Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 20:24:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jamal Hannah <jah-AT-iww.org>
Subject: Cool Message from USENET


This Gordon Fitch guy is pretty cool.. he's been battling the anarcho-caps
on USENET for years now. I like his response to the the accusation that
anarchists are like fascists, and his comment about Chomsky.

 - JH

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 11 Apr 2000 22:54:18 GMT
From: G*rd*n <gcf-AT-panix.com>
Newsgroups: alt.anarchism, alt.anarchism.communist,
    alt.anarchism.syndicalist, alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Capitalism is Racism

G*rd*n:
| > The governments in question -- at least under most people's
| > present understanding -- are responsible for their debts and
| > liabilities, for which they can either collect taxes or sell
| > off property they have already acquired.  I don't know whether
| > the Federal and state governments now own six trillion dollars'
| > worth of property, but they might.

hewpiedawg-AT-my-deja.com:
| The current government is supported only by the taxes it collects from
| the innocent.  So I deny that your claim is valid.  It would have to be
| valid against the civilians who would actually pay, and have actually
| been paying.

So you're against the government paying off, say, its
30-year-bonds?  What's the principle here?

G*rd*n:
| > We know that their
| > per-capita net worth is about one-fifth the per-capita net
| > worth of other Americans -- a clear outcome of the theft we
| > have been discussing.

hewpiedawg-AT-my-deja.com:
| This is questionable, as well.  There is no way to determine if this is
| the case.  There are many here who began bereft of wealth and now are
| rich.  The connection between slavery and current net worth cannot be
| established.

Well, one can't absolutely prove the contention, but between
slavery and Jim Crow the descendants of the slaves have
pretty much lived in poverty and oppression from then until
just about now.  I don't think there's much doubt where that
net worth went.

G*rd*n:
| > As an anarchist, of course, it's not my way, because I don't
| > believe the liberal property system can ever function morally.

hewpiedawg-AT-my-deja.com:
|      Morality is of course subjective.  I assume you would force this
| morality down everyone's throat?

Uh, no.  Did I say that?  As for morality being subjective,
the fact that people discuss it as constantly as they do must
mean that they strongly believe that at least some aspects of
it are external to individuals, if not external to humanity
as a whole.  It's the same as with art -- if everything were
totally subjective, no one could have anything to say about
it to anyone else that made any sense.

Heh.  People usually accuse _me_ of being the subjectivist.
Oh, well.

hewpiedawg-AT-my-deja.com:
|      This is why I think anarchists are at heart fascists.  There is an
| inherent intolerance for privacy.  I don't care if the State exists or
| not, just so long as nobody comes to interfere with my private life,
| which includes my private property.  It doesn't matter to me if the
| jackboots are worn by agents of the Department of Redundancy
| Department, or the local anarchist union come to give me the trojan
| gift of equality.

Yas, yas, anarchists are totalitarian fascists, a bunch of
Nazis, etc. etc. etc.  You really do need to do that
reading, lest you embarrass yourself somewhere.

I can just see Noam Chomsky in an SS uniform and a monocle.
"Ve haff vayss to mekk you talk...."  Whenever he needs
material for another linguistic theory, you know.

hewpiedawg-AT-my-deja.com:
| ...
| According to Solzhenitzyn, the excuse for sending Anarchists to the
| gulags was that they were no longer relevant.  Useful once, now dead
| weight.  Marx's ideology was very close to yours, and the genocides for
| which it was responsible are greater than that of any other
| ideology.

My ideology?  I hope you're not referring to this thread --
I've been arguing completely within the ideological framework
of liberalism.  If you're talking about my beliefs in general,
I'd be most grateful if you would draw comparisons between
them and Marxist ideology, citing text of course.  People
often say that I am a Marxist or something like it, and then
when I ask them to be specific they disappear.  You won't do
that, will you?  If I get to reading Marx someday I'd like
to start with parts I could understand and agree with, if
any.