Category: Blog

I’ve had such an incredible week and have been wanting to write about it all on Enough, but I haven’t known how to organize the mile-a-minute thoughts in my head or talk about all the amazing conversations I’ve been having.

So first, I read this great new book called Arm The Spirit by Diana Block – have you seen it? It is a total standout in the genre of memoirs by white activists who went underground in the 60s and 70s (actually Diana fascinatingly went underground in the early 80s) to participate in militant revolutionary solidarity work. Diana was part of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and worked as a public activist for many years before she and several comrades decided to begin working clandestinely to support the Puerto Rican independence movement and other Third World struggles. Continue reading “Lessons from elders”

Continue reading “POOR Magazine’s Revolutionary Giving Seminar”

I’m leading a workshop in Philly on April 5 for people with access to wealth who want to support social justice work, and I thought some Enough readers might be interested. Here’s the link – Giving and Beyond: Leveraging Privilege and Resources for Grassroots Movements (I’m privately calling it “Philanthropy for Anti-Capitalists”). Please come! Continue reading “Workshop on giving away money”

A couple weeks ago I was having a talk with somebody at a coffee shop in my neighborhood, and I noticed some graffiti on the bathroom wall that said: “Downward mobility is not radical.” Incidentally, the talk I was having that day was with a young white class-privileged person who was struggling with what to do with some inherited money, and we were talking about wealth and social justice and giving away inheritance and all of these things, and the whole time I kept pondering the graffiti and thinking that actually, downward mobility is radical. Wouldn’t it be very radical if all wealthy people gave away their money and spent only what they needed to live?

[I’m talking here about the kind of downward mobility that’s chosen and intentional, not the job-loss/cuts-to-social-services/increasing-wealth-disparity kind.]

But I know what the graffiti means – it means that the writer is sick of people who act like they don’t have money when actually they do. Personally, I lived this problematic phenomenon for several years after high school, which I spent hitchhiking, trainhopping, and dumpster diving my way around the country in the company of other freewheeling punk youth who (like me) often lacked a particularly tight race and class analysis. Continue reading “On downward mobility”

I wanted to share a couple resources that have come to my attention recently: first, our friend Dori (magical herbalist extraordinaire) sent us this link to a couple of great radio interviews about connections between capitalism and patriarchy and many other things. She writes,

dean & tyrone,

here is an interview with sylvia federici, who wrote caliban and the witch, discussing the european witch hunts and the rise of capitalism/destruction of the commons. thought you might find it interesting, especially the part about the loss of magical knowledge as part of the undermining of the peasant class.

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/48133

love, dori

Also I’ve been following the (Re)thinking Walking project (a collaboration between two brilliant writers), which I highly recommend for some thoughtful and insightful reflections about important things like self-care, movement and movement building, power, history, and anti-capitalism (of course). Take a look.

Dean gave a brilliant lecture on Monday night in New York, about trans politics on a neoliberal landscape, and of course I was up half the night thinking about these things. There are many fascinating angles from which to approach this topic, but here’s the one I want to talk about now:

Neoliberalism’s hallmarks are cooptation and incorporation, meaning that the words and ideas of resistance movements are frequently recast to become legitimizing tools for oppressive political agendas.

One simple-to-grasp example of this is LGBT organizations working to strengthen hate crimes legislation (or feminist organizations working to strengthen domestic violence legislation, etc), which in turn strengthens policing, the PIC, and the criminal legal system which are themselves major sites for violence against queer and trans people and women. Mainstream LGBT and anti-violence organizations use language about “safety” for women and queer people, but really mean safety for the privileged few who aren’t targets of policing and incarceration, and along the way queer liberation (and feminist) rhetoric gets used to enforce and legitimize racist tools of state violence.

So, one of the things I was thinking about while lying in bed the other night contemplating neoliberalism and cooptation was a book I’m reading, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, which I highly recommend (although I’d love it more if it had a better critique of capitalism generally and of white supremacy). There are a million and one things to say about this book (which is all about neoliberalism), but there’s one small side point – about philanthropy, specifically the Ford Foundation – that I will share here because it’s relevant (and because I’m obsessed with philanthropy I guess). Continue reading “More agonizing tales from philanthropy”

I received this email from my friend Adele Carpenter that I thought Enough readers would appreciate. It’s so important to remember how much grassroots movements could really use a little economic stimulus right about now.

Dear loves,

Some of you may have been privy to the international gross-ness known as last week. We are officially turning the beat around, as of Monday, starting with the full moon, okay? If you were somehow spared the pervasive bummerness of last week, be glad. Continue reading “Hopeful letters from friends”

We just learned of this blog about a project where people give away $100 in whatever way they choose and then come together to discuss the experience. Have a look.

Hi Friends,

I am posting an interview with prison abolition activist and anarchist pastor Jason Lydon about his take on personal practices of wealth redistribution. Interesting and inspiring stuff. Have a look.

I wanted to share this call for submissions from a cool organization in Massachusetts, Class Action. It’s a cross-class anthology of personal stories about class, money, privilege, oppression, and other things we love to talk about here a lot. The deadline is soon (February 28th) – but I know lots of y’all have great stories to share and you should!