"We have done this because we love liberty and hate authority." – Voltairine de Cleyre
How does it feel to be a Fugitive?
Mar 11th
A couple of days ago it was brought to my attention that in my home state of Oklahoma I was a walking fugitive. (Hat tip to Brad Spangler) You see in Oklahoma, according to Title 21, Chapter 9, Section 374, it is a felony to “carry … or publicly display any red flag or other emblem or banner, indicating disloyalty to the Government of the United States or a belief in anarchy or other political doctrines or beliefs, whose objects are either the disruption or destruction of organized government.” I have been, peacefully mind you, walking around Tulsa, Oklahoma with ALLiance of the Libertarian Left and Industrial Workers of the World buttons pinned to my jacket (suspecting, but) never knowing that I could be punished with 10 years in prison and/or $1,000.00 fine.
I took a couple of days to reflect on this realization (no crying this time Less Antman 
). I came home one day to see a cop car park along the street in front of my section of apartments and I did get a little rush of adrenaline. I tried to imagine if this is what other fugitives felt. I imagined some character from a Tarantino film sitting alone in their apartment peeking into a suitcase full of loot, jumping at every knock at the door and suspecting every motive from friends or family.
They are going to want their stuff back, so the cops are looking for me. That’s what they do; they track down stolen goods or murderers who have stolen lives. Living on borrowed time.
Wait a second! How are displays of sympathy for anarchism in any way similar to stolen money or stolen lives? What have I stolen?
Oh yeah! That’s right. I almost forgot. I stole my mind away from the government. Their truncheon or badge or letterheads are not substitutes for reasons or arguments in my presence.
So, dear friends, if you don’t hear from me in a week or two, then it might be because the government has sent the police to take their “property” back.
Sustainability, Mutual Aid, and Liberation Redux
Feb 15th
In the Winter 2009 issue of Black Oak Presents I wrote
With natural disasters turning cities into ruins, now is a good time to think about the rebuilding process. Initially I agreed with [former] Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that rebuilding the disaster prone area didn’t make much sense, but I have changed my mind. Done correctly, New Orleans, Louisiana; Greensburg, Kansas; and other devastated cities can become models of sustainable development and Mutual Aid.
The earthquakes that hit Haiti along with the worldwide economic downturn present a good time to revisit the ideas in that article. I don’t want to focus on Haiti’s specific political and economic problems, rather I would like to look at voluntary, community based responses to the issues that have effected Haiti, southeast Asia, Greensburg, KS, New Orleans, etc. More >
Are We Not Afraid?
Feb 10th
(Warning: the links attached to the word “fear” in this post are directed to articles and videos pertaining to State violence)
A die is cast.
South Carolina has decided that all subversive groups must register with the government and Charles “RadGeek” Johnson has responded, clearly, that the ALLiance of the Libertarian Left not only belongs on their register, but we take it as a point of pride.
I applaud Charles in this declarative act of obedient disobedience, even though I felt my stomach tighten. I want to take a moment to express that I feel fear; also pride, but I want to talk about the fear.
“Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.” –Aristotle: Rhetoric, Book II
I am fully aware that my moral, political and spiritual beliefs place me in opposition to and in the cross hairs of a criminal band that has abandoned, in accordance with a principle of authority, reason and argument as a method of persuasion. Without reason “persuasion” is achieved through the application of force to produce conditions of subordination, exclusion and deprivation.
These conditions are heartbreaking and, in the long run, dehumanizing; in other words, it is reasonable to be afraid.
It is important that this fear is acknowledged; that it is discussed and openly felt.
“Our fears do make us traitors.” Shakespeare, Macbeth.
Stories of bravery in the face of danger, staring down the police at the G20 or staying strong while a jackbooted thugs point a gun in your face are great, but how do they help us deal with the fear one should be feeling in these situations.
These activists are marvelous monuments of towing bravery, but are they scared? They have to be! I wish more people would talk about these feelings, how they overcame them and why.
As an anarchist I am not looking for heroes to look up to or follow. I am looking for a community that will see me as a human and wants me to see them as humans.
“If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” –Malcolm X.
My biggest fear is succumbing to fear. What happens to me when I am tested and I fail? Do I cease being an anarchist? Am I no longer seen as an equal in the community? Will I even be allowed to enter?
In my life I have come face to face with brutal police, been drug down stairs in hand cuffs and had police dogs barking, salivating at the chance to complete their training on my tender flesh. I have been in tiny windowless rooms surrounded by cops who bully, push, threaten and intimidate. I didn’t run or beg or submit, but I wasn’t brave. I did the only things that I could: shut down and weep.
If under those conditions, or something worse, someone “broke” or “sold out,” I would not be surprised or angry. I would probably react the same way as before: shut down and weep.
No one wants to betray the cause that fills them with life. This is why I hope more people will talk about their fear.
“If submissiveness ceased, it would be over with all lordship.” –Max Stirner: The Ego and Its Own, My Power.
There is a light at the end of the Statist tunnel, but the tunnel is dark. I hope I don’t trip or trip anyone along the way. I am afraid, but I will keep walking forward with my hands open.
It will be a group, a community, which stands up together in solidarity that will eventually dissolve the State.
ALL the Best.
Caricature Propaganda.
Feb 2nd
Many people hear the word “collectivism” or “socialism” and see a homogenous mass of uncaring human monsters assimilating or destroying everything before their boots.
Many people hear the word “individualism” or “egoism” and see some hunched unkempt ravenous creature with a recognizable human form that has long been disregarded for a loping powerful frame, blood thirsty teeth and throat ripping claws.
And even more people believe that “anarchism” or “libertarianism” is the unholy marriage of the two, consummated in the bed chambers of extreme poverty or extreme opulence; bombs and dynamite the wedding gifts.
They will not start out with these severe assertions, but as you continue to parry and counter their arguments in favor of statism or diminished liberty they will, eventually, fall back to one of these caricatures.
It is my contention that these “fall back” caricatures are merely a recitation of undigested propaganda. This propaganda supports a paradigm that makes it hard, sometimes impossible, to see beyond the caricatures. I have empathy for them and understand that the reevaluation and reflection can be painful.
How do we diminish the effect and power of these caricatures?
We fight back! No matter how small. As Roderick T. Long said,
“I figure if we want to combat the use of the term “anarchy” to mean violence and chaos, we need to start calling people on it when they so use it.”
He goes on, here, to present a number of “letters to the editor” to pop culture outlets.
Here is how Charles “Radgeek” Johnson responded to commenter who offered another anarcho-caricature:
“Man, an “anarchists can’t get organized” joke. Ho ho ho. Never heard one of those before.
“ANARCHISM … the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” – P.A. Kropotkin
I don’t mean to be an old stick in the mud, but really, this old chestnut involves such a complete misunderstanding of what the overwhelming majority of anarchists in the history of the world (who have tended to assign a lot of importance to freely constituted, participatory associations) have thought, that it really just fails as humor.”
If we are dealing with a paradigm and want to revolve it, then we must point out every incongruence, every discrepancy. We have to bury them in anomalies.
“What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.” –Meister Eckhart, Fragments
For further insightful commentary on this subject: Media and Anarchists Violent Reputation, Zinn and the Libertarians and Howard Zinn, RIP.
The Apostasy of the Anarchist Vote
Jan 24th
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” declared Emma Goldman in a ringing indictment of the feeble mechanism by which the state claims to be restrained and directed. Of course, in invoking this quote anarchists argue against counting upon elections to change the status quo. We aren’t going to bring about the voluntary society by listening to politicians, casting votes for them, and pressuring them to abolish their own offices. The statist means and the anarchist ends are clearly opposed.
But there’s another argument against voting: that by casting a ballot, one registers endorsement of the state and its violence. Advocates of this argument do not hold that you must have chosen the politician who wields power. They disregard personal intent, interests, and any issues at hand. The argument is quite simple: by participating in the election, one is bound to its results. Given the anarchist view of those results – violence, fraud, and lies – one can only conclude that voting makes one an accessory to the crime.
This constitutes a body blow for those who define themselves by their rejection of the authoritarianism so intrinsic in the state. It’s one thing for voting to be a silly ritual. But a decidedly different attitude must be adopted if pulling the voting lever leaves one with blood-stained hands. Faced with such an awful truth, the task becomes one of avoiding complicity with the system. An absolute break with the state is the only path of conscience.
In theory, this break seems reasonable to achieve: one simply ceases to cooperate with its agents and directives. But the state reaches far into the world we live in. It doesn’t just direct the police, military, teachers, judges, and other bureaucrats that intervenes in obvious ways. The very civil society we seek to unleash through the spirit of voluntarism, mutual aid, freedom, and solidarity seems hopelessly bound up in the state.
