Tag Archives: anarchism

White, Middle-Class Antifa Anarchists Behind Floyd Riots

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From The Express, UK:

In a series of furious tweets this morning, he [Maajid Nawaz, activist and broadcaster] said that white-bourgeois Antifa rioters had been burning black minority neighbourhoods before “running back to mummy and daddy”.

The activist and broadcaster posted “evidence” of “spoiled-brat privileged gentrifying Antifa-clad ‘anarchist’ rioters exploit minority communities’ rage to grind their own ideological axe. Then they go home to mummy & daddy while minority neighbourhoods stay black & over-policed”.

One tweet read: “LISTEN UP: dear white-bourgeois Antifa-clad gentrifying ‘anarchists’, STOP BAITING more OVER-POLICING OF MINORITY COMMUNITIES through provoking your hissy-fit rioting ‘on our behalves’.”

Murray Rothbard: Hooray For Che!

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File under ideological insanity – Rothbard gives props to the people’s poseur, Che Guevara, whom even the anarchist left today has rejected:

“What made Che such an heroic figure for our time is that he, more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, was the living embodiment of the principle of Revolution. More than any man since the lovable but entirely ineffectual nineteenth-century Russian anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin, Che earned the title of “professional revolutionary.” And furthermore, to paraphrase Christopher Jencks in a recent perceptive, if wrongheaded, article in the New Republic, we all knew that his enemy was our enemy–that great Colossus that oppresses and threatens all the peoples of the world, U. S. imperialism.

Trained as a physician in Argentina, witnessing CIA-fomented counter-revolution by the thug Castillo Armas in Guatemala, Guevara dedicated the rest of his life to the Revolution. He found a promising field first in Cuba, where, as everyone knows, Che was second only to Fidel Castro in waging and then winning the revolution there.”

and this:

But in his mighty heart Che could not refrain from leaping a whole raft of stages, from plunging romantically but recklessly into the premature adventure of armed struggle in Latin America. And so, with tragic irony, Che Guevara, in his daring and courage, was betrayed by the very Bolivian peasantry whom he was trying to liberate, and who barely understood the meaning
of the conflict. Che died from violating his own principles of revolutionary war.

And this, enthusiastically quoting from Fidel Castro’s praise of Che:

“Newspapers of all tendencies have univermlly recognized Che’s virtues… . He is an almost unique example of how a man could win the recognition and respect of his enemies, of the very enemies he faced with his arms in his hands, of those who have been ideological enemies and have nevertheless expressed feelings of admiration and of respect toward Che.”

Murray Rothbard, “Ernesto Che Geuvara: RIP,” Mises.org http://mises.org/journals/lar/pdfs/3_3/3_3_1.pdf

See also this article from a strict anarcho-capitalist position about Rothbard’s misrepresentation of his views to placate or mislead followers: The 10 Points Of The Libertarian Party Abolitionist Caucus.pdf.

Note – My main objection to an-cap positions is that they are easily manipulated by the state (national and transnational) for its own ends. An an-cap world is possible, but only spottily.

Now, in contrast to Rothbard’s glowing portrait, here is a more candid assessment of Che’s actual record from the anarchistlibrary.org (Che Guevara: why anarchists should view him critically):

Organise, Issue 47, Winter 1997/1998
flag.blackened.net

QUOTE: “After all, the Che cult is still used to obscure the real nature of Castro’s Cuba, one of the final bastions of Stalinism.”

QUOTE: “He demanded the death penalty for “informers, insubordinates, malingerers and deserters.” He himself personally carried out executions. Indeed the first execution carried out against an informer by the Castroists was undertaken by Che. He wrote: “I ended the problem giving him a shot with a.32 pistol in the right side of the brain.” On another occasion he planned on shooting a group of guerrillas who had gone on hunger strike because of bad food. Fidel intervened to stop him. Another guerrilla who dared to question Che was ordered into battle without a weapon!”

QUOTE: “With the Castroite victory in 1959, Che, along with his Stalinist buddy Raul Castro, was put in charge of building up state control. He purged the army, carried out re-education classes within it, and was supreme prosecutor in the executions of Batista supporters, 550 being shot in the first few months. He was seen as extremely ruthless by those who saw him at work. These killings against supporters of the old regime, some of whom had been implicated in torture and murder, was extended in 1960 to those in the working class movement who criticised the Castro regime. The anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists had their press closed down and many militants were thrown in prison. Che was directly implicated in this.”

QUOTE: “Photo opportunities with the peasantry and proletariat, good looks and a dramatic death in no way exonerate him from his historical role in the suppression of the popular classes, state terror and capitalism, and changing Cuba from the semi-colony of one great power the US, to another, the USSR.”

QUOTE: “I’d like to confess, papa, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing” “Hate will be an element of the battle, a merciless hate for the enemy, that will inspire the guerrilla-soldier to superhuman efforts of strength and changes him into an effective, violent, selected, in cold blood killing machine”

Edward Feser On The Necessity Of Burke To Libertarians

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Edward Feser:

“It is the Burkean tradition – conservative, religious, celebrating deference and restraint and contemptuous of the “dust and powder of individuality” – to which Hayek points as providing both the true philosophical foundations of market society and the only hope of its renewal. Burke, along with Locke and the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, represented in Hayek’s mind a “true individualism” which emphasizes ordered liberty and what the Catholic tradition would call subsidiarity, and has no truck with the radically autonomous self of contemporary egalitarian liberalism and popular libertarianism.”

I am not sure that I fully subscribe to this, but it would be an interesting project to explore strains in Burke’s thought compatible with libertarianism, understood as minarchist or anarcho-capitalist (a position that as it stands today I think an impossibility).

Von Mises On The State Versus Statism

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From Monopoly Politics.com:

“Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism. The liberal understands quite clearly that without resort to compulsion, the existence of society would be endangered and that behind the rules of conduct whose observance is necessary to assure peaceful human cooperation must stand the threat of force if the whole edifice of society is not to be continually at the mercy of any one of its members. One must be in a position to compel the person who will not respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce in the rules of life in society. This is the function that the liberal doctrine assigns to the state: the protection of property, liberty, and peace.

“The German socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, tried to make the conception of a government limited exclusively to this sphere appear ridiculous by calling the state constituted on the basis of liberal principles the “night-watchman state.” But it is difficult to see why the night-watchman state should be any more ridiculous or worse than the state that concerns itself with the preparation of sauerkraut, with the manufacture of trouser buttons, or with the publication of newspapers. In order to understand the impression that Lassalle was seeking to create with this witticism, one must keep in mind that the Germans of his time had not yet forgotten the state of the monarchical despots, with its vast multiplicity of administrative and regulatory functions, and that they were still very much under the influence of the philosophy of Hegel, which had elevated the state to the position of a divine entity. If one looked upon the state, with Hegel, as “the self-conscious moral, substance,” as the “Universal in and for itself, the rationality of the will,” then, of course, one had to view as blasphemous any attempt to limit the function of the state to that of serving as a night watchman.”

“It is only thus that one can understand how it was possible for people to go so far as to reproach liberalism for its “hostility” or enmity towards the state. If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an “enemy of the state” any more than I can be called an enemy of sulfuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking or for washing one’s hands.

“It is incorrect to represent the attitude of liberalism toward the state by saying that it wishes to restrict the latter’s sphere of possible activity or that it abhors, in principle, all activity on the part of the state in relation to economic life. Such an interpretation is altogether out of the question. The stand that liberalism takes in regard to the problem of the function of the state is the necessary consequence of its advocacy of private ownership of the means of production. If one is in favor of the latter, one cannot, of course, also be in favor of communal ownership of the means of production, i.e., of placing them at the disposition of the government rather than of individual owners. Thus, the advocacy of private ownership of the means of production already implies a very severe circumscription of the functions assigned to the state.

“The socialists are sometimes wont to reproach liberalism with a lack of consistency, It is, they maintain, illogical to restrict the activity of the state in the economic sphere exclusively to the protection of property. It is difficult to see why, if the state is not to remain completely neutral, its intervention has to be limited to protecting the rights of property owners.

“This reproach would be justified only if the opposition of liberalism to all governmental activity in the economic sphere going beyond the protection of property stemmed from an aversion in principle against any activity on the part of the state. But that is by no means the case. The reason why liberalism opposes a further extension of the sphere of governmental activity is precisely that this would, in effect, abolish private ownership of the means of production. And in private property the liberal sees the principle most suitable for the organization of man’s life in society.

“Liberalism is therefore far from disputing the necessity of a machinery of state, a system of law, and a government. It is a grave misunderstanding to associate it in any way with the idea of anarchism. For the liberal, the state is an absolute necessity, since the most important tasks are incumbent upon it: the protection not only of private property, but also of peace, for in the absence of the latter the full benefits of private property cannot be reaped.

“These considerations alone suffice to determine the conditions that a state must fulfill in order to correspond to the liberal ideal. It must not only be able to protect private property; it must also be so constituted that the smooth and peaceful course of its development is never interrupted by civil wars, revolutions, or insurrections.

Mises, Liberalism (In the Classical Tradition),
pp 36-39, published by Sheed Andrews, &
McMeel, Inc. 1978

*   *   *
Epilogue
by Sam Wells

“Thus, the great Austrian economist advocated and recognized the necessity of political states, laws, and governments while he was one of history’s most powerful intellectual opponents of statism.  Contrary to a common misunderstanding by some followers of the late Murray Rothbard, “statism” is not the mere existence of a political state or when a given geographical area has one government.  Statism is the doctrine or policy of subordinating the individual unconditionally to a state or government with unlimited powers. Statism includes welfare statism (modern American “liberalism”), mercantilism, fascism, and other systems of systematic positive government interventionism on up to and including full socialism. (See Mises, Bureaucracy pp. 74-76 & 78 and Omnipotent Government pp. 5, 44-78, & 285) Statism is not the same thing as the state, and the classical liberal political system of a constitutional republic and the concomitant private property order and unhampered market economy which Mises advocated fervently until his death is not a system of statism and is in contradistinction to statism.  Under a policy of laissez faire, the scope of authority of government is limited by the rule of law to the protection of the private properties and individual liberties of peaceful citizens from violence and fraud, and the government itself is proscribed from interfering with non-violent, non-fraudulent activities of production and exchange.  Under statism, in contrast, the state may do whatever it wants to an individual or his property unconditionally and without limitation.”

‘V’ For Vendetta: Evey Reborn

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UPDATE

Please note, I believe that “V for Vendetta” is a film intended to seed certain memes into the anti-globalization/anti-empire crowd.

It is a part of the controlled dialectic (the good pagan revolutionaries versus the evil Christian fascists, in this case).

I cite it without comment, because it is a powerful passage. However, my citation shouldn’t be read as an endorsement of the philosophy behind the piece.

I am a Christian and believe God is transcendent, although his presence can be apprehended through nature (“Behold the liles of the field”) and through our own selves (“the kingdom of God is within you.”)

As for  the panENtheism of Hinduism (and the Kabbalah), that is a more complicated question.

Panentheism is not pantheism. It is not the worship of the forces of nature.

Christians are told to distance themselves from the PRACTICE of things such as divination and astrology, even when it seems to be innocuous.

But understanding the symbolic language behind astrology and divination is not only acceptable, it’s vital.

ORIGINAL POST

This is an excerpt from the anti-fascist film,  “V for Vendetta” (a dystopia based on the comic book series by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, screen-play by the Wachowski brothers):

(‘V’ is a masked revolutionary bent on destroying the totalitarian government of Britain)

Evey In Her Cell:

Interrogator: I am instructed to inform you that you have been convicted by special tribunal and unless you are ready to offer your cooperation you are to be executed.

Do you understand..what I am telling you?

Evey: Yes

Interrogator: Are you ready to cooperate?

Evey: No

Interrogator: Very well then. Escort Ms Hammond to her cell. Arrange a detail of six men and take her out behind the chemical sheds and shoot her.

Guard: It’s time.

Evey: I’m ready.

Guard: Look. All they want is one little piece of information. Just give them something.  Anything

Evey: Thank you. But I’d rather die behind the chemical sheds.

Guard: Then you have no fear any more. You’re completely free.

Evey and ‘V’

V [Entering] Hello, Evey.

Evey:…You…it was you…

V: Yeah.

Evey/: That wasn’t real. Is Gordon….?

V I’m sorry, but Mr. Dietrich’s dead. I thought they’d arrest him but when they found a Koran in his house, they had him executed. Fortunately I got to you before they did.

Evey: You got to me? You did this to me? You cut my hair? You tortured me? You tortured me! Why?

V: You said you wanted to live without fear. I wish there’d been an easier way, but there wasn’t.

Evey: Oh, my God!

V: I know you may never forgive me, but nor will you ever understand how hard it was for me to do what I did. Every day, I saw in myself everything you see in me now. Every day, I wanted to end it. But each time you refused to give in, I knew I couldn’t.

Evey: You’re sick! You’re evil!

V: You could have ended it, Evey. You could have given in, but you didn’t. Why?

Evey: Leave me alone! I hate you!

V: That’s it! See, at first, I thought it was hate too. Hate was all I knew. It built my world, imprisoned me, taught me how to eat, how to drink, how to breathe. I thought I’d die with all the hate in my veins. But then something happened. It happened to me, just as it happened to you.

Evey: Shut up! I don’t want to hear your lies!

V: Your own father said that artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie, but because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.

Evey: No…

V: What was true in that cell is just as true now. What you felt in there has nothing to do with me.

Evey: I CAN’T FEEL ANYTHING ANYMORE!

V: Don’t run from it, Evey. You’ve been running all your life.

Evey: [gasping] I can’t… can’t breathe… Asthma… When I was little… [collapses while V catches her]

V: Listen to me, Evey. This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it. They took your parents from you. They took your brother from you. They put you in a cell and took everything they could take except your life. And you believed that was all there was, didn’t you? The only thing you had left was your life, but it wasn’t, was it?

Evey: Oh… please…

V: You found something else. In that cell, you found something that mattered more to you than life. Because when they threatened to kill you unless you gave them what they wanted… you told them you’d rather die. You faced your death, Evey. You were calm. You were still. Try to feel now what you felt then…….

Evey: God. I felt…

V: Yes?

Evey: I felt dizzy. Please. I need air. I need to be outside.

V: There’s a lift that will take us to the roof.

[They go up. Evey goes out. It’s raining].

Evey: God is in the rain….

Anarchism In the Kibbutz Movement

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Haaretz on a study of anarchism in the Kibbutz movement:

“If there is a vision of Israel that can avoid the polarization and mythmaking of much Diaspora and Israeli discourse, it requires an appreciation of the complexities of Israeli society. James Horrox’s “A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement” provides a welcome reminder that Israel wasn’t always seen by radicals as an outpost of Western imperialism. Horrox unearths the utopian, anarchist influences behind the growth of the kibbutz movement in pre-state Israel. Anarchism may be a highly flawed ideology, but at the very least it offered a vision of Zionism that, in not aiming to build a Jewish state, held out the possibility of a land in which Jews and Muslims could coexist peacefully. This was never likely to happen, of course, but at the very least it’s important to remember that Israel didn’t have to be the place that its contemporary detractors and defenders imagine it to be – and it doesn’t have to be that place now.”

My Comment:

Notice the reflexive genuflection to the state. Why is anarchism that promises coexistence a flawed ideology? Isn´t “flawed” a much truer description of the statist ideology rooted in race and faith (Zionism) that guarantees displacement of one people by the other?