Toledo 2

So a follow up report from the last one...

Things, like i thought they would, have been working themselves out. Some people, like i thought they would, have gotten frustrated and distanced themselves from the project and some former friendships have at least temporarily been severed. This painfull process has mostly worked itself through but it isn't entirely done yet, in fact the process of the group dealing with it in a serious manner has only just begun. In this case though it is better late than never.

For most of the people that have in minor ways distanced themselves from what is going on, i think they fail to realize the temporary nature of the current situation. They seem to think that chaos, and disorganization will reign and carry the project to its final collapse in ruins and stacks of empty beer bottles.

The last report i wrote was at the peak of my own personal frustration with the situation...since our formal meeting process where we all were able to communicate with each other was non-existant for about a period of two weeks. This lead to a situation where it was more or less a free for all in what happened and what got done at the space. Naturally this didn't help create harmony among the collective members.

In the meantime general meetings have gotten back on track as well as -more or less- commitee meetings. A formal structure based on other groups workings is in the process of being reviewed and put into practice. If followed through, these things would solve our biggest communication and responsibility problems. It would give people a clear idea of what their role is and what they personally will get out of it and have to put in.

The fact of the matter is that the black cherry WILL be the most effective anarchist space in the united states and among the most effective spaces in the world. The future tense used is important...because that time is still a ways off. The building itself is still under construction/repair. The kinks of our own anti-authoritarian organizational structures havn't been worked out yet. Because we own the place though, it is likely to be a very long term project one that may even outlive us. Toledo ohio has for the most part a young and inexperienced group of anarchists who don't have a lot of organizing experience. The anarchist community here, while having some older members with a wealth of experience is heavy on people that have been involved in the movement for less than 4 years and who are in their early 20's to late teens. The fact that we have such an amazing opertunity/space as the black cherry is great...but we need to realize that it will be a long process for this group of people to do things well. There will be problems...there are problems...there have been problems....but as long as people are commited to learning and growing through all of them we will come out stronger in the end.

The project has already proven to be a magnet, drawing more and more people in all the time. If the current members don't have the patience to work through the toughest of times then other people will. It will get done at this point...sooner or later. It will take years before it looks like anything of what the original members had wanted it to as far as fulfilling its role in the community but never-the-less i am confident that it will happen. Toledo will never be the same again.

Toledo 1

I've been living more or less in toledo now for a month or more. It hasn't been the easiest time and i feel like i should write something about it since i havn't written on here in a while now. At the same time i feel that any opinions that i have about living or working up there are at this point unfair to share over the web, since it is in such an early stage of developement...and when i say it, i refer to both the anarchist scene in general but more specifically the new infoshop, the black cherry.

Up and coming is one way to describe the scene in Toledo. Depending on who you are you might also call it a mess. Things have gone in the last 5 years from being a few scattered individuals within a 25 mile radius to a scene with multiple collectives, groups and organizations, bands, musicians, spaces, media attention, and one of the largest infoshop spaces in the united states. To varying degrees we are in schools, workplaces, and churches, at the bus station with food and working on gardens. The main anarchist collective, the 10.15 collective has the backdrop of a radical uprising against neo-nazis and police as an inspiring history to newcomers. traveling anarchists and radical bands are beginning to flow through and stay in the city.

As a downside, fracture lines that had existed among the most active people here have become enlarged due to the increased amount of resources, power, and level of seriousness involved in what we are doing. some animosities are beginning to develope out of those fractures, and it is my sincere hope that these can be overcome. The reason why some may call the current situation in toledo a mess, is the same reason, in my view, why the old fracture lines are turning bitter. We are suffering from serious disorganisation and lack of a good collective decision making process to deal with these larger and more serious situations. On top of that people seem to lack the skills necessary to follow through with what they say. These problems aren't uncommon at all among anarchists, lol. Its our steriotype in fact, but if we are ever going to rise beyond mediocre we are going to need to get our shit together!

I think things will eventually work smoothly in toledo, but it will take a good long time, and in the process, unfortunately i think some people will be too damaged to continue. though i hope not.

Finding Our Roots: Chicago

A van left from Bowling Green ohio filled with anarchists heading to the 2009 finding our roots conference in Chicago. We had planned on going for over a month and in the end some folks dropped out due to other plans or conflicts, but the majority were able to go and packed in. It was the first time anyone of us had made it out to the conference.

My overall experience was a positive one. Some of the things i noticed there; There seemed to be a strong radical queer presence, and most of the conference attendees were from in or around chicago. Not many people came from out of town it seemed. There were probably between 150 and 250 people at the conference.

I was mostly excited to hear lorenzo ervin speak. It was amazing to have someone with so much experience facilitate workshops around organizing neighborhoods and prison movements.

It had been my opinion that chicago was kind of an island in the anarchist community. There must of been quite a few anarchists there, but i never had met any and didn't hear about much going on there. Besides lacking much space of their own, the anarchists of chicago are there and active to varying degrees. The conference impressed me, and i'm sure the bash back conference taking place a couple weeks afterwards will be great too.

People in ohio have been trying to organize the midwest around toledo with the past three great lakes anarchist gatherings, but chicago would be a better central location for folks in the "midwest" or great lakes area. Too bad more people didn't show up from other areas around the lakes. maybe a network so big as to encompass the entire midwest, or greatlakes is too big from the start anyway.

As a side-note to this entry...The Black Cherry anarchist space in Toledo, Ohio will be opening up tomorrow sunday may 3rd! It is looking like the coolest and straight-up best radical space i've ever seen in the midwest ever....by far. The toledo anarchist community is growing for sure.

Anti-Tax Tea parties across the U$A

Fox news covered the anti-tax rallies across the country extensivly. From what the people in the crowds were able to say through the fox news mics they seemed to be in general: Physically conservative, pro-american nationalists, anti-politicians/major political parties.

some of the general stances were contradictory and i know fox news created huge contradictions like they always do, but i'm not sure how common those contradictions were among the crowds, though i'm not doubting that they existed.

So for example some are: pro law and order, against big government and taxes, against bailouts, big bankers, AIG, ect... but supportive of capitalism and against socialism. There was a common theme that main stream news is crap and people need to educate themselves...but fox news was the exception, or for some reason didn't qualify as main stream news to them.


Other media sources have called the rallies extremist, right-wing, partisan in favor of republicans, idiotic, phoney and set up almost entirely by fox news and several billionaires, with no grass-roots support.


I did find it ironic that fox news was actually defending the so-called extremist position today instead of their usual position as the finger pointer; labeling any person that was slightly disgruntled with the government as being in bed with the terrorists. It makes some sense though since there is a mildly liberal government in office now. If you want to find out the official sponsers of the protests they are listed on their website here:http://taxdayteaparty.com/

Most of the sponsers are various conservative groups. Many of them are probably not grass roots and simply set up by billionaires...but i imagine some of them are filled up with working and middle class folks. There were certainly a mix of people at the rallies. The sentiment was in a way a breeding ground for new ideas, and potentially anarchism. People were talking about wanting a new way outside of the two-parties.

It was a crowd of people that most people with a background in the left, including left leaning anarchists, tend to pigeon whole as crazy, racist, anti-immigrant, blindly patriotic, gun-loving, republican, morally conservative, physically conservative when it comes to welfare for the poor but tax and spend when it comes to military, war, police, and subsidies to business, sorts of people. I do think that a certain section of the rally fits that description more or less, but i think that if we can get over a difference in understanding of certain terms that lots of these people would be receptive to an anarchist position.

I'm not trying to say that anarchists should tolerate racist, homophobic, ultra-nationalistic, anti-immigrant, positions that some people take, but just to not assume that everyone in a crowd at a protest organized by not so nice looking conservative groups has such positions. I'm guessing that anarchists could probably make a lot of friends at such rallies. I wasn't at one, so i can't really be certain, but, come on it was an anti-tax protest...its right up an anarchist's alley.

When Obama was elected president i was a bit stunned, because i knew that after these past 8 years of having left leaning people as my allies against government and injustice, that more and more i'd likely have to look to right leaning people to find people critical of the government in any serious way. I'm not sure how true this will be really, but i've already seen some of it. Several people that i've known that were at least nominally interested in anarchism while bush was in office are now annoyed by it, since they have put their faith in the government of barack obama.

Anyway, in general i think these anti-tax protests were a good thing, and i think it is good that fox news put so much attention on the issue. If i knew more about them before hand i might of tried to make it out to one myself.

Paradies und Anarchie im Dorf

Ich wurde auf dem Land erwachsen, bis ich ungefähr 7 oder 8 jahre alt war. Dann sind meine Familie in eine kleine Stadt umgezogen, aber wurde in der Großstadt Minneapolis geboren. So ist es.

Ich glaube dass Anarchie wäre ganz anders für Leute, die nicht in einer Stadt wohnen, aussehen. Im letzten Post habe ich euch mitgeteilt dass ich im Sommer auf einem Insel wohnen werde. Dieser Insel hat nur 300 Einwohner. So ist es en Dorf. In ihrem Leben, müssen sie nicht so oft mit einer Regierung tanzen, und auch haben sie kein große Menge Polizei. Ich weiß noch nicht die Feinigkeiten dieser Stelle, aber es macht nichts aus, weil es fast genau so in solche Stellen mit so wenig Leute.

Dieser Insel, den ich im Sommer ziehe, ist fast ein kleines Paradies im Sommer und so denke ich, wie können die Leute von anarchismus denken? Viele von Ihnen sind wahrscheinlich schon fast ungenannte anarchisten. Sie sind aber wahrscheinlich mehr oder weniger mit ihrem Zustand zufrieden...und haben kein kraftiger Grund alle Capitalismus und die Regierung abzuschaffen.

Habe keine Antworten hier, sondern eine Frage...Welche Rolle spielt das Dorf in der anarchistiche Bewegung unseres Tages?
What role does the village play in the anarchist movement of our day?

In Tagen vorher, habe anarchisten, sozialisten, utopie Leute, ziemlich oft kleine Bauernhöffe etabliert. Auch haben sie zahlreiche soziale Experimenten auf dem Land und in Dörfe erforscht.

Aber Heute genau wie im vergangenen Tagen, sind meiste der anarchistische Bewegung in Städte konzentriert. Ich finde dass nicht schlimm, sage nur so und wündere mich darüber nach.

The Islands of Lake Erie

Above: John Brown, Jr.


So it looks like i'll be living on one of the islands in Lake erie doing some summer work there. After doing a little bit of looking around i've found some local anarchist connections. Couldn't find anything modern, but it has a little history.

John Brown Jr., the son of the famous militant abolitionist, John Brown, took up living on south bass island and kept friendly contacts with some of the better known anarchists of his day. It was reported that he sent local grapes that he grew on his land to the imprisoned hay-market anarchists while they were imprisoned along with writting them letters of support.

I think it would be interesting to look further into the politics of the brown family. I don't think any of them identified as anarchists...but in practice they were militant christian anarchists. In practice they believed in no earthly masters to the point of attempting an insurrection and arming slaves with weapons appropriated from the U.S. government.

G20: 'Bank of Scotland' wurde zerschlägt!

Heute in der Früh, als ich aufgestanden habe, und an meinen Computer gegangen bin, habe ich auf Yahoo news gesehen, dass es eine ziemlich große Aufruhr in London, England gegeben hatte. Darüber freu' ich mich sehr. Ich habe schon gewüsst dass die G8 in London treffen sollen, aber habe nichts von einem Demonstration gehört.





Unten: Die Protesters haben aus dem Royal Bank of Scotland Teile von den Computer genommen, um die Fenster der Gebäude zu zerstören!







Oben: Menge Protesters in der nähe von the bank of England.

Habe durch das Internet für gute Bilder gesucht, aber habe nur gefunden, was oben steht. Total Crass, sage ich über was Heute Passiert hat.

Also ganz kurz, was Heute passiert hat:

Viele Demonstrationen haben sich Heute stattgefunden. Ungefähr, 4.000 AnarchistInnen haben den Royal Bank of Scotland gestürmt, die Fenster zerschlägt, Teile von den Computer, die drinen waren, gestohlen, um noch mehr Fenster zuzerstören. Noch mehr Leute haben versucht, The Bank of England anzugreifen, aber dort hat es zu viele Polizei gegeben. Auch haben die Protesters 'effigies' aus Kunststoff, die wie Bankers ausgesehen haben, aus den Banks um ihren Halz gehängt. Kein Lieb an Bankers oder die reiche Leute. Bankers haben sich Heute 'casual' gekleidet, keine Anzüge, um mit den Publikum einzublenden.

Yeah England! Weg mit der Illusion des Wohlstandes!