Viewpoint Magazine

The Singer in the Subway: Damon C. Scott and Storm Queen

Shuja Haider March 1, 2012

In 2007, Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten and Grammy Award-winning classical violinist Joshua Bell teamed up to play a prank on commuters in Washington, DC’s public transportation system. Weingarten’s account of what he called “an experiment in context, perception and priorities—as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste” appeared in a Post article called “Pearls Before Breakfast.” It describes how Bell stood in the L’Enfant Plaza Station posing as a subway busker, and performed a selection of classical pieces typical of his concerts. He played them on his Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius—a 300-year-old piece of wood that is valued at $3.5 million.

Work

Viewpoint Magazine February 27, 2012

Last Thursday night, workers for Serious Materials in Chicago occupied their factory. The night before, Occupy Philly’s Education and Training Working Group held a meeting of its ten-week “Dissecting Capitalism” workshop, at the Lancaster Avenue Autonomous Space. Viewpoint editor Salar Mohandesi spoke on the topic “Contemporary Labor and Workplace Struggles,” along with Sean West Wispy, an organizer at Occupy Philly with experience in the labor movement.

Porkchops for All! The 100th Anniversary of the San Diego Free Speech Fights

Trevor Jones February 23, 2012

On January 8th, 1912, the business and property owners of the San Diego Common Council passed Ordinance No. 4623. The function of the ordinance: to criminalize free speech in a zone centered around the intersection of 5th and E streets, populated primarily by workers. By January 16th, the IWW had responded by forming the “California Free Speech League,” with the support of socialists, churches, and other union locals. The Wobblies, with the benefit of sheer numbers and little else, sought to test the ordinance and its enforcement with aggressive soapboxing and incessant speechifying in the restricted zone.

On the Black Bloc

Salar Mohandesi February 12, 2012

The “internecine ultra-left argument of the moment,” says the Wall Street Journal, is the debate over the “black bloc.” And if this debate has led the WSJ to talk about “ultra-leftism,” it’s clearly a debate we have to address.

Santa Rita, I Hate Every Inch of You

Jeb Purucker February 6, 2012

Twenty-four hours into my incarceration in Santa Rita Jail, I found myself in yet another tactical conversation, dissecting the numerous failures that had led to the kettling and mass arrests of about 400 Occupy Oakland demonstrators. This is one of the few upsides of a mass arrest. After getting the rowdy activists off the streets, the police find themselves hosting a three-day strategy conference inside the jail. Whenever a conversation begins to get stale, the guards show up and shuffle people into new discussion groups, and the debate begins afresh.

Building the Red Army: The Death and Forbidden Rebirth of the Oakland Commune

Asad Haider January 29, 2012

“Don’t fuck with the Oakland Commune.” Words which will live forever in history, to be remembered and repeated at every glorious defeat inflicted upon the heroes of the future by mayors, police officers, unions, churches, and children. A letter, signed by the Occupy Oakland Move-In Assembly, promised to respond to the inevitable eviction of an illegal building occupation by “blockading the airport indefinitely.” Tactics only dreamed of by al-Qaeda, within the reach of Occupy Oakland after just four months. Yesterday these words were at the center of a material practice which brought our movement up against its limits.

Voices from the Rank and File: Remembering Marty Glaberman and Stan Weir

Staughton Lynd January 23, 2012

I have been asked to say a few words about Marty Glaberman and Stan Weir. It may be that the request is prompted in part by recent events on the West Coast waterfront. I have followed those events with interest, but I am not there and I have not had an opportunity to talk with participants. Accordingly, please consider my remarks about my departed friends and comrades on their own merits, such as they may be, and accept my assurance that no implicit message about current events is intended.

A Constituent Power Greater Than its Parts: Occupy and Workers from the Port Shutdown to the Primaries

Steven Colatrella January 20, 2012

From its beginnings in New York City to the recent West Coast Port Shutdown, the Occupy movement has consistently confronted the issue of co-optation. About a month and a half or so ago, many participants voiced worries about being co-opted by MoveOn, the Democrats, unions (to a lesser extent, since they had shown up as allies without seeming to try to monopolize the definition of actions and events), and other groups affiliated with the political parties.

“It is better to fight”: On Martin and Malcolm

Wendell Hassan Marsh January 16, 2012

The effigy of a black man, a son of Southern soil and descendant of slaves, now stands over the nation’s Mall among its founding fathers, notorious slave owner in front and the so-called Great Emancipator to his back. Looking out over the placid Tidal Basin with a steely-eyed reserve and chiseled determination, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, the first monument on the Mall dedicated to a man of color, has whipped up yet another tempest of protest. Besides the same types who did not and still do not commemorate the life of this influential Civil Rights leader on the third Monday of every January, other dissenters have noted that the veined, confrontational depiction of the Brother Preacher by the Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin does not evoke the round docility associated with the open-armed love of nonviolence. For them, the image goes against what they see as King’s true legacy, while others see the statute as an appropriate stance of well-grounded, stony defiance and pride.

Hostile and Notorious: The Conditions of Private Property

Mark Paschal January 11, 2012

Following the recent four-day occupation of an empty bank building at 75 River Street in Santa Cruz and the attempted occupation of an empty warehouse in Seattle, the controversial tactic of attempting to seize and hold vacant private property has been taken up as a new front of a sprawling social movement. These actions move beyond protesting the enclosure of public space and stifling of free speech; they aim to expand the scope of critique to the role that private property plays in our current crisis. This change in scope has not been lost on the landlords. “I’m definitely not in agreement with this group taking over private property,” a local property owner told the Mercury News.