The Challenge of Autonomy: Prospects for Freedom Going Into 2021

1. Intro: Do For Self Politics vs. Hypothetical Radicalism

“And i prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight…”

– Harriet Tubman

“Freedom is something that you have to do for yourself.“

– Malcolm X

[see pdf for full text]

Young people getting active in the streets today are entering a desert of political options and conversations. A degenerate political left represents the only well-known alternative to openly fascist Democrats and neo-nazi-courting Republicans, a left that has grown so petty bourgeois (middle class) in its class character that it has very little relationship to the physically existing world, as outlined in section 1. For those of us who actually want to make this thing materially viable, we need to focus on building the actual material infrastructure for self-determination, independent of police and State assistance…

[see pdf for full text]

We put this together in three parts: 1. an introduction 2. an analysis of the events of 2020 and how they show us the limits and “prospects for freedom” available in the foreseeable future, and then 3. a list of concrete, tried and tested baby steps that serious comrades can start from scratch with. We speak from generations of experience and successful communal structure – not from our own personal opinions, left-wing jargon, dreams, theories or books alone…

[see pdf for full text]

No one is going to get us ready for what’s coming except ourselves. No one is going to get us free except each other…

Let’s each and every one of us, wherever we are right now, whatever we’re working with no matter how few or how poor, analyze our situation, form a plan, and start right now. And let’s see it through!

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Click to access the-challenge-of-autonomy.pdf

Musings on Individualism in America – Sania Sufi

Originally Posted in  علم کی تلاش میں/ ilm ki talaash (In Search of Knowledge)

Written by Sania Sufi

I attended a workshop on prison abolition and alternatives to the Prison Industrial Complex. The take back from this eye-opening workshop was:

1) The ineffectiveness of the state apparatus to administer conscientiously just reparations period. As a student of political thought, I find the philosophical underpinnings of the nation-state and subsequently, its conception of “justice” to be problematic. And this is without the additional layer of injustice regarding how people of color, women, political activists, and other minorities are treated.

2) The need to re-create an active consciousness of community and utilize it as an alternative method of administering justice. My emphasis on the re in re-create is intentional as indigenous and third world peoples lived and breathed community and communal based governance before colonization and the individualistic culture to be born out of European Enlightenment thought. Islamic governance, for example, is based on moral law which highlights the importance of maintaining communal/familial ties. Many Native/African tribes also rely on social kinship as a central component of governance.