#everydayanarchism — Public Fediverse posts

Wow, I fell into a rabbit hole. And it's the Bible. Who would have thought that I would return to it. I mean, I know it's foundational for our culture yadda yadda, but for me it's just a suppressing machine, holding people down. Not sth I am interested in.

But then came the #podcast #TheWordInRedAndBlack . I heard about it on #EverydayAnarchism and now I can't stop listening. They are reading the Bible from an #anarchist perspective, giving everything a totally different meaning. Just wow!

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #4

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

If you go to “No Kings” rallies today, no doubt it will be all you can do—as an anarchist who believes deeply in liberatory practices and politics—to maintain your cool when faced with both liberals’ and authoritarians’ lack of solidarity. Go with other anarchists and be each other’s support system, and debrief (rant, cry, laugh, and/or chill) afterward.

But also go as “friendly anarchist factions” to model what solidarity actually looks like—even if too many nonanarchistic folks don’t yet know what that feels like or how to do it. I always wish that people didn’t need to be, say, tear gassed or arrested to learn that ACAB isn’t just a slogan, and that anarchists will almost certainly be the ones to have their backs. But such is the wearisome “learning curve,” and the more folks who see beloved community self-defense modeled for them, unflinchingly, on the streets, the more they’ll understand how (and why!) to stick side-by-side too—including with us.

Be solidarity.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #3

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

Back in the day, ahead of a big protest, anarchists set up “convergence centers”: big, scrappy, communal spaces where folks could not only find each other, make and eat food, plug into art and media making, etc. in the days before an (often direct) action based on a wide-ranging diversity of tactics—under an umbrella name like “Carnival against Capitalism” or “No Olympics on Stolen Native Lands”—but also skill up together.

There’s no time to do this before the poorly named “No Kings” (aka, it’s fascism) protests tmrw. Yet you could easily do pop-up skill shares. So many “newbies” are open to learning and eager for alternatives!

Remake the urban landscape into temporary autonomous “classrooms.” Use public furniture or gathering spots, or bring blankets or chairs to sit on. Write the skill share topic on cardboard and display it. Run around and announce skill shares as they start. Bored protesters waiting for a march to begin or tired of listening to rally speeches make great participants. Circle up and start passing along handy skills—say, how to help each other rinse tear gas out of eyes or turn a T-shirt into a mask (over your N95), or how to do forms of community self-defense or jail support. Offer an Anarchism 101 or local rad history talk too. Exercise hands and minds, encouraging liberal and progressive folks to (begin to) think and act for themselves.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #2

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

It’s tough not to fume over the “peaceful protest” call for a “sit-down wave” at this Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies, such as one that asserts: if you see so-called infiltrators “destroy[ing] property,” “sit down and leave the provocators” standing. That’s how the self-appointed leaders of these nonprofit-corporate “ally” demos uphold a status quo that benefits them. In practice, it means anyone not falling in liberal line will get the brunt of police violence and state repression.

Enough fuming. My anarcho-prefigurative self says: outorganize the “peace police”! #BeGayMakeFun! Alongside bringing many zines to gift out at these rallies: Set up carnivesque “no kings, no masters” participatory games! Bring screen-printing supplies (stencils, silk screens, or even humble potatoes carved with printable slogans) and let folks print your rebellious designs on T-shirts, patches, or cardboard! Create playful shield-making art station! Become snack faeries, carting around yummy treats in wagons to freely distro! Do some rebel street theater or radical cheerleading! Bring a queer rebel marching band or amplified music, and start a street dance!

Anarchism is not just good politics; make it good fun, and when folks are drawn to you, anarchism will not only be welcoming but irresistible too. Plus, who knows, maybe you can joyfully teach people how do a “stand-up wave” against the real provocateurs (cops).

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE, pt 4

If you go to “No Kings” rallies today, no doubt it will be all you can do—as an anarchist who believes deeply in liberatory practices and politics—to maintain your cool when faced with both liberals’ and authoritarians’ lack of solidarity . Go with other anarchists and be each other’s support system, and debrief (rant, cry, laugh, and/or chill) afterward.

But also go as “friendly anarchist factions” to model what solidarity actually looks like—even if too many nonanarchistic folks don’t yet know what that feels like or how to do it. I always wish that people didn’t need to be, say, tear gassed or arrested to learn that ACAB isn’t just a slogan, and that anarchists will almost certainly be the ones to have their backs. But such is the wearisome “learning curve,” and the more folks who see beloved community self-defense modeled for them, unflinchingly, on the streets, the more they’ll understand how (and why!) to stick side-by-side too—including with us.

Be solidarity.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo: pink and black circle A heart spray-painted on a wall in Athens, Greece, during a queer+trans International Women’s Day march on March 8, 2025)

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE, pt 3

Back in the day, ahead of a big protest, anarchists set up “convergence centers”: big, scrappy, communal spaces where folks could not only find each other, make and eat food, plug into art and media making, etc. in the days before an (often direct) action based on a wide-ranging diversity of tactics—under an umbrella name like “Carnival against Capitalism” or “No Olympics on Stolen Native Lands”—but also skill up together.

There’s no time to do this before the poorly named “No Kings” (aka, it’s fascism) protests tmrw. Yet you could easily do pop-up skill shares. So many “newbies” are open to learning and eager for alternatives!

Remake the urban landscape into temporary autonomous “classrooms.” Use public furniture or gathering spots, or bring blankets or chairs to sit on. Write the skill share topic on cardboard and display it. Run around and announce skill shares as they start. Bored protesters waiting for a march to begin or tired of listening to rally speeches make great participants. Circle up and start passing along handy skills—say, how to help each other rinse tear gas out of eyes or turn a T-shirt into a mask (over your N95), or how to do forms of community self-defense or jail support. Offer an Anarchism 101 or local rad history talk too. Exercise hands and minds, encouraging liberal and progressive folks to (begin to) think and act for themselves.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE, pt 2

It’s tough not to fume over the “peaceful protest” call for a “sit-down wave” at this Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies, such as one that asserts: if you see so-called infiltrators “destroy[ing] property,” “sit down and leave the provocators” standing. That’s how the self-appointed leaders of these nonprofit-corporate “ally” demos uphold a status quo that benefits them. In practice, it means anyone not falling in liberal line will get the brunt of police violence and state repression.

Enough fuming. My anarcho-prefigurative self says: outorganize the “peace police”! #BeGayMakeFun! Alongside bringing many zines to gift out at these rallies: Set up carnivesque “no kings, no masters” participatory games! Bring screen-printing supplies (stencils, silk screens, or even humble potatoes carved with printable slogans) and let folks print your rebellious designs on T-shirts, patches, or cardboard! Create playful shield-making art station! Become snack faeries, carting around yummy treats in wagons to freely distro! Do some rebel street theater or radical cheerleading! Bring a queer rebel marching band or amplified music, and start a street dance!

Anarchism is not just good politics; make it good fun, and when folks are drawn to you, anarchism will not only be welcoming but irresistible too. Plus, who knows, maybe you can joyfully teach people how do a “stand-up wave” against the real provocateurs (cops).

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo of a brick wall with a circle A spray-painted on the concrete foundation below it, as spotted on the stolen lands of Tioh’tià:ke/Montreal, June 2025)

I made a little zine for my neighbours because the world feels like it is going to hell in a hand basket and I refuse to be scared into inaction.

Maybe you enjoy it too!
And please be kind, I am trying to just print it and not be perfectionist about it :)

#zine #community #everydayanarchism

Just started listening to episode 140 of #everydayanarchism with Shawn from @srslywrong

And I just love Shawns rant about the election and the Democrats analysis. So good! ❤️‍🔥

Enjoyed listening to the discussion with @DrEleanorJanega on #EverydayAnarchism episode 99.

Particularly the observation, made regarding both the fall of the Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance, that we should not actually be grading the worth of a period of history by the leftover pretty things from rich people’s houses.

https://www.everydayanarchism.com/099-debt-discussion-1-moral-confusion-and-garden-parties-with-eleanor-janega/

Anarchist hyperbole can be painfully annoying at times: an extravagant exaggeration at odds with how anarchists actually engage in the world or treat people, including each other.

Yet lately, I feel the hype is no exaggeration at all, but captures the extravagantly touching ways that anarchists are “making the world we need,” and with such care. And imagination and even joy—for care, imagination, and joy are necessary counterweights to the abandonment, lockstep fascism, and grief swirling around us.

On the one hand, anarchist hyperbole is a message in a bottle during an era when it can feel like all is lost: we may be far from other possible worlds, yet those other worlds are still always a potential, and thus something we can hold out and journey toward. Without that promise, what is there to fight for? To live for? Anarchism without vision, without aspirations, is hollow rhetoric.

On the other hand, anarchist hyperbole seems to be describing—at least now—what anarchists are actually doing on the ground, as their #EverydayAnarchism as it were: prefiguring what those possible worlds look like when premised on deep, self-organized, rebellious forms of #CommunalCare. There are many reasons why anarchism seems to have turned toward building up, in do-it-ourselves and even friendly ways, all that people need to survive and thrive, including the turn toward #MutualAid that so marked the start of the pandemic, and now, the ways anarchists are taking those practices back from liberal and capitalist co-optation because ecological and other human-made disasters are necessitating it. Also, though, there’s a way that the bleakness and violence of these “end times” appears to be drawing out anarchic play and creativity, both to protect each other and squeeze out beautiful, sacred life for each other.

I could list many real-life examples, but for now, I’ll uplift just one: @broken.window_rva, with some of its hyperbolic zines pictured here. One of their crew pulled me aside at the @acabookfair to joyfully share all the DIY other-possible-worlds of fun (esp. related to varied-themed bike rides), tender solidarity, and more! Check out their Instagram for inspiration.

I listened to #PeterWilkin talking about Tory #Anarchism on Graham Culbertson's #EverydayAnarchism podcast.

It's really interesting to think about how this ruling/middle class outlook has influenced me through Orwell, Cook, Python, Morris etc. It is witty and insightful but clearly privileged and (as Roger Law cautioned Graham), also darkly misanthropic.

I think it contributed to a catch-all cynicism in my own outlook which is ultimately conservative, and from which I am trying to rid myself.

Mini review of my latest book, #TryAnarchismForLife, published by the amazing Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness collective, with springlike-joyful cover by @eff_charm and life-giving circle A by Landon Sheely.

Grateful to @AntifascistMoon for posting their thoughts, in three tweets, about my 26 tightly crafted prose pieces revolving around some of the many beautiful dimensions of anarchism, all paired with a gorgeous circle A dreamed up and drawn by 26 different anarchist artists.

As they write:

“I couldn’t have higher praise for Try Anarchism for Life by @cindymilstein — absolutely incredible, beautifully written prose about the beauty found in a boundless, liberated, free existence for all!

“Ecotones of Possibility [one of the pieces] honestly made me cry — the beauty in [Milstein’s] descriptions of liminal space-times and the joy expressed in the anarchist grabbing their friend by the hand to come see those places found the perfect heartstring to pluck.

“The entire book made me realize I was an anarchist before I ever even properly understood what anarchism was. Thank you for sharing this view with the world!”

As always, this book is a labor of love for me. Any proceeds go to support the rad work of @tangled_wilderness to put out all sorts of other anarchic media from books to games to zines to podcasts.

http://www.tangledwilderness.org

#BeautyOfOurCircle
#TryAnarchismForLove
#EverydayAnarchism

(photos: book seen in the wild at Insoumise, a longtime anarchist bookstore in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal; 3-part mini review posted on Twitter, 3/20/23)

This mini review of “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” (Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness) is the perfect size for my latest book, which involves me trying to say as much possible as, in as finely crafted a way as possible, within a series of tightly written essays. Moreover, I’m humbled by and grateful for @dmw’s words capturing much of the heart of this project—like all my books, a labor of love, yet in this case intended as a love letter to anarchists old and new. Or maybe my book can be read as a message in a bottle, reminding whomever finds it to keep on doing what we anarchists do best, even if so much of this fascist catastrophe of a world seems to make our life-giving practices feel futile. (They aren’t.)

Immense thanks to Dana Williams, including for getting my pronoun correct (a genderqueer “they”)!

And in case it’s tough to read Dana’s mini review via the screenshots of Dana’s Mastodon post, here’s the text:

“It’s hard to write a book about anarchism that doesn’t follow the same histories, platitudes & polemical style. But @cbmilstein has done just that with their poetic, philosophical, intimate, sometimes funny & always entertaining, and profound book, ‘Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle.’ It includes two dozen pieces analyzing different characteristics of anarchist thought and movements, accompanied with drawings of the ‘circle-A’ by some pretty rad artists. A great primer.

“It seems written simple and engaging enough for a lay-audience, but also sophisticated enough for those who are well versed in the topic. I suspect it’s the kind of book that’ll continue to reward on additional reads too. That’s not an easy kind of book to write!

“It takes a different, yet in some ways similar, approach as their earlier book, ‘Anarchism and Its Aspirations’ [@akpress], a book that I still recommend to those wanting to learn more about anarchism. Both are highly recommended!”

For a copy, or a bunch, of the book, head to http://www.tangledwilderness.org.

🖤💖🌿

(photo by @plantneighbor, who contributed a beautiful circle A to the book, featuring the book’s joyful pink+green cover, designed by @eff_charm, held up against the backdrop of a field, trees, and mountain)

#TryAnarchismForLife
#EverydayAnarchism
#TheBeautyOfOurCircle

Truth be told, it’s been hard to get out of bed this winter. More pointedly, it feels hard to find reasons to get out of bed.

Some call that depression, set in motion by trauma and grief. And no doubt there’s much that’s accurate in that. Yet I call it trying to live with “the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’”—a gap that these pandemic years has pried so far apart, it’s now (in winter three) nearly unbridgeable. And without a bridge, any sense of being able to wander forward toward horizons of possibilities gets blocked.

Hence the limited reasons to peek out from under the comforter and see promise in a new day.

That gap, mind you, is always there. And I know that we anarchist types, no matter how beat down we feel, continually have to build our own bridges—again and again. But we can’t do it alone, nor without bridging the generations so that we can come at the project of constructing a new world from multidirectional vantage points of brilliance and inspiration.

So I’m super grateful to @marixfort and her 7- and 10-year-olds for supplying me with some much-needed scaffolding right now.

Marixfort read my new book “Try Anarchism for Life” (@tangledwild) to these two kids, who both loved it, and had lots of questions and comments. Last week, out of the blue, the youngest said, “You know what, mamá, I will raise my kids to be anarchists. Thank you for reading us that book.” Then the two children dreamed up and drew the bridge-building “blueprints” (pictured here), and asked their mamá to share them with me, and their mamá said I could share them with you.

The beauty of anarchism is that even if you (or me) can’t see across the rubble at times, but can only see the ruins, there are always other anarchistic spirits who will hold up a cobbled-together lantern to aid you in noticing (again) the flowers and rainbows in the misty distance, and thus help you go the extra mile. Or in my case, get out of bed.

#BeautyOfOurCircle
#EverydayAnarchism
#AWorldInWhichManyWorldsFit

(photo of #TryAnarchismForLife by @blkstarseed, featuring cover design by @eff_charm with circle art by @landonsheely)

What burning question(s) would you want to wrestle with these days in dialogue with other anarchists?

I’m all ears!

In mid-January, I’m going to facilitate an in-person, masked-up Anarchist Salon at @TheRhizomeHouse, a newish social/community center (details to come). Yay! And if it goes well, there will be a couple more.

The idea is simple: collective conversation!

The hope is that folks can think through one question per salon together—a question that likely has no answer, or many answers, and/or raises further questions, but in any case, makes for a provocative discussion that just might generatively influence our anarchist practices. And as a related aim, to get to know each other better and maybe weave a thread or two into the anarchistic social fabric.

For now, I’m looking for ideas for THE question for the January salon! I’m looking for YOUR ideas—here. Post them in the comments.

It’s fine to suggest several questions. (Can those of us who continually “question authority” ever have too many questions?!) Indeed, feel free to borrow a question or two and host your own Anarchist Salon in your own city or rural abode.

And thanks in advance for the anarchist aid!

(photo: It’s almost as if someone wanted to gift this black spray-painted circle A a bunch of red flowers because anarchism is so beautiful, always unfolding sweet possibilities! As seen on a #FlowersNotFascism stroll in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal this past summer.)

#AnarchistSalon
#EverydayAnarchism

Care packages aren’t just beautiful on the inside—for what they contain as gifts, as sustenance, as rebel “love letters” to each other. (Though getting a no. 10 envelope filled with stickers from @municipaladhesives last week was lovely indeed, as the shimmery-metallic circle A that found a good home outdoors today attests to.)

It’s what overflows outward into the “worlds in which many worlds fit”—to borrow Zapatista words—that we are already, always, crafting in the here and now that’s especially beautiful, messiness and all.

That includes the “little touches” like the black and red rubber-stamped logos that Municipal Adhesives put on the envelope’s outside, meaning that various postal workers maybe couldn’t help but notice—perhaps speaking to their antifascist and/or anarchic hearts during yet another deadening day of capitalism.

Or the bigger, prefigurative ones, in which Municipal Adhesives thinks to make and distro stickers with circle A slogans that hold out a hand—on public walls and lamp posts—to the anarcho-curious or world-weary who long for something besides the daily disasters of the current social order—but need glimpses of what that could be and is when one embraces anarchistic forms of social relations and social organization.

Or the bigger-still ways that anarchists create do-it-ourselves spaces in which we remember that “we are the ones we waited for”—spaces open and welcoming to whoever is on a journey, their journey, to liberation and freedom. For as Municipal Adhesives reminded me when they PM’d me about sending a care package my way, we’d met years ago at the annual National Conference on Organized Resistance, in which a tiny anarchistic collective brought some 2,500 young folks together for a weekend that was a smorgasbord of hundreds of workshops and tables (by young-at-heart folks) spanning the whole range of radical politics. In this outwardly solidaristic, generative, open-door space, thousands found their political passion and calling—and each other.

Care packages are a joy—a life line—on a personal level in these dispiriting times, warming our insides. Yet anarchistic care shines when we common it, outward and upward.

#CollectiveCare
#WeAreAllWeHave
#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife

Teaching is antihierarchy that we witness all the time! By acknowledging a knowledge differential and attempting to bring the other person up to the same level the teacher is actively destroying the power differential granted by their greater knowledge.

We do bits of anarchism every day, yet many still think it is fantasy. I am here to tell you anarchism isn't fantasy, it is the default state of most human interactions and we van use this to shape a better world now!

#Anarchy #Anarchism #Anarchist #EverydayAnarchism

(Image stolen from birdsite too long ago to recall creator)