Anonymous Comrade writes:

The Geography of Disaster

Reg Johanson, Rain
Reviewing Mike Davis, Planet of Slums

(London: Verso, 2006)

In Planet of Slums geographer of disaster Mike Davis turns his attention to the human disaster of slums in order to understand the scope and the meaning of the economic disaster of neoliberalism. Arguing from research that includes UN, World Bank, IMF, CIA, and Pentagon reports as well as literature on urbanism and housing, Davis observes that cities will account for all future population growth, and that “ninety five percent of this final build-out of humanity will occur in the urban areas of developing countries” (2).


This massive transfer of population from the country to the city, Davis argues, was generated by the equally massive transfer of wealth from the Third World to the First orchestrated by North American and European states “with the IMF as bad cop and World Bank as good cop” (70), a transfer that has produced what will probably be a widely quoted statistic from Planet of Slums: “Global inequality, as measured by World Bank economists across the entire world population, reached an incredible GINI coefficient level of 0.67 by the end of the century—this is mathematically equivalent to a situation where the poorest two thirds of the world receive zero income, and the top third receives everything” (165).


But while rural populations fled for the cities because they were no longer permitted to practice the subsistence economies that had previously sustained them, Davis shows that in most of the developing world, urban growth is exploding without economic growth. In fact, just the opposite is occurring: with few exceptions, there has been a de-industrialization of the big cities of the global south. As Davis says, “the size of a city’s economy […] often bears surprisingly little relationship to its population” (13). Cities are growing with a decreasing capacity to support residents, creating a widely varying “informal economy” of subsistence, housing, and infrastructure.

In Praise of Pageantry

By Jen Angel

From In These Times

This past January I spent a week in a chilly warehouse in Tacoma, Wash.,
making puppets with 20 other activists to support Army First Lt. Ehren
Watada, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to
Iraq. We were creating a play to perform on Feb. 5 at the vigil outside
the gates of Fort Lewis, Wash., where his court-martial—which would end
in a mistrial—was being held.

We spent hours painting, taping, cutting, gluing, eating and talking.
For the characters in our play, we created a 15-foot-tall judge with a
sculpted cardboard head and paper mâché hands, jurors and witnesses,
and, for our finale, doves and suns to end with a vision of a beautiful
future.

But art and activism aren't just about pageantry. Skilled activists use
culture as an entry point into larger discussions of politics and
theory, and use art and culture to celebrate victories and mourn losses.
Art becomes a way to engage the public, reinspire activists who are
tired of the same old marches and chants, and at its best, model a
future world where our lives are both productive and enjoyable.

But connections between art and activism are often tenuous. Individuals
who straddle the two communities face artists who don't care about
politics and activists who don't take art seriously. Realizing the
Impossible: Art Against Authority, a new and beautifully illustrated
anthology edited by Josh MacPhee and Erik Reuland, explores these
intersections and contradictions while linking art, culture and
anarchist politics.

Revolutionary creativity

Isa Tousignant

From Hour

May is the month of anarchy, did you know that? To me, it's a supremely ludicrous idea: that anarchy, by very nature disobedient, could fit itself neatly into a 31-day period of celebration. Shouldn't it be breaking the barriers of May to spread into June, July, August?

Nevertheless, the Festival of Anarchy is on, and celebrations are taking place. For one, the end of the month sees the eighth instalment of the yearly Anarchist Book Fair (May 18-20, mark it on your calendar), and for two, today marks the start of Canada's largest political art show ever: the Art + Anarchy Montreal 2007 exhibition, featuring the work of over 230 politically engaged visual artists from around the world.

Until May 13 at the freshly transformed, hitherto abandoned space that is the Esplanade Loft Project - a 5,000-square-foot temporary gallery in Mile End - the exciting exhibition will display dozens of photos, installations, paintings, sculptures, sketches, etchings, art videos and comic art by established and emerging artists from Montreal, across Canada, the USA and abroad. Among the artists included are Norman Nawrocki, Linda Dawn Hammond, Danielle Sara Frank, Freda Guttman, Stefan Christoff, Alden Penner, Rebecca Bain, Catherine Herrmann, ZIBZ Black Current and Jason Milan Ghikadis. The exhibition integrates and complements an existing, celebrated travelling show, Paper Politics, curated by New York anarchist artist Josh MacPhee, which features 195 international politically and socially engaged prints.

The Situational Drive

Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement

New York City, May 12-13, 2007

Free Weekend Conference

May 12 and 13, 2007

May 12, 10am – 7pm

May 13, 10:45am – 6:15pm

Cooper Union, The Great Hall

7th Street, btw 3rd and 4th Ave, NYC

Organized by Joshua Decter

A partnership between
inSite/ San Diego-Tijuana and Creative Time, New York
in collaboration with
The Cooper Union School of Art

In the network society everyone puts together their own city. Naturally
this touches on the essence of the concept of public domain…Public domain
experiences occur at the boundary between friction and freedom.
— Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp, In Search of New Public Domain

inSite/ San Diego-Tijuana and Creative Time, New York are pleased to
present The Situational Drive: Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement, a
two-day multidisciplinary sequence of panel discussions, conversations,
and art projects rethinking the challenges of artistic, curatorial,
architectural and theoretical engagement in urban and other public
spheres.

Peter Lamborn Wilson, "Hermetics, Art Criticism and Philosophy"

Thursday, April 19, 7pm

Amphitheater

School of Visual Arts

209 East 23 Street, 3rd floor

Free and open to the public.

The MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department presents a talk by Peter Lamborn Wilson, a political writer, essayist, and poet. His books include TAZ, Leaving the 19th Century, Orgies of the Hempeaters, Immediatism, Pirate Utopias and Gothick Institutions.

Campaign for Nawal El Saadawi
Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA)— Belgium

International campaign for freedom of thought and creativity and for solidarity with the Egyptian novelist and writer Nawal El Saadawi

Arab Women's Solidarity Association — Belgium invites you to sign this petition for freedom of thought and creativity, and thanks you in advance for diffusing it as widely as possible.

جمعية تضامن المرأة العربية- بلجيكا تدعوكم لتوقيع هذه العريضة من أجل حرية الفكر و الابداع و تشكركم سلفا لنشرها على أوسع نطاق ممكن.

Pour signer / to sign /للتوقيع :

here.

The Egyptian writer and novelist Nawal El Saadawi, well known both in the Arab world and internationally, is facing a political and religious campaign mounted against her by the authorities of Al-Azhar. Basing themselves on a play written by her entitled "God Resigns at the Summit Meeting," published during the month of January 2007 in Cairo, they are accusing her of apostasy and disrespect for the principles of Islam.

The theater play is a work of fiction and should be judged by the men and women who read works destined for the theater and not by religious dignitaries whose areas of concern are totally different. To bring a writer to trial before a court relying on dangerous accusations of this kind can be a license for her assassination.

Accusations such as this which should not hold sway in the twenty-first century are being leveled against a woman of letters, a woman from the medical profession who has given to the Arab world forty-five works ranging from novels, plays, short stories, autobiography to scientific and intellectual studies which have served the cause of women's liberation and that of men and have been translated into thirty languages covering different regions of our globe.

This is not the first time that Nawal El Saadawi has had to face campaigns of this kind. The accusation here also was that of apostasy.

We the signatories of this petition demand that this repressive campaign come to an end immediately. We call upon all the men and women of conscience all over the world, in the Arab countries and in Egypt to take the action they see fit in order to defend freedom of thought and creativity. We call upon all the associations and organizations of civil society, the unions of workers, on journalists, on all free women and men in the different countries, on the associations and organizations of women and on democratic progressive political parties to join us in our efforts to defend freedom.
Arab Women's Solidarity Association – Belgium

ألحملة الدولية من أجل حرية الفكر و الابداع تضامناً مع قضية الدكتورة نوال.
<السعداوي في مصر

تتعرض الكاتبة المصرية نوال السعداوي، ألمعروفة عالمياً و عربياً، لحملة سياسية دينية يقودها الأزهر في مصر لتقديمها للمحاكمة و ادانتها بتهمة الكفر و ازدراء الأديان بسبب مسرحية لها نشرت في القاهرة باللغة العربية في يناير ألماضي
.<تحت عنوان (الاله يقدم استقالته في اجتماع القمة) .

تندرج هذه المسرحية تحت أعمال الخيال و الابداع و المفروض أن يحكم عليها القراء و القارئات و نقاد المسرح و الأدب و ليس رجال الدين. ولهذا يعتبر تحويل كاتبة مبدعة الى المحاكمة بهذه التهم الخطيرة طريقا يؤدي الى اهدار دمها. هذه التهم لا تليق بالقرن الواحد والعشرين وتنال من كاتبة، أديبة و طبيبة، قدمت للمكتبة العربية خمسة و أربعين مؤلفا ما بين الرواية و المسرحية والقصص القصيرة و السيرة الذاتية و الأعمال العلمية و الفكرية التي تربط بين قضايا تحرير الانسان و قضايا تحرير النساء، ترجمت الى أكثر من ثلاثين لغة في العالم. وقد سبق لنوال السعداوي أن تعرضت لحملات من هذا النوع و منها محاولة تفريقها بالقوة من زوجها بتهمة الكفر أيضاً ووضع اسمها على قوائم الموتى لعدد من السنوات.

ولهذا فاننا نطالب بايقاف هذا القهر فوراً وندعو كل أصحاب و صاحبات الضمائر في العالم وفي البلاد العربية و في مصر أن يهبوا للدفاع عن حرية الفكر و الابداع و لرفع أيدي السلطة الدينية السياسية في مصر عن نوال السعداوي و أن تتبنى هذه الحملة المنظمات الشعبية واتحادات الكتاب و الأدباء و الصحافيين والأحرار من الرجال و النساء في كل بلد و كذلك المنظمات النسائية و الأحزاب السياسية المتنورة.

جمعية تضامن المرأة العربية - بلجيكا

Arab Women's Solidarity Association — Belgique ASBL

Avenue de l'Eternité, 6

1070 Bruxelles

0881.718.815

363-0002517-35

0486/ 61 80 82

Email: awsabe@gmail.com

Web: AWSA Belgique

AWSA

Dreampolitik: Presentation and Brainstorm with Author Steve Duncombe

March 27 - Change You Want to See, NYC

The Change You Want to See is thrilled to host author and activist Steve Duncombe for a presentation and discussion of his acclaimed manifesto Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy. Beyond talk, this is also an applied strategy session – irrigate the irrational, practice your “spectacular vernacular”, exercise your imagination as we craft a creative street action in support of the Coalition of Imakolee Workers' campaign against McDonald's.

BYOB encouraged, as brainstorm and beer are like butter and bread.

Tuesday, March 27, at 7:30pm
The Change You Want to See Gallery and Convergence Stage
L to Bedford, G to Metropolitan, J/M/Z to Marcy
84 Havemeyer St, Brooklyn NY 11211
http://www.thechangeyouwanttosee.org
917-202-5479 or 646-221-7845

Francis Wheen: Show Me the Kapital to make "Karl Marx the Movie"
Oliver Duff

Francis Wheen's 1999 biography of Karl Marx portrayed an endearing, cigar-chomping Victorian hellraiser prone to intellectual bullying, drunken pub crawls and organising his daughter's suitors; penniless and largely ignored in his lifetime. Fans of the book included the militia leaders of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.

Now Wheen, columnist, historian and deputy editor of Private Eye, is in talks to turn his opus into a film. On Friday, he met in Paris with the Haitian director Raoul Peck, a former cab driver who became the Haitian Culture minister during a brief democratic hiatus, soon to work with Martin Scorsese.

"It's early days, but quite exciting," Wheen tells Pandora. "Raoul Peck seems very nice. We're putting together a treatment and finding funds from somewhere."

Wheen has been here before - in 1999, with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, then boss of Miramax. Weinstein sent his emissary Tina Brown to London to tell Wheen that he loved the book, wanted Tom Stoppard to write a screenplay and planned to cast Ralph Fiennes as Marx and Gwyneth Paltrow as the aristocratic wife, Jenny von Westphalen.

Weinstein and Brown's interest evaporated. A subsequent BBC dramatisation was pulled when Greg Dyke "suddenly said he was fed up with 19th-century dramas with bonnets". Says Wheen: "I explained, unsuccessfully, that there aren't many bonnets in the Marx story."

Wheen's ideal casting? "Johnny Depp and [his wife] Vanessa Paradis."

Anarchist Soapbox Social
New York City, Feb. 9, 2007

Third Annual
Soapbox Social

Fund-raising Dinner

for the Institute for Anarchist Studies

Friday, February 9, 2007,

7:30 p.m. at Alwan for the Arts,

16 Beaver St., 4th floor, New York City

Dear friends and supporters, old and new,



The Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) warmly invites you to the
third annual Soapbox Social fund-raising dinner on Friday, February
9, 2007.

Since 1996, the IAS has been promoting critical scholarship on
social domination and reconstructive visions of a free society.
Through grants, events, journals, conferences, and other projects,
we have contributed to anarchist scholarship, helped build a
community of support for present-day anti-authoritarian projects,
and renewed the long-term commitment for the future. We hope you
will gather with us to celebrate this wonderful occasion.



Please join us for food, conversation, drinks, and socializing.
This event is a fund-raising event, of course, so bring your
checkbooks or cash. But it is also a fantastic opportunity for
networking, socializing, and reaffirming our dedication to critical
engagement and radical social change now and for years to come.



The doors open at 7:30 p.m., and dinner will be served promptly at
8:30 p.m. This year's fare will be Lebanese, and $20 wins you a
buffet of eggplant, chickpeas, cous-cous, lamb, and much more.
Vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores will all enjoy the meal. Wine
is on the house (but you are encouraged to BYOB if you have
discriminating tastes).

Space is limited, so please RSVP by Wednesday, February 7, by e-
mail: mercury@nadalex.net, or by phone: 646-351-9859



DIRECTIONS:

Alwan for the Arts

16 Beaver St., 4th floor

New York, NY 10004

16 Beaver is between Broad and New Streets, one block east of
Whitehall Street and Bowling Green.

Justseeds Art Show & Street Art Workers release party

Thursday, February 8, 2007, 6-10pm
Ad Hoc Art

49 Bogart St.

Brooklyn NY 11206

Justseeds.org and Visual Resistance present a one-night benefit art
show and sale at Ad Hoc Art, Thursday February 8, 2007.

There will be an exhibition of artists supporting the transformation
of Justseeds into an artist owned and run collective. Art by
Justseeds artists and friends will also be on the sale, with prices
starting at $4. The show will also be the NYC release of the Street
Art Workers (SAW) poster project.

The show will feature over 30 artists from NYC and around the
country, including: Swoon, Chris Stain, Josh MacPhee, RB827,
Christopher Cardinale, Michael De Feo, Kristine Virsis, Elbow-Toe,
GoreB, Imminent Disaster, k.see, Nicolas Lampert, Meredith Stern,
Cristy Road, Pete Yahnke, and many more.

Along with the exhibition of the above artists will be the NYC
release of the Street Art Workers' Land and Globalization poster
project, a collection of 25 posters representing artists from 10
different countries and over 20 different cities.

All proceeds from the show will go toward getting the Justseeds
Artist Cooperative off the ground. Posters, books, and zines start
at $4, with most artwork priced between $10 - 30.