"How To?"

Tiqqun

How to?

Don't know what I want,

but I know how to get it.

— Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"

I

TWENTY YEARS. Twenty years of counter-revolution. Of
preventive counter-revolution.

In Italy.

And elsewhere.

Twenty years of a sleep behind security gates, haunted
with security guards. A sleep of the bodies, imposed
by curfew.

Twenty years. The past does not pass. Because war
continues. Ramifies. Extends.

In a global networking of local devices. In an
original calibration of the subjectivities. In a new
superficial peace.

An armed peace

well made to cover the course of an imperceptible
civil war.

"Exploring a Socialist Alternative to Neo-Liberalism"

M. Vijaya Kumar

(Excerpt from the paper presented at the National Seminar on Neo-Liberal Globalization: Critique & Alternatives at Hyderabad, India on 22-08-2004)

Fighting Globalization & Capitalism

Globalization has been overhyped, conflictual, contradictory and open to resistance and democratic intervention and transformation and not just as a monolithic juggernaut of domination. Globalization involves both a disorganization and reorganization of capitalism, a tremendous restructuring process, which creates openings for progressive social change and intervention. The information economy represents a major restructuring of the spatial relations between capital and labour; this does not indicate that their productive relations are necessarily altered in any significant manner. The information society/information economy despite claims to the contrary is not technologically determined. Indeed, as with capitalism in general there is a central contradiction in the development of the information society. The supposition that the class struggle is over is ridiculous if the issue of the ownership of knowledge resources is the focus of analysis; the suggestion that we have move
d beyond
capitalism is rendered non-sensical if we look at the division of ownership and the conditions of workers throughout the information economy. Just as all organized resistance to capitalism appeared to be stomped out it now threatens to rise again from the very ground.

The Coming US Draft — Skills & Combat?

BlatantTruth.org

In May, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article about a document they received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was revealed that the SSS is currently "designing procedures" for the implementation of a "Skills Draft" and had held a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department.

This draft would change the essential mission of the Selective Service and require "virtually every young American," male and female ages 18–34, to register for the Skills Draft and list all the occupations they are proficient in to fill labor shortages throughout nearly the entire government. If enacted, the Skills Draft proposed in this Freedom of Information Act-recovered document would change America as we know it.

hpwombat writes:

"Nihilism and Women"
High Priest Wombat, KSC

The practice of nihilism is to attack the totality without hope that progress will occur. We are not advancing into a better society, despite the rhetoric from the left. What are our options? Do nothing and accept the conditions that are given to us from one ideology or another? Pretend that working for reforms and creating social services will somehow make a difference as the present order recuperates our struggles? Wrap ourselves into roles of the victim or the martyr and push ourselves into the service of suffering and misery?

The present order is a failure, we cannot escape its totality, there is no where to hide. We have no hope in changing society as it is, so it must be destroyed. We must free ourselves from its perpetuation, it is in our interest to do so. All other options are acceptance, critical or not. We need not be limited in our struggle and our actions must expand to all aspects of life.

Anonymous Comrade writes, "The following was posted by Christopher Day on the DailyKOS:"

"The Elephant in the Room:
What to do if the GOP Steals the Election (Again)?"

Christopher Day

People have rightly attacked the hand-wringing of some who are asking "what if Bush wins?" when we are still in the midst of the work of making sure that he doesn't. But there is another question that we need to be talking about NOW because if we don't all of the work we are doing may still be for nothing. That question is "what will we do if Bush loses and tries to steal the election again?" This is not a question we can put off until November 3 for the simple reason that if we are not mentally and organizationally prepared for this eventuality, we will lose.

1. The threat of a stolen election is real.

The 2000 presidential election was stolen through a combination of mob tactics and the collaboration of a right-wing Supreme Court. There are many imaginable scenarios in which Bush and Cheney might attempt to steal the election in 2004. These include massive election day disenfranchisement, rigged electronic balloting, electoral college shenanigans and undoubtedly some things we haven't thought of yet. The reality of this threat is attested to by the fact that both campaigns have lawyered up across the country in anticipation of major disputes.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Seven Questions on Haiti"
Anthony Fenton with Derrick O'Keefe, Seven Oaks

1. We hear so little about Haiti in the mainstream media. Most networks don't even have correspondents there right now. What is the reality on the ground in occupied Haiti?

Tragically, the reality in Haiti is very much like the reality of Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and is similar in many ways to the long list of military interventions in the hemisphere since the U.S. became the dominant force. What’s being heavily suppressed is that, far from ‘bringing stability’ to Haiti, the imperialist intervention and subsequent installment and propping up of an illegitimate regime is having dire consequences for Haiti’s mostly impoverished masses. Continued political persecution of anyone, and specifically leaders, known to be associated with the Lavalas political party, or of those who are pro-Constitutionalist generally, is the norm. It has been reported that Haiti’s jails and penitentiaries are full of these types of political prisoners.

rev. terry writes

THE YOUTH NEED A LIBERATION FRONT

Rev. Terry and Crudocrust of the DAAA Collective Modesto CA, Central Valley

From forthcoming and final DAAA Collective zine, NCAA (Northern Californian Anti-Authoritarian) #5.

Every business day a living creature is violated, condemned, coerced, biologically molested, and standardized to the point of misery between the hours 8:00am-3:00pm, preparing for a life full of preparing for life, or what they would tell us will be “our lives”. These creatures are made to feel inferior, and are forced through state sanctioned means of coercion and degradation, to compete and test against each other, creating newly formed class systems that in their earlier years never existed. Like a hunter gather thrust into a world of divide labor and complicated technology, we have be thrust from our world of play and fun into a world where suddenly things were serious. These creatures are children, around the ages 4-18. Chances are a child today has already witness a divorce, addiction, violence, and witnessed some one they love crushed by debt or job loss. Now they will have the experience of hearing that he/she is “not as advanced” or “ hyper active” because they cant sit throe 8+ hours of bland restricted teaching? As the problems increase, so do the pills. Where once a happy child bounced with the joys of young life, now a lifeshell now sits, digesting their drug intake. Some of our eyes are opening, and some of us our seeing that we are not supposed to fit into the mold that they are forcing us into. Schools have us training to be math wizes and track stars, but most of aren’t or don’t want the position if left to our own devices, and we are very, pissed off about it.

"Delving Into Democracy's Shadows"

Scott McLemee, Chronicle of Higher Education

The sociologist Michael Mann took a detour from his epic study of
power in human history. It led him straight to the horrors at the
center of modern life.

Scholarly books often resemble the pyramids erected for minor
officials in ancient Egypt. Impressive in their way — and built to
last — they are, nonetheless, difficult to tell apart. By contrast,
The Sources of Social Power, by Michael Mann, a professor of
sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles and a
visiting research professor at Queens University Belfast, is
"audacious in scope, ambitious in objective, and provocative in
challenge," as the American Sociological Association put it in
presenting Mr. Mann its 1988 award for distinguished scholarly
publication.

"War Crimes and Imperial Fantasies"

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by David Barsamian

Noam Chomsky, internationally renowned MIT professor, practically invented modern linguistics. In addition to his pioneering work in that field he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice. He is in such demand as a public speaker that he is booked years in advance. And wherever he appears, he draws huge audiences. The New Statesman calls him, "The conscience of the American people." He is the author of scores of books, his latest is the bestseller Hegemony or Survival. He has done a series of books with David Barsamian. The most recent one is Propaganda & the Public Mind. David Barsamian is the director and producer of the award-winning Alternative Radio in Boulder, Colorado. He interviewed Noam Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge on June 11, 2004.

Q: I want to ask you about a painting that hangs in your office. It’s rather gruesome. You’ve commented to me that mostly U.S. citizens don’t seem to know who it is, but most foreigners that come to visit you and see it recognize it immediately.

"No Fears: Laptop D.J.'s Have a Feast"

Jon Pareles, NY Times

Downloading music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and — most important — worth hearing.

That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take. As copyright holders, the labels have the exclusive legal right to distribute the music recorded for them, even if technology now makes that right nearly impossible to enforce.