TotW: Fear and its Discontents

How do we, how do you, deal with fear? 

I want to do things that I am scared to do. By this I mean many things. I want to do things that scare me for personal growth, because dealing with fear makes me more capable and also more interesting to myself. I want to do things that scare me because I think that those things are challenges to the fucked up society that I live in. I want to do things that scare me because confronting fear with other people is a bonding exercise. 

TOTW: Meeting Them Where They're At

  • In 1962, Marxist-Leninist group Workers World Party kicked off a decade of anti-war protests which spread to the rest of the English-speaking world.
  • Throughout the 1980s, anti-apartheid protests snowballed into a global movement to free the Communist political prisoner Nelson Mandela.
  • At the end of the 1990s, communist student groups and NGOs convened to oppose the WTO.

TotW: Dissolving Power, Not Replacing It

Power structures persist because power itself becomes the game. Even attempts to redistribute power often reinforce its logic rather than dismantling it. Can anarchism go beyond shifting power and instead make it something that naturally dissipates?

TOTW: Gardens, part II

Here in this part of the world, spring has almost arrived. Outside, the sun is hiding behind some clouds as it has for most of the winter and the snow on the ground continues to accumulate. This week we’re digging up the earth to talk about growing plants and hear about your upcoming plans or how the garden was over the year.

TOTW: Hostility

Anarchists are anti many things. Anti-state, anti-capital, anti-racism, anti-race, anti-patriarchy, anti-monarchy, anti-tech, anti-left, anti-fa. An onlooker could be forgiven for thinking anarchists are operating on hostility alone and define ourselves by the things we hate. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those “So what are we FOR?” kinds of talks. I want to focus entirely on the animosity. 

TOTW: Conservatism in Disguise

When I hear phrases like "fuck around, find out" it feels like jail/prison culture has busted out and is taking over popular culture...

The "fuck around, find out" mindset operates as a shorthand for harsh justice. Prison justice. That phrase and others of its kind reinforce the idea that actions have clear, brutal consequences. A way of signaling a no-nonsense, retributive worldview where power is respected and transgressions are punished without mercy. They are phrases that tend towards a form of conservatism... a law-and-order morality that maintains rigid social relations.

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