A few thoughts that I posted on the Anarchist Library forums.

I was thinking about how we could start reading groups here, or build trails of suggested readings together, but it led me to ask a broader question: how do we as anarchists prefigure our knowledge praxis?

I’m also interested in how that question can be inverted: how can we spread anarchist ideas out into our local communities? Softer, prefigurative approaches to anarchism resonate very strongly with community organising, even so far to see this as an apolitical or antipolitical practice.

Greetings, good friends and family members!

I hope your Decembers are going well and you have many good things to look forward to in 2023. 😊

This year I have decided to embrace my inner Boomer and write an annual / round-robin letter, after a friend shared their father’s in the pub one evening during our last Christmas spell. In typical John style, I have embraced my virtues of laziness and forgetfulness, and am only just writing this on Christmas Day, as the onions for our gravy are reducing on the stove.

I am a citizen of the United Kingdom with an interest in transparent and democratic policy-making. This submission represents my personal views and is independent of any organisational affiliations.

The policy-making process is complex, and requires balancing the perspectives of many different groups in order to develop policies which are successful in achieving their stated objectives. Drugs policy is particularly fraught in this regard, not least because of the moral dimensions around drug use. In an attempt to appeal to the sensibilities of the general public, policy-makers may pursue policies which are ineffective in combating, or even amplify the harms caused by, drug production, distribution, and use, rather than adopting best practice interventions with strong evidence bases. In order to ensure that future drug policy in the UK is truly effective, it is necessary to evaluate the state of current policy, and to determine how policy-makers can craft narratives which align effective interventions with the moral demands of the public.

The following email was sent to the members of the Leadership team at one of my former employers, after myself and five other members of staff were laid off without warning. I never received a response to the issues I raised in this email.

Hi all,

I had originally intended to write this email to Mac and CC in the Leadership team, but since he is currently ill I have decided to address it to you all. The things I have to say may be difficult to hear, but it is important to me that they are heard, and I believe a proper acknowledgement of these issues will also benefit Commsor as it continues to grow and evolve.

Hello members of the FAC,

I was disappointed to read the Government’s responses to your recent report on the Uighur genocide in Xinjiang [1]. It is an issue I have been following for some time and I grow increasingly concerned about the ineffectiveness of our Government in responding to this atrocity.

I thought that another option you may wish to pursue would be tracing the provenance of cotton used in consumer textiles in the UK. If it can be demonstrated that consumer goods being sold in the UK contain cotton which can be traced back to Xinjiang, this could be used to apply pressure on firms throughout the supply chain to implement greater controls and more successfully move away from Xinjiang cotton.