Anarchist Writers

My meeting in Washington DC coincided with the NCOR conference, a big mostly anarchist gathering at the American University. I had been warned in the other cities that it had a reputation as a particularly pungent event, a warning I found to be correct.

It basically attracts the more life-stylist end of the movement in considerable numbers including large numbers that have developed an ideological opposition to washing. One of the meetings I attended had around 150 people at it and I found that by the mid way point the smell was actually irritating the back of my throat.

To be far only 40-60% of the attendees fall into this category but it does provide a particularly direct example of a section of the movement unable to communicate with anyone outside their own ranks. The level of politics in the questions being asked at that session was also shockingly low. Plus more than one idiot was wandering around with a 'I heart the bicycle bomber' sticker.

We'd been told it was too late to get onto the program when we were organising the tour but in the event we were able to get a room to hold the talk and advertised it via flyers produced that morning. So just short of 30 people did attend and the talk seemed to be strongly appreciated.

A major problem for the sensible end of the movement is how to relate to the politics and the majority of the people who turn up for this sort of event. Just because there is such an extreme alienation from mainstream society as to make people dysfunctional isn't a reason to shrug your shoulders and ignore it but its easy to understand the comments I'd picked up elsewhere in the tour when I mentioned I'd be going there.

In DC I interviewed Alex, the audio is at http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/mar2008/alexdc.mp3