I think we need a good ol’ alien* invasion to unify us.
*outer space variety
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I think that almost everyone is to the left of the Antiwanka.
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That was not my question. A handful of articles spanning over 150 years doesn’t say anything about anarchists being violent as a population. It matters as well that you pushed the same style of argument often used to claim that muslims are violent, or that black folk are criminals. It’s bogus, and I suspect you know it.
Again, most anarchists are pacifists. Further, anarchist philosophy generally seeks to break down imbalances of power between groups/individuals, imbalances that we believe birth violence in the first place.
We are normal people. Your teachers, carpenters, nurses, farmers. We are your neighbors. We are old and young, and come in many colors. Antifa may serve as a front line, but most of us are not in the streets. We are economists, lawyers, scientists, coders. We even run businesses! You may never know, because for obvious reasons most of us don’t walk around with a circle-A tattooed on our foreheads. We drink and laugh with you at bars, we play beer-league baseball with you, we volunteer with you to clean up parks and build Habitats for Humanity. We fuck up and fall down too, just like normal humans.
Mostly, what anarchists do is the same as what any decent, compassionate person does. Try to live a good life, and leave a positive impact on the communities we live in.
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I suspect that Max either believes that all anarchists are insurrectionary anarchists, or they have an interest in not differentiating.
Or possibly both.
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A similar argument could be made for almost any group. But it is misdirection. I have no doubt that most people who support the idea of anarchism never dress in the black anarchist uniform, and attend political events armed with rocks, bottles, and clubs disguised as flagpoles.
Literally nobody is suggesting that agents should go door to door searching homes and dorm rooms for copies of Bakunin’s writings. you can believe any absurd thing you want to believe. That is your right. But we are not talking about you. We are talking about people who identify as anarchists, belong to anarchist groups, AND commit violence as part of that group. You can do any of the first two things, and nobody is going to say “boo” to you, unless the groups fall under some sort of conspiracy investigation.
The same applies to the people on the right who are instigating violence at the same events.
When i was at university, I interviewed a bunch of Germans about their wartime experiences, including some who were in the military or the NSDAP. I could probably say that most of them were no more antisemitic than an American of the same generation. But that is irrelevant in any discussion of the Shoah. Nazis were almost entirely responsible for the Holocaust. Many Nazis were not complicit in those events. That changes nothing, except when specifically discussing individual culpability.
I am not saying Nazis are the same as Anarchists. I am just responding to: [quote=“the_borderer, post:125, topic:99192”]
Again, most anarchists are pacifists
[/quote]
Which is not relevant to the discussion at hand. The issue here are the ones who are not pacifists.
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I do know, why you do you think I don’t know, why do you assume I haven’t read and studied this stuff? You’re being very smug and presumptuous here.
To give you some specifics, I was referring to the definition of ‘equitable distribution’, and if your definition of such involves attempts to achieve a total equality of outcome (and you’ve just espoused the exact marxist definition) without any form of state coercion then you’re living in a fantasy land. Such forms of libertarianism are oxymoronic.
No, most of the ones we’re talking about here are pacifists, as well.
lol
First, most of us do not consider property destruction to be inherently violent, or more specifically that violence is interpersonal harm.
Well sorry, but that’s just flat-out wrong. You can’t just go around redefining words in the English language as you see fit.
Many of us consider what folks like Milo and Coulter have to say however as nakedly violent.
So right-wing speech you disagree with is violent, but attacking people who espouse such speech and random property which may-or-may-not be associated those people (and let’s be honest here, it almost never is) isn’t?!? gotcha.
We’re talking about genocidal provocation here
This is a ridiculous level of hyperbole, while there are elements of the far-right who hold these beliefs being attacked, mostly it seems to be anyone who supported Trump, and they’re not at all the same thing, even if anyone who supported Trump is a morally bad person and/or idiot, that isn’t an excuse to shoot pepper spray into their eyes and beat them with sticks.
I agree that fascists have more in common with ISIS than anarchists do. That doesn’t mean that anarchists aren’t jerks though, or aren’t violent, or don’t have stupid belief systems themselves. If this was a competition to find who the biggest asshole was, ISIS would win hands down, with the modern fascists taking the silver and the anarchists taking up the rear with a disappointing bronze. It’s not though, it’s perfectly reasonable to hold everyone to a higher standard.
And the fact that property damage might be covered by insurance (and it might not be, who knows without knowing the specifics of each case, and is the black-robed protestor going to double-check beforehand?) doesn’t excuse the violence.
Except as others have noted, the vast majority of modern anarchists are indeed pacifists. I find systems that dehumanize groups of people to be stupid, not ones that’ criticism systems of control and power. [quote=“caze, post:127, topic:99192”]
And the fact that property damage might be covered by insurance (and it might not be, who knows without knowing the specifics of each case, and is the black-robed protestor going to double-check beforehand?) doesn’t excuse the violence.
[/quote]
Sure. I do think it’s more defensible than campaigns of terror against other human beings. I find human dignity and life in much higher regard than property, especially property owned by corporations that benefit off the commons (ie tax dollars). The morality of property damage is another debate, I think, which I’m sure that many anarchists who have read up on the theories have debated and come to a variety of conclusions on.
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I’m not sure if that’s actually true or not, I’ll have to take your word for it. But like I’ve already said, I don’t have a much of a problem with them, vast majority or not. But the ones we’re discussing in this thread are not those people.
Well, considering that I’m positive that there are plenty of folks here who have more practical knowledge of anarchist thought, maybe ask them? Both @the_borderer and @wait_really seem to have better working knowledge of that then me.
As for the lefties, I will say that across the country, tensions are incredibly heightened by Trump’s presidency. I’m also not sure if we know who started the actually violence on the ground. Additionally, at what point does non-violence have to give way to self-defense and preservation?
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This is a really interesting topic to me personally, especially @Mindysan33’s take on Anarchism in general, because I’ve always felt like it’s the Anonymous (the movement)'s problem - you start a collective based around ideological anarchy (that is, no one in charge), but of course, there are people with differing ideas of what the norm should be, so you end up with factions (who may not be hierarchal, but may drastically differ from one another).
To me, the logical next step would be to choose a new label that both defines the one faction and helps to differentiate it from others, but that seems to be where things fall down, because everyone seems to want to own the original moniker instead (which, again, to me, seems anathema to these very ideals).
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This is the “Your speech is violence, but my violence is speech” argument.
Which is nonsensical. Many of these arguments really do seem like they were thought up by committees of people who are looking for some way to justify the violence that they want to commit.
Citation needed.
And a promise from you to stop lumping all “anarchism” together into one simplistic cartoon would be great too, thnx.
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Given it’s France, it’s probably just some run of the mill marxists, rather than anarchists.
The people throwing stuff, including the molotov coctails, were dressed like Antifa, and were carrying Antifa banners and flags. They were also shouting “fascists out!”.
I believe the red/black flag with the diagonal split indicates that those people are anarcho-syndicalists.
I stand corrected.
To be fair, there is a very real possibility of an actual fascist becoming president there. It’s remote, according to current polls, but who knows what is going to happen between now and the second round of elections. Shit’s getting real in European politics lately. It’s no surprise that the left wing is coming out in force.
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Where have were heard that before? 
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Oh, well, definitely anarchists then. Nobody else minds fascists, amirite?
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