MOVE Organization

[praxis1966]

So Sunday night I was at a Judi Bari memorial event (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/05/06/18647181.php) when Ramona Africa of MOVE took the stage. I knew then, and still feel now, that I know little of her or her organization's politics, which is why I'm asking this here. From what I could tell from Africa's rhetoric, she/they come across as green anarchists. However, upon further research, they struck me as oddly primitivist in character. Their founder, John Africa, talked often about a return to a hunter-gatherer state. Further, she railed about the recent development of a synthetic microbial life form (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/05/25/will-venters-synthetic-cell-patents-give-him-a-research-monopoly/) saying, 'That goes against Mama [Mother Earth]!' On the other hand, they have a website complete with e-mail addresses for contacting them. All very odd, and that's saying nothing of MOVE's full name, Christian Movement for Life.

Needless to say, the whole experience has left me a bit bemused. I was hoping that someone, particularly someone from the Northeast US if not Philadelphia, could help me understand for what, exactly, MOVE stands. I mean, not even Wikipedia has good information on them as the various authors/editors of the article on MOVE who've contacted them have only been met with resistance (MOVE has refused even to submit a self-authored summation of their positions to Wiki according to their article's talk page).

Thanks in advance!

[Revy]

I thought they were vegans who refused to harm even insects. I don't see why they would want to hunt if they have such strong views on animal rights, that's not really compatible with a hunter-gatherer society. Look at the San people in Southern Africa, they are hunter-gatherers. If these MOVE people really wanted to follow their example, they would be hunting deer and bison as well as gathering fruits and vegetables.


....all living beings, things that move, are equally important, whether they are human beings, dogs, birds, fish, trees, ants, weeds, rivers, wind or rain.their website also says that while they feed raw meat to their dogs and cats, they have "fruits and vegetables for the people".

Anyway, it's always kind of sad when people that have a kind of revolutionary mindset think that technology is the problem that we need to be rid of. Obviously there are bad uses of technology and good uses of technology. What fuels the destructive use of technology is the society. It doesn't seem anarchist to abolish what is really a logical consequence of the human brain, the ability to make tools and innovate. Most primitivists want to abolish agriculture and that could be as simple as planting a seed in the ground.

[Ocean Seal]

It does seem that in a hunter gatherer society being a herbivore would result in some difficulty as agriculture makes the ability for us to choose our food much more simple.

[bcbm]

It does seem that in a hunter gatherer society being a herbivore would result in some difficulty as agriculture makes the ability for us to choose our food much more simple.

in most gatherer/hunter societies, meat was a small part of the diet compared to vegetables, nuts, etc.

[praxis1966]

Well, I've recently learned that these folks had two different run ins with the cops in Philly. The original impetus for both was that they had compost heaps in their back yards which were infested with vermin because MOVE refused to kill them. Doesn't exactly jive with the hunter-gatherer modus either.

Besides, as I said before, you can't exactly call them primmies because they have e-mail addresses and a website.

On the other hand, we're all assuming that they're telling the truth when they've said in the past that they're not a cult and their philosophy and praxis are somehow grounded in logic and rationality. All the signs I've seen so far tell me that they're quite the contrary; they're some kind of secular cultist whackadoos because there's no obvious outward rhyme or reason to anything they do or say.