b r n w s h r

On the western edge of France, 4000 acres of wetlands, fields and forests have become a liberated zone; a vast laboratory of autonomy where 200 people in 60 different collectives live together without the state, occupying the land against a new airport project for the city of Nantes.

Politicians call it “a territory lost to the republic”. The local farmers and villagers, activists and naturalists, squatters and trade unionists, who are part of the growing movement against the airport and its world, call it the zad – The zone to defend.

With its bakeries, pirate radio station, tractor repair workshop, brewery, banqueting hall, medicinal herb gardens, a rap studio, dairy, vegetable plots, weekly newspaper, flour mill, library and even a surrealist lighthouse, the zad has become a concrete experiment in taking back control of everyday life. In 2012 the French state’s attempt to evict the zone was fiercely resisted and the police have not set foot there since. Every time the threats of eviction resurface, over 40,000 people take part in creative acts of disobedience to defend the zone.

It started with Occupy –  our modern incarnation of mass political protest. On September 17th people descended into the streets, crowding out the public space, occupying monuments of power, camping out to make their voices heard, and demanding change by placing their bodies on the line. They practiced direct democracy, and said no to the status quo.

The police, those military-clad officers of the State, responded with force. They attacked, assaulted, harassed, and cleared the streets of any sign of unrest. They arrested crowds of protesters, shuffing them into parked school buses to be shipped off to the penitentiary. For many, Occupy was their first time being arrested, and it remains one of the greatest mass arrests in American history.

Now, six years later, the State has not budged. Last week the Supreme Court refused to hear a case that claimed the NYPD’s mass arrests during Occupy were unconstitutional.

Now, as social movements gather storm, and mass political protest once again becomes a tactic of resistance, this decision grants impunity to those same police officers killing, maiming, and arresting peaceful protesters. The State once again has defended its monopoly of violence. It has affirmed its stance towards its citizens: vermin to be swept asside for the sake of the perpetuation of neo-liberalism.

So let us make a promise: we will not stop swarming in the streets to demand change. We will be there and we will be arrested as we are meant to: together, en masse, fighting for a better world for everyone.

“Debt controls you. 

If you finish college in debt, you must accept the first paid position offered in order to honor your debt. If you bought an apartment with a mortgage, you must be sure not to lose your job or take a vacation or a study leave from work. The effect of debt, like that of the work ethic, is to keep your nose to grindstone. Whereas the work ethic is born within the subject, debt begins as an external constraint but soon worms its way inside. Debt wields a moral power whose primary weapons are responsibility and guilt, which can quickly become objects of obsession. You are responsible for your debts and guilty for the difficulties they create in your life. The indebted is an unhappy consciousness that makes guilt a form of life. Little by little, the pleasures of activity and creation are transformed into a nightmare for those who do not possess the means to enjoy their lives.  Life has been sold to the enemy. 

Pass through airport security, and your body and possessions will be scanned. Enter certain countries, and your fingerprints will be taken, your retinas scanned. Become unemployed, join the workfare regime, and there will be a different series of inspections, recording your efforts, your intentions, and your progress. The hospital, the government office, the school–they all have their own inspection regimes and data storage systems. But it’s only when you go somewhere special. A walk down your street is likely to be recorded by a series of security cameras, your credit card purchases and internet searches are likely to be tracked, and your cell phone calls are easily intercepted. Security technologies have leapt forward to delve deeper into society, our lives, our bodies. 

Why do you accept being treated like an inmate?”

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Yellow radio light GLOWS in dark. Country Gospel Hour plays on radio, preacher HOWLS at congregation.

BUTTERCUP pulls up her hand, runs fingers through her hair, and looks in rearview mirror. 

MILTON is dead and naked in the back seat. 

Buttercup change radio station, switches on headlights, and drives away. 

“At the end of the world there will only be liquid advertisement and gaseous desire. Sublimated from our bodies, our untethered senses will endlessly ride escalators through pristine artificial environments, more and less than human, drugged-up and drugged-down, catalyzed, consuming and consumed by a relentlessly rich economy of sensory information, valued by the pixel.”