why was he pied?

explain biotic baking brigade. I don't know whether to celebrate or not.

he was pied cause his false role of antiauthoritarian. he define himself and his disobedienti movement as zapatistas inspired movement and in italy each time disobedients find comrades which dissent from their political practices, they catch them! they're stalinists not antiauthoritarians!

Luca,
Dobbiamo organizzare un gruppo di italiani per la parata del Columbus Day. Scambieremo la Columbus day Parade in una manifestazione per la Pace e contro il fascismo sia americano che italiano.

WHY PIE Casarini?

To hear Luca Casarini speak, you would think that he represents a radical, democratic and egalitarian part of the Italian movement. But by his actions, Luca contradicts these ideas and his practices have alienated a large part of the Italian movement, including many previously close to Tute Bianche. Fortunately much of the Italian multitude is politically sophisticated enough to refuse Casarini’s will to power.

So, why pie Casarini?
Unlike subcomandante MARCOS, Casarini is not an intellectual or an anti-authoritarian (contrary to the title of this event).
Former self-defined leader of Italian Northeastern squats
Former self-defined leader of Tute Bianche
Still leader of disobbedienti,
WE BELIEVE WE CAN BE DISOBEDIENT WITHOUT LEADERS
STOP TRYING TO DOMINATE GLOBALLY!
• By taking over other groups’ actions (especially Anarchists in Torino and the rest of Italy)
• By disrupting the Bologna Social Forum
• By trying to lead workers in Tuscany, and ending up being chased off by them! :-)
• And here tonight! Bluestockings was a feminist bookstore not a place for Macho Leaders!
Good Pie, Luca
Biotic Baking Brigade

Hahaha. No she's not really, but you could call her that if you wanted and it would mean about as much as saying Casarini, a man who has clearly stated his differences with classical Stalinism.

These self-styled ultra-mega hardcore anarchos need to get a grip and put their priorities in order.

I saw Casarini at the Brecht forum the other night. It was very interesting participatory and open. In fact, the criticisms were overwhelmingly from the Marxists in the room.

Anyway, the guys who pied Casarini should have had their noses broken. Fucking splitters.

There were great reasons for pieing Casarini, some cited in the comments on the other article:
"THE BIOTIC BAKING BRIGADE HIT LEADER OF "ITALIAN " DISOBEDIENTS
VISITING NEW YORK."
From what I can see, there is nothing "ultra" about this pieing whatsoever as Casarini has been totally discredited across the political spectrum in Italy. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is mostly very good - anti-authoritarian and radical. His actions, however, are another matter entirely, and this is why there is hilarity and celebration in Italy today.
For comparison, imagine if some sectarian leftist (or even anarchist group)from here were to travel to Italy and represent itself as the cutting edge of anti-capitalist and anti-war movements. Imagine that this group was led by a famous "charismatic" straight white male leader (something which hasn't been able to exist here for the last 3 decades, thankfully!) who tailored his spiel to sound anti-authoritarian when his practices at home were ruthlessly manipulative and cynical. That's what the situation is like, and that's why there is jubilation in Italy today!

wow! we should use pie-ing more often, and think about american targets too!! i was there but i could not understand much of what the italians were saying.
they said something about declaring war to the war, and that sounds pretty macho to me!
peace and pies

Casarini was pied because he's a fraud and an apostate. He's the splitter who opperates as a political vandal within the italian scene and then he comes to NY to promote 'global', his new 'global' political magazine so that the multitudes can learn the way. it reminds me of beneton. anyway we'll see how it turns out in italy but the pieing certainly burst his bubble here.

this action is a complete shame. people who speak here about a supposed disobbedienti's authorianism are completely out of their mind and don't know a fuck about italian political situation, full of turbo-anarcho-assholes who speak loud about other people's supposed errors while working for NATO (it's true!! it happens!) or for italian national television (it's also true!!italy's such an odd country...) which, I remember u, it's owned by some people called The State. Such things would appear as contraddictions to most of normal brains, but not for this experts of self-absolveing from contradictions.
fuck u all

Just a few thoughts:

* The Italian scene is rather different than the US one: the anarchists there (with certain notable exceptions) tend to actually be more sectarian than the autonomists, which is more the tradition the Disobedienti come out of. This might have explained the anti-anarchism. On the other hand it's pretty amazing how much misunderstanding seems to be going on all around. For example: LC did not say anything about "making war on war" he said he wanted to resist that sort of logic! He also did not agree at all with the weird lady who claimed that leadership was necessary but said they have spokespeople but that's not the same as having leaders. He also talked about the pointlessness of the idea of "regime change" and seizing power. On the other hand his English was pretty hard to follow - I just happened to be sitting very close to him both times so I think I heard him better.

* Italian activists really do seem not to have much of a tradition of direct democracy - they've never even heard of consensus process and all that sort of thing. Also: since the media there is so much friendlier to activists than the media in the US, which is pretty much openly hostile (it's amazing: in Italy if there's a big demo they have hours of live coverage on all the stations, long interviews, they actually discuss the issues...), you end up getting media spokespeople who are really well known. In Italy, people like Cassarini actually get to debate reps of the government on their equivalent of "crossfire". It's like another planet. Anyway, so this leads to a really different dynamic.

* It seems pretty obvious Cassarini can be a macho jerk sometimes but he's also involved in some pretty impressive work - stopping the military trains, for example, and other things we in the U.S. could hardly dream of pulling off. And probably never will if we're going to be directing our most militant direct actions against each other! So I'm kind of ambivalent. Sure, people who strut around like they think they're great leaders deserve to be taken down a notch and shown their own absurdity and a pie is a perfectly nonviolent and appropriate way to do this; on the other hand, don't you think this is something that should have been done in Italy? It seems a little weird when Cassarini and a delegation of other Italians (including women I note) is here mainly to establish contacts, develop working relationships between movements and groups, get Americans involved in an international media project, and so forth, and not to "lead" anything, we have an event basically derailed by a publicity stunt accompanied by a handout with all sorts of allusions to specific political quarrels in Italy that no one here knows anything about. I mean, maybe this will be carried on Italian Indymedia and start a useful debate there. But paradoxically, it has the air of a macho stunt which ended up making Cassarini the center of attention at an event in which he wasn't actually supposed to be; an event that was supposed to be about trying to convince academics to get more involved in activism (yeah, watching one of the speakers get pied will really help with that!), and which effectively derailed the unglamorous, unspectacular, "women's-work" of building ties, laying groundwork, making practical preparations, which most of those who came thought they were going to end up doing. Just something to think about.

* As long as we're at it: about Moose's earlier comments here. I mean this in comradely way, but: one might wish to think about the contentious, macho, aggressive tone ("it's a feminist act! Get over it!", not to mention the insults) in the name of feminism. I mean, we wouldn't want to end up like those ex-Stalinists like Horowitz or someone who feel they must atone so now they do the same Stalinist tricks for the other side and feel that makes it better. Being an aggressive contentious macho guy in the name of feminism is still being an aggressive contentious macho guy. I probably shouldn't single out one person because there's lots of blame to go around on all sides but it's something to think about.

* I just hope this all leads to something good. I'm trying to imagine how it will now.
David

Here's some background info on why this guy was pied...

here is an article by some Santa Cruz anarchists on Casarini:
 http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/kka/unmask.html

also see article titled: The European
Social Forum:Sovereign and Multitude
in:
 http://lola.d-a-s-h.org/paper/paper002.pdf

And also this statement from Wu Ming collective in Italy, which was previously an ally of White Overalls:

The White Overall as a symbol of openness and mythopoesis does not exist anymore, at least in Italy. The network of activists that used to wear the overall has disbanded in the second half of 2001. Some of them formed a group called "i Disobbedienti" (the Disobedients). The Wu Ming collective has nothing to do with them: we regard them as a party with a hierarchy and a permanent leadership, in complete discontinuity with the features that made the White Overalls great and effective.

A few comments:

" this is addressed particularly to Moose, and his
extremely aggressive and macho rhetoric, insults to
posters who clearly don't have any background, etc. "

My comments above were directed at misrepresentations of the pieing, as posted by a few trolls, not on the topic of the disobedienti nor the Italian Social Movements. And the characterization of the act as an act by "Monkeys".

"It's a feminist act, get over it" would sound a bit
more convincing coming from a woman, y'know? "

Actually, David, it DID come from a womyn, the womyn who pied Casirini.

"this almost reminds me of the former Stalinists who
think they have redeemed themselves by becoming neoliberals
and using the same Stalinist attack techniques for the
other side. "

I'm confused, are you saying that I'm a former Stalinist, or that my rhetorical flourishes are Stalinist, or that my macho behavior via a posting is Stalinist?

"Being an aggressive macho guy in the cause
of feminism does not mean you are not being an aggressive
macho guy. It doesn't make it better. Don't you think
there's a tiny bit of an irony here when Luca Cassarini
is actually being unaggressive, good humored and
agreeable for a change and New York anarchists end up
looking like aggressive macho jerks "in the name of
feminism"? To me there's a little cognitive dissonance
going on here. I just hope something good comes of it in
the end. "

I wasn't aware that Casirini was here having this conversation with trolls on the Indymedia Newswire. Regarding the actual pieing, well, I didnt do that one, and I'm not aware of being a macho agressive guy at the time. Maybe I was to busy cleaning up after the act.

If you want to have a conversation about the pieing, then fine. If you want to talk about my posting style (especially when responding to flames) then thats fine too. But how about we clarify the diffeence, eh?

(I tried to post this yesterday but it never appeared -
hope this one doesn't end up showing up twice too....):

(I'd said)
"this almost reminds me of the former Stalinists who
think they have redeemed themselves by becoming neoliberals
and using the same Stalinist attack techniques for the other side. "

(moose replied)
I'm confused, are you saying that I'm a former Stalinist, or that my rhetorical flourishes are Stalinist, or that my macho behavior via a posting is Stalinist?

(now I'm replying to him saying:)
It was an analogy. There are people who were once
Stalinists, and they now feel they were wrong, so they
join what they think of as "the other side" and then
play all the same nasty Stalinist rhetorical tricks
for them. There are also men who have a contentious,
macho, aggressive style and they recognize it as a
problem so they then go and act contentious, macho,
and aggressive for the feminist side, or anyway on
the side of particular feminists. I was suggesting you might
think about whether something like this was happening
here and whether there might be something problematic
about it.

The "trolls" and "flames" you are referring to were
people who didn't really know what had happened but
had an initially indignant reaction. Could you really
claim to be surprised by this? Someones assaults another
activist, however nonviolently, you gotta know some
people are likely to have a hostile initial reaction.
So how do you respond? Immediately threaten to assault
the person who expresses indignation in the same way!?!?

Look, I really don't want to start a flamewar here.
I tried to write a fair-minded, even-handed comment
on an issue where I might have reason to be very
biased (no one involved is coming from a position of
moral purity here - let he who is without sin cast
the first pie, y'know?) I was just suggesting a bit
of reflection: maybe we can start with why you chose
as your psuedonym a large aggressive animal which
tends to lock horns with other males in disputes over
females? Or we could reflect on the irony in the fact
that what Luca is being accused of - being the would-
be alpha male, macho leader of a supposedly leaderless
Ya Basta! group - is precisely something you have been
accused of yourself. Now, I happen to believe you were
criticized largely unfairly in that case but hasn't it
even occurred to you that, if you could be so wrongly
accused, your intentions and behavior so misinterpreted,
then something similar might be happening here
as well? That at the very least it might be a little more
complicated? I mean I don't even know, maybe not, maybe
he's just completely evil in every way, and you're
perfect, but that just seems kind of unlikely.
DG

That Luca may be a leader is no crime. That he is being attacked for what appears to be his prominence seems like a complete fucking waste. You people need to get a grip. Your infantile leftism or anarchism or Yellow Overalls-ism or whatever the fuck you call yourselves is of no use to anyone but the state.

You inspire conflict without clarity and that, to me, is insulting. I don't remember the last time a group of any Italian activsits came to speak in New York. I wanted to hear them out and see what could be learned from them. They seemed, at least the Italians in the group, largely magnanimous and sweet natured. Not exactly the glory hogs they're being presented as.

That anyone confuses leadership with the real problem is a complete dolt. I dont' know how to be nice about it. We need leaders. We need more and better leaders. Moose and his accomplice were clearly trying to "lead" by their knuckle-headed stupidity. It's just not clear where or why. They confuse attacking someone with building something .

And I am also quite sure that the number of posts hooraying this incident shows how lost your little grouplet is. Anyone can post using any name, so the number of posts is really a sign of your obsession, not any outpouring of support.

Burningman is right - what we need are more leaders. Questioning leaders is counterproductive, especially when they present themselves as good natured. Why sould anyone bother to find out what these leaders have actually DONE in Italy when they tell us themselves that they are not glory hogs. Anyone who questions leaders or tries to find out more about the actual situation in Italy is an infantile leftist who is shutting down debate.

when you can make it up as you go along? Typical.

The point isn't that no one should question – that's exactly what we should be doing. I myself asked very pointed questions of Luca and company at the Brecht forum. Which not only did he answer, but several of his compatriots chimed in. I didn't find his answer "authoritarian" in the slightest. If anything, he erred in the other direction.

We need debates, open forums and discussion. But, still, no one has actually said anything of substance against Casarini. He is accused of a litany of sins and anyone who questions the unsubstantiated charges is insulted.

From what I've been able to see, Luca has done more to advance the cause of human liberation that the vast majority of humanity. He seems to be a full time activists and leader and organizer and spokesperson. Right on. I support that. I support his democratic vision, his lack of sectarianism towards left socialists, and his role in various actions.

The cannibalism of the anti-leader LISTEN TO ME mafia has to be checked. Stop it. You are disruptors and provocateurs. If you won't engage in serious, substantial political discusssion, then you are merely censors using the vocabulary of anti-authoritarianism to make people LISTEN TO YOU. I couldn't think of a better example of straight-up authoritarianism.

And yes, we do need more and better leaders.

im from the other side of the world

and from what ive been reading

the NYC anarchists who pied Luca whats-his-name

look like silly white wankers from these far-away shores.

maybe they had good reasons for doing what they did, it seems they ( you ) think you did.

it just looks a lll abit

hmmmmm

half-pie

"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these leaders.
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the pies of war."

"half-baked"

let's suppose that this dude has hurt movements, is a hypocrite, is coming our way or constitutes some sort of imminent threat of corruption somewhere somehow. there's still a loudly collaborative recreational insularity to the entire discussion here.

and am i wrong or is there a subtext of each post here? it's that same nagging subtext found at nearly every event-spokes: "wow, i'm a voice among these elite historical forces".

there is a cure available. normal humans can smell this sort of north american desperation at ten paces. we have to actively conspire to repress our inate disgust for this flavor of masturbation. step one, stop trying so hard to improve your self-image.

l'articolo in inglese parlava in modo divrso della trota in faccia al casarini , descrivendola come una reazione all'atteggiemento autoritario di casarini in patria, contro gli anarchici a torino, in toscana e a genova al porto, portato via a peso....questa e manipolazione dell'informazione, siete il tg4 della sinistra. e vero che chiunque puo scrivere su indimedia, ma un media indipendente non ha padroni ne santini. sarebbe meglio che vi limitaste a trasmettere informazione anziche commentarla mettendogli un cappello semantico cogente.

Pie-ing is a way to comically expose this militarization of the movement, since the Disobedienti have contributed to an atmosphere in which people settle their conflicts physically and not with words. Casarini has topped off the sweet core of the movement with a thick crust of thuggish guys, who may be useful for warding off fascists and cultivating street credibility but are disastrous when dealing with disagreements with other activists (a telling example is an absurd fight that broke out during a recent meeting in Livorno, where Casarini and his acolytes where chased out of town by even more macho local communist hooligans. Both the groups’ attitudes are ridiculous, and ironically would be unacceptable in the US, despite the fact that “violence is as American as apple pie”).

 http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=317283&group=webcast

briggete writes: "Casarini has topped off the sweet core of the movement with a thick crust of thuggish guys, who may be useful for warding off fascists and cultivating street credibility but are disastrous when dealing with disagreements with other activists "

That MAY be true. If so, how would you deal with the fascists? Pies? Best of luck with that.

(and really, pieing is just not that funny - claims to comicality aside...)

per chi capisce l'italiano....io penso che Casarini ultimamente abbia, in effetti, fatto delle cazzate e soprattutto i disobbedienti si sono fossilizzati su sto cazzo di pacifismo da 4 soldi....non voglio professare violenza di massa ma le bandiere e le marce della pace sono diventate un qualcosa di veramente ridicolo... e poi una torta in faccia cosa volete che sia....