Reason, creativity and freedom: The communalist model
On the unique relevance of communalism in this historical moment. By Eleanor Finley, originally published by ROAR Magazine.
Beyond the Limits of Nature: A social-ecological view of growth and degrowth
ISE board member Eleanor Finley has a new article titled Beyond the Limits of Nature: A social-ecological view of growth and degrowth. Part of the series Ecology after capitalism, it draws on Bookchin’s work to interrogate the limits of the degrowth perspective and contrasts it with social ecology’s analysis of post-scarcity and ecological development.
Radical Politics in a Reactionary Time
by long-time ISE faculty member, Peter Staudenmaier, who also teaches at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
Sur: A neighbourhood of history, hope, and resistance: An interview with former mayor Abdullah Demirbas
From 2004 until 2012, Abdullah Demirbas served as mayor of Diyarbakir (or Amed), Kurdistan’s central Sur District, which has been largely destroyed in recent months by Turkish military assault.
Chaia Heller – Beyond Electoral Politics: Moving the Left Toward Communalism
“In November 2016, U.S. leftists will be offered up a blue and red pill provided by the matrix of our own failing democracy. Candidate #1 (let’s call this the blue pill) will be deemed the lesser of two evils, the greater of which is candidate #2 (the red pill). But what if, after responsibly choosing the pill determined to be less evil (an act of damage control), leftists then set their sights on going off their meds—that is, what if they aimed to leave the state matrix altogether? Local communalist politics, such as those outlined by Murray Bookchin’s theory of social ecology, beckon to leftists and offer a way to transcend the state by creating a confederation of directly democratic communities.”
An organic revolutionary in South Korea
by Grace Gershuny Last October I had the opportunity to deliver a talk at a conference in Goesan province, South Korea. The Regional Conference on Marketing & Innovation in Organic Farming was co-sponsored by IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) with the Goesan provincial government. My presentation, co-authored by former IFOAM President Katherine DiMatteo, […]
Is the Paris climate conference designed to fail?
… by ISE director Brian Tokar. Addressing common myths about the upcoming Paris conference, how events since the 2009 Copenhagen conference have set the stage for what could be a fatally flawed agreement, and how activists in Europe and the US are responding. available at CommonDreams, Counterpunch, ZNet, New Compass, Toward Freedom, and a terrific new website, Paris Climate Justice.
3rd annual European social ecology conference
Dan Chodorkoff reports: I recently returned from Patras, Greece where I represented the ISE at the third annual conference of TRISE, the Transnational Institute for Social Ecology. The conference drew participants from 13 countries and four continents for four days of discussions around the theme “The Power to Destroy the Power to Create; the Legacy […]
Epistemologies of Freedom: Interview with a young Kurdish revolutionary
Interview with a young revolutionary from Kobane, also a careful student of Ocalan’s thinking. He offers a brief account of his experiences as well as reflections on the Rojava Revolution, social ecology, and Turkey’s recent betrayal of the Kurdish Movement: “Unless the Middle East overcomes the nation-state, it can never be a peaceful region.”
On Europe’s anti-fracking movements
From an article posted to ROAR Magazine by ISE board member Eleanor Finley and UK climate activist Claire Fauset: … The threat of fracking and its nakedly undemocratic geopolitical context lays bare the bankruptcy of capitalism and the state as its attaché. For this reason, we are beginning to see that the global anti-fracking movement […]
