by thecollective Dec 18, 2019

Audio

This is a good conversation to have at the end of a strange year. For this episode I am joined by Alfredo of Occupied Southwest Distro to have a wide ranging conversation picking up on the themes in the book Desert. Desert is an anonymously written book which offers a sober assessment of our current material conditions and urges us to toss out-dated thinking aside. In light of the challenges and time tables put on us by climate change what are the revolutionary prospects? What does it mean to be an anarchist or revolutionary in the anthropocene? The book offers a number of ways to analyze the situation and our practices, we talk about how its informed our thinking as long term organizers and informed our current efforts.

You can read/download Desert for free here.

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anon (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2019 - 13:08

real nice chat.
well rounded.
i’ll check “Hinterland” by Phil A. Neel out.

Redpanther/Bad Kitty (not verified) Wed, 12/18/2019 - 22:52

Is probably the best piece of anarchist writing so far in this century.

A few suggested inprovements: Like Jem Bendell's Deep Adaptation paper (downloaded 500,000 times as of 7-7-19), it doesn't begin to adequately address other serious forms of global biosphere degradation: Topsoil being destroyed 100X faster than nature creates it (U.N.), and crashes of beneficial insect populations as corporate factory-farming pesticides are 95X more potent than those used even 25 years ago (and also persist in the environment longer). These are both products of "The Green Revolution that Prevented World Starvation" (and allowed world population to more than double since Paul Erlic wrote That Horrible Book). Also, a warmer world will also be wetter in aggregate, not a "desert".

I use the word full-spectrum biosphere degradation instead of climate crisis.

Nettle Thu, 12/19/2019 - 10:10

Agree Desert is a good essay. The word 'desert' can also be a noun - "a dry region of little rainfall" or a verb - "to forsake, or leave alone; abandon. So, a play on words. And, let us not forget our just deserts, our comeuppance, punishment for not thinking through the consequences of our actions.

Jeffrey Epstein (not verified) Sat, 12/21/2019 - 13:22

"Desert Is probably the best piece of anarchist writing so far in this century."

LMAO!

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 00:08

One time OSW distro hacked anews and deleted all the fun comments because anews is a serious website and they wont tolerate any joking on it.

Waldemar (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 08:45

Yea wouldn't one of the most alarming things about the whole Zero Network be the near total lack of tolerance for even mild and/or nuanced criticism? Also the tendency to centralize the network via some unspoken vetting process which eliminates and/or disassociates from projects like anews creates a creepy sort of conundrum wherein outsiders suspect, yet cannot really see or participate in the insular core structure (not that any self-respecting anarchist should ever want to).

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 12:44

Theres criticism in channel zero. I know those kids and trust me a lot of them arent adverse to it. Aragorn has just spent decades being really off putting and talking shit and he tends to attract similar personalities to his projects. He couldnt go to the green scare without pushing people to push him out. l cant blame people for not wanting to work with that.

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 12:57

where's the criticism in channel zero? pics or it didn't happen. just talking amongst yourselves doesn't count, right?

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 13:03

and what the fuck!? someone gets kickd out of a space and it must mean that they did something wrong? you go to college for those victim-blaming skillz?

sole (not verified) Mon, 12/23/2019 - 05:20

our criteria is pretty simple : if people like your project and no one blocks it we add it, thats all. when it was getting ready to launch... before we even go it off the ground aragorn! was bashing the project i think the quote was "even if i was invited to participate i would not" OK... (this coincided with others proposing his projects at the same time but it made it a pretty simple decision). if a news is "excluded, its by choice...

i resonate with many of the post left ideas, particularly bellamy's work. anyone reading this feel free submit your podcast, if we like it we'll add it... pretty simple... but maybe we should make that clearer because while all things dont need to be transparent, the submission process should be. if you have questions you can hit me up, youngsole @ rise up
but also like this project is nothing special, it runs off like $250 a year with overstretched volunteers... its just a rss aggregator linking our projects and people sharing information and helping to promote each others work...

peace
sole

Waldemar (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 13:07

Is the criticism not posted anywhere, or is that that only between activists within the network itself? I see no place to post comments on the channel zero site (not that this really matters much anyway for a network of at least twenty different podcasts and countless other organizations).

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 16:12

anarchists only understand critiques if theyre worded like that piece about inhabit or the one that heresy distro did for wolfi. gotta be heavy handed and beat em over the head with it like its some hit piece. its exhausting.

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 17:32

a hit-piece seeks to injure a target’s reputation among its peers; which would mean in the first case the heavy handed beating over the head would be intended its peers, not anarchists.

in the 2nd case, the target proved to be peerless.

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 16:19

youd think if most people in anarchist spaces are seriously annoyed by you for decades and distance themselves from you that you and your friends would realize that you're the issue, but nope. its gotta be everyone else.

anon (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 18:26

considering most people complaining have probably been anarchists for a decade or less this seems dubious

glad this thread has moved from stupid jokes about this distro to petty, off-topic complaining

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/19/2019 - 19:01

"anarchist spaces" (according to your friends?)
"you and your friends" (do you think you're talking to aragrn? and who are these friends he has when he's so terrible?)

wave those hands harder. maybe you'll accidentally say something meaningful in sign language...
gawd DAM this is boring. the mods should just take all this down.

anon (not verified) Fri, 12/20/2019 - 13:36

So Attasa was not the real reason to ban LBC, since anon said the bad boy behaviour goes back "decades", thus predating Attasa.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/20/2019 - 13:54

because people's issues with attasssa are so nonsensical. you can't talk about historical events without endorsing them!?! (just one example i can remember)
afaict one of the dudes behind igd got butthurt about anews or lbc or aragorn and enough people liked him (and maybe were swept up in the antifa-no-thinking moment?) that it became this stupid feud with one side hiding behind anon, and aragron an easy, out-front target.
but this is just piecing together... online gossip is a fools game, i tells ya

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