Justice is one of the great aspirational, universal values, meaning of course, that it is also infinitely malleable. Notions of justice have ancient roots, often religious but also secular, and usually framed as part of a broader ethical framework. Variations abound – cultural, historic, ideological – but justice is more often than not equated with fairness, equality and the absence of unfulfilled needs. Yet contemporary notions of justice almost inevitably overlap with law, in terms of both process and content. Justice is implicated in both negative and positive guises – law is the site where injustices are ostensibly remedied as well as the repository for justice guarantees, primarily through constitutional, civil and human rights instruments.
Communitarian and antiauthoritarian traditions resonate deeply with foundational approaches to justice and often add a crucial focus on collectivity and interdependence through notions such as solidarity, mutual aid and cooperative action. Kropotkin argued that social organization is based upon notions of “equity, mutual aid, and mutual support – of common law, in a word.” Radical approaches to justice can help revive – and even expand – the ethical and moral ideals underpinning ancient precepts of equity, generosity and truth in our relationships with one another. In other words, there appears to be a core of justice, as an ideal, a goal or as a good seen mainly through its absence, that progressive organizers and activists ought to claim as our own. In the North American context however, that core is often coopted by the legal system and/or hidden by the cozy relationship between dominant paradigms of justice and the tenets of liberalism.

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Perspectives, N. 28, on the theme of justice

 Contents:
Introduction, On Justice by Maia Ramnath, Paul Messersmith-Glavin, Sara Rahnoma-Galindo, and Lara Messersmith-Glavin for the Perspectives Collective.
Interviews from an Uprising, by Sarah Coffey reporting from Ferguson, MO where she spent six months.

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Come celebrate the release of the new anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements!
Featuring readings by:
Co-editor Walidah Imarisha
Contributor Gabriel Teodros
Contributor David F. Walker
Audio recording of Mumia Abu Jamal reading his essay
Onsite collaborative print making with attendees–walk away with a FREE print!
IPRC
1001 SE Division, Portland, OR
Monday, June 15th 7 – 9 pm
Supported by: Independent Publishing Resource Center, Bitch Media, Momentum Alliance, Institute for Anarchist Studies

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For the Long Haul: Care, Intention, and Steadiness in Radical Organizing
Pour le long terme : Prise en charge, dessein et stabilité dans l’organisation radicale
(français ci-dessous)

Sunday, May 24, 11am-12:45pm
Centre d’éducation populaire de la Petite-Bourgogne et de St-Henri (CEDA)
2515 rue Delisle (métro Lionel-Groulx) – Room #123 Montreal, Canada
Anti-authoritarians across North America face many similar challenges as we work to build movements capable of transforming the world: How can we manifest our values through our organizing? How can we move beyond self-selected activist circles? How can we avoid getting stuck in dead-end ways of doing things? Drawing on interviews with experienced organizers, this workshop will distill lessons for developing effective, visionary movements and open a space to discuss what we are learning together.

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Paul Messersmith-Glavin, of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, will be speaking on climate and capitalism at Knox College on Friday, May 15th, 2015 in Galesburg, Illinois. He is donating half his honorarium to the IAS.

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All Power to the Imagination, 8th Annual Conference

New College of Florida,

Sarasota, Florida

April 17th – 19th

This discussion will address how capitalism is responsible for the climate crisis, looking at how it intersects with patriarchy and racism in creating a changed climate.  We will explore to what degree, if any, capitalism is capable of solving the crisis,  and the opening this presents to revolutionaries.  We will also explore how the climate crisis offers those of us organizing in oppositional movements the ability to link various struggles. We will examine the threat our situation poses, but also the opportunity it offers to fundamentally transform society.

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