Anarchist Writers

The week before last Erris fisherman Pat O'Donnell was jailed for seven months for his part in the communities ongoing resistance to Shell's attempt to impose an experimental gas pipeline on them. Across the country local Shell to Sea groups have been holding solidarity protests and other events for Pat. In Dublin this has included two protests and a public meeting in UCD (an audio recording of the meeting is at the bottom of this article). Meanwhile Shell have been forced to admit a temporary defeat in the face of local opposition and call off the construction they have planned for Glengad this year.

I’ve posted a revised article on the impact of neo-liberalism on economic performance. This was originally written around 1997/8 after New Labour got into office and it was clear that Blair was going to continue the Thatcherite assault on the unions and denouncement of strikes.

I went along to the ICTU protest against the budget (called almost a full week after the budget!) last night.  While we were there we spotted opposition leader Enda Kenny and some of the Dublin Shell to Sea crew chased him up the street in order to ask him a a few questions.  I followed with the iPhone and shot some very dark video of him trying to evade the discussion.  The rally itself was crap, not much more than a thousand people and only two quick speeches from David Begg the general secretary of ICTU and Sheila Nunan the president of the INTO.  Neither said very much. Jack O'Coonor from SIPTU lurked in the corner of the platform looking at his feet but apparently he had lost his voice.

Just a very quick note to say that my article on Kropotkin's mutual aid has been updated. This will be the text if and when AK Press UK publish it. While I had hoped that it would be out for this year's London anarchist bookfair on the 24th of October, I've just been informed that it will be delayed. Hopefully it will appear sometime later this year. And, hopefully, the new Black Flag will be there at the bookfair...

Back in 1986 Granada did a fantastic 6 part documentary on the Spanish Civil War.  Each episode was an hour long and based around news reel footage from the time (much of it shot by anarchist film crews) and interviews with surviving participants.  The six episodes are now up on Google video, if you've not seen them I highly recommend them.

Here is an exclusive extract from the introduction to the Proudhon Anthology I’m working on (and we do need more translators, if you want to contribute!). It is on Proudhon’s theory of exploitation and how Marx, basically, appropriated it …

Also, the translations are progressing. Got a chapter of Confessions of a Revolutionary and it contained a wonderfully witty insult. Made me laugh out loud so I thought I would share:

A few weeks ago I posted an article on inequality in the UK, using a surreal article in the right-wing Daily Mail. It essentially protrayed those on £50,000 a year as "middle class" or "middle income". In fact, they were talking about people in the top 10%! Since then, I've come across a useful TUC source addressing this

Well, I'm back from holiday. Which explains the lack of posts and blogs (but I did manage to get another release of An Anarchist FAQ done). I've posted a new article on the economics of anarchy, based on my speech at the Radical Routes conference earlier this year.

I arrived back last week from a weeks holiday in Berlin during which I did a meeting on 'Organised Anarchism in Ireland' and an interview with Shane of (Berlin) Anarchist Media Group, you'll find the audio at the end of this blog post. I also spent a good bit of time walking around the city, which I last visited, shortly after the wall had come down, in 1990. The geography of Berlin reflects its difficult history; I'm mostly talking about that aspect in this blog post.

It often seems that libertarian influenced events and organisations have become irreversibly linked with Marxism. Thus the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA, or the First International) and the Paris Commune are associated these days more with Marx than Proudhon (or anarchism) even though it was the followers of the French anarchist who helped create the former and gave the latter its distinctive characteristics.