Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 11:03:01 +0200
From: John Anderson <panic-AT-semiosix.com>
Subject: Re: Against Political Violence


At 01:00 3/8/00 , Jamal Hannah wrote:
>Those of us who have invested our time organizing the anarchist movement

Hmm. Organised Anarchy. That's like Military Intelligence, or Bad Sex, or 
Slow Racing.

How 'bout the OAM - Organised Anarchist Movement.

Or the WOAHMAN - Worker's Organised Anarchist Human Movement Against 
Nationalism.

How many people on this list are workers? Right now, I mean. Not in the 
past. Sorry - "From a Working Class background" doesn't count. Hmm, that 
should separate the sheep from the goats, the boys from the men, the wheat 
from the chaff. The bipolar opposite from the ummm...

Answer is "no-one" because being a "Worker" is a State of mind, not a 
classification in terms of occupation, or income. It's just sooo convenient 
to chuck your opponent into a neatly labelled box. My question is: why do 
you have opponents?

How do I go about asking "The Workers" if they _want_ to be "liberated"? 
Ultimately this question leads to the myth upon which Democracy is founded. 
So many people are so stuck in their ways.

And the King said "Go hence and find me a Worker". His courtiers did not 
understand his anger when they brought back a common man from the street.

Once upon a time, a friend of mine started a Motorcycle Club. They had 
colours, y'know the sleeveless denim jacket with badges and their logo on 
the back. They had a motto and a clubhouse and a President and a 
Vice-President. Things went swimmingly for a while, til the VP and the P 
started having personality conflicts. So the VP (the friend I was talking 
about) left. I said to him that anytime you put more than 2 people 
together, you get politics. And most people know politics from how their 
parent(s) did it. So you end up crying freedom in an organisation of Ps and 
VPs and rules and apprentices. Doesn't make sense, does it? He did have the 
grace to admit that the one club that never seemed to suffer from petty 
politics didn't have an organ-isation.

It's winter here, the dry season. Every day there's a fire somewhere. About 
a week ago I was running around with a 25m (that's about 75 feet, for the 
metrically challenged) hosepipe that was waaay too short. The neighbour has 
a tractor with a water tank, and he drove through to help out. In between 
all the coughing and running around I was thinking that in a crisis, people 
spontaneously know how to get things done. But once the crisis passes you 
get back to petty power politics - what belongs to who and why and yadda 
bullshit. All the cultural impedimenta are ceremoniously hung about necks.

And when you try to organise something in a time of no obvious crisis, 
you're making both mistakes.

So Capitalism wins again, "The Revolution will be accessorised." The 
Revolution will have spin and Mass Appeal. Journalists will want to know. 
And The Truth will anyway vary according to the inclination of the editor, 
and his/her understanding of the subscriber base. The Revolution is a Media 
Circus. Guess who the clowns are? Think of art critics and their isms and 
you'll get an idea.

Capitalism always wins. Someone somewhere figures out a way to sell 
everything. The only people who have time to think about and debate 
capitalism vs whatever else are those who aren't too busy selling something 
so they can survive. Almost by definition not the hallowed "Working Class". 
Which is anyway a generalisation equally as monolithic as "The State". Or 
"The Flock". Get over it already. As long as thinking proceeds by 
monolithic generalisation, the Ur-State has already one, er I mean won. 
Which is the same thing, as it turns out. The State has fought and won that 
battle manymanymany times over the last several thousand years. Because The 
State is in your head. Thank your parents.

So fer fucksake stop justifying something because it's part of a 
'working-class struggle'. That's a placeholder for "the state has flags and 
anthems and the people, and national security, so we'll take the working 
class struggle". And if it isn't already just a placeholder, it will be 
soon. Start waving the Black Flag, and ... oh fuck. Sorry. I forgot the 
words to the anthem.

bye
John