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Renewing the Anarchist
Tradition
Archive: Summer Conference 2001 .....
page 2
go to page one ... Thursday & Friday
Saturday, August 25th
- 8:30-9:15 a.m.: Breakfast
& Late Registration
- 9:30-10:45 a.m.: Morning Presentations
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...tent
Direct Action: More than Protest, Deeper
than Tactics
Shawn McDougal
When many people think of direct
action, they think of blockades, lockdowns, sabotage, and disruptions.
Direct action is commonly seen as a set of protest tactics. This
talk will reclaim a fuller notion of direct action as providing
an approach to positive, creative, and even long-term revolutionary
activities. In addition, this presentation will analyze the ethical
underpinnings of direct action, the philosophical connections
to anarchist understandings of human nature, and the implications
for a uniquely anarchist understanding of nonviolence as well
as a view of revolution as self-transformation.
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...big top
Collectives, Federations, & Revolutionary
Struggle
Becky Houlihan, Stanislav Vysotsky, &
JT
This panel, made up of members
of the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC),
will discuss anarchist organizing - emphasizing federation structures
made up of collectives or regional branches. Panelists will examine
the comparative drawbacks that contemporary coalitions, networks,
and ad hoc activist groups present, and assert the advantages
of a member-based federation that relies on collective responsibility
and mutual aid. Utilizing their own experience with the recently
formed NEFAC, panelists will look at collectives based on tactical
and theoretical unity, as well as personal trust and camaraderie,
as a way to sustain struggles at the local level and put forward
a clear antiauthoritarian, class-based analysis as a starting
point. They will also explore federating within cities and by
regions as a way to broaden resistance to the present system
and begin to create revolutionary alternatives.
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...library
Anarchy & Minority
Alejandro de Acosta
This talk will present some thoughts
on anarchism as a political philosophy and the challenge that
anarchism poses to conventional ways of understanding political
philosophy. Specifically, this presentation will challenge the
notions of normative criteria and justification for action that
are so central in mainstream political philosophy, and propose
that we think about alternative ethical forms of justification
as well as actions without justification. In part, this talk
will be a response to the distinction between strategic and tactical
political philosophies that Todd May has posed in his work on
"poststructuralist anarchism"; it will also propose
a critical rethinking of the categories and assumptions used
in Murray Bookchin's Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism.
Both of these paths - the ethical justification and that of unjustified
actions - reflect the life of anarchism as a "minoritarian"
political movement, one that has never been in the majority,
and that could perhaps become more interesting and important
to the degree that it demonstrates its disinterest in being "majoritarian"
(though we clearly desire to swell our numbers and multiply anarchist
ways of life).
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- 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Morning
Presentations, Second Round
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...tent
How Anarchists (and Everyone Else) Should
Think about Ethics
Todd May
In developing an anarchist ethics,
people often vacillate between an absolutist view of ethics that
seems more religious in character and a relativism that seems
to allow for no real critique. What this session seeks to do
is articulate a way of thinking about ethics that while not based
in some religious absolute, still provides the resources for
political criticism. This presentation will offer a proposal
about how to do this, but will leave plenty of time for discussion
and examination.
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...sunroom
Anarchism, Race, & Nationalism
a facilitated discussion with Darini
Nicholas
This facilitated discussion will
address pertinent questions on how to broaden the anarchist movement
to include people of color struggles, and more important, how
we incorporate and actualize such struggles as black nationalism,
black liberation, and the currently emerging black antiauthoritarian
movement. But first, we perhaps should get our "house in
order," so to speak, by addressing long overdue questions
on why anarchism must move beyond intellectualizing "racism,"
"obscurantism" (the obscuring of the truth of black
oppression), and "escapism" (looking at "racism"
as being on par with all other "anti-oppression" issues),
or all of these as being more significant than white supremacy.
Together we will explore ways and means to understand as well
as challenge the social construct of "race," and build
toward a society based on unity in diversity.
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...library
Representation & Resistance: Performing
Invisibility in Social Justice Movements
Tony Sparks
Often, political activism means
striving for visibility. Activists stand up to be counted, refusing
to let themselves or their cause be cast out of public debate.
Technological advances in representation and surveillance, however,
in combination with an increasing corporate stranglehold on the
media have made these approaches to activism less and less effective
- and increasingly more dangerous. The intent of this presentation
is to analyze how new forms of police surveillance and media
representation attempt to both demonize and silence the activist
voice, and some strategies by which these methods may be taken
back by the activists as tools of disruption and resistance.
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...big top
Anarchism & the Intentional Communities
Movement
Ian Mayes
This session will explore the
importance of supporting the efforts of intentional communities
and attempts to create new ones, as well as building on these
already existing assets. The talk will explain how networks and
federations of intentional communities, specifically anarchist
intentional communities, can work to create a system of counterinstitutions
through which a mass movement can potentially support itself.
It will also look at how intentional communities create an alternative
to directly supporting the capitalist system and how a strong
network of these communities can ultimately aid in the creation
of a "dual power" situation.
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- 12:45 - 1:45 p.m.: lunch lunch
lunch
- 2:30-3:45 p.m.: Afternoon
Presentations
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...sunroom
Relining the Anarchist Mind: History
as a Libertarian Device
Robert Helms
Why should anarchists know, defend,
and cultivate the movement's history? Do anti-authoritarian heroes,
organizational models, and radical landmarks increase the emotional
stamina an activist needs to carry on the fight? Anarchists should
conceptualize history as one's own interpretation of facts, to
be used as the justification and working plan for the desired
future. Historical writing is a way to get the dead to fight
against government, shoulder to shoulder with ourselves, the
living. This presentation will examine how to replace each authoritarian
structure, legendary person, and bible story with a true piece
of ordinary life in the struggle against oppression.
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...tent
Anarchy in the Streets: Reflections on
the "Anti-Globalization" Movement
Jaggi Singh
This presentation will take an
undiplomatic look at the so-called "anti-globalization movement."
From Seattle to Qatar, via Quebec City, this session will critically
explore the strategies, tactics, organizing, and analysis of
the "new movement."
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...library
The Crisis of Coercive Authority: Assemblies
of Authority & Coercion, & the Structure of Anarchist
Political Theory
Richard Gilman Opalsky
From postrevolutionary Russia
to the current processes of "globalization," a distinctive
critique emerges from the perspectives of anarchist thought.
This critique takes as its object "coercive authority."
The critique of coercive authority can be located throughout
the history of radical thinking, and as such, seems to be essential
to certain ideological positions. Coercive authority is not reducible
to authority-by-itself or coercion-by-itself, and that ideologies
that oppose authority-by-itself or coercion-by-itself misunderstand
the nature of oppressive power. It is only the manifestation
of authority and coercion together that works toward the maintenance
of social, economic, and political inequities. After defining
the unique construction of coercive authority, this presentation
will discuss how its critique works as the foundation for an
anarchist political theory.
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...big top
Why We Need Consensus Decision-Making
Methodologies & Structures that Protect & Promote Noncoercive
Relationships
Clarissa Rogers &
Andrew Dinkelaker
"Anarchism is the belief
that people can voluntarily cooperate to meet everyone's needs,
without bosses or rulers, and without sacrificing individual
liberties. . . . Anarchists struggle for the order that results
from the consensual interaction of individuals, from voluntary
association." This workshop will explore how consensus decision-making
methodologies are central to the anarchist tradition and are
meant to ensure that relations remain as noncoercive as possible.
This workshop will expand one's understanding of consensus processes,
and how they are related to anti-oppression work and could be
applied in a variety of situations.
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- 4-5:15 p.m.: Evening Presentations
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...tent
Anarchism & Historical Consciousness
Chuck Morse
Anarchism provides a framework
for transforming history, but what exactly is the relationship
between anarchism and history? Some argue that anarchism stands
outside of history as an expression of eternal aspirations for
a cooperative society. Others assert that anarchism is a historically
unique accomplishment through which radicals have learned to
confront the premise of our coercive social order: the principle
of social domination. Yet there are others who claim that anarchism
is tied to a specific period of social development and that it
loses relevance in new conditions. This talk will examine the
strengths and weaknesses of each of these formulations.
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...sunroom
In Defense of the Korean Anarchist Movement:
Toward a New Conceptualization of Anarchist Politics
Seung-Kuk Kim
Korean anarchism has been criticized
for deviating from the orthodox line of Western anarchist practices.
Yet Shin Chae-Ho, the founding father of Korean anarchism, emphasized
the necessity of reinventing anarchism as a Western implant and
building a uniquely Korean anarchism that could reflect the characteristics
of Korean society. Thus, Korean anarchists developed a creative
(but contradictory) formula of "a government of nongoverning"
(noncoercive ruling in the Taoist sense). Korean anarchists joined
the nationalist coalition government to fight against Japanese
imperialism, and on liberation in 1945, organized an anarchist
political party (Independent Workers' and Farmers' Party) through
which they engaged in conventional politics and tried to establish
an anarchist government. Given the bloody power struggle between
the Soviet-backed Left and U.S.-supported Right, Korean anarchists'
resolution to politically seek a third way was not so much unanarchist
behavior as a creative destruction of the unchallenged dictum
that anarchy is against all governments. This talk will explore
the nationalist political engagements of Korean anarchism as
a starting point for a twenty-first-century anarchism - linking
lifestylist micropolitics and social anarchists' globalized struggles
- to break through the iron cage of political powerlessness.
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...big top
Emergence as Convergence: Anarchism in/as
the Anticapitalist Movement
Cindy Milstein
Anarchism has been a crucial catalyst
for what has become a global movement today, potentially offering
an alternative to the hegemony of representative democracy and
Western capitalism. While it seemed to appear out of nowhere
with Seattle, anarchism's praxis can be seen as the convergence
of contemporary antiauthoritarian tendencies. This convergence,
in turn, allowed for an anarchism that is more than the sum of
its parts. How exactly has today's anarchism helped shape and
define this new movement? What strengths has it brought, and
will it continue to offer, in this struggle for a free society?
And what are anarchism's own limitations as a political praxis?
This talk will explore anarchism's recent history, its distinctive
contribution to this unique movement, some potential internal
problems within anarchist praxis itself, and how anarchism might
move this movement forward.
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...library
Anarchism & African American Liberation
Wayne Price
What can anarchism learn from
the black liberation struggle and what might anarchism contribute
to black liberation? Revolutionary anarchism's holistic opposition
to all aspects of oppression can be counterposed to liberal intergrationism
and black nationalism. This approach is based on the views of
black revolutionaries C. L. R. James and Malcolm X.
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- 6-7 p.m.: dinner
- 7:30-9:30 p.m.: Performance
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...Plainfield Town
Hall
Requiem for an Egg
A Rock Opera with an All-Puppet Cast
Polutia, Inc., a sinister
multinational agribusiness, is growing glowing, genetically modified
Easter eggs on cornstalks. The Easter Bunny is thrown in jail,
accused of ecoterrorism. Children trade in their Easter baskets
for gas masks. Chicken Little leads the farm animals in a worldwide
general strike. Jesus cries foul, but is he real or just a hologram?
All-original music by Helen Harrison & Ben Ross
Sets & puppets by Jess Goddard, Amie Combs, & Amanda
Petrovato
Videography by Dan Millman
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Sunday, August 26th
- 9-10 a.m.: Breakfast
- 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.: Open
discussion sessions
- 12:30 - 2:30 p.m.: Radical
History Tour
Barre, VT's
Italian Anarchist History
lead by Dan Chodorkoff |
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Program schedule for Thursday
& Friday
or, back to
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