Crooked Bough News Round-up

— John Zerzan - He Means it — Do you?

 

at 5/17/24 4:43am

Author: John ZerzanTitle: He Means it — Do you?Date: 2002Source: Retrieved on May 2024 from archive.org Today opposition is anarchist or it is non-existent. This is the barest minimum coherence in the struggle against an engulfing totality. And while ten years ago the milieu generally called anti-authoritarian was largely syndicalist, those leftist residues are fading out altogether. Very few now find a vista of work and production at all liberatory. As the smell of this false and rotting order rises to the heavens, registering an unprecedented toll on all living beings, faith in the whole modern world evaporates. Industrialism and its ensemble looks like it has been a very bad idea, sort of a wrong turn begun still earlier. Civilization itself, with its logic of domestication and destruction, seems untenable. After all, is there anyone who is happy in this desolation? Lovely new indicators of how it is panning out include increasing self-mutilation among the young and murder of children by their own parents. Somehow a society that is steadily more impersonal, cynical, deskilled, boring, artificial, depressing, suicide-prompting, used up, drug-ridden, ugly, anxiety-causing and futureless brings a questioning as to why it has come to this/what’s it all about. Leftism with its superficial program is nearly extinct. Its adherents have folded their tents of manipulation and, in some cases, moved on to far more interesting adventures. Anarchism, if not yet anarchy, is the only scene going, even if the blackout on the subject is still in effect. As if to match the accelerating decomposition of society and displacement of life at large, determined resistance is also metamorphosing with some rapidity. The rout of the left, following the swiftly declining prestige of History, Progress, and techno-salvation, is only one development. The old militants, with their ethic of sacrifice and order, their commitment to economy and exchange, are already fixed on the museum shelves of partial revolt. Enter the Unabomber and a new line is being drawn. This time the bohemian schiz-fluxers, Green yuppies, hobbyist anarcho-journalists, condescending organizers of the poor, hip nihilo-aesthetes and all the other “anarchists” who thought their pretentious pastimes would go on unchallenged indefinitely—well, it’s time to pick which side you’re on. It may be that here also is a Rubicon from which there will be no turning back. Some, no doubt, would prefer to wait for a perfect victim. Many would like to unlearn what they know of the invasive and unchallenged violence generated everywhere by the prevailing order—in order to condemn the Unabomber’s counter-terror. But here is the person and the challenge before us. Anarchists! One more effort if you would be enemies of this long nightmare! 1997

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— Robert P. Helms - How to find Your Local Wobbly History

 

at 5/15/24 2:58pm

Author: Robert P. HelmsTitle: How to find Your Local Wobbly HistoryDate: 2000Notes: Published in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #28, Spring 2000.Source: Retrieved on 15th May 2024 from www.katesharpleylibrary.net One can find the forgotten Wobbly names and faces, strike stories, union halls and martyrs’ graves in any city where the IWW earned its legendary reputation. It is easy to find thorough information on the luminaries, such as Tresca, Flynn and Giovanitti, but what about those local organizers who invited these major figures to town, and then kept working after they were gone, pouring the wine of rebellion into workers’ hearts? It may take some time, but in all probability you’ll find syndicalist monuments and hallowed ground that you walk past every day, but never knew existed. Start at the nearest college library, and gather a short stack of general works on the IWW or any of its famous travelling speakers. Look in the indexes for the name of your town, and start making a list of the local numbers, companies where the IWW was active, and especially the dates of strikes and public appearances by well-known Wobs. The most active years will usually be between 1911 and 1920. Be sure to include the date September 5, 1917, when IWW halls across the U.S. were raided by federal agents. Take the list to the nearest large public library, and go to the newspaper room. They’ll have all the local daily papers from those early years on microfilm. In most places, there were many more papers than there are now. Start rolling to the day after each of the events you’ve found, and read the mainstream news accounts. This is the point at which you’ll start saying “oh my goodness…” because there will be photographs, names, addresses and stories that you’ve never heard of, and some that no living person knows about. Take down the addresses of the union halls and get on your bike: is the building till standing? In Philadelphia, there are two. When I rang the doorbell at one of them, I was happy to learn that its present occupants had found some old union handbills in the building, and they had some framed and hanging on the wall. Take down the names of IWW activists and look them up in the city directory (ancestor of the phone book) for the same year: is the home still there now? Search every local historical facility for the names, as well as the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections. Here’s where you may locate the personal papers of your long-dead comrades, and still more names, addresses, and other connections. If you find the date of someone’s death you should look in the papers for an obituary, figure out where they were buried, and call up the cemetery. (Some libraries and historical societies maintain a file of local obituaries from the papers, organized by name, which can be a big help.) I got lucky and found the tombstone of the martyred Wobbly organizer Martin Petkus just a few miles from where I live. Martin was shot down by riot police during an IWW sugar refinery strike in 1917. There will be thousands of minute details that will lead you to other details, and the thread will never end. Once you start hitting pay-dirt and getting acquainted with the labor activists who walked the same streets as you do, but long, long ago, this may become your hobby or even your obsession, as is the case with me. Now that you’ve been warned, sharpen your pencil and get to work. You’ll benefit enormously from the help of librarians at every single step, so always be nice to them.

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— Robert P. Helms - ​Doctors and Druggists Among the Early Philadelphia Anarchists

 

at 5/15/24 2:35pm

Author: Robert P. HelmsTitle: ​Doctors and Druggists Among the Early Philadelphia AnarchistsDate: September 2006Notes: An earlier, much shorter version of this article, “Anarchists in Medicine and Pharmacy: Philadelphia, 1889–1930,” appeared in Clamor Magazine #6 (Dec. 2000/Jan. 2001), and had previously been posted on both the Guinea Pig Zero and Dead Anarchists websites.Source: Retrieved on 15th May 2024 from www.deadanarchists.org In the City of Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a large group of professionals who practiced medicine or pharmacy as a livelihood, while committing great energies to the anarchist movement. Looking past the surface, we find a closely knit community of intellectuals who treated their comrades as patients, educated the public on health related matters, and who contributed substantially to the cause with money or the use of their facilities. A look through the anarchist literature of the period will reveal the names of a remarkable number of doctors, who pioneered many of the debates on social changes that are, by and large, taken for granted today. Among them, the best known is undoubtedly Ben Reitman. He is so noted because he catered to the mainstream Media image of an anarchist by hanging out in saloons and hobo jungles, once carrying on a comic chase scene with detectives through Philadelphia’s department stores, and generally keeping himself in the realm of romantic legend. While Reitman did his share of fighting for positive social change during his career, he was the very least distinguished of the anarchist physicians of his time. Certainly some of his leading contemporaries made this assessment. He was actually more a political performance artist than a doctor. Reitman’s relative prominence is largely due to his personal connection to the very famous Emma Goldman, but even more due to the fact that almost nothing has been written in English about the doctors whose work, both in anarchism and in medicine, simply eclipsed the career of the “hobo king.”[1] Such is not the case in Yiddish, but not so many people use that language these days, nor is it easy to locate the books by and about Jewish anarchist doctors. The major figures already known had careers in New York. They include Hillel Solotaroff, Jacob Abraham Maryson , Michael A. Cohn, and Abel Braslau, all of whom were active in the movement in addition to being respected, practicing physicians. While New York’s anarchist doctors and their contribution to the movement is known and thoroughly documented, their colleagues in Philadelphia have been almost completely forgotten.[2] A central event in the tale of these particular comrades was the shooting of Voltairine de Cleyre by an insane former language student of hers named Herman Helcher. Voltairine was already fairly well-known in the international movement for her many essays and poems that had been published in anarchist and other radical periodicals. Locally, she was one of the two best-known anarchist speakers, along with a self-educated English-born shoemaker named George Brown. She earned a very modest living by giving private lessons in English, French, and Piano. This poor but respected woman was wounded by three revolver shots on December 19, 1902 at the corner of 4th & Green Streets, as she waited for a trolley car. The early reports had it that Voltairine was doomed. She had been taken to Hahnemann Hospital, where the inside of the anarchist medical world begins to reveal itself. Daniel A. Modell was a 40-year old general practitioner and socialist, as well as de Cleyre’s “family doctor.” Modell lived in her neighborhood (which is where she was shot) and was yet another of her former students. His son David was an anarchist who translated Russian texts into English. Modell rode with her in a horse-drawn police wagon to the hospital, and his presence at the bedside is no surprise, but mentioned along with him was none other than Dr. William Williams Keen, who was at that time one of the leading surgeons in the world. Already revered for having removed a cancerous tumor from the jaw of President Grover Cleveland nine years earlier, Keen in 1902 was co-chair of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College. He had already served as the President of the American Medical Association, and he would later preside for ten years at the American Philosophical Society, then the most distinguished scientific think-tank in the country. He had been teaching surgery at Jefferson since 1889. Keen was consulted for a possible operation, but he had no affiliation at all with Hahnemann Hospital. He recommended moving the patient to his own offices, but this was never done. Her condition started to improve, and finally the bullets remained inside her for the rest of her life. Daniel Modell, unlike many doctors he knew, is hardly traceable on history’s radar except for the fact that he was de Cleyre’s doctor when she was attacked.[3] Dr. Keen happened to be a leading advocate of animal vivisection, and a vivisector (or “fogey”) himself. This placed him on the opposite side of an intense and ongoing debate from Voltairine and many anarchists of her day. As she recovered, Charles Leigh James, a pro-vivisection anarchist chided her for having been in the same room with a fogey. De Cleyre replied that she’d had no more choice in choosing her physicians than would a vivisected dog.[4] Aside from the problems of the bleeding lady anarchist, we need to ask ourselves just how the best medical talent on earth came to have anything to do with it. Voltairine was a poor person, who would do well to get help from even a mediocre physician at a time like that. Who had brought in the big gun, and how? The precise answer is out of our reach, but we can narrow it down to two of Keen’s former students, Leo Gartman and Bernhard Segal, who graduated at Jefferson in 1894 and 1893, respectively. Both were both quite active in the local anarchist movement at the time. Dr. Gartman may have still been on the house staff at Jefferson Hospital, where he practiced urology before going into private practice nearby at 525 Pine Street. ...

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— Voltairine de Cleyre - On Domesticity, Jealousy, and Abortion

 

at 5/15/24 2:26pm

Author: Voltairine de CleyreTitle: On Domesticity, Jealousy, and AbortionSubtitle: A Private Letter to Samuel H. GordonDate: 1897Notes: Edited and introduced by Robert P. Helms.Source: Retrieved on 15th May 2024 from www.deadanarchists.org ​Introduction Voltairine de Cleyre, by far Philadelphia’s brightest anarchist light, was 30 years old when, during the late summer or fall of 1897, she wrote the following letter in London. The letter was never finished, nor was it signed, dated, or mailed. Yet the letter, clearly in her handwriting and style, came to rest in a large group of her letters in the papers of Joseph J. Cohen (1878–1953), de Cleyre’s longtime associate in anarchism, which are stored in the Bund Collection, YIVO Archives, in New York City. It is one of the most compelling and dramatic of all her known writings. Samuel H. Gordon (1871–1906) was a Russian Jew who had arrived in Philadelphia by 1890, and he immediately got involved in the labor movement, being arrested in August 1890 during the anarchist-managed cloakmakers’ strike. He found work as a cigar roller, and later attended the Medico-Chirurgical College, graduating as an MD in 1898. He joined the Ritter der Frayhayt (Knights of Liberty) group soon after his arrival in the US, and he followed the anarchist-communism of Johann Most. Between his arrival in the city and the turn of the century, he gave lectures on “Anarchy,” and on “Revolution: Its Necessity and its Justification,” the latter having been discretely co-written by de Cleyre. Around 1898 Gordon created a splinter group of Yiddish-speaking anarchists called New Generation, which soon disappeared. Gordon’s intimate relationship with de Cleyre began in 1893, after Voltairine had started giving him private English lessons. The affair was intense but often quite painful, lasting six years. They attempted suicide together once, by means of drinking poison. She paid his exam fees at medical school from her very meager earning as a teacher, only to see him lose interest in the anarchist movement after he set up a practice at 531 Pine Street and his finances improved. His cold refusal of material help for de Cleyre when she was shot and lay near death in late 1902 severed his ties to the anarchists, and he was remembered by Emma Goldman, decades later, as “that dog Gordon.” He relocated to Newark NJ in 1904 and died there in 1906 of acute gastritis, probably caused by arsenic-based treatments for syphilis, then a common and incurable disease that de Cleyre is believed to have suffered. His connection to de Cleyre is the principle reason why Gordon has ever been remembered after his death. He has been confused with a different Samuel Gordon, a physician in Philadelphia who graduated from a different medical school several years later. Voltairine set sail for England on June 13, 1897 and left England again in late October. During the trip she lectured in England and Scotland, where she met with scores of important anarchist intellectuals and activists, including Peter Kropotkin, Fernando Tarrida del Mármol (1862–1915), and Jean Grave (1854–1939). During her stay in Britain, de Cleyre evidently received a letter from Gordon that is now lost. In it, he tormented her with an accusation of infidelity. Before making her longer journey to Britain in late April, Voltairine traveled by train and boat from Philadelphia through New York, to Boston, and then back to Philadelphia. During that journey, the events related in the letter took place. She mentions the well-known anarchists Justus H. Schwab (1847–1900; saloon keeper at 50 First St., NYC), Harry M. Kelly (1871–1953; Boston), John Turner (7 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London), and a labor activist named John McLuckie, who had been the mayor of Homestead, Pennsylvania during that city’s famous 1892 steelworkers’ strike. McLuckie was in New York to see Emma Goldman about concerns he had regarding Alexander Berkman. Charles Falkenstein was the husband of Margaret Perle McLeod, de Cleyre’s friend, sometime house-mate, and fellow anarchist of Philadelphia. More mysterious is “Dr. Sittkamp,” whose name does not appear in the medical directories of the time, and who therefore either was not a licensed physician or performed abortions under a pseudonym, apparently in Philadelphia. The method used to induce miscarriage was the insertion in her womb of a corset stay (one of the ribs of the garment, being of various lengths). In 1897, corset stays were made from comb-like plates from a whale’s mouth, called “baleen” and used by the whale to filter plankton out of the water for food. The baleen were boiled to make them flexible, then cut into strips and slipped into the channels of the corset. She addresses Gordon with the terms “Pussy Mine,” “Pussy/Pussie,” and “Mitchka.” Affectionate terms like this appear all over Voltairine’s personal letters, both coming to her and used by her, for friends and lovers. She called James B. Elliott “Jimsky,” she called Mary Hansen “Old Girl,” and Dyer D. Lum called her “Ghost Eyes.” For emphasis in the original letter, Voltairine underscores some words or phrases once, others twice, and on one occasion three times. Part of this letter was quoted by Paul Avrich in his definitive 1978 biography An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre (p. 84), but he did not quote or refer to the part of the letter which describes her abortion. Apparently Avrich was the first, and I was the second and last researcher to read this letter, since no other writer has made reference to it anywhere, except to repeat Avrich’s quotation. We do not know whether Paul simply missed the slightly veiled language describing the abortion or consciously omitted to mention it, but either scenario is possible. He was directly in touch with de Cleyre’s granddaughter Renee de Cleyre Buckwalter (now deceased), who was sensitive about points of her family’s internal history. Paul, being a gentleman, may have intentionally spared her the grief of reading this letter in its entirety. I find the letter too moving, and too important, to withhold from the reading public, although I appreciate that Voltairine herself would not wish it to be disclosed. ...

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— Geelong Anarchist-Communists, Tommy Lawson - All Eyes on Rafah

 

at 5/15/24 1:41pm

Author: Geelong Anarchist-Communists, Tommy LawsonTitle: All Eyes on RafahDate: May 15th, 2024Notes: The following article is a transcript of a speech given by Geelong Anarchist Communists member Tommy Lawson at an Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) ‘Rally for Rafah’ held on Saturday 11th of May. Its content is supported unanimously by Geelong Anarchist Communists. We have decided to publish it today, on the 76th anniversary of the Nakba (‘catastrophe’) to declare that we stand with those resisting genocide and colonisation.Source: Retrieved on May 15th, 2024 from https://geelonganarchists.org/2024/05/15/all-eyes-on-rafah/. During al Nakba over 750,000 Palestinian people, from a total population of 1.9 million, were made refugees beyond the borders of their homeland. 530 villages and cities were raised and ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1949, and roughly 15,000 Palestinians were murdered in more than 70 massacres and widespread indiscriminate killings. Today, the cycle repeats. More people have died at the hands of the IDF and the Israeli state in the last few months following October 7 than during the Nakba, and almost every safe dwelling and source of sustenance in Gaza has been either utterly destroyed or completely cut off from use. Just as we remember the Nakba today, so we will remember Gaza tomorrow. Comrades, I do not need to tell you that things are terrible, that times are dark and that monsters stalk the world. Over the past seven months we have seen horrors that will never be forgotten. Today, in Rafah, we are witness to the culmination of Israel’s imperialist, colonial war. If, like me, you are in your thirties or younger, never has war been so vividly portrayed nor marked upon our imagination. We are witness to real time live streaming of genocide. All the horrid specters of the past have come true. All the tragedies we were told would never be repeated. That humanity has learnt its lessons. Every school child learnt about genocide, of the holocaust. But what so many swore would never happen again, is indeed, happening again. There are images forever seared into our memories. Blindfolded men chained together in stadiums, doctors murdered with their hands tied behind their backs, mass graves, families crushed beneath the rubble and so, so many innocent children. When things are so dire, so desperate, it is easy to lose hope. Palestine stands alone on the world stage, while Israel receives the support of western governments. Palestine has been effectively abandoned by every state but Yemen. But, for all they have endured, the people of Palestine have not surrendered. The battle rages on. While we do not agree with the politics or strategies of all factions of the Palestinian resistance, the heroism of those who today struggle against colonization and occupation should be applauded. People who fight with homemade weapons against an internationally backed, technologically advanced military, who have given their lives defending refugee camps and hospitals against genocidal maniacs. This is not terrorism, this is bravery and valor and sacrifice of the highest order. If Palestine continues the fight, so must we. So what does it mean to fight in Australia today? It means recognising where our power lies. Not with the Labor Party or any politicians. There’s only one force powerful enough to make change – the working class. Australian workers were once far more engaged in their unions and practiced in solidarity and struggle. We fought apartheid in South Africa. We fought Dutch colonialism in Indonesia and Japanese imperialism in China. We can do it again. Today, by flexing our industrial muscle we can hurt Israel, the Zionists and their supporters.. Boycotts, pickets and strikes are all weapons that can help to cripple Israel and the IDF. Economic isolation will do a thousand times the damage of another UN resolution. The union movement is not as strong today as it was in the past, but reports from all across the country suggest organising around Palestine has been bringing people in! The fight against colonialism and the class struggle are part of the same struggle! Things have taken an impressive turn in the last fortnight. Starting in the USA, the very heart of the empire, students at Columbia University began occupying their campuses, stating their intention to stay put until the university cut all ties with Israel. Since Columbia began, occupations have spread all across the globe. They have fought police, Zionists and fascists. American students have risen in revolt in a way unseen for generations. People who were toddlers at the time we started reading books on imperialism are now fighting the system. They are, to use that radical 60s slogan, bringing the war home. Now there are at least 7 occupied universities in Australia, one of them being Deakin! Geelong campus may be untouched yet. But we know this cities ties with genocide. Deakin works with multiple companies that supply the IDF, the deputy prime minister, Corio MP and minister for war, Richard Marles is an avid Zionist supporter. Well, I don’t know about you, but I will not be complicit in the massacre of children. I am not okay with Geelong becoming a base for imperialist war manufacturing! You know, during the Spanish Revolution a journalist interviewed a mechanic named Buenaventura Durruti, who was also a fighter in the militias. Reflecting on the destruction of the civil war he said a most remarkable thing. I quote, ‘The bourgeoisie may blast and burn the earth before the leave the stage of history. But we are not afraid of ruins. We built this world and we can build it again. Better this time. We carry a new world in our hearts’. ...

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— CrimethInc. - How To Justify Workplace Theft

 

at 5/14/24 6:19pm

Author: CrimethInc.Title: How To Justify Workplace TheftDate: 14th April 2020Source: Retrieved on 9th September 2020 from archive.org/details/workplacetheft-web Whether aware of it or not, your boss is stealing from you every paycheck. Employers profit off of the “excess” wealth that you, as an employee, produce. There are two ways to get paid in America: make money off the work you do, or make money off the work that other people do. Employees generate wealth, employers collect it. We live in a capitalist society. We all know that. Most people are okay with it, too. After all, the competition (state communism like the USSR) doesn’t have such a good reputation. But what exactly does capitalism mean? Our good friend the dictionary says capitalism is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” This definition is a bit deceptive, but let’s run with it for now. The word I care about in that definition is “profit.” Profit is the extra money at the top after all your expenses are paid out. You buy ten apples from the farmer for ten cents each and sell them in town for twenty cents each, leaving you with an extra dollar. Hurrah! You make enough of those dollars, and you can pay your rent and afford to eat. Both things you might need. But you can only carry so many apples, and you can only sell them so fast. You could make more money if you hire other people to sell the apples for you. You pay them an hourly wage, or take a cut off of every apple they sell. Multiply this by enough people, and suddenly you’re quite wealthy. The people you hire only have enough to pay rent and eat, but you get to drive a hummer-limo and smoke cuban cigars or whatever. Why? Because you stole from your employees. You aren’t working harder than them—in fact, you’re probably working less—and derive your income from the excess wealth generated by their labor. And that is capitalism. When rich people steal from poor people through the legal process of wage labor. Capitalism is based on “capital.” Capital is wealth that can be used to generate more wealth. If capitalism was about getting rewarded for working, we’d be all about it. But it’s not. It’s about getting rewarded for other people working. It’s about letting money (and people) make your money for you. If you, as a wage laborer, didn’t create more wealth for your boss than your hourly wage, you wouldn’t have a job. What we’re calling workplace theft is actually a bit of a misnomer. Workplace theft is the norm: your bosses are stealing from you every day. They’re living off your sweat. When you take money out of the register and put it into your pocket, that’s not workplace theft. That’s workplace justice. “My Boss Isn’t Like That” This isn’t the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, you could argue. Your boss might not be buying diamond-studded collars for his dog, might not be throwing $20,000 dinners for all her friends. It could be said that most employers aren’t in it for the top hats and monocles. They’re in it because they care about culture or books or food or whatever it is they promote through their store. Good for them. There’s no use arguing that store owners need to be thrown up against a wall and shot. That honor is reserved for the rich bastards who really do run world politics for their own ends regardless of the ecological or social atrocities they leave in their collective wake—the billionaires, the heads of major industries, the corrupt politicians. Hell, small business owners probably don’t even need to be seen as villains. They’re just petty thieves—and they might even be petty thieves who don’t know they’re stealing. If a business isn’t doing so well, it’s run by petty thieves who are failing. They would like to steal your money by paying you less than you earn them, but they can’t, not yet. I don’t know about you, but a burglar who can’t figure out how to open the window of my house still isn’t my friend. “I Don’t Have To Work Here” Sure, you don’t have to work any given job. But you’ve got to work somewhere. Bosses like to sleep at night, just like everyone else. Bosses like to think that people need jobs, that they provide jobs. “If you don’t like the pay, don’t work here.” It’s a shame that the modern labor movement is a shambles, that the most of the existing labor unions are hopelessly bureaucratic and lily-livered, because a hundred years ago they showed the world the falsity of that claim with remarkable articulateness. The short of it is: you gotta work or you don’t eat. There are ways around it that individuals will find, but by and large, you don’t have a choice. You need a job. If it’s not one crummy job, it’s another. And most anywhere you go, there will be bosses. There’s an entire class of professional thieves just waiting to siphon away the products of your labor, ready to buy your time (let’s be honest, your life) for as little as they can get away with. Defending Yourself From Workplace Theft If you’re ready to defend yourselves from these thieves, these bosses, then there are a few ways you can go about it. ...

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— Anne Archet - Sirventès of the Beast

 

at 5/14/24 5:59pm

Author: Anne ArchetTitle: Sirventès of the BeastDate: 2014/06/27Notes: Printed in Return Fire vol.6 chap.6 (spring 2024). PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by visiting returnfire.noblogs.org or emailing returnfire@riseup.net I am no citizen I am no consumer I am no tax-payer I am no employee I am no convict I am no beneficiary I am no person of color I am no lesbian I am no mother I am no wife I am no erotic writer I am no poetess I am no anarchist I am no woman I am surely no Human That vile and ethereal being Which has never been spotted elsewhere But in universal declarations I don't want to stay seated and raise my hand I don't want to wait for the teacher to tell me to speak I don't want to wait for a break to take a piss I don't want to press 0 to speak to one of your representatives I don't want to open a box or tear away plastic wrapping to feed myself I don't want to drink from a bottle or tap I don't want to go to the second counter to collect my order I don't want to smile because the customer is always right I don't want to sign my performance review I don't want to sell my time my limbs my voice my orifices I don't want to lose five kilos and find love I don't want to prevent the signs of ageing I don't want to smell like spring I don't want to fill in the right form I don't want to use the reserved lane at 5pm I don't want to be the guardian of household and decency I don't want to be a factor of production I don't want to be an extension of a tool I don't want to be a target audience I don't want to act in my own interests as defined by the relevant authorities I don't want to wipe my arse with the three-layer version of boreal forest I don't want to produce and consume I don't want to be produced and consumed I don't want my survival to be a pretext for destroying everything around me I want to hold you in my arms I want to be able to love you without fear, without reserve, without pretentions I want to draw my nourishment directly from the earth I want my actions to be without bounds I want to live and laugh and cry and love I want to enjoy to the point of losing my mind to the point of losing track of myself I want to do it the way we've been able to do it for millions of years I want to do it with you I want you to be with me I want us to stop our race to devastation I love you I desire you I want your skin against mine We don't need all this shit This filth that we produce in tears That we consume without pleasure That we throw away with a guilty conscience We don't need this cardboard life Of these stuporous vigils Of these dreamless slumbers Of these indistinguishable days and nights Smothered in concrete, street lighting and plastic Muzzled by alcohol, stimulants, sedatives, antidepressants Distracted by screens, fashion, social networks, glamour Restrained by sexual roles, politeness and conformist originality Double-locked in this universal jail called Civilisation Beneath this thin armoured varnish lies a wild beast Despite thousands of years of domestication I remain a savage Full of passion and fury So are you And it's this beast that I love I'm flesh, bone and blood I am a body, an animal I am a wave of intense desire I am desire incarnate, uncontrollable, and thunderous I am your mad lover I am sphincters, fluids, tendons I am a goddess I am your partner in crime If you want to stop surviving If you want to live If you want to unite with me If you don't, I'll be, happily and without regrets, the enemy to be put down [ed. – Sirventès were a genre of Old Occitan lyric poetry (usually parodies, borrowing the melody, metrical structure and often even the rhymes of a well-known piece to address a controversial subject, often a current event.)]

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— Anonymous, Return Fire - The ‘Green’ Farce Everywhere & Nowhere Else

 

at 5/14/24 5:53pm

Author: Anonymous, Return FireTitle: The ‘Green’ Farce Everywhere & Nowhere ElseSubtitle: towards destroying electric mobility & decarbonizing liesNotes: Printed in Return Fire vol.6 chap.6 (spring 2024). To read the articles referenced throughout this text in [square brackets], PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by visiting returnfire.noblogs.org or emailing returnfire@riseup.net [ed. – Taken from the German-language website SwitchOff.noblogs.org, this translation continues our interventions in the new climate movements. There are two fronts on which we would like to extend the thrust of the author/s further, in terms of its response to the text reproduced above in this chapter of Return Fire, Targets That Do Not Exist Anywhere Else. Firstly, the proposal below (to focus anarchist attack and critique on the new “green” infrastructure and propaganda) corresponds not only to the proclivities of the author/s, as one worthy cause among many jostling for anarchists’ attention when fighting a domination which can never truly be compartmentalised. Rather, (social acceptance of) the industrial re-structuring underway under the guise of 'solving' ecological collapse forms a strategic choke-point in the pivot of capitalism's latest world-system – “a system that understands itself as global and that mediates political conflict and the flow of resources and information in accordance with a certain logic [ed. – see Return Fire vol.5 pg11],” following Peter Gelderloos' 'Geopolitics for 2024' – as different forms of power are suggested by various elites vying to become the next's architects and win global agreement. His 'Diagnostic of the Future' posited that the discourse around 'climate change' will (or has) become “a linchpin that conditions the governmental and economic crises and also suggests – or even requires – a synthesis in the responses” (namely a “bioeconomic expansion”; see that subsection of the essay), now that eco-catastrophe – especially in the middle latitudes home to several rising powers – is the backdrop: Currently, the only viable platform from which to launch a new project of interstate cooperation capable of deploying and managing the changes that a bioeconomic expansion of capitalism would require can be found in the response to climate change. Climate change provides a narrative of unified global interests. Any political power that acts in the name of addressing climate change can act in the name of all humanity: this offers the possibility to establish a hegemonic project, the same way that the narrative of democracy and human rights undergirded a hegemonic project after the horrors of World War II [ed. – see Return Fire vol.5 pg61]. Political structures for interstate coordination and global intervention would be justified as holistic measures necessary to save the entire biosphere, and they could also have a justifiably technocratic character, given that the media have successfully framed climate change as a scientific rather than economic or spiritual issue [ed. – see ‘The Principle of Reciprocity’]. [...] As long as climate change is treated as a purely scientific issue, any responses will have to be compatible with the preexisting social relations, funding sources, and regulatory mechanisms through which they are to be carried out. In other words, a technocratic approach to climate change would not threaten capitalism. Since the above was written in 2017, the self-described “climate movement” revived in the wake of Greta Thunberg’s youthful activism and Extinction Rebellion (see Rebellion Extinction) etc.: yet in a form as often as not clamouring for precisely this kind of technocratic approach, often divorced from previous radical ecological critique of the structures of this society at their base. They can even include some forms of the sabotage called for in the following article, such as the Tyre Extinguishers mentioned below, an open platform – having taken inspiration from Andreas Malm (see the supplement to Return Fire vol.6 chap.3; Green Desperation Fuels Red Fascism), among others – where participants deflate tyres of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in their city, framing their actions directly as pressure to appeal to government policy; even though they do list electric SUVs as legitimate targets. Attacking the structures of industrial society, “green” or otherwise, is necessary, and so is making sure that in the process we don’t end up supporting – inadvertently or not – the very escape route conjoining austerity and a kind of techno-socialism (see ‘A New Relation with Social Conflicts’) that certain elites project for themselves at our expense. This would be both tragedy and farce; not least because the system very much needs an impetus from society at large to back a State-level shift, rather than relying on the market to deliver. Returning to Diagnostic of the Future: [C]apitalists themselves are incapable [of building] the kind of systemic change they need. […] The volatility of the market will never produce the resources necessary for a phase shift in energy technologies. Liberal capitalism would leave us festering – or rather, boiling – in a fossil fuel economy. A rapid shift to a climate change economy will not be possible without most major governments introducing huge policy shifts and legally mandating investment in alternative energies and environmental protection measures as a significant part of their total budgets, on par with health care or military spending. ...

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— Cello Latini Pfeil, Bruno Latini Pfeil - An Anarchist Historical Analysis of Body Inscriptions in Modern Western Society

 

at 5/14/24 5:21pm

Author: Cello Latini Pfeil, Bruno Latini PfeilTitle: An Anarchist Historical Analysis of Body Inscriptions in Modern Western SocietyDate: 02.22.2024Source: Original translation of “Uma análise histórica anarquista das inscrições corporais na sociedade ocidental moderna”, published in Revista História em Reflexão 18(35), 2024. Retrieved on 05/07/2024 from https://doi.org/10.30612/rehr.v18i35.16476 Abstract In this paper, we aim to analyze the processes of stigmatization and pathologization to which certain categories of body inscriptions have been subjected throughout the history of modern Western society. Body inscriptions are defined as any and all modifications made to the body's structure. While some inscriptions are exalted and praised, others are stigmatized and discriminated against. Our theoretical lens is based on anarchist theory, with the intention of reclaiming the self-determination and autonomy of individuals whose body inscriptions are marginalized, ranging from those considered to be self-mutilation to those that involve extreme body modifications. Our approach is to conduct a literature review. Once the theoretical review is complete, we conclude that the qualification of certain body inscriptions as acceptable and positive, to the detriment of the disqualification of others, which are seen as negative and bizarre, are not natural processes, but come from the dense structuring of religious, psychiatric and political discourses. The origins of the legitimization of certain inscriptions are the same as those of the delegitimization and consequent stigmatization, that is, the authority that comes from the State, the Church and the Hospital, as we have argued. Keywords: Anarchism. Body inscriptions. State. Self-determination. Selfmutilation. Introduction Body modifications have occurred in countless periods and territories; they are performed with a variety of tools and have a range of meanings related to the passage of time, spirituality, hierarchies and traditions, among other possible interpretations. Physical experiences that are self-inflicted and/or inflicted on others are part of the concept of being alive (Soares, 2015). We define “body inscriptions” as the gamut of body changes and transformations that are self-inflicted and/or inflicted on others, all the way from the surface of the skin to the interior of the body. From birth to death, what transforms us is inscribed on our bodies through time, territory, family, our individuality, our desires, sexualities and spiritualities. From birthmarks to spiritual rituals of collective flagellation; from accidental burns to therapeutic bloodletting treatments: we understand these and other acts of corporal transformation as body inscriptions to which, depending on their context, different meanings are attributed. Although we cannot restrict the significance of body inscriptions to a single concept, we do notice the universalization of their meanings, especially regarding the emergence of psychiatry. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, certain body inscriptions were classified by the emerging psychiatry as self-mutilation, alongside the development of asylums in Western Europe (Foucault, 1978). The social functions of certain body inscription procedures were reduced to the category of “mutilation”, i.e. pathology. By pathologizing certain bodies, asylums in Western Europe granted themselves the right to regulate the lives of certain groups, to the detriment of naturalizing others. One example is the normalization of cosmetic surgeries focused on beauty and anti-aging, in contrast to the marginalization of cosmetic surgeries that resemble an imaginary perceived as aberrant, monstrous or bizarre. Thus, three different types of body inscription can be identified: We have therefore identified three types of body inscription: those considered pathological self-mutilation, the socially accepted body modifications and the marginalized body modifications. The meanings attributed to each vary according to context, territory, culture and individuality. And so we ask ourselves: how do we distinguish the three types of body inscription? How do we delimit the frontier between what is naturalized and what is aberrant? To come by an answer, we focused on body inscriptions considered to be self-mutilation, which are the target of pathologization and institutionalization. In this study, we opted for an anarchist lens of analysis, as anarchism rejects all forms of institutionalization and authoritarianism, inherently opposing the pathological and controlling role of psychiatry in its modern diagnoses. As Kropotkin (2007, p. 35-36) defines it, anarchism is “[...] the struggle between two great principles that have always been in opposition in society: the principle of freedom and that of coercion”. There are those who defend the state, its institutions and its consequent coercion, and those who defend freedom, the abolition of the state and the liquidation of all forms of oppression - these would be the anarchists. Anarchist ideals accompany the search for emancipation in the midst of the suppression of collective and individual freedoms, whether political, social or of any kind. Presenting not as a brand new theory (Reclus, 2015), but as the conceptual systematization of something expressed throughout human history, anarchism is a method, a lens of analysis that divides political thinkers between those who believe in the state and those who understand the need for its abolition - “[...] it is the struggle against all official power that essentially distinguishes us” (Reclus, 2015, p. 18). ...

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— Agnes Henry - Anarchist Communism in its Relation to State Socialism

 

at 5/14/24 5:13pm

Author: Agnes HenryTitle: Anarchist Communism in its Relation to State SocialismDate: June 1896Notes: Original text split between two consecutive monthly publications, with a misprint in the latter citing the first entry as having been published in July rather than June; transcribed from Liberty: A Journal of Anarchist Communism (June 1896) and Liberty: A Journal of Anarchist Communism (July 1896) on the Internet Archive.Source: Liberty: A Journal of Anarchist Communism The question of how for Anarchist Communism agrees exactly with State Socialism, and the exact line that divides them, has long seemed to me one that it would be well to enter into. And just now, in view of the approaching International Congress, seems a time particularly appropriate for this consideration. For surely it would be well to have reflected before hand what common action is open to us, together with those bodies of Socialists with whom in some respects we differ. For if there be no such common ground what have we got to do with them? The mere fact that both State Socialist and Anarchist Communist movements are in the main working class movements, is surely not sufficient reason for us to attempt to unite with them. This question has already been dealt with in a German academical periodical, "Der Soziallstiche Akademiker," (Berlin) during some months of 1895, under the title of "Anarchy in Relation to Communism." Under Anarchy, the author "Catilina," treats separately of Individualistic and then of Communistic Anarchy. Communism is for him practically identical with Socialism, for, he maintains, Socialism once established would inevitably develope into Communism. Writing also from a German point of view, the Socialist party is equivalent to the Social Democratic party. According to the German writer, the common opinion that there is a fundamental or radical difference between Anarchism and Socialism (or Communism) is erroneous, and arises chiefly from the different method of reasoning adopted by each party, or in consequence of the difference in tactics employed. He examines carefully the position of the Individualist Anarchist, showing logically that economic necessity—the fact that the individual cannot by his own efforts satisfy his own needs—forces him, nolens volens, to associate and cooperate with his fellows. Under which circumstance he is obliged to restrain many of his individual inclinations, in consideration of others, up to the point necessary to obtain that higher freedom which depends upon the possibility of gratifying his permanent and the greater number of his constant needs. Consequently Individualist Anarchism leads inevitably in the end to Communism, or if it lose sight of its object—the greatest possible liberty to each and all, and follows a phantom, the impracticable "living out" of every desire, regardless of every thing, even freedom—its inevitable result will be a return to the individualistic capitalism of today. As to Communistic Anarchism, the argument is that it is identical with Communism, recognising the necessity of organising production. Buth that the organisation should be complete for the whole country, a certain amount of centralisation is necessary, therefore the only difference between this and Socialism lies in the dictum that Socialism grants "to each according to his work", while the Communist dictum is "to each according to his needs". This latter, however, can only be when an ample sufficiency to cover the possible needs of all is secured. With the improvement in production under Socialism this in the end would follow. This conclusion, that Communist Anarchism is identical with Communism, is, I should say, quite the opinion of the Communist Anarchists themselves. There remains, however, the fact, that two kinds of Communism are possible—an imposed Communism, in which every individual is compelled, not merely by economic necessity, but by physical force to submit to the instituted arrangements, whether he will or not. The other, that Communism which would arise from economic necessity and social human instinct alone, without any external physical force instituted to maintain it. The power of these—State Communism, like compulsory State Socialism, or State maintained capitalism—all alike being based on the principle that "might is right" would not be identical with Anarchist Communism. This maintains that right cannot be secured by force, and that where such force reigns social harmony is impossible. As to tactic, "Catilina" points out that Socialists (i.e., Social Democrats) alike avail themselves of propaganda by speech and press, to spread the conviction of the desirability and necessity for the abolition of the present social system, and hasten the establishment of the socialistic or communistic system. "Propaganda by deed" he does not dwell on, as he considers it "as good as abandoned, at least in Western Europe." The Socialists, however, make use also of parliamentary means, both as affording them greater publicity, as well as freedom of speech, while the Anarchists reject this method as giving greater power to the State. He evidently thinks that the improvement in the material status of the proletariat, to be gained by parliamentary means, would be very slight indeed hardly worth reckoning; and he admits that the political method of attempting to affect an economic change must always be a point of difference between the Anarchists and the Social Democrats. ...

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— Sophie Scott-Brown - Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday Anarchy

 

at 5/14/24 5:04pm

Author: Sophie Scott-BrownTitle: Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday AnarchyDate: 2022Notes: Routledge Studies in Radical History and PoliticsSource: <doi.org/10.4324/9781003100409> Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday Anarchy is the first full account of Ward’s life and work. Drawing on unseen archival sources, as well as oral interviews, it excavates the worlds and words of his anarchist thought, illuminating his methods and charting the legacies of his enduring influence. Colin Ward (1924—2010) was the most prominent British writer on anarchism in the 20th century. As a radical journalist, later author, he applied his distinctive anarchist principles to all aspects of community life including the built environment, education, and public policy. His thought was subtle, universal in aspiration, international in implication, but, at the same time, deeply rooted in the local and the everyday. Underlying the breadth of his interests was one simple principle: freedom was always a social activity. This book will be of interest to students, scholars, and general readers with an interest in anarchism, social movements, and the history of radical ideas in contemporary Britain. Sophie Scott-Brown is a Lecturer in the Humanities at the University of East Anglia, UK. This book is for my parents, Lesley (teacher) and Steven (planner), and partner Matt (anarchist). With love. Acknowledgements I would like to express my warmest thanks to Harriet and Ben Ward for their kindness, help, and patience. I am extremely grateful to Harriet for permission to quote from Colin Ward’s writing and to use photographs from the family’s private collection. I would also like to acknowledge Eileen Adams, David Downes, David Goodway, Ken Worpole, George West, Dennis Hardy, David Crouch, Anthony Fyson, Jonathan Croall, and Richard Mabey for their generosity in sharing memories of Colin, and to Soledad Perez Martinez for discussing her research with me. I am grateful to the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), Freedom Press, and Lib.Com for making important archival materials free and accessible online. I am especially obliged to the TCPA and Resurgence for granting permission to quote from their publications. Thanks also to the staff at the International Institute of Social History for their efficient assistance. Special thanks to Emily English for her excellent research assistance skills and to Matt Higgins and Katherine Mager for their help in preparing the images. Thank you to David Goodway, whose idea this all was in the first place, and to John Roberts, Thomas Linehan, Craig Fowlie, Daniel Andrew, and Hannah Rich, the Routledge editorial team, for their enthusiastic support from the outset. Thanks also to Peter Wilkin, Stuart White, and Geoff Hinchliffe who read or commented on aspects of the project at different times. A special note of appreciation to Carole and Michael Harris for their (timely) help with London geography. Abbreviations Archival Collections CWP Colin Ward Papers, International Institute of Social History TGP Tony Gibson Papers, International Institute of Social History VRP Vernon Richards Papers, International Institute of Social History Institutions/Organisations/Associations FP/G Freedom Press/Group GAG Glasgow Anarchist Group LAG London Anarchist Group LSE London School of Economics PM Peace Movement TCPA Town and Country Planning Association C/USC Council (of)/Urban Studies Centres Magazines, Journals, Periodicals A Anarchy AJ Architect’s Journal BEE Bulletin of Environmental Education NS New Society NSS New Statesman and Society SW Spain and the World TPCJ Town and Country Planning Journal WC War Commentary Introduction For Colin Ward, anarchy was ordinary, everywhere, and always in action. It happened on city streets, allotments, and around kitchen tables, in village halls, town squares, and pub snugs. It went about its business quietly, beneath and beyond official notice. Anarchists were anyone. Sensible, modest, and resourceful people without a bomb between them. They built houses, grew food, and ran workshops. When a thing needed doing, they banded together but parted their ways when done. Beneath this calm, orderly facade lay startling claims. Schooling is organised mass ignorance. Centralised welfare is coercion by stealth. Ramshackle shanty towns contain more human dignity than the palatial creations of feted architects. For all that these ran counter to accepted ideas of social progress, in Ward’s hands they seemed intuitive, like remembering something already known and just briefly forgot. Any reader of sound judgement and good character was hard pushed to object. And yet this was anarchism, the ideology defined, surely, by disorder and destruction. What had this to do with ‘common sense’? This book explores Ward and his everyday anarchism. Focusing on his role as a propagandist, a communicator of anarchist ideas, it examines how he crafted a ‘vernacular’ anarchism and transformed the impossible dream into a daily routine. Talking Colin Ward Ward was born in 1924, in Wanstead, Greater London. An unwilling schoolboy at Ilford County High School (ICHS), he left formal education at 15, becoming first an assistant building surveyor, later an architect’s assistant for Sidney Caulfield, the last living member of the Arts and Crafts generation. Conscripted in 1942, he was posted to Scotland, where he encountered the Glaswegian anarchists, began contributing to War Commentary (WC), the newspaper of the Freedom Press (FP), and stood as a witness for the prosecution in the FP trial (April 1944). From there, his relationship with the FP group flourished, and on demobilisation, he became an FP editor and writer for Freedom (the title War Commentary was abandoned after 1945), most notably through his column ‘People and Ideas’, at the same time as pursuing a parallel career in architecture. ...

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— Boy Igor & Phil Mailer - And Yet It Moves (Updated Edition)

 

at 5/14/24 4:37pm

Author: Boy Igor & Phil MailerTitle: And Yet It Moves (Updated Edition)Subtitle: The Realization and Suppression of Science and TechnologyDate: 1985Notes: A situationist critique of science and technology published in New York in 1985. This version is a new edition that was published on the 'Endangered Phoenix' website and credited to Phil Meyler. The Endangered Phoenix website is dead now, and I can’t find the updated version on the website through the wayback machine, so there are some footnotes and chapter heading levels which are unclear to me. Plus, I think chapter 3 & 4 were merged in the updated edition, so chapter numbers went out of sync, but chapter 8 was still called chapter 8 which makes it seem like chapter 7 is missing on the libcom website. It is all very confusing, but I've changed the chapter title that said 'chapter 8' to 'chapter 7' for now.Source: <files.libcom.org/files/2022-10/AndYetItMoves.pdf> Preface c/o Endangered Phoenix This small booklet was written in the 1980s just before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and its Stalinist influence throughout Eastern Europe. It was written because at the time I felt that we were at the beginning of a Second Scientific Revolution and that science and technology was governing all of our culture and that the left, as it then existed, had hardly debated the issues around it. Much of what was written was prophetic, though much has been dated by events. However, the central thesis is still valid. It was pointed out that the emerging openness of the then developing computer communication and the availability of data pointed to a weakness in the Soviet and Chinese monopoly of information. In the interim there has been an explosion in technological consumerism, the internet has taken off in a way which would have been difficult to predict at that time, while the growth of Frankenstein food and the manipulation of genes and cloning have provoked intense argument amongst scientists and in the media. There has been a growing distrust of genetically modified foods and this has led to multifarious direct action. Introduction c/o Endangered Phoenix The original writing of the booklet was influenced heavily by the work of the Situationist International, (1957–72) whose work attempted to bring together various disparate critiques of modern life, from radical politics, through Art, Psychoanalysis and a critique of everyday life into a coherent analysis of the conditions of modern capitalism. It is still one of the most potent and damning critiques of capitalism around and if I still use these concepts it is because I believe that no modern critique of capitalism can succeed without taking it on board, by using and surpassing it, and not because of any sectarian loyalty to some cult of ideas. I am not a Situationist. Over the past few years, since Seattle, passing through the various riots of Washington, London, Milan, Melbourne Seoul, Prague or Nice, tens of thousands of a younger generation of anti-capitalist youth throughout the globe have denounced, criticised and attacked “capitalist globalisation”, “racism” , “genetically modified foods” as well as so-called “third-world sweat-shops” and probably, if all were known, much else besides. There is a new protest movement in the making, which has not had this much scope since the Margaret Thatcher’s defeat of the Miners’ Strikes in Britain in the 1980s. If, at times, the concepts used here (proletariat, class struggle) may seem outdated to some, I make no apology. If some people find an emphasis on abstract ideas, like history and theory, boring stuff maybe, it is only to help provide these movements of direct action with a theoretical base in which to proceed. They are still valid concepts even if they have been misused in the past. The defeats of former generations is the food for thought of the new generations; the ideal of Communism is not only Stalinism or what might exist in one country, election politics is a sham in a world of false choices and trust in the spectacular lyrics of a song-writer or trade-union or political-leader is merely the lie which digs our own graves. What is important here it is the new ideal of anti-capitalism, which starts from a collective spirit of what is wrong, which everywhere exists in spirit but is nowhere actual. Such poetry starts off in struggle and community, it is the collective poem and the collective struggle which takes its validity and creativity, not the individual careers of would-be-do gooders but out of the real needs of real people. The Death of Science Society today, at the beginning of this third millennium, is merely a collection of dead spectacles which while promising a better future, merely ends up promoting more misery in the world. Of all the current spectacles, whether Art, Culture, the Good or Happy Life, the Tiger Economy, it is the world of Science and its technological society which is the least criticised. In a society where power is everywhere diffused and sometimes condemned, the appeal to science becomes some final authority. All that power need do to prove this or that little sociological point correct is to say that it is “scientific.” From the justification of power as scientifically administered to the proof of the instability of that power, the last spectacular authority is always some appeal to science. Science is a spectacle as well as a methodology of the spectacle and increasingly one of its main methodologies. It is the alchemy of technocrats who see their flowcharts and algorithms as beckoning a superior organisation of knowledge and power. “Power is knowledge,”, the old adage goes, and scientific knowledge is the atomised theory which grants the power to modern technological capitalism. Science, from being the once revolutionary expression of the bourgeois class has become the spectacularised power which legalises, regularises and rationalises its pseudo-victories. ...

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— AnarchyNouveau - We Don’t Need a “Plethora of Tactics”, We Need a Climate Strategy

 

at 5/14/24 4:35pm

Author: AnarchyNouveauTitle: We Don’t Need a “Plethora of Tactics”, We Need a Climate StrategySubtitle: An anarchist-communist’s response to Freedom NewsDate: March 20, 2024Source: Retrieved on 5/10/2024 from https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/03/23/we-dont-need-a-plethora-of-tactics-we-need-a-climate-strategy-an-anarchist-communists-response-to-freedom-news/ In Freedom Anarchist Journal’s Winter 2023-2024 issue, Matthew Azoulay submitted an article introducing readers to Murray Bookchin’s ideas of the communalist assembly[1] which disturbed and surprised me for how much it was outdated. The means it proposes to achieve an ecologically revolutionary ends are lacking, stagnant, and fall back on modes of thinking that seem directly inherited from the anti-globalization and Occupy era[2] which the anarchist movement cannot afford to normalise as we continue to enter an exponentially growing ecological collapse. While there are decent ideas to take from both Murray Bookchin and Peter Gelderloos as Matthew Azoulay has, they are both rather flawed in their own ways. There are a some well thought out points and ideas within the article, so my criticisms are entirely constructive and I aim to avoid sectarianism… But that this is what Freedom News is publishing in their own journal on climate struggle has me very concerned to say the least. The lack of revolutionary strategic thinking on ecological struggles will be humanity and the planet’s downfall if the revolutionary movement doesn’t get its act together soon. If a diversity of tactics was all it took to overcome the limits of social movements as Matthew Azoulay suggests in this article (and Peter Gelderloos in The Solutions are Already Here[3]), then comrades worldwide would not be facing defeat after defeat in what are ultimately defensive struggles for the ecology. These insurrectionary limits are visible internationally; from the massive years-long and ongoing fight to defend Weelaunee/Atlanta forest from destruction in the “Stop Cop City” movement, the French struggles in the ZAD’s and against the ecocidal Basin megaprojects, German struggles for forest defense and against ecocidal development such as the Tesla “gigafactory” and the mass movement against coal mining. In the global South, anti-extractivist movements have similarly hit wall after wall since the global descent into neoliberalism and fascism from the 70’s to today. Many valiant stands have been made against imperialist extraction projects, but the power of capital has more often than not prevailed against the power of the organised and rebellious masses, except where said rebellion has reached every layer of the popular masses and turned into an all-out insurrection. For example, the recent social explosion in Panama against a proposed mining project[4], the Zapatista movement’s struggle for autonomy across indigenous territories in so-called Mexico, or the 1991 struggle from revolutionaries in Bougainvillea against the Papua New Guinea government, the Rio Tinto mining corporation and the “Australian” navy[5]. On Bookchin and Communalism As much as he is a controversial figure in the anarchist movement, I agree with Matthew that there is a pressing need to take Murray Bookchin’s ideas on social ecology seriously. Bookchin was no saint; often coming across as a bitter old man embroiled in sectarianism with his contemporaries to the degree that he stopped identifying as an anarchist near the end of his life. The ideology he carved out for himself – Communalism[6] – has a lot of similarities to anarcho-syndicalism in that it over-emphasises a single form of mass organisation as the basis for a revolutionary strategy and erases the role of specific political organisations in the strategic struggle for social revolution. Unlike most anarcho-syndicalist organisations, Bookchin did have the good sense to remove the anarchist ideological branding from his proposal so the community assembly can be a functional popular organisation[7]. Bookchin’s preferred form of anarchist organisation was the affinity group, as Matthew noted in his article in Freedom. Bookchin came to this conclusion based on his assessment of the Spanish Civil War, taking influence from the CNT-FAI. I will definitely not be the first anarchist to say this, but despite having some great ideas, Bookchin was an idiot. The Friends of Durruti group[8] was right there as an example of a cohesive revolutionary organisation within the Spanish Civil War. It was formed in response to the weaknesses and failures of the FAI’s loosely organised “synthesist” federation of affinity groups who were operating within the CNT in addressing the challenges faced by the social revolution. The Friends of Durruti were what is known as a Specific Anarchist Organisation[9], a form of political organisation wherein anarchist militants (and affinity groups) coordinate socially inserting themselves into mass movements and organisations; examples include trade unions, communalist assemblies, struggles for social justice from the marginalised and oppressed, abolitionist movements, the anti-war movement and the environmentalist and anti-nuclear movements. The aim is to agitate within them from below and build their combative and working class character, organising for direct democracy and radical demands, and nurturing revolutionary horizons. An SAO can be formed with as little comrades as an affinity group, or can scale up into federations. The difference between the FAI’s loose affiliation of affinity groups within the trade unions and an SAO is a matter of having a shared theoretical line, tactical (and in the case of especifismo, strategic) unity, and a revolutionary program. Examples include the Federation of Anarchist-Communists in Bulgaria or the currently existing Uruguayan Anarchist Federation[10] which developed the “especifismo” tendency based on their critique of the marxist “foquismo” guerilla strategy[11], which is also the common strategy in insurrectionary anarchism. SAO’s can operate as above or underground organisations as the local situation and level of state repression determines. This strategy within the anarchist movement is broadly known as organisational dualism. While commonly associated with Anarkismo.net[12] affiliated organisations today, SAO’s have existed before and irrespective of Anarkismo and the organisations which are a part of it: Examples include the Friends of Durruti, the International Working People’s Association which influenced the Chicago May Day and 8 hour day struggles, Revolutionary Struggle in Greece which furthered the social war against the Greek state and EU, or Bakunin’s Alliance of Socialist Democracy[13]. ...

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— Chen Jiongming - A Proposal for the Unification of China

 

at 5/14/24 3:58pm

Author: Chen JiongmingTitle: A Proposal for the Unification of ChinaDate: 1927Source: Published in Chen Jiongming and the Federalist Movement by Leslie H. Dingyan Chen. The Political Capability of the Chinese People There are some who doubt that the Chinese people are capable of creating a truly democratic state. We emphatically disagree. The political environment in any country is created by its leaders. The perceptions and habits of the people can be changed to follow those of the leadership. Furthermore, Chinese society has been traditionally rich in self-governing organizations, which can be effectively used to reconstruct [China as] a democratic state. The Real Causes of the Turmoil over the Past Sixteen Years 1. The Problem of the Provisional Constitution [First,] no provision was made in the Provisional Constitution of 1912 to provide proper checks and balances against the assertions of legislature power and executive power. When the parliament went beyond its bounded [purpose] to make laws directed against the executive on a personal basis, the latter had no choice but to illegally dissolve it. [Second,] there was no clear definition of the authority and limitations of the cabinet. Disputes between the president and the cabinet resulted in many political crises. [Third,] the parliament was responsible for the drafting of the constitution, as well as for the election of the president, making its members potential prey to threats and bribery. [Finally,] no provision was made for provincial governments. There was no constitutional protection of the relationship between the central government and the provinces, or regarding the powers and limitations of the provinces. This resulted in the arbitrary assumption of powers by various provinces and the usurpation of civil administration by the military. Every political crisis we have witnessed in the past sixteen years (1911–1927) has invariably been caused by constitution-related disputes. 2. The Problem of the Parliament When the Republic was first established, the parliament was expected to deal with the several most pressing problems of the nation, namely, the drafting of the constitution, the budget system, and a system of local government, as well as the abolition of military governorships. Instead of dealing with these problems, the parliament engaged in endless disputes with the executive branch. 3. The Problem of the Presidency The president of the Republic is a public servant and should be elected by the people. However, the presidency is viewed by the old bureaucrats from the monarchical era as a position of power and prestige, to be gained by bribery or intrigue. Moreover, every president, whether “legal” or “illegal,” has derived his support primarily from the military. 4. The Problem of the Government Peking, the capital of the Republic, was also the old capital of the monarchy, where the lingering malaise of the decadent old bureaucracy has hardly been conducive to the conduct of good, clean modern government. 5. The Problem of the Military Generals, not soldiers, cause the trouble. It does not matter what they are called-dudu, dujun, military governor, or commander-in-chief-as long as they possess the actual military power. The big generals control several provinces; the small ones, one province. They are responsible neither to the president nor to the provincial governments. This situation breeds warlordism and is the greatest obstacle to be overcome on the road to national tranquility. 6. The Problem of Political Parties There have been no real political parties (zhengdang) but only party cliques (dangpai), except for the short period in 1912 when the Nationalist Party and the Progressive Party (Jinbudang) possessed some semblance of a modern political party. Since then these parties have split into cliques based on the self-interest of individual groups rather than on policy or political principles. The Northern militarists and politicians separate themselves into the Anhui, Zhili, and Fengtian cliques. The Southern party, being excluded from participation in government, has resorted to revolution and thus lost the character of a political party. Tools That Failed to Restore Order Since 1912, two tools have been used alternately, but to little effect, in restoring order to the nation. These tools are peace negotiation and military action. For example, both the 1919 peace conference in Shanghai and the 1925 rehabilitation conference in Peking dissolved almost as soon as they convened. In the case of military action, no matter what it is being called-national revolution or unification by force-the tactics used have been the same, namely, those of a conqueror. Why these tools have failed is not because of the tools themselves, but because those who used them are ignorant of the basic principle of democracy-that is, the power of the government must be distributed amongst the entire people. It is a grave mistake to concentrate all power in the military and “use the military to rule the country” (yi jun zhi guo), or to concentrate all power in a single political party and “use the party to rule the country” (yi dang zhi guo). ...

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— Gustav Landauer - Are These the Words of a Heretic?

 

at 5/14/24 3:35pm

Author: Gustav LandauerTitle: Are These the Words of a Heretic?Notes: Translated from the German Daniel Wortel-London, originally entitled "Sind das Kertzergendanken?" ("Are These Heretic Thoughts?"). Originally published in Von Judentum (On Judaism) in 1911 by the Bar Kokhba League of Jewish Students.Source: Retrieved on May 14th, 2024 from:https://x.com/dlondonwortel/status/1787470614107763006 A characteristic of our time is that much is accomplished in spirit but little is accomplished in reality. Perhaps even the lack of actual implementation corresponds to a special activity of the mind, which constantly strives to overcome its own formations without leaving the form of fantasy and doctrine. One could imagine a human society that is structured in such a way that the ideas in it have the character of tools, that is, like a spade or a vehicle, they only have meaning and life when they are used and can only wear out through use. With us, the ideas are not of the nature of serving tools, but rather of figures in a drama that takes place in the air: the ideas change, fight against each other, kill each other and themselves, bring natural and unnatural children into the world, and Meanwhile, reality lies there dull and mindless and won't budge. Almost our entire party system is such a dramatic, mostly tragicomic mirage as a substitute for real life drama. Consider, for example, the history of socialism from this point of view. Is it not the history of a paralysis accompanied by vivid feverish faces? Almost the only reality that can be seen in this long history is the so-called social legislation, the workers' protection and insurance system that the realist Bismarck began. But the inactivity in the camp of the real socialists is so great, and the inhibitions that they find above all in themselves are so powerful, that a separate theory, the Marxist theory of evolution, had to be invented so that the idea could support itself and its own illusory life. Here a fate reigns over our time. The ideas that arise in individuals are of a social nature, that is, a plan arises in the mind of an individual, which can only be carried out, indeed, which only gains blood and nerve through the participation of many at the beginning. Here comes Theodor Hertzka or Silvio Gesell or Franz Oppenheimer or Josef Popper after intensively experiencing our oppressive and shameful conditions, and each, from a different experience, thought and desire, says simply, clearly and in detail what needs to be done, right now. But they have spoken into the air, and their entire success would be that their followers talk each other to death. It is possible that this condition brings about a flowering of strong art. For productively charged natures who experience such isolation may ultimately recognize that the contrast between the individual form and the social content of their idea is to blame for the tragic disproportion. Creative and active as they are, there may be nothing left for them but to include the fulfillment in their idea and thus to accomplish in their imagination alone what in reality only the combined strength of those who are very carried away could do. I believe I see that the idea of the renewal of Judaism is not following any other course than this. There is not even the slightest beginning of a realization, and already the party struggle anticipates everything that could follow one another in terms of reality. Take all the parties that exist in any nation and see whether the Jewish nation, which has no external form at all, does not have a few more than all of them put together. What is called a party here is characterized by a kind of masturbatory self-satisfaction of the so-called movement within itself; the party is like an inland lake into which the idea has flowed but from which it does not emerge again. The activity of the idea is thus transformed into the unpsychological and loveless, heretical intolerance of the party. If the other nations have at least the semblance of their state, so that politics, the semblance of reality, arises from all the strife of sterility, the shadowy struggle of the self-consuming Jewish ideology takes place in even thinner air: it is about opinions, about an infinitely variable and varied "if..." What will the language be when we are in Zion? What will the common customs and traditions be? I have no doubt that somewhere it has already been investigated whether pig-raising will be permissible. There is another very important point to be made. The more we become aware of our Jewish nationality, the more we become aware of it as a reality that only has a full, beautiful, flowing life that fills our whole being when we no longer need to hold it and embrace it with our consciousness. The strong emphasis on one's own nationality, even if it does not degenerate into chauvinism, is weakness. If a German writes about Romanticism or Socialism or the conservation of energy, he is writing about Romanticism or Socialism or the conservation of energy. The conscious Jew writes about Romanticism and Judaism, about Socialism and Judaism, about the conservation of energy and Judaism, and also about radium and Judaism. But here too the cycle of the idea, remaining in the mind without even touching on any external realization, proceeds quickly. We are already tired of this constant emphasis on what is only true and valuable if it is self-evident. We already recognize that our Judaism is one of those things of divine ignorance, of which Meister Eckhart says: "Man is, and this must be true, an animal, an ape, a fool, as long as he remains in ignorance. But knowledge must develop into a superform, and this ignorance should not come from ignorance, rather: from knowledge one should come into ignorance. Then we should become knowledgeable of divine ignorance, and then our ignorance will be ennobled and adorned with supernatural knowledge!" For all of us it was an enrichment, an elevation and a strengthening of our reality when we began to be fully conscious Jews. But now we are Jews so much so that we know: we are Jews in every intellectual and spiritual movement and activity, and we are least of all Jewish when we emphasize Judaism on its own. Nation is a readiness or disposition that becomes dry and hollow and rattling when it appears without connection to the material reality, with tasks and work, and when it is other than their origin and tone. ...

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— sacred black and red - Bonk

 

at 5/14/24 9:41am

Author: sacred black and redTitle: BonkSubtitle: University of California Office of the President AttackedDate: May 14, 2024Source: Retrieved on 14 May 2024 from indybay.org/newsitems/2024/05/14/18866217.php “The beginning of every revolution is an exit, an exit from the social order that power has enshrined in the name of law, stability, public interest, and the greater good.” - Basel al-Araj With the Aurora Borealis above us and the martyrs in our hearts, we attacked the UC Office of the President in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance. Using a fire extinguisher filled with red paint we covered the facade and smashed seven windows. Then, with access to the building, we released 500 cockroaches inside and emptied a second fire exintguisher onto the interior. We finalized the act by leaving a water jug inscribed with “Bonk” at the scene—an homage to the militants of Cal Poly Humboldt and the international student encampment movement. As anti-colonial anarchists and communists we offer this act of material and spiritual solidarity with the hopes of shattering the illusion that resistance is limited to a single site. As Moten says “THE ONLY POSSIBLE RELATIONSHIP TO THE UNIVERSITY TODAY IS A CRIMINAL ONE.” The University’s true fascist form has been put on full display, and hiding behind hollow progressive ideals is no longer an option for the dead-eyed desk killers. Abolish the UC showed us in 2020 that the University of California is nothing more than a settler colonial project, that their police are protecting the gates of colony, where knowledge is produced and captured by the State to only dig its claws deeper into the flesh of Indigenous lands here and abroad. Let us not forget the UC became co-ed to breed settlers and populate the west coast. Speaking only to the UC's material connection to the Zionist entity obfuscates the extent of the political, theoretical, and cultural entanglements between the UC and the Israeli State. The University does not simply fund Israel, it creates Israel, and launches this white-colony into the post-modern Empire. What does divestment mean when the very essence and foundation of the institution is a fascist regime? Where does Zionism begin and end in the University of California? Is divestment an oxymoron? The UC must be abolished. The “working-class” public colleges are not safe from critique (nor attack). Some of the resulting encampments have established themselves as outposts of nonprofits and NGOs—loyal only to funders; moved by professional partnerships and personal brands. Revolutionary struggle and its legacies have been co-opted, deradicalized, and professionalized through identity-driven liberal pedagogies. By teaching a revisionist history that renders liberation movements compatible with capitalism, university-deputized counterinsurgents erase and demonize militant forms of struggle while smugly promoting an inert philosophy of nonviolence and respectability. This is one of many reasons why, although divestment is a valid and tangible baseline demand, our long-term focus should not be on reforming and reaffirming these institutions, but rather on resource expropriation and fucking them up irreparably. Across Bay Area university encampments and police-liasoned street mobilizations, escalation is consistently policed by weaponized liberal anti-oppression politics or crushed entirely by the fear of risk. Perpetual hand wringing over what could happen obscures what can be achieved. Attempting to shape a militant movement into something that will never have to contend with repression is to abandon the pursuit of revolutionary ends. The attack on UCOP began with an ask: how can political analysis be articulated through attack? An effective operation begins with the needs of the struggle, the goals of the cadre, and its limitations. Threat assessments should remain realistic and specific to the actions being carried out. Within the American empire, what is solidarity with the Mujahideen of Palestine and militant student movements if not shapeshifting into a political fighting force? We join the chorus calling for escalation in the imperial core: escalate, escalate, escalate! This is our historical and spiritual duty. To not hold this as truth is to give up and accept defeat, hoping someone else will do what it takes to disrupt the flow of capital into the settler-colonial project. We must bring the war home. “Let them do their work because there is a manhood in that work which we will one day transform into holy struggle, and as long as the colonizer wants to kill our souls, these people are closer to God and to the love of holy struggle than are those who submit.” - Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam For the children of Gaza For the martyrs With eternal revolutionary spirit Break open the gates - sacred black and red

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— Aidan Rowe - The Politics of Voices: Notes on Gender, Race & Class

 

at 5/14/24 12:00am

Author: Aidan RoweTitle: The Politics of Voices: Notes on Gender, Race & ClassDate: 2013-04-30Source: <wsm.ie/c/anarchism-intersecionality-gender-race-class> As class-struggle anarchists dealing with the relations between gender, race and class, we must, in theory and practice, pick a path between two pitfalls. On one side is economic reductionism – the reduction of all political questions to the social relations of production – which erases the perspectives and struggles of women, queers and people of colour; submerges their voices within an overly generalised class narrative, in which the idealised Worker is implicitly white heterosexual and male; or consigns their struggles to a secondary importance compared to the “real struggle” of (economic) class against class. On the other is a stultifying and inward-looking liberal-idealist identity politics, concerned fetishistically with the identification of privilege and the self-regulation of individual oppressive behaviour to the (near) exclusion of organised struggle, which, while amplifying the voices of the marginalised, consigns them to an echo chamber where they can resonate harmlessly. While both poles described are actualised within the anarchist milieu, we should not make the mistake of thinking that both pitfalls are equally imminent. White supremacism and patriarchy[1] are hegemonic within our society and this is reflected in anarchist spaces: dismissive “critiques” of identity politics are far more common than over-enthusiastic engagement. Therefore this piece will not offer yet another of these critiques, which more often than not function only justify the continued ignorance and inaction of those unwilling to destabilise their privilege.[2] Rather this piece deals with a more difficult question: “How does one reconcile the diverse political perspectives of feminists, queers and activists of colour with the tradition of class-struggle anarchism?” I do not offer a complete or authoritative answer, but rather attempt to move forward a conversation which seems to be perpetually re-iterating its own beginning: “we must begin to talk about gender and race issues”. Indeed we must, but we must also move beyond beginning. The traditional approach Most class-struggle anarchist understandings of the inter-relation of gender, race and class allude in one way or another to the Marxist base-superstructure model of society, that is, that the relations of production are the base of society, which generate the political superstructure which includes the state, culture, gender and race relations etc. A vulgar Marxist idea of the base-superstructure model holds that the base determines the superstructure absolutely and the superstructure is unable to affect the base. The implication of this is that no specific agitation on gender or race issues is needed: if women, queers or people of colour wish to improve their position in society they should simply participate in the class struggle which will necessarily and automatically result in the dissolution of all hierarchies. A particularly crude but somewhat instructive example of this thinking tells us: In any class society—thus, in any society in which the state and the economy exist—only the ruling class can be truly said to have privilege... [S]o-called privileges are nothing more than a minimal easing of the conditions of exploitation experienced by people in these specific social categories. They are intended to convince these people that they have more in common with their exploiters than with those not granted the same “privileges” and to convince the others that their real enemy is not the ruling class, but rather those granted a less intense level of exploitation... Since only the ruling class truly has privilege, the destruction of privilege will only occur when we destroy all rule.[3] This sort of utopian thinking denies that gender or race have any autonomy from class: patriarchy and white supremacism are merely tools employed by the ruling class to divide the workers. Of course, in reality, the establishment of a communist economic system does not preclude the continuation of patriarchy or white supremacism. One can easily imagine, for example, a communist system where women are held to be the collective sexual property of men, with sexual access ensured by systematic rape and battery, whose economy is perfectly functional. More sophisticated variants of this model, often accompanied by some dialectical flourish, acknowledge the necessity of specific anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, and anti-transphobic agitation, lest these dynamics persist “after the revolution”, but still understand gender and race issues as being essentially forms of bigotry fostered by the ruling class to divide workers against themselves to prevent the realisation of their collective “objective” interests as a class. Gender and race struggles are thus positioned as ancillary to the class struggle, even if they are formally considered “central” to it. Patriarchy and white supremacism are not understood as constituting systems in their own right and forms of power other than the economic are rendered invisible. The pertinent question here is not whether this picture is correct in some “objective” sense — whether metaphysically all power “really” resides in the means of production — but rather: which voices are amplified by this framing and which are muted? What forms of action are opened and foreclosed by choosing this framework at the expense of another? Who among us has the power to define the “objective” interests of the working class? ...

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— M. Gouldhawke - Intro to Anarchists & Fellow Travellers on Palestine

 

at 5/12/24 9:43pm

Author: M. GouldhawkeTitle: Intro to Anarchists & Fellow Travellers on PalestineDate: 2024Notes: Intro to a collection of links to texts by various writers.Source: Retrieved on May 12, 2024 from mgouldhawke.wordpress.com Anarchists over the course of history have never had a unified stance on Palestine and Zionism. Some Jewish anarchists active in the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as Bernard Lazare and Hillel Solotaroff, drifted toward Zionism over time (as noted by Mina Grauer in an article from 1994). In 1906, Jewish anarchist Emma Goldman published an pseudonymously-authored article by a fellow Jewish anarchist which criticized Zionism, as well as nationalism more generally, and claimed that "Prejudices are never overcome by one who shows himself equally narrow and bigoted." The Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin in 1907 debated Zionism with a Jewish anarchist by the name of Yarblum in the pages of the anarchist journal, Listki Khleb i Volia, with Kropotkin taking a stance against the formation of the Zionist state in Palestine (also noted by Grauer in 1994). In 1913, Gustav Landauer, a Jewish-German anarchist, seemingly exalted the Jewish diaspora over the proposed Zionist state, as he claimed that “the Jews can only be redeemed with [all of] humanity, and that the two are one and the same: to pursue persistently the messiah in [national] banishment and dispersion, and to be the messiah of the nations" (as noted by Paul Mendes-Flohr in 2015). In the wake of the 1929 al-Buraq Disturbances in Palestine, the Italian anarchists Camillo Berneri and Nino Napolitano wrote articles denouncing British imperialism and the oppression of the Palestinian people (Berneri additionally addressed antisemitism in his 1935 booklets, The Racist Delirium and Le Juif antisémite). Also in 1929 and in reference to the same disturbances, Jewish anarchists debated Zionism in the Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper, Di fraye arbeter shtime (as noted and translated recently by Eyshe Beirich); while the Mexican anarchist newspaper, Verbo Rojo, published an article criticizing Zionism through a condemnation of nationalism more broadly (as noted recently by A.W. Zurbrugg). In 1938, the Italian-English anarchist Vernon Richards wrote a book review article proclaiming that the "Arab demand for independence is far from vague in its significance […] And we further add that Zionism will not solve the Jewish problems.” Beginning in 1939, Albert Meltzer, an English anarchist born to a Jewish family, wrote several articles against Zionism and British imperialism in Palestine; while in his 1996 autobiography, Meltzer related from personal experience a part of the violent political and military context leading up to the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. From the Nakba (Catastrophe) to today, many anarchists have continued to support the fight for Palestinian liberation (and in some cases are themselves Palestinians fighting for the liberation of their own people), while also carrying on the critique of fellow anarchists' stances on the matter. Historically, anarchists have a long and contradictory history of engagement with colonialism and national liberation more generally, of which the subjects of Palestine and Zionism form a constituent part. This page is an attempt to collect some of the statements by anarchists and their fellow travellers that seem most relevant to the Palestinian struggle and to anarchist solidarity with that fight, or at least to an overview of anarchist perspectives on Palestine and Zionism. When it comes to fellow travellers, to my knowledge, Reginald Reynolds, Mustapha Khayati, Lafif Lakhdar, Fredy Perlman and Bassel al-Araj did not self-identify as anarchists. However, in my view, they were anarchist-adjacent enough (to varying extents) to have their writing included in this collection. Aside from these authors, and those in the specified section on Aaron Bushnell's action, all the other writers whose texts are found here did or do self-identify as anarchists, as far as I can tell. I myself do not agree with every point made in each of these articles, particularly Emma Goldman's 1938 text implicitly invoking John Locke (regarding the ideology of entitlement to other people's land granted through invasion and individual labour, a point critiqued in the same time period by fellow traveller Reginald Reynolds) and Sam Dolgoff's ideological defense of the Israeli state, but I include them due to their historical significance and to show that anarchists have had conflicting (and even self-contradictory) positions on Palestine and Zionism. M.Gouldhawke (May 2024)

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— Vernon Richards - Terrorism In Palestine: “Democracy” at Work

 

at 5/12/24 9:43pm

Author: Vernon RichardsTitle: Terrorism In Palestine: “Democracy” at WorkDate: 1937Notes: From ‘Spain and the World’, Vol. 1. No. 22., 27th October, 1937,London, UKSource: Retrieved on April 27, 2024 from mgouldhawke.wordpress.com The tragic events in Palestine have provided yet another happy hunting ground for Mussolini. The Press announces that Arab notabilities in Lybia have sent a message to Mussolini reaffirming their solidarity with the Arabs in Palestine. This message naturally comes as a result of Mussolini’s fine words when he called himself the “defender of Islam.” On the other hand Alfred Roke, a member of the Arab Higher Committee declared to Arthur Koestler, News Chronicle special correspondent that he was expressing the opinion of the Committee, including the Mufti, when he said “We know that Italy regards the Arab question only as a card in a bigger game. She aims at annoying Britain until the conquest of Abyssinia is recognised.” However, apart from once more exposing Mussolini as the opportunist par excellence, the events in Palestine once more shows that all Imperialisms, whether they be democratic or totalitarian are ruthless. Mussolini brought “civilization and Christianity” to Abyssinia with bombing aeroplanes and mustard gas. An attempt was made on Graziani’s life. It was followed by the wholesale destruction by fire and bombs of human lives and the huts in which the natives lived. The British Government regretted that such methods should be adopted. The British Government also disagreed with Germany’s methods of reprisals by shelling Almeria, over the Deutschland incident. And yet the British Government does not deprecate such action on the North West Frontier, or in Palestine. As a result of the destruction of various aerodromes, General Wavill, Commander in Chief of the British Forces in Palestine ordered the destruction of houses belonging to “Arab extremists, suspected of having been involved in these acts of incendiarism.” Le Temps reports that an order from Jerusalem states that “amongst the punitive measures taken by the authorities in order to put an end to the wave of terrorism which has broken out in the country, the houses in regions where arms have been stolen are to be “branded” in equal numbers to the number of arms stolen. For one rifle stolen, one house will be blown up, for one rifle handed back one house will be exempted.” “By order of the authorities and to repress the latest acts of terrorism, twenty houses were dynamited today in different villages suspected of having sheltered rebels.” Further, Le Temps (October 20) states that a telegram from Jerusalem reports that “as reprisals against the attacks launched by Arabs in Damaria, on Monday, where members of the police force were obliged to give up their arms and ammunition, a detachment of British troops, aided by police authorities, the following morning dynamited three houses in the town.” It should be noted that the police had only been obliged to give up their arms, and were not killed by the Arabs. So that this incident should not be repeated, the British mercenaries blow up three houses. And the National Press talks of Democracy! And British Ministers talk of the “ruthless ” tactics of Mussolini and the “Reds” in Spain! V. R.

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— Wu Zhihui and Chen Jiongming - Wu Zhihui’s Letter and Chen Jiongming’s Reply

 

at 5/12/24 5:31am

Author: Wu Zhihui and Chen JiongmingTitle: Wu Zhihui’s Letter and Chen Jiongming’s ReplyDate: May 1924Notes: Introduced, translated, edited and annotated by Leslie H. Chen. Original Chinese versions published in Kang Baishi (1978). Chen Jiongming zhuan (A biography of Chen Jiongming). Hong Kong: Culture Book House, pp. 120–148.Source: Published in Chen Jiongming and the Federalist Movement by Leslie H. Dingyan Chen. Wu Zhihui’s Letter On April 29, 1924, Wu Zhihui wrote Chen Jiongming a long letter from Shanghai, in which he argued the necessity of a Chen-Sun reconciliation to save the country from disintegration. It reveals the views held by prominent members of the Nationalist Party on national affairs, politics, and political personages in China at that crucial point in modern Chinese history. In his letter, Wu Zhihui presents an ambivalent, if not hypocritical attitude. For example, he states unequivocally that China must, sooner or later, adopt a federal system of government. Yet he would follow the Leninist example and “groom” Sun Yat-sen to be the “twentieth-century” leader of the party, and “clean up the central plain” to achieve the military unification of China. As for Marxism, Wu himself says that he had studied it and “debated about it many times in Paris more than a decade ago, finally rejecting it” on the grounds that it was not suitable for China. Yet he would follow Sun Yat-sen and ally China with Soviet Russia and the Chinese Communist Party. Could these polar shifts really be what Wu called the “progressiveness of the twentieth century,” namely, the machiavellian code that the end justifies any means employed for its realization? Wu Zhihui’s letter provides insight into these ambiguities. He presents his arguments in ten sections. The following excerpts illustrate his main points: 1. Nothing has been accomplished in the Republic since the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911. Our country is on the brink of being divided up by the Foreign Powers. To whom can we entrust the task of saving the country from disaster-the self-seeking bureaucrats, the dreaming politicians, the idiotic scholars, or the indolent citizenry? We know we have no choice but to entrust the task to the [Nationalist] party members, although like the others, party members are not incorruptible. We may evaluate them in terms of their determination, capability, and progressiveness, with the last being the most important. 2. There are good men among the warlords and the bureaucrats; Wu Peifu is one of them. Wu is an honest, conscientious, and capable man, but he does not possess the capacity to lead the masses. Above all, he is a “sixteenth-century” man and even lags behind, for example, the “eighteenth-century” Yuan Shikai and Duan Qirui. Most of the politicians, such as Liang Qichao and Sun Hongyi, are basically good men. They belong to the nineteenth-century; some of them even approach the twentieth century. They may have the determination to do good, but lack the ability to be a true leader. Among the scholars, there are, of course, many who belong to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century categories. They possess no lack of enthusiasm to save the country; they only lack the ability to do it. In recent years, most of them have become idiotic fools; they think they can fight militarism with mere words or by non-cooperation with the warlords. As to the citizens, their ability has always been equal to zero; their determination is questionable and they belong to the sixteenth- or eighteenth-century categories or earlier. Therefore, we cannot entrust the task of saving the country directly to the bureaucrats, the scholars, or the citizenry. We cannot expect them to produce a great leader. 3. I do not say that the party members have all the determination and ability to do the job; nor do I say that they are less corruptible than the others. In terms of progressiveness, however, party members do belong to at least the nineteenth century, with the majority of them in the twentieth-century category. Above all, they produce leaders. Without party members, we can expect no progress in the affairs of a nation. Today, Spain, with conditions similar to those of China, exists as an independent nation in the West. China in the East does not have such good fortune, as she will no doubt end up another India or Indo-China. 4. Let us compare the leaders among the party members with the chieftains among the warlords and the bureaucrats. Do Cao Kun and Wu Peifu measure up to Sun Yat-sen and Chen Jiongming? Do any of the other warlords measure up to half of Wang Jingwei? Among the leaders of the party, I mention only Sun, Chen, and Wang, in that order. I may displease Mr. Sun by putting your name right after his. I do not care if people criticize me for my limited choices. I came to them solely by intuition, [and believe they] reflect the general feeling of the people at the present time. Furthermore, I dare say that if Sun Yat-sen does not cooperate with Chen Jiongming and Wang Jingwei, he will certainly become [known as] a “grass-headed” [bandit-like] revolutionary party chieftain; that if Chen Jiongming does not cooperate with Sun and Wang, he will no doubt end up a “blockhead” warlord. If Wang Jingwei does not cooperate with Sun and Chen, he will be nothing but a “white-faced” [handsome] literatus. But what I say here is strictly based on present circumstances. It is not impossible that in the future all three of them will prove worthless. On the other hand, each may successively reach the top as a result of their close cooperation. To conclude, the country will benefit from their working together; it will suffer if they pursue their own separate ways. 5. The leader of a group may be established in three different ways: He may impose himself upon the group by force ; he may be elected by popular acclaim; or he may be “groomed” by the group for the role. It will not satisfy the “twentieth-century” party members to establish their leader by one, or some combination, of the first two methods. They will only feel comfortable by grooming him for the role. 6. In the recent reorganization of the Nationalist Party, Mr. Sun Yat-sen was set forth [like Lenin in Russia] as the first leader of the party without going through the sham process of election by the membership. This is necessary to meet the demands of the time. In 1913 [1914], you and I did not agree to [Sun’s] demand that we [put our] fingerprint [on an oath of loyalty to him]. In 1921, you and I did not quite agree with the election [of Sun] as president [by the extraordinary parliament in Canton] . Why not? Because at that time we were not able to see clearly the necessity of grooming a leader. We do see [the need] clearly today now that Lenin has played his role in Russia. (Please do not be mistaken. I am still a “talking” anarchist, but in reality, one who “holds a pair of grass-shoes” [is a humble follower] under the banner of the patriotic [Nationalist] party. I do not believe true communism can be made to work in China today.) 7. Petty conflicts among the Taiping leaders caused their total destruction. It would be a pity if Sun and Chen attempt to eliminate each other; neither will be the winner. 8. At the present time, three persons attract the attention of the nation, namely, Sun Yat-sen, Chen Jiongming, and Wu Peifu. Their common virtue is twofold. The first is perseverance; the second is that they have accumulated relatively little personal wealth. But only Sun and Chen understand the “twentieth-century” way to found a modern nation. Wu Peifu knows nothing of this. Sun Yat-sen possesses that rare capacity for forgiving, essential to being a leader. He can deliver “ocean-wide, sky-high” big talk; he has discussed the merits and demerits of [political] theories advanced by others but he is not serious about adopting them. He has three basic virtues: perseverance, forgiveness, and appreciation for goodness. Based on these three virtues, he can be dressed up as a leader. This is, of course, better than carving a leader out of a piece of balsam wood. (My personal, biased opinion is that a leader should not be too capable. Carving him out of a piece of wood is acceptable too.) Although Sun Yat-sen advances the theory that “practice is easy, knowledge is difficult,” the ability to make plans and put them into practice is not his specialty. Therefore, it is better to ask for Mr. Sun’s help when we are getting into a difficult and complex situation, and to ask you to assume the burden of bringing peace and order out of the present chaos across the nation. 9. After the complete pacification of the two provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, you have advocated a period of rest and rehabilitation and of implementing new programs to gain the confidence of the citizenry before embarking upon the campaign of “cleaning up the central plain.” How dare I not praise such a proposal? In 1917, I attempted to make the same proposal to Tang Jiyao [of YunnanJ. I also had high hopes in 1919, since you had made Zhangzhou a small “model China.” I know it is painful for you that Guangdong and Guangxi have not yet been able to establish self-rule. Before last October [1923], I also felt deep in my heart that Mr. Sun had erred [in his decision for an immediate military campaign against the North]. However, in the past several months, I have given much thought to this matter. It has dawned on me that in the greater scheme of things [with China in a state of turmoil] it would be quite difficult for a small group [in isolation] to implement self-government, especially given the ease of communication today. Take the case of Russia with the Arctic Ocean at her back. It would be easy for her to close all doors and isolate herself; still she must abandon [true] communism and adopt new economic policies. Although Guangdong is located in the southern-most part of China, its doors, unlike those of Yunnan, open in all directions. While Yan Xishan of Shanxi has severed his ties with all party members around the country, you have [maintained] ties with half of them. What has Shanxi accomplished with its reform program once its doors closed to party members? I did some detailed investigating last autumn and found that the whole thing [the reform] was a fraud . I don’t think it was Yan’s intention to deceive, rather it was the inevitable outcome of being isolated. To save the country, party members need territories; the province of Guangdong alone is simply not enough room for their activities. At the minimum, their territory should be extended to the south of the Yangtze to match that of their adversaries. It would then be opportune to advocate a temporary period of rest and peace. [At that point] you will have plenty of time to experiment with making Guangdong a model province. In recent years, it has been quite fashionable for someone controlling a division or a brigade of troops to seek a territorial base, leave his friends, and declare independence. On the surface, your plan fits exactly into this pattern. How can you explain your true intentions to the nation? Furthermore, you have advocated a federation of self-governing provinces. (I believe also that China sooner or later must adopt such a federal system of government.) But what you want now is, in effect, to bring the truly self-governing Guangdong into a federation with its “warlord-occupied” neighbors and to give these “occupied” provinces the same self-governing name. This would be a strange federation indeed. You have also excluded from your plan those comrades who have a desire to “clean up the central plain.” How can you explain this to the nation? 10. You are concerned with public opinion and the people’s desire for peace. But public opinion is like an indulgent mother and the people are not necessarily tired of war. What they are tired of is purposeless war. When you brought your military campaign from Guangdong to Fujian, back to Guangdong and on to Guangxi, public opinion was on your side and the people rejoiced at your successes. As to whether Mr. Sun Yat-sen is sincere in his intention to “clean up the central plain,” so far he has shown me no evidence to the contrary. If you do agree [to assist him with this], you can first make the commitment and thus gain an opportunity to test his sincerity. If his words turn out to be empty, then it is not too late to sever your ties with him. On the other hand, if you consider this effort as merely laughable, or if you believe that now is not the time for it, then any reconciliation [with Sun] would amount to a joke. [You would be] reconciled only in name and not in spirit. (By “cleaning up the central plain” we do not mean to bring all parties together to drink to a final, total victory.) At the ‘minimum, we should satisfy the “indolent” citizenry’s desire, which probably means a conference between the North and the South. However, we should bring the situation to a point where there is ample room for further development. (Also, this does not mean that all of us will share in the spoils.) ...

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— Chen Jiongming - Foreword to Minxing bao

 

at 5/12/24 4:51am

Author: Chen JiongmingTitle: Foreword to Minxing baoDate: 1919Notes: Originally published in Minxing bao, in Zhangzhou, Fujian. Edited and translated by Leslie H. Chen. Excerpted from the full, original Chinese article, as printed in Wusi shiqi qikan jieshao (1959), pp. 525–529.Source: Published in Chen Jiongming and the Federalist Movement by Leslie H. Dingyan Chen. The happiness of full equality is not the kind of false hope that Heaven will automatically bless every single soul on earth. Rather, it gives the human spirit the opportunity for regeneration. If we want to realize this happiness of equality and the opportunity for spiritual regeneration, there is no need for us to do any more searching. What we need is a great awakening of every mind so that all may be free of the prevailing erroneous thinking that “each must struggle for his own existence without any concern for the life and death of others”... Once thought is transformed, mankind can easily break from the old life and the old institutions. Along the path of evolution, the world as a whole will find a new life and new institutions so as to reach ultimately the stage where there will be no boundaries between states, between nations, or between individuals... Some people say that since the world has not yet reached the utopian stage, nationalism cannot be abandoned. I do not agree with this view, because nations are only transitory institutions in the evolutionary process of the world and are definitely unnecessary in its later stages of development. As a matter of fact, nationalism has been used by ambitious politicians as a way to fool their people and bully the world... Strong nations, of course, have used nationalism as an excuse for aggression. Weak ones have used it very effectively in the short term to awaken their people to fight for survival. But once they succeed, they begin to take on the bestial attributes of arrogance and militancy. Then ambitious politicians, believing in their almighty power, take one step further in preaching imperialism, Nietzscheanism, militarism, and the like, to devastate the world and enslave mankind. Let us look at today’s strong nations: Which one has not “climbed up” from being weak yesterday? Some people say that we can put restraints on the use of nationalism. The strong nations do not need nationalism because their existence is protected. The weak nations may use nationalism as a temporary measure for self-protection; and in so doing, they should refrain from fostering anti-foreign feelings, and respect the principle of coexistence with all nations. These are very reasoned arguments. But I believe that it is virtually impossible to restrain nationalism in practice and still retain it as an effective weapon for weak nations... To restrain nationalism by using another doctrine would fatally reduce its effectiveness as a measure to make weak nations strong and prosperous. If we were to preach nationalism and another “restraining” doctrine at the same time, the result, I believe, would be one of the following: (1) Nationalism would be seriously restricted in its development; (2) it would be abandoned as something despicable compared with the “restraining” doctrine; and (3) each [doctrine] would pursue its own course, incapable of cooperation... Men have the natural capacity for brotherly or fratenal love (bo’ai). If one knows how to love his country, why not teach him to extend his full capacity to love all of human society? To be able to love all mankind means that one cannot discard his compassion for others since it is linked at least in part to all mankind in the historical past... If any nation is being oppressed today, we can rush to offer her assistance without being in conflict with the compassion we hold for other nations... Is not the concept of “socialism of all mankind” (quanrenlei shehui zhuyi) a better doctrine? The fact that China is making little progress today has created pessimism at the “crippled” evolution of the world. If we want to accelerate a healthy evolution of the world and make the concept of “socialism of all mankind” a reality, I believe that China, as the most populous nation on earth, should bear a major responsibility. Yesterday’s Napoleon attempted to use imperialism to form a united Europe. Today’s William II embraced Nietzscheanism in an effort to master the world. Both failed quickly... But as long as the world cannot break with the concept of nations, human society will not know a day of tranquility... What kind of weapon can we use to break down national boundaries? We certainly cannot depend on the use of force, nor on the efforts of one nation... To promote the healthy evolution [of society] is the responsibility of all mankind. Therefore, the weapon to be used must be people’s minds. These “minds” must be devoted to the creation of that healthy evolution, not to the manufacture of evils. If they can be reformed in a unified way, then we will have a weapon with which to break down national boundaries... China occupies a large territory in the world and has the greatest population, but the contributions of her old culture to today’s world are no longer adequate. By refusing to seek new reform through the human mind, China will not only remain stagnant herself, but will also deny an opportunity for the world’s Powers to break with their ambitious dream of world domination... Is it not the responsibility of China to seek this reform? ...

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