Rioting as political action?

[Let's Get Free]

What do you think? Yes? No? Maybe so?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well riots generally have a political origin - but sort of by definition they are spontanious events that are a reaction to oppression or degredation. So I don't know if it could be considered political "action" in a consious or stratigic sense. More of a political "event" IMO.

But a riot in of itself doesn't tell us much of the class character or consiousness of people involved. Riots can turn into sort of pogroms against the oppressed, they can be low in political content (a college sports riot) or very clearly political.

But riots even when they are expressions of class consiousness and anger are just sort of a starting point IMO. The period of consolodation of capitalist relations in most places resulted in major riots of peasants as they lost acess to land or communal rights, proto-prols as they faced vagrancy laws or lack of jobs, artisans resisting the industrialization and devaluation of their labor etc. But out of that upheaval, if people don't try to organize themselves on the basis of that class anger, the uphevals tend to recede as capitalist hegemony reasserts itself either through repression or co-option, offering reforms and giving into partial demands - most likely a combination of both. And so often we see that after a period of spontanious rioting, people try and figure out how to organize this sentiment - for example, out of the labor battles in the US in the 1800s, the Socialist Movement grew in the sense of actually attracting people involved directly in labor struggles whereas before they may have been people who'd come out of the Populists or from the more radical edges of Republicanism/Jacobeanism. The Black Panthers probably would never have existed as they did if people hadn't been fighting (and taking up arms against) the police over a few years of large black revolts in urban areas.

[Ele'ill]

sports riots giants won missions on fire


Well riots generally have a political origin - but sort of by definition they are spontanious events that are a reaction to oppression or degredation. So I don't know if it could be considered political "action" in a consious or stratigic sense. More of a political "event" IMO.

But a riot in of itself doesn't tell us much of the class character or consiousness of people involved. Riots can turn into sort of pogroms against the oppressed, they can be low in political content (a college sports riot) or very clearly political.

But riots even when they are expressions of class consiousness and anger are just sort of a starting point IMO. The period of consolodation of capitalist relations in most places resulted in major riots of peasants as they lost acess to land or communal rights, proto-prols as they faced vagrancy laws or lack of jobs, artisans resisting the industrialization and devaluation of their labor etc.

But out of that upheaval, if people don't try to organize themselves on the basis of that class anger, the uphevals tend to recede as capitalist hegemony reasserts itself either through repression or co-option, offering reforms and giving into partial demands - most likely a combination of both.

So you would say that a riot like any out pour of anger or love or whatever is an opportunity to share ideas and skills

[bricolage]

does it have to be 'the only way to get your message across' to be political?
riots are always political, even when they don't have a message.

[Let's Get Free]

does it have to be 'the only way to get your message across' to be political?
riots are always political, even when they don't have a message.

Not really. Last year, people in Vancouver rioted when their hockey team lost a game.

[bricolage]

Not really. Last year, people in Vancouver rioted when their hockey team lost a game.
yeah it was hype.
I dunno, obviously the reasons for that kind of riot aren't 'political' in the sense of prefiguring some kind of social change and the rioters are largely made up of college kids or whatnot, but I still don't think you can completely dismiss whole swathes of people willing to torch cop cars and loot shops.

when there were riots in london last year people said they weren't political because they weren't making demands and because they weren't waving placards, but fuck me it was the most political thing to happen in this country in decades.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

What is a more authentic expression of proletarian consciousness - hockey or Politics?

No, but, really, talking about "riots" in the abstract seems totally counterintuitive to me. It's like asking whether or not a roundhouse kick or wearing sneakers is political action. Context, yo.

[bricolage]

Riots can turn into sort of pogroms against the oppressed,
also this is very true and can often happen side by side with 'anti-authority' rioting, ie. in LA. I mean also you get cases (a few in India especially stick out) where rioting is essentially state (or dominant political actor) backed and directed against political enemies or marginalised groups.

but this is why I have a problem with conflating 'is rioting political?' with a no answer of 'Rioting can sometimes be useful, just as they can sometimes be counterproductive'. sometimes riots aren't just counter-productive, they are reactionary, horrific and barbaric. but that doesn't meant they aren't political but that the politics behind them aren't the politics we like.

[The Jay]

Every riot I have seen has been stupid, but that isn't likely true for all. I don't give a shit about bank windows but ripping street lights out of the ground is stupid.

[Ele'ill]

but ripping street lights out of the ground is stupid.

why exert more energy into being upset over street lights getting ripped out of the ground than was put into knocking them over?

[#FF0000]

I don't think anyone's gonna say "welp riots can literally get rid of capitalism". They aren't "useful" in that regard.

I think it's silly to talk about how "useful" they are though. People mad, people gonna riot. People happy, people gonna riot. Am I supposed to be upset about people breaking streetlights and smashin windows?

[Vanguard1917]

Clearly not all riots are the same. There are riots rooted in legitimate political dispute (such as the anti-racist Brixton riots of the '80s); then there are riots rooted in nihilism or a childish desire to cause mischief, where boys and girls run around stealing trainers and setting fire to their neighbours' homes for no particular reason.

The first type, although a product of despair and lack or weakness of political organisation, can potentially spark the formation of a political movement. The second type can lead to nothing positive whatsoever.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think it's weird to dismiss nihilism, childish desire, and looting as not "rooted in legitimate political dispute" - further because I'd say that the vast majority of rioting is not clearly distinguishable one way or the other.

I'd also say that sufficient rioting could probably end capitalism (insofar as breaking everything could destroy its material base), just probably not for the better (or, certainly not without a relationship to some sort of intentional prefiguritive/emancipatory project).

[l'Enfermé]

From what some people say on RevLeft, it sounds awfully like that to them, taking a shit can be interpreted as a "political act".

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

From what some people say on RevLeft, it sounds awfully like that to them, taking a shit can be interpreted as a "political act".

Where are you shitting? What is the context? Arguably, in given the existing aparatus of policing bodies, shitting is necessarily political. The questions that arise concern the role of shitting in an authentically emancipatory communist project.

[Ele'ill]

then there are riots rooted in nihilism or a childish desire to cause mischief, where boys and girls run around stealing trainers

Yeah apparently they don't know that communism isn't about mischief, sabotage, direct action, fun, liberation and disruptions in social control and the complete overthrow of capitalism and etc.. What a bunch of knuckle heads.


and setting fire to their neighbours' homes for no particular reason.

while drinking boiling goat blood

[The Jay]

why exert more energy into being upset over street lights getting ripped out of the ground than was put into knocking them over?

I said that it was stupid, not that I dwell upon it.

[#FF0000]

Clearly not all riots are the same. There are riots rooted in legitimate political dispute (such as the anti-racist Brixton riots of the '80s); then there are riots rooted in nihilism or a childish desire to cause mischief, where boys and girls run around stealing trainers and setting fire to their neighbours' homes for no particular reason.

In my experience that second type is a complete myth peddled by people who simply don't want to see the underlying cause. Nobody ever wants to pay for their shoes and always want to cause mischief. Riots don't happen because a bunch of teenagers decide to step up their being-a-teenager game one day.

[Ele'ill]

I said that it was stupid, not that I dwell upon it.

Why is it stupid? You'd think it would be in the spectrum from indifference through joy

[The Jay]

Why is it stupid? You'd think it would be in the spectrum from indifference through joy

Bringing down a street lamp - that other people's taxes will be used to pay for - will not do a damn thing to make things better or get back at anyone. Street lamps are good things, flip a porche.

[Ocean Seal]

Glad to see that most of us see rioting in fifty shades of gray (for what its worth this isn't meant to be homophobic, from what I know the book is just generally pornographic). Anyway, we really should look at particular examples to have a productive debate or else we will simply hear the same recycled garbage from both sides.

[Ele'ill]

Bringing down a street lamp - that other people's taxes will be used to pay for

are you being serious?

[The Jay]

Will bringing down a street lamp be productive: no it will not. Who has to pay for it? If it can be shown that the act would be productive then fine, until then all I see in it is negative. Where is the fault in that?

EDIT: I voted for the third option by the way, sheesh.

[Ele'ill]

Will bringing down a street lamp be productive: no it will not.


It could be though as part of a riot depending on how things go. I'm also pretty sure that 'tax money' to go towards repairs is pooled as a budget and not collected door to door at gun point after these events but I'm not totally sure and you might want to ask yourself why you're casually defending such systems to begin with by blaming the victims who are enjoying the little schism they've created even if it's just for a night.

[The Jay]

Where did I defend the system?

[Ele'ill]

Where did I defend the system?

maybe not defending, tolerating? Being excessively tolerant of it to the point where your criticisms of action against it are counterproductive and fit nicely into it's playbook and not one that benefits the left.

[The Jay]

Nope, I said what would happen. I don't like it and do not support it but that does not change whether or not such a thing would be productive towards changing the system nor who would face the consequences and to what degree. Once again, if it can be demonstrated to me that doing so would be productive I would be on-board, but not until then.

[Ele'ill]

Once again, if it can be demonstrated to me that doing so would be productive I would be on-board, but not until then.

So you oppose it?

[The Jay]

Oppose the street-lamp destruction or riots? I don't know which you are asking about.

[Positivist]

Riots seem cool but a lot of the time really aren't very productive. Tipping cars and burning buildings isn't any good if they belong to other workers, but when mass rage is targeted against the bourgiose it has the potential to force the bourgiose hands into concessions or repression, each of which present an opportunity for a legitimate militant workers movement.

[The Jay]

Riots seem cool but a lot of the time really aren't very productive. Tipping cars and burning buildings isn't any good if they belong to other workers, but when mass rage is targeted against the bourgiose it has the potential to force the bourgiose hands into concessions or repression, each of which present an opportunity for a legitimate militant workers movement.

Where did you find that from? Did you steal my notebooks? How did you get into my bunker?

[Let's Get Free]

Riots seem cool but a lot of the time really aren't very productive. Tipping cars and burning buildings isn't any good if they belong to other workers, but when mass rage is targeted against the bourgiose it has the potential to force the bourgiose hands into concessions or repression, each of which present an opportunity for a legitimate militant workers movement.

I think at the very least they need to be highly selective if they are serve any useful purpose and, more than that, they need to be overtly political and their intent made perfectly clear.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Mrm . . . just 'cos something is owned by a worker doesn't mean it isn't a part of the capitalist totality and shouldn't be set on fire. Or used as a barricade. Or whatever.

[Ele'ill]

I own the warehouse that I work at?

[Jimmie Higgins]

So you would say that a riot like any out pour of anger or love or whatever is an opportunity to share ideas and skills

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean a sort of "teachable moment" in the sense that a riot could encourage other people not to put up with injustice or inequality? Or do you mean as an induvidual actor in the riot: to go out and try and teach people tactics in the heat of it?

I mean both are possible in my view although I think the second option wouldn't make much of an impact unless there were some larger organized networks or formations with a degree of a profile and trust among a lot of other participants in the riot. With more people sharing a coordinated plan, you could have more of an impact and influence in terms of being able to rally and convince more people - also possibly in having ideas about what kinds of things might work best.

As for the first option - this is probably true: riots can spread or repeat. But a series of riots in various places over the course of a period of time, still leaves us in the same position as if there had only been an initial riot most of the time. Repeated riots by themselves wouldn't necissarily bring the working class any closer to running things themselves in my opinion unless people were able to organize something out of those riots and the sentiments and conditions behind them that could sort of be a bridge between mass uprisings. Organization is useless without a connection to mass spontanious action, and mass spontaious action generally can only go so far - without an alternative to the riot-causing status-quo eventually people have to figure out how to get more food and deal with other basic necissities and so the tide receedes. With something like the French Revolution, there were tons of riots that were the engine of things, but the forces that were the most politically organized and had a sense of an alternative way to run society were the middle class forces.

[hetz]

Anyone here got any serious injuries from the police? Like broken legs and arms, not bruises and stuff.

[Sea]

It's very important to make the distinction between riots against capitalism and riots as a symptom of capitalism, as well as between what is an act of riot and what is an act of revolution.

That said, anyone who wants to tip over a street lamp has no place in revolutionary politics, and I'd argue does rightly belong in jail for such senseless destruction.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

That said, anyone who wants to tip over a street lamp has no place in revolutionary politics, and I'd argue does rightly belong in jail for such senseless destruction.

Streetlights are a technology of control, and anybody who is opposed to tipping them over is a mysogenistic anticommunist control freak.
I can elaborate if you want, but I`m being silly.

Seriously though, why the fuck are you in love with the infrastructure of capital. The more shit gets broken, the better. You know what an authentically communist mode of production doesn't require? Street lamps. Fuck 'em.

[Rugged Collectivist]

At the very least, the state has to blow money fixing everything.

Honestly I think the most important aspect of a riot is the psychological aspect it might have on people. It's like that effect where if you see a bunch of broken stuff and litter you care less about keeping things nice.

I think there's some merit to all this anarchist talk of "breaking the spell" or whatever.

[Sea]

At the very least, the state has to blow money fixing everything.So as long as the working class is so eager to blow the state, it will be them who blows their labor power. Offing streetlamps could be a useful tactic to avoid being seen at night, but destruction is rather pointless if it doesn't serve a point. And, I'd argue that the breaking the spell sort of thing should be directed towards directly useful tactics. The degradation of public infrastructure doesn't really fit with that the way I see it weather it be streetlamps or sidewalks or public bathrooms.


Streetlights are a technology of control, and anybody who is opposed to tipping them over is a mysogenistic anticommunist control freak.
I can elaborate if you want, but I`m being silly.

Seriously though, why the fuck are you in love with the infrastructure of capital. The more shit gets broken, the better. You know what an authentically communist mode of production doesn't require? Street lamps. Fuck 'em.Comrade (if that is your real name) you'd be best advised to stop feigning primitivism, lest you want to try out your ideas in the snow. ;)


Streetlamps are no more controlling than sunlight. If you want to be a cool badass and go around doing sneaky things in the shadow of darkness, you might as well get it out of your system now.

[Rugged Collectivist]

So as long as the working class is so eager to blow the state, it will be them who blows their labor power

What?

[Sea]

What?When you're having your little fun knocking over a street lamp, it will be on the backs of workers that it is brought back up.

[Ele'ill]

When you're having your little fun knocking over a street lamp, it will be on the backs of workers that it is brought back up.

This is poopy logic because the workers that repair lampposts would be required to do this type of stuff anyways and it wouldn't be some huge extra burden on them. tbh i think certain leftists have issues with this stuff because they don't have control of the workers

[Rugged Collectivist]

This is poopy logic because the workers that repair lampposts would be required to do this type of stuff anyways and it wouldn't be some huge extra burden on them

This. Workers don't get payed for standing around. If they weren't fixing lamp posts they'd be fixing/building something else. I doubt it would be any more boring or annoying than what they normally do all day.

[Sea]

This. Workers don't get payed for standing around. If they weren't fixing lamp posts they'd be fixing/building something else. I doubt it would be any more boring or annoying than what they normally do all day.I guess you're right. I mostly said that on the logic that it provides a hole for the "system" to fill, which kind of breaks the logic that knocking down the streetlamp would knock down (a tiny fraction of) the system.

I still hold my ground, though; senseless destruction has no point and makes us look like those lovely "anarchists" that you see on CNN and Fox. The goal should be to fuck their shit up, not to just fuck shit up in general. I really don't see streetlamps as being a tool of the bourgeoisie in the same way as, say, cop cars for example.

[Rugged Collectivist]

I still hold my ground, though; senseless destruction has no point and makes us look like those lovely "anarchists" that you see on CNN and Fox. The goal should be to fuck their shit up, not to just fuck shit up in general. I really don't see streetlamps as being a tool of the bourgeoisie in the same way as, say, cop cars for example.

Honestly I don't know how we got on this whole streetlamps thing. From what I've seen of riot videos, the things that usually get broken are bourgeois property, like storefronts, cop cars, newspaper boxes, etc.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Symbolic action? Anyone?

[l'Enfermé]

This is poopy logic because the workers that repair lampposts would be required to do this type of stuff anyways and it wouldn't be some huge extra burden on them. tbh i think certain leftists have issues with this stuff because they don't have control of the workers
How is that mate? If nobody is breaking the lampposts they don't have to. Your logic is similar to that of those jackasses in 3th grade that loiter and whine to the teacher that they don't have to clean up after themselves because the janitor is going to do it anyway.

[hetz]

This is poopy logic because the workers that repair lampposts would be required to do this type of stuff anyways and it wouldn't be some huge extra burden on them.
A lamppost is quite expensive, and all of that is payed for by the local community. Instead of that money going to schools or whatever, it has to be spent on repairing lampposts.

[bricolage]

Honestly I don't know how we got on this whole streetlamps thing. From what I've seen of riot videos, the things that usually get broken are bourgeois property, like storefronts, cop cars, newspaper boxes, etc.
yeah this lampost thing is proper confusing.
I mean it's not normally lamposts that get smashed so I dunno where this obsession with them comes from.

[Rugged Collectivist]

How is that mate? If nobody is breaking the lampposts they don't have to. Your logic is similar to that of those jackasses in 3th grade that loiter and whine to the teacher that they don't have to clean up after themselves because the janitor is going to do it anyway.

No man, you aren't getting it. If the janitor wasn't cleaning up your mess, he would be cleaning someone elses. It doesn't really matter what he's cleaning, he gets payed either way.


yeah this lampost thing is proper confusing.
I mean it's not normally lamposts that get smashed so I dunno where this obsession with them comes from.

I think someone said lamppost and everyone just went with it.

[Ele'ill]

No man, you aren't getting it. If the janitor wasn't cleaning up your mess, he would be cleaning someone elses. It doesn't really matter what he's cleaning, he gets payed either way.

YES \:lol:/



I think someone said lamppost and everyone just went with it.

Some of the users in these threads should design strawman arguments for mainstream media. Just like the "working class person's car" example in that other thread. It doesn't actually happen really at all but it makes it easy to smear. A non-luxury car probably gets smashed once in a while and it's because some person pulled up to a militant bloc and told everyone how they wanted to "hang you faggots from your entrails".


Also regarding the moaning about 'community money wasting' and other such complete bullshit- like being haunted forever because you know that a portion of your tax dollars are funding new cobblestone projectiles and burning dumpster barricades but this isn't even relevant because we're really only talking about a lamp post.

[Ravachol]

It's very important to make the distinction between riots against capitalism and riots as a symptom of capitalism, as well as between what is an act of riot and what is an act of revolution.


A distinction no doubt made and approved by Politbureau of the Central Committee of the Unified workers party-sect for working workers revolution (Leninist-Irrelevantist) :rolleyes:



That said, anyone who wants to tip over a street lamp has no place in revolutionary politics, and I'd argue does rightly belong in jail for such senseless destruction.

http://deterritorialsupportgroup.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/egypt-copy.jpg

In all seriousness though, anyone who claims those engaged in property destruction 'rightly belong in jail' are not comrades of mine, but enemies. And deserve a slap across the face.

[Sea]

In all seriousness though, anyone who claims those engaged in property destruction 'rightly belong in jail' are not comrades of mine, but enemies. And deserve a slap across the face.Stuff gets broken in revolutions, wars and riots. This is simply a fact, be it unfortunate to you or not.

What I have a problem with is breaking things merely for the sake of breaking things. If public infrastructure gets beaten to shit, so be it. That doesn't mean it should be a priority to destroy the world around you. Same goes with the difference between breaking bourgeois property and breaking bourgeois property relations. The latter is our goal, the former inevitable in a state of war. It is better to expropriate from the ruling class than to simply blow everything to bits after all, don't you agree?

In no way was I ever suggesting that we all just sit down and hope everybody plays nice. In no way did I fail to acknowledge the necessity of revolution in achieving our goals, or the violence that it entails.

The violence inherant of revolution is the violence inherent in the workers acting in self-defense, as well as taking an offensive position against the ruling class. Excess violence is what I am against. Rioting can be valid political action. Destruction that has no purpose cannot be.

[Ele'ill]

Destruction that has no purpose cannot be.

Is there such a thing as destruction that has no purpose?

[Sea]

Is there such a thing as destruction that has no purpose?Revolutionary purpose.

You know what I meant.

[Ele'ill]

Revolutionary purpose.

this is pretty vague

[black magick hustla]

this is pretty vague

i think the point is that there is a difference between moonbats who make breaking things part of their shitty ideology and shit getting wasted as a consequence of a social outbreak. anarchists don't understand materialism

[Ele'ill]

i think the point is that there is a difference between moonbats

said the barely relevant moonbat


who make breaking things part of their shitty ideology and shit getting wasted as a consequence of a social outbreak.

people are mad stuff gets disrupted, torched, sabotaged. why not?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Even an act of petty vandalism succeeds in proving that the social fabric is not as total as we are led to believe. Besides, who said we were all interested in inheriting what the bourgeoisie molded? I want to live somewhere new.

[The Jay]

Even an act of petty vandalism succeeds in proving that the social fabric is not as total as we are led to believe. Besides, who said we were all interested in inheriting what the bourgeoisie molded? I want to live somewhere new.


Do you realize the amount of effort it would take to alter the cities to destroy all that the bourgeois class had a hand in? Add to that question the precondition of doing so without harming the people that live there, knowing that not all would agree with you. Have you really thought of all the implications of that?

That would be just as daunting, if not more-so than changing the economic mode.

You would still have to show how that would even be a desirable action to others, which your statement does not do - though you may choose to defend your opinion in the future.

To me, a road is a road, a textile machine is a textile machine, and a bus is a bus. What is important is how these things are used and in what manner that decision is made.

To use an object, even one that some people rely on for either safety or survival, can be used justifiably as long as the goal of that use - potentially resulting in destruction - is towards a worthy goal.

If it is just to let off some steam then the object should not be something that is necessary for safety or survival. Such would be the equivalent of punching a hole in your apartment because your boss pissed you off and leaving it for someone else to clean up when they could be doing something else with their time that could be more valuable to society than taking care of the results of a pissed off person. This is especially true when that anger could have been directed towards something more productive: educating workers, costing oppressive institutions capital (yes I see the argument that could be made here), and, or organizing.

Retaliation is different from mindless action.

If anyone would like to discuss this without calling me a shill I would be happy to do so. If, on the other hand, I start getting harassed for what I think is a reasonable position, I don't think that I'll feed that.

In hope of a civil discussion,
me

[black magick hustla]

Even an act of petty vandalism succeeds in proving that the social fabric is not as total as we are led to believe.

lol keep quoting bad insurrecto praseology that doesn't mean anything. instead of trying to make the aesthetic of violence your politics you might as well watch some few spaghetti westerns instead

[Os Cangaceiros]

Even an act of petty vandalism succeeds in proving that the social fabric is not as total as we are led to believe. Besides, who said we were all interested in inheriting what the bourgeoisie molded? I want to live somewhere new.

I think a plausible argument could be made that vandalism and such could lead to increased disorder in general (although the jury is still out on that I think). However, I'm not convinced at all that increased vandalism, disorder etc. leads to the kind of disorder that insurrectos sometimes think it could. Detroit hasn't turned into Exarchia last time I checked. I think there are a lot of factors that go into why a big rebellion takes place, why huge protests suddenly take place, why riots and street battles pop up. Many times I think that insurrectos have a very simplistic analysis of all these things.

[human strike]

A. G. Schwarz - Signals of Disorder: Sowing Anarchy in the Metropolis (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/a-g-schwarz-signals-of-disorder-sowing-anarchy-in-the-metropolis)


I'd also say that sufficient rioting could probably end capitalism (insofar as breaking everything could destroy its material base), just probably not for the better (or, certainly not without a relationship to some sort of intentional prefiguritive/emancipatory project).

Make total destroy!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/72700803/40/Make-Total-Destroy-John-Cunningham


Anyone here got any serious injuries from the police? Like broken legs and arms, not bruises and stuff.

Yes, but I'd rather not to say what exactly here.


This is poopy logic because the workers that repair lampposts would be required to do this type of stuff anyways and it wouldn't be some huge extra burden on them. tbh i think certain leftists have issues with this stuff because they don't have control of the workers

That and plain old commodity fetishism.

[hetz]

That and plain old commodity fetishism.
Elaborate please.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Do you realize the amount of effort it would take to alter the cities to destroy all that the bourgeois class had a hand in? Add to that question the precondition of doing so without harming the people that live there, knowing that not all would agree with you. Have you really thought of all the implications of that?

That would be just as daunting, if not more-so than changing the economic mode.

You would still have to show how that would even be a desirable action to others, which your statement does not do - though you may choose to defend your opinion in the future.

To me, a road is a road, a textile machine is a textile machine, and a bus is a bus. What is important is how these things are used and in what manner that decision is made.

To use an object, even one that some people rely on for either safety or survival, can be used justifiably as long as the goal of that use - potentially resulting in destruction - is towards a worthy goal.

If it is just to let off some steam then the object should not be something that is necessary for safety or survival. Such would be the equivalent of punching a hole in your apartment because your boss pissed you off and leaving it for someone else to clean up when they could be doing something else with their time that could be more valuable to society than taking care of the results of a pissed off person. This is especially true when that anger could have been directed towards something more productive: educating workers, costing oppressive institutions capital (yes I see the argument that could be made here), and, or organizing.

Retaliation is different from mindless action.

If anyone would like to discuss this without calling me a shill I would be happy to do so. If, on the other hand, I start getting harassed for what I think is a reasonable position, I don't think that I'll feed that.

In hope of a civil discussion,
me

I wrote a nicer response, but I only own a tablet and revleft has a habit of eating my posts due to how long it takes me to type on this thing and how the timeout settings work. Anyway, I'm not so interested in destroying everything as I am in wrecking the power inanimate objects have over human beings. On the last page there was someone arguing that people who damage or destory lamp posts should be dealt with by the police. Seriously? It's a fucking lamp post.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I think a plausible argument could be made that vandalism and such could lead to increased disorder in general (although the jury is still out on that I think). However, I'm not convinced at all that increased vandalism, disorder etc. leads to the kind of disorder that insurrectos sometimes think it could. Detroit hasn't turned into Exarchia last time I checked. I think there are a lot of factors that go into why a big rebellion takes place, why huge protests suddenly take place, why riots and street battles pop up. Many times I think that insurrectos have a very simplistic analysis of all these things.

I don't know if one act of vandalism possesses some kind of power, that if increased x1000, would lead to a state of general insurrection or something. I just feel that anything that shows how thin and fragile the social fabric is can be a tool that we shouldn't be afraid to use. Even if that action is viewed as being pointless or even repugnant. I'm not so attached to store windows that I can't bring myself to sacrifice a few in order break up the narrative of social harmony under bourgeois rule, even if its only for a few minutes.

[human strike]

Elaborate please.

In capitalist societies, commodities, i.e. things, property etc., are fetishised. Capitalist ideology doesn't like property damage because property to the capitalist is everything.

[hetz]

I don't think that's what commodity fetishism means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism

[The Jay]

I wrote a nicer response, but I only own a tablet and revleft has a habit of eating my posts due to how long it takes me to type on this thing and how the timeout settings work. Anyway, I'm not so interested in destroying everything as I am in wrecking the power inanimate objects have over human beings. On the last page there was someone arguing that people who damage or destory lamp posts should be dealt with by the police. Seriously? It's a fucking lamp post.

Well in that case I can see what you mean but I wasn't saying that anyone should be arrested, only that I didn't see the point of destroying an object that makes people safer.

[xvzc]

We should support the proletariat when it goes into mass revolt such as in Los Angeles 1992, France 2005, or England 2011, and conduct political work during these events. Whatever excesses occur when the masses are unleashed into open revolt are basically to be expected, and especially so when there is no prominent communist presence which can give these revolts direction beforehand or during.

What is particularly exciting is that the repressive state apparatus and the bourgeoisie's monopoly on violence is actively challenged.

Unfortunately, I can't link to anything but you can search for the following articles online for further perspective:

Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan by Mao, particularly chapters "It's Terrible!" or "It's Fine!" and The Question of "Going Too Far", which refute petty-bourgeois and liberal concerns about mass revolt.

France's Proletarian Youth Erupt by the Revolutionary Communist Party (Organizing Committee), the precursor organization of the PCR-RCP. Some cadres were in France and investigated the rioting which occurred there in 2005.

With the Looters and Against the Left by Signalfire which puts looting into context by claiming that "[t]he mass appropriation of Nikes and Iphones without explanation or justification is like any struggle for higher wages and fewer hours of work a direct assertion of the material needs of the class" and are as such "immeasurably closer to the living content of communist politics then any nationalist and reformist movement with a “coherent” message."

London's Burning: The Revolt of the Youth by A World to Win News Service, which is based in London and supportive of the developments which occurred in 2011.

[Let's Get Free]

I think without direction, these things can sometimes be dangerously self-defeating.

[Ele'ill]

I think without direction, these things can sometimes be dangerously self-defeating.

What do you mean by 'without direction'?

[Let's Get Free]

What do you mean by 'without direction'?

I would say that they indicate the weaknesses and the disorganization of the working class at that current moment. I would go further: it shows the absence, the real absence, of a working class as a body of struggle, not merely as a sociological agglomeration of wage-slaves.

[Avanti]

political action as rioting sounds much more fun.

[Avanti]

I would say that they indicate the weaknesses and the disorganization of the working class at that current moment. I would go further: it shows the absence, the real absence, of a working class as a body of struggle, not merely as a sociological agglomeration of wage-slaves.

the classical working class was actually a far greater support for the status quo than the agglomeration. they could create stability inside the nation-state and give politicians the power to negotiate between employers and wage slaves.

technological progress destroys that, because soon everything will be automated.

then capitalism will morph into failed states, mega-cities and cyberpunk.

[Ravachol]

i think the point is that there is a difference between moonbats who make breaking things part of their shitty ideology and shit getting wasted as a consequence of a social outbreak. anarchists don't understand materialism

I don't agree with the latter part though. I'm a materialist and understand fully well the impotence of both the revolutionary minority and voluntarist action but there's a very weird tendency within the ultraleft that swerves the other way and results in some kind of 'automarxist' determinism where the 'material conditions' will cause 'history' to produce the revolution as an 'objective necessity' somehow without any human intervention (I know that's a caricature).

You can see the tension between these things existing between the more insurrecto side of the communisation milieu (Tiqqun, the west coast milieu, the Swedish milieu, etc.) and the continental groups (Theorie Communiste, Troploin, Blaumachen, etc.) and between the more 'humanist' approach of Troploin and the almost determinist approach of TC. I think sanity lies somewhere in between all these positions.

Yeah, minority groups doing what minority groups do has little historical impact and won't act like lighting the fuse to the powder keg. On the other hand, there's a lot of sense to the insurrectionary idea of 'signals of disorder' (theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/A._G._Schwarz__Signals_of_Disorder__Sowing_Anarchy _in_the_Metropolis.html) where at certain times the intervention of minorities (whether its revolutionary minorities or minorities within the broad class body) can help produce a particular rift in practices, influencing the situation.

Sure, outside of the broad frame/context of 'history' (ie. outside of the context of an already existing 'tension') the actions of minorities achieve little (though not necessarily nothing). But taking the other extreme end of the voluntarism/determinism dichotomy is bs imo.


I think a plausible argument could be made that vandalism and such could lead to increased disorder in general (although the jury is still out on that I think). However, I'm not convinced at all that increased vandalism, disorder etc. leads to the kind of disorder that insurrectos sometimes think it could. Detroit hasn't turned into Exarchia last time I checked. I think there are a lot of factors that go into why a big rebellion takes place, why huge protests suddenly take place, why riots and street battles pop up. Many times I think that insurrectos have a very simplistic analysis of all these things.

Yeah, that's why though I consider myself close to insurrectionary anarchism, i'm not an 'insurrecto' since I think that tradition (tied as it is to the writings of Bonanno and publications like Insurrection, Machete, Killing King Abacus, A murder of crows, etc.) sometimes oversimplifies the way the decomposition of control occurs. Their insistence upon a perpetually antagonistic 'first person politics' and the very real role militants can play within situations is important imo (esp. when contrasted with those who resign themselves to mere boring rearguard analysis or, god forbid, leftism). But they then turn this praxis of 'escalation' into an abstract ideology, into a normative principle to be applied everywhere, at all times, as if it will, if only we tried hard enough, always solicit social revolutionary insurrection.

Besides, if a few proles get some fun out of smashing a bank window (which most do after a drunk night out), hey at least they got some fun out of a concrete pile of misery.

[Ravachol]

Also:


lol keep quoting bad insurrecto praseology that doesn't mean anything. instead of trying to make the aesthetic of violence your politics you might as well watch some few spaghetti westerns instead

I do think he/she has a point there though. Not in the sense that each act of rioting is an emergence of the communist tendency rearing its head and crying out for freedom but in the sense that it does interrupt the narrative of social peace, the idea that "everything is fine folks, move along, there's no discontent over here". School shootings, terrorism, leaps in the usage of antidepressants and mental breakdowns, etc. all do that too. The thing is, the interruption of the narrative of social peace is not outside of the spectacle. While those in the West (esp. during the late '80s and throughout the '90s) were used to images of mass violence and bombs coming only from elsewhere, 9/11 and the return of 'international terrorism' (after its ray-ban phase in the '70s) were easily swallowed and spat back out as a stream of images and new narratives around the 'clash of civilizations', which kinda broke down with the suburban riots in France which then give rise to a narrative of 'out of control youth' and 'social disintegration'.

So while I do think that there's always an inherent underlying political content (or rather, anti-political content) to something like rioting (even riots for fun, like football hooliganism) and it does interrupt the narrative of everybody being Empire's "good citizen" I don't think it makes a fundamental break with the spectacle per se and can end up producing simply a different narrative.