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it's pretty telling that even when they're bragging about their accomplishments the most that anarchists can point to is making it easier to get through another day in the capitalist hellscape
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Feb 2, 2021 22:21
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:there was an anarchist bookfair here and it was funny to me because these smelly, train-hopping crusties rolled into town with little pop-up zine distros, and i discovered i could retrace their path to and from the venue while passing back through the area later because there were spraypainted circle-As scattered around. i find that basic disrespect for private property that anarchists have to be charming, like a little angry cloud that passes through the town and leaving graffiti in its wake before moving on to the next town. washing and brainwashing Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness Days of War, Nights of Love The remaining noticeable characteristic of Che is his filth. He hates to wash and will never do so. He is filthy, even by the rather low standard of cleanliness prevailing among the Castro forces in the Sierra Maestra. Once in a while, Che would take some of his men to a stream or pool, in order that they might wash. On those occasions Che would never wash either himself or his clothes, but would sit on the bank and watch the others. He is really outstandingly and spectacularly dirty. slanderous description of Che Guevara from the 1958 C.I.A. dossier Even in the most anti-establishment of underground circles, Im amazed by how frequently I hear people complain about people they call hippies or crusty punks. These crusty punks came in here and smelled up the whole place, theyll say. What great transgression have these people committed to be so reviled? They have a different orientation to the question of cleanliness than the rest of us do. Where do our ideas and values about so-called cleanliness come from, anyway? Western civilization has a long history of associating cleanliness with goodness and merit, best summed up by the old expression cleanliness is next to Godliness. In ancient Greek plays, evil people and spirits the Furies, for example were often described as filthy. The Furies were dirty, aged, and female, exactly the opposite of how the playwright who described them saw himself; their filthiness, among other things, identified them as an outgroup as alien, animal, inhuman. Over time, cleanliness became a measure with which the haves separated themselves from the have-nots. Those who possessed the wealth and power required to have the leisure to remain indoors, inactive, scorned the peasants and travelers whose lifestyles involved getting their hands and bodies dirty. Throughout our history, we can see that cleanliness has been used as a standard of worth by those with power to ascribe social status and thus, the Godly, the self-proclaimed holy ones who stood above the rest of us in hierarchical society, proclaimed that their cleanliness, bought with the labor of the others who were forced to work for them, was a measure of their Godliness and superiority. To this day, we accept this traditional belief: that being clean according to social norms is desirable in itself. It should be clear from the history of our ideas about cleanliness that anyone who is critical of mainstream values, any radical or punk rocker, should be extremely suspicious of the great value placed on being clean according to traditional standards. Besides, what exactly does clean mean? These days, cleanliness is defined more by corporations selling sanitation products than by anyone else. This is important to keep in mind. Certainly, most of these products have an uncanny ability to cut through natural dirt and grime but does removing natural dirt and grime with synthetic chemicals necessarily constitute the only acceptable form of sanitation? Im at least as frightened by these manufactured, artificial products as I am of a little dust, mud, or sweat, or (god forbid!) a stain from food or blood on my shirt. At least I know where the dirt/filth came from and what its made of! The idea that it is worthwhile to use chemicals (whether they be deodorant, detergent, or shampoo) to eradicate organic dirt has some frightening implications, too. First, it supports the old Christian superstition that the biological body is shameful and should be hidden that our bodies and our existence in the physical world as animals are intrinsically disgusting and sinful. This groundless idea has been used to keep us insecure and ashamed, and thus at the mercy of the priests and other authorities who tell us how to become pure: once, by submitting to their holy denial of the self, and now, by spending plenty of our money on the various sanitation products they want to sell us. Also, as capitalism transforms the entire world from the organic (forests, swamps, deserts, rivers) to the inorganic (cities of concrete and steel, suburbs of asphalt and astroturf, wastelands that have been stripped of all natural resources, garbage dumps) the idea that there is something more worthwhile about synthetic chemicals than natural dirt implies that this transformation might actually be a good thing and thus implicitly justifies their profit-motivated destruction of our planet, In reality, these corporations are far less concerned with our actual health and cleanliness than they are with selling us their products, anyway. They use the high value we traditionally have placed on sanitation to sell us all sorts of products in the name of cleanliness and who knows what the real, long-term health effects of these products are? They certainly dont care. If we were to become ill in the long run from using their special cleansers and hi-tech shampoos, they could just sell us another product medicine and keep the wheels of the capitalist economy turning. And the shame about our bodies (as producers of sweat and other natural fluids which we deem dirty) that they capitalize on and encourage also aids them in selling us other products which depend upon our insecurity: diet products, exercise products, fashionable clothes, etc. When we accept their definition of cleanliness we are accepting their economic domination of our lives. Even if they agree about the questionable nature of todays sanitation products, most people today would still argue that sanitation is still healthier than filth. To some extent this is true it probably is a good idea to wash your feet if you step in poo poo. But, aside from obvious cases like that, there are a thousand different standards of what is clean and what is dirty across the world; if you look at different societies and civilizations, you come across health practices that seem suicidal by our sanitation standards. And yet, these people survive as well as we do. People in Africa a few hundred years ago lived comfortably in a natural environment that destroyed many of the very prim and polished Western explorers that came to their continent. Human beings can adapt to a wide variety of environments and situations, and it seems that the question of what kinds of sanitation are healthy is at least as much a question of convention as of hard-set biological rules. Try violating a few of the common sense rules of Western sanitation some time, and youll find that going a few weeks without a shower and eating out of garbage cans arent really as dangerous or difficult as we were taught. Perhaps the most important question when it comes to the unusual value we place on traditional cleanliness is what we lose by doing this. Once, before we covered up our natural scents with chemicals, we each had a unique smell. These scents attracted us to each other and bound us emotionally to each other through memory and association. Now, if you have positive associations with the scent of the man you love, it is probably his cologne (identical to the cologne of thousands of other men) that you enjoy, not his own personal scent. And the natural pheromones with which we once communicated with each other, which played an important role in our sexuality, are now completely smothered by standardized chemical products. We no longer know what it is like to be pure, natural human beings, to smell like real human beings. Who knows how much we may have lost because of this? Those who find me disgusting for enjoying the scent and taste of my lover when she hasnt showered or rubbed synthetics all over herself, when she smells like a real human being, are probably the same ones who shudder at the idea of digging a vegetable out of the ground and eating it rather than eating the plastic-wrapped, man-made fast food that we have all been brought up on. We have become so accustomed to our domesticated, engineered existence that we no longer know what we might even be missing. So try to be a little more open minded when it comes to the crusties. Perhaps they just smell bad to you because youve never gotten a chance to discover what a real human being smells like. Perhaps there might be something worthwhile about being unwashed in the conventional sense that you havent noticed before. The moral of this story is the moral of all anarchist stories: accept only the rules and values which make sense to you and really are in your best interest. Figure out whats right for you and dont let anybody tell you different but also, make an effort to understand where others are coming from, and evaluate their actions by your own standards, not according to some standardized norm. Eight Reasons Why Capitalists Want to Sell You Deodorant. Body smells are erotic and sexual. Capitalists dont like that because they are impotent and opposed to all manifestations of sensuality and sexuality. Sexually awakened people are potentially dangerous to capitalists and their rigid, asexual system. Body smells remind us that we are animals. Capitalists dont want us to be reminded of that. Animals are dirty. They eat things off the ground, not out of plastic wrappers. They are openly sexual. They dont wear suits or ties, and they dont get their hair done. They dont show up to work on time. Body smells are unique. Everyone has her own body smell. Capitalists dont like individuality. There are millions of body smells but only a few deodorant smells. Capitalists like that. Some deodorants are harmful. Capitalists like that because they are always looking for new illnesses to cure. Capitalists love to invent new medicines. Medicines make money for them and win them prizes; they also cause new illnesses so capitalists can invent even more new medicines. Deodorants cost you money. Capitalists are especially pleased about that. Deodorants hide the damage that capitalist products cause your body. Eating meat and other chemical-filled foods sold by capitalists makes you smell bad. Wearing pantyhose makes you smell bad. Capitalists dont want you to stop wearing pantyhose or eating meat. Deodorant-users are insecure. Capitalists like insecure people. Insecure people dont start trouble. Insecure people also buy room fresheners, hair conditioners, makeup, and magazines with articles about dieting. Deodorants are unnecessary. Capitalists are very proud of that and they win marketing awards for it.
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Feb 2, 2021 22:22
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Cybercrust 1958
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Feb 2, 2021 22:24
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Okay I thought of something inflammatory. The US gov't did more good with the covid stimulus payments in 2020 than everything every anarchist in the country put together did in 2020
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Feb 2, 2021 22:26
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Trash Ops posted:washing and brainwashing
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Feb 2, 2021 22:27
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:i love crimethinc. it's like the lightbulb joke about being on the roof of the squat and gazing at the sunrise and knowing, truly knowing, that if you could just change that lightbulb you can change the world. a lot of wisdom in that. i think it's completely silly but you gotta respect the rebels who live by their own rules. and their own smells
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Feb 2, 2021 22:27
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Jewel Repetition posted:Yeah I do disagree with this because I think the best way to shield us from getting hosed by the collapse of the US empire is getting better economic policies going This is basically a reformist approach (which I tend to lean towards myself, with the necessary acknowledgements that reform is a stepping stone and that the class structure that embeds inequality must also be destroyed or you will never be rid of oligarchies) Revolutionaries would argue that there is no way to salvage/alter the current system in a way that doesn't sustain the suffering of the masses or result in the entrenched power structures fighting back tooth and nail to maintain the hierarchy in place that gives them control. Either peaceful, piece-meal transition is not ethical or unfeasible. Revolutionaries also think that either the masses will come along for the ride once things kick off just because or that they will be able to cage the majority of dissidents and forcibly re-educate them, despite history showing the former to be false and the latter being unfeasible/genocide.
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Feb 2, 2021 22:28
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Lefebvre said, Im a marxist so that some day in the future we can all be anarchists. That sounds about right to me
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Feb 2, 2021 22:29
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Let's say a tail light fix is worth $200, a month of living on someone's couch is worth $150, and good music recommendations are worth $10 since that's the price of spotify premium
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Feb 2, 2021 22:30
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Cerebral Bore posted:it's pretty telling that even when they're bragging about their accomplishments the most that anarchists can point to is making it easier to get through another day in the capitalist hellscape call it pessimism, but it's all i think there is to be done from inside the imperial core. i have a lot of marxist friends and i organize and work with them all the time. I've even worked with DSA folks, i knocked doors for AOC (which i feel betrayed by at this point, but thats a digression) i don't see any possibility of actual revolutionary or reformist change of any significance developing from inside the US. and at every turn that belief is reinforced in me it's from that reasoning that i see direct action and mutual aid as more valuable than anything marxism has to offer people in this moment
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Feb 2, 2021 22:31
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Good Soldier Svejk posted:This is basically a reformist approach (which I tend to lean towards myself, with the necessary acknowledgements that reform is a stepping stone and that the class structure that embeds inequality must also be destroyed or you will never be rid of oligarchies) Jellidelic posted:call it pessimism, but it's all i think there is to be done from inside the imperial core. Nevermind leftist infighting doesn't feel good
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Feb 2, 2021 22:32
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theres no shame in coming to your political beliefs through lived experience, or picking them up mostly from reading. its of course synthesis of the two that enables heavy lifting because the urine is stored in the balls
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Feb 2, 2021 22:35
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I'm gonna be offline for a while but i wanna say this real quick we can talk all day about what the best utopia would be like, and how best to theoretically get everyone on board with it that's cool and a fun way to spend my posting time but a bunch of middle-class commies badmouthing anarchism when they've never been worried about their personal survival is infuriating then hearing them calling it foolish or counter revolutionary is especially infuriating when not less than 4 people have a place to live right now (during a blizzard) as a direct result of my actions, in a space that would otherwise be unused and unavailable due to capitalistic false-scarcity if your criticism of anarchism is that it makes it easier to survive a capitalist hellworld i'll take it that said there's been a good rapport ITT that i haven't really experienced in c-spam before which is cool idk what it is with those al-aqsa dudes but they consistently give me the most grief, and they should do something about that fuckin chip on their shoulder
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Feb 2, 2021 23:05
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lol
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Feb 2, 2021 23:09
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storming away in a huff and making sure that people know it is a sure sign that you're winning the argument
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Feb 2, 2021 23:13
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https://twitter.com/YouCantWinPod/status/1326930299910041612
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Feb 2, 2021 23:15
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im an ancrab
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Feb 2, 2021 23:17
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Jellidelic posted:I'm gonna be offline for a while but i wanna say this real quick communists want to change the world. surviving it isn't a political achievement.
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Feb 2, 2021 23:21
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true socialism is not possible by homo sapiens, and therefore I advocate total genocide of the species so that evolved fungi can give it a go at communism
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Feb 2, 2021 23:22
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i think it's okay to find something completely silly on some level (such as anarchism) but also appreciate it on another level. i find it helps to recognize that your power to do anything about this is also pretty limited as well since historical change involves huge numbers of people and tectonic forces that add up to big changes, and people are going to be trying different things during those events, and that's fine [someone else: "no it's not!!"]. and if i'm at a demo and a group of anarchists storm past me and they're wilding out and blasting crime mob's "knuck if you buck" from a portable stereo and knocking cops off their bicycles before booking it down an alleyway, it's not like they're going to be like "oh sorry we didn't know we weren't supposed to do that" if you or me complain about it. or you could just act like everything is about : 
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Feb 2, 2021 23:22
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Jellidelic posted:idk what it is with those al-aqsa dudes but they consistently give me the most grief, and they should do something about that fuckin chip on their shoulder 
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Feb 2, 2021 23:33
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Jellidelic posted:I'm gonna be offline for a while but i wanna say this real quick My criticism is that there are more than 4 people in the United States. The problem with anarchists isn't that there's something wrong with mutual aid. It's better to do it than to not do it. It's just that there's an almost schizophrenic-seeming disconnect between these actions at a small scale and extrapolating them out to a political scale. It'd be like if you loved recycling but were against environmental regulations. Without a policy backing not only are you not solving the problem, but you're putting the greatest burden on the people who are acting with the best intentions, when it should be the opposite
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Feb 2, 2021 23:41
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my hot take is anarchism is a pretty natural response for people who've grown up indoctrinated by US propaganda about the Evils of Communism. you wanna help the people around you but you've heard Marxism Bad your whole life, so you pick the leftism that isn't marxism. that's not to say it's the most incisive analysis, the most effective response to empire... but who knows what that is. like, what have MLs in the U.S. accomplished recently? the serious Black MLs all got locked up or killed in the 70s and the rest of us have been running reading groups since then. i'm not gonna poo poo talk people who are trying, you know?
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Feb 2, 2021 23:47
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animist posted:i'm not gonna poo poo talk people who are trying, you know? the minority position
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Feb 2, 2021 23:54
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animist posted:my hot take is anarchism is a pretty natural response for people who've grown up indoctrinated by US propaganda about the Evils of Communism. you wanna help the people around you but you've heard Marxism Bad your whole life, so you pick the leftism that isn't marxism. This was me, but then I read some more books that let me know the depth of my indoctrination.
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Feb 3, 2021 00:10
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Jellidelic posted:I'm gonna be offline for a while but i wanna say this real quick is this charity or your political project? my only sincere critique of the anarchist types i know is that they seem to confuse charity work for political organizing. if you aren't leveraging your "mutual aid" or "direct action" into growing a political movement you're just doing what charity churches do except worse. like it's cool and good to give unhoused people supplies but if you aren't organizing any sort of leverageable political base doing that, and not developing something that has the potential to shift power away from capital you're just a charity.
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Feb 3, 2021 00:42
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LittleBlackCloud posted:This was me, but then I read some more books that let me know the depth of my indoctrination. congratulations, have you done any work in your local community yet
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Feb 3, 2021 01:12
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anarchists are usually the ones trying to go to nodapl and now line 3 poo poo like its a rainbow gathering instead of actually focusing on supporting it lol
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Feb 3, 2021 01:28
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I am a communist, I was an anarchist when I was younger though, after reading/listening to thousands of hours of Chomsky and Zinn. I think a lot of americans come to anarchism before finding communism for two main reasons. The first reason is that anarchism is very similar to liberalism, it is based on the concept of 'freedom', and is much more individualistic than communism, in an ideal anarchist world their would be no capitalism, but no one can tell you what to do either. The second reason is that americans hate reading, even american leftists, so they don't read Marx or Lenin or seriously interrogate what they believe and why, and what they are trying to accomplish. So instead they find their political place based on what other people are doing, they see communists doing political education and anarchists feeding/clothing the homeless, one looks much better, and makes the person participating feel better too. Personally I don't think american anarchists and communists squabbling online are really doing anything other than playing pretend, but a smart friend of mine once said something along the lines of, 'all action has theory behind it whether you want it to or not, if you 'hate theory' you really just don't want to examine your own'
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Feb 3, 2021 02:43
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Zook posted:
I was gonna say "well MLs should view anarchists as fertile soil and work to educate them", but then it occurred to me I've seen ML's take over and educate anarchist spaces online multiple times. which is actually pretty cool. good work everybody, keep it up
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Feb 3, 2021 02:53
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marxism-leninism seems cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjtGqRXQ9Y
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Feb 3, 2021 03:38
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The thing that bugs me a lot is the conflation of Marxism (a framework of viewing the world that is so readily accepted even in the hell-capitalist united states, you can hear it in how thoughtlessly we all know/even the media bends to the notion that it believes in the power of the "middle class" and the distrust of the "upper class") vs. the frameworks that are derived from it with the intent of dissolving class/creating socialist utopias. It's like the difference between evolutionary theory and the mechanism of natural selection and I feel like explaining that distinction to people would go a long way towards making "Marx" and "Marxism" less dirty words
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Feb 3, 2021 03:41
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Ill jump on any leftist bus if it actually get going enough in the US that leads to dismantling capitalism Arguing with other leftists is dumb anyways
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Feb 3, 2021 03:44
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christmas boots posted:Personally I've never read theory. I'm hoping EA turns it into a video game at some point. Ubisoft already made assassins creed syndicate
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Feb 3, 2021 03:51
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In short, anarchists are a land of contrasts... but seriously, it really depends on the anarchist in question. I've helped with security at an action alongside a contingent of anarchists, where they held the line just as well as we did, and our cooperation kept an outnumbered crowd of young college kids safe from riot cops and fascists in dangerous conditions, and we thanked each other happily when it was over. I've also seen anarchists deliberately break up an important anti-fascist coalition effort using Syria and Korea as wedge issues.
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Feb 3, 2021 04:38
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Feels like the anarchists do more out here than the socialist orgs i've seen. I am socialist, see myself as one, and regard marxism as a pretty good starting point about what to do. but since George Floyd, i've kind of seen anarchists in action and yeah they seem to be a lot better at like... taking action. The socialists up here seem to be... really good at growing themselves up to a certain size and then imploding in drama. Idk how to feel honestly. I don't see myself becoming an anarchist any time soon, but i'd rather work with them.
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Feb 3, 2021 06:00
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My experience with anarchism mostly comes from my sister. She became hard anarchist after going off to college which meant she was always wrapped up in going to protests and getting arrested. She would highlight a lot of societal ills such as racial injustice and police brutality. What came with that was a certain aimlessness, working enough to be comfortable but the extent of her political action seemed to be educating others about things and going to protests. The protesting died out over time and what was left was a constantly changing set of interests and moving around the country. In the past few years, she noticed her friends around her settling down, being self-sufficient, and making a living, so she decided to go back to school to pursue a career. It was clear for awhile that she was no longer an "anarchist" but her earlier opinions were the same about cops and racial inequalities. The problem though is now even the most centrist liberal has latched onto that idea. She was fairly uncritical of Biden's reelection and just happy that Trump was no longer in office. I realized that I was now more radical then her and while we hold many of the same values, I don't think she retained a deeper understanding of those ideas. I realize this is just one example, but my point is that I feel like people following Anarchism can fall into a trap. Any political movement can have people not fully understand the underlying values or fail to stick with it, but Anarchism seems more prone to then due to it's (by definition) unorganized nature. This is especially true with people who come from the middle class. They find it satisfactory to be a part of a culture that's really in the thick of it, finding practical solutions, and feeling on the same level as the downtrodden. But if you voluntarily enter that culture, it's likely you're just doing it for yourself, and when you want to rise out of it again you find the morals stick, but not as much of a deeper understanding of those issues as someone part of an organized political movement would be. That's the contradiction too, to create a "system" within Anarchism defies it's main tenets, so it becomes more of a participatory culture rather than a political one. Jabberlock has issued a correction as of 07:38 on Feb 3, 2021 |
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Feb 3, 2021 07:34
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https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnarchism/comments/lcvb4k/on_the_anarchist_response_to_the_global_pandemic/ r/DebateAnarchism On the Anarchist Response to the Global Pandemic (just published on Montreal Counter-Info prior to Saturday's anti-curfew demonstration) The Covid19 crisis has presented a challenge to anarchists and others who believe in a fully autonomous and liberated life. We write this today because we feel too many people who in better times carry these political and philosophical banners are setting aside their core beliefs or worse twisting and contorting those beliefs in wholly disappointing ways, conforming to the mandates of technocrats and politicians, and are convincing themselves that doing so is some grand act of solidarity with the most vulnerable people in our societies. As anarchists, autonomy over ones own mind and body are essential to our values. We believe that human beings are intelligent enough to decide for themselves how to assess their surroundings and to make determinations on how to go forth living in a way that meets their needs and desires. Of course, we recognize that this autonomy comes packaged with genuine responsibility not only to ones self, but to those with whom they are in community including the non-human world. We certainly recognize that individuals may be asked for their cooperation in achieving a collective goal. But we also recognize the fundamental importance of consent in such situations, and that force and punishment are antithetical to an anarchist worldview. That is why we write today. To reach out to our friends, our comrades, our intellectual and philosophical allies to ask that if you havent yet, that you please begin to seriously critique and question the state responses to the Covid19 pandemic that we are witnessing around the world. We have watched over the proceeding year, meekly, quietly, as other anarchists have toed the lines drawn by state bureaucrats. We have remained silent when witnessing anarchists act with hostility towards those who have pushed back against state mandated curfews and lockdown orders,
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Feb 5, 2021 18:03
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lmao
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Feb 5, 2021 18:54
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I don't know. You think states haven't had enough chances?
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Feb 5, 2021 19:10
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