ELEctronic War Against the Machines
2012 RISE UP!
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* I haven’t had my technology for a while – this mix / mashup I put together over a year ago. it’s an awesome intro to a 2012 dubstep anthem set.
UTOPIA or: BUST
these pages are dedicated to stars, love, simulacra, singularities, situations, places, and time
Two Frames
1.
This is the way the world works:
One structure
Universal law
Reality is big, bigger even
Everything converts
Everything transfers
Everything is equal
Every relationship
is understood in the same frame
All frames are the same
This is the correct frame
The world is flat
Even when round it is flat
One society:
We all live in it.
2.
This is the way the world works:
Many structures
Many laws, no laws
Reality is small, micro-realities
Nothing universal
Conversions happen
Nothing is equal
In transferring there are no equalities
Understanding happens within frames, not out
No frame is correct
Worlds are territories overlapping
The terrain is multidimensional:
Multidimensional is not a frame.
## ## ## ##
The first paradigm is done out. Too simple and yet too pervasive. It needs to go.
The second paradigm is a reaction. It is too complex, unfathomable.
## ## ## ##
The first paradigm is the economist. This is how we know capitalism works.
The second paradigm is the anthropologist. This is how little we know about other people.
## ## ## ##
The first is baby formula. We know everything else in our diet is missing but it’s all we want.
The second is tonic water. Not the best diet, and too much might kill you or make you insane.
## ## ## ##
The first is comprehension. We need to do this in order to get anywhere at first, to draw a square around us.
The second is bewilderment. We need to do this in order to see the limits of, and to get past, square one.
## ## ## ##
The first is wholesome. It feels good to know everything, or at least the possibility that somewhere everything could be known.
The second is anti-totality. It’s better to know what you don’t know if you’re honest about it.
## ## ## ##
In the first frame you’re standing in a doorway.
In the second frame you’re standing in a doorway without walls.
## ## ## ##
In the first frame the doorway leads somewhere.
In the second frame the doorway leads nowhere and everywhere but not somewhere.
## ## ## ##
In the first frame you’re standing in a doorway.
By the second frame you’re walking through.
## ## ## ##
The first is the yang, the sunnyside of life giving a false impression that it’s always summertime.
The second is the yin, the darkside of life giving a false impression that it’s never summertime.
## ## ## ##
The first paradox is the source of misunderstandings.
The second paradox is the source of incompleteness.
## ## ## ##
Immanuel Kant said god exists for the posterity of preserving the moral structure of society.
Immanuel Kant said we can’t know if god exists because our knowledge is experiential.
## ## ## ##
There is a general theory of everything and nothing in particular. It has no coefficient.
There is a complicated and untestable theory for a specific thing in particular. It isn’t interesting.
## ## ## ##
At first glance, religion makes a lot of sense.
On second thought, religion is why the world got to be this fucked up.
## ## ## ##
The first is why capitalism succeeds everywhere on the planet rich people live.
The second is why it fails everywhere else.
## ## ## ##
The first is monogamy. Only a man and a woman can get together and make babies, god dammit.
The second is polyamoury. If you’re not poly then you are brainwashed to think monogamy is anything except dissatisfying.
## ## ## ##
The first is the Tower of Babel reaching Yahweh before he smites the people and confuses them with thousands of languages.
The second is when you learn that there were multiple towers, not one, made by people of different religions, building towers for different purposes, with no reliable witnesses, and no overarching consensus on what, if anything, happened.
## ## ## ##
In the first room is a fascist marching band from North Korea, everyone looking and moving exactly the same, having practiced the same routine every day for an entire year, for this one show, all for the glory of one man sitting on a throne.
In the second room is an experimental breakcore benefit show for some anarchists’ legal bills, where multiple DJs spin on open-decks and uncoordinated equalizers, microphones and lights flare off in several directions at once.
## ## ## ##
A steelworker sits on an assembly line producing mass quantities of the same exact widget-thing over and over.
A DIY steel designer sits in a workshop smithing every scrap by hand into a dozen or so unique and uneven widget one-of-a-kinds.
## ## ## ##
Exhibit A: is the same blue Toyota Prius you’ve see everywhere, but you’re wrong, they’re different cars.
Exhibit B: is the hippopotamus-shaped Burning Man art car you got smashed in as it smashed into a flaming art temple. Your life will never be the same.
## ## ## ##
At first there was public opinion. Polls could show disagreements but we’d still talk about a “public” as if it had an opinion, objectively.
Then along came anti-politics. Someone was asking the wrong questions because there are no unities like “public opinion.” Everyones’ opinion is their own.
## ## ## ##
The first is an epic myth with a beginning, middle, and end.
The second is a neverending James Joyce saga written by an unknown number of copycat authors at different times of the life, some claiming to be already dead, with several open plot series developing, and no editor or introduction.
## ## ## ##
The first is the encyclopedia, almanac, dictionary.
The second is Anti-Oedipus.
## ## ## ##
The first is the Declaration of Independence, the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions.
The second is an obscure communique from an anarchist cell scratching on about the freedom to live without dead time against the production of biopower as a critique of Wells Fargo.
## ## ## ##
The first time you made love it was meant to last forever, but probably didn’t.
The next time you made love it lasted longer but you don’t remember it – it wasn’t that big of a deal.
## ## ## ##
The first bank you rob is like a technical writers’ manual: clear rules for right wrong. Either every I is dotted and every T crossed or all bets are off.
The second bank you rob is like a romantic thriller, full of corny cliches and predictable maneuvers, but since everybody is making them in pretty much the same way, yours fit right in unnoticeably.
## ## ## ##
When you became a Christian you were converted to Christianity.
When you became an atheist you denounced converting to Christianity, and denounced converting from Christianity to atheism.
## ## ## ##
The first wage of sin is death.
The next wage of sin is freedom.
## ## ## ##
Your first tour in Iraq is a call of duty and everyone must answer that call.
Your second tour in Iraq is just another job.
## ## ## ##
The first flight of stairs you fell down was an epic fail.
The second flight of stairs you fell down is where you died.
## ## ## ##
The first flying saucer you see is there and gone before you know it.
The second flying saucer you see is obviously a couple of Chinese New Year fire lanterns blowing in the wind.
## ## ## ##
The first week of life imprisonment is like a Harrison Ford movie.
The second week of life imprisonment is like Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus.
## ## ## ##
Your last cigarette was the one you remember.
It was different from your next last cigarette after that.
fractal.dimensions:// [FEB.5.2012.]
I’m doing another party with the MoPro Crew! –>
{{ FRACTAL DIMENSIONS }}
{ SATURDAY://FEB.5.@ Refuge }
{ 116.SE.YAMHILL.PORTLAND://OREGON.97217 }
{ {{ {{ 9PM : 4AM }} }} }
SOUND://fractal.dimensions/
This party will be blasting from a new Turbo Sound soundsystem – this shit KICKS.
It’s got enough bass to fill twenty Refuge party zones.
ART://fractal.dimensions/
My art wagon will be outside in the outdoor/outside area in front.
It’ll be a little getaway space for tea and making art! 
Home-made donuts…
Chillouty music…
A name? oh right it should probably have a name…
## TOTEM LOUNGE ##
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Other art that’ll be there://
Bijoux’s Juju //
Hooktup Designs //
Coral Lani Designs //
Jess Saunders //
Corevibes //
Metagnosis //
Arial performance //
fractal art contest with a $100 prize //
MUSIC://fractal.dimesions/
# FEATURING://
Kilowatts
{{PHILLY}}
http://autonomousmusic.org/artist/kilowatts/
http://www.kilowattsmusic.com/blog/
Bird of Prey
{{LOS ANGELES}}
http://birdofpreymusic.com/
http://soundcloud.com/bird-of-prey
Phidelity
{{PORTLAND}}
http://www.phidelity.com/blog/home/
http://soundcloud.com/phidelity
Merchants Of
{{PORTLAND}}
http://www.facebook.com/MerchantsOf.Bass
-XX-
{{PORTLAND}}
http://www.facebook.com/current.productions
Anden
{{SEATTLE}}
http://soundcloud.com/anden
http://infiniteorganics.org/sounds/
more fractalicious info click here.
HEART
LOVE COMPASSION
HEALING SACRED HEART
FROM THE CENTER
FROM MY LOVE
RADIATING INWARD
AND OUTWARDLY BURNING
LOVE MOMENT: SELF MOMENT
PRESSURE BEING NO ONE
ONLY LOVE & ALWAYS LOVE
ALL ONLY LOVELY HEART
ALL PIECES OF SCATTERED
HEART FOR PEACE-WOUNDS
WARM BLOOD OF MY HEART
SOFTENS EVERYTHING
Solidarity is how-to survive
I wrote an analysis (see post “Bank like Oliver Twist“) of global gentrification patterns and squatting land worldwide in 2009 and found it very relevant today. My mind is set on squatting the foreclosures in 2012, defending against evictions, defending foreclosed-on homes, and opening up new spaces for solidarities to find themselves. This is necessary now. I’m done sitting back and watching spaces remain empty, and get emptier, as more and more of us wander streets at night without a place to sit down or sleep. We keep hitting up against the same wall. I envision some rhizomatic occupying of the empty space everywhere in 2012 as part of a broader anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian struggle. New spaces can be occupied as launching pads, places that spark new nodes of creation. There, our solidarities are the un-evictable fortresses — it’s not so much about the space itself. Taking space is a continuation of solidarity. We need space is for survival, and solidarity is how to survive. Let’s get to the other side. Solidarity has many new meanings.
- Staarfox
Minimal by Minimal DE9 (draft)
://
Richie.Hawtin@Monegros.Desert.Festival://Spain.
} de9.transitions {
Let’s go back to 2005. Richie Hawtin — a breakthrough minimal techno producer (wikipedia) (website) — released what I’ve always thought of as a breakthrough album which brought the experience of electronic music to another level. The album, DE9 Transitions (that’s a link to the DVD mix at Warp Tour 2005 accompanying the album) is full of brilliantly shaped dance songs mixed into an extremely minuscule format and I still think it’s dope as fuck.
It wasn’t until DE9 that I actually heard “minimal” and fell in love with the sound. Driven by a 4/4 beat, minimal is like a house beat with a standard dance rhythm. But because minimal techno tracks are so stripped down, the subtle introduction of one or two new sounds can have a tremendous impact. But why would anyone listen to music that is so basic? (and basically annoying.) The answer is minimal techno has to be mixed (by Richie Hawtin.) DE9 has 25 numbered tracks (each about 2 minutes), but each track is actually composed of about 6 or 7 separate tracks all mixed together. That’s about a hundred and fifty tracks in the set: and that’s a standard set.
Richie.Hawtin:// DE9.Transitions.
As he explains in a DVD commentary about Ableton Live which accompanied the album, here’s how Richie Hawtin mixes his sets: once an optimal beat-per-minute is found, all the tracks are matched and he is free to experiment with incredible spatial freedom. In the early days of techno, as he tells the story, there were no rules and DJs experimented immenely. With new technologies even more possibilities broke through. The spatial transition, as he calls it, is moving away from the traditional stereo field of music and into the 5.1 channels of maximum surround sound. It has totally changed the dynamic effect of dance music. This is the new minimal sound for a maximal environment. Richie Hawtin uses this spatial advantage to create organical and danceable sound environments, like non-mechanical “downmixes” — that’s what Able Live users call this style of DJing.
} the.minimal.aesthetic {
art.installation:// artist:Donald.Judd.
Around the time this album came out, I checked out a lecture from an art professor about minimalism in sculpture and painting. From her perspective, Donald Judd and other minimal artists developed the austere and very “American” form of art known as minimalism, which she said strives for geometric “perfection” and is immediately recognizable in its construction. A brief look at Judd’s art proves how noticeable it is — how being minimal makes it stand out so boldly. You notice every color, every solid, every shape in the construction. Judd uses industrial manufacturing to create perfect, solid-colored block shapes and other angular dimensions.
:// artist:Donald.Judd.
The minimal art trend is toward industrialization, but in fact, industrial one-of-a-kinds. In this way it sort of defeats the purpose of industrial design, because industry is based on scalability and replicability. A one-of-a-kind art piece is not a replica and isn’t a commodity per se, it is what it is! It could bought and sold, but that makes it a collector’s item, technically not a commodity, although trading it for money (which is a commodity) that’s what people mean by the commodification of art. Minimalism is so popular in contemporary art that if you make anything hand-made an art professor will say it’s very “post-minimalist” of you. Post-minimalism is aesthetically rejecting the grids and the seriality of minimal art, preferring hand-made and hand-crafted art instead. Post-minimal art does not look industrially-designed, but oddly, it could be — it’s just not supposed to look like it was.
} industry.sound {
detroit://MOTOWN.CITY.
So if minimal is like industrial design, let’s take the analogy further.
Detroit, home of the American auto industry, is also where techno music originated. Yet unlike minimalist art, the sound of minimal techno is not designed like the industrial aesthetic. Richie Hawtin’s style could also be called IDM, intelligent dance music, with all of its static effects and slow sound movement built on top of the bed layers of kicks and drums. When I think of industrial dance music, I think of loud jarring sounds: hardcore tekno synths and non-stop NRG kicks. You know, that standard rave music! DE9 is not like that at all, and it doesn’t have any highly resonated sounds or synth pads at all. Its incredibly smooth and well-rounded. Geometrically it’s non-Euclidean.
In the beginning of minimal techno people said it was like the wine and cheese connoisseur party in the festival/party/dance culture. It’s supposed to be a pretentious scene, but probably only because a lot of it comes from continental Europe, and the American scene was more into breaks, glitch, house and trance at the time. People say about minimal techno: “All I hear is boink boink boink! It’s just a bunch of pops and squeaks.” Everyone has that mentality with new music. It takes a while to really hear it.
} e.motions. {
Urban.Expressionism.Squared ://artist: Limegintonic.
People like music because it is the most emotional art. Out all the ways art is expressed, music has the most direct and immediate emotional impact. Songs on the radio can make people ghost ride the whip or breakdown crying in a matter of moments, and for everything else, art seems to take a lot longer for that effect. Minimal techno, on the contrary, is not obviously emotional like most music. It isn’t late ’90s trance. It isn’t dubstep. There aren’t any hugely amplified synth buildups in minimal techno. No strings. No womp. All you get is “boink boink boink”!
To hear what minimal is — you have to listen to it for a while, for 15 minutes at least. You’ve got to hear some transitions, and that’s what DE9 Transitions was all about, because you’ve got to get into the groove flow. Then the logics of the rhythm surround your brain and, you realize, it’s more like trance than you thought! Except bouncier, because the beat is breathing at you. You’re like a snake, slowly being charmed out of the box from a flute rhythm. And since every sound in minimal techno is engineered to have that boinky percussive quality,a flute sample would have bounce packed into it too. Listen to some newer minimal tech house, like Patty Sue by Andhim, and notice how the organ pipe samples are made to be percussive.
} spatial.era. {
Austere repetitions and iterations characterize minimal painting and sculpture. Minimal is austere and repetitive. And your grandma will tell you techno music itself is repetitive and too austere. So it’s redundant to say “minimal techno” then — but that’s because minimal techno took “techno” to a greater extreme. Since there has been a post-minimalist movement in minimal painting and sculpture, minimal techno is really the post-minimal of techno. The Detroit techno of the mid-80s is the critical reference point for all techno after. Post-minimal is about creating hand-made art and not industrializing the craft. So, too, minimal techno is about hand-crafting and mixing dozens of tracks all at once to make something unique every single time — you’ve never heard this shit before in your life. Welcome to the spatial era. #
} You can listen and download DE9 Transitions for free here. {
} Richie Hawtin, from the DE9 Transitions DVD commentary:// {
#This article is published MoPro Crew
#Portland, Oregon area sound crew
###MOPROCREW.COM###
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West Coast Rocks (Staarfox D12 shutdown remix)
We shutdown ports all along the West Coast and in other cities on December 12, in response to the action called by Occupy Oakland. There’s a short synopsis on Grey Coast about how Portland shutdown the ports. We shutdown 4 terminals, and one was indirectly owned by Goldman Sachs, three were the busiest terminals operated by the ILWU longshore union. The fourth terminal was a “scab” terminal, operated by Schnitzer Industries which hires non-union work. We setup a mobile soundsystem in a truck and played loud music at terminals 4 and 6. Here are some of my photos, followed by others from the West Coast:
Portland, Terminal 6
Portland, Terminal 6
Portland mobile sound party @ Terminal 6
Portland
Oakland
Oakland
Oakland
Oakland
Oakland
Oakland
Videos:
In Portland, you can put a bird on something and just call it a PORT BLOCKADE
PORT!
BLOCK!
ADE!
(West Coast style)
When?: TOMORROW MORNING (Dec 12, first shift starts at 8am. Be there by 6am. Second shift starts at 4pm. Be there by 3pm.)
Where?: THE PORT! (meet up at Kelly Point Park. #16 bus goes there.)
What?: PORT BLOCKADE?
What?: … PORT BLOCKADE, FOOL. (We’re shutting down the West Coast so you have the day off.)
What?: SAY WHAT AGAIN!
…
What?: YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT ALL DAY…
They say birds of a feather bloc together, so just to be fair…
put a syndicalist bird on it.
put a pink and black bash attack bird on it.
put some lightning on it.
put this bird on it and call it real life.
last but not least... for whoever is into that.
Mercury, rise, unmask their undercover lies!
From Day One of #OccupyPortland there was little sense arguing if police were infiltrating #OccupyPortland or not — unless only to argue whether this time they painted the roses red or black. This week, The Mercury (local Portland art magazine) unmasked two plainclothes officers out of curiosity. It isn’t everyday a local alt-magazine goes out of its way to investigate the lies of the police. It’s never the day local corporate media pursue anything like that. The post in the Mercury shows police were leading on writer/blogger Dennis Theriault about Portland Police Bureau infiltrations until the evidence was mildly irrefutable, at which point they simply provided him with a different line of rhetoric, as always.
Corporate and legal “discoveries” are like this. At first the pigs deny accusations of brutality or spying or secret operations. It’s a secret, duh, they’re not going to tell you about it. But once evidence is stacked against them they won’t say they lied to you in the first place either. Pigs are tricksters of public relations, but pigs are also pretty dumb and get caught up in their lies easily. They sweat (like pigs) at press conferences if you smell them out and call their shit. It takes a spell-broken trickster to catch them off guard. At that point, they’ll take off the mask and say they did this, or say they still do this, for your own good — and it’s more “standard” and “acceptable” and truly more banal that you really think. So don’t be naive, say the pigs. There’s no need to worry. Cops are low-level guardians of capital, and masking the reality of capitalism is part of the noble lie. This is how the NDAA bill (indefinite detention without a trial act) is playing out, too. Everything in that bill the pigs have been doing for a long, long time. Only now they’re trying to find out how much they can unmask by passing a new law. They’ve always been able to do those things. How many scandals and unsolved mysteries would have to happen before they took off the masks and admit it was already the law.
- How deep does the rabbit hole go?
- How many rabbits go into the deep hole?
- Stars are tricks playing minds on you.
- Tricks are minds playing stars on you.
- Minds are stars playing tricks on you.
- Always stars play tricks.
- Sometimes minds play stars.
- Whenever tricks play minds.
Minds play the tricks.
- tricks play the minds.
A star, a star
glimmers in the night
Let us bring them
Mindlessness and light!
What we’re doing – It’s never been done before
analysis, nuance, critique
solidarity for every situation
they’re not all
in the original greek
patterns break and make
for new ways to relate
take away capitalism
and take away the hate
but take away the way
you’re supposed to say
it’s all figured out
and don’t agree with me
just cuz i say
anyway
what we’re doing
it’s never been done before
that’s why it works
because we are
what we’re for
cops kick in the door
die-hard fascists demand more
the bank made the world so bored
print money like them
if we want more
it made ‘the world’ go round
dollar, euro, yen, pound
earth-percolating
circulating
mud people into the ground
it’s our blood flowing now
we’ve got many dimensions
with no singular ascension
it doesn’t capture the tension
when the media mentions
they’ve got your life
your liberty and your pensions
it’s all about respect
and there’s more to it than this
let’s bitch-slap capitalists
and not without talking about
problems in our midst
we’re not shocked by a police state
although seldom we do
talk about patriarchy
and interconnecting the two
or do you?
expect us
and let’s expect ourselves too
teach each other how relate
if we know how to
think sideways and different
if we take away disrespect
all that’s left is no respect
so it’s pro-respect and that means
show that you know
nobody’s listened yet
what we’re doing
it’s never been done before
that’s why it works
that’s why we are
what we are for
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They are getting vicious in the desert of the real
{{{ a series of video to consider. }}}
via Russia Today. (2011)
US-Senate Pushes Orwellian Martial Law Police State! – American Puppets pleasing NWO-Mafia Agenda
via Press TV. (2011)
Breaking News – US set to use army to put down protests
via MTV. (2008)
Martial Law Commercial
via Survive and Thrive TV. (2011)
Occupy Raids are Secret Trial Raids for Martial Law by DHS
via TheAnonGhost. (2011)
Anonymous – Warning to Major Corporations Supporting SOPA/PIPA
via Russia Today. (2010)
Americans Living in a Police State?
via WHDH TV. (2010)
Wife Calls Cops On Man Preparing For Martial Law In Massachusetts
via EternalRhythmFlow. (2011)
FEMA National Test
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What’s next for America?
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“What they afraid of?” – “Why would they do this?”
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Is it because …
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we’re unplugging
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… from the Matrix?
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Welcome …
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to the Homeland.
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“Welcome to the desert of the real”
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Making Them Pay
This was in response to an article on Portland Indymedia today called “The 1% Strikes Back. The 99% Will Strike Back Harder.“
There’s so many ways you could “make them pay” but probably the simplest, oddly enough, is just occupy space as a matter of free speech.
Somehow #occupy is bleeding their gov bank accounts in order to allow the occupations, bleeding their banks just to police our “rights,” and now they are rolling over in debt even more. I think that’s pretty funny. Direct actions are important, but even at this basically banal level they cannot afford to allow us “free speech” — (read the corporate media on the “cost” of OWS.) I see this describing the sort of anarchist theory of (“gradual”) revolution, popular with anarchist “federations” and the IWW but less with insurrectionist thinking in anarchism. It’s the theory partially described by Ericco Malatesta in the short “Toward Anarchism” pamphlet way back when – where he talks about autonomous collectives “replacing” or “undermining” the powers of authoritarian regimes — the more we rely on our solidarities in our networks/movements, the more their institutions disappear/destroy themselves. This isn’t the ONLY thing happening. Theories of revolution just describe one vein of reality within the revolution (in reality) but I think focusing on building the solidarity networks is important for that, and important just because you’re a human being and deserve solidarity.
Would they go so far as to “cut spending” on policing the OWS movement? Would they go so far as to say that they can’t afford OWS, i.e. free speech in general? Without creating martial law? (They probably would fill police ranks to increase the employment rate, how typically fascist!) But would they say, as a matter of balancing the budget, that “free speech must be stopped,” etc.
Contradictions WITHIN the state.
Contradictions WITHIN capitalism.
Move Toward Solidarity
Don’t Look Back!
Time to Breakup with the Media
re: “Time’s Up, Occupy Portland” from The Oregonian, a corporate newspaper.
My thoughts?
the media <=> the police <=> the corporations <=> the homeland security <=> the banks <=> the electoral system
It’s one big circle. To some who were discussing this in an Occupy Portland forum, ya’ll are way too caught up in that crap, actually agreeing with a corporation. I could say some pretty critical things about why people are agreeing with the news corporations in this editorial, but I think I’d rather ask, who are the “bad apples” you want to “screen out”? You know they love this reaction by the way, that some elements in #occupypdx are really affected by what they say about it. The less affected you are the more annoyed they get, the better it is. We broke up with the banks. Time to break up with the media.
I’d add that police know how to use the media as their mouthpiece. The police actually make the media’s job easier, because all they do when they want easy news is go to the police desk and say “hey what’s new” and quote those assholes word for word. Also there’s the unstated game-theoretic agreement that the media won’t bad mouth the police because the police won’t give them exclusive “news” and press access in the future, which means less revenue for that media.So there’s a symbiotic corporate relationship right there. That’s how they will continue to lie and promote obedience, control, and the world of Wall Street continues…
Calling All Starseeds to the Anarchist Assembly in Portland
Calling All Starseeds!
& All Witches, Anarcturians, Rebels, Pagans,
Lightworkers & Other Chaotic Beings to the
ANARCHIST
ASSEMBLY
=| An Assembly of Presences |=
Saturday, November 12th
CREATE || INSPIRE || AFFINITIZE || SOLIDARITY || CHAOS
@ St. Francis Dining Hall
330 se 11th ave. Portland, Oregon
|| 3:33 LIGHT || 6:66 DARK || 11.11+1.11 ||
Assemblies are to say “what’s up” and not make decisions
It is an open call to open the world with open ideas
An anti-agenda for freethought
* presentations from local project / crews
* reportbacks from the working groups at the last assembly
* new working group proposals / interest
* working group breakout discussions
* black-bloc overview and group discussion
* occupy portland group discussion
* announcements
* Lightworkers of the world unite! *
3 new Musik Videos for ya – DEAD PREZ, KRS-1 & RATM
I added a page at the top for Musik Videos. I’m re-organizing my blog and figuring out what to best use it for. My blog started out as my personal blog and now has evolved into whatever this is. It saves me time to have projects that are really just for me at this point – DJing, zine-making and filmmaking – linked in the same location instead of creating several different blogs and different usernames. I’m working too much in the blogosphere with the different projects. I don’t feel the need to take credit for other ones and it’s not the point to have other ones here. If you really want to see something take off for other people you don’t want to brand it, especially not with your name – you don’t it to be tied to one person’s ego. It’s still overwhelming sometimes with this blog and some other projects because I can sit here for hours and hours and forget about the time — and then I wonder what the hell I did that was worth sitting here so long. Consolidating projects is good if for no other reason than saving some time from digital alienation land. I wonder this blog seems like I’m trying to advertise how cool I am. Please tell me if you get that impression. I wonder if it comes across egotistical, or that it’s about taking every bit of credit for anything involving myself. (I write articles, have a zine distro, make films and even DJ! hey! look at me…) If I start quoting myself that would be ridiculous. Somebody should say something.
As far as filmmaking and music videos – I do this as my source of income these days, so I’m also trying to get the word out to friends and likeminded folks (musicians, anarchists, people with worthwhile projects) that I do this kind of work, and people can hire me to help them with videos, building websites, I also do graphic design, and I’m savvy with online social networking, (I’ve worked for online marketers and know how they operate, which is, pretty shitty!) Up till this year I’ve been doing this and not asking for pay, because I like making videos that get people excited about real things. However, I’m soon going to add a donation box through Paypal for these three projects: Potlatch, Staarfox and K’N films. If people want to send me some cheeze, cool, but I’m not going to count on it. Thanks for reading this post – below are 3 music videos from ’08 that I downloaded from subMedia.tv‘s Youtube channel and uploaded into a separate account for UtopiaOrBust. These are clips I made with Frank Lopez at the DNC in 2008. No music videos from the RNC – shit got too buckwild! But check out the musik video page since there’s more of them there.
Turn Off The Radio!
- DEAD PREZ.
Sound of Da Police
- KRS ONE.
Bullet in The Head
- RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE.
In recent news have you seen some of these wicked photos from Oakland’s general strike on Wednesday?
Popular Revolt! @ Occupy Portland + 150 photos
This mix was from Occupy Portland about a week ago. Listen to the mix and check out the photos below…
Click here to download this mix. Click here if you cannot play it.
And Now
Occupying Portland …
Let’s start where the sign starts, at Pioneer Square.
The date is October 6th…
No one knows for sure how many people showed up for the first march on October 6th. Some said 5 to 6,000. Some said 10,000 or more. This was not a permitted march. Cities somehow always think it’s a great idea to require “free speech activities” to have permits and make people go through their bureaucracies, even making them pay processing fees, and pull out insurance policies for their “free speech” event. The initial organizers, no matter the other flaws in things like the general assemblies, went ahead without the city’s permission to have free speech, free space, and free thought.
None of these photos I took. I found them online. I’ll tell you what I saw on the first day.
I was with two other friends and we walked together downtown from the Southeast, marching around with a boombox looking for the march that had already begun – it was somewhere, but we didn’t know exactly where…
People coming off work were asking us left and right where the march was. We didn’t know. We were going in the direction where the helicopters circling above…
(Notice that there is not one American flag in this photo. The flag in the photo is supposed “flag” of Cascadia, the bioregion of the Cascade Mountains – Northern California, Oregon, Washington and parts of British Columbia.)
There were signs people had been everywhere we were.
Curiosity was everywhere. “Where’s the march? What’s going on now?” People on the street were asking…
In fact we never made it to this march.
So we created our own march
with the three of us.
it turned into six of us
then twelve of us…
Until we were a pack
steady mobbing like this.
Crust punks,b-boys, and b-girls started jumping out of garbage cans ‘n shit to join us like it was a Michael Jackson music video.
We got to Pioneer Square.
A dozen stragglers were hanging around talking. We found a sign on the ground somebody left behind that said “No Greed” on one side and “Leave Britney Alone” on the other.
Leave Britney Alone? (We didn’t know it was actually a reference to aYouTube video about Britney Spears.)
We had a Britney. Britney was part of the crew. It seemed by fate we should hold onto this sign in case it should come in handy later on (if some punk ass cops tried to haul Britney off into their cage.)
NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP (A)
NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN
THE PEOPLE ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL
Epic photos
The polizei was on the defensive.
And the people were on the offensive.
They kept going & going, marching from place to place chaotically, charismatically, continually.
This location under the Hawthorne Bridge was “too small,” said the people, so they moved on.
And we kept going too, talking to people and asking them, “Where is it?” People pointed and said, “That way.” It was a wild goose chase to find each other…
The march ended up at the park blocks on SW Park & Main Street.
That location was “just right,” said the people and then they occupied it.
By the time we got there it looked like this…
We settled in quickly and began transforming the space into place.
Some were joining in on the “human microphone” general assembly meetings. Others were more interested in things elsewhere. The decision-making at the larger scale did not appeal very much to me. I explain this more further down. It was better to build connections and solidarities and meet face to face, one on one, or in smaller clusters.
(I figured out why so many people choose not to vote in the US. It’s not only because political caucuses are boring as hell, they’re downright offensive to the individual. I think this is experienced on a more subconscious level, but essentially people don’t want to be involved something that offends their sense of who they are.)
EVERY DOLLAR CREATED AS DEBT
Main Street was blocked off by of the sheer numbers of people. It had the sort of street fair atmosphere quality we’re used to in Portland from other types of uncoordinated events that happen, like chaotic carnivals and other shit you see on Portlandia. These events have no overarching “leadership” or “authority” and the creativity and direction comes from the autonomous participation. An example of this is the Last Thursday street fair (link) that happens every last Thursday of the month on Alberta Avenue. It has no organization – it simply happens and the city tries to fill in where they believe they are “needed.” But mostly they just get in the way. Street fairs and other free public space events raise public awareness of the community to a level where it comes easier for people to figure out “what to do” without leaders or authorities. They’re “free” to figure it out for themselves.
Main Street has many functions!
(And holds functions via Occupy Portland — i.e. the People’s Cinema, general assemblies, etc.)
In the photo above people were noticing these “occupy everything” clues all over the place, and started making sense out of them. The clues were becoming more obvious, more public. At some point random clusters of mob mentality made the (soft) human blockade of Main Street into a solidified (hard) blockade from the clues that were laying around on the ground. It’s a mystery how it all came about, but it came about.
This made Main Street noticeably and dramatically more “occupied” looking and it gave the space more of an intentional feel to it.
A Las Barricadas!
Everyone, everyone who was there literally, knew the barricades were the “next step.” You didn’t have to ask, it wasn’t even a question. It didn’t seem like a stumbling block tactically or strategically. It was motivated by pure joy, not malice or juvenile defiance. It was good mischief. “The right thing to do at the time” is always the right thing to do no matter what the time. So when obedience is an unnecessary part of the equation, obedience stops and life is magical.
Here is what the blockade started to look like after a couple hours, a few days, after a week…
CAPITALISM VS. HUMANITY
Cars passing by the blockade on Main Street honked, screamed, and shouted “Occupy!” at the people behind the barricades. It was a back and forth game that kept going. Not everybody in the cars were like the people in the photo above, hanging out of their cars. Some people in society are grumpy no matter what. They’re grumpy when kids play hopscotch in the street. They’re grumpy when grown men are dancing with hula hoops. They grumpy about anyone’s idea of “fun” and they can’t stand it when eight-year olds are selling lemonade without a damn permit. So they fumble around and blabber out shit like, “Get … a job!”
The Main Street blockades were also good because the crosswalks at both blockades became a thoroughfare for pedestrians to walk into each other and say hello. That’s a “democracy advantage” (the “social life advantage”.) We can win at the cost-benefit analysis game too.
They made more signs, chalked up the sidewalks, and painted on the fire hydrants (with washable paint). There was also real paint on a “community art wall” created out of wood panels. Apparently cop cars are not canvases though, so those art pieces were probably intended for an exclusive gallery somewhere in the Pearl District… (?)
join us
The largest people clusters were usually in some way involved with the general assembly or the main camp area, but a sizable group was usually at the street blockades too promoting the space, and promoting the fact that the people there are doing something we always know how to do when shit hits the fan – we blockade. “Join us,” they said.
While that was going on at Main Street… I heard there was another section of the earlier march that separated off and got trapped on a bridge by the police. I never did hear what happened to this group. I hadn’t heard conclusions to a lot of mysteries though. But here are some photos I found of a march that was on a bridge, at some point…
PUT ON THESE GLASSES
LAND OF THE THIEVES
HOME OF THE SLAVES
Now back to Main Street…
YOU THINK CORPORATE GREED IS BAD?…
… WAIT TILL YOU HEAR ABOUT CAPITALISM!
WE ARE THE PEOPLE
WE ARE THE POWER
WE ARE THE PEOPLE
WE HAVE THE POWER!
CAPITALISM IS FUCKING THE 99%
The anti-capitalist message was strong, stronger than I thought it would be. Many people didn’t seem concerned with petty progressive positioning on “corporations” and went straight to the root causes. Of course there is something to say about corporations in particular, just as there is something to say about banks in particular, about the Fed in particular, about anything in particular. But particulars are peculiar because this is such a myopic level to operate on. The media’s myopic strategy is always to confuse their already-confused audiences by digging into difficult particulars or by remaining too basic with their deceptive broadcast-quality confidence.
But when the system is bursting at the seams, all the little particulars are blown up, and the patterns become obvious.
By the time the first weekend rolled around there were an un-estimated number of people camping in the park with tents. Initially their was an “on your best behavior” team saying people should not set up tents because it was, apparently, illegal. Yes but… people did it anyway. In fact, cheers to the dude who set up the first tent and said “hell no I won’t go” because that’s all it really took to break the spell of obedience on that one.
Occupy Portland is also a ARRA-funded pilot project called “The Commune.”
yeah, you wish.
But what if it had been? The government funded a lot of stupid and uninspiring pilot projects with a ridiculous pot of cash called the federal stimulus money. (That is, hella money printed automatically as debt to us. Hella debt nobody got to decide what to spend it on. But all representation is false anyway so I’m not complaining.) But since they did have all that new monopoly money in the first place, they could have spent it better things like giving it to surrealist avant-garde collectives and seeing what they did with it. Maybe learn a goddam thing or two.
Money has no value. It’s not a store of value. It’s not a medium of exchange. You can’t count money.
We heard the president wanted to stimulate growth, so …
- We occupied this park – we’re gonna grow a food forest.
- We occupied this workplace – we’re stimulating solidarity.
- We occupied the street – we’re growing change.
- We occupied this land – we’re growing cultures of resistance.
- they say: “No you can’t”
- we say: “Yes we can”
(the president of the united states of america wanted to use the peoples’ slogans, remember? We know how to play that game. It’s our game, we invented it.)
Occupy food cart = it’s “so Portlandia.” Yes it is, and that’s why it’s so cool. Represent!
And now for some photos from the general assemblies –>
Some assemblies lasted way too long.
I came to the Main Street occupy camp very early one morning, around 5 a.m., at some point during the first weekend it started. To my surprise there was a large group that looked as if they were still involved in the same general assembly they were in when I left the night before. Had it stopped at all?
THOUGHTS ON DEFENDING PUBLIC SPACE: I’m still telling a story… So there was a disagreement going on at 5 a.m. about this next course of action. One group of dissenters split off from the larger group to have a separate assembly. People in the original assembly got angry about that. The feud was in regards to the marathon which was to happen in the occupied park the next day. The marathon was a city-sponsored event and had planned on using the public park for registering the marathon’s participants. It seemed as though a sizable number of occupiers believed the marathon had some special “right” to occupy the park more so than the occupiers did. I didn’t think so. After all, the city was sponsoring the marathon in more of an official marketing sense, but the park is technically free, public space. Would any other group of people in a public park be “evicted” because some other, more privileged group, got there and decided they needed them all to be gone? Well, yeah, of course there is – that’s how privilege works. That’s how hierarchy works. That’s how class works. Tyrants think they’re entitled to shit like that. So it was obvious to me that the marathon could occupy an adjacent street and register people there instead. Or maybe we could occupy more streets so the marathon could have the park. Either way it could have been handled a lot more creatively, with more courage.
It turn out all the worrying was for nothing since the cops didn’t evict it, and the marathon simply used another part of the park. Simple shit I know, I know.
THOUGHTS ON GROUP PROCESS: There was something more challenging up-front than the debate about the marathon & the next course of action — it’s that people downtown were now getting frustrated about even smaller details and projecting those problems onto other people. That particular morning people looked like they hadn’t slept in probably 72 hours. They were jittery, caffeinated and exhausted. They were worried about the possibility of police eviction, which was “about to happen” literally every hour for the whole day… for the next five days. Was everyone just totally ape-shit off the never-ending supply of free Voodoo Donuts?
Thanks Voodoo for the mutual aid doughnuts.
I helped a couple people hang a banner that morning. I could tell they had also been up all night. Everyone’s brain was stuck in the process. It was hard to relate to them on a level different from consensus talking, even as 1-on-1 conversations go. A couple of them were trying to give directions to one another while hanging the banner. But they were being too helpful, and by that I mean they were too bossy. From stressing out in the processes all night, they were fuzzing with one another over small details with regards to simple tasks — like banner hanging. You could tell it was not natural. Or, that something was not right. At the same time I could not see the point of me (constructively) criticizing them for any of this because they would probably tweak out and have an aneurism: you mean we’ve been doing this thing wrong the whole time AAAAAARG!!! WTF!!!! OCCUPY FAIL?!!!
THOUGHTS ON THE POLICE AS THE BIG BAD WOLF: frustrations like I’ve been describing served to distract the frustrated people from what they came together to create – the space/place for an occupation, an empowering situation, etc. Being distracted by the specter of police eviction is a false needing-them. The point of being there was not to simply “not get evicted.” How can the purpose be to not have something happen? The point is to occupy and co-create. Micro-managing those frustrations was not helpful for anyone. But it’s easy to overlook those things when you take a step back and say – look at this awesome communist thing that’s happened in our city right before our eyes. Admire your work is what I’m saying.
Whatever the polizei were planning to do – whenever, if ever – would definitely hit them back in the ass-face ten times harder. Nobody has to say what would hit back, where, how, when, etc. It’s vague and metaphorical so they can and probably will imagine whatever they think is the worst. There is no way to tell or guess if or when the police would try to evict people from the “free speech event” in the “public” park. But as long as they aren’t actually fucking around, I don’t see the point of thinking about it so much. In other words – I don’t see any value in worrying as if we are a bunch of scared little pigs huddled together in a house of straw.
THOUGHTS ON THE GENERAL ASSEMBLIES: some people enjoy the very act of making decisions in a group. They like it because it’s the process itself they find invigorating. They may have learned how to “be engaged” from activities like a college debate team, or from experience with non-profits, government, or political caucusing. Dynamics which appear to be more “political,” step-by-step, or with a platform, a list of demands or a list of grievances… are all much easier for them to ascertain. They make more sense “politically.” They think it will make more sense to the media. For these people jumping into a group like that feels like they’re going somewhere. But are they? In my opinion the social cohesiveness of the occupation would be better off if the general assembly model were set aside altogether — left behind for something that does not resemble a representational model. In fact, not a model. People would have to rely on actual relationships and trust instead of something that resembles a political process and the rule of law — but to them that means joining the ludicrous element of society called the fringe “drop outs.” Yeah so? drop out already – what are you waiting for? Join us.
^ Sign makes a good point.
Everybody likes food, and Food Not Bombs.
HELLA MUSIC
Music shifts gears into other directions. Some people don’t like music, and don’t like it when other people like music.
“Grumps exist” is an archetypical fact of social life.
It’s hard to say what people are doing at any given time.
We got Tarzan up in the trees ‘n shit…
We got electricity on wheels ‘n shit
hella auto occupy mobiles ‘n shit
patriotic spliffs ‘n shit
That’s what’s real.
If you read the above and thought “oh it’s hippie bullshit” – you are idiotically lost. I’d say it again – idiotically lost. Again – idiotically lost! Sit down chief you’re a bloody tragedy.
THOUGHTS ON ENDING THE STREET BLOCKADE.
The barricades on Main Street lasted for a while, over a week. Eventually one of the general assemblies decided to end the part barricading Main Street. The city workers were pressuring Occupy Portland (pressuring who exactly I don’t know, and what was their message to Occupy Portland it’s not very clear) to open this street up again to buses, cars, and traffic jams. Tendencies within capital wanted the streets to go back to work.
(continued.) And obviously a lot of people were upset and felt betrayed by that decision. I don’t know all the facts they based the decision from. Many seemed unaware of possible counter-”reasons” to that decision. And not just counter-”reasons” by the same criteria the city government uses.
“Streets are for cars to occupy too,” someone was saying. Yet cars have, in fact, an entire city of pathways to occupy — all the time. Cities are built for cars, commodities, and capital flow. Your whole life is organized according to flows of goods and services – that’s the reality. This is one small street one small block in Portland. Perhaps people in other cities don’t know how small the city blocks in Portland are — they’re small. Abandoning the blockade on Main Street was a setback to many people. There was positive momentum that created the blockade. I’m not saying it was necessarily negative momentum that brought it down, but it was de-escalating momentum and I doubt those who were in favor of bringing it down were aware of these other dimensions.
The street barricades are something many people did together, and made together, and together participated joyously/rebelliously in it. Bringing it down also shrunk the size of the occupied space, and if the space continues to shrink, then I start to really question who these people are in the general assemblies.
The polizei are usually posted up by the jail across the street.
THOUGHTS ON BRIBING COPS. Some people brought the cops the free pizza and doughnuts as a gesture of solidarity, or something… Let’s think about that for a minute. How can you have solidarity with people who are attempting to exercise power over you? It doesn’t work that way. Giving gifts to the authority or oppressor could be done as a reward for something they did to benefit you — but this is eggshell territory because as long as they are the police they function as the weaponized arm of Wall Street. Why give gifts to them? Do people know the colonial history of the US? You know that’s how the many different tribes originally approached the settlers too right? And you know that most of those tribes were completely decimated right? If people are giving gifts to police just because they’re the police then that is a slave mentality. Name it. Don’t be a fool. Don’t be a slave. If the cops were actually doing a “good job” - i.e. doing nothing – or if they refused orders from higher ups to do something unreasonable, or if they wanted to join in a general strike, then OK give them a dozen apple fritters. If someone handed them our doughnut stash and said, “Thank you officers for protecting and serving us!” and threw up a peace sign…. I’d die watching that. Have some goddam self-respect.
Another occupation has opened up in Portland…
This occupation spot is called
R2D2 – Right 2 Dream Too
It’s a homeless encampment on an empty lot. It’s for the people in Portland who are constantly being evicted from their homeless camps all the time.
Solidarity from the Main Street occupation coming to show support for R2D2.
These are photos from the various other marches that have taken place since it began. There have been more than I can count.
- P.S. -
What is Pee Wee Herman doing here then?
I’m not sure what’s happening in the photo above. There have definitely been clashes and arrests, but I can’t say for what exactly. There have been numerous “incidents” and people getting picked out of a crowd type of thing. This is the Portland police strategy for Occupy Portland: bicycle cops use their bikes as weapons and shields, and they pick individual targets to single out. Compared to other cities the police have not been much of a problem for the occupation.
People like the idea of sitting in a big group and talking. The whole idea of group discussions is not “bad” — but there are people voicing concerns all over the place about the general assembly shortcomings. I think the best that an assembly can be is a place to share information, ideas, thoughts, projects, and open it up to new possibilities further, outside of the general assembly itself.
And marches keep happening…
And people are holding it down in the rain…
And continuing to critique capital…
And the future is unwritten…
To find out more check out the recently launched Portland anarchist news site called Grey Coast (A) News – there’s a section for Occupy Portland at the top and a broader perspectives. There’s an official Occupy Portland website for event info, notes, and releases. There’s a calendar of Occupy Portland events on Grey Coast (A) News. If you liked this music check out the music page for links and other music.
FRACTAL DIMENSIONS
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featuring://
* KILOWATTS
* BIRD OF PREY
* PHIDELITY
* MERCHANTS OF
* -XX-
* ANDEN-
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