recuperation

Beer punks and anarchist cafes: politics for profit

business as usual, a valid target as ever

from Freedom News UK

Many could be forgiven for thinking it was a belated April Fools prank when, at the beginning of the month, Freedom Press released a statement reading that close to their premises in Whitechapel and out with their knowledge, the colossal Hilton hotel group had opened an upmarket cocktail bar bearing the name ‘Freedom Café’. Marketed towards “independent thinkers and coffee drinkers”, in true anti-consumerist fashion, the bar sells £14 cocktails named after book titles from the publishing house. Their menu comes in the style of an old pamphlet titled “Anarchist Weekly” and references the historic founding of the publishing house. Readers are enticed inside to find “anarchy, coffee, drinks, and comfort food”. Believe it or not, this appears not to be a joke.

TOTW: Recuperation

Quench your thirst for justice with Pepsi!

While it’s easy to place emphasis on the more exciting forms of state violence—baton-wielding, armor-clad riot cops through a teargas haze—it’s equally important to be mindful of another ever-present and much more boring reality: recuperation. The murky ways in which once-radical acts are disarmed, defanged, redirected, or otherwise rendered ineffective of their original purpose.

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