Landed Gentry

I am an anarchist

My partner is a georgist

We bought land

IRONY!

We acknowledge that we live, eat, play, dance and sing on Aboriginal land. (Up Yours John Howard)

Spread the [Love] Money

 

 

This is Maria

Maria is 21 years old and single. She lives with her mother and she works in the production of tablecloths, napkins and other embroidered products. She and her mother don’t have their own shop, so they sell their crafts to wholesalers who in turn sell to the Santo Domingo artisan’s market. She also sells special orders to people in the community.

I just loaned Maria $25.

With this loan, she hopes to buy more thread and fabric to increase production and sell in a small shop that is frequented by tourists.

This is called Mutual Aid.  Not Colonial Aid.  Not Corrupt Government Aid.  Not Celebrity Ego Enhancing Aid.  Rather, Actual Aid.

And when this loan is repaid.  I’ll find another Maria.

The money I loaned Maria was from the profits I made from selling my own embroidery.  And that’s about 95% of my profits so far.  So hopefully some of you out there with a slightly higher income can lend some money too.

Cool Kids Alert!

Resistance = protest, standing up for rights of oppressed, whether male or female, free or slave. 

Authority = institutionalized arbiter of law, religion, custom or culture, i.e., Church and State. 

Resistance to authority = Protesting and standing up to authority perceived as unjust and oppressive.

Extreme Fun in Lithuania

I was among the Extreme Crafters invited to participate in the Extreme Craft Exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Art. So given that Emma Goldman was originally from Lithuania, I felt sufficiently motivated to stitch that pattern up (slightly altered cause I was seriously running out of time!). I decided to make a wall hanging since it was going on a wall. Also, I didn’t think I’d be able to figure out how to make anything else out of it

So, presenting Red Emma!

Boats, Bees and Books

Today’s post brought to you by the letter B.

Perfect for a Sunday

Click to view…

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Punk Princess

I got given this ‘interesting’ dress as a present for Tara and decided it just needed a bit of altering…

And up close…

And in action…

“Smash the Patriarchy!!!!”

Sorry not selling this one.

Revolutionary Childcare

Check out this story about community-based childcare in Brooklyn, inspired by experiences in South America. Nice example of what a community can do if they put their heads together and start looking after each other!! I can’t wait to get back to Melbourne and start getting involved in similar communities.

Out of Brooklyn have sprung two inspiring models of community-based radical childcare. The organizers of Regeneración Childcare NYC weave their own experiences and those of Pachamama: the Bushwick Childcare Cooperative into an enchanting tale of communities taking care of each other in their own ways in the shadow of the Architects of Despair.

Story here

P.S. Back to Melbourne tomorrow! Yay flying with an infant, how fun is this going to be?!?

Technorati Tags: childcare,, revolutionary,, Brooklyn,, Regeneracion,, Pachamama,, Bushwick

Scoopit!

Shock and Awe!

I did the ol What Kind of Anarchist Are You? quiz (hattip: stanselen) and surprise surprise, I’m an anarcha-feminist:

You scored as Anarcha-Feminist.

Anarcha-feminists put a strong emphasis on the importance of patriarchy, arguing that all forms of hierarchy can be traced back to man’s domination over woman. Although associated with the 1960s, the movement has its roots in the theories of Emma Goldman and Voltarine DeCleyre.

Anarcha-Feminist 95%
Anarcho-Communist 70%
Anarcho-Syndicalist 45%
Anarcho-Primitivist 45%
Christian Anarchist 40%
Anarcho-Capitalist 25%

A bit more on parenting

I’ve found some more stuff online which is quite cool. So I’ve started another section down the ol blogroll called Radical Parenting. I urge you to check it out. Some of them are blogs, some are resource pages.

Watch out, I’ve started on this one now…

Anarcho-breeding

Warning: this is a looooong post
An acquaintance of mine was once overheard bemoaning activist women having children because it took them out of the movement. His argument was that there are so few efficient organisers around that it’s a shame when one of them gets ‘taken away’ to have children.

This has to be one of the most anti-women statements I have ever heard. But then look around the movement and see any positive writing about the role of women as mothers and you will notice that there isn’t any. So it’s not very surprising that this attitude exists.

Sure, there is an open acceptance and inclusion of feminist analysis, there are women’s collectives and when we have conferences we (almost) always include childcare in our planning. But the role of motherhood is still sitting on the outside and certainly not seen as a central role of the community. It’s seen as something to accommodate rather than truly seeing the contribution that motherhood brings to political thought.

So why does pregnancy and motherhood take women out of the movement? Because there isn’t room in the movement for them.

Edumacational book for the wee laddies and lassies

Big ups to Stephen DeVoy for his Anarchist Stories for Children book. Share it with your friends (big or small).