Scott Crow talks about his new book "Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective" at Monkeywrench Books on February 12, 2012. The video is a long version of an Austin Indymedia show produced for Channel Austin in February 2012.

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In a stunning move, the G8 -- which was slated to hold its 2012 summit in Chicago -- abruptly announced on March 5th that the G8 would instead convene in the exclusive presidential retreat of Camp David, Maryland. The official stated reason is that the G8 sought a "more casual backdrop", though activists have claimed victory for pressuring the move. If so, then it might be the capstone of a month full of dramatic actions and wins for grassroots Chicago activists.

Image from Uprising Radio: G8 Summit Moved, Protesters Undeterred

From MRzone: If there's one thing we should have learned from the events of the past year -- from the Wisconsin protests to the Occupy Wall Street movement -- it's that we no longer have to let the one percent dictate our agenda.

On February 6, truthdig.com ran an aggressive attack on the black bloc element of the current occupy movements by Chris Hedges. The article, titled "The Cancer in Occupy" sparked indignation and dialogue across the country.

From NYC-IMC: I attended Chris Hedges' talk last night in Manhattan. In my view, 3/4 of his speech was absolutely fantastic. And then he talked about Occupy Oakland and the black bloc. Seth, Bill K (from Manhattan Greens list), and I talked with Hedges afterwards. Meeting with Chris Hedges by Mitchel Cohen

From DC-IMC: This is an important debate on Letters and Politics w/ Mitch Jeserich, KPFA, between Chris Hedges and Kristof Lopaur of Occupy Oakland, in response to Hedges article ... Both sides debate what appeals to a "broader audience" versus "alienating people." ... they both are trying to answer where to go from here, the role of the Democrats, thinking strategically. Audio of Debate

From the indymedia.us newswire: It should be no surprise that Hedges, a proponent of statist solutions, should slander anarchism as a philosophy. But, for some reason, it was a surprise to many on the Left who follow his work. Here’s why: Hedges’ Truthdig column titled, simply, “The Greeks Get It” (24 May 2010) showed a man then unafraid to take on rampant fascism, the insidious nature of capitalism, and the heavy hand of the police state. Hedging Our Bets on the Black Bloc: the Impotence of Mere Liberalism by Zakk Flash

More Responses: Violence Begets Defeat or Too Much Pacifism? by Michael Albert | Concerning the Violent Peace-Police by David Graeber

Related: Reflections from Monday night's Oakland solidarity march | The Need For Radicals To Say Goodbye To Occupy

From russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com:

Interviewer: How would you define democracy?

Maroon: In it’s broadest sense – to me – democracy is the ability of the individual to exercise self-determination in the core areas of economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, war and peace; taking under consideration the need to both support and guide children until they can responsibly exercise those things on their own... [Read More | Image from the National Jericho Movement]

Alondra Nelson, the author of 'Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination,' writes that "the Party's focus on health care was both practical and ideological." On a practical level, the BPP provided free community health care services, including preventative education. Simultaneously, the BPP railed against the medical-industrial complex, declaring that health care was "a right and not a privilege."

One of the lessons that the BPP offers today's activists is that they should be more loyal to the desired outcome than to the tactic. The sit-in came to be associated with the southern civil rights movement just as the mic check is now emblematic of the Occupy movement. But these groups also used other tactics: marching, occupying, sermons, etc. Social movements are dynamic phenomena; circumstances are constantly changing. So too should tactics. Full Report & Interview | www.angola3news.com

From early on in the occupation movement of 2011, there has been an extremely problematic meme which has infected the rhetoric of the entire movement. The idea of a 99%, a homogeneous mass of individuals who all are equally oppressed by the wealthiest 1% has become the dominant identity of those participating in the occupations.

This identity meme is problematic for the following reasons: It promotes colorblind racism, it fails to acknowledge the intersectionality of oppressions, it fails to acknowledge hierarchies of privilege, it makes invisible the class structure which enables the "1%" to exist in the first place, it promotes a liberal world-view in which individuals are abstracted from the groups that they belong to and the systems of power in which they participate, and worst of all, by not acknowledging these problems it allows them to be perpetuated within our own occupations. read more

A Statement in Support of the Egyptian Youth Uprising from the perspective of a U.S. Political Prisoner.

The Youth movement in Egypt has been defined as a revolution, but to me it resembles more of an uprising against tyranny. This historical uprising in many respects reminds me of the type of Black youth uprising that occurred in the United States against the tyranny of Jim Crow segregation. Although the civil rights movement is often referred to as a Black bourgeois revolution challenging segregation laws and policy, it was not until Kwame Toure (formerly Stokely Carmicheal) of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), announced that the struggle is for “Black Power”, that the civil rights movement evolved into a Black liberation struggle for young people. As a result of the growing militancy of Black youth, the federal government under the auspices of the FBI-Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) began to violently suppress the growing militant youth movement. That movement was mostly represented by the Black Panther Party, which became the principle target of the FBI Cointelpro activities, actions that included framing members for imprisonment, running them into exile and assassination.

The Black Panther movement evolved out of the political struggles of the civil rights movement to further demand control of the socio-economic and political institutions controlling the oppressed Black community in the United States.

To date, the youth uprising in Egypt resembles more the democratic demands of the civil rights movement under the leadership of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., and the united front operations of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Urban League, Congress for Racial Equality, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples, and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, each of which had specific responsibilities in coordinating the civil rights movement. The Egyptian youth movement has yet to evolve into a coordinated leadership of a united front, and because of this weakness the uprising is being defined and motivated as no more than a struggle for regime change. read more

We hope that this assembly will allow anarchists, anti authoritarians, autonomists etc., to come together and talk about the increasingly hostile environment we find ourselves in and what we are doing about it. This is not a space for the planning of events but rather it is an opportunity for projects to be announced, for proposals to be stated, for connections to be made, deepened and expanded. We intend to increase the level of joint activity, coordination, and face-to-face communication among already established anarchist networks.

Come to the LPC for food, and a nice social atmosphere, where anarchists around boston can get to know one another and begin to work on new projects for the fall, and revive existing ones.

Greetings from the IMF Resistance Network! With five weeks to go, interest in the October demo is increasing around the world. Sign up for our announcement list at http://imfresistance.org/?page_id=22 - The nice people at Occupied London have reposted our call. Check it out at http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2010/08/27/351-call-for-global-anti-imf-demonstrations-october-8-11/

Whatever our disagreements about priorities, strategy, organization and more, the one thing all anarchists can agree on is that hierarchies suck. Any organizational structure that privileges a handful of unaccountable leaders to make unilateral decisions for an entire group will be unhesitatingly condemned by virtually anybody who calls herself an antiauthoritarian. Yet fewer of us realize that in addition to being inherently oppressive, hierarchies don't work very well. In spite of the enormous amount of evidence of the inefficiency of bureaucracies, many anarchists seem to believe that corporate and governmental organizations are nearly invulnerable.

Dear Friends, Midnight Special has been engaging in months of discussion and critical analysis about the role of law collectives, both amongst ourselves and with other members of the law collective movement. We have also been looking at our own internal process as an anti-authoritarian collective. We have reached various conclusions: that we have been unable to break out of the service provider model; that we are dissatisfied with jumping from action to action, and leaving little infrastructure behind; that we often emulate the oppressive structures we seek to change; and that these problems are much harder to solve than we had believed.

By Ricardo Levins Morales

Don’t fight the riptide. It’ll wear you down. A riptide occurs when water at high tide gets pooled behind reefs or sand bars so when the sea goes out again, the trapped water has to find a channel through which to escape the pool. It empties through that opening with such force that it can sweep a swimmer out to sea. Our instinct is to start swimming toward shore as hard as we can. The better strategy is to swim parallel to the coast until you are out of the riptide, then ride the regular waves to shore. Left activists know the feeling of being caught in a riptide without knowing the way out. When the political tide runs against us it takes all our effort just to stay in place. Our standards slide until a “victory” just means that we didn’t get screwed as badly as we could have been. Our gains are swept away the moment we turn away.

When conservative activists faced this problem, back in the mid-1960s, they tried something different. Instead of swimming faster they looked into what it would take to turn the tide around. They pulled it off. With the tide behind you, you can achieve all kinds of success even with less that brilliant leadership. It’s a lot easier to slash local school budgets when half the population already believes that government is incompetent, teachers are lazy, taxes are evil and the private sector can do it better. That’s the tide.

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On Thursday, July 8th at 7pm in Watsonville, the Brown Berets are hosting a workshop by acclaimed Bay Area artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez. Favianna will discuss the process of developing art in collaboration with community-based organizations. She will also discuss steps for designing visually engaging posters for social justice campaigns.