Diaries of a Terrorist: Poetry and Abolition with Christopher Soto and others

  • April 29, 2022 1:43 am

from Making World Books

A luminous poetry reading demanding the abolition of police & prisons—with Christopher Soto, Airea D Mathews, and Denice Frohman.

This debut poetry collection demands the abolition of policing and human caging. In Diaries of a Terrorist, Christopher Soto uses the “we” pronoun to emphasize that police violence happens not only to individuals, but to whole communities. His poetics open the imagination towards possibilities of existence beyond the status quo. Soto asks, “Who do we call terrorist—and why”? These political surrealist poems shift between gut-wrenching vulnerability, laugh-aloud humor, and unapologetic queer punk raunchiness. Diaries of a Terrorist is groundbreaking in its ability to speak—from a local to a global scale—about one of the most important issues of our time.

Christopher Soto will be joined for a reading by Airea D Matthews, and Denice Frohman for the launch of their debut poetry collection, which demands the abolition of policing and human caging.

Cohosted by our friends at Scalawag Magazine.

Advance registration is requested.

[May  5 6:00 PM 7:30 PM 210 South 45th Street]

ALERTA BERKS CTY Incel Concert

  • April 23, 2022 1:37 am
from Twitter
🚨 ALERTA BERKS CTY 🚨 Incels (involuntary celebates) are holding a two-day concert at Maiers Grove Park (property of Blandon @lionsclubs) starting tonight at 5pm! The location was just disclosed privately to ticket holders about an hour ago. WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SHUT IT DOWN!
Incels are a violent, far right misogynist subculture that exists mostly online, but is inspired by and has inspired mass shooters. It has already left dozens dead. cbsnews.com/news/incel-threa…
Recently, a music scene called incelcore has developed around the subculture – a means of pipelining incels into collaboration with other far right elements, including Nazis. In September, Raven, the organizer of this event, held a concert in Atlanta. dirtysouthrightwatch.org/202…
Marvin Heck is listed as Blandon @lionsclubs‘ contact for the rental space at Maiers Grove Park. His phone number is listed on the club’s webpage. It’s (610) 926-2241. Demand that he cancel the rental immediately. e-clubhouse.org/sites/blando…
You can also reach out to them on their Facebook or email them at BlandonLionsClub@gmail.com. facebook.com/groups/14115103…

Monday April 25th: Letter-writing for Xinachtli

  • April 23, 2022 1:23 am

from Philly ABC

xinachtli-letter-writing.jpg

Philly ABC is back at it this month with another monthly letter-writing event for political prisoners. This event will be online – join from anywhere! We hope to return to outdoor in-person events next month.

This month we will be checking in with Xinachtli, a Chicano-Mexicano anarchist political prisoner serving a 50-year sentence after being targeted for his Chicano rights and anti-police brutality activism.

In 1976 he was falsely accused of murder, for which he narrowly escaped the death penalty, destined instead to serve a life sentence. He was released after media highlighted his unfair trial and proof of his innocence, but then later suffered a brutal beating at the hands of several police officers.

In 1996 Xinachtli became the target of the most massive police manhunt in recent West Texas history after disarming a sheriff who tried to shoot him on a warantless arrest, and fled to a nearby mountain. For days Xinachtli eluded police helicopters, bloodhound tracking dogs, armed vigilante groups, and other state and federal police agencies before they surrounded him after returning to his mother’s house to eat and change clothes.

Without identifying themselves, police began shooting indiscriminately at the house, at cars parked in front, and at the public street lights. To back them off their murderous intent, Xinachtli returned fire in self-defense but never shot nor injured anyone. During the police barrage, Sgt. Curtis Hines was shot in the left hand by a ricocheting police bullet.

Xinachtli surrendered and was charged with two counts of aggravated assault; one count for disarming the sheriff and one count for Sgt. Hines’ wound. His elderly mother was charged with “hindering apprehension” and jailed.

Prior to his incarceration, Xinachtli also advocated for human rights of framed and political prisoners, and he continues to help other prisoners assert their legal rights. Join us as we show Xinachtli some love and get the latest updates on the struggle to free him. His birthday is also May 12th if you are writing from home and want to send him birthday greetings.

We will also be sending birthday greetings to the other U.S.-held political prisoner with a birthday in May: Kojo Bomani Sababu (the 27th).

[6:30-8PM]

Fight Like Hell with Kim Kelly

  • April 22, 2022 1:37 am

from Making Worlds Books

Join Kim Kelly in the launch of Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor

In FIGHT LIKE HELL, Kim Kelly tells a definitive history of the labor movement and the people who risked everything to win fair wages, better working conditions, disability protections, and an eight-hour workday. That history is a 1972 clothing company strike that saw 4,000 Chicana laborers start a boycott that swept the nation. It is Ida Mae Stull’s 1934 demand for the right to work in an Ohio coal mine alongside the men, and the enslaved Black women before her who weren’t given a choice. It’s Dorothy Lee Bolden’s 1960s rise from domestic workers’ union founder to White House anti-segregationist. It’s Mother Jones on the picket lines, and her militant battles against the ravages of capitalism. It’s the flight attendants’ that pushed to root out sexual assault in the skies. It’s the incarcerated workers organizing prison strikes for basic rights, and the sex workers building collective power outside the law. And it is Bayard Rustin, a queer civil rights pioneer who helped organize Dr. King’s March on Washington and help align the two movements.

Stops here include the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (immigrant, women laborers); Mississippi’s first successful unionization effort, the Washerwomen of Jackson, MS (post-war freedwomen); Latinx and Asian-American victories like the Delano Grape Strike; the influence of the United Auto Workers’ Arab Workers Caucus in the 1970s, up through queer and trans rights protections earned through labor action. FIGHT LIKE HELL concludes in Bessemer, AL where Kelly has been stationed to report on the ongoing efforts to unionize an Amazon warehouse for the very first time.

As America grapples with the unfinished business of emancipation, the New Deal, and Johnson’s Great Society, FIGHT LIKE HELL offers a transportive look at the forgotten heroes who’ve sacrificed to make good on the nation’s promises. Kim Kelly’s publishing debut is both an inspiring read and a vital contribution to American history.

Advance registration required so we can gather safely amidst the ongoing COVID pandemic.

[April 29, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street]

Practicing Cooperation: Mutual Aid Beyond Capitalism

  • April 16, 2022 1:49 am

from Making Worlds Books

Providing a new conceptual framework for cooperation as a form of social practice, Practicing Cooperation describes and critiques three U.S.-based cooperatives: a pair of co-op grocers in Philadelphia, each adjusting to recent growth and renewal; a federation of two hundred low-cost community acupuncture clinics throughout the United States, banded together as a cooperative of practitioners and patients; and a collectively managed Philadelphia experimental dance company, founded in the early 1990s and still going strong.

Andrew Zitcer will be in conversation with Esteban Kelly to illuminate the range of activities that make contemporary cooperatives successful: dedicated practitioners, a commitment to inclusion, and ongoing critical reflection. The conversation will highlight how economic and social cooperation can be examined, critiqued, and implemented on multiple scales in order to combat the pervasiveness of competitive individualism.

“From the crises of racial inequity and capitalism that inspired the Black Lives Matter movement and the Green New Deal to the coronavirus pandemic, stories of mutual aid have shown that, though cooperation is variegated and ever changing, it is also a form of economic solidarity that can help weather contemporary social and economic crises. Addressing this theme, Practicing Cooperation delivers a trenchant and timely argument that the way to a more just and equitable society lies in the widespread adoption of cooperative practices. But what renders cooperation ethical, effective, and sustainable?

Providing a new conceptual framework for cooperation as a form of social practice, Practicing Cooperation describes and critiques three U.S.-based cooperatives: a pair of co-op grocers in Philadelphia, each adjusting to recent growth and renewal; a federation of two hundred low-cost community acupuncture clinics throughout the United States, banded together as a cooperative of practitioners and patients; and a collectively managed Philadelphia experimental dance company, founded in the early 1990s and still going strong. Through these case studies, Andrew Zitcer illuminates the range of activities that make contemporary cooperatives successful: dedicated practitioners, a commitment to inclusion, and ongoing critical reflection. He asserts that economic and social cooperation must be examined, critiqued, and implemented on multiple scales if it is to combat the pervasiveness of competitive individualism.

Practicing Cooperation is grounded in the voices of practitioners, and the result is a clear-eyed look at the lived experience of cooperators from different parts of the economy and a guidebook for people on the potential of this way of life for the pursuit of justice and fairness.”

[April 23 5pm – 6:30pm at Making Worlds Books 410 South 45th Street]

April readings: laying flat

  • April 16, 2022 1:37 am

from Viscera

Who likes to work? Not us! Join us on Saturday, April 23 from for our next discussion! We’ll be meeting from 1-3 in an increasingly warmer and pleasant to be in Clark Park.

This month we’ll have two readings on how to live without work – or trying to, at least. We’ll be reading the newly-translated Tangpingest Manifesto

Some of the young people, disgusted at what they see before them, are moving on. Rather than being crushed by a sinister life, they simply live instinctually. Their poses resembling rest, sleep, sickness, and death, are not meant to renew or refresh, but are a refusal of the order of time itself.

and a section of Matsumoto Hajime’s Manual for a worldwide manuke revolution

My fellow manuke of the world, rejoice! Throughout Japan, nay, the earth, huge morons have started making tons of unthinkable spaces in opposition to this pointless world. Totally fun places, places that seem on the edge of shutting down but keep it together and persist, extremely cool spaces, places with a full-throttle feeling of freedom, places that are too stupid, places where unexpected people of mystery appear one after another… What’s that? What’s goin’ on? Hey, this looks fun!

Read the introduction and as much as you’d like of the rest, we’ll be discussing all of it!

What is Libertarian Socialism?

  • April 15, 2022 1:03 am

from PHLDSA

When

April 20, 2022 at 7:00pm – 8:30pm

The word “libertarian” may bring a right-wing character from a certain sitcom to mind. However, the word “libertarian” and its roots are socialist, and it continues to be a powerful theory in the world. From the Paris Commune to the IWW to the revolutions of the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the Kurds in Rojava, it guides socialists to imagine worlds beyond capitalism and hierarchies. Join us as we discuss the tenets of libertarian socialism and how to organize society in a democratic way, free from capitalism and coercion.

[RSVP Here]

International Exchange on Housing Justice: Learning from LA PAH (Spain)

  • April 10, 2022 1:51 am

from Making World Books

How should we welcome people at assemblies? How should an assembly-based, decentralized movement be organized? How can we carry out non-violent direct action? How should we negotiate with others? How can we change narratives and perceptions? How can we harness the power of the streets? Many move­ments answer these questions over time through trial and error, but PAH aims to contribute to the debate by reflecting on its own experiences and presenting them in this manual. We take a step back and analyze the practices that have allowed our movement to overcome a series of obstacles and have a far-reaching impact on Spanish society, both materially and ideologically.

The Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca (PAH) (the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages) in particular has instigated a paradigm shift in terms of viewing housing as an inalienable human right and demonstrated the strength of collective action in the pursuit of greater social justice. It has shown that there are ways of making the personal political and transforming struggles based initially on personal dramas into large, organized movements that challenge the authorities and wider society.

Members of the PAH will be here to exchange critical lessons with housing activists based on the recently produced La PAH: A Handbook.This manual describes the essence of PAH and pays tribute to the platform’s history and efforts to obtain decent housing for all, targeting an international audi­ence that views its achievements as a ray of hope.

[April 16 3:00 PM 4:30 PM Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street]

The Anarchist Inquisition with Mark Bray

  • April 9, 2022 1:41 am

from Making World Books

The Anarchist Inquisition explores the groundbreaking transnational human rights campaigns that emerged in response to a brutal wave of repression unleashed by the Spanish state to quash anarchist activities at the turn of the twentieth century. Mark Bray guides readers through this tumultuous era―from backroom meetings in Paris and torture chambers in Barcelona, to international antiterrorist conferences in Rome and human rights demonstrations in Buenos Aires.

Advance registration required. Click here to join us!

Anarchist bombings in theaters and cafes in the 1890s provoked mass arrests, the passage of harsh anti-anarchist laws, and executions in France and Spain. Yet, far from a marginal phenomenon, this first international terrorist threat had profound ramifications for the broader development of human rights, as well as modern global policing, and international legislation on extradition and migration. A transnational network of journalists, lawyers, union activists, anarchists, and other dissidents related peninsular torture to Spain’s brutal suppression of colonial revolts in Cuba and the Philippines to craft a nascent human rights movement against the “revival of the Inquisition.” Ultimately their efforts compelled the monarchy to accede in the face of unprecedented global criticism.

Bray draws a vivid picture of the assassins, activists, torturers, and martyrs whose struggles set the stage for a previously unexamined era of human rights mobilization. Rather than assuming that human rights struggles and “terrorism” are inherently contradictory forces, The Anarchist Inquisition analyzes how these two modern political phenomena worked in tandem to constitute dynamic campaigns against Spanish atrocities.

MARK BRAY is a political organizer and historian of human rights, terrorism, and politics in Modern Europe. He earned his BA in Philosophy from Wesleyan University in 2005 and his PhD in History from Rutgers University in 2016. He is the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Melville House 2017), Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street (Zero 2013), and the coeditor of Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader (PM Press 2018). His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Salon, Boston Review, and numerous edited volumes. He is currently a lecturer at Rutgers University.

[April 16 5pm – 6:30pm at Making Worlds Books 410 South 45th Street]

Assata Taught Me—Book launch with Donna Murch

  • April 2, 2022 1:58 am

from Making Worlds Books

Join us for a book launch and discussion of Assata Taught Me with author Donna Murch, Koren Martin, and Christina Jackson. Black Panther and Cuban exile Assata Shakur has inspired generations of radical protest, including the contemporary movement for Black lives. Drawing its title from one of America’s foremost revolutionaries, this collection of thought-provoking essays by award-winning Panther scholar Donna Murch explores how social protest is challenging our current system of state violence and mass incarceration.

Murch exposes the devastating consequences of overlapping punishment campaigns against gangs, drugs, and crime on poor and working-class populations of color. Through largely hidden channels, these punishment campaigns generate enormous revenues for the state. Under such conditions, organized resistance to the advancing tide of state violence and mass incarceration has proven difficult.

This timely and urgent book shows how a youth-led political movement has emerged in recent years to challenge the bipartisan consensus on punishment and looks to the future through a redistributive, queer, and feminist lens. Murch frames the contemporary movement in relation to earlier struggles for Black Liberation, while excavating the origins of mass incarceration and the political economy that drives it.

Donna will be in conversation with Koren Martin and Christina Jackson.

[April 9 2022, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM at Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street]