Category: Articles

The continued economic recession offers stark choices. You can buy the mainstream ideological line that we’re in a time of economic scarcity and end up spinning your wheels fighting other struggling people over who will get this scrap of welfare at the expense of that crumb of education funding. Or, you can seize the opportunity presented by the recession to expose the rotten system in which the richest people continue to get richer at the same moment they ask ordinary people to do without.

Don’t be fooled by the TV talking heads: the economic stress we are living through is not about a lack of resources, it is about how those resources are distributed and how the process is controlled. There is a lot of talk about tightening belts at the same time that Wall Street had a great year during 2010 — the stock market was up 11 percent for the year and bankers received billions in bonuses. It is curious to hear frantic calls to cut government budgets at the same time as tax cuts are passed for the richest 1 percent — you wouldn’t want them to have to cut their yacht budget.

While recessions impose real pain, they are built into the fabric of the free market system — rather than being a failure of the system, they are a normal part of its operation. It is easy to get confused and distracted by complex discussions of the housing bubble and Wall Street gimmicks like mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps. These details obscure the easy lesson of the recent crash, which is that the economic system is operating on its own internal logic always concentrating wealth and power at the top and disconnected from the welfare of the vast majority of people and the earth.

How can we see through the distractions and false choices that supporters of the economic status quo have been pushing to grasp that the recession offers opportunities for people to organize for a better future. We don’t have to be depressed by the depression — we can resist austerity and struggle for a world organized to meet human needs, not serve corporate greed. Austerity was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2010 — it means a government policy of spending cuts and reduction of public services.

In Europe in particular, 2010 saw an eruption of popular protest against economic austerity with massive strikes, riots and protests in Greece, England, France, Spain, Italy, etc.

In the US, by contrast, the recession hasn’t (so far) trigged much popular revolt against the economic system and its injustices during recession times — a rejection of continued corporate control and domination by unaccountable Wall Street tycoons.

In the absence of organized opposition to the recession and economic injustice, many people stung by the recession have been attracted by the Tea Party movement — an exercise in confusion and distraction focused on government abstractions like “the founding fathers” and details about “the Constitution,” rather than economic issues. The Tea Party actually demands more economic hardship for the poorest people while it distracts attention from the failures of the capitalist economic system, and subtlely implies that immigrants and minorities are the real problem with its demands to “take American back.” From whom? Certainly not the Fortune 500 or the richest 1 percent who make their income from stock dividends, not working a job — the Tea Party never mentions them. The Tea Party demands small government, but ignores Big Business.

How can we make 2011 a year of resistance to austerity — not just in Europe, but in the US and around the globe? How about a general strike in Pittsburgh or a bread riot in Atlanta? When banks try to throw a family out in the street, an organized neighborhood can barricade the block. If folks in London can throw shit at Prince Charles’ limo like they did at a recent demonstration in London, maybe someone can TP Donald Trump’s mansion or something. Who the fuck in the USA is parallel to Prince Charles, anyway?

And how can we widen resistance from begging for government / economic crumbs to attacking the absurdity of an economic system which requires inequality and injustice as well as unlimited economic growth on a finite planet, which is threatening us all with ecological collapse?

Demanding “no cuts” to a particular government program or “no fee increases” for higher education misses the point by implying that if the capitalism system would just start working better again — growing and creating wealth to feed government bureaucracies — everything would be fine. Capitalism is cyclical — good times follow bad times just like bad times follow good times — but no matter which side of the business cycle you’re on, the system maintains economic inequality and concentrates power. Excessively modest / reformist goals piss away the opportunities presented by this moment. As some people try to defend aspects of the welfare state, don’t forget that the reason it was created in the first place was to avoid riots, strikes and social disruption so as to preserve the basic injustices of the system by making them a little less unpleasant.

The most dangerous aspects of capitalism are the ways it sucks meaning and self-determination from our day-to-day lives and the way its value-free efficiency carves up the planet. Environmental destruction — deforestation, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. — actually fall during recessions when production falls. That tells you that moments when the capitalist system is “healthy” and profits are surging are precisely the most unhealthy moments for human beings and the natural world. A particularly cynical right-wing talking point is that the recession requires environmental rules to be rolled back because they are killing jobs.

When business is booming, our time for unpaid but meaningful activities like family, community, pleasure, expression, etc. gets gobbled up by the machine to be transformed into stuff and services. The economy wants to displace every parent and sell us childcare and a housecleaner, abolish every gardener and sell us produce and a garden service, ignore every artist and sell us entertainment on a computer chip.

We can demand a different way. A system that keeps you busy doing meaningless jobs you hate to more quickly undermine the planet’s ability to support life and make a tiny number of people rich and powerful so they are unaccountable to everyone else is a crazy system. It isn’t the type of system you want to see recover — it is the type of system you want to go out into the streets to overturn. Many millions of people who see through the confusion will be out on the streets in 2011. Will any of them be in the US? Will you be there? What can we do to be part of the future, and not the past?

The mining industry is one of the biggest industries in the world and a vital industry in the techno-industrial society. In every part of the world with minerals, mining companies compete to exploit the resources from which they can profit, which has led to horrendous destruction of the Earth’s biosphere. Life support systems such as water, forests, and wildlife are destroyed everyday by these companies.

The Philippine Archipelago is a set of mountainous islands with three major regions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Geologically, the Philippines is part of the Circum-Pacific Belt of Fire, where mineral resources are exceptionally abundant.

In the Philippines, as well in other parts of the earth, local peoples’ livelihoods are eradicated with the mining process. People in the farming and fishing industries lose the resources vital to their jobs, and indigenous / tribal peoples are harassed or bribed to leave their land, or are displaced to city slums. For those that stand up to militantly oppose the mining industries and its effects, there is the risk of murder.

People all over the Archipelago are organizing and working with outside groups to resist corporate tyranny and achieve justice. Throughout the years the approach of working together with communities has been dominated by leftist groups and is hierarchical in many regards. These groups tend to follow the same patterns of NGO’s and missionary aid, who enter communities, bring in new ideas, give support (depending on what “specialty” the NGO might have), and try to get people following the leftist brand of socio-political and economic solutions.

The Philippine opposition-political spectrum is predominantly composed of two blocks, Akbayan and BAYAN MUNA, which are both communist. All throughout the country, these groups have been working on anti-mining issues and have partnered with communities against mining. However, the dilemma is that people are left with little or no decision making power, since these groups are most likely to mediate, and in many occasions dictate what needs to be done.

In response to the bureaucratic, hierarchical approaches to resistance of mining, the Undangon ang Mina Network (Stop Mining Network) and our communities of support in the Philippines aim to take action by:

1. Connecting to communities of resistance (local and international).

2. Informing local groups where head offices of companies are located (such as Philex Gold Corporation in Vancouver, Canada) and set up international boycott campaigns.

3. Document corporations’ human rights abuses and environmental destruction to inform the local and global community.

4. Bring an anti-authoritarian approach to our local communities, as well as supporting the locals with what they think is the best solution for mining situations in their area.

5. Learning from exchanges with different communities and struggles.

In a nutshell, mining companies are bullies who are mostly coming from Canada, Australia, Japan, Asia, and Europe. Some of these companies’ actions include:

-Manipulating laws (through pro-development politicians) to pursue mining operations.

-Bribing local and national politicians, the police, and military forces to support their campaigns.

-Disrespecting local people’s parameters on their land and resources.

-Displacing indigenous/tribal communities by forcing them to leave their land and resources.

-Bribing local people with money, resources, and jobs.

-Threatening the stability of an area when it becomes a mining target.

-Destroying farmlands and water resources.

-Destroying forest ecosystems.

History

Mining in the Philippines started in pre-colonial times. In a number of regions in the Archipelago, indigenous communities mined for gold, copper and many other minerals for various day-to-day purposes. Natives from all over the Philippines used gold, pearls, agate, as well as other minerals for body ornaments, and gold was also bartered with merchants from all over Asia and Europe. Many merchants from Luzon and Jolo Islands and Brunei traveled throughout Mindanao in search of slaves and gold.

Roughly 400 years ago, the Spaniards took advantage of all the affluent mineral resources they could get. In fact, gold was the main reason why the Spanish colonized the Philippines. The Spaniards made a law called Inspeción de Minas which allowed them to inspect the existing minerals in the Archipelago.

Following Spain, Americans made strategic steps to exploit the minerals of the Philippines. In May of 1867, the U.S.A. did a geological survey, which validated the Philippines as a mineral-rich country. They issued Act 468, a law that basically gives the American government the right to claim a number of areas as “reserved areas” for future mining. The first commercial mine was in Benguet, in central Luzon, by the Benguet Mining Corporation.

In the year 1914, Surigao and parts of the Caraga Region were declared as an “Iron Reserved” area for future mining. By then, the mining industry in the Philippines was beginning to bloom and the US government took hold of whatever it could grasp, forming a Mining Bureau to regulate all potential operations in the future.

In 1921, there was a decline in large-scale mining, but many were making a living from small-scale gold mining. However, by 1933 and until 1941, gold became the dominant and most valuable mineral in the mining industry.

Under the tyranny of the Japanese, Filipinos were coerced to mine for metals in many regions of the Philippines, to be used for war weapons. This paved way for a more commercialized, exploited, and degenerated Philippines.

In the 1950’s, copper mining became successful, and was the baby of mining corporations. Large-scale copper mining reached its peak in the 1960’s and 1970’s. By the late 80’s, world demand for copper decreased because gold became of global interest again. A number of companies mining for gold in that period were forced to close operations because of law violations, resulting in a slight downturn for the industry.

Under the WTO and the IMF-WB, the neo-colonized Philippines were again coerced to adjust its economic policies to adhere to neo-liberal policies. By 1994, pro-development politicians, such as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, lobbied a mining bill which would later become the Republic Act 7942, or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 (This law basically puts power over land, resources, and life forms to corporations. Combined with the Regalian doctrine, a law which practically gives the government the right to own and do whatever they wish in public lands, many areas became mining hot spots).

By 1996, the Philippine’s mining industry allowed offshore companies to operate fully in the reserved areas, which created disaster in a number of places in the Philippines. In March of 1996, it was estimated that 1.6 million cubic meters of mine tailings flowed from the mine pit to the Makulapnit and Boac rivers, trapping 4,400 people in 20 villages. That incident destroyed the Boac River, as well as the downstream communities and coastal areas. Another tragedy that happened in 1998 was the Malangas Coal Corporation case in Zamboanga Del Sur,Mindanao, where an explosion occurred in the mine site, killing almost a hundred workers and injuring 35 people. In 2004, another disaster happened in Surigao Del Norte, Mindanao. That time, it was from one of the largest and longstanding mining corporations in the Philippines (the Manila Mining Corporation(MMC). Five million cubic meters of waste materials containing high levels of mercury damaged local people’s agricultural lands and temporarily poisoned the adjacent Placer Bay.

Today, hundreds of mining applications are pending to prey on the resources of the Philippines, and there are 20 major large scale mining op
erations, 10 medium scale mining operations, and more than 2,000 non-metallic small scale mining operations in existence.

To learn more about how you can help, check http.undangonangmina.alphabetthreat.co.uk and kinaiyahanunahon.alphabetthreat.co.uk

Herding the Begay family’s 42 sheep and goats on the high desert plateau of northeast Arizona is how I spent the holiday called Thanksgiving by U.S. commercial culture. Hostein and Mazie and their children Etta and Tom are a Dine (Navajo) family who have been resisting eviction and cultural genocide by the U. S. government for over 35 years. For me, and 120 other volunteers in the 2010 Black Mesa Caravan, supporting indigenious resistance was our Thanksgiving. Organized by Black Mesa Indigenous Support, the yearly pilgrimage brings food, firewood, building supplies and tools along with an enthusiastic labor force to about 35 of the Dine families resisting forced relocation from their homelands on Black Mesa (usually called Big Mountain).

I have been to Big Mountain five or six times since my first visit in 1998. On that visit with my friend Paul Bloom I thought there was the possibility of pressuring the U.S. government into easing its brutally unjust treatment of the Dine resisters. Our call was “Repeal Public Law 93-531” the 1974 law that divided the land area previously shared peacefully by the Hopi and Navajo, and resulted in over 12,000 Navajo being forced from their homesteads. Over the ensuing years I have seen Senator John McCain, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Peabody (Western) Coal, and both the Navajo and Hopi Tribal Councils bring more and harder disruption, suffering, and death to these Dine elders and their families. Big Mountain land and water was stolen from the Dine to extract its rich coal reserves. This time my sole intention was to help a resister family with its daily chores for a week. Such a change in my expectations was a painful reminder of the powerful and relentless greed of multinational corporations like Lehman Brothers and Peabody Coal and a corrupt Mormon lawyer named John Sterling Boyden.

I know how hard life at Big Mountain is. When I tried to do sheep herding in 2000 I couldn’t keep up with the herd and depended on the dogs to get them home. Now, 68 years old, I needed to be reassured by the Caravan organizers that I wasn’t too old. They did, and I proudly rose to the occasion. On Tuesday and Friday my co-herder Terri Compost and I kept the herd out the full seven hours. True, I would kneel or lie down for a minute or two whenever the herd slowed for a fill up on juniper berries or young sage. And a good thing that I still had a little gas in my tank because once we had the herd in the coral around three o’clock we would then split fire wood until dark. As I ate dinner, usually by candlelight, I remembered the peaceful exhaustion of having done a full day’s meaningful labor.

In spite of the drain on my body of keeping up with the sheep and goats, the beauty of the high desert panorama that unfolded before us at Big Mountain filled me with a giddy kind of joy. It is not lush or lavishly colorful in the usual sense, but a rolling carpet of sand dotted with light green sage and darker juniper trees that is open and accessible to the human form. Yet its overwhelming vastness can easily swallow one up. For that reason volunteers were assigned to herding in groups of two or four so that herders would always be paired. We were also advised not to rely on landmarks for finding our way but to follow the tracks of the herd to get back home.

Nevertheless, one of the volunteers did get separated from her partner and spent two bone chilling nights stranded on a ridge. With a cell phone with a dead battery and lighters out of butane this woman was lucky to be found with only slight frostbite on the tips of her toes. She wisely conserved the food she had until she was found. Her rescue happened because one of the Dine trackers defied the Hopi rangers’ insistence that only they would be conducting the search and continued his search. It was while this tracker was tracking the lost woman that a hawk flew over and spooked his horse who, we are told, then ran straight to the ridge where the lost woman was. The community which had mobilized an effective search was very relieved and had learned important ways to help herders get home safely.

News from the Land

In addition to working at our host families’ homesteads, on the Saturdays beginning and ending our stay at Big Mountain we had large group meetings where the leaders of the resistance, a.k.a. the Grandmas, spoke about their struggle. We heard about Hopi rangers confiscating the Grandmas’ sheep and destroying traditional Dine hogans as has been going on since the late 1980’s. Even in the week we were there we grew more familiar with what it is to live under police occupation. While our comrade was lost the Hopi rangers, as mentioned above, attempted to curtail the Dine from searching for one of their lost supporters, claiming they would do it by helicopter (which never happened). The Hopi police also came onto the Caravan’s base camp at Katherine Smith’s homestead where we had our large meetings. As an occupying force will do in order to monitor and control resistance to its occupation, the Hopi demanded that Grandma Smith get a permit for the gathering. Thank you Hopi Tribal Council for being such a willing pawn of U.S./Corporate cultural genocide.

Of the new developments in this decades-old land struggle, those involving their own Navajo Tribal Council were of greatest concern to the Grandmas. Most often mentioned was an agreement between Ben Shirley, the new president of the Navajo Tribal Council, and LeRoy Shingoitewa,the chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council, pledging to “clean up” the land dispute issue. Since the Navajo Tribal council has never offered anything but hollow lip service to the traditional Grandmas it was believed that such an agreement could only mean greater pressure on the resisters to force them off their land.

Water is always an important issue, especially in the desert. For years the Navajo tribal government has profited from the sale of water, essential to the livelihood of the people on Big Mountain, to Peabody Western Coal Company. That water from a pristine aquifer was used to slurry coal 273 miles to Laughlin Nevada. Finally, in 2005, due to a Clean Air Act suit, the Mojave coal power plant in Laughlin was closed (only because its pollution was hampering tourism at the Grand Canyon). Long time dry water wells around Big Mountain and Tuba City began to recover.

As important a victory that the closing of the Mojave Generating Station was, the Grandmas never underestimate the destructive greed of Peabody Coal Company (now Peabody Energy since coal became a dirty word). However for these traditional Dine, as stewards of the land, their own tribal “leaders” are often as serious a threat. Many of the elders were angered by the recently signed Northeastern Arizona Water Settlement in which the Navajo Nation agreed to take only a minuscule portion of the water from the Little Colorado river to which they are entitled. Such betrayal by their “leaders” must be hard to bear. As a supporter it enrages me.

For what could enrage one more than the First Peoples of this land, who live without plumbing or electricity, to be forced from their land and ways so that their coal can be turned to electricity for the air conditioners of Phoenix, the light spectacles of Las Vegas, and the street lights of Los Angeles.

There will be yearly caravans to Big Mountain. If you would like to be part of this struggle check out www.blackmesais.org or contact bayareacaravan@gmail.com. For a full history of the theft of Dine land see “The Wind Won’t Know My Name” by Emily Benedek.

Suigetsukan dojo in Oakland, California has long been popular in Bay Area progressive communities because of its balance of intensity and inclusion, tolerance of diverse life-styles, and sliding scale tuition. Compared to other places I’ve had the opportunity to train in North America, I’ve felt a supportive yet rigorous climate, one without machismo, mystification or mindgames. Suigetsukan hosts the Girl Army, a Women and Transgender Self-Defense program that integrates an anti-oppression analysis.

I was intrigued to hear of youth Jujitsu classes starting up at Suigetsukan, and surprised that word hadn’t gotten around in the community. In life’s tempest I had wandered to the Midwest for some years and come back to find a lot of my friends turned into ‘rents. And how were they showing their kids how to hold their own in Oakland? Didn’t they remember that cool dojo where squatters met nuclear engineers at swordpoint?

An Ancient Tradition

Jujitsu is derived from the grappling arts of the Samurai–techniques taught to defend themselves were they to lose their weapons on a battlefield. From these roots have evolved a wide variety of fighting techniques, including Judo, Aikido, and Brazilian Jujitsu. The style taught at Suigetsukan is Danzan Ryu, developed by Henry Okazaki after he immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. He was one of the first teachers of women and non-Japanese.

A little cross-culture reality-check: As Asian martial arts became popular in the West, an image emerged of a peaceful warrior. This icon not only hoped to use force only when necessary in an ideal sense, but also had the calm spirit to not rush to fearful conclusions, and the presence of mind to see non-violent alternatives.

Is this because Eastern culture is thoroughly infused with a mellow mysticism? Actually, the Japanese arranged their harsh, pragmatic arts as sport and personal development because the American occupiers frowned on anything resembling military activity. Before that, in the rush for Japanese military modernity in the late 1800s, practitioners of traditional warfare sought to preserve their craft as an idealized cultural heritage.

Meanwhile in China, according to legend when the Manchurians demanded the secrets of Tai Chi from their Chinese subjects under penalty of death, they were granted a watered-down recreational version. The emperors were happy. Yet in all the great traditions of the soul, from Bodhidharma to P.T. Barnum, showmanship and hype can be vehicles for the profound truths of life.

The Youth Program

All these ideals translate well into a youth program. Suigetsukan youth classes offer a safe environment for girls and boys to learn Jujitsu. Through a blend of games, drills and traditional forms training, students get to have fun while gaining all the well-known benefits of an early martial arts training such as improved self-esteem, confidence, focus and healthier bodies.

Sensei Gina Rossi is the lead youth instructor. She’s been studying martial arts for 19 years, and is a fourth degree black belt in Danzan Ryu Jujitsu and a third degree black belt in Aikido. She also teaches after school youth classes at Urban Promise Academy in Oakland and adult Jujitsu, Aikido and Battodo classes at Suigetsukan Dojo.

Usually I find martial arts classes hard to watch, something geared for a bodily participant rather than distant eyes. But this kids class fascinates. The children have silly natures. Gina must guide them to mastery without thwarting their true natures; it is a Ju-Jitsu of the spirit. “Have fun with this, but be serious,” she says. She must draw the line sometimes: “Try not to be silly.” This class could be the beginning of a life-long journey; it is more than social occasion. “Focus on yourself.”

Q: How did you [Gina] decide to coordinate the youth program? Was the program your idea?

Yes, the program was my idea. I had been teaching youth at a middle school after school program for a year and I decided to start the program at the dojo. I think having a youth program is an important part of a martial arts school.

Q: How are parents involved?

The parents are involved to varying degrees. One parent, Gopal Dayaneni, is also one of the instructors. He is a green belt at the dojo and teaches with me every Thursday. Some parents watch class and help out at events. Other parents just drop their kids off and come back when class is over.

Q: I see your “not-too-tight, not-too-loose” approach. How has practice shaped your original theory/ideas?

I started off not wanting to be authoritarian and wanting the kids to have fun but found that if I don’t have clear boundaries and structure then it isn’t as fun and we don’t get to do as much martial arts. So, I try to find a balance between serious training and time to be silly and I try to be transparent about it so the youth know what to expect.

Q: Suigetsukan’s been around for 20 years. Besides using the mat, how does the kid’s class build on that?

I think the youth program brings a lot to the dojo. It makes the dojo intergenerational. It is easier to integrate martial arts techniques at an early age. Many of the great martial artists started as kids (for example, our own Mike Esmailzadeh Sensei and Jonathan Largent Sensei). To learn more, see suigetsukan.org/youth-classes/.

I think anarchists should give up the notion of trying to make a difference within society. I do not mean that I think the anarchist-identified do not make any difference within society or that they should necessarily give up doing the things that they do; what I mean is that I think anarchists should do what only anarchists can do. Anarchists must informally attack society, and without a plan for the future. Modernity is a systemization of control, an entanglement of automation, which is much too large to contemplate or exist within in any meaningful capacity. Individual freedom cannot exist alongside society, but is brought about by the process of challenging society’s mandates. By introducing ourselves as personalities — living individuals with needs that are absolutely opposed to the needs of capital and the state — we supplant the detachment and isolation imposed on us with meaningful relationships informed by individual character. The liberal statists offer us change, and the leftist tendencies of our milieu set about changing change. However, as activists inaugurate society’s reform, they mostly only reform themselves into models of the alienation they set out to challenge. The system is efficient at imposing its mechanical silhouette across the lived experience of its subjects. The point of entry into political discourse is the willing resolution of innate antagonisms against the existent, and a propensity for self-deprecation. Whereas politics is the recuperation of interpersonal relationships by the state, activism becomes the descent into the shallows of surrogate activities.

It is not that I think anarchists should give up activism, but that they should give up activist work — and that is only because I am set at odds with the institution of work. I see the distinction as a matter of both perception and motivation. I think people should do nice things for other people, and I think people should struggle to stifle repressive elements of the status quo; but at the same time, avoid the urge to fill up their time with “productivity” or the ubiquitous “getting shit done”. Giving up the aptness to sacrifice ourselves in service of abstractions calls pretty much every justification for control and domination into question.

Let us not talk about politics. Political conversation is uninteresting because it is a consideration of power that does not end with the determined conclusion to destroy power. Let us instead talk about each other. Let us instead talk about ourselves. Let us instead talk about how it is that we will live together and against this world. So then, what is to be the point of our conversations? To experience joy. To come together with others. To fulfill our needs as humans. To engage in total liberation. To destroy society.

It seems naive to hope that this world is ever going to be anything more than it is presently. Even as we grow physically, as our relationships with each other grow and develop, everything around us departs this life and turns to dust. Each day we collectively experience such a tremendous loss that thoughts of the future are much more akin to a terrible nightmare. Surely, anarchists are not the only ones that dream of freedom. Our style of living and our ideas about how to live intersect within our daily actions. In fact, friendship and the theory of friendship — which can be lived as the same thing — are the essential element of the impulse for limitless association. Too often, we forego dialogue and experiences that would help to explain the complexity of our relationships, and instead opt for alienated forms. Through actual conversation there is the spread of shared affinities — of mutual desire communicated through similar frustrations. We want to pursue radical discourse that does not conclude with the inception of played out projects or the formation of impersonal collectives.

Jean Weir says, “Anarchists are judged by other comrades according to what they say and do, and the coherence between these two factors, not through diatribes about their personal — real or invented — attributes as practiced by organizations that rely on charismatic leaders…”

By striving to become as unique as possible we directly subvert the irrelevance that we have inherited; when we meet with others on those terms we can form meaningful relationships that are in conflict with the present social order in every aspect. Deepened self-knowledge and the consideration of personal needs instigate conflict with the existent. Alienated forms form alienation, whereas diminutive forms encourage the experimentation of freedom and participation in liberation.

All we can really do is hang out with our friends, break stuff, open cages, lie to authority, cheat the system, steal everything, and talk shit about the people we do not like. Nothing is going to change about society.

Singing in groups has been a part of culture as well as resistance movements since people learned to sing — it brings folks together, it’s participatory, moves your attention to the present, and brings emotion to the surface. And yet if you’re like most modern people, when was the last time you sang at a protest or political meeting, other than happy birthday? Have we become so cool, so dominated by ipods and instant individual electronic music gratification that we’ve forgotten how to sing?

In the 1930s, you could sing “Which Side are you on” on the picket line and everyone knew “The International” in one or more of 57 languages. The civil rights movement had “We Shall Overcome.” When I was a teenage activist in the anti-nuclear movement, we sang “Study War No More.” The Industrial Workers of the World still publish their Little Red Songbook, but a lot of the songs feel dated. Earth First! has lots of campfire songs.

And yet I don’t remember singing anything at the WTO protest in Seattle in 1999.

Slingshot collective has discussed singing before or after meetings as a way of shifting the mood and bringing the group together, but then we realized we didn’t all know any songs that would be appropriate for that sort of thing.

So I’m hoping folks will write in with suggestions that we can publish in the next issue. What songs do we all know (or could we all learn) that we can sing together at the next free skool meeting, bike coop repair class, or street occupation against global warming? It isn’t bad to recycle old songs but it would be extra exciting to figure out some modern songs that could become popular and acquire the ageless quality of a really amazing song that everyone knows and that we feel powerful singing together. Please send your ideas to Slingshot, 3124 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705 / slingshot@tao.ca.

Newly inaugurated California Governor Jerry Brown began his rule by announcing a $12 billion cut to services, with $1.4 billon coming from higher education. This new round of cuts creates an opportune situation to build for a March 2 statewide day of action for public education in California, and to include disenfranchised members from the community in the struggle for public services — education, pay, pensions, healthcare, an end to police brutality and repression of students and impoverished workers. Brown’s cuts follow an 8 percent fee increase for University of California (UC) students, which led to protests at the UC Regents meeting at UC San Francisco on November 17. Protesters piled police barricades in a heap and stormed the meeting building, causing police to use pepper-spray. UCPD Office Kemper pulled a gun on unarmed students after he got separated from his squad.

Now, students are facing repression from both the state and the UC system, all because we refuse to accept the myth of “shared sacrifice” that the state likes to use to legitimize austerity. The claim is that “everyone needs to make sacrifices” so that the state can function. The implicit message conveyed through Officer Kemper’s use of force is that students must pay their fees, or the police will shoot. Police repression is nothing new — these displays of force are aimed frighten new activists from involvement in the struggle.

The recent round of student repression includes student conduct charges against a UC Santa Cruz student who was arrested after charging and entering the building at the UCSF protest, two misdemeanor charges against a UC Berkeley student who allegedly assaulted a police officer by stomping on his head and chest (even though a video only shows the student’s head, and his shoes fell off in the maelstrom), a felony charge against a student from UC Merced who allegedly removed Officer Kemper’s baton (aforementioned) and beat him over the head with it (although there is a video that shows Kemper dislodged his own baton and sent it flying through the air), and student conduct charges against students at UC Riverside for chalking up the school with anti-budget cuts propaganda.

I spoke with a student organizer from London recently who told me that the protests in the UK are successful because students are working closely with other disenfranchised members of the community — laid off or underpaid workers are going to organizing meetings with students and sharing their personal stories, and students are responding with rich fervor and anger. Here at UC Berkeley, Chancellor Birgeneau recently announced the layoff of 150 employees. Ultimately, those are the people we need to reach out to build struggles akin to those in other parts of the world.

Students have an increasing amount of financial pressure to deal with, and many are being empowered by the actions of committed activists who are finding new ways to reach out to these newly disillusioned members of the university and beyond. In order to keep the movement going, activists need to see the victories that have come out of the struggle in the last two years, and be able to take advantage of the fact that there is a liberal in office to show students that both dominant political parties don’t give a shit about public education or services. The only way to organize against austerity effectively is to continue to organize outside of the administration to create a base of radical activists who are devoted to the fight against our repressive system.

There are hundreds of committed activists working on the Berkeley campus, and thousands worldwide. We have reached a new period in the struggle; we need to keep it positive and creative in order to build this base of committed individuals — from students, to workers, to community members, in order to empower people as a whole to take control of our situation. Fuck a slice — we want the whole cake.

For more info, check mobilizeberkeley.com.

Students around the US are building towards a National Day of Action for public education on March 2 to maintain and expand public education and oppose plans to defund and dismantle it. State budget shortfalls caused by the recession are being used as an excuse to undermine public education by laying off teachers and staff, dramatically increasing fees for higher education, and pushing privatization. There are also growing attacks on education workers, their unions, and their pensions.

Students are pushing back — March 2 will feature student strikes, marches and direct action. In addition to demanding free, quality public education from pre-K to graduate school by taxing the rich and corporations, student are seeking meaningful participation in governance of the educational system.

Students at the 10-campus University of California (UC) system will confront the UC’s governing Regents at a March 15-18 meeting at UC San Francisco. The Regents are appointed by the governor and have no accountability to students.

The overall shift of the UC system and other public universities around the world is towards a more privatized model with more money coming directly from corporations to carry out research for private, not public, goals. Struggles against privatization at universities represent a conscious challenge to the trend towards corporate control throughout society.

Governments around the world are instituting austerity measures that attack social services including public universities. Students in England facing a tripling of tuition to 9,000 pounds took their outrage to the streets in coordinated national actions. They broke into Torie headquarters and a group attacked Prince Charles’ car when it blundered into the protest. Someone yelled “Off With Their Heads!”

In Italy, students took over a highway, invented the bookbloc, and occupied the Leaning Tower of Pisa (!). Puerto Rico is seeing increased activity around la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Venezuela has had its own series of student protests. And this is barely the tip of the iceberg of the global fight for public education.

Without a doubt, we cannot rely purely on the spectacular actions — there is no moment of instantaneous change. This points us towards is the importance of sustainability. How can we create a culture of resistance that will prove most fruitful in the long haul?

Student activists have contact with hundreds of people. Some people are sympathetic while others aren’t. And even more haven’t formed a definite opinion. As we have seen in the Americas and Europe this past year, students are ripe with political rage. It is important to try and gauge where people are at through conversation. Asking questions like “Have you heard about March 2nd?” or “What do you think about the regents meeting?” can bring one to realize either that exciting things are happening or that some energies need to be spent disseminating information. I focus on information because I believe it provides something that is important: presence. Without a perceivable presence on campus (or anywhere), it becomes difficult for anyone to get involved in exchanges and activities surrounding issues of concern.

People working together is powerful. There is no doubt that energies are high around the world. Our goals should include sustaining our acts of resistance and solidarity at the university and beyond.

Art is by definition something that has been created with intention; it can be a story, performance, design, sensation, picture, object or relationship. It can also be a number of these things layered on top of and interacting with one another. Art pays attention to emotional aesthetics but can look like anything, using a myriad of methods, media and forms to achieve its desired effect. When it is interesting and valuable, it has the power to engage creative faculties and inspire the focused thought and attention of those who experience it as creators, critics, or readers. When it is boring, it replicates dominant cultural forms and conforms to expectations about what is defined as beautiful.

In the last few years I have been thinking a lot about creative work, trying on the one hand to place enough emphasis, value, and focus on my own creative projects (whether visual or written, culinary or relational) so that they develop but also struggling with conflicting feelings about what it means to do art and think of myself as an artist or writer. I have tended to shy away from calling myself an artist or my creative work art. Instead, I’ve tried to think of myself as someone who notices things and for whom weaving the things I notice together into patterns of work and narratives of place and relationship feels very important. More recently I have started to call my creative work art because it connects me more easily to other people who are also thinking seriously about their own creations. I do, however, remain critical and ambivalent about the way that people engage with the concept.

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I guess that part of my ambivalence is due to the perceived exclusivity of the artist. There is a danger that conversations about art begin to reek of a bourgeois narcissism in the way that the concerns of the individual artist are amplified while their connections to others and the political implications of their circumstances are often ignored. It can be tempting for a certain kind of earnest radical to reject art all together as if following an expressive impulse and taking it seriously is synonymous with the narcissistic individualism inherent in post-modern capitalism. Doing that, however, cedes a lot of rhetorical ground and ignores the importance of creative autonomy in any liberatory moment.

I am interested in the space that is held for creative work by people who call themselves artists but I am not interested in the idea of an artist as part of an elite class, or the way that ‘artist’ and ‘art’ (or writer, dancer, poet, musician etc.) are often used to describe people and works that are highly specialized and separate from the vast majority of people; narrow fields of rarefied interest and exertion that most people have little access to. If art as a concept is going to have any currency with me, then it has to be as something that is considered universal.

Unfortunately there is often a disconnect between the creative impulses of most people and the kind of critical feedback and focused energy that can exist in communities of self-conscious artists. Figuring out how to do art, of any sort, without contributing to this sense of exclusivity can be challenging. Being critical of the way that a piece is received and still being enthusiastic about the quality of the work itself is difficult to do at the same time.

It can also be difficult to find a way to express appreciation for someone else’s art without also separating them from the world. It is not surprising that cults of personality can tend to spring up around creative people. The distance imposed by even small scale celebrity reinforces a narrative around talent and ability that encourages most people to think that they are not artists; that some people have the ability to creatively transform the world while most of us do not. Many people who do not see themselves as artists either stagnate in or give up on crafts and projects that might otherwise have connected them more fully to themselves because they are not in communities where those things are taken seriously and considered valuable.

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Another reason that many people do not end up following their creative impulses is because they do not have enough time. Time and space are needed to do any sort of focused creative work: time for both reflection and composition. People reflect on what they have experienced and turn those reflections into something else. Whole episodes and sets of conflict with people can be reframed and understood better in light of patterns that we recognize in ourselves and things become visible that we could not see several days before.

Often, the price of living means that you either have no time left beyond the most basically recuperative or that the changes you make in order to buy the time and space you need are traded for anything that might serve as inspiration. It is also easy for more commercially viable enthusiasms to take over the time we do have and for self-doubt to convince us that pursuing our creative impulses is not valuable.

One of the most important functions of art for the artist is the way that composing a piece allows for thoughts, ideas and impulses to be worked out. Living in a world where everyone has the time and space to be creative and reflective in these ways would necessitate a radical transformation of the world. The fact that we don’t live in such a world has more to do with the interests of powerful systems than it does with the limits of our own capacities.

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A continuing problem for anyone who wants to remain critical of hierarchical domination is figuring out how to negotiate the desire to be fully human with systems of power that seek to chop us up and squeeze us into their machines. People who are trying to be artists in the world often resort to selling their art in some way in order to buy themselves the time to continue pursuing the questions and projects that interest them. This is not necessarily a bad strategy, and there are many examples of people who make it work, but it does come with a price. If your ability to eat depends on your ability to be paid for your art then a certain part of your creative output must conform to what is a marketable commodity in the context of capital.

Many people do not seem to question the larger societal power dynamics that subtly shape their efforts; conforming their work to the demands of the market and encouraging a limited aesthetic definition of what can be considered beautiful. Thinking of art primarily as something with cash value encourages people to see themselves as either producers or consumers of artistic products, to equate monetary compensation to motivation and to link the value of the work to the price paid.

Breaking out of this logic is difficult to do. Whole aesthetic movements built in opposition to this commodification have been successfully repackaged and sold to people as an elite taste. One thinks most iconically of Dada and Surrealism but I am reluctant to believe that any art scene has escaped this entirely. I find myself falling into patterns of not valuing things that I am not doing for compensation of some sort, where the productivity of the work is clearly measureable; if not rhetorically, than in the seriousness with which I pursue them, in the sense of being accountable for work accomplished.

Despite this, many people do find ways to do creative work that is not recognized or encouraged by the market in any meaningful way. The art that I am interested in creating and experiencing is not principally about hustling or productivity, whether or not some hustling and production has gone on in order to bring it into the world. The art that I am interested in is about being emotionally engaged with life in intuitive and irrational ways and communicating the power of that engagement to other people who, like all of us, often struggle to find it in their day to day lives.

When we are able to live in ways that allow us all t
o be creative producers without immediately turning that production over to the economic machine, we actually begin to build spaces where social relationships and existential experience can be transformed. So much of our lives are marked by a poverty of the imagination; of not being able to conceive of lives and relationships that do not revolve around meeting the needs of the system. In many ways, the value of art is its ability to feed that imagination and make all sorts of things seem possible that otherwise wouldn’t.

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There is no reality worth living in that does not allow people to engage their creative faculties. Well crafted words, music, visual and tactile art grabs hold of conceptual space and fixes the spinning shifting beauty of the universe in time in an intentional way.

There is a connection between posture or affect and falseness that is often mentioned, but I am also interested in the connection between how we carry ourselves and sincerity, especially when it involves transformation and becoming. Physically, when we stretch and try to have better posture, we can often breathe more deeply and our joints and vertebrae are less prone to dysfunction. Creatively, when we stretch to imagine new projects and hold ourselves as if those projects are possible, we are transformed into beings of our own creation.

On some level, doing creative work of any sort is about deciding that the work you want to do is worth doing. This involves developing some system for assigning value and meaning to the world. If we are critical of institutions of power and have rejected the narratives of those institutions, then we must form our own subjective systems of value based on the strength of our own power and informed by the stories we choose to tell ourselves about what is possible and important. Living our lives as works of art has the power to salvage the concept of art from obscurity. Doing this allows art to be something that reminds us all of our own creative power

It is important to emphasize that there are radical artists who do creative work in ways that are expansive, who remain critical of hierarchical systems of value and carry themselves through the world as if everyone that they encounter has a story or emotional charge that they could compose and express.

I want to live in a world that affirms the autonomy and creative power we all have and is also critical and self aware enough to force us to refine that power and shape those creations in ways that continue to challenge us. Spaces and communities that are intentionally creative can certainly be pretentious and banal but they also have the capacity to make the worlds we inhabit less exclusive, specialized, and marketable and to allow for the collaborative development of new and amazing ways to think about and transform our experiences with each other.

Abandoned homes tell a story of violence. These forgotten buildings tell us that this capitalistic culture would rather throw it all away than to allow us a shred of human dignity. They are a visceral reminder that the dollar takes precedent over human rights and common compassion.

During this period of recession our landscape is dominated by these acts of violence. While the system shows its true colors, there is an opportunity to visibly resist the violence of this system, but also to build an infrastructure of resistance, which we can defend. Housing occupations, long-term squatting, and other land actions allow us to publicly and in very real terms reject the system of private property while creating alternatives and a network of support for others who resist. We have no chance of changing the world if we lack a space to organize and lay our heads. Nor do we have a chance if we are slaving our lives away to pay rent.

A successfully defended squat (especially one rooted in its neighborhood community) could provide the spark of inspiration leading to a surge of reclaimed and occupied spaces. As occupied spaces have a vested interest in the defense and survival of other occupied spaces, strong networks of solidarity could be created that in turn could be applied to liberation struggles outside of the squatting / occupation scene.

If you’re interested in rent free living, finding an abandoned building will be easy. Finding the right abandoned building, and the right people to collaborate with can be hard, so make sure to be picky with both. Ride around town on your bike with a pen and pad. Jot down address of houses you think are abandoned. Some clues are overgrown lawns, overfilled mailboxes, and boarded windows. A nifty trick is taping the door to the doorframe somewhere discrete and coming back to check if the tape had been broken. Search on-line for a city blight / board-up list which has properties that the city had to clean or board up.

Research the spots you scope by using your local on-line assessors map to find the parcel number (APN), and use that on the county tax record site to view its tax history. Some counties won’t let you get owner’s info on-line, so just call the assessors office. Relevant information would be the current and past ‘owners’, and their address (don’t stress, people ask for this information all the time and for many different reasons). If the goal of your occupied space is longevity then consideration must be given to what the chances are of owners coming to the space (be they banks or individuals). If the goal is to defend the space then it should be considered what type of owner would be more universally resisted (probably a bank).

It is not illegal to enter a building if it’s wide open, but I doubt you will be that lucky. It might be a good idea to scope it out during the day to get an idea of what tools you might need. Most would agree that exploration should be done at night. Be mindful of light and noise. It might be wise to minimize your time carrying tools as they can be hard to explain should someone ask. If the space is to your liking it could be a good time to change the locks. If there isn’t one already, put up a mailbox and have mail sent, in your name, immediately. It will be useful later.

Often, the first major trial for a squat is the initial police encounter. The longer you’ve been established before this encounter the better. As it is often suspicious neighbors that will call the police it is extremely important (and neighborly) to communicate with those living in the area. When the police do come, your attitude of legitimacy, proof of occupancy, and knowledge of local law will be your greatest tools. Keys to the house (to prove access) and mail (addressed and stamped) can be considered the bare minimum but utility bills add to the legitimacy. Research of state, county, and city law can be done over the internet but your local law library can be an invaluable resource. Try looking up state civil codes that deal with occupancy. The saying that ‘possession is 9/10ths of the law’ applies in some states where occupancy is considered ownership (unless proven otherwise).

City building and coding people can be a wild card. They have the power to declare a building unlivable and have people evicted immediately. This is more of a concern if the building lacks any utilities (many areas require a building have water, electric, and gas to be considered livable). Officials will most likely just look at the meters (and meters can be hard to get) so its preferable to chose a building with the meters preexisting.

In these days of economic upheaval, the iron is hot for us to take back our lives. Working a job to make your landlord rich is slavery, and squatting is nothing less than emancipation from the system of debt peonage. Collective revolt can happen if we know a better world is possible, and we can prove it with squatting and solidarity.