I've been a wobbly for almost three years now. Already an anarchist, I joined when I found employment as a bike courier. I figured, OK, I'm working, so I'll try to organize here. Nothing ever panned out, but since joining I've distributed IWW literature, recruited a few others into the union, and even had a brief stint as a salt, which I hope to continue after this semester ends. I helped a little with a centennary event, primarily organized with Steve Thornton, a vice-president with 1199, which had a very nice turnout with Paul Buhle and Joyce Kornbluh speaking and the Wobblies! exhibit on display.

Steve has been working on a history of the IWW in CT for a long time now, which will probably be published in the next year as a short book/long pamplhet. A sample can be read here: http://homefront.homestead.com/iww.html.

Once in a not-so-great while, I find myself at a radically transiatory stage of my life. That's probably just the nature of my age (21), not to mention that I do live kind of haphazardly (but at the same time, very conscious of what I want).

The Infoshop closed back on our otherwise wonderful holiday, International Workers Day. But more than anything, I was relieved. A lot. Yes, some glacial progress was being made, but honestly, I was running out of stamina and morale. Yes, I was angry at the stunning lack of support we recieved from several parties, to the point where some even boycotted us for the most part. I think it speaks volumes to the poverty of our sense of solidarity, and also the general immaturity of many. And yes, I'm pretty sore about everything I put into that project. I put down money I won't get back, I put in time I won't get back, and I just plain didn't have the energy for school.

At the moment of writing this, I think I'm more frustrated with the anti-war movement than I have been in my whole entire time in it. That's quite a statement, given how long I've been around, and for what percent of that time I've been vocally frustrated. Where on earth do I begin?

Essentially, Connecticut has finally caught up to the rest of the country in terms of the Palestine/"Single Issue" split. It's been a long time coming, but it finally happened. CT now has two statewide coalitions. This would not be a problem, if it weren't for the fact that NEITHER poses any threat to the war, or the establishment for that matter. Despite my best efforts, the discussion has been framed in the worst imaginable way. On the one end, there's the Zionists and Democrats. The Zionists obviously want nothing to do with Palestine, other than bomb/bulldoze/carve it up. And the Democrats in the movement want to invite their favorite politicians to the rally and dress us up all pretty and presentable, instead of having a dirty rabble, demanding of all things, human rights for one of the world's most oppressed nations. A lot of these folks are basically pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist, but sadly, politics make for odd bed fellows. Just how little this all has to do with keeping the movement "focused," and not confuse regular people with complicated things, like NOT committing ethnic cleansing on the Gulf Coast, is made pretty clear that this groups' demands include pretty much everything the "ultra-left" group is demanding, except for immigrant rights and Palestine. While I believe many of the Democratic-aligned folks are pretty reasonable, it must be said that their stance can only be compared to the moderate liberals of THEIR generation, who spoke against direct action in the Civil Rights movement. They are doing no favors to the Palestinian people, and the revolution will devour them for it.

And on the other side of the brawl (connotation intended) are the International Socialist Organization and Socialist Action - both Trotskyist groups with significant differences. Now, before I go any further, before I unnecessarily alienate anybody, I have a lot of respect for the activists in these groups and the outstanding work they do. Sadly, these folks are in Marxist-Leninist organizations, so publicly airing independent thought is often a no-no. I am, however, grateful for the kindness these activists have shown me, despite my sometimes vitriolic rhetoric. So, thanks. The other thing is that I really believe that do a lot of great work, particularly the folks in Latinos Contra La Guerra, who know the true meaning of grassroots organization and coalition building, though I strongly disagree with their ends.

Things are coming along well at the infoshop, despite the fact we still haven't paid off Novemeber's rent, let alone December or even beginning to think about January. But we've done well this month, between more people dropping by, kind donations from good, good comrades, fun events, and the dumb luck of my partner having a professor who obsessively buys new books. Some of them were revavent to the infoshop, and the rest we've been selling, for not an insubstantial sum, either. The rest of the folks in the infoshop collective have also been picking up more of the slack lately, so I feel like I'm less on my own.

We are holding off on neighborhood outreach until the Spring so we can take time to develop weekly workshops and such. I'm going to do one on workplace organization and knowing your rights as a way to do the work of the IWW, and hopefully as a way to build the organization locally. The infoshop website is www.behindtherocksinfoshop.8m.net.

It's an exciting time right now. Our Food not Bombs comrades just hit the mother load by managing to snag a huge amount of daily donations from the local Whole Foods that just opened up. I know, they're no friends to the Wobblies; but at least they can be a friend to the hungry.

And the Hartford Indymedia Center is in the formative stages of a really good way to bring in some much-needed funds by basically become an ad agency for local non-profits. There's a huge amount to work out, but it's already all in the works. Very promising.

And on top of that, the infoshop (http://behindtherocksinfoshop.8m.net) is, hopefully, getting ready to explode. We're looking to start doing several workshops each week, dealing with organizing and action models (including workplace organizing with local Wobs). And we'll also be further utilizing our considerable copying resources by offering our services to other local groups in exchange for small donations.

Aside from that, last weekend we had our resolution for a week of direct action against the war voted down by a margin of 2 to 1 at the "big" Connecticut anti-war conference. Regardless, we're going to be pursuing the effort, and probably plugging into what the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN) will be doing. Things are looking promising, and we're having a meeting this sunday to discuss things further with other comrades, including the Hartford Catholic Worker.

So, as the first month draws to a close, the infoshop is coming along in its own, anarchistically-slow way, for those of you familiar with such feelings. It's good though - we're getting our hands dirty and figuring things out as we go along, instead of following some leadership or comforming to a hollow movement. We met yesterday and divided up territory in the neighborhood to canvass to let people know what we're doing and find out how we can properly cater to the community.

 The activist community, while it has shown significant support thus far for our first fundraiser, has been at best a trickle in terms of foot traffic. Obviously it's fairly irritating in some respects, but I'm not going to complain too much about being able to sit in a comfy, quite space with a small library of fantastic reading materials; nope, not this little anarcho.

So anyways, we're depending on some community support so we can solidify the project a little bit. That's the way to do it anyways. Otherwise, we'll have to focus more on events and charging people admission, which can be tough to find a worthy attraction. Fortunately I've already started lining up some prospective events.

My name is m(A)tt. I am twenty years old. I've been a wob for almost a year, and an anarchist for three. During that time I've been struggling to make some sense of the world around me and how to change it. I've been involved in the anti-war movement since 2002, and I've expanded into other fields since, such as the labor and immigrant rights movement, the anti-authoritarian movement, etc.

Now I feel I have the capacity to do both to some degree. 

Last year I started a group called Creating Local Autonomy and Solidarity in Hartford, aka the CLASH collective. The group is not anarchist but we are, if that makes sense. We've changed a lot in terms of faces and progress in the last year and a half. We've put out a couple zine issues, as well as countless pamphlets I've printed for free at school. And just last week we opened up the Behind the Rocks Infoshop in the south end of Hartford, CT. We're off to a good start, and I think it will allow us organizationally and the local movement in general to blossom. We have a lot of support and even more potential. We'll start canvassing within a couple weeks - the last thing we want is to be another activist island in a community of color.