STIGMERGY: The C4SS Blog
Media Coordinator Weekly Update, Sept. 18, 2016

Howdy, folks! Another Sunday is in progress, which means it’s time for me to rub another Media Coordinator Weekly Update in your eyes. Don’t worry, I don’t think it stings.

Of course I didn’t try it on myself first, are you serious?

The Week in Commentary

We started the week off strong with Logan Glitterbomb’s article on antifascist graffiti artists reclaiming walls in Germany from neo-Nazis. “Fight Hate, Paint Back!” was picked up all over the place – including, as y’all might expect at this point, our 2016 MVP: the Augusta Free Press.  Her piece was also picked up in the Gilmer, TX Mirror and the Buffalo Network, which seems to be an online news service that caters to a few counties in Wyoming. Neat!

Kevin Carson’s piece, “Why Are the ‘Adults in the Room’ So Awful?” made its way not just to the Augusta Free Press‘s commentary repository, not only to the Gilmer Mirror‘s pages, but also to the Libertarian Alliance blog. Thanks for publishing, y’all!

As always, all pickups are added to a list at the bottom of each article, and those lists are edited over time as more pickups come in.

There were a couple more commentaries released this week that don’t yet have enough pickup information (or in the case of Kevin’s second Op-ed of the week, hasn’t been sent out yet) to pull through, but you should check them out anyway, because they’re stellar.

  1. Billy Christmas wrote a fantastic examination of the British left’s relationship with gentrification.
  2. Logan Glitterbomb wrote about the ongoing prison strike, and how the majority of organized labor abandoned prison workers.
  3. Kevin Carson skewered nationalism with his piece on the ramifications of Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem.

I’m sure we’ll be revisiting these pieces next week, especially that last one (since I haven’t even sent it out yet…).

How’d the Mutual Exchange end? Let’s find out

I mean, I couldn’t just leave the Mutual Exchange hanging. Let’s see how everything finished.

Here’s the rundown. For everything prior to Monday, check out my last update.

  1. C4SS Senior Editor Chris Shaw starts things off on Monday with an examination of markets where agorism can thrive; namely, energy and small manufacturing.
  2. C4SS contributor and freelance reporter Derrick Broze draws the line and separates agorism from anarcho-capitalism.
  3. As if Broze’s piece wasn’t spicy enough for you, C4SS Research Scholar Nathan Goodman comes in hot with a piece on the benefits and pitfalls of agorism, syndicalism and other anarchist pursuits.
  4. C4SS Senior Fellow Nick Ford responds with the question: “Does agorism require intent?” and “Can Agora-Syndicalism and Libertarianism get along?”
  5. Derrick Broze jumps back in with a reply to both Ford and Goodman arguing that there is a “Need For A Self-Aware, Intentional Agorist Movement.
  6. Finally, C4SS Fellow Logan Glitterbomb also addresses Ford and Goodman, arguing further that agorism, syndicalism and illegalism are definitely compatible.

I would say that this month’s Mutual Exchange was a success! I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Odds + Ends

Sheldon Richman’s new Feature, “Trade Is a Labor-Saving ‘Device’,” is up. Excerpt:

Outside politics life is rather different. Our actions have a reasonable chance of making a difference to ourselves and those we care about; the costs of our actions fall largely on ourselves; and acquiring information in order to act more intelligently is thus worthwhile. As a result, those who try to sell us goods and services have an incentive to behave responsively and responsibly, unlike candidates for political office.

Kevin Carson has a book review out, covering Nicholas Hildyard’s new book, “Licensed Larceny: Infrastructure, financial extraction and the Global South.” Excerpt (from the review, not the book, duh):

To be sure Hildyard is not, so far as I know, an anarchist. But while remaining open to state reformist measures as part of a total agenda package for fighting neoliberalism, he expresses considerable skepticism towards a strategy focused on such measures. For example the traditional social democratic remedies of progressive taxation and redistribution, he writes, “arguably threaten to become a regressive end-of-pipe ‘solution’ that perpetuates the violence of capital while retrospectively compensating a few of those from whom capital has looted…” And he takes a similarly reserved view of a global justice focused on “persuading ‘policy makers’ in powerful institutions (the World Bank, the G8, the G20, national governments, corporations and the like) to do the right thing.”

And finally, over at our wonderful blog, Natasha Petrova has compiled yet another monster list of links to libertarian and other writers who have written good stuff recently.

Housekeeping

This is more of an administrative note than an update with what C4SS is doing, but I did want to use just a smidge of space to let y’all know that I’ve finally gotten my C4SS.org email set up. If you are a member of the media and you have inquiries about any of the work we do, you can now reach me directly at trevor@c4ss.org. Also I’ve set up a Twitter. I’m @trevor_c4ss.

Anyway, how can you help keep this roller coaster going? I’ll tell you. But first I have to start a new paragraph, change the header size to Heading 2, and shout…

Donate! It’s how we get paid!

That’s right, folks. C4SS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that you can send your tax deductible donations to. That money goes to funding projects, keeping the site up and – arguably most importantly – paying our writers. To quote our support page directly:

The Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) functions on the enthusiasm of writers and volunteers, but it is the continued donations of supporters that keeps us going and growing. We have big plans and even bigger dreams for C4SS and we need your help.

Fundraising is not begging or charity. It is a barometer of success, support and professionalism. It is about offering an opportunity to participate in the project, the task at hand. So we ask you, dear supporters, let us know how we are doing and play a crucial part in our success by giving to C4SS.

So yeah. I think that’s as good a place as any to wrap up. See you next week!

Anarchy and Democracy
Fighting Fascism
Markets Not Capitalism
The Anatomy of Escape
Organization Theory