8 days of Anarchy

not listed in the program of 8 days is the 9th annual anarchist cafe...friday night (march 17th) at the Kitchen (16th and Potrero)...always a ton 'o fun...food, music, dancing and various revelry. this year's beneficiaries include Critical Resistance New Orleans and the Builder's Solidarity Project.

What is going on with this, is there something I am missing here? In the last two monthes, we have seen the most straight forward demonization of anarchist/environmentalist organizers since the palmer raids and later Red Scare. Where is solidarity during Anarchy week?

"not listed in the program of 8 days is the 9th annual anarchist cafe..."

The '8 days of Anarchy' is a different set of events. Since the cafe organizers are not involved in these events (and do not advertise them...) I am not exactly sure why the reverse should be tru.

"What is up with none of these events supporting anarchsit Political prisoners?"

A very large part of the conversation, and theme. of several of these events is going to concern the tactics/strategy of the Eco 11 and others. Many of us will continue to support these prisoners well into the future and believe that the aesthetic of 'events of support' often obscure what would be truly supportive. In this case, following their example (and not getting caught) would be far more supportive than a benefit that brings in a couple hundred dollars.

You'll also notice that nowhere in the 8 Days is there positive mention of the bookfair. What about that? If you've ever been to the conference, for example, you'll notice that none of the bookfair organizers or big wheels has ever attended--except for the first year. Mutual support and solidarity should stress the "mutual".

Which is not to say that there is active acrimony. There is passive ambivalence.

Mostly we are just interested in different things (and there is nothing wrong with that). The thing that drives me crazy is when one group or another informs me about 'how it should be'. Fuck that!

I think it would be nice if something of this week of anarchist focus actually went to uspporting local if you can imagine Auburn to be local anarchist thought criminals. I heard the the Anarchist Cafe might, which would be outstanding.
I am not sure about the idea "not getting caught", what are you saying? I am assuming that these people are inocent and that their getting caught is the result of a paid CS or an informant that plea bargained or was paid into passing them on. Neither of those sources of information can be assumed to be factual.
I am sure you all will write some good stuff about this. I think that anarchists seem to do great work supporting prisoners and carrying on the long term support.
If there are going to be any specifice public workshops or teachins about their cases and how the government built them, coudl you please highlight them? I would be glad to pass that information on, to other people that think that the visibility of the "green scare" is of upmost importance.

"A very large part of the conversation, and theme. of several of these events is going to concern the tactics/strategy of the Eco 11 and others. Many of us will continue to support these prisoners well into the future and believe that the aesthetic of 'events of support' often obscure what would be truly supportive. In this case, following their example (and not getting caught) would be far more supportive than a benefit that brings in a couple hundred dollars."

"nowhere in the 8 Days is there positive mention of the bookfair."

Maybe in the future, after the revolution, in addition to banning all the people you disagree with, you can compel the presence of those who agree with you, dammit.

Now, as to how to make them buy your books....

Solidarity with terrorists?!?

You rant and scream non-stop about how those who engage in property destruction with the attempt to inimidate or influence behavior are straight up terrorists. It's well documented all over indymedia, your taking of the basic FBI/powers-that-be line about such things.

You featured not one single news items about any of those recently arrested (many of them evil vegan boogeymen) on your website.

And now you have the nerve to try to point the finger at others for lacking solidarity? Pah-lease, you, of all people in this neck of the woods, have shown the least bit of solidarity for these people and their various missions (alledged) than anyone. In fact, you regulary display open hostility and rage toward them.

We don't even need to go into your well-documented opposition to environmental protections like the Endangered Species Act or your "workers *over* animals and the environment" rants. It's all about freedom for you, baby, and the environment comes in a very distant last place.

What gall. Have you no shame whatsoever?

>you'll notice that none of the bookfair organizers or big wheels has ever attended--except for the first year

What do you supposed happened there that changed our minds?

"What do you supposed happened there that changed our minds?"

Well, I suppose that maybe you saw some reds there, and it hurt your particularly sensitive feelings.

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I personally skipped this thing in part because I went to one once and was treated shoddily. If, for some unimaginable reason, I ever find myself feeling the desire to be told to my face, by a couple self righteous twits who hadn't even been born when I first started organizing, that I'm not a "real" anarchist because I don't follow the same diet they do, I don't have have spend money on a BART ticket. I can hear that crap right here in town for free. I'm not particularly interested in being lectured in the glories of huddling in caves and dying young from infectious diseases, either. I heard it before. It was crap then. It's crap now, and then some. And whatever else it may be, it's not anarchism. Anarchism is about moving forward, not going back.

Besides, I was tired. I worked a long day Saturday. I got a lot more out of sleeping in and taking it easy than I ever would out of going to any meeting, anywhere, about anything. The seminar on Soma therapy sounded kind of interesting, if for no other reason than it comes out of Brazil, where the most advanced revolutionary thought and practice on the planet this decade is taking place. If it had been nearer by, I might have gone. Instead, I slept till noon and then hung out on the beach with roomies and dogs. It was very therapeutic. We also observed some educational geology, and collected some good looking pebbles. We met a fawn dobie. They're very rare. What a sweetheart. We saw a kestrel out making a living, or maybe it was a kite. We weren't close enough to tell for sure. It was over in a second. The negative ions were sweet, too. The sand was soft. The sky was very big. So were the ravens.

I had been asked to participate in the aging seminar, and I'm flattered, but I'll tell you what I told her. I don't give public speeches. I'm not a spokesperson for anyone or anything. Occasionally I pass along a message or a bit of information, that's all. Sometimes I ask questions. When I state an opinion, it's my own. Anybody who wants to hear, as opposed to read, what I have to say, can look me up and ask me in person. I'm not that hard to find. You just have to ask the right people. If you don't who they are, you're SOL. That's how it is. That's how it's going to stay. I'm not a public figure. I don't want to be. I tried that when I was 18, and wound up on the lam. Never again.

If any of you actually want my advice about politics, this is the only advice I have to give. If you want to be in this for the long haul (no pun intended), don't be a leader. The authorities always go after the one with the bullhorn first. The one with the broom they don't even notice. Don't follow leaders, either. Make new mistakes, not somebody else's.

I am glad to see that the Book Fair has spun off so many other events. That was was our hope from the get-go. It started as a one day affair. Then came the cafe the night before. Then came the BASTARD Conference. Now there's a week plus of events. A month would be nice, but remember, the real goal is a year. There's precious d*mn little that goes on all year. Long Haul and Bound Together come to mind. There are a few others, but not nearly enough. We need to build the infrastructure of an enduring culture a lot more than we need more holidays. That's my opinion. Take it or leave it.

Maybe what happened at the first conference that shocked you was that people who identify as anarchists were talking to other anarchists about their various ideas. The discussions and workshops were open and for the most part based on real dialogue (despite workshop facilitators often taking up the bulk of the discussion time--facilitating is a difficult skill to master). Maybe the explicit lack of sectarianism of the conference organizers in their invitations to presenters scared you. Who knows? It will always be your secret because of your continual boycott of this anti-sectarian event.

For the person who thinks that all that was discussed at any BASTARD conference is primitivism, all I can say is you are incredibly ignorant. There have been workshops by people representing the ideas of NEFAC, Parecon, syndicalism, libertarian municipalism, anti-racism, as well as rewilding, insurrectionism, council communism, and good-old history. If you don't see your particular tendency on any schedule, that's your fault. Workshop solicitations are totally open, and besides, there has always been a space available for spontaneously organized workshops/discussions.

I think everyone was tired from hanging out and tabling at the bookfair. That's a thoroughly lame excuse for refusing to attend an anarchist event on the following day. Find a different one next year please. Plenty of people showed up after the lunch break and still managed to enjoy the conference.

"this anti-sectarian event."

um.... you exclude other sects.

that makes yours a sectarian event.

Who has ever been excluded from presenting a workshop or attending the BASTARD conferences? Without even so much as an allegation or even a rumor, your charge is blatantly false. With a rumor or an allegation, it would be a lie. And you sir, are a fucking liar.

book fair organizer
i can completely understand the desire to rest after all the work that people do for big events. i support you in your nature walks, and your story about the beach (and dobie) is very nice.
i also am disappointed that you have given up on the conference, and that your story is so limited (and at the least, encouraging of other people's sectarianism).
while the conference organizers have an earned reputation for being hard-assed (or assholes, in the vernacular), it is also true that given that, there has been real effort to include perspectives that are different from ours.
the reading group last night had a very interesting discussion about the topic of presentation and style, and how/whether to engage people in standard middle class, white protestant style (my words) or to be more direct and confrontative. one of the interesting points made was that the more confrontative the style, the more diversity is actually allowed. by explicitly and clearly disagreeing with people we acknowledge that we are not the same (in culture, in courtesy, in belief, in experience).
i know that you talked about your political disagreements, and i'm talking about communication styles, but i'm sure that you spend plenty of time with people who disagree with you politically, and it only really becomes a problem when people are "obnoxious" (however that gets defined in various situations).
i appreciate you addressing the question/engaging in this conversation, btw.

I never said I was shocked. I said I'd been insulted, and that should I ever desire to be insulted again, I could do so without buying a BART ticket. That's quite different from being shocked. Nothing shocks me any more. I've seen too much.

(snip)

* * * * *

re. my characterization of this event as sectarian:

"...you sir, are a fucking liar."

Mmm... maybe. A bit presumptious yourself, aren't you?

Maybe I should show up with a fresh batch of "Revolution" (newspaper of the RCP-USA) next year, and see how it goes.

Oh now I get it. You are speaking of "sects" that are not anarchist. The RCP is an explicitly anti-anarchist gang, as are all Leninists. The term "sectarian" usually refers to people from the same general tendency who have split over doctrinal issues--think the myriad varieties of Trotskyism, or the way different Leninist tendencies despise each other. Or think of the million and one varieties of Christianity that plague the globe. For a person not in that particular tendency, each sect looks pretty much the same; it's mostly from the inside where the arcane differences make sense. So your use of the term "sectarian" to describe the BASTARD conference must refer to your supposition that a person who's a member of the RCP (or a fellow traveller) would be excluded if he/she showed up at the conference and tried to sell Maoist literature. But Mister Sectarian Baiter, there is never any commerce at the conference, so this imaginary Maoist would have to be satisfied to hock his/her wares outside the space. (Anarchy means no ruler, not no rules.) If the imaginary Maoist came into any workshop, he/she would quickly find the atmosphere inhospitable to Marxist-Leninism, and if he/she decided to spout the latest tidbits of Chairman Bob Thought, then he/she would probably be greeted with groans and laughter and ridicule.

I, on the other hand, was referring specifically to anarchist tendencies. All have been welcome, nearly all have participated to varying degrees. No anarchist has ever been excluded. No anarchist will ever be excluded. The BASTARD conference is an anarchist conference. Stalinists and other enemies of anarchy can go elsewhere. I guess that means you too.

Once upon a time... there was this thing called the First International.

And then there were left wing sects.

"I guess that means you too."

You sure do a lot of "guessing" about people you don't personally know.

Some might seek to characterize that kind of behavior as bigotry.

PS: If I do show up with the RCP-USA paper, I'll see what I can do about making it available for a discount or for free for our good friends, the anarchist comrades.

After all, I know how morally opposed some of them are to literature sales at places that are billed as community events.

Would you be included in that number, Mister Grumpy?

That's what they said just before they stabbed us in the back the last time, and the time before that. and the time before that, and the time before that, and so on.

Anarchism may have common principles like opposition to hierarchy (in the long term) and ant-authoritarianism (as much as control freaks can allow) but it is for the most part a mishmash of individuals who dislike the current state of society, have stylistic differences with Communists and Socialists but want militant cred by not being just another liberal NGO supporter or Green Party activist.

The RCP looks a lot like a cult to me, but so do some Anarchist collectives. It's a danger of any collective that rejects the mainstream culture that it will fall a bit too far under a group think that is not open to outsiders. The lack of explicit leaders may seem to present a defense but you only have to look at strong anarchist personalities who act as the main organizers for the various anarchist strains to see that leadership is every bit as strong within each Anarchist strain as within ideologies that explicitly support authority (celebrity or deferring to someone who seems like an especially good organizer or especially smart theorist can easilly create the same group dynamics as explicit leadership and even feel the same to those in the minority opinion when social dynamics rather than explicit punishment is what one faces for challenging the status quo... outside of politics one only has to look at high school clique dynamics to see an example of this that most people should be familiar with). But, it doesnt require a leader for issolation and security culture to result in paranoia and authoritarianism; affinity groups engaged in the more illegal of activities almost always end up with group dynamics worse than one would see in the RCP or Sparts since fears of exposure and barriers to entry and exit that pop up are a requirement not because of ideology but because of the nature of the required security culture. Even in groups that just sit around and talk about future utopias there is a bit of the Christian waiting for the end times effect where good actions now are not enough since Communists have not embraced the one true faith while Anarchist who may only be engaged in small group discussions of Anarchism are preparing themselves for the postRapture/postRevolutionary world. Strangely the link between Communist/Anarchist ideas of an inevitable future revolution and Christian ideas of end times used to be explicit with Thomas Müntzer's role in the German Peasants' War ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Muentzer ) inspiring some of Marx's thoughts.

The problem with modern Communism and Anarchism is group nationalism not sectarianism. By focusing of the psychological and political needs on their own communities much of the radical left has issolated itself from the rest of the world in a way that can be seen in the topics discussed at the BASTARD event, and the topics speakers spoke about at the Book Fair. Shootings in your neighborhood, no access to helathcare, no job... your not in the target audience for most Anarchist or Communist literature.

Is this a thinly disguised attempt to convince us to abandon the principles of security culture and ollow leaders?

The way I read it, it's a call for anarchists to confront the hypocrisy in their own communities.

That way there wont be any trouble.

"Is this a thinly disguised attempt to convince us to abandon the principles of security culture and ollow leaders?"

One shouldnt be stupid. If you need pot for health reasons you probably shouldnt email your friend and openly ask about buying it.
If you are planning to stand up and drop a banner in a public meeting you probably dont want others to know about that ahead of time and what anarchists call "security culture" makes sense if you want the action to be a surprise. But when ones entire political identity starts requiring information control and new members in ones scene are issolated since there is never a real way to know who someone new really is, you end up with a group that can never grow since only those who personalty types allow complete subserviance to the unknown can ever get involved.

Fetishizing the symbols or war (even if it is guerrilla war) is a symptom of wanting action and adrenaline without necessarilly caring about real outcome. Anarchists are very much followers of symbolic militarism even when it its openly antiAnarchist (hence the focus on the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, and AIM); militant groups may have been able to achieve real things in the past but the tendency for white middle class youth to hold up a group like the Black Panthers as a model seems a bit like a politicized version of suburban white love of gangster rap (is it the political message thats is being agreed with or the attitude, strong militant symbols and perhaps stereotypes about the African American community). The psychology of young Communists loving Che, young Anarchists loving the Black Panthers or the Weather Underground, or young right-wingers loving Oliver North or movie action heros is not that different (the politics is clearly different but the sexual appeal of action, guns and flashy symbols and uniforms is what Im referring to). Pacifism may be somewhat pathological in the face of real threats but acting like a wanabe guerilla with no realistic outlet is probably just as pathalogical and can resullt in pretty counterproductive tactics (when outthinking or outmanuevering the police at protests becomes an end in itself). The RCP used to engage in jogging through the streets with red flags in the morning to prepare their youth brigade for a revolution and some Anarchists have about as silly a take on radical politics. Assuming none of the problems that security culture creates in group dynamics, group growth and mental sanity, there is the obvious question of effectiveness. Would the destruction of one police car really help change public opinion to be more against Iraq than a mass (but much less militant) canvassing campaign and teach-in? Would the destruction of 100 police cars make more of an impact on police brutality than working with the community to get a corrupt cop fired? Fighting back in the face of direct brutality makes sense but those faced with the most police brutality are the least likely to hit back when geting arrested when there is little chance of getting away, if by hitting back one can give that extra excuse for the police to murder you. Pacifism as a reflection of feeling self-important and holier than though troubles me but rich white youth seeking confrontation for confrontations sake with the dangers (even in cases like the mass use of pepper balls in Miami) being significantly less than more oppressed communities troubles me just as much. Is symbolic militant confrontation with authority partly a flouting of priveledge? Is ignoring reform in the face of the unrealistic nature of an immediate revoution perhaps a conservative ideology rather than a radical or militant one?

Is it ok to ask such questions within the Anarchist community? The strange part is that due to the exclusionary attitudes of the Nessies and Mr Grumpys of the Anarchist scene, such a question is meaningless since by thinking outside the community one is no longer relevent and one isnt even an acceptable person to debate or read.

"We deal with our communities. You deal with yours."

What makes you so sure, where the line you want runs?

Forty years of organizing and library that weighs more than I do.

So that makes you an expert on other people's politics, how, exactly?

So, what about the naked guy?

Is he anarchist enough for you?

By studying.

How about responding to him? Or is he too bloody-Bolshevik for ya?

It will have to wait till the committee meets again and discusses it. Personally, I oppose doing *anything* on a schedule dictated by ANSWER, or by any Bolsheviks. If the other members want to to, though, I wont block. I doubt if that will happen.

Also, the date is not entirely up to us. We're not the only group that ever rents the building, and we don't have first dibs on any date. We never are able to know any sooner than six months what dates are available.

Either way, it's really none of your business. The Fair happens when the Fair happens. Come or don't.

Yes there was this thing called the First International. What happened to it? It was destroyed from the inside by authoritarians who couldn't stomach the idea that their ideas weren't automatically followed by the entire membership. Rather than allow real differences to be discussed, Marx and Engels and their partisans used bureaucratic maneuvers to exclude any "Bakuninist" from membership, moved the General Council (or whatever it was called) to London, then moved the HQ to New York! Nice going. The differing understandings of the significance of the Paris Commune (an actual historical event) were what finally precipitated the dissolution of the International. Those different understandings were based in the differences between authoritarian and libertarian philosophical foundations, which were too easy to reduce to the personality clashes between Marx and Engels on the one hand, and Bakunin on the other. But the differences were real then, and they are real today. The inheritors of Marx's ideas are predominantly Leninists; the inheritors of Bakinin's ideas are predominantly anarchists. The fights during the First International were often brutal, just like the fights between anarchists and their enemies today.

Once upon a time there was this thing called the Russian Revolution. Anarchists supported the revolution against tsarism, and some even supported the Bolsheviks because they were against tsarism too. When Lenin and co. gained state power in their October coup, many anarchists remained their supporters. But Lenin and co. soon showed what they really wanted (which they had been saying all along, but which most anarchists decided to ignore since they were a little drunk with revolution) by doing all they could to co-opt or destroy the autonomous factory committees, enter into alliances with the European capitalist states, create State Capitalism, crush anarchist communes and projects in Moscow and Petrograd, betray the Makhnovists, and ultimately crush their own fiercest supporters, the Kronstadt sailors. The last time there was a public showing of anarchists under Bolshevik rule was when they let a bunch of anarchist prisoners out of jail for the parade at Kropotkin's funeral.

Once upon a time there was this thing called the Mexican Revolution. Urban anarchists made common cause with the progressive Constitutionalist forces of Carranza, even going so far as to be organized into "Red Battalions" to fight the "counter-revolutionary" Zapatistas. They got a bigger building for the Casa del Obrero Mundial as their reward. Then they went on strike and were brutally repressed by their erstwhile Leftist allies.

Once upon a time there was this thing called the Italian Factory Occupations movement... and the Chinese Revolution... and the Spanish Revolution... and the Cuban Revolution... If you bother to look at any radical history source on any or all of these historical events, you'll discover (perhaps to your horror, perhaps not) that the Leninists who were involved in them used their positions of power (when they got them, and many who didn't need to wait to gain state power) to suppress any and all independent (that is, not sanctioned by them) revolutionary tendencies (whether they were organized by or merely inspired by anarchists or other non-Leninist revolutionaries).

So you see, Mister Sectarian Baiter, that when anarchists organize events or projects that are meant for anarchists to partake in and enjoy, that there may be some of us more historically literate anarchists, who will be suspicious (at least) or hostile to those who proudly declare themselves to be the heirs of Lenin and Stalin and Mao. You call this "sectarian"; I call it intelligent self-defense.

You DO need your own country.

Good luck managing all that paranoia, somehow, without it.

By definition, it's only paranoia if we're wrong. History has proven otherwise.

It's only paranoia if it can be conclusively shown that the "paranoid" is UNREASONABLY suspicious and/or DELUSIONAL. The facts of history are clear. Any person identifying with Marxism, Leninism, Maoism etc (and in whatever combination they prefer) is responsible for explaining the why's and wherefore's of their predecessors' deliberately homicidal relations with anarchists and non-Leninist revolutionaries.

What about anarchocommunists?

What about council communists?

What about Trots?

What about nonpolitical, academic Marxists?

What about not-particularly-anarchist syndicalists?


Another way to say it is.... Who the fuck are you, to judge others, let alone in the name of all anarchists?

Please Mister Sectarian Baiter, if you are going to try to put up rhetorical traps for me to fall into, you might want to use clearer language. Sentence fragments are not clear, especially in your hands. What do you mean by your fragments? That your list is made up of Marxists? That they are not? That Trotskyists have nothing to do with the events I outlined above? What? If you are truly interested in a reasonable discussion (which I seriously doubt, based on your almost complete--dare I say wilfull?--lack of coherence), complete sentences with clear ideas would be an excellent place to begin. In short, I have no fucking idea what point you're trying to make with your last post. Spell it out; pretend I'm as stupid as you think I am.

So a revolution comes along, be it Mexico, France, the US, Russia or China and a dictator is getting overthrown. No matter who ends up winning, chances are they win not because of ideology but because of an effective miiltary or support from within the old armed forces. Russia's real revolution wasnt carried out by Communists, they just filled the power vacuum in the aftermath. Stalin was a reflection of traditional Russian nationalism (exagerated since he was Georgian and wanted to be respected as a Russian) and not much of a reflection of anything to do with Communism as an ideology. That Anarchists didnt prevent Stalin is more a reflection of the failure of Anarchism as an ideology than it was a failure of Communism as an ideology. Kronstadt was a failure of Anarchism not a badge of honor puttiing Anarchism's heroic martyrdom in the ranks of Jesus or Hussain. There were no lessons learned from the Russian revolution since Anarchists and Communists both exagerate their roles in the downfall of the tsar (the ultimately fell because of the actions of the Germans combined with his own inept leadership). When another dictator becomes a problem the repetition of history will happen again. Do you not support the overthrow of a dictator just because among the hundreds of groups involved in an actual revolution, one or two may really scare you if they took over? In most cases one doesnt have the choice if the sutuation is really bad. Hence while one goes from Batista to Catro, the Shah to the Ayatolla, the emporer to warlords to Mao, and colonial occupation to domestic dictators (in much of Africa, the MIddle East and Vietnam) the situation before the revolution was such that it couldnt have been prevented. One can sit by in one's armchair and philosphize about how Ortega really wasnt the best person to gain power in Nicaragua (although he was one of the best of the Communists leaders and a democratic one at that) and feel self-righteous in ones moral purity for never supporting actual change because of the inevitability that all societies have of slipping into oppression, but its hard to see such a stance as truely political since rejection of the actual for a utopian ideal is pretty much a religious mindset not a political one.

Of course Mr Grumpy and Nessie are not revolutionaries struggling it out with the evil forces of Communism any more than someone dressed like Captain Kirk at a Star Wars convention is really battling it out to save the universe from the Klingons. Revolutionary ideologies in a conservative society like this is just play, which isnt a bad thing but is a bit dangerous when it gets confused for actual politics at a time when there are real things to worry about. Instead of worrying about Klingons and Communists one needs to be worried about Bush and an invasion of Iran. Even with public sentiment turning against the war it will be a struggle to get that sentimenet turned into a US withdrawl. Public sentiment is frustrated with the status quo but much less open to radical changes right now than even the Argentinians were during the economic collapse there(for all the celebration of the chaos there, radicals ignored the basically reformist nature of public opinion that really did want a Kirchner at the end of the day)It doesnt hurt to aim for more but one cant forget that politics is about public sentiment and no matter how good your ideas sound on paper political ideals are worthless not only if they dont work but also if nobody is ready to buy into them.

Back to Communism and Stalinism for a second. Stalin was a continuation of the tsar just as Mao was a continuation of the emporers; the public both allowed them and created them out of a cultural familiarity with the roles. Communism, Stalinism, Bolshevism as ideologies are irrevelevent if you are worried about dictatorship since you can even get a dictatorship out of the ideas of Bakunin as can be seen with Qadhafi ( http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/readgb.htm ). Ideological criticism of power structures and totalitarianism isnt a prophylactic against actual power structures and totalitarianism. Qadhafi still claims that Libya is an Anarchist utopia and the world's only real democracy (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4839670.stm) in the same way that China still claims to be Communist. Resisting the rise of totalitarianism is a way to prevent totalitarianism but one doesnt do that by confronting ANSWER or the ISO anymore than one confronts militarism by picketing a Civil War reenactment. One resists totalitarianism by fighting against real forces that pose a real threat like Bush, the Republicans, the Democrats and major corporations that benefit from the war. History is reality but tying onesself to flamboyant movements and figures by claiming to be their continuation doesnt make pretending to be those figures real.

The ISO is a left leaning college based organization that tries to get kids interested in labor issues and antiwar issues; the Communist label is at best a fun anachronistic thing that makes the immediate issues more exciting but also simplifies the grouping of issues in peoples minds (antiwar, proLabor, antipolice brutality, etc...). If the ISO starts to get members in office (like Tod) chances are its politics will tone down and it will at first look like the Greens and then if it ever got larger move through Social Democratic phases and possibly even go all the way in the direction of the British Labor Party. You really cant predict such things and chances are their role will aways remain one of a college focused group that organizes small protests.

ANSWER (in the sense of it being the WWP and SOcialism and Liberation) is a much smaller group than the ISO and seems to have more of hands on way of dealing with politics. It provides the infrustructure for large protests but doesnt effectively spread ideological messages in a way that makes anything more ever possible for it as a group. By its effective organizing it gets many celebrity supporters but its cause specific support and beyond community thankfulness for the work they do they have little power and little hope for power.

The RCP is much like ANSWER in ideology but has ISO like front groups. What has been interesting to watch is how RCP front groups can act like ANSWER or the ISO and the effect is almost purely a reflection of this. NION was able to organize massive mainstream protests with celebrity endorsements of their pledge but the message was so reformist it didnt provide any route for entry for people into the RCP itself. World Cant Wait has a bit more of the core group message but has ended up with more of an ISO sized footprint. The RCP seems a bit more willing to expirement than the ISO or ANSWER but ultimately they are also a group that is able to build on public interest (one coud say take advantage of but what such groups do is closer to doing the public's shit work without actually getting anything out of it since front groups rarely produce greater support for core ideologies).

Anarchists around here have some medium sized events (like the Book Fair and one or two actual protests) and certain movements have somehow been taken under the Anarchist umbrella (ideologies born out of Earth First and environmental struggles that were not explicity Anarchists seem to make up a good portion of the community). But while the name can include far more people than Communism can, thats only true in the sense that a label like "Left" can. When it comes down to true believers like Nessie, Mr Grumpy and a few others the core group is about the size of the RCP or ANSWER. As a movement the core group ideals, sacred texts and utopian visions are just as irrelevent as with Communists, Christians or even Democrats who look on things like the Constitution in the same way as an Anarchist may look on a writing of Bakunin or a Communist, the writings of Marx. Since Anarchism doesnt have a single sacred text (more like Hinduism than Christianity I guess) the Anarchist movement and Anarchist Pride are more tied up in labels, pagentry and willingness to denounce other Leftists than Communist groups since this provides the rationalization of the groups existance. Communists can point to founding charters and splits (perhaps like early Protestants) to define their boundaries but Anarchists are forced to fall back on either the pagentry of militarism itself or on hated for Communists.

The real reason for the group boundaries relate to how people join the communities. You have a full time job or are a busy student and oppose the war... you feel like you want to work with some group and choose a group based of current focuses of the groups and recent actions you have witnessed. But for the group to remain alive and not get gobbled up by neighboring movements it has to have a definition... hence the needs for myths, sacred documents and other spiritual mumbo jumbo that perhaps nobody reallly believes in but leaves people satisfied. Kronstadt, the Spanish Civil War, Emma Goldman, 1960s Anarchists, the Situationists... are Anarchists myths that serve the same role in the Anarchist community as stories about Noah or the Macabies do to Jews and Christians. The reality of the myths is immaterial to their need by the community to define boundaries and provide group cohesion. Group dynamics is group dynamics and Anarchists and Communists are no worse or better in their relience on stories and symbols than any other groups. The US military rellies heavilly on ceremony, schools like to have rivals, colors, and traditions, and while everyone knows its artificially constructed, group rivalries between fans of opposing sports teams can tranfer over into real violence.

The thing with myths and stories is that even when they contain factual info they can be read in many different ways. In 1921 Mongolia declared its independence from China, The Emirate of Transjordan was created by the British, one of the first Palestinian uprisings began, the US passed the anti-immigrant Emergency Quota Act, the Tulsa Race Riot occured with dozens killed, the Irish War of Independence officially came to an end, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty, insulin was discovered, King Faisal was crowned in Baghdad, and many soldiers were killed by the USSR at Kronstadt. While 10,000 deaths was a lot, 1921 was also the last year of the Irish War of Independence and was in the middle of the Soviet war with the Whites so the number of deaths in many other places were at a similar level. Its not surprising that those whose identity is defined by the label Anarchist will choose this event as a defining event but others may see the situation in Ireland, the Middle East or even Mongolia as more important and worthier of long term lessons. Modern Anarchists have no more real ties to those who died at Kronstadt, than modern Christians do to Jesus or fans of the Vikings sports team do to the actual Vikings. But the historical myths provide the stories that are used in the building of identity and that identity often takes the form of actual offense for past wrongs. "Dont Trust a Boshie" is to Anarchists wha t"Dont trust a Brit" is to someone who ties up their identity with being Irish or "Dont trust Turks/Muslism" is to Serb nationalists. AntiSemitism, antiIslamism, racism and other such bigotries are the worse things that can come out of nationalistic myths but in small groups the blur between fantasy and reality may be more apparent (school myths about a rival carrying out some prank before a game for example is usually promoted with an understanding at some level that the rivalry is intended to provide motivation and group bonding in the spirit of fun...) I guess the question for Anarchists is whether the antiCommunism by those like Mr Gumpy and Nessie is more like Berkeley's hatred for Stanford or is less playful and is a symptom of real hatred and group nationalism?

>is more like Berkeley's hatred for Stanford or is less playful and is a symptom of real hatred and group nationalism?


It is neither. It is the lesson of history.

History tells us that if you wait long enough, most bad things get better and most good things go bad. It's easy to say what's really bad (Stalin and Hitler) but what's good really depends on who you ask in a given society. The worst form of oppression not only come from those who want power but also from those who fear others gaining power and lash out in a paranoid rage. You can't blame an ethnic group, a religion, an ideology or other grouping of people for being specifically dangerous; the fear or hatred of other groups more often than the love of ones own causes the worst attrocities.

But you say "I have the answer, the one true path, a direct link with an objective source of all that good." So does every absolutist. In this age of competition for oppressed status, you can can define your identity and that of your "enemy" so your group has done no wrong and your enemies can do no good but what are your trying to win with your competition? Does identifying your self with the past suffering of others really make your life more meaningful? Does it mean that your group would be safer if it gained power? Groups that dwell too much on past oppression and wrongs tend to act the worst towards others in the present since the past wrong can act as an internal excuse. When you get down to it, the fucking fuckers who you always complain about for having carried out horrible things are much more likely to be oppressed by you then you by them.

Of course, this is all in a context that somewhats buys into your dellusions of grandeur. It assumes you and those in your immediate circle who you dislike are playing parts in some monumental conflict that will change the world. You grow giddy off your name getting circulated around the web since it reenforces your feelings of self importance. You no longer are just another aging man with personal problems that make you feel small, you are instead important, someone that is disliked by the "enemy". You want your paranoia reenforced since it gives your life meaning (and its a form of attention and any attention is good attention when your lonely) Acting out and creating conflict where none should exist is your cry for meaning in the face of mortality. You want to pretend that those you get in fights with are big powerful people but probably know deep down that they are the same as you, other lonely aging men charging at windwills pretending they are giants.

No we don't. We say, "Together we can come up with better answers than those who would answer for us."

There are too many stupid and incoherent things in that post to respond to with any kind of depth and respect. You are too moronic to engage with on a reasonable level. I will now provide proofs for these opinions.

"Power vacuums" are only interesting as a category of analysis to those who hunger for power. Either that, or it refers to an especially good carpet cleaning machine.

The Kronstadt rebellion against the Bolshevik hijacking of the authentically revolutionary activities of thousands of independent (some anarchist, most not) radical workers, peasants, and soldiers was not "a failure of anarchism" because it was not a rebellion of anarchists. While there were certainly anarchists in Kronstadt, it was a Bolshevik stronghold from before the February revolution. But the rebellion occurred at a time when being a supporter of Lenin and co. didn't necessarily mean total subservience; witness the factional arguments within the Party (Worker's Opposition being the main one, but they showed their true loyalties by volunteering to help suppress the Kronstadt rebellion). Kronstadt is not invoked as a "badge of honor" for anarchists, but as an example of non-anarchist revolutionaries engaged in authentic revolutionary activity who are then mercilessly defamed and crushed by Leninists. I notice the complete absence of any discussion of Lenin and Trotsky's betrayal (twice) of the Makhnovists...

It is your diseased imagination that creates the dualistic binary of either supporting scumbag politicians and bureaucrats or sitting in an armchair not wanting to get our hands dirty with the real world. Neither Nessie nor I advocate doing nothing. We (if I may be so bold as to put words in his mouth) are for real radical social transformation that studiously avoids the mistakes of previous generations of revolutionaries (anarchist or not). The primary mistake to avoid is to trust Leninists to be interested in real radical social transformation (which would necessarily include self-organization, a refusal of representational politics, and constant vigilance against the manipulative lies of Leninists like you).

Captain Kirk and the Klingons belong in the universe of "Star Trek" not "Star Wars." Even my four-year old niece is intelligent enough to know that.

Your one-trick pony analysis (that anarchists are tied to their ideas like nationalists) may be the case for some of the kids who run around to various events and mooch off the rest of us, but clearly you are dealing with a different caliber of anarchist with Nessie and me. If you'd actually make an effort to read what we say and try to understand the points we make--instead of using your own knee-jerk (and I do mean jerk) Leninist babbling--then you'd see that labeling us "anti-Communist" (with its clear historical meaning of insinuating that anyone who is so labeled is a clear bourgeios counter-revolutionary) is false. A Red herring if you will.

I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people who show any positive interest in anarchist ideas. I am totally unwilling to extend the same courtesy to anyone who allies themselves with the proven enemies of revolutionary self-organization and anarchy. You have shown yourself amply as someone with no positive interest in anarchy, so fuck off.

>We (if I may be so bold as to put words in his mouth) are for real radical social transformation that studiously avoids the mistakes of previous generations of revolutionaries (anarchist or not). The primary mistake to avoid is to trust Leninists to be interested in real radical social transformation (which would necessarily include self-organization, a refusal of representational politics, and constant vigilance against the manipulative lies of Leninists like you).


What he said.

Leninists? Go to any place outside the BayArea and ask people what they think of Leninists and nobody will know what you are talking about. Being worried about Leninists in the US in the 21st century is about as silly as being worried about evil enemies on a TV show. You can talk about how history has taught you lessons but your constant focus on the Anarchist/Communist struggles and learning mainly lessons from those struggles doesnt give you much history to really work with since a lot of other groups movements and ideas are out there. Even in the Bay Area I think you would run up against a vast majority who would find it a little crazy to be worried about the Communist menace today. Walk down any street in your neighborhood and go up to a random person and ask them if they fear a Communist takeover and chances are they will think you are crazy. Even at an ANSWER protest if you ignore the booths and small numbers of members of the various parties and talk to the people marching, you would find just about everyone agrees that a Communist or Anarchist revolution isnt in the cards for the next 50 years or so in the US. Just because everyone thinks something doesnt make it true but when it comes to being worried about the return of the evil Communist empire it makes perfect sense since even dictatorial power requires a certain amount of actual people supporting the dictator and its a struggle now to just get the public to have a majority opposed to the death penalty, restrictions on policies and a higher minumum wage.

If you pick and choose what you look at when you are studying history, you are not learning from it but instead imposing your views on it. Maybe lessons from the Russian revolution could have taught you in the immeditae aftermath to not trust Lenin or Troytsky but it tells you nothing about groups today that call themselves followers of Lenin or Trotsky. ANSWER, the ISO, the RCP all stand for gay rights, an end to the death penalty, affordible abortion, a smaller military budget.... yet while one expects such ideas to come under the umbrella of a Communist group on a US college campus today those ideas and causes dont really relate to any ideas of Lenin or Trotsky. Comming away from a view of history that focuses in on the otherside oft he world nearly 100 years ago and concludes "never trust a bolshie" really is the same as someone from India saying "never trust a Pakistani", a Latvian saying "never trust a Russian" or a Serb saying "never trust a Turk" (which is why I compare your strain of antiCommunist Anarchism to a form of nationalism). There are plenty of bad things in histroy and plenty of ways to read what conclusions should come out of reading it; antiSemitism in Russia draws heavilly now off of Trotsky having been Jewish, if you asked someoen in the Ukraine what they would have learned you would get a lesson about not trusting Russians, and for some in central Asia it could be more a lesson about not trusting Westerners. Aside form one trying to read hatred for ones enemies into history the focus on how groups identified with your label fared in the distant past also creates a cult like form of intellectual psyhosis; you probably know far more details about the exact failures of the USSR and how it dealt with Anarchists than anyone you will ever argue with (the same was probably true of Serbian intellectuals who backed Molosovic when it came to views on Serbias past) and thus when they fail to know facts, in your mind you can ignore them and rest satistied that your specialization of knowledge on some obscure time and event gives your protection from ever having to rethink anythings ("You may trust Commie/Muslims and have your reasons but you dont know as much about those distant attrocies as I do so your lack of hatred must come from lack of knowledge")

Taking your Communist scare tatctics game and turning it around a bit. Wasnt it the antiTrots who really made Russia bad; with Anarchists liking to joke about Trotsky getting killed by an icepick doesnt a simplistic view of the world that equates ANSWER with those who killed sailors at Kronstadt about the same as equating Anarchists with those who turned against Trotsky and supported Stalin. Libya is an even better case to look at but one I have never heard Anarchists really address. Libya is clearly not run according to Anarchist ideals but it still claims to be and that seems to me awfully similar to the former USSR claiming to be Communist. If one can learn the lesson to never trust Communists from the former USSR why not learn the lesson never trust an Anarchist from Libya. But of course by dealing with you and your Communist enemies' selective views on history such arguments also fall into the same psychosis as most Communist and Anarchist theorists; since the death of Stalin and changes in China over 20 years ago Communism is irrelevent and the main forces effecting the world are ethnic nationalisms, neoliberalism, European style democratic socialism, Chinese corporatism, xenophobia, technological change, religious fundamentalism.... Anarchist and Communist groups may help one get a community of friends who can focus on real problems but such groups can at most influence the directions of the larger social forces, and talk and worries about the Revolution are really the equivalent of Christian groups worrying about their end time myths (can you seriously tell me any of the horrors of the former USSR can possibly relate to future actions of the ISO, RCP or ANSWER in the immediate term, and if not when is this revolution you are worried of in which they will be a threat and where will all the other sources of power in the US run off to so the struggle can look like the revolutions on the early 1900s rather than something completely different with a whole new set of actors).

Thought I would throw out the concrete case of Iraq to see where your Anarchist or Communist theories take things. Does Anarchist and Communist historical theories relate to a oonflict where neither side is Communist or Anarchist? The forces I can see in Iraq are secular Iraqi nationalism, Kurdish nationalism loyalties to various warlords, loyalties to religious leadres, economic loyalties to the occupiers, and local loyalties to communities and tribes. One also finds a handful of Anarchists and Communists in Iraq. Even working together Anarchists are Communists in Iraq probably make up far less than 1% of the population (far smaller than nationalist Assyrians or nationalist Turkmen). Do you tell the Anarchists not to work with the Communists because one should never trust a Bolshie? Do you tell them to leave because the situation is hopeless and not work with anyone? Do you tell Anarchists to support the resistance even if most groups are nationalistic or fundamentalist but when working with such groups make sure not to work with the Bolshies since they are especially bad? Is the Russian Revolution or Spanish Civil War relevent to the current conflict and if so are they more relevent than other histories that may relate to Shia Sunni relations or Kurdish desires for independence?

Looking at Palestine (where there are two Bolshie groups) would you tell an Anarchist Palestinian to never trust or work with the PFLP or DFLP because they should never trust or work with Leninists, never trust Fatah since one should never trust nationalists, never trust Israel since one should never trust Zionists, never trust Hamas since one should never trust religious fundamentalists, ... I guess you woudl tell them to work with the Western NGOs? If so that would seem a bit paternalistic, and if not woudl you just be telling them to not work with anyone and engage in one person or 65 person protests by themselves in the face of real occupation, fundamentalism and violence?

If Iraq or Palestine are not great cases for Communist/Anarchist anarchonistic war analysis to relate to modern issues, why is the US any better? Iraq is much more similar to Spain during the Spanish Civil War or Russia at the time of the revolution than the US is (if you just look at the percent of people who live in rural areas on farms, those working in factories, the service sector etc...). I guess one answer is that we are in the US and Iraqis shoudl settle their own future even if it isnt an Anarchist or Communist one, but if thats the line Anarchist and Communist groups take wouldnt that same logic apply to the vast majority of the US where few Anarchists or Communists live? Do Comunists have a greater or lesser chance of grabbing a tiny bit of power in Iraq or the US? With instability in Iraq I think the chance in Iraq are higher even if very very small, so wouldnt advise to not work with Bolshies in Iraq make more sense than here. What about Palestine? Before the West and the Saudis undermined the PFLP they had a real chance at gaining power; would the lesson of not working with Bolshies thus apply more to a Palestinian than someone is in the US and if so is the weaking of the PFLP (largely due to a cut in outside support) and rise of Fatah and now Hamas a good thing? The world is full of needs for "lesser evilism" and when one holds to a utopian ideology that few others support the desire to not give in to "lesser evilism" seems like a call for inaction (or in the Anarchist case, symbolic small actions that to everyone outside the community look the same as inaction)

---

I am a bit guilty of trying to draw out your sectarian biases but unlike the Communist poster complaining about money at the Book Fair, my motivation is mainly one of wanting to understand what's behind some of the more irrational aspects of the Communist and Anarchist movements that I think keeps it so issolated and ineffectual. The current antiwar movement has been lead almost completely by Anarchists and Communists, and its very curious since most of those who oppose the war are neither. There appears to be an actual need for named anachronistic ideologies to create the core groups necessary for sustained protests that can not be meet by nonsectarian groups (UFP, NGOs and the like have proved to be pretty ineffective). I dont think the need is for the specific ideologies in question but instead the drive that comes from true belief is needed to make people willing to sacrifice the personal time needed for the organizing. Perhaps a belief in a utopian end time followed by an end to history (something the neoCons tries to also sell to people) is actually needed if one is to motivate people to engage in a huge amount of organzing energy around small reformist changes. Or perhaps its is just the umbrella nature of the groups (Communism = antiwar, antipoverty, prochoice, anti death penalty, antipolice brutality, antiWalmart, higher minimum wage, antixenophobic....) where issue oriented groups quickly lose steam when their one issue leaves the headlines while Communist and ANarchist groups have enough different issues to keep up the energy. But this cant be the sole reason for the Communist and Anarchist leadership of antiwar protests since explicity reformist cross issue coalitions do exist (the Greens, DSA, etc...) but have never managed to be leaders of large protests. If irrational belief in a utopian future is a requirement for sustained organizing this seems like a bad sign in terms of the trend towards religious fudnamentalism worldwide, but it also may suggest some paths toward future groupings that dont have the exclusivist culturally homogenous feel of the Anarchist community or the historical repulsion many feel towards Communists due to past missue of the name.

if you ever work on anti-death penalty issues dont fall for the appeal of the antideath penalty nuns and priests of the Cathollc Church. We all know what happened when we trusted them during the Spanish Inquisition and must learn the lessons of history. If Father Louie shows up at a San Quentin protest we need to form an Anarchist bloc that makes clear our real message and chant that Catholic priests are not the answer.

(sounds silly but its close to what happens at ANSWER protests)

Never trust a white man. They enslaved millions, colonized the world and enforced Jim Crow.

Never trust a male. They abuse women and the ones who call themselves "feminists" and women godesses are just as likely to enage in rape as a result of the sexism that comes out of putting women on pedestals.

Never trust someone who is straight. How many times do they say "I have a gay friend" and then exlude you from their social groups out of homophobia and make jokes about faggots behind your back?

Never trust an American or Israeli. Even if they dont pay their income taxes they still are funding the wars through sales taxes.

Never trust an intellectual. People who quote Marx, Lenin or Bakunin are elitist scum who look down one the masses andwill line you up agaisnt the wall and shoot you if they take power. Did we not learn from Stalin? Did we not learn from Qaddafi?

If history tells us one thing it is that THEY are evil and will stack our corpses in pits when they take over the world.
Dont be fooled. Stay at home. Lock your doors. Pull the blinds over your windows. Its not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Move to the country, buy a bomb shelter, stock up on bottled water and hope they dont find you.
History tells us again and again...the Terror after the French Revolution, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pinochet, Rwanda, the Romans pouring salt on the ruins of Carthage, the Mongolians killing millions in Central Asia, the Crusades, the Japanese invasion of China, the genocide of the Native Americans...
It could all happen here ... look at police brutality... its already going on....
Buy arms, learn to hide in the shadows, change your name... you got to be safe

How can you deny the danger when you look at the Spanish Inquisition, hunting seasons on native Australians well into the 20th century, the KKK , neoNazis, Darfur, the massacre at Tianamen Square, the Egyptian enslavement of the ancient Israelites, the abuses of Cromwell....

Dont try to make friends with others to keep yourself safe, they will always betray you....
Didnt you learn from the Spanish Civil War, from the secular radicals who fought to overthrow the Shah, from the Mexican Revolution?... didnt you learn anything from history?
Remember all those broken treaties between the Native Americans and the US... never make a deal since they will break it
They have blood dripping from their fangs and are just waiting to load us onto cattle cars...
Dont you remember last time how we worked with THEM and they betrayed us....
Never again... Never again will we be fooled by the others, the evil ones the forces of evil who try to seduce us with ther false promises and slick lies

If we fight, we must fight alone....
No men, no whites, no Christians, no Muslims, no Jews or Buddhists or Hindus or Jains
No reformists or Communists, nor bosses or trust funders,
No elitist intellectuals or those opposed to freedom of thought, no burners of books or writers of dogma
we must fight without them
No nationalists, nor absolutists, no sectarians and definitely none of those who sympatize with the enemy...
We must fight alone, even if there is just one or two of us it's better to be safe than join forces with the enemy
Is this not the lesson of history? Have we all forgotten the dangers? Isnt 4000 years of history enough to make people see the dangers of working with THEM?

quote from Anarchist above:
" clearly you are dealing with a different caliber of anarchist with Nessie and me"

I for one am not convinced that "mister grumpy" and "nessie" are different people, for the record.

Men and whites are born not made. Religions are not political ideologies.

To advocate that we trust people who call themselves Marxists because they, themselves, personally have not committed any massacres, enforced any famines or sent anyone to reeducation camps, is no different than to advocate that we trust people who call themselve Nazis, simply because they were born after 1945. People call themselves Nazis for a reason.

I would beg to differ. Both are forms of moral philosophy and the boundary between religion and political ideology is not a clear one.
If political ideology were merely a matter of one saying "this is how groups of people act" then there would be somewhat of a difference (although religions touch on that a bit) but thats not the point of Anarchism or Communism since both are about what the world should be like. What's more they both claim that what should be will be, and little distinction is made between nonbelievers in the Revolution's inevitability and nonbelievers in the desire for the Revolution. I would guess that as with Christains, only a small set of true believers (perhaps only those of a "different caliber" from the Anarchist and Communist flocks) really do believe in the inevitability of the future utopia and others just go along with it since if ones faith is questioned one is essentially excommunicated socially (and told to "fuck off" and not try to debate the true believers since one doesnt want the flock to stray).
Striving for a utopia that one knows will never occur seems to be very much a religion and thats perhaps why the taboo on discussing the Revolution's inevitability is so strong.

Personally I agree with what both Anarchists and Communists say they want in their future dream worlds and think both sound much better than the world we libe in today. Both dream worlds have a much more practical feel than the dream world of the Christians or other religious cults. While I have serious questions about the stibility of both Anarchist and Communist dream worlds, I am much more certain that in the current world we live in there is no path from here to there. I dont think it hurts to strive to make the world better and have a vision of Paradise in ones head to inspire one (in fact as I argue above I think it may be a requirement for effective organizing) but when groups start fighting over details of their future utopias or how other groups that fought for similarly named utopias behaved in the past it gets a bit irritating and seems counterproductive.

Of course ones ability to debate a Christian on theology gets cut short when they realize your an athiest so what Im doing here is ultimately futile since there is no room to debate practicalities or problems within the Anarchist community when I dont have the same faith as those I argue with (my heart may be in the same place but as long as I dont except the one true path as the only one, to paraphrase what an Anarchist said earlier, "we dont want to hear what you have to say unless you are an Anarchist".

Guys, the conversation is scintilating, but your love fest is getting a little embarrassing for the bystanders. Chat room, anyone?

i notice one of you called me a Leninist above and I wonder what that means. I read Lenin's book on Imperialism a long time ago and disagred with it. Capitalism may drive Imperialism but I dont think Capitalism needs Imperialism to survive (perhaps thats why I dont thin a revolution is inevitable). I am not arguing against Leninism from a morale standpoint and saying Capitalism is ok if its tamed. I am arguing with the historical view that Capitalism will collapse if there isnt Imperialism.

Does not believing in Lenin's historical theories make me not a Leninist (that seems to be his major contribution theory wise) or is being a Leninist related to ones views on the morality of the Russian Revolution? Since I dont think Lenin was s great leaders and did oppress many people perhaps that makes me not a Leninist? Or am I a Leninist just because I find most Leninists friendlier and more open minded than most Anarchists?

Whats embarassing about debating issues in public?

Ok one last thing for today.

I wonder if my finding Communists more open minded than Anarchists and the dislike for public debate are related in the following. Communist groups are all about recruitment of nonCommunists and thus are used to debating people with different views with the goal of convincing rather than accusing (or denouncings in the forms one can see with Nessie and Mr Grumpy). Anarchists recruit through social networks so there is not as much familiarity of Anarchists with debating those with different views (in fact nonAnarchists are purposefiully kept away from Anarchist events).

There is plenty room to debate practicalities or problems within the Anarchist community, within the Anarchist community. That's where those debates take place. The rest of you, butt out. It's none of your concern.


>"we dont want to hear what you have to say unless you are an Anarchist".

This is not true. We do want to hear what you have to say about things that are your concern, especially those that are also our concern. We do not want to hear what you have to say about the practicalities or problems within the Anarchist community. Not only are they not your concern, but as non members of the community, you scarcely ever know what you're talking about when you do address these issues. Also, many of you do not have our best interests at heart, so anything you say is suspect.

So here's the deal. We'll debate practicalities or problems within our own community. You debate practicalities or problems within your own communities. Good idea? y/n?

the reason this whole conversation about anarchism and communism got going in several different threads, and stays going, is because King Anarchist (or the two self-proclaimed "step above" anarchists) decided to rip into ANSWER for weeks on end in a not-so transparent attempt to play up their book fair as the one true salvation for humanity

so, unless you stand by your new "deal" here and furthermore shut the fuck up about what other activists are doing who are not in YOUR sect, then you are just a ginormous stinking hypocrite.

what's good for the goose is good for the gander. people in glass houses. the golden rule, and so forth on and on and on

somehow, though, I doubt you ever really grasped that most basic level of morality and will continue to act like giant hypocrites with no shame whatsoever

We're perfectly happy to tell ANSWERoids how to manage their internal affairs. Frankly, it's a waste of time anyhow. And besides, it's not any of our concern. Neither are our internal affairs any of their concern. War, on the other hand, is all our concerns. That, we will not shut up about. ANSWER is prolonging war by siphoning off time, resources and energy that could have otherwise gone into any number of productive endeavors. This is unconscionable. It's also the concern of all of us.

you see, King Anarchist has good reason to be a hypocrite

more or less: "their efforts bad. I'm justified in criticising them. my efforts good. shut up about us."

it all makes perfect sense to a person who lacks the most basic level of moral reasoning


and somehow he's even deluded enough to think that people will find this attractive and join his club

My favorite part in all this, is the built-in assumption that if one doesn't come to the right meetings, if one questions the book "fair," if one disagrees with Nessie/Mr Grumpy, if one isn't adequately anticommunist, then one must be "one of them" and, ergo, not anarchist at all. Therefore, that one doesn't belong in the community. Therefore, that one doesn't have standing or voice.

The "joke" about "getting a room" reinforces this, without even thinking about it or meaning to.

There is in fact very little room for heretics, or really any sort of questioning, in the "anarchist" community. Anarchist denial about their leadership, vanguard, and related iissues is a big part of the problem. Like this:

How do you make someone like Nessie stop speaking in everyone's name?

How do you make someone like Nessie reveal how much money was made in the name of the community?

How does one make anarchist leadership (self-appointed, therefore unaccountable across very esoteric boundaries of "us" and "them"... such as Nessie) take external events into considerastion, like the ANSWER march?

How does one mitigate the impact on external relations when someone like Nessie keeps (virtually) screaming invective over your shoulder the whole while, and remains on the Committee, in the bookstore, without any apparent consequences for such socially destructive behavior?

Thanks to all participants in all related threads for offering so much empirical evidence on the deep-seated, hard to solve issues related to just how broken the "anarchist" paradigm is anymore.... certainly around these parts. If only the problems were local, but they're not. They're global, and they are these very problems, whatever the group name or ostensible subideology.

And thank you so much to "Yep," who has made valuable contributions to any consideration of solutions to this most important set of problems. I'l buy you your drink of choice anytime!

I agree with all your stuff on the moral hypocracy of the self proclaimed Anarchist leadership (even though I ocassionally consider myself an Anarchist and went to the Book Fair in past years). I do wonder though what your harping on money is all about. Money corrupts but its not a specific problem to Anarchists. The ISO's focus on paper selliing is one of the main reasons that many people become Anarchists since it warps group dynamics in their organization into a pseudobusiness. ANSWER also has to focus a lot on grants and fund raising and wtaching them interact with people trying to table at the march without having paid for table space was about the same as what one would expect at a Book Fair (Im sure the IAC and ANSWERs internal dynamics also gets warped by the need for funding). Anarchists liike Nessie, Mr Grumpy, Chuck0 and others are more sectarian than most Communists but on the whole the Anarchist community is no better or worse than Communist groups (the shared focus on the Russian Revolution as the defining event in all human history being a strange feature of both). If the protest in Civic Center seemed smaller than in past years I think the marches at the exact same time in Palo Alto and Walnut Creek are a better explanation than the book fair (while its called an Anarchist book fair the community that attends is more of the Anarchist social scene than the Anarchist activist community)

This thread began as a discussion of the 8 Days of Anarchism thing and the BASTARD conference and strangely the sectarianism in the Anarchist communty is such that there wasnt 100% overlap (you can see Nessie talk about why he wont attend the BASTARD conference above) and last year the the Book Fair the Anarchist theorists engaged in a very old style RCP guerilla theater like thing making fun of the book fair crowd at the book fair.
Personally aside from the conflict with the ANSWER march and Nessie's role as an organizer I think the Book Fair is a far more open minded event than the theory group is (plus there is just something creepy about publicizing an 8 day event where at least two of the days are invitation only and none of the days are clear entry points for new members). The lack of openness of a private group isnt as troubling to me when I dont consider myself an Anarchist as when I do since the close minded and introverted nature of Bay Area Anarchism doesnt make logical sense for anyone who aims to change the world.

Anarchism as an ideology sounds like a great home for us radicals who have read Marx and find it lacking in relevence to the modern world, and wouldnt ever want to suppot totalitarianism no matter how much it claims to be a for the workers (I think thats why Chomsky at least used to consider himself a Anarchist even though his views seem a bit more like Social Democrats). Plus I know many people from the former USSR and China and while I dont consider that real Communism the word itself has worn out its welcome for enough people that it is counterproductive. But the door keepers of Anarchism (ie Nessie and Mr Grumpy), the sectarianism, and the fetishization of militant symbolism without real regard to what it can achieve really make Anarchism as problematic to be associated with as Communism. I wish it were not the case but the tone of the debate from Anarchists on here just doesnt make one want to speak ones thoughts in person or with ones real name and why would you want to be part of a community where its not safe to voice your opinions (not that I am less likely to attend events at AK or talk to Anarchist friends, but peopel like them really want to make one avoid or even renouncce the label Anarchist).

If you are a Communist I would be interested in knowing your take on the main things that make Communism problematic. I work with many people from India and if I say Communist to them they think of a right-wing party, other workers from Eastern Europe think of oppression. I cant get around this by saying "thats not real Communism" since they grew up in the societies and the label much more than the original ideology is ruined for them. As for Marx, his historical predictions didnt come to pass and even the Russian revolution went against the theory since it was more peasant based than due to an urban proletariat. Whats more post WWII Europe and been very stable and while this is partly because of new social welfare programs its definitely not Communist and also not heading for an inevitable collapse (same with the US). Whats more Lenin's writings on Imperlialsim also seem like they are faulty since while the US has taken over the military mantle from Europe, the EU economy seems stable enough to survive even if it were more issolated and there really doesnt seem to be the constant need for new markets that Lenin talked about. And then there is Castro, most Communist groups still love him but for all that he may be better than the alternatives his personal rule not only alienates the same people in Cuba who would become activists in the US (people who want to speak out for themselves) but also dooms Cuba to almost certain collapse when Castro dies (since the state is so focused on him). And then there is the problem I keep bringing up with Anarchists attacking Communists; why the constant focus on the Russian Revolution? Communism and Socialism in the US are older than 1917 and many parties here were connected to parties there but there is still an irrational focus on an event that has little bearing on the modern world (one would learn much more about our current conflicts by looking at Mossadeq and the Iranian revolution against the Shah than at the Russian revolution). Its not just a matter of it not being as useful as it could be but for nonactivists it appears very anarchronistic and isnt an attraction beyond those who may just happen to like the symbolism as a fashion statement.

Sorry to have switched sides on you in this post but while I have major issues with redbaiting that doesnt mean that I think Communism as an ideology is very useful (although for some strange reason it is the only one that can lead US protests and does do much better thanAnarchists can in their current state).

>more or less: "their efforts bad. I'm justified in criticising them. my efforts good. shut up about us."

This is absolutely false. I said no such thing. Scroll up and see for yourself. I said internal affairs are not each other's concerns. What I criticize is ANSWER's effect on matters of mutual concern, specifically the war. I don't criticize ANSWER'sinternal affairs no matter how f*cked up they are. It's none of my business. The war is everybody's business. To equate the war with internal affairs is apples and oranges, bunk logic of the first order and the highest degree.

I know, I know.... I stick up for the reds so severely, I start to sound like one.

That doesn't mean I am. It just means I've reached reaction phase against knee-jerk "anarchist" anticommunism.

As shitty as it surely was to live in (unlike the o so lovely USA), the world was a better place before the collapse of the USSR. Now there's nothing to stop the US marching all over just anyone. As I've gotten older, I decided the commies were right on that one. I'm a lot more open than I used to be to hearing what they have to say.

As for the anarchists, it just kills me to watch them denounce other people for versions of (essentially) their very own sins. I say something as I can.

I'm more interested in the grey zones than anything. We've tried anarchist-communist polarization for a century, and both movements are the worse off for it.

Something that hasnt come up a lot about Spain, is that many factions of the left worked together. The more the merrier, in fact.

But that was a long fucking time ago. No one cares. Time for something fresh.

Something like anarchos and commies laying off the crypt-club faction fighting, and starting to try to figure out what, if anything, can be achieved at this late date... maybe together.

Of course, it's not really us who dies for our continued failure to be able to socially intervene. All the more shame on all of us.

It just means they're no better than anyone else.

Nor will they be open about it.

Issues galore. Follow the money, as the old red said...

I'm willing to live with the ambivalence.

But many around me aren't. Makes it harder to be involved at all, in fact...

"That doesn't mean I am. It just means I've reached reaction phase against knee-jerk "anarchist" anticommunism."...the world was a better place before the collapse of the USSR.

That's about where I am politically too. Since you have to factor in those who died under Stalin comparing the USSR then to now would probably make me favor the present but comparing the corporatist state of Gorby to now makes the world look safer back then since the US at least had a check on its power. Of couyrse I would never really argue that to former Soviets old enough to remember the worst days just as I wouldnt want to defend Chian to anyone in China but a collapse now would probably also be a disaster.

"As for the anarchists, it just kills me to watch them denounce other people for versions of (essentially) their very own sins. I say something as I can."

It's mainly hurtful if you have read Goldman and others and realize how these people speak in her name. But if you actually look at the history of Anarchism, Emma Goldman was essentially exhiled from the Anarchist community for speaking her mind about the assasination of McKinley so the group dynamics may not really have been better back then. I remember trying to argue with Anarchists after reading Emma Goldman's writings on spirituality ( http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_eg_an9_woman_suffrage.htm ) a few years ago and its strange that a good percentage of Anarchists are Anarchists for the exact opposite reason from her (she was very opposed to spirituality to the point of pointing that out in an argument agaisnt the suffragette movement) Not sure if I agree with her on her views on the dangers of personal religion/spirituality (and would guess Nessie and Mr Grumpy would be on the opposite side from the bulk of Anarchists) and definitely didnt agree with the essay but its so different from how Anarchism now pulls people in through countercultural pagan stuff now it's an interesting read.

When you mix in the primitivists and others that call themselves Anarchist now its a pretty confusing mix and its hard to say what defines Anarchism since the stated desire of Anarchist Communists and AnarchoSyndicalists actually look to me like a state (wheras Green Anarchists and Primiivists seem to have an ideology that may talk about not having a state but it doesnt seem key to their views).

"I'm more interested in the grey zones than anything. We've tried anarchist-communist polarization for a century, and both movements are the worse off for it."

I would have argued a few years ago that we need a new ideology or no ideology but dont think one can just manufacture something and expect people to follow; it since the real reason for group loyalties is not rooted in rationality.

"Something like anarchos and commies laying off the crypt-club faction fighting, and starting to try to figure out what, if anything, can be achieved at this late date... maybe together."

Thats also my view but when you add up the membership in both communities it's still pretty insignificant. Communists may organize huge marchs and Anarchists may get a lot of people to a Book Fair but when you truely look at who identifies as followers of the ideology its amazingly small. If organizers could organize together that would probably provide for better actions but right now the ANSWER UFP split has probably hurt the antiwar movement more than any Communist Anarchist differences (and thats a split between left democrats and radicals more than Communists vs antiCommunists).

"Of course, it's not really us who dies for our continued failure to be able to socially intervene. All the more shame on all of us."

Playing the devil's advocate for a second. Do you really think the broader movement would be helped by having the likes of Mr Grumpy and Nessie trying to play a role in the actual organizing of ANSWER or UFP protests. Anarchism used to be a great set of ideologies but it now acts to draw off some of the more personally authoritarian and crazy people from the rest of the movement. People who are real control freaks cant stomache working in groups where they dont have power so if they cant take over a group, they end up loosely associated with Anarchism as essentially groups of 1 of 2 where they can feel in control even if its is of only 1-2 people. While Anarchisms stated desire is for no leaders and no power structures, that aspect of it makes it a draw for people without power who want it personally since the unofficial Anarchist heirarchies makes it easier to play emporer than in groups bound by things like Roberts Rules of Order (in the ISO) or hierarchies not open to change (as in the RCP) I know far more Anarchists who have copies of the Art of War and play role playing war games (it appears a whole day of the 8 days of Anarchy was devoted to that) than Communists and wonder if this is the main pull for many Anarchists, would it really be productive to draw those people into environments where the quest for power could disrupt real world organizing. Of course most Anarchists really are followers who joined though social networks and the desire for personal power plays little role, but I am throwing out there that an issolationist movement that draws in the control freaks most likely to disrupt organizing isnt the worst thing in the world (until the control freaks end up on rural communes and start acting abusive). To restate the argument in a form I actually believe; if you have no hope of changing Nessie or Chuck0 and their sectarianism is a deeply rooted personality trait that would come out no matter what their political beliefs, is it worth worrying about them alienating people as long as they dont have many followers who are alienated along with them (I see the Sparts behavior in that exact same light).

We have our faults, as do all people, but we don't stab our allies in the back, nor do we stack their bodies in pits and then lie about it.


>no hope of changing Nessie or Chuck0 and their sectarianism is a deeply rooted personality trait

(1.) This is begging the question. It's not sectarianism. It's common sense. When any group of people, be they Bolshies, fascists or whoever, have a century long track record of stabbing people like you in the back, if you trust them again, you're a fool. Note that they don't even deny the back stabbing. They merely whine about our objection.

(2.) The ability to learn from ones mistakes is not a personality trait, but an acquired skill. We trusted the Bolshies. It was a mistake. We never should have made it the second time. But we did. Now we know better.



>is it worth worrying about them alienating people

I can't speak for ChuckO, but I personally am trying my level best to alienate people, not all people, specific people, the stupid and evil ones. So far, it's working like a charm. Except for having helped build a number of lasting institutions, it's the single most productive political activity I have undertaken in my entire life. At this point in history, our most important task is to build a durable movement. This can't be done if we let stupid and evil people participate. The Bolshies are evil, their dupes are stupid, and we're better off without all of them.

Is this part of an intelligence gathering operation? If so, whose?

The thing about desire for personal power leading people to certain ideologies perhaps also reflects on the historical aspects of both Communists and Anarchists. While we live in troubling times many people want more and want to see things as epics fights between good and evil framed in some simple yet fantastic story. That story for Communists and Anarchists is the Russian revolution (with all the constumes, flamboyant characters and exciting events), for some Anarchists is the Spanish Civil War, for those at Ren Fairs is the Middle Ages and those at Trekie conventions is Star Trek. The need for such myths within real movements seems somewhat apparent if you look at the literary aspects of Central American Communism or notes that the feelings one conveys through something like Les Mis is much stronger than the message of someone like Nader ("one more day till legislation" just doesnt have the ring of "one more day till revolution"). None of the fantasy really can ever appear in the epic form in the real world but for true believers of any ideology (such as the "end of history" types views of the neocons who backed the Iraq invasion) a failure is something to be argued around (its just the first act but the story will play out as expected in the next scene) and not an argument that there wont be an end to history and the struggle to make things better or less bad is a struggle that will go on forever. Epic stories need to have endings, be it the "happily ever after" variety (hence the need for an inevitable revolution) or if the story is a tragedy complete destruction (the Sparts always talk of Communism or Fascism being the exclusive choices one has for the future which is essentially a choice of the dramatic type one wants to apply to history rather than a real political take on history).

"I personally am trying my level best to alienate people, not all people, specific people... it's the single most productive political activity I have undertaken in my entire life."

In other words, you're a vanguardist of some type.

So why don't you just admit it?

I'm more like a janitor. I take out the trash.

>>In other words, you're a vanguardist of some type.
>I'm more like a janitor. I take out the trash.

Nessie is neither. Every social group has its individuals who want to establish their status in a group by attacking those outside of the group. It's as familiar a role as those who haze new members and its explanation is not tied to political views of vanguardism or really even a desire to keep the group pure (despite "take out the trash" sounding like the words of an extereme xenophobe when "trash" is used to refer to people).

Usually those who engage in the more extreme attacks are newer members trying to prove loyalty by the attacks since they serve to show that there is little risk of defection (one sees this in street gangs, homophobic attacks by young teenage boys trying to "prove their masculinity", or even among some first generation immigrants)

Nessie is not new to the Anarchist community so one wonders what he thinks he is trying to prove with his hostility. Usually elders in groups attack new members to establish status rather than outsiders since one can talik about the mythical ("old school", classic) past and how the kids these days just dont stack up to those mythical figures. Some of Nessie's attacks come from this place if one sees it as "in my day Anarchist wouldnt stand for allowing Bolshies into our book fair" (a type of xenophobia one perhaps hears in the older Minute Men) But, I think a lot of what he does is due to his feeling insecure in some deeper way and essentially the sectarian stuff comes from a place more similar to "see I can still do work" (with work in his mind being keeping the wolves away from his Anarchist herd even if in truth most of the "work" ends up being flamewars with nonAnarchists with few Anarchists bothering to listen in)

If you combine normal human group dynamics with revolutionary politics the result is always vanguardism since the society one talks of changing is not the same as the real community to which one is loyal. One can try to portray one's group's role as educating the community on how to fight for themselves but you always run up against being seen as outsiders with a paternalistic attitude saying "we know what will be best for you no matter what you really want" (since if ones ideology is the real one true path it's really just a matter of giving them enough information to see the light).

Personally I think vanguardism is only dangerous when you have true believers in an ideology who feel like they know in an absolute way that one specific viewpoint is the way everyone should believe (and if someone doesnt start believing they must have something fundamentally wrong with them and be evil). The social aspect of the Anarchist community where the fashion and comraderie are more important than the ideology is what keeps Anarchism farther away from this type of dogmatism than most Communist groups (although I havent talked to many ISO members who really believe in Marx's historical views). Those like Nessie and Mr Grumpy see themselves as being "of a different caliber" from the Anarchist herd because they actually believe the hype, just as fundamentalists see themselves as the only serious and real followers of a given religion because they take sacred documents literally. While some true believers like Nessie and Grumpy take their strength of belief and use that to justify lashing out at others, the usualy dynamic that comes with true belief is issolation (where Monks or Theorists spend their life reading through documents trying to piece together hidden meanings, manifestos etc..) For political theorists one would hope that the study of the human aspect of politics (where need for popular support is a requirement not a rhetorical flaw) would eventually make such theorists wake up to the fact that the study of history and politics isnt really a very productive way to change the world.

Thought Id clarify that I dont think studying history is bad or hurts ones cause and it probably even helps one understand current events better, but theory doesnt take the place of action. No mater how much you study hunger, its not going to feed someone and no matter how much you study why the US is in Iraq your arguments you draw from the facts are probably no more likely to be convincing than if you just were to rely on simplistic arguments about war being bad. Data mining in the form done by conspiracy theorists and sectarians is also really counterproductive; the random collection of facts on 9/11 conspiracy sites probably push people away from questioning how much the US knew before that day and why they were not able to stop the atacks. In many cases the views of the "herd" (those not of a "different caliber ") have more real depth to them then the views of those who spend their life gathering details on obscure events picking and choosing facts in an effort to construct arguments for rather simple arguments that were already solidly in place before the facts came along. If you want to understand whats goin on in Iraq you can study details or news reports, read essays by historians and think that one is a real expert and has better opinions on the subject than anyone else, but almost any Iraqi probably has a better first hand view of whats really going on. The same is true about oppressed groups in the US (an outsider comming into a poor community saying I have studied your plight and know how to fix your problems, usually has very little real grasp of the problems compared to those who are actually effected directly).

Bolshies can come to our Book Fair. They just can't proselytize, that's all.

>Every social group has its individuals who want to establish their status in a group by attacking those outside of the group.

Attacking *some* of those outside the group is self defense. The best defense is almost always a good offense. Bolshies have been attacking anarchists for a century. Sometimes they come head on. Other times they try to sneak around behind us by pretending we're on the same side. Either way, it's an attack. We have learned through much bitter experience the value of preemptive counter attack. Its purpose has nothing to do with any individual's status. Its purpose is to preserve the anarchist movement from some of its most deadly enemies. Their attempt to portray it as otherwise is really an attempt to disguise their own intentions. These people are not to be trusted. They really are out to get us. They have proven it time and again.

if everyone has to be pure before they can participate or work with you -- apparently not even all anarchists are up to snuff

no commies, no repugs and no dems (most of both voted for war)

that leaves how many people exactly?

better to be pure and righteous than really accomplish anything, I suppose

better to adhere to rigid doctrine and allie with almost no one than to unite, even temporarily, and fight the biggest evils of our time

hope you enjoy your private tea party, 'cause that's all it's ever going to be if any serious number of anarchists ever take your position. and all the while war and greed will parade on, unimpeded by the likes of you and those who think like you

welcome to continued obscurity and ineffectualness. at least you'll sleep well at night knowing you are the bestest, purest, most self-righteous of them all

Nessie (representative of the Anarcho-Stalinists):
--------

"The best defense is almost always a good offense"

"Other times they try to sneak around behind us by pretending we're on the same side."

"We have learned through much bitter experience the value of preemptive counter attack."

"preserve the anarchist movement from some of its most deadly enemies"

"disguise their own intentions"

"These people are not to be trusted."

"They really are out to get us."

"They have proven it time and again."

---

Bush (with the word terrorist changed to Bolshie and the word American&freedom changed to Anarchist ...)
------

"Anarchists will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people."

"Our greatest responsibility is the active defense of the Anarchist people."

"The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of Anarchism in all the world."

"I believe the most solemn duty of an Anarchist is to protect the Anarchist community."

"Freedom itself was attacked ...by a faceless coward, and Anarchism will be defended."

"Anarchism and Communism, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."

"We are serving in Anarchism's cause -- and that is the cause of all mankind."

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant. And that is the force of Anarchism."

"Any government that supports, protects or harbours Communists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of Bolshie crimes."

"Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of Anarchism is the great story of our time. In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely Anarchists on Earth. Today, there are 122."

"Ultimately, the only way to defeat the Bolshies is to defeat their dark vision of hatred and fear by offering the hopeful alternative of Anarchism."

"Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of Anarchism because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security and the calling of our time."

"Our war on terror begins with the Bolshies but it does not end there. It will not end until every Communist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."

"We did not seek this war on Bolshies, but this is the world as we find it."

"We believe that Anarchism can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East as it has advanced and changed lives in Asia, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe and Africa."

"Our war on Bollshies is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch -- yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch."

"Anarchists, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery."

"This is not, however, just the Anarchists fight. And what is at stake is not just Anarchists' freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom."

"Anarchism is a movement with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace -- a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman."

"The failure of Anarchism would only mark the beginning of peril and violence. But, my fellow Anarchists we will not fail. We will persevere and defeat this enemy and hold this hard-won ground for the realm of liberty."

"Now we go forward — grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause, and confident in the future of the greatest ideology on earth."

All from some right wing site (but sounds a bit like Nessie.. absolutists speak alike....)
http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Bush-quotes.htm

I forgot to include Bush 9/11 quotes that sound a lot like Grumpie and Nessie talking about the Russian Revolution.

"preemptive ... attack"

"preemptive ... attack"

"preemptive ... attack"

now, why does that sound just so familiar? who's out to get who again? who is not worthy of trust?

hmmmm

"now, why does that sound just so familiar?"

Blind pride in the goodness of ones own group and the inherent evil nature of ones enemies. (" preserve the anarchist movement")

Black and white view of all conflicts ("The Bolshies are evil", "is no different than to advocate that we trust people who call themselve Nazis", "Any person identifying with Marxism, Leninism, Maoism ... is responsible for explaining the why's and wherefore's of their predecessors' deliberately homicidal relations with anarchists" )

Reliance on cliche slogans ("The best defense is almost always a good offense", "learn from ones mistakes", "The facts of history are clear. " ,"it's only paranoia if we're wrong")

Hyperbole in the form of swagger ("take out the trash", )

Paranoia of anyone with different views ( "These people are not to be trusted." "They really are out to get us. They have proven it time and again." "if you trust them again, you're a fool" )

Militaristic bent ("value of preemptive counter attack")

Paternalistic tone towards those who question ("They merely whine about our objection", "This can't be done if we let stupid and evil people participate", " bunk logic", "you scarcely ever know what you're talking about ")

etc...

Its a personality type that includes people like Bush and Nessie rather than Nessie really sounding like Bush.

When known enemies are seen to be approaching, only fools wait for them to deliver the first blow, unless of course they are being led into a trap. In the setting of traps, different protocols apply.

We have learned through much bitter experience that if we let Bolshies get too close, we'll wind up getting stabbed in the back. So when we see them closing, we move to intercept. If you have a problem with this, get out of the way.

We also seek to avoid their traps.

C'est la guerre.

better to hate the bolshies and never ever ever ever work with them on any common goals while BushCo makes serfs of us all and slaughters across the globe

yes, indeed. that's show BushCo how productive the anarchists are!

know your enemies (basically everyone else) and never get anything of scale done

purity over effectiveness!

What is it with Anarchists loving to quote dictators and military leaders and play war games?

It is perhaps a symptom of the fetishization of militarism by some Anarchists and most on the far right, but I think in individual cases its more a symptom of having dellusions of grandeur. Instead of having normal sized hopes of being able to alleviate poverty, reduce inequality or end US agression one sees this trend among mainly Anarchists (and Maoists.... less so among the Trots) to almost have an inner desire for war itself for its own sake. In Nessie's dream world, he would be marching through the mud with tanks full of Anarchists engaged in some epic batle... what comes after the battle (which is really what Anarchists Communists, Fascists, Republicans, claim differentiate between their causes) doesnt really matter as much as the desire for the glory of battle itself.

Can you imagine working with such people on a human sized project. To sounds a bit like Nessie for second (since he seems to love cliches): If your only tool is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail.

Would that be the royal we?

Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue,
I didn't know what in the world I was gonna do,
Them Communists they wus comin' around,
They wus in the air,
They wus on the ground.
They wouldn't gimme no peace. . .

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society,
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin' down the road.
Yee-hoo, I'm a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitlers' views,
Although he killed six million Jews.
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist,
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria.

Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds.
I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed,
Looked in the sink, behind the door,
Looked in the glove compartment of my car.
Couldn't find 'em . . .

I wus lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere,
I wus lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair.
I looked way up my chimney hole,
I even looked deep inside my toilet bowl.
They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat,
Figured they wus in my T.V. set.
Peeked behind the picture frame,
Got a shock from my feet, hittin' right up in the brain.
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones.

Well, I quit my job so I could work alone,
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes.
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!
That ol' Betty Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library,
Ninety percent of 'em gotta be burned away.
I investigated all the people that I knowed,
Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go.
The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me.

Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy,
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy.
To my knowledge there's just one man
That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell.
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus.

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight
When I run outa things to investigate.
Couldn't imagine doin' anything else,
So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!
Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/birch.html

"....c) Anarchist groups and fascist groups: No I have never suggested that anarchist groups are the equivalent of fascist groups. However, there is a long history of racism and anti semitism in the anarchist movement, including such figures as Bakunin and Proudhon. In France the Cercle Proudhon was a right wing group which helped develop French fascism.

I see one of the principle problems with "anarchism" is that it rests on a rhetorical form which can be taken up by different people who want to exercise their "freedom" in different ways. With the retreat of the class struggle in Britain and elsewhere in recent years, this has meant that rreactionary forms have appeared within "anarchism" (as elsewhere). This can be seen in the emergence of "Anarchism after Leftism" spearheaded by Bob Black - a self-confessed police informer and racist - though no fascist. With the advent of "Euromayday" the implicit Eurocentrism that we discovered in the PGA Europe process has now become explicit. This is a form of New Right thinking which is now becoming manifest within the western European anarchist movement. One of things which became clear from our trip to Belgrade was that many of the anarchist in East Europe do not share the preoccupations of the Western European anarchists. Indeed they seem to have a much more of an orienation to the working class thouigh there are some people who are ambibvalent about western european consumerism.
Looking at the anarchist fringe at Beyond the ESF, it reminded me of Pannekoek's observation that the anarchists and the revisionists are pretty much the same and that both have a middle class way of dealing with things. The Beyond the ESF statement carefully avoided references to class, for instance.

d) Anarchists and social centres: Firstly this new vogue for social centres should be criticised as bad translation from Italian.The term "community centre" would be more appropriate. Looking through my diary in the seventies, when - yes its true - I was an anarchist, I joted some notes about anarchists getting involved in community centres. And since then I have been involved with many, working in a Community Resource Centre in Brixton for ten years, although I abandonned anarchism in 1979.
I would focus the problem more on vanguardism, and it does not make much difference whether the [political vanguardist is anarchist, trotskyist, maoist or whatever, whenthey try and take over a community centre and exercise political hegemony - then that is the problem. Let us be clear, what happened at LARC was that it was an anarchist coup, and rather than deal with the political issues of Institutional Racism which we had raised - they preferred to stage a show trial.

e)Institutional Racism: "Institutions often produce conduct that entrenches racial hierarchy by persons who genuinely do not intend to discriminate." This is a quote from an earlier posting I made here. It is not a matter of making an issue about the one or two casesof personal racism which have occurrred, but of analysing the patterns of power. When people talk about being terrified of being accused of racism - this is simply a reactionary measure because people do not want to examine their processes which could disrupt their "comfortable" ways of organising. (This can also occur with other problems as well: an avoidance of critique and the personalisation of everything.) One of the probelms with anarchism is that it can create the illusion that the institutions which anarchists create don't exist because they are all individuals - a lack of self consciousness which can have dangerous consequences. ...."

http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=65204

"Within anarchism and fascism the state is fetishised from both negative and positive perspectives. This polarisation takes place within rather than between these creeds. If the Italian fascist movement was able to arrive at the altar of state worship through a combination of Mussolini's widely praised translations of Kropotkin and an engagement with anarcho-syndicalism, certain strands of the Nazi movement were able to oppose the interests of the state with those of the nation. One of the principle errors in the seemingly antagonistic positions defended by anarchists and fascists is the idea that the state is the source of all social power. During the middle ages, feudal modes of class exploitation were maintained despite weak or non-existent states. Likewise, today, capitalist social relations are anchored in economic institutions which can and do function independently of the state. Capital reproduces itself not only within nation states but across nation states.

In the article Anarchism And Nationalism In East Asia included in Anarchist Studies Volume 4 # 1 (2) John Crump states: 'Most anarchists were shocked by Kropotkin's rallying to the war effort in 1914 precisely because for years prior to the First World War they had ignored signs of incipient nationalism in his ideas... Similarly, most anarchists outside Korea would find no less shocking the long-standing flirtation of many Korean anarchists with nationalism and conventional politics.'
...

Bakunin's notorious calumnies are well illustrated by a short quote from his Rapports personnels avec Marx : 'This whole Jewish world, comprising a single exploiting sect, a kind of blood sucking people, a kind of organic destructive collective parasite, going beyond not only the frontiers of states, but of political opinion, this world is now, at least for the most part, at the disposal of Marx on the one hand, and of Rothschild on the other... This may seem strange. What can there be in common between socialism and a leading bank? The point is that authoritarian socialism, Marxist communism, demands a strong centralisation of the state. And where there is centralisation of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, speculating with the Labour of the people, will be found.'

...

When various renegade French syndicalists abandoned proletarian internationalism in favour of fascism, the forum in which they began mingling with the outer-wing of Action Française was infamously named the Cercle Proudhon. Looking back on the period immediately prior to the First World War in 1936, the fascist ideologue Drieu La Rochelle recalled: 'one sees that certain elements of a fascist atmosphere came together in France around 1913, before they did elsewhere. There were young people from various classes of society who were filled with a love of heroism and violence, and who dreamed of fighting what they called the evil on two fronts: capitalism and parliamentary socialism, and who were similarly disposed toward both.

...
"
http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ai.htm
"

"...
What led some of its leading figures
to join with the nationalists and create a forum of discussion in
the Cercle Proudhon in 1912 was their common opposition to the
bourgeois state and their belief in the role of activist minorities.
The plan of a double revolt, represented by nationalists and
syndicalists, failed. But even Sorel, encouraged by Maurras,
moved increasingly to the right after 1910 (without giving up all
of his reservations, however).
In some respects, Sorel’s ideas were more successful in Italy
than in his own country. Although the number of revolutionary
syndicalists remained small in Italy as well, the prospect of a
coalition with the new nationalism appeared more promising.
One of the leading figures of the movement, Angelo Olivetti,
wrote in 1910 in Sorelian spirit: “Syndicalism and nationalism
are anti-democratic and anti-bourgeois. And, we say, they are
two aristocratic tendencies within a common materialist society.
..."

O,k just posted a few inetresting articles where one could apply guilt by ideological association to Anarchism. Its all reather meaningless sinec ideology is irrelevent to group actions ... but with peopel like Nessie and others red-baiting while also glorifying militarism and attacking the idea of peaceful protest (with no clear alternative provided except for forms of self-destructive cat and mouse games with the police that never lead to change) thought it was worth pulling a few skeletons out of the closet.

Who is a more nasty figure to be associated with, Marx or Proudhon and Bakunin? They were products of their time and their horid views on some subjects really dont have to make one ignore good ideas that had in other parts of their work but with the constant "Your a Leninist since you dont hate Bay Area Communist groups, therefore you are allied with those who stacked our bodies in pits" type rhetoric from many Anarchists, why not look at the bodies stuck in pits by French facists who claimed to have taken ideas from Proudhon or Qadafi's use of Bakunin to justify his attrocities (since Libya's issoaltion due to totalitarianism is so complete one really doesnt know how many corpses in pits there are of those who spoke out)

Have you ever noticed that the only people who call it "red baiting" are reds? It's not "baiting." It's criticism, and every last word of it's valid. That's why they call it names instead of trying to refute it.


>while also glorifying militarism

This is another Bolshevik lie. I have never "glorified" militarism. I merely point out that struggle, by definition, involves conflict. History is abundantly clear as to the grim and hideous fate that awaits those who lose a conflict to the reds. Never again.


>and attacking the idea of peaceful protest

This is another Bolshevik lie. I have never attacked the idea of a peaceful protest. What I actually do is state valid criticisms of fetishizing non violence in any setting, protest or other, and expecting protests alone, violent or non violent, to bring about substantive change at all, let alone give birth to the new world that grows in our hearts.


>with no clear alternative provided

This is another Bolshevik lie. I have repeatedly pointed out valid alternatives to marching in circles and allowing oneself to be arrested. They include, first and foremost, face to face, grassroots organizing, all forms of study and education, the creation of interlocking networks of multiple, overlapping, sustainable organizations and institutions, the development of economic alternatives, etc.



>except for forms of self-destructive cat and mouse games with the police that never lead to change

This is another Bolshevik lie. Far from advocating self-destructive cat and mouse games with the police, I have been highly critical of those who fetishize illegalism. For example, I have come down pretty hard on CrimeThinc lately. This is not as well known as it could be, because the editors here suppress criticism of CrimeThinc. But if you choose to do your own research rather than take the word of world famous liars, you can search the [hidden] files here and see for yourselves.


>thought it was worth pulling a few skeletons out of the closet.

They constitute a few bones, perhaps, but hardly a complete skeleton. Certain individual anarchists have, on occasion, stated opinions not held by the majority. So what? Nobody's perfect. That's why we think for ourselves.

The skeletons in the Bolshevik closet, however, are not metaphorical in the least. They're real as death, all that's left of the Bolsheviks' victims, who number in the scores of millions.

Apples and oranges.



>Who is a more nasty figure to be associated with, Marx or Proudhon and Bakunin?

Marx wins hands down. People associated with Marx have left scores of millions of skeletons in their wake. People associated with Proudhon and Bakunin have refined the seminal work they did, and added it to the syllabus of works from which Anarchist draw inspiration. Unlike Marxists, we our way of life does not derive from a single source. It is a group effort, and still in process.

Marxists stagnate. We constantly evolve. This is because we recognize that no single anarchist philosopher has all the answers. All make mistakes. Emma Goldman, for example, didn't have the best taste in boyfriends. She was also (briefly) suckered in by Bolshevik propaganda about the Russian revolution. Then there was Sascha Berkman, who not only failed to appreciate the degree of practice and training it takes to put a bullet on target, but honestly believed that taking out his target would have more than symbolic value. And so forth. Nobody is perfect. That's why we follow ideas, not individuals. As individuals, we are all flawed. But group process compensates for this. Nobody is smart enough to make it through life with only one brain. Anarchists recognize this and pool our brains. We rely on each other. Marxists rely on Marx.

Marxists treat Marx like he was god or something. Though correct in some of his analysis, Marx was off by 180° on the rest of it. No individual, least of all Marx, has all the answers. Marxists don't get this basic truism of life. Marxists let a dead man think for them. Anarchists think for ourselves.

Apples and oranges.

No single individual is right all the time. No single individual has all the answers. Ergo, the most basic principle of anarchist process is group effort. None of us is as smart as all of us. All of us are smarter than any of us. We understand this. Marxists don't.

Also, even when we're wrong, anarchists are telling the truth as we understand it at the time. Marxists lie through their teeth, believing that the end justifies the means. To anarchists, the end does not justify the means, the end *is* the means.

The primary difference between Marxism and anarchism, though, is not the individuals involved, but the very ideas themselves. Marxism is a closed set, and therefore a dead end. Anarchism is an open process, and therefore dynamic, robust, adaptive and evolutionary.

Apples and oranges.

those are all assumptions on your part

you don't know who you are talking to

you merely assume that

yet you speak as if you are the keeper of the divine truth. you reading minds now? pig entrails??

you don't have to be a communist to know red-baiting when you see it

remember McCarthy? you think everyone he pegged as a "red" was actually one? you might, but nope, they weren't, but many refused to acknowledge if they were or weren't to avoid falling prey to his evil little game, and like the crooked red-baiter he was, he labelled them all commies, just like you do now

sad, isn't it? so many decades later and so-called radicals/anarchists/whatever can do no better than good ol' Joe

have you no shame?

its from the daily doses of "kill the commies" proppaganda he absorbed as a little nipper bouncing on Dad's knee during the eisenhower years. Better than three out of four sixties "radicals" are just like him now. It's enough to make your skin crawl. The Jesuits have a saying that goes back hundreds of years : "Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards."

"That's why they call it names instead of trying to refute it."

Its also because you demonize the name through association (what people using the name did) rather than attacking the ideology.
Hitler had a mustache and killed millions, did he do it because of the mustache? Bakunin and Prudhon were antiSemites and called themselves Anarchists, does this mean all people who respect any of their ideas are automatically antiSemities? Since they helped whip up antiSemitism among the European working class one could say they they helped create the climate that allowed Hitler to act, so can one blame Anarchism for that in the same way one blames Stalin's terror on preSoviet Communists.


" History is abundantly clear as to the grim and hideous fate that awaits those who lose a conflict to the reds. Never again."

The Soviet Union was an empire and a lot of the 20th century was devoted to what was essentially a nationalist Russian vs nationalist American struggle for world domination. What were called Communist attrocities were more due to geopolitics and nationalism than Communism.


" valid criticisms of fetishizing non violence in any setting, protest or other"

A lot on the radical left talk about the pathology of pacifism and I just cant see it. Some middle class people who oppose wars call themselbes pacifists (not many though) but the normal alternative for them would be support the US wars not radical leftism. Among the non-middle class populations one doesnt see much pascifism, just pragmatism in terms of costs of violence (there was no violence at the immigrants right rally in LA this weekend but do you think many of the mainstream people who took part were "pacifists"? its likely that many people who took part even supported the Iraq war when it started but oppose immigration laws for more personal reasons)


"They include, first and foremost, face to face, grassroots organizing, all forms of study and education, the creation of interlocking networks of multiple, overlapping, sustainable organizations and institutions, the development of economic alternatives, etc."

That sounds great in the spirit of dual power and building a new society in the rubble of the old, but its really just an excuse for lifestylism since "grassroots organizing" without protests outside of the radical communities at most involves writing letters, etc... and since radicals usually dont like such things.... one ocassionally has propaganda of the deed type things but even going back to Vietnam almost everything was really symbolic and desiring of media attention in a similar fashion to a protest... (ie the Weather Underground bombed to get news coverage of their cause not because the bombs themselves changed things)
As for education, most oppressed people dont need to be educated about their own oppression (imagine going to Iraq to try to educate for change). Middle class students and teenagers getting educated about how bad things are may help create cultural change down the road, but most of those subject to the more extreme ideologies at a young age bounce in the exact opposite direction later in life (think Horowitz and even Hitchens).


"I have come down pretty hard on CrimeThinc lately."

Yep, I would agree with some of your criticism but think the worries are slightly misplaced. Those who fetishize illegalism are drawn to join groups like CrimeThink not the other way around. If someone slashes the tires of a cop car in my neighborhood tonight it probably wont be because they were influenced by some radical group; people around here have personal reasons for hating the police and dont have to be educated to avoid pacifism since there are so many shootings (most not by police)


"Certain individual anarchists have, on occasion, stated opinions not held by the majority. So what? Nobody's perfect. That's why we think for ourselves."

You could say the same about Communism. The only difference is that the USSR somehow turned into a super power and the only group partly inspired by ideas of Anarchists that rose to power was in Libya (unless you count Proudhon and Bukunin's indirect influence on the ideas of the Nazis)


"The skeletons in the Bolshevik closet, however, are not metaphorical in the least. They're real as death, all that's left of the Bolsheviks' victims, who number in the scores of millions."

Again with the Bolshies... do you mean the government of the former USSR? Would a modern day Bolshie be someone who theoretically supports Lenin's New Economic Policy, the ideas of Trotsky before the revolution, his ideas when he was in charge of the army...... How much blame to you put on an idea for the actions of those espousing the idea...


"Marx wins hands down."

I'd agree with you there in terms of guilt by association and that mainly because he had a larger impact in general, so if you try to put all the ideologies that spun out of his views as being his responsibility he is responsible for a lot (but if one did this would you include Proudhon and Bakunin's influences on the Nazis...)

Marx only wins when compared to those two, both Anarchism and Communism spun out of ideas popularized during the French Revolution and even before them the Anabaptists and other Christian sects. More people by far have died due to people who read Plato or Aristotle (just going back in time expands the scope) so do you call those who like Plato or Aristotle as literature guily by association with mass murder.

Anarchism seems a bit broader as a movement in terms of the ideologies it includes as a name compared to Communism but thats only because there is some strange group nationalism that unites ideologies that have nothing in common(specifically Im thinking of Syndicalism and Primitivism being included under the same label). The idea that what unifies the ideologies is the lack of a state is I think specious; all include power structures and one can play with what one calls a state as much as you want (for example is rural Afghanistan or Colombia really part of a state since its ruled by local warlords and if you call them a state why not call a workers council a state ... do the most radical Islamists who talk of no government and only Sharia count as Anarchists or is Anarchism more about the label than anything specific to it in terms of actual views)



Getting back to militarism for one second. Here is a thought I had recently about how everyone loves to distance themselves from pacifism on the "left" (from Al Franken to John Kerry to Communists and Anarchists and even Greens). The trend towards accepting colateral damage that may come in the achievement of one's goals is not something that came out of the readical left at all but is a broader cultural shift that is deeper than the right/left divide. Right-wing Militias in the 90s, Ward Churchill's Pacifism as Pathology and Bush Sr's desire to get the US over the Vietnam complex were perhaps one and the same cultural shift. It is perhaps a shift that came with the decline and collapse of the USSR since major wars are once again conceivable without global destruction (and the mainstream public can see the US being respnsible for Rwanda because it didnt intervene wheras during the Cold War the ability to intervene wasnt a given). The pacifist pathology Ward descrbed wasnt really related to Ghandi or MLK (both of whose power came through the use of religion more than nonviolence) but a result of the fear of a global nuclear war. 9/11 also had a major impact but even before that there seemed to be a mainstream shift away from movies making war look like hell(the trend during the late 80s and early 90s) to ones advertising militarisms glory so I wouldnt be surprised if there were not some link. Afterall Anarchists and Communists in the US are much more products of this society than products of the ideologies and one would even suspect mainstream culture relates to drives for people to become radicals just as it relates to why other portions of the population take on their views. An international current cultural shift may be most apparent in German Greens who backed a war in Afghanistan, the first major foreign deployment of Japanese troops and people like Hitechs supporting the war in Iraq (pacifism really did go out of style across the spectrum worldwide at about the same time)

Im probably a bit off base in terms of Ward (but did want to use him as an example since his book is so often quoted). His views actually came out of the anticolonial struggles in the third world in the 60s and 70s which were reflected in AIM which then drove him to argue against pacifism while supporting the Contras for nationalistic reasons that turned out to really be CIA lies... the US actually used some in AIM to back that war and this ability to mislead was specifically possible because of the antipacifist views that were en vogue at the time. But his views are reflected in the new climate ... which is a bit unfortunate since technical/ideological arguments against war can prove much less effective in terms of influencing mainstream Christian Americans to turn against the war in Iraq than more simple arguments that draw more on war being wrong morally. Now that the war is being lost this matters less but the slight majority that supported the war before it started wouldnt have been possible if pacifism had still been alive (of course 9/11 was the main factor that killed it but I wonder about the growing anti pacifist stuff that was en vogue on the radical left in the years right before 9/11).

An ad hominem is not a rebuttal.


> Hitler had a mustache

Invalid analogy. Facial hair is not ideology.


>What were called Communist attrocities were more due to geopolitics and nationalism than Communism.

That's my point exactly. Bolsheviks aren't anti-imperialists. They just want to be the emperor, that's all.


>A lot on the radical left talk about the pathology of pacifism and I just cant see it.

Pacifism teaches a rape victim to lie back and endure it instead of stabbing him in the neck because stabbing him in the neck would "perpetuate the cycle of violence." If that's not pathological, nothing is.


>middle class . . . non-middle class

This is a false dichotomy. Pullman car sociology makes no more sense than dividing workers according the color of their collar. Dividing workers serves only the bosses' agenda.

It doesn't matter how much you get paid.Class isn't about economics. Economics is about class. Class is about dominance and submission.

A well paid worker is a worker. A poorly paid worker is a worker. An unemployed worker is a worker. A disabled worker is a worker. A retired worker is a worker. A houseworker is a worker. A student is a worker in training. Each and every one must choose to willingly submit as an individual, or to organize collective resistance.



>"grassroots organizing" without protests outside of the radical communities at most involves writing letters, etc...

Bullsh*t. It also encompasses, sabotage, fragging and general strike. It just depends on *what* is organized at the grassroots level.


>As for education, most oppressed people dont need to be educated about their own oppression

All oppressed people, you included, need to educate themselves as to how to defeat their oppressors




(imagine going to Iraq to try to educate for change). Middle class students and teenagers getting educated about how bad things are may help create cultural change down the road, but most of those subject to the more extreme ideologies at a young age bounce in the exact opposite direction later in life (think Horowitz and even Hitchens).


>Those who fetishize illegalism are drawn to join groups like CrimeThink not the other way around.

Some are. Others merely reject capitalism on a gut level, but aren't sure how to actualize their opposition in a concrete manner. So, to educate themselves, they read. Sooner or later some of them read *Days of War, Nights of Love* and think what it says is a good idea. I know this because I sell them the book. I talk to to a lot of them. I listen to what they say.


>If someone slashes the tires of a cop car in my neighborhood tonight

It will accomplish what, exactly? Be specific.



>(unless you count Proudhon and Bukunin's indirect influence on the ideas of the Nazis)

This is begging the question. In fact, Proudhon and Bakunin had no influence on the Nazis whatsoever. Neitze did, but it's certainly not something he himself would have approved of. They called themselves supermen, but he'd have called them losers, because that's what they were.


>Again with the Bolshies... do you mean the government of the former USSR?

Among others. There's a lot of blood on Mao's hands, too, not to mention Pol Pot, Ceaucesceu, etc.


>How much blame to you put on an idea for the actions of those espousing the idea...

I put the same amount of blame on those who espouse the idea of Bolshevism as I do on those who espouse the idea of Nazism.


> Im thinking of Syndicalism and Primitivism being included under the same label).

Neither Syndicalism nor Primitivism are forms of anarchism. There are anarchist syndicalists and anarchist primivitists, but so what? There are also anarchist tooth brushers and anarchist shoe tiers. That doesn't make tooth brushing and shoe tying forms of anarchism. There are also fascist syndicalists and fascist primitivists.

The only things which can be called truly anarchist are those that *all* anarchists agree on. Primitivism and syndicalism are not included. Neither are vegetarianism, pacifism or a whole slough of other things engaged in by some anarchists but not all.



>is rural Afghanistan or Colombia really part of a state


Rural Afghanistan, like parts of Colombia or Somalia, are not stateless. They are the home of many de facto states. They simply haven't been recognized by the UN, that's all.



>Anarchists and Communists in the US are much more products of this society than products of the ideologies

That's patently absurd. First of all it begs the question. Anarchism is not an ideology. Ideology is what idiots have instead of ideas. Anarchism is a process. Secondly, "Communism" is not communism any more than "unions" are united or the "catholic" church is universal.


>An international current cultural shift may be most apparent in German Greens who backed a war in Afghanistan, the first major foreign deployment of Japanese troops and people like Hitechs supporting the war in Iraq

Points of fact:

• The German green leadership backed the war, The rank and file are split on the issue.

• The first major foreign deployment of Japanese troops is not a product of Japanese culture but of it's puppet government. More Japanese people than not are opposed.

• "Hitechs" do not support the war in iraq. Some technophiles support the war literally. Others do our utmost to to oppose it.



>Ward . . . supporting the Contras

This is another Bolshevik lie. What he actually did was to speak out strongly against racist oppression by the Sandanistas of the Native Nicaraguans.


>technical/ideological arguments against war can prove much less effective in terms of influencing mainstream Christian Americans to turn against the war in Iraq than more simple arguments that draw more on war being wrong morally.

While some Christians oppose war on moral grounds, they are hardly mainstream. Most mainstream Christians who oppose the war do so because they recognize that it is both an unwinnable fiasco, and an economic catastrophe in the making, i.e., they don't want to be losers, let alone broke losers. It's self interest that drives them, not morals.



>I wonder about the growing anti pacifist stuff that was en vogue on the radical left in the years right before 9/11).

It's still there. That's why so many people only go through the motions of opposing the war. They march in circles and wave their banners because they aren't willing to take the decisive actions that could actually end war forever, i.e., round up the ruling class and herd them off a cliff.

Stop playing the cop, and people will stop criticizing you for it.

Very simple.

>It doesn't matter how much you get paid.Class isn't about economics. Economics is about class. Class is about dominance and submission.

>A well paid worker is a worker. A poorly paid worker is a worker. An unemployed worker is a worker. A disabled worker is a worker. A retired worker is a worker. A houseworker is a worker. A student is a worker in training. Each and every one must choose to willingly submit as an individual, or to organize collective resistance.


So, is someone living on the government dole, like yourself, a worker? Are you submitting or dominating in such a role? Are working taxpayers submitting or dominating in providing your living? Does it matter how much taxpayers spend to subsidize all of your free time online to dominate comment threads or volunteer at bookstores? Are you in a lower class because you believe workers via the government should be paying you more? Or are you part of the upper leisure classes with so much time to burn? Are you submitting by accepting such payments and not resisting them? Are you complicit in the US war machine by accepting such payments or are you resisting war by not paying taxes and instead bilking taxpayers and the govenment for a living? Is it fair to real workers for you to live in such a parasitic way?

Do tell.

I'm not a cop. I'm a janitor. I'm not even the topic here. This thread is about events, not individuals. If you want to bad mouth me, please use the appropriate thread, and stop disrupting what could otherwise be productive discourse regarding a topic of interest to every anarchist in the Bay Area, and then some. Surely you aren't trying disrupt productive discourse, are you. Well, are you?

Just wondering.

Actually, every time you fart into the microphone is not "a topic of interest to every anarchist in the Bay Area."

Actually, many if not most anarchists are quite bored with your domination of any and every thread that could be even tangentially tied to anarchism (or its arch-enemy, ANSWER). That's a fact, jack.

It's time for you to take a step back and let others shape discussions how they want. Otherwise, as it too often is, it becomes you speaking as THE keeper of anarchy. It's quite tiresome and you should give it a rest.

Is anarchy in the Bay Area to be a Trademark (TM) of Nessie's POV incorporated, or is it actually open to the viewpoints of others? Does every last conversation on anarchy here have to have your Official Stamp of Approval, or can you allow others to discuss relevant issues as they see fit without your compulsive need to interject your opinion on everything?

It surely seems that you want to bully/control/dominate all discussions on anarchism (or, again, its evil arch-enemy, ANSWER). You still have a chance to prove that wrong, but odds are your ego and sense of self-righteousness and sense of entitlement will not allow you to. Time will tell.

Dellusions of grandeur mixed with nationalistic pride in the Anarchist label logically results in an equation of those who have ideological differences with Anarchism with absolute evil. I just wonder how far the dellusions go beyond Nessie. How many Aanrchists who attack ANSWER actually see a member of the ISO or ANSWER as a force of the evil empire and see their differences over which street to march in the same light as warfare during the Russian Civil War. I guess it would be comparible to a Serb being angry at a Turk for the actions of the Ottomans (which one does see) or Koreans being angry at Japan for WWII (I had a room-mate in college who when he was joining a frat defaced a Japanese restaurant for what they did to Korea during WWII).

>every time you fart into the microphone is not "a topic of interest to every anarchist in the Bay Area."


That's a straw man. I never said it was. Stop putting words into my mouth. It's rude. It's dishonest. It's very bad form.

What *is* of mutual interest to the entire Bay Area anarchist community, and then some, are the eight separate annual events cited in the title of the thread, plus a ninth, the cafe, which was omitted. Why do certain people not want our anarchist readers to focus on these events? There are a limited number of possibilities, not one of which is that they have the best interests of anarchists at heart. Au contrair.

These people must find the growth of the anarchist movement threatening, or else they would not be spending time and energy attempting slow, if not reverse, it. They are clever enough to recognize that this growth is greatly enabled by the creation of sustainable institutions such as, for example, annual events. Rather than allow anarchists to discuss these events with an eye toward finding ways to make them even better, bigger and more numerous, they are attempting to drown out the discussion with noise and distract our readers from the topic with logical fallacies. It's a trick. Don't fall for it. Stay focused.

This thread is not about "nessie," it's about the annual week long series of anarchist events. There is a an entire thread about nothing but "nessie." If you want to discuss "nessie" please do it there, and not disrupt this conversation.

Now back to the topic. Eight days of anarchy, how can we make next year's even more effective? Any suggestions?

I would suggest a little more attempted cross-pollinations of people outside their comfy little cliques. The same people (and their new friends) go to the cafe; the same people go to the BASTARD conference. The occasional newbie winds up still feeling isolated because of the cliques and their juvenile sniping. But I'm not sure what you're looking for in terms of "effectiveness"; does it have something to do with increased numbers of participants in various discrete events? I'm not sure how to encourage curious people to check out events. I'm also not sure that increased numbers of participants is an automatic good; I'm more of a quality man myself. How do we encourage people to start their own projects and events that don't necessarily coincide with the weekend of the bookfair? And not just in the Bay Area? One thing I know is how easy it is to actually co-organize such events. The hardest thing to do is find a space for cheap. Oh yeah, and keep out the pro-Bolsheviks. Every time they see anarchists doing anything even a little successful at fulfilling people's needs/desires, they try to take it over; if they can't take it over, they attempt to destroy it. Those wacky authoritarians just have to be in control.

What you say makes sense in terms of quality over quantity.... but only if at some level you view the Anarchist community as a scene whose purpose is more that of a youth culture whose purpose is mainly internal rather than a movement seeking broader change.

A Vanguardist movement can I guess care about the quality of its members (assuming its a elite group that will force change on others) but if one wants societal change with everyone involved, that everyone cant be just white middle class youth who are willing to identify as being Anarchist (which really is more a subcultural label than a real natural grouping of ideologies).

There is a real sense in which one can say "we are Anarchists" and "they are Communists" and they can do their thing and if you dont like the Anarchist scene dont be part of it (just as if someone dosnt like the punk scene one can also leave)

But if this whole Anarchist/Communist revolutionary thing is serious, the scene thing doesnt make sense. After the revolution (which I've admitted I dont believe will happen) how exactly do Anarchists deal with a hierarchical groups like the Black Panthers, AIM, people who wnat to work in hierarchical work environments, organized crime ....?
At some level its not theoretical since if you look at rural Afghanistan or Colombia where formal government is irrelevent what exactly is the Anarchist solution?
Thinking you can educate people to be nice and not have hierarchies doesnt seem to work even within the Anarchist scene and your antiBolshie thing is a clear example of a belief that you view some as beyond your education (their ideology and organziing is so threatening to you that you actively either fear or hate them)
Exclusively picking the cool nice nonBolshie kids to be part of your club may make you be able to create counter institutions and say that Anarchism works (even though I havent seen a commune that hasnt gone bad since people change) but if you cant organize with Communists today how will your postRevolutionary world really work?

Back to the real world (where the threats are from Bush, right-wing Christians, organzied crime etc...) none of the postrevolutionary stuff matters, but there is still an element where unity is needed even for small reformist goals. A homogenous mainly white middle class scene that is not open to ideologies that may not have the same label, that keeps itself closed off from enough communities, could really do more harm than good if action were attempted in areas where most people are not from the Anarchist subculture. Take for example an Anarchist form the US thrown into the middle of Palestinian society... does one avoid the PFLP and DFLP and only work with Hamas and Fatah since one hates Bolshies? Or does one avoid everyone except people who wont admit affiliation and end up working with the UN and NGOs because the local ideologies are too problematic from a strictly Anarchist ideological standpoint. Or take Iraq... how does one support the resistance theoretically but oppose everyone due to political disagreements and just feel self-righteous that one supports militant resistance "in theory" even though one actually hates every group one could ever work with (aside from the foreign solidarity tourism type groups that are to war what ecotourism organizers are to environmentalism).

Just to take it one step further, anarchists have been building counterinstitutions with like-minded friendly types for a long long time.

If it were going to change anything, the 60s seem like the right time and place for it to have done so. Result: social revolution half-succeeded, political revolution utterly failed. Decades of Reagan/Bush as a result, with all sorts of rollbacks making life worse by almost any measure for the average person.

The times have changed. Why should anyone take your same old crap seriously?

Seriously.

BTW, the quality thing-- that's all "vanguard" means. Lenin turned it into other things, he took liberties with it. At least he was honest about what he was doing.

Ah, cheap space, the holy grail of event organizing. Maybe we need to think outside the box here, and create events tailored to available space. Effective use of terrain is the key to success in asymmetrical conflict. Some spaces are actually free. During the height of the squatting movement here, back in the mid eighties, we used to hold regular film showings and big weekly meals inside an abandoned commercial laundry in SoMa. In 1984, when the town filled up with protesters drawn by the Democratic Convention, the network of squats we had built up played a significant role in logistical support.

There were a lot more abandoned buildings in SF in those days, back before the real estate bubble. Bubbles break. The real estate boom is not being driven by demand for housing or office/manufacturing space, but by speculation based on low interest rates. Low interest rates are coming to an end. So is prosperity. America, both public and private, is in debt up to its chin, and sinking fast. The global economy is either a house of cards or a daisy chain of IOUs, depending on how you look at it. The main Item of trade is oil, which is being traded less and less for dollars, and more and more for euros. When all those dollars come home, we'll see stagflation that will make the Carter years look like the Roaring Twenties. We're facing Great Depression II. It's only a matter of time.

The time factor is variable. The worst case scenario involves a military attack on Iran. That could collapse the economy in a matter of weeks. It would start to hurt on day one. We'd have ten days, at most, till gangrene set in.

While the impending economic collapse is a nightmare scenario for virtually all concerned, there are some silver linings. Abandoned buildings would sprout like mushrooms. New opportunities will make themselves available. It's only a matter of time. There is no such thing as a static economy. Capitalism has a built in cyclic nature. Change will come. We've seen it before. Let's hope we're ready.

In the meantime, let's look around for likely places to set up safe TAZes. Many small such places will be easier to come up with than a few big ones. They'd probably be more productive, too. Smaller events usually are. With modern communications technology it's now more possible to link many small gatherings into one de facto big one, than it ever was in history. The line between a many small gatherings and one big one is becoming ever more vague.

Any other suggestions? How about some really different kinds of events? For example, more sports are in order. Soccer is cool, so is bicycle polo. But how about a wrist rocket tournament? A paint ball league? A cooking contest? A freegan treasure hunt?

How about doing some stuff that doesn't necessarily have to happen only one week? Why not build more lasting, sustainable , year in year out, on going institutions? Why don't we have a guerrilla gardening movement in this part of the world? Or more food purchasing cooperatives? A community motor pool? Mutual banking? Free skools? Disaster preparedness planning? Bail funds?

A community is more than a collection of overlapping cliques. It's more than a milieu. It's more than a set of people with common interests. A community is a living organism. It's functions as any living thing functions, i.e., its collective process is composed of interlocking, overlapping, mutually supporting subcomponants that combine to create something that is more than the sum of its parts. We don't have that yet, not even emotionally, let alone logistically. Why not?

Is Anarchy Week a step in the right direction? Or has as much been made of it as can be made? For what kinds of new things, if any, can it serve as a catalyst? As a matrix? As a cover? As an excuse?

Would it make sense to also organize a similar cluster of gatherings that were not limited to anarchists? Who would do something like that? How? Where?

What else have we come up with here through the process of organizing Anarchy Week that we haven't yet figured how to make the most of? It's generated some innovative organizing. How can this be expanded and built upon?

We're definitely onto *something* here. First it was a single day, then a weekend, then a week. What next? A month? A second week, but six months off? Smaller quarterly events? Where should we go with this? We're on a roll, let's make the most of it. Let's steer this thing in the most productive directions possible. What are they?

ANN ARBOR, MI—Spokespersons for the Global Socialist League, an Ann Arbor-based radical socialist organization, announced Tuesday that the group is disbanding due to a lack of funds, ending its three-semester struggle to smash the bulwarks of slavery and oppression everywhere.

Founded by University of Michigan junior Kate Barlow in September 1996 as a campus-based revolutionary strike force dedicated to establishing a worldwide dictatorship of the proletariat, the GSL made the decision to disband after learning it had dropped below the five-member minimum required by the university for student-organization funding.

"We were really starting to get the word out about AmeriKKKa's exploitation of migrant labor, the silencing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the Clinton regime's reign of fascist terror in Central America," said Barlow, GSL chairperson and a creative-writing major. "But then Craig dropped out because his dad threatened to stop paying his tuition if he didn't get his grades up, and Doug decided to spend junior year abroad in England."

"After three glorious semesters of struggle, we have chosen to pursue even more subversive socialist endeavors in the radical Ann Arbor underground while working at a variety of part-time jobs during the day," GSL Minister of Information Chad Saunders said.

Saunders cited his recent acquisition of a personal computer as a major factor in his own decreased involvement with the radical group.

"I just bought this game called Warcraft II: Tides Of Darkness. It's amazing," Saunders said. "You can be orcs or humans, and you build up these castles and armies and battle to the death. Last night, I almost constructed an Altar Of Storms, but then Jeff attacked with his dragons and totally destroyed me."

Ann Arbor-area capitalists were excited by the news of the Global Socialist League's breakup. "Chad never picked up any extra shifts because of all the meetings he had for that club he was in," said Bob Jorgensen, manager of the downtown Ann Arbor Starbuck's Coffee where Saunders works. "Hopefully, he'll be able to take some extra weekend hours now, since he doesn't have to sell those newspapers anymore."

Much like the Zapatista rebels currently fighting the Mexican government for social justice in the state of Chiapas, the Global Socialist League faced persecution from University of Michigan authorities.

"We tried to staple up notices in the Union for a rally protesting the CIA's secret war against migrant laborers in California," GSL Minister of Postering Greg Thornberg said. "But this guy from the Union info desk came over and told us we had to get permission first. He will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

The group suffered another setback when financial support for its newsletter, ¡Revolt!, fell through.

"This guy I know named Pat was going to lend us $40 to print 200 copies, but then he wound up spending the money on Widespread Panic tickets," Thornberg said. "So after that, we decided to print just 50 copies, but the guy at Kinko's said if we printed that few, the price per copy would be twice as much. So we were like, 'Forget it, man, we can't swing it.'"

Assessments of the Global Socialist League's legacy are mixed. "Kate Barlow combined an adequate knowledge of The Communist Manifesto with an ability to shout anti-U.S. slogans on street corners without embarrassment, making her an effective campus socialist leader," Michigan political-science professor R. Jonathan Cooper said. "However, the Global Socialist League's inability to deliver meeting times and other event listings to the campus newspaper before deadline seriously hampered its efforts to overthrow the extant capitalist order of the United States."

While the Global Socialist League is no more, Barlow said the group's dissolution is only a temporary setback on the inevitable march of the human race toward a state of communistic utopia.

"I feel just like Lenin in 1917, when he lived in exile in Switzerland," Barlow said. "Not long after, he returned to Russia and toppled the Provisional Government, establishing Bolshevik control over the country in just six months."

Barlow said she has worked out a similar plan to overthrow the racist, imperialist U.S. government with a series of massive labor strikes and agitation campaigns among urban poor. She was unable to provide specifics, however, as she was late for her shift at Einstein's Bagels.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39127

KIEV, UKRAINE—The firing of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the dismissal of most of the federal government continued to go unremarked by Ukraine's 14 million citizens Monday. "Roads are crumbling, the Russian Mafia sets food prices, our currency grows more worthless by the hour, and still the government does nothing," said Brzyny Ilandrovitch, editor of the U.F. Monitor. "Every year, it's the same thing with this group of fat crooks." Upon hearing of the government overthrow, Ilandrovitch said he was reminded of 1991's democratic elections, when the lawless chaos that followed the country's independence from the Soviet Union left many doubting that a central government had been democratically elected.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40991

Anarchist soccer, Anarchist book fairs, what about some good old fashioned Anarchist sitting around eating pizzas, getting high and watching Star Trek?

That last Nessie quote kinda makes some of the question I have had add up. Serious politics, thoughts of the future and the like dont really matter when you think the end is neigh. Anarchism can just be a matter of getting a space to hang out play soccer and read books since nothing has to be done since the whole system is on the verge of collapse.

The thing for anyone who buys into this to ask is how long these same people have said the end is near? New Orleans happened. The Tsunami happened. But was civilization or Capitalism even remotely threatened? Look at larger things like the Black Plague and WWII and ask yourself if any of these things resulted in major changes to civilization itself (government structures changed but did post war Germany's economy really look that different from preWWII Germany's economy). Oil will get more expensive, global warming will result in milliions of deaths through weather change but the current system is stable enough that none of those will cause much change without a change in public opinion. The idea that fundamental contradictions make collapse inevitable is an idea of Marx but its definitely older and more tied into Christian end time myths than actual study of history (people thought the Mongolian Hordes were the horsemen of the apocolypse, Napolean was seen as the antiChrist by many, and early US history was full of cults that moved into rural areas in the belief that the end was near...) The US economy will get worse due to debt and the baby boom retiring, US debt and the like could even result in a recession or a depression but thats not the same as collapse or inevitable revolution. The US didnt come remotely close to a governmental or economic collpase during the Great Depression and Japan's 10 years of economic stagnation in the late 90s and 2000s is much more similar to what the US can expect in the next few decades than Capitalism giving up and Anarchist youth dancing on the ruins of multinational corporations.

Of course "end is near" type stuff is usually more personal than tied in to ideology or Christianity. If you hear someone talking about inevitable collapse its usually a sign of personal instability mixed with a combiantion or fears and or hopes of getting fired, getting sick, losing ones partner or the like. Inner fears and insecurity are often manifested in political rhetoric.

Choice of end time myth is usually a question of mania vs depression (or choosing a tragedy to overlay over history by onlly looking at the negative or a "happilly ever after ending" if one only wants to look at the positive)

Negative end time myths:
-totalitarianism increases until the world looks like 1984, Nazis Germany, or Stalinist Russia.
-environmental destruction results in such catastrphic change that we are reduced to living as we did before civilization began
-oil will run out and there will be chaos and economic collpase as the government disappears and its every person for themselves in a world that looks like Lord of the Flies
-all the computers stop working because the year turns 2000 and there is mass chaos
-the antiChrist and forces of evil take over the Earth
-global nucler war leads to a global nuclear winter
-an astroid hits earth and everyone dies
-aliens land on earth and enslave or kill everyone

Positive end time myths:
-democracy spreads with free markets until all wars end and poverty disappears as everyone lives in middle class or above life styles
-the workers take over the means of production and the new egalitarian society is able to educated the public to the point where government is no longer needed and can fade away
-Jesus returns and establishes 1000 years of peace
-Jesus and the Mahdi return and establishes 1000 years of peace
-Civilization or the economy collapses leaving only Anarchust institions remaining as everyone realizes that such a lifestyle is the only way to go once the Capitalist system evaporates
-technology advances to the point where nobody has to work and we can all focus on arts and other fun things (and everyone becomes immortal due to medical advances).

Global warming is real and could result in a huge amounts of destruction, nuclear wars could have killed most life on earth, an asteroid really could hit earth and kill us all.... but even if such cases are possible there are things to suggest that they are unlikely. Even if half the world got killed in a nuclear war chances are the rest of the world would continue almost as if it hadnt happened (after a period of shock and mourning) and environmental disasters are either slow (global warming's most serious risks being spread out over centuries thus allowing the public to adapt as they would with a nuclear war) or rare. As for running out of oil, it doesnt seem like a major risk since as the costs go up the alternatives become more viable and there are a lot of alternatives (Britian may have 10% wind power in the next 10 years, and there are always environmentally destructive things like nuclear power and dams that big comanies will turn to more when oil gets low). The same people who talk about peak oil were the same ones who also tried to sell you y2k (which would have been more noticable without the warning...)

Troubled? Of course I'm troubled. But there's one thing in particular that's bothering me right now. Let me just get this out in the open. I'm very, very disappointed with this so-called doomsday cult I joined. There's so much wrong here, I barely know where to begin.
...
just how are we going to have a dramatic standoff without a weapons stockpile? I've been doing some research, and do you know how many rifles the Branch Davidians had? Two hundred and twenty five. How many do we have? One. One goddamned unloaded .22 that you use to hunt squirrels. I'm sure when the BATF raids our compound, we'll be able to hold them off for at least three minutes with that thing. When we run out of ammo, we can always turn to that mound of Roman candles you picked up in Indiana.

As long as we're clearing the air here, there's the not-so-small matter of your failure to subjugate the children with ritual sexual abuse. Kids are the future of this cult, and we can't leave them to form opinions of their own. You have to break their spirit by violating them in horrific ways. If you're not going to do it, a lot of your followers are itching to give it a try. Just say the word, and we can start getting some order around here.
...
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33384


WASHINGTON, DC—The avian influenza virus, a mutant flu strain that has claimed the lives of 31 people in Eastern Asia since it was first observed passing from birds to humans in 1997, has the nation's foremost alarmists extremely agitated.
...
HaroldNation's Leading Alarmists Excited About Bird Flu Jefferson, a founding member of the American National Citizen's Institute for Alarm, read from a prepared statement Tuesday.

"We have to face the facts: This isn't just a rapacious killer that could be incubating anywhere within our borders and for which there is no known cure," Jefferson said. "It is also an indicator of the profound indifference of millions of American citizens. Mark my words: People who aren't scared now will look pretty stupid if it turns out that they should have been."

Jefferson added: "The bird flu could someday claim as many lives as Mad Cow Disease."

Ruth Herrin, the New York Post's veteran panic expert, has relied heavily on information provided by alarmists in the scientific community.

"Listen, I'm no disease expert," Herrin said. "But I know that people should be warned about global devastation any time a devastation scenario can be extrapolated from an actual news report. And for the 16th consecutive month, that time is now."
...
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30868

...
MSNBC chose Skip Hammond, former Arizona State football player, MBA holder, and author of Imprison The Sun: America's Coming Nuclear-Power Holocaust. Hammond is best known for his "atomic domino" theory of chained power-plant explosions and his signature lavender silk tie.

"Absolute Armageddon," Hammond said when asked about the dangers increased reliance on nuclear power might pose. "Atoms are not only too tiny to be seen, they're too powerful to be predicted. Three Mile Island? Remember it? I do. Don't they?"

"Clouds of radiation, glowing rivers, a hole reaching to the earth's core—that's what we're facing, " Hammond continued. "Death of one in four Americans! Count off, everyone: one, two, three, you. Millions of people gone. And no one's even mentioned terrorism yet. You have to wonder why not."
...
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39473


JERUSALEM—The international theological and sociopolitical communities reacted with shock Monday to the unexpected realization that, contrary to nearly 2,000 years of expectations concerning the new millennium, there is no seven-headed dragon rising in the East to enslave all of humanity.

"Despite the fact that these occurrences are clearly delineated in the prophetic Biblical writings of John of Patmos, we have no reports at this time of any seven-headed dragons, rapturous vanishings of the Elect, or armies of the Morningstar amassing under the leadership of the Antichrist and preparing to engage in final battle with the forces of righteousness," said Oxford University professor Dr. Thomas Lesser. "In fact, not only is there no seven-headed dragon, but there appears to be no evidence of dragons of any sort, seven-headed or not, in the East or anywhere else."

"To be honest, we can't make any sense of it," Lesser said. "This flies in the face of virtually everything we know about end-of-the-century world politics."

According to Dr. Julian Nolan, founder of the Institute for Tribulation-Era Millennial Studies and an advisor to the U.S. State Department, the dragon absence is "mind-boggling." Speaking before the president and cabinet members at a special briefing this morning, Nolan said: "As difficult as this may be to comprehend, we face the very real possibility that much of the information contained in the Book of Revelations may not be as relevant to our modern era as previously believed."

Nevertheless, many experts remain convinced that the dragon's failure to materialize must have some reasonable explanation.

"Think about it," said Dartmouth College political-science chair Dr. Kent Finlayson. "A seven-headed dragon with ten horns whose arrival heralds the Age of Armageddon and the time of tribulation? Who, furthermore, will decree that all who swear allegiance to him be affixed with the Number of the Beast, which is 666? It just makes perfect sense. There must be some logical explanation as to why this beast hasn't surfaced to torment the earth. If we simply remain calm and avoid jumping to conclusions based on things we don't yet understand, I'm confident we'll find out why through research and clear-headed analysis."

Around the globe, top scholars are doing just that, attempting to locate the missing dragon or, at the very least, develop an acceptable theory to explain the demonic creature's mysterious delay in arriving. In addition, an international task force made up of intelligence agents from more than 150 countries and coordinated by the United Nations, is currently combing the globe for any evidence of the whereabouts of the dragon or his armies of Hell, which are reportedly "many multitudes" strong. Thus far, however, the search has yielded no leads.

A clue to finding out why the dragon has yet to manifest itself, some experts believe, may lie in the related question of why the earth has not also seen various other manifestations of ancient prophecy: seven seals, seven horns, seven lampposts, and so on. It is believed that once these non-materialized prophecies can be explained, the dragon's location may become more apparent.

According to Dr. Benjamin Fullmer of the prestigious Center for Armageddon-Era Historical Studies, when the dragon does appear, it should be easily identifiable.

"Our most reliable sources," Fullmer said, "tell us that this dragon, in addition to having seven heads and ten horns, will be covered with blasphemous names across its flanks. Additionally, there is expected to be a woman, described in leading journals as a whore, riding atop the scaly creature and holding a golden cup filled with abominable things. The exact nature of these abominable things remains unclear at this time, but we do know that the filth of her adulteries will constitute at least some of the abominable things in this cup."

"Therefore," Fullmer said, "anyone with any knowledge of the whereabouts of a golden cup filled at least partially with the filth of adulteries should contact the center immediately. It could provide us with a vital clue we need to resolve this enigma."

Fullmer added that this mysterious, dragon-riding whore may also be identifiable by an inscription on her forehead reading, "Mystery—Babylon The Great, The Mother of Prostitutes and the Abominations of the Earth." Fullmer said it is not known at this time to what this inscription might refer.

If no explanation can be found for the absence of the dragon, as well as the lack of trumpets and other turn-of-the-millennium prophetic phenomena, a major reassessment of the geotheopolitical landscape of the new millennium may be unavoidable.

"Though it seems virtually unthinkable, we may need to come up with some radically different ideas about what to expect on the global scene in the immediate future," said Biblical scholar Dr. Paul Tillich of the University of Chicago School of Divinity. "However strange it may seem, there appear to be some indications that these ancient texts may be less credible than hoped."

"There are some fringe elements, for example, who insist that these writings from Patmos are merely an allegory pertaining to a specific and localized political situation at some point during the reign of Nero, Domitian or Vespasian in the first century AD," Tillich said. "Now, I'm not saying we should fly off the handle and buy into something like that just yet—I mention it only as a particularly far-fetched example. My point is simply that something equally ridiculous-sounding may, in fact, be an unavoidable conclusion unless a seven-headed, ten-horned dragon manifests itself soon."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30030

Let's seize more of the means of productions. NoBAWC is not enough. As soon as economic conditions warrant we could see Argentine type factory occupations spreading to the Northern Hemisphere. But not if we haven't prepared. There's a lot of groundwork that needs to be done. Fortunately, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from the South, and not just Argentina. In Brazil is much worth emulating. Both theory and practice is far more advanced there. We have FNB. They have the MST and the MSTC. And let's not forget the Bolivians. We are soooo far behind up here. We got a whole lot of catching up to do.

Modeling a movement of middle class youth in lefty US cities off peasants who need land in Brazil seems to be just aiming for failure (wanting land because it seems theoretically a good idea is very different from needing land to survive since few would choose to do the amount of work needed for subsistance farming unless they had to).

Argentina is closer to the US culturally and one could see similar factory takeovers if a collapse like that occurs here (maybe 30% chance in the next 30 years?), but I wonder how much those actually achieved? How many factories that were taken over are still worker run? The main effect of the Argentinian collapse (and the main demand of those in the streets) was moving away from IMF/World bank economic policies and from the one Anarchist I heard talk about the country (actually at an event associated with the Book Fair a few years back) Anarchist participation was low enough he had to march with the Communists since most of the Anarchist scene was more of a rave/party scene rather than something that could act in solidarity with what was going on.

More infrastructure is a fine idea.

But how can we collectively control infrastructure when we can't even agree on who is or isn't part of the community, and when such institutions as do exist are too paranoid to (for example) say how much they raised at a bookfair?

We're gonna run factories (or whatever) that way?

That's exactly where the anarcho leadership quandary bites us in the ass. It prevents effective, collective control of common (i.e community-based) resource development.

There is a reason the movement is a bunch of little cliques struggling to keep little projects going. It's the only scale we can consistently, predictably manage.

I posit this communist/anarchist venom is a problem (on both sides) because it prevents our scalability.

If we can't work with ideological neighbors (1st intl, mind you), how can we build greater (or any) confidence with people even further afield, socially, politically?

That's a straw man. I never said any such thing. I said they were more advanced than we are. They didn't get that way by modeling their own efforts on somebody else's. They got that way by improvising, by making the best use of the situation and terrain, by learning from their mistakes, and planning ahead. We could all be doing that. Some of actually are. But most of us aren't. Why not?

It also begs the question. The anarchist movement is not a "movement of middle class youth in lefty US cities." The anarchist movement is global. It includes middle class youth in lefty US cities, but it also includes peasants in Brazil, and a bunch of other people, too. We can not only learn from each other better than we we do, we can also support each others efforts better. By "support," I do not mean "approve of." I mean logistics.


>we can't even agree on who is or isn't part of the community

That's because there is no such thing as "the" community. There are many communities. Anarchists and Bolsheviks are different communities, just like Anarchists and Nazis are different communities.


>ideological neighbors (1st intl, mind you),

This is another Bolshevik lie. They would have you believe that the difference between Anarchists and Bolsheviks is like the difference between Sunni and Shia, or the difference between Protestant and Catholic. It's not. It's like the difference between animals and vegetables, or the difference between vegetables and minerals.

No, the enemy of our enemy is not our friend, but just another enemy. We have many enemies. That so many of them hate each other is fortunate. That they hate us, is incidental. It does not discourage, let alone impede, us. Nor could it. But that they lie to us, could. But it wont, because we no longer believe them, because they have lied to us too many times. Oh, and did I mention the backstabbing?

Ok, I'll stop being negative.

The first question many radical activists ask is how can I achieve my revolutionary goal given the current state of things. But unless ones personal goals are mainly issue oriented (which means one can have achivable goals) a better question to ask is what to people want and how can we make that happen. What people want is somewhat warped by the hand society deals them but there is a bit of vanguardism in assuming they are so uneduated you know what they want more than they do. You may know more about Iraq or Palestine or environmental destruction but you dont know more about what people really want.

You also cant tell people what myths and stories to overlay over reality; you can introduce ones that people may like but as one can see with religion even the fundamentalist monolitic society is full of free thinkers who dont go for the dominant myths.

So... if your goal is radical societal change (which perhaps is most evident in Meji Japan and China during Maos time) rather than just governmental change the real thing one needs is myths that the public will buy into. Of course few groups or people have ever just invented something like this and had others follow (except maybe founders of religions... )

But ...one can take the public's current actual views and help shape those. At the time of Marx the idea of class being a fundamental identity wasnt an invention but what everyone already believed since class then was much more like caste and was openly talked about as such. Unfortunately only a small subset of the US population uses that way of dividing up the world today. The US society is much more fractured and while life may be most similar based off income and job type the Marxist/Anarchist focus on "class" doesnt sell since its now too theoretical (essentailly when the argument given is more just claiming that it is how peopel should see things arther than giving people a convincing world view to go along with it that can fit with everyday life). Income differences may be growing but class and culture dont line up anymore (as they did in Europe) and whether one is a lefty hippy trust funder living poorly but indirectly off stocks (and thus a capitalist) or a right wing financial analyst making $200,000+ (but officially a worker) its hard to base real politics around "class". Actual wealth and income are better things along which to draw lines in terms that are reflected in how people live but one again runs into the problem that many fundamentalist Christians are poor but many Communists and Anarchists are quite wealthy. Perhaps trying to draw a line and define a theory is really the wrong way to go and what one has to do is take how the actual public actually thinks and try to see if one can create a world view and movement off that. Police bad/ getting high good/ etc... is a workable teenage world view which sells (and wells well enough to sell products but when applied by white Anarchists to poor African American comunities its a bit creepy (sine most of the public in the communities dont remotely see promoting the guys drinking on the corners as promoting revolution) The NOI actually has a much more saleable idea that gells with how people think things work but its divisive and also based around a corrupt cult which ultimately undermines itself. Whats needed is something inbetween that can deal with community violence, police brutality, bad work environments, war and inequality all while promoting something that doesnt encourage people to do things that jepordize their lives within the current society.

"The anarchist movement is not a "movement of middle class youth in lefty US cities." The anarchist movement is global."

There are various countries with movements that call themselves Anarchists. Some are just party scenes and some are political. Its is afterall just a label and one can get a lot of strange beliefs out of what Proudhoun and Bakunin wrote, Sex Pistol lyrics and the musings of French art students from the 1960s. Argentina is a case where the Anarchist movement is apparently more of a ravish party scene (with some exceptions) whereas in Brazil one has a landless movement that gets associated with the label.

I guess the reason one can see modern Anarchist movements as a united whole is the combination of Marx's historical views with a negative view of Russian history. The stuff about states and hierarchies makes little sense... what exactly is a state or formal hierarchy anyways.... one can say organized crime is bad and mob bosses shouldnt exist but its one thing to say something shouldnt be and its another to explain how education can prevent even small groups of people from forming hierarchies on their own which take on more power than unorganized communities (once you introduce an organized community its hard to say why that isnt a government anymore.. would you really say a small country run off TownHall meetings doesnt have a government)

Backtracking to earlier talk of groups that want cooperative business without bosses for a sec. One big risk of that is that it's what bosses want. Independent contractors are much easier to exploit based off current labor laws than formal employees. Turning the "boss" into "client" doesnt really change power relationships at all; look at day laborers and migrant farm workers. Taking radicals out of unionizable jobs can also undermine the ability to organize whole lindustries.

Revolution is not a goal. It's a process. It takes time. The industrial revolution is only just now hitting it's stride after hundreds of years. The agricultural revolution still hasn't caught on everywhere.


>a better question to ask is what to people want and how can we make that happen.

This is typical of the elitist, vanguard mentality.

We *are* the people. A better question to ask is what do *we* want and how can *we* make that happen.



>the real thing one needs is myths that the public will buy into

The real thing we need is truths we can all buy into.


>saleable idea

We're not selling ideas. We're giving them away.



>Whats needed is something inbetween


What's needed, *we* already have. It is the time proven process of mutual aid, solidarity and the free association of equals. It works. Try it and see.

The ability to organize whole lindustries is exactly what the bosses want. It Balkanizes the working class into trades, i.e., it directly counters worker solidarity. That's why the bosses are willing to sit down and deal with the AFL-CIO and prop it up as a de facto labor broker, but send goons, guns and clubs to break up trans trade organizations like the IWW and Solidarnosc.

"The industrial revolution is only just now hitting it's stride after hundreds of years."

A guy who thinks the word "industry" means "high technology." It doesn't. These words are only tangential to each other. A better term to use would have been meta-meta-meta-meta-industry

"The agricultural revolution still hasn't caught on everywhere."

And whose city-boy knowledge of the human relationship with the earth (like his understanding of first scientific principles) is abysmal beyond remedy, e.g. he thinks he can "make" soil. No nessie, what you did was introduce plant matter into an environment in which it spontaneously transformed BACK into the decomposed organic matter ("soil") from whence it originally came -- sort of, and not quite as much.

This is called **Conservation of Matter**

This concept, along with **conservation of energy**, is one that techno-worshippers never seem to glean from all their jerk off sessions with the Discovery Channel. After all, it's not science that actually interests them. Science -- REAL science -- is hard stony grown-up stuff. The word "Science" as they use it is just a less childish name for "woweee-super-neato-cool, Ma!!" What they really believe in is magic. They think "science" is Merlin and can literally defy its own principles. Their mentality is nurtured, usually, by a heavy diet of "Science" Fiction, the authors of which are usually just uber-versions of themselves. With occasional exception, they don't really understand or respect science either. The real thing isn't entertaining enough for them. That's why they go into writing fantasy novels instead.

While the members of this Elroy Jetson cult **think** they're cutting-edge techno-visionaries, they're actually just dangerously clever morons. Fortunately people who actually do science for a living DO NOT share their arrested mentality. They can't.

If "the agricultural revolution still hasn't caught on everywhere," it's not for lack of trying. It was in fact tried wholeheartedly and called "the Green Revolution." Even nessie may have heard of it. The Green Revolution was an unqualified environmental and demographic doomsday engine, and what really happened was not that it "hasn't caught on" but that it's been abandoned or rolled back in most places, thank the stars! Nessie, I am sure, will never understand what I mean because he thinks agriculture is magic, just like he thinks he can "make" soil. Unlike nessie, I have spent most of my life watching and contemplating first-hand the irreversible destruction called "agriculture," and unlike him I understand the full and ominous meaning of the laws of conservation

There are far too many nessies at all levels of this boob-clinging infantile culture. It really is extremely dangerous.

Know that the "free association of equals" is code that includes consenting sexual relationships between 5-year old children and 40-year old men.

Why is society so prudish as to not allow consenting and sexually loving 5 year olds express themselves? NAMBLA is on to something after all.

Anarchists such as those from Bound Together Bookstore, best represented by their spokesperson Nessie, have it going on in the "free association" department and know better than to banish their boy-loving brethren.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1717956_comment.php

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1719358.php

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1722560.php

Get your latest copy of the NAMBLA Journal at Bound Together today!

It's still a way to change the subject, i.e., a deliberate attempt to disrupt productive discourse among anarchists. It's a trick. Don't fall for it.

Now back to the topic.

We're on a roll here. Let's go with it. But where? We have momentum. We have resources. We have expertise. We have connections. We have a track record. What should we do with them next?

There has some been discussion (off line) about the possibility of staging a second event, along the lines of the Anarchist Book Fair, but not just for books and not just for anarchists, setting up the cash flow so as the event would be a fundraiser, and using it to raise funds for anarchist projects. The event itself would also serve as an outreach mechanism. No planning has been done so far, only a minor spate of brainstorming.

Do you (pl) think this a good idea, worth further brainstorming? If so, let's hear some suggestions as to how best to implement the plan, and let's see some volunteers.

If you (pl) don't think it's a good idea, why not? Should it be modified? Should it be scrapped? Or do any of you have better ideas? If so, let's hear them.

whatever you do, please don't be THE spokesperson for this, if effectiveness matters to you at all. let someone else take the reigns there

outreach is key, to keep anarchism from stagnating, and that is what has been completely lacking in bookfair promotion around here. just a bunch of antagonism toward "evil unbelievers" and red-baiting -- not effective tactics to draw in new people

something that shows anarchism principles in action, and is inviting and fun for newbies. something beyond just "join our club" or join our collective. something that sets a tangible goal and accomplishes it and is not so vague as "if you organize this way, all war will end one day."

some sort of creative action, to make a political statement or political change would be cool, something that shows anarchists can do effective actions, if even on a small scale. only Anarchist Action has tried to do anything like this around here for some time now. all other larger scale organizing is left to non-anarchist groups. anarchists seem to tend to set their goals unrealistically high. it has to be something achievable and it will likely involve building coalitions with other non-anarchist groups if there is to be any noticable scale to the project. show that you can play nice with others, people will be more open to you, and the sky is the limit

more introverted, self-congratulatory events like the bookfair won't draw anyone new in, not in any kind of noticable numbers

How would folks feel if one year, instead of speakers, we had a movie marathon along the lines of the one we set up as part of the 50th anniversary of the Spanish Revolution, only shorter, like five or six hours? Anybody here remember that? What a party. So many things were happening at once that no matter which you were paying attention to at the moment, you still were missing most of it. The movies were only one room, but what a room. Its day job was being a screening room for film production. Unfortunately, that building no longer exists. Urban renewal.

The room with the stage at the County Fair building is the next best thing. Should it be used for a film marathon some year, instead of for speakers? y/n? Straw poll. Show of hands, please.

Do those of you, who think a film marathon is a good idea, have any suggestions as to what films should show? What are they?

There cannot be common works where common trust is not present.

That's exactly why personalities like Nessie's are so destructive, when in a position of "it's-not-leadership."

This problem must be meaningfully addressed in order for anything in the anarchist ghetto to meaningfully grow beyond come-and-go anarcho-ghetto dimensions.

If nothing else, I would hope that this thread serves as some kind of proof, to those who stumble across it, that not all anarcho types are knee-jerk anticommunists.

Even if people like Nessie continue to hold the bully pulpit for some time to come.

A lot of different people are reading this. Some we trust, some we don't, and vice versa. We're only interested in working with people we trust and who trust us. Fortunately, there are more than enough people who trust each other to make the Fair, the events that have grown up around it, and the local anarchist movement itself, functional. The rest of you are not whom I'm talking to here. Butt out.

Those of you who are trusted comrades, please ignore the disruptions. They're straight out of COINTELPRO. After all these years, we have learned better than to take them seriously.

Those of you who wish to continue this conversation in private, without having to wade through the disruptions, please feel free to use email.

and good-bye.

You have done as much or more to disrupt the growth of anarchism in the Bay Area than any supposed agent provocateur. Your obnoxious and authoritarian behavior turns off countless people who might otherwise have become a part of the anarcho movement. You are an embarrassment to those who do have the tolerance to work with you. Why they continue to is a mystery to most.

If you are not a paid government agent, you are missing out on a real revenue opportunity here. (But, of course, you ARE already on the government dole. Hmmm. Some anti-government revolutionary you are!)

One thing people should keep in mind here is that just loosely and without substantiation throwing around the acronym COINTELPRO when others take note of his counterproductive behavior does not mean he himself is *not* a government agent. Oftentimes, it is THE government agent who starts pointing fingers at others around them, falsely calling out "infiltrator" to disrupt group dynamics that depend on trust and to deflect attention from the true infiltrator, the agent him- or herself.

And again, king nessie with the royal "we": "we have learned better." Yes, people do know better than to trust and work with the likes of you. Agent or not, you are THE worst spokesperson for anarchism one could imagine.

For those interested in anarchy, there are countless opportunities to involve oneself with anarchist principles, collectives, and actions without ever stepping into the same room as nessie. There are plenty of things going on that he has absolutely no control over. Don't let him fool you into thinking otherwise!

---------------

Here are some of the tactics discovered about COINTELPRO -- you decide which fit nessie, besides already being on the government dole:


Infiltration As a Source of Distrust and Paranoia

While individual agents and informers aid the government in a variety of specific ways, the general use of infiltrators serves a very special and powerful strategic function. The fear that a group may be infiltrated often intimidates people from getting more involved (THEREBY SUPPRESSING MOVEMENT GROWTH BY CONSTANTLY AND WITHOUT EVIDENCE CLAIMING THOSE WHO REJECT HIS AUTHORITY ARE FED AGENTS). It can give rise to a paranoia which makes it difficult to build the mutual trust which political groups depend on. This use of infiltration, enhanced by covertly-initiated rumors (SUCH AS COMMENT THREADS HERE) that exaggerate the extent to which a particular movement or group has been penetrated, is recommended by the manuals used to teach counterinsurgency in the US and Western Europe.


Cover Manipulation to Make a Legitimate Activist Appear to Be an Agent

An actual agent will often point the finger at a genuine, non-collaborating and highly valued group member, claiming that he or she is the infiltrator (HE DEFLECTS CRITICISM BY YELLING OUT "COINTELPRO" AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY). The same effect, known as a "snitch jacket", has been achieved by planting forged documents which appear to be communications between an activist and the FBI, or by releasing for no other apparent reason one of a group of activists who were arrested together.

Guidelines for Coping with Infiltration: To minimize diversion from your main work, it generally is best if you do not attempt to expose a suspected agent or informer unless you are certain of their role (For instance, they surface to make an arrest, testify as a government witness or in some other way admit their identity). Under most circumstances, an attempted exposure will do more harm than the infiltrator's continued presence. (NESSIE'S LOOSE AND SELF-SERVING CLAIMS OF COINTELPRO DO MORE HARM THAN MOST INFILTRATION ACTUALLY DOES)


False rumors:

Using infiltrators, journalists and other contacts, the Bureau circulated slanderous, disruptive rumors through political movements and the communities in which they worked. (COMMIE ACTIVISTS COMING TO KILL YOUR BABIES, COINTELPRO, BLAH, BLAH, 'NUFF SAID)


Guidelines for Coping with Other Forms of Deception: The best way to reduce tensions and hostilities, and the urge to gossip about them, is to make time for open, honest discussion and resolution of "personal" as well as "political" issues. (YET NESSIE PERPETUALLY REFUSES TO DEAL WITH HIS PERSONAL ISSUES AND HOW THEY NEGATIVELY EFFECT THE ACTIVIST GROUPS AROUND HIM, INSTEAD DEFLECTING WITH UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS OF COINTELPRO.)

No personal offense meant to the above poster, I certainly don't want to ignite some internet war, but I gotta go to bat for Louis Vitale.

I'm a anti-authoritarian and an agnostic who is absolutely delighted to have my friend Father Louie Vitale in or around any action I'm involved with. If there were more Priests like him when I was 13, I might have remained a Catholic. If there were more radicals willing to reach out beyond their comfort zones, instead of bashing folks that don't fit their ideology, 100% we might have something resembling a threat to the existing order.

In struggle with a smile,

James Tracy

so im pretty excited to ride my bike up to sf from santa cruz, do some diving, set up my tent at sf park, share food and stories, and see you!

Weird, After reading this thread I dont know if I want to go to either the Bookfair or the Conference. I think we need new anarchists that aren't overwhelmingly entrenched in the teachings of a bunch of dead white guys and euro-centric politics.

It seems silly that anarchists would have such a hard time working and struggling in solidarity with eachother. Or perhaps they aren't struggling at all?

Please dont be mean to me. It just seems that every time I hear anarchists debating something these days, i get depressed.

See you soon. I wish i had some money for the books...i am glad to see the talk about indigenous movements and anarchism on Saturday.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/17/18377839.php

Here's a examination of how what gets called anarchism in the US today:

1. cannot exist outside of the self-indulgent, circle-A-scenesters ideological cocoon, and,

2. consequently cannot contribute to a fight for radical social change, let alone for an anti-capitalist/anti-statist social revolution.

This version of my article is from libcom.org, in the UK...

Kevin Keating