Solecast w/ Crimethinc Participant

via the solecast

Sep 10, 2020

In this episode of the solecast I sit down with a crimethinc
participant. I view crimethinc as some of my favorite philosophers
of “anarchy,” with no adjectives. Throughout the pandemic their
instincts have been spot on so I’m excited to share this
conversation. We start off by discussing how we, along with
hundreds of other anarchists and anti-fascists were banned from
facebook, what the broader implications of it are and what can be
done about it. We talk about the the importance of building up new
anti-capitalist digital infrastructure, and how we can think about
restructuring an anti-capitalist society. The ideas of civil war is
critiques and the concept of revolution addressed. This
conversation covers a lot of ground, for me the main takeaway is
how high the stakes truly are.

Visit Crimethinc.com

Music: Sole & DJ Pain 1 "https://sole.bandcamp.com/track/plague-days">"Plague Days"

There are 13 Comments

It'a quite a bit of a leap from the burning issue of your relationship with Facebook to Civil War. Can I bring my toy dump truck and plastic bucket and shovel?

The crimethinc dude is such a liberal, i paraphrase as best as my memory allows since i wasn't listening to make a transcript "we have to use facebook to tear it down from the inside because an anarchist should not abstain from going to the town hall because it was built with tax payer money, the anarchist has to go to the town hall and confront the people discussing the issues that affects them." Different harping on the theme of "Speaking truth to power." Then they also say something along the lines of "The biggest threat to the state have always been those trying to make a less violent society, so that's why they allow violence, and banned our articles that are spreading a vision of a less violent and more peaceful society."

What they do say that makes sense, and it would be nice if they and all of us responded in proportion to this realization, that this attack is a first step in preparation for a greater crackdown. But as liberals all they talk about is Trump Trump Trump, fascists fascists fascists. And lamenting about "now we're living in something like original raw democracy from sparta, where candidate who wins is one whose crowd shout the loudest but it could soon descend into a rawer form of violence in the streets" and "we're seeing life become less and less sacred, we're going to see more violence". Wow! Someone put these democrats in office! With the naivety of saying "revolution is when a transformation occurs where people can go from suffering, to benefitting from each other's existence" Then go to begrudge democrats throwing them under the bus same as facebook did.

And catch this, what's bad about organizations and cadres is (not power, not hierarchies, not tedium)...wait for it...that they're not the whole of society which is what would be needed to make significant social change. And that's not all, the metric for the validity of an grass-roots organization is that it "produces more resources than what it consumes". What?! Is this a perpetual motion machine?! Revert entropy?! These mental gymnastics are worse than c4ss economic equations! Then cap it off with Sole gushing about "Hamilton" the musical and musical kids shows, something about making a hip-hop opera about Bakunin. I bet you think I'm making this up.

Then crimethinc guy says "les miserables" and Sole says "lay miserabahlays", that part is not important at all but it was kinda funny.

The crimethinc guy you describe sounds like he's suffering from cognitive dissonance over using facebook and presumably is very upset that facebook removed a post or banned him. To make his cognitive dissonance go away and to try to mask the spaz attack he's having from facebook drama, it sounds like he's engaging in mental masturbation to try to rationalize to himself and others that the "real" reason he's using facebook is because he has to use it because it's the way to take it down from the inside out. Presents the illusion of having a more "noble" purpose, you could say, for using facebook. The facebook bots removed his posts because of some generic platitudes. "Speaking truth to power" is naive moralistic libtard nonsense. Power is aware of the truth and is more concerned with twisting it for whatever reason.

However, from your paraphrase of what crimethinc guy said it doesn't sound like he's about "speaking truth to power" but instead he's burnt turd mad because facebook banned him or removed his posts. Someone took away his social media crack and is probably getting the DT's since he can't play on social media as much now. The oppression.

You are misusing the term cognitive dissonance. This term refers to an inability to integrate seemingly contradictory stances. The "crimethinc guy" in this episode actually displays quite the opposite, stating that it felt weird to get kicked off of Facebook *and* we shouldn't rely on corporate platforms *and* we should make a fuss about getting kicked off of them *and* we should create our own platforms in planning for worse. To view these statements as mutually exclusive is to suffer from cognitive dissonance.

wow, having listened to the podcast, those are some seriously bad faith comments above.

there's no way to be that bad at listening to what this person is saying without an agenda.

they're saying the forces of reaction are systematically neutralizing radical media's ability to report on events as they prepare for more and more brutal purges and repression ... and you interpret that as a liberal love letter to facebook?

either you're so dumb and wrong it's excruciating to watch you try and think, or else you're ALSO here to mystify what's happening.

they said that too, right in between what i said, and i also mentioned that part. i emphasized what was funny to me, not any forgettable truisms that were unremarkable. these weren't bad faith comments, and there's no agenda. this is ridicule with no faith, if it wasn't funny in this unintentional way, i'd find no interest in listening to this, i can make up truisms on my own. anyone can be mocked. but hey, crimethinc's articles have a consistent quality (but is this most consitent quality anarchist, or merely journalistic competency that can be found elsewhere, or analysis that is common in academia?), so points for effort and consistency,

i guess if it's all just the lulz, right? who cares what means what or if you contradict yourself or whatever, right?

"no faith ridicule" IS bad faith my dear, you're just agreeing with my assessment but you prefer your phrasing because reasons...

tfw when bad faith reading is quoting and summarizing. you'd have to pay me to make a full transcript. but that would make you look foolish, because they happen to look silly if looked form an anarchist point of view. i thought bad faith meant misconstruing, not laughing at something someone said.

going out of your way to take the worst possible interpretation of what is being read, stretching for a negative interpretation, rather than taking the easier not-so-negative interpretation.
while i am no fan of crimethinc, and will not be bothering to listen to the story that they tell for sole's audience, you anon-being-accused-of-bad-faith, aren't arguing well for your point/s.
i am sympathetic to the sense that crimethinc wants to have their cake and eat it too, ie, wants to sound like the most radical while also appealing to every liberal anywhere, but you haven't made that case.

i wasn't going out of my way, don't worry, i'm always on my way to mock things. are you going out of your way to complain?
it's a weird phrase, doesn't mean much. is it more wayward to mock than to not mock?
you say you won't bother to listen to the story that they tell for sole's audience, then how can you tell if my mocking resembles or highlights a feature that was present, something that was said, or not?
i am not here to make a case, but i am here, and while i'm here i can go on to say that the way crimethinc participant used the term "violence" in their discourse was exactly as liberals do, you can read all of Gelderloos writing on the subject, accurate and relevant though trite by now. i don't think anyone should be so offended, i am not making accusations, nor slandering by associating anyone with an egregious act. i guess they might be a bit touchy, maybe fearing that on top of being excommunicated from facebook, they'd might get their anarchist membership revoked. fear not, i have no such powers, or any. on the contrary, hopefully this whole ordeal will radicalize them. i'd like to see more anarchists doing anarchist things, maybe it's not to late for sole and crimethinc participant. and what are "anarchist things"you might add? well exploring that question is more so that. than covering any big protest or world event just because it's big and showy and topical, or being a populist because there's more people in that business. and honestly, i wouldn't shit on sole, he's just a dude living his best life, making music, growing stuff to eat, learning, reading shit texts and tweeting dumb things. nothing wrong with that, except maybe the twitter part, since they're gonna get kicked from there as well eventually, as crimethinc participant warned, and hopefully is prepared for.

so far, it's all about how to replace one mediated platform with a different/better/more anarchist mediated platform. the internet was never a friend of freedom or anarchists, it cannot be reformed or overgrown or tweeked into something beneficial for life.

the discussion around what the powers that be intended by banning groups/individuals off these platforms is not wrong, maybe, but, as someone who can neither stay indoors nor go outside, i'd say we have bigger issues than can i show a photo to my cousin across the world over fb.

get off the internet, i shout on the internet!!

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