Since November 2018, the yellow vest movement has created a political crisis in France and posed thorny questions to radicals worldwide. In the following report, we detail the yellow vest actions from December 8, 2018 to January 5, 2019, recounting how the yellow vest movement defied the calendar—that age-old device for limiting revolutionary movements. Tomorrow, in our next article, we will step back to analyze the different currents within the movement and implications they hold for anarchists, environmentalists, and everyone else who seeks a world without oppression.
The yellow vest movement has posed the most serious threat to President Macron since he came to power in 2016. The unrest began as a grassroots response to the gover... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of 'agricultural revolution' remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors.
1. In the beginning was the word
For centuries, we have been telling ourselves a simple story about the origins of social inequality. For most of their history, humans lived in tiny egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers. Then came farming, which brought with it private property, and then the rise of cities which meant the emergence of civilization properly speaking. Civilization meant many bad things (wars, taxes, bureaucracy, patriar... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In two brochures I defended Captain Dreyfus, condemned to deportation for life for a crime he didn’t commit.
I defended him basing myself on facts, and not ideology. I showed that there were no charges raised against he who was accused of a shameful and abject crime, only the attestations of experts open to challenge attributing to him a bordereau that he didn’t write, that he couldn’t have written. When I first spoke no one would believe me; it was thought that I hid truth in service to a cause. Nevertheless, if that cause had not been defendable, if it hadn’t been that of an innocent, I would never have accepted to support it.
The most benevolent said that I raised my voice in favor of Jews, upon whom... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The question of how to fight or prevent the Google-Campus can be answered in different ways. The answer depends on the perspective of the fight itself. The following proposal is not only addressed to anarchists, although it is an anarchist proposal. It can be shared by all those who not only want to prevent the Google-Campus, but also seek to completely change the conditions we live in. The Google-Campus in Berlin Kreuzberg is just another project of domination seeking to restructure the power of state and capital (among other things digitalization of the economy, new technology of control and repression, commercialization of everyday life ...). In Berlin-Kreuzberg this kind of restructuring is most visible in new building projects. Example... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I think I’ve figured out how to salvage The Force Awakens. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good movie, a damn fun and refreshing movie, but it’s widely acknowledge to still have deep problems, especially in the second half. Surprisingly there’s basically one change that I think could have turned it into a great movie.
And no, I’m not talking about R2-D2’s random map bit. Yes the whole map-to-Luke mcguffin was kinda forced, but JJ could have easily focused in on some part of R2 after BB-8 leaves him and let a small light start blinking to remove the perceived arbitrariness of his later awakening. That’s trivial to solve and will probably be done in a special edition.
No, I’m talk... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Turbulent times are upon us. Already, blockades, demonstrations, riots, and clashes are occuring regularly. It’s past time to be organizing for the upheavals that are on the way.
But getting organized doesn’t mean joining a preexisting institution and taking orders. It shouldn’t mean forfeiting your agency and intelligence to become a cog in a machine. From an anarchist perspective, organizational structure should maximize both freedom and voluntary coordination at every level of scale, from the smallest group up to society as a whole.
You and your friends already constitute an affinity group, the essential building block of this model. An affinity group is a circle of friends who understand themselves as an autonomous p... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The history of the struggles that won the present type of suffrage in Belgium is interesting and very instructive. It shows how, through vigor and constancy associated with caution, a popular party managed, in the space of a few years, to bring a selfish, arrogant class to surrender, even though that class was determined to resist every concession and could call upon the economic and military might of the entire nation in the defense of its privileges. And this history might serve as an example for further struggles targeting much more effective gains for the good of the people.
Avanti! has received from its Belgian correspondent (A. Dewinne) an account of those events, which we know to be truthful. We think it might be useful to rep... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
What do you want most in all the world? More money, a new car stereo, a vacation? To lose ten pounds, to get home from work in time to see your favorite sitcom? Or is it something more than that, something harder to define?
Maybe you’ve given up on ever realizing your true dreams, and you settle for smaller things because they, at least, seem possible. Maybe it never occured to you to ask yourself if the goals you’ve been pursuing really are what you want most. Perhaps, like many people, you feel as if you are being compelled to do things, as if your life is not your own. How often do you feel like that?
Here’s a wild idea: everything you do in your life, you should do because you want to do it, more than anything else i... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Good meeting procedure is probably the most basic tool in the organizers’ kit. It’s the most basic building block in any form of collective action. With it a group of people can accomplish a lot more than they could alone, more than the sum of their parts, if you will. Without it they can do very little, except burn themselves out and reinforce the common beliefs that you can’t fight the powers that be and that collective action is a bore consisting mostly of endless meetings. Maybe that’s why they don’t teach it in school any more.
The purpose of meeting is decision making. Decision making has several parts. The forms used must take care of each part.
Part 1 — Decision Making Dissected
F... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Whether aware of it or not, your boss is stealing from you every paycheck. Employers profit off of the “excess” wealth that you, as an employee, produce. There are two ways to get paid in America: make money off the work you do, or make money off the work that other people do. Employes generate wealth, employers collect it.
We live in a capitalist society. We all know that. Most people are okay with it, too. After all, the competition (state communism like the USSR) doesn’t have such a good reputation.
But what exactly does capitalism mean? Our good friend the dictionary says capitalism is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, ra... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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