May 23, 2005

• It's good to see they're not forgotten but as with the way of idealistic collectives... Use of the "absurd" in social and civil disobedience still maintains the means to attract attention or bring light to underrepresented opinions to rally around. From the court fool to Abbie Hoffman to Larry Flynt-- Anonymity and seeming non sequitors/out of context approaches will always maintain their value, as long as the players weigh the costs against the outcome and fully understand the possible consequences, else the weathermen will be forced underground for one reason or another... I was glad to see the work of the on tour Guerilla Girls when chancing into DC, for example. And I remember hearing of the legal issues because I'm not sure if, for instance, posters had been license off. I'm not sure what lead to the main ideological rifts, but I'm damn glad they existed.
• I have had no exposure to this group. The original intentions and how they pulled stuff off sounds brilliant. . . It seems like if something devolves into lawsuits, maybe it's time for it to die a natural death and be reborn in some other fresh, anarchic form.
• From what I remember this has to do with rights of name and property and deviation from whatever each side feels are the priorities, of existence or the ideals. Historically, look at the suffragettes or even what is happening with the Catholic Church or the GOP, extremes or divergent variations of an ideal will faction off or be separated, to do more on their own, deflect negatives from the core group, and on and on and-- I've gotten too cross topical and don't have the links at hand, but just searching under "Guerilla Girls" should show you some of their stuff to keep me from paraphrasing. Keep in mind the context of the time and culture when looking at anything in the way of "terrorism." What drives people to unify toward action is a dense topic, as is what factors end up tearing them apart.