Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance - Home

Virginians oppose war with Iran

2008-07-15T14:24:00Z

From the RPEC mailing list:

Rally for Peace: End the Occupation of Iraq, Say No to War Against Iran
The Church of the Brethren Witness/Washington Office (BWWO) will be leading a public rally for nonviolence at the 2008 Richmond Annual Conference in Richmond, VA, July 15. The Tuesday afternoon event will call for an end to the violence of all current wars and focus on the need for direct conversation and mediation with Iran.
The event will begin at the 5th Street entrance to the Richmond Coliseum at 4:40 p.m. with a march up 5th to Broad Street, then east on Broad to City Hall between 9th and 10th streets, where there will be a rally. The event will conclude by 6 p.m. Organizers invite Brethren and Richmond area peacemakers to join in this time of witness for peace.
In organizing this event Phil Jones, director of the BWWO, hopes Brethren can "once again give faithful witness to who we are as a peace church and work in faithful partnership with area peacemakers toward the common goal of justice and equality, something that can never be achieved through the violence of war."
The rally was arranged with help from Adria Scharf of the Richmond Peace Education Center and Phil Wilayto of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality.

Even though it's short notice, I'm going to try to make this action; let me know if you're going!

Also, the Defenders are planning another antiwar action:

The protest will start at noon on Saturday, Aug. 2, outside Gate 5 of the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, corner of Shore Drive and Independence Blvd. in Virginia Beach. The demands are "No War on Iran - U.S. Out of Iraq - Money for Human Needs, not War!" The protest is being called by the Hampton Roads Peace & Justice Coalition and Norfolk-area members of Veterans for Peace. For more information, contact the Hampton Roads Peace & Justice Coalition at (757) 470-9797. This protest will be one of more than 50 around the country being held in response to a call by StopWarOnIran.org, which is affiliated with the Troops Out Now Coalition.

And more actions in the central Virginia region:

In addition, United for Peace & Justice is also calling for protests against an attack on Iran, to take place on Saturday, July 19. We are also calling for support for these actions (there will be one in Charlottesville, at least), but we thought one week was too soon to get something together here in Richmond. Instead, RVA4Peace will initiate a call for a Richmond protest outside the offices of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which has been running increasingly incendiary stories and headlines about what it it projecting as a near certain war with (not on) Iran. That protest will take place at 1 p.m., Saturday, July 26, 300 E. Franklin St., downtown Richmond. We will project that effort in solidarity with both the UFPJ and StopWarOnIran.org actions, and will use it to try and build momentum for the Aug. 2 protest.

Libertarians are crucial allies in the antiwar movement and the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance heartily endorses these actions. It's not enough to make principled, logical, abstract arguments against war - it's time to put our bodies on the line. By standing in solidarity with our friends on the left, we help build the kind of coalition that can change things in this country. Do your part to help bridge the libertarian / left gap and show that war is a priority for the radical libertarian movement in Richmond!

Anti-Iran War Action

2008-07-11T18:00:00Z

Via the Defenders of Freedom, Justice, and Equality's Phil Wilayto:

It's looking increasingly like the U.S. or Israel will attack Iran this summer, then hope for a response from Iran, and then, in Hillary Clinton's words, attack again to "obliterate" the country.
The Defenders will be hosting an emergency meeting tomorrow morning to plan Richmond-area participation in a very important protest to take place Aug. 2 in Norfolk to oppose any attack on Iran. Norfolk naval forces would be heavily involved in any attack on Iran. All progressive-minded folk are welcome.
The meeting will take place Saturday, June 12, 10:30 a.m., in the Fellowship Hall (basement) of Asbury United Methodist Church, 324 N. 29th St. (corner of 29th and East Marshall streets) in Richmond's Church Hill area. Please enter through the parking lot in the back of the church.

Please contact Phil Wilayto (philwilayto at-sign earth link period net) to RSVP.

A Radical Week in History and in Richmond

2008-07-01T10:56:00Z

This independence day week is jam-packed with opportunities for anti-authoritarian fellowship and activism:

The Patrick Henry Supper Club meets tonight at Eastern Buffet (7586 W. Broad St.) for it's monthly event. Come for dinner at 6pm or for the main event at 7pm. Not sure who the speaker is, but it's a great chance to reach out to the libertarian community in the central Virginia area. I'll be distributing literature on left libertarianism in general and the alliance in particular.
On Thursday, the Defenders of Freedom, Justice, and Equality will be presenting a program entitled "Iran: Stopping the next war before it starts". Tying the impeding aggression by this administration with the 20th anniversary of the day a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft in the Persian Gulf, the program includes a showing of a documentary on the 2003 earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam.
Finally, on Friday morning, <s>King</s> President George Bush will be speaking at Monticello. It is an outrage to have a war criminal and tyrant speaking at the home of one of the greatest defenders of human liberty and dignity in our history. Come out to protest around 8:30 AM - dress like Republicans, but protest peacefully (that is, decidedly not like Republicans). Bring your signs and banners. Contact the Richmond Peace Education Center for more information and for logistics help.

If you're going to any of these events, let us know!

Decision Making in the Shell of the Old Society

2008-06-30T11:52:00Z

On Thursday I attended the talk of a Norwegian anarchist, Kim Keyser, who explored the topic of decision making structures within anarchist organizations. Entitled “The Prefigurative Organization”, Keyser did an admirable job of presenting a number of outside-the-box ideas by which anarchists could realize a powerful yet directly democratic movement. About ten Richmonders attended, including Brady and I from the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance. We learned a lot, not only as a result of the talk but also by the open and dialogue-oriented manner in which the meeting was conducted.

The talk’s emphasis was on large scale organizational behavior: who makes the decisions, how they are arrived at, and what conditions are attached to those decisions. By “prefigurative”, Keyser was referring to the need for groups and practices which are structured according to the principles and values we’d like to engender in the world at large. While postulating decision making mechanisms that could scale up to the kind of mass movement we all want to build, he was cognizant of the immediate application of these ideas to our small activist groups. Certainly if we intend to be successful, we cannot ignore the challenges that growth poses to our organizations, let alone to the future anarchist society we envision.

It was a challenging discussion; Richmond anarchists are clearly more comfortable with small, intimate groups in which decision making is performed by consensus rather than by more formal structures. And yet, if Keyser made nothing else clear, it was that consensus has its shortcomings. The informality of consensus often relies on people’s comfort with the personalities in the group. The imbalance of familiarity among participants can comprise a sort of soft hierarchy when newcomers seek to participate. Openness is also no guarantee that all views will be duly represented or that transparency in decision making will be fully realized. Furthermore, as organizations grow and become more diverse it becomes progressively more difficult to balance the diversity of minority positions and maintain the integrity and decisiveness of the organization. Activist groups can become victims of their own success; one need only look at national unions for examples, as one participant pointed out.

Keyser proposed a number of alternative processes to balance growth with direct democracy:

Opinion points give people the option of expressing support or dissent as a function of their interest in the matter, rather than in terms of yes or no. If people use the point system to accurately represent their true priorities, it allows strong opinions to outweigh the indifference of others. This is one way to make sure that minority views are weighed appropriately even in large assemblies.
Voting for issues, not candidates is an obvious improvement on traditional democratic systems. Keyser suggested that anarchists should not be as quick to dismiss referenda, as these are more directly democratic means than candidacies to effect representative policy change in a political system. There’s also the possibility that anarchist organizations could have referenda drive their own planning and administration, rather than focusing on getting the right people into office.
Tailoring mandates to maximize accountability was an idea that struck me as especially important. The idea is that once we get people into office in our organizations, the represented need control over how their mandate is used. The body of the group should be able to recall representatives, shorten their terms, take away certain powers at will, etc. By making the position to which a person is elected as much a matter of popular will as the appointment, the body of the group can exercise oversight that discourages the ossification of democratic structures.
Rotating roles among the group not only democratizes the administration of the group, but it encourages everybody to share in the learning of important skills that improves the total empowerment of every individual. While this could be applied to specialized offices like webmaster, there’s no reason people cannot all share in leading meetings, writing minutes, accounting for funds, etc.
Lower the stakes of direct action decisions by remembering that direct action includes a wide variety of strategies beyond protests. Propaganda, boycott, work-to-rule, and other approaches can be just as effective. If an organization engages in activism with a non-formulaic and varied approach that makes sure everybody can participate, people will be more likely to invest fully in the organization.

I’m going off a few days’ memory so I’m sure I left plenty out, but these are the points that stand out to me. I hope Keyser’s beautiful print pamphlet is made available online soon since it really covered the full gambit of his talk.

My opinion on these approaches is that all of them are game, and none of them should be off the table. The best possible organization would use all of them where appropriate, giving the body of the group the maximum flexibility to bring its administration in line with their will. That said, each approach has its downsides and disadvantages that should be apparent to any anarchist. But if used wisely, a group can use these different strategies to keep their group fair, transparent, and democratic.

I really enjoyed Keyser’s talk, and I hope his visit was just the beginning of the Richmond anarchist movement’s revitalization! And if we're planning for the long term, we must apprehend these issues of scale and size. The upshot is that there are a variety of approaches available to us to address the very real questions of just what it means to be a large, powerful, and authentically anarchist organization. Thanks again to Kim Keyser for broadening our perspectives.

Venue announced for Kim Keyser talk

2008-06-25T14:37:00Z

As I blogged earlier, a Norwegian anarchist is coming to Richmond to give a talk on strategy and organization within our movement. The original communication on this event that I received left the venue to be determined. I just got the final details: the event will be held at Flying Brick Library (506 S. Pine Street) on Thursday (tomorrow), June 26, 2008. Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Event: The Prefigurative Organization

2008-06-17T13:41:00Z

Via the Virginia Anarchist Federation mailing list I was made aware of an upcoming event of interest to anarchists / left libertarians:

Kim Keyser is an activist from the nascent anarchist movement in Norway - the so-called "social democratic paradise" in Northern Europe. This summer he'll be touring the US with an illustrated presentation called "The Prefigurative Organization". The presentation will try to answer the question "How can we reflect the future we want, in our present work?". It will touch upon subjects such as direct democracy, direct action, workers councils, anarchist organizing and involvement in social movements.
A complementing pamphlet called "The Prefigurative Organization" - which has been made specifically for the speaking tour - will be available.
After the presentation there will be a possibility to ask the speaker specific questions, followed by plenty of time for discussions in small groups.

I'll let you know when the location is determined, but it will be on Thursday, June 26. Come on out!

Breaking News: Man Carries Gun Legally!

2008-06-13T14:04:00Z

Only in a frightened, cowed society are people scared by the mere sight of a gun.

Richmond police scrambled in several parts of the city this morning after receiving reports of a man with a gun on a GRTC Transit System bus.
Ultimately, police found the man in question on East Broad Street and discovered that he was carrying a handgun legally. But that came after 15 minutes of anxious moments for police trying to determine which bus it was, where it was and whether there was actually a gunman aboard.

While it is a traditional liberal goal to bring about gun control and restrict the right of peaceable people to carry firearms, libertarians and revolutionary leftists recognize the danger of state monopolization of the tools of force. If you don't like the idea of rednecks carrying guns, is it any better when, say, an organization like Blackwater is empowered by the government to not only to use firearms but wield them among a disarmed population?

An egalitarian society is one in which power is distributed among the population, so that no one party can use privilege to gain at another's expense. If we're serious about achieving that society - and trusting normal, everyday people to govern themselves - they must be trusted to keep and use firearms. Otherwise, people will always depend on some outside authority for their very survival, and state usurpation will be the inevitable outcome.

To be jailed in Richmond

2008-06-12T23:35:00Z

In case you didn't know, the city jail is officially a bad place to be. Home to minor offenders doing their time as well as the newly arrested awaiting a bail or a hearing, the facility has a history of chronic overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and needless deaths:

The Richmond Sheriff's Department doesn't think the heat is to blame for the death of an inmate at the City Jail. 47-year-old Linwood Jones died at the jail on Tuesday.
Jones is the fifth inmate to die at the City Jail this year. The previous four all died from illnesses they contracted before coming to the jail.

Right; in any case, the message here is that life is cheap, and the jail just serves as a drain into which the police state washes all that human material falling short of its exacting legal standards. Check out Keith Preston's essay at AttackTheSystem.com, which ties the jail's conditions to the growing police state in this country:

How are prisoners’ treated at the Richmond City Jail? What goes on behind the walls on Seventeenth Street? The jail is always filled way beyond capacity, sometimes containing nearly twice as many inmates as space was originally allocated for. Inmates frequently sleep on the floor, often in unsanitary conditions. An epidemic of skin infections occurred among inmates during the fall of 1999 because of such conditions. Most of the jail lacks air conditioning or even proper ventilation so that inmates sometimes find themselves locked into attic-like conditions during the summer months. Proper medical care is often denied to inmates with serious medical conditions. A fifty-three year old man who was arrested for murder after killing someone in self defense suffered paralysis after being denied access to his necessary kidney dialysis. Heroin addicts and alcoholics are forced to undergo withdrawal without any medical supervision whatsoever. Inmates suspected of having suicidal inclinations are stripped naked and locked into solitary cells without blankets or sheets.

State politics built these jails and filled them with prisoners; only direct action will bring freedom and justice!

Radicalism begins at home

2008-05-26T02:58:00Z

Over at SaveRichmond.com, Don Harrison has a great writeup on Doug Wilder's hypocrisy, broken promises, and disappointments as he prepares to leave the office of mayor. Here's a taste:

The Richmond native and former governor even ended up contradicting the original reason he says he got involved in city politics again. He had originally fought to have Richmond’s mayor directly elected instead of appointed by City Council — promising to empower all voters. In the end, he installed himself, Dick Cheney-like, into the candidate’s seat. Once in office, he seemed to be the catalyst behind a plan endorsed by the area’s “business leaders” to take the voting rights of everyday citizens away by having Richmond school board members appointed rather than directly elected. To quote Robby the Robot, “this does not compute.”

When the latest actions of the President, Congress, military, or giant corporations leave you feeling hopeless, don't worry - there's plenty to do right here at home. Let's organize to show these local scammers that we're not interested in their elite plans, schemes, and crooked deals - we demand that they leave us alone and give us our money back!

Swinging back into gear

2008-05-25T04:31:00Z

I'm pleased to announce that after a long and unfortunate hiatus, the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance is finally back! Soon we'll be announcing a meeting, but right now I'm just getting the site back up. It's a shame I've allowed the project to linger, and special thanks to Brady Campbell for helping re-energize the local movement against privilege.

A lot has changed in the central Virginia area since last we met: first of all, the whole Ron Paul thing. Yes, I know "left libertarians" are supposed to find him unacceptable, but in my work with the Paulistas I've witnessed a high demand for the left libertarian perspective, especially the radical economics. Also, the Virginia Anarchist Federation has started up since our last meeting, promising to build a network for radical activists throughout the state for comunication and mutual aid. There's a real opportunity for us to finally make common cause with the larger radical anti-state and social justice movements.

I think a year has made a big difference in the type of group we can be and the actions we can take. I hope you'll stay tuned to this blog, come to our next meeting, and help us make Richmond a more just and free place to live!

Meeting Update

2007-07-16T13:39:00Z

Unfortunately, my grandmother passed away recently and I have to attend a funeral on Wednesday, which means I have to leave on Tuesday evening. So I will not be able to attend the meeting. I encourage everybody to attend and hang out and I apologize for not being able to make it. Again, it's at Commercial Tap House at 7 PM on Tuesday, July 17. The contact person is Brady Campbell.

Meeting Reminder

2007-07-10T18:16:00Z

This is a reminder that in one week, the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance will hold its second meeting at Commercial Tap House on Tuesday, July 17 at 7:00 PM. We'll be talking politics with an emphasis on local issues and community activism.

Young People: Menaces to Society or Our Future?

2007-06-28T20:16:00Z

In my explorations of more community-based activism I've identified neighborliness and familiarity with one's fellow residents as an important element in the development of bottom-up institutions to replace the need for top-down, centralized, managerial government. In my exploration of community solidarity I attended my local neighborhood watch meeting. My neighborhood is in the west end and is pretty quiet and peaceful, with lots of families that engender a sense of a thriving, balanced community in me.

That's why I was struck by how kids were singled out as problems, not residents with interests and perspectives of their own:

Well, the vast majority of attendees were elderly and white. Their complaints were about kids, of course. Now, I don’t condone any criminal activity, but my impression of the complaints were that these elderly residents have a different lifestyle than their younger neighbors, and they feel threatened by kids who are out on the streets carrying on as kids will. Older kids were accused of racing cars. But generally, the younger generations were seen as nuisances, and their side of the story and their interests were not represented. Certain households of minority racial demographics were also singled out for scrutiny.
What is lost in these complaints is the truth that these kids, their parents, and others targeted by the meeting’s attendants are residents. They are part of the group of people whose interests the neighborhood watch organization should be representing! No talk of reaching out to them or presenting a way to work things out. No talk of whether they are being served by the neighborhood or county.
Moderating a significant portion of the meeting, and hearing these complaints, was an officer with the local police department, whose name I won’t mention but whose affiliation should be easy for a regular reader to ascertain. He encouraged people to call often on the slightest of suspicions, urging them to leave sorting out the good guys from the “bad guys” (a phrase often invoked) to the professionals. He singled out kids as a big problem, stressing that once their names are in the police system, they track them for life (as if that alone will stop kids from being kids). He even said (I couldn’t believe this) that his officers “like arresting people” and urged attendees to give his department opportunities to catch kids.

Just as I was working on this blog entry, I saw Radley Balko blog a YouTube video of police choking kids for simply riding skateboards. And Richmond City Council is apparently creating a snitch class among its residents to single out kids who party for special treatment by the police, according to SaveRichmond.org.

Where is the sense of proportionality - that these are children who deserve patience, attention, gentle - not brutal - reprimands, and engagement in the way neighborhoods and communities work? They are the future of the community, and people who ignore this and see them as mere obstacles to their retirement are incredibly short sighted (not to mention the naivete of moving into a college neighborhood and being flummoxed by partying!).

This, my friends, is what happens when communities break down. They require politicians, bureaucrats, and hired muscle to come in and mediate what should be organic, face-to-face interactions between neighbors. Gone is any sense that the community's children are worth tolerating is entertained - they're just somebody else's kids. I'm no fan of Hillary's "it takes a village" philosophy, because it expressly calls for more government intervention, rather than recognizing it as the root problem in society.

Announcements: Meeting, Contact Info, and Blogging

2007-06-19T12:55:00Z

Sorry it's taken so long to schedule another meeting. The next meeting for the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance will be held on Tuesday, July 17 at 7 PM. Where would you like to meet? Please leave suggestions in the comments, and we'll decide no later than July 3 on the final place. I liked Commercial Tap House, but I wanted to give people a chance to suggest alternatives.

I am attempting to introduce a slight bit of organization into this next meeting. I was dumb and didn't even collect contact information for people! So please, if you're reading this and interested in the group, send me an email at:

admin at left libertarian period org

and I'll add you to our mailing distribution list, so we can better remain in contact. And, please, do me a favor and register your attendance - or absence - from the next meeting on upcoming.org. It really helps me plan for the next meeting.

I'm going to try and put together a semi-formal presentation on local opportunities for activism based on conversations I've engaged in with various Richmonders. But this will again be an ad-hoc, informal get-together. No leaders need show up. :-) Hope to see you there!

Finally, this site is open to all RLLA members / sympathetics to journal on issues they care about. Please, if you'd like to contribute to this blog, email me and I'll set you up with an account!

Fiscal Tunnel Vision

2007-06-15T21:20:00Z

I just wrote a new article on my left libertarian approach to the recent Virginia Senate race in the 12th District. Excerpt:

Now, some libertarians might call me out for not supporting the challenger who was strongly in favor of cutting taxes and spending. And they’d have a point - but only if they think taxes trump personal freedom and equality under the law. Yes, a well-funded government is perhaps more likely than a less-well-funded government to trample liberty. But Republicans have demonstrated for about two decades that borrow-and-spend is just as viable as tax-and-spend. And since Blackburn clearly does not seek to reform government injustices towards minorities, he’s certainly not opposed to funding certain intrusions into peoples’ private affairs - the most despicable intrusions as what goes on in a couple’s bedroom, I might add. This is very typical of conservatives: leave me alone for politically favored groups, and a nanny, police state government for those not so lucky.

Incidentally, I'll be announcing a meeting date in the near future. Stay tuned, and contact me with any suggestions.