In the Middle of a Whirlwind:

2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements

www.inthemiddleofawhirlwind.info
Conor Cash, Craig Hughes, Stevie Peace & Kevin Van Meter | Team Colors

Whirlwinds Survey of Readers & Participants

Introduction

On May 25th, 2008 Team Colors Collective launched an ambitious one-off online journal entitled In the
Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements (Whirlwinds). The purpose
of Whirlwinds was to “inquire into current organizing efforts in the United States,” and through this process
to “provide a strategic analysis of current political composition as a tool for building political power.”
Since May, Whirlwinds events have been held in multiple places around the U.S. and thousands of people
have accessed the online journal.

With the journal complete and the seasons moving, Team Colors has begun a process of strategic reflection
on the Whirlwinds effort. The survey below is a core-piece of that reflection. This is a way for us to engage
those who have read the collection and participated in Of Friends & Whirlwinds events; and through this
grasp how our readers and participants felt about the collection, the process we framed and the final
outcomes. For Whirlwinds Contributors (authors) please see the survey specifically designed for you.

Results of the Survey

This survey is being undertaken in the spirit of militant research, and the results and responses from the
survey will be posted on the Team Colors website (anonymously if you’d like, or not at all if that’s your
preference). Additionally, Team Colors is currently writing an article titled “Of Whirlwinds and Wind
Chimes (or ways to listen): Movement Building & Militant Research in the United States” – a full English
version will appear on the Team Colors website and will be circulated in print from. This article has been
commissioned by Arranca!, a radical publication for the FELS group in Germany, and a shorter version of
the article will appear in its pages in German. For comments on specific Whirlwinds articles please
utilize the comments section following each article.

Relationship Building

In addition to our primary hope of Whirlwinds being an inquiry into movement building and strategic
dialog during the summer of 2008, Team Colors also initiated Whirlwinds to build relationships with
organizations and individuals whose work it respected and who work we believe contributes to movement
building efforts in the United States. We ask that you keep the collective abreast of your activities, consider
us when producing research projects, and contact us if it can be useful to your organizing efforts. We are
currently based in New York City, Portland, OR, Tucson, AZ and the Twin Cities and we would like to host
local events – lectures, workshops, discussions – for those engaged in radical political organizing in the
United States. Contact us at: TeamColors@WarMachines.Info; and visit us on the web, here you can sign
up for the Team Colors E-Newsletter and access additional materials, at: www.WarMachines.Info.

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Whirlwinds Survey of Readers & Participants Team Colors

Survey & Narrative Questions

The following questions come in two forms: survey questions (please choose the appropriate number for
the numbered questions) and narrative questions (describe your answers and reflections below). We
respectively request that those readers and participants filing out this questionnaire answer all of the
numbered survey questions, so we can have a full return on those questions.

Deadline for Responses: October 30th 2008

SURVEY:
1. May Team Colors post your survey responses on its website? Y | N
2. Have you had any prior organizing relationship, personal relationship or contact with
Team Colors or Team Colors members? Y | N

COMMUNICATION:
3. How effective were the Whirlwinds outreach emails, web posts and print materials?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A
4. How clear was Team Colors on the purposes, content, and use of the Whirlwinds
project?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A
5. For those who communicated with us or participated in events, are you satisfied with
the level of contact and communication from Team Colors during the project?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

For those answering question #5, what were the strong points about our communication
with readers and participants, and how can this be strengthened in the future?

OUTREACH:
5. How engaging did you find the Whirlwinds poster and postcards?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A
6. Did you pick up Whirlwinds promotional materials at an infoshop, bookstore,
community center, coop, or bike space? Y | N

How did you hear about the Whirlwinds collection? Where did you obtain Whirlwinds
print materials (following up from question #6)?

OF FRIENDS & WHIRLWINDS EVENTS:

7. For those who attended Of Friends & Whirlwinds events, how useful was the event for
you own organizing and how well did it address your interests?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

For those who attended Of Friends & Whirlwinds events, what were the strengths and
weaknesses of the event(s) you attended? How can they be more useful, better organized,
and more engaging in the future?

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Whirlwinds Survey of Readers & Participants Team Colors

2008 CONVENTION PROTESTS

8. Did you participate in the 2008 Convention Protests? Y | N
9. For those that did participate, how useful did you find the interviews of anti-
convention protest organizers for your own organizing and preparation?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

In a few words please describe your experiences at the 2008 Convention Protests, some
successes and failures, points for future development; and for those who did not choose
to participate, please explain your thought behind the convention protests?

THE JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS & PROTEST PRESS

10. Had you been previously familiar with The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press, the
presses titles (Failure!, An Atlas of Radical Cartography) or the irregularly published
print journal? Y | N
11. Did you find the Whirlwinds website engaging and easy to navigate?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

Would you like to see The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press publishing similar
journals in the future? How successful was Whirlwinds as a web journal?

TEAM COLORS COLLECTIVE:

12. How did you find the quality of the Team Colors introduction and other written
materials for the collection?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

What are your impressions of the collective itself? What are your thoughts on how the
journal was framed, appeared, and publicized?

PARTNERSHIP & RESEARCH :

13. Would you be interested in future Team Colors written materials, workshops or edited
collections? Y | N

What would you like to see from the collective in the future, and for those answering
question #13 please expand upon your yes / no answer. How could Team Colors move
from militant research to co-research – that is, research produced with movement
organizations?

PRODUCING KNOWLEDGE:
14. How engaging did you find the quality of the material in collection?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A
15. How useful did you find the material in Whirlwinds?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

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Whirlwinds Survey of Readers & Participants Team Colors

What are among the strongest /weakest and most / lease useful articles in the journal, and
why? How clear were we about producing knowledge about current movements? How
effective have we been in obtaining articles that described how organizations, initiatives
and movements functioned? How useful were these articles for your own work?

RESOURCES:
As a collective with limited resources, was producing an online journal with
accompanying print outreach materials and events, the right direction? Was it a mistake
not to produce a print journal or book thus far? What do you see as the viability of such a
print project? How would you suggest Team Colors approach such interventions in the
future?

CLASS COMPOSITION:
11. Do you believe the Whirlwinds journal collection is useful in achieving its goal?
(Low) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (High) N/A

In Whirlwinds Team Colors choose to look at movement composition as a step toward

researching the larger question of class composition, since little attention has been paid to
the structure, function, and content of current radical movements in the United States.
Our reasoning was to utilize Whirlwinds as a way of taking steps toward the deployment
of militant and co-research techniques to intervene in current class composition and
organizing campaigns; in addition to introducing militant and co-research, precarity, and
autonomist concepts to a larger audience in the United States. In what ways did Team
Colors accomplish this with the collection? How can these practices and concepts be
introduced to a larger audience in the United States?

MILITANT & CO-RESEARCH:

For Organizers: What role does research play in your organizing? For Researchers:
How do you produce and carry out research toward radical and movement-grounded
ends? For both: How do you produce and carry out research that is useful to and for
radical movements?

ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS:
Include any additional questions, comments, thoughts, critiques and opinions not
addressed in this survey.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Anonymous: Y | N
Organizational Affiliation (if any):
Email Address:
City, State / Region:

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