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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Art as dialogue: more dialogue about art...


The recent art discussions I've been having with various people on 'art' has made me revisit both old and new ideas on the subject, including a great but rather academic book on a dialogical art practice, and the separate but not oppositional idea of 'art as intent'.

Grant Kester's 'Conversation Pieces: Community + Communication in Modern Art' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) has been particularily helpful in exploring dialogical or community art as a framework for social change, as well as ideas on the avant garde and theories around 'authentic' art. The above table from oturn.com draws on the definitions in the Kester book, though not exclusively, so if you don't want to read on simply click on the image!

A dialogical practice based on the process of dialogue, collaboration, and participation in the process of the work often stands in contrast to the 'banking' model of art (to use Paulo Freire's term) — a process whereby 'the artist 'deposits' an expressive content into a physical object, to be withdrawn later by the viewer'. Typical understandings of the avant-garde (not my speciality, I should add) also cloud the understanding of a dialogical practice:

'Beginning in the early twentieth century the consensus among advanced artists and critics was that, far from communicating with viewers, the avant-garde work of art should radically challenge their faith in the very possibility of rational discourse. This tendency is based on the assumption that the shared discursive systems (linguistic, visual etc) on which we rely for our our knowledge of the world are dangerously abstract and violently objectifying. Art's role is to shock us out of this perceptual complacency, to force us to see the world anew. This shock has borne may names over the years: the sublime, alienation effect, l'amour fou, and so on. In each case the result is a kind of epiphany that lifts viewers outside the familiar boundaries of a common language, existing modes of representation, and even their own sense of self.

While the projects I am discussing here encourage their participants to question fixed identities, stereotypical images, and so on, they do so through a cumulative process of exchange and dialogue rather than a single, instantaneous shock of insight precipitated by an image or object. These projects require a shift in our understanding of the work of art — a redefinition of aesthetic experience as durational rather than immediate.'


The belief that to resist being co-opted art must resist comprehension or interpretation, has hindered understandings of dialogical work. 'It is inconceivable for Bersani and Dutoit that one could ever speak with viewers, only at or against them'. The fact that these strategies did nothing to prevent such works being both 'salable' and 'graspable', or the fact that this viewpoint tends to privilege the maker with some kind of moral superiority to the untrained and subsumed viewer, should indicate the need for the move towards fresh understandings. Instead, dialogical work, while retaining similar ends of the avant-garde, has taken a different path, and this is what Kester tires to illustrate in his text.

'A dialogical aesthetic, then...involves identifying their salient characteristics and linking these to aspects of aesthetic experience that have been abandoned or redirected in some way during the modern period. As I have outlined so far, these would include a critical sense that takes into account the cumulative effect or current decisions and actions on future events and generations. This represents an attempt to think outside, or beyond, immediate self-interest. The second important aspect of the aesthetic concerns a form of spatial rather than temporal imagination: specifically, the ability to comprehend and represent complex social and environmental systems, to identify interconnections among the often invisible forces that pattern human and environmental existence. The third aspect is a concern with achieving these durational and spatial insights through dialogical and collaborative encounters with others.'

These loose definitions question the hierarchy of the object maker/artist, authentic art and its perceived values, and art as a privileged realm of free expression. As Kester notes on Loraine Lesson: 'Lesson defines herself less as an object maker than as an artist who facilitates shared visions'. While not quite 'giving up art' as I noted in other discussions, it is a logical move away from the object and towards more non-hierarchacal forms of collaboration.

The second notion I have been interested in is one more relative to my previous posts. Based in the women's art movement and such groups as Black Mask, Situationism etc etc is the idea of art as everyday life. What this means is that art or the creative act could be understood as INTENT being acted out. Whether this intent is a painting, a poem, a propaganda poster, making a cup of tea, street sweeping, changing a nappy, burning down a factory, throwing a rock at a cop's head, or simply living life — and whether this intent or act is carried out by the cultural worker, 'artist', mother or cleaning woman should be irrelevant. In this way we can 'give up art' and cherish all acts of life, by all walks of life. That this challenges the status of art as high culture should illustrate it's privileged position, and the fact that this approach may seem utopian or unachievable should not negate its worth.

In this way, art could be understood in terms of an activity de-institutionalised and practiced by all, removed from the pillars of the gallery and based back in everyday, creative life. That art has become institutionalised and privileged as an activity to be practiced only by a few 'is a relatively recent phenomenon. The making of art was a central part of people's lives for most of human history — that is, until the relatively recent advent of a capitalist, commodity-based culture in Europe and North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At that time the emphasis in art shifted from participants, who could satisfy their own artistic needs, to specialists, who demanded a paying, non-participating audience to buy their 'products'. Essentially, the art-commodity came to replace participatory-art in most people's lives, and art increasingly became a source of alienation.' (G.S Evans in 'Art Alienated').

From 'The Assault on Culture' by Stewart Home:

'The use of term ‘art’, which distinguishes itself between different musics, literature, crafts, activities etc emerged in the seventeenth-century at the same time as the concept of science. Before this, the term artist was used to describe cooks, shoe-makers, crafts-people and so forth.

When the term art emerged with its modern usage, it was an attempt on the part of the aristocracy to hold up the values of their class as objects of ‘irrational reverence’. Thus art was equated with truth, and this truth was the world view of the aristocracy, a world view which would shortly be overthrown by the rising bourgeois (upper or ruling) class. As a class, the bourgeoisie wished to assimilate the ‘life’ of the declining aristocracy... (and) when it appropriated the concept of art it simultaneously transformed it. Thus beauty more or less ceased to be equated with truth, and became associated with individual taste. As art developed, ‘the insistence on form and knowledge of form’ and ‘individualism’ were added to lend ‘authority’ to art as a ‘particular mental set of the new ruling class’.


Thus, rather than having a universal validity, art is a process that occurs within bourgeois society and which leads to an ‘irrational reverence for activities which suit bourgeois needs’. This process posits ‘the objective superiority of those things singled out as art, and thereby, the superiority of the form of life which celebrates them, and the social group which is implicated’. This boils down to an assertion that bourgeois society, and the ruling class within it, is somehow committed to a superior form of knowledge.'


Now you can agree or disagree with that statement, but it does have value in describing how art has become separate from everyday acts or intentions.

Aan example (rather dated now, I must admit) of creative act/s formulised by the women's art movement, or in particular, Mierle Laderman Ukeles illustrates the idea of life and art being one and the same, therefore denying the privilege and hierarchy that currently exists in the art world:

'The chores that accompanied the raising of children became meaningful as she refused to define her domestic role as being anything more than a neutral work-system. Thus, by rejecting the standard "housewife" ideal, Ukeles hoped to revive the idea of housework as a functional endeavor—a ritualistic series of activities that maintain the hygiene of the family unit. Thus, she intended to confront the apprehension and anxiety of falling into a role and of being handed a social image she abhorred. Rather than disavowing her existential dilemma, Ukeles chose to "perform" housework as a maintenance system—a literal art of work existing in real time.

Having read the Freudian historian Norman 0. Brown some years earlier, the artist was able to identify her struggle between housewife and artist as resembling the familiar life-against-death conflict used in psychoanalysis. By accepting the reality of her situation as a necessary role in maintaining the household, she discovered the reality of maintenance as a means to the survival of personal freedom, art and all other social institutions. In other words, maintenance art was a necessary part of the human condition. Through this approach to the problem, Ukeles began to extend the references in her work outside of a purely feminist content in order to reveal the conditions of work, and the stereotypes handed to maintenance workers on all levels, whether in public, private, or corporate enterprises. Her mode of "doing" art became a series of actions that acknowledged the basic human operations that supported various institutions and perpetuated the idea of culture. In the course of redefining her own domestic role, she caught the meaning of art as action, art as gesture, art as circumstance within an appointed system or any designated structure.'


As I have mentioned before, I am excited in the holistic approach a creative praxis could take, or more specifically, how creative practice could help bring about positive social change towards a classless, stateless society based on the premise 'from each according to ability, to each according to need'. The libertarian possibilities of disavowing art as an individualistic activity that is somehow special or superior to other human activities are endless. Creative energies could be channeled into any (or every) action one could imagine. To give up artistic privilege, consumption and productivity — addictions which capital has convinced us gives our individualistic lives value — is the negation of art, the negation of domination. By approaching art in a dialogical manner in tandem with organising for radical, social change is something I feel is worth exploring — no matter if it seems idealistic, utopian or propagandist. As noted in 'Community Development' by Ife:

'Positivism, modernism and the Cartesian world view has lead to the de-emphasising of visionary thinking. The rationalist, pragmatic paradigm easily dismisses it as 'unrealistic' and impractical...

The importance of an alternative vision is not necessarily that it will ever be achieved in full, rather it serves as an inspiration for change, and as a framework for interpreting and seeking change from the perspective of medium and long term goals, instead of being purely reactive. It allows one to seek an alternative, whereas purely reactive 'problem-solving' and it's insistence on being realistic mean being permanently imprisoned within the existing dominant paradigm. If we are to change the world we must be able to say 'I have a dream' and seek to share and live that vision of a better world.'


Anarchist Tea Party


Calling all friends, radical wåhine, community organisers, curious bystanders, anti-capitalist children, militant gardeners, workplace delegates and self described (or unidentified) anarchists! Come along to what will hopefully be the first of regular ANARCHIST TEA PARTIES, to catch up, meet and greet, share food and ideas, and brainstorm on ways of organising in Otautahi.

Bring your picnic gear, a plate of food to share, your kiddies and your thinking caps as we look to explore possible future actions, as well as creating solidarity and sustainable friendships for the future.

Some ideas to brainstorm could include (but may not be limited to):
— regular get togethers, educational events, public assemblies, tea parties and a regional hui.
— an Otautahi Network of groups, or a mailing list/conatct email at the very minimum.
— an Otautahi broadsheet/newspaper of libertarian ideas, actions and activities.
— any other exciting ideas!

SATURDAY JUNE 6TH
Latimer Square — 11am onwards

If wet the event will be moved to the Otautahi Social Centre (206 Barbados Street).

We look forward to your company and your ideas!

In solidarity,
Jess, Dan, Al and Jared.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Salt of the Earth


Made in 1954 and during the height of the McCarthy era by a group of blacklisted filmmakers, Salt of the Earth is a powerful and emotionally charged feature length film. It was banned by the US government and is remarkable, not just because of the fact that the producers used only five cast members who were professional actors — the rest were locals from Grant County, New Mexico, or members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Local 890 (many of whom were part of an actual strike that inspired the story) — but because of its pro-feminist and anti-patriarchy themes years before the civil rights movement and 60's wave of feminism.

Salt of the Earth is based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico. Against a backdrop of social injustice, a riveting family drama is played out by the characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find their roles reversed: an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties. The women evolve from men's subordinates into their allies and equals.

The copyright was never renewed, so it is now in the public domain and free to download.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Katipo Books Fundraising Event!


Katipo Books workers co-operative proudly presents...

THE ANTiDOTE: Spaces To Counter Mainstream Information

Friday 6:30pm; 24th April 2009
Otautahi Social Centre (206 Barbadoes Street)
Christchurch, Aotearoa

Entertainment kicks off at 7pm with a poetry performance from acclaimed poet, performer and writer Tusiata Avia; followed by a talk from Paul Maunder, libertarian socialist, community playwright and cultural worker from Blackball prior to the film screening of:

i: Argentina, Indymedia, and the Questions of Communication.

A documentary which explores the relationship between media and power. The product of over four years work, with footage from three continents and rare interviews with indymedia founders.

Tusiata Avia’s poetry has appeared in various literary journals including Turbine, Sport, and Takahe. Her radio drama You Say Hawaii was broadcast in 2002. She also works as a performance poet. Her solo show Wild Dogs Under My Skirt premiered at the 2002 Dunedin Fringe Festival.

Avia is currently publishing a series of books for children. The first two, Mele and the Fofo (2002) and The Song (2002), have been published in Samoan, Tongan, Cook Islands Maori, Nuiean and Tokelauan and English.

Paul Maunder will be talking on Art, culture and genealogy. Past works include documentaries on social issues for television including Gone Up North for a While, a feature film: Sons for the Return Home, as well as community video productions for unions and local communities.

Plays: '51, Gallipoli, Death (and love) In Gaza, plus many community-based theatre productions including Struggling Through The Nineties (with the Milton Locked-out Workers), The Market (Wgtn Prostitutes Collective), Tagi and Mafine (Tokelau community), The People's Roadshow (Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Centre), Rain, Love and Coalsmoke (Blackball community).

$5 waged, $2 unwaged

There will be a wide selection of radical books for sale, as well as food and drink sales of which will all go towards opening a radical bookshop in the inner city of Otautahi/Christchurch!

All welcome!


contact info (at) katipo.net.nz
check out www.katipo.net.nz

Abel Paz: 1921-2009


Spanish anarchist Abel Paz, who fought in the Spanish Civil War and was the author of Durruti: the People Armed, died in hospital in Barcelona on 13 April 2009, aged 87. He was born in Almería in 1921, and moved with his family to Barcelona in 1929. In 1935 he started work in the textile industry and joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).

In July 1936, with the start of the Spanish Civil War and Spanish revolution he joined the anarchist Durruti Column. As well as fighting on the Aragon front, he fought in the Barcelona May Events of 1937.

After the fall of Catalonia in January 1939, he went into exile in France, where he was interned. During the 1940s he fought both in the French resistance to Hitler and the Spanish Anarchist resistance to Franco. He will be missed.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

In memoriam: Franklin Rosemont


Sad news from Chicago. Franklin Rosemont passed away this week and will be greatly missed. His profound legacy as an artist, activist, historian, IWW scholar, and co-editor of the Charles H. Kerr Press is described well by Kate Khatib in an obituary that appeared on the InterActivist Info Exchange.

Franklin Rosemont RIP April 12th, 2009
Kate Khatib

"Franklin Rosemont, celebrated poet, artist, historian, street speaker, and surrealist activist, died Sunday, April 12 in Chicago. He was 65 years old. With his partner and comrade, Penelope Rosemont, and lifelong friend Paul Garon, he co-founded the Chicago Surrealist Group, an enduring and adventuresome collection of characters that would make the city a center for the reemergence of that movement of artistic and political revolt. Over the course of the following four decades, Franklin and his Chicago comrades produced a body of work, of declarations, manifestos, poetry, collage, hidden histories, and other interventions that has, without doubt, inspired an entirely new generation of revolution in the service of the marvelous.

Franklin Rosemont was born in Chicago on October 2, 1943 to two of the area’s more significant rank-and-file labor activists, the printer Henry Rosemont and the jazz musician Sally Rosemont. Dropping out of Maywood schools after his third year of high school (and instead spending countless hours in the Art Institute of Chicago’s library learning about surrealism), he managed nonetheless to enter Roosevelt University in 1962. Already radicalized through family tradition, and his own investigation of political comics, the Freedom Rides, and the Cuban Revolution, Franklin was immediately drawn into the stormy student movement at Roosevelt.

Looking back on those days, Franklin would tell anyone who asked that he had “majored in St. Clair Drake” at Roosevelt. Under the mentorship of the great African American scholar, he began to explore much wider worlds of the urban experience, of racial politics, and of historical scholarship—all concerns that would remain central for him throughout the rest of his life. He also continued his investigations into surrealism, and soon, with Penelope, he traveled to Paris in the winter of 1965 where he found André Breton and the remaining members of the Paris Surrealist Group. The Parisians were just as taken with the young Americans as Franklin and Penelope were with them, as it turned out, and their encounter that summer was a turning point in the lives of both Rosemonts. With the support of the Paris group, they returned to the United States later that year and founded America’s first and most enduring indigenous surrealist group, characterized by close study and passionate activity and dedicated equally to artistic production and political organizing. When Breton died in 1966, Franklin worked with his wife, Elisa, to put together the first collection of André’s writings in English.

Active in the 1960s with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Rebel Worker group, the Solidarity Bookshop and Students for a Democratic Society, Franklin helped to lead an IWW strike of blueberry pickers in Michigan in 1964, and put his considerable talents as a propagandist and pamphleteer to work producing posters, flyers, newspapers, and broadsheets on the SDS printing press. A long and fruitful collaboration with Paul Buhle began in 1970 with a special surrealist issue of Radical America. Lavish, funny, and barbed issues of Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion and special issues of Cultural Correspondence were to follow.

The smashing success of the 1968 World Surrealist Exhibition at Gallery Bugs Bunny in Chicago announced the ability of the American group to make a huge cultural impact without ceasing to be critics of the frozen mainstreams of art and politics. The Rosemonts soon became leading figures in the reorganization of the nation’s oldest labor press, Charles H. Kerr Company. Under the mantle of the Kerr Company and its surrealist imprint Black Swan Editions, Franklin edited and printed the work of some of the most important figures in the development of the political left: C.L.R. James, Marty Glaberman, Benjamin Péret and Jacques Vaché, T-Bone Slim, Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, and, in a new book released just days before Franklin’s death, Carl Sandburg. In later years, he created and edited the Surrealist Histories series at the University of Texas Press, in addition to continuing his work with Kerr Co. and Black Swan.

A friend and valued colleague of such figures as Studs Terkel, Mary Low, the poets Philip Lamantia, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Dennis Brutus, the painter Lenora Carrington, and the historians Paul Buhle, David Roediger, John Bracey, and Robin D.G. Kelley, Rosemont’s own artistic and creative work was almost impossibly varied in inspirations and results. Without ever holding a university post, he wrote or edited more than a score of books while acting as a great resource for a host of other writers.

He became perhaps the most productive scholar of labor and the left in the United States. His spectacular study, Joe Hill: The I.W.W. and the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, began as a slim projected volume of that revolutionary martyr’s rediscovered cartoons and grew to giant volume providing our best guide to what the early twentieth century radical movement was like and what radical history might do. His coedited volume Haymarket Scrapbook stands as the most beautifully illustrated labor history publication of the recent past. Indispensable compendiums like The Big Red Songbook, What is Surrealism?, Menagerie in Revolt, and the forthcoming Black Surrealism are there to ensure that the legacy of the movements that inspired him continue to inspire young radicals for generations to come. In none of this did Rosemont separate scholarship from art, or art from revolt. His books of poetry include Morning of the Machine Gun, Lamps Hurled at the Stunning Algebra of Ants, The Apple of the Automatic Zebra’s Eye and Penelope. His marvelous fierce, whimsical and funny artwork—to which he contributed a new piece every day—graced countless surrealist publications and exhibitions.

Indeed, between the history he himself helped create and the history he helped uncover, Franklin was never without a story to tell or a book to write—about the IWW, SDS, Hobohemia in Chicago, the Rebel Worker, about the past 100 years or so of radical publishing in the US, or about the international network of Surrealists who seemed to always be passing through the Rosemonts’ Rogers Park home. As engaged with and excited by new surrealist and radical endeavors as he was with historical ones, Franklin was always at work responding to queries from a new generation of radicals and surrealists, and was a generous and rigorous interlocutor. In every new project, every revolt against misery, with which he came into contact, Franklin recognized the glimmers of the free and unfettered imagination, and lent his own boundless creativity to each and every struggle around him, inspiring, sustaining, and teaching the next generation of surrealists worldwide."

InterActivist Info Exchange
http://info.interactivist.net/node/12524

More from Visteon occupation


Visteon workers in Enfield, having been threatened with mass arrest by a court order, agree to leave peacefully under the recommendation of the union on April 9, 2009. Some workers feel that ending the occupation is a mistake, despite an agreement by the Visteon management to enter into negotiations.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

'Politics, Art, Praxis and artists (some starving)'

It seems my comments a while back on indymedia has stirred a few pens into action regarding 'radical art'. For myself, that is a good thing, and much needed in these dire times. Ross has extended to me the right of reply, which I will gladly accept, if not only to tidy up some irregularities on the part of his research into my own practice.

It seems a quick google search has brought up some of my PAST activities, including band posters and a show I had at HSP A FEW YEARS back. Please note the emphasis, as these were primarily my modes of praxis after leaving school. Time has passed since then — I am no longer making band posters, nor having shows. My text on art has become a sort of signing off to that aspect of my production, so while it shaped my consciousness to some extent, it no longer features in my practice. Anyone interested can read about the evolution to where I'm at here.

And please note, I am not a Marxist. I consider that an insult, and will put it down to a lack of understanding on the ideas of anarchism and libertarian socialism. Nor would I consider my work 'revolutionary'. No work, individual, movement or party could ever be 'revolutionary', as the term (and as history has shown, with the fallacy of Russia, Cuba, China etc) equates mass, participatory and spontaneous action on a huge, liberatory scale — not lead or driven by a minority, but far reaching and social. Therefore, the most one could be is PRO-revolutionary. And this is definitely the most screenprinted posters or any art/movements could ever come close to being, in terms of its content. That includes Situationism, Fluxus and Theodore Adorno, Neoism, and yes, Dada too. I am well aware of these movements (I'd recommend reading 'Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War').

These past movements, including Dada, tried (and failed) to destroy capitalism. Where they only tried to revolutionise 'art', we should now look to change life, in its totality. Ross gets hung up on the idea that what 'radical' art has to SAY forms it's revolutionary value — yet to continue to make art in that context continues the division of maker/viewer, reworks hierarchy and perpetuates the privileged system of relations its supposedly critiquing. As Tony Lowe states in 'Give Up Art, Save the Starving': "to call one person an artist is to deny another the equal gift of vision — and to deny all people equality is to enforce inequality, repression and famine". If this is understood, then isn't any art, revolutionary or not, still merely 'art' in its current and historical understanding?

I am interested in the notion (proposed by the people such as Black Mask, Stewart Home, Art Strike 1990-93, Tony Lowe and to some extent Situationism) that by continuing to make work, and therefore to define ourselves as 'artists' — we deny others the equal gift of vision and keep art firmly separate to everyday, creative acts ie life. In this way, we perpetuate a system of inactivity, passivity, hierarchy — and most importantly — privilege. Ross mentions this himself: "Art's political value comes from its inherent (conventional) non-functionality, allowing for a line-of-flight from dominant economic models of exchange/use-value". And to become non functional and pro-revolutionary art should discontinue in its current form, not just in terms of economic exchange, but in the relations of production it continues to uphold. After all, Capital is first and foremost a social relation.

Herein lies my current position. Art which ‘criticises the establishment’ is reintegrated into it, defusing any useful comprehension of its horror. Since this kind of ‘edgy’ work often defines itself in opposition to the very thing it critiques, the work — and the artist making that work — has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. In the end these sub-cultures within the art world only serve to diffuse the potentially radical energies of the creative public so that they pose no real, collective threat to established culture. The critique of the spectacle remains an integral part of the spectacle itself, and in turn legitimises it. And that includes my past practice (which I'm quite happy to admit).

It should be plainly obvious by now that art making, in itself, is an insufficient response to social crisis. The libertarian possibilities of disavowing art as an individualistic activity that is somehow special or superior to other human activities are endless. Creative energies could be channeled into any (or every) action one could imagine. To give up artistic privilege, consumption and productivity — addictions which capital has convinced us gives our individualistic lives value — is the negation of art, the negation of domination.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Workers occupy factory in Britain


Hundreds of workers occupied two Visteon car manufacturing factories in Britain after the management closed them down, laying off the entire workforce with no notice, violating their contracts.

From www.libcom.org.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Anti-capitalist/G20 protest in London


April 1st saw tens of thousands of people gather in anger around the G20 summit in London, protesting the role of Capitalism and the financial sector in the current economic crisis. The protest is on-going and there are reports of at least one person has been killed in the clashes with police so far. Watch the latest Guardian video here, or more news can also be found at infoshop.org.






"World leaders, including Barak Obama, are set to meet at Docklands Excel Centre in London's East End, for the G20 financial summit on April 2nd, to sort out the global crisis they themselves conspired to create. While unemployment escalates along with debt and poverty - we are told to tighten our belts, not to complain, to have faith in bankers, bosses and politicians, these leaders are preparing the biggest shake up in the history of capitalism since the 1930s. We can only imagine what is on offer as their solution - from the people that brought us wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, from the heads of economies that continue to concentrate the world's wealth in the hands of a tiny minority from the obscene rich and powerful who continue to steal the products of our labour and time, forcing us to fight amongst ourselves for what's left. 

We are living in uncertain, dangerous times, where we can either allow our futures, and the future of our children, to be decided by the same class of people that have brought us into this crisis (and continue to profit from our misery) or we can decide to get rid of the lot of them and organise society differently - for our own benefit and of the benefit of those around us; those we work with, those we live with, for a future based on our collective needs. 



Let's make this a chance for a fundamental change in society. Let's reclaim the history of working class struggle for a new free world, for a global human community fit for all, not the undeserving rich elite who are happy to see our lives ruined if it means that they stay in charge and at the top.

"