Anarchoblogs

Sent to Nevada Prison Watch:June 27th, 2010 Jeremy Allen Crozier #77906Ely State PrisonP.O. Box 1989Ely, NV 89301Howard Skolnik, DirectorNevada Department of CorrectionsAdministrative OfficesP.O. Box 7011Carson City, NV 89702Director Skolnik,As you are probably well aware, I have written to you numerous times over the previous year to bring several legitimate issues to your attention concerning

Now that the Festivals are drawing to a close, it’s time to get back to local cultural offerings. First up, Old Hat Books: Come and share tea, cakes and radical poetry with us at Old Hat Books this Wednesday the 8th September! Nicole Carter will be our guest reader and they will read to us [...]

Here is a second roast contributed by John Zerzan from Eugene Oregon

Aragorn! Subversive Trickster or Postmodern Confusionist?

Who is this larger (much larger) than life figure? How should we appreciate and applaud his bizarre term of confounding us? He who laughs at such pedestrian notions as commonly accepted definitions, historical fact, and consistent vision––what manner of beast is this?

Did he receive his wound to the chest from actual skinheads in Sacramento—or was this a decentered bit of text about a virtual “Sacramento?” His manifest energy—perhaps the output of theory graduate students in league with his merry deconstruction of reality?

And what manner of man, after all, is he who attracts two women who together, arrange his birthday roast?

His nihilism may be elusive, if not elliptical, but AK Press, NEFAC, and other assorted lefty losers are paying the price.

All hail to our smiling conundrum, and welcome all interpreters, floating signifiers, and guides to the perplexed!

JZ

With all the writing I’ve been doing about Letters of Insurgents the past few months I haven’t shared what is sharable about the roast that happened for my 40th birthday. I will start with an entry from my friend Artnoose. She is about to start work on a major tattoo for me so I will not say anything curt about her entry (which was read in absentia since she lives in Pittsburgh).

Here I am, roasting from a safe distance. And I know what you’re saying— “Artnoose? But she’s a cream puff! She’s way too nice to write a suitably scathing roast.”

And you’re right. I am too nice. No reason to fault Aragorn! for that, though. He did his best.

I met Aragorn!at the Burley House in San Diego around 1992, or maybe the year before. Boy was he a jerk back then. And me? I was busy having my mind blown by the collective house situation, especially— and get this— house meetings! I was totally enamored with them.

At the time Aragorn! was playing computer games (Wolfenstein?) all the time and sharing a bedroom with a few people who as far as I could tell he wasn’t related to or sleeping with. That was also mind-blowing.

Also as far as I could tell, Aragorn! could win any argument, and even back then, I was never sure if this was a positive thing or not.

Still, I observed his argumentation style, even when I seemed asleep on the couch while he and my boyfriend at the time got into debates late into the night. I want to add a few more things about this time in history before jumping ahead. One is that Aragorn! and Chuck were the first people I met who had septum piercings. The other is that Aragorn!’s gaming name was Chomsky, and I think that my questioning of this name I-had-never-heard-before spawned a verbal introduction to anarchism.

In 1993 I got my septum pierced, moved to the Bay Area, made a trek to Bound Together to purchase Living My Life, and began calling myself an anarchist. I mention this because I suspect that Aragorn! was probably the unwitting focus of this turn. I didn’t see him again until I think 1995, when I almost literally ran into him in the hallway at the 20th Street House, where I was dating one of the residents. We exchanged hellos, he didn’t remember my name, and after a few moments of silence, he said, “Well, no reason for us all to stand here being uncomfortable,” and left.

I probably saw Aragorn! off and on for a few years after that (with him forgetting my name consistently), during which time I had begun attending the reading group at the Long Haul. The debate education that had begun at the Burley House continued as I watched Lawrence battle friends, foes, and ideologies every Tuesday night for years.
At some point a new influx of people began attending the reading group, and Aragorn! was one of them. It was a turning point for the reading group but also my own life as well, as the greater circle of friends around these new people were to become my close friend base.

How this happened was through a difficult situation I found myself in. I was scared and I didn’t feel like I was getting support from the people around me. Aragorn! stepped in to lend a hand, and the thing that I always remember is that he didn’t have to. He made the choice. Other people stepped in too, and it changed the way I thought about friends, even though recent events might suggest otherwise. A true helping hand is one that’s extended without being forced, and it’s unfortunately rare.

Aragorn!was pretty solidly in my life from then on, and I can’t count how many times I’ve had to defend my friendship with him. We’ve also gotten into some rows ourselves, about who I date, how much I kiss people in public, the proper format to submit graphic design to a letterpress printer, and ineffective approaches to storming into virtual buildings armed to the hilt. This last bit is most dramatically illustrated in the moment when during an epic game of Counterstrike I kept getting picked off (probably by Mike K.) in the first few seconds of every round, and Aragorn! yelled out, “Artnoose! Could you pleeeeeease try to not be so fucking USELESS?!” I think I stormed out, but years later I got major cred on tour because there’s that Network of Terror song “Debacle at the LAN Party” and I could actually say that I had been an instrumental player at one.

So there you have it. Later I moved in, shit went crazy, I drew a comic zine about it, and eventually I left town. I still consider Aragorn! one of my best friends, even though we hardly ever see each other. If nothing else, I have a septum ring and Letters of Insurgents to thank him for. Oh, and a few dozen unfinished Kriegspiel boards. Maybe LBC will put them on sale or something…}

“Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life, deserving of being called human, begins...

redandjonny:

bedtime.

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” -...

This feed entry uses the hCalendar calendaring format.

Yeah. Stephen Jolly of the Socialist Party — one of only two Socialist councillors in the country — is gonna be contesting the seat of Richmond in the Victorian state election (November 27). The official campaign launch is on Saturday, October 2, upstairs @ the British Crown Hotel (14 Smith Street, Collingwood — opposite 3CR).

Stephen is standing in one of four seats in which Labor faces a serious challenge from the Greens. The seriousness of this threat was reinforced by Adam ‘I’ll give a voice to the movements’ Bandt’s recent victory in the Federal seat of Melbourne. Bandt’s decision to support the Federal ALP has meant the Victorian branch is Not. Happy. Joolya. (Greens pact stirs Labor anger, Royce Millar, The Age, September 3, 2010). Still:

While sitting candidates and ministers Richard Wynne (Richmond) and Bronwyn Pike (Melbourne) are known to be squeamish about a full-blown war, Fiona Richardson (Northcote) and Jane Garrett (Brunswick) are keen to fight and are attracting strong financial support to do so.

Wynne and Garrett are members of the ‘Socialist Left’ faction of the ALP, Bronwyn Pike is nominally non-aligned, while Fiona Richardson is ‘Labor Unity’ (‘Right’). Wynne will be confronting Kathleen Maltzahn, Pyke will battle Brian Walters, while Richardson will face off against Anne Martinelli and Garrett Cyndi Dawes. The ALP currently holds Melbourne by a margin of 2.0% (v GRN), Richmond by 3.6% (v GRN), Brunswick by 3.6% (v GRN) and Northcote by 8.5% (v GRN).

The fight for inner-city Melbourne is a tough one for Labor, as appeasing ‘progressives’ likely to support the Greens has to be balanced against the need to placate a broader constituency. As in the case of the federal election campaign, and the battle for Melbourne in particular, unions (one of the sources of the “strong financial support”) will be pouring large sums of money into the campaigns to re-elect Labor. Presumably, they’ll be expecting a much better return on their investment this time around.

See also : Federal deal means nothing to Victorian Greens, Labor, Farrah Tomazin, The Age, September 2, 2010 | Victoria: the left-leaning state? (August 14, 2010) | In Studio: Mark Aarons on the hollow men of the NSW Right, SlowTV, July 2010 | What happened to the Left? (February 27, 2010) | Melbourne : ALP ~versus~ Greens (August 24, 2009) | Bump Me Into Parliament (July 2, 2009).

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There’s a common myth that New Zealand women have the right to abortion. However, although the law is usually interpreted extremely liberally, the Crimes Act and the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act severely limit the circumstances under which women can have abortions. This misapprehension helps to prevent real abortion on demand from being made accessible to all women in the country. As well as the law creating legal loopholes that women have to jump through, it puts significant barriers for access for some women.

Of the 21 District Health Boards in the country, 7 do not offer abortions, meaning woman in the Mid Central, Whanganui, Lakes and Bay of Plenty areas in the North Island, and the South Canterbury, West Coast and Southland areas in the South Island who want an abortion have to travel for the procedure. Some have to travel very long distances – for instance, if you live in Bluff, you’ll be forced to drive 8 & 1/2 hours to Christchurch, despite Dunedin hospital being a comparatively close 3 & 1/4 hours drive. As the process often takes multiple appointments, women seeking abortions may even have to make these long trips more than once, which means taking yet more time off work, education, or any other commitments they may have. First trimester abortion is a relatively simple procedure, and there is no medical reason why it can’t be offered in every hospital in the country.

For women who aren’t eligible for publicly funded health services, the situation becomes even harder. This includes women in New Zealand on shorter work, student or visitors visas, undocumented immigrants, failed refugees and asylum seekers awaiting deportation and more. These women face a cost of around $1000 (sometimes upwards of $2500), and many clinics and hospitals do not provide abortions for non-eligible woman at all, again potentially meaning extra cost and difficulty associated with long-distance travel.

A woman’s ability to decide what happens to her body is a crucial aspect of the fight for women’s freedom. Abortion on demand must be legal, but it must also be easily accessible to all those who choose to use it. New Zealand’s abortion laws fall far, far short of that at present.