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The Feral Underclass
1st October 2013, 14:28
"Its interesting to reflect on my own development as an anarchist and, what Ive learned from this experience is the following:

-People who identify as anarchists are often idiots. Avoid thinking of them as having any useful thoughts or views just because they call themselves an anarchist.

-Anarchists continuously repeat past mistakes without learning from them or being aware of these past mistakes. And when I say past, I mean anything more than 2 years ago.

-You cant create a formal organization with people who are anti-formal organization.

-Insurrectionarys (whether class war or social war), primitivists, post-leftists and anarcho-syndicalists/communists cannot exist in one organization.

-If the basis for a possible organization is 100% folks between the ages of 17-25its probably not worth the trouble.

-People who are against workshops at a gathering/conference have shitty politics and want to bask in irrelevance. Rightly view them as lunatics and dont try to convince them of anything.

-If its called a gathering, welljust go to the bar instead.

-If the phrase feeling out our affinities is said more than once, without irony, your best bet is to go home.

-Those who speak in vague, wordy generalities and refuse to talk about concrete examples should be scathingly insulted. While it may not accomplish anything, it will make you feel better.

In summary, most in the stereotypical American anarchist miliue are moronic half-wits who will bring you to the brink of renouncing revolutionary theory and practice itself in favor of non-involvement and becoming a mostly apolitical person. The only useful purpose they have is that some of us eventually come out of that subculture and phase and onto actual serious and sane organizing."

http://thinkinthroughit.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/reportback-from-2008-anarchist-gathering-in-kansas-city/

SonofRage
1st October 2013, 18:15
Get out of my brain.

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The Feral Underclass
1st October 2013, 18:27
Get out of my brain.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk 4

:D

SonofRage
1st October 2013, 18:33
So what do we do about it? I've had times where I want to drop the anarchist label completely. I spent years of my life that was anti-authoritarian but not explicitly anarchist (Bring the Ruckus). This is an issue I struggle with often.

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The Feral Underclass
1st October 2013, 18:38
So what do we do about it? I've had times where I want to drop the anarchist label completely. I spent years of my life that was anti-authoritarian but not explicitly anarchist (Bring the Ruckus). This is an issue I struggle with often.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk 4

I've just started to refer to myself as a libertarian communist.

I think the platformist/specifist organisations in America have already moved away from the word anarchist.

synthesis
2nd October 2013, 02:29
I like the OP, but not really having an understanding of the left-anarchist subculture, I wouldn't mind learning a little more about the context of these two points:


-People who are against workshops at a gathering/conference have shitty politics and want to bask in irrelevance. Rightly view them as lunatics and dont try to convince them of anything.

-If the phrase feeling out our affinities is said more than once, without irony, your best bet is to go home.

Who's against workshops? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question, I'd really like to know. Is it because of some sort of "ideological authority" or something?

And I've been staring at the phrase "feeling out our affinities" for a couple minutes now and I seriously have no idea what it could possibly mean in a political context or why it would be used often enough to warrant being included in a list like this.

bcbm
2nd October 2013, 04:34
wow that article was a trip down memory lane

Os Cangaceiros
2nd October 2013, 05:05
I would argue that American anarchists got better post-2008. Their politics got better. *based mostly on what people have posted in @news and infoshop back in the day

Devrim
2nd October 2013, 07:43
Who's against workshops? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question, I'd really like to know.

Alexi Sayle:

Anyone who uses the word workshop outside of light engineering is a twat.

Devrim

Sasha
2nd October 2013, 11:22
I think this is of relevance in this thread:

http://bayanarchists.wordpress.com/
:lol:

The Feral Underclass
2nd October 2013, 11:49
I think this is of relevance in this thread:

http://bayanarchists.wordpress.com/
:lol:

I've seen this before. It's brilliant.

sixdollarchampagne
2nd October 2013, 20:57
...
-If it’s called a ‘gathering’, well…just go to the bar instead.

-If the phrase “feeling out our affinities” is said more than once, without irony, your best bet is to go home.

-Those who speak in vague, wordy generalities and refuse to talk about concrete examples should be scathingly insulted. While it may not accomplish anything, it will make you feel better....

Thanks to TAT for a hilarious look at anarchism. In my experience, the deadliest thing in trying to organize a group to do something concrete (like holding an antiwar march) is the discussion about the nature of the group: Is it is a coalition or something else? [My response: What the hell else could it be? Let's get on with it!] It can be so open-ended, vague, and time-consuming. Just get to what we need to do concretely, please!

I was always grateful to Lenin for having left us a plethora of well-defined political and organizational content, so that we don't have to start from scratch or reinvent the freaking wheel every time we need to accomplish something.

Top-down democratic centralism forever! Yeah! :grin:

Hrafn
5th October 2013, 09:58
It's sad the American 'milieu' is nothing like the European one, largely.


-If the basis for a possible organization is 100% folks between the ages of 17-25…it’s probably not worth the trouble.

As a member of the Syndikalistiska Ungdomsfrbundet (Official translation to make it easier for international understanding: the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation), I strongly disagree.

The Feral Underclass
5th October 2013, 11:03
It's sad the American 'milieu' is nothing like the European one, largely.

The European one is no better really.

Hrafn
5th October 2013, 12:09
The European one is no better really.

In my country, it most definitely is.