Mälli

Hey, was just reading your comments on Nachie's profile about the RCP shit in the Bay last year. The RCP was trying to sell their shit in a free area without being invited or asking permission to be there. They were also asked to leave, but refused to do so. They're stuff had to be physically picked up and moved (by an older man, not by younger anarcho-thugs ). At this point, instead of just being real people and understanding that they were not welcome, they proceeded to set up a table right outside the entrance of the bookfair to sell their shit. This is when two anarchists decided to it was necessary to take further action. I for one am glad they did. It was an event intended entirely for anti-state/anti-capital discussion and the like, to a regular person passing through it would have looked like the RCP was somehow a part of or welcome at the event. In no way shape or form do I want to be associated with them.

Hope that cleared it up a little, whether you agree with it ir not.

well i wasn't there and didn't take part in the action but my guess is that there is a distant hope that they'll now know better than to come back around

nah

a bucket of water was dumped on their literature table, destroying a bunch of their materials. there wasn't any physical scuffles or anything

it was an anarchist bookfair and they were trying to sell their propaganda in a "free" area

whether or not Leninists are consciously capitalist or authoritarian, their organizations and ideology has been used to scuttle many revolutionary movements of the past, and we believe that we achieve a qualitatively higher level of integrity and ethical continuity in our organization by excluding them right off the bat.

RAAN doesn't take an official line of attacking other "leftists" and nobody in the network is required to do so. there are various opinions on the actual effectiveness of anti-Maoist actions and stuff like that, with most of us feeling like that line in the sand has now been drawn deep enough, and we need to be focusing on other matters. the only anti-Leninist action by RAAN for five years now was a defensive one in expelling Maoists from an anarchist bookfair, and wasn't planned out ahead of time.

There is a certain "hard" image that RAANistas have put out there of themselves, and many of us do have things like tattoos and guns and use that as part of our public discourse of what RAAN represents in the street. But if you only focus on that aspect you might miss that there is really a huge depth of theoretical development and understanding behind the praxis we have elaborated and are bringing forward as a new movement. This is readily apparent to anyone who takes the time to study our actual accomplishments, but since revleft is ONLY ever interested in getting into big fights about the fact that RAAN excludes Leninists, then of course yes based on people's critiques here you could be forgiven for thinking that we are extremely one-dimensional.

The thuggish thing is again a symptom of this I think, since we have used confrontational tactics in the past against a variety of targets. In many cases these actions are well established in terms of radical traditions and would have the affect of making us be seen as heroes, but since we are equally confrontational against the authoritarian milieu we have been branded as taleban enforcers of moral order or something, which we clearly are not.

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