Author: Slingshot robot #1

By Crow

I had the opportunity to participate in a Sun Dance in Mexico this summer which helped to purge the negativity that I’ve been carrying for a long time. When I am at my best, my activism is purely an expression of my spirituality, and I feel very much recharged. I am hoping to bring some positive energy.

I have the feeling that a lot of people are very drained of their libidinal energy. The meaning of the word libido is life-wish, and I think that right now the political mood is more one of a death-wish.

I remember many times where my passion for my activist work was very much akin to the passion that one carries into an exciting new romance, an energy that comes from a seemingly inexhaustible force coming from within, yet not coming from oneself, but from a source much greater than oneself. In the moments I identify with this source of energy as my true nature, rather than the person who is desirous. Essentially my desire in these moments is to be of service, and in this is the true joy that sustains me, for it is desire born of love, the desire that is fulfilled in giving of myself for the benefit of the Great Other, who is really no Other at all, for we are all ultimately one, and all illusion of separateness is born of ignorance of our true nature. And this is what I return to, and what I must return to, in order to maintain my hope in a world that seems dead-set on destroying itself.

What I was taught, and what I took to heart, is that prayer and ceremony must precede action, and that the intention that inspires action will create results corresponding to that intention. And so I believe that this movement needs spiritual guidance, needs to be guided by love, and the wisdom that comes from a practice of love, as a way of seeing and perceiving and understanding the world. I have been fortunate enough to have had this guidance in my own life, and to me it seems like it is the only way that we will break out of the divisiveness of us-and-them thinking that perpetuates oppression and the repetition of the cycles of abuse that have defined history (or at least Western history) for millennia. And I believe that this is the fundamental message (or at least one of the messages) that underpinned Standing Rock and recent indigenous uprisings.

But there is a taboo against discussing spirituality in anarchist circles, with certain exceptions granted. But I believe that unless we internalize that message, we as a movement will keep spinning our wheels. Really, I believe the many crises — ecological, economic, and political — stem from an underlying spiritual crisis, the result of generations of oppression and alienation. For so long, religion has been used as a tool of social control, and the result has been the suppression of true, authentic spirituality. The very people and institutions that were supposed to offer spiritual guidance, to help human beings orient themselves spiritually, served to turn them against themselves. And so as we became more able to think for ourselves, we turned from religion, recognizing it for what it is, tools for oppression.

There is a great spiritual hunger in our times. I believe that as economic, political, social, and cultural conditions deteriorate, this will become an increasingly defining feature of the zeitgeist, and I have no doubt that movements will arise which speak to that hunger. Some of these movements will be revolutionary, some will be reactionary. Some will seek solace in memories or romanticized notions of the past, some will speak to the urgent need to radically transform our relationship to nature, to one another, to the cities and territories we inhabit. Those of us who have long wished for a radical transformation of society may well live to have our wishes granted, though there is no guarantee whatsoever that it will be what we hoped for, or even an improvement to the current social order. But I feel certain that a great change is coming, that many more people will come to feel that we have come to the end of the road for the materialist paradigm currently defining Western civilization.

We must learn to revere the Sacred again. We must learn to highly value that which is worthy of profound respect. We must learn our place within the great web of life within which we live, which we are a part of, and value ourselves and one another as belonging to it, as being worthy recipients of the gift of life. We must learn to be humble, to be willing to listen and to learn from the perspectives of others, even those of people we are opposed to, to work towards understanding why others feel the way they do. I see too much self-righteousness in activist circles these days. Activists are often judgmental, fault-finding, and narrow-minded. We keep doing the same things that we’ve been doing without honestly asking ourselves if it is working.

I have been highly involved in the anarchist movement for a decade and I have seen countless people driven out of radical scenes, and at least in the area where I live, it doesn’t seem to me that new people are coming in at the rate they are being driven out. And all of this in a movement that purports to create more inclusive society, where people are freer to be themselves, where police and prisons would be unnecessary because everyone would have access to the support that they need. To believe that this is possible is to place tremendous faith in the power of love, kindness, and acceptance to change human behavior, and if we are to convince the people that such faith is a viable political approach, we must demonstrate its effectiveness by practicing it ourselves.

By Jesse D. Palmer

Please take a deep breath with me, and try not to freak out. A lot of people are getting paralyzed with relentless scary apocalyptic news and too much social media exposure. This constant level of negative distraction is causing anxiety, depression, and preventing us from focusing on making coherent plans to fight back. This is not an accident. Those in power want to terrify us. They want to dominate the narrative and framing of what’s going on. They want to keep us focused on reacting to the latest outrage so we’re constantly off balance. Computer companies make money the more we stare at our phones, and so these tools manipulate our emotions to keep us hooked up.

We do not have to live like this – in a world organized around fear, division, scarcity, control and dehumanizing technology. We can create structures based on cooperation, justice, harmony with nature, freedom, generosity, playfulness and connection, not alienation.

The most important shift is psychological – calming our minds and believing in our collective power. The slogan “we are the 99%” is still right on. The unjust system serves a few thousand billionaires at the expense of everyone else. Without our labor, our consent, our going along with the machine, this rotten system can be swept away.

Even though ecological collapse seems overwhelming and too far along to resist, giving up in defeat, resignation and sadness will not help – doing so throws away any slim chances we might have. While the current system is suicidally unsustainable, it might not be too late to save some things. We have the knowledge and technology to get along without destroying our planet – but those in power make so much money and get so much power from the way things are that they are sacrificing the future while we watch, feeling grim and helpless.

Since our collective psychology is the key out of this mess, our first task is to ground ourselves – calm our minds – and think our own thoughts rather than reacting to hypnotizing bad news from our cell phones.

We need to shift our focus to what we want, not what we’re against. And beyond our interior thoughts, we need to articulate our values and discuss them widely with our friends, our family, our neighbors.

It is crucial to recognize that life, other people, the earth, and the experiences our lives offer are good, pleasurable, beautiful, worthwhile and meaningful. While politicians and media emphasize fear, division and hate, most parts of our un-mediated lives are not like that at all.

The people we actually know and interact with day-to-day are mostly okay – spending lives caring about our friends, our pets and gardens, and our family and neighbors. Sure, there are some mean and abusive people out there, and not everything goes great all the time, but overall people are doing their best, taking care of stuff around them and giving a shit.

So when engaging with the ways in which things are apocalyptic – the earth is threatened, the economy is collapsing, armed racists are killing people – we have to balance the awareness of being in a time of unprecedented danger against our lived reality. What type of risk are we really in today? When danger is immediate, one has to jump out of the way, but facing generalized risk means there is a little time to think and plan.

We cannot know what crazy things the world will throw at us next. What matters is not so much a specific 10-point plan, but developing and practicing values that can help guide us no matter what comes up. Caring about other people – being generous not selfish – being creative not boring and grim — and supporting each individual to pursue what pleases them are good places to start. These values lead to mutual aid, cooperation, and relating to others without ownership or rulers. Communities and systems can be organized from each according to ability and to each according to need. We can cooperate to get what we need without exploiting others or concentrating power.

Environmentally sustainable values focus on using land and resources mindfully and only for what we need, not for greed or profit. We need to value beauty and fun more highly than cheapness, speed or efficiency.

Power grabs, increased repression and chaos are related to a dam breaking — releasing pressure built up over decades of wealth being concentrated at the top while regular people’s income and wellbeing has stagnated and declined. The pace of technological and social change has finally become unmanageable, and a way we individually experience it is that everything feels out of control. But this hasn’t come out of nowhere – we’ve been the frog in the gradually warming pot. We’re realizing — I hope before it is too late — that we’re about to get cooked.

The rulers causing these unsustainable conditions are trying to turn ordinary people against each other lest we all unite against them – intentionally stoking divisions based on race, urban vs. rural, employment sector, and other made-up divisions.

When you’re in pain, you want to lash out at someone, but what we need now is solidarity in the biggest sense. Not within groups that are already culturally and mentally cohesive — activist-speak solidarity — but across sharp boundaries. Solidarity with people you don’t feel much in common with based on common humanity, shared suffering and mutual interest. It is hard to know how to get this going — it won’t be possible over the internet which favors echo chambers and antagonism.

The corruption and cruelty modeled by those in power is encouraging sloppy individual bad behavior. Perhaps a response is to be extra compassionate in traffic, in communal houses, in collectives, in families, to folks on the street or at the store. A time of collapse and instability is not the time to tear up our personal bonds when we need them as strong as possible. Experiencing and expressing gratitude for things that are still good rather than focusing on resentment and shit-talking is personally healing and socially helps nurture resilient and empowered communities.

Early in the pandemic lockdown as commerce was put on hold, local and grassroots community, solidarity, and mutual aid suddenly re-emerged. Despite the unfortunately named social distancing, I began feeling closer to those around me than I had before. There were people spontaneously singing and dancing in the streets all over the place. And while a lot of things went online, a lot more people around here are still walking on the streets and often saying hi. A lot has happened since the early days of the lockdown, but that wide collective feeling is something to hold on to, build upon, and harness.

The constant dislocations of the pandemic, economic meltdown, rightwing attacks, wildfires and general chaos are not the revolution we imagined, but we need to recognize moments of rapid and dramatic change when they happen, seize on them, and turn them into something positive.