Author: Slingshot Collective

Good sex, in our opinion, is an act of mutual aid. Every person, regardless of gender, is responsible for contributing to the well-being and pleasure of their partners and themselves. We must explore and know our own desires and learn to speak them. We must hear and respond to the desires of our partners (even if that means accepting refusal gracefully). This means finding the words to express how we like to be touched, spoken to, tied up, and cuddled. Fucking is any raunchy act, and all of it requires consent. Getting explicit permission, however vulnerable and scary it may seem, is a great turn-on. What better than knowing your partner really likes it when you touch them that way, talk in that voice, or use that prop? What is better than knowing you can ask for anything, and it will at least be considered respectfully? There is no way that we or our relationships can grow if we don’t find safe spaces in which to explore.

If you have never spoken during sex, or asked permission, or blurted out your desires, feel free to start small. Most people hear compliments well, and appreciate encouraging suggestions. However, it’s equally important to discover the boundaries of your comfort (often situational) and speak them as well. Starting off with a “this feels so good” or “I love it when you…” or “I’d like you to spend the night if you’re interested” is fantastically brave. Steady yourself for disappointment, and enjoy the benefits of good communication. You may find out a lover has fantasies they didn’t share or they may entrust you with a story of trauma that is a gift to know and share the burden of. Reading your partners’ nonverbal cues is equally important, as is verbally checking for consent about each different act in which you may engage. There is no implicit consent to touch someone’s genitals because you have kissed them, or to have intercourse because you’ve had oral sex. I once met a couple who’d been together for three years and had never said a word in bed. He didn’t know that she’d never come and she didn’t know how to ask for what she wanted! If your partner tenses up or cries or is unresponsive, it’s really important to stop, check in, and support what they need. Remember, all of us have triggers, and not everyone is capable of communicating when they are reliving trauma. Don’t restrain your partner unless it’s part of consensual play, and check in before you lock the door (this can be a subtle act of power). Be honest about any risk factors you bring, such as Sexually Transmitted Infections, whether you have unprotected sex with other people, and if you have allergies to glycerin (in lube) or latex. Details make all the difference.

It’s also important that we take care of our community and help out our friends. Sometimes people are too hurt, distracted or intoxicated to be concerned with their well-being. At the very least, we should directly check in with them about what they want and expect, and possibly help get them to a place of lower risk. It’s also important to confront people (in a supportive way) who act aggressively, because they may not understand that what they are doing is possibly assault. Rapists in prison admit to an average of 11 acts of assault before they are caught.  They are either okay with what they are doing, or don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it. The reality is, it’s a habitual behavior. Better to find out and help before it’s a problem situation. (Putting people in prison or exiling them from scenes will not stop sexual assault. We need to find ways to address the behavior without destroying the person.)

While being so direct about sex is outside of most norms, it transforms sexual experiences. When we are sure that we agree with our partners over expectation and desire, there is no fear to distract us—only pleasure and humor. The most important part of speaking our desires is realizing they are ours to fulfill—not our partners’. It’s much less pressure to offer someone a choice (“Would you like to come home with me or would you rather hang out here?”) than a request (“Would you come home with me tonight?”). Too often it’s easier to say yes than to explain “Yes, I want to come home with you but I’m nervous because I haven’t been with anyone since I was raped”. If we allow for slow and comfortable intimacy, we are likely to experience it more fully and joyfully.

So, if you are often the initiator of your sexual experiences, experiment with patience and let someone else take the lead. Even if it means being alone more often, you may find you enjoy yourself more when you have partners. If you are less likely to initiate sex, think of ways you could safely ask for intimacy.

It’s our responsibility to create new sexual expectations based on good communication that not only reduce the likelihood of sexual assault, but affirm that sex is normal and necessary. This begins with teaching children healthy ideas about their bodies and believing people when they share stories of sexual assault. There are endless ways for us to end our internal oppression and explore healthy, better sex.

If you’re worrying about the strange weather, polar bears drowning and cities choked with cement and exhaust, biking is a great alternative.  Biking is clean, healthy, makes you more independent from the corporate machine and it is fun and ultra sexy! Biking shouldn’t hurt your body, but it can if you ride a bike that doesn’t fit you. To be safe and comfy and to treat your body right when you are biking, here are some tips:

1- Before riding, make sure your wheels are in the forks and that the quick release on the front wheel is closed. Check your brakes, make sure they are tight and make sure the tires have enough air and are in good shape. Tires that are low on air make riding slower and you have to pedal harder to move.

2- Use the correct gears when riding, i.e. a low gear when you’re starting from a stop or going up hills, and a high gear when you’re going fast. Using the wrong gears can damage your knees and requires you to pedal harder to get around.

3- Make sure your seat is set at the proper height. Your knee shouldn’t be bent when your foot is going around the bottom part of the pedal. You may not be able to touch the ground while sitting on a properly adjusted seat, but you will be able to touch the ground when standing over the top tube of the bike frame. When you come to a stop sign, you can stay on the seat by putting your foot on the raised sidewalk curb rather than the street.

4 – Pedalling the right way is good for your body. Set the ball of your foot over the axis of the pedal spindle — it helps prevent knee pain as well.

5 – Unless you’re racing and need to be aerodynamically streamlined, you can adjust your handle bars to make them higher so you sit more upright. It reduces weight and strain on your wrists, keeps your back straighter, and gives your lungs more room to expand since you’re not all bent over.

6 – Don’t carry heavy stuff on your back in a backpack — get a bike rack or bike basket (or trailer) and let the bike, not your back, carry the load.

7 – Wear a helmet, ride on the right side of the street, follow the street signs, make eye contact with drivers and pedestrians, be aware of your surroundings, use hand signals when turning and use lights if biking at night.

8 – Get a bell for your bike — you can use it to alert cars to your presence, to express your spontaneous joy at moving about without burning fossil fuels, and even to get the attention of attractive cyclists you may meet. Ride slow and talk fast. But don’t take your eyes off the road . . .

Here are some tips about how to minimize our entanglement in the industrial capitalist machine that is destroying the environment and enslaving people across the globe. It is true that lifestylism — spending most of one’s energy changing your own individual behavior rather than working to smash the system — is not the solution for complex social problems like capitalism and industrialism. However, it is equally true that it isn’t good enough to say “I’ll change my individual behavior after the revolution.” If we’re all waiting for everyone else to change first, or for some great movement to tell us its time to change, we’re missing the point. Change happens on all kinds of levels in complex ways. Revolution means change on a structural, mass level — in ways far outside of our isolated, individual hands — and it also means millions of individual people simultaneously changing their own lives and behaviors in private, invisible ways. Participating in movements for change is crucial to change the structural, mass level, but our daily life choices are important too and are solely up to us.

That’s why a lot of us are switching teams — devoting our life energy to non-hierarchical alternatives to the system and avoiding participation in the heavy resource consumption mainstream economy every chance we get. In figuring out how to live more simply, it is often useful to ask “how did people live 100 years ago” and/or “how do people live in places that haven’t yet been industrialized?” Living simply focuses on quality of life, not standard of living. We’ve found that by learning how to live simply and farther outside the system, our lives are full of richness, excitement, creativity and fun.

 

Tips to Dropping Out of the Economy & Using Less Energy and Water

• Work as little as you can. Pretty obvious. This may mean creating collective business projects focused on meeting the members needs rather than working for the system.

• Live with less money. This may mean sharing more with others to cut costs, for example by sharing housing and tools. It also may mean consuming less stuff.

• Eat locally and/or grow your own food. Industrial food production uses a huge percentage of the fossil fuels consumed in the world. Transporting food from far away uses lots of fuel.

• Eat low on the food chain. A vegetarian or vegan diet massively cuts fuel and water consumption. It takes 5,400 gallons of water to produce 2.2 lbs of hamburger! If you eat meat, grow or hunt it yourself. Less processed food uses less energy too – oatmeal instead of granola or cooking from scratch instead of eating out. If you live and cook communally, each meal takes less energy and water.

• Drive less or not at all. Transportation accounts for 40% of US fossil fuel use. It takes 44 gallons of water to refine one gallon of oil. You can bike, walk, take transit or hitchhike.

• Get rid of your clothes dryer. The sun and a piece of rope is a “solar dryer” that has worked great for centuries. In the winter, clothes hung inside dry, too.

• Get rid of your refrigerator or at least downsize and share one fridge with lots of people. It uses more energy than any other home appliance. You can store stuff for a day or two without a fridge and/or build a root cellar in the ground (which in most areas stays a constant 55 degrees.) Fresher food is better anyway.

• If you live in a cold or hot climate, use passive solar heating / cooling. During the heating season, keep the draperies and shades on your south-facing windows open during the day to allow sunlight to enter your home and closed at night to reduce the chill you may feel from cold windows. During the cooling season, keep the windows and drapes closed during the day to prevent solar gain and open the house up to cool off at night.

• Get rid of lights and appliance or at least turn them off when not in use. The electricity generated by fossil fuels for a single home generates more carbon dioxide than two cars!

• Get rid of your lawn if you have one. This is the #1 user of water in most of the country. Lawns are silly – you can replace it with a garden to grow your own food. Lawns symbolize property – gardens actualize the earth’s abundance.

• Shower less often, with friends and for less time to save lots of energy and water.

• Re-use graywater – water used for washing – for watering gardens – filter it first.

FICTION

Jean Genet—Our Lady of the Flowers

William S Burroughs—Naked Lunch

Sophia Nachalo and Yarotan Vochek—Letters of Insurgents

Alduous Huxley—Brave New World

Patrick Suskind—Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Kelpie Wilson—Primal Tears

Voltaire—Candide

Tom Robbins—anything

Albert Camus—The Stranger, and The Plague

Steve Perry—The Man Who Never Missed

John Nichols—The Milagro Beansfield

Haruki Murakami—Norwegian Wood

Leonard Cohen—Beautiful Losers

Nick Cave—And The Ass Saw The Angel

Cristy C Road—Indestructible

Ramor Ryan—Clandestines: The Pirate Journals Of An Irish Exile

Pino Cacucci—Without a Glimmer of Remorse

George Orwell—Down and Out in Paris and London

Jorge Luis Borges—Labyrinths

 

NONFICTION

Theodor Adorno—Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia

Shon Meckfessel—Suffled How It Gush: A North American Anarchist In The Balkans

Steven Best & Anthony Nocella (eds)—Igniting A Revolution: Voices In Defense Of The Earth

Paul Avrich—Anarchist Voices: An Oral History Of Anarchism In America

Chris Long (ed)—No Comply: Skateboarding Speaks On Authority

Edgey Wildchild—Fighting For Freedom…Because A Better World Is Possible

Peter Gelderloos—How Nonviolence Protects The State

Ron Sakolsky—Creating Anarchy

Max Stirner—Ego and its Own

For Ourselves—The Right to be Greedy: Theses on the Practical Necessity of Demanding Everything

Raoul Vanegem—Revolution of Everyday Life

Wilhelm Reich—The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Greg Der Ananian—Bazaar Bizarre: Not Your Granny’s Crafts

Da Chen—China’s Son: Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution

Michelle Habell-Pallan—Loca Motion: Travels of the Chicana and Latina Pop Culture

Arthur M Fournier—The Zombie Curse: A Doctor’s 25 Year Journey in the AIDS Epidemic in Haiti

Bo Lozoff-We’re All Doing Time

Thoreau—Walden

Sogyal Rinpoche—Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

George Lakoff—Don’t Think of an Elephant

M Scott Peck—The Road Less Travelled

Brendan Mullen et al—Lexicon Devil

Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration

 

POETRY

Kenneth Rexroth—Collected Poem Anthology

Leaves of Grass—Walt Whitman

Kenneth Patchen—The Journal of Albion Moonlight

 

CHILDREN”S

Suess—Fox in Socks

Shel Silverstein—The Giving Tree

 

ZINES, PERIODICALS AND PAMPHLETS

Gruppe Krisis (Robert Kurz)—Manifesto Against Labor

Clandestine Abortion Service 1968-1973 by Jane

Deviant Recipes

Squadset

Cometbus

Doris

Olive Drab Rebel

Abolishing the Border from Below

Urban Guerrilla Zine

Earth First Journal

Fifth Estate

 

In a free, non-hierarchical society, there wouldn’t be a police force — a group of people paid by those in power to use violence to enforce laws. Laws are typically made by elites to protect their power and social position, and therefore a primary function of police is to protect inequality. Historically, the most oppressed communities have suffered the worst abuse and violence at the hands of police. In response to this brutality, people have organized to protect our communities by watching the cops. These efforts try to deter the worst police abuses by exposing them to public attention. While the police are always watching you, usually no one watches the police. The Black Panther party originally existed to follow police patrols and stop their abuse of the black community. In more recent years, activists around the world have started Copwatch projects to keep an eye on the police.

The following are exerpts of the Berkeley Copwatch Manual on how Copwatch groups monitor police activity. If your town doesn’t have a Copwatch project, you can start one by gathering friends and forming your own citizen patrols. Good luck!

 

Our main tactic in Copwatch is to discourage police brutality and harassment by letting the cops know that their actions are being recorded and that they will be held accountable for their acts of harassment and abuse. To this end we will:

• Record incidents of abuse and harassment

• Follow through on complaints

• Publicize incidents of abuse and harassment

• Work with the [City of Berkeley] Police Review Commission

• Educate those who don’t believe that police harassment exists.

Defuse Situations

People don’t want to be arrested. As Copwatchers, we don’t want to escalate a situation to where police arrest someone as a way of getting back at us. We want cops to treat people with respect and to observe their rights. Often, cops forget that homeless people and others actually have rights. We may need to remind them from time to time. We must learn how to assert our rights and to encourage others to assert their rights without endangering someone who is already in some amount of trouble.

We do not attempt to interfere with officers as they make routine arrests. We document and try to inform the cops when we feel that they are violating policy or the law.

Shift Procedures

• Be sure your warrant status, bike or car is up to date. Don’t give the cops any opportunity to bust you. Assume that this could happen.

• Identification can be very helpful if the police detain you.

• Have a partner for safety as well as good Copwatching. It is very important not to confront the police alone. You must have a witness and someone who can verify your story in case of a problem

• Make sure that you are not carrying anything illegal! No knives, drugs, etc.

• Wear a Copwatch identification badge.

• Be sure that you or your partner brings things you will need to Copwatch: Incident forms, the Copwatch Handbook, Police Dept. complaint forms, Copwatch literature to distribute, tape recorder, police scanner, video recorder, cameras, copy of Penal Code

During Shift

As you observe a situation, one partner records what officers are saying or doing, while the other quietly gets information from witnesses. Consult and share information. Get a firm grasp of the situation first. Record as much information as possible. Witness names and numbers and badge numbers are important. It also helps to write down when, where and what time the incident happened. If there has been an injury, encourage the person to see a doctor and take pictures of the injuries as soon as possible. Distribute Copwatch literature while you are observing a stop so that people understand that you are not just there to be entertained but are actually trying to help.

Remember that you have the right to watch the cops. You don’t have the right to interfere.

When you observe police remember that you don’t want to make the cops more nervous than they already are. Keep your hands visible at all times. Don’t approach an officer from behind or stand behind them. Don’t make any sudden movements or raise your voice to the cop. Try to keep the situation calm. You don’t want to get the person in more trouble. If an officer tells you to step back, tell the officer that you do not want to interfere, you simply wish to observe.

More Assertive Style:

• Ask victims if they know why they are being arrested or detained.

• If the stop is vague, ask the cop to name the Penal Code Section that they are enforcing.

• Have educational conversations with people standing around.

• Don’t piss the cop off if you can help it. Don’t let it get personal. No name calling!

• Identify yourself as “Copwatch.”

• Try to stay until the stop is concluded. Remember that Rodney King was just a traffic stop originally.

• If a person wants to take action, give them complaint forms.

• Don’t assume who is right and who is wrong. Observe and document before taking action.

Be Careful:

• Don’t inadvertently collaborate in a crime (don’t become a look-out, warning if police are coming, etc.)

• Taking pictures or videotaping can be a problem if the detainee doesn’t want you to. Respect them. Tell them that you are working to stop police misconduct. If this doesn’t satisfy them, turn off the camera.

• Don’t make promises that you can’t keep. Don’t tell people you will get them a lawyer or take the cops to court, etc.

• Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” if you are asked legal questions. Better than giving out wrong information.

To see the full manual or for other information, check out www.berkeleycopwatch.org.

You can use this organizer as a personal time machine — traveling back to reflect on the struggles of past and then traveling forward in time to plan for a better future. The powers-that-be have boards of directors and experts working out their long-term plans for our lives and the earth. Their plans treat us as passive consumers, viewers and employees in need of management. When we merely react to their wars, their oil spills and their layoffs, we feel powerless, isolated and afraid. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The blank pages of this organizer give you hundreds of chances to organize with others to set the agenda and take control of our future.

When the corporations and leaders plan for the future, they seek to promote their own power and wealth — always seeking better machines, higher technology and larger institutions to control more details of our lives. Their plans are over-simplistic and short-sighted, ignoring the environment and more importantly, our human need for meaningful, free lives. They love the way tv and computers promote a short attention span — ignoring history and painting a frightening future — because its easy to control scared people.

The world we envision may have planning too, but it’s done together on an equal basis seeking an ecologically sustainable world where everyone can explore their full potential. Our planning tries to honor the past and think far into the future to understand how what we’re doing now might impact those who may walk the earth after us. Thanks for joining us on this journey.

This is the 17th year we’ve had the opportunity to publish the Organizer. It is our love letter to you. It raises funds to publish the quarterly, radical, independent Slingshot Newspaper. We aim to distribute the newspaper for free everywhere in the US. Send us your mailing address to become a local distributor of Slingshot. Thanks to the people who made this year’s Organizer: Aleksandr, Ali, Artnoose, Ariana, August, Bonnie, Brent, Brian, Carolina, Claire, Clyde, Dan, Deefect, Dominique, Eggplant, Eliot, Enola, Fil, Garret, Gregg, Heather, Hue, Jesse/PB, Joey, Josh(ua), Julia, Karma, Kathryn, Kermit, Kerry, Kristi, Lew, Liane, Mellissa, Ona, Peter, Rachel, Rezz, Savage, Stephanie, Tops and Zee.

Slingshot Collective

Physical office:* 3124 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94705

Mailing address: PO Box 3051, Berkeley, CA 94703

510-540-0751 • http://slingshot.tao.ca • slingshot@tao.ca

* Please note: as we go to press, our landlord is in bankruptcy and our building is in foreclosure. We are not sure whether we’ll be able to stay at this physical location or not, so please send all mail to our new PO Box mailing address until further notice.

 

All volunteer collective – no bosses, no workers, no pay.

 

Printed on recycled paper

 

Anti-copyright. Borrow whatever you want.

In creating this Organizer, we seek to respond to increasing repression from government and the corporate industrial machine with ever more powerful creativity and love. This book is full of art, humor, sex, and madness because through these human things, we resist the cold standardization of a computerized, sterile world. There are alternatives to the dying American Empire — collectives, gardens, bikes, riots, goofing off, free skools . . . you fill in the blank.

Our lives thrive on our involvement in radical projects, and the inspiration we take from them overflows into other aspects of our lives. This energy helps us support each other while we struggle to smash the insane systems that hold us down. While we created this organizer, we sang, ate, laughed, cried, wrote, screamed, and wasted time together. This sharing is a powerful response — personally, politically and spiritually — to the mainstream’s greed, materialism, and loneliness.

This is the 13th year we’ve been privileged to publish the Organizer. It raises funds to publish the bimonthly, radical, independent Slingshot Newspaper. We aim to distribute the newspaper for free everywhere in the US. Send us your mailing address to become a local distributor of Slingshot. Thanks to the people who made this year’s Organizer: Abra, Ally, Artnoose, B, Crow, Crystal, Eggplant, Emily, Fil, Gregg, Hannah, Heather, Jenny, Julia, Kathryn, Kermit, Kerry, Leslie, Lew, Lief, Locust, Maneli, Mark, Molly, Moraya, Paseo, PB, Rachel, Sal, Sarick and Thea.

Slingshot Collective

3124 Shattuck Avenue • Berkeley, CA 94705 • 510 540-0751

slingshot@tao.ca • http://www.tao.ca/~slingshot

© Anti-Copyright. Borrow whatever you want. We did.

 

Note on Moon dates: we list the day on which a full moon or new moon occurs for Universal Time (UT) — if you live in the USA, the DAY of the event may be a different day. UT is 4 hours before eastern time and 7 hour before pacific time.

 

printed on recycled paper

All volunteer collective — no bosses, no workers, no pay.

People are setting up radical spaces in big cities and small towns all over the world to give alternative communities space for events, resource sharing and information distribution. Having activities at a public space opens the radical scene up so people who aren’t already involved in a particular friendship network can find us. Many times, a radical space will house more than one type of activity which allows different sub-groups or scenes to share the work of keeping the space going, encouraging community and cross-pollination. We’ve heard of spaces that host music shows, bike repair coops, free stores, lending libraries, Food Not Bombs kitchens, free computers, Cop-watch projects, craft supplies, women’s and trans only events, study groups, Indymedia centers, movies, Prison Literature Projects, zine shops, DIY health clinics, marching bands, yoga, activist meetings, coffee shops, needle exchanges, offices for radical groups, silk-screening, bookstores, puppet and sign making, tool lending libraries; the list goes on.

A radical space can be created in a variety of ways, such as renting a storefront, opening a squat, using a piece of land, or in a vehicle such as a bus or RV. In starting the process, look at your region and determine what is best. A metropolis may do better with a storefront, where as it might make sense to use a plot of land in a rural area.

A few things to address and establish before opening a radical space are your intentions and goals for opening the space, who you would like to be involved, how to distribute duties, and what kind of space you would like to use. Additionally funding and how to attain your space’s resources and amenities will come into play. You might be able to open the space first and work out the organizational details later as they become necessary for the project.

Many groups start out by finding a corner of an existing space that they can transform. This could be the back area of a cafe, bookstore, grocery coop, art gallery, university student union, city community center, or a garage or spare room at a community house. You can offer to pay a small sum or work trade in exchange

Another alternative is to rent a storefront or warehouse. Depending on where you live, you may need to register a fictitious business name with the state government or the county clerk’s office, though in some areas there are no laws that require you to register a fictitious business name. Some info-shops also register as a non-profit. This could require making a board of directors, talking to a lawyer, and registering paperwork with the government.

If you are looking to squat a space, the best thing would be to try and secure a place that will have longevity. After scouting out vacant spaces, it helps to research these spaces at your local accessor’s office. Some key things to look for are the name of the owner and their contact information, though it is a good sign if you cannot reach them at the resident listed. Additionally, look to see if the property tax is not being paid. If the owner is paying property tax, they are most likely paying attention to the property. Detailed information on how to squat can be found on the web; San Francisco’s Homes Not Jails has a website with useful tips and guidelines.

There can be a huge trade off between renting a cheaper space in an industrial area or ghetto vs. paying high rent for a small area in a popular shopping district with a lot of foot traffic — each group has to consider their goals when making this decision. If a space doesn’t sell anything and is used more as a work space and for music shows, an out of the way location may be ideal. If you are striving for a library, bookstore, café or hang out space, it can be crucial to be in an accessible area.

Whatever the space you decide on, whether it’s a store front or a squat, you’ll need start up money for rent, tools, bills, dish soap, etc. Avoid relying on a single source of funding — diversify as much as you can, and be creative. Benefits are usually the best way to go about raising money, which can be done by throwing a show, doing a bake sale, or hosting a dinner or movie night.

To maintain your radical space, encourage your local community to donate their resources or time to keep it running smoothly. Additional money can be made through benefits, selling coffee and tea, charging for movie or book rentals, or renting extra office space to other community groups.

If you decide to start a radical space, then congratulations! You’re giving your community an outlet to meet, learn, discuss, and share radical information. Whether it’s a mobile zine library or an acre of grass declared an Autonomous Zone, you will be giving your community a wonderful gift.

 

 

 

 

What is Critical Thinking? Critical thinking is a practice that is useful for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of situations and arguments so as to ascertain their validity and usefulness for our lives. Critical thinking involves formal logic, argumentation, rhetoric, background knowledge and an attitude of life-long learning. Some of this can be taught while some has to be learned on one’s own.

If you have been an anarchist any length of time, no doubt you have had someone in your life try to tell you how stupid or unworkable anarchy is. They might say, “Everyone would kill everyone else if there were no government” or “Who will work at the sewage plant if no one has to work?” Critical Thinking is a tool for these and similar situations.

Formal logic can be quite technical and abstract but is just a tool for figuring out if (logical) conclusions can actually follow from the given premises. If you take a course in formal logic you will learn all sorts of terms for valid and invalid forms of argumentation and common fallacies. Here are just a sample of common fallacies: “Appeal to Authority”, which means stating something is true because some ‘important’ person said it was so. This should be an obvious error to anarchists. “Ad Hominem” means ‘argument directed to the man’, which means attacking the person making the argument rather than attacking their argument. Another is “False Dilemma” where a limited number of options is given, when there are really many options. One more is the “Straw Man” in which one attacks an argument, usually a weaker one, that is different from the actual argument given. There are a lot of these fallacies and having a familiarity with them can help us argue better. Formal logic has nothing to say about whether the premises are actually true (to the extent we find ‘truth’ a valid category) and as anarchists that is mostly what we are interested in. Formal logic is the most straight forward to learn but is mostly concerned with the form of argumentation, such as: all cats speak French, Bruce has a cat, therefore Bruce’s cat speaks French. The form of this is valid because the conclusion follows logically from the premises, but obviously the argument is false. Formal logic also gives us a vocabulary for a framework of assessment, such as valid vs. invalid, strong vs. weak and sound vs. unsound arguments, but most of all it can help us see consistency and contradiction in arguments.

Argumentation is broader than logic yet covers some of the same issues, though in a more philosophical manner. What does it mean to have good reasons to believe something? What are good arguments and what are bad arguments? What is an argument anyway? So, whereas logic is about the formal properties of an argument, argumentation is about the meanings of the premises and whether they make sense and/or are plausible, do they need more supporting evidence, or are they leaving out evidence that would make them invalid.

Rhetoric is making our arguments persuasive, it is about having a style of argumentation that makes others want to at least listen to what we have to say. But we must also resist the flashy persuasive rhetoric if it means trying to sell our ideas over trying to communicate.

Background knowledge is the hardest part of critical thinking because it really depends on you wanting to know about the subject at hand. If we try to argue on subjects we know nothing about we will just look stupid and if we are subjected to arguments from others on things we know nothing about we will be bamboozled beyond belief. But this doesn’t mean we have to know everything about everything. Knowing one or two subjects very well (i.e. Foucault and carpentry) and also knowing how we know things (epistemology) and what can be known or not known (what Mr. Smith had for lunch? or is there life after death?) will go a long way toward being confident and skeptical enough to wade into arguments or wade into a new subject now and again.

Having some background knowledge on many subjects comes with a commitment to life-long learning something we as anarchists ought to embrace. If our broadest project is the dismantling of this world it behooves us to be aware of theories of such a task, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what are new theories being born now.

So, when someone asks “Won’t we all kill each other without government?” we can look at their assumptions (premises) and challenge them. Does this person really think everyone’s deepest desire is to kill and the only thing stopping them is the state? Do they think police stop crimes before they happen (rather than just investigate afterward)? And so on. We can see that their conclusion is based on faulty premises and reasoning.

You can find used Logic textbooks at good book stores which will emphasize formal, abstract logic. An anthology of critical essays will present argument in a more real world prose form and these can be found on many subjects, also at good book stores.

 

Know Your Prophecies

Many of us are baffled by rumors circulating this year about the end of the world. Friends who once seemed stable are now spouting rhetoric of impending doom. Instead of arguing, sometimes it can be more helpful to listen and think about why the person finds the myth appealing. A huge motivator behind the idea of the apocalypse is despair, merged with a bit of laziness. It is far easier to say “the world is ending, so why bother” than to actually get up and confront the huge problems we face. But myths don’t have to de-motivate us. A myth can be a powerful tool, creating an epic backdrop while we build the world we seek. To shed some light on these “dark times,” here’s a guide to this year’s apocalyptic murmuring:

RUMOR: The Mayan calendar ends in 2012.

ACTUALLY: The Mayan calendar is cyclical and will never end. Each cycle is about 395 years and called a b’ak’tun. On Dec 21 of this year, the 13th b’ak’tun will end.

RUMOR: Ancient Mayans predicted a cataclysm at the end of the 13th b’ak’tun.

BUT THE THING IS: Not a single Mayan text or tradition says this. In 1701, a Catholic friar wrote the Popol Wu’uj, a collection of Mayan myths. According to one of these myths, the gods created and destroyed 3 failed worlds before creating the 4th world, in which we live. The 3rd world lasted 13 b’ak’tuns. In the 1960s, Michael D. Coe, a CIA agent turned anthropologist, speculated that contemporary Mayans must believe that the world will be destroyed again after 13 b’ak’tuns. But the Maya do not believe this – it was entirely invented by outsiders.

RUMOR: The Earth will align with the Galactic Center on Dec 21.

SORRY, BUT: The most perfect alignment between the Earth, Sun and the center of the Milky Way occurred on Dec 21, 1998. Sorry, you missed it!

RUMOR: On Dec 21, the magnetic poles will reverse and everyone will die!

CHILL OUT: Geomagnetic pole reversals happen sporadically & cannot be predicted. Also, polar shifts aren’t instant, but occur gradually over thousands of years. The only thing you might notice is your compass pointing a little more south each decade.

CALM DOWN: With stellar spectroscopy (try it at home), we can see that the sun has 5 billion years worth of fuel left. Life on Earth might even last that long, if we don’t fuck it up.

RUMOR: Capitalism is in the process of collapsing.

AND PIGS CAN FLY: Capitalism has more or less collapsed 8 times now. The worst was perhaps the recession of the 1890s, when entire countries went bankrupt and the populace overthrew governments globally. Individual political and economic systems entirely collapsed, but capitalism just started over. Likewise, this recent “economic collapse” has ended nothing. Capitalism is now stronger than ever in its march towards global consumption. The seed of capitalism is capital (money/credit/specie). Capitalism is a social behavior in which people transform every aspect of life into something that can be bought or sold. To kill the beast, we must retool our social relations to not include capital.

HAVE YOU HEARD: According to astrologers, the 2400-year-long Age of Pisces is in the process of ending, to be replaced by the Age of Aquarius. Pisces is represented by two fish with their tails tied together and is often associated with obsessive spirituality, weak will, escapism, and confusion. Aquarius, on the other hand, is represented by a person pouring out a jug of water, dispensing it freely to all. The water represents truth. It is said that the Age of Aquarius will bring a new society ruled by honesty, innovation, humanitarianism, and intellectualism.

MURMURINGS: In the summer of 2010, a rare astrological alignment occurred called a Grand Cross. It began on June 21, 2010, and was active on and off for about two months. It is said this alignment merged revolution with rebirth, forcing everyone to undergo subtle, psychological changes that will begin to consciously surface over the next few years. Some astrologers mark the 2010 Grand Cross as the end of the Age of Pisces.

STRANGE WHISPERS: Within the psychic community, people who call themselves Lightworkers have been transmitting revolutionary energy for the past several years. They have something special planned for Dec 21. …and perhaps for February 29th as well.

AND: Some people believe that everyone born between 1979 and 2000 is part of a generation called the Indigo Children. Named for their brilliant purple auras, Indigos are highly energetic and deeply psychic. Hierarchy makes no sense to them: they believe that everyone is royal should be free to rule ourselves. The guardians of capitalism have attempted to repress the Indigos, labeling them as “unproductive” and “mentally ill,” forcing them to take mind-numbing productivity drugs. But the Indigo Generation will not be held down forever. Some prophets say the Indigos will soon rise up and lead us to a new world.

LEAP OF FAITH: Long ago, a loose collective of people called the Tohsgnils noticed that the yearly movement of the sun did not align with the daily rotation of the planet, causing an extra day to appear every 4 years. The money lenders worked to suppress this magical day, telling people to ignore it, to continue their toil. But the Tohsgnils sensed that untapped energy vibrated within this extra day. They prophesied that on February 29, 2012, the populace would rise up and claim this day for the Leap Day Revolt, igniting the 2012 Uprising.