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Yeh, a lot of marx and engles it has to be said is hard to read and is only read by people like us that read it. However there are htings like a communist confession that are much easier to read.
In what relations do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
-Karl Marx
It is only by strengthening ourselves ideologically, inculcating in ourselves the values and ideals of the struggle and building up the ranks of the revolutionary party that we will make it.
- Ta Power
The main reason I like CrimethInc. So much is because it makes it easier for eveyrone to understand. Their essay your politics are boring as fuck. Was great at it was held very true. I bought days of war nights of love and I give it to all my friends to read. I dont like everything they have to say but alot of it isnt to bad.
cut your hair and get a job...
I'm almost done reading "Days of War, Nights of Love", and it basically sucked. There was nothing much good in there that I couldn't have found somewhere else (where a lot of the crap in that book wouldn't have been present).
I've certainly got a lot to say about the politics of the organization (not very much of it nice), but I won't, as was requested. I'll comment on the "Boring as fuck" article though, which was included in "Days".
The article started off with a pretty glaring falsehood, that interest in class war anarchist groups is declining. Take the Northeastern Federation of Anarhco-Communists (NEFAC) as an example. Their membership is growing.
The article then goes to make assumptions about how we class war-ists think of the working class... That we blame them for their condition, that we look at them as stupid. Not true. Most of us are them! We know how demoralizing and exhausting life under capitalism can be, and we don't "blame" the working class for being demoralized and exhausted. We simply try to convince them of our position, just like all reasonable people do, including Crimethinc.
That doesn't make much sense. I find HTML boring, but that doesn't mean I think it's irrelivant. It means I think it's boring. Thing is, I have the maturity granted to most people when they turn eleven, so I can see that, just because something is "boring" doesn't mean it's useless or shouldn't exist. Crimethinc. hasn't made it that far, apparently.
"Traditional" (reformist) forms of "protest" (the peaceful march down the street culminated with a couple speeches from reformist politicians and union bureaucrats) are shit. I can't think of any class war anarchist organization who thinks they're important. I'll use NEFAC as an example again. They spend a good lot of space in their magazine "The Northeastern Anarchist" attacking traditional shit protest.
The above statement only makes any sense if "they" is social democrats and liberals. Luckily, most of us know better.
Most groups don't use "post-Marxist jargon" any more than it is necessary these days, and when they do, it's usually pretty easy to pick up and learn quickly.
If we have no idea what to do "when the time comes", we're fucked. It might not do stuff *****RIGHT NOW****, but it's necessary.
Statements like that one only apply to reformists.
Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy reading and writing about political issues.
I know I don't do political writing/work out of guilt. I do it because living under capitalism sucks for workers like me and I want it to stop.
Good thing none of us are into that. This article applies to reformists, not anybody who uses "post-Marxist jargon" (ie: anarcho-communists, leninists, etc). Quite the contradiction, I think. Oh, wait, they just contradict themselves "to get people thinking", not because they get so riled up in their silly little word-games and bankrupt analysis that they end up stumbling over words and ideas like the star of a bad episode of "Gilligan's Island".
Our politics DO relate to peoples' "everyday lives". The best "one-liner" I've ever been able to use was "ever notice how, when you're at work, it makes you feel like shit?"
And it's not "the domain of blah blah blah". I'm hardly that, and I spend my breaks at work reading anarchist magazines (or recently, Crimethinc.'s book) and writing responses to things I disagree with.
They keep making wild claims like this, but no such thing is actually true. Lefist politics and action should be about empowering workers to act on their own and to organize themselves. That's not a "weight" on people.
True, we aren't always successful to this end, but Crimethinc. seems to imply that we don't even try.
That just seems silly. If we don't discuss how to organize and defend ourselves, how we should reach people and who we should reach, where we have gone and where we should go, we're fucked. There's nothing more relevant than that.
That statement seemed almost reformist in nature. What does a reformist say to a revolutionary? "Your revolution is a long time off. We should try to do little things to help people NOW instead of going for the whole thing later". That's exactly what that statement is saying.
That's a pretty big hope. Unfortunately, things don't just "work themselves out" because "we do really fun and exciting things".
What would be better, especially in the long run? Helping the grocery store workers get organized and implement a campaign of theft and "allowed shoplifting" of food to give to people (just so we can get that nice charity feeling), and encouraging the workers at the store to go further with their action, trying to convince them that they are fit to rule. Begging the bosses for their crumbs to give to homeless people doesn't do much in the long run.
This is a good example of how lifestyle anarchists (like Crimethinc.) sacrifice the class war for personal things. They'd rather do something which is, in the end, politically impotent, as long as they make friends.
Not that there's anything wrong with doing this. The problem comes in when you take time away from doing more important things to run around dumpster-diving.
Whew. Good thing this doesn't happen, otherwise, I'd have to concede a point to these clowns.
...Oh, wait, I wouldn't. Debate on theoretical issues is absolutely necessary, even if you don't trade funny stories while doing it. Crimethinc. just doesnt' like it, possibly because they've been laughed out of every serious anarchist group in the continent (you'll see exactly why if you read "Days". Here's a preview: The ruling class should be part of the revolution, because capitalism sucks for them too).
Damn that crafty Thadius Blinn! He told me that if I drank his elixer, I would!
Class war anarchism/communism is very relatable to peoples' real lives. People who like Crimethinc. should read Work. Community. Politics. War. (the one WITH pictures!. It's written in the same simple language and has a similar "ominous" tone, but isn't absolute shit. It makes all kinds of references to ordinary life and is generally super-awesome.
The smallest bit of historical research would show this to be untrue.
Oh, wait, Crimethinc. hates history (I wonder why (not because it isn't called "herstory")).
I lost $40 in a "game" this weekend. No more high-stakes gaming for me. I'll go with a high-stakes war, thank you very much.
The "higher language" of Marx and Engels sucks, bigtime. I think we should take it upon ourselves to put it into more accessable language. No question there.
Exactly. Take the good stuff (which you could probably get a lot of other places), and leave those jokers to wallow in their own shit (sure, you can try to convince them of otherwise).
The internets are our Woodstock.
Direct Action is part of CrimethInc's 'dossier', it is a theory they stick to read any of their works at the base message is 'RiSe Up'
Your Second point is very true though, there is very little communist 'jargon', when i have been conversing with the unaware it is the politcal 'jargon' that confuses them- mostly just politics confuses them but anyways. .
Direct Action is a very good thing, but it's certainly not exclusive to Crimethinc. (much as they may like us to believe <_< )
I've read all but the last chapter of "Days of War, Nights of Love", and I used to frequent their website (around the time that Revleft kept going down). I know what they're about, and I also know that anything good they're about isn't their exclusive territory.
The internets are our Woodstock.
Never said it was just their thing but ti a mainstay of their though process
direct action.........ya just dont sit around and wait for others to do thing.....get em done yourself......
I had been to the CrimethInc. website before, although had read little of their published material, I used it as a source of literature.
So I went there and read the "Your Politics Are Boring As Fuck"... It was somewhat amusing. Firstly, it visciously and falsely critiqued Anarchists for antiquated protests, demonstrations, and "boring" politics, when in fact this doesn't represent Anarchism at all, it represents the more mainstream left.
Then, in their powerful statement, they claimed:
^ This is anarchism.... The freedom and liberty to choose what you wish to do, and to be equally treated. It is the ultimate joy, the joy of living.
Quite hypocritical in my mind, no matter though. It was a good message in the end, although I don't think it will apply to the very people it was intended to reach. Too bad I guess..
-- August
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
Ya, that sounds all fine and good, but what does it actually mean? Ya, we should be pissed about the crappiness of life in capitalism. Great. But we all know that we don't like capitalism. Without objective (and, yes, sometimes boring) politics, we don't have a hell of a lot of hope of getting rid of it.
Capitalism is big and complicated and, at times, confusing. That blows, but if we don't understand capitalism (which would be boring, mind you) we can't attack it very well. It might not be fun, but it's necessary.
The internets are our Woodstock.
That's cool, I've come across this before. Nice material.
"How you cling to your purity, young man! How afraid you are to soil your hands! All right, stay pure! What good will it do? Why did you join us? Purity is an idea for a yogi or a monk. You intellectuals and Bourgeois anarchists use it as a pretext for doing nothing. To do nothing, to remain motionless, arms at your sides, wearing kids gloves. Well, I have dirty hands. Right up to the elbows. I've plunged them in the filth and blood. But what do you hope? Do you think you'll govern innocently?"-Jean-Paul Sartre
