Anarchism and Social Ecology

I fear that if we (anarchists and fellow travelers) cannot explicitly articulate the need for action, within the context of upending daily life as it is currently lived, the horrors that are the existent world will continue along with it. Even when protests become riots, if we find ourselves continuing to inhabit the position of waiting for specialized locations of resistance to make themselves known we will fail to meet the moment at hand, perpetually stuck in a reactive cycle of prairie-dogging into moments of rupture only to fall back in line when the tides subside. If we truly desire the end of this world of death machines, we cannot afford to wait and take action only once ruptures become clear. We must embody the constant state of rupture. But to do that, we need to recognize why we so often wait.

True libertarianism, a left wing, socialist libertarianism, is a path towards a post-moral, totally human and liberated future. This is because libertarianism rejects the idea that morality should be imposed upon individuals by external forces. Instead, individuals are free to create their own meaning and purpose in life, without being constrained by societal norms or religious dogma. This freedom allows individuals to fully realize their own potential and to live their lives on their own terms. Libertarianism is often misunderstood as a conservative, capitalist philosophy. With this book, I aim to recapture the term from the hands of greedy destroyers of the world, and contribute a little to the ever-growing intellectual tradition on the left.

To destroy “woman” does not mean that we aim, short of physical destruction, to destroy lesbianism simultaneously with the categories of sex, because lesbianism provides for the moment the only social form in which we can live freely. Lesbian is the only concept I know of which is beyond the categories of sex (woman and man), because the designated subject (lesbian) is not a woman, either economically, or politically, or ideologically. For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we have previously called servitude, a relation which implies personal and physical obligation as well as economic obligation (“forced residence,” domestic corvée, conjugal duties, unlimited production of children, etc.), a relation which lesbians escape by refusing to become or to stay heterosexual. We are escapees from our class in the same way as the American runaway slaves were when escaping slavery and becoming free. For us this is an absolute necessity; our survival demands that we contribute all our strength to the destruction of the class of women within which men appropriate women. This can be accomplished only by the destruction of heterosexuality as a social system which is based on the oppression of women by men and which produces the doctrine of the difference between the sexes to justify this oppression.

ABSTRACT Anarchism is a philosophy opposed to hierarchy and authority, and is used as a critical lens to analyze the whole of human society. As with members of all social groupings, anarchists differ from each other in many ways, one of which is their political ideology. At least two visibly distinct ideological variants of anarchism are distinguishable in the US—a red anarchism that emphasizes economic concerns and a green anarchism that focuses upon the environment. American anarchists have long assumed, based upon anecdotal evidence, that there are differences in ideological variant identification between those on the two US coasts. Using survey data, two distinct measures of ideology were formed and respondents were classified into four separate US regions. Although the majority of anarchists do not specify a particular orientation, Northeasterners were associated with red anarchism, while Westerners were associated with green anarchism. These differences may be created and/or reinforced by structural or organizational factors.

These two sometimes contradictory anti-authoritarian perspectives were hastily translated 50 years after the 17th of November of 1973, the date marking the peak of an insurrection which marked the passage from dictatorship to bourgeois democracy in greece. The first is an article published by an antifascist collective, which discusses, in the trademark style of local autonomists, contemporary — despite the 15 years that have passed since its publication — questions on the meaning and background of the uprising and the position that radicals should have towards its commemoration. The 2007 article ends with a brief chronology of the uprising, a useful segue into the second text, a discussion on the role of “the anarchists”, an informal grouping of anti-authoritarian participants in the workers’ assembly within the Polytechnic occupation. The text is a relatively brief reference within a 1977 article on the development of the greek proletariat in one of many early anti-authoritarian print publications which emerged in the post-dictatorship era, and the originally unnamed author (who has posthumously been identified as X. Konstatinides) identifies himself as one of the participants within this anarchist grouping. Besides a detailed recollection of some seemingly small, but crucial moments within the occupation, there is also value in the inclusion of the reactions of the ‘traditional’ left to the uprising. At the time of writing, there have been large demonstrations and some, fairly limited — for the standards of this particular insurgent holiday — commemorative clashes in Athens, Patras, Thessaloniki and Ioannina. There are still lively debates within the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space on how — and if — uprisings such as the ones marked by the 17th of November of 1973, and the 6th of December of 2008, should be commemorated (see the extended 2022 analysis by anarchist prisoner D. Xatzivasiliadis: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1621702/; if I have a lot more time on the 17th of November next year, I might tackle it…). Please excuse any translation mistakes!

Material solidarity means to raise the social cost of Zionism on the home Imperialist front. By reinscribing radical Anti-imperialist history into our theory and practice we can generate a militant strategy in coordination with the movements of the Palestinian national liberation forces on the ground, as they continue to wage war on Zionist colonialism. ‘Bringing the war home’ in essence, calls on us to abolish counterinsurgency from our movements in favour of aligning ideologically and practically with the AlQassam armed fighter and the Fellaheen rock thrower.

The question of our time, then, is not how we should respond to the climate crisis, or the coronavirus crisis, or the current economic crisis. The real question is twofold: firstly, how can we take hold of the revolutionary potential of this moment to attack the root cause of each of these crises – capitalism, and all its oppressive and destructive effects; and secondly, how can we build in its place a system that will truly value and secure the freedom of every individual, community, and society around the world.

My love, these experiences together are as seamless as every wave in an ocean. To others this is just a tale of two mercury switch hearts ignited by the spark of a first kiss. I look forward to whatever we may encounter under this black rainbow called life. We'll ride the waves of every hurricane that makes landfall. Until their bullets turn our blood into confetti during a shoot-out, or we simply grow old and sing each other to sleep with a shared death rattle... More riots! Vandalism! Anarchy!

Mutt. – Editorial Looking at the broad counterinsurgent tactics in babylon and across the world – from funding and surveillance to police-friendly A–B marches – Mutt. tells us why it’s important to know your enemy.

When anarchism (or any other idea for that matter) is brought into new contexts, it necessarily enters into dialogue with the histories and traditions of that new context. When Mao Zedong Thought was all the rage during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., this new idea was re-contextualized in the context of the history of revolutionary nationalism of the Katipunan, Andres Bonifacio, and the resistance to the American colonial State. Anarchism in the Philippines necessarily indigenizes itself into the Philippine context, something I’ve written about in the past on various libertarian elements in the Philippines.[1] My purpose here isn’t to restate what I’ve already written on previously but to expand the re-contextualization of the potentiality of anarchism in rebel peripheries to a distinctly anti-anarchist project: that of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). As a Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad says “Seek knowledge even in China,” China being the furthest and most remote place in the ancient Arab imagination, urging that we ought to seek knowledge even from the most remote—or in this case, the strangest—of places.

What binds these cases is not simply the betrayal of early ideals but the structure of the revolutionary movements themselves: the dominance of military actors, the centralisation of decision-making and the erasure of grassroots democratic input. Liberation became a state project, not a people’s movement. The result was not freedom but domination by a different set of elites.

What binds these cases is not simply the betrayal of early ideals but the structure of the revolutionary movements themselves: the dominance of military actors, the centralisation of decision-making and the erasure of grassroots democratic input. Liberation became a state project, not a people’s movement. The result was not freedom but domination by a different set of elites.

In the current evolution of the so-called radical left in the so-called United States, one concerning trend is the growing popularity of Marxist-Leninist organizations, particularly among newly-activated young people. One organization that has been a major beneficiary of such a surge has been the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), which, though around for decades, has become more visible and active on the ground and online in recent years. FRSO’s article on their 2022 congress states that “[r]eflecting the rapid growth of FRSO over the last four years, this was the first congress for most attendees. While some of the participants were veterans of the communist movement with many decades of experience, the overwhelming majority were under 35 years old.” [1] This trend has continued.

is one of the most common responses I get when I talk to people (usually liberals) about horizontal power structures. It comes down to some version of "Well, that sounds nice, but what about the bad actors?" I think the logic that follows from that fact is backwards. The standard response to this issue is to build vertical power structures. To appoint a ruling class that can supposedly "manage" the bad actors. But this ignores the obvious: vertical power structures are magnets for narcissists. They don’t neutralize those people. They empower them. They give them legitimacy and insulation from consequences. They concentrate power precisely where it’s most dangerous. Horizontal societies have always had ways of handling antisocial behavior. (Highly recommend Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher Boehm. He studied hundreds of forager societies, overall done amazing work.) Exile, public shaming, revocable leadership, and distributed decision-making all worked and often worked better than what we do now. Pre-civilized societies didn’t let power-hungry individuals take over. They stopped them. We used to know how to deal with bad actors. The idea of a "power vacuum" only makes sense if you believe power must be held at the top. If you diffuse power horizontally, there is no vacuum to fill. There’s just shared responsibility. That may feel unfamiliar, but it’s not impossible. We’ve done it before. Most of human history was built on it. The real question isn't whether bad actors exist. It's how we choose to deal with them. Do we build systems that make it harder for them to dominate others, or ones that practically roll out the red carpet? I think this opens up a more useful conversation.

Members of the Indigenous Waorani village of Kiwaro looked skyward as a helicopter hovered over the rainforest canopy in the center of Ecuador and landed in a nearby clearing. Out stepped government officials, there to inform the community about an impending auction of oil rights on their land.

The research focused on a model where small, interconnected subgroups operate within larger populations, allowing decisions to emerge through a structured, bottom-up process. This network-based model enables populations to make complex decisions efficiently while still reflecting the will of the broader group.

The world around us is breaking, and not by accident. Climate disasters, poisoned water, corrupt governments, rising inequality, all symptoms of a system built on domination: people over each other, people over nature.

Resources on social ecology, communalism, and democratic confederalism

This is the second time, I've denazified a dangerous link to a known fash website

I've been part of the online left for a while now, part of slrpnk about 2 months, and if there's one recurring experience that's both exhausting and revealing, it's trying to have good-faith discussions with self-identified Marxist-Leninists, the kind often referred to as "tankies." I use that term here not as a lazy insult nor to dehumanize, but to describe a particular kind of online personality: the ones who dogmatically defend Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and every so-called "existing socialist state" past or present, without room for nuance, critique, or even basic empathy. Not all Marxist-Leninists are like this. But these people, these tankies, show up in every thread, every debate, every conversation about liberation, and somehow it always turns into a predictable mess.

Lots of good stuff here from a variety of viewpoints

BLIND ITEM: “The Watchlist Before the Crackdown”

by Colin Denny Donoghue

To embrace veganism and forgo the consumption and utilization of animal products is not an end, but a beginning; a new start affording the practitioner an opportunity to see everyday realities in a different light.

I have attempted to read Anarchist books before. I found it difficult to read, boring, laborious, dated, and frankly the entire notion of Anarchist literature felt like it was missing the point of it’s subject matter. I will say that I am also someone who struggles to read a lot or at all, just for a point of comparison.

Halt Indonesia's Slide into Military Dictatorship—Repeal the Authoritarian TNI Law Before It's Too Late!

English machine translation below.

English machine translation below.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/22577442

Ocalan called on the group he founded to lay down its arms and disband.

Ocalan has been held in near-total isolation on the prison island of Imrali since 1999, with only rare communication with the outside world.

You can skip the ads that iHeart Radio injected at the start.

Anarchism is thus neither a doctrine, nor a syndicalist movement, nor a particular philosophy of one or more nineteenth-century authors, nor is it a definite political stance, although all this may derive from it and although it has manifested itself eminently in famous authors and in egregious political movements, but anarchism today is a topology, that is, it is a place outside space and time, a utopian position. Landauer would have called it atopic, a position that can be found in the present, in the past and in the future, feeding back on itself as it is actualised.

The near future in front of us is uncertain. Many possibilities exist, covered with fog of uncertainty. Many people in Syria want peace, but the air if full with tension and anticipation of war. There are doubts whether another option exists, other than standing to defend the revolutionary gains against all odds and against all authoritarian powers around. Peaceful agreements and diplomatic solutions are hard to believe when it comes to states. Everyone pursues their interests. And peoples of Northeast Syria will pursue their interests, too — revolution must be defended. Otherwise — no justice, no peace, no free life. We will continue our struggle here, and we are ready to take our humble place in whatever is about to come.

Having risen out of obscure boards on 4chan and Reddit, the alt-right is a right-wing extremist movement that’s mostly decentralized. Despite this, they have become incredibly pervasive, not through logical argument, but through operating in a way that makes spotting and opposing them particularly tricky. This post shall act as a brief look into some of the tactics they employ, and how leftists can effectively counter them.

TAKE THESE AND MAKE SOMETHING BETTER and brilliant… catchy! Record it. Link it. SPREAD IT. Let these people know they will be held accountable. And by these people I refer specifically to no actual person who has ever existed. These lyrics are entirely the work of Imagination and shared as art, free speech, poetry so that others can make great music with them. They are owned by everyone. In fact, I found them somewhere else and pasted them here.

Phil McGraw, known as "Dr. Phil" for the eponymous American television series focused on mental health, followed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and other federal agents during the action, according to his X account and two sources familiar with the matter.

It appears the US congress has just proposed (edited) a bill that declares "Antifa" a terrorist organization.

spoilersatire