Historian of anarchism, labor, and the left in the Americas / Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Union College / Views my own, not my employer's
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2026-08-05T03:33:04Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick The internet has gotten so much worse in the past few years and now Google is going to replace its search engine with AI?? Are you kidding me? Enshittification is rapidly descending into ensloppification. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Higher ed has been hollowed out by decades of budget cuts, adjunctification, ballooning costs, and attacks on the humanities. Resisting the dual threat of Trump and AI is not enough. If higher ed is to survive as a social good, it needs to be remade. It needs a renaissance. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "Antifa are the real fascists" they repeat, as they send masked paramilitary forces door to door to terrorize and ethnically cleanse the nation. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Is it just me or has Instagram's comments algorithm changed to prioritize "controversial" right-wing comments? Seems to be the case very consistently just starting sometime in the past month or two. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Remember: the $40 billion bailout to Argentina (actually going to US hedge fund managers allied with Trump) would cover about half a year of food stamp funding or a full year of USAID funding. Privatization takes public goods and transfers them to the pockets of the rich. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick But seriously, the fact that Mamdani is about to win big to become the next mayor of NYC is the most hopeful thing we've got going in an increasingly awful political situation. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Lmao they got him now! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Unfortunately for the Margaret Atwood haters, it does appear that The Handmaid's Tale is the dystopia we're heading for. Best of luck to the other contenders in the next round. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Penn joined MIT and Brown today in rejecting Trump's absurd "compact" for higher education. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/115/352/428/529/673/468/original/a30bce541db44bf9.png npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick I also want to say: I get frustrated when people say that folks who leave the country should "stay and fight." People have always fled authoritarian regimes--from Tsarist Russia to Francoist Spain and beyond--and continued to fight from outside. This is part of the struggle. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick The fact that scholars of fascism and anti-fascism have been leaving the country -- now including Mark Bray fleeing death threats -- should be a huge wake up call to the American public. They more than anyone know the warning signs and the direction we seem to be headed. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Mere affiliation with an anti-fascist organization is now grounds for discipline and potential firing of tenured professors. Unreal. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick I know I shouldn't be, but I'm still shocked every time I see "small government conservatives" cheering on the military occupation of American cities by the federal government. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick When the furor over the Epstein Files began a few months ago, the Conservative subreddit was furious. There were multiple posts a day about it and *almost everyone* was pissed at Trump for betraying his promises. Now, there is basically no talk of it. Here's what happened: npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Pretty wild how all the right wing "free speech absolutists" are cheering on Trump's full frontal attack on free speech. It's almost as if they were lying the entire time! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Robert Paxton: "Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Alexander Berkman: "The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight. It is a spirit to be cultivated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower it is, for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Have you practiced anarchist calisthenics today? npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Roland Barthes: "Anti-intellectualism is a historical myth, linked no doubt to the rise of the petite-bourgeoisie... yet its *political* danger must not be overlooked: it is quite simply fascism, whose first objective always and everywhere is to liquidate the intellectual class." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick We need a movement of small-scale, artisanal/craft knowledge production and consumption that absolutely rejects the pitiful slop of today's mass culture: the AI hallucinated slop articles, the brainless slop of bro-podcasts, the bot-driven AI slop that dominates twitter. Enough!! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Howard Zinn (born 8/24/1922) inspired me to be a historian. "If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick As we watch Trump take over DC after sending National Guards into to LA, Texas and California compete in gerrymandering, and Oklahoma test the ideology of teachers coming from NY and CA, it's hard not to think that a fragmentation of the US into competing regional blocs is coming. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Trump federally taking over DC is a flashing red alarm. Call it fascism, call it authoritarianism, call it whatever you want, but it's happening now. And if his effort to take over DC isn't stopped, you better believe he'll do it elsewhere, too. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "For your freedom and ours." Banner held by Russian dissidents in Red Square in solidarity with the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, crushed by Soviet tanks. One of the demonstrators later noted: "a people that oppresses others cannot itself be free." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "For all the different philosophical assumptions, strategies and social recommendations, anarchists are united in their search for a free society without the State and government. They all flow in the broad river of anarchy towards the great sea of freedom. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "Except for a few diehard fanatics, most anarchists would see the various currents as expressing a different emphasis rather than an unbridgeable chasm. Indeed, some would find it quite acceptable to call themselves individualists in everyday life, syndicalists in wanting self-management at work, and communists in looking forward to a society in which goods are shared in common. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "The boundaries between the different currents of anarchism are not clear-cut; indeed they often flow into each other. Mutualism, collectivism, communism, and syndicalism might well exist side by side within the same society, as different associations and districts experiment with what best meets their specific wants and demands. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "[Anarchism] is a tradition opposed to domination, a tradition which sees the self-governing community as the norm and the drive to create authoritarian and hierarchical institutions as an aberration. Anarchism began to take shape wherever people demanded to govern themselves in the face of power-seeking minorities. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "The ultimate goal of anarchism is to create a free society which allows all human beings to realize their full potential. . . The first anarchist was the first person who felt the oppression of another and rebelled against it. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "They seek to establish the condition of anarchy, that is to say, a decentralized and self-regulating society consisting of a federation of voluntary associations of free and equal individuals. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "All anarchists reject the legitimacy of external government and of the State, and condemn imposed political authority, hierarchy and domination. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "Anarchism is like a river with many currents and eddies, constantly changing and being refreshed by new surges but always moving towards the wide ocean of freedom. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "anarchism will remain a fundamental part of human experience, for the drive for freedom is one of our deepest needs and the vision of a free society is one of our oldest dreams. Neither can ever be fully repressed; both will outlive all rulers and their States. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "both in the negative sense of being free from all external restraint and imposed authority, and in the positive sense of being free to celebrate the full harmony of being. Whatever its future success as a historical movement, npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "It presents a telling analysis of existing institutions and practices, and at the same time offers the prospect of a radically transformed society. Above all, it holds up the bewitching ideal of personal and social freedom, npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "The continued appeal of anarchism can probably be attributed to its enduring affinity with both the rational and emotional impulses lying deep within us. It is an attitude, a way of life as well as a social philosophy. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "A study of anarchism will show that the drive for freedom is not only a central part of our collective experience but responds to a deeply felt human need. Freedom is necessary for original thought and creativity. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "In general, I [Peter Marshall] define an anarchist as one who rejects all forms of external government and the State and believes that society would function well without them. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "It is the express aim of this book to show that there is a profound anarchist tradition which offers many ideas and values that are relevant to contemporary problems and issues. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "But it is easy to see why rulers should fear anarchy and wish to label anarchists as destructive fanatics for they question the very foundations of their rule. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "This is the spectre of anarchy that haunts the judge's bench and the government cabinet. . . Not surprisingly, anarchism has had a bad press. It is usual to dismiss its ideal of pure liberty at best as utopian, at worst, as a dangerous chimera. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "Anarchy is terror, the creed of bomb-throwing desperadoes wishing to pull down civilization. Anarchy is chaos, when law and order collapse and the destructive passions of man run riot. Anarchy is nihilism, the abandonment of all moral values and the twilight of reason. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick (This will be the latest edition of Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, published in 2010 by @npub1w56…rjua https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=148. Noam Chomsky says it is "the book I always recommend when asked--as I often am--for something on the history and ideas of anarchism." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick I have been derelict in my duties as anarchist historian to have never done a full read of Peter Marshall's classic (gigantic) book Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. I think the time is now, and I will catalogue choice bits in this thread! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick The government pressuring universities to teach/research state approved things is textbook authoritarianism. When universities bend the knee, they are just capitulating and encouraging further authoritarian meddling. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Assata Shakur: "There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism. In fact, there was not a single liberation movement in the whole world that was fighting for capitalism. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick This is wild: in Poland in 1990(!): "200 members of Anarchist Inter-City, waving black flags and shouting ‘Down With Prices’ ran through Warsaw ... breaking windows in the Polish Senate and Communist Party headquarters and barging into a luxury hotel" and targeting Solidarity headquarters for their austerity measures. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "It's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows about the Spanish Civil War and the anarchist roots of mutual aid." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Ursula Le Guin: “A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.” npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick bell hooks: "The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "No to US/USSR imperialism. Mayday! Anarchist Contingent" (1988) npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick "Smash the State and Have a Nice Day!" A poem from "Mob Action Against the State: Haymarket Remembered... an Anarchist Convention." This 1986 anarchist convention in Chicago was the first of a series of continental gatherings that revitalized the N. American anarchist movement. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Emma Goldman: "Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?" npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick The most important takeaway from the Epstein files is that the uber rich and powerful live in a totally different world from the rest of us, operating by different rules. Their world is not redeemable. It cannot be reformed. It must be dismantled. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick As Trump orders everyone in Tehran to evacuate (apparently before Israel destroys it with Trump's blessing), another hearty fuck you to every so-called "anti-imperialist" who backed Trump as the "anti-war" candidate. Stop listening to Jimmy Dore and his ilk, it rots your mind! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Ursula K. Le Guin: "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick White people today: the protesters in LA are hurting their own cause, they should be like MLK and the Civil Rights Movement! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Don't blame the people resisting fascist violence for "provoking" it. That's the logic of abusers. The violence is already there (and Trump will always find an excuse); some people are just brave enough to resist and fight back. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick CrimethInc: "[Direct action] can be the best form of therapy, helping those who act to cure feelings of boredom, hopelessness, and impotence. When one is doing nothing, everything seems impossible; once one has begun doing something, it is easier to imagine what else is possible and recognize opportunities as they arise." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Marx: "The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint ... etc., the more you save—the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour—your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life—the greater is the store of your estranged being." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Happy May Day! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick My wife and I equally split laundry duties: I sort, wash, and fold everything, and then she puts the duvet cover back on. We both think we've got the better end of the deal. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Anarchists at the 1993 queer march on Washington. Chants: “We’re fucking anarchists, we’ll fuck whoever we want!” and “We’re here, we’re Queer, and we hate the government!” npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Errico Malatesta: "By anarchist spirit I mean that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people; which is not an exclusive characteristic only of self-declared anarchists, but inspires all people who have a generous heart and an open mind." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Thinking about this Naomi Klein quote about abuse of prisoners as an indicator of "a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project" re: Trump sending people to the notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Today's recommended reading: Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine (2007), which show how capitalists use crises to force through unpopular policies like deregulation and privatization while getting richer off of buying up more of the world "on sale" as regular people suffer. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick We should celebrate and feel emboldened when millions of people hit the streets to resist fascism, not retreat into cynicism and irrelevancy. Any mass movement will have contradictions. Make interventions from within and push your political line to people who want to take action. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Looks like someone recently uploaded my 2022 article "From the Ashes of the Old: Anarchism Reborn in a Counterrevolutionary Age (1970s-1990s)" to The Anarchist Library. It genuinely brings me great joy when people read my work and find it useful! https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/spencer-beswick-from-the-ashes-of-the-old npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Rebecca Solnit: “Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky… Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.” npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Today (Feb 22) in 1943, three courageous young people in the group White Rose were executed for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets in Germany. Sophie Scholl: "The greatest damage is caused by the silent majority that just wants to survive, submit and go along with everything." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick On violence npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick It is clear that many (most?) people view democracy as an abstraction that has little bearing on their material lives. For democracy to have any real meaning, we must build structures that enable people to make real decisions about the things that directly impact their lives. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Ursula K. Le Guin: “If it is the future you seek, then I tell you that you must come to it with empty hands. . . You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick I updated my website https://emptyhandshistory.com/ after letting it lie fallow for over a year. It's easiest way to find links to all of my publications, including the two peer reviewed journal articles and a book chapter that I published in 2024. As always, DM me for PDFs of anything! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick I'm re-reading Bookin's Post-Scarcity Anarchism and really appreciating his openness to what he calls "utopian lifestyle," which he says "is indispensable in preserving the integrity of the revolutionary." So different from his later polemics against "lifestyle anarchism"! npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick At a union picket line this morning a man walked up throwing a Nazi salute. I told him to fuck off and he immediately turned and punched me in the head hard enough to knock me to the ground. He was chased off and I'm ok, but this is what Trump's victory emboldens. Take care of each other. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Trump/Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" will lead to a cash grab for billionaires. It's been the plan all along. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick The morning after the 2016 election I remember walking around Boston and everyone was in a state of shock. Some people were crying. Many of us immediately started organizing to protect each other from the incoming administration. I don't want to be there again. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Happy birthday to Ursula K. Le Guin (Oct 21, 1929). “You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick David Graeber: "Anarchism is just the way people act when they are free to do as they choose, and when they deal with others who are equally free — and therefore aware of the responsibility to others that entails." npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick Some people dismiss protests by pointing out that many of the same protesters turn up for many causes: Palestine, climate, anti-police brutality, etc. But is it so surprising that people who want to make the world better take part in many causes fighting for peace and justice? npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick There is accepted wisdom on the left that social movements experience demobilization under Democratic presidents. The argument is that many liberals think everything is ok because there are “allies” in power. I don’t think it’s actually true though, and here's why. npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick My three favorite depictions of anarchistic societies in speculative fiction that I think everyone should read: npub17kwfgp0wphqzese3v0t0zdup0zdsfd0scq9jxwtjhkqqn7gs9rqs8lfj38 Spencer Beswick In the 1970s a growing current within the women’s liberation movement began to embrace a conscious anarchist orientation. These activists rejected the liberal turn of the mainstream wing of the movement as well as the state socialism of Marxist feminists.
