Activists Show Protest Is More than Being Against War

by Asleep Sat Feb 08, 2003 19:44

It's safe enough to discuss Alan's mad wedding...

by iosaf Sat Feb 08, 2003 11:37

open newswire publishing.
this is exacty what indymedia is about.
we need to find a solution between all these threads, i irritate someone here, oh dear, but i represent a lot of other people. So
lots of people irritate someone here.
Does someone represent many people?

by iosaf Sat Feb 08, 2003 11:33

one of the key activities in occupied social spaces known as Social Squats is the teaching of circus arts. Most European cities that have large squatted spaces have circus schools active as part of the community activity of those squats.
We in the European occupation movement have always supported the teaching of circus arts, juggling develops mental and physical attributes. As any juggler will tell you keeping seven balls in the air is very difficult. Which is why the circus performer who played the character of "Captian Anarchy" now teaches circus arts to others. He does so several evenings a week here in Barcelona. The contribution of theatre plastic and performing arts and artists to street based political activity has been criticised long before there had been movements such as Fluxus, Black Market and the line between Ideologically based political performance and peformance art was blurred. Thus we may see in the worker choir activity of Deissler and the cabaret perfomances of Berlin in the 1920 and early 1930s a cultural phenomona that went on developing in many directions. Picasso, Cocteau and Satie may have come together to collaborate on Street based multidisciplinary performance but "Parade" their project did not have the overt politicised value ascribed to others later in the Surrealists/communist internationale. But to most of the "ideologically pure" it was always the contribution of a suspect "petit bourgois class". Art had its place only as "social realism" or in propaganda of social values seen as abetting the revolution. By the 1960s we saw the Maoist cultural revolution and the extent to which the ideologically pure could go in their hatred of the others within their society.
The networks that grew in central and eastern Europe from the activities of groups such as Black MArket and other performance artists who brought the nascent debate for deomcracy from Poland to Czechoslovakia did so without active support from the West and continued to exist. It still exists. Oleg Popov may have head the school of Circus Arts in Moscow and shaped the roles of thousands of clowns, but the memories of the first democracy protesters arriving in Wenceslas Sqaure is as iconic an image of Czech history as Gottwald´s hat. Gottwald was aribrushed out of history the only thing that remained was his hat.
Last year i published extracts from an interview with an art activist who worked with both Black Market and Fluxus here, he still lives and works in Prague.

You may need to learn more about how non-ideologues like using their brains and bodies.
You may need to exercise your mind.
You may need to learn where many of us have come from and what traditions we practise, who we call predecessors and who has called us heirs.
You may need to learn about how torches are passed.

by To Iosaf Sat Feb 08, 2003 01:28

"could keep seven balls in the air when juggling.
He had a cape with a happy Autonomy.

There is my friends a veritable mountain of unsold Marxist Trotty truth rag.
But hey I read it."

Is this what Indymedia is all about? What a knobhead.

by Donnacha - none Sat Feb 08, 2003 00:18 donnacha at sortedmagazine dot com London

Learn how to take a joke, dumbass. And for the record, I'm neither a bleedin' crusty (I hate patchouli) nor a bleedin' Marxist (ask the WSM). And if you don't know what I was talking about with the fnord/eris stuff, look it up, link provided. Goddamn self-important politicos, chill out for a bit. Nothing like a bit of craziness to make political activity interesting, ask anyone who's heard of the Merry Pranksters, Robert Anton Wilson, the Discordians/Erisians, etc.

by iosaf Fri Feb 07, 2003 19:57

could keep seven balls in the air when juggling.
He had a cape with a happy Autonomy.
a flag and trumpet / cornet.
and a monocycle. He did all TV, a stage show and defused umpteen arrest situations.
He defused many bolsheviks too. We hung out for a day cycling on rope between trees and befriending the crowds before the days of marching. Nice people gave Captain Anarchy money for being a clown and stopping the uptight marxists seling their newspapers.
I recommend this tactic in every city. Just like "money fliers".
But uptight marxists know this. They know i am the one who causes the dip in the expected supply curve of "Marxist Trotty truth rag" every world meeting.
They follow me from site to site teasing me about drivel. But I don´t care I have Captain Anarchy and my new friend Captain Democracy on my side.
Beats Captain America, Captain Soviet Union or Captain Marx any day.
I have Captain Beefheart too.

Do you know how many unsold Marxist Trotty truth rags there were after the ESF in Firenze?
loads.
There is my friends a veritable mountain of unsold Marxist Trotty truth rag.

But hey I read it.

by Phuq Hedd Fri Feb 07, 2003 19:38

I find your attacks on him more irritating. Sometimes his posts make sense sometimes they don't. Who's to tell if the problem is at my end or his.

by To Iosaf Fri Feb 07, 2003 17:36

Absolute, complete and utter worthless drivel.

OK, OK, how about this: Try writing some sense, starting from........NOW!

by iosaf Fri Feb 07, 2003 17:03

not stoned.
I was long ago credited with writing a psycho goegraphy of the struggle yes.
genre writing. I am after all an author of the genre. But my messages of support to imc nyc are meant to be taken seriously and so i am sending support from BCN to NYC here and in other sites.
NYC is currently facing the worst backlash against acitivists and anti-war activity.

Captain Anarchy was a character that played both Seattle and Barcelona. In Barcelona he was played by a veteran activist from Alaska. The American readers will know the reference. Anyone active in our struggle for more than a few years who remembers our characters and tactics will remember Captain Anarchy´s work. And Captain Democracy is going to do the same thing. The uyse of a clown on the street and in front of cameras is one of our oldest methods of "defusing" confrontation.
NYC indymedia and indeed Seatle know what I am on about.
pity some in ireland do not. Maybe if it seems tangential to you, it is because you are not part of an established info-network.
The site is clogged by postings made by established parties with large funding who could just as easliy post links in comments taking part in debate with others instead of flying banner " i am astounded!" headline adverts for previous articles or future articles.
"I am astounded" refers to information that we are sharing today across several networks.
and the source of astonishment was connections between Ahern´s diary, the depth of horror of the US/K war plan, and investment plans hatched by these organisations...

http://www.erf.org.eg/
http://nature.org/
http://erf.org/
http://www.unops.org.my/
http://extsearch.worldbank.org/servlet/SiteSearchServlet?q=icp

when i am stoned i do tell you.
and i just play with my studio equipment.
today i am not. i am teaching my students.
shostakovitch strung quartet analysis and english executive communication skills.
i will be though very stoned on Sunday.

by To Iosaf Fri Feb 07, 2003 16:55

"we gotta break free from the fascist confines of grammar, man

chill out and go with the flow. if you can see the fnords they can't eat you

hail eris, viva discord (etc.)"

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Complete and utter rubbish. But you're right, I don't *have* to read it. But I don't *have* to post anything on Indymedia either. But I can and I do. Anyway, it's always good fun getter the wind up a few crusty miserable marxists, whose only hobby is spouting shite on the web about how great the world would be if only we lived in socialist/marxist state. I s'pose if that were the case, we'd *all* be miserable and not just the marxists.

by Re: iosaf - none Fri Feb 07, 2003 16:31 donnacha at sortedmagazine dot com London

If space is limited on the fora, then why do people insist on clogging them up with arguments about the posting style of one person. As said previously, if you don't like it, ignore it. iosaf's style is akin to those you get on newsgroups like alt.discordia, free flowing and following his own rules.

we gotta break free from the fascist confines of grammar, man

chill out and go with the flow. if you can see the fnords they can't eat you

hail eris, viva discord (etc.)

D.

by Chuck Fri Feb 07, 2003 14:36

Fair dues to mr o as if for bringing lots of good points to our attention and for his depth of knowledge (or depth of access to knowledge, whatever). However, seeing as the point is being made, a lot of his ramblings are completely off point (as is this one, I admit, but at least it is following the thread of the comments and I don't want to waste newswire space on this) or at least the connection with the original post and comments is so tenuous that it doesn't exist for most mortals.
If you look back over a number of posts, you will find that the last comment(s) are long rambles, off the point. I have a feeling that these at times contribute to the lack of further comment.
Iosif, I value yer contributions but please exercise a bit more consideration to the flow of a thread.
Go raimh math agat.

by Isophile Fri Feb 07, 2003 13:27

Long Live Iosaf!

by pete ranks Fri Feb 07, 2003 13:18

jaysus, if iosaf ain't getting some stick today, but whjat gets to me is that people don't have to read what he writes, but yet do so and then give out about it. Some of the stuff I contribute can be pure drivel, but I'm yet to get lambasted for it, so if you've got a problem with his postings, its simple, don't read them, but don't ask him to change how he writes, as he's perfectly entitled to write however he wants, no???

by To Iosaf Fri Feb 07, 2003 13:00

Please Iosaf,

Will you stop writing like your stoned. At least tell us if you are stoned, because all your posts read like stream-of-consiousness babble. So, either admit that you're stoned, or else start writing with at least some coherence and sense.

by iosaf Fri Feb 07, 2003 12:23

Hi Kevin-Scott! We had a Captain Anarchy in Barcelona for the World Bank no show up holiday.
He was cool. A clown with an arabic cornet he is a dude. He scared bolsheviks into silence and police into smiles. I reckon your Captain Democracy will do the same.
New York City was on the frontline of War for one day in it´s modern history. Most U.S. cities have never experienced anything like that. The last before NYC was Philidelphia (?)....Hawaii?
Not matter what people think of what happened that day they all remember the smell. They all remember the terror.
That terror is felt in Europe more. And the more east one goes the more real that terror is.
Democracy is contract between governed and government. It obliges protest, public assembly and what in spanish is termed "manifestación".

You know NYC will march.
We know NYC will march.

& we all know the democratic work of NYC indymedia and associated groupings.

"Peace" is an angloamerican word which requires translation into over six thuosnd other languages.

by Kevin-Scott Fri Feb 07, 2003 01:44

NOTE CLARIFICATION:
last sentence should read, "... reversal challenge by members of the present government, some of whom, in fact, voted to pass the Act into law."