State of Emergency

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State of Emergency was a conference/festival/insurrection held in a reclaimed inner-city Melbourne warehouse, squatted and made public for four days over 21 - 24 May, 2004. It was a search for escape routes to galaxies where the word capitalism is untranslatable and to which people only respond with puzzled looks. It was a meeting-place, bar, cafe, cinema, music hall, accommodation and playspace.

This e-book is a collection of essays and articles relating to issues of globalisation, war on terror and fear politics, civil disobedience, squatting and contemporary organising models amongst disenfrachised communities which was distributed as part of the conference.

Excerpt from the State of Emergency Reader:

-------------------------------------- RED ALERT

Armed guards patrol 'civilian' aircraft. Travellers from suspicious states entering the USA are fingerprinted and photographed. Anti-terror laws allow anyone to be arrested without warrants or legal representation. Arms budgets inflate. The US runs a police state in Iraq while Australia becomes the 'sheriff' of the Asia-Pacific: interning its unwanted visitors here, providing military intervention there. Fear of the 'invading hordes' is the law. For the rulers of the global empire, the time since 9/11/2001 has been a 'state of emergency'.

But for the exploited, the poor, the different, the disenfranchised, nothing much has changed. Capitalism has always manufactured panics. It has always exploited our bodies, our minds, our time, our creativity, the planet on which we live. It has always forced us to move or given us no choice but to flee, reclassified us as illegal to suit its needs, barricaded itself against our strength and life and designed ever more spurious 'threats' to the state in order to shut down its people. Our daily lives are just as difficult as before. The state of emergency is not the exception, but the rule.

--------------------------------------- For full transcripts of the conference check out the State of Emergency website.

To download the PDF issue simply click on the attachment below.

REBIRTH - The Psychedelic Movement Comes of Age > eBooklet

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[eb04]_State_of_Emergency_Reader.pdf	1.86 MB

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