On July 21, 2009, the events of May Day 2008 finally came to a close with the sentencing of four anarchists of the South Sound region. For over a year they have been legally bound to endure an array of court dates, legal costs, extradition waivers, etc. All this has stemmed from some debatable interactions with banks that have since then had a wide impact on the Olympia activist and broader communities.

REACTION and SERIOUS CONCERNS regarding UFPJ Action Alert of 7/9/09 asking that people join the “United 4 Iran ” Global Day of Action on July 25: Is UFPJ confident that the leaders and proponents of this action are not being financed by the National Endowment for Democracy and other “pro-democracy” fronts awash with some of the $400 million that the U.S. Congress has provided to the NED, the CIA, the USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) and others for the explicit purpose of subversion, acts of sabotage, financing, equipping and training upper echelon Iranian-Americans who are ready to serve the U.S. foreign policy objectives of infiltrating and penetrating the security spheres of the Iranian nation…? Thierry Meyssan claims to know how the CIA did it.

Activist and author Jeff Nall will kick off a Florida talk series titled “Activism A.B: Resurrecting Activist Passions After Bush.” Sunday, July 19th at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Lakeland (3140 Troy Avenue, Lakeland, FL 33803). Nall will take his call for action throughout the state of Florida including the cities of Lakeland, Gainesville, and Jacksonville.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, anarchist truths found fertile, if toxic grounds to take root and grow. New paths were walked on. Antiauthoritarian principles emerged as important guides for both reconstruction and the struggle against disaster capitalism. A million or more equally important stories can now be told about mutual aid, cooperation, subversion of authority, disruption of state and capitalist plans. And yet Brandon Darby's morality tale has become a media darling, due in no small part to his perfect and full adoption of his role as a state agent, regardless of whether it was official in 2006, or whether the FBI is still cutting him paychecks. We owe it to ourselves to tell these other stories of New Orleans, St. Paul and beyond. Read More

photo taken in October 2005 in New Orleans by unknown photographer.

Related: Months After RNC, Three More Protesters Charged | Support the Texas 2 | Washington DC rally‏ against FBI entrapment

Past Coverage: 5/25 Texas Two sentenced to four and two years in prison | 5/24 Brandon Darby Doesn't Tell a Good Story on NPR | 3/18 David McKay Pleads Guilty in Minneapolis Court | 3/17 (with updates) David McKay may take plea deal in FBI entrapment case

Teaching Rebellion does just that: it teaches us why the 2006 rebellion in Oaxaca, Mexico was so impressive, and is something we can all learn from. Edited by Diana Denham and the CASA Collective, Teaching Rebellion provides an overview of the Oaxaca rebellion. It also gives numerous first-hand interviews from participants, including longtime organizers, teachers, students, housewives, religious leaders, union members, schoolchildren, indigenous community activists, artists and journalists. The diverse interviews allow some of those who led themselves in rebellion to also speak for themselves.

“Neoliberalism is the root cause of rampaging gentrification and displacement, from New York to New Orleans to Atenco, Mexico.” Keen observers of political-economy would agree with this assessment from Zapatista-inspired community activists in Spanish Harlem, who recently organized an “encuentro” with similar minded Black and Asian activists. All concluded that the issue is bigger than Harlem: “This displacement is created by the greed, ambition and violence of a global empire of money that seeks to take total control of all the land, labor and life on earth.”

This past Sunday, June 7th, 2009 in zapatista East Harlem known as El Barrio, the Second New York City Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement, with the participation of 38 organizations representing the resistance against neoliberalism in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. This second encuentro, just as the first one — held two years ago — was inspired by the encuentros of the Zapatistas in Mexico from below and to the left, in order to get know each other and recognize one another in our struggles for a world where many worlds fit and against neoliberal exclusion.

Renowned leftist intellectual, linguist and author Noam Chomsky discussed democracy, the economy and global crises June 12 at Riverside Church in Harlem. Chomsky joins a list of other prestigious politicians and activists to speak at the historic Riverside Church, including Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Llama and Desmond Tutu.

Over 2,000 people attended the event, which benefited the social change group the Brecht Forum. Chomsky’s hour-long talk, entitled “Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours,” addressed a range of social and political topics. He examined U.S. political policies over the past few decades and encouraged the audience to challenge neoliberalism, military intervention and capitalism.

Joe Tougas writes: Is there a growing movement in China against capitalism after the curtain has been pulled back to reveal where that road leads? Growing inequality, less access to education, healthcare, housing, and the economic crisis all seem to be leading Chinese folks to be less than enamored with capitalism. Some are looking back to Mao as a model to provide an alternative to following the U.S. over the cliff.

Join us in a discussion free and open to the public about the tradition of anarchism that Common Action is rooted in: The Spanish Revolution, the Makhnovschina anarchist struggle in Ukraine, the Chicago Idea/Haymarket Synthesis, southern Mexico, Zabalaza in South Africa and Love and Rage.

Thursday, June 4 -- 5:30-7pm
Timberland Library (in the meeting room)
313 8th Ave SE
Downtown Olympia, WA

The Backbone came to Rochester in April on their 11,000+ mile tour around the country. The three day event was a chance for local activists to learn skills, tactics, to share ideas and just have some fun.

While in Rochester, the Backbone Campaign held two sets of workshops. The workshops included creative tactics such as, puppet making, highway banner making, silk screening, drumming for demonstrations and other direct action tactics that local activists can use at rally’s protests, marches and demonstrations. The creative ideas, and skills that the workshop participants learned will help to make future local actions more of a spectacle using art and music to bring attention to the issues of the organization.

Presentation/discussion about the ongoing genocide & ecocide carried out on unceeded, unsurrended Coast Salish territories and intensified by the coming Olympics. We will look at how different anti-Olympic communities lead lives of resistance and take direct-action against capitalism, colonization & social control.

Former Weather Underground and SDS member Mark Rudd condemned the ALF, ELF and black blocs on May 13, at Busboys and Poets. Rudd, co-leader of a Columbia University student strike in the spring of 1968, condemned the actions of individuals and groups he deemed "violent."

The former militant, famous for taking part in strategic bombings throughout the United States with the Weather Underground Organization, was at Busboys and Poets at 5th and K Street, NW on Wednesday, May 13. He was promoting his new book, "Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen," to a group of 50 or more individuals.

From Saturday, April 25 to Sunday, April 26, members of the anarchist organization Common Action met in Seattle, WA for our fourth general assembly. Members from Seattle, Bremerton, Tacoma and Olympia were in attendance, as well as a guest from Portland. We came together to continue developing our politics together, start work on new Common Action projects - and sing lots of karaoke.

New York City's annual 'Left Forum' this year was a solid success. Under the theme "Turning Points, it drew more than 2000 participants to Pace University April 17-19, to take part in some 200 panels featuring around 600 speakers.

The second annual "All Power to the Imagination!" Conference in Sarasota, Florida on April 24th - 26th is being organized by the New College Infoshop/Radical Alliance. The focus is on attempting to bridge the gap between “radical theory and practice.”

April 21, 2009 CLAREMONT, California--About 100 activists, college students, and community members gathered Monday for the anarchist activist conference at Pitzer College. The conference was titled "The Resistance is Not Silent," and topics of discussion included the environment, the internet, immigrant rights, urban planning, poetry, bicycling, the anti-war anti-hunger network of collectives Food not Bombs, and non-violence. The event also included vegan food, music, and tables where vendors accepted donations for literature and t-shirts. Full report: The Resistance is Not Quiet: 2009 Anarchist Activist Conference by Rockero || Audio: The Resistance is Not Quiet: 2009 Anarchist Activist Conference (audio) with one speech by an activist from CAROB and another by Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry

The Backbone Campaign will be in Rochester from April 23-25 for workshops and a "Procession for the Future", which is a creative organizing tool to inspire, educate and train students, youth and concerned citizens to be more effective activists in this critical time.

What is the Procession for the Future?
The Procession for the Future is a touring parade, using high production value art and spectacle to animate our aspirations and deliver a compelling progressive vision for the country. The 20+ plus giant puppets and inflatables portray a set of progressive policy priorities such as: Fair Trade, Living Wage Jobs & Healthy Local Economies, Climate Stabilization, Ecological Sustainability & Renewable Energy, End of War, Dismantling of Empire & the Military Industrial Complex, Election Integrity & Renewal of Democracy, Housing, Education and Health Care for All, Humane & Fair Immigration Policy, Celebration of Diversity & Elimination of Racial Disparities, and Governmental Accountability and Transparency.

Workshops will include Creative tactics and Art for Social Change, Drumming for demonstrations, sick screening, freeway banner making and puppet making. Go to the Backbone Campaign's website for dates and times of events.

Free Workshop:
Friday April 24, 2009 from 5:00pm to 8pm at Lattimore 201 University of Rochester Creative tactics and arts for social change, DIY silkscreening, freeway banner build and more

Procession for the Future:
Saturday April 25, 2009, Noon at St. Joesph’s House of Hospitality 402 South Avenue1:00pm parade up South Avenue to Lutheran Church of Peace at 125 Caroline Street Rally, Music and activist training to follow

In its organizational structure and attitude, the Left Forum isolates itself from most social movements. But it also refuses to constitute itself as a living organization. Instead, the preference is to berate all existing forces and implore participants to somehow get their act together. Unless it shifts the way it does things, it risks irrelevance.

HOLY SHITBALLS! What the fuck happened last night at the New School? Hundreds of people at the anti-police brutality rally at the 55 w13th st New School building, dozens in Bob Kerrey masks, speaker after speaker condeming the NYPD and the New School's violent response to the occupation, absurd revolutionaries challenging everyone to OCCUPY EVERYTHING! ABOLISH TIME! and NEGATE NEGATION.

New School Reoccupied blog

Join the subMedia posse – survival of the smartest starts now! Producer, videographer and creative genius Franklin López exposes crucial current trends with video montages that mix culture jamming, news, satire, music and action to scratch the social justice itch. Hopium is a crash course on the countercultures, protest movements, and underground forces set to collide in the post-Bush world...

The end of the reign of Bush meant a whole new historical moment had arrived. By the end of the Bush years, you could spit out a random curse, along with Bushs name, to strike up a friendly conversation on any street corner in the world. But the united front against the Bush agenda dissipated like engine vapor from the helicopter that flew him away from the White House. The Obama era mass movement and its coalitions has yet to be determined.

New eras deserve new strategies, so PepperSpray went to some leading voices on the left in the Seattle area and asked them to analyze this new situation and the strategies that flow from it. We edited this into our presentation, The Situation and Our Tasks. Interviewed for this piece: Aaron Dixon, Lynn Domingo, Sara VanGelder, Cecile Hansen, Erica Kay, Paul Loeb, Sylva Jones, Bill Moyer, Ricardo Ortega, Geov Parrish, James Rasmussen, Chanan Suarez-Diaz, and Joaquin Uy. What emerged is thoughtful and thought-provoking. Watch Video

CLAREMONT, California - Bill Ayers, professor of education and co-founder of the radical antiwar organization the Weather Underground--labeled "domestic terrorists" by the FBI--spoke to a crowd of about 300 this evening about activism, Obama, and education. Ayers' association with Obama was a point of controversy during the recent presidential campaign, and it was a topic he did not shy away from. A recurring theme of his talk was the importance of movements (in contrast with the common emphasis on leadership) in bringing about social change, and his exhortation was that we in the audience participate in those movements.
Full report: Radical Educator Bill Ayers speaks at Claremont Colleges by Rockero || Audio: The State of Democracy in America: A lecture on the election of President Obama and the importance of civil activism and education

The NorthEast Anarchist Network is endorsing the "Self Described Anarchist Collective" and Global Justice Action calls for a diversity of tactics, including direct action, to disrupt the Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, DC. Even in this era of uncontrolled economic retraction and collapse, the IMF and World Bank continue to reach for their misleading, self-proclaimed objective of "eradicating poverty", while paradoxically ignoring the needs of poor and indigenous communities.

The March 29th episode of the Third Paradigm radio program examines the revenue-raising "solutions" of the California Tax Reform conference that was held on March 19th at Cabrillo College with Bill Monning and Fred Keeley. It also projects the logical outcome of Obama's stimulus package, which takes on more debt to "free up" credit. But it first presents a hypothetical scenario of the year 2020 with employment security, cheap healthcare, housing work exchange, worry-free retirement, and as much free education as you want.

Don't forget this (other) great event this weekend. Thanks for the support....

For the past 30 years, anonymous members of the Animal Liberation Front have carried out over 1,000 covert actions around the world in the name of animal liberation. Working outside of the confines of the law, these activists achieve results not by traditional methods of leafleting and protesting, but by freeing animals from cages, disassembling machinery used in the exploitation of animals and destroying inhumane facilities used to house animals for commercial use. Peter Young is an animal rights activists and former animal liberation prisoner. Sentenced to 2 years in prison for the release and conspiracy to release thousands of mink from fur farms across the Midwest, Young brings life to stories of animal liberation, political repression and sacrifice in the name of animal liberation.

The Anatomy of High Impact Direct Action presentation featuring Peter Young will be held on March 29, 2009, at 2p.m. at Portland State University in Room 238 of the Smith Memorial Union Building. Admission is free.