North America / Mexico - Anarchist Communist Event
Friday April 27 2007
08:00 hrs
Finding our roots
mayday 2007 conference on anarchist theory (chicagoland)
This is a proposal for all interested in organizing a conference for may 1st 2007 in the Chicagoland area.
Finding our Roots
2007 Conference on Anarchist theory
April 28- 30th
The first meeting will be Dec. 29th at 5:30 at Mercury Café (1505 W.
Chicago Ave
call or email me if you'd like to help.
What is it?
This is a proposal for all interested in organizing a conference for
may 1st 2007 in the Chicagoland area.
Why should we discuss theory?
Within the last several years, Chicagoland anarchist and radicals have become disconnected, disorganized, and there appears to be lack of critical theory. The lack of theory has led towards a situation in which possible alternatives and plans for restructuring society have been neglected.
Is it necessary for the radical community to understand our roots, and continue the struggle?
Yes it is. With the war in Iraq, plans by 2016 to have security cameras on every corner of Chicago, Cops in military fatigues on the south side, and massacres in Oaxaca, and as always workers being used at their jobs, it is essential to resist and discuss a viable solution to hierarchy. We all must be able to discuss how Chicago would operate with maximum participation of the people. This is only possible if we understand our mistakes and learn from the past. Though several collectives are organized.
How is Anarchism perceived within the general public?
Anarchism as a movement has lost appeal to working people. Instead of involving community members, the movement is largely youth oriented, and organized largely through cultural events. As revolutionaries we are isolated, and intimidating to fellow workers. Lack of solidarity, respect and support for each others projects directly brought projects such as Arsenal, A-zone, black flag, clamor, and impact press to an end.
How will this conference by effective?
This conference will be the first of a series. The first conference is centered on theory. The goal is to allow participants to hear speakers on a wide variety of radical ideology, and events. After the presenter, participants will be able to debate the theory they just heard. This will create its own agenda which will keep discussion focused as possible. Also the event will serve as a way to bring people together, share stories, exchange information, and most important discuss revolution and how to make it possible.
Possible topics include:
- A history of anarchism in Chicago
- Emma goldman/ Alexander berkman
- The I.W.W
- 5 waves of Anarchism
- big A, little a
- Paris Commune
- Mutualism & Proudhon
- Basic Bakunin
- Insurrectionary/Nihilist
- Green Anarchism
- Post left Anarchism
- situationist
- Libertarian Communism
- Syndicalism
- Spanish Civil War
- Individualist
- Radical feminism
- Radical mysticism
- Anarchism and the Americas (Ricardo Flores Magon and Oaxaca)
- Anarchism and the black revolution
Other activities:
- Skits- participants act out what they hate the most about Anarchism
- Prisoner support box and letter writing.
- A May 1st soap box action. (reading of may 1st speeches in public places.
Funding - To raise funding for speakers, several events will be planned before finding our roots. Several collective members are interested in a day long discussion of anarcha feminism. This will cover more information, and be more specific.
A second conference (from the bottom up) in late July can be on community organizing. This would allow for radicals who hopefully understand anarchism in theory, here stories of successful community organizing, and develop models towards organizing communities. Isn't this the idea?
Possible workshops include
- Community outreach
- How Aldermen offices work
- how to fundraise
- grant writing
- media
- coalition building,
- anti oppression
- security culture
- Black Panthers
- Food not bombs
- Free store/ infoshop
- Community radio
- Zapatistas and general assemblies.
- Decision Making
- Out Reach
The third conference would be around labor day or spring break weekend and would cover direct action. This would be a time to learn techniques in the streets, and in our communities. Direct action training will be important for those who wish to organize or participate during the RNC in Minneapolis in 2008.
Possible topics include:
- Research into newest weapons
- Surveillance
- National Guard civil disturbance techniques
- Fire team maneuvers
- Non violent direct action techniques
- Padded blocks and how to defend yourself
- Lockboxes, barricades and tripods
- Affinity groups
- Property destruction
- Art and Media
- How to organize a demo
- Know your rights
- Street medics
- Logistics-(signal and communication)
- Recon
- Basic self defense
Interested in helping?
If you are interested in presenting a workshop there is plenty of time to prepare. If you've never done a workshop there will be several working groups formed to help out.
The first meeting will be Dec. 29th at 5:30 at Mercury Café (1505 W. Chicago Ave)
Logistics - We will need plenty of help with housing, food, venue, help picking up speakers, possible music event, greeting, and outreach.
Do you want to table? Feel free to send an email
Contact
Robert
spaceorders@hushmail.com
630-220-5026
north america / mexico |
anarchist movement |
anarchist communist event
Thursday December 21, 2006 07:27
by robert - chicago mayday collective
spaceorders at hushmail dot com
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Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3For the first time in over twenty years there is no active Anarchist group. Maybe you armchairs didn't notice a WAR is going on! What is going on here? Yes, having a conference is not a bad idea. But what happens between now and then. Where is the Anarchist presence in the anti-war movement?
Anarchy is a pretty simple idea. NO FUCKING BOSSES! It is a great idea to talk about history and issues related to the struggle to abolish authority. Why not weekly or at least once a month.
Having a conference every few months is exactly like the Answer/UFP7J fools who do a big event once a year. Makes people feel good. But ongoing day in day out organizing and education is what is needed. And where is the Anarchist point of view at the anti-war actions in Chicago?
Always be an Anarchist. But the sad fact is most people that call themselves anarchists are flakes, idiots, assholes, liberals or lazy armchairs. While you folks are planning for this thing in April, commie and liberal groups are giving upset people things to do TODAY.
Sadly there is not now an ongoing Anarchist series of events. They are needed more than the conference. Sorry if i don't know about ongoing @ events here. But if they exist, they are not to be found on indymedia or on any of the calendars. If they exist and they are noy listed, whynot?
The anti-war movement in this country has been trashed by liberal assholes. Vote democrap! Many people are turned off by this nonsense. Where is the Anarchist point of view.? Finally when the few of you show up at demos, a black flag is not enough. A few poster and some leaflets are also needed.
Most people have no idea what a black flag is. And most of the rest have the wrong idea of what Goldman & Lingg thought.
I'm not sure if your comment should be entirely directed at finding our roots, it seems to be directed at Anarchist in North America.
As far as why this conference. I can tell that you are not from chicago, and you do not know how unorganized anarchist are. If you are from Chicago, you need a history lesson of chicago anarchism and I suggest you come to the conference to find out where other groups went wrong, and what they found worked. The last several years have been devasting for people in chicago, the closing of the A-Zone in 2002, and the S.P.A.C.E in 2005. Groups that were confronting the police and VERY active in the anti war movement and fighting nazi's and active in Miami do not exist anymore. Midwest unrest, and ARA which many of us were apart of broke up over two rapes in 2004. Last year during the march 20th anti war march was pathetic and a reminder of how unorganized chicago is.
You need to understand that those of us apart of finding our roots feel that we need to start over. In fact this conference has brought out people who took a break after the rapes and internal conflict. Chicago literally broke apart with groups seperating in every direction. It's great to see people in chicago getting excited, becoming active, and we hope to bring new people into the movement. The truth is, events are not happening. Discussion on theory, organzing, methods of action are not happening. Though you are very reactionary it is crucial to understand that chicago could, unless something happens be a dead movement.
I understand as a conscientious objector who refused deployment that fighting the war is important. I also know that Chicago is #1 in the U.S for police killings. Everywhere there is a war, and it is up to us, in Chicago, and those who are participating to determine our own needs.
Furthermore, several of us are in other collectives, and are not giving up other groups for the conference. The organizing group is VERY large and allows people to accomplish their work and other responsibilities like take care of our children.
Again, I cannot stress enough that you need to understand Chicago politics, and history of groups. If you believe that the way to revolution is through protesting the war, then you would be happy that Anarchist people of color is planning a city wide walk out. And yes, several members are in finding our roots. The question remains, are street fights the way towards revolution?
The goal of finding our roots is to educate ourselves, and anti authoritarians in the chicagoland. We understand (some of us have been around since the 60's) the urgent need to discuss theory, look at past events, and move on with a clearer goal, and method towards what we (as in all who participate) need to determine our needs, and though I understand your sentiment, through free association and mutual aid we will carry on with this conference.
If you are interested, though it is nice that you want to determine what anti authoritarians in a different communities needs are, here are several other groups in Chicago:
Pomagranite radical health collective:
midwest books to prisoners
Southside ABC distro
Anarchist people of Color
49th street underground
Dill pickle food co-op
the rat patrol
I.W.W
All of these collectives are concerned about their specific community, but you are free to email them and tell them to protest the war and ignore their community and determine their needs for them also.
So get off your chair, and lets talk in person, come to any of the radical chicago collective meetings. If you feel that protesting the war is the most important issue then START A COLLECTIVE.
solidarity:
(p.s we hope this conference might be the begging of a chicago federation of anarchist collectives) but what the hell, email us and let us know what chicago's needs are!!!!!
Finding Our Roots Update!!!
Finding Our Roots: An Anarchist Conference on Theory and Action, and The 7th Annual Chicago Anarchist Film Festival is only ONE week away.
Join us, April 27-29th
Loyola University Chicago
Quinlan Life Sciences Building
6525 N. Sheridan Rd. [this is the main campus address]
Chicago, IL 60626
Northwest corner of Sheridan and Kenmore
For further updates, ride information, workshop descriptions, resources, presenter bios, and other Chicago Anarchist projects: check out http://mayfirst.wordpress.org or http://findingourroots.info
Pre-register- Chicagoanarchisttheory@riseup.net. Please send your name, how many people, organization, housing, childcare, or other needs. We will have child care and housing available.
For Main speakers we are pleased to announce:
Saturday: Neala Schleuning: Whatever Happened to Anarchist Theory? Babies, Bathwater, and Big Ideas.
Sunday: Cindy Milstein: The “New” Anarchism
Conference Schedule:
FRIDAY:
Registration at New world Resource center: 1300 N. Western
Picnic in the Park:
Join us for an evening of soap boxing, games, and food at bughouse square.
Here speeches from Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Durruti, and more!!! Check for updates online. We will have maps of historical labor/radical locations available online for those who want to visit different locations before the conference.
Location: 901 N Clark
Time: 6:30-9:00
Bughouse Square (from “bughouse,” slang for mental health facility) is the popular name of Chicago's Washington Square Park, where orators (“soapboxers”) held forth on warm-weather evenings from the 1910s through the mid-1960s. Located across Walton Street from the Newberry Library, Bughouse Square was the most celebrated outdoor free-speech center in the nation and a popular Chicago tourist attraction.
In its heyday during the 1920s and 1930s, poets, religionists, and cranks addressed the crowds, but the mainstays were soapboxers from the revolutionary left, especially from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Proletarian Party, Revolutionary Workers' League, and more ephemeral groups. Many speakers became legendary, including anarchist Lucy Parsons, “clap doctor” Ben Reitman, labor-wars veteran John Loughman, socialist Frank Midney, feminist-Marxist Martha Biegler, Frederick Wilkesbarr (“The Sirfessor”), Herbert Shaw (the “Cosmic Kid”), the Sheridan twins (Jack and Jimmy), and one-armed “Cholly” Wendorf.
SATURDAY:
Sat. 10am
Room 212 Brief Intro to Anarchism
Room 312 (Guerrilla Workshop)
Room 412 (Guerrilla Workshop)
Sat. 11am
Room 212 The Need to Move Past Rights-Based Theory
Room 312 The Green Scare and Security Culture
Room 412 Surrealist Women, God & the State
Sat. noon Lunch!
Food and speaker provided by Rogers Park Food Not Bombs
Sat. 1pm
Room 212 The Horizontalist Moment
Room 312 Introduction to Social Ecology, the theories of Murray Bookchin
Room 412 Basic Bakunin
Sat. 2pm
Room 212 Anarcho-Transhumanism
Room 312 (Guerrilla Workshop)
Room 412 Radical Affinities
Sat. 3pm
Room 212 Challenges to Capitalism, Challenges for the Left
Room 312 (Guerrilla Workshop)
Room 412 Rockin’ With Kropotkin
Sat. 4pm
Room 212 Emma Goldman In Our Time
Room 312 Anarchism and Workplace Organizing
Room 412 Prison Abolition
Sat 5pm Keynote Speaker: Neala Schleuning
Whatever Happened to Anarchist Theory? Babies, Bathwater, and Big Ideas
Sat. 7:30pm-10:30pm Film Fest
Sat. 9pm-3am Kinetic Club Night
@ Spot 6, 3343 N. Clark, 9pm-3am, 21+, $3 (conference fundraiser)
SUNDAY:
Sun. 10am
Room 212 Liberation Technology: GNU/Linux
Room 412 Free-Market Anti-Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism
Auditorium (Guerrilla Workshop)
Sun. 11am
Room 212 The Current Condition of the US
Room 412 Revolutionaries Who Tried To Think: STO
Auditorium Haymarket
Sun. noon Lunch!
Sun. 1pm
Room 212 The Jewish Anarchist Tradition
Room 412 Anarchist Theory of Animal Liberation
Auditorium (Social Ecology Workshop)
Sun. 2pm
Room 212 Abolition of Work
Room 412 What Anarchists Can Learn from Marxist Theories
Auditorium (Guerrilla Workshop)
Sun. 3pm
Room 212 Rethinking Guy Debord and the Society of the Spectacle
Room 412 St. Louis Anarchist History
Auditorium Post Colonial Anarchism
Sun. 4pm
Room 212 The Spanish Civil War
Room 412 Insurrectionary Communism
Auditorium (Guerrilla Workshop)
Sun. 5pm Keynote Speaker: Cindy Milstein
The “New” Anarchism
Sun. 7:30pm-10:30pm Film Fest
The 7th Annual Chicago Anarchist Film Festival is pleased to present this year’s line-up:
SATURDAY, APRIL 28 2007
PAST: FORWARD
And then I thought that, one day, maybe, there'd be a human society in a world which is beautiful, a society which wasn't just disgust.--Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless
A TALE OF TWO FRATERNITY BROTHERS (YOU GOT AWAY WITH IT)
(Todd Snider, 3’51”) Musical artist Todd Snider of Austin, Texas exposes the bully in the White House.
PROJECT PILSEN (Fernando Olszanski, 2007, 4’11”.) Fernando Olszanski works with the Chicago-based, Spanish-language periodical ContraTiempo. His contribution is a rockin-short on the gentrification in process in Pilsen. He was born in Buenos Aries, Argentina. Chicago Premier!
THE MORE THINGS STAY THE SAME (Marc Moscato, 2007.) Over sixty-five years ago lived local hobo-doctor celebrity Dr. Ben Reitman. He gained more fame as lover and press agent to Emma Goldman- possibly the most famous anarchist ever! This documentary gives details on the daily life of Ben, his involvement with the Dil Pickle Club and features interviews with his daughters as to the nature of his relationship with Emma. Marc is not a self-proclaimed anarchist, but likes a lot of the ideas. He lives in Portland and was inspired to make this film after reading Boxcar Bertha.
THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN LABOUR MINISTER (Claire Civil Will Flash For Cash, 3m) A dancing dog does a Gilbert and Sullivan parody about national identity cards in the UK.
WHAT BARRY SAYS (Simon Robson, 2004, 2m.) An animated explanation of the United States led neo-capitalist, “free-trade” global war.
DURRUTI: EN LA REVOLUCIÓN ESPAÑOLA (Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler, Pacific Street Films, 90m) Another archival piece from the producers of Anarchism In America- shown at CAFF in 2006 and Free Voices of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists shown in 2003. This movie is a most excellent aperitif to the Finding Our Roots anarchist theory conference, happening the same weekend. Cheers!
SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2007
WORK: PLAY
Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.-- Emma Goldman, Living My Life
LOOKING FOR A JOB (Todd Snider, 2006) What to do with a no-end job.
GENDER PLAY (Philipe Lonestar, 2005, 9’50”) a spirited compilation on what gender and sexuality mean to those who challenge it’s social constructs.
HAPPINESS TENDS TO INFINITY (Yinka Selley, Broad Horizons, 3m) Einstein would like this video.
LAND RAIN AND FIRE: REPORT FROM OAXACA (Tami Gold and Gerardo Renique, 2006, 28m.) Informative documentary building the connection between the teachers strike of Seccion 22 to the rise of APPO (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca) includes commentary on the death of Brad Will. The filmmakers are based out of NYC and are currently raising money for the families of those who were killed or are now in prison. This is a Chicago Premier!
GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH (Jonathan Culp, Satan Macnuggit Popular Arts, 2006, 90m.) A hilarious fictional drama, about dead-end living in a dead end town, free food and rebellion. Jonathan Culp is from the north end of la frontera (Canada, eh…) and this is his second film to be screened at CAFF. The first was OCAP Strikes Back in 2003. Check out: www.youtube.com/profile?user=satanmacnuggit
Please see our Finding Our Roots website for more information
http://mayfirst.wordpress.com/
or
http://home.comcast.net/~more_about_it/
All films will take place on the first floor of the Quinlan Life Sciences Building at Loyola University Chicago
Quinlan Life Sciences Building
6525 N. Sheridan Rd. [this is the main campus address]
Chicago, IL 60626
It's on the northwest corner of Sheridan and Kenmore.
Film Fest Raffle
Please purchase raffle tickets — it helps us offset the costs of the festival. We will be holding the raffle prize drawing during the film festival.
1 ticket: $2
3 tickets: $5
Need tickets? Email affc@riseup.net
So far, we have received raffle prizes from these awesome sponsors:
• Handlebar – a restaurant gift certificate
• Uptown Bikes — a set of lights
• In These Times magazine — one year subscription
• Karen — acupuncture session
• On-the-Fly Farms — box of organic veggies
• Quimby’s Bookstore — $15 gift certificate
• Touch and Go Records — assorted cds.
• Reckless Records — gift certificate
• Facets Cinema — pair of tickets
• FanPro — Shadowrun roleplaying game book
• Myopic Books — tba
• Quenchers — 20 assorted beers
• Early to Bed — tba
• Bleeding Heart Bakery — $20 gift certificate
• Southern Records — Best Before by Crass and other assorted CDs
• Anonymous Donor — 1970 edition IWW songbook
• More to come!