The Black and Red Blog is a journal for sharing my ideas, opinions, and thoughts about news, people, and historical events with a leftist, anarchist, or communist slant. As such, I’ll cover topics such as wealth inequality, myths handed down from the ruling class, and concepts, as I understand them, for making change.
Furthermore, I’ll also touch on mental health, as they relate to the topics.
I’ll always strive to cite sources for quotes, statistics, and other claims.
Most of what I share on my blog are my understanding of larger concepts and my opinions. My opinions are malleable. But the facts that I base them on are not.
I view the world through a few basic tenets that are more firm than my opinions:
- People should feel secure and content
- Everyone deserves a basic Quality of Life
- Housing
- Food
- Healthcare
- Everyone should be treated fairly
- Everyone deserves a basic Quality of Life
- All humans should work towards a goal of elevating everyone
- Strive to eliminate wealth inequality
- Work towards eliminating food scarcity
- Find workable solutions to homelessness
- Reduce materialism
- Don’t be an exploiter
- Don’t profit from the work of others
- Source goods from reputable places where possible
- Provide mutual aid where I’m able
- Protect the planet
- Source goods locally to reduce transportation costs
- Repair or reuse where possible
Behind the Name: Black and Red
One of the title suggestions I got was “The Red Thread.” It felt like apt symbolism. Red being the color of communism and the implication being a thread runs through the fabric of society. Unfortunately, it has been used many times and no good domain names were available.
Besides that, the red thread is also tied to Chinese mythology. Of course, I didn’t know this until I started researching, but I didn’t want any confusion.
I began perusing variants of anarchist/communist symbolism. I felt the Black and Red flag flown by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War was a good fit for the lens I view the world through.
While no one school of thought aligns perfectly, I feel anarchism, communism, and socialism are heavily woven into my basic tenets.
Black is Beautiful
Partial quotation from Reinventing Anarchy, Again by Howard Ehrlich on the Anarchist FAQ:
“Why is our flag black? … The black flag is the negation of all flags. It is a negation of nationhood which puts the human race against itself and denies the unity of all humankind. Black is a mood of anger and outrage at all the hideous crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of allegiance to one state or another…
“Black is also a colour of mourning; the black flag which cancels out the nation also mourns its victims the countless millions murdered in wars, external and internal, to the greater glory and stability of some bloody state. It mourns for those whose labour is robbed (taxed) to pay for the slaughter and oppression of other human beings… it mourns the millions of brain cells blacked out with never a chance to light up the world. It is a colour of inconsolable grief.
“But black is also beautiful. It is a colour of determination, of resolve, of strength, a colour by which all others are clarified and defined…
“So black is negation, is anger, is outrage, is mourning, is beauty, is hope, is the fostering and sheltering of new forms of human life and relationship on and with this earth. The black flag means all these things. We are proud to carry it, sorry we have to, and look forward to the day when such a symbol will no longer be necessary.”
“Why the Black Flag?”, Howard Ehrlich (ed.), Reinventing Anarchy, Again, pp. 31-2
Mutual Aid Space
What about the Red?
Dive into the symbolism of red flags and the combination of black and red flags. Include an image of a red flag with the hammer and sickle, or some variant.
The Slogan: Inspire | Ignite | Unite
I like to create shorter form content. Therefore, I wanted a snappy, memorable tagline.
Inspire: I want the ideas I share to inspire people to learn and do more in their lives. Because I want everyone to define their own dash.
Ignite: Inspiration is great. But without action it’s useless. I want to help my readers ignite the flames of change within their communities.
Unite: We have a long, hard road ahead. But we can’t get to the destination alone.
Black and Red Blog: Topics Covered
Disclaimer: Currently, the blog is just one person and I have limited time and resources to write and maintain it. Therefore, I sometimes use Artificial Intelligence to help with outlining for posts and/or coming up with titles. It’s surprisingly good at snappy, attention grabbing headlines!
Any generated content shown directly on the site will have an explicit marking.
- Political Philosophy
- Anarchism
- Communism
- Socialism
- Anti-capitalism
- United States Politics with a Leftist Slant
- Workers Rights
- City Planning
- Public Transportation
- Walk-able Cities
- Bike-able Cities
- Environmentalism
- Micro-environmentalism: What we can do ourselves
- Macro-environmentalism: What we need the primary polluters to do
- Climate Crisis News
- Grifts Pushed by Industry and Climate Crisis Deniers
- History
- Unique takes on people, places, and things from History
- Profiles of Individuals
- Advocates for the causes of the working class
- Adversaries propagating the myths of capitalism
What this Blog Won’t Become
An Incitement to Violence
While I’m not a pacifist, nothing on my blog will ever be a call to violence or insurrection.
Violence should only be responded to, lest we give our adversaries cause to identify us as rebels and misfits.
A Library
Because I don’t have the time or money to collect, store, or properly organize a comprehensive set of reference material.
However, I will provide links to resources, as appropriate. Furthermore, in the future, I may organize those resources from other places to help those form their own tenets for living.
The Anarchist Library is a great place to start.
A Written Utopia
Socialists, communists, and anarchists have spent far too much time writing utopias and not bringing them to fruition. We need action in the streets to make change happen.
I don’t want to argue about what meaningful change looks like. Because I want to start that meaningful change.
Black and Red Blog: Tech
The Black and Red blog is running on a WordPress Appliance and powered by TurnKey Linux.
The Theme is Themify Ultra from Themify.
Design, customization, and infrastructure by Raymond Tec.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
For Commercial use, please contact Mike York.