A <em>blog entry</em> is a single post to an online journal, or <em>blog</em>.
Perhaps out of frustration with their failure on last night’s Late Late Show (Apr 27th), the anti-choice No campaigns have stooped to a disgusting new low today. We’ve observed that they have been engaged in setting up apparently innocuous Facebook news pages and we presumed it was in connection with the referendum. Today they changed the cover image of one of these pages to make it look like a Yes campaign page and then posted this disgusting post.
I have been very busy of late, hence the lack of blogging. I had talks in Glasgow and Edinburgh prepare and do. I had a (long) introduction to the new PM Press edition of Voline’s The Unknown Revolution to write (30, 000 words). I’ve suggested a book idea to Freedom Press. I also had a few Proudhon related things to do. Finally, a “new” Kropotkin article.
Saturday 7th April saw 3000 people take to the streets of Dublin for the Housing is a Human Right march. Some 10,000 people are in emergency accommodation, 3700 of them children. Meanwhile landlords & property speculators pocket a massive portion of the wages of those who are working either via rent or if post 2000 ‘homeowners’ through massive morgage payments.
14 March saw 40-50 students in Trinity College Dublin occupied the dining hall there to protest the introduction of a 450 euro fee for those who have to sit supplemental exams. Such a fee while trivial to wealthy students would be a major barrier to continuing their eduction to most. Having to work minimum wage jobs to earn it would reduce their chances of passing supplemental exams, further reducing meaningful access to 3rd level education. After college locked them in a solidarity protest gathered on the steps which then occupied two further buildings. The college realising that their attempts to repress the protests had backfired then changed track and tweeted that they agreed with the students and would seriously consider alternatives, a week or so later they announced the fee had been abolished.
I know it has been a while since I posted to the Property is Theft! blog, for which I can only apologise. Suffice to say, I have been busy – including working on other Proudhon related material which has appeared elsewhere. I was particularly keen to mark the anniversary Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy and show how he distorted Proudhon’s work. It is useful to summarise the material as some of it is I would humbly suggest important:
A few thoughts on the start of the #repealthe8th campaign. Commentators who thought the anti-choice side were better organised because they went full throttle faster should reconsider – how much damage have they done to themselves with fake stories, fake 100s crowds & neo-nazi smears. At this stage they must be wishing they had done & said nothing over the last week & instead focused on fact checking & claims that could stand 30 seconds scrutiny. If you are pro-choice you should reconsider anything presenting the campaigns as if it was a apolitical horse race – focus on the issues and not on performance.
The evening of March 8th evening saw thousands march through Dublin for Internationals Womens Day but also to demand Repeal of the 8th Amendment which bans abortion in Ireland. The governement have finally been forced to call a referendum to get rid of the 8th – speakers at the rally at the end talked about how this could come about and the formation of a new organisation to joinly campaign for repeal. Demonstrations and other events took place across Ireland to mark this.
6th March the IFB announced the death of Icelandic YPG volunteer Haukur Hilmarsson at the hands of the Turkish state in Afrin. Hauker who was described as a ‘dedicated anarchist militant’ was a well know anti-racist and anti-austerity activist in Iceland who had been arrested at the height of the protests against the banking scandal there.
Sad news – Ursula Le Guin has died, aged 88. First Iain Banks, now Le Guin. So somewhat sad. She was a great writer, one of the best ever. Needless to say, she was my favourite SF writer. Her alien worlds were, well, alien. Her characters, actual people and not cyphers. Her message, humane, egalitarian, feminist, libertarian. She will be missed – but her writings will endure. And I hope she saw this year’s women’s marches across the world:
Happy new year! Let us hope that2018 is better than 2017, but also let us not hold our breath. First off, just before the holidays I finally posted my article “Proudhon’s constituted value and the myth of labour notes” which appeared in Anarchist Studies this time last year. Second, there is a newly translated Kropotkin article at the end of this blog.