State of Emergency - a convergence of ideas, actions and events : Melbourne Indymedia

please share with your lists and networks

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::: S T A T E O F E M E R G E N C Y

::::::::a convergence of ideas, actions and experiments
:::melbourne:::21-24 May:::2004:::

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

RED ALERT

Armed guards patrol 'civilian' aircraft. Travellers from suspicious
states entering the USA are fingerprinted and photographed. Anti-terror laws
allow anyone to be arrested without warrants or legal representation. Arms
budgets inflate. The US runs a police state in Iraq while Australia becomes the
'sheriff' of the Asia-Pacific: interning its unwanted visitors here,
providing military intervention there. Fear of the 'invading hordes' is
the law. For the rulers of the global empire, the time since 9/11/2001 has
been a 'state of emergency'.

But for the exploited, the poor, the different, the disenfranchised,
nothing much has changed. Capitalism has always manufactured panics. It has
always exploited our bodies, our minds, our time, our creativity, the planet on
which we live. It has always forced us to move or given us no choice but
to flee, reclassified us as illegal to suit its needs, barricaded itself
against our strength and life and designed ever more spurious 'threats'
to the state in order to shut down its people. Our daily lives are just as
difficult as before. The state of emergency is not the exception, but
the rule.

WELCOME TO THE STATE OF EMERGENCY

In response to this, we invite you to join us in creating a real state
of emergency -- an emergency borne of our resistance, our desire, our need
to seize control of the conditions of our lives and our city.

State of Emergency is a series of workshops, forums and ad hoc events
that will happen over four days during May 2004 in Melbourne. It will be a
space in which we can share tactics and skills for disruption. A space
in which we can talk, find connections, think, learn, engage, dance, make
art, make out. We want to bring it all together for a few days of grace --
and we want you there.

HOW?

State of Emergency will reclaim an inner-city warehouse, squat it and
make it public for four days. It will be meeting-place, bar, cafe, cinema,
music hall, accommodation, playspace. We do this as a declaration of our
intent to reclaim our worlds and our lives. We squat to resist private property,
to create an autonomous space, organised without bureacracy.

We will be holding panel discussions, screenings, music, and other
random events. But we want to make the time open for your participation and
input.
Run a workshop, make a puppet, make some art, show a film, give a
performance, hold a discussion. We want this to be an open space, a
space created by the people who enter it.

WHAT IT IS

Too many of the current 'oppositional' organisations -- parliamentary
parties, non-government orgnisations, 'activist' groups -- think
resistance means taking on the role of creators of a future, more 'humane'
state'.
We want to create a space where resistance can mean something else.

Our aim is to draw together a number of threads from different struggles
and interweave them. Some of the threads we invite you to think about are:

The Meaning of Sovereignty -- indigenous independence, land, statehood,
freedom of movement and identity politics;

War Everywhere -- wars not just in Iraq and on Terror but on freedoms
supposedly guaranteed by 'democracy', wars on people without land and people
without money;

Precariousness and Survival -- the coming ubiquity of casual work, the
alienation and atomisation of our daily lives, submerged in infotainment and
reality TV;

Green movements and their collisions with trade unions.

START DREAMING, CREATING, CONTRIBUTING...

Please help us make the State of Emergency real. We need people to
invent workshop ideas, panel ideas, skill-sharing ideas, games, actions,
possibilities, situations, dances, secret handshakes, screening
programs, art and decoration, music to play. We need volunteers to help with
childcare, cleaning up, audiovisual equipment, furniture, food, drink,
communications and anything else you can think of to contribute. We need
bodies, to reclaim the squat and protect it. We need your input and your
help to pull this thing off.
To get involved: email stateofemergency@popstars.com;

call the infodesk on 0400 655 014;

or bring your ideas to a weekly meeting --3pm Saturdays at Irene Community
Warehouse, 5 Pitt St
Brunswick (off Lygon st)

WHO WE ARE

We are a bunch of loosely connected people based in Melbourne who have
worked together around things like: undocumented migration and freedom
of movement, squatting and social centres, anti-capital and anti-state
action, media activist projects and other struggles. We organise using
principles of autonomy and self-organisation.

Mailing Address: PO Box 127, East Brunswick 3057.

sounds fantastic! will see you at the meetings!

Why why why why why bother? No grants available at the moment? Revolutionary crazies, god damn, you even got me worried.

why not just knuckle under, give up, go with the flow, conform, consume, be silent, die.

Why?

cos another world, a much more equitable & dynamic world, is possible. The plutocracy ISN'T all-powerful, apathy CAN be cured in an inspired instant, and the desire for peace and safety found in every person can be the common ground for cooperatively dismembering the institutions that exploit us.

or you could continue to whine about how hard, how wrong, how scary, it all is.

what r u going to do at a conference? whine, complain, talk. same old

Today an inner city warehouse, tommorow the world....

*yawn*

Dear God, sorry to disturb you but, if you existed, it would be necessary to abolish you.

gf, what r u doing online? whine, complain, talk. same old, new technology

Killa Kop, you should be.

A beautifully succint overview of the current Human condition, another. I particularly liked "or you could continue to whine about how hard, how wrong, how scary, it all is." which sums up the victim mentality nicely, showing how it keeps the Big Con (which largely works for "The plutocracy". I completely agree that they aren't all-powerful. Nor are they "The controllers" as most conspiracy theorists assert) functioning unchallenged. When I talk about the victim mentality, I'm not trying to trivialise the suffering of people who are *subjected to victimisation*. We live in a world where we have little choice but to deal with various creatures who try to victimise us. However, whether we *really* become victims is our choice. And our choice alone.

Multi-vectored, multi-faceted and decentralised self empowerment projects (both individual and collective) are - the way I see it - ultimately the only way of attacking the root causes of the (metaphoric) cancer viruses which have infected our planet and much of humanity.

Readers familiar with my posts will know I have often discussed the "Global Ruling Elite". Their existence is no great mystery or theory - conspiritorial or otherwise. I will also say that I don't particularly *blame* these people either. There is simply no way that this tiny group of manipulators could - for example - send millions to their deaths in countless futile wars, if there weren't millions of people willing to be cannon fodder. Hence, playing the blame game is a futile disempowering distraction. That's not to let them off the hook, but it's essential to try and see a bigger picture if we really want to see progressive change.

We can point out the numerous problems these manipulators create, but in the end it is our responsibility to help fix the mess - 'cos they won't.

I am a little curious about what ' changeling' means by progressive change as he continues to stalk me in relation to my stance on Yugoslavia.
Does he mean the progressive change that was happening to Sarajevo before intervention?
The progressive change that had occured in Croatia?
The progressive changes planned for Kosovo before intervention?
Does he use 'progressive' the same way old line Marxist statists use it?

Just curious, I'm glad to see he is disavowing conspiracism - that's progress.

pr - the "anarchist" - is *still* attempting to rationalise his pro-NATO stance. If he's feeling stalked, I would suggest that is largely a result of his own unimpeccable thought processes on the issue. I'm not going to throw this thread off course to Yugoslavia, so I will simply direct pr and any interested readers to http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/54896_comment.php - it's quite a big read.
The responses from spinifex were standard MO for mindless pro-Western morons. When similar nonsense comes from ostensible anarchists....well, I'll let others decide for themselves.
As for "progressive change" in the Balkans - that's largely the responsibility of people who live there. All we can do here is - in simple terms - show solidarity and attempt to shed light on their situation. Regurgitating NATO lies is not what I have in mind.

Yet again the failed mandarins - drop out dissenting brat kids- are making a new empire (like anti-Guru Negri or before him anti-Star /Artist Guy Debord) to enclose the movement from below for social change.

At least the old time drop-outs like the Nihilists got stuck into the ruling class they knew so well being from its families!

Modern variants of the counter-culture beats, hippies, Yippies, punks, ferals, ravers etc. have mostly been passive nihilists alas except for Animal & Earth Liberation Front activities which have employed large numbers of State and private police hours operatikns to vainly try to suppress these actions.

Most folks in this city Oz Asia/Pacific the world will live regardless of the Leninoids, the "Anarks" the Autonomatons" and of course the social democratic machine-men of the ALP etc.
Real life is elsewhere.

At least the recent Perth anarcon was in a public garden food forest City farm space and did film projections on walls so anyone interested could show up.

Not another lecture hall spiritless forum with white male and wannbe (female) experts puhlease!