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Anarchist Calendar When you want to give a party, but you just don't have a good occasion to celebrate, check with the anarchist calendar on the Net. This site has a list of important anarchist happenings in history. (For example, on February 16, 1916, Emma Goldman was arrested in New York for lecturing on birth control.) Just find the anarchist event closest to the day you are giving the party, then call your caterer and tell him the theme of the gathering. Or you can read him the entire list of historical events and ask him which one goes best with frozen pigs-in-blankets. Web:
Anarchist Feminism Anarchy and feminism have been strolling hand in hand long before Hillary Clinton agreed to be Martha Stewart's financial planner for a straight percentage of the gross. If you would like to explore the roots of modern feminism, you need to look at the women who were not afraid to stand up and be counted at a time when even getting noticed could be hazardous to a lady's health. True, Hillary and Martha are honest-to-goodness folk heroines, but in my humble masculine opinion, they can't hold an intellectual candle to, say, Emma Goldman, the Russian-born American activist who was pro-birth control and anti-draft long before it was fashionable. Check the Net and see for yourself. Web:
Anarchist Resources After going through a three-hour meeting, it's refreshing to look at a nice Web site that can help you fantasize about throwing off the corporate chains that bind you. These sites have lots of interesting resources that are related to anarchy and anarchists: discussion groups, archive sites, Web pages, newsletters, mailing lists, publications, and more. Web:
Anarchist Yellow Pages There are a lot of people who want to change the status quo, one way or another, for one reason or another. And those people support a lot of anarchy-related organizations and publications around the world. The Anarchist Yellow Pages will help you find the information you want, when you want it (as long as the Internet doesn't dissolve into anarchy). Web:
Anarchy FAQs Anarchy comes in a variety of shapes and sizes with the one common belief that Government Is Bad. On the Net, you can read more about the ins and outs of anarchy. These FAQs attempt to take all the ideas and philosophies and put them in a readable format. Web:
Anarchy History The thing I like best about anarchy is that no one organizes it. Oh, people try, but anarchy seems to have a life of its own. If you like reading about the history of not following the rules, try these sites. Learn about the people who did not feel like getting permission from Burger King just to have it their way: people like Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman, William Godwin, Michael Bakunin and Max Stirner. Find out what the Haymarket massacre has in common with the Spanish Civil War, and see why, when push comes to anarchical shove, there's no business like show-em-how-it-really-ought-to-be-done business. Web:
Anarchy News Our world seems to be filled with news, but not all of it is readily available from the dominant media. Here is a less well-known side of the news: the stories that don't titillate enough to make it onto the magazine covers, and aren't bland and harmless enough to sell TV commercials. Here it is, the anarchy news. The news they don't want you to read. Web:
Anarchy Samplers Wanna get serious? Sitting around the cafeteria, drinking coffee and discussing politics will only take you so far. If you want to be a real anarchist, you've got to learn a whole lotta stuff, and this is the place to start. You will find a great many quotes, full of just the ideas you need to get the anarchical ball rolling down the hill of enlightenment. Web:
Anarchy Talk and General Discussion To some people, anarchy is society without government. To others, anarchy is life without television. Still, whether you are an armchair social critic or a couch potato with a plan to reform the world, you won't want to miss the discussion. Talk may be cheap, but good plans to reform the world the hard way are in short supply. Usenet:
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Chomsky, Noam In 1957, the linguist Noam Chomsky (1928-) published a book called Syntactic Structures, in which he proposed the Theory of Generative Grammar. This theory states that people learn to speak because they have an innate ability to recognize which constructions are valid and invalid within their language (as opposed to learning to speak by memorizing minimal sounds). The Theory of Generative Grammar revolutionized linguistics, affording Chomsky considerable renown. Since then, Chomsky has used this considerable renown to try to revolutionize the rest of the world. Chomsky is an anarchist with thoughtful opinions about everything, and he is not shy about sharing. It takes a long time to understand much of what Chomsky says, but if you are willing to try, the Net is a good place to start. And if you become confused, you can always switch to linguistics (where confusion is taken for granted). Web: Usenet:
Goldman, Emma Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a Russian-born American anarchist. At the age of 17, she emigrated from Russia to the U.S., where she and Polish-born Alexander Berkman later published the newspaper Mother Earth. Goldman was vociferously active in a number of unpopular causes, including birth control (with Margaret Sanger), anti-militarism, the anti-draft movement, free speech, the eight-hour work day, and women's rights. Between 1893 and 1917, Goldman was sent to prison several times. In 1919, she was deported to Russia (along with Berkman), only to leave in 1921 after becoming disillusioned with the Russian government. It is difficult to appreciate the importance of Goldman's contributions because, today, much of what she worked for has come to pass and is taken for granted. However, in her time, Emma Goldman was a tireless anarchist, an unbridled force of nature whose lifelong devotion to her causes made her one of the outstanding political activists of the twentieth century. (Some Emma trivia: In the Warren Beatty film Reds, the part of Emma Goldman was played by Maureen Stapleton.) Web:
History of the Black Flag You may have noticed that when the political and fashionable hoi polloi congregate (say, at the opening of Congress or the annual Hooterville, California, turkey drop) you never see a black flag. And you know why? Because a black flag is the symbol of anarchy, and if there is one thing the political and fashionable hoi polloi will not tolerate, it is anything that smacks of not following the rules. (Just ask any member of Congress or, for that matter, any turkey from California.) But how did the black flag come to have such a meaning? Read this article and find out. Web:
Prominent Anarchists Who's who, and why? Here's the inside scoop about your favorite anarchists: biographies, photos, quotations, and information about their work. After all, you can't follow in someone's footsteps if you don't know their shoe size. Or as Noam Chomsky once put it: "If I were to run for president, the first thing I would do is tell people not to vote for me." Web:
Rocker, Rudolf Rudolf Rocker (1873-1958) was a German-born anarchist writer, speaker and philosopher. Rocker was a socialist when he was young, but soon became an anarchist. Throughout his adult life, Rocker proved to be a prolific and energetic proponent of anarcho-syndicalism (a movement that believes in wresting power from the bosses and vesting it in unions or syndicates). Rocker believed an anarchist world, characterized by "free association of all productive forces based upon cooperative labor", would be, ultimately, the logical outcome of modern monopoly capitalism and totalitarianism. (Remember, Rocker lived through the labor unrest of the early part of the century, the Great Depression and two World Wars.) Clearly, he did not envision the evolution of society that was to take place in the latter half of the century. Nevertheless, Rocker's writings are, to this day, thought-provoking and compelling. Web:
Siege of Paris In 1870, Otto Von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor", goaded the French into declaring war against Prussia (a German state). This was part of Bismarck's plan to create a unified German empire, and it worked. The French declared war -- the Franco-Prussian War -- and lost, after which Bismarck was able to consolidate the German empire as an aggressive military force, leading to one or two minor military problems in the twentieth century. Once the war ended, Germany forced France to accept punitive and humiliating terms of surrender. Many of the working class citizens of Paris (such as writers of Internet books) were so upset at the new French government's acceptance of these terms that they forced out the National Assembly and formed a committee called the Commune of Paris to run the city. Led by the Commune of Paris, the citizens put up a brave and desperate struggle against government troops, but after a week of battles -- called the Siege of Paris -- the working class protesters lost. Afterward, there were massive reprisals in which tens of thousands of people were killed, putting a crimp in the French political scene for the next several years. Web:
Situationists A constructed situation is "a moment of life, concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of unitary environment and the free play of events." If this sounds like hot stuff to you, you may be a latent situationist. The Situationist International organization was founded in 1957, flourished in France, Germany and Italy, and lasted for 18 years. To outsiders, SI is remembered for having a great influence on the French national strike of May 1968. To insiders, SI is a complex philosophical movement, based in large part upon radical ideas of Guy Debord and Raul Vaneigem: an anarchistic school of thought that seeks to make sense out of the modern twentieth century brouhaha. If you are a young idealist, searching for subtle, but fundamental ideas that even your teachers won't be able to understand, situationism may be your entrée into the world of obscure esoterica. Web:
Spunk Library If you're going to be an anarchist, you need spunk. If you're going to be an anarchist on the Net, you need the Spunk Library: a collection of anarchist literature, including lots of esoteric papers and commentaries, as well as the Anarchist FAQ (frequently asked question list). The Spunk Library is a good place to browse when you have a few extra moments and you want to raise your anti-hierarchy consciousness without having to do any heavy lifting. (By the way, the word "spunk" was taken from a Pippi Longstocking book.) Web: |
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