ANARCHIST BOOKS:

MURRAY BOOKCHIN BIOGRAPHY PROJECT:

Janet Biehl, the long term companion of the late anarchist/communalist Murray Bookchin, is gathering materials for a biography of Bookchin. It is to be titled 'Murray Bookchin:A Life in History'. She is looking for anyone with reminiscences of Murray that might be of help in writing the book. To contribute to her research contact her on her BLOG.

THE CAT'S MEOW:

ISSUES SURROUNDING CONSENSUS:

Amongst many other interesting topics now having a hearing over at the new anarchist discussion board 'The Anarchist Black Cat' is one that I found of particular interest. 'Issues Surrounding Consensus' can be found under the 'Map Making' section, and it's new but already gathering quite a few intelligent comments. Consensus, for the uninitiated, is a process of decision making whereby a meeting and discussion continues (and very often continues and continues and continues and continues) until a "sense of the meeting" ie an agreement that all can subscribe to is finally reached. The late Murray Bookchin particularly disliked this sort of thing and wrote against it frequently. Molly's own experience with it is that is is an open invitation for the sort of personal manipulation that the New Class left is so famous for. It is also totally inappropriate where the issues being discussed are of any real importance and especially where there are real political differences that don't deserve to be argued into a false oblivion, only to resurface later (often at the very second when exhausted participants finally and mercifully exit the stage of the all too long meeting). In addition to this it gives huge power to salaried "professional leftists" and those amongst us with no jobs nor family (and with exceedingly strong bladders ie coffee drinkers are penalized). But all this and more is coming up in the discussion over there. Here's the introduction that started the debate...

" After a discussion got going on consensus (as the "default setting" for anarchist organizations, to steal Rogue's phrase) on another board, I decided to collect some stories and write a piece on it. Anyone willing to share stories about consensus? In what conditions and contexts has it worked? In what conditions and contexts has it not worked? Why? This isn't going to be a big sociological treatise or anything, but I would like some concrete experiences to evaluate and use as real world examples. I started collecting them about two weeks ago and, so far, I've only got a few responses that are usable. Ideally, I'd like to collect a decent number of stories before I sit down to read and write...So, if you're comfortable sharing a full story on consensus--good or bad--and don't mind me asking some probing questions and quoting you in a piece I'm working on, it'd be a huge, huge help. Feel free to e-mail me: propaganarchy@hotmail.com, PM me here, or just tack something on to this thread.Thanks!"

Catching Up With the Days:
Sept 27th in History:
Today is the festival of Varuni, goddess of wine in Hindu mythology. Also called Varunani, Mada or Sura. Varuni is also a given name in India. Like Aphrodite and Venus Varuni is sometimes considered to have arisen from the churning waves of the ocean. The name means "
heavenly nectar". Wife of Varuna in the Rig Veda. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigvedic_deities for a short intro to the various gods and goddesses of ancient rather than modern idea. Then take a break and have a glass in her honour.
1540: Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, founded by Ignatius Loyola. Considered the "elite commando unit" of the Catholic Church for centuries. Very controversial history. Once banned in most of Europe. See http://www.jesuit.org for the official view. See also http://en.wikipedia/wiki/Society_of_Jesus for an overview. Look at Joseph McCabe's critical history at http://www.archive.org/details/ACandidHistoryOfTheJesuits for a sensible critic. When searching down the Jesuits on the Internet look out for evangelist nutters who think they see them as a counterpoint to the Illuminati. It actually fact one Jesuit equals 25 masons in bare handed intellectual combat. Did I say that they were the elite ?
Often take the "long view" of the Church's interests in contrast to the temporary politics of the Vatican. Hence their opposition historically to the savage policies of the Spanish Crown in Latin America (see the 'Jesuit plantations), their historical rivalry with the quasi-fascist Opus Dei organization, their support for 'liberation theology" in the recent past and their lack of favour from the present Pope and his predecessor.
Famous people educated by the Jesuits...Lenin, Mussolini, Castro and...ME.
Often stylized as the model for Leninism, but the paternity has never been acknowledged.
1880:USA invades Columbia. Later leads to the new creation of the country of Panama. All in the name of "justice,freedom,liberty,democracy,etc.,etc.,etc.". A canal obviously had nothing to do with it, just like the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with oil. How could you think such a thing?
1892:Patent awarded for the invention of the match book to Josua Pusey of Pennsylvania.
1907: Death of Andalusian anarchist Fermin Salvochea Alvarez(1842-1907). Fifty thousand people attend his funeral. People still place flowers on his grave to this day.
1932:Home of Judge Thayer bombed, presumably for his "judgement" in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti.
1950: Invention of the answering machine. President Truman announces the seizure of American railroads to prevent a general strike. Presumably he tried phoning first but got nothing but a recorded message.
1960:Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst(1882-1960) dies. Feminist but also the very model of the "useful idiot" in terms of her apologetics for the Communist Empire. The term "useful idiot", by the way was not coined by Lenin, no matter how much it may have expressed his real views. It was first !! used in the USA !! to describe an event in Italian politics in 1948 and only later became used to describe fellow travellers. See http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_Idiot and also 'They Never Said It:A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes and Misleading Attributions' by Paul F. Boller and John George.
1962: Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' is published. It is preceded, however, by 'Our Synthetic Environment' by then-anarchist Murray Bookchin writing under the pseudonym of Lewis Herber. See the 'Institute for Social Ecology' website under the links section of this blog for any details that might gladden your heart.
1988:Shroud of Turin proven to be medieval forgery. Well maybe, but probably. See http://www.shroud.com for the miracle that will not die despite the fact that the church craftily hedges its bets by refusing to authenticate the shroud.
1992:Bob Dylan plays for the Catholic Youth Rally in Bologna, Italy. Vatican spokesman says that Dylan "was chosen for his sincere religious sentiments". You don't need an Inquisitor to know which way the wind blows from the auto da fe ?
2000:Anti-IMF/World Bank protests in Prague. See http://www.pixiefighters.com/px-photo/prague for your daily fix of riot porn.
Molly, spinning her tiny little legs to catch up with the days on Sept. 30th.

I have continued with the Murray Bookchin pamphlet project, and have produced an inside cover. Like the cover this turns out to be too large to send via a pdf on my present email. I have also sent a sympathy note to the family and friends of Bookchin in Vermont with the agreement of other members of the ATN group who have agreed to add their names. At a decent time I will contact Biehl about reprinting her obit and biography of Bookchin in the pamphlet, as well as Tokar's tribute. That will comprise the first section of the pamphlet. The others will basically be a running commentary on Bookchin's ideas, chronologically ordered, with hopefully some other comment from other members of the ATN group.

Hard to believe that somebody found this blog already while I still in the setting up mode. If anyone else comes across it in a presumed search for Murray Bookchin items please go to the Any Time Now website (www.atnzine.net ) and get on the discussion group where a message of sympathy is being formulated for the public memorial service on August 13th.

In
Am in the process of preparing a pamphlet celebrating the life of Murray Bookchin. Stay tuned to this spot for further details