Murray Bookchin is no more. One of the great re-energizers of the anarchist project died early yesterday.
Bookchin was an important influence upon me and my fellow Vancouver anarchists back in the early days of our movement. Indeed, it seems hard to imagine anarchism developing there at that time without his influence. That combination of ecology, community and libertarian thought seemed just made for us. Raise a glass in honour of Murray!
For a Counterpunch story on Murray Bookchin see:
The following report from Israeli Anarchists on a second Tel-Aviv march:
The Call:
Women against the War -- A Women's Demonstration (dressed in black) Stop the War! Stop the occupation! Stop killing civilians! Negotiate now! Exchange prisoners! The march will start at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday 29 July at 18:30 and reach Maxim Square at Ben Zion Blvd.
Groups Involved:
Women against the War – Coalition of Women for Peace, Ahoti, Aswat, Bat Shalom,Women in Black, FORA, TANDI, Women against Violence, Altafula, New Profile, TheFifth Mother, WILPF, NELED, Beit Nashim Feministi, Ittihad El-Maraa El-Takdumi, Kian Feminist Organization, Women’s Council-Kufar Kar’a
The Demonstration:
In a corner of the municipal square, women and men in black from all over the
country converged. A contingent of anarchists - previously met for preparations at the anarchist bookstore Salon Mazal arrived as a block - with pink ribbons to make us more visible in a black clad mass of people. We held up our flags and banners chanted and made our noise rhythm "orchestra" in a short march across the huge square to were the people were converging.
After a while, the demonstration started with about 1,500 people chanting, holding banners and placards and flags marched along the Khen and Ben Zion boulevards.
Among the marchers the anarchist bloc was a lively part, with about 100 people
stopping from time to time (mainly in intersection) to dance and chant.
Time and again, the nervous police officers prodded us to shorten the ritual
and continue marching, but no one arrested.
After reaching the end of the route, a few women activists gave speeches
and then the demo was declared as ended.
From
http://ainfos.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Dr. Luciana Bohne is a professor of Literature and Cinema at a university in Pennsylvania. She is totally shocked by the ignorance of her students and wonders why basic knowledge of geography, history, philosophy, are “totally lacking from their studies”. One of her students claims that “she never reads” - this from someone taking a literature course. The students don't know how to write an essay, so Dr. Bohne has to teach them that. The first book on the course list is Isabelle Allende's “Love and Shadows”, for those of you unfamiliar with this novel it is set during the Pinochet coup. No one in the class knew where Chile was, so she had to photocopy information for them. No one had any idea what socialism and fascism are and she had to spend valuable time teaching them this. Not one student was familiar with Plato's “Myth of the Cave” a metaphor necessary to understand the novel. More time wasted. No one had heard of the Sept. 11 1973 Coup and were viably shocked when Dr. Bohne handed out photocopies of declassified CIA documents showing US involvement.
Dr. Bohne feels that “ serious education is impossible in the US” and the reason for that is that “knowledge is an enemy of the profit system”. The “only education allowed is that which reinforces the status quo” and the total lack of education is “planned and deliberate.” This massive ignorance, is “the reason why the mass media is so successful with its lies.” She feels that the destruction of education in the US is a form of “cultural fascism” and compares what has happened there to Pinochet's wrecking of the Chilean universities.
I have often wondered why the neocons we get in on-line discussion groups are so profoundly ignorant. Now I know why. They lack any form of basic education, and thus are patsies for the corporate state's propaganda. Guess I should stop getting angry them and see them for what they really are, pathetic victims of a cruel system.
1. Originally titled, “L’apprentissage de l’imbécilité dans la culture de l’argent “ and can be found at: http://bellaciao.org/fr/article.php3?id_article=31649
There is now a web site devoted to Vancouver Yippie!, the group that turned Vancouver upside down in the early 1970's and was also a major impetus for the anarchist movement in that city.
See:
http://vcmtalk.com/vancouver_yippie
http://gush-shalom.org/pics/telaviv-22-7-06/
Several thousand people of the coalition against the war from all over
the country converged in the municipal square, Saturday evening.
People carried flags, banners, and placards. Leaflets were distributed
including three picture placards distributed by anarchists. In
one picture is the young girls writing "addresses" on canon shells to be
soon fired; the second of a heavy cannon firing and such shells near it;
the third was of two children killed by such cannon shells. An organized
contingent of anarchists arrived with black flags, flags with the big
anarchist A, banners, and placards. After a while, there started a march
towards the Sinematec - clogging the main street. Along the march slogans
were chanted. The two hundred anarchists were very lively: chanted,
sung, danced, run from time to time, and made a lot of rhythmic noise.
At the end of the march the Sinematec square was too small for the big
crowd. During the speeches people started to disperse.
From
http://ainfos.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
(This has been edited)
