Joe's Garage

Sunday November 17, 2024, Radical Sunday School, Anarchism 101: Everything you’ve always wanted to know about anti-authoritarian socialism (but were too afraid to ask) . From 18:00 till 20:00.Anarchism comes in as many varieties as there are and have been anarchists. Yet, we do have some concepts in common, even if not all of us do use the same words. – P.S.

Have you been hearing about anarchism in the news, but you don’t know where to start? Curious about the “circle-A” or the cool red-and-black aesthetic? Maybe you’ve seen some famous names, but don’t feel like worshipping some old dead white guy? Well, lucky for you, Radical Sunday School is here to help. In this week’s session, we’ll talk with an experienced comrade about some of the basic ideas of anarchism and try to tease out what some of this “libertarian socialism” is all about. We’ll learn about things like:

– Authority and hierarchy
– Capitalism and the state
– Freedom and autonomy
– Mutual aid and free association
– Federation and decentralization

Whether you’re a seasoned revolutionary, a complete newbie, or just a little anarcho-curious, we’re happy to have you as we learn together about our favorite political practice!

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday November 10, 2024, Radical Sunday School: Corruption 101, why you should have friends. From 18:00 till 20:00.Growing up in Hungary during the 2010s, I frequently heard it from many liberal adults and newspapers, that one of the most important problems of our country is the rampant corruption by our conservative government. The argument was the following: if only our political elite wouldn’t steal our or the EU’s taxpayers’ money, the standard of living would increase drastically. There was also often a flipside to that, namely that one of the main reasons why Western European countries have such a high standard of living is because their politicians don’t steal their taxpayers’ money, and their citizens always follow the rules, and do not try to find loopholes, unlike us, Hungarians. Even in these few statements, there’s a lot to unpack.
However, during the past two years that I spent in the Netherlands, I have never heard anyone talk about corruption in any context. This made me wonder: is there really no conversation about corruption here?

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday November 3rd, 2024, Radical Sunday School: Open Session: What is Radical Sunday School? From 18:00 till 20:00.In this week’s session of Radical Sunday School, we’ll be opening up the conversation to people who’ve never been to RSS before! (And of course, we’d love to see familiar faces as well 🙂 ) In the first of what we hope to be a series of open session, we’d like to include everyone in the kinds of discussions we’ve been having within our collective. For example:

– What exactly is the difference between a “brave” and a “safer” space? What does that mean in a learning environment?
– How do we attract new people to our sessions?
– What exactly are our perspectives on mainstream education and academia?

We’d love anyone who’s ever been curious about what radical education can look like to stop by for a more laid-back, joyful reflection on these kinds of ideas, and whatever else you want to know!

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday October 20, 2024, Radical Sunday School: Fuck this Job! Taking Power Back at Work. From 18:00 till 20:00.What would you do if your boss started stealing your pay? What if you were getting pressured to work longer than you’re getting paid for? Would you complain? Would you quit? Under capitalism, we all have to work, and in the workplace, bosses and managers get to act like little kings. We don’t get a vote in the places we live 8 (or often more) hours a day. Alone, we have no power to stop this. But what if we could work together to fight back?

In this week’s session of Radical Sunday School, we’ll be sharing horror stories about work and complaining about our bosses, but we’ll also be talking with people who have taken the fight to their bosses. We’ll hear from veterans of the war against capitalism, and find out what the front lines look like: collective actions, walk-outs, escalation tactics, and large scale strikes!

Whether you work at a university, a factory, a restaurant, or an office building, we can all learn skills together to help us fight labor exploitation and start to take control of our own lives. Let’s get together to make sure that Mondays don’t have to be the worst day of the week anymore!

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday October 13, 2024, Radical Sunday School: What’s wrong with academia? From 18:00 till 20:00.From its very beginnings, Radical Sunday School defined itself as a collective that is highly critical of the currently existing formal education systems and aimed to offer and imagine alternatives as best as we could. Most of us in the collective have a lot of different personal experiences with formal education as students and we also read others’ thoughts on this topic who had more time and resources to form their opinions. However, we have significantly less knowledge about how the academia looks like from teachers’ and researchers’ points of view. So, tonight, we will have the opportunity to listen to and ask a researcher and lecturer at the UvA, Dirk Damsma, who studies and teaches about topics in the philosophy of science while being critical of the institution where he works. How can you climb up the steps of the academic ladder? And is that even worth it? Is working as an academic just like any other job? Whether you think universities should be burned to the ground or you still want to believe at least a little bit that the promises of the academia are not complete lies, join us for the discussion!

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday October 6, 2024, Radical Sunday School: Reclaim the Land! – Commons and Private Ownership. From 18:00 till 20:00.Approximately 60% of the forests in the European Union are privately owned. In England, you only have a right of access to 8% of the land, and uncontested rights to 3% of the rivers.

For decades, people are made to feel unwelcome to roam the world freely – the right to access nature is by no means given to everyone unconditionally . At the same time, we are made to believe that only privately owned/maintained land and resources can function in a long run. Collective ownership is bound to result in chaos and inequality, they say. But the real inequality starts right there, at every fence keeping us from accessing a meadow, a forest, a stream.

In this session, we will talk about access to nature and the right to roam as well as about the tragedy of the commons in fact communal use of resources has been working amazingly well for centuries in locally organised small-scale collectives all over the world.

We will also brainstorm what we can do to reclaim our right of access to land in a way that values and protects nature (how about some more trespassing, wildcamping, forest occupations?). Also, we will think and talk about how to fight private ownership and implement collectively organised commons in our lives.

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday September 29, 2024, Radical Sunday School: Anarchist Pedagogy in the Netherlands. From 18:00 till 20:00.Anarchism and self-education have a long, intimate history. Education is both a means to and one of the end goals of liberation. This, combined with the fact that most institutional learning is not meant to bring about meaningful change, has led anarchists to develop a wide variety of learning practices. In this RSS session we’ll dive into this relation between anarchism, personal and collective growth, institutions and liberation in past and present.

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Sunday September 22, 2024, Radical Sunday School: Why I don’t fight for or against anything. From 18:00 till 20:00.Activists often describe their work as a fight for or against different things. Some fight against climate change, others against racism, for equality, for freedom, or against colonisation. But why do we talk about fights and wars if we are not carrying real weapons to real fronts, most of the time? How do these descriptions affect the way we work towards our goals? And, most importantly, who does the dishes after the revolution? In this session, we invite everyone to share and discuss the different ways in which they view and value their and their comrades work in various leftist movements and organizations.

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/