Zaps

Love and Anger : Essays on AIDS, Activism, and Politics by Peter Franzblau Cohen

This is one of the first books to take an interdisciplinary approach to AIDS activism and politics by looking at the literary response to the disease, class issues, and the AIDS activist group ACT UP. Containing both literary analysis and interviews with activists, Love and Anger integrates fact and fiction in a scholarly, yet comprehensible manner. It will provide readers with a deeper understanding of AIDS activism, the politics of AIDS, and the attitudes and feelings of those affected by the disease. 

Policing Public Sex : Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS Activism by Dangerous Bedfellows (Editor), Ephen Glenn Colter (Editor), Wayne Hoffman (Editor), Eva Pendleton (Editor)

The AIDS epidemic has had a myriad of social and political consequences, not the least of which has been a radical social rethinking about sexuality. While AIDS has encouraged a more open discussion of sexual activity, it has also brought a backlash. Policing Public Sex, a collection of 25 essays by educators, activists, sociologists, and community spokespersons, is enormously smart. This volume helps us consider and contend with the political and social campaigns that seek to control or monitor manifestations of sexuality considered "public"--from safe-sex education to sex clubs. Well written, this book is on the cutting edge of social change and AIDS education.

ACT UP

"Our Job is not to be invited to coffee or to schmooze at a cocktail party...Our Job is to make change happen as fast as possible and direct action works for that."

The history of Civil Disobedience is a long and international one. ACT UP practices a form that comes from a variety of progressive movements. Below are several pages describing some of the history, theory, and practice of civil disobedience.

Click here for Civil Disobedience Training

Outrage

OutRage! Consists of people from a myriad of political backgrounds and persuasions and, as such, reflects the community as a whole. We take aboard only those issues that directly affect the gay and lesbian community. However worthy they may be and however much we may support them as individuals, other agendas are not part of our remit. What unites us as a community and what unites us as a group is our sexuality and the culture that goes with it. Our relative longevity and success is a consequence of us always being aware of who we are and where we came from and of the community's acceptance that we are there for them and no-one else.

We strive to tackle anti-gay/lesbian bigotry however and whenever it arises; we do this mainly through carefully-planned and exciting 'zaps' which over the years have rained public embarrassment on many homophobic individuals, groups and institutions.

The Lesbian Avengers Handbook

Excerpt:

Type of action. Avoid old stale tactics at al costs. Chanting and picketing no longer make an impression. Standing passively still and listening to speakers is boring and disempowering. Look for daring, new participatory tactics depending on the nature of your action. NY Avengers have used overnight encampments, daring Zaps in the halls of the Plaza Hotel, an invasion of the offices of Self magazine, a torchlight parade down fifth avenue at rush hour without a permit, handing out balloons to school children in an anti-gay district that said "Ask about Lesbian Lives, etc."

Terminally queer

Michelangelo Signorile

In the future, your video display terminal will be a battleground. Your weapon will be a modem. Your ammunition, electronic mail.

Excerpt:

...In the future [which is now] your video display terminal will be a battleground. Your weapon will be a modem. Your ammunition, electronic mail. On computer bulletin-board services you will rally the troops. You'll drop in on electronic cafés, where dozens of queers will exchange information and instructions. With the push of a button you and thousands of others will launch fax zaps, mail zaps, and phone zaps, bombing your enemy with a continuous stream of raw data, printed messages, and recorded voices. Instantly, you'll take to task a newspaper that printed a homophobic article, a member of Congress who refused to sign on to a pro-gay bill, a religious zealot who preaches hate from his pulpit, and a corporation that hasn't expanded its bereavement-leave policy...