tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17403295192075889612024-03-11T23:52:08.829-05:00Nola Anarcha"all power to the spreading New Orleans <a href="http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/commoning-and-scarcity">communes</a>"Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-43376161718593482142012-12-17T14:48:00.002-06:002012-12-29T13:11:04.695-06:00NEW YEAR’S EVE JAIL SOLIDARITY NOISE DEMO FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL PRISONSJoin us this New Year’s Eve for a noise demonstration in front of Orleans Parish Prison. This ongoing tradition is part of the international call-out to bring in the New Year with noise demos against prisons, jails, and detention centers. <br />
<br />
Bring banners, loud noise-makers, pots and pans, brass instruments, sound systems, and whatever else you need to bring the ruckus. Please send this announcement to listserves and invite your friends.<br />
<br />
Noise demonstrations are meant to break the loneliness and isolation of prison by breaching the walls with the sounds of solidarity. This small gesture reminds those on the inside that they are not alone, indeed that there are many of us on the outside fighting for a world without prisons or the police that keep them filled. <br />
<br />
Noise demos also tell the jailers and police that no matter how many consent decrees they sign these coercive institutions will never become legitimate in our eyes; that something so inherently oppressive as a prison cannot be reformed short of being reduced to a pile of rubble. <br />
<br />
This year a special shout-out goes to the imprisoned Matthew Duran and Kteeo Olejnik, as well as Maddy Pfeiffer who has been ordered to turn themselves in, for refusing to cooperate with a secret federal Grand Jury investigation targeting anarchists in the Pacific Northwest. Through acts of solidarity and mutual aid we wish to tear down every prison wall, brick by brick. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhTvqCCJaIErZYgJRmmQg3FDXgUS3tgmfxWeWPyW3LXgXEqXi4rEbd47PlRwZbpDzk_9_QPydVD2dSviyIhkdWVXUjgk4YUN38Lqlh5F3IxCcY3HH8fZ4cb9paUtgBYGDdaoG6L8BeAA/s1600/New+years+noise+demo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhTvqCCJaIErZYgJRmmQg3FDXgUS3tgmfxWeWPyW3LXgXEqXi4rEbd47PlRwZbpDzk_9_QPydVD2dSviyIhkdWVXUjgk4YUN38Lqlh5F3IxCcY3HH8fZ4cb9paUtgBYGDdaoG6L8BeAA/s320/New+years+noise+demo.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-60274223033286847532012-08-31T15:14:00.001-05:002012-08-31T15:14:18.618-05:00Donate to the Raging Pelican newspaper! A free, uncompromised & gorgeous grassroots newspaper telling the truth on the Gulf Coast. Check out the <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ragingpelican/the-next-3-issues-of-the-raging-pelican">Raging Pelican Kickstarter</a> to more learn about the Gulf Coast's most widely read anti-establishment newspaper and make a pledge! <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKrBqkiHyr4GZeZT148PJZ5HycFVSxh0wVazmTAX1AHiVYE8BGnjtMgJIaN2mb4pUdna6ZgZ6jb9OHhhMIRo9Qj0yRZbixVmoVnWaIpLbTDxZMKVYNfP0OoPW72slzet0wnPfLFBEdDk/s1600/skip_boyd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="254" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKrBqkiHyr4GZeZT148PJZ5HycFVSxh0wVazmTAX1AHiVYE8BGnjtMgJIaN2mb4pUdna6ZgZ6jb9OHhhMIRo9Qj0yRZbixVmoVnWaIpLbTDxZMKVYNfP0OoPW72slzet0wnPfLFBEdDk/s320/skip_boyd.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-50348503317008311482012-08-04T05:02:00.000-05:002012-08-06T17:49:54.230-05:00The Murder of the Times-Picayune: Part Six<i>the future of the journalist</i><br />
<hr /><b>WHITE AND READ ALL OVER</b><br />
<br />
Heard of this "Bounce Music?" It came out of our city's predominantly African-American housing projects. It's been around a couple decades, so it's clearly more than a fad. Regardless of my own feelings towards the genre, there's no denying lots of people love it.<br />
<br />
In the twenty-first century, the Times-Picayune's music writer Keith Spera has published four articles about bounce musicians. In 2003, he profiled a West Bank <a href="http://ramisharkey.com/" target="_blank">web developer</a> named Rami Sharkey who makes joke bounce songs under the name "Ballzack." You decide how much it matters that Ballzack isn't black-- I don't care enough about him to even have opinions. In 2004, Spera wrote about Juvenile. Then, in 2005 and 2008, Spera wrote two more articles about Ballzack.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN1xJKRm3w5RQR6uTzsqwgv3gv7ThZwp3TSwIBmczdl82wXlDbCit-FY_iVSThwIuBOQLzfdhO3Ujzk_MgIIA1Ox5fHNpuzMpXThts10Ur5tbg5Hu8epOcHtbQz2C82GdgqNj2Y8uv7eY/s1600/cracker_barrel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN1xJKRm3w5RQR6uTzsqwgv3gv7ThZwp3TSwIBmczdl82wXlDbCit-FY_iVSThwIuBOQLzfdhO3Ujzk_MgIIA1Ox5fHNpuzMpXThts10Ur5tbg5Hu8epOcHtbQz2C82GdgqNj2Y8uv7eY/s640/cracker_barrel.jpg" width="294" /></a>This isn't just a Keith Spera problem-- besides a few profiles in the mid-'90s, you can find almost no Times-Pic mentions of bounce musicians before 2009, except those in obituaries and crime stories ("victim was rap singer, in-demand at 'bounce' parties"). The dismissive tenor of the '90s bounce reportage is summed up by (the also white) Scott Aiges' 1994 piece titled "THE SOUND AND THE FURY: NOT EVERYONE LOVES NEW ORLEANS BOUNCE."<br />
<br />
Not everyone. Let's take a look at the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090118213747/http://www.nola.com/living/" target="_blank">Times-Pic's Entertainment and Living writers</a> in January 2009. Two dozen writers, just before the rescinding of the Pledge and the first big wave of layoffs. Click the image on the right to open a larger version, but please adjust your monitor's brightness setting before doing so; I don't want you burning your retinas.<br />
<br />
They're all white.<br />
<br />
A lot of these people are and were superb at their jobs, but does this panoply of honkies really look to you like New Orleans entertainment and living? Don't get me wrong-- some of my best friends are white. I'm not attacking these individual writers for the color of their skin; I'm attacking the Times-Picayune for having an entirely white staff covering "Entertainment and Living" in this historically black city. It's inexcusable.<br />
<br />
If you look at the team NOLA Media Group has <a href="http://www.nola.com/living/" target="_blank">covering Entertainment & Living</a> these days, you see nothing has changed percentage-wise. Fewer faces, still all white. The Times-Picayune did finally begin covering bounce music beyond Ballzack; in '09 they brought on Alison Fensterstock, a good writer who's built a career documenting African-American music. Still a white person, of course, but she at least diversified the paper's interview subjects.<br />
<br />
In June 2012, the racial composition of the already overwhelmingly white Times-Picayune changed again. <a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/177951/african-americans-take-greater-hit-in-times-picayune-layoffs/" target="_blank">According to Poynter</a>, those fired in the Times-Picayune's demise were disproportionately African-American, leaving the organization even whiter, if such a thing seems possible... nor does Poynter take into account the entirely white NOLA.com editorial team.<br />
<br />
Onwards and upwards soars the NOLA Media Group into a new, brighter, whiter, higher-tech new New Orleans. Perhaps it's only fitting for a city with a white Mayor, white Police Chief, white D.A. and majority-white City Council. Let's make sure white Kristen Palmer signs off on giving lily-white @MichaelTMartin and his white staff another <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-three.html" target="_blank">$275,000</a> to <a href="http://www.artplaceamerica.org/grants/st-claude-arts-district-parkette-program/">"culturally revitalize" the historically black St. Roch</a>. <br />
<br />
It's just progress. As <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/21/nola-media-group-meets-with-the-new-orleans-tech-community" target="_blank">Ricky Mathews said</a>, the NOLA Media Group is now positioned to "attract the best and brightest from around the country." Bright people from elsewhere, not like the boring old non-bright, dingy staff they've sloughed off. Bright, shining, iridescent people from elsewhere to come down here and tell us the stories of New Orleans. <br />
<br />
Ricky Mathews and Steve Newhouse know best. They know what New Orleans deserves and needs.<br />
<br />
<hr /><b>WHAT IS NEEDED</b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHtcu738O3jr5GBLPL3z67i-farNjI5airDOOmpXkhU2ufjnlPE6oGnTnLyLHvB0v2hPMcadO1vL8bAQLKtFZ1H59FANTZ-Sj1S2K820JWaGR3OmwPyoOBj2EmUUpMl8Y6TtlOhOpAAaA/s200/slaughterhouse.jpg" width="200" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I signed my non-disparagement agreement."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>When you kill as many jobs as the new NOLA Media Group has, a few will inevitably be messy. The mass-generated automated digital pink slips sometimes get mixed up in the Advance LLC Human Resources e-mail outbox-- the bolt gun sometimes jams, merely stunning the steer. Strive as you might to cleanly automate the slaughterhouse, the annoying unpredictability of living creatures means the process is never as tidy in practice as it looked on the actuary's spreadsheet.<br />
<br />
In one notably gruesome clusterfuck, the NOLA Media Group <a href="http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/brett-anderson-new-orleans-food-writer-is-laid-off/" target="_blank">fired the Times-Pic's revered restaurant critic Brett Anderson</a>, only to then retract the firing and deny it happened. Jim Amoss, the editor, posted <a href="http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2012/06/brett_anderson_invited_to_retu.html" target="_blank">a revisionist non-retraction</a> in which he says he hopes Anderson will accept a position with the NOLA Media Group. <br />
<br />
Will Brett Anderson accept this sweet new gig as Food Blogger? If you care, you're proving yourself a dinosaur. Perhaps you haven't heard: the sun has set on "gatekeepers" like Brett Anderson, and on any of us who'd foolishly posit Anderson's few <a href="http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2012/05/times-picayunes_brett_anderson.html" target="_blank">prize-winning decades of food writing</a> make his opinions somehow more valuable than a dashed-off Yelp review from some random tourist's iPhone.<br />
<br />
In the comment stream beneath Amoss' walkback of the firing, someone using the name <a href="http://connect.nola.com/user/maurepas/index.html" target="_blank">Maurepas</a> (also the name-- coincidentally, I'm sure <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-six.html?showComment=1344293036066#c8391681300981082978"><span style="font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">*</span></a>-- of a new fancy-pants restaurant in the Bywater ) shared <a href="http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2012/06/brett_anderson_invited_to_retu.html#comment-1339773161-563-806" target="_blank">this insight</a>: <br />
<blockquote><i>"I've always loved restaurant reviews... but the days of a Gene Bourg or Tom Fitzmorris or Richard Collin having tremendous influence on the local restaurant scene are no longer because of social media and the ability of restaurants to promote themselves directly to clients. What is needed from the Picayune is more restaurant industry news - chef changes, menu changes, new restaurants, and more short reviews."</i></blockquote>Multiple NOLA.com staffers who've otherwise been silent throughout this brutal transition used the NOLA.com comment software's new "Like" feature to "Like" that comment... and <a href="http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2012/06/maurepas_foods_hosts_greek_win.html">the very next story</a> to be published in NOLA.com's food/dining section-- coincidentally, I'm sure-- was a perfect example of what commenter "Maurepas" was asking for: a tiny four-graph press release about the restaurant Maurepas' new Greek wine selections.<br />
<br />
Remarkable synergy!<br />
<br />
Speaking to the New York Times, the fired editorial columnist Stephanie Grace <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/us/new-orleans-struggles-with-latest-storm-newspaper-layoffs.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">characterized the Times-Picayune staff losses</a> as "People who know where the bodies are buried, people who know who had what fight with which person 30 years ago... the stuff you need to know in New Orleans."<br />
<br />
This obsolete regionalism-- supposing someone in New Orleans might know more about New Orleans than someone elsewhere-- is part of the elitist attitude characteristic of old media. What's needed at the new NOLA Media Group isn't knowledge, or expertise, or experience, or anything else costing money. What's needed is content, as much of it as possible.<br />
<br />
<hr /><b>THE CHURN OF THE SCREW</b><br />
<br />
As discussed <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-five.html#yellowjournalism">in part five</a>, on the new NOLA.com front page all content from all blogs and all departments goes into one front-page column, mingling undifferentiated like so much hog-farm runoff flowing into the lower Mississippi. In a comment below that piece of the series, Rodger Kamenetz asks, "[I]s there any business logic to such a crappy site?" <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3PP8hgEnulTb-2zv76Y7nfq1Y7Gjc5Y0nP4Y3TEeE4MTr1YxVfa92sXYC-jXZz3i6qNN3ehWsMctpG2IqgiKpD82bNop7GiPEE49mmhnJRLTlorPkLEcqRdYVlElXSqndeQkTV6HpHfw/s320/outflow.jpg" width="291" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"There's news in there somewhere...<br />
just don't get any comments on ya."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>There is, and it goes far beyond removing the expense of human editorial oversight. Dumping everything into a single front-page column creates the best possible rate of what sites like Gawker and the Huffington Post call Churn. <br />
<br />
"Churn," in this case, means a high volume of new content crossing the front page. It's a new-media model in which the appearance of vigor, freshness and liveliness is more important than accuracy, usefulness or any specific virtues of the churned content itself.<br />
<br />
The consultants have reached consensus: in an alienated online existence, in our individualized high-tech isolation, the rapid flow of information across the NOLA.com site will draw us to it. Just as moths mistake a porch light for the sun, we will come and batter our virtual bodies against the warm glow of the Churn, absorbing countless advertiser-impressions as we do so. We may flutter away, yet we shall return to the churn time and again because its carefully staged endless waterfall of McNuggetized content evokes the cheerful vibrance of group interaction-- the sort of interpersonal communion we isolated digital consumers crave, the itch we seek to scratch online since we've all become too fragmented, agoraphobic and obese to interact with one another in the real world.<br />
<br />
In the foamy pools and eddies below this churning content, down in the notorious NOLA.com comment sections, our avatars-- preferably our Facebook identities, a meticulously curated version of self built on a foundation of brand-names and media tastes-- will argue and inveigh endlessly, creating mini-waterfalls of churn below each article, an exponential, fractally multifarious outward spiral of content and debate: what advertisers like to call "community."<br />
<br />
<hr /><b>CASUALTIES OF CHURN: A MURDER IN THE FRENCH QUARTER</b><br />
<br />
From a post on the excellent Media of Birmingham blog titled "<a href="http://mediaofbirmingham.com/2012/05/30/insiders-detail-birmingham-news-lurch-toward-digital-future/" target="_blank">Insiders detail Birmingham News’ lurch toward digital future</a>," we get a sense of life inside the new Advance media churn.<br />
<blockquote><i>For the past few months, early shift reporters have been instructed to post just about anything every 15 minutes from 7 to 9 a.m. to AL.com to drive traffic. Often, the posts would be based primarily on media releases.</i></blockquote>Posting press releases as news sucks, but the big sacrifice journalism makes for speed is accuracy. We see this in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/cnn-supreme-court-health-care-individual-mandate_n_1633950.html" target="_blank">giant news outlets misreporting historic Supreme Court decisions</a>; we see this in <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/07/18/how-this-guy-lied-his-way-into-msnbc-abc-news-the-new-york-times-and-more/" target="_blank">high-profile print publications using scammers as "sources"</a>, and we'll see ever more of it on the "churn-driven" NOLA.com.<br />
<br />
Paula Devlin, a Times-Picayune copy editor for 25 years, was moved to the Online News Desk created to oversee postings on the redesigned NOLA.com website. In remarks I was first made aware of by a comment below <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/07/09/times-picayune-citizens-group-formally-asks-newhouse-family-to-sell-the-paper" target="_blank">a Gambit blog post</a>, Devlin spoke to the National Conference of the American Copy Editors Society in April 2012 about how copy editing suffers in the online news environment-- though her characterization of these changes was <a href="http://nola.copydesk.org/wp-media/online2012.pdf" target="_blank">very positive</a>, as behooves someone working in the field. "Mistakes = opportunities for engagement," the published version of her notes says. "Readers really enjoy pointing out our errors." <br />
<br />
Shouldn't reliability and accuracy be hallmarks of the journalistic mission? One of the major differences between the reporting of a reputable news outlet and a rumor from Facebook or a screed on examiner.com is the level of trust readers feel towards the source. To whatever degree readers trusted the Times-Picayune, it was because we knew its individual journalists to be fundamentally ethical. They considered truth-telling part of their mission, and the hard work of editors like Ms. Devlin kept the newspaper mostly free of factual or typographical errors-- free enough that exceptions were noteworthy. On NOLA.com, mistakes are the rule; they're considered inevitable. Inaccuracy is policy.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicWtwdFebKOZqLf010i5_elttRa6nchYu9uczo3AbvTRpdiFbM5rsQ6A5VH6w8HxMA25hdDbTfcJ8ZMFXN_7S6LCGtrWOEb_aunyAVOZKC3j4Fad6H5bXJ2NS0nuECByACmK-W0UeL1Tg/s1600/fqmurder.jpg" /></div></div>One of my pet peeves is New Orleans journalists incorrectly identifying the city's different neighborhoods and regions. Most of our local news sources have been guilty of this. Reporters are human, and some of the designations and boundaries are so arcane that even the most fanatical 5th-generation geographers can't agree on 'em. Usually these geographical misreportings are no more than an indicator that yet another New Orleans media job has just been awarded to an out-of-towner (or in Gambit & the Lens' cases, an out-of-continent-er), but I was struck by one recent example: an article on NOLA.com titled "<a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/07/suspects_arrested_in_french_qu.html" target="_blank">Suspects arrested in French Quarter murder</a>."<br />
<br />
Turns out the murder wasn't in the French Quarter at all, as many (subsequently deleted) comments pointed out, but the headline and opening paragraphs detailing a "French Quarter murder" were posted at 6:30 pm and not updated until after midnight the next day, long enough for the mistake to be <a href="https://twitter.com/NOLAnews/status/227900798166773760" target="_blank">tweeted</a> and retweeted, syndicated across the internet, aggregated into various other news services including Google News, and show up in searches for "french quarter murder."<br />
<br />
In a city dependent on tourism, why is NOLA.com inventing murders in the French Quarter?<br />
<br />
The writer in question, a new hire fresh from college, doesn't deserve to be pilloried for her mistake. We all make mistakes. She isn't the problem; the problem is the dynamic into which she's been hired-- at, it's safe to assume, a salary much lower than those of the recently fired. The problem is that greenhorns without experience or news judgement are, with no oversight or copy editing, publishing stories under the byline of a formerly reputable newspaper. That lack of oversight, that hurry to get something, anything up there and into the conversation, is a reality of the robust new NOLA Media Group's churn-centric model. It's the reality behind all the corner-office horseshit about a sustained post-newspaper commitment to journalism.<br />
<br />
If you don't like these kinds of inaccuracies, if you notice NOLA.com disseminating falsehoods, why, you should "join the conversation" via registering to post, so you can point the inaccuracies out via comments. Tweet angrily about it-- be sure and include a link to the article in question, so others can come view the advertisements and give NOLA.com more web-hits. Why should NOLA.com be accurate, when inaccuracy generates so many more clicks and comments?<br />
<br />
<hr /><b>YOU WERE A JOURNALIST</b><br />
<br />
For those who survive these layoffs, and for those who may be hired down the line, what's a journalism job with NOLA Media Group like? I quote <a href="http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/how_to_worry_about_a_clicks-dr.php?page=all" target="_blank">a searing examination of "clicks-driven journalism"</a> by departing Times-Picayune reporter Sarah Carr:<br />
<blockquote><i>A precedent established at the MLive Media Group in Michigan, the first Advance Publications property to go digital, offers a telling clue: In Michigan, reporters say their bonuses are based on the number of stories they post, the number of times they engage with readers through the comment stream, and the number of pageviews their stories receive</i></blockquote><a href="http://mediaofbirmingham.com/2012/05/30/insiders-detail-birmingham-news-lurch-toward-digital-future" target="_blank">Wade Kwon's post on the Media of Birmingham blog</a> I referenced above tells us that at AL.com, <br />
<blockquote><i>Journalists are also now being instructed to participate in the often unruly comment sections following most stories, a directive that is already meeting resistance.</i></blockquote>Comments, clicks, controversy: once we understand the imperatives and priorities of the churn, the bizarre boilerplate in the <a href="http://jobs.nola.com/jobs/search/results?view=List_Brief&CompanyId=841047" target="_blank">new jobs posted by the NOLA Media Group</a> begins to make more sense. For everything from their Saints reporter to their entertainment beat, the new NOLA Media Group seeks someone who will be an "authoritative voice" and a "discussion leader on high-value topics." They also want someone who has "the ability to leverage relationships with sources to deliver content." <br />
<br />
Once, you were a journalist who produced journalism. Now you are yourself the commodity-- your relationships (to be "leveraged") are part of what you're selling to your employer. You are a personality, a discussion leader. YOU are the attraction; you are now the product.<br />
<br />
Once your personality and identity and relationships are the product your employer is profiting from, you're naturally subjected to more rigorous regulation. Jeffrey over at <a href="http://librarychronicles.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">the library chronicles blog</a> pointed out <a href="http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/60413/nbc-stations-keep-tabs-on-employee-tweets" target="_blank">this article</a>: NBC News staffers are now prohibited from tweeting, posting or distributing via other social networking means, ever, in any context, "anything that compromises the integrity and objectivity of you or NBC Universal."<br />
<br />
Al Tompkins of the Poynter Media Institute explains, "When you work for a media company, it is different than working for a plumbing supply warehouse. You represent your company in all you say, do and write." <br />
<br />
Once, you were a journalist who produced journalism, which people paid money for. Now all "content" you create, on the clock or off, is a part of your brand, which your employer owns. You are permanently, indefinitely answerable and accountable to your employer, in all you do and say... and yet you are paid a salary and benefits based only on an eight-hour day, if that. <br />
<br />
In new media you have no right to privacy, neither to a personal life nor to personal opinions. Your identity and your personhood are a thing to be bought and sold by media conglomerates; you're new-media chattel.<br />
<br />
Not so long ago a million sad nobodies craved fame, craved the spotlight of reality television or youtube notoriety, but Fortuna's wheel is turning. In this technologically fixated phase of late capitalism, with both the government and advertisers craving and compiling historically unprecedented amounts of personal information, it's privacy that will be invaluable and unaffordable. <br />
<br />
Soon only the super-rich-- like <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-four.html" target="_blank">the Newhouses</a>-- will have the flex and connections to avoid every detail of their lives being available online. They alone will remain hidden from sight, surrounded by bodyguards and lawyers, occult and unaccountable, protected by laws like the Citizens United ruling that even keep secret the millions of dollars they pour into our broken, corrupt political processes.<br />
<br />
They, the wealthy, will set the terms of the debate. You, who were once a journalist, you who are now a "content provider," will keep a steady trickle of content going over the NOLA.com dam. <br />
<br />
You will aggregate links from elsewhere, elevate user comments into posts, and generally keep the maximum volume of output flowing by any means necessary, flinging all the spaghetti you can get your digital mitts on against the endlessly scrolling wall, hoping to attract controversy and lead discussion. Your own measly trickle of content will combine with the trickles of your fellow Content Providers and the steady generic effluence of the Associated Press wire to create a mighty, flowing stream. Whoosh! Don't let up, not even for a moment! Keep it flowing... peon! Isn't this what you went to journalism school for? <br />
<br />
<hr /><b>I BELIEVE THE COMMENTS ARE THE FUTURE</b><br />
<br />
If the New York City Newhouses feel it makes sense to combine the geographically and culturally disparate cities of Huntsville, Montgomery and Mobile into a single news location, why stop there? I bet there are English-speakers in Southeast Asia who would generate a hell of a lot of content for AL.com and NOLA.com even more cheaply than the freshly-minted U.S. undergrads who will be replacing long-time regional reporters. <br />
<br />
Since investigative political reporting is to be replaced with TV-show recaps and press releases, why do the recapper and press-release repurposer need to be anywhere in particular?<br />
<br />
Outsourcing seems the logical next step-- but that's limited thinking. The truth is, ever paying anyone for anything is an outdated model. The churn's advantages go beyond merely removing the expense of editors; they extend into the future, where there are also no paid reporters. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-rKaZMj3KKeP6pbZ3l-4ModMvOGZTIMEo-irqBYbveO1sjVRqz9iVVUOdhUHq0C7RvCJyZ9kXiVyqtWXv49kzXpus5pJHze_L3vmxbzHHD2jyjeZsJi9zrBzEcdGBY5AvdjU0ajGzbLQ/s400/join_the_discussion.jpg" width="210" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Commenters," ca. 1490</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Recall the emphasis on comments and commenters in the duties of those NOLA Media Group positions. The major responsibilities of what used to be a journalism job are to "<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22post+frequent+and+incrementally+posting%22" target="_blank">Post frequent and incrementally posting [sic] throughout the day</a>... Monitor and engage in reader comment streams... elevate comments into new posts..." The goal is more comments.<br />
<br />
Back several thousand paragraphs ago I mentioned <a href="http://reddit.com/" target="_blank">Reddit.com</a>, one of the Newhouse family's online properties. Reddit is a peculiar website that functions as a vast, geographically unspecific nola.com comment section. It's an "information site" with no actual news, just links to other things elsewhere. The content of Reddit itself is all comments-- a dense weave of angry male voices shouting over one another about Japanese cartoons, discontinued television programs and the global conspiracy of circumcision. It's a labyrinth of pathologically lonely minotaurs, each mooing his alienated rage and then anxiously pounding the "reload" button to see if his response has itself provoked any responses. When you multiply this effect by the number of unloved video-game enthusiasts in North America, the result is a heavily trafficked website.<br />
<br />
I single Reddit out because it's the high-profit digital future. Having abandoned real-world interactions, the site's users build status within their pallid and sedentary tribe by seeking out and posting the newest links and the angriest commentary about whatever's being linked to. It's the online equivalent of a skinhead boot party, except the virtual participants don't have to be able to unstick their thighs from their office chairs to participate. It's like YouTube if YouTube was only the comments, and it's tremendously low-overhead and high-profit for Advance. Reddit's users themselves generate all the site's content. No paid "Discussion Leaders" needed! <br />
<br />
This is the maximally profitable future; it's the direction everything's going in, including what used to be our daily newspaper. The field-leading Huffington Post was there early, <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9785908-7.html" target="_blank">explaining back in '07</a> that paying for content wasn't in their "financial model." <br />
<br />
Just as killing the Times-Picayune and replacing it with a thrice-weekly print dipperful of stale blog entries is prelude to discontinuing print altogether, repurposing professional journalists into humiliating new roles as "discussion leaders" and "buzz reporters" is a prelude to the elimination of the entire field.<br />
<br />
Gawker.com, a protean snark sweatshop that began as NYC-regional but long ago cost-efficiently genericized into a global content mill, <a href="http://observer.com/2012/06/deadliest-klatsch-nick-denton-gives-gawkers-drive-by-peanut-gallery-a-promotion/?show=all" target="_blank">is on its way</a>, eliminating all barriers between the site's few remaining paid writers and the unpaid commenters. <br />
<br />
Consider the notorious cesspool that is the NOLA.com comment section, and then consider this: <br />
<blockquote><i>Now, with a new commenting system called Kinja, [Gawker honcho] Mr. Denton is offering a set of housekeys to anyone who wants them... Under the new order, the commenters babysit themselves, while a secret algorithm ranks their conversations by relevance. In fact, their contributions are not even called “comments” anymore. Internally, the company has instituted a $5 penalty on anyone who uses the c-word.<br />
<br />
“These are posts,” Mr. Denton explained, reclaiming a word once reserved for professional prose. “And we intend to hold the posts contributed by readers to the same standards as those of writers—and erase the rather old-fashioned distinction between the two castes.”</i></blockquote><hr /><b>THE END</b><br />
<br />
Journalists have no career future under capitalism. They can become freelance-contracted "discussion leaders" for NOLA.com, or they may find niches in nonprofits, as long as they can stay in favor with the rich and powerful grant-givers who underwrite such endeavors. Capitalism will stamp out those inefficiencies soon enough. There's always <a href="http://gr-pr.blogspot.com/2012/01/assets-laid-off-journalists-can.html" target="_blank">public relations</a> jobs, if you have no ethical objections to propaganda.<br />
<br />
Journalism is fucked. It's not the journalists' fault, and the notion that we the readership are to blame for how awful "news" has become in the 21st century-- that we are to blame for being interested in the lurid sensationalist stories, or that if we didn't click on them they wouldn't exist-- is just the usual way capitalism justifies its horrors. <br />
<br />
The working-class schlub who needs a car to commute to the only job he can find is to blame for the oil industry's destruction of South Louisiana-- never the wealthy international industrialists who profit from oil, never the lobbyists and politicos who sign the oil leases that ensure our state sees none of the money, who slash public transportation to make our civilization more oil-dependent and who export jobs overseas.<br />
<br />
If only people had purchased more newspapers, if only people had clicked more on the other stories... if only we... that's all fucking lies. The system is rigged to maximize profit. The illusion that we as "consumers" have control over this nightmare is how we're kept in our place. If you don't like the Norco refineries poisoning our communities, purchase a new Prius! Anything beyond that's unthinkable; buying or not-buying (boycott) are the only choices we're permitted.<br />
<br />
Good journalists have hard-won and important skills, including vanishing skills like research and how to talk to strangers. Journalists understand better than most how the systems of our sick civilization work. They know, as Stephanie Grace said, where the bodies are buried. New Orleans' tiny regional ruling class has responded to the rude awakening-- that people with vastly more money and power are calling the shots-- by throwing a tantrum. Journalists know better. <br />
<br />
How the journalists fucked over by Advance here and in Alabama will respond remains to be seen. Most of them still have access to their newspapers' arcane and fragile computer systems and passwords-- if not their own passwords, then certainly those of their lazy, less tech-savvy overseers. They have all kinds of access to e-mails, to behind-the-scenes dirt, to the specific ways the editors and higher-ups who betrayed the rank-and-file have, over the years, unethically accommodated the agendas of the powerful.<br />
<br />
Many of those fired know a great deal. They know about things that happened in the wake of the flood that still haven't come to light. Now that they've been thrown into the street, how will they use that knowledge? <br />
<br />
Will they continue to serve the powers that be, hoping to scrape by another year or decade? Will they continue to beg for scraps, and swallow the humiliation of being repurposed into "discussion leaders?"<br />
<br />
Crisis, as we along the Gulf Coast have learned, brings certain people lucrative opportunities. There are people making money off the suffering of those fired.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the destruction of our newspaper and the assault on our region it represents will prompt some of those fired to apply their skills, knowledge and abilities towards something new, something unconventional, something that directly challenges the power of the new-media moguls who've crowned themselves our kings. Surely those fired aren't content to let Steve Newhouse and Ricky Mathews tell the official story and write the official history, one <a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/183948/steve-newhouse-explains-michigan-transition-times-picayune-future/" target="_blank">smug, disingenuous op-ed</a> at a time. <br />
<br />
How will the laid-off press workers and delivery drivers respond? They know a thing or two. Some people take betrayal lying down; some don't. I wonder if September's three-day-a-week delivery will go smoothly, or if it will encounter problems-- problems with delivery trucks, problems with newspaper boxes, problems with the presses themselves.<br />
<br />
I'm just a New Orleanian who values good journalism. This outlandishly long series of blog entries is my response to the murder of the Times-Picayune... but how will those who've been most directly affected respond? How will those who've been stabbed in the back by their bosses respond?<br />
<br />
I'm as curious as you are.<br />
<br />
<hr /><div style="background-color: #e786ef; padding: 6px;"><h3 style="text-align: center;">THE MURDER OF THE TIMES-PICAYUNE</h3><hr /><div style="font-size: smaller; text-align: center;"><i>a six-part series on the destruction of New Orleans' daily newspaper</i><br />
<div style="background-color: #ff99ff; font-size: small; font-weight: bold; padding: 8px 6px 10px 6px; text-align: center;">Part <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-two.html">One</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-two.html">Two</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-three.html">Three</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-four.html">Four</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-five.html">Five</a> - <span style="color: red;">Six</span></div><div style="padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;">written by <a href="http://twitter.com/julesbentley/" target="_blank">Jules Bentley</a></div></div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-5948797050260723672012-07-29T17:07:00.001-05:002012-07-29T17:07:37.000-05:00Jefferson Parish Cops Shoot A Person Over Drugs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Pw66L2f0Zwc3WlN03Z_im0jWnVCUF3LXYNTm7cDBsMJyOjmBbZvUQNiBBSBql6Q9Q5Z1cbJwq6TlbWRrZvjkyyydI_OpgyWkOwN6yXdVjFk3KzVO4arTcB-_9mjCpOuF3_gidz7WT0k/s1600/wiggumgun1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Pw66L2f0Zwc3WlN03Z_im0jWnVCUF3LXYNTm7cDBsMJyOjmBbZvUQNiBBSBql6Q9Q5Z1cbJwq6TlbWRrZvjkyyydI_OpgyWkOwN6yXdVjFk3KzVO4arTcB-_9mjCpOuF3_gidz7WT0k/s200/wiggumgun1.png" width="200" /></a></div>
via <a href="http://copsshootingpeople.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Cops Shooting People</a> -- <br />
“Police report a sting operation went wrong just after 11 p.m. in the 2900 block of Jefferson Highway Friday night.<br />
A drug sting operation was set up in a McDonald’s parking lot near the Causeway overpass on Jefferson Highway.<br />
According to Sheriff Newell Normand, narcotics agents had reliable
information that 27-year-old Lucious Stovall of Westwego, would be in
the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant at Causeway Blvd. &
Jefferson Hwy. while in possession of crack cocaine.<br />
As Stovall pulled into the parking spot, officers activated their
lights and approached him. While announcing their presence, Stovall put
his vehicle in gear and intentionally crashed into one of the police
units.<br />
He struck an agent who was standing near the vehicle. The officer
sustained a minor leg injury and was transported to an area hospital for
treatment.<br />
Police said as Stovall continued to flee, he struck a second unit.
Fearing their safety and the safety of other agents, two officers began
firing as Stovall tried to get away.<br />
He continued heading north on Causeway Blvd., crossing Jefferson
Hwy. He drove over the median and crashed into a fence on Causeway
Blvd. A statement from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office reads, “As
Stovall was removed from his vehicle it was determined he sustained
three gunshot wounds. He was transported to University Hospital where
he is listed in guarded condition.”<br />
<br />
Fuck the drug war.<br />
Fuck the world of poverty that is enforced by the police.<br />
Fuck the laws written by the rich and only enforced against the poor.<br />
When was the last time cops undertook a sting operation on white collar Wall St. fraudsters?Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-64059782735536066382012-07-17T23:13:00.001-05:002012-08-04T05:49:29.226-05:00The Murder of the Times-Picayune: Part Five<em>what has become of nola.com</em><br />
<hr /><strong>IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, CHEERLEAD 'EM</strong><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjejjmrLjiu_JPGAo4oCMWpdzZAhFf1II-1jqi7jyl8qSbg1FBDfoXX8xW5ALCDbFfT6_wofrmyWObj9wZ2PVYPGAhoB1szrKWcvNPyZRTMCAOqmRFH8A175pweKe4ywljBcF6g91un1M4/s320/lighting-a-lantern-in-the-bright-morning-hours.gif" width="288" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I'm available for speeches and consultancy gigs!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>At the risk of setting up a straw blogger, there is a category of blowhard I cannot bring myself to link to: media-pundit éminences gris who know little or nothing of the Times-Picayune and yet have confidently diagnosed its cause of death. <br />
<br />
Of course it died; it's a newspaper. Open and shut case, according to these hoary experts.<br />
<br />
Within journalism, talking about how important digital media is & how newspapers are dead is an article of faith, a touch-wood tic. Everyone's being laid off all the fucking time, and the only protection is to superstitiously acknowledge the inevitability of this, often and audibly.<br />
<br />
Part of the journalist identity is already cynically knowing everything. Especially to those over forty, the suggestion that a real journalist could be blindsided by these rapid catastrophic industry changes is nearly as threatening as the changes themselves.<br />
<br />
All who would not be left behind must chant the mantra: <b>Print is dead!</b><br />
<br />
Print is dead! The louder you shout it, a strange thing happens-- your wrinkles and white hairs become less visible. Your chin tightens; your baldness vanishes beneath reforestation. Say it louder, shout it louder: Print is dead! Dead trees, dead newspaper! Bray it, shout it, sit on panels and declaim it. Post it on the Tumblr your daughter helped you make. Louder, louder-- and the debt from your kids' college education, the mortgage, your partner's medical bills-- all the things that mark you as a product of the pre-internet generation, the frailties making you dependent on your career in this "dead" and "dying" medium, begin to ebb away.<br />
<br />
Buy more progressive glasses frames-- thinner lenses, sleeker, younger! Get the newest iPhone to fumble with, so the twenty-something new hires who don't make eye contact will know you're one of them. Print is dead! Let me hear you say it, bitch! Louder louder: PRINT IS DEAD! Never mind the storied traditions, going back to Thomas Paine, going back to Gutenberg, never mind your mentors and their mentors-- they were all fools! You're hep; you're riding the inter-wave, you're running with the hunters! You ain't old, you still got it baby, you so cutting cutting edge. Print is dead! Let them hear you preach it, preach it. PRINT IS DEAD, PRINT IS DEAD.<br />
<br />
Say it loud, and pray that the powerful are listening. <br />
<br />
Maybe you'll be spared! <br />
<br />
Ha ha... yeah, right.<br />
<br />
<hr /><strong>A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF NOLA.COM</strong><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDYeQOKiCsyHChklwy5xhadycBLyid-fzr2OfEeGTMdTfzhX7dM_9uQH4OgzGN4sCQWtEO46HXpH0hCN0SEQ1_nz4ZLkrD7Z-ebb7fJtsSa7JBOK13mX90zd33b_oUZkVsvEBu9oIgXs/s1600/early-site.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDYeQOKiCsyHChklwy5xhadycBLyid-fzr2OfEeGTMdTfzhX7dM_9uQH4OgzGN4sCQWtEO46HXpH0hCN0SEQ1_nz4ZLkrD7Z-ebb7fJtsSa7JBOK13mX90zd33b_oUZkVsvEBu9oIgXs/s320/early-site.gif" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early version of NOLA.com, 2001<br />
( screengrabs from web.archive.org ) </td></tr>
</tbody></table>Whether or not print is dead, the Times-Picayune has been killed. It's time we took a look at what we're being offered in its stead, the widely reviled website NOLA.com. Back we go, via <a href="http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://nola.com" target="_blank">web.archive.org</a>, to the site's beginnings.<br />
<br />
The Times-Picayune is owned by <a href="http://www.advance.net/index.ssf?/advance_internet/newspapers.html" target="_blank">Advance Publications</a> and NOLA.com by <a href="http://www.advance.net/advancedigitalUserAgreementPP/" target="_blank">Advance Digital</a>, two (ostensibly) different corporations, each with its own chain of command and both answering to the parent company, <a href="http://www.advance.net/" target="_blank">Advance.net</a>. To further confuse matters, Advance Digital was 'til recently called Advance Internet-- a subsidiary of Advance.net. The whole byzantine arrangement strikes me as a fiduciary shell game, but then I never did have a head for business.<br />
<br />
The newspaper and NOLA.com were separated by a few miles of CBD and a vast gulf of culture and practice. Ashton Phelps Jr., the paper's publisher for three decades (<a href="http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2012/03/times-picayune_publisher_ashto.html" target="_blank">right up until Ricky Mathews was sent in to kill it off</a>), was the fifth generation of his family to run the Times-Pic. It was an institution steeped in centuries of tradition. At the paper's grim, bunker-like concrete building on Howard Ave., employees were obligated to wear jackets and ties to work.<br />
<br />
In contrast to the newspaper's morbid cubicles, NOLA.com has an "open" office plan and gigantic windows offering a view of the Mississippi river. Those who aren't making sales calls generally wear whatever they like to work.<br />
<br />
NOLA.com, like its regional sibling sites (<a href="http://mlive.com/" target="_blank">mlive.com</a>, <a href="http://masslive.com/" target="_blank">masslive.com</a> et al.), was at the outset curated by its own in-house editorial staff. The NOLA.com editors had complete control over what went where on the site's front page, and it was in that sense like a newspaper. Different stories or packages from different news categories-- sports, weather, JazzFest-- were given varying visual prominence on a sometimes hourly basis by human editors who used their judgement to sift and elevate whatever they felt was of importance, significance or interest. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigusWnlH84ckN2x1DN4YPkwYjtg1ZUH5mLIQWOMIJ2PCDTKHm7vWezasp-KI-IGWw7iN1Bj_a6u6e112ub-nVKUmBP947D1EQ1ySZQhcmrY8zL6BoLRcifGHCdRey-Uy51Sbtin7QdV1I/s1600/old-site.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigusWnlH84ckN2x1DN4YPkwYjtg1ZUH5mLIQWOMIJ2PCDTKHm7vWezasp-KI-IGWw7iN1Bj_a6u6e112ub-nVKUmBP947D1EQ1ySZQhcmrY8zL6BoLRcifGHCdRey-Uy51Sbtin7QdV1I/s640/old-site.gif" width="184" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colorful: NOLA.com in 2007<br />
( from web.archive.org ) </td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Determined to make the site as interactive as possible within the limits of the Advance templates, what the NOLA.com editors chose to promote in the pre-Katrina years was mostly live cams, forum discussions, multimedia presentations and user submissions. The Times-Picayune's "content" was consigned to a single column, though as years rolled on, that column became slightly longer and eventually subdivided into categories. <br />
<br />
The Newhouses saw their newspaper-affiliated websites as being separate, online-only entities, just as the newspapers were print-only. This was a stupid strategy, but it's how the Newhouses did things. At Conde Nast (another Newhouse property) even an influential print publication like Gourmet Magazine was denied its own website for decades; its recipes and articles went into the website Epicurious.com.<br />
<br />
It's not so strange, then, that those in charge of NOLA.com for its first decade saw themselves as helming an independent media endeavor, a local portal site of which the Times-Picayune's articles were just one-- possibly minor-- component. <br />
<br />
On the Times-Pic side, attitudes towards the site varied. Some pushed for the paper's content to have more prominence on the website, while others were more concerned that the site was giving so much of the newspaper away free. <br />
<br />
These weren't mutually exclusive opinions, and there were areas of broad consensus: almost everyone at the Times-Pic found it difficult to countenance their work appearing side-by-side with photos and blog entries by NOLA.com staffers, unpaid web-only freelancers and unsolicited user submissions. <br />
<br />
"From the start," <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/the-times-picayune-to-publish-three-times-per-week/Content?oid=2013127" target="_blank"> Kevin Allman says in the Gambit</a>, "the two 'platforms' have not gotten along."<br />
<br />
The dawn of the NOLA.com user commenting feature and the attendant avalanche of racist filth <a href="http://www.matthewcharlesdavis.com/2010/11/04/racist-comments-on-times-picayunes-website-dominate-panel-talk-on-economics-of-media/" target="_blank">pushed many Times-Pic staffers</a> to a more negative view of the site, though the racism was at least in part editorially institutionalized. As defender of New Orleans and promoter of its culture Deborah Cotton <a href="http://nolacommentwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/deborah-cotton.html" target="blank">pointed out</a> (an article I first saw on <a href="http://nolacommentwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/society.html" target="_blank">a NOLA.com accountability blog</a> by social-justice lawyer Billy Sothern), <a href="http://connect.nola.com/user/nnolan/index.html" target="_blank">Nell Nolan's reporting</a> on the ritzy, predominantly-white Uptown social scene always appeared with the comment feature disabled, to spare the subjects of her writing any criticism.<br />
<br />
After the '05 federal flood and the <a href="http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050913glaser/" target="_blank">spotlight it put on NOLA.com's usefulness</a>, tensions between the website and the paper escalated. Post-Katrina, NOLA.com made a number of hires from outside the city and an unprecedentedly outspoken culture of antagonism towards the Times-Pic developed within the website's editorial team. This cold-war mindset played out in bizarre ways: NOLA.com staff were forbidden from exchanging e-mails or Instant Messaging with longtime colleagues at the paper, and those who remained even socially friendly with Times-Pic employees were attacked as turncoats. It was an era of paranoia, dysfunction and frequent managerial screaming fits, all in the name of competition between internet and print.<br />
<br />
One former freelancer suggests it was a cynical maneuver to pit the institutions against one another. "There were plenty of forward-looking people at Howard Ave. Everyone was already talking about digital everything. The writing was on the wall, the only question was who would survive. That was where the tension was. It was like Boston in the 70s... make the Irish and blacks compete for the same economic niche." <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZ4AE2XN23iBsTGNTXKdGkVcv5NocggmLz2n30q_kWU8x8kQ5QAyzI1cHEUWwVVh6qO16YeEWz3RGLPACQiKXbJUtWq4FXXjAqUkCReeufMaqnfPa_ECajcF2JoZ-mp_XFALrSEnvGuo/s1600/slick_template.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZ4AE2XN23iBsTGNTXKdGkVcv5NocggmLz2n30q_kWU8x8kQ5QAyzI1cHEUWwVVh6qO16YeEWz3RGLPACQiKXbJUtWq4FXXjAqUkCReeufMaqnfPa_ECajcF2JoZ-mp_XFALrSEnvGuo/s400/slick_template.gif" width="120" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long, gone: NOLA.com, 2010<br />
( from web.archive.org ) </td></tr>
</tbody></table>Bloodsport, for the amusement of the Newhouse Caesars. Another former staffer I spoke to disagreed with this characterization. "I don't think it was anything tactical, or part of any larger plan. [The feud] came from a tragic situation towards the top of the NOLA.com editorial masthead. It was a symptom of serious mental health problems within the leadership, which were resolved through firings. Most of the people I knew at NOLA.com had journalism backgrounds and respected the paper."<br />
<br />
<a name="slicktemplate"></a>In early 2009, multiple NOLA.com staffers including the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor were laid off, and their positions were eliminated. Editorial authority was vested in a new "Director of Content," James O'Byrne, who came over from the Times-Pic. Around that same time, a new template (still in use at <a href="http://nj.com/" target="_blank">NJ.com</a>) was implemented at NOLA.com. <br />
<br />
In this new template, seen to the left, NOLA.com staff had very little say in what was featured on the site's front page. A new digital content team drawn mostly from the Times-Pic was empowered to make those decisions, and the new front page was almost 100% Times-Pic content. <br />
<br />
The Times-Picayune's section editors, reporters and photographers, whose job descriptions suddenly expanded to putting their own work online, could under this new template feature or "pin" stories atop each of the various front-page categories (News, Sports, Living, Business), though no-one could adjust the order in which the sections of the homepage were laid out. Amid the rollback of the Newhouse Pledge and looming layoffs throughout the Advance empire, what editorial control remained over NOLA.com's front page had shifted unmistakably to the newspaper. This limited editorial control was one piece of a larger transfer of what had been NOLA.com duties to Times-Picayune staffers-- additional responsibilities that came without additional pay.<br />
<br />
<hr /><strong>PROGRESS: EDITORIAL CROWDSOURCING</strong><br />
<br />
<a name="yellowjournalism"></a>A few months back, there was another sea change. The newest version of NOLA.com, the infamous "<a href="http://weblog.muledesign.com/2012/02/a_bright_new_home_for_local_ne_1.php" target="_blank">yellow journalism</a>" (now beige journalism) Advance Internet template, did away with the multiple front-page categories. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skooksie/7281116248/in/photostream" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1URhfa3SKNkgSR0RvZeUBFmviTXgDdHSVLH7pOgvK_a7ids_TahifZk6VozX4rBV8GvD50R49jeZJXfGx1TS29GOPA60yXTvXA-1nWADEgQ2Y_32SKOdpY0owMGdbP4a5gU_EYppkJ4/s320/fascinating_cats.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Way We Live Now: NOLA.com, 2012<br />
( Flickr image from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skooksie/7281116248/in/photostream" target="_blank">skooks</a> )</td></tr>
</tbody></table>NOLA.com's front page is now just an open, running aggregatory gutter of everything posted on the site, ranked by when the story (or rather, blog entry) was posted. There is no longer any room for editorial discretion, almost no means to feature or call attention to particular items. It's entirely automated.<br />
<br />
Coinciding with the layoffs of hundreds and the killing of the Times-Picayune newspaper, this new NOLA.com front page is a single undifferentiated stream, a firehose of slurry. Murders, letters to the editor, the latest doings of the Zephyrs, legislation in Baton Rouge, lottery results, a cake recipe, the summer hours of the St. Charles Parish swimming pools, the indictment of an NOPD officer, a video Doug MacCash shot of an art happening, a developing tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico, recaps of television shows... all of it swirls indistinguishably into a single high-volume nola_river that flows endlessly off the page, carrying potentially valuable news away on a tide of less timely, less crucial information. <br />
<br />
About the only way to keep older stories in view on NOLA.com now is for the site's users to comment on them; the most commented-upon stories of the past seven days are automatically listed in a sidebar widget. Why should fusty old editors get to make such decisions? When Li'l Wayne failed to cut the lawn on his Kenner property, the hootin' hollerin' cachinnatin' commenters pushed <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/03/lil_waynes_kenner_mansion_cite.html" target="_blank">that crucial story</a> immediately to the top of "most commented," where it remained for a week. By contrast, when the Times-Pic finally <a href="http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2012/05/mid-city_health_center_destroy.html" target="_blank">posted a story</a> about the offices of <a href="http://wwav-no.org/" target="_blank">Women With a Vision</a> being attacked by an arsonist, it slipped off the homepage forever within minutes of its posting, swept out of sight by other updates. <br />
<br />
The story of NOLA.com is the story of progress. At first NOLA.com had its own in-house editorial control. Then, a restricted set of editorial choices was assigned to already-overworked Times-Pic employees. Now the Times-Pic staffers have been fired, and editorial decision-making-- which local stories matter, what news a visitor to NOLA.com will see-- rests in the hands of the site's unpaid, mostly out-of-town commenters. <br />
<br />
In part six, we'll see that same shift play out in reporting and photography. For now, let's take a minute to mourn the loss of human editors. What's replaced them is the journalistic equivalent of the grocery-store automated check-out machine, with your actual food selection determined by the tastes of St. Tammany and Little Rock. <br />
<br />
<hr /><b>ADDENDUM: A MORE INFORMED REAMING-OUT</b><br />
<br />
Everyone hates the new NOLA.com site. My own criticisms are rooted in the approach to journalism it represents, but for a more technical understanding of its shortcomings I turned to a web usability expert, whose entirely negative response I excerpt below: <br />
<blockquote><i>This is a nightmare of data design... There is a general lack not only of visual fidelity, but of consistency. No single typographic style, layout principle or even color palette ties the site together. This schizophrenic disjointedness violates a basic principle of journalism, that the medium itself, the paper or in this case the site, should exude a sense of trust, respectability, a straightforward approach to telling the stories of the day.<br />
<br />
...The site also includes absolutely no features for what is referred to as accessibility, the simple coding practices that allow users who are blind or have bad vision to use screen-readers and other software to parse the site. Accessibility practices are a basic and inarguable part of web coding, as good web developers believe the web should be accessible to all. Not that the [newsprint Times-Pic] was accessible to the blind, but if you are going to argue for all of the advances of the digital form that nola.com is championing, taking the 5 fucking minutes to make your site accessible would have been an easy move.<br />
<br />
...It used to be that unpopular and underhanded grabs for power or attacks against dignity were swathed in a kind of shiny aesthetic suaveness that made the pill easier to swallow. Not so with nola.com.</i></blockquote><hr /><div style="background-color: #e786ef; padding: 6px;"><h3 style="text-align: center;">THE MURDER OF THE TIMES-PICAYUNE</h3><hr /><div style="font-size: smaller; text-align: center;"><i>a six-part series on the destruction of New Orleans' daily newspaper</i><br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: #ff99ff; font-size: small; padding: 8px 6px 10px 6px; text-align: center;"><b>Part <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-one.html">One</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-two.html">Two</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-three.html">Three</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-four.html">Four</a> - <span style="color: red;">Five</span> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-six.html">Six</a></b></div></div><div style="font-size: smaller; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;">written by <a href="http://twitter.com/julesbentley/" target="_blank">Jules Bentley</a></div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-56183327326078921662012-07-12T20:05:00.002-05:002012-08-04T05:50:23.763-05:00The Murder of the Times-Picayune: Part Four<em>in which we consider the killers themselves</em><br />
<hr /><br />
<strong>FILLER BETWEEN ADS</strong><br />
<br />
The Times-Picayune began in 1837 as the Picayune-- the price of the paper in its early years, and a word denoting pettiness or triviality. After a rapid rise it absorbed a succession of other dailies, some themselves the results of previous mergers. For a while New Orleans had six daily newspapers, then four, then only two. In 1980, media mogul S.I. Newhouse Sr. merged those two, the States-Item and the Times-Picayune, into one.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 7px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nola.com/175years/index.ssf/2011/09/1894_the_picayunes_weather_fro.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzzHnnlIECetRsAa4zNOlaKfMzkiQBCPt52I-p_uYddnpN6IY5MI0rd7mFfWdzGO5WHbiZoJ31A0gJDSiH9hDTjW7tE-jjUPkMF59mfEZ3X7yZyxVtTKFeVtDabugsqcaTsOSyHWMv2c/s320/weather_frog.jpg" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laid off after 118 yrs, the Times-Pic <br />
Weather Frog does what he must.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Although the States-Item and the Times-Picayune had shared an owner since the 30s, they had never been in editorial lockstep. "The different newspapers all served powerful interests, but they at least served different, sometimes competing interests," explained a friend whose family worked for the States-Item. "[Louisiana District Attorney] Jim Garrison was being paid off by the Marcellos. Everyone knew, but only the States-Item people would call him on it. The Times-Picayune would never rock the boat. They were the oil company paper... they were the newspaper that was in Shell's pocket, and they didn't want to upset anyone who made decisions about oil leases or oil companies. The whole city government in Bogalusa was KKK-- the judges were active Klansmen-- and the Times-Picayune wouldn't write about it. They had no incentive." <br />
<br />
"When finally there was only one newspaper, it basically tried to please all the powerful interests, by avoiding anything that pissed off anyone with real money. I'm not saying the Times-Pic didn't do some good work, and didn't have some great staffers, but the assholes in charge had to be led by the nose before they'd cover anything controversial." I mentioned the post-Katrina murders by NOPD. "Absolutely," he said. "If the national media hadn't put pressure on the Times-Pic by scooping them over and over, the editors never would've paid any attention. You saw how they ignored it for years. To the owners, articles were filler between ads."<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<strong>NEWHOUSE OF THE RISING SON</strong><br />
<br />
Those owners are the Newhouses. Their patriarch clawed his way to the top of the food chain just a couple generations back, and his successors have thus far managed to remain where their granddaddy put them. They're a clan distinguished not by their methods, merely by their success; they are to media what the Walton family is to retail. Besides a notable aversion to the spotlight, the Newhouses are just run-of-the-mill capitalist pigs-- nepotism, monopoly, occasional philanthropy.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 7px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0dKL8rTJq518s_fjYk2rV_gnZ5MTgGJVtd1cj8462FgD_nIY9s5zmmOz6n8SdBpRj6gfwgwaGcnBL9rXaJqW4OyiydvsMdOgsxOy-nFFA52vHNriLHg3EF3I639Cqnqlk7uNH8Mp2Ag/s200/si-newhouse-jr.jpg" width="166" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Shy, short, insecure, awkward,<br />
inarticulate, rude, cruel-- <br />
and in his way, brilliant."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The pair of brothers now atop the Newhouse heap, S.I. Newhouse Jr. and Donald, are two of the richest people in the world. They own tons of media, including a cable company (Bright House Networks, roughly 2.2 million subscribers), Condé Nast Publications (Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Wired et al.), around 35 U.S. daily newspapers and 40 weekly regional business journals as well as all those print entities' corresponding websites, most of which use variations of the same awful templates. The Newhouses also own the hellhole of misery that is Reddit.com, about which more later.<br />
<br />
Many Forbes-list billionaires, American and otherwise, follow some variant of the Donald Trump behavioral model. In sharp contrast, the various Newhouses have consistently maintained public profiles so low as to be subterranean, an invisibility incongruous with their extraordinary wealth and power. They don't dabble in local or national politics beyond <a href="http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Newhouse" target="_blank">token contributions to the DNC</a>, and aided perhaps their ownership of so many media outlets, they've been able to escape media coverage of their own lives almost entirely. The exceptions are minor: a couple wrangles with the IRS, occasional inclusion in society columns, and a single <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/1998/52/b3610112.htm" target="_blank">uninformative, unauthorized 1998 book about the dynasty</a> that hilariously described aging patriarch Si Jr. as "shy, short, insecure, awkward, inarticulate, rude, cruel-- and, in his way, brilliant."<br />
<br />
How painstakingly the Newhouses have kept themselves uninteresting may be the only interesting thing about them. Back in the 1930s when the original S.I. Newhouse was building his empire and buying up newspapers left and right, it didn't behoove wealthy Jewish people to crow about their accomplishments. It's pure speculation on my part to suggest the Newhouses' familial creed of secrecy is rooted in the historical realities of antisemitism, but even today, many of the websites which attack the Newhouse media monopoly do so from an explicitly antisemitic perspective.<br />
<br />
Newhouses have lived in New Orleans since the 60s. Although a few of their wives have distinguished themselves through charity work, the Newhouse men have never been part of the social scene. <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/07/09/times-picayune-citizens-group-formally-asks-newhouse-family-to-sell-the-paper" target="_blank">A comment on a Gambit blog entry</a> asserts that being Jewish kept them out of our city's inner circles. Though there's no denying the hardline bigotries of our old-line social & carnival club coteries, it's also not clear the Newhouses were interested in joining such organizations.<br />
<br />
After a lively career including an Italian knighthood and a stint as executive officer of the CIA's predecessor agency, Norman N. Newhouse (kid brother of S.I. Sr. and uncle of reigning brothers S.I. Jr. and Donald) spent his final decades here in New Orleans, overseeing the Times-Pic as well as a number of the family's other regional holdings. "We are, basically, anonymous people," he said <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-07/news/mn-4_1_newhouse-newspapers" target="_blank">in an interview three years before his death</a>.<br />
<blockquote><i>We never went in for titles... If I were to walk into a room in New Orleans with the 100 most prominent people in town, there may be two who would know me personally. Most would probably know the name and the connection, but they wouldn't know me personally or recognize me by my face, because my public position is nonexistent.</i></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLmJmf97guP-MAezo4CMMz1fIKJ1aF8-XVuGPe3ReHxwWDK0UA4qDrCuAU7pmqWiP4P6LAvg-RfliKTBxjCxjp6vWg-qtHCfZbMrutdUJ2iCLBQanHFYgf_a9f5SL2_W9e_3ZbRMSIEU/s320/steve_david_newhouse.jpg" width="131" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steve Newhouse (top),<br />
David Newhouse (bottom)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The crop of Newhouses on their way up the ladder don't seem concerned with New Orleans one way or the other. Advance honcho and heir apparent Steve Newhouse, the man who made the call to have the Times-Picayune shut down, came through the Crescent City only occasionally. Though he owns multiple newspapers, nobody but the New York Times can get a quote from him about the Southern bloodbath he's ordered.<br />
<br />
Folks in New Orleans who've dealt with Steve speak of his cold-bloodedness, his disregard for personal niceties and his strikingly un-touristic lack of interest in the city outside his hotel. During his brief visits, those whom he summoned for meetings had to go see him at the hotel, in the same suite he rented each time. It seems the judge who passed the Times-Pic's death sentence didn't care to venture forth from his Windsor Court chambers .<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"></div><br />
Steve's designated David Newhouse, one of Norman's sons, to oversee this exciting transitional time at the local level. Having edited a newspaper for ten years, David will presumably know how best to kill one. Steve himself hasn't been around lately. <br />
<br />
Can you stand to meet one more Newhouse dude? There's one I'm genuinely curious about: Steve's nephew, S.I. Newhouse IV. I really want to know what he thinks about the killing of the Times-Picayune.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 7px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXd_ybvzlgJCysnIfwa-V81ocF78CGQ183puzaVa49Sk2uksn9Q69adlNCETaTq7txZBSXc89-zpStCVrp0iR1ns9naYUcS6DkQspzBXluzhBJwO9ZyM8j1eCby46GeWz1JJ7JsBVbYcQ/s1600/si-newhouse-iv.jpg" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">S.I. Newhouse IV, from the film "Born Rich"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Mostly known for expressing oedipal angst in the 2003 documentary "Born Rich," fortunate scion Si the Fourth was sent down here after college for "executive training" at the Times-Pic, and I'm told he had a very very good time in New Orleans. What does he think about the firings of all those who helped train him, those who showed him such hospitality? This was where he gained his first "executive" experience, barely a decade ago. Surely you never forget your first executive experience.<br />
<br />
Does S.I. IV remember us fondly? He mai er may not. After all, we've been the ruin of many a rich boy. This young up-and-comer might share the opinion of former President Bush, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/national/nationalspecial/02BUSH-NOTEXT.html" target="_blank">speaking about New Orleans on Sept. 2, 2005</a>: "I believe the town where I used to come to enjoy myself, occasionally too much, will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to."<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<strong>RICKY MATHEWS IS A PIECE OF SHIT</strong><br />
<br />
Now I'm just an ol' spittin' cobra, but even I lack enough venom to adequately excoriate callow, shameless opportunistic tragedy-profiteer Ricky Mathews, the newly Newhouse-appointed president of the newly Newhouse-created NOLA Media Group. <br />
<br />
As much as I despise the kind of narcissistic neocolonial fucks who consider our centuries of culture and history a "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/07/02/155916382/filling-in-new-orleans-future-one-blank-at-a-time">blank slate</a>" for twee art experiments and corny childish bullshit they'd never try back in their hometowns, as much as I hate entrepreneurial techno-twaddle and <a href="http://americancity.org/" target="_blank">"new urbanist" gentrifiers</a> and <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/09/bootys-headed-to-the-bywater" target="_blank">blog-themed restaurants</a> and <a href="http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2011/04/new_orleans_kirsha_kaechele_pr.html" target="_blank">Kirsha Kaechele</a> and <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/10/cult-of-convenience-mall-on-st-claude.html" target="_blank">the Mall on St. Claude</a> et alia ad infinitum, every ounce of that combined vitriol, supersized, is but a fingernail-fraction of what Ricky Mathews deserves.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43cyosZbwSTQbOlpXZJAN6W-9qKta-NsnkRbCjFL_ZEX7o8GWkKG8oWvx89NEc_P9ZZOKSoZSbop4eirouL0iE7VbSnjL2DWDFNDPRN7vTQVucOmpDN-8OE-dyJxSGxC-rIiY3LwTVl4/s400/pretty_ricky.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="262" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ricky Mathews</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>Can a Southern boy be a Carpetbagger? Ricky Mathews proves it's possible. Wherever something terrible happens to folks, Mathews pops up to get a paycheck from the powers that be. He's like a truffle-hunting pig, except he's a rat who snuffles out blood money.<br />
<br />
Anathematizing the generic, profit-maximizing titans-of-industry Newhouses at any length feels like sorting out recycling: it might make some feel pious, but I personally can't be bothered. I'm not convinced there's a point. Yes, they're super-mega-capitalists, yes, they're bad. I consider Ricky Mathews something far more pernicious, more disingenuous, and more repugnant.<br />
<br />
Let us examine, for example, Ricky's reaction to the 2010 BP oil disaster. The black death was flowing unabated into the Gulf when he parlayed his media credentials into the chairmanship of <a href="http://crcalabama.org/" target="_blank">a spin agency funded by BP</a>, an agency whose homepage's Project Overview, titled "Beyond the Oil Spill," opens with the sentences, "A once-in-a generation opportunity is upon us. A transformational moment in Alabama history." <br />
<br />
That's the kind of shit that makes my Corexit-tainted blood boil. Further down that same page we see Ricky's gormless mug gracing an article titled "<a href="http://crcalabama.org/?p=577" target="_blank">Oil Spill’s Silver Lining</a>." <br />
<br />
"We can turn a very bad thing into a good thing," Mathews says of the environmental holocaust in which BP murdered a dozen human beings and <a href="http://ragingpelican.com/treating-symptoms/" target="_blank">poisoned countless more</a>, eradicating Gulf wildlife wholesale, destroying generations of coastal community, and laying waste to the lifeways of entire cultures.<br />
<strong><br />
"What we learned after Katrina on the Mississippi Coast," says Ricky Mathews, "is that a crisis of even enormous proportions provides opportunities to re-imagine a whole region."</strong><br />
<br />
Crisis, Opportunity. Crisis, Opportunity. Reading Mathews' work, it's hard not to vomit. It's also hard not to recall a prominent predecessor to Mathews' "Oil Spill's Silver Lining" piece. It's something Jeffrey at <a href="http://www.blogger.com/librarychronicles.blogspot.com" target="_blank">the Library Chronicles</a> has recently refocused attention on, a New York Times editorial that's proven almost a Rosetta stone for understanding the post-Katrina experience.<br />
<br />
The piece in question is David Brooks' September 8, 2005 essay,"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/opinion/08brooks.htm" target="_blank">Katrina's Silver Lining</a>." In that essay, published while more than half our city was still flooded and the death toll was climbing daily, Brooks was already rubbing his hands together over the opportunities the "blank slate" of New Orleans could provide. His first sentence? "As a colleague of mine says, every crisis is an opportunity." <br />
<br />
It's clear what kind of opportunities vermin like Ricky Mathews see in the suffering of our region, in the layoffs at the Times-Picayune, in the environmental holocaust of the BP disaster, and in the horrors of Katrina. To Ricky, these are financial, personal career opportunities. Is there a conflict of interest in the publisher and president of the Mobile Press-Register serving on a BP-funded commission, and his newspaper <a href="http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/12/coastal_recovery_commission_ch.html" target="_blank">running an article</a> in which Mathews is quoted assuring the reader that BP has cleaned the Gulf, and that the seafood is safe? <br />
<br />
It's but one stunningly bare-faced example, an example which <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/17/times-picayune-mathews-speaks-new-jobs-posted-and-a-jazz-funeral-for-the-print-edition" target="_blank">the Gambit points out</a> remains <a href="http://www.facebook.com/BPAmerica/posts/10150441357339920?comment_id=20257745" target="_blank">prominent on BP's Facebook Page</a>. In it, <br />
<blockquote><i>[Mathews] noted the need for continued perseverance in getting out the message that the coast has bounced back from the April 20, 2010, oil rig explosion that led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. BP, which leased the oil rig, has done admirable work in helping market the coast since the cleanup, he said.</i></blockquote><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 7px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zLi1z-cj_SkXygsBJzYrGflU1QVhMF6eceumK5hBDmCYhjzrGhNG-zOsuY_bQ4zCb_QX0RKj1GdEYA-CpAmVILLPDPJXKjT8iRql8WU1Gu9RmLBXrnzSmophmgbMGH0GtnCRz46xml8/s400/exciting_news.jpg" width="232" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">image courtesy of <a href="http://poynter.org/" target="_blank">Poynter.org</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Is that unethical? Is that conflict of interest? Shit no... that's just someone who knows how to seize opportunity.<br />
<br />
Opportunities for Ricky Mathews at the Huntsville Times, where he oversaw the firing of 102 workers, leaving the paper a 15-person newsroom. Opportunities for Ricky at the Birmingham News, where under his leadership news staff was cut sixty percent-- 107 fired, including <a href="http://mediaofbirmingham.com/2012/06/12/birmingham-news-fires-more-than-100-employees/" target="_blank">two pregnant women and a cancer patient</a>. Opportunities for Ricky Mathews at the Mobile Press-Register, where seventy-five percent of the newsroom staff were fired. There, where Mathews was still both president and publisher, the news of those layoffs and the death of the Press-Register's 200-year legacy of daily publishing was headlined "Exciting Changes for our Readers."<br />
<br />
Exciting changes.<br />
<br />
The Gambit provided <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/21/nola-media-group-meets-with-the-new-orleans-tech-community" target="_blank">an invaluable account</a> of Ricky Mathews' introduction to our city's new stratum of cyber-capitalists by superdeveloper <a href="http://humidcity.com/2009/07/26/reinventing-conflict-of-interest/" target="_blank">Sean Cummings</a>. Presented like a blushing debutante to the venture-funded eligible bachelors of our post-K NOLA technocracy, Mathews sounds ridiculous. <br />
<blockquote><i>"We’re going to create a Google-Nike kind-of-vibe work environment,” Mathews told the group. “It’s our goal to create a world-class digital work environment for the journalists who are going to work for us, because we can attract the best and brightest from around the country." </i></blockquote>He also brags of a three-hour meeting with Mayor Landrieu, in which Landrieu "got it immediately." On followup, the Mayor's office then told the Gambit it "wouldn't characterize the meeting in those terms, either in the amount of time spent or in the mayor's takeaway (from the meeting)." <br />
<br />
What's a little truth between journalists? In his recent Pearl-Harbor-sized above-the-fold front-page Times-Picayune <a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/06/the_times-picayune_and_nolacom.html" target="_blank">advertisement for himself</a>, Ricky writes, "The true story of our effort will be that we want the story that is told of our efforts to be that we embraced the amazing entrepreneurial spirit that has evolved since Hurricane Katrina." If you can parse that fucking mess, I doff my cap. <br />
<br />
Ricky Mathews is an idiot, a gap-toothed clown useful only to his paymasters... but idiots can be dangerous. George W. Bush was an idiot, too.<br />
<br />
Let us learn from the past. Let us learn specifically from this slimy invasive nutria rat Ricky Mathews' abhorrent and unforgivable past. Rob Holpert, managing editor of the Mobile, Alabama weekly Lagniappe, <a href="http://classic.lagniappemobile.com/article.asp?articleID=5483&SID=3" target="_blank">lays out the Ricky Mathews narrative:</a><br />
<blockquote><i>The second Ricky 'Stormcrow' Mathews entered the building, the [Mobile Press-Register]'s fate was sealed.<br />
<br />
The first story the P-R ran when Mathews came in was a lie, claiming his predecessor Howard Bronson had retired, when, in fact, he’d been fired. ...Mathews has been nothing but a hatchet man more interested in running groups he has no business being involved with than running the newspaper he was allegedly hired to save.<br />
<br />
Newhouse can count his billions while Mathews moves to New Orleans and chops them to pieces next. Sounds like another "exciting change” in the making. </i> </blockquote>Unlike the Fifth-Avenue Newhouses, Ricky is here. Though he hasn't had the nuts to show himself in the newsroom, he's here in town, living it up on the blood money the Newhouses have paid him to swing axe. They outbid BP for his services-- here he is quaffing drinks at our bars, <a href="http://dashthirtydash.org/2012/06/27/lapetite/" target="_blank">eating at our restaurants</a>, maybe even walking our streets.<br />
<br />
Let's find opportunities to give Ricky Mathews the welcome he deserves.<br />
<br />
<hr /><div style="background-color: #e786ef; padding: 6px;"><h3 style="text-align: center;"> THE MURDER OF THE TIMES-PICAYUNE</h3><hr /><div style="font-size: smaller; text-align: center;"><i>a six-part series on the destruction of New Orleans' daily newspaper</i><br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: #ff99ff; font-size: small; padding: 8px 6px 10px 6px; text-align: center;"><b>Part <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-one.html">One</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-two.html">Two</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-three.html">Three</a> - <span style="color: red;">Four</span> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-five.html">Five</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-six.html">Six</a></b></div></div><div style="font-size: smaller; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;">written by <a href="http://twitter.com/julesbentley/" target="_blank">Jules Bentley</a></div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-19801786734740391882012-07-11T01:31:00.000-05:002013-12-13T22:49:57.853-06:00The Murder of the Times-Picayune: Part Three<em>exploring the possibilities of worker control</em><br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<strong> THE SOROS KIDS WEIGH IN</strong><br />
<br />
Some are crowing, crowing over the murder. Neoliberal Young Creatives are circling the Times-Picayune corpse, eager to dart in and nip at a tender undefended eyeball or internal organ, eager to feast on a once-mighty newspaper rendered defenseless by the superior Newhouse superpredators.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzAga3GO2dZqkj8f0ji2Tnn_a8FdS8lWn-GUDTbNJey3IO-POtF-F6cKJCAWHpGNHfF14oUlbiZkqixGV5wik_7UYSkwie8PFgd1kRafjAgr9pL6JlCYsWuUoLWwkqDp5J7UGqbBfGesg/s320/finding-opportunities.jpg" width="320" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Follow them on Twitter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>For a pair of prime examples, we need look no further than the horrendous young-privilege circle jerk <a href="http://americancity.org/" target="_blank">Next American City</a>, a bizarre media hub that elevates gentrification to a fetish, in fact to an entire identity-- "new urbanism." <br />
<br />
There we find the opinions of Michael Martin, who since arriving here in 2010 has been made <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltmartin" target="_blank">Manager of "St. Claude Main St,"</a> the recent recipient of a massive <a href="http://www.artplaceamerica.org/grants/st-claude-arts-district-parkette-program/" target="_blank">$275,000 grant</a> to be shared with globe-trotter Candy Chang of "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/07/02/155916382/filling-in-new-orleans-future-one-blank-at-a-time" target="_blank">Blank Slate Neighborland</a>" infamy. From his comfortable position deep in the non-profit clover, Martin urges largely web-unsavvy New Orleans to see the murder of the Times-Picayune as "<a href="http://americancity.org/daily/entry/losing-a-paper-gaining-an-opportunity" target="_blank">an opportunity</a>." <br />
<br />
Crisis, opportunity. But an opportunity for whom? <a href="http://americancity.org/daily/entry/yesterdays-papers" target="_blank">Ariella Cohen knows for whom!</a><br />
<br />
"[C]ommunities need to understand," Cohen patiently informs us non-understanders, "that news is community infrastructure that must be valued and paid for, just like roads and bridges." Her solution is that everyone pour money into <a href="http://thelensnola.org/" target="_blank">The Lens</a>, which she helped found before following the NGO money train back north. By suggesting we respond to the death of our daily by investing in her internet site, she also promulgates the inaccurate notion that the murder of the Times-Picayune was due to it not being valued or paid for.<br />
<br />
In the shadows beneath this gigantic, unselfconscious Shock Doctrine pitch for Knight Foundation funding, <a href="http://americancity.org/daily/entry/yesterdays-papers#comment-553131354" target="_blank">one comment by New Orleans poet Rodger Kamenetz</a> provides a glimmer of light.<br />
<blockquote><i>the missing piece in the discussion here is the staff of the Times Picayune. What if they had responded to this latest news-- or previous news-- and realized they needed to band together, really to unionize in some manner? <br />
<br />
Then they as a group could have responded to this action by saying, fire all of us or keep all of us, print seven days a week or wake up tomorrow morning with no staff whatsoever. ...I really believe that had they done this-- if they did it, the whole community would support them.</i></blockquote>I think he's absolutely right. Why didn't the Times-Picayune ever unionize?<br />
<br />
<hr /><a name="pledge"></a><br />
<strong>THE PLEDGE: A BULWARK AGAINST WORKER CONTROL</strong><br />
<br />
On June 26 2012, the labor union representing about 200 employees of the Albany Times-Union Newspaper sent out a press release: eleven former employees would be compensated for their unjust firings. "We are proud to welcome back three of our colleagues, and we are glad all 11 will be compensated for their lost wages, health care costs and pension losses," <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2012/06/26/albany-times-union-agrees-to-take-back-three-employees-who-were-laid-off/" target="_blank">wrote Albany Newspaper Guild Guild President Tim O’Brien</a>. "But this case is not just about the past. It is about the future of all our members. Never again will employees be treated the way these colleagues were."<br />
<br />
That kind of success story is what happens when workers-- even newspaper workers-- organize with one another. The Times-Picayune, of course, had no union. Instead, it had the Pledge:<br />
<blockquote><i>No full-time, non-represented employee will be laid off or otherwise lose his or her job due to technological change or economic conditions, as long as our newspaper continues to publish daily in its current newsprint form.</i></blockquote>This promise from the men of the Newhouse family to their employees stood for decades: if you remain non-union, you will not be laid off. It's why a Newhouse job was once considered the holy grail of newspaper work.<br />
<br />
What kind of a substitute for the protections of worker organizing did the Pledge provide, long-term? “We have had a pledge not to layoff employees for economic conditions or advances in technology,” Steve Newhouse, chairman of Advance, <a href="http://newscycle.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/newhouse-backs-off-its-no-layoff-pledge/" target="_blank">told Editor & Publisher magazine</a> in 2009. The occasion of this interview was his announcement that the pledge was ending. Firings were to follow. "It was not a pledge that applies to the kind of transitional moment in the newspaper industry that is basically struggling to survive."<br />
<br />
Transitional moments-- transformational moments-- moments of crisis and change.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, Times-Picayune and NOLA.com staff began transitioning to joblessness. On the newspaper side, the layoffs were mixed into buyouts: higher-paid staff or those covering theater, books and other apparently obsolete aspects of New Orleans life were offered incentives to quit. With the Pledge rescinded, weeks of mandatory unpaid furlough ensured everyone understood the stick awaiting those who didn't accept these generously proffered carrots.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YHg7ZLheQZHVrxVtCizqSamxBpxTRe0b5pFg3mkZ1rS0QVQN3a_lUxyQ3oL5MYaRayUCXdYJg4OGVr14j0Kx4zkhqenPT3h_P8_xGfRzgnCo5q9PRjVOO7OTckVJOpEzTaxyITBAIrs/s200/howard_bronson.jpg" width="131" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Howard Bronson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>One person who had the means and determination not to go quietly was the publisher of the Advance-owned Mobile Press-Register, <a href="http://topics.al.com/tag/Howard%20Bronson/index.html" target="_blank">Howard Bronson</a>. Fired shortly after the rollback of the pledge and replaced with (now NOLA Media Group president) Ricky Mathews, Bronson was not satisfied with <a href="http://blog.al.com/live/2011/04/press-register_owners_offered.html">his severance package</a> of a year’s salary, continuing health care coverage and access to University of Alabama football tickets. This ungrateful good ol' boy filed suit against the Newhouses for having violated the Pledge, and a good ol' court case commenced. On the stand, Donald Newhouse explained the Pledge was "<a href="http://blog.al.com/live/2011/04/newhouse_a_promise_is_not_a_co.html" target="_blank">a promise-- not a legal contract.</a>" Attorneys characterized the Pledge as simply "<a href="http://blog.al.com/live/2011/04/former_press-register_publishe_1.html" target="_blank">a protection for lower-level employees who didn’t join a union</a>."<br />
<br />
The ever-excellent American Zombie <a href="http://www.theamericanzombie.com/2012/06/tp-is-deadlong-live-tp.html" target="_blank">judges the Bronson suit and the Pledge</a> to have played a major role in the liquidations of the Newhouse newspapers. In this, I disagree with him. Bronson had the means to sue the Newhouses; the rank-and-file never would have. The Pledge was a successful swindle. The reverence Newhouse staffers felt towards the Pledge imbued it with a mystic aura, and its warm glow kept them safe and secure right up until that warm glow ceased to be cost-effective.<br />
<br />
Workers believed the benevolent patriarchs of the Newhouse family would look after them, based on nothing more than the Newhouses having said so. In practice, the Pledge was like the "privacy agreements" users have with Google or the fine-print fee structures of a credit card: subject to change at any time with basically no notice & no recourse. It was designed that way. The Newhouses might've misjudged how cheaply they could buy off Bronson, but billionaires aren't generally naive about labor. <br />
<br />
The Pledge served its purpose: it bought worker loyalty. When the time came, heads rolled just the same as they had at Gannett & other news companies. The Pledge was never more than a facet of Newhouse efforts to suppress worker organizing.<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<b>THE WRITING ON THE WALL</b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUlIopzeTfR2mDfeg3Gavi9gTlMZyTPCc-aOyFVvkh2DHOL-F8kxaAEjyI7W0bwX_LTctPJVpibenPAIpVGYf5i4aN7Tqu6BaoFeo7acZB1F9Aa2teHUaZpSwHbVrZFwfALlEfkA32JSs/s320/valleyvoice.jpg" width="256" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strikers published their own<br />
newspaper, the "Valley Voice."<br />
Photo by William D. Lewis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Back in late 2004, when employees of Youngstown, Ohio's daily "Vindicator" went on strike, Advance was one of the media companies who provided the Vindicator's owners with scab labor. New Orleans anarchists, the tediously scolding voice of idealism, painted the neighborhood around the Times-Pic building with <a href="http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/01/2731.php" target="_blank">anti-scab graffiti</a>. "Scabs Are Scum," the spraypaint read. "Don't scab. Fuck your boss."<br />
<br />
Some listened, some didn't. Times-Picayune managing editor Dan Shea was among those who <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050410131713/http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-12-14/news_feat.html" target="_blank">took the bonus pay to go cross the picket line</a>. He was deluded enough to believe himself on the side of the publishers. He, like many workers in many fields, mistakenly conflated his interests with those of his overseers.<br />
<br />
"I'm a manager," Shea told picketers who asked him why he was stabbing fellow newspapermen in the back. "Publishers stick together just like unions do, and this paper has the right to publish. So we're just here helping out.... I hope you wrap this up soon; I want to go home to my kids."<br />
<br />
Remember BP CEO Tony Hayward's words, in the wake of the BP oil disaster? "There's no one who wants this thing over more than I do, I'd like my life back." Shea, like Hayward, considered himself unfairly inconvenienced-- a victim of these other people's tragedy.<br />
<br />
In May 2012 Shea found out how the publishers reciprocated his loyalty: he and the Times-Pic's other managing editor were excluded from the secret meetings new honcho Ricky Mathews held at the Windsor Court Hotel. Shea, like the common union rabble he'd sided against, was out in the cold, unsure of whether he'd have a job and depending on third-party reporting for his information.<br />
<br />
"Since the New York Times story I have not heard anything," <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/168330/rolling-dice-times-picayune" target="_blank">Shea told The Nation</a>. "I’m in the same boat as the majority of the staff.”<br />
<br />
Then, like the majority of the staff, he was fired.<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<strong>THEY SHONE</strong><br />
<br />
There is, for better or worse, one prominent and semi-recent example I can cite of the Times-Picayune staffers working collectively, autonomously and without orders from above.<br />
<br />
According to <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061022/30timespic.htm" target="_blank">an article in the US News</a>, in the teeth of the 2005 federal levee failure and the flooding of New Orleans, at the Times-Picyaune "a new, unexpected kind of leadership emerged-- one in which people at all levels banded together to do what they had to do: put out a newspaper." The writers of the article, titled "Out of Disaster, Power in Numbers" describe this dynamic as an example of organizations "shifting away from 'top down' approaches, in which a few leaders call all the shots, in favor of more collective processes."<br />
<br />
I find it very telling that in the Times-Picayune's finest hour, its greatest triumph over adversity, the period for which it's been justly lauded, there was "no grand plan directed by senior editors." According to editor Jim Amoss, "It became immediately apparent that our very survival as a publication depended on collaboration and cooperation." The crisis "dramatically leveled all hierarchical considerations."<br />
<br />
The conduct of Times-Pic staffers was heroic, and it also happened to be an example of cooperative, collective action. The work those employed by the Times-Pic did through Katrina and its aftermath remains a shining moment in that newspaper's history, in our community's history and in journalism's history. <br />
<br />
Nothing-- neither the death of the Times-Picayune, nor the crass invocations of Katrina by those killing it-- will ever dim that luster.<br />
<br />
<hr /><div style="background-color: #e786ef; padding: 6px;"><h3 style="text-align: center;">THE MURDER OF THE TIMES-PICAYUNE</h3><hr /><div style="font-size: smaller; text-align: center;"><i>a six-part series on the destruction of New Orleans' daily newspaper</i><br />
<div style="background-color: #ff99ff; font-size: small; padding: 8px 6px 10px 6px; text-align: center;"><b>Part <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-one.html">One</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-two.html">Two</a> - <span style="color: red;">Three</span> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-four.html">Four</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-five.html">Five</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-six.html">Six</a></b></div></div><div style="font-size: smaller; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;">written by <a href="http://twitter.com/julesbentley/" target="_blank">Jules Bentley</a></div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-16348227313913688882012-07-10T10:24:00.001-05:002012-08-04T05:50:46.748-05:00The Murder of the Times-Picayune: Part Two<strong>PROFITABLE... JUST NOT PROFITABLE ENOUGH</strong><br />
<br />
A prominent lie told by those who want to excuse the murder of the Times-Picayune is that the newspaper ceased being profitable.<br />
<br />
<div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYL6KF02NnKOTw2mPaj9-cW3oeb1RH9atYKL72c2t26v2Z9UEEWX5DOkiHCOXZ8UOURmGWhPiOrYXIaIhQ-WS9aV5q5RW8KuLIeqLF3aYE0c_O-bO32HPhHRr7Sj-fpIQm5XXM1XEV5k8/s320/ricardo_barba.jpg" width="238" /></div>The Times-Picayune, as a seven-day-a-week paper, was profitable. Was it as profitable as selling cocaine? No. Was it as profitable as Wal-Mart? No. But it was profitable, even notably so among U.S. dailies.<br />
<br />
Rick Edmonds, at the Poynter Institute, <a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog/177005/cutting-print-is-a-money-loser-for-times-picayune-but-cutting-staff-makes-changes-slightly-profitable/" target="_blank">breaks down the numbers</a> behind the Advance Corporation and Newhouse family decision to kill the Times-Picayune. He finds that cutting print editions is actually a money <i>loser. </i>It's the layoffs of 600+ staff across the South that make this profitable for the Newhouses, outweighing the loss of advertising income.<br />
<br />
So despite NOLA.com Content Director James O'Byrne's asseverations about <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/21/nola-media-group-meets-with-the-new-orleans-tech-community" target="_blank">the burdensome costs of printing and distributing the newspaper</a>-- or "Inkasaurus," as he calls it-- it's the firings of his former co-workers that are the real money-saver.<br />
<br />
Edmonds uses data from <a href="http://adage.com/article/media/print-cuts-times-picayune-papers/235006/" target="_blank">Kantar Media in Ad Age</a> and <a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/new_orleans_meets_the_hamster.php?page=all" target="_blank">CJR</a> to calculate that the Times-Pic's 2011 revenues were roughly $100 million. Profitable... just not profitable <em>enough</em>.<br />
<br />
Writing for Fortune, Dan Mitchell establishes that <a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/07/profits-arent-the-only-consideration-for-newspapers/">the Times-Picayune has been continuing to make good money for its owners</a>, inconvenient for those seeking to fit the murder of the Times-Picayune into a cliche print-is-dead narrative. "Advance's decision," Mitchell concludes, "isn't an investment in the digital future -- it's simply proof that Advance wants to squeeze every nickel it can out of the operation as quickly as possible."<br />
<br />
One invaluable component being liquidated along with local jobs and a seven-day edition is <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/06/05/the-great-newspaper-liquidation/" target="_blank">the community's goodwill</a>, described by Reuters blogger Jack Shafer as "the newspaper’s standing in the community and the habit of advertisers and subscribers of giving it money." It was the community's goodwill towards the Times-Picayune, especially post-Katrina, that made the newsstand and home-delivery price increases a couple years back palatable; it's why people were willing to pay more for a reduced page count. Shafer explains: <br />
<blockquote><i>One reason an owner would want to extract a newspaper’s goodwill value before selling its physical assets – its real estate, presses, computers, trucks, paper, ink, etc. – is that traditionally, goodwill is where most of a newspaper’s value has resided. When [author of <u>The Vanishing Newspaper</u>] Meyer asked two newspaper appraisers to estimate how much of a newspaper’s value was locked up in goodwill versus physical assets, both gave him the same answer: 80 percent goodwill, 20 percent physical assets.</i></blockquote><div imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-4kbQJGVxxhd4z0w8Y0HANt4J19ADfWnB2-u06uytzzdyq34Qq5vrUAZHEHH2UWKr0aem9aN7XwOAOQdPwfI1TsFj4r41rLhh1PbJQ6M10y4aG8V2NTD82ddmDIC5fhw2tMqjQIa5AQ/s320/garden-box.jpg" width="315" /></div>Stunning percentages. But in the marketplace, human affection is just another commodity to be traded on, albeit one that in New Orleans has evaporated perhaps more rapidly than the Times-Pic's owners expected. <br />
<br />
For an organic example of how far that goodwill's fallen, look at <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/27/bluth-ipsum" target="_blank">everyone laughing, and riding, and cornholing</a> when the robust new NOLA.com sent a bunch of naughty filler text live on the site's mobile platforms. The universal vicious glee over this mistake shows how badly we want to see these new-media technocrats toppled and humbled. <br />
<br />
The community is rightly angered and feels injured by the loss of its newspaper. Back at Fortune, Dan Mitchell quaintly suggests, "There is a public-service component to newspapering that is often at odds with the pursuit of maximum profits... The question is, at what point does the pursuit of profit begin to do serious harm to the communities served by newspapers?"<br />
<br />
Longtime New Orleans advocate Harry Shearer takes this argument further, suggesting in the Columbia Journalism Review that <a href="http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_sometimes_picayune.php">newspaper owners' mania for moneymaking violates a social compact</a>:<br />
<blockquote><i>The newspaper business lives off the benefits of free speech... Should there be a societal expectation that the proprietors of such privileged enterprises owe a little something back—perhaps a calm acceptance of a lower profit margin than could be attained, say, in the car-leasing business?</i></blockquote>What these naive, starry-eyed idealists don't seem to understand is that Advance, owner of the NOLA Media Group, is a business. The Newhouses, who own Advance, are businessmen. For them, no entity will ever be profitable enough, not even when every silver dime has been wrung from it, not even when every last drop of goodwill's been monetized.<br />
<br />
Capitalism demands that profits not merely continue but increase, always. When profits stop increasing, capitalism demands the very infrastructure of the enterprise be taken apart and sold, which is where the Times-Picayune is at.<br />
<br />
Of course what we call "democracy" relies on, or assumes, an informed public, and a free press is theoretically tasked with keeping that public informed, but capitalism has no room for such things. Just as the more restrictive doctrines of religion eventually give way to convenience, lofty notions of "the free press" get scrapped for copper sooner or later in a world where only profits matter. An informed public isn't cost-efficient.<br />
<br />
<div imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTs27H4buiSxKB76tOfh96p36hcKn5KZU7F4aqAo64qTGzq7QIllM5TAA86dwoENO9KM0OVHeYPxJZG9-X0n5akbmjGfe95IbqfubCF4nkeVi847kB8nft_JhvAZ0rmV_7ku5s85RwgII/s320/box_smash.jpg" width="320" /></div>Even in this so-called Information Age, it's hard to deny how woefully underinformed the public already are. Replacing a record high-penetration newspaper ("<a href="http://www.timespicayune.com/tphistory.html" target="_blank">a print edition that has the highest penetration among metro dailies in markets our size and larger</a>") with a shitty website in a city with record low-penetration internet access ("<a href="http://thelensnola.org/2012/05/24/broadband-acces/" target="_blank">Louisiana is ranked 44th out of 50 states in terms of broadband subscription, with just 51 percent of residents subscribing</a>") has no relation to ethics, nothing to do with technology or our local reality; it's only about profit.<br />
<br />
An informed citizenry holding the state accountable is an idea outdated as daily newspapers. In China, where they have in many ways perfected capitalism, the state has settled into its proper, pure role as a coercive, tax-funded adjunct to the business interests of the ruling class. We in the U.S. must cloak this approach in the language of encouraging and rewarding "job creators," but in China no such prevarication is necessary. Their state's apparatus of oppression nakedly and undilutedly exists to serve the absolute wealthiest. Consolidated, centralized control of media is one piece of that. <br />
<br />
We're running to catch up, because capitalism demands it. Those petty privileges America's upper-middle-class took for granted-- that Bill of Rights stuff poor Americans never got in the first place-- were just inefficiencies for the global market to iron out. It's already too late to argue. All that's left is watching the pisant "free-market" advocates who mistakenly & inaccurately conflated their interests with those of the Romneys and Newhouses find out the hard way which side of the 99% divide they're really on. <br />
<br />
The tarted-up tinpot tiny-town tyrants of Comus and Rex, who for all their faux-royal folderol <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/07/newhouse-spurns-request-to-sell-timespicayune-128512.html" target="_blank">couldn't even get an audience</a> with the real decision-makers at Advance, are swallowing that bitter pill right now. Not even their generations of slave-earned wealth can buy them the newspaper they think they deserve. Oh, they're rich... just not rich <em>enough</em>.<br />
<br />
<hr /><div style="background-color: #e786ef; padding: 6px;"><h3 style="text-align: center;">THE MURDER OF THE TIMES-PICAYUNE</h3><hr /><div style="font-size: smaller; text-align: center;"><i>a six-part series on the destruction of New Orleans' daily newspaper</i><br />
<div style="background-color: #ff99ff; font-size: small; font-weight: bold; padding: 8px 6px 10px 6px; text-align: center;">Part <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-one.html">One</a> - <span style="color: red;">Two</span> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-three.html">Three</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-four.html">Four</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-five.html">Five</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-six.html">Six</a></div></div><div style="font-size: smaller; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;">written by <a href="http://twitter.com/julesbentley/" target="_blank">Jules Bentley</a></div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-45704738591296215232012-07-09T19:44:00.000-05:002012-08-04T05:50:10.062-05:00The Murder of the Times-Picayune: Part One<span style="font-size: small;"><i>first in a six-part series analyzing the destruction of our city's newspaper</i></span><br />
<hr /><strong>INTRO: A MOIDAH SCENE</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLW37968v_J9iAmzM2fWKMtE_dRmbZM5cC9QeFb7ct4JBfRUmryRF5_mIJv9mvVg_xPRP46UsK0YiebFUoR5q8uYixN5z45LqH7_1BvsCedxN_zyJj2CcQFjlI9QwSXRj19JuZpZrtATA/s320/moidah_scene.jpg" width="213" /></span></div>Speaking at the 2010 Jackson Square rally against BP, surprise guest Dr. John let 'em have it with no problem. "Dis was no accident," he said of the fatal explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. "What happened out there was a <em>MOIDAH!</em> It was a moidah, and now they got the moiderers in charge of the moidah scene!"<br />
<br />
Just as BP would have you believe the systematic criminal negligence that killed those men on the oil rig was an accident, just as the Army Corps of Engineers would have you believe the 2005 flooding of New Orleans was a "natural disaster" caused by Katrina, so there are those who want you to believe the death of New Orleans' storied daily newspaper, the Times-Picayune, is not murder.<br />
<br />
There are those who will say the loss of our paper is the inevitable result of cosmic forces, a death attributable to natural causes. It's because of the internet, because of changing times, because the newspaper isn't profitable any more.<br />
<br />
Those are all lies.<br />
<br />
The Times-Picayune was murdered, and it was murdered for money. Specific men with names and addresses murdered the Times-Pic for money. It's a long and sordid story, and it's one I'm not sure we can rely on corporate-owned media to accurately report.<br />
<br />
The account that follows draws heavily from multiple sources. Wherever I can, I've linked to those sources as I quote them. The links are just citations; you don't need to follow the links to understand my essay or the arguments I'm making. Most of all, what I write here stands on the (perhaps unwilling) shoulders of <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/the-times-picayune/" target="_blank">the tremendous ongoing work done by the Gambit</a>, particularly the coverage provided by <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/ArticleArchives?author=1272836" target="_blank">Kevin Allman</a>.<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<strong>THAT WAS THEN</strong><br />
<br />
On a panel at Harvard in spring 2007, NOLA.com Content Director James O'Byrne, then a Features Editor at the Times-Pic, <a href="http://nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100149/Journalism-Driven-By-Passion.aspx" target="_blank">discussed the difficulties</a> of having out-of-town brass making decisions about New Orleans news coverage. "So there is clearly this thing where editors who make decisions about coverage think they know what New Orleans looks like, and they don’t. They don’t have a clue..."<br />
<br />
He was speaking specifically about Katrina. In its aftermath, he said, "Our staff shrunk with our circulation; it was 265 before the storm and right now we are around 200, which isn’t bad. Our strategy to focus a lot of our efforts over the last 20 years in the suburbs paid off in big ways. No one was fired."<br />
<br />
"No one was fired," marveled Susan Feeney of NPR. "That’s a pretty big issue when every other newspaper in America is laying people off."<br />
<br />
We'll get to layoffs. For now, the point is that the Times-Picayune in its last twenty years indeed focused hard on the suburbs; the mostly white, mostly conservative suburbs. The NOLA.com comment sections are overwhelmingly full of people from outside the city, most of whom hate and revile-- and yet cannot stop thinking about-- New Orleans. White, right-wing suburbanites also made up the bulk of the print edition's subscribers, and it was thus their tastes and their prejudices the newspaper flattered and sought to please, to whatever degree it deviated from the perspective of the ancient, dwindling Rex/Comus Uptown elite.<br />
<br />
Whither this withered elite? Post-Katrina, this same Uptown ruling clique gathered in a fancy Dallas hotel to devise <a href="http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2010/08/many_areas_marked_for_green_space_after_hurricane_katrina_have_rebounded.html" target="_blank">the now-notorious Green Dot/Reduced Footprint plan</a> that would have converted black neighborhoods to greenspace. Similarly, this hometown one-percenter set greeted the devastating news of the Times-Picayune's demise by convening in a stately Uptown home and deciding what should be done.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWoWsFRAmplxymidSzx0BcdP0r7qK9uFnzVpJNZriT8LrABLOHLv2zCc82PoaSNCelby3PnS7DTLIXEGWC_cPmVhF6rAsbw54fNmtOa2g1_16yvjZ0lGsDfCF4lqwzhGNFqTQs91uoQQ/s400/noise.jpg" width="350" /></span></div>But oh, what a shock to their sensibilities-- rather than their internal consensus having immediate force of law, these Boston Club Brahmin have been given the brush-off. You'd think they were non-whites trying to join Comus!<br />
<br />
Quelle horreur-- the Newhouse family declines to sell them the Times-Pic, and that bounder Ricky Mathews, the out-of-town overlord appointed by the New York Newhouses, doesn't seek to please these garden-district dress-up dukes and doyennes. Why, far from kissing Rex's mystickal Ring, he's sashaying around town with that no-account <a href="http://humidcity.com/2009/07/21/new-orleans-entrepreneur-washed-by-the-atlantic/" target="_blank">megadeveloper Sean Cummings</a>!<br />
<br />
Alack, the moldy Comus-tose "elite," so used to lording it over the puny pond Pontchartrain, have now learnt a terrifying lesson: under global capitalism, their blueblood family trees and exclusive carnival-club memberships really don't mean shit. They can write angry letters to the editors and <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/07/09/times-picayune-citizens-group-formally-asks-newhouse-family-to-sell-the-paper" target="_blank">demand the caddish Newhouses hand over the reins</a>; they can stack signatories to the sky. Their old money merely mumbles. They've got no pull.<br />
<br />
Welcome, Krewe of Comus fuddy-duddies, to the ugly realities of capitalism. Welcome to the only game in town.<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
<strong>SHOVE YOUR TEST TUBE</strong><br />
<br />
I think it's important, as we mourn the murdered Times-Picayune, that we don't lionize it as something it wasn't. Still, for all the negativity I express above towards the newspaper's role as servant of the cotillion cults and online playground for white supremacy, I love the Times-Picayune and I'm outraged by its destruction.<br />
<br />
In mounting a defense of the Times-Picayune I'd would point, as many have, to the <a href="http://nola.com/prisons/" target="_blank">their awesome recent series on Lousiana's world-beating incarceration rate</a>. I would direct readers to <a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2005/10/09/New-era-of-disasters-brings-changes-in-media-coverage.html" target="_blank">the work of unwilling hurricane prophet Mark Schleifstein</a>. I would invoke the inarguable heroism of the Times-Picayune staff during the post-Katrina flooding, and most of all I'd let others who have said it better speak for themselves.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thelensnola.org/2012/05/24/gadbois-on-times-picayune-news/" target="_blank">A superb post on The Lens</a> by New Orleans hero Karen Gadbois makes three very important points: The Times-Pic was always indispensable even to its harshest critics : most of what's worthwhile about "digital journalism" draws from print, usually from work done by paid professional reporters : those in charge of the Times-Pic's bottom line have been blind to the newspaper's strengths for a long time.<br />
<br />
Award-winning historian John Barry, author of <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Rising Tide</span>, told <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/168330/rolling-dice-times-picayune" target="_blank">The Nation</a> simply, “This is one of the dumbest decisions by any newspaper publisher ever.”<br />
<br />
For a digital-media perspective, WWNO brings us <a href="http://www.wwno.org/post/city-news-organizations-respond-times-picayune-layoffs">a report that includes</a> words from Robert Morris, a round-the-clock energizer bunny powering the "hyperlocal" <a href="http://uptownmessenger.com/" target="_blank">Uptown Messenger website</a>. Morris and his site are a living and very accomplished example of what a small, dedicated tech-savvy team can accomplish. Still, he's horrified by the layoffs. He sees the loss of reporters, not the reduction in print frequency, as the big story. After all, he says, "No city has ever been made better from fewer journalists."<br />
<br />
Beyond all of this, beyond all the ways the murder of the Times-Picayune hurts our community, it's simply unacceptable that New Orleans be the laboratory for this misguided digital experiment, and that the lives and careers of hard-working New Orleans journalists be sacrificed to this experiment.<br />
<br />
In a smug contrarian essay for the Gambit, cashed-out patrician Jack Davis finds "opportunity" in the hundreds of firings and the death of a 175-year-old newspaper. Note that word, opportunity; we'll see it again. <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/06/16/smarter-than-newhouse" target="_blank">According to Davis</a>, "This is a rare opportunity for New Orleans to lead the nation, to be the pioneer in digital transformation... This experiment was bound to happen in some substantial American market sooner or later... We just drew the short straw, and became the test tube."<br />
<br />
The furious final words in defense of the Times-Picayune against this vivisection should rightly go to activist Brad Ott, who commented in response to Davis' head-patting condescension:<br />
<blockquote><i>This aspect is another major reason why this scheme needs to be vigorously resisted. Since Hurricane Katrina's August 29, 2005 landfall and the resulting federal flood, we denizens of New Orleans have been experimented upon -- mostly with devastating consequences.<br />
<br />
More than 7,000 certified Orleans Public School educators and support staff, most of whom were African American women, were summarily fired and replaced by fresh-out-of college Teach For America docents to lead to the largest collection of privatized charter schools in the nation (with only marginal improvement).<br />
<br />
Our public housing developments, most of whom had ably survived the storm, were demolished after locking out their leaseholders (indeed -- many residents were unable to retrieve their possessions!) and replaced with so-called "Choice neighborhoods" -- which have effectively locked out most of the original HANO residents.<br />
<br />
And our main trauma center Charity Hospital was shuttered even after its workers and the U.S. military had its first three floors ready to reopen within one month of the storm. Subsequently Lower Mid-City has been demolished, displacing hundreds of residents and scores of businesses to make way for a medical complex in which its needed financing still remains to be secured.<br />
<br />
So now New Orleans is part of an experiment in newspaper media. This is no accident. We were chosen (along with sister papers in Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile, Alabama) BECAUSE WE IN THE DEEP SOUTH DON'T MERIT MUCH NOTICE...</i></blockquote><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://photos.nola.com/tpphotos/2010/09/hospital_8.html" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQl5dIr0TF9H_yyD2LnPKP28QuotLqIceLvCmyRsFK65YpqVqJrypqzoy6XsPmguSksw_GJ9EjoPD0AgZ64ftt3_d-UAlthlV31tf3zpLqozGfOezSnVzI3msB1zoz_FjY-xD-lKtDzw/s400/shameful.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brad Ott calls out Mayor Landrieu over the destruction of Lower Mid-City -- photo by John McCusker, Times-Picayune </td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<hr /><div style="background-color: #e786ef; padding: 6px;"><h3 style="text-align: center;"> THE MURDER OF THE TIMES-PICAYUNE</h3><hr /><div style="font-size: smaller; text-align: center;"><i>a six-part series on the destruction of New Orleans' daily newspaper</i><br />
<div style="background-color: #ff99ff; font-size: small; font-weight: bold; padding: 8px 6px 10px 6px; text-align: center;">Part <span style="color: red;">One</span> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-two.html">Two</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-three.html">Three</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/murder-of-times-picayune-part-four.html">Four</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-five.html">Five</a> - <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-murder-of-times-picayune-part-six.html">Six</a></div><div style="padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;">written by <a href="http://twitter.com/julesbentley/" target="_blank">Jules Bentley</a></div></div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-1830661567663629892012-06-26T17:40:00.000-05:002012-06-30T17:29:42.579-05:00Cell phone video shows handcuffed teens being tased by JPSO!A recently posted video shows two defenseless teens handcuffed to each
other and begging for mercy as they are tased by Jeff
Parish Pigs. Although the footage is grainy the cops' brutality and impunity are plain to see.<br />
<br />
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0" height="412" id="flashObj" width="486"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" />
<param name="flashVars" value="videoId=1708277255001&playerID=651482428001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAPmbRMTE~,BWCCSzT6s9n2dkm1Oa2dELBPh6LJOKDw&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" />
<param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" />
<param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" />
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
<param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" />
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />
<embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=1708277255001&playerID=651482428001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAPmbRMTE~,BWCCSzT6s9n2dkm1Oa2dELBPh6LJOKDw&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="486" height="412" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" allowScriptAccess="always" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Video reposted from nola.com.Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-38302064825959397742012-05-31T00:41:00.001-05:002012-05-31T02:51:57.526-05:00Sad, But Not Shocking: Gay-hating church plagiarizesI'm interested in language. I'm also someone who recognizes Christianity in basically all its forms to be a cynical tax-evading pyramid scheme that preys on ignorance for profit, a pernicious cult propagating hatred, fear, and a doctrine of servility & obedience to authority.<br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<iframe align="center" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xr727u_children-singing-in-church-to-enthusiastic-audience-high-fives-that-s-my-boy_news" width="480"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Today I saw the adorable clip above in which this standard heartland church cheers itself hoarse because a couple toddlers have learned to sing "Ain't No Homos Gonna Make It To Heaven." Sad, but not shocking. Hating queers is par for the course, the course as demonstrated consistently and incontrovertibly throughout the brutal 2,000-year reich that has been Christianity's stain upon our planet.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.apostolictruthtabernacle.net/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/JeffnJulieJune20062.12715330_std.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img align="right" alt="The beaming complacent fake-tanned faces of morally righteous plagiarism" height="320" src="http://www.apostolictruthtabernacle.net/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/JeffnJulieJune20062.12715330_std.jpg" title="The beaming complacent fake-tanned faces of morally righteous plagiarism" width="260" /></a>I went to <a href="http://www.apostolictruthtabernacle.net/home" target="_blank">the gay-hating toddler Church's website</a>, and beneath the frantic disclaimer I found a quite well-written little "About" paragraph with some commendably pretty language. This set off alarms immediately, since the overlapping subset of "Christians" and "good writers" in the 21st century is, not coincidentally, microscopic-- Annie Dillard was about it, and she finally renounced. <br />
<br />
Ya hate to assume the worst, but one thing everyone who's ever had dealings with Bible freaks knows is that they're compulsively, fundamentally dishonest. The louder they holler about Jesus, the more treacherous they're sure to be. As usual, Bill Burroughs said it best:<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>"If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit, not with the good lord telling him to fuck you on the deal."</b></h3>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+kind+of+contagious+Christianity%22" target="_blank" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="In short, we're too lazy to describe our own church in our own words" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNQae8QNBlgdVLL1GVKH0g3dURsbcWu4vWv0_L242fChm2XN2DXOQG5E9CZJOUO8xHIBx44MFPPczO_UTqjrQdEFsJJ0DD3wfXggMgHVC63QYOVU5q8LbuULDrOLamSf333vr3c9u1xE/s400/trite_sentiments.jpg" title="In short, we're too lazy to describe our own church in our own words" width="242" /></a>Morality, in the sense of personal ethics, is meaningless to Christians; they have no personal virtues, which is why they embrace a mumbo-jumbo doctrine that tells them God's In Control. It's all of a piece. Since the Bible is a bunch of ridiculous garbage and they claim it's infallible, their endemic dishonesty, though sad, is not shocking. Like everything else in the massively hierarchical mind-slavery that is "Faith," the problems start at the top.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I googled one felicitous phrase, "the kind of contagious Christianity," and, well, <b><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+kind+of+contagious+Christianity%22" target="blank">see for yourself</a>.</b> Click the link, go on! <br />
<br />
Look at those results. Page through them: hundreds, literally hundreds of churches whose "about" pages use the same plagiarized boilerplate.<br />
<br />
Sad. Sad that these people who are supposedly so moved by faith as to make it the center of their existence, who claim to be teachers, who ask others to come listen to them yammer on all morning long, are too lazy to even bother articulating the supposed faith that moves them.<br />
<br />
Too lazy, too cynical, too dumb. Far easier to copy-and-paste someone else's sentiments. Why not? The sheep in the pews won't know. Read out your plagiarized sermon and pass the collection plate; another hard day's work for the Fishers of Men. Copy, Paste and Praise the lord!<br />
<br />
Sad... but not shocking. People who think for themselves don't make very good Christians.Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-616968933443976502012-05-17T16:42:00.002-05:002012-05-21T14:59:13.403-05:00"Your Goose Is Cooked, Sucka:" On The Long, Hot Summer To Come For The NOPD!<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-UgZo7pgFzd69mni-ykPlHPfo9ojjAh-BBYFrBX92rhlW83MecUq4K429ZdJJxzjbEI9oDjdyH7iA2kQPBXU2Q2GNlLCbY1tJeUdv1aL0_XiHUhyK7i4OH6ARZrFlE17apGZ1HzoidfQ/s1600/civilrightspunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-UgZo7pgFzd69mni-ykPlHPfo9ojjAh-BBYFrBX92rhlW83MecUq4K429ZdJJxzjbEI9oDjdyH7iA2kQPBXU2Q2GNlLCbY1tJeUdv1aL0_XiHUhyK7i4OH6ARZrFlE17apGZ1HzoidfQ/s320/civilrightspunch.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">1</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">The police in New Orleans are </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/05/in_new_orleans_its_the_police.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">rabid</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">. Cops and the city are "circling their wagons" after multiple high-profile police murders, the conclusion of the Danziger Bridge and Henry Glover cases highlighting the code of silence and willingness of many cops to plant evidence and cover up crimes, and the recent scathing investigative series </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/prisons/"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Louisiana Inc.arcerated</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> detailing "how we became the world's prison capitol." Judging by the reactions of NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas, Sheriff Marlin Gusman and other elected officials, it would seem that the official response will be denial, procrastination, and attempting to evade any consequences and point the finger away from themselves. <br />
<br />
At a modest home full of 5 small children in a quiet Gentilly neighborhood, an innocent 20 year old college-bound high school graduate emerges from his bedroom and is shot through the chest and bleeds to death, gasping for air, shirtless on the floor of his mother's home over a search warrant for weed that yielded only his brother's tiny personal stash; the Police Department and now the </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/04/results_of_nopd_investigation.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">District Attorney</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> do everything they can to suppress the release of the details of the case in the name of a "pending investigation." His killer, Officer Joshua Colclough, continues to work for the NOPD despite admitting to murdering an innocent, unarmed, shirtless young man and the DA has so far refused to filed any charges. </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/wendell-allen-murdered-by-nopd-classic.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Wendell Allen</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">'s family members have been tirelessly protesting, often alone, on street corners demanding justice and Colclough's arrest. More rallies are planned. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMM3F8TwFMN97Ecq2VIRfkZZ4PJ2Kp4qBCJbF_rOuCe-hEAtCpE0wtsEjfT572BoxBawsJN3dZhODVyeVqMG7kjYoQHPH2xVgZ_5hHujX5IhE0CCZfe6pKqXAV3G95QSPRgcsKIPqZYNo/s1600/1331250358-lavondrabruno.jpg_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMM3F8TwFMN97Ecq2VIRfkZZ4PJ2Kp4qBCJbF_rOuCe-hEAtCpE0wtsEjfT572BoxBawsJN3dZhODVyeVqMG7kjYoQHPH2xVgZ_5hHujX5IhE0CCZfe6pKqXAV3G95QSPRgcsKIPqZYNo/s320/1331250358-lavondrabruno.jpg_large.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Recently, the gory details from the multiple NOPD bloodbaths in the wake of Hurricane Katrina surfaced during the Danziger trial and other investigations. Henry Glover's body was burned, children were shot with automatic weapons and people were stomped to death while bleeding from gunshot wounds on the Danziger Bridge, </span><a href="http://www.theroot.com/views/battle-new-orleans-continues?page=0,1&wpisrc=root_lightbox"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Danny Brumfield</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> Sr. was shot in the back, people were beaten, disappeared, their civil rights were violated, and they were intimidated and threatened by police. None of the Danziger Bridge officers were </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/08/killer-danziger-cops-not-guilty-of.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">convicted of murder</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> despite the obvious evidence of such, and they received the lightest </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/04/new_orleans_police_convicted_i.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">sentences</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> allowed by law from the judge. Now, some of the officers are demanding their convictions </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/officers_convicted_in_danziger.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">be overturned</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">, while one is </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/danziger_bridge_cover-up_suspe.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">up for a re-trial</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> in August. And a 2008 racist beating of RTA employees by off-duty cops at The Beachcorner Bar is just now </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/05/brawl_involving_new_orleans_po.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">getting federal scrutiny</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">, 4 years later, after local officials completely ignored the incident, signaling that police have complete impunity to terrorize whomever they want, which has added to local anger against them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Only a week before Wendell Allen's murder, </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/mid-city-police-shootings-inevitable.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Justin Sipp</span></a><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">2</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> is stopped at 5am along with his brother Earl by 3 white officers for a "broken license plate light" in the midst of the current climate of complete distrust of NOPD, while both were on their way to work at Burger King. Somehow a gunfight ensues, 2 officers are wounded and Justin is dead at the scene, while his brother Earl was also shot by the police </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">while in handcuffs</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">, is later released from the hospital without </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">any</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> charges against him. Officer Jason Giroir, who pulled the Sipp brothers over that morning, </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/jason-giroir-new-orleans-_n_1383980.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">resigned</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> only a month later after making racist, violent comments in regards to the </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/04/trayvon-martin-wendell-allen-justin.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Trayvon Martin</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> murder case. Earl is keeping quiet about the incident on the advice of his lawyer pending civil litigation.<br />
<br />
It was only slightly more than a year ago that local anarchists, as well as many artists, young musicians, and other paraders were beaten, tasered, had their bones broken, were bloodied, pepper-sprayed and terrorized by an </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/06/krewe-of-eris-12-formally-charged-with.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">NOPD riot against the Krewe of Eris</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> annual Mardi Gras parade that was partially caught on video. An innocent man </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/09/william-watkins-first-person-sentenced.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">spent 45 days in OPP</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> because of this police riot. Many of the other Eris defendants had to endure ridiculous court proceedings and blatantly lying NOPD officers until the circus finally wore them down enough to throw in the towel or be lucky enough to have their charges dropped, while one person still awaits a trial in open court on his trumped-up felony charges.<br />
<br />
Anger against NOPD also continues to grow due to the fact that they don't seem to care that their plan for tackling the nation's highest murder rate, which overwhelmingly effects the poor, </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">isn't working</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> (at anything other than fattening their paychecks, and adding to NOPD's local power), as people plead desperately for </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/09/william-watkins-first-person-sentenced.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">ways out</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> of the cycle of violence that NOPD will never even consider. Considering other options would likely mean reducing their funding in favor of groups like </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/04/ceasefire_program_to_reduce_st.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">CeaseFire</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> that actually work, so they continue to let the poor die to maintain their payroll. Adding to that frustrating, exasperating issue are many other less dire, but equally stupid annoyances that make people hate the cops, such as the classist, and often racially biased, </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/06/nopd-targets-cyclists-will-they-fight.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">harassment of local bicyclists</span></a><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">3</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> for merely trying to ride from point A to point B, as well as tons of arrests for minor drug possession and unpaid traffic ticket warrants, which overwhelmingly target poor and black people, and get them stuck in the ringer of the court system that squeezes every drop of money from their pockets or throws them in jail, exasperating the poverty of the city's poorest citizens.<br />
<br />
The DOJ has at least seven more open investigations into New Orleans police killings and has indicated its plans for more formal oversight of the New Orleans Police Department, as well as the city jail. The almost weekly arrests of sheriffs, cops, or other LEOs for crimes ranging from bribery to domestic violence, drug dealing to rape, continue to erode public confidence and trust in the cops. The regular business of NOPD, who logged 33,100 arrests in a city of 300,000 while enforcing their class war against the poor, and especially against the black poor in New Orleans, also continues to create anger, resentment, distrust, and utter hatred and contempt for the police.<br />
<br />
Recent </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/05/its_only_temporary.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">escapes</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/search_continues_for_third_inm.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">from</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/christian_brothers_school_on_l.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">OPP</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> by inmates over the last weeks are even serving to erode the faith in the cops and prisons by those who usually benefit from the way this city and this system is run. Even columnists from the corporate run media </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/05/in_new_orleans_its_the_police.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">acknowledge</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> that people cheer when cops from the police force responsible for so much terrorism and chaos are jailed.<br />
<br />
Within the last year, local sentiment has turned more sharply against the police than the usual level of simmering discontent and mistrust that has always existed here. In </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/11/noise-demo-at-opp.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">November</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> and </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/01/nye-noise-demo-at-opp-in-solidarity.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">December</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> noise demonstrations were organized at OPP by anti-prison activists. A </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/02/oakland-solidarityapb-march.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">protest</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> organized by local anarchists in solidarity with Occupy Oakland's revolutionaries and against police brutality in February left </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/02/fuck-police-new-orleans-protest.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">participants</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> "feeling pumped up, empowered and enthusiastic." Radical propaganda has been seen around Downtown, Mid-City, Gentilly, Uptown, and other neighborhoods of the city, some if it already deteriorating from people attempting to tear it down, some of it left alone by a largely sympathetic public to call for justice for police murder victims and criticize the police. Lots of anti-police graffiti has also appeared around town, as well as slogans remembering Justin Sipp and Wendell Allen. A </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbuz5iYZf0Y"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">video</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> about Wendell Allen's murder was made by his family and has been posted to YouTube. A powerful </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jga0IQXT2XQ&feature=youtu.be"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">video</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> about Wendell Allen, Ramarley Graham, and Rekia Boyd was recently created for spreading awareness on YouTube. Local racist monuments were </span><a href="http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/3-monuments-vandalized-justin-sipp-wendell-allen-and-trayvon-martin"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">vandalized</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> by people angry with police murders. The monthly </span><a href="http://www.antigravitymagazine.com/antigravity_vol9_issue6.pdf"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">"Slingshots, Anyone?" column</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> in AntiGravity Magazine focuses on the ongoing struggle (on pg. 5). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="en-US"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLhUm1Qsn7APcxURRm7PPnT9RUjLWI70EA9h6FRGrBDQLZgHf1COQNCXZ-AH_5nsZDzWCUSmeLROTvash22FGPjDBCYxjofvKzMehOqOSX9qvYhJWC2DS52zgbA_Dirx-joiiwDV-2ho/s1600/IMG_0408.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLhUm1Qsn7APcxURRm7PPnT9RUjLWI70EA9h6FRGrBDQLZgHf1COQNCXZ-AH_5nsZDzWCUSmeLROTvash22FGPjDBCYxjofvKzMehOqOSX9qvYhJWC2DS52zgbA_Dirx-joiiwDV-2ho/s320/IMG_0408.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Even the local corporate media seems to be dog-piling atop the stories, finally waking up to the rage about to boil over here. A few journalists seem to be asking honest questions at the vigils and rallies, following up on older stories and tying tales of brutality together, painting a portrait of a poisonous tree instead of a few bad apples.</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US"> </span><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">4</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">People ask "wasn't the Danziger case supposed to fix this?" yet the victims of police murder continue to go without justice day after day and more people continue to get shot by NOPD. Most recently the anti-capitalist </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/05/over-100-attend-new-orleans-may-day.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">May Day march</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> saw people vent their rage at the owners of this system by attacking banks and corporate property while chanting anti-police slogans, and there was a </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/05/mothers-march-against-injustice-justice.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Mother's Day March</span></a><span lang="en-US"> where the list of demands was so long an all-out revolution sounds easier than getting the powers that be to make all those changes. Find out info on NOLA Anarcha about upcoming events.<br />
<br />
The police did not learn from the Hurricane Katrina cases. No lawsuit pay-outs, jailing of a few officers, or amount of bad publicity is going to stop this rampage against the public. This an abusive relationship the citizens of New Orleans have with the New Orleans Police, and the only thing that stops the abusive behavior pattern is palpable and firm consequence. Firing the murderers of Justin Sipp or Wendell Allen isn't enough, more academy rejects from the NOPD will step in to take their place. Imagine if a citizen was suspected of being responsible for the death of a police officer, would they be eligible to return to work the next day? Or would they be held without bail indefinitely until the conclusion of the trial? This double-standard, this act of the State protecting the frothing, bloodthirsty dogs it sics on the public without a second thought, contributes to the growing trend of turning the public into just another complex form of livestock. Keep the line moving or get the prod.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="en-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="en-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6HHBhw73udMNOQsd7IUJI0Mxrqz1vKIF_WIntA45Wh50PthNp0JIVnUIQBSIRu9uJYtu6M_eAEt5ZuBhtvhgoM1Ans4uO3fvycfq5R6H2oOAAYzMfRUIBtCVSyVsQTGkrWgT96NRtVZc/s1600/rebellion-after-oscar-grant-murder-oakland.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6HHBhw73udMNOQsd7IUJI0Mxrqz1vKIF_WIntA45Wh50PthNp0JIVnUIQBSIRu9uJYtu6M_eAEt5ZuBhtvhgoM1Ans4uO3fvycfq5R6H2oOAAYzMfRUIBtCVSyVsQTGkrWgT96NRtVZc/s320/rebellion-after-oscar-grant-murder-oakland.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="en-US"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="en-US">In Oakland, CA, the public </span><a href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2009/06/15/unfinished_acts_edit3reduced.pdf"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">went wild</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> when the police murdered Oscar Grant, causing the city, in an appeal for calm, to arrest the offending officer. In Greece, the popular insurrection sparked by the murder of a 15 year old in a radical neighborhood continues to help destabilize a country in the throes of the ugly side of capitalism -- austerity, scarcity, and poverty. Plenty of other examples can be found all over the world where the people fight back, take a stand against the State and its violence, and refuse to take this shit by setting a real precedent for resistance. These smatterings of rage provide a fiery consequence to police violence, helping blaze a path to where the policemen draw their weapons nervously out of fear of what sort of hellish storm could be brought down should they go too far or even do their "job" in a less-than-invisible fashion. A world where there is no machismo-caused "collateral damage" like 7 year old </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/16/michigan.police.child/index.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Aiyana Jones</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> in Detroit, slain by pigs in a raid on the wrong house. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">But </span><a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/mediation_program_for_new_orle.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">those</span></a><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">5</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> that seek to manage this anger, channel it politically or attempt to minimize the possibility of damage to the police and State tell folks that "there is a time and a place" for that kind of rage, that yearning for some real action. Well, New Orleans has 2 police murders the DA refuses to press charges on, there are several investigations into brutality by DOJ and a </span><a href="http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-department-of-justice-report-finds.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">scathing report</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> about the cops here, a murder epidemic that the cops refuse to do anything constructive about, and secretive internal investigations that no one is allowed to see. The cops don't show any signs of letting up, despite the system attempting to clean itself. The public is powerless, the police protect themselves and each other, and more people are beginning to realize this. </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">The fight isn't in the courts, where consequences can be neutered and the public's anger defused, it's in the streets.</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
<br />
This isn't about what color you are, where you come from, your sexuality or politics. This is about being a human being. They abuse us all and they aren't going to read the picket signs and start changing their minds.<br />
<br />
</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 22.0pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">New Orleans, isn't now starting to look like "that time"? </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 22.0pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 22.0pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Isn't this city starting to look </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 22.0pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">like "that place"? </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 22.0pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 22.0pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Where you at? </span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 18.0pt; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">--------- </span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 18.0pt; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">How to get down with the struggle no matter who you are (and you will<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>inspire others to fight back as well!):</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><br />
--</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Come to the marches</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">. That's easy. Make a sign you feel proud to hold that expresses what you want to say. </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Advanced:</span><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">6</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> bring drums, instruments, and other noisemakers to liven up the march. Bring wheatpaste to put up posters along the route during the march, or fliers to pass out to people the march goes by. Recent anti-police brutality marches have been met with enthusiastic responses from many people on the street. Seize the opportunity to engage with them.<br />
<br />
--Organize a </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Break Away March</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> that leaves from the end of an anti-police brutality march like they did in </span><a href="http://anarchistnews.org/content/atlanta-reacts-trayvon-martins-murder"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Atlanta</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">. Make a flier for it, hand it out to other radicals and spread the word, and make sure people know what level of militancy you are expecting people to be ready for at it. Of course you won't be able to control everyone's actions, but you can at least give those who may be confused, surprised, or frightened by the increased militancy it will take to pressure authorities into make substantial changes in policy some warning, and hopefully they'll still show up, but just be more prepared for it.<br />
<br />
--</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Hang a banner</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> calling for justice for victims of police murder, the arrest of Officer Colclough, the arrests of Officers Asevedo, Giroir, and Mayfield, or any other anti-police, anti-system slogan you choose. Take a photo and send it to us. Easy to do, and inspires others to keep fighting. </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Advanced:</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> do it like </span><a href="http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/795"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Seattle</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> did.<br />
<br />
--Athens, Greece style </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">"counter-informational" demos</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">: If you think the mainstream press isn't doing a good job covering the anti-police rage in this city, get out there and let people know! In </span><a href="http://actforfreedomnow.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/briefing-from-the-solidarity-and-counter-information-gathering-that-took-place-today-24th-on-the-pavement-outside-the-athens-law-school-building-for-the-methodical-attempt-of-re-imprisoning-the-3-an/"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">Athens</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> 4 or 5 people "counter-informational" demos occur regularly. All you need is a few hours of time, a stack of fliers about the injustices going on for one person to pass to everyone walking by, a big banner that two people can hold up, and one person with a megaphone discussing the details of the issues and inviting anyone walking by who has their own complaints about the police to come speak out about it. These work wonders at engaging the local citizens and breaking through the mainstream media disinformation to get people to understand what is going on. When you go out, invite other radicals, too, and who knows, it could turn into a march, street blockade, or other action that goes beyond the bounds of education into disruption of business as usual like </span><a href="http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/476"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">this action</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> did.<br />
<br />
--In Belgium people do these events called </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">"ballades"</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> where a big group of anarchists (20-40 or more) get together to walk around town on the sidewalks </span><a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-wheatpaste.html"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">wheatpasting</span></a><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">7</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> up posters and spray-painting slogans. Some people have fliers to hand out to passers-by that explain the action and slogans--they also serve as look-outs by being at the corners of the block on either side of the main group. There are anarchist posters and graffiti all over Bruxelles, thanks in part to these ballades. If the atmosphere seems right, sometimes these ballades turn into "wild demos" and things get smashed, openly and defiantly.<br />
<br />
--In the small, economically depressed California city of Modesto some anarchists have been known to engage in the </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">"prole stroll"</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> which is more or less the American version of the Belgian "ballade." The tactic has spread around the world, and was recently seen </span><a href="http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/insurgent-g/10254"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">in Montreal</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">.<br />
<br />
--A Chilean style </span><a href="http://sysiphus-angrynewsfromaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2012/03/santiago-chile-attack-on-prison-van-in.html"><span lang="en-US" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">"salida"</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> could work pretty well in the right, dimly-lit, narrow street location in New Orleans, of which we have plenty. From the link: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; margin-left: 30.0pt; margin-right: 30.0pt; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">"The pictures correspond to the clashes of Friday, January 6, outside the Usach university, where there was plenty of fire, including the burning of the offices of the Servicio de Impuestos Internos (Tax Office). The photos represent a "salida", that is to say a sortie where, as in Greece, the rioters use the university (or high schools since the movement of 2011 in Chile) to take the street, block, and attack the State vehicles that pass within Molotov range. The sortie last January corresponded to the fourth anniversary of the assassination of comrade Matías Catrileo by the cops. In the images, one sees the gathering and the attacks, respectively, against a van transporting money and one of the Prison Administration. The prison van burnt by molotovs belongs to the special services of the PA, that is to say the USEP (Unidad de Servicios Especiales Prisons). As recalled by the companions of Chile in the text accompanying the pictures, "a thought for the prisoners murdered following their attempted escape during the earthquake of 27 February 2010, the 81 prisoners who died in the San Miguel prison in December 8, 2011, the two injured and murdered for having attempted to escape from the prison of Talagante January 29, 2012, the 361 prisoners who died in the Comayagua jail in Honduras February 14, and that is only a few of the massacres produced by the prison society. A thought also for the comrades who are in the jails of the enemy, they are not alone."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">--Think we are free with all this police murder going on? No? Then why not organize a </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">"freedom graffiti week"</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> in New Orleans </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/05/02/151852095/a-syrian-graffiti-artist-defiant-until-death"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">like this martyred youth in Syria did</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">? This idea </span><a href="http://www.stencilarchive.org/node/1324"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">comes from</span></a><!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Publication type="OplPub" oty="68" oh="256">
<b:OhPrintBlock priv="30E">281</b:OhPrintBlock>
<b:DptlPageDimensions type="OplPt" priv="1211">
<b:Xl priv="104">7772400</b:Xl>
<b:Yl priv="204">10058400</b:Yl>
</b:DptlPageDimensions>
<b:OhGallery priv="180E">259</b:OhGallery>
<b:OhFancyBorders priv="190E">261</b:OhFancyBorders>
<b:OhCaptions priv="1A0E">257</b:OhCaptions>
<b:OhQuillDoc priv="200E">276</b:OhQuillDoc>
<b:OhMailMergeData priv="210E">262</b:OhMailMergeData>
<b:OhColorScheme priv="220E">279</b:OhColorScheme>
<b:DwNextUniqueOid priv="2304">1</b:DwNextUniqueOid>
<b:IdentGUID priv="2A07">0``````````````````````</b:IdentGUID>
<b:DpgSpecial priv="2C03">5</b:DpgSpecial>
<b:CTimesEdited priv="3C04">1</b:CTimesEdited>
<b:NuDefaultUnitsEx priv="4104">0</b:NuDefaultUnitsEx>
<b:OhImpositionEngine priv="440E">285</b:OhImpositionEngine>
</b:Publication>
<b:PrinterInfo type="OplPrb" oty="75" oh="281">
<b:OhColorSepBlock priv="30E">282</b:OhColorSepBlock>
<b:OpmOutsidePrintMode priv="B04">1</b:OpmOutsidePrintMode>
<b:FInitComplete priv="1400">False</b:FInitComplete>
<b:DpiX priv="2203">0</b:DpiX>
<b:DpiY priv="2303">0</b:DpiY>
<b:DxlOverlap priv="2404">0</b:DxlOverlap>
<b:DylOverlap priv="2504">0</b:DylOverlap>
</b:PrinterInfo>
<b:ColorSeperationInfo type="OplCsb" oty="79" oh="282">
<b:Plates type="OplCsp" priv="214">
<b:OplCsp type="OplCsp" priv="11">
<b:EcpPlate type="OplEcp" priv="213">
<b:Color priv="104">-1</b:Color>
</b:EcpPlate>
</b:OplCsp>
</b:Plates>
<b:DzlOverprintMost priv="304">304800</b:DzlOverprintMost>
<b:CprOverprintMin priv="404">243</b:CprOverprintMin>
<b:FKeepawayTrap priv="700">True</b:FKeepawayTrap>
<b:CprTrapMin1 priv="904">128</b:CprTrapMin1>
<b:CprTrapMin2 priv="A04">77</b:CprTrapMin2>
<b:CprKeepawayMin priv="B04">255</b:CprKeepawayMin>
<b:DzlTrap priv="C04">3175</b:DzlTrap>
<b:DzlIndTrap priv="D04">3175</b:DzlIndTrap>
<b:PctCenterline priv="E04">70</b:PctCenterline>
<b:FMarksRegistration priv="F00">True</b:FMarksRegistration>
<b:FMarksJob priv="1000">True</b:FMarksJob>
<b:FMarksDensity priv="1100">True</b:FMarksDensity>
<b:FMarksColor priv="1200">True</b:FMarksColor>
<b:FLineScreenDefault priv="1300">True</b:FLineScreenDefault>
</b:ColorSeperationInfo>
<b:TextDocProperties type="OplDocq" oty="91" oh="276">
<b:OhPlcqsb priv="20E">278</b:OhPlcqsb>
<b:EcpSplitMenu type="OplEcp" priv="A13">
<b:Color>134217728</b:Color>
</b:EcpSplitMenu>
</b:TextDocProperties>
<b:StoryBlock type="OplPlcQsb" oty="101" oh="278">
<b:IqsbMax priv="104">1</b:IqsbMax>
<b:Rgqsb type="OplQsb" priv="214">
<b:OplQsb type="OplQsb" priv="11">
<b:Qsid priv="104">8</b:Qsid>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase priv="80B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase>
<b:TomfCopyfitBase2 priv="90B">-9999996.000000</b:TomfCopyfitBase2>
</b:OplQsb>
</b:Rgqsb>
</b:StoryBlock>
<b:ColorScheme type="OplSccm" oty="92" oh="279">
<b:Cecp priv="104">8</b:Cecp>
<b:Rgecp type="OplEcp" priv="214">
<b:OplEcp priv="F">Empty</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="111">
<b:Color>16711680</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="211">
<b:Color>52479</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="311">
<b:Color>26367</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="411">
<b:Color>13421772</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="511">
<b:Color>16737792</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="611">
<b:Color>13382502</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
<b:OplEcp type="OplEcp" priv="711">
<b:Color>16777215</b:Color>
</b:OplEcp>
</b:Rgecp>
<b:SzSchemeName priv="618">Bluebird</b:SzSchemeName>
</b:ColorScheme>
<![if pub11]>
<![endif]>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if pub]><xml>
<b:Page type="OplPd" oty="67" oh="265">
<b:PtlvOrigin type="OplPt" priv="511">
<b:Xl>22860000</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>22860000</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOrigin>
<b:Oid priv="605">(`@`````````</b:Oid>
<b:OhoplWebPageProps priv="90E">266</b:OhoplWebPageProps>
<b:OhpdMaster priv="D0D">263</b:OhpdMaster>
<b:PgtType priv="1004">5</b:PgtType>
<b:PtlvOriginEx type="OplPt" priv="1111">
<b:Xl>110185200</b:Xl>
<b:Yl>110185200</b:Yl>
</b:PtlvOriginEx>
</b:Page>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="3075" fill="f" fillcolor="white [7]"
strokecolor="black [0]">
<v:fill color="white [7]" color2="white [7]" on="f"/>
<v:stroke color="black [0]" color2="white [7]">
<o:left v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:top v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:right v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:bottom v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
<o:column v:ext="view" color="black [0]" color2="white [7]"/>
</v:stroke>
<v:shadow color="#ccc [4]"/>
<v:textbox inset="2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt,2.88pt"/>
<o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="blue [1]" strokecolor="black [0]"
shadowcolor="#ccc [4]"/>
</o:shapedefaults><o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> the uprising going on in Syria right now. The idea is pretty self-explanatory: make some fliers, challenge people to do as much anti-police graffiti as possible in a week, and maybe raise some funds to have free spray cans available all week for people to get from some accessible location. Maybe have some stencil designs available as well.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">--</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-weight: bold; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Take Space:</span><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> "Occupy Wall Street" wasn't called "General Assembly In A Park" for a reason: the innovation that made Occupy such a wildfire force for change was their willingness to take and attempt to hold a space and make it public and politicized 24/7. You can Occupy for any reason: in Oakland they named their occupied park Oscar Grant Plaza, clearly connecting the occupation to the struggle against police murder. It has been one of the most successful encampments in the country. In Atlanta anti-capitalists </span><a href="http://atlanta.indymedia.org/local/may-day-guerrilla-dance-party%20"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">took over a building</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> and used it for a dance party, politicizing partying and making it about the lack of spaces not controlled by capitalism and some rich fuck trying to make money off you. In Oakland they recently </span><a href="http://www.bayofrage.com/from-the-bay/free-cece-mcdonald-vengeance-for-brandy-martell-fuck-the-police/"><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single;">took over an intersection</span></a><span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> during a yuppie art walk to commemorate Brandy Martell and demand freedom for CeCe McDonald to great effect. Such occupied space can be held symbolically, with the intention of getting arrested there to make a point, or it can be with the intention of trying to keep it forever. Which makes more sense depends on the location and your objectives. Think: lunch counter sit-ins, Occupy NOLA, Oakland commune, Paris commune, squatted social centers, autonomous territories, stateless societies. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZ97PhmGWUFuc8xzlbshE_pP7gLypbmSUHyXYrzMyn2IkShgxETiudcAzSw4Co85z36CGrquMEoxVveN4juZYH5IKoJadxN0PS82E5mNGKmZAtOtg1PRNWyTKAlL6WS5j6JhyphenhyphenEHeRYSc/s1600/riots-work-031109-by-dave-id-indybay-web1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvZ97PhmGWUFuc8xzlbshE_pP7gLypbmSUHyXYrzMyn2IkShgxETiudcAzSw4Co85z36CGrquMEoxVveN4juZYH5IKoJadxN0PS82E5mNGKmZAtOtg1PRNWyTKAlL6WS5j6JhyphenhyphenEHeRYSc/s320/riots-work-031109-by-dave-id-indybay-web1.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sticker from Oakland with the face of the cop who killed Oscar Grant on it behind bars.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">New Orleans Where Y'at?</span></b> <b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">We In For A Long Hot Summer!</span></b>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-39737941875141092632012-05-12T19:36:00.000-05:002012-07-11T03:45:34.461-05:00Summer 2012 Free Skool Classes<i><b><span style="background-color: yellow; color: #6aa84f;">DISCLAIMER: For more info on the actual New Orleans Free School Network, including their June class schedule, visit <a href="http://nolafreeschoolnetwork.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">nolafreeschoolnetwork.blogspot.com/</a></span></b></i><br />
<hr /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">The Greater New Orleans Disorganization of Anarchist Federated Affinity Conspiracy of Sellers of That Fire presents</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">SUMMER 2012 Free Skool Classes</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">What, y'all thought every pain-in-the-ass idealist had skipped town to beat the heat? Those days are over! We go HAM year-round; projects never falter not for a MINUTE. We keep it tight, tighter than the wind-up pocketwatch of an OCD steampunk.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Note: owing to inherent subjectivity of reality, everything may not be actual</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Working With Dickheads</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The true measure of an anarchist is not what she or he accomplishes, but the saintliness with which she or he can accommodate aggravating, ignorant dickheads in a group-planning situation. If there isn't room in your collective for every braying, unsocialized jerkoff with an (ill-informed) opinion and the desire to have his way, you're probably a terrible exclusionary snob and should join the nazi party. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In this workshop we will use audiovisuals to strengthen our tolerance and patience, including multiple hours-long lectures delivered by unselfconsciously dickhead men on the topics of Rainbow Gatherings, Burning Man, the Anti-War Movement, The Battle in Seattle and the importance of abolishing the Federal Reserve.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting times:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">2-9pm on days you had other stuff planned</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Doesn't matter; they'll come find you</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Making the Non-Profit Transition: A Workshop for Over-30s</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Are you tired? No, I mean, really tired? You feel it in your bones, don't you? In your sinews. It hurts to sit on the floor. No-one you've met in the activist milieu has expressed sexual interest in you for years. You've worked so very, very hard. Perhaps it's time you made The Non-Profit Transition.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">I mean, you've sacrificed so much of your life to this bullshit; why can't you maybe do something for yourself, as well? Is that so bad? Partnering with Shell just means you're hustling them for their money. You're being realistic; your critics are being naive/haters/too young to understand. This workshop is presented in a series of lectures, including:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">--<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Unlike You, I Deserve To Get Paid</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">-- Actually This Politician Is Basically On Our Side</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">-- You'll Want Health Insurance Too When You're My Age</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">-- I'm Going To Radicalize This Organization From The Inside</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">-- "Siri, How Do I Sell Out?" Embracing The Technology Fetish</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time/Location:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">All lectures are available as "TED Talk" Webinars to be viewed at your convenience on your iPad from the nursery room of your suburban ranch house.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Who Will Continue My Project? Actionizing Third-party Follow-through in Townies</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">It can be frustrating that the year-rounders in New Orleans (to say nothing of the natives, who are as mythical and unapproachable as unicorns) don't appreciate your labor in setting up this "project" that's run for almost months. In this class we figure out ways to bribe, guilt or browbeat others into babysitting your useless vanity projects while you're off gallivanting around wherever-the-fuck, so that when/if you bother coming back to New Orleans your baby will be waiting-- and in the meantime, bragging rights will continue to accrue to you, the Founder!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">BONUS Seminar:<b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Please care for my dog while I go to Europe indefinitely.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Really soon, because my flight leaves in two days!!!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Flora's</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
When Collectives Disobey</span></u></b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Consensus works so well so much of the time, but occasions arise when no matter how old, how loud, how male and how much "scene cred" you have, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">even after you spend hours explaining the proper course of action, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">other members of your horizontal, leaderless collective simply refuse to do the right thing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In this support group/skill share we work on techniques both to avoid such situations and how to cope when these crises occur. Makes a great complement to the "Talking Shit on the Internet" workshop-- why not stay for both?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<b>Meeting Time:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Wednesdays, after the Iron Rail meeting.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A bar you used to like</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">I Heard She's A Cop: Calling Out Undercovers the Passive-Aggressive Way</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Sometimes, you just kinda know somebody's a cop-- often, an undercover will coincidentally be someone you dislike personally, someone with whom you have a bad sexual history, someone who's calling you out for your own misbehavior, or someone whom your FBI handler has suggested you preemptively accuse as a way of keeping heat off yourself. We will study ways of getting your suspicions out into the community without ever having to stand behind them, in part via studying the medieval art of Witchfinding and its community-paranoia model of intuitive divination.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The weekend, once everyone's had a few drinks</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Not sure I feel comfortable telling you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Simple Goddamn Manners</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Recent surveys have concluded, surprisingly, that the primary reason Anarchism has not flourished more in the United States is not because the populace are scared by it or unfamiliar with its tenets but simply because many anarchists are so intensely rude and unpleasant to deal with on an individual level.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Thus, this workshop will focus on diminishing the appearance of unwarranted adolescent arrogance by teaching skills such as Bothering to introduce oneself : Establishment of eye contact : Making small talk with people who aren't exactly like you : Expressing interest in other humans : Apologizing for mistakes : Smiling once in a fucking while : Reciprocating spoken greetings vs. reacting with silent suspicion and fear</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Never, because you already know everything</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> A "community space" that no-one from the community feels comfortable in</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Accountability Processes Seminar</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Part of life without hierarchical authority is accountability to one another. Accountability Processes are vital not only for community well-being, but to provide the proof that anarchism can function in practice. This seminar will cover how to convene, participate in and carry through long-term Accountability Processes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Scheduling note: After the initial class, this seminar meets once more three weeks later and then never again.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Participants will arrange via text message.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Somewhere distant with no air-conditioning</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Radical Feminism for Bros</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Being able to pay lip-service to radical feminism has become a crucial skill for many CIS-gendered male anarchists in both their organizing work and their personal lives. This class will survey crucial works by radical feminist thinkers, enabling an accelerated amount of name-dropping for rapid establishment of radfem credentials. A portion of this class will be focused on how women fail to understand or practice feminism the correct way, so that participants in this workshop will later be able usefully to instruct the female-bodied persons in their lives, or at least bully them into compliance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time: <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">After the bike polo game</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A mixed-gender "feminist" household where women wash all the dishes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Life and Lyrics of the Vapo-Rats</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Many locally know the inspiring story of this brave band's triumph over persecution and discrimination, but when all is said and done, far too little time has been spent getting to know and truly understand the band's deep lyrics or the profound personal perspectives informing them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In this year-long immersion workshop, participants will study and analyze the lyrics, intentionality and opinions of this seminal local musical group. After a 12-month cycle of study and satisfactory completion of the final exam, students will be awarded a certificate signed by Bryan Funck permitting the bearer to make a single criticism of the band.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>TBD at the convenience of the Vapo-Rats</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>a gated community in Old Metairie</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Talking Shit On The Internet</span></u></b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Of course anything YOU weren't personally invited to help plan is fucked-- but how will people know that, unless you inform them? As New Orleans moves slowly into the 20th Century, radical organizing techniques from futuristic outside places become increasingly relevant. The most crucial of these, of course, is Talking Shit on The Internet.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">While Facebook will be the focus of this workshop, we will cover a variety of topics including e-mail chains, strategic BCCing, Google Groups, quasi-anonymous blog posts and use of satire to conceal butthurt.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>After everyone else is asleep</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A lonely computer keyboard</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<hr /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Activism as Refuge</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">How can you possibly be expected to fulfill base-level social and interpersonal commitments in your private life? There's capitalism to be smashed! In this workshop, we explore activism as a means to avoid dealing with failing relationships, mental illness, unprocessed trauma and sundry other personal demons.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meeting Time:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The ongoing present moment</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Wherever you are, wherever you run to next</span></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-55330607724010620862012-05-10T15:40:00.001-05:002012-05-10T15:43:03.985-05:00Mother's March Against Injustice: Justice for Justin Sipp and Wendell Allen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>WHEN: </b>Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 12 Noon</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>WHERE:</b> Starts at Congo Square, March To City Hall </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>WHY: </b>For Justin and Earl <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/mid-city-police-shootings-inevitable.html">Sipp</a>, For <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/wendell-allen-murdered-by-nopd-classic.html">Wendell Allen</a>, For <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/04/trayvon-martin-wendell-allen-justin.html">Trayvon Martin</a>, For All Those Murdered and Maimed by NOPD, For All Victims Of Black On Black Murder, For All Those <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america">Unjustly Incarcerated</a>!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQc5e7Ld72GwFtj1XscAwJ-P-nSByRtENtDmWWPhl8LYNUFtjgwr3zfUXiNGj-1phInGOIbVsHmb35vPJ94rhoEo0b37vVPSOMIDnhO8jjuLSuJ7_mkcjCrWlsEiHwHxljkG9bwhgyAiE/s640/mothermarchfront.jpg" width="480" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVigPl7iiFhxmwk1rxfVmdEuDdgv6o8UoS3sPfnHL8rkqnFp1GLGao55nLqbBYMCV_1drKNdTpmVy2WqRjBi7JvYldnPPTvFM4HF6D5hh3hchaHh2noyjo7d8M-K_sdNSNgZGqkIt4SH8/s1600/mothersmarchback.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVigPl7iiFhxmwk1rxfVmdEuDdgv6o8UoS3sPfnHL8rkqnFp1GLGao55nLqbBYMCV_1drKNdTpmVy2WqRjBi7JvYldnPPTvFM4HF6D5hh3hchaHh2noyjo7d8M-K_sdNSNgZGqkIt4SH8/s640/mothersmarchback.jpg" width="478" /></a></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-4158392478060379602012-05-02T18:44:00.002-05:002012-05-02T23:18:39.155-05:00Over 100 Attend New Orleans May Day Marches: This Is Our City Not The Capitalists!<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>It is not murder, however, of which you have convicted me… but for
anarchy, so the condemnation is—that I am an anarchist! … I say to you: I
despise you. I despise your order, your laws, your force-propped
authority. Hang me for it!</i><br />
<b>- Louis Lingg, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair">Haymarket Martyr</a>, 1886</b></blockquote>
Yesterday over 100 demonstrators attended an anti-capitalist <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/167666/tens-thousands-march-oakland-new-york-may-day">May Day</a> march that wound it's way through the Central Business District and the French Quarter. Bank windows and an ATM were damaged during the march, which had no visible police presence for most of it's route. The word "REVOLT!" was also scrawled across the walls of several corporate businesses and banks. Graffiti reading "This Robs the 99%" was written on a red light camera, as well. No one was arrested and no one was hurt.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKx46ewFO-bMtrvClEYYnWB7xs72lV27o4N8RNoCWsZiS5MOHC_Ik-FtsqSeuMsADjkGPbZkeMaKYXV0qF8fcb6Bo0nco1ULVnbwcxoE10JFTFpf2z3UskJiMQGCGHEOiI5CyINR19ZE/s1600/mayday_8509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKx46ewFO-bMtrvClEYYnWB7xs72lV27o4N8RNoCWsZiS5MOHC_Ik-FtsqSeuMsADjkGPbZkeMaKYXV0qF8fcb6Bo0nco1ULVnbwcxoE10JFTFpf2z3UskJiMQGCGHEOiI5CyINR19ZE/s400/mayday_8509.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Orleans May Day Anti-Capitalist march parades down Canal St. on May 1, 2012. (h/t <a href="http://n.krebill.org/">n.krebill</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After eating some delicious free food prepared by wonderful folks of the <a href="http://communitykitchen.okcancel.org/">Community Kitchen</a>, smoke flares clouded the air with colorful plumes as the march took the streets. Winding through the CBD, flag corps and a stilt walker danced to a second-line beat among black clad anarchists, children, and <a href="http://occupynola.net/">Occupy New Orleans</a> activists. The march descended on the French Quarter chanting anti-capitalist slogans and attacking symbols of exploitation. As the march passed the police's French Quarter district HQ on Royal St., angry chants were screamed demanding justice for Wendell Allen and Justin Sipp, two recent <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/04/trayvon-martin-wendell-allen-justin.html">murder victims of the NOPD</a> who will not be forgotten.<br />
<br />
The anti-capitalist march followed another May Day march by the stalwart <a href="http://www.nowcrj.org/about-2/congress-of-day-laborers/">Congress of Day Laborers</a>, an organization that self-organizes and fights for the immigrant worker community. Routinely robbed of their paychecks and paid below minimum wage, these workers' labor is regularly stolen from them, despite that they've been performing much of the post-Katrina reconstruction of New Orleans for the past seven years. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDVDjvMmd5KG9TubKkTIh_u6hjnH8Nplt83qYA9hpvwGyxRj_0ocCNNc3dycxHlywMoBWFWvLjov3pHKaS8wgti4xS6nfH6foH9C7INUAB-cz_g4nvXndN3EVKeSnWOEVgYBC0R3lB4s/s1600/mayday_8574.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDVDjvMmd5KG9TubKkTIh_u6hjnH8Nplt83qYA9hpvwGyxRj_0ocCNNc3dycxHlywMoBWFWvLjov3pHKaS8wgti4xS6nfH6foH9C7INUAB-cz_g4nvXndN3EVKeSnWOEVgYBC0R3lB4s/s400/mayday_8574.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Yesterday saw inspiring new dynamics emerge within New Orleans' class struggle. Not only was an increased level of solidarity shown among the different groups celebrating May Day, but an unusual occurrence took place between the police and the Anti-Capitalist March as NOPD lost control of the march.<br />
<br />
Normally NOPD tries to make crowds police themselves. Training for Mardi Gras teaches police to hang back and remain friendly during marches and parades, the idea being that they will only intervene when situations become too unruly. As people in the crowd get away with minor infractions such as smoking weed, dancing on rooftops or taking the streets unpermitted, they perceive the cops as being okay with certain behaviors, and will check themselves so as to not jeopardize the dynamic. <br />
<i> </i> <br />
The Anti-Capitalist March acted outside the framework of NOPD's crowd-control psychology by acting collectively to experiment with ways of expressing its frustrations against the
ruling class. In doing so the march caught the police off-guard. Furthermore it seems to have left the media dumb-founded. A full 24-hours later the Times Picayune has said nothing about the Anti-Capitalist March, only making mention of the permitted march that happened earlier in the day.<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLpkwkdKIRRPd6JcL86TtuLFRKgs4BKgJPfzgGH2HeRmbo31nwF5qYsLJ-Sl-WmPYPmwz-rOo_F3pczypkgXCm3yrZAQp5OxONaf4qJBOH8j-4R3DyRHi9Oqp0rCCW93y5cryUHzYQZ1I/s1600/mayday_8529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLpkwkdKIRRPd6JcL86TtuLFRKgs4BKgJPfzgGH2HeRmbo31nwF5qYsLJ-Sl-WmPYPmwz-rOo_F3pczypkgXCm3yrZAQp5OxONaf4qJBOH8j-4R3DyRHi9Oqp0rCCW93y5cryUHzYQZ1I/s400/mayday_8529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The marches in New Orleans yesterday coincided with actions and <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/2/may_day_protests_span_the_globe">marches</a> all across the world to mark the traditional <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/2/may_day_legacy_of_labor_immigrant">workers' holiday</a> that began when <a href="http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/chicago-martyrs-memory-1886-%E2%80%93-2012">anarchists were targeted by the U.S. government</a> for bombings that occurred in 1886 in Chicago against police during the movement to demand an 8-hour working day after police killed protesting workers.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJrF50uVTa3_YN0RJpuuLJzxEibtsZHumzhwin12whbit0z1fX83kZWokHHLLnDEt5kqfU5CQrSUoXU3KJW21cR3ojONwqMwg3qiuNxgyx5pbaScYmuhOQRIWSgJM7v9NFWAuQ18sRUqw/s1600/i79Y6.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJrF50uVTa3_YN0RJpuuLJzxEibtsZHumzhwin12whbit0z1fX83kZWokHHLLnDEt5kqfU5CQrSUoXU3KJW21cR3ojONwqMwg3qiuNxgyx5pbaScYmuhOQRIWSgJM7v9NFWAuQ18sRUqw/s200/i79Y6.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York City!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA07kbnBwrvxnnGyKaP-QSt3qnrsjMcZecZHbL0id-ProqKkgNyjluiMysnSevPcAORQNYdvCWgkB9GEfvdAWi-6ufTtbEPnBlpHWsK8Rk6-240bgTQQeIfHOAJmLhwL4ZBrcIdBzbZbk/s1600/2012-05-02T042453Z_1_CBRE8410C9M00_RTROPTP_2_USA-OCCUPY-MAY1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA07kbnBwrvxnnGyKaP-QSt3qnrsjMcZecZHbL0id-ProqKkgNyjluiMysnSevPcAORQNYdvCWgkB9GEfvdAWi-6ufTtbEPnBlpHWsK8Rk6-240bgTQQeIfHOAJmLhwL4ZBrcIdBzbZbk/s200/2012-05-02T042453Z_1_CBRE8410C9M00_RTROPTP_2_USA-OCCUPY-MAY1.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/05/01/175878/">Oakland!</a> (and <a href="http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Protesters-Re-Occupy-SF-Building-149755335.html">this</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhImUpX3alfsDouYSwoiGtXZUp4ZU8gIY5P2P7WQ0TQMdE4I_7eD2wldvNdvQqsZk1En1KO4lcODASh2IC8pSaFqSMlhRBRjNflkRrfHo0WARNhmEolwvpOIDJwxZT54RAwEfsiUI530q8/s1600/628x47111111111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhImUpX3alfsDouYSwoiGtXZUp4ZU8gIY5P2P7WQ0TQMdE4I_7eD2wldvNdvQqsZk1En1KO4lcODASh2IC8pSaFqSMlhRBRjNflkRrfHo0WARNhmEolwvpOIDJwxZT54RAwEfsiUI530q8/s200/628x47111111111.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/1619">Seattle!</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcHgd1ydmuHGaYXzOt41X9i6bGkEZcIWzzZHKHwwhbM3weSnfG9fdC1-PUueIGeWkY5WjXJXvdyHuPTFEq9lLOIXZyFJ-v5HhcFMkrarRwEngxBPFX_nWDjpQUKxHVXJIZv06AlZEwaY/s1600/May+Day+Protests+Seattle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcHgd1ydmuHGaYXzOt41X9i6bGkEZcIWzzZHKHwwhbM3weSnfG9fdC1-PUueIGeWkY5WjXJXvdyHuPTFEq9lLOIXZyFJ-v5HhcFMkrarRwEngxBPFX_nWDjpQUKxHVXJIZv06AlZEwaY/s200/May+Day+Protests+Seattle.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Video-Protesters-break-windows-at-Seattle-Nike-Town-149723075.html">Seattle!</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMM7xkb3qi7-iDHdQhhDCKrbWnJw2vrrw6c7Blg4Ss2Z7vXYXlcJdin_LpRuHOjA048f1jC7dm8KWjzKxesgwT6Ah1ygbye4VSZJGlhfyIISKWxPO62hNwMe96ZOqOTTYk-C6-RxB49nM/s1600/MayDay_hover_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMM7xkb3qi7-iDHdQhhDCKrbWnJw2vrrw6c7Blg4Ss2Z7vXYXlcJdin_LpRuHOjA048f1jC7dm8KWjzKxesgwT6Ah1ygbye4VSZJGlhfyIISKWxPO62hNwMe96ZOqOTTYk-C6-RxB49nM/s200/MayDay_hover_2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seattle!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqPkUeNLttSPbrmuoCPZT_zVg6-Y1HZrl6LtzHlP1A__DAxnt7nwzWjp0icPk5hnHigN35mNF5X7tgwt1P8bxmvTMie2k-J8UKBpwPJuS60C8uoxtUYkfxTyn4Q9JbJpaVgPTjeBtUQwM/s1600/761c108649756a0c0e0f6a7067007305.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqPkUeNLttSPbrmuoCPZT_zVg6-Y1HZrl6LtzHlP1A__DAxnt7nwzWjp0icPk5hnHigN35mNF5X7tgwt1P8bxmvTMie2k-J8UKBpwPJuS60C8uoxtUYkfxTyn4Q9JbJpaVgPTjeBtUQwM/s200/761c108649756a0c0e0f6a7067007305.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York City!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqpY4ZYbS83U02BXJfoPHROaWP6jbzqfZ28ldu_BuUEOqXwTfL0LfnEKc6WXP__biINUF6X4hqpKavkVtaMVbiDQMUTxViYvfEXOXejyegPNOhPYyV8KPa_0qa-gQC_ZYj_vVj6eaBbCE/s1600/wls_050112_protest01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqpY4ZYbS83U02BXJfoPHROaWP6jbzqfZ28ldu_BuUEOqXwTfL0LfnEKc6WXP__biINUF6X4hqpKavkVtaMVbiDQMUTxViYvfEXOXejyegPNOhPYyV8KPa_0qa-gQC_ZYj_vVj6eaBbCE/s200/wls_050112_protest01.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicago!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcWEBa1GjQupij4qLjxHZYKRdvnn_gIcAVCUKmAuAqWYv1xC9CmUDdvI1wCrVCO-JbklBD4PPhEW7cD97y4W-xoR4IrIvbGl8qA7HtkRSUA2-eHy6dx0y5_xzgXqqXp4KtAPRtgnPn34/s1600/1335915830_may_day_violence.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcWEBa1GjQupij4qLjxHZYKRdvnn_gIcAVCUKmAuAqWYv1xC9CmUDdvI1wCrVCO-JbklBD4PPhEW7cD97y4W-xoR4IrIvbGl8qA7HtkRSUA2-eHy6dx0y5_xzgXqqXp4KtAPRtgnPn34/s200/1335915830_may_day_violence.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seattle!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFP5l_hQFm6VU2bB-q8-j8iEKcb5pRmJlOC3QcMPYct9UVu6VBtz2VxEGjE-YMguGjiq3d6mSbgo0tT0gpDmfDhVmTeIp4DmILPlGl3nzL9Lx5IYzAV4fDwCgGh1lMEHgzVohrZmCp-Q8/s1600/20120501__occupy_mayday_fed~p1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFP5l_hQFm6VU2bB-q8-j8iEKcb5pRmJlOC3QcMPYct9UVu6VBtz2VxEGjE-YMguGjiq3d6mSbgo0tT0gpDmfDhVmTeIp4DmILPlGl3nzL9Lx5IYzAV4fDwCgGh1lMEHgzVohrZmCp-Q8/s200/20120501__occupy_mayday_fed~p1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Denver!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8UvnmEE8fgQWNcQhqCS0S8n2rE6zLWSEZ5kIo05qgEJ8IE-67TpHpRdWL6m9mvmyr0AgZmD6wDwAJkCBzFz2p2rrhSusrt0YjEMapkSgjWpPU0MTjz4clSac7rx81gJjqNEndqDrxa4Y/s1600/6550510.bin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8UvnmEE8fgQWNcQhqCS0S8n2rE6zLWSEZ5kIo05qgEJ8IE-67TpHpRdWL6m9mvmyr0AgZmD6wDwAJkCBzFz2p2rrhSusrt0YjEMapkSgjWpPU0MTjz4clSac7rx81gJjqNEndqDrxa4Y/s200/6550510.bin.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vancouver!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMkJXqMEaJlwoIS2fyqJ-sp5OxsNOEJZ7E3m_IohjMykY0yVGoZ9h0uK35HoGxbxK6x5SwL57WN69Eaq_NQ7SJ3qgDrqtjbxCLnMrOsl_8YWINmu82LkyVTB_yHNZGT1PCm4a5k96BOY/s1600/IGLG_050112maydayamerica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMkJXqMEaJlwoIS2fyqJ-sp5OxsNOEJZ7E3m_IohjMykY0yVGoZ9h0uK35HoGxbxK6x5SwL57WN69Eaq_NQ7SJ3qgDrqtjbxCLnMrOsl_8YWINmu82LkyVTB_yHNZGT1PCm4a5k96BOY/s200/IGLG_050112maydayamerica.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Washington, D.C.!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-768Q7xhZI1UgMou4UOZizW-C1kZDy2ixw569cQIEFvbgxBAmcv4dfxWXrkH4vF_SvtZJxF6Vk_F7YpMgPV66jDQXCU0ppRQdoN_bAeKWtFEhh1KRnsMpd1hKKLk6fiGoVZ-J_Wf-bSU/s1600/May-Day-protest-01-Wells-Fargo-600px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-768Q7xhZI1UgMou4UOZizW-C1kZDy2ixw569cQIEFvbgxBAmcv4dfxWXrkH4vF_SvtZJxF6Vk_F7YpMgPV66jDQXCU0ppRQdoN_bAeKWtFEhh1KRnsMpd1hKKLk6fiGoVZ-J_Wf-bSU/s200/May-Day-protest-01-Wells-Fargo-600px.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seattle!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85hd31O5P19-TIds8bp12-MCkAb6m2MCbLcCmDhlWqDTELr0ebuA1VHc8IeZMk00a5UOoW5guTyuLaMBElTANvWlaaQxSy7dbkxNIckuFNYQEonZWH4UQdT4jh0n9w9q5jjgbiQhqSPU/s1600/photo+%283%29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85hd31O5P19-TIds8bp12-MCkAb6m2MCbLcCmDhlWqDTELr0ebuA1VHc8IeZMk00a5UOoW5guTyuLaMBElTANvWlaaQxSy7dbkxNIckuFNYQEonZWH4UQdT4jh0n9w9q5jjgbiQhqSPU/s200/photo+%283%29.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Los Angeles!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKRGTF6ekknVoEwbvgl40WWtI2q-ZPmFw3k56klAdIFjmX3cBontXQ49KFBetH1iyTrJEeKgJVB555-5tPMAELNiYWtL445pm7gWESMJeNTuSIzO4ZEHvRUPx7_emTgd7PyXwX3FJPhg/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKRGTF6ekknVoEwbvgl40WWtI2q-ZPmFw3k56klAdIFjmX3cBontXQ49KFBetH1iyTrJEeKgJVB555-5tPMAELNiYWtL445pm7gWESMJeNTuSIzO4ZEHvRUPx7_emTgd7PyXwX3FJPhg/s200/Untitled.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Fransisco!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinhbEd0shNv-gRJ9dOOsnsYy_a4h_gqshoMuW-u3ccdArzGxrHoE_pXHJkw4KKIUWcHC5GVCsMfod9u5t7R8TtAC-ZOp_kfRdsvVKhzgR5atfR90-sg_LD3tTNrfKjPegtMiT0l7cecKc/s1600/ss-120501-mayDay-jc-03.ss_full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinhbEd0shNv-gRJ9dOOsnsYy_a4h_gqshoMuW-u3ccdArzGxrHoE_pXHJkw4KKIUWcHC5GVCsMfod9u5t7R8TtAC-ZOp_kfRdsvVKhzgR5atfR90-sg_LD3tTNrfKjPegtMiT0l7cecKc/s200/ss-120501-mayDay-jc-03.ss_full.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miami!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5JcifP14BMZTe0GHvxTgQkjTxcf-dtTigO_KZ0I_VtJzWeYerxJLZmU88aQX3INzgnFSGLPdwo-uEUKezBEY0Wmgu4cwzRLLCnVndYBP4lEpuL_V3atTXf9npgB84quaQ9nMBjx18uQE/s1600/527431_387545234623805_100001049957182_1137612_398099336_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5JcifP14BMZTe0GHvxTgQkjTxcf-dtTigO_KZ0I_VtJzWeYerxJLZmU88aQX3INzgnFSGLPdwo-uEUKezBEY0Wmgu4cwzRLLCnVndYBP4lEpuL_V3atTXf9npgB84quaQ9nMBjx18uQE/s200/527431_387545234623805_100001049957182_1137612_398099336_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Philly!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-84905042696849128922012-04-29T14:01:00.000-05:002012-04-30T11:14:30.673-05:00Why March on May Day in the Name of Anti-Capitalism?<b>(The New Orleans' Anti-Capitalist March will be on May 1st starting at 5 pm in Lafayette Square.)</b> <br />
<br />
Why <a href="http://www.maydaynola.org/">March on May Day in the name of Anti-Capitalism</a>?<br />
Because Capitalism is the Dominant Moment of the existing system of Global Domination. Because Global Capital strives for institutional domination, ideological domination, domination of the social imaginary, and domination of the practice of everyday life. Because Global Capital utilizes the hollow rhetoric of "limited government," even as it employs monstrous coercive force to impose economic oligarchy on humanity, and as it strives toward a totalitarian order of technological surveillance and control. Because Global Capital poses itself as the putative end of history, as even Stalinoid STATE capitalism mutates finally into state CAPITALISM. Because Global Capital mumbles pious platitudes about "free markets," even as it generates neo-feudalism on an immense scale and creates more literal slaves than those who toiled under classic slave economies. Because Global Capital creates massive planetary climate disruption and biodioversity loss that have culminated in the Sixth Great Mass Extinction of Life on Earth. In short, because Global Capitalism is the Universal Culture of Death: the culture of genocide, of ecocide, and of the degradation and destruction of the human spirit. It is because of all this, and out of love for Humanity and the Earth, and a passion to defend both Humanity and the Earth, that on May 1 some of us abandon the Everyday March of the Undead and join instead a March for Life and Liberation.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>The New Orleans' Anti-Capitalist March will be on May 1st starting at 5 pm in Lafayette Square.</b></div>
<br />
Surregionalists for Social Revolution/Regeneration<br />
Isle de la Nouvelle-Orléans, April 28, 2012<br />
surregionalist@bellsouth.net<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMzDri1RYj4BfIRYUu1dxJvXq36TfNdvXOLTD8Bnlb9YUzMnmbESWErRr0G1835-lNLn_w2AF7niMMN9wDFhVvjERUOMLOZeSCl2EZl3w5xbxgWRkr9zo4rQxx_RKxy0AJPatjvl1ZKSE/s1600/may+day+lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMzDri1RYj4BfIRYUu1dxJvXq36TfNdvXOLTD8Bnlb9YUzMnmbESWErRr0G1835-lNLn_w2AF7niMMN9wDFhVvjERUOMLOZeSCl2EZl3w5xbxgWRkr9zo4rQxx_RKxy0AJPatjvl1ZKSE/s320/may+day+lady.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>The New Orleans' Anti-Capitalist March will be on May 1st starting at 5 pm in Lafayette Square. </b></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-35949767687995194582012-04-19T18:51:00.001-05:002012-04-19T18:58:51.329-05:00May Day Anti-Capitalist March infoThe details for the Anti-Capitalist March are out!<br />
<br />
When? Starts at 5:00 pm on May 1st<br />
Where? Leaves from Lafayette Square (located between St. Charles and Camp, a block south of Poydras)<br />
Why? Because capitalism had its time and we're onto something better<br />
<br />
Come join us for a stroll through the CBD and the French Quarter as we celebrate a tradition of capitalist resistance and the struggle for total liberation! And don't forget, there will also be the May Day Congress of Day Laborers March starting at 11:30 am in Armstrong Park.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevb6c_6PsvpBJK5kKmoSG8x3rugAR3Kr7xKFs_x8YYLfQXM9XcCrGDzNF_54HwGVVIqXfQGRsdVHcaxhMQzaxZ50UT8jyZkoniq86_n4Gi9M3uE2Kmy6-fjWEjMvYWw_5_RuN7b9WswE/s1600/march-flier-with-laborers+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevb6c_6PsvpBJK5kKmoSG8x3rugAR3Kr7xKFs_x8YYLfQXM9XcCrGDzNF_54HwGVVIqXfQGRsdVHcaxhMQzaxZ50UT8jyZkoniq86_n4Gi9M3uE2Kmy6-fjWEjMvYWw_5_RuN7b9WswE/s320/march-flier-with-laborers+copy.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-3886681465206690202012-04-15T14:34:00.001-05:002012-04-15T14:40:35.199-05:00MAY DAY ANTI-CAPITALIST MARCH<div class="article" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Reposted from <a href="http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2012/04/16707.php">Nola Indymedia</a><br />
by the May Day Organizing Committee<br />
<br />
Every May 1st for the past 122 years anti-capitalists have commemorated the anarchist martyrs of Haymarket Square by orchestrating direct actions against the ruling class. With general strikes now being called in cities across the US, May Day 2012 could be the most eventful global day of action since the labor movements of the pre-WWII era.</div><div class="article" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">As our contribution to this monumental May Day, we in New Orleans are organizing a march against capitalism. From anti-police brutality organizing and gentrification resistance, to defense of the Gulf Coast and the park occupations against financial capitalism, we take the streets for all the causes that seek our liberation from capitalist domination. We encourage everyone to come out with banners, chants, noise makers and a passion for freedom.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br />
<div>The anti-capitalist march will begin after the May Day Labor March for worker's rights, which we also strongly encourage everyone to attend. The exact meeting time and place of both marches are coming soon. Stay tuned to Nola Indymedia and Nola Anarcha for updates.</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEganwWPQKxkvnWJ3n35oM9cdJ_cAWZALka5J-IFXnidRXe6LCkpzeFViwXwdjGWw2QO5o4-clCuJb3aDpqDvb24ZlPsTHkPSLo-WvcVr4VnKyYdYRW2Vb4L8T_dy4577DB47oX52FytKjg/s1600/police-brutality-web-poster+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEganwWPQKxkvnWJ3n35oM9cdJ_cAWZALka5J-IFXnidRXe6LCkpzeFViwXwdjGWw2QO5o4-clCuJb3aDpqDvb24ZlPsTHkPSLo-WvcVr4VnKyYdYRW2Vb4L8T_dy4577DB47oX52FytKjg/s320/police-brutality-web-poster+(2).JPG" width="207" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_5AT1eyi9TCZQ8PY6LOunawbmdTQKMdhYDzpwi5Jgw92K0Pswapfb6zS7M9b7xJI6U73jouCwbGvygeMKCfUOZsSZKBuq4gx5oEUqgpC3X7GxgZFQt7RKn79vMYanVGtcOhlimJt7o8/s1600/environment+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_5AT1eyi9TCZQ8PY6LOunawbmdTQKMdhYDzpwi5Jgw92K0Pswapfb6zS7M9b7xJI6U73jouCwbGvygeMKCfUOZsSZKBuq4gx5oEUqgpC3X7GxgZFQt7RKn79vMYanVGtcOhlimJt7o8/s320/environment+(2).JPG" width="207" /></a></div><div><br />
</div></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-44906708281829679232012-04-10T17:49:00.017-05:002012-04-13T17:08:40.433-05:00Trayvon Martin, Wendell Allen, Justin Sipp: One Month Later. Still No Justice? Still No Peace!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsW0yxOzuEI90Biq0p1jYD-EyQl0pGcxsFRVk61zw5Yk0BjBWy8WeR5jUFjvnrtsRnl8stMUGaXCLFr5ycoM2n0kvMVCDD9foA6cLqEsZNHFi1ZoxLw3c0m_omhPhNaww83PAEs0WchA/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsW0yxOzuEI90Biq0p1jYD-EyQl0pGcxsFRVk61zw5Yk0BjBWy8WeR5jUFjvnrtsRnl8stMUGaXCLFr5ycoM2n0kvMVCDD9foA6cLqEsZNHFi1ZoxLw3c0m_omhPhNaww83PAEs0WchA/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RIP Justin Sipp spotted at the Moonwalk in downtown New Orleans.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>It has been over a month since <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/mid-city-police-shootings-inevitable.html">Justin Sipp</a> and <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/wendell-allen-murdered-by-nopd-classic.html">Wendell Allen</a> were murdered. It has been almost 2 months since George Zimmerman put a bullet through the chest of Trayvon Martin. In all three cases, there have still been no arrests, though in all 3 cases, the names of the people who murdered these young African-Americans are known to everyone.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Why is our system so afraid to use it's own criminal justice system to put the shooters on trial in a public court to determine whether they're guilty of a crime or not?</b></i><br />
That is the only thing the families of these 3 dead young men are asking for. They are not asking for a summary execution, even though that was exactly the level of respect their sons received. They refuse to relinquish their humanity and lower themselves to the level of brutality that those who killed their sons stooped to.<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/54heaNynlfs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> </div>This system is afraid of putting cops and racist neighborhood watch captains on trial because it would send the signal to both the blue-uniformed and civilian variety of racist vigilantes that this country <i>does</i> care about the victims of their violence, and that their paranoid, racist violence against young black men will not go unquestioned. <br />
<br />
The problem with doing that, though, is that for hundreds of years, such violence <i>has</i> gone unquestioned. From the whipping and murder of slaves, to the lynching of blacks during Jim Crow, to the massive violence of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex">prison industrial complex</a>, violence against those most oppressed in our society has always been disregarded. In fact, it has been recognized by those in power as necessary to maintain their control over those with the least reason to believe in the "American Dream" (because for the most exploited people in this country, it's always really been more of an American Nightmare).<br />
<br />
So the system, which relies on the allegiance of <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Our_Enemies_In_Blue.html?id=UmvqMvAQ7TMC">those</a> who are offered scraps of power and privilege (badges, guns, lower unemployment rates, less stops by the police while driving, lighter sentences in court, easier access to education, better mortgage terms, access to home ownership, etc...) in exchange for the racist, classist violence they inflict on people they otherwise <i>should</i> have a common class alliance with in a capitalist society, shows that in a time of economic hardship, the system cannot afford to have whites questioning whether they will continue to be afforded a relatively less oppressed position than black Americans.<br />
<br />
If white cops begin to think they will not be treated "like the heroes they are" and instead "like common criminals" when they kill unarmed teenagers, they might begin to question why they have an allegiance to this capitalist social order -- an order that keeps them obeying orders from the rich as much as it gives them power to give orders to the poor -- at all.<br />
<br />
They might question why they obey orders to throw crying mothers out of their homes when they can't pay the rent or the mortgage, instead of having allegiance to other working and middle class people. People who, like themselves, are mostly debt slaves, one missed paycheck away from disaster, and yet are still better off than many people in New Orleans who can't even get the "opportunity" from creditors to be a debt slave, but are stuck struggling to get by day to day in poverty.<br />
<br />
<b><i>That</i></b> is the reason there is such stalwart systemic resistance to prosecuting George Zimmerman, and an even greater resistance to prosecuting the 3 cops who murdered Justin Sipp or NOPD officer <a href="http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/thenewsroom/2012/04/03/civil-service-records-provide-background-on-cop-involved-in-shooting/">Josh Colclough</a>, who murdered Wendell Allen. This system is scared of the Occupy movement and the emerging movement against racism, police violence, and the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america">New Jim Crow</a> combining into to a united movement of people demanding racial, social, and economic justice and freedom. They are scared we will <a href="http://libcom.org/library/anarchism-black-revolution-lorenzo-ervin">take our communities back</a>. They are terrified we will take their power away and put it in the hands of the people.<br />
<br />
That moment, that movement, that unstoppable force, when we rise like lions from our slumber, when any injustice, anywhere, to any person, is enough for us to force the gears of this system to cease their insufferable grind, <a href="http://vimeo.com/39970907">is already beginning to formulate itself</a>: <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="325" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39970907?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>W</b></span><b><span style="font-size: large;">hile there is no justice</span><span style="font-size: large;"> for these 3 young men</span></b>, whose whole lives laid ahead of them -- marriages they will never experience, children they will never get to be so proud to bring home after they're born, children they'll never get to bring to a park or a basketball game, children they'll never get to see graduate high school and start adult lives, siblings they'll never get to celebrate another birthday party with, parents they'll never get to say thank you to one last time for all they've done for them -- while there is no justice for them, <span style="font-size: large;"><b>there will be no peace for those in power.</b></span><b> </b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>In </b><b>Sanford, FL</b></span> courageous people <a href="http://thedreamdefenders.com/">staged a sit-in</a> at Sanford Police Headquarters, and the cowardly cops were so scared that they closed the station down for the day rather than be seen arresting those blocking the doors. Anonymous individuals also <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57411787/shots-fired-at-police-car-near-trayvon-martin-shooting-scene/">shot up an un-manned Sanford police cruiser</a>. People have also <a href="http://m1aa.org/?p=421">marched</a> and <a href="http://fuckyeahanarchistbanners.tumblr.com/post/20307980333/timbers-army-against-racism-portland-or-usa">protested</a> around <a href="http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/atlanta-reacts-trayvon-martins-murder">the nation</a> for Trayvon, <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/04/video-killer-mike-is-very-angry-with.html">spoken out</a> publicly, and <a href="http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.19286/title.mos-def-addresses-trayvon-martin-murder-records-tribute-track-with-dead-prez/">created music</a> in his honor. Black writers from New Orleans have also <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/167085/trayvon-martin-what-its-be-problem">written eloquently</a> about Trayvon's case, while also <a href="http://loop21.com/life/america-and-its-lust-action-against-menacing-black-male">helping publicize</a> the police murders in New Orleans to a national audience. Others have <a href="http://www.lowendtheory.org/post/19640906873/justice-for-trayvon-but-how">made the connections</a> that need to be made between the New Jim Crow and Trayvon's case.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>In </b><b>New Orleans, LA</b></span> the momentum also continues to build:<br />
-Prior to Justin and Wendell's murders, in response to the <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/08/killer-danziger-cops-not-guilty-of.html">Danziger</a> and Henry Glover cases, police brutality of the <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/09/william-watkins-first-person-sentenced.html">Krewe of Eris</a>, and continuing arrests of many friends on bullshit charges for everything from busking to drunk in public, anarchists had already been organizing <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/01/nye-noise-demo-at-opp-in-solidarity.html">noise</a> <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/11/noise-demo-at-opp.html">demonstrations</a> outside OPP, and had held an anti-police brutality <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/02/oakland-solidarityapb-march.html">march</a> through the French Quarter. <br />
-Statues celebrating racists were <a href="http://www.fox8live.com/story/17289916/3-new-orleans-monuments-vandalized">scandalously</a> <a href="http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/3-monuments-vandalized-justin-sipp-wendell-allen-and-trayvon-martin">vandalized</a> in honor of Trayvon, Wendell, and Justin.<br />
-The 400 person protest <a href="http://www.wwltv.com/news/Outcry-continues-over-shooting-deaths-of-Wendell-Allen-Justin-Sipp-145442095.html">march</a> at City Hall was an incredible <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ-sTcanA7Q">show</a> of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XexQ3ll0J2M&feature=relmfu">force</a>.<br />
-Wendell Allen's family continues to <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/nolaanarcha/status/185090281488650240/photo/1">protest periodically</a> at Canal St. and Broad St.<br />
-The Allen family made <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbuz5iYZf0Y">a video</a> about their son's murder.<br />
-More posters and <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/nolaanarcha/status/185091067828379648/photo/1">graffiti</a> for Wendell and Justin continue to go up around the city.<br />
-The monthly <a href="http://www.antigravitymagazine.com/antigravity_vol9_issue6.pdf">"Slingshots, Anyone?" column</a> in AntiGravity Magazine focuses on the ongoing struggle (on pg. 5).<br />
-A powerful <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jga0IQXT2XQ&feature=youtu.be">video</a> about Wendell Allen, Ramarley Graham, and Rekia Boyd was recently created for spreading awareness on YouTube. <br />
-This Sunday, April 15th, a stop on the <a href="http://www.wwoz.org/new-orleans-community/inthestreet">Ole & Nu Style Fellas second line</a> is going to be a memorial to Trayvon, Wendell, and Justin. It will be at the Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home at <span dir="ltr">1615 Saint Philip St.</span><br />
<br />
Further actions are being planned, and no one is stopping until Justin and Wendell's killers face a trial in front of the public like <i>anyone else</i> responsible for the violent death of another New Orleanian would face. If we have to do civil disobedience like in Sanford, we will. If we have to turn this city upside down, like they did for <a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/15/18601725.php">Oscar Grant</a>, we will. <b> </b><br />
<b>The ability for an NOPD cop to murder a young black man without consequences ends here and now!</b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNsIeAVbLvY6unfoU59cI9QEvFHBydr82EhVysSvD3hsgOFkFraofYKrc99E6kyBmQCZRdLpwDmp5JC36zv0joUaJw2Pj5AN_0h1DSTa1byFrL5AWOrAumUD5tsRKS-umUp5NOkwXssRc/s1600/photo+1+%282%29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNsIeAVbLvY6unfoU59cI9QEvFHBydr82EhVysSvD3hsgOFkFraofYKrc99E6kyBmQCZRdLpwDmp5JC36zv0joUaJw2Pj5AN_0h1DSTa1byFrL5AWOrAumUD5tsRKS-umUp5NOkwXssRc/s320/photo+1+%282%29.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A second line passes by RIP Justin Sipp graffiti in New Orleans.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc__X0Ke0KBuqWqU0II5OfbrIYn9Z_yiCky2cruZM_441HPjmKRq3uC0lySC39n9XZmBbcimrnjMO7vkI5rCdxgLIPPVlbjHP-xuxA4FIuPYfgegjyCy6ydquMJ91dGcGZXiEBdngX_lQ/s1600/sippalen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc__X0Ke0KBuqWqU0II5OfbrIYn9Z_yiCky2cruZM_441HPjmKRq3uC0lySC39n9XZmBbcimrnjMO7vkI5rCdxgLIPPVlbjHP-xuxA4FIuPYfgegjyCy6ydquMJ91dGcGZXiEBdngX_lQ/s320/sippalen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrKa9iCSQz8c__pETYuUQJHsplwA5aD1K1s-0QU215nzV1Bba6xebxZBarkhNGf1U_BcCz3IojFqj9L92ewTh09IJsCPP4bcpozUC-2Yf6yN1PB_Yag2oRdyra1L4ihIuJy_qu2iBASc/s1600/photo(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrKa9iCSQz8c__pETYuUQJHsplwA5aD1K1s-0QU215nzV1Bba6xebxZBarkhNGf1U_BcCz3IojFqj9L92ewTh09IJsCPP4bcpozUC-2Yf6yN1PB_Yag2oRdyra1L4ihIuJy_qu2iBASc/s320/photo(2).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>This is not over. Far from it. Make sure the city knows it!</b></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The city can end this cresting tidal wave of rage at injustice at any time by putting on trial the people who shot bullets through the flesh of Wendell Allen, Justin Sipp, and his brother Earl Sipp so we can <u>all</u> hear exactly what the hell happened when these 3 young black men were shot. </b></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>Why won't they have a trial? </b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>What are they hiding?</b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">They better hurry up, before more of us start to question whether they are interested in protecting and serving <b><i>any</i></b> of us. <b><i>Some of us have already figured out the answer to that question.</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." </i> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>--MLK, Jr.</b></span>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-12011127936803380002012-04-03T22:21:00.005-05:002012-04-05T12:36:42.887-05:00Video: Killer Mike Is 'Very Angry' With Black Leadership, and David Banner speaks TRUTH! (collective self-defense now!)<embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" base="." height="288" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:753924/cp%7Evid%3D753924%26uri%3Dmgid%3Auma%3Avideo%3Amtv.com%3A753924" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512"></embed><br />
<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 4px; text-align: center; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/latest/music.jhtml" style="color: #439cd8;" target="_blank">Music News</a></div><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H_jzYC2DQmY" width="510"></iframe>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-40047147537831605502012-03-31T16:36:00.013-05:002012-04-11T00:28:26.789-05:00400 March Against Police Violence, Racial and Class Oppression During The Final Four Tournament<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqtjpgBYYkPUQFdcdJWIc2ZbF0hRoj07YbCINgAJuYB2FttRYNkWa214RqHLFwe-NnQtTv4FDai5sPCRF5_Jb091Tn8h7uMWJP8fGEsx3iIxFSB5DMLuDhIbiFsWSx8JI-qikd_hLWCA/s1600/550813037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqtjpgBYYkPUQFdcdJWIc2ZbF0hRoj07YbCINgAJuYB2FttRYNkWa214RqHLFwe-NnQtTv4FDai5sPCRF5_Jb091Tn8h7uMWJP8fGEsx3iIxFSB5DMLuDhIbiFsWSx8JI-qikd_hLWCA/s320/550813037.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">more march photos <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/p/march-photos-331.html">here</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Over 400 people rallied in front of City Hall today against the recent police murders of <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/mid-city-police-shootings-inevitable.html">Justin Sipp</a> and <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/wendell-allen-murdered-by-nopd-classic.html">Wendell Allen</a>, as well as in support of <a href="http://t.co/TQkgFrul">Trayvon Martin</a>'s family and other victims of unaccountable police and vigilante terrorism.<br />
<br />
During the march, at least 3 police cars had their tires slashed, and at City Hall people wrote dozens of messages in chalk about racism and police violence for city officials to see on their way in to work on Monday. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEuY7fcxuDGt_tIYWhEYulcEUfA1VsEx3DqJV4YMzDuRngXZRY_LWc084Q9VGgV-DUIyCMLYqfzYFmgzc1PaxHF3tcGARd9wUj7tPrg-nK3mlsDFenZDb4MAEm8viHWVF4WhbjQ0ScCE/s1600/photo+2+%283%29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEuY7fcxuDGt_tIYWhEYulcEUfA1VsEx3DqJV4YMzDuRngXZRY_LWc084Q9VGgV-DUIyCMLYqfzYFmgzc1PaxHF3tcGARd9wUj7tPrg-nK3mlsDFenZDb4MAEm8viHWVF4WhbjQ0ScCE/s320/photo+2+%283%29.JPG" width="284" /></a></div>Speakers connected the economic subjugation of the city's largely African-American working class to the violence of the police in upholding a racist and classist <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/05/old-money-hierarchy-and-luncheon-clubs.html">social order</a>. The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ-sTcanA7Q">marchers</a> formed a diverse picture of the New Orleans community, with older African-American civil rights activists down to little 8 year olds holding signs calling for justice, as well as a sizable number of <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/perils-of-looking-suspicious-while.html">white people</a>, including SOAR from Tulane University, who were willing to stand up to the racist violence done supposedly in the name of their "safety."<br />
<br />
The march <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XexQ3ll0J2M">wound its way</a> down Poydras Ave., in full view of the thousands of college basketball fans coming to party in a city where the ruling class has been <a href="http://www.wdsu.com/video/30790269/detail.html">desperately</a> <a href="http://www.wdsu.com/news/30793270/detail.html">trying</a> to <a href="http://www.wdsu.com/news/30795124/detail.html">hide</a> the fact that it is a racist, <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/01/reality-america-is-apartheid-nation.html">apartheid police state</a> before the tourists arrive. Many took photos with their camera phones, with the few non-white fans eager to take fliers and read what the marchers-- shouting "no justice, no peace!" and accompanied by a brass band and African style drummers-- were protesting. Most of the white fans just looked confused and uninterested.<br />
<br />
The march then headed down Carondelet St. and up Canal Street to Loyola Ave, where it turned and headed back to City Hall. The crowd on Canal Street, away from the hordes of tourists, was much more receptive and responsive to the cries of justice for victims of police violence. Arriving back to City Hall, a woman fainted from heat stroke and had to be picked up by an ambulance, with tense arguments erupting between the woman's family and the NOPD cops who were on the scene and treating her concerns dismissively. <br />
<br />
<u><b><span style="font-size: large;">What's next?</span></b></u><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://radicallyconnor.tumblr.com/post/18447233076/fuckyeahanarchistbanners-6-months-later-we-have" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsd79i0jhp3bv8Fez1X-lOF_PgzbTfi2YTsQrKaAxEUHJxI8YeVJN2PRQoWQt4n1wE0A1Nl-Cav7_DjU5wWAJVG7i9xCKVRLciAd327jaNfqtwnXQWLaiLn8gTWqjAq2syNaj3uMRn2HU/s320/tumblr_lzzishgQ9H1r0thp0o1_500.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://radicallyconnor.tumblr.com/post/18447233076/fuckyeahanarchistbanners-6-months-later-we-have">Denver</a> keeping it real</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Many people see this as only the beginning of a struggle against police violence and apartheid conditions in New Orleans. Many discussions around <a href="http://libcom.org/library/anarchism-black-revolution-lorenzo-ervin">neighborhood self-defense committees</a> have been making the rounds in social media, and perhaps that is where the struggle should go next.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/01/local-history-deacons-for-defense-and.html">Organize</a> your neighborhood to keep the police out and keep disputes mediated between residents so the police are unnecessary. Community autonomy is ultimately the only way we can keep ourselves safe from police terrorism, because the police will always work for the rich since they have the power to fund politicans' campaigns, and therefore get politicians to legislate for their interests and protection, at our expense.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Re1kUf40Dtpc6AqX_dDt_Cerpy3JjXzZ8uBnE2ZonsKTVBqa0DKSeMU0aFQpNJEybAfPvE_4HpY7fPg1rZlfO9N5jcsP9BT2huJmLaxs4EdVs43Or2bWqwkZE7-Jk61CkpkKbmNXRM8/s1600/photo+2+%282%29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Re1kUf40Dtpc6AqX_dDt_Cerpy3JjXzZ8uBnE2ZonsKTVBqa0DKSeMU0aFQpNJEybAfPvE_4HpY7fPg1rZlfO9N5jcsP9BT2huJmLaxs4EdVs43Or2bWqwkZE7-Jk61CkpkKbmNXRM8/s200/photo+2+%282%29.JPG" width="120" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Erect <a href="http://www.bayofrage.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Oakland-commune-barricade.jpg">barricades</a> to block the economy of the city until Wendell Allen's murderer Jason Colclough is arrested, and until Justin and Earl Sipp's shooters are put on trial so the facts can come out about what happened to them. Defend your barricades from the NOPD dismantling them with your friends and neighbors. Learn how to <i>be</i> <i>together</i> in the streets, get each others' backs, and deal with the cops trying to force a return to business as usual while NOPD murderers still freely walk the streets. Test your skills, build your confidence, challenge yourself. This is what it will take. All that's left is to begin.</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others. </i>--Fredrick Douglass<i><br />
</i></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Changing the Mayor or police chief, as some proposed at the march, will <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/06/serpas-petition-meet-new-chief-same-as.html">do nothing</a> to make the situation any better because politics is a puppet show put on for us by the economic elites to distract our anger away from blaming them. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Disruption of the economy is the strongest way for the struggle to win victories. </b>From roadblocks to sit-ins, strikes to occupations, flexing people power to stop the normal functioning of the apartheid economy in New Orleans -- an economy protected by unaccountable police terrorism -- will put pressure on the political class to solve the situation before the ruling elites get angry at the politicians for allowing the situation to get to the point where we are angry enough to interrupt their profits to demand freedom.</div><br />
<b>Organize. Fight back.</b> <b>This is only a beginning.</b><br />
If you want help organizing in your hood, or are taking action, be sure to let others know, including us (leave us a comment or email us at nolaanarcha@gmail.com ). <br />
<b>Resistance inspires resistance! </b><br />
<b>Don't fight alone!</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2bteoUgZf_2SUju8AuInUOLFW4hBUSv1VuDpuWVDLvA2qyMy7Yy7AVOso5OVTLOb9Dwt8obPR3KfmnBWPMRWch35mBUbRtEnRKYynplApE_bS_NrFaWLnxanBGI_w_ClZgZH2d6lxm4/s1600/photo+3+%283%29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2bteoUgZf_2SUju8AuInUOLFW4hBUSv1VuDpuWVDLvA2qyMy7Yy7AVOso5OVTLOb9Dwt8obPR3KfmnBWPMRWch35mBUbRtEnRKYynplApE_bS_NrFaWLnxanBGI_w_ClZgZH2d6lxm4/s320/photo+3+%283%29.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG2Do3F3U29l8R3DottLeX9VOZ9Oawwuo9dCTZy1I6L6Y_C4ddEk4iy3wgFat6b5d72TqgeO-nryVKZCD6MEYJ_7cnWsb_Uq3BTnDxTB9whffXg2PDvK25harzFoUo7MRSZeRnBLEVkKQ/s1600/photo+1+%283%29.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG2Do3F3U29l8R3DottLeX9VOZ9Oawwuo9dCTZy1I6L6Y_C4ddEk4iy3wgFat6b5d72TqgeO-nryVKZCD6MEYJ_7cnWsb_Uq3BTnDxTB9whffXg2PDvK25harzFoUo7MRSZeRnBLEVkKQ/s320/photo+1+%283%29.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-21500951891359339882012-03-25T19:24:00.014-05:002012-03-29T16:49:46.235-05:00March Against Police Murders & The New Jim Crow! March 31st, Noon, City Hall.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6ceXQnImvNNfSJHi9nLO8AqRkh0xHodLscDAb9Ad-Tmx1ioqV0-cZ_kyZoxGTh2i7uP_TBqlUM0ERm5z-4PXkBNN2vsXh-zD2Vl_j-SALD9jR-RlkI5jB_p0A0Z73w1l-Hjvt7yzFoE/s1600/aippallenjustice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6ceXQnImvNNfSJHi9nLO8AqRkh0xHodLscDAb9Ad-Tmx1ioqV0-cZ_kyZoxGTh2i7uP_TBqlUM0ERm5z-4PXkBNN2vsXh-zD2Vl_j-SALD9jR-RlkI5jB_p0A0Z73w1l-Hjvt7yzFoE/s640/aippallenjustice.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>UPDATE:</b></span> Officer Giror, one of the cops who murdered Justin Sipp, has <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/03/nopd_officer_resigns_force_aft.html">resigned</a> after making disgusting comments about Trayvon Martin and being suspended for them by NOPD. <i><b>Fuck you Jason Giror! You belong in jail for murder!</b></i> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! <i> </i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><i>(What is the "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america">new Jim Crow</a>"?)</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yreIwVQXXGc?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yreIwVQXXGc?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.crimethinc.com/tools/downloads/pdfs/behind_our_masks.pdf" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQeoCzYZelt7id-O7AHeW4b1Vuu4UcbHYs21F9zgYszgsQ-HxRJoi67tIiiy2RD051QtI6cPB5y_mqZyxm5JeC4RzqdItLwDSzR6DCNradb0um2aXFWfXH-ZHeEdODQKLm2nPos9sZOw/s400/behindour.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">wear a hoodie on saturday!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjui8ufS-KWcpt6eM-XL78veIihCuoXIu9diC3859zEYPQOw2OVMXYF03JPaIvayxLRvNFezkRtSE4fZ4lZc8XXQP_yE7tcClyAK4G6avnOo-gK1jVREo_KpyPA8M6ZLdg14zcbA1ffxjo/s1600/10743552-standard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjui8ufS-KWcpt6eM-XL78veIihCuoXIu9diC3859zEYPQOw2OVMXYF03JPaIvayxLRvNFezkRtSE4fZ4lZc8XXQP_yE7tcClyAK4G6avnOo-gK1jVREo_KpyPA8M6ZLdg14zcbA1ffxjo/s320/10743552-standard.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some kids from the 9th ward are already getting out there! So great! Let's Go!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-87000580192678562152012-03-19T17:03:00.003-05:002012-03-20T19:04:54.429-05:00The Perils of Looking 'Suspicious' While Black and Interpreting While White<div class="content"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFq3Ftbr6lEZVJfFUzBSMqpQaL083OkvjaqFxH7UN-rj1OqnTKKTeYBSgKfN1oryZnPtzn-EKLwADzjL4LE_5EFM6SOnGmLFA-uT_fLcgBDK600vcpM6Y_nfhocfIdZmT4w7o8-whBQlQ/s1600/425224_248891311871571_100002521120655_513870_827716827_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFq3Ftbr6lEZVJfFUzBSMqpQaL083OkvjaqFxH7UN-rj1OqnTKKTeYBSgKfN1oryZnPtzn-EKLwADzjL4LE_5EFM6SOnGmLFA-uT_fLcgBDK600vcpM6Y_nfhocfIdZmT4w7o8-whBQlQ/s200/425224_248891311871571_100002521120655_513870_827716827_n.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Resistance to NOPD brutality is growing and building day by day, as posters spring up all over the city calling for justice for <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/wendell-allen-murdered-by-nopd-classic.html">Wendell Allen</a> and <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/mid-city-police-shootings-inevitable.html">Justin Sipp</a>. The momentum is picking up! Get <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#%21/groups/cucno/">involved</a>! Take action!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>via <a href="http://www.bridgethegulfproject.com/node/591">Bridge The Gulf</a>, written by Pam Nath -- <br />
Sometime around 5:30 a.m., on March 1, 2012, an off-duty policeman working for a private <a href="http://www.midcitysecuritydistrict.org/" target="_blank">neighborhood security force</a> stopped two young black men driving in a predominantly white neighborhood in New Orleans. The officer called for back up. The incident tragically ended in the shooting death of Justin Sipp, the 20-year-old passenger of the car, who was African-American, as well as non-fatal injuries to two of the officers and to Justin's brother Earl who was the driver of the car.<br />
<img height="150" src="http://images.ibsys.com/media/200X150/30692797.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 8px;" width="200" /><br />
The circumstances around Sipp's death sound eerily too simlar to the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a black teen killed in Florida for <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57399952-504083/parents-of-trayvon-martin-are-calling-on-fbi-to-get-involved-with-shooting-investigation/" target="_blank">looking "suspicious,"</a> this time not by law enforcement, but by a neighborhood watch member.<br />
<br />
In the Sipp case in New Orleans, I've been listening to various reactions to this tragedy in community meetings, and reading about it on neighborhood association listserve posts. I've been ruminating about the chasm that exists between the two “worlds” in which I have lived. I am white and before I moved to New Orleans, I lived and worked in predominantly white communities. Now many of my friends and coworkers are black folks and other persons of color, and the focus of my work is racial justice. It is from this perspective that I will try to make sense of what happened to the Sipp brothers. <br />
<br />
Making sense of what happened requires interpretation because beyond the basic facts about the police stop described above, there's a lot of uncertainty. When each one of us interprets facts, especially limited facts, we must rely on knowledge from our past experiences, as well as the assumptions and values that have grown out of those experiences. Having traversed a chasm between two very different worlds, I know something about the information gap that handicaps white people living in racially segregated worlds, where even if people know or work with people of color, they typically lack deep personal connections to help them understand everyday realities in communities of color. Without this understanding, the shootout with the police and the <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/03/two_men_accused_of_shooting_no.html#incart_mce" target="_blank">criminal records</a> of Earl and Justin Sipp reported by the media seem to validate that these brothers were “criminals” who the police needed to stop to ensure the safety and protection of neighborhood residents. <br />
<br />
So I wasn't surprised when I read posts on neighborhood association listservs praising the officers' actions and supporting a blood drive organized in their support:<br />
<br />
One listserv message read:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">"As an advocate of a proactive role for our security district, I have asked for traffic stops or other stops to ask fair questions about people in our neighborhood, ON A NON DISCRIMATION (sic) approach. I was glad to here (sic) that our guy from MCSD [Mid City Security District, the private security force] was doing that work yesterday morning. Getting guns and drugs off the street is a hard job but MSCD and NOPD [New Orleans Police Department] stops will make the free transport of drugs and weapons in cars too risky for criminals." </div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div>Note that there have been no reports that the brothers were in possession of drugs at the time of their shooting, and even their past arrests weren't drug-related. But to mention that there seems to make sense to the poster because black folks with criminal charges, guns, drugs and shoot-outs with police all go together in the perspective from mostly-white commnities, even as they view the facts of this case. <br />
<br />
This individual's post stood out to me because of his professed support for “non-discrimination.” I have no reason to doubt that he sincerely wants to avoid race-motivated stops, but in reality, pervasive assumptions of black criminality such as the one the poster demonstrates makes it impossible for proactive stops in majority white neighborhoods to be non-discriminatory. <br />
<br />
What does it mean to look or act "suspicious"? The Sipp brothers -- and others like Trayvon Martin -- are much too easily seen as perpetrators who are transporting guns and drugs through the neighborhood rather than as normal citizens, or workers trying to get to their job on time. In reality, Earl Sipp was driving his younger brother Justin to work at a nearby Burger King. As their uncle told the media, they "were on their way to work trying to make an honest living."<br />
<br />
The police story is that Earl and Justin Sipp were stopped because their license plate light was out. Because of the realities they have lived, black folks know how often they are stopped just for “driving while black,” and so they are justifiably suspicious of police officers.<br />
<br />
A Department of Justice <a href="http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/nopd_report.pdf" target="_blank">investigation </a>of the NOPD, released just last year found patterns of unwarranted stops and searches, as well as “reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of ... discriminatory policing (p ix)” based on race, as well as gender and sexual orientation. <br />
<br />
Quoting from the Justice Department report:<br />
“Our review of officer-involved shootings within just the last two years revealed many instances in which NOPD officers used deadly force contrary to NOPD policy or law. Despite the clear policy violations we observed, NOPD has not found that an officer-involved shooting violated policy in at least six years, and NOPD officials we spoke with could recall only one out-of-policy finding even before that time.... Even the most serious uses of force, such as officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths, are investigated inadequately or not at all. NOPD’s mishandling of officer-involved shooting investigations was so blatant and egregious that it appeared intentional in some respects. (p. vi - vii).”<br />
<br />
I should note that while the NOPD are a particularly egregious example, it is not <a href="http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/department-justice-statistics-show-clear-pattern-racial-profiling" target="_blank">unique among police departments</a>, many of which manifest similar problems.<br />
<br />
The Justice Department report also noted that the vast majority of cases involving use of force and all of the incidents resulting in death involved African Americans. Within less than a week of Justin Sipp's death, another NOPD officer shot and killed <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/03/gentilly_raid_details_show_foc.html" target="_blank">another black man</a>, 20-year-old Wendell Allen during a drug raid; Allen was unarmed at the time. <br />
<br />
In addition to the dismal collective record of the NOPD, Jason Giroir, the officer who stopped the Sipps and who was one of two officers who fired shots during the stop, also has an individual past history that raises even more suspicions in the black community about what may have occurred that fatal day. In April 2006, Giroir yanked a woman out of her car by her hair, pepper-sprayed and punched her after a similar “<a href="http://la.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20080408_0000646.ELA.htm/qx" target="_blank">routine traffic stop</a>."<br />
<br />
Given the harassment and brutality that black communites routinely experience at the hands of police, any signs of anxiety exhibited by black persons during police stops are as likely to be the result of negative expectations as they are to suggest a guilty conscience. But this anxiety can add to the already existing stereotypes about black criminality in increasing the likelihood that black folks will be interpreted as acting “suspicious.” <br />
<br />
If the police report that Justin Sipp pulled out a gun and began firing on police is true, one can only guess at the experiences that led him to conclude that a shoot out with police officers was preferable to whatever was happening or whatever he expected to happen as the result of the police stop.<br />
<br />
The “record” of the police department as a whole or of individual officers is not, however, what gets emphasized in the media or in conversations about the incident in white communities. Within hours of the shooting, the arrest records of Earl and Justin Sipp were released to the public, reinforcing stereotypes that they were “criminals” and “felons.” Interpreting arrest records also looks different depending upon one's past experiences.<br />
<br />
All but one of the arrests of the Sipp brothers failed to result in convictions and the one that did involved a plea to a reduced offense (unauthorized use of a credit card). In the TV cop shows that populate our psyches, arrests that fail to lead to convictions are often the result of technicalities, mistakes on the part of police or judges or juries that allow guilty people to “walk.” In black communities, racial profiling and police harassment are an everyday reality, and that's exactly what arrest records (especially arrests without convictions and arrests that result in pleas) indicate. <br />
<br />
The way I interpret guilty pleas and reduced sentences has been forever altered by an incident that occurred just months after my move to New Orleans. A young black friend and co-worker of mine who was riding as a passenger in my car was asked to produce identification to an officer who had stopped us for a so-called traffic offense. I was cited for “impeding the flow of traffic” for apparently driving too slowly as we searched for a side street, late at night, with no other cars on the street. When my friend calmly asked the officer why he had to show ID since he was not driving, the officer called him an “a-hole,” ordered him out of the car, and charged him with battery of an officer and resisting arrest.<br />
<br />
My friend was eventually found innocent of these completely fabricated charges but only after he bravely resisted repeated and coercive offers that he plead guilty to lesser offenses. He insisted he was innocent and wouldn't plead guilty for something he hadn't done. His father and friends who were worried for him reasoned with him that he had so much to lose if the judge didn't believe our story, which was quite possible given that to believe us, the judge had to also accept the fact that the police officer was lying. <br />
<br />
If I weren't a white, middle-aged woman working for a religiously affiliated organization there to support his story, would an innocent verdict have been within the realm of possiblity for him? I doubt it. What happened to him is not an isolated incident and is repeated daily in traffic stops and courtrooms across this country. You can read more about our justice system's reliance on pleas (which are too often coerced) in this recent and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/go-to-trial-crash-the-justice-system.html?_r=1&hp" target="_blank">excellent opinion piece</a> by Michelle Alexander in the <i>New York Times</i> editorial, and while you're at it, read Alexander's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595581030">book </a><i>The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness</i>, which is a great source of awakened consciousness for those with limited awareness of the devastating destruction that our criminal justice system causes in black communities.<br />
<br />
Views of the police – whether they are seen as trusted authorities and a source of safety or as a source of threat and destruction -- is one of the pervasive and drastic racial divides that persist. Is there a way to bridge this chasm? Can listening to stories open our hearts to new realities? That is my hope and my plea to my white brothers and sisters. There is much to learn about the perils of "driving while black" and "interpreting while white" if we are ever going to be able to stand in true solidarity with our brothers and sisters of color. </div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-5462831862317222582012-03-08T17:23:00.012-06:002012-03-09T14:30:51.724-06:00Wendell Allen Murdered by NOPD: Another Tragic Example of "The New Jim Crow"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zqzdU4gjlCXt08tC-8NJFxKyp5t3U8iDI1Yfh-dpPCwQXq6FfgY-38pKrOwbxF4KmBEvM9erqnehuMrh_ZmAVjapbsKQTvmR66WLp5KUxOO1T7boP43oAqU2YDDSe1nEKQRp7-xjR7o/s1600/manuel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zqzdU4gjlCXt08tC-8NJFxKyp5t3U8iDI1Yfh-dpPCwQXq6FfgY-38pKrOwbxF4KmBEvM9erqnehuMrh_ZmAVjapbsKQTvmR66WLp5KUxOO1T7boP43oAqU2YDDSe1nEKQRp7-xjR7o/s320/manuel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In Chile, this is how people react to the police murdering someone. Banner reads "<a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Mendoza_Collio">Mendoza Collio</a>: We Mourn Your Death With Fire." May our anger boil over to such powerful action.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Wendell Allen was murdered yesterday by the thugs in blue of the NOPD. He was unarmed. He was a star basketball player. He had his whole life ahead of him.<br />
<br />
While the outcome of his encounter with the police may have been especially tragic, <b>his story is far from unique. </b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.newjimcrow.com/">The New Jim Crow</a> system of justice put his body on an all too familiar path, on a collision course with the fear-inspired bullets of the NOPD thugs who broke down his door last night.<br />
<br />
The entire <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/03/new_orleans_police_shooting.html">story</a> of Allen's interactions with the justice system reflect a perfect example of The New Jim Crow, in the way Michelle Alexander defines it in her book of the same name. From Wendell Allen's criminal record for minor offenses (especially drug offenses), to the trap of probation violations, of non-payment of exorbitant fines due to poverty leading to further warrants and arrests, of kids with criminal records being second-class citizens when it comes to employment, leading many to turn to the black market economy to survive (not saying that Allen sold weed himself, but some around him of the same age group did, and it led to his unjustifiable murder by Officer Josh Colclough).<br />
<br />
All of these events in Allen's life are straight out of Michelle Alexander's narrative of how a new system of Jim Crow has been enacted on African-Americans through the policing and imprisonment systems over the past 30 years.<br />
<br />
Listen to Alexander's <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america">excellent NPR interview</a> and you'll be amazed as she recounts almost word for word an outline extremely familiar to what Wendell Allen had encountered in his short life. Now he will never get the chance to live in freedom from this new Jim Crow system, and another mother is burying a son far too soon in New Orleans.This daily terrorism, the relegation of large portions of our community to second class citizen status, and the police murders that inevitably result from the system's criminalization of an entire generation of young people must come to an end!<br />
<br />
<script src="http://www.wwltv.com/templates/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=141993033&pos=top&swfw=470">
</script><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="264" id="bimvidplayer0" width="470"> <param value="true" name="allowfullscreen"/><param value="always" name="allowscriptaccess"/><param value="high" name="quality"/><param value="true" name="cachebusting"/><param value="#000000" name="bgcolor"/><param name="movie" value="http://swfs.bimvid.com/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=WWLTV" /><param value="config=http://www.wwltv.com/?j=141993033&ref=http://www.wwltv.com/news/Family-members-of-man-killed-by-police-want-answers-141993033.html" name="flashvars"/><embed src="http://swfs.bimvid.com/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=WWLTV" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="470" height="264" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" cachebusting="true" flashvars="config=http://www.wwltv.com/?j=141993033&ref=http://www.wwltv.com/news/Family-members-of-man-killed-by-police-want-answers-141993033.html" bgcolor="#000000" quality="true"> </embed> </object><script src="http://www.wwltv.com/templates/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=141993033&pos=bottom">
</script><br />
<br />
<b>RIP Wendell Allen, <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/03/mid-city-police-shootings-inevitable.html">Justin Sipp</a>, Adolph Grimes III, Henry Glover, Shotgun Joe Williams, Cayne Miceli, and so many more.</b><br />
<b>IT IS UP TO US TO END THIS UNJUST AND BRUTAL SYSTEM THROUGH STRUGGLE IN THE STREETS!</b><br />
<b>NO ONE WILL DO IT FOR US!</b><br />
<b>FIGHT BACK! THE LIVES OF OUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS DEPEND ON IT.</b>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740329519207588961.post-41694882726232545792012-03-01T13:25:00.006-06:002012-03-01T16:33:35.787-06:00Mid-City Police Shootings: An Inevitable Result of the Apartheid Police State<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKDpUHZ8V9Cpj6Y_cBGGFVdzNB7R8cuY-oUhwh4fhICLt1Kz5sos12M5AQ5Yy8YXlSyItst3sNr7sJC0FVPs2pTfdc_jQWFl5KAbo6xebV7Xc7otZMROpHk_n8DmwK26-n5Le6qJ9ogA/s1600/10629927-standard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKDpUHZ8V9Cpj6Y_cBGGFVdzNB7R8cuY-oUhwh4fhICLt1Kz5sos12M5AQ5Yy8YXlSyItst3sNr7sJC0FVPs2pTfdc_jQWFl5KAbo6xebV7Xc7otZMROpHk_n8DmwK26-n5Le6qJ9ogA/s320/10629927-standard.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A worker at a near by Burger King cries on the ground near where the New Orleans Police Department investigates the scene where two NOPD officers were shot and one suspect killed and another wounded on North Bernadotte near Toulouse Street early Thursday morning, March 1, 2012. According to restaurant employees, the slain suspect worked at the Burger King.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Early this morning, <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/03/two_men_accused_of_shooting_no.html">the police murdered</a> another young black man in our community. His relatives say he and his brother who was also shot, were good young men. Both worked at Mid-City Burger King restaurants. Two police officers were also shot, presumably by the men they'd pulled over in a "proactive" traffic stop, <i>i.e.- driving while black</i>. This comes as no surprise, and is an inevitable result of the <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/02/local-history-slavery-by-another-name.html">apartheid</a> <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/12/apartheid-police-state-of-new-orleans.html">police</a> <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/01/reality-america-is-apartheid-nation.html">state</a> we live in.<br />
<br />
Perhaps after being arrested and caged like animals several times at OPP only to have their charges later dropped the brothers vowed, like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOk7Elnv79w">Truth Universal has</a>, to never submit to NOPD taking them back to OPP on false pretenses yet again? It's very hard to climb out of the financial hole a false arrest can put a person in, especially on a Burger King salary. It's enough to make someone very angry, especially when they are pulled over mere blocks from their workplace.<br />
<br />
No one knows exactly how or why 2 police officers and 2 young black men ended up shot this morning in Mid-City. But we do know that the NOPD arrests young black men at a rate that causes intense resentment in our community towards the cops. And we know that the NOPD shoots young black men dozens of times every year, making every encounter with law enforcement <a href="http://blog.nola.com/editorials/2009/01/shooting_of_adolph_grimes_iii.html">potentially</a> <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2011/08/killer-danziger-cops-not-guilty-of.html">deadly</a> if you happen to be young and black.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Sf2lFtBD6iaMlmYurANRmLhEBV1ocxw_BqWQBVja3oeYZMz7W0jYh9IW_rYblgoKcmqymTuPb9FuDWHash3FThB5XWFvGm5lnw6L1sieF5pBTydsKI1xIe2XQjC6LOpxuTyumvPvCcI/s1600/268012958001_1482182590001_vs-1482179675001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Sf2lFtBD6iaMlmYurANRmLhEBV1ocxw_BqWQBVja3oeYZMz7W0jYh9IW_rYblgoKcmqymTuPb9FuDWHash3FThB5XWFvGm5lnw6L1sieF5pBTydsKI1xIe2XQjC6LOpxuTyumvPvCcI/s320/268012958001_1482182590001_vs-1482179675001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Unsurprisingly, the corporate, police-guarded media has already begun defaming these young men's character, doing the indispensable job of slandering their lives that helps the NOPD make every police shooting seems justified. How else will the Times-Picayune get inside scoops and maintain friendly relationships with the police and those in power if they don't defend the NOPD's murderous actions? They are bringing up the victim's arrest records, even though they were not convicted. Such records are almost universal among young black men due to the nature of the <a href="http://nolaanarcha.blogspot.com/2012/01/reality-america-is-apartheid-nation.html">Apartheid Police State</a> we live in.<br />
<br />
Pulled over for no reason on their way to work, these young men, already victims of the apartheid police state multiple times over by being locked up again and again while never convicted of any crime, no doubt felt targeted, harassed, and angry when they were pulled over for absolutely no reason this morning in Mid-City. One can only imagine their frustration and anger as the police made them late for work for a "pro-active traffic stop."<br />
<br />
If people are angry that 2 police were shot, blame the system that pays them to harass, cage, and often to murder young black men in the streets, and engender the type of anger that could lead to such shootings. <b>We have to get the NOPD to stop waging war on our fellow New Orleanians!</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Jerome Simon, an uncle to the brothers, described his nephews as close knit and hard working. "They are home-body individuals. They go to work and come home, seriously. That’s a fact."</i><br />
<i>"They respect the law. I really, truly believe they won’t try to harm anybody," said Simon. </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"They (NOPD) are supposed to be protecting around here, but they're not doing their job. 'Cause if they was, they would have all the ones they keep putting back out on the streets with these guns," said one of the victim's girlfriend. "It was a regular routine day...now all of the sudden this." </i></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">No tears for cops shot in an apartheid system. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">R.I.P. 20 year old New Orleanian Justin Sipp.</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1M7SfzSaj6rJNX8HBz8I_ANpwa895r_hReNhZFC7HuV26uwOE9Wez70mIUUG7QFfDoyU3-21ZvUp86zUbQtECZYOjl6gbgOn_pO27FTWP8tOMxzqYsLbcLZoXXwBcAFbSJVLJdHCnma4/s1600/sippjustin.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1M7SfzSaj6rJNX8HBz8I_ANpwa895r_hReNhZFC7HuV26uwOE9Wez70mIUUG7QFfDoyU3-21ZvUp86zUbQtECZYOjl6gbgOn_pO27FTWP8tOMxzqYsLbcLZoXXwBcAFbSJVLJdHCnma4/s320/sippjustin.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Nola Anarchahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17990890845750136032noreply@blogger.com15