This week, at the Vegas Anarchist Cafe — specifically, THURSDAY, 1 April 2010 — Vegas ALL will be sponsoring a special Ask An Anarchist!
event with ALLy Charles Johnson. Ask An Anarchist!
is a freewheeling Q&A session, where A-Cafers, guests, the anarcho-curious and anyone interested in a conversation about the idea of a stateless society, all get the chance to fire away with any question they care to ask about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists. As our handbill puts it:
re you curious to learn more about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists? Have you got questions about Anarchist ideas, the history of Anarchism, how Anarchism has affected mainstream culture, Anarchist solutions to contemporary social problems, or how Anarchists believe that a free society would work without government? Want to know whether the picture of Anarchism that you’ve gotten from the mainstream culture is accurate or based on misconceptions? Want to try and stump an Anarchist? Bring all your burning questions this Thursday, and our speaker will do his best to answer any question you care to ask. Come on in and fire away!
This event is for anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in conversation. All are welcome to attend.
The Q&A session will run from 6–7pm. An informal meet-up and discussion will follow from 7–8pm. f you’re in the Vegas area (or even if you’re not), it’d be great to see you there. If you know anyone around abouts who might be interested in a talk about Anarchism, or a chance to find out more, then please do forward the announcement on to them.
WHAT: Ask An Anarchist!
Q&A with Vegas ALLy Charles Johnson.
WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Pkwy, right across the street from UNLV), Las Vegas, Nevada
WHEN: This Thursday, 1 April 2010, 6:00pm – 7:00pm. The regular A-Cafe informal meet-up and discussion will continue after the talk, from about 7:00pm to 8:00pm.
WHO: Anyone curious about the ideas of Anarchism, or interested in conversation.
Hope to see y’ALL there!
See also:
Tags: ALL, Alliance of the Libertarian Left, Anarchist Cafe, Announcement, Ask An Anarchist, Effluvia and Ephemera, Events, Las Vegas, Nevada, Philosophy, Politics, Rad Geek Speaks, Smash the State, sonv.libertarianleft.org, Speaking engagement, Vegas Anarchist Cafe
Posted in Southern Nevada ALL // Read the original at Rad Geek People's Daily » sonv.libertarianleft.org (2010-03-29) ...
ALLies,
In honor of the first anniversary of the weekly Vegas Anarchist Cafe, and in connection with the opening of a new school year on UNLV’s campus, Southern Nevada ALL has helped organize a line-up of special programming for the A-Cafe’s Free Speech Soapbox Series.
This week — specifically, TOMORROW, Thursday, 3 September 2009 — Anarchist Cafe will feature the second event, during the first hour of the meeting, from 6:00–7:00pm. I will be hosting a freewheeling Q&A session, called Ask An Anarchist!
, which will give A-Cafers, guests, and random looky-loos the chance to fire away with any question they may have about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists. As our advertising handbill puts it:
Are you curious to learn more about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists? Have you got questions about Anarchist ideas, the history of Anarchism, how Anarchism has affected mainstream culture, Anarchist solutions to contemporary social problems, or how Anarchists believe that a free society would work without government? Want to know whether the picture of Anarchism that you’ve gotten from the mainstream culture is accurate or based on misconceptions? Want to try and stump an Anarchist? Bring all your burning questions this Thursday, and our speaker will do his best to answer any question you care to ask. Come on in and fire away!
This event is for anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in conversation. All are welcome to attend.
The Soapbox event will run from 6:00–7:00pm. An informal meet-up and discussion will follow from 7:00–8:00pm. If you’re in the Vegas area (or even if you’re not), it’d be great to see you there. If you know anyone around abouts who might be interested in a talk about Anarchism, then please do forward the announcement on to them.
WHAT: Ask An Anarchist!
Q&A with Vegas ALLy Charles Johnson.
WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Pkwy, right across the street from UNLV), Las Vegas, Nevada
WHEN: This Thursday, 3 September 2009, 6:00pm – 7:00pm. The regular A-Cafe informal meet-up and discussion will continue after the talk, from about 7:00pm to 8:00pm.
WHO: Anyone curious about the ideas of Anarchism, or interested in conversation.
Hope to see y’ALL there!
See also:
Tags: Alliance of the Libertarian Left, Anarchist Cafe, Announcement, Ask An Anarchist, Effluvia and Ephemera, Events, Las Vegas, Nevada, Philosophy, Politics, Rad Geek Speaks, Smash the State, sonv.libertarianleft.org, Speaking engagement, Vegas Anarchist Cafe
Posted in Southern Nevada ALL // Read the original at Rad Geek People's Daily » sonv.libertarianleft.org (2009-09-02) ...
ALLies,
In honor of thefirst anniversary of the weekly Vegas Anarchist Cafe, and in connection with the opening of a new school year on UNLV’s campus, Southern Nevada ALL has helped to organize a line-up of special programming the A-Cafe’s Free Speech Soapbox Series, to offer some opportunities for kick-starting some engaging conversations about Anarchy, about the ideas of Anarchism in theory and practice, and about how Anarchist ideals of free association, mutual aid, DIY social change, decentralized resistance, and direct action can apply to our struggles, passions, and dreams for our own community here in Vegas.
I’m happy to announce that for the first event, which will be held at this week’s A-Cafe on Thursday 27 August 2009, I will be giving a special talk, **What Is Anarchism?
to discuss the ideals of
Anarchism in theory and practice, the meaning and reasons for Anarchism’s opposition to the state, the benefits of a society without rulers or domination, and correcting common misconceptions and replying to common objections about Anarchism, Anarchists, and Anarchy. For anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in the conversation.
WHAT: Talk by Vegas ALLy CHARLES JOHNSON on WHAT IS ANARCHISM?
WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe @ the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel
Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Pkwy, right across the street from UNLV)
WHEN: This Thursday, 27 August 2009 6:00pm - 7:00pm. The regular A-Cafe informal meet-up and discussion will continue after the talk, from about 7:00pm to 8:00pm.
WHO: Anyone curious about, or interested in conversation about, the ideas of Anarchism.
If you’re in the Vegas area (or even if you’re not), come on out for what I hope to be an engaging back-and-forth, and a good kick-start to the conversation about Anarchist ideals in our community. It’d be great to see you there. If you know any friends, family, coworkers, or anyone else around abouts who might be curious or interested in conversation about Anarchism — whether they are themselves (A)s or not — then please do forward the announcement on to them
As always, the Anarchist Cafe will begin on Thursday at 6:00 PM. The talk will begin shortly after 6:00 and run for about 45 minutes, with time set aside afterwards for Q&A and conversation. After the formal Q&A has ended, we’ll continue with our usual informal chat until the end of the A-Cafe at 8:00pm.
This week’s presentation is part of the Free Speech Soapbox Series at Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe — a series of presentations, speeches, programming, and free speech 4open mics for the first hour of the weekly A-Cafe (6:00–7:00pm). Future Soapbox events are already being scheduled; if you’re in Vegas, or will be passing through, and are interested in giving a talk yourself — or know someone you’d be interested in hearing talk — about an issue you care about, a project you’re working on, a local group you support, or a how-to for a skill you’d like to share with fellow Anarchists — this is your time and we all have something to say or do that can help out our ALLies. Contact us for more details or to sign up.
Hope to see y’ALL there!
See also:
Tags: Anarchist Cafe, Effluvia and Ephemera, Events, Las Vegas, Nevada, Philosophy, Politics, Rad Geek Speaks, Smash the State, sonv.libertarianleft.org, Vegas Anarchist Cafe
Posted in Southern Nevada ALL // Read the original at Rad Geek People's Daily » sonv.libertarianleft.org (2009-08-26) ...
Winter Soldier: Just Another Tuesday. From Ryan Endicott, formerly a United States government Marine stationed in Iraq.
Via Clay Claibourne, L.A. I.M.C. (2009-05-13): Winter Soldier Southwest on YouTube #1
The regulatory State versus freed markets and the human future: A quote from Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, via B.K. Marcus at Mises Economics Blog:
To expect the government to prevent such fraud from ever occurring would be like wanting it to provide cushions for all the children who might fall. To assume it to be possible to prevent successfully, by regulation, all possible malpractices of this kind, is to sacrifice to a chimerical perfection the whole progress of industry; it is to restrict the imagination of artificers to the narrow limits of the familiar; it is to forbid them all new experiments; it is to renounce even the hope of competing with the foreigners in the making of the new products which they invent daily, since, as they do not conform to our regulations, our workmen cannot imitate these articles without first having obtained permission from the government, that is to say, often after the foreign factories, having profited by the first eagerness of the consumer for this novelty, have already replaced it with something else. … Thus, with obvious injustice, commerce, and consequently the nation, are charged with a heavy burden to save a few idle people the trouble of instructing themselves or of making enquiries to avoid being cheated. To suppose all consumers to be dupes, and all merchants and manufacturers to be cheats, has the effect of authorizing them to be so, and of degrading all the working members of the community.
—Turgot, Éloge de Gournay (1759), translated by P.D. Groenewegen
Outrage
All Bizarro News that am unfit to print. In which a argument against an imaginary, Bizarro World version individualism is set to fight with a completely imaginary Bizarro GOP which somehow became the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice
(?!). For more on an earlier installment in David Brooks’s concerted efforts to liberate the Republican Party from moral principles that it never held, cf. GT 2009-01-28: How to be social while staying civilized
On intersections, boundaries, and fortifications. bfp, flip flopping joy (2009-05-01): northern territory, sexual activity, teens and police state. In which Ozzie territorial governments set out to create a territorial sex-Stasi to coerce reports of any and all sexual contact by Aboriginal teenagers. Including consensual sex or fooling-around between one teenager and another. Quote: This sort of nation/state targeted monitoring of the sexuality of teens/young people is something most people of color are vividly aware of. When you through in queerness, disability, and nationality (among others), and community expectations, things for especially teen girls of color get even worse. How do we learn, engage in, and trust ourselves to build a healthy fabulous sexuality when from the time we reach reproductive age, the nation/state literally owns the first and final say as to what happens to our bodies? How do we learn to say no
or yes
when the nation/state insists on doing it for us?
We need democratic governments instead of private protection agencies to ensure that political decision-making remain transparent and decision-makers are held accountable to the people: Molly Ball, Las Vegas Review-Journal (2009-05-10): SECRET GOVERNMENT: Lawmakers keep public out as session winds down with most important decisions looming
On planes as prisons and terrorizing as security
: Jessica Bautista & Kitty Caparella, Philadelphia Daily News (2009-05-12): Blind interpreter detained at Philly airport says he has nightmares from arrest (On which, cf. also GT 2008-05-07: Airport security.)
On legal lynching, part 2. For part 1, see last week, where I said this: When Anarchists propose that all the functions currently controlled by the authoritarian State, including the judgment of cases involving disputes or violent crimes, we are inevitably told that without a State-controlled, hierarchical system of courts, you’d have nothing more than the justice of the lynch mob. This is actually a classic example of statist inversion: by focusing on the dangers that informal and irregular efforts at seeking justice will lead to a disregard for objectivity or evidence, the statist completely blanks out the ways in which formalization and enforced hierarchy oblige government courts to disregard evidence themselves in the name of formal procedures, and to elevate authority above objectivity, by standing on ceremony or respect for turf at the expense of substantive justice. If the state’s plans to murder Troy Anthony Davis are not an example of a slow-motion lynching, what is?
To which we will add, this week: Radley Balko, The Agitator (2009-05-18): Prosecutors Blocking Access to DNA Testing In which government prosecutors make active efforts to block access to DNA tests that could potentially exonerate the innocent, all in the name of you-had-your-chance
jurisdictional turf wars and statist legal finality.
The police are here to keep us safe. By driving their cruisers at 109 MPH in a 45 zone, on a major commercial thoroughfare, late at night, with no sirens and no flashing lights. Then, when this predictably leads to a fatal crash that kills one of the cops, by lying about it to the media in order to make your dead buddy look like more of a hero, and by arresting the poor innocent man that the cop slammed into at 90 MPH for his allegedly reckless driving.
The police are here to keep us safe, part 2. Radley Balko, Hit & Run (2009-05-18): Cops Gone Wild, in which cops from around the country celebrate National Police Week in D.C. with wine, weapons, and reckless driving.
The police are here to keep us safe, part 3. Commentary from Center for a Stateless Society news analyst Tom Knapp (2009-05-18): To Serve and Protect (Themselves)
Name your own salary. Las Vegas Sun (2009-05-16): City, county may lose say in police pay negotiations. Las Vegas Metro is currently working to get a new state law passed which would allow Vegas cops to get a salary set unilaterally by their own boss cop, and then send the bill, whatever it may be, to folks who had absolutely no say whatsoever in the negotiations.
The Gangsters in Blue come to Philly. Radley Balko, The Agitator (2009-05-01): Update on Bodega Raids by Rogue Philly Narcotics Unit Balko asks, apparently non-rhetorically, Why did no one in the department ask why an elite
narcotics unit was wasting its time busting immigrant shop owners with no criminal record for selling bags instead of pursuing actual drug distributors?
Come on, really? The reason is that the State as such is essentially irresponsible, and this kind of thing is Standard Operating Procedure for elite
narc squads. There’s a lot here to justify outrage, but very little to justify surprise.
On terror-famines for the international narco-crats. Jacob Sullum, Hit & Run (2009-04-30): U.S. Intensifies Campaign to Wipe Out Afghan Economy. Cf. GT 2004-11-20: The tall poppies and GT 2007-01-13: The tall poppies, part 2.
Think.
Left-Libertarianism
On dialectical jujitsu: Roderick Long, Austro-Athenian Empire (2009-05-19): How to annoy a conservative
Ownership failures, not market failures Chris Dillow, Stumbling and Mumbling (2009-05-01): Markets, the poor & the left. Dillow makes two really important distinctions: one of them the familiar left-libertarian distinction between freed markets, on the one hand, and actually-existing corporate capitalism, on the other; the other a less familiar, but very important, distinction between market processes and patterns of ownership. Quote: In many ways, what look like ways in which markets fail the poor are in fact merely ways in which a lack of assets fail the poor.
Exactly; and the many cases where there are not really market failures,
but rather ownership failures,
have everything to do with feudal, mercantile, neoliberal, and other politically-driven seizures and reallocations of poor people’s land, livelihoods, and possessions — and nothing to do with genuine market exchange.
Counter-Economics
Movement
On freeing the MHD3 and all political prisoners. By way of follow-up to the recent report on the bullshit arrest and jailing of the Motorhome Diaries crew, see Motorhome Diaries (2009-05-15): Jones County Sheriff’s Department Falsely Arrests MHD Crew, which recounts the full timeline of their arrest, jailing, and release. See also Motorhome Diaries (2009-05-17): Thanks for springing the MHD3 from Jones County (with Allison Gibbs), Motorhome Diaries (2009-05-20): The “Grumbling Old Fart” Addresses Jones County Sheriff Alex Hodge’s Statements, Motorhome Diaries (2009-05-20): MHD on Freedom Watch
Don’t vote. Secede and repudiate. Stewart Browne, Strike the Root (2009-05-18): A New Strategy For Liberty - Part 2: Secession in Three Easy Steps
You say pissed-off, man-hating, dykes with an excess of body hair
like it’s supposed to be a bad thing… Kevin Carson @ Mutualist Blog (2009-05-21): An Open Letter to Keith Preston, Mike Gogulski @ nostate.com (2009-05-21): Taking sides on the right to be a complete jackass, Darian Worden (2009-05-21): Perverts Versus Preston, and Brad Spangler (2009-05-22): Bigotry and Revolution
Communications
Tags: Abroad, Adam Mueller, Afghanistan, Airports, Alex Hodge, Allison Gibbs, Anarcho-Transhumanism, Anarkismo.net, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Australia, B.K. Marcus, Bogotá, Boston, Boston Anarchist Reading Group, Brad Spangler, brownfemipower, California, Calvin Darling, Carson City, Chris Acheson, Civil Liberties, Clay Claibourne, Colombia, CryptoFox, D.C., Darian Worden, David Brooks, Dialectic, Education, Edutopia, Ethics, Experts, Fellow Workers, Firefox, FireGPG, flip flopping joy, Gangsters in Blue, Gay Liberation, GnuPG, GPG, Highland Park, Hit and Run, Homeland Security, Iconoclasta, Instead of a Blog, Iraq, Iraq War, Jacob Sullum, James Manor, Jason Talley, Jessica Bautista, Jones County, Keith Preston, Kevin Carson, Kitty Caparella, LA IMC, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Lazy Linking, Los Angeles, Massachusetts, Mike Gogulski, Milagro Allegro Community Garden, Mises Economics Blog, Mississippi, Molly Ball, National Police Week, Nevada, Neverfox, Nicola Cantisani, Northern Territories, Opium, Pennsylvania, Pete Eyre, Philadelphia, Philosophy, Pirates, Police, Politics, Power to the People, Quotes, Race, Radley Balko, Republicans, Roderick Long, Ryan Endicott, Secession, Smash the State, Somalia, Stewart Browne, Strike the Root, Tamim Ansary, Technology and Internet Culture, The Agitator, Tom Knapp, TSA, Turgot, Virtue ethics, War on Drugs, Washington, William Gillis, Winter Soldier
Posted in Uncategorized // Read the original at Rad Geek People's Daily » Las Vegas (2009-05-22) ...
The Vegas Anarchist Cafe is a meet-up for networking, building community, and doing some outreach for anarchists in Las Vegas, which Southern Nevada ALL has been organizing together with unaffiliated local anarchists for the past several months. The main idea is just to give anarchists, anti-statists, and anarchy-curious fellow travelers a place to meet up and talk in an informal setting at a local coffee-house. There isn’t a fixed business agenda; the idea is to give people a place to find each other. Once they’ve found each other, A-Cafe can serve as a springboard for the independent projects that they may want to start.
After some discussions with regular A-Cafers, we’ve decided to start putting on a series of talks, presentations, skill-shares and open mics — tentatively titled the Free Speech Soapbox Series. The idea is to take an hour of the A-Cafe time for ongoing programming — including introductory material that may interest non-anarchists as well as anarchists, talks about issues local anarchists care about, organizing pitches for projects they are working on, how-tos to share skills amongst ourselves, presentations of classic anarchist lectures, etc. etc. etc. Talks take place during the middle 60 minutes of the Anarchist cafe (6:30pm – 7:30pm), with the 30 minutes before and the 30 minutes after available for the usual informal meet-up and chat.
I’m happy to announce that our first Soapbox talk will be TOMORROW, Tuesday 29 January 2009. And I will be doing the talk:
At this week’s A-Cafe, Anarchist philosopher Charles Johnson will present a special lecture on the topic What is Anarchism?
presenting the ideas of Anarchism in theory and practice, and correcting common misconceptions. For anyone interested in the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in conversation.
The Anarchist Cafe meeting will begin at 6:00 PM. My talk will begin at 6:30 PM (and should run to about 7:30 PM, including time at the end for Q&A).
Here are the details on the event:
- WHAT: Talk by Charles Johnson of Southern Nevada ALL on the ideas of Anarchism, the main misunderstandings about anarchy, and replies to the main objections.
- WHEN: Wednesday, 28 January 2009, 6:30 PM.
- WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe @ The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza (across the street from UNLV). 4550 S. Maryland Parkway; we’ll be in the meeting room off to the left of the entrance.
If you’re in the Vegas area (or even if you’re not), it’d be great to see you there. If you know anyone around abouts who might be interested in a general talk about Anarchism, then please do forward the announcement on to them.
Future Soapbox events are already being scheduled; in particular, next week will feature Las Vegas ALLy Kelly Patterson giving a talk on the Industrial Workers of the World, We Need the Wobblies Now More Than Ever! A Brief History of the Industrial Workers of the World.
See the Vegas Anarchist Cafe website for more details.
More to come soon; watch this space.
See also:
Tags: Alliance of the Libertarian Left, Anarchist Cafe, Education, Events, Industrial Workers of the World, Kelly Patterson, Las Vegas, Local, Nevada, Philosophy, Politics, Smash the State, sonv.libertarianleft.org, Vegas Anarchist Cafe
Posted in Southern Nevada ALL // Read the original at Rad Geek People's Daily » sonv.libertarianleft.org (2009-01-27) ...
