Montreal: Invitation to the Anarchist Gathering!

Date: Sunday, September 12, 2021
Time: noon to 5 pm
Location: Parc La Fontaine (outside/around Cultural Center Calixa-Lavallée)

Do you find yourself nostalgic for bookfairs, and the conversations and often inspiration that happen at them? Has the pandemic made you feel cut off from anarchists and/or anarchism? This gathering has the simple aim of encouraging us to refresh our connections to each other. To that end, we’re inviting distros to bring a blanket or table and chairs, and offer books, zines, or artwork (there’s no need to apply; just show up); we’ll be holding 2-3 facilitated conversations, and will have a time slot for self-organized discussions that day too; Food Against Fascism will be on hand with delicious eats; and we’re hoping to set aside a spot for a DIY grief altar (bring something to add).

More details to come closer to September 12! Mostly, though, this is our invitation to come socialize with other anarchists, in the best of do-it-ourselves ways, including beyond our usual friendship circles.

On a collective care note, we ask that everyone bring a mask (we’ll have some on hand too) and wear it when in close proximity to others at any point, unless they consent to going maskless. We also ask that everyone maintain good physical distancing and table/socialize in relatively small groups.

Montreal Anarchist Bookfair policies apply to this event, and if you’ve been asked not to attend the bookfair in the past, please don’t attend on September 12. For policy details, see https://www.anarchistbookfair.ca/.

#RassemblementAnarchiste #AnarchistGathering

There are 49 Comments

I appreciate that those bad comments were deleted. I was about to snarkily reply to one of them.

It's interesting how anything about Montréal on this site invariably gets a comment to the effect of "every anarchist in the city is petty bourgeois" or they're cops or they're communists or they're all these things. Which, like, maybe? But I feel like people shit talk other places a lot less

sometimes, extra attention from your enemies is a perverse sort of flattery

This, in the city with the stiffest Covid restrictions, in the province that first implemented the Covid Passpeort in Canada.

So will you be asking attendees to have the Covid Passport or a mask? This could be a major male or break moment for whatever's left of anarchism in this town.

"Raison d'État" look it up!

But yes, even some outdoors activities and gatherings of more than 50 ppl, the Covid Passport is now required since Sept 1st. For the Community! :-/

There's a two-weeks grace period tho.

Not only do the State restrictions make travel to this event from the US almost impossible, but the Montreal anarchists have decided to reinforce that with their own senseless restrictions, having now been baptised in the new religion of "following the science". Requiring masks and "social distancing" at an outdoor event? Even the CDC doesn't believe in that bullshit. Why not go all the way and demand that people show their "vaccine passports?

I realize you "baptised" yourself into COVID wingnuttery but you really don't need to turn every even slightly COVID-related post on this site into a rant. What is your obsession with yelling at anarchists for holding gatherings when covid restrictions make international travel difficult? If you can't make it into Canada, why should they care? Did you even read the post, in which case you'd see the qualifications about when people should wear masks, or did you just see the word mask and copy and paste your usual apoplexy while you were still seeing red? And afaik the going wisdom is that distancing and masking are still useful outdoors as a precaution if you're going to be in contact with others for an extended period of time.

At the very least you could try working on your social engagement skills instead of denouncing anarchists like they're the fucking biosecurity state you're so afraid of, especially when they're trying to work out what might be reasonable rules for a mass gathering they're planning on hosting during an ongoing pandemic. Cool the fuck off dude.

mtl anarchists deserve nothing but the most savage of mockeries and laughter for the way in which they have rolled over in complete submission to the bio security state.

Change my mind. I’ll wait. Enjoy having to show ID to buy groceries, you fool.

And to be clear, the bullying is designed to shame you into the right direction. Ultimately it is because people have high expectations for mtl. Ultimately we want you to be and do better.

Sadly I think there's a pretty big core of so-called anarchists over there who won't be listening to ANY criticism coming in their direction, regardless of how polite or bullyish that may be. You might expect some corporate-like disclaimers coming from your usual activist types, who're equally as careless about addressing contradictory or problematic positions or behavior... At the bottom line, my postulate was always that a good external strategy of tension can push these people to change or just GTFO the "anarchist" poseurism.

You're just jealous your ugly ass isn't invited to our irl salons of beautiful anarchists doing things that don't just involve crying on the internet. Adieu!

Oh! PARDON me for being such a know-nothing outsider. So what are these things they're doing? Publishing? Sub-capitalist projects? Tell us more!

"If you can't make it into Canada, why should they care? "

Coz State borders are what anarchists oppose in the first place, you fucking swine!?

"And afaik the going wisdom is that distancing and masking are still useful outdoors as a precaution if you're going to be in contact with others for an extended period of time."

Ok zoomer. But no they're not. The risks of spreading a virus like Covid outside are super minimal compared to internal spaces, and that is why Covid testing centers were opened in outdoors areas during the first wave, last year, 'member? Also masks were meant to compensate for lack of social distancing practices, and this is why they're enforced in all inside public spaces since last year. So as reminder for what even the WHO and CDC sez:

- masks are good for preventing you from spreading a virus, through water droplets from coughing, sneezing and talking loud.
- masks are pretty useless to protect yourself against Covid from others.
- they're even more fucking useless outdoors, idiot.

I thought you guise were Fauci tools but now it seems you wanna go crazier than even State despots in their restrictions. So fuck off with that "anarchism" of yours.

On the one hand you're criticizing anyone doing protective measures as being a fool brainwashed by the state and then on the other hand you're citing the CDC and WHO to try to make your case. Hard to know where you begin with that...
But most importantly, you are citing, ironically, the claims made at the beginning of the pandemic by the CDC and other medical authorities which were obviously false and were acknowledged later to be lies. I'm talking here about the utterly astoundingly disgracefully wrong statement that masks only stop spread and don't protect the wearer. There is not the slightest shred of evidence for this anywhere and only mountains of evidence to the contrary. It was acknowledged by health authorities that they intentionally spread this misinformation in order to stop people from hoarding masks and keeping them out of the hands of health workers. You know, because spreading misinformation that likely caused thousands of deaths is more important that interfering with the free market, even in an emergency. As far as I'm concerned, anyone implicated in spreading that bullshit should at a bare minimum face the same repercussions as mass murderers because their effect in the short term was incredibly destructive and it's so destructive that I have to even listen now 1.5 years later to a smuck on a-news parroting the same bullshit! That's how far the reach of bullshit is, even into the mouths of supposed rebels against the system.

I think you're lost and in the wrong place. You're like the epitome of an authoritarian. I would gander there are plenty of forums for liberal-learning-leftists that are more to your liking.

The purpose for wearing a mask during this pandemic is to prevent you from spreading covid to others. Wearing a mask is not meant to protect you from covid. Multiple studies have shown that wearing a mask doesn't do a good job at protecting and preventing you from getting covid.

During the Spanish Flu, anarchists were taking advantage of the situation. They weren't doing what these leftists' (and you) are doing by basically being informal state agents by "asking" people to wear masks and social distance. The state "asks" me to do all kinds of stuff like don't enter random peoples homes and take their stuff, or don't run over people while driving.

Jesus christ you leftists are weird and dense as fuck.

If I don't do as "asked" by the state they will try to punish me for not doing what they asked.

To be clear, my objection is not that they are holding the gathering, but that they feel it necessary to reinforce the authoritarian rules already in place in Montreal with their own recommendations. Too many anarchists have shown unquestioning deference to the authority of (some) scientists and politicians during the last eighteen months, and the Montreal group are out-doing even the CDC in this respect: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guid...

nestor ... don't you think it's weird when people who claim to be anarchists can't see an obvious distinction between -

STATE MANDATES ENFORCED BY LAAAWWW!!!

and

we're having an event you can voluntarily attend but if you would pls do a, b and c while attending? that would be appreciated!

ISN'T THAT WEIRD HOW DUMB THAT WOULD BE?!

Really now? And if I or some like-minded anarchist chose to voluntarily attend your event while declining to follow your requests? What would happen then - a lot of nasty looks and muttered curses, or will you have some volunteers policing the event for you, who would try to publicly shame me, or make a (very foolish) atttempt to confront me? An authoritarian mentality is still an authoritarian mentality, no matter whether you work for the State or not.

Here is some science that Unjustin TrueDough and his fellow travelers in Montreal aren't following: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/02/isnt-case-mass-booster-jabs/

yeah so ... like I said, either you're a complete troll right now or you don't even understand the difference between voluntarily and respectfully sharing space versus authoritarianism. lets hope you're just kidding around?

fuck ... this shit is so embarrassing *facepalm*

TIL that stopping aggro randos from doing things I don't want them to do, which could impact the health and/or safety of comrades at my events is an *squints* "authoritarian mentality". Thanks, Makbro!

You pretend being anarchist... If you're getting behind a rule by decree exerted by a government (a democratic rule and enforced by its police, snitching or pressuring people to wear a mask or providing with QR codes for their vaccines, well, then it's pretty obvious you're by now a volunteer State agent, a person not worthy of any anarcho cred, and your claims of "anarchism" are pretty ingenuine, at best. I'd also be seriously questioning your credibility as a person if we'd be "friends", in a more general sense.

This might sound sarcastic, but it's not. You might bring in all the dismissals about "purism" or whatever, this changes nothing to the fact you're not for real, as far as anarchy goes, and aren't worthy any collaboration.

this might sound sarcastic and it is: notice how this argument of yours falls apart when I apply it to things like stop signs, turn signals, being opposed to random murder, etc.

are we all "volunteer state agents" every time we don't drive up the center of the oncoming lane on the highway? yes, clearly we are.

i'm with you on this lumps. by that same binary logic, i must be a purist religious zealot because i do not kill for no reason. wearing seat belts clearly makes me a state collaborator. and for sure using the word "bitch" absolutely makes me a misogynist oppressor.

yeah I still occasionally pop that one out, mostly directed towards men who's driving isn't aggressive enough from my perspective? not my proudest shit, comes straight from the brainstem

"are we all "volunteer state agents" every time we don't drive up the center of the oncoming lane on the highway? yes, clearly we are."

Comrade, the moment you stepped in that car you were doing the state's work. You should've been working against the car state and hopping on a bike, you monster. Check your privilege.

Deleuze's "Post Script on Soceities of Control" may illuminate the ways that sticking to driving on roads is a discrete method of control.

Not exactly a method of control, but straight up voluntary servitude to it. A reality that our machine-loving commies here will have trouble accepting.

But roads and the automated devices we use on these are all part of a State grid of controlling population movement. Thid is where more humanistic, less mechanical means like bikes, skates and just walking can be relatively more autonomous, as they got a potential for *dérive* you can't afford when stuck in car traffic, lol.

I don't see the difference between control and "voluntary servitude", seems the same to me.

Perhaps biking can be less mechanical, less controlling. But I think its difficult to talk about control qualitatively. The bike for example is still controlling- street bikes still limit us to roads and paved paths, their speed shapes how we see the world. So while it can be helpful to use them to escape the control of the car (personally I'm moving away from hitchhiking to living on a bike) they should be seen as the goal.

I read this morning that some protesters opposed to Justin Trudeau's "vaccine passport" plan threw some stones at him during a campaign stop. Now that is the kind of response his government's authoritarian Covid policies should be getting from Canadians - not the slavish submission shown by the Montreal anarchists.

you read exaggerated clickbait bullshit that likely omitted how those ppl are the far right

Who gives a shit if they're right wing or not? A stones a stone and the point stands, these stones, even though they are ultimately pointless, as an empty gesture mean much more then these leftists appealing to responsibility.

tHe EnEMY oF my eNEMy is MY frienddddUH DUH duH DUh!1!!
wOrK wiTh nAZiS TO OWN THe LiBS Duh duH DUh!1!!

I never mentioned working with anyone, I'm simply pointing out how "nazis" (which I guess refers to conservatives now?) Are far more radical then these respectable leftists. They're both also terrible in their own way.

We'll just start a Reichstag fire comrades that they'll Nazi coming and then... Profit! (but for who? nevermind!)

Then we'll unite with the Freikorps in order to oppose the bad globalist Jew commie scum tryin' to take over with their Klaus Schwab NWO, but that's fine we'll just be attacking The State, so that's 100% anarchist! Solidarity with the Taliban opposing the US Empire n shit. /s

It's funny how hysterical this has made you. Everything needs to be put into neat little labels for you to cheer for. Leftists good, rightist bad.

No I don't believe every attack on the state is anarchist. But it is, even if it is an empty gesture, an attack on the state. This bookfair (or at least this policy) is even less then this meaningless gesture, it's a reproduction of the state, and it's "responsibility".

These leftoids and the anarchist idiots who back them up see Nazis, Fascists and Freikorps everywhere. 1933 lives rent free in these moronic minds.

Trudeau is essentially implementing 21st century cybernetic biopower. I'd like to see more then just stones thrown at him. Keep bugging the normies here Zed.

This is sad that I'm no longer seeing a rationale for this type of gathering. Meeting up with a bunch of people who broke from their anti-State tradition and are now apparently going to impose Covid regulations, just coz a buncha dogshit Qanon idiots are opposing these?

I can't believe you had to wait all this time for having a bookfair-like event when randos have been doing all kinds of shit in Mtl's parks the whole day since the curfew stopped, and also for most of last year. Like I can't see the anarchist in anyone spearheading this Covid social psychosis. The grannies protesting against Covid measures are now more anarchistic than this pathetic milieu of activist scenesters.

Anyone who claims to be uninterested in wearing a mask to an anarchist gathering is a cop or a troll. Change my mind.

"... the Montreal anarchists have decided to help the State enforce them."

Only in your imagination, Nestor. This is not at all what is happening no matter how hard you stomp your feet and insist.

Telling people to follow state mandates sure seems like reinforcing state mandates to me.

But that's not what happened you turd.

Asking "that everyone bring a mask (we’ll have some on hand too) and wear it when in close proximity to others at any point," is not telling people to follow state mandates.

Nice try!

askinG PeOPle tO not RAPe OF MURdEr YOU Is TOTalLIng tHe saMe THinG As tELling thEm tO FollOW ThE sTATE'S LAw aGainst MURdeR!1!!!!

Yes, i agree. The idea of these things as universal evils is the exact moral value that is imbued in criminality and in laws.

That green font on grey is hard to read. I am curious what Food Against Fascism is? I don't understand wearing a mask when you're outside? They could've at the very least pretended like they're going to be wearing the masks because they were gonna do something edgy.

Makbro gonna take it out on his moms unless the mods let him tell us how much smarter he is than the Montreal bookfair anarchists even though it's not their conscious fault and that he's able to see beyond the veil of propaganda and the subconscious to know the hidden schemes these simple anarchists simply aren't enlightened enough to see.

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