File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2001/anarchy-list.0108, message 141


From: "Arthur J. Miller" <bayou-AT-blarg.net>
Subject: Re: [eco-anarchy] Action
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 16:11:04 -0700


I have strong  disagreements with this post which I will comment below on.
Arthur J. Miller

Subject: [eco-anarchy] Action


>     I have asked a series of simple questions, which boil down to this:
>
>     When do we extend our discussion of the "shape" of post-revolutionary
> anarchist society to include the means by which we replace the state with
> non-state social organization?

Well there are many anarchists that have addressed this question.

>     We cannot pre-plan an anarchist society with any confidence that our
> vision will breed true. Anything pre-planned and centrally driven will not
> be anarchist. We can set the process in motion within certain ideological
> boundaries, but beyond that the revolutionary process cannot be
controlled.
> The resulting society will never equate with the vision of its birth.

  While it is true that there cannot be a complete pre-planed society, for
that
would take away from the very idea of self-management.But on the other
hand creating revolution without some post-revolutionary planning will only
lead us to fascism. Though the people may want freedom, they also have
needs and if your revolution cannot fulfil needs the people will, and always
have, go with who ever will take strong control over society and the hope
that way their needs will be fulfiled.
  I have a radically different vision than the idea of just having a
revolution
and then seeing what happens next. I believe that part of the revolutionary
process
should include organizing the fulfilment of needs without a depence upon
capialism and
the State within communities and workplaces. Thus, when the revolution comes
about
we will be able to fulfil needs and thus not have the people turn on us
their needs
become unfulfiled.
  There arejust too many people in the world for some type of revolution
called for inthis
post. So to follow it would mean to follow something that will never happen.

>     We cannot continue to regurgitate Marx and Lenin and hope to have any
> relevancy to our present situation. This is not the 19th nor even the 20th
> Century! Things Are Different!!!

Most anarchists never followed Marx and Lenin away so what is the point?
So what is so different? You got the caoitalist parasites on top trying to
exploit
for their profit every damn thing the can  the same  as they have always
done.

>There is no proletariat, there is no
> bourgeoisie, there is no working class, as such. Modern capitalism has
> hopelessly muddled the clearly defined classes of Marx's time and Lenin's
> country.

There is no more working class? Then what the hell am I still doing working
for a boss!? The fact of reality is that the working class has grown as
continues
to grow as more and more people are forced to work for wages. And again what
anarchist gives a fuck about Marx and Lenin?

>Talking of the the Proletariat Dictatorship is meaningless to the
> average person working for a boss, collecting dividends on his or her
> stocks, paying confusing taxes on everything, exposed to a constant
barrage
> of world newsertainment that distracts the mind and muddles any clear
> understanding of world conditions.

Talk of the Proletariat Dictatorship has always been meaningless to
all but M-L party drones, for it had nothing to do with the "proletariat"
but in reality was a dictatorship of a politcal party.

>     Discussion on these anarchist and socialist lists is elitist, often
> esoteric and of no relevance to the average citizen of this world. Marx
and
> Lenin have nothing to say to modern workers, middle management or the
ruling
> elite.

So everyone but you is an elitist? Isn't that rather an elitist statement?

>     Furthermore, a thoroughly aroused and active proletariat is no threat
to
> the ruling elite and the capitalist global program. Witness Genoa, our
most
> violent confrontation to date. The constabulary was outnumbered hundreds
to
> one, yet they held the field and the meetings went on unruffled. Future
> meetings are planned with increased security and increasingly militarized
> police presence. Eventually, we will be allowed to hurl our teddy bears
and
> dead fish, wave our banners, sing our songs to our hearts content because
> this activity offers no real threat to global capitalist hegemony.

So then who is a threat? Just you?

>     Syndicalism has little effect in organizing workers in opposition to
the
> bosses. Unions no longer represent the needs of the worker nor do they
> defend the workers against the bosses. Unions negotiate with the bosses
for
> union priorities, which often are not the first priorities of the workers.
> Strikes are union strikes, not worker's strikes. Central union negotiators
> decide what is good for the workers and demand worker complicity. In the
> United States at least, unions are ineffective and worse,
> counterrevolutionary.

You start off by saying that syndicalism ain't shit then you prove it
by trashing conserative business unions. You should do a litte  reserch
and learn that there is a difference between syndicalism and the business
unions. What you  anti-syndicalists always fail to point out is that
anarcho-syndicalism is the largest form of anarchist around and has
been for nearly 100 years.

>     In the present world, bosses and government are meshed in an
> interlocking corporate oligarchy that operates with impunity throughout
the
> world.

This is true, but it has also been true for over 500 years. Tell us
something we
don't know.

>"The masses" are subdued, complicit, lulled by consumerism, muddled
> by newsertainment. The tiny minority, much smaller than the ruling elite,
> that is aware of revolutionary theory and any coherent alternative to the
> status quo, are isolated, inbred and ineffective.

And I guess you are the only effective revolutionary around?

>     Any current revolutionary course of action must take into account an
> honest assessment of present conditions and stop wallowing in historical
> theory. Debate of which old white man said what may help us understand the
> past but in no way prepare us for even the present, let alone the future.

Revolutionaries should always do this. But if all the rest of us
revolutionaries
are all fucked up like you say, what is your great course of action that we
fail to see?

>     Let us move forward on an objective record of the past, an honest
> understanding of the present and a clear vision of the future.
>
>     Michael

But how can this happen when you deny the fact that there are still workers?
Just who is going to make your revolution if it excludes so many people?
>
>
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> "All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is
self-justifying - a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human
beings, if only for an hour." Edward Abbey
>
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