Category Archives: Inspiring Moments in Resistance

Refugees and Anarchists – Greece’s Burgeoning Popular Resistance

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Resistance in Athens

Medialien (2016)

Film Review

Resistance in Athens is a short documentary about the ongoing dismemberment of Greece by the Syriza government to satisfy harsh bailout conditions imposed by the IMF and European banks. As brutal austerity measures continue to shrink the Greek economy, unemployment (now at 25%) and hunger continue to increase and more than 200,000 young people have left Greece for other European countries.

Meanwhile a continuing influx of Syrian, Afghan and African refugees across the Mediterranean continues to fuel the resistance movement. Owing to government budget shortfalls and refusal by other EU countries to accept non-European migrants, Greek anarchists and socialists have played a major role in welcoming refugees and meeting their needs for shelter, food and other survival needs.

The documentary focuses on Exarcheia, a growing self-governing anarchist community spanning four decades.

For me, the highlight of the film was the personal interviews –  with Exarcheia members about their work with traumatized refugee children and with refugees who have turned against capitalism due to their brutal treatment by European authorities.

Click on the cc icon in the lower right hand corner for English subtitles.

Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement

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Berkeley in the Sixties

Directed by Mark Kitchell (2002)

Film Review

Berkeley in the sixties is a documentary about the history of 1960s Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement (FSM). Prior to watching the film, I had no idea that Youth for Goldwater helped start the FSM, joining forces with left leaning groups in 12-18 hour strategy meetings aimed at a university ban on political information tables. By necessity, these meetings made decisions by consensus. Decisions based on majority vote always engendered the risk the losing minority would walk away.

In 1963, the FSM would collaborate with black civil rights leaders in a massive civil disobedience that forced San Francisco hotels to end their discriminatory hiring practices.

Following this initial victory, the FSM oriented their protests against the Vietnam War, inspiring similar actions by tens of thousands of students at campuses across the US. In 1967, they successfully shut down the Oakland army induction center for five days.

The documentary also explores the FSM collaboration with the Oakland Black Panther Party in the Free Huey movement, their tenuous linkages with the CIA-fabricated  (see How the CIA Used LSD to Destroy the New Left Haight Ashbury counterculture movement and their involvement in the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

There is some great footage of Berkeley President Clark Kerr and Governor Ronald Reagan behaving like assholes.

*Newton was framed for the manslaughter of Oakland police officer John Frey during a Panther gun battle with the police. He was ultimately released after three unsuccessful attempts to convict him.

Relocalization: Opting Out of Corporate Society

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Diversidad: A Road Trip to Reconstruct Dinner

Solutionary Pictures (2010)

Film Review

Diversidad tells the story of a 35-day bicycle trip the Sierra Youth Coalition took from Vancouver to Tijuana in 2003. Their goal was to visit West Coast rural farming communities as a prelude to their participation in the 2003 anti-WTO protest in Cancun Mexico.

The goal of the fifth ministerial round of WTO negotiations was to resolve a dispute between developed and developing countries over agricultural trade. North American and Europe hoped to use the WTO to force developing countries to drop all trade barriers that were blocking US and EU agrobusinesses from dumping cheap food on agricultural nations. By 2003, NAFTA*, the precursor to the WTO, had allowed US agrobusiness to put two million Mexican farmers out of work by flooding their markets with cheap corn.

Building Alternatives to the Corporate Economy

The most surprising aspect of the cycle trip was the discovery of a vast network of rural communities and urban neighborhoods that are busily creating an alternative to the capitalist economic system by consciously decreasing consumption, changing consumption choices and building strong local economies

In Olympia, Washington, for example, they discover that Evergreen State College is training students in organic agriculture techniques, as well as new economic models, such as Community Supported Agriculture, to increase access to cheap, locally produced organic foods. In 2003 Thurston County (where Olympia is located) already held a national record as the country with the most CSAs.**

In Oakland, they stay with an African American group which had started a large organic garden in the Oakland ghetto. Likewise in Watts, they stay with the “Seed Lady,” an African American woman who got a scholarship to study organic farming in Cuba. After learning how to grow organic food in containers on concrete, as they do in Havana, she returned to engage her neighborhood in launching the Watts Garden Club.

This is in stark contrast to what the fifteen cyclists discover in Salinas, where they meet with Hispanic farm workers and and discover the corporate farms they work on have lost all their topsoil. Because the remaining soil has been destroyed through mismanagement, it no longer supports crop growth without heavy application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Cancun WTO Negotiations Collapse

Diversidad ends with dramatic footage of the anti-WTO protests in Cancun, attended by farmers from all over the world. The protest would attract global media attention after one of the Korean farmers mounted the heavy iron fence barricading the protest area and killed himself with a knife.

Buoyed by the ferocity of the protests outside, the third world WTO delegates refused to cave in, as they had in 1999. (See This is What Democracy Looks Like)

Why TPP Was Negotiated in Secret

By 2010 when Diversidad was released, the industrialized world had given up on the WTO as a vehicle for consolidating profits for their multinational corporations. However, unbeknownst to the filmmakers, Obama was already negotiating a new pro-corporate trade treaty called the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) to replace the WTO.

TPP negotiations were conducted in  secret to circumvent the massive popular opposition that repeatedly shut down WTO negotiations. However thanks to Wikileaks, which leaked portions of the secret TPP text over a period years, TPP is highly unlikely to be ratified owing to massive popular opposition to TPP in all 12 partner countries.*** (See Rock Against the TPP)

*The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral rules-based trade bloc in North America.

**Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is an alternative, locally based economic model of agriculture and food distribution in which consumers advance purchase a share in a farmer’s crop and receive regular distributions of fresh fruits and vegetables in season. (See Top 10 Reasons to Join a CSA)

***Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton officially oppose TPP.

 

Opting Out of “Market Society”

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East of Bridgeway

By N8 (2015)

Film Review

East of Bridgeway is about an off-the-grid “anchor out” community of about 50 families living on boats in Sausalito Harbor and their ongoing harassment by authorities.

While boat owners are technically squatting, there’s no federal law prohibiting off shore anchorage and state and local laws are too vague to be enforceable.

Because they can’t legally evict them, Sausalito City Council periodically harasses boat owners (especially if their numbers start to exceed 50) by hiring a legal contractor to impound and crush some of their boats. At other times, the Sausalito police and Marin County sheriff set up check points to accost owners as they row out to their boats. Or they call in the Coast Guard who demand to board residents’ boats to make sure they have life vests.

Residents view Coast Guard boardings as illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The Coast Guard maintains that maritime law grants them the right to board any vessel (without a warrant) in open water. However this viewpoint clearly contradicts a Supreme Court ruling in a Florida case that limits this right to vessels involved in international trade or transport.

The filmmaker intersperses snapshots of the close knit “anchor out” community with heated Sausalito City Council meetings and a TED talk on the transformation of American democracy to a “market society,” in which everything is up for sale and so-called market values dominate every aspect of life.

It’s clear that the Sausalito “anchor out” community is consciously resisting this transformation. In their view, they’re simply demanding the freedom to be themselves. One community member states this quite eloquently when he observes that liberty lies in the hearts of men and women – that it can’t be protected by the Constitution or the courts if it dies in the human heart.

 

Britain’s Squatters Movement

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Give Us Space

Directed by Claudia Tomas (2015)

Film Review

Give us Space is about the grassroots movement which has formed in response to the British housing crisis. It features fascinating interviews with squatters and other housing activists. All are extremely critical of Conservative policies that make it virtually impossible for working people to find affordable housing in London.

In addition to the current recession, which has driven down wages, the mortgage/foreclosure crisis and the government sell-off of subsidized housing, British workers also confront skyrocketing house prices and rents due to speculation by foreign buyers (who purchase homes they don’t intend to live in as assets).

As one activist points out, Asian countries charge foreign buyers a 15% tax to discourage speculation in their property market. In Britain, in contrast, the government actively encourages developers to market their property to foreign buyers.

For me the most interesting part of the film was the history of Britain’s squatters movement, which first began after World War II. At the time, there were insufficient homes to accommodate soldiers returning from the front.

In 1946, squatting in vacant buildings was so widespread that the government permitted local councils to charge squatters rent.

The movement experienced a resurgence in the late sixties with the release of the Ken Loach film Cathy Come Home and again following the 2008 economic downturn.

Chasing Edward Snowden

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Chasing Edward Snowden

Anonymous (2016)

Film Review

Chasing Edward Snowden is an extremely well made documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s escape from Hong Kong to Moscow and the role played by Wikileaks and the Hong Kong government in facilitating his escape.

Prior to seeing the film, I was unaware Snowden (under US indictment for treason) had reached out for Wikileaks’ help nor that Putin initially turned down his asylum request when he refused to work for the FSB.

All this changed, when France, under US pressure, denied the Bolivian presidential jet access to French airspace. Acting on false rumors spread by Wikileaks, the US and France believed President Morales had smuggled Snowden onto his plane.

Because the French action contravened Geneva conventions, world opinion turned in Snowden’s favor, persuading Putin to reverse himself and grant his asylum petition.

*FSB is the Russian state security agency that replaced the KGB.

Nuit Debut: Profile of an Insurrection

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Struggles at Nuit Debut

Media Lien (2016)

Film Review

Below is a videographic examination of the months long Nuit Debut (Up All Night) movement in Paris. The latter, along with a series of rolling strikes, is a reaction to the draconian anti-labor law President Francois Hollande illegally enacted by decree.

The documentary consists of dramatic street footage interspersed with participants offering a range of viewpoints on the French uprising. Owing to its spontaneous formation, Nuit Debut has little formal structure. In essence 500 plus people meet every night after work in the Place Republique from 5-11 pm, holding general assemblies and forming self-organized “commissions” devoted to specific areas of focus – climate/ecology, labor law, urban gardens, constitution reform, refugee rights, etc.

According to one member, the real political activity (strikes, protests, etc) occurs in small groups on the periphery of the general assemblies. Participants have a variety of expectations for Nuit Debut, ranging from insurrection, a new republic to some kind of commune.

On the whole, participants seem unconcerned about Nuit Debut being infiltrated and/or smashed (by police) as Occupy was. With Hollande’s wholesale embrace of austerity and budget cutting, the plight of France’s working class is deteriorating rapidly. Thus, activists reason, the steady expansion of Nuit Debut (and/or whatever resistance movement replaces it) is inevitable.

Click on the CC tab for English subtitles.

Anonymous Hackivists Flood ISIS Twitter Accounts with Gay Porn

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isis-hacker

According to Newsweek, after ISIS claimed responsibility for the Orlando shootings, an Anonymous hacker began flooding ISIS twitter accounts with LGBT pride messages, soft gay porn and links to gay porn websites.

The hacker, only known as WauchulaGhost, has tweeted several photos of hijacked ISIS accounts which had been promoting jihadist ideology and sharing images of mutilated bodies.

Their profile pictures have been changed to images containing slogans like “I’m gay and proud” or semi-naked men.

In the twisted version of Islam followed by ISIS supporters, mutilated bodies are okay, but gay pride messages are deeply offensive.

The vigilante hacker claims to have taken over 200 Twitter accounts belonging to ISIS supporters. However, many have since been taken down by Twitter*

WauchulaGhost plans to continue the campaign with two other hackers who go by the name Ebony and Yeti.

isis-gay-hackers

*There has been a year long campaign to get Twitter to shut down ISIS accounts depicting mutilated bodies. Apparently WauchulaGhost and his friends have found the secret. Interesting to see the honchos in charge of Twitter share the same sensitivities as ISIS.

Resistance Heroes in Occupied Palestine

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Atoms of Resistance

Priya Guns (2015)

Film Review

Atoms of Resistance is about individual acts of resistance in occupied Palestine. None of the Palestinians featured belong to any organized resistance movement. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) subjects them and their children to periodic shelling and bombing simply for their continued presence in territory Israel wants for its own settlers. From this perspective, simply choosing to remain (rather than becoming refugees in other countries) is a heroic act of resistance.

Beside exploring the mindset of Palestinian men and women who choose to endure Israel’s policy of preventive terrorism, the film features some great scenes of Palestinian children telling off IDF soldiers and pushing them around.

There’s also an interesting segment about Palestinian children studying copoeria, a Brazilian martial art that combines dance, aerobics and music.

How Rigged Voting Machines Are Stealing Our Elections

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Hacking Democracy - The Feature ...

Hacking Democracy

Directed by Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels (2006)

Film Review

Hacking Democracy is about Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting, and her efforts to end the systematic use of voting machines to alter American election results. At the time the documentary was made (2006), computers counted 80% of the votes cast in US elections. However because the software programs that run voting machines are considered “trade secrets,” neither candidates nor election officials have any way of auditing whether voting machines are accurately recording and tabulating votes.

A visit to the group’s website (http://blackboxvoting.org/) indicates the vote tampering Harris uncovered continues to be widespread. Big discrepancies between exit polls and “official” (machine tabulated) results suggest that vote rigging is even more widespread today than it was ten years ago. If anything these discrepancies are worse than ever in 2016. See What is #Exitpollgate?

The film mainly focuses on Diebold corporation, owing to a fluke in which Harris obtained copies of software code one of their employees (a whistleblower?) mistakenly uploaded to an old Diebold website. With the help of various software engineers, Harris successfully elucidated exactly how vote tampering occurred in various counties in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

She first became interested in the role of voting machines in vote rigging after finding a voting machine in Volusia County Florida that awarded Al Gore a grand total of minus 16,022 votes. Programming computers to record negative votes is essential to ensure that vote totals don’t exceed the total number of voters.

The film poses a number of unresolved mysteries, such as why John Kerry didn’t challenge the vote rigging in New Mexico and Ohio in 2004 – despite promises he made his supporters to fight voting machine tampering. Shortly after his concession speech Kerry, whose victory was assured by exit polls, acknowledged that vote counting in New Mexico (where every single Hispanic district voted for Bush) had been rigged.

Watch film free at https://watchdocumentaries.com/hacking-democracy/