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Protest, Creativity and (Refusing) Explanation

  
  

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Jackie Susann
04:39 / 14.10.02
Some of you probably know there is a WTO "mini-ministerial" in Sydney in November - basically, a meeting of trade ministers from various rich countries intent on fucking up the rest of the world etc. Predictably, certain groups responded to the acronym 'WTO' with a Pavlovian 'blockade!' (by which they mean a particular kind of blockade, basically a picket - sitting on your arses with arms linked hoping the cops don't crack your head open).

But I had a vision - the Spin the Bottle Bloc - a giant bottle and a giant game of spin the bottle played outside the WTO meeting as part of the protests. Recruited some enthusiastic friends and am now completely excited about the idea (making costumes for the bloc, etc.)

The problem is - some people just don't get it. People I think are reasonably switched on just asked, kind of embarrassed, 'so... what's the deal with spin the bottle'? I have trouble answering because it seems so obvious to me, probably because of the kind of friends, conversations and politics I have. It's NOT an avoidance of militancy; lots of spin the bottlers will be doing radical direct action when they're not (and even when they are) snogging each other. If I was going to sum it up in a line, I'd say it's about abolishing the cult of activist seriousness, the equation of protest with work ethic. But to have to say it like that, so formally, already seems to defeat the point.

This is making me think a lot, both specifically and broadly. Should we knock out a spin the bottle manifesto, or stick with a 'if you don't get it, you don't get it' line? How much energy should we, meaning people more broadly than my little bloc, expend on breaking through the barriers of narrow politicisation - is it worth trying to talk to Trotskyites (I mean the bad ones, because of course there are good ones, and bad anarchists, and bad non-aligned weirdums). Thoughts welcome...
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
07:42 / 14.10.02
You're going to catch a great deal of flack from humourless people who are nominally on your own side. Humour is dangerous to ideologies of any kind, and the hard Left - and other anti-globalisation positions - have often been as dogmatic and poe-faced as anyone. Since there's a (manufactured, but none the less troublesome) credibility gap around many anti-globalisation issues, the response has often been a rather flat 'this is a serious issue' as some glib suit smiles and trots out the PATEOTS argument about chemical waste or whatever in a tolerant way. On the other hand, this has massive potential - flowers in gun-barrels level, epochal image stuff.
 
 
grant
15:05 / 14.10.02
You should definitely circulate a manifesto. Heck, write up a press release and send it to the papers.
Make the humor central - satire is much beloved of a certain kind of journalist, I think.
 
 
nutella23
16:05 / 14.10.02
I like it. This is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to in another thread, the whole "be unpredictable" factor. Manifestos? Press kits? Sure. Why not? Make every protest a carnival from now on. The humourless-types can go gag on their fucking dogma for all I care.

Its not just manufactured consent we have to watch out for, manufactured dissent is just as dangerous to free speech as anything the corporate-owned media could dream up.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
16:27 / 14.10.02
It occurs to me that manifestos are inherently unfunny. Maybe you could have yours printed on bottles with instructions about how to play and where your bit of demo will be?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:05 / 14.10.02
First off- that's a fucking brilliant idea.

I think your reception will differ among different groups however- at the Stop The War demo in London a couple of weeks ago, we had a game to play called "Socialist Watcher"- you scored points depending on which socialist splinter groups you met that day. It was great fun, and we handed out scorecards to a fuck of a lot of people.

I did discover something of a humour differential, though- socialists tended to find the whole thing offensive, and that by taking the piss out of them, we were obviously Nazis of some kind. (Even though we repeatedly explained- "we know why we're here. You don't need to tell us.")

Anarchist groups, on the other hand, tended to be offended that they weren't on the list... and were glad to have one.

Crunchy- again I say, that's a fucking brilliant idea. Too often people forget that just because you have principles and GIVE A SHIT about stuff, you can still have a sense of humour. To paraphrase a glib expression "If I can't take the piss, it's not my fucking revolution".

I only wish I was over there to help you with it.
 
 
Jackie Susann
06:43 / 15.10.02
Sticking the manifestoes to bottles is such a good idea - although I worry about police, broken bottles, potential for trouble... maybe score some plastic empties. And I vehemently reject the idea that manifestoes are intrinsically unfunny - surely the opposite is true?

This in no way furthers the thread, but I just want to say that I am so excited about this project at the moment. I am recruiting crew to dress up in the STBB uniform - short cut-off jeans, tight, bright coloured T-shirts and sweat bands - to hand out stickers and pash at demos and meetings to publicise the bloc over the coming weeks. Am also scheming big ideas on the best possible giant bottle I can build in time.
 
 
The Falcon
13:51 / 15.10.02
Is this situationism? I think it is.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
16:48 / 15.10.02
this sounds bloody ace - how about handing out 'how to play' flyers and cola bottle sweets to passers0by?
 
 
grant
17:49 / 15.10.02
If you wanted to be generous, you could buy a case or two of bottled water (in the plastic bottles), xerox the manifesto onto crack-and-peel sticker paper, attach the stickers to the bottles over their labels and hand 'em out. The danger to that is that those bottles are frequently seen as disposable.

Manifestoes are all kind of funny, as far as I'm concerned.
 
 
Jackie Susann
02:42 / 16.10.02
No, this is not situationism.

I have made flyers - possibly I will stick some on water bottles, but they would be a lot harder to cart around and distro. The flyers are a compromise between explaining and refusing to explain. Unfortunately, due to space restrictions, I couldn't include my favourite line: "We are sick of having propaganda shoved down our throats by the organs of the capitalist press, and we have our own ideas about what organs our throats might like to accomodate." But I did work in estensive Nelly/"Hot In Herre" references, which compensates...
 
 
grant
14:38 / 16.10.02
Care to post a copy of your text on here??
 
 
Jackie Susann
00:50 / 18.10.02
SPIN THE BOTTLE AGAINST THE WTO

It's getting hot in herre, so let's fan the flames of discontent into tonsil hockey revolt! On November 14-15, the World Trade Organisation is coming to Sydney. As they work to advance their agenda of free trade and human misery, the SPIN THE BOTTLE BLOC will be making bold advances on a different agenda altogether. We are sick of the constant stream of propaganda shoved down our throats by the organs of the capitalist press, and we have our own ideas about which organs our throats would like to accomodate. And so we will spin the bottle against neoliberalism, against the camps, against the commodity, against the alienation of everyday life under capital and against reproducing that alienation in our activism. We invite YOU to join us for the most militant game of spin the bottle ever attempted - turning up the heat until every kiss becomes a molotov. Woo!

HOW U CAN PARTICIPATE:

* Look out for the STB Bloc with their giant bottle during the WTO protests - join the circle, pash an activist

* Organise an autonomous game of Spin The Bottle with comrades, friends or strangers

* Get involved with the Bloc and don the spunky uniform - contact montezboy@yahoo.com for more info

* Remember: ALL are welcome. Just as we long to break down the racist barriers capital imposes on the movement of people, so with spin the bottle we will break down the barriers capital imposes on desire - age, sex, race, class, sexuality and commodity beauty standards.


SEE YOU THERE

(The flyer has a big picture of Nelly in an "I want you" pose and transfer lettering "I am getting so hot" slogans around the main text.)
 
 
Persephone
02:08 / 18.10.02
I think this is so brilliant. I love the molotov cocktail-bottle-spinthebottle chain. Cola bottle sweets are brilliant, too. Wouldn't those plastic Coke bottles molded to look like olden glass bottles be the best? Emptied and delabeled? You could put the flyers in the bottles, then you would have the frisson of messageinabottle. And they would be light to carry.
 
 
Jackie Susann
21:00 / 28.10.02
more wto excitement - the gay and lesbian mardi grad is in financial crisis, has recently been bought out, etc., and so today they are auctioning off a bunch of old props. a bunch of wto affinity groups are sending people to try and pick up crazy stuff to blockade with - imagine - giant jars of sodomite blocking the street!
 
 
Jackie Susann
03:13 / 08.11.02
Interested parties should check out the call to international spin the bottle solidarity in the Gathering.

The bottle is going well; it's six and a half feet tall. There is some concern about how best to make it spin, but we will overcome.
 
 
zarathustra_k
05:11 / 08.11.02
Well I love the idea; it does sound like it is in the same vein as Situationism though. Humor and politics with a slight spin of seriousness is such a lovely mixture. I suppose that it really does not matter, labels right. As for the idea of "Manufacturing Dissent”, anyone who has worked with Gen X and younger leftists, know exactly what this means. Dare they laugh at anything in this world?
-Cheers
 
 
Pepsi Max
11:36 / 08.11.02
*Puts on serious pants*

DPC> I think it's a fun idea.

Definitely think that sending it to the press would be a good idea.

Kiss Me Quick hats? Lapel badges.

"Kiss-Lips" stamps and pink ink?

Some kind of visible marker that people have been 'Spun' would be handy.

Should you explain creative forms of protest, or let them explain themselves?

I think you should design forms of protest that explain themselves. As such, I think Spin The Bottle and the WTO doesn't really mesh.

Dead Crunchy Pirate - The Barry Humphries of the AnarchoLeft
 
 
rizla mission
13:30 / 08.11.02
Um .. it's a cool idea in theory, but it occurs to me that snogging / being snogged by a whole bunch of random people might not be everyone's idea of fun..

..which I suppose puts me squarely in the "doesn't get it" category.. oh well..

General protest through fun/silly things I'm definitely all in favour of though..
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:32 / 09.11.02
Random replies:

I really don't think 'humour and politics with a slight spin of seriousness' is an apt description of situationism. The situationists were shit boring; their reputation for being funny is, as far as I can tell, completely undeserved.

And I think Spin The Bottle does explain itself, because it's nothing but itself. It's not a demand. It's just the idea that it would be fun to have a giant game of spin the bottle in the middle of the street. It isn't based on any negative relation to something it sets itself against; it's a demonstration of alternative kinds of power and community. At worst, it cannot be worse than any form of street theatre, ever.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
08:20 / 09.11.02
I really don't think 'humour and politics with a slight spin of seriousness' is an apt description of situationism. The situationists were shit boring; their reputation for being funny is, as far as I can tell, completely undeserved.

Oh no the situationist were shit funny. Just not on purpose.
"You with your non-revolutionary praxis are just a tool of the bourgeois piglets I spit on you!" "but I am a revolutionary I don't like modernist archetecture and I want to over throw ze state!" "Your buildings have walls! You totally miss the revolutionary practice of arranging Situations! Bourjouraidsis pig sucker!" "Fuck your Situations I am experience moments when I walk on my Derive" "Drift all you want you are bougeugaodiskdjm!"

And so on.

Fuck explanation that is when you become boring.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
21:01 / 10.11.02
DPC: Where and when? For the curious, y'know. Creative protest is good, methinks...
 
 
Jackie Susann
01:12 / 13.11.02
It was going to be 10 am tomorrow, the 14th, outside ACM (who run Australia's migrant detention centres). However, for various reasons (in particular the slowness of paint drying), it looks like being at an uncertain time outside the meeting on Friday.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:47 / 13.11.02
Good luck. Hope all goes well.
 
 
Jackie Susann
06:01 / 14.11.02
Quick note - the NSW police minister mentioned the Spin The Bottle Bloc in parliament today! I don't have a link but if anyone finds one, I would love to see it.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:25 / 14.11.02
Cripes, what did he say? "This is exactly the kind of perverted behaviour that would provoke my honest, humble officers into cracking some skulls"? The reports & photos I've seen so far, both from Sydney Indymedia and things like the Sydney Morning Herald & BBC, suggest a typically scary and OTT police presence - good luck out there, Crunchy & kids.

On a lighter note, browsing the pictures I can't help but notice that the Sydney/Oz lot are very well turned out - puts the London/UK protestors to shame. However I've so far failed to identify any Spin-the-Bottle Bloc peeps - what do the banners/bottles etc look like?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:36 / 15.11.02
Found it - it's from Hansard via Sydney Indymedia. Here's the relevant bit:

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: A site called "Active Sydney" runs a messaging system. These are sophisticated protestors. They use information technology to cause maximum chaos in the city. They are running an SMS messaging service, which allows people involved in the demonstration to contact and be informed of where they should do something called "spin the bottle". I read from the site.

For example, if your text message reads "SMUG the bottle is spinning on the corner of pitt and park" then all subscribers to SMUG will get the message on their phone: "the bottle is spinning on the corner of pitt and park". It's simple!

Then you try to work out what is "spin the bottle". That is even more intriguing. It says:

Spin the bottle takes the form of a blockade. The spin the bottle blockade takes on the WTO in a no-holds-barred fight to the finish. And you can join them.

I will not read the rest of it, but it goes on to say:

We invite you to join us for the most militant game of spin the bottle ever attempted - turning up the heat until every kiss becomes a molotov.

The Greens come into this Chamber and pretend they are running peaceful protests. If they wanted a peaceful protest, they would go to protests permitted by the police. The police have permitted demonstrations against the WTO, and they ought to attend those. No. What do they choose to do? They choose to run wild in the streets. I heard Ms Lee Rhiannon and I think Hon. Ian Cohen as well making comments that I and the police were responsible for the violence that they until this question time had not sought to distance themselves from. I have asked Ms Lee Rhiannon on three or four occasions to distance herself from violent protest action. She chose not to until it actually occurred in the streets this morning. Then did she come into the House and made a personal explanation, to try to distance herself from it. The Greens are hypocrites, and they have been exposed as such.

I have in front of me, off the web site again, the "[No2wto] sydney minutes". These are the minutes of the meeting from 21 September 2002, in which there is an endorsement of mass action and a game of spin the bottle. I asked the Greens to tell me that none of their people participated in the "[No2wto] sydney minutes" meeting, where that particular strategy of spin the bottle was endorsed. It is a simple question. Did the Greens get involved in that? Were the Greens involved? If so, what did they discuss? And why are they condoning this sort of action? I might note that the very group that was running this forum in this Parliament is actually providing information on "arrest procedures, charges and rights". Now, why would you be providing that information if you are going to go along to a peaceful demonstration? So they are preparing their legal action for a violent confrontation with the police. That is what they have got. They are responsible. They cannot hide from that.


Congratulations, Crunchy: you have helped prove this man's idiocy beyond a shadow of a doubt. Those pesky Greens and their dangerously violent snogging games! There ought to be a law against it!
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:30 / 15.11.02
"preparing their legal action for a violent confrontation with the police. They are responsible".

Jesus. I don't know enough about Oz politics to know about this guy, but Jesus. What a prick.

(Are "bust cards" a given in Australia as they are in the UK? I would imagine they probably are. Any demonstration- and I mean ANY demonstration- briefs its participants on what to do if the worst happens. And this guy's trying to make that look like pre-planned mayhem and the downfall of civilisation? Jesus. What a prick. I think I may have said that already.)

A regime that thinks kissing in public is WRONG? Why don't they just ban women from showing their faces and have done with it. Then we can bomb 'em. (Or, alternatively- and more likely- a regime that is too removed from real life to know what "spin the bottle" is- now THAT's dangerous.)

Go for it, DPC. If they're convinced there's something seriously dangerous going on, you'll have full media coverage. Which they won't be able to retract once they realise there isn't.
 
 
Jackie Susann
03:32 / 17.11.02
Me and a mate are at a friendly student union about to go the hack with press releases and turn this into full-on media prank central. The Spin the Bottle Bloc Lives!

Believe it or not, the game planned didn't take place because the police confiscated the bottle - put it down for fifteen minutes while i was busy with other stuff and when i came back, it was gone.

Just to let youse know, the cops went pretty hard and so did we, but I'm okay, one friend has sprained tendons in his wrist, another a suspected fractured wrist, but generally we're doing good. The worst injury was to a journalist trampled by a police horse - internal bruising, hospitalised, fucked up pretty bad.

He later added: "I have challenged the Greens to tell me whether there were any representatives of the Greens at the protest against the WTO meeting that is being held in Sydney who were planning these events and who talked very clearly about a spin the bottle action—an activity conducted this morning that has led to disruption of the city and illegal behaviour."
 
 
Jackie Susann
20:15 / 17.11.02
Here's the text of the press release:

>>The Spin The Bottle Bloc, an activist group involved in the recent No-WTO protests, are planning a game of spin the bottle outside State Parliament on Wednesday after their six-foot bottle was confiscated by police at the Olympic site on Friday. "We put it down for about fifteen minutes. When we came back it was gone," said Morris Day, a member of the Bloc. "It’s bad enough the police stopped us getting to the hotel, but when they stop us snogging each other, it’s just unaustralian."

The bottle – a fragile and completely unthreatening prop made of chicken wire, acetate and sticky tape – was obviously no danger, so why was it seized? The Spin The Bottle Bloc blame Police Minister Michael Costa, who denounced their planned action in State Parliament on Thursday. Mr Costa, having come across the phrase "spin the bottle" in activist communications, pondered the "intriguing" question, "what is ‘spin the bottle’?"

"Who doesn’t know what spin the bottle is?" asked Day. "Costa obviously wasn’t invited to the right parties, but that’s what you get for wasting your youth in party politics."

Mr Costa liberally and inaccurately paraphrased from the Spin The Bottle Bloc’s call to action, explaining: "Spin the bottle takes the form of a blockade. The spin the bottle blockade takes on the WTO in a no-holds-barred fight to the finish. And you can join them. I will not read the rest of it, but it goes on to say: We invite you to join us for the most militant game of spin the bottle ever attempted - turning up the heat until every kiss becomes a molotov… [Protestors] have defined what spin the bottle is in postings on the Internet. They have come here for violent confrontation…" The idea that spin the bottle is a "violent confrontation" is absurd. In context, the use of words like "molotov" was obviously a joke, a metaphor. A metaphor, for the police minister’s benefit, is when you use words in a symbolic rather than a literal way. For example, when we say we’ve been laughing our arses off at what a fuckhead Michael Costa is, we do not actually mean that our bottoms have fallen from our bodies, or that Michael Costa’s cranium is some kind of sexual plaything.

Although it’s hard to take any of this seriously, there is an important issue at stake. The New South Wales Police Minister cannot tell the difference between pashing and terrorism. In Parliament, spin the bottle was his one and only example of protestors’ "disturbing threats of violence", his justification for aggressive police tactics. The minister has wasted millions of dollars and injured dozens of people defending WTO delegates against the threat of tonsil hockey.<<

and the links to the hansard where he discusses it are here and down the bottom of this one.
 
 
Pepsi Max
01:12 / 18.11.02
Shame you *ahem* lost your bottle. But the Costa speech is a slice of pure genius.
 
 
Jackie Susann
04:02 / 18.11.02
Latest news - Greens senator Lee Rhiannon is going to come to the rally, although she declined the offer to join the game. AND her office is helping us with media contacts.
 
 
Jackie Susann
05:51 / 19.11.02
Shout out to Aussie and especially Sydney kids - the Herald is running a spin the bottle story tomorrow morning but, more importantly, AAP - the major newswire - is picking it up. Have been told by the green media guy that this probably means I'll be getting calls from breakfast radio, etc., from about five am. Since I haven't slept a whole night since last Tuesday, I consider that a mixed blessing. But, obviously, I'm really excited. How often does a police minister drop a classic media prank in your lap?

I'm surfing now for good WTO material so I can sound intelligent on the radio. Expect to see us tomorrow on the national news.
 
 
grant
14:29 / 19.11.02
Rock ON!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:54 / 19.11.02
Oh, that is too good, that is all just too good! Well done, this is the most absurd and surreal thing I've heard all year, you might as well just be a terrorist or somethin' like that.
 
  

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