CONTINUE READING…]]>

A few days ago, I submitted my tax documents to the various government agencies that require them. For me, as for many others I’m sure, this process was fraught and scary. It was fraught because I reject the legitimacy of taxation and most of the uses to which the various government agencies put my accumulated abstract labor (i.e. money). It was fraught also because many of my friends support taxation whole-heartedly, and more or less everyone submits to it as an unavoidable evil – much like searches at the airport. The process was scary because I realized I owed more than $1200. I only made a little more than $16,000 last year, working as a part-time instructor at a regional campus of the Indiana University system. I have no idea how I will come up with this money and I fear the networked bureaucracy that will likely attempt to extort a great deal more.

One of the interesting paradoxes of our present political climate is that many people on the left support taxation. Presently, front organizations of the Democratic Party are holding rallies across the US in support of the “Buffett Rule,” initially proposed by billionaire Warren Buffett and endorsed by President Obama as part of his re-election campaign. The rule would apply a 30% tax rate to anyone making over $1 million/year. It seems to me that many well-meaning people show up at these rallies believing that, in doing so, they are supporting public services and the workers who provide them. I find this situation puzzling and those who rally misguided.

To be clear, it is not surprising that reformists support taxation – whether of billionaires or ordinary folks. From their standpoint, taxation serves to rectify some of the excesses that are built into capitalism. For reformist supporters of taxation, the problem isn’t the system of capitalism itself but its abuse by greedy individuals who seek personal gain over the common good. It takes a little from everyone to insure that everyone has access to some fundamental public goods – the more you have the more it takes. I believe that these people are misguided in their thinking about the issue, but our disagreement runs deep. Plus, as I said, their views are not surprising.

What I do find surprising is that such measures receive the support of people who identify themselves as anti-capitalists. From Karl Marx to Emma Goldman, radical anti-capitalists have never believed that existing governmental organizations could be used in this fashion. Marx himself understood that existing “democracies” serve what he called the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” What he meant by this is relatively simple: despite their frequent claims to allow everyone a voice and to treat all people equally, capitalist societies are truly controlled by the owner class. For example, paying no heed to public outrage and massive protests both Democrats and Republicans supported the massive bailout of banks and other financial institutions in 2008. Of course, this is only one egregious example. The truth is that nearly every government institution exists to serve the will of the owner class. This is hardly surprising if you consider that in 2008 nearly 2/3 of the US Senate were millionaires.

It seems to me that there are two principle arguments from the left in favor of taxation: (1) Taxation is a means of redistributing wealth and (2) policies focused on taxing the wealthy and redistributing their wealth serve the strategic aim of heightening class consciousness. Regarding the first, it’s simply false. Insofar as taxation amounts to a redistribution of wealth, it serves the same purpose now as it did in the days of lords and kings – to take the fruits from those who work and give them to those who own. Mitt Romney’s revelation recently that he paid less than 15% in taxes on income from capital gains should illustrate the point well enough. Federal and state governments subsidize his various enterprises well beyond this limited figure, while he reaps the surplus value produced by workers under his employ. This case is not limited; it’s the norm. Perhaps the most egregious expression of this dynamic is the US war machine. Ordinary people pay taxes so that contractors can win outlandish contracts to murder people all over the world – ultimately, of course, to subsidize various capitalist enterprises (the most obvious of which being weapons manufacture). The rightwing idea that the worker is put upon by moochers has an element of truth – except the moochers tend to live in mansions, play tennis, and wear suits.

What about the argument based on strategy, though? Does it not heighten class consciousness to demand that the wealthy pay their fair share to support public goods? First, it’s questionable from the outset whether allying with reformist elites could ever serve radical ends. Rather, reformist elites consistently co-opt energy from radical political movements to achieve narrow political gains – which from any rational standpoint are themselves policy failures. We refer to them as “opportunists” for a reason. Here, one can take the healthcare debate as an example. The groundswell of support for universal healthcare – itself a half-measure – was co-opted to achieve a massive give-away to insurance companies. Democrats congratulate themselves on another fine victory. Meanwhile, there are no significant strategic gains for radical movements. Worse yet, and here’s the real issue, the working class is betrayed (again!) by those who believe they know better. They were supposed to get health insurance, but instead they got fines. Finally, many working class people already oppose taxation in the abstract and very few people find it an enjoyable experience. In short, precisely a campaign against taxation would be an easy strategic target for left challenges to the State and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Now, some will argue that I have overlooked all the important public goods paid for by taxes and all the services they provide to the poor and working class. In the first place, we should dispel the mystification produced by money. Those services are provided by the workers who build bridges, teach classes, and staff libraries – not pieces of paper. The real issue is how we can work together cooperatively to meet all of our needs. And I’m almost certain that extorting labor from some workers to provide the necessities for other workers is exploitative, inefficient, and alienating. Indeed, that’s actually how the whole system works. At the end of the day, we should be honest with ourselves: in capitalist society profit triumphs over all. Any institution or organization that does not serve profit will be dismantled. This means that while fire hydrants and bridges may appear to be “public” they also serve the private interests of the owner class. Public education, to take but one example, produces an obedient, standardized workforce literate enough to meet the demands of (post-) industrial capitalism. Certainly, I’m in favor of cooperative labor in support of the needs of all – the poor and working class first and foremost – but that’s exactly why I oppose taxation: there’s no cooperation there at all.

CONTINUE READING…]]>

The artist’s patriarchy says, “The creative man is exempt from interpretive labor¹ by his efforts to endlessly interpret himself.” His privilege (and ignorance) is excused and upheld by his perceived sensitivity, no matter how shallow the affect.

While the twentieth century American man could reduce a woman through physical force, his twenty-first century cosmopolitan counterpart has had to resort to more subtle means. Synecdoche² is his tool. The women in his life, instead of existing as full and complete human beings (with pains, desires, hopes, struggles, and the complex webs of people and experiences which form the context of their lives), are rendered interchangeable, mechanical parts. Their experiences are all negated by his own.

The Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York couldn’t have been better named. The movies’s protagonist, Caden Cotard, is embraced and understood by woman after woman³ right up to the moment of his death⁴. Yet all these women could have been a single character, or better yet, a mirror into which Caden would stare. Most films (and works of literature for that matter) are stuffed with straw women⁵. Synecdoche takes this to a self-conscious (and painful) extreme.
Through the lens of patriarchy, many will see Caden as an honest hero. Yet Caden’s domineering self-absorption is provided an antidote in a funeral monologue:

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. But there are a million little strings attached to every choice you make. You can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years, and you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is. It’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born, but while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call, or a letter, or a look from someone or something to make it all right, but it never comes. Or it seems to but it doesn’t really. So you spend your time in vague regret, or vaguer hope that something good will come along, something to make you feel connected, and to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. But the truth is, I feel so angry, and the truth is, I feel so fucking sad. And the truth is I’ve felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long, and for just as long have been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for…I don’t know why. Maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

And our dear Caden chooses not to swallow the antidote. He can ignore this remedy and the perspective of every other female-bodied being, for he is the artist, and this is the artist’s patriarchy.

1. The term “interpretive labor” originates in the work of anthropologist David Graeber, defined as “the constant work of imaginative identification with others.” As Graeber explains:

   “One thing that arbitrary power does is allow one to avoid [interpretive labor] to some extent. It’s a luxury—insofar as luxury is above all, all the things you don’t have to worry about or even think about. As a result, whenever you have a social hierarchy, the people on the bottom have to constantly think about what the people above them are thinking and feeling (and hence, inevitably, end up caring about them to a certain extent) but this really doesn’t happen very much the other way around.”

2. Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part of a thing is used to refer to the whole, a whole is used to refer to a part, a class is used to refer to a more general class, a class is used to refer to a more specific class, a material is used to refer to an object composed of it, or a container is used to refer to its contents. I’m using synecdoche as metaphor for the conflation of individual beings with genericized beings writ large.
3. Caden’s first wife Adele is an obvious exception to this. However, she is presented to the audience as the likely cause of Caden’s loneliness and a justification for his attempts to “complete himself.”
4. Cotard’s exchange with the woman as he is dying so aptly demonstrates the interchangeability of the women. She is little more than a stranger, yet she is no less a fit for this dying heart-to-heart than any of the other women in Caden’s life.
5. A play on the straw man, which is a component of an argument based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position, a straw woman would be an overly simplistic, shallow representation of a woman. Most women in film have no lives outside their relation/utility to men.

Alex Bradshaw: Your latest book, Debt: The First 5000 Years, explores the origins of debt. What were some of the implications for communities and individuals when debt became a significant factor in people’s lives?

CONTINUE READING…]]>

David Graeber has spent the last decade challenging the line drawn between scholar and activist. While many academics fancy themselves “radicals,” the anthropologist professor has been an active participant in anarchist and anti-authoritarian groups and organizing. Graeber has used his skill-set as an anthropologist to compile ethnographic data—far away from the classroom and campus, to be sure—regarding the contemporary anarchist movement in North America; the results were published in 2009 as Direct Action: An Ethnography. David Graeber is the author of several books, including Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and, most recently, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber currently teaches social anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Below, Graeber discusses his latest book, the concept of debt in detail, and how his involvement in the anarchist movement sparked his interest in the history of debt.

Alex Bradshaw: Your latest book, Debt: The First 5000 Years, explores the origins of debt. What were some of the implications for communities and individuals when debt became a significant factor in people’s lives?

David Graeber: Well, one reason I wrote this book is that debt has come to pervade every aspect of our lives. International relations are all about debt, modern nation-states run on deficit financing, and consumer debt drives the economy—yet no one has, to my knowledge, ever written a history of the phenomenon. Even though people have written histories of almost anything else you can possibly imagine.

What I discovered was that in some ways, all this is nothing new. It’s probably fair to say that most human beings have been debtors at least at some point in their lives. Similarly, most uprisings, revolts, insurrections, mass political mobilizations in human history have been about debt—for instance, Athenian democracy or the Roman Republic largely emerged as a way of settling debt crises of one sort or another. Usually, in the end, enduring political regimes have had to come up with some solution to the debt trap, to avoid having the bulk of their population become effectively (or literally) slaves or peons to their creditors.

There’re two sorts of solutions, usually. One, typical of ages of credit money—where money itself is assumed to be a social creation, so many IOUs or promises—is to impose some kind of direct controls. For instance, ancient Mesopotamian kings would often just declare a clean slate, all debts would be wiped out and people would start over again. Or you could ban the taking of interest, as both Christianity and Islam did in the Middle Ages. The other solution, typical of periods of actual, physical money, such Classical Antiquity or the last five hundred years or so, is more the imperial solution: insist that debts are sacred and not to be tampered with, and throw money at the problem, create standing armies and pay them, figure out ways to distribute cash directly to your subjects—or at least social welfare programs—so they don’t end up up to the ears and lose their freedom. This of course only works in the imperial centers (cities like Athens and Rome which literally gave wealth away to their citizens), elsewhere, you usually tend to have massive debt enslavement.

Looked at in these terms, we can see that, as we begin to move back to a system of virtual credit money, that solution is breaking down as well. As a result, everyone, even in countries like the US, are being reduced to effective debt slaves. The greatest social evil of antiquity was precisely this: people would fall so deeply in debt that they would end up selling their children into slavery, even, finally, themselves. But you know, if Plato or Aristotle were somehow magically transported to modern America, would he really see matter here as all that different? Sure, we no longer sell ourselves to employers, we rent ourselves. But for anyone from the ancient world, such a distinction would be at best a legalism. They’d probably consider most Americans to be debt slaves, and would they really be so wrong to do so?

AB: When we discuss debt, we also have to discuss the concept of money. What is the conventional narrative about why money came to exist, and did your studies of debt contradict this narrative? On this note, what is the essential connection between money and debt?

DG: If you pick up an economic textbook, it’ll tell you that once upon a time (it literally deserves such an introduction, it’s a fairy tale) there was no money, so people engaged in barter: “I’ll give you twenty chickens for that cow”, that sort of thing. If the guy doesn’t want chickens, you’re out of luck—so you have to go invent money. Gradually, this gives birth to more sophisticated financial forms like paper money, complex credit operations, securitized derivatives… The problem is that, as anthropologists have known for years, it just isn’t true. No one has ever found an economy based on barter (and believe me, they’ve been looking.) Actually it’s not just wrong, it’s backwards: credit systems come first, coinage is invented at least two thousand years later, and barter…well, when it does occur, it’s usually because people are used to using money, but somehow the money supply disappears, as it did, say, in Russia with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But if credit systems are the original form of money, that gives great support to those economists—and among economists, they are decidedly the minority—who argue that money really is debt; or, better perhaps, a system of accounting that allows us to keep track of credits and debts. That realization has profound implications.

AB: The discourse regarding financial markets only tolerates so much dissent; the most common dogma states that financial markets are merely a “natural” human occurrence. Does a critical history of debt undermine the view that financial markets proper have a benign, benevolent tradition? Further, could you explain your claim that markets are founded on a “logic of violence?”

DG: I find it somewhat amusing that a lot of conventional thinkers, when they hear me talk about ancient clean slates, Jubilees and whatnot, respond “but that couldn’t really be true! It would have a terrible effect on economic activity.” Well, perhaps, but what they don’t take into account is that “economic activity” of that sort, the sort which was based on cash or precisely quantified, legally enforced loans (rather than relations based on honor and trust between people with genuine moral relations with one another)—well, for most of human history, that was largely a side-effect of military operations. Coinage is invented to pay soldiers, and markets that used them tended to crop up alongside military camps. Similarly the modern banking system arises to help fund European wars. Central banks, in turn, institutionalized that system, since the debts they manage are basically government war debt, and always have been—at least back to 1694, when King William II offered some London merchants who’d made a loan of £1.2 million to fight a war in France the right to call themselves “The Bank of England” and loan that money he owed them to others in the form of banknotes, thus bringing our current currency system into existence. Modern money is still basically government war debt.

AB: As this interview is being conducted, the hot topic in electoral politics news in the United States is the stand-off regarding raising the “debt ceiling”—that is, the maximum debt the U.S. can accrue. My question is twofold: (1.) do nation-states really have tangible debt limits, and (2.) what would happen if the U.S. were to pay off its debt tomorrow—that is, is it desirable to do so?

DG: The US is the only country that has such a legal limit, but it’s all a moralistic charade. As I say, the system we have, based on Central Banks—in our case, the Federal Reserve— requires the US to be in debt because that’s where money comes from. The only President who ever seriously tried to retire the debt was Andrew Jackson, and to do it, he also got rid of the US central bank of the time—but the results led a disastrous speculative bubble on the part of local banks that had to provide credit money themselves, and no President since has repeated the experiment.

AB: You’ve never shied away from discussing your involvement with anarchist politics, or broadly what is called the alter-globalization movement. Did your involvement in anarchist and anti-capitalist projects spark your interest in exploring a history of the concept of debt? If so, why?

DG: Oh, absolutely. After all, the alter-globalization movement grew out of a broad global reaction to the Washington consensus, which was never any sort of consensus, but rather, a vision of the world forcibly imposed on the global South through the third world debt crisis. I was involved in “drop the debt” campaigns of various sorts since at least 2000. What got me interested in some of the philosophical issues I ended up exploring in the book was the peculiar moral power of the notion of debts. So many otherwise sympathetic people, even when told of the terrible, almost unimaginably inhuman suffering inflicted on people in the global South because of the depredations of the IMF, would still respond, “well, that’s terrible that so many children died slow and painful deaths, but still—surely one has to pay one’s debts! They borrowed the money! You couldn’t possibly be suggesting they not pay it…” How is it that the morality of debt can trump any other recognizable form of morality, and make things that no one would ever, possibly agree with in any other context seem suddenly acceptable?

AB: Anarchism, as I’ve always understood it, is a critique of “power-over” social relationships in which a group or an individual has power over another group or individual—non-hierarchical relations are of the utmost importance. Are financial markets necessarily hierarchical, leading to prosperity for the few, at the expense of the majority’s debt slavery? Also, as an anarchist, do you favor “self-managed” financial markets, or are you more interested in non-market possibilities, like gift economies that are based on needs and desires instead of quid pro quo exchange?

DG: Well, the first credit markets seem to have formed as a side-effect of bureaucratic administration, and the first cash-based markets formed as a side-effect of war. That’s not a very inspiring legacy for an anarchist! There have, certainly, been times and places when a kind of free market populism has emerged, where markets began operating independently of governments, at least to some degree—Medieval Islam is one famous example, and later, Ming China—but in such cases, they tended to operate in very different ways than the kind of markets we’re now familiar with, less about competition, much more about creating and maintaining relations of interpersonal trust, or for instance, profit-sharing operations instead of interest, etc etc. I suppose it’s possible in a free society something like that might be possible. But you wouldn’t be able to call something like that a “financial market” in anything like the sense we’re familiar with.

It’s not something I feel I or anyone else can predict one way or the other. What I do think absolutely cannot operate without the state, or some top-down coercive enforcement agency, are institutions like interest-bearing loans, which is of course the core of contemporary “finance”, or, most of all, wage-labor. History shows that you basically need a state to create a situation where people are willing to sign on basically as rent-a-slaves to other people.

AB: Finally, to pull this conversation back to current events, would you argue that many current resistance movements—and I’m thinking of movements opposing neoliberal policy in Europe, including austerity measures—are based largely upon issues centering around debt, or debt forgiveness? Would you say that most examples of insurrections, revolutions, or general resistance are reactions to draconian debt policies?

DG: The great Classicist Moses Finley suggested that there was basically one single revolutionary program in all of antiquity: “abolish the debts, and redistribute the land.” The interesting thing is this is still much more true than we imagine. Take the recent revolutions in the Middle East. One of the biggest factors in the Egyptian revolution, hardly talked about, is microcredit. Gamal Mubarak, who used to work for Bank of America, decided he wanted to move away from the old welfare state model to a microcredit development model; since no one had any collateral to repossess, the police then became the guys who showed up to break your legs. Hence the universal outrage over police brutality.

When the Saudis panicked that the revolution might reach their own country, what did they do? Well, aside from beef up the security forces—they declared a Mesopotamian-style debt forgiveness for everyone in the Kingdom. (They still have a king so they can still do things like that.) Then there’s the ongoing revolts in Greece and Spain, like the Egyptian revolution, in the name of “real democracy.” There is a reason, I think, these things are happening now. What we learned in 2008 is that everything they told us about markets was a lie. Markets don’t run themselves, and debts don’t always have to be paid. If we’re talking about the real big players, the rules are different, even 13 trillion in gambling debts (by some estimations) can be made to disappear. We can’t deny that money is at core a political phenomenon, not an economic one—or at the very least, that it has now become so. But if that’s the case, then if democracy is to mean anything, it has to mean that it’s not just the richest 1% of the population that gets to decide who had to keep the exact letter of their promises and whose promises can be scotched or renegotiated…but everyone.

When one argues that the human prefers the human she may think of herself as appealing to an invariable reality (or law), when in actuality she is merely expressing the existence of empathic affinity—the seeing of oneself (to varying degrees) in the other.

For some the human being is of a small subset of Homo sapiens sapiens, for others it extends well beyond the same.

CONTINUE READING…]]>

I’m coming to believe that like many other terms ‘human’ holds simultaneously liberating and oppressive definition and potential. There is a sense in which the human category is fluid, describing beings with whom your own being finds deepest resonance. Then there is the biological species category Homo sapiens sapiens. These two categories are conflated by the shared term ‘human.’ While the former is defined by its subjectivity and contingency, the latter is demarcated by its objectivity and rigid certainty.

When one argues that the human prefers the human she may think of herself as appealing to an invariable reality (or law), when in actuality she is merely expressing the existence of empathic affinity—the seeing of oneself (to varying degrees) in the other.

For some the human being is of a small subset of Homo sapiens sapiens, for others it extends well beyond the same.

If I call myself a humanist, it isn’t to say that my being and its preferences belong over and above the being and preferences of any other or that my affinity is reserved for those of my own species, but rather that if I am to hold my own preferences in esteem I am likewise compelled to value the preferences of those in whom I see a bit of myself. And it’s clear to me that preference (and with it, agency) isn’t reserved for the species Homo sapiens sapiens.

As an anarchist my goal is a society (or on a smaller scale: situation) we can all live with. The ‘all’ extends to every being whose preferences can be discerned.

I’m done; my nose is bleeding.

CONTINUE READING…]]>

Human Rights as a concept of universal freedoms and securities to which every homo sapiens is entitled, regardless of biological, economic, or political prerequisites, stands at odds with the core characteristics of the capitalist system. Perhaps the most exemplary illustration can be witnessed in the treatment of healthcare systems. The contrasts between the capitalist model as seen in the United States and the humanist model viewed through the diligently anti-capitalist Chiapas are stark; If Chiapas is a living, entangled, and inclusive representation of the possibilities for health, then the US system is its morbid, segregated, and discriminatory counterpart. The commodification of healthcare creates death, not the “right to life, liberty and security of person” proposed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Healthcare came to international attention in the West during the first Geneva Convention in 1864. Limited to wounded combatants, this treaty promised aid of the sick and wounded during warfare. After several subsequent agreements, it was not until 1949 that this grace was extended to civilians. Even after 85 years of health services being available to soldiers, prisoners, and healthcare workers, treatment of civilians was not all-inclusive. Article 4 of the fourth Convention demonstrates an explicit set of requirements defining which civilians should be protected. Instead of protecting people as defined solely by their existence, International Humanitarian Law determines aid by an individual’s affiliation to an institution or power, stating that only those in conflict situations who are citizens of countries (and their allied countries) that ratified the Convention will be honored. In short, one’s support of, or perhaps sheer luck in being associated with, those in power qualifies an individual to receive healthcare.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, made an effort to broaden the category of those qualified for receipt of rights to “everyone … without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status … political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.” While the rhetoric of Article 2 seemed to shed the restrictive elements of the Geneva Conventions, this Declaration and its authors neglect to acknowledge the power relations to which it and the world at large are subject. The Declaration’s ideals were noble, but without sufficient thought aimed at attainment of rights in the reality of dominating, oppressive institutions, it falls short of offering any more life than its precursors. The notions put forth were ineffectual suggestions, serving it seems as an obsolete, utopian reminder of the naïve perspectives systemic exploitation requires to “keep calm and carry on.”

Until the UN identifies and formulates a stance against the powers that systemically cause death and illness (be it authoritarian or emancipatory), the Western world is largely left to bear those structures as a sort of life support, even if the cost is the barrier to health itself. The US system has more than a few examples to demonstrate. Government officials are granted free, “universal” healthcare, a reward for their compliance and support of the exclusive, synarchistic status quo. Employees are given insurance based on their relationship to the employer. Part time, new, underaged, or independent workers—candidates for exploitation and disposal—are denied benefits. Meanwhile, since a steady, semi-skilled labor force is needed to provide obedient workers and another market for domination, employees with more experience, skills, or prestige are rewarded with insurance packages, their compliance procured.

Those in power determine the beneficiaries and the terms under which they qualify. In the case of healthcare in a capitalist system, this is never more obvious than in terms of economy. Those with more wealth control the health insurance premiums, cost of medical equipment, and educational requirements and availability for physicians (Never mind the political decisions and public opinions crafted by those with the resources to empower themselves for quick and easy domination). Capitalism breeds inequality. This manufactured scarcity is essential for upholding the current hierarchy. Scarcity creates a need for competition—that would otherwise cease to be purposeful—as individuals in a capitalist system are faced with choices between survival or cooperation, the ruthless ambition needed to gain access to wealth or death. Those who lack wealth are severely disadvantaged in the US healthcare system, unable to afford oftentimes the most basic of treatments. Since markets do not actually expand infinitely and resources are in fact limited, as the rich get richer, so the poor become more and more desolate. As Primo Levi observed, “Privilege, by definition, defends and protects privilege.” ¹

Commodification of the healthcare system assists in expanding wealth for power elites and draining it from those under their domination. By limiting the number of physicians and medical facilities, healthcare corporations (the term “healthcare provider” in the US is often misleading, when used to describe the multi-billion dollar industry) create the limited supply needed to justify rising costs and discriminatory practices. The prices of medications and medical services cater to the budgets of the wealthy, while most working and middle class Americans can rarely afford them.

Even the goals of the healthcare system, once commodified, directly oppose the goals of the sick. The ill individual seeks health and wellbeing, while the commodified health system ultimately craves profit. The two are so alienated that it is not out of the question to propose that the more sick there are, the more wealth there is to be derived from those who seek health—to a degree that commodification of healthcare is detrimental to health itself, if not all universal human rights. Many might say that there is ample availability of healthcare in its commodified state primarily via emergency room visits. However, given the exorbitant price of such a visit, for the average American to pay for this visit often entails the denial of other human rights, for example, food and shelter. By alienating the patient from the healthcare system and creating scarcity of available resources, commodification of treatment straitjackets the ill to multiple inadequate options.

The Mayan communities in Chiapas are well aware of the discrepancies between rights and commodities, life and exploitation. As Farmer notes, a common observation among Chiapans is the idea that “Chiapas is rich; Its people are poor”. ² Having witnessed the manufacturing of scarcity and redistribution of wealth throughout local history, the people have begun to stand against the commodification of rights by creating an entangled, inclusive, and cooperative model of treatment. “Prosperity of the few cannot be based on the poverty of the many,” states EZLN spokesman, Marcos.²

While Chiapas does not receive much aid from the Mexican government, donations have provided some access to medical training and equipment. Rather than sewing the seeds of scarcity by limiting knowledge to the few, local “health promoters” share information and work with formally-trained physicians to reach those in need. Similarly, health promoters define themselves as “multiethnic,” demonstrating their inclusion of others.² Likewise, the women’s movement in Chiapas has focused on healthcare for women, but acknowledges that the movement includes the community as a whole, emphasizing that women’s health is inseparable from the wellbeing of their children, fathers, spouses, and the entire society.³ In the incorporation of and cooperation with their communities at large, Chiapans have developed a rich healthcare system wherein the goals of the system coincide with those of the society it serves. This differs significantly from the US model, where profits take priority over wellness.

Bryan Turner writes that “rights are merely ideological notions if they are not supported by real social and economic resources.” ⁴ The commodification of rights limits these resources by privileging those in power and disadvantaging the poor. This creation of inequality promotes illness, not health, and alienates the ill from actual healthcare solutions by seeking first wealth and the power it accompanies. Conversely, a model that embraces health as a systemic goal without seeking profit, such as that of Chiapas, Mexico, reconciles the sick and their right to healthcare.

1. Levi, Primo

   1986 The Drowned and the Saved. Summit Books.

2. Farmer, Paul

   2005 Pathologies of Power. Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. University of California Press.

3. Villarreal, Gina

   2007 “Health Care Organized from Below: The Zapatista Experience.” Nacro News Bulletin. 11 January 2007.

4. Turner, Bryan

   2006 Vulnerability and Human Rights. The Pennsylvania State University Press.

CONTINUE READING…]]>

The past century has been coined by scholars as “the century of genocide.” An estimated 50–60 million people have been killed in conflicts that can be classified as genocides. Many have observed that the development of the nation-state and the industrialization of killing has led to increased violence. However, few have examined the violent roots and effects of the processes that claim to prevent domination and promote peace. The United Nations, neglecting to address and act to resolve its own place in modern, rationalized violence, demonstrates its ignorance of power relations through the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.¹ By authoritatively defining and ranking violence, the UN Convention, itself a product of 20th century bureaucratization, perpetuates and permits violence and reinforces the state-sovereignty that frequently effectuates crimes of genocide.

The term ‘genocide’ was first coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1943 in reference to the Holocaust. Likewise, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was largely a reaction to crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany. The Third Reich’s offenses, such as the use of gas chambers in/and concentration camps, seemed the epitome of mass, industrialized violence. This type of brutality which sought efficiency and primarily identified its victims in ethnic terms was the standard example of genocide which the UN strove to oppose. When the Convention was written in 1948, World War II and the Holocaust were positioned in the forefront of the consciousness of world leaders, and the effects of this travesty still linger in the description and definition of genocide as proposed by the Convention.

However, the UN failed to acknowledge and address its own position historically and structurally within power relations in the context of modernization, bureaucracy, and the rationalized national and economic systems in which it exists. Both literally and implicitly, the Convention defines the irrational (violence) in rational terms in order to rank and analyze brutality. This appraisal of violence into predetermined, unchanging terms creates an inadvertent hierarchy of offenses, with genocide as the most heinous. Such ‘top-down’ authority of classification inevitably leads to the acceptance of seemingly lesser crimes. When combined with unabashed support of state sovereignty, this manner of rationalizing violence allows those in power to manipulate perceptions of domination in their favor.

Articles 6 and 7 of the Convention reveal the manner in which punishment of genocide is left to the wills of individual countries. According to these statements, it is the state’s responsibility to try the perpetrators of genocide and to extradite those in question “according to their [the contracting states’] laws” (Article 7).¹ Using this logic, the state, often the culprit or sponsor of violent crimes, becomes both judge and suspect. For example, the Guatemalan government, while committing crimes of genocide against its Mayan citizens, presented its military brutality in terms of Cold War politics in order to craft a dominant narrative that excluded genocide as a motive for wide-spread violent action. Despite this staging of motives in international public opinion, internal Guatemalan documents revealed an attitude that specifically targeted Mayan communities and estimates of those killed show an overwhelming percentage were of Mayan descent.² Though in 1999 the UN eventually declared that the crimes in Guatemala were, in fact, crimes of genocide, this was nearly two decades after the violence had begun. Clearly, the power given to nation-states in determining fault in even the most apparent cases of genocide as defined by the UN only postpones resolution and acknowledgement of brutality.

The explicit contents of the Convention demonstrate hierarchy of classification of violence by excluding most forms, specifying that only domination targeted toward “a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group” be categorized as genocide (Article II).¹ Ranking types of violence by calling out genocide above the other forms legitimates ‘lesser’ offenses. For example, that the violence in Guatemala was dismissed initially as another facet of the Cold War and therefore in some way a more acceptable form of subjective violence is obscene if one is truly seeking to eradicate human rights violations and advocate peace. How is ‘war’ less offensive than ‘war crimes’? Or ‘war crimes’ any more acceptable than ‘crimes against humanity’? Why do all pale in comparison to the violence of genocide? While definitions of violence may be useful for studying and analyzing types of force, they are utterly inadequate for judging crimes. Law itself is a product of the state; The state is a symbol and vessel of legitimated power and authority; Power and authority, the parents of domination and oppression.

Without acknowledging these power relations, definitions of violence utilized in law, including the UN Convention, permit certain types of violence, as long as the rhetoric matches more prevalent, legitimate forms. Conflict in Iraq, usually perpetrated and promoted by the US, is labelled ‘war,’ and it’s non-military actors called ‘contractors.’ Conversely, violence in Darfur is decried by critics as ‘genocide,’ and by the UN as ‘crimes against humanity’ or ‘war crimes.’ Instead of using ‘contractors,’ those  independent criminals are dubbed ‘mercenaries.’ ³ The UN Convention has set a standard by which violence can be excused or opposed as relevant to the rhetoric power elites use to manipulate public opinion.

The example of Iraq and Darfur illustrates the detrimental effects of the simplification of conflict as shown through the Convention. Here, Iraq is largely tolerated or unaddressed by the American public due to the acknowledgement of complexity both historically, politically, and culturally. Darfur, however, is reduced to a static, purely ethnic conflict, with little consideration given to the sociocultural or political context in which it is situated. In this narrow understanding, all ‘Arabs’ are criminal and all ‘Africans’ are victims.³ This reduction of complexity has lead to less visible forms of violence, moving from the subjective to the objective. In the simplification of perpetrators in Darfur, the obvious consequence is racism against people of Arabic decent, a sacrifice made to legitimize intervention and supposed punishment for the charge of genocide, which is seen as a significantly greater evil.

Similarly, this shift from subjective to less visible violence can be seen in the example of the Rwandan genocide. Though research has revealed that the lines between victim and victor were not so clearly divided by ethnic determinations, the simplification of the conflict to meet the definition of genocide has led to continued less apparent forms of violence. In Rwanda, a narrow acknowledgement of who is classified as ‘survivor’ has lead to systemic violence in the form of denial of economic aid to those who do not meet this classification.⁴

Caught in a web of modern, bureaucratized, rational power relations, the UN Convention perpetuates subjective violence by legitimating and excusing offenses that do not fit the predetermined classification of genocide and creates new, less visible forms of domination, both objective and systemic. Thus, revision of the wording of the Convention alone will not prove useful. Rather, an honest evaluation of the UN’s position within power structures is essential to any lasting, useful assistance to those facing all kinds of violence, including, though not limited to, crimes of genocide.

1. United Nations

   1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

2. Sanford, Victoria

   2003 Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala. Palgrave MacMillion.

3. Mamdani, Mahmood

   2007 “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency.” London Review of Books 29(5):1-9.

4. Burnet, Jennie

   2009 “Whose Genocide? Whose Truth? Representations of Victim and Perpetrator in Rwanda.” Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation. ed. Hinton, Alexander and Kevin L. O’Neill. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press: 80-110.

As this is the New Year – indeed two weeks into it! – I’d like to introduce you all to my own “Resolutions to Make Revolutions.”  There are projects I’m hopefully going to pursue over the course of the upcoming year.  If any of you are interested in working with me on some of this, well that’d be awesome…

1) Building New Community Spaces

In the short term, this means reading groups, meet-ups, and lots of inclusive radical discussion.  In the long term, of course, I mean “spaces” more literally.  That is, I would definitely like to work with you wonderful radicals to establish real radical spaces for community education and organizing.  I don’t necessarily mean Infoshops.  Whatever you call them, I mean inclusive and inviting spaces that provide radical educational programming, reading, and community and workplace organizing space.  Emphasis on the INCLUSIVE.

2) A New KY Social Forum

CONTINUE READING…]]>

Hey All!

As this is the New Year – indeed two weeks into it! – I’d like to introduce you all to my own “Resolutions to Make Revolutions.”  There are projects I’m hopefully going to pursue over the course of the upcoming year.  If any of you are interested in working with me on some of this, well that’d be awesome…

1) Building New Community Spaces

In the short term, this means reading groups, meet-ups, and lots of inclusive radical discussion.  In the long term, of course, I mean “spaces” more literally.  That is, I would definitely like to work with you wonderful radicals to establish real radical spaces for community education and organizing.  I don’t necessarily mean Infoshops.  Whatever you call them, I mean inclusive and inviting spaces that provide radical educational programming, reading, and community and workplace organizing space.  Emphasis on the INCLUSIVE.

2) A New KY Social Forum

There was a KY Social Forum in 2008, I think.  As our points of unity made clear this summer, we all believe that our nation is increasingly turning toward a reactionary, fascist ideology and form of governance.  Recent events seem to corroborate this analysis.  Obviously, it’s still necessary to organize against this trend.  To me, this means that we 1) need to confront the fascist threat directly at their rallies, marches, etc. and 2) need to organize a more unified left in KY and across the country.  As I see it, a KY Social Forum would be a good start in organizing a more unified left and spreading our radical critique(s).

3) May Day Organizing

Another significant step toward developing a more unified and powerful (!) left in our immediate vicinity, in my opinion, is to reinvigorate the tradition of May Day marches.  Recently, these marches have become devoted to issues of immigration and citizenship.  I think this an important development and one we should celebrate.  But I think it’s also important to emphasize the history of the marches in labor organizing and the Haymarket lynchings.  I was approached by someone working on organizing a May Day march in Louisville for this year not too long ago.  If anyone knows how to get involved, I’d appreciate the information.

4) Barnstorming

The idea is to develop a 2 hour panel on “Financial Crisis, Austerity, and Education” — Joan will recognize it… ;)  The panel will visit communities and colleges across the state, speaking with students and community members about how to organize around education.  My part being, obviously (?), to recount my own experiences in Berkeley and the occupations and to present my analysis of these events and how they apply to colleges and communities in KY.  If you’re interested to help out in any way, I’d love it!!

5) Louisville Copwatch

Probably speaks for itself.  Probably doesn’t apply to most of you.

Supposedly, I’ll also be doing “academic work” in this time… :) If you know anyone in Louisville, who’d be interested in such things, please put me in contact.

If they’re not your own hopes and aspirations, please add to this conversation. That is to say, I would love to hear others’ thoughts on what they would like to see anarchism become in 2011, and in the future.

The 2000’s have been a mixed bag for this movement that seeks to alter globalization. Of course 9/11/01 radically shifted the direction – and changed the dynamics, while slowing the momentum – of a movement that started the 2000’s still coasting off the fumes of Seattle ’99. We could consider 2011 as a time to reconsider what anarchism is, jettisoning the useless, and building on the valuable and useful and imaginative aspects.

I. Be nice to each other

CONTINUE READING…]]>

I’m not a big fan of the self-deprivation – which often presents as puritanical and ascetic –often associated with New Year’s resolutions, unless they involve giving up… self-deprivation. The following five points – what I see as ways to make anarchism/ anarchy sexier, more practical, and in the here-and-now – do not serve as an arbitrary set of resolutions for a most heterogeneous of social/ political movements. Rather, they are my own aspirations and hopes for the anarchist movement in the New Year.

If they’re not your own hopes and aspirations, please add to this conversation. That is to say, I would love to hear others’ thoughts on what they would like to see anarchism become in 2011, and in the future.

The 2000’s have been a mixed bag for this movement that seeks to alter globalization. Of course 9/11/01 radically shifted the direction – and changed the dynamics, while slowing the momentum – of a movement that started the 2000’s still coasting off the fumes of Seattle ’99. We could consider 2011 as a time to reconsider what anarchism is, jettisoning the useless, and building on the valuable and useful and imaginative aspects.

I. Be nice to each other

This seems simple enough, but anarchists typically struggle in this department. Anarchism appealed to me as the anti-ideology – certainly the ideas are important, but it transcended other political and religious dogma. But the anarchist community is by-no-means immune to dogma and ultra-ideological partisans. If it’s important for you to tout the “correct” (as you see it) anarchist line, just acknowledge that you could be – and likely are – wrong, and subject to change your mind in the near future. If we want to end domination and oppression and “power-over” social relationships in their entirety, we better be able to play nicely.

A healthy plurality of theories and ideas that may full-well be antithetical to each other is perfectly fine; anarchism is a broad idea with sweeping, subjective principles defining it – always changing, never static. But partaking in these discourses in a manner that seeks to destroy our fellow anti-authoritarian theoretical opponents is counterproductive.

II. Immerse ourselves in community work

All-too-many well-meaning anarchists get lost in theory and counter-culture. I remember hearing a talk by Barry Pateman about anarchists that started a successful infoshop in California, and putting out a well-done paper. Headlines such as “Situationism: Second wave” graced the front page of this particular infoshop’s paper, according to Pateman. In an adjacent impoverished, working-class community, folks were being evicted from their apartments, having their homes foreclosed upon, and were plagued with other Capital-induced problems. The anarchists that made this successful infoshop run had likely no knowledge of what was happening in this adjacent community, or – even worse – they didn’t care. This is a shame, indeed… if you ask this anarchist.

Infoshops and cultural centers are a way to reclaim public space, using it to do non-hierarchical politics and letting non-oppressive social relationships flourish. I don’t want to understate the importance of such endeavors. But if such impressive anti-authoritarian projects flourish, while ignoring problems directly impacting communities in which they’re located, opportunities to build radical consciousness, to offer mutual aid and accompaniment with our neighbors in times of hardship are lost.

There are plenty of small gains that can be attained in the here-and-now in our communities. I can’t find any good reason we shouldn’t be, at the very least, attempting to form democratic neighborhood associations that do not work with the police or city government, foreclosure defense collectives, tenants’ unions, collectives with prisoners returning to the community, radically-oriented, directly democratic youth programs, and weekly, community discussion groups which give neighbors an opportunity to do face-to-face politics. All of these projects can be run non-hierarchically—without leaders. In every sense of the term, these would all be “anarchist” projects.

An infoshop can be an effective and meaningful way to spread consciousness and propaganda, but the community Pateman mentioned in his talk could benefit from the aforementioned examples of mutual aid, and anarchist-inspired projects.

III. Work on our communication skills

Many erudite radicals have come and gone, without the abolition of systems of domination and oppression. It is clear that the more verbose, obscurantist, or abstract our literature is – while this can certainly be an enjoyable challenge at times to read and discuss – doesn’t make it more effective in propagating ideas within non-radicalized communities. In fact, it may do the opposite; I would understand if someone not ensconced in the anarchist community would be more than a little put off if all they were exposed to was literature inspired by post-structuralist thinkers, Tiqqun-style essays, books, or pamphlets. Without points of reference, this style of communication could come off as either pretentious, or perhaps even nonsensical. Why start there?

Instead, we should consider universal accessibility: we need to create propaganda that can be heard for the blind, seen for the deaf, and can be understood by everyone in our communities. All people with so-called “disabilities” (an arbitrary concept and term, to say the least) should be able to experience and understand our means of communication if we stand opposed to social hierarchies. Our means of communication should also transcend language borders, and all borders for that matter. Well-done performance art, or visual art of any kind, would be one way to do this. Imaginative possibilities are endless, and different cultural milieu and geographic regions would create this in different manners.

IV. Attempt to organize workplaces on anti-authoritarian grounds

After our immediate community, the workplace is the most important space to encourage anti-capitalist resistance. In the community we’re consumers, and at the workplace we’re producers of services or goods; capitalism needs both. We need to encourage fellow community members/ workers to break the cycle.

Whether you think anarchism is a tradition that belongs to the lineage of the political left, or if you’re a left-loather and anti-workerist – and if you have a day job – attempt to form radical, horizontally-controlled unions, workers’ organizations, coalitions, or councils. Even if work is something you’d like to abolish in its entirety, organize not to work; you may find quite a bit of sympathy.

If your idea of a post-capitalist society is one for which there is some kind of industry, organize on those grounds. Organize at your workplace simply because you want modest improvements. But if you’re an anarchist, try to organize non-hierarchically; try to create webs of solidarity that exist without leaders or bureaucracy. If we can channel the vitriol most have for management and bosses, coupled with the fact that most do not like their jobs and would choose to do something else with their time if given a more attractive choice, we may be able to get somewhere.

Stand in solidarity with those workers doing just this at Jimmy Johns’ and Starbucks; both are affiliated with the IWW – its history with no shortage of anarchist involvement. Remind your employees that the American labor movement has made many gains thanks to anarchists since the Haymarket affair in Chicago, and remind them who struggled for the eight-hour workday. Promote May Day as a day to celebrate this event in 2011; appropriate it as a candidly anarchist holiday.

There’s no suggestion here that this will bring about some glorious revolution; this may be an outdated goal. If anarchy is permanent, it is dynamic in its meaning and present and future aspirations. Attempting to organize workers, i.e., Capitals’ cogs, can lead to radical community – a community informed to think freely. If a community feels able and is more-than-willing to think freely, this is more than an anarchist can ask for.

It can lead to a spreading conversation, a culture in opposition to the conformist hegemony of western, Eurocentric, capitalist society – even within one neighborhood. “Anarchizing” the workplace, in this sense, has the utmost potential. This is a call to “come out” to your fellow employees, if you haven’t already. Reach for the most absurd and unattainable goals like a city-wide wildcat strike; encourage the strike so the neighborhood can spend a day getting to know each other instead of working, or to abolish capitalism. Simply encourage idolatry, in rejection of the puritanical standards that consider back-breaking work “moral,” or organize on completely different grounds that you think your community might be sympathetic towards.

V. Continue to broaden the scope of our critique

Anarchism is more than an opposition to the State and Capital; we’ve done a poor job at articulating this at great measure. Even in many published, historical overviews of anarchism, it’s often reduced to being against government, or anti-statism. This leads folks to believe that anarchists cannot find liberatory relationships and can never “win” – assuming “winning” some kind of tangible battle is still the program – since winning involves what many in our community refer to as making “Total Destroy.”

This is why we must broaden the scope of our critique. There is a great deal of promising literature coming out regarding anarchism and disability intersections, anarchist perspectives regarding queer theory, and an anarchist analysis of the climate crisis. That said, we could do a whole hell of a lot better. Without capitalism, we would still have all of the constructed binary opposition – some examples of constructed binary opposition include “heterosexuality” v. “homosexuality,” “woman” v. “man,” “able” v. “disabled,” “sane” v. “insane,” etc. The reason all of these binary oppositions should be critiqued robustly by anarchists is that they create “power-over” social relationships. That is to say, binary oppositions create hierarchies with a dominant group, and an oppressed group.

While there is encouraging literature coming out from our community, we could afford to organize on these issues. In the wretched prisons, in our schools – which aren’t much different to our children than the prisons, in our community –in which people who do not conform to rigid gender identities are treated horrendously by market, patriarchal, white supremacist society, there are plenty of ways and means to form solidarity and mutual aid opportunities with these oppressed groups, and create anarchy in real time.

There is no conclusion…

Anarchism will constantly have to redefine itself to remain anti-authoritarian. There is no end result we seek; anarchism is a critique, and a constant demand for liberatory relationships with others, with the environment, with ourselves. This will apply to any future moment, as well. It doesn’t exist in the future. Direct action is something anarchists have been interested in for a reason: it is a demand for non-commodified relationships; opportunities for creative possibilities; making our imagination a reality, in real time. 2011 gives the movement opportunity to start fresh, and to reflect on the many promising, and negative, aspects of anarchism.

What then is the difference between the cashier and the bureaucrat of the totalitarian state dispensing rations? I’d suggest that the primary difference is in form of the categorical “gun” held to each of their heads. With the latter it is concentrated: if she does not uphold the guidelines of access, she faces the literal gun of her supervisor. With the former it is diffuse: if he does not uphold the guidelines of access, he faces the gun, not of his supervisor, but of the police officer, or, in an even more dispersed form, the metaphorical gun that is the threat of homelessness and starvation.

What is a mark of the colonized mind? Perhaps concerns that offer little or no benefit for the concerned or recognized equal(s) of the concerned… where the beneficiary is somehow over-and-above the concerned.

Society makes us and we make ourselves, both are so. For the (un/de)coloniz(ed/ing) mind the society’s role is beneficial in this process insofar as its symbols and representations can be put to the ends of creating meaning and happiness; these signifiers are recognized as subjective and changeable. For the colonized mind society’s role is either totalizing or absent, where one sees oneself as having no power to change one’s world or arguably worse, where one identifies the values and concerns of the colonizer as one’s own.

Louisville Joins the Conspiracy

The Conspiracy Tour whisked through Louisville on August 8, transforming the usual slow paced, muggy Summer evening into an evening promising anarchy and humor, learning about state repression, conspiracy charges, and grand jury resistance.

CONTINUE READING…]]>

Author’s Note: This piece will be published in a monthly newspaper in Louisville called the FORsooth that is geared towards a more general audience, i.e., not just anarchists/ anti-authoritarians. Because of this, the piece speaks very generally about some things many anarchists/ anti-authoritarians may be very well-versed in, like CrimethInc. But I still feel it’s a useful overview for anarchists/ anti-authoritarians for what the Conspiracy Tour was all about.

Louisville Joins the Conspiracy

The Conspiracy Tour whisked through Louisville on August 8, transforming the usual slow paced, muggy Summer evening into an evening promising anarchy and humor, learning about state repression, conspiracy charges, and grand jury resistance.

For those not familiar, the Conspiracy Tour is a group of anarchists from Minneapolis, Minnesota, joined by friends from the Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army, who intertwined dialogue with the speakers on very serious matters with hilariously absurd questions from the puppets, who all stood above a street sign behind presenters that read “Conspiracy Street.” A defiant owl named Olivia, a brash snapping turtle named Ben, a wise bear named Brian (who seemed to be the brains of the puppet cohort),and a naive fox named “Donny Don’t,” provided puppet irreverence. The human anarchists, Talia Narodnaya, Jude Oritz, and Carrie Feldman, arrived in their van from the previous location in Asheville, North Carolina, at 6:00pm promptly, to the Women in Transition space on Chestnut Street, an organization that serves as a mutual aid and solidarity network for working class women, and other folks under the poverty line.

CrimethInc, a decentralized anarchist collective with different cells around the world, usually has an annual convergence, where activists coalesce in different regions to dialogue and network. This year, CrimethInc made a different call, and proclaimed that “We Are Everywhere” become an international slogan, and awareness campaign for anarchists to show the world what they do, throughout the month of August. The idea was to call out to all anarchists, to make their presence known more than ever before, through actions, educational events, and “decentralized tours.” which is exactly what the Conspiracy Tour is.

The even consisted of four separate presentations, all connected to the other, broken up with hilarious song and dance from our puppet comrades: Talia Narodnaya started off with a brief history of state repression in the US; Jude Oritz told us all about the RNC 8; Carrie Feldman explained a personal experience resisting a grand jury and her four-month stint in jail; and lastly, Talia joined Carry to explain helpful ways for radical activists to avoid being entrapped and criminalized by police, and the State. We ended the evening with a roundtable, facilitated discussion with Talia, Jude, and Carry about what is going on in Louisville in regards to the anarchist movement.

A History of State Repression in 30 Minutes

Act I brought us Talia Narodnaya, who would tell us all about the ins and outs of state repression in a broader context, and of course comments from the animal cohort on “Conspiracy Street.”

Donny Don’t, the terminally naïve fox opened up Talia’s presentation with a question: “Hey Talia, is this the first time in the history of forever that a movement, or community, such as ours has faced this kind of repression?” Talia, of course, answered kindly no, but engaged Donny.

So, you may ask, the history of state repression is pretty thorough, right? To the dismay of Donny, this certainly is not the first time “in the history of forever” that these things have occurred. Talia tells us more.

“As long as there has been injustice, there has been resistance,” Talia stated. “And as long as there has been resistance, those in power have tried to repress it.” Talia takes us back to 1956, when, as she points out, part of the FBI’s mission statement was “maintaining the social and political order.” Talia reminds us that this year marked the birth of COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program). She went on to explain that the objective of COINTELPRO was to inhibit groups or individuals in the US that were deemed “subversive.” This title “subversive” largely meant people of color groups like the Black Panther Party, the NAACP, other non-violent civil rights groups, the American Indian Movement, but also the New Left generally.

To many radicals and global justice organizers and activists, the history of COINTELPRO is relatively well-known; what may not be so well known was Talia’s point that COINTELPRO provided “covert aid” to white hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, so as long as they “promised to provide their attacks to COINTELPRO targets.”

Of course, the COINTELPRO history gets much more ominous: Talia mentioned the assaults, extensive jail time for activists, bombings of offices and homes of activists, and targeted assassinations of activists.

Talia discussed the demise of COINTELPRO in 1971, as well, when a group calling itself Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI office in Pennsylvania to get their hands on thousands of pages of documentation. This documentation exposed a great deal of the ugliness of COINTELPRO, led to a public outcry, and a year later, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI at the time, officially ended COINTELPRO. Talia, at this point asks the crowd a question: “Does anyone believe that that counterintelligence program ended at that point?” Besides Donny Don’t on Conspiracy Street who raises his hand, the rest of the crowd isn’t so naïve.

Talia brought to our attention that starting in the ’90s, state repression has been heavily geared towards animal liberation, earth liberation, and anti-globalization organizers and activists. She specifically mentioned the “SHAC 7,” which is a group that was merely reporting on direct action in the animal liberation struggle such as property damage via a website, but was never actually convicted of participating, or even advocating such actions. As we’ll see with the next presentation, the act of incriminating folks for doing absolutely nothing but seemingly holding the wrong political views, is more common than one may think.

Conspiracy Charges and the “RNC 8”

Jude Oritz’s presentation was next on the agenda, and he started off by giving the audience a brief history of the RNC 8. The story of the RNC 8, as Jude explained, starts in 2006 when the Republican National Convention (RNC) announced they would meet in St. Paul, Minnesota. Starting at this point, as Oritz discussed, “there were a series of open, public meetings in the Twin Cities, for people to get together and start talking about strategies, and forms of protest. From these meetings, the RNC Welcoming Committee formed.”

The RNC Welcoming Committee, in Jude’s words, was an “explicitly anarchist, anti-authoritarian organizing body, that was focused on logistics for the conventions, like convergence spaces, where we’d go for free meals, and meetings.”
The RNC Welcoming Committee also, as Oritz told us on Sunday night, came up with a blockading, civil-disobedience strategy known as “3 S,” i.e., swarm, seize, and stay. “The point was to swarm into an area of downtown St. Paul, seize it, and stay there as long as possible. And the purpose of that, like many civil disobedience strategies, was to create space to deliver a political message.” This message, Jude tells us, was to express dissent with the Republicans’ policies “in which ever way they chose, a diversity of tactics.”

“The St. Paul Principles” also arose out of this group, and this particular event. Oritz says these were “different agreements that helped people with different ideologies, different political backgrounds, and different groups, to come together, work together, so that they weren’t falling into state-sponsored paradigms of good protester/ bad protester, which could really perpetuate divisions and differences.

Some of those agreements included things such as agreeing not to talk trash about each other in the media, agreeing not to talk to the cops about any kind of investigation into the groups, and also agreeing to respect differences in time or space in actions, so that people could work together even if they didn’t have the same politics, or choose the same tactics.” With a bit of background, enter Exhibit A, and actually the only piece of evidence used to persecute and repress the RNC 8: a satirical video called “We’re Getting Ready,” produced by the RNC Welcoming Committee. Oritz describes the video as poking fun at “state-sponsored stereotypes of anarchists.” It involves individuals doing normal things like eating breakfast, taking a shower, and cooking dinner, who are donned in all black, with ski-masks. One of the more humorous and tongue-in cheek aspects of the video shows one of these individuals lighting a grill using a molotov cocktail, playing on one of the most banal and trite stereotypes, i.e., anarchist-as-bomb-thrower.

“The cops didn’t think it was funny; they saw it as a threat,” said Oritz. This video launched a year-long investigation sparked by the Ramsey County (the county in which St. Paul resides) Sheriff’s Office, and as far as Oritz and other organizers know, there were three infiltrators from the Sheriff’s Office. Oritz says there was also one FBI agent involved in the investigation.

“One of the undercover agents was looking for the leaders in the [RNC] Welcoming Committee,” Oritz said. “Which, if we look at anarchist, anti-authoritarian organizing, there’s of course a non-hierarchical basis, there are no leaders, there aren’t people telling others what to do. But the cops really don’t understand that.”

Since there weren’t leaders to target, the law had to find the most dedicated, passionate, and most involved in the RNC Welcoming Committee: these individuals came to be known as the RNC 8. The case is quite telling. Oritz tells us that the informants had to admit at a trial-hearing recently, that there is no incriminating evidence of any “agreements to riot, or destroy property, or use dangerous weapons.”

This is where things get really strange. Members of the RNC 8′s homes were broken into with assault rifles and “full riot gear, (cops) grabbed people out of bed, and off to jail,” Oritz says, while others were grabbed at the convention. Oritz went on to say they were all “initially charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. They were later on charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property in furtherance of terrorism.”

Oritz points out that this is a common strategy of the State: politically motivated arrests that equate anarchism with terrorism.

To conclude his presentation, Jude Oritz reminds us how the conspiracy laws are written, and the conclusion the prosecutors are taking in the RNC 8 trial at present: “The fact that there was property destruction at the RNC [in St. Paul], the fact that there were convictions based on that property destruction, means that there was a conspiracy, and the RNC 8 are guilty. So, think about that logic: property destruction equals conspiracy, equals guilt. It doesn’t really make too much sense, but the way that these conspiracy laws are written that may be legally sufficient to convict the remaining seven defendants (author’s note: as of their stop in Louisville on August 8, they learned that one of the RNC 8 defendants, one Erik Oseland, will be accepting a plea agreement).”

Jude Oritz is part of the RNC 8 Defense Committee, and he, and others are still optimistic about the remaining seven defendants, and is asking that folks research it, do RNC 8 fundraisers, and come Minnesota for the trial to protest and stand in solidarity with the RNC 8. Unfortunately these are not the only legal shenanigans happening in the Twin Cities in regards to the anarchist community.
Carry Feldman gave us further insight in Act III.

Ham Sandwiches and Grand Juries: Carry Feldman’s Case

Carrie Feldman has firsthand experience resisting grand juries, and she seems to have learned a great deal about them in the process. Feldman described “a panel of 16 to 23 jurors who will hear evidence on a case, and decide whether or not to charge someone with a crime.” Feldman said, ironically enough, they were initially created to avoid “arbitrary inditements.” There are some problems here, though.

First, as Feldman points out, “they’re incredibly secretive.” She said it’s hard for legal defense, or anyone else for that matter, to find out what is going on. The track record of grand juries also are quite infamous, as Carrie pointed out: “Grand juries almost always come back with an inditement. And 98-99 percent of the time they do. In fact, they do it so much, this chief judge in New York has this famous quote about grand juries, saying that they would indite a ham sandwich if the prosecution asked them to.”

To provide some context, Carrie Feldman was subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Iowa, along with her partner Scott Demuth, in late 2009, in relation to an Animal Liberation Front (a well-known radical animal rights group) raid that took place at the University of Iowa in 2004. Feldman and Demuth were seemingly targeted for their politics and well-known stances on the issue of animal liberation, and nothing else. As Feldman discussed, showing a picture of herself when she was 15, she was interrogated about a picture of her with a rat on her shoulder, her hooded sweatshirt, and a t-shirt that appeared to say “ALF,” the initials of the Animal Liberation Front. She was asked ridiculous questions about everything in the picture, including where she got the rat.

They had no information on the raid, but due to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), Scott Demuth was indicted on conspiracy charges. Carrie spent four months in jail for not cooperating with the grand jury on principle. She shared her eloquent, defiant statement with the crowd on Sunday night. “First of all, I would like to state, unequivocally and most certainly for the record, that I have no intention of testifying before this grand jury,” Feldman read from the beginning of the statement.

She ended her grand jury statement by saying “Today my voice may waver, as I stand alone in this room. But I know I speak with the voice of every one of my friends, loved ones, and comrades when I say this: We will not be intimidated. We will not cooperate. I have nothing more to say to you.”

Scott Demuth is still pending trial for his charges, and is scheduled for September 13th of this year.

The Conspiracy Comes to an End

The event closed with no easy answers, ending where we started: as long as movements of resistance challenge injustice, there will be state repression. Talia and Carrie briefly discussed tactics and advice for activism before the audience participated in a facilitated, dynamic discussion with the Conspiracy crew. Two of the most important aspects stressed in this short discussion is that you do not have to talk to the police, or let them in your living space, so as long as they do not have a warrant.

Since rats, t-shirts, satirical videos have been used to arbitrarily incriminate activists and organizers, if you’re a radical activist, it’s best to talk to the cops through a closed door, according to Talia. She shared an intense experience where one police officer alternated between the role of good cop to bad cop, banged on the door, threatened to take her child who was home, but went away, since she ultimately refused to cooperate, or open the door. The facilitated discussion, on a different note, yielded a well-known fact amongst radical activists and organizers in the Louisville area: the anarchist scene is very small, and fractured.

We all left enthused about changing the state of things by planning events, and pushing forward on projects we’re working on. Different folks in the community talked about projects they were working on that others had no idea of, and made promises to work on organizing more events like the Conspiracy Tour, which local Brent Tinell did the legwork to bring to Louisville. The activists from Minnesota and elsewhere shared experiences, like political prisoner letter-writing meet-ups, that had worked in their respective cities, and other sustainable projects for inspiration.

The event seemed to bring excitement into our fractured and small anarchist community in Louisville, and brought us humor, knowledge, the ominous reality and ways of the State, as well as radical possibilities for building our movement locally. Not bad for a muggy, Sunday, Summer evening in a city that is sorely lacking regarding events like this.

I must say, first and foremost, that the response will hopefully spark something seemingly uncommon in the anarchist milieu: civil discourse amongst those who reach different anti-authoritarian conclusions. To be sure, there should be a healthy pluralism; homogeneity has more than simply authoritarian connotations. What still attracts me so, to anarchism/ anarchy, is that it has evolved into a macro critique of domination. And delegated boxes of homogeneity, to which we are confined, are a big part of this critique. Hence, when we speak of all-encompassing financial markets, spaces where we are permitted to do certain things but not others, with orders from above, it’s more than analogous to being delegated to gender binaries, or sexual orientations as Jamie Heckert has so wonderfully articulated, or people who perceive the world or move around in space differently than the majority being delegated to certain normative behaviors, etc.

So, if anarchism becomes a space in which certain tendencies are tolerated, and others are determined fraudulent by an informal leadership, I suppose you can count me out, and this philosophy has become antithetical to itself.

CONTINUE READING…]]>

This is a much belated response to an article by anarcho-primitivist blogger Nihilo Zero, who was writing in response to an essay I wrote about anarchy and the BP oil spill.

I must say, first and foremost, that the response will hopefully spark something seemingly uncommon in the anarchist milieu: civil discourse amongst those who reach different anti-authoritarian conclusions. To be sure, there should be a healthy pluralism; homogeneity has more than simply authoritarian connotations. What still attracts me so, to anarchism/ anarchy, is that it has evolved into a macro critique of domination. And delegated boxes of homogeneity, to which we are confined, are a big part of this critique. Hence, when we speak of all-encompassing financial markets, spaces where we are permitted to do certain things but not others, with orders from above, it’s more than analogous to being delegated to gender binaries, or sexual orientations as Jamie Heckert has so wonderfully articulated, or people who perceive the world or move around in space differently than the majority being delegated to certain normative behaviors, etc.

So, if anarchism becomes a space in which certain tendencies are tolerated, and others are determined fraudulent by an informal leadership, I suppose you can count me out, and this philosophy has become antithetical to itself.

I still argue it isn’t anything of the sort. I must mention I’m relatively new to anarchist thought; I came to the conclusion that I identify with anarchist principles only a few years back, after dabbling briefly with Marxism. So maybe I lack many of the preconceived notions that individuals who’ve been in the movement 20-plus years have.

As Deric Shannon points out, there should obviously be some disqualifying elements to individuals who identify with the broader anarchist movement; he mentions the racist wingnuts who call themselves national anarchists, and the so-called “anarcho”-capitalists, with the latter already being discussed ad nauseam within the milieu. I would go a step further and say that reduction would disqualify someone from being anti-authoritarian; if one can’t acknowledge queer struggle, or female-bodied individual’s struggle, or disregard people with so-called disability’s struggle, and merely acknowledge capitalism as the only form of oppression, or the State, it’s questionable, in my view, as to whether this is anarchism. And vice versa. If one completely writes off class-struggle as old hat leftism, I see this too, as highly problematic. But again, I’m not the gatekeeper, and there seems to be room under the tent for any genuine anti-authoritarians / people concerned with “power-over” social relations, and hierarchy, on a macro scale.

But whether or not we prefigure a world which utilizes a certain amount of technology, or continues some degree of civilization, to me these are questions concerning the larger role of domination. Is civilization per se domination, or is it a natural development of human organization? Is civilization synonymous with exponential growth? And if we quell exponential growth in some way, so as to acknowledge that civilization growing outwards like a cancer is not compatible with finite ecosystems, will this then be a post-civilization society?

While I cannot offer easy answers to these loaded questions, I can say this: as someone who still doesn’t have a problem identifying as a social anarchist, I see merit in some of the primitivist critique. There’s no need for me to denounce folks like Nihilo, based on the merit that we reach different conclusions. Before I address some of the specific points Nihilo makes, I want to bring up the point that not all social anarchists are simply techno-optimists; we are not entirely ambivalent about technology, industrial agriculture, or civilization. Anti-civilization critiques, too, are useful to me, insomuch as I can deconstruct it and pull out what’s useful. After all, isn’t this the best we can do with any social theory/ philosophy? To accept any theory in the hard or social sciences, or any philosophy hook, line, and sinker, smacks of dogmatism, which is why I’m thankful for thinkers like Derrida and Foucault, and postanarchist thought. Anarchism, or anything else for that matter, shouldn’t be sacred.

Hence, I am skeptical about any techno-solutions, technology proper, big civilization, and downright oppose industrial agriculture, in favor of ultra-decentralized permaculture, functioning within localized gift economies (if we want to slow down the death of the planet in any meaningful sense). The expansion of urban areas with no end in sight, essentially turning the planet into a parking lot, even if it’s covered with solar panels and windmills, won’t benefit any life form, from prokaryotes to primates, on the planet. And while we’re currently living in ecological crisis, at the rate we’re going, we are certainly fucked. If we do not move backwards while looking forward, we’re going to rely on the same Western-centric, Enlightenment principles-soaked fetishization of “science” and “rationality” that got us into this mess in the first place. And if we do not start listening to people who, for thousands and thousands of years, have had a spiritual connection with the land and the planet, and in most ways, a much more sophisticated understanding of ecology, we’re doomed to repeat the Industrial Revolutions’ mistakes over, and over, and over again.

I do not think the whole of technology is something for which we can sensibly be ambivalent, or agnostic about. The notion that technology proper is something that can be utilized for either noble endeavors, or for tyrants to kill people, is a bit too simplistic. This misses the point that the overwhelming majority of what’s called “science” in the West, and what is determined technology, involves environmental extractions of finite resources. Hence, whether we’re doing wonderful things like curing cancer, or wretched things like dropping nuclear bombs on innocent people, we’re still extracting from the finite environment.

That said, I’m not about to make an argument that we should have some kind of zero-sum ecological footprint, as if such practices are possible. So, while I’m certainly skeptical of civilization as we currently know it, and hyper-techno advances in the name of “humanity,” I’m also skeptical of the notion that it’s even possible to entirely move away from using technology, but civilization? In regards to the latter, I would argue we must quell exponential expansion to sustain the planet, and this is essentially what “civilization” refers to. So it seems low-tech (but “tech” to a certain degree, to be sure), coupled with decentralization and local autonomy, could, in fact, quell this growth. It seems only natural that as anti-capitalists we would naturally be skeptical of civilization, but this isn’t always the case.

Moving back to anarcho-primitivism, it has never quite been homogenous; there’s been internal debates about the use of art, mathematics, and other symbolism, as well as the question of agriculture. So the critique that most social anarchists seem to make about primitivism is troublesome to begin with, since it’s not exactly a monolith (nor is social anarchism).

The bottom line is that, for the majority of folks that call themselves anarchists, the market and the State and governmental bureaucracies and prisons and centralization, are viewed as oppressive, totalitarian components of the society in which we live (there are exceptions in regards to markets; I acknowledge this). So, let’s see: a decentralized society, no bureaucracy, no markets, no currency, no governments, and localized autonomy. What this implies to me is that most anarchists want a, for lack of a better term, simplified society. Industrialization is something that, even for the non-primitivists, we would by default slow down tremendously. For this reason, one would think we wouldn’t completely write off all anarchists that are anti-civilization, or who reject technology in its totality. For folks who want a decentralized, non-bureaucratic stateless society without markets, i.e., a “simplified” life (not to mention the anarchist critique of work in itself), one would think we all might find useful elements of a theory that suggests re-wilding, or abolishing more than the State and the economic apparatus in which it keeps on life support. Think about the endless analysis anarchists have found useful from Marxism, without, of course, becoming Marxists.

I wanted to preface the issues I take with Nihilo’s analysis before I get into it vis-a-vis the article to which he initially responded. I also hope this assures the reader that this is not another banal critique of primitivism with the usual suspects, i.e., it’s irrational, it’s genocidal, etc. While I should make it perfectly clear primitivist thought ain’t my bag, it’s also not my bag to use hackneyed criticisms that seemingly have little merit.

Specific Issues Nihilo Brings Up

Nihilo starts off by saying that the conditions for which I speak are “somewhat ideal.” I find this surprising. In fact, the article gained praise from fellow primitivist John Zerzan; he seemed to understand that I wasn’t making a traditional anarcho-communist argument, or as a leftist, or a social anarchist argument, but an argument for anarchy, i.e., a classless, self-managing society, without any rulers or hierarchy, in a more general sense. Primitivists, at least that I’ve read, make similar anthropological arguments that I might make to defend anarchism/ anarchy: most of human history has consisted of stateless societies, self-organizing autonomous communities that governed themselves (and many that still do) in a decentralized manner. While this may sound perfectly ideal, it’s also a historical observation about the way in which people organize without rulers or markets to dictate their lives.

I wasn’t saying what we need is a rigid plan to save all of humanity; I was making the point that the majority of the population, who without rulers, would likely have more autonomy over their lives, and make decisions about the land they use, rather than CEOs or politicians. And I was making the argument that those that own the means of production can afford to act suicidal and destroy the communities of others, when it doesn’t directly affect them in real time. In a true state of anarchy, obviously people would be incapable of such things. Otherwise, if there were some kind of warlords, or bullies who were bruiting abroad, doing as they wish to other folks’ communities, then this certainly wouldn’t be anarchy.

Nihilo also claims that what I suggest in the article in question, is that all people would get along, and vote similarly in an egalitarian society. Not so. First, I’ve been candid about majoritarian voting: I do not perceive it to be compatible with anarchism. I know this is contentious, and the details of this can be hashed out later, but I wanted to make the point that I am of the mind that majoritarian “democracy” is hierarchical and, in fact, authoritarian (you may send your hatemail directly to me, by the way). So, I didn’t mention anyone voting on anything.

There are a number of different techniques groups can informally reach consensus. Decentralized groups without social hierarchies, typically make decisions using some variant of consensus. I couldn’t give a good reason to romanticize one way to do it in particular, but there are some commonalities that differentiate consensus from voting: (1) the process doesn’t assume there will be a competition between radically different factions within a group, with whatever majority wins deciding things, (2) and consensus also assumes that a compromise will be made between participating members. Most consensus processes also include the power for one individual to block the decision, insofar as the decision stands diametrically opposed to the community or organization. Hence, this process, in all of its various forms, from completely informal to highly formalized, empowers group dynamics and the individual, unlike majoritarian voting.

Nihilo also says that “even free people in a far more egalitarian society could make horrible mistakes.” I certainly wouldn’t suggest otherwise. I guess the connotation here is that I suggested this in the article in question, which is a misunderstanding if so. What I suggest is that, from the bottom-up, self-managed communities that share responsibilities and decision-making power, are more likely to make decisions that do not destroy said communities and the surrounding environments. Take the example of Somalia, the failed state in Africa. The global bourgeoisie is treating the coastal waters like an aqua-landfill, dumping toxic waste off the coastal waters of Somalia, in turn killing off fisheries and destroying the means by which many Somalis make a living (i.e., fishing).

Western economic elites certainly wouldn’t do this in their own communities. In turn, their wealth is being expropriated by de-facto anarchist pirates, large vessels being hijacked by grassroots ex-fishermen in speedboats with AK 47s. If this isn’t poetic justice, I don’t know what is. But it’s doubtful that Somalis would choose this fate for themselves. While they are showing self-governance by taking part in direct action and expropriating the millions of dollars of ransom money from Western corporations and governments (and much to their admirable self-restraint, mostly nonviolently), it also shows communities with autonomy making more conscientious decisions for themselves, i.e., taking on the people who are destroying their community, instead of being complicit in the destruction.

But yes, certainly, it’s true, that self-governing communities are capable of re-establishing oppression, and environmental degradation. Again, I never implied this wasn’t a possiblity.

While I actually agree with a great deal of what Nihilo says in the article otherwise, the question of technology was bound to arise in Nihilo’s critique. Again, while not a primitivist, I primarily looked at societies that have “operated outside of what is called civilization.” Certainly a primitivist wouldn’t take issue with this, as the societies I mentioned largely live off of the land, do not operate in the authoritarian confines of markets, and lack industrialization. I chose to look at these stateless societies because they are still seemingly the best examples of self-governing, decentralized communities, that reach decisions without hierarchy or authority.

Yet, what I also mentioned is something I stand by: in a post-state/ capitalist society, in which communities had control over their own lives, some would choose to use technology en masse, whilst others would choose a more ecologically compatible existence, i.e., hunting and gathering, coupled with decentralized permaculture, or communes akin to eco-villages of present day (the writer acknowledges here that the ecovillage movement doesn’t seek to challenge capital in any meaningful way—there are anarchist connotations, however, like consensus decision-making, and real sustainability, coupled with autonomy). I must clarify here, and this is where the conversation gets tricky: when I speak of technophiles, the connotations are that I speak of people who will create weapons of mass destruction, and the like. Obviously, such a community would not be compatible with anarchy. There are certainly pro-technology anti-authoritarians that are against the existence nuclear weapons.

There’s no need to speak about what kind of technology might be utilized in a post-capitalist society; this would be decided by autonomous communities. But I imagine that with all of the hardware and residual crap developed through research and development, and then utilized by the bourgeoisie in order to earn surplus value, people will be tinkering with these gadgets, whether in pirated, off-the-grid ways, or creating new devices out of parts of all of this accumulated stuff, for a very long time to come. I’m not arguing that this is a good thing; there’s debris floating around in space, for god’s sake. There is litter, goods which have have built-in obsolescence and pieces of goods with built-in planned ob Hence, the notion that we could ever inhabit a world in which all of these techno gadgets disappear is, with respect, a bit idealistic.

So, I take the approach that technology will always be with us, whether utilized for wretched things, or noble endeavors. Now comes the differentiating factor from myself and a primitivist like Nihilo: I do perceive that horizontally-organized, autonomous communities, could harness a certain amount of technology, without destroying themselves, or the planet in the process. When I speak of “techno-topias,” this may consist of a community that harnesses solar energy, and utilizes all the leftover junk from market society to build elaborate networks of communication, etc. We might think of savvy, anti-authoritarian hackers voluntarily associating together. It’s doubtful that with all the knowledge they’ve acquired to combat the spectacle via the internet, or tapping into information systems to acquire information and sabotage the State, that they’ll completely jettison these tendencies in some hypothetical non-capitalist society. Should autonomous communities be free to be authoritarians? I would argue no. I guess Nihilo doesn’t see a possibility for a community of techno-geeks ever being benign, whereas I do.

Communities who are skeptical towards technology, which may embody individuals like Nihilo and hyper-techno-pessimists-who-aren’t-primitivists, myself included, and communities skeptical towards civilization, would be the assurance that tech junkies wouldn’t get out of control.

Nihilo correctly points out that it was the technologically-based society “ which has brought us Chernobyl, Nagasaki, and the potential for global thermonuclear war.” Certainly true. From here, many primitivists, including Nihilo, reach the conclusion that since technological advance could potentially destroy the entire planet, all technology should be abolished. We must remember how broad a category we’re discussing here. If a guitar is produced, or a toothbrush, or an abortion performed, is this anywhere near the same category as nuclear proliferation? Is the assumption that, in order to have a free society, we must abolish even those things in which we desire, even after planned obs disappears (which is only necessary if profit potential is available)? Might we be able to differentiate in some technology that has consequences (i.e., environmental degradation), but has beneficiaries for communities, insofar that this technology be utilized responsibly in a horizontal manner? Will a community be able to develop tools they need and desire, produce certain services like healthcare devices that assist in surgeries, without completely demolishing their environment, or developing weapons that could destroy the entire planet? I tend to be optimistic in this regard, another differentiating factor between primitivists like Nihilo and non-primitivists (not to be confused with anti-primitivists) like myself.

In this line of thinking, Nihilo mentions that seemingly harmless research can be utilized by tyrants and power to cause destruction and death. Here he discusses a recurring theme in the article: self restraint. Relying merely on self-restraint is not what I’m suggesting. Of course technological experimentation can be devastatingly dangerous. Here Nihilo seems to misunderstand my perceptions of communal autonomy. The connotation seems to be that I have suggested, per the article, that“the freedom to experiment in innate ignorance is more important to society than the grave threats potentially unleashed upon society.” Not so. I couldn’t think of a free society that would let individual groups do whatever they want, not considering the larger consequences of their actions.

This is, to me, what has been so attractive about the anarchist notion of autonomy, local control, coupled with federalism. From outside the milieu, many misunderstand local control and autonomy with no formal, federal government to suggest that communities could do whatever the hell they want, i.e., there may be fascist communities, warlords who plan to conquer surrounding communities, etc. This is, of course, not the case at all, and because webs of federalism would be promoted, such a community wouldn’t be tolerated. Hence, a community of technophiles that seeks to expand exponentially, or as Nihilo puts it, needs to extract more resources and dissect more things, wouldn’t be tolerated in such a hypothetical society. There would be no reason to tolerate them.

Because of this, it is unlikely that self-restraint would be the only motivating action influencing individuals, or individual groups, not to ravage the environment, build weapons that could destroy the planet, or attempt to expand civilization or technology exponentially. As I see it, it’s hard to imagine there wouldn’t be sanctions for such actions, even though we want a society without prisons or police (surely Nihilo and I would agree here!). What power-sharing, horizontalist, community would tolerate such actions? And if the community consists entirely of individuals who would want to perpetuate such models of endless expansion, nuclear warfare, and hyper technological advance (which I’m not naïve enough to think wouldn’t exist after some kind of revolutionary event), it would be surrounding communities’ responsibilities to combat this authoritarian convergence (this answers Nihilo’s question of what a primitivist segment of society must do to assure they do not become this). Different communities would, of course, create different means of resistance; it’s meaningless for me (or anyone, I’d argue) to tell us what resistance looks like, as groups of oppressed people have shown that they are adept at defining this themselves.

Nihilo critiques technology as being incompatible with anarchy for the reason it needs bureaucracy, leaders, and hierarchy. Science-fetishizing, techno-crazed societies certainly do require these things. But I’m not talking about this. Our main point of disagreement in the article can be summed up as this: I see it as a possibility that certain communities will utilize a certain amount of technology without destroying themselves or others, with respect for ecology, whereas Nihilo doesn’t see this as a possibility. I certainly think technology can be harnessed without leaders, hierarchy, or the division of labor. If we learn to harness solar energy in a meaningful way, for example, solar energy is doing most of the work. If solar panels are built to last, they are rarely built. An entire community could easily shape the way in which solar energy is utilized, how devices that harness solar energy is produced, and also has the final say in the decision-making process through face-to-face meetings, where details are hashed out. There’s no need for hierarchies, permanent divisions of labor, or leaders in this process.

To Conclude…

Nihilo seems comfortable enough describing what will be the path to a “healthy and sustainable future,” i.e., insurrectionary anarchist tactics leading to a transition to primitivism. Insurrection as a tool in the toolbox is certainly something I’m enthusiastic about. But an assumption that successful insurrection would lead to a homogenous society is, again, idealistic. I wouldn’t want to assume that if insurrections coupled with general strikes, occupations, sabotage, social revolution, and general self-liberation, brings the spectacle to its knees, that the result would be one kind of society. I won’t make that assumption. This was my general creed in the article coming back to the premise of this essay: some communities will, without a doubt, reject the primitivist program outright, while some will be enthusiastic about it. Moving towards a more ecumenical anarchy, a more “big tent” program seems to be the way to go. This dialogue is important, as it allows us to explore the possibilities of life after capitalism, and compare different ideas and prefigurations.

I was initially attracted to Marxism after I realized that social democracy and liberalism was a dead-end; capitalism, I discovered, was an ominous machine that sees us, the international proletarian, as so much fodder.

I eventually moved to the left of Marx, finding an anarchism a more well-rounded critique of authority, including the State, capital, patriarchy, familial relations, prisons/ police, heteronormativity, etc. Whereas anarchism seeks the no national borders, my hope is that this project rejects philosophical or theoretical borders, as well. We should not only question how we do politics or economics; we should question how we have sex, gentrification and race, how people are confined to groups with norms in regards to their age or how they perceive the world (i.e., people with so-called disabilities), how we interact with children, how we love each other, what to do about biodeterminism in regards to gender binaries, and how exactly we will transform ourselves and find liberation in real time. This is my hope for anarchism, that we can move beyond the so-called great thinkers and theorists, thrive off of our diversity, and not settle for official ideology. In this regard, comrades can dialogue about anti-civilization solutions and the Platform, or primitivism vis-a-vis social ecology. If you look at the big picture of both CrimethInc and the IWW, they’re both ultimately trying to create the new world in the here-and-now, whereas some try to paint them as being lifestylists and class struggle anarchists (i.e., syndicalists), respectively.

And I’ll close by saying I’m not a social anarchist in the traditional sense, so as to differentiate myself from the “lifestylist”; the late Murray Bookchin’s vitriol seems a bit unprecedented. Drop-outs, freaks, and pagans have plenty to offer, as do primitivists. We need a robust critique of capital and the State; we need class struggle. But equally important, we need a critique of endlessly expanding cityscapes, endless technological development, and environmental destruction, not to mention bourgeois, puritan concepts of morality. Green anarchists, anti-civ thinkers, and primitivists, comrades like Nihilo Zero, are invaluable here. Hopefully the civil dialogue can continue; I feel it’s a necessity in the anarchist milieu.

Unfortunately, the conversation from all political sides lacks vision, clarity, and understanding. From Marxists and anarchists, to thinkers ranging from the snake oil salesman right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, to thinkers I respect like Naomi Klein, everyone seems to be getting it wrong. The conversation hasn’t made it a centimeter below the surface, and it’s really one of the most superficial arguments I’ve heard in a long time.

The so-called “Left” is something in which I loose more faith in every day as a force that will combat the spectacle of market society and capitalism, including some anarchist and Marxist comrades. In regards to their superficiality, they don’t sound much different than mainstream media or right-wing hacks when they speak of agent provocateurs, and how burning cop cars or breaking windows hurts their precious movement, for whatever that means.

Further, while the right-wing conspiracist milieu perpetuates their baseless claims of agent provocateurs donned in ski-masks, the left-wing critics continue to talk about this entity referred to as “the public.” “The public,” in itself, is particularly hard to define in our society. David Graeber explains this:

CONTINUE READING…]]>

The Black Bloc conversation lacks nuance. Since the recent G20 Summit recently took place in Canada, this conversation has been sparked again.

Unfortunately, the conversation from all political sides lacks vision, clarity, and understanding. From Marxists and anarchists, to thinkers ranging from the snake oil salesman right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, to thinkers I respect like Naomi Klein, everyone seems to be getting it wrong. The conversation hasn’t made it a centimeter below the surface, and it’s really one of the most superficial arguments I’ve heard in a long time.

The so-called “Left” is something in which I loose more faith in every day as a force that will combat the spectacle of market society and capitalism, including some anarchist and Marxist comrades. In regards to their superficiality, they don’t sound much different than mainstream media or right-wing hacks when they speak of agent provocateurs, and how burning cop cars or breaking windows hurts their precious movement, for whatever that means.

Further, while the right-wing conspiracist milieu perpetuates their baseless claims of agent provocateurs donned in ski-masks, the left-wing critics continue to talk about this entity referred to as “the public.” “The public,” in itself, is particularly hard to define in our society. David Graeber explains this:

[W]hat we call “the public” is created, produced, through specific institutions that allow specific forms of action—taking polls, watching television, voting, signing petitions or writing letters to elected officials or attending public hearings—and not others.¹

If we take Graeber at his word, and I do in this regard, then we must assume that a grassroots, anti-capitalist movement that wants to see a world in which every form of domination is abolished, isn’t counted as “the public.”

Let’s forget about our perceptions of vandals perpetuating violence in ski-masks and answer a simple question: what is “Black Bloc”? One of the biggest misconceptions of Black Bloc outside of the anti-capitalist movement (but unfortunately there are still many misperceptions on the broader “left”) is that it is a tendency of anarchism, that it is a movement or a group, or that they are “violent.” Uri Gordon, Israeli professor and anarchist, writes:

A black bloc is an ad hoc tactical formation in which affinity groups and individuals cluster together, themselves against identification and to maintain a symbolism of anonymity as promoted by the EZLN (Marcos 1998). The tactic originates with the anti-fascist scene and first appeared in the United States during the protests against the Gulf War in 1991.²

Gordon’s perspective, both as someone who has studied the global anti-capitalist movement extensively and participated in it, is particularly good; he mentions both the Western European Autonomen social movements, and solidarity with the Zapatistas.

It may be worthwhile for some to consider the roots here, which are, in fact in the Western European Autonomen movement. While the movement didn’t specifically identify as “anarchist,” the Autonomen movement was anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, and anti-capitalist, and largely influenced the anarchism of present day. The most thorough work on the subject is perhaps Georgy Katsiaficas’ “The Subversion of Politics,” in which he discusses early Black Bloc formations as a counter to neo-fascism. Katsiaficas is a scholar who has done extensive work looking at the Western European Autonomen movement, which inspired both the Black Bloc tactic in the anarchist movement, and the trend to reclaim public space, and restore abandoned buildings, or squats.³ Katsiaficas explains here the hidden history of the Autonomen, which may explain at least some of the confusion in regards to this tactic. Here he describes here an experience he had at MIT. Many seem to be in the dark (no pun intended) on the notion that this movement exists, or existed. Hence, the confusion in regards to the Black Bloc:

In 1989, after I made a detailed presentation at MIT to several hundred people on the Autonomen, which included slides and copies of their magazines. One member of the audience confronted me with the charge that I had invented the whole movement, contending that the events I described were simply part of [German left-wing political party] the Greens.⁴

In the photo section of “The Subversion of Politics,” the unofficial history of autonomous movements in Western Europe, there is an image of police seemingly about to clash with a sea of ski-masked donned Autonomen, which extends outside the borders of the image. This is an image of an anti-Reagan demonstration in Berlin, Germany, in 1987.

Katsiaficas also mentions an action standing in solidarity with an Autonomen woman, who was killed when cops chased her onto the highway, where she was struck by a car. Katsiaficas wrote that the Black Bloc, in the German city of Gottingen, “was two thousand strong, and when the peaceful demonstration ended, they attacked the police, ninety of whom were injured…” ⁴ This event occurred in 1989. To summarize, the Black Bloc tactic has been used for some twenty-plus years, has its origins in the anti-authoritarian autonomous movements in Western Europe that claimed their autonomy both from the social democratic, statist Left, and neo-fascism and capitalist society, and is also a homage to the anonymity promoted by the EZLN (The Zapatista National Liberation Army).⁵

There seem to be two main points of contention. I’ll primarily focus on the many upon many conversations I’ve overheard, participated in, and heard of from others, primarily amongst liberals and leftists. The two points of contention focus upon the issue of violence, and secondly, that the tactic doesn’t work, hinders progress in the movement, and invites agent provocateurs.

The issue of violence has been addressed ad nauseam in radical circles, but, for what it’s worth, it should probably be mentioned that the Black Bloc is largely nonviolent, in its North American variants vis-a-vis the Western European version for which Katsiaficas spoke, and this is for good reason. Graeber points out that in most large European cities

there are active fascist movements. They see anarchists, almost as much as immigrants, as their natural enemies. To be both openly anarchist and to live by a code of nonviolence, therefore, means to be willing to take one’s life into one’s hands on a daily basis—or at the very least, to know that one will probably be quite regularly beaten up. In the US [for example], most anarchists are lucky enough to live in places where they are relatively insulated from such dangers So, where a certain degree of violence is, in Europe, more or less expected, in the US [as in Canada], Black Blocs have been able to develop what might be considered the most aggressive possible version of nonviolence…Black Blocs do not attack living creatures. However, they are willing to empoy much more confrontational tactics than other activists: for example, linking arms to push back police lines, or…carrying along chain-link fences to push against them; erect practicing “unarrests” by snatching back arrestees from police lines and cutting off their cuffs.¹

It seems that any credible definition of violence would largely concern physical coercion of others, which the Blac Bloc rarely takes part in, other than in occasional uses of self-defense when comrades are attacked by cops. Peter Gelderloos highlights the real violence committed, and obscured by burning cop cars and windows broken, during the G20 summit:

RBC can fund gentrification and oil drilling, British Petroleum can kill their workers and destroy the Gulf of Mexico, border guards can murder immigrants, cops can torture youths, the normal functioning of the Canadian economy can murder over three times as many people through workplace “accidents” as are claimed by homicides, but if protestors smash a bank window or light a cop car on fire, they are denounced as violent.⁶

This is a blatantly obvious observation for people who only perpetuate destruction against property, or against others in self-defense, but Gelderloos’ sentiment needs to be echoed in these most interesting of times, when the spectacles’ self-destructive, suicidal mission to exterminate and displace humans, while consuming the planet and shitting it out in the form of short-term gains, continues unquestioned, and black bloc tactics are still continuously critiqued as being violent. I don’t want to be so banal as to suggest that those who use the Black Bloc tactic are unwilling to participate in violence; the overwhelming majority of those that participate most likely are not pacifists, and acknowledge violence as a potential tool in the toolbox. But to make the claim that they are inherently violent, meaning that they attack unprovoked individual, using force to bring about physical harm, is farcical.

So, what about this question regarding it as being counter-productive, and a tactic that doesn’t work? We’d have to question what these critiques are asking. Are they asking if Black Bloc tactics alone can bring the spectacle to its knees, bring about total liberation, the abolition of domination and oppression, and a decentralized, free society? If this is what they mean by the tactic not working, they’d be correct. I’d give Black Bloc critics this, so as long as they realize, in the same vain, that general strikes, occupations, blockades, propaganda by deed, voting, marching, and signing petitions, also do not work according to this definition.

The Black Bloc tactic certainly works wonders, on the other hand, if one’s definition of “working” involves making a mockery of the spectacle, symbolically abolishing private property, committing creative sabotage, finding unity in anonymity with fellow alienated comrades who help to reclaim public space and find autonomy, and make an honest leap towards self-liberation. I have a feeling the critiques from the left, in particular, didn’t have this in mind, though.

The Black Bloc tactic deserves a serious look from all quarters of resistance; those involved manage to be autonomous pirates in a cityscape that has redefined desire to mean monetary gains, passion to mean obeying the rules, and meaning-as-commodity.

For the time they don black masks or bandanas, they get the opportunity to democratize the monoculture of the city streets, and expropriate not the means of production, but that stolen desire, the burning passion, and lost meaning. In the heat of the moment, if this is how we define it “working,” this tactic seems to go above and beyond.

1. Graeber, David

   2009 Direct Action: An Ethnography. AK Press.

2. Gordon, Uri

   2008 Anarchy Alive: Anti-Authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory. Pluto Press.

3. It should be mentioned that the early punk rock movement in Western Europe embraced squatting, too, and probably influenced the Autonomen movement and the anarchist movement, as there were/are many punk rockers involved in both movements.
4. Katsiaficas, Georgy

   1997 The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. AK Press.

5. I wouldn’t go out on a limb and say that everyone participating in the Black Bloc tactic in the US or North America is consciously standing in solidarity with the Zapatistas, but the EZLN has certainly had a broad impact on the anti-capitalist movement, particularly the anti-authoritarian milieu in US and Canada.
6. Gelderloos, Peter

   “Supporting the Prisoners of the G20 Police State,” available at http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/11685