Thursday, January 20, 2011

Counter-insurgency Panel on Recent Protests in England



Please take the hour and some minutes to watch this video, which i learned about through the Sons of Malcolm blog.

Four counter-insurgency professionals from the UK discuss recent militant protests in London, and the best ways to isolate and repress the radical left.

As a public document, it is not surprising that there are no theoretical breakthroughs here, however there are an astonishing number of very candid quotes. Open talk of the "feral underclass" and the need to target it for political neutralization, all the while exercising as much ideological control as possible: i.e. "the government or the politicians have to kettle the political debate as efficiently as the met kettles rioters."

This is our enemies talking, and probably not thinking that we would be listening. It is a good occasion for us - even if you don't learn anything listening to this, the examples of what they are saying may be useful in educating others.

Take the time. Take some notes. Do some thinking.



Wednesday, January 12, 2011

North American Anarchist Studies Conference: January, 14-16th 2011


This weekend is the 2nd North American Anarchist Studies Conference, to be held in Toronto, Canada. i'll be tabling there on behalf of Kersplebedeb and PM Press - please do come by to say hello!

The schedule, for those of you thinking of attending:


North American Anarchist Studies Conference: January, 14-16th 2011


Friday, January 14th

Opening Film Night!

CINECYCLE- 129 Spadina Avenue (in the old coach house down the alley).

7pm-12am

Join us for a low-key evening of radical film screenings, discussion and socializing to kick off the conference.

-Featuring-
  • “Tales From the G20”- Open Media Initiative w/ Justin Saunders.
  • Chet Singh dub poetry performance.
  • “Carne de Fieras” (1936) w/ Jesse Cohn introducing.
  • Short contributions from NAASN members and members from the Toronto Alternative Media Centre.


Saturday, January 15th

STEEL WORKER’S HALL- 25 Cecil St.

Conference begins!


8-9am

Registration and coffee!

9-10:50am

Opening/plenary panel and group discussion!

‘The Past, Present and Potential Futures of Anarchism’ – Jaggi Singh, Irina Ceric, Denis Rancourt, Lesley Wood.

Facilitator: Sharmeen Khan

11-12:20pm

Room #1:
Contemporary Anarchism and the Arts
  • Adrian Blackwell- Anarchist Urban Design
  • Sandra Jeppesen- Anarchist Literature
  • Luis Jacob- Groundless Aesthetics

Moderator: Allan Antliff

Room #2:
Anarchist Economics: History, Analysis and Vision
  • Deric Shannon- An Overview of Anarchist Economics
  • Chris Spannos- The History of Anarchist Economics as a Lens to See the Future
  • Abbey Willis- Tools for Understanding Capitalism in the 2000s
  • Wayne Price- The Anarchist Post-Capitalist Vision

Moderator: Jasmin Mujanovic

12:30-1:30pm

Lunch!

1:30-2:20pm

Workshops!

Room #1:

Alexis Shotwell- Practical Strategies for Anarchist Writing: A Workshop

Room #2:

Testament- Building Bridges and Working with Unlikely Allies

2:30-3:50pm

Room #1:
Movement Knowledge I: Movement Research
  • Aziz Choudry- Activist Research: Mapping the Practices of Knowledge Production for Social Action
  • Chris Dixon- Accountability to whom? Ethics and Activism in Movement Research
  • Gary Kinsman- Mapping Social Relations of Struggle: Producing Knowledge for Social Transformation
  • Research Group on Collective Autonomy- Ethics and Accountability in Prefigurative Participatory Antiauthoritarian Research

Moderator: Kalin Stacey


Room #2:
Transnational Anarchism in the Americas 1
  • Kenyon Zimmer- ‘Yiddish is My Homeland’: A Transatlantic History of Jewish-American Anarchism, 1880s-1930s
  • Kirt Shaffer- Panama Reds: Anarchist Politics and Transregional Networks in the Panama Canal Zone, 1904-1916
  • Steve Hirsch- Constructing a Working-Class Counterculture: Transnational Anarchism and the Anarchist Press in Northern Peru, 1898-1922

Moderator: Nathan Jun

4-5:20pm

Room #1:
Anarchism, Gender and (Dis)ability: Expanding the Anarchist Critique
  • Mitchell Verter- Towards an Anarchafeminist Subversion of Politics
  • Anne Goldenberg- Feminist Takes on Organizing in Critical and Technological Movements
  • Liat Ben-Moshe- Queercripping Anarchism
  • Timothy Luchies- Creative (Self-)Destruction: Critiquing White and Male Supremacy in North American Anarchism

Moderator: Anthony J. Nocella II

Room #2:
Challenging Conformity: Anarchist Memory and Prospects
  • A.D Hoyt- The International Anarchist Archives: A Report on Conditions and a Proposal for Action
  • Nathan Jun- Flowers for the Fallen: The Romantic Anarchism of Pietro Gori
  • Bryan Nelson- Orientation and Mappings: Anarchism, Marxism, Democracy: Traditions in Theory
  • Ron Sakolsky- Mutual Acquienscence

Moderator: Daniel Cairns

5:30-6:50pm

Room #1:
Greening Anarchy
  • Micheal Loadenthal- Militant Not Terrorists: How the Radical Animal and Earth Liberation Movement Challenges the State and Capitalsim
  • Karl Hardy & Usman Mushtaq- Responses to Climate Change: Radical Critiques and Utopian Alternatives
  • Andrea Palichuck- Alienation and Exclusion in Food Lifestyle Politics and Anarchist Organizing
  • Michele Flippo Bolduc- Are Community Gardens Inherently Radical?

Moderator: Deric Shannon

Room #2:
Anarchist Readings of Nietzsche
  • Nick Day- Ubermensch, Overcoming and Direct Actor: Reconciling Nietzsche with Liberatory Praxis
  • Laura Greenwood- Goldman’s Nietzschean Anarchism: A Griemasian Reading of ‘Minorities Versus Majorities’
  • Grant Yocom- The ‘Last Man’ in Detriot: Timely Revisions and New Targets for the Arrows of Lomnging

Moderator: Rachel Melis

7-8:20pm

Room #1:
Riot 2011: Direct Action, Revolt and the Question of Violence
  • Kyla Bourne- Alterrepresentation and the Democratic Possibilities of Direct Action
  • Edward Avery-Natale- ‘We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Anarchists’: The Nature of Identification and Subjectivity Among Black Blocs
  • Andreas Reichelt- When the universities were burning (with activism) in…2009
  • Madison Trusolino- Human Emancipation, The Spectacle, Divine Violence

Moderator: Tammy Kovich

Room #2:
Perspectivas Anarquistas de America Latina
  • Jorella A. Melendez Badillo- El Anarquismo En Puerto Rico: Su Influencia En La Cultura Proletaria En Las Primeras Dos Decades Del Siglo XX
  • Octavio Cabrera Serrano- El Antropologo Autogestivo
  • Milena Alveo- Cultura anarquista, reflexiones a cerca de la cotidianidad

Moderator: TBA


Saturday Night Social/ UPPING THE ANTI Issue 11 Launch Party!!!

TORONTO FREE GALLERY- 1277 Bloor Street West (at Lansdown).

Doors open at 8:30pm until late!

Join us for the NAASN Conference Saturday night social/ UPPING THE ANTI’s Issue #11 Launch Party.

-Featuring-
  • Musical performances by LAL and Test Their Logik.
  • Kick ass sets by DJs Nik Red and B#.
  • Plus refreshments, raffle prizes and more.

Admission $10 with a copy of UPPING THE ANTI, $5 without, and free for UPPING THE ANTI sustainers.


Sunday, January 16th
Steel Worker’s Hall- 25 Cecil St.

9-9:30am

Coffee!

9:30-10:50am

Room #1:
Postanarchism, The Specter of Primitivism and Song
  • Gregory Kalyniuk- Jurisprudence of the Damned; Deleuze’s Masochian Humor and Anarchist Neo-Monadology
  • Daniel Murray- Social Tyranny of the State: Bakunin, Governmentality and Resistance
  • Sandy Krolick- A Spector is Haunting America
  • Carrie Yvonne Mott- Music in the Anarchist Movement: Radical Politics and Solidarity Through Song

Moderator: Ryan Mitchell

Room #2:
‘Anarchizing’ the Disciplines
  • Dennis Fox- Anarchism and Psychology
  • David Westling- Anarchism and Individual Psychology
  • Dana Williams and Jeff Shantz- Defining an Anarchist-Sociology (A Long-Anticipated Marriage)
  • Shaista Patel- Inviting Settlers of Color in Nation Building Projects of White-Settler Colonies

Moderator: Courtney Cecale

11-12:20pm

Room #1:
Movement Knowledge II: Trajectories of Contemporary Movements and Possibilities for Change
  • Kate Milbery- History Will Teach Us Everything: Towards a Praxis of Social Justice
  • Andrea Eiland- Breaking Down the Wall: Anarchism and Social Change in the 21st Century
  • Dawn Paley- Beyond Alternative Media: Building Space for Radical Journalism
  • Michael Trusello- The Trouble With Social Media

Moderator: Ryan Mitchell

Room #2:
Transnational Anarchism in the Americas II
  • Geoffroy de Laforcade- counter-Currents and Oppositional Trends Within a Syndicalist Labor Tradition: Locating the Anarchist influence on the Politics of Maritime Trade Unionism in Argentina, 1903-1950
  • Amparo Sanchez Cobos- The Island and Beyond: Spanish Anarchist Networks in Cuba, 1900-1925
  • Travis Tomchuck- The Radical Culture of Italian Anarchists in North America
  • Davide Turcato- Biography, Anarchism and Transnationalism

Moderator: TBA

12:30-1:30 pm

Lunch!

1:30-2:20pm
Workshops!

Room #1:

Crimethinc- Fighting in the New Terrain: Anti-Capitalist Strategies in the 21st Century


Room #2:

Matt B- Know Your Enemy: Conspiracism, Right Wing populism and the Anarchist Movement

2:30-3:50pm

Room #1:
TBA Activist Workshop

Room #2:
Militant Methodologies and the Question of Authority
  • Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish- Radicalizing Methods: ‘Convoking’ the Radical Imagination in Halifax, Nova Scotia
  • Paul McLaughlin- Methodologies Considerations on Anarchist Theory
  • Michael Gutierrez- Two Poles of Authority
  • Alden Wood- ‘On Bernadette Corporation’s Get Rid of Yourself’: An Anarcho-Autonomist Critique of the Mimetic Representation of Revolt

Moderator: Michael Loadenthal

4-5:20pm

Room #1:
Anarchist Subjectivities: Discussions of the Self and Other
  • Cameron Ellis- The Loving Anarchist: An Inquiry into the Nature of the Subject of Anarchy
  • Kalin Stacey- Innocence and Complicity in Anarchist Discourse
  • Joey Brooke Jacob- Why the ‘Stanger’ is Unequal: Towards a Manifesto for Inclusion
  • Matthew Hayter- Understanding ‘Power’ as always both power-for and power-over: What can this Perspective do for the sake of anarchist social relations?

Moderator: Ed Avery-Natale and TBA Co-Moderator

Room #2:
Anarchism, Education and the Strange World of Academia
  • Paul Lemley- Navigating Respectability
  • Dan Webb- ‘The Left’s Wrong Turn and the Postmodern Disavowal of Anarchism’
  • Anthony Meza-Wilson- Educational Projects for Decolonization: Anarchist Allyship and Resistance Education in the Americas
  • Joseph Todd Montclair- Triangulating Freedom, Power and Education: Learning Webs, Subjectivity, and Resistance

Moderator:

5:30-7pm

Closing Discussion and Break Out Session!

Facilitator: David McNally


*Childcare will be provided on site for the duration of the weekend.

** The suggested conference fee is sliding scale $10-25 or PWYC (no one will be turned away for lack funds), and all money raised at the door will be donated to the Toronto G20 Legal Defence Fund.


Exhibitors at the Second Annual NAASN Conference:

AK Press
Arbeiter Ring
Autonomedia
Between the Lines
Black Cat Press
Brunswick Books
Common Cause
Community Solidarity Network
Empowerment Infoshop
Fernwood Publishing
Kersplebedeb
Little Black Cart
Pluto Press
PM Press
Rebel Film Board
Thought Crime Ink
Transformative Studies Institute
Upping the Anti
Zed Books

Sponsored by NAASN (www.naasn.org), OPIRG York (www.opirgyork.ca) and OPIRG University of Toronto (www.opirgtoronto.org).



Saturday, January 08, 2011

Jan. 19: Political Prisoners and Prison Solidarity Work in North America, History and Current Context


Certain Days & Kersplebedeb Publishing invite you to:

Political Prisoners & Prison Solidarity Work in North America:
History & Current Context

When: Wednesday, January 19, 6:30pm
Where: QPIRG Concordia 1500 de Maisonneuve West, metro Guy-Concordia*

Free. Venue is wheelchair accessible. Traduction chuchotée vers le français.

Depending on your definition, there are dozens or hundreds or thousands of political prisoners and prisoners of war held by the United States government. This talk will focus on political prisoners and prisoners of war who came out of the revolutionary movements from the 1960s to today, including the national liberation movements, the armed struggle, white anti-imperialists and, more recently, the Green Scare defendants. Topics will include the relationship of the prisoners to our own struggles today, the varying definitions of "who is a political prisoner", and a look back at some of the support work that was being done in the 80s and 90s, especially in Canada. Certain specific cases will also be discussed, for instance Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier, Marilyn Buck and Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson, as well as the recent strike by prisoners in Georgia.

The talk will be given by Karl of Kersplebedeb Publishing, followed by discussion.


Kersplebedeb Publishing has published several books and pamphlets by and about political prisoners, and has just published "Defying The Tomb," a book by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter. info: www.kersplebedeb.com

The Certain Days Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between organizers in Montreal and Toronto, and three New York state Political Prisoners: Herman Bell, David Gilbert and Robert Seth Hayes, and is a working group of QPIRG Concordia. info: www.certaindays.org

INFO:
514-848-7583
info@certaindays.org


Click on the link to download a poster or fliers for this event.



Monday, January 03, 2011

subMedia Riot 2010! Triple Cheeseburger Worldwide Exclusive Interview



This week: 1. Olympic Resistance in Vancouver 2. RBC gets torched 3. They few, we many 4. Talkin' bout a revolution 5. Matthew Morgan-Brown speaks to subMedia (Interview with MMB about being arrested, updates regarding Roger's situation and regarding the police infiltrator, "Francois Leclerc")



Saturday, January 01, 2011

Another Update on Roger Clement and Ottawa Comrades

Roger was transferred to Millhaven mid-December and it is expected that he will be there for 2-3 months before being transferred to the federal penitentiary where he will stay for the rest of his 3.5 year sentence.

In the immediate future, letters can be sent to Roger to the following address:

Joseph Roger Clement (FPS-420268X)
Millhaven Institution
PO Box 280 Bath Rd.
Bath ON K0H 1G0

Roger thanks everyone for all their support.

Donations for outstanding legal expenses can be made to "Ottawa Movement Defense" c/o the Ottawa Women's Credit Union. Donations can also be made online using Paypal.

Ottawa Movement Defense
OPIRG-GRIPO Ottawa
631 King Edward Ave.
(3rd floor / 3ieme étage)
Ottawa, ON, K1N 7N8
Canada

In solidarity,
Ottawa Movement Defence