Greetings, Sup Forums. I'm an anarchist, a community organizer, and a radical unionist with 25 years of experience. I organized my local copwatch program, founded two NGOs, and have served on the volunteer boards of a number of social agencies.
Ask me anything. I tried to do this a few hours ago and no one was interested. I'll give it one more shot and then kick your dust from my sandals and move on.
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No shit, what is an NGO? I'm pretty interested in this stuff but have no idea about any of it.
>founded two NGOs
How does it feels to be a shill?
FBI here, are traps gay?
good luck overthrowing the laws of physics
Kill yourself pinko
Non-Governmental Organization. Virtually all of the organizations you're familiar with are NGOs.
For what or whom do you believe I'm shilling? Genuinely curious.
I think sexuality is a social construct. Until about 150 years ago, there wasn't even a word for homosexuality. There were words for certain sex acts, like sodomy or tribadism, but people didn't have a set sexuality. Romantic friendships were the norm instead of the exception, with the most famous one in recent history being Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed who shared a bed and emotional closeness; whether they also engaged in mutual sex isn't known, but neither would have considered it wrong or unusual.
Sound more like a communist than an actual anarchist to me user
My father organized against nepotism and cronyism can Union leadership , and most of my brothers were union carpenters or electricians, yeah, I'm old
you guys and other black blocks interrupt the Peace of peaceful demonstrations by tearing it down burning stuff and confronting the cops.
Why not go out on your own and have your own final it or destructive demonstration and leave the peaceful demonstrations alone? You guys are a cancer on the resistance.
My other question is why haven't you an heroed yet.
Our genus is 200,000 years old. For 197,000 of those years, we were anarchic and made decisions by consensus. Many modern tribes (such as the Hopi and the Highland Yanomani) have continued to have stable, peaceful anarchist cultures for millennia. If any sort of social order can be said to follow "physical laws," it would be anarchism.
I'm a mutualist. Mutualism is generally regarded as being slightly right of centre, to the right of anarchosyndicalism, but left of the egoists and individualists.
You seem cool. Keep it up comrade. How do you feel about individualist anarchism/anarchists?
Your examples are for small community Networks comma sparse populations. How do you think anarchism should work in densely populated urban areas?
I'm a card-carrying Wobbly. There is a single paid member for the entire union, and our dues are based on income and can be as low as $6 a month. Because we use the model of solidarity unionism in which the members themselves formulate strategy rather than some faceless career bureaucrat, we've avoided the corruption of other unions -- which is why we've lasted 110 years despite the best efforts of the bosses and State to crush us with prison, executions, and deportations.
But yes, we do believe in forceful revolution. If you want to see how forceful, look up the Centralia Massacre and see how we reacted when veterans tried to smash up our union hall. We left such a pile of corpses that they're still ass-blasted about it to this day.
what is a radical unionist?
what do you think of anarchocapitalism?
Are you worried about neoliberalism? If so, how are you fighting it?
Are you vegan? Why or why not?
What do you think about homeschooling?
How, honestly, does a mutuality propose to topple the power of capital and government arms? I'm asking as a matter of praxis. Old school Leninists like myself propose armed conflict and guerrilla action. What's your plan?
Do you actually make any effort to change people's fundamental mindset and view of the world or just stick with organizing and playing in the current system in an effort to remove those in power?
The whole point of being an anarchist is that you don't follow or 'found' any structured organisations at all. That's why they can't win power in a government for example - they can't form a political party or any kind or have any kind of structured leadership.
You are not an anarchist. You're closer than those that think anarchy is running about setting fires and rioting, but you are still not an anarchist.
Modern day anarchy is impossible to achieve and maintain even though it's probably the best choice in theory.
To quote Errico Malatesta, "Individualism is, in theory, a kind of Anarchy without cooperation. It is therefore no better than a lie, because liberty is not possible without Solidarity, without cooperation. The criticism which Individualists pass on government is merely the wish to deprive it of certain functions, to hand them over virtually to the capitalists. But it cannot attack those repressive functions which form the essence of government, for without an armed force the proprietary system could not be upheld."
As a mutualist, I believe in ownership and exclusive possession, but not property.
Mutualism and parecon attempt to answer that with the existence of a central, community-run, non-profit bank to both track labour credit and to offer interest-free loans to allow for the creation of large capital projects of benefit to the community. Capitalism was invented for the specific purpose of aggregating wealth into a small enough number of hands so that capital projects such as factories, highways, and dams could be built. Interest-free loans replace this need without eliminating industrialization in the process like the Bakuninists would require.
Topkek
Post a link to organizations in atlanta. That I can join.
Get a job, you communist faggot.
>anarchist
>which organization can i join
You make me smile little one.
>what is a radical unionist?
I'm a Wobbly, and the kind of unions I organize are not traditional in the sense most people would recognize, though their structure predates modern unionism in the sense that their purpose is mutual aid and protection rather than collective bargaining. I mostly unionist street workers: beggars, buskers, fortune tellers, scrappers, pickers, and so on, people no large union would touch. The IWW has a long history of organizing the unorganizable. During the Great Depression, for example, so many hobos were Wobblies that they'd demand to see your union card if you tried to hop a train and pitch you off if you couldn't produce one.
>what do you think of anarchocapitalism?
Doesn't exist. Capitalism creates an owning class and a working class based on access to the means of production, and social classes are antithetical to anarchism.
>Are you worried about neoliberalism? If so, how are you fighting it?
I work at a grass-roots level. I let the big boys play with their toys up on the battlements while I slowly undermine the structures which keep them in power. They'll never know what's happening until the walls are falling. I'm a patient man.
(I'll have to answer the rest in another message.)
Money and the beleif in authority are the two new tools and "new religion" of those that control the world. Nothing will change by trying to manipulate the banking system as money is still there as a tool to control people. Trying to free people and still maintaining the tools of control will not change anything. Good luck actually freeing people without a huge fundamental change in the beleifs of the vast majority of people.
Do you honestly believe the human race could live in anarchy without immediately fucking it up for most of them?
>Are you vegan? Why or why not?
I'm not vegan, but I am largely vegetarian. I used to be pretty strict about it, but I found myself feeling superior about it and didn't like that, so now I eat what's put in front of me; I don't go out of my way to eat meat, but if someone serves it to me I won't refuse it. I will also eat fish if I catch it myself. Life eats life, and if meat was obtained by small-scale sustainable hunting, I would probably eat a small amount of meat.
>What do you think about homeschooling?
I think education is too important to be left to parents, but there are better solutions than large, monolithic educational systems run by the State. The creche system, for example, works well for kibbutzes.
No master, but you organized something? How ridiculous?
Is this what stops you from kys?
If so, please can you stop this?
Cheers in advance!
Have you read Bakunin's exchanges with Marx at the First International, where they kicked out all the anarchists. They're rather... instructive. "When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called `the People's Stick'." -- Mikhail Bakunin
We've seen again and again and again, from Ukraine to Russia to Spain to Cuba to Venezuela what happens when a vanguard takes power and replaces the old bosses with new bosses. Any change has to occur on a structural level first. THEN you can have your bloody revolution. I have no objection to blood and thunder, but it has to be for a point or it's worse than simply living with oppression which has the benefit of at least providing stability.
I've mentioned in previous postings that I organize people on the street who are largely apolitical. The kind of work I do is subversive on an intrinsic level. I don't need to call the work I do explicitly anarchist because it operates on an anarchist, horizontal, grass-roots level and teaches people the benefits of mutual aid without preaching. I don't care what people CALL it, as long as they're USING it.
I have no problem with your chosen chosen method of protesting comma or revolution. It's just not doing anyone else any favors when you bring violent revolution into a non-violent protest. It is Bad Manners it is unaccountable and it is ineffective. Keep your protest focused and leave the non-violent activities alone.
Whether you heat it or not that's my message. Beware Technologies to identify black Bloc protesters comma both visible and invisible.
Useless lefty fag
There's a huge difference between creating a grass-roots organization and founding a political movement. I have no interest in playing in the halls of power. I teach people who have been disempowered how to use mutual aid to find allies in people with similar needs, and to grow strong through fighting for their own interests against those who wield power through capital. I'm not trying to "create awareness" or "open minds" or "overthrow the system." What I do is a lot more dangerous and subversive: I teach people how to recognize their own interests, how to methodically work out step by step how to pursue those interests, and how to make allies of people necessary for pursuing those interests.
And that's pretty damned anarchist if you ask me.
"People often take prejudice or habit for truth and in that case feel no discomfort, but if they once realize that their truth is nonsense, the game is up. From then onwards it is only by force that a man can be compelled to do what he considers absurd." -- Alexander Herzen
Interest-free lending will not eliminate corruption and profit-taking because humans are humans and some believe in mutualism and some believe in every dog for himself. Wants to climb the ladder to control the capital we are all f***** again and again and again period period period period period
Next Theory?
I highly recommend the IWW. We're not perfect, but we've been at it for 110 years, and we've been at the forefront of every major labour and civil rights battle for that entire period.
this
At the Forefront for sure and in the f****** way
What is most ridiculous than a "anarcho" estatist?
Old Leninist here - excellent response. You and I are in common cause, just in different roles. Stay solid.
Grow up idiot.
What a bunch of fucking faggots in this outfit. Apparently the "employers" of these workers don't mind if they skip work for months on end to run down the street breaking windows and kicking trash cans.
See, that's what I meant when I wrote that I'm not trying to "change the system." You can't change the system. If you could, it wouldn't be the system. What I do is show people how different forms of organization can get them what they want out of life. It just so happens that those forms of organization are also anarchist and operate by consensus through horizontal executive structures. A good example of this is filesharing; I recognized in the very beginning how dangerous and subversive filesharing was, and threw as much time, money, and risk as I could afford at it. And indeed, by the time the capitalists recognized the danger, it had spread so far and so fast that they couldn't and can't stuff the genie back into the bottle. A whole generation has now grown up with the intrinsic understanding of the benefits of sharing knowledge -- and that the capitalists trying to stop them are NOT their friends or acting in their best interests.
Maybe you could meet up and suck each other's dicks.
Currently? No. Anarchism requires a great deal of personal responsibility, something which has been beaten out of people for generations. It's going to take time to change that, which is why I do what I do the way I do it.
If you don't focus on the minds of people it will not change anything. You can focus on destroying the current power system but all that will do is cause unmeasurable suffering as everyone still believes the world is controlled and regulated the same way and there will be no change. A lot of people would starve and kill each other and in the end rebuild civilization in a very familiar manner. All that would be accomplished is a very lethal breakdown in society for a period of time and then back to more of the same
Your mother is gay
The word "anarchy" comes from the Greek anarkos which means, literally, "without rulers." It does not mean without laws, without rules, or disorder. Any system where people collaborate by consent without the use of coersive force is anarchic. Early US communities, for example, were anarchic: they gathered in town hall meetings and voted on laws and rules by simple show of hands.
I can respect that
>bitcoins are currency that don't need security assurance from banks and central banks
>security assured by blockchains
>blockchain technology being transplanted to other forms of capital - cars, gadgets, even houses
>circumventing and thus eliminating the need for security institutions that derive power from it - ie banks, government agencies, etc
>trade and payment between individuals directly
Is this anarchic? Would this be a preferred form of capitalism? I asked about anarchocapitalism earlier and subscribe to it because I believe technological advancement such as this will allow for a decentralization of wealth. What do you think?
Or I could put you up against the wall. Whatever.
If that's what you believe, then feel free to create your own authoritarian community where you can live. All I want is to create and live in my own mutualist community; what you do in yours is entirely your business, unless and until it interferes in my ability to have mine, at which point I have to convince you to stop, most likely with a rapidly-moving piece of lead.
Nope. I've been an angry teenager for 48 years and I plan to stay that way. Mother Jones was still fearlessly facing down riot cops and capitalist goon squads into her 90s.
Anarchists are faggots who don't appreciate what society gives them. A fucking worthless leach that never wants to give anything back. Go move to a remote island and get off the internet. You don't don't deserve something that took civilization to create.
Have you read Kropotkin's _Conquest of Bread_? It's specifically about this issue. The title refers to the premise that no sane person will join a revolution unless and until the revolutionaries can prove they can feed everyone afterward. It's part of why the IWW organizes industrially rather than on a craft basis, so that we can keep the machinery running after things fall apart. You can look at the factories in Chile, for example, which were seized by anarchists after the capitalists abandoned them and got the machinery operating again, trading finished goods for raw materials, all the while defending the factories from the police.
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I imagine you have to co-operate with many people of different political opinions. How do you manage running campaigns with left wing statists, moderate liberals, etc etc?
In your opinion, has the experience of co-operating with the politically different made you better - perhaps refining your views - or worse - maybe your views were warped not by political theory but by just happening to like some random libertarian you worked with once?
Haven't read that. It's pretty self evident though when you really sit down and play out the scenarios in your head.
I don't think you understand what "capitalism" is. The premise of capitalism is that the means of production -- that is, the tools used to create wealth -- are put into the exclusive hands of private individuals. Land, factories, resources, they're all privately owned. The people who own them become lords and masters, and those who do not have the good fortune to be born with access to the means of production become slaves to those who do.
Trade is not capitalist. In fact, capitalism is monopolist by design, and hostile to trade. I'm a mutualist, usually regarded as slightly right of centre, but am absolutely opposed to capitalism -- as you should be.
Anarchist fagggg.
All my experience of working in groups - group projects, running a couple community benefit companies, local political committees - have taught me that humans need hierarchy in order to operate.
You just need a chair to structure speaking times, to make the judgement on minor details because voting is incredibly incredibly slow etc.
What's your evidence that non-hierarchical systems are better? I'd like it to be true, it just goes against all my experience of group dynamics - even left wing groups who attempt to be flat end up defaulting to a hierarchy to work properly.
>ANARCHIST
>COMUNITY organizer
>radical UNIONIST
That's a very hard left critique of capitalism
Oh yes, very much so. I started out as an anarchocommunist, then drifted steadily rightward to anarchosyndicalism and finally into mutualism as a direct result of spending decades having to work with reds, leftists, Trots, tankies, and harder-core-than-thou campus radicals who were always ready to wave a flag at a protest or sign a fiery manifesto, but vanished like smoke when there was actual work to be done. I decided I had no interest in share and share alike with lazy shirkers.
And yes, I've had to sit down at the table and shake hands with the devil, negotiating with police and politicians for what I could get. It was actually pretty easy as long as I kept my mind on the step by step goals. I recall, for example, chatting with a cop during a major action, and he thanked me for being so courteous, unlike the other participants. I quote Churchill at him, "If you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite," and smiled. He did a double-take and was clearly completely confused.
Op obvious fgt
what about property rights from the ground up? That rights to capital are assured by technology that circumvents the need for large permanent institutions and therefore power over capital - whereby institutions are formed to serve a purpose and would not exist beyond that purpose.
I think you're confusing hierarchy with structure. Our meetings have a chair to keep order, but it rotates between individuals every meeting, for example. Likewise, we have positions like secretary and treasurer and so on, and while these positions have executive power, they are rotated between people on a regular basis both to make sure no power blocs are created and to make sure everyone gets training for every task.
And on the battlefield, in places like revolutionary Ukraine and Spain, Makhno's and Durruti's orders were followed absolutely -- but were freely questioned _after_ the battle. They also held their positions by consent, not appointment, and could be replaced at any time.
You find a similar arrangement among the Hopi and highland Yanomani, where they have have a council of elders whose word is often followed because they give good advice, but who have no formal authority to issue orders.
Read Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's _What Is Property?_. He's the father of mutualism, and draws a very distinct line between ownership and property. Ownership is determined by possession, labour investment, and need. If you build a house, you own that house. It does not belong to The People or The State. So long as you reside there, it's yours; but you can't build a second one and rent it out. The land is free for all people to build, and you are welcome to own only what you, yourself build and possess.
What is your view on relations with police in general? I've always been kinda disgusted by chants about hating cops. They're workers, most of what they do is necessary and scarring to them, and it's often not their fault they're complicit in oppression / they haven't realised.
So you couldn't build a house and give it to your children, or let someone having hard times occupy it?
Isn't that a bit irrational? It seems like you changed opinion based on whether you liked the people who shared your opinion. Someone can be unpleasant and wrong
I will read this for sure
And none of these systems you've been involved with have devolved to a highly respected individual swaying everyone? Because most of my experiences have been like that - flat in name only.
*unpleasant and right
Police are class enemies. They might be very nice people with great intentions -- most aren't -- but at the end of the day their job is to maintain the status quo. I do organizer training, and one of the first things I teach is that if the police are allowing you to do something, it's not effective. They exist to protect the wealth of the rich; anything else they do is ancillary to that. If you aren't getting watched, surveilled, harassed, and occasionally arrested, you aren't being effective.
Considering the picture you posted, it is interesting that the whole "shake the dust off your sandals" thing comes right out of the Christian bible.
ok thanks I will.
Sure you could -- if they actually used it themselves. You could even sell it to them. But you couldn't rent it or mortgage it or otherwise make passive investment on it. You have the absolute right to the full fruit of your labour, but you may NOT skim other people's labour.
It has nothing to do with liking people; I've simply endured too many disastrous campaigns where people cared more about which pronouns were used or how pure the politics were or how many people signed anti-oppression statements than actually getting shit done.
Sure, that's what we call a "cult of personality," and it's actually really effective in the short term, which is why it occurs so often. But over the long term, it is absolutely toxic and will destroy any organization. I spend a lot of time teaching new organizers about the dangers of cults of personality, how to recognize them, and why you have to go full-out balls to the wall in fighting them, even when it means falling on your own sword to dismantle them, which I've been forced to do on more than one occasion.
Non-violent protest is how I see it being created, which is why you are a f****pezt
You don't even have the sack you limp wristed fuckboy.
"The whole history of progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters." -- Frederick Douglass, 1857
Have you ever considered becoming a startup founder / investment banker / [insert moneybags here ] in order to make a fucktonne of money and fund other activists?
It always seemed weird to me that few political types pick funding as their specialisation. If you make $200,000 dollars a year you could probably pay for 6 activists to do what you think is best fulltime. Are you more effective that 6 people?
I guess I've just never really seen it as a problem shallow enough for an actual solution - more a 'fundamental human nature' thing. You've had success with rooting charisma out and building a decent size actual mutualist organisation?
I actually used to be a partner in a marketing firm in my 20s. I made a huge amount of money for doing very little, and what little I did was largely dishonest. Over time, I began to darken inside, to become something I didn't like. My business partner, Frank, was killed by it. Went to bed at the age of 32 and died in his sleep from a blood clot in his leg. I truly believe the kind of darkness you swallow will blacken your soul and devastate your body. I ended up having to spend a year homeless, hitching around the continent cold and hungry and alone, to sick up all of that evil.
Today, I live a life of voluntary simplicity. My income has not been higher than $10k USD per year for the last decade, and all my worldly possessions can fit in a backpack. I don't have a fridge or stove or vehicle, and sleep on an old piece of foam. I not only don't own a cellphone, I've never even used one.
Twice. And the first time I ended up having to commit organizational suicide in a sort of mutually assured destruction to prevent the cult of personality from forming. The person who was trying to muscle her way into a position of authority required me resigning in disgrace to act as a lightning rod for all the lies, bad press, and shit-talking down on street level she'd pulled in an attempt to force us to recognize her power.
So you'd encourage me to do what you're doing now? I was intending to use my software degree to earn six figures and funnel all but 30K to direct action in whatever city I end up in.
I don't think it's impossible to do this - I know some people doing it though they mainly fund anti-poverty in other countries - but I'm not sure how hard it is and whether I'd get value drift over the decades. What do you think?
Really enjoying this thread, thanks.
>Greetings, Sup Forums, I'm a Medieval Feudalist
Time to grow up and stop living in a fantasy land, little boy.
>an anarchist
>also a community organizer
>a role where you participate and contribute to society's structure and overall health
Wew lad
>b b but like... it's the good kind of structure
All jokes about your Satanic trips aside, I think it's a decision only you can make. Not everyone has to be down in the trenches, and indeed, one of the things I tell the public when I do interviews is that money is one of the ways you can be extremely helpful without risking jail time.
The way the Taoists put it is, never pick up anything you can't put down. If you can have a house and a car and a family and the respect of nice, middle class friends and neighbours and then throw it all away with a laugh, then you can afford to have it. Otherwise you're willingly walking into the cage which was prepared for you on the day of your birth.
Do I recommend my lifestyle? Well, my health is shattered, I have little or no joy in my existence, I have no one on Earth who cares whether I live or die, and organizing has become the totality of my existence, preventing me from doing anything else with my life which might have brought me rewards other than grim determination. But my hours or my own and I require little more than my pipes and a pouch of tobacco to entertain myself. It has its compensations.
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Anarchy is just an idea. You don't find it in nature. Cultures always have norms and mores. Dedinitely not anarchy cultures. Anarchy cultures, no such thing.
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Sexuality is a socially constructed word for an actual thing in the world. The word is a social construct, sexuality is not. I'm getting the feeling that you are some grade-a moron with no education.
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I find it really irritating when drive-by shit-posters can't be bothered to read any of the postings in a lengthy, intelligently-discussed thread which has already addressed all of the idiot nonsense they're spewing.
Are you a transhumanist?
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Thanks for heartfelt answer. I hope you set aside a little time for joy in simple things today.
How's it feel knowing that your political ideas are never going to be achieved?