Anarchy Is For Lovers.

 

     So many people still see anarchism as that unruly individual, hell bent on destruction because they want to do what they want and screw everybody else. This is the picture painted by the pro-establishment mouthpiece the mainstream media, in its determination to maintain the status-quo. 

     Of course anyone who has looked seriously at anarchism knows that this a deliberate fabrication to defile and destroy the only real road to a free society based on co-operation, mutual aid, equality of opportunity, sustainability and peace.

This quote from Anarkismo, puts it better than I could.

**Many people regard anarchism and socialism as contradictory programs. This is based on the conception of "socialism" as state ownership of the economy. Yet historically, anarchists have regarded this program as "state socialism" or "authoritarian socialism." They have rejected such views in favor of "anarchist-socialism" or "libertarian socialism." This concept of anarchism as a variety of socialism remains important today in opposition to pro-capitalist "libertarianism" and to "democratic socialism"--that is, reformist state socialism.**

Read the full article HERE:

      Perhaps we are to blame for not getting the true principles of anarchism across as the accepted view. Taking a leaf out of the capitalist book, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, we should still be flooding the streets and workplaces with those bits of paper that proclaim anarchy is for lovers. Lovers of humanity, lovers of respect for the individual, lovers of co-operation to our mutual benefit, lovers of mutual aid, lovers of organisng together to solve our problems, lovers of our planet and its sustainability. Who in their right mind would object to joining such a group.  

A Needless Sea Of Tears.  

Though we live in a world of callous commerce 

and know justice

is an altar where the caring are sacrificed,

see freedom as a river that runs parched

in the fierce desert of poverty,

our thoughts cannot be chained

our dreams will not be caged.

We will think beyond the profit race

dream beyond the market place

in friendship clasp each human hand

with compassion try to understand

our differences, our hopes, our fears,

dragging this world from its needless sea of tears.

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Accepting Authority Or Education?

       Education, what is it? Is it a system where we train our kids to be efficient units in a capitalist society so they can seek capitalist style "success"? Or perhaps it is a system where we train our kids to be obedient and submit to authority? Or is it a system where by we help our children become self sufficient, freethinking and caring individuals?

      On reflection and what we know of the present education system I think we can score the latter of our list. Kids are regimented and are taught to respect an over riding authority. Hardly the formula for creating freethinking individuals, but an excellent system for making them subservient to authority, once they have left that "educating" institution.

      I have heard of Summerhill School and the works of S. L. Neil, but sadly don't know very much about him and his theories, but found this video fascinating. It does state that it is based on a real case but fictionalised in the making of the film.

       Is this the road for education, treating kids as equals, involving them in all decision making, and allowing them to be involved as they wish? I expect a load of criticism about this method, but we do have a load of criticisms of the present education system. So where does that leave us?

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There Are Some Anarchists---.

       I post this article in full, knowing it may well cause discussion, argument and even anger, but also may cause some to have a look at, and question their own values. So what is wrong with that?
This from Anarhija:

         There are anarchists who run after uprisings on other continents wherever the spotlights of the media fall. There are anarchists who talk about “fortress Europe” and they don’t even know which States are part of the EU. There are anarchists who struggle against the borders and they don’t even know where the Schengen frontier runs. There are anarchists who, like “good white men”, see in the “dark-skinned” non-EU people potential comrades, and they don’t even notice that there are European non-EU people.

       There are anarchists who talk about internationalism and they don’t even know (or don’t give a fuck) what happens on their own continent. There are anarchists who express solidarity with all prisoners (or all political prisoners), as if the prison is really a correctional facility that automatically turns a human being into a better person (or a comrade/anarchist).

        There are anarchists who think of antifa as their comrades, as if the left-wing/extreme-left movements/parties are the lesser evil in an illusory revolutionary front. There are anarchists who get into the role of victims, just because they are a woman, gay, trans etc.., as if it is not enough to be “simply” a human being to be oppressed by the Power (as if this notion is too tight and therefore it requires some other label to express that someone is more oppressed than others; is it possible that in these times of alienated sexuality where people, including anarchists, obsessively see sexual harassment on every corner, we suppress our femininity/masculinity turning ourselves in a sterile “gender”, in which the democracy is trying to turn us, in accordance with this mechanistic society of mutilated sexuality?).

        There are anarchists who in the 21^th century still talk about the “class” struggle (a concept created in 19^th century; in fact, marxist), while we live “simply” in a stratified society (like it has always been since civilization). There are anarchists who idolize the “native” people, as if they have already materialized Anarchy (always according to the notion of “the noble savage”), as if the history/time is linear (not circular).

        There are anarchists who say that they seek to decolonize their territory from the State in their struggle for national liberation (“the nation”, this concept born with the modern State), as if the Earth is private property, as if all of us are not colonised by the State. It appears as though anarchists have fetishized the struggle per se, any struggle, regardless of its purpose, background, actors and ideology. So long as there exists any weak minority clashing with a more powerful enemy, it is sure to find attention (and occasionally, fervent support) on the counterinfo sites. It is as if many have forgotten that national liberation struggles are not struggles against power, but struggles for power. (National liberation is an appropriate term for what it is: it is a liberation of the nation, not of human beings).

Likewise, the struggles of native groups do not seek to destroy power, but to take a (greater) share in it. No Kurds, Palestinians, Mapuche, nor any other oppressed ethnic minority or any irredentist/separatist movement seeks to abolish oppression altogether, but merely to abolish oppression against them, so that they may be free to become oppressors themselves and build a national empire of their own, justified by the same myths of ancestry and “the right” to a “fatherland” and to “national self-determination”. These terms are the jargon of the State and have no place on anarchist platforms. All these struggles take place under the cult of the nation-state. How does anyone calling themselves anarchist can find comrades among people reproducing power, authority and submission?

        And there are anarchists who see no problem in being every day watched, registered, filmed…, so they make their own videos/photos to share them online. There are anarchists who use the social networks as if they are places of discussion (with “like”, “followers”, “friends” and all). There are anarchists so devoted to animal liberation, as if anarchy could be achieved (as if by magic) by all becoming vegan, as if liberation is plural, and not just one and total (liberation of the Earth and of everything which composes it).

      “Everything is velocity, moment, instinct. (…) My nature is — opposition; logic — indiscipline; philosophy — subversion” [Janko Polić Kamov, “Sloboda”]

        How do you intend to destroy the existent if you support it with your own struggles?

anarhija.info & some comrades

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An Inborn Desire To Be Free.

         The desire to be free is something that smoulders in every heart, but under conditions of repression and exploitation, it is all too often, a frustrated personal secret. At times in some individuals it bursts forth in acts of rebellion, this is an irritant on the harsh skin of this repressive society, it may be tolerated or, as in most cases, authority will attempt to extinguish that free spirit. However, when the desire to be free explodes in an area, as it did in Spain 1936, and  now in Rojava, the treatment to extinguish that explosion is far more savage and brutal. The possibility of people living together in co-operation and harmony, controlling their own lives, can not been seen to succeed, so will not be tolerated, it will be a fight to the death, as authority does it worst to extinguish that inborn desire. Come what may, the desire to be free will not die, each explosion of that desire feeds another, and another, until one day the entire planet will glow brightly from those explosions and authority, repression and exploitation will be its ashes.

      More on Rojava:

Thanks Loam for this link:

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Avalanche.

 

    Issue 9 of the anarchist magazine Avalanche is now available to download as a free PDF.

        Anarchists always appropriated means to spread anti-authoritarian ideas and struggles to feed the dialogue and subversive action. It is in this sense that this publication is also intended as a tool, more precisely that of providing a space to nourish the international debate between anarchists. That is why these particular pages create space for struggles that spring from anarchist activities; autonomous, direct and self-organized struggles; struggles that go towards the destruction of power in all its forms; struggles happening today, yesterday or that are announcing itself.

  Get it HERE:

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The Bank Of No Money.

       It has been some time now since a group of anarchists and like minded people decided to occupy an empty bank on Deptford High Street, London. Well they are still there and doing fine thank you. Of course they will need all the support they can get, not just to survive, but to spread their ideas and keep up the good work of working with the community creating solidarity where needed and over as wide an area as possible.

This is their latest communiqué:

     We are rats running rabid through the stinking guts of London …

        Sick of the fractured ‘scene’ of squatters in London, sick of faux-punk venues and the fashionable veneer of rebellion, sick of the apathy and passivity, sick of housing where everyone is locked in their own rooms, their own lives, their existence atomised, stinking of fried chicken and choking on the bones of what once was, we came together to act …
     We are a collective of those in active rebellion. Warsaw. Barcelona. Roma. Thessaloniki. London. All over we meet in joint attack.
      We organised on the beaches of London for the TRESPASS gig – selling propaganda to fashionpunx and tourists about the trial of the Warsaw 3, dropping banners and smokeflares whilst the crowd rioted amongst itself, spitting in our faces and rejecting all politics.
      We put on infonights, skyping with comrades from across Europe, and people came and listened, complained that there was nothing organised in London, that everything was too fluid, too temporary, that nothing ever happened, and we laughed to hide the tragedy of their blindness to their own domestication. ‘You can’t win’, they said, and we sneered, knowing our victory is in the struggle itself.
     We meet in the streets outside squats under threat of eviction in Bethnal Green, Brixton, Aldwych, to jeer at bailiffs covered in paint, or see doors battered in, or taunt the cops and accuse them of murder by association. Though we called out for accomplices, few came, but enough remained to support each other and fight.
     We battled outside the Camelot HQ, trapped between lines of security and cops and vans and carnage and refused to let go, refused to give up even one of our number, until all were dispersed and the squat remained, refusing any collaboration with the business snakes trying to turn rebellion into money.
    We gather, seeking out other accomplices. Inspired by the mould that grows on rotting food, we chose our target – a disused bank in the heart of Deptford – a no-go zone for the UKBA immigration filth, a frontline of the gentrification war, a barrio within London where there still exists community, affinity, fucking neighbours instead of yuppies and hipsters and cops cops cops.
      We took it – and lined its innards with mattresses to dull the sounds. Within five days it was packed to the rafters with punks in support of the Warsaw 3, its walls lined with banners, its floor full of curious locals and friends old and new. After how many years, finally a non-commercial venue, free of the tyranny of rent and capital.
      The infonights continue – on the progress of the Warsaw 3, on the antiraids network spreading from Deptford to Whitechapel to beyond, on the arrest of the anarchist comrades in Italy, their words now as dangerous as bombs. Once a week we open the doors for Scum Dine With Me, part-street kitchen, part-info-night, part-cinema, where all and sundry are welcome and fed, and we mix more with our neighbours and friends from further afield.
      The bailiffs came but did not succeed in getting rid of us. On the day we are forced to leave, we will take our ideas, our struggle, our new connections, and spread across London, the UK, Fortress Europe, unstoppably changing and adapting, spreading our disease and infecting new mutantations against domination, power, hierarchy.
      Until we mutate into an end to all forms of oppression.

Until all are free.

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Truth In An Image.

        I love this image, taken from arrezafe, a simple image but it tells a true story powerfully.

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Vandals.

 

        I have always maintained that we are all anarchists at heart. We all want to control our own lives, we don’t like being told what to do, we like to feel we belong, and are a useful part in whatever we are involved. Of course this sort of society doesn’t allow for that. So to all those youngsters out there, the ones who hate being told what to do, who hate authority, who lash out without direction, the “vandals, the “rebels without a cause”, you’re not the misfits, you’re not the bad penny, the black sheep, you are the ones that are alive, you are anarchist that are looking for a direction. Look deep and seek the root of your anger and frustration, it’s not your neighbour, the bus driver, the car park attendant, or the group in the other street, it is the system, the state and its apparatus, that tries to bind you in a straight jacket of their rules and regulations. Direct your young anger and energy in that direction and you will find what you are looking for, and become part of an ever growing army that wants the same as you, comradeship, freedom, justice and equality of opportunity.

 

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,
What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.
Not for you the herd’s dull beat
Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,
Living out the life of a clone
Marching with the crowd but always alone.
Shaping your life from some dusty tome
Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule
Swim in the sea, never the pool.
Live your emotions, feel the surge
Follow your dreams, chase the urge.
Make life though short, an exciting game
Not a mad march for fortune or fame.
Capture the moment, live it now
Being alive your only vow.

Rebel rebel break the rule
In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel. 

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Freedom From Religion.

       Why does religion get special treatment in our society? We are always hearing that in a free society you should be free to indulge in the religion of your choice. However freedom and religion stand on opposite sides of a chasm. Religion is an authoritarian institution, and in most cases, is interwoven with the power strands of the state. In almost all the countries on this planet, religion and state stand side by side holding hands in their attempt to control the people. All religions have a heritage of brutal violence against other religions, and more venomous brutality against those who disbelieve their particular fantasy. Religion must be seen for what it is, a control system, a system that demands obedience to a set of dogmas handed down from higher authority, therefore the enemy of freedom.
 

     If we seek freedom to live our lives in free association, and voluntary co-operation, then religion and all its authoritarian bullshit has to be our enemy. It is not, as it would have you believe, an innocent bystander that hands out charity, it is part and parcel of an authoritarian system that demands obedience. By constant struggle from ordinary people we have, to a degree, put a muzzle on the brutality of religion, but it is still inherent within the beast, they still have the desire to punish disbelievers. 

     To fight for freedom means that the gloves should be off in regard to all authority, state, judiciary, religion, and the rest. Authority comes in many guises, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a helping hand, but behind its back, it always, but always, carries a thick stick. Religion is no different, it must be grouped with all the other authoritarians.

 

A to Z of Religions

Acclaim Arrogant Absolutes.

Bellow Bygone Beliefs.

Casuist Cackling Cabal.

Deadly Divine Dogma.

Embellish Earlier Errors.

Form Fearful Fundamentalists.

Gaily Gabble Gehenna.

Hype Holy Hate.

Ignorantly Idolise Illusion.

Justify Judgmental Jargon.

Knowingly Kindle Kulturkampf.

Lambaste Liberal Learning.

Machiavellian Mind Moulding.

Narrate Nescient Nostrum.

Obligatory Obnoxious Obfuscation.

Peremptory Pestiferous Panjandrum.

Quickly Quell Querists.

Redundant Reactionary Rants.

Suppress Scholastic Scepticism.

Totally Trammel Tolerance.

Ululate Useless Utterances.

Vaticinate Vicious Vengeance.

Wailing Wearisome Waffle.

Extol Excessive Exaltation.

Y? Y? Y?

Zany Zealous Zealots.

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A Soldier.

 

Tanks shipped into Glasgow after "Bloody Friday" 1919.

          I get pissed off by all those who spout, "support our boys", of course referring to that band of unfortunates who have surrendered their right to the faculty of thinking for themselves. They have taken on the duty of defending the wealthy and privileged cabal that rule over us, and they will do it with whatever ferociousness and brutality that they are ordered to administer. They will turn their weapons on their own people, if so ordered, yet we are still urged to "support our boys". The soldier, he/she is portrayed as something brave and noble, when in fact they are the unthinking, obedient brutal tools of the state, there to crush any challenge to its unbridled authority.

 Troops on the streets of Liverpool during the 1911 transport strike, in which two strikers were shot while on a demonstration.

      The following is a wonderful article written with beautiful moments of irony, by Aristide Jobert, (Aristide Jobert (1869-1942) emphasised direct action, appeals to the people, a general strike and insurrection. He wrote for La Guerre Sociale. Although anti-militarist, insurrectionist, anti-parliamentarian, and syndicalist - Jobert became a member of parliament, elected to the chamber in 1914. The article was written as an obituary for Marquis of Gallifet, who died July 1910), it was later translated for The Socialist, (SLP)

“A Soldier! Funeral Oration of General de Gallifet-

Monsieur, the Marquis of Gallifet, General of the French Army and ex-Minister of the no less French Republic, has rendered up his beautiful soul to God. The astonishing thing is that he has died in his bed; a beautiful death, if I may say so. It is truly astonishing that he never found himself face to face with a relation or friend of one of the numerous victims whom he caused to be assassinated during the re­pression of the Commune. He himself must have been astonished at his own immunity, and he who was the friend of Gambetta must have lost faith in that “Justice which is immanent in things” spoken of by his friend. The noble soldier decided before his death that he did not desire to have military honours rendered to him. It is a pity. No one merited them better than he.

He was a Soldier in every sense of the word. He possessed all the military virtues in the highest degree. To be a soldier is to be ready to do for pay, for a salary, any deed, however odious, however criminal, however contemptible it may be. Gallifet was a soldier, and he showed himself worthy of his calling. Is courage necessary for that? During the repression of the Commune Gallifet accomplished his task with a refine­ment of cruelty that is truly rare. It is well known that when conducting a column of prisoners he made the youngest and the oldest step out of the ranks and had them summarily shot without further form of procedure. His reasons (he has given them) were remarkable for their generosity: the first, the young men, were the “flower of the revolutionaries”; the others, “those with white hair,’1 were old offenders, “they had seen ’48.” Monsieur le Marquis tried to be funny.

Note that it was unnecessary to give any reasons at all, since a soldier exists to kill his kind without scruple and without reasons, since true courage—military courage—con­sists in furiously attacking those who are weak, disarmed, and without defence. Gallifet was a brave soldier, and since he had not been prominent during the foreign war he re-installed himself at the expense of his countrymen at home. It was less dangerous. As we see, he was worthy to wear the gold lace of a general, and he was no less worthy to become a minister of the bour­geois Republic. He was in that position along with Millerand,—a Socialist, if you please,—and with the assent of a good many Socialists whose comrades or predecessors had been assassinated by Gallifet. Gallifet possessed all the military virtues.

His mother—since in spite of all it was a woman who gave birth to this soldier—was disowned by him, and was forced to appeal to law to obtain a pension from her son. His wife—since even the beasts go in pairs—was repudiated by him, and he separated from her. His son—since even tigers procreate— was driven out by him, and died, it is said, without ever receiving a sign of forgiveness from his father.

We see that Gallifet was a perfect type ; without a heart—I do not say without en­trails, as the legend runs that he carried them in his military cap—he had no attach­ments, he was not bound by any of those moral or physical ties which hold ordinary mortals. He was a soldier. Assassin, plunderer, cynic, bad husband, unnatural father, unworthy son, that is what a true soldier ought to be—without natural or human sentiments. That the arm of a soldier may trike sure no human feeling or sentiment of pity must hinder it. It is thus that a man must be made to be worthy of the noble calling of arms. Now Gallifet was truly worthy; he had all the military virtues; not one was wanting. He even pushed to an extreme his soldierly frankness ; he paraded his virtues before the world. The man was a type.

Yes, it is really a pity that he refused military honours. He fully deserved them. How imposing would have been the funeral procession of this decorated carrion, winding along the streets of that Paris which he had drenched in blood, accom­panied by all those soldiers, decked out in gold lace, of whom he was a true example. Accompanied also by those ministers, by all the governmental clique, republican, monarchist, and imperial, whose supporter he had been. The people, the working people, those whom Gallifet had crushed, insulted, and shot down, would have come to swell the procession.

The sons, the grandsons, the friends, the survivors, of those who were massacred in the Commune, would have made for him a guard of honour. The sons, the brothers, the fathers, and the mothers of those whom military disci­pline confines in barracks or at Biribi, could have come also to do homage to the gilded corpse of this soldier. In spite of all, I hope that one day the full and unveiled history of this hero will be written, and that it will be put into the hands of children, so that they may learn from its details what military virtues are. That would certainly be the best way to inspire disgust, contempt, repulsion, and hatred towards that being of which Gallifet was the most perfect type, that abnormal, immoral, and unnatural being called a Soldier.

A. Jobert.

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What Is An Anarchist?

         What is an anarchist? I suppose there are probably as many answers to that question as there are anarchists. No bad thing, when you consider that the individual is at the heart of anarchism. However, there is common ground among most anarchists, but explaining that to someone who is not an anarchist can be difficult.

       There is a small text by Émile Armand (pseudonym of Ernest-Lucien Juin Armand); 26 March 1872 – 19 February 1963, called Mini-Manual of Individualist Anarchism, though I don't agree with its entirety, what anarchist would agree with the entirety of another anarchist's work, There is a particular paragraph which quite explicitly lays out what is an anarchist.

       The anarchist has for enemy the State and all its institutions which tend to maintain or to perpetuate its stranglehold on the individual. There is no possibility of conciliation between the anarchist and any form whatever of society resting on authority, whether it emanates from an autocrat, from an aristocracy, or from a democracy. No common ground between the anarchist and any environment regulated by the decisions of a majority or the wishes of an elite. The anarchist combats for the same reason the teaching furnished by the State and that dispensed by the Church. He is the adversary of monopolies and of privileges, whether they are of the intellectual, moral or economic order. In a word, he is the irreconcilable antagonist of every regime, of every social system, of every state of things that implies the domination of man or the environment over the individual and the exploitation of the individual by another or by the group.

      The work of the anarchist is above all a work of critique. The anarchist goes, sowing revolt against that which oppresses, obstructs, opposes itself to the free expansion of the individual being. He agrees first to rid brains of preconceived ideas, to put at liberty temperaments enchained by fear, to give rise to mindsets free from popular opinion and social conventions; it is thus that the anarchist will push all comers to make route with him to rebel practically against the determinism of the social environment, to affirm themselves individually, to sculpt his internal statue, to render themselves, as much as possible, independent of the moral, intellectual and economic environment. He will urge the ignorant to instruct himself, the nonchalant to react, the feeble to become strong, the bent to straighten. He will push the poorly endowed and less apt to pull from themselves all the resources possible and not to rely on others.

         Taking that as our starting point, I think it makes clear to non anarchists the direction we wish to go.

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A Serious Problem With Authority.

       A poem from The Anarchist, by Roland Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila MacLeod.

 

A Serious Problem with Authority

Ever since I was born you’ve told me what I should do with myself

I’ve never been free to take the slightest little decision

And if I once stood up to tell you I wouldn’t do something

Once just walked away to do something else

That something else soon became your Plan B

I went on doing whatever you wanted me to do

And you wonder why I hate authority

Why I don’t take kindly to criticism

Why I can’t stand people telling me what to do

It’s because you’ve planted these powerful authority figures everywhere

At every level of my existence

Some sort of authority is fencing me in

Checking up on me, spying on what I do

And if I object, however feebly, an army descends on me

An army of parents, teachers, supervisors, directors, priests

Psychologists, policemen, soldiers, agents of all sorts of outfits

What counts is order, conformity’s the thing, total peace without compromise

Well, I’m telling you I’m not the one who has a problem with authority

Too many people have too much authority over everyone else in the world

Don’t be surprised when everything blows up in your face

When someone suddenly pulls a gun and fires it among you at random

You were asking for it and you’ll find it yet

Roland Michel Tremblay. 

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You're An Anarchist At Heart.

       I have always maintained that we are all anarchists at heart, we don't like to be ordered around, we want to be a partner in what we do, and more and more we see people by-passing institutions of power and attempting to sort things out for themselves, without most of them having considered anarchism in any shape or form. There has been an increase in people moving to stop fracking, gentrification, evictions etc. and they have not been waving an anarchist flag or wearing an anarchist badge. It is just a realisation that if they want something done, then they will have to do it themselves, they no longer see the institutions as being on their side. The more it happens, the more empowered they feel, the more it will grow. Anarchism from the heart, not from the book.

This from Dissent:

       These newer movements are looking to one another for power, and creating it, horizontally and through self-organization. The state is increasingly rejected as the site from which to change society. Distinct from people who identify as anarchists, most members of newer movements reject the state out of experience and based on their observations from recent history. Foreclosures and evictions continue, water is being shut off in cities and towns from Palestine to Detroit, cuts to public spending and austerity measures are increasing, and land is being plundered by fracking and mining, with no respite in sight.

      After all, why should people turn to the institutions that are responsible for their problems for solutions? Instead, everywhere we see people taking matters into their own hands: affected people have themselves blocked mining companies in Greece and Argentina, and prevented pipes from being laid for fracking across the Americas. In Argentina the Malvinas Assembly stopped Monsanto from constructing what would have been the world’s largest genetically modified seed processing plant. Foreclosures in Spain, Chicago, and San Francisco have been prevented by neighbors coming together and blocking the eviction and auction of homes, and neighbors have also prevented high-end buyers from surveying apartments in working-class neighborhoods, such as Kreuzberg in Berlin. This is not a politics of demanding that others stop exploitation, but stopping it themselves through collective direct action. Distinct from traditional social movements, these are self-organized communities that see the process of the struggle and its goal as interconnected. Again, one can see the anarchist touch here—the spirit of non-hierarchy, horizontalism, and anti-statism—even if people in these movements do not identify themselves as such.

Read the full article HERE:
 
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