blocs

First, to get some terms clarified right away, "black bloc" describes most specifically a tactic, not necessarily a group of people. In an article like this one, where he talks about "Black Bloc anarchists" being the cancer on the occupy movement, the person is referring to a shifting group of people who have participated in actions using this tactic there and/or elsewhere. Many of these people might be anarchists, several others might not, there are sure to be a couple of undercover cops there in large groups, and ultimately, we might agree that it is not a particularly successful tactic at organizing a mass movement. The problem is that there is an un-specifiable contradiction in the occupy movement being at the same time leaderless and horizontal, and shunning then a commitment to diversity of tactics as one would for free speech. So, there stands the fact that as long as occupies around the place continue to refuse organizing, an organization for political organizing, there will be "black blocs" and all kinds of other things, anarchist or not. Organizing does not restrict itself to the formation of political organizations, by any means, in fact it applies most directly to organizing one's own social activities, housing and nutrition for every family, productive role in your community (something similar but better to what most people think of as "employment"), so forth and so on. Different and better ways to use all the great things we have learned and accomplished so far, and this time in a direction of our choosing for the common benefit of all. This could be anarchy, but I digress. The point is that there are many very serious anarchists in Oakland and elsewhere who get a very bad rep from badly construed generalizations of diatribes like this one against "Black Bloc anarchists". Indeed, the occupy movement has suffered much from getting used as background for vanguardist and spontaneist attempts at struggle using such tactics sure to instigate a riot by the police. But so have many occupies suffered much from harassing, driving away, and even turning in to the police many serious anarchists, being accused exactly along the lines of this article against the cancerous "Black Bloc anarchists", when in fact most of the people they marginalized were far more experienced and dedicated to organizing than the white-breat spring-chickens that just budded with the occupy movement. They were running soup kitchens for years for the homeless community, they were running CopWatch and medics for years before any of these people knew that police brutality could happen to them, and they were the only ones organized to provide legal and jail support (e.g. in Denver) when the occupy camp was raided the first couple of times. But the ones who shunned "cancerous" anarchists of all stripes because they opposed only taking actions with permits, opposed a cordon of peace-police around every march that would impinge even on people's freedom of speech and shout them down from using "violent" language, and so on... So, let's get serious now. A blogger is not going to contribute one iota towards the cure for this "cancer" bitching about it the way he does. The use of "black bloc" tactics is a resort of generally well-meaning young people who are given neither support by the majority of people who generally agree with the occupy movement but refuse to escalate their taunting into a popular uprising (as in Tunisia and Egypt, for example), nor are they given the training and courage or necessity to use more effective tactics that are less about building a movement than inflicting direct damage on the opponent. In places where movements take shape alongside more well established organizing around certain issues or places, for example the anti-nuclear movement in Germany, you might find "black blocs" being deployed for years of confrontation with the transportation of nuclear material to supply plants that still cause significant economic costs and political embarrassment for the political-economic elite, and similar tactics used in a variety of other struggles, sometimes tapping successfully into the broader movement that ultimately forces a political compromise of policy reform at the state, or if the hole is even lower (as we say in Brazil), then certainly the people resorting to this kind of action would need a serious organization, training, or dire need to cultivate their spontaneism and vanguardism into something truly revolutionary. So.... it is time to get organized! :)

2012

The beginning is near...moving to Arizona Bay

.

Tool:Aenema

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this

Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.

It's a
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this

Silly shit, stupid shit...

One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.

Learn to swim.

Mom's gonna fix it all soon.
Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to be.

Learn to swim.

Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all those gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.

Learn to swim.

Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.

Learn to swim.

Fuck smiley glad-hands
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.

Learn to swim.

Cuz I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom please flush it all away.
I wanna watch it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.

Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.

I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.

I wanna see it all come down.
suck it down.
flush it down.

good bye

... I went over a month without writing anything! From the last entry, about laziness, much has taken place. I translated a good portion of a book that will serve as the legal basis for the thesis I will present in my upcoming dissertation, I visited the university and a social movement of the Church in the city of Goiânia, where I got information and made contacts with the purpose of discerning a few possible sites for my field work in the next few years, and got excited and disillusioned with our Seleção in the world cup, went on a last trip to Bahia, and said good bye to my beloved friends and family in Brasil for now.

So, not much laziness at all, in fact, and much more that I busied myself with my own life and those around me, who I knew would be long distant, starting now, as I have returned to the US...

I won't be keeping this blog. There is much I am to write - and I will keep our own personal touch, friends, our own ways.

Preguiça; Laziness

Voltei para Brasília, e dês de então, tenho sofrido as mais lânguidas férias preguiçosas que me entrego há tempos..., dês de que estive em Cabo Frio perto do ano novo. Durmo quase sempre até depois das 9, as vezes 10, as vezes 11... Não lavo nem passo nem cozinho nem limpo nada além de meu próprio corpo. Nem mesmo as atividades que havia me entregue - a tradução de um livro, a busca de mais contatos para pesquisa - seguem ao passo ~esperado~. Mas, contudo, ainda não me sinto mal o suficiente por isso para realmente atravancar uma mudança de marcha. Afinal, devo curtir ainda essas férias - como férias - enquanto ainda posso. Logo, o passo de tudo mudará drasticamente.

I returned to Brasília and, since, I've been suffering the most languid lazy vacations that I give myself in some time..., since I was in Cabo Frio close to new year. I sleep almost always past 9, sometimes 10, sometimes 11... I don't wash don't iron don't cook nor clean anything beyond my own body. Not even the activities I had given myself - the translation of a book, the search for more research contacts - continue at the ~expected~ pace. Yet, however, I still don't feel bad enough about it to break myself into a change of gears. After all, I should still enjoy these vacations - as vacations - while I still can. Soon, the pace of it all will change drastically.

Agora, o que me incomoda mesmo, é estar tirando essas férias num ambiente que me estimula à desestimulaçao de atividades rotineiras. Poderia estar tirando tantas "férias" quanto tiro agora, e ainda assim cozinhar para mim mesmo, lavar minhas próprias roupas, etc. Não o faço, por que estou na casa de meus pais, e há uma pessoa empregada e encarregada dessas tarefas. E eu - e é aqui que entra o discomforto - não tenho a força de espírito para contrariar meus pais, meu histórico, e meus próprios hábitos que se despertam novamente (as 11 da manhã) comigo nesta casa na qual cresci.

Now, what actually bothers me, is to take these vacations in an environment that encourages me to disencouragement from daily activities. I could be taking as much "vacations" as I do now, and still cook for myself, wash my own clothes, etc. I don't do so because I am at my parents' house, and there is a person employed and responsible for these tasks. And I - and here is where my discomfort comes in - don't have the strength of spirit to go against my parents, my history, and my own habits that awake again (at 11 in the morning) with me in this house where I grew up.

Então vou tentar compensar, trabalhando na horta essa tarde... algo que não tive tempo, espaço, oportunidade, quando vivia sozinho em uma quitinete aonde "só se comia quem trabalhava" (inclusive meu gato, que trazia para casa os frutos de seu trabalho de caça: passarinhos, esquilos e camundongos. Claro, ele não comia estes seus troféus, que eu, após reconhecer e agradecer a ele por sua contribuição para nossa casa, jogava fora - e alimentava ele ração).

So I will try to compensate working in the garden this afternoon... something that I did not have the time, space, and opportunity while I lived alone in a studio where "only the ones who worked would eat" (including my cat, who would bring home the fruits of his hunting labor: birds, squirrels and mice. Of course, he did not eat these trophies of his, that I, after recognizing and thanking him for his contribution to our household, would throw away - and fed him pet feed).

Muzzle

(Smashing Pumpkins)

I fear that I'm ordinary, just like everyone
to lie here and die among the sorrows
adrift among the days
for everything I ever said
and everything I've ever done is gone and dead

...as all things must surely have to end!
...and great loves will one day have to part!

I know that I am meant for this world

my life has been extraordinary
blessed and cursed and won!

time heals but I'm forever broken
by and by the way...
have you ever heard the words
I'm singing in these songs?
it's for the girl I've loved all along
can a taste of love be so wrong...!?

as all things must surely have to end...
and great loves will one day have to part...
I know that I am meant for this world

and in my mind as I was floating
far above the clouds
some children laughed, I'd fall for certain
for thinking that I'd last
.. forever ..

but I knew -exactly- where -I was-
and I knew the meaning of it all
and I knew the distance to the sun
and I knew the *echo* that is love
and I knew the secrets in your spires
and I knew the emptiness of youth
and I knew the solitude of heart
and I knew the murmurs of the soul..........

and the world is drawn into your hands!
and the world is etched upon your heart!
and the world so hard to understand
is the world your can't live without!

and I knew the silence of the world.

De novo, lendo, escrevendo...

Cá estou novamente. Lendo (cada histórias!). Escrevendo. Na verdade, com o coração partido. Agridoce. Mas o trabalho continua se encaixando, peça por peça, gestalt-eando uma figura linda de futuro, pouco a pouco. Alguém me disse, em dias de viagem, que ~devagar vai longe~. Em dias assim, tento manter minhas vistas nesse horizonte.