Author: rocinante

(December 28th, 2018)

The new year is only a few days off and with it we are wishing our bests to the year of 2018 as we wave so-long in the review view mirror. I’m not sure about you, but I for one welcome the new year, however picayune it may actually be. Party this January (pizza that is)!

The days off, reflecting on another year of life, of music, of texts, and projects seems like a nice way to round everything off. Create ideas and plans for the new year, for the coming years, although I’m not really sure if I have a five year plan as mentioned by some on this podcast. At least not something deemed such, more like a life project, where the years aren’t that important, but perhaps that because I’ll be an over-the-hill anarchist by then. Always in it for the long run.

This has been a year of many things, but for this editorial lets take a look and see what we can learn from some events that have happened over this past year, all culminating together last weekend or so. We’re talking about relationships, exclusion, the shutdown of discussions, platforming and deplatforming, a lack of critical thinking, the cult of personality, and a dogmatic groupthink. We’re talking about the life and death of Doctor Bones.

Dr. Bones was a relative new kid on the block these last few years, a proverbial “man from Florida” as the popular saying goes for the weird shit that often goes on there. They were a self-styled gonzo journalist in the likeliness of Hunter S. Thompson, who quickly launched themselves into the limelight of egoism and the left. They had all the best friends from the most popular antifa writers to handful of loyal Twitter followers willing to pay him money each month via Patreon to help his living expenses. Obviously I’m doing something wrong.

Dr. Bones wrote desperate and offensive attacks against Wolfi, Little Black Cart, Anarchist News dot org, and friends that really made a name for them among people who are against those kind of things. Famously the “Blocked by Bones Club” on Twitter sprung up, of people who they would block who disagreed with them like the pinnacle of blissful ignorance or an ungrateful little prick who doesn’t even have a 3rd grade reading level of critique.

They co-hosted the now defunct (love and solidarity, rest in power comrade!) “The Guillotine” podcast with a Maoist while trying to hype everything to the next level. Often careless of what they were actually saying or thinking, as in one breath they would praise antifa fighting against the alt-right and government and in the next breath all praise be to the State and government of Cuba. Laugh out fucking loud. What anarchist in their right mind could listen to this absurdity without calling out their support for El Commandante and Dr. Ché? Apparently, not enough as they became the larger than life, figure of radical left Twitter or whatever that means.

In the end, Dr. Bones wasn’t brought down by their ideas, writings, or political acts, but rather by the relationships they formed outside of their public appearance. The cult of personality all came crumbling down last weekend or so, as another Twitter user revealed their relationship to Dr. Bones for all the public to read and digest. Dr. Bones was found guilty of “to have been grooming one of our comrades for sexual favours as well as objectifying trans sex workers, drink driving and other assorted shitty behaviours.” – The Guillontine. Dr. Bones followed up by calling it quits, vowing to never write anything again, and basically deleted their website, Patreon, Twitter, and whatever else. The publisher of their book, Gods and Radicals, who they previously severed ties with over eco-extremism some months earlier also pulled all of their books from distribution(why not after the eco-extremism tirade?), along with various other anarchist-friendly bookstores around the USA. A quick search online today revealed that I couldn’t find their book for sale anywhere. Hopefully, it doesn’t become a giant commodity icon selling for hundreds and thousands of dollars down-the-road like the recent CrimethInc. children’s book from years ago, turned out to be.

On anarchist justice: we don’t wish to publicize crimes over the Internet and put people in danger, but how else could have this played out, could be a good starting point. Perhaps on a more local level, but the actors involved are States away from each other and quite frankly as much as I despised Dr. Bones before, I’d like to see less anarchists (and their friends) put up against the Twitter firing squad, although we may find it funny, as one wrote on Twitter – “if someone could collect Dr. Bones tears and put a hex on them for us.”

On a different scale, but related this sense of public call-outs played out recently in the Northeast of the USA, when a well-known anarchist organizer (think Black Rose Anarchist Federation) resigned from their job over allegations of sexual misconduct and emotional abuse to their former partners. Who knows what happened internally, (and thank you), but they just quit their job over some relationship stuff from the early 2000s and 2010s and got banned from a local anarchist hangout. Originally, it was publicized over social media and eventually made it to the newsprint of the local paper, the same week Dr. Bones quit.

On giving up so easily: Did it ever really matter to Dr. Bones? It doesn’t seem so, although from who they appeared to be, it seems like they’re simply acting out the social norms of their peers, and as unfortunate as it may be, this is what the majority of people do in these types of situations. Perhaps, this says more about the people who were Dr. Bones aficionados, rather than actual anarchists in it for the long run, but it is still intriguing, and hopefully a note taken. The way in which we build and destroy relationships, deal with drama and tragedy, is exactly who we are as anarchists. For some, it’s all they’ve ever known.

(November 23rd, 2018)

[or one of the 1,000+ reasons I’m an anarchist]

The midterm elections have passed (did you riot?), the meetups of friends and family – sharing food together are passing, and the snowny cold has blanketed much of the land here. Winter is here a month early and on the road outside, the cars warm with the toasty heater pumping hot air into the vehicle as many make that annual crusade to the temples of consumerism.

Walking through the maze of aisles and fellow spenders, you bring up your smartphone to help you check out a bit faster among the throngs, someone takes a selfie, and now you’re on the evening news as you walk out of the store with some crap that will be thrown out next year. Welcome to the spectacle. Or rewind to taking a walk through the city woods, if two words couldn’t be farther apart from each other, yet so refreshing.

Today is Black Friday, a new cultural holiday that celebrates deals on all things consumers find they need for happiness. As a relative non-participant in such things as bargain hunting, waiting in shopping mall lines for hours, clicking through the online inventory of such places, or watching the resulting depressingly sad YouTube videos of people fighting over the last 4k 60 inch television (why would you want to watch that?), I’m often left feeling like I’m not sure if I have anything to say; astounded. Although – nothing to say, kind of feels good sometimes – like the Jack Kerouac zen of nothingness or putting that dialogue on the back-burner, while more significant ideas percolate.

It has been years since I’ve read an Adbusters, but in many circles this is still Buy Nothing Day, or for that matter everyday is Buy Nothing Day for anarchists, unless of course you are of the Hot Topic variety. Outside of the anarchist space, marketers and researchers of “cool” has termed tomorrow “Small Business Saturday” and Monday as “Cyber Monday”. That’s like three days, of voting with your wallet. Did I mention the ANEWS Patreon? I’m kidding, there is no Patreon. The biggest joke, is again on the consumers – who probably won’t see Black Friday deals like this ever again with government trade tariffs ramping up.

Trump jokes about the cold weather in regards to global warming, and many other things on Twitter, and I don’t even follow them – this is just from friends f2f, their social media, and reported on in the media. California is still burning, with the “Camp Fire” 95% contained as of today (Friday), with the rain helping to dampen and smolder the remaining wildfires. 84 confirmed dead and over 800+ still missing, 13,000 homes destroyed, and countless other objects of civilization gone. Photos and videos shared on the news and social media depicted apocalyptic scenes, similar to ones you may see in the movies. Or possible anarchist communiques about burned out cars on ANEWS? Scoreboard check, shows the anarchists really getting trounced in the attack game vs. the wildfire. And, on the other end – anarchist mutual aid responses? As not one from or living in California, I haven’t heard much, but I’m sure it’s there. I’m reminded of Super Storm Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, and other events that have triggered an anarchist disaster response.

Further south in California, The Caravan has reached the border in Tijuana, with some smaller groups forking off as reported by the MSM. Thousands of miles away, I wish them luck and await the anarchist report-backs of the border struggle. There are so many things to be angry at in this world. These are only but a few, the news on a much larger scale, outside of the quiet neighborhood on a walk through the woods.

(October 26th, 2018)

Maps, a few hanging on the walls. Some homemade and some much more official. A few years back, at the local neighborhood bookstore in a sleepy college town, I found a book of maps and old archaeological digs. It was the tale of the intricate trinkets found of a previously unearthed society, older than the more well-known post-inhabitants of the region. I was a bit shocked to find such things about a place I had grown up in, a place that I considered to know quite well. This past brought me closer to the location and helped me see and understand it in a new way. You could take a walk and still see the archaeological dig pits from the study, slowing filling back in after all these years.

Years before that – A good friend, who I grew up with, midst our conversations, we discovered that they had never been to one of these unique places, just 5 minutes from where we had spent most of lives. We visited shortly thereafter. Today, with the advent of social media, cell phones, and media shared instantaneously – I wonder if my friend would have found out sooner of such places.

Maps. Nowadays, usually if you hear of maps, one may think of boundaries, borders, states, nations, and oceans. Lines on a map. But what about a more anarchistic approach to the idea of maps, origins, and space? The anarchist tradition is richly steeped in geographers and related fields. The anarchist geographer of Elisee Reclus during the late 1800s, who also has a volcano named after them in Chile. From the decentralism of Petor Kropotkin during the same time period to the ideas around the 1960s of The Situations behind the dérive, or an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants drop their everyday relations and “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrian and the encounters they find there.”

In the 1970s British architect and creative proponent of curious uses of space Colin Ward. To the late 1980s and 90s temporary autonomous zones of Hakim Bey. All the way up to today, with two popular anarchist geographers being Simon Springer, who recently authored the book, “The Anarchist Roots of Geography” and Alexander Reid Ross, a geography professor who also authored the book, “Against the Fascist Creep”. There is a cornucopia of popular examples of anarchists and their friends taking the ideas of geography and bringing them into the streets: the Freetown Christiania in Denmark, the Zapatistas of southern Mexico, La ZAD in France, Hambacher Forest in Germany, and Rojava and the Afrin region in Syria, to name only but a few of the more commonly known.

Close to home, one aspect of anarchist strategy I would like to see make a comeback are the ideas associated with the board idea of map making. Take for example, the Surveillance Camera Players, a group who used pranks or diverting bland or oppressive materials for subversive purposes. Bill “Not Bored” Brown, while not the best anarchist role model, had projects that mapped the surveillance cameras of popular neighborhoods way before the Internet 2.0 came along. There has to be some kind of app or something anarchists can design that would make it so easy to map these kind of things for other anarchists and our friends. This seems like a project that needs to make a comeback.

While the exact article’s name escapes me, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed – during their more regular publishing escapades had a call-up of sorts to research the finer points of one’s location, with an excellent follow up article about the west coast. Alternative guides or disinformation guides from anarchists have recently been published at some USA universities, for new and returning students and those living in the area – think Pittsburgh.

It’s an exploration into do it yourself map making. The special locations like best skate spots, places of interest of historical note for anarchists, like graves, the old haunts of Emma Goldman, or other hangouts for travelers and those seeking (fill in the blank). Escape maps from your anarchist neighborhood, best places to take a nap under the trees, and bringing your everyday life further outside the reaches of capitalism.

It’s alright. We’re on a road to nowhere.

(October 5th, 2018)

Lately, I’ve been pretty feed up with people being terrible towards each other. In real life, over the Internet, and sold back to us as media to an ever more drama hungry society. If you let it, or pay close attention, this toxicity can permeate everything to it’s core and become almost inescapable, like a black hole set on repeat, sucking you in over and over again, it’s everywhere. This toxic culture is in part defined by Western society – especially in anarchist spaces, as anarchists the world over lament about the drama ridden, get nothing done, North American anarchist movement. Let’s take a closer look by starting with a definition – what is the virulent anarchist space of North America?

“A toxic anarchist space is a milieu that is marked by significant drama and infighting, where personal battles often harm the ideas of anarchism. Toxic anarchist spaces are often considered the result of toxic individuals or groups who are motivated by personal gain (power, control, fame, or special status), use unethical, mean-spirited and sometimes terrible means to manipulate and annoy those around them; and whose motives are to maintain or increase power, control, or special status or divert attention away from their shitty anarchist politics and misdeeds. Toxic anarchist individuals do not recognize a relationship to the beautiful idea of anarchy, for which they have mistakeningly included themselves in. These same toxic anarchist individuals define relationships with other anarchists, not by affinity but by a clique of other terrible anarchists.”

This noxious cabal of the terrible community can look different depending on it’s location in the niche of North America. These relationships vary across places, from the vibrant anarchist city neighborhood to the much more rural and intimate forest garden, spread out in small towns across America, connected back to the city with IRL and AFK relationships. Need a brief refresher, just pick up “7 ways to help identify toxic culture in your radical community and relationships” at your local supermarket checkout, and with that I digress.

How did we get here, is this just another episode of Anarchy Radio rallying against everything? Willem Larsen writing in the 2012 text “Psychopaths in the Village” shares a couple of ideas on how we may have arrived in this predicament:

“It also happens that children, with fully felt emotions, with poor parenting and/or a toxic culture, can grow up ill-equipped to connect with others’ emotional experience. Psychiatrists call these people “narcissists”, and they may resemble psychopaths in every way (grandiosity, aggression, charm, tantrums, etc.) except one: they feel ongoing pain over their inability to create and maintain healthy relationships, losing contact with friends, spouses, children. They experience emotions; but they never had the chance to develop empathy.”

Meanwhile, in real life we remember reading “The Broken Tea Pot” and old AJODA texts from Liana Doctrines on relationships. So many of us, perhaps all of us, have arrived at anarchy by being forged in some kind of fire, in something that has made us angry. There we find an alternative and ideas for all the ails that plague society.

In “The New Nihilism” by Peter Lamborn Wilson, they write:

“At least ten times as much money now exists than it would take to buy the whole world—and yet species are vanishing space itself is vanishing, icecaps melting, air and water grown toxic, culture grown toxic, landscape sacrificed to fracking and megamalls, noise-fascism, etc, etc. But Science will cure all that ills that Science has created—in the Future (in the “long run”, when we’re all dead, as Lord Keynes put it); so meanwhile we’ll carry on consuming the world and shitting it out as waste—because it’s convenient & efficient & profitable to do so, and because we like it.

Well, this is all a bunch of whiney left-liberal cliches, no? Heard it before a million times. Yawn. How boring, how infantile, how useless. Even if it were all true… what can we do about it? If our Anointed Leaders can’t or won’t stop it, who will? God? Satan? The “People”?” ”
What about us? The anarchists. HUGS.

(August 24th, 2018)

Recently, I finished reading “Last Act of the Circus Animals” by two long-term political prisoners Travis Washington and Sean Swain. It is a work of fiction that is a portrayal of prison life as told from the perspective of the jailed, the zoo animals. There are talking tigers, panthers, elephants, and chimpanzees; and the jailers are the ringmaster, their workers, and the society of capitalism that surrounds them.

Originally, the text was a three-part photocopied zine from 2005 / 2006, but was recently published 10+ years later as a 171 page $5 book by LBCBooks. The book tells the tale of the zoo or the prison and what that life encompasses for the animals living and working there. The animals go on strike, refuse to work and eat, are beaten and some killed by the ringmaster and their workers. The narrative is a lot of dialogue between the prisoners about their current situation, being locked up, what that means, and how to get free. In some ways, it reminded me a bit of “Animal Farm” by George Orwell with the talking animal narrative and some politics, but that’s about all. The book by Washington and Swain certainly holds up as a solid work of fiction, representational of how and what it is to be locked up.

The book has an intro by three different people including Anthony Rayson, Jeremy Hammond, and Comrade Migs. Jeremy Hammond, an anarchist super hacker writes from behind bars that:

The ““Last Act” tells the story of circus animals who unite and rebel against the Ringmaster in order to get to the “World of the Free”. On one level, it’s a statement against animal cruelty: that all life on Earth has been subjugated or exterminated for the exclusive benefit of human civilization, and that the vicious practice of zoos and circuses must end. On another level, the story is about capitalist society: the pyramid-scheme caste system in which ruling classes exploit and oppress us all, processing our blood, sweat, and tears into profits, and throwing us only enough crumbs to barely survive.

But most striking is its scathing criticism against mass incarceration. Human beings are treated like animals, having been kidnapped from the “World of the Free”, warehoused in cages and chains, forced to perform back flips and headstands, and subjected to the control-freak reprogramming methods of the Ringmaster.”

The “Last Act” is a nice read and anyone who wants updates from one of the authors can tune into the weekly anarchist podcast, “The Final Straw Radio” to usually hear from Sean Swain, which is often shared on this podcast as well.

Stepping away from the fiction of the book and into the real world, a nationwide prison labor strike has just begun with:

“Men and women incarcerated in prisons across the nation declaring a nationwide strike in response to the riot in Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in South Carolina. Seven comrades lost their lives during a senseless uprising that could have been avoided had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration, and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation’s penal ideology. These men and women are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery.”

And taking from a mainstream media report from The Guardian, it says:

“The strike comes two years after the last major nationwide prison strike in September 2016 that saw more than 20,000 inmates refuse to show up for work across 12 states. That strike was co-ordinated out of Holman prison in Alabama, a state notorious for its overcrowded and dilapidated penal institutions, by a group of inmates styling themselves the “Free Alabama Movement”. ”

It goes on to say:

“As inspiration for what promises to be a tough 20 days ahead, strike organizers are leaning on history. The nationwide action began on Tuesday on the 47th anniversary of the death of the prominent Black Panther member, George Jackson, who was shot as he tried to escape in the prison yard of San Quentin in California.

The strike is then scheduled to close on September 9th, the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York. In an echo of today’s protest, the 1971 Attica riot was also framed by inmates as a push for humane conditions and basic political rights.

But after four days of negotiations it ended in a bloodbath when New York’s then governor, Nelson Rockefeller, sent in state police armed with shotguns and tear gas. Twenty-nine inmates and 10 of their hostages were killed.”

Digging a little deeper into the history of the day, the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement (RAM) writes:

“To commemorate the first day of the prison strike, RAM announces the first Nat Turner Day this August 21st, 2018. It is no coincidence this is the first day of this year’s Nationwide Prison Strike and we couldn’t be more honored to participate in this historic moment.

On this day in 1831 the Nat Turner Rebellion began. Nat Turner and his band of 70 comrades traveled from plantation to plantation to slay their oppressors and free those they encountered along the way. This act of rebellion is an important precursor for our struggle today. The initiative of these brave people to risk their own well-being to free those held in captivity around them, speaks both to the militancy necessary for community defense and the selflessness of revolutionary struggle.”

And the date also has some anarchist history to it as well, as 91 years ago Sacco and Vanzetti were executed by the state for being anarchists. It resulted in massive protests that erupted around the world.

I leave you with a quote from Alfredo M. Bonanno, writing from Rebibbia prison in 1997:

“Prison is the most direct, brutal expression of power, and like power it must be destroyed, it cannot be abolished progressively. Anyone who thinks they can improve it now in order to destroy it in the future will forever be a captive of it.

The revolutionary project of anarchists is to struggle along with the exploited and push them to rebel against all abuse and repression, so also against prison. What moves them is the desire for a better world, a better life with dignity and ethic, where economy and politics have been destroyed. There can be no place for prison in that world.

That is why anarchists scare power.

That is why they are locked up in prison.” – Alfredo M. Bonanno, Rebibbia prison, March 20, 1997

(July 27th, 2018)

It’s been a pretty hot summer and with that has come a lot more time for catching up on some reading, away from the glaring sun. “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” by David Graeber, is a 368 page book published this past May. It’s a book filled with personal narrative, critique, and other tales of shitty jobs from people around the world, spliced together with Graeber’s excellent story telling ability.

The book originally started off as an essay back in 2013 titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs” published in “Strike!” Magazine. The reception to the essay caused such a stir that years later, Graeber has complied everything into a tightly knit book examining bullshit jobs.

Of course, the critique of work is nothing new for anarchist thinkers. Some well known modern authors on the subject include the infamous Bob Black and their text “The Abolition of Work” that starts off by stating “No one should ever work.” The aesthically pleasing design and writing from the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective in their recent book titled “Work”. The 2016 book “Abolish Work: An Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia” edited by Nick Ford and published by Little Black Cart, which also includes the original Graeber essay. To name just a few.

Have you had a bullshit job before? Probably. One of my favorite aspects of the book is reading other peoples stories about how much of a joke their job is and relating it back to my own experiences. I started working officially when I was 14 years old, but before that had known work as the chores on a small farm growing up. And to this day, I still hate it when upon meeting someone new, one of the first questions that people often ask is “what do you do for a living?” The identity of work and trying to stay alive in this world.

So, what do anarchists do for a living? And that’s just the thing – everyone wanted to talk about what we spend the most hours of our waking life doing, slogging away at some workplace. How is yours?

“The reality of the situation first came home to me over a decade ago when attending a lecture by Catherine Lutz, an anthropologist who has been carrying out a project studying the archipelago of US overseas military bases. She made the fascinating observation that almost all of these bases organize outreach programs, in which soldiers venture out to repair schoolrooms or to perform free dental checkups in nearby towns and villages. The ostensible reason for the programs was to improve relations with local communities, but they rarely have much impact in that regard; still, even after the military discovered this, they kept the programs up because they had such an enormous psychological impact on the soldiers, many of whom would wax euphoric when describing them: for example, “This is why I joined the army,” “This is what military service is really all about—not just defending your country, it’s about helping people!” Soldiers allowed to perform public service duties, they found, were two or three times more likely to reenlist. I remember thinking, “Wait, so most of these people really want to be in the Peace Corps?” And I duly looked it up and discovered: sure enough, to be accepted into the Peace Corps, you need to already have a college degree. The US military is a haven for frustrated altruists. ”

“The pieces are all there to create an entirely different world history. For the most part, we’re just too blinded by our prejudices to see the implications. For instance, almost everyone nowadays insists that participatory democracy, or social equality, can work in a small community or activist group, but cannot possibly ‘scale up’ to anything like a city, a region, or a nation-state. But the evidence before our eyes, if we choose to look at it, suggests the opposite. Egalitarian cities, even regional confederacies, are historically quite commonplace. Egalitarian families and households are not. Once the historical verdict is in, we will see that the most painful loss of human freedoms began at the small scale – the level of gender relations, age groups, and domestic servitude – the kind of relationships that contain at once the greatest intimacy and the deepest forms of structural violence. If we really want to understand how it first became acceptable for some to turn wealth into power, and for others to end up being told their needs and lives don’t count, it is here that we should look. Here too, we predict, is where the most difficult work of creating a free society will have to take place.” – David Graeber & David Wengrow

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-david-wengrow-how-to-change-the-course-of-human-history

(June 29th, 2018)

This week we are taking a closer look into the world of sports and anarchism. Across the newspaper headlines for the past few weeks has been coverage of the World Cup of soccer taking place in Russia. Outside of the USA and around the world, the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world and it’s game of soccer, the most popular sport.

It’s taking place in Russia this year, which has also been in the anarchist news headlines for repression of anarchists and dissidents there. It should be obvious that anarchists are against the spectacle of sports on this level – the governments, corporations, and corruption inherent in such things. One example of anarchist opposition to the world of sports comes from the text “The Olympics: a reflection of a society under capitalism by anonymous.” It says the Olympics are “little more than a display of nationalistic pride and flag waving by nations who co-opt efforts of athletes to further their own schemes.” And then the text calls for an “Anarchist Olympic games to be held in 2020. I’m not sure what events there would be (that’s another discussion) but they would be a games that will surely highlight mutual aid over competition, solidarity over nationalism, and equality over crass commercialisation.”

On the more anarchist playing field, sports have played an important aspect of radical culture. Recently in a very informal IRC survey of participants favorite anarchist sports they listed: sex, brick throwing, running down the walls, capture the flag and other neighborhood / city wide games (a la CrimethInc.), protest, attack, video games and antifa. Apparently, it was also mentioned that the Japanese have contests for flipping tables and book ripping.

Anarchist and antifascist football clubs are popular world wide, but especially in Europe it seems. The Situationist Asger Jorn came up with a variation of soccer called three-sided football, which is played by some. Other than Jeff “The Snowman” Monson of mixed martial artist fame, I’m hard-pressed to name any famous anarchist athletes other than perhaps Woody Harrelson in the 1990s movie “White Men Can’t Jump” – as Wikipedia lists him as an anarchist, although it also mentions that he supports the 9/11 Truth Movement. The Colorado Avalanche of The National Hockey League (NHL) takes home the award for sports team unknowingly having anarchist symbol as their logo. Curiously, in Fifth Estate #392 they published a text “On The Anarchist Origins of Golf” by Joseph Winogrond, which makes an argument for golf originally as an anarchist sport of sorts. Certainly the abuse of land, water-use, chemicals, corporate-sized tournament purses and exorbitant greens fees, its feigned air of exclusivity and aristocracy of golf today are far from these anarchist roots.

In the recent intriguing text “Maximum Potential” by Max Res they examine the idea of anarchists doing fitness. Accordingly, much of the current writing on such things is centered around the antifa crowd and they take a look at the Haymaker Gym in Chicago, which is an “attempt to create a radical culture of fitness and self-defense.” The Haymaker thinks of the body as “the most intimate of material forces” and “as a tool for revolution, and strength as a means by which to change the world.” Max Res concludes that it is “worth further considering what anarchist fitness could look like when not motivated by revolutionary goals or a defense mentality.” Certainly these ideas of anarchists doing fitness and the relationship to sports is an exciting area to consider in the toolbox of anarchism.

Back to the news, the television channel flickers and the reporter reads the World Cup scores aloud. Colin Kaepernick still isn’t on an NFL team yet, mostly for kneeling during the national anthem, which with backing from Trump, the NFL will now penalize teams for such actions. Meanwhile Kaepernick has been seen out supporting the IWOC, or the IWW effort behind incarcerated workers and prison abolition. NBA stars like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul rally around social issues like Black Lives Matter and gun violence. The NFL “cares” and frequently puts in players and teams doing community service ops and has teams wear special military pride uniforms some weekends. The spectacle of popular culture and sports grinds on as your favorite player signs a multi-million dollar contract and even larger Nike shoe endorsement. CYA in the streets!

You can read the text “Maximum Potential” referenced in this brief review here:

Maximum Potential by Max Res
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-res-maximum-potential

(May 25th, 2018)

In episode #61 of this podcast, the editorial covered some of the current happenings in Cuba, like the change of power and the informal economy. In this editorial we aim to take another look at Cuba, like some brief anarchist history, and what freedom of expression looks like there through the music and bits of culture.

First, let’s dig into some Cuban anarchist history. Back in the days of Emma Goldman, around the late 1880s and 90s, the famous Cuban writer and revolutionary José Martí moved to New York City for a while and wrote about the NYC anarchists. Martí was not a big fan, but still wrote some intriguing commentary like how the anarchists would gather in the streets every Sunday morning to shoot their guns, while everyone else was at church. Moving along some years, we have Frank Fernández who wrote the authoritative book “Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement” detailing anarchism on the island. Then in 1959, as everyone knows – things change with the Cuban Revolution lead by Fidel Castro and sidekick Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who was a Stalinist, executioner, and bureaucrat.

In “Saint Che: The Truth Behind the Legend of the Heroic Guerilla, Ernesto Che Guevara” by Larry Gambone they write that:

Saint “Che is implicated in the destruction of Cuban anarcho-syndicalism, (and Trotskyism as well). Cuba in the 1950’s was the scene of the last of the great Latin American syndicalist movements. Libertarians controlled many trade unions and were an important anti-Batista force. The anarchists had survived the Machado and Batista dictatorships but did not survive two years of Castroism. By 1962 the movement was down to 20 or 30 members, hundreds of others having fled into exile, imprisoned or executed. For anyone still harboring any illusions about Che’s alleged libertarianism, the following quote should put this to rest: “Individualism…must disappear in Cuba…[it] should be the proper utilization of the whole individual for the absolute benefit of the community.” Such an opinion on the individual was about as far removed from libertarianism as you could possibly get.”

2018 in Cuba looks a lot different than the 1960s in Cuba. Today, we have small steps being taken like the recent opening of an anarchist library and social space there, funded by libertarians and anarchists around the world. Overall though, the government continues to repress and punish dissent and public criticism on the island. The 2018 report by Human Rights Watch details some of the tactics employed by the government, including beatings, public shaming, travel restrictions, and termination of employment. The prisons are overcrowded and prisoners often work long days, including scores of political prisoners being held there. Those who criticize the government or engage in hunger strikes and other forms of protest often endure extended solitary confinement, beatings, restrictions on family visits, and have been denied medical care. In terms of work, Cuba continues to violate conventions established specifically regarding the freedom of association, collective bargaining, protection of wages, and prohibitions on forced labor. While the law technically allows the formation of independent unions, in practice Cuba only permits one confederation of state-controlled unions, the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba. One can only imagine what the future holds for this library and social space in Cuba, but is exciting to see.

Of note, the music scenes of hip-hop and punk rock music in Cuba are intriguing to look at when considering freedom of expression. Many of the popular artists push the boundaries of what can be said without getting yourself in trouble, although there are examples it happening. Porno para Ricardo was one such punk rock group that made the headlines for causing a stir. The group gets it’s name for the Cuban law outlawing pornography on the island and one famous connoisseur named Richard, who kept getting in trouble for having porn. Cuban hip hop also has a strong following and artists who have tested the prohibitions on free speech, directly talking about the difficult situation of living there. Over the years, especially more recently it seems that many of these artists have left the island.

Among, what some may call the Cuban counter-culture, you have one such group termed “los freakies” by the police and others. Think of it as the youth, the skater kids, punk rock, hip hop and those interested in alternative ideas. Back when I was on the island, one could visit the streets of 23 & G, also known as the Park of the Rock ‘n Rollers on the weekend nights and mingle with the large gathering of “los freakies” sprawled out down the street and eventually meeting the ocean at the Malecon, or walk-way along the ocean. Perhaps coming to anarchism in Cuba is much more rank and file, but the counter-cultures also seems very strong and full of energy. Like all things, it’s complex and not so easy to simply put into categories, as mentioned earlier, conversations at the Universities can be limited, but then again at the same time I knew an anarchist professor from Russia who would give talks to the students there. Maybe it’s a bit of who you are and how you say it.

Cuba is in a unique situation right now, hopefully these past two editorials have shone a little bit of light on a place often mysterious to anarchists in North America. Much more waits to be said, until then – cya later asere.

(April 27th, 2018)

Last week, on April 19th, Cuba made the headlines as a transition to power was passed from Rául Castro to Presidente Miguel Díaz-Canel. Rául Castro, handpicked their successor, and remains at the helm of the Communist Party; his son runs the intelligence services; and his ex-son-in-law runs the military’s vast business interests. The Castro name is still on a great many things and the new Presidente Diaz-Canel has vowed that there will be no “capitalist restoration”. It seems the government plan is increased Internet access, land reform, increased private economic activity, and getting rid of the dual-currency. Basically, as it is now this transition to power seems to just be the same old Cuba with some new names in charge. Government as usual.

It does however, mark on important aspect as the popular Cuban blogger, Yoani Sánchez wrote: “At least three generations of Cubans have lived only under the leadership of two men with the same surname. That uniformity is about to be broken on April 19 when the name of the new president will be publicly announced. Whether he maintains the status quo or looks to reform it, his arrival to power marks a historical fact: the end of the Castro era on this Island.” Expectations in Cuba and abroad are low and a general sentiment of fatalism, that everything will continue to grind as it is now, as it was under Fidel and Rául seem to be the biggest set of emotions on the island.

Meanwhile, the USA embassy in Cuba has been called a “ghost town” as it has found itself more than empty after the mystery illnesses effecting at least 24 USA diplomats there, prompted the USA government to cut staffing. Trump has continued a tougher stance on the country, by making it more difficult for individuals with USA citizenship to visit Cuba, outside of non-profit groups. Land of the free to travel anywhere, except for here (insert country name), and there (insert country name).

For Cubans living on the island, in order to make a living under the Marxist-Leninist State Socialist economy one can either work in the formal economy, the informal, or one of the few privately allowed businesses, like small restaurants and families who rent out part of their homes for travelers. One statement to sum up the situation economically for Cubans, is that taxi drivers can earn more money than doctors, so you have the doctor leaving their practice and on the way home turning into the taxi catering to the wealthy tourists.

The majority of Cubans make more money in the informal (grey and black market) and provide for themselves rather than those working formal State jobs. The most popular job in Cuba currently is helping distribute El Paquete Semanal or “The Weekly Package” as it was recently recognized as the largest employer on the island. What is El Paquete?

“Internet access in Cuba is heavily restricted. However, millions of Cubans still engage with digital content through an informal, pervasive, offline internet known as El Paquete Semanal
or “The Weekly Package”. Every week, a new version of El Paquete (EP) becomes available, and includes a one terabyte (TB) collection of digital content that is distributed across Cuba on external hard drives, USBs, and CDs. This collection includes a variety of television, music, movies, apps, educational programs, YouTube videos, magazines, and news, and costs between between 2-5 CUC”

2-5 CUC equals the exact same as $2-5 US dollars, as the currency is fiat and pegged one-to-one with the US dollar. “Although EP is not formally sanctioned by the Cuban government, the network has been allowed to continue and thrive. As a result, it not only provides an alternative to state-controlled media, but also offers a way for Cubans to sustain their livelihoods [8]. This has led to thriving media-sharing practices in Havana, to the point that social gatherings often revolve around media-sharing” The Cuban practice of being inventors or known as “los inventos” carries on as they have turned the lack of information and Internet into the largest informal economic provider via human infrastructure. This is nothing new and after the Special Period of the 1990s, the informal economy has always had a greater share of economic activity rather than the official formal state economy. In many ways, I’ve always thought of the informal economy of Cuba as an extreme of capitalism, as people finding any way possible to provide for themselves and their families.

In terms of anarchists on the island, one widely reported space via Fifth Estate and their GoFundMe campaign is that of the Alfredo López Libertarian Workshop. Although news of this library and social center doesn’t appear to be widely available for those living outside of Cuba at the moment. By nature of it being talked about in anarchist spaces, as a libertarian project in Cuba one always has to be careful of the State repression that is frequently handed down to actors who oppose their authority. I’d be very curious to see how places like this exist in places known for repression of alternative ideas, especially that of anarchists.

Cuba, only 90 miles away from the USA, yet it seems like a completely different world. We would love to hear from more anarchists and their experiences surrounding Cuba. No’ vemo asere.

(February 23rd, 2018)

In an unfortunate sign of the times, across the USA, schools and other workplaces are stocking up on trauma bags designed to help stop people from bleeding out after a mass shooting event. Gun companies on the stock market see their shares skyrocket as capitalists await the next big consumer gun rush as panic turns into fear that soon all the guns may disappear. In a widely reported, somewhat misleading factoid – since the new year, 2018 has been witness to 18 different events where a firearm was discharged in a school related environment. The disturbing trend of random mass acts of indiscriminate violence continues on year after year and with that the conversation about guns and violence cycles on via social media, dinner table debates, and the endless hum of the newsroom reels.

After the mass shooting in Parkland High School on February 14th, the conservation quickly shifted from the adults interviewing kids on television and asking them to describe the dead bodies they had just seen, seriously what’s wrong with people, to what the Republicans and Democrats in the government could do to solve the problem. While far from an expert on guns or the history surrounding these ideas of control, it seems that efforts in the USA behind gun control have always been racially motivated. The white supremacist history of gun control and the racial disparity of the proceeding outcome.

So really, what is the problem? Individuals and groups from all over the political spectrum have for years placed the blame on video games, music, and technology, to mental health and post-industrial civilization, and everything in-between. The not so clearly at times lines drawn in the sand, range from those on the left aiming for stricter more “common sense” gun control (but what about when cops kill teenagers?) and those on the right vying for more surveillance and security. The right wants to arm teachers, increase surveillance, metal detectors, “school resource officers” which is just a fancy name for having cops in schools, concealed carry, and basically turn education, already with so many other problems, further into the panopticon of real life jail cell doors. And finally, you have a large majority of the youth across the institutions of General Education energized into the polarization of this or that framework of “reform”. If only the SnapChat redesign wasn’t so terrible maybe these kids could steer themselves away from the two clear roads to nowhere. There is an old Cuban saying that says that, “the classrooms are like the jail cells” in reference to limited free speech there, people keeping track of any non-conformity, and the repression that follows if you don’t fall into line.

All of these spontaneous new enlightened faces wanting to do something about their future, local organizers and #woke activists pushing forward alongside the barreling train of momentous outrage. An important question to consider from the last episode of “The Hotwire” inquired, what can anarchists do if protests coming out of this are all about gun control? Furthermore, how do we keep the conversation anarchist and put on our best anarchist public relations face?

Should Red Neck Revolt be organizing more pro-gun rallies? Obvious answer – but, if not, then what? And who? Should anarchists be open carrying in the places where such things are permitted, more than they already do? Of course, but that’s easy for me to say here. I’m in a State that has one of the nations toughest laws on guns, so it’s also a bit eye-opening to see anarchists open carrying at demonstrations in other far off places. An old leftist upon visiting New York City towards the end of the 19th century, said that anarchists on Sunday would not be found in the Church pews, but rather out “in the streets” target practicing and shooting their guns. Oh, how the times have changed! On the brighter side, various anarchist-orientated gun and self-defense clubs have existed over the years and have seemingly gained popularity recently with the election of Trump – with groups like Red Neck Revolt and “Trigger Warning” anarchist gun clubs springing up across the states. I’d be very curious to learn about anarchist gun culture outside of the United States of America, but I’m also afraid that perhaps there isn’t much of one. After all, Americans really do love their guns. You can even 3D-print your own gun now, which really rings true to the anarchist idea of DIY.

In all, this editorial may be amiss if I didn’t mention one very well known anarchist who has written and spoken extensively over the years on mass shootings – John Zerzan. They write: “The antidote lies in finding a basis for a renewal of community: moving away from the technified wasteland of ever more massified and dispersed society. We must not stumble on with what passes for political dialog, a discourse that addresses almost nothing of real consequence. The shocking scandal mounts and it is past time to look at what society is fast becoming and why.” On another note: A recently published book called “Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense” edited by scott crow is a wide-ranging anthology uncovering the hidden histories and ideas of community armed self-defense, exploring how it has been used by marginalized and oppressed communities as well as anarchists and radicals within significant social movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Among the multitude of overwhelming things going on in the world, locally / internationally, with friends, family, loved ones, work, and enemies here is another potent subject rearing it’s head towards the top for anarchists and their friends to think on, plan, discuss and move.

(January 26th, 2018)

One of my favorite books from 2017 was “No Wall They Can Build: a guide to borders and migration across North America”. It intertwines insightful commentary on borders with explicit personal narrative wrapped up in that seemingly always beautiful graphic design that has come to be expected, from the CrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective. It’s a 200+ page turner that felt like one of those rare occasions where you almost read it all in one sitting.

It begins: “The border is not just a wall. It’s not just a line on a map. It’s not any particular physical location. It’s a power structure, a system of control. The border is everywhere that people live in fear of deportation, everywhere migrants are denied the rights accorded citizens, everywhere human beings are segregated into included and excluded.

The border does not divide one world from another. There is only one world, and the border is tearing it apart.”

Here in the USA, the government shut down, whatever that means, largely over the policies surrounding the border, immigration, and the ideals of those in power. What else is the border? “No Wall They Can Build” goes on to say:

“The border divides the whole world into gated communities and prisons, one within the other in concentric circles of privilege and control. At one end of the continuum, there are billionaires who can fly anywhere in private jets; at the other end, inmates in solitary confinement. As long as there is a border between you and those less fortunate than you, you can be sure there will be a border above you, too, keeping you from the things you need.”

So, following along the lines of the age old question – what do we do? I like what the old magazine Abolishing the Borders from Below has to say on the topic:

“There is a justifiable need to abolish the borders between nations, societies, cultures and whatever else separates and defines us. In order that this process does not lead to the formation of new borders or other types of segregation, like those established by elitist institutions such as the EU, NATO or UN, it has to be done from below, by the people.

There is an enduring need to immediately abolish all states, governments and authoritarian institutions so that communities based on common values such as freedom, respect, cooperation and solidarity can be formed. These communities in turn can lead to the transformation of the world order into one based on the above mentioned values. In order to push that process forward with support for the development of the anarchist movement over the borders we have created …”

Much easier said than done, as it will take revolution to realize all our of demands. One area of note and going back to the CrimethInc. writers is that: “we see that what is lacking is a widely accessible point of intervention that provides direct leverage on the infrastructure with which these raids are being carried out. People need a pressure point, a place that they can converge to go on the offensive.” Certainly not a particular endorsement of any particular strategy, but these are conversations anarchists are having about things you hear in the mainstream media everyday.

And a parting thought, for such people who dream: “People who are motivated by guilt and shame rather than by love and rage will eventually disengage; people who are not fighting for their own lives will eventually give up. Always.”