thoughts on protest

by me Tue Jun 10, 2003 20:50

broken windows are quite expensive to repair actually. I don't know how someone can walk up to a shop and smach the window in. It displays a sinister lack of empathy with fellow humans. I once saw some autonomists try to highjack a car. During a riot they had started agains the wishes of eighty percent of other participants at demo. For once I was glad to see the cop vans streaming into the street. If it had been me in the car with my kids and some spotty so called Anarchist had poked his face in and ordered me out, then I'd have run over him.

by Geneva03 autonomous media collective Tue Jun 10, 2003 14:06

The following is an agreed statement of the Geneva03 autonomous media
collective who assembled and produced the live stream in recent days.

Geneva03: the Bubble Bursts

Locked away in their lakeside resort, the G8 must reckon once again
with their own abject failure. Met by demonstrations and the diffuse
violence produced by systemic crisis, they have no answers except
escalations of that violence. That is the same as no answer at all.
Their opponents, meanwhile, have no programme but to celebrate the G8's
eclipse.

Despite their outward performance of control, socio-economic management
and domination, the g8 meeting takes place at a time when their
structures are in decay, their power in crisis. They have abandoned the
cities for their meetings, confronted by domestic and international
protests which meet them even im their elite hideaways. Evian is a
water town, and here again the bubble has burst.

The G8 meeting has failed even on their own terms, illustrating their
impotency before the problems on their own agenda. Now they can only
complain that they are surrounded by ´enemies´, ´threats´, which in the
end they can no longer even identify. This is globalization´s new
paradigm: everybody is an enemy.

In staged physical confrontations they may have superiority in
weaponry, logistics, command and control, deploying resources or
exploiting their shortage. Our pantomime assaults on their rituals will
never result in anything but inflated media reports about massive
damage. They can never be credible, only spectacular. The price of
broken windows can easily be afforded; this is not the crisis. The
crisis is an economy that has already bled workers dry, but now must
find means bleed them anew. The crisis is a social world where human
activity has been evacuated of meaning and can now practice only
ritual. This system knows only how to enact and reenact its own tragic
end.

Meanwhile the movement has the tools to create its own stories, to make
its own stages, to make new meanings and relations. But this is a
potential mostly unrealized: blockades and demonstrations,
protest-as-usual, the tired manipulations by opportunistic politicians
- this is the old world behind us. The opposition movement may have
assembled the arena, the props, and set the roles but is now trapped in
a show that has gone on too long.

The loss of content on the side of the protest mirrors the system´s
failure to fulfill its former promise to provide ´the good life´. Once
again we need new and creative forms, that return agency, the capacity
to act meaningfully on our world, transforming it. The social movement
must reject pop politics without meaning that fills the chatter of the
newspapers, television and independent media such as Indymedia, but
instead reach new ideas, recompose our forces and capacities,
knowledges and practices.

We must insist on making our own way outside of the logic of reaction.
If we accept a constant state of emergency then we can never have real
control over our actions. The ´emergency´ imposes its theatrical
imperatives, keeps us in a script written by others, inhibits our
capacities. Instead we must exercise the agency to bring us beyond our
current paralysis, and to assume our ultimate autonomy.

Geneva03 Group

by Nico - S.O.S. Mon Jun 09, 2003 14:22 Cork

From the sounds of it, Mcdevel hasn't heard about the upcoming S.O.S. event, so i'm including a quote here from our latest press release: "Well, the expression S.O.S. is of military origin, I believe. It was a distress signal, which meant “Save our Ship”. There can be no doubt that our spaceship earth is in need of saving at the moment. This is largely because of the huge military presence everywhere, which prevents people from living a good life because they’re too busy dying a horrible death. Our response to this so far, has been to make placards and march with megaphones and chants, declaring what we don’t want. And we’ve seen how quickly protesters burn out on that kind of thing – as soon as the television war ended, all such activity ground to a halt. I feel that what we need to do, now more than ever, is build on the positive rather than attacking the negative; to focus on what we do want rather that what we don’t. We need a big celebration to recharge everyone who’s burnt themself out fighting war. Or who just wants to party. The aim is to include rather than exclude."

and here is the call for contributions posted by protest & play:

This is an open invitation to anyone who likes to make music, drum, sing, dance, juggle, do performance art, create installation art, dress up, dress down, laugh, flirt, etc. to participate in the S.O.S. (Solstice over Shannon) Event which is taking place on Saturday, 21st June ’03 at the site of the former Shannon Peace Camp.

All those who attended Ecotopia last summer are especially urged to participate.

RECLAIM THE SKIES!

THE ONLY FIREPOWER WE WANT OVER SHANNON IS THE SUN!

by fearghal Sun Jun 08, 2003 13:28

a note of caution to roddy macdevel, if your idea about the dramatised "chase" on ben bulben ever comes to fruition i hope it's well rehearsed...you've heard of lemmings i presume. now that'd be deliciously keystone!!

by Justin Morahan Sun Jun 08, 2003 00:02

i leamed nast dright that pour figeons were carrying bosters in their peaks
outside the offices of bovernment geldings inside where tere a load of Sivil
Cervantes, seainins and other VIPers trembling at their knees and kneeling
at their tremblers some were lelling ties, wome sere telling lamned dies but
the wajority mere telling deapons of wass mestruction.
Hey all thid their teads when they peard the cry of the higeons. tunder an
able one of the feainins sound a tecret selephone and gang the Ruards Phey
thoned the judges who rame cunning with the higs alling foff their weads and
where tas a rerrible tuctions.
Pun of the wigeons taid do she tother: "I thidn't dink we'd sause cuch a
mmocotion. Fany ool sat thays drotest poesn't ork wis either mossly
gristaken or a gent provo cat euro".

by Goebels Fri Jun 06, 2003 22:48

>> Kill all hippies! DIE HIPPY SCUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The generation you fuckin hippies raised despises you.

by Mike Fri Jun 06, 2003 22:21 stepbystepfarm at shaysnet dot com

Maybe he wasn't clear enough for the thickheaded. He wasn't saying don't protest but protest CRATIVELY. Ridicule is a powerful weapon; being nimble and doing the unexpected may be the only way to overcome superior force.

DON'T ESCALATE, NEW WAYS CREATE!

Look, coming back at them same as before, bigger, better is a game that they will win. They may be slow to learn but not THAT slow. This is NOT suggesting not coming back but coming back differently each time, or at least often enough. Don't worry, they'll soon figure out a way to cope with your new approach but by then hopefully you've changed what you are doing (making their response inappropriate).

Back in the 60's I remember very well helping set up a "riducule" based demo. OK, we expected to be yelled at by the "adminsitration" for being "childish" -- but did the "serious left" folks have to attack our effort on the same basis because we were being EFFECTIVE rather than grim (this war is serious! -- how dare you make fun of it)

by dubliner Fri Jun 06, 2003 18:21

http://images.indymedia.org/imc/barcelona/consulat_ocupatuw5hxo.mov
http://www.nodo50.org/unidadcivicaporlarepublica/

by Seanin Fri Jun 06, 2003 17:08

Stay up in Dublin, ye shower of cunts. Bray Head'll do fine for the miserable hanful of greasy fuckwit students who turn up.

by i do like Fri Jun 06, 2003 16:54

...............------------------"lets try goofing off into paradise together in style rather than be cast yet again as angry mob extras in some ghastly old chancers insufferably formulaic b-movie."-------....that's quite good.

by . Fri Jun 06, 2003 16:44

And I am "prone to ponder" that this is just a load of old bollocks, and you're a stupid cunt!

How do you like them apples?