griffjam
13th April 2010, 03:37
What follows is a response to "The Politics of Impatience: An open letter from anarchists to the anarchist movement", originally found on Libcom and so graciously contributed to Anarchist News. This introduction should also read as a disclaimer: fighting on the internet isn't going to solve any of the problems facing us today. We address our problems in the street. We spent an hour writing this not with the naive hope that it is part of a constructive dialogue, but as a response to an absurd article designed to isolate and deride anarchists who actually do the damn thing.
The Politics of Impotence
That you are losing control, this much is certain. Your grasp on the throat of social conflict is loosening. The younger generation, we don't care about your 95 year long zine writing careers, your expensive-ass books about people struggling in some hot-ass country somewhere, or your pretensions of understanding, after decades of participating in a failure, the one true path to revolution.
We don't have the answers either, of course, but we don't need to name every guest speaker at Bluestockings to feel better about it.
What is the purpose of an anarchist petition against the actions of a group of anarchists? Is it an honest attempt at creating an open dialogue between two sides? We don't think so. What transpired here was an attempt to coerce compliance to the old leftist dogma through force of capital. Social capital, of course, exemplified in all the name-dropping of anarcho-nobodies and their 40 years of activism, but also capital in a more real sense: the power one gains through the mass production of their writings, of their name being seen on bookshelves in the comfortable living rooms of homes across America.
That you quoted perhaps the most sorry-ass article ever written by Crimethinc is shameful.
What actually transpired on March 4 doesn't seem to concern you. That the fight started when a member of the ISO hit an anarchist with a drum is seemingly inconsequential.
We are alarmed by how quickly an insult can become a "rape threat" when spoken from the mouth of a black man. Like us, he too was subject to the all-too-familiar schizophrenia of white eroticization. To you I have only one question: Are we rapists or innocent "POC" waiting to be led? Make up your damn minds.
None of this, of course, matters to you. What matters is your ability to, by any means, regain control over the elements of the social struggle that have become, from your assessment, uncontrollable.
What kind of positive dialogue did you really expect to have with an internet call-out? Your petition further emboldens the authoritatarian ISO by painting them as heroic victims while simultaneously marginalizing the anarchist hooligans. Arguing about this kind of shit through public mediums only encourages our enemies who see our divisiveness as weakness.
We understand our divergent opinions to be our strength, however, anyone who wants to publicly berate anarchists while siding with authoritarians can eat our black asses.
Of course your petition isn't really about what happened at Hunter on March 4. It's about the attempt of the washed up has-beens of anarchy making a final attempt to assert their dominance by doing all they can to suppress the more exciting side of struggle.
We don't all need to participate in the same tactics, but aligning with statists over anarchists is a disgrace we cannot forgive. That you would even use the word "vanguardist" to describe anarchists in a petition written to defend the International Socialist Organization is beyond manipulative. You disgust us; we are embarassed not by you, but for you.
Signed,
Nostalgia
Alfonso
(Two black motherfuckers in San Francisco)
PS- Chris Crass, nigga you were in the orange vest after Oscar Grant's murder trying to prevent the riot. Fuck all y'all.
The Politics of Impotence
That you are losing control, this much is certain. Your grasp on the throat of social conflict is loosening. The younger generation, we don't care about your 95 year long zine writing careers, your expensive-ass books about people struggling in some hot-ass country somewhere, or your pretensions of understanding, after decades of participating in a failure, the one true path to revolution.
We don't have the answers either, of course, but we don't need to name every guest speaker at Bluestockings to feel better about it.
What is the purpose of an anarchist petition against the actions of a group of anarchists? Is it an honest attempt at creating an open dialogue between two sides? We don't think so. What transpired here was an attempt to coerce compliance to the old leftist dogma through force of capital. Social capital, of course, exemplified in all the name-dropping of anarcho-nobodies and their 40 years of activism, but also capital in a more real sense: the power one gains through the mass production of their writings, of their name being seen on bookshelves in the comfortable living rooms of homes across America.
That you quoted perhaps the most sorry-ass article ever written by Crimethinc is shameful.
What actually transpired on March 4 doesn't seem to concern you. That the fight started when a member of the ISO hit an anarchist with a drum is seemingly inconsequential.
We are alarmed by how quickly an insult can become a "rape threat" when spoken from the mouth of a black man. Like us, he too was subject to the all-too-familiar schizophrenia of white eroticization. To you I have only one question: Are we rapists or innocent "POC" waiting to be led? Make up your damn minds.
None of this, of course, matters to you. What matters is your ability to, by any means, regain control over the elements of the social struggle that have become, from your assessment, uncontrollable.
What kind of positive dialogue did you really expect to have with an internet call-out? Your petition further emboldens the authoritatarian ISO by painting them as heroic victims while simultaneously marginalizing the anarchist hooligans. Arguing about this kind of shit through public mediums only encourages our enemies who see our divisiveness as weakness.
We understand our divergent opinions to be our strength, however, anyone who wants to publicly berate anarchists while siding with authoritarians can eat our black asses.
Of course your petition isn't really about what happened at Hunter on March 4. It's about the attempt of the washed up has-beens of anarchy making a final attempt to assert their dominance by doing all they can to suppress the more exciting side of struggle.
We don't all need to participate in the same tactics, but aligning with statists over anarchists is a disgrace we cannot forgive. That you would even use the word "vanguardist" to describe anarchists in a petition written to defend the International Socialist Organization is beyond manipulative. You disgust us; we are embarassed not by you, but for you.
Signed,
Nostalgia
Alfonso
(Two black motherfuckers in San Francisco)
PS- Chris Crass, nigga you were in the orange vest after Oscar Grant's murder trying to prevent the riot. Fuck all y'all.