Ansible Forum: An Anarchist Short Fiction and Essay Collection- Omelas, Fifty Years On

Photo by Bob Price

What happens to the child?

Who does the child represent?

What are the limits and opportunities the allegory offers us?

Where did they go, the ones who left Omelas?

After a half-century, what is life in Omelas like for those who stay? And for those who left?

What does it mean to walk away? What should it mean? How has walking away been read and misread, and how could we re-imagine it?

Does anyone go back and save the child?

Why is the alternative to Omelas possibly harder to imagine than Omelas itself?

Invitation for new short works of creative anarchist fiction: It has been fifty years since Ursula K. Le Guin took us to Omelas with her 1973 short story about the ambiguous utopia and the child who suffers greatly for the pleasures of the many. In the decades since publishing “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” the essay has inspired countless discussions, classroom lessons, arguments, and Le Guin’s own work to expand the Hainish Cycle series of novels and short stories. We invite anarchist themed creative fiction and short essays that carry our imaginations through the many different questions and worlds that Omelas provokes and inspires, whether or not the work references Omelas and Le Guin directly or indirectly. We especially encourage submissions that lead to intersectional anarchist approaches and work by writers who make the insights and experiences of underrepresented identities accessible to a broad audience.

Pull at any thread, re-think canonical readings of the story, ditch the usual interpretations, offer a new path through the literary forest Le Guin planted, and tell a story that opens new ways of reflecting on Omelas. Of special interest are works of creative fantasy and science fiction that expand on and critique Le Guin’s original story, and reflective essays that spark a greater understanding of the questions Omelas raises. We also encourage work that gives readers a perspective on fictional and real-world examples of those who meet Le Guin’s challenge to “walk away” using creative strategies others might also adopt. Stories and essays that speak from and to the lives and experiences of systematically marginalized communities are strongly encouraged. Co-authored submissions welcome. 

Review and Circulation: Reviewers will select a final group of ~12 submissions to be be highlighted on The Anarres Project website, one per month throughout 2023. Authors of selected entries will be asked to provide an audio reading of their entry. Our intent is to publish submissions on the website in both print and audio format under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons license. If you are concerned about the Creative Commons license and/or if you have any questions about the Ansible Forum please contact: Christian Matheis at matheiscg@guilford.edu 

Submission Guidelines:

  • Written Length: approximately 3,000 words
  • Style: MLA preferred
  • Cover Page: at the beginning of your entry please include a cover page with the title of the entry and the following information for each author: author name(s), email address(es), bio(s) of 200 words or less, for each author
  • All submissions due by Friday, January 27, 2023
  • Upload your submission here: https://bit.ly/3TLvM3h 

Note: the submission form requires a Google/Gmail login. If you do not have a Google account please email your entry to Christian Matheis at matheiscg@guilford.edu 

The Word for World is Forest Symposium Program

Here is the program for the “The Word for World for Forest” Symposium on October 14, 2022 starting at 9am (Pacific Time).

Keynote Speaker:  Christian Matheis, Guilford College, 9am (Pacific Time)

“Devious as Nerves:  Teaching the Fine Balance of Reason and Dream”

Presenters:

10am (Pacific Time)

Sheryl Medlicott, Just Utopias, Bristol Utopian Book Collective

“The Word for World is Forest as Ecofeminist and Utopian Text”

Christopher Loughlin, Manchester University

“What You Fail to See: Exploring Visibility and the Politics of Solidarity Through Le Guin”

11 am (Pacific Time)

Ben Nadler, Hostos Community College, CUNY

“Dreaming as a Radical Act”

Sean MacCracken, Program Coordinator, CIIS Anthropology and Social Change Program

“Fake News by the Ansible: Dream and Delusion in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest”

The Symposium is free and open to the public. To recieve login information to attend the Symposium via Zoom, please fill out the registration below:

CFP: The Word for World is Forest Symposium, October 2022.

(Photo Credit: Maksim Isotomin, Unsplash)

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of Ursula K. Le Guin’s anti-war novella The Word for World is Forest.

Written during the Vietnam conflict, The Word for World is Forest depicts a distant world invaded by human beings who are desperate for natural resources. It tells the tale of an alien culture that resists the invasion, but is forever changed by the decision.

The Anarres Project for Alternative Futures calls for abstracts for a multidisciplinary virtual symposium that aims to bring together activists, organizers, and scholars to consider the ways in which Le Guin’s tale can help us to diagnose social injustices in the present moment, and to imagine the ways we can catalyze solidarities to achieve more just futures.

Rather than strictly academic discussions or literary critiques, we are looking for presentations that take Le Guin’s novella as a basis for understanding themes such as oppression, patriarchy and toxic masculinity, racial justice, resistance, colonialism/imperialism, nonviolence and armed struggle, environmental justice, intersectional solidarity in the world today.  We are especially interested in how the tale might help us develop strategies for mutual aid and community organizing against injustice today.

The symposium will be held on-line over Zoom on Friday, October 14, 2022.

Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words by midnight (Pacific Time) Friday, September 9, 2022 using the submission form below.

What was the best sci-fi of 2021?

By Joseph Orosco (December 29, 2021)

The TrekWars@OSU collective (Dr. Randall Milstein, Dr. Joseph Orosco, and Dr. Jason Scully) gathered together again to discuss the best science fictions stories of 2021.  We chose to talk about those sci-fi narratives that most impacted us in some way, either by engaging in innovative storytelling or by engaging us in thinking about future possibilities in new ways.

Our choices for best science fiction for 2021 were:

Randy Milstein:  The Nevers, Season 1

Joseph Orosco:  The Expanse, Season 6 and Doja Cat, Planet Her

Jason Scully:  DC Legends of Tomorrow

We all agreed that the science fiction product that most underwhelmed us was :  Dune 2021.

Along the way, we noticed that the theme of rendering care to young people was a growing theme in a lot of science fiction stories this year.  We also discussed whether science fiction in the last thirty years has been hemmed in by a cyber punk aesthetic (blended with a neoliberal capitalist reality) that makes it very difficult to imagine, in Jason Scully’s words, a future of “exuberance”.

Let us know what you think.  Did we miss something you think helps us grow a radical imagination (quite frankly–there was a lot)?  (You can also watch our Best of Sci-Fi 2020 here.)

What Does Hispanic Heritage Month Mean to Me?

By Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval (October 6, 2021)

Hispanic Heritage Month initially came into being in 1968 during the height of social unrest in the United States and around the world. 1968 was year that Chicanx high school students in East LA walked out of their classes to demand what we would call Chicana/o Studies today and that same year, more than five hundred people were killed in Mexico City who were pushing for democratic change in Mexico. 1968 was also the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the year that Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy were assassinated, and the year so many other things happened.

Hispanic Heritage Month starts on September 15, the day that many countries in Latin America became independent from Spain. However, while one form of imperialism ended, a new form of imperialism soon emerged, with the United States becoming a new imperial power in the region. The U.S. intervened regularly in Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and many other countries, toppling democratic governments for decades. Our role in these countries generated tremendous instability, prompting many to flee here where they once again mistreated. Despite systemic racism and widespread discrimination, “Hispanic” peoples, who are often Indigenous and Afro-Latinx, have organized, fought back, and demanded change. Those people–along with so many more, including my grand-grandparents, who left Mexico during the Revolution in the early 20th Century–have transformed the United States–they often sacrificed their lives so their children could have a better life. Those dreams have been elusive for many, but change has occurred and it continues, as Latinx people continue to demand dignity and respect in all social institutions.

How can people continue to listen to and amplify and honor Chicanx/Latinx and Hispanic voices?

Latinx voices are still marginalized in our popular culture–on television and in Hollywood. Despite some advances, most newsrooms, television shows, and films do not highlight Latinx voices and actors. Moreover, the publishing industry still does not publish enough books by Latinx authors, despite the fact that amazing writers such as Cherrie Moraga, Reyna Grande, Sandra Cisneros, Roberto Lovato and many others continue to release tremendous books that raise consciousness and awareness about the broader Latinx community.

One must therefore be diligent and seek these authors, writers, and actors out–they are doing amazing work, sometimes on platforms such as Hulu, Netflix, and other outlets, but they are out there. Once you find them, you can “spread the word,” as we used to say.

Professors like myself can include new and older Latinx authors in their class syllabi. We can also focus on iconic Chicana artists such as Yolanda Lopez who recently passed away and was most well-known for her work on decolonizing la Virgen de Guadalupe.

Chicanx/Latinx voices do exist, but sometimes one must search hard to find them–and so once we do, we must talk about them with our students, family members, friends, and even strangers.

Who are some Hispanic/Latinx leaders that I admire?

I will mention two here. I have always been inspired by Salvadoran Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero. Romero became the leader of the Catholic Church in El Salvador in the late 1970s, just as the country was slipping into a violent, decade-long civil war. Monsenor Romero was installed as Archbishop because was a safe, apolitical choice; he was somebody who would not “rock the boat” or cause any waves. However, shortly after he became Archbishop, one of his closest friends was assassinated by a death squad who had ties to the military government and he started to speak out against repression and torture. Soon people were threatening to kill him, but Monsenor Romero said, “If I die, I will again in the Salvadoran people.” And he did–after he was assassinated in March 1980, his spirit moved people to seek out change in El Salvador and all around the world.

The second Latinx person who inspires me is Luisa Moreno. Moreno was a Guatemalan-born woman who was raised in an affluent family. She was also very light-skinned but had a transformation of sorts. She moved to Mexico City in the 1920s and then to New York City during the Depression in the 1930s. She became politicized and joined radical political organizations and labor unions. She once said, “One person cannot do anything; it’s only with others that things can be accomplished.” Moreno went on became very active in civil rights issues in Los Angeles, but the government targeted her as part of the Red Scare in the late 1940s and she was forced out of the country.

Moreno, along with other Chicana/Latina women, such as Lucy Parsons, Emma Tenayuca, Francisca Flores, Dolores Huerta, Antonia Fernandez, Magadalena Mora, Sylvia Rivera, and so many more inspire me as many of them struggled against all forms of injustice, namely, capitalism, racism, heterosexism, sexism, and imperialism.

Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval is Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara.

This is America: 2021 Edition

Vancouver does not have an active antifascist black block to oppose the white suprematist using mask mandates as an excuse to terrorize students and leaders of local schools. There are no giant national attention grabbing optics like there are across the river. They will go to Portland for a good brawl and then travel across a bridge to BBQ, drink, and harass locals daily. We LIVE with these people. We teach their children. They feel no need to hide who they are and what they are not only willing to do, but hoping to do.

By Amberlynn Montgomery (September 13, 2021)

Twice last week, Proud Boys gathered to harass kids for wearing masks on their first week of school. Many students reported being called all kinds of slurs and other names. Proud Boys and their supporters chanted USA and displayed white power symbols. A high school, a middle school, and an elementary school all went into lockdown as these adults attempted to enter the buildings. In order to curb the disruption to student learning, a Clark County judge issued an injunction at the district’s request to ban protest actions within a mile of any school district properties.

Proud Boys and other adults who don’t even have students attending the school planned to be there Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday on the second week of school. The injunction was impactful in that they did not show up (as far as I know) Wednesday or Thursday. (Although on Thursday, I read a few reports and saw videos of anti-maskers returning to their old target harassing local grocery stores. It came to fists at Target. I don’t 100% know if it is the same people who would have been at Skyview High school, but they are sending the same message.)

They DID plan to still protest at Skyview that second Friday despite the injunction, gathering just before the end of the school day so they can harass kids as they leave for the weekend. Of COURSE they see the injunction as illegally curtailing freedom of speech… especially as their interpretation of mask mandates are also that such mandates are illegal suppression.

That’s all pretty straight forward.

Here’s where things get complicated:

The local sheriff has publicly declared that the new state laws limiting police use of force (due to excessive force including deaths that protesters rallied against through most of 2020) means they can’t really do their job. They sent a letter stating this to everyone in the county, claiming that because of the law, they can’t respond to calls and can only respond to anything AFTER much violence has occurred.

It is clear that the sheriff’s interpretation is a political move. When the state took an inch the sheriff’s department declared they took a mile in order to turn support back in their direction. By declaring “the state won’t let us do anything” they can deflect anger and consequences for their actions and convince people that the use of force laws need to be repealed.

So, despite many people calling ahead of time declaring their fear for the safety of their children, the sheriff’s department responded by saying there’s nothing they can do. They are claiming they cannot enforce anything. As a result known violent offenders headed on over to the high school.

Vancouver does not have an active antifascist black block to oppose the white suprematist using mask mandates as an excuse to terrorize students and leaders of local schools. There are no giant national attention grabbing optics like there are across the river. They will go to Portland for a good brawl and then travel across a bridge to BBQ, drink, and harass locals daily. We LIVE with these people. We teach their children. They feel no need to hide who they are and what they are not only willing to do, but hoping to do.

Proud boys have openly threatened school board members in many of the local districts. Other groups with other names with innocent sounding names like Washougal Moms, function as the public organizing force behind much of the harassment and claim they are victimized by the district. An armed militia patrolled the beaches this week. I have no idea if this is related or how often it happens.

A curious person asked and was told they were ensuring no homeless encampment show up there. Visible houseless communities have ballooned in our town over the past year. Portland has criminalized and frequently harassed their houseless community so much that many have moved here. The cost of housing has skyrocketed. COVID has sent many more people out of jobs.

Every local office has at least one candidate that has extreme ideology.

COVID cases have been higher than they have for the entire pandemic these past few weeks and not a single person I know who was against vaccines before has been swayed to change their minds.

This is my beautiful city that I love. There is also so much good here. But this sad report, I fear, could be written about any city anywhere.

This is America.

Afghanistan-Vietnam-USA, 2021

By Tom Motko (August 23, 2021)

It’s been days of listening to pundits and politicians wringing their hands and doling out blame over the “loss” of Afghanistan to the corrupt Afghan elites we don’t like from the corrupt Afghan elites we do like.

George W. Bush lied to the American people in 2003 that the Taliban was defeated and the mission “accomplished”. He then proceeded to broaden the mission and suck our country into the same morass through which the Russians had waded from 1979-89 until defeated by the mujahideen. The Afghan mujahideen became the Taliban. That broadened mission and disastrous policy went on, in a largely bipartisan manner, through multiple US administrations. And, of course, memory being short, Donald Trump ordered withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan by May, something his fascist colleagues now want to erase from history for their own political ends.

I remember the understandably great anger and angst that spread across the US in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the need to do something, to strike back, to find and kill whomever the enemy was. That mass shock gave Bush enough political space to invade a country without immediate mass resistance at home. However, driven out of Afghanistan by December, 2001, the people who’d orchestrated and authorized the 9/11 attacks were no longer there. We were.

The politics of the moment demanded “we” “do something”. There was the Taliban who had supported and sheltered Al Qaeda. Their excesses against the people of Afghanistan in order to keep their own tiny, elite class of males in power, made great propaganda in the West because it was true. Propaganda works best when it’s based on truth (or, at least, truisms and stereotypes). The Bush Administration connected with the so-called Northern Alliance, armed them, and launched a war against the Taliban. The Northern Alliance already had been resisting the Taliban for some years and controlled part of the country. Made up largely of minority ethnicities and some Pashtuns, oppressed and dominated by the Taliban, who were mainly of the dominant Pashtun ethnicity, the country’s largest group. In fairly short order, the Taliban was out and the Northern Alliance was in.

While repeatedly denying that the US was “nation building” there, the Bush administration proceeded to build a new nation out of the old Afghanistan. The idea, you see, was nothing new: We would simply impose an Afghan-adapted model of Western democracy and soon everyone would be dancing through the poppy fields in liberated ecstasy. We would keep the new regime in place by superior force of arms while training an army composed of newborn Afghan egalitarians. This would solidify the hold on power by a non-Taliban ruling elite who owed some allegiance to US regional interests. That didn’t mean the Taliban went away. It simply meant a long war of attrition was about to begin. This phase of that war of attrition is ending now.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here thinking of the apparently unlearned lessons of our previous longest war in Viet Nam. For example, we unlearned that an almost certain way of making a people overcome otherwise profound sectarian differences is to INVADE THEIR COUNTRY.

Not only by its ill-advised invasion of Afghanistan but by remaining there after neutralizing the threat from Al Qaeda, the US ceded the propaganda war to the Taliban, allowing them to claim to be “freedom fighters” against invading foreigners and to convince many Afghans that the new leadership were merely corrupt puppets of the United States. That the new Afghan government held power in concert with foreign invaders further solidified the Taliban’s reach among the people just as the mujahideen had done during the Soviet invasion. It doesn’t even matter whether or not the new leaders actually are puppets. This whole scenario has been played out before albeit with a different cast and a different setting.

The late (2013) General Võ Nguyên Giáp, who defeated the French colonists and won the United States’ war against the Vietnamese people (while losing nearly every battle), viewed by many as one of the great military strategists of the 20th century, wrote the script. I read his user’s manual “People’s War, People’s Army” while still in high school and I’m sure it’s been on the reading list for the National War College for decades. The bottom line is that a foreign invader may conquer a country or a people by force of arms but ultimately cannot defeat an insurgent army that is rooted among the people. Between those Afghans who hated the foreign invaders for religious or political reasons and those who were frightened by the consequences for folks cast as “traitors” by the insurgents, the outcome of our inane, wasteful twenty-year war was almost predetermined. The only matter left unresolved was how long it might take.

There are many reasons why armed forces of 300,000 trained by the US for nearly twenty years, armed with modern weaponry and backed by modern air support, laid down their weapons, cringed, crawled, and scurried away before the advance of an insurgent force apparently less than a third of its size. The almost complete lack of resistance by the Afghan army suggests that the Afghan forces were heavily infiltrated and that many Afghan soldiers do not view the Taliban as their enemy but as their liberators. Again, Viet Nam comes to mind. Based on my own experience, I believe it’s more than likely that US military intelligence knew a significant number of Afghan security forces were loyal to the Taliban. Additionally, it’s almost certain that there were and have been underground Taliban sleeper cells in every village of any size and in many neighborhoods of the large cities. Those cells simply went about their usual daily lives as they fed intelligence to the fighters and waited to take over the functions of the local authorities when given the word. Based on reports as the Taliban sweep through the land, that’s exactly the case. It’s likely there has been a shadow government that never left the country networked throughout the provinces of Afghanistan.

Already, the discussion has turned to “who lost Afghanistan”. We can only answer that it’s impossible to lose what one did not have in the first place. The question should be, “What were we doing there to begin with?” It was a good thing that conditions were bettered for women and non-Pashtun minorities, at least in the cities, once the Taliban were overcome. But the Taliban had been in power for years and nary a word was said about those things by the US government or the mainstream press, other than the occasional, obligatory, half-hearted “human rights” statement. No. The invasion was more about US domestic political purposes than it was about the liberation of Afghan women or defeating Sharia Law (which never ceased having effect in occupied Afghanistan). The military contractors and the corporate profiteers will lie to you from their thrones of lucre piled high above the bottom line. The government will invoke 9/11 to trigger predictable responses in the people. The war was never really about Afghanistan at all.

Twenty years is a long time for a war to go on, especially a war that was based on spurious motives in the first place. Twenty years is a long time for an invading force to stay in a foreign land. Mistakes and crimes and excesses are bound to happen, discipline is bound to deteriorate, and when these things inevitably occur, resentment, anger, and resistance are likely to grow among the invaded people notwithstanding their other inclinations. Virtually every “mistake” by invading forces creates new resistance fighters. If the Afghan people have accepted the Taliban with little if any resistance, we have to ask ourselves if our government has had the slightest inkling of what’s been going on during the twenty years we thought we were running the place.

The original invasion of Afghanistan was an ill-conceived policy decision. What made it exponentially worse was maintaining various forms of the same policy over so many years by administrations of both major US political parties. This untenable policy engendered by the ruling elites of the US has jeopardized all of us and has accomplished… Well, current events show what’s been accomplished. It’s long past time to come home. The United States is not “the cops of the world” regardless of how much some interests would like that to be the case.

Besides, we apparently have our own Taliban to deal with right here in the good ol’ USA.

The AfroFuturism of the Fifth Dimension: Freedom Dreams in the Age of Aquarius

By Joseph Orosco (July 28, 2021)

I was listening to the interview with Questlove on NPR the other day.  He was talking about the new documentary he produced (Summer of Soul) on the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969 and discussing the performance of the group, The Fifth Dimension.  The Fifth Dimension, for me, is always connected with the songs from the musical, Hair, namely “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” so I always associated them with images of the largely white, hippie, Woodstock generation.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who made this association.  In the film, lead singer Marilyn McCoo talks about how important it was for them to perform at the festival:

“MARILYN MCCOO: We were constantly being attacked because…

BILLY DAVIS JR: Yeah.

MCCOO: …We weren’t, quote, unquote, “Black enough.”

CORNISH: Marilyn McCoo, a member of The 5th Dimension – she teared up while watching footage of their performance.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, “SUMMER OF SOUL”)

MCCOO: Sometimes we were called the Black group with the white sound. We didn’t like that. That was one of the reasons why performing in Harlem was so important to us – because we wanted our people to know what we were about.”

 

Hearing this made me go back to listen to the songs again and to see if I could find any videos of them from the era.  And what popped out at me was that The Fifth Dimension can definitely be thought of  Afrofuturist in 1969, and those songs from ‘Hair” as being infused as messages from what Robin D.G. Kelley calls the Black Radical Imagination.

In terms of the Afrofuturist aesthetic, check the the original video for “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”:

 

Nigerian writer Munachi Ogsebu calls this video a “major moment” in Afrofuturism!

I’ve also been reading Kelley’s “Freedom Dreams” (2002) and came across this important passage:

“Progessive social movements do not simply produce statistics and narratives of oppression; rather, the best ones do what great poetry always does; transport us to another place, compel us to relive horrors and, more importantly, enable us to imagine a new society.”

Kelley thinks music is an important component of social movements because they give life to this poetic/radical imagination:

“When movements have been unable to clear the clouds, it has been the poets–no matter the medium–who have succeeded in imagining the color of the sky, in rendering the kinds of dreams and futures social movements are capable of producing.  Knowing the color of the sky is far more important than counting clouds.  Or to put it another way, the most radical art is not protest art but works that take us to another place, envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling.”

With all of this in the background, I have started to hear “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” in a new way, as part of the tradition of those freedom dreams from the Black Freedom Movement:  spirituals, blues, jazz, and soul.  Especially when you look at the lyrics, these songs are definitely in that utopian tradition of imagining a different world in order to provide hope and soothe pain in the struggles of the present.

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius
Aquarius
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in
Oh, let it shine, c’mon
Now everybody just sing along
Let the sun shine in
Open up your heart and let it shine on in
When you are lonely, let it shine on
Got to open up your heart and let it shine on in
And when you feel like you’ve been mistreated
And your friends turn away
Just open your heart, and shine it on in

Dance as a Revolutionary Tool in the Struggle for Climate Justice

By Joseph Orosco (July 16, 2021)

In this episode of our podcast, Conversations on Anarres, we sat down with dancer and filmmaker Shane Scopatz to talk about his new work “Steps and Strikes”. Shane is a recent graduate of the Master’s Program in Environmental Humanities at Oregon State University. His film hopes to address the provocative question: Why did the environmental movement fail to protect us from ecological crisis?

 We sat down with Shane to discuss his answer to this question We talk about the way in which global capitalism has dispossessed billions of people and created the conditions for climate catastrophe.  But we also talk about the ways in which people resist–using the labor movement to build organized people power against corporate control of the environment. The big issue today is: How do we bridge the labor movement and the environmental movement?

An answer to this involves the way Shane has chosen to resist:  that involves dance.  Invoking the legacy of a radical dance movement from the 1930s, the Worker’s Dance League, Shane has decided to explore how dance can be a way to expand the radical imagination and get us to think about the ways to build connection between social movements.  Art in general, but dance in particular can help to develop emotions like joy and ecstasy and sustain a guiding vision toward a more collective, just, ecologically attuned future.

If you haven’t heard of the Worker’s Dance league, you can start here.

This article gives some background, with video snippets, of the work of Sophie Maslow who carried on the legacy of the WDL, using dance to tell the story of working class Americans.

You can see Shane Scopatz’s film “Steps and Strikes” here.

Here is our full interview, with snippets from “Steps and Strikes”

Here is our podcast to listen and download.

Please let us know what you think!

The People’s Library of ABQ

By Joseph Orosco (July 7, 2021)

During the Occpy Wall Street, groups of activists organized a spaced called the people’s library.  Thousands of books and magazine were organized to be available for free to whomever wanted to come to the encampment and find literature and radical scholarship that could help them make sense of Occupy or the issues behind the movement. The People’s Liberary inspired dozens of other projects in across the country where local activists tried to make books and other media available as part of collctive liberation efforts When the encampment in Zucotti park was finally demolished by the police, most of those books were confiscated and ended up in the landfill.

 

We recently sat down to talk to someone who is working in Albuquerque New Mexico to build a project with similar goals and aspirations.  Fiadh is an activist who has created the The People’s Library of ABQ.  She has been an anarchist organizer in many different spaces for a while now, but within the last year decided to create a lending library of radical books and zines.  The People’s Library ABQ describes itself as “a community project of leftist theory anarchist history and radial education.  We have books about queer, feminist, antiracist theory, indigenous resistance, transformative justice, philosophy and revolutionary thought”

 

We sat down with Fiah to discuss her inspirations for the project and to learn how it works, and how she would like it to grow in order to offer works that inspire the radical imagination to a broader audience.

You can watch the full interview at our YouTube channel:

 

Or listen to the audio podcast on Anchor.fm:

The People’s Library of ABQ’s collection of books, e-books, and zines can be browsed here: https://radicalbooksabq.libib.com/

For more information about the project and how to support it, contact: thepeopleslibraryabq@gmail.com