notes on negri

from guerra sociale [social war] 2002/3 :

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS

Why take the trouble to criticize the theses of Empire, when reality has so generously seen to it? Certainly not because it is a successful book, talked about in universities and on television. The discussions of opinion don’t interest us. We criticize the ideas of Negri (and Hardt) because they are a practical force, since they represent the most lucid version of the program of the left-wing of capital today and influence a movement – the “disobbedienti” – capable of supporting such a program. “Disobedient” politics, in fact, represents an excellent terrain of experimentation for the democracy to come. Let’s see in outline why…

A Biographical Note on Antonio Negri

(provided by the authors of Barbari for those unfamiliar with him)

Antonio Negri was born on August 1, 1933 in Padua, Italy, the cultural capital of the traditionally bigoted, petty bourgeois Veneto region. A fervent believer, the young Toni Negri discovered militance when he became a part of the religious youth organization “Catholic Action”.

The ‘50’s in Italy were the years of the re-launching of the country’s economy, a prodigious capitalistic phenomenon that remained forever in the eyes and the heart of Negri, who, after having replaced God with Marx, began to frequent the environments of the New Left. In the ‘60’s, Toni Negri actively participated in the elaboration of workerism, as editor of Quaderni rossi (“Red study books”) first and later of Classe operaia (“Working Class”).

What is workerism? It is the ideology according to which the factory is the center of class struggle and the workers are the only builders of revolution, because, with their struggle, they push capital to develop in the liberatory direction. The workerists take aim at parties and unions, but these latter are not so much criticized as rebuked for not carrying out what is supposed to be their duty effectively. As for all the forms of struggle that are outside of the factory environment, they are either condemned or snubbed.

No need to say that none of the various intellectuals who gave life to workerism, usually escapees from the Socialist and Communist Party, have ever worked a single day in a factory. Negri, for example, preferred by a long shot to teach “Doctrine of the State” at the university of Padua and leave the dubious pleasure of the assembly line to the proletarians.

The workerist strategy, beyond a phraseology that is at times extremist, consisted in the desire to “place back in motion a positive mechanism of capitalistic development” within which “to put into play the demands of a heavier workers’ power” through “the revolutionary use of reformism”…

See also : Uh-Oh… Here Come the Barbarians! // Third gender

::::::

Antifascist Prisoner Requires Support

According to Brighton ABC, Lasandra Burwell has been jailed for 5 years for throwing rocks at the police during last year’s clash between anti-fascists, cops and neo-Nazis in Toledo, Ohio.

Letters of support and reading matter should be sent to:

Lasandra Burwell
W063658
Ohio Reformatory for Women
1479 Collins Ave
Marysville
OH 43040
USA

Posted in Anarchism, History | Leave a comment

British MPs talk Redwatch

Well, Conservative MP for Enfield North Tim Eggar says:

“It starts off, the last song starts off, with the words… ‘You shithead, slimy, got-it-all’, and then it gets worse, from there…”

Angela Eagle talks to fellow Labour MPs about Redwatch.

When people are attacked for exercising their democratic right, it is important that the police realise that we are dealing with a threat to our democracy in which violent political intimidation plays a part, and that that is more serious than has been recognised.

Er…

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Nationalism versus Culture; Life Against Death; Anti-fascism contra DreamHost

Ominous Backdrop For Krakow Fest
Carolyn Slutsky
The Jewish Week

Popular Jewish culture event set against rising forces of nationalism in Poland’s coalition government.

When the 16th annual Krakow Jewish Culture Festival kicks off Saturday, the festivities will occur in the Polish city where there are more Jewish studies students at the university than Jews in the local community. Klezmer musicians, cooks, dancers, cantors, drummers, calligraphers and others will teach and perform to a largely Polish audience, peppered with local and diaspora Jews, scheduled to arrive from all over the globe to take part in the weeklong series of cultural events…

But racist groups are also stepping up their activity. The Web site Redwatch, started by the British neo-Nazi group Combat 18, has been publishing the photos and personal data of members of minority groups in Poland. As a result, Jewish student leaders have reported receiving threatening text messages while homosexuals, human rights workers and journalists have been physically attacked.

Despite the political climate, Folwarczny said that the renaissance of Jewish culture is continuing.

Anyone interested in helping to preserve Polish and other citizens’ ability to attend such cultural events may like to contact Redwatch’s sponsor DreamHost, the Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar and the web hosting branch of New Dream Network, LLC, founded in April 1996 by four undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and now at risk of losing hosting over 275,000 domain names (as of May 21, 2006) on a network of Linux-based servers.

So too, those of us who would like to see the fascist intimidation of Holocaust educators stop…

[Boneheads] assault Holocaust lecturer

Police in the north-eastern city of Białystok are investigating an incident involving an assault on a teacher who lectures on the Holocaust by a group of Polish neo-Nazis. The woman was not hurt but was scared into hiding.

Bogdan Zaryn
Radio Polonia
March 14, 2006

According to agency reports, the Polish branch of the notorious neo-Nazi group Blood and Honor, which has links to yet another fascist faction Combat 18, was behind the knife threat against a woman who teaches Polish children about the Holocaust in the city of Bialystok in the north-east. The group called the Holocaust lecturer ‘an enemy of the white race’ and threatened to put a knife in her back.

Her photograph, telephone number and a list of threats were pasted on their web site. Jacek Purski from Never Again, a foundation that has launched many anti–fascist campaigns in Poland has been monitoring the Blood and Honor web site. Purski says that Blood and Honor have been pretty active pasting names and phone numbers of potential victims on their home page.

“In the very beginning it was just a few addresses and nothing serious. But later they started publishing a lot of lists of anti-fascist crusaders, gay and lesbian community members, so the page became more and more dangerous.”

Photographs of the neo Nazi Blood and Honor group have appeared in the Polish press. Last year the group was photographed taking part in a clandestine gathering in the north of the country. But eye witness reports have not managed to help authorities catch the group red handed. The neo-Nazis have somehow managed to keep one step ahead of the police. Jacek Purski again.

“What the neo–Nazis want to achieve is to scare us. The web site is run from a US server, so it is in the United States and the site is considered legal.”

The Blood and Honor Group have already threatened Jacek Purski by phone but such threats have gone unnoticed.

“I wasn’t scared and I expected such phone calls after they published my name and phone number on their web site… Our Never Again anti-racism and anti-fascist campaigns are targeted against such groups.”

For the time being the Holocaust lecturer from Białystok is keeping a low profile. She originally caught Blood and Honor members attention because the school where she is conducting Holocaust studies achieved top honors in a nation wide competition sponsored by Children of the Holocaust organization.

Certainly folks like Marek Edelman shouldn’t be abandoned by the international anti-racist and anti-fascist community to fight Polish neo-Nazism alone… should he?

Ghetto survivor warns of Polish ‘fascism’
Daily Telegraph
Kate Connolly
June 24, 2006

As a 24-year-old banished to the Warsaw ghetto with thousands of fellow Polish Jews, Marek Edelman decided that the only way to fight the Nazis was to take up arms.

More than six decades later, the last surviving leader of the ghetto’s courageous but doomed uprising of 1943 said he thought similar action justified in today’s Poland…

See also : Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture.

In memory of Natus Weisblatt and 1.5 million Jewish children.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Art, Film, Music, Poetry | Leave a comment

Two Minutes of Infamy

Presented by The Melbourne Anarchist Club

Two Minutes of Infamy is a gathering of grassroots, anti-authoritarian groups.

Two Minutes of Infamy is a gathering of groups and individuals interested in building grassroots, anti-authoritarian networks.

Each person has two minutes to promote their project, share their ideas and resources. Get involved in something you feel passionate about in the spirit of mutual aid and solidarity!

4PM, TRADES HALL BAR, JULY 29
cnr Lygon & Victoria Sts, Carlton

Contact 2mins[at]anarchobase[dot]com for more information!

Posted in Anarchism | 1 Comment

Opposition to DreamHost’s redwatch gathers momentum…

    Black UK Online reports redwatch Website blamed for anti-racism stabbing
    The Oread Daily provides progressive and alternative news and analysis from around the US and the world. It also wants to throw out Nazi garbage
    AFP reports that “Early this month Polish police arrested two people linked to a neo-Nazi Website and charged eight others with collaborating on the site, police officer Pawel Biedziak said. Kadlcik said that Poland, where the Jewish community numbers between 30,000 and 40,000, was “thankfully not yet at the same level of violence as in Germany or France,” but urged the Jewish and other communities not to let down their guard against anti-Semitism. “You could say we have minor anti-Semitism, but you have to stand up to that, too,” he said. The Polish authorities had asked the United States for help in closing down the [redwatch] Website, which posted so-called blacklists of homosexuals, prominent members of the Jewish community and leftwing activists. The authorities in Poland said that the site was hosted by a US-based server and outside the jurisdiction of the Polish legal system. The Website was still up and running on Thursday, when AFP checked. Poland’s thriving pre-World War II Jewish community of more than 3 million people was almost entirely eradicated by the Nazis in the Holocaust.”

In general, Doug Ireland provides an excellent commentary on this and related political issues on his blog. Searchlight provides an account (November, 2003) of Redwatch UK here, and further commentary is also available here. Reporters Without Borders writes that:

Redwatch-Poland targets the left-wing and far-left media and those that defend gay rights. The [then only] 15 named journalists work for the following media: the http://www.indymedia.pl website, the monthly “Pracownicza Demokracja”, the magazine “Nigdy Wiecej”, the http://www.gaylife.pl website, the monthly “Dzi”, the Polish edition of the [excellent] French monthly “Le Monde Diplomatique”, the magazine “Krytyka Polityczna”, the monthly “Nowy Robotnik”, the news website http://www.innastrona.pl, the quarterly magazine “Zadra”, Radio Koszalin and the http://www.lbc.z.pl website.

See also : Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media | Leave a comment

More on Redwatch Poland arrests

Redwatch Arrests
Warsaw Voice
21 June 2006

Warsaw’s Police Headquarters and all province police headquarters are conducting intensive investigations into a fascist website called Redwatch. The notification that a crime was being committed by the website’s creators came from a few Wrocław residents. The Redwatch website published the photos and names of people who — according to the website’s creators — “were involved in anti-fascist and anti-racist activities, included non-white immigrants, activists of leftist associations and all kinds of supporters and activists of the homosexual and pedophilia lobby in its wide sense.”

The website made headlines after an anarchist movement activist was assaulted near his house in Warsaw; he was attacked with tear gas and then stabbed in the back. The victim’s personal data had been made available on the Redwatch site.

The first person to be arrested in conjunction with the Redwatch case, June 1, was a 37-year-old resident of Świnoujście. He is facing charges of inciting racial hatred, violating laws pertaining to the protection of personal data and involvement in an organized criminal group. The man had been updating the Redwatch website and publishing the names of people associated with left-wing organizations and sexual minorities.

On June 6, police officers apprehended a 21-year-old inhabitant of Słupsk, who according to police, had translated articles for Redwatch from Polish to English and was in contact with the website’s American administrators. His computer contained numerous documents confirming that he had been involved in the maintenance of the website and had encouraged violence against others because of their national and political affiliations.

In Łódź, a 51-year-old man was arrested June 13 when Krew i Honor (Blood and Honor) fascist propaganda was found in his apartment.

According to Polish law, anyone who publicly promotes hatred on the grounds of national, ethnic, racial and religious differences is subjected to a fine and penalty of restricted freedom or up to two years imprisonment.

Officers from Warsaw’s Police Headquarters are in regular contact with the FBI officer at the U.S. embassy in Warsaw. The Redwatch website is hosted on an American server. The Polish Foreign Ministry issued a note May 28 to the American authorities with a request for assistance in getting the website, endorsed by Krew i Honor, to close down. The Polish Ministry of Justice remains in contact with the Americans regarding the site.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics | Leave a comment

just one word

    ‘Bullshit’.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

BASTARDS OF UTOPIA!

En Masse Films present…

BASTARDS OF UTOPIA
[ 70 min, 2006 ]

The documentary film Bastards of Utopia—based on 18 months of filming—follows the fieldwork of anthropologist Maple Razsa with anarchist-punks in Zagreb, Croatia. The film focuses on three leading activists who organize political protests against capitalism and nationalism throughout the former Yugoslavia. The three belong to the “Black Bloc”, the faction of the anarchist community [sic] responsible for the most confrontational episodes at “anti-globalization” protests.

In this film, the directors leave behind the now familiar media images of faceless masses breaking shop windows to consider the lived experiences and motivations of the activists behind this movement. They document how—for these three activists—their participation in radical protest is only part of a continuum of political action manifest in their everyday lives: not-for-profit cultural production, do-it-yourself media and post-consumption lifestyles.


“Oh my God, they’ve smashed the state!”

“You bastards!”

Posted in Anarchism, Film | Leave a comment

Hot Pies!

South Melbourne / Sydney / The Bloods / The Swans given a bloody red nose by good old Collingwood!

Collingwood 14.11 (95) def. Sydney 11.16 (82).

Magpies swoop on Swans; Hot Pies cool off at the end, but too late for frustrated Swans; Pies inflict Swans’ second straight loss: “In truth, the final scoreboard flattered the Swans, who never looked in the game except for a four-goal burst in the third term that briefly gave them the lead”; Pies hold on to upset Swans; Fraser taps into winning form as Magpies fly: “[Collingwood] beat Sydney at its own stultifying game”; Pies ground Swans in year’s best win; Magpies rekindle flag hopes; Magpies defy Hall to sink Swans; Take us seriously now, Collingwood says:

“I thought it was probably close to our best win because it was Sydney in Sydney, Sydney after a loss,” Malthouse said.

“To fight back from that I thought was a fantastic result for us.”

And he also believed the win against the sixth-placed Swans finally brought some credibility to his side.

“I thought so. It doesn’t prove everything but what it does say is we can fight back and play against the reigning premiers and beat them on their home ground and still do it by making mistakes and overcoming them,” Malthouse said.

Malthouse pointed out that six of his players – Heath Shaw, Chris Egan, Dale Thomas, Travis Cloke, Harry O’Brien and Scott Pendlebury – are either in their first or second year in the AFL.

COLLINGWOOD 4.3 6.7 11.8 14.11 (95)
SYDNEY 2.4 2.10 6.13 11.16 (82)
Goals: Collingwood: A Didak 4 A Rocca 2 R Lonie 2 C Egan P Licuria R Shaw J Fraser B Johnson L Davis. Sydney: B Hall 3 R O’Keefe 2 M O’Loughlin 2 A Goodes 2 J McVeigh P Williams.
Best: Collingwood: R Shaw A Didak S Burns S Prestigiacomo H Shaw D Thomas. Sydney: C Bolton L Barry R O’Keefe L Ablett A Buchanan J Bolton.
Umpires: S McBurney M James B Allen.
Crowd: 60,307 at Telstra Stadium.

And best wishes to Blake Caracella.

Posted in Collingwood | Leave a comment

Would you accept a racist flyer from this man?

I try not to pay too much attention to the ravings of local fascists, but promoting uneducation! by the Secretary (and likely President and Treasurer) of the Sutherland Shire branch of the neo-Nazi Australia First Party is just too funny. When he’s not selling sex toys to a community he despises, or attending to the many and varied duties that being James Saleam‘s sidekick entails, Darrin Hodges likes to write. Stuff like this:

Thursday, June 15, 2006
promoting uneducation!
Standing at a suburban railway station handing out flyers. The flyers were about the destructive influence of multiculturalism on Australian society. Most people just take one and probably read it on the train. One wom[a]n took it, started to read [it], then stopped[.] I was thinking maybe she would give it back, but as she read more she started walking again. I think it’s part of the conditioning, that anybody who opposes multiculturalism must be a racist, therefore any literature [espousing] anti-multiculturalist ideals must also be racist.

The life of a neo-Nazi sure is an exciting one, eh? Certainly gives you plenty of time to think… of ways to mix tenses… or of reasons why a woman might walk away from you… all the while loitering… outside of suburban railway stations… distributing racist flyers…

For white men such as myself, having thrilled to Darrin’s tale, the only remaining question, naturally, is: Where do I join?

Eventually a State Rail employee [sic] asked me to move on, as I need[ed] permission from ‘Australian Posters’ to ‘advertise’ at the station entrance, so I went off down the sidewalk a bit.

That’s the ANZAC spirit! When challenged by authority, shuffle off down the sidewalk!

Of course, if Darrin spent less time poring over The Protocols and more time studying politics, he might be a little more curious regarding the lawfulness of such a request. Then again, Darrin might also like to keep in mind laws regarding racial vilification.

A bit later I noticed another State Rail [sic] employee carefully examining the flyer with another man[.] [E]ventually he came up to me and said:

‘[D]o you really believe this stuff, that educated people think multiculturalism is good and that uneducated people think it’s bad?”

The [passage, presumably derived from the flyer very much in question] he was referring to was this:

“Multiculturalism is an unsound political ideology, advocated by academics, social theorists, journalists, and politicians. Whilst its theory is supported by such anti-national [sic] people, its actual street-level reality [sic] is opposed by the majority [sic] of Australians.”

In other words, the undemocratic imposition of multiculturalism from the top-down was never voted for or agreed to by the general public. Of course our dear [S]tate [R]ail employee [sic] challenged this in rather simplistic terms, but accusing [my promotion of] an anti-multicultural view as being the same as promoting ‘uneducation’ (sic) is laughable[.] [I]ndeed, if a university degree leads to sweeping platforms and collecting tickets, I for one, would give it a miss.

Er…

To begin with, the railway worker arrived at a reasonable conclusion: if ‘multiculturalism’ is supported by “academics, social theorists, journalists, and politicians” — a group which might otherwise be termed ‘the political class’ (and which may, in turn, be defined as an uneasy alliance between the managerial class and the intelligentsia) — but is opposed by the majority of the population (the masses), then formal level of education would seem to be an obvious distinguishing feature. Unsurprisingly, to really believe this to be true requires a level of indifference to reality that beggars belief: ‘Do you really believe this stuff?’

Secondly, to describe this class as ‘anti-national’ on the basis of its supposed support for ‘multiculturalism’ is absurd… Unless, of course, one defines the properly ‘national’ character of Australian society as being White: precisely what the racist Australia First Party believes, and, on this basis, has a return to a ‘White Australia’ as its central platform.

In reality, the doctrine of ‘multiculturalism’ has a history and this history may be studied. And while Diane Teasdale, the grandmotherly President of the Party, may be entirely ignorant of both this and, no doubt, many other topics, there’s no good reason why the majority of Australians shouldn’t avail themselves of such resources. In fact, many do, and in so doing discover that the simplistic rhetoric of racist grandmothers is just that.

Finally, for all their pissing and moaning about ‘undemocratic impositions’ by the state — and ‘multiculturalism’ is, in essence, a state-based system of managing ‘cultural difference’ — the AFP’s objection is not a principled one: they’re hardly anarchists, after all. Rather, the tiny number of racists who flock to Saleam’s banner are motivated by racial animosity towards those they deem to be ‘non-White’. And the “street-level reality” of this smelly little unorthodoxy may be found standing at a suburban railway station handing out flyers, being met with hostility and indifference.

“You have your dreams, we have dreams of our own, we all have our dreams. Fortunately, we live in an age, when, as never before in human history, you can live your dreams.

The Internet is changing life as we know it, so through it, let us lend power, shape and style to your dreams. Your passions, along with the genius of our product line, and the integrity of our ordering / dispatch systems, combine to make a powerful elixir.

So drink deep and step into our world and let your fancy take on reality.”

Posted in Anti-fascism | 14 Comments