Jahresendbotschaften aus Oakland
December 24th, 2011>>Tossed up on the shores of the present by 150 years of failed insurrection, by the shipwreck of the workers’ movement, the failure of a hundred political projects. (…) Betrayed by democracy, betrayed by the technocrats of socialism, betrayed by the dumb idealism of anarchy, betrayed by the stolid fatalism of the communist ultraleft. We are not the 99%. We are not a fucking percentage at all. We do not count. If we have any power, it is because we are the enemies of all majority, enemies of “the people.” As the old song goes, we are nothing and must become everything.<< Research & Destroy: Plaza – Riot – Commune
>>Originally a reference to crazy distributions of wealth in the United States, the 99% has come to be an empty and abstract signifier for any dominant group. A relevant example of the application of this normalizing concept is the recent letter from the Oakland Police stating that they too are part of the 99%, and struggle daily against the criminal 1% comprised of thieves, rapists, and murderers. Another odious deployment of the concept is the way that lovers-of-bank-windows declare that anarchists are in fact the 1%, opposed to the peaceful 99% of protesters. Even more absurd is an assertion by police-apologists that, in fact, 99% police officers are good people and that only 1% of them are sadistic sociopaths.<< Bay of Rage: The ANTI-CAPITALIST MARCH and the BLACK BLOC
>>The divisions created by this march are not political in the traditional sense. It is not one tendency against each other. This is quite plainly a battle between ethical forms-of-life, meaning these conflicts are over the way people do the things they do. This is most evident in the fact that on both sides of this are anarchists and communists. And this is where it gets interesting: those anarchists and communists who were not for the property damage could be later seen telling those who were to “calm down.” It doesn’t matter that all anarchists are against the state and capitalism when there are those who are firmly attached to the life dampening nature of society itself.<< Communismknowsnomonsters: We Laugh at the Waves as they Crash on Us!
>>The task is quite simple, and it is monstrously difficult: in a moment of crisis and breakdown, we must institute ways of meeting our needs and desires that depend neither on wages nor money, neither compulsory labor nor administrative decision, and we must do this while defending ourselves against all who stand in our way.<< Research & Destroy: Plaza – Riot – Commune
December 27th, 2011 at 20:43
Klasse Text, dieser Plaza-Riot-Commune. Danke fürs weiterposten!!!
December 28th, 2011 at 13:36
As we speak the unfinished revolution is both a success and a failure. It is a success because you questioned the demand for authorities instead of only changing them. And it is a failure because authorities were preserved instead of abolishing them. So far you only smashed the face of the regime but as a faceless entity it is still there. In its current form of unaccountable councils it is quite similar to what we have been fighting against for a long time. If a conscript can run away from an army, then an army can run away from a commander, and if the individual in doing so can carry what the army stole from the people, then an army in doing so can carry what its commanders had stolen from them. But while the runaway soldier can return to the people what he had been carrying, the runaway army cannot. It only can preserve it for a coming deconstruction of the regime or be complicit in stealing ever more. In the best case it is neither a part of the problem nor of the solution. In the worst case, it is a regime that is being commanded by its materials, rather than by any face of human reason however limited or mean.
The Wind in the Trees – Tahrir address, Anonymous
When clandestinity is not regarded as a necessity (be it because repression is hunting or because it is necessary for certain action), but as some kind of top of revolutionary activity, there is not so much left over from the infamous a-legalism. In order to imagine this, it might suffice to compare it to the social situation in Europe: it is not because thousands of people are living a ´clandestine´ situation by the fact (people without papers), that it makes them automatically and objectively into a threat to the legalism and crowns them as being ´revolutionary subjects´. Why would it be different for anarchists living in clandestine conditions? Or might it all be about frightening the enemy? A recurring element in claims is that apparently there are anarchists who believe they can frighten power by expressing threats, by publishing pictures of weapons or exploding little bombs (and let´s not talk about the despicable practice of sending letter bombs). In comparison to the daily slaughter organized by power it seems kind of naive, especially to those who have no illusions left about more sensitive rulers, humanized capitalism, more honest relations inside of the system. If power would, despite her arrogance, already fear anything, then it would be the spreading of revolt, the sowing of disobedience, the uncontrolled igniting of the hearts.
Letter to the anarchist galaxy, Anonymous – dt.
Thus we place our proposition. We think that a dialogue of action between the cells of FAI must from time to time seek a common thematic treatment. More specifically, a cell of FAI/IRF when striking a target, through the communique with which it will claim responsibility, can at the same time open a dialogue with the other cells. For example, lets suppose that some comrades in England choose to attack the CCTV cameras in the streets and generally the means of control and surveillance. If they want, through their communique they can set the thematic of cameras and of the technological control of our life, analyse it, present their positions and propose to the network of IRF that other cells deal with this matter as well. Obviously, the rest of the cells and individualities (whoever wishes to of course) can carry out equivalent actions, i.e. attacks on shops which sell cameras and security systems, DNA labs, cameras on the street, security companies etc. The communiques which will follow surely will not agree absolutely with the first communique which basically called for the specific action expedition. But its there where we meet the substance of the dialogue of action. When cells all around the world attack a common target (i.e. cctv cameras) and at the same time they open a discussion of reflection around this matter. Because all disagreements, agreements, objections, analyses, placements, forward our awareness as anarchist individuals, one step further. Surely these discussions that follow such a practise, have nothing to do with the delaying of an old anarchism which is satisfied to consume all of its ´militancy´ in voluble theoretical talks in amphitheatres and harmless drinking of the alternative anarchist lifestyle.
Fire And Gunpowder From Indonesia to Chile… – A proposition for FAI/IRF – dt.
According to the Jesus Seminar scholars, the historical Jesus was not some ethereal divinity, wanting people to “believe in him” as a new kind of God; rather he was a very angry,very loving Jew, confronting the entrenched injustices and superficialities of the Jewish and Roman Establishments of his day, demanding an inclusive love that transcended rigid religious and ethnic boundaries, and insisting that “the Kingdom of God” was a state within each of us, that could be manifested on Earth by sharing what we had, visiting the prisoner, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and engaging in the political and personal practice of peace. He said that THAT was what God wanted. Did he say it in Churches on Sunday, politely? No: he was constantly confronting power in public, constantly p—ing off the powers that be, constantly impolite and disruptive in order to hold a mirror up to hypocrisy, constantly destabilizing “business as usual”, constantly telling his followers to do the same, and constantly asking his disciples to continue that work in his name after he was gone.
Occupy and the meaning of Christmas, Naomi Wolf
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PS: Platz – Aufstand – Kommune (dt.)