RE: [OccupyLA] OLAASM- there's no such thing as peaceful, legal protest

Well I'm not part of OLAASM but I did want to say this, Hi my name is Rocio, and I'm a radical and I'm not afraid to have it be known!
[Also please don't be afraid! I swear we don't bite.]

I do however follow them and to my surprise they Follow Friday-ed me on Twitter sometime. [For those who don't know what the hell that means, there's a convention on Twitter that on Fridays you post under the #FollowFriday hashtag and encourage your followers to follow someone you think has great things to say!]

I loved the post. As much as I never would listen to a certain lawyer who has a god complex, she amongst opponents did make me realize that *actually* *legally* technically more or less for the last few decades the legal *status quo* has been that saying that local authorities have the right to restrict the time and place of your speech. I think its COMPLETE bullshit and many lawyers agaree, and that that interpretation of the law completely invalidates the whole premise of the 1st amendment. Why do I bring this up?

Someone said "I didn't know it was illegal to protest". Well... the way the world actually works the police and the government can pretty much decide your protest is illegal and arrest you, or deny you permits, and really your only real recourse is then to fight that bullshit in the courts and perhaps maybe win or just do it anyway an keep on doing it not caring what the authorities try to do to you. If anyone *actually* thinks you have any sort of inalienable right to protest wherever whenever you want without being bothered or arrested by the authorities that has been granted to you by your government, I hate to break it to you...

Your rights are NEVER given to you, they are hard fought for, and even more importantly, once they have been earned you have to keep fighting for them or they will be taken from you. What does this have to do with anything?

Protesting on the sidewalk may get attention and add a few followers but let's not kid ourselves that it will bring about all the necessary changes we need. This system will fight us tooth and nail for its survival. And if we do magically somehow get massive numbers we need, watch how quickly the police will start coming down on us for even marching in our designated free speech zones.

In one very important example: does anyone honestly think that the current system has ANY chance of so radically altering itself so that we may actually stop climate change before it's too late? Or even just slowing it down substantially so that not as many people will die as a result as in the worst case scenario?

If someone has a hypothesis of how we will feed everyone, house everyone, educate all who want to be educated, ending Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, and halt climate change before the point of no return by protesting on the sidewalk and only on permitted marches and by voting with the numbers that we have, please let me know about your miraculous plan! 'Cause I'm very worried, time is running out, and I'd like to actually make the changes needed.

I think the point of the article was that we will not solve the massive systemic problems we face by the traditional allowed methods.

We have to stop being obsessed with legality of actions. You know protesting is against the law in dictatorships right? Would that stop you? Do you think people in those societies who tell you you're being bad by breaking the law are right? Of course you don't! You should of course be concerned with the ethics and morality of your actions but that is the not the same as 100% legal.

Glad to hear the people who were trying to talk to the police were mic-checked and stopped! I'm all for truth and nuance. I'm also a little iffy about the way MacArthur park was painted. Sure it is mostly Latino & Black but it's one of the better known more multicultural parks in LA so that critique is whatever to me.

Sorry for the long ass post but I also wanted to say that they have it ON THE NAIL when they talk about the need to resist AND build alternatives. It is not one or the other. That is something the American Left generally sucks at, many groups unfortunately tend to do one or the other. I've never had much of a desire to go live in a commune or build some isolated utopia because that won't help my friends and family for shit and it won't help all the oppressed people out there. On the other hand, even if people know our status quo sucks, if they don't feel like there are any alternatives a lot of people are not gonna bother to try to change what the perceive as unchangeable. That is why it is vital that we present some sort of alternative so that people can see that things really can be different and will feel more empowered to take action.

And holy moly I can't believe I just wrote this post with how tired I currently am.

Finally, I totally get what that one person said about working with people you aren't totally in agreement with, that has been one of the most liberating things about Occupy movement for me. I have been much more open to discussing and trying to find solutions with people who aren't on the same page as me. At the same time I have no illusion that conflict is inevitable, and when certain worldviews and strategies are fundamentally incompatible and we will not be able to be completely inclusive if we stick to our most fundamental principles. [Most simply you cannot compromise with people who are trying to impoverish, kill you, or oppress you but luckily but those cases will be rare!]

Edit: [Originally Posted to the OccupyLA Listserv where the following article was posted: OLAASM- there's no such thing as peaceful, legal protest My post was a response to the lively thread where some people didn't want to to paint such a broad brush against liberals, some discomfort over the fact the linked blog is anonymous, some gripes about the factual inaccuracies surrounding the Occupy Oakland Solidarity March that OccupyLA did, concern that "radical" may be defined too narrowly, and a few people who loved the article!]

SlutWalk and Oppressed Groups hating one each other more than their Oppressors

So I just wrote a ton about SlutWalk because I read critiques that called them racist which I think are fundamentally misguided.

It's pretty much an infight between feminists who feel that they somehow represent all women of color and that white women's feminism completely ignores them (some does, but some does not).

What I find just mind-boggling is that these particular women of color's wrath seems most directed towards white feminist rather than say I dunno patriarchy or people who actively defend and protect patriarchy.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Fucking Leftist Sectarianism!

What happened to meeting people where they're at? That's why I'm glad I have an anarchist background, instead of screaming at people and saying "you're so RACIST, Feminists", I do bring up the issues I think are not addressed and don't let people not deal with them but at the same time not alienating them like these critics are doing off the bat.

Also on POC Organize whoever wrote the article basically said people like me are not *really* people of color because we happen to disagree with their over the top approach to critiquing Slutwalk, there are tokens who really do work against people of color's overall interests but you have to be very very careful that you don't just label people who don't agree with you tokens when they're not tokens.

Black people who think Black people's laziness are the reason Black people are disproportiontaely poor and that history or institutional racism have nothing to do with it are what I'd call tokens. I'm more likely to say hey some white feminists don't get class or race issues well yet but let's work with them and work on issues we care about in common and make them aware of what issues are important to working women and women of color instead of just "You're racist!" being the first thing out of your mouth.

Also I don't have time for this. Many strands of 21st century young women's Feminism are very inter-sectional and addresses race, class, sexual orientation, gender, ability, and immigration status. In fact Feminism is possibly the most intersectional movement in the left today. Other movements are moving that way but I've seen feminists talk about issues in a lot more detail than I've seen people doing class adequately discuss gender or those fighting against racism talk about gender or class.

Gone is the 70s feminism that completely ignore women of color and even that was mostly a strawman anyway. Betty Friedan for example actually was a labor journalist and wrote a lot on working women and women of color's issues before she wrote the Feminine Mystique. Focusing on white middle class women in that book may have not been the best decision IMO but critiques that she ignored other women in that book forget that she had long addressed those women's issues.

Anyway it is so typical of oppressed groups to reserve the worst of their wrath for others in their oppressed group and not the oppressor. It's an effect of oppression. It's a form of internalize oppression to be more harsh in judging other oppressed people than the oppressor.

Just my two cents.

P.S. I'm also not the oh we should just dialogue and be kumbayah type at all. I just think that these critiques are completely over-generalizing, creating rifts between women of color and white women more than there were before, and just generally ineffective.

These are the articles that have good intentions but just irritate me and make me think they're doing more harm than good in the way they went about it:

http://tothecurb.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/slutwalk-a-stroll-through-white-supremacy/

http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/activism/slutwalk-whiteness-privilege-sex-trafficking-women-color/

Edit: I think that pervasive sexual violence and sexism will not end without addressing gender roles, the construction of sexuality and violence in our culture, and the economic situation of women but we are not going to move forward in ending it if we just trash our potential allies at the first chance we get.

To say that these young women are racist because they are addressing sexism in the way that is most familiar to them when they are called sluts and experience sexual violence and then chide them for initially focusing on sexual oppression as related to appearance and saying that their attempts to take action are ultimately oppressive of women of color is counterproductive in my opinion. (Women of color get called sluts a lot too and they think that they shouldn’t be raped no matter what they were wearing either.) I completely understand where the critique is coming form but if when I said I was interested in Feminism at the beginning of college you went on a rant into very complex issues without a common starting point and chided me for not having perfect gender, race, sexual, anti-oppression politics you would really have lost me for a while. We very much need to address these issues in order to improve our situations but alienating allies like SlutWalk is not the way to go about this.

Also what do these critiques say about the women of color who are involved in Slut Walk? Are they not participating in making invisible and marginalizing these women? Why did they not instead ASK women of color in SlutWalk if they felt that it was not representing their needs? The articles I read assumed these things or said these people’s voices did not matter. One of the core tenets of anti-oppression politics is to ask before you assume people feel a certain way and not to speak for others whom you are not.

Originally this was posted as a Facebook note but a friend asked me to put it on a blog so that more people could see it! So here it is with some added clarifying thoughts of mine because the note was written for people who know me personally and I wanted to add some thoughts so people who don’t understand me do not think that I don’t think that white privilege or class privilege are not problems. They are, it just doesn’t help to throw those labels around without explaining why it matters or why it applies. I have read so many white Feminists who talk about how important ending white privilege, not necessarily enough but it’s not like they do not exist, they’re just being conveniently excluded from the conversation as well as women of color who don’t think SlutWalk is a racist organization.

What Media's Portrayal of Accusations of Sexual Assault against Assange show us about our Culture

Issues of consent are not taken very seriously by the media. In the Western world accusations of rape are handled in a bipolar fashion. On the one hand society says that rape is illegal and terrible. On the other it does a very poor job of handling sexual assault cases.

People (usually women) are routinely disbelieved when they say they have been sexually assaulted and even when they are believed they are often blamed as causing what happened to them. At the same time this is going on, society still holds on to the belief that rape one of the worst crimes and that rapists are horrible monsters. (This impression discounts in people's minds that friends of ours or people we know are capable of sexual assault.) This attitude obscures the reality that most sexual assaults occur between acquaintances and that often no overt physical violence (other than sexual intercourse or touching w/o consent and taking advantage of the victim's fear) is used.

Recently a Swedish prosecutor filed charges against, Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder, of sexual crimes because his female partner alleges she asked him to use a condom and he did not.

A little 101 on consent: If someone gives you consent to have sex with a condom it is NOT consent to have sex without a condom. You must specifically get consent for sex without a condom if the person only agreed to have sex with condom. If you're in the middle of having sex and the other person changes their mind, you have to stop or it is assault.

Keeping that in mind, the timing of these charges at a time when multiple Western governments are attempting to take out arrest warrants on Assange for releasing classified documents and some members of the media are accusing him of treason. I don't know enough about the allegations, or case to make a comment on whether Assange did or did not assault this woman other than that the timing is a little suspect but that does not change what happened that evening.

What does trouble me most about all the reports I've read is the misrepresentation of the charges. Many articles have reported that Assange is simply being charged for failing to using a condom, period. That is not the case. The charges are all about whether there was consent or not, and sex in the absence of consent is called sexual assault. I even had to endure listening to one of my favorite radical radio shows, where they repeated this misrepresentation.

As a member of the left I'm psychologically predisposed to be more likely to not believe these allegations, its a human trait to give your ingroup more slack, and I think its important for us supporters of Wikileaks to keep that in mind. On the same note, when I googled Assange's sexual assault case looking for a feminist blog post on it, instead I saw that numerous right-wing libertarians were discrediting the woman who made the allegations of sexual assault simply for being a “radical” feminist because in their train of thought radical feminists hate men and are out to get revenge on them. (Note to everyone caring about fairness and justice does not mean that you hate men!) I've also seen many Wikileaks supporters dismiss the allegation as just a smear campaign by the government and media. (They very well could be fueling the fire but that doesn't change what happened that night one way or the other!)

I wish the media would a) stop misrepresenting the charges b) do their job and investigate the likelihood of the allegations without bias c) and do a better job of addressing issues of consent.

Statistics of false sexual assault allegations are pretty low. Anyone who accuses someone famous of sexual assault faces an uphill battle. People are pretty complex creatures and on a rare occasion someone accuses someone else of a crime for whatever reasons they may have. We should keep this mind but we do not know much about the case.

I would like to debunk something else I read in this coverage. The Daily Mail dismissed the allegations of sexual assault because the woman was still friendly with Assange in the morning and uses this as evidence that the allegations are false. Some people appear to be fine immediately after a sexual assault because they are in shock and denial. Just because someone seems fine the next day is not evidence alone that nothing bad happened. The only criteria for whether sexual assault happened is the absence of consent. If someone is assaulted and they look fine that does not change the fact that the were assaulted.

I just don't know enough about the case to accuse Assange of sexual assault or to automatically clear his name. Reviewing the news about the case though caused me to want to address how utterly awful the discourse around what sexual assault is and how sexual assault victims act.

I do not know what happened in this case. What I do know is that most rapes and sexual assaults never get reported and that there are many times more actual sexual assaults that happen then false accusations. I believe it is important for innocent people not to be convicted of crimes they did not commit but I question why we we are so predisposed to believe that women are liars who would accuse someone of something so serious because the are jealous.

Journalists should do a better job of finding out what happened. We should not jump to try to pre-determining if Assange would never do such a thing or of assuming that he's a sexual perpetrator.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1307137/Supporters-dismissed-rape-accusations-WikiLeaks-founder-Julian-Assange--women-involved-tell-different-story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/world/europe/19assange.html?_r=1

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2276690/

The radical radio show mentioned: http://authoritysmashers.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/friday-december-3-2010/

http://studentactivism.net/2010/12/04/julian-assange-condoms-rape-and-sex-by-surprise

Songs On My Mind

Mark Knight - Shogun (Wally Lopez Mix)

Kid Cudi - Day N Nite (Crookers Mix)

Eric Entrena - Addicted (Scalambrin Mix)

Sunlounger Feat Zara - Lost

Finally (Bart B More Bootleg) - Ce Ce Peniston

This is one of my favorite tracks of 2008, a bit overplayed if you went to the clubs often,

But still awesome, and soundtrack to my year ;)

My Fave Trance Classics

So tonight is Classic Trance Night :)

Unfortunately when I was thinking of requests, I am having a really hard time deciding which 2 or 3 songs I want to request because there are so many amazing ones that I equally love.

Anyhow so here is a list of songs that are some of my favorite Trance Classics that I would love to hear played at a rave or club :)

My birthday requests:
DJ Encore - I See Right Through To You
Robert Nickson f. Elsa Hill - Close Your Eyes
Sasha & Digweed - Heaven Scent (Original Mix)
Paul van Dyk - Nothing But You
Voodoo & Serano - Blood Is Pumping
4 Strings - Diving
New Order - Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix)
Ferry Corstern - Punk
Benjamin Bates - Whole
Way Out West - Mindcircus (G&D remix)
Digital Pressure – Aftershock (Original Mix)
Sonorous – Protonic (Leama & Moor Remix)
Andy Moor – Halcyon (Alex Morph Remix)
Tiesto - Urban Train
Armin van Buuren - Sail
Oakenfold - Southern Sun (Tiesto mix)
A*S*Y*S – No More Fucking Rock´n´ Roll (Paul Van Dyk Edit)
Scott Hardkiss – Infinitely Gentle Blows (Infinite Aural Hallucination)
Solarstone - Solar Coaster
Oceanlab - Satellite
Ridgewalkers – Find (Andy Moor Remix)
Above & Beyond – Alone Tonight (Ronski Speed Remix)
Yoji Biomehanika – Hardstyle Disco (Original Mix)
Binary Finary – 1999 (Paul van Dyk Mix)
Energy 52 – Cafe del Mar (J00F, Marco V, or System F remix)
Delerium – Silence (Tiesto's In Search Of Sunrise Mix)
Andain – Beautiful Things (Gabriel & Dresden mix)
Kyau & Albert - Made of Sun
The Thrillseekers – Synaethesia (Paul van Dyk Mix Edit)
William Orbit – Barber's Adagio for Strings (Ferry Corsten Mix)
Push – Universal Nation (Radio Edit)
Enmass – CQ(Seek You)
Perpetuous Dreamer – The Sound of Goodbye (Above & Beyond Mix)

Fave Songs Of the Moment

So I have been wanting to make a list of some of my all-time favorites and its a quite long list.

Lets start out with ASYS - No More Fucking Rock n Roll (Paul van Dyk Edit)!

Of the semi-electronic kind
CSS - Music Is My Hot Sex
Ladytron - Seventeen