I resent the idea that vegans need to tread lightly to avoid the spectre of eco-fascism a term that seems to be any idea that suggests the desire to procreate has consequences. At present we are witnessing the beginning of apocalyptic climate collapse due to the impact humans have had on the planet. I'd go so far as to say, vastly disprotionately due to industrialization and extraction based imperialism exported to the world from Europe. So a caveat to anti-natalism might be that the idea should disproportionately affect the descendants of colonizers, but the fact is its entirely optional. You don't agree, go ahead birth children into the apocalyptic world where they will invariably suffer terribly, nobody is gonna stop you from creating that harm just as we can't stop people from eating meat. This is about as far from fascism as an ideology can get. There are no laws, only data and ideas on what to do about that data. No forceful, violent imposition of will unlike the relationship of meat eaters on animals. Yet we are constantly told to be careful of becoming eco-fascist by people that have created and engage regularly with a specieist holocaust of unfathomable proportions. At the end of the day it comes to this... Each day a human needs roughly 2000 calories, we need housing, we need clothing, warmth, etc. Those things are not just magically put forth in the world, we clear forests for that lumber and to make room for pasture and roads and infrastructure and quarry metals and lithium and everything else we need to support each additional human. The earth may be able to carry more humans but at what cost to the environment, the animals that live there and the people already here being thrust into climate catastrophe already? Anti-natalism is a completely opt-in idea about trying to mitigate the impact, to me, it is also a method of decolonization when descendants of colonizers opt-in and it literally harm's nobody. What exactly is fascist about veganism or anyi-natalism, or voluntary human extinction?
Dual Power Structures
I was thinking a lot about the idea of using church entities as ways to establish neighborhood councils as was discussed a bit on mastodon and I wanted to start a thread here where we can share some resources and try to build a fairly straight forward process for anybody that might want to do this. This has a lot benefits including being able to shift resources from the state to entities that are building stronger communities for leftists. I think if we can put together a kind of established litany of things we believe, creeds etc that could be used to establish legitimacy as church, this could be a solid replicator process for establishing a more anarchistic way of life within our society which is often at times hostile to anarchism.
Mutual Aid Fund
So probably the first thing I was thinking and I would love to get feedback from others on this is to create a Mutual Aid Fund and an Email account for taking requests for help. That way we could be constantly collecting money and then as people send in requests we could send out money for anything they need help with. Has anybody here had experience with that, know of a good service to use for this? I guess cashapp/venmo maybe at least as long as amounts don't go too high. If there is something better I could explore, I'd like to do so though.
Introductions
I figure I will go first, but I am Hurin(They/Them), I am an anarcho-communist interested in community defense, mutual aid and internet privacy/security among other things I won't list here. I have been working on numerous mutual aid projects for a few years now and figured since I spend enough time online it might be good to work on building something across localities, particularly given the state of the Pandemic and the implications that has for our safety. I am looking forward to learning more about healthcare/herbalism, radio communication, organizing and anything else I can learn that I can take back to my community to make a difference.
Laetiporus Sulfureus
One of my favorite edible mushrooms. I successfully cloned these onto cardboard this year. You just wait until they get a little fuzzy in the fridge and then cut the tips off, put it on pasteurized cardboard and in a few days it should be running. Can't wait to play with that more this year, I would like to make some wooden dowels and try to grow these the way you grow shitakes.
Aborted Entaloma
This is one of my favorite ecological interactions. There is a lot of speculation about what exactly is happening, though the relationship involves two mushrooms, an Amallaria, usually Amallaria Mellia(The honey mushroom) and any number of entaloma species. One of the two parasitizes the other and professional mycologists love to argue and speculate about which parasitizes the other. From my experience the partially aborted forms have all the trappings of the entaloma genus having pinkish gills and a boring grey hue, so it is my opinion that the honey mushroom is the one doing the parasitizing, which I think stands up based on the fact that they are prolific, fast growing and generally parasitize trees, so it aligns with their ecological habits. Anyway, whatever is happening is very interesting and maybe because we don't really know what is happening.
Winter Hedgehogs found in Vermont.
Hydnum Umbilicatum I found earlier this year in Vermont. Very good, like a sweeter version of a chanterelle.