also he thought that the CCP wasn't even suppressing free speech, guess who just got banned from a certain tankie cercle jerk instance
![](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e3f3ad8d-3b8f-48ac-a24a-47819bcb5665.jpeg)
The issue, rather, is what picture of “political violence” this messaging serves: To say that “political violence” has “no place” in a society organized by political violence at home and abroad is to acquiesce to the normalization of that violence, so long as it is state and capitalist monopolized.
As author Ben Ehrenreich noted on X, “There is no place for political violence against rich, white men. It is antithetical to everything America stands for.”
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/23178144
Hi! I am a part of online anarchist research group concerning math and economics, if you would like to join it please comment or write a DM so I will share with you a discord link from which we are collaborating.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16439577
What have been some anarchist organizations or approaches to the problems of addiction and recovery? I've done a little bit of reading on the anarchist library and I'll continue with that. I know there are concepts of radical sobriety as well as critiques of the hierarchy within twelve step programs and the idea of addict as identity. I'm interested in any perspectives and ideas.
Something I personally find acutely annoying about recovery programs is that they're almost solipsistic not just about the profits involved and the larger political historical and economic story of addiction. Maybe it's taboo because it's not something one can solve the same way one can make choices in one's own life, but I feel like a bit of a pariah every time I want to remind people that we arent just fighting ourselves but the people who actively make money on our suffering. To me right now anarchism is the best model to describe reality, so I want to know how people who share this model have dealt with and thought about these urgent issues. Keen to be introduced to literature or communities in this vein
There are very few books on anarchism or anarchist authors in Poland - and even fewer female authors.
Such names of female anarchists as Lucy Parsons, Voltairine de Cleyre, Maria Nikiforowna, Louise Michel, Maria Orsetti and others are completely unknown.
No wonder: no books are published either by them or about them.
The exception is Emma Goldman, although even so, most often people know only one quote from her (and that without knowing the context in which she famously said the words), although fortunately a book "Anarchism and Other Essays" was published many years ago.)
There is a chance to translate and publish another book by Emma Goldman entitled "Anarchism. "My Disillusionment with Russia." Like many others, the October Revolution (or, as some anarchists prefer: counter-revolution) disappointed Emma, who watched its course in detail.
The question is: does anyone have and can give or lend this book? If not, can anyone recommend where to buy it from? So far I've only been able to find it on Empik and Amazon, and surely there are better places to get this title.
*As far as I know, the publication of this book has encountered censorship problems. So please give me a hint which edition of this book is the best, probably even approved by the author.
![](https://szmer.info/pictrs/image/0d012586-c565-4580-8a7a-042413a3699b.jpeg)
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9430955
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/20011741
Hi!
As I wrote in the title I'm looking for people interested in such an endeavor. I already tried creating such a project but due to internal disagreements it didn't pan out, still I am very interested in trying this out. Game dev is very susceptible to exploitation from capitalists which is very unfortunate given that means of production are essentially socialized already - we have FOSS software like Godot that is enough to create very elaborate projects and we can collaborate remotely so no land is needed either. This makes it I think a very fruitful direction to go, because costs of game dev are not very big and returns can be big if the game is successful. I know that there is a huge competition in game dev, but given that in worker cooperative nothing is siphoned by capitalists at the top I think it's not impossible to get to the level of subsistence on game dev, while being able to affect the culture and promote cooperativism among the general population and among video game creators. I don't have a specific game dev experience but I like solving complex problems and I am interested in doing a worker cooperative, I already did quite a bit of research during my previous attempt at this type of worker cooperative and I would for this coop to get inspiration from Igalia, Motion Twin and Sociocracy. At my last project people had issues that I am fine with anti-foundationalist philosophies so please consider that I like those and I like to discuss from those lenses. I am very good at self-directed learning and I could especially do stuff like coding, design, writing plot and characters, I could research some more legalistic side of cooperative but it would be nice certainly to have someone who has some expertise here. That still leave places for people interested in audio and graphics and I am very fine with redundancy in some aspects of the required "expertise", still I am a big believer in learning by doing and getting feedback and improving based on this feedback so I am mostly looking for people willing to learn, explore and collaborate to hopefully create something cool. I would like to create games such as Planescape Torment, Disco Elysium, Hotline Miami, FTL: Faster Than Light, Spec Ops: The Line, Portal 2, Undertale, Getting Over It, The Talos Principle, Vampire the Masqurade: Bloodlines, KOTOR 2. If you are interested in this project please get in touch, we may correspond a bit and see if we would like to collaborate!
I somewhat wonder about trying to release those games on FOSS licenses (still with asking for “paying” for them to support the creators), that would be “purer” from anarchist perspective than using proprietary license but this is not something I have thought about that much. The pro would be it being impossible to get the license stolen how almost happened to Disco Elysium creators.
Some students from #Lille (in #France), who are currently occupying the university campus of Lille 3 "Pont de Bois" to protest against the genocide happening in #Gaza, wanted to show their support to the Palestinian anarchist group, Fauda !
Free #Palestine ! Force à #FAUDA !
![](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/407/071/986/477/253/original/62fb159903d23f15.jpeg)
I'm interested in getting involved with anarchistic and consensus-driven activism... But where the hell do I start?
There's a semi-local Food Not Bombs, but they aren't meeting at the moment (protesting I imagine).
Are there similar groups I could look for? Are there social media type places I should look? Any kind of newbie infoshops?
I'm shit at making just regular acquaintances, so finding a specific kind of group has been a headache.
Thanks in advance
My favorite author posted this for May Day. I think its an important message in the midst of anti-genocide protests on college campuses and around the world.
Never lose hope!
Hey y'all, for mayday I'm wanting to spread some leaflets, zines, etc around the hospitals in my area. Does anyone have any recommendations for pieces geared towards the medical field?
Does anyone can write something about this? What do you think?
![](https://szmer.info/pictrs/image/9db4e3f5-9791-47b6-bd57-9ac9fe0bff9f.jpeg)
Emergency Social Security Campaigns Meeting
Sunday 21 April 2024 3 – 4.30pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88958156364?pwd=ah3dyMFY3y20G1HajLzZaLNVa3wKag.1
Meeting ID: 889 5815 6364
Passcode: 069808
We have called this meeting to bring together all those worried by and/or wanting to fight back against the Tories’ current all out assault on Disabled people, culminating in Rishi Sunak’s announcement today with plans to cut access to social security for millions of people.
For anyone who is worried, please remember that some of these changes may take time to roll out and others will only affect new claimants not existing ones.
For accurate information on what the key changes announced this week are see:
Yes, I know the answer is "don't buy them".
Anyway: I've been seeing posts in places that follow the format: "Look how item X in (rich country) costs the same or is more expensive than in Poland"
Admittedly, those posts aren't about basic necessities. They are about football tickets and the stadium beers or about Subway sandwiches. Although from personal experience, I know that this is happening with groceries as well. Inflation and the war across the border was a great excuse to hike the price of some goods. This doesn't seem just to me, given the wage disparity between say Ireland and Poland. But hey, you gotta get that YoY 20% growth somehow. Poland being the poster child of "look what capitalism does".
So when we take the example of buying groceries to stay alive, what alternative do you have to the large stores that are obviously fucking you over? I can afford to pay those inflated prices, I just don't want to affirm the effectiveness of the "let's hike the prices of everything because we have the excuse to" master plan.
Here are some loose (privileged), perhaps not particularly good ideas that I've had:
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Buy food from the inflation basket The Polish (and others probably too) statistical institution keeps a "secret" basket of items based on which the inflation is calculated. It's clear that at least some of those items are known to the stores, because they always cost less, to artificially keep the inflation down. This could work, as long as the stores don't drop the ball on the quality.
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Buy local? The thing is that while a supermarket chain has a team of people trying to get people to buy more stuff, the humble farmer selling stuff on the local vegetable market does not.
The same goes for clothes, as I could get bring my own materials and get some made by a local tailor, rather than buying off-the-rack chinesium from Zara. And look a little more old school wearing it. Though a tailor is a different level of service.
My local fancy soap shop is several times more expensive than just buying generic tallow bar soap. Sure it's made by local workers within my city, but that's part of the value, hence the price hike.
PM criticised for personal independence payment review amid ‘spiralling’ disability welfare bill
Rishi Sunak is considering withdrawing a major cash disability benefit from some people with mental health conditions, prompting claims he has launched a “full-on assault on disabled people”.
The prime minister announced fresh curbs on disability benefits on Friday, saying he wanted to explore whether some cash payments to claimants with mental health conditions could be replaced by treatment or access to services.
In a speech on welfare, Sunak said he was launching a consultation on the personal independence payment (Pip), a non-means-tested benefit paid to disabled people to help with the extra living costs caused by long-term disability or ill health.
He said that in addition to reviewing payments to people with mental health conditions, the government would look at whether some other disabled people should get help with one-off costs rather than continuing payments.
The announcement triggered an outcry from disability charities, which said the rates of people being signed off work and claiming benefits were being caused by crumbling public services, poor-quality jobs and high rates of poverty among disabled households. Mind, the mental health charity, said services for mental health conditions were “at breaking point”.
There are 1.9 million people on a waiting list for mental health treatment in England, meaning the treatment they should be able to access through the NHS is not currently available to them.
Sunak said Britain was proud to have a strong safety net of welfare payments to those who needed them, but he also said the country had a “sicknote culture” that needed to be tackled.
He said “something has gone wrong” since the pandemic to increase the number of economically inactive people who are long-term sick, especially with mental health conditions.
“Most worrying, the biggest proportion of long-term sickness came from young people … parked on welfare,” Sunak said.
He said the country could not afford the “spiralling” disability welfare bill of £69bn, which was now more than the core schools budget, and claimed the Pip budget was forecast to increase by 50% in the next four years.
Other measures he set out included:
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Shifting responsibility for issuing fit notes, formerly known as sicknotes, away from GPs to other “work and health professionals” in order to encourage more people to return to work.
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Confirming plans to legislate “in the next parliament” to close benefit claims for anyone who has been claiming for 12 months but is not complying with conditions on accepting available work.
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Asking more people on universal credit working part-time to look for more work by increasing the earnings threshold from £743 a month to £892 a month, so people paid below this amount have to seek extra hours.
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Confirming plans to tighten the work capability assessment to require more people with “less severe conditions” to seek some forms of employment.
On the review of Pip, Sunak said it may be right to pay one-off costs for adaptations, but that the payments may not need to be ongoing.
The prime minister said the government would look at whether more medical evidence about conditions should be provided, as some payments were made on the basis of “subjective and unverifiable claims”.
He said some people with mental health conditions may be better served by treatment and access to therapies rather than cash payments.
Sunak also warned about the “the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life” when it came to paying benefits to people with mental health conditions.
His comments were echoed by Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, who told Sky News on Friday: “If you go to the GP and say you are feeling a little bit depressed, and you’re signed off, in 94% of occasions, a box is ticked that says you’re not capable of work whatsoever.
“What we want to do is change the system so that that individual will be referred to – the government is setting up something called Work Well – where they will get both the healthcare support they need, but also a work coach who will be involved to either help them stay in work if they are in employment, or to help them get into work if they’re not.”
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “Millions of people are stuck on NHS waiting lists, unable to get a GP appointment or struggling to access mental health support. Rishi Sunak is attempting to blame the British people for his own government’s failures on the economy and the NHS and it simply won’t wash.”
Matthew Pennycook, the shadow housing minister, said Sunak had been pursuing a “cheap headline” over his claims that Britain has a “sicknote culture”.
“There has been a long-term rise for many, many years under this government in people who are on long-term sickness benefits, either because they can’t get the treatment they need through the NHS, which is on its knees after 14 years of Conservative government, or they are not getting the proper support to get back into work,” he said.
Charities warned that the benefit curbs would make people’s problems worse. James Taylor, the director of strategy at the disability equality charity Scope, said the speech “feels like a full-on assault on disabled people”.
“These proposals are dangerous and risk leaving disabled people destitute,” he said. “In a cost of living crisis, looking to slash disabled people’s income by hitting Pip is a horrific proposal.
“Calls are pouring into our helpline from concerned disabled people. Life costs more for disabled people. Threatening to take away the low amount of income Pip provides to disabled people who face £950 a month extra costs isn’t going to solve the problem of economic inactivity … Much of the current record-levels of inactivity are because our public services are crumbling, the quality of jobs is poor and the rate of poverty amongst disabled households is growing.”
Dr Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of Mind, said the mental health charity was “deeply disappointed that the prime minister’s speech today continues a trend in recent rhetoric which conjures up the image of a ‘mental health culture’ that has ‘gone too far’.
“This is harmful, inaccurate and contrary to the reality for people up and down the country,” she said. “The truth is that mental health services are at breaking point following years of underinvestment, with many people getting increasingly unwell while they wait to receive support. Indeed the Care Quality Commission’s latest figures on community mental health services show that nearly half of people (44%) waiting for treatment found their mental health deteriorated in this time.”
Iain Porter, a senior policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said the prime minister had launched an “irresponsible war of words on people who already aren’t getting enough support, which the government would rather not talk about”.
“Many people want to work, as the prime minister says, but have their hopes dashed by woeful health and wellbeing support and job centres unfit for purpose,” he said.
The British Medical Association said the prime minister should focus on getting people access to the medical help they needed to get back to work rather than “pushing a hostile rhetoric on ‘sicknote culture’”.
Anarchism
Are you an Anarchist? The answer might surprise you!
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See also:
- /c/debateanarchism
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- Anarchy101
- Anarchism@lemmy.ca
- XMPP chat