Austin

In Austin, I spoke at MonkeyWrench Books, a long time anarchist bookstore that apparently was set up by a couple that have helped set up a number of anarchist bookstores across the country.

This talk was coordinated by Rogue, a long-time organizer in the class struggle anarchist crew. Most recently, I met her as a member of Common Action when she was still living in Seattle, WA. Not long before I came into Austin she had apparently given a talk in Austin that you can listen to here. She also co-edited Queering Anarchism: Addressing and Undressing Power and Desire. As you can imagine, I was rolling into town a little intimidated. Rogue could likely give a better presentation on the topic of why anarchists should create their own organization than I could. Luckily when I arrived in town she took me to a nearby bar and we got a couple of drinks, which certainly helped me to loosen up before the presentation.

The talk here was also recorded by Allan Campbell and you can listen to it here. The crowd here was really mixed in terms of understanding of anarchism and involvement in local social movements. There were a couple of people there that didn't have much of a grasp of anarchism as itself and then others that had already incorporated these ideas some into their organizing within local movements. I didn't get a great chance to hear much about the organizing that many people were doing, although one of the people that helped to set up this stop spoke with me some about his organizing with a group called Grassroots Leadership, which seems similar in many ways to Chattanooga Organized for Change. 

One of the great points of conversation that came up near the end of the talk was about whether or not it was essential, valuable, or important to specifically connect our work to the word anarchism rather than simply incorporate many of the ideas and principles into our work on the day to day. There was certainly no great answer to this question, as it's obviously something that varies by situation. While in some cities, there have been very counter-productive anarchist strategies that have often further separated anarchist ideas from the communities most directly and heavily impacted by capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. 

I do think however that it's important that someone, not necessarily everyone be involved in reclaiming the history of anarchist ideas, the inspiration of many of our heroes and movements, and the road-map of struggle that they've helped to lay out for us. To lose the word anarchism could very easily lose us the connection to many ideas, principles, and histories and allow the ideas of anarchism to slowly be watered down into a much weaker "radicalism". And, I think it's a term that needs to be re-captured by those that actually hold a connection to the long tradition of class struggle anarchism so that those ideas can't so easily be manipulated by opportunists. But, clearly the conversation about when and how to use the word anarchism is clearly important given the very mixed history that term has in different parts of the country today.