When we have a disagreement with some as part of our political organising what are we trying to acheive? Thats probably a question that it worth asking yourself whenever things start to get a bit heated. In everyday life arguments are often really quite problematic and aimed at asserting dominance, punishment & even humilation. It’s easiest to recognise those element in the darker parts of the web, comments on youtube videos for instance. But when we have a strong disagreement as organisers we often fall into that pattern of behaviour, the point of the discussion becomes to ‘win’ and as things turn nasty to humilate the other side. Which is probably going to be the worst outcome you could have if what you actually want to do is build an ongoing relationship.
Archives: Blog entry
A <em>blog entry</em> is a single post to an online journal, or <em>blog</em>.
First off, sorry for the large gap since the last Proudhon update. I’ve been busy on numerous things, not least my new Kropotkin anthology Direct Action Against Capital. The best that can be said is that the Proudhon blog suffered equally along with replying to emails and writing articles. No excuse, other than I’m just human with a lot of responsibilities and things to do. However, I plan to be a bit more focused this year and I am starting with Proudhon.
Before continuing my critique of “Freedom and Democracy: Marxism, Anarchism and the Problem of Human Nature” by SWPer Paul Blackledge, I should note I’ve posted a (longish) review of a reprinted biography of Lucy Parsons. This book is a terrible due to it being completely unreliable on anarchism. On issues I know a bit about (like anarchism!), I can state that it is not only wrong but also misleading so I would take anything it claims with a large pinch of salt.
Selma James, the activist and political writer, spoke in Ireland during the week. She has been active since the time of the Spanish revolution in a number of countries and across many struggles but is possibly best known for the International Wages for Housework Campaign and her writings around gender, class and racism. I got to her ‘Defending Caring and Welfare in Careless Times’ meeting for the School for Social Justice in UCD where I tweeted notes to the WSM Twitter feed. The video of her talk (but not the more controversial Q&A session) has also been uploaded as has her entire talk ‘How Can Women Defeat Austerity?’ at CERSA, NUI Maynooth.
Picture: Theresa O’Keefe, used with permission
First off, my latest book Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology has been sent to the publishers for proof-editing. AK Press are seeking to get it out for spring of 2014. The contents are as before and the introduction has been finished after being circulated to Lucien van der Walt, David Berry and Brian Morris (all of whose books I heartily recommend). Details will be published here once I know more.
To mark volume 2 of An Anarchist FAQ being published, there is an event at Housmans bookshop in London on Wednesday 20th March, 7pm. The meeting will start off by flying through a brief history of Anarchism and highlighting the major traditions within it, before opening it up to the floor for questions and discussion. Event details are:
‘Everything you ever wanted to know about Anarchism, but were afraid to ask’
First off, happy New Year and all the best 2013! Second, update on the Kropotkin anthology. The work is progressing well – the Kropotkin texts, glossary, bibliography and biographical sketch have been sent to AK Press. Just the introduction to do and the title of this blog is inspired by the work I’m doing on the introduction to the book. Simply put, my research has reminded me of why Kropotkin was so highly respected during his lifetime. On issue after issue, he has been proven completely correct.
This photo is one I took a couple of weeks back at a national pro-choice meeting in Dublin called as part of the process of launching a new national campaign. I was stuck at home with an injured leg when I got a sequences of tweets & txts asking me if I could come in as there wasn’t anyone else available and we wanted a photo to send out with the press release. So I called a taxi and in I went.
Here is some useful life advise. If someone is trying to sell you something and their patter involves counting something you should probably walk away if they want to switch methodologies. Wanting to count two similar things in different ways when you intend to then make a comparison is pretty much the warning that a con is coming.
After the anti-choice Vigil For Life last week received press coverage that ‘several thousand’ had attended I wrote up a piece pointing out that counting the crowd from their own video gave a figure of a little over 1000. The methodology I based this on was that used by a pro-life blogger who goes under the interesting name of Thirsty Gargoyle. After the March for Choice in September he had made a big deal out of doing a count of ‘every person’ in a video and on that basis proclaiming that only 850 were present.
Well, the anarchist bookfair has come and gone. I had a good time, did not spend too much on books and saw a few people I’ve not seen for a while. But since then, the usual grind of work-work and union-work has taken its toil, although I’ve managed to write up my two talks – one on anarchism and syndicalism, the other on anarchist economics.