Crimethinc

[Organic Revolution]

please visit Crimethinc.com/.net/.tk for a new look on revoultionary anarchism.




and remeber,
we do not exist.

[romanm]

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

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

Get the uzi!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Organic Revolution]

shit if you wrote this then i would maybe take it seriously..... on second hand, your a maoist, so i wouldnt

[Organic Revolution]

bump

[JazzRemington]

CrimethInc is post-leftist, "they" refuse to partake in leftist actions and whatnot.

[Organic Revolution]

what do u mean

[violencia.Proletariat]

crimethinc is lifestylist ;) yuck

[Organic Revolution]

revolutionary politics is life stylist

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by rise [email protected] 15 2005, 11:01 PM
revolutionary politics is life stylist
no no. from their little phamplets ive read they seem to be saying, everyone needs to find their own anarchy and then somehow ban together to form a new society. they have no plan. and they are reactionary because they have no plan for an industrial society. by what they say it can only be an agrarian society. afterall they say forget the guys with beards, so that means what? everyone is somehow going to say hey, i am an anarchist and ban together, then what?

[Urban Rubble]

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the whole Crimethinc idea, but one thing is for sure, these lifestylist Anarchists that "serious leftists" like to bash so much seem to be the only ones doing anything, other than holding signs and marching in circles that is.

[Organic Revolution]

hey you got ur sig from crimethinc

[KptnKrill]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 08:12 PM
CrimethInc is post-leftist, "they" refuse to partake in leftist actions and whatnot.
That's because the left is a huge failure.

Your Politics are Boring as Fuck is such a great essay :D

[romanm]

Revolution isn't a dinner party. It's not a dance party either.

Mao and the chinese revolutionaries walked across China losing most of their people on the way.

Sorry if our politics are boring. Revolution is about ending hunger, land reforem, socializing production, public education, etc.

What is Crimethinc (for beginners) doing about that?

Crimthinc (for beginners) are a bunch of infintile first world parasites who think they are entitled to fun 24/7 while the rest of humanity starves. Their attitude is pretty typical of the very privileged living at the top of the social foodchain. What a buch of shitheads.

[Organic Revolution]

you dont open your eyes then, romanm. read some of there communiques, they break in to fancy hotels and steal most of the food and distrbute it amongsts the poor andhungry and homless. they are arguing for an anarchist revolution, yes they advocate having fun but whats wrong with that, i bet even 'the great wonderful chairman mao' had fun and plotted the overthrow of the chinese dictatorship.

why do you say crimethinc (for begginers)? we are called the crimethinc ex-workers collective. dont be so nieve misrepresent the name of the group.

maoist are a bunch of infintile first second and third world people who think they should never have fun and steal the food for there armies and let the people who wont fight with them starve. lets go start another cultural revoution... cause that was a great idea wasnt it.

mao was a reactionary fuck. :rolleyes:

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by rise [email protected] 17 2005, 10:41 AM
you dont open your eyes then, romanm. read some of there communiques, they break in to fancy hotels and steal most of the food and distrbute it amongsts the poor andhungry and homless. they are arguing for an anarchist revolution, yes they advocate having fun but whats wrong with that, i bet even 'the great wonderful chairman mao' had fun and plotted the overthrow of the chinese dictatorship.

why do you say crimethinc (for begginers)? we are called the crimethinc ex-workers collective. dont be so nieve misrepresent the name of the group.

maoist are a bunch of infintile first second and third world people who think they should never have fun and steal the food for there armies and let the people who wont fight with them starve. lets go start another cultural revoution... cause that was a great idea wasnt it.

mao was a reactionary fuck. :rolleyes:
can you show me the plan for their revolutoin becuase i dont exactly see how they are going to do it if they dismis anarchist theory

[Organic Revolution]

show me your plan for revolution. they do not dismiss anarchist theory they just critiqe and reinvent anarchism.

[romanm]

Crimthinc (for beginners) is a joke. If you want to feed the poor, at least step a notch up and try food not bombs.

Stealing food for the poor is about the dumbest way to go about a food program. You can usually go to health food stores or hare krishna temples or food banks as Food Not Bombs does.

And as Maoista said, the poor don't need your help teaching them howto steal. They could probably teach you a thing or two tho.

Get real.

PS: I never said Crimethinc (for beginners) wasn't good for rebelous surburban kids. The title of their book says it all.. I'm not misrepresenting what Crimthinc (for beginners) is, you are. The subtitle of their book: "Crimethinc (for beginners)" and that is exactly what it is.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by rise [email protected] 17 2005, 12:50 PM
show me your plan for revolution. they do not dismiss anarchist theory they just critiqe and reinvent anarchism.
they dont dismiss anarchist theory??? look at that phamplet thats like half a city and half countryside, in that phamplet it says, forget the old guys with beards. now if they mean forget what they had to say then they are dismissing major theory.

[KptnKrill]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2005, 02:52 PM
Mao and the chinese revolutionaries walked across China losing most of their people on the way.
Wow what a bunch of nitwits. No wonder the left failed.

[Urban Rubble]

Mao and the chinese revolutionaries walked across China losing most of their people on the way.

And Napolean did the same by walking across Russia, what the fuck does that prove?

They also installed a totalitarian state that was more concerned with defense spending and looking good for the West than with feeding their people (remember, no matter how good their intentions, the policies of the CPC killed millions).

I fail to see your point.


What is Crimethinc (for beginners) doing about that?

I think the question you should be asking is, "What is the 'serious' left doing about these things?". Because from what I can see, Crimethinc kinds are the ones out on the streets actually taking action to change society. The "traditional" left are the ones sitting around on boards like this arguing theoretical semantics, perhaps occasionally staging a protest (which does no good whatsoever).

Last week in Seattle some Crimethinc kids set up a free food handout in a city park near my house. I went over to help and saw about 20 homeless people filling their bellies (and also discusisng revolutionary politics, yes, average homeless people were being turned on to Anarchism as a direct result of this) with good, homemade food.

And that is just one small action out of thousands I see all the time. These "beginners" are not content to sit around and wait for society to change, they are actively taking a role in the fight for social progress. Meanwhile you guys are sitting around waiting for "the revolution". Little do you know, it has already started.


Crimthinc (for beginners) are a bunch of infintile first world parasites who think they are entitled to fun 24/7 while the rest of humanity starves. Their attitude is pretty typical of the very privileged living at the top of the social foodchain. What a buch of shitheads.

You are so full of shit.

Crimethinc actually has written extensively on the idea of "Duty bound" activism vs. "Joy bound" activism (you'd know that if you were actually informed about the group you are talking shit about). What they have said is that if you are only concerned with having fun, if you are only motivated by Joy, your politics tend to be ineffective and not taken seriously (and are often abandoned when it stops being "fun"). On the other hand, they also say that the "Duty bound" model leads to a variety of negative consequences (burnout being the big one). And I think they're right, you need to find a balance between the fun and the duty or else you're never going to accomplish anything.

Now, your claim about them only wanting to have fun has obviously been refuted, it just isn't true. But even if it was, you know what? Their idea of fun includes feeding starving people, so even if what you said was accurate, that they only wish to have fun, it is still inaccurate to say they do so while ignoring the problems of starving people.

Why not make a valid criticism instead of hysterical, uninformed insults?

I think it's quite funny to see the reactionary leftists complain about Crimethinc. It amazes me how quickly the "open minded" progressives will turn their backs on you as soon as you reject their particular model for changing society. It gives the impression that you guys are more concerned with personal prestige and glory (and power) than you are with social progress. If Crimethinc wishes to reject traditional leftism, yet still fight for social progress, what is your problem with that?


can you show me the plan for their revolutoin becuase i dont exactly see how they are going to do it if they dismis anarchist theory

They don't dismiss Anarchist theory. They simply say that we shouldn't cling to these theories just because we're told to. They encourage people to take matters into their own hands and come up with a way to change society that works for them. They don't say "This kind of Anarchism doesn't work, it's wrong" (like you people are doing). What they say is "Anarchism is a diverse movement with many different ideas on how it should work, all theories are valid as long as they fight for social change".

Their "plan" is to give people some credit and realize that they can come up with a "plan" all by themselves. It is contrary to the ideas of Anarchism to tell people how to achieve their own revolution.


Stealing food for the poor is about the dumbest way to go about a food program. You can usually go to health food stores or hare krishna temples or food banks as Food Not Bombs does.

Oooh, food banks and relgious charities, now there is a way to fight Capitalism.


And as Maoista said, the poor don't need your help teaching them howto steal. They could probably teach you a thing or two tho.

Actually, genius, Maoists (Leninists, whatever) are the ones trying to tell people what is best for them and what they should be doing to better their own lives. Crimethinc is doing the exact opposite, instead of teaching people "how to steal", they are encouraging people to think for themselves and come up with their own plan. You are criticizing these people on grounds that are completely contrary to what they believe. YOU people are the ones who have embraced the vanguard and who think you are going to liberate all these poor, downtrodden bastards yourselves (because obviously, they can't be trusted to do it themselves, my God, they might not accept a massive "red" beauracracy).


PS: I never said Crimethinc (for beginners) wasn't good for rebelous surburban kids.

Yeah, because Maoism and Che Guevara aren't trendy amongst rebellious suburban kids :rolleyes: Please.

The difference is, "trendy" Anarchists are still out taking action while the "trendy" Leninist/Che kids are busy looking for Che shirts at the mall.


they dont dismiss anarchist theory??? look at that phamplet thats like half a city and half countryside, in that phamplet it says, forget the old guys with beards. now if they mean forget what they had to say then they are dismissing major theory.

By "forget the guys with beards" they don't mean to dismiss every theory and/or teaching these people ever wrote. What they are saying is don't worship them and don't accept everything they say simply because other things they wrote were true. Case is point: "Marxism". Obviously Marx had many good things to say that we should all pay attention to, but just because he was an intelligent critic of Capitalism does not mean we have to accept everything the man ever said, much less call ourselves "Marxists" (which is basically accepting theology, how can you devote yourself to the ideas of one MAN?)

[Organic Revolution]

cheers to urban rubble!

romanm what you fail to realize is that following Maoism to the teeth will not get you anywhere. you need to constantly critiqe your ideals to fit everyday life.... and stop quoting what other people did and do something for your self.... you never marched across china now did ya.

[romanm]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 17 2005, 09:06 PM


I'm going to drop this it isn't going anywhere. I partially instigated this flame war.

Your slanders against Mao are ridiculous.

If Cimethinc (for_beginners) thinks that stealing food and redistributing it is the most effective way of getting food to the poor, they are mistaken. I suggest they put away their silly manifestos and go visit a soup kitchen, food bank, or maybe even the food not bombs folks. These organizations are doing the same thing in a far better way.

If Crimethinc (for_beginners) thinks revolution is about fun, they are mistaken. It is about real struggle. Who cares if politics are boring? It is about ending suffering and making a better world. If you think the measure of good politcs is how fun they are, as the previous Crimethinc. (for_beginners) poster implied, then you're an..

As far as Maoism goes, maybe you should look outside your little imperial box for a second. Maoism won't get us anywhere? Well gee, ending feudalism over 1/4th of the world's population.. Or, giving political autonomy and power to 1/8th of the wimmin in the world.. Or, throwing off a century of imperial rule.. Carrying out land reform for 1/4th of humanity? Or does that not count? And, yes, alot was reversed when the Maoists fell from power. So? I'll put Maoism's track record up against anything - and win.

This is my last post on the subject.

PS: I don't speak for anyone but myself.

[KptnKrill]

We got a washie on our hands!

You're comparing Maoism to systems of the past, realising then it's better than those systems and concluding therefore that Maoism must be the correct path. Well hell, even capitalism looks good when you compare it to fuedalism... Just look at how much progress both movements have made :rolleyes:

It's more than just distributing food. Numbers aren't everything, you mustn't deny the great impact on person can have over a smaller group, is much better than trying to entice a larger group with your shallow quotes and meaningless slogans.

[Organic Revolution]

and he fails to show that crimethinc'rs do have food not bombs so his last statement was false... but he ran from an argument he was gonna lose so whatever

[OleMarxco]

I like the Crimethic site. It gives me constructive critique to help me further the cause of doing good trough Communistic means - Teachin' me, like, "This is how it's done, not that!" Sometimes we just needs a clean slate to learn us the obvious, me'r spoise - It's almost like a new kind of Anarchy, Anarcho-Romantism ;)

[JazzRemington]

CrimethInc reminds me of Stirner and to a degree individualist anarchism. Stirner believed that whatever was good for the self was right and true and he and individualist anarchism places emphasis on the supreme sovereignty of the individual.

Since CrimethInc has no belief in classes and the like, they are akin to Stirner who states that these things are merely an illusion and do not exist. They also believe in setting up alternative institutions in the hopes that the State will just wither away, as per individualist beliefs.

But it's hard to critique CrimethInc, as they don't have one definate set of beliefs.