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Pacifism as Pathology

Unist’ot’en Call To Action: Pipeline Construction Has Begun

The Unist’ot’en People Will Stop the Northern Gateway

ALERT, CALL FOR HELP

WKOG admin: Stop supporting the very organizations financed and dependent upon the very corporations and very system we claim to oppose. Stop supporting the appointed false prophets of privilege who have sold out our children and living ecosystems in exchange for 6-figure salaries, ego and celebrity. Start supporting real activism and the people on the front lines who refuse to bow down to power. These are the real heroes we so desperately need as we cross planetary tipping pints. If you cannot support real direct action physically, please send a donation. Even a small donation will help. 

Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century by Dr. Steve Best

“The act of reading not only dramatized existing reality; it nourished the urge to implement alternative forms of social organization. In societies that were colonized, formally or informally, even the most fanciful tale inspired acts of rebellion simply because the story lent imaginative autonomy to reality. Fiction became the tissue of revolutionary spirituality. In the Argentine writer Liliana Heker’s novel The End of the Story, a torturer complains to a leftist guerrilla he has captured: “In every house we go into—Do you know what we find there? Books, thousands of books. You’d have to be Superman to classify them, to find out what those books did to you, why they messed up your brains like that.” The inseparability of books and revolution is axiomatic; no insurgent cell was complete without its manifesto—or its library.” Not Reading

Dr. Steve Best

Jan 28, 2014

A new publication by Dr. Steven Best: This concise, jargon-free, and highly readable work is soon to be published in three different languages: first, next month, in German, by Echo Verlag publishers; second, by mid-year, in Italian, by Ortica Editrice; and third, in English toward the end of 2014, by the major American academic press, Palgrave-MacMillan.

Below is the Table of Contents and the Introduction to the work. Please look for the book soon in German, Italian, or English versions. Other translated editions of the book will hopefully be available in the near future.

http://drstevebest.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/image.jpg

Publication: Communications in Conflict

“As an introduction to the topic of netwar, Communications in Conflict is uniquely suited to serve as a touchstone for those who, like the Zapatista of Chiapas, Mexico, realize the connection between intelligent communications and networked power.”

 

A Project of Intercontinental Cry and Public Good Project under the Creative Direction of Wrong Kind of Green.

In Communications in Conflict, IC Editorial Advisor and Columnist Jay Taber describes the effective communications devices used in netwar, revealing a communications strategy that works. Through interviews, research and analysis over the course of two decades, he conveys lessons from which anyone committed to human rights and Indigenous rights struggles, can benefit.

Link for download: http://intercontinentalcry.org/publications/communications-in-conflict/

Communications-in-Conflict-

 

A Critical Assessment of Idle No More

A Critical Assessment of Idle No More

 Lerat Wendy Lynn

Wendy Lynn Lerat

 

Good evening good people

With all due respect to the opinions expressed here I am in agreement with much of the posts I have read of Ian’s over the past few days. I am encouraged to see that finally there is a growing awareness of the need to challenge the INM ‘movement’ and I would like to state that not only must the position be challenged the significant risk its position places on the true grassroots’ movement be exposed.

Neocolonialism is the growing middle class movement that is spreading across the world. It self-identifies wherever it is as a grassroots activist movement yet it is dominated by individuals who are not grassroot activists. The black grassroots activism in the US is experiencing what is currently overtaking indigenous grassroots activism here – both ‘movements’ propagate the idea that the crisis can be ‘fixed’ within the current system and social order. As a result, both maintain the status quo and the current class system.

“Green Hill: A Story of Freedom” — Excerpt From a New Documentary

June 5, 2013

by Dr Steve Best

WKOG editor: Yes, Virginia, there are legitimate direct actions that actually achieve the stated goal …

On April 28 2012, in Montichiari Italy, at 16: 15, in broad daylight, amidst a crowd of over 1,000 protestors, animal activists broke into the compound of Green Hill laboratory animal breeders and liberated 27 beagles. It was a bold, brazen, defiant, and iconic act of defiance, resistance, and liberation. Soon after, the Green Hill compound was closed and hundreds of beagles were adopted to loving homes.

Essential Summer Reading | Underminers: A Practical Guide for Radical Change

underminers1

Industrial Civilization is likely to be the last great empire humanity will ever see. If it is allowed to continue in its ravenous way then there is no future for humanity, for the natural systems and processes that allow humans to exist on Earth are the very things that Industrial Civilization is destroying. In fact, no form of civilization has ever been sustainable nor ever will be. In order for humanity to continue on Earth then civilization has to stop, and people allowed to return to a way of living that is connected to the real world.

Keystone XL: The Art of NGO Discourse | Part I

Keystone XL: The Art of NGO Discourse | Part I

Counterpunch

April 12, 2013

Part one of an investigative report by Cory Morningstar

Keystone XL Investigative Report Series [Further Reading]: Part IPart IIPart IIIPart IV

Tar Sands Action & the Paralysis of a Movement – Investigative Report Series [Further Reading, September, 2011]: Part I Part II  [Obedience – A New Requirement for the “Revolution”] Part III [ Unravelling the Deception of a False Movement]

Gloat Like Rockefeller When Watching Trains

 

“Buffett Says Gloat Like Rockefeller When Watching Train”  – March 5, 2013

 

On Nov 3, 2009, Berkshire Hathaway, the investment vehicle of Warren Buffett, announced its plan to purchase the 77.4 percent of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) that it did not already own for $26 billion in cash and stock – the largest deal in Berkshire history. The deal, which included Berkshire’s prior investment and the assumption of $10 billion in Burlington Northern debt, brought the total value to $44 billion. Buffett remarked it was a big bet on the United States.

It was TO be a bet that both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, would ensure he DID not lose.

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett

On Defenders of the Land, Patriarchy and Pacifism

Viet Cong Womyn Warrior

April 1, 2013

 

Firstly, sorry for the long gap between updates. i have been out of the country for almost a week now and before that was busy moving, so i have not had much time or ability to put up new articles. In this time though i have been thinking on many things, and discussing them with comrads. One particular topic that has stuck out has been the recent joint call for a “Sovereignty Summer” by the petty bourgeois, reformist, academic/professional “official leadership” of IdleNoMore and the ostensibly grassroots onkwehón:we organization Defenders of the Land.

Capitalising On Nonviolence

Capitalising On Nonviolence

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Above image: March 3, 2013: Otpor/Canvas (fist symbol) rears its ugly head in Venezuela. Today’s youth are the oligarchy’s sacrificial lambs.

Massive displays of nonviolent resistance have always been an essential component to challenging oppression successfully. One can only hope that Western citizens will learn from contemporary history and rise up to overthrow the ultra-violent warmongers who manage their countries too, mindful of the fact that nonviolent liberal institutions are routinely complicit in the brutality of the systems they ostensibly criticize. – Michael Barker

Swans Commentary

June 20, 2011

By Michael Barker

Berel Rodal is the founding vice chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) — a center that was formed in 2006, ostensibly “as a catalyst to stimulate interest in nonviolent conflict…” Like many peace reformers, members of the ICNC’s cadre of intellectuals are happy to work with a wide variety of institutions, organizations, and groups. This includes peace groups, resistance movements, and — strangely — war academies and intelligence agencies. While their engagement with the latter groups may seem contradictory, teaching peace to leading members of the military-industrial complex is critical to peace advocacy efforts at the ICNC. This is because they aim to change the views of people they disagree with, not just confirm the ideas of those who are already close to their views. Therefore, in this respect, it is fitting that at the peak of his former career Berel Rodal served as the director general of the policy secretariat for Canada’s Department of National Defence and continues to maintain close connections to leading hawks in the US foreign policymaking circles, like, for example, long-time cold warrior Richard Perle (see later). This should not be taken as a demonstration of a massive conspiracy, but is simply evidence that imperial elites are interested in co-opting critical voices.

[No Logo?] Perils of the Keystone XL Pipeline Confront Obama by Ralph Nader

forward climate3obama3obama-hi-res-logo-capsobama2forward climate 350.orgforwardforward climate black

‘Forward on Climate’ images in above Obama logo montage (found on Greenpeace and 350.org websites). ForwardOnClimate.org (Feb 17, 2013 rally) was presented by 135 different organizations and their members, including 350.org, the Sierra Club, the Hip Hop Caucus, Greenpeace, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Green For All and Forecast the Facts.

Above: What ever happened to No Logo? One may wish to ask 350.org’s Naomi Klein why brand recognition is so important to corporate power. In her book No Logo, Klein described branding as a “fetish strategy”.

Iconic brands are defined as having aspects that contribute to consumer’s self-expression and personal identity. Brands whose value to consumers comes primarily from having identity value are said to be “identity brands”. Some of these brands have such a strong identity that they become more or less cultural icons which makes them “iconic brands”. Many iconic brands include almost ritual-like behaviour in purchasing or consuming the products.

There are four key elements to creating iconic brands (Holt 2004):

  1. “Necessary conditions” – The performance of the product must at least be acceptable, preferably with a reputation of having good quality.
  2. “Myth-making” – A meaningful storytelling fabricated by cultural insiders. These must be seen as legitimate and respected by consumers for stories to be accepted.
  3. “Cultural contradictions” – Some kind of mismatch between prevailing ideology and emergent undercurrents in society. In other words a difference with the way consumers are and how they wish they were.
  4. “The cultural brand management process” – Actively engaging in the myth-making process in making sure the brand maintains its position as an icon. [Source: Wikipedia]

WKOGFeb13

The Nader Page

by RALPH NADER

Feb 21, 2013

Bill McKibben, a prolific writer and organizer on global warming and climate change, has had a busy year teaching environmentalists not to despair and will soon be learning some lessons himself.