Letters to the Editors
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Letter
A Critical Note on Ruiz and Ross’ “Energizing the Climate Movement”
Dear UTA, In “Energizing the Climate Movement,” Sedge Ruiz and Alexander Reid Ross offer a critique of the idea that the mass adoption of green technologies will be sufficient to avert the climate crisis. They note that green technologies on their own cannot sustain existing levels of energy use…
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Letter
Remembering Syria
Dear UTA, Ali Mustafa, the photographer, journalist, and activist, gave an interesting interview in Upping the Anti in July 2013 – a few months before he was killed in the Syrian government’s shelling of Aleppo. In the interview, Ali discussed at length the complexities of the conflict in Syria,...
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Letter
Revolutionizing the Commons
Dear UTA, As a 2013 bumper crop of grain threatens to rot in Prairie elevators without any interference by the recently defunct, farmer-run Canadian Wheat Board, and as lobster prices drop to as low as $2.20 a pound at communal wharfs while still fetching luxury prices in upscale restaurants, the li…
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Letter
Dis-owning Knowledge
Dear UTA, I was excited to see the publication of an article focusing on critical trans politics in Issue 14 of Upping the Anti. Rob Nichols’s interview with Dean Spade provides a succinct overview of Spade’s critiques of legal frameworks and institutions as these pertain to, and govern, concept…
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Letter
Partners in Radical Projects: Thoughts on Activist-NGO Alliances
Dear UTA, I am writing in response to your interview in Upping the Anti Issue 15 with Kat Stevens, an anarchist and community organizer involved for many years in Tar Sands Blockade organizing in Houston, Texas. While discussing lobbying efforts to combat the Keystone XL pipeline, Stevens characteri…
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Letter
Letter - Reflective Solidarity and Paradigms of Suffering
Dear UTA, The Editorial in Upping the Anti Issue 15 invokes Jodi Dean and Chandra Mohanty’s visions of solidarity as a process of linking distinct struggles, rather than rallying around common identities, as one way to avoid a feminism molded exclusively around experiences of White women, to the e…
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Letter
Cautionary Notes on Spontaneity and Organization
Dear UTA, Congratulations for producing Upping the Anti 14 in spite of adverse circumstances. The issue’s editorial concludes that we (the revolutionary Left) “must commit to ever increasing spontaneous proliferation of organizational experiments and when we fail we must learn to, as Samuel Beck…
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Letter
Prison Abolition and "Sex Crimes"
Dear UTA, For those of us who believe in prison abolition, how to deal with people labelled “sex offenders” is a difficult question. Although we recognize the failure of prisons to keep us, our families, and our communities safe, we have not yet implemented widespread programs and initiatives th…
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Letter
It's More Than a Class Thing When We Deal with Class Struggle
Dear UTA, There are a number of points raised in “Revolutionary Ambition in an Age of Austerity: An Interview with Neil Smith” that I agree with. I will briefly engage with some issues around the class struggle before speaking to the manner in which race is missing or, at best, implicitly presen…
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Letter
Copwatching Everywhere
Dear UTA, In “Their Eyes Were Watching Cops,” Joaquin Cienfuegos talks about his experiences of political organizing, specifically with Copwatch LA. As a member of Winnipeg Copwatch, I found his insights to be incredibly valuable. Winnipeg’s Copwatch group has been active since 2006. Throughou…
