Anti-capitalist "steal something day"

[Adi Shankara]

http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10157

The geniuses at Adbusters have managed to create the perfect feel-good, liberal, middle-class activist non-happening. A day when the more money you make, the more influence you have (like every other day). A day which, by definition, is insulting to the millions of people worldwide who are too poor or marginalized to be considered “consumers.”
It’s supposed to be a 24-hour moratorium on spending, but ends up being a moralistic false-debate about whether or not you should really buy that loaf of bread today or … wait for it … tomorrow!
Well, this year, while the Adbusters cult enjoys yet another Buy Nothing Day, accompanied by their fancy posters, stickers, TV and radio advertisements and slick webpages, a few self-described anarcho-situationists from Montreal’s East End are inaugurating Steal Something Day.
Unlike Buy Nothing Day, when people are asked to “participate by not participating,” Steal Something Day demands that we “participate by participating.” Instead of downplaying or ignoring the capitalists, CEOs, landlords, small business tyrants, bosses, PR hacks, yuppies, media lapdogs, corporate bureaucrats, politicians and cops who are primarily responsible for misery and exploitation in this world, Steal Something Day demands that we steal from them, without discrimination.
The Adbusters’ intellegentsia tell us that they’re neither “left nor right,” and have proclaimed a non-ideological crusade against overconsumption. Steal Something Day, on the other hand, identifies with the historic and contemporary resistance against the causes of capitalist exploitation, not its symptoms. If you think overconsumption is scary, wait until you hear about capitalism and imperialism.
Unlike the misplaced Buy Nothing Day notion of consumer empowerment, Steal Something Day promotes empowerment by urging us to collectively identify the greedy bastards who are actually responsible for promoting misery and boredom in this world. Instead of ignoring them, Steal Something Day encourages us to make their lives as uncomfortable as possible.
As we like to say in Montreal: diranger les riches dans leurs niches!
And remember, we’re talking about stealing, not theft. Stealing is just. Theft is exploitative. Stealing is when you take a yuppie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mercedes just for the hell of it. Theft is when you take candy from a baby’s mouth.
Stealing is the re-distribution of wealth from rich to poor Theft is making profits at the expense of the disadvantaged and the natural environment. Stealing is an unwritten a tax on the rich. Theft is taxing the poor to subsidize the rich. Stealing is nothing more than a tax on the rich. There is solidarity in stealing, but property is nothing but theft.
So, don’t pay for that corporate newspaper, but steal all of them from the box. Get some friends together and go on a “shoplifting “spree at the local chain supermarket or upscale mall. With an even larger mob, get together and steal from the local chain book or record store. Pilfer purses and wallets from easily identified yuppies and business persons. Skip out on rent. Get a credit card under a fake name and don’t pay. Keep what you can use, and give away everything else in the spirit of mutual aid that is the hallmark of Steal Something Day.
Download our detourned poster http://tao.ca/~lombrenoire, make copies and stick it up wherever you can. And don’t forget, send your scamming and stealing tips to us at [email protected]
See you next Steal Something Day which, unlike Buy Nothing, happens every day of the year.


interesting. now I know it's a critique of "buy nothing day", but I bet if you actually did turn this into an annual day, you could create alot of seeds of discontent in the heart of capitalism.

what say ye?

[Terminator X]

Don't people steal shit every day? Even if a few more people stole a few more things on this particular day, I don't think it would make much of a difference at all.

Interesting in theory, but it seems this was written by a couple of idealistic, overzealous teenagers. All "skipping out on rent" is going to do is get people evicted.

[Adi Shankara]

Don't people steal shit every day? Even if a few more people stole a few more things on this particular day, I don't think it would make much of a difference at all.

Interesting in theory though.

Not en masse, all at once though. I guess it could be called "rioting", but it has to be done in a quiet, mock sneakingly way.

[Terminator X]

Not en masse, all at once though. I guess it could be called "rioting", but it has to be done in a quiet, mock sneakingly way.

I guess I'm not a big fan of causing mass havoc "just for the hell of it," as this action suggests:

"Stealing is when you take a yuppie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mercedes just for the hell of it."

Is this getting a message of anti-capitalism across loud and clear, or is the yuppie just going to get his car fixed, or better yet just buy a new car, putting more profit into the hands of corporations?

[Sir Comradical]

As a capitalist, I will now spend my next stoner-session thinking about ways to create a market for disillusioned youth wanting to assert their anti-capitalist rebelliousness. What can I sell them? Hmmm...are designer label molotov cocktails covered under the second amendment? Yes they are! Come on think now...these rebellious youths will definitely target banks, so maybe we should lobby the government to permit a new layer of derivatives trading allowing investors to bet against the changes in share prices caused by physical attacks on banks!!

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

As a capitalist, I will now spend my next stoner-session thinking about ways to create a market for disillusioned youth wanting to assert their anti-capitalist rebelliousness. What can I sell them? Hmmm...are designer label molotov cocktails covered under the second amendment? Yes they are! Come on think now...these rebellious youths will definitely target banks, so maybe we should lobby the government to permit a new layer of derivatives trading allowing investors to bet against the changes in share prices caused by physical attacks on banks!!

I bet 1000 Quatloos on HSBC having a bank burnt down soon.

[stella2010]

put a solar panel on your roof.

[Serge's Fist]

'Steal something day' replicates the atomised relationships of capitalist consumption. It is not promoting the idea of collective action to seize property and run society, but for individuals, probably student or drop out types to go and indulge themselves in something that is very damaging to working class communities. You have to be living in a pretty good neighbourhood to be able to go and "take a yuppie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mercedes"....

[chegitz guevara]

Loot something day, then.

[fa2991]

And here I was thinking the left had grown out of Abbie Hoffman's bullshit.

[bricolage]

You have to be living in a pretty good neighbourhood to be able to go and "take a yuppie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mercedes"....

Not really, you just have to go to the yuppie neighbourhood and find the BMW.

[chegitz guevara]

And here I was thinking the left had grown out of Abbie Hoffman's bullshit.

Why would you think that? Have you paid any attention to anarchism?

[bricolage]

Why would you think that? Have you paid any attention to anarchism?

anarchist heart smashing stuff

[Ele'ill]

Oh yes, instead of something fun we should have a dress up like lenin day and recite boring shit that nobody cares about outside of niche internet forums.

Not militant enough?

Let's have a seize a police station day or an occupy a bank day. :rolleyes:

That wouldn't get ANYBODY killed.


What a lot of you don't seem to understand is that people need to be able to relate to new systems of doing things- they need experience that isn't going to overwhelm them- they need an event that will get them interested.

[Prairie Fire]

Okay, so.... How is this anti-capitalist?

I know a few people have touched upon the same criticisms already, and to be fair the critiques of ad-busters' petty bourgeois bullshit certainly are valid.

But, how is this anti-capitalist?

Robbing the bourgeoisie, under the pretext of making the rich pay, is flawed logic, because losses suffered by the rich always travel down the chain. If a mass coordinated shoplifting spree on a store actually jacked enough shit to cause a dip in the profit margins, that would simply mean that it was time for the store in question to do some downsizing, for the workers to be forced into a paycut, etc.

If the action was succesful enough on a national/international scale to actually threaten a large buisness with bankruptcy, then that buisness would most likely recieve a "bail out" in the form of funding from the bourgeois state from public funds.

Basically, even if these actions were succesful, one has to remember that it is the working class who will shoulder the full brunt of any attacks on their employers.

The next question is, what happens the day after 'steal something day' ?

As near as I can figure, nothing.

There is still a class society, still exploited and exploiters, and all the shops that were the target of this petty theft are still in the hands of the ownership class.

Capitalism survives without a scratch on it.

I've always been perplexed by the Anarchist ideological rationalization/ fetishizing of petty theft. Basically, it seemed to me that many of these individuals were shoplifters anyways, with a history of shop lifting before they were politcized, who have tried to politically justify their petty theft with flimsy rationalizations of revolutionary validity.

"We're taking from the bourgeoisie, so it is anti-capitalist".

As usual, this tactic also shows aversion to the working class, rather appealing to the individualism of the petty bourgeoisie through the 'tactics' of the Lumpenproletariat.

For all of their criticisms of the "feel good" actions advocated by ad busters, how is this anything less than "feel good" frivolity? It does not change the conditions of the working class (besides encouraging them to temporarily increase their immediate position on an individual basis, by swiping small consumer items), does not do anything towards emancipating from their fate, and does not do anything to organize the exploited ( even their appeals to gather a "mob" are still appeals to approach the situation as a band of loosely affiliated individuals, each with their own agenda, not as an organization with a program and a common objective)...

At the end, it doesn't challenge class society, it simply temporarily benefits at it's expense, and then later politically intellectualizes the garden variety kleptomania and juvenile delinquincy that allready characterizes masses of petty-bourgeois youth.

Even as part of a larger program, this action is unnecessary and childish. If a revolutionary organization were making expropriations for the purpose of sustaining their forces, in the context of a larger armed struggle, this is a completely different tactic.

In the meantime, this particular tactic is as apolitical as it is impotent.

Thomas_Sankara :

Not en masse, all at once though. I guess it could be called "rioting", but it has to be done in a quiet, mock sneakingly way. But that is the thing though; "rioting" (another tactic that is promoted by the juvenile left) does not result in working class emancipation or any change in the relations of the system. Basically a riot is simply a revolution, minus the politics or the political enfranchisment that is supposed to result from it, so it simply becomes an explosion of misdirected rage that ultimately has no qualitative gains or anything tangible to show for itself except pointless destruction.

The working class doesn't need a "riot"; Fucking drunken sports fans riot.

The working class needs a revolution.

DJ Animosity:


Is this getting a message of anti-capitalism across loud and clear, or is the yuppie just going to get his car fixed, or better yet just buy a new car, putting more profit into the hands of corporations?While I agreed with a lot of your criticism, at the end it is unfortunate that you chose to make the distinction between "corporate" capital and petty bourgeois capital. Both are forms of the same system of exploitation, only on a different scale of size.

In the future, I would abandon criticisms of "corporations", because the unspoken implication is that non-incorporated capitalism is an improvement, or at least a lesser evil (it is also ahistorical, because all "corporate" capitalist entities were once small, mom and pop capitalist entities. The petty bourgeoisie, under favourable circumstances, metamorphises into the big bourgeoisie).

Mari3L:

Oh yes, instead of something fun ...Something fun.

Apolitical petty-bourgeois individualism encapsulated.

I won't argue that rioting and jacking anything that you can get your sticky fingers on are probably both "fun".

But are they revolutionary? Are they anti-Capitalist?

Will they ultimately result in emancpation and the end to exploitation of the worlds people?



we should have a dress up like lenin day and recite boring shit that nobody cares aboutHooray for hyperbole and cartoonish 2-dimensional characterizations of more useful political trends and organizations!


outside of niche internet forums.... says a persyn who posts on a niche internet forum.

I love it when people on revleft act like they are above it, but continue to post here anyways.


Not militant enough?

Let's have a seize a police station day or an occupy a bank day. http://www.revleft.com/vb/../../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

That wouldn't get ANYBODY killed.If you're squeamish about the prospect of death and violence in general, I would question how, exactly, you see the status quo being ultimately dethroned.

As far as unnecessary deaths, while I would agree that adventuristic tactics like you mentioned for your example are still above the level of struggle, organization and class-consciousness/social-consciousness prevailant in North America.

That said, you juxtapose adventurism to shop lifting, as though these are the only two options.
Nowhere is tangible organization of the working class mentioned, or even hinted at.


What a lot of you don't seem to understand is that people need to be able to relate to new systems of doing things
So, shop lifting is more than just a tactical manouver(if that) ; it is practical training for the new society that revolutionary socialists hope to bring into being?

Erm, How so?



they need an event that will get them interested. Because organizing people around achieving their own objectives will have no appeal to them what-so-ever. :rolleyes:

Organizing workers to strike for their own sake, organizing oppressed national groups to assert their own soveriegnty, organizing demographics that are discriminated against to counter this discrimination that plagues them... basically,organizing people to solve their problems that afflict them on a daily basis, and articulating to them politically the roots of said problems and demonstrating this through onging work....

This organizing on a tangible and practical basis is less appealing than telling people to go stuff their pockets at Walmart, and "do it for the revolution"?

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I prefer to call it liberating, not stealing. Also I think Abbie Hoffman was fucking awesome. The people's chemistry section of steal this book was some of the best shit I've ever read! If you fail with mace, there is always LACE!

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10157


interesting. now I know it's a critique of "buy nothing day", but I bet if you actually did turn this into an annual day, you could create alot of seeds of discontent in the heart of capitalism.

what say ye?

You can't destroy capitalism like that. No, you can only do it by quoting Lenin and handing out the vanguardist paper of the day at your highschool...

[Weezer]

hey look i'm infantile

[Prairie Fire]

You can't destroy capitalism like that. No, you can only do it by quoting Lenin and handing out the vanguardist paper of the day at your highschool...

Again, this is that fallacious argument where a persyn has to choose between shoplifting and your own 2-dimensional stawmyn characterizations of Marxist-Leninists (you, of all people, should know better).

And, for the record, distributing a newspaper (even a really juvenile and unactionable one) is still much more conscious and useful towards working class emancipation than petty theft. A newspaper is informative, disiminates political lines, provides concrete political orientation on current events, and ultimately helps to activate class consciousness.

Shop lifting simply temporarily increases your persynal assets, and nothing more.

Call it "liberating" if you like. It doesn't change the objectively juvenile, apolitical and ultimately useless nature of petty theft to revolutionary emancipation.

[Adi Shankara]

Again, this is that fallacious argument where a persyn has to choose between shoplifting and your own 2-dimensional stawmyn characterizations of Marxist-Leninists (you, of all people, should know better).

And, for the record, distributing a newspaper (even a really juvenile and unactionable one) is still much more conscious and useful towards working class emancipation than petty theft. A newspaper is informative, disiminates political lines, provides concrete political orientation on current events, and ultimately helps to activate class consciousness.

Shop lifting simply temporarily increases your persynal assets, and nothing more.

Call it "liberating" if you like. It doesn't change the objectively juvenile, apolitical and ultimately useless nature of petty theft to revolutionary emancipation.

You say it's Juvenile, then you proceed to spell every word with a "man" or "son" in the middle with a "y?" wtf

[this is an invasion]

Ok for real, stealing is awesome. Yes, there are problems with "Steal Something Day." Like the fact that people steal regularly anyway.

What I don't get though, is why some self-described communists may be against things like people collectively not paying rent or using scams to get the things they need. No one is claiming these things on their own are revolutionary, but I would think communists would be for people organizing, realizing their collective strength, and doing things that could ease financial strain and emotional stress from having to work all the time.


Also, everyone that is quoting that bit about stealing a BMW and crashing it into a Mercedes. Please stop being dense. First of all, stealing a car doesn't mean you're in any position of privilege. Second, I think it's pretty obvious that it wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously (although it would be sick if people started doing that).

[Os Cangaceiros]

later doods, I'm off to shoplift a Twix bar for the revolution.

[Ele'ill]

I know a few people have touched upon the same criticisms already, and to be fair the critiques of ad-busters' petty bourgeois bullshit certainly are valid.

Adbusters is a good magazine.

When you attack everything that moves you don't really leave yourself much to work with.

We're not post revolution.







If the action was succesful enough on a national/international scale to actually threaten a large buisness with bankruptcy, then that buisness would most likely recieve a "bail out" in the form of funding from the bourgeois state from public funds.

It isn't about the event being a sweeping militant action that will win physical victories it's about getting people involved.







But are they revolutionary? Are they anti-Capitalist?

Not every part of an anti-capitalist solution needs to be hammered from an anvil.


Do neither of these include externalities or 'fringe' or are we reading from some book or instruction manual that I don't know about?


Will they ultimately result in emancpation and the end to exploitation of the worlds people?

Will any of the tactics currently being used lead to it?



Hooray for hyperbole and cartoonish 2-dimensional characterizations of more useful political trends and organizations!

... says a persyn who posts on a niche internet forum.

I love it when people on revleft act like they are above it, but continue to post here anyways.

I never criticized the act of posting on an internet forum. I criticized the niche groups that tend to congregate. It was more of an observation than anything else.

Sorry I touched such an obvious sore spot with you, Lenin.



If you're squeamish about the prospect of death and violence in general, I would question how, exactly, you see the status quo being ultimately dethroned.

I'm squeamish about incompetence taking over the left in the form of branding through imagery- i.e. riot porn.



That said, you juxtapose adventurism to shop lifting, as though these are the only two options.
Nowhere is tangible organization of the working class mentioned, or even hinted at.

I said it gets people involved and It gets people thinking.

Most people don't think about the working class and organization on a daily basis- how do we start?

With ideas and actions they can relate to.

I'm not advocating this specific event as the end all solution- in fact- I agree that this type of thing needs to be immediately complimented with an understanding of real issues- but this type of event and the idea behind it can be used as a valuable tool.

If 300 people in a city are organized to help squat foreclosed homes and sit-in with the 'former' owners I think it's great. I'm sure a lot of those people would be doing it for a definite fun factor as well as a it makes them feel good.

It means nothing unless there's education behind it.


So, shop lifting is more than just a tactical manouver(if that) ; it is practical training for the new society that revolutionary socialists hope to bring into being?

People need a way in. A lot of people already do it but they don't understand its significance.

When your house or apartment is taken from you in conjunction to whatever else is going on in your life at the time- stealing food becomes an option.

There's a lot of guilt in people doing it because they have to- there shouldn't be any guilt.




Because organizing people around achieving their own objectives will have no appeal to them what-so-ever. :rolleyes:

Organizing workers to strike for their own sake, organizing oppressed national groups to assert their own soveriegnty, organizing demographics that are discriminated against to counter this discrimination that plagues them... basically,organizing people to solve their problems that afflict them on a daily basis, and articulating to them politically the roots of said problems and demonstrating this through onging work....

This organizing on a tangible and practical basis is less appealing than telling people to go stuff their pockets at Walmart, and "do it for the revolution"?

Yeah, I think you might agree then with the example of houses being taken and people helping to defend the owners.

I don't immediately disagree.


A favorite tactic of some people on this forum is to suggest that when an idea is defended that the person doing so is only for that one idea and that they are violently opposed and not already involved with other ideas (such as organizing workers, organizing demographics that are discriminated against, etc..)

I am in favor of many different tactics being used.

I appreciate new ideas being introduced and tried out- even if I think they will probably suck- because they have the potential to ignite someone's creativity and get something rolling in another direction.

'Buy Nothing Day' wasn't meant to be used as a tactic- it was meant to get those cushy liberals thinking about where their shit comes from. And it worked. Now we need some people willing to follow up and teach them about competent action.

I would encourage workers to think about how to prioritize needs and how to organize their work place. Most leftists wouldn't be against this idea until I gave it a date and a name.

[M-26-7]

I am planning to steal some means of production, who's with me?

[bcbm]

how come whenever anybody talks about rioting or stealing or upper-decking toilets at cocktail parties, the usual weiners of the "traditional" left always go on about how "this isn't ending capitalism!" and a pile of other bullshit, as though anybody were saying that stealing something or busting a window or punching a cop is the end-all, be-all of potential activity. most of the people down for that shit are, get this, also down for organizing and talking to folks and all kinds of other shit. wow!


more useful political trends and organizations

haha don't flatter yourself

[Ele'ill]

Because some tactics have negative consequences for those not involved.


1up









(I'm kidding- it's in reference to the other threads)

[Prairie Fire]

Thomas_Sankara:

You say it's Juvenile, then you proceed to spell every word with a "man" or "son" in the middle with a "y?" wtf Wow, I guess you sure showed me, with the equivalent of a "I know you are, but what am I?" single sentence response.

I responded to the points that you raised in a political way. Offer me the same courtesy, or shut the fuck up.

this is an invasion:


Ok for real, stealing is awesome.Is it also 'gnarly' and 'bodacious'?

Oh, teen politics (or lack therof).

What I don't get though, is why some self-described communists Hey,you are not allowed to be calling other peoples socialist credentials into question, RAANite Brown-shirt.




may be against things like people collectively not paying rent or using scams to get the things they need. There is nothing "collective" about it. It is pure individual action, with individuals refusing to pay rent, and individuals lifting consumer products, rather than any sort of mass organized action to truly emancipate the people from capitalism.

This approach doesn't even attempt to confront or challenge capitalism (let alone change it), and doesn't build the forms of mass workers empowerment, but rather simply encourages lumpen behaviour and petty theft in the place of political mobilization of the masses of people towards achieving their own objectives.



No one is claiming these things on their own are revolutionary,They are not revolutionary in any sense, whether on their own or as part of general action plan (read my previous posts on this thread).


but I would think communists would be for people organizing, realizing their collective strength,How does this constitute organizing? There is nothing organized about it. It is appeals to individual life style actions (ie. petty-theft, refusing to pay rent, etc), and dispenses with mass organizing on a tangible basis.

And how does this help people "realize their collective strength"? Again, it is individualist to the core, with total contempt for collective action.


and doing things that could ease financial strain and emotional stress from having to work all the time.So, we should encourage the Lumpen-ization of the proletariat? We should encourage the working class to cease to be the working class, and simply become parasites in their own right, living off of the fruits of productive forces without operating said productive forces and abandoning their historic role as the producers of all useful things (and with it, the real political power that is currently vested in their hands) ?

There is a wide margin of difference between expropriations by one class of the property of another class, and sticky-fingered pocketing from stores on an individual to individual basis.

If you cared for true liberation, you would call for the overthrow of the system of capitalism, and the current forces of production and distribution made the common property of all in order for the proletariat to receive the rightful fruits of their labour.

Instead, you call for the working class to abandon their productive role (ie not having to "work all the time"), and assume a parasitic existence that rivals that of the bourgeosie, maintaining a leech like existence of banditry and kleptomania which is only detrimental to the parts of the working class who continue to produce for society, and who bear the full brunt of all losses sustained by the bourgeoisie in relation to lumpen petty-theft.

Here is a persynal annecdote:

At one point in my life, I was employed in a liquor store as a clerk.

Two guys came in, were picking out bottles of alcohol, and then grabbed a few and ran out the door. I was behind the counter, and was unable to stop them in time. By the time that I made it to the door, they were both gone, with the stolen goods in hand.

So, those two guys escaped with their booze, and never had to pay for it. Score one for the working class and the revolution, right?

I was fired for the incident.

As a working class persyn, a wage labourer, I bore the penalty of those two ripping off the store. Because I was the clerk, it was in my job description to prevent theft, and so they terminated my employment.

The ownership of the store that I worked at lost practically nothing in the process, save a bottle or two of alcohol that their profit margins could easily handle.

So, two guys drank for free that night, the liquor store didn't even feel a ripple in their profit margins, and I was out of a job a week before the December holiday season.

Score one for the working class.

As I said in previous posts, it is the working class who shoulders all losses in capital and assets by their exploiters. You are therefore not "sticking it to the man" by jacking goods from a store, you are simply bringing down more suffering on the backs of the wage labourers of that location.

Mari3l:

Adbusters is a good magazine.It is petty bourgeois trash, written for equally petty bourgeois trash.


When you attack everything that moves you don't really leave yourself much to work with. I would hardly refer to the organs of disinformation employed by the exploiting classes as "everything that moves".

Incidentally, there are magazines with working class content in existence as well.


We're not post revolution.and we will never get there if parasitic Lumpen petty theft is advanced seriously as a tactic to be adopted by the working class.



It isn't about the event being a sweeping militant action that will win physical victories it's about getting people involved.Involved in what?

Involved in removing themselves from productive roles?

Involved in causing a minor disturbance to bourgeois profit margins that will trickle down upon the heads of the working class?

Involved in frivolous individualist actions that do not undermine capitalism, or even challenge it?

Involve them in the transformation of the domestic working class into a parasitic lumpen proletariat class, that consumes but does not produce?

What the fuck are we involving them in, exactly?


Not every part of an anti-capitalist solution needs to be hammered from an anvil. Obtuse metaphor with no substance, to rationalize "radical" petty-bourgeois individualist hedonism.


Do neither of these include externalities or 'fringe' or are we reading from some book or instruction manual that I don't know about?
What?


Will any of the tactics currently being used lead to it? They can, and historically they have.

Show me a historical precedent where petty theft lead to social transformation, and the overthrow of a dominating class.

You are still rationalizing this "tactic" as though it has any validity or redeeming revolutionary potential. I am taking the standpoint that it has none.


Sorry I touched such an obvious sore spot with you, Lenin.Only to you is that an insult, Monsieur "autonomous" (read: juvenile petty-bourgeois "radical").


I'm squeamish about incompetence taking over the left in the form of branding through imagery- i.e. riot porn.I specifically condemned rioting in my initial post. and I am not making frivolous gung-ho appeals to violence (in my first post, I mention that the level of organization and class consciousness has not yet reached that level in North America).


I said it gets people involved and It gets people thinking. Get's them involved in what? Thinking about what?

Growing up, my brother and all of his friends were shoplifters. Not once did this lead them to the realization that social ownership of the means of production, and the supremacy of the producers, was the order of the day for all humynity!


Most people don't think about the working class and organization on a daily basis- how do we start? By getting them to pocket chocolate bars, I presume? :rolleyes:


With ideas and actions they can relate to. How is petty-theft an action that in any way can not only precipitate a socialist transformation, but can prepare people for their role in said socialist society ( opening a Pandora's box of rampant lumpen behaviour will be hard to close again, after workers control is established, and masses refuse to adopt a productive labour role in the new society, instead favouring living parasitically off of what is produced by others through petty theft and banditry)?


I'm not advocating this specific event as the end all solution- in fact- I agree that this type of thing needs to be immediately complimented with an understanding of real issues- but this type of event and the idea behind it can be used as a valuable tool.
How?

How can petty theft be utilized as a tactic in working class emancipation?


If 300 people in a city are organized to help squat foreclosed homes and sit-in with the 'former' owners I think it's great.We weren't talking about the merits (and detractions) of squatting; we were talking about the absurd concept that petty theft could give way to social emancipation movements, or mobilize people into existing movements.


I'm sure a lot of those people would be doing it for a definite fun factor as well as a it makes them feel good.Persynal hedonism first, effective political tactics later.:rolleyes:

For you, your participation in social emancipation politics is thrill seeking and still thoroughly tainted by your petty bourgeois individualism. You should should see about fixing that.



It means nothing unless there's education behind it.Quit dancing around the issue at hand with indefinite abstracts!

What, if anything, is 'educational' about petty-theft, as far as revolutionary theory and practice is concerned?


People need a way in. A lot of people already do it but they don't understand its significance.
Because it has none.



When your house or apartment is taken from you in conjunction to whatever else is going on in your life at the time- stealing food becomes an option.Stealing to survive is a different thing, and even that is a temporary solution to objective circumstances.

A persyn can steal to eat their entire life, and never leave that spiral or succeed in undermining the system that brought them into poverty and destitution in the first place.

While certainly the lumpenproletariat are a byproduct of the effects of capitalism, that doesn't make their survival by illegal means a "revolutionary" act.



A favorite tactic of some people on this forum is to suggest that when an idea is defended that the person doing so is only for that one idea and that they are violently opposed and not already involved with other ideas (such as organizing workers, organizing demographics that are discriminated against, etc..) I am thoroughly opposing the suggestion that this particular tactic has any revolutionary potential or validity in the least, not accusing my opponents of only supporting a single tactic.

I am debating the proposed tactic at hand. You should also.


I appreciate new ideas being introduced and tried out- even if I think they will probably suck- because they have the potential to ignite someone's creativity and get something rolling in another direction....But not necessarily a revolutionary direction, and this is the issue that you keep dancing around!

Your fetish for class-vague "creativity" on the part of the individual aside, the issue is still whether or not the tactics that are being presented here (ie. shoplifting, petty theft, etc) have any revolutionary potential.

I maintain that they have none.

The issue is not simply to get people "rolling in another direction", but to get them rolling in a revolutionary direction, and not to waste energy, forces, time and resources on useless apolitical pursuits along the way.


Now we need some people willing to follow up and teach them about competent action.Yes, but shoplifting/petty theft doesn't qualify as a "competent action" in the context of revolutionary organizing.



I would encourage workers to think about how to prioritize needs and how to organize their work place. Most leftists wouldn't be against this idea until I gave it a date and a name. First of all, you can't impose a time table on anything until you have done the tangible organizing work to make it happen, and bring forces into being on that date in time.

Second, this "national steal something day" has nothing to do with organizing a work place, and is in fact in opposition to any sort of productive work, trying to mobilize people away from labour (and the political power inherent within it) and into lumpen activity on an individual basis.

M-26-7

I am planning to steal some means of production, who's with me? Expropriating the means of production most certainly is a revolutionary act (in fact, is vital to any revolution), but I would hardly equate that with the 'revolutionary' kleptomania being promoted here on this thread.

[Prairie Fire]

how come whenever anybody talks about rioting or stealing or upper-decking toilets at cocktail parties, the usual weiners of the "traditional" left always go on about how "this isn't ending capitalism!"Oh Noes! The "Traditional" left! Flee the village!

As far as your rhetorical question is concerned, here is the short answer: Because they aren't (ending capitalism).


and a pile of other bullshit, as though anybody were saying that stealing something or busting a window or punching a cop is the end-all, be-all of potential activity.The point is that it while it is an activity, it is not within the scope of revolutionary activity.

Punching a cop and busting a window (outside of the context of a popular revolutionary armed struggle being waged at that time, with defined objectives,), and petty theft do nothing to advance any sort of revolutionary agenda of any kind in any way, in the short of long term.

Punching a cop, while allowing you to live out testosterone-injected Che Guevera complexes, doesn't advance any particular struggle, unless it is in the context of defending another objective in progress.

Anything that does not advance tangible objectives towards working class emancipation should be categorized as an apolitical hobby at best, and should not be seen as anything more.

In terms of usefulness and revolutionary potential in and of itself, I would rate 'breaking a window' somewhere in between 'eating cotton candy' and 'listening to an I-Pod'.

Apolitical hobbies not directly and vitally tied to the tactics of working class emancipation are of no concern to myself or others who are preoccupied with the tactics required for revolution, and in fact they generally manifest as diversions in times of revolutionary action.

Revolutionaries organize for victory, so we tend to reject frivolous hedonistic bullshit.Which part don't you understand?



most of the people down for that shit are, get this, also down for organizing and talking to folks and all kinds of other shit. wow!A lot of people who are down with revolutionary socialism are also open to the idea of getting ice cream; should we treat getting ice cream as a legitimate and valid tactic in the struggle for socialist emancipation?

Whether or not people who engage in frivolous actions are also engaged in genuine organizing is not the issue; the issue is that the frivolous actions are irrelevant to the struggle, and should be regarded as such.

[Adi Shankara]

the amount of name calling you employee to get your meager points across is ridiculous.

P.S: the neologism "Humynity" you've created isn't even pronounced the same way as "Humanity", which shows how far into self-parody you have fallen into in your quest to violate and bastardize the English language. Why do you hate Shakespeare and Webster so much? :crying:

[this is an invasion]

this is an invasion:



Is it also 'gnarly' and 'bodacious'?

Oh, teen politics (or lack therof). Cute ageism. I primarily find stealing to be aesthetically please, not inherently political.

Who the fuck says 'gnarly' or 'bodacious' anymore?



Hey,you are not allowed to be calling other peoples socialist credentials into question, RAANite Brown-shirt.
Damn, that is sexy.



There is nothing "collective" about it. It is pure individual action, with individuals refusing to pay rent, and individuals lifting consumer products, rather than any sort of mass organized action to truly emancipate the people from capitalism. So, can I ask you a serious question? Is reading against your Party's doctrine? Or is the inability to read just a Canadian thing?
'Cause this is what the article said when it brought up not paying rent:

"With an even larger mob, get together and steal from the local chain book or record store. Pilfer purses and wallets from easily identified yuppies and business persons. Skip out on rent."

I dunno about you, but it sounds like it's saying that we should do some things collectively. But it still begs the question of why ya'll "communists" are so against people not paying rent. Do you really respect property rights and landlords that much? Last time I checked, landlords were fucking scum.

And really, the dichotomy between illegalist actions like this and organizing and participating in mass worker action is such a gigantic strawman that I am not entirely sure how people can be so dense as to continue to make it.


This approach doesn't even attempt to confront or challenge capitalism (let alone change it), and doesn't build the forms of mass workers empowerment, but rather simply encourages lumpen behaviour and petty theft in the place of political mobilization of the masses of people towards achieving their own objectives.
lol wat. First of all, it never said this was supposed to be some huge revolutionary thing that was going to emancipate the proletariat. But it was clever of you to try to imply it was saying that so you can say what the rest of us have been saying all along: that it isn't revolutionary, and isn't meant to be revolutionary. But don't worry, I'll let you have this ;)
Second, can you please knock the stupid moralist arguments? Working people steal all the fucking time! There ain't nothin' wrong with petty theft, or grand theft for that matter, unless it is directly taking from another worker. You can argue that stealing is always going to negatively effect other workers because their bosses take losses out of their employees paychecks, but you and I both know that is because bosses are assholes.

Not even going to bother replying to the last part of that section, cause it's just silly.


They are not revolutionary in any sense, whether on their own or as part of general action plan (read my previous posts on this thread).
I think the refusal to pay rent collectively and re-appropriation of commodities are both activities that are going to happen when working people are organized and actively struggling against capitalism.

Nah not gonna read your other posts because you're pretty boring. I'm just responding to what you directly said to me.


How does this constitute organizing? There is nothing organized about it. It is appeals to individual life style actions (ie. petty-theft, refusing to pay rent, etc), and dispenses with mass organizing on a tangible basis.
I dunno, let's look at an apartment building as an example (you know, where a lot of urban workers live). If all of them got together and said "alright, as a group we are not going to pay rent anymore" or "as a group we are all going to pay less rent." Then they act on that, defend each other from the landlord and possible police attacks, and help each other out with things like food and such. Not only is that an organized group of people acting in their self-interest, but it can also lead to a more generalized organizing as those people take those experiences to work with the. But yeah, totally not organized or anything. :rolleyes:


And how does this help people "realize their collective strength"? Again, it is individualist to the core, with total contempt for collective action. The looting of a store or the refusal to pay rent can only be done as an organized of a group of people. When they get together and act as a unified group, they are a lot stronger than if it were one person doing it on their own. There is strength in numbers and such.




So, we should encourage the Lumpen-ization of the proletariat? We should encourage the working class to cease to be the working class, and simply become parasites in their own right, living off of the fruits of productive forces without operating said productive forces and abandoning their historic role as the producers of all useful things (and with it, the real political power that is currently vested in their hands) ? Ok for real, knock off the moralistic view of workers. Working people steal on the regular. And really, no one has once said that looting or the refusal to pay rent is the end-all-be-all of organized activity. What is the seizure of the means of production if not re-appropriation on a larger scale and different level?


There is a wide margin of difference between expropriations by one class of the property of another class, and sticky-fingered pocketing from stores on an individual to individual basis. Thank you Captain Obvious. There is a difference. Namely what is being stolen and how it is being done. But I think the motivating factor behind the two are the same.


If you cared for true liberation, you would call for the overthrow of the system of capitalism, and the current forces of production and distribution made the common property of all in order for the proletariat to receive the rightful fruits of their labour. Which is what I do...


Instead, you call for the working class to abandon their productive role (ie not having to "work all the time"), and assume a parasitic existence that rivals that of the bourgeosie, maintaining a leech like existence of banditry and kleptomania which is only detrimental to the parts of the working class who continue to produce for society, and who bear the full brunt of all losses sustained by the bourgeoisie in relation to lumpen petty-theft. Yeah cause that is totally what I want. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I don't even know where you get this shit. Are you completely unable to get it through your head that one can be for people stealing, as well as organizing their work places and neighborhoods?


Here is a persynal annecdote:

At one point in my life, I was employed in a liquor store as a clerk.

Two guys came in, were picking out bottles of alcohol, and then grabbed a few and ran out the door. I was behind the counter, and was unable to stop them in time. By the time that I made it to the door, they were both gone, with the stolen goods in hand.

So, those to guys escaped with their booze, and never had to pay for it. Score one for the working class and the revolution, right?

I was fired for the incident.

As a working class persyn, a wage labourer, I bore the penalty of those two ripping off the store. Because I was the clerk, it was in my job description to prevent theft, and so they terminated my employment.

The ownership of the store that I worked at lost practically nothing in the process, save a bottle or two of alcohol that their profit margins could easily handle.

So, two guys drank for free that night, the liquor store didn't even feel a ripple in their profit margins, and I was out of a job a week before the December holiday season.

Score one for the working class. yeah cause it was totally the people stealing that fired you, right? Not your boss or anything. Way to side with your jailers.


As I said in previous posts, it is the working class who shoulders all losses in capital and assets by their exploiters. You are therefore not "sticking it to the man" by jacking goods from a store, you are simply bringing down more suffering on the backs of the wage labourers of that location.

Again, way to side with your jailers.

[Nachie]

Seems pretty pointless to argue with anyone whose only understanding of the world is filtered through psuedo-Marxist jargon rather than sensory experience.

This thread is bodacious, though.

[Prairie Fire]

this is an invasion:

I primarily find stealing to be aesthetically please, not inherently political.And that is the problem. You need to view all situations, phenomenon and proposed tactics in a political way, not in a way that is "aesthetically pleas(ing?)". Until you do, you will view the world through the lenses of individualist hedonism and persynal inclinations.



Who the fuck says 'gnarly' or 'bodacious' anymore?That is more ridiculous than saying that stealing is "awesome"?
My point was that you were being juvenile in your analysis.


Damn, that is sexy.FUCK YOU.

Don't belittle my points, my intelligence, and me as a persyn by interpreting my sentences as flirtatious. That is chauvinistic bullshit, and borderline harassment , and I won't stand for it.

You've been warned.


Is reading against your Party's doctrine? Or is the inability to read just a Canadian thing?
It must not be, because you apparently missed this:

"... ( even their appeals to gather a "mob" are still appeals to approach the situation as a band of loosely affiliated individuals with their own agenda, not as an organization with a program and a common objective)..."
-Me, Yesterday 19:16

Doing things in large numbers does not negate individualism. If you were looting a store in a pack, it is still individualistic, because there is no organizational disipline, no accountability, no common program or decision making process, simply a bunch of loosely affiliated individuals (a "mob", as you put it) all looking out for themselves and acting on their own whims.


But it still begs the question of why ya'll "communists" are so against people not paying rent. Do you really respect property rights and landlords that much? Last time I checked, landlords were fucking scum.Stramyn argument.

What we are against is impotent tactics that don't result in victory. Occupying an apartment complex and defying a landlord, in the context of a society where the defense of private property is the basis of law, has a very low success probability on a apartment to aparmtment basis. Something like that would have to be large (city wide, at least),coordinated and usually backed by force of arms. In other words, expropriating land lords and land owners would need to be part of a larger revolution, not an isolated incident taking place within a single complex, in order to have a chance at success.

In order to undermine the power of the landlords successfully, the whole social system would have to be defeated first. Such an event could not achieve victory in a vacuum.

It is a question of tactics, and this our point of departure from the petty bourgeois individualist "left".



And really, the dichotomy between illegalist actions like this and organizing and participating in mass worker action is such a gigantic strawman that I am not entirely sure how people can be so dense as to continue to make it. The issue is not that it is illegal (armed revolution is significantly more illegal than petty theft). The issue is that the actions that you have listed are either completely unnecessary/unrelated to a revolutionary struggle (ie. shoplifting), or are likely to be doomed to failure in and of themselves when not connected to mass movements that are allready in progress (ie. skipping out on rent/squatting).



First of all, it never said this was supposed to be some huge revolutionary thing that was going to emancipate the proletariat. But it was clever of you to try to imply it was saying that so you can say what the rest of us have been saying all along: that it isn't revolutionary, and isn't meant to be revolutionary.Then allow me to re-iterate what I have been saying all along:

If it isn't revolutionary, it is irrelevant to the struggle, and irrelevant to those of us with revolution on our agenda.

So, in other words, drop the whole subject or move it to Chit-chat. This is Revleft, specifically the "politics" sub-forum, so take apolitical time wasting crap elsewhere.


Second, can you please knock the stupid moralist arguments?What have I said that was moralistic?

Referring to shop lifting as "petty theft" has no inherent ethical condemnations built in. I was dismissing it as a tactic, not abhorring it as something that is an unforgivable sin.

Acknowledging that it is symptomatic of the Lumpenproletariat, and that it essentially would lead to a parasitic economic relationship... these things are simply class analysis.

I made no statements that were based on intangible morality, and in the past I have consistently been the first persyn to cry out against moralism.

Good try, though.

Meanwhile, you tell me not to make moralistic statements, then you say this:


You can argue that stealing is always going to negatively effect other workers because their bosses take losses out of their employees paychecks, but you and I both know that is because bosses are assholes.
You reduce the paradigm of exploiters and exploited to whether or not your particular exploiter is an "asshole".

So, if your exploiter is "nice", then there would be no issue?

Exploiters pass their losses on to their employees via down-sizing, state stimulus spending from public funds, pay cuts, forcing concessions in the form of workplace rights etc... This has nothing to do with their individual persynality, but rather is a built in facet of their system of profit obtained via exploitation.



Not even going to bother replying to the last part of that section, cause it's just silly.If you are not going to respond to my carefully worded replies, than spare me dismissive comments like this.



I think the refusal to pay rent collectively and re-appropriation of commodities are both activities that are going to happen when working people are organized and actively struggling against capitalism. Yes, but you are talking about re appropriation of commodities on an individual basis, rather than on a collective basis.

Instead of advocating that commodities are expropriated by the collective, and then distributed equitably from there in a way that is conductive to the ongoing sustainability of the entire population, you instead advocate that individuals should simply snag what ever they can get their sticky fingers on.

You are,at best, advocating dog eat dog individual vigilantism rather than mass expropriations for the common good.

There is a substantial difference.

Also, smashing the power of the propertied classes (ie. refusing to pay rent) comes about through more decisive means than simply refusing to acknowledge their authority.

Because the authority of the propertied classes is enforced with guns,tanks and regular military forces, it takes more than just defiance to that authority for your interests to triumph over their own.

As I said previously, my contention is tactical, not on on the basis of principles, which you are purposely misconstruing it as.


Nah not gonna read your other posts because you're pretty boring. I'm just responding to what you directly said to me.I'm not a Maoist, but one of Mao's better quotations was "No investigation, no right to speak".

I read every word that my opponents write. If you are not going to do the same, what right do you have to litter this thread with your half-baked, uninformed dribble?

Read up, or shut up.


I dunno, let's look at an apartment building as an example (you know, where a lot of urban workers live). If all of them got together and said "alright, as a group we are not going to pay rent anymore" or "as a group we are all going to pay less rent." Then they act on that, defend each other from the landlord and possible police attacks, and help each other out with things like food and such. Not only is that an organized group of people acting in their self-interest, but it can also lead to a more generalized organizing as those people take those experiences to work with the. But yeah, totally not organized or anything.Even organizing on a definite basis within a specific apartment complex, while correct, has a very low probability rate of success (unless there is a mass movement already in existence, in which case their victory will coincide with the collective victory, or the bourgeois state will grant these tenants rent-free living as a concession to help quiet discontent that threatens to engulf them).

You refer to the 'possibility' of police attack; it is a certainty.

When a landlord loses control over a property, what do you think is the first thing that they are going to do?

Call the cops.

And the cops will attempt to evict everyone on the premises, or at least force them into paying their rents, either way defending and enforcing private property.

The pigs will not let up until the situation is resolved in favour of the propertied land owner, and if they are unable to dislodge the people from the premises, then a higher level of law enforcement will be called in with heavier arms, up to and including the national military itself (think Kanesatake during 1990).

If the national military fails (and the only way that a regular army could fail against a small group of tenants on a specific property is if their plight precipitated a general revolution in all sectors of the country), then a foreign military power can always be called in to bail out the domestic propertied classes and protect their interests (think Vietnam, Korea,Greece, etc).

You may notice now why I specifically referred to mass organizing.



The looting of a store or the refusal to pay rent can only be done as an organized of a group of people. When they get together and act as a unified group, they are a lot stronger than if it were one person doing it on their own. There is strength in numbers and such.I've addressed this already.

Looting a store, even in a group, does not negate the individualist nature of the activity.

Refusing to pay rent, unless it is coordinated on a national scale, is not a sufficient show of collective strength to achieve the objective at hand.


Ok for real, knock off the moralistic view of workers.I still have not made any. Only you are somehow framing my responses (and occasionally your own) in terms of right and wrong.



Working people steal on the regular. You are generalizing. I am working class, and I do not.

Even so, this is hardly the issue, and I have yet to take the standpoint that petty theft is unethical.



And really, no one has once said that looting or the refusal to pay rent is the end-all-be-all of organized activity.
I am saying that both of these tactics are impotent/irrelevant to organized activity.



What is the seizure of the means of production if not re-appropriation on a larger scale and different level?You are still not differentiating between the mass, collective nature of appropriating the means of production (and their products as well,for equitable distribution), and the unilateral, individualistic nature of shoplifting and other forms of persynal appropriation.

This is a critical distinction to make.


There is a difference. Namely what is being stolen and how it is being done.Actually, the particular object of appropriation is completely irrelevant, and the method is relevant only in it's effectiveness and to whom it ultimately serves.

You are overlooking the key distinction, which is whom benefits from the action: an individual, or the mass?


But I think the motivating factor behind the two are the same.Not at all.

The motivation behind expropriating the means of production is to provide for all society.

The motivation behind an individual expropriating products for themselves is to provide for themselves at the expense of society.


Yeah cause that is totally what I want. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:You're the one who called for people to supplement their income with petty theft so that they don't have to engage in as much productive labour.

To exist in a state where you own no land or means of production, but simultaneously do not sell your wage labour and instead beg or steal for commodities and currency from the society itself... this is the definition of the class referred to as the Lumpenproletariat.

By it's nature, it is a parasitic socio-economic relationship in relation to class society as a whole.

This was your own appeal, not mine.



I don't even know where you get this shit. Are you completely unable to get it through your head that one can be for people stealing, as well as organizing their work places and neighborhoods?I'll skip going into detail about how this response isn't relevant to the quotation of mine that you are responding to.

If you had read my other posts, specifically my reply to bcbm, you would see that my point is that ultimately any tactic or maneuver that is not advancing the revolution is irrelevant to it.

So, whether or not people are stealing at the same time as doing other tangible organizing, the petty theft becomes completely irrelevant to the situation because it is not advancing the objectives.

The point that I am making is that petty theft is not worthy of consideration as a revolutionary tactic (outside of the context of an armed liberation struggle, ie. bank expropriations, etc).



yeah cause it was totally the people stealing that fired you, right? Not your boss or anything. Way to side with your jailers.I'm doing nothing of the kind.

I am simply demonstrating the tangible effects of shop lifting on the working class (for better or worse, this is what happens), invalidating petty theft as a proposed tactic in a revolutionary arsenal, but most of all I am demonstrating the individualist nature of persynal expropriation.

See, part of doing things as a collective, in a socially conscious way, is analyzing every action, and understanding the repercussions that these actions will inevitably have for the working class as a whole.

For this reason, a mature and revolutionary organization would be aware of how the exploiters act, and would not recklessly endanger the livelihoods of the working class without necessary cause.

These two individualists who ripped off the store on my watch could not care less what happens to me (they even mocked me on the way out the door). All that matters is that their individual persnal desires for commodities were satisfied, and myself and my employment were a casualty in their acquisition of these commodities ( which were non-vital in the first place).

This is what I'm talking about when I refer to individualism. It has nothing to do with how many people are involved in the action, but more with the individual-centric attitudes of the participants, and more importantly their identification with and accountability to the working class as a whole.

This does not exhonerate the exploiters at my workplace of actually possessing the decision making power to terminate my employment, or absolve them of the responsibility of doing so. They are exploiters, and can be expected to act as such.

That is the point though; a class-conscious organization would have expected them to act as such, and would have factored that into their calculations.

These two yahoos got drunk for free, and didn't think or care about what the repercussions would be for others of the working class.


Again, way to side with your jailers. Making a honest and factual analysis is not "siding with the jailers". The fact is that exploiters pass their losses on to the proletariat, so by extrapolation any losses incurred on the exploiters (via shoplifting, or other factors) come full circle and are placed on the backs of the proletariat.

As I said above, a collective that was thinking about anyone other than themselves( let alone the working class as a whole) would know their enemy, and take this information into account in their tactics and actions.

Nachie:


Seems pretty pointless to argue with anyone whose only understanding of the world is filtered through psuedo-Marxist jargon rather than sensory experience.With one simplistic attack on me as an individual, you demolish hours of my carefully typed political arguments.

You sure showed me.:rolleyes:

[bcbm]

Oh Noes! The "Traditional" left! Flee the village!

uh, it wasn't being used as a pejorative but as a way to describe the soup of marxist-leninist-maoist-hoxhaist-trotskyist-etcist groups. put down the bong.


As far as your rhetorical question is concerned, here is the short answer: Because they aren't (ending capitalism).the point is that they are not supposed to and i don't think anybody believes they are.

and of course nothing anybody else is doing is ending capitalism either.


The point is that it while it is an activity, it is not within the scope of revolutionary activity.

Punching a cop and busting a window (outside of the context of a popular revolutionary armed struggle being waged at that time, with defined objectives,), and petty theft do nothing to advance any sort of revolutionary agenda of any kind in any way, in the short of long term.i think there are other contexts where those things make sense, but sure. i'm not suggesting stealing is revolutionary, full stop.


Punching a cop, while allowing you to live out testosterone-injected Che Guevera complexes hahaha what?

also kind of silly coming from "lady pol pot" with "violence is the only thing that solves anything" in their signature.


Anything that does not advance tangible objectives towards working class emancipation should be categorized as an apolitical hobby at best, and should not be seen as anything more.i'm glad we can agree on categorizing most leftist activity as an apolitical hobby. i've been saying that for ages.


In terms of usefulness and revolutionary potential in and of itself, I would rate 'breaking a window' somewhere in between 'eating cotton candy' and 'listening to an I-Pod'. almost nothing has potential "in and of itself," it is how it is applied and in what context.



Revolutionaries organize for victory, so we tend to reject frivolous hedonistic bullshit. Which part don't you understand?how you manage to convince yourselves you're organizing for victory.


A lot of people who are down with revolutionary socialism are also open to the idea of getting ice cream; should we treat getting ice cream as a legitimate and valid tactic in the struggle for socialist emancipation?are we stealing it?

[Pretty Flaco]

This is exactly why the average person doesn't view Anarchism as a legitimate political theory; because shit like this is being supported.

[Nachie]

With one simplistic attack on me as an individual, you demolish hours of my carefully typed political arguments.

LOL you spend hours carefully typing political arguments on revleft.

By the way, I'm quite certain that this is an invasion was simply describing your term "RAANite Brown-shirt" as "sexy" (which it is! we always get the best slander), and was in fact not referring to any supposed flirtatiousness on your part.

Rest assured that no one finds you sexy.

[bcbm]

This is exactly why the average person doesn't view Anarchism as a legitimate political theory; because shit like this is being supported.

but they think communism is peaches and cream, eh?

[Adi Shankara]

FUCK YOU.

Don't belittle my points, my intelligence, and me as a persyn by interpreting my sentences as flirtatious. That is chauvinistic bullshit, and borderline harassment , and I won't stand for it.

You've been warned.


calm down. it's just an internet forum. you really ought to get some sleep huh?

I don't even see what he (if it even is a "he") said that was so "chauvinistic".

[Prairie Fire]

bcbm:

the point is that they are not supposed to and i don't think anybody believes they are.Then why are we even talking about it (in "politics", no less)?


and of course nothing anybody else is doing is ending capitalism either.My issue was not that shoplifting and petty theft are not immediate solutions to the problem of capitalism; my point is that they have absolutely no connection to the struggle to end capitalism, and no useful tactical role to play within it.

Your statement implies that because 'nothing anybody else is doing is (immediately) ending capitalism either', that somehow shoplifting must be an equally valid and legitimate tactic to those being practiced by others. :rolleyes:



i'm not suggesting stealing is revolutionary, full stop.Then why are you presenting it as though it is even within the tactical arsenal of a revolutionary?

You:

"...as though anybody were saying that stealing something or busting a window or punching a cop is the end-all, be-all of potential activity."In one sentence you aknowledge that you are not suggesting that stealing is revolutionary;

In the previous sentence that I quoted above, you include stealing as though it is even within the realm of "potential activity".

I am still taking the stand that individual expropriation has absolutely no useful relation to the struggle, whether comrades are engaging in it on the side or not. None what-so-ever.


also kind of silly coming from "lady pol pot"The 'Lady Pol Pot' thing was a joke related to a thread a year ago. It didn't come from an actual aspiration to be like Saloth Sar.


with "violence is the only thing that solves anything" in their signature. You are dodging context.

The quotation that you seem to be replying to here is not dismissing violence in absolute; it is criticizing the "Che Guevera complex", aka the heroic romanticism of individual exploits that too many in the left aspire to emulate, elevating their revolutionary street cred for the sake of arrogant boasting, rather than completing the objective required by the situation for the sake of the people.

You are equating things that are not alike, in a feeble effort to paint me as a hypocrite.



'm glad we can agree on categorizing most leftist activity as an apolitical hobby. i've been saying that for ages.What "left activity" have you been exposed to, that is not advancing tangible objectives towards working class emancipation?

Whatever futile clown tactics constitute "nihilist communism" ( what?) ?



almost nothing has potential "in and of itself," it is how it is applied and in what context.I am saying that the tactics that you advanced have little redeeming value even within the context of a full-blown revolutionary struggle.


how you manage to convince yourselves you're organizing for victory.As opposed to the mighty hipster legions of "nihilist communism" and RAAN?

We have tangible victories to our name, even within the contemporary era.


Nachie:


LOL you spend hours carefully typing political arguments on revleft.Fuck off, troll.

Thomas_Sankara:


calm down. it's just an internet forum. you really ought to get some sleep huh?

I don't even see what he (if it even is a "he") said that was so "chauvinistic". You know Tom, you should really pay attention to the political parts of my posts, instead of fixating on my spelling variants, my quarrells with other posters, and other stuff that is not related to the issue at hand.

[727Goon]

FUCK YOU.

Don't belittle my points, my intelligence, and me as a persyn by interpreting my sentences as flirtatious. That is chauvinistic bullshit, and borderline harassment , and I won't stand for it.

You've been warned.

So wait, just to get this straight, you slandered someone by calling them a fascist because they are a member of RAAN and then you proceeded to warn them for saying something back?

[this is an invasion]

this is an invasion:
And that is the problem. You need to view all situations, phenomenon and proposed tactics in a political way, not in a way that is "aesthetically pleas(ing?)". Until you do, you will view the world through the lenses of individualist hedonism and persynal inclinations. Yeah fuck me for wanting to have fun right?


That is more ridiculous than saying that stealing is "awesome"?
My point was that you were being juvenile in your analysis. I prefer simplistic.


FUCK YOU.

Don't belittle my points, my intelligence, and me as a persyn by interpreting my sentences as flirtatious. That is chauvinistic bullshit, and borderline harassment , and I won't stand for it.

You've been warned. Oh. Right. The intelligence that was demonstrated when you called me "RAANite brown shirt." Actually, you know what? All of us at RAAN are pretty much in agreement that it's an awesome name. Perhaps you should start using your time and energy for coming up with clever shit like that rather than politics.

And don't kid yourself. I was calling the term sexy. Your corrupt ass needs to be removed from power.


It must not be, because you apparently missed this:

"... ( even their appeals to gather a "mob" are still appeals to approach the situation as a band of loosely affiliated individuals with their own agenda, not as an organization with a program and a common objective)..."
-Me, Yesterday 19:16

Doing things in large numbers does not negate individualism. If you were looting a store in a pack, it is still individualistic, because there is no organizational disipline, no accountability, no common program or decision making process, simply a bunch of loosely affiliated individuals (a "mob", as you put it) all looking out for themselves and acting on their own whims. It could go like that. But more realistically, it'll be a group of friends that know and trust each other (probably have engaged in other political action together before). They'll share a common goal: getting as much free shit as possible (because living pay-check-to-pay-check sucks ass at best), and chances are they'll be looking out for each other.


Stramyn argument.

What we are against is impotent tactics that don't result in victory. Occupying an apartment complex and defying a landlord, in the context of a society where the defense of private property is the basis of law, has a very low success probability on a apartment to aparmtment basis. Something like that would have to be large (city wide, at least),coordinated and usually backed by force of arms. In other words, expropriating land lords and land owners would need to be part of a larger revolution, not an isolated incident taking place within a single complex, in order to have a chance at success.

In order to undermine the power of the landlords successfully, the whole social system would have to be defeated first. Such an event could not achieve victory in a vacuum.

It is a question of tactics, and this our point of departure from the petty bourgeois individualist "left". Word.


The issue is not that it is illegal (armed revolution is significantly more illegal than petty theft). The issue is that the actions that you have listed are either completely unnecessary/unrelated to a revolutionary struggle (ie. shoplifting), or are likely to be doomed to failure in and of themselves when not connected to mass movements that are allready in progress (ie. skipping out on rent/squatting). I know the issue isn't legality. The term 'illegalist' refers to acts like shoplifting, scamming, blowing shit up, and robbing banks.


Then allow me to re-iterate what I have been saying all along:

If it isn't revolutionary, it is irrelevant to the struggle, and irrelevant to those of us with revolution on our agenda. Damn. Thank you for that. I was sitting here thinking it WAS revolutionary. I'm glad you've shown me the error of my ways. I'm gonna be ha Hoxhaist now.


So, in other words, drop the whole subject or move it to Chit-chat. This is Revleft, specifically the "politics" sub-forum, so take apolitical time wasting crap elsewhere. It takes two to tango. You could have just left this thread alone as it has really nothing to do with your types. But nooo, you just had to pop in and remind us all that we are not following your step-by-step plan for victory.


What have I said that was moralistic?

Referring to shop lifting as "petty theft" has no inherent ethical condemnations built in. I was dismissing it as a tactic, not abhorring it as something that is an unforgivable sin.

Acknowledging that it is symptomatic of the Lumpenproletariat, and that it essentially would lead to a parasitic economic relationship... these things are simply class analysis.

I made no statements that were based on intangible morality, and in the past I have consistently been the first persyn to cry out against moralism. high five!


Good try, though. Thanks! :)


Meanwhile, you tell me not to make moralistic statements, then you say this:

You reduce the paradigm of exploiters and exploited to whether or not your particular exploiter is an "asshole".

So, if your exploiter is "nice", then there would be no issue?

Exploiters pass their losses on to their employees via down-sizing, state stimulus spending from public funds, pay cuts, forcing concessions in the form of workplace rights etc... This has nothing to do with their individual persynality, but rather is a built in facet of their system of profit obtained via exploitation.I understand how exploitation works. I think that people who are in the position to exploit are assholes. People who put objects and profit before other humans are assholes. You don't agree?

You missed the part where I said "bosses are assholes." I don't know how you missed it, but you did. Notice how I didn't say "most bosses are assholes" or "some bosses are assholes" or "bosses can be assholes." I think you have a superiority complex.


If you are not going to respond to my carefully worded replies, than spare me dismissive comments like this. Then don't state the obvious and don't make stupid strawman arguments.


Yes, but you are talking about re appropriation of commodities on an individual basis, rather than on a collective basis.

Instead of advocating that commodities are expropriated by the collective, and then distributed equitably from there in a way that is conductive to the ongoing sustainability of the entire population, you instead advocate that individuals should simply snag what ever they can get their sticky fingers on. I advocate both.


You are,at best, advocating dog eat dog individual vigilantism rather than mass expropriations for the common good. Nope


There is a substantial difference.

Also, smashing the power of the propertied classes (ie. refusing to pay rent) comes about through more decisive means than simply refusing to acknowledge their authority. I think refusing to acknowledge their authority is the first step.


Because the authority of the propertied classes is enforced with guns,tanks and regular military forces, it takes more than just defiance to that authority for your interests to triumph over their own.

As I said previously, my contention is tactical, not on on the basis of principles, which you are purposely misconstruing it as. Then if we are already saying that appropriation and squatting are not revolutionary on their, why are you still here? Don't you have some obscure theory to debate with some other irrelevant fools?


I'm not a Maoist, but one of Mao's better quotations was "No investigation, no right to speak".

I read every word that my opponents write. If you are not going to do the same, what right do you have to litter this thread with your half-baked, uninformed dribble?

Read up, or shut up. Cool story. If you ever get invited to a party, you should tell it.


Even organizing on a definite basis within a specific apartment complex, while correct, has a very low probability rate of success (unless there is a mass movement already in existence, in which case their victory will coincide with the collective victory, or the bourgeois state will grant these tenants rent-free living as a concession to help quiet discontent that threatens to engulf them). Rent free living sounds super legit.


You refer to the 'possibility' of police attack; it is a certainty. Semantics.


When a landlord loses control over a property, what do you think is the first thing that they are going to do?

Call the cops.

And the cops will attempt to evict everyone on the premises, or at least force them into paying their rents, either way defending and enforcing private property.

The pigs will not let up until the situation is resolved in favour of the propertied land owner, and if they are unable to dislodge the people from the premises, then a higher level of law enforcement will be called in with heavier arms, up to and including the national military itself (think Kanesatake during 1990).

If the national military fails (and the only way that a regular army could fail against a small group of tenants on a specific property is if their plight precipitated a general revolution in all sectors of the country), then a foreign military power can always be called in to bail out the domestic propertied classes and protect their interests (think Vietnam, Korea,Greece, etc). And then another group of people will see exactly where the allegiance of the police is.

Anyway, have you ever helped organize rent or foreclosure resistance? I have. We also won. The police didn't come, and our friends were able to get an extension on when their money was due so that they could raise it. Did it over throw capitalism? Nope. But neither does posting on RevLeft, so where does that leave us?

You're a missionary. You are no different than the Christians who say that working people should only devote their time to Christ because when they die they'll be in heaven, and all of these materialist problems will be irrelevant. Only you say that people should only do things that may or may not lead to a revolution that you can't even promise will happen in their lifetimes.


You may notice now why I specifically referred to mass organizing.

I've addressed this already.

Looting a store, even in a group, does not negate the individualist nature of the activity. On the contrary, I think looting in a group demonstrates the power of collective action over individual action.


Refusing to pay rent, unless it is coordinated on a national scale, is not a sufficient show of collective strength to achieve the objective at hand. Alright. Unless the objective at hand is to simply not pay rent for a certain period of time...


I still have not made any. Only you are somehow framing my responses (and occasionally your own) in terms of right and wrong.

You are generalizing. I am working class, and I do not. Word. I am working class and I do. Now what?


Even so, this is hardly the issue, and I have yet to take the standpoint that petty theft is unethical.

I am saying that both of these tactics are impotent/irrelevant to organized activity. No, what you have been saying is that somehow petty theft cannot exist alongside organized activity. Or that somehow people are going to want to just steal everything rather than organize themselves.


You are still not differentiating between the mass, collective nature of appropriating the means of production (and their products as well,for equitable distribution), and the unilateral, individualistic nature of shoplifting and other forms of persynal appropriation. And for me, the mindset is the same: wanting to take care of myself and those close to me, and by extension the rest of the world that has similar conditions to myself.


This is a critical distinction to make.

Actually, the particular object of appropriation is completely irrelevant, and the method is relevant only in it's effectiveness and to whom it ultimately serves.

You are overlooking the key distinction, which is whom benefits from the action: an individual, or the mass? Which is the scale it's done on. Theft by the entire working class benefits more people than theft by a group of people or an individual.


Not at all.

The motivation behind expropriating the means of production is to provide for all society. Maybe in your own made up world. But in the real world, part of the motivation to revolt is because communist revolution is in the interest of the working class. On a much smaller scale, communism is in my self interest because I don't want to be exploited.


The motivation behind an individual expropriating products for themselves is to provide for themselves at the expense of society.

You're the one who called for people to supplement their income with petty theft so that they don't have to engage in as much productive labour. Surely you don't think people are going to work the same amount after the revolution as they are now, do you?


To exist in a state where you own no land or means of production, but simultaneously do not sell your wage labour and instead beg or steal for commodities and currency from the society itself... this is the definition of the class referred to as the Lumpenproletariat. Again, false dichotomy. While I personally do not see anything wrong with being lumpen (been there before. Had a lot more time to engage in political action and learn), no one has said that everyone should be stealing and not working, nor is that the only outcome of people stealing to supplement their income.


By it's nature, it is a parasitic socio-economic relationship in relation to class society as a whole. I prefer to see it as working class people taking back things that were taken from working class people. Word.


This was your own appeal, not mine.

I'll skip going into detail about how this response isn't relevant to the quotation of mine that you are responding to. If you are not going to respond to my carefully worded replies, than spare me dismissive comments like this.


If you had read my other posts, specifically my reply to bcbm, you would see that my point is that ultimately any tactic or maneuver that is not advancing the revolution is irrelevant to it. I skip your posts on principle.


So, whether or not people are stealing at the same time as doing other tangible organizing, the petty theft becomes completely irrelevant to the situation because it is not advancing the objectives. Unless it is supplying the group with money.


The point that I am making is that petty theft is not worthy of consideration as a revolutionary tactic (outside of the context of an armed liberation struggle, ie. bank expropriations, etc). Bank robberies are so fucking cool.


I'm doing nothing of the kind. Blaming the people that stole from your store for you being fired rather than your boss is siding with your jailers.


I am simply demonstrating the tangible effects of shop lifting on the working class (for better or worse, this is what happens), invalidating petty theft as a proposed tactic in a revolutionary arsenal, but most of all I am demonstrating the individualist nature of persynal expropriation. I am not an individualist, but I am certainly more individualistic than you.


See, part of doing things as a collective, in a socially conscious way, is analyzing every action, and understanding the repercussions that these actions will inevitably have for the working class as a whole. I could argue that an attempted insurrection could end up with large numbers of the working class behind bars.


For this reason, a mature and revolutionary organization would be aware of how the exploiters act, and would not recklessly endanger the livelihoods of the working class without necessary cause. Only when it benefits the organization, right?


These two individualists who ripped off the store on my watch could not care less what happens to me (they even mocked me on the way out the door). All that matters is that their individual persnal desires for commodities were satisfied, and myself and my employment were a casualty in their acquisition of these commodities ( which were non-vital in the first place). Hahaha they mocked you on the way out?


This is what I'm talking about when I refer to individualism. It has nothing to do with how many people are involved in the action, but more with the individual-centric attitudes of the participants, and more importantly their identification with and accountability to the working class as a whole.

This does not exhonerate the exploiters at my workplace of actually possessing the decision making power to terminate my employment, or absolve them of the responsibility of doing so. They are exploiters, and can be expected to act as such.

That is the point though; a class-conscious organization would have expected them to act as such, and would have factored that into their calculations.

These two yahoos got drunk for free, and didn't think or care about what the repercussions would be for others of the working class.

Making a honest and factual analysis is not "siding with the jailers". The fact is that exploiters pass their losses on to the proletariat, so by extrapolation any losses incurred on the exploiters (via shoplifting, or other factors) come full circle and are placed on the backs of the proletariat.

As I said above, a collective that was thinking about anyone other than themselves( let alone the working class as a whole) would know their enemy, and take this information into account in their tactics and actions. That's cool. If I were in your shoes, I would certainly be pissed about having been fired, but I certainly wouldn't place any blame on the people who stole from the store I worked at.


Nachie:
With one simplistic attack on me as an individual, you demolish hours of my carefully typed political arguments.

You sure showed me.:rolleyes:
:laugh:

[Nachie]

Fuck off, troll.


:crying:

[fa2991]

Prairie Fire is totally, completely wrong on this one.

The revolutions in Spain, China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Ukraine never would have come about had Lenin, Mao, Makhno, the CNT-FAI, Ho Chi Minh, and Castro not all been serial shoplifters of candy bars and boycotters of Wal-Mart.

Just imagine how much of a disaster their movements would have been if they hadn't made revolutionary warfare "fun" for teenagers! Then the people of their respective countries wouldn't have been prepared for a new, harmonious society founded on petty crime and property destruction!

:rolleyes:

[this is an invasion]

I'm a moron, guys

I fixed that typo for you.

[fa2991]

I'm a moron, guys.

I fixed that typo for you.

:D

[Nietzsche's Ghost]

I think the point of things like this is to show people that the system, government, or whatever you wish to call it, can be subject to destruction by anyone. In other words, you don't have to read dense theories, attend weekly meetings (although there isn't anything wrong with that, its just that not everyone can) (or talk on RevLeft :o ) to change your environment. It's to take away the aura of holiness that surrounds objects, to show that a person's standard of living is more important than a luxury car or Rolex. It's not supposed to answer every single question and be the epitome of revolutionary activity.

[Ele'ill]

Mari3l:
It is petty bourgeois trash, written for equally petty bourgeois trash.

In what way? (since you like that word marriage so much)



I would hardly refer to the organs of disinformation employed by the exploiting classes as "everything that moves".

Disinformation?

I've read the magazine in a casual manner (relax, don't stroke out on me) for a very long time. A lot if not all of it touches on important topics.

I'm an anarchist and I can relate to entire issues.


Incidentally, there are magazines with working class content in existence as well.

Really!??- Thanks!- I had no idea.

So you're advocating that we only read working class content even if some of the ideas presented in other publications are valid and worth noting?

I'm having a hard time not saying- fuck you don't tell me what to read. Oops.



and we will never get there if parasitic Lumpen petty theft is advanced seriously as a tactic to be adopted by the working class.

Hey welcome back- While your head was burried in the sand I think multiple people in this thread pointed out that it isn't about 'revolution through stealing shit' it's about getting people involved and thinking-

You walk up to a group of idiotic ravers with their clown pants and fucking glow sticks and tell them alright lets go steal some food- and afterwards you mention briefly the topic of survival- everyone's right to affordable food etc-

Or you try to walk up to a group of ravers and tell them about glorious factory workers and how everyone wore suits and everything was black and white before you were born they're just not going to care at all.

Likewise I wouldn't approach a group of factory workers and suggest we go loot a nike outlet.

We need a free exchange of ideas regarding tactics and if it gets people involved and thinking about the next step I'm down with it.

This is why workshops hosted by activists on topics ranging from housing rights (and squatting- which is a form of stealing- which is a form of reclaiming something necessary to survival) all the way to veganism works.

It's because people want to know more and regular leftists politics don't necessarily immediately apply to their lives- it depends on the person and we need everyone to be able to get involved some how.


The point we would both agree on is that 'exciting' or 'entrance' activities in the manner the OP was describing can't and probably shouldn't take place all the time.

Each tactic has a purpose, a timeline and a method of execution.

It's not replacing anything.





Involved in removing themselves from productive roles?

Involved in causing a minor disturbance to bourgeois profit margins that will trickle down upon the heads of the working class?

Involved in frivolous individualist actions that do not undermine capitalism, or even challenge it?

Involve them in the transformation of the domestic working class into a parasitic lumpen proletariat class, that consumes but does not produce?

What the fuck are we involving them in, exactly?


It would involve those people that your tactics have failed.



Obtuse metaphor with no substance, to rationalize "radical" petty-bourgeois individualist hedonism.

If you see it as an attempt to be 'radical' and if you see it as a threat you need to reconsider what you're doing as an organizer. :laugh:





What?

They can, and historically they have.

Show me a historical precedent where petty theft lead to social transformation, and the overthrow of a dominating class.

You are still rationalizing this "tactic" as though it has any validity or redeeming revolutionary potential. I am taking the standpoint that it has none.
Only to you is that an insult, Monsieur "autonomous" (read: juvenile petty-bourgeois "radical").


I'm defending this tactic not because I think it's all that great but because I think your attitude towards people trying- sucks. I think I've stated two or three times now that the point of the tactic isn't to be revolutionary. It's to get people involved.

Is flyering and sign holding revolutionary?

Not by itself- no. But it gets people involved and talking with people that have experience in a whole plethora of tactics.

When people are hungry and cannot afford the prices of food they take it back from the multibillion dollar corporations.

Lots of activists and organizers do it- they don't laugh and have a giggle party about it afterwards in fact I think a yawn from any one of them upon waking up in the morning would be more significant then that action.






Get's them involved in what? Thinking about what?

Growing up, my brother and all of his friends were shoplifters. Not once did this lead them to the realization that social ownership of the means of production, and the supremacy of the producers, was the order of the day for all humynity!

Lots of people hate cops- they're not leftists- until they're guided by education that follows the action- to explain why they're doing it.


By getting them to pocket chocolate bars, I presume? :rolleyes:

Or clothes and baskets of produce?



How is petty-theft an action that in any way can not only precipitate a socialist transformation, but can prepare people for their role in said socialist society ( opening a Pandora's box of rampant lumpen behaviour will be hard to close again, after workers control is established, and masses refuse to adopt a productive labour role in the new society, instead favouring living parasitically off of what is produced by others through petty theft and banditry)?

The misnomer here is that this 'action' or 'event' or 'idea' is an endall tactic. It isn't. It's just something some people want to try out. The fact that you're threatened by it implies to me that you are jealous because none of the tactics or actions that you believe in or are involved with directly succeed.

Don't give up- :thumbup1:




How?

How can petty theft be utilized as a tactic in working class emancipation?

We weren't talking about the merits (and detractions) of squatting; we were talking about the absurd concept that petty theft could give way to social emancipation movements, or mobilize people into existing movements.

Food, clothing, education, shelter is a right. (fight fight fight)






For you, your participation in social emancipation politics is thrill seeking and still thoroughly tainted by your petty bourgeois individualism. You should should see about fixing that.

Spare me :rolleyes:









Stealing to survive is a different thing, and even that is a temporary solution to objective circumstances.

Perhaps that is where this movement will lead to.

Flyering is a waste of paper and bores people to death until it leads to wildcat strikes.

If this type of action flops- let it.

Your genuine worry will be that it will catch on and ... What? What exactly are you afraid of?






I am thoroughly opposing the suggestion that this particular tactic has any revolutionary potential


Hey! You and everybody else you're arguing against in this thread.




or validity in the least,

Let them try it. I'm not going to ask what you're afraid of again.



not accusing my opponents of only supporting a single tactic.

It was pretty clear what you meant.



I am debating the proposed tactic at hand. You should also.

Ok, I'm going to pretend for a minute that we're not actually debating the type of stances we're using but instead we're going to ask eachother very direct questions.

I'm going to pretend that you just asked "Do you think this tactic is revolutionary?"

-I'd say it could lead to other things, sure but I wouldn't say it's an end all.. oh fucking christ we already DID that.

We already DID debate the tactic at hand in fact that's what we're doing now.

This type of tactic isn't in my top 10 but I'd like to see it run its course and either die or succeed on its own.









...But not necessarily a revolutionary direction, and this is the issue that you keep dancing around!


I'm not intentionally dancing around it- in fact the way you stated it just there up above this that I quoted makes it more clear.

I don't think the revolutionary direction should be in tactics that don't produce large yields. This tactic isn't going to produce large yields but if its getting people involved in anarchism and anarchist organizing- which these things tend to do- don't lie- I can't complain.

The first inkling I have that something is going to start negatively affecting movement I'm all over it. I don't have a very high tolerance.

In this thread I don't like the idea of slashing tactics that have not been tried before- or tried in the way they're being presented- before they're actually tried.

I don't believe elitism has a place in autonomy? Do you? If someone wants to try something let them- if it fucks things up- then you bring it up- if it is a tactic that's continuously being used in exchange for real organizing at that point where the people using the tactic should know better or need to know better then it needs to stop.

In other threads- as I'm sure you know (and might even agree)- I don't think current property destruction tactics in North America are worth fuck of anything- as in I don't think they accomplished a real goal.




Your fetish for class-vague "creativity" on the part of the individual aside,

So any time we like an idea it's considered a fetish now?



I think that these types of tactics won't affect the important organizing. As soon as they do we need to criticize them- until then- they're reaching people that otherwise wouldn't give a fuck about politics.

Let it work and let it die.

[Ele'ill]

btw- Kaylee is pretty awesome. (your avatar?)

[bcbm]

bcbm:
Then why are we even talking about it (in "politics", no less)?

probably the same reason people are talking about bill maher in "politics" and the video game homefront in "sciences and environment," among other examples of the high quality of discussion this board prides itself on.


My issue was not that shoplifting and petty theft are not immediate solutions to the problem of capitalism; my point is that they have absolutely no connection to the struggle to end capitalism, and no useful tactical role to play within it.if we up the ante from "petty" to "regular," will it start to have a connection?


Your statement implies that because 'nothing anybody else is doing is (immediately) ending capitalism either', that somehow shoplifting must be an equally valid and legitimate tactic to those being practiced by others. :rolleyes:maybe you should be more specific. are you saying it is not and can not ever have anything to do with ending capitalism, or that in the immediate sense it is not doing anything to end capitalism?


Then why are you presenting it as though it is even within the tactical arsenal of a revolutionary?

You:
In one sentence you aknowledge that you are not suggesting that stealing is revolutionary;

In the previous sentence that I quoted above, you include stealing as though it is even within the realm of "potential activity".i wasn't using it as "potential (revolutionary) activity," but saying that while people might enjoy stealing or fighting cops they may or may not believe it is "revolutionary activity," and it doesn't preclude them from engaging in what even you would probably consider as such.


I am still taking the stand that individual expropriation has absolutely no useful relation to the struggle, whether comrades are engaging in it on the side or not. None what-so-ever.again, i think it all depends on the context in which it occurs though i would agree that individually it is almost always an apolitical activity.


The 'Lady Pol Pot' thing was a joke related to a thread a year ago. It didn't come from an actual aspiration to be like Saloth Sar.

You are dodging context.

The quotation that you seem to be replying to here is not dismissing violence in absolute; it is criticizing the "Che Guevera complex", aka the heroic romanticism of individual exploits that too many in the left aspire to emulate, elevating their revolutionary street cred for the sake of arrogant boasting, rather than completing the objective required by the situation for the sake of the people.

You are equating things that are not alike, in a feeble effort to paint me as a hypocrite.i don't think you're a hypocrite but if you're accusing me of being a macho kid with a che guevara complex i think you need to get a reality check. i also think the claim that those who adopt more "combative" politics are testosterone driven ignores the large number of women and others involved who would hardly fit the idiotic "macho" stereotype you're pushing here. there is plenty to criticize without stooping to that kind of nonsense.

and aren't you a fan of the weather underground?


What "left activity" have you been exposed to, that is not advancing tangible objectives towards working class emancipation?talking about dead guys, forming hundreds of miniscule and equally worthless parties, selling anything, just about every conference held, spending endless time criticizing each other or things that happened decades ago, cult nonsense, etc


Whatever futile clown tactics constitute "nihilist communism" ( what?) ? if you click on the tendency link it will take you to the group which has a link to the whole text of the book "nihilist communism" and several discussions.


I am saying that the tactics that you advanced have little redeeming value even within the context of a full-blown revolutionary struggle.i would bet you don't even know what tactics i advance.


As opposed to the mighty hipster legions of "nihilist communism" and RAAN?no, not opposed to anything. just looking at y'all. but for the record i am not affiliated with raan and nihilist communism isn't an ideology...


We have tangible victories to our name, even within the contemporary era. which "we" are you talking about?

[IllicitPopsicle]

This thread stinks of pomposity.

Just sayin'.

(Will have something productive to add to the discussion later; right now I'm gonna go rob 7-eleven. :rolleyes:)

[gorillafuck]

I like to eat bagels.

[IllicitPopsicle]

I like to eat bagels.

*assumes douchebag character* I can't even take you seriously as a revolutionary. You have a quote from that petty bourgeois television show Spongebob Squarepants in your name. You should be watching 40s era Soviet cartoons!!! You worthless excuse for a revolutionary!!!!1! (:laugh:)

[this is an invasion]

In soviet Russia, fire prairies you!

[IllicitPopsicle]

Probably not a good idea to troll the mod... just sayin'

[What Would Durruti Do?]

oh look, more "revolutionaries" crying about the property of capitalists. oh revleft

personally I have no problem relating the movement with thieves. thieves are just workers trying to get by as well.

[Andropov]

Im not even going into debating the issue here because PF has summed up everything that needs to be said in quite coherent rational marxism.
What I am posting here is with the noteable exception of Mariel few else have actually attempted to engage with her posts in a constructive manner, resorting to pathetic childish rehtorts from the likes of "This is an invasion", "Thomas Sankara" and "Nachie".
Some of the comments said by these posters are nothing short of embarressing and reflect poorley on the level of debate at Revleft.
I may agree with PF's line of arguement and im sure many will disagree but what we do not need is juvenile and utterly pathetic insults and rehtorts and some nice male chauvanism thrown in for effect.
If you cant rationally oppose her arguements then dont resort to immature insults.

[Jazzratt]

oh look, more "revolutionaries" crying about the property of capitalists. oh revleft I don't think the point is, or ever has been, "crying about the property of capitalists" that's just an insultingly simplistic (and wrong) reading of the arguments being presented to you. The question is, really, what is the utility of "steal something day" or similar plans in the context of class struggle. Stealing is useless and basically apolitical as far as I can see. Plus some of the suggestions just seem like astoundingly good ways to ruin your own life (not paying rent is a great example of this. Have fun being homeless.)


personally I have no problem relating the movement with thieves. thieves are just workers trying to get by as well. Depends on what the theif is stealing and why. It's not the point though, stealing to get by is fine, hell stealing to save yourself some money or whatever is fine but it's just not an act of perceptable political utility.

[this is an invasion]

Im not even going into debating the issue here because PF has summed up everything that needs to be said in quite coherent rational marxism.
What I am posting here is with the noteable exception of Mariel few else have actually attempted to engage with her posts in a constructive manner, resorting to pathetic childish rehtorts from the likes of "This is an invasion", "Thomas Sankara" and "Nachie".
Some of the comments said by these posters are nothing short of embarressing and reflect poorley on the level of debate at Revleft.
I may agree with PF's line of arguement and im sure many will disagree but what we do not need is juvenile and utterly pathetic insults and rehtorts and some nice male chauvanism thrown in for effect.
If you cant rationally oppose her arguements then dont resort to immature insults.
nah :hammersickle:

[bcbm]

resorting to pathetic childish rehtorts from the likes of "This is an invasion", "Thomas Sankara" and "Nachie"

daaaaaaaamn

[this is an invasion]

Hey thanks for the negative rep, Andropov, you weiner.

[Wanted Man]

What a lot of you don't seem to understand is that people need to be able to relate to new systems of doing things- they need experience that isn't going to overwhelm them- they need an event that will get them interested.

And who is going to "get interested" when you say, "Hey, let's go shoplifting as a political activity!" People who shoplift already?

[this is an invasion]

And who is going to "get interested" when you say, "Hey, let's go shoplifting as a political activity!" People who shoplift already?

It's getting them into politics that he's talking about. Not getting people to steal.

[Wanted Man]

I got that, but how is it ever going to accomplish that?

[Andropov]

Hey thanks for the negative rep, Andropov, you weiner.
Embaressing stuff.

[Fietsketting]

The thinnest book in the world: 100 years M-L humor :rolleyes:

Not every action has to be to overthrow capitalism. This draws attention if alot of stickers appear on lampposts around town or on the workfloor. In my city i have seen people stop to read about and grinned. Not so serious folks! 364 more days per year to be just that and sell newspapers!

Steal something from work day is the original tho, not steal something.

[pastradamus]

What an A) Stupid Idea and B) complete waste of time and C) Stupid Risk.

Hate to break it to you guys but your not bringing down anything by encouraging people en-masse to steal stuff. All you are doing is acting like a bunch of complete idiots by even suggesting such a ridiculous idea. Of course I would leave this idea rest upon the shoulders of the fashionable left as it in no way helps any member of the working class and does not bring anyone closer to controlling the means of production in any form.

If these people want to waste time with childish nonsense then let them do it. What stumped me here is when I read people actually taking this idea seriously.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

stealing is useless


stealing to get by is fine


hell stealing to save yourself some money or whatever is fine

i r confused

[Ele'ill]

And who is going to "get interested" when you say, "Hey, let's go shoplifting as a political activity!" People who shoplift already?


I already replied to this topic in several of my posts in this thread.

Perhaps people who shoplift already but don't understand it's significance (albeit a minor significance).

I appreciate any attempt by leftists to try new tactics or new ways to get people mentally involved.

Honestly the more tactics tried and proven to not get people involved and not work generally as a movement towards something the better understanding we have.

Adbusters is one of those magazines that I do suggest to friends that are discontended with the world around them but are yet to become political. They like the ideas the magazine produces and it gets them thinking-

Everything from the culture jamming billboard liberation actions to the 'buy nothing day' as well as this newish 'steal something' thing. A lot of my friends perhaps shoplifted because they wanted decent food for the week but could not afford it- with an introduction to a magazine- song- worker's rights periodical they start to understand why they were put in that position and why things are the way they are.


As an actual tactic- as I stated earlier in this thread- I wouldn't list this one in my top 10 'good ideas'.

But as an introductory way to educate a variety of people of different classes and backgrounds I think it works- if not this idea- then the magazine itself.

And yes- I have other sources of ideas being in the form of magazines- books- film documentaries and movies- that I would also suggest or suggest first.

[this is an invasion]

I got that, but how is it ever going to accomplish that?

By providing an analysis that questions class society and the idea of ownership.

[black magick hustla]

the article is dumb. btw, i once heard some kid claiming that he bankrolled his education by stealing plasma tvs he didnt have to write pseudo-situationist gibberish

everybody likes the bonnot gang, but cmon guys. whats next, someone is going to write about the liberatory aspect of having sex with your grandma in the graveyard?

[Adi Shankara]

everybody likes the bonnot gang, but cmon guys. whats next, someone is going to write about the liberatory aspect of having sex with your grandma in the graveyard?

FUCK GRANDMA--IT'S FOR THE GLORIOUS LIBERATION OF THE PROLETARIAT :laugh:

[this is an invasion]

the article is dumb. btw, i once heard some kid claiming that he bankrolled his education by stealing plasma tvs he didnt have to write pseudo-situationist gibberish

everybody likes the bonnot gang, but cmon guys. whats next, someone is going to write about the liberatory aspect of having sex with your grandma in the graveyard?

I hope so

[black magick hustla]

here are some article titles for you guys

- muslim feminism and cereal boxes - liberation by mixing different flavored cerials

-how much acid can you drop? liberation through zen and lsd


- the animal proletariat and the human proletariat, unite!

- subvert the system, plant cannabis in your office

[black magick hustla]

against gender roles - plant pink flowers in your frat

[Ele'ill]

Article titles from where?

[this is an invasion]

Article titles from where?

Crimethinc

[this is an invasion]

Except the lsd one. I think that was put out by RAAN

[Ele'ill]

I don't think those articles compare with the original poster's linked article. I think the ones being posted now are silly and wouldn't even get people involved.

[black magick hustla]

Except the lsd one. I think that was put out by RAAN

actually i made them up

[KC]

Sounds cool, no idea why this is in politics tho

[this is an invasion]

actually i made them up

I know... :cool:

[gorillafuck]

- subvert the system, plant cannabis in your office
:laugh: This made me laugh out loud wicked hard.