#ancom_lib

Currency is toxic and hierarchies are oppressive. If there wasn't a ruling class stepping on human innovation and cooperation for all these years, demanding 40 hours a week or more of our lives, would we be killing ourselves trying to save the planet, let alone each other, from corporatism?

Where would automation and human intellect be now if lives were not wasted, building empires for other people whose un-calloused hands and feet sit unknowing, or uncaring, of those below him.

"Throwing you inside a psychiatric ward just for wanting out, it is the ultimate coercive power, the ultimate example of the unjust authority the state wields. It can decide when you die, how you die, but you can’t. It is illegal for you to take your own life, but not for the state, for whom nothing is illegal, since it makes and enforces the law... I can be involuntarily committed to a psych ward for wanting out, the difference between being “lawfully” held captive and being “unlawfully” held captive is arbitrary, “unlawfully” holding someone captive deprives the state of the ability to “lawfully” hold someone captive.

What is the difference? I am still in chains, it doesn’t matter to me whether my captors are acting within the purview of the law or not, they are my oppressors. Tell me something, muse, why does the state get an exemption from criminality, but the people do not? Is the state above the law? “Nobody is above the law,” the liberal says. I say bollocks, someone has to enforce the law, and in order to enforce the law you have to be above it."

The AFL versus the IWW

As the Knights of Labor went down, the American Federation of Labor commenced to rise. This latter organization, after about twenty-three years’ existence, claims over a million members. It was the AFL that inaugurated “Labor Day,” the first Monday in September. This Labor Day was originally intended to be the one day in the year on which labor could devote to its own interests, for the purpose of cultivating a spirit of solidarity and fraternity among the working class. But “Labor Day” has lost this feature—instead, it has degenerated into a day when politicians, fakers and grafters have full swing, and a free platform to lie, and to gull the masses.

All the evidences of disintegration are apparent in the AFL at the present time. One does not have to be an enemy to make this statement; in fact, the writer is a friend to organized labor, but facts are facts, nevertheless. The American Federation of Labor is doomed: first, because of its own inherent rottenness; and second, because, in common with all other craft organizations, it has outgrown its usefulness, and must give way to the next step in evolution, which is the Industrial Union, which proposes to organize along industrial lines, the same as capital is organized.

While I am positive the days of the AFL are numbered, I nevertheless recognize and am compelled to give credit to that organization for the great benefit it has been to the working classes of America.

On the ruins of the AFL, there is at the present moment arising the Industrial Union which was organized in Chicago, July 8th, 1905. This industrial organization is organized along the lines of Industrial Evolution, hence it is bound to succeed.

Levine is a clinical psychologist that sees these children, who's anxiety comes not from chemical imbalances, their depression from lack of serotonin. But rather from witnessing the inequality around them.

As a student of psychology, as well as an American in 2021, I believe it important to promote self-reliance, self-efficacy, and mutual aid rather than re-molding people to fit the set societal requirements of what is normal.

The older generation argues that there are more mentally ill people now than there were when they were younger. This paper does well to argue that many mental illness diagnoses are done in error as children are more and more aware of society today. Systemic disenfranchisement affects all people including children. It is thus illogical to think children are not also able to form their own opinion of the current social philosophy in which we live.

I highly recommend this paper to anyone within the psychiatric or psychological communities. If you are a mental health professional it is vital that we encourage young anarchists to express their opposition with societal authority or hierarchies in a healthy way, as well as teach them the concepts of autonomy, community, and humanity.

FIRST AID DOCUMENT 2016 U.S. Army Public Release.

“Organise!” Anarchist Discussion Listserve, September 14, 2001. The twin towers fell 20 years ago and 2,977 people were killed. Since then, the 20 years long now war has claimed a total death toll (as of Nov. 2018) of 479,858 to 507,236.

The U.S. has done evil deeds abroad and now an evil deed was done to the U.S. As a New Yorker I am deeply affected by the attacks on the World Trade Towers (I am more ambivalent about the Pentagon attack, although opposing it). Like most people, I feel deep sympathy for the thousands dead, most of them working class, “white collar” and “blue collar,” many of them poor workers, often people of color. And I fear the right-wing turn which the attackers have facilitated, the spread of super-patriotism and anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, sentiments.

The mighty technology of capitalist industrialism was used against us. Gigantic buildings, made in an effort to create the “world’s tallest buildings,” were turned into death traps for thousands. Supersonic jet planes, with their enormous power and fuel tanks, were turned into missiles of death by kamikaze fanatics. The over-centralized technology, which has been destroying the balance of nature, has shown another aspect of its deadly vulnerability.

The attackers do not realize the damage they have done to the cause of anti-imperialism. The U.S. population is enormously ignorant of world politics. They believe that the U.S. (“we”) only does good to other nations. They are completely puzzled by the hostility of foreigners. They know nothing about the U.S. role in the Middle East. To them, it was a bolt out of the blue, and they react by fury and increased chauvinism.

In their hatred of U.S. imperialism, I agree with the attackers (I am assuming for now that they are probably Muslim nationalists). But I disagree with the program they have adopted to fight imperialism, a program which includes this mass murder of workers, theocratic dictator-ship or secular statism, and often the extreme oppression of women. They think in terms of national blocs: because they have a (real) grievance against the U.S. rulers, they feel justified in killing any U.S. people at all, even workers who have no control over U.S. world policy. And much of the U.S. population responds in a mirror image, national-bloc, way: because supposedly some Arabs/Muslims attacked them, they blame all Arabs and Muslims, and are prepared to kill all of them. This nationalist form of thinking is a curse, both for the oppressed and for the oppressor peoples.

We Leftists and revolutionaries can put this monstrous evil in the context of worldwide suffering. But we must not harden our hearts to the suffering and pain of so many right now in New York. We must not let abstractions of “class” and “imperialism” get in the way of a human response. We are right, but should not fall into self-righteousness. The desire of working people to help each other and support each other in a time of crisis has been wonderful, and we should be part of that. Meanwhile we must do all we can to oppose the tide of nationalist hatred and especially to defend Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. from attacks. We must be prepared to oppose the coming U.S. war.

"What if there's simply a difference in skill, or experience? An experienced artisan probably wouldn't want to give free reigns to a novice without a clue of what they're doing, would they? Or would you consider that to be not hierarchical?"

I wouldn't believe that to be hierarchal, no, I believe there's people that are skilled, everyone can make bread, but based off of skill, one person's bread will be better than another, but so long as they all know how to make bread and have access to the ingredients to make it, that's what matters.

What makes it hierarchical is if someone is withholding information or tools with a goal to control a situation. Giving someone the ingredients but will only give them the measurements if they pay you is hierarchical. Not teaching someone something so that you have more customers is a form of hierarchy.