From: "bip" <malecki-AT-mail.bip.net>
Subject: SV: SV: M-TH: A new turn on the abortion question?
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 06:41:48 +0100



Heather replies to Malecki!
>
>This is the most fascinating letter I have read yet on this list.  I am
>accused of both supporting the State & its courts AND having an anti-
>leadership stance.  Fascinating...truly.  Dear sir,

"Dear sir"? Get the stick out of your ass Heather. The name is Bob or at
least "motherfucker" bob...And it was you Heather that said you wanted to
take the cause of women to the local capitalist courts. At the same time you
say you don't support NOW. Good! But you unfortunately have the same
tactics!

I am an anarchist.  If you
>have read my comments you would notice that I ATTACK...that's
right...ATTACK
>N.O.W. & their dependence on the State, the officials, the law, etc., etc.
>The second accusation (that I am anti-leadership) is closer but still
wrong.
>I am against vangardist tendencies which simply tell the "masses" how
>everything is going to work and that all their "little complaints" about
>racism and sexism will be taken care of if they simply fight against some
>generic "ruling class".  Leadership is necessary and often arises
>spontaneously.  I am merely suggesting that power should move from the
ground-
>up & LISTEN to (& be responsible for) what women, minorities & the youth
are
>saying without regarding the discussion as "deviations" or "bourgeois".

I love the anarchists! They are always first on the barricades screaming we
don't need any leadership. We can do it ourselves and then show the way with
all kinds of handstand "actions"..And if we look at history one can quickly
see that the Anarchists despite all the rhetoric do wind up capitulating to
just leadership of the wrong kind. Spain during the Spanish Revolution comes
to mind where the anarchists capitulated to the popular front politics of
the POUM which led to the victory of Franco and that hundreds of thousands,
in fact millions payed the price of their NOT being a revolutionary
leadership which could show the way out..At best Heather is looking for a
repeat of these kinds of heroic defeats under the principle of being against
leadership..

And your "ground up" localism has also been proved historically! The best
example is "Kronstadt" in the now ex-Soviet Union where the anachists  with
their handstand activities based on power in one city endangered the very
existence of the new Soviet state!
>
>Similar to arguments about "the classes", when you cross the ridiculous
>boundaries of nations you encounter various kinds of "political
orientations"
>and values.  In the U.S....I don't care if you are a Green, an Anarchist, a
>Marxist, a Libertarian, etc., you have to deal with "the individual".
>Individualism in America cuts across many kinds of political movements.
>Individualism is not INHERENTLY a bad thing.  What should be addressed are
>ways in which consumerist ideology, hierarchy, anti-democratic principles,
>etc., are fostered by Capitalism.  When you read the works of Marx, is it
the
>threat to classes that angers so many Americans?  or is it the threat to
the
>Individual?  In America it is the individual, creative being that (whether
it
>exists or ever did) is a major ideology & should be respected.  The almost
>religious faith in the "individual" is what cuts across so many political
>boundaries & unites farmers, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers,
part-
>time postal folks, & the universities.

This is just garbage. The fundamental condition for individual freedom is
the question of who rules society. at best you are defending the
bourgeoisie,s ideas of individual freedom. In fact as a communist one can
argue that the real basis for real individual freedom is taking state power.
Eliminating private property, expropriating the expropriaters, and building
a new state where we will find collective solutions to production and
distributions which will open the way to real freedom for the individual to
thrive and develop under the collective security of the necessities of
life..
>
>And I believe your assumptions are a dead end in a world where there are
>people who feel racism and sexism to be as important an issue as
>classism...and where struggles for autonomy, community, and self-hood are
just
>now being felt.

Well, we have heard this before time and again. But class struggle just
keeps popping up all over the place including the U.S.A. (The UPS strike
just recently) However if what you say is true then where will the
anarchists find the social force that can really change things. Will it be
the local anarchist group on a university or a building?

>The only crisis is my resistance to your either/or ideologies.  And whereas
I
>agree that identity politics has led to many victories, what you are asking
>for is more than just a temporary assemblage of people fighting against a
>particular issue, you are demanding that people ORIENT their entire selves
for
>the long haul as "workers".  I am saying that that kind of thinking is the
>reason many people refuse to join political organizations whether they be
>communist or feminist.

Well now. Here we have a funamental difference. Recently this list talked
about "whim" in another context. Here we have a admitted Femo-anarchist" who
wants to play rent and activist by the day or week or some single issue
campaign that they can tail end.. The point of all these struggles is
derived from the fundamental class contradictions that exist in this
society.. And to think that Malecki actually wants our list femo-anarchist
to join the working class. I replied to another comrade in arms of yours on
this question a while back. He wrote something which I am sure you would as
and anarchist appreciate called "Piss on the Work ethic" which I replied to.
I will dig it out and send it to the list for your consumption and other
interested parties..
>
>First of all, there are many kinds of feminists yet you seem to keep
>mentioning only the NOW-liberalist version.  Further, African-American men
>would probably consider racism & classism to be the main factors...and
racism,
>sexism & classism among African-American women.  You seem to think that
>feminists ONLY consider gender; that the struggles of minorities ONLY
consider
>race.  I don't know about Scandinavia, but identity politics and socio-
>political movements have moved a lot deeper into understanding the
>interconnections of oppression than that.

Yes I have noticed lately! The "million man march" comes to mind. But the
politics of the nationalists who are leading this stuff is political suicide
for the blacks. Because they put "skin color" before class color as the
feminists put gender before class. However Communists understand the special
needs of both women and minorities and have both the appropriate
organizational and programatic tools to get out of the dead end that these
kinds of politics lead too..

>Perhaps you have confused my posts with others'...I am AGAINST the State.
I
>am against the petty legal system!  I am against the efforts of NOW to use
>precious feminist monies & energy to get laws passed...and hopefully
protected
>in the courts and on the street.  AGAINST IT...understand??

Then why were you saying that you wanted to go to court? However the above
is a clear position and I will accept it for the time being.

>Perhaps someone can re-send my first post to you.
>Sidenote:  I have been drug into court before on behalf of a friend and
when
>asked to swear on the bible I refuse and said "I don't lie...I am an
atheist.

Good for you. That is a step in the right direction. You could have added
that the court represents the intersts of the ruling class of America and
all the rest..
>
>Do you even know what an anarchist is?  Since when did anarchists support
the
>State?  Since when did anarchist NOT want to bypass or overthrow the State?
>The difference is anarchists don't want to set up a dictatorship!

Spain 1936! They supported the state in the form of the popular front and
look what it got them!

Warm regards
Bob Malecki




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