Stop StopG20! Stop the Stagemanagement of Dissent

The enemy has been engaged and through that engagement a politics is being defined and executed. For unknown reasons two targets have been elevated to such a status as to merit effort being exerted in the creation of this text…

First, are the stencil posters that the recuperative forces of capital have been putting up around Melbourne. In order to bring a crowd larger than the sum of the organisers of this representation of resistance StopG20 has decided on linking their event with anti-war in Iraq sentiment. Based on success being conceived as equating with the quantifiable conversion of human beings to their own image of resistance and in some instances renouncement of other elements of the spectacle. The actual text of the stencil posters reads “stop the war/stop g20” so the idea that what is being referred to is the Iraq war is an assumption, but a safe one, as reference to other wars does not seem to fit, for instance they could have decided to be honest with themselves and announce their intent to prevent any ‘class’ war – but that seems unlikely. The stopG20 group has decided that they will gain the most people for conversion to their image of resistance through attaching themselves to an image with greater prominence within the spectacle. But in itself the call for “stop the war” is telling, such claims always come to and from the idea of the “continuation of war by other means” – that is the imposition of capital through a mechanism, imagined as different, that holds a monopoly on the use of violence. These stencils are an aspect of the “continuation of war by other means continues”, they are images that replace lived experience so as to ensure the continuation and furtherance of the imposition of the social relations of capital. This is why it is crucial that they are destroyed.

The second target worth mentioning is the Trades Hall council building. This image of resistance has for too long been the left edge of the imposers of capital, ensuring that any attempted escape is contained within a norm of the necessity of work. Now in its old age, this building and those that control it move more and more closely to the approximation of the image of that which they oppose themselves to – it would appear that the irrelevancy of democracy is being realised at the level of the spectacle. That may be reason enough for the defilement of this building but what makes such action absolutely necessary is the reverence of the institution and by extension (by its absurd participants) the physical building itself. The church that is Trades Hall must be defiled and ridiculed until it is reduced to a representation of its actuality – a barren hole.

Upon realisation that work and oppression under capitalism is only going to increase as a result of the ‘killing of the planet’ Melbournians have decried the lies of environmentalists. For years Meblournians have clung in hope to the message on the old Spencer Street power station, “no jobs on a dead planet”; it was a symbol of hope, but now it is only a constant reminder of the deception of the environmentalists. It is now clear that the promised life beneath the waves without work is not real. In fact, the very environmentalists that had promised this glorious time are now the front line of capital in the expansion of markets and the enforcement of the relations of capital. The ‘dead planet’ claim is now simply the excuse for capital, lead by environmentalist, to further make impositions upon the lives of Melbournians and the rest of humanity. Work camps far worse than have been experienced before have already been created and the environmentalists, who promised so much with the slogan “no jobs on a dead planet” are the front line in the effort to herd people into them. At present all that Melbournians can do in the face of this is cry out ‘thanks a bunch… enviro-tards’!

As any real content of resistance is bled out of these counter summits they increasingly become indistinguishable from outdoor markets or shopping malls. Here is an extract from an email from ’somebodies’ encouraging a ‘really really free market’ as an act of resistance, during the G20.

“Basically, somebodies create a space in a public setting, put out the word, and people bring stuff and/or take stuff. Whilst it could just be seen as a swap meet, the Really, Really Free Market movement has its roots in a really different way of seeing social and economic relations.”
…
“The Really, Really Free Market movement aims to counteract capitalism in a non-reactionary way. It holds as a major goal, to build a community based on sharing resources, caring for one another and improving
the collective lives of all.”

By ‘non-reactionary’ I suspect this person refers to the idea that people shouldn’t say things like ‘everything is fucked lets destroy it’ – instead people should propose alternatives. One thing I have never heard explained from these people is just why all their ‘non-reactionary’ activities are expansions of capital – always creation of commodities to hold onto as ‘an answer, or a multitude of answers’. Why is it so hard to conceive of escape from capital being a world without the commodity – why is there this clinginess to commodities from people that find this work-capital-commodity society so inhumane.
…
And then the statement – ‘the really, really free market movement has its roots in a really different way seeing social and economic relations’ was it a bewildering joke or some attempt to mystify people into thinking that the organisers of this spectacle were ‘outside or capital’ and like Gabriel had informed humanity of the escape from their alienation – a swap meet.

Along with this project this summit, as with others, has attracted ‘affinity groups’ whose primary purpose seems to be gaining access to an elusive niche market - the anit-capitalist - so as to be able to carry out their ‘anti-capitalist activities’. One such group is a t-shirt cooperative that have gone one step further then the people of the LIP factory* in the self-management of their own oppression - they have decided to set up their own factory and industry. They have decided that the best action to support an anti-capitalism movement is to set up a t-shirt co-operative, make really really radical t-shirts with really really radical slogans. And of course what makes this co-operative so radically radical is that they use concensus decision making to enforce their own oppression – that’s so much more radical-er than anything ever! This group plans to use the G20 summit as the perfect opportunity to attract business from their niche market…

In light of this we must ask – what do we do about these really really capo-scumbags? Our first thought would, logically, be to round up some people to rob them blind (in an effort to ‘improve the collective lives of us all’), unfortunately this is only likely to leave those in the new factories with renewed motivation to sacrifice in the pursuit of production. A second thought might be to just forget it and leave them to suffer in their silly efforts – just as one would leave any sales person struggling to construct a market (this is of course the likely outcome – but only as a result of laziness – not commited thought). The third option would be to ridicule them in an effort to lift the mystification that prevents them seeing the reality of their flagellation. Perhaps simple things like covering the area in which they are selling/spruiking, or whatever, with stencils proclaiming such things as ‘YOU ARE THE CAPITALISTS’.

*The LIP factory is a factory that went backrupt and was taken over by its workers in order to avoid unemployment. They self-managed the factory and their own oppression in order to produce watches. Down the track they hired casuals to help out – they wern’t included in the ‘self-management’. This t-shirt project seems to be the same except that they are setting up the jobs in the first place.

The Mytleford Tobacco Cooperative has today announced the launch of their fairtrade certified ‘Cigarrillo para Liberata’ brand cigerette. An initiative of the anarchist Victoria Tobacco Farmers faction of the cooperative. The cigarettes come in response to big tobacco’s (dominated by British American Tobacco) constant buying pressure that have finally pushed the farmers off the land. In a press release the anarchist farmers stated "we got the idea from our zapatista comrades and their café rebelde brand coffee, hopefully we too can continue labouring day and night". The co-op’s brand hopes to match the success of other fairtrade products in keeping people toiling at the land for the sake of tradition and a barely subsitance level of income (in the continuance of wage slavery). But with these farmers being far less photogenic than their fair trade colleagues in South American and Africa will these farmers be as successful? Only time will tell.

A copy of the advertisment can be found here  

Tonight, we revealed ourselves to the ‘serious’ StopG20 group. We went along to a spokes-council meeting and introduced our affinity group, the stopstopg20 affinity group, to the people in attendance. Unfortunately, attendance at the spokes-council was down – numbering around 10ish.

We prepared a short statement – more a collection of connected points – that outlined our intended activity and the reasoning behind it. Unfortunately, my inability to deal with nervousness induced by crowds in a public speaking situation meant that I rambled on each point and meandered through the collection as a whole.

So as promised (to the ten or so at the meeting) and for those not at the meeting… here are the points that we were going to read out…

1. Increasingly everything we do is becoming work, becoming labor for capital. And Increasingly we are being surrounded by nothing but commodities. This has occured to such a degree that it may be that we can only define our world through commodities.
2. This is a situation that is true for our resistance to capital as well – increasingly participation in organized resistance equates to automatic recuperation into capital.
3. It is in this context that stopg20 (the serious one) has been formed – and what we are witnessing brings new meaning to the term going through the motions – as the success of the late ninties in anti-summit convergences is searched for.
4. What we see here is a collection of images acting as resistance – the signifier standing in for the signified. The only political content of the stopG20 organisation appears to be to gather together everything that appears ‘left or progressive’ or ‘anti-American’.
5. By refusing to acknowledge the futility of sacrifice to objects and continuing to collect possible objects for submission to the alienation and exploitation inherent in capital are perpetuated and reproduced, as capital is reproduced.
6. StopG20 is a representation and scaffold for the spectacular-commodity of resistance in place of lived experience. And is therefore a spectacle that distracts us from making decisive in roads against capital.
7. We believe that the most fun and worthwhile activity as part of an anti-capitalist life is to assault the spectacular-commodity that is the StopG20 object.
8. Therefore we, ‘StopstopG20 is embarking on an attempt at disrupting the recuperation of resistance into one of the many objects that are the ‘left wings of capital’ – be they the Venezuelan state, Greens, fair trade, the remnants of social democracy or any other silliness…

We have redone the “Carnival Against Capitalism” poster to reflect the true nature of the event. You can download it here. Notice the diversity and the doves. Though some have suggested that we ‘waste our time’ producing such material, it didn’t really take that much time: we constructed the poster, for example, in the commercials during an episode of ‘Battlestar Galactica’.

Welcome to our stopg20 blog, website of the stopstopg20 affinity group, a wave of proletarian self-activity that is tidal in scope, founded on the rejection of nationalism, capitalism, recuperation, and the left-wings of capital whether states (Cuba, Venezuela, whoever) nice businesses/ngos/charities (fair trade transnationals, Make Poverty History, whatever) or the institutional remnants of social democracy (…and now, we present, a trade unionist!)

the main enemy is at home

…in the Left.