for discussion: A Letter to Left...

[saint max]

This was an essay that was printed and given out during last March for the anti-war demos that went on in the States. It comes from a post-left perspective on anarchy and a particular anti-white and anti-civilization politics.

Past the Age of Dinosaurs: A Letter to the Left

“They dream of orderly revolutions, neatly drawn up principles, anarchy without turbulence. If things take a different turn they start screaming provocation—yelling loud enough for the police to hear them. Revolutionaries are pious folk. The revolution is not.”
-Alfredo Bonanno

Today, March 19th, leftists, starry-eyed activists, and pacifists will once again symbolically protest at a permitted demonstration against a war that symbolic protest has failed to stop—the second annual celebration of the antiwar movement’s failure. The speakers will bore most of the younger crowd leaving the elderly and die-hard critics of US foreign policy to cheer like sheep when Professor Whatever makes his “demand” for “peace and justice.” In some cities a minority will breakaway from the main body and march in the street—believing them selves as truly rebelling. Maybe there will be a few arrests. But whatever the case, the event’s impact will be the same. The protesters protested; some may have gotten out of hand (the news will say: “Protest mostly peaceful, some arrests,) but over all democracy functioned. That is to say the Opposition in civil society served its role and everyone outside of it doesn’t have to care. Tomorrow, no one will talk about the event; we’ll all go back to work on Monday, and the war will continue.

The left is a parody of resistance. And we’re all guilty of this—some more than others. From the commie front groups seeking to gain control of “the masses” and seize political power to the peace groups hoping to gain a piece of the pie through building “grassroots partnerships” (with Power) to the student activists fetish with subculture and symbolism. Our naiveté is leftism. Our actions (or lack-there-of) today are merely a spec in the mountain of “protesters” being the Opposition Role in civil society.

Civil society allows us, even when it represses—even when we are repressed with spectacular violence, the “right” to demonstrate against one of its facets (i.e. war, capitalism/globalization, police brutality…etc) because through our spectacular and symbolic actions, we reinforce the democratic assumption of civil society. Furthermore we become more easily marginalized and alien from the non-protester. If we play a role in civil society, we are civil society. This means the left and the right are both heads and tails of the same coin—the same rotten social order.

Let’s digress a little bit.

The left, as any vehicle for liberation, died a long time ago. Perhaps when the first union turned it’s back on the Freemen of South Carolina1 or maybe when the Bolsheviks usurped the revolution in Russia. Or maybe leftism has always been necrophilia’s ideology—a byproduct of the death culture: modernity. Never the less, Jesus H. Marx is dead and will not be rising again. Perhaps the time has come for us to wash the corpse from our mouth.

What does this mean? It means no methodology that relies on the moral high ground, on the huddled masses joining The Party, The Union, or The Coalition or seizing power will achieve our liberation. It means that every part of our lives is entrenched in hierarchies and relationships of domination. It means there will not be a demonstration big enough, a subculture sexy enough, a chemical that gets you high enough, a politician benevolent enough, or a war bad enough to defeat Power and give us freedom. This means there is no justice, just us. This means we must recognize our place as oppressed and exploited as privileged, get together (or not) with people with similar experiences and interests and name our oppressors; name the web of our oppressions: civil society and make total and continuous war on all social and civilized order.

If you’re still mystified by elections, mass symbolic protests, and the masochism of leftism—the illusion of building a new world in the shell of the old, “the huddled masses” joining your crusade, then enjoy you’re bigger cage and longer chain. We’ll see you in the same dustbin of history filled with all the politicians (and those in waiting) capitalists, socialists and all ideology.

The world does not belong to us. If it has a master who is stupid enough to want it the way it is, let him have it. Let him count the ruins in place of buildings, the graveyards in place of cities, the mud in place of rivers and the putrid sludge in the place of seas. The greatest conjuring spectacle in the world no longer enchants us. (Bonanno 27)

With the weight of over a century of failure off our backs, we are free to move chess pieces on a board no one else is playing. Discover new and old ways of resisting. Find the praxis in our everyday lives. Join with others ready to claim our total freedom and make permanent revolution by any means necessary.

1: Ignatiev, Noel: Introduction to the United States, an autonomous political history

Bibliography:

1. Armed Joy: Alfredo Bonanno
2. Nihilism, Anarchy and the 21st Century: Aragorn!
3. Gramsci’s Black Marx: Wither the Slave in Civil Society? : Frank Wilderson

[redstar2000]

This means we must recognize our place as oppressed and exploited as privileged, get together (or not) with people with similar experiences and interests and name our oppressors; name the web of our oppressions: civil society and make total and continuous war on all social and civilized order.

And then we'll all live happily ever after...in caves.

Dumbass.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[coda]

A case of '"individual'"anarchism, again. Those people are starting to annoy the hell out of me. They are destroying the anarchist movement. I hope everyone ripped up that defeatest essay. These people just show up at events whether they know or care what it's about or not.

Duhhh, it the only word that comes to mind. Duhhh --- since it was an ANTI-WAR protest, of course it isn't going to free the masses from their masters. it's a demonstration against Bush, to show Bush and his murderous allies our unconsent to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the murdering of innocent civilians and show our solidarity with the Iraqi peoples, that we are not all collaborators in this war, -- as Bush would have them so inclined to think. It has nothing to do with "OUR freedom" per se! that is for a whole other gathering. The war in Iraq is important enough to give our full attention during a demonstration against it.

That individual insurrectionist anarchist mentality is so caught up in rebelling for rebellions sake. I should hope we don't limit our struggle to demonstrations, as this person seems to suggest. But also hope that most of the left know that revolution, (which that protest was not about ) is a long term consistent struggle of the working class, coming about by well thought-out planned strategic organanized resistance, that goes way beyond single acts of rebellion during a single occassion.

[coda]

Does anyone know what group or person wrote that crap?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by saint max
It comes from a post-left perspective on anarchy and a particular anti-white and anti-civilization politics.

"Post-left" is usually a code word meaning primitivist.

"Saint Max" was Marx's nickname for Max Stirner -- his famous individualist contemporary.

As to the actual people who wrote those words down...well, they are anonymous for a reason.

It's not the sort of drivel that one takes credit for in public. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[saint max]

Does anyone know what group or person wrote that crap?

The peice out group from Denver publishes it. I helped edit it.


Post-left" is usually a code word meaning primitivist.

post-left has a particular critique of Leftism and all liberation ideologies. Although some are primitivists, for the most part post-left anarchists and their contemporaries (?) post-marxists are influenced more or less by post-modernism, (whether we admit it or not) anti-authoritarianism, and italian/french post-68 autonomous and insurrectional multitude.

Although you're correct to say there is a tradition of individualism/egosim that we draw from, there is also non-ideological communism (see "the anarchist tension" and "critique of syndicalist methods" by bonanno) and even nihilistic tendencies.

But so far none of you have addressed even this small treaties pretty valid critiques. That of being a loyal oppostional force for the civil/social order, and moralistic paralysis.


Duhhh, it the only word that comes to mind. Duhhh --- since it was an ANTI-WAR protest,

tell that to the WWP hacks, trots and maoists hawking their paper...

My big critique has to do with a fetish of 'mass' and economic-reductionism. The Left is a parody of resistance, becuase it doesnt recognize it's own participation in the existant and at best attempts to step outside of history without ever asking "why" and answering it with a self-interest in freedom. The Left is not a multitude of individuals but a cult of ideologies and those who are slaves to them. boxes are boring. dig?


(the rev...)is a long term consistent struggle of the working class, coming about by well thought-out planned strategic organanized resistance, that goes way beyond single acts of rebellion during a single occassion.

The most effective time for class struggle in the US, was probabaly the turn of the century, and was full of much more insurrection and self-organization of workers, than real subsumption by the unions or parties. propaganda by the deed for instance, which is historically owed to the russian nihilist influence.

None the less, where is 'the working class' in the US? how can we call selling someone elses labor 'working?' Obviously class-compostion in the US and most the so-called 1st world is defined by the service industry. Excluding of course migrant labor, which is probably the only worker-producer in this motherfucker. Don't get me wrong, i just got layed off, i'm poor, and i'm having trouble buying food and cigarettes but i aint working class. ya heard?

seriously, read Frank's peice: Gramsci's black marx...

cheers,
-max

[London Communist]

Whatever you may think of the views and opinions of this 'post-left'/primitivist text, it does raise some important questions for the left to answer.

I am NOT a primitivist and I am in NO way supportive of the ideas of the 'post left', however they do make some GOOD points that the more traditional left has failed to answer and deal with.

On the subject of political demonstrations and street rallies, they make some very sound criticisms.

It is accurate to describe most of today's demonstrations, especially the anti war demonstrations in Britain, as being repetitive and just a form of controlled dissent were activists have to SEEK PERMISSION FROM THE POLICE, to demonstrate.

Not only are the uber-pacifist and ultra-legalistic methods of most of today's demonstrations under question, we also have to look at the politics and the demands of the demonstrations.

In America the anti-war demonstrations are organised by ANSWER/American Way/United for Peace etc... and in Britain we have the Stop the War Coalition (StWC).

Both in America and Britain we see NOT real demonstrations for a class based anti imperialist war struggle, but reformist middle class led 'peace marches' with all the confused thinking that come with pacifist politics and the lack of any class based political programme for the anti war movement.

Whatever your views of Lenin, love him or hate him, he made one GOOD point with his theory of REVOLUTIONARY DEFEATISM.

This is the concept that the proletariat's BIGGEST enemy is ALWAYS at home and that the proletariat must use every means possible to help SABOTAGE the war machine of the proletariat's capitalist masters and to destroy the imperialist complex of the nation that oppresses them.

The modern day anti war movement is NO WHERE NEAR as radical as the anti war movement of the 1960s in the USA, against the imperialist bloodbath in Vietman.

The modern anti war movement that grew out of the Iraq war/invasion in 2003 has been held back by a VERY POWERFUL grip on it's REAL potential by the reformists who seek to be 'respectable' for CNN and the BBC and who would rather wine and dine with John Kerry and Charles Kennedy instead of any REAL anti imperialist war action like sabotage of military recruitment centres or direct action against the war machine or building economic opposition by halting the war economy through strikes and workers dissent.

The reformists also fail to see the class content of those who support the imperialist war machine.

They fail to reconise the treason that soldiers commit to the global working class when they join the military and sign a paper where they promise to slaughter en-masse the 'third' working class and to oppress ALL those who oppose the imperialist-capitalist complex.

Soldiers, policemen, 'private' security agents and ALL other imperialist personnel in Iraq and the Middle East are working every day to KILL and TORTURE the Arab working class.

Even if the soldiers were born working class, the minute they joined the army, they gave up on the working class and became butchers.

Of course these points are from a class based communist view that upholds the defeat of imperialism for the building of revolution in the industrialised world.

But the reformists find these communist views to 'harsh' and 'radical' for their middle class pacifist supporters.

Indeed, question the effect the METHODS a demonstration will have, but ALSO look at it's DEMANDS and POLITICS.

No use having a two million strong demonstration if you do not have the communist, anti-imperialistic and class based politics to go with it.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by saint max
Post-left has a particular critique of Leftism and all liberation ideologies. Although some are primitivists, for the most part post-left anarchists and their contemporaries (?) post-marxists are influenced more or less by post-modernism, (whether we admit it or not)...

Why do you allow yourselves to be "influenced" by crap?

That is, after all, what the whole post-modernist paradigm is...crap.

It's a statement of the unknowability of objective reality...even in principle. It says that every explanation of reality is simply a "narrative"...and just as "true" as all other "explanations".

You believe that??? :o


That of being a loyal oppositional force for the civil/social order, and moralistic paralysis.

Much of the "official left" (including nearly all groups within the Leninist paradigm) could be fairly characterized in such a fashion.

But what is "moralistic paralysis"? People act according to the opportunities they perceive...what else would you have them do?

People in the left do steal from their employers, do shoplift, do use illegal drugs, do help one another avoid the attentions of the police, do squat or avoid paying rent if they can, do skip on their credit cards, do neglect filing income tax returns or lie on them, do buy stuff on the internet to avoid sales taxes, do fuck off on the job, etc., etc., etc.

The small acts of daily resistance to the despotism of capital are probably in the millions. But that is not sufficient to overthrow it...and you know that very well.

People may do better without a "vanguard party" -- that's my opinion anyway -- but they need a strong revolutionary movement and a good revolutionary theory if they are to break their chains.

Just saying "do it" doesn't...get it done.


My big critique has to do with a fetish of 'mass' and economic-reductionism.

Calling something a "fetish" does not make it so.

It takes "masses" to change the world. That ought to be self-evident.

Social reality does "reduce" to economic class interests. That should likewise be self-evident.


The Left is not a multitude of individuals but a cult of ideologies and those who are slaves to them.

Well, a multitude of individuals can't get anything done. Indeed, if examined closely, a multitude of individuals are most likely to be slaves to some version of capitalist ideology or some idiotic superstition or both.

I am just as appalled as yourself at the various Leninist museums and their curators -- I would cheerfully see them all padlocked by midnight tonight at the latest.

But if you think that the best way to go is to just forget about any sustained effort to understand social reality in a coherent way...well, then, you've retreated to savagery.

It's not an "accident" that "post-Leftism" leads to that destination...it has no other place to go.


None the less, where is 'the working class' in the US?

Hiding under my bed, where did you think? :lol:

You see all these people going to work every morning and coming home every evening...what do you think? They're all "risk-taking entrepreneurs" blazing new trails in high-tech consumerism?


How can we call selling someone else's labor 'working?'

Call it whatever appeals to you; but if you stop doing it then you get to stop eating. How's that sound?


Obviously class-composition in the US and most the so-called 1st world is defined by the service industry.

So?


Don't get me wrong, I just got layed off, I'm poor, and I'm having trouble buying food and cigarettes but I ain't working class.

Then what are you? What's your class self-identification?

Or do you think that class no longer means anything...that America is a "classless society"? And you're just one of those "multitude of individuals" that drew the unlucky bean?

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[saint max]

redstar said:It's a statement of the unknowability of objective reality...even in principle. It says that every explanation of reality is simply a "narrative"...and just as "true" as all other "explanations".

red, without really getting into it, how can there be an objective reality? particulary if god doesn't exist?


But what is "moralistic paralysis"? People act according to the opportunities they perceive...what else would you have them do?

I think the particularity of moralism entrenched, if not governing Leftism, is a problematic for obvious reasons. For instance, we all know exactly what it will take, to harm the US infrastructure, and halt war/imperialism--or for instance strike a blow against neoliberalism, but no one is really willing to asert that, or give people the tools to execute it. I would rather have people conceptualize only their dreams and act acordingly. particularly if their dreams are similar to mine and include only negation. That is to say, I don't care what everyone does. I care what some people do, and if we can meet. By any means necessary is'nt just a catch phrase. it's a very liberatory way to live your life.


It takes "masses" to change the world. That ought to be self-evident.
Social reality does "reduce" to economic class interests. That should likewise be self-evident.

Since when have the masses done anything that changed the world? 'Mass' can be called "majority," yes? If so the Majority of the world has never been able to change shit. The minority, however, has quite a track record: agriculutre, domestication, technology, feudalism, capitalism, imperialism...etc. And on the other hand, the multitude has done quite a bit as well, what with it's 'revolutions,' 8 hour work day, feminism, black and brown liberation movements...etc. and most recenctly Uncle Ted's 'FC' days, and the anti-neoliberalism phenomona. I don't think the majority of the world are going to unite on any weird common cause any time soon. besides,who needs homogony?

Social reality, The existant, The World, is not merely economics. Shit, hommie, there's more than the libidinal economy (or positionality for that matter!) Obviously, in regards to oppression, there was problems before capitalism, patriarchy for instance? or rather the binary gender system...The World as we know it is not merely capitalism, sorry to inform you. I think that should be self-evident.


saint max said: how can we call selling someone else's labor 'working?'

Red: Call it whatever appeals to you; but if you stop doing it then you get to stop eating. How's that sound?

Obviously if i stop "working" there are still other ways for me not to starve. Perhaps i am told i will by workerist ideologies, but i can steal, hunt, scavange my way to a full tummy. None the less, i'm using marxian dialetical langauge here, the worker=the prol=worker-producer. If you don't really produce anything, how are you a prol? Obviously I am not, and i'm pretty sure most so-called 1st world revolutionaries are'nt also.


then what are you? What's your class self-identification?

Or do you think that class no longer means anything...that America is a "classless society"? And you're just one of those "multitude of individuals" that drew the unlucky bean?

Class means something, but like i said it's a composition. It changes, not through social mobility but through construction, and reconstruction by society. My class, although connected to irish working class from the east (i.e white) and italian migrant social mobility from the east, is defined by my white-trash upbrining and service class present. But I don't think class necessitates interest in revolution. Certainly, being "the excluded" allows a possibility and an identity, but really nothing more.

Perhaps, you're addicted to the ideology, but don't you think these politics creates a crisis for revolutionaries (that is to say, situs, Aut-Ops, anarchists, anti-state communists?)actually interested in self-organizing our class-conflicts and total negation of social order?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by saint max
red, without really getting into it, how can there be an objective reality?

Well, try this...

Dismissing Post-Modernism (http://redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1119365474&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)


For instance, we all know exactly what it will take to harm the US infrastructure and halt war/imperialism--or for instance, strike a blow against neoliberalism, but no one is really willing to assert that or give people the tools to execute it.

This is rather cryptic. I don't know "exactly what it will take" except, perhaps, in very broad and general terms.

I certainly don't believe in "magical tactics" -- do this and the system will fall.

I agree with you that "ceremonial protest" does seem to be harmless to capitalism...at least unless it involves numbers that are orders of magnitude greater than we've seen thus far. If every city in the U.S. were paralyzed by mass demonstrations day after day...well, then, I don't think the system could handle that.

But clearly that's a matter for the distant future. Right now, I am inclined to support the local quasi-spontaneous protest as the best tactic -- particularly if it's focused clearly on one of the important or crucial aspects of modern capitalism.

But I'm not "stiff-necked" even about that. Any form of resistance to capitalism is fine with me -- just so that it's clearly resistance...and not just part of someone's "career path".


Since when have the masses done anything that changed the world?

Since July 14, 1789 -- to be precise.

When the Enlightenment was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. :)

And on a number of occasions since, of course.


The World as we know it is not merely capitalism, sorry to inform you. I think that should be self-evident.

To be sure, there are many survivals of pre-capitalist forms of oppression and exploitation still around...but they are in retreat. Capitalism "eats away" at them like a powerful acid.

From the Harper's Index for March 2005:

Amount that the U.S. wedding industry would gain each year if gays wed at the same rate as straights: $17,000,000,000

Which is why, within a few decades, gay marriage is going to be routine.


...but I can steal, hunt, scavenge my way to a full tummy.

As you wish. One who is young, healthy, and fit can survive living "rough" for a considerable period of time...though I doubt if they have much fun doing it.

When I used to live in San Francisco, it was reported that about 100 corpses a year were found on the streets...dead from exposure and malnutrition. (The media quit reporting on that subject after a couple of years. :lol:)


If you don't really produce anything, how are you a prole?

As you know, Marx divided the proletariat into three sections.

1. Those who were employed.

2. Those whom he called "the reserve army of the unemployed" -- where additional labor could be hired if needed and unnecessary workers dumped.

3. The "lumpen-proletariat" -- more or less permanently unemployed, petty criminals, street peddlers, hustlers, alcoholics, beggars, etc.

Marx didn't have a high opinion of that 3rd category...he considered it reactionary and far more likely to produce police informants than revolutionaries.


My class...is defined by my white-trash upbringing and service class present.

Well, you sound working class to me -- though it bothers me a little that you've "internalized" that "white trash" concept.

The origin of the idea is, if I'm not mistaken, in the ante-bellum American South...and referred to white people who were too poor to own even one slave.

Not something to be "ashamed of", in my opinion.


Perhaps, you're addicted to the ideology, but don't you think these politics creates a crisis for revolutionaries...actually interested in self-organizing our class-conflicts and total negation of social order?

Crisis is too strong a word, I think. The "official left" is often a damn nuisance or even, sometimes, an obstacle to our efforts.

But I think their ideological hegemony is waning...and their organizational predominance will follow. Social democracy has had more than a century to show us what it can accomplish and Leninism has had nearly as long.

The search for new paths is underway...and I think it most unlikely that any of the old paths will be of more than minor significance in the future.

Of course, I could be wrong about that. :D

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[DaCuBaN]

The largest criticism of the left within that text appears to have been somewhat "washed over", even if it is a topic that's been churned up time and time again:


Civil society allows us, even when it represses—even when we are repressed with spectacular violence, the “right” to demonstrate against one of its facets (i.e. war, capitalism/globalization, police brutality…etc) because through our spectacular and symbolic actions, we reinforce the democratic assumption of civil society. Furthermore we become more easily marginalized and alien from the non-protester. If we play a role in civil society, we are civil society. This means the left and the right are both heads and tails of the same coin—the same rotten social order.

For pretty much the last 40 years, we've seen mass protests all over the western world - sometimes numbering millions - and still no real progress has been made. Many people come, flirt, and depart the left as a result of this futile, unshifting, unimaginative tactic. Why do we continue with something when we've seen time and time again our dreams die in this way? Why do we - those of use who seek the end of this Order and the rise of freedom and egalitarianism - confer legitimacy onto our states by attending such sanctioned protests?

The simple fact of the matter is expressed quite eloquently in the quote above: It is not a call to primitivism, nor even post-modernism. It is simply a declaration of despair at the stupidity of the author's fellow man when confronted with a brick wall: Rather than heading back for a chisel, a ram, anything that may assist, he continues to bang his head off it, leaving the wall perfectly functional and it's task complete. The time of protest is dead - Rebel!

[Severian]

Originally posted by saint [email protected] 8 2005, 10:24 PM
red, without really getting into it, how can there be an objective reality? particulary if god doesn't exist?
I suggest hitting your head on the nearest wall, repeatedly, and hard, until you become convinced that it objectively exists.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2005, 08:22 AM
The largest criticism of the left within that text appears to have been somewhat "washed over", even if it is a topic that's been churned up time and time again:
The simple fact of the matter is expressed quite eloquently in the quote above: It is not a call to primitivism, nor even post-modernism. It is simply a declaration of despair at the stupidity of the author's fellow man when confronted with a brick wall: Rather than heading back for a chisel, a ram, anything that may assist, he continues to bang his head off it, leaving the wall perfectly functional and it's task complete. The time of protest is dead - Rebel!
No, it's not. That's just the hook to draw you in, using a widely felt frustration to gather a sympathetic audience.

The piece also explicitly rejects other tactics, including the ultraleft breakoffs which, it accurately points out, are just as symbolic as the peaceful rallies. And proposes no different tactic, tactics, or strategy.

Rather, the difference is goal: the author proposes a "total and continuous war on all social and civilized order." which necessarily implies the goal is ending social order and civilization.

As Redstar says, primitivism. Or beyond that, even, since primitive society is also society; humanity has never existed and cannot exist without social order. A logical conclusion from primitivism, maybe; since civilization evolved from primitive society a return would only repeat the cycle. Only the end of all society could break it.

I also don't think much of "the left"...from an opposite perspective. While the anonymous author rejects "“the huddled masses” joining your crusade", from where I stand the problem with the "left" is its middle-class nature, and its lack of interest in joining the masses of working people and the class struggle.

Elevating the (perfectly legitimate) tactic of demonstrations into a permanent strategy is a symptom of this problem.

[citizen_snips]

Obviously if i stop "working" there are still other ways for me not to starve. Perhaps i am told i will by workerist ideologies, but i can steal, hunt, scavange my way to a full tummy. None the less, i'm using marxian dialetical langauge here, the worker=the prol=worker-producer. If you don't really produce anything, how are you a prol? Obviously I am not, and i'm pretty sure most so-called 1st world revolutionaries are'nt also.

So by working in the cafe at Tescos I and my workmates all qualify as bourgeoise, then?