My latest commentary, To Occupy and Rise, is now online at Center for a Stateless Society.
Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can’t work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions.
For the latest updates on the Wall Street occupation and similar movements check Twitter #occupywallst.
I took some pictures during my brief stay at Liberty Plaza on September 19, which are viewable at my Google+ profile
At the second Agora I/O online un-conference, I presented a talk on the Modern School movement, an experiment in education that was heavily influenced by anarchism and implemented largely by anarchists.
As the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approached, I thought I should write something about it. But then I was hesitant to do so. What more could I say that hasn’t already been said? And if I was going to write it as a news commentary, how would I put my thoughts on the event into such a format?
As someone who was 16 when the attacks were made, I would have to say that the entire politically-involved period of my life has been colored by the post-9/11 period it took place in. Since I was too young to be aware of the Soviet collapse, I would consider September 11, 2001 the defining historical event of my lifetime.
As someone who studies history, I’d like to think about what September 11 will mean in the long run. So that’s the standpoint I took in my 9/11 commentary, which is available for reading at Center for a Stateless Society.
It’s not uncommon to hear that “everything changed” on September 11, 2001. While it is not true that policies that came after September 11 were always different from what was done before, the tragic attacks on that day did lead to major changes. As we remember the events of ten years ago, we should also reflect on how to build a better world.
It is good that people remember September 11, but thinking about September 11 is better than just remembering. As difficult as it might be to think about so many lives destroyed, people who could be neighbors, people dead because they were in the way of a murderous act of political violence, we do no service to the dead or to the living by keeping our minds away from the task.
Kain describes his reservations about anarchism and wonders “what would replace our criminal justice system in a stateless society?” As an anarchist — one who believes in maximizing individual liberty and wants no person to rule over another — I’d answer hopefully nothing…
The criminal enterprises of the state should not be replaced, but instead displaced, by cooperative alternatives. This may seem like nitpicking, but to me it emphasizes the differences between authoritarian and anarchic functions.
And since I’ve been in Disaster Mode, I naturally did a commentary called Hurricane Reality. It started with considering whether or not the news was over-hyped, and went on to exploring anarchist solutions to disaster preparedness and response.
As flooding and power outages still affect people, many are saying that Hurricane Irene was overhyped by the media. Some, like Howard Kurtz in his article A Hurricane of Hype focus on the minimal damage to New York City, as if this were a superhero movie where bad things strike Manhattan first…
There are probably already commentaries claiming that the disaster shows how important government action is. Certainly, the individuals helping stranded people can be commended by those of us who think the institutions they labor under are not optimal. But there really is no reason why government services would work better than any non-government services.
My latest commentary at Center for a Stateless Society is about the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious and the Drug War.
ATF agents watched as large quantities of weapons were brought out of a Phoenix gun store by a suspected supplier for a Mexican drug cartel. They allowed well over a thousand weapons to pass this way.
One would have to ask if this is just a noteworthy example of bureaucratic incompetence or something more sinister. I’d say it’s a toss-up between the two.
On July 17, 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out after an attempted military coup. On July 19, the people of Catalonia armed themselves against the reactionary and fascist forces and began a social revolution that would later be crushed by its numerous enemies. Murray Bookchin offers a good overview in his essay After Fifty Years: The Spanish Civil War.
My latest commentary is up at Center for a Stateless Society.
When South Sudan became independent, it separated from a genocidal, repressive Sudanese government. But not all is to be celebrated. Political independence is only as valuable as the individual liberty it promotes.
In a class I took for my master’s degree in history at the City College of New York, students were assigned to complete a digital history project. I chose to do a project on the Modern School movement in America, using a WordPress platform. The class is finished, but I can always make changes to the site. Suggestions are welcome.
Unless noted otherwise, all opinions expressed on darianworden.com are solely mine and do not represent the views of any other individual or organization. Comments are the responsibility solely of their authors.
