This last week there was a debate between two public intellectuals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRC5AA1wF0
Should we do something like that? If we do who would we get to debate that would actually be interesting to a lay audience?
What would they debate?
From Anarchy Bang for Sunday April 28
It is a fair point to say that most pessimists were at one time optimists and perhaps failed at that. Activism is nothing if not a kind of optimism. The world, especially the political world, is dark and full of terrors and hopeful activist people are some of the few that charge into that maw with flaming swords and a belief they'll get to the other side. Many of us pessimists have!
From CrimethInc.
Looking Back a Year after the Evictions
From Autonomies
In a series of police operations in Athens, over the last ten days, four okupied social centres were cleared, including two that provided autonomous, self-managed housing for migrants.
The objective is clear: to discipline rebellious segments of the population (most notably, anarchists), or those who might think of rebelling, to place under State administration and policed surveillance, migrants-refugees, under a politics of social division and colonisation (and thereby trying to bring to end one of the richest experiences of radical “no-border politics” in recent memory), and to pacify the urban space for “investment and renewal”
From C4SS by Logan Marie Glitterbomb
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is quickly becoming a hot topic this presidential cycle due to the likes of Andrew Yang and his supporters. Since he began his campaign, many other candidates have been interrogated about their support for the idea and more and more are responding positively, even if half-heartedly. Sadly some, such as Bernie Sanders, have remained skeptical of such a program and have instead called for measures such as a higher minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee. Such solutions are rooted in backwards economic thinking and only serve to tie us further to the current state-capitalist system. A UBI, however, would offer us much more freedom from economic oppression and state bureaucracy while possibly paving the way for us to build an economic situation that is far better than what we have now.
From Black Rose Anarchist Federation(and part II) By Tom Wetzel
As debates over the climate crisis and the proposed “Green New Deal” unfold, veteran activist and writer Tom Wetzel speaks to its short comings and proposes an eco-syndicalist alternative. Read the second part, “The Syndicalist Alternative for an Eco-socialist Future.” This first appeared in Ideas & Action.
From Anarchist Communist Group
Extinction Rebellion has managed to organise an impressive number of people into a civil disobedience movement. They have managed to shut down and occupy significant parts of London including numerous major road junctions over the past week. They have many admirable principles such as “breaking down hierarchies of power for more equitable participation” and “creating a world that is fit for generations to come”. However is civil disobedience really the best method for getting action to be taken on climate change?
Anarchist Studies 27.1 © 2019 issn 0967 3393
www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/
by Nathan Eisenstadt
ABSTRACT
In this paper I analyse and problematise what I argue are the dominant modes of liberated subject formation performed through divergent modes of organising within two anarchist social centres in Bristol, UK.
The sun, moon and the stars do not wait; they bomb the sky with their presence. A tsunami does not hesitate; it announces a death rattle of destruction before dissipating. So why should I wait? And who am I waiting for? And who are they waiting for? The Future is a god obeyed at the expense of one’s immediate desires in order to secure distant membership in a nonexistent utopia.
The Future is a hologram projection of dreams and promises that get rejected by the present. For politicians and other authoritarians seeking long-term domination, The Future is often socially utilized to exploit one's fear of living in the moment. The Future domesticates wild desire, limiting its capacity to explore spontaneous, unpredictable experiences.
