A new blog on the block
FYI, Wellington’s Wildcat Anarchist Collective has a new blog up titled SNAP! - A Cracking Good Read.
While many people view the Greens as being at one end of the political spectrum, the Anarchist Movement is further out again as they view the Green Party as a bunch of sell-outs for participating in the electoral fraud of Parliament. So expect them to be having a go at the Greens from the far left of the blogisphere.
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October 28th, 2005 at 11:19 am
Frog -
How kind. Can’t say I didn’t know you cared, but rather, you might be surprised how much the anarchists care! Events happen, ipso facto there is organisation.
katie
October 28th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
hmmm, pwerhaps that should read ‘many in the anarchist movement’…
Whilst I respect those anarchists who find voting or participating in the electoral system abhorrent, I regard those who think that (true) anarchists should hold this view to be Anarcho-Fundamentalists. I get on my high and mighty (reactionary) stool by calling participation as Anarcho-Pragmatism, something the hallowed spanish anarchists sadly seemed to lack. I guess the debate comes down to whether gradualism is feasible or whether it all needs to go to shit to build something new…
My other hat is Anarcho-Monarchist, which the Greens mortally offended by being rude to the Queen mum (not her fault that she married into a bad family…) but I swallow my pride and grudges for an hour each election…
It is good to remember that those who view the Greens as extremeists have a poorly calibrated extremometer. To my mind green policies seem to be fairly tuned to not scaring the horses too much, and rightly so; the moral high ground is useless if what you want to get anything changed in a society that has a long, long way to go…
October 28th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
When I was at Uni., longer ago than I care to relate, there was an Anarchist’s Society among the myriad of student clubs. A lot of my friends were members, though I didn’t ever find out how they held meetings; with difficulty, I expect.
October 28th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
What was unpragmatic about the Spanish anarchists?
They pragmatically didn’t campaign against voting as they believed a popular front government would lead to a release of prisoners and took the pragmatic view that it was necessary to ally themselves with the communists and social democrats in order to defeat the assorted fascists, feudalists and conservatives opposing them. This pragmatism lead them to letting themselves get stabbed in the backs by their allies, who blindly followed Marxist theory and tried to seize complete power.
The dogmatic communists were more worried about losing their own power to the anarchists than winning the war. The pragmatic anarchists compromised too much for the sake of fighting fascism.
By the way, Ornith, holding meetings is the least of our troubles - after some years in the anarchist movement I’m constantly amazed by some of the meetings organised by government departments and professional NGOs I attend as part of my job. Frequently hopelessly organised, lousy facilitation, unformulated agendas, dominating behaviour going unchallenged, etc. They could learn a lot from anarchists.
October 28th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
My impression (which is possibly ill-informed) of the spanish anarchists is that they refused to participate in government, given that it was against their idealogy.
Problem seems to be that in not taking part they got shafted by those who did. They chose the battle front (trenches and telepone exchanges alike) to focus their efforts, and that’s where they got shafted. I just don’t see that as very pragmatic. Maybe they would have been shafted anyway, who knows. In a perfect world they wouldn’t have. But I’m inclined to think that the rest of the world’s power structures would turn a blind eye, or at the most make fairly ineffectual comments if Australia, or the US tried to restore democracy/ order here, non-intervention pact or no.
My beef is not with Anarchists who chose not to vote, but those that think that Anarchists shouldn’t vote. Or be MPs. Or whatever. I don’t see the government as something that is just going to whither away because we refuse to engage with it, and I do think that there are things that I’m not prepared to accept the loss of for some theoretical, far off promised utopia if we would just leave government up to those who have nastier ideas about what government should and shouldn’t do. Sure, a Labour led government may not differ vastly from a National led one (from where I sit…), but I am concerned about the idea of say, more toadying to the fishing industry, which cut backs would be made in the event of an economic downturn, what damage would be done to the Resource Management Act et al… The violence of the state is not just used to oppress workers and sustain a system that is long term unsustainable, and I don’t see any viable alternatives on the horizon for limiting the impact of private uses of the commons.
I have slightly more hope that the collective violence of states may (for example) limit the effects of bottom trawling; I’m never going to hold my breath for the international private sector, or a National government to work towards this end. I’m certainly not going to hold my breath for an internetional anarchist utopia to come to the rescue. Should I consider the impacts on the marine biosphere to be acceptable collateral damage to a greater end?
I regard myself as an anarchist because I believe that society could (and ideally would) function without the state. However, I see the state as performing numerous functions that would need to be continued were it absent. The extent to which those functions can be defended within the current political climate determines the extent of my belief that engagement with government is (on the whole) worthwhile.
An example might be Meteria’s speech on the matter of the civil union bill (not sure of the link) in which she argues that it is not the role of the state to determine what is and is not an acceptable relationship between consenting adults, and to some extent the legislation (though clearly not enough) removes government sanctioned preferential treatment for those who followed a particular religiously defined relationship configuration.
From an anarchist viewpoint the solution arrived at is far from satisfactory (state sanctioning is still present, let alone the state defining a relationship in a particular way as soon as a magical three year mark is passed) but if you want a perfect anarchist solution you’d have to convince society to accept whatever the anarchist solution is (presumably one developed by society itself).
Would we be better off in a world where a lover can be turned away from the funeral of someone they’ve shared their life with for 30 years, just because the state did not recognise that relationship?
anyhow. I don’t argue that anarchists should engage with government, just that the notion that they shouldn’t is dogmatic. If I was convinced that engagement was counter productive, or selling out the revolution, or whatever then I’d agree, it’s just that I’m not.
lordy, /ranting. That’s more a reply to the perspective that fwog was alluding to than Sam; you provocateur you fwogg
October 28th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
“It is good to remember that those who view the Greens as extremeists have a poorly calibrated extremometer.”
Of course it’s all relative. When compared in Parliament, you are pretty far out. When compared to the entire political opinion, much less so. When compared universally (not just humans), we’re all pretty much the same.