"Behind the Balaclavas of South-East Mexico"

Sylvie Deneuve and Charles Reeve, Paris, August 1995

"Because those who are too quick to admire and who are suddenly convinced are rarely the salt of the earth." -- B. Traven, In The Freest State In The World, 1919, Insomniac Edition, Paris 1995.

1.

 In the Golden Age of 'actually non-existing socialism' journeys were organised to the countries of the radiant future. Believers were then invited to express their enthusiasm for a reality staged by the lords of the manor. In this way people visited the soviet socialism of the USSR, the Maoist socialism of China, the miniature socialism of Albania, the bearded socialism of Cuba, the Sandinista socialism of Nicaragua, etc. Woe betide those who contested the objective, scientific and unquestionable character of these fabricated realities. Until the day these systems collapsed. People thought they had seen but had seen nothing!

"Speech at the European Social Forum, Paris, November 2003"

Toni Negri

[On Thursday 20 November 2003 the Global Radio-Padova website published the
text of Toni Negri's speech at the European Social Forum in Paris. The
original Italian text can be found on their website at
Global. Translated by Ed Emery.]

"I am Italian, so I shall speak in Italian -- particularly because I too
would like to begin by remembering with sympathy and with much emotion the
Italians who have died in Iraq in recent days. Italians have not been used
to having war-dead, not since fascism sent many of our friends and relations
into the monstrous adventures of the Second World War. The last thing we
needed was for a democratic regime to overturn the very terms of the Italian
constitution by sending poor wretches to die in a war which the vast
majority of Italians do not understand the reasons for, and which they
oppose.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

An Israeli anarchist asks whether the widespread fear in his country of the return of Palestinian refugees isn't part of a larger phobia...

"Zionism and the Right of Return"
Uri Gordon, The Lip (UK), Issue #2 March 2004

My friend Sara has a house in Haifa, my hometown. I don’t know exactly where it is; only that according to Sara, it has a view to the sea. If she ever finds out more, my friends and will I seek out the house. If it’s still there, and empty, we’ll squat it. When the police comes we’ll show them a fax of the Kushan, the Ottoman property deed, and a letter of invitation from the rightful owner – who just happens to be Sara, a very cool Palestinian kid born in Lebanon and working in independent media. To evict us, the Israeli authorities will have to contest, in their own courts, the rights of ‘absentee’ Palestinians – refugees and their descendants like Sara, forced to escape Haifa in 1948 during what Israelis call the War of Independence and Palestinians call al-Naqba, the Catastrophe.

We all need to keep posted on what may be in store for civil life in this country. For example: What's a marriage?

The Presidential Prayer Team is currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles. With any forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be honored by our government."

Here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals, is a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely on Biblical principles:

"Dishonest Dubya Lying Action Figure!"

He Lies Like a Bastard!

With Pretzel-Retching Action™

By Fraudco

Dishonest Dubya

Ezra Alexander writes:

"Thrashin' of Jesus The Christ"

Ezra Alexander,

Mel Gibson is an anti-Semitic asshole. Or... he's a genius...

First Jew shot you get is of slow-mo silver sheckels being thrown at a money grubbing, sniveling Judas by a pack of bloodthirsty Rabbi's.

Jesus gets the shit kicked out of him by the Temple guards and the Rabbi's want him to suffer... why? The movie doesn't give you a clue. (Score a point for Mel if his aim is to get people to read the Bible because I will now just to see what the fuck happened in the book) As for the non-stop shit kicking... the Bible reads that he got slapped. Once.

"Seeing Past the Outpost of Post-Anarchism"

Sandra Jeppesen

I am excited that there is a debate, if not raging,
then at least taking place, about the politics of
contemporary anarchist theory. Rather than engage in
any of the particulars of the debate, however -- by
asserting, for example, that the postanarchism debate
is not rooted enough in the contemporary anarchist
movement, or that it seems to be neglecting important
aspects of anarchist culture, or that it generalizes
'anarchism' and 'post-structuralism' according to the
needs of the debate rather than the particulars of the
authors from whom specific ideas have emanated, or
that actually anarchism is not somewhere between
liberalism and Marxism, or that actually there is no
crisis in representation in the anarchist movement
today, or that 'traditional anarchism', anarchism as
the centre of the anti-globalization movement,
anarchist administrative bureaucracy, or the anarchist
a priori on power, are all oxymorons, etc. -- I would
like to take a different approach to the debate on
contemporary anarchist theory (or what some people are
trying to call postanarchism).

"Reverse Imagineering:

Toward the New Urban Struggles,

Or: Why Smash the State When Your

Neighborhood Theme Park Is So Much Closer?"

Brian Holmes

"What are the steps in the creation of a Disney attraction?
According to literature sent out by WDW [Walt Disney World], the steps are: storyboard, script, concept, show models, sculpture, show set design, graphics, interiors, architectural design, molds and casting, wardrobe and figure finishing, electronic and mechanical design and manufacture, show sets and prop construction, animation, audio, special effects and lighting, and engineering." [The Unofficial Walt Disney Imagineering Page (www.imagineering.org).]

On October 17, 2003, seven groups of some 20 to 30 persons descended into the Paris underground, with paint pots, glue, rollers, brushes, spray cans, sheets of paper and marking pens in their hands. Their aim? To overwrite, cover up, deface, subvert, recompose or simply rip to shreds as many advertisements as possible, without violence to any individual or to any piece of property other than the images which impinge on our most intimate desires.

"Democrats Nominate Hitler"

Ran Prieur

BOSTON -- After switching their allegiance from anarcho-communist Howard Dean to ultra-liberal John Kerry, and then to liberal John Edwards, on the final day of their convention Democrats switched one last time to extreme moderate Adolf Hitler, convinced that he's the man who has the best chance of beating Bush.

"This election has never been about issues," said Democratic Party spokesman Heinrich Himmler. "It's not about whether we go to war, about military spending, or taxes, or the federal budget, or the environment, or civil liberties, or even abortion. That's the kind of starry-eyed idealism that killed us in '72. This election is about one thing -- getting that bastard Bush out of there, that lying, draft-dodging, coke-snorting, beady-eyed, stupid, bad, bad person. Hate him! Hate him! Hate him!"

"'Action Will Be Taken':

Left Anti-Intellectualism and Its Discontents"

Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti

"We can't get bogged down in analysis," one activist told us at an anti-war rally in New York last fall, spitting out that last word like a hairball. He could have relaxed his vigilance. This event deftly avoided such bogs, loudly opposing the U.S. bombing in Afghanistan without offering any credible ideas about it (we're not counting the notion that the entire escapade was driven by Unocal and Lockheed Martin, the "analysis" advanced by many speakers). But the moment called for doing something more than brandishing the exact same signs -- "Stop the Bombing" and "No War for Oil" -- that activists poked skywards during the Gulf War. This latest war called for some thinking, and few were doing much of that.