Question Everything

Good news, it looks like the US is starting to lose the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.

All conquerors claim to be "helping" the people they conquer. The Soviets claimed to be "liberating" the afghans from Muslim oppressors. The Japanese claimed they were "protecting" the Koreans. It's all a bunch of BS designed to justify imperialism. It is a double standard to dismiss Soviet claims of "helping people" as a justification of aggression and yet
believe them in the case of Amerika. When the West bullies around the Arabs (or the rest of the world) it is not "helping," it is forcing it's will on other peoples. The governments of the west often claim to be helping, but they are lying. The immense majority of people outside of the West recognize these as lies because they suffer the harmful results of western policy. This is why the US government is hated around the globe. More people within the West believe these lies because they are insulated from the actual results of the policies - they do not see them first hand which makes it easier for governments, media & corporations to sell these lies.

After World War One the Ottoman empire, which had previously ruled the Middle East, collapsed and the region was conquered by Western powers, mainly Britain. The British decided to maintain control of the area by setting up a system of puppet governments. This is where most of the modern governments in the region came from and when most of the borders were drawn. The situation is analogous to what the Soviet Empire did in East Europe after WW2. While formally independent, the puppet governments were in practice subordinated to Britain. British companies had control over most of the Middle East's wealth and the puppet states protected that wealth. Most of these puppet states were highly repressive Monarchies. The British set up a tiny oligarchy to rule each country and made those oligarchies dependent on Britain (through money, arms, etc.) in order to stay in power. The oligarchies were hated by the people (because they were so repressive and gave most of their wealth to foreigners) and so they had to depend on the British in order to stay in power. The British used this situation to control the region.

After World War two this system went into crisis. With the decline of the British empire the oligarchies could no longer depend on the British to help keep them in power (in exchange for being a servant of the British empire). In some countries this resulted in the overthrow of the old oligarchies and there replacement with independent governments. In other cases the Oligarchies looked for some other great power which they could rely on in order to stay in power. They found one in the United States. America basically took over the system of satellite states originally established by Britain. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries became US puppet governments - the US helped those governments stay in power (giving them weapons, money, etc.) in exchange for their obedience and control over their resources. The most important of their resources is obviously oil. In places where the previous puppet government had been overthrown the US (often working with Britain and Israel) acted to attempt to reestablish a client state. Sometimes this was successful, sometimes it wasn't. The purpose of the US occupation of Iraq is to restore Amerikan control of that
country.

Lots of Arabs (excluding a small oligarchy) are poor because of Western Imperialism. They have lots of resources but they are controlled by the west (usually through their client oligarchies). Arab poverty makes Americans' SUVs possible.

New Bush Tape Raises Fear of Attacks

In Ontario cops are kidnapping dissidents' children. Police are the real terrorists.

Some interesting Articles:
-In Anarchism: The Feminist Connection Peggy Kornegger examines anarchism from a Feminist perspective. A good statement of anarcha-feminism and a good intro to anarchism as well
-The Memory Hole shows that the Education System was Designed to Keep Us Ignorant and Docile
-In Why Whites Think Blacks Have No Problems Tim Wise debunks common racist mythology

Despite the lie that America is a free society, the United States actually has manypolitical prisoners. Peltier, Mumia, Sherman Austin and all other political prisoners should be freed now!

Capitalism continues to kill many by starvation.

Post from this Che thread
Abolition of the state does not mean abolition of organization

The state is an organization with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence based on centralization of power. An anarchist society would be organized by voluntary non-hierarchical associations, instead of by hierarchical organizations like states and corporations. In anarcho-communism if a farmer wanted to build a barn s/he would ask other farmers or builders to help him/her. There would probably be a farmers' syndicate which farmers would belong to in which farmers could self-organize to achieve things that can't be done by just one person. The syndicate would be organized along decentralized directly democratic lines and would be a voluntary organization, created by the farmers and run by the farmers. There could also be syndicates for other occupations. These syndicates could also cooperate with each other when needed. See here or here for more on this.

Based on posts in this thread on flag:

In his lifetime Marx was not that important, he was just one of many radical intellectuals. His main claim to fame is that a whole bunch of totalitarian states used him to legitimize their rule. As a result lots of people read Marx and few of his contemporaries and think that he's saying lots of new things. He didn't and he never claimed he did. Marx built off the works of others, he was not the great genuis who invented all sorts of ideas as most contemporary admirers portray him. If a different faction had come to power in 1917 few would have ever heard of Marx. He'd be like Blanc or Blanqui - the only people who wouldv'e heard of him would be people who study the history of socialism, like me. Try looking Marx up in an encyclopedia from the 1890s - he's not that important.

Marx got many of his ideas from other people. Know what convinced Marx that private property should be abolished? What is Property? by Joseph Proudhon, the father of modern anarchism.

"the real Proudhon declares that he does not pursue any abstract scientific aims, but makes immediately practical demands on society. ... Proudhon makes a critical investigation -- the first resolute, ruthless, and at the same time scientific investigation -- of the basis of political economy, private property. This is the great scientific advance he made, an advance which revolutionizes political economy and for the first time makes a real science of political economy possible. Proudhon's treatise Qu'est-ce que la propriété? is as important for modern political economy as Sieyês' work Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? for modern politics. ... Not only does Proudhon write in the interest of the proletarians, he is himself a proletarian, an ouvrier. His work is a scientific manifesto of the French proletariat" - Karl Marx

"as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic economy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove:
(1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production (historische Entwicklungsphasen der Production),
(2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat ,
(3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society." - Karl Marx

Marx's explanation of surplus value, and many other ideas, is poorly written and wrong. Ever read Capital? It's not written in a style that's easy for ordinary people to understand, even though it could be. The idea of surplus value did not originate with Marx (nor did he claim to invent it), Ricardian socialists had already been using it. The labor theory of value was invented by Adam Smith. The labor theory of value isn't even necessary to show that capitalism is exploitative. Exploitation (and "surplus value") comes from the power the capitalist has over the production process not from some magical "labor theory of value." The Marxist theory of history is completely bogus and eurocentric (China, Africa and the western hemisphere have completely different histories from what the Marxist theory says).

Marx's domination over radical thought has had a negative effect on the revolutionary movement and it's time for it to end. The Marxist movement completely failed, it's time to ditch Marx entirely and try something different. There are many other thinkers (and not only anarchists) who had superior ideas, both past and present. Check out Marx: A Radical Critique by Alan Carter - it's got a good explanation of the many holes in Marx's philosophy (and not only the "dictatorship of the proletariat").

This is based on posts made in this thread on Che-Lives

Origins of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

A "Dictatorship of the proletariat" was first proposed during the French revolution in the left-wing of the Jacobin party. The Jacobins were revolutionary Republicans who played a major role in overthrowing the Aristocracy and beheading the Monarchy. Marxists consider them bourgeois (capitalist) revolutionaries. In the later part of the revolution, when things were going wrong, some left-wing Jacobins proposed a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a solution to the problems. A guy called Babeuf formed a "conspiracy of equals" to overthrow the government and implement this dictatorship. His conspiracy was discovered and they had their heads detached. This idea of a dictatorship of a proletariat survived and was picked up by 19th century revolutionaries. This included a guy called Blanqui. He believed in forming a secret society which would stage a coup and installed the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Some of his followers played a signifigant role in the Paris Commune. Marx inherited the "dictatorship of the proletariat" from these 19th century revolutionaries. The theory was half a century old by the time Marx started advocating it.

Results of the Dictatorship

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" inevitably leads to "dictatorship of the bureaucracy." We have seen this over and over again in Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Laos, etc. If we do it again we'll get the same results as the last time around. Leninists whine about imperialism, civil war, etc. but any revolution is going to have to face those kinds of threats. If your revolutionary strategy cannot handle them without turning into a totalitarian hellhole then it's not a very good strategy. Lenin claimed that a "workers state" was necessary in order to defeat the armed resistance of capitalists. If that armed resistance causes the dictatorship to degenerate then it is not a very good way to deal with it. We can't just hope against hope that the resistance of the capitalists will somehow magically be less sometimes, we need a revolutionary strategy that can defeat them without replacing the current set of tyrants with a new set.

In the end: How many Anarchist revolutionary groups have been sucessful in comparison to Workers Marxist-Leninist vanguardist revolutionary groups?

Marxist-Leninist groups have been a complete failure. Every time they came to power they resulted NOT in the liberation of the working class but a state-capitalist dictatorship. And they weren't even able to stay in power - the USSR collapsed and liberal capitalism reigns triumphant. For most of the 20th century Marxism dominated the left, anarchism was marginal. Leninism has had numerous mass movements and countless opportunities to implement it's ideas. Every time it has resulted in state-capitalist tyranny and it has completely failed at defeating market capitalists. Anarchism has only really had 3 opportunities to implement it's ideas - and each time we were stabbed in the back by Marxists. Leninism has completely failed to liberate the working class or even defeat the west, it is an utter miserable failure. It's time to try something different.

In spring 1918 the Bolsheviks lost the elections to the soviets. The Bolsheviks responded by disbanding soviets and implementing a one-party state. See Soviet Elections in Spring 1918

In 1921 Trotsky criticized the Workers' Opposition, a dissident faction within the Communist party, saying:

"They come out with dangerous slogans, making a fetish of democratic principles! They place the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party, as if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy. It is necessary to create amongst us the awareness of the revolutionary birthright of the party, which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship, regardless of temporary wavering even in the working classes. … The dictatorship does not base itself at every given moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy."

In CH. 7 of Terrorism & Communism Trotsky said, "the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party. … In this “substitution” of the power of the party for the power of the working class there is nothing accidental, and in reality there is no substitution at all. The Communists express the fundamental interests of the working class." In 1937 he said "The revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution ... abstractly speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be replaced by the ‘dictatorship’ of the whole toiling people without any party, but this presupposes such a high level of political development among the masses that it can never be achieved under capitalist conditions." In "Stalinism and Bolshevism" Trotsky said:

"A revolutionary party, even having seized power … is still by no means the sovereign ruler of society. … The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. In itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity. In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallized the aspiration of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. The Soviets are the only organised form of the tie between the vanguard and the class. A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party. … Those who propose the abstraction of the Soviets from the party dictatorship should understand that only thanks to the party dictatorship were the Soviets able to lift themselves out of the mud of reformism and attain the state form of the proletariat."

Trotsky was not the democrat Trotskyists make him out to be but an unabashed advocate of party dictatorship.

Revolutionary Consciousness

In "What is To Be Done?" Lenin said:

"The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia."

Lenin's theories were disproven even in his time. Workers can achieve revolutionary consciousness without the vanguard. The anarcho-syndicalist movment is a perfect example of this. It was literally created by the workers and at one point quite big. The process of class struggle itself leads to radical consciousness. Workers do not like being dominated, eploited and living in poverty. This leads to revolutionary working class movements. And even if revolutionary consciousness could only come from intellectuals as Lenin claimed his vanguardism would not follow. The intellectuals could just spread revolutionary ideas in the working class. The working class could then organize itself for revolution and run things itself, non-hierarchically.

When the Soviets first appeared in the 1905 Revolution they were not the creation of theorists, they were created by workers who hadn't read much theory. The initial position of the "vanguard" was opposed to the Soviets. In the February revolution & July days the "vanguard" was again left behind. Workers have repeatedly left the vanguard in the dust and been more revolutionary than it.

Arguing that workers don't have the "education" or "consciousness" to run things ourselves is the same as saying wer'e stupid. It has been proven over and over that workers' are fully capable of running production ourselves. Wev'e done it before, and some workers in Argentina are doing it right now. Leninists' anti-proletariat prejudice is virutally identical to the crap from the Libertarian Party.

The Alternative

At present in Argentina more than a hundred workplaces, including factories and others, are run by the workers. It took a day to take them over. The early phases of the Spanish, Russian, Iranian & other revolutions & rebellions all saw workers taking over factories and implementing worker self-management. These all prove that workers are fully capable of taking over production in a short period of time. The workers are the ones actually in the factories who do the production - we have a much better idea of how to run things than some stockbroker in new york or central planner in Moscow whov'e never even seen our workplace. If workers are capable of choosing who our representatives are then we are capable of directly making decisions ourselves, without electing masters. Leninist rhetoric that workers are too stupid to run things themselves is anti-proletarian. I hear the same crap from members of the Libertarian Party. Workers aren't stupid.

How Israel helped US Imperialism in Latin America.

More Proof that America isn't a Free Society:
-Cops in Miami are torturing dissident activists
-In the same city cops are singling out Anarchist People of Color and committing many acts of brutality
-They're attacking peacefull protests
-The cops are arresting independant journalists
-In New York police violently assaulted a fundraiser for an anarchist group
-Secret Police (FBI) are spying on anti-war dissidents

Restrictions on Free Press in Iraq have begun. Some "liberation." Meanwhile, Israel steps up it's apartheid against Palestinians.

Proponets of free trade present free trade as a laisse-faire policy that reduces state power. In fact, free trade is just a different form of state intervention. Free trade in actual practice means state intervention to protect the rich, market discipline for ordinary people. Powerfull countries implement free trade to open up the economies of weaker countries to exploitation by companies from the powerfull countries. Multinational corporations can then invest and sell their products in weaker countries, enabling them to run less developed periphery companies out of business and dominate their economy. Those industries from powerful nations that can't compete with weaker nations' industries are protected by the state so as to ensure that they can out compete third-world industries. "Third world" elites often go along with this because they also benefit from it, though not as much as "first world" elites. It is primarily ordinary people who bear the brunt of these policies.

Capitalism itself is based on state intervention. It requires a huge government bureaucracy, including courts, and armies of police to enforce private property. When the US steel industry faced troubles the Bush administration (a big proponent of free trade) implemented tariffs so as to protect US industries. Free trade prevents "third world" countries from doing the same thing when one of their industries is unable to compete. Western countries give major subsidies to domestic agriculture, which floods the markets of "third world" countries driving "third world" farmers out of business. The only areas of the economy that are liberalized are those in which the dominant countries can out compete their opponents, in other areas state protection reigns.

American industries which are the most competitive internationally are also highly subsidized - biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, high-tech industry, etc. These subsidized industries are then easily able to out compete unsubsidized competitors in the rest of the world. For historical reasons in the US this subsidy is done largely through the military. The state pays for research and development and if the results of that research (such as the internet) prove profitable the private sector takes it over and reaps the profit. The public pays the cost, a small group of capitalists reap the benefits. Free trade does not mean the shrinking of the state, it means changing the state to benefit the corporate elite, to be even more oppressive. "Big business" and "big government" are in bed with each other.

All of this is not an abberation of an otherwise functional system, but is the logical outcome of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system based on wage-labor. Under capitalism a small elite, the capitalist class, monopolizes the means of production and the majority of the population must sell their labor to that elite in order to survive. The capitalist class uses its' control over economic rescources to give itself greater wealth and privledges than the rest of the population. They live in mansions while millions live in poverty. The capitalist class and the rest of the population are in constant conflict - a class war. Free trade is an offensive by the capitalists in the class war, an attempt by it to reorganize society so as to increase it's power and share of wealth while screwing over everyone else.

Attempts to reform capitalism, such as by replacing free trade with "fair trade," only treat the symptoms, not the disease itself. Reforms have been attempted for over a century, none of them have been able to really fix these probelsm because they are inehrent in capitalism. So long as society is divided into classes there will be conflict between those classes. So long as a small elite controls the economy it will use that control to benefit itself and there will be pushes for things like free trade. "Fair trade" is just free trade modified to be slightly less exploitative. It is possible to force the capitalist class to grant concessions, like "fair trade," if the amount of unrest is high enough but this will only be temporary. As soon as unrest has decreased the capitalist class will again launch a new offensive and begin to undue whatever concessions were given. Such concessions do not actually change the underlying social structure and so capitalists will continue to dominate and exploit the majority of the population even if granting a few concessions.

Opposition to free trade is not limited to the "first world" but is actually must larger in the "third world." There have been major rebellions against free trade in Ecuador, Mexico, Bolivia, India and many other countries. In December 2001 rebellions erupted against the government of Argentina over it's support for free trade. The government declared a state of emergency, effectively attempting to impose a dictatorship. Further rebellions erupted and forced the end of the state of emergency and causing the President to resign. The continuing unrest that followed caused four presidents to resign in a row in less than a month. Argentines formed neighborhood assemblies, where neighbors would come together to discuss the crisis and organize their struggle. These operated on the principle of direct democracy. There were also worker assemblies where workers in a workplace would coordinate their struggle against the capitalists. The unemployed also formed assemblies. These assemblies began to form networks to coordinate with each other. Workers started taking over their workplaces, putting them under the control of the worker assemblies. At present over 100 workplaces in Argentina are in worker self-management.

This rebellion in Argentina shows the outlines of an alternative system, of an anarchist society. The media likes to smear anarchism as being about choas, destruction, etc. but nothing could be further from the truth. An anarchist society would be organized by voluntary non-hierarchical associations, like the assemblies in argentina, instead of by hierarchical organizatins such as corporations and states. The control over the means of production should by the capitalist class should be abolished. If we are to have an industrial economy then the factories should be run by the workers. The factory to the worker, the land to the peasants. The means of production should be accessable to all.