leftism

Questions in the Face of Counterinsurgency

From IGD

by Peter Gelderloos

As the rebellion that has rocked the US and spread internationally approaches a full month, the counterinsurgency strategy being used to pacify it has become well defined. Police repression and vigilante violence from the outside, and rumors of agent provocateurs to divide the movement from the inside. But another method of internalized, soft counterinsurgency has also been omnipresent: the use of liberal identity politics to spread the idea that fighting back against a racist society is in itself racist. This practice was already well developed by the time of the Michael Brown rebellions in 2014, making use of white allies to put all their power and privilege behind the ostensible leaders of oppressed communities

Anarchy Against Unity: Five Theses on Anti-fascist Left Unity Today

1. The left-wing of ideology obfuscates as much as its right-wing counterpart.

The left operates according to a calcified logic that veils the nature of the social order around us. Regarding anti-fascism, this confusion manifests within the context of a false dichotomy imagined between fascism and democracy. The master plan is that anti-fascism must function immediately as a means of restoring capitalism to its more “human” state, demonstrable trajectories of fascism as an outgrowth of liberalism be damned. Other instances of muddled theory include reductive frameworks that posit class as the sole site of struggle, the obsession with consciousness raising, and an unyielding faith in the democratic principle.

No-Wing Anarchy

I am told that anarchism is a “left wing” ideology, by many. I am not sure those who claim this understand the true meaning of the term.

The terms “left wing” and “right wing” come from the position of seated delegates during the French Revolution. The bourgeoisie would sit to the left, and the monarchists would sit to the right. The first leftists were, in fact, capitalists.

From Identity to Individuality

Note: In this piece, I will be using '‘leftism’ and ‘identity politics’ more or less interchangeably, due to their often heavy overlap.

I grew up in a liberal household to liberal parents, and I had always had a preoccupation (some might say an obsession) with justice. From a young age, I would rage against the injustices committed against the trees felled behind our house, the mice killed in the snap traps, the insects caught by the glue paper, the deer shot by the hunters. “It’s not fair!” was a mantra oft screamed from my tiny mouth, and as I grew, it hardly changed.

The Hollowing of Anarchy: Gentrification

From scholium

Anarchy can differ from other anti-capitalist ideologies in being a lived practice. If anarchy is the end goal, then it must be the means as well. This often turns out looking like working as little as possible, living communally with friends, getting by using scams, and experimenting with social relationships. Unfortunately, these more interesting and liberating tendencies based in subverting daily life are receding as gentrification closes off possibilities for living cheap in the cities. What remains in the U.S. anarchist space is activism. Lacking this daily life component, anarchy slides back into leftism.

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