How To Start An Anarchist Commune (In 5 Easy Steps!)
The days grow hot, O Babylon! ‘Tis cool beneath thy willow trees!
The days grow hot, O Babylon! ‘Tis cool beneath thy willow trees!
From parenthesiseye dot blogspot dot com
Having elaborated upon the kind of anarchism that I believe in, the question that immediately then comes up for me is: "How does one move forward with all these big ideas? How does one actually practice all of this stuff?" Okay, maybe that is really two questions, but my answer remains the same: Create new intentional communities.
About ten years ago I got interested in co-ops and nearly ended up living in one. It seemed an obvious way of putting my ideals into action. The word 'commune' was out of fashion, but that was essentially what I was looking for, as a green anarchist-leftie seeking more independence from the capitalist and state system. A commune / co-op can create a space outside of the official economy, fostering a certain amount of self sufficiency, mutual aid and security. Resources and work can be shared between people who trust each other, and land and ‘businesses’ can be owned collectively without the usual financial risk or commitments.
At our best, Occupy Pittsburgh provided many of our own needs, self-organized and shared food, clothing, medical assistance, published our own newspaper, organized spontaneous and planned disruptions, marches and occupations, organized teach-ins and discussions, acoustic jam sessions and on and on. [...] At our worst, we legislated over a park that we had declared liberated, demeaned our own efforts and valued our appearance in the media, in court, and to the law more than our own health and autonomy
From The Art Newspaper, by Keith Miller, 13 September 2021
new book surveys the architecture of anarchist settlements
From geodesic domes in South Colorado to the Calais Jungle in Europe, this provocative work studies 60 structures that were built according to values of autonomy, voluntary association, mutual aid and self-organisation
The group plans to soon fly three flags on the property: one representing the transgender community, one red-and-black flag representing anti-fascism and one pirate flag. They’re not interested in trying to hide who they are.
“We’re not leaving,” Nelson said. “We’re building our foundation stronger.”
via Anarquía, translation by Anarchist News
"I will then become a worker: such is the idea that stops me, when the mad rages push me towards the battle of Paris - where, however, so many workers continue to die while I write to you! Work now, never again." 1 Rimbaud
Since 1871 - the year in which the "accursed poet" wrote this letter - it was not necessary to be a "seer" to see the obvious: the masses of workers who fought on the barricades in Paris continued to work. That "wildcat strike" in front of the Versailles authority was, in turn, a new job that produced new obligations and condemned them to perpetuate work in saecula saeculorum. Such deep reflection, in the midst of a necromancing trance, probably prompted Rimbaud to question: who were the passionate communards working for? prophesying a system of domination based on direct democracy as the axis of political-social management, which ensured the permanence of authority and continuity of work.
From CrimethInc.
An Interview from on the Front Lines
A short letter about the big problems of the Antifa phenom in the contemporary U.S. to the publication "Commune." With its heavy focus on the fantasy projections of subjectively insurrectionary grad students and fealty to identity politics, the politics of "Commune" might be described as Miller Lite Maoism. In the same way that the sci-fi movie 'Planet of the Apes' generated a terrible sequel called 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes,' "Commune" is also being called by some wags "Beneath the Planet of the Jacobin Magazine."
https://warzonedistro.noblogs.org/post/2017/09/07/a-sales-pitch-for-the-...
From the back cover:
“The Coming Insurrection is selling a feel good ideology that rids us of any responsibility for our lives or our rebellion. It is an empty book, with no more content than any other sales pitch. There are only two possible excuses for writing it. Either the scribes were, indeed, simply carried away by the “truth” of events (perhaps their commune’s need for extra money?) and couldn’t help themselves—in which case they would be justified in denying their role as authors, but would be rather pathetic as human beings—or … the book was simply a pataphysical hoax… In either case, their Insurrection is a joke.”
Call for essay submissions: "Beyond Invisible Committees, Autonomist Zones and “The Commune”: A Few Essays on Individualist Anarchy"
In the era of "rising Communes" and neo-marxism a few of us have decided to put together a compilation zine.
We are searching for essay submissions that critique communization theory, tiqqun, the invisible committee and other forms of "Commune"ism currently trending in anarchist spaces.