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The Army and the Police are one

The sad events of tonight will hopefully bury that relatively misguided phrase “the people and the army are one hand” and reveal that the true nature of the situation in Egypt is better “the army and the police are one hand.” A group of several hundred peaceful protestors, attempting to stay the night in Tahrir square and in front of the People’s Assembly to protest continued military rule and the persistence of the old regime’s illegitimate presence in government, were violently attacked and driven away by Military Police, Army officers and commandos wearing balaclavas and wielding sub-machine guns. One protestor, taken inside of the People’s Assembly building by army officers and beaten, was told bluntly “don’t fuck with the army.”

The victims of this assault were the committed remnants of an earlier protest of thousands in front of the square, whose numbers were perhaps artificially low since the army had kettled those already camped out and prevented others from joining them. These would-be demonstrators were quickly and unflinchingly attacked by military police and army soldiers using nightsticks and cattle prods, beating and shocking them until they were forced to scatter. Many people were abducted, including Shady al Ghazali Harb and one ‘foreign’ journalist who was taken away early (whereabouts currently unkown). Many more people were injured to varying degrees, some quite seriously, including several people passing out from the voltage of the stun batons; some of the injured required treatment at hospital.

The putative excuse for this assault was that protestors were in violation of curfew; aside from a curfew violation not justifying extreme physical violence without warning, this is effectively the same curfew that was flaunted without consequence throughout the entire initial sequence of this revoultion. The army, since taking control over the executive, has been increasingly strict (read: arbitrary, violent) in its enforcement of the curfew, seemingly in order to prevent sit-ins and other nighttime demonstrations. We saw no property damage or other violence during curfew hours in previous weeks (except that perpetrated by government-hired thugs), and so the presumption that this is “for our own protection” is a farce that hardly warrants discussion. Collective punishment, an air of anxiety, and the disruption of continued control and presence of key protest sites are the only observable motives of this curfew.

The greater point, however, which comes as no surprise to most involved in this revolution, is that the army is no friend of the people. This institution is as much a part of the regime as any other, representing not just the same entrenched military-political elite that have ruled Egypt for 60 years, but also enormous and substantial business interests that benefit from preferential treatment and systemic corruption. There has been little doubt in anyone’s mind that the army’s preference would be to maintain most of the country’s infrastructure (police and political) just as it was before, while placating the people telling them that it was their ally and guardian. And yet, and yet, we see the same violence directed at citizens here that we have seen in the hands of police (and only a day after a police officer shot a microbus driver during a verbal argument in the street). The army has shown its bloody hand, and the only hope is that the news of this will spread fast enough that people can realize their complicity and duplicity before any more blood need be spilled.

This remains a regime and a system which has been trained and taught to regard people as a threat to their continued privilege and prosperity, who in the name of stability create chaos, pain and anxiety for anyone who would seek to be present in public, to voice an opinion or seek after their long-lost rights. Whatever expectations the Egyptian people may have had from the army, and whatever the army may have done by way of protecting civilians during the early weeks of protest (as they did somewhat, but not enough) should be meaningless now. Now in the seat of power, they display the same callous paternalism and heavy hand that the old figureheads of the regime did, and whether this is their desire or this is simply the machine controlling its operator, serious structural and institutional change is the only possible acceptable outcome.

Out with the army, out with the police, out with the old regime. All one hand, all working together to drive the Egyptian people into despair, subjection and quiescence. We, however, have had a taste of the immediacy of freedom and will neither be placated by the gifts of the state nor cowed by its criminal, unacceptable violence

source: The Army and the Police are one | http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=355

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Communiqués

Judith Butler: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011
To: Glennda@gaycenter.org
From: Judith Butler

Subject: censorship at the NY LGBT Center

Dear Glennda Testone,

I am writing to communicate my outrage and sorrow that our movement has come to this point where it refuses to house an organization that is fighting for social justice. I was appalled to see the very ignorant and hateful messages that supported your center’s decision to ban Siegebusters from holding an event on the topic of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The colleagues at Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive Jewish organizations with whom I have spoken are in strong disagreement with your action. It is simply wrong to assume that housing an event that discusses the BDS movement is anti-Semitic in content or implication. There are increasing numbers of Jewish intellectuals and cultural workers (including Adrienne Rich and myself) who support the BDS movement, including a vocal group from Israel that calls upon the rest of us to put international pressure on their country (including Anat Matar, Rachel Giora, Dalit Baum – one of the founding queer activists there, and Neve Gordon). There are also queer anarchist and human rights groups in Israel- including “Who Profits?” – who support BDS and who are struggling against illegal land confiscations in Jerusalem and the building of the wall or who, at least, would support an open forum to discuss the pros and cons of this strategy, non-violent, to compel the State of Israel. But there is, perhaps most importantly as well a network of Palestinian Queers for BDS that have an important and complex analysis of the situation, calling for BDS as a sustained non-violent practice to oppose the systematic disenfranchisement of Palestinians under the Occupation. It is surely part of our global responsibility to understand this position and to make alliances across regional divisions rather than stay within the parochial assumptions of our own neighborhoods.
The idea that BDS is somehow anti-Semitic misunderstands the point and is simply false. It is a movement that is in favor of putting pressure on states that fail to comply with international law and, in this case, that keep more than 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank under the military control of Israel, which also maintains political control over their survival, mobility, employment, health, and elections – and this has been amply demonstrated. This is a human rights and social justice issue about which we all have to learn. And it seems to me that just as the very notion of freedom must include sexual freedom, and the very notion of equality must include sexual and gender equality, so must we form alliances that show that our concern with social justice is one that will include opposition to all forms of state subjugation and disenfranchisement. We now have many organizations that affirm the interlinking networks of subjugation and alliance: queers against racism, queers for economic justice. We must oppose all forms of anti-Semitism to be sure (as a Jewish queer who lost part of maternal line in the Nazi genocide against the Jews, I can and will take no other stand). But we must extend our critique of racism to all minorities whose citizenship is unfulfilled, suspended, lost, or compromised, which would include the Palestinian people in the last several decades.
The Siegebuster event is one that would simply seek to inform the LGBTQ community of a set of political viewpoints. No one who goes to the event has to agree with the viewpoint put forward there, and neither does the center. By hosting this event, your center would simply be acknowledging that this is an important global issue in which LGBTQ people are invested and are now currently debating. The Center thus would agree that we all need to hear this viewpoint in order to make more informed decisions about the situation. I fear that to refuse to host the event is to submit to the tactics of intimidation and ignorance and to give up on the important public function of this center. I urge you to reconsider your view. These are important matters, they concern us all, and we look to you now to show that the LGBTQ movement remains committed to discussing social justice issues and will not be intimidated by those who seek to expand the powers of censorship precisely when so much of the rest of the world is trying to bring them down. There is still time for you to act with courage and wisdom.

Sincerely,

Judith Butler
University of California, Berkeley
Visiting Professor, New School for Social Research (Spring, 2011)

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Communiqués

Regimented

 

The fury and violence of the Libyan uprising has been making me reflect on the Egyptian revolution, and the (still not ancien) regime’s modus operandi.

Extricating that mad bastard in the toctoc will inevitably be bloody. Reported deaths have already outstripped deaths during Egypt’s revolution, in less than a week. Gaddafi has bombed his people from the skies, used mercenaries, and subjected them to hallucinogenic broadcasts of defiance involving hunting caps and umbrellas. One of his sons, the insipid and stupid Seif, has also been enlisted to the media war effort.

I keep thinking back to Mubarak’s last speeches, imagining what the response would have been if, adorned in swathes of linen and a hunting cap, he’d stepped out of a toctoc and mumbled “I’m still in Cairo, you dogs!” But then our Hosny would never do that, obviously. He is a reasonable man who wears suits.

I often lament that if Egypt had to be burdened with a man with dictator tendencies he could have at least displayed a few colourful peccadilloes, like the rest of the world’s crackpots. A collection of high heel shoes, for example, or a penchant for making parliamentary speeches in spandex.

No such luck. Mubarak’s repression was low key in every way except for its cruelty. It was also insidious and self-maintaining, through an extensive network or nepotism, hand greasing and intimidation. For thirty years in Mubarak’s Egypt having the right connections and keeping to the approved script ensured better treatment from cradle to the grave.

Mubarak is no longer the official president, but nothing in the system has changed because the regime’s influence is so deeply entrenched throughout state (and some non-state) institutions, and the revolution has only had a tokenistic stab at some of the National Democratic Party’s upper echelons.

Seeing former NDP bigwig Ahmed Ezz in prison (elegant as always in his aristocratic ‘just been on the yacht’ up-turned polo shirt collar) may be gratifying but why is Mubarak enjoying the sun in Sharm? Why are his loyalists, Fathy Sorour, Safwat El-Sherif etc at large?

A mystery, as by the way, is the question of why Ahmed Shafiq never wears ties (is he secretly Iranian?? Could we encourage state media to propagate this? Maybe that will push him out.)

Today a police officer had a traffic altercation with a minibus driver. The police officer pulled out his gun and shot the man. An angry protest ensued. On Wednesday morning the army knocked down a wall built to protect a monastery in Wady Natrun. Guns were fired during the operation. An angry protest ensued.

Blind use of force followed by public anger is the regime’s trademark. The Interior Ministry has been chastened but there is nothing to indicate that any kind of major structural reform has taken place. Significantly, the state of emergency remains in place and state security investigations, the much feared and reviled apparatus accused of systematic torture has not been disbanded. The Supreme Military Council meanwhile insists that these are matters that require time, study and examination while at the same time it is in a mad rush to hold elections – in six months time. Mohamed ElBaradei and others have suggested the transitional period last a year.

Mubarak’s regime was never a Them and Us situation. Repression and patronage were carefully modulated to ensure a wide base of beneficiaries and loyalists. The status quo suits many, and this will take years to change. But some immediate changes are doable and essential. The most pressing is to rid the transitional government of any regime figures – such as Shafiq.

Secondly, the emergency law must be abolished.  As I understand it the emergency law has in any case been suspended because we are living under military law. The difference between the two is getting fucked over by a policeman and getting fucked over by a soldier, but ending the state of emergency in force since 1981 would demonstrate good will.

The critical change concerns the Interior Ministry, which must be completely restructured. The Interior Minister must be a civilian, not police. The police must be properly trained. Some kind of independent complaints committee must be established with the power to hold to account police who violate the law. State security investigations must be disbanded and alas its officers integrated into society (that is if we are not allowed to dump them all in Guantanamo).

The single most important thing the army or the transitional government or whoever is bloody in charge must do now is hold to account members of the regime for their actions, including police and state security officers.

On January 25 they were sent a message that people had had enough. But the mood has now changed; the army is appealing for a return to normalcy, the police are slowly reappearing on the streets after their disappearance, the euphoria of “victory” still exists but people have returned to the routine of everyday life. And the regime is everywhere in everyday life.

Originally published on inanities.org

source: Regimented | http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=349

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Communiqués

Occupy UCL: How BP made friends Mu’ammar Gaddafi

Occupy Goldsmiths: Occupy UCL: The Old refectory is occupied. A group of people have crashed an event in UCL, where Friends of the Earth are platforming BP, essentially to offer careers advice. The old refectory UCL. Come down. The event is continuing after much heckling and a series of interjections.

background:
On Monday, BP CEO Bob Dudley declared that “we remain committed to doing business” in Libya and stressed that offshore operations in the region were still open and continuing. That morning, stories of tanks crushing unarmed protestors in Benghazi and massacres by (British-built) sniper rifles had been front page news. As Dudley spoke, reports emerged of airstrikes targeting demonstrations across the country.

Bob Dudley didn’t amend his earlier statement, nor was he asked to. Media article after media article cited the decision to evacuate “BP staff & families” – only the 40 expat staff of course, not BP’s Libyan employees. Some referred to the controversy over BP’s entry to Libya, and whether the company had lobbied for the Prisoner Transfer Agreement and Al-Megrahi’s release. But no-one questioned BP’s right or Dudley’s judgement in continuing offshore operations, in Libyan waters only miles from Gaddafi’s continued assault?

With Libya’s enormous oil reserves – the largest in Africa with most of the country still unprospected – ever so tempting, BP had been trying to break into Libya for years. The company lobbied hard, utilising the weight and levers of the British foreign energy policy machinery, despite knowing precisely what Gaddafi stood for. Barely a year before BP signed its deal, many protestors were murdered during February 2006 demonstrations in Benghazi.

Success arrived in May 2007, with then-newly crowned BP CEO Tony Hayward and Libya National Oil Company Chairman Shokri Ghanem signed the documents in Libya’s coastal town of Sirt. PM Tony Blair flew in to witness the event and Hayward describing his delight that “Our agreement is the start of an enduring, long-term and mutually beneficial partnership with Libya.”

BP had reason to be excited, and to pay the $350 million signature bonus towards new tanks and new rifles, or to be squirreled away in a hidden bank account. In the company’s words, the contract represented “The single largest exploration commitment in BP’s 100-year history and the single biggest award of exploration acreage by Libya to an international energy company in modern times.” The 54,000 square kilometres of acreage awarded to the company were four times the total of all other projects combined. The offshore Sirt basin block alone covers an area larger than Belgium. The terms of the Production Sharing Agreement signed were also more generous than those previously gained by US company Oxy and Austrian OMV.

Such a vast area in a resource-heavy area was likely to deliver, with estimates that BP would eventually spend more than $20 billion on exploration and extraction infrastructure. The offshore “seismic acquisition” – firing of high-intensity air guns into the ocean – begun in September 2008 alone was described as “one of the largest and most ambitious such projects ever embarked upon by our industry anywhere globally.”

Ian Smale, the head BP North Africa when the deal was struck, proudly described his sense of “partnership” developed with the Libyan regime over many cups of tea. Questioned about BP’s current exposure in Libya at an oil conference on Monday, Smale – now Head of Strategy for BP – responded, “With specific regard to Libya, our first concern is our people and the security and integrity of our operations.” BP’s security in Libya was provided by the military – presumably now either defected or overpowered by the growing opposition. Somehow it’s not surprising that Smale’s first concern was the security and integrity of our operations, even while newspapers were full with reports of atrocities. The frustration is that this is considered acceptable by journalists that quoted him.

Smale and Hayward themselves always knew that they were doing business with a repressive dictator. And they understood that working with Gaddafi would be easier if they could improve his image, and extoll how beneficial a relationship between Libya and BP would be for Britain.

An eight-page gleaming colour celebration of Libya’s “progress” was published. “Libya Rising” tells us that all is good: women are free, the streets are safe, Westerners are loved, people are becoming richer, BP will teach English, the country is open to business. Hints of brutal repression, prisons, restrictions on journalists or lack of democracy there are none. Not even a whiff of unhappiness. BP’s Libya business support manager Ian McGregor assures us that this is “one of the safest places I’ve been to with BP. […] Initially, most people ask about security. They think it’s very unsafe, or there are a lot of army and guns everywhere. To be honest, it’s the absolute opposite.”

The BP hired journalist goes on to describe how Libya’s “per-capita income is among the continent’s highest”, obscuring the inequitable distribution of that income and rampant poverty. NOC Chairman Dr Ghanem gets to make an appearance as well, explaining how “the importance of Libya as a stable country” makes it a good destination for investment. The regime was, after all, the most stable in Africa – Gaddafi had ruled for 42 years.

Later on Monday, CNBC broadcast part of an interview BP CEO Dudley about a new deal with India’s Reliance Industries. With the Libya story so big, correspondent Rebecca Meehan was eager to ask what he made of the situation in Libya and North Africa. The video shows Dudley relaxed and happy to explain that the situation “has not disrupted any of our businesses at any point so far. Oour activities are far away from any of the troubled areas, but time will hell.” According to Meehan, he went on to explain that BP was “committed to improving the business in Libya regardless of the political situation”.
“Regardless of the political situation” – dictatorship or not.

Although to be fair to BP, the company did apparently try to improve the lives of Libyans who might not benefit from the billions of dollars the company planned to transfer to Gaddafi’s regime. On June 14 2010, BP also ran a public road safety event.

BP Road Safety Event – June 2010

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Communiqués

Dan Wang: Report Back from WI

second report on the wisconsin movement by Dan S. Wang February 23, 2011

‘I tell the story from where I left off. That was last Friday afternoon, February 19.’ http://prop-press.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/second-report-on-the-wisconsin-movement.html

The situation at that moment: Madison public schools shut down for three days due to student walk-outs and teacher sick-outs. From Tuesday on, there had been big turnouts of union workers, high school students, university students, graduate students, nurses, firefighters, teachers, a great many public school parents, police, and all manner of supporters. Senate Democrats were still out of state, denying Walker a quorum. Jesse Jackson spoke to a crowd of thousands at the evening rally, marking the beginning of a procession of national figures to descend on Madison.

The word all that day and into the night was that the first organized Scott Walker support rally was scheduled for the next day, Saturday, from noon to three on the square. The rally for conservatives was being put together by tiny but well-heeled right-wing groups Americans for Prosperity, the Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty, some small Tea Party groups, and who knows who else. The conservatives were already using the event as infowar—bloggers and event announcers described the Saturday counter-demo as showing the world Wisconsin’s real majority. This was a direct challenge to the six day-old movement on the level of visible numbers, bodies in the street and in the Capitol. With no new development from the governor’s office or the legislators, Saturday’s rallies would be the next chapter in the unfolding story.

The Friday evening messages flying around the part of the anti-Walker universe that is visible to me made a single point: Saturday’s turnout had to be massive. The Wisconsin movement had to write the narrative by outnumbering the conservatives 10-1 or 20-1, precluding any possibility for the story to be told without mentioning the crushing imbalance, especially given that the national media were by this day fully engaged.

The pro-labor/pro-education forces met the test. By the time we got there at noon the entire paved area of the square was filled with anti-Walker people, the inner sidewalks and the outer (more sparsely), and some of the lawn areas, plus, we cannot forget, the several thousand (still!) inside the Capitol. The rally for conservatives, organized under the banner I Stand With Walker, by contrast, gathered in the interior part of the square, well inside the corner of Main and Pinckney, and didn’t even fill it.  Even inside the mass of bodies assembled in front of the Tea Party stage, there were anti-Walker and pro-education/pro-worker signs visible. The right wing turnout would be generously granted at a thousand. The progressive side had to have been at least 70,000, and that was the estimate of the police. The space filled by bodies was more than twice that of Thursday and Friday, when estimates were at 30,000.

To give you a sense of the difference, see this video that Ben Manski shared on social media. As he says, the stationary crowd standing in front of the stage is the Tea Party rally, but there were conspicuous anti-Walker sign holders in there, too. The rest of the square, all the way around, and packing the other three corners are all us. On this day the Wisconsin movement transcended protest and became a phenomenon, something that draws attention just because one wants to see for themselves what this thing is. In this case the point of curiosity centers around whether this assemblage is as mainstream as the images depict it. Saturday proved that you don’t get 70,000 people together in the street in Wisconsin without it being a picture of America.

Later on Saturday the rumor circulated that some doctors from UW Health had made it known that they were willing to sign illness excuse forms for teachers who continued to demonstrate. Slate reports that over the weekend one or more doctors actually set up a station near the square to write doctor’s notes for any demonstrator who asked for one. Because of the dishonesty involved and the standards of integrity doctors are held to, the episode attracted a fair bit of shaming by right wing observers and prompted calls for an investigation. I prefer to interpret the action as a continuation of the domino-effect of different groups and constituencies taking the initiative to share risk, in support of one another, in real solidarity. And it is not a stretch. The doctors know that Badger Care and Medicaid are in line on the chopping block, which greatly hurting their poorest patients, not to mention the public school cuts that will hurt their own children.

Sunday turned out to be a day of rest, relatively. The weather was crummy, all day and night, cold sleet and freezing rain. Though rallies were announced, there were many fewer demonstrators. But for those who showed up, there was the Capitol, so for another day and night, the rotunda was kept occupied with people and energy. Medea Benjamin, having just returned from visiting Tahrir Square in Cairo during the crucial last days of the movement that toppled Mubarak, spent the night with demonstrators in the Capitol and reports on it here, especially the echoes of Egypt she sees and hears in Madison. What they portend, and how those echoes reverberate, and who else hears them, are all questions worth considering. My favorite Egypt reference so far: a super minimalist sign that read very simply, 18 DAYS.

On Monday the public school students and teachers returned to class in Madison. In Milwaukee, it was a President’s Day holiday for Milwaukee Public Schools. That and the fact that Monday was a state worker furlough day, made bodies available for yet another day. Jesse Jackson walked with Madison East high school students in the morning, leading his preach/chant call-and-response with them (“Say this, I AM!” I am! “Somebody!” Somebody!). Tom Morello played a show for the unions on Monday evening. Reverend Billy Talen was scheduled to appear on Tuesday. While the right wing blogosphere fulminates against the Obama administration for having been the architects of this uprising (needless to day, their imaginations are working overtime), it seems now that the left wing establishment and celebrity pool is trying to catch up with and support this locomotive of dissent, lest they miss it.

Tuesday’s rallies went on as routine, almost. Again, morning and evening, and plenty of milling around in between. Unlike the festive atmosphere of last week, this was quieter but conversational. The square had become a space for political discussion, strangers talking to strangers, looking toward the uncertain future together. I spoke to metal workers from Milwaukee who told me about Walker’s disasterous tenure as county executive there. I spoke with a UW custodian and a retired guy who came down from Menomonie. And then there were these two women, doing their part to change the conversation from the GOP-manufactured budget crisis to what this is really about:

The proliferating solidarities hit at least three more high points from Saturday to today. The first was the viral image of Muhammed Saladin Nasair holding his now famous sign. Wisconsinites lapped up the gift of symbolism and association, but up until this pic circulated there had not been any indication that people in Egypt could hear or see us, or that our fight mattered to them. This image sent a good many demonstrators into elation—it showed us that translocal communication, bringing movements closer together, could happen. This was quickly followed by news of Ian’s Pizza becoming a receiving station for out of town donations—hundreds of orders—to the demonstrators, including a few pies paid for by somebody in Egypt. By Tuesday, the Capitol rotunda is decorated with pizza boxes repurposed into signs.

The second high point followed weekend rumors of the Capitol police possibly readying to execute an order to vacate the building. The word was that Walker is taking right wing heat for not having already cleaned house, for letting the disorder get out of hand. Madison area firefighters, themselves exempt from the provisions in the bill that would strip collective bargaining, responded dramatically to the rumors by coming to camp out with the students on Monday night, nearly sixty of them. Supposedly, they intend to be an overnight protest presence for the duration, thereby setting up the potentially uncomfortable image of police evicting the firefighters should the governor order them out. Whether all the police would even obey the orders might even be a real question. The firefighters are putting their reputations and prestige on the line for the others even though nobody asked them to. It is impressive.

And then there was Tuesday morning. On my way down to the square I checked into WORT’s noontime discussion on, of course, the movement. Lena Taylor, one of the fourteen absent Democratic senators, was on the phone from somewhere in Illinois. While on the air, she said that she had just received a text confirming that the House Democrats of the Indiana legislature had, like the Wisconsin 14, fled to Illinois in order to deny the Republican majority a quorum. The radio host and studio guests let out a cheer. There’s only one thing better than solidarity. Contagion.

Observations:

1)   On the “echoes of Egypt” question—yes, it is real. Scott Walker’s bill was a carefully coordinated effort, as evidenced by the fact that supportive television ads aimed at demonizing the unions were aired the day the bill was unveiled. Clearly, the frontal assault was planned in advance. Nonetheless, he and his masters, for all their money and tactical thinking, have showed their almost unbelievable blind spots, chief among them, having made their opening attack on the SAME day that Hosni Mubarak resigns. You don’t openly threaten a Wisconsin workforce with the National Guard in the very moment that a three-decade-old dictatorship in a big country (that the world media has been following for more than two weeks) goes down unless you’re practically daring people to make the association—or you are completely oblivious. However substantive are the parallels between the Madison and Cairo movements, from that moment on, the narrative opened up in a way that continues to be advantageous to the demonstrators, in terms of how we see ourselves, and how we think of ourselves as having a world audience. Walker’s blind spot hearkens back to Debord, where he says the spectacle, for all its tendencies to accumulate possibilities and thereby curtail them, loses it ability to think strategically.

2)   The battle of bodies is over. For the moment, the opposition has conceded the point. All the websites that promoted the counter demo have erased their reporting on it, in other words, have chalked it up as a loss and moved on. From there they moved to the arena of pranking, dirty tricks, and unapologetic meddling. The call for trouble makers and the out of state-driven effort to recall Democratic state senators fall into these categories. But even here the progressives have scored the first point. Today, Wednesday, by mid-morning the news broke that Scott Walker has been caught on tape in a conversation with an activist posing as billionaire conservative donor David Koch. We don’t know where this will lead in the news cycle of the next few days, but already it is big. There are calls from public interest groups for a full investigation into the relationship between Walker and the Koch empire, and journalists smell blood.

3)   While the beating heart of the movement continues to be the capitol rotunda, which during waking hours ranges from very loud to super loud (see any youtube video of the rotunda demonstrations), the movement is at a turning point. Walker is dug in, he’s made that clear. The unions are, as well. Their opening gambit of conceding all demands for employee contributions in exchange for the basic right of collective bargaining paid off handsomely in the form of a mass movement and popular support. But now they cannot concede anything else. The language of strike is in the air. When and how is the question. Before the bill gets rammed through, or only after? The workers and students must think through, must imagine what an effective strike will look like—how to maintain the beauty and love that has been communicated so well by the demonstrations, but in the form of a strike, ie a measured, targeted, well-articulated, and loving withdrawal of labor. The demonstrations have been disruptive, true, but that has not been the main story precisely because the evidence of self-organization, creativity, sincerity, and novel forms of sociality has taken over the storyline, to the point of drawing in participants who want to help author it. When Walker carries out his threat to start firing workers, which may begin as early as the end of this week, the question of a strike will move front and center. Then, for supporters from afar, the situation will also change.

4)   How to place this movement? Not only in relation to current worldwide unrest, but also in comparison to the UC campus strikes of last year, and the Republic Doors and Windows occupation that happened in Chicago in late 2008, the last two instances of real disobedience to come out of an American student or worker left? Compared to those recent American campaigns, here the worker-student divide has been successfully bridged from the inception, and the space of demonstration has been utilized very well, framing the rallies under the gravitas of the Capitol building. No complete thoughts, as everything continues to move here, but the questions of historical significance creep in. Especially when you see signs like this:

There is much more to say, particularly about under-surface tensions within the movement, and how demands beyond that of preserving collective bargaining rights might get articulated in a complementary way. The unity is strong for the moment, but attempts to break it apart unceasing, including a growing security presence at the Capitol, shrinking the public’s hold on space, especially overnight. My guess is that rotunda will remain loud during the day but that the sleepovers will end this week. That will not be counted as a defeat, only a natural progression to the next sphere of contestation. On the local level, somehow I keep going back to high school students who catalyzed the movement in the first few days. Multi-hued, multi-lingual, multi-racial—they are the picture of the future, a different one than the (adorable and loving!) older mostly white workers, teachers, and parents. The young of Madison, nearly 50% of color in a traditionally white town, are usually a source of anxiety here—crime, achievement gaps, curfews, etc, etc. But now they’ve show a bit of their minds and hearts, and it gave strength to the rest of us right when we needed it, early. This will be their world, what will they do to shape it, given the chance?

To finish (for now), a short tour of the sign gallery that is the Capitol rotunda, from Tuesday afternoon, Week Two.

http://www.defendwisconsin.org/

Check the Wisconsin AFSCME website for updates on planned actions, especially now that action is being organized outside Madison, in other parts of Wisconsin: http://www.wiafscme.org/

For in town, check the Madison Activist Calendar: http://lists.madimc.org/~infoshop/activistcalendar.html