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The fork in the road ahead. From Adbusters Blog Dear occupiers, jammers, dreamers, Three years after the May 1968 uprising that swept the world, the great French philosopher Michel Foucault observed that a key strategy of power is to “appear inaccessible to events.” Power, Foucault argued with a nod towards 1968’s failed insurrection, acts to “dispel the shock of daily occurrences, to dissolve the event … to exclude the radical break introduced by events.” Forty years later, in light of Occupy, Foucault’s observation still strikes home. Despite achieving the impossible at unprecedented speed – sparking a global awakening, triggering a thousand people’s assemblies worldwide, and giving birth to a visceral anti-corporate, pro-democracy spiritual insurrection – Occupy is now struggling through an existential moment. Our movement has been dealt a blow: our May 1 and follow-up events have been dissolved by power; the status quo has shown itself to be far more resilient than many of us... - Adbusters Magazine

Video: What it was like to be there. From Adbusters Blog “Within five minutes into the march, we were met with a line of riot police blocking the street in front of us and the right, and all of them had batons in hand. The front of the march took off to the left in a frantic sprint and everyone followed. This set the tone for the rest of the night, as we continued to try to out maneuver the police as we were trapped several times, and continually threatened with the stalking presence of riot police and mounted police officers. At one point to escape being kettled, we ran across the corner of a small garden then through a parking lot. Never did we feel comfortable, tension and stress were consistently present, and the hot summer-like temperatures weren’t helping our endurance. Even when we were allowed (practically forced) to travel down certain streets due to blockades we were constantly surrounded and trapped at any given moment making an emergency escape for anyone impossible in... - Adbusters Magazine

Must see video - needs no words! From Adbusters Blog The global Occupy movement is undergoing a period of sustained tactical innovation. In the U.S. occupiers are experimenting with new techniques of nonviolent protest inspired by the Black Bloc. In Quebec, we are testing whether a sustained student uprising against fee hikes can spark a broad base anti-capitalist insurrection. In Spain, the indignados are imagining new ways of holding people’s assemblies without permanent encampments in the squares. And perhaps the most important tactical breakthrough has come from Germany where last week 25,000 occupiers took the streets for Blockupy, three days of visceral protest against capitalism and the logic of austerity. The beauty of Blockupy is that it combined three tactics into one powerful event in Frankfurt’s financial district: Occupy, Blockade, Demonstrate. One organizer explained that the goal was to transcend a narrow critique of the financial industry by broadening the movement’s... - Adbusters Magazine

Tactical briefing #33. From Adbusters Blog Hey all you believers in a new world out there, May Day wasn’t so great was it… the numbers were low, the maxims weren’t sublime, the excitement didn’t catch on. May 12 was hefty in Europe, reigniting the snuffed Indignados, but the energy did not seem to flow over to here. Now we’re looking at May 18 ~ 21 when protesters, possibly in Arab Spring numbers, swarm Chicago… Security experts say it will be a challenge the likes of which no American city has had to face – a leaderless, all-consuming non-violent swarm. If we can pull it off in the fierce tradition of Gandhi and MLK, the next few days could become the spark, the eruption, the new spiritual home of our Spring offensive. On a softer, more aesthetic note, the likelihood of a global #LAUGHRIOT starting May 18 feels especially fresh and new … imagine … the globalization of laughter … millions of people around the world decide to take a few minutes off from their usual routines, get... - Adbusters Magazine

Indignados Ignite! From Adbusters Blog One year after the Spanish M15 movement inspired the world with their peaceful city-square occupations, millions have flooded the Spanish streets again. Their message: we’re still there, and more powerful than ever. URL: http://roarmag.org/2012... - Adbusters Magazine

We innovate spontaneously - we play jazz. From Adbusters Blog Hey you nimble dreamers, occupiers, believers, Last May 15, a hundred thousand indignados in Spain seized the squares across their nation, held people’s assemblies and catalyzed a global tactical shift that birthed Occupy Wall Street four months later. Our movement outflanked governments everywhere with a thousand encampments in large part because no one was prepared for Occupy’s magic combination of Spain’s transparent consensus-based acampadas with the Tahrir-model of indefinite occupation of symbolic space. Now exactly a year later, a big question mark hangs over our movement because it is clear that the same tactics may never work again. Spring re-occupations have largely failed here in North America. The May Day General Strike was stifled by aggressive, preemptive policing that neutralized Occupy’s signature moves. In light of these challenges, Saturday’s May 12 rebirth of the indignados could be a tactical turning... - Adbusters Magazine

To create is to resist, to resist is to create. From Adbusters Blog Last year I came across a small booklet in my local book store. At just 37 pages long, I purchased the English translation of Indignez-vous (Time for outrage) by Stephane Hessel. It didn’t take me long to read it but the impact lasted a lot longer than the 37 pages. A year after buying a copy Indignez-vous, France voted Sarkozy out of office and opted for a socialist direction in the form of François Hollande. On election night I went back to that little but fierce booklet and read it again as the results came in on TV. Stephane Hessel is a 94 year old resistance veteran. He wrote his essay in order to resurrect the resistance sprit of modern youth not only in France but across Europe. In the French presidential election the majority of French youth backed a socialist candidate and perhaps this is a sign that the resistance sprit has indeed emerged once again in France. While Occupy movements sprung up across the... - Adbusters Magazine

Round 7 - The Black Bloc Anarchist Turn. From Adbusters Blog Occupy’s May Day General Strike was a surprising and bold success for the visceral side of the movement. While most of Occupy put its energy into building coalitions with “legacy progressive groups”, labor unions and immigrant rights organizations, these efforts did not yield the anticipated results. In New York, for example, despite amassing a coalition of over a hundred organizations and rallying a crowd of more than 30,000, occupiers were thwarted in their attempts to shut down banks or re-occupy Wall Street. And some Zuccottis have complained that union representatives actively blocked an attempt to lead the crowd toward direct action at the end of the night. Meanwhile in Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, New Orleans and elsewhere, anarchists using Black Bloc tactics stole the show. On websites and forums, anarchists are rejoicing the spectacular showing of Black Bloc. “American anarchists haven’t experienced this much... - Adbusters Magazine

Three challenges Occupy must overcome. From Adbusters Blog Hey you nimble dreamers, believers and jammer tacticians out there, Our movement has reemerged from winter hibernation to find that this spring we are different but so too is the political and tactical situation. Occupy now faces a series of existential challenges that will define the month of May and set the tone for our long-term future. #1 challenge: Jump over the corporate media It took the New York Times two weeks last year to wake up to the insurrection percolating in their own backyard. This May Day, we saw an insidious attempt to ignore and discredit us right across the mainstream media. Time to jam the corpo-commercial lie machine and shift the way information flows and meaning is produced. Here is occupier Charles Young’s take on the blackout: “I know. It’s just a coincidence. Or conspiracy theory. The .01% who rule the United States would never stoop to such stunts to knock Occupy Wall Street off the front page and... - Adbusters Magazine

Occupy reemerges with festive, righteous anger. From Adbusters Blog Across the world, Occupy celebrated our reemergence with a bold May Day General Strike. It was a day of tactical innovation and experimentation that sets the tone for the month ahead. Three tactics, in particular, gained prominence: agitating rank-and-file workers and radicalizing unions; deploying temporary, pop-up encampments instead of permanent occupations; and the growing black bloc presence. Over 30,000 occupiers marched in New York with strong union presence while in San Francisco workers disrupted ferry service. In London, occupiers set up tents outside the stock exchange. Meanwhile, in Seattle and Oakland, some militant occupiers embraced black bloc tactics of civil disobedience and property destruction. Overall, the day felt to many like a dress rehearsal for the future. As we move towards May 12, May 18 and May 20, we must, in the words of founding Zuccotti Marisa Holmes, “not just replicate and mimic what... - Adbusters Magazine

Or to put it another way – what’s wrong with the world? From Adbusters Blog Why are we striking? Or to put it another way – what’s wrong with the world? Of course, most of us know what’s wrong with the world. We know about the poverty, war, violence and disease. We’re conscious of the injustice, but not fully conscious of it, because frankly, we have enough to worry about in our own lives. As such, we’ve come to accept these injustices as simple facts of life – prepackaged side effects of the human condition, as natural and intertwined with our existence as water to a stream, beyond our capacity to effect in any significant way. This collective sense of powerlessness and default apathy is why we’re striking. Our growing sense of isolation and disconnection, whether from ourselves, from those next door to us, or from those producing our food and products halfway across the globe, is why we’re striking. Our forced support of perpetual war waged for and by the 1% - whether explicitly... - Adbusters Magazine

Tactical Briefing #30. From Adbusters Blog Hey you dreamers, strikers and new left redeemers out there, For thirty-one magical days beginning this Tuesday, May 1, we take the plunge and Strike! We block the Golden Gate Bridge; occupy a Manhattan-bound tunnel; seize the ports. In 115 cities, we march into banks, erect tents and refuse to leave. We disrupt financial institutions forcing thousands to preemptively close. Five thousand of us pray, dance, sleep on Wall Street and in front of the Fed and if the Bloombergs of the world bring out paramilitary police to intimidate us, we use our social media fire to call out 50,000 more occupiers. In the week before the G8 and NATO summits, we light the spark globally. We occupy hundreds of squares in cities on every continent – from Paris to Berlin, Toronto to Athens, São Paulo to Bucharest and beyond – we up the ante with direct actions that paralyze capitalism. For a few days, maybe for a full month, we act as if we already live in a world... - Adbusters Magazine

Round #6 - A left hook! From Adbusters Blog Occupy will come out swinging May 1 with a General Strike in 115 cities … A month of visceral nonviolent actions will follow. We will flex our tactical muscles, dream of a new world order and #playjazz like never before. From Slavoj Žižek in today’s Guardian: “The protesters should beware not only of enemies, but also of false friends who pretend to support them, but are already working hard to dilute the protest. In the same way we get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice-cream without fat, they will try to make the protests into a harmless moralistic gesture.” The clicktivists at MoveOn are channeling Occupy’s intensity into legal, symbolic rallies that bolster Democratic Party campaign promises. Check out the 80 organizations backing MoveOn’s 99% Spring: most of them are the same old lefty cabal that’s ruled over and stifled the political left for the last 20 years. But there are also some flowers among the vegetables … and... - Adbusters Magazine

Round #5 - Will MoveOn knock us out? From Adbusters Blog As we prepare for the May uprising, two power centers of our movement have announced plans for a spectacular bi-coastal May 1st bridge blockade. On the West Coast, Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco are planning rush hour disruptions on the Golden Gate Bridge while in New York City, occupiers say they will block one or more Manhattan-bound bridges. These acts of nonviolent direct action will set the tactical tone for the next phase of Occupy: they signal the turn towards Strike actions aimed at disrupting the flow of money. And, on a deeper level, these blockades come at a pivotal moment for Occupy as the movement grapples with a battle for its soul. The question many occupiers are debating is whether the spirit and voice of Occupy will stay with the new left horizontals who launched the uprising or whether it will move towards MoveOn’s 99% Spring, and their old left buddies at The Nation magazine, Ben & Jerry’s, et al. For... - Adbusters Magazine

The Nation Magazine wins Round #4. From Adbusters Blog “Boots. Check. Gas mask. Yup. Black pants. Got it. Water bottle and Bandana. Tent. okay. People’s Library. Sounds good. Solidarity.” “Will that be all?” “Oh yes, and one revolution please.” “And how will you be paying for that? Cash or credit?” “Credit.” As occupiers across the world prepare for a May uprising, The Nation magazine has some advice for what the movement should do next. “Show your support today for Occupy Wall Street’s Move Your Money Relay by applying for The Nation Magazine Platinum Visa® Rewards Card!” writes Associate Publisher Peggy Randall. We hear some 99% Spring occupiers are even rushing out now to get their Nation credit card in time for the May Day General Strike. With this kind of boost, we’re sure to succeed. - Adbusters Magazine

Round #3. From Adbusters Blog In this Al Jazeera video a profound discussion emerges over the question of how Occupy should deal with the 99% Spring movement. Can we co-opt the co-opters? Should we simply ignore the 99% Spring? Or do we need a more visceral response? Watch the video and let’s discuss how Occupy can win the battle for the soul of our movement. - Adbusters Magazine

Spanish translation by Bill McKibben From Adbusters #90: Whole Brain Catalog Photo by Christophe Kutner, Party Monster 1, 2009 This article is available in: English Spanish Tu mente, un claro arroyo en una montaña que discurre borboteante entre las rocas. Hasta que Pepsi se levanta, revela su presupuesto en publicidadde miles de millones, y se mea en él, manchándolo para siempre de marrón. Tu cerebro, un bosque viejo que verdea, hasta que muere la muerte de mil logos. Tu alma, llena del fresco aire cristalino de las primeras horas de la mañana, hasta que Philip Morris le sopla una nube de su humo seductor. No. El ambientalismo mental podrá ser la noción más importante de este nuevo siglo, pero la única manera de empezar esta discusión es admitir que la analogía no es precisa. Sea cuál sea el medio ambiente mental, no es un impecable paisaje natural libre de personas. No es el Refugio Nacional para la Vida Silvestre Ártica, ni la biósfera antártica. No, el medio ambiente mental lo ha... - Adbusters Magazine

Round #2. From Adbusters Blog Last weekend, tens of thousands of activists participated in training workshops put together by the 99% Spring, a project of MoveOn.org and several other organizations that purports to move away from clicktivism toward fomenting “non-violent direct action”–aiming to transform America in the process. “Change happens,” say actors Olivia Wilde and Penn Badgley, in a video created for the organization, “because people put their beliefs and bodies on the line.” They go on to reference civil rights activism, and the video cuts to crowds of peaceful protestors. Some journalists and news outlets have praised this supposed shift, claiming its goal is to recruit a broad base of regular Joes and Janes, and ally them with the Occupy movement. Others warned, as early as March, that the 99% Spring’s links to MoveOn.org meant that it would be a veiled Obama re-election campaign (making the movement’s nod to the Arab Spring bitterly ironic, as the US is a major supplier... - Adbusters Magazine

Why do we have a general feeling of powerlessness? by Simon Critchley From Adbusters #101: Regime Change CELSA DOCKSTADER The celebrated Anglo-Polish social theorist Zygmunt Bauman captures the mood of today with the following story: Imagine you are on an airplane, up there in the sky. You could be reading, drinking, sleeping, playing video games, anticipating a romantic meeting or an arduous work schedule of meetings and talks, or maybe a pleasant vacation... you know how it is on a plane. Then a nice voice, a soft reassuring voice, a well-educated and welcoming voice makes an announcement, but it’s a recorded message, recorded some time ago, telling you that there is no one flying the plane, the cockpit is completely empty. Flight attendants still mill around with drinks, but you have to pay for them. You only have a credit card and they only take cash. You begin to get thirsty and slightly anxious. You start licking your lips in fear. The announcement reassures you that there’s an... - Adbusters Magazine

Jump, jump, jump over the dead body of the old left! From Adbusters Blog Alright you jammers, occupiers and Springtime dreamers, First they silenced our uprising with a media blackout… then they smashed our encampments with midnight paramilitary raids… and now they’re threatening to neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money and co-optation. This counter-strategy worked to kill off the Tea Party’s outrage and turn it into a puppet of the Republican Party. Will the same happen with Occupy Wall Street? Will our insurgency turn into the Democrats’ Tea Party pet? It’s up to you to decide if our movement goes the way of Paris ’68, the dust bin of could-have-been-insurrections, or something more daring, more inspiring, something not yet dreamed. Will you allow Occupy to become a project of the old left, the same cabal of old world thinkers who have blunted the possibility of revolution for decades? Will you allow MoveOn, The Nation and Ben & Jerry to put the brakes... - Adbusters Magazine

Could Occupy catalyze a wildcat consumer revolt in May? From Adbusters Blog Last week, occupiers in New York City chained open subway entrances and posted official looking notices inviting the public to ride for free. Their innovative action caused an immediate sensation in the Occupy movement suggesting that similar jams will be carried out worldwide in May. Authorities in New York City were swift to condemn, even going so far as to release surveillance footage of the occupiers calmly pulling off this audacious jam. It is no surprise that they are worried. This is perhaps the first time that the fare strike tactic has made been successfully deployed in America and it is a sign that the I Don’t Pay movement which has been flourishing in Europe is finally leaping to North America. In Greece, jammers routinely occupy toll booths and public transportation entrances allowing everyone to pass for free. As Occupy matures, it is beginning to learn a few new tricks. If Occupy adopts the I... - Adbusters Magazine

Tactical Briefing #28. From Adbusters Blog Hey you nimble dreamers, wild cats and horizontals out there, Our Spring offensive is building toward a climactic May uprising… time to come out of winter hibernation and play jazz like we’ve never played it before. May 1 we leap into the new world with a mighty multinational General Strike. Wherever you are, No Work; No School; No Shopping. No illusions. No apologies. No business as usual. Into The Streets! May 12, we intensify with three days of global action. Jammers in London, Lisbon, Paris, Marseilles, Helsinki, Cuzco, Barcelona, Quebec are already on board with more on the way. We’ll hold our assemblies, hash out our demands and start building a parallel society that can sustain autonomous, horizontal, revolutionary communities outside of corpo-consumerism … we stop begging and we start creating … we begin the change we want to see. We scared the G8 away from Chicago and now some occupiers are planning #OCCUPYCAMPDAVID – a cacophonous... - Adbusters Magazine

Indignados abroad prepare for #OCCUPYCHICAGO. From Adbusters Blog Yesterday, several hundred indignados, culture jammers and occupiers from across Europe swarmed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters in Brussels in a bold attempt to shut it down. Organizers explained that the action was a prelude to #OCCUPYCHICAGO and an early preview of the anarchic swarms that will disrupt May’s NATO summit. “Where peace is at stake, nonviolent intervention is necessary,” a press release said. According to the AFP, occupiers ran across fields and climbed fences leading to the NATO compound chanting “NATO Game Over” and “We want peace now.” They were blocked by a “large police presence” and 483 nonviolent occupiers were arrested. See here pictures and video of the action. - Adbusters Magazine

Spain's indignados inspire Occupy. From Adbusters Blog Spain was hit with a massive General Strike today that shut down shopping centers, roads and transportation hubs. Barricades of burning tires were erected in Barcelona, hundreds of airline flights were canceled across the nation, and an estimated 91% of all employees at large businesses stayed home or took the streets, according to El Pais. Spain’s General Strike could not have come at a more significant moment from the perspective of the global people’s movement. As ROAR magazine points out, Spain’s General Strike was initially called for by the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union but it was ultimately a success because the call was taken up and powered by the youthful militancy of the indignados whose encampments across Spain in May, 2011 inspired #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. It was the tactical breakthrough of seizing a public square and holding horizontal, consensus-based assemblies that launched Occupy. And now, as the Occupy movement... - Adbusters Magazine

What can Occupy learn from Greece? From Adbusters Blog The people of Greece continue to fight against their technocratic, unelected government. In this video from the streets, an indy filmmaker captures public school teachers chanting “fight, rupture, overturn! History is written when you don’t follow the rules!” - Adbusters Magazine

Growing consensus on a nuclear-free Middle East. From Adbusters Blog The war clouds are gathering as both Israel and the United States continue to make threatening gestures over Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions. And yet, it is rarely mentioned that Israel has a known stockpile of nuclear warheads … and that the presence of these warheads is the primary catalyst for the regional nuclear arms race. All that is beginning to change: a global push is now underway to make the entire Middle East a nuclear-free zone. Already there are signs that the world could reach consensus on this proposal. For one, a recent poll revealed that 64% of Israelis would support a nuclear-free Middle East that included Israel and Iran. This meme may be the only practical initiative that can bring peace. Now the Guardian reports that in December, 2012 Finland will host “a historic conference bringing Iran and Israel together with Arab states to discuss a ban on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the... - Adbusters Magazine

From Oakland to St. Louis, police are breaking bones. From Adbusters Blog Police across the country are increasingly using extreme violence against occupiers. The weekly SF Bay Guardian recently revealed that Oakland police have received numerous complaints of excessive force. In a complaint from Oct. 25, an occupier says that “officers found a person alone, beat him, and broke his knee.” A complaint from a Jan. 7 march says that a police officer kneed an occupier in the back “causing his spine to break.” In New York City, media reports that an occupier’s rib was broken on the six-month anniversary of OWS. When the wounded occupier began having a seizure, she was denied medical attention while a crowd watched in horror. When occupiers from across the middle of America gathered in St. Louis, Missouri for the Occupy the Midwest regional summit, they too were also brutally beat back. Tazers were used, a dozen arrests were made, and several occupiers were led away with their faces covered... - Adbusters Magazine

What does our past tell us about our future? From Adbusters Blog The Occupy movement “has created a space in the American political consciousness about a different type of power: one controlled by people, not corporations,” explains this Al Jazeera documentary about the first phase of Occupy Wall Street. As we head towards the May Day General Strike, May 12-15 global days of action, #OCCUPYCHICAGO, and the #LAUGHRIOT, what lessons can we learn from phase one of the movement? URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/program...... - Adbusters Magazine

UC Davis occupiers innovate powerful new tactic. From Adbusters Blog For the last two months, Occupy UC Davis has been blockading a campus branch of U.S. Bank. Now, in a victory for Occupy that potentially gives birth to a new movement tactic, U.S. Bank has capitulated and permanently closed the branch. U.S. Bank has been a visible symbol on campus of the corporatization and monied corruption of education in part because, as The Aggie campus newspaper explains, “in 2010, all students were required to get new ID cards with the U.S. Bank logo on the back.” The tactic of the occupiers was simple, nonviolent and highly effective. The Aggie describes the scene: “the blockade became a daily ritual. Protesters — typically numbering around 15 — would arrive around noon, followed by an officer from the campus police department. Thirty minutes later, bank employees would leave and the entire process would be repeated the next day.” A celebratory statement posted on Occupy UC Davis’s website... - Adbusters Magazine

Why was it attacked? From Adbusters Blog Occupiers from across the middle of America are gathering in St. Louis, Missouri this weekend for an Occupy the Midwest regional summit that will build connections and lay the foundation for May’s #OCCUPYCHICAGO swarms and #LAUGHRIOT jams. Yesterday, on the first day of the summit occupiers attempted to set up an encampment in a local park. It was a bold move, and one that sets the stage for attempts that will be made in Chicago. The police reacted swiftly and brutally. Eyewitnesses report that tazers were used, a dozen arrests were made, and several occupiers were led away with their faces covered in blood. The video below shows a mob of billy-club wielding, disorganized cops descending on the encampment, ripping up tents and arresting people. Watch this video summary of the day’s events and discuss below your strategies for how the movement can overcome police repression in May. - Adbusters Magazine