unproductive days part 2: slightly more productive

Another day off, another day spent reading and watching TV. Although as opposed to last time i was not just watching a movie, but rather the tribute to the late great (understatement) Howard Zinn.

For starters, I would like to say that I do not have a comprehensive understanding or exposure to Howard Zinn's teachings. I do own a couple of his books but they have yet to be cracked. However, I did take a class at PCC that offered a different approach to the teaching of history, and our course book was Voices of a people's history by Howard Zinn. And I did manage to read through most of a wonderful pamphlet of his called Artists in times of war, a great read that discusses the role that artists play during war-time.

Watching the tribute I was amazed at how dedicated of a following Zinn had. It took place in D.C. about a week ago, during the ongoing snow storm. There wasn't enough space in the bookstore it took place in (a really neat looking independent place in D.C. called Busboys and poets, a place I'd like to visit someday) so there were people actually standing outside in the snow and freezing weather, listening to the speakers.

These speakers included a student of his, a fellow activist, an African American girl he inspired in Georgia back in the day, and a poetry reading.

All did a wonderful job speaking, not of Zinn himself, but of Zinn's teachings and the movement, as well as the necessity to start a new movement of social change.

According to the owner of Busboys and poets, an apparent long time friends of Zinn's, he never wanted ceremonies or eulogies, but that if they did occur, he'd want them to speak of what he has done and not of him as a person. This ironically captures the spirit of the man himself, someone who if given the option, would choose the movement and social change, over self indulgence and acknowledgment.

May you rest in peace Howard Zinn, gone...but never forgotten.

After this program ended, I went outside, inspired, and picked up not Zinn, but rather a book I recently came across by the name of The great anarchists: Ideas and teachings of seven major thinkers. I read a bit of Benjamin Tucker, a thinker that I had never heard of, but am glad that I came across for his discussion on the correlation between self interest and society were a real pleasure to read. Tolstoi was another that i read a bit on, and someone I'm also glad I decided to read. He talked a lot about Christ and the fact that the church in essence Anti-Christian for taking the teachings of Christ and using it for their own benefit. I particularly loved the talk about Love as the supreme law. Love in the sense of putting others needs above your own.

But the one thing I read that struck a chord and that got me thinking, was the introduction, where in the author/editor Paul Eltzbacher talked of the problem of not having a consistent definition for Anarchism. I'm not sure if he was talking about the term itself or the different sects of Anarchism, but I took it as meaning the latter. And that is a question that has been brought up time and time again in the past in discussion of what obstacles lay between now and tomorrow. But where others may view it as a problem that we aren't united under one "party" so to speak, such as democrat, or republican, i view it as neither bad nor good, but more importantly as not a problem at all.

The way people talk about it as being a problem makes me think that, in the hypothetical situation of overthrowing the state, that we'd still be operating within the confines of the "United States border" and that we'd still be considering ourselves to be a nation. But this untrue. From what I've gathered in readings and discussions, is that in this situation we would we be divided in to collectives or communes, free to inter mingle with one another whenever we see fit. Where one commune may not operate the way we like, another might be, and we'd be able to join them without any hesitation for fear of backlash. So within the context of working anarchism, it would work. The division of anarchists into sub-sects is not at all a bad thing or a problem.

Anyway, off to dragon street with woman and homies