They seem to think that being an Anarchist just means being anti-communist. To the point that they are literally parroting fascist taking points about “our people”. As if Jackson killing millions of Native Americans to steal their land is somehow not as bad as mismanagement of agricultural policy during a drought/famine? Because Jackson only oppressed the other right. Because a leader’s job isn’t to build a better world by harnessing the labor and skills of all people, but to either exterminate the other to protect their own or liquidate nature and the proletariat for profit
An an ML, I want to say I genuinely feel bad that Anarchists have to deal with this bullshit. Like, I can’t imagine being an Anarchist and having so many illiterate liberals claim their ideology while spewing reprehensible, absurd bullshit. Anarchists are comrades I respect and have principled disagreements with, but these guys? What the fuck.
It’s not really any different from all the people that say they are socialists, marxists, communists and democratic socialists and then when you poke and prod them they are basically following neoliberal ideology for like 90% but then they sprinkle in some insane bullshit like Georgism and that’s their entire basis. People know that neoliberalism/liberalism/fascism and all those things are bad, they know those things are rude so they’ll just change the language mix up some non important things and call it a day. Same with Anarchists, it’s some person but they post ACAB and think that makes them an anarchist. Like they know that the cops are bad but they still really like hierarchies like patriarchy, white supremacy and economic hierarchy.
Like clockwork. They don’t want to have to question their reality. They want to sit complacently at the end of history and watch the suffering around them with glib detachment or, when scratched, vociferous participation.
There’s no redeeming these groups, only hopefully some of the people in them. 196 will always be tainted because of it’s absolute inability to moderate itself. Sometimes you need aggressive purging of the ranks and the stench of 196 shows exactly what happens when you don’t take out the trash.
Where social anarchism called upon people to rise in revolution and seek the reconstruction of society, the irate petty bourgeois who populate the subcultural world of lifestyle anarchism call for episodic rebellion and the satisfaction of their ‘desiring machines’…
They seem to think that being an Anarchist just means being anti-communist. To the point that they are literally parroting fascist taking points about “our people”. As if Jackson killing millions of Native Americans to steal their land is somehow not as bad as mismanagement of agricultural policy during a drought/famine? Because Jackson only oppressed the other right. Because a leader’s job isn’t to build a better world by harnessing the labor and skills of all people, but to either exterminate the other to protect their own or liquidate nature and the proletariat for profit
Every radlib thinks they got it all figured out til an actual anarchist shows up and then they all suddenly turn into Nazis
An an ML, I want to say I genuinely feel bad that Anarchists have to deal with this bullshit. Like, I can’t imagine being an Anarchist and having so many illiterate liberals claim their ideology while spewing reprehensible, absurd bullshit. Anarchists are comrades I respect and have principled disagreements with, but these guys? What the fuck.
All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!)
It’s not really any different from all the people that say they are socialists, marxists, communists and democratic socialists and then when you poke and prod them they are basically following neoliberal ideology for like 90% but then they sprinkle in some insane bullshit like Georgism and that’s their entire basis. People know that neoliberalism/liberalism/fascism and all those things are bad, they know those things are rude so they’ll just change the language mix up some non important things and call it a day. Same with Anarchists, it’s some person but they post ACAB and think that makes them an anarchist. Like they know that the cops are bad but they still really like hierarchies like patriarchy, white supremacy and economic hierarchy.
Like clockwork. They don’t want to have to question their reality. They want to sit complacently at the end of history and watch the suffering around them with glib detachment or, when scratched, vociferous participation.
There’s no redeeming these groups, only hopefully some of the people in them. 196 will always be tainted because of it’s absolute inability to moderate itself. Sometimes you need aggressive purging of the ranks and the stench of 196 shows exactly what happens when you don’t take out the trash.
So Bookchin himself had some pretty terrible takes of course, but maybe he was onto something with the whole “lifestylist” critique.
He definitely got the treat obsession part right