Rebranding Fascism
By Spencer Sunshine
Public Eye

On September 8, 2007 in Sydney, Australia, the antiglobalization movement mobilized once again against neoliberal economic policies, this time to oppose the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. Just as during the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle,Washington, in 1999, the streets were filled with an array of groups, such as environmentalists, socialists, and human rights advocates. And also just like in Seattle, there was a “Black Bloc”—a group of militant activists, usually left-wing anarchists, who wore masks and dressed all in black.

In Sydney, the Black Bloc assembled and hoisted banners proclaiming “Globalization is Genocide.” But when fellow demonstrators looked closely, they realized these Black Bloc marchers were “National- Anarchists”—local fascists dressed as anarchists who were infiltrating the demonstration. The police had to protect the interlopers from being expelled by irate activists.

Since then, the National-Anarchists have joined other marches in Australia and in the United States; in April 2008, they protested on behalf of Tibet against the Chinese government during the Olympic torch relay in both Canberra, Australia, and San Francisco. In September, U.S. National-Anarchists protested the Folsom Street Fair, an annual gay “leather” event held in San Francisco.

While these may seem like isolated incidents of quirky subterfuge, these quasi anarchists are an international export of a new version of fascism that represent a significant shift in the trends and ideology of the movement. National-Anarchists have adherents in Australia, Great Britain, the United States, and throughout continental Europe, and in turn are part of a larger trend of fascists who appropriate elements of the radical Left. Like “Autonomous Nationalists” in Germany and the genteel intellectual fascism of the European New Right, the National-Anarchists appropriate leftist ideas and symbols, and use them to obscure their core fascist values. The National-Anarchists, for example, denounce the centralized state, capitalism, and globalization — but in its place they seek to establish a system of ethnically pure villages.

Young Muslims Build a Subculture on an Underground Book
David Ahntholz
The New York Times

Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo.

Noureen DeWulf and Bobby Naderi, both actors, with Jay Verkamp, center, the sound mixer for the film version of Mr. Knight’s novel. The film was shot in Cleveland.

“This book helped me create my identity,” said Naina Syed, 14, a high school freshman in Coventry, Conn.

A Muslim born in Pakistan, Naina said she spent hours on the phone listening to her older sister read the novel to her. “When I finally read the book for myself,” she said, “it was an amazing experience.”

The novel is “The Catcher in the Rye” for young Muslims, said Carl W. Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springing from the imagination of Michael Muhammad Knight, it inspired disaffected young Muslims in the United States to form real Muslim punk bands and build their own subculture.

Now the underground success of Muslim punk has resulted in a low-budget independent film based on the book.

New Marie Mason Support Site

Announcing a new website and listserve for Green Scare prisoner Marie Mason. Mason is facing 20+ years in prison for two acts of environmentally-motivated property destruction in which no one was injured or killed. Mason is a long-time writer for 'Fifth Estate' magazine and a former editor at the 'Industrial Worker'.

www.supportmariemason.org

ephemera 'University, Failed' issue released

The new issue (8.3) of ephemera: theory & politics in organization entitled 'University, Failed' has just been released at www.ephemeraweb.org.

This issue is a call to discussion regarding the modern university, and what we seek to achieve with it is to highlight the discussions already taking place within the university, and to spurn on some new ones.

Yet, as the entrance to today's Humboldt University tells us, such interpretation is not enough. What counts is change.  Such change cannot, we believe, be achieved solely by the university itself. This insight creates huge challenges for other issues and interventions regarding the university of tomorrow: to open the discussion to other shareholders and constituencies within the knowledge factory, to pave ground for other residuals, where a university may take place.

Where are these places? And what do 'the people' – the students, the politicians, the medias, the immigrants, the elderly, the people – want with the university? Underneath the seductive toasts and touching speeches that the university enjoys again and again, unmistakable signs of mistrust secrete. A dialogue about this mistrust (which dwells well, also, within the university itself) may be what lies ahead, meshed up with the ongoing grand failure of the university. 

Anarchist Forum: Peter Lamborn Wilson's 2008 Chaos Day
The December Anarchist Forum
Tuesday, December 16, at 7:00pm

PETER LAMBORN WILSON's CHAOS DAY of 2008
THE MAGIC OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM

The History of Money since Sumeria to its
Apotheosis as Pure Imagination in the 21st Century

The event will take place at The Living Theatre,in Manhattan at 21Clinton Street (that the real name for Ave. B just south of Houston St)(212-792-8050). Coming from uptown, take the F or V train to "2nd Avenue"(exit front of train on 1st Ave, walk east along Houston and turn right on Clinton) or coming from downtown, take the F, V, M or Z train to "Delancey - Essex" and walk east on Delancey 3 blocks and turn left on Clinton for 2 and a half blocks.

The Greek Events, A Chronology
Stathis Stassinos

I don't know how familiar you are with the situation in Greece. Im writing one armed, cause I broke my elbow in the Sunday protest. Im not a fighter of course, I just stumbled after a chemical attack from the riot police. So excuse me if I leave questions unanswered , I will try to do so, in the following days.

IGNITE GLOBAL REVOLUTION!
See Recent Greek Riot Footage!
Followed by Discussion on
potential of rebellion...
music. byobrains.
UP the Rebels!

WHEN/WHERE
The Yippie Cafe - 9 Bleecker St. @ Bowery
Fri Dec 12th, 8 pm to whenever
6 Train to Bleecker St.

On Dec. 6 the police shooting that killed 15-year-old
Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens ignited widespread
fury as riots exploded into a popular uprising across
Greece, the nation credited with “inventing
democracy.”

The government has lost control as Greeks

Worker Occupations and the Domino Effect
Marie Trigona

For many the worker occupation of the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors plant on December 5 may have come as a surprise. But for US workers who are facing a very bleak economic horizon - the Chicago sit-down strike has ignited a spark amongst workers fed up with corporate bailouts and job losses. In the midst of an overwhelming financial crisis, massive layoffs and a deepening economic recession workers are left with little other option that to take direct action in order to defend their rights.

In Chicago, a group of workers decided to occupy their plant - to demand severance pay and benefits after being abruptly fired. Inside the plant, 50 workers rotated during the occupation - sitting firmly on fold out chairs and taking care of the now quiet machinery. Outside, supporters and fellow unionists carried banners in solidarity with the Chicago sit-down strike stating "Bank of...America gets bail out, workers get sold out."

The workers at the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors plant are setting an example for the millions of people who are set to lose their jobs in the US recession. They are the voice of workers who see the emergency bailout plans for Wall Street as unfair and ultimately hurt working America. One of the winners on Wall Street, Bank of America, the second largest bank in the US and major beneficiary to the government's bailout plan for banks, refused to loan the company, Republic Windows and Doors, 1.5 million dollars the company owed to the 200 workers in severance and vacation pay.

THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY ALWAYS COMES WITH A KNIFE BETWEEN THE TEETH

The ne plus ultra of social oppression is being shot at in cold blood.

All the stones, torn from the pavement and thrown at the shields of cops or at the façades of commercial temples, all the flaming bottles that traced their orbits in the night sky, all the barricades erected on city streets, dividing our areas from theirs, all the bins of consumer trash which, thanks to the fire of revolt, came to be Something out of Nothing, all the fists raised under the moon, are the arms giving flesh, as well as true power, not only to resistance but also to freedom. And it is precisely the feeling of freedom that, in those moments, remains the sole thing worth betting on: that feeling of forgotten childhood mornings, when everything may happen, for it is ourselves, as creative humans, who have awoken _ not those future productive human machines known as "obedient subject," "student," "alienated worker," "owner," "family wo/man." The feeling of facing the enemies of freedom-- of no longer fearing them.

What: presentation / discussion
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor
When: Thursday Night 12.11.08 @ 7:15 PM
Who: Open To All
For more info: http://www.16beavergroup.org/monday
http://www.ludiccrew.org/wark/

In some recent readings and discussions in Paris this summer, two of us wandered across the following text:

"The idea of investigating the conditions for a 'recuperation of political radicality' in contemporary art derived from the sudden proliferation of