BLOGS:

THE BEST OF THE BLOGS:

THE LETTER "A":

Molly is the "elephant-cat". She never forgets though occasionally she forgives. Some time ago I was running a weekly feature entitled 'The Best of the blogs' wherein I chose some interesting recent postings from the blogosphere. Well, it's time to get back to business with Molly's great;y expanded list of blogs on her Links section. Today we feature the letter "A".

A. Alas a Blog has some recent interesting posts. On November 8th there is 'Does the South Have Whitewash Envy of the North ?'. Sort of something that only an American could understand, though very valuable to them, dealing with the history of slavery in the "northern states" of the USA. Also on November 6th there's a rather disparaging article titled 'Is the Christian Right Losing Its Mojo ?' about the present shifting politics amongst evangelists in the USA. Rather TOO disparaging for Molly's taste. Atheist as she is she still welcomes the growing distance that American evangelism is putting between their faith and right wing politics.

B. From New Zealand Anarchia has gone whole hog on reportage about the recent "terrorism" arrests in that country. The best of their reportage is a November 8th article entitled 'No Terrorism Charges for the Urewera 16 !'. What Molly has to say about this, besides the fact that various leftists of all sorts of persuasions often (usually ?) bullshit about their great and grandiose plans and how the state can use this bullshit on occasion despite the fact that it has little basis in reality, is to ask a question. The "terrorism" charges were broadcast across the world, even reaching the news here in Canada. Will the downgrading of the charges in line with a little reality get any such play in the media ? Doubtful !.

C. The Anarchist Video Blog has some new offerings, most of them the latest from the recent Montebello demonstrations outside of Ottawa.

D. The Anarchorants Blog has a refreshing article entitled 'The Personal is Political or the North American Cult of Individualist Struggle'. The title should be self explanatory, but for the slow out there it is a description of how this little piece of rhetoric is abused in the present day left. Molly thinks the author is altogether too kind as he or she skips the most nutty examples. Still, a very good opinion piece and much needed.

E. On a more amusing note the Austro-Athenian Empire has reprinted a piece from Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blogspot, entitled 'The Toilet Zone' . All about the evil way that toilet paper dispensers are arranged to cause maximum distress in public institutions in the USA. Molly has blogged before on the whole matter of toilet paper in Eastern Europe when she visited there, but this is a matter "beyond the paper". One waits until the privatization mania runs its course in the USA, and they have guards on the cans collecting dues to enter the sanctums just like they have in the Czech Republic. Carry on Republicans. The millennium is coming soon.

Next time...the letter "B".

THE BEST OF THE BLOGS:

MOLLY'S WEEKLY FEATURE:

Every week Molly tries to sweep through recent posts on the blogs that are listed in her Links list to find those that have interested her the most. So here is this week's listing in no particular order:

The Molly prize once more goes to Uber-Blogger Eugene Plawiuk for his recent efforts on Le Revue Gauche concerning both the recent inquiry into the Air India Disaster and his demand that the whole actions of the RCMP and CSIS be subject to a public inquiry. The stench around what happened in the Air India bombing grows by the day, and there is a huge elephant sitting in the middle of the room on this matter. Were the warnings deliberately ignored? It wouldn't be the first time that a terrorist action has been allowed to proceed "for reasons of state". At times such actions have actually been organized by the secret police of various states for political purposes. Comrade Plawiuk says no such thing, but others in the Indo-Canadian community have raised this possibility, and Molly will here. Maybe the Canadian secret police are indeed woefully stupid, or maybe there are other things that will come out in 100 years about their machinations. Plawiuk also has several posts on the plan to use nuclear power in the Alberta Tar Sands project, an ill-advised plan.

Amor y Resistencia has an article on the anarchist Mayday actions across the world as does Bombs and Shields. The Anarchist Philosophy site has an article titled 'Should Anarchists Use Violence to Fight Oppression'. The answer is 'no'. Auckland's Burning has an attempt to placate the prrimitivists entitled 'The Fallacy of Wilderness', arguing for permaculture rather than the ideological construct of "wilderness". An Australian Anarchist Weblog has a collection of quotes on patriotism entitled 'The last Refuge of a Scoundrel'. The Freedom of Speech blog from Canada has an interesting essay on proper internet etiquette. Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog features a draft of a new work of his entitled 'Decentralized Production', an exploration of the economics of local production. Finally, Janet Biehl's blog continues her project of a comic strip presentation of the work and life of Murray Bookchin. Really great in Molly's opinion.

THE BEST OF THE BLOGS:

This is another entry is Molly's regular feature from her endless blog surfing amongst the blogs listed in our Links board. Pride of place this week goes to Eugene Plawiuk who has accidentally posted early on the Carnival of Anarchy roundtable on violence and anarchism. His post which includes references to his previous writings on the subject thoroughly discredit the ideological construction that anarchists who want to justify senseless violence wrap themselves in. Their whole reason for being is more adolescent acting out than political action. Go on over to see this post along with some others that are beginning to trickle in. Also on his other blog Le Revue Gauche, Eugene has a number of interesting new posts. One continues the references he made to Benjamin Tucker in his post at the Carnival of Anarchy, and is titled 'Are Anarchists Thugs'. Another is titled 'Jamestown:The Birth of Capitalism' and is a far ranging survey of the origins of the Jamestown colony, slavery and indentured labour, black history, the campaign against slavery and British imperial interests. Then there's another article entitled 'Why Managers Need Unions' that examines the recent court decision against Peter Nygard of Winnipeg. Not that Molly agrees with Eugene's desire to subsume "managers" under a "working class" heading, but Nygard is a "special case"- to say the least. Molly has been gathering material on him since he closed down one of his factories here in Winnipeg, and the character of the man is truly astounding. To my understanding his employee was awarded only $11,000 in unpaid overtime (I'll try and find court costs) while Nygard's legal expenses in dragging this matter all the way up to the 'servants' entrance' of the Supreme Court were undoubtably several multiples of this amount. Totally amazing ! Hopefully Molly's little article on Nygard will eventually see the light of day. Anyways, drop over to Le Revue Gauche to see megablogger Eugene in action.

Molly also dropped in on a very enlightening post about "schooling" at the Aucklands Burning blog from New Zealand. Part of it is a reprint from the Stanselen blog, but it also contains some interesting material and references about compulsory schooling. Meanwhile over at Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog the author weighs in heavily (28 pages when I printed it out) on 'The Ethics of Labour Struggle: A Free Market Perspective'. The title is deceptive as most of the essay revolves around working class tactics and their effectiveness (or lack thereof). Carson takes on some of the pro-business apologists in American libertarianism, but a lot of his essay revolves around documenting the effectiveness of "network" means of struggle for workers. The post describes lessons from the IWW that show how workers can win the real value of their labour by various tactics that are totally ignored amongst the official union movement.

But there are a few more items to round off this tour. The Slackbastard blog from Australia has a wide selection of anti-fascist posts recently. Seems to be something SB is concentrating on. Larry Gambone's Porkupine Blog has an interesting entry titled 'Anarchists and the Ultra-Left:the Mine Canaries of the Revolution' arguing that the desirability of a revolutionary change can be gauged by its actions towards those "on the left" of the winning party. He also argues that not all revolutions "devour their children". Over at Social Design Notes there are a couple of interesting resources. One is a link to a collection of maps, essays and statistics on the number, significance and scope of US military bases around the world. The other is an examination of the US budget in 2006 and an expose of how much of American tax money is spent on military ventures. Rounding off this little tour the Solidarity Across Borders blogspot from Montreal has an interesting essay titled 'Why Do Ordinary People Commit Evil Deeds'. it is basically an update on the famous 'Stanford Prison Experiment' and shows how the desire to conform resonates to today with the atrocities in various US run prisons across the world, from Iraq to Guantanamo.

All of the blogs mentioned above, and many more, can be found in the Blogs section of our Links list.

Molly

MORE MATTERS BLOGISH:

Molly forgot a few things in her last post (too much catnip on a Saturday night). One that should be added to the 'Best of the Blogs' section is a repost on Pierre Ducasse's blog Ecodema titled 'Workplace Representation for All is a Human Right'. this is a reprint from a previous article by Roy J. Adams. Molly's flirtation with social democracy is over 30 years in the past when she was perhaps the most consistent writer for The Commonwealth, the Saskatchewan NDP paper. Her present anarchism is little different from what she believed then EXCEPT that she believes that the state cannot create the conditions for democracy, freedom, equality, etc.. What she presently believes is that the role of the state is to "stand aside" and create the "playing field" for truly popular initiatives. Molly sees the need for a "flanking action" within the parliamentary system, but she knows that this action is not anything related to the creation of real socialism. It can merely "clear the field". This is where Molly disagrees with her comrade, Larry Gambone, about events in Venezuela. The creation of real "peoples' power" in that location essentially depends upon either the stupidity or the inefficiency of the new managerial ruling class represented by Chavez vis-a-vis intelligence and efficiency on the part of the popular movements. Also even more importantly proper scepticism as to the new rulers. I simply don't see any of that there in any great manifestation. It will be there in 10 or 20 years but not now.

But back to Canada in 2007. One of our local MPs, Pat Martin, has expressed the opinion that the NDP is in some sort of "crisis" (I don't know if I agree with him because Green Party "votes" in opinion polls are very much of a "blip"), and that it should respond with "imaginative policy" (here I do agree with him, and I can think of no better source than the section of the party represented by Pierre Ducasse.). Howzabout the word "socialism" actually comes to mean something once more rather than a "fuzzword" for conservative commentators ?

Oh yes, one more thing "blogish" (not exactly but I want to be brief), I'd like to draw people's attention to a recent article on the Anarckismo site. It's titled "Fundamentalism, Nationalism and Militarism in Turkey". It's produced by some of our Turkish anarchist comrades, and it gives a corrective viewpoint to the tendency of too many anarchists to equate Third World nationalism with anything libertarian. Have a look.

Molly

THE BEST OF THE BLOGS:
Today 'The Best of the Blogs features Larry Gambone's Porcupine Blog , and his latest offering on 'The Problem of Social Democracy'. What Larry focuses on is the present day failure of social democracy to be a proper "transmission belt" to carry ideas from us anarchists into the mainstream for implementation. Larry goes into a brief history of modern social democracy to explain how this political trend "abandoned hope and inspiration". What this is is a call for social democracy to return to its original mission, to make possible the utopian dreams of people to its left. It should be noted that a small fraction of the Canadian NDP holds to a decentralist view of socialism even though the majority of the party holds to a typical managerial view. In any case go on over to Larry's blog to see what he has to say.
Molly