Recently, the Interfaith Socialist Movement put out this statement regarding the escalating United States-Russian Federation conflict: Joint statement of concern about the conflict in Ukraine and Russia Peace and blessings, dear comrades and friends.
Revolutionary Love (Part III)
In Parts I and II of this series, I’ve reflected on the meaning of Jesus’ exhortation to love as he did and what commitments this requires in the context of our communities. Now I want to explore what is probably the hardest of the Scriptural ideas about love to understand: the command to love your enemies.
Here we are again
Let's start the year off right! Forget (most) everything you've read on this blog. It's a new year, we're in the middle of a pandemic, I've changed religions, political affiliations, and started (and stopped) writing for online blogs, joined and left political parties, made friends who are now family, and grown stronger in my convictions. … Continue reading Here we are again
Birthday Reflections (Soft Relaunch)
Dear friends and comrades, Create, Don't Kill is a blog I've attempted to maintain for a little over two years now. You can see through browsing the archives that I've been more successful at some times than at others. This past year has marked some important changes in my life, like getting married, joining a … Continue reading Birthday Reflections (Soft Relaunch)
Queer Space Communism
One of my favourite franchise is Star Trek, a futuristic saga that tackles a variety of social issues such as racism, queerphobia, misogyny, war, etc... through allegory, time travel, and my favourite, depicting a society that no longer faces these issues at large. Unfortunately one of the weaker areas of the franchise has been its … Continue reading Queer Space Communism
The Proletariat of the 21st Century
The history of all hitherto societies is that of the contradictions between classes, and the struggles between said classes, whereby one class imposes its collective will over another. In the case of capitalist societies, the bourgeoisie over the proletariat; in the case of socialist societies, the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. This is not to say that class contradictions cease to be when one class overtakes another, as such an assumption would be unrealistic: class struggle is constant. But the form in which this struggle is manifested changes from era to era. In the modern age, as I write this in 2017, we see that the proletariat of old – the factory worker, the burly Industrial Worker of the World in his overalls of yore – has become the labor aristocracy of now. The proletarian of the 21st Century is now more likely to be non-white, non-male, and likely with questionable…
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The Communism of Universal Love (UPDATED)
(I created the first version of this essayin September of 2012. This update is a re-affirmation of the original, while also revising and extending some of the original wording, as well as making it more suitable for a sermon.)
Emma Goldman, historic anarchist writer, is supposed to have said something along the lines of, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.”
In that spirit, I will say that,
If I can’t have LOVE, I don’t want your Communism!
Che Guevara said, “The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” And, for good measure, the Apostle Paul (as translated in Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch Version) wrote, “Even though I renounce all my possessions, and give my body as a flaming sacrifice, but have no love, I accomplish exactly nothing.”
I have been drawn…
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Neither Broken Nor Crushed
This very succinctly explains my changing views on violence and pacifism, at the right time, in the right place.
I am also reminded of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) Rules of War:
O people! I charge you with these rules; learn them well…for your guidance in the battlefield!
*Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made and because they have been wronged… Those who have been driven out from their homes unjustly.
*Do not commit treachery, or deviate from the right path.
*You must not mutilate dead bodies.
*Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged nor unarmed man.
*Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful.
*Slay not any of the enemy’s flock, save for your food.
*Do not harm those who have devoted themselves to monastic service.
The “mask of the warrior” I wrote about in Strong Toward the Powerful is no longer hypothetical. All over the United States, people determined to resist the Trump regime and its fascist allies are masking up and taking to the streets.
The black mask of antifascism scares some people, but that doesn’t make it wrong. When you’re faced with a threat as serious as this one, there is no ethical option except to fight back. “Fighting” can mean many different things, and in any conflict throughout history most participants are not in frontline roles. This struggle needs everyone, not only those who are prepared to personally put a mask on and punch a Nazi leader in the face.
There are some highly effective and disruptive nonviolent tactics available for those who are simply unwilling to throw a punch no matter what. The heroic water protectors at Standing Rock have…
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Repost: Patheos Censoring Writers
The following is a repost from Gods & Radicals, a Pagan Anti-Capitalist Website. Originally found here. [repost] Read This Before Patheos Deletes it. The following is a repost of an essay deleted by Patheos Pagan detailing the changes they’ve made and their intention to censor their writers. The essay was written by John Halstead on … Continue reading Repost: Patheos Censoring Writers
“Which Chains”
This is a poem I wrote for Trans Day of Remembrance 2016, and also partially in response to the presidential election. I hear the lines about freedom and chains, and how they are the only things we have to lose. And often I wonder Which chains? The chains of prisons & labor, where the roles … Continue reading “Which Chains”
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