All the world but bosses were communists in 1920s
After the 1917 Russian Revolution the cold war rewrote North American history and the colour of the word communist was changed by the bosses and later by those in charge of the media. The colour of communism was blackened and the knowledge of young people today is held hostage: History is only what you remember.
Below find a Robinhood email thread about some Ontario anarchists who must not have listened to people that were around in the 1920s, 1930s.
....................................................................................................................................
Apparently someone needs to brush up on their history. Your e-mail was
sent to a list used by anti-authoritarians and anti-statists.
-ROAD Ottawa
I will let the commies continue posting for the fact it will let them know
that we don't really like them.
2!,4!,6!,8!
Fuck the Commies!
Fuck the State!
Hah!
> Public meeting in Toronto
> -------------------------
> THE CHALLENGES TO COME - THE PARTY WE NEED
>
> Take part in a lively discussion about the struggle for socialism in
> Canada and the urgent need for a revolutionary communist party to carry up
> this fight.
>
> The meeting will be introduced by a spokesperson from the Revolutionary
> Communist Party (Organizing Committees) -- a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
> organization which is leading the fight to create the vanguard party of
> the Canadian working class.
>
> The RCP(OC) recently called for holding the "Canadian Revolutionary
> Congress" in November. This unprecedented event will unite proletarian
> revolutionaries and activists from different parts of the country to
> support the founding of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Canada. More
> information is available on the Congress website at
> http://www.pcr-rcpcanada.org/crc.
>
> ********************************************
> * Saturday, October 28, at 7:30 pm
> * York University, Student Center, room 321
> * Welcome to all!
> ********************************************
>
> For more information:
> http://www.pcr-rcpcanada.org/
> mailto:toronto@pcr-rcpcanada.org
>
I'd agree with Julian - this sectarianism is ridiculous.
I read somewhere once, "I'm a communist today so that I can be an
anarchist tomorrow". So for those of us who are communists and
anarchists, if we'd disagree on what tactics are necessary today, we
all ultimately seek the abolition statism.
I don't see how the resistance of the ANARCHO-COMMUNIST CIPO community
network at OAXACA is at odds with the MAOIST guerrilla movements in
Nepal or Phillipines; or how the Socialist government of Cuba, the
popular democratic government of Aristide, or the (as of yet) social
democratic government of Chavez negatively affect the anti-imperialist
struggles of Iraq, Palestine, or Afghanistan, as admittedly theocratic
those may, more or less, be. The point is that these struggles do not
work against one another, but rather work together to strain the back
of the imperialist beast we all fight. ... So while people from
Baghdad to Oaxaca stare down the barrels of Washington's guns, we are
here sitting pretty with our privilege in the belly of the beast
making jibes at one another's choice of tactics.
Rather, we should be learning from one another's tactics. Not to say
that our respective positions are reconcilable; though, I think we
should all learn to see how the tactics we support are, at least to a
certain extent, context specific. Perhaps anarchism is more
appropriate for the indigenous nations of the Americas as they defend
themselves against their racist statist oppressors. On the other hand,
I've always found it difficult to conceive of large-scale nuclear
disarmament without the force of progressive/radical powers at the
helm of the state.
just my thoughts,
-SD
----- Original Message -----
Post-left anarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy.
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that seeks to distance itself from the traditional left and to escape the confines of ideology in general. It has rapidly developed since the fall of the Soviet Union, which many view as the death of authoritarian leftism.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution the cold war rewrote North American history and the colour of the word communist was changed by the bosses and later by those in charge of the media. The colour of communism was blackened and the knowledge of young people today is held hostage: History is only what you remember.
Below find a Robinhood email thread about some Ontario anarchists who must not have listened to people that were around in the 1920s, 1930s.
....................................................................................................................................
( Anyone with an email message that has been pasted in below and contains an error can have the text changed by contacting godha4legs@gmail.com )
Each letter sent to godhas4legsAtgmail.com will be treated in accordance with the major maxim from godhas4legs "transparency leads to trust" so as not to subvert the communication process of the Internet's networking potential.
This is in keeping with the wisdom of the ethicalpublicdomain ...as in -
these people say:
"Each letter sent to XXX@YYY enters the PUBLIC DOMAIN whenever it does not state otherwise. http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org
Please be kind to our authors!
Have a look at our wiki where we are creating an online learning environment for community currency: http://www.findbetterways.info/wiki.cgi?FindBetterWays/CommunityCurrency "
Each letter sent to godhas4legsAtgmail.com will be treated in accordance with the major maxim from godhas4legs "transparency leads to trust" so as not to subvert the communication process of the Internet's networking potential.
This is in keeping with the wisdom of the ethicalpublicdomain ...as in -
these people say:
"Each letter sent to XXX@YYY enters the PUBLIC DOMAIN whenever it does not state otherwise. http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org
Please be kind to our authors!
Have a look at our wiki where we are creating an online learning environment for community currency: http://www.findbetterways.info/wiki.cgi?FindBetterWays/CommunityCurrency "
----- Original Message -----
From: John Gilbert(2)
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 5:50 AM
Subject: Fw: #1-- Are commies bad ... or just dead. __&__ #2-- AnarchistU meeting Wed. Nov. 8
Sean and Richard,
Cc: Eric - kingston_affinity@hotmail.com
Maybe if you are not subscribe to robinhood ( robinhood@lists.riseup.net ), you missed some good debate from Common Front guys and shows where they are coming from - transparency leads to trust.
It started with the trashing of a vanguard (trot?) group's sectarian message about their next meeting, then Julian of KY got pissed with the remarks by ROAD ottawa (ahertani@riseup.net) and Sudbury's Alex. I couldn't resist pushing my view in my message (and theirs) which I've pasted in below.
Thanks Sean for your update post a few months ago about people, groups and happenings in Kingston in the past year. I look forward to your next one, and hope that you post it at both -
http://roadnetwork.org/forums/phpBB-2.0.21/phpBB2/ (relaced former ROAD forum on 28/09/2006); and to robinhood@lists.riseup.net.
----- Original Message -----
From: ahertani@riseup.net
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [robinhood] RCP(OC) Public Meeting in Toronto
sent to a list used by anti-authoritarians and anti-statists.
-ROAD Ottawa
----- Original Message -----
From: K-W Youth Collective
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [robinhood] RCP(OC) Public Meeting in Toronto
What the fuck is it with all your sectarianism? Fuck the Comiies? how fucken childish!!!
Julian Ichim
From: "Alex Paterson" <revolution_reversal@riseup.net>
Reply-To: mailto:robinhood@lists.riseup.net, Paterson" <revolution_reversal@riseup.net>
To: robinhood@lists.riseup.net, ahertani@riseup.net
Subject: Re: [robinhood] RCP(OC) Public Meeting in Toronto
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 16:47:57 -0400 (EDT)
>I will let the commies continue posting for the fact it will let them know
>that we don't really like them.
>
>
> > 2!,4!,6!,8!
> > Fuck the Commies!
> > Fuck the State!
> >
> > Hah!
Julian Ichim
From: "Alex Paterson" <revolution_reversal@riseup.net>
Reply-To: mailto:robinhood@lists.riseup.net, Paterson" <revolution_reversal@riseup.net>
To: robinhood@lists.riseup.net, ahertani@riseup.net
Subject: Re: [robinhood] RCP(OC) Public Meeting in Toronto
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 16:47:57 -0400 (EDT)
>I will let the commies continue posting for the fact it will let them know
>that we don't really like them.
>
>
> > 2!,4!,6!,8!
> > Fuck the Commies!
> > Fuck the State!
> >
> > Hah!
----- Original Message -----
From: Alex Paterson
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [robinhood] RCP(OC) Public Meeting in Toronto
that we don't really like them.
----- Original Message -----
From: ahertani@riseup.net
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: [robinhood] RCP(OC) Public Meeting in Toronto
Fuck the Commies!
Fuck the State!
Hah!
> Public meeting in Toronto
> -------------------------
> THE CHALLENGES TO COME - THE PARTY WE NEED
>
> Take part in a lively discussion about the struggle for socialism in
> Canada and the urgent need for a revolutionary communist party to carry up
> this fight.
>
> The meeting will be introduced by a spokesperson from the Revolutionary
> Communist Party (Organizing Committees) -- a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
> organization which is leading the fight to create the vanguard party of
> the Canadian working class.
>
> The RCP(OC) recently called for holding the "Canadian Revolutionary
> Congress" in November. This unprecedented event will unite proletarian
> revolutionaries and activists from different parts of the country to
> support the founding of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Canada. More
> information is available on the Congress website at
> http://www.pcr-rcpcanada.org/crc.
>
> ********************************************
> * Saturday, October 28, at 7:30 pm
> * York University, Student Center, room 321
> * Welcome to all!
> ********************************************
>
> For more information:
> http://www.pcr-rcpcanada.org/
> mailto:toronto@pcr-rcpcanada.org
>
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 12:24 AM
Subject: [robinhood] against sectarianism
I read somewhere once, "I'm a communist today so that I can be an
anarchist tomorrow". So for those of us who are communists and
anarchists, if we'd disagree on what tactics are necessary today, we
all ultimately seek the abolition statism.
I don't see how the resistance of the ANARCHO-COMMUNIST CIPO community
network at OAXACA is at odds with the MAOIST guerrilla movements in
Nepal or Phillipines; or how the Socialist government of Cuba, the
popular democratic government of Aristide, or the (as of yet) social
democratic government of Chavez negatively affect the anti-imperialist
struggles of Iraq, Palestine, or Afghanistan, as admittedly theocratic
those may, more or less, be. The point is that these struggles do not
work against one another, but rather work together to strain the back
of the imperialist beast we all fight. ... So while people from
Baghdad to Oaxaca stare down the barrels of Washington's guns, we are
here sitting pretty with our privilege in the belly of the beast
making jibes at one another's choice of tactics.
Rather, we should be learning from one another's tactics. Not to say
that our respective positions are reconcilable; though, I think we
should all learn to see how the tactics we support are, at least to a
certain extent, context specific. Perhaps anarchism is more
appropriate for the indigenous nations of the Americas as they defend
themselves against their racist statist oppressors. On the other hand,
I've always found it difficult to conceive of large-scale nuclear
disarmament without the force of progressive/radical powers at the
helm of the state.
just my thoughts,
-SD
From: John Gilbert(2)
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 10:18 PM
Subject: #1-- Are commies bad ... or just dead. __&__ #2-- AnarchistU meeting Wed. Nov. 8
JK Galbraith said it is the bureaucrats the people hate, not the isms. Citizens don't act, they react to capitalism and communism because they hate the regulators and regulations, so want to throw the (system) baby out with the bathwater (collective punishment for isms). The world wants social democracy not corporate democracy so the world wants updated Marxism not materialist Oligarchy power. The corporatist EMPIRE plays on the reactionaries
Andropov and Gorbachov didn't see that the unleashed hatred by Ivan 6-pak for bureaucratic regulators would enable corporatist EMPIRE to eventually conquer socialism in Eastern Europe. Mao, Stalin, Paul Pot and Sadam took extreme horrific measures of self defence before their own reactionary citizens got the chance to sell out to corporatism and materialism. But killing and war is unfortunately a numbers game so lets remember the comparison - the monster EMPIRE has killed many million more than the monsters of State Socialism. Also remember that Hugo Chavez has been trying parliamentry democracy but Bush wants to force Chavez into state authoratarianism.
The EMPIRES's *non-violent* template to sandpaper a billion people to death by converting all countries to corporatism by rigging elections is concisely described here: http://www.anarchistu.org/twiki/view/Anarchistu/ExtremistUS.
Personally, I ignore corporatism, communism and politicians. I admire communal-ism, the "variety of tactics" and accomplishments from the neo-primitive Green Zerzan students of Eugene, Oregon - their 'Seattle Battle' blossomed resulting in all the world's small countries adoption of anti-globalization.
Greenanarchy sidesteps ideology with it's turnoff word communism. Mass demos cannot happen without including the poorly informed public, so why use unpopular turnoff words ? I want to organize around issues not ideologies, then my comrades in mass demos can be any idealists, humanitarian trots and good communists.
Public perception is paramount. The valid Corporatism VS Socialism struggle of today is perceived by old cold-war memories of the public from yesterday as the Capitalism VS Communism, so anarchists are expected to fit the dumb George Bush bi-polar expression "You are either for us or agin us". Are some Ontario Anarchists surprised to find themselves being accused of trashing Cuba or Veneszuela when they gleefully trash Cuba's STATISM ?
[] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that seeks to distance itself from the traditional left and to escape the confines of ideology in general. It has rapidly developed since the fall of the Soviet Union, which many view as the death of authoritarian leftism.
- 1 Arguments
- 2 Conflicts with Authoritarian Leftism
- 3 Proponents and Detractors
- 4 See also: Left anarchism, Nihilism, Post-structuralism, Situationists
- 5 External links: Anarchy After Leftism (Infoshop.org), Primitivist and post-left 'anarchism' (Anarchism.ws)
AnarchistU meeting Wed. Nov.8, 2006 - 6-8pm. Toronto, 519 Church St. Community Centre, First Floor, new section
John - (godhas4legs)
posted by godhas4legs at 7:48 AM
3 Comments:
----- Original Message -----
From: Anarchist University
To: robinhood@lists.riseup.net
Cc: kingston_affinity@hotmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 2:13 AM
Subject: [robinhood] Wake up Kingston, talk back to the Ontario people
Since the French Revolution, immortalized by Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserable', university students in the West for hundreds of years were the intellectual hub of revolution. Now, with a few exceptions the Jewish monied interests have taken over Canadian university campuses ( The Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA): http://www.web.ca/~story/noble/israellobbylosesyork.pdf OR mirror site http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2005/11/01/209 by Toronto's York University Social science professor David Noble.)
I love sharp Quebec students and workers
and I'm ashamed of dumb Ontario students
Queen's students in Kingston don't want to politically riot in the streets to protest their country's immoral support for America's wars on the poor people in the Middle East. Two thirds of a million are dead.
Queen's students in Kingston don't want to politically riot in the streets to protest against their country's trashing of Kyoto and climate change. Nothing has animated them, it is time to apply collective punishment to the students. How do we do this ?
More education about the issues is not the answer,
the media wants your angry response not petitions
I'm kinda against the widely successful drive-by shootings or assassination lately although it has become the tried and true tactic by fundamentalist followers of the theocracies of Israel and Iran; but, there are zillions of non-violent media-attracting ways to apply pressure to students.
((Since kingston_affinity@lists.riseup.net is dormant, does it mean that mean that kingston_affinity@hotmail.com is dormant ?))
We Ontarians must keep communicating on the Internet
Anti-EMPIRE activists, anarchists, and 'The Ontario Common Front' (the OCAP Chapters in the towns of Ontario) will expand the network:
a) - to help grow our numbers, post messages (debate serious issues) to each other through http://www.roadnetwork.org/forum/
b) - to help grow our numbers, you listserv a message to all members at robinhood@lists.riseup.net.
a) & b) roadnetwork and robinhood, and OCAP have a number of overlapping members. New activists should register for both roadnetwork and robinhood and help link up the towns and cities which will proudly demonstrate their desire to make a better world. We want you we need you we love you !!
I used to be privacy-phobic until I awoke to - "transparency leads to trust". Stand tall and post stuff about yourself so that we are not just a bunch of quivering strangers blogging to our inner group. These unreferenced usernames which we often use are confusing to potential new members making them suspicious. A more transparent social process on the web will help us to get to know the bios and details about each other much better. A good example that creates situations where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing is Anarchist Free University. AFU's messages to subscribers frequently have directives signed with an "X" or an undecipherable username, so if you don't read untraceable messages as a matter of principle, tell them so at AFU. Those with valid reasons to be hiding should remove themselves or not accept positions where they have to communicate with the hive. Sign your message with your website URL - "transparency leads to trust".
Blend baby blend,
John Gilbert - godhas4legs@gmail.com <--- (bookmark it just in case my troubled ISP Allstream.net goes under.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AnarchistU meeting Sunday, December 3, 2006, 3 to 5 pm. Toronto, 519 Church St. Community Centre, First Floor, new section (Centre closes at 5).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: kingston_affinity@hotmail.com
To: kingston_affinity@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 1:26 PM
Subject: [kingston_affinity] admining
hey everyone,
just a reminder that everyone on this list has access to admining the list. the email address is this one (kingston_affinity@hotmail.com) and the password is multiply. i added ann.. welcome!
-eric
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Day
To: kingston_affinity@lists.riseup.net
Cc: hansen45@hotmail.com
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 11:27 AM
Subject: [kingston_affinity] person to add
hi. not sure who's moderating this list, but ann hansen would like to
be added. her email is above.
thanks,
richard
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----- Original Message -----
From: John Gilbert(2)
To: robinhood@lists.riseup.net
Cc: Erik Stewart
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 3:48 AM
Subject: Fw: [robinhood] Hey Robinhood! Please Read
A couple of months ago I put the ROAD forum into the (AFU) Anarchist Free University's links list titled "Forum", because AFU's forum needed to be taken down when it became hopelessly covered in spam. Does AFU want to leave the ROAD forum at AFU as is ? I don't know. AFU's former forum phpBB2 is expected to be ressurrected when time permits so this question will probably arise at that time - Can respect and cooperation be expected from ROAD and RAAN members who may not be ready to show respect for many at AFU who subscribe to "anti-civilization" and "Post-left Anarchy": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy ?
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that seeks to distance itself from the traditional left and to escape the confines of ideology in general. It has rapidly developed since the fall of the Soviet Union, which many view as the death of authoritarian leftism.
Can AFU members expect ROAD members to try to generate more activity on the ROAD forums ?
When posting messages to robinhood(at)lists.riseup.net, it would be helpful if those in each ROAD city would post all copies of relevant email messages to their local city at the ROAD forums site.
That should help with the problem below "This is ROAD Ottawa. I think you folks have not gotten some very important e-mails that I and ROAD Windsor have been getting."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't vote
The system of Parliamentry Democracy is dead because
corporations didn't care that their great grandchildren and
the world died from the rage climate change. ...godhas4legs
----- Original Message -----
From: ahertani@riseup.net
To: robinhood@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 3:54 PM
Subject: [robinhood] Hey Robinhood! Please Read
Hello folks,
This is ROAD Ottawa. I think you folks have not gotten some very important
e-mails that I and ROAD Windsor have been getting. Basically the Red and
Anarchist Network (RAAN http://redanarchist.org) have been contacting us
and wish to find out more about us and perhaps in the end get us
interested enough in order to be a part of RAAN. So far Windsor and Ottawa
are interested in RAAN. Since Robinhood is really ROAD Toronto I will
paste here the 2 most important e-mails we recieved, please take the time
to read them. If you have any questions or comments to Nachie the RAAN guy
e-mail him @ communist@graffiti.net.
To our comrades at the Revolutionary Ontario Anarchist Development (ROAD)
Network,
I am contacting you on behalf of the Red & Anarchist Action Network (more
commonly
known as RAAN, or the RAANista Tendency), which is a decentralized autonomous
network of anarchists, anti-state communists, and other radicals active in
the USA,
Venezuela, and Australia.
We were interested in getting in touch with ROAD and hearing what y'all
are up to
and about your experiences. We got started in 2002/03 and have since seen
rapid
growth in our size and credibility, but the practical constitution of the
kind of
network we envision is so complex a process that we are continuously
seeking out
like-minded individuals with whom to discuss this project. At least from your
website, ROAD seems like it has quite similar goals to ours, although we
do not
ideologically define ourselves solely as "anarchists", and our methodology
is a
little different and/or more developed than ROAD's principles.
I am sending this email out to both the ROAD general contact and the
individual
collectives, as it wasn't clear whether or not your network is still
active as a
collective body, and regardless of whether or not it is, we would like to
hear from
everyone. Particularly as to date we have not established any contacts in
Canada.
The RAAN website can be found at http://www.redanarchist.org and contains a
relatively detailed history of our past actions and involvement. Please
note that I
hold no official position in the network, nor do any such positions exist.
I am
contacting you solely on my personal initiative in the hopes that we might
initiate
a critical dialogue on the construction of nation-wide and international,
multi-issue revolutionary fronts.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
In solidarity,
- Nachie
===============================================
Hey y'all,
I'm also really happy to be having this discussion, I think it's giving us
a chance
to deal with some practical issues related to on-the-ground projects that
usually
escape the focus of the more abstract or theoretical exchanges that seem
to dominate
the internet.
I'm going to respond to everybody below, not necessarily in any particular
order and
hopefully this won't be too confusing.
To clarify: I'm not from Venezuela, though I spent some months there in
2006 and
there is an active RAAN crew there that does community parkour (obstacle
course)
training and autonomous street art/sculpture. The folks down there who are
involved
right now are artisans by trade so their activity tends to focus around
this. I'm
actually Brazilian, though I've been living in the US for some time and
for various
reasons I feel like this is where I want to concentrate my struggles
(mostly, I feel
like the precedent for recent revolutionary action in the US/North America
is really
weak and this gives us an incredible historic opporunity to create a lot of
momentum/credibility/noise without necessarily having to do anything all that
difficult - for now). Also though I authored a text called The Civil War in
Venezuela - Socialism to the Highest Bidder for RAAN, which is probably
the most
in-depth anti-state analysis of the situation down there in the english
language,
and has gone a long way towards getting a lot of people's respect and
silencing
those critics who might have said that RAAN was too "ideologically
immature" or
something of that nature. The text can be found here:
http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/indy/civilwarinvenezuela.html and
downloaded as a
.pdf pamphlet here if anyone is interested:
http://redanarchist.org/propaganda/civilwarinvenezuela.pdf
To answer the question from Ottowa, "how is anti-leninist communism
different from
anarcho-communism?" this is a little complicated. I mean basically we're
dealing
with a lot of semantics. Who's anarcho-communism are we talking about? For
instance
the platformist federation NEFAC defines itself as "anarcho-communist"
simply for
the sake of differentiating itself from anarcho-syndicalism, which would
demand a
specifically anarchist union. NEFAC pulls those verbal gymnastics because
many of
its members are paid organizers for mainstream reformist unions, so they
have to
justify this in their ideology somehow. But enough about that. I think
anarcho-communism as a term is not inclusive to people of the Marxist
tradition, of
which RAAN has many, myself included (which isn't to say we don't also
have plenty
who self-identify as anarcho-communist). More importantly,
anarcho-communism is
generally understood as an ideological term whereas "communism" (little c)
can be
defined as the real-world struggles of oppressed people, indpendent of any
ideology
or even coordination, affiliation, etc. (it is, therefore, inherently
anti-Leninist). In the RAAN Principles & Direction
(http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/p&d.html) there is a section on
communism that
more or less defines our positions relative to the term.
I think it's also really important to recognize though, that RAAN is
neither an
anarchist nor communist "organization". Leninists tend to call us a bunch of
anarchists and many anarchists have said that we are just commies trying
to absorb
anarchists. I think the worst thing that could possibly happen is for RAAN
to absorb
the pre-existing anarchist movement with all of its faults, which is why
we take
great care whenever pre-existing anarchist groups try to get involved (for
instance,
in general we tend to discourage local RAAN groups from identifying as the
"so and
so ANARCHIST collective" or what have you. whenever possible we try to simply
identify as "RAAN". This also creates more opportunities for more diverse
involvement from surrounding communities who may not necessarily have been
interested in anarchism per se, but have heard about an active and radical
street
crew called RAAN). In particular, though we've used the libertarian
communist and
anarchist traditions and ideologies as points of departure and influence,
at this
stage we also have many people involved in the network who do not wish to
self-label
as either of those things. On top of this, an important part of our
identification
of RAAN as existing and re-creating itself only in action is that we have
to realize
that we are creating a new tendency from scratch, and should ditch
whatever baggage
needs to be ditched. For this reason at this point in my life, I and many
others
self-identify only as "RAANistas", meaning that there is a physical,
accountable,
real-world string of activities to which we can point and use as an
example. Also, I
think that this identification of the network's actions as being "of RAAN"
rather
than as "of the anarchist (or whatever) movement" has played a big part in
our
ability to grow and create an independent momentum for ourselves, as well
as raise
some eyebrows along the way.
To reply to Windsor: I really like guerrilla (or community, or whatever)
gardening a
lot. This might also just be part of my personal preoccupation with finding
non-alienating means of survival, as well as the importance I place on
above-ground
community mutual aid as a strategy for the growth of RAAN not just as a
"group" but
as a far-reaching "culture" (IE a tradition of ideas, imagery, and action
that would
be effectively impossible to suppress). There is a fairly large collective in
Fresno, CA that does some really awesome gardening work with a vacant lot
behind
their infoshop, and they are currently discussing RAAN affiliation
(they're all
studying the network this week and will have another meeting sometime soon to
discuss our methods, I believe).
I think the last thing to cover is the question of how RAAN has been
getting people
on board. This is a really difficult one to answer, I mean literally we could
probably write a book about it. And this is a good thing! We have to
realize how
diverse this project needs to be in order for it to really accomplish its
goals of
forcing people to understand the interconnectedness of different
struggles, and
share the credibility between them. I would say that we have used a whole
hell of a
lot of different strategies in seeking people out. In some cases I know
individuals
have been impressed by some of our direct actions, and have gotten
involved like
that. Other times, we've had to go physically to new cities and either
talk to
people or start things on the ground for them to plug into. Although we've
done a
lot of organizing, information sharing, and discussing on the internet, by
far the
most successful "recruiting" we've done comes from face to face interaction.
Actually I think this is really the only thing that tends to work. Lots of
people
think of RAAN as a really good idea, but they don't make the connection
that they
should be able to take the initiative to recreate it until you come to
their town
and make it a presence for them. Often time we'll go to a demonstration
(although
this is a tactic we really haven't used much in recent years) with a RAAN
banner and
scores of people will run up to us saying "oh shit! i didn't know you were
in this
town! how do it get active?" and then we have to explain to them that if
they wanted
RAAN to be in their town, they should have taken that step themselves. A
lot of our
strength also comes from the sheer audacity of what we do. We've never
hidden who we
are and the strong, MILITANT identifications of our affiliates as
"RAANistas" opens
up more room for others to feel comfortable doing the same thing. We've
gone out of
our way to keep open continual dialogues on the spreading of RAAN and what
it means,
spoken about the network as a culture rather than an organization,
provided tools
for this such as t-shirts and galleries of RAANista graffiti, and talked
openly
about our goals as far as making RAAN an international action network, and
the
practical processes that this involves. The main thing is that we have
people on the
ground who are pulling RAAN actions and organizing events regardless of if
there are
other people in their areas. This continuous activity is what eventually
accumulates
the momentum and credibility for other people to start feeling like it's
something
that would be worth their energy. In many ways, our attitudes have been
that we're
going to push ahead and do this thing regardless of what other people
think, and in
the end it tends to pay off since action is the only form of leadership
that is
worth talking about - a real meritocracy. There have been plenty of
conferences and
meetings and bla bla bla in the anarchist movement about creating
nationwide action
networks (all of which have come to nothing), but we are actually ENGAGED
in the
process of sustaining one. This ability to reference real-world activities
and talk
about the functioning of a decentralized, autonomous,
above-and-underground group
that engages in mutual aid and diversity of tactics, not just
theoretically but
actually on the street, is what gets people interested and makes our
critics look
sillier and sillier. We've also rejected traditional modes of organizing,
like for
example a lot of us don't like the idea of "collectives" that exist in
stone and
need to have weekly meetings, etc. and prefer instead the idea of RAAN
crews, based
in the everyday experiences of their participants in the street. We say
that the
idea of an individual sacrificing their personal autonomy for the sake of
a greater
organization is bullshit, and what we want is for individuals to take on a
personal
responsibility for recreating that organization. There is an important
difference.
We have also been using strategic tactics like focusing on certain issues
at the
right time to grab people's attention (the Venezuela project being an
excellent
example) and have contacted numerous similar smaller groupings who only
exist in one
or two cities to begin productive dialogues with them. Some of these groups
eventually decide to turn into RAAN chapters. We also have this thing
called the
Autonomous Publication Initiative, which basically encourages individuals and
regional collectives or whatever to create their own publications under
the name of
RAAN, which then get distributed collectively throughout the network. This
has
really decentralized our expressions and given people more of a feel for the
importance they can play in the overall project, as allowing us to field
more (and
more diverse) theoretical publications than many larger, semi-centralized
(or at
least officialized) groups are able to. We've also done a good job (I
think) at
trying to empower individual RAANistas and give them a feel for how, in
the context
of a spread out network where all credibility is collectivized via a
common name,
they can potentially have an enormous impact without necessarily having to
have the
biggest RAAN group in the country. This is something we really need to
work more on,
but we've done better than most groups I think.
I'm going to stop there haha because I was rambling for a minute. I guess
one of the
most important things I can say is that RAAN isn't really a perfect
formula that you
can replicate; it has its own zeitgeist and momentum that are unique to it
and there
are plenty of on-the-fly moments, specific individual experiences and
outlooks, and
lucky breaks that have allowed us to get to where we are. To be sure,
looking to the
scattered anti-state communist movement for potential affiliates instead
of just
focusing on the pre-defined anarchist millieu has helped a lot in getting
our word
out to people who wouldn't necessarily have preconceived notions against
organization or whatever.
Oh and I just remembered that Windsor asked specifically what ROAD, or the
guerrilla
gardening collective specifically, would have to gain from RAAN
affiliation and
vice-versa, other than just trading website links. I think this a really hard
question to answer. In many ways and in many places we remain so
geographically
dispersed and have so few real resources that there is little to be gained
other
than generalizing our experience and collectivizing our visibility and
credibility
(not to say RAAN groups working together haven't put on amazing projects
in the past
that would have been impossible otherwise). But I think we can't
underestimate the
importance of that. For instance, a lot of people go ahead and talk about
how we
need a broad, multi-issue revolutionary group that spans the whole country,
continent, all nations, or whatever, but they are really only interested
in getting
involved once the thing is already there, waiting for them. Few people are
looking
at the real implications of trying to construct that from the ground up,
and even
fewer are actively involved in steps towards it. I feel very strongly that
questions
such as "what can we do?" can't really be answered, the answers just make
themselves
apparent as more opportunities arise from our organizing. One task is to
take our
pre-existing resources and rearrange them so that they become more
effective, or so
at the very least they APPEAR more effective. Once this is achieved, all
sorts of
new people who never would have been interested otherwise start getting
involved and
the circle of possibilities widens exponentially. At this stage I think
its really
important to discuss the concept of credibility and the idea of why people
are so
cynical about something like RAAN being able to take flight. We have
chosen to
consciously manipulate reality by identifying as a single network, so that
even the
smallest cell in the most remote town will immediately benefit from the
actions of
our largest collectives, and vice-versa. This is adapted from various
informal
studies we've done on everything from the Black Panthers to the Hell's
Angels (not
to necessarily imply uncritical support for either, and especially not the
latter!),
groups which created a momentum of imagery and credibility that translated
over time
into not only raw effectiveness, but the ability to create history (we've
also
studied the spread of various street gangs, the structure and attitudes of
which
many of our chapters replicate). And we do feel like RAAN is on the verge of
becoming a historic, unprecedented project. Certainly in North America if
not the
world.
Wow OK, I hope that didn't put anybody to sleep. I look forward to hearing
y'alls
responses and how your discussions about affiliation are going, since the
concerns
that tend to get raised in those situations are usually what we learn the
most from
as far as our continued adaptation.
Word is bond,
- Nachie
--
"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many - they are few."
Percy Shelley
http://roadnetwork.org
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