Question Everything

A Busy Year for the Anarchist Bogeyman
A good article about media demonization of anarchism from the latest issue of the Irish Workers Solidarity The Fight For a Free Iraq, from the same issue, is also interesting reading.

Bush's Orwellian State of the Union Address

Cops are framing anarchists again:
*A Police Plot to Discredit Anarchism? On the planted letter bombs in Europe, how they are used to frame anarchists
*Letter Bombs Attributed to Anarchists Raise Questions More on this frame up by the Italian state
*Italian Anarchist Federation Press Release Italian anarchists disavow letter bombs, condemns police
*Cops Admit to Planting Explosives in Genoa and the media ignores it
*Terrorism - The Bogeyman of the 21st Century

Iraqis Want Saddam's Old U.S. Friends On Trial

We know for a fact that anarchy is possible because most of human history has been lived in anarchy. Most hunter-Gatherer societies were anarchist. Humanity has been around for over 100,000 years yet the state has only been around less than 10,000 years. In more modern times we have the Spanish & Ukrainian revolutions as further examples.

At the end of World War Two, the Japanese pulled out a couple months before the US & Russia could occupy Korea. In that time workers' started taking over the factories, peasants the land & self-managed communes were set up. In Seoul a provisional Korean government was set up, but it's power was weak and mostly limited to the capital. There was quite a bit of freedom in these few months. It was very close to anarchy, despite the fact that the Korean anarchist movement had been mostly wiped out after its' defeat in their Manchurian guerilla war. This short experience of anarchy in Korea shows an alternative to class society and that anarchy works in practice. A few months after this started, the USSR & US each invaded and imposed brutal client states on their half of the peninsula in order to squelch this 'threat of a good example.' Both puppet governments were responsible for massive slaughters and repression.

If people are too evil to rule themselves then they are far too evil to rule other people. If people really aren't that nice then they certainly shouldn't have power over others, that will only magnify the evil. It is the supporters of hierarchy who niavely assume that people are inherently good, that those with power won't abuse it. Most of human history has been lived in anarchy. This and the Spanish Revolution prove that it works. As for crime, see here

Every time socialists get elected they become capitalists. Look at Lula, the German Greens, the Social Democrats, etc. It's the Iron Law of Electoralism. Electing socialists does jack squat, except waste rescources and create illusions in bourgeois democracy. If you want reforms you should riot, not vote.

If bourgeois ideas are to be suppressed, as Marxist-Leninists advocate, then the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is to be suppressed because it is a bourgeois idea, invented by bourgeois revolutionaries in the French Revolution. Thus their theory of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is contradictory, they seek to censor themselves. Neither Leninists nor Liberals believe in real free speech, the biggest difference between them is that the Marxist-Leninist are honest about suppressing opposition while the Liberals pretend to implement free speech while actually destroying it via corporate control of the media.

An Anarchist View of the '68 Rebellion in France

The structure is different depending on which Leninist state your'e talking about and what time period your'e talking about. All of them are republics that held elections regularily, but they're one-party states so the party always wins. Generally, the party has regular party congresses where elected representatives from the local party branches (only party members can vote in these) get together, pass resolutions, elect the central committee and such. The party congress is officially the highest organ in the party, but between congresses the central committee runs things. The central committee elects several committees to help the party control the state (and do other things), including the political committee or politburo. The politburo basically runs the government. The general secretary is the leader of the party.

Although real power is in the party, most leninist states have some sort of parliament or pseudo-parliament and various government officials which are elected by the general public. Officially they play a role similar to what they do in the western "democracies" - passing laws and whatnot. However, the Communist party is the only party allowed to win and party members are subject to party discipline so real power lies with the party congress, central committee & politburo. Government officials like Presidents, etc. generally do the work necessary to run the government. Sometimes the head of state is also the head of the party, some times they are not.

Some Leninist states don't have Presidents or Prime Ministers. The early Bolshevik state in Russia was run by a "Council of People's Commissars" or SOVNARKOM. The commissars in this council were like the ministers in an ordinary parliamentary state, except this council of commissars had the power to pass laws. Executive and Legislative were combined. There was also a Soviet Congress, but it didn't meet very often (once every three months at the beginining, less later). The chairman of the Sovnarkom (Lenin) was the head of state, the closest equivalent of a Prime Minister but not really. This structure was later changed, especially after the new constitution in 1936.

A good article on police double standards and their attacks on dissidents.

Anarchism: The Revolutionary Movement of the 21st Century

There's no such thing as human nature. It's all a bunch of crap made up to justify whatever the dominant form of oppression exists. When kings ruled it was thought that it was human nature to have kings, now that capitalism rules it is thought that capitalism is human nature.

The idea, held by some Marxists, that capitalism will inevitably collapse in a massive depression and that this collapse is a requirement to have an anti-capitalist revolution is false. Feudalism did not suffer a 1930's style collapse yet it was abolished, so why could the same not also happen with capitalism? There have been many revolutions & times of unrest that did not happen as a result of a depression. Capitalism wasn't in a major depression in the late 60s. Some of the largest peasant revolts in the late middle ages came about in the wake of things getting better. The last time capitalism collapsed it resulted not in proletarian revolution but in fascism and world war. If that happened again with today's technology it would probably destroy civilization.

There are two upcoming crises which could potentially destablize the system, but this is not guarenteed nor will such destabilization necessarily lead to anarchy. One is the emergence of a global ruling class and it's conflict with (and eventual overthrow of) the American Empire. Hypothetically this could lead to a temporary global crisis, similar to France 1789 or Russia 1917 on an international level, which may create an opening for a global revolution. The other is enviromental crisis. Capitalism, especially stable capitalism, is a system that continually uses more and more rescources. It is based on growth for the sake of growth. Thus it will progressively destroy the enviroment because the Earth is finite. Eventually things will grow to a breaking point, bringing about ecological crisis. It may be possible for capitalism to avoid this, perhaps by colonizing space. And ecological crises could just easily lead to eco-fascism, luddite dictatorship and a return to feudalism. The future has not yet been written.

Workers should destroy capitalism (and hierarchy in general) because it produces massive poverty and oppresses us. I want to be free, not to follow the orders of bosses. Capitalism doesn't need to implode to produce massive misery. Billions live in poverty, thousands starve to death every day. Things may look decent for most in the "first world" but on a global scale there is massive misery produced by ordinary stable capitalism. This is why I think the revolution(s) will probably begin first in the "third world" - it is more oppressed. We can't just sit around and hope that capitalism will automatically destroy itself. We have to organize to bring about it's destruction. Consciousness is often derivative of material conditions, but not always. Consciousness can sometimes change material conditions, and vice versa.