hydrarchist writes:

"World Forum Movement: Abandon or Contaminate?"


Linden Farrer

November 2002 saw 60,000 activists from all over Europe converge on Florence for the European Social Forum (ESF) at the same time as the neoliberal elite met at the TABD in Chicago (1).

In opposition to neo-liberalism that sees increasing inequality of wealth, environmental destruction, rolling-back of
'civil liberties' and a perpetuation of wars of aggression as central to its
operation, the ESF promised to be a meeting space for 'in-depth reflection,
democratic debate, free exchange of experience and planning of effective
action among movements of civil society engaged in building a planetary
society centred on the human being'(2).

hydrarchist writes:

"Rick Prelinger is a tireless agitator against copyright laws, and is responsible for the placing on line of a huge volume of public domain films that others can appropriate for their own ends. This essay is his contribution to The Anti-Capitalism Reader, edited by Joel Schalit."

"Yes, Information Wants To Be Free, but How's That Going To Happen?:

Strategies for Freeing Intellectual Property"

Rick Prelinger

Why Worry About IP While Chaos Rules?

As I write in late February 2002, the United States has declared itself to be in a state of war. But even as our government asserts anti-terrorism as its first priority, corporations hustle to make the world safe for business. The courts are clogged with intellectual property lawsuits. Lawyers are busy churning out cease-and-desist letters to alleged copyright infringers. Entertainment conglomerates are consolidating their control over the fibers, cables and switches on which programming is distributed. Hackers are equated with terrorists and are forced to defend their ability to explore, reengineer and retool hardware and software. Content and advertising continue to combine into a tediously promotional happy meal. The limits of permissible speech in the mass media tighten every day. Not a quiet time, not a happy time, and under wartime cover decisions are now being made that will affect all our futures as producers and consumers of information, culture, and the arts.

hydrarchist writes:

"Intellectuals and Power"

A Conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze

MICHEL FOUCAULT: A Maoist once said to me: "I can easily
understand Sartre's purpose in siding with us; I can understand
his goals and his involvement in politics; I can partially under-
stand your position, since you've always been concerned with
the problem of confinement. But Deleuze is an enigma." I was
shocked by this statement because your position has always
seemed particularly clear to me.

"Lefty" Hooligan writes "

TOWARD A MAXIMUM

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

Anonymous Comrade writes "WHY NOT SHOW OFF ABOUT THE BEST THINGS? A Few Quick Notes on Social Conflict in Italy and the Metaphors Used to Describe It (*)

A match used to show off like this:

- I'm able to set a barn on fire! I can set fire to a petrol tank, the seat of a ministry, an Etruscan museum, whatever!

- Why not just say you're able to light the gas and boil the soup?

We always show off about the worst things.

Gianni Rodari, "Minimal Fables"

A tradition

Some people have called the Italian insurgence of 2000-02 "la Primavera dei movimenti", the Springtime of Movements. That is also the title of a video documentary that was sold in newsstands enclosed with L'Unità daily paper.

In 1969 the biggest struggles of factory workers were described as "Autunno caldo", the Hot Autumn. Recently, it is quite normal to hear such comments as: "It's like the Hot Autumn!" or "It's the Hot Autumn again!".

James John Bell writes:

"Emblazoned within a circle, the words "Scientia Est Potentia"—knowledge is power—are inscribed underneath the familiar all-seeing-eye pyramid that dwarfs a round Earth, while bathing it in fiery light from its eyeball.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"America's Pathetic Liberals"

By John Chuckman, YellowTimes.org, Canada

You might think from the way the progressive press laments Al Gore's decision not to run for President again that there had been a genuine loss to liberalism in America.

But that's not quite the way I see it. Although few candidates ever came better groomed for high office than Mr. Gore, it is his performance in the 2000 presidential election that must be lamented.

hydrarchist writes:

This is Part II of "The Perverse Perseverance of Sovereignty" by Anthony Burke. You can find the first part here.

40. Yet we can reasonably ask whether this subject is so ripe for fruition, or whether the continued operation of modern technologies of sovereignty and identity might not be in danger of crippling its emergence; likewise we can ask whether in order to liberate the multitude we need to continue to critique and fight modern sovereignty, to fight its hold on subjectivity, its violence, and its complex enabling relationship with global capital. Only then can we begin to grapple with the irony William Connolly identifies: 'the more global capital becomes, the more aggressive the state is with respect to citizen allegiances and actions'. (1995: 135) In short, the teleological metaphor is the wrong one. We need instead to think in terms of a strategic coexistence of imperial and modern ontology whose objectives are somatic and spatial: the control and production of bodies, land and space as a necessary (but not always umbilical) adjunct to the flow and exploitation of capital.

Tactical Sovereignty: Post-Soeharto Indonesia

41. Contemporary Indonesia certainly provides one of the most stark examples of the work of Empire, but it is also an example of the perseverance of sovereignty. Pressed to open its capital markets during the 1990s, and long influenced by the liberal development advice of the World Bank (which chaired the aid consortium the Consultative Group on Indonesia), tens of billions of short-term capital flooded in during the 1990s, much of which was channelled into property and sharemarket speculation and the corrupt business practices of the Soeharto family and other cronies. Such capital account liberalisation, with its complex interrelationship with currency speculation, corruption and political crisis, was a major factor in the terrible crash of 1997-8. (Robison et. al. 2000; Bello et. al. 2000)

I usually reject submissions like this one. Crackpot, delusional ideas that might be great in sci-fi novels. Ignoring the lack of reality and the authors taking themselves way too seriously, I gave in and decided to post this one. --U.F.

Anonymous writes "Why was the World Trade Centre at least twice chosen as a target to be attacked? It probably was perceived as a symbol of America's pride, success, arrogance and capitalism and the Towers were by their sheer size and shape easy to hit. It could be a grave mistake to recreate such a challenge by building another high-rise, that would be perceived to symbolise the above all over again.

Instead we could build something which is a living testimonial to what happened and which symbolises the value of internationalism and becomes an icon for a desire to learn from what happened and to prevent a repeat. A beacon of hope for the future.

The CUBE.
Imagine a super giant CUBE, as transparent as possible, with many cubes inside it, which perform/enable different functions 24 hours a day. Each inside cube ought to have a 100% international orientation. There could be cubes dedicated to the visual and performing arts, books, travel, clothing, body culture, health, sex, music, food and drink, furniture & housing, religion & rituals, government systems, law practices, sports, entertainment etc. Perhaps even include a hotel facility from one to three star rating.

dr.woooo posts a long essay, in two parts. The second part can be found here.

"The Perverse Perseverance of Sovereignty"

Anthony Burke,
University of Adelaide

1. It's a familiar story: the withering away of the state under globalisation, or if not so much the state, the withering away of a certain idea and formation of sovereignty. A sovereignty that no longer possesses the fullness and power of its Westphalian ideal: a bounded territorial realm in which national authority is absolute, which provides a representative and political principle through which states and their people can manage and control the forces that affect their lives. With the increasing globalisation of capital and trade, the growth of supranational regimes of economic governance such as the WTO, the interventionist zeal of the World Bank and the IMF, and the might and influence of the transnational corporation, sovereignty appears to be a thing of the past - the nostalgic ghost of a world transformed.

2. Such views, with more or less sophistication, are visible across the political continuum. We can recall the Economist's stunning headline of 1986, 'The nation-state is dead', or point to the respected critical scholar of globalisation, Jan Aart Scholte, who maintains that, even while 'the state apparatus survives' and 'is more intrusive in social life than before…the core Westphalian norm of sovereignty is no longer operative'. (Economist 1995/6; Scholte 1999: 21) Even one of the most intriguing and profound discussions of globalisation in recent years, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's book Empire, falls prey to this logic. 'The passage to Empire', they write, 'emerges from the twilight of modern sovereignty'. (2000: xii)