Just thought I’d mention I decided to flip through Direct Action by Ann Hansen recently. Memoirs are interesting to me because I really do love story-telling, and learning through people’s own analysis of their actions and engaging with their ghosts, as a manner of speaking. I recommend it to anyone looking to see some of Canadian anarchist history along with actions related to the historic “Wimmin’s Fire Brigade” actions.
Critical engagement is always important, obviously I’m not telling folks to follow in the footsteps of Direct Action (and neither is Hansen really) but it’s worth reading and thinking through the history she lays out.
The good folks at Feministing have posted a news article/alert about this campaign being launched by anti-choice crusaders (and I use that word consciously/intentionally) in the US, Canada, Australia, and Northern Ireland.
As usual, this one will probably be ugly. They’ve posted a list of the 40 clinics they will be targeting (perhaps a response is necessary, including increased clinic support or escorting for safety if it’s in your local area?) Their target(s) (and again, that’s what it is, a target) list is available here.
Obviously any response should be worked out in coalition (not in adventurist terms) with the effected populations/clinics to ensure first and most importantly the safety of those seeking medical care.
Lately I’ve been feeling a reconnection with my early disaffection with life under capitalism; reconnecting with the Young Marx and the alienation he described with the selling of ones’ labour. At this point in my life, I achieved the capitalist model of success, I got the great job, I get paid well, I have great friends, but I’m consistently reminded that I’m selling my labor on the market, which psychologically really gets to me. I should add, this is to say nothing about my actual day-to-day job, which I love to get to do all day. Therein lies part of the contradiction (dialectic?).
It also makes me more timid. I start thinking about being careful to not jeopardize my job, to not do anything that could ensnare me in trouble, and start thinking as a careerist. Capitalism is thus a social system as well as an economic one. I’m fascinated at how I actually have to check myself and re-assess my anti-capitalist positions when things become in my interest. But I know, cognitively, this capitalist success (at least on it’s own) won’t make me happy.
I want to live my life ready to enjoy, trying to make the most of it. Most of my friends/loved ones/comrades are atheists, and a joke I normally like to make is that I may not be an atheist, but I’d like to live like one. I need to remember what will make my life worth living; what will allow me to look back on my porch at 120 years old and smile. I’ll take my chances that this is the one life I get to live (and hope I get something after), so I should live it to the fullest, work through the insecurities, work past all of my own bullshit, and struggle for a better world: for justice and for joy, because they are both what’s important. So, here’s to 2010 and towards smiling and coffee and going for trips; and for rebuilding those social relationships inside and out towards the world we all want to see.
Prescript: For ongoing news about the 7.1 magnitude earthquake, follow along here. The people of Haiti are in my thoughts and prayers. I’m at a loss for words on how to describe the destruction that I’ve seen just through the lens of the North American observer through the safety of my television or laptop screen, I just can’t imagine the reality of it. For more reading, and another analysis (a far more well put-together one), go to ShaneDanger’s post regarding this tragedy.
At the bottom of this post, I’ve included information on how to offer support.
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Normally I try not to give space to fuckfaces like Pat Robertson when he decides to explain how there are biblical explanations for disasters and emergency situations; but this time I couldn’t stop myself (I also apologize for the hastily written appearance of this entry, it is indeed, written quickly and angrily).
Robertson decided to use his airtime today to pontificate his words of wisdom (which he has alleged in the past come from the Good Lord himself) on the 700 Club, I think it’s worth watching. (a wonderful investigative report on Robertson’s record of supporting exploitation and military dictatorships is available here).
As you can see, no mention by Robertson of the imperialism that has wrought Haiti since it’s it began it’s struggle for freedom. Having been colonized by France, and then Europe/the United States, the Haitian people have had a brutally tough go historically, leading even to the present with the overthrow of the democratically-elected Catholic liberation theologian turned president Jean-Bertrand Aristide twice (91, 2004).
But to place a simple question and Robertson and his ilk: Dear Pat Robertson, was it Haiti’s “pact w the devil” that caused CIA-backed death squad FRAPH to hack off peoples’ limbs? Was it God who was punishing the Haitians then also?
For supporting the rescue and rebuilding effort in Haiti, Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) is there on the ground and doing amazing work already. Cherish and appreciate them and their dedication; and donate what you can. Click here to donate.
Click here for an article about the action at Single Payer Action’s website that interviews a great Bay Area organizer/comrade Max Bell Alper of AFSCME and others.
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As you probably know by now, I am a member, fundraising coordinator, and big supporter of the Institute for Anarchist Studies. We have a few panels coming up at different events, and hope you can make it out to them. As always, you can consider becoming a monthly (or yearly, one-time, however you choose) donor [...]
So as I’ve been on blog-vacation, I thought I’d connect with you all that I’ve not been slacking on my reading/keeping in stride with readings/writings on the current social crises.
First, Joel Olsen has recently done a few things that I really was interested in. The first is a talk Joel (a former member of Love [...]
“Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant.”
-Bakunin
Authoritarianism [...]
My good friend and comrade Joshua, a fellow board-member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, recently posted a conversation he and I have been working on, a dialog, on his blog. It’s on the direction of anarchism, and the possibilities for a prefigurative present. It’s beautifully designed and laid out, so I hope you’ll take [...]
While I’ve been away celebrating my recent graduation and employment, the Honduran military has unfortunately been hard at work overthrowing the democratically-elected (left leaning) government of Manuel Zelaya and have instituted a coup-government that has been in power.
The moment serves as an interesting one, in which Hugo Chavez, the UN, and President Obama are all [...]
Just thought I’d mention I decided to flip through Direct Action by Ann Hansen recently. Memoirs are interesting to me because I really do love story-telling, and learning through people’s own analysis of their actions and engaging with their ghosts, as a manner of speaking. I recommend it to anyone looking to see some of Canadian anarchist history along with actions related to the historic “Wimmin’s Fire Brigade” actions.