Banner Drops Against the 2008 Presidential Elections
some Milwaukee anarchists, 08.01.2008 15:22
Two banners were dropped tuesday morning during rush hour in the Riverwest Area of Milwaukee. They read: "choose your own adventure" and "destroy the election" encouraging an anti-political alternative to the spectacle of the 2008 US presidential election.
Dear politics,
Do you expect us to be excited about this leash you've so kindly put around our neck? Every four years we're allowed to have a meaningless impact on the ordering of things by marking up a piece of paper and putting it in a box. The punch line of this is that even if it this ritualized illusion worked without scandal or fowl play it would still be an insult to our integrity to validate our domination bowing down and telling someone we aren't worthy of making our own decisions. Did you think if we heard this repeated in volume and for long enough that we'd forget that we don't have to ask or wait to take control our lives?
Forgive us our disgust for this cruel joke you call a choice. We will not forget to laugh but it will be at your expense.
Eight months remain until the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention and you would do well to expect resistance. Everyone can smell the shit you peddle, they've just forgotten how to act and some are starting to remember. Your end will come.
sincerely,
some milwaukee anarchists
nice
08.01.2008 - 17:07
Cool
Cannon>
Lame...as always
09.01.2008 - 19:49
Thats the best you could come up with?? How about Hillary--do the dishes!!! :)
Madison Skinhead>
drops
09.01.2008 - 21:03
how about "madison skinhead do the dishes?" we'll drop it from the roof of your house.
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Ignoramus
10.01.2008 - 12:41
You're alienating yourself from any broad base of support within the low income neighborhoods when you spend time coloring messages that tell us elections don't matter.
These silly tactics sends a message out, telling the rest of us how you're not revolutionaries, just a handful of misdirected, white privileged losers who cannot decipher problems from issues.
Daniel>
Emma qoute
11.01.2008 - 10:23
“If voting ever really changed anything, they would have made it illegal.”
--- Feminist and Anarchist Emma Goldman. 1869-1940
Cannon>
Daniel,
11.01.2008 - 10:36
Elections don't matter.
Basil>
misdirected indeed
13.01.2008 - 11:57
What you don't realize, Daniel, is that most people in low income neighborhoods already have notoriously low voter turnout. They already know how much of a joke it all is. If anything the banner drops alienate ourselves from delusional participants in this charade.
"These silly tactics sends a message out, telling the rest of us how you're not revolutionaries, just a handful of misdirected, white privileged losers who cannot decipher problems from issues."
Talk about misdirected, ay? Don't you have a picture of lenin you can go masturbate to?
mario buda>
regardless
24.01.2008 - 12:20
whatever. we cut these POS banners down immediately. now they are being used as painting tarps by homeowner capitalists in the NH.
get a clue guys: this is not a low-income neighborhood. next time walk on North to the freeway, walk a few more blocks.
your minds have been infected by media manipulation and the idealizations of the white bohemian 1% of the NH population. It's convenient for you too, because you lack the balls to take your crap to your own idealized underclass.
the enforcer>
What's Your Solution?
28.01.2008 - 13:38
Seriously, your solution to fixing an f'd up neighborhood, city and country is to NOT VOTE? This is a call to INaction?
We already have that. I mean seriously, you're not going to see any of my neighbors going to the polls -- they're too busy getting high and / or doing mostly illegal things to get money to do so. The elections are NOT ON THEIR RADAR. And whoever says this is not a low-income neighborhood, where the hell do you live? Sure, it's not Lindsey Heights (between 12th and 20th Streets and Walnut and Center) but it sure as hell isn't Bayside, either.
Furthermore, about your anti-gentrification ideals, (sorry, but I'm assuming that's on your agenda too) where do you draw the line? Should I not paint my house this spring? It might make the neighborhood look nice, and dissuade the johns from visiting the whore next door. Or, it might dissuade the drug dealer, on my OTHER next door, from selling so much dope. Boy, wouldn't that suck. Maybe I'll rip up all the flowers I planted and stop this assinine remodel of my gross house because we don't want to look like we CARE about our buildings and landscape. You know, beauty and quality totally sucks. Inaction, delapidation, stupidity, erosion, addiction, ignorance -- these things are all WAAAAAAAY better.
Rhoda>
Is this a good use for this tactic?
28.01.2008 - 15:04
Banner drops are a nice tactic, but only when you're trying to tip a critical mass. Out of context slogans go in one ear and out the other of an unpolicized population. Super-passive forms of resistance are good and important, but I think that's where most "revolutionaries" draw the line. I think Rhoda is right. If you really want to make an impact, get involved in your community.
If you don't want to just play act at being revolutionaries, then maybe you should grow out of the grade school fantasy that a banner drop will jump start the revolution. Instead, start combating the alienation that keeps people hidden in their homes and afraid of their neighbors. People need hope and community, not useless slogans.
DC Nobody>
dear rhoda,
30.01.2008 - 12:07
"Seriously, your solution to fixing an f'd up neighborhood, city and country is to NOT VOTE? This is a call to INaction?"
No where in criticism of voting is anyone urged to be inactive, but quite the opposite. Waiting for 4 years to do something is an embarrassingly inactive way to fix or change things. Voting is disempowering, whereas having a direct impact in the control or your life, and organizing personally, locally, etc are extremely empowering.
"Furthermore, about your anti-gentrification ideals, (sorry, but I'm assuming that's on your agenda too) where do you draw the line? Should I not paint my house this spring? It might make the neighborhood look nice, and dissuade the johns from visiting the whore next door. Or, it might dissuade the drug dealer, on my OTHER next door, from selling so much dope. Boy, wouldn't that suck. Maybe I'll rip up all the flowers I planted and stop this assinine remodel of my gross house because we don't want to look like we CARE about our buildings and landscape. You know, beauty and quality totally sucks. Inaction, delapidation, stupidity, erosion, addiction, ignorance -- these things are all WAAAAAAAY better."
I didn't think this article had anything to do with gentrification. Encouraging people to "choose their own adventure" might lead to fighting some gentrification. In working toward/creating a situation where there are no limits to the possibilities that our lives can be we may find ourselves in conflict with the motivating forces of gentrification. There are definitely many ways to fight gentrification beyond resisting the quality you talk of. It could mean meeting with your neighbors and organizing rent strikes, organizing campaigns to stop development that raises property value, among many many options.
mario buda>
dear DC nobody,
30.01.2008 - 12:24
"Banner drops are a nice tactic, but only when you're trying to tip a critical mass. Out of context slogans go in one ear and out the other of an unpolicized population. Super-passive forms of resistance are good and important, but I think that's where most "revolutionaries" draw the line. I think Rhoda is right. If you really want to make an impact, get involved in your community."
What would lead you to believe that the only thing that the people who dropped this banner do is drop banners, and that they are not involved in their "community?" There isn't any reason to think that simply because someone does one action that they don't participate in others or many other things. I also question the logic of not doing anything unless it appeals to absolutely everyone. (politics is the art of compromise, moderation, mediation, IE the repression of what motivated us in the first place to act) Often the desires of those acting and restrained should be most important. These actions simply encourage others to act in conflict with what restrains their desire, and dominates them. The action is the message. The message being that you, anyone can do banner drops, and make known ideas that are left out of public discourse.
"If you don't want to just play act at being revolutionaries, then maybe you should grow out of the grade school fantasy that a banner drop will jump start the revolution. Instead, start combating the alienation that keeps people hidden in their homes and afraid of their neighbors. People need hope and community, not useless slogans."
More and more silly assumptions. Who could possibly think that a banner drop alone would end capital and the state? (Certainly not those who dropped the banner!) People acting on their desires is revolutionary, but it is in no way "the revolution" in the way that you may be thinking of it. I can agree that we do not need more slogans. They need to be lived rather than merely churned out. An unrestrained life is the new poetry.
mario buda>
Dear tool
01.02.2008 - 18:16
"People acting on their desires is revolutionary..."
Mere stupidity.
What if someones desire is to steal? Good thing there are plenty of rich white kids who's only work is dumb stuff like "free schools" where they can sit around and masterbate all day with nasty skanks who don't shower or shave their hippy asses.
and if you don't like voting, move to a country that doesn't allow it.
getrealrealsoon>
realism
01.02.2008 - 20:07
Please enlighten me, if the reason for revolution is not so that everyone can act out their desires in the least restrained and restraining way, then really what for? Why revolution? The idea becomes hallow and cheap.
I'd like to know how someone can think desire and liberation are two totally different things. So long as liberation is separate from desire, it will be a complete and utter fucking sham.
mario buda>
get real
01.02.2008 - 20:25
Get real, once again you reveal yourself to be the pathetic stalinist that you are!
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