To Guy Debord in Hell (please forward if necessary)
Bill "Not Bored" Brown (http://www.notbored.org/1957-1994.html)

"Although I have read a lot, I have drunk even more. I have written much less than the majority of people who write, but I have drunk more than the majority of people who drink." -- Guy Debord, Panegyric (1989)

"Where's my mail? Who's fucking with my mail?" -- The Lone Ranger, in Lenny Bruce's posthumous film short, Thank You Mask Man (1968)

In the 20 years since Panegyric was published, it has come out that the renowned French acrobat Guy Debord wrote thousands of letters during his lifetime (1931-1994). On average, he seems to have written a letter every day for more than 40 years! Avoiding telephones -- not only because they could be bugged, but also because he found conversations on them to be intolerably impersonal -- Debord used letters (and postcards and telegrams) to organize all kinds of conferences, exhibitions, and interventions; to receive and critique submissions to Internationale Situationniste; to write and distribute draft versions of declarations to be signed by the Situationist International; to distribute clandestine texts in foreign countries; to review books written by friends and offer proofreader's corrections to existing books or manuscripts that had been submitted to Editions Champ Libre; and to offer sketches of letters, statements or articles that would later be completed by other writers. He also relied upon letters to make arrangements to meet friends or newcomers for a "casual" drink or dinner; to gossip about friends or enemies; to renew old friendships; and to tell certain people to fuck off. In other words, he used the postal system the way today's writers and publishers use email: on a daily basis, and to do virtually everything.

A Somali Pirate Story
Jordan Zinovich with Hans Plomp

Once again the West prepares to demonstrate its confused notion of moral superiority. On Monday, 18 May 2009, five alleged Somali pirates faced a preliminary hearing in Rotterdam accused of attempting to hijack the freighter Samanyolu, which on January 2 was sailing in the Gulf of Aden under the flag of the Dutch Antilles(1). The trial is scheduled sometime this autumn, but during the preliminary hearing defense lawyer Willem-Jan Ausma called the five men modern-day Robin Hoods who “attack ships of rich countries to give the ransom to poor families.” He insisted that they act out of “desperation and poverty,”(2) and Haroon Raza, who represents one defendant, said poor social, financial, and political conditions in Somalia were the root causes of piracy.(3)

Infrapolitics & the Nomadic Educational Machine
Stevphen Shukaitis

“Stay just as far from me as me from you.
Make sure that you are sure of everything I do.
’Cause I’m not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not
Your academy”
—Mission of Burma, “Academy Fight Song”

Anarchism has an ambivalent relationship to the academy.(1) This is, when one takes a second to reflect, not so surprising. How can one maintain any sense of ethical commitment to non-hierarchal, non-exploitative relationships in a space that operates against many of these political ideals? And how to do so without creating a space or knowledge that can be turned against these political goals themselves? As Marc Bousquet and Tiziana Terranova remind us,(2) the institutional setting of the university is not a location outside the workings of the economy (i.e., it is not a bubble nor an ivory tower), but is very much a part of it, existing within the social factory and producing multifarious forms of value creation and the socialization of labor (the development of ‘human capital’ and the ability to brandish forth credentials to obtain employment, practices of knowledge, information, and organization that are used throughout the entire social field).(3) This is the case, broadly speaking, both for the classical university, which played an important role in the process of state building and the creation of national culture, and for the neoliberal university, which is more geared to the development of new forms innovation and creativity. That is to say, of course, innovation and creativity understood primarily as those forms that can be translated into new intellectual property rights, patents, and commodifiable forms of knowledge and skills. Thus, there is no ‘golden age’ of the university that one can refer to or attempt to go back to; it is not a ‘university in ruins’ that can be rebuilt to return to its former glory precisely because it is a space that has always played a role in creating and maintaining questionable forms of power.(4)

Anarchism, except for perhaps a few strains of individualist orientations, cannot find a home in such a space without betraying itself. But the realization that anarchism can never really be of the university does not preclude finding ways to be in the university and to utilize its space, resources, skills, and knowledges as part of articulating and elaborating a larger political project. As Noam Chomsky argues, “It would be criminal to overlook the serious flaws and inadequacies in our institutions, or to fail to utilize the substantial degree of freedom that most of us enjoy, within the framework of these flawed institutions, to modify or even replace them by a better social order.”(5) While the extent of this ‘substantial degree of freedom’ might very be debatable within the current political climate of the university and more generally, the point nevertheless remains: that one can find ways to use the institutional space without being of the institution, without taking on the institution’s goals as one’s own. It is this dynamic of being within but not of an institutional space, to not institute itself as the hegemonic or representative form, that characterizes the workings of the nomadic educational machine.(6) It is an exodus that does not need to leave in order to find a line of flight.

Interview with Julien Coupat
LeMonde

Here are the responses to the questions that we [Isabelle Mandraud and Caroline Monnot] posed in writing to Julien Coupat. Placed under investigation on 15 November 2008 for “terrorism,” along with eight other people interrogated in Tarnac (Correze) and Paris, he is suspected of having sabotaged the suspended electrical cables of the SNCF. He is the last one still incarcerated. (He has asked that certain words be in italics.)

From Barthes to Foucault and beyond – Cycling in the Age of Empire.
Martin Hardie

'Whilst the onomania lasted, bickerings and divisions endured.'

Barthes is right in that he tells us that there is an onomastics of the Tour.

But in the time since Barthes, in a manner the semiotician may not have envisaged, that onomastics has descended from the heights of myth and epic having the status of Greek gods. They have descended from being these lofty signs of the valor of the ordeal, of beings signs of old European ways and ethnicity – Brankart le Franc, Bobet le Francien, Robic le Celte, Ruiz l’Ibere, Darrigade le Gascon; to being patronymics of the biopolitical, of homo sacer and the spectacle that sustains Empire.

Although Barthes' idea of an onomastics of the Tour still holds fast, sadly, in the time in which we live, Barthes' classic piece on the Tour de France as Epic no longer depicts the essence of events such as la Grande Boucle.

Cycling, entangled in the process of its own globalisation, is a game in flux. It is no longer the pure myth or epic as Roland Barthes wrote. Mont Ventoux remains a moonscape, bare, barren, rising out of the lavender plains of Provence and on this landscape those playing this game are no longer heroes of epic proportions but bare life, homo sacer.

The precarity of existence better depicts the state of the peloton today: Free as the birds to soar to the greatest heights – Pantani, Rasmussen, Dajka, Valverde, Vinnicombe, Vinokourov … the list is endless; but unlike those Greek gods of the time of Barthes in this age they are free to be shot down at a whim.

A Rainbow Flag Over Habana
Marina Sitrin

We are on a main city block early Saturday morning. People gathering are high spirited, almost giddy. As people begin to form a line I
exhale deeply, imagining it is just one of many lines that are the Cuban reality. This line, however, is different. This line begins to shift, snake, jump and dance. This is a conga line. There are hundreds of us, perhaps even a thousand, and we are dancing in a conga line down one of the most central streets in Havana. And we are not just some random group of people, we are a group of lesbians, gay men, transvestites, transsexuals and bisexuals, along with heterosexual friends and sometimes even families, all gathering for the International Day Against Homophobia. For over a week activities have been taking place throughout Havana, as well as in a few provinces in the country to educate about sexual diversity, and, to celebrate it.

While the events that have been taking place have the feeling of Gay Pride, they are also Cuba’s version, meaning it is organized for people, not by the people. But this is Cuba. A place where all passions cannot, and are not, controlled from above. I felt the contradictions that are Cuba surface in a palpable way on the Saturday of the conga line. I saw some of the things I love most about this contradictory island, and some of the things I like least.

Why my vote goes to the pirate party
Lars Gustafsson

According to an ancient source, the Emperor of Persia gave orders that the waves of the sea must be punished by beating, as the storm hindered him from transporting his troups by ship. That was quite stupid of him. Today, would he maybe have tried with Stockholm district court? Or a consultative conversation with the judge? It is odd, how strongly the situation spring 2009 – on the area of civil rights – reminds about the struggles over freedom of press in France, during the decades preceding the French revolution.

A new world of ideas is emerging and would not have been able to, were it not for an accelerating technology.
Raids against secret printing houses, confiscated pamphlets and – even more – confiscated printing equipment. Orders of arrest and adventurous nightly transports between Prussian enclave Neuchâtel – where not only large parts of the Encyclopedia was produced, but also lots of daring pornography, between the atheist pamphlets – and Paris.

Between the 1730’s and 1780’s, the number of state censors in France was doubled by four. The raids against illegal printing houses was rising at about the same pace. In retrospect, we know it did not help. Rather, the increase of censorship and printing house raids had a stimulating effect on the new ideas and made them spread even faster.

Now the conflict rage over the net’s continued existence as a forum of ideas and as an institution of civil rights, protected from privacy-threatening interventions and against powerful private interests.

The Anti-G20 Protests Lacked Politics
Mario Tronti interviewed by Tonini Bucci

Even if it is ritualistic, even if it is yet again the hope that there will be movement within social conflicts, there is no circumventing the question, what kind of movement it was that we experienced against the G20 summit in London and against NATO in Strasbourg. Much has already been written and said. Newspapers and televisions have described it as a protest that emerged in response to the effects of the global economic crisis. Its composition is not that of the classical organized subject of the workers’ movement. The question is thus: Is a movement that acts outside of the traditional representational spheres (without any ties to trade unions or parties), automatically a movement outside of politics, or does it just conduct a different kind of politics? In short: Is the criticism against those who accuse this movement of not being able to transcend the symbolic gesture of anger and frustration too narrow-minded? We asked Mario Tronti.

Tonini Bucci: What kind of movement is the one that we saw against the G20 in London?

Mario Tronti: Maybe it makes sense to compare it to today’s major rally of the CGIL in Rome. Here we see a horizontally expanded world of work currently mobilized and organized by a large trade union. That’s the tradition, right? Even if there are many new features, not least the presence of migrants and a youthful kind of publicity, the world of work exists and is a protagonist, or at least has the will to continue to be a protagonist in Italian history. And then there are the effects of the crisis. Conflict has again emerged with the G20 off the back of the more or less effective measures that the European countries, the USA and others are deciding upon. To me that is a consolation. The demonstrations we have seen in other countries in the last few days are different from today’s. Here there is an organized force that makes an intervention and there are forces of movement. Given that the Anglo-Saxon countries are more exposed to the crisis, there is a different type of movement. I also don’t get the impression that this is still the antiglobalization movement. This is something else.

Conversation with Raoul Vaneigem
Hans Ulrich Obrist

Translated from the French by Eric Anglès

HUO: In his book Utopistics, Immanuel Wallerstein claims that our world system is undergoing a structural crisis. He predicts it will take another twenty to fifty years for a more democratic and egalitarian system to replace it. He believes that the future belongs to “demarketized,” free-of-charge institutions (on the model, say, of public libraries). So we must oppose the marketization of water and air.1 What is your view?

RV: I do not know how long the current transformation will take (hopefully not too long, as I would like to witness it). But I have no doubt that this new alliance with the forces of life and nature will disseminate equality and freeness. We must go beyond our natural indignation at profit’s appropriation of our water, air, soil, environment, plants, animals. We must establish collectives that are capable of managing natural resources for the benefit of human interests, not market interests. This process of reappropriation that I foresee has a name: self-management, an experience attempted many times in hostile historical contexts. At this point, given the implosion of consumer society, it appears to be the only solution from both an individual and social point of view.

An Order to Bring Down
"Tarnac 9" Support Committees

Collective Statement of the Delegates from Nearly 30 "Tarnac 9" Support Committees Who Met in Limoges, Belgium, in March 2009

It is a failure. We haven't feared "anarcho-autonomous" terrorists weaving international networks. This invasion -- so brutal and crude -- by the political police has pushed us to put our bitterness into words, to leave our isolation.

The day after the arrests, support committees sprung up like crocuses after the thaw. Without consultations or slogans, the contagion spread: concerts, debates, meetings, evening performances. . . . Everywhere the support has brought together dozens, even hundreds of people.