here's a nice bit of historical background written by a Meltdowner for this oh-so-famous speech of Mario Savio, immediately prior to the 1964 occupation of UC Berkeley:

"During the 1934 General Strike, that came out of the 83-day strike of maritime and longshore workers up and down the West Coast, the longshore workers reached out to the African America community and promised that if they refused to be used as scabs, they would break the color line and integrate the workforce. It worked and now the majority in ILWU local 10 is black. The ruling class would have tried to hire scabs from the African America community in Oakland, who were disproportionately suffering from the Depression. Oakland ended up being shut down just as tightly as San Francisco in '34. 12 years later Oakland would share the distinction of having a second General Strike with only Chicago and Philadelphia. Coincidentally, the site that launched the '46 General Strike was 2 striking department stores directly across from each other at the intersection where Telegraph Avenue ends by merging into Broadway in downtown Oakland. 4.6 miles away, Telegraph Avenue ends the other way as it forms a "T" with Bancroft Avenue at Sproul Hall and Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus. Even more coincidentally, the Oakland General Strike began on December 2, 1946 and exactly 18 years later, just 4.6 miles away, the most radical action of the Free Speech Movement was the occupation of Sproul Hall by 800 students on December 2, 1964 (here's the famous speech by Mario Savio, motivating his fellow students to go inside..."

[follow link]

jeebus, this conference is enormous.

Quoted: Confirmed speakers: Anna M. Agathangelou, Stanley Aronowitz, Gopal Balakrishnan, Benjamin Balthaser, Banu Bargu, Deepankar Basu, Karl Beitel, Riccardo Bellofiore, Aaron Benanav, Jasper Bernes, Paul Blackledge, George Caffentzis, Dana Cloud, Patricia Clough, Gérard Duménil, Hester Eisenstein, Sara Farris, Silvia Federici, Robert Fine, Duncan Foley, Benedetto Fontana, Maya Gonzalez, Paul Heideman, Nancy Holmstrom, Matt Huber, Robert Hullot-Kentor, Andrew Kliman, Sabu Kohso, Michael Krätke, Tim Kreiner, Deepa Kumar, David Laibman, Neil Larsen, Paul Le Blanc, William Lewis, Geoff Mann, Paul Mattick, Michael McCarthy, Annie McClanahan, Geoffrey McDonald, Alan Milchman, Simon Mohun, Gary Mongiovi, Fred Moseley, Justin Myers, August Nimtz, Bertell Ollman, Melda Ozturk, Ozgur Ozturk, Mi Park, Nina Power, Nagesh Rao, Jason Read, John Riddell, William Clare Roberts, Heather Rogers, Sander, Anwar Shaikh, Hasana Sharp, Tony Smith, Jason E. Smith, Richard Smith, Hae-Yung Song, Marcel Stoetzler, Lee Sustar, Peter Thomas, Massimiliano Tomba, Aylin Topal, Alberto Toscano, Ben Trott, Ramaa Vasudevan, Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo, Chris Vials, Marina Vishmidt, Joel Wainwright, Victor Wallis, Paul Warren, Evan Calder Williams, Ted Winslow, Christopher Wright

things are heating up in Denmark

Quoted: Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the chilly Danish capital and nearly 1,000 were detained Saturday in a mass rally to demand an ambitious global climate pact, just as talks hit a snag over rich nations' demands on China and other emerging economies.

complaining that "the police didn't warn us they were gonna arrest us" makes the whole thing seem like a big chess game, and much less like the social war that it actually is.

Quoted: Police on Friday arrested 65 protesters inside a classroom building that was partially taken over for several days at the University of California, Berkeley.

de-volution, maybe.

chapter 4 would go well if paired with Scarry.

Quoted: The Politics of Pain: Torturers and Their Masters

cool distro

started reading this finally, and it's actually pretty interesting.

art collective that is connected to Tiqqun in France.

their 'texts' page has some interesting writings, including a scan of the full French version of "Theorie de la Jeune-Fille"