling. By disrupting basic economic
processes, by proposing gift economies or autonomous forms of collective
production, do they challenge the idea of personhood as defined by
owning something, some amount, some trait, or some capacity? Are
alternative economies anti-American? Are they perhaps subverting
familiar notions of citizenship, producing alternative subjects?



Panelists: Carolina Caycedo, artist; Paul Glover, economical activist;
Yates McKee, writer; Matthieu Laurette, Paris-based artist; Maka,
Yomango Mexico, activist, artist. Moderator: Gregory Sholette, artist,
writer, activist. Sponsored by the Vera List Center for Art and
Politics on the occasion of their year-long investigation of notions of
forgiveness.

The Critique of Civilization and the Growing Crisis

John Zerzan

May 29th London Anarchist Forum – RampArt Centre – 7:30 PM

15 Rampart Street London

For more information: londonevents2004@yahoo.co.uk

May 31st, University of Leicester Centre for Philosophy and Political Economy – 3:30 PM

Ken Edwards Building Room 501, Leicester

For more information: bartelby@refusingstructures.net. Maps/directions here.

Today we experience a deepening crisis in every sphere, which urges us to rethink our acceptance of the most basic social institutions. Divisions of labor and domestication, the cornerstones of civilization itself, are in need of problematizing. The absence of fundamental critique would mean that we accept an unfolding, multifaceted disaster as merely inevitable. Might we find, in the prospect of a new paradigm/ framework/vision that breaks out of the confines of failed earlier approaches to health and liberation? Keeping in mind that there should never be a single “correct” path, there is much promise in what is called anti-civilization theory, primitivism, and green anarchy in various parts of the world. Mass society and its technological imperative are now increasingly seen as the problem, not the solution.

John Zerzan is an anarchist author and activist and editor of Green Anarchy magazine. His writings include Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive (1994), and Running on Emptiness (2002). He has also edited Against Civilization (1999) and (with Alice Carnes) Questioning Technology (1991).

"Night of the Marching Plague"
New York City, May 24, 2006

Marching Plague
By the Critical Art Ensemble

Book Release, Talks and Screenings

Wednesday May 24, 2006 — 6:00–8:30pm

Eyebeam

540 W. 21st Street

Please join us for a book launch and an
evening of conversation concerning contemporary
warfare: an anti-war event.

Critical Art Ensemble present their latest book,
Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health
published by Autonomedia and coinciding with the
inclusion of their film “Marching Plague” in
the 2006 Whitney Biennial. This event is open to the
public free of charge and will take place at Eyebeam,
540 W. 21st Street between 10th & 11th Aves.

The evening will include brief presentations by
artists Gregg Bordowitz and Paul Chan and CAE Defense
Fund representative Lucia Sommer.

Films from Peggy Ahwesh, Lynn Hershman and the Yes
Men, along with the Critcal Art Ensemble's film
"Marching Plague", produced/commissioned by Arts
Catalyst, will be screened on monitors throughout the
evening.

Marching Plague examines the scientific evidence and
the rhetoric surrounding biological warfare,
particularly the development of anthrax and other
bio-weapons, and makes a strong case against the
likelihood of such weapons ever being used in a
terrorist situation. Studying the history and science
of such weapons, they conclude
that for reasons of accuracy and potency, biological
weapons lack the efficiency required to produce the
widespread devastation typically associated with
bioterrorism.