fiction or fascism

apart from “networking”, the internet doesn’t really provide, either quantitatively or qualitatively, anything enduringly progressive that couldn’t also be found within a well-maintained library so like i’m not really sure why it’s being used as a measure of political freedom 

Yeah but I mean people mostly say that coming from a position of having Internet. Also dominant (and yes, dominating) society glorifies internet as somehow revolutionary (which I admit is a manipulation of the term) but for this reason it is wielded as a tool of power. Also since it is accessed and utilized by people selectively and usually to instigate conditions of repression (by the military or figures with power or access) the oppressed masses should also have access to such a medium. If restrictions are placed it should be voluntarily. To say the masses could not make their own judgments (and god look at our judgments..) is patronizing and ridiculous. Let the poor make the same mistakes the resource rich are bound too... or something.

It’s not punk to antagonize minimum wage workers.

Like writing shit on bathroom stalls, making messes in grocery and big box stores, trashing hotel rooms, yelling at actual workers about how horrible...

right. I was gonna say something but... you know. since it was framed as 'not being punk' it kinda completely invalidates tactics based upon their popularity, attributes it to a 'scene' and uniformly assumes the position of all workers in the service industry.

as a tactic it clearly is not meant to target the bosses.  even if it was just someone scribbling something unintentionally it speaks to others, it speaks to the worker, and even though it can create resentment- its still resentment against capitalist Work structures. (that is to say even if someone is pissed that someone else wrote something 'vandalized' or they think it's morally wrong, they still recognize that they are coerced to clean it because of a firm work hierarchy, the aesthetic of their workplace, to maintain the marketability of their space, to repress ideas despite the content. someone might even vent about what was written, or the act of writing out in public, with their friend or peer group. we can't really say whether the overall effect is negative or positive. if it's in a space that a particular community, or not, uses it can also be used to communicate to others that resistance in small ways is a current of thought more common than we might think.

it isn't 'work' that wouldn't otherwise be made to do- the level of work is consistent despite the individual task. I've had employers that will create work and make you polish things everyday so that they can justify keeping you on the clock, and having to do meaningless (like seriously uneccessary) things just to fill time so they get as much 'labor' from you as possible during a slow period or whatever.  the structure and subordination and humiliation or amount of work is not dependent on us as outsiders (if we are outside that immediate space and community) based on our behavior.  that being said it's probably really fucked up to deal with that shit, especially if the bosses response to changed conditions out of their control, like vandalism, or anything hurtful to their ego, is to take it out on the worker. personally, working with asshole customers or coworkers or the boss is terrible, it might break up the fucking monotony to have a different task than wiping the counter 30 times or getting them coffee or cleaning the toilet or vomit.  in either case, like taking a freeway or disrupting traffic, it may affect people's 'work' but ultimately we can't avoid all disruption (and do we want to?)

there are a couple ways to look at it. do I wanna clean up misogynist shit off the walls? no. id be pissed. but because most fucking scribble is oppressive or racist or sexist or also territorial- i'm not sure i'd write off or villinize communicating the resistance to these ideas on any surface possible.  

oh ya but don't yell at people and be horrible at them for no reason  idk. confusing.

Wendy Brown, Injury, Identity, Politics (via skullxcrusher)

revolution is practice. not theory. ? it can take strategy but at this point constantly practicing agitation is necessary to demonstrate that resistance is possible. that managers and liberals can be challenged; city and local governments and police discredited; property disempowered.  the situation is dire; i could not scream loud enough. drones overhead and advertisements in my ears.

but all these are words. and almost everything has been said. aren’t you ever frustrated? it won’t get better without direct intervention toward alternatives and disruption; insurrection. it won’t get better; it just depends on whose terms. 

I think revolution is a unity of theory, practice, and action. While the spontaneity of a particular situation can create a powerful action, the form of the tactic that emerges from people within that same situation is, at once, an application of theory. 

It is practice that sharpens the both theory and action and ultimately producing a result that then either denies or reifies a particular theory.

The situation is dire and at sometimes bleak, but simply by surviving, we preserve the ability to participate in an action. In this way, it is our survival and preparation that becomes strategic.

i've just been thinking lately about people's immediate participation in direct actions (seizing a street, gardens/ squats/ temporary autonomous spaces/ successfully blockading or disrupting a meeting, challenging the flow of capital etc) and how sometimes just being in that space you could not be 'applying theory' and just experience that space/dynamics/energy and then have to reflect and create theory/adapt your theory to how you proceed to act/ resist.