RAAN, Animal Liberation, Etc.

[Nachie]

Hello all,

I've been off in Venezuela doing work for the Red & Anarchist Action Network (RAAN) over the past two months and have not seen too much of what's been going on here at revleft. But chimx contacted me and said that the network had been brought up a number of times in a recent thread, and that there were several questions being asked about it, several suggestions being made, several characteristics applauded, and several criticisms levelled as well.

The thread in question is anomaly's current topic, "A new communist organization" (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=47222), which is dedicated to discussing redstar2000's essay of more or less the same name.

There is also the older thread "Criticisms of Redstar2000's paper" (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=34432&st=0&), which is referenced in the above as a result of redstar's first having given his thoughts on RAAN there.

What I'll be trying to do here is isolate the single topic of the network from the larger theoretical discussions that are/were going on in those threads. It seems as if there was a significant interest in the RAAN's ideas, and since I was unable to represent my own views on it at the time, chimx suggested that I do it now. While as a rule I tend to limit topics about RAAN to the "practical" forums, since the original two threads were in "theory" I've decided to put this one here, too.

*clears throat*

There are two major topics I'd like to discuss first, mostly in order to provide a direct response to what has already been said, but also because I think getting over these issues would be prerequesite to any deeper discussion about the network's experience. These topics are 1) RAAN and possible alliances with the Communist League (CL) or International Working People's Association (IWPA), and 2) The Animal Liberation & Veganism section of the network's founding principles. So off we go,

RAAN, CL, & IWPA

As previously stated, the major differences between the CL and RAAN are on the question of Leninism and the former's failure to articulate an anarchist discourse or alliance, which is a major goal of RAAN. I would also say that network has a more developed theoretical and potentially even praxical (I'm not that familiar with the League) dialogue regarding what its nature is and how it functions as an self-recreating autonomous tendency.

The major critique of RAAN from this sector has been that we do not have a "class-based" position. I would say this has no basis in reality; we certainly do not speak exclusively or obsessively about the working class, but what matters in the network is not so much what you say as what you do. Network affiliates have consistenly over the past 3.5 years worked construction and staffing on various community centers, ran Food Not Bombs and other goods distribution programs in many cities, worked with survivors of police violence, squatted buildings with homeless unions, been on the ground and organizing in New Orleans, Brazil, and Venezuela, supported striking workers on the picket, etc. etc.

This is just a fraction of our activity of course, but what I'm trying to say is that we are embedded in the most direct expressions of the class struggle. RAAN activity exclusively often takes more eccentric, pointed, or clandestine forms, but in my experience the greater majority of known affiliates also maintain other forms of broader organizing or community work in an individual capacity. Note there is a huge difference between yelling about the workers every chance you get, and actually pressuring for, organizing, and building spaces of proletarian self-valorization.

Still, we do make several references in our lit to "the workers" as the only possible revolutionary subject, and the "proletarian dictatorship" remains and could only ever be, proletarian. We have a very clear and positive position on doing work with unions but at the same time we've found that the best organizing occurs free of any bureaucratic structure, directly in the community where consciousness has the most space to develop.

Miles of the CL nevertheless leaves open the options of fluid/dual membership and collaboration through the IWPA. On the question of membership, RAAN has none if not an autonomous, ill-defined network of people engaged in direct action or projects in the network's name. Several of our affiliates have longtime relationships with other associations such as CrimethInc. and of course this isn't just "allowed", it was never even questioned. Affiliates have full autonomy over their actions, in line with what you'd expect from an anti-authoritarian project, and so as far as dual participation I say sure, whatever... if anybody actually wants to.

The big problem is that RAAN has no fixed existence, only points in space and actions in time that have been claimed for it. So to say "I'm in RAAN" doesn't actually mean anything. The only way and time you can say that is during an affiliated action. What gets contributed to the tendency is not you, but what you build.

The last thing I'll say on this is that as you might expect, RAAN has no decision making body, "official voice", or leadership. It is a collective organism steered by its own experience, thus conceived in order to be in the greatest degree of harmony with the revolutionary potential itself.

I was surprised to see that during all these discussions, where the RAAN Principles & Direction as well as the Definition and Affiliation sections of the website were so often quoted, nobody bothered to look at the History (http://www.redanarchist.org/history/index.html) page. This is a huge mistake as that is undoubtedly the most important part of redanarchist.org, and any discussion about the network has to begin and end with that information. It is worth noting that I think we're one of the only organizations aside from the ELF/ALF that has an action timeline like that. It is CENTRAL to our self-understanding and much more important than anything that has been written. (please note the History page has yet to be updated through March 2006)

I would also recommend the Principles of Action (http://"http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/praxis/2/principlesofaction.html) and No Bullshit Policy (http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/praxis/2/nobullshit.html) as some of the more essential reading, both of which were likewise brought up by nobody.

The other quirky little thing I noticed was that redstar2000 said we seemed like anarchists trying to "appropriate" the best of Marxism. This is the cause of no small amount of mirth, since the anarchists say exactly the vice versa. Both parties are hilariously wide of the mark, but I can tell you - as a founding member - that I personally am 100% communist, Marxist. RAAN as a whole has done more to defend Marxism, particularly in terms of confronting Leninism and drawing attention to the underappreciated contributions of individual Marxist thinkers on the anarchist movement, as well as things like the origins of the black bloc in the German autonomen or CrimethInc. in the "SI tradition", (the SI of course being Marxist, though anarchists hate to admit it) than many self-declared "Marxist" organizations.

And finally, something else I saw somebody (Miles?) say was that we should stop trying to pander to anarchist opinion, particularly on questions such as the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a misunderstanding of the network's history - yes, around 2003 when our founding documents came out we were attacked NONSTOP, all the time, no matter what, by certain elements of the institutionalized, Internet anarchist movement for talking about the DofP. This got to the point where they were using it as a tactic to block out any deeper discussion on what we were proposing, and was therefore confronted on July 6th of that year in my essay, Defining a Dialogue of Revolution (http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/indy/dofp.html). SINCE THAT TIME, we have made absolutely no further effort to reach out to these anarchist ideologues on this issue. We consider it well-covered territory, and besides as I stated the importance lies not in what words we use to describe ourselves, but the actions being described. We have also severed many ties with Internet anarchist forums so as to concentrate on our own internal development, and now they are sometimes coming to us wanting to know what we've been up to.

I consider revleft to be the "red" equivalent (let us not maintain the false pretext of a 50-50 anarcho/commie involvement here) of more "anarchist" sites like Infoshop.org The reason I say this is to make clear that while yes, I personally am willing to spend some time here and talk to people about what our ideas are, ultimately we're not going to waste any energy in trying to suit the interests of something like this forum in the name of getting more "members".

With this in mind, I'd like to touch on...

Animal Lib & Veganism

This was by far the biggest issue here on revleft. Indeed, as I've read there seem to have been several people who went from wanting to join RAAN in one post, to totally repulsed in the next after redstar2000 pointed out this section in our Principles & Direction.

Before anything else, it's necessary to say that the Principles & Direction was merely meant to be the point of departure for our network's dialogue. We continue to refer to it because it has proven so successful in that task, but it as much as anything else is subordinate to our physical activity. That is to say, the P&D has no discernable authority over the unavoidable and therefore agreeable contradictions inherent to our type of alliance. I'd also like to correct chimx in saying that I did not in fact write the Animal Lib section, though the addition of the big quote from Beasts of Burden was indeed my contribution. Oddly enough, I was an enthusiastic meat eater at the time of the P&D, and have only become vegetarian in the past three months for health - rather than moralistic - reasons. chimx on the other hand, was a vegan at the time and I believe now eats meat. We have another comrade in the network who is currently working on several "reclaiming vegan straightedge" projects, which is also totally cool. At no point were any of these lifestyle changes/choices seen as contradicting the network's positions, or indeed even remotely assumed to be areas the network would have "authority" over. Another good example was the creation of the first RAAN zine Herbin' Guerrilla, a humor publication about drug use, which this same sXe comrade has praised as being hilarious. This all happens in a culture of mutual respect, support, and VARIETY OF TACTICS. It's amazing how well it works if you try.

The beef of the criticism against the Animal Lib section (which of course then serves to invalidate the entire network) as articulated by redstar2000 begins by saying that our positions are "anti-Marxist", and ends up by accusing us of plotting a vegan dictatorship. This last thing in particular is so ridiculous, especially in light of the above, that I'm not going to pay any attention to it. For its part, the "anti-Marxist" line seems to rest on our taking attention away from the working class and giving focus to the question of animals, which is a superficial attack I also believe could not be further from the truth.

Marxists are fundamentally different from Leninists in that they emphasize that the primary factors giving rise to a communist tendency lie not just in the old worker/boss antagonism, but the contradiction between the reduction of production times and the perpetual need for capitalist valorization and consumption. Our enemy is a system and method of production that has shown itself to be completely compatible with things like "worker-run" factories. redstar2000 totally reverses, confuses, and clouds up the issue when he states that "Overproduction and instability are normal in a capitalist economy and would exist even on a planet without any animals at all" - that's obvious. What we're asserting isn't that getting rid of animal consumption (as if such a thing were any more possible than outlawing the color yellow) negates capitalism, but that the revolutionary negation of capitalism necessarily affects animal consumption just as much as it would affect EVERYTHING ELSE. Since overproduction and instability are normal in a capitalist economy, (and presumably would *not* be in a developing communist one) the culture of animal consumption also takes on these characteristics, and so we must assume that it will lose them over the course of the total uprooting of the old social order and system of production. The animal and meat industry, which "overproduces" at an "unstable" rate, could not possibly be expected to survive such momentous changes unscathed, particularly not if we're looking at rational ways of really being able to fix the planet, produce enough nourishment for everyone, and/or decentralize/abolish control over food sources. Hell yes the liberation of animals is necessary in the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

But rather than tailor my responses to the other critiques levelled, (which - with the above exception - were more hysterical vegan-phobia than anything else) let's look at the section in question, in full:


Animal Liberation & Veganism

Developed capitalism has held a practice of malice reductionism. This goes from the basic pre- capitalist urban-feudal tandem economies to the present day globalized economy, turning from the most flagrant abuse of power to the least perturbing. The greatest cruelty that has remained unstripped in this streak is that towards animals.

Capital was born on the backs of the most exploited labor, from indentured servants to slaves. This, for the most part, has ended today, but still exists in groups external to humans. The cause for discrepancies between proletarians and animals is capital's utilization of class infighting to draw attention away from itself. In a society that methodically oppresses animals, workers have been forced to choose between taking part (and thus creating another division in the oppressed), or refusing to buy into the exploitative process (which is then often seen as betrayal of their own class). This fine-tuned system of infighting is directly parallel to the subdivisions within the working class that are given elevated status closer to the bourgeoisie.
This is fucking important! What do you think was the second form of property after land? Animals! Our relationship to nature is intimately entwined with how the prevailing system of production and domination works. Slavery and patriarchy are in many ways direct results of, insofar as they were necessitated and justified by, ownership and that of animals in particular.


The liberation of animals is necessary in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. To venture to use animals is to stimulate overproduction, an unstable economy, and disaster with which to further exploit and manipulate the already exploited and manipulated. The unsaid reasoning for the enslavement of animals is that of production, accumulation, and profit. Be it not that we support animal and ecological liberation out of ethic, then be it for mutual benefit.
This is probably clear enough. Again, what's anti-Marxist is to talk about some "worker's control" nonsense without really getting to the base of what makes capitalism so unsustainable.


RAAN supports and encourages all those who have made efforts towards matching their lifestyles with their revolutionary goals (that is, those who have refused to take part in the horrific system of animal consumption). However, we recognize that only a social revolution can dismantle the systematic murder and torture of all animal life, and that in itself the lifestyle choice of veganism is not revolutionary. RAAN also supports all attacks on the meat industry, which represents one of the most brutal and exploitative sectors of the capitalist system.
The world Animal Liberation movement is about a bazillion times more serious, organized, conscious, and active than any entity such as the revleft community ever will be (and that may be a low estimate). Our sympathies and practical support will always be with them before the objections made on forums such as this.


Extended analysis of the consumption of animals, how it fits into the historical process of capitalist development, and why factory farming must be eliminated in order to ensure that all humans can be fed in an environmentally-sustainable way can be found in the Antagonism Press pamphlet Capitalism á Animals á Communism, available for free at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby...asts/index.html (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/beasts/index.html)
Beasts of Burden is the shit. If anybody continues to have serious problems with RAAN's stated ideals on Animal Lib and thinks that this remains a significant impediment to their contributing some activity to the tendency, I would suggest reading that particular pamphlet before critiquing us again. And again I must emphasize how much our individual affiliates - myself included - have always remained quite dietarily promiscuous.

The section closes up with a quote from what I believe to be the most important part of BoB:


In some areas there may be apparent contradictions. For instance in Brazil, landless laborers are occupying land belonging to big landowners and cultivating it, including rearing animals. This is an expression of the communist movement too. But the communist movement is not a monolithic entity united around a party line. It is a dynamic entity composed of diverse, and sometimes contradictory efforts. There are many issues on which a range of different positions are possible - for instance the use of technology.

Disagreements would continue even in the society that would emerge as the communist movement developed to a stage where capitalism was in the process of being abolished across large parts of the world. Communism is not the application of a universal moral code, or the creation of a uniform society, and there would be no state or similar mechanism to impose, say, veganism, even if many people thought it desirable. The question of how to live with animals might be resolved in different ways in different times and places. The animal liberation movement would form one pole of the debate.

Others might take a different position, arguing perhaps for free range, non-intensive domestication of the goat in the garden variety (although this apparent idyll would probably still have to involve cruel practices like castration and the separation of animals from their social units).

We can say with confidence though that the status quo would be untenable, and that there would be a radical transformation of the relations between humans and other species.
Somebody tell me how that doesn't just cut through the bullshit and get to the point? Selective quoting designed to paint us as a vegan militia doesn't change the material fact of communism, which is that "The question of how to live with animals might be resolved in different ways in different times and places. The animal liberation movement would form one pole of the debate."

The P&D is not perfect. In fact it's a document frozen in time, and so has all the usual problems. It exists so we can look back and say "oh yeah, that's how it all started". It's the base of the red/black alliance, but from the moment people began to organize in the street, it had been superseded by practice. Several subjects in the P&D are indeed approached in a totally uncompromising manner, IE anti-racism, anti-Leninism, anti-statism, etc. but Animal Lib & Veganism is hardly such a section. Me personally, my biggest problem with the P&D is in the Queer Lib section where it says "free from the cages of race, class, and sex...", because it occurs to me that many people probably don't consider their race or sex to BE a cage, or at least not at this point. At the same time, I'm reconciled by the fact that it also says "while the existence of gender isn't bad, the way it is enforced by the hegemony is", which is a statement that could just as easily be applied to our conception of race. Any discrepancies I have with the Animal Lib section are likewise resolved within the Beasts of Burden quote, not to mention the practical and undeniable reality of the communist tendency, which is not subject to the dictates of any such document, anyway.

--------------

So that's about all I have to say, and hopefully somebody (or anomaly at least) is still interested in talking about this and seeing what the possibilities are. At the end of the day though, it's all up to you. RAAN is a damn fucking good idea and it's the closest anybody's coming to what we need right now. Yes that's just my opinion, but it's also my conviction. However, we're not going to show up in your town with a newspaper and organize a collective for you. Neither are we going to pay any attention if you start calling yourselves RAANites and then confine that entirely to the Internet.

Comradely and fully expecting to get torn apart,

- Nachie

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 06:25 PM
I'd also like to correct chimx in saying that I did not in fact write the Animal Lib section, though the addition of the big quote from Beasts of Burden was indeed my contribution. Oddly enough, I was an enthusiastic meat eater at the time of the P&D, and have only become vegetarian in the past three months for health - rather than moralistic - reasons. chimx on the other hand, was a vegan at the time and I believe now eats meat.
Now my turn to correct you! i'm still a pesky vegan. :D

[Nachie]

you bastard! i coulda sworn you said something about eating cheese one time.

ok but at the very least you're not straightedge anymore :lol:

[chimx]

not very straightedge. i do enjoy a nice glass of wine occasionally.

we are totally hijacking our own thread.

[TC]

I know you guys from way back i think.





was surprised to see that during all these discussions, where the RAAN Principles & Direction as well as the Definition and Affiliation sections of the website were so often quoted, nobody bothered to look at the History page. This is a huge mistake as that is undoubtedly the most important part of redanarchist.org, and any discussion about the network has to begin and end with that information. It is worth noting that I think we're one of the only organizations aside from the ELF/ALF that has an action timeline like that. It is CENTRAL to our self-understanding and much more important than anything that has been written. (please note the History page has yet to be updated through March 2006)



This is an extreme embarrasement. You guys should be trying to hide it and point people to your other stuff instead of drawing attention to it.

I doubt you're the only organization aside from the ELF/ALF that has an 'action timeline', but ELF has enflicted hundreds of millions of dollars of damages against the most environmentally destruction sectors in the capitalist economy with firebombs, ALF has rescued hundreds or thousands of animals from otherwise cruel deaths at slaughterhouses and consumor products testing labs...

...you guys can take credit for vandalizing two communist bookstores with rightest messages, and throwing an egg at the most left-leaning mainstream american political figure. Fucking good job <_< .


I mean wtf, i was in boston for years, you accept responsibility for some asshole vandalizing a communist bookstore when there are dozens of military recruiting stations, high-end retailers, military research labs, national guard outposts, Mcdonalds, Starbucks, and so on. Wtf is wrong with you guys? I&#39;d suggest that it would be amusing if someone vandalized the Lucy Parson&#39;s center (the anarchist bookstore in boston) in retaliation, except that no communist would ever do that because we don&#39;t care enough about anarchist organizations. You on the other hand seem far more obsessed with attacking the Revolutionary Communist Party and Green Party then say, the Republicans and Democrats and the capitalists.

Your history page is more fitting for a neo-nazi organization than people who claim to be nominally marxist.

[Vanguard1917]

&#39;Animal liberation&#39; groups have been harassing medical research centres in Britain. Do you support or condone that?

[Nachie]

Tragic Clown... I remember you too. You were a useless Leninist and nobody wanted to work with you.

"Embarassing" or not, our history is out there, public, and open to critique. We don&#39;t hide inactivity behind a monthly newspaper, we face it with a committment to understanding what we&#39;re doing wrong and where we can adjust what needs adjusting. RAAN is a full on meritocracy, and as it exists only in the moments where affiliates act in its name, any single active member has the ability to define the network at any time. This is where the no-bullshit policy comes in: if people have critiques of the most prominent tactics, they should get to work on some alternatives and the focus will swing to that organically.

Since you&#39;re a statist I&#39;m not surprised that you would not only obsess about three small attacks against fellow statists, but completely disregard the rest of the timeline in the process. I&#39;m sorry you sympathize with Ralph Nader and the Maoists, but we don&#39;t. As for comparing us to the E/ALF, we were never pretending to be working on that kind of level, not to mention that we&#39;ve been around for only 3 years whereas those groups have decades of infrastructure to work with, and have used different tactics. The point isn&#39;t that the history is totally sweet (though it is) or that we&#39;re bragging about how Nader got kicked the fuck out of a certain neighborhood, (though we are) but that the timeline is there. I don&#39;t see any other broad-based radical group so openly exposing itself like that and working to create a culture of self-perpetuating, self-criticising autonomous action.

Vanguard1917: I cannot say anything about this medical research lab business until I have some more details than what you&#39;ve given me. More importantly, as was stated there is no decision-making body or official voice for RAAN, meaning we don&#39;t "support" or "condone" anything in particular, especially when it comes to tactics. Targets are a different story, and we could definitely start a big open dialogue about these attacks (assuming you provide more information) but this would serve only to give indicators of the general consensus, not to create the conditions for a "position" on it. My guess is that the majority of RAANistas would reject being told or made to feel like stating a "position" on the matter actually accomplished anything.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Nachie+--> (Nachie)Comradely and fully expecting to get torn apart,[/b]

I see that you already have 46 posts here...so I wonder why you think you would be "torn apart"?

True, some of the folks here have a rather "vigorous" writing style and are not shy about their disagreements. :lol:

If this board has a coherent purpose, it&#39;s to figure out what it would mean to be a revolutionary now.


The big problem is that RAAN has no fixed existence, only points in space and actions in time that have been claimed for it. So to say "I&#39;m in RAAN" doesn&#39;t actually mean anything.

This strikes me as an anarchist organizational perspective. So I don&#39;t think I was being at all "quirky" when I suggested that RAAN appear to be anarchists trying to "appropriate" what they see as the "good parts" of Marxism.

The "opposite" might be a more coherent organized group of Marxists that nevertheless tried to appropriate the "good parts" of anarchism...which is what I was suggesting in my essay.

It&#39;s a thorny problem that does not admit of "easy" solutions.


The beef of the criticism against the Animal Lib section (which of course then serves to invalidate the entire network) as articulated by redstar2000 begins by saying that our positions are "anti-Marxist", and ends up by accusing us of plotting a vegan dictatorship.

Ok, let&#39;s see what I actually said...


Originally posted by [email protected]
I read the Red And Anarchist Network statement of principles and must admit that much of it is quite good.

My impression is that they are anarchists who are attempting to appropriate the best of Marxism (rather than the other way around).

And then I ran into this...


ANIMAL LIBERATION & VEGANISM

The cause for discrepancies between proletarians and animals is capital&#39;s utilization of class infighting to draw attention away from itself.

That&#39;s both subjective and nonsensical.

"Class infighting" is, I think, much more a by-product of how capitalism functions than it is a result of conscious capitalist intent. Capitalism begins by dividing workers into employed and unemployed...with the threat of catastrophe hanging over the heads of the latter. Other divisions (racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.) can be used to sharpen this fundamental division between the employed and the unemployed...but they are "add-ons" to what already exists and would exist even if capitalists themselves were completely free of all parochial prejudices or malicious intent.

The difference between proletarians and animals is that animals are born to eat and be eaten -- they are not sentient entities. (Possible exceptions: higher primates, dolphins, whales.) An animal&#39;s normal life (completely free of any human intervention) is to eat plants or other animals until it is attacked by a stronger animal, killed and eaten itself. Animals are "oppressed" by nature itself.

The human ability to engage in rational thought does not appear to be replicated among animals of any kind...except on the simplest level.

Careful observation will reveal many "proto-human" characteristics among the higher mammals and even birds. They clearly display "emotions" that humans recognize as similar to their own. They also display social behavior that may be at the roots of some human social behavior -- though this is a very hot controversy among scientists.

But this does not make them "proletarians".


The liberation of animals is necessary in the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

No it isn&#39;t. It&#39;s completely irrelevant to the overthrow of capitalism. In fact, the "liberation" of animals is a meaningless phrase.


To venture to use animals is to stimulate overproduction, an unstable economy, and disaster with which to further exploit and manipulate the already exploited and manipulated.

Overproduction and instability are normal in a capitalist economy and would exist even on a planet without any animals at all.


RAAN supports and encourages all those who have made efforts towards matching their lifestyles with their revolutionary goals (that is, those who have refused to take part in the horrific system of animal consumption).

Will RAAN then undertake a campaign of extermination against cats, dogs, and other predators who enthusiastically "take part in the horrific system of animal consumption"?


All of this should not be taken to mean that RAAN is made up entirely of vegans, or that only vegans are welcome in it.

Meat-eaters are "Class B" members. That&#39;s generally what a statement like that turns out to mean.


Communism is not the application of a universal moral code, or the creation of a uniform society, and there would be no state or similar mechanism to impose, say, veganism, even if many people thought it desirable.

A useful warning. If there were a mechanism for imposing veganism, some of those folks would "think it desirable".


We can say with confidence though that the status quo would be untenable, and that there would be a radical transformation of the relations between humans and other species.

This may be one of those apparently "fuzzy" declarations that groups sometimes make when they don&#39;t want to alienate people and yet also want to "clue in" the "folks in the know". It really tells lefties who are also vegans that veganism is going to be the rule -- while not actually saying that in plain words to lefties who think veganism is just silly.

-------------------------------------------

So...I give RAAN a C+ -- they&#39;re taken some steps in the right direction but clearly have a lot more thinking to do.

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1291851855 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=34432&view=findpost&p=1291851855)

The attentive reader will note that neither the phrase "anti-Marxist" nor the phrase "Vegan dictatorship" appeared in my post.

On the other hand, it&#39;s pretty clear that the attempted rhetorical justification for veganism in "Marxist terms" is nonsensical.

In fact, it&#39;s rather like "liberation theology" -- using scraps and tatters of "Marxism" to justify the continued existence of rank superstition.

Note finally that I did not "invalidate" your network...I simply pointed out what I saw as a real bad idea that seems to be important to you.


Nachie
...the revolutionary negation of capitalism necessarily affects animal consumption just as much as it would affect EVERYTHING ELSE.

"Just as much?"

If so, then is it not far more likely that meat consumption would increase? Whenever humans have the chance to increase meat in their diets, do they not do so with enthusiasm? And in a communist world, who could possibly stop them from doing that?

To be sure, modern neo-puritans attempt to scare people into giving up all sorts of pleasures...and there&#39;s no reason why they should limit themselves to tobacco, coffee, alcohol, or sex.

Eating meat will kill you&#33; :o

The only time that even half-way "works" is if you&#39;ve got guys with guns who will put you in prison or even kill you if you "sin" (do something "unhealthy").


This is fucking important&#33; What do you think was the second form of property after land? Animals&#33;

In fact, herd animals were probably the first form of property, not the second. Nomadism appears to predate the first attempts at agriculture.

But why is it "fucking important"?

Why is it a "big deal" for RAAN?


This is probably clear enough. Again, what&#39;s anti-Marxist is to talk about some "worker&#39;s control" nonsense without really getting to the base of what makes capitalism so unsustainable.

Capitalism, in Marx&#39;s view, is not "unsustainable" because of meat consumption or even ecological destruction. It&#39;s unsustainable because its relations of production eventually block the further technological development of the means of production.

Capitalist societies eventually stagnate and then begin to decay and then collapse.

This may be a "part of Marxism" that people in RAAN don&#39;t like and wish to ignore.

Well and good; that&#39;s your right. But you can&#39;t expect us to reject Marx&#39;s analysis of capitalism in favor of an "explanation" based on meat consumption.

Or even on "global warming" or other ecological considerations. Short of massive thermo-nuclear warfare, it&#39;s impossible for capitalism (or any other form of human society) to render the earth&#39;s entire surface uninhabitable. Humans can do some serious damage to portions of the earth&#39;s surface...no doubt about that. But the wild "doomsday" scenarios of the environmental reformists strike me as...well, wildly implausible.


The world Animal Liberation movement is about a bazillion times more serious, organized, conscious, and active than any entity such as the revleft community ever will be (and that may be a low estimate). Our sympathies and practical support will always be with them before the objections made on forums such as this.

Again, it&#39;s your life; do as you please. We are or at least aspire to be serious revolutionaries...and are, for the most part, uninterested in lifestyle trivia. Should we ever "catch on" to "something big", we will not bother asking for your "sympathies" or "practical support".

You&#39;ll be "busy" elsewhere. :)

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

[Nachie]

It&#39;s a thorny problem that does not admit of "easy" solutions.
Absolutely. The best we can do is work at approaching success. But with praxis, not words. I disagree that RAAN&#39;s is an exclusively "anarchist" organizational conception; I&#39;d just say we remain open to those kinds of proposals and as a result don&#39;t fit fully into either category (which is the point of it being an R&A network in the first place). On the other hand we have a lot of sympathy for the concept of the "party" as developed by Marx and Negri, for instance.

I totally apologize for saying that you called us anti-Marxists. That was actually someone called Axel1917, here (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=47222&view=findpost&p=1292034301). That&#39;s just a stupid mistake on my part. Nevertheless I maintain that you are using veg-scare tactics by saying things like "A useful warning. If there were a mechanism for imposing veganism, some of those folks would &#39;think it desirable&#39;."

You also personally did not "invalidate" the network, but reactions from others to the Animal Lib section was so strong as to be more or less along those lines.


Whenever humans have the chance to increase meat in their diets, do they not do so with enthusiasm?
Generalized statement, means nothing. It may in fact be true in places like South America, though. Of course in a "communist world" there would be nothing stopping anyone from doing that, but it&#39;s not likely that an industrialized meat industry would be controlling production as it can now. That&#39;s what&#39;s important, not what people are eating but how it&#39;s getting to them.


Eating meat will kill you&#33; :o

The only time that even half-way "works" is if you&#39;ve got guys with guns who will put you in prison or even kill you if you "sin" (do something "unhealthy").
Sounds like nothing we&#39;ve ever said. Again we see a thinly-veiled warning against an imposed veganism in the future.

It&#39;s a "big deal" for RAAN because the meat industry is a classic example of the irrationality of the capitalist system of (re)production.


Capitalism, in Marx&#39;s view, is not "unsustainable" because of meat consumption or even ecological destruction. It&#39;s unsustainable because its relations of production eventually block the further technological development of the means of production.

Capitalist societies eventually stagnate and then begin to decay and then collapse.

This may be a "part of Marxism" that people in RAAN don&#39;t like and wish to ignore.
At this point you&#39;ve confused me by first inventing a strawman argument we never even came close to putting forward, ("Capitalism, in Marx&#39;s view, is not &#39;unsustainable&#39; because of meat consumption") and then restating exactly what I had just used in my own defense ("[the] relations of production eventually block the further technological development of the means of production.") as your own argument, supposedly trumping the made up one you&#39;ve attributed to us. You finish up with a flourish ("This may be a "part of Marxism" that people in RAAN don&#39;t like and wish to ignore") by denying we have any consciousness whatsoever of what we just said. It&#39;s a nice magic trick and goes over well with all the bold tags for emphasis, but if you had said that to me in a real conversation I&#39;d have to just stare at you in disbelief, because you&#39;d sound as mad as Don Quixote.

Likewise for your attempt to pin us as schemers looking to "reject Marx&#39;s analysis of capitalism in favor of an &#39;explanation&#39; based on meat consumption." Are we even talking about the same text? Next you associate us with the "wild doomsday scenarios of the environmental reformists", again doing your best to transmogify our position before everyone&#39;s very eyes and change it into something totally different and much stupider than what it actually is.


We are or at least aspire to be serious revolutionaries...and are, for the most part, uninterested in lifestyle trivia
As are we. What other anarchist (or communist) group has gone out of its way to state that the personal lifestyle choice of veganism is not revolutionary in any sense? Who else can claim to have a combative analysis of lifestylism and cliqueism such as the one developed in our Anarcho-Sceneism (http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/praxis/1/anarcho-sceneism.html) piece?


You&#39;ll be "busy" elsewhere. :)
Dude I hope so. You&#39;ll hear from us.

[redstar2000]

May I remind you of your own words?


Originally posted by Nachie
The world Animal Liberation movement is about a bazillion times more serious, organized, conscious, and active than any entity such as the revleft community ever will be (and that may be a low estimate). Our sympathies and practical support will always be with them before the objections made on forums such as this.

Do you think that it&#39;s "ok" to change your view from one post to the next...and perhaps hope no one will notice?

Either you really think that "Animal Liberation" is significant or you don&#39;t&#33;

Of course, you can take refuge in the proposition that RAAN has no "official position" on anything and that its documents may or may not represent the opinions of its "members". That&#39;s a clear "advantage" of the organizational "form" that you&#39;ve chosen; RAAN is "for" anything that people might do "in the name of RAAN".

That doesn&#39;t make a lot of sense to me but I can see where it would be appealing from an anarchist point-of-view.

Yet because RAAN is always a "moving target", how does one discuss anything with "it"? You can always say that the stuff "in that document" doesn&#39;t "really represent RAAN"...and quite truthfully, because nothing does except what someone might be actually doing "in RAAN&#39;s name".

If people in one city start a RAAN "Food Not Bombs" project and hand out ham sandwiches, are we to conclude that "RAAN has scrapped the vegan silliness"?

Nope...because there&#39;s another RAAN project on the next corner where they&#39;re giving away kitty litter and raisins.

RAAN is always free to "agree with Marxism" now and "disagree with Marxism" an hour from now.

As if your politics were a crap shoot&#33;

If you think this is unfair, then what do you really think about "animal liberation" and "veganism"?

And what does RAAN "really think"?

And sXe??? :lol:

And trashing some RCP bookstores? Wankers they may certainly be but are they the class enemy?

Why not do something useful and trash a high-profile reactionary church?

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

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 03:08 AM
RAAN is always free to "agree with Marxism" now and "disagree with Marxism" an hour from now.

As if your politics were a crap shoot&#33;
such is the nature of an organization that is inclusive to marxist and non-marxists. relative flexibility of anti-statist affiliates theoretically is necessary for cohesion in practice. and as nachie has stated countless times, the latter is raan&#39;s primary concern.

[anomaly]

Nachie said:

so as far as dual participation I say sure, whatever... if anybody actually wants to.
This is all I needed.


The animal and meat industry, which "overproduces" at an "unstable" rate, could not possibly be expected to survive such momentous changes unscathed, particularly not if we&#39;re looking at rational ways of really being able to fix the planet, produce enough nourishment for everyone, and/or decentralize/abolish control over food sources. Hell yes the liberation of animals is necessary in the struggle to overthrow capitalism.
How would abolishing the meat industry contribute to the nourishment of all? And if you abolish control over food sources, animal &#39;liberation&#39; becomes impossible, because then people who like eating meat will eat meat.


This fine-tuned system of infighting...
You call it &#39;infighting&#39; when animals are &#39;oppressed&#39;. You act as if proletarians and animals are the same. I suppose we could say they are &#39;the same&#39;, if we ignore the fact that proletarians are humans while animals are animals&#33;


The unsaid reasoning for the enslavement of animals is that of production, accumulation, and profit.
No, I think the &#39;reasoning&#39; for &#39;enslaving&#39; animals is so we can eat them&#33; This is not class-war politics, this is biology&#33;


the horrific system of animal consumption
Neo-puritanism&#33; :angry:


The animal liberation movement would form one pole of the debate
This I can agree with. Certainly any &#39;animal liberation movement&#39; could debate whether we should or should not eat meat, but to say that animal consumption is "horrific" is simply idealist BS.

Regarding IWPA, my suggestion would be for you to post their link on your site, and for IWPA to do the same for your site. That way it shows that the two groups are, however autonomous, united or &#39;linked&#39; in some fashion. However silly all this &#39;animal liberation&#39; stuff is, I do not think it is a barrier to such action.

[Nachie]

Do you think that it&#39;s "ok" to change your view from one post to the next...and perhaps hope no one will notice?
I don&#39;t really see how I&#39;ve done that: What I said was that the Animal Lib movement was better prepared and more active, and certainly in terms of tactical cohesiveness, experience, prisoner support, etc. has a lot to offer us. I think the "Animal Liberation" movement is significant even if its immediate goals are not personally my own cup of tea. What&#39;s more revolutionary, taking a "position" on it, or just accepting it as part of the movement&#39;s given paradigm and then moving on and trying to work on one of your own?


Of course, you can take refuge in the proposition that RAAN has no "official position" on anything and that its documents may or may not represent the opinions of its "members". That&#39;s a clear "advantage" of the organizational "form" that you&#39;ve chosen; RAAN is "for" anything that people might do "in the name of RAAN".
That&#39;s a crude way of putting it, and doesn&#39;t take into account the P&D or other "principles" documents, but now you&#39;re getting it&#33;


Yet because RAAN is always a "moving target", how does one discuss anything with "it"? You can always say that the stuff "in that document" doesn&#39;t "really represent RAAN"...and quite truthfully, because nothing does except what someone might be actually doing "in RAAN&#39;s name"
Exactly. You don&#39;t "discuss things with RAAN", RAAN is a discussion. The arguments you make take the form of new types of action, which lead by example. We don&#39;t expect people trapped in a vertically-organizationalist mindset to understand this, so we restate it constantly.


If people in one city start a RAAN "Food Not Bombs" project and hand out ham sandwiches, are we to conclude that "RAAN has scrapped the vegan silliness"?

Nope...because there&#39;s another RAAN project on the next corner where they&#39;re giving away kitty litter and raisins.
I know... *wipes tear from eye* isn&#39;t it beautiful? Raisins kick ass, too.


RAAN is always free to "agree with Marxism" now and "disagree with Marxism" an hour from now.
Woah, there&#33; Those sound like "official positions"&#33; We take what we can from Marxism at whatever point it&#39;s useful to do so. Same with anarchism. At no point do we agree or disagree with the totality of either. This freedom of RAAN to "do whatever it wants" is actually just the freedom of the individual cells to develop their own positions as suits their immediate situation.


If you think this is unfair, then what do you really think about "animal liberation" and "veganism"?
I think veganism is a cool personal choice for anybody wanting to make it and do it inteligently (I have not and don&#39;t think I could) and that the current "animal liberation" is far too complex and varied a movement + ideological tendency for us to be making blanket statements about it. Other than making sure we have the most perfect Party Line™, I don&#39;t see what the point would be, anyway.


And what does RAAN "really think"?
RAAN thinks it looks just slightly better than presentable in that skimpy neglige you sent over *wink*


And sXe??? :lol:
I think it&#39;s pretty silly myself, but who am I to judge? sXe appears nowhere in the network "documents", it just happens to be the lifestyle choice of a couple people - myself excluded, again. I suppose your idea is to have the Party apparatus crush such strange examples of individualism and "wasted energy" through Democratic Centralism?


And trashing some RCP bookstores? Wankers they may certainly be but are they the class enemy?
If I&#39;m even going to be talking about Marxism, I have to account for the loonies on the corner who are saying the complete opposite of what I&#39;m presenting, and have had decades of a head start in doing so. Leninists historically aren&#39;t the class enemy until the revolution. Then they&#39;re just the ones shooting at you. The RCP attacks have definitely had a way of entrenching anti-Leninism within RAAN, which I think is the tactical objective and is cool because that&#39;s how it should be.


Why not do something useful and trash a high-profile reactionary church?
Be my guest&#33;

EDIT: cleaned up quote tags

[Nachie]

Some responses to anomaly:


How would abolishing the meat industry contribute to the nourishment of all?
Just in terms of the resources it takes to raise cattle (as an example) for slaughter VS. the same resources put towards growing diverse and nutritious crops. Your yield is just sooooo much better.


And if you abolish control over food sources, animal &#39;liberation&#39; becomes impossible, because then people who like eating meat will eat meat.
Exactly&#33; And that&#39;s exactly what we said, blatantly, in the text we&#39;re discussing. I have friends in Alaska, and up there it&#39;s almost a given that you have to eat meat no matter where you are in "the movement" because growing or finding greens year round is practically impossible. We also have various indigenous cultures worldwide that have always consumed animals, and it&#39;s ridiculous to presume that RAAN would or COULD tell them - OR anyone else - what to do.


You call it &#39;infighting&#39; when animals are &#39;oppressed&#39;. You act as if proletarians and animals are the same.
The infighting is not between animals and proles but within different sections of the proletariat itself. That same BoB pamphlet has a really good part talking about how the British anarcho-punk movement of the early 80&#39;s (predominantly vegetarian, animal-libbers) had to adapt in practice so as to support the "murderers" when meat-eating miners went on strike. That&#39;s the kind of reflection and practical solidarity that we&#39;re interested in promoting within the movement.


No, I think the &#39;reasoning&#39; for &#39;enslaving&#39; animals is so we can eat them&#33; This is not class-war politics, this is biology&#33;
I&#39;m not going to argue that we can ever get rid of domestication, or that that would actually be desirable, but factory farming, feed production, and genetic engineering yes is the systematic enslavement of animals as fits the dictates of the unsustainable capitalist system of valorization. There are other, healthier ways to eat/process them. And no, I&#39;m not pretending that vegetables aren&#39;t factory farmed as well... the WHOLE system needs to go&#33;


Neo-puritanism&#33; :angry:
We didn&#39;t say animal consumption itself is horrific, but again the way capitalism has organized it as an economic sector IS. The same could be said of drugs and sex (both of which redstar2000 would like to insinuate we are trying to abolish) alongside countless other examples. The way the meat industry presents itself is one of the best examples of commodity fetishism that I can think of.


Regarding IWPA, my suggestion would be for you to post their link on your site, and for IWPA to do the same for your site. That way it shows that the two groups are, however autonomous, united or &#39;linked&#39; in some fashion.
But they&#39;re not...

There&#39;s no space on or reason for RA.org to have a links section, nor is there a mechanism by which to decide what links would get approved. The only external "groups" (of any kind) that get linked on the RAAN site are those referenced in the History page. If we wake up tomorrow and overnight somebody had [done some type of action] and spraypainted RAAN-IWPA next to it, then that would be a dual claim and we couldn&#39;t possibly ignore it in documenting said action. That would be the only way we could really claim that RAAN and IWPA are "united or &#39;linked&#39; in some fashion" while remaining "autonomous". Even then I&#39;d predict there would be some amount of internal criticism against such a union, which at any rate could at no time possibly come to represent the entire network in the first place. I hope all this doesn&#39;t make you tear your hair out as it seems to for redstar2000.


However silly all this &#39;animal liberation&#39; stuff is, I do not think it is a barrier to such action.
Word&#33; Thumbs up.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Leninists historically aren&#39;t the class enemy until the revolution. Then they&#39;re just the ones shooting at you.

:lol:

In this case "you" = counter revolutionaries.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Nachie
I suppose your idea is to have the Party apparatus crush such strange examples of individualism and "wasted energy" through Democratic Centralism?

Whips & Chains; the Meaning of "Democratic" Centralism (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083204465&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

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

[Nachie]

Right on, it&#39;s good to see that&#39;s not what you meant. I think the core of building a "new communist org" is realizing that its structures must be organic, or at any rate need time to define themselves according to practicality and not just "what sounds good" to whoever is writing the "programme" at the time or whatever. RAAN is trying to do this... we&#39;re feeling about looking for the best combination of forces, and basing it all on mutual aid and respect from the start. It&#39;s working, even if it sometimes (or even often) doesn&#39;t feel like it. It&#39;s been and will continue to be a long hard road, but it&#39;s a boulder that anybody can help us to push up the hill at any time.

Now if you&#39;ll excuse me, "Compañero" De "Libertad" just called me and the entire historical anarchist movement "counter-revolutionaries", so I have to go cry in the corner.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 01:55 PM
Now if you&#39;ll excuse me, "Compañero" De "Libertad" just called me and the entire historical anarchist movement "counter-revolutionaries", so I have to go cry in the corner.
Would you prefer ahistorical and deluded? Because those are the terms that I would have chosen.

Personally I&#39;ve always felt that the "core of building a new communist org" is getting the theory right. The actual structure of the organisation is a secondary matter. In this case your very "organic" structure reflects the fact that there is no driving theory or ideal behind the organisation.

[Nachie]

You&#39;re a Leninist; nobody cares what terms you would have chosen. Thanks.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by ComradeOm
Personally I&#39;ve always felt that the "core of building a new communist org" is getting the theory right. The actual structure of the organisation is a secondary matter.

Well, no. You see, if the organization is structured in such a way that changing/correcting the theory from experience is extremely difficult or impossible, then it really doesn&#39;t matter how "good" your initial theory is. It&#39;s "written in stone" and when objective material conditions change, it will shatter&#33;

If an anarchist group like RAAN essentially has no structure at all -- and is consequently free to "do/say anything" -- a Leninist Party is so rigid that it can only change if its leadership is willing...or by splitting&#33;

The reason there are "57 Varieties" of Trotskyism is that they simply have no way to handle differences of opinion in their parties except by splitting.

The "movement" framework for which I&#39;ve argued allows for disagreements to be resolved in struggle...without necessarily ending in splits or expulsions. I don&#39;t claim that they "will never happen"...but a movement has "much more room" for ideological struggle than a Leninist Party.

That would also entail, of course, giving up the conceit that we "always have the correct line". Quite the contrary, it should be understood that "the line" is up for serious criticism and fundamental change at any time.

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

[Nachie]

Quite correct, redstar.


The "movement" framework for which I&#39;ve argued allows for disagreements to be resolved in struggle...without necessarily ending in splits or expulsions. I don&#39;t claim that they "will never happen"...but a movement has "much more room" for ideological struggle than a Leninist Party.
Isn&#39;t this exactly what RAAN is doing? Again, yes we have unyielding positions against certain things like sexism, racism, homophobia, Leninism, the state, CAPITALISM, etc. but that is only the necessary byproduct of defining ourselves as R&A in the first place and then using those existing traditions as our militant base.


If an anarchist group like RAAN essentially has no structure at all...
That&#39;s not entirely correct, for instance see our Principles of Organization. RAAN&#39;s structure starts at the grassroots and is guided by principles of horizontalism, but the internal workings of each collective or project are pretty much up to the people who are actually creating it. The most important byproduct of this is that it allows us to develop clandestine and above-ground formations simultaneously, something lifted directly from the successes of the MST in Brazil (as one example). I do not think this is an eternally sustainable model, particularly in anticipating state repression, but the point is that it gives us the time and space to experiment enough that the useful tactics will appear by merit. Since in talking about creating a new "communist" "organization" we&#39;re necessarily talking about building something from scratch (in form if not theory) this seems to me the only rational way to go about it at this stage.


... [it] is consequently free to "do/say anything"
Isn&#39;t that the point? Doesn&#39;t reality and the diversity of our movement demand that flexibility?

However again, that&#39;s not entirely true. Participating in electoralism, for instance, is rejected outright. But yeah, few other tactics are. As for being able to "say anything", well of course there&#39;s no central structure in place to channel the energies of local affiliates/groups (this is best done autonomously at their own level) but our infrequent newsletters and "statements" are produced collectively, in line with a tradition that has been in place - and working respectably - for years. Just as a recent example, when we got involved with the Katrina relief efforts the first draft of our statement on the matter referred to a "white power structure", something that was then criticized by a certain affiliate. We went through a few days of "ideological" reflection and exploration before deciding on the exact definition of the term, if it was appropriate to use it, and only then was the statement sent to the groups we were supporting. This took place because the money and labor we were donating was in the name of the whole network. These debates are totally open via the RAAN online community, have taken place for EVERYTHING we&#39;ve written, and on multiple occaisions Internet lurkers have joined in on them with no prior activity in the network, and then left just as soon as their views were expressed. I think this is mad lame of them, but of course they should be able to do it, and their contributions make everything that much stronger. On the whole though, post-Principles of Action (mid 2003) we have seen ourselves as completely decentralized and without a need to speak up "officially" on every little issue.

I think it&#39;s also worth pointing out that we&#39;ve been attacked repeatedly by many sectors of the anarchist movement, some of whom adhere to organizational forms completely different from our own. So calling us an "anarchist organization" exclusively is misleading. In fact we&#39;re entirely different from the traditions of what could be called "historical" anarchism (anarcho-syndicalism, the IWA, etc.)

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 20 2006, 04:24 AM

Leninists historically aren&#39;t the class enemy until the revolution. Then they&#39;re just the ones shooting at you.

:lol:

In this case "you" = counter revolutionaries.
The Leninists were shooting the anarchists in the Russian revolution. So I would say Nachie is quite right.

So why in the hell should we trust you "revolutionary" Leninists? History is not on your side.

[Nachie]

Don&#39;t forget Spain&#33; ;)

We also have to take into account that our role as Marxists is not just to point out that the anarchists were massacred, but that THE ENTIRE working class was suppressed in the process of the Bolshevik coup and all of its subsequent historical consequences. That is the real position against Leninism, and solidarity with our anarchist comrades is only a particular element of it.

[anomaly]

THE ENTIRE working class was suppressed in the process of the Bolshevik coup and all of its subsequent historical consequences. That is the real position against Leninism, and solidarity with our anarchist comrades is only a particular element of it.
I agree. However, wouldn&#39;t you agree that Leninism has, despite its obvious failures, modernized the countries in which it took root?

[chimx]

at times yes, but is that kind of modernization worth the price?

[anomaly]

No, I don&#39;t think so. I think there certainly does exist a &#39;3rd way&#39; of modernization. However, it certainly has not been discovered yet.

In any case, it is clear that Leninism should be avoided in already developed nations.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Nachie
The most important byproduct of this is that it allows us to develop clandestine and above-ground formations simultaneously, something lifted directly from the successes of the MST in Brazil (as one example).

I gathered this...though I would have thought you were borrowing from ELF or ALF.

As a practical matter, clandestine activity must be the product of autonomous local groups of well-trusted individuals.

But when such groups "do something" and identify what they do with RAAN, everyone else is necessarily "left in the dark" both about what really happened and why.

For want of a better word, there&#39;s no "cohesiveness" (or "sense of collectivity") in RAAN&#39;s structure...no sense of anything larger than the local autonomous group.

I think that&#39;s inadequate...it strengthens people to feel like they&#39;re "part of something bigger" than just what they see immediately around them.

You know that SDS chapters were fundamentally autonomous; there was no central mechanism in place that could "command" SDS chapters to "do this" and "don&#39;t do that". But when SDS people had their big annual meetings (4 times per year&#33;), people could argue vigorously about "the best thing to do" and influence other chapters with their arguments, strategy, accomplishments, etc. People "felt like" they were part of a movement that really was "powerful"...and that what it decided to do or not do "was important" in a sense that went far beyond their own locality.

I envision a future communist movement that would be "like that"...and I don&#39;t get the feeling from you that RAAN "wants to go" in that direction.

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

[Nachie]

I gathered this...though I would have thought you were borrowing from ELF or ALF.
Being Brazilian myself I have a particular affinity for the MST. The ELF/ALF are different in that they are exclusively clandestine formations with no parallel fronts such as what RAAN proposes - unless you want to suggest SHAC for the ALF (and we just saw what happened with that) or EF&#33; for the ELF (which is unfair now, but probably true in terms of its origins). Come to think of it, I think the EF&#33; movement is one of the biggest inspirations to RAAN in terms of a self-organized tendency that&#39;s getting out there, getting things accomplished, and growing. Now before you go back to calling us tree-huggers as if it were a bad thing, let me reiterate that our admiration of EF&#33; is for their structure (20 years and going&#33;) more than their goals or ideology.


But when such groups "do something" and identify what they do with RAAN, everyone else is necessarily "left in the dark" both about what really happened and why.
Can you demonstrate how this is true? Because it has not been my experience that it is. Are you referring to "everyone else" in terms of other RAANistas, the general public/movement, or both?


I think [RAAN&#39;s "lack of cohesiveness" is] inadequate...it strengthens people to feel like they&#39;re "part of something bigger" than just what they see immediately around them.
I have an essay titled "From Organization to Gestalt" that will be getting published in Impassioned Insurrection&#33; #2. I&#39;ll do my best to remember to send you it when it&#39;s out, because I think it would address a lot of your concerns.


For want of a better word, there&#39;s no "cohesiveness" (or "sense of collectivity") in RAAN&#39;s structure...no sense of anything larger than the local autonomous group.
With all due respect, you&#39;re speaking as an outsider and really don&#39;t know your topic. Everyone I&#39;ve ever met from the network has treated me and was treated as family. We always support and collaborate with each other. There&#39;s no reason for me to go into more detail, but a lack of collectivity is the last thing we&#39;re suffering from.


I envision a future communist movement that would be [like the original SDS]...and I don&#39;t get the feeling from you that RAAN "wants to go" in that direction.
Why do you get that impression? Something like a national conference would be a great idea, (assuming por supuesto that local chapters retain autonomy) and as the network grows it&#39;s inevitable that somebody would eventually propose it and put a plan together, anyway. A few years ago we had a number of mini-conferences on both coasts, and at least the couple I was a part of were very positive experiences.

In the absence of these face to face meetings though, we&#39;ve not been shy in promoting the use of the Internet to coordinate efforts, and it too has worked quite well. There has always been plenty of "vigorous arguing" within RAAN, publicly and accessibly to all "chapters". Sometimes it doesn&#39;t seem like it because we just did so much of it in the earlies that nowadays there&#39;s more of a general commitment to seeing how it all goes down in practice. With things like the P&D laying a groundwork from which to immediately start building, we can concentrate much more directly on the second A in RAAN. Mutual aid, mutual aid, and more mutual aid.

[anomaly]

nachie:

Something like a national conference would be a great idea, (assuming por supuesto that local chapters retain autonomy) and as the network grows it&#39;s inevitable that somebody would eventually propose it and put a plan together, anyway.
This sounds like a really, really good idea.

[Nachie]

Sure, where do you live and how many bunk beds can we fit in the basement? :P

But seriously, I&#39;ll be in Philly sometime around the weekend of the 15th of April doing workshops on the situation in Venezuela, Parkour as a radical organizing technique, and "defining RAAN". These events are all being hosted by the Revolutionary Marxist Collective of Philly and of course anybody in the area who isn&#39;t a Leninist is heartily invited to show up and take part in these discussions. You should get in touch with the RMC for the final schedules: http://www.phillyrmc.net/

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 10:28 PM
I know you guys from way back i think.





was surprised to see that during all these discussions, where the RAAN Principles & Direction as well as the Definition and Affiliation sections of the website were so often quoted, nobody bothered to look at the History page. This is a huge mistake as that is undoubtedly the most important part of redanarchist.org, and any discussion about the network has to begin and end with that information. It is worth noting that I think we&#39;re one of the only organizations aside from the ELF/ALF that has an action timeline like that. It is CENTRAL to our self-understanding and much more important than anything that has been written. (please note the History page has yet to be updated through March 2006)



This is an extreme embarrasement. You guys should be trying to hide it and point people to your other stuff instead of drawing attention to it.

I doubt you&#39;re the only organization aside from the ELF/ALF that has an &#39;action timeline&#39;, but ELF has enflicted hundreds of millions of dollars of damages against the most environmentally destruction sectors in the capitalist economy with firebombs, ALF has rescued hundreds or thousands of animals from otherwise cruel deaths at slaughterhouses and consumor products testing labs...

...you guys can take credit for vandalizing two communist bookstores with rightest messages, and throwing an egg at the most left-leaning mainstream american political figure. Fucking good job <_< .


I mean wtf, i was in boston for years, you accept responsibility for some asshole vandalizing a communist bookstore when there are dozens of military recruiting stations, high-end retailers, military research labs, national guard outposts, Mcdonalds, Starbucks, and so on. Wtf is wrong with you guys? I&#39;d suggest that it would be amusing if someone vandalized the Lucy Parson&#39;s center (the anarchist bookstore in boston) in retaliation, except that no communist would ever do that because we don&#39;t care enough about anarchist organizations. You on the other hand seem far more obsessed with attacking the Revolutionary Communist Party and Green Party then say, the Republicans and Democrats and the capitalists.

Your history page is more fitting for a neo-nazi organization than people who claim to be nominally marxist.
Yes, that sounds like them. I was on their site a long time ago, and I left it, given the bankruptcy of their ideas and methods of immature vandalism (I rember somoene having the idea of vanalizing something with wheat paste, or something of that sort). This vandalism crap is utterly immature, and it can only serve to isolate the RAAN from the majority of the proletarians.

Not to mention that they keep attacking Leninism without having a single idea of what it really is. Apparently the RAAN preferst to take Stalin&#39;s word for what Leninism really is. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

The RAAN are about as Marxist as Ronald Reagan&#33; :lol:

[Nachie]

I&#39;m sure your vanguard party can use its collected dues to buy some billboard space, but we just wheatpaste shit up.

[anomaly]

it can only serve to isolate the RAAN from the majority of the proletarians.
And your Trot party does connect with the majority of proletarians? :huh:

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 06:44 AM
I&#39;m sure your vanguard party can use its collected dues to buy some billboard space, but we just wheatpaste shit up.
And therefore make yourselves look like a bunch of immature hooligans, therefore gaining resentment amongst the proletarians. Such vandalism is only going to isolate you.

From anamoly:


And your Trot party does connect with the majority of proletarians? huh.gif

Actually, yes. We seem to be the only genuinely Trotskyist organization in the world. We do not shy away from the reactionary trade unions and other places where the proletrians are to be found. We actually know and apply what Lenin noted about working in such organizations, given that objective condtions prove that Lenin was right about that, and those methods, tactics, etc. are still applicable to this day. I think there is a reason why the sectarian "Trotskyists" hate and fear us so much, and therefore, why they must baselessly call us "opportunists," "The Grant cult," etc. to make us look bad.

[anomaly]

Actually, yes.
Interesting. Um, where is that majority then?

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 07:08 AM

Actually, yes.
Interesting. Um, where is that majority then?
I meant that we are working to win them over, and unlike the sects, we are having success.

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 03:56 AM
For want of a better word, there&#39;s no "cohesiveness" (or "sense of collectivity") in RAAN&#39;s structure...no sense of anything larger than the local autonomous group.
I would add to what nachie said that the idea of mutual aid for "above ground" activity is a great creater of unity in the group. raan is more than an abstract concept or banner for autonomous activity (though that is part of it, as we have been discussing), but also a network. mutual aid between marxists and anarchists thrives and provides a great deal of the cohesion and "sense of collectivity" of which you speak. still, at the end of the day, it is a unification not through ideological compromise or understanding between the groups, but cohesion founded upon praxis--which we find preferable.

[redstar2000]

As you folks can see, any discussions of new forms of communist organization are constantly being derailed by Trotskyist blather...a recent and unfortunate development on this board.

If it keeps on happening, we&#39;re going to have to do something about it.

Meanwhile...


Originally posted by Axel1917
Actually, yes. We seem to be the only genuinely Trotskyist organization in the world.

They all need special over-sized doors to get their enormous heads from one room to another. :lol:


We do not shy away from the reactionary trade unions and other places where the proletarians are to be found.

Churches?

The more reactionary, the "better", eh? :lol:

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

[Nachie]

And therefore make yourselves look like a bunch of immature hooligans, therefore gaining resentment amongst the proletarians. Such vandalism is only going to isolate you.

Yes, Exactly. Immature hooligans just like EVERY political group and party from EVERY side of the spectrum that uses that tool extensively in practically EVERY country except the USA. Can we please limit the amount of people on this thread who have no idea what they&#39;re talking about? It&#39;s getting out of hand here. Can anyone conceive of a "proletarian dictatorship" that doesn&#39;t include the total re-painting of every possible surface with the collective organism&#39;s art and demands? To say "no" is to just ignore history.

RAAN and others before us have developed a full critique of the bourgeois dictatorship and its unnacountable control over public space, but the revolutionary movement has hardly begun to implement a non-tokenized and widespread propaganda and street art campaign against this prevailing reality. HOWEVER it is a key and very easy part of building our "cohesion". Sure, spraying up something "immature" like "Sm(A)sh the State&#33;" might isolate us (which is why we have an acronym like "R(A)AN" to denote an existing body of experience behind the "slogans" and "actions") but leaving the damn wall blank is what will ENSURE that you remain isolated.


Actually, yes. We seem to be the only genuinely Trotskyist organization in the world.
:rolleyes: heh. hehehe. hehehehehehehehe.

Who cares? The most "genuine" Trotskyist REMAINS a Trotskyist. Boy oh boy I can&#39;t wait to line up to support the hyper-neoliberal militaristic Chavez regime and lick Alan Woods&#39; boots. How&#39;s "reclaiming the Labour Party" going, by the way?

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by Nachie+Mar 20 2006, 04:02 PM--> (Nachie &#064; Mar 20 2006, 04:02 PM)You&#39;re a Leninist; nobody cares what terms you would have chosen. Thanks.[/b]
Don’t you mean that I am a statist? :lol:


Well, no. You see, if the organization is structured in such a way that changing/correcting the theory from experience is extremely difficult or impossible, then it really doesn&#39;t matter how "good" your initial theory is. It&#39;s "written in stone" and when objective material conditions change, it will shatter&#33;
But surely this is a result of the underlying theory being too rigid; something reflected in the organisation. An organisation that is extremely rigid and uncompromising is typically structured around an “infallible” leader or text. How many CPs or Trot parties invite their members to question or contradict Marx or Lenin?

A Marxist party that takes the idea of “question everything” to heart could not fail to extend that attitude to its leadership.


Originally posted by [email protected]
The "movement" framework for which I&#39;ve argued allows for disagreements to be resolved in struggle...without necessarily ending in splits or expulsions.
Ironically enough that was Lenin’s reasoning for democratic centralism.


chimx
it is a unification not through ideological compromise or understanding between the groups, but cohesion founded upon praxis--which we find preferable.
This is the big stumbling block that I’m finding with this group. There are still some fairly major theoretical differences between Marxists and anarchists that you are going to have to face sooner or later. This extremely “free” structure seems to be a way of sweeping the differences under the carpet.

The big one is of course the nature and future of the state. Cutting out the Leninists is the easy part, but what about those well meaning Marxists who still have no objection to a post revolution state?

[Nachie]

Leninist, statist... which do you prefer to be called?

There&#39;s no such thing as a "post-revolution state". The revolution itself is a new, non-institutionalized anti-state (horizontal armed body of autonomous, but networked, workers) in the process of abolishing itself via the dictatorship of the proletariat, just as the proletariat itself becomes its own negation during the unfolding of this anarchist transistion into a higher stage of the communist tendency. This is not a "state" in the same sense used today to denote a "government" any more than the communist "party" could be compared to a political party. Usually we just refer to it as the collective organism of the DofP. Yes, there have been internal debates involving anarchist comrades, but these were over semantics more than anything else, and not everybody in RAAN speaks in Marxist terms, anyway (nor should they). What we&#39;re ultimately talking about though, is the violent suppression of the ruling class. No matter what you call it, we continually insist that autonomy be the only basis for preparing for such a struggle - both now and in the future - and in practice this totally cancels out any semantic differences with the anarchists, because it&#39;s exactly what they&#39;re saying and organizing for, too.

You can check out my essay Defining a Dialogue of Revolution: The DofP (http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/indy/dofp.html), but let&#39;s leave the final word to someone we can both agree on:


"But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.

The centralized state power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature — organs wrought after the plan of a systematic and hierarchic division of labor — originates from the days of absolute monarchy, serving nascent middle class society as a mighty weapon in its struggle against feudalism."

- Marx, The Civil War in France
I can&#39;t see anything confusing or "swept under the carpet" about that. Leninists can keep their cynicism and express barely-concealed resentment that ole&#39; Vladamir&#39;s image will NEVER appear on our banners by predicting the imminent failure of RAAN all they want, but for us the practical R&A union is fait accompli. We&#39;re having so much fun already it just never crossed anybody&#39;s mind to invite you.

And actually, it&#39;s always the "red" groups trying to unite Marxists with Leninists that end up biting the dust. Seems ironic, no?

Well... not to us.

[TC]

There is no such thing as a non-&#39;statist&#39; Marxist or a Marxist that doesn&#39;t endorse Communist parties, thats percisely the difference between Marxists and Anarchists. The workers state and communist party were ideas that Marx subscribed to and wrote about in the Manifesto, there is nothing &#39;Leninist&#39; about them except in so far as Lenin supported those ideas of Marx. For that matter if you want to talk about all non-Anarchists as &#39;Statists&#39; then why don&#39;t we talk about all non-Communists (Which would be you Nachie) as anti-Communists.

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 04:02 PM
This is the big stumbling block that I’m finding with this group. There are still some fairly major theoretical differences between Marxists and anarchists that you are going to have to face sooner or later. This extremely “free” structure seems to be a way of sweeping the differences under the carpet.

The big one is of course the nature and future of the state. Cutting out the Leninists is the easy part, but what about those well meaning Marxists who still have no objection to a post revolution state?
see what nachie said about the idea of a post-revolution state. as far as other distinctions, i agree that there are some (e.g. economic determinants, etc.). we feel that these distinctions are far out-weighed by similarities between those involved. no doubt some dialogue will inevitably occur down the road, just as it already has. but when the dialogue is predicated upon practical mutual aid and real world support already in existence between groups, we find that such discussions are dealt with a higher degree of respect between those involved.

without that framework, our discussions would just look like all the bickering, flame baitings, and nay-saying that occurs on revleft. :D


There is no such thing as a non-&#39;statist&#39; Marxist or a Marxist that doesn&#39;t endorse Communist parties, thats percisely the difference between Marxists and Anarchists. The workers state and communist party were ideas that Marx subscribed to and wrote about in the Manifesto, there is nothing &#39;Leninist&#39; about them except in so far as Lenin supported those ideas of Marx. For that matter if you want to talk about all non-Anarchists as &#39;Statists&#39; then why don&#39;t we talk about all non-Communists (Which would be you Nachie) as anti-Communists.

bravo&#33; spoken like a true leninist.

now move along please.

[TC]

Whereas you guys are speaking like someone who has never read marx?

[Nachie]

The workers state and communist party were ideas that Marx subscribed to and wrote about in the Manifesto, there is nothing &#39;Leninist&#39; about them except in so far as Lenin supported those ideas of Marx.
Right, and what we are rejecting is the Leninist distortion and dictatorial subversion of those ideas and that process as it had developed. Especially in Western Europe, the Bolshevik coup and the immediate steps taken by Lenin to produce conformity within the world communist tendency around the statist Moscow line destroyed the extra-parliamentary alliances between all manner of waaaaaay pre-existing anarchist and communist tendencies.


For that matter if you want to talk about all non-Anarchists as &#39;Statists&#39; then why don&#39;t we talk about all non-Communists (Which would be you Nachie) as anti-Communists.
Because word games like that are such obvious hail mary attempts to misrepresent reality with the goal of drawing attention away from your total lack of actual arguments.


Whereas you guys are speaking like someone who has never read marx?
What is the party? Negri (a Leninist who changed his views over the course of many years of theoretical development, and then went to jail for it) defined it as such:

"...A contradiction which we must live and control within the overall development of the process of proletarian self-valorization [which aims to] destroy the reality of power as the obverse of the capitalist state-form ... power is to be dissolved into a network of powers, and the independence of the class is to be constructed via the autonomy of individual revolutionary movements [that reduce] the party to a revolutionary army, to an unwavering executor of the proletarian will."

That quote is prominently referenced on the RAAN website.

Now would you please dip out? It&#39;s obvious you haven&#39;t changed since our last encounters, (and neither have we) and at any rate if you&#39;re so sure we&#39;re deluded and bound to fail, why are you and all the other Leninists getting so hot &#39;n bothered that you&#39;re not invited to the RAANfest?

[anomaly]

TragicClown said:

There is no such thing as...a Marxist that doesn&#39;t endorse Communist parties
What about RS2K? He seems much more helpful on this issue than any of you self-righteous &#39;statists&#39;. Especially someone who supports &#39;communist parties&#39;, such as your Leninist self. Or is RS2K simply &#39;not Leninist enough&#39; for your authoritarian tastes?&#33; :lol:

Nachie said:

There&#39;s no such thing as a "post-revolution state". The revolution itself is a new, non-institutionalized anti-state (horizontal armed body of autonomous, but networked, workers) in the process of abolishing itself via the dictatorship of the proletariat, just as the proletariat itself becomes its own negation during the unfolding of this anarchist transistion into a higher stage of the communist tendency. This is not a "state" in the same sense used today to denote a "government" any more than the communist "party" could be compared to a political party. Usually we just refer to it as the collective organism of the DofP. Yes, there have been internal debates involving anarchist comrades, but these were over semantics more than anything else, and not everybody in RAAN speaks in Marxist terms, anyway (nor should they). What we&#39;re ultimately talking about though, is the violent suppression of the ruling class. No matter what you call it, we continually insist that autonomy be the only basis for preparing for such a struggle - both now and in the future - and in practice this totally cancels out any semantic differences with the anarchists, because it&#39;s exactly what they&#39;re saying and organizing for, too.
Finally somebody &#39;gets it&#39;&#33; If anyone is confused with my little convo with our friend Lazar in the other forum (indeed, it is quite confusing), I think Nachie hits the nail on the head here. :)

[TC]

You realize that you just used quote marks on a term that i&#39;m disputing and your buddies are using in an esoteric way right? Thats kindof the opposite of the way people do it. Statist is just a word that these anarchists are making up no one calls themselves that.

And I&#39;m not sure but i was under the impression that redstar&#39;s issue with Leninism is democratic centralist party organization, not the workers state in general. Democratic centralism is just one tactic its hardly central to marxism and marxism-leninism, i personally don&#39;t think it makes sense in the west at this time, other types of parties probably work better.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by TragicClown
And I&#39;m not sure but I was under the impression that redstar&#39;s issue with Leninism is democratic centralist party organization, not the workers state in general. Democratic centralism is just one tactic it&#39;s hardly central to marxism and marxism-leninism...

Lenin obviously thought "democratic" centralism was "central" to his own "take" on Marxism...especially after 1917. And all of the remaining Leninist parties endorse it with enthusiasm, do they not?

They certainly don&#39;t think of it as a "tactic"...it&#39;s a "core value" in their eyes.

My "take" is that serious anarchists could "live with" a "Paris Commune state"...but that option has been completely obscured by the 20th century Leninist despotisms.

When people hear the phrase "workers&#39; state", they think USSR, China, etc....and who wants that?

Granted, the imperialist bourgeoisie told tons of lies about those places to make them "look bad"...but the simple truth would have sufficed.

Stalin did not kill "lebenty-zillion" people, nor did Mao. But is it not sufficient to know that very substantial numbers of people were imprisoned unjustly, brutalized and tortured by police, worked to death in camps and farms, or arbitrarily shot without good reason?

Is it not sufficient that in none of those countries did ordinary working people have any voice in determining policy?

Is it not sufficient that Marxism was degraded to the level of a "state religion" complete with "high priest"?

The regimes in those countries were without a doubt sharp improvements on the despotisms they replaced. And thus enjoyed much more popular support as a consequence than bourgeois ideologues will ever admit.

But to call them "workers&#39; states" -- with the implication that they were what Marx and Engels "had in mind" -- is just a mockery of the phrase.

Is it any wonder that anarchists are repulsed by such "workers&#39; states"? When, the fact is, most workers in the "old" capitalist countries are equally repulsed.

Anarchism can be criticized on many grounds; but their refusal to be taken in by the mythology surrounding Leninist "workers&#39; states" is to their credit.

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

[anomaly]

My "take" is that serious anarchists could "live with" a "Paris Commune state"...
I certainly would support it. However, I favor anarchism, and, as you mention, the Leninists have quite a history of fucking up &#39;workers states&#39;.

[Comrade-Z]

Yes, a Paris Commune "state" would be quite acceptable.

Does that make me "not an anarchist"? No. I like to use the "label" of anarchism for several reasons:

*Anarchism can best be summarized as "no rulers." That&#39;s still what I am aiming for, even if it necessitates an ultra-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat along the way (such as a Paris Commune type of "state").
*I like to link my ideas and actions with the historical record of anarchism, which has much more to offer to modern communist/anarchist revolutionaries than the historical record of "communism" or the things that have been/are labelled "communist," in my opinion.
*The (class struggle) anarchists, despite the general lack of historical materialism and good grounding theory, still have the best programme of action for the self-emancipation of the proletariat.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 01:59 PM





From redstar2000:


As you folks can see, any discussions of new forms of communist organization are constantly being derailed by Trotskyist blather...a recent and unfortunate development on this board.

If it keeps on happening, we&#39;re going to have to do something about it.

Meanwhile...

It looks like someone can&#39;t even handle the smallest amount of criticism and questioning, and in his anger, he has to restort to threats of banning and such. <_< You clearly have no idea as to why I am posting there (I am there mainly to see what differences there are between Miles and the rest).

But it is okay for redstar2000 to make racist comments (see that "If he were Iranian..." remark) and not get in trouble for it&#33;


They all need special over-sized doors to get their enormous heads from one room to another. :lol:

What is this supposed to mean?


We do not shy away from the reactionary trade unions and other places where the proletarians are to be found.


Churches?
The more reactionary, the "better", eh? :lol:

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

I was referring to traditional workers&#39; organizaitons and such. Had you bothered reading anything else I posted, you would have been able to figure that out.

Nachie, nevermind. You have already proven my point.

[Floyce White]

TragicClown: "Statist is just a word that these anarchists are making up no one calls themselves that."

Exactly. Same way they use the euphemism "authoritarian" to line up other anarchists to oppose an idea or person.

Same way they say:

Comrade-Z: "Anarchism can best be summarized as &#39;no rulers.&#39;"

I already explained why this isn&#39;t so in my Antiproperty articles. What&#39;s more, in this post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=45108&hl=&view=findpost&p=1292012549) I explained that only the continuous mass participation of the working class can win the fight over terminology and prevent the degeneration of semantics by capitalist domination of a movement. The long period of the lack of mass workers&#39; participation in the anarchist movement means that the words no longer have any relation to their original etymologically-based definitions.

Without the participation of the poor, we get cute posts about:

Nachie: "...building spaces of proletarian self-valorization."

I&#39;ve never heard any poor people talk about wanting to get "self-valorization." I&#39;ve heard the term "self-esteem." What in the world is a "space" for "self-esteem?"

But then again, I don&#39;t know of any poor people who jet off to South America for a couple of months of political meetings, either. Maybe I don&#39;t have enough "self-valorization" to afford the airfare?

Comrade-Z: "Yes, a Paris Commune "state" would be quite acceptable."

You&#39;re already aware of my argument that a union isn&#39;t a state, a workers&#39; party isn&#39;t a state, and neither is the form of workers&#39; struggle called a "commune."

Maybe if you just keep associating the word "state" with workers&#39; struggle, you can make it seem "authoritarian" and then "no one wants to work with it?"

[chimx]

Originally posted by Floyce [email protected] 22 2006, 06:37 AM
Maybe I don&#39;t have enough "self-valorization" to afford the airfare?
then maybe you should cut your hair and get a job.

[Nachie]

Originally posted by Axel1917+--> (Axel1917)Nachie, nevermind. You have already proven my point.[/b]
Cool I can go back to ignoring you, now.


This random new guy
I explained that only the continuous mass participation of the working class can win the fight over terminology and prevent the degeneration of semantics by capitalist domination of a movement.
DUH. Which is why Leninists aren&#39;t welcome.


I&#39;ve never heard any poor people talk about wanting to get "self-valorization." I&#39;ve heard the term "self-esteem." What in the world is a "space" for "self-esteem?"
Logical fallacy. You&#39;ve never heard the term, so of course it can&#39;t exist or isn&#39;t valid, and can OBVIOUSLY be replaced randomly at your leisure by whatever word you choose to suit the INCREDIBLE logic you&#39;re levelling against us. In this case, "self-esteem". "What in the world is a &#39;space&#39; for &#39;self-esteem&#39;"? Gee I dunno, probably a space that allows the alienated to recover or build their self-esteem? Why didn&#39;t you just ask the "poor people" who said it what they meant?

Anyway, what IS self-valorization? Marx talked about it a tiny bit, mostly just in terms of contrasting Capitalist value vs. workers&#39; resistance, but it wasn&#39;t fully developed as an idea until Negri&#39;s book Marx after Marx. It might be helpful to consider self-valorization as the negation of alienation. Carl Wennerlind (with some help from Cleaver) defines it as such,

"The use of the concept self-valorization grew out of the writings of the Italian autonomous Marxist tradition and denotes &#39;a self-defining, self-determining process which goes beyond the mere resistance to capitalist valorization to a positive project of self-constitution.&#39; (Cleaver 1992: 129) It is the process of filling liberated space, time, and energy with alternative and autonomous projects that may allow us to go beyond capital&#39;s valorization strategies. It is a process of refusal of the capitalist form of alienated life, but also, at the same time a process of moving from the &#39;present to the future,&#39; by creating ways of living which build a post-capitalist society, in the process of destroying the old. Unlike utopias posited by many socialist and communists, self-valorization, due to its inherent diversity, does not &#39;designate the self-construction of a unified social project but rather denotes a "plurality" of instances, a multiplicity of independent undertakings. . .&#39; (130), which means that the resulting society will be one of multiple and diverse forms."

Thus the Paris Commune can be a helpful reference, but let&#39;s not forget that M+E definitely said "hey, that didn&#39;t work and here&#39;s why". It&#39;s cool to see people finding things we can agree on and use it as a base from which to start, but the kind of unity RAAN is looking for is best based off a running critique of several experiences like that of the Makhnovists, Hungary &#39;56, Kwangju, or the incredible history of the Iraqi revolutionary movement - and not just The Commune.


...and neither is the form of workers&#39; struggle called a "commune."
That&#39;s funny, in your essay Communism Means Communes you wrote,

"The commune is a form of struggle against exploitation. So is the similar soviet, or council form. By any name it is the comprehensive local organization of working-class struggle." - Floyce White

So in other words, HA HA.


Maybe if you just keep associating the word "state" with workers&#39; struggle, you can make it seem "authoritarian" and then "no one wants to work with it?"
Yeah gee, and maybe if you wave your wand a bit, a cute rabbit will pop out of your hat? Where did we try to call the worker&#39;s struggle "authoritarian"? Or even associate it with the word "state"? Is Leninism synonymous with "worker&#39;s struggle"? (hint: the answer isn&#39;t "yes")

What the hell is going on here? It&#39;s like the exclusive argumentative tool on this forum is to recombine words however you want and then accuse your opponent of saying something they never did&#33;?

I called redstar2000 out on this and he was good enough to take a step back and actually listen to what we&#39;re trying to say. I will publicly thank him for that. There, I just did. These other people on the other hand are just frothing at the mouth trying to squeeze an "ahhh-HA&#33;" type argument in wherever they can, and in the process are showing just how much they&#39;re nothing more than cranky that it&#39;s not going their way.

Please have the decency to not run in on this thread outta nowhere if your only goal is to try and pick up the slack for Tragic and the other clowns. As soon as this discussion becomes about anything other than the structure of RAAN, (which is irrelevant to Leninists anyway) it becomes a waste of my time and I&#39;ll peace.

[Comrade-Z]

Comrade-Z: "Yes, a Paris Commune "state" would be quite acceptable."

You&#39;re already aware of my argument that a union isn&#39;t a state, a workers&#39; party isn&#39;t a state, and neither is the form of workers&#39; struggle called a "commune."

The marxist definition of a state is something to the effect of "the tool by which the ruling class maintains its rule and enforces its property relations."

Using this definition, an ultra-democratic network of workers&#39; councils and elected workers&#39; militias that suppressed the bourgeoisie in the post-revolutionary would be classified as a "state." Those ultra-democratic institutions are the means by which the proletariat enforces the DofP and enforces its conception of property relations.

Of course, this is a far cry from the "state" that the Leninists have in mind--an internally hierarchical apparatus with a professional standing army, etc.

One type of "state" truly is a "workers&#39; state" and is controlled by the entirety of the working class at all times. The other type of state is like any other bourgeois state that slips out of the control of the working class and rules over the working class. Guess which is which.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I love when people bring out words like "statist", "authoritarian" and "totalitarian".. it&#39;s reveals their complete political immaturity.


When people hear the phrase "workers&#39; state", they think USSR, China, etc....and who wants that?

Most of the people in Russia and China do, i.e. they want to go back to what they had, even to bureaucratic socialism which is better than capitalism.


But to call them "workers&#39; states" -- with the implication that they were what Marx and Engels "had in mind" -- is just a mockery of the phrase.

So which class ruled all mighty redtsar? And why were the capitalists so hostile to these countries, to the point of dedicating a large portion of their own resources to destroying them?


Is it any wonder that anarchists are repulsed by such "workers&#39; states"? When, the fact is, most workers in the "old" capitalist countries are equally repulsed.

And they&#39;d be even more "repulsed" if forced to live under the regimes that were overthrown in the construction of the workers&#39; states. Who honestly thinks that socialism in the imperialist countries would take the same forms as it was forced to take in places like Russia, China and Cuba??


I certainly would support it. However, I favor anarchism, and, as you mention, the Leninists have quite a history of fucking up &#39;workers states&#39;.

Ah yes, it was the Leninists that "fucked them up" -- it had nothing to do with the constant attacks the capitalist world waged against them. As opposed to anarchists who have carried out a number successful revolutions.

[Nachie]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 22 2006, 06:37 PM
Waaah waaaaaah waaaaaah, I&#39;m a Leninist. Here&#39;s some Leninism. Does anybody need any Leninism? Because I&#39;ve got plenty. Waaaah waaaah waaaah, join the Free People&#39;s Movement. WAAAAH.
This thread is NOT Lenin-friendly&#33;

From now on everytime an idiot shows up and does their best to regress the discussion from the actual topic to "was the USSR revolutionary?" or any other tangent that does not explicitly begin with a rejection of Leninism or have anything at all to do with the Red & Anarchist Action Network, I will be posting a completely random funny picture. I encourage others to do the same. Starting with this one:

http://www.redanarchist.org/images/marxpopslenin.jpg

And I warn you, the photos will become less and less germane with time&#33;

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

1. Stop spamming.

2. I&#39;m not a Leninist, and the FPM isn&#39;t a Leninist organization.

3. Quite revealing that you use a picture of a US puppet killing a Vietnamese liberator, since you&#39;re explicitly anti-communist in practice.

[Comrade-Z]

Most of the people in Russia and China do, i.e. they want to go back to what they had, even to bureaucratic socialism which is better than capitalism.

I wouldn&#39;t quite say "most" do. There&#39;s a sizable portion of the population that wants that. But if the overwhelming majority of those populations really wanted that, they&#39;d find a way to make it happen, whether through revolution or some other means.

It seems that state-monopoly-capitalist Russia was a lot better than current day Russia in many respects. Under Stalin, Russia apparently didn&#39;t have nearly the level of corruption that started to proliferate under Kruschev and continues to wreak havoc on Russian society to this day. The social services were much better, oftentimes. Overall GDP and wages were higher.

Indeed, it was incredibly unfortunate that Russia had to be so badly plundered by corrupt production ministers and foreign capital when the USSR dissolved.

Would having another "progressive strongman" leader come along do Russia some good right now? Someone who would not "build socialism," but instead establish a state-monopoly capitalist despotism, weed out the corruption, free Russia from being once again a sort of "neo-colony" of foreign capital, do some damage to organized religion, and get Russia back on stable economic footing--would that be possible and/or beneficial to Russia right now? Maybe, maybe not.

Regardless of whether Russia could use "another Stalin" or not right now, it is certain that the advanced capitalist countries do not need such a development. Nor do they need even "another Lenin." Russia finds itself currently in different historical circumstances than the advanced capitalist countries do.


So which class ruled all mighty redtsar? And why were the capitalists so hostile to these countries, to the point of dedicating a large portion of their own resources to destroying them?

The state had a monopoly on the means of production in Russia and functioned collectively as a capitalist class. Capitalists from other countries were hostile to the USSR&#39;s capitalist class because the Soviet Union was a (state-monopoly) capitalist imperial power that threatened the empires of the other capitalist imperial powers. It was an ordinary inter-imperialist struggle that the capitalist classes of both sides tried to gloss over with ideological justification.


As opposed to anarchists who have carried out a number successful revolutions.

At least the anarchists succeeded in creating what we are aiming for (a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat in order to wipe out the capitalist class and transition to communism) for brief periods.

The Leninists "succeeded" at establishing, from the very beginning of their rule, something that we don&#39;t want at all (dictatorships over the proletariat). How can you call that "success"?

[Nachie]

Hmmmph, the admins have deleted my glorious picture of a flying monkey <_<


Originally posted by Private Message from LSD
I can understand your distaste for leninism, but please try to find a more productive way to display it. This board does not tolerate spam, no matter the political opinions of the progenerator.

I have given you a warning point for your comments, please avoid like posts in the future.
Well, I find myself in a forum where Leninism, Castro/Mao/Stalin apologism, and semantic gymnastics are welcomed, but pictures of flying monkeys (which in actuality make a lot more sense) are not. How odd&#33;

There&#39;s a reason why RAAN works. It&#39;s the same reason we don&#39;t use our online forums very much. That reason is, we said "Fuck the Leninists&#33;" and just went on our merry way with actually organizing something. This could have been a thread about the physical and practical reality of creating new fighting revolutionary associations, and for a hot minute it was, but now instead it&#39;s just "my ideology vs. yours". I&#39;m sorry but we - or at least the network - already went through that several years ago.

So, given the choice between putting this thread out of its misery (or at least putting myself out of the misery of this thread) or helping it to further become another ideological wankfest like most of the other topics floating around here, I&#39;m going to choose the former.

So goodbye for now. I&#39;ll post my analysis of Venezuela as a new thread when it&#39;s written. Anyone who liked where this discussion was going is welcome to Private Message or e-mail me. And as for chimx and those who in any way in the slightest showed a gleam of interest in RAAN... good luck, and we hope to hear from or about you at some point.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yeah, you wouldn&#39;t want to debate with revolutionary leftists on a site made specifically for debate with revolutionary leftists.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by CompañeroDeLibertad
Most of the people in Russia and China do, i.e., they want to go back to what they had, even to bureaucratic socialism which is better than capitalism.

Speculative...particularly with regard to China. True, Russian polls do suggest considerable nostalgia for the old USSR and even Stalin. But my impression is that much of that nostalgia is based on sentiments like "we were once a Great Nation, a SuperPower, and now we&#39;re dogshit". Putin and his fellow gangsters seem to be "playing that card" a great deal lately.


So which class ruled...? And why were the capitalists so hostile to these countries, to the point of dedicating a large portion of their own resources to destroying them?

An emerging modern bourgeoisie ruled. :(

As to hostility, are not imperialist countries always hostile to one another? I don&#39;t mean at the UN cocktail lounge; I mean when each ruling class gathers to discuss the pressing problem of screwing some other imperialist country out of its possessions.

Oh, it&#39;s true enough that 1917 scared the shit out of the imperialist bourgeoisie, no question about that. But by the early 1920s, the German capitalists "struck a deal" with the USSR without shitting themselves in terror.

The totally unexpected ease with which the USSR smashed the armies of the Third Reich did worry the American imperialists a good deal; that "wasn&#39;t supposed to happen".

Thus all the yap in the period 1945-48 about the "communist threat"...the USSR really "looked threatening" especially after they exploded their own atomic bomb around 1949.

But it wasn&#39;t "proletarian revolution" that scared the American imperialists; it was losing their dominant position in the world. In fact, there are American documents from that period that are very blunt about that fear...and "communism" had nothing to do with it. That was a "stick" with which to clobber their imperialist rivals.

In fact, if I&#39;m not mistaken, that&#39;s when the phrase "godless communism" first became part of public discourse here.


Who honestly thinks that socialism in the imperialist countries would take the same forms as it was forced to take in places like Russia, China and Cuba??

In the last century, damn near everybody&#33; :o

Things are somewhat different now. The Trotskyists have all become de facto social democrats...so their "vision of socialism" is, shall we say, less than rigorous. :lol: Their naked adulation of Chavez probably gives you an idea of what "they&#39;d be like"...at their "best".

American Maoists like the RCP still want to "do what Mao did"...Avakian actually calls it "an enlightened despotism".

If we&#39;re all good boys and girls, he promises to "lighten up" as time passes.

Believe that if you like.

Hint: Don&#39;t throw paint on that big picture of the Great Leader&#33; :lol:


Ah yes, it was the Leninists that "fucked them up" -- it had nothing to do with the constant attacks the capitalist world waged against them.

Ah yes, a grim day indeed when victorious imperialist troops marched in glorious triumph through the gates of Moscow and an even grimmer day when Beijing fell to the barbarian hordes from the West.

Oh...it didn&#39;t happen that way?

Gee, you could have fooled me. :lol:

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

[anomaly]

Ah yes, it was the Leninists that "fucked them up" -- it had nothing to do with the constant attacks the capitalist world waged against them. As opposed to anarchists who have carried out a number successful revolutions.
I don&#39;t much care for the despotism of a Party. Do you?

And yes, it was inevitable that all your prized Leninist states would end up producing modern capitalism. You can&#39;t go anywhere else from feudalism. The Leninist revolutions were only &#39;successful&#39; in that they produced capitalism. Sure, progression is good, but they could have done without the silly red flags. :lol:

Anarchists haven&#39;t carried out any &#39;successful&#39; revolutions for the same reason every other communist group hasn&#39;t: material conditions are not such that it is possible.

And you may not be a Leninist, but you certainly are &#39;Leninist-friendly&#39;. The line between the two stances is not well defined.


By the way, this thread did start out discussing possibilities for a new communist organization and RAAN. As Nachie made clear, this is not a Leninist friendly forum. In fact, we already know that the things we are discussing are not to your liking (it doesn&#39;t include a party...ghastly&#33;). So why not save us all some time and go post in some Leninist-friendly threads.

[Floyce White]

Comrade-Z: "One type of &#39;state&#39; truly is a &#39;workers&#39; state&#39; and is controlled by the entirety of the working class at all times."

I already critiqued that idea in my article Communism Means Communes (http://www.geocities.com/antiproperty/index.html#A18). Please see the third paragraph. I understand what you&#39;re saying, but I disagree. The definition of a "state" must be "a special armed body that defends property claims." In other words, police and military. The idea that any abstract class can police any other abstract class is a hypothesis that does not stand close examination. It fails when class is defined by property, and not just any arbitrary "relations" needed to "win" an argument.

You have, of course, seen the term "relations of production" used frequently and loosely by anti-capitalists with regard to class--with the specific relations never clearly defined. The difference is that I force the issue with a specific relation.

Comrade-Z, my beef was that you put the negative connotations of "state" onto the idea of workers&#39; organization in communes. I am glad that you cleared up that your intention is not to oppose workers&#39; unity. You seek to differentiate between the institutions of workers&#39; struggle, such as militias, and a USSR-type state, which you assert is not an institution of workers&#39; struggle. Well, I agree.

CompañeroDeLibertad: "And why were the capitalists so hostile to these countries, to the point of dedicating a large portion of their own resources to destroying them?"

The private-family owners of the big four Anglo-American oil companies are extremely hostile to the state ownership of the National Iranian Oil Company, Saudi Aramco, PDVSA, and to the Iraqi National Oil Company (which is now about to be privatized). Owners try to own. That&#39;s what they do.

chimx: "then maybe you should cut your hair and get a job."

Please do not address me in that manner. I am not your employee.

And it&#39;s a diversion from the issue: why is a bourgeois trying to tell poor people how to organize their struggles?

Floyce White: "I&#39;ve never heard any poor people talk about wanting to get &#39;self-valorization.&#39;"

Nachie: "Logical fallacy. You&#39;ve never heard the term, so of course it can&#39;t exist or isn&#39;t valid..."

I have been an activist for 27 years. That I have never heard poor people use the term, in thousands of conversations, is adequate proof that it does not exist in either common usage or in specialized activist jargon. I am making an honest statement here--not an intentional lie that would be a logical fallacy if so. Poor people in the United States just never use that phrase--in or out of political life.

You define the term "self-valorization" by quoting four leftist writers. This in no way proves that working-class activists in the US or anywhere else actually use that term. My observation remains valid.

Nachie (quoting Floyce White): "...and neither is the form of workers&#39; struggle called a &#39;commune.&#39;"

What is the problem here?

"A union isn&#39;t a state..."

"...a workers&#39; party isn&#39;t a state..."

"...and neither is...a &#39;commune.&#39;"

In the context of the sentence, this means "a commune isn&#39;t a state either." How can you possibly mistake this to be its opposite?

Nachie: "What the hell is going on here? It&#39;s like the exclusive argumentative tool on this forum is to recombine words however you want and then accuse your opponent of saying something they never did&#33;?"

Now you play the innocent victim, knowing full well that I will point out exactly this trick YOU are using in your post. How dishonest&#33;

[Martin Blank]

First of all, I would like to thank Nachie for his comments below. They help to clarify the issues between the League and RAAN, as well as aid in resolving some misconceptions and miscommunications.


Originally posted by Nachie+Mar 19 2006, 01:31 PM--> (Nachie &#064; Mar 19 2006, 01:31 PM)As previously stated, the major differences between the CL and RAAN are on the question of Leninism and the former&#39;s failure to articulate an anarchist discourse or alliance, which is a major goal of RAAN. I would also say that network has a more developed theoretical and potentially even praxical (I&#39;m not that familiar with the League) dialogue regarding what its nature is and how it functions as an self-recreating autonomous tendency.[/b]

It is true that the League has not "articulated an anarchist discourse or alliance". Until recently, we never even entertained the thought of such a thing. For the most part, this is because we felt it might likely be wasted time and energy. However, these discussions with comrades of RAAN, and with individual class-struggle anarchists and anarcho-communists has shown us of a need for, at the very least, a measure of "articulation" on our part. On the other hand, I would also say that the League does have a clear vision about the character of our organization and work, as well as how we seek to maintain and grow our organization.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 01:31 PM
The major critique of RAAN from this sector has been that we do not have a "class-based" position. I would say this has no basis in reality; we certainly do not speak [i]exclusively or obsessively about the working class, but what matters in the network is not so much what you say as what you do. Network affiliates have consistenly over the past 3.5 years worked construction and staffing on various community centers, ran Food Not Bombs and other goods distribution programs in many cities, worked with survivors of police violence, squatted buildings with homeless unions, been on the ground and organizing in New Orleans, Brazil, and Venezuela, supported striking workers on the picket, etc. etc.

I never said that RAAN "do[es] not have a &#39;class-based&#39; position". What I wrote in my letter to Anomaly was this:


As I am sure you can tell, class issues are very important for us. They are featured very prominently in every facet of our work. When I looked through the RAAN website, I saw very little on this issue.... The fact that there is little on the RAAN website about class questions and the effects that exploitation and oppression have on working people is something that would have to be discussed fully and thoroughly before anything could be accomplished.

I have no reason to doubt what you have written above, and would not even venture to do so. What might be useful, however, would be to talk with RAAN comrades about the lessons they have learned from these activities, and how they apply to current and future work. This is what I meant when I talked about "something that [could] be discussed fully and thoroughly". To hear of the RAAN&#39;s work is encouraging, and I do welcome it. If RAAN comrades will be coming to the Midwest Social Forum in July, it might be worthwhile to meet up at the IWPA caucus and "compare notes", so to speak.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 01:31 PM
This is just a fraction of our activity of course, but what I&#39;m trying to say is that we are embedded in the most direct expressions of the class struggle. RAAN activity exclusively often takes more eccentric, pointed, or clandestine forms, but in my experience the greater majority of known affiliates also maintain other forms of broader organizing or community work in an individual capacity. Note there is a huge difference between yelling about the workers every chance you get, and actually pressuring for, organizing, and building spaces of proletarian self-valorization.

It actually sounds like the League and RAAN do have similar (or, at least, parallel) methods of work. Because the League sees itself as a clandestine organization, we carry out work often through other organizations, like the IWPA, Bolivarian Circles, the IWW, etc. And I certainly agree with you about the "huge difference" between talking the talk and walking the walk.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 01:31 PM
Still, we do make several references in our lit to "the workers" as the only possible revolutionary subject, and the "proletarian dictatorship" remains and could only ever be, proletarian. We have a very clear and positive position on doing work with unions but at the same time we&#39;ve found that the best organizing occurs free of any bureaucratic structure, directly in the community where consciousness has the most space to develop.

Again, I see parallels in our methods and styles of work.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 01:31 PM
Miles of the CL nevertheless leaves open the options of fluid/dual membership and collaboration through the IWPA. On the question of membership, RAAN has none if not an autonomous, ill-defined network of people engaged in direct action or projects in the network&#39;s name. Several of our affiliates have longtime relationships with other associations such as CrimethInc. and of course this isn&#39;t just "allowed", it was never even questioned. Affiliates have full autonomy over their actions, in line with what you&#39;d expect from an anti-authoritarian project, and so as far as dual participation I say sure, whatever... if anybody actually wants to.

Well, it&#39;s more than simply "leav open the options". I think that a relatively poor choice of words is being misunderstood. As I am sure you are aware, most self-described "socialist" and "communist" organizations preclude dual and multiple memberships in other leftwing organizations. We don&#39;t have such a policy. That is what I meant by "allowed" -- it was in comparison to these useless leftwing confessional sects, which disallow their members from being involved in any other chur -- I mean, organization.

I would certainly say that members of RAAN are welcome to get involved with the League or IWPA if they wish. And I would hope that the likewise is true too.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 01:31 PM
The last thing I&#39;ll say on this is that as you might expect, RAAN has no decision making body, "official voice", or leadership. It is a collective organism steered by its own experience, thus conceived in order to be in the greatest degree of harmony with the revolutionary potential itself.

Yes, this is a difference. The Leauge has an elected Central Committee that administers between Conventions. At the same time, I should also point out that this provision is not being fully implemented right now, because of the small size of our organization. Members of the C.C. are elected from chartered Circles under the current, provisional Rules of the League; when we have a set number of chartered Circles, then a new Convention will be called and the standard provision will be put into place (unless it is amended, that is).

(I should also point out that Circles are not set up by the Center. Rather, it is up to members in a given location, workplace, etc., to form a Circle. A charter from the Center is a formal recognition of their organized affiliation. The work of a Circle is decided by the members of the Circle themselves, not by the Center. The most any comrade not involved in that Circle can do is recommend and encourage, or vice versa. This level of self-action and autonomy is necessary for a lot of the work we do.)


[email protected] 19 2006, 01:31 PM
And finally, something else I saw somebody (Miles?) say was that we should stop trying to pander to anarchist opinion, particularly on questions such as the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a misunderstanding of the network&#39;s history - yes, around 2003 when our founding documents came out we were attacked NONSTOP, all the time, no matter what, by certain elements of the institutionalized, Internet anarchist movement for talking about the DofP. This got to the point where they were using it as a tactic to block out any deeper discussion on what we were proposing, and was therefore confronted on July 6th of that year in my essay, Defining a Dialogue of Revolution (http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/indy/dofp.html). SINCE THAT TIME, we have made absolutely no further effort to reach out to these anarchist ideologues on this issue. We consider it well-covered territory, and besides as I stated the importance lies not in what words we use to describe ourselves, but the actions being described. We have also severed many ties with Internet anarchist forums so as to concentrate on our own internal development, and now they are sometimes coming to us wanting to know what we&#39;ve been up to.

This is a helpful statement. My comments on RAAN&#39;s relations with other anarchist organizations were based on some of the statements of chimx earlier in that thread.

In many respects, both the League and RAAN are in a common boat: we are attacked on all sides by those who claim the mantle to this or that doctrine. In terms of the League, we are attacked as Leninist by anarchists and other non-Leninists, and attacked as non-Leninist or anti-Leninist -- and even anarchist -- by the self-proclaimed Leninists themselves. Sound familiar? It seems to me that RAAN has been through similar experiences with self-described anarchists.

I hope this helps to explain more and clarify some of the issues between us and RAAN. I look forward to responses from RAAN comrades.

Miles

[getfreedropout]

A few thoughts from a vegan straightedge RAAN affiliate:

*If we define the State as the politicall aparatus of the ruling class, then I suppose it would be possible to define the proletarian dictatorship as a State. BUT I think this would be a poor choice of words because the proletarian dictatorship will not be a centralized body (or run by a Party), it will be the autonomous, organization of the revolutionary class (workers councils, neighborhood councils, armed groups, occupation committees, etc). What distinguishes the proletarian dictatorship is that it seeks the immediate auto-dissolution of the proletariat through the destruction of all classes. To use awkward language, revolution is the working class rising up against its working classness...

*Communism is not a future goal or utopia, it is a real material movement that emerges through class struggle when proles create new ways of relating to each other and negate capitalist social relations. Communist revolution does not remove the contradictions of capitalism, it DESTROYS them. I think Marx was very clear about this.

*On animal liberation... I think that the ideology of animal rights is totally at odds with a revolutionary perspective. On the other hand, I don&#39;t think factory farms will exist in a communist world (if for no other reason than it is awful and dangerous to work at one). Industrial animal agriculture is incredibly environmentally destructive, horrible for health (the #1 cause of death in the US is heart disease), and involves slaughtering billions of sentient animals. The fur industry involves killing millions of sentient animals (often by anal electrocution) so rich women can wear ugly coats, and the vivisection industry kills millions of animal in worthless experiments that give skewed date (exposing humans to unsafe drugs). Regardless of whether or not it is communist or revolutionary, I&#39;m going to fight against these disgusting industries. Animal liberation actions CAN have a class struggle element, though most do not. Regardless, I think it&#39;s pretty inspiring that the ALF can cost the pharmaceutical industry millions and million of dollars and force the closure of companies through illegal direct action. If nothing else, these tactics can be learned and applied to other struggles.