thought crime ink

Which picture is oxygensmith?

@EW & ftony: Aw thanks.

@EW: You're right, I'm not pictured anywhere on the site.

@ all. Sorry for the length of the previous post, I honestly didn't take offense to anything said. I kind of write unusually long posts. Also, I'm really this long-winded person in my offline life too (EW can attest to this).. and my fellow collective member, Des, was looking over my shoulder every 5 minutes saying 'put this in!' so I guess I did two people's worth of typing/talking.

Apologies if my earlier post came off as defensive at all — I'm just super interested in all the questions surrounding what we're doing, including yours, so I like to pose critiques too, and welcome other people's chiming in. On one hand, I'm promoting the site in a lot of places (locally) as if it's the most awesome thing in the world, but then in other places I like to be more self-critical too, and play devil's advocate with our own project. We're totally enjoying and appreciating everyone's comments on everything here.

I guess one thing I ask myself, is that it would be really simple/cut and dried if we were "pimping liberals" as someone says to fund radical projects, but in a sense, we also fully intend to "pimp" anarchists, syndicalists, etc... in other words... have people who are radicals buy the shirts, too, if they like them.

Sometimes I have a problem with that too, because it feels like people in our communities already do so many contributions as it is. And will people who might otherwise be open to radical ideas look at our site and be turned off by some sense that you have to consume "radical gear" to make yourself part of an activist community...? And at other times, I sometimes wonder if we're like the marketing scout that finds a new niche market for the capitalist culture industry, identifying an 'anarchist' market for them to move in on and sell their own version of 'anarchy' (probably way more efficiently than we can). Not that I think wobs, genuine anarchists, guerilla workers, anti-authoritarians etc. would be fooled, co-opted, etc. but... I just don't know what to think about it, sometimes, and we're rolling forward and there's orders to fill oh my God too busy to think about it... what do you folks think? Is these lines of thinking even worth thinking about?

Anyway, that's why I think it's worth communicating all of our thoughts on a forum like libcom. I guess if the audience that's closest to our hearts (as we see it) are anarchists, we're accountable (at least in some vague sense) to anarchist / libcom / communist / syndicalist / rebel worker communities and other people we're in solidarity with. So what y'all think is important to us...

@ janky & serge: that's a brilliant idea and offer, and thanks. Right now though, as we're in the middle of ironing out issues with stock, the current vendors (AK Press and APIRG), shipping, etc. and seeing how it's all going to mesh with the new website... We put the idea of vending through branches on the agenda of our meeting the other day, and we decided that for now, we're just gonna keep the vending simple until we know all is running smoothly. We're totally not opposed to the idea though and think it's great. But there's still lots of work to do just to streamline what we've got. I spent the past few days completely re-doing and simplifying the shipping costs part of the site, so it's more automated now (he says as he crosses fingers and hopes it works)... it's crazy, so many decisions to be made so fast, it's like planning a conference.

thanks again everybody

Oxygensmith: is APIRG one of the PIRGs?

Also did you see my post about how the thoughtcrime ink folks fit the Edmonton trend of attractiveness?

APIRG is indeed one of the PIRGs. I was on the board for awhile, I'm still an advisor, [self-promotion] and did their website too [/self-promotion]

Yes I saw that post. You know, the ulterior motive of thoughtcrime is to perpetuate the myth of Edmonton's uber-attractive activist community, so that radicals all over the world visit our sexy Shangri-La. Good-looking people just sort of grow on trees here, flop to the ground and start doing direct action from the moment they get up (only pausing, of course, to model our dashing apparel). Of course we're all sort of basking in the general attractiveness of our politics, and people move here from elsewhere as well, so we can't completely attribute these circumstances to the local gene pool.

But if you're going to Edmonton, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair, tool belt, workboots, etc... We're only telling you this because it's completely true and not enough people know, so please spread the word

So is this a chartered IWW job shop?

Also, on the subject of co-ops, I can't imagine steering a worker in a workers collective or co-op to the above mentioned IWW webpage in the hopes of trying to convince them to join the IWW and become a job-shop.

Fortunetly, I think that the downloadable pamphlet at: http://www.iww.org/PDF/CoopBrochure.pdf is miles better.

Hey all, still going strong and successfully raising funds -- now for other bookfairs besides Edmonton's -- and have a design co-ompetition / co-operation going on now. If you have ideas for shirts or want to pass along the info to artists you know, please point yourself (and your artists friends) to http://www.thoughtcrimeink.com/design

Some discussion about the "design co-omperatition" at:
http://libcom.org/forums/libcommunity/design-competitioncooperation-raise-funds-anarchist-bookfairs-other-grassroo

Thanks for all your positive feedback about our project, folks — much appreciated!