All Power to the Imagination 2012 Schedule

Friday, April 20

Lunch will be served outside at Noon.

Please allow a period of 5-15 minutes between presentation slots

7:35pm - Dinner outside

8:00pm – Open Mic at the Four Winds Café

9:30pm – Performance by Physical Plant (a New College band) at the Four
Winds Café

10:00pm – All Power to the Party at Knight House

Saturday, April 21

9:30am - Breakfast outside

12:00pm - Lunch outside

Please allow a period of 5-15 minutes between presentation slots

7:35pm – Dinner Outside

Sunday, April 22

7:00am - Bicycle Tour with Jordan Buckley

9:00 am – Yoga on Z Green (HCL 7 if wet)

9:30am - Breakfast outside

Also at 10:30am - Flint Blade: Musical Improvisation Workshop (in the Gender and Diversity Center)

12:00pm - Lunch outside

1:00pm ‐ Coalition of Immokalee Workers Action – Off Campus

6:00pm – Wrap Up Dinner Discussion Outside

Descriptions of the Presentations

You may notice some of the presentations are missing a ‘blurb’ below – these presentations are those which we felt the title was communicative enough about the content of the presentation (either that or we screwed up – many apologies if this is the case <3). We also totes forgot to get bios from everyone so please introduce yourself at the beginning of your presentation!

Exporting the Occupation: Israel's Pacification Industry

The global financial crisis has accelerated the pre-existing trend of divergence between wealthy and poor nations, and wealthy in poor inside nations, as well as sharpening the power stratification between various status groups. The forces driving urbanization - most conspicuously appearing as slum growth in Southern cities - have also continued regardless of the limited economic opportunity. Political, military and police planners have adjusted their doctrines to these trends as well as the rise of Clash of Civilizations doctrine and its military component, the "War on Terror". Israel, with over 40 years of operations inside Palestinian urban areas, has the most extensive experience urban counterinsurgency amongst countries in the world. The lecture and discussion will focus on Israel and the Occupation's role in the young and growing market for "pacification" strategies, equipment and techniques that are already being used in Iraq, Afghanistan, the United States and Canada.

Pink Washing Israel

This presentation will be focusing on the pinkwashing practices of the Israeli government and the response to it coming from Palestinian queer activists, but I will also be using the concept of homonationalism to examine many of these practices. Homonationalism describes a process of creating an “accepted” national gay citizen at the expense of sexual and racial others, who can never fully belong to the nation. While examining pinkwashing, it becomes obvious that it not only distracts attention from the violation of the rights of Palestinians, but also from other forms of regulation that seek to constrict the sexual activities of all bodies not deemed suitable for the Israeli body politic.

News From The Eastern Front: Tokyo’s Shirouto No Ran collective and Japan’s Antinuclear Explosion

First emerging in the early 2000s, Shirouto no Ran [Amateur Revolt] has become the foremost group representing anarchist and radical values in Tokyo, and perhaps in all of Japan. Their organizational model, based on the development of small businesses and community spaces to form what might be called an economic autonomous zone, is uniquely suited to the reality of Tokyo, but might also offer inspiration for other organizations wishing to establish a lasting basis for community and solidarity. Most interestingly, the events of 2011, in Japan as elsewhere, demonstrated just how suddenly supposedly ‘radical’ politics can be moved from the margin to the center. After years of organizing small demonstrations on behalf of anticapitalism and economic justice, Shirouto no Ran were the group most qualified to organize the vehement public opposition to nuclear power that suddenly emerged after a massive earthquake led to multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear complex. After years of being considered radicals, the group – not at all unlike the anarchists and collectivists whose ideas have animated Occupy Wall Street – has suddenly become a major voice in national dialogues.

This presentation will be based on ethnographic research conducted during 2010-2011, when the presenter was a research fellow in Tokyo with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and participated in many Shirouto no Ran activities. Presentation will include original photos and interview data.>

The Role of Infoshops & Other Autonomous Spaces in Mass Mobilizations & Movement Building

This workshop will explore the utility - and pitfalls - of site-specific public or semi-public spaces such as infoshops and radical community centers as hubs for communication and organizing before, during and after mass mobilizations. Presenters from the Civic Media Center in Gainesville, FL will use examples from the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, the A16 demonstrations against the World Bank and IMF in Washington, DC in 2000, and the mass mobilization against the FTAA meeting in Miami in 2003. Attendees are encouraged to come prepared to discuss their own experiences with similar spaces in similar circumstances, the pros and cons involved, and the ways in which the role of the infoshop or autonomous/radical space in the context of a mass mobilization points the way to longer-term movement building (or not!) We hope to use our experiences as fodder for a conversation and exchange of ideas that folks can take back to their own communities and use to inform their work with, and use of, radical spaces in the context of sustained movement-building.

Queering Anarchism (based on an edited volume forthcoming from AK Press in the Fall 2012)

This presentation is about theory, politics, and organizing through the lens of the intersections of queer politics and anarchism. The book has been compiled and edited to be accessible and written for a wide audience. The contributors try not to use specialized language unless defining it first. Topics include queer struggle as class struggle, understanding sex work, prison abolitionism, trans people and the State, new possible worlds, and many other topics.

Health and Nutrition

Obesity, diseases, and confusion over what constitutes good health are prevalent today in our society. In order to understand nutrition, one must understand the function of the body in relation to health and diet. Food serves a purpose, and that purpose is to supply the body with nutrients (vitamins and minerals), to allow your body to function properly. This seminar will take us back to the basics of the Human body and of health and nutrition. It will show how the wrong foods and substances cause damage to the body and ill-function, while the proper foods allow your body to maintain proper health.

The Accumulation of Freedom: Anarchist Economic Critique, Practice, Analysis, and Vision

This discussion centers on anarchist analyses of capitalism and propositions for a world free of oppression, domination, and the institutionalization of coercive social control and is based generally on the new collection The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics (AK Press). Do we have to accept living in a society divided between the wealthy few and the wanting many? Must people starve? Is the state eternal? Does the world as it is constituted need cops, prisons, bosses, and politicians? How does the economy intersect with things like racism, sexism, rigid gender roles, compulsory monogamy, and heteronormativity? Do we have to live like this? Are other worlds possible? These questions will be explored broadly, focusing specifically on anarchist contributions to economics, with a brief talk followed by an open discussion on anarchism, economics, and the accumulation of freedom in a world organized by hierarchy, coercion, and control.

Anarchist Theory Track - Institute for Anarchist Studies

Within the conference, the Institute for Anarchist Studies curates the Anarchist Theory Track, aimed at providing a space in which to engage in theoretical discussion and debate as political practice—a forum in which theoretical discussion is not divorced from movement concerns and experience, or bound up in abstraction, but in which careful and original analysis of dynamic concepts that are key to radical Left theory and strategy can be articulated, shared, critiqued, extended, and proliferated.

The track consists of the following four presentations:

1. Settler Colonialism, Militarism, and Empire (Jimmy Johnson)

The United States and Israel share histories as European settler societies as well as having heavily militarized societies and economies. The European settlement of North America and the Zionist settlement of Palestine created not only the nations of the United States and Israel, but they also created enduring settler societies and political cultures that continue to shape the histories and politics of both nations.

The U.S. continues to fight 'Indian Wars' in both name and deed, reproducing 'noble' and 'civilizing' narratives of Indian Removal in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is using tools developed in Israel's continued settlement of Palestinian lands to do so. From Disney to drone wars the specter of settler colonialism dominates policy and discourse, but passes by largely unnoticed.

Jimmy Johnson is an organizer, dancer and writer in Detroit. He is former International Coordinator for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, founder of Neged Neshek, and co-founder of Decolonize Detroit.

2. Popular Education (Hillary Lazar)

Hillary Lazar, a researcher, writer, and anti-poverty worker, is a librarian at the Occupy DC library.

3. Commons Not Capitalism (Cindy Milstein)

As the do-it-ourselves occupations that have swept across the globe from Egypt to United States are proving, direct democracy and cooperation are becoming powerful everyday experiences for millions, with people self-organizing everything from civic defense and trash collection to tent encampments and general assemblies. This compelling and quirky, beautiful and at times messy experimentation has cracked open a window on history, affording us a rare chance to grow these uprisings into the new landscape of a caring, ecological, and egalitarian society--a world of our own collective making and doing. This talk will draw out some of the promise as well as dilemmas of the occupy moment, focusing specifically on the anticapitalist/antistatist opening of notions and lived practices of "the commons," and then facilitate a conversation, in hopes of better strategizing toward increasingly expansive forms of freedom.

Cindy Milstein, an active participant in Occupy Philly and Institute for Anarchist Studies board member, has been involved in numerous anarchist projects, including the USSF's New World from Below convergence, the “Hope from People Not Presidents” effort, and Black Sheep Books collective. She's the author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations (AK Press), and coauthor with Erik Ruin of the book Paths toward Utopia: Explorations in Everyday Anarchism (PM Press).

4. Anthropology for Anarchists 101 (James Birmingham)

This presentation is an introduction to four-field anthropology highlighting the parts I think will be most interesting and productive to the anarchist milieu. Cultural, biological, archaeological and linguistic anthropology will be discussed in a survey fashion with neato factoids and a veritable cornucopia of suggested readings.

James is a born-and-raised Floridian, and one of the cofounders of the All Power to the Imagination! conference. He currently works at his alma mater, New College of Florida (where you likely are right now), in the office of Volunteerism and Service Learning. He is an adamant adherent to 4-field anthropology and his research is primarily centered around the relationship between people and stuff.

School for Designing a Society: Compositional Contexts for Undoing Colonialism

When you ask someone to tune your guitar, you affirm a triadic hierarchical relation between you, the person you asked, and a pre-existing socially acceptable standard for being “in tune”. It's a moment of pseudo-participation and micro-colonialism—neither you nor your friend makes a difference to the standard. But introduce a fourth element into this interaction by imagining a not-yet-existing standard to tune to, a desire for a not-existing system, and something starts to happen. This offers critical resistance to the otherwise affirmative maintenance of the current system. It's a beginning of composition to undo neocolonialism. Social construction meets joyful non-adjustment. The workshop invites three phases of participating: 1. introduction of xenharmonic (other-tuning) praxis and a half century of resisting imperialist tonal hegemony; 2. a performance of “Safety Nets II” for 17-piece, microtonal one-person band that invites listeners to create connections between the oddness ofthe music and the defiance of the poem; 3. creating the School for Designing a Society by enacting an instance of it — an “art lube” with the distributed instruments of the one-person band — attempting an anticommunicative environment in which jail is resisted and we care each other into composerhood.

Radical Care in Healthy Movements

Some radicals of years past have been accused of falling victim to the idea that 'revolution was just around the corner'. And the way they cared (or didn't care) for themselves & others, and the degree to which they set up long-term, sustainable communities of resistance was reflected in this ideology. But for those of us who value pre-figurative politics & believe that radical social change that seeks to undo all forms of oppression will take generations, we believe care is a crucial concept moving forward. Aiming to move past the sometimes narrow (and individualistic, capitalistic. etc.) concepts of 'self-care', we aim to explore what does it mean to practice collective care. We will explore what collective care can mean for communities both as a strategy to be used to strengthen social justice movements, as well a goal for what type of society we are struggling for in the first place. We will explore theoretical concepts of radical care (like carino! ), as well as practical examples of tools & ways of organizing with & around care that some radical groups are practicing. We will utilize presentation, personal stories, group discussion and activities in hopes that we can all share with & care for one another!

A Total Failure of Imagination? Unmanned Aerial Systems and the Politics of Technology and Control

“Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance” was written for the United States Military in 1996; the strategies outlined in this document call for “cultural understanding of the adversary” to achieve “total control” and informed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Relying on advanced technologies, the authors imagined rapid dominance would be achieved by both knowing more than their adversary and more effectively manipulating this information. “Shock and Awe” has been widely critiqued, not only by critics of the invasion but also by military officials; I turn to this document, though, to highlight how it intertwines knowledge and domination. The equation between these concepts in military strategy gives one pause, even if it was unsuccessful; “Shock and Awe” serves as a stark reminder of how power and knowledge are linked. Yet, is the authors' equation to simplistic? Looking to Martin Heidegger's “The Question Concerning Technology,” I argue the ways knowledge is shaped is significant. Articulating how practices of knowing, and not-knowing, are entangled with technological/ artistic forms, I seek out possibilities for resisting the equation of knowledge and domination, examining how failure and re-mediation can intervene.

Human Trafficking

This nation outlawed slavery in 1865 when Abraham Lincoln enacted the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves. In addition, the 13th amendment of our constitution prohibits slavery.

So why does our nation continue this brutal practice?

There are more slaves today than in any other period in history. Every single
nation, not excluding the United States practices slavery today.

There are between 14,500 – 17,500 slaves are brought into the US internationally, and between 100,000 – 300,000 (mostly children and teens) are enslaved domestically within the US borders.

This seminar will talk about what has become known as Modern Day Slavery or Human Trafficking, focusing primarily on Slavery in Modern Day America, but touching on some of the international slaves. We will also talk a bout what can be done by individuals to help put an end to this practice.

Know Your Rights! A workshop/presentation on what to do when confronted by agents of the State.

I will be providing a basic break down of First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment Rights, along with covering basic Constitutional concepts and how they have progressed to the current state of civil rights, concentrating on how those rights protect us in our everyday lives when confronted by the police. This presentation will inevitably touch on social issues, philosophy, civil rights in general, and will primarily concern the assertion of ones rights when performing acts that will confront the State and the sources of its systemic injustice (e.g. protesting).

How it Relates: It relates in that it will provide those involved in the anarchist community with the information they need to defend themselves while protesting, putting the ideas that this conference encourages and promotes into action, and even during routine tasks such as driving or walking down the street. It is vital to the promulgation of radical ideas that radicals know how to best prepare their defense should the State attempt to silence them through the "justice system" before they even get the chance to speak to their lawyer, for lawyers often times can only work within the confines of the decisions that the defendant made during the course of being detained.

Solidarity with Africa's Future in African Hands

An organizer from the All African People's Development and Development Project (AAPDEP-USA) will be presenting on the work being done in Sierra Leone to overturn the grave condition of the highest infant and maternal mortality in the world.

AAPDEP- Sierra Leone is currently building birth clinics, schools, and vegetable gardens though the leadership of native Nurse Midwife Mary Koroma. Currently Nurse Mary is touring the US and will be in St.Pete May 2nd. This presentation at API will be a sort of introduction of the work being done and also to promote the concept of SOLIDARITY, NOT CHARITY!

Organizers from the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) will discuss why we must stand in solidarity with African self-determination as opposed to the standard model of charity which is a false solution that maintains parasitic capitalism.Instead material solidarity to African people allows the conditions to be
overturned in order to have solid, sustainable change allowing for economic development as controlled by Africans, allowing for self-determination in their own hands.

DIY Soap

This presentation will demonstrate the cold-process form of soap making and maybe touch on melt-n-pour and glycerine soaps. It would likely take about 30 - 50 minutes for the entire work shop. We'll talk about where to source your oils, herbs, and lye. There will also be a demonstration on how to actually make soap, and the presentation will cover the benefits of natural, organic skin care vs. commercial.

This presentation is all about DIY homesteading. If you can make your own soap and bread what more do you need? Self reliance, mad knowledge, and a cool new way to express your creativity. I think soap crafting is a seriously stellar tool to have under your belt. No matter if you are using it to make soap for your family and friends, or if you start your own business out of it. Handmade soap can change the world, one bar at a time.

Direct action as queer action: The liberatory praxis of Operation Splash Back! and DARTT

The following panel advocates the inclusion of queer thought in the articulation of total liberation. The papers in this panel examine different modes of direct action in the animal liberation movement, a communique and home demonstrations respectively, and the ways in which they advance total liberation through queer thought. Although the presentations focus on specific case studies, their implications are examined within the larger movements seeking to resist speciesism, as well as those undermining State sovereignty and capital accumulation.

The Life and Times of the 19th century Anarchist Lysander Spooner

This presentation will function as a case study of a radical who tried to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Spooner had radical ideas about what makes a person free, and he wanted to take actions that would allow his countrymen to free themselves from tyrannies of all kinds. His life and work is not only an inspiration to modern radicals, but it also illustrates some of the challenges to bridging the gap between theory and practice. Although Spooner was not always successful in his undertakings, there is much to learn in his attempts.

Musical Improvisation Workshop

Through musical improvisation and the art of listening, we channel divine inspiration.

We become vessels for soulful sound. We let the Spirit speak through us. This workshop provides a setting for us to consciously explore sound in ways that connect the mind, body and soul. The primary intention is to enhance our listening abilities in a comfortable and supportive atmosphere. Listening is key. As we listen, we hear each other and ourselves together in unity. We listen for our place in the music – we learn to be the music.

The workshop is open to everyone, regardless of musical experience or previous musical study. Our goal is to access realms of music which are seldom covered or even mentioned in musical academia. Improvisation gives us a sense of freedom as we consciously co-create our own reality. We carry this sense of freedom out into every aspect of our lives. Just as we listen for our place in the music, we listen for our place in the world at large. In this way, we learn to live in harmony.

Activities include:
-Group vocal toning
-Ear training (the art of listening)
-Jam sessions
-Call and response