Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 01:13:09 -0800
From: kadd <kadd-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Re: Eat my ass. 


> Who you calling "WE", motherfucker?

mind you, this was the FIRST part of your message.  if your intent was to make me feel threatened, it would have helped if i had some vague
idea of who you were, and how realistic that "threat" was.  motherfucker or not, you are not the Cheka, and this isn't Soviet Russia - in
other words, i should hope that as anarchists, we're smart enough to know how to deal with dissent in our community without implying
threats.  i don't know if this was your intent or not, and i don't really care.  i just don't think such responses are  conducive to
anything worthwhile.

> Joke's on you. The marching band was from Eugene.

good for them.  i think that was a damn creative idea.  i'm not suggesting they're completely incompetent.  like i said, they're hearts are
undoubtedly in the right place.  hence, my suggestion that my issues with them have to do with certain nuances.

> Looks like you missed some meetings there, pardn'r.

who's alleging superiority now? lucky you.

> So, property destruction is okay, as long as it isn't done by anarchists
> from Eugene?

no - it's not ok when it's done at the expense of other activists, period.  again, a little sophistication and resistance to trigger-happy
retorts would have led most three-year-olds to a more intelligent response than this.

> Jealously is unbecoming of someone who wants to abolish property.

i suppose that if rape became a preferred tactic in the "propaganda by deed" camp, i would be a jealous, posessive prick for suggesting
that maybe those involved in it may not necessarily be deserving of all the unquestioning worship that these folks are lavished with.  i'm
not in any way equating these folks with rapists, nor their actions with rape.  i'm just making the most extreme metaphor i can think of,
since you like to pretend to miss the point.

> I assume you're referring to the "60 Minutes II" segment and not the
> Black Bloc Statement.

no, the little "communique" bragged about how flexible their affinity groups were, seeing clearly that the cops were busy brutalizing the
folks blocking streets, etc.  dumb.  plain and simple.  kind of like allowing themselves to be photographed by the boss media while kicking
a letter off the Nike Town logo - while wearing a pair of Nikes.  pure genius.  the bosses, themselves, couldn't have planned it any
better.

> What has your anarchist movement been doing for the past 10 years? I
> mean besides going to Utah Phillips concerts?

i don't know.  anarchists in Philly have done a lot of serious work to build an incredibly effective community, and a sustainable,
promising movement - just as one example.  every time i visit that place, or talk to folks up there, it blows my mind and inspires me to
degrees i can't even find words for.  they're actually building something.  i only mentioned Utah because he's been around longer than any
of us, and he broached the issue with me, which i thought was surprising.  i figured someone with his tenure wouldn't have been, at all,
interested in such things.  instead, he was frightened and worried by it.  regardless of his alleged "celebrity" status, his alarm speaks
to something.

> I think you place way too much emphasis on "sophistication" (which
> apparently means critiquing others for doing something that you don't
> have the guts to do).

machismo, anyone?  unless you're leaning toward the ISO side of things, and completely enthralled with mere doctrine and fantasy, you
acknowledge the fact that the world is a complicated and complex place, and most all of the institutions and issues we address as
dissidents of any kind are incredibly complex - thus requiring equally complex and sophisticated responses.  damn right i emphasize that.
within a human body that requires the aqusition of oxygen for sustenance, i would emphasize the necessity of breathing, too.  blasting me
for my critique in the way that you have, you allign yourself with the very authoritarian tendencies that folks like Lenin exhibited -
"concern with inconsequential and sentimental details", as he so often put it.  if it was done in the name of the "revolution" - it was
untouchable.  apparently, you affirm that notion.  congratulations.

> A problem with nuance? Pretty fuckin' picky, aren't ya?

re-read the above, Vladimir.

> Exactly. Bill White's an asshole. The Eugene folks, however, have good
> heads on their shoulders.

again, i agree that they have good heads on their shoulders.  i just think they have done some rather shortsighted things.  when i was
four, i saw a kid my age pitching a temper tantrum in the checkout line at the supermarket.  i looked at my mom and asked "what IS he
doing?" - out of pure embarrassment of having to watch it, knowing how stupid and unthinking it made the other child appear.  seeing the
Eugene kids jumping up and down on people's cars - people they didn't know, and people who had nothing to do with the issues at hand - i
felt the same way.  that had nothing to do with Seattle - they did that in their own home town.  great.  i'm sure that whoever had to deal
with that on their commute home from work is, right at this very moment, expounding the superiority of moral autonomy vs. political
authority to their nearest and dearest.  i'm sure the movement is growing by leaps and bounds because of such antics.


> For instance, you seem to have a pathological bias against people
> younger than you. Throughout this post, you've belittled folks using
> remarkably inane ageist language: "pre-pubescent angst", "Eugene kids",
> "childish, immature, unsophisticated verbiage". I'm so sorry that your
> glory years passed you by, but there's no need to take that out on the
> younger folks.

for the record - i'm 22, and hardly out of the woods as far as naivete and falibility are concerned.  i affectionately refer to everyone
and anyone as "kids", because i think that reference is remiscisent of much more positive and generally festive points in our lives - it's
a friendly gesture, i assure you.  still, i would suggest that taunting me with assertions that i don't have the "guts" to do this or that
would probably hold up as "pre-pubescent" with most people, and thus, you prove my point in your own vocabulary.  i was surprised to not
have received a "double-dog dare" in your hot-headed response.

bottom line, immaturity and shortsightedness are just that, and i'm just calling them as i see them.  i was immature and shortsighted about
various things at various points in my life.  it's as much a fact of exisitence as death.  i'm not exempt, even now.  my use of the term
was merely empirical, and not exclusively derogatory.  i've been there, i still find myself there, so my suggestion that someone else is
there is not pejorative in the slightest.

> Why on earth are you so pissed off that a group of anarchists apart from
> yourself are getting media attention? That's just the way the cookie
> crumbles - so sad you missed out on the party. If you want so
> desperately for the press to sit up and take notice of you, there's very
> easy ways of doing so - and they don't necessarily involve broken
> windows! Just use your claimed intellectual superiority and come up with
> something.

yeah, i missed the "party".  but i managed to cook something for the benefit dinner which paid my roomate's way.  it was the most i could
afford to do with what my life had dealt me at that point.  too bad.  i also managed to answer a lot of questions many people around me
were asking as a result of Seattle.  so, i was happy to be able to contribute in some small way.  probably in the same way people who have
done jail support for me in the past have been.  i'm upset because i think there are much more positive and useful manifestations  of
anarchism present in what happened there (not to mention more ACCURATE), and because of this orgy that the black bloc cooked up, they don't
reach anyone who's even remotely curious about anarchism.  instead, that disgruntled worker whose suffering on the job has sparked some
political consciousness of his/her situation - that guy/gal is more concerned about defending himself from the masked leftist lunatics than
he/she is with investigating the possible benefits of organizing his workplace.  that's what was accomplished.  period.  these folks could
have saved themselves a lot of time by just going to the boss media (like 60 minutes) and just handing them the bullets.  in fact, that
would have probably been less effective at crippling the movement.

as far as intellectual superiority goes - i'm just expressing a viewpoint.  you're the one suggesting that folks on the list let things get
out of hand in your absence.  i'm nobody, ok?  at this weekend's National Conference on Civil Disbobedience, i was completely out of sight
and unrecognized, despite that i've been one of its principal organizers since its inception three years ago - because i was cooped up in a
kitchen preparing food to sustain my alleged intellectual inferiors.  according to you, they would have been better served by my
expositions of profound wisdom and insight.  i wasn't concerned with credit or recognition - i was concerned with poor activists spending
all their money on bus tickets to DC, and not having enough money to eat.  i don't care about recognition, in any case.  hearing you
suggest otherwise doesn't move me one way or another.  500-600 people could focus on what workshop facilitators were presenting this
weekend without worrying about where their next meal came from, and none of them have the slightest idea who i am.  i couldn't possibly be
happier.

> Hell, I'm an anarchist, and I live in Seattle. I didn't break any
> windows. I threw no rock. Am I pissed off at the folks who did? Not in
> the least. I understand where they're coming from, and I unhesitatingly
> support what they did. If there's anyone I'm pissed off at, it's people
> like you - the cops of the "movement" who feel a need to officially
> sanction what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, "non-violent"
> folks like Geov Parrish - who said that he'd spit in John Zerzan's face,
> and folks who overly obsess about their image. The anarchist movement is
> not anorexic.

i'm not exactly volunteering to spit in anyone's face, let's be honest.  and there isn't any "Kadd's Seal of Approval" floating around the
movement, either.  the reality is that no one gives a shit what i think about anything, and both of us know that - so stop making such
accusations.  it smacks of a cop-out.  i AM, however, guilty of welcoming dissent in our ranks.  sorry if that bothers you.

> I'll deal with the rest of you folks later. :)

apparently, the Terminator has left the building.

maybe when i visit Seattle, we can compare penises.  yours will probably be bigger, and then we won't have to do this anymore.  or maybe we
could agree to meet somewhere, and then you could kick my ass while calling me a "motherfucker".  it'll be just like highschool.  i can't
wait.  until then, let's not force anyone else to suffer this conversation, ok?

hung like a stud chipmunk,

kadd.