Historical American Folk Anarchists

It's been going by so fast.

I've been kind of swamped. I finished reading Follow me to Freedom by Perkins and Claiborne (Highly recommend this book! Gives very good insight into being a leader, a servant, a follower. Perkins and Claiborne offer a ton of advice...so much so that at some point I'm going to make an explorer notebook with a set of personal commandments for meself to follow *makes mental note to come back to this*), and I've moved on to The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy which is about the historicity and validity of pacifism, and the full brunt of meaning that comes with being a serious pacifist. If you'd like to download it actually, I found out, you can download it legally (since it was written...awhile ago now). It's not that big of a file for being 161 pages. Download Here

For those of you who either don't feel like commenting, or don't have the time or just don't have anything to say, I added three extra buttons that you can press to give me some kind of feedback. They are: "moving" for if you feel moved, "interesting" for if you feel like it's something that made you think or just stimulated your synapses and "naive" for in the event that you already knew about what I was writing, or you disagree.

Some developments for you to know and pray about.

This semester as part of my final paper for my Dissent class, I'll be volunteering 20+ hours with Oregon Peace Works. Last week I talked with its president, Peter Bergell, and we had a very pleasant conversation (among other topics) about Ammon Hennacy.

I'll also be volunteering with Neighbor 2 Neighbor, a neighborhood mediation organization based in Salem.

But back to Ammon Hennacy.

I've known oh so vaguely, for about a year, the existence and history of folksy-workers socialists/anarchist in America. You don't really hear about them, because they aren't really taught about or heard of in schools.

Sidenote
My one big issue with public education is that one essentially entrusts the state to frame and pass on history. Politics is involved in what gets remembered, where significance is applied and how patriotism is communicated. Because of the vastness of history, necessarily things are cut. This makes it easy for certain things to be forgotten, glossed over, or entirely misrepresented.

Do not think though that I am not in favor of abolishing public education. I just don't think it should be an exclusively governmental job. We should all be involved in the education and raising of future generations. Privatization of education leads to hierarchies, first between children, and then between men and women. What price can you put on thoughts, ideas, dreams and history—who can say what child does or does not deserve to learn about its heritage and own to make their own future? That siad, it is precisely because I am against censorship and restriction of information, that I am leery of the government's monopoly on what is and is not taught.

How often does one here about anti-war sentiment? Probably the only place you'll hear about it is the Viet Nam War. One rarely reads or hears about the squashing of anti-war sentiments for first two World Wars.

In the move O Brother Where art Thou? there's a song called "The Big Rock Candy Mountain". That song was written by Harry McClintock, a lifelong Wobbly--which means, a member of the International Workers of the World (IWW). He also sang songs such as "Hallelujah I'm a bum" here's a youtube of the songand others.

Ammon Hennacy, was one tough cookie. He became a Catholic and anarchist though Dorothy Day, who became his godmother (even though he was older than her). He founded and worked in his Joe Hill Hospitality House, which was open to all for food and shelter. It was particularly used by homeless and drunkards. Hennacy himself was a vegetarian who refrained from smoking, drinking and drugs. He would regularly fast. In fact, on the eve of the bombing of Hiroshima he would fast for several days all while picketing the IRS. He would picket a lot actually, and later on he would go to speakings and he wrote several books. Here is one link that extrapolates on Hennacy's life and philosophy.


If you notice, Hennacy is holding up a sign with the words "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" which if you know your OT—you'll know is from the book of Daniel where King Belshazzar of Babylon desecrates several artifacts from the Temple. It was a sign of doom, and you can read the entire story in Daniel chapter 5.


Above is a video of Utah Phillips, a great storyteller, musician and anarchist who just passed away in '08. That's one thing that saddens me. Is that many Christian anarchist have been wholly rejected and spat out of the church (though I will say that these characters are usually strong willed and not ones to readily conform). I've been wondering if I should strive to rehabilitate the word, or if I should learn and take what I can while donning the graceful title of "Christian".


Another picture of Hennacy in some protest.

In a future post I'd also like to explore/share with you the context which the IWW, socialism and anarchism arose out of--and why these philosophies are still relavent due to relatively parallel conditions.

I shall end there. I have more to write. I'm writing an Op-Ed piece for my first paper for my Dissent class. I shall share it after I've turned it in. Good friday!