marc writes:

Three Hundred Translated Articles Online

Marc Batko

Three hundred translated articles on human rights, economic ethics, anti-militarism and political theory await you at www.mbtranslations.com. Among the articles are: "From Containment to Pax Americana" by Jurgen Wagner, "Against the False Prophet GW Bush" by Jurgen Fliegen, "The End of History" by Frederika Habermann and "Globalization" by Maria Mies.

A list of over 800 uploaded articles is also at
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/static/marcbatko. shtml

Enjoy the feast! I welcome your comments. May we finally put the horse before the cart and mend our own pockets before falling to the destructive myths of unilateralism and offensive defense!

Marc, Portland OR

Email: mbatko@lycos.com

Student Says He Can't Afford To Defend Apple Lawsuit

BOSTON (AP) — A 19-year-old Harvard student being sued by Apple Computer
Inc. over a claim that his online publication revealed Apple's
trade secrets said Friday he can't afford a lawyer to defend himself. But Nicholas M. Ciarelli said he hopes to find free or low-cost legal
help to argue that he deserves First Amendment protection and used proper
newsgathering techniques to break news about the new $499 Mac mini
computer and other inside information about Apple.

Alob writes:

Crosswalk: Space Ships

Call for Papers

"The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventurers, and police take the place of pirates." — Michel Foucalt

Crosswalk is a publication dedicated to further investigations of contemporary psychogeography, experimental public art, critical architectrural theory, and all matters in between.

FREE CULTURE
COLLECTIVE PRACTICES
RANSOMS ON SPACE
INTERVENTIONIST DIARIES
CONTEMPORARY NOMADISM

OPEN CALL: Crosswalk is now accepting texts and images for an upcoming issue, due out in late January. Please contact:
meredithyounger@gmail.com

"KPFA: Democracy Deferred?"

Bill Mandel

Bill Mandel, now 88 years young, was a KPFA and
Pacifica broadcaster for 37 years, until he was
removed by station management in one of their many
corporate purges, despite the fact — or perhaps
because of the fact — that he had been one of the
station's most popular and politically-cogent
broadcasters.

For more information about Mandel, see his website,
here. Mandel's autobiography,
Saying No To Power (Introduction by Howard Zinn), is a
history of how the American people fought to defend
and expand its rights since the 1920s, employing the
form of the life of a 30s AND 60s activist, one who
was involved in most serious movements: student,
labor, 45 years of efforts to prevent war with the
USSR, civil rights South and North, women's liberation
(Mandel's late wife appears on 50 pages), 37 years on
Pacifica Radio (where he invented talk radio), and
civil liberties. On Mandel's website, you can also see
and hear his testimony before different
McCarthy-Cold-War-Era witch-hunting committees (used
in six films and a play). Mandel is the author of five
books in his academic field.

"Secession Enthusiasts Meet in Middlebury"

Andrew Barker, Montpelier, VT Times Argus

MIDDLEBURY — When political movements entertain ideas as radical as secession, its members are bound to be labeled by outsiders as cranks. At a "Radical Consultation" conference in Middlebury Inn this weekend, though, where participants discussed the fall of the American empire and Vermont's possible secession from the United States, no one seemed to be ashamed of the label.

As author Kirkpatrick Sale, Friday night's keynote speaker, reminded an audience of 35 conference participants, "A crank is a small, safe instrument of appropriate technology that is good for starting revolutions."

"An Independent State of Mind"

Joel Senesac, Vermont Guardian,

[Special to the Verrnont Guardian, November 5—11, 2004. Tom Naylor of Charlotte is one of the founders ot the Second Vermont Republic, an organization that is promoting the idea of having Vermont secede from the US.]

CHARLOTTE — Throughout history, every great empire has eventually met its demise. According to economist Thomas Naylor, the United States may soon prove to be no exception because it has grown too big to sustain itself. That's why Naylor helped form the Second Vermont Republic, an organization dedicated to the peaceful dissolution of the country, starting with the secession of Vermont.

Anonymous Comrade writes

Dutch Pirate Blowtorch Blowout

It's tough to fully understand because it's all in Dutch, but there was one hell of a pirate broadcast in Europe this past weekend. Radio Koning, Keizer, Admiraal ("King, General, Admiral") took to the airwaves Friday on 97.0 FM, running 11,000 watts out of an antenna more than 100 meters tall.

The broadcast was the result of a combined effort of four pirate station-groups operating in the eastern Netherlands, laid on (in part) to protest the methodical sweep of the FM band carried out by the Dutch government in the past few years as part of a policy of spectrum commodification. Practically speaking, however, it was just one big party.

"Giorgio Agamben" Issue of Contretemps Now Online

Contretemps: An Online Journal of Philosophy

Contretemps 5, December 2004, on Giorgio Agamben, is now online here.

The contents of Contretemps, 5 include:

"Friendship"

Giorgio Agamben

“The Stanza of the Self: On Agamben’s Potentiality”

Paolo Bartoloni

"Four Theses on the Powers of Life and Death"

Mitchell Dean

"Passive Politics"

Stefano Franchi

"Agamben's Messianic Politics"

Catherine Mills

"Potenza Nuda? Sovereignty, Biopolitics, Capitalism"

Brett Neilson

Esther Anatolitis

Mran-Maree Campbell

John Dalton

Justin Tauber

Tim Rayner

Contretemps: An Online Journal of Philosophy

Web: Contretemps

Email: contretemps@mail.usyd.edu.au

'The Take': Labor Revolt in Argentina

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

Someone who actually, you know, knows something will have to
issue a policy statement on the politics of "The Take," a
radical Canadian documentary that celebrates what could be
called, equally, an act of liberation or an act of theft.

Purely from an artistic point of view it's a well-made,
straightforward (from the leftist vantage point) examination
of an Argentine phenomenon that could have meanings beyond
Argentina. The filmmakers, Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, lay
their cards on the table in the opening second by sweeping
across a vista of shuttered factories and saying, "Welcome to
the globalized ghost town."

"Making Another World Possible?
The European Social Forum"
Les Levidow,
Radical Philosophy

The European Social Forum (ESF) has been inspired by the global slogan ‘Another world is possible’, expressing the need to create alternatives from out of the resistance to neoliberalism. Since its inception in 2002, the ESF has provided an opportunity to debate methods and strategies for turning that slogan into reality. Nevertheless the organizational process itself has become a site of conflicting political philosophies about progressive social change. At issue is how ‘another world’ can be made possible and thus how to shape the aims of the ESF. Although such conflict could be creative and instructive, it has largely marginalized alternative futures from the ESF itself. How did this happen? Such conflicts have been integral to Social Forum events and they were intensified in the preparations for the London event this year.