No to Illegal Borders! No to Illegal Laws!
or, Short Notes About Long Links
Ricardo Dominguez (or something almost like him)
Hola tod@s,
So we come once more into this little zone to leave a few notes about this and that…of course more of this than that. Notes that will lead to crossing so many illegal borders and so many illegal laws that you may want to click the links offered below with blindfolds on.
[ No to Illegal Borders! No to Illegal Laws! ]
We still seem to be playing ping-pong across very hard borders with old fears that layer themselves on soft economic borders and new fear memes—the game all too artificial. In response to these artificial conditions of the *new normal*, artists, artivists and activists have been responding via the *new un-normal* of telematic gestures, micro-disturbances and, most importantly, with mass social manifestations across the arc of the realities.
You might enjoy *the little video about the Big March/El Video Pequeno Sobre La Gran Marcha:
Here in my part of the illegal border of San Diego we had the largest protest since the Viet Nam war take place Sunday, April 9, when up to 100,000 people jammed the streets to denounce the anti-immigrant bill proposed by the House of Representatives and demand "dignity, respect and hope" for both documented and undocumented immigrants. The march was inspiring and festive, but the rally speeches were long on emotional tales of immigrants making good in the U.S. and short on specific demands. Some immigrant-rights activists had criticized the march organizers for not specifically calling for amnesty for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S., and had held their own action the day before.
[Rewind Walkouts on HBO and on the Fast Forward Streets]
The artifactual and the real as both history and future echoed in the build up to the recent Walkouts.
The simulation: http://www.hbo.com/films/walkout/video/
The real: http://www.niagara-gazette.com/multimedia/gnnmultimedia_story_089045912.html
We also have had high school student walkouts across California and beyond that were quite large and vocal.
Then the All TOO REAL:
We now know that a young man committed suicide because of the aggressive school administration response to the walkouts—which now have been followed by a number of walkouts in his name:
*Eighth grader Anthony Soltero shot himself through the head on Thursday, March 30, after the assistant principal at De Anza Middle School told him that he was going to prison for three years because of his involvement as an organizer of the April 28 school walk-outs to protest the anti-immigrant legislation in Washington. The vice principal also forbade Anthony from attending graduation activities and threatened to fine his mother for Anthony's truancy and participation in the student protests.*
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3689773
*On April 15, 2006 in Los Angeles, led by the family of Anthony Soltero, several thousand people rallied Saturday at City Hall to demand reforms allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. Some students who had skipped school to take part in previous protests were among the marchers who waved Mexican and American flags and held signs with messages in English and Spanish such as: "Our parents are not terrorists."*
http://deletetheborder.org/node/948
[And now *Day Without Immigrants* on May 1 becomes a Singalong…so follow the bouncing border-ese!]
http://calacapress.com/gigantedespierto/mp3/PrimeroDeMayo.mp3
Performed by Los Alacranes con Quino
Homepage
http://www.calacapress.com/gigantedespierto/index.html
[Just in case you have nothing to do on May 1st—Please Don't Do Anything! Or hold your Boycott Burrito high over your head!]
Mayday! - "El Gran Paro Americano 2006" "The Great American Boycott 2006"
"The Great American Boycott" is spreading south of the border, as activists call for Mexicans to boycott U.S. businesses on May 1. The protest is timed to coincide with a May 1 boycott of work and shopping in the United States that also has been dubbed "A Day Without Immigrants." The boycott, which grew out of huge pro-migrant marches across the United States, is designed to pressure Congress to legalize millions of undocumented people.
Mexican unions, political and community groups, newspaper columnists and even some Mexican government offices have joined the call in recent days. "Remember, nothing gringo on May 1," advises one of the many e-mails being circulated among internet users in Mexico.
"On May 1, people shouldn't buy anything from the interminable list of American businesses in Mexico," reads another. "That means no Dunkin' Donuts, no McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, Sears, Krispy Kreme or Wal-Mart." For some it's a way to express anti-U.S. sentiment, while others see it as part of a cross-border, Mexican-power lobby.
http://deletetheborder.org/node/866
ACTION RESULTS
Minutemen S.O.S Forums go down on May 1st During May Day Virtual Sit-In!
Thanks to all 77,454 People a around the world who particpated in shouting No Illegal Borders!
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/MayDay2006/Start.html
S.O.S Forums go down on May 1st.
02.05.2006 08:37
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2006/04/115476.shtml
[Does changing the channel mean changing politics?]
Have you noticed that TV simulations of U.S. politics is now being run by two Heads of State: a Mexican-American president-elect on *West Wing* and a woman president on *Commander in Chief*?
This may mean that the Media Mind is getting all ready to be lead by a Mexican-American woman Presidente! My vote is for Comandante Esther:
http://www.zmag.org/chiapas1/estmar28.htm
Speaking of los Peguins: the Otra Campaña moves forward everyday and intends to jump the illegal border into the lands of Atzlan by June of 2006. You can pick up some great independent news from narconews.com—here is a good counter-media article:
Maquila Violence in Mexico—Dispatch from Mexico's Internal Border, March, 2006
On February 14, the day sub-comandante Marcos arrived in the city of Puebla as part of his six-month journey across the country to listen to the voices of the underdogs of the Mexican left, the national newspaper La Jornada carried on its front page the most convincing advertisement for the Zapatistas' Other Campaign to appear in print.
The advertisement in question, a news article in fact, published for the first time the transcriptions of a series of secretly recorded phone conversations between a maquila magnate, Kamel Nacif, the governors of Puebla and Chiapas, and several businessmen. The tapes containing the conversations were delivered anonymously to La Jornada. Throughout the conversations these men—in the crudest of language—celebrate the arrest and planned rape of the independent journalist, Lydia Cacho.
Lydia Cacho is a well-known reporter and novelist who runs a support center in Cancun for women who have been victims of violence. In 2004, Cacho published Los Demonios del Eden: el poder detras de la pornografia (The Demons of Eden: The Power Behind Pornography), a book exposing an underground child prostitution and pornography ring in Cancun. The leader of the ring, Jean Succar Kuri, is now under custody in Arizona, awaiting extradition.
More here:
http://post.thing.net/node/786
The new updated EZLN site is always worth clicking:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/
But just in case you did not catch it the first time around, click this for a good risa: http://www.vivabush.com/
[Cyberborders! We don't need any stinkin cyberborders! A new data platform or old code under a new roof.]
Here at my new pad at UCSD called calit2.net I am setting up b.a.n.g lab (which stands for bits.atoms.neurons.and.genes), and one of the research groups, *borderlands hacklab*
http://bang.calit2.net/sdhacklab/
decided to do a *Virtual Sit-In in Solidarity with the Striking Students of France* on March 16th, 2006 using our massive new infrastructure:
http://post.thing.net/node/767
since I had been hired with the idea that one of the main trajectories of my research would be the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (we the group thought it might a be a good test case for ECD within an institutional frame). We had about 37,000-plus unique IPs join the two-day action. On the day after the action was over the French Government responded to the Virtual Sit-In by asking UCSD to shut down its own network, or the French Government would block all access to the University from France.
Information about it here:
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2006/03/114509.shtml
Here is my response to the UCSD network to the French Government request about the ECD action, housed at b.a.n.g lab:
http://post.thing.net/node/772
The outcome of the performance was that calit2.net, the Dean of Arts and Humanities and my truly amazing *Public Culture* component of the Visual Arts Department have offered b.a.n.g lab support towards developing a *cyberactivist* workshop and conference in the not too distant future—as well as full support of ECD as an important research area to be continued. (Si! It is true…que loco no? J)
[Now to something even more important that may hit your screenal space soon.]
MAQUILAPOLIS is an hour-long documentary film which narrates the lives of factory workers in Tijuana's assembly plants, the maquiladoras.
MAQUILAPOLIS was a collaborative project involving 12 factory workers from the very beginning of production to distribution.
MAQUILAPOLIS had its world premiere at the 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam and its Latin American premiere at Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara.
We are currently showing the film and would like to let you know of some upcoming screenings:
- Tribeca Film Festival, April-May 2006 (U.S. premiere)
- Chicago Latino Film Festival, May 2006
- HotDocs Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, May 2006
- Green Film Festival, Seoul, Korea, May 2006
- Seattle International Film Festival, June 2006
- Acapulco Film Festival, June 2006
- Tijuana, June 10, 2006 (we still do not have the location but it will be part of the event The Political Equator, co-sponsored by the UCSD Visual Arts Department in collaboration with Casa Familiar, Haudenschild Garage Project, inSite, CECUT and the Division of Arts & Humanities at UCSD)
Also, MAQUILAPOLIS was picked up by PBS. It will air on public television in the U.S. on the renowned documentary series "POV" on September 26. I'll send out reminders as the date approaches.
Sergio De La Torre
Director/Producer
http://www.maquilapolis.com
[Ya Basta! Enough bits and bytes for today. Hope that all goes well on your side of screen and that we catch site of you in the streets and online in the days to come.]
