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Monday, May 24th, 2004

Alright, before you come to my door ready to crucify me for not doing anything for over a month, let me explain. I got a new computer and have been switching over the files. So, while I probably have been slow and lazy, I have my reasons. Working hard on the site now, though.

As proof, here's the Anarchism in Action Guide. Enjoy. I also will be putting up a new essay on free trade (well, the first draft of the essay, anyways) as soon as I finish typing it.

Peace,
Shayn

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Thursday, April 29th, 2004

My class go here

Shayn
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Sunday, April 25, 2004

Here's a good cartoon I thought I should put up.

Click Here

Later,
Shayn

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Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Happy 4/20 everyone. Well, I tried to do some work on my site before... but it decided to die right as I was publishing. Eh.

Anyways, I finished the Alternatives for the Americas. You can find it here. My resources on this site is lacking. Not for long, however.

Gotta jet.

Peace,

Shayn
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Thursday, April 15, 2004

Hey everyone. I know there hasn't been much activity lately, but that's all going to change this weekend! I plan on doing some major sections this Saturday and Sunday, so look out for them.

Proving I haven't died,

Shayn

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Thursday, April 1st, 2004 (April Fool's Day)

Anarchy.

Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
0, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
The 'truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so true,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell - but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!

- John Henry Mackay
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Friday, March 26, 2004

The Four E�s of Balanced Writing From A Philosophy Standpoint

By Shayn Peitsch

This is short little essay I plan on making much bigger. As a writer, I�m constantly thinking about why I write and the role of being a writer. This is mainly because people constantly tell me that my writing is not �real work,� and I think of ways of justifying my existence. Not that I believe writing as not work; instead, I think of manual labour and wage slavery as not work. Work has to create, while as labour, you�re simply a number in the system.

Educate � Part of writing is about creating new ideas in people�s mind. You want your writing to add to the knowledge base of your reader. Simply writing to restate what someone knows isn�t going to capture your audience for too long. Also, as writers, the weight of responsibility of education falls heavily on our shoulders. We are the most literate, and part of our job is to add to the collective knowledge of mankind.

Express � Your voice as a writer is unique; or at least, it should be. What comes from inside is something that your writing should foster. Writing for a living should never come from a financial decision. Writers and scholars are born writers and scholars by birth. Sure, many of us have an idea one day, such as �I want to be a writer,� but it comes from a feeling we�ve had all our lives. I may be wrong, but this has been true of every writer I�ve spoken too.

Entertain � We write to entertain because that�s what keeps us connected with people. If we can write something funny, witty, intelligent and reflective, we will find an audience. You don�t want to write exclusively to an audience; you also want to write with the audience and for the audience. As humans, we need entertainment in our daily lives, a simple fact of human nature. So, by entertainment, we�re creating something useful that many enjoy greatly.

Well, enough of that for now. Bed time, folks.

Shayn Peitsch

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Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Here's some thoughts I put down onto paper today. You can find more of my thoughts on anarchism here, though it isn't a finished list.

Thoughts on Anarchism

Anarchism product distribution differs greatly from communism in two aspects- one, in communism a central government forms to direct this distribution; two, communism "prospers" under the focus of need, while anarchism needs diversity of products to survive as a viable economic system, much like capitalism.

For example, if you wanted a specific type of car, there would be a market for it. The absence of a strong, centralized government in a progressive anarchist society means there is no one directing who creates what. So, if community A produced vans used to ship goods, and produced enough for the whole region, then community B would have to produce another type of vehicle in order to have a product that is needed if they so wished to be in the automobile industry.

My belief is that anarchism is a natural evolution out of capitalism. This is because bottom-up consensus based communities need to be technologically advanced to live without a government over their heads. Because an anarchist society would come after a capitalist society, and hopefully without a decline and fall (a natural evolution without major disaster and civilization decay), all the products we produce today would still be in existence. Therefore, the need for them would still exist, and it would be beneficial for workers to continue to create these items.

However, a major problem with capitalism is that much of its product diversity is created out of consumerism and the industries need to exploit people's basic nature. Many of the products you see on the shelves are not there because they serve some functional use in society. For example, ten out of the 15 bottles of shampoo are owned by the same three companies, cost the same, and have the exact same basic properties. In an anarchist society, product diversity would be based on human need, not consumer blind greed. There is still the room for 15 different types of shampoo, and the major difference is that there would actually be 15 different types of shampoo that had noticeable differences, justifying their existence.

Capitalism�s greatest improvement to mankind is the technological advancements we�ve needed to create responsible diversity. However, it has also created irresponsible diversity as well. If you have a preference for a car that has no use in society, I would say that you should probably meditate on why you want that car in the first place. Chances are, though, you�d still be able to buy that car. If anything, imagine this: say you want a car made by the Chrysler Corporation. Under anarchism, the corporation would be broken up into it�s individual cells, which means the workers would probably create even more cars, giving us more diversity!

Anarchism does not mean creating just the basic products we need for survival. It's about using our resources wisely and giving the wealth and means of production back to the people. When it comes to something basic, like farming, you could create more food with greater diversity with less land. The problem is people as a whole have not taken control of their resources; the small percentage of the rich who continue to own the means of production do not consider wise usage of our resources as beneficial to them.

Peace,

Shayn

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Saturday, March 13, 2004

A Message to Progressives about the Terrorist Acts in Spain

By Shayn Peitsch

           �We were on the trains.�
             Sign held by a Spaniard at a rally in Madrid against the terror    bombings

The bombings in Spain this week have gotten me to think a bit more deeply on the current progressive stance in the world. Remembering back to September 11^th, 2001 and the terrorist attacks in the U.S., the reaction of the Spanish people mark a divergence from the path taken by the U.S. administration. The U.S. simply declared their anger and asked for vengeance; this seems quite in line with how governments for the rich operate. The hastily thought out plans of Curious George and Co. was acceptable enough at the time to give them a blank check to use it�s full power to really change the world.

Of course, the consequences of the U.S.�s actions are well known. Al-Quada still survives and is a potential suspect in the Spanish bombings. Afghanistan belongs to the Middle Ages, Saddam is out of power and Iraq is in flames. Thousands of people have been killed, millions have been effected very directly by this policy in a horrible way; not to mention the assault on the U.S.�s own freedoms and security. And so the list goes on.

The reaction of the Spaniards thus far does not seem to co-operate with that line of thinking. Viewing the marked difference of the Spanish reaction so far, I can say that the outcome will be fundamentally different; this is because it�s coming from a much different place. Just last night, millions of Spaniards marched in solidarity against the bombings. Of course they are angry and demanding action. However, they are also calling out for justice. True justice. Thousands painted their hands and held them up for the world to see. A sign of peace, the same sign they used when they declared their opposition to the war against Iraq last spring.

Their president, Jose Mar�a Aznar, who led a reluctant Spain into the U.S.�s war on terrorism, was at the head of the main rally in Madrid. I�m feeling that he�s going to win tomorrows election, and use this to build his case for supporting the U.S., which was shown to be against the wishes of the Spanish people, who rose against the war in Iraq last year in an overwhelming majority (some 90%). It truly baffles me how these terrorist attacks always come at the best of times for right-wing conservatives, despite their horrible record against terrorism.

I hope, though doubt, that the progressive response of so many Spaniards will change Spain�s attitude and policies on the war on terrorism. What the world needs now more than anything is whole nations collectively stating a very declarative and assertive �no!� to pre-emptive war, coupled with establishing a clear U.N. mandate on fixing the holes left behind by the U.S. war machine in such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq. Not to mention help countries forgotten by the US, like Haiti and Libya, who U.S. foreign policy has left out of it�s planning in our brave new world after a century of interference. Spain can show the world how to deal with terrorism properly � by acting like morally driven people, and leaving behind the pettiness and willful blindness of war, terrorism and revenge. The Spanish government can easily get the support of the world, and more importantly, that of the Spanish people, to find out who committed this horrendous crime and act appropriately. This is going to be a pivotal moment in seeing how Spain will contribute to either the progressive world of democracy, consensus, and justice, or the much darker side of humanity, that of resentment, fear and anger; the new unspoken beacons of capitalism and top-down, nation-states of the rich democracies.

The reason I see two paths for Spain is because everyone is so actively destroying any middle ground and thrusting world opinion into two equally reactionary camps. This hurts our progressive movement, but it strengthens our arguments considerably by providing fertile grounds of proof and evidence created by the disasters wrought on all fronts by western societies belief that we must change the world to fit our imperialistic view of it. Each day, I see only new reasons why we�re correct to stand on our moral grounds and denounce predatory capitalism, right-wing intervention and corporate greed. The growth of inequalities and the backward steps have far out-paced our abilities to denounce them.

Which means the icing on the cake was put into place a long time ago. We know that the current systems in our respective nations and the growing ineffectiveness of the U.N. is proof enough that they can no longer lead this world forward. I�m sure many of us are wondering why our numbers do not swell in accordance with the facts. With each failed policy, shouldn�t more people realize that our world needs a new vision, and the one envisioned by our intellectuals is that very vision?

Well, no. We cannot possibly expect our moral and political stance alone to overcome the onslaught of the popular, global corporate media. Our responsibility is not to be the reactionary left-wing camp. Rather, we are the voice for the 90% of the planet who is not rich. When tragedies like the Spanish bombings happen, it�s up to us not only to say we deplore the policies which created the deadly situation and the horror that is almost sure to follow by the quick fix of retribution and revenge, but also that we were on those trains when the bomb exploded. The killing of innocent civilians isn�t fodder for our argument; it�s the death of people we�re supposed to protect.

The murder of hard-working, innocent and average people was caused in part because we failed to convince the world of our vision, especially when we know that we have the mentality and the ideas to stem the reasons of terrorism. We are the alternative view not because our view is different, but because we reflect what is just and truthful. Our intellectuals have shown us our clear path to the world we say we want, and when tragedies like this are born out of policies like the war on terrorism (as it just may turn out), which we so venomously denounce, we must reassess the reasons why the world still does not heed our call to realign our stance and policies in world affairs.

If we have chosen the idea that we want leaders, not rulers, than so be it. After the period of mourning the victims of terrorism deserve, we must look at how we, as progressives and activists are trying to create the visions of our dreamers, and change or reaffirm our actions as necessary. As March 20^th, the first anniversary of the second Iraq war approaches, we must take our global plans to restate our goals and opposition and use such an event to also declare that 2004 will be different, because we are going to take the last few incredible years and use them as the basis for another year of hard work and activism for the sake of justice and progress. Progress doesn�t mean being �the other side,� if we�re going to be successful; it has to mean working towards the world that already exists and deserves it�s chance to bring about a better day. The Spanish reaction thus far should tell us it resides in the hopes and dreams of the people.

With our raised, painted hands, let�s renew our vow to be the servants of our dreams, and the masters of our realities.

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it ... always."
Mahatma Gandhi

Shayn

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