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Political Theory

Events/Global movement/Void Network News

VOID NETWORK- Signs of the times / Images from the future: Thoughts on the “yellow vests” and the revolt in France.

Almost two months after their emergence the yellow vests are still here! The movement started attracting international attention and more extensive coverage after the events that took place on Saturday 1/12. This was expectable, since no matter what our political judgment may turn out to be, we are faced with a nationwide revolt, which has not simply prompted thoughts for a state of emergency, but led to its informal implementation,… …

Theory

Diagnostic of the Future: Between the Crisis of Democracy and the Crisis of Capitalism- A Forecast- by Peter Gelderloos

In this in-depth analysis, Peter Gelderloos explores the technological and geopolitical changes that movements for liberation will face over the next several decades. How will those who hold power today attempt to weather the economic and political crises ahead? Will artificial intelligence and bioeconomics save capitalism? What’s more dangerous—governments refusing to address climate change, or the technocratic solutions they will propose? Will we see the rise of fascism, or the… …

Theory

The Future of Insurrection – by Lupus Dragonowl

Section 1: The composition of insurrection What is insurrection? ‘The goal of any insurrection is to become irreversible. It becomes irreversible when you’ve defeated both authority and the need for authority’ (CI) ‘The catastrophe is not coming, it is here. We are already situated within the collapse of a civilization. It is within this reality that we must choose sides. To no longer wait is… to enter into the logic… …

Events/Void Network News

Από την Δημοκρατία στην ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ- Crimethinc (USA)+Κενό Δίκτυο / Oμιλίες: Αθήνα (20/9)-Ηράκλειο (22/9) Θεσσ/νικη (25/9)

Η συλλογικότητα CRIMETHINC από τις Η.Π.Α. σε συνεργασία με το ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ διοργανώνουν μια σειρά ομιλίες στον ελλαδικό χώρο. ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ ΟΜΙΛΙΕΣ- ΑΝΟΙΧΤΕΣ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΣ ΣΥΖΗΤΗΣΕΙΣ με την αναρχική εκδοτική και ακτιβιστική κολλεκτίβα  CRIMETHINC (Η.Π.Α.) Συντονισμός- εισαγωγική τοποθέτηση: ΤΑΣΟΣ ΣΑΓΡΗΣ / ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ ΑΘΗΝΑ ΠΕΜΠΤΗ 20/9/2018 ΏΡΑ 20.00 ΠΟΛΥΤΕΧΝΕΙΟ- ΑΙΘΡΙΟ Αρχιτεκτονικής ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΟ ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟ 22/9 ΩΡΑ 20.00 ΚΑΤΑΛΗΨΗ ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΣΜΟΣ ΑΚΟΛΟΥΘΕΙ PUNK PARTY διοργάνωση: αναρχικη συλλογικότητα ΟΚΤΑΝΑ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗ ΤΡΙΤΗ 25/9… …

Theory

Why we don’t make demands- by Crimethinc

From Occupy to Ferguson, whenever a new grassroots movement arises, pundits charge that it lacks clear demands. Why won’t protesters summarize their goals as a coherent program? Why aren’t there representatives who can negotiate with the authorities to advance a concrete agenda through institutional channels? Why can’t these movements express themselves in familiar language, with proper etiquette? Often, this is simply disingenuous rhetoric from those who prefer for movements to limit… …

Theory

Anarchism as Moral Theory: Praxis, Property, and the Postmodern- by Randall Amster

This essay explores the prospect of attaining a non-coercive morality that could enable the simultaneous realisation of maximal individual freedom and stable community, through the exposition of an anarchist theory premised on a subjective ‘conscience-ethic’, an inherent tendency toward sociality and ‘mutual aid’, and normative ‘usufruct’ in property. Part of the project entails the development of a reflexive synthesis between the two seemingly contradictory ends of ‘individual’ and ‘community’, concluding… …

Global movement

The Art of Not Being Governed: Hill Peoples and Valley Kingdoms in Mainland Southeast Asia

  For two thousand years, the peoples residing in Zomia — the mountainous region that stretches from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to northeastern India — have fled the organized state societies in the valleys. Far from being ‘remnants’ left behind by civilizing societies, they are “barbarians by choice”, peoples who have deliberately put distance between themselves and lowland, state-centers. James Scott, director of the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale… …

Events/Void Network News

ΕΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ και Χρόνος στο έργο του Αντόνιο Νέγκρι Πέμπτη 26/4 Nosotros- Κενό Δίκτυο

ΚΥΚΛΟΣ ΔΙΑΛΕΞΕΩΝ μέρος 7ον: ΧΡΟΝΟΣ και ΕΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ στο έργο του Αντόνιο Νέγκρι. Οι εποχές , οι πράξεις τα συμβάντα και οι προοπτικές Ομιλητές: Νίκος Πρατσίνης (Μεταφραστής) Παναγιώτης Καλαμαράς (Εκδότης) Γιώργος Σωτηρόπουλος (διδ.Πολιτικής Φιλοσοφίας- Κενό Δίκτυο) Παρουσίαση– συντονισμός Γιάννης Ραουζαίος– Κενό Δίκτυο (κριτικός κινηματογράφου, συγγραφέας) Πέμπτη 26/4/ 2018—ώρα 20.30 Ελεύθερος Κοινωνικός Χώρος ΝOSOTROS Θεμιστοκλέους 66 Εξάρχεια Η ΕΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ όπως και ο Χρόνος, είναι δύο σημαίνοντα τα οποία αναζητούν στην πολύπλοκη και… …

Global movement

Eduardo Colombo 1929-2018: A Grand Anarchist Fighter Leaves Us- Αποχαιρετισμός

+ [text: ENG/GR] Tribute to Eduardo Colombo Today, March 13th, the sad note of the death of Eduardo Colombo strikes us painfully.  With Eduardo, not only disappears a dear and fraternal compañero, but also a first-rate thinker and a militant anarchist of unshakeable convictions. It was in the 1940’s when the young student Eduardo Colombo became intensely involved in the anarchist movement in his native Argentina participating in the anarcho-syndicalist struggles… …

Theory

Walter Benjamin: Messianism and Revolution – Theses on History

Walter Benjamin’s relevance for activists today is most strongly felt in his works on social transformation. In the sixth of eight pieces on Benjamin, Andrew Robinson explores the Theses on History, and discusses the revolutionary implications of allegory, collecting, citation, DIY, and time. by Andrew Robinson   Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History”, also known as “Theses on History” and “Theses on the Philosophy of History”, deals with the question of social… …

Theory

A letter to the young Anarchists- by Elisee Reclus

To the editors of la Huelga General in Barcelona. Brussels, Dec. 4, 1901. Corresp. III:238-240. Dear comrades, We have an ingrained habit of exaggerating both our strengths and our weakness. During revolutionary periods, it seems that our most minor actions have incalculably great consequences. On the other hand, during times of stagnation, though we may be totally dedicated to our work, our entire lives seem barren and useless, and we… …

Theory

An Essay on Liberation- Herbert Marcuse – 1969

Acknowledgments Thanks Again to my friends who read the manuscript and whose comments and criticism I heeded throughout: especially Leo Lowenthal (University of California at Berkeley), Arno J. Mayer (Princeton University). and Barrington Moore, Jr. (Harvard University). My wife discussed with me every part and problem of the manuscript. Without her cooperation, this essay would have appeared much sooner. I am grateful to her that it didn’t. Preface The growing… …

Theory

NECROPOLITICS by Achille Mbembe

How do contemporary forms of subjugation of life to the power of death (necropolitics) profoundly reconfigure the relation between resistance, sacrifice, and terror? This essay assumes that the ultimate expression of sovereignty resides, to a large degree, in the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die. Hence, to kill or to allow to live constitute the limits of sovereignty, its fundamental attributes. To exercise… …

Theory

DESTROY ESTABLISHED REALITY! Sissy Doutsiou / Void Network

    From the 2005 French riots in the suburbs of Paris and all over France until the Greek social revolt from 2008 to 2012, from the Tunisian and Libyan social explosions, the Tahrir square revolt, the indignados movement in Spain and Gezi Park in Turkey, from the panamerican Occupy movement to the riots of Ferguson and Baltimore none of these revolts led to a revolutionary change of organisation of… …

Theory

Anarchism and Nationalism- by Uri Gordon

Anarchists are against nationalism; everyone knows that. Instead of solidarity across borders and anti-hierarchical antagonism within them, nationalism engenders loyalty to the state with its armed forces and public symbols, encourages the oppressed to identify with their compatriot oppressors, scapegoats minorities, and pits workers of different countries against one another in economic competition or open warfare. Opposition to nationalism is an almost trivial starting point for anarchist politics, reflected in… …

Theory

When Insurrections Die by Gilles Dauvé

“If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.” Marx/Engels – Preface to the Russian edition of the manifesto, 1882. This perspective was not realized. The European industrial proletariat missed its rendez-vous with a revitalized Russian peasant commune. Brest-Litovsk, 1917 and 1939… …

Theory

What Exactly Is Neoliberalism?- a talk with Wendy Brown

  Climate change, a crippled welfare state, the financial crisis, skyrocketing income inequality, political disappointments reaching back decades, terrible superhero movies grossing billions of dollars, Facebook and Tinder—these are just a few of the sins attributed to neoliberalism. But what exactly is neoliberalism? An economic doctrine? The revenge of capitalism’s ruling class? Or something even more insidious? Booked is a monthly series of Q&As with authors by Dissent contributing editor Timothy Shenk. For this… …

Theory

VOID NETWORK “On the tragic and the farcical of the British referendum”

“The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities; how shall the great majorities outside parliament not want to decide? When you play the fiddle at the top of the state, what else is to be expected but that those down below dance”? – Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, IV (1852) If we take as reliable evidence the anxiety (verging to panic) that spread over the… …

Void Network News

KENO ΔΙΚΤΥΟ: Περί Ασφαλιστικού και αγώνων // VOID NETWORK analysis: About the new Social Insurance law and the struggles of our times in Greece

        Περισσότεροι απο 50.000 άνθρωποι στην Αθήνα και πολλές χιλιάδες σε όλες τις άλλες πόλεις της χώρας διαδήλωσαν ενάντια στον νέο ασφαλιστικό νόμο στις 4/2/2016. Με αφορμή αυτή την ημέρα δράσεων το Κενό Δίκτυο καταθέτει μια ευρύτερη ανάλυση για τους κοινωνικούς αγώνες της εποχής μας. More than 50.000 people in Athens and many thousands in all other cities of Greece demondtrated in 4/2/2016 against the new Social… …

Theory

“Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us”, Paul Verhaeghe

We tend to perceive our identities as stable and largely separate from outside forces. But over decades of research and therapeutic practice, I have become convinced that economic change is having a profound effect not only on our values but also on our personalities. Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If you’re reading this sceptically, I… …

Void Network News

“Οι Mέρες της Οργής: Για την επίθεση στο Παρίσι και τον πόλεμο που μαίνεται” Κενό Δίκτυο

ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ[Θεωρία, Ουτοπία, Συναίσθηση, Εφήμερες Τέχνες]http://voidnetwork.blogspot.comΟι Mέρες της Οργής: Για την επίθεση στο Παρίσι και τον πόλεμο που μαίνεται«Όχι μόνο η λογική των αιώνων αλλά και η παράνοια τους πέφτει πάνω μας» , Φρίντριχ ΝίτσεΜπορεί να μιλήσει κανείς για τα γεγονότα στο Παρίσι χωρίς να πει απλά τα αυτονόητα; Έχουν πάντως και τα τελευταία τη σημασία τους, τουλάχιστον ως αφετηρία.Σε συνάρτηση με την επίθεση που έγινε στον Λίβανο πριν λίγες… …

Theory

“The End of Money” by Daniel Pinchbeck

  The current economic crisis may be another bump on capitalism’s always dizzying terrain, or it may signal epochal changes. The crisis of the financial markets has taken on gargantuan proportions. This spring saw the emergency sale of Bear Stearns, the fifth largest financial institution on Wall Street, to JP Morgan for a paltry sum by “Master of the Universe” standards, including its flashy corporate headquarters and thousands of employees.… …

Theory

“Capitalism: A Very Special Delirium” by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

QUESTION: When you describe capitalism, you say: “There isn’t the slightest operation, the slightest industrial or financial mechanism that does not reveal the dementia of the capitalist machine and the pathological character of its rationality (not at all a false rationality, but a true rationality of *this* pathology, of *this madness*, for the machine does work, be sure of it). There is no danger of this machine going mad, it… …

Void Network News

Wolfi Landstreicher (Feral Faun) talks with Void Network / Συζήτηση του Wolfi Landstreicher (Feral Faun) με την συλλογικότητα Κενό Δίκτυο

Living for Today / Fighting for Tommorow(Athens Anarchist student’s demo DEC.2013)  Wolfi Landstreicher is an amerikan anarchist philosopher and political activist. During the 60 years of his life he succeeds to combine romanticism, critical stand-point and theory with deep understanding on Max Stirner  into a  poetic and surrealistic unity that leads into the insurrection of subjectivities and a revolutionary way of life. He is a traveller, a wonderer and a… …

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Tiqqun:”The Little Game of the Man of the Old Regime”

“First and foremost what we abhor on the whole is not just the image of some ultimate substance, some indivisible density; it is also and above all (at least for me) bad form.” Roland Barthes, Digressions 1. INITIATION Little subversions make for big conformities. 2. PROVISIONAL DEFINITION The man of the Old Regime is the figure of bourgeois subjectivity at the moment of its liquidation and hollowing out by cybernetic… …

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“The Rioter and the Witch” by Olivier Marboeuf

(…) For weeks, the riots filled our screens with their void. What did we see? Fires in the night, enigmatic, faceless youths who disappeared seamlessly into darkness or behind smoke-screens, according to vanishing recipes we know nothing about. Something that refuses to be grasped but traps us in a fascinating anxiety. A possession. Like every magic ritual, a riot is a fleeting moment of perception of the invisible. It corresponds… …

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“Life as Totality” by Vagabond Theorist

Perhaps one of the greatest difficulties anarchists face on a day to day level is that of finding reliable comrades with whom to carry out ongoing projects of revolt that are integral to their lives – projects that go beyond the customary formulas that can be found everywhere (Food Not Bombs, Critical Mass, collective businesses…). These formulaic projects develop easily because they require little thought. For the same reason (no… …

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When insurrections die – Gilles Dauvé

Gilles Dauvé’s pamphlet on the on the failures of the Russian, Spanish and German Revolutions, and the rise of fascism in Europe it becomes more and more important in our times where he fascists movements reappear all over Europe and the masses seems unable to overcome the smae old mistakes of the past.Brest-Litovsk, 1917 and 1939“If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so… …

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“The Anarchist Revelation: Being What We’re Meant to Be” by Paul Cudenec

An important new book on anarchist thought is now available from Winter Oak Press.The Anarchist Revelation: Being What We’re Meant to Be is the latest work by activist and writer Paul Cudenec.Here, he turns his back on contemporary trends of anarchism in a bid to reconnect with the primal force of its root ideology.Cudenec notes the significance of its refusal of the state and its judicial system, of land ownership and of… …

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“Discussion paper for a new Breakout into the Frosts of Freedom” by Reformgroup

breakout print – PDF breakout read – PDF This text was written as a discussion text for the Autonomous Congress in Hamburg in October 2009, the first in 15 years. ..[http://autonomerkongress.blogsport.de]  The time to always assure ourselves of our own certainties has to come to an end   To some our words might sound harsh. This happens easily if it´s the people you love that are at stake, those with whom… …

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“An Anarchy of Every day Life” by Jeff Shantz from Philosophers for Change

Contemporary anarchism offers a mid-range movement organized somewhere between the levels of everyday life, to which it is closest, and insurrection. Rooted in the former they seek to move towards the latter.  Anarchists look to the aspects of people’s daily lives that both suggest life without rule by external authorities and which might provide a foundation for anarchist social relations more broadly.  This commitment forms a strong and persistent current… …

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Debord, “Theses on Cultural Revolution,” Internationale Situationniste #1

1The traditional goal of aesthetics is to produce, by means of art, impressions of certain past elements of life in circumstances where those elements are lacking or absent, in such a way that those elements escape the disorder of appearances subject to the ravages of time. The degree of aesthetic success is thus measured by a beauty that is inseparable from duration, and that even goes so far as pretensions… …

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“Between Pridicates, War: Theses on Contemporary Struggle” by The Institute For Experimental Freedom

“To great writers, finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they labor their entire lives” W. Benjamin –> The Institute for Experimental Freedom is proud to announce the release of Between Predicates, War: Theses on Contemporary Struggle. Almost two years in the making, Between Predicates, War is a fragmented collection of theses on our tumultuous situation. From Egypt to the US, Greece to the UK, contemporary struggle announces a revolt against… …

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8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans… …

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“The Privatisation of Stress”, by Mark Fisher from Soundings magazine

Ivor Southwood tells the story of how, at a time when he was living in a condition of underemployment – relying on short-term contracts given to him at the last minute by employment agencies – he one morning made the mistake of going to the supermarket.1 When he returned home he found that an agency had left him a message offering him work for the day. But when he called… …

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To Everyone Feeling Screwed Over by the Economy! Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Population, Society, Village Development — by Kyle Chamberlain

To everyone feeling screwed over by the economy, We are told that our problem is that there aren’t enough jobs. This message is everywhere. The media gauges our plight with regularly updated unemployment statistics. Politicians debate theatrically over who can create more work. People everywhere clamor for scarce positions at factories and corporations. I’d like to point out the great irony of this situation — people hate their jobs. How… …

Theory

The Minimum Definition of Intelligence (Theses on the Construction of One’s Own Self-theory) by For Ourselves

      This booklet is for people who are dissatisfied with their lives. If you are happy with your present existence, we have no argument with you. However, if you are tired of waiting for your life to change… Tired of waiting for authentic community, love and adventure… Tired of waiting for the end of money and forced work… Tired of looking for new pastimes to pass the time…… …

Global movement

“On the Degradation of Language and the Art of Listening”, a short essay from blog “FROM POLITICS TO LIFE”

  When you call someone a name you stop listening to him. I do not write, publish, speak or discuss in order to propagate a fixed set of ideas for others to embrace; I’m not interested in disciples or followers. I do so to communicate and discuss my own fluid and evolving ideas, my desires, my dreams, my experiences and my projects as clearly as possible in order to discover… …

Global movement

“What is Movement?” by Giorgio Agamben

My reflections come from a malaise and follow a series of questions that I asked myself whilst at a meeting in Venice some time ago with Toni, Casarini etc. A word kept coming up in this meeting : movement. This is a word with a long history in our tradition, and it seems the most recurrent one in Toni’s interventions. In his book too this word strategically crops up everytime the… …

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