http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/index/ just the thoughtcrime blog. entries about whatever. en rob.butz@gmail.com Copyright 2008 2008-10-23T23:33:26-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/design_co_omperatition_deadline_extended/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/design_co_omperatition_deadline_extended/#When:23:33:26Z Hey everyone. We just got really, really busy with the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair, school, and publishing projects this month, and haven’t had time to follow up with the thoughtcrime ink design co-omperatition. You might’ve noticed that we don’t have our “design ranking” pages up yet — we are pushing to finish these in the next seven days. We’ll be sending out announcements all over the place when the gallery of entries and the ranking pages are up. Thanks for your patience with us! In the meantime please keep submitting designs, as we have extended the co-omperatition deadline till Dec. 5 (perfect for deciding if your US-election-related t-shirt desgn is still going to be relevant)! thoughtcrime ink news 2008-10-23T23:33:26-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/shift_in_progress_to_be_launched_at_happy_harbour_comics_nov_20/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/shift_in_progress_to_be_launched_at_happy_harbour_comics_nov_20/#When:23:00:09Z “Shift in Progress: A Not-So-Comic Book” is available here. Shift in Progress: A Not-So-Comic Book is a graphic story anthology centered around the theme of young people and fighting back against oppressive aspects of the workplace. To our knowledge, it’s the first comic book produced by the Edmonton “General Membership Branch” (GMB) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It’s finally being launched November 20, and you’re all invited to celebrate its release with us! It will soon be available on thoughtcrime ink for sale in the new books section. Interviews with seven young workers and the real-life experiences of the artists themselves provided the inspiration of the five stories in Shift in Progress. In The Illusion of Time, Eva sacrifices everything to her job, friends, relationship at the expense of her health. In A Black Sheep Tale, Chan has a mohawk, an anarchist t-shirt, and an attitude. He works hard but unhappily in a garment factory and has disturbing dreams. Can he grow into his t-shirt? Rights of Passage tells the tale of April, an avid skateboarder who has to work at a bar where the lewd customers are never made to feel uncomfortable for their sexual assaults on the female staff. In After Breakfast and Just Before Bed, Dhan is gay, East Indian, and pathologically driven to over-perform, micromanage, and burn out. For what and whom is he driving himself? Finally, Grind tells the tale of Julie, who comes to work in the oil patch with boyfriend and baby. One accident later, she is the sole breadwinner of the family and sets off to work at the local caffeine dealer. What next? Shift in Progress’ intro is written by Eugene Plawiuk, and contains organizing information sections compiled by Nick Dreidger and Steve Nixon. events 2008-10-23T23:00:09-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/amounts_donated/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/amounts_donated/#When:23:55:22Z So the last time we mentioned raising funds for grassroots projects in Canada, via the shirts you were buying, we still had our vision of raising $5000 for the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair. Raising $5000 didn’t quite happen, but at least we dreamt big!  Partway through the year, we did ask ourselves if a single Anarchist Bookfair truly warranted getting $5000 when surely there were other people needing assistance in getting bookfairs started. We ended up donating some to other bookfairs in Canada. Your money you gave us for shirts broke down like this: Victoria Anarchist Bookfair - $150 donated Calgary Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated Saskatoon Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated Winnipeg Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair - $200 donated Because Edmonton’s bookfair has aspired to pay travel fees for everyone, we also donated additional funds ($400) for travel fees for Ward Churchill, and also donated buttons and lit to sell at the door (about $400 worth) to offset costs. This year we also donated buttons and supplies to Edmonton Anarchist Black Cross and were able to afford a lit donation to the Calgary Anarchist Black Cross. Finally, thoughtcrime ink gave a small amount to the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) Solidarity Fund, roughly $200, and helped out an anarchist collective in Oaxaca, Mexico, for $500. More updates on this funding later. Even more exciting news is that we are able to launch our book imprint, thoughtcrime ink books, and our ”Infoshop in a Box” initiative. This provides a plentiful selection of anarchist and radical literature (radical to some, common sense to us), along with optional shirts and buttons, at cost to people looking to table lit at events. If you are interested in Infoshop in a Box, just mail about it. thoughtcrime ink news 2008-08-15T23:55:22-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/design_competition_cooperation/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/design_competition_cooperation/#When:17:47:20Z ThoughtCrime Ink, a volunteer-run, anti-capitalist “apparel-based community maker” which raises funds for mid-size and new Anarchist Bookfairs across Canada, is holding a t-shirt design “competition/cooperation”. We’re selecting up to four winning designs, and giving out 100 dollars (CDN) to their creators, plus one dollar for each shirt sold. All remaining profits from the t-shirts go to support Anarchist Bookfairs and similar grassroots community projects across Canada - we are a volunteer collective and we don’t take a ‘cut’ in any way. More details can be found here: http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/design We are hoping that you might consider entering the t-shirt design “co-omperatition,” or share this weblog entry with an artist interested in political design, art, craft etc. If you are not a designer but have good ideas, consider teaming up with an artist to produce a kick-ass t-shirt — collective submissions are OK! If you like, feel free to submit prototypes of your design to our “critiques” section and get constructive feedback before entering them. You may also submit as many entries as you like. Although we in the thoughtcrime ink collective identify as anarchists, not everything we like screams “anarchy!” So, feel free to make the politics of your design as subtle or “in-your-face” as you want. Express any style, feeling or mood in relation to your subject matter. The criticial requirement is that designs you submit must be original (ie. yours - if you just want “public domain” graphics (from the Spunk archive, for example) printed up on a shirt, there are easier ways of going about that.) We are looking to stoke new expressions of visual resistance. Keep in mind that there are printing limitations for this contest (which are described on the design page linked above). Also, this time around, we’re not doing “slogan-only” shirts, though text is certainly OK to incorporate into your designs. You should also design with “placement” on the shirt in mind, and t-shirt colour. We print on a mix of Justshirts (fair trade) and American Apparel (“sweatshop-free”) stock, so you can print on any of the colours here: http://store.americanapparel.net/2001.html We’re hoping to take thoughtcrime ink to the ‘next level’ by making the design cooperation/competition “live.” Logged-in visitors to thoughtcrimeink.com get to score the designs and leave constructive comments for works under consideration. The scoring really helps us determine which shirts should be printed. We’re hoping that everyone who reads this will create an account on thoughtcrimeink.com in the next few weeks and score some designs. We’ll send another callout when the scoring wall is up. We’re aware that technology is a barrier for many artists, however, so if you’re a brilliant woodcut artist who wants to enter the design cooperation/competition, and you don’t know you way around computers, just let us know at design@thoughtcrimeink.com and we’ll do our best to help your design get entered. Questions? Just email design@thoughtcrimeink.com, or visit http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/design to read more info, download the designer’s kit and get started… Solidarity, Rob for thoughtcrime ink http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com http://www.facebook.com/pages/thoughtcrime-ink/21316665733 other news 2008-08-11T17:47:20-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/new_books_section_on_thoughtcrime_ink/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/new_books_section_on_thoughtcrime_ink/#When:01:26:59Z We launched the books section of thoughtcrime ink today. Just two four books for now! The first is a sweet edition made of a section of Alexander Berkman’s “What is Anarchist Communism” we titled Reformers, Socialists and Communists: An Anarchist Critique. We have the first English translation of Makhno’s Russian Revolution memoirs, courtesy of Malcolm Archibald, and Archibald’s brief biography of Maria Nikiforova, the “Anarchist Joan of Arc.” Finally, we have online the zine-sized, beautiful, perfect-bound edition of Kropotkin’s essay we’ve brought to several bookfairs, Anarchist Morality. These titles will be followed by many more in the coming weeks. Onward! thoughtcrime ink news 2008-08-02T01:26:59-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/background_color_a_bang_on_indictment_of_racialized_fashion/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/background_color_a_bang_on_indictment_of_racialized_fashion/#When:06:42:15Z Our friend Dawn Babs Davenport gave us the heads up on a thoughtful, must-read article by Mimi on ThreadBared (a weblog that critiques “the politics of fashion”). The article discusses a ‘racialized’ photo shoot in trendy fashion rag Nylon. The Nylon photo spread seems to represent an emerging way of being “edgy” in mainstream capitalist fashion that many are catching on to, of explicitly playing up racial inequality like you just couldn’t care less. This may seem like nothing new (readers of No Logo and Adbusters might remember discussion of Diesel ads from the mid-90s). “Slumming it” always seems to be recurringly fashionable. But in the case of the Nylon shoot, the indifference is carried through to the likely drafting an unwilling model (in this case, a housekeeper) and being well aware (and not giving a shit) that the worker knows they have to do it or likely lose their job. (“Hey, we can do this because we’re hipsters at Nylon and you’re nothing.”) While we at thoughtcrime ink ponder the implications of this for our own present and future “model photography” for our shirts (we definitely don’t want our highlighting of this article to be taken as saying ‘look at us, aren’t we so perfect or immune to critique’), here is the article on Threadbared. other news 2008-07-31T06:42:15-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/prison_justice_day_august_10/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/prison_justice_day_august_10/#When:02:57:34Z Prison Justice Day is a day dedicated to demystify the untruths propagated about prisoners and the “justice” system. The aim of the prison abolition movement is to eliminate prisons, jails, immigration detention centers, and prisoner of war camps by alternatives which we argue more useful and more humane. Come join us for a day of awareness featuring: Vegan Food Films, including: One Dead Indian, and Life Inside Out: Life inside a Women’s Prison Workshops on Books to Prisoners, Prison Abolition, Know Your Rights and more! Benefit Show to follow at 6:30 ($5-10 sliding scale) Tabling Welcome! events 2008-07-25T02:57:34-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/come_say_hello_at_the_edmonton_anarchist_bookfair_silent_auction/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/come_say_hello_at_the_edmonton_anarchist_bookfair_silent_auction/#When:17:57:01Z The Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair is just three months away, and at the end of July the organizing members of the EABF are holding their silent auction. There’s always awesome stuff to bid for at the annual auction! Come down for the community, the bidding and the free vegan food. We should have our new shirts printed by then and will be auctioning some off. Read more at the EABF site. thoughtcrime ink news, events 2008-06-29T17:57:01-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/visit_the_anarchist_gifts_application_on_facebook/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/visit_the_anarchist_gifts_application_on_facebook/#When:21:25:00Z Possibly great. Possibly annoying. Possibly trivial. Possibly all three. For better or for worse, we used a little program on Facebook called Gift Creator to make a gift-exchange Facebook add-on, Anarchist Gifts. Now you can exchange little presents of love and solidarity with your fellow addicts (must… get… off… the internet). Some things, Gift Creator doesn’t let us do. This is supposedly going to be fixed soon. “Unlocking” gifts sucks! We’re going to plunk a great big catalog of ‘anarchist gifts’ in there eventually so there’s lots of things to send to friends. Anyway, For better or for worse, we used a little program on Facebook called Gift Creator to make a gift-exchange Facebook add-on, Anarchist Gifts. Now you can exchange little presents of love and solidarity with your fellow addicts… Anarchist Gifts gets the word out in a novel way about thoughtcrime ink, but we’d like to use it to benefit other grassroots radical projects. Post a review or on the group wall if you like and spread the word about your projects. We’re open to suggestions about how to make it more useful for someone who stumbles on it. Over the next little bit we’re adding an essential link collection and reading list to the application page, so maybe people who stumble on to the page end up learning. Anyway, thoughtcrime ink news 2008-06-24T21:25:00-07:00 http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/folk_extravaganza_at_remedy/ http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/core.php/weblog/folk_extravaganza_at_remedy/#When:17:00:00Z featuring gretna green, lex mckie, garrett johnson and forgetful florence. events 2008-06-22T17:00:00-07:00