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Posts tagged Vegas Anarchist Cafe

Rad Geek Speaks: “Ask An Anarchist!” TOMORROW, at the Vegas Anarchist Cafe. Las Vegas, Nevada, 3 September 2009, 6:00pm

ALLies,

In honor of the first anniversary of the weekly Vegas Anarchist Cafe, and in connection with the opening of a new school year on UNLV’s campus, Southern Nevada ALL has helped organize a line-up of special programming for the A-Cafe’s Free Speech Soapbox Series.

This week — specifically, TOMORROW, Thursday, 3 September 2009 — Anarchist Cafe will feature the second event, during the first hour of the meeting, from 6:00–7:00pm. I will be hosting a freewheeling Q&A session, called Ask An Anarchist!, which will give A-Cafers, guests, and random looky-loos the chance to fire away with any question they may have about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists. As our advertising handbill puts it:

Are you curious to learn more about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists? Have you got questions about Anarchist ideas, the history of Anarchism, how Anarchism has affected mainstream culture, Anarchist solutions to contemporary social problems, or how Anarchists believe that a free society would work without government? Want to know whether the picture of Anarchism that you’ve gotten from the mainstream culture is accurate or based on misconceptions? Want to try and stump an Anarchist? Bring all your burning questions this Thursday, and our speaker will do his best to answer any question you care to ask. Come on in and fire away!

This event is for anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in conversation. All are welcome to attend.

The Soapbox event will run from 6:00–7:00pm. An informal meet-up and discussion will follow from 7:00–8:00pm. If you're in the Vegas area (or even if you're not), it'd be great to see you there. If you know anyone around abouts who might be interested in a talk about Anarchism, then please do forward the announcement on to them.

  • WHAT: Ask An Anarchist! Q&A with Vegas ALLy Charles Johnson.

  • WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Pkwy, right across the street from UNLV), Las Vegas, Nevada

  • WHEN: This Thursday, 3 September 2009, 6:00pm – 7:00pm. The regular A-Cafe informal meet-up and discussion will continue after the talk, from about 7:00pm to 8:00pm.

  • WHO: Anyone curious about the ideas of Anarchism, or interested in conversation.

Hope to see y’ALL there!

See also:

Rad Geek Speaks: a talk on Anarchism and its ideas TOMORROW, at the Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe. Las Vegas, 27 August 2009, 6:00pm

ALLies,

In honor of thefirst anniversary of the weekly Vegas Anarchist Cafe, and in connection with the opening of a new school year on UNLV’s campus, Southern Nevada ALL has helped to organize a line-up of special programming the A-Cafe’s Free Speech Soapbox Series, to offer some opportunities for kick-starting some engaging conversations about Anarchy, about the ideas of Anarchism in theory and practice, and about how Anarchist ideals of free association, mutual aid, DIY social change, decentralized resistance, and direct action can apply to our struggles, passions, and dreams for our own community here in Vegas.

I’m happy to announce that for the first event, which will be held at this week’s A-Cafe on Thursday 27 August 2009, I will be giving a special talk, **What Is Anarchism? to discuss the ideals of Anarchism in theory and practice, the meaning and reasons for Anarchism’s opposition to the state, the benefits of a society without rulers or domination, and correcting common misconceptions and replying to common objections about Anarchism, Anarchists, and Anarchy. For anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in the conversation.

  • WHAT: Talk by Vegas ALLy CHARLES JOHNSON on WHAT IS ANARCHISM?

  • WHERE: Weekly Anarchist Cafe @ the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Pkwy, right across the street from UNLV)

  • WHEN: This Thursday, 27 August 2009 6:00pm – 7:00pm. The regular A-Cafe informal meet-up and discussion will continue after the talk, from about 7:00pm to 8:00pm.

  • WHO: Anyone curious about, or interested in conversation about, the ideas of Anarchism.

If you're in the Vegas area (or even if you're not), come on out for what I hope to be an engaging back-and-forth, and a good kick-start to the conversation about Anarchist ideals in our community. It’d be great to see you there. If you know any friends, family, coworkers, or anyone else around abouts who might be curious or interested in conversation about Anarchism — whether they are themselves (A)s or not — then please do forward the announcement on to them

As always, the Anarchist Cafe will begin on Thursday at 6:00 PM. The talk will begin shortly after 6:00 and run for about 45 minutes, with time set aside afterwards for Q&A and conversation. After the formal Q&A has ended, we’ll continue with our usual informal chat until the end of the A-Cafe at 8:00pm.

This week’s presentation is part of the Free Speech Soapbox Series at Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe — a series of presentations, speeches, programming, and free speech 4open mics for the first hour of the weekly A-Cafe (6:00–7:00pm). Future Soapbox events are already being scheduled; if you’re in Vegas, or will be passing through, and are interested in giving a talk yourself — or know someone you’d be interested in hearing talk — about an issue you care about, a project you’re working on, a local group you support, or a how-to for a skill you’d like to share with fellow Anarchists — this is your time and we all have something to say or do that can help out our ALLies. Contact us for more details or to sign up.

Hope to see y’ALL there!

See also:

Rad Geek Speaks: Motorhome Diaries interviews me on agorism and counter-economics

It’s been a couple days since I was hepped to the fact that this video has gone online; but I’ve been delayed by travel and other considerations. Anyway, here is a video of Jason Talley’s interview with me in Las Vegas back in April, focusing on anarchism, agorism, and counter-economics. Judging from the closing title card, it looks like the MD3 have decided to break out the material from the interview on anarchism into a separate video, presumably forthcoming. But, in the meantime, this video has the segments of the interview where our discussion focuses on building the counter-economy as an alternative to electoral politics. Enjoy!

YouTube (2009-04-30): Charles Rad Geek Johnson Chats about Agorism with the Motorhome Diaries

The one thing which I regret not having the time to discuss during the interview — which I would have done my best to break down, were I not already taxing Jason’s very generous allowance of time in what are typically very concise interview segments — is how my sympathies for mutualism and wildcat unionism influence my understanding of the agora, and of the sort of counter-economy that we should work to build: why, in short, I think that libertarians should be especially interested in building, so to speak, Black-and-Red markets. (Red as in workers-of-the-world-unite. Not, of course, as in Konkin’s notion of red market mafiosi.) Of course, Konkin’s original-flavor agorism is already very much in favor of the informal sector, and opposed to the state-collaborationist, state-supported corporate economy; but I think that agorists would do well to look at the kinds of counter-institutions that have historically been associated with the anti-statist and anti-authoritarian Left: fighting unions, direct action on the shopfloor, grassroots mutual aid networks, worker and consumer co-ops, neighborhood permaculture projects, community free clinics, participatory indymedia, CopWatch as a means of community self-defense, LETS trading networks, small-scale gift economies based on gleaning and homesteading (Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, free stores, etc.). And so on, and so forth. To the degree that State privilege and State subsidy have artificially roided-up the rentier-centric, cash-lubricated, centralized, formalized bidniz economy, we can expect the counter-economy (which is the embryonic new society, being built within the shell of the old) to form up in opposite tendencies: egalitarian and decentalized exchange (which Konkin rightly predicted and emphasized), and also significantly more emphasis on informal connections, often based not on contracts or cash-on-the-barrelhead exchanges but rather on practicing solidarity, mutual aid, gleaning, homesteading, and other cashless forms of value-creation and social exchange (which I think Konkin underemphasized and overlooked in various ways). (I hardly expect cash, let alone simple quid-pro-quo exchange, to disappear; I’m certainly not interested in any dogmatic campaign to rub them out. But I do expect the counter-economy, and future fully-freed markets, to emphasize them much less intensely, and much less monomaniacally, than the current state-approved official economy does.) All of which underlines why I think it’s important for radical libertarians to see ourselves as part of the Left; and for that understanding to cash out in serious efforts to work together on countereconomic projects with the folks who ought to be our primary allies — that is, other anarchists — rather than working on the familiar set of conventional-delusional electoral projects together with conservatives and conventionally pro-capitalist minimal-statists, which all too many good radical libertarians have, due to a combination of cultural comfort zones, and statocentric models of political change, wasted their time and resources on in the past.

Anyway, like I said, there may be another interview segment forthcoming focusing on anarchism; if so, I’ll let you know when it drops.

Rad Geek Speaks: “Ask An Anarchist!” TOMORROW, at the Vegas Anarchist Cafe. Las Vegas, Nevada, 5 March 2009, 6:00pm

The Vegas Anarchist Cafe is an informal meet-up for networking, building community, and doing some outreach for anarchists in Las Vegas, organized by Southern Nevada ALL and other local anarchists. The Anarchist Cafe is a place for people to meet, discuss ideas and make contacts in a low-pressure environment without a formal activist business agenda. (However, if you want to start up a group or a project that will have a formal activist business agenda, A-Cafe is a great place to meet people and get information on local groups.) We used to meet every Wednesday; in order to be able to reliably reserve a meeting room at our venue we’ve switched to meeting every Thursday, 6:00–8:00pm at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at Running Rebel Plaza (4550 S. Maryland Parkway) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This week — specifically, TOMORROW, Thursday, 5 March 2009 — Anarchist Cafe will feature an event in our Free Speech Soapbox Series during the first hour of the meeting, from 6:00–7:00pm. I will be hosting a freewheeling Q&A session, called Ask An Anarchist!, which will give A-Cafers, guests, and random looky-loos the chance to fire away with any question they may have about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists. As our advertising handbill puts it:

Are you curious to learn more about Anarchy, Anarchism, or Anarchists? Have you got questions about Anarchist ideas, the history of Anarchism, how Anarchism has affected mainstream culture, Anarchist solutions to contemporary social problems, or how Anarchists believe that a free society would work without government? Want to know whether the picture of Anarchism that you’ve gotten from the mainstream culture is accurate or based on misconceptions? Want to try and stump an Anarchist? Bring all your burning questions this Thursday, and our speaker will do his best to answer any question you care to ask. Come on in and fire away!

This event is for anyone curious about the ideas of philosophical Anarchism, or interested in conversation. All are welcome to attend.

The Soapbox event will run from 6:00–7:00pm. An informal meet-up and discussion will follow from 7:00–8:00pm. If you're in the Vegas area (or even if you're not), it'd be great to see you there. If you know anyone around abouts who might be interested in a talk about Anarchism or radical labor organizing, then please do forward the announcement on to them.

See also:

Dear LazyWeb: local anarchist seeks suggestions for Anarchist Classics Series

Dear LazyWeb,

A lot of my time in the past couple weeks ended up getting eaten by a scheduling issue over Las Vegas Anarchist Cafe which is now seems — insha’Allah — to be resolved. It means we’ll be moving from Wednesday nights to Thursday nights, but it also means that we have a definite reservation in, which is all nice and written down and has a contact number where they can reach me if they need to let us know about anything. And now that we have the scheduling issue apparently resolved, and a stable time more or less locked in, we are planning to expand out our Free Speech Soapbox Series (see GT 2009-01-27 and GT 2009-02-03 for previous mentions), and hopefully to make it a regular thing. One of the ideas that we’ve batted around for slow weeks is to do an Anarchist Classics Series — where the idea would be to read aloud, and then discuss, some classic Anarchist lectures (or, as the case may be, roughly lecture-length essays that are conducive to being read aloud). There are lots of them out there — public speaking, to both general audiences and to movement audiences, used to be a much bigger part of our movement than it is today, and one of my hopes is to do a little something towards reviving that tradition — and some of them are really good. Each reading would hopefully be done by someone who’s relatively familiar with the essay being read, and then followed with some Q&A and discussion.

Before the scheduling troubles cropped up, our plan was to kick off the series with Tucker’s classic, State Socialism and Anarchism: how far they agree, and wherein they differ. Presumably, once everything is firmly back on track, we’ll be able to cover it after all.

But, here’s my question for you, gentle reader: if you were scheduling an event in this series, which lecture or short essay would you recommend to Vegas Anarchist Cafe for a reading and discussion? Let us know what you think in the comments section. Which ones do you think are the most important or interesting to cover, and which are likely to stimulate the best discussions afterwards? (For reference, we have about an hour for the whole event — so the Anarchist Classic in question should be something that can be read aloud in about 30-45 minutes.)

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