Your Politics Are Boring as Fuck!

[Rosa Provokateur]

You know it's true. Otherwise, why does everyone cringe when you say the word? Why has attendance at your anarcho-communist theory discussion group meetings fallen to an all-time low? Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?

Perhaps, after years of struggling to educate them about their victimhood, you have come to blame them for their condition. They must want to be ground under the heel of capitalist imperialism; otherwise, why do they show no interest in your political causes? Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?

The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control. They know that your infighting, your splinter groups and endless quarrels over ephemeral theories can never effect any real change in the world they experience from day to day. They know that no matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the content of their lives will remain the same. They—we—know that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real transformation of life. For our lives are boring enough already!

And you know it too. For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing? Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation? Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do? Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not) to get in trouble with the authorities, to get arrested: not because it will practically serve your cause, but to make things more exciting, to recapture a little of the romance of turbulent times now long past. Have you ever felt that you were participating in a ritual, a long-established tradition of fringe protest, that really serves only to strengthen the position of the mainstream? Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?

It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics. For in fact, there is nothing more important than politics. NOT the politics of American "democracy" and law, of who is elected state legislator to sign the same bills and perpetuate the same system. Not the politics of the "I got involved with the radical left because I enjoy quibbling over trivial details and writing rhetorically about an unreachable utopia" anarchist. Not the politics of any leader or ideology that demands that you make sacrifices for "the cause." But the politics of our everyday lives. When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant. Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things. When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium. When you make politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, a dreadful responsibility, it becomes just another weight upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people. And thus you ruin the idea of politics for the people to whom it should be most important. For everyone has a stake in considering their lives, in asking themselves what they want out of life and how they can get it. But you make politics look to them like a miserable, self-referential, pointless middle class/bohemian game, a game with no relevance to the real lives they are living out.

What should be political? Whether we enjoy what we do to get food and shelter. Whether we feel like our daily interactions with our friends, neighbors, and coworkers are fulfilling. Whether we have the opportunity to live each day the way we desire to. And "politics" should consist not of merely discussing these questions, but of acting directly to improve our lives in the immediate present. Acting in a way that is itself entertaining, exciting, joyous—because political action that is tedious, tiresome, and oppressive can only perpetuate tedium, fatigue, and oppression in our lives. No more time should be wasted debating over issues that will be irrelevant when we must go to work again the next day. No more predictable ritual protests that the authorities know all too well how to deal with; no more boring ritual protests which will not sound like a thrilling way to spend a Saturday afternoon to potential volunteers—clearly, those won't get us anywhere. Never again shall we "sacrifice ourselves for the cause." For we ourselves, happiness in our own lives and the lives of our fellows, must be our cause!

After we make politics relevant and exciting, the rest will follow. But from a dreary, merely theoretical and/or ritualized politics, nothing valuable can follow. This is not to say that we should show no interest in the welfare of humans, animals, or ecosystems that do not contact us directly in our day to day existence. But the foundation of our politics must be concrete: it must be immediate, it must be obvious to everyone why it is worth the effort, it must be fun in itself. How can we do positive things for others if we ourselves do not enjoy our own lives?

To make this concrete for a moment: an afternoon of collecting food from businesses that would have thrown it away and serving it to hungry people and people who are tired of working to pay for food—that is good political action, but only if you enjoy it. If you do it with your friends, if you meet new friends while you're doing it, if you fall in love or trade funny stories or just feel proud to have helped a woman by easing her financial needs, that's good political action. On the other hand, if you spend the afternoon typing an angry letter to an obscure leftist tabloid objecting to a columnist's use of the term "anarcho-syndicalist," that's not going to accomplish shit, and you know it.

Perhaps it is time for a new word for "politics," since you have made such a swear word out of the old one. For no one should be put off when we talk about acting together to improve our lives. And so we present to you our demands, which are non-negotiable, and must be met as soon as possible—because we're not going to live forever, are we?

1. Make politics relevant to our everyday experience of life again. The farther away the object of our political concern, the less it will mean to us, the less real and pressing it will seem to us, and the more wearisome politics will be.

2. All political activity must be joyous and exciting in itself. You cannot escape from dreariness with more dreariness.

3. To accomplish those first two steps, entirely new political approaches and methods must be created. The old ones are outdated, outmoded. Perhaps they were NEVER any good, and that's why our world is the way it is now.

4. Enjoy yourselves! There is never any excuse for being bored . . . or boring!

Join us in making the "revolution" a game; a game played for the highest stakes of all, but a joyous, carefree game nonetheless!

http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/days/asfuck.php

[Manifesto]

Can't you find a shorter way to say that you are a Capitalist?

[GPDP]

ZOMG STOP THE PRESSES, GREEN APOSTLE HAS JUST POSTED SOME NEW AND EXCITING MATERIAL THAT HAS NEVER BEEN POSTED HERE BEFORE

lol lifestylism

[IcarusAngel]

If leftists are so 'boring' why are you obsessed with posting here anyway. You post far more than I do and I generally enjoy posting here and reading the insightful posts that have been made in OI recently. (OK, I admit it, I love Libertarian bashing, no matter who is doing it.)

Of all the one-liner criticisms of Leftism, 'people are too stupid,' or whatever, 'it's boring' is the worst. Perhaps it is a bit too abstract, but politics probably is always boring at certain times. Eventually, even in a communist society, there would be people who would sit at the table and do serious political and economic analysis of certain events. That is required for any society. I imagine there would also be more 'fun' activities too. Organizing a productive factory would be fun if you enjoyed the work. People who don't want to participate in 'planning' wouldn't have to.

Finally, you leave out the fact that Libertarian economics is boring as hell. Mises, Rand, and all that.

It's stupid as hell too because no evidence is provided. I'd rather study math or physics, where evidence is provided for each new theorem or theory, or what have you.

And it looks to me like some leftists have fun protesting.

Another pointless copy & paste, and you love us anyway or you wouldn't post here so much despite having your threads (probably including this one) continually locked.

[Rosa Provokateur]

It's not that I hate the Left as much as it is I dont subscribe to it. I hang around here because I've built up a certain fondness for it and it's the only place I know of where radical ideas are discussed.

[scarletghoul]

tl;dr

[Rosa Provokateur]

ZOMG STOP THE PRESSES, GREEN APOSTLE HAS JUST POSTED SOME NEW AND EXCITING MATERIAL THAT HAS NEVER BEEN POSTED HERE BEFORE

lol lifestylism

What does that even mean? Everyone has a life-style so wouldnt that make everyone a life-stylist? Beats the slowness and dinosaur rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism ;P

[Rosa Provokateur]

Can't you find a shorter way to say that you are a Capitalist?

Didnt you hear? I ditched anarcho-capitalism a while back. Not that it's helped my standing with the CC :rolleyes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/realization-t110126/index.html?p=1457646

[#FF0000]

What does that even mean? Everyone has a life-style so wouldnt that make everyone a life-stylist? Beats the slowness and dinosaur rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism ;P

You haven't read a word of Lenin. Called it.


The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control

POT

KETTLE

BLACK

[Kukulofori]

If leftists are so 'boring'
I generally enjoy
I love
if you enjoyed the work
I'd rather
some leftists

I smell a revolution.

[Rosa Provokateur]

You haven't read a word of Lenin. Called it.



POT

KETTLE

BLACK

Not so, back when I was in the YCL Lenin was like God... and then I found out about the Cheka.

SAY

DO

WHAT?

[Manifesto]

Didnt you hear? I ditched anarcho-capitalism a while back. Not that it's helped my standing with the CC :rolleyes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/realization-t110126/index.html?p=1457646
Ok so if your not an Anarchist, Capitalist, or Leninist then what are you?

[KC]

Not so, back when I was in the YCL Lenin was like God... and then I found out about the Cheka.

SAY

DO

WHAT?

Is this supposed to be an argument?! :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I guess everything is "boring" based on an objective quality of "boringness." It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that an interest in politics, let alone revolution politics, is simply uncommon? I guess quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and other complicated topics are simply boring. Otherwise, people would be flocking to the meetings!

People are obviously so stupid that we need to dress up politics by investing in communist sports teams, beverages, and the like. After all, people can't understand these "boring" topics, and have no desire to. Let's just give them what they want. How about a BigMarx Sandwich?

[Bright Banana Beard]

Is this supposed to be an argument?! :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
http://i25.tinypic.com/vrcac6.jpg

[Kukulofori]

I guess everything is "boring" based on an objective quality of "boringness." It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that an interest in politics, let alone revolution politics, is simply uncommon? I guess quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and other complicated topics are simply boring. Otherwise, people would be flocking to the meetings!

People are obviously so stupid that we need to dress up politics by investing in communist sports teams, beverages, and the like. After all, people can't understand these "boring" topics, and have no desire to. Let's just give them what they want. How about a BigMarx Sandwich?

You're severely misinterpreting the article. There can't be an UNCOMMON interest in a revolution, a revolution will drastically change the daily life of everyone as far as it spreads.

The problem being that we are irrelivant and have nothing to do with any of these people so why would they be interested?

[Il Medico]

You're boring.

[Comrade B]

christ, your whining was too boring to read.
If you find politics boring, don't search for political websites online, funny how easy the world can sometimes be.

[RHIZOMES]

You know it's true. Otherwise, why does everyone cringe when you say the word? Why has attendance at your anarcho-communist theory discussion group meetings fallen to an all-time low? Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?

Perhaps, after years of struggling to educate them about their victimhood, you have come to blame them for their condition. They must want to be ground under the heel of capitalist imperialism; otherwise, why do they show no interest in your political causes? Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?

The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control. They know that your infighting, your splinter groups and endless quarrels over ephemeral theories can never effect any real change in the world they experience from day to day. They know that no matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the content of their lives will remain the same. They—we—know that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real transformation of life. For our lives are boring enough already!

And you know it too. For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing? Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation? Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do? Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not) to get in trouble with the authorities, to get arrested: not because it will practically serve your cause, but to make things more exciting, to recapture a little of the romance of turbulent times now long past. Have you ever felt that you were participating in a ritual, a long-established tradition of fringe protest, that really serves only to strengthen the position of the mainstream? Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?

It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics. For in fact, there is nothing more important than politics. NOT the politics of American "democracy" and law, of who is elected state legislator to sign the same bills and perpetuate the same system. Not the politics of the "I got involved with the radical left because I enjoy quibbling over trivial details and writing rhetorically about an unreachable utopia" anarchist. Not the politics of any leader or ideology that demands that you make sacrifices for "the cause." But the politics of our everyday lives. When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant. Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things. When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium. When you make politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, a dreadful responsibility, it becomes just another weight upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people. And thus you ruin the idea of politics for the people to whom it should be most important. For everyone has a stake in considering their lives, in asking themselves what they want out of life and how they can get it. But you make politics look to them like a miserable, self-referential, pointless middle class/bohemian game, a game with no relevance to the real lives they are living out.

What should be political? Whether we enjoy what we do to get food and shelter. Whether we feel like our daily interactions with our friends, neighbors, and coworkers are fulfilling. Whether we have the opportunity to live each day the way we desire to. And "politics" should consist not of merely discussing these questions, but of acting directly to improve our lives in the immediate present. Acting in a way that is itself entertaining, exciting, joyous—because political action that is tedious, tiresome, and oppressive can only perpetuate tedium, fatigue, and oppression in our lives. No more time should be wasted debating over issues that will be irrelevant when we must go to work again the next day. No more predictable ritual protests that the authorities know all too well how to deal with; no more boring ritual protests which will not sound like a thrilling way to spend a Saturday afternoon to potential volunteers—clearly, those won't get us anywhere. Never again shall we "sacrifice ourselves for the cause." For we ourselves, happiness in our own lives and the lives of our fellows, must be our cause!

After we make politics relevant and exciting, the rest will follow. But from a dreary, merely theoretical and/or ritualized politics, nothing valuable can follow. This is not to say that we should show no interest in the welfare of humans, animals, or ecosystems that do not contact us directly in our day to day existence. But the foundation of our politics must be concrete: it must be immediate, it must be obvious to everyone why it is worth the effort, it must be fun in itself. How can we do positive things for others if we ourselves do not enjoy our own lives?

To make this concrete for a moment: an afternoon of collecting food from businesses that would have thrown it away and serving it to hungry people and people who are tired of working to pay for food—that is good political action, but only if you enjoy it. If you do it with your friends, if you meet new friends while you're doing it, if you fall in love or trade funny stories or just feel proud to have helped a woman by easing her financial needs, that's good political action. On the other hand, if you spend the afternoon typing an angry letter to an obscure leftist tabloid objecting to a columnist's use of the term "anarcho-syndicalist," that's not going to accomplish shit, and you know it.

Perhaps it is time for a new word for "politics," since you have made such a swear word out of the old one. For no one should be put off when we talk about acting together to improve our lives. And so we present to you our demands, which are non-negotiable, and must be met as soon as possible—because we're not going to live forever, are we?

1. Make politics relevant to our everyday experience of life again. The farther away the object of our political concern, the less it will mean to us, the less real and pressing it will seem to us, and the more wearisome politics will be.

2. All political activity must be joyous and exciting in itself. You cannot escape from dreariness with more dreariness.

3. To accomplish those first two steps, entirely new political approaches and methods must be created. The old ones are outdated, outmoded. Perhaps they were NEVER any good, and that's why our world is the way it is now.

4. Enjoy yourselves! There is never any excuse for being bored . . . or boring!

Join us in making the "revolution" a game; a game played for the highest stakes of all, but a joyous, carefree game nonetheless!

http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/days/asfuck.php

http://telepromptedanthems.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/u-mad1.jpg

[Dowshy]

The illegal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, civil wars, dictatorships, starvation, massive unemployment, the rise of the far right, layoffs, police brutality, racism, sexism, homophobia, obscene inequality, and disintegrating public school systems and social safety nets, all in the context of a systemic crisis of the world financial system may seem 'boring as fuck' to you, but it all means a hell of a lot to the people effected and it means a hell of a lot to the majority of the people in these forums.

I'm willing to bet most people in this world would be quite relieved to be bored. It's a luxury most of us don't have. The only group of people your Crimethinc tripe is going to be relevant to is an increasingly smaller layer of predominantly white middle class suburbanites. Enjoy the dustbin of history. :lol:

[#FF0000]

The illegal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, civil wars, dictatorships, starvation, massive unemployment, the rise of the far right, layoffs, police brutality, racism, sexism, homophobia, obscene inequality, and disintegrating public school systems and social safety nets, all in the context of a systemic crisis of the world financial system may seem 'boring as fuck' to you, but it all means a hell of a lot to the people effected and it means a hell of a lot to the majority of the people in these forums.

I'm willing to bet most people in this world would be quite relieved to be bored. It's a luxury most of us don't have. The only group of people your Crimethinc tripe is going to be relevant to is an increasingly smaller layer of predominantly white middle class suburbanites. Enjoy the dustbin of history. :lol:

I really, really, really want to see you respond to this, Green Apostle.

[RHIZOMES]

The illegal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, civil wars, dictatorships, starvation, massive unemployment, the rise of the far right, layoffs, police brutality, racism, sexism, homophobia, obscene inequality, and disintegrating public school systems and social safety nets, all in the context of a systemic crisis of the world financial system may seem 'boring as fuck' to you, but it all means a hell of a lot to the people effected and it means a hell of a lot to the majority of the people in these forums.

I'm willing to bet most people in this world would be quite relieved to be bored. It's a luxury most of us don't have. The only group of people your Crimethinc tripe is going to be relevant to is an increasingly smaller layer of predominantly white middle class suburbanites. Enjoy the dustbin of history. :lol:

You are officially the best member I've ever seen with a <10 post count.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

You're severely misinterpreting the article. There can't be an UNCOMMON interest in a revolution, a revolution will drastically change the daily life of everyone as far as it spreads.

The problem being that we are irrelivant and have nothing to do with any of these people so why would they be interested?

My apologies. I didn't read the article closely because, frankly, it was irrelevant and boring.

If someone is going to use the word "boring," clearly to grab attention, they should learn to understand what the word "boring" means. Something being irrelevant to a person doesn't make something "boring," as the argument implies. Advanced mathematics are almost always irrelevant to everyday life, but plenty of people find it interesting.

Irrelevant to a person causes "boredom." This entailment simply isn't true for all cases. Most importantly, leftist politics are not irrelevant. People are made to think they are irrelevant by propaganda in the education system. Most educated people still think communism is a dictatorship with no freedom.

[Comrade B]

Most educated people still think communism is a dictatorship with no freedom.What do you mean by "educated"? I have met a great number of college professors and students who I have discussed communism with, and I have never heard an argument like this. If you think that communism relies on dictatorship, you clearly are not educated in political theory. I don't trust the mechanic I visit, as friendly of a guy he is, to repair my computer when it is broken.

[danyboy27]

i seriously dont see anything to debate about in this thread and i really wonder why nobody closed it so far.

sorry green, but even if you are a OIer i am not gonna help you on this one. I seriously suggest you to think it over bedfore to start a topic.

anyway mate good luck with the shitstorm! i am out of here!

[The Ungovernable Farce]

The illegal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, civil wars, dictatorships, starvation, massive unemployment, the rise of the far right, layoffs, police brutality, racism, sexism, homophobia, obscene inequality, and disintegrating public school systems and social safety nets, all in the context of a systemic crisis of the world financial system may seem 'boring as fuck' to you, but it all means a hell of a lot to the people effected and it means a hell of a lot to the majority of the people in these forums.

Those issues might be vital and important in themselves, I do think they can be presented in a way which is boring and alienating. I also think a lot of the left does this. I'm not a fan of Crimethinc, but I do think they have some redeeming features, and that is one of their better texts. It's not all true, but there is some truth in it. Basically, if you take about 50% of that and 50% of the platform, you'd probably end up with a pretty decent end product (or a horrible, incoherent mess. One or the other).

[Jazzratt]

i seriously dont see anything to debate about in this thread and i really wonder why nobody closed it so far.

There is debate happening, seriously. It's a criticism that has been levelled before, but not recently and I have a personal interest in reading the discussion between Dowshy and The Ungovernable Farce. It would also be nice to see the OP get involved.


sorry green, but even if you are a OIer i am not gonna help you on this one. I seriously suggest you to think it over bedfore to start a topic.


Given that it's an attack on the left by the post-left(?) I really don't see why either side would need your help on this.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

What do you mean by "educated"? I have met a great number of college professors and students who I have discussed communism with, and I have never heard an argument like this. If you think that communism relies on dictatorship, you clearly are not educated in political theory. I don't trust the mechanic I visit, as friendly of a guy he is, to repair my computer when it is broken.

My Dad has a Engineering doctorate and thought (and maybe still thinks) that. Some of his colleagues think that. Although I didn't talk about it much, a guy from a "communist" controlled country (I forget which one), thought that.

[Invader Zim]

I got as far as the title as was brought to the inevitable conclusion that the OP is as boring as fuck.

[danyboy27]

There is debate happening, seriously. It's a criticism that has been levelled before, but not recently and I have a personal interest in reading the discussion between Dowshy and The Ungovernable Farce. It would also be nice to see the OP get involved.



Given that it's an attack on the left by the post-left(?) I really don't see why either side would need your help on this.

haa my bad i didnt realised this.

anyway, i dont think leftist politics are boring, and i doubt the general population actually make a difference between leftist politics and non leftist one, people like or dislike politics that all. its always interesting to hear differents opinions and differents issues.

[genstrike]

I do get where certain parts of this article are coming from, in that there are a lot of leftist groups who are unable to communicate to people in a meaningful way because they are a bunch of theory-heads and have divorced their struggle from people's lives and anything meaningful to anyone.


What does that even mean? Everyone has a life-style so wouldnt that make everyone a life-stylist? Beats the slowness and dinosaur rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism ;P

Lifestylism means more than just having a certain lifestyle, it means ditching political organizing and activism and replacing that with certain lifestyle traits that people mistakenly think of as a surrogate for poltical action. So we have a bunch of people doing tiny individualistic acts like dumpster diving, veganism, and wearing a lot of black (all of which can be good things) that can not conceivably lead to influencing society or building people's capacity to struggle against oppressors (maybe you can drop out for a while, if you're a middle class white kid without any dependents) beyond the little subcultural ghetto that so much of the anarchist movement in North America is stuck in.

Also, your politics are bourgeois as fuck (http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3664)

[NecroCommie]

For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing?
What a loathsome patronizing attitude. I always tell my apolitical "friends" that the politics effect you whether you like it or not, so you better have an impact on politics.

Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation?
My favourite pastime is playing games and reading fiction books, both of which I would easily choose over political activity if we lived in a societal vacuum.

Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do?
Bourgeois media, anyone?

Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not)
This is propably the cheapest and the most ineffective thing to say ever! So if I don't agree with you, I secretly do but I just don't know it?

Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?
So first we are politically active out of boredom and then suddenly the political activity becomes the very source of boredom? Someone's losing some fucking ground here!



It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics.

If you don't understand our philosophy, perhaps it is because of you rather than because of our ideology... (hint hint)


... But the politics of our everyday lives.
What did you think that politics were about? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps your everyday life does not exist in a vacuum?


When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant.
We are fighting the same fight here, you just refuse to get it.

Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things.
So now it's suddenly lifestylist conspiracy too?

When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium.
Scare away people? It sounds like you are trying to gather followers... but... but that would make you 'gasp' political!

I really gotta take the dog out, so I don't have time to elaborately point out the myriad loopholes and ad-hominems in your post. I just wanted you to know that I don't find this at all persuasive.[/QUOTE]

[Dowshy]

Those issues might be vital and important in themselves, I do think they can be presented in a way which is boring and alienating. I also think a lot of the left does this. I'm not a fan of Crimethinc, but I do think they have some redeeming features, and that is one of their better texts. It's not all true, but there is some truth in it. Basically, if you take about 50% of that and 50% of the platform, you'd probably end up with a pretty decent end product (or a horrible, incoherent mess. One or the other).All that is redeemable in Crimethinc as far as I can tell is their colorful literary style and splashy graphic design. I'll give them that.

Their 'platform,' if you can call it that, is an incoherent blob of anarchism, primitivism, post-modernism, situationism, and whatever else suits them at the time they are writing. The general thrust of all of it is that class struggle is not possible (or worse, it's 'boring') and that therefore human liberation in any meaningful sense is not possible. So to them, all that is achievable, or desirable maybe, is a transient personal liberation, best achieved in small groups, living in co-ops, stealing from dumpsters, hopping trains, and playing pranks. This is their solution.

I'm sorry, but that's just silly. They are correct in describing themselves as something other than 'left.' But they have no right to call themselves 'post-left,' as if they have transcended the whole body of left wing theory and practice with this childish shit.

Their whole ideology comes out of the absolute worst conclusions of the defeat of the social movements of the 60s and 70s and the reaction that followed it. The irony of preaching this shit now is that we are actually leaving that reaction now, and struggle is finally becoming possible again on a large scale. To opt out of that process now is just......well actually it's kind of funny. :lol:


(BTW: Could someone please explain to me the connection between bad hygiene and liberation? thx)

[Axle]

The argument that leftist politics, as they exist, don't gain popular support because they're boring, and that they're boring because they're irrelevant is one of the longest logical stretches I've heard in a while.

The counter to that is political thought gets popular support when it IS exciting (i.e. relevant), but since most people find politics boring, by your logic, all politics are irrelevanat.

Politics are not objective. I've been bored by enough "relevant", and fascinated by enough "irrelevant" politics to know that.

[Jack]

Rethinking Crimethinc:
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3664

[Rosa Provokateur]

predominantly white middle class suburbanites.

Hmmm, sounds like a good chunk of people in this country. Alright:D

[Rosa Provokateur]

The counter to that is political thought gets popular support when it IS exciting (i.e. relevant), but since most people find politics boring, by your logic, all politics are irrelevanat.

Politics are not objective. I've been bored by enough "relevant", and fascinated by enough "irrelevant" politics to know that.

Exactly, we've gotta cut all the arguments about theory and where we should stand on this or that and get to making it exciting for people.

The reason I think the NSM has done so well is that it gives people something; a uniform, a rank, something to actively be involved in. The Left hasnt done anything but write essays on theory and print obscure newspapers, hell I'm guilty of it too. We need to find ways of kicking some life back into the struggle again and making it appealing to the very people we want to see freed.

[Revolutionary_Change]

In many "developed" nations there is a lack of interest in revolutionary change largely because there is no need for it from the majority of the citizen's point of view. They are the few hundred million who benefit from the exploitation of the world's billions.
Capitalism has evolved, or devolved depending on how you see it, and is no longer bound by borders. Nations are simply illusions to be manipulated for control. We now have a global capitalist system which greatly benefits those lucky enough to live in the first world. We(I live in the first world and assume many of you do was well) have benefit from bourgeoisie exploitation of the world, so naturally "radical" movements have little support amongst our population. If there were international revolutionary organizations just as there are international capitalist ones there would undoubtably be massive support for them from oppressed wage slaves the world over who reap no benefits. The bourgeoisie have always found the idea of a revolution silly, because it would mean the end of their special privileges so naturally they would not support a movement to create one. To build a base of support they grant minor privileges to portions of the global population, allowing them to share in some miniscule way the fruits of exploitation. This gives the bourgeoisie the numbers needed to operate semi-democratic regimes while keeping all real power concentrated within the hand of the few.
It seems that a large part of of the movement should be waking up those who's souls have been purchased by a cheap shirt at walmart or a weekend at the coast, and showing them the true consequences of their support for this monstrous system.

[Blackscare]

I remember this same dumbass post being one of the first things that I read when I joined revleft earlier this year. Is there some kind of repository where shitty pseudo-anarchist tripe is kept? I'm reminded of the "manarchist" thread that gets re-made every few months.

[Delirium]

Wow. Revleft's members have show themselves as they really are... again. The flaming responses show that most of you here are not committed leftist and i doubt active in real life. As someone who is active in real life, these are valid and important questions that i think about quite a bit.

If you used critical thinking to look at this article, and not accept or reject it on the basis of the popularity of crimethinc, you might realize that this article poses some very relevant questions for revolutionaries.


Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?



Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?

We are losing, and the best you have is to flame some poor fool who dares to question why that is.

[Jazzratt]

I remember this same dumbass post being one of the first things that I read when I joined revleft earlier this year. Is there some kind of repository where shitty pseudo-anarchist tripe is kept? I'm reminded of the "manarchist" thread that gets re-made every few months.

Crimethinc.

[Forward Union]

Your politics are bourgeois as fuck (http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3664)

[Bud Struggle]

Well, Communist politics AREN'T boring at all. In fact they are pretty interesting. To me. Lot's of people think football (the soccer type) is interesting. Me, not so much. Some people think Capitalists economics are interesting, me--not so much. But actually making money--hitting the business deal, I freakin' LOVE it.

It's all abut personal choice and interests--there are no universal things that are "boring" and none that are "interesting." Every preson has to decide for themselves.

On the other hand--Communist politics is fairly abstruse. All this talk about most people not being "class conscious" really means that most people really don't care or at least no interested enough in learning about it. The information about Communism is certainly available to almost anyone in the Free World and most people don't see it as important enough to go through the bother of actually studying it. The aformentioned abstrusness may have more than a bit do with it.

The problem for Communism (and it's a boon to Capitalism which is already in place) is that it's competing for the attention of people already deluged with piles of political information--and no one gives you information about itself more that Capitalism. Buy this, buy that--all commercials are informal infomericals for the Capitalist way of life. How can Class Struggle compete with the iPhone or the Burger King king?

It seems Communism was a the politics of a simpler time--when people cared about the state of the world we lived in, when we knew our neighbors and wanted a universal good.

Now all we want is what the pitchman on TV is offering us. We have become impulse buyers for our politics and our economics and the handsome smiling Barak Obama is the perfect pitchman for the Brave New World in which we live.

[#FF0000]

Hmmm, sounds like a good chunk of people in this country. Alright:D

Sounds like you're cloistered as all fuck. And also silly because the middle class, no matter how big, can't really overthrow capitalism.

Also sounds like you ignored a lot of substance for this useless one-liner.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Wow. Revleft's members have show themselves as they really are... again. The flaming responses show that most of you here are not committed leftist and i doubt active in real life. As someone who is active in real life, these are valid and important questions that i think about quite a bit.

If you used critical thinking to look at this article, and not accept or reject it on the basis of the popularity of crimethinc, you might realize that this article poses some very relevant questions for revolutionaries.





We are losing, and the best you have is to flame some poor fool who dares to question why that is.

See, that's what I want to do. I realize crimethinc isnt very well-liked here and they have stuff I dont agree with but from where I'm sitting, the Left has lost it's way and either needs to be revitalized or abandoned as a resource of liberation.

I'm not a Leftist or a post-Leftist and whether or not I'm an anarchist, I'll leave up to other people to argue. I'm not very knowledgable about Marxism, etc. but I know enough to see that communists and anarchists havent done anything worth talking about here in the U.S.

If that leaves me to try and do something through life-stylism then so be it but at-least I am making an effort. I've gotta thank Delirium for his good-hearted response, I take back every rotten thing I've ever said about the CC because of it.

[#FF0000]

If you used critical thinking to look at this article, and not accept or reject it on the basis of the popularity of crimethinc, you might realize that this article poses some very relevant questions for revolutionaries.Yeah. Questions that I would figure are sort of obvious. It's not that Crimethinc asks these questions. It's that they are as bad as or worse. Hence the pot-kettle-black comment.

EDIT: As bad as or worse than the "traditional" Left at connecting with, you know, the working class.

[Delirium]

Yeah. Questions that I would figure are sort of obvious. It's not that Crimethinc asks these questions. It's that they are as bad as or worse. Hence the pot-kettle-black comment.

You must be much smarter than me then if the answers are so obvious. Please enlighten me!

I agree that most of what crimethinc publishes is not serious political theory, or that they themselves are relevant to most people. On the other hand i know many people who's first exposure to leftism was crimethinc, who have moved on to more serious politics and organizing.

I just saw you all heroically jumping on the bandwagon to bash crimethinc and greenapostle without even adressing the article posted and it pissed me right off.

[Rosa Provokateur]

I just saw you all heroically jumping on the bandwagon to bash crimethinc and greenapostle without even adressing the article posted and it pissed me right off.

Aww, I'm touched Delirium. I get a good amount of bad-mouthing and not much support, not that I expect it, but to have someone defend me is rare and I cant tell you how much I appreciate it ;)

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm not a Leftist or a post-Leftist and whether or not I'm an anarchist, I'll leave up to other people to argue. I'm not very knowledgable about Marxism, etc. but I know enough to see that communists and anarchists havent done anything worth talking about here in the U.S.
In 1934 in a matter of months, workers shut down 3 cities including San Francisco in general strikes. The IWW? The Black power movement? These are boring? And now with victorian-era inequality, no national healthcare, and an economic crisis being paid-off by wage-cuts and lay-offs, our politics are irrelevant?!

Sure things are not fun all the time - that's life. In order to have fun, someone has to lay the tracks of the roller-coaster, make the cotton candy, design the tilt-a-whirl. I'm sure in 1968, there were some boring-ass meetings about how to get porta-potties to the mass demonstration - but this also allowed the expression and passion and politics of the era to have a vehicle for all that (and a place to shit).

[SoupIsGoodFood]

Yeah, fuck deodorant! Eat out of the dumpster! That'll change shit for sure.

[#FF0000]

You must be much smarter than me then if the answers are so obvious. Please enlighten me!

No, no. I said the questions are obvious and that Crimethinc isn't really asking something especially groundbreaking or new.


I just saw you all heroically jumping on the bandwagon to bash crimethinc and greenapostle without even adressing the article posted and it pissed me right off.

Yeah I actually did this so I can't say nothin'. :/

[RHIZOMES]

Hmmm, sounds like a good chunk of people in this country. Alright:D

Wow you certainly are very sheltered then

[Rosa Provokateur]

Wow you certainly are very sheltered then

To a point; I was raised in the country and we moved into the suburbs about 4 years ago. I know that I'm in a conciderably privileged class that not alot of people have access to but I've seen how my family has been blessed since moving up and I wanna spread that to everyone.

[Rosa Provokateur]

In 1934 in a matter of months, workers shut down 3 cities including San Francisco in general strikes. The IWW? The Black power movement? These are boring? And now with victorian-era inequality, no national healthcare, and an economic crisis being paid-off by wage-cuts and lay-offs, our politics are irrelevant?!

Sure things are not fun all the time - that's life. In order to have fun, someone has to lay the tracks of the roller-coaster, make the cotton candy, design the tilt-a-whirl. I'm sure in 1968, there were some boring-ass meetings about how to get porta-potties to the mass demonstration - but this also allowed the expression and passion and politics of the era to have a vehicle for all that (and a place to shit).

Dont get me wrong, I studied the I.W.W. when I was 14 and the Panthers where like gods to me in highschool. Those guys where right in doing everything they did and the Left was their vehicle for change.

But what has the Left done lately? Meetings are okay when stuff is actually getting done but now nothings getting done and ground is way passed just being lost. Either we pull a cultural revoluton of sorts or we abandon the Left for something new.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

i doubt the general population actually make a difference between leftist politics and non leftist one, people like or dislike politics that all.
I think this is true, and important. Since mainstream politics essentially consists of arguing over which bunch of rich men get to rule us next, it's perfectly reasonable for lots of people to dislike it. Our politics, on the other hand, are meant to be about taking back control over our own lives. If people can't see a difference between our politics and the mainstream (other than that we're smaller), then something is seriously wrong, and needs addressing.


The reason I think the NSM has done so well is that it gives people something; a uniform, a rank, something to actively be involved in.
NSM? Do you mean nazis? In what way have they done well?

We(I live in the first world and assume many of you do was well) have become the bourgeoisie exploiters of the world, so naturally "radical" movements have little support amongst our population... However one of the key elements of each revolution is the division of the bourgeoisie, where a faction breaks off and voluntarily forgoes it's blood-soaked comforts in order to join the struggle of the proletarian class or as we call them today, the third world. This is what groups in developed nations, at least from my point of view, are trying to do: awake as many of the oppressors to the plight of the oppressed and the consequences of their comforts as possible
This is a pretty fucked up thing to say. Try telling a cleaner or a single mother on benefits that they're a bourgeois exploiter. The vast majority of the first world's population still have no real control over our lives. Having bigger cages and long chains doesn't change our class position.


In 1934 in a matter of months, workers shut down 3 cities including San Francisco in general strikes. The IWW? The Black power movement?... I'm sure in 1968, there were some boring-ass meetings about how to get porta-potties to the mass demonstration - but this also allowed the expression and passion and politics of the era to have a vehicle for all that (and a place to shit).
This is a really weak counter-argument. Why haven't we done anything worth talking about in the last 40 years? And yeah, I know the objective balance of class forces and all that stuff is important, but I don't think it should give us a free pass from self-criticism.

[#FF0000]

But what has the Left done lately? Meetings are okay when stuff is actually getting done but now nothings getting done and ground is way passed just being lost. Either we pull a cultural revoluton of sorts or we abandon the Left for something new.

I don't think we need a "cultural revolution". I think we just need to sell our ideas better.

But abandon the left for what? The Post-Left? What have groups like Crimethinc EVER accomplished?

[danyboy27]

higher classes people who dosnt like politics will argues that they dont have time for this shit, and lower classes will basicly answer you the same things, one is busy for stacking money, the other to make a living.

but at the end, the people of lower and higher classes like politics for verry similar reason: they both want cookies; better living condition, lower taxes, a better wage, subvention etc etc etc.

[manic expression]

If you're looking to have fun, buy a videogame and leave the job of revolutionary politics to the mature among us. Is that so hard to understand?

[Luís Henrique]

You find fuck boring?

Perhaps you should try something else besides the missionary position.

Luís Henrique

[bosgek]

Try telling a cleaner or a single mother on benefits that they're a bourgeois exploiter. The vast majority of the first world's population still have no real control over our lives.

Yes, but the guy was talking about first world people. What's the benefit: 30 years ago we spend 30% of our income on food, now it's 12 - 10%. Somehow, we're now able to spend up to 20% of our income on something else (iPods, computers, television etc.) If we bought exactly the same as 30 years ago, or better: the time Lenin was alive, we buy more commodities. The question therefore is: if we buy more stuff, then has our minimum need for commodities to secure our sustenance shifted or do we buy commodities we don't need?

Also: compare the amount of poor people 30 years (or later) with the amount today. I know plenty of 1st world factory workers that go home with the infamous white earplugs in.

I agree with Revolutionary_Change, working conditions and wages have changed so much that the large 1st world masses of the "proletariat" are content with their life as it is. And even if they aren't, they're not ready to risk their life on changing it. They might try striking or kidnapping an employer or two, but that's it. Revolution is far from the mind of the 1st world factory workers today, what's on the tv tonight is much closer. That's tragic and frustrating, but it's also reality.

Back on topic:
It's really easy to complain and say something is boring or stupid, but you don't come with any real alternatives or invite anyone to come with one. What are you trying to achieve then?

Perhaps it's better to talk about the effectiveness of the actions and demonstrations, rather then calling everything red and black a failure.

[NecroCommie]

Wow. Revleft's members have show themselves as they really are... again. The flaming responses show that most of you here are not committed leftist and i doubt active in real life. As someone who is active in real life, these are valid and important questions that i think about quite a bit.
Ah, yes! Since we dwell in this internet forum from time to time it must mean that we can in no way be active in real life.

Honestly, no person can make any reasonable judgement on other's real life based on ones internet posts. This casts your post in a dubious light.

If you used critical thinking to look at this article, and not accept or reject it on the basis of the popularity of crimethinc, you might realize that this article poses some very relevant questions for revolutionaries.
And yes, since we find it unmotivating to constantly parent these ignorant fools we must do so because of "popularity" or "crimethinc". Surely our attitudes could not have been born out of something else! Like, frustration at the refusal of these nitwits to think at all for example. What a proposterous reason that would be!


We are losing, and the best you have is to flame some poor fool who dares to question why that is.
We flame because he has been given myriad different answers to hi's questions, all of which he has rejected because none of the answers conform with his narrow view of the world.

These questions are ancient in the leftist movement and they have been answered in many reasonable ways. One should make oneself familiar with imperialism and nationalism for example. Also, some might argue that the material conditions have something to do with the topic.

[Rosa Provokateur]

NSM? Do you mean nazis? In what way have they done well?



From what I can tell they have no problem attracting people to their stuff. They've got programs designed for women, youth, skinheads, etc. making sure they dont leave out any possible group of people that could be brought into their organization.

I've seen these youth in action and although their ideas are horrible the work they do is great; I've yet to see any of us picking up litter around our communities, volunteering to help with yard-work or anything like that (they're like boyscouts but with Nazism).

People will pay attention to the groups that live up to the idea. The NSM pushes to live up to their idea and benefit, we talk about our idea and lose ground. I'm not saying we need uniforms and should copy them step-for-step but we could certainly do with pushing the communist and socialist parties to get more local, same with the anarchists.

[danyboy27]

From what I can tell they have no problem attracting people to their stuff. They've got programs designed for women, youth, skinheads, etc. making sure they dont leave out any possible group of people that could be brought into their organization.

I've seen these youth in action and although their ideas are horrible the work they do is great; I've yet to see any of us picking up litter around our communities, volunteering to help with yard-work or anything like that (they're like boyscouts but with Nazism).

People will pay attention to the groups that live up to the idea. The NSM pushes to live up to their idea and benefit, we talk about our idea and lose ground. I'm not saying we need uniforms and should copy them step-for-step but we could certainly do with pushing the communist and socialist parties to get more local, same with the anarchists.

i raised the issue several time on revleft and the only thing i got was: well, leftist organisation arnt charity.

i seriously believe a dual use of benevolents move and political education is the way to go, but well, nobody supported my idea so far.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

But abandon the left for what? The Post-Left? What have groups like Crimethinc EVER accomplished?
To be fair, pointing that someone else is shit (and the post-left definitely are shit) still doesn't mean that you don't have problems yourself.

higher classes people who dosnt like politics will argues that they dont have time for this shit, and lower classes will basicly answer you the same things, one is busy for stacking money, the other to make a living.

but at the end, the people of lower and higher classes like politics for verry similar reason: they both want cookies.
And communism promises, or should promise, more cookies for everyone. Yet we're still marginalised. I think it's worth seriously thinking about why this is.

Yes, but the guy was talking about first world people. What's the benefit: 30 years ago we spend 30% of our income on food, now it's 12 - 10%. Somehow, we're now able to spend up to 20% of our income on something else (iPods, computers, television etc.) If we bought exactly the same as 30 years ago, or better: the time Lenin was alive, we buy more commodities. The question therefore is: if we buy more stuff, then has our minimum need for commodities to secure our sustenance shifted or do we buy commodities we don't need?

Also: compare the amount of poor people 30 years (or later) with the amount today. I know plenty of 1st world factory workers that go home with the infamous white earplugs in.

I agree with Revolutionary_Change, working conditions and wages have changed so much that the large 1st world masses of the "proletariat" are content with their life as it is. And even if they aren't, they're not ready to risk their life on changing it. They might try striking or kidnapping an employer or two, but that's it. Revolution is far from the mind of the 1st world factory workers today, what's on the tv tonight is much closer. That's tragic and frustrating, but it's also reality.
It's been the reality for most of the twentieth century. People's living standards might be better, but their expectations of what they deserve are higher; capitalism can't keep up with rising expectations forever (it can for a while, but it'll still always have recessions) and so there's still potential for struggle.

From what I can tell they have no problem attracting people to their stuff. They've got programs designed for women, youth, skinheads, etc. making sure they dont leave out any possible group of people that could be brought into their organization.

I can think of quite a few groups that can't be brought into nazi organisations. ;) Still, tho, THE NAZI MOVEMENT IS FUCKING TINY. The BNP and a few other nationalist groups have been able to get anywhere only by consciously distancing themselves from the NSM. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be self-critical and we don't need new ideas, but saying we should learn from the success of a tiny failed fringe movement is just odd.

[Delirium]

Ah, yes! Since we dwell in this internet forum from time to time it must mean that we can in no way be active in real life.

Honestly, no person can make any reasonable judgement on other's real life based on ones internet posts. This casts your post in a dubious light.

And yes, since we find it unmotivating to constantly parent these ignorant fools we must do so because of "popularity" or "crimethinc". Surely our attitudes could not have been born out of something else! Like, frustration at the refusal of these nitwits to think at all for example. What a proposterous reason that would be!


We flame because he has been given myriad different answers to hi's questions, all of which he has rejected because none of the answers conform with his narrow view of the world.

These questions are ancient in the leftist movement and they have been answered in many reasonable ways. One should make oneself familiar with imperialism and nationalism for example. Also, some might argue that the material conditions have something to do with the topic.


Never in real life have i encountered such venomous sectarianism. All comrades that i have met understand that a diversity of tactics are necessary and that one group does not have a monopoly on "correct politics".

Yes, i have read the thread and am familiar with the gems of arguments the were given.

Classic marxist arguments of imperialism and nationalism certainly are part of the answer, but what is the harm in turning that critical thought inward. It's not like all of our stragtegies and tactics are infalliable, or even appropriate for the "material conditions".

Unless of course your you are a M-L, then all you actions and thought past and future are correct and all of course the reason for failure is always external.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is a really weak counter-argument. Why haven't we done anything worth talking about in the last 40 years? And yeah, I know the objective balance of class forces and all that stuff is important, but I don't think it should give us a free pass from self-criticism.
That's really a straw-man argument about self-criticism on a website where Leftists do nothing but criticize who's doing what on the left. I don't think there's a leftist here who would say - yeah, the movement's healthier than I can imagine.

Besides, it's not self-criticism, it was criticism coming from someone who isn't a leftist.

The original post was saying our politics were irrelevant and boring because you hafta go to a meeting and talk and discuss things and blah blah. Well yeah, someone has to lay the pavement before any drag-racing can happen! The left is broken and weak in the US and so it's actually the boring rebuilding we have to do right now! Eugene Debs and people like that went to many boring meetings and had to talk to many unionists before radicals formed the IWW. Radicals in the Depression had to go through 6 years of union defeats before the momentum was on their side.

Unfortunately we have a lot of people who are upset at the system and who want to be Yippies or Crimethinkers but not have to sit through a democratic discussion or go to meetings and make allies with people. Well you have to walk before you run and I think the last 40 years have been a lot of people trying to run first, falling on their face and then giving up.

I think our politics are incredibly relevant - we just lack the vehicles and the organization to force the mainstream to take us seriously. The right wing is organized because they sit through a lot of boring meetings and have a lot of boring faxes sent out and organization-building and think-tank-building and so on.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Well yeah, someone has to lay the pavement before any drag-racing can happen! The left is broken and weak in the US and so it's actually the boring rebuilding we have to do right now! Eugene Debs and people like that went to many boring meetings and had to talk to many unionists before radicals formed the IWW. Radicals in the Depression had to go through 6 years of union defeats before the momentum was on their side.

Unfortunately we have a lot of people who are upset at the system and who want to be Yippies or Crimethinkers but not have to sit through a democratic discussion or go to meetings and make allies with people. Well you have to walk before you run and I think the last 40 years have been a lot of people trying to run first, falling on their face and then giving up.

I think our politics are incredibly relevant - we just lack the vehicles and the organization to force the mainstream to take us seriously. The right wing is organized because they sit through a lot of boring meetings and have a lot of boring faxes sent out and organization-building and think-tank-building and so on.

Well hell, we might as well go off-road because the pavement's at a dead-end. Debs was atleast working on some actual projects where-as the Left is only busy preparing statements on ideology and current-events that nobody wants to read. Meeting to get something done is fine, meeting just for self-preservation is beuracratic!

The Yippies where a driving, creative force in the anti-war movement because they appealed to people; they may not have had a platform per-se or tried to take power but the free-stores and the exorcism of the Pentagon captured imaginations and showed how the world could be. We gotta get back into making things concrete, even if it's a temporary concrete. If we fall on our faces, get back up! Anything beats the arm-chair.

Before they take us seriously, we gotta make sure we arent taking ourselves too seriously. If we go about acting like we've got the answers to everything, we'll forget to innovate and evolve. That's whats happened and no matter the parties that get organized, no matter the programmes that get published, if we're hollow it'll show. We need to smash these hollow parts and re-build with something actually fullfilling.

[Howard509]

Crimethinc is COINTELPRO.

[*Red*Alert]

From what I can tell they have no problem attracting people to their stuff. They've got programs designed for women, youth, skinheads, etc. making sure they dont leave out any possible group of people that could be brought into their organization.

I've seen these youth in action and although their ideas are horrible the work they do is great; I've yet to see any of us picking up litter around our communities, volunteering to help with yard-work or anything like that (they're like boyscouts but with Nazism).

People will pay attention to the groups that live up to the idea. The NSM pushes to live up to their idea and benefit, we talk about our idea and lose ground. I'm not saying we need uniforms and should copy them step-for-step but we could certainly do with pushing the communist and socialist parties to get more local, same with the anarchists.

The Left lost the propaganda war a long time ago.

I agree with the fact that the Left has to be relevant to people, and at the moment in the US it certainly isn't, it almost seems to be an overly intellectualized cliche where theory reigns more than reality.

Leftists need to be active, and put an end to the sense of political duty you describe, the sort of "well somebody has to carry the banner, even if its only through debating and stuff". The Right connects with people, slowly and steadily, and they target issues that concern ordinary people.

[BabylonHoruv]

Ok so if your not an Anarchist, Capitalist, or Leninist then what are you?

It says on his name that he is in RAAN, that's the Red Anarchist Action network, that'd make him an Anarchist of one variety or another, and not the An-Cap variety because they are anything but red.

The material is from Crimethinc, an ex-workers collecti8ve, as far as i can tell they are trying to energize the lumpen and those who choose to abandon Bourgoisie or Protetarian lifestyles and embrace lumpenproleterian ones as the revolutionary class. It is, at least, a novel approach, and they have put out a lot of very interesting work.

[La Comédie Noire]

I think everyone in CrimethInc has watched Fight Club one too many times.

[Luís Henrique]

It is, at least, a novel approach

No, it isnt... it is as old "as fuck" and it is called romantism.

Luís Henrique

[La Comédie Noire]

No, it isnt... it is as old "as fuck" and it is called romantism.

Going off what Luis said, all their articles are emotionally driven appeals to free your mind. It's as if someone wrote a screen play about the stupidest parts of the 60's and ripped off The Matrix in the process. Oh and don't forget the part in the opening credits where it says "inspired by Fight Club"

[Rosa Provokateur]

No, it isnt... it is as old "as fuck" and it is called romantism.

Luís Henrique

Romanticism is the calling card of revolution.

[Muzk]

I can't really read through all this of this now, even if it was said before, who cares if something is not entertaining? You want a TV at your secretary job? Some music to listen to while you push the same button for over 10 hours?
Something that has to be done, yes, not because it's boring but rather because humanity's life is crap. No, not the life your everyday plummer joe the american conservative, but rather all over africa, phillipines, asia, south america, more than half of the earths population has to live under UNBEARABLE circumstances.

That's what we fight for.

And, there will be a painful awakening once all the oil/coal/whatever has been used. Humanity will slowly die out.
ARE WE GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN?

Let someone else do it? NOONE'S BETTER AT REPRESENTING ME THAN MYSELF.
And if it all fails, in the end you'll say : I should have done it rather than sit on my ass and live your every-day middle class life.

[Dowshy]

The material is from Crimethinc, an ex-workers collecti8ve, as far as i can tell they are trying to energize the lumpen and those who choose to abandon Bourgoisie or Protetarian lifestyles and embrace lumpenproleterian ones as the revolutionary class. It is, at least, a novel approach, and they have put out a lot of very interesting work.


Unfortunately this entails abandoning the social power required to change society in any fundamental kind of way. Homeless people can't exactly go on strike. Additionally, as Marx and Engels pointed out, the lumpenproletariat, because of the precariousness of their situation, are particularly vulnerable to being consumed by gambling and addiction, falling into a life of crime or into the employ of reaction and counterrevolution as thugs, strikebreakers and the like. How romantic!

[*Red*Alert]

No, it isnt... it is as old "as fuck" and it is called romantism.

Luís Henrique

Which is essential if the Left is ever going to popularise its appeal to the masses. Some of it is a bit overdone, but they've were good manuals and books.

[Muzk]

It's impossible to have a revolution in states with a strong middle class - they are often reactionaries, thinking this is the best way or not even thinking of politics at all, just trying to live their life and teach their kids to "learn and get rich"

That's what I've seen

[Jimmie Higgins]

Romanticism is the calling card of revolution.Well romanticism as a movement came with the disillusionment of radicals following the French Revolution. Generally similar ideas take hold when a revolution has failed - like people turning to new-age spiritualism or christian cults for answers when the 60s movements began to fail.

By the mid 1970s, the black power movement went from radical to becoming inward-focused and "cultural black power" - giving yourself an African name or learning about African religions became the mode people turned to for empowerment rather than actually challenging the laws and so on because people felt disillusioned when the radical movements sputtered out (or were crushed by the state).

I think crimethink type politics are similar. Ultimately it is pessimistic and comes from the idea that mass political movements and change are impossible. The underlying assumption is that the system can't be taken on and so we need to find ways to create bubbles of liberation within the system.

I think pranks and stealing are fun and I have nothing inherently against these things - I do have a problem with counterpoising these things with real working class organization and mass challenges to the system.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's impossible to have a revolution in states with a strong middle class - they are often reactionaries, thinking this is the best way or not even thinking of politics at all, just trying to live their life and teach their kids to "learn and get rich"

That's what I've seen
I'm sure someone could have made the same argument in the US in 1928 and yet 10 years later there were militant mass industrial unions and sit-down strikes. Someone could have also made this argument in 1958 and again 10 years later there were riots in every major city, widespread hatred of US imperialism within the US, and identification with radical politics.

As marx said, the ruling ideas of every era are the ideas of the ruling group. So of course, given no alternative, workers would want to do anything they could to get rich in capitalism. Any poor person who comes into money will want the most flashy car and clothes right off the bat - look at rock or hip-hop stars: if you've been poor and disrespected all your life, you see money as a way to get respect and have your rights taken seriously.

The job or radicals is to open up a space for that alternative to enter worker's consciousness. Helping to build a militant strike or a movement for women's lib will demonstrate how you don't have to hope to get rich to have respect, you can organize collectively and build a totally different set of circumstances than the ones handed to you. When we are sucsessful at that - historically - change in people's confidence and consiousness has been quick and explosive.

[Wanted Man]

The article is boring as fuck and not based in reality at all. How presumptuous are these upper class brats, to tell people how to "have fun" while preventing such horrible occurrences like proletarian revolution?

Because if that happens, it will no longer be possible to get rich quickly and excuse yourself with boring-as-fuck navel-gazing about "returning to the countryside" and all the other petty hopes and dreams that exist only in the minds of fucking boring people who have nothing better to live for.

Their time is running out, and this article is one of the particularly pathetic attempts by upper class hacks to discourage people from getting rid of capitalism.

P.S. They also smell and they bang on about love and fun as if they have any idea about either, as if their concept of either is anything more than yet another empty promise, plagiarised from Hollywood films. Go back to your mommies.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Crimethinc is COINTELPRO.
That's a very serious accusation. Do you have any proof?

The article is boring as fuck and not based in reality at all. How presumptuous are these upper class brats, to tell people how to "have fun" while preventing such horrible occurrences like proletarian revolution?

Because if that happens, it will no longer be possible to get rich quickly and excuse yourself with boring-as-fuck navel-gazing about "returning to the countryside" and all the other petty hopes and dreams that exist only in the minds of fucking boring people who have nothing better to live for.

Their time is running out, and this article is one of the particularly pathetic attempts by upper class hacks to discourage people from getting rid of capitalism.

P.S. They also smell and they bang on about love and fun as if they have any idea about either, as if their concept of either is anything more than yet another empty promise, plagiarised from Hollywood films. Go back to your mommies.
It really struck a nerve with you, didn't it?

[Wanted Man]

I'm sorry, it's just the frustration of being a worker who never gets to escape from capitalism and fuck in the woods. :( Can you help me?

[griffjam]

I'm sorry, it's just the frustration of being a worker who never gets to escape from capitalism and fuck in the woods. :( Can you help me?

Communism didn’t work, capitalism doesn’t work—you work (so stop already!)

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm sorry, it's just the frustration of being a worker who never gets to escape from capitalism and fuck in the woods. :( Can you help me?
There-there, have a slice of pizza I pulled from the dumpster. It's peperoni and... hmmm it looks like... raisins? Wait, don't eat that.

It's funny that the Crimethink post thinks it's being original and yet sounds like something written by a second-rate yippie from the 60s. Also, living in the Bay Area of California, I can tell you that liberal yuppies ALREADY love to do all the things that the author suggests for the left - and have for decades. They live for the day and enjoy themselves and protest the war by knitting a "subverive" floppy hat with their friends at home. In short they do fuck-all and accomplish as much.

Meahnwhile, in the real world, 100,000 immigrants marched for rights in the bay area 2 years ago - it was far from boring and routiene for them. 10,000 pro gay marriage supporters marched in the Bay Area and I saw people crying and strangers hugging eachother in joy and solidarity. Boring as fuck?

Enjoy your exciting and original subversive knitting parties.

[Wanted Man]

Meahnwhile, in the real world, a 100,000 immigrants marched for rights in the bay area 2 years ago - it was far from boring and routiene for them. 10,000 pro gay marriage supporters marched in the Bay Area and I saw people crying and strangers hugging eachother in joy and solidarity. Boring as fuck?

Yes, boring as fuck. What are those silly workers *****ing about? Don't they know that we live in a post-modern world? You don't have to work! Drop out from the system today and start your adventure! Deep in your heart, you know it as well, yet you continue to justify your boring-as-fuck workerist (yuck!) politics. Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?

:rolleyes:

In reality, the only boring thing is Crimethinc's stale and poorly plagiarised rhetoric (some of the better anarchist writers must be turning in their graves). I can't imagine anything more tedious than their idea of "fun".

[Muzk]

Communism didn’t work, capitalism doesn’t work—you work (so stop already!)


You're telling him to stop working and become a homeless guy?
Okay..

[Luís Henrique]

I'm sorry, it's just the frustration of being a worker who never gets to escape from capitalism and fuck in the woods. :( Can you help me?

That's ressentiment. You should either engage college in an attempt to become a more integral person and/or make more monies (I am not sure those things are different; I always feel a more integral person in the first days of the month), or develop a lust for power, preferably based on a fanatical grievance or a holy faith.

But hey, you asked...

Luís Henrique

[Schrödinger's Cat]

There's something beautiful about the title of this thread being "Your politics are boring as fuck" considering the length and subject matter found in the OP.

[Old Man Diogenes]

You know it's true. Otherwise, why does everyone cringe when you say the word? Why has attendance at your anarcho-communist theory discussion group meetings fallen to an all-time low? Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?

Perhaps, after years of struggling to educate them about their victimhood, you have come to blame them for their condition. They must want to be ground under the heel of capitalist imperialism; otherwise, why do they show no interest in your political causes? Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?

The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control. They know that your infighting, your splinter groups and endless quarrels over ephemeral theories can never effect any real change in the world they experience from day to day. They know that no matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the content of their lives will remain the same. They—we—know that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real transformation of life. For our lives are boring enough already!

And you know it too. For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing? Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation? Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do? Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not) to get in trouble with the authorities, to get arrested: not because it will practically serve your cause, but to make things more exciting, to recapture a little of the romance of turbulent times now long past. Have you ever felt that you were participating in a ritual, a long-established tradition of fringe protest, that really serves only to strengthen the position of the mainstream? Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?

It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics. For in fact, there is nothing more important than politics. NOT the politics of American "democracy" and law, of who is elected state legislator to sign the same bills and perpetuate the same system. Not the politics of the "I got involved with the radical left because I enjoy quibbling over trivial details and writing rhetorically about an unreachable utopia" anarchist. Not the politics of any leader or ideology that demands that you make sacrifices for "the cause." But the politics of our everyday lives. When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant. Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things. When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium. When you make politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, a dreadful responsibility, it becomes just another weight upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people. And thus you ruin the idea of politics for the people to whom it should be most important. For everyone has a stake in considering their lives, in asking themselves what they want out of life and how they can get it. But you make politics look to them like a miserable, self-referential, pointless middle class/bohemian game, a game with no relevance to the real lives they are living out.

What should be political? Whether we enjoy what we do to get food and shelter. Whether we feel like our daily interactions with our friends, neighbors, and coworkers are fulfilling. Whether we have the opportunity to live each day the way we desire to. And "politics" should consist not of merely discussing these questions, but of acting directly to improve our lives in the immediate present. Acting in a way that is itself entertaining, exciting, joyous—because political action that is tedious, tiresome, and oppressive can only perpetuate tedium, fatigue, and oppression in our lives. No more time should be wasted debating over issues that will be irrelevant when we must go to work again the next day. No more predictable ritual protests that the authorities know all too well how to deal with; no more boring ritual protests which will not sound like a thrilling way to spend a Saturday afternoon to potential volunteers—clearly, those won't get us anywhere. Never again shall we "sacrifice ourselves for the cause." For we ourselves, happiness in our own lives and the lives of our fellows, must be our cause!

After we make politics relevant and exciting, the rest will follow. But from a dreary, merely theoretical and/or ritualized politics, nothing valuable can follow. This is not to say that we should show no interest in the welfare of humans, animals, or ecosystems that do not contact us directly in our day to day existence. But the foundation of our politics must be concrete: it must be immediate, it must be obvious to everyone why it is worth the effort, it must be fun in itself. How can we do positive things for others if we ourselves do not enjoy our own lives?

To make this concrete for a moment: an afternoon of collecting food from businesses that would have thrown it away and serving it to hungry people and people who are tired of working to pay for food—that is good political action, but only if you enjoy it. If you do it with your friends, if you meet new friends while you're doing it, if you fall in love or trade funny stories or just feel proud to have helped a woman by easing her financial needs, that's good political action. On the other hand, if you spend the afternoon typing an angry letter to an obscure leftist tabloid objecting to a columnist's use of the term "anarcho-syndicalist," that's not going to accomplish shit, and you know it.

Perhaps it is time for a new word for "politics," since you have made such a swear word out of the old one. For no one should be put off when we talk about acting together to improve our lives. And so we present to you our demands, which are non-negotiable, and must be met as soon as possible—because we're not going to live forever, are we?

1. Make politics relevant to our everyday experience of life again. The farther away the object of our political concern, the less it will mean to us, the less real and pressing it will seem to us, and the more wearisome politics will be.

2. All political activity must be joyous and exciting in itself. You cannot escape from dreariness with more dreariness.

3. To accomplish those first two steps, entirely new political approaches and methods must be created. The old ones are outdated, outmoded. Perhaps they were NEVER any good, and that's why our world is the way it is now.

4. Enjoy yourselves! There is never any excuse for being bored . . . or boring!

Join us in making the "revolution" a game; a game played for the highest stakes of all, but a joyous, carefree game nonetheless!

http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/days/asfuck.php

I think its quite ignorant to declare something boring, what you find uninteresting other people might not, everyone has their own opinions and spin on things. This post to me seemed like it was out to instigate another "Left vs. Right" Grand Slam that usually goes on here in OI rather than debates.

[Agrippa]

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/reviews/crimethinc.html

Would You Shoplift “Days of War, Nights of Love” ?


by Butch Lee



“What ‘insurance’ could you buy that would keep you safer than living in a world where people actually cared for each other?” (page 260)

Get the uzi!

Some MAN i'd never met before handed this book to me at a meeting, and mumbled something about reviewing it. Lucky wimmin get to review six course dinners or new CDs, but i get to review a fucking polish sausage. Which is to say i'd rather be talking about women's armed struggle against men & their insane and inane cultures. But there it is. And then again, i'm something of a maoista.

Let’s get to the point. There’s *****ing about this book, but no airline ticket is good for all times and all places. There is no all-day sucker, only suckers. The subtitle on this book is “Crimethink for Beginners” and that’s just what it is. So if you know someone young trapped in the suburban box, this is pages that might get them to see life from a different doorway. If you know someone young and suburban who has heard the word “anarchism” but knows nothing else about anything, lay this on them. “Days of Blah, Nights of Barf” is for beginners. An introduction that’s not too heavy and might be a gust of fresh air. Maybe they’ll get a subversive laugh, a hint of rebellious spirit, maybe a seed planted in their mind.

And “Days” is real easy to slide into, since it’s not really a long book. It’s like fifteen short essays on breaking with boring, regimented capitalist life. There’s tons of pictures, funny sarcastic cartoons, little boxed examples of this or that from what some rebels actually did. And you don’t even have to take it that reverentially (it isn’t as though the authors were doing something real, like fixing the brakes on your truck). Start reading it anywhere, skip pages, go backwards, don’t worry, it’s all the same. The CrimetInc people who put this together really designed a clever “book”, that’s a contrast to the usual thick books loaded with information that we’re supposed to learn from. Here there’s almost nothing to learn, which is so liberating.

To me, the thing I like best about “Days” is that it brings out how barren the life of the spectator is. It challenges the spectatorism, the viewerism of passive virtual life in middle class capitalism. With its passive anti-sports (ten chemical-saturated dicks play, ten million overweight dicks sit and watch) and video game “challenges” and televised “relationships”. At its best, “Days” is provocative and thought-provoking, happily starting trouble for straight, middle class goal-seeking suburban youth.

“Whatever each [of] us may be looking for, we all tend to pursue our desires by purchasing images: symbols of the things we desire. We buy leather jackets when we want rebellion and danger. ..When we want to live in a different world, we buy political pamphlets and bumper stickers. Somehow we assume that having all the right accessories will get us the perfect lives. And as we construct our lives, we tend to do it according to an image, a pattern that has been laid out for us...At our jobs, we exchange our time, energy, and creativity for the ability to buy these symbols...Rather than satisfying our needs, these products multiply them: for to get them, we must sell our lives away.”

What I dislike most about the book is that as a woman, as a trans-person, there’s no ability in it to fight back against being obliterated. It’s as though they’re saying that if you just switch your little mind to a different mental station then you can be free and running. That’s just bullshit. In fact, that’s just the empty pursuit of symbols and images that they put down. You can’t be free in a world that isn’t free, and we have the fucking scars from the mine fields to prove it. Though they don’t say it, these aren’t new ideas in their book. Mined out of seventy year old dada and surrealism, but could dada defeat the nazis? Here’s some free advice: Let someone else test that--don’t you bet your life on it.

You can see what I mean by checking out their heavy advocacy of shoplifting. “Days” really blasts off on this: “...shoplifting makes me feel liberated and empowered”. Or “Everything changes when I shoplift.” Or “Shoplifting says NO to all the objectionable features that have come to characterize the modern corporation.” And on and on. Dumpster diving is also a big deal in the CrimethInc ideology. I think only superprivileged people talk this phony way, folks sitting on top of the rest of the human race but playing at being someone else.

Hey, we should entertain the really revolutionary far-out daring novel idea of...shoplifting? Hel-lo! Earth to CrimethInc! Wake up! Any of you ever worked for a living at a store? Oh, I forgot, working is giving in to the corporations. Well, then, let me tell you the news that in real life millions and millions of Americans of every class, age, race and genders are shoplifting like mad weasels. It’s the fucking national sport. My roomate once had a richass white grandmother stuff a baby carriage with a baby in it full of shit and race full speed out the store shouting, “If you try and stop us and my baby granddaughter is injured we’ll sue you!” Hostage shoplifting.

And you think the oppressed should shoplift what they need? Oh, they’ll really appreciate your teaching them, kemosabi. Hey, ever been in an inner city corner store with its bulletproof plexiglass inner walls, where you point out the canned soup or soap you want and the clerk hands it out to you through the revolving tray--after you slide your money in? The oppressed have been shoplifting and stealing and ripping since long before any of you were conceived of. And guess what, they aren’t “liberated” or “empowered” yet.

Talk of subverting the system is cheap, but other people are being run over by the reality of it. The families who literally live their entire lives in the giant garbage dumps in the Philippines, living off of sifting for the scraps of cloth, metal, bottles or food, they’re the pros at dumpster diving and the white people here who do it are just posers at worst and amateurs at best. But those Filipino families aren’t “subverting the system” at all, they’re just struggling to survive. Life isn’t a spectator game for most wimmin in the world. It’s all too real--AIDS, malaria, rape, being really sick and still having to labor twelve hours a day on your feet. Dying young knowing that no one is going to take care of your kids. Sometimes this book is itself a spectator sport, privileged folks having the thrill of playing at life. As that possum said, “We have met the enemy, and they is us.”

[Comrade B]

Why hasn't this post been trashed yet, it really isn't discussion.

[Wanted Man]

Life isn’t a spectator game for most wimmin in the world. It’s all too real--AIDS, malaria, rape, being really sick and still having to labor twelve hours a day on your feet. Dying young knowing that no one is going to take care of your kids.

If they're not having fun, they're not doing it right!

Sorry, it's a cheap shot, but that little line highlights just how ridiculous they are. Calling it "reactionary" is too much, that would mean having to engage with it seriously, on a political level. That is not the case here, there is a pretty clear class contradiction between what they believe, and what we believe. I agree with comrade B in that it really isn't a discussion. This is because there isn't really any common ground for a debate, their aims stand miles apart from anyone who's serious about the whole "revolution" thing. The line about poverty says enough.

[black magick hustla]

the situationists must be rolling in their graves. also the communards, when a bunch of smelly hippies characterize the commune as s ome sort of alcoholic orgie.

[Rosa Provokateur]

In reality, the only boring thing is Crimethinc's stale and poorly plagiarised rhetoric (some of the better anarchist writers must be turning in their graves). I can't imagine anything more tedious than their idea of "fun".

Plagiarism is a big accusation, got any proof?

[*Red*Alert]

As I've said before, CrimethInc have some useful guides and material on there site. But their whole ethos seems to be very individual-life stylist leaderless teenage rebellion rather than any set principles or thought out strategy.

But then they never claimed to be a Movement or any type of organisation other than in name.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Well romanticism as a movement came with the disillusionment of radicals following the French Revolution. Generally similar ideas take hold when a revolution has failed - like people turning to new-age spiritualism or christian cults for answers when the 60s movements began to fail.

I think crimethink type politics are similar. Ultimately it is pessimistic and comes from the idea that mass political movements and change are impossible. The underlying assumption is that the system can't be taken on and so we need to find ways to create bubbles of liberation within the system.

I think pranks and stealing are fun and I have nothing inherently against these things - I do have a problem with counterpoising these things with real working class organization and mass challenges to the system.

True and post-Leftist romanticism can ONLY mean one thing: the Left has failed if not become a source of disillusion.

I'll agree that crimethinc doesnt have long-term planning but atleast it's doing something; a crimethinc building bubbles of libertion beats a Left claiming to challenge the State and doing anything but.

The Left HAS no working class organization and presents NO challenges to the system except in theoretical terms. It hasnt concretely been a fighting force since the 60's and is in no place to judge those of us who are active, regardless if we're middle-class or not.

[Rosa Provokateur]

but then they never claimed to be a movement or any type of organisation other than in name.

this is what everyone seems to miss!

[The Ungovernable Farce]

True and post-Leftist romanticism can ONLY mean one thing: the Left has failed if not become a source of disillusion.
Um, no. I agree that the trad left has failed and become a source of disillusionment, but that's not the only possible explanation for post-leftist romanticism. Even if the left was worthwhile and successful, some people still might not like it and prefer lifestylism.

I'll agree that crimethinc doesnt have long-term planning but atleast it's doing something; a crimethinc building bubbles of libertion beats a Left claiming to challenge the State and doing anything but.
But a crimethinc claiming to build bubbles of liberation and failing to do so is no better than a Left claiming to challenge the State and doing anything but.

The Left HAS no working class organization and presents NO challenges to the system except in theoretical terms. It hasnt concretely been a fighting force since the 60's and is in no place to judge those of us who are active, regardless if we're middle-class or not.
But as an active ultra-leftist, I'm happy to judge lifestylism as being useless.

[Delirium]

Homeless people who eat of of dumpsters are upper class?

I thought class was based on your relation to the means of production.


the situationists must be rolling in their graves. also the communards, when a bunch of smelly hippies characterize the commune as s ome sort of alcoholic orgie

Crimethinc events are alcohol free.

I dont think that it is the "smelly hippies" who are mischaracterizing communes either.

[griffjam]

Fill in the blanks according to your infighting needs. Guaranteed to provoke endless sectarian bickering wherever applied! Not for use with mutual aid, constructive criticism, or intelligent debate. Keep out of reach of those freshly exposed to radicalism. For best results, apply in conjunction with extended internet use.


Once again, another ___(1) from ___(2). Will these ___(3) ___s(4) ever cease spewing their brainless endorsements of ___(5)? Perhaps ___(6), but that doesn’t justify their descent into total ___(7). As usual, they equate ___(8) with ___(9), deviously misrepresenting the case for ___(10). But from ___(11) to ___(12), we’ve seen that all who espouse ___(13) end up ___(14). Those who deny the centrality of ___(15) will always end up serving the enemies of ___(16); any intelligent ___(17) must concede that there is no ___(18) but the ___(19) ___(18, again). Instead of learning from their mistakes and profiting from the criticism of those more intelligent than them, these misguided ___s(20) persist in ___(21). How any principled ___(22) could still consider them to be part of the ___(22, again) milieu in the first place is inexplicable. ___(23) and ___(24) will never change the world, and neither will ___(25) ___s(26). The kind of ___(27) professed by ___(2, again) only alienates ___(28). As ___(29) once said, only a ___(30) made up of ___(31) ___(32) can possess the ___(33) ___(34) necessary for the triumph of ___(35). ALL ___(36) TO THE ___(37)! ___(38) ___(39)! FOR ___(16, again) AND ___(10, again)!


1. Project or undertaking
2. Adversary of choice
3. Synonym for “privileged”
4. Invented category (e.g., “lifestyle anarchists,” “organizationalists”)
5. Noun with “ism” fastened incongruously on the end
6. Statement of obvious fact
7. Deplorable or untenable philosophical position
8. Worthwhile activity
9. Indefensible activity
10. Ideological position ending in “ism”
11. Distant historical event or era
12. Recent historical event, identified only by the name of the city in which it took place
13. Invented creed (referring back to “4,” above)
14. Gerund signifying unconscionable lifestyle choice (e.g., “working on Wall Street”)
15. One aspect of current human relations (e.g., “the market,” “gender”)
16. Abstraction guaranteed to receive applause
17. Synonym for “person”
18. Synonym for “struggle”
19. Adjective relating to “15,” above (e.g., “economic,” “sexual”)
20. Insulting noun
21. Gerund phrase signifying particularly barbarous and stupid behavior (e.g., “running with scissors,” “conflating Marx’s critique of capital with Hegel’s phenomenology of the spirit”)
22. Noun ending in “ist,” signifying a believer in one’s faith of choice
23. Embarrassing activity
24. Pointless activity
25. Insulting adjective
26. Insulting noun
27. Synonym for “nonsense”
28. Social demographic one glorifies above all others
29. Man whose analytical writings or military deeds are more widely known than his sexism and pomposity
30. Synonym for “army”
31. Adjective denoting the quality one most prefers in one’s followers or employees
32. Member of “28,” above
33. Adjective sure to be incomprehensible to readers (e.g., “ontological”)
34. Synonym for “force”
35. Some group, doctrine, or state of a≠airs that, should it gain ascendancy, will sow misery for generations to come (e.g., “communism,” “wild nature”)
36. Noun denoting something one wants all for oneself (e.g., “power”)
37. Front group or abstraction representing oneself
38. Imperative verb associated with violence (e.g., “smash,” “destroy,” “abolish”)
39. Abstraction with negative associations

[Rosa Provokateur]

fill in the blanks according to your infighting needs. Guaranteed to provoke endless sectarian bickering wherever applied! Not for use with mutual aid, constructive criticism, or intelligent debate. Keep out of reach of those freshly exposed to radicalism. For best results, apply in conjunction with extended internet use.


Once again, another ___(1) from ___(2). Will these ___(3) ___s(4) ever cease spewing their brainless endorsements of ___(5)? Perhaps ___(6), but that doesn’t justify their descent into total ___(7). As usual, they equate ___(8) with ___(9), deviously misrepresenting the case for ___(10). But from ___(11) to ___(12), we’ve seen that all who espouse ___(13) end up ___(14). Those who deny the centrality of ___(15) will always end up serving the enemies of ___(16); any intelligent ___(17) must concede that there is no ___(18) but the ___(19) ___(18, again). Instead of learning from their mistakes and profiting from the criticism of those more intelligent than them, these misguided ___s(20) persist in ___(21). How any principled ___(22) could still consider them to be part of the ___(22, again) milieu in the first place is inexplicable. ___(23) and ___(24) will never change the world, and neither will ___(25) ___s(26). The kind of ___(27) professed by ___(2, again) only alienates ___(28). As ___(29) once said, only a ___(30) made up of ___(31) ___(32) can possess the ___(33) ___(34) necessary for the triumph of ___(35). All ___(36) to the ___(37)! ___(38) ___(39)! For ___(16, again) and ___(10, again)!


1. Project or undertaking
2. Adversary of choice
3. Synonym for “privileged”
4. Invented category (e.g., “lifestyle anarchists,” “organizationalists”)
5. Noun with “ism” fastened incongruously on the end
6. Statement of obvious fact
7. Deplorable or untenable philosophical position
8. Worthwhile activity
9. Indefensible activity
10. Ideological position ending in “ism”
11. Distant historical event or era
12. Recent historical event, identified only by the name of the city in which it took place
13. Invented creed (referring back to “4,” above)
14. Gerund signifying unconscionable lifestyle choice (e.g., “working on wall street”)
15. One aspect of current human relations (e.g., “the market,” “gender”)
16. Abstraction guaranteed to receive applause
17. Synonym for “person”
18. Synonym for “struggle”
19. Adjective relating to “15,” above (e.g., “economic,” “sexual”)
20. Insulting noun
21. Gerund phrase signifying particularly barbarous and stupid behavior (e.g., “running with scissors,” “conflating marx’s critique of capital with hegel’s phenomenology of the spirit”)
22. Noun ending in “ist,” signifying a believer in one’s faith of choice
23. Embarrassing activity
24. Pointless activity
25. Insulting adjective
26. Insulting noun
27. Synonym for “nonsense”
28. Social demographic one glorifies above all others
29. Man whose analytical writings or military deeds are more widely known than his sexism and pomposity
30. Synonym for “army”
31. Adjective denoting the quality one most prefers in one’s followers or employees
32. Member of “28,” above
33. Adjective sure to be incomprehensible to readers (e.g., “ontological”)
34. Synonym for “force”
35. Some group, doctrine, or state of a≠airs that, should it gain ascendancy, will sow misery for generations to come (e.g., “communism,” “wild nature”)
36. Noun denoting something one wants all for oneself (e.g., “power”)
37. Front group or abstraction representing oneself
38. Imperative verb associated with violence (e.g., “smash,” “destroy,” “abolish”)
39. Abstraction with negative associations

best post ever, ever.

[Dean]

Can't you find a shorter way to say that you are a Capitalist?

That quote you attribute to Stalin in your siggy is actually a quote by V. Lenin.

[Ele'ill]

You know it's true. Otherwise, why does everyone cringe when you say the word? Why has attendance at your anarcho-communist theory discussion group meetings fallen to an all-time low? Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?

Perhaps, after years of struggling to educate them about their victimhood, you have come to blame them for their condition. They must want to be ground under the heel of capitalist imperialism; otherwise, why do they show no interest in your political causes? Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?

The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control. They know that your infighting, your splinter groups and endless quarrels over ephemeral theories can never effect any real change in the world they experience from day to day. They know that no matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the content of their lives will remain the same. They—we—know that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real transformation of life. For our lives are boring enough already!

And you know it too. For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing? Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation? Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do? Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not) to get in trouble with the authorities, to get arrested: not because it will practically serve your cause, but to make things more exciting, to recapture a little of the romance of turbulent times now long past. Have you ever felt that you were participating in a ritual, a long-established tradition of fringe protest, that really serves only to strengthen the position of the mainstream? Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?

It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics. For in fact, there is nothing more important than politics. NOT the politics of American "democracy" and law, of who is elected state legislator to sign the same bills and perpetuate the same system. Not the politics of the "I got involved with the radical left because I enjoy quibbling over trivial details and writing rhetorically about an unreachable utopia" anarchist. Not the politics of any leader or ideology that demands that you make sacrifices for "the cause." But the politics of our everyday lives. When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant. Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things. When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium. When you make politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, a dreadful responsibility, it becomes just another weight upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people. And thus you ruin the idea of politics for the people to whom it should be most important. For everyone has a stake in considering their lives, in asking themselves what they want out of life and how they can get it. But you make politics look to them like a miserable, self-referential, pointless middle class/bohemian game, a game with no relevance to the real lives they are living out.

What should be political? Whether we enjoy what we do to get food and shelter. Whether we feel like our daily interactions with our friends, neighbors, and coworkers are fulfilling. Whether we have the opportunity to live each day the way we desire to. And "politics" should consist not of merely discussing these questions, but of acting directly to improve our lives in the immediate present. Acting in a way that is itself entertaining, exciting, joyous—because political action that is tedious, tiresome, and oppressive can only perpetuate tedium, fatigue, and oppression in our lives. No more time should be wasted debating over issues that will be irrelevant when we must go to work again the next day. No more predictable ritual protests that the authorities know all too well how to deal with; no more boring ritual protests which will not sound like a thrilling way to spend a Saturday afternoon to potential volunteers—clearly, those won't get us anywhere. Never again shall we "sacrifice ourselves for the cause." For we ourselves, happiness in our own lives and the lives of our fellows, must be our cause!

After we make politics relevant and exciting, the rest will follow. But from a dreary, merely theoretical and/or ritualized politics, nothing valuable can follow. This is not to say that we should show no interest in the welfare of humans, animals, or ecosystems that do not contact us directly in our day to day existence. But the foundation of our politics must be concrete: it must be immediate, it must be obvious to everyone why it is worth the effort, it must be fun in itself. How can we do positive things for others if we ourselves do not enjoy our own lives?

To make this concrete for a moment: an afternoon of collecting food from businesses that would have thrown it away and serving it to hungry people and people who are tired of working to pay for food—that is good political action, but only if you enjoy it. If you do it with your friends, if you meet new friends while you're doing it, if you fall in love or trade funny stories or just feel proud to have helped a woman by easing her financial needs, that's good political action. On the other hand, if you spend the afternoon typing an angry letter to an obscure leftist tabloid objecting to a columnist's use of the term "anarcho-syndicalist," that's not going to accomplish shit, and you know it.

Perhaps it is time for a new word for "politics," since you have made such a swear word out of the old one. For no one should be put off when we talk about acting together to improve our lives. And so we present to you our demands, which are non-negotiable, and must be met as soon as possible—because we're not going to live forever, are we?

1. Make politics relevant to our everyday experience of life again. The farther away the object of our political concern, the less it will mean to us, the less real and pressing it will seem to us, and the more wearisome politics will be.

2. All political activity must be joyous and exciting in itself. You cannot escape from dreariness with more dreariness.

3. To accomplish those first two steps, entirely new political approaches and methods must be created. The old ones are outdated, outmoded. Perhaps they were NEVER any good, and that's why our world is the way it is now.

4. Enjoy yourselves! There is never any excuse for being bored . . . or boring!

Join us in making the "revolution" a game; a game played for the highest stakes of all, but a joyous, carefree game nonetheless!

http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/days/asfuck.php



:thumbup:

[yuon]

Meh, apparently I haven't posted in this thread yet. Here's a thing, no one has answered the questions raised in the OP, and stated again on the second page.

"Why has the oppressed proletariat not come to its senses and joined you in your fight for world liberation?"

"Why haven't they joined you yet in chaining yourself to mahogany furniture, chanting slogans at carefully planned and orchestrated protests, and frequenting anarchist bookshops? Why haven't they sat down and learned all the terminology necessary for a genuine understanding of the complexities of Marxist economic theory?"

Now, I just finished reading some memoirs from a "philosophical anarchist" (http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/357063) from the late 1920s through to the Second World War. As you would expect, there was a lot of discussion about socialism, worker's rights etc. (This individual was involved in a lot of organisations, including a thingy "Against War and Fascism".)

It was all quite interesting. One thing that struck me though, was how little progress had actually been made to getting rid of capitalism since then. I mean, you would think that maybe, just maybe, capitalism might be a bit weaker after the 70 years since the state of WW2. Except, to me, it looks like it's still going strong, and the "workers" still haven't got up and joined en masse a revolutionary organisation.

So, you've got to forgive those who think that maybe the "left" has failed, for thinking that maybe it's time for a change, to try something different.