I think it'd be a great idea to reformat the site. I've put together CSS stylesheets before, so if anybody has some general ideas on what they want to see I can try and work with them.

Also, I think it'd be good to at least link to any blogs that members have. I don't know if it's possible or not, but if there were a way to bring in content from others' blogs or off-site posts, that would be great. I run a site that kind of aggregates content from a variety of blogs here: leftlibertarian.org

If there's any other ideas for a site above and beyond the wiki here, I'd be happy to work with any ideas like those, too.

- Jeremy

I'm a Richmond area anarchist who's interested in joining. Is your membership open, and if so, how would I go about joining?

Also, is it ok for me to attend the 4/19 meeting? Has a location been decided upon yet?

Thanks,

Jeremy

http://leftlibertarian.org
http://blog.6thdensity.net

Ideas?!

• We had discussed a less formal and more social event. I believe Aaron suggested a camp-out. How do we all feel about this, can we do a potluck/meeting/camp-out? Where would/could we even have a camp-out in Richmond?

• If we can all agree to this, should we set up a pre-meeting meeting to prep or just pass around ideas on what we'd like to see (in person rather than in forum)?

Just to throw it out there, I love the idea!

"Oppression" in the dictionary is something done by authority. Its use in our statement is improper.

We must Explicitly condmn Racism and Sexism in this statement. While I believe attacking institutionalized racism like police racism is an important aspect of Anti-Racism, the problem is broader in scope.

Sexism is a cultural phenomenon which extends beyond "patriarchy" and paternalism. Women are no longer chattle. It doesn't take a man to trick a third world woman into slavery-prostitution. Anti-sexism involves respect between men and women [and, perhaps, unlearning cultural mores].

I believe that problems with heterosexism and gender identity are also aspects of sexism, but perhaps they are culurally easier to address separately.

Ability is a different kind of issue. Persons with limited capacity from birth and those injurred in life or on the job should still have a lot of opportunities. Eyeglasses are a common disability, but so common that miopia is not considered debilitating. However, there are still jobs and activities where it might not me safe for a miopic person or somene depending on the to be safe doing routine work tasks.

Also, "Heirarchy" is a scientific term for a form of organization which is not inherrently oppressive. Animals and plants ar parts of heirarchies of complexity and biotype. Heirarchy is the wrong word. We need to condemn Authoritarianism [authority-based social organization] and the State [State=military+police+bureaucracy, according to Bakunin]. Anti-Authoritarianism and Anti-Statism are basic tenets of Anarchism.

Solidarity,

Scott

I would like to quickly thank you for keeping us all in line and on point. If you ever feel the need to get frustrated at people who are all worried about semantics, please feel free to facilitate again, you both did a wonderful job! Thanks again!

Do we know who has volunteered to take on the job as facilitator for the next meeting? I think as we have seen it is a great importance to have someone who will step up properly to keep us all on track…

Support community's self determination and management over all aspects of social and economic life without the existence of local, state, or federal gov't

I think that the words "without the existence of local, state, or federal gov't" should be taken out for two reasons:

1. It is redundant because the second bullet point from the bottom already states, "Support the creation of a stateless society"
2. It may exclude people who work in State-funded organizations or groups that have official status from the government from wanting to work with us, despite whether or not the people in them agree with our other points or wish to help us achieve all all of them. For example, a union that has official status from the government may wish to deconstruct the state from within (often referred to as evolutionary change). They may identify themselves as evolutionary anarchists (instead of revolutionary anarchists) or they may not identify with anarchism at all, but they may agree with us on all of our points of unity. They may be excluded by the inclusion of these words, because they are promoting workers' self determination but with the existence (and support) of the government. With these points of unity, it appear hypocritical to work with them.

I understand the purpose and language of this point. I support the idea of community's self determination without the construction of naturally hierarchical and dangerous state powers. However, some anarchists, whose goals align with our own, may believe that the anarchist change will be evolutionary as we break down the problems in our system. From this approach, using the state to smash itself is a question of tactics, so I would either say that the bullet should say "The creation of community's self determination…" or, what I believe to be even better, should not say "without the existence of local, state, or federal gov't", because these words are also already covered in a later bullet point.

Connor

To do this, you can click on the text box on the left side of the page to create a new page and type something like "Minutes (DATE)", where date is the date of the meeting.

Post here, or email me (moc.liamg|woK.ronnoC#moc.liamg|woK.ronnoC) or whatever is easiest for you :).

Thanks,
Connor

In the next conference, i would like to see us discuss more concrete projects and networks. Perhaps there could be a section in which first different projects are named (a handful of them 3 maybe 4) and break out groups happen where people go to discuss the project. They then report back to the group with how they thought the project could function in the federation and the group could alter it to make it something all could agree upon. AND perhaps to make it clear, it may be good to not be very argumentative about a project if you do not plan on working on it.

Just an idea.

Does anyone have ideas for content that should be put on the site?

I think a good facilitator is crucial. We has discussed this at the meeting, so I won't elaborate, but do we have any ideas?

What should be our structure for the meeting? Should there be one?

Personally, I think a good structure to the meeting is fundamental. Without one, people are constantly asking what should we do next? Rather than talking about the issues we want to discuss. I think having an order to our meeting in which we devote the beginning of the meeting to set up some sort of agenda would be a great way to keep the meeting on task. I think people may get frustrated with a lack of structure. Just because we are anarchists (mostly), that doesn't mean we can't assume the obvious without fear of being too authoritarian. This is and will always be the case in any social setting and we have to understand, when something is a good topic to debate, and when something probably obvious to everyone or at least, nobody cares to contest it.

How should we manage our time?

I know that agendas can be too optimistic. I think that we should limit time on topics, and then if there is still a demand to discuss this item, we can discuss it further. Any thoughts on this… pros? cons?