LEFT STUMBLES on March 18

My guess is that ANSWER scheduled the protest for that date to try to get those pesky anarchists to not upstage them by having a "breakaway" or other action at the same time as ANSWER's event.

It's still gross, though.

They'll have so many fewer reds to physically evict from the premises of their capitalistic retail opportunity.

Just think of all that extra time in which to listen to "anarchist" political leaders, university professors, and other symbols of resistance to the man, man!!

"This month, the worker's flag is blushing pink."

Easy to do, when you're so damn white.

"My guess is that ANSWER scheduled the protest for that date to try to get those pesky anarchists to not upstage them"

The 2003 Invasion of Iraq began on March 20, consisting primarily of United States and United Kingdom forces; 98% of the forces came from these two countries, although numerous other nations also participated. The 2003 Iraq invasion marked the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the Iraq War. Historically, it is properly referred to as the Third Persian Gulf War, recognizing the 8 year war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s. Prior to the invasion, the United States claimed that Iraq illegally possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and had to be disarmed by force. [1] U.S. president George W. Bush repeatedly claimed that these weapons posed a grave and imminent threat to the United States and its allies. [2][3] UN inspection teams were searching Iraq for these alleged weapons prior to the invasion and were willing to continue, but were forced out by the onset of war in spite of their requests for more time. [4][5]. The US abandoned its failing efforts to get international endorsement for war against Iraq on March 17, 2003 and began the invasion on March 20, 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq

or maybe anarchists dont care about an anti-bush demo, since theyre against all 'leaders', republican, democrat, green, communist, whatever. or perhaps anarchists see through the 'ANSWER', (a front group organized by Stalinists associated with the Workers World Party) and any other self proclaimed 'leaders' of the anti war movemnt, and dont wish to participate in their events.

refuse to be governed. refused to be led.
Cheers!

book sales, not demos, are the answer!

refuse to be governed - buy our shit!

We tried that. It didn't work. Protests are not enough.

now THERE'S a new idea!!

I appreciate this post. I thought the same thing when I heard about what was going on that weekend. I also suspect most of the outrageous sarcasm here is mostly trolling.

As for the person who said they tried demos and they didn't work, please consider the concept of delayed gratification and the fact that goals take time. Every little bit does help and, yes, we also need to step up the pressure, too. I like what Jeff Luers has written about recently -- we need to stop the infighting, work hard and appreciate what others are doing, even if it may not be the path we choose.

Here's to nonhierarchical (is that a word?!) organizing! >;-)

I have been under the impression that the Iraq escalation started on March 20th, 2003. That would be on Monday.

In order for there to be "infighting" there has to be a common "in" from which to fight. The Stalinist leaders of the Popular Front known as ANSWER have no interest in anarchists other than as cannon fodder and/or training targets for political assassination. The anarchists who are smart know this. The bookfair is not just a merchandising event, but a chance to anarchists and the anarcho-curious to get together and hang out, meet and get to know each other. While there are lots of dollars getting exchanged, there are many more unmediated interactions that happen; most anarchists are still poor after all, and the most popular commodities are stickers and t-shirts (free to 15 bucks) rather than books (from 5-50 bucks). Only a cynical anti-anarchist or someone who never attended the bookfair would denounce it as a buying-only event. It is also my suspicion that since smart anarchists and Stalinists don't like each other very much, there wasn't any kind of pre-event communication. ANSWER always has their demos on Saturdays; the bookfair is always on a Saturday, and the schedule is decided based on the availability of the venue, and I'm positive that the City administration didn't know about the ANSWER demo before they put the bookfair in their schedule. Personally I'll be happy with fewer demo-junkies at the bookfair; keep the activitist leaders trawling for converts away from us.

"I have been under the impression that the Iraq escalation started on March 20th, 2003. That would be on Monday."

You cant organize a really large protest on a weekday so it makes sense ANSWER chose the day they did for that reason since its the closest weekend to when the war started.

The main effect of a mass protest is to pull the mainstream into open opposition to the war. Some of ANSWER's Communist PR stuff may alienate the mainstream but they have a really good organization on the ground to bring out a diverse group of people. The bookfair is about half political and about half cultural with many tables having little overt political material and a lot of stuff related to subculture/punk culture. The main crowd thats drawn in is pretty homogenous to a single subculture that the bulk of the "general public" doesnt belong to. While there isnt one norm to the population (so diversity is needed at mass antiwar events across even subcultures) I do wonder if not having so much of the alternative punk scene at the antiwar march wont make for better TV images since it will make the march look a bit more serious and more of something working people from noncountercultural backgrounds can relate to. Those who still support the war tend not to look like hippes or punks so a giant protest with people who war suporters can relate to seems like a good thing and I doubt the Anarchist Bookfair will take away much from the more centrist elements of the ANSWER crowd.

Strangely the ideology of the former WWP people who now run ANSWER is much more different than what the "general public" believes in than what most people at the Book Fair believe in, but strangely in terms of effectiveness it doesnt matter much. When they have Stalinist type groups on stage that can alientae people but they do usually have a somewhat diverse set of speakers and when the protest is large nobody can really hear the speakers anyways and the march is more like a giant parade with each contingent being the show with ANSWER speakers being much less of the focus. Anarchists may hold the personal view of some ANSWER leaders as dangerous ("when they take over...") but ANSWER only has organizational power for diverse protests and no ideological or poliical power so there is absolutely nothing to worry about. ANSWER will never take over the US San Francisco or even your neighborhood and force their views on you. They will never take up arms and shoot anyone. They will probably never even run for office and win a local election to a city council or school board. People respect ANSWER because they are really good at what they do; organizing a large protests is not easy and for all the complaints people have, few other groups (aside from maybe NION and UFP) have pulled off a protest of this size in recent years and they do it in a way that allows groups with very diverse political views to feel comfortible (they have alientaed some Anarchists and some supporters of Israel but thats about it).

"Only a cynical anti-anarchist or someone who never attended the bookfair would denounce it as a buying-only event."

It doesn't take all that to see that you are building these "unmediated" relations AT A MARKETPLACE!! It's the CENTRAL THEME of the event. Also, the largest displays? That's right, the BOOKSELLERS that financially underpin several people's ROLES IN THE COMMUNITY.

Furthermore, the event has been known to physically remove people of divergent ideologies, for attempting to enter that marketplace and, well, sell their printed matter.

It all starts looking like holier-than-thou hypocrisy..... at very best.

D*mn right we do. It's part of our job.

No, Bolshevik parasites can *not* freeload our efforts to provide a meeting place for anarchists. We put a lot of work into making this thing happen. We do it to promote anarchism, not its enemies. Anarchists who wish to be with other anarchists in an anarchist setting can rest assured that they can do so at the Fair, without fear of being accosted by some bullsh*t spouting, paper hawking, wannabe puppet master. That's part of the service we provide. If it's not a service of which you would like to avail yourself, feel free to stay away. It's a big world. There's plenty of space. Go somewhere else.

Nessie... didnt other people working on the Book Fair warn you that your crazy talk was alienating people from the bookfair. Its one thing if you post under your own name but writing angry screeds and signing it as being from the entire collective seems a bit authoritarian since you claiming you speak for them.

>The main effect of a mass protest is to pull the mainstream into open opposition to the war.

If only that were true. But history has prove otherwise. The mainstream's opposition to the war is far from open. They check little boxes on poll questionnaires, but that's even less effective than protesting.

Their growing opposition itself is not the result of watching ANSWERoids protest. It's the result of watching America lose the war. If America was still winning the war, mainstream Americans would still back the effort. They aren't opposed to war, per se. They're just opposed to losing.

An ad hominem is not a rebuttal.

I wasnt trying to rebut anything just pointing out that its pretty hypocritical for you to talk about authorianism given the way you portray the Book Fair is being run.

For example:
"And no, they can't rent a table next year unless they change this immediately, apologize in public and expel the person (probably Fitt) who was responsible."
http://www.indybay.org/news/hidden.php?id=1804531#1804598

That kinda sounds Maoist. Were you proposing this Fitt guy have to get up in front of the whole book fair and denounce himself as a counterrevolutionary if he didnt want to be expelled?

whosoever practices it.

you're right, nessie-- it's entirely independent of particular personality (though for some, it may well be a personality trait-- even a defining one).

empirical evidence, ahoy!!

>>The main effect of a mass protest is to pull the mainstream into open opposition to the war.
>If only that were true. But history has prove otherwise.

History doesnt prove things like this, mass protests have had major real effects in countries which were on the verge of change (the Ukraine, Haiti, ...)
Mass antiwar protest have a subtle but important effect here in that they create a sense of momemtum that can turn slight opposition to hardened opposition.
Look at public opinion polls before and after Sheehan's protest and you can see a marked shift. ANSWER protests dont get as much coverage but it gets opposition to the war back into the news and thats always a good thing.

"If America was still winning the war, mainstream Americans would still back the effort. They aren't opposed to war, per se. They're just opposed to losing."
Maybe and maybe not. Remember, that the majority of conservatives opposed the US intervention in Serbia despite the US not having shown any signs of losing there. Defining winning and losing in Iraq is a bit complicated since the goals are so unclear; Christian conservatives would see the US as losing if the government bans Chrsitian groups even if it allows US companies and bases, neoCons will see the US as losing if Iraq becomes friendsly with Iran even if it becomes peaceful and democratic, and the bulk of conservativs will see the US as losing as long as Iraq results in more money being spent than the war takes in....

"They aren't opposed to war, per se. They're just opposed to losing."


as if the long suffering people of Iraq give a shit about why the USA eventually pulls out.

I'm not even sure it was Fitt. I guessed it might be him because his pictures were used. Maybe it was somebody else. I don't know for sure. That's why i said "probably."

But whoever it was, (s)he owes me a personal apology, in person, to my face, ASAP. (S)he altered my text without my permission. Worse, (s)he replaced it with misinformation, and refused to correct it until I started posting pointers to it so that people all over the net could see how fundamentally dishonestly they were behaving. Then and only then did (s)he correct at least some of the misinformation. Even then, (s)he changed the misinformation, or most of it anyway, only grudgingly. A say "some" of the misinformation because the fact remains that the text I posted was removed and replaced with something else. This is fundamentally dishonest and morally reprehensible. To cover it up is even worse. And that's what (s)he did.

This is not acceptable behavior, no matter who did it. It's wrong. It's dishonest. It's immoral. It's disgusting, a disgrace to journalism and to activism. Whoever did it should be ashamed of themselves and they should apologize.

It was done by *somebody* with an admin password to Indybay. I know this because that's how the software works. Only someone with an admin password could have done it. So unless and until they tell me which specific individual was responsible, I hold them all responsible. Even the ones who didn't actually do it are guilty because it is their collective responsibility to insure that things like this don't happen. So far, they have failed miserably at their responsibility, and not just in this case, either. This site is covered with dishonest crap that the admin crew here has not seen fit to correct. It's a disgrace second only to the prevalence of racist propaganda they publish here. It's a close second, too, very close.

Changing my text without my permission is no different than steaming open a snail mail letter I wrote, replacing it with one I didn't write, sealing the envelope back up and putting it back in the mail. It is fundamentally dishonest and totally inexcusable. It's not the first time this has happened, either. But it is the last straw.

me, myself, and mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

Thanks for elucidating your worldview for us so clearly, ness.

You posted something about the Bookfair that looked like:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804546.php
and it was replaced with an ad for the Book Fair that looked like:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804531.php

Since you didnt post the original thing under your name and its wasnt a personal opinion peice dont you think the one with graphics and text and not just a single link is better promotional material for the Book Fair?

Do you see any other posts on this site that are just a link that are not hidden? If you are going to post to a site you might as well include some text and not just a promotional link to another site.

Assuming the Book Fair isnt just a Nessie front group, I would guess that most of those involved with teh Book Fair would side with an ad looking like:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804531.php
over one looking like:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804546.php

If you posted with your own name and are offended something got changed thats one thing, but when you are posting as the Book Fair Commitee your speaking for the Book Fair and I doubt that most of those on the Commitee are happy about the fuss you have created over this.

Would a leader of ANSWER get this crazy over an ad for their protest getting changed to include more information? If one speaker name was off on the replaced text would they have gone on a rampage posting hundreds of comments all over the place talking about disinformation?

They wouldnt for two reasons.
1. They are smarter about public relations than Anarchists and know that promoting an event isnt compatible with making threats over something as minor as an extra name on a speakers list.
2. They are less authoritian than some Anarchist leaders and are less worried about controlling everything related to their event. They may have asked people not to engage in breakaway marchs but they have never tried to micromanage promotions in this way and always post info to Indymedia sites and not just links to increase hits on ANSWER websites.

"They are less authoritian than some Anarchist leaders and are less worried about controlling everything related to their event."

Now, why is that?

Is that because commies aren't in denial about their leadership issues?

ANSWER leaders have more control over their internal group but dont try to have much control over their events. They allow a more diverse set of speakers than one would find at an Anarchist organized event but also they can keep unstable people like Nessie out of positions of power within their group. ANSWER's internal lack of democratic structure would be a concern if they were actually aiming for real power rather than just a group doing the leg work for others to protest. As things are their lack of internal demoracy probably keeps things saner than they would be if they were really as open as people want them to be.

That said, the unofficial heirachies within the Anarchist community do get annoying and sometimes do seem worse than those in openly authoritarain groups. But really the problem isnt that organizing is secretive and not open but that those in the "in group" abuse their positions of power for personal reasons and the lack of democracy isnt used to expidite a smoother event but instead to make those in the "in group" feel important. Part of this could be due to the unofficial nature of the hierarchy; when open leaders apear to be unstable and make bad decisions groups fail right away but with less official leadership structures it's easier for a group to be lead by people that nobody would ever choose to follow. I remember one Anarchist protest against Newsom that ended up at a synoguge and the crowd dispersed when they realized where the march was going, but since it was unclear who knew where the march was going, nobody ever knew if the march destination was purposefully counterproductive, a mistake or a malicious attempt to undermine the movement trying to expose Newsom's gentrification policies.

The idea of not having leaders or hierarchies is a good one, but having unofficial and nontransparent organizing make groups easy to infilitrate and/or easy to be taken over by those with agendas that most in the group woudlnt agree with (either due to political differences, tactical differences or just due to the person taking leadership being completely insane) The Book Fair is better than most events in that at least most attending know the subgroup organizing it. It is a little distrubing that Nessie seems to be in charge of public relations when he creates conflict with so many different people he talks to, but hopefully the Book Fair Committee can learn from that and realize that Nessie isnt suited for outreach related activities for future Book Fairs.

Your concise summation of leadership issues and the organizational problems they imply is the best analysis I've seen of the phenomenon in a while.

You might have just made my day!

One thing I probably should add. For most that attend ANSWER protests, ANSWER is an unofficial hierarchy and most dont realize the views of those in organizing positions. This mainly doesnt mater since ANSER only slightly abuses its role and may get a few speakers with WWP type views speaking but rarely try to promote that agenda much. If you look at NION you can see why worries about front groups dont matter much. NION may be a RCP front group but as a group it is basically a centrist antiwar group while the RCP is a Maoist revolutionary group. NION has been around for years and I reallly doubt too many people have gotten involved with NION and then become Maoists.If NION started promoting Maoism it would probably quickly disappear. Its easy to see front groups as underhanded and giving people with secret agendas power, but the power it gives the groups is limited to what they do when they stay on front group message and thus its probably safe to take NION and ANSWER at face value and not really worry about the Maoist or Stalinist agendas of some of the organizers. While most of the crowd may not know the ideology of the organizers of ANSWER and NION protests people have learned from experience to trust the organizers (to a point) and that trust makes sense through past experience. ANSWER provides toilets, picks march routes that are not overly long for those who get tried easilly and promote their events in ways that allow contingents to voice their own messages without too much interference. The speakers are a bit biased in the direction of the ANSWER organizers but there is rarely anything that crazy; in face the speakers are direrse enoough that the views ANSWER holds that Anarchists are most offended by are rarely even noticed by people who attend the protests who dont know about the WWP or Socialism and Liberation.

Sorry for being a bit less consise but the hostility Anarchists have towards ANSWER has troubled me for awhile. ANSWER was a bit hostile to breakway marchs but breakaway marchs only worked because oif the marchs ANSWER organized and truthfully nobody else had the energy to do the organizing ANSWER did to get the large crowds (aside from promotions there is a need for toitlets, first aid stations etc...) When ANSWER and the WWP party were closer I was a bit bothered by the support the WWP had for Soviet actions in E Europe but with that in the distant past and their new N Korean support mainly seeming to be anti-invasion (more than real support) they dont really bother me. Ramsey Clark may also be a bit annoying in his new defense role for Saddam but its not like hes being promoted as a leader at these marchs and one hears more talk from clearly nonCommunist reformists (and even local poilticans) from stage than from anyone holding the views of the WWP. ANSWER may not be the answer as some Anarchist love chanting at protests but I dont think anyone sees them as an answer, just as a group that somehow has the energy to get mass protests in many cities at the same time (and the groups chanting "ANSWER is not the ANSWER" dont seem to have anything better to contribute as an answer aside from breakaway marchs that are clearly dependent on the main march for the way they take place)

(1.) It wasn't changed to include "more" information. It was changed to to include *wrong* information. The wrong information was only corrected after I started posting pointers to it so the whole world could see what was happening, and then it was only changed grudgingly.

(2.) That it was *changed* at all is the problem. If whoever did this wanted to post their own announcement, they could have done that without changing what I posted. To use admin powers to change the text of somebody else's post is deeply and fundamentally dishonest. That they have done something like this at all is disgusting, but that they have done it more than once is simply appalling. It's part of an ongoing pattern of deception that disgraces the Bay Area activist community, and discredits Indymedia as a credible source of information. It's bad journalism and worse politics.


>Since you didnt post the original thing under your name and its wasnt a personal opinion peice dont you think the one with graphics and text and not just a single link is better promotional material for the Book Fair?

(1.) No, I don't. The link I posted led to better graphics, more of them and above all, to *correct* information. But that's not the issue. The issue is that it was changed at all. Whether the change was, in *some* people's opinion, for the better or not, is irrelevant.

(2.) Either way, it was not Indybay's decision to make. It was the Book Fair Committee's decision. We all approved the post at:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/1724963_comment.php

We all approved the posting of links to it on other sites, rather than wastefully reposting the whole thing every time. That was our decision. I was tasked to implement it. That was our decision, too.

Someone at Indybay saw fit to overrule our decisions. They didn't even have the common, human decency to ask first. This is not acceptable behavior.


>something as minor as an extra name on a speakers list.

(1.) An "extra name on a speakers list" is not the issue. The issue is that somebody at Indybay saw fit to over rule the Book Fair Committee's decision, without even asking first, and then when they were called on it, they first attempted to conceal what they had done, they they argued about it. They're still arguing about it. This is not minor. This is a major breach of trust on their part. Worse, it's part of a long standing pattern of dishonesty on their part. They've done stuff like this before, and worse, much worse. They are fundamentally dishonest people.

(2.) They initially replaced correct information with wrong information. How this differs from sabotage is difficult to discern. The Book Fair Committee was nice enough to invite Indybay to participate in the fair. This is how they repay our kindness? Pah-leeeze. This is, at best, inexcusably bad manners, and an unforgivable breach of personal and political trust. It's also very bad politics and even worse journalism.

(3.) That it was *changed* at all is the problem. No change, however small, is a minor issue if it is done against our will. That's the issue here, not what was changed, or even what it was changed to, but that it was changed at all.


>The Book Fair is better than most events in that at least most attending know the subgroup organizing it.

The Book Fair is better than most events because of how it is organized, not because of who organizes it. It is our process, not our personalities, that make the Fair what it is. What it is, is pretty da*mn good. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The fair is an outstanding success and getting better every year. If we were going about this wrong, that wouldn't be true.

If you don't like how we do it, feel free to put on your own event. Better still, show up at Book Fair Committee meetings on a regular basis, help do the work, and you can have input into how it is done.

But if all you want to do is complain and criticize, but you aren't willing to do any work, then neither we, nor anyone in their right mind, is going to take what you say seriously. This is a fact of life. It comes up every year. Every year, people complain and criticize, but do no work. They weren't taken seriously last year, the year before, or any year, nor will they be in the future, nor should they be, ever. If you want to be taken seriously, show up and work. If you are not willing to do the work it takes to make this thing happen, your complaints fall on deaf ears, as well they should.

The Fair is run by the people who work on it. In our version of the ideal world, *everything* would be run by the people who work on it. That's our vision. That's the anarchist vision. If that is not your vision, go away. You don't belong in an anarchist project, any anarchist project. Worker self-management is the heart, soul and essence of what anarchism is all about. If you reject worker self-management as an organizing principle, you're not an anarchist. If you're not an anarchist, you don't belong in an anarchist project. Go join some Bolshie front group where somebody else makes your decisions for you. You'll be much happier there.

We wouldn't be. We make our own decisions. No bosses, no masters.

How many Nessies are there, anyways?

Notice how Nessie just generally stirs things, but then only replies to parts of the results?

That's because he's not honest about his agenda.

Someone changed a one line post with just a link and nothing in it about the Book Fair into an actual ad to the Book Fair. Nobody changed the post on your site and the post on Indybay was updated when someone finally posted the correct speakers list rather than just denouncing the list without explaining why it was wrong.

You reposted your one line post and its still up on indybay without changes at
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804546.php
(I think it was hidden for a bit though). I doubt anyone will find it or read it since its not under the local section since one line posts dont really make sense in the local section. I do notice that your repost to infoshop did include the Book Fair info and a link to your site since as with Indybay they would not have highlighted something that was only one line long.

You can yell and scream about how
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804546.php
is such a great post that its offensive for it to have been changed to
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804531.php
because
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804546.php
took so long for you to write and your views were censored
but I doubt you will get much sympathy from anyone since
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1804546.php
clearly took about 30 seconds to post and your were just too lazy to include the Book Fair information in the post or only wanted it on your personal website for some reason that the broader Book Fair Commitee likely wouldnt agree with.

He just wants things he can point at Indybay and scream about.

That much is patently obvious.

The fact that this site tolerates his posts at all, whereas Nessie just censors everyone he doesn't like off of his site, speaks volumes.

OMG, this totally reminded me that this is one of the easiest opportunities to finally photograph that Zombietime guy. How could he stay away from a Ward event. It's more difficult at demos where thousands of people are spread all over the place. But here, there actually are relatively few photographers, so each photographer should photo each other in a circle, and then everyone heads home and determines if or who it might be. By the way, some people react very negatively to photographers, but this isn't legitimate in public, and no one does anything risky at the fair, and if you are AWOL from the army or something, they still won't be able to pick you out if you wear the standard bookfair uniform.

http://www.zombietime.com/churchill_in_bay_area/churchill_sf_anarchist_bookfair_march_26_2005/

I would even enter the anarchist marketplace, for more of the likes of you.

Rock on!

>Someone changed a one line post with just a link and nothing in it about the Book Fair into an actual ad to the Book Fair.


One more time. What was changed is not the issue. The issue is that it was changed at all. It was not Indybay's decision to make. They made it anyhow. This is an inexcusable breach of trust, to say nothing of etiquette. They know this. That's why they don't even attempt to deny it. Instead, they attempt to distract you with irrelevancies. What was changed is irrelevant. That's not the issue. That it was changed at all is the issue. To change or not to change was not Indybay's decision to make. They know this, That's why they aren't claiming it was. They had no right to overrule the Book Fair's decision, especially without even asking first. To have done so anyway was inexcusable. It's bad politics and worse journalism. Worse, it's part of an ongoing pattern. They've done it before. In all likelihood, they'll do it again. This is not acceptable behavior.

"It was not Indybay's decision to make."

Aren't you the guy screaming for a much more aggressive editorial policy at all indymedia's, not just your own?

" The issue is that it was changed at all. It was not Indybay's decision to make. "

You would probably hide a one line post with just a link to this site. Nobody put words in your mouth since you are not the Book Fair Comittee and they did not agree to your flamewars on this site even though you use their name as your author name in your posts. In fact I seem to recall you agreed to not create this type of a problem when they agreed on the promotional message on your site....

Chairman Nessie would prefer controversy to simple promotion and rather talk about the Book Fair to revolve around Nessie rather than to have people atcually focus on Anarchism and books. The Book Fair is all about promoting Chairman Nessie and if an ad for the Book Fair doesnt link to sf.indy than its disinformation that must be from someone evil since everything has to revolve around Chairman Nessie. Has Chairman Nessie purged the rest of the Book Fair Comittee or are they just too afraid to speak up out of fear that Nessie will slap them around for daring to challenge his authority?

"They had no right to overrule the Book Fair's decision"

Who here thinks there actually is a Book Fair Comittee or is it just someting Nessie made up in his own head to make himself feel important?

The Book Fair isnt about Nessie and he isnt that involved. Don't let him scare you away since he usually doesnt even show up since hes too paranoid to be there in person. Sure he works at Bound Together and is a bit involved in organizing the Fair but if you show up and chekc things out and listen to speakers you will quickly forget it has anything to do with him.

Its a great event and you shouldnt let people like him scare you away.

...for ideological differences, by anarchist "comrade" thugs.

Which seems to be something of a standing book "fair" policy, an unwritten rule enforced arbitrarily by a self-appointed, unaccountable leadership.

Nessie is very unlikely to actually be at the Fair and its very unlikely anyone will physically remove you unless you are really harassing someone for no apparent reason.

...to some flavor or another of commie paper-seller. we all know the type.

But forcible eviction from the premesis is not only totalitarian, but to the best of my knowledge, it has never been renounced by the book "fair" people. That makes it standing policy-- it *could* happen, and there is no telling when or to whom or why, and no authority to either hold accountable or to which to appeal.

You can't just shoo it off because it didn't happen to you.

Nessie could also stab someone because hes insane but its unlikely

Nessie can at least be addressed as an issue.

Therefore, CAN happen.

Nessie is rarely at the fair. Maybe he staffs the store then or already has seen all the books.
Security is complex. You sort of need something in case a crazy enemy of anarchist books finally decides to come violate the space (which hasn't happened yet I don't think). But it isn't easy to assign that task to people, or to just let things take care of themselves. Once when Michael Moore was in town, some friends asked him to facilitate their Nordstrom's bathe-in, because Nordstroms had opposed a washing facility for the homeless, saying there were enough public toilets around downtown. So we had people come with floss and wash towels, and the organizer turned to me and said 'oh, and your task can be security, for if anyone tries to interfere with him when Moore is at the microphone'. And sure enough, a person who looked drunk or mentally ill started climbing up the concrete structure to where he was standing, and I didn't know what to say to him, or whether to push him down. My Safeway security guard housemate has the difficult task of spotting likely shoplifters... where the store wants them to regularly catch people, yet it is really bad if you're wrong and demand to search someone who hasn't stolen anything. Yet regularly, he is able to notice if someone had liquor or batteries in their basket earlier but not when they get to the register.

I'm talking about physical eviction of someone over an ideological difference.

There is a very specific case, and issue, in question. This is not some demonstration-theory question. This is about whether reds can sell their papers at the book mall without being gooned by a gang of anarcho-thought-police.

Alas, that question very much stands.

" There is a very specific case, and issue, in question. "

Can you describe this specific case since I have never heard of such a thing happening. Last year some Anarchist kids threw water ballons at some RCP people selling papers outside but that wasnt a matter of the bookfair evicting people and I dont think the RCP people even left after that.

Seems to have gone down the virtual memory hole.

I'm not sure how documented the incident is. However, I do remember that it happened.

I'll keep working on it, while perhaps some honest soul will get up and tell us what happened, even if it's not specifically flattering.

Notice, also, nessie didn't dispute it-- but justified it.

different place and actors, same damned thing....

...apparently concerned with the relative (de)merits of bolsheviks vs NAMBLA.

we dont make this stuff up, folks.... just regurgitate it!!

Well, the nambla discussion is intact, but any actual description of the communist expulsion (if you will) seem to have been um excluded from the record, leaving only responses to any such descriptions.


This is why censorship er overzealous editorship is the problem. It creates an incomplete historical record, which impedes discussions that might lead to change.

Serving only.... that's right. Entrenched power. Welcome to it, anarchist style.

at least indybay lets you search!

that feature seems to have been removed by um sf-dot-indymedia. searching for past news is probably counter to journalistic ethics or something...

"searching for past news is probably counter to journalistic ethics or something..."

Searching also puts a lot of load on the DB which is why it gets taken off a lot of indymedia sites. You can use google to search the sites and it does a better job than the straightforward DB searchs though.

In terms of the Communist group getting expelled violently you have that link someone had above to something over 4 years ago but that wasnt the SF Book Fair so perhaps it never happened here? A Green Anarachy group did get expelled a few years ago here for not paying for a table but thats a little different that gettng expelled over ideology.

or perhaps it's just not documented.

or perhaps whatever documentation existed has been destroyed.

mind you, nessie didn't deny it, he defended it.

as you can see here, it is of some relevance:

Bolsheviks are not welcome to peddle their papers at the Book Fair, nor will they be permitted to. That's how it is. Deal with it.

Do you mean the copious Zionist spam, or the guy who gives everybody the finger?

We really needed someone to tell us to do what we were already doing.

My God, where the Hell would we be without you?

...I mean the anticommie ranting on the part of one particular book fair committee member.... towards the top...

Bolsheviks suck. It is not possible to say so too loud or too often. They are evil, treacherous, murdering thieves. Blood drips from their fangs.

After well over an hour of solid net searching, nothing turns up aside from indybay sites. In fact, it was an interesting experiment-- try it sometime, and you'll find:

* a good 80% or more of coverage is by anarchists, and rah-rah in nature. Much of it was even just flyer-level info.

* maybe another 10-15% is right wingers intent on hating anarchos. (A good part of that, moreover, seems to be specifically Ward Churchill-induced, at least in terms of the Fair being noticed at all. Once there, of course, the haters had a field day, in the face of all that sheer weirdness...)

* that leaves about 5-10% of "I was there" type incidental mentions, along the lines of "I'm so wacky, I went to San Francisco to see an Anarchist Book Fair. They had anarchists there!"

Exceptions:

One article in SF Chronicle.
Promotional blurbs: in things like Z magazine, the SF Bay Guardian, and radical email list archives.

It would seem that the book market.... er, fair, is playing to its own crowd.

Among other things, this implies an near-incredible opportunity for a sort of sympathetic-but-disinterested coverage of left news and culture. Everything out there either seems rah-rah or polemically opposed........ hate to hafta include indymedia in that, but hey, some of us at least are trying.

FWIW, it would seem that not even the commies were that intent on bitching about ketting kicked out. Chances are, the Anarchist Book Market just wasn't that important, the number of shoppers notwithstanding.

Just another street corner or college campus, in the end.

The peace rally is worth one round of the book tables, which is all I plan to do. That may take up to an hour, if it is not raining. If it is raining, there will not be much of a rally. I am certainly not staying for speeches. As to the anarchist book fair, that is sometimes worth one round of the book tables, but if one is not interested in going to it for that, it can be skipped. This round of book tables also takes only 1 hour at most.

For students, any weekend in March is a weekend to study. For parents of young children and/or with other family responsibilities, it is the time to attend to those family responsibilities. For other people, if it is not raining, it is time to do spring planting in the garden, paint the house, also known as improving property values, and the like. For others, it is time to work at a second job or cultivate cultural interests.

These political events are just a small part of what goes on during any given weekend, especially in major metropolitan areas like the Bay Area.

Most of the 750,000 people residing in San Francisco, and most of the 7 million people living in the 9 counties of the Bay Area have no intention of attending either event. We live in a country where only 25% of the adults have any concept of the Bill of Rights, although they certainly heard about it during their school years. In other words, politics is simply not on most people's minds or on their activity agenda. Watching TV is: 50% of American adults know the characters in the garbage TV shows like the Simpons. The same is true for the football stars, movie stars, ad nauseum. Those of us who put politics at the top of our agenda are a minority.

Thus, there is absolutely no conflict between the book fair and the peace rally. You can easily attend both on the same day with time to spare.

i am convinced after reading all these posts that this person named nessie, or chairman nessie or whatever does not exist. i think someone is making that up so as to criticize anarchists. thank you to the person who clarified the situation for me who wrote under the name of bookfair committee. i have never been to the anarchist bookfair before, but i am going to check it out this year and decide for myself what i think, rather than even listen to all the junk posts on this page.

One: I am not Nessie (who does exist; I have known him for more than 20 years).
Two: I am not on the Bookfair Committee (and there is one, you idiots).
Three: at the first bookfair I assisted in the ejection of the Spartacist League zombies who were trying to take advantage of the generally good faith and humor of most anarchists who don't know their history and that of the homicidal intentions and actions of Leninists toward anarchists.
Four: I would help do it again in a second. That's called self-defense.
Five: I disagree vehemently with many of the opinions and analyses of Nessie, but I would help him and other anarchists with whom I disagree eject any fucking Leninist scumbag at any anarchist organized event any time any place. That's called mutual aid.
Six: if any of you authoritarian assholes tries to disrupt an anarchist organized event, you will be very very sorry. Nessie and I will kick your stupid creepy asses. That's called self-organization.
Seven: see you on the barricades motherfuckers.

"...eject any fucking Leninist scumbag at any anarchist organized event any time any place. That's called mutual aid."

1) That is what the sign says (or something a lot like it), over the crypt door at the mausoleum of the left. But maybe these are some of those new fangled post-left type anarchists. What-evah.

2) So much for the theory that if there isn't documentation, it never happened (though I thought we figured that one out in the 20th century, and tragically late even then).

3) The (further-)above poster is absolutely right. The real-life solution, is to get a life.

And leave this shit for the crypt-ologists...

"...eject any fucking Leninist scumbag at any anarchist organized event any time any place. That's called mutual aid."

Anarchist/Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist there isnt any real difference. Ideology and views about who was or wasnt right in some war decades ago reflects a lot less on ones politics than what what thinks of whats going on today and how things today should be dealt with. The US is killing hundeds of thousands in Iraq and poverty and inequality are growing everywhere while the public is basically apathetic, but ideologes spend their energy fighting among each other over whether it is better if one wears red or black socks after the mythical revolution (which has always had way too many similarities to the Christian end time myths to suit my tastes).

Ask most Communists and Anarchists about their political beliefs and what comes back is vague and more a matter of group loyalty than anything else. Unfortunately while group loyalty leads to long lasting small political organizations it works against growth and Communist and Anarchist groups always remain the same size in terms of their core group (no matter how many show up at a given protest)

If the goal really isnt to change the world but to have a fun social club where one can hang out with friends and talk politics as others might discuss soap operas, why would you want your group to grow. Anarchist theory discussions are just more fun when its with your friends rather than really about convincing the world of your ideas. Communist organizations seem to aim outwards more overtly (possibly since the unrealistic idea of vanguardism is less elitist than the unrealistic idea of requiring everyone to join your group on your terms) but if you look at any ISO group on a college campus or the core group of Maoists at your local Maoist bookstore, the core group stays the same since outsiders are...well outsiders... and one cant play politics in quite as fun a way with new ideas unexpectedly appearing to break the consensus.

Sectarians always point abroad and say things liike "in [cool country in the latest anarchist zine] Anarchists would never work with reds since they murdered us in [war from years ago]" But Anarchist groups are no more serious anywhere else than in the US and its really a "grass is always greener" type thing or perhaps wishful thinking of kids who like pretending to be the characters in the comic books they read ("Dude, I heard there were are REAL Ninja Turtles in Argentina"). Yes, Leninist groups are fighting in Colombia and Maoists in Nepal but you really have to look at the local politics of those countries to understand whats going on and it bears little similarity to the groups that claim similar ideology in the US (Nepal will never become Maoist but people hate monarachy.... Colombia is esentially ruled by warlords and the FARC is just one more local militia...).

One could claim that Anarchism is just a grouping of people with like minded views and not an ideology (although Ive heard Evangelicals claim that they are not a religion in a similar fashion). That may be true for people like Chomsky (who isnt an Anarchist in the sectarian sense) but the comments above reflect a strong sense of group identity in the Anarchist movement where hatred against Communist groups is just one more patch to sew onto ones Anarchist uniform to prove to ones friends that one is legit. People often feel like they need to belong to something which can reinforce identity but when you mix that with politics its a deadly mix. You cant change the world for the better when the group you really care about is your clique (especially when that clique usually lacks the diversity of even the local community).

Im sure the Book Fair will be fun and the antiwar protest will help being in a few mainstream people into antiwar organizing. My hope would be that the military families groups can use the events for networking since they seem the most likely to be able to effect opinion to end the war. If many Anarchists dont show up for the antiwar march, it doesnt really matter; the breakaway march thing was getting a bit self destructive so maybe its a good thing.

Sectarianism and group nationalisms (like Anarchism, Maoism, La Rouchism ....) work against organizing but while they may ultimately alienate their self imposed boundaries also make them essentially harmless to the real radical and militants actually trying to change the world. Kicking Communists out of an Anarchist event may be offensive to some but its really about the same as kicking people dressed like Medieval knights out of a Civil War reenactment, or kicking Star Trek fans out of a Star Wars convention. Nobody should take offense, except perhaps that small group of people who actually think Anarchism is about politics (and even then its just a word and an overused one at that).

This statement betrays such complete ignorance that nothing else this person says can ever be taken seriously, unless and until they educate themselves.

"Easy to do, when you're so damn white."

You say that like it's a bad thing.

where anarchists and some leninists fought fascists and some other leninists?

yeah, that's a real relevant example to 2006 california.

"yep" above is right, this is all football-teamism, and about being holier than thou.

All those anarchist-reeducation camps that the eee-vil-Leninist Sandinistas set up. Very famous. Don't you know your history?

Want a more recent example? In 1986, in San Francisco, some anarchists organized a city wide, two day demo called "No Business As Usual." It was based on a similar event in London called "Stop the City" that a local anarchist named Hillary had happen to witness.

Foolishly, and against my personal advice, the RCP was allowed to participate. They sat five feet away, looked us straight in the eye and promised to follow the rules of engagement we all, they too, had consensed upon.

It was a lie. They didn't. The did the exact opposite. people got hurt. others got busted.

F*ck the RCP. Fuck Bolsheviks in general. They're lying, back stabbing thieves. That have *always* used anarchists as pawns and cannon fodder. Never trust a Bolshie. They *will* betray you. They always do, every single time.

Nicaragua is a prime case where the US government used splits in the Left to effect mainstream public opinion.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (who was at the Book Fair last year) has a pretty good description of what happened in her latest book "Blood on the Border"
see
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/jacobs281205.html
http://www.southendpress.org/2005/items/7417/Prologue

"Dunbar-Ortiz writes about this aspect of the US contra war, too. She details the attempts by various elements of the American Indian Movement (AIM) to discredit her by repeating propaganda contrived in the CIA counterintelligence offices or just by calling her a leftist. Other attempts -- including one signed onto (rather ironically) by Ward Churchill that called her "Indianness" into question and another by Nation writer Penny Lernoux that attacked the Sandinistas with as much vehemence as Ronald Reagan ever mustered"

Negroponte created a fake massacre and used this to create outrage against the Sandanistas within AIM and then since the left had a hard time challenging such nationalist groups that can rely on white guilt, others bought into the lie.

It's probably not worth challenging Ward directly at the bookfair based off the new proof Dunbar-Ortiz has in the form of FOIA documents since the war is over and its now in the governments interest to keep preying on divisions.

Its always weird to see people like Ward at Anarchist events since his politics is all over the place. It woiuld be easy for a Communist mad at the Book Fair to turn and ask why a man who fought on the same side as the Contras is honored whereas local socialist groups that are at most annoying are seen as "the enemy" by some (as you can see in a few comments above). But the sad part if that Ward isnt on the same side as the CIA and Contras and was tricked by Negroponte and used by the government. While others in AIM may claim he knew he was working for the CIA, he probably at least believed the lies about thousands of dead Miskito Indians and chose to ignore the signs at the time that no massacres ever occured (as is now proven in FOIA docs) I woudl bet that reading everything now Ward wouldnt support what he did and probably admits to himself that he was fooled; but hes way too proud to ever admit such a thing which is why he is so hard to talk to about such things.

When Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Ward were both at the Book Fair last year it would have been great to hera a debate between them over Nicaragua, since the way Ward was fooled in the 80s could easilly happen again and it woul;d be really interesting to hear details from Ward as to how the CIA managed to manipulate him.

"They're lying, back stabbing thieves."

If an Anarchist picked my pocket at a protest would I be justifiied in claiming that Anarchism is evil and THEY all steal? The RCP used to be pretty obnoxious and seem to have gotten better in recent years, but their inner circle is much more of a cult of personality around Avakian than anything to do with Communism or Maoism. Anarchist movements have had and stuill have their share of personality cults too... it has less to do with ideology than celebrity and group power dynamics. A typical Anarchist response may be to claim that any such groups are not really Anarchist wheras the RCP is really a Maoist group. This is similar to Christian groups defining away the actions of their leaders by saying that by bad actions the individuals were not Christian and thus if one is truely a good Christian one can do no wrong.

For all the talk Anarchism is just a label (or perhaps one could call it a brand) that is associated with a set of beliefs but not really tied to those beliefs in a strong fashion. Some Anarchists hate some Communists for the same reason some Punks hate some Hippies or some Mac users may hate some PC users. Group identity / Nationalism / brand loyalty / religious sect gives people meaning since it allows people to tie their egos to something larger than themselves.

Splits occur all the time among identity oriented political ideologies for rather obvous reasons. When you define yourself to be an Anarchist and your views change or new people become Anarchists with different views... what are you to do. Well, you can either claim they are poseurs and not real Anarchists (as subcultural nationalisms due with respect to new members) or you can claim that Anarchism is now old and you are something new and form a new identity around your new views(PostLeftists etc...). For people who have political views they dont feel a need to label these divisions and regroupings merely would mean changing friendships and changing groups of people one agrees with. But for those who have their personal identity tied up in the group identity the changes become externalized and are assumed to have some sort of fundamental meaning.

The myths of group nationalism are major factors in defining boiundaries that help solidify the idea of identity. If everyone were seen as a being a real Anarchist/Christian/Raiders/Patriot fan one couldnt feel special by having the identity. The myths dont have to be false but that doesnt really matter. Anarchists need Kronstadt and the Spanish Civil war both to create a richer and more appealing brand but also to define why being an Anarchist is better than being a Communist and why people shouldnt move too close to the boundaries between the group (Since groups that allow members to drift towards other groups lose members) People become Anarchists due to the horrible state of the world, but having the focus of a group be on that isnt safe since other groups also believe that and a strong brand needs to both advertise why you should buy it as well as why you shouldnt buy the competitor even if it looks almost identical. Thus for those with a strong sense of identity tied up in the Anarchist brand, the real enemy are those competing views that are similar but dont call themselves Anarchism and things that definine themself to be Anarchist but dont allow entry (perhaps due to real political differences). The attacks against Green Anarchists by nonGreen Anarchists, against primitivists by nonprimitivists and the exclusion of Socialists and reformists from Anarchists Book Fairs take the form one would expect of any grouping of people who have their identity tied up in a group identity.

Most people have some part of their identity tied up in a group identity and many people may have political views that are Anarchist (and even agree with most of the classical Anarchist authors) but not have any identity tied to the brand. There are probably good and bad aspects to group nationalisms and perhaps they are needed but group nationalisms all tend to resemble each other in some pretty basic ways and all have many of the same risks (things like hazing, punishing those who leave the group, irrational attacks on those defined to be enemies...)

OMG, this totally reminded me that this is one of the easiest opportunities to finally photograph that Zombietime guy.


http://www.zombietime.com/churchill_in_bay_area/churchill_sf_anarchist_bookfair_march_26_2005/

And why do you feel so threatened by "that Zombietime guy"? And why are you so sure he's a guy? Or just one person?
Just wondering.....

oh... he would not be considered a threat by me. It's more like it makes life more interesting to look out for this guy. Plus his photos of our events often get much higher hits than ours do, due to being spread via all the right-wing sites. Finally, he would be something of a threat to anyone doing traffic infractions at major demonstrations. In some of his photo sets, he has close-up photos of the subset of people who say they want to do civil disobedience.

Anarchism is the cure.

The anniversary of the war is on the 20th. Why is it being held on the 18th? People have told methey're having it on Saturday instead of Monday the 20th so people will not have to take the day off of work and school. But that is the point of a protest. SHUT THINGS DOWN! I think people should cordinate their own actions on the 20th and create some real direct action.

"But that is the point of a protest. SHUT THINGS DOWN!"

That may be what you want but as things stand right now, no amount of organizing is going to get more than a limited number of people to miss work for a day for a protest. If you have a trustfund or are wealthy taking a day off work may seem like no big deal but for most people its not that easy. A few hundred people protesting on Monday wont shut things down and would end up not bringing in the more middle of the road people who are needed to shift public opinion. Even in the months after the war started (aside form the first few days) you can compare the sizes and makeup of protest on work days and weekends and see a clear pattern.

Im not sure what ANSWERs exact aim is with their protests but a sure way to end the war is to get conservativs involved who are worried about the war's cots and military families involved who can prevent recruits (since a lot of new recruits are those with relatives in the military).

A stated aim of some radicals with respect to protests is that the unrest of rioting and instability makes the ruling class less likely to continue the war. I wouldnt doubt that in some countries and for some wars that has worked but there are serious questions as to whether this had any impact with even the Vietnam war (since public opinion remained much more for that war than the current one until a pullout was already planned and the real credit for ending the war needs to go to the Vietnamese not the US protesters)

Even if you wanted to "SHUT THINGS DOWN!" who exactly is going to be willing to do that right now? Perhaps the public could be whipped into an anger against the war with effective organizing but the public is clearly not there now and even with months of planning and a few dozen organizers willing to work fulltime to plan a shutdown I serioiusly doubt you could achieve such a thing any time soon. Part of the difficulty is convincing people what it woudl exactly achive. You risk your job and thus maybe your ability to pay rent to take a day off work risking arrest rioting with the only possible gain being maybe a minute of coverage on the TV and a minor traffic disruption in a city where most people use public transportation. When the Iraq war started we did make a great statement against the war that was definitely worth it but we didnt shut the city down and most businesses remained open, most people went to work and the effect on most businesses was at most a small dent in sales for a few hours in just a small portion of SF in the downtown area where there isnt much shopping during workdays during work hours to begin with. 3000 arrests and blocked streets was a huge symbolic statement that people heard around the world but it was a symbolic statement and not really an attack on the US military economy or any other such thing.

"Nationalism is a social disease.... Anarchism is the cure."

Anarchism as a brand name isnt that different from other forms of nationalism. If your ideology has a flag and a logo it's hard to claim to be different from other group loyalties where the group loyalty itself has subsummed the original reason for the group loyalty.

There is something in human nature that makes people want to be part of some named group that has slogans and logos, enemies and celebrities/leaders. Opposing leaders and hierarchies doesnt make Anarchism any different once people start to invest their personal ego into the group identity since the original ideology is pretty much irrelevent by that time. There is obviously something comforting in the idea that one has a group of people around the world who are part of your group and if they know you are in the group they will provide mutual aid if you are in trouble. Small religious groups, fan groups (sports fans, Deadheads, ...), street gang memberships and ethnic nationalisms serve much the same function. One can remain part of a fan community even after one has tired of the music or teams the group claims to be about because the real appeal is the community. One can focus on promoting Anarchism and Anarchist events long after one has given up on protests and community organizing (a lot of this is very evident at the Book Fairs).

I guess some Anarchists may claim that community is what Anarchism is about, but community, communalism, identity and nationalism are overlapping concepts that are in many ways identical psychologically and the community Anarchism provides has a similar level of mutual aid to other nationalisms tied to small groups (an Anarchist letting an out of town vistor sleep on their couch and eat free food becasue they are an Anarchist is similar to someone who belonged to a frat letting a frat brother visting town sleep on their couch and raid the fridge... or perhaps even Israel providing free housing to immigrants only if they are Jewish)

A right-winger with their American flag in their front yard who feels pride every time they hear the national anthem is attempting to feel comfort and safety by subsuming their identity to that of a group; group victories become personal victories and group defeats are also personalized. With American nationalism the defined personal space of the group becomes the national borders creating a desire to keep others out. There is strong mistust among American nationalists for others even in the country who dont buy into the group identity or buy into it in a different fashion (a desire to recreate a utopian vision of small town life that never existed is a common theme and one closely tied to a longing for community). If a member of the group gets into trouble outside oft the personal space its a major ordeal (Americans getting taken histage abroad) whereas the lives of others are of much less value.

Compare that to a localized version of nationalism in the context of an Anarchist Book Fair.
Mister Grumpy above says "I disagree vehemently with many of the opinions and analyses of Nessie, but I would help him and other anarchists with whom I disagree eject any fucking Leninist scumbag at any anarchist organized event any time any place. That's called mutual aid." It sounds like a very localized version of a Minuteman thumping their chest and engaging in male bonding at their events on the border. There is also a constant reference to history as in Mr grumpy's statement about Communists trying to "take advantage of the generally good faith and humor of most anarchists who don't know their history" and "say it all"'s response to one of my posts above with "unless and until they educate themselves." Whats intersting here is that the reference to history is left unspecific as in a Minuteman resoponding with "you know what THOSE PEOPLE do" about immigrants without the comittment of actually making a racist generalization specifically. Of course nationalists can find real examples of their enemies doing bad things; the Soviet Union called itself Communist and did kill Anarchists at Kronstadt, the Turkish invasion of the Balkans did actually happen hundreds of years ago and many Serbs were killed, Palestinians militants have killed Israeli civilians, Israelis have killed Palestinian civilians, Hindu mobs did pull thousands of Muslims out of their houses and burn them alive in Gujarat, Muslim fundamentalists probably were behind the bombings at Hindu holy sites today.... But the specific events are not what really matter; a nationalist supporter of Israel will point to a bus bombing by a single Palestinian to make a sweeping racist statement about all Palestinians being animals just as some anarchists will make statements like "Fuck Bolsheviks in general. They're lying, back stabbing thieves. That have *always* used anarchists as pawns and cannon fodder. Never trust a Bolshie. They *will* betray you. They always do, every single time." even though the ISO member or Spart member their anger may be directly aimed at had nothing personally to do with the past actions that relate to the actual anger.

Of course I am mainly just using these quotes to focus on the bad side of Anarchist nationalism; most Anarchists are not that hostile to Communists (just as most even moderately nationalist Americans dont support the MinuteMen). Having a group of friends one can talk to and plan events with is healthy and probably necessary to prevent depression. Having Raiders flags on your car or Anarchist flags and patchs doesnt mean you are going to feel even moderately hostile to people who support other sports teams or identify with other political ideologies. Being proud of being gay or Jewish or African American or having gone to a certain college isnt a bad thing. Just because someone has strong nationalist feelings about Anarchism doesnt mean that person is going to go attack a Trot with an icepick. But the dangers of the negative aspects of nationalism are not specific to nationalisms dealing with citizenship and Anarchism is hardly a "cure" for nationalism when it itself usually takes a strongly nationalistic form.

"Its always weird to see people like Ward at Anarchist events since his politics is all over the place. It woiuld be easy for a Communist mad at the Book Fair to turn and ask why a man who fought on the same side as the Contras is honored whereas local socialist groups that are at most annoying are seen as "the enemy" by some (as you can see in a few comments above)."


Right. At least some of the same people who foam at the mouth about eeee-vil Leninists, invited career politician Harry Britt to speak a few years back.

I think the nationalist-brand-identity analysis is right on the mark. What "we" do good, what "they" do baaaaa-ad.

Ugh.

Ward and Harry attract the kind of people it behooves anarchists to attempt to convert. Not so Bolsheviks. Over a century of treachery, blood and grief has taught us to keep Bolshies, their symps and their dupes as far away from us as possible. To embrace them is to clutch a viper to our bosom. Been there, done that. Never again.

nessie: "Ward and Harry attract the kind of people it behooves anarchists to attempt to convert."

So, in theory, would Brittany Spears.

@%<

"...the kind of people it behooves anarchists to attempt to convert."

From anarcho-nationalism, on into the realms of faith.

O tell us, who is worthy enough to be converted?

"Not so Bolsheviks. Over a century of treachery, blood and grief..."

Unlike, say, Democrats. No "treachery, blood and grief" there....

Excuse us, who doesn't know their history?

That's a straw man.

>anarcho-nationalism

There is no such thing.

> "Unlike, say, Democrats."
>
> That's a straw man.

Nope, you said that Harry Britt attracts the kind of people you want to "convert." Harry Britt was a Democratic City Supervisor with progressive credentials. To the best of my knowledge, he has not broken with that. Even if he has, who would he be expected to draw, if not his supporters, who must be supposed to be progressive-inclined Democrats.

To hold him to one standard, and a socialist paper-seller to another, reeks of hypocrisy, at best-- not of red herring.

Nice try though.


>anarcho-nationalism
>
> There is no such thing.

Alas for you, this thread is starting to indicate the existence of that very thing. Your "throw em all out" buddy only added empirical evidence to the theory.

Denial is apparently not just for Republicrats anymore.

>who would he be expected to draw, if not his supporters, who must be supposed to be progressive-inclined Democrats.

People like them, we want to talk to. People like Bolshies, we don't.

Which part of treacherous, backstabbing, murderous thieves do you not understand.



>Alas for you, this thread is starting to indicate the existence of that very thing. Your "throw em all out" buddy only added empirical evidence to the theory.

That we are willing, if not eager, to throw Bolshie out on their ear has nothing to do with nationalism, and everything to do with survival. History, and much bitter experience, has taught to the keep Bolshies as far away from us as possible. They are treacherous, backstabbing, murderous thieves. Never trust a Bolshevik, ever, ever, ever.

"Which part of treacherous, backstabbing, murderous thieves do you not understand."

This is the part of it I don't "understand":

Why you selectively apply it to anyone who applies the term "Leninist" to themselves, but not in turn to everyone who applies the term "Democrat" to themselves.

On the other hand, it's understandable enough as hypocrisy. Maybe plenty of us do "get it," but you can't or won't, because the analysis is all tangled up in your group-nationalism problem, as per the discussion above.

"That we are willing, if not eager, to throw Bolshie out on their ear has nothing to do with nationalism, and everything to do with survival."

But nationalism itself has everything to do with survival. That's why people, for example, support wars, even though they personally might die in them.

The tricky part, for you, it seems to me, is justifying such a totalitarian attitude against people near to your own point of view, in the grander scheme of things, while being so..... sanguine in the presence of people who really do have power and who really are part of a big bad war machine-- i.e. your rabid anticommunism, to the point of hating on paper-pushers, and your concomitant accomodation of Democratic politicians right in your midst, at your podia, at your bookfair, at the County Fair Building.

To be clear, I don't find the latter wrong, just the former. You cannot change people you won't even speak to.

Of course, you get competition from the former, and valuable regular access to facilities and accomodations from the latter. That might just seem a little morally loose, if not technically corrupt.

As for your totalitarian ranting, you're only embarrassing yourself, so why not? Most of the rest of us here seme to see right through it.

Our points of view are precisely opposite. We want to do away with bosses. They want the bosses' jobs.

"Our points of view are precisely opposite. We want to do away with bosses. They want the bosses' jobs."

You want to do away with "the bosses jobs" after some future revolution, Communists want a brief period of state Socialism followed by a withering away of the state resulting in the same long term goal.

In the near future (maybe the next 10,000 years) its very unlikely that there will be a real Communist or Anarchist revolution so waht you want after a revolution doesnt really matter. Anarchists believe in tactical leaders in the form of things like Commitee that run book fair, people who enforce that you pay for tables at the Book Fairs etc.. The problem with most Communist revolutions so far is that tactical leaders havent given up power after the revolution and there is nothing to suggest that Anarchist leaders would act any different since the issue is one of persons personally wanting power and not one of ideology.

But there is an obvious level at which you dont beolieve you own words since one would have to be completely insane to fear that the ISO, ANSWER, the RCP or the Sparts will ever overthrow the US government (or hope an Anarchist revolution is in the works). Anarchist and Communist groups really fight for reformist causses and those causes are ones real people care about. Difference in terms of short terms goals matter and also methods of organizing can alientate people or result in bad goals and tactics. But ideology is irrelevent; two Christians groups running food banks may have members who say they are fundamentally opposed to each other because of their interpretation of the eucharist, but most workers and probably all of those served could care less. The reason Anarchists hate Communists is because Communists are not Anarchists and support similar short term goals and thus are in competition with Anarchists for members, and just like Coke and Pepsi battling it out through negative ads it all really just boils down to marketing and cultivation of brand loyalty.

Yep is using the typical logic of a social democrat. "We're all in this together, comrades, so our interpersonal or inter-ideological differences are meaningless. We have to wait until all the people we will help to liberate are liberated before our differences actually start to matter." With all due respect--that is, precisely none--you are fully incorrect.

The differences between anarchists and socialists or communists are fundamentally philosophical and strategic. Sozis and commies believe in leadership (appointed or elected), centralization (for the sake of efficiency), authority (whether legitimately based on knowledge, or arbitrarily based on threats), and the State (which has yet to wither away after a "successful" revolution ). Anarchists dispute the legitimacy of all three, so our strategies will differ quite a lot really from those of sozis and commies. Our respective goals may sound similar (a classless stateless society), but our objectives in fulfilling that goal are also distinct. If you can't percieve the differences, that's your problem, not ours.

"Yep is using the typical logic of a social democrat."

Is Social Democrat an Anarchist smear analogous to Christian fundamentalist smears against Christains who say they are religious but dont believe in the apocalypse?

"We're all in this together, comrades, so our interpersonal or inter-ideological differences are meaningless."

Thats not what I said. Someone may support what you believe on one issue but be so horrible in other respects its impossible to work with them. But thats different than ideological differences since people takes modern issues stances off old named ideologies in much the same way as religious leaders do. To me one's stand on abortions rights, war in the Middle East and the like are what matter and whille the high ideals of religions and ideologies can lead one to those same opinions I am deeply suspicious about how this is really done since it seems to mainly be a matter of people taking moral/humanistic stands on issues and trhn trying to justify why their religion/ideology really takes those stands.

"We have to wait until all the people we will help to liberate are liberated before our differences actually start to matter."

Except thats not what most fights now are about. We are fighting to keep opeopple from being even more oppressed and are losing the fight in many ways. The chance of a major shift in US public opinion away from the current economic and politics system (let alone an actual revolution) seems close to zero for many generations into the future.

"Sozis and commies believe in leadership (appointed or elected)"

Anarchist groups have unofficial leadership structures that usually include actual leaders whose roles are cemented due to experience, seniority and the like. Celebrity is one form of leadership (Ward, Chomsky, old dead white guys...) as are comitttees and the specific people those comittees asign to specific roles (elected leadership even if consensues upon). Delegated authority in the sense of "bottom liners" and facilitators is a form of elected leadership. If a group decided to come in and setup a table insdie the Anarchist Bookfair without paying, will all those working at all tables have a say in whether they get to do this or not? No, it has been delegated to a Comittee. That Comittee isnt government by the workers as Nessie implied above since in the context of a Book Fair many of those at tables are in fact paid workers getting paid to be at the tables (in fact required to in some cases). The Comittee running the fair does the organizational work necessary to make the Book Fair happen but all leadership in both companies and government requires organizational work.

" centralization (for the sake of efficiency)"
Spokes councils would fall into this definition wouldnt they?

"authority (whether legitimately based on knowledge, or arbitrarily based on threats)'
Threats by Book Fair Comittee members against ISO or Sparts selling papers clearly falls into this category.

" and the State (which has yet to wither away after a "successful" revolution )."
It has yet to be overthrown by Anarchists either. Green Party supports and Democrats are trying to work through the state to create change whereas many nonprofits, churchs, Anarchists and Communists do their work directly without going through the state. Many Communist groups may have an eventual desire to "take over the state" but thats in the mythical revolution that falls outside of real time and thus is pretty irrelevent (at least in the case of the US).

"Anarchists dispute the legitimacy of all three, so our strategies will differ quite a lot really from those of sozis and commies."
So far in terms of local anarchists responses to things there isnt a huge different. Anarchists seem to want street protests without permits more than some of the large Communist antiwar groups do (althlugh I think the Sparts may oppose permits), but since Anarchists do use permits for things like getting buildings for bookfairs, that seems like a tactical consideration no really relating to ideological differences between Anarchists and Communists.

"Our respective goals may sound similar (a classless stateless society)"
Yes, but those goals are known to be impossible within your lifetime and with no sign of an imminant overthrow of Bush by Ramsey Clark or Avakian worries about the distant future seem pretty petty. I can say my goal is a world in which nobody ever has to go hungry, nobody ever dies and everyone has the right to eat as much chocolate as they want without ever gaining a pound... and you may say your goal is a future world where everyone can live under the sea and breathe water... we may disagree about which fantasy world is better but as long as such fantasy worlds are not immediately achievable they dont represent real differences that effect immediate political alliances.

"our objectives in fulfilling that goal are also distinct. If you can't percieve the differences, that's your problem, not ours."

Anarchists dont have common objectives in trems of immediate tactics last time I checked. About half of the Anarchist scene is into animal rights while people like Nessie see animal rights groups as terrorists. Some think technology will save us while others think its evil. Some people think protests are pointless while others see breakaway marchs that result in small amount of property damage as a revolutionary act. Most anarchists will agree on long term ideals for a future without authority but in the immediate term most Anarchists support hierarchies within their personal, professional and political lives that are justfiied on practical grounds. Between groups dominated by celebrity leaders like Solnit, StarHawk, Lisa FIthian and the like, breakways marchs run by invitation only vanguardists, and collective businesses with clear personalities in charge (usually since they have been aound longer than anyone else), Anarchist "objectives in fulfilling" goals doesnt seem very distinct from other groups.

Most Communist groups, some anarchist groups and religious groups are pretty open about differences between long term desires that are only partly believed in by members and the desire to help people now in an immediate sense. Thats why most Anarchists get along with most Communists. Its only when Anarchist pride takes on an agressively competitive nationalistic feel that there is conflict and those leading such xenophobic outburts are usually the most authoritarian Anarchists around (especially in their willingness to talk for a group without even consulting the groups members).

I was just thinking that some of the one liners near the end of some of the authoritarian Anarchist posts sound a bit Maoist. "learn your history", "go back to school", "you dont know enough to even talk to me" sounds like something one would hear in a totalitarian society where if one doesnt agree with the Party Line one is forced to go to re-eduction camp to learn why one should agree with everyone else.

The tone of statements like "They are treacherous, backstabbing, murderous thieves", "To embrace them is to clutch a viper to our bosom." "They are evil, treacherous, murdering thieves. Blood drips from their fangs." has a very fascist sound (in the stylistic sense in terms of how enemies are portrayed rather than in an ideological sense). Dehumanization of people (no matter what their beliefs) seems like it would be something counter to Anarchist humanistic ideals? But I guess pointing this out is like trying to convince a right-wing Christian that Jesus wouldnt support nukes and napalm when I dont believe in Jesus.

The Book Fair Committee's Book Mall is more like it.

Right down to throwing pamphleteers off "their" property (or rather, out of "their" event), apparently at whim. Even the Supreme Court questions that "right," where a public venue is concerned, and I can't think of a venue more public than the SF County Fairgrounds.

BTW, does the Committee have a legal right to eject citizens (or any other member of the public) from public property for reasons of political belief or affiliation?

Tell you what dudes, the next time you or your friends organize an event using their own resources (or taking advantage of "public" resources like a municipally owned venue), have specific goals in mind, make the event have a specific theme that's supposed to attract curious and supportive attendees. and make the event free (or very inexpensive) to attend, and then have to deal with the provocations of a group or scattered individuals whose only reason for attending is to derail or disrupt the event and its goals, calling into question the very reason for the event in the first place, who aren't interested in debate or discussion, then you can complain to me about "arbitrary" ejections of said disruptive groups or individuals.

It is especially galling that people who believe that anarchism is some stupid idea should get so bent out of shape when some anarchists engage in activities they disapprove of. If you don't like it, stay away, go to the movies, hang out with your friends and drink, go to the stalinist-led "anti-war" march. Just leave us alone. Or is our very existence so offensive to you that you can't help trying to fuck us up? We can do that on our own just fine.

"then you can complain to me about "arbitrary" ejections of said disruptive groups or individuals. "

A private event rented from the city not letting people in who disagree with the event or are trying to sell things without the correct paperwork having been filled out seems pretty normal and noncontroversial. A Republican convention would kick out people recruiting for the Democrats and some goth clubs dont let you in if you are wearing nongoth clothes.

The only problem I have is with the tone used in the denunciations of local Communist groups when aside from branding Anarchist and Communist groups really do basically stand for the same thing. The statement about the Book Fair kicking people is only hypocritical if you buy into the myth that Anarchist actions and tactics are fundamentally different due to a rejection of all authority. In the short term Anarchist views on authority, private property and hierarchy are no so different from Communist groups and the views of many left-wing nonprofits. This isnt a bad thing and perhaps feeling the need to define one's self in terms of a style and slogan is even a form of product differentiation where more people can feel part of broader movements (like the anti-war movement) when there are competiting product lines like Anarchists, religious peace groups, Communist groups, the Green Party, etc... (Various anarchist tendencies seem to target different subcultures that are ignored in most Communist and nonprofit organizing)

Its probably giving the Anarchist movement too much credit to compare it to a nationalism in these larger sense of ethnic and state nationalists since the psychology may be the same but its much more a small scale phenomena comarible to subcultural identity politics and sports fans. As some Stanford fans hate Berkeley, and some punks hate deadheads so to do Anarchosts hate Communists. Do you have the right to keep Communist newspaper sellers out of an Anarchist event? Maybe. But don't pretend that your hatred of Communists is because your angry becasue of Kronstadt or some RCP action at an Anarchist protest a decade ago. The book fair is about brand identity not politics and its not the politics of communist groups that matter and make you hate them it's their unwillingness to use the company logo on their letterhead (if they just rebranded themselves Communist Anarchists you would gladly let them in even if this had no real meaning in terms of a change in politics).

We are *already* doing away with bosses. Neither the Book Fair Committee nor Bound Together Books has a boss. We get along just fine without one. Worker self-management is the essence of anarchist economics.

We're not the only people without bosses around here, either.

See:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/1717610_comment.php

Our desire is not "to help people now in an immediate sense." We *are* people. Our desire is to help each other, now and forever. We can do this better than any boss, or any wannabe boss. The worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job. In part this is because just cutting the boss out of the equation means a lot more money for everyone else; in part this is because the people who actually do the work have a far better idea of what it actually entails than any boss ever could. The boss only knows what people tell him and everyone lies to their boss. If yo don't tell the boss what he wants to hear, you're out on your ear. So workers tell them what they want to hear. Ergo, bosses are clueless. As the old anarchist proverb says, "If you want to know how many widgets to order for next month, don't ask the boss. Ask the widgeteer."

Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of their control. It's the best place to be. Want to learn more? You're in luck. Come to the Fair this Saturday. Open your eyes. See for yourself.

"Worker self-management is the essence of anarchist economics."

At the Book Fair who are the workers? Those managing it? Those who paid for tables? Those who work at jobs that require them to be at tables? Those selling stuff outside without permits? Speakers like Ward? Is the Book Fair Comittee representing the workers or are you claiming that only those on the commitee are the workers? Are the city workers who deal with the facility itself workers with respect to the Book Fair? When the Book Fair is over and the tables are getting put up against the walls, who does that work? Are all those people members of the Book fair Comittee or would they just have had the option of being on it if they had gone to meetings months before (in which case the Book Fair Commitee is representative laders of those people)?

Would your answer change if we were looking at a trade fair at the Moscone center? Would it change if we were looking at a mall (where those at tables would be the staff of businesses, those paying for tables would be store mangement, the book fair comitee would be mall management, and the RCP selling papers would be ... well the RCP trying to sell papers at a mall)?

I think more democratic forms of employment is a good thing but its a lot less revolutionary that you make it out to seem.

Part of the issue with talk about worker self government is in definitions of workplaces. The Book Fair serves as an example. Someone working at an AK Press table may be required to be there as part of their job but even if AK is in NoBAWC and the worker has a say in that workplace, do they have a direct say in the larger workplace that is the fair? In the case of a shoping mall is the mall itself run by the maintance staff or are workers in stores represented since they also work in the facility? This may seem like splitting hairs but if you look at a country and try to apply ideas of worker run government what exactly would this mean. People in the military do a lot of work, but does this mean the military should manage itself and decide foreign policy on its own (a collective run military acting without citizen oversight would be similar to a dictatorship even if there were no leaders in the military). What about local police? To get around this you can say a future world will have no police or military but to facilitate nonlocal actions you woudl at least need some sort of spokescouuncil type thing and any case where you have large meetings requires organizational worker to help run the meetings (planning, cleaning, getting the tables set up, making sufre there is medical care available etc...) and if you make that group self governing you have a self governing group that has power over a spokescouncil and once you have that you essentially have government beurocrats again who may or may not be elected but have power over local communities when it comes to nonlocal issues. What Im getting at is that if you scale the Book Fair up to a country your self governing Book Fair Comittee becomes a government (and I dont think you would find a case of a government looking just like the US but with only Congress and no President to be Anarchist just because there is no individual leader). If you dont give the group managing the facility some power its like having administrative assistants and temps with no say in their workspace but give the same people sole control over their workspace and you essentially have unelected authorty figures for those using and even working in the facility.

The Book fair Committee.


>Those who paid for tables?

Those who paid for tables manage their own affairs the way they themselves choose. The Committee doesn't interfere. Some are individuals, some are collectives, some are cooperatives, some are ad hoc, and so on.


>s the Book Fair Committee representing the workers or are you claiming that only those on the commitee are the workers?


Only those on the Committee work on the Fair itself. The people who work at the tables don't work for us. We provide them a service, that's all. We don't profit from it. We don't tell then how to do it.


>When the Book Fair is over and the tables are getting put up against the walls, who does that work?

The Committee cleans up and sets up, with the help of other volunteers. We don't get paid for this. We don't get paid for anything we do at the Fair. It's a labor of love.


>would they just have had the option of being on it if they had gone to meetings months before

Anyone who wants to join the Committee is welcome. Show up for the meetings, do the work, don't be disruptive, and you're on the Committee.


>(in which case the Book Fair Committee is representative laders of those people)?

Wrong. The Committee operates by consensus. If you're on the Committee, your opinion counts exactly as much as that of anyone else on the Committee.



>Would your answer change if we were looking at a trade fair at the Moscone center?

That would depend on who was running it and how. Our organizational model is not specific to the County Fair Building. It could work in any venue. We're at the County Fair Building because it's cheap, so we can offer tables cheap and not charge at the door.


>Would it change if we were looking at a mall

Indeed it would. A mall, by definition, a permanent installation. The Fair is a one day affair. Apples and oranges.

An on staff janitor is worker and thus gets a say in the government of the place where they clean. A group of people who clean a bunch of businesses dont get a say in the plaecs tehy clean since their self goivernment only applies to their cleaning company and not the places they clean. What about someone who cleans at several places, loses clients and then ends up cleaning just one? Is their self government the same as anindependent contractor who is treated like a current wag slave but doesnt gets righst because they are technically not an employee? Do day labourers only get a say in who things are run while wiating for work but not at the job since they are not employees? That kinda looks like what we have today in a lot of abusive work environments.

Now getting back to the book fair
"The Committee cleans up and sets up, with the help of other volunteers. We don't get paid for this. We don't get paid for anything we do at the Fair. It's a labor of love."
great but its still not government by the workers since all the volunteers who clean up are not the same people on the Committee.

"Anyone who wants to join the Committee is welcome. Show up for the meetings, do the work, don't be disruptive, and you're on the Committee."

Representation by who shows up at meetings never really exists since you obviously wouldnt let an ISO memebr wanting to be on your Comittee or a member of the Democratic Party wanting to be on your Comittee be on the Commitee (even though you would let them help clean up after the fair and if you count city workers as workers on the fair this could easilly be the case).

"Wrong. The Committee operates by consensus. If you're on the Committee, your opinion counts exactly as much as that of anyone else on the Committee."
So 2 RCP people show up and they get the power to block decissions?

The truth is that while you say membership is open it isnt and you at least have a say as to who cant be a member (which effectively means its not open to anyone who would want major changes). Whats more there is time based aspect to the membership. If someone shows up at the Book Fair and wants to be on the Commitee to decide things at the Fair its too late. Imagine a country run this way... if you come to DC and you agree with the group running things ideologically and they define you to be "nondisruptive" you can attend meetings and block decissions that effect people all oevr the country. In that case chosen representatives would seem better since the initial group's ideology and time constraints on most people's lives would result in a government in which they have no say. The government decides to bulldoze your house to build a dam or kill all chickens it your are to prevet bird flu from spreading and unless you were following events in DC closely and had the time to go there to attend the meeting you needed to block at ...
Of course in teh acse of a Book Fair... who cares (except maybe anarchist factions that feel excluded), but the claiming that things are open and worker run isnt exactly true.

>That kinda looks like what we have today in a lot of abusive work environments.


It's not work. It's a labor of love. If it was work, we'd get paid. We don't don't get paid.. We're volunteers. Apples and oranges.


>you obviously wouldnt let an ISO memebr wanting to be on your Comittee or a member of the Democratic Party wanting to be on your Comittee be on the Commitee


Nor should we. It's and *anarchist* fair. Any attempt to inject anti-anarchist politics is disruptive. Disruptions, and disruptive people, are not allowed.


>So 2 RCP people show up and they get the power to block decissions?

Go back and read what I said. Show up for the meetings, do the work, *don't be disruptive,* and you're on the Committee. Any attempt to inject anti-anarchist politics is disruptive.


>The truth is that while you say membership is open it isnt

That's another Bolshevik lie. It's open to anarchists who are willing to show up, do work, and not be disruptive. It's not open to people like "yep," which is precisely the reason the Fair survives and thrives.


>if you come to DC

This s is a straw man. We're not talking about going to DC, bulldozing houses or bird flu. We're talking about the Book Fair. If you don't like the Book Fair, don't come. It's your loss, not ours. But if you're going to tell lies about it, you're gonna get called on them. if you don't like getting called on your lies? Don't tell any.

"another Bolshevik lie"

...and so now anyone disagreeing with you is 1) lying, and 2) a Bolshevik.

Thank you very much for clarifying that, Sen. McCarthy. I think we all understand how that game works.

"Any attempt to inject anti-anarchist politics is disruptive."

We're not talking about a book "fair." That is a propagandistic euphemism to disguise its real nature as a semi-privatized (under "Committee" control) Book Mall.

Other, thus disruptive, points of view will be forcibly evicted accordingly-- just like at the mall.

Have a nice day!!

"Any attempt to inject anti-American politics is disruptive."
"Any attempt to inject anti-Bush politics is disruptive."
"Any attempt to inject politics I disagree with is disruptive."
Freedom is on the march
Your either with us or against us
and what we believe in is defined to be freedom
and what you believe in is defined to be evil

Not everyone, but this jerk for sure.

>no totalitarianism here

It's not "totalitarianism," it's self defense. What's totalitarian is Bolsheviks, and people like them, trying to barge in where they're not invited. We've had our hospitality abused by these creeps for over a century. Never again.


>Your (sic) either with us or against us

Wrong again. You are a mixed bag. Some of you are for us. Some of you are against us. Most of you haven't made up your minds yet.

The Bolsheviks, however are against us. It took us a long time to catch on. Then we noticed they were stacking our bodies in pits. Anyone who doesn't catch on after something like that, is too stupid to live.

Never again.

Well, they weren't YOU, so, so what, right?

Idiot.

And all those anarchist mass graves in, say, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela?

Oh, how inconvenient to your (sic) little melodrama.

Cmon, some of want more than hysterical hyperbole.

Some evidence, please.

Russia, fine. China? Evidence, please. Spain? Mixed bag there, buddy. And all those priests whose heads some of your comrades played soccer with? They wanna know why that's okay, but putting the people who did it in prison becomes "stacking bodies in pits." Though those were fascists, not Bolsheviks....... hmm. Complicating, those details.

And the ISO or RCP paper seller? Never harmed a fly. They carry your burden of historical crime, why, exactly?

Guilt by association? Now, that's rigorous. Or.... what?

Please..... be specific.

For the same reason anyone calling themselves Nazi carries the burden of Auschwitz, even though they themselves never killed anybody, and hadn't even been born at the time.

For the same reason anyone calling themselves Zionist carries the burden of Sabra and Shatilla.

For the same reason anyone calling themselves a Chetnik caries the burden of Srebrenica.

For the same reason anyone calling themselves American bears the burden of San Creek.

The burden they carry is not their own guilt, which they seem to have come to terms quite nicely, but our fear and revulsion. Fear and revulsion is what hey inspire in all who know their true story. People who call themselves Marxists are feared and reviled because people who call themselves Marxists have killed scores of millions of people, other Marxists. People who call themselves Marxists are feared and reviled by anarchists because they stabbed us in the back, twice. The first time, we were naive. The second time we were stupid. There will be no third time. Never again.

All anarchists ever are responsible for the assassination of President McKinley?

(1.) That's a straw man. I never said anything about "being responsible." I said "carries the burden," which is quite a different thing.

(2.) Czolgosz wasn't an anarchist. He had attended a few meetings, but no one wanted anything to do with him because he was a nut case. So he went off on his own.

(3.) All anarchists carry the burden of his deed because he is perceived in the public's mind as having been an anarchist. That's part of how the public misperceives us. That villains, fools and crazy people sometimes claim to be anarchists, or are claimed by others to be anarchists, has served as a major impediment to the spread of anarchism. It's a burden.

(4.) To compare a single act by a disturbed individual who didn't even belong to an anarchist organization with the systematic, cold blooded murder of scores of millions of people, by card carrying Bolsheviks, is a false analogy.

...there are different standards for you and for other people.

how many people do you think you have turned off to the fair? you screamed about "telling the world" more or less in one of your above rants. what you are too stoopid to realize is what you actually are telling the world...

that there are serious cranks who self-identify as anarchists. if people have little or no exposure to anarchist thought, and run into threads like this about the fair, then you are doing the movement a great disservice as they are likely to generalize your obnoxiousness to anarchism in general. you scream above other quieter sane voices. you are a bully. and, yes, you are a dickhead who never realized that you will attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

you are an embarrassment to anarchism, to the book fair, and any other project people let you be involved with. you are the vinegar of the book fair. any "success" the bookfair enjoys is DESPITE your participation in it not at all because of it.

In a world in which the NY Times becomes a more effective voice for anarchism than the local anarchist elite, well.... some of your best friends might turn out to be Communists, Republicans, or even..... no politics at all, thanks!

Welcome to the 21st century. Those dead bodies in pits? Dead. Turn to the children. Extra Special clue time: loud, scary, ranting men are not a winner here. Leave that schtick to the Trots *wink* and just RECRUIT THEIR KIDS when the kids leave all that behind, because all they ever wanted was just to be free.

Peace out.

An ad hominem is still not a rebuttal. It's just a way to show that you can't address substance.


>how many people do you think you have turned off to the fair?

How many is not the issue. Which ones are the issue. I sincerely hope I have turned *all* of the Bolshies off to the Fair. That alone will increase attendance by those people who don't want to be in the same room with a Bolshie. These are *exactly* the kind of people we are trying to attract. People who want to hand out with Bolshies should go somewhere else.

and you still suck

your behavior is not off limits because you say it is

how many people are turned off by your antics is very much the issue if you choose to designate yourself as the Committee spokesperson

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Nevertheless, an ad hominem is not a rebuttal. Bolshies are not allowed to recruit at the Fair. Period. Get used to it. It's not going to change, not this year, not next year, not ever.

They don't have to.

You do their work for them.

Their cold blooded mass murders and economic incompetence have alienated the majority of humanity.

where are the great economic successes of the anarchists?

you mean an all-volunteer bookstore on Haight? you mean the "labor of love" book fair? where is anarchism paying good livable wages, offering solid healthcare and providing for workers' retirements on anything approaching a scale bigger than small collectives? enough of dredging up the past on other continents and frowning on american communists for things russions did 100 years ago or whatever. let's talk here, today. what's your glorious model of anarchy's glorious economic successes? should we all sell books to eachother in a big circle??

people gotta eat, and unless you have some sweet deal with the feds sending you a check every month, your implied claims to economic success for anarchism rings extraordinarily hollow. anarchism is more of a hobby for the underemployed with a lot of free time on their hands. most people, not on the gov't dole, can't make ends meet that way, or at least aren't anywhere I am aware of in modern america, minus a few exceptions here and there. maybe in your future fantasy land that no one will ever see in our lifetimes, but until you point to meaningful real-life examples in today's world, any economic scorn you have for others is incredibly hypocritical

"where are the great economic successes of the anarchists?"

Well, Ward Churchill makes $115,000 per hour as a tenured professor. (3 hours of teaching per week, btw) And he makes plenty more through his various speaking engagements.

There's money to be made in anarchy- doncha doubt it for a minute.

Read up on our accomplishments in Spain. We lost the war, in no small part due to Bolshie treachery, but also to the arms blockade mounted by the so-called "Free World." Nevertheless, our economic experiment was an outstanding success. Anarchist economics is a proven concept.

Anarchists liberated and collectivised the economy of much of northern Spain. Suddenly, the workers themselves ran everything from ranches and farms, to steel mills, locomotive factories and the telephone exchange.

French economist Gaston Leval toured the liberated zone. He visited hundreds of collectives. He studied their books. He observed their production methods. He attended their meetings. In his book, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, he states his perhaps startling conclusions. He shows the numbers to back them up. In virtually every case, after a brief period of adjustment lasting at most a couple months, the cost of production went down, the rate of production went up, and the standard of living improved.

How could this be?

The worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job. In part this is because just cutting the boss out of the equation means a lot more money for everyone else. In part this is because the people who actually do the work have a far better idea of what it actually entails than any boss ever could. The boss only knows what people tell him, so everyone lies to their boss. If you don't tell him what he wants to hear, you'll be out of a job. So, as the old anarchist proverb says, "If you want to know how many widgets to order for next month, don't ask the boss. Ask the widgeteer."

Worker self-management didn't die out when we lost the Spanish war. Au contrair, it's thriving, even here in the belly of the beast.

Meet NoBAWC:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/1717610_comment.php

According to that Bolshevist sycophant, Noam Chomsky, in today's Guardian UK:

quote

Cuban medical assistance is also being welcomed elsewhere. One of the most horrendous tragedies of recent years was the earthquake in Pakistan last October. Besides the huge death toll, unknown numbers of survivors have to face brutal winter weather with little shelter, food or medical assistance.

"Cuba has provided the largest contingent of doctors and paramedics to Pakistan," paying all the costs (perhaps with Venezuelan funding), writes John Cherian in India's Frontline magazine, citing Dawn, a leading Pakistan daily.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan expressed his "deep gratitude" to Fidel Castro for the "spirit and compassion" of the Cuban medical teams - reported to comprise more than 1,000 trained personnel, 44% of them women, who remained to work in remote mountain villages, "living in tents in freezing weather and in an alien culture", after western aid teams had been withdrawn.


full story at:

I dunno if 1000 doctors on an extended stay in tents in a mountain winter really compares with the might and sheer financial power of NoBAWC.

Incredible, sustained economic growth, and prosperity and opportunity for over a billion formerly utterly hopeless peasants laboring endlessly for mere survival.

Shall we stack it up against NoBAWC?

the question was: where are the great economic successes of the anarchists?

and I know all about the spanish civil war (and don't really care, as if 1930s Spain is a model for 21st century america, and in the end they failed whomever you want to blame it on besides the anarchists themselves) and I know noBAWC and frequent them whenever I can (hardworking but ragtag group of operations with really just a half dozen or so economically viable stars)

technically, just because something is cooperative, does not automatically make it anarchist. there's a lot of overlap but there may not be the anarchist self-identification

again, you miss the point, though, anarchist or not, in that many of the noBAWC are all-volunteer operations or dependent on donations. that means money and resources come from somewhere else to sustain them. they are not self-sustaining. a few of them struggle to exist at all. additionally, the ones that actually pay people and are doing relatively "well" barely pay workers enough to survive in a major metropolitan area, few offer health or other benefits, and I am not aware of any that offer serious retirement benefits.

all are noble for what they are trying to do, and yes they DO exist (I was well aware of them when I previously commented), and I try to support them as I can, but even added up all together, I would not count it as an economic powerhouse or even a model of economic success. until they can achieve success in the form of actually providing a decent living for their workers you are not going to see masses of people flocking to coops as a career choice. turnover is often very high just as it is in low-end for-profit retail establishments.

until anarchists really manage any serious economies of scale in this country, it is still hypocritical to poke at communism/socialism/whatever adherents as permanently and universally being economically incompetent -- glass houses and all. yes, anarchist businesses do indeed exist, but without your rose-colored glasses it is extremely difficult to share your exhuberence and sum them all up into as a "thriving" example of economic success

This is simply untrue. Bound Together is the sole and only all volunteer member of NoBAWC. At all the rest, the workers are making a living. It's a decent living, with benefits. Last year, one went und, and another almost went under. The rest are doing fine. That's a better average than business with bosses. It prove the concept. No, we don't need bosses. We've proven the concept. Now we must spread it to every corner of the global economy.

A boss is a boss is a boss. They all suck. Whether you call the boss a "CEO" or a "commisar" is irrelevant. A boss is a boss is a boss.

How typical of the Bolshies to lie. Next to mass murder and gulags, it's what they're most famous for.



>Chinese Bolshevism...

China is a fascist state. The media is heavily censored and there are no civil rights as we know them. Most of its citizens are virtual slaves. That's why their products sell so cheap. Some, including all the political prisoners, are literal slaves. And that's the lucky ones. The less lucky ones are executed and their organs sold on the open market. China burns coal. The environment is as polluted as western Pennsylvania in the '50s. Since 1949, literally scores of millions of Chinese have died of starvation. China is an expansionist, imperial power. Ask a Tibetan. Ask a Uigur. Anyone who thinks China is a viable model for a safe, just and equitable future is not paying enough attention. Anyone who tells you it is, is lying.

I know who the Bolshevisks were, but dont really know what Bolshevism means as an ideology. Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were all "Bolsheviks" but each stood for very different forms of government. All did seem to support a strong state in the short term but since there was a war going on with supporters of the old regime that was partly a tactical decission and one that doomed the USSR to its eventual totalitarianism in a relatively predictable fashon (similar to the French revolution or even Qaddafi's professed beliefs in many anarchist ideals even though his assemblies and government by workers turned quickly into government by military and personality cult)

China today resembles Chile under Pinochet or in the economic sense preWWII fascism. There is a strong state that coordinates the economy to create economic growth in a corportist manner which is very different from Socialism (which would similarly be a hard name to apply to the USSR at any point in its existance either).

The ideologies of the Sparts, ISO, RCP, and various Anarchist groups are not the same as the forces that drive the USSR, China under Mao or Libya. Power corrupts and paranoia about political enemies (which is often called "security culture" by some Anarchists or "having a post 9/11 world view" by Republicans) creates a dynamic that leads to repression. Anarchism's explicit references to not supporting hierarchy or authoritarianism are pretty meaningless if it came to an actual revolution just like Christianity's calls for forgiveness, to "turn the other cheek" and "love you enemy" had no real impact on anything when Christian leaders took over as Rome fell. The NeoCon belief that Democracies dont go to war with each other ( "the end of history") is an example of how everyone likes to believe that human misery, corruption and war are solvable problems that will go away when everyone is converted to the one true belief system (be it democratic Capitalism, Christianity, Anarchism or the youth culture of the 1960s).

In terms of people's personal lives, cooperative run businesses are a reasonable effort to give people power in their work life, but most people I know who have worked in such environments dont come out as idealistic as they came in. While you can claim that at such businesses everyone is their own boss it doesnt really look like that except in the cases of small work environments with just one or two people. Rainbow and AK still lay people off and while worker morale seems relatively high in both businesses you only need talk to the person checking food out at Rainbow to see that its far from a Revolutionary concept that is on the verge of spreading. It's also not a new concept; farm coops are common in the midwest and there are probably thousands of conservative Americans who believe in both Capitalism and Bush's authoritianism who work at coops.
Wikipedia has a reasonable article about Cooperatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperatives
Most large cooperatives also have workers who are not owners but even if you limited yourself to just those coops that have no employees who are not also equal owners in the business you would end up with a very diverse set of businesses ...some socially responsible and some not.

The Anarchist focus on coops I guess is perhaps linked to an idea of dual power leading coops to become a building block to Anarcho-syndicalism? Aside from not seeing that as a realistic possibiilty in the near future, there is the additional issue of common societal goods that can't just be controlled by the agencies carrying out the services without the risk of those agencies become totalitarian without at least some public control (and that public control is usually described as government even though some anarchists seem to get around that by calling it something else). How are pollution controls enforced on a business where none of the workers face the negative consequence since they dont live down wind? How is food distributed to areas in need when those suffereing dont make enough to support themselves; volunteers already fill in the gaps but is the Anarchist line that human good will and volunteerism is all thats needed? (as Republicans will often say when they propose cutting social services and relying on faith based nonprofits) What force can prevent private entities from growing to resembles the state when one has to state (as one sees with private militas in many failed states)? Any common grouping of people designed to prevent the return of authoritarianism not only risks authoritarianism itself (how do you prevent people who want to have hierarchical working relationshuips from having them) but also can be described as government like.

Anarchism became popular after the fall of the USSR since many on the US Left had bought into Soviet lies about what was really going on and many at least vaguely associated Socialist and Communeist ideals with the totalitarian state. But Anarchism's pull is partly one of people who want a more equal society that is not run by billionares and abusive bosses (which is the same appeal as Communism) mixed with an aknowledgement that something fundamental to the USSR, Cuba, China and other such totalitarin states was flawed. But the truth is that this doesnt distinguish Anarchists from modern Socialists and Communists since almost all of them now admit that the USSR was flawed and aside from the Sparts and RCP all are pretty open about opposing totalitarianism (many do support Cuba but its such an issolated state with little real information comming out its partly a result of groups just being mislead and wanting something to point at to claim that its better than what we have here without having to settle for the slightly better nontotalitarian states that have most of the problems of the US but just slightly less of them).

The nationalistic anarchist crowd, the RCP and the sparts have something a little more going on with them that just a desire for a better world since the group think (ie group nationalism) creates a very cult like feel where enemies are exagerated and even slight differences are defined to be fundamental. I think Anarchism is actually more predisposed for this type of group formation than Communism since the appeal of intentional communities and mutual aid is the normal desire that results in gangs, fundmentalist religious sects and other such tight groupings of people. Mix in real governmental repression with the FBI targetting of anarchist groups and you have the security culture that resembles how religious cults can convince members to not trust anyone who is not a member (and while you dont have to get jumped out of security concious affinity groups you at least risk losing friends by just a change in ones label). But luckilly Anarchism has also had enough wedge issues related to class, gender, race and the like, that things never soiidify in the long term and the short term anarchofundmantalist crowd comes and goes (many staying Anarchist but losing the paranoia and hatred for nonAnarchists) while the one mindedness of the Sparts and RCP keeps those core groups around for a lot longer (and somehow the RCP can manage to organize good frontgroups that are not crazy and do real needed work even though their core group is problematic)

I tend to see words like Anarchism, Communism and other such names as counterproductive since when people start to define themselves by a name its much easier to redefine the name than to have to admit ones own views changed. Names create a dogma where certain questions cant get asked since only the views of those within the group boundary are to be listened to (the Christian idea of 1000 years of peace after a future revolution lives on in Marxist and Anarchist thought since people cling to the label "revolutionary" even if few actual radicals really believe the rapture is around the corner even though most everyone would love it if the world could suddenly change into a utopia). Labels also risk alienating people to the ideals behind the labels when people use the labels in an abusive fasion, be it the Soviet Union claiming to be the definition of Communism or certain Anarchists' paternalistic arguing style and fascist sounding condemnations of all Socialists as having fangs dripping with blood.

"China is a fascist state...." blah blah blah


And Nessie's cheaper even than the Chronicle.

Of course, his state is doing so well (or his antistate), he's perfectly situated to criticize the truimphs and failures of a billion of his colleagues.

We really mean to talk about communism, but given the level of debate, the old McCarthyite-Red Scare term will do just as well.

It does have a rather dramatic effect, don't you think?

Bolshevik
Bolshevism
Bolshevist

If memory serves, from the fascist high schools I was forced to attend, "Bolshevik" meant "Minority" Party, whereas "Menshevik" meant Majority. Of course, that really meant that communism was the opposite of democracy, that think we'd been told since before we started the "education" proposition at, what, five years of age? the opposite of What We Have.

Of course, given the numbers now and historically, at least since late 1917, the commies are the majority on the left, and the anarchos a minority-- if only because communists who have toppled and replaced bourgeois governments have gotten to decide the state religion and things, typical victor's perogatives in most of the world. The political spectrum of the population is rather included in that.

It's a messy, uneven past at best, with as many glaring failures as real truiumphs. Still, communists have industrialized large medieval-peasant societies, sent people to space, stared down US military might. Even the failures bespeak their relative popularity.

The anarchists are the real minoritist party on the left, it seems to me.... and some fo the Trot cults, perhaps. (There's reasons the two tendancies get along better than others, reasons of affinity I suggest). By insisting on their individual rights over the collective good, they create a situation so readily exploitable by reactionary elements who have few scruples and, once anywhere near power, generally promise disastrous consequences. Italy 1920 and aftermath spring to mind.

And BTW, funny how Nessie takes one idea or even just phrase, uses his boilerplate-reductionism tactic ("heard it before," "communist lies!" etc etc), and ignores the great, wonderful, solid main points all of his self-generated opposition make, whatever their politics. It keeps the debate alive, at least. But what a mighty work he has gifted to that which he so bitterly and (one assumes) brutally opposes. Anyone looks good when he's opposed to it.

On those lines... if the American public were to choose some brand of communism, I don't see how it couldn't demand the detention of such sworn enemies of the people's rule. I mean, he (and at least one of his buddies) is promising to hurt people, right?

Good! The less Sparts & R.C.P. Commies at this event this year, the better, since a lot of those Marxist/Maoist/Trotskyite paper-selling bastards will be exhausting their energies at this Gulf War 2 anniversary protest. And if they do attempt to show up at the Anarchist Book Fair, some of us will be back in the same position we're always in each year: Physically ejecting these pro-State individuals from it. I'll be ready if that happens, like I am every year, too. We don't come to Communist & Socialist events, so we don't want them in ours. And no, this isn't "infighting" because I do not consider myself part of the "Left"; they don't fully accept Anarchist ideas/beliefs/individuals. If anything, they condemn them. Just like the "Right".

"We don't come to Communist & Socialist events, so we don't want them in ours."

My Anarchism, right or wrong...

It's so easy to criticize others' failures, when you've had so few chances to have any of your own.

No matter what nessie imagines about himself, he is **NOT** an anarchist. His personality is as authoritarian as it can possibly be. His motto seems to be "I want a completely egalitarian society -- just so long as I get to dictate what everybody thinks and says." If he actually got his wish, he would do to anarchism exactly what the "Bolshies" did to communism, i.e. destroy it.

Like Becky Johnson, he's become the sort of middle-aged fake lefty the hippies used to warn each other not to trust, and they were right. This is not to say all older lefties are fakes who should be distrusted, only that there are cases that definitely fit the admonition, and nessie is textbook. That such a person has wrangled a "leadership role" within the SF anarchist community is unsettling. For obvious reasons, "self-appointed leaders" need to be bright red bogies on any anarchist's radar screen. The bogie might prove to be a shining guileless light who simply inspires by example and lucid instruction; such people are of great value and should not be hindered ... unless/until they develop a certain symptomatic hunger for power...

But I hope they can stand the comparison to NoBAWC or the Anarchist Book Mall...

"Communist" is a word tossed around a lot like democracy and freedom. China says it is Commuist and is horrible to workers, has a stock market and no real freedom. The French Revolution talked about liberty and fraternity but a lot of heads were cut off... does that mean liberty equals geting heads cut off?... no it just means that people dont always live up to the ideals they preach. That no dictatorship except Libya has tried to call itself Anarchist says very little about Anarchism and pointing out that the USSR and allies (and countries like China that started off as allies) were totalitarian says little about Communism. Ancient Athens was at some points a democracy and when tehy were a democracy they had slaves... when the US started as a Democracy it too had slaves... does this mean than anyone who talkes about Democracy is really supporting slavery?

Guilt by association in the case of Anarchists demonizing Communists is just a cover for more personal issues certain individuals have today. Gloria LaRiva isnt going to massacre Anarchists and Tod Chretian wont send Anarchists to Gulags but thats an easier way to demonize people than to bring up real issues one has... I guess...

I hope this doesn't seem overly didactic of me, but I would like to suggest a few texts for you to check out.
1. _The Continuing Appeal Of Nationalism_
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1984/nationalism.htm
I found this short book by Freddy Pearlman to be a very concise description of what nationalism is. I find your use of the term to be interesting metaphorically, but I have real problems with its usefulness in distinguishing why nationalism exists and whose class interests it serves. Pearlman was an anarchist, but you might like him.
2. _The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control_
http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group
This is a very detailed blow by blow analysis of the Russian Revolution and the contrast between Lenin's rhetoric and actual Bolshevik behavior in regard to the workers' right to manage their own production. It will give you a good idea of where much of the mistrust toward groups that defend Leninism.
Incidentally, a previous post mentioned Chomsky in regard to Cuban doctors, as if that somehow proved he was "for" Castroism, or Leninist organizing. Chomsky is pointing out the successes of resistance to US imperialism, and the value of cooperation between Latin American countries, but he himself said “If the left is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' then I would flatly dissociate myself from the left. Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism, in my opinion, for reasons I've discussed.” He also said “Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can't see any reason --either in logic or history -- to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly.” You will find these quotes with a search engine. Just because "Chomsky says so" obviously doesn't make it right, but I wanted to clarify his vehement opposition to Leninism.
3. _Facing Reality_by C.L.R. James
James had been a Leninist and a Trotskyist, but through his experience determined that Leninist Vanguard party tactics were destructive to Socialism. He never lost his belief in Lenin's genius, unlike most of us, but he did believe Leninism as an organizing method should die. You may want to read this one for a critique from some one who did not despise Lenin.
I apologize if you were already aware of these books, but I thought since your arguments seem to show that you are someone willing to actually consider ideas and think critically, you might find these worth your time.
Take care,
-----Dave

Yeah, "Anarchists" cite those same two pamphlets as if they are the be all and end all of the question. Only in dogma does understanding change so slowly, particularly in the face of this Info-age onslaught of more and more information.....

With all due respect Dave. What do YOU think of the question? Not Freddy Perlman, or whatever.

Maybe two is all the pamphlets the market will bear, on those given questions.

Next.

Do civilian marchers convince anyone?

Are veterans more effective???


http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/03/1807505.php

again and again:
Yeah, "Anarchists" cite those same two pamphlets as if they are the be all and end all of the question.

Dave: I assume this is "Yep"? I guess you are not interested in reading these books to see for yourself. Do you assume that these are typical or trendy or whatever, and that it's not worth considering the ideas in them? That seems to be out of character for you. Have you ever looked at any Socialism or Barbarism? There have been a lot of developments that broke with Vanguardism, and that offer explanations on why changing circumstance has shown these writers that new methods are needed. I think we can gain from them. Guy Debord's _Society of the Spectacle_ is pretty dense, but with a bit of Marx, and a bit of history on the Left, he becomes readable and very thought provoking. Also, a site like John Gray for Communism offers an interesting synthesis of Left Communist, anarchist, Situationist etc. which to me shows that these things don't have to be totally separate. It's just the more hierarchical/party/vanguard/state communism that many see as having been discredited by history, not Marxism or Communism.
Yep:
Only in dogma does understanding change so slowly, particularly in the face of this Info-age onslaught of more and more information.....

Dave: Hey, it seems like you are changing the subject here. Maybe you don't have time to read the books I suggested, you're a student perhaps, I could understand that, there is too much to ever read it all, but I think reading as widely as possible helps to avoid dogma and ideology. You do seem like you've read a lot of history. I think many people these days are aware that Leninism has played out miserably historically. But to be fair, they question Anarchism too, and other theory, because theory must coincide with practice, and each tests and strengthens the other, so I have read. But I also find it to be true in my activity, which is why I had to stop working with Leninist vanguards. I just didn't seem to be able to have any real input in their groups. I don't identify as any tendency or school myself. I guess I'd rather go to an Anarchist Book Fair than an ISO/Answer/SAW/CAN meeting because in my experience, Vanguard groups, and their front groups exhibit much more duplicity and control freak behavior than most anarchists I've encountered. There are ultra-leftists who go on ego trips too, but in general, it seems the very structure of ISO type groups drive them to place organizing and recruitment over getting input from the people who make up their groups. So people are represented instead of acting for themselves. I do think this stems directly from Leninist ideology and organizing strategy, the party over the workers, the party representing the workers instead of the workers representing themselves. Just read what C.L.R. James said about Roberts Rules fifty years ago (!) to get an idea of how a CAN conference can be manipulated by one group using a thinly veiled top down control.

Yep:
With all due respect Dave. What do YOU think of the question? Not Freddy Perlman, or whatever.

Dave: I think it is good you are willing to question communists, anarchists, and everyone else, and that you remain willing to communicate and ask questions. But I thought, from your writing, that you might gain from reading the books I mentioned. I guess the C.L.R. James text has not been recommended as often to you. Maybe you could take a look at it.
Thanks for the response,
Dave

again and again:
Yeah, "Anarchists" cite those same two pamphlets as if they are the be all and end all of the question.

Dave: I assume this is "Yep"? I guess you are not interested in reading these books to see for yourself. Do you assume that these are typical or trendy or whatever, and that it's not worth considering the ideas in them? That seems to be out of character for you. Have you ever looked at any Socialism or Barbarism? There have been a lot of developments that broke with Vanguardism, and that offer explanations on why changing circumstance has shown these writers that new methods are needed. I think we can gain from them. Guy Debord's _Society of the Spectacle_ is pretty dense, but with a bit of Marx, and a bit of history on the Left, he becomes readable and very thought provoking. Also, a site like John Gray for Communism offers an interesting synthesis of Left Communist, anarchist, Situationist etc. which to me shows that these things don't have to be totally separate. It's just the more hierarchical/party/vanguard/state communism that many see as having been discredited by history, not Marxism or Communism.
Yep:
Only in dogma does understanding change so slowly, particularly in the face of this Info-age onslaught of more and more information.....

Dave: Hey, it seems like you are changing the subject here. Maybe you don't have time to read the books I suggested, you're a student perhaps, I could understand that, there is too much to ever read it all, but I think reading as widely as possible helps to avoid dogma and ideology. You do seem like you've read a lot of history. I think many people these days are aware that Leninism has played out miserably historically. But to be fair, they question Anarchism too, and other theory, because theory must coincide with practice, and each tests and strengthens the other, so I have read. But I also find it to be true in my activity, which is why I had to stop working with Leninist vanguards. I just didn't seem to be able to have any real input in their groups. I don't identify as any tendency or school myself. I guess I'd rather go to an Anarchist Book Fair than an ISO/Answer/SAW/CAN meeting because in my experience, Vanguard groups, and their front groups exhibit much more duplicity and control freak behavior than most anarchists I've encountered. There are ultra-leftists who go on ego trips too, but in general, it seems the very structure of ISO type groups drive them to place organizing and recruitment over getting input from the people who make up their groups. So people are represented instead of acting for themselves. I do think this stems directly from Leninist ideology and organizing strategy, the party over the workers, the party representing the workers instead of the workers representing themselves. Just read what C.L.R. James said about Roberts Rules fifty years ago (!) to get an idea of how a CAN conference can be manipulated by one group using a thinly veiled top down control.

Yep:
With all due respect Dave. What do YOU think of the question? Not Freddy Perlman, or whatever.

Dave: I think it is good you are willing to question communists, anarchists, and everyone else, and that you remain willing to communicate and ask questions. But I thought, from your writing, that you might gain from reading the books I mentioned. I guess the C.L.R. James text has not been recommended as often to you. Maybe you could take a look at it.
Thanks for the response,
Dave

>Gloria LaRiva isnt going to massacre Anarchists and Tod Chretian wont send Anarchists to Gulags


That's because they don't have state power. Every single time that Bolshies attain state power, the mask comes off and blood flows in rivers. There has never been an exception.

murder. mayhem. chaos.

those anarchists are just a bunch of bomb throwers...

people peacefully cooperate of their own free will. That's what the word means.

...the workers are free. that's what the word means.

Bolshevism isn't communism. It's state monopoly capitalism.

nope

I can read through those books at some point. The one on nationalism seems more inetersting than the one on Lenin and the Russian revolution since I dont think the Soviet Union was a positive force at any point in its existance already.

Since I dont have time to read those books in the next few weeks all I can respond to is your statements:

"There have been a lot of developments that broke with Vanguardism"
Why are Anarchists seen as less vanguardist than Communists? ANSWER has a core group that plans and lead protests but most breakaway marchs and the like Ive attended had a core group that knew the route and was secretive about that for reasons relating to security culture.You can say "we dont believe that we shoudl eb the ones to run a future state" but I dont believe that any Communist groups today pose any remote chance of taking over the US, California, San Francisco or having any power beyond the organization of giant protests (whichis now power at all since ANSWER marchs are not very different from UFP marchs and aside rom a few speakers of their choosing are more a response to a need than forcing something on people)

" I think many people these days are aware that Leninism has played out miserably historically."
Despite having read a few of Lenin's books I dont see much relationship between what he wrote and what he did in power. I dont think thats a matter of the ideology failing but just the uselessness of political theory when it comes to the real world. Trotsky had a pragmatic strain about how to deal with the Whites that does give you a feel for where the USSR was headed but his more pragmnatic writings sound like any military/political leader cynically trying to solve things. Just as nobody today would assume that a Christian of Budhist leader would be better on nonviolence issues than peopel who dont claim to believe such things, I dont see an Anarchists as a safer bet aftera revolution than any other group (although since there isnt going to be one here for a long time... who cares)

"But I also find it to be true in my activity, which is why I had to stop working with Leninist vanguards. "
Thats a bit sad. Do you not work with any COC, RCP or otherfront groups ever becasue of differences in theory. Issolating onesself to the company of the likeminded may be good for monks but it hardly seems a way to convince others of your ideas or change the world in any way. I guess there is a bit of a myth among some Anarchists that you can ignore Communists and try talking to groups that are unconverted (which seems to be how some view immirant and minority groups) but Marxism is very strong among many politically active immigrant groups and the more politically active locals in the Bay View are also Communist.

" I just didn't seem to be able to have any real input in their groups. "
Working with people and working for peopel are not the same thing. I cant stand many of ANSWER's speakers but I thik they are probably the best group around now for organizing large protests (which take a lot more work than just outrach and permits)
While breakaway marchs are things ANSWER leaders seem to oppose they would never have been able to take place in the form they did without the main marchs so I wonderif you would have avoided those just to make a point of not wanting to work with ANSWER.

"I guess I'd rather go to an Anarchist Book Fair than an ISO/Answer/SAW/CAN meeting "
I think most people would prefer a fun event like a book fair to any meeting.

"Vanguard groups, and their front groups exhibit much more duplicity and control freak behavior than most anarchists I've encountered."
There are some pretty control freaky Anarchists around. The main difference is that Comjmunist groups tend to invite you to a meeting and then try to assign you work without giving you a say in the process whereas Anarchists tend to screen before any meeting that involves decission making. Thus Communuists get new poeple who dont care about being organizers but want to help out but rarely build up their core group... Anarchists usually just pull in networks of friends which usually results in a less diverse set of peopel than in Communist groups and new peopel who do come to meeting have a hard tim plugging in since the rules are not well defined (or are social hierarchy oriented rules rather than formal rules).

"the very structure of ISO type groups drive them to place organizing and recruitment over getting input from the people who make up their groups."
I'd agree with that at one level. Their paper business and sales requirements really warp[ their agenda in a way you would think Marxists would have predicted. Outside of the whole dynamic about papers though they are at least sane compared to the core groups of the RCP and Sparts.

"I do think this stems directly from Leninist ideology "
I dont think modern actviists groups have anything to do with Lenin. The dynamics that ran most US Communist and Anarchist groups before 9/11 tended to revove around an idealization of groups in the 1960s. I think the baby boomer generation proved so completely ineffective in helping organizie against Iraq and the Patriot act that a lot of the idealization is now gone. SDS and spin off groups had a much lager impacton post 1960s US activist groups of all stripes than a coup in a poor country on the other side of the world nearly 100 years ago.

"the party over the workers, the party representing the workers instead of the workers representing themselves. "
I dont see how Anarchists act any different when they do labor organizing. Caring about "the party" means caring about keeping your group itself above water and able to keep doing what it does. All groups have to put some energy into themselves and some into their causes.

"a CAN conference can be manipulated by one group using a thinly veiled top down control. "
Ive been to plenty of antiwar meetingst hat were indirectly controlled by the ISO, the WWP, Socialism and Liberation, the RCP, and certain Anarchist cliques. The main difference I noiced is that Anarchists tend to justify information control and decission outside of meetings on security grounds whereas Communists probably have more formal rules witin their actual groups (even if the peopel who shjow up are not aware). For most workers (including me at some points) who show up at a giant antiwar meeting once the war starts the concern over power and control is prtety low when the concensus and what to do is so clear. ANSWER may abuse their power in terms of how the very front of their marchs loos and who is on stage (although they tend to give in to a lot of groups and have topo many speakers rather than just a select group they came up with which provides for a better set of views but way too much time of peopel just talking) but ANSWER's actions around other aspects of the march are ones that everyone would consense upon and it would drive peopel off to discuss them every time. It may seem more democratic to have a meeting where you go over port-o-pottys, medic tents, etc... but I think most people who are working and have little time to argue about such things are just glad someone does it.

I may read more Anarchist theory at some point but am pretty fed up byt heory and those interested in it since it so rarely reflects on the real word in real ways. Id be more inetrested in reading books on human psychology without preexisting assumptions that it has to do with modern structures (like class) that didnt exist wehn huumans were evolving in small groups hundreds of thousands of years ago. You can for example define nationalism in terms of its effects on class interests or as the psychology that makes people loyal to groups. As with most things peopel want to deifne bad things away from themselves and good things towards themselves. The point I was making in previous posts about anarchonationalism is that while everyone justifies why they hate competitors to the groups they are members of, the underlying dynamic probably has little to due with the justifications. The behaviour I was mainly respoinding to was the way people talked in almost gleeful terms about kicking Communists out of the Book Fair (as if the act of kicking a Commuist out was almost something to look forward to); that psychology is somewhet similar to Standofrd and Berkeley students playing pranks on each other before the Big Game, punks dissing hippies, racists groups hating on immigrants or whole countries attacking other whole countries. ANSWER tried to stop berakway marchs at their protests only to the extent where it looked like they were trying since otherwise it woudl jepordize their ability to get permits for future marchs, but the desire to kick Communists out of an Anarchist event is alost pureply one of group rivallry and there is is soemthing unbelievable in thinking it really has to to with anger over actions 100 years ago by groups that used similar lables.

Scroll back up the page and read about "No Business As Usual"

One more ineteresting thing to point out.

Condemning people who have ideologies today that resemble (or have the same labels) as those of peopel 100 years ago who did bad things is strange enough but redefining the labels and then condemning the refined labels is even more strange. Did the ISO support the USSR at the point that Krosnstadt happened? First off, they were not around, but secondly they have an ideology that says the USSR was never a workers state so they go a bit beyond the normal Trot line in terms of condemning when the USSR went bad. Are the ISO Bolshies? Are they guilty for the actions of the USSR? The RCP has pictures of Stalin on their wall but even in their case do you think the RCP is guilty for Stalins actions any more than someopne witha picture of Genghis Khan on tehir wall is guilty for the attrocities of the Mongolian Empire. Are Anarchist control freaks who have copies of "The Art of War" guilty for the actions of the actions on Chineese war lords? Guilt by ideological association is a bit nonsensical and Im guessing doesnt related top the real hatred but its worth keeping pointing out how nonsensical it really is (and how the obsessive focus on the Russian Revolution by Communists AND Anarchists is more in line with Ren Fair people wanting to recreate the Middle Ages for fun than anything that relates to real politics today)

what, 20 people involved? 200?

zee, plane, zee, plane.

sounds nice, warm and fuzzy, but you're dreamin', and not in a good way

greed and violence will just magically float away into the wind? at once, people will abandon their millenia-old religious beliefs as well as turn every last sword into a plowshare?

sure, we'll all sing kumbaya as every last one of us instantly evolves into peace-loving gods free of our primitive brains

that's the worst thing about "anarchy nationalists" (to borrow that phrase), just toss around some glib catchphrases without thinking about how unrealistic their utopia is. and, by the way, "utopia" literally means "no where"

A [label] did [some irritating thing] to me a few years back so all [label] are evil and bear the guilt for the actions of the specific people who did that to me.

Depending on how you replace [label] that could sound like racism, sexism, or the antiCommunist stuff above. Stereotypes as to the evils of those outsides ones specific group (especially those of groups that to neutral parties seem similar to ones own group) could perhaps be seen as one of the most clear signs of group nationalism be it gangs, bordering countries, ideological sects or religious sects/cults.

I have enjoyed your thoughtful comments

I know someone else already recommended books to you on political theory and whatnot, but I thought I might recommend you read some texts on Social Psychology, as you expressed an interest in psychology. I think it's fascinating stuff, and gets into the social dynamics of how we operate and not just the introspective individual psychology stuff. somewhat of a cross between sociology and psychology, more psychology though, it touches on group behavior (groupthink, gangs, nationalism, etc), stereotypes (which serve a purpose in helping us more quickly organize the world around us but too often lead to misperceptions), and many of the things your thought processes seem to be leading you towards. I'd bet you can find some good ones in any local U that has a decent psych department, if your favorite local bookstore lacks thorough ones. I have't picked one up myself in a while so I cannot recommend anything specific at this point

Yep:
Condemning people who have ideologies today that resemble (or have the same labels) as those of peopel 100 years ago who did bad things is strange enough but redefining the labels and then condemning the refined labels is even more strange. Did the ISO support the USSR at the point that Krosnstadt happened? First off, they were not around, but secondly they have an ideology that says the USSR was never a workers state so they go a bit beyond the normal Trot line in terms of condemning when the USSR went bad.

Dave:
I think “ideology” is inherently problematic. It is received knowledge without critical thought. It doesn’t yield to new information brought on by history or action/practice. Every person involved in resisting the structures of capitalism should have some theory under their belt and have input into shaping theory based on the situation on the ground. But try joining one of the ISO front groups and see how much your views or experiences count.
The ISO defends Bolshevik domination and the eventual control of the workers’ councils/soviets which took place, and yes they do defend the Bolsheviks at Kronstadt to this day, just ask one of their members. They are not happy that it happened, but they do rationalize and ultimately defend the actions at Kronstadt. I don’t see how this can be considered irrelevant. To defend Lenin is to defend State Capitalism, Taylorism, one man management, and workers’ “management” over real workers control. Is that the future society you want? This also says a lot about their current insistence that they are “democratically” organized at every level. It’s because their definition refers to _democratic centralism_, but even beyond that, their intentional manipulation through Robert's Rules, Fraction groups and so on, rob people of any real say in their own organizing. This is demonstrably true, and the tsunami of resentment on the internet and in people you talk to who have had run ins with them attests to it.
Even Lenin’s rhetoric shows that it was not just the civil war that led to these Bolshevik positions arising out of pressure and crisis. I think it is a big mistake to say that history doesn’t count. One the most well known people to argue against this idea was Karl Marx. He insisted that economy be studied in the context of historical events, so that the actions of capitalists, and the results of capitalist development could be analyzed more accurately. To this day, mainstream economics wants to ignore historical results of capitalism, but it is dangerous to ignore history in any question of theory or action.
When history is irrelevant, people can say things like “Sure ANSWER/ISO/whoever have some flaws, but it’s great that they organize so well.” But organize what? Antiwar rallies are nice, but look at them. Walking lock step with the cops who herd us around, and oceans of cheap slogans on the mass produced ANSWER signs. Groups of Sectarian authoritarians hawking papers that none of the members have written anything in (very very rarely there is an exception, but even then it goes through a very hierarchical centralized process, and antidemocratic by default, and mimics party line). If this is the alternative or the resistance, the question is, what is it building _toward_? For many critical people, worry is that should any of these groups ever take center stage in a revolutionary situation, a new set of bosses and bureaucrats would emerge. Supporting such groups is ultimately counterproductive. Why strengthen their rigid and stifling organizing when people can form other groups, large or small, and try to honestly grapple with working on models that reflect what we want society to actually look like? It’s not that you have to “turn anarchist” but that you should try to find people you can work with honestly to learn and formulate theory and link it up with action.
I’m not telling anyone not to go to the antiwar rally. Go as an individual or with some non authoritarian group if you want, but at some point, the authoritarian socialist groups have to be challenged specifically because of what they stand for and want to bring about. All this despite the fact that they organize effectively, or at least always take credit for everything. Ever hear this one “If it wasn’t for [insert authoritarian socialist group here] there would be no antiwar organizing.” Only a fool would believe it!

What are you trying to say here, that if a guy says he's a Nazi we should keep an open mind about him because he personally never killed any Jews? Is that what you're trying to say?

"I think “ideology” is inherently problematic. It is received knowledge without critical thought."

Thats my thought when it comes to Anarchism too. Claiming to have the one true path but not be a religion is a common technique of Evangelicals when they try to approach you and you tell them you dont like religion. One can hold many of the ideals of many Anarchist writers and not really have much of an ideology but once you claim the label and define friends and enemies based off that label its clearly an ideology.


"But try joining one of the ISO front groups and see how much your views or experiences count."
They have a formal set of views that stricter than most Anarchist groups which makes it hard to work within such groups and have an open mind, but the clinging to an ideological name in a nationalistic fashion without having a claar set of beliefs (or a value on depending on the Anarchist group) is in a way the thing that makes Anarchist groups often appear more like tight high school social cliques that exclude based off whose cool and who is not rather than at least having a set of views stated up front so exclusion takes place based off differences in belief rather than the vague social rules that usually also lead to a lack of diversity.

"The ISO defends Bolshevik domination and the eventual control of the workers’ councils/soviets which took place, and yes they do defend the Bolsheviks at Kronstadt to this day, just ask one of their members."
The last time I had a long ideological conservation with ISO members I had just read the second volume of Das Kapital and wanted to argue about it with Communists. None of them had read it and most didnt know what they were supposed to think about a lot of the topics. Some openly disagreed with the ISO's official views but just wanted to work with a group doing something.... Unless the ISO members in question had been around for a long time and had a chance to get the official party line down on Kronstadt I doubt tehy would even know what you were asking about.

"They are not happy that it happened, but they do rationalize and ultimately defend the actions at Kronstadt."
I wonder if thats their official line or just a person using the label Trot trying to defend their brand identity when confronted by an Anarchist using Kronstagd as an example while the competing brand is better. Personally I dont se why anyone today shoudl care about Kronstadt. The Soviet Union really has little to do with the history of any of the modern Commuist groups with the exception of CPUSA since the others really came into being in the late 60s in response to youth unrest against the draft (with Communism being a label that sounded good because of third world anticolonial struggles and the Russian history providing a necessary mythology to cling on to once the name was chosen)

"I don’t see how this can be considered irrelevant."
Is the French revolution meaningful when critiquing someone calling for equality and liberty? Kronstadt really has little relationship to modern politics, modern political groups or anything else. It was nearly 100 years ago, and while many Marxists and Communists cling to the Russian Revolution as having some more fundamental meaning than the actions of Simon Blovar, the Meji Restoration in Japan, the creation of Germany in the late 1800s and the freeing of the Russian Serfs its hard to see why it deserves the focus its been given. The Opium wars, the Great Game between Russia and Britian, Britains actions after WWI have a lot more impact on current events than than Russias collapse/revolution followings its essential defeat by the Germans half way through WWI.

"To defend Lenin is to defend State Capitalism, Taylorism, one man management, and workers’ “management” over real workers control."
I dont really care if someone defends Lenin or Mao anymore than I would care if someone decided to recreate serfdom at a Ren Fair for fun or pretend that Tibet was a wonderful place when it used to be a theocracy. Lenin lived in a different time and was more of a political than an ideologue. I dont agree with his historical views in his book on imperialism but even if I did dont think his views had much to do with what he did when he came to power (especially when they decided to implement the New Economic Policy etc...

"Is that the future society you want?"
I want a world where we can all breathe water and live under the ocean and be friends with wales. As things stand we face a growing economic conservatism and despite opposition to the Iraq war, a US public that is more likely to support the views of Pat Robertson than the views of most Anarchists and Communists.

" their intentional manipulation through Robert's Rules, Fraction groups and so on, rob people of any real say in their own organizing. This is demonstrably true, and the tsunami of resentment on the internet and in people you talk to who have had run ins with them attests to it."

The ISO are into their rules, ANSWER has its core organizers who just do what they want and Anarchists have their social cliques. People seem to want to only really make decissions among their friends and this power dynamic is enforced differently by different groups. Personally I prefer the Roberts rule stuff over the social clique way of organizing but thats mainly because Im antisocial and like to be able to see the decission making taking place even if I know I can have no impact on it.

"Even Lenin’s rhetoric shows that it was not just the civil war that led to these Bolshevik positions arising out of pressure and crisis. I think it is a big mistake to say that history doesn’t count."
Look at the French Revolution, The Russian Revolution, the Iraniain Revolution, People Power in the Phillipines, popular uprisings in Argentina... what end up happening after a collapse doesnt have much of a relationship to the ideology of those leading to the collapse. What was the literacy rate in Russia at the time of the Russian revoution? How many people knew more than vaguely what they were fighting for aside from an end to the mass deaths of WWI. History is interesting but the world looks pretty different from czarist Russia or preMaoist China today; in both countries most of the country were peasants, most were illiterate, mass communications barely existed, ... If one is going to learn from recent revolutions the Iranian Revolution, the failed US coup in Venezuela and the collapse in Argentina really are more intersting and more related to how the world works today than the Russian Revolution.

"One the most well known people to argue against this idea was Karl Marx. He insisted that economy be studied in the context of historical events"
He also though that Communists revolutiosn were inevitable and woudl take place first in highly industrialized countries (not Russia). He is an intersting writer but his books are pretty scattered and I think the way their written could explain the popularity since huge tomes like Das Kapital can be studied and interpreted like religious texts easier than short concise writing.

"To this day, mainstream economics wants to ignore historical results of capitalism, but it is dangerous to ignore history in any question of theory or action."
Mainstream economics is more a branch of math than anything related to the real world. Political economics as a subject is closer to what Marx, Adam Smith and Malthus wrote than whats called economics today. Personally I kinda liked Veblen's views better than any of their views but thats mainly because we included human irrationality into his framework.

"But organize what? Antiwar rallies are nice, but look at them. Walking lock step with the cops who herd us around, and oceans of cheap slogans on the mass produced ANSWER signs."
Protests are pretty tired but so far more radical forms of showing dissent seem to be exclusive (almost more vanguardist) and less productive than ones where the bulk of the public can join in. On the other side latter writing campaigns and Move On style organizing is so watered down the demands seem meaningless. While walking with signs next to the police is really just a media event, an action that can draw in the diverse crowds ANSWER has drawn in over the past few years is at least responsive to the mainstream working class whereas many more radical small protests seem a little more inwardly focused (with epopel trying to impress their friends with their radicalism) than designed to bring in the public (which is why I tend to see manyh Anarchists as more vanguardist than many Communists)

"Groups of Sectarian authoritarians hawking papers that none of the members have written anything in"
At the book fair the same thing will happen? Some magazines are local so the writers will be there but I figured I shoudl bring this up since you listed two books I should read in a previous comment that are also by people who you probably have never meet.

"the question is, what is it building _toward_?"
Nothing. Its the background level of protests that are currently needed to keep things from getting much worse. I used to think that if only some group coudl find a better ideology or organzing technique they could expand and really change things but I dont really believe that anymore. I think public opinion can at times crystalize to create mass uprisings and change but that the groups that emerge at those times are acting in response to broader social forces and not doing a lot to shape those social forces (ie the Vietnam war was driven by the draft which created a youth culture focus and a willingness for militancy among people whose choice was to be forced to fight or be illegal ... and if you were going to go to jail for not going to war, why feel fear that one would get arrested for protesting when one coudl get arrested for doing nothing)

"For many critical people, worry is that should any of these groups ever take center stage in a revolutionary situation, a new set of bosses and bureaucrats would emerge."
If the US suffered an economic collapse right now due to a giant natural disaster you wouldnt seen ANSWER, the ISO, Anarchists or other such groups emerging as centers of power. You would see right-wing militias, inner city and prison gangs, churchs and probably large businesses take the lead.

"Supporting such groups is ultimately counterproductive. Why strengthen their rigid and stifling organizing when people can form other groups, large or small, and try to honestly grapple with working on models that reflect what we want society to actually look like?"
If the will exists then that will happen but when ANSWER hasnt had protests in months and nobody else has one its hard to claim ANSWER is getting in the way.

"I tend to see manyh Anarchists as more vanguardist than many Communists"

That wouldnt be so bad, where people admitted to it and talked openly about it (for example, affinity group theory).

It's the denial alongside the aggressive practice, that's where the problems come in.

At least the commies name their power structures, and conduct them openly.

The IDP/Adventure Club table will have a lot of interesting ideas to share.I will be at the Anarchist Book Fair at that table, and I'll be bringing a pamphlet I wrote called "ISOnuts: One Stop Activism and the Gentrification of the Left featuring the Gang from the International Socialist Organization". See it free at:http://userhttp://www.sfsu.edu/%7Emotopu/attemptfixisonuts.htm
This group of people is hooked in with all sorts of historical projects, and yes we write our own stuff. I don't think my writing is necessarily representative of how others would have discussed the same ideas, but we're a diverse group of friends.

Also someone just wrote that the "commies" are open about their structures. Gag me with a red ISO fist dude (I know careful what I wish for). That shows me this person has never seen Roberts Rules in action at an ISO or CAN meeting. Do you think ISO people come into a SAW meeting and say "Hi, we're the ISO and we run this group through our Fraction group. The fact that we are cohesive around our party line will give us the ability to steer this group even if we don't have a majority. Anything you may produce as far as writing for the group will probably go through Todd Chretien for his final approval, and all of our agenda for the group will be following an ISO agenda, unless you have any ideas for potlucks or ribbon campaigns that don't get in the way of us using you as a labor pool for our projects. Great, any questions?"
Aside from that, I think "Yep" tends to ignore some important historical lessons. I say that with respect, acknowledging his wide reading of history and theorists, and I don't claim to know more than him. But I just think that when you sort of keep equating anti-authoritarianism and authoritarianism as if they were two sides of the same coin, it is ahistorical. What about Hungary in 1956? Would it have made no difference if the CP had led that revolution? Is there really no qualitative difference? What about Paris 1968, would it have been the same if there had been no critique of the Old Left and the vanguard parties?
I agree with the person who called out the statements on ideology being irrelevant by pointing out that if a person was openly a white supremacist or a Neo-Nazi, it would make zero sense to think their ideology didn't affect their actions.
Lastly, I already said I don't identify as an anarchist in any purist sense, although I find much of their critique useful, including Bakunin's critique of Marx during the First International.
Thanks again, and I have really appreciated some of the ideas shared, especially the non-flame ones.
Dave

"That shows me this person has never seen Roberts Rules in action at an ISO or CAN meeting...."


It is only a mystery to people who are really new to activism. They have a theory, name it, conduct it, talk about it.

Don't blame your naivete' on someone else's subterfuge....

"...if a person was openly a white supremacist..."

what about people who go there as a prison survival strategy? are they "really" racists?

"I'll be bringing a pamphlet I wrote called "ISOnuts: One Stop Activism and the Gentrification of the Left featuring the Gang from the International Socialist Organization"."

The Sparts are the only other Bay Area faction I knowe of that actually goes around and hands out leaflets denouncing other activist groups. They had one about Anarchism that pretty vague and theoretical and at an ILWU rally they actually had leaflets denoucning Snehal from the ISO for crossing a picket line during a UCB strike (not sure if he really did cross the line but even if he did I dont know what they would have assumed that people at a dock workers protst would care or even know who he is)

" Do you think ISO people come into a SAW meeting and say "Hi, we're the ISO and we run this group through our Fraction group."
I havent been toa SAW meeting in the last few years but in the meetings after 9/11 having Snehal be the main speaker and having other ISO people taking prominent leadership roles was pretty obvious. Would things have gone better if they hadent tried to run things? I dont know. It would be nice to think they would but between student turnover and the general conservatism on the UCB campus I really doubt it would have been much better.


"But I just think that when you sort of keep equating anti-authoritarianism and authoritarianism as if they were two sides of the same coin"
Authoritarianism without authority isnt really antiauthoritarianisn and anti-authoritarianisns without any prospect of authority is also meaningless.

"What about Hungary in 1956?"
An uprising in the face of upression by a government calling itself Commmunist would pretty obviously take an antiCommunist tone. Its not a complete parallel but you can look at Chile's left turn with the election of Allende and the US intervention and ask why opposition to Pinochet took a Communist tone... with the world conflict defining one side as Communist and ther other as antiCommunists uprisings against opression on one side took one label and uprisings on the other took the other. While many groups did read theory and knew about the ideologies connected to the labels it was the labels that mattered much more than the beliefs.

"Is there really no qualitative difference? What about Paris 1968, would it have been the same if there had been no critique of the Old Left and the vanguard parties?"
As with the 60s in the US it's difficult to see a lot of long term success. The youth culture aspects of 60s radicalism were partly a positive reaction to probolems with the old left but they also created the cultural divisions between middle-class leftists and workingclass cultural conservatives that ultimately lead to Reagan and Bush (and probably Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East in a more round about fashion)

"if a person was openly a white supremacist or a Neo-Nazi, it would make zero sense to think their ideology didn't affect their actions."
Neonazis are horrible because of their actions but their ideology is not very similar to the actual Nazis (a bit similar to when it was racist youth gangs but very different from when it was in power). Neonazis in the US have more roots in groups like the KKK mixed with youth cultural desire to latch on to things to scare parents than anything from Germany. The actual Nazis in the US in the 30s (like Limburgh and others) didnt look much like neonazi gangs in prisons today.

"I find much of their critique useful, including Bakunin's critique of Marx during the First International."
In terms of blaming ideologies for the actions of people who claim to support them, Qaddafi does quote Bakunin in his Green Book Im pretty sure.

Cant find the Bakunin quote but the green book contains a lot of Anarchist sounding theory:
see
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/zgb1-8.htm
or the whole book at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/readgb.htm

Reading
"Any pretension by
any individual or group that it is re-
sponsible for law is dictatorship.
Democracy means the responsibility
of the whole society, and supervision
should be carried out by the whole
society. That is democracy and its
proper implementation is through the
democratic instrument of governing,
resulting from the organization of soci-
ety itself in basic popular congresses"

You would think that the person writing such things was a strong anti-authoritarian but Libya is almost as bad a N Korea so.... theory, ideology, and high minded talk of opposing authoritariansim means little....

"it's called vanguard theory" wrote:
It is only a mystery to people who are really new to activism. They have a theory, name it, conduct it, talk about it.
Don't blame your naivete' on someone else's subterfuge....

Dave: I'm not new to activism, and I was not mystified by the use of Robert's Rules to undermine real democratic input at the CAN conference, which is why I wrote about it. The problem is, I was the only one who complained about it at the time, which makes me think it did serve some purpose to call it out when it happened, considering once I said something many many others said they felt the same way.
You don't have to pose as a superman you know. Combined with going under a fake name, it is not at all convincing.

"Neonazi gangs in prisons today" are a tiny, tiny fraction of the movement as a whole. They are far from representative.

They're not "neo" Nazis, either. That's pure propaganda. There is a documented continuum of organized Nazi activity, uninterrupted by the defeat of Germany in 1945. The Nazis never went away. They morphed.

To get up to speed on these people's history quickly, read *The Beast Reawakens" by Martin Lee. He did his homework. He sums it up well.

It would make zero sense to think Bolshevik ideology didn't affect their actions, either. These guys are two sides of the same coin. The difference between "National Socialism" and "Socialism in One Country" is a lot more syntax than substance. Look fare enough to the left or the right, you will the same thing, a bunch of guys with guns who want to tell you how to f*ck, which drugs to take and when to show up for work.

It's the ones who look like this that you need watch out for.

Equating Bolsheviks with NeoNazis is fun if your an Anarchist since groups calling themselves Socialists compete for membership with the Anarchist brand name. But the truth is I doubt any of you actually believe it. Do you not listen to KPFA because many of those on the air are Socialists who you claim are as bad as Nazis? Do you not read the Bay View, work with anti-war and labor groups, etc... You may attend anti-war groups run by Socialists and say you still hate them but are there due to agreement on the one issue but I'm guessing you wouldnt show up to take part in a NeoNazi protest against proIsrael influences on the US government even though you would probably agree with them on that one issue.

The quote about the far left being the same as the far right seems to apply better to the LIbertarian Capitalist / Anarchist overlap on issues like guns, worries about government land confiscation (anti-environmental from the right / antigovernment from the left), and the benefits of volunteerism vs social welfare programs from government agencies (who needs section 8 when there are squats and who needs an emergency management agency when religious and anarchist groups can show up and help out after a hurricane) ...

A real critique of the ISO isn't that they are national socialist or so far radical they look like a rightwing group but that if they ever grew and became electoral their trajectory could easlly end up being similar to the European Green Parties or even the British Labor Party (which was officially socialist before Blair). Tod is already running for office essentially as a Democratic Socialist afterall.

One real danger I see in the "they are nazis" line of arguing that some here apply to Zionists, animal rights activists, green anarchists, and Communists, is that it treats the word Nazi as being equivalent to the world evil rather than a specific historical phenomena in a specific place that had outside influences that helped drive it and was only unique in the scale of its brutality. Mussolini was about as bad as Hitler but he wasnt a "Nazi". Stalin was about as bad as Mussolini but he likewise wasnt a Nazi or a fasicst. The genocide in Rwanda was on a scale comparible to the Hollocaust (especially considering the size of the country) but those carrying out the genocide were not doing what they did because of ideas that came to them from 1930s Germany (Hitler claimed to have modelled the Hollocaust after the killing of the Armenians by the young Turks so its seems weird to point everying back to 1930s Germany).

Why is Hitler still fetishized by alienated right-wing youth in the US when racism and totalitarianism in the US have much different roots than Germany (slavery, reconstruction, ...)? Perhaps because "Nazi" doesnt mean Nazi but is a taboo fashion statement. There are some neoNazis that dress like Limburgh or Ford and other American Nazi supporters from the US in the 1930s rather than as merely alienated youth but the driving force now is much different since denial of something that hadnt yet taken place and support for authoritarianism and racism in that context is very different than after the horrors of the Nazis is known (and even most neoNazis deny the horrors even if they know it happened). There may be some real remnants of the actual Nazis on the far right but from what I can see, the use of "Nazi" by neonazis as a fashion based scare tactic is similar to the KKK dressing up in sheets modeled after Spanish Christian pilgrams. That doesnt mean they areny dangerous to people but everything thats evil doesnt have its roots in 1930s Germany (even when it claims to).

Are Communists equivalent to Nazis because the Nazis wanted a strong state as some (but not all) Socialists do, are animal rights actists equivalent to Nazis since the Nazis opposed vivisection, are vegetarians equivalent to Nazis because Hitler didnt eat meat, are black bloc groups equivalent to Nazis since early Nazi groups also fetished property damage, are men with mustaches Nazis since Hilter had a mustache,
...
Are hurricanes Nazis since they destroy many innocent lives? What about bird flu?
Nazi Germany was a country with more trees than many nonNazi countries, does this mean that there is a correlation between having trees and being a Nazi?

Equating things that you see as evil with Nazis and then comming up with commonalities to point at is just trickery but is also a nonargument since few would argue that mustaches are evil but you do hear the line about vegetarians, animals rights activists and Communists from both the right and even some Anarchists.

Bolsheviks are equivalent to Nazis because they employ the same methods.

Bolsheviks are not, however, true communists. They are state monopoly capitalists who *call* themselves comminists.

For a glimpse of true communism, read Acts 2:44-45

Who exactly is a Bolsheviks? The Sparts are the only Bay Area Communist group I know of which might identify themselves with that label.

"Bolsheviks are equivalent to Nazis because they employ the same methods. "
Since much of the talk above was about the ISO are you saying that selling left leaningb papers (that contain little about Communist ideology) is acting like a Nazi? Or do you mean that their use of front groups and bad behavior at meetings makes them as bad as Nazis? Or is the problem that Tod has a mustache and only people who are Nazis have those?

'The Instrument of Governing is the prime
political problem which faces human com-
munities.'
Even the conflict within the family is,
often, the result of this problem.
'This problem has become serious since the
emergence of modern societies.'
Peoples, nowadays, face this persistent
problem and communities suffer from va-
rious risks and grave consequences to which
it leads. They have not yet succeeded in
solving it finally and democratically.
The GREEN BOOK presents the final
solution to the problem of the instrument of
governing.
All political systems in the world today
are the product of the struggle for power
between instruments of governing. The
struggle may be peaceful or armed, such as
the conflict of classes, sects, tribes, parties or
individuals. The result is always the victory
of an instrument of governing -- be it an
individual, group, party or class and the
defeat of the people, i.e. the defeat of genuine
democracy.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/zgb1-1.htm


THE PARTY


The party is the contemporary dicta- |The party
torship. It is the modern dictatorial |system aborts
instrument of governing. The party is |democracy
the rule of a part over the whole. It is
the latest dictatorial instrument. As
the party is not individual it exercises
a sham democracy through estab-
lishing parliaments and committees
and through the propaganda of its
members. The party is not a democra-
tic instrument at all because it is
composed of people who have common
interests, a common outlook or a com-
mon culture; or who belong to the
same locality or have the same belief.
They form a party to achieve their |To make a
ends, impose their outlook or extend |party you
the hold of their belief on the society as |split society
a whole. A party's aim is to achieve
power under the pretext of carrying
out its programme. And yet, democra-
tically, none of these parties should
govern the whole people because of the
diversity of interests, ideas, tempera-
ments, localities and beliefs, which

[12]


constitute the people's identity. The
party is a dictatorial instrument of
governing that enables those with one
outlook and a common interest to rule
the people as a whole. Compared with
the people, the party is a minority.
The purpose of forming a party is to
create an instrument to rule the peo-
ple; namely to rule over non-members
of the party. For the party is, fun-
damentally, based on an arbitrary au-
thoritarian theory . . .

...

Originally, the party is formed to
represent the people. Then the leading
group of the party represents its mem-
bers and the supreme leader of the
party represents the leading group. It
becomes clear that the party game is a
deceitful farce based on a sham form
of democracy which has a selfish con-
tent based on manoeuvres, tricks and
political games. All these emphasise
that the party-system is a dictatorial,
yet modern, instrument. The party
system is an overt, not a covert, dicta-
torship. The world has not yet passed
beyond it and it is rightly called 'the
dictatorship of the modern age'.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/zgb1-3.htm

---
Does Muammar Al Qathafi's Anarchist sounding words make Anarchism totalitarian? Does it tarnish Bakunin that he was an influence on a man who is one of the most totalitarian leaders around today?
Of course not.
Qathafi actually implemented what he wrote and there are popular assemblies running localities in Libya, but if you speak out in one of them you are likely to disappear and the worker run military holds the real power.
Anarchist theory doesnt have to lead to "corpses pilling up in ditchs" but Communist and even Leninist/Trotskyist theory didnt have to elad to the USSR either. Writers of theory think they have a lot of power but the truith is its just lyrics used in the PR campaigns of power and the words dont really have to relate to the product being sold.

>you saying that selling left leaningb papers (that contain little about Communist ideology) is acting like a Nazi?

That's how the Nazis started.


>Or do you mean that their use of front groups and bad behavior at meetings makes them as bad as Nazis?

That's a straw man. I didn't say "as bad as." I said "equivalent." Not everything the Nazis have done was bad. Not every thing the Boshies have done was bad. Fo example, they tried mighty hard to kill each other off. This was a fundamentally good thing. Too bad they couldn't do it without involving innocent bystanders. Too bad neither succeeded.

have to quibble on a fine point:

Hitler did in fact regularly eat meat and it is pretty well documented by at least a few sources. He had a taste for quail. Yet because Hitler *claimed* he was a vegetarian, historians and others still perpetuate that myth about him. And it serves pro-vivisection/anti-veg people well to continue to propogate it and "equate" vegetarians today with Hitler (yep's point about the fallaciousness of that equation notwithstanding).

Funny thing is, Hitler claimed a lot of things -- such as him being a model of health and vitality when he was a meth addict -- but people do not continue to accept his word on so many of his other false claims and yet this one persists.

>>you saying that selling left leaningb papers (that contain little about Communist ideology) is acting like a Nazi?
>That's how the Nazis started.

So selling papers is nazi-like? What about selling books at a book fair?

anarchists who do black block are cool. commies who organise antiwar demos are cool too, if they would stop doing yellow armband crowd control for the cops and getting police permits which makes them act like that. commies or anarchists that denounce castro are ignorant. kadhaffy was reagans #1 enemy, no wonder youall are ignorant of his role in unifying africa and continuing the work of sellassie, whom both anarchists and commies hate on cause of their ignorance of african revolutionary history. anarchy is appealing to americans because they know how fucked our government is, and read about how evil americas "enemies " are such as ho chi minh. commies make perfect front groups for government infiltration and the police permit process enables the government to have complete control of where demos go (ie. never to the busines district during business hours) true revolutionaries try to unite: why not march from the bookfair to the demo or vice versa instead of squabbling like a bunch of geese

"kadhaffy was reagans #1 enemy, no wonder youall are ignorant of his role in unifying africa and continuing the work of sellassie"

He talked a good talk (he used to even claim he was just a theorist and not a leader) and had nice sounding policies outside of Libya but from the few Libyans I have talked to (mostly at proPalestine protests) conditions in Libya sound a lot worse than anything in Cuba, Iran or perhaps even Saudi Arabia. If you talk to anyone from Libta the issues are not theoretical and the totalitarianism cant be excused because of the positive external policies of kadhaffy.

Just wanted to clarify that I wouldn't equate supporters of Libya with Nazis even though I think the government of Libya is probably as bad as you can get among government in terms of domestic oppression. Information from Libya (and even Cuba) is scarce enough that having a strong opinion and denouncing a follower of Bakunin for the actions of the Lbyan government makes about as much sense as blaming a follower of Lenin for Castro's actions. Even among those actively supporting Cuba its hard to place blame since the situatiion in Cuba, while bad, is likely to get worse once the US invades (probably after Castro dies).

" if they would stop doing yellow armband crowd control for the cops and getting police permits which makes them act like that."

I think the issues around protest policing are a bit complicated since the popular appeal of an ANSWER protest (and why they were able to get large crowds in past years) has a lot to do with the safety of the protest as a result of permits and self policing. It may be more radical to be openly breaking the law while protesting but there is an elitist aspect to that when it excludes people who can not afford to be arrested for personal or legal reasons (illegal immigrants, those trying to get citizenship, peopel who have their children with them at protests etc...) Breakaway marchs from ANSWER like protests did manage to bring some more mainstream protesters along with the marches (since the ANSWER speakers were often very boring) but when the long term activists who indirectly lead such marches have extensive awareness of the legal issues involved, how the SFPD tends to respond to things and what solidarity actions (like broken windows at targetted businesses) may be take along the way, those pulled along with the crowd end up in more danger. There is also an issue of machismo and discrimination against those less able to deal with police charges when younger wanabe militants guilt trip others for being confirmist when the actions proposed are only safe to those who know how to get out of the way a police batton or roundup. Should we have to get a permit to protest? Should the police arrest us when we protest without permits? No. Do the police have the right to attack us for yelling insults in their faces? No, but at the same time there is something immoral in telling others to do that when you know what the result will be (or you personally face less risk due to a priveledged background or a countercultural support network that will help protect you).

Any Anarchist worth their gruff wouldn't be caught dead at a book fair when so many have gathered to oppose war and the Right Wing.

But then, anarchists are a fucking joke in this day and age, aren't they? Go ahead and shop you lame ass fuckers.

You're sadder than the Leninists and Democrats. You have been since punk coopted anarchism and made it into a consumerist lifestyle.

Kevin
South of Market

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein


At the Book Fair, things are actually accomplished. Information is both distributed and acquired, people learn things about the the world, about each other and about themselves, new networks are built, existing networks are strengthened, skills are shared, plans are hatched, etc. Oh yeah, and, people have fun, too.

If you'd rather be bored to tears, and come away ignorant, go to an ANSWER demo instead. You wont be disappointed. You want stop the war, either, so don't get your hopes up about that. It's not going to happen.

At an ANSWER demo, people go through the motions of opposing the war, but in a way threat has absolutely no effect whatsoever on this war or the next, because the powers that be don't give a flying rat's behind what you think. As far as they're concerned, you're livestock, nothing more.

Every Book Fair is better than the last one, and spawns more satellite events. Every ANSWER demo is exactly the same as the last one, and spawns absolutely nothing, least of all peace and justice for this world. Apparently, it doesn't even educate people to the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If it did, people would do try something else. They don't. They're sleepwalking in circles. We, on the other hand, are wide awake, and moving forward at ever increasing speed. Take your pick. Or try a little of both, and see how they compare.

it's tired and old

the war goes on, so don't toot your own horn too loudly

year after year, book fairs, and still war

nothing ends war in a snap or it'd be done already. things build over time. anti-war demos have shown that people have opposed this war since before it started, and that momentum has finally built to a near critical point, even amongst those who only see marches in the news. the bookfair offers a much smaller number of people background, history, etc. on the root causes of war and what people are doing to fight it. it's good for people to demonstrate publicly and it's good for people to educate themselves outside of mainstream information sources.

both are valid and contribute, but neither one should be taking any bows right now. don't break your arm patting yourself on the back just yet

Move em through, sell em product, next!

Welcome to the book mall, please have your political credentials and credit card ready...

These people should be shopping their local Anarchist Book Mall(tm) instead:

Thursday, March 23, 2006

A Chinese cosmetics company has been using skin taken from the bodies of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, a London newspaper reported.

An agent for the company informed customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they had been shot.

The agent said some of the company‘s products have been exported to Britain, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts was “traditional" and nothing to “make such a big fuss about,“ the Guardian reported

In addition to ethical concerns, there is the potential risk of infection from the harvested skin products.

The company was not identified by name for legal reasons and it is unclear whether collagen made from the skin of prisoners was in the research stage or in actual production.

“A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoners and aborted fetus," the agent was quoted as saying. The material, he said, was being bought from “biotech" companies based in Heilongjiang Province and was being developed elsewhere in China.

He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. “In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that Western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said.

In the past, human rights groups have charged that China was using organs harvested from executed prisoners for medical transplants both domestically and internationally. China executed about 3,400 prisoners last year, according to Amnesty International.

>perfectly situated to criticize the truimphs and failures of a billion of his colleagues.

The nerve of that guy! How dare he criticize a state that sells its dissidents for parts?

The Fascists will sweep the floor with you. If any one here cares to read a little history, all of the bickering in this matter sounds a lot like the bickering (between the exact same groups) in "Republican" Spain in the 1930s. Ultimately Franco was able to kick their collective asses because they couldn't agree on anything, not to mention that the ideas are ultimately sophomoric and will never be popular anyway. In Spain they became momentarily popular due only to an immense propaganda campaign with the help of the Soviet Communists.
As much as I dislike the modern U.S. capitalist paradigm; anarchism, communism, socialism, nationalism, etc… are all broken ideas, ideas of the past. Grow-up! There’s another way!

one can march and go to the fucking fair theres room in the day for both.