No Anarchist Bookfair for Me

I was really excited for this one, especially since, by travelling with the Student Insurgent, it would basically be an all expenses paid trip to San Fran. But the UO Student Senate rejected our request for funding for the trip. So, unless something crazy happens, no bookfair for me. I went last year with my family and Natty, which was awesome, but I feel like I have a greater sense of the sort of books I want to look for this time. Letdown. I guess my quest for Camatte will just continue indefinitely.

Direct Action Panel

Wow...uh...this panel was a tad embarassing for me. It featured four speakers, including former ELF spokesperson Craig Rosebraugh, and it was mostly just inflamed rhetoric. Especially what came out of Craig's mouth. I'll start with him. He basically extolled the idea of a self-sacrificing militant, saying that if one has priveledge within this system, they must renounce it and take any risks necessary to make change. He attempted to reject morality by saying we shouldn't be opposed to violence in some situations, which I agree with. But he in fact didn't reject morality, he turned it around on itself and merely created an anti-morality; his argument was that we have an imperative to do what's right, and that means having no regards for self. We have a moral imperative to be self-sacrifical for the greater good, is his view. He doesn't seem to even recognize the need to transcend this gloomy view. (He also had an emotional, inflammatory style, which I will refrain from making fun of.)

The other speakers were milder, and also had some good things to say, though really basic. Elaine Close, a lady concerned with animal rights issues, talked about how reformist solutions cannot help her cause one bit, and therefore all of her group's actions need to be direct, from making their own media (on indymedia) to actually confronting and stopping animal testing. Stu Sugerman, a lawyer who defends radical activists (and is currently defending Craig Rosebraugh,) talked a little about how the law is not meant to be fair, and had some good personal anecdotes. He's a funny guy. And last, Kim Marks from Cascadia Forrest Defense gave her emotional plea to confront logging and support political prisoners. She was filled with lots of rhetoric as well, but was light-hearted and humorous, too, which made up for it. The questions during Q&A all sucked, then I left.

On the way out of the Law school I stopped at the Green Anarchy table to see if Zerzan had brought some Camatte like he said. He wasn't there, and the lady behind the table said they still didn't have anything by the guy. But she also told me that they will have some stuff by him at their table during the Anarchist Bookfair in San Fran, which I will be going to. Will the Quest For Camatte finally end? We'll see in a couple of weeks...

P.S. The GA folk I have talked to, despite popular belief, are not complete assholes. They all seemed very friendly and open to me. But, of course, I only have brief, superficial experience with them. (Just thought I'd throw that out there.)

Yes!

Just talked to Johnny Zerzan about procurring some Camatte. He said he has the "On Organization" pamphlet and will bring it for me tomorrow. Score. He also said he gave a copy of the autonomedia book "This World We Must Leave" to the UO library, but the database (believe me, I've checked) says otherwise. ?

Environmental Law Conference

The annual E-LAW conference at the UO is here again. Of course, I just searched out the Green Anarchy table in the law school building (where all the action is centered) in hopes of finding me something by Camatte, but no dice. The dreadlocked primitivists only have shiny new copies of Derrick Jensen books that I could buy at any old corporate bookstore. Disappointing. At least there is always the Anarchist Bookfair in Frisco (which I will be attending again shortly.) I should tell yall about the panel discussions I've gone to, so far...

Yesterday I went to a presentation entitled "The Politics of Peak Oil." The massive audience of 10-15 people included Jan Lundberg, who was in town this week to give his own talk on peak oil (and actually drew a crowd.) I soon found out why the room was basically empty- all three of the presenters were abysmal. The first guy, whose stereotypical hippie-ness gave Paul "the munchies," was from the Eugene Permaculture Guild and obviously hadn't given a public presentation in his life. He made some good points connecting peak oil to the problems of global capital, but was otherwise incoherent.

The second guy, Mark Robinowitz, who you might have actually heard of before, is a conspiracy theorist nut. It was refreshing to hear someone speak in complete sentances after the first person's ramble, but, nonetheless, his trash about 9-11 being planned by George Bush to justify warfare was ludicrous and disturbing. Even if the idea had any credibility, which it doesn't, speculation about conspiracies detracts from the necessary systemic analysis we need to connect the dots between the expansion of capital and environmental problems. Even if we have a few bad apples at the top of the system, the point stands that the entire tree is rotten.

The third guy, who wasn't a guy, and therefore shall be referred to as "she," was a joke as well. She wished to address the emotional problems of peak oil. She didn't say anything other than commanding us audience members to find someone else in the crowd to talk about our feelings and cry with. She said one person should go first, and has 2.5 minutes to talk/cry, and the other person listens, then we must switch roles. Paul and I just looked at each other and burst out laughing. Essentially, the lady's message was "if you cry hard enough you'll feel better, and then you'll be able to passively take what's comin.'" Fucking new age bullshit.

This monstrosity happened yesterday. Today, which is known as friday, I went to a panel on eco-feminism. The first speaker was interactive. She read ideas relating to eco-feminism and had the attendees move along a spectrum set up in the room with locations for "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." After she had read the idea and the room had positioned itself, we all had the opportunity to explain why we thought what we thought. On the first two ideas, I was in agreement with the majority of the people; I strongly agree with the statement that environmental degradation is connected to systems of domination, and I strongly disagree with the statement that women are closer to nature than men, whatever the hell that means. But on the third and last statement, I found myself alone (actually, with one other) in the "strongly disagree" group. The statement was "environmentalists should also be feminists." Really, the big deal I have with this idea is the "should" part; it is a little too moralistic for me. Also, there are many strains of feminist and environmentalist thought that I don't like, and as far as identity politics go, I probably wouldn't even use either of these words to describe myself....but I digress.

Hey, speaking of identity politics, one of the speakers after this interactive discussion was pretty hilarious in this respect. He was a grad student (in the UO anti-capitalist facebook group, I might add,) and he introduced himself as an anarchist, even before saying his name. I'm thinking, "that's cool." And he gave a good talk about abolishing domination in every aspect of everyday life, which was great. The thing that was hilarious was that everytime he'd answer a question, he would begin "As an anarchist..." Funny stuff. We get the point, you're an anarchist and need others to identify you as such. Okay, okay. We get it.

But seriously, overall, the ecofeminist panel was all over the place, but I am still glad I went. Unlike the peak oil panel, I got something out of this one. Now I just need to go to the panel on direct action on sunday and I'll be happy. Craig Rosebraugh, former ELF spokesperon and such, will be a speaker, and the event has already been billed as "controversial." So I'm down. Expect a post on the direct action panel sunday...