Zabalaza

Some interesting posts online from Jonathon and the crew at Zabalaza (the self-declared home of Southern African Anarchism).

For everyone outside of the South African left, try this.

For those in the SA left, there's been a tit for tat exchange between Zabalaza and Trevor Ngwane.

What Should Anarchists Do?

This comment was recently posted to this site:

Thanks for introducing me to Bob Black - I'd not heard of him before (at the risk of sounding ignorant). I've started reading his "Abolition of Work". I've also been pondering what it is that anarchists DO. Anarchism sounds very cerebral(for lack of a better word - as I've only just started exploring anarchism), but how is one an anarchist in practise? Are anarchists not also just paid employees, part of "the system"?

Good question that deserve answers. The latter, first. Well, no one gets paid to be an anarchist (or shouldn't be). At the heart of anarchism is a strong rejection of authority, and entering into a wage relationship violates that stance. Of course, many anarchists do work in regular jobs, and, like everyone else, are part and parcel of the very system that oppresses us. The system (the state and resulting economic, social and political relationships) is so entrenched and intertwined that it is damn near impossible not to be part of it as an individual. Many of us even contribute positively to the state. This is why simple reforms of the system are not enough for an anarchist; the whole system must go in order for human freedom to be achieved.

What is an anarchist to do? I don't have all the answers, but only some partial ones. There is a "doctrine" of anarchism involving propaganda. Anarchist should seek to spread the message about anarchism through visual, audio, written and spoken communication. This, amongst anarchists, is quite a popular. In most places, anarchism has survived (the history of anarchism is a long one of defeat) through books, pamphlets, and the Internet (which has a strong anarchist undercurrent). This site is an example of that doctrine.

The other main anarchist "doctrine" is anarchism by deed. This has included the uprisings, armed conflict, and assassinations. But also it includes (at least in my book) protesting, hacking, and other forms of non-violent resistance. Further, there is living in accordance with the morals and behaviours that anarchism espouses like respect for other people, collective decision-making, and not engaging in repression. Helping other people out and reducing suffering also seem like anarchist values.

Like I said before, I don't have all the answers about anarchism in action. But, promoting anarchism does help to remind us all that there is another possible and better world. It gives us hope that we don't have to continue suffering like we are now; keeping the dream of freedom, individual and collective, alive has to be worth something. George Woodcock had this to say about the value of anarchism:

Obviously it [anarchism] is not immediately realizable, it will probably never be realized. But the very presence of such a concept of pure liberty can help us to judge our conditions and see our aims; it can help to safeguard what liberties we still retain against further encroachments of the centralizing state; it can help in the urgent task of mere survival, of living out the critical decades ahead until the movement of world centralization loses its impetus like all historical movements, and the moral forces that depend on individual choice and judgement [sic] can reassert themselves in the midst of its corruption.

Some reflections from Bob Black

Last night, I killed some time in a hole of a coffee shop by reading Beneath the Underground by Bob Black. It fitted my strange, somewhat dark mood, and, as usual, it brought up the questions around what is an anarchist, what should anarchists do, and how anarchism can be achieved in our lifetimes. I don't think Bob Black knows either. It has to be more than sitting around and firing off crtiques of other progressive elements.

Bob Black, however, does just that and with a fair amount of bite. A real nasty junkyard dog bite, and here's a taste (which fits with an earlier post I did on Northern Researchers):

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Empire, some Western anarchists (myself included) are mailing their literature to their resurgent but embattled comrades in Eastern Europe. Well and good. But why not also send it, at much lesser expense, to the small towns, the totalitarian horrorshows in Utah or Orange County or the Bible Belt? We can probably do more for peace and freedom in the world right here, on our own turf, than by exporting ideology to the rest of the world which has perhaps had its fill of our imperial outreach offerings.

No perhaps about it, Bob.

His obiturary for Gerry Reith is sublime:

It was a bunch of bull and Reith, in his last letters, said so, but he'd been driven to the brink. He left a note that said, "I have to get out, or die." In the event, he died, he shot himself. Reportedly he'd toted up the pro's and con's of life and death, and finding them evenly balanced, he flipped a coin.

In Our Time Comments

I've listened to it, a brief history of anarchism in forty minutes, and found it quite interesting; a group of academics looking at anarchism from the outside. Many of the criticisms listed in my previous post seem valid, and I have just on addition. It might have been due to the setup of the programme (In Our Time), but I think there could have been much more (there was only a sentence tacked in at the end) of anarchism today. Go here for other folks' comments.

And, one this point anarchists must take some of the blame. There is probably no other political movement that has a greater obsession with its history than anarchism; in fact, if there could ever be a criteria for becoming an card-carrying anarchist, it'd be in the form of a history test. There is some truth in Bob Black's statement;

The history of anarchism is a history of unparalleled defeat and martyrdom, yet anarchists venerate their victimized forebears with a morbid devotion which occasions suspicion that the anarchists, like everybody else, think that the only good anarchist is a dead one.

I guess the real irony of the programme is that it was on a state-sponsered radio station.

In Our Time audio on Anarchism

In Our Time has just done a radio discussion on anarchism, I'll be listening to it as soon as the download is complete. Download available here. Below is a email discussion (via Dale) of the programme, which is worthwhile in its own right.

Hello,

There's always discussion after a programme about what was not said. This was the fiercest and most intense discussion that there has ever been! Perhaps it's something in the subject itself. All sorts of things came up. John Keane drew my attention to a quotation from George Woodcock, the Canadian writer, that "anarchism is aristocracy universalised". Peter Marshall said that that referred not so much to aristocracy itself, but to a view of the innate nobility and the goodness inside human beings.

I think it was John Keane again who noticed the conjunction of aristocrats, craft workers and intellectuals who favoured anarchism, all of whom, he said, needed to stand against being "bossed around". Peter Marshall observed that a great number of British intellectuals had been drawn to Marxism in the last century or so. Not only Oscar Wilde, one of whose observations was that Marxism accommodated eccentricity, but Aldous Huxley, Herbert Reed, Bertrand Russell and many others.

The notion of anarchism in the community today was not given the amount of time we would have liked. Afterwards it was pointed out that the idea of running things in a pyramid fashion was rapidly going out of fashion and the horizontal/anarchist method was being employed not only by Japanese corporations, but by movements such as the Global Justice Movement which were essentially aiming towards a condition of leaderlessness. When it was brought up that Al Qaeda might be called an anarchist movement in that sense, this was immediately slapped down because of the strong and charismatic leader in the Al Qaeda movement, around whom the ideas and the people themselves gathered.

As always, a great deal was left out. Perhaps two or three quotations will do. First of all from John Keane to reiterate where the word anarchism came from and how it grew initially:

"Anarchism is a term that entered the English language in the 17th century. It was used in a derogatory and abusive fashion by royalists in favour of the restoration against their opponents. An anarchist was thought to be someone who endorsed disorder, violence and chaos. It also implied the person was "godless" (the word atheist" had not yet been invented), a characteristic that was deemed both threatening and dissident. The actual term "anarchism" derives from the Greek word, "anarchos", meaning "without government" or "without rulers". The meaning of course in translation is exactly the same.

The connotations of anarchism were almost entirely negative until the 18th century when a semantic rupture occurred and the word began to be associated with a legitimate political movement during the time of the French Revolution. There are clues to this change in meaning if we consider, for example, the presence of Anacharsis Clootz (1755–94) at the meetings of the Convention, the revolutionary French assembly, where he was an ardent supporter of the liberation of Europe in the name of the ideals of the Revolution. Clootz was only one of two people invited to take part in the Convention (Thomas Paine, the radical propagandist and voice of the common man, was the other) who were not French. Their political clout, ideals and popularity meant they were treated as honorary citizens. Clootz had changed his name to reflect his ideals (he was originally christened John Baptiste). He was fanatically devoted to humanitarian ideals and despised royalty and absolutism. Reportedly a wild figure, wild in dress and wild in speech, he could hold an audience in the palm of his hand. Clootz was also strongly in favour of the de-christianisation of France and it was this "godlessness" which later brought about his execution at the hands of the Jacobins during the Terror."

Secondly, we did not mention Malatesta and Emma Goldman. In his notes, Peter Marshall had this to say about both of them:

"The Italian anarcho-communist, Errico Malatesta (1853 – 1932), shared Kropotkin's belief that the Anarchist revolution would occur soon. He also believed that violence would form a necessary part of the emancipation of the working classes."

Peter Marshall describes Malatesta as calling for "Anarchism without adjectives", and by this he means a kind of pure Anarchism – Malatesta supported propaganda by the deed as opposed to propaganda by the word. He believed in insurrection and encouraged peasants to rebel and occupy the factories.

Malatesta's voice is echoed in the philosophies of Emma Goldman (1869-1940), who also believed in direct and violent action in order to effect revolutionary change. Goldman played a pivotal role in the development of Anarchist political philosophy in the United States and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. She emigrated to the United States at seventeen and was later deported to Russia, where she witnessed the results of the Russian Revolution firsthand. For some time she was considered the most dangerous woman in America for saying that most men seemed to want women to simply shut their mouths and open their wombs. Goldman was also a joyful Anarchist. She declared that: "If I can't dance then it's not my revolution!" Her lively embrace of Anarchist principles is an important one and represents a reaction against the grim worker spirit of some of the hard-line sectarian groups.

Marshall reflects that the majority of the towering figures in the Anarchist movement come from the 19th century, although Anarchism still had its voice in the 20th and 21st centuries. An anarcho-syndicalist sympathiser, Noam Chomsky, in his For Reasons of State (1973), wrote how the problem of "freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement" remains the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the doctrines and the revolutionary practice of libertarian socialism will serve as an inspiration and guide.

Most importantly of all, Peter Marshall pointed out that we did not mention Gandhi who called for a decentralised society based on village council and he viewed anarchy as the most enlightened form of society. His influence may prove to be the strongest yet.

Nor did we mention Tolstoy who described himself as a Christian anarchist … nor did we mention … the conversation went on and perhaps we ought to return to it as soon as we can.

Best wishes

Melvyn Bragg

Tolstoy Quote

From the last chapter of The Kingdom of God is Within You:

"And yet simply from the fact that other men as misguided and as pitiful creatures as yourself have made you soldier, tzar, landowner, capitalist, priest, or general, you undertake to commit acts of violence obviously opposed to your reason and your heart, to base your existence on the misfortunes of others, and above all, instead of filling the one duty of your life, recognizing and professing the truth, you feign not to recognize it and disguise it from yourself and others.

"And what are the conditions in which you are doing this? You who may die any instant, you sign sentences of death, you declare war, you take part in it, you judge, you punish, you plunder the working people, you live luxuriously in the midst of the poor, and teach weak men who have confidence in you that this must be so, that the duty of men is to do this, and yet it may happen at the moment when you are acting thus that a bacterium or a bull may attack you and you will fall and die, losing forever the chance of repairing the harm you have done to others, and above all to yourself, in uselessly wasting a life which has been given you only once in eternity, without having accomplished the only thing you ought to have done."

When Go Meets Anarchism

The following is a kgs conversation between some SA go players. I'm overdone.

thekro [1k?]: pity - since they' should be reminded (like us)
chiron74 [13k?]: oh ok, thanks ;-)
thekro [1k?]: they can see our comments now
thekro [1k?]: once the game is over
thekro [1k?]: and if they review the game they'll see your old comments
chiron74 [13k?]: better that way I think
*****
chiron74 [13k?]: LOL! ....
thekro [1k?]: they just don't show up for them while they're playing
thekro [1k?]: see what i mean ;)
overdone [4k]: important stuff this, fate of the free world stuff
thekro [1k?]: well done dale
DaelM [7k]: it's only you guys who need to pay full attention to this trifling game
thekro [1k?]: damn - the kgs upgrade means you lose your buddy list
chiron74 [13k?]: I didn't
DaelM [7k]: yep
overdone [4k]: Aww, no friends steve, I'll be your friend
DaelM [7k]: what do you think of the new client?
thekro [1k?]: lol
thekro [1k?]: just added you
DaelM [7k]: now you
DaelM [7k]: 're stuc
chiron74 [13k?]: Quite nice - like the fact that it automatically updates
thekro [1k?]: yeah
overdone [4k]: with steve
DaelM [7k]: lol
DaelM [7k]: i like it
DaelM [7k]: but the new game dialogue is less than inutuitive
DaelM [7k]: and also 'intuitive'
chiron74 [13k?]: Graphically it is streets ahead of the others, these stones are beautiful
thekro [1k?]: we're gonna have to warn everyone to get the thing working before the next internet tournament, or we're gonna have some chaos then
overdone [4k]: but there is order in chaos
chiron74 [13k?]: fractal boy :)
DaelM [7k]: i tried igs the other night, when kgs was down
thekro [1k?]: not the sort of order that gets a tournament finished on time ;)
DaelM [7k]: the interface was terrible
thekro [1k?]: igs is horrible in terms of interface
thekro [1k?]: perhaps the windws equiv is better
overdone [4k]: time is relative
DaelM [7k]: steve, nope
DaelM [7k]: i used both
thekro [1k?]: ok
DaelM [7k]: they're both crap
thekro [1k?]: i wonder if the japs also have such a horrible interface?
thekro [1k?]: cos there are a lot of them on igs
chiron74 [13k?]: panda egg is the worst
thekro [1k?]: not like the handful of orientals on kgs
thekro [1k?]: yeah - i use an old version of glGo
DaelM [7k]: weird
DaelM [7k]: it's based on an old bbs style interface apparently
thekro [1k?]: the big attraction of igs for westerners is the high quality of opponents on igs
thekro [1k?]: but i think if cyberoro advertises, they'll lose that race
chiron74 [13k?]: and it is much easier to get a game due to the number of players
overdone [4k]: high quality? I can'tr even hadle low quality
DaelM [7k]: i'd love to get a game, but i couldn't figure out how
overdone [4k]: handle
chiron74 [13k?]: I don't like the cyberoro client
thekro [1k?]: overdone: the key to improving is palying opponents you can't handle ;)
chiron74 [13k?]: massive install and buggy
thekro [1k?]: so maybe KGS is the place for you ;)
DaelM [7k]: could you guys stop handling each other?
overdone [4k]: Right, I'm taking the baord to the zoo
chiron74 [13k?]: LOL
chiron74 [13k?]: chimps give you a run for your money
chiron74 [13k?]: :-)
DaelM [7k]: anyway
DaelM [7k]: back to trolling
overdone [4k]: But I'm his buddy, I'm allowed to hancle
overdone [4k]: nandle
overdone [4k]: handle
DaelM [7k]: fandle
thekro [1k?]: overdone: you are pro-anarchism - do you propose a lawless society?
DaelM [7k]: that's not what it means
chiron74 [13k?]: nope only a self regulating plateau that chaos brings eventually
thekro [1k?]: i read a bit the other day, and i was wondering how you thinmk society should be structured (or if)
thekro [1k?]: if you're anti-government on principle
thekro [1k?]: i know that's not what it means
DaelM [7k]: it means *imposed* law by unaccountable authority is out
thekro [1k?]: i mean - how does he see things going forward after removing govt
DaelM [7k]: eat them
overdone [4k]: Strictly defined anarchy is a society without a state. Alternative definition include contrary to authority (greek translation, and socialism without the state (Kropotkin)
overdone [4k]: well cook them first
chiron74 [13k?]: with fava beans
thekro [1k?]: so this is why definition of a state is so important
DaelM [7k]: you can't juts remove - must transition
overdone [4k]: Exactly
thekro [1k?]: for the right definition of state, anyone and everyone can be an anarchist
overdone [4k]: A blog reader
DaelM [7k]: very inclusive, it is
DaelM [7k]: that's not a bug it's a feature
overdone [4k]: yes, that is how revolution happens. everyone is invited
thekro [1k?]: i am a blog reader, but i skip most of your anarchy posts
DaelM [7k]: lol
DaelM [7k]: that's why you have the wrong idea
thekro [1k?]: yeah
overdone [4k]: then you read about dead fish
DaelM [7k]: LOL
thekro [1k?]: sometimes
chiron74 [13k?]: hey Iliked the dead fish articles
thekro [1k?]: that's sometimes inspiring
DaelM [7k]: it's either anarchy or fish
thekro [1k?]: intersting to hear a go-player with anti-jap views
DaelM [7k]: nothing else on that blog
overdone [4k]: sick bastard, amusing yourself with xenocide
DaelM [7k]: pro-whale
chiron74 [13k?]: I'm sure douglas adams could make the connection between anarchy and fish
DaelM [7k]: not anti-jap
thekro [1k?]: i thought your last conspiracy theory on global warming was perhaps a little farfetched though
overdone [4k]: Well a lot of chinese in WWII has a few anti-jap views
thekro [1k?]: hehe
thekro [1k?]: so you do support a form of governing - it just has to be accountable in some way?
overdone [4k]: Russian, Icelandic, Swedish, Canadian US companies are investing heavily in the Arctic, according to the revolutionary New York Times
DaelM [7k]: anarchists can elect governments (if they all consent). they juts can't give away their responisibilities or accountabilities
thekro [1k?]: why can only the anarchists elecT?
thekro [1k?]: dale: are you also an anarchist?.
chiron74 [13k?]: they are the guys with the cookbook - people are scared of them
DaelM [7k]: assuming your anarchist country, steve. they'll be anarchists. or claim to hide behind fictitious legal entities
overdone [4k]: Put it this way, when you take go lessons for a master, you sumbit temporarily to his authority, but which you can withdraw from at you will
DaelM [7k]: third sentence related to something else
DaelM [7k]: yes, loosely. closer to a luddite
DaelM [7k]: but that's another over mis-represented category
overdone [4k]: You have a greater chance, if you live in the US, of being killed by a US police officer than a terrorist.
DaelM [7k]: that's authority at work
DaelM [7k]: bow, bitch
DaelM [7k]: :)
thekro [1k?]: be with you in a moment
overdone [4k]: So, I'm scared of the guys in blue, not the guys with dodgy chemistry instructions
thekro [1k?]: tristen: i agree america has got it wrong
DaelM [7k]: steve, have you read tolstoy?
overdone [4k]: The Kingdom of God is Within You
thekro [1k?]: no i haven't, but i'm considering adding him to my to-read list
DaelM [7k]: highly religious basis for passive resistance and for refusing allegiance to imposed authority
DaelM [7k]: tremendously influential
thekro [1k?]: yeah - i've heard about it
DaelM [7k]: gandhi, thoreau and many others
overdone [4k]: Inspired Gandhi, with whom he traded letters
DaelM [7k]: well worth looking into all of them
overdone [4k]: Available for download from project gutenberg
thekro [1k?]: the problem with this, as i see it, is not everyone will agree on any govt
DaelM [7k]: read thoreau on Civil Disobedience
DaelM [7k]: thyat's exactly right
thekro [1k?]: so you'll never get ANY govt
DaelM [7k]: steve, that's why they fail
overdone [4k]: So we must beat them into submission?
thekro [1k?]: hence never any law
thekro [1k?]: so ppl end up doing whatever they want
thekro [1k?]: which isn't a problem for some people
thekro [1k?]: but that's why i started with the question i did
DaelM [7k]: so you cheat when no-one's looking?
chiron74 [13k?]: I am not sure I would like to live in a society where people run amuck and impose on the rights of others
thekro [1k?]: no - "cheat" when everyone's looking
DaelM [7k]: in all facets?
thekro [1k?]: chiron: but who's going to make a system against imposing other's rights in an anarchist state?
overdone [4k]: No. Societies subscribe to various norms and conventions. Is the only reason you don't kill us all is because you'll go to jail?
chiron74 [13k?]: people can't be relied on to apeal to their own sense of conscience
DaelM [7k]: why not?
thekro [1k?]: nope tristen, but i fully believe there are people who are restrained by exactly that
thekro [1k?]: and you've got to cater for them as well
chiron74 [13k?]: there are to many social outliers who would infringe on what others believe and try to achieve - you are talking about returning to a kind of wild west
overdone [4k]: Who? Most of the ciminals I know seem to view jail as a education, not as a punsihment
DaelM [7k]: peopel can be educated to defer gratification, to discipline, to derive benefit from cooperation. all these things happen naturally in every small group
overdone [4k]: Look, historical presecendent. When the anarchists took over Barcelona in 1936, they made an entire city work. Everybody got bread, the phones worked, water worked, but with no government. Then the communists crushed them
thekro [1k?]: an atheist (for example) who is seriously pissed ooff by someone (slept with his wife, for example) may stay his hand by the threat of jail/death sentence
DaelM [7k]: thekro [1k?]: what's your thesis topic, tristen?

After which, kgs disappeared the rest. Go figure, but you get the drift.

Murray Bookchin is Dead

I've been asleep for I've just heard that Murray Bookchin died on the 30th of July.

Quote on the state of things

Doesn't this sound familiar:

Let me briefly sketch a picture of modern society. At the top there are priests engaged in the traffic of sacraments and religious ceremonies, soldiers selling secrets of a so-called national defence, writers glorifying injustice, poets idealising ugliness, shop-keepers giving false measure, industralists faking their products and speculators fishing for millions in the insatiable sea of human stupidity. At the bottom there are building labourers without homes, working tailors without clothes, working bakers without bread, millions of workers beaten down by unemployment and hunger, families heaped up in slums, and young girls aged fifteen forced to earn money by enduring the sweaty embrace of old men or the rapacious assaults of the young bourgeois.

Who:

Sebastian Faure

When:

August 1891

So much for science and progress.

Ama-gi revisited

Some time ago, I blogged about the ama-gi. At the time, I made a stencil and used it to decorate some T-shirts. The problem I had was finding a high-quality image; I ended up drawing it by hand. That problem seems to have disappeared. For a high-quality image, go here. For a desktop wallpaper of the ama-gi, go here.

And, remember, libertarians do not "own" this image. It belongs to us all as a gift from antiquity.

French Graffiti from May 1968

Some samples of graffiti slogans from the May '68 student uprising in France:

Humanity won’t be happy till the last capitalist is hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat.

Nature created neither servants nor masters. I want neither to rule nor to be ruled.

In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure
the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.

For more slogans, go here.

IWW organises Starbucks Workers

The IWW has a Starbucks Union in the US, good for them. May the Wobblies rise again.

Buddhists are Anarchists?

Found this in my inbox:

I just wanted to point out that despite the fact that Buddhism is anarchist, in the sense that we believe in social unity and equality, you have nothing for us in your philosophical links. I heavily recommend you check El Buddha out, seeing as you don't suck. We are like rage against the machine, but without the rage.

While I'm glad I don't suck, I have my doubts about Buddhism as a form of anarchism. From the above, it seems the author is equating Buddhism with the left-friendly definition of socialism, which is that we work together in a collective manner to achieve good things for the benefit of society as a whole.

My knowledge of Buddhism isn't that great (in fact, improving my knowledge about it does not factor high in the list of priorities), I'll take a flyer here and state that being a Buddhist doesn't necessarily make you an anarchist. Can you be a Buddhist and believe in the correctness of a State? Sure, Tibet, for example.

Is Buddhism a form of socialism? Hell, I don't know. Comment your thoughts, or not.

Btw, here are two definitions of socialism for the sake of common reference:

One:

socialism (sou.Saliz'm). a. Fr. socialisme (1832), or independently f. social a. + -ism.

1. A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all.

2. A state of society in which things are held or used in common.

Two:

Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control. As an economic system, socialism is usually associated with state or collective ownership of the means of production. This control, according to socialists, may be either direct, exercised through popular collectives such as workers' councils, or it may be indirect, exercised on behalf of the people by the state.

Anarchic Criminal Discussion

Thanks to Dale, who keeps on sending me stuff, making surfing without time possible, I may point you to an interesting discussion on anarchy and criminal behavior. Go here.

Also go here for the future of our oceans thanks to commercial fishing, a crime of mindboggling proportions.

Left Anarchism

Anarchism covers, at least in my book, a pretty broad political spectrum. Basically, a society outside a state is an anarchist society. Beyond that, things get a little bit more complicated; there's left anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, and individual anarchism a la Bob Black.

Individual anarchist theories embody some of the worst of America. I always get the feeling, when reading their tracts, that they were written by wanna-be mountain men who deck their Idaho cabins in the latest Army Surplus fashion, have a trusty dog who once saved them from drowning, and hold a vast arsenal of weapons including a .50 caliber six-shooter. Probably a couple of mail-bombs tucked away somewhere, just in case.

If your answer to society's ills is for everyone to retreat to the hills (after some population culling, one would imagine since there are more of us than there are suitable hills and tar-paper) and shoot strangers on site, you've missed the point of the human experiment. Might as well take that thirty odd six and put an end to your misery; at least your trusty dog will have some food.

Humans have great potential to work collectively for the benefit of the species and the planet, and, for me, that is what an anarchist way of life should strive to achieve. That is the positive fulfillment of the human experiment.

Anarchist Graffiti in Johannesburg

Saw these at the Workers Library in Newtown the other day:

Kropotkin: Right and Wrong

In an article entitled "The Coming Revolution" (1886), Kropotkin got one prediction wrong:

"We are living on the eve of great events. Before the end of this century has come we shall see great revolutionary movements breaking up our social conditions in Europe and probably also in the United States of America."

Well, no. The social conditions were not broken, and capitalism is alive and kicking into the poor with new-found glee and vigour. In fact, the social conditions that Kropotkin described, in the same article, are still in force today:

"The commercial crisis grows worse and worse. Millions of workmen, driven away from the country to the ever-growing cities, are wandering about without work. We boast of our gigantic cities, and unheard-of misery grows up in those centres where all the wealth of the world is spent in an unhealthy luxury, amidst the rags and destitution of the poor."

V for Vomit

V for Vendetta was pretty bad. Like I had thought, I found it to be corny and somewhat pretenious. A guy in a mask quoting Shakesphere was particularly grating.

Politically, the only message I got was that fascist regimes are bad and should be struggled against. Wahoo.

Still, it was amusing to see Emma Goldman's famous quote about revolutions and dancing paraphrased in a Hollywood movie. The original quote is below:

If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution.

For more Emma Goldman quotes, go here.

Anarchist Movie?

Apparently, the upcoming movie "V for Vendetta" explores anarchist themes, if somewhat watered down. I saw the trailer a couple of days ago, and thought it looked like another piece of Hollywood crap, but I'll probably go watch it given the anarchist angle.

It seems that the film is provoking some action in US anarchist circles, go here and here and here for more information.

Anarchy Stencil

I can't remember where I got this from, but, hey, this is anarchy...