Showing posts with label anarchy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anarchy. Show all posts

Sunday, February 06, 2011

No Cops No Violence Egyptian Self Organization

When you line up rows and rows of riot cops, they have to have something to do. So when you have cops at demonstrations you inevitably have violence. Whether it was the recent G8 G20 meetings in Toronto or last Fridays rally in Liberation Square in Egypt, riot cops present attacked the protesters.

But once the Egyptian security forces were routed and forced off the streets of Cairo, and these are not merely riot cops, they are Gestapo like security forces, rather than violence and chaos, contrary to the media headlines, something new occurred. The demonstrations were peaceful, self organized.

A carnival atmosphere was reported until last Wednesday when these same cops, plus the criminals they let out of prison to intimidate the Egyptian masses, led pro government attacks on the demonstrators. By Friday the carnival atmosphere in Liberation square returned.

People are engaging in Potlach and Potluck, bringing food, drinks, blankets, medical supplies to share with their neighbours in Liberation square.In Liberation square the people have set up hospitals, latrines, and they clean up after themselves.

When the police left the neighbourhoods open to the criminals and thugs they released from prison, Egyptians organized neighbourhood self defense committees. The media call these vigilantes, but they are not, they are classic forms of anarchist self organization. Neighbours old, young, men, women, Christian, Muslim, have met each other and helped each other.

This is Anarchy in its truest form. The people organizing themselves, without the need of leaders. And there is no violence, the only violence comes from the State, trying desperately to hold on to power. The state needs chaos, it thrives on it, in order to justify the need for police.

But without the State or the police the people organize themselves for themselves.Just as the revolutionary proletariat in Spain did in the Thirties and the Russian people did in 1917.

If CNN and the internet had existed in 1917 the early days of the Russian Revolution or in Spain in 1936 the beginning of those revolutions would have looked like Cairo.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Remember, remember the fifth of November

"Remember, remember the fifth of November.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot."


'Tis the 5th of November Guy Fawkes Day.

There was a standard toast for Guy Fawkes Day among my acquaintances in Britain:

"To Guy Fawkes - the only man who ever entered Parliament with honest intentions!"


And of course V for Vendetta was modeled on Guy Fawkes.



"The People Should Not Be Afraid of their Governments, Governments should be afraid of their People."




On John Lennon's 1970 solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Lennon sings "Remember, remember, the 5th of November" on the song "Remember". The lyrics are followed by the sound of an explosion.

Remember when you were young
How the hero was never hung
Always got away
Remember how the man
Used to leave you empty handed
Always, always let you down
If you ever change your mind
About leaving it all behind
Remember, remember, today

Don't you worry
'bout what you've done
Don't feel sorry
'bout the way it's gone

Remember when you were small
How people seemed so tall
Always had their way
Remember your ma and pa
Just wishing for movie stardom
Always, always playing a part
If you ever feel so sad
And the whole world is driving you mad
Remember, remember today

Remember
Tribute to V for Vendetta using Remember by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band





SP 14/216; Guy Fawkes' confession, 1605 - opens in a new window

Signature of Guy Fawkes on a confession, 1605


Click to see more images
Next next

Confession of Guy Fawkes


These pages are from the confessions of Guy Fawkes. Fawkes is the most well known of the men who planned to blow up King James I and the Parliament in 1605.

In the years after England split away from the Catholic Church, most English monarchs were not very tolerant of Catholics living in England. James I was a Protestant king and English Catholics despaired of any return to the old religion. A small group decided to blow up both King and Parliament with gunpowder. They planned to place James' daughter Elizabeth ON the throne.They hoped she would marry a Catholic prince AND England would ONCE again be a Catholic country.

The king 's spies discovered the plot. Fawkes was found on the night of 4th/5th November 1605 in the cellars under the Palace of Westminster, where Parliament was due to meet. He had 36 barrels of gunpowder. On the following days, he confessed to the plot and named the others involved.

Fawkes signed 2 confessions - one after torture and another 8 days later. The contrast between them is remarkable. The first document shown here is a page from his confession under torture. His weak and shaky signature ' Guido' can faintly be made out. The second document is from a confession signed later in a steadier hand 'Guido Fawkes'.

Fawkes and the other plotters were executed on 30 and 31 January 1606. Ever since then, every 5th of November there have been firework displays and bonfires to remember the 'Gunpowder Plot '.

http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/crime/Guy%20Fawkes.gif

English playwrights and the theater loved the dramatic
images of Guy Fawkes and the celebration of the Fifth
of November. Bonfires...the plot itself and then there is Guy.
It is hoped that the study of Fawkes as he appears from
play to play throughout the centuries will provide us
with insights into how the history of the plot and its celebrations
evolved through time. See what you find in these works.
They are certainly quite enjoyable and fun in and of themselves.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Guy_Fawkes_portrait.jpg

Security is the chief enemy of mortals.
William Shakespeare

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.

Benjamin Franklin


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Cinema of Anarchy

http://anarchistnews.org/files/pictures/anarchy-film-festival.gif

This week we are blogging about Revolutionary and Anarchist films, movies, DVD's etc. at the Carnival of Anarchy.

I have posted on some of my favorite films and libertarian perspectives on Film. And will continue to do so through the week.



See my previous posts on Carnival of Anarchy.

See:

Battleship Potemkin


Sacco and Vanzetti

V for Anarchy


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, October 22, 2007

Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair 2007

Time again for Redmonton's annual Anarchist Book Fair.

Your humble servant will once again be doing a workshop.

This time on Anarchism and the origin of the Anti-Anarchist International Police Org. aka Interpol

It will be on Sunday, October 28.


Norman Nawrocki: Lessons from a 7ft Penis
Thursday October 25th
Jekyll & Hyde Pub
10610 100 Avenue
Doors
8pm
$8 (or by donation to the underemployed)


Ward Churchill-organizing to win
Friday October 26th
Doors
6:30 event 7:00 pm
Myer Horowitz Theatre
Students' Union Building
8900 114 Street
University of
Alberta
$10 (or by donation to the underemployed)


Anarchist Bookfair
Vendors, workshops, food and childcare
Saturday October 27th 11am-7pm
Sunday October 28th 12pm-5pm
Alberta Avenue Community Center
9210 - 118 Avenue


Halloween Party
Saturday October 27 8pm-closing
Jekyll & Hyde Pub
10610 100 Avenue


Anarchist Folk Show
Todi Stronghands (
halifax)
Starla! Ubiquitous (
halifax)
R.Olson (
vancouver)
Ben Disaster (local pop punk hero)
Lex Mckie (lamenting folk)
Sunday October 28th
7 pm
Donation $5 +
The Remedy Cafe (upstairs) 8631 109 Street


See:

Sacco and Vanzetti

Anarchist History of Edmonton


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , ,
, ,

Friday, August 31, 2007

Labour, Opera and Anarchy


This is the labour day long weekend in North America and for that reason the August Carnival of Anarchy will begin and carry on through the week. The theme is:

Anarchism and Work, Anarchism and Life

Why Opera you ask. Because it originates from the Latin word for work; Opus. As in creative, fulfilling, self directed activity. Liberated labour if you like. Self-Valorization.

Whereas the common modern word for labour, work and worker in the Latin based languages like French, Spanish, Italian, etc. is
trabajo and travail (from the Latin tripalium, or “instrument of torture”)

Hence modern work for most of us is not an opera nor our opus but wage slavery.

Towards a History of Workers' Resistance to Work - Michael Seidman


And besides it gives me another chance to make a reference to that great cultural anarchist Bugs Bunny.



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, August 27, 2007

Them and Us


According to King Stephen the Conservatives don't have time for protesters. Which we knew.

And the reason is that he claims protesters are not ordinary Canadians, or in this case Quebecois, but a new profession. Basically a 'rent a crowd'.
They are not Canadians or Quebecois like you and me or the Conservatives.

"Dear friends, remember always that this is how we can measure our progress as a political movement: bring true results, work for the well-being of families and taxpayers, for truckers, the cashier, the retired person, the salesman, the farmer, the entrepreneur--for people who work hard, and who don't have the time to protest, or have the money to hire protestors.

But who support their families--Quebeckers of the middle class, the enlarged middle class, who were largely ignored for too long, by the political class.

The Conservatives saw them, the Conservatives heard them, the Conservatives have understood them, because we are they [i.e. the middle class]."


Gee someone tell that to the professional protesters at the Fraser Institute, of which Jason Kenney, Rob Anders and Ezra Levant are graduates of. Or the professional protesters of the NCC Lobby, which Harper once spokesman of. Or the professional protesters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Or the professional protesters opposed to the Wheat Board. Or the professional protesters at REAL Women. Or the professional protesters who demand Childcare Choice. Or the professional protesters who lobby for traditional marriage. Or the professional protesters who oppose Native Rights and Land Claims. Or the professional protesters of the Canadian Medical Association. Or the professional protesters who celebrate Red Friday.

Apparently they are no longer welcome in Harpers New Conservative Party of the 'enlarged middle class'.

Harper defines this mythical class as; 'truckers, the cashier, the retired person, the salesman, the farmer, the entrepreneur'. Now other than the the retired person and the cashier; who is a wage slave, the rest are gainfully defined as 'self employed' which is the classic definition of middle class; self employed professionals. Who were once called the
petit-bourgeoisie

After liberal ideologue Daniel Bell declared the end of class war, sociologists defined the middle class as the great American melting pot which included blue collar workers, white collar workers, service workers, professionals and the self employed.

It was not based on the Marxist defined 'relations to the means of production', but on their salaries. No one was working class anymore, that was passe instead we all became a nation of the great unwashed 'middle class' we were now all 'consumers', not producers.

Now given that one would think with all those protesters who makeup the Conservative Party base, that Harper would have enlarged his middle class to include professional protesters and those who have the time and money to hire them. What he is saying is that the hard working Canadians and Quebecois who oppose him are simply in the pay of.....whom? Commies? Trade Unions? Maude Barlow?

In true animal farm fashion he has defined some protesters as more Conservative than others. They are the
Special Interests. 'Them' to Harpers 'Us'.

Of course what he really is saying is that by his definition Thomas D'Aquino and his clique of Canada's CEO's are not a special interest group, but the mass of folks who protested last weekend at summit in Montebello are.

We have heard it all before, the protesters are 'commie dupes', and their fellow travelers in the media and blogosphere are 'nattering nabobs of negativity'.

And typical of right wing populism Harper again appeals to being one of the people; "
because we are they" ignoring the political reality that his Party is not only a Minority Government but a minority political view amongst Canadians and Canadien's.



SEE:

The Peasants Are Revolting!

Police Black Block

Day In Wonderland

Jelly Bean Summit


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , ,

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Day In Wonderland


Stockwell Day expands on the Humpty Dumpty syndrome of the Harper government, and becomes the Red Queen for a Day,

The Red Queen said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."


By justifying the Police use of undercover agent provocateurs to incite violence and justify the use of riot police at the SPP protests in Montebello.



Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, meanwhile, continued to brush of questions about a call for a public inquiry. "The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because (they) were not engaging in violence," Day said Friday in Vancouver. "Because they were not engaging in violence, it was noted that they were probably not protesters. I think that's a bit of an indictment against the violent protesters."

An undercover cop carrying rocks encouraging violence and acting as an agent provocateur is an indictment against the police and idiots like Day.


"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this," said Day,

You see the cop was not being violent he was just carrying a rock. A rock he had handed to him only moments before, and he was going to drop it, but union protesters surrounded him and didn't give him a chance.

So still carrying his rock, he walked towards the riot cops to show them his evidence. And so they pretended to bust him so they could dust the rock for fingerprints for the identity of the real violent protester who handed him the rock.

And all those other rock throwing protesters? Well none seem to have been arrested. In fact they all seem to have disappeared.


On Wednesday, the mayor of Montebello thanked police and protesters, praising the fact that there wasn't a single report of damage during the two-day summit.


In the Wonderland that is Ottawa, Humpty Dumpty logic continues to dominate the mindset of the Harpocrites.


When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.



SEE:


Police Black Bloc



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Friday, August 24, 2007

Police Black Bloc

You can't tell the players from their face masks you have to look at their boots.

Union leaders say these three men demonstrating in Montebello are actually a Quebec provincial police officers.

Union leaders say this man demonstrating in Montebello is actually a Quebec provincial police officer.


In this image taken from the scene, the 'protesters' and police are wearing similar boots, although the boots on the 'protesters' appear to have duct tape and spray paint on them.

The YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.

The YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.
(CBC)

During the era of the Viet Nam war protests we used to be able to tell the police undercover agents and agent provocateurs by the fact no matter what else they wore they always wore police issued boots. Some things never change.


Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters

MONTREAL–With the proof caught on video, Quebec provincial police were forced to admit yesterday that three undercover agents were playing the part of protesters at this week's international summit in Montebello, Que.



As the MacDonald Commission revealed agent provocateurs were often used by the RCMP in the seventies to infiltrate far left groups and promote the idea of armed struggle. Today not much has changed.

QPP admit to ‘agents' but not ' provocateurs'


LOL.

After all these are the same folks that said this;

Officers never posed as protesters: Quebec police


I mean since the cops have all this fancy riot and crowd control equipment it's a drag not to be able to use it. So why not provoke some violence so you have an excuse to bust heads.

The irony in all this is that these guys may not have been exposed so easily if it had been a larger demonstration.

On Wednesday, the mayor of Montebello thanked police and protesters, praising the fact that there wasn't a single report of damage during the two-day summit.


Whose 'sad' now Mr. Harper.


SEE:

CIA Spies In Canada

Infantile Leftism

Really Corrupt Mounted Police

Paranoia and the Security State

Repeated Cover ups by Mounted Police

CSIS vs. CUPW

Canada’s Long History of Criminalizing Dissent




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, July 28, 2007

What's Opera Doc

A tribute to the Bugs Bunny Cartoon 'Whats Opera Doc' from the Toronto Star. Which makes the same point I did here in tribute to Chuck Jones. And see my post at the Carnival of Anarchy on Bugs the anarchist drag queen.


Elmer Fudd, left, and Bugs Bunny in a scene from Warner Bros.' What's Opera, Doc?

At any other time, the film would not have been made. Imagine the pitch: "Let's steal time and funding from our other projects so we can go way over budget making a cartoon with no jokes, and no real gags. The score will be a German opera. Kids won't get it. Most adults won't get it, but I don't care because I think it's funny."

Fortunately, the time was 1956, the director was Chuck Jones, and the place was the Warners Bros. backlot animation studio dubbed "Termite Terrace." The result – released 50 years ago this week – was "What's Opera, Doc?," voted by animators in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals to be the greatest cartoon of all time.

It is the antithesis of the routine cartoon. In place of snappy one-liners we see Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny singing their parts with complete sincerity and commitment. The backgrounds are beautifully textured paintings. The score is powerful and moving. Bugs cuts a striking figure in a metallic brassiere before Madonna was even born. It's audacious and decadent and beautiful and bold and everything the vast majority of cartoons would never dare to be.




Thanks to Bugs and folks like Chuck Jones we got a classical education on TV. Classical as in music, and opera. Masses of folks from the Forties through the Seventies, experienced these cartoons on the big screen and then on the little screen and were introduced to Wagner, Rossini, Verdi, Mozart etc.

The fact that all these composers were the popular music of their day gets forgotten by those who would make classical music some form of 'long haired' intellectual haute culture. Thanks to Bugs and his creators we came to see and hear the music in a pop culture format.

Which is just a sneaky way to promote the fact that this week we are discussing libertarian education on the Carnival of Anarchy.






Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, July 23, 2007

@ edukashion


Anarchy and Education

Our theme for our July Carnival is
Anarchism and Education.


A.S. Neill, The Modern School, Ivan Illich, homeschooling in a statist society, homeschooling in the age of neo-conservative anti-public education, pedagogy of the oppressed, Pablo Fiere, Fransisco Fiere, Emma Goldman, the origins of American public education in Nativism and the KKK, classical education, dead white men, deconstruction, academia, autodidactic intellectuals, working class intellectuals, education and class, post secondary proletarians, William Morris, Godwin, Shelly, Byron, Keats, Mary Wollstencroft, Mary Wollsencraft Shelly, the narodniki, Bakunin, Kropotkins Appeal to the Young, the SI, France 1968, read a book.

The carnival will run July 27-August 5th.

'I never let my schooling interfere with my education'.
Mark Twain.



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, June 28, 2007

R. Cobb

R.Cobb was a cartoonist for the LA Free Press in the sixties and seventies. He went on to do the design work on Alien. I always liked this cartoon. Ironic that it is as relevant today as it was back during the Viet Nam war era.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2004/05/292199.jpg

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , ,

Carnival of Anarchy Extended

The Carnival of Anarchy has been extended until July 1. We are blogging on the topic of ecology and environmentalism and the responses keep coming in.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, June 22, 2007

Anarchy and Ecology


Beginning today, though as per usual with our little anarchist cooperative someone posted early and someone will likely post late, the Carnival of Anarchy will be hosting a weekend of blogging on the topic of Anarchism and Ecology. Green Anarchy, environmental anarchy, social ecology,etc.

Dust off your old Murray Bookchin books.

The period of contribution runs from Friday June 22nd to Sunday June 24th.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, May 17, 2007

May Carnival of Anarchy


The Spirit of Anarchy

Our next carnival will be held the weekend of May 25-27 the theme with be Anarchy and Spirit, that includes religion, spirituality, (such as liberation theology, anti-religion, paganism, gnosticism etc.) as well as art and music.

For example I would refer you to Scriabin as an example of the breadth of this topic...

Scriabin, previously interested in Friedrich Nietzsche's übermensch theory, also became interested in theosophy, and both would influence his music and musical thought. In 1909-10 he lived in Brussels, becoming interested in Delville's Theosophist movement and continuing his reading of Hélène Blavatsky (Samson 1977). Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was "the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization, the father of the future musician," (Rudhyar 1926b, 899) and an antidote to "the Latin reactionaries and their apostle, Stravinsky" and the "rule-ordained" music of "Schoenberg's group." (Ibid., 900-901).





Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, April 22, 2007

"Are Anarchists Thugs?"

A follow up on my; " Why The Conservatives Are Not Libertarians" in this case an explanation as to why todays right wingers who call themselves Libertarians are not. Because homegrown individualist anarchism which was Libertarianism was replaced after Benjamin Tuckers death with the pro capitalist ideology and idealization of Russian reactionary Ayn Rand and later still with the rantings of the Anti-Labour Theory of Value; Austrian School of Economics.

Neither Bombs Nor Ballots: Liberty & The Strategy Of Anarchism

In an article entitled "Are Anarchists Thugs?", Tucker offered a breakdown by profession of Liberty's anarchists. The greatest part proves to be of the professional/intellectual class; the remainder includes independent manufacturers and merchants, farmers, artisans and skilled workers. We see that, although the anarchists - especially of the Liberty group - were not latter-day Jeffersonians in any deep sense, they owned some characteristics in common. The anarchists' hard-core supporters were the socio-economic equivalents of Jefferson's yeoman-farmers and craftsworkers: a freeholder - artisan - independent merchant class allied with free-thinking professionals and intellectuals. These groups - in Europe as well as America - had socio-economic independence, and through their desire to maintain and improve their relatively free positions, had also the incentive to oppose the growing encroachments of the capitalist State.

Individualist anarchism, although suffering from the repression directed against the anarchists in general, appears to have dwindled into political insignificance largely because of the erosion of its political-economic base, rather than from a simple failure of its strategy. With the impetus of the Civil War, capitalism and the State had too great a head start on the centralization of economic and political life for the anarchists to catch up. This centralization reduced the independence of the intellectual/professional and merchant artisian groups that were the mainstay of the Liberty circle.

In 1911 Tucker judged that this centralizing process had created an accumulation of wealth in the "trusts" that had superseded their need for the "four monopolies." He argued that "even the freest competition" could not presently hope to destroy the trusts, which could afford to sacrifice large sums of money to remove new competition. Tucker thought that only political or revolutionary forces could now whittle down this concentration of capital. He warned, however, that the anarchistic economic solution - "and there is no other solution" - must be taught to following generations. In the meantime, anarchists who aid the "propaganda of State Socialism or [violent] revolution make a sad mistake indeed, "hastening the advent of revolution before the people were prepared to do without the State."


See:

The Era Of The Common Man

Once More On the Fourth

Keep Coulter I'll Take Paglia

New Libertarian Journal

State-less Socialism

The Right To Be Greedy

A Lesson in Mutual Aid

Political Imbalance

Libertarian Anti-Imperialism


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, April 21, 2007

The Tao Of Anarchy


Anarchist writer and professor Crispin Sartwell has published his own version of the Tao Te Ching. It is an accessible and modernized interpretation of this classic work of anarchism.








41

When the wise study about the Tao,

they slog through its lessons with appropriate diligence.

When the sort-of-wise hear about it, they grasp it and lose it.

If they didn¹t lose it, they couldn¹t try to find it.

When the fool hears about the Tao, he laughs and laughs.

That is the Tao.

The Tao sees darkness as though it were light,

sees retreat as progress,

knows that that the rough conceals the smooth,

that the truth appears in fragments,

purity within defilement,

goodness as incoherence,

integrity in letting go,

simplicity in ramification.

A perfect square is a circle.

A perfect circle is boundless.

A perfect note is enwrapped in the silence.

The world has no form.

Is the Tao hidden?

It forms and fills us.

It empties and releases us.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , ,, , , ,

Sunday, April 15, 2007

April Carnival of Anarchy



On the weekend stretching from April 27-29, the Carnival of Anarchy blog will touch upon the important question of anarchism and violence. It has been a topic of contention among political radicals for ages and I hope there will be a diversity of opinion displayed. The contributors to the carnival are asked to provide posts on anything related to this vital topic they can think of. Some ideas I'd throw out to help those folks out who aren't so sure what to contribute include discussions of whether violence is ethical, wise, desirable, necessary, and so on.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Great Canadian Libertarian Post


J. Todd Ring writes;
"On Libertarianism: Right & Left"

Libertarianism is a term that has come to be identified with the right, with limited government, ideals of freedom, free market capitalism and laissez fair economics, however, the term originally meant libertarian socialism, a libertarianism of the left. The distinction of two kinds of libertarianism, or more appropriately, a spectrum of views within what is called libertarianism, is important. Both right and left libertarianism have a deep skepticism about excessive concentrations of state power, encroachments of government power in the lives of individuals and communities, and a belief that ultimately, “That government is best which governs the least.” Beyond this agreement, there are considerable differences between libertarianism of the right and that of the left. But before the distinctions between left and right libertarianism can be discussed, we need to clarify just what is essential to a libertarian perspective, and also, to distinguish between the ideal and the immediate in terms of advocating or working towards specific goals for human society.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, March 16, 2007

Infantile Leftism

Juvenile delinquency is not political even if some folks claim it is. This is no different than the riots on Whyte Avenue last year. The political and media message are lost in the vandalism.

Some will claim this is Black Bloc Anarchism, I on the other hand believe it is simply infantile leftists trying to justify their juvenile delinquency as political when it is no different than drunken louts on Whyte Avenue fighting riot cops.

The demonstration was supposed to be for 'making a statement ',but the message got lost.

ENOUGH!! A Woman's Place is NOT at home!
Call to action: International Day Against Police Brutality, March 15 (details below)

On Thursday, March 8th -- International Women's Day -- Montreal police brutally attacked and injured three women who came to the aid of Jaggi Singh when the police arrested him at the annual Women's Day celebration in Montreal.

As the state spins it, Jaggi Singh is to blame for everything! We see it very differently. The arrest of Jaggi Singh and the brutalization of the three women are inextricably linked. Jaggi Singh was there to celebrate International Women's Day with his sisters and got arrested. As women we are very familiar with being blamed for our own victimization -- the woman who was raped "asked for it", what was she doing out there anyway? Why was she dressed like that? Milia Abrar, who was murdered in Montreal in 1998, had challenged traditions: she asked for it. The missing women, mostly Indigenous sisters, along the 'Highway of Tears' asked for it. The women at École Polytechnique asked for it. The woman whose partner killed her asked for it. The women who were brutalized by the police on 8th March asked for it!

However the result was vandalism, which is neither radical nor revolutionary, but reactionary. And you can tell from the headline below, the message got lost in the reporting. Nice going folks. You didn't make the point, you missed it.

This is neither Direct Action nor Anarchism in Action. It is just a justification for hooliganism. It is reactionary, like soccer hooliganism, as it brings more police violence on people. It does not expose that violence as unjustified in the mind of the public.

Anarchism is about propaganda and agitation aimed at educating the masses that they can be self reliant, self sufficient and live in a cooperative fashion without the State, police or fear of violence. Supporting or engaging in this kind of vandalism is the antithesis of that message.

See my previous posts on the futility of this kind of infantile anarchism.

More than a dozen arrested after Montreal anti-violence demo turns ugly


Rioters build a fire in the middle of the intersection of Berri and de Maisonneuve as demonstrators protest against police brutality. Thursday in Montreal. (CP PHOTO/David Boily) Rioters build a fire in the middle of the intersection of Berri and de Maisonneuve as demonstrators protest against police brutality. Thursday in Montreal. (CP PHOTO/David Boily)

Anti-police rallies turn ugly in Montreal, Vancouver
CBC British Columbia - 4 hours ago
Anti-police rallies in Montreal and Vancouver turned violent Thursday as demonstrators clashed with police, leading to several arrests.
Montreal police arrest 15 at demonstration Globe and Mail
More than a dozen arrested after Montreal anti-violence demo turns ... Canada.com
680 News - Canoe.ca
all 28 news articles »




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , ,