[-empyre-] Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything?

Sun Nov 22 05:15:27 EST 2009

Thank you to everyone for the comments and news on the strikes on the UC
campuses.
For the last several years, besides attending live events here in Milwaukee,
I've found that increasingly effective is the online sharing and signing of
petitions; many of these work, or, beginning by spreading slowly through
time, have and of create generative updated versions of the petitions and
gain ever more force as more and more people see that they are actually
effective and begin signing themselves.

I think since Reagan’s first term and almost first action as
president—smashing the air controllers’ union—unions have become not just
physically badly damaged in the USA, but the word itself has been distorted
thro8ugh nonstop propaganda and become now a “dirty” word  and concept for a
great many persons.  The back and forth supporting movement of smashing
unions physically and economically—by physically I mean subversion by firing
union workers and hiring much cheaper and less trained non union
workers—this movement is supported at the same time by the attack on the
language which makes unions appealing and strong sounding and converting the
word into something smacking of both the ridiculous and the defeatist,
something anachronistic and “a failure.”  “Everyone knows they don’t
work-=-just look how they are disappearing!”  The words are supported by the
actions and ice vers.

I mentioned ridicule—one of the most effective tactics that Regan introduced
was ridicule and cerataintn tones of voice which are like patronizing stabs
in the back masked by a nice paternalist flashing Hollywood teeth.  Since
Reagan began this trend, ridicule has increasingly been used to drive out of
“being with it” just about any “lefty” term you can think of.

(For example one day i came back rfrom work, turned on the news and found
Reagan beeing asked about the musrooming budget deficit--

what did mr president think of this--

was he worried abt it?

Reagan flashed his "warm" patronizing smile and said

i think the budget deficit is big enough to take care of itself--don't
you?--)

Another factor has been that since 9/11 I’ve noticed that academics as well
as many others in different jobs and work sectors—are afraid to sing
petitions because it might affect their jobs.  One might be easily gotten
rid of by a petition being used to show that Professor or student so –and-so
is a “Jihad sympathizer” or “critical of Israel” or critical of the US
policies aboard whether they be torture, rendition flights, drone bombings,
support of Apartheid, and so forth.

Now that the economic crises has made jobs even more precious, one may see
even more of a drop off of certain sectors being willing to risk anything by
singing a petition which can be pulled out and used as “evidence” at any
time.

The flipside of the viral techniques has been demontsrated by the Israeli
State’s policy announced first last November and then stated more firmly and
with greater scope in February of this year by then Foreign Minister tip
Livni.  This policy is what Minister Livni called “an assault” on Facebook
my space you tube, the blogosphere –an assault on any sites which seem to be
“critical of Israel” or remotely sympathetic to the Palestinian people’s
cause.  The idea is to wipe out such sites, or, to censor their statements,
videos, and fotos and replace them with heavily pro-Israeli images, slogans,
propaganda, posters and altered maps.

This is viral “striking’ in the “assault” sense of the term for sure—and
conducted by a State with the fourth largest military in the world to back
it up if need be.  The flip side of this tactic is to also cut off the
electricity of the “other side’ so that they cannot conduct any sort of
retaliatory campaign of their own.

Increasing an anti-viral tactic has been just this—to turn off, cut off,
bomb out, the electricity grids of large areas, and in this “deleted zone”
undertake step two of the “extinguishing of light” which is the mass
slaughter of civilians when they are “blacked out” from the gaze of the
world.

Rwanda was the first such example undertaken—before the massacres, the area
designated for them was stripped of any communication with the outside
world. All electronic contacts were severed, al telephone grids, electric
grids etc were chopped apart and then in the deleted zones, the human beings
were chopped down and deleted from existence on the ground.  This tactic has
been used to varying degrees in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Lebanon and
Palestine, specifically Gaza, most recently to a greater extent than ever
during the several years now siege by the assaults on the ground and
electronically via deletion in January of this year.

In the USA, this tact has been and is being used against the American
Indians on the great majority of extremely poor rezervations.  The living
conditions and medical care of the American Indians is now tied with Haiti
as the worst in the Western hemisphere.

One effective tactic in this new form of eugenics/genocide is the lack of
health care not only as care but as information—the excuse that is given for
the total lack of information received by the Indians is that they live
often n areas too remote for the Bureaucrats in charge locally to drag their
asses into the car to drive to and physically distribute information and
care to the Indians residing in these “remote areas.”  This laziness
/deliberate action is buttressed now by the excuse of saying that al of this
informtion is now being made available to the Indians  of this and/or that
rez is on line, at sites speficllay set up the bureaucrats for the Indians’
use.

The catch is that hardly any of the Indians in these areas have access to
compuetrs at all.

Since they don’t have computers and can’t receive al this wonderful info,
the fault of course is the Indians, for they’re not having computers.
Sincemany
areas don

‘t have electricity either, it seems al a very pointless situation, and is
just left to stay that way.

Again the disconnection of non-viral deletion from existence is ineffective
tool in the ongoing disappearance of that mythical being, the “Vanishing
American Indian,” just as it in the Vanishing Palestinian, the vanishing
Iraqi, and the vanishing Rwandans situations.

One can foresee that if things “get out of hand” by the use of viral tactics
in strikes and demos al that need be done is simply to cutoff the
electricity to hose areas, and delete them from “electronic action.”

I agree with –in writing that petitions and grassroots actions , grass roots
transmissions of information, of papers to be signed, of speeches to be
heard, is (potentially)  far more effective than the viral tactics which are
spread out of over a bewildering array of web sites and electronic notice
boards.  Although I have seen and participated in electronic action,
petitioning sharing of articles and fotos, at the same time there’s the
sense that it is not as inspiring as direct action undertaken with others
with whom one is in direct physical “touch.”  The viral is an excellent
tool, but it can’t be the only one—for it is just as easy, if not more so,
to disrupt than physical disruptions of organized actions.  If the two were
used together it would make for much greater effectiveness, as well as being
more difficult to disrupt and dis-organize.

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 12:52 AM, marc <sparkle at c-level.cc> wrote:

> Its curious, the organizing of the UC strikes.
> There seem to be about 50 websites, several layers of organization who
> do not seem coordinated, and a strike call that (I might just be
> uninformed)
> was made without consultation with many people that now has shown to
> be at least nominally affective in getting us to strike.
>
> Talk about viral, I don't even think it has much to do with media for
> us or our
> students. Its more about an idea that makes sense, in a last ditch
> throw spaghetti
> on the wall and see what sticks kind of way. I do not mean that as
> dismissive in the very
> least.
>
> Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything. Occupy all the spaces of potential
> organizing.
>
> I 'm not think our students watch corporate media. They are online and
> in classrooms.
> They've heard about it from some bits on facebook and more
> "traditional" forms like talking
> to peers and teachers.
>
> Cara Baldwin mentioned that, in this traditional manner, Foucalt comes
> in to play big time here.
> Its clear to us that if all the students signed the damed petitions
> going around, it'd be pretty difficult
> for power to so blithely ignore opinion. And though surrounded on
> campus by universal agreement
> that the whole situation is just bad, they don't sign up. Its their
> internal cop.
>
> Insurrection. What about that.
>
>
> M
>
>
>
> On Nov 18, 2009, at 2:17 PM, feralysis at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> >
> > just appreciating you micha. thank you for this.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >> From: micha cardenas / azdel slade <azdelslade at gmail.com>
> >> Sent: Nov 18, 2009 2:24 AM
> >> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >> Subject: [-empyre-] Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything?
> >>
> >> Are the UC strikes and occupations viral?
> >>
> >> http://theimaginarycommittee.wordpress.com/
> >> http://ucstrike.com/
> >> http://www.facebook.com/?q=#/group.php?gid=127873822709&ref=ts
> >> http://savingucsd.ning.com
> >> http://savingucla.ning.com/
> >>
> http://www.newuniversity.org/2009/11/opinion/regents%E2%80%99-meeting-a-historic-opportunity/
> >> http://ucop.cc
> >>
> >> Or are they an example of the way that viral media still relies on
> >> corporate media to get very large numbers?
> >>
> >> At UCSD, very few students, faculty and staff that I've talked to
> >> knew
> >> about or support the strike do. Myself and a handful of other
> >> faculty,
> >> staff and students are striking, but is the very idea of a strike not
> >> viral but more based in monolothic constituencies and factory models
> >> of labor? Perhaps the spreading occupations are more viral? I wonder
> >> about this as I start going on strike tomorrow and join actions at
> >> UCSD...
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> micha cárdenas / azdel slade
> >>
> >> Artist/Researcher, Experimental Game Lab,
> http://experimentalgamelab.net
> >> Calit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net
> >>
> >> blog: http://transreal.org
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> empyre forum
> >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>
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