The Damned Evangelist - Rhythm and Movement

National Film Unit production 'Rhythm and Movement' (1948) re-mixed with songs by my old band, The Damned Evangelist (RIP).

The playlist for this video includes: 'Thee Arival' and 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', which come from our 2008 7" vinyl EP 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' (Stink Magnetic). More on The Damned Evangelist can be found at http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-g... and https://myspace.com/thedamnedevangelist

This re-mix involved no editing at all (although the end title was brought forward). I'm stoked how nicely the film matches up captures the weird, cult-like groove.

More on the original National Film Unit production held at Archives New Zealand can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVIIf...

Wellington Film Screening: An Injury to One

Join us on Friday June 20th at 7pm to watch An Injury To One, screening at the Peoples Cinema, Wellington (57 Manners St).

AN INJURY TO ONE provides an absolutely compelling glimpse of a particularly volatile moment in early 20th century American labor history and the effects of mining on the community of Butte, Montana.

The Anaconda mine in Butte has become the largest environmental disaster site in the United States. It’s open pit is a cocktail of contaminated materials: a century after the era of intensive mining and smelting the area around the city remains an environmental issue. Arsenic and heavy metals such as lead are found in high concentrations in some spots affected by old mining, and for a period of time in the 1990s the tap water was unsafe to drink due to poor filtration and decades-old wooden supply pipes. AN INJURY TO ONE looks at this disaster through it’s history of labour struggle — the mysterious death of Wobbly organizer Frank Little and the Speculator Fire of 1917. Much of the extant evidence is inscribed upon the landscape of Butte and its surroundings. Thus, a connection is drawn between the unsolved murder of Little, and the attempted murder of the town by a company in search of profit.

Archival footage mixes with deftly deployed intertitles, while the lyrics to traditional mining songs are accompanied by music from Bonnie Prince Billy, Jim O’Rourke, The Dirty Three and Low, producing an appropriately moody, effulgent, and strangely out-of-time soundtrack. The result is a unique film/video hybrid that combines painterly images, incisive writing, and a bold graphic sensibility to produce an articulate example of the aesthetic and political possibilities offered by filmmaking in the digital age.

“An astonishing document: part art and part speculative inquiry, buzzing with ambition and dedication. Takes us from the 19th century to the eve of the 21st, from Butte as land of frontier promise to Butte as land of death and environmental destruction. Travis wields avant-garde graphics and archival ephemera like a lasso, and his shots of modern-day Butte are allusive still-lifes that defy time and place. This is stirring, must-see stuff.“— Austin Chronicle

Entry is Koha!

Red Square Revolt: Student strikes in Quebec

Hellnation: band of the week...

This is what I'm listening to at the moment... thrashcore/powerviolence band Hellnation from Kentucky. And no, he's not using a double-kicker. Happy fucking New Year!

Anarchism and Anarchy- Barry Pateman at the 2009 NAASN Conference

"Anarchism and Anarchy: A Historical Perspective" is an excellent opening Talk at the 2009 North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference by Barry Pateman, anarchist historian and writer. As well as anarchist historiography, Barry touches on organisational issues and his experiences of the 1984/5 Miners' Strike.

Past to Present: Lessons of the New Zealand Labour Movement (video of Occupy workshop)

'Past to Present: Lessons of the New Zealand Labour Movement' was a workshop I gave at Occupy Christchurch.

Due to the massive scope of the topic I limited my focus to major union struggles, but this should not be taken that I believe the union movement is the working class movement in New Zealand. There are so many struggles outside and against the unions that could also be talked about, but time did not permit this.

0.00 to 31.00 gives an overview of union struggles in New Zealand, and draws out lessons that could inform our future activity. Comments and responses follow, and includes talk about the nature of capital, general strikes, Occupy and the workers movement, co-operatives, and whether one can escape capitalism.

There were about 15-20 in the workshop, with people coming and going on the periphery as well. There was lots of nodding, which I guess is a good sign, and I hope this perspective has contributed to the analysis happening down at Christchurch Occupy.

'Remains to be Seen: Tracing Joe Hill's ashes in New Zealand' (Book Launch)

My speech at the Christchurch book launch (30 June, 2011). The book—an account of censorship, Joe Hill, and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during the First World War—is available to purchase at http://www.rebelpress.org.nz/publications/remains-to-be-seen

Operation 8: the movie

nzherald.co.nz: If you're not paranoid, you haven't been paying attention. It's an old line, coined half in wry humour, half in deadly earnest, but it has a special pungency for Wellington filmmaker Errol Wright.

Wright and co-director Abi King-Jones have spent most of the last three years making Operation 8, a restrained, even sober survey of the October 2007 "anti-terror raids" and their aftermath, that patiently paints a disturbing picture of the use of state force to suppress political dissent.

Wright is aware that the undertaking will have attracted close official attention. He recalls driving along a remote road late one evening and noticing a car a couple of hundred metres behind.
"My cellphone rang," he says, "so I pulled over to answer it. And the other car pulled over 200m back. Then when I drove off, it continued to follow me."

The incident spurred Wright to write to the Security Intelligence Service asking what information it held about him. He shows me the short letter he received in response. Over the signature of director Warren Tucker, it declines to confirm or deny that the SIS holds anything. In doing so, the letter says, it relies on section 32 of the Privacy Act, which allows an agency to withhold information if its release could "prejudice the maintenance of the law".

"Which is a yes," chips in King-Jones.

"We have just taken the view that we expect there will be surveillance [of us] and we carry on. It's not a very nice feeling, but it brings you closer to the world of the people you are documenting."

The events of October 15, 2007 introduced the word "terrorist" into our domestic political discourse for the first time since 9/11 made it the century's most electrifying buzzword. More than 300 police raided 60 houses around the country, many in the Ruatoki valley in the heart of Tuhoe country.
The raids, which resulted in 18 arrests, followed more than a year of surveillance and related to an alleged paramilitary training camp deep in the forests of the Urewera ranges.

Within less than four weeks, the police case was in tatters: charges laid under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 were dropped after the Solicitor-General declined to prosecute them. He specifically defended the police action, but said there was insufficient evidence to sustain the charges, brought under legislation he called "complex and incoherent" and "almost impossible to apply to domestic circumstances".

The firearms charges that remain are scheduled to be heard - controversially before a judge alone, not a jury, for reasons that have themselves been suppressed - next month in Auckland.

Operation 8 - the film takes its title from the police codename for the 2007 raids - deliberately avoids using an instructive or tendentious voiceover. But it provides a pretty useful summary of a story which, its makers fear, has fallen off the public radar.

"I think a lot of people are saying 'whatever happened with that? Are they in prison?'," says King-Jones. "Other people think the whole issue was finished when the Solicitor-General made the decision. People want to know - and they need to know - what happened and why."

What's new about the film is that it gives a voice to those who have so far been voiceless. The opening shots, a helicopter-eye view of the forest, plays over the words of 12-year-old Patricia Lambert, caught in the raids on Tuhoe.

"I saw all these people in black," she says. "It was really scary."

Patricia ushers in the testimony of others in Tuhoe and elsewhere whose stories of police actions would be comical if they were not so chilling: unlocked doors kicked down; fences smashed a few metres from a wide-open gate; children and grannies in their nightwear, kneeling on wet concrete at gunpoint; officers yelling "you will be sent to Guantanamo!".

Meanwhile a gallery of talking heads including security analyst Paul Buchanan, law professor Jane Kelsey and lawyer Moana Jackson comment lucidly and disturbingly on the original actions and the conduct of the case since.

There is testimony from former cops too, including Ross Meurant, whose contribution lent the film its subtitle "Deep in the Forest", and a one-time undercover man who makes some troubling inferences from the size of a police application for a surveillance warrant.

Wright and King-Jones are aware of the charge that they sometimes appear almost to merge with their subjects. At one point, one of the more eloquent of those arrested, Valerie Morse, accosts Detective Sergeant Aaron Pascoe, the head of the operation, outside the Auckland District Court. "Do you really think I am a terrorist?", she asks.

The microphone she thrusts towards him is plugged into King's camera and I feel constrained to ask him whether he has crossed the invisible, but important, line between a documentarian and his subject.
"I think it's impossible to be totally neutral when you are making something. It's very difficult to understand what the environment is for being a political activist in NZ if you don't spend enough time finding out."

Adds King-Jones: "When you collect all this observational material, you get to know these people. It's an important part of the process because these people are in a way quite isolated because of what they have been through. You have to get over their very understandable suspicion. They are wondering 'Are you someone that can be trusted?' or 'What's your angle?', that sort of thing. You can't really separate yourself from your environment."

No one disputes that most, if not all, of the 18 have a history of activism. But the film raises concerns about the role police anti-terrorism measures can play in stifling the legitimate dissent that is the lifeblood of democracy.

Wright and King-Jones point out that what might be dubbed the "protest movement" has been sidelined since the 1970s when political dissent was commonplace.

"It's been really crushed in the last 10 or 20 years," says Wright, "and this was a further crunch."
In any case they are impatient with the notion of objectivity, a term commonly used by people who wish something had been slanted their way.

"[In the raid], 18 people were arrested, 60 houses smashed into, stuff turned totally upside down," says Wright. "The police got to present their point of view through the media and they called press conferences all the time. They have a whole full-time PR team at Police National HQ. They are very well-resourced to look after their own interests. And at the same time, you have these people who really have no voice."

So is their film a dispassionate or activist one?

"Both, really," says King-Jones. "It's about allowing the audience to hear and see something and take away from it what they want. They don't want to be banged over the head with anything. But you want to be able to take them by the hand and lead them somewhere and say: 'What do you think of that?'."
Unsurprisingly the pair are hoping for a good turnout at the screenings - and even a bit of noise. "It's an opportunity for people to take stock of where this country is going," says Wright, "and ask themselves whether we want this kind of country. Because if we don't rein it in soon we are going to be in too deep."

King-Jones: "I just hope that audiences will get a first-hand experience of the people who were targeted. If you are able to get a broader picture of where this has all come from, maybe you will go away from it being more aware of what's going on."

Operation 8: Deep In The Forest screens at the Paramount in Wellington tomorrow at 2.45pm and at Skycity Theatre in Auckland on Monday at 3pm and 8.15pm as part of the World Cinema Showcase.

Taking ourselves seriously

A talk given at Bluestockings Books in New York, New York on Sunday, October 18, 2009 by members of the Institute for Anarchist Studies with Josh MacPhee, Maia Ramnath, and Joshua Stephens. Anarchism has become a widely espoused organizational practice in radical American communities, but many anarchists seem to revel in the margins and are prone to dismissing their own potential. Join our panelists for a discussion of the long haul of social transformation as we work toward an egalitarian, directly democratic society.

What Would Jesus Buy? December film night!

Beyond Resistance presents (in true Christmas spirit): What Would Jesus Buy?

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!

From producer Morgan Spurlock (SUPER SIZE ME) and director Rob VanAlkemade comes a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas. Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer’s jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping.

Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands.

Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland.

Watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCQEhqZO-gE

Food, drinks and childcare will be provided, so come on down and join your local anarchists as part of our monthly film nights at the WEA! Zines, books and more will also be available on the night.

Thursday 17th December. Doors open: 6.30pm. Film starts: 7pm.
WEA (59 Gloucester Street), Otautahi/Christchurch.

Koha entry.

Free NZ films to celebrate Labour Day!

Workers of New Zealand unite!

While you’re relaxing this long weekend, take some time out to reflect on the reason you’re enjoying a holiday and check out NZ On Screen’s collection of Labour Day related titles.

Labour Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. In 1840, carpenter Samuel Parnell won a world-leading eight-hour day for workers in the Wellington settlement: “It must be on these terms or none at all!”

The collection includes the John Bates documentary 1951 (about the 1951 waterside workers strike), which won Best Documentary and Best Director at the 2002 NZ Television Awards.

1997 TV Awards winner Revolution is also included. Produced by Marcia Russell, this four part series about the sweeping economic and social changes of the 1980s is available in full.

Campaigning filmmaker Alister Barry’s two highly-acclaimed political documentaries Someone Else’s Country (The Dominion: "alarmingly enlighening") and In a Land of Plenty offer critical perspectives on the same era.

In the famous 1970 Gallery episode Brian Edwards resolves a long-running Post Office industrial dispute live on air.

The collection also shows classic National Film Unit titles - To Live in the City (1967), Railway Worker (1948), The Coaster (1950) and Coal From Westland (1943). To Live in the City follows four young Māori - Ripeka, Moana, Grace and Phillip - as they transition from school, whānau and rural life to the city.

Railway Worker covers 24 hours of work on the railways and was made by New Zealand’s first female director, Margaret Thomson. The Coaster was written by the poet Denis Glover and narrated by Selwyn Toogood and became famous as the film which led to Cecil Holmes losing his job, after its content riled unionist Fintan Patrick Walsh.

NZ On Screen is the NZ On Air-funded website set up last year to showcase New Zealand television and film. You can see the Labour Day Collection, and over 700 other titles, free of charge at www.nzonscreen.com.

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize!?

Explosive Expression Art Auction

Wahi and the Wobblies! Film night

"Fire Your Boss!"... "Abolish the wage system!"

With their revolutionary slogans, union cards, and a swag of 'silent agitators' (stickers, posters etc), the Industrial Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies, took to organizing the working class into the 'OBU' (one big union). In the process of challenging capitalism and fighting for workplace democracy, the Wobblies were one of the few unions to be racially and sexually integrated, and were often met with imprisonment, violence, and the privations of prolonged strikes. Their influence was worldwide, having an effect on New Zealand's militant labour unions of the early 20th century and Aotearoa struggles such as the 1912 Waihi Strike.

Beyond Resistance is proud to present The Wobblies, an award-winning film which takes a provocative look at the history of this radical union and the concepts of Revolutionary Unionsim, screening the unforgettable and still-fiery voices of Wobbly members — lumberjacks, migratory workers, and silk weavers —in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Eerily echoing current times, The Wobblies boldly investigates a world torn by naked corporate greed and the red-hot rift between the industrial masters and the rabble-rousing workers in the field and factory. Replete with song and gorgeous archival footage, the film pays tribute to workers who took the ideals of equality and free speech seriously enough to die for them.

And as a special treat, we will also be screening the world premier of Black Tuesday, a short film on the Waihi Strike of 1912 — one of Aotearoa's most violent (and fatal) industrial struggles.

Watch the Wobblies trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5l7uwtqkqU

Food, drinks and childcare will be provided, so come on down and join your local anarchists as part of our monthly film nights at the WEA! Zines, books and more will also be available on the night thanks to the lovely folks at Katipo Books.

Thursday 24 September, 6.30pm.
WEA (59 Gloucester Street), Otautahi/Christchurch.

Entry by Koha/donation.

Film length: 86 minutes

For more information contact:
otautahianarchists (at )gmail.com
http://beyondresistance.wordpress.com/

See you then!

Black Tuesday and the 1912 Waihi Strike

On 'Black Tuesday' November 12, 1914, Frederick George Evans became the first worker killed in an industrial dispute in New Zealand. This short film shows the strike and the struggle which lead up to his death, in a hope to share more of New Zealand's militant labour history.

My account of this part of our history doesn't pretend to be objective or unbiased — as they say, you can't be neutral on a moving train. Watch at full screen size to get a better view of the subtitles.

Salt of the Earth: film screening

You are warmly invited to the screening of...



SALT OF THE EARTH
Come and see the only film ever blacklisted by the US government!

Join us for a film on feminism, class struggle and community way ahead of its time! Based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico and against the backdrop of McCarthyism, Salt of the Earth uses the real protagonists of the strike to re-tell their own story. During the course of the strike, the unionists and their wives find their roles reversed — an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line — confronting the company and their own husbands in the process, and evolving from male subordinates into their allies and equals.

Salt of the Earth is a powerful and emotionally charged feature length film. It was banned by the US government and is remarkable, not just because of the fact that the producers used only five cast members who were professional actors — the rest were locals from Grant County, New Mexico, or members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Local 890 (many of whom were part of an actual strike that inspired the story) — but because of its pro-feminist and anti-patriarchy themes years before the civil rights movement and 60's wave of feminism.

Food, drinks and childcare will be provided on the night, so come down and join your local anarchists for a night of film and fun!

Thursday 30 July, 6.30pm.
WEA (59 Gloucester Street), Otautahi/Christchurch.
Entry by Koha/donation.

Film length:
1 hour 30 minutes.

For more information contact:
otautahianarchists@gmail.com

See you then!

Monty Python and Anarcho-Syndicalism

Otautahi happenings: Film and Hui

A friendly reminder on some upcoming events in Otautahi over the next week or two!

Ethel MacDonald: An Anarchist’s Story
A BBC Documentary on Ethel MacDonald and the Spanish Revolution

Film Screening:
Thursday 28 May, 6.30pm
At the WEA (59 Gloucester Street)

Join us, to follow on film, the compelling true story of Ethel Macdonald — a remarkable individual, working-class woman and Scottish anarchist. In 1936 Ethel left for the frontlines of the Spanish Civil war to join the revolutionary struggle in Barcelona. Through written accounts and radio broadcasts on the impact of fascist forces on the Republic, Ethel became the voice of the anarchist movement in both Spain and England.

With a combination of narration, historical video, re-enactments and Ethel’s own personal accounts, BBC Scotland has successfully put together an exhilarating and inspiring documentary on Ethel's life and the Spanish Revolution. We encourage you to come and see the film, and join us for discussion afterwards.

Drinks and nibbles provided but BYO food welcome!

Entry by koha/donation.

Please forward widely — All welcome!
Contact: Jared garage.collective@gmail.com
Check out: http://www.spanishcivilwarfilm.com


// ANARCHIST TEA PARTY ///

Calling all friends, radical wåhine, community organisers, curious bystanders, anti-capitalist children, militant gardeners, workplace delegates and self described (or unidentified) anarchists! Come along to what will hopefully be the first of regular ANARCHIST TEA PARTIES, to catch up, meet and greet, share food and ideas, and brainstorm on ways of organising in Otautahi.

Bring your picnic gear, a plate of food to share, your kiddies and your thinking caps as we look to explore possible future actions, as well as creating solidarity and sustainable friendships for the future.

Some ideas to brainstorm could include (but may not be limited to):

— regular get togethers, educational events, public assemblies, tea parties and a regional hui.
— an Otautahi Network of groups, or a mailing list/conatct email at the very minimum.
— an Otautahi broadsheet/newspaper of libertarian ideas, actions and activities.
— any other exciting ideas!

SATURDAY JUNE 6TH
Latimer Square — 11am onwards

We look forward to your company and your ideas!

In solidarity,
Jess, Dan, Al and Jared.

Obama supporters left empty and lifeless after his winning of the Presidency...

Salt of the Earth

Made in 1954 and during the height of the McCarthy era by a group of blacklisted filmmakers, Salt of the Earth is a powerful and emotionally charged feature length film. It was banned by the US government and is remarkable, not just because of the fact that the producers used only five cast members who were professional actors — the rest were locals from Grant County, New Mexico, or members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Local 890 (many of whom were part of an actual strike that inspired the story) — but because of its pro-feminist and anti-patriarchy themes years before the civil rights movement and 60's wave of feminism.

Salt of the Earth is based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico. Against a backdrop of social injustice, a riveting family drama is played out by the characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find their roles reversed: an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties. The women evolve from men's subordinates into their allies and equals.

The copyright was never renewed, so it is now in the public domain and free to download.