22/10 Future blogging
I intend on still using this blog to write about specific issues related to the magazine Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. I will be writing about other things, other projects, perhaps even my irregular journaling, at my new blog (and new destination site) Aragorn @ Anarchy Planet.25/07 Report back from the first ever "Alexander Berkman Social Club" event
This is a couple of weeks late but many of you will still be interested...Consider me disturbed (and this an apology) if events that I am responsible for feel as uncomfortable as this one.
The concept of the ABSC is great, get together anarchists to talk about what anarchism means to them. The first event included music and the always delightful (and, apparently, delighted if the pictures on their site are any indication) Barry Pateman. Barry's presentation was on the history of anarchism in the Bay Area and while short it was exciting in that there is a real tradition in this are (even if it skips around an awful lot). The music was fine, a bit on the red/arty side, but just fine.
The crowd was decidedly -red-, the songs were all derived from workers struggles, there were even books for sale by AK, because clearly they can't help themselves. I kind of feel sorry for all the workerism of these people. They are sitting in the Mission with nary a Latino face in the crowd, mostly having just gotten off work at their service-oriented jobs, talking about the great workers movements of another day. I realize this is trite but I just can't understand the "historical re-enactment society" interest of these people.
21/06 Riot porn <= violence against authority porn
The aspect of riot porn I have always enjoyed isn't the strapping young lads standing up to "the man". They have their charms but after years of sitting in rooms with them I prefer them from a distance...The part I enjoy is a leap away from a riot, a protest, or demonstration. There I have a hard time seeing anything other than the future compromises of the politicians who claim to speak on behalf of the rioters or the mediocre demands of the most political of the rioters. Here my imagination is cynical. My imagination is constrained by politicians.
What I enjoy is the risk of action without constraint. The action of setting a fire or destroying a vehicle not because of the injustice happening somewhere else to someone else but for reasons undeterminable outside the action itself.
We can inscribe our own motives but they are ours, not theirs. City blocks & cop cars, architects & cops, campuses and academics are all in league with each other and even the symbolic act against their regime brings a smile to my face.
Here are some recent smiles.
