#everyday anarchism

[pamphlettyr]

Getting on the same page as someone is consensing with them, even if it's a consensus of two.

[nightly-birdie]

today on communism, marx and engels attempt to call anarchists stupid and advocating for authority and thus authoritarianism.

the factory needs to exist the factory needs to exist they say

society cannot function without factories and factories owned by capitalists or by communists are still structures that promote authoritarianism through productivity margins

communists care just as much as capitalists about the productivity of a factory: everybody will have a job under communism

even in the socialist utopia, one must subject himself to authority

what the fuck?

[ryzomeriseup]

Hello friends,

I recommend this podcast if you're looking for something that reinforces the little things you do every day.

[nando161mando]

[barbiebabalon]

The Artist Menaced By The Girl In The Political Study Who Loves The Sound Of Her Own Voice and Argues For No Reason

[chiquita-banana-death-squads]

ppl rly underestimate the physical toll that so-called "easy" jobs have on ur body. i work in retail. the most physically strenuous aspect of the job is standing on the floors, taking bottles outta boxes and putting them on the shelves, pulling bottles forward, lifting 15ish-20 pound boxes, and reaching for things in awkward places. everybody who's worked with that company for 10+ years is physically crumbling. the sheer repetition of these small, easy, light tasks destroys us. i've been full-time for about 2 1/2 years and i'm pretty sure i can spot the places where i'm gonna develop chronic pain lmao

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

A friend is tabling zinecon tomorrow and asked if I'd print some zines for her to give away along with her art zines. I asked her what topics and she said queer and palestine so I chose these.

[drdemonprince]

hi dr price— wannabe-disobedient anon here!!

thank you so much for your piece. I read it this morning and i don’t think i realized the extent to which obedience pervades my personal life too, how scared i am of disobeying my loved ones n stuff, how the need to be smooth and easy infects so much of my everyday existence. i didn’t quite get how small i need to start, but honestly i am thrilled to start saying no more and sitting with my own distress!! thank you for the concrete advice. i am excited to start. i am gonna start by wearing a scandalous outfit that i love but have been terrified of wearing and i will cry about it AFTER I’ve gone and gotten my little treat !!!

thank you!!

holy fucking shit, i love when my intuition is on the right track -- glad my tips were relevant and helpful for you. thank you for the GREAT question, for your anarchism, and for the immense patience of letting me publish an answer like... three months after asking it

send us pics of the outfit you beacon of sin!!! (if you want to)

[anarchistfrogposting]

Hello! I'm trying to understand more about anarchism. Do you think you could share some small everyday acts that could be considered anarchist? I'm asking particularly because I'd like to understand what are some actionable ways to be anarchist when you are under a real threat of being persecuted for it?

If you’re talking about small shifts in your lifestyle and attitudes, it’s worth thinking about the fact that anarchism isn’t just a political philosophy, it’s also a frame of analysis and a process. It looks at hierarchies in the world around us, analyses their use and necessity in our material conditions, and seeks to abolish or level them where they can be considered unnecessary (spoilers, that’s most of them).

On a personal level, I think that means questioning all authority. Engaging in that process of analysis by constantly asking “what purpose does the leveraging of this authority serve?” “Why do we follow this social rule?” “Am i exerting my power over my student/child/sibling/partner/friend (etc.) for its own sake?”. You can live your life in a more anarchist way by constantly engaging in the process of seeking to be more accountable to the power you yield, and by helping the powerless to find their strength.

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.1.5 Where does anarchism come from?

Where does anarchism come from? We can do no better than quote The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists produced by participants of the Makhnovist movement in the Russian Revolution (see Section A.5.4). They point out that:

“The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total negation of a social system based on the principles of classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non-statist society of workers under self-management. “So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the working masses. “The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it.” [pp. 15–16]

Like the anarchist movement in general, the Makhnovists were a mass movement of working class people resisting the forces of authority, both Red (Communist) and White (Tsarist/Capitalist) in the Ukraine from 1917 to 1921. As Peter Marshall notes “anarchism … has traditionally found its chief supporters amongst workers and peasants.” [Demanding the Impossible, p. 652]

Anarchism was created in, and by, the struggle of the oppressed for freedom. For Kropotkin, for example, “Anarchism … originated in everyday struggles” and “the Anarchist movement was renewed each time it received an impression from some great practical lesson: it derived its origin from the teachings of life itself.” [Evolution and Environment, p. 58 and p. 57] For Proudhon, “the proof” of his mutualist ideas lay in the “current practice, revolutionary practice” of “those labour associations … which have spontaneously … been formed in Paris and Lyon … [show that the] organisation of credit and organisation of labour amount to one and the same.” [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, pp. 59–60] Indeed, as one historian argues, there was “close similarity between the associational ideal of Proudhon … and the program of the Lyon Mutualists” and that there was “a remarkable convergence [between the ideas], and it is likely that Proudhon was able to articulate his positive program more coherently because of the example of the silk workers of Lyon. The socialist ideal that he championed was already being realised, to a certain extent, by such workers.” [K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 164]

Thus anarchism comes from the fight for liberty and our desires to lead a fully human life, one in which we have time to live, to love and to play. It was not created by a few people divorced from life, in ivory towers looking down upon society and making judgements upon it based on their notions of what is right and wrong. Rather, it was a product of working class struggle and resistance to authority, oppression and exploitation. As Albert Meltzer put it:

“There were never theoreticians of Anarchism as such, though it produced a number of theoreticians who discussed aspects of its philosophy. Anarchism has remained a creed that has been worked out in action rather than as the putting into practice of an intellectual idea. Very often, a bourgeois writer comes along and writes down what has already been worked out in practice by workers and peasants; he [or she] is attributed by bourgeois historians as being a leader, and by successive bourgeois writers (citing the bourgeois historians) as being one more case that proves the working class relies on bourgeois leadership.” [Anarchism: Arguments for and against, p. 18]

In Kropotkin’s eyes, “Anarchism had its origins in the same creative, constructive activity of the masses which has worked out in times past all the social institutions of mankind — and in the revolts … against the representatives of force, external to these social institutions, who had laid their hands on these institutions and used them for their own advantage.” More recently, “Anarchy was brought forth by the same critical and revolutionary protest which gave birth to Socialism in general.” Anarchism, unlike other forms of socialism, “lifted its sacrilegious arm, not only against Capitalism, but also against these pillars of Capitalism: Law, Authority, and the State.” All anarchist writers did was to “work out a general expression of [anarchism’s] principles, and the theoretical and scientific basis of its teachings” derived from the experiences of working class people in struggle as well as analysing the evolutionary tendencies of society in general. [Op. Cit., p. 19 and p. 57]

However, anarchistic tendencies and organisations in society have existed long before Proudhon put pen to paper in 1840 and declared himself an anarchist. While anarchism, as a specific political theory, was born with the rise of capitalism (Anarchism “emerged at the end of the eighteenth century …[and] took up the dual challenge of overthrowing both Capital and the State.” [Peter Marshall, Op. Cit., p. 4]) anarchist writers have analysed history for libertarian tendencies. Kropotkin argued, for example, that “from all times there have been Anarchists and Statists.” [Op. Cit., p. 16] In Mutual Aid (and elsewhere) Kropotkin analysed the libertarian aspects of previous societies and noted those that successfully implemented (to some degree) anarchist organisation or aspects of anarchism. He recognised this tendency of actual examples of anarchistic ideas to predate the creation of the “official” anarchist movement and argued that:

“From the remotest, stone-age antiquity, men [and women] have realised the evils that resulted from letting some of them acquire personal authority… Consequently they developed in the primitive clan, the village community, the medieval guild … and finally in the free medieval city, such institutions as enabled them to resist the encroachments upon their life and fortunes both of those strangers who conquered them, and those clansmen of their own who endeavoured to establish their personal authority.” [Anarchism, pp. 158–9]

Kropotkin placed the struggle of working class people (from which modern anarchism sprung) on par with these older forms of popular organisation. He argued that “the labour combinations… were an outcome of the same popular resistance to the growing power of the few — the capitalists in this case” as were the clan, the village community and so on, as were “the strikingly independent, freely federated activity of the ‘Sections’ of Paris and all great cities and many small ‘Communes’ during the French Revolution” in 1793. [Op. Cit., p. 159]

Thus, while anarchism as a political theory is an expression of working class struggle and self-activity against capitalism and the modern state, the ideas of anarchism have continually expressed themselves in action throughout human existence. Many indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere, for example, practised anarchism for thousands of years before anarchism as a specific political theory existed. Similarly, anarchistic tendencies and organisations have existed in every major revolution — the New England Town Meetings during the American Revolution, the Parisian ‘Sections’ during the French Revolution, the workers’ councils and factory committees during the Russian Revolution to name just a few examples (see Murray Bookchin’s The Third Revolution for details). This is to be expected if anarchism is, as we argue, a product of resistance to authority then any society with authorities will provoke resistance to them and generate anarchistic tendencies (and, of course, any societies without authorities cannot help but being anarchistic).

In other words, anarchism is an expression of the struggle against oppression and exploitation, a generalisation of working people’s experiences and analyses of what is wrong with the current system and an expression of our hopes and dreams for a better future. This struggle existed before it was called anarchism, but the historic anarchist movement (i.e. groups of people calling their ideas anarchism and aiming for an anarchist society) is essentially a product of working class struggle against capitalism and the state, against oppression and exploitation, and for a free society of free and equal individuals.

[st-armand]

Hobie Brown & Anarchism: A Discussion Pt 1

Authors Note: This is my dissertation for the discourse about Hobie’s politics being misrepresented as your friendly community radical leftist

Warnings: Political Ideologies, mentions of violence and oppression

Hobie Brown is an anarchist, he would be considered a radical leftist, not just by the ideological title of anarchism but by his own actions, he has killed cops, fascists, not just one, probably many considering the Oscorp and V.E.N.O.M worldbuilding where the police and military are symbiotes.

One of the primary bases for a fascist regime is a overly abundant police force, and the police worldwide are authoritarian figures meant to protect wealth and property not people.

Anarchists can go 70/40 on the violent revolutionary means discussion, but Hobart Brown is definitely pro revolutionary violence (we will define this later on), he doesn’t like violence in his everyday life but sees it as a measure to protect people, he also understands that not everyone’s place in the revolution is through armed liberation, but that all roles in the revolution violent or otherwise are all valuable to the end goal.

That being said a very contested discourse around radical leftist politics is the divide between Marxists/Maoists/Leninist etc vs Anarchists because Anarchists believe in a non-centralized, organizational systems, some anarchists can be anarcho-primitivists; they believe in a post-revolutionary society without the heavy industrialized civilization we have now I don’t think Hobie is, he enjoys technology too much to do so but he does believe in a social organization that is communally centralized, but regardless of his ideas of the organization of people post revolution he happily shares space and works in solidarity with leftists of other thinking and practices in the struggle and fight.

What is armed revolution and revolutionary violence? Armed revolution is the act of taking arms through guerrilla warfare, community protection, clandestine operations. Revolutionary violence is pretty self-explanatory, but these two interconnects as an understanding that liberation won’t come from within the systems that oppress us, and to instead arm the people towards liberating themselves from fascism, and state sanctioned violence.

I head canon that Hobie as Spiderman works within a clandestine underground armed forces with mixed ideologies and skillset, they’re all civilians who act as an unassuming threat who focus on assassinations and bank robberies, through those victories they help Spiderman redistribute funds.

Hobie’s praxis doesn’t just extend to revolutionary violence, but he puts labor into community gardens, refurbishing abandoned lots and buildings to be used as clinics, or schools, or housing, his skills especially are shown through his engineering and technical capabilities, like siphoning electricity from higher class neighborhoods for their buildings for free, fixing heating systems, or adapting heating and water systems so that they’re controlled in the community rather than by heating and water conglomerates.

He's also a part of a group of boosters who donate and barter clothes, food and other necessities, they sell their spoils in the middle of the people’s market.

Hobie is also the best comrade during protests, he’s a human shield whether as Spiderman or as a civilian, he’s the kind of person to go head to head with five police officers to de-arrest people who get snatched during protests, he’s returned with so many broken bones and large purple bruises from being wailed on by cops, but however much they hurt him, he can return much worse, especially with his enhanced strength, its actually a pretty cool sight, he’s more likely to kills cops while masked as spiderman, he’s almost entirely focused on defensive and evasive methods as an alternative since he has many warrants out for his arrest as Hobart Brown, but Spiderman has a list of federal and international offensives that he can easily navigate with the obscured identity.

During protests he’s evacuating people to safe zones, distracting cops from looters, defending people from being arrested, creating evasive plans to destroy or disable V.E.N.O.M. technology and weapons, he’s especially adept at guerilla warfare, navigating the skyline, sewers, and alleys of New London to gain a territorial advantage because the cops can’t traverse the projects and slums as easily as someone who lives in the grime of New London.

Books I think Hobie would’ve read;

Anarchism and the Black Revolution – Lenzo Ervin

A Soldier’s Story – Kuwasi Balagoon

Black Jacobins – CLR James

Conquest and Bread – Kroptokin

Anarchy & At the Café – Malatesta

 More in the next parts! Platonic, Romance, Racial and Cultural

[nightly-birdie]

you need to bother with institutions

but you need to do it differently

society needs to exist but it needs to be different

institutions work but we need to make them in the right ways

[ryzomeriseup]

Wow, this episode is very good. I could listen to them all day.

[sparrow-orion-writes]

WIP [Re] Intro: The Poison Complex

Synopsis: In the overgrown forestry of Blue Oak, something long forgotten has become unearthed. April Adams, a chemist, poisoner, and ever elusive criminal, finds himself in charge of mitigating the disaster beginning to poison the forest and its residents. But as April's past begins to haunt him in the vast woodland; something beyond his expectations surfaces in the poisonous lands beneath Blue Oak.

Book 1 of 3 of 'Arcadian Wilds'

Genre(s): Dystopia, sci-fi.

Themes: climate disaster, abandonment by society, abuse and trauma.

Tropes: World ravaged by war, governmental negligence, morally grey characters, "there were no good choices there but you chose the worst one."

Includes: Main character overcoming past traumas and breaking a cycle of abuse and pain. Complex queer-platonic relationships. Everyday anarchism.

Development Point: First draft complete.

Questions? Queries? Interested? I'm always open to asks, chats and would love for a taglist for this! Tell me about your projects whilst you're at it, I'm particularly obsessed with queer horror, fantasy and sci-fi novels!

[andrew-ism]

Hello! I'm from the Philippines and currently pushing for liberation from the colonized mindset that permeates through our everyday life, as well as mutual aid initiatives to mitigate economic disparity. Your videos have been eyeopening for me and I was wondering... What do you think are the most sustainable and efficient courses of action? I have leadership experience in grassroots movements but I find it quite difficult to organize as I struggle to find like-minded people.

I think that the most sustainable and efficient courses of action are entirely context-dependent and it's tough for me to give the people who ask me this question specific recommendations without a fully detailed description of their unique situation.

As much as I hate to borrow from "corporate speak," it might be helpful to do a SWOT analysis of your area to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats present in your unique context. Maybe someday I'll make a video going into that idea in more detail.

It may also help to do a resilience assessment. I found Think Resilience's self-directed course to be quite helpful in explaining this way of thinking in a concise manner. It's also completely free.

I fully relate to the struggle to find like-minded people, and it has certainly continued to be a challenge in my own local efforts. If/when I find an easy solution to this, you'll be the first to know. What I can suggest for now is that you seek out not necessarily like-minded people, but perhaps like-invested people. Meaning seek out groups that are already doing some sort of social, political, environmental, or educational activism but may not necessarily share your radicalism and try to work/build relationships with them that will naturally create opportunities for you to radicalise their efforts and tactics and spread anarchic and decolonial ideas.

Of course, doing this solo comes with the risk of your own radicalism being watered down--especially in more institutional spaces--which is why especifists recommend you engage in social insertion within movements as a group rather than as an individual.

My video on social revolution is meant to be a comprehensive overview of the variety of actions necessary to transform our world, so you can also look to those tactics and projects to draw inspiration once you've identified what needs doing and been able to connect with some folks who are as motivated as you to see change.

Hope this can help in some way. All power to all the people in the Philippines!

[sloshed-cinema]

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

I aspire to have my life reduced to an end-of-film title card reading more or less ‘Leon is a woman now and living in New York City’. In an anarchic revolutionary system which was New Hollywood, this film perhaps encapsulates the movement better than most this side of the likes of Easy Rider. It’s angry but inert, woke but problematic, revolutionary but keeping the same cycle moving forward. Countless think-pieces of the last five or so years with really creative titles like ‘be gay, do crime’ exist trying to reclaim this as queer cinema, and while Al Pacino’s performance is certainly committed and even-keeled (I’m not going to do something stupid like call him ‘brave’ for portraying queer identity because fuck off), it definitely leans into the popular identification of non-hetero sexual orientation. Sonny is a folk hero when he defies the police (fuck yeah) but also becomes a target once his sexual orientation becomes public. The car ride to the airport is the perfect embodiment of the “two dudes on a bus” meme, half of the crowd supporting him and the other decrying him as a faggot. Was Sonny’s decrying of the police any less valid when he was straight-presenting, I ask? It’s all a lot of production, all to end in a sudden blaze of something other than glory. This remains true to the New Hollywood sensibility in that sense, too: counterculture figures can try to define a new existence for themselves, but they’re bound for failure. Not in a moralistic sense, per se, but rather because the system is simply too large and entrenched for success. There are innumerable cops poised to spring the moment anything seems to go wrong, and one robber is dead and the other in prison as a result.

Al Pacino sparkles in this, frazzled and harried and sweaty and effortlessly navigating his own sexuality. There’s something to be said for this, how frank he is in his relationship to the two women in his life. There’s no glances to the wings or nervous prepping. He simply is, even when his partner needs for the Fed to assure the media that there is only one ‘homosexual’ perpetrating crimes. Sal may be a criminal, but he’s straight as an arrow guaranteed! But the real winners are the ensemble surrounding this duo of criminals. The blue-bloused senior teller is the real MVP, unflappable even when she’s sweating through her clothes and taking the dictation of Sonny’s apparent last will and testament, looking out for her girls and making sure that racist cops don’t shoot the hostage who is being released simply because he’s black. The elderly dude is fun, too: I really need to find a way to work “It’s not the pizza, he’s got diabetes!” into everyday conversation.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'alarm', 'cop', or 'bathroom'.

Sonny swears.

A phone starts ringing.

BIG DRINK

Sonny unlocks the front door of the bank

Algeria is mentioned.