A-Infos
While one
should always be cautious when it comes to technology, the use
of the communication potential of electronic mail provides considerable
opportunities to all kinds of activists across the world.
One project
which seeks to use e-mail for radical purposes is the A-Infos
news service. A-Infos provides subscribers with a wide range of
news from around the world in a number of languages. The subjects
are often those not dealt with by the mainstream media. Messages
are usually from the perspective of those marginalised in the
monopolised media culture we live with.
Unlike zines
or newspapers, A-Infos provides a number of formats for subscribers.
You may choose from unedited, live newsfeeds and a range of digest
formats. You can also choose to join a list which discusses some
of the postings to A-Infos.
A-Infos is
run by a worldwide collective of anarchists from all around the
world. This means that A-Infos is free. Of course you pay for
your e-mail as you normally would. There are currently over 400
subscribers to A-Infos. There is also an archive of posts to A-Infos,
so you can check out posts which you may have deleted when searching
for information on a particular topic.
You can subscribe
to A-Infos by sending an e-mail message to: majordomo@tao.ca.
The message should read ‘subscribe A-Infos’. You will then get
a return e-mail explaining how to subscribe. You can get further
information by websurfing to: http://www.tao.ca/ainfos.
There are
also a whole lot of anarchist webpages on the Internet. The most
visited is the Anarchist FAQ, which can be found at: http://geocities.datacellar.net/CapitolHill/1931/.
From here you can get an understanding of what anarchism may or
may not be all about. For the more historically minded, visit
the Anarchy Archives at: http://www.pitzer.edu/~dward/Anarchist_Archives/archivehome.html.
There is also
a considerable Australian contingent of anarchists on the Internet.
The following addresses are but a small sample of a large number
of pages maintained by Australians:
@net
The Anarchist Age
Weekly
Anarcho-Syndicalism
101
Wildcat Collective
Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation
Generally,
the sites mentioned may put you into contact with some people
you share a lot in common with, as well as giving you some new
ideas. Those who created the above pages and the a-infos news
service recognise that it is important that anarchists promote
their ideas in as many ways as possible so that more activities
can be carried out in the real world. For it is in real life,
not online where people are being paid shit wages under shit conditions,
being tortured for being outspoken, where governments and corporations
do their best to crush the human spirit. So for those of you who
can find some way to access an Internet terminal, you can now
get access to a whole bunch of anarchist stuff for the cost of
a trip to your local library or a phone call. Check it out!
DJ
