Ricemilk
22nd November 2015, 12:08
Hi, I think my bio says most of it, except that my political maturation and most dramatic actions were in the nonsectarian and leaderless (but dominated by anarchists and autonomists) California student occupation movement which coalesced semi-spontaneously to escalate the struggle against university administrations imposing massive fee hikes in the late 00s. If I could think of a punchy way to list that as my organization I would consider it, since I was only in the IWW briefly and am not a pure syndicalist or even a pure A-S. I am actually a registered Green, but only for tactical voting. (Ask me why my opinions on voting in California make me shy away from the term anarchist. I'm half joking about the 'ask me' part, but I probably will start a thread about it somewhere by this time next year.)
A social anarchist at the time, I went through the student radical rites of passage: long do-gooder marches, alienation from self-obsessed hybrid liberal/socialist mass movements, flirtation with structurelessness, tiny meetings, naive outrage at mealy-mouthed administrators, repression by pepper spray, progression into disability and dropping out, etc. I then cut my teeth as a public speaker in the BDS movement, where I learned to what lengths right-wing Zionists will go to intimidate and abuse antizionist Jews. And...I haven't done any public speaking since then. My brief IWW membership coincided with a longer flirtation with anarcho-syndicalism, which I am still sympathetic to (for example, I agree completely with WSA's organizing principles with regard to labor relations).
The closest I've come to affiliation with an organization since then is enthusiastic support for Critical Resistance on my microblog, i.e. they're explicitly welcome to send me private messages with links they'd like me to consider sharing, and they have done so. It's probably not fair to CR members to call myself one, though, I assume. Organizations I've admired from a distance include the aforementioned WSA, the CNT and AUTCOM (the Autistic National Committee). I don't quite know of a political organization for people like me, but do let me know if there is one!
My first interaction with activism was my interest in ecology and environmentalism as a child, then free software and medical marijuana, which became my major political interests as I waffled between left entryism and Green politics as a teen in the W. Bush years, before gaining a traitorous class consciousness (I'm broke and dependent now but was then petit-bourgeois). MMJ is now an all but life-or-death issue for me, so you could say I still see a role for single-issue organizing. I have opinions about disability and my ethnicity, not to mention my gender and orientation, so I'm sure I'll be accused of identity politics at some point, though I do prefer social revolution tbc.
None of this is meant to bait anyone, just my process and politics, so please do tell me if I've been insensitive to any group. I generally want to know that about myself, actually.
I think that and my profile just about cover it for the purposes of an introduction, but feel free to ask about other topics/aspects/clarifications. Emailing me is also fine. Just don't expect an answer ;)
Oh yeah, and I'm just old enough that a wink emote doesn't imply sexual interest to me.
A social anarchist at the time, I went through the student radical rites of passage: long do-gooder marches, alienation from self-obsessed hybrid liberal/socialist mass movements, flirtation with structurelessness, tiny meetings, naive outrage at mealy-mouthed administrators, repression by pepper spray, progression into disability and dropping out, etc. I then cut my teeth as a public speaker in the BDS movement, where I learned to what lengths right-wing Zionists will go to intimidate and abuse antizionist Jews. And...I haven't done any public speaking since then. My brief IWW membership coincided with a longer flirtation with anarcho-syndicalism, which I am still sympathetic to (for example, I agree completely with WSA's organizing principles with regard to labor relations).
The closest I've come to affiliation with an organization since then is enthusiastic support for Critical Resistance on my microblog, i.e. they're explicitly welcome to send me private messages with links they'd like me to consider sharing, and they have done so. It's probably not fair to CR members to call myself one, though, I assume. Organizations I've admired from a distance include the aforementioned WSA, the CNT and AUTCOM (the Autistic National Committee). I don't quite know of a political organization for people like me, but do let me know if there is one!
My first interaction with activism was my interest in ecology and environmentalism as a child, then free software and medical marijuana, which became my major political interests as I waffled between left entryism and Green politics as a teen in the W. Bush years, before gaining a traitorous class consciousness (I'm broke and dependent now but was then petit-bourgeois). MMJ is now an all but life-or-death issue for me, so you could say I still see a role for single-issue organizing. I have opinions about disability and my ethnicity, not to mention my gender and orientation, so I'm sure I'll be accused of identity politics at some point, though I do prefer social revolution tbc.
None of this is meant to bait anyone, just my process and politics, so please do tell me if I've been insensitive to any group. I generally want to know that about myself, actually.
I think that and my profile just about cover it for the purposes of an introduction, but feel free to ask about other topics/aspects/clarifications. Emailing me is also fine. Just don't expect an answer ;)
Oh yeah, and I'm just old enough that a wink emote doesn't imply sexual interest to me.