The Anarcho-Feminist

Why has Tumblr become the go-to platform of this moment? As we saw in Iran, Twitter can be a powerful broadcast tool for delivering minute-by-minute accounts of breaking news and amplifying concrete messages (“Down with Ahmedinejad”). And in Egypt, Facebook was pivotal for recruiting protesters and scheduling rallies in Tahrir Square. But Tumblr has served neither of these purposes for Occupy Wall Street, a diffuse and leaderless movement with a deliberately undefined goal. Instead, Tumblr has humanized the movement. Tumblr is a powerful storytelling medium, and this movement is about stories—about how the nation’s economic policies have priced us out of school, swallowed us in debt, permanently postponed retirements, and torn apart families. We Are the 99 Percent is the closest thing we’ve had to the work of Farm Security Administration—which paid photojournalists to document the plight of farmers during the Great Depression—and it may well go down as the definitive social history of this recession.

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.

Far from weakening or undermining marriage, as homophobes claim, many same-sex couples seem hell-bent on shoring up an institution that is, for many heterosexuals, failing, discredited and irrelevant. While the push for same-sex marriage is an issue of equality, which I support, it also signifies the rising conservatism of the LGBT community and a loss of radical vision. It reeks of assimilationism and conformism with the straight status quo. As we celebrate gay pride in London this Saturday, with its calls for marriage equality, the sceptical, questioning attitudes of the early lesbian and gay liberation pioneers will be almost entirely absent.