Amazing:
After taking a good nights rest and reflecting on all the debate over property destruction, Anarchists, and the movement as whole, my current conclusion is that those decrying the property destruction, those demonizing Anarchists, those holding up signs and chanting "peace" like they're at a damn A.N.S.W.E.R. organized protest march (with some subsequently committing violent acts against -people- to "maintain" that "peace")... have no concept of what is going on. Without Anarchist methodology and organization, this movement a.) would not exist; and b.) if it existed would not be this successful; and c.) would not have gone from 0 to Port of Oakland shut-down in less than one month.
I've heard cries for the Anarchists to leave, that if they want to "go against the movement", they should start their own movement. Something that has been echoed by liberal organizers in movements over the past 10 years, since the Anarchists mobilized against the WTO. Well, they did start their own movement. Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. And now they are ironically being told to leave.
Alright, but if they leave, they would like to take everything they brought with them to this movement. Direct Democracy through the General Assembly, the Consensus process, Facilitation, most of the proposals we all vote on in the GA, Food Not Bombs kitchen organization, communalism, communal infrastructure, a rejection of state authority to be able police the occupied space, THE TAKING OF SPACE, protest medics, the book shields, taking to the streets without a permit, the chant "Who's streets? Our streets!", Security training, safer spaces, a refusal to liaison with the government by the government's hierarchical terms and process, etc, etc, etc. Pretty much everything that makes this movement what it is, what makes it so very different from the liberal psuedo-movements we've witnessed over the past decade, what makes so people excited about it - Anarchists.
If you want them to leave - Anarchists, Anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians - they will take everything they've brought with them to the table out of this co-opted movement. Then we can all watch the movement cave in on itself in a matter of a week.
After taking a good nights rest and reflecting on all the debate over property destruction, Anarchists, and the movement as whole, my current conclusion is that those decrying the property destruction, those demonizing Anarchists, those holding up signs and chanting "peace" like they're at a damn A.N.S.W.E.R. organized protest march (with some subsequently committing violent acts against -people- to "maintain" that "peace")... have no concept of what is going on. Without Anarchist methodology and organization, this movement a.) would not exist; and b.) if it existed would not be this successful; and c.) would not have gone from 0 to Port of Oakland shut-down in less than one month.
I've heard cries for the Anarchists to leave, that if they want to "go against the movement", they should start their own movement. Something that has been echoed by liberal organizers in movements over the past 10 years, since the Anarchists mobilized against the WTO. Well, they did start their own movement. Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. And now they are ironically being told to leave.
Alright, but if they leave, they would like to take everything they brought with them to this movement. Direct Democracy through the General Assembly, the Consensus process, Facilitation, most of the proposals we all vote on in the GA, Food Not Bombs kitchen organization, communalism, communal infrastructure, a rejection of state authority to be able police the occupied space, THE TAKING OF SPACE, protest medics, the book shields, taking to the streets without a permit, the chant "Who's streets? Our streets!", Security training, safer spaces, a refusal to liaison with the government by the government's hierarchical terms and process, etc, etc, etc. Pretty much everything that makes this movement what it is, what makes it so very different from the liberal psuedo-movements we've witnessed over the past decade, what makes so people excited about it - Anarchists.
If you want them to leave - Anarchists, Anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians - they will take everything they've brought with them to the table out of this co-opted movement. Then we can all watch the movement cave in on itself in a matter of a week.
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6 comments:
Anarchism holds no answers for anyone---not in its theory, its methodology, it actions---and it is the worst kind of "vanguardism" for anarchists (or anyone) to claim ownership of the Occupy movement. The outstanding contradiction here---one of many---is that anarchists reject leadership but this anarchist is acting like a leader, and a self-imposed one at that. This a tantrum, not a polemic. Let them go and wish them good luck. They are not the working class.
Some workers may indeed embrace anarchism for some period of time, but it is proletarian socialism that is the true working class ideology.
More to the point, why counterpose mass action and the fight for reforms? Why counterpose being in the streets and lobbying? This is undialectical and sets up a false dichotomy, as if these are opposites at this point in time. They aren't.
I think any of us who are bloggers should believe that people have a right to write whatever they believe.To call something a tantrum just because you don't like it is demeaning and disrespectful to others on the left with whom we may not agree. Any of us could accuse the other at any time of having a tantrum just because we are writing something with which another disagrees. This dismisses someones personhood, in this case a woman that you are saying is a child and therefore is dismissed.
But the worse part was to say she or anyone with an ideology that you disagree is not working class? Really?
It just happens that I worked closely with someone who is an Anarchist and she had more Working Class consciousness than many Union members and staff that I know but I would never say they are not working class.
Nothing in my response said this person doesn't have the right to say whatever s/he wants; there is the right to write and the right to respond, which are equal and expected rights.
Anyone who writes, "If you want them to leave - Anarchists, Anti-capitalists, anti- authoritarians - they will take everything they've brought with them to the table out of this co-opted movement. Then we can all watch the movement cave in on itself in a matter of a week." is throwing a tantrum. Adults throw tantrums also. It's what we might expect from "left-wing communism." It was Lenin who called it "an infantile disorder."
I didn't say that an anarchist can't be working class. I said that anarchism is a stage some working class people and movements will pass through. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin all said the same thing.
She's not wrong because I disagree with her. She's wrong because anarchism flies in the face of the historical experience of the working class. Again, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin are my sources for thinking this. If I'm wrong, they're wrong.
ethnic guy -- this is the kind of small-minded thinking that completely derails discussion.
anarchism isn't chaos and violence -- it is non-hierarchical organization. such as the Occupy Movement. by telling anarchists (and by extension, anarchy) to leave, the movement is effectively giving itself an order to disband itself.
basically, the people in the movement who are disparaging "anarchists" comprise of a whole bunch of anarchists who are either completely ignorant about anarchism in general (let alone their own anarchistic tendencies) or they are in the closet about the fact that they are anarchists.
regardless of whether it is a stage, it is a prevalent factor in the movement right now. and any self-respecting (and self-actualizing) anarchist who disagrees with the property damage that some hooligans would be more likely to say, "i'm an anarchist, too, and those people don't speak for me!"
and that comment about "anarchism flies in the face of the historical experience of the working class" is just weird. who died and made you Philosopher King Judge of the Historical Experience of the Working Class?
Anarchism does not own the occupy movement. People who criticize anarchists are not "ignorant" or "closet anarchists". Frankly, the latter claim is imperious in the extreme. Responding to criticism with personal attacks, and saying, in effect, "the movement is nothing without us" is destructive and self-aggrandizing. It is incredibly ironic to find anarchists constantly attacking "hierarchical" ideologies (and the adherents of these ideologies) in the most crude way, then turning around and claiming, not only leadership, but ideological ownership of the Occupy Movement.
I wish I was in the Bay Area. Socialist Action is having a Forum on Anarchism and Marxism. This seems like a good way to approach it. And having it in the Bay Area makes sense. Having a rational discussion together about our similarities and differences.
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