Legal!!

 

          The state makes the rules and it will always formulate them to protect the status quo. What was legal to day can be illegal tomorrow and what was illegal to day could be legal tomorrow. However we should always remember, those who make the rules control the game, and they have the privileged position of changing those rules as they see fit. So playing to their rules means that you can never win

         The following is an interesting article from The Collective:

“Potential illegality comes within the law today, but the farseeing eye of the censor looks ahead to foresee its possible outcome. In the same way social deviance today might be a possible object of study or surprise, tomorrow it could become a concrete manifestation of social subversion.” – Alfredo Bonanno, Illegality

         The jury’s still out on what they’ll call this moment in His-story. Perhaps we’re too close to know. They may chalk it up as a post-Something: post-Trump, post-George Floyd, post-COVID (though this one is still premature). Regardless of name, anarchists traveling through moments, like this one, accumulate baggage they carry onto the next trail: suitcases brimming with perspective, experience, joy, heartache. A particularly heavy piece of baggage comes from the current moment: new laws to govern the new normal.

As a result, new transgressors are named.

        Previously legal acts are now illegal. The free movement of bodies is restricted through health passports. And curfews, whether for virus or riots, illegalize the act of existing in space and time – the potential consequences for allegedly violating these rules are put on display in the sexual assault and murder of Sarah Everard by police. Virtual spaces are not immune to this shift, either. “Formal” illegality, such as hosting certain anarchist media online, is reclassified into “real” illegality in the form of terrorism charges, as seen in the case of Toby Shone [1]. In this way, an existing political critique of distributing anarchist literature transformed into an illegal social critique due to the context of unrest. This, then, justified the convenient enforcement of post-9/11 laws – legal baggage from a previous state of exception – in the same way that subversive music, books, and sexualities continue to be censored.


“Insurrection leads us to no longer let ourselves be arranged, but rather to arrange ourselves” – Max Stirner, The Unique and its Property

While the enforcement of laws is largely unremarkable to the irreverent anarchist, it can be beneficial to reflect on how we are arranged in this new legal landscape to anticipate and outmaneuver new attempts to restrict everyday life. Past examples of shifting legal landscapes include the popularization of surveillance cameras over the past 50 years and heightened security practices we still rely on as a result of the Green Scare. How will our current legal context in the new normal influence how anarchists arrange themselves illegally in the future?

Call this an exercise in precognition, to live in illegality more effectively.

         What acts are likely to shift from “potential” to “real” illegality in the near future? Will mutual aid projects, like Food Not Bombs, be able to occupy the same space and time they did before, or will there be an uptick in conflict? How do anarchist media projects continue to rely on a corporatized, State-cooperative internet? This same skepticism can be extended to our individual reliance on "private" and "secure" tech used to communicate, like Protonmail and Signal. What other common tactics or tools are outdated in our new context? What mindsets don’t apply anymore? How does illegality look down the trail?

How far will laws in the new normal go? Will there be Voight-Kampff tests to differentiate anarchists from law-abiding citizens? Will legal changes be swift in the form of executive orders and armed police, or will requirements, regulations, and bans slowly devour us from the inside out? Can this be anticipated or stopped?

As anarchists...how do we not get caught?

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[1] While these terrorism charges were dropped, they created the context for a guilty plea agreement on bogus drug charges.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Why No Roar??

 

 LET'S ROAR.

The problem's too big

the perpetrators unknown

you can't beat the system

all on your own.

So it's easy to withdraw

find your own little cage

turn a blind eye to the suffering

stifle your rage,

but, the greed goes on

the poverty's still there,

you can't just leave it

for your children to bear.

Others feel as you do,

eager to put things right

but locked in isolation

it's a hopeless fight,

so don't sit in silence

behind a closed door,

your voice can help raise

a whisper to a roar.

        Things are tough, very tough for countless millions of people on this earth, even in the "rich developed" countries millions live below the poverty line, surrounded by unimaginable wealth. Practically everybody knows the system is unfair, corrupt and exploitative, yet in these "rich developed" countries, only thousands resit and protest, Why? What is it that makes millions accept their state of poverty, their lack of control over their own lives?  Is it fear, or is it a feeling of hopelessness that you can't win against the system. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, tries hard to portray that illusion, that challenging the status-quo is only done by hooligans and terrorists, and is always forcibly put down by a strong state apparatus, as it defends us against these hooligans and terrorists. How does the majority of people get to see through this illusion, this weaving of smoke and mirrors, and realise that the real power lies with them, they can take control of their own lives, and can shape society to a fairer and more just system that sees to the needs of all our people. 

 From Anarchist News:

     ------Unlike a more abstract analysis of "the Spell," which could be thought through in terms like those found in The Ego and Its Own, by Max Stirner; this Spell was thought of in terms of more specific context, not just another spook attempting to win an individual's allegiance. The Spell wasn't a matter of believing in another's Cause, it was a matter of believing that we are too weak to pursue our own cause(s). It was a belief that was reinforced throughout all of the institutions we are expected to embrace: schools, churches, every branch of government, work, and especially through mainstream media. It wasn't a moral injunction that one shouldn't fight against these things, it was a repetitive practical demonstration that one can't revolt to any acceptable consequence.------

Read the full article HERE:

View the video "Breaking The Spell" from Crimethinc. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk