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Move into the Light?: Postscript to a turbulent 2007

28-11-2007 16:34

"Move into the Light?: Postscript to a turbulent 2007"

By Turbulence

At the beginning of 2007, the Turbulence collective commissioned 14 articles from around the global 'movement of movements', asking authors: "What would it mean to win?" We edited their responses into a newspaper and printed 7,000 copies, most of which were distributed at the mobilisation against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, in June. A few months later, we want to return to the question of winning.

As we resume our search it's no surprise that we keep coming across the problem of visibility. When we think about winning, our eyes are drawn to things that are highly visible or easy-to-measure, such as institutional or legislative change, the opening of a social centre or an increase in membership. That's where the light is. But we also need to assess victories in the less tangible though just as real realm of possibilities. Winning in this realm may involve increased potential, changes in perception or patterns of behaviour. Yet these seem to exist at the very edge of the luminous zone.

This problem leads into another: our experiences create their own luminosity and consequently their own areas of darkness. When we think about winning we are drawn to movements, people and events that are familiar to us; and we have expectations about how things should turn out if they are to constitute a victory.

So how can we overcome our night-blindness once we move beyond the familiar?...


To download the new Turbulence booklet, "Move into the Light?", as a PDF go to:  http://www.turbulence.org.uk/Resources/postscript_1107.pdf

To help distribute the booklet, or to offer a translation, please write to:  editors@turbulence.org.uk

A web-banner linking directly to the article can also be downloaded from:  http://www.turbulence.org.uk/Resources/banner_234x60.jpg

Copies of the booklet can be ordered via our website, www.turbulence.org.uk

And, as ever, we're keen for comments, criticism and feedback on the text.

The Editors

www.turbulence.org.uk
 editors@turbulence.org.uk

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Plane Stupid Disrupt Parliamentary Committee In Commons

28-11-2007 16:17

3.15pm - Climate activists opposed to plans for a third runway at Heathrow this afternoon disrupted a Parliamentary inquiry going on inside the House of Commons. Protestors from climate action group, Plane Stupid, disrupted the proceedings of the Transport Select Committee who were hearing evidence from BAA boss, Steven Nelson and Aviation Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick.

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New Deal boot camps

28-11-2007 16:05

An in-depth undercover investigation into New Deal boot camps.

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Arab States Brand Annapolis Futile Media Event

28-11-2007 16:02

The fact that Israel's ruling Extremists have planned massive attacks on Gaza, the W. Bank, and possibly Lebanon to follow the event, they appear to be correct. They, and the media, have made much of the meme that a failure at the meeting will result in violence, while ignoring the warnings from Israel's defense staff that recent measures of Collective Punishment will provoke violence.

It appears they plan to confuse the two, and Frame their planned aggression as a 'response' to this violence, which they will blame on Annapolis.

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Beating exploitation: No Sweat conference, Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 December

28-11-2007 15:47

The seventh annual No Sweat conference takes place this weekend in London.

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"Northern Rock"

28-11-2007 15:31

Northern Rock, Northern Wreck, Northern Crock, Northern Crook or whatever they're calling it this week was last week leaking deposits at a rate of £200 million per day. Hence the anxiety to get a big brand name on board in the shape of the Virgin conglomerate. And so the zombie staggers on to continue devouring the newly printed money being fed to it by Browns Bank of England.

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Iraq Has Only Militants, No Civilians - "Tactical Perception Management" in Iraq

28-11-2007 15:10

"Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him." -- Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

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Palestine Today 112807

28-11-2007 15:08

Audio
Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday, November 28th, 2007.

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Peak Oil Activists Gather, Plan for Hard Times, Will Lead the Way

28-11-2007 14:49

YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO – Former professor and author David Korten told close to 300 applauding peak oil activists that they are not a fringe minority but the leading edge of a super-majority "and it's time we start acting like it."

Korten issued his rallying call in October at the "Fourth U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions" where activists from 30 some states discussed ways to respond to declining oil production and other coming planetary woes. Korten joined a dozen other speakers in "Planning for Hard Times," the theme of the three-day conference sponsored by Community Solution at Antioch College.

"The day of reckoning for our profligate ways has arrived," Korten said. "Peak oil, climate chaos, exhaustion of freshwater, species extinction, financial collapse, and social disintegration are causing a great unraveling." Now is the time, Korten said, for a great turning from a 5000-year history of empire, driven today by a suicidal competition over the earth's remaining resources, to a cooperative earth community which shares resources to maintain healthy communities, families and natural systems.

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Defend State Education

28-11-2007 14:28

MARCH AND RALLY

DEFEND STATE EDUCATION

NO TO ACADEMIES

NO TO PRIVATISATION OF OUR SCHOOLS

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We’ll Come to Gaza - END 'al Nakba' NOW!

28-11-2007 14:24

Peace Con kicks off with 6 dead in 24 hours.
Bulldozers, tanks & fighter planes.
Welcome to Gaza

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Gates Foundation Millions to divert popular protest movement, South Africa

28-11-2007 14:22

Gates Foundation Injects $10 Million into Embedded NGO that Claims to Represent Shack Dwellers. Abahlali, the Durban Shack Dwelllers Movement, an amazing community response to the failure of ANC party politics on the ground, responds with a brilliant critique and a resolution to keep on fighting.

"Today is just another ordinary day in our struggle. The march is not ours. The money is not for us. Our struggle is ours. Our struggle continues. Our struggle is for land and housing in democratic cities" Abahlali

Check
 http://www.abahlali.org/
for why this movement is one of the most important struggles we could support today!!

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US signs deal for long-term occupation of Iraq

28-11-2007 13:30

President Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki signed an agreement Monday paving the way for the long-term occupation of the Middle Eastern country and its transformation into a semi-colonial protectorate of the US.

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Iraq : Looking Back : 'Internationally Sponsored Genocide'

28-11-2007 13:30

Looking through material for the book that has been far too long in the making, I found a copy of a letter which I sent to a prominent (UK) Member of Parliament. It is dated November 1993 and clarifies for ever why the invaders were never going to be greeted with 'sweets and flowers'.

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Free Manchester and the Buy Nothing Balloons

28-11-2007 12:57

Balloon banners, free stuff and alarm bells at the Trafford Centre...

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Global Capital Flows to the Rich

28-11-2007 12:53

The global imbalance today seems more dangerous for all other countries than for the US. A fundamental reform of the international monetary system is overdue. The US dollar is no longer the stable anchor of the world monetary system. It would be nice if the US would participate in a cooperative process by tackling the indigenous roots of its double deficit. But the developing countries cannot wait for this.

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What next in the Blaired Party donations business?

28-11-2007 05:35

What is going to happen next?
After another day of frantic, new, revelations about the latest North East of England ‘donor’ to the Blaired Party that the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is lumbered with, is it possible to imagine that anything different will happen to stop this phenomenally predominant feature surrounding what used to be called the Labour Party?

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Jahongir Sidikov: Facing Deportation this Evening - Still Time to Stop It

28-11-2007 01:00

Jahongir Sidikov
There is an update on Craig Murray's blog, reproduced below, about the case of Jahongir Sidikov who is facing deportation to Uzbekistan on Wednesday 28th November, to face prison, torture and death.

See also:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386602.html and  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386289.html and  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386193.html

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Why Have Enrichment Plants When there are no Reactors?

27-11-2007 23:30

At a conference in Paris on Thursday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Mr. Javier Solana, said Iran’s stated ambitions concerning its enriched uranium output were inconsistent with its acquisition of the civilian nuclear technology that would justify it. He said: “It is a bit like if you were trying to make your own fuel before having purchased a car and learned how to drive,”

Unfortunately, Mr. Solana’s comment is misguided.

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International Campaign for Release of the Cuban Five Intensifies

27-11-2007 23:28

Geoffrey Bottoms with Gerardo Hernández
British reverend Geoffrey Bottoms said on Monday that international solidarity with the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters who remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States continues to grow...