#tryanarchismforlife — Public Fediverse posts

My book “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” has leaped across borders, bodies of water, mountain ranges and valleys to find a second publication home in so-called Europe, thanks to the good folks at @activedistribution. Or rather, first, thanks to the good folks at @tangled_wilderness, a publishing collective that lives its anarchistic ideals. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness not only published the gorgeous original version of “Try Anarchism” for distribution within and across Turtle Island; it has now kindly let Active Distribution create a specific edition for the European-Balkan side of the globe.

I just got my first glimpse of the cute-as-a-button Active Distro version, which came back from the press recently. Wow. I’m so humbled, honored, and enthused to have this version out and about now! (Distro links in the comments.)

This version contains all the same content—what I hope reads as poetic, poignant prose that aspires to draw out the beauty of anarchism as an idea and practice, reminding us longtime anarchists of our utopian strivings, and holding out a welcoming embrace to “baby” anarchists and/or the anarcho-curious about why they’d actually want to be and stay an anarchist for life; and sharing some 26 inspiring pieces of artwork by 25 artists, all attempting to illustrate the beauty they each see in their anarchism. It’s a style that I fondly call “picture-prose”: with me supplying the container (which almost quite literally fits in one’s hand, as you can see in this photo with a pen for size comparison) and prose, and those who can draw far, far better than me, providing the art.

I’ve said this time and again: The word “hope” seems ill-suited to this christofascist period; instead, I find “anarchism of despair”—clear-eyed assessment—far more generative, leading me to continually seek out “promise” amid the perils we face. We desperately need to lean into the promise we can find, meaning the beauty of anarchistic practices, be they community self-defense, social solidarity, or collectively grieving well via rituals of resistance—precisely as counterpoint to what christofascism offers: death, versus the life we assert and sustain.

To order copies—for 3 pounds or about 4 euros each—in Europe+Balkans:

https://www.activedistributionshop.org/product/try-anarchism-for-life-2/

https://sjakoo.nl/en/product/try-anarchism-for-life-a6-active/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/206113462308

And/or encourage your fav radical bookstores to carry it!

#AlwaysCarryABook
#TryAnarchismForLife

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 ANNOUNCEMENT, #1

(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”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

I know it’s no fun to go to liberal-progressive rallies, but thousands of newbies and/or newly awakened folks will be at this Saturday’s “No Kings” protest. Don’t let the nonprofit “ally” complex siphon off the genuine energy of those seeking social transformation—those who don’t yet know that, for instance, “police are not our friends” or “solidarity is our best weapon.”

Instead, print thousands of zines that allow people to “educate themselves in freedom,” especially accessible ones that include rebellious ideas and do-it-ourselves practices! Take those zines to rallies. Walk around and freely gift them to people!

From personal experience, I know that a single zine can change many hearts and minds—and create “accomplices” now willing to experiment with anarchistic forms of street militancy, from varied types of community self-defense to myriad types of collective care and mutual aid.

#MakeMediaBuildSolidarity
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#TryAnarchismForLife

The ABCs of Anarchism: The Letter K

Of late, I’ve noticed an unfamiliar word slipping into the anarchist vocabulary—so much so, that it felt both a pattern and palpable shift. So I began paying attention, and sure enough, more and more anarchists were using it in DMs to me, or when speaking on a panel, chatting in person, and posting on social media. One new zine I picked up at a free lit table even railed against its opposite—adding “un-“ in front of the word—and called for its banishment from our circles.

This linguistic turn felt at odds with the times at first, and then it started to dawn on me that it’s actually a healthy response to them—to fascism and the attendant disposability of human and nonhuman life.

I ran that thought by a friend who loves etymology, a fancy term for the history of languages and their wordly ancestors, and they instantly exclaimed, “Kin!” We’re queer+trans chosen family, so I didn’t get the connection at first—thinking they were simply glad that I’d called them to talk. “The origin of the word is in ‘kin,’” they added, and to paraphrase, “these days, we especially need to care for each other in that way.”

K = Kind

As a Jewish anarchist, I doubly know that “Jewishness” and “anarchism” share an inherent need to stay in motion, to continually wrestle with and remake our words, ideas, and practices, always delighting in shape-shifting based on the contexts, precisely as how we get free—together. There’s also our double aspiration as anarchists (and to my mind, as Jews): to always critique all forms of hierarchy and domination—the K = kvetch side of things—and always embody forms of freedom in their place—which includes K = kindness. Or should have.

Somehow anarchists have become an especially unkindly bunch over the past decade or so, allowing liberalism and capitalism (and posi rad-liberals) to steal and water down “kindness” into mushy meaningless—when we should have been fighting to keep kindness rebellious!

Now, we’re at a point in human history when *simple* acts of genuine kindness (from the heart, voluntarily, as kin), mean the world, quite literally, to keep us and others from falling into the fascist abyss.

#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo: spray paint, stencil, and sharpie combo of #AllComradesAreBeautiful, with two adorable pink and black cats encircled by a heart, with the letters #ACAB at their paws, as seen on a wall near an anarcha-queer feministic squat in Athens, March 2025, aka #CatsNotCops and for that matter, #KindnessNotCops)

Thanks to the awesome and rad folks at @igd_news, my latest curated zine, “Ritual as Resistance: 18 Stories of Defending the Sacred,” is now available on its website to read, and as PDFs to download, print, and distro freely. See link below.

And support your indie anarchist media—with your dollars and readership!!

Excerpt from my intro to the zine:

“We make our own sacred spaces — spaces on no maps — through repeated rituals of resistance whose meanings stretch beyond borders. Because our ‘grief knows no borders.’

“This zine is a sampler of some of the modest ways that anarchistic people from varied traditions are doing just that, and gestures toward ‘bigger’ ones. It’s impossible to understand Standing Rock, Stop Cop City, or Palestinian solidarity encampments, say, without acknowledging the key role of rebellious spiritualities. For one example, see the film ‘Yintah.’

“My hope is that this humble zine inspires you to imaginatively blur the line between ritual and resistance, until the death machine sputters and stalls, and all that then moves freely is life. For it is us, side by side, that can make all sacred against the profane of this world. Because our love knows no borders.”

#RitualAsResistance
#DefendingTheSacred
#TryAnarchismForLife

https://itsgoingdown.org/ritual-as-resistance-18-stories-of-defending-the-sacred/

Freshly birthed zine: “Shades of Love”

I actually wrote this “new” one in spring–summer 2012 for a pal’s anarchist anthology on love, but they never ended up publishing the book. So at long last, I’ve turned it into a zine. May it touch your heart in these icy-unloving christofascist times!

As always, my zines are labors of love, freely gifted, for you to freely share. DM me your email for readable and print-ready PDFs.

On a strictly voluntary basis, in this case it would warm my weary heart if you’d contribute $5 or more to your favorite anarchist(ic) labor-of-love project, whether to a bail or abortion fund, mutual aid or solidarity (not charity) effort, or collective space.

This zine is less “practical” than other recent ones, and more of a poetic, hopefully tender “love letter” of sorts from me to you, my sweet fellow rebels.

Thx to @dioishh for the gorgeous cover art, @_hey_casandra_ for kindly turning my layout into PDFs yet again, and @the_bejeweled_narwhal for this lovely photo!

Excerpt from the zine’s opening:

“When I was a little kid, we had this big weeping willow tree in our backyard, and when it was in full bloom, its slender overhanging branches would form a porous pale-green umbrella arching from sky to ground with expansive space underneath. Open space. Yet delicately screened too.
From inside, seated on the gently compacted earth, you could see outside, softly, through the millions of little leaves playing gaily as the wind touched them. You could look outward through tiny peepholes, which in turn let in winking shapes of light like stars on a crystal-clear night, with each glimmer held in the embrace of the shadows cast by leaf after leaf.
I recently asked my six-year-old bio-niece what she meant by the word love, which she says several times a day to her mom, and she responded matter-of-factly, ‘Love is all that’s good.’ She doesn’t have a weeping willow in her Orlando-sprawl backyard; only crunchy-dry grass and a too-small palm tree and blindingly unmediated sunshine.
Still, maybe my niece is onto something.”

#FallInLoveNotInLine
#TryAnarchismForLife
#LoveAndSolidarity

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)

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE:

I know it’s no fun to go to liberal-progressive rallies, but thousands of newbies and/or newly awakened folks will be at this Saturday’s “No Kings” protest. Don’t let the nonprofit “ally” complex siphon off the genuine energy of those seeking social transformation—and don’t yet know that, for instance, “police are not our friends” or “solidarity is our best weapon.”

Instead, print thousands of zines that allow people to “educate themselves in freedom,” especially accessible ones that include rebellious ideas and do-it-ourselves practices! Take those zines to rallies. Walk around and freely gift them to people!

From personal experience, I know that a single zine can change many hearts and minds—and create “accomplices” now willing to experiment with anarchistic forms of street militancy, from varied types of community self-defense to myriad types of collective care and mutual aid.

#MakeMediaBuildSolidarity
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#TryAnarchismForLife

Friendly reminder: I’m still seeking submissions for the next zine I’m curating, titled “Ritual as Resistance: Defending the Sacred.”

Length: 125 words, give or take
Deadline: May 11
Email to: cbmilstein {at} yahoo [dot] com

Please share this “call” far and wide!

I’m looking for concrete examples of rituals you’ve held space for and/or participated in; that draw on your own cultural practices and/or ancestral traditions; that blur the lines between sacred and rebellious, or shake up what the spiritual+political feels like; and especially, that are collectively and/or publicly done. (See fuller description in my previous post.)

Here’s a sample of one that I’ll be using in the zine, as inspiration and to offer a sense of what I want (though please note, I am NOT only looking for Jewish rituals—though we anarchist Jews love our rad rituals!):

“Fascists sticker-bomb your neighborhood. This hurts. Not merely because the memory of eleven people killed at the Tree of Life building—your childhood shul—still lingers, but they’re crafty bigots. They deliberately drop provocative flyers on people’s doorsteps to try to break solidarity between Palestinians and Jews. This inspires you to counter with agitprop. The ritual technology of prayer, in Judaism, allows us to make the most mundane moments holy. The eating of bread and sipping wine. Through the language of our ancestors, we make these acts sacred, connecting us with all who’ve performed them across the axis of time. You arm yourself with new ritual implements: a paint scraper, sharpies, and wheat paste, along with an extending pole for higher spots. Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, even these moments where we cover up white supremacist drek can be holy!”
—Anastasia bat Lilith (@stormbringer_press)

(photo: glimpse of an elaborate, bilingual grief and ritual space that I and three beautifully caring anarchists set up for the whole weekend during the May 2023 @montrealanarchist)

#RitualAsResistance
#DefendingTheSacred
#TryAnarchismForLife
#NoSpiritualSurrender (with love and blessed remembrance to Klee Benally)

Shout-out to @igd_news for posting the full text of my latest, curated zine, “Anarchist Compass: 29 Offerings to Navigate Fascism,” along with both readable and print-ready PDFs for your downloading, reading, printing and/or freely distro’ing pleasure!

https://itsgoingdown.org/anarchist-compass-29-ways-of-navigating-christofascism/

#AnarchistCompass
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo by @stormbringerpress)

Call for Short+Sweet Contributions to a Zine, Tentatively Titled: “Anarchist Compass: [XX] Tips for Navigating Christofascism”

Deadline: on or before March 24, 2025

Based on the “popularity” of the zine “Don’t Just Do Nothing: 20 Things You Can Do to Counter Fascism” (https://itsgoingdown.org/dont-just-do-nothing-20-things-you-can-do-to-counter-fascism/), which has been downloaded, printed, and freely distributed by thousands of people, I’m hoping to curate a similarly structured+formatted zine. And like that earlier zine, which came out soon after the election, the aim is to serve up a welcoming batch of ideas that inspire people to think and act for themselves against christofascism, or at a minimum, help more folks around the world get through another day under the Trump+Musk regime.

But I need your help!

I’m seeking accessible contributions ranging in length from a sentence to a paragraph for what will become numbered suggestions (see “Don’t Just Do Nothing”), geared toward anyone who finds themselves on the side of antifascism, including those who’ve newly had their eyes opened. That said, I’m looking for anarchistic ideas, although they don’t need to be explicitly called “anarchism” (meaning: no electoralism or statism, please, but yes to an ethics of nonhierarchical self-organization, communal care, and social solidarity!).

The general notion is: What’s helping you find direction and/or heart these days? What ethical compass keeps you steadily steering toward freedom for all, particularly given all the sociopolitical pressure to abandon that path? What polestar aids you in determining what practices to embrace to fight and/or survive fascism, especially in collective ways? And/or where do you find inspiration at the moment?

Length: No more than about 100 words.

Send to: cbmilstein [at] yahoo (dot) com. If you prefer another way, DM me.

No promises that I’ll pick your submission, of course. But for those short+sweet ideas that seem a good fit, I’ll work with you to edit/copyedit pieces before weaving them into the zine, then create readable and print-ready PDFs to share widely and freely.

Feel free to share this “call”!

#TryAnarchismForLife

(photos: enormous circle As gracing the cityscape of the Exarchia neighborhood in Athens, February-March 2025)

Big shoutout to the good folks at @igd_news for sharing the full text of my essay “Stitching Together Other Worlds” and a downloadable zine version on their website, which is filled with daily nourishment in the form of anarchistic news, ideas, and alternatives. Follow and support IGD; contribute to it, too, whether your own writings and report backs and/or financially.

#MakeMediaMakeTrouble
#MakeMediaSharePossibilties

#ConstellationsOfCare
#TryAnarchismForLife

https://itsgoingdown.org/stitching-together-other-worlds/

When confronted with some impending loss, many of us engage in “anticipatory grief.” We run through various scenarios in our minds of what it might feel like and what we might do when the loss finally happens—a dress rehearsal, as it were, for dealing with the death of someone or something we love—thereby shifting how we act before that loss occurs—letting us better self-determine our responses.

These days, I’m in what feels a stronger imperative: “anticipatory rupture,” within which is bundled all of my fears, yet that I know must also include us noticing fissures in the christofascist edifice that we, communally, can generatively rupture.

Rupture involves “the tearing apart of a tissue”—sometimes of the very social fabric; it entails “the state of being broken apart.”

Which brings me to a familiar slogan in anarchist circles: “smash the state.” While it sounds good on paper—or on walls, stickers, and T-shirts—it’s a lot less pleasant when christofascists are the ones doing the smashing.

This isn’t to negate the aspirations embodied within our notions of antistatism, nor to abandon the desire for a world without states. It’s to say that such a vision is wholly incomplete without a liberatory horizon. Indeed, it can be downright scary and to be feared, with immense power to destroy.

We’re seeing this in dizzily accelerated, axe-wielding, real-time action as the Musk-Trump regime goes on a state-smashing spree. In a matter of weeks, they’ve done more to convince the world than we anarchists have in the whole of our tradition’s existence that it’s in fact possible to trash statist trappings, from laws to bureaucracy to so much more, but in the most self-interested, cruelest of ways.

I trust that as anarchists, we aren’t so crass as to celebrate their rapid rupture of the state, on their terms, into what might become “end-stage statism”—some version of “antistatist” christofascism that rapturously saves a handful of uber-wealthy at the literal loss of most of us and the planet.

I hope we turn to our do-it-ourselves’ power to create, especially past and present forms of self-governance—offering a rupture toward borderless freedom and well-being for all.

#BecomeSelfGovernable
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photos, of street art seen during #FuckFascism strolls on the streets of Athens: huge DIY letters painted in white and black on the side of a building, and reading “No border, free world”; tag on a wall in purple saying “destroy everything”; and drawing on a wall in pink of a big fish, with small fishes swimming up below it, and the words “happy new fear,” with the “A” in “happy” circled)

We must read (and write) against the grain, not merely to illuminate all that must be fought and abolished, but to emphasize what we’re already doing to love and tend to each other.

Not simply to decry the absences we feel and experience so deeply under christofascism, but to declare all the countless presences we sustain through our solidarity in the here and now.

Not only to remind us of the dangers around every corner, but to keep in the forefront of our minds all the innumerable acts of individual and collective bravery, often arising from surprising quarters.

On this cloudy-cold day, with ominous omens swirling all around us, with German elections boding a further storm, with sieg heils becoming as “normal” as climate catastrophes, it’s good to spot signs of rebellious life, of “falling in love, not in line,” all the ways—in bold brushstrokes, visible and subterranean—that we articulate not merely what we are (and must be) against, but all we’re steadfastly for and already experimenting with.

#LoveAndRage
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo: two tags, serendipitously sprayed on the same outdoor pillar, one in black and the other in red, illustrating the complementary dimensions within anarchism of wanting to destroy and create, fueled by our rage and love, as seen on the streets of Athens, Feb 23, 2025)

“You Can’t Evict an Idea”

I recently stood in front of the huge building in Athens pictured here—what might be viewed, from one angle, as a cop victory against a formerly vibrant squat.

And indeed, I longed to be able to still go inside, imagining the autonomously beautiful chaos and care that filled its many rooms, and art overflowing all the available walls. Imagining, perhaps, that it housed, or at least lent material and emotional aid to what some here call “travelers” (a solidaristic way of de-stigmatizing what states and their borders transform into “refugees”). Perhaps a communal print “shop” that freely served a host of other squats and social centers to crank out posters, flyers, and zines. Maybe a weekly social kitchen. Or language and other DIY classes. Or hosting fundraisers like a “tattoo circus” for the anarchist movement’s prisoner solidarity and anti-repression fund. For sure, lots of assembly meetings—the commonplace structure for swapping info, self-organizing, and making collective decisions. Yet likely so many others things happened here—so many dreams launched and schemes hatched, and crucially, so many interconnections forged or solidified.

The wind, instead, blew through remnants of banners on the outside, and whistled through the barbed wire and other police barriers meant to seal off not merely resistance but also the persistence of everyday anarchisms—spaces and places we self-create together that in so many ways, fly in the face of everyday fascism.

It’s hard not to see loss in this building, not to see defeat, not to read it as one more piece of “evidence” to file away in my weary heart that we’re blocked in all of our efforts to reconstruct lives worth living—everything for everyone, especially freedom, shaped endlessly and expansively by the cooperative powers of our imaginations.

But I saw—and still do, and know I must continue to do so—this building from a wholly different angle (and perhaps metaphor): still a squat, now for rebellious graffiti on its exterior, and feral cats, pigeons, and other inhabitants inside. Still signaling a wider vision of us “[re]squatting [our] world.” Still awaiting a future that’s unwritten.

#TryAnarchismForLife

These books from @tangledwild are 30% off for two more days, including my #TryAnarchismForLife.

Oder here: https://www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/try-anarchism-for-life

#AlwaysCarryABook

Mini, grassroots “review” of my latest, big edited anthology, “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (@plutopress, with gorgeous cover design by @eff_charm), thanks to someone named Hannah!

Always grateful for the do-it-ourselves ways we think and act—and write—thereby educating ourselves together for freedom. So rather than assuming that book reviews need to come from on high (penned by academics, professional experts, and others), it’s joy to see readers themselves share their thoughts. And in the case of this particular collective—filled with many dozens or even well over a hundred voices bravely telling their own stories of forms of feministic self-organization that too often get overlooked or undervalued—it’s extra sweet when someone finds their own power to voice their perspective. (Because yes, *even* in anarchistic circles, patriarchy too often informs who gets to hold the reins of publishing power.)

So thank you, Hannah, for this compact review of #ConstellationsOfCare:

“Wonderfully expansive conversations, recollections, reflections, and creations from different anarcha-feminists groups across the world. I loved the varied backgrounds of the movements, how they came to be, and their struggles and victories. I was fascinated by the conversations on safe spaces, conflict, grief, and medicine. All chapters were very accessible, and each author wrote without defense but [instead] complete openness.

“‘Love is not keeping your hands clean; Love is courage’ [quoting from contributor @tlalcihuatlx].”

Appreciation, too, to the good folks at @rubicundbooks for this photo. I always also love seeing my books in the wild, including in such rad bookstores.

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare/

#AnarchaFeminismInPractice
#WriteReadRebel
#TryAnarchismForLife

If May Day, among other things, is about sharing the “wealth” (aka abolishing capitalism), there’s nothing quite like going to a small but sweet Really Really Free Market on this May 1 and being gifted a sheet of freshly printed stickers that feel just right for these suddenly rebellious times. (After all, #AllComradesAreBeautiful!)

Then, soon after, redistributing that “wealth” to others at a nearby May Day rally, made merry because of the danceable tunes of @brassyourheart (which may now have some tiny water jugs on a drum or two because this marching band can #AlwaysCarryABeat!).

There are so many others reasons, of course, to wear one’s #ACAB on their sleeve (or water bottle) this May Day, when so many universities and colleges are liberating spaces of solidarity for Gaza, and in the process, powerfully demonstrating that #AutonomousCommunitiesAreBeautiful.

And likewise, so many police are painfully demonstrating that #AllCopsAreBrutal—underscoring that cop cities (aka policing) everywhere must be abolished, from every river to every sea, just as the Haymarket martyrs also fought and alas died for, in part.

Next May Day, in liberation!

#CareNotCops
#CommonsNotCapitalism
#SolidarityNotStates
#TryAnarchismForLife
#UntilAllAreFree

(Ongoing love+solidarity to the brave+bold folks at @occupycalpolyhumboldt for gifting the world the joy of a humble water jug vs. cop during their occupation)

— Anarchy is the realization that we can govern ourselves through voluntary cooperation.
— In an anarchist society, cooperation and mutual aid are the cornerstones of social order.
— In an anarchist society, conflicts are resolved through dialogue and consensus, not through violence.
— In an anarchist society, compassion and solidarity replace competition and greed.
— Anarchy is not a utopia, it is a practical and attainable goal.

So, as "homosapiens" and our true potential as specie, we should be aiming for those goals 💪 :anarchy: :anarchy:

#anarchism #TryAnarchismForLife

Someone asked me recently if I have hope.

I have rage.
Fear.
Despair.
Sorrow.
Depression.
Impatience.
Anger.
Worry.
Grief.
Horror.
Heartache …

Not hope.

But I do hold out promise.

The promise held in the most minuscule bud on a branch way before leaf out begins.

The promise of tiny clusters of blossoms that just might open up into flowers if the conditions are right.

The promise of a pink-purplish sky embracing the skeletal outlines of trees at the end of a long day just before darkness descends.

The promise in that dark night of seeing the faint glimmer of the first star, and then maybe a second or third one.

The promise of stars as our guides to keep us to the time-space of rituals of resistance, just like our ancestors, even and especially when there’s little to celebrate.

The promise of people and places that have no hope, but still hold to the sacred, still listen to the cry of a migratory bird, still let the wind carry their dreams and the moon cradle their pain.

Still assert life.
Still honor our dead.
Still resist when no one else will.
Still fight without knowing we’ll win.

“The women are lying down
in front of the bulldozers
sent to destroy
the last of the olive groves.”

That promise.

(photo of a handwritten Diane di Prima “Revolutionary Letter” placed on an altar at a recent Palestinian solidarity gathering in southern Appalachia, followed by three hints of spring promise in that same ecosystem)

#TryAnarchismForLife
#UntilAllAreFree

Hierarchy so weasels its way into people’s psyches that most folks seem to need some sort of authority to validate why certain forms of organizing (from demos to direct actions, from mutual aid efforts to DIY spaces) feel so good, rad, and genuine—like the whole of all of us are truly in this fight for a liberatory world together.

This has continually struck me since the genocide in Gaza began in full earnest, and likewise, anarchistic organizing in solidarity with Palestinians ratcheted up in full earnest. At or after every one of the many anarchistic offerings I’ve been grateful to be a part of co-organizing, various nonanarchist and frequently newly radicalized folks have both waxed eloquent over how much those spaces meant to them and been insistent to know the name of the top-down organization that made those offerings happen. It takes them many minutes to let it sink in that it’s more than possible to self-organize the kinds of protests, spaces, and actions we want and need, without permission or hierarchy, without a nonprofit, authoritarian leftist group, or political party. To simply gather some like-minded friends and comrades together—even just a handful—and go for it, pulling off all sorts of rebel magic.

I’ve repeated again and again: “some of us who are anarchistic got together and did this.” And time and again, folks pushed back: “but what organization are you with?”

I think it’s our duty as anarchists to show people it’s possible to think and act for themselves, and not feel compelled to have to add (more) hierarchy to do that. But also to be “friendly anarchists,” patiently trying to gift the notion of “thinking and acting collectively for ourselves” to those who aren’t (yet!) anarchistic.

So some of us finally decided to create a little trifold filled with anarchistic projects to hand out in AVL when asked “But who organized this?” and got consent from all 20 projects in it—a lot in a smallish town, making us anarchists a mite bit proud in the process!

Try it in your town! It’s already working here to aid folks to #BecomeUngovernable!

If you want the PDF to distro in AVL, or use as a template for elsewhere, DM me!

#TryAnarchismForLife

May we still see other possible worlds through the rubble.

May we continuously find seeds of other possible worlds in the here and now of diaspora.

May we always fight and love and live for glimpses of other possible worlds.

May we remember all the dreamscapes we’ve wandered through, cultivated, and sparkled within.

May those memories catalyze blessed uprisings and social transformations, dignity and experimentation, autonomous communities and collective care, the juiciness of solidarity and bittersweetness of rebellious mourning.

Their world is one of nightmares: policing and punishing, walling in and dividing, dispossessing and disappearing.

Our worlds are the stuff of dreamscapes, even when clouds seem to blot out the stars and moon:

“These are difficult times, I know, but don’t fall into resignation, don’t abandon hope; never! Not for one moment. Even if everything seems lost, and the bad things that afflict humans and the earth seem unbearable, keep on finding strength and inspire it in your comrades. It is exactly in those darkest moments that your light helps. And always remember: ‘Every storm starts with a single drop. Try to be that drop.’”

—last letter of Lorenzo Orsetti, anarchist from Florence, Italy who fought and died in and for Rojava

On this thirtieth anniversary of the Zapatistas’ other possible world, a piece of a world in which other worlds fit, may we take the side of liberatory dreamscapes:

“Our choice is not between war and peace but between life with dignity or without.”

—Subcomandante Galeano

#OtherWorldsArePossible
#TryAnarchismForLife
#UntilAllAreFree

(photos, all from Nov-Dec 2019 in either Athens or Crete)

All anarchist(ic) spaces should routinely include grief altars.

So it lit a fire in me to see this one today at a @stopcopcity, @defendatlantaforest, and Palestinian solidarity afternoon of five workshops in so-called Asheville, NC, thanks to @12basketscafe lending its space and the @pansy.collective weaving it all together.

One candle on the altar burned for the whole seven hours, gently illuminating a banner behind it asserting that Palestine will be free. That flame seemed a carrier of the radical traditions, wisdoms, and solidarities in the room, and danced and flickered as if in tune with the joy and sorrow among us. The roses did what they do best: tend to broken hearts. Or as rebels have long said, “We need bread, but we also need roses!”

As we were all pitching in after the last workshop to clean up the space—where routinely, mutual aid breaks bread, as it were, through the community meals and so much else that happens there—I noticed the altar builder meticulously and reverently dismantling it. They gently picked up petals and leaves, and told me that they were going to set up the altar again at tonight’s fundraiser party.

If we can’t dance, it’s not our revolution. But if we can’t mourn and honor our dead, too, and remember that we only grieve what we love, and we love and fight for life and freedom fiercely and beautifully, then it’s not our revolution either.

#RebelliousMourning
#TryAnarchismForLife
#MourningOurDead
#FightingForTheLiving
#UntilAllAreFree

Just another “record highs” day on imperiled planet earth.

So even as I try extra hard to savor the sacredness of an abundant canopy of vivid-green leaves gently dancing to and fro in the breeze, a peppy-blue cloudless skies above, and a shimmering-aqua lake with its rhythmic waves looking like glitter in the sun, I feel distracted by my rage for capitalism, which ruins everything good in the world.

#CapitalismKills
#KillCapitalism
#CommonsNotCommodification
#CommunityNotCapitalism
#TryAnarchismForLife

(photo: fluorescent blue-pink-yellow sticker reading “For the earth to live, capitalism must end,” as seen a couple weeks ago on the streets in so-called Pittsburgh. Of course, the earth will live on, even if vastly transformed by “record weather,” but it’s a lot less clear in relation to our species if capitalism keeps chugging along.)

Snapshots of day 1 of the 3-day anarchist holiday called the @ACABookfaire
few accompanying words, because I’m tired in that good kind of way where you feel full and nourished from being around so many friendly, unpretentious folks putting their hearts into practicing other possible worlds in the here and now. It’s making me fall in love all over again with what anarchism should and can be, especially in terms of mutual aid, solidarity, and communal care.

Photo 1. The good type of flags flying proudly outside @firestorm.

Photo 2. The start of an altar to mourn the dead and remember them well so as to better fight for the living (please add to it this weekend), also outside Firestorm Books.

Photos 3-4. Asheville’s own anarchist bingo, times two—apparently already in the works even before my post the other day about bingo at this year’s Salon du livre anarchiste de Montréal | Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, and with its own regional flair.

#AlwaysCarryABook
#TryAnarchismForLife
#BingoNotBorders

https://acabookfair.noblogs.org/

My longtime friend @spirochristoff sat down with me on a park bench this past winter, both of us bundled in coats and scarves, to chat about anarchism. It wasn’t all that cold outside. Still, it was March in Montreal—meaning there is often a long way to go before one reaches the possibility of warmth, (re)emergence, and blossoming.

Perhaps it was the perfect time for a conversation—or rather, interview for Stefan’s Free City Radio show—about trying anarchism for life, because we often have a long way to go, too, as warm-hearted rebels before the possibilities we offer up against this icy-cold social order start to (re)emerge and blossom.

Now Stefan’s labors have flowered into episode 169 of Free City Radio, recently broadcast on five stations in so-called Canada, and I’m delighted to share the link with you, if you feel so moved to listen.

https://soundcloud.com/freecityradio/169-cindy-milstein-try-anarchism-for-life

Ostensibly, the show was supposed to revolve around my latest book, #TryAnarchismForLife (@tangled_wilderness, with joyous cover design by @eff_charm using a circle A by @landonsheely). Yet one of the many things I appreciate about Stefan, who has been and remains anarchistically awesome for years, is that he curates all sorts of imaginative cultural spaces, leaping off the predictable (in this case, a straightforward book interview) to weave artful alternatives and dreamy otherworlds.

Not that this short radio chat does all that. Nonetheless, I like to think that our real-life friendship shines through and our shared commitment to not merely the #ArtOfResistance but also conversing and organizing as if social relations matter. As if promise and possibility and care matter.

One can only do that, I think, if one hangs onto prefigurative politics, which brings us full circle to my book—made up of picture-prose that look at some of the many beautiful dimensions of anarchism.

Which circles us to one of the artists in my book, @the_sabot_cats, who sent me these two photos of their circle A framed by their adorable graffiti!

#AllCatsAreBeautiful
#TheBeautyOfOurCircles