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:geordi-no: leftist infighting
:geordi-yes: left unity :lenin-shining: :left-unity-3: :kropotkin-shining:
Like, I identify with anarchist philosophy not because of some single-minded opposition to authority for its own sake, I do so because anarchism best describes the praxis I am capable of engaging in and because I believe that in the near term building the sort of parallel support structures like mutual aid organizations and advocating for prison and police abolition are important for creating the sort of material conditions necessary to engage in and promote more organized revolutionary action.
Tenants’ unions, free kitchens/food pantries etc. are great safety nets to support communities and make people less afraid of mobilizing general strikes and other more targeted direct action and at the same time if a true revolutionary vanguard party somehow manifests within the imperial core (something I am skeptical of ever being possible in my lifetime) you bet your ass I would join that effort in a heartbeat.
:left-unity-2:
I think it’s weird since in the US anti authoritarianism and pro socialism are the same thing. Like, if you look at Marx, he talks a lot about humans being everything they can, democracy, and even freedom at times. Lenin was addressing a scenario where if there wasn’t a centralized army and coerced production, the revolution would fail, but honestly that’s not what Marx was talking about. In the US, where the centralized army is the big bad and labor is already centralized and coercive we have the luxury of fighting directly for socialism.
no, Makhno should’ve been BTFO’d because his bands were doing pogroms & not assisting with the anti-imperialist war in the West
Lionizing Makhno is just comporting oneself with anti-communist Western Sovietology, not with the facts on the ground of the revolution
How does someone get the idea that a philosophy that has mutual aid as one of its core principles is “individualistic”?
Anarchism is a broad descriptor and a good portion of recorded anarchist thought has been quite explicitly individualist. Our task in responding to these kinds of Marxist criticisms is not to deny this fact, but to suss out what is meant by “bourgeois individualism,” understand if and how it differs from individualist anarchism, and describe how such a philosophy is compatible with – or even necessary for – communism.
Of course meme politics allows no such discussion to take place, but if we want “left unity,” we have to progress past this discursive mode of binary positions and intellectual siege mentality.
It’s a lot easier for rad libs to call themselves anarchists than MLs because the propaganda against anarchists isn’t as intense and the punk movement kinda made it cool.
I vote to keep the term anarkiddie, but not use it as a derogatory term for anarchists, just a derogatory term for radlibs larping as anarchists because they like the Dead Kennedy’s.
Average Hollywood writer’s understanding of anarchism.
I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on it, because this is a question I’m currently grappling with.
Revolution means compromising on your ideals. Malatesta argued that revolutionary violence is self defense against structural violence. So while anarchism is anti violent, it isn’t non violent. He was arguing that we should start from anti violence and then compromise to the degree necessary to realize anarchy.
I think you can take this and apply it to other concepts like “defending the revolution.” You start from a position of no collaboration from the state and no heirarchy and then compromise. Maybe the police want to raid your squat so you buy it and make it a land trust. Maybe the whites want to take back power, so you form a centralized army but use rotating authority and officer elections (as the PKK does and Red Army did during the revolution), or you have permanent officers but they get the same wage, go by first name, come from the ranks, and sleep in the trenches (as with the POUM).
Bonanno said anarchism isn’t a plan to be realized, but a tension where anarchists pull whatever situation they’re in closer to liberty within the constraints of reality.
Tell me this doesn’t describe reddit user though
its hard to not be lib when some mods on anarchist subreddits are literally modding r neolib
ah, you see, 95% of online anarchists aren’t real anarchists, it’s very simple
