Stop the planet, I want to get off

[RovingAnarchist]

Yesterday, I was doing my thing. I taught a stranger to knit on the subway, I made some plans to expand my furniture rescue and restore project (essentially, dumpster dive for busted furniture, make it cool, and sell it to hipsters to raise money for my local chapter of the Anarchist black Flag), worked on a few other crafty projects that I delusionally think will contribute to changing this busted-ass culture we're all trapped in. I was relatively happy.

Then i got a call from a guy who seems to think I like him. Previously, he spent a great deal of time trying to impress me with the details of the testing and training process he had to go through to get a job at the nuclear power plant. It's two weeks of paid training/testing that starts with 100 participants and weeds them down to 3 or 4. Everyone who works there goes through it. Fair enough. i want only the most competent folks doing that job! Last night, he went on a rant about a superior from another department he had to work with. About how she was only hired for her looks and shouldn't be making more money than he does and on and on. His casual misogyny made me ill. The fact he thought it was appropriate to say all this shit to me, when he already knows I'm an anarcho-feminist activist made it worse. I couldn't even bring myself to call him on his shit. I just hung up as soon as possible. What an idiot.

And then I heard about South Carolina http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/charleston-shooting-churc_n_7608738.html. The guy that did it apparently went on about "you rape our women and take our jobs." If he was so concerned about rape, why were more than half the people he killed women? Of course, the media is busy saying he was mentally ill. That's an easy out. It doesn't fix anything and guarantees it'll happen again.

I'm frozen with sadness and rage. I try to change things: when people I know say sexist and racist shit, I call them on it. They dismiss me as a judgmental bitch. When I try to explain to them how their "jokes" contribute to a culture where these fucking horrific things happen, where assholes like Elliot Rodgers think they can shoot a bunch of innocent people because they can't get a date, where cops can kill black men on the street and get away with it, I'm dismissed as over-sensitive.

I hate this feeling of being powerless to stop any of it. I just don't wanna live in this world any more.

 

[Kal]

Keep doing what you are doing to improve things around you. There is nothing you can do about a racist pig. Until the world learns that despite all of our differences we are one. Here is part of a U2 song called One. One love One blood One life You got to do what you should One life with each other Sisters Brothers One life but we're not the same we get to carry each other ONE
Sorry not sure how to upload the song to here.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

Thanks, Kal. I've heard that song before. I think it's high for a little Spearhead.. "every single soul is a poem written on the back of god's hand." That line and another bit that goes "all the freaky people make the beauty of the world." Days like today, I need to try and remember that there are enough freaky people to have their own song!

 

[Kal]

Cool song.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

Michael Franti is one of those musicians who manages to really uplift the spirits. It's a rare quality. He appears to be a fully decent person- i'm baffled at how he slipped through the cracks and managed to become successful.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

Related to this thread: If there are 300 rich sociopaths destroying the planet and the lives of pretty much everyone else here, why do we put up with it? I'd say that 2000000 to 1 are pretty good odds. We can take them!

 

[Andrea Van Scoyoc]

I can't say it any better than Kal, did.

All you can do is your part to change things and make the difference you want to see in the world.

 

[Sip]

Because 1.000.000 don't care. 700.000 think it's hopless. 200,00 are too afraid. And 100.000 are busting their ass trying to make a living.. The few outliers like ourselves try to kick ass, but have a hard time of it.

 

[lone wolf]

Related to this thread: If there are 300 rich sociopaths destroying the planet and the lives of pretty much everyone else here, why do we put up with it? I'd say that 2000000 to 1 are pretty good odds. We can take them!

underlined the reason in your post... as long as people put value on worthless paper, the world will forever be enslaved.

when i was just a kid i recall hearing the phrase "money is the root of all evil." i didn't completely understand it at the time but no words could be more true. it's unfortunate that governments around the world gave up the right to control their own money.

it's never going to change, not at this point. i understand the economy better than most and even my dumb ass is willing to work for worthless paper. i will NOT borrow though.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

I try REALLY HARD to believe that if us outliers can get out there and show people there's a better way, they'll adjust their thinking. Over the last few years, there's been all this action around the concept of the sharing economy, and tons of people are getting in on that. Where I live, a bunch of activists opened a tool library, which is basically a place where folks can come and borrow woodworking and garden tools instead of having to buy their own. Most of those things sit in garages unused 95% of the time, so why not borrow it instead? The TL is growing like crazy- they went from one location to three in about 6 months and the regular public libraries have added tools to the things you can get from some of their locations. The TL added a kitchen library too, for things like stand mixers, ice cream makers, and canning equipment. It's pretty awesome how fast things can change once somebody starts.

 

[spectacular]

That's a sucky chain of events. Sorry to hear you're feeling this way, I know the pain of wanting things to change and realizing how futile things are with the status quo and its army of violent enforcers. Nothing I can really say.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

The odds are always against us. That's no excuse for not trying to do what's right. I have the privilege of being a white North American, which comes with a responsibility to stop the assholes who claim to represent my interests. A few years back, I was a pretty serious summit hopper. I've been pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, got a concussion from a water cannon, been shot with rubber bullets, and nearly had my arm broken getting thrown to the ground by an "arresting officer" for having a gas mask on. None of those things are experiences I'd wish on anyone. Going to street demos doesn't do a damn thing to change the corporatocracy's mind. So why bother?

Because it's one of the only times I don't feel alone. It's real, solid proof that I'm not demented, that there are thousands of other people willing to fight if we find the tools to do it. I went to meet guerrilla gardeners and work collective members and squatters. I went to see the possibility that we could win.

Man, I need to find a demo.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dylann-roof-plan-charleston-shooting

His roommate KNEW for 6 months?! And didn't think the thing to do was open his fucking mouth and SAY something?! Even something as simple as "um, no. That's a bad plan. Don't do it!"?

I can't even begin to comprehend this. WTF is wrong with people? He might as well have bought his own gun and joined the party.

Most of us don't like cops. Enforcers of oppression, blah blah blah. No one likes a rat. But. Who else has the juice to even try standing between this moron and his homicidal delusions of grandeur? Even a frigging heads-up to a goddamn guidance counselor might have been enough to save those people.

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to stand by and do nothing."

 

[Rob Nothing]

If it were possible to stop the planet and get off, I think everyone on it would be right on board with you.

Anarchism too is another part of the scam, the evil, societies bum leg. It is sheer sentimentalism.. edgy language describing an ideal that will never be realized because it is in actuality a description of what we already have. A systemless jumble of chaos, with bits and pieces floating around. Aggregates of likeminded people, composites of collective disorder. Another sprig of hook-up culture, an art community, neo-hippies, collectivism, obscuritanism, individualism, sensationalism.

We are every one of us busting our ass trying to stay alive. And a good number of us are fed up. we lose it and start getting big ideas about how the world is. It's this, it's that, and here is how it should be. And that's all.

 

[Mankini]

QED Kitty Genovese.

 

[Mankini]

Infiltration is key. If you have friends who are front desk agents, breakfast attendants, bartenders, and housekeepers at the Waldorf or Seasons, Guess what? You get to stay there free. In fact that goes for any bartenders/breakfast attendants/fd agents, etc. If you have friends inside a Whole Foods, you'll never buy groceries again, as long as they keep dumping bags of food for you on the loading dock at night.

Reality is malleable.

 

[Odin]

Infiltration is key. If you have friends who are front desk agents, breakfast attendants, bartenders, and housekeepers at the Waldorf or Seasons, Guess what?

.... The first rule of fight club.

 

[Sip]

If it were possible to stop the planet and get off, I think everyone on it would be right on board with you.

Anarchism too is another part of the scam, the evil, societies bum leg. It is sheer sentimentalism.. edgy language describing an ideal that will never be realized because it is in actuality a description of what we already have. A systemless jumble of chaos, with bits and pieces floating around. Aggregates of likeminded people, composites of collective disorder. Another sprig of hook-up culture, an art community, neo-hippies, collectivism, obscuritanism, individualism, sensationalism.

We are every one of us busting our ass trying to stay alive. And a good number of us are fed up. we lose it and start getting big ideas about how the world is. It's this, it's that, and here is how it should be. And that's all.

There is a difference between the chaos this system ensures and the chaos of the system we strive for. You can't say the system we have is the one we want. Just because they're both birds doesn't mean they're the same type of bird. One is a robin and the other an ostrich. But yeah, they're the 'same'. Also, sure, Anarchism might be, in fact probably is, pointless in the end. But Anarchists fight for these things not because they're imminently likely to happen (though if they suddenly did no one would be shocked or pissed) but because they're the things worth fighting for. Some times you struggle for what's right BECAUSE it's what is right. Sometimes you fight evil simply because it's fucked up, and because by god if you don't, then you aren't being true to your self. I'd rather die on my feet, rebelling against a monster than on my knees pouring Mrs. Dash on myself.


Fuck that.

 

[RovingAnarchist]

I happened to be at Pride this weekend, and http://www.comeasyouare.com/ a local co-op sex toy store was handing out leaflets about anti-capitalist business. They are one, so they would know. It really made my day to see an alternative laid out so clearly. As a collective, they have no bosses, they don't jack up the prices, and they work really hard to create an inclusive space for everyone. Business as it should be. In addition to all the sexy stuff they do, they also help other folks set up co-ops/collectives.

It made me think about the sorts of things I can do, which was exactly what I needed at that moment.

 

[Sip]

Sweet! That sounds really cool. I'd never thought about a sex shop collective. I am back in my home town for Fifteen more days (Held quite captive against my will) and was just thinking about setting up some sort of collective business here in town. Also housing. There is a serious lack of housing here. It's pretty cool to here about people that are actually doing it.