The keening of anarchists

So, I was telling you about the squat against the MP couple. It seems the courts moved, and repossession was granted. On the last night, my informant tells me, someone who was keen for the squatters to go hired some local kids to come to the house and cause mayhem. Keen eyed readers can find a version of this story on Indymedia.

Now, whether they were provacateurs, sent to discredit the squatters, or really just lary local lads, doesn't matter. It shows the risks of direct action (and the prospect that the other side will break the rules to get back at you, too). While direct action can be satisfying, I don't think it offers an alternative to clear political organisation (worse, in this case, the anarchists come out sounding like the taxpayers alliance). Yes, their keyings on t'interweb may have helped rabble rouse a touch, but their hardly likely to dent the average consciousness, much less those leftists who support Keynes' policies.

That's why I'm not keen on this type of politics.

Seize the bank and seize the tower

...As some bright feller once writ.

The steady media drum beat announcing impending violence and mayhem is part of a strategy of detterance, deterring people from protesting (cos they don't want to be in the violence) and allowing a sucker punch if none occurs ("the police took effective action that stopped the violent minority, your honour").

Over the weekend, Donal Macyntire, on radio 5, had an interview with a journalist, who had infiltrated the Gleneagles movement. Such unbiased questions of the "was there a secret hierarchy" sort, and the journalists on facetious and contemptuous comments guaranteed that it would be ten minutes of supporting the caricature of anarchists. Did the bloke in black really have a bodyguard, or just a heavy mate? Hmmmm.

Of course, that today's protests will in all likelihood be swatted away easily by such cheap media tactics demonstrates just how futile and worthless they are: anarchy is a game at which the police will beat you.

It might be fun to protest, I was there at the great May day riot a few years ago, it was great fun, honest. What is needful, though, is the slower, grass roots, boring job of organising politically: education, meetings, networks, votes. That would scare the bejaasus out of the powers that be. Really, we should try it.

With a bit of luck soon I'll have news on a Euro election bid by the Socialist Party, maybe the Euro elections would be the place to start?

Et tu quoque

Sharp eyed readers may have noticed an addition to the blog roll, an anarchist of my acquaintance (and prolific writer on the subject) here.

Going to his blog reminded me of why I am not an fuckinganarchist, and why I may not be the best person to chair a forum involving the Socialist Party and Ian Bone from class war (I'll put up a proper notice later). Suffice to say that I'm firmly of the opinion that fuckinganarchist is a compound noun that is now indivisible.

Especially so after reading the AFAQ for the first time in a while. Especially the stuff trying to claim that Anarchists aren't anti-democratic. After a string of tu quoque justifications, and talk of collective free association and federated delegates, we get this gem:

As a general rule-of-thumb, anarchists have little problem with the minority accepting the decisions of the majority (!!!) after a process of free debate and discussion. As we argue in section A.2.11, such collective decision making is compatible with anarchist principles -- indeed, is based on them. By governing ourselves directly, we exclude others governing us. However, we do not make a fetish of this, recognising that, in certain circumstances, the minority must and should ignore majority decisions. For example, if the majority of an organisation decide on a policy which the minority thinks is disastrous then why should they follow the majority? Equally, if the majority make a decision which harms the liberty and equality of a non-oppressive and non-exploitative minority, then that minority has the right to reject the "authority" of the majority

Now, there are only two choices in collective life, the dictatorship of the minority, or the dictatorship of the majority - this is an inescapable fact. Anarchists do not make a fetish (what others might dare to call a principle) of democracy. hence why they talk of small collectives federated so that everyone can join in the heated debates, rather than wider scale polities in which decisions may be delegated to some specific body covering a wider area, and all embracing solidarity. What if, to reverse their own example, one small collective began to implement racist policies, surely it would be for the majority to impose upon it and, by force if necessary, prevent such behaviour? (I'll note, racism might not be oppressive, if, say, the form was simply that of excluding certain types of people from community X, and thus wouldn't fall within the qualificatiosn given above).

Finally, I'll just point out the standard Socialist Party view, that anarchists, by denegrating democracy as an organisational principle and fetishising insurrection and revolt give grist to the mill of other totalitarian creeds, like fascism, and make the slaughter of workers in civil war more likely than less.

That is why I'm not an anarchist. That is why I oppose anarchism.

Update: While I'm here I note that AFAQ on Bakunin's criticism of Marx doesn't mention Marx wrote a reply to Bakunin's Statism & Anarchy - which directly rebuts some of the contents of that section of the AFAQ...