I was at the USSF from Tues 6/22 - Thur 6/24, and my impression of the experience is that it was ... interesting.
Generally speaking, it was great to see so many people, who are working hard to make a change, in one place at one time. It's inspiring to see how broad and diffuse all the "social movements" are: people all over the country are doing similar and complementary things that you are doing locally. And, it was great to get together and pick each others' brains for a while.
Also, perhaps it was due to the sorts of workshops and people I hung out with, but I got the general impression that most people's politics are far more radical than it may appear, and with some nudging, I think most of the people engaged in social struggles on the day to day would be extremely amenable to anarchist theory.
Anyways ... on to the festivities:
On the day I arrived, the first thing I did was meet up w/the anarchist contingent for the opening day march. I brought a big black flag for the march, which made the bus ride to the meet up amusing. At the meet-up, we hung out for a while, introduced ourselves, and chatted while we waited for our opportunity to enter the march. Apparently, there was supposed to be an order to the elements in the march, so we waited to enter the march until our "slot." But, once we were in, we basically did what we wanted. I hoisted the black flag high, and our group marched up to behind the indigenous rights contingent, staying there for the whole thing. During the march, we chanted all sorts of fun stuff and set up a breakdancing circle. All in all, we were really well behaved. Later, I ran into a liberal friend, who helped plan the march, and she wasn't very happy that we cut the line: "oh well" I told her "if you don't want your hierarchy to be toppled, don't set one up." :)
USSF workshops and stuff ... I went to a bunch. Some were in the "New World From Below" anarchist track, which was organized by Cindy Milstein/IAS, Friendly Fire Collective, etc ... The others were mostly Take Back the Land sort of stuff. It was generally alright.
The anarchist convergence space was probably the highlight of the USSF experience for me. The organizers did a great job setting it up, doing FnB, meetings & discussions, music, and other fun stuff. The venue was great: an old church with playground and community garden. It was really cool to see that many anarchists (probably ~300+ people a night) in one place at one time AND it not being for a demo ... just to have fun and hang out w/each other. I met a lot of cool people, got to put faces to names, and hung out with people I know but haven't really gotten the chance to talk to very much.
What I got out of it:
1) camaraderie: got to hang out w/lots of folks from around the country
2) idea swap: picked up some interesting ideas for actions
3) self-reflection: anarchist party or integrationalism ... something I'm gonna write about later
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Through the Looking Glass: Tea Party Counter-Demo Kit
Okay ... just in time for your Tea-Party Counter Demo. Here is a collection of media (poster, flyers, quartersheets/bookmarks) playing off the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Tea Party Theme.
A note on the rhetoric of these ... The idea w/these is not to be overtly/directly confrontational nor is it make Teabaggers look bad by pretending to be one of them & holding racist signs. Rather, this media is meant to prompt discussion and hopefully open the door to a little deeper self-reflection on their part.
Other ideas to flesh out your counter-demo:
Thematic AiW Costumes
Tea Time
Sock Puppets of Teabaggers & talking heads
Mirrors (possibly fake w/pictures of AiW characters in them)
"Off w/their heads" "Pass the butter" "Pass the bread" etc ... chants
Have fun!
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
(jpeg format, click on the thumbnails & save as)
Posters:
Flyers:
Quartersheets/Bookmarks:
A note on the rhetoric of these ... The idea w/these is not to be overtly/directly confrontational nor is it make Teabaggers look bad by pretending to be one of them & holding racist signs. Rather, this media is meant to prompt discussion and hopefully open the door to a little deeper self-reflection on their part.
Other ideas to flesh out your counter-demo:
Thematic AiW Costumes
Tea Time
Sock Puppets of Teabaggers & talking heads
Mirrors (possibly fake w/pictures of AiW characters in them)
"Off w/their heads" "Pass the butter" "Pass the bread" etc ... chants
Have fun!
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
(jpeg format, click on the thumbnails & save as)
Posters:
Flyers:
Quartersheets/Bookmarks:
Thursday, April 1, 2010
IWW Benefit
The New York City branch of the Industrial Workers of the World have been hard at work putting together a fundraiser.
Fundraiser doesn't quite capture the essence of what were working on. I'm talking about a party in one of the coolest spots in Brooklyn with two floors and a roof of revolutionary music and DJ's spinning into the wee hours of the morning. There will be tables teeming with revolutionary literature and gear, and plenty of Wobblies to sign you up and get you a Red Card.
In between sets you'll get to from folks on the frontline of the labor movement fighting the titans of capital as they organize their workplaces and fight to create a new society in the shell of the old.
The line-up for the event so far looks amazing:
Spirit Child
George Mann
Born in a Cent
Nikki Patin
The Flames of Discontent
The Last Internationale
DJ Jaunmapu
DJ Velvet
DJ Savalas
Liberté Locke/SWU
And FW Cason as Emcee
Fellow worker Benjamin Ferguson put together this amazing flier and we have another one soon to be hot off the presses.
If you're going to be in New York City for May Day you're going to want to be with the Wobblies.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Fundraiser doesn't quite capture the essence of what were working on. I'm talking about a party in one of the coolest spots in Brooklyn with two floors and a roof of revolutionary music and DJ's spinning into the wee hours of the morning. There will be tables teeming with revolutionary literature and gear, and plenty of Wobblies to sign you up and get you a Red Card.
In between sets you'll get to from folks on the frontline of the labor movement fighting the titans of capital as they organize their workplaces and fight to create a new society in the shell of the old.
The line-up for the event so far looks amazing:
Spirit Child
George Mann
Born in a Cent
Nikki Patin
The Flames of Discontent
The Last Internationale
DJ Jaunmapu
DJ Velvet
DJ Savalas
Liberté Locke/SWU
And FW Cason as Emcee
Fellow worker Benjamin Ferguson put together this amazing flier and we have another one soon to be hot off the presses.
If you're going to be in New York City for May Day you're going to want to be with the Wobblies.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Rosemary Dr,Fontana,United States
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Worst of Left Forum 2010
I spent the past weekend filming and tabling at Left Forum. It was one of the largest Left Forum's ever with over 700 speakers and a wide range of panels.
As with any event like this the tough part is deciding on which panels to attend. Many friends and comrades came in to town to speak; fellow Wobblie Andrej Grubacic and comrades from the Institute for Anarchist Studies. It's never easy to decide.
The first talk I attended was "Proudhonism and other false alternatives to capitalism," held by the Marxist-humanist initiative. As an anarchist what could be more interesting than watching a panel of marxists continue the 160 year assault on Joseph Proudhon, the father of anarchism.
The feud between marxists and anarchists is an old one; so it was of little surprise to see such a panel, but it ended up being much worse than I could have anticipated.
First of all, the speakers simply read papers to us. Five speakers each took turns boring the audience with their papers, and because of time considerations large portions of their papers were skipped over leaving their polemics rather incoherent.
The first speaker did a grand job of arranging a litany of ad hominen attacks against Proudhon, quoting Him out of context and using every stupid thing Proudhon had ever said or written to conjure up the most negative image of Proudhon possible: Joseph Proudhon was the father of fascism!
The speakers who followed spent less time on Proudhon and more time quoting the great master, Karl Marx. The last speaker hardly mentioned Proudhon and simply made his case that we must adopt nuclear energy.
The panel represented the worst of Left Forum, not because of their irrelevant and specious attack on a long dead anarchist, but because of their entirely academic perpetuation of what many anarchists and marxists feel is a false division.
At the Q&A portion of the talk, I said, "I sat hear and listened to you butcher and skewer Proudhon, and I can't help but wonder if you approached any anarchists to maybe balance things out?" "No," I was told. One member told me how three years ago he had met with a hostile crowd at an anarchist bookfair, which sounded eerily famiar to the arguments you hear from many racists: I had a bad experience with members of group X, so all members of that group are bad. He went on to tell me that he'd debate any anarchist anywhere, anytime. Nice to know, but not exactly what I was looking for.
A lady on the opposite end of the room stood up and said, "I came here today to defend Proudhon, and it looks like he needed defending. She pointed out that anarchists don't name themselves after any particular thinker. We take what's good, leave the bad; but she went on to say, "You folks are very much disciples of Marx and that kind of ridgid thinking is dangerous."
With perhaps half the dozen or so people in attendance showing support for me and the other woman who spoke out in defense of Proudhon the panelists became more agitated and began to retreat. We were told that the criticism wasn't of Proudhon the anarchist but of Proudhon the liberal.
Suffice to say, it was pretty lame and undoubtedly the worst panel I've seen at any Left Forum. I find value in the writings of Proudhon, Marx, and Bakunin as well as many other thinkers. In light of everything we are up against as people fighting for social justice, it's absurd to perpetuate these false divisions.
It wasn't all bad, though. In my next post I'll talk more about one of the best panels I attended.
Sent from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
As with any event like this the tough part is deciding on which panels to attend. Many friends and comrades came in to town to speak; fellow Wobblie Andrej Grubacic and comrades from the Institute for Anarchist Studies. It's never easy to decide.
The first talk I attended was "Proudhonism and other false alternatives to capitalism," held by the Marxist-humanist initiative. As an anarchist what could be more interesting than watching a panel of marxists continue the 160 year assault on Joseph Proudhon, the father of anarchism.
The feud between marxists and anarchists is an old one; so it was of little surprise to see such a panel, but it ended up being much worse than I could have anticipated.
First of all, the speakers simply read papers to us. Five speakers each took turns boring the audience with their papers, and because of time considerations large portions of their papers were skipped over leaving their polemics rather incoherent.
The first speaker did a grand job of arranging a litany of ad hominen attacks against Proudhon, quoting Him out of context and using every stupid thing Proudhon had ever said or written to conjure up the most negative image of Proudhon possible: Joseph Proudhon was the father of fascism!
The speakers who followed spent less time on Proudhon and more time quoting the great master, Karl Marx. The last speaker hardly mentioned Proudhon and simply made his case that we must adopt nuclear energy.
The panel represented the worst of Left Forum, not because of their irrelevant and specious attack on a long dead anarchist, but because of their entirely academic perpetuation of what many anarchists and marxists feel is a false division.
At the Q&A portion of the talk, I said, "I sat hear and listened to you butcher and skewer Proudhon, and I can't help but wonder if you approached any anarchists to maybe balance things out?" "No," I was told. One member told me how three years ago he had met with a hostile crowd at an anarchist bookfair, which sounded eerily famiar to the arguments you hear from many racists: I had a bad experience with members of group X, so all members of that group are bad. He went on to tell me that he'd debate any anarchist anywhere, anytime. Nice to know, but not exactly what I was looking for.
A lady on the opposite end of the room stood up and said, "I came here today to defend Proudhon, and it looks like he needed defending. She pointed out that anarchists don't name themselves after any particular thinker. We take what's good, leave the bad; but she went on to say, "You folks are very much disciples of Marx and that kind of ridgid thinking is dangerous."
With perhaps half the dozen or so people in attendance showing support for me and the other woman who spoke out in defense of Proudhon the panelists became more agitated and began to retreat. We were told that the criticism wasn't of Proudhon the anarchist but of Proudhon the liberal.
Suffice to say, it was pretty lame and undoubtedly the worst panel I've seen at any Left Forum. I find value in the writings of Proudhon, Marx, and Bakunin as well as many other thinkers. In light of everything we are up against as people fighting for social justice, it's absurd to perpetuate these false divisions.
It wasn't all bad, though. In my next post I'll talk more about one of the best panels I attended.
Sent from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Rosemary Dr,Fontana,United States
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Spectacle of Going Postal and Subconscious Class War?
In the early morning hours of March 9 2010, Nathaniel Brown, a custodial worker at The Ohio State University, entered his workplace and proceeded to unload the deadly contents of his two handguns into a room full of co-workers, killing Larry Wallington, who had given Brown an unfavorable performance review. Mission accomplished, he then turned a weapon on himself, ending his own life as well.
Of course by now we all know that this not an isolated incident. Indeed, at times the incidents happen on a daily basis: the day prior a man walked into his place of work in Dallas, shot the owner and his son, then killed himself.
Workplace homicides are appalling, and what's worse is that it may seem like the frequent reports of it have become elevator music in broader American society, accepted as just another part of our country's economic day to day.
According to the US Department of Labor & the Bureau of Labor Statistics, homicide is the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the country ( 2005 stats ). As a result, there is no shortage of state resources devoted to the prevention of workplace violence. While most workplaces homicides are the result of crimes like robbery, as much as ~25% of workplace homicides are committed by employees, ex-employees, co-workers, and customers. In other words, a quarter of all workplace homicides occur between individuals engaged in some aspect of legitimate economic activity (Sygnatur and Toscano "Work-related homicides: the facts" Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 2000, 3-8).
So, how much of an impact does a poor economy have on incidents of workplace violence, particularly homicides committed by employees, co-workers, customers? It seems logical to conclude that a poor economy leads to a rise in workplace violence, but the important point is that the economic work environment itself leads to workplace homicides. And that is key to understanding why the mainstream media turns these very localized acts of violence into national news.
Honestly ... Who hasn't fantasized about unleashing harm on a power-tripping manager? No one, or at least no one who's ever had a boss. In the reporting of these events, we're provided a safe and controlled outlet to live vicariously through the militant behavior of someone else, which gives the mainstream media an eager audience. And, that audience has a love-hate relationship with these moments of social rupture--spectacles. So while the violence is appalling at first glance, every time a worker kills his boss, everyone who's ever been screwed over and exploited by their job breathes a secret (sub)conscious and subversive sigh, because deep within the psyche of the audience lies the urge to rebel, to overturn authority, to set wrongs right, and empower ourselves. These spectacles give the audience a passing glimpse that the class war doesn't have to be a one-sided affair of capitalist domination.
But unfortunately, these spectacles only offer a glimpse, there and gone seemingly at a blink; such is the way of the mainstream media. Their spectacles serve their purpose as the temporary release of a pressure valve, but then the valve is sealed tightly to again contain the rupture and direct the energy that threatens to explode the system entirely.
Of course by now we all know that this not an isolated incident. Indeed, at times the incidents happen on a daily basis: the day prior a man walked into his place of work in Dallas, shot the owner and his son, then killed himself.
Workplace homicides are appalling, and what's worse is that it may seem like the frequent reports of it have become elevator music in broader American society, accepted as just another part of our country's economic day to day.
According to the US Department of Labor & the Bureau of Labor Statistics, homicide is the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the country ( 2005 stats ). As a result, there is no shortage of state resources devoted to the prevention of workplace violence. While most workplaces homicides are the result of crimes like robbery, as much as ~25% of workplace homicides are committed by employees, ex-employees, co-workers, and customers. In other words, a quarter of all workplace homicides occur between individuals engaged in some aspect of legitimate economic activity (Sygnatur and Toscano "Work-related homicides: the facts" Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 2000, 3-8).
So, how much of an impact does a poor economy have on incidents of workplace violence, particularly homicides committed by employees, co-workers, customers? It seems logical to conclude that a poor economy leads to a rise in workplace violence, but the important point is that the economic work environment itself leads to workplace homicides. And that is key to understanding why the mainstream media turns these very localized acts of violence into national news.
Honestly ... Who hasn't fantasized about unleashing harm on a power-tripping manager? No one, or at least no one who's ever had a boss. In the reporting of these events, we're provided a safe and controlled outlet to live vicariously through the militant behavior of someone else, which gives the mainstream media an eager audience. And, that audience has a love-hate relationship with these moments of social rupture--spectacles. So while the violence is appalling at first glance, every time a worker kills his boss, everyone who's ever been screwed over and exploited by their job breathes a secret (sub)conscious and subversive sigh, because deep within the psyche of the audience lies the urge to rebel, to overturn authority, to set wrongs right, and empower ourselves. These spectacles give the audience a passing glimpse that the class war doesn't have to be a one-sided affair of capitalist domination.
But unfortunately, these spectacles only offer a glimpse, there and gone seemingly at a blink; such is the way of the mainstream media. Their spectacles serve their purpose as the temporary release of a pressure valve, but then the valve is sealed tightly to again contain the rupture and direct the energy that threatens to explode the system entirely.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
I.W.W. News
We just wrapped up a local branch meeting for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and there is no shortage of great stuff going on with our local branch here in New York City.
Next weekend, Sunday March 14, we have a great action planned to help some fellow workers in Brooklyn. Stay tuned for updates and if you'd like to get involved feel free to email us here at libertyunchained@gmail.com. Suffice to say well be pissing off the boss.
Also next weekend is an organizers training here in New York City. It's a two day event and should be fantastic. From the organizer:
"This is an intensive two day training that includes an introduction to what a union is, what makes the IWW unique, stages of a campaign, the nuts and bolts of how to organize your workplace, labor law in a nutshell, and more. This training will also introduce you to the IWW's style of unionism (solidarity unionism), a model of organizing that relies on worker-organizers, direct action, fighting for better conditions, and worker solidarity."
The campaign for Starbucks continues to struggle on. Lots of positive developments both locally and nationally.
If you're Wobbly-curious, come check us out at this year's Left Forum. We have members set to speak on a number of panels and well also be tabling the event, so you can stop by, pick up a cool book/sticker/pin and find how you can plug in to the labor movement.
Lastly, I wanted to mention our upcoming fundraiser on May Day. It's still in the planning stages but we are looking for some solid entertainment for the event. If you or somebody you know would be interested in getting involved, drop us a line.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Jefferson St,Brooklyn,United States
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