I recently am having some pretty shitty dialog about money on indy media:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/12/369747.shtml?discuss
Thought some people from here might throw in their cents.
Looks like you encountered some of that self righteousness. That’s the kind of stuff that is painful to see in people who are supposed to be allies. Good that you named it and brought it out for all to see.
I read it last night and again this morning. Glad to see you got some support.
Well, to be fair, double digit admission fees do turn me off to an event. That’s like a week’s worth of food if I’m careful. I understand that is the cost of things, and I’m not about to go accusing anyone of getting rich of the rewild movement. But lowering the cost would make it more accessible. I’d knock it down to 10 if that were possible. That’s a door fee I could handle.
Also, I’m in the midwest. I understand a twenty where you are is like a ten here. Or something.
Man, I’m real sorry you are dealing with that shit. I don’t get people like that. It reminds me of these crusty kids that where at my friends house show. They complained about the 1 dollar beers, didn’t donate for the traveling bands, and complained about people saying they couldn’t spare them some change. They spent the night on the floor and ate all the food that had been left out from the party before they had to be asked to leave sometime that afternoon. Great folks. Reminded me of the oogles in Olympia that called me and my friends trust fund faggots at the transit center. Fortunately I didn’t hear that, cuz I have a hard time ignoring that shit. You have the patients of a tree. I’m impressed.
If “production” is the process of turning living things into dead things…
Then “civilization” is the process of turning people into assholes!
Oh, P.S. Seattle Food Not Bombs had a benefit recently. As far as I know, people were willing to pay the $10 suggested donation; money was not an issue. But socially, the whole thing felt weird. Like a high school cafeteria. I have to conclude that Seattle “anarchists” (these days) need to get over their personal issues before they can even begin addressing larger ones.
At one point I opted to break out from the kitchen for a bit, and eat. I knew hardly anybody there, but I happened to get in line behind someone I had met before. I initiated a conversation w/ her, and she seemed to want to talk, but as soon as she had all of her food she said quickly, “Well it was great to talk with you” and whisked herself off to her friends’ table. That was a pretty obvious cue that she just didn’t want to have anything to do with me socially. So I looked around the room for someone else I knew, even slightly, and there was no-one. I found an empty chair at the end of a table, right next to a small group of people, and asked if I could sit; out of politeness-reflex they said “yes” and went back to their conversation. A couple minutes later a guy passed me a little illustrated flyer with an address/date on it. I said, “Oh, is this for a party?” He said, “Yeah, it’s to celebrate a new issue of her zine” (pointing to his friend). I said, “Congratulations,” and–oh, I don’t know–probably something about the way I said it (I believe it could be described as “warm and friendly”) caused them to freeze up awkwardly. As though being nice was just. too. mainstream. (I also should add here that I am a very “clean-cut” believer in anarchy. The way I see it, I’m “well disguised.” The way they saw it, I’m a schmuck because I don’t dress like them. Who’s the schmuck??!)
What I experienced at that table and in that food line was not anarchy. It was hierarchy plain and simple, and not only that, it was childish. Despite their “desire” (?) to be otherwise, those people are still very much shackled to hierarchy and hide behind an appearance, hoping nobody will have the guts to look any deeper. I wanted to get to know people, and they reacted with fear! What the hell do they have to hide? (Oh well, FNB raised some much-needed funds in the end.)
I think that there are way too many people who can understand anarchy in the abstract, but who cannot understand what it means to them personally and to their behavior. In anarchy, you fight from a feeling of love, not the other way around! So many people shit on the word when they use it as justification for being an asshole. It comes from mass media images, I think. Sure, anarchists are often angry, but an angry person does not an asshole make.
(Wow, I am cussing a lot … must be really mad!)
ANYWAY … please excuse the long post. I’m just sick of the same things, I guess, and I haven’t even experienced very much of that kind of hypocritical crap.
Sometimes it occurs to me that the people who can make an anarchy work are the same people who make any form of local government work. The type of people who form neighborhood watches, go to school board meetings, volunteer with the scouts or join the local freemasons, and start their own businesses. People with initiative, something they want done, and a large circle of friends. In many ways it doesn’t matter what the system is as much as who is doing what. On the other side of that coin, it just goes to show that people make it work in spite of the system.
Silver Arrow,
I’m collecting stories like yours for a blog I am writing about this problem. Do you mind if I copy and past your story? I can give you credit or leave it anonymous.
Thanks!
Scout
I agree that alot of anarchists act like they think they “should” act. I find it hard to get along with the majority of people that believe in anarchy. But, urbanscout, I also am unwilling to pay money(especially that much) to see a speaker. I think this has become one of our biggest problem in the activist/anti capitalist/primitivist world. What I see is essentially a bunch of people that are anti capitalist, yet not doing their best to escape from the very capitalism they participate in. Last week I saw derrick jensen speak, here in Michigan and they did not charge. Because the people that brought him in, realize that this is a message that needs to be brought to the world, not a message that needs only be brought to those with money. We need to work together more, and urbanscout, you seem like you portray yourself as some sort of vanguardist. I appreciate what you do, but I also find many of the things that you do very contradicory. This is not an attack on you, I am just merely telling you how I feel. If you are opposed to this form of existence, then remove yourself as far from it as you possibly can, and help others in the process. That’s all I have to say. I hope you do not take any offense. au revoir
Diogenes-
I appreciate that you do your best to speak from your heart. I like how you tell your story of what happened when Derrick Jensen came to your area.
I also need to point out something that you wrote that I discourage on this forum.
This falls under the heading of ‘unsolicited advice’, which I discourage because I’ve seen it degrade well-meaning conversations on this and other forums. I haven’t met anybody who takes ‘if you really wanted x, you should do z’ well at Rewild.info.
If you don’t want to offend Scout, rather than offering advice to resolve a problem that I don’t see he claims he has (i.e., his contradictory-ness, etc.), I’d recommend either telling your own story of how ‘removing yourself’ has helped you out in helping others, or asking questions on why Scout thinks that his charging money and contradictory-ness helps him to accomplish what he seeks.
The guideline: tell your own story, deepen your understanding of another’s story, or find a different topic. And if someone asks for advice, then you know to offer it!
I say this not as a recommendation for what you should do anywhere else, but as a request for your conversations here.
ouch SilverArrow, that hurts to read : /
If you go to another event and would like some company let me know !
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, charging money for something is not capitalism. Charging what you think someone is worth is not capitalism. Making money is not capitalism. Making more money than you need at the expense of others is capitalism. This event will not pull in more money that we need at the expense of other, and therefore is not capitalism.
Diogenes, if you saw Derrick Jensen speak for free in Michigan, SOMEBODY payed for that. He lives in California I believe and some where along the line someone footed the bill to bring him there.
thank you willem for the advice, I really do appreciate it. And heyvictor you obviously missed the point I was making that the people that put on the event did not charge us, I never once said that derrick didnt charge them. I believe this works as a better way of getting the word out to everyone. We have always put out donation jars at free events, that way people do not have to actually pay if they don’t have the dough. Do what you want in your life, but I find that giving things away for free works better for me. I sincerely do not want a fight, I just want to see less participation in capitalism. Hope this does not offend any of yall. buy buy.
And maybe Urban Scout finds that making money and putting it to good use works better for him. (a la master’s tools/master’s house, as someone mentioned earlier)
Urban Scout: you have my permission to use my story. I’m going to make a few cosmetic edits (I wrote that at 2 in the morning, and I’m a perfectionist w/r/t writing, so I just gotta make revisions, if you don’t mind :)) And you can put a big, fat, non-anonymous “Rebecca” as the author of the story.
Sometimes I realize that it shouldn’t be surprising to find so many people who don’t know any way to act except with shallow exclusivity. It’s the way civilization acts towards the universe; what else can you expect from people who are steeped in that kind of social environment?
When you become numb, stop feeling angered and saddened by it, and try to find a way to tolerate (and thereby incorporate) that kind of behavior, then your problems start…
PS. Thank you Fenris.
Diogene, you wrote, “And heyvictor you obviously missed the point I was making that the people that put on the event did not charge us…”
I was coming from the idea that the people who put on the event are “us”
I would be curious to see how that Derrick Jensen event that you went to was funded, and if the donation jar really covered the expenses.
whew man, we are off to a bad start heyvictor. Misunderstandings are happening left and right. I never said that a donation jar was put out at the DJ speech. I said that at some free events we do around here we put out donation jars. I live in the metro detroit area, DJ spoke in Kalamazoo. The people that put the event on,students for a sustainable earth, paid for the event. No donation jar was put out.
But…if Scout didn’t charge, how’s he gonna pay for it? No admission means no Derrick.
And to the anarchist thing. I’ve had anarchist thoughts for quite a few years, and I’ve never felt comfortable around the “punks” and such that purport to have anarchist ideologies, but seem to just be angry teenagers in nasty cliques. I prefer to hang out with people who don’t put merit in ideology. And when a job needs to get done, as long as you have the same goal, values don’t matter. You get it done.
Funny thing, “punks” are different from place to place. When I lived in the twin cities, most punks I met were pretty open and not so fucking defensive. In a way (I think because it was a Midwestern city), they had a kind of freedom that punks in more “liberal” places don’t have. There is nobody breathing down a Minneapolis punk’s back looking to him/her for authority on what is “hip”. Nobody in Minneapolis tries to co-opt the punks. They’re getting excluded from the mainstream, and they’re getting it bad, and it’s exactly what they want… so they’re happy and chill. 