The signs, of course, are everywhere. The earliest category 4 hurricane in history is bearing down on the Atlantic Sea. Flooding sees countless cities underwater in various regions across the planet, and over a thousand people died during this year's Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia due to extreme heat. The world seems powerless to stop a genocide happening for all to see while a near-corpse competes against a convicted felon for title of "Leader of the Free World" (ok, that last part is hilarious...)

Disaster is upon us and it's not going away anytime soon. And when I think about anarchists and their responses to disasters in the past, "disaster relief" is certainly one thing that comes to mind. The organization of ride shares and food and clothing drives during Occupy Sandy, or the robust "Mutual Aid" distribution networks during Covid, are two examples of anarchist responses to disaster in the past.

Buuut.... Are there other things anarchists could be doing in these moments of chaotic crisis? I get that in moments of destabilization it's important to secure food and shelter, but once a basic need is met, aren't there other things anarchists might do when the power's out, the roads are closed, and law is fragile...

As the line in Desert goes, "As for civilisation, so for anarchy and anarchists — severely challenged, sometimes vanquished; possibilities for liberty and wildness opening up, possibilities for liberty and wildness closing." Where are these possibilities for liberty and wildness? Might we find them in these moments of rupture that cripple the society that oppresses us?

Listen to the conversation here!

Comments

anon (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 07:39

I remember this zine from just after Hurricane Katrina, called “Big Easy, Small Window.” So much of the anarchist media focused in on the Common Ground relief efforts, so this got kind of forgotten. But it was really fascinating and about the wonderful stuff that happened as things were falling apart, and it’s potential for a lasting rupture. Anyone else remember/read it?
https://azinelibrary.org/zines/Big-Easy-Small-Window

anon (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2024 - 02:01

In reply to by anon (not verified)

There was an early essay, critique, or zine circulating about Common Ground in the 00s that been looking for but can't find. Also lost the title & author's name...but it was either written by an (at the time) anarchist or passed around by anarchists who have mentioned it approvingly.

Related material that touches on the same topic includes this interview with scott crow about working closely with Brandon Darby https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/activism/witness-to-betrayal-s… the interview is very (self-)critical though it should be read skeptically in some parts as discussed here https://ecology.iww.org/node/1448 (search "Witness to Betrayal" for the relevant section)

crow also wrote Black Flags and Windmills of course but haven't read it so no comment. Any other memoirs of anarcha-adjacent experiences during Katrina would be great.

PHOEBE BRIDGERS (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 08:45

Anarchists of today would find time better spent, and less likely to repeat past mistakes, by being pro-active instead of reactive. There few things more tedious than playing catch up to only be appropriated by liberal orgs who then use anarchists' work as a foundation for fundraising their non-profits and then doing it all over again the following year.

In summary: instead of reacting to the devastation caused by a state/corporations project's nefariousness, kneecap their executives.

There are many levels to reminding them why they should fear us.

lumpy (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 08:52

In reply to by PHOEBE BRIDGERS (not verified)

so phoebe, would you say that you're like, an individual, tending towards uhm.. i dunno, wildness maybe?

or that badass deeds are like ... almost a form of propaganda or something?!

iS tHaT wHaT yOuRe SaYiNg?!

anon (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 09:26

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

That is not what Phoebe is saying, you goofball. Ever hear of Alfredo Cospito, Lumpy?
Or is all your time occupied with Mao and seething?
How embarrassing that you call yourself an anarchist.

GO3 Mon, 07/01/2024 - 13:35

In reply to by PHOEBE BRIDGERS (not verified)

The real disaster is that we live in a capitalist system that puts profits over people. If we lived in a socialist society networks for meeting human needs would already be in place and disasters wouldn't be so consequential. Life on earth is always a disaster because it's a dynamic planet and neo-liberal capitalism is a disaster for anyone short on resources. We can always do it ourselves though and that's what usually happens. People make do with what they can find and build together because the state is inadequate to meet human needs and even relies on much free labor to function. I've been through a few disasters myself and there wasn't much opportunity for looting mostly just extra work and learning to cope with extenuating circumstances like power outages, flood destroyed cars, heat and lack of air conditioning etc. I would say the biggest state of exception in my time was the Covid-19 epidemic and the resulting plague protocols which was the closest I've seen us come to socialism in my lifetime. I don't think mutual aid disaster relief networks have a level of material production that is adequate to meet all the needs of the people they serve. I think it's a supplemental response but it's a step in the right direction and I'm interested in that kind of activism.

GO3 Mon, 07/01/2024 - 14:17

In reply to by GO3

There wasn't any looting because there were no stores in the flood zone but there was scavenging. The people in the flooded houses including mine pushed all their stuff out to the street. I live in a stilt house so even though our bottom floor was flooded we didn't lose much except for our washer and dryer and two cars. There were mountains of household debris lining the roads and people picked through it for weeks or maybe even months until the special garbage trucks came and took it all away. There was a lot of charity at this time and I still have boxes of MREs and storage water in my living room and the army even served food for a few days up at the four-way stop and at the park. There was never the feeling that life wasn't going to return to normal like there was during the Covid-19 epidemic. An event like catastrophic sea level rise due to climate change along the coast could be a game changer if there was a mass migration inland. I probably won't wait for sea level rise to move to higher ground.

Tristram (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 17:51

In reply to by GO3

Everything is systemically related to overpopulation FULLSTOP! You know, rats in a cage with a finite supply of food, water and energy-thirsty amenities. Clean energy won't do it. ALL ENERGY IS DIRTY! Luckily most disgustingly teeming countries are approaching a birth rate of 1.5% which means in 2 generations or 60 yrs + or - 20, if you are a bourgeois decrepit armchair manipulator, if every corrupted nation does this, the population of Earth will halve.
Do the maths. despotic capitalism is ignorant and wants more snivelling slaves to work on their glittering pyramids without a thought for anyone or thing other than their rapacious greed. Oh, if only my father had had held back from his monthly habit on that fateful night with my witless mother 9 months before I was born, then the world would be free of such useless and scurvinous imbeciles such as myself.

anon (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 19:59

In reply to by Tristram (not verified)

That's such mediocre analysis... Read some Ivan Illich or Jacques Ellul. Malthus was wrong 200 years ago and he still is, aside from being a fucking racism scumbag.

Tristram (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 21:46

In reply to by anon (not verified)

OooOooh no, these pre-postmodern scallywags you suggest I read came from privileged bourgeois monogamist investors with a mouldy Statist liberal intellectual Cartesian background! How dare you suggest my embroilment with their arrogant lily-white privileged perspective! This rotten overcrowded mudball called Earth would do well without their conniving suggestions for Utopian ideals. We are all conceived in this hell hole bent by gravity, and nor do I have wings, physical or, due to my father and mothers' insipid ab ovo germination 9 months before my birth on that miserable night, a soaring intellect!

anon (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2024 - 07:04

In reply to by Tristram (not verified)

I ain't further arguing with a manchild. Just read Energy and Equity by Illich. It's a small book and easy read, so accessible to anyone including the smooth-brained like u.

Tristram (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2024 - 12:44

In reply to by anon (not verified)

OMB( behemoth), isn't master Ivan Illich the unrulable chap who wrote Deschooling Society? What/where/which society is he talking about, the selective of conformist Western industral training camps called kindergartens, colleges and universtities which force feed their student factory fodder hordes to manage and manufacture cutlery, carpets, cannons and contraceptives? Does he wish for society to be plunged into the dark ages again from where I was sprung, naye, into which I slithered? Oh if only my impoverished unschooled father had access to contraception on that abysmal night 9 months before my birth, for he lacked that Malthusian sense of personal self-control to limit his expenses and be frugal with his desires, and so, I live, deplete and pollute my own nest!

anon (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2024 - 16:40

In reply to by Tristram (not verified)

You're sinking deeper down the cesspit... can't reach down to u anymore! Read dat shit... yes yes, especially Deschooling Society. It'll help with your brain worms, piggy boi.

anon (not verified) Wed, 07/03/2024 - 09:42

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I guess you can't read even a thin book if you can't read short comments correctly, so maybe I was wrong in suggesting a book that completely takes apart your vastly-outdated Malthusian convictions?

THE-rizzler (not verified) Thu, 07/04/2024 - 08:14

What up unc?! Just ate with no crumbz this TOTW. Let me get this straight G, looks maximizing disaster for your pookie bear is not the new anarchist aura? Well skibidi toliet rizz down in Ohio, that's CAP stan. Delulu is the solulu to the goon Plato cave lobotomy when you about 2 crash out if this TOTW feeling too acoustic, RIP bozo. super ick. ermmm... what the signma? Here is my TOTW guest submission, Do you have the mogger mindset? Get mogged nerdz! gyatt-cha l8r alligator.

anon (not verified) Thu, 07/04/2024 - 10:06

this past week at a pro-Palestinian event, a young adult I saw a lot at an encampment--which has since been disbanded--said to me, "the encampment really opened my eyes to anarchism"
i have no concrete ideas about what we should be doing, but we should keep showing up to these events in my opinion.

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 00:02

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Any thoughts on Jerry Seinfeld at a comedy venue in Australia telling a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who were heckling him during his standup routine that --Wow, you've all just paid $250 per person on tickets,,, you just gave a Jew money when you could have donated it to the Palestinians suffering in Gaza. --- Almost brought the house down! Doesn't that sum up the whole protest methodology, protesting instead of actually helping a cause?

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 08:27

In reply to by anon (not verified)

The amount of reach, interest, and engagement that heckling Jerry Seinfeld gets is worth way more than a single $250 donation to some NGO to then only use a fraction of which would then get blocked by the IDF anyway. And NONE of your impotent little anti-activism sidetrack has anything to do with the TOTW. It's clear you (and your protectors in the moderation crew who think like you) don't actually like to help people or do anything. At least make sensible arguments you pig fuckers.

Oh and for the moderator s c u m that deleted it:

"doesN'T THat sUm UP The WhOLe PROteST metHoDoLoGY, pRoTEstING InStEad of actUALLy helPing A cause?"

No, you fucking out-of-touch boomer (thin-s k i n n e d, thin-l i p p e d , moderator sock puppet).

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 08:31

In reply to by anon (not verified)

They're not just anti-activism, they're anti-action. Except when the action is a reaction to omments involving the density of their skin, lips, or the filmy or frothy layer of matter that forms on the surface of a liquid or body of water or on a hard surface! Exactly the types you want running a so-called anarchist website !!

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 08:34

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I want u to go ask your local Hamas reps what they truly think about not only anarchy, but also Adolf sHitler.

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 09:01

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Uh.. Got'em?

You're perfect here with these mods. Invite your friend. You can all promote doing nothing ever and help control conversations

TranslationZionist (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 09:07

In reply to by anon (not verified)

"Everyone who doesn't support the genocide against Palestinians is pro-Hamas and therefore pro-Hitler"

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 09:54

In reply to by TranslationZionist (not verified)

That's a pretty stupid strawman... comment I replied to appeared to be bluntly equating the Palestinian struggle with anarchism; where the former is instead an ethno-nationalist movement directly supported by authoritarian organizations and strong religious bias.

Being against massacres by states totally has something anarchistic tho, but why always picking this specific battle? Or if not... the war in UkWayne?

lumpy (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 10:06

In reply to by anon (not verified)

you start your post complaining about a "stupid strawman" argument

your post is about three sentences long

you end your post with a stupid strawmanarchist argument

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 10:16

In reply to by anon (not verified)

"... appeared to be bluntly equating the Palestinian struggle with anarchism"

Except this didn't happen. Weak strawman is weak, brah.

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 16:23

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Yeah agreed, when I mentioned the Sienfeld Incident I wanted to illustrate the disastrous affect that many identarian/nationalist agendas have upon genuine anarchist motives and the corruptive and confusing impressions their rhetoric has upon young minds as described in the comment I replied to. Interestingly though, this introduces a refined and nuanced evaluation of how a witty, humorous retort can cut down and expose the weaknesses and flaws inherent in all authoritarian ideological arguments. Good humor and reparteè should be the real anarchist weapon against oppression.

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 18:24

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Yet all you have actually illustrated is your topical ignorance, spinelessness, bootlicking compulsion, and lack of conversational savvy.

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 18:51

In reply to by anon (not verified)

But your retort wasn't humorous or witty. and the pro-palestinian activism isn't about just palestine. it's the final straw for a lot of people who've suffered under oppression and can see on the horizon there's lot more to come. when i'm at events, people and speakers are talking about every oppression under the sun (police, unhoused, sudan, congo, landback, medical bills, student loans, kkk). none would pay $250 to see seinfeld. I wouldn't go if it was free. I feel like i've had to live thru decades of "normies" asking "did you see the seinfold episode about blah blah blah." No, I did not and now there's a reference to seinfeld on an anarchist website. and for the record, some personal activist friends have gone to palestine and jerusalem and our southern border lately and helped which is what those suffering are begging us to do.

anon (not verified) Fri, 07/05/2024 - 19:22

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I don't have to be witty when replying, I'm not being targetted by religious nationalist supporters am I. I was referring to Seinfeld in an impromptu incident, an apolitical individual who was merely helping people to look at the bright and fun side of living in a fucked-up world, which is analogous to how most anarchists should feel and engage with life in general. And many of Seinfeld's audience also have funded and assisted Palestinian victims of this nationalist war. What "nationalist protesters" could learn from this would be choose your targets not based on their race, but then, they wouldn't be the worst kind of nationalist then would they?

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 05:22

In reply to by anon (not verified)

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 19:36

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Okay, I did some research and you're correct, Seinfeld is a jerk and I never watched his show on tv, it's just that I'm really into repartee, but yeah, Jews can be arrogant sometimes.

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 21:13

In reply to by anon (not verified)

It's not repartee when you're just showing your whole ass repeatedly and everyone just feels sorry for your weak trolling abilities. There's nothing funny about your stupidity and lack of skills. You're such a shanda. A shanda!

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 21:44

In reply to by anon (not verified)

But you're a religious national bigot, so even if the other commenter you got engaged against would be funny you still wouldn't be laughing anyways?

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 22:11

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I am, and have exhibited, none of those things you accuse me of. Perhaps instead of repartee you meant to say you are a retardee? Then we are in agreement. You're doing great. Yay!

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 22:58

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Thanks 21:44 anon. I was graceful enough to admit my lack of research concerning this obnoxious crypto-Zionist nationalist comedian (rather a Statist clown now that I am aware of his insidious political leanings), and the anon, who has the impudence to accuse me of inferior conversational skills persists in insulting me. At least there are some sane and logical commenters on this site who can rescue me from this disastrous thread.

anon (not verified) Sat, 07/06/2024 - 18:01

I'm new to this site, drawn in by the TOTW concerning :-Disasters, and I would just like to expand upon such events as being a collective definition, there are infact no such things as disasters, these events would better be described as Natural occurences, nature's "clean slate", or, gravitational and combustible inevitabilities etc. What I would use the category "disaster" on more specifically would be the condition of collective human consciousness, the disaster of the cult of personality, the disaster of State sovereignty and politics, the disaster of human ignorance and arrogance, the disaster of hate and war, the disaster, on a smaller scale, of moronic trolls and their seething ressentiment.

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