projects
Identity as a Project
From Cyber Dandy by Cyber Dandy
An article was posted to LibCom recently…
It is a decent analysis of Identity Politics, but like most, it misses what I think are some rather important points about Identity. I talk about some of this in my essay “Identity is Impossible,” but it is worth re-stating. The first thing to understand about Identity, in general, is that it is impossible. There isn’t just an occasional identity crisis impacting a society or an individual. Identity itself is built on a crisis that is fundamental to existence, to the ontological nature of consciousness. Since we are not things, we cannot ever identify completely with things… including conceptual things. So identities are always in crisis and they are constantly a territory of conflict.
TOTW: 2022 - The year past, the year ahead
Hello world
From ewaste distro
This project explores the connections between software, networks, decentralization, anonymity, hacking, technological production, and anarchism. We are interested in how our lives are shaped so significantly by the mundane and esoteric technical choices which create the worlds we inhabit. We are critical of experts, moderators, and administrators but we seek to understand their world so that we might come up with alternative practices for our own ends.
TOTW: 2021 - The year past, the year ahead
TOTW: Fun
Topic of the Week – As parts of the world are opening back up and returning to “normal”, other areas are experiencing the worst yet of the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, there have been many stories of people picking up new hobbies, quitting their jobs, and finding themselves on new adventures in dark times. This week, we’re discussing the topic of fun.
TOTW: 2020 - The year past, the year ahead
Topic of the week - As 2020 comes to a close, let’s take a look back at the ongoing social upheavals worldwide, the inspiring international anarchist actions, some books that have kept you turning the pages, and the music that has been the soundtrack to it all. 2020 has been a year, to say the least.
Lucio Urtubia: An anarchist life
From Enough is Enough
Social rebel, counterfeiter, bandit, modern Robin Hood – the list of titles with which our anarchist comrade Lucio Urtubia was honoured is long. His life, which sounds like an adventure novel, is a mirror of the revolutionary movements in Europe in the second half of the 20th century. Lucio Urtuba passed away today. Rest In Power Lucio!
For Autonomous Communication: North Shore Counter-Info at Two Years
North Shore Counter-Info launched just over two years ago, at the start of March 2020. Since then, we’ve published 302 texts with the goal of providing a platform for autonomous communication and connecting related struggles across the region. We’ve had a lot of feedback that the project is useful – starting from the repression in Hamilton around the Locke St affair in the project’s first days to the Wet’suwet’en solidarity movement this winter. This text is written by some members of the collective to share a few thoughts about what North Shore has been able to do so far and offer some directions for future growth.
Throwing out the Bread
From Anarchytube
Decleration of War on Breadtube in favor for the creation of IRL media cells / collectives / affinity groups.
We need to all take immediate action to negate the recuperation in social anarchist / socialist / leftist communities. We must not be under illusions that any politician, bread-tuber, party, mass political organization will be at all helpful. We are reproducing the very structures that we purport to be against, yet in all seriousness we dont have time to mope around in this late capitalist collapse hellhole. Fuck your boring politics, fuck your corrupt politicians (Bernie, Corybyn, Lula, etc.), lets do something with our lives.
Ediciones Inéditas Anthology
From prole wave
Letter from an inéditor
What was intended as a small translation project among a few friends grew into a thing whose reach somehow spilled across borders and languages. To translate international radical texts which often go unread by Anglophone readers due to a language barrier and which also often go untranslated since they break with classical anarchist & communist orthodoxy: the ultra-left with its impossible positions.
Announcing the fourth annual Institute for Advanced Troublemaking’s Anarchist Summer School
From Cindy Milstein Instagram feed
Hey fellow troublemakers! Applications are now open for the fourth annual Institute for Advanced Troublemaking’s (IAT) Anarchist Summer School, August 1-9, 2020. The IAT stresses an anarchism that is at once a social critique—stuff like #NoBordersNoNations—and especially a social vision—far better stuff like collective care, solidarity, and dignity, in loving, reciprocal, do-it-ourselves practice. It’s also a magical “brave space,” in which we strive hard to co-cultivate community by encouraging everyone to experiment with being the person they want to be within the culture they want to create for the 8 days of the summer camp. And if past year’s are any indication, it’s been discomforting in good ways, generative in beautiful ways, and remarkable for its communal inspiration.
New Zine: Mutual Fire Brigade
From Sprout Distro
“Mutual Fire Brigade” was written for and appeared in March 2019 in DOPE 5, an anarchistic magazine published in so-called London, and distributed free to those behind bars and those without homes. See dogsection.org/dope/. Jeff Clark kindly and beautifully transformed it into this zine. Here’s an excerpt:
TOTW: Anarchist Projects
TOTW: let's try this again, on criticism
First off, I really like good criticism. To me it a sign of someone paying attention and thinking something through. Of course, really, a good compliment can be that too, but even thoughtful, articulate compliments have to get through the fog of "people are just nice," "it's only acceptable to say something kind," etc., so they're more likely to miss that sweet spot of good feedback, when the person receiving it has to step back and think about things (at least a little) differently.