Raoul Vaneigem: The decline and fall of work

The duty to produce alienates the passion for creation. Productive labour is part and parcel of the technology of law and order. The working day grows shorter as the empire of conditioning extends.

In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create. What spark of humanity, of a possible creativity, can remain alive in a being dragged out of sleep at six every morning, jolted about in suburban trains, deafened by the racket of machinery, bleached and steamed by meaningless sounds and gestures, spun dry by statistical controls, and tossed out at the end of the day into the entrance halls of railway stations, those cathedrals of departure for the hell of weekdays and the nugatory paradise of weekends, where the crowd communes in weariness and boredom? From adolescence to retirement each 24-hour cycle repeats the same shattering bombardment, like bullets hitting a window: mechanical repetition, time-which-is-money, submission to bosses, boredom, exhaustion. From the butchering of youth's energy to the gaping wound of old age, life cracks in every direction under the blows of forced labour. Never before has a civilization reached such a degree of contempt for life; never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live. The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry. Already the front against forced labour is being formed; its gestures of refusal are moulding the consciousness of the future. Every call for productivity in the conditions chosen by capitalist and Soviet economy is a call to slavery.

The necessity of production is so easily proved that any hack philosopher of industrialism can fill ten books with it. Unfortunately for these neo-economist thinkers, these proofs belong to the nineteenth century, a time when the misery of the working classes made the right to work the counterpart of the right to be a slave, claimed at the dawn of time by prisoners about to be massacred. Above all it was a question of surviving, of not disappearing physically. The imperatives of production are the imperatives of survival; from now on, people want to live, not just to survive.

Humor as a weapon of mass resistance

Humor As Weapon, Shield and Psychological Salve
By Nichole Force

Humor As Weapon, Shield and Psychological SalveHumor has long been recognized as more than mere fun and games. It presents an alternative means of expressing criticism about injustices, arrogance, pretentions or hypocrisies that can’t socially (or legally) be expressed otherwise.

Court jesters could say things to the royals “in jest” that others would have been beheaded for uttering. When King James I of England had trouble fattening up his horses, court jester Archibald Armstrong reportedly suggested that His Majesty make the horses bishops and they would fatten in no time.

[...]

An example of gallows humor can be seen in the Soviet-era joke in which two Russians debate who is greater, Joseph Stalin or Herbert Hoover. “Hoover taught the Americans not to drink,” says one. “Yes, but Stalin taught the Russians not to eat,” replies the other. Placing a comical spin on dire circumstances that are outside one’s control was an effective coping mechanism long before the Germans named the phenomenon, and continues to serve the oppressed, victimized and suffering today.

Gallows humor often is viewed as an expression of resilience and hope that has the power to soothe suffering. When the minority has few tools to combat an oppressive majority, gallows humor can be used as a sort of secret, subversive weapon. The danger that ridicule poses to those in power is captured by the Italian phrase Una risata vi seppellirà, which translates to “It will be a laugh that buries you.”

The fear of the weapon of humor was alive and well in Nazi Germany, and it was dangerous business. The legal code of the time reflected Joseph Goebbels’ interpretation of the political joke as “a remnant of liberalism” that threatened the Nazi state. Not only was joke-telling made illegal, but those who told jokes were labeled “asocial” – a segment of society frequently sent to concentration camps. Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Goering, referred to anti-Nazi humor as “an act against the will of the Fuehrer… and against the State and the Nazi Government,” and the crime was punishable by death. Article III, section 2 of the 1941 code (the Reichsgesetzblatt I) stated: “In cases where it is not specifically provided for, the death penalty will be imposed whenever the crime reveals an unusually low mentality or is especially serious for other reasons; in such cases the death penalty may also be imposed against juvenile criminals.” Since Nazi informants could be within earshot at any given moment, it was important to hold one’s tongue and suppress any witty desires. A Nazi prosecutor revealed that he determined the severity of punishment for a joke based on the following theory: “The better the joke, the more dangerous its effect, therefore, the greater punishment.”

~ more... ~

Tactics That Tickle: Laughing All the Way to the Win
“Because, after all, isn't laughing the best way to show teeth that bite?” – Philippe Duhamel

Ridiculing Politicians Is Always Good. Especially The Ones In Government
R.F. Wilson writes: Let’s face it, very few people have a high opinion of politicians. They view them as unreliable, deceiving, pompous and self-centred and believe that the vast mjority of them aren’t capable of doing anything. And it’s not a secret that most folks are of the opinion that the ‘servants of the people’ should be under constant watch by the public and the media and that they should be ridiculed by comedians the moment they sweep in to power.

Ridicule: An instrument in the war on terrorism - Public Diplomacy White Paper No. 7
Ridicule is an under-appreciated weapon not only against terrorists, but against weapons proliferators, despots, and international undesirables in general.

Laughter as a weapon
Jokes have power – but too often those who wield it, abuse it

QuotationsBook.com
"Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least." ~ Twain, Mark

Arab comics find laughter the best weapon in war on prejudice
The comedian Maysoon Zayid introduces her act by declaring she is a Palestinian Muslim virgin with cerebral palsy, adding: "I just want you guys to know I am a virgin by choice … and that is my father's choice.
"My father has spent the majority of my life terrified that I will accidentally lose my virginity so there's a list of activities I am not allowed to do: there is to be no horseback riding, not even on a carousel."

About The Army
Roll up, roll up - ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and foes - welcome to the unparalleled, the unexpected, the perfectly paradoxical, the grotesquely beautiful, the new-fangled world of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA).

On the Death of a Politician - (2009) - Hilaire Belloc
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept : for I had longed to see him hanged.

Chris Hedges - "Nonviolent Citizen Resistance to War and Global Climate Change"

Film by Eugene Taylor and Abraham Krikorian (Conscience Films - non-profit) of Chris Hedges' talk at Hofstra University on October 3, 2011 - International Day of Non-Violence. Sponsored by Hofstra University's Departments of Economics, History and Sociology and The Center for Civic Engagement and the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives.Total running time 1 hr 11 min.

Teratocracy Rises

...I've been following indications for awhile that democracy as practiced in the post-industrial world is increasingly under threat; in February of this year, I wrote a piece ("Fear of Teratocracy") that explored the increasing attacks not just on the policies of leaders, but the on very legitimacy of leaders. In this world, it's not enough to say that your opponent is wrong, you have to say that your opponent simply has no right to lead. As democracy depends on the losers stepping aside gracefully as much as the winners ruling fairly, I tried to be clear in saying that attacks on the legitimacy of opponents were implicit attacks on democracy itself...

Why Occupy? David Suzuki Occupy Vancouver Oct 2011

David Suzuki speaks at Occupy Vancouver with Details to substantiate the atrocities subjected by the 99% by the 1%.

http://kim-hunter.blogspot.com/

From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere

The Occupy Wall Street movement - the story has moved on, but can the media keep up?

Marshall McLuhan in Conversation with Mike McManus

In one of the few interviews that Marshall McLuhan granted before his death in 1980, he talks to TVO host Mike McManus about modern regionalism and separatism, nostalgia, violence and identity, television as an addictive tranquillizer, propaganda and his reasons for becoming a Roman Catholic.

F*ck You Pentagon March Flyer

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Anti-War Demonstrators Storm Pentagon 1967/10/24

Mass protest against Vietnam war in Washington DC, on mall, across Potomac river to Pentagon, MPs with bayonets emerge from Pentagon, tear gas used, next day camp fires burn on the 2nd day of sitting-in

RIOT DOG - UNLEASH THE BEAST!!!

Tribute to Loukanikos aka Riot Dog, whose name derives from λουκάνικο (loukaniko - Greek for sausage), a dog that has been present at nearly every protest in downtown Athens in the past few years. The stray has become the symbol of the Greek protests against the IMF and the EU backed austerity measures that are taking place in 2011

One Of The Realest videos Message To Humanity - The Time is Now.

A revolution is coming to America.. Not Just America but the World, people are waking up and finally realising how the world works and that their rights as free human beings are slowly being taken away from them.. The 99% are rising up!

Real Democracy NOW- Oslo

Theres now a platform to speak out every saturday , We are the 99 percent, hear the people not the money.!

Law Bans Cash for Second Hand Transactions in Louisiana - Bill 195 - bye bye America

AMTV: The Message (Worldwide Revolution)

WE ARE REVOLUTION! Worldwide Uprising!

People are rising up all over the globe... its a Worldwide Revolution!!!!

The Tragic Tale of the Rocket Maker

He was an acolyte of Aleister Crowley, an employee of Howard Hughes, a victim of L. Ron Hubbard, and an enthusiastic phone buddy to Wernher Von Braun.

"...In one of the most celebrated feats in magickal history, Parsons and pre-Dianetics L. Ron Hubbard…performed The Babalon Working, a daring attempt to shatter the boundaries of time and space and intended to bring about, in Parsons own words, “love, understanding, and Dionysian freedom…the necessary counterbalance or correspondence to the manifestation of Horus”…Babalon, a Thelemic counterpart of Kali or Isis, was described by Parsons as “black, murderous and horrible, but Her hand is uplifted in blessing and reassurance: the reconciliation of opposites, the apotheosis of the impossible.” The impossible was precisely what Jack Parsons, the scientific sorcerer, had in mind.” (Richard Metzger)

Simultaneous with his more material scientific pursuits, he also tried with painstaking ritual — but apparently failed — to create a “Moon Child,” a magic being conjured via mystic ritual who would usher in a new age of unfettered liberty and signal the end of the Christian era and its outmoded morality. (Reason)..."

Outpost 13: The Atrocity Exhibition

"Eurydice in a Used Car Lot. Margaret Travis paused in the empty foyer of the cinema, looking at the photographs in the display frames. In the dim light beyond the curtains she saw the dark-suited figure of Captain Webster, the muffled velvet veiling his handsome eyes. The last few weeks had been a nightmare - Webster with his long-range camera and obscene questions. He seemed to take a certain sardonic pleasure in compiling this one-man Kinsey Report on her . . . positions, planes, where and when Travis placed his hands on her body - why didn’t he ask Catherine Austin? As for wanting to magnify the photographs and paste them up on enormous billboards, ostensibly to save her from Travis . . . She glanced at the stills in the display frames, of this elegant and poetic film in which Cocteau had brought together all the myths of his own journey of return. On an impulse, to annoy Webster, she stepped through the side exit and walked past a small yard of cars with numbered windshields. Perhaps she would make her descent here. Eurydice in a used car lot?"

J.G. Ballard, Chapter One: 'The Atrocity Exhibition', The Atrocity Exhibition (1970).

Outpost 13: The Atrocity Exhibition from Ballardian on Vimeo.

An excerpt from Outpost 13's adaptation of JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. Uploaded with permission from the filmmakers. More information at ballardian.com/​outpost-13-atrocity-exhibition.

Presenting ‘Outpost 13: The Atrocity Exhibition’, a video directed by Mark C and produced by Outpost 13: Stuart Argabright, Mark C and Kent Heine. The full 35-minute film is based on J.G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, and is part of a performance piece that debuted in Porto, Portugal at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, with o13 performing the soundtrack live.

Narration from Ballard’s text by David Silver with Jen Jaffe and Esther Ahn. Images by Robert Longo, Adrienne Altenhaus and others.

Outpost 13:

Mark C: guitar, synthesizers, vocals

Stuart Argabright: synthesizers, laptop, vocals

Kent Heine: bass

"The Concentration City. In the night air they passed the shells of concrete towers, blockhouses half buried in rubble, giant conduits filled with tyres, overhead causeways crossing broken roads. Travis followed the bomber pilot and the young woman along the faded gravel. They walked across the foundation of a guard-house into the weapons range. The concrete aisles stretched into the darkness across the airfield. In the suburbs of Hell Travis walked in the flaring light of the petrochemical plants. The ruins of abandoned cinemas stood at the street corners, faded billboards facing them across the empty streets. In a waste lot of wrecked cars he found the burnt body of the white Pontiac. He wandered through the deserted suburbs. The crashed bombers lay under the trees, grass growing through their wings. The bomber pilot helped the young woman into one of the cockpits. Travis began to mark out a circle on the concrete target area."

J.G. Ballard, Chapter One: 'The Atrocity Exhibition', The Atrocity Exhibition (1970).

Massachusetts Supreme Court Voids Most Foreclosure Sales from Past 5 Years

On Oct. 18th, 2011 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down their decision in the Francis J. Bevilacqua, III vs. Pablo Rodriguez – and in a moment, essentially made foreclosure sales in the commonwealth over the last five years wholly void. However, some of the more polite headlines, undoubtedly in the interest of not causing wide spread panic simply put it “SJC puts foreclosure sales in doubt” or “Buyer Can’t Sue After Bad Foreclosure Sale“

In essence, the ruling upheld that those who had purchased foreclosure properties that had been illegally foreclosed upon (which is virtually all foreclosure sales in the last five years), did not in fact have title to those properties.

Yemeni Journalists Targeted by Regime

Exiled journalist describes the threats and intimidation directed against the local press.

Nasik Dhol Shiva Trance Remix High Quality HQ

The Revolution Is Televised, But You Are Not Watching

The Revolution Has Already Begun, but you stayed home brother

You are not watching it on tv, because you do not know what channel it is on

You are watching nascar, and vampires and crime procedurals

You are watching snookie and suze orman and bloomberg

You would rather be voting on American idol and x factor.

The revolution is televised, but you are not watching

The revolution is taking place right now, brother.

It is happening in the streets of Greece,

Where the World Bank and the European Central Bank

Are demanding as "some sensible austerity measures"

A more radical deconstruction of a socialist government

Than Ron Paul and the Tea Party could ever hope for.

The revolution is televised, but you are not watching

The revolution is brought to you by Adbusters from Canada

Who printed some high-art posters for a publicity stunt

With a dancer on the brass bull, called Occupy Wallstreet,

But then the Canadians were surprised when the

Real revolutionaries showed up and wanted to actually protest.

The revolution is not a publicity stunt for anyone.

The revolution is not going to have Walter Cronkite or Tom Brokaw

as the commentator, telling you what it means to you.

It took to long to come, Walter is Dead, and Tom is Retired.

The revolution is televised, but you are not watching

Anderson Cooper doesn't know what it means.

Glen Beck doesn't know what it means.

MSNBC and Fox and CNN will ask the man in the street

Because that's the best they can do, and they will still not understand.

You will be more likely to get an explanation of the revolution

From John Stewart or even Joel McHale, if you are even watching.

The revolution will take place in locations you cannot locate on a map.

It is taking place in the Wisconsin statehouse, and in Tunisia.

It is taking place in Egypt, in Libya, and Zuccotti Park.

It is taking place in Iceland and Ireland, and the Security Council.

There will not common theme and coherent plot line.

There will not be a explanation of the mysteries at the end of each episode. There will not be a big reveal at the end of the season.

The revolution is televised, but you are not watching

The revolutionaries are calling for the dismantling of government

The revolutionaries are calling for the dismantling of globalization

The revolutionaries watched too damn much sesame street, and are calling for the dismantling of everything that begins with the letter "G."

The revolutionaries want us to return to an 18th century ideal that has

Been re-discovered in histories written by a wealthy dead white 1%.

Because in the 18th century, the 99% were illiterate and actually worse off

than they are now, but the revolutionaries do not remember that.

The revolution is televised, but you are not watching

The revolution will not be islamist, or capitalist, or socialist, or progressive,

or any kind of "ist" or "ism" except perhaps for anarchist.

The revolution is opposed to everything the revolutionaries hold dear.

The revolution is against government regulation.

The revolution is against cheap global credit.

The revolution is against taxation of any kind.

The revolution is against cheap globally produced goods.

The revolution is against government services

The revolution is against corporations

The revolution is televised, is televised, IS TELEVISED,

But you are not watching

Song anthem for Occupy

Nena 99 red balloons for the 99% 

Nena 99 Luftballons Live 2003 (german english)

Squashing Uprisings, Mercenaries Could Create a New Wave of Control

Eric Prince, the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater, is making headlines again, this time with his training of a mercenary unit in the United Arab Emirates.

Greece Strikes, the People Rise, Global Economy Teeters

Everyone knew it was a losing battle, but everyone showed up anyway. In an uprising virtually unprecedented in its size, scope and diversity, malcontents united across Greece to push back against the government’s assault on working people.

After the Global Day, Go to a Global Week for the Financial Alternatives! Minutes of the IX Squares Meeting

The 5th. of NoVember will be signed with a V as Vendetta

Anonymous - #OpCashBack - November 5th

If you dont trust any credit union, just let your old bank account active and try to get as much hardcash as you can. Fiat money is worthless for merchant banks, because if they need it they just create it, but if they loose their reserves of hard cash they may even could become bankrupt.

Bank Transfer Day Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Nov.Fifth

Greetings, We are Anonymous.

Over the past month, we have witnessed the Occupy protests grow to unbelievable strengths. 82 countries and 1000 cities are currently joining in the Occupy movement. Occupy Wall Street is currently heading into its 30th day of protest and is showing little signs of stopping.

This November the 5th, we invite you to join us, for Bank Transfer day.

We invite you to remove all funds from your bank account and transfer them to a not-for-profit credit union.

Together, we will show banks a day they will never forget.

They will remember, the 5th of November.

We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.

Peak (Oil) War by political means (16.10.2011.)

This is Democracy in Berlin! #OccupyBerlin

For a Balkan federation by Evel Economakis*

Abolishing the borders within the Balkans

In India, Whistle-Blowers Pay with Their Lives

The country’s Right to Information Act has had a powerful impact but has prompted a lethal backlash

Greek debt? We've seen it all before, Bavaria says

In 1849, patience with heavily indebted Greece began to run thin in the southern German Kingdom of Bavaria.

Peter Bane - How I'm Preparing for the Local Future: Permaculture

Permaculture - (n) agricultural system or method that seeks to integrate human activity with natural surroundings so as to create highly efficient self-sustaining ecosystems

Educator Peter Bane is preparing for the local future, beyond the global economy and after peak oil. Bane's talk is the story of the history of permaculture, and how he has used permaculture methods to move towards a self-sustaining homestead using free or low-cost techniques.

Peter Bane is the publisher of Permaculture Activist Magazine for 20 years. He is a garden farmer in Bloomington, Indiana. He teaches permaculture design for Indiana University. He has a bachelors from University in Illinois in political design. Bane has a diplomna in permaculture design from the British Academy of Permculture design. He served on the peak oil task force for the City of Bloomington, Indiana, which was adopted in 2009 December. Bane is currently working on a permaculture handbook for people who live in the suburbs.

In this talk, Bane describes, in his own words, how he is moving beyond the money economy, to providing his essential needs from his homestead, and how he is utilizing the principles of permaculture.

This talk immediately followed Nicole Foss's talk on how she prepared her family for peak oil and economic uncertainty.

Recorded at the International Conference on Sustainability: Energy, Economy, Environment 2010 hosted by Local Future and directed by Aaron Wissner.

http://sustainabilityconference.org

Scrunched-up dimensions untangled

British physicist Stephen Hawking may claim that extra dimensions provide the key to understanding the "grand design" of the universe, but it's Chinese-American mathematician Shing-Tung Yau who actually figured out how those extra dimensions work.

Universe submerged in a sea of chilled neutrinos

We are all submerged in a sea of almost undetectable particles left over from the first few seconds of the big bang, according to the latest observations from a NASA satellite.

Cointelpro, Provacateurs,Disinfo Agents

The challenges of managing mountains of information

If you think the storage systems in your data centers are out of control, imagine having 449 billion objects in your database, or having to add 40 terabytes of new data each week.

Karma - Ganesha (Trance Mix)

Musical Innerlube: Serj Tankian - The Unthinking Majority

Directed by Tawd Dorenfeld