Lancaster Avenue Autonomous Space

Ongoing at LAVA

Thursdays
4PM Grocery Giveaway with Food Not Bombs.

Keep LAVA in the black!!!

for one time donations:

LAVA, the Lancaster AVenue Autonomous space is a center for radical media and organizing located at 4134 Lancaster Avenue in the Belmont neighborhood of West Philadelphia. The LAVA collective's mission is to create an empowering and welcoming physical space where diverse communities converge to build connections and break down barriers, blending media-making, artistic expression and hardy nuts-and-bolts organizing in order to advance movements for justice. | Read more

Dissecting Capitalism: Contemporary Labor and Workplace Struggles

with Salar Mohandesi and Sean West Wispy

Once again, a great and well attended session by the Occupy Philly Education and Training Working Group, this time focusing on the changing face of work and how we resist it.

First off was Salar on the how work and our work environments have changed in response to out struggles against it.

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download mp3

Next up, Sean West Wispy talked about some of his own experiences as a labour organizer inside and outside of unions.

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Primitive Accumulation at LAVA!!

More good stuff from the last couple weeks of Occupy Philly's Dissecting Capitalism series.

Part II: This Financial Crisis
With Mark Kuperberg and Julie Maitrejean

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(download mp3)

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(download mp3)

Part III: The Historical Rise of Capitalism and Corporations

In this video, Ariane Fisher breaks down primitive acumulation and Jerry Krantman muses on corporate personhood.

More great events are coming up! Every Wednesday night at LAVA!

Dissecting Capitalism at LAVA

February 1st a packed crowd turned out at LAVA to hear Alex Knight and George Caffentzis do an introductory breakdown of capitalism, event one of a 10 week series on Dissecting Capitalism.

George Caffentzis, who some may know from his writings with Midnight Notes (including Promissory Notes, much discussed around LAVA circles a couple years back) started it off giving a historic breakdown of the development of capitalism.

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Next up, Alex Knight, blogger at End of Capitalism and protagonist at Occupy Philly spoke on capitalism as an abusive relationship, his theory on the impending end of capitalism and what he sees as our current mode of Zombie Capitalism.

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The night ended with a long and interesting Q and A:

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Corporate Crime Comics

The paper copy of this comic book is no longer available from Kitchen Sink Comics, but here's a scan of the issue (About 15 megabytes). If you were to find a paper copy of the comic on the comics back issues market, it's worth $18.

Occupy Philly - 6 Oct to 30 Nov

One of the first things I did when we were discussing an Occupation in Philadelphia was to visit the site of the original Occupation, the one near Wall Street.

patches!

We now have LAVA patches! They're hand-silkscreened in West Philly on canvas and unused bedsheets with found ink.

Finally, you can represent your favorite community space on your book bag, jacket, pants, and even your long underwear! Get in touch if you would like one, or just come by!

Our library has gone space age!

After countless hours, LAVA's lending library has been entered into an online database. Thats 2,378 books! Simply go to to this website to see our entire library, or go here to browse by category.

Fall Cleaning

The scanning begins!!!!

We're going digital!!

After years of writing down books checked out, shuffling through messes of disorganized paper records, we're getting our act together and starting an automated checkout system. Not only will it be much more organized, we'll have the ability to instantly pull up offending no-returners of books, locate missing titles and have a quickly searchable database of titles. On top Nedir of all that, it will be tons of work. We need to re- enter ALL OF OUR BOOKS into our online catalog.

Our intern Bryan and Nyko have already started this exciting process and are basking in the ecstatic delirium only achievable from scanning bar codes. Click "read more" to see the madness set in.

btw: interested in helping? Let us know!! We'll put you to work ASAP!

A Poem for LAVA

I was asked to share this poem with the greater LAVA community. The subject matter comes directly from incredible lived experiences in the Belmont neighborhood of West Philadelphia.

A Tuesday Afternoon WTF

a guy (Ibrahim) was waiting inside a locked and closed lava upon arrival. he said someone let him in and told him someone from the library would be there soon. Who let him in? WTF?

food (vomit ?) spilled all over one of the computers??? WTF?

random shit everywhere: socks, clothes, broken stuff, etc. (put most of the non-trash stuff on the pile that said someone from the RRFM would be by the next day to move it) WTF?

can for basement keys on the floor and keys all over the 1st floor randomly. WTF?

couch torn the fuck up and pillow innards all over the place. WTF?

neighbor from the grocery store came by to complain about someone from lava's dog biting someone outside of his store. WTF?

every plastic bag on the sidewalk outside is covered in dogshit. WTF?

trash and sticky surfaces everywhere. WTF?

a hundred pages of the same photo of beyonce, the printer out of ink. WTF

it's tuesday afternoon and NATO drones are killing children half way around the world. WTF?

WTF?

dave onion , Lancaster Ave, August 30, 2011

LAVA News:

Decarcerate PA: STATEMENT: FJD takes important step on bail, but complicates detainer issue	Decarcerate PA: All out to protest Governor Wolf’s dehumanizing prison policies	Decarcerate PA: ACLU of Pennsylvania Research Shows Philadelphia Courts Have Different Rules for Rich and Poor	Decarcerate PA: Letters from the ashes
Decarcerate PA: Day of Action to End Death By Incarceration	Decarcerate PA: No Phoenix Here, Just Newer Ashes	Human Rights Coalition: Action Alert: SCI Smithfield delivering solitary confinement instead of medical care	Human Rights Coalition: Action Alert- Elderly man thrown in solitary and denied medication for helping another prisoner
Human Rights Coalition: Movement #26: Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the MOVE house by the City of Philadelphia	Human Rights Coalition: Movement #25: Prisoners Won't Be Silenced! HRC fights the Silencing Law in court and prisoners speak out	Human Rights Coalition: Movement #25 is out!