ACTION

Beyond its immediate goals (creation, joy, immediate intervention against the enforced absurdity of our cities, pleasure, de-
fiance, freedom, clean air, an open invitation to community...), the street party has worked as a focus to unleash diversity
and spontaneity, a platform for further, more effective struggle. A tactical conference where the subject becomes the mes-
sage, as perceived by each individual. RtS groups do not stage events for the media; they are very aware of its power for re-
Cuperation and the danger in having a relation of dependence. Too many important campaigns have become commodities.

The notion of ‘empowerment is more important than a social or artistic definition. Its brief texts reject ideology, celebrate
RtS' contradictions and shout for collective, insurrectionary direct action, denouncing all human relations based on dom-
ination. They are firmly rooted in the culture of civil disobedience, but the emphasis is revolutionary, mistrusting short-

lived concessions.

DIFFUSION
The most effective means for the propagation has been oral: people live an important experience and then tell others about
it, I's never recreated or enacted; the inspiration for true, unregulated Carnival is older than the system that represses it.
The message originates from a broad consensus achieved at meetings and through correspondence. A small, variable
group of people who are supposed to be widely trusted deal with communications. As a result, the whole attempt at de-
centralisation is doomed, yet it appears indispensable when creating situations that are attached to a name. The origin au-
thenticates the message.

The RtS web-sites haven't yet fulfiled much of their activist potential, such as their use as printing presses for the dissem-
ination of texts and as comprehensive media archives (indispensable in the information war). However, they are useful for
providing a global identity. Debate, libraries, screenings and free information centres are more necessary than any audio-
visual presentation.

The sheer growth of dissident global activity, increasingly linked via the People's Global Action network, is creating un-
precedented international collaboration. Globalisation produces common enemies. Until corporations like Shell or
Monsanto are forced to hide under the names of numerous companies, they will continue to direct a focus of resistance.
The dominant system increasingly relies on ephemeral, much publicised crises to reaffirm social control and to keep their
operatives ready for the unforeseen. The activist strategy of marking dates for co-ordinated international actions could be
reproducing these crises. Independent media networks are far from being in the position where they can match the speed
of corporate media. These crises are short periods of time where the levels of propaganda and indoctrination seem inde-
structible. The increasing reliance on the Web for communications and fly posting could be very dangerous now that states
and transnationals are massively increasing the resources for surveillance, disinformation and propaganda activities.
They own the line that you use to spread your free information and it can easily be disrupted or shut down in times of
crises. Decentralisation is not just a political position, but a tactical necessity.

THE FILM
The idea started taking shape as London RtS was preparing a large action in collaboration with a group of sacked Liverpool
dock workers. It was a new alliance that went beyond the tactical, and one that made the state nervous. It ended with riot
police putting siege to around 15000 people illegally partying in central London, two weeks before the general election.
As the film partially shows, the event was a media disaster. RtS' own media was quickly defeated. 20000 newspapers were
confiscated the day before, and a plan for a pirate radio did not take off. For weeks, the authorities had developed a fairly
simple disinformation campaign, started within the group and then by placing articles in newspapers announcing a riot.
It worked perfectly. With very few exceptions, all the reporting on the day -'riot’, ‘murder’, and ‘police now in control’- came
from one, unmentioned source. It was said that whatever had happened, from now on 10 million people would associate, if

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