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Transcript: Slavoj Zizek at St. Mark's Bookshop BY SARAHANA » Fake leftist melancholia; obscene Zionist pact. Slavoj Zizek at St. Mark's Bookshop First part of the talk is a theoritical discussion on melancholy, mourning and prohibition, addressing Judith Butler and Freud. It's followed by a discussion on Wall Streets protests, including (1) a dissection of Anne Applebaum's recent column in the Washington Post that claims democracy is incompatible with globalization, but also that the Occupy protests (which react to the consequences of globalized economy) are incompatible with democracy (2) the idea of a fake leftist melancholia as it applies to these protests (3) the need to preserve the vacuum the protests create, by refusing to engage in a dialogue with those in power, just yet. Later parts of the unscripted talk discuss the obscene pact of Zionism that allows pro-Zionism and anti-Semitism to co-exist in the same group (like American Christian fundamentalists). Towards the very end, there's a brief mention of the anticipated pact between the Egyptian army and the Muslim Brotherhood. October 26, 2011 at St. Mark's Bookshop. -- TRANSCRIPT -- I will simply begin by certain historical observations. You probably notice how some people, and I think precisely the wrong people, started to celebrate the Wall Street events as a new form of social carnival: so nice, we have there this horizontal organization, no terror, we are free, egalitarian, everybody can say whatever he or she wants, and so on, all that stuff. It is as if some kind of a carnivalesque collective experience is returning. And this tendency, much more than here, is alive, as you can expect, on the West Coast. A couple of days ago at Stanford they told me that - the other Sunday, about 9 days ago - that in the center of San Francisco, a guy speaking on behalf of those who occupy, said something like, "They are asking you what's your program. They don't get it. We don't have a program. W

Ernesto Laclau An interview with Ernesto Laclau READ LATER Ernesto Laclau talks to the Greek journal Intellectum about the uses of populism, why radical democracy has nothing to do with liberalism, and how lack of political competition benefits the far-Right. Intellectum: In probably your most famous book, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, co-authored with Chantal Mouffe, you attempted to deconstruct both Marxist theory and liberal democratic thought in order to reinterpret them in such a way that they could contribute to a more sufficient understanding of contemporary politics. What is the significance of the concept of identity for the comprehension of modern reality? Ernesto Laclau: Well I think that the concept of identity can be analysed from different sides. One side would be to identify identity with particularity. There are some difficulties obviously in this type of identification of the two categories. But there are also advantages, because obviously the political problem that presents itself is a problem of general articulation, and general articulation has to rely on some kind of category of identity. So this is the way in which the question of identity emerges today. It can be related to a variety of intellectual contexts, but I think that the essential point is that there are no obvious forms of universality that can replace the notion of identity. Intellectum: In your first book Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (1977), you discussed the phenomenon of populism. In 2005 you published On Populist Reason. It seems that populism has remained at the centre of your interest. In a country that is governed by a populist party, what can we assume about the political identity of that people? How is popular subjectivity constructed? EL: I think we have to introduce a classical distinction: the distinction between populus and plebs. Populus is the totality of the community; plebs are those at the bottom of the social pyramid. A characteristic of plebeian

Diversity of Tactics and Democracy By George Lakey Clamor magazine March-April02 Last fall while working with activists in Europe I had the chance to hang out more with young people from Otpor, the resistance movement that brought down dictator Slobadan Milosevic in Serbia in October00. These Otpor activists were ages 19-23, typical ages in the movement that catalyzed the downfall of Milosevic (pronounced "Milosevitch"). They taught people twice their age some powerful lessons about how to overthrow a dictatorship, including how to keep going despite years of arrests and beatings. Some of the young people who started Otpor in 1999 had already been doing direct action in 1996 in the student pro-democracy movement. There they learned a hard fact: as the demonstrations grew the government paid infiltrators to pretend to be activists and do property destruction and street fighting. The government's tactic was brilliant because it scared away the potentially hundreds of thousands who were getting ready to join the movement, and gave back to government the moral high ground. Refusing to be discouraged, those who made a fresh start in 1999 made a critical decision: in order to win, Otpor would establish a policy of nonviolence. The stakes were too high, they reasoned, to have the luxury of everyone doing their thing. Milosovic was desperate, and surrounded with thugs who had no scruples. Only a policy of nonviolence could avoid the mistakes of 1996. I was impressed by the fast learning curve. Most movements do have a learning curve that enables them to benefit from their experience, but Otpor confronted a very hard lesson and quickly changed their policy of tolerance for diversity of tactics. Maybe their youth gave them an advantage in flexibility. Was Milosevic's tactic unusual? So many powerholders have used the tactic of what the French call "agents provocateur" that it is virtually predictable. Not only the "bad guy" authoritarians like Milosevic do it; liber

Of Corporations, Law, and Democracy: Claiming the Rights of Communities and Nature by Thomas Linzey Twenty Fifth Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures October 2005, Stockbridge, Massachusetts Edited by Hildegarde Hannum ©Copyright 1999 by the E. F. Schumacher Society and Thomas Linzey May be purchased in pamphlet form from the E. F. Schumacher Society, 140 Jug End Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230, (413) 528-1737, www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications.html. Introduction by Christopher Lindstrom, Staff, E. F. Schumacher Society It was above all the concept of decentralism that brought me to the Schumacher Society, the idea of citizens coming together in their communities to find ways of creating a sustainable life on the local level rather than thinking our needs can be met by large and cold corporations and governments. Decentralism involves searching for solutions on an individual and family and community level. In this regard it is my privilege to be introducing Tom Linzey, co-founder of and staff attorney for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which provides free legal services to grassroots, community-based environmental groups and rural municipal governments. Tom provides the tools for communities to organize and take a stand against corporate power. He has awe-inspiring stories to tell, archetypal David and Goliath tales. His bold charisma and his relentless commitment to defending the rights of community and the environment have provided inspiration and hope to people throughout this nation. Last year I heard Tom speak at the Bioneers Conference in California. There was a cast of truly extraordinary speakers, and they were all given a standing ovation at this conference. When Tom finished speaking, not only did the audience of two thousand people roar their approval but people could not settle for just standing up; the majority stood on their seats and started jumping up and down and whistling. It was really remarkable. That gives you a s

A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street by GEORGE LAKOFF on OCTOBER 19, 2011 in COMMUNICATION, NEWS, POLITICAL MIND I was asked weeks ago by some in the Occupy Wall Street movement to make suggestions for how to frame the movement. I have hesitated so far, because I think the movement should be framing itself. It's a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you - the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends. I have so far hesitated to offer suggestions. But the movement appears to maturing and entering a critical time when small framing errors could have large negative consequences. So I thought it might be helpful to accept the invitation and start a discussion of how the movement might think about framing itself. About framing: It's normal. Everybody engages in it all the time. Frames are just structures of thought that we use every day. All words in all languages are defined in terms of frame-circuits in the brain. But, ultimately, framing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which determines how we act. In politics, frames are part of competing moral systems that are used in political discourse and in charting political action. In short, framing is a moral enterprise: it says what the character of a movement is. All politics is moral. Political figures and movements always make policy recommendations claiming they are the right things to do. No political figure ever says, do what I say because it's wrong! Or because it doesn't matter! Some moral principles or other lie behind every political policy agenda. Two Moral Framing Systems in Politics Conservatives have figured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It includes: The primacy of self-interest. Individual responsibility, but not social responsibility. Hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hierarchy of who is "deserving," defined by success. And the highest principle is the primacy of this

In this Oct. 18, 2011 photo, an Occupy Wall Street protestor speaks into microphone for a live-streaming online interview at the media area in Zuccotti Park in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)   From its inception, the Occupy movement has had a contentious relationship with the mainstream media. On September 17, a few hours into the first day of the occupation, as a couple of hundred people assembled in Zuccotti Park, some demonstrators were already complaining of a "media blackout." I was there, as an enthusiastic participant, yet even I wasn't convinced the event was particularly newsworthy: in May more than 10,000 people had marched through nearby streets airing similar grievances; a month later protesters camped for two weeks outside City Hall as part of a protest called Bloombergville. Yet accusations flew through the Twittersphere. The traditional media are ignoring us! Why aren't we big news? About the Author Astra Taylor Astra Taylor is the director of the documentary films Zizek! and Examined Life. She has written for Monthly Review,... Also by the Author Occupy Wall Street on Your Street (Occupy Wall Street) Banks trying to foreclose on homes are surprisingly vulnerable to direct action-a fact that Occupy Our Homes intends to exploit. Astra Taylor 7 comments The Other Prison Population (Movements, Disability Rights Movement) Disabled people march on Washington to protest policies that keep them out of sight, out of mind. Astra Taylor Related Topics Entertainment Religion Social Issues Technology War Before long, Occupy Wall Street would be. When protesters managed to hold their ground through the weekend, sleeping on hard concrete and eating pizza donated by well-wishers from around the world, reporters began dutifully to file stories. But the charge of a media "blackout" persisted until September 24, when shaky video of several young women being cordoned off and pepper-sprayed point-blank by a white-shirted police officer was up

The Crisis and The Way Out Of It: What We Can Learn From Occupy Wall Street Posted on October 8, 2011 The Occupy Wall Street movement more effectively addresses the cause of the financial crisis than economists and discussions in the mainstream press. Further, this movement embodies democratic solutions for a way beyond the crisis. This essay focuses on Occupy Wall Street's facilitating of political action from disparate, heterogeneous partisans; increasing of transparency and participation in decision-making; and relying upon both human-scaled and participatory technologies. Through these processes, the Occupy Wall Street micro-community embodies a vision for a pluralistic, direct democratic society and demonstrates it through practice. Three years into an economic recession that rivals the Great Depression, economists are scrambling for explanations of its origins and the steps to take. Congressperson Darrel Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, blames unaffordable housing and political kickbacks from the banking industry. He stresses the need to "return to fiscal discipline and prudent, responsible   housing policies"(Issa, 2011, p. 419). Gary B. Gorton of the Yale School of Management traces an added cause to the "parallel" banking system and a banking panic that began in August 2007 (2010, p. 2). Former economist at Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve and current Cato Institute adjunct, Arnold Kling, blames capital regulations and "cognitive failures" of executives in financial institutions. It may not be surprising to the reader that this employee of a libertarian think-tank advocates for deregulation and expects the public to "not be deceived into believing that regulatory foresight can be as keen as regulatory hindsight" (Kling, 2011, p. 517). Ten-year veteran CEO and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and current Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute blames "a failu

American Ethnologist on Occupy by Zachary MenchiniTweetFacebookEmail The May 2012 issue of American Ethnologist has three open-access articles focused on the Occupy movement. In "The Occupy Movement in Žižek's hometown: Direct democracy and a politics of becoming," Maple Razsa and Andrej Kurnik write: We trace the development of decidedly minoritarian forms of decision making-the "democracy of direct action," as it is known locally-to activists' experiences of organizing for migrant and minority rights in the face of ethnonationalism. We compare the democracy of direct action to Occupy Wall Street's consensus-based model. In conclusion, we ask how ethnographic attention to the varieties of emergent political forms within the current global cycle of protest might extend recent theorizing of radical politics and contribute to broader efforts to reimagine democracy. Jeffrey S. Juris offers "Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social media, public space, and emerging logics of aggregation": Whereas listservs and websites helped give rise to a widespread logic of networking within the movements for global justice of the 1990s-2000s, I argue that social media have contributed to an emerging logic of aggregation in the more recent #Occupy movements-one that involves the assembling of masses of individuals from diverse backgrounds within physical spaces. However, the recent shift toward more decentralized forms of organizing and networking may help to ensure the sustainability of the #Occupy movements in a posteviction phase. And David Nugent comments on the first two articles and the questions they raise "about the temporalities of capitalism and about the dilemmas of inclusion in the recent Occupy movements." Tags: activism, becoming, capitalism, coauthorship, democracy, direct action, direct democracy, globalization, inclusion, inequality, new technologies, Occupy, political protest, public protest, public space, Slovenia, social media

May 1, 2012 Pt.1 A Call To Strike To friends who don't live in the US, or others who have not yet been touched by the call for a General Strike on this day, we write this short note, as a kind of update. Some of our earliest discussions in the space began with considerations of what could or could not be considered work; who is included and who is excluded when we talk about labor. And what constitutes labor today in this everywhere and nowhere paradigm of production. Moreover, we have reflected together on what could potentially constitute a political activity today? It is no surprise then that the most intensive global attempts at responses in recent memory come precisely when the living labor of humans is in its most deformed and devalued form, and political space everywhere appears the most foreclosed, by a logic that would prefer to reduce politics to a managerial task of order and administration. A call for a national general strike in the United States has happened perhaps only once, for May 1st, 1886 [to be expanded by historians?]. In our January retreat/seminar, The Crisis of Everything Everywhere, we had a session, "On the General Strike". We asked: How it could be deployed? What are our historical and political conceptions of the strike, how do they relate to our present contexts, and what forms of communication and solidarity are necessary to see the strike we want to see? Who calls for the strike, who strikes, what do we do during the strike, and is there an AFTER the strike? What activities do we expect to precede this call, and what do we expect to follow? Can we have a general strike which is not instrumentalized, but is a political act, a step towards definitive refusal or revolt? The efficacy of this meeting was to be found neither in its valor for organizing, nor the theories we developed together. Its efficacy came in its indiscernibility between intellectual work, cultural work, and political work. To

Occupy Wall Street: Beyond the Rhetoric Matthew Flisfeder One of the distinguishing features of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is its apparent lack of central leadership. Not only does the movement seem leaderless; it does not appear to be organized around any clearly defined 'demands.' This has been perceived as something quite positive for participants and supporters of the movement, while being the primary point of criticism from opponents, particularly the mainstream media. Clearly, OWS stands against the unfair balance of wealth distribution in the United States (and around the world, for that matter), the unfair neoliberal politics that have swept the globe over the last four decades, corporate greed (especially in the financial sector), and various forms of systemic violence resulting from structural inequalities built into the capitalist system of exploitation. But what media pundits are looking for is something that they can represent: something, that is, with a timeline, that defines when the protestors will be 'satisfied.' This makes OWS qualitatively different from the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings that took the world stage last winter, popularly touted as the 'Arab Spring.' These groups had clearly defined 'demands': first and foremost was the overthrow of their political leaders. OWS is distinguished from the Arab Spring to the extent that its definitive aims and goals have yet to be defined. Activists meet October 7th in Toronto, in a pre-October 15 General Assembly. The movement has gone beyond the various '-isms,' labels that media pundits and the corporate elite find easy to dismiss: 'communism,' 'socialism,' 'anarchism,' 'Leftism,' etc. Commentators outside the United States have started to take notice. CBC business personality, Kevin O'Leary made a mockery of himself last week during a live interview with the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Chris Hedges, by referring to him as a "Left-wi

danieltutt.com The #Occupy Movement and Gramsci OCT. 16, 2011 READ LATER As we enter the second or third week of the #Occupy movement, I'm beginning to sense that the momentum is no longer an issue. The movement seems to have gotten past the hump of legitimacy and we're now into a bona fide new wave of social protest. At this point, the movement has already succeeded, purely in its capacity to incite a new potential into political discourse. It is fair to categorize the #Occupy movement as a form of 'political disobedience', as distinct from 'civl disobedience' insofar as it is purely concerned about the deadlock of politics, after politics, with creating the space for a new possibility of politics. The #Occupy movement is a form of agonistic democracy a la Laclau and Mouffe in On Populist Reason, and Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. What is crucial for the movement to maintain its vibrancy is that it continue to keep the demand closed, or if you like, to keep the crisis exposed. The crisis of the system is the problem, and the idea of any modicum of policymakers creating reform is not sufficient. The idea of #Occupy when thought as a visual metaphor is perhaps best envisioned as a collection of struggles that are gathered under a single umbrella. The wider and more able to cover the space of struggles, contradictions, and inadequiecies that politics has provided in recent times, the more potent the power of the movement will gain. In other words, if #Occupy does not open space for the Tea Party, Ron Paul'ies, alter-globalization activists, greenies, identity politics, anarchists, etc, then it will fail. No one struggle can define this movement, especially not entrenched institutional interests such as organized labor or MoveOn.org. From the standpoint of strategy, the #Occupy movement has expanded on the idea of following power to various summits and protesting physical space (IMF, World Bank, Seattle in 99′ etc) and has sought to directly occup

David Graeber: anthropologist, anarchist, financial analyst* By gregdowney Posted: October 15, 2011 Wall Street is in the grips of an 'occupation,' and activist and anthropologist, David Graeber, now at Goldsmiths, University of London, is in the centre of the action.  Graeber has been doing a few television and radio interviews of late (check here for his interview on ABC Radio National, Australia), talking about the organization of the Wall Street occupation as well as his new book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House). The juxtaposition of Florida Governor Rick Scott's recent comments about anthropology and the fact that Graeber is offering what may be among the most penetrating and accessible analyses of an important dimension of the current global debt crisis is striking. Of course, maybe clear-eyed analysis of our current economic situation, and the ability to point out that other societies do perfectly well with other sorts of economic and political systems, is precisely the sort of academic work that Gov. Rick Scott thinks universities should give up.  After all, no one needs to understand why US firms are shedding jobs, or take a sober look at the current financial regime in the light of the 5,000-year history of debt.  Students should just put their heads down and do the sorts of degrees that will give them technical jobs.  Pay no attention to The Man behind the curtain! Graeber is doing exactly what many of us want university-based social and cultural anthropologists to do more of: not just doing outstanding, useful applied work (which is bloody brilliant, of course), but also showing how our distinctive intellectual perspectives - comparative, evolutionary, cross-cultural, critical, even deconstructive (and 'post-modern') - provide academic analyses with important, 'real world' implications. After all, part of the current problem in the global economy is not just that we have bad applications of economic theory-we have b

Occupy Wall Street: lessons and opportunities Cas Mudde, 12 October 2011 Subjects:International politics Democracy and government United States north america democracy & power politics of protest The Occupy movement in the United States is both similar to and different from its Tea Party predecessor. The precise combination gives it political space to grow, says Cas Mudde.

THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AND THE NATURE OF COMMUNITY by Akim Reinhardt I'm currently at work on a book about the decline of community in America.  I won't go into much detail here, but the basic premise is that, barring a few possible exceptions, there are no longer any actual communities in the United States.  At least, not the kinds that humans have lived in for thousands of years, which are small enough for everyone to more or less know everyone else, where members have very real mutual obligations and responsibilities to each other, and people are expected to follow rules or face the consequences. One of the fun things about the project has been that people tend to have a strong reaction to my claim that most Americans don't live in real communities anymore.  Typically they either agree knowingly or strongly deny it, and I've been fortunate to have many wonderful conversations as a result.  But for argument's sake, let's just accept the premise for a moment. Because if we do, it can offer some very interesting insights into the nature of the Occupy movement that is currently sweeping across America and indeed much of the world. One of the critiques that has been made of the Occupy movement, sometimes genuinely and thoughtfully but sometimes with mocking enmity, is that it still hasn't put forth a clear set of demands.  It's the notion that this movement doesn't have a strong leadership and/or is unfocused, and because of that it stands more as a generalized complaint than a productive program.  That while it might be cathartic and sympathetic amid the current economic crisis, the Occupy movement doesn't have a plan of attack for actually changing anything. While I disagree with that accusation for the most part, there is an element of truth in it.  However, to the extent that it holds water, the issue isn't that the people involved don't know what they want to do.  Rather, many of them know exactly what they want.  But they ar

Elinor Ostrom Outlines Best Strategies for Managing the Commons Nobel Prize winner headlines the Minneapolis Festival of the Commons, co-sponsored by On the Commons BY JAY WALLJASPERSHARE Print Elinor Ostrom details the importance of commons management at the Minneapolis Festival of the Commons, co-sponsored by On the Commons and Augsburg College (Credit: Augsburg College) Ostrom cited Jane Jacobs- who believed that local people usually know more about what's best for their communities than expertly-trained planners-as an influence on her work. A breakthrough for the commons came in 2009 when Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for Economics. The first woman awarded this honor, the Indiana University political scientist not only made history but also helped debunk widespread notions that the commons inevitably leads to tragedy. In 50 years of research from Nepal to Kenya to Switzerland to Los Angeles, she has shown that commonly held resources will not be destroyed by overuse if there is a system in place to manage how they are shared. How such systems work around the world was the topic of Ostrom's keynote address at Minneapolis' Festival of the Commons at Augsburg College Oct. 7-co-sponsored by On the Commons, Augsburg College's Sabo Center for Citizenship and Learning and The Center for Democracy and Citizenship. Ostrom explained there is no magic formula for commons management. "Government, private or community," she said, "work in some settings and fail in others." The most effective approach to protect commons is what she calls "polycentric systems," which operate "at multiple levels with autonomy at each level." The chief virtue and practical value of this structure is it helps establish rules that "tend to encourage the growth of trust and reciprocity" among people who use and care for a particular commons. This was the focus of her Nobel Lecture in Stockholm, which she opened by stressing a need for "developi

Commentary on the First Statement of the Occupy Wall Street Movement Wed, 10/05/2011 - 07:40 - lindorff by:  Dave Lindorff   This statement was released after a unanimous vote of Occupy Wall Street's general assembly:   As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. Wall Street and the corporatocracy are behind America's rampant militarism They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices. They have continuously sought to strip employees of th

Slavoj Žižek at Occupy Wall Street: "We are not dreamers, we are the awakening from a dream which is turning into a nightmare" By Sarah Shin / 10 October 2011 Slavoj Žižek visited Liberty Plaza to speak to Occupy Wall Street protesters. Here is the original text of his speech - not a transcript, as originally described in error. Don't fall in love with yourselves, with the nice time we are having here. Carnivals come cheap-the true test of their worth is what remains the day after, how our normal daily life will be changed. Fall in love with hard and patient work-we are the beginning, not the end. Our basic message is: the taboo is broken, we do not live in the best possible world, we are allowed and obliged even to think about alternatives. There is a long road ahead, and soon we will have to address the truly difficult questions-questions not about what we do not want, but about what we DO want. What social organization can replace the existing capitalism? What type of new leaders we need? The XXth century alternatives obviously did not work. So do not blame people and their attitudes: the problem is not corruption or greed, the problem is the system that pushes you to be corrupt. The solution is not "Main street, not Wall street," but to change the system where main street cannot function without Wall street. Beware not only of enemies, but also of false friends who pretend to support us, but are already working hard to dilute our protest. In the same way we get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice-cream without fat, they will try to make us into a harmless moral protest. But the reason we are here is that we had enough of the world where to recycle your Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes for the Third World troubles is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture, after the marriage agencies started to outsource even our dating, we see that for

"If hope is an impossible demand, then we demand the impossible."- Judith Butler at Occupy Wall Street video By Kishani Widyaratna / 24 October 2011 Judith Butler, author of Frames of War and Precarious Life, visited Occupy Wall Street to lend her support to the protesters there. In a rallying speech, amplified through the human microphone, she gave her thoughts on the reception of the movement and its demands. I came here to lend my support to you today, to offer my solidarity, for this unprecedented display of democracy and popular will. People have asked, 'So what are the demands? What are the demands all these people are making?' Either they say there are no demands and that leaves your critics confused-or they say that the demands for social equality and economic justice are impossible demands. And impossible demands, they say, are just not practical. If hope is an impossible demand, then we demand the impossible. If the right to shelter, food and employment are impossible demands, then we demand the impossible. If it is impossible to demand that those who profit from the recession redistribute their wealth and cease their greed then yes, we demand the impossible. But it is true that there are no demands that you can submit to arbitration here because we are not just demanding economic justice and social equality, we are assembling in public, we are coming together as bodies in alliance, in the street and in the square. We're standing here together making democracy, enacting the phrase 'We the people!'   A video of Butler delivering her speech at Occupy Wall Street is available below. More in #Occupy Share

How Youth Decides: Real Democracy and Youth Decision-Making at #OWS Occupy Wall Street

Convivial Research And Insurgent Learning Taller The Convivial Research and Insurgent Learning (CRIL) taller is a web infrastructure made possible through the collaboration of the Universidad de la Tierra's Center for Appropriated Technologies and the Center for Community Research and Autonomy. The CRIL is an insurgent learning space and convivial research tool designed to facilitate locally rooted participatory, action-oriented investigation rooted reflection and action spaces that regenerate community. As a system of information, CRIL emphasizes the critical intersection between grassroots horizontal investigative practices, analytical frameworks, facilitation strategies, and direct action casework for the purpose of generating open, reflexive system(s) of information. Thus, as a collective research tool it encourages tequios de investigación, or strategic, collectively determined research projects to address community struggles, reclaim commons, regenerate culture, facilitate intra/inter-cultural encounters, and promote direct democracy. As an open on-going space of encounter it intends to amplify a variety of community-based knowledges, especially those in opposition to militarization, criminalization, securitization, privatization, and neoliberal globalization. Each interconnected page presents a number of appropriated technologies, or cultural tools, that highlight convivial research and insurgent learning. We have gathered wide a variety of practical and theoretical resources that engage a wide array of collective practices, highlighting the necessary intersection of learning, research, analysis, facilitation, and direct action. Our effort linking convivial research and insurgent learning spaces, projects, strategies and practices is animated by a commitment to "go beyond solidarity," seek alternatives to hierarchical and elitist knowledge practices, and promote the intersection of insurgent learning, community safety, community wellness, food sovereign