Posted on 08/08/2007 6:51:27 PM PDT by jawz
RALEIGH - The living arrangement has a name, The Mayview Collective, which conjures '60s-era images of backyard chickens and overgrown vegetable patches. Living in a duplex with three bedrooms on each side, members of the Collective kick in $325 per month toward rent, utilities and a reserve fund for household expenses. Not long ago, they bought a vacuum cleaner. The back side of the home includes a kitchen where volunteers cook meals for the homeless and a space where more volunteers help people fix their bicycles.
Within walking distance of Cameron Village, the people who live here carry a different worldview than their neighbors. Their relationships -- with one another and the community -- seem to carry the influence of a prior generation.
But don't call them hippies. By and large, members of this group identify themselves as anarchists.
"By definition, anarchy is 'rule by no one,' " says Emily Tokarski, a Mayview member. "The basic idea is that people know what they need better than the white males in power."
It's not difficult to see, though, how the duplex, with its multicolored shutters, gives a certain impression, and how neighbors have come to assume the hippie-ness of the folks who live there.
Plus, they do have backyard chickens and overgrown vegetable patches.
The Mayview Collective is just one facet of a larger nonprofit organization, ACRe, or Action for Community in Raleigh.
Founded in 2005, ACRe aims to be a center for progressive and radical activity in Raleigh. On its Web site, the organization describes itself thusly: "ACRe blurs the line between public and private space making activism not something we do in our spare time, but some1thing that we live."
To that end, there are six bedrooms available for rent as part of the Mayview Collective, named for the street on which it stands. The lower level of the home is devoted, in large part, to community activities.
Volunteers for Food Not Bombs, an international movement that prepares food that might otherwise go to waste, cook in the back kitchen on Sundays and hand out meals in Moore Square.
The group 1304 Bikes holds open bike workshops where riders can come to fix their bicycles, with help from volunteers and a room full of tools. There is a room devoted to the "American Waste Distro," where visitors can pick up pamphlets devoted to ending Selective Service and guerrilla gardening, or buy a CD from a band that shares similar politics.
A perfect fit
Tokarski, 22, moved into the home around the beginning of the year, after finishing college in Michigan. She came to Raleigh to work with AmeriCorps, found out about the Mayview Collective through Craigslist, and still remembers what she thought when she first saw the ad: "Man, that sounds perfect."
Tokarski, who studied photography and philosophy, wanted to live in a home committed to social and environmental justice. In broad terms, that means "working against oppression of all forms -- sexism, racism, classism."
She describes herself as an anarchist, although not everyone involved with the goings-on at 2419 Mayview does. In particular, the folks who work on the bikes seem less politically motivated.
Anarchy is not about chaos, Tokarski says. Rather, it emphasizes smaller communities and "providing for each other without having to depend on corporations."
Even with that definition, anarchy is complicated. See the answer given by 17-year-old Ryan Moore, when asked to describe his political leanings.
"Anarchist syndicalism."
He doesn't live in the home but runs the Distro (short for "distribution"). When asked to explain a little more about this political philosophy, he began answering the question with one of his own.
"Do you have any basic understanding of the Spanish Civil War?" Ideas into action
On a recent Sunday afternoon, with young people busily preparing food in the kitchen and others working on bikes, the house had a busy hum about it. Chickens rooted through the compost pile. Kids circled on newly repaired bicycles.
In a room in the back of the house set aside for community activities, where rock bands play and a young women's group meets to discuss alternatives to tampons, one of ACRe's founders, Attila Nemecz, spoke about the philosophy behind helping to start the organization.
The idea really sprouted from his time as a student at N.C. State, where Nemecz, now 27, worked with progressive organizations. He and some friends were looking for a way to organize outside the university structure, and ACRe is the result.
For Nemecz, his anarchist beliefs are put to work via ACRe. The idea? "Instead of asking others and waiting for results, take direct action to get results you want to see in the world."
It seems directly influenced by the Summer of Love generation, and in some ways, it is. But "we look at what the hippies did and try to avoid some of that," he says.
Drugs and free love are not part of the philosophy. This is not a tune in, turn on, drop out, kind of thing. "Here, it's about making activism a way of life," he says. "It's more about the communities you make and less about whether you buy something made out of hemp or tofu."
The ACRe homestead sticks out within its neighborhood. On Sunday afternoons, it's not uncommon for more than 20 people to attend the various activities, bringing the cars and noise that come with a gathering of that size.
Louise Fisher, 72, understands how young people would be attracted to a back-to-basics lifestyle. Still, "I wish they did a better job of keeping up their front yard," she says.
"I know it obviously doesn't bother them, but it does bother the neighborhood."
Fisher, who has lived in her home more than 40 years, can see their front yard from hers, which is lush and trim and neat. By contrast, the ACRe front yard features a large vegetable garden, which appears to have seen better days.
The garden is weeded on occasion, but in large part is left to grow naturally, Tokarski says.
In essence, it, too, is ruled by no one.
It’s not hard to figure out what effect this dump must have on neighborhood property values.
It usually stops working right about there.
That 17-year old idiot obviously doesn’t know history. The Spanish Republicans ( A collection of leftists, liberals, anarchists, land-reformists, and communists) got their tales kicked all over Spain. The Germans may have backed the nationalists, but remember the Soviets were backing the Spanish Republicans.
Only part of the practice, no doubt.
The garden is weeded on occasion, but in large part is left to grow naturally, Tokarski says.
I wonder what’s growing in that garden? Besides the vegetables.
The garden is weeded on occasion, but in large part is left to grow naturally, Tokarski says.
I wonder what’s growing in that garden? Besides the vegetables.
I’d love to see county code enforcement go after these knuckleheads......
So these pinheads make their own car, bicycles, guitars and amps, recording studios, stoves, electricity, gasoline, provide their own water and make theit own Ipods and cellphones and switching networks?
also - they had a women’s group that was discussing “alternatives to tampons” - I guess so they won’t have to depend on the Tampax corporation...
I dont even wanna know what bright ideas these babes came up with. “ gee suzie, did you know rice absorbs 2 times its own weight in fluid”?
The Cameron Village in the story is near the university and the center of Raleigh. I would think there are some zoning violations here. The paper may have been alerted to this commune by disgruntled neighbors but, typically, the reporter takes the side of the “anarchists.” But I’m guessing.
Which has accomplished exactly...what???
And which absorbs exactly how much government funding? And requires exactly how much welfare to keep the "collective" fed?
"Anarchists", my butt. More like "parasites".
“...working against oppression of all forms — sexism, racism, classism.”
Yeah, she’s a real altruist...then in the next breath she rails against “WHITE MEN in POWER”! No hypocrisy here, no siree.
I wish that the Mayo Clinic or someone would do a scientific, double-blind clinical study on people like this to find out whether it hurts to be this stupid. Do their heads ache, and if so, is it a dull throb or a sharp stab? It seems to me that it should hurt to be that dumb.
“...scientific, double-blind clinical study on people like this to find out whether it hurts to be this stupid” — LOL! I’ve often wondered how libs can daily reject the abundent empirical evidence of the miracles of free markets, democracy, free men and liberty without having their heads explode.
***where visitors can pick up pamphlets devoted to ending Selective Service and guerrilla gardening, ***
About thirty five years behind the times I would say.
***The garden is weeded on occasion, but in large part is left to grow naturally, Tokarski says. ***
Ideal place for field rats to get a start.
“”Do you have any basic understanding of the Spanish Civil War?”
Why aren’t these anarchist fighting the Jihadi-fascists??
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