Friendly Fire Newsletter - July 08

Welcome to the July 2008 Friendly Fire Newsletter!
[please forward widely]

Welcome again to the new and improved Friendly Fire Newsletter! This month is an exciting one for us (as always!) because we've been busy adding a lot of new features to our project.

To start, we have some more original content written by two of our collective members. Both articles focus on the subject of social and economic "precarity." They can be found below. If you have any comments or responses to these articles we'd love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to respond. This month we've also added a graphics section to our site. We've produced four original posters for this section including two for the upcoming RNC/DNC mobilizations (we're going, are you?), one on this month's "theme" of Precarity, and another glorifying our humble collective. We hope you enjoy them. They are downloadable in print quality so feel free to print and distribute them as you see fit!

And, as promised, the Friendly Fire Collective will be putting on its first event! On Saturday, July 26th at 8pm we will be in Dolores Park in San Francisco for a guerilla screening of Meeting Resistance, a film about the armed Iraqi resistance to US occupation. You can find out more info about the film and view a trailer at the film's website: http://meetingresistance.com/ . This is of course is a free event. Bring food, drinks, and a blanket and we'll see you there! (More events to come!!!)

Of course we have a collection of suggested readings and viewings as well that you should definitely check out as well. There are some great events coming up this month in the Bay Area that we'll be at, too, so make sure and take a look at the calendar. We hope you enjoy this month's newsletter. We'll be in touch.

--The Friendly Fire Collective
www.friendlyfirecollective.info

-------------------Friendly Fire Original Content-----------------------

"On the Edge: Precarity, Capitalism, and Looking Forward" by David Zlutnick, of the Friendly Fire Collective
http://friendlyfirecollective.info/articles/44/on-the-edge-precarity-capitalism-and-looking-forward

Precariedad, précarité, or precarietà. Take your pick. Those foreign words all translate roughly to "precarity," something many of us are undoubtedly familiar with even if we're unfamiliar with the word itself. All describe the current state of much of the work available to us in the US and Western Europe as our economies have transitioned from being based on industry to the service sector.

"Seeding the New Society: Combating Precarity and Fostering Autonomy" by Ian Alan Paul, of the Friendly Fire Collective
http://friendlyfirecollective.info/articles/45/seeding-the-new-society-combating-precarity-and-fostering-autonomy

With the rise of neoliberal economics and the proliferation of the police state after September 11th , the working class in the United States has found itself robbed of the securities and comforts that it had fought so hard to secure since the beginnings of the labor movement. As we look around at the conditions of our everyday lives, we find ourselves lost in the cacophony that is precarity. With little to no job-security, no hopes of owning property, rising food and energy costs, and the privatization and mediation of our social and cultural spaces, we are left adrift in a violent storm of social and economic disorder. This article is an attempt to properly articulate the conditions of precarity, as well as identify possible paths forward in the fight for a new society free of such conditions.

----------------------------------Suggested Reading----------------------------------

"Hope in a Time of Elections: Movement Building at the Summer Conventions" by Cindy Milstein
http://friendlyfirecollective.info/articles/43/hope-in-a-time-of-elections-movement-building-at-the-summer-conventions

"The world as it is, is not the world as it has to be." Long our basic aspiration, this ideal now springs from a U.S. presidential contender. And yet the gap between the change that Barack Obama promises and the transformation that we know is crucial may offer a space of possibility. For even as liberals are utilizing "hope" to captivate millions this election, embodied in Obama's "New Politics," I would maintain that those of us who seek a nonhierarchical world are still the real carriers of utopia. Nevertheless, this election supplies us the opening to reject statism in a way that's sensitive to the historical moment and prefigurative of a directly democratic society—but only if we mind the gap.

"What to Expect at the Democratic National Convention- A Response to Crimethinc." by Unconventional Denver
http://friendlyfirecollective.info/articles/41/what-to-expect-at-the-democratic-national-convention-a-response-to-crimethinc

Recently we added to our collection of articles a piece by CrimethInc. about countering the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions entitled "What to Expect from the Conventions". Since then we have spoken with organizers from Unconventional Denver who are one of the main groups organizing against the DNC and they voiced their concerns and objections over some of the information CrimethInc. put forward in this writing.

----------------------------------Video----------------------------------

"RIP George Carlin: Tell It Like It Is"
http://friendlyfirecollective.info/articles/42/rip-george-carlin-tell-it-like-it-is

This month we were saddened to learn of the death of George Carlin. He was one of our favorite comedians due to his incredibly astute (albeit sometimes obscene) societal observations. We'll miss ya.

------------------------------Graphics-----------------------------------

*'Smash the Conventions' RNC/DNC poster #1*

Jpeg for Web Viewing
Pdf for Printing (large file)

*'Smash the Conventions' RNC/DNC poster #2*

Jpeg for Web Viewing
Pdf for Printing (large file)

*Friendly Fire Promotional Poster*

Jpeg for Web Viewing
Pdf for Printing (large file)

*Precarity Advertisement*

Jpeg for Web Viewing
Pdf for Printing (large file)

----------------------------------Bay Area Calendar----------------------------------

Dos Americas: The Reconstruction of New Orleans
Screening of a new film from Upheaval Productions

This documentary focuses on those rebuilding New Orleans through interviews with some of the estimated 100,000 Latino migrant laborers who have converged in this area over the almost three years since Hurricane Katrina. The city's Latino community is facing terrible working conditions, massive fraud, a housing crisis, severe harassment by law enforcement, and very limited resources. But at the same time it is organizing to defend itself against these injustices and is attempting to bridge the gap between themselves as new residents and the pre-Katrina population, all within the context of the extremely unique and tragic context of post-Katrina New Orleans.

You can see a trailer for the film at
www.upheavalproductions.com.

Screenings will be taking place throughout the US in the coming months.
Posted below are those that are confirmed, but check back with Friendly Fire to see when your city is coming up!
------------------

Screening Dates:

San Francisco:
TOMORROW!
Wednesday July 9th
8pm at Station 40
3030B 16th St. @ Mission St.
FREE!

Santa Cruz:
Sunday July 20th
7:30pm
at the Resource Center for Nonviolence
515 Broadway @ Ocean St.
FREE!

San Francisco:
Wednesday July 30th
7:30pm
at the Women's Building
3543 18th St. btw. Valencia and Guerrero
This will be a joint-event with La Raza Centro Legal (www.lrcl.org)
connecting issues of immigrant worker justice in New Orleans with that in
the Bay Area. Dos Americas will be shown and it will be followed by a
panel discussion with local organizers.***
FREE! (donations will gladly be accepted)

San Diego:
Friday August 1st
Joyce Beers Community Center
1220 Cleveland Ave.
FREE!

Dates in Los Angeles, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Oakland, New York, New Orleans, Boston, Barcelona, and many more to be announced soon!

RNC/DNC Bay Area Consulta
Think you'll be going to either convention? Be sure to come to the consulta to hear about what will be happening at each convention and network with other bay area radicals who plan on going!
Date: Sunday, July 20th
Time: Noon
Location: Bound Together Bookstore, 1369 Haight Street (at Masonic), S.F.

*CRITICAL MASS!!!*
Bicycle! Bicycle! Get on your bikes and ride!
Date: Friday June 27th (and the last Friday of every month!)
Time: Gather at 5:30pm, leave at 6:00pm
Location: Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco, CA

Check back at friendlyfirecollective.info for more additions to the calendar as the month goes on.

------------------------------------------------

And finally, we do have one note in regards to our last newsletter. This is copied from what we posted on our site a couple weeks back:

"Recently we added a piece by CrimethInc. about countering the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions entitled What to Expect from the Conventions. Since then we have spoken with organizers from Unconventional Denver who are one of the main groups organizing against the DNC and they voiced their concerns and objections over some of the information CrimethInc. put forward in their writing.

When we published What to Expect from the Conventions we were most interested in the discussion over strategy and the response CrimethInc. put forward to the important and ongoing question: Should we organize against summits? After reading the article we thought it was a good written work containing points that should be put forth to the larger radical community both in hopes of expanding upon this discussion and, in our view, bringing people out to the conventions—both the DNC and RNC.

According to Unconventional Denver, CrimethInc.'s article had some misinformation as to what will be taking place in Denver during the DNC and they have written a response in order to clear up some of the confusion and further encourage participation in both counter-convention actions. As no members of Friendly Fire are directly involved in the organizing around either the DNC or the RNC we are taking the word of the organizers from Unconventional Denver as to what statements are facts and myths, as we did with CrimethInc.'s What to Expect at the Conventions.

We are happy to assist Unconventional Denver in getting their response out and hope that we have not added to the confusion. Nonetheless we still find much of what CrimethInc. wrote in terms of strategy to be important and useful and encourage readers to read both articles:

What to Expect from the Conventions by CrimethInc.

What to Expect at the Democratic National Convention- A Response to
Crimethinc. by Unconventional Denver

See you all at the conventions!"