wow. i didn’t even realize how long since i’d posted last. whoa. so much has happened in the last year and a half or more since then. i don’t have to tell you that. most of it i will leave out of this space but i do want to get back to working on this site. so, i’m writing a full piece to be out soon (and then hopefully many more). until then, as yesterday was primary day in the world of voting, i want to share the article linked to below. i voted for the first time in a decade. it still makes me feel icky but i’m at a point in my life where i’m trying to be open to new and different approaches because being an anarchist ain’t what it used to be and i still want to make change in this world. this article was shared with me on thinking about voting as harm reduction and that really spoke to me.
additionally, while i have identified with an anarchist politics for the two decades of my adult life and believe i will for the rest of my days, “the” anarchist community in the city i live in as well as others that i have been around in the last few years are not welcoming to me nor do they offer me the social or political home that they did ten and twenty years ago (more on that soon). i find myself working with people who hold a variety of theories of change and a couple of them find electoral politics a place to put energy. while i do not outside of the one minute it takes me to fill out some little ovals on a ballot, those relationships are important to me and the work we do outside of electoral politics is important to me and i don’t need to give them the finger or lecture them on their choices. if i’ve learned anything about how to actually make the world a better place, i’ve learned that it is about relationships above all else. i agree with so much of what this article says. and also, it doesn’t hurt me to do something in support of the work that the people who take care of me in my community do. they know it is limited; they know all the things i know about this system. they’re just trying a different approach. and our relationships are better for me being able to tell them that i voted than giving some abstract political speech and acting like i’m so superior. thanks, that’s not how i work in the world. at least, not how i want to. here is the article. more soon.
I’m an Anarchist and I Vote
“At the end of the day, I still maintain I am ungovernable no matter who is elected, and that my dreams will never fit into a ballot box. And I am still committed to prefigurative politics and activist work that builds new structures to address immediate communal needs outside our current hierarchical, capitalist and governmental frameworks. But I do not see harm reduction voting as irreconcilable with my anarchist politics….”
rebrattle 
Leave a comment