TOTW: Embarrassments of the anarchist milieu

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Topic of the Week - Years ago, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (AJODA) used to have a column called “Embarrassments to the anarchist milieu” where they would choose a specific text or event and share the story, perhaps even write a little about why it’s a total embarrassment. The column provided many lighthearted laughs and a ripe source of drama in the days before the anarchist Internet really got a foothold on the topic. This week we’re chatting about your favorite embarrassments to the anarchist space and the larger ideas surrounding it all.

What are your favorite (least favorite) embarrassments to the anarchist movement? What do these embarrassments tell us about anarchism? How do anarchists effectively critique such things, if at all?

There are 154 Comments

I truly hope ARR gets a few good punches and kicks before whomever does it can be charged with assault on a police officer.

I hope so too. One of ARR's two DHS friends also worked at Duke Energy. Duke is known for running coal plants on mountain top removal and their coal ash leaking basins leaking into rivers. Kinda fucked when you consider he used to edit Earth First Journal. The more you dig into this the worse it gets. The journal website has a page for snitches, infiltrators, and collaborators, and he should go on there. Its clear as day his think tank is geared towards helping law enforcement, federal agencies, and govt contractors.

From https://earthfirstjournal.news/informants/

'This page lists whereabouts and status of informants and ‘snitches’ who are cooperating with, or working for, the State in effort to monitor and/or repress ecological resistance movements. Sadly, the names on this list are people who can never be trusted again in activist circles or resistance movements.'

and

'Informant: Individuals who are not employed as law enforcement agents who provide law enforcement agents with information, often in exchange for money. An informant ordinarily has previous involvement in – and more intimate knowledge of – the movement or organization that the agents are investigating.'

Everything about U.S Anarchists and Antifa

I’m really fascinated by how loud the embarrassment is about washing windows in comparison to the far less loud embarrassment around Ross working with the cops. What’s doing more harm to anarchists?

This. Im gonna assume AK press, No Bonzo, Shane Burley, and all of them are ok with it unless they speak out publicly.

ARR has made it clear he thinks its acceptable and plans to stay within the milieu.

Burley has definitely been defending ARR. Curious about the silence from the others.

Do you know where Burley has been defending ARR? On social media or in public? Would love to have the receipts, as ARR sez, for their shittiness. Thanks in advance.

Twitter, what I saw was on Wildermuth’s initial post about the situation. I don’t follow Burley so couldn’t say where else he might be doing it.

so you're smoking that "red brown alliance" pipe too huh? Burley has a bit of local clout in the PNW antifa

Does he mean anything to anyone outside the PNW?.

The claim against Grayzone is not of being a "red brown alliance". There's nothing Red with them. But brown, maybe. They read like shit brown, for sure.

yeah, he's an antifascist researcher and writer ... which is a category that suffers from zero quality control.

also that is definitely the "claim" against the grayzone by many including officer ARR, using their own terminology. you should practice taking in new information instead of arguing about what's happening before you've even shown up to the party.

anyway, the "red brown alliance" is a murky and sketchy conspiracy theory with a few grains of partial truth to it. that's how a lot of "antifascist researchers" pay their bills, selling snake oil off the back of a janky old wagon, playing to people's preexisting paranoias.

welcome to the beach of anarchy where all sorts of shipwrecked scumbags wash up after a storm haha

another embarrassment to the milieu: defending ARR.

yeah, thegreyzone is a shitty source, but the guy's name is literally listed on the thinktank's website alongside central intelligence agents. i don't know what more you need.

the rhyd w piece is much better. i note that you have nothing to say about that one.

yeah, chime in on that too. Although I think the "red brown alliance" narrative is mostly fearmongering bullshit, grayzone has done some excellent journalism imo but also has a very weird, set of problems that spring from their "anti-imperialism".

basically every state that isn't part of the NATO power bloc, grayzone tend to defend them. but then again, this is just another way of saying they're not anarchists. they get stuck arguing for one set of murdering bastards over another.

Y, ignore the greyzone piece. ARR lists his part in the think tank right in his twitter bio, this isn't secret red-brown propaganda, it's his public career.

Alexander Reid Ross

you must have missed the news...

This morning anarchist social media was abuzz with an action in Portland where “some anarchists” in black bloc took some moments to wash the windows of a bank on their strolle. It brings to mind the action some anarchists took a few years back, also in Portland of filling in street potholes. Under the pavers...

Staying in Portland, we have “anarchists” acting like little tyrants, although perhaps not as lighthearted as the topic of the week prompt states. Also, maybe not embarrassments, but hypocrites among many other describing words. Alexander Reid Ross (ARR) after canceling other anarchist projects for years turns out to be working pretty much alongside cops, the CIA, and the Department of Homeland Security for “research”. As others have mentioned, it seems kind of similar to when Aufhebengate was giving how-to presentations to cops to help counter protesters.

Another antifa writer, Shane Burley, wrote that “Aragorn is a fascist creep, and we can drop LBC into the sea”. LBC being Little Black Cart, an anarchist publishing project that Aragorn! also worked on. Here we have a very well-known “anarchist” saying it’s okay to use the tactics of actual fascist government regimes to helicopter drop other anarchists into the ocean. Why haven’t popular anarchists or projects called out such non-sense like they have with everything else? Afraid to not be on the popular side anymore – now that’s an anarchist embarrassment.

Some other moments: Doctor Bones. Workerist anarchists waving AFL-CIO flags at their demonstrations and years later, the fight for $15 being a main Democratic talking point. Anarchists voting and the HOPE bloc. Social anarchists having no idea what anti-civ actually is. The list goes on… sadly, but also – just maybe, a smile and some lulz. If not, sorry, not sorry.

the feature was embarrassments TO the anarchist milieu, and there was no commentary by the editors about what made the reprints embarrassing; the idiocies, contradictions, and hypocrisies were self-evident -- or should have been

I'll chip one in. Right around early 2017 or so, Crimethinc put out a poster that was just a slight modification to some US Govt propaganda from WWII. It shows a US soldier killing a Nazi soldier. Crimethinc had changed the Nazi soldier to be wearing a MAGA hat, and the US soldier was unmodified IIRC. Crimethinc added the words "We've defeated them before, we'll defeat them again," or something to that effect.

Anarchists conflating themselves with a literal State in order to capitalize on some popular anti-fash sentiment is extremely cringe.

I think what most of these embarrassments say about (some) anarchists is just how hungry they are for social acceptance. Which is itself probably the most cringe human trait of all, but especially when anarchists do it.

anon hasn't noticed how many sarcastic art history majors ended up in the @ milieu. So they ...assumed it was a literal endorsement of WW2 propaganda? ... shall we go ahead and add that to the pile of embarrassments?

What you are linking to is the modified version of the poster after they got embarrassed.

Well Crimethinc removed it. Maybe someone has a copy, but I don't.

Thanks for helping prove that you were wrong about there being another soldier in the frame after you doubled down on it.

You're welcome. So, now that's cleared up, do you want to make an argument that it's not embarrassing for anarchists to mimic government war propaganda, or was this not about that?

Wow, how subversive, mimicking government militarist propaganda to promote a bland united front politics in a context where liberals were posting images of soldiers being deployed on D-Day and captioning them the "original Antifa." Gotta hand it to crimethinc, that's some 5th dimensional chess.

so you're just going to ignore the already mentioned possibilities of sarcasm and/or subversion of imagery? do you just not "get" art usually? is your brain stuck on literal because you smacked it on something? think you should keep digging!

hey, that's the twitter hill you're going to die on and I wish you the best of fun with that lol

if you've got anything more convincing than the fantasyland of obtuse crimethinc antifa critics who produced an image with no context provided besides the place it was actually used on twitter, I'd love to hear it

First things first: WWII was my father's war, I saw fighting Trump as a direct continuation of that war, this time with the fascists taking Washington. That being so, I really liked that postet, and even more so when fash screamed we were threatening to stab them because of the bayonets shown.

Let's keep in mimd the very meaning of the original, pre-WWII antifa (two flags) flag: to put other differences aside and fight the fascists who would kill us all given the chance. Even the Irom Front flag, whose three arrows targeted.fascism, monarchism, and communism (understood as.stalinism) did not also target the social democrats or their equivalents at that time.

We could not have removed Trump from office ourselves, and in DC we were no longer able to deploy enough fighters ourselves to beat back the Proud Boys after the liberals told their people to stay home in Nov 2020. Had the Dems been willing to not tell people to stay home (thanks Mr Neville Chamberlain...), a combine counterprotest of 20,000 or so onNov 14 could have driven the fash off DV streets, and prevented many members of the random public from being assaulted.Dec 12 would likely have been pre-empted. Jan 6 the Capitol was not our respomsabilty, but the rest of the city was. Fortunately,the few fash that dared show up at BLM Plaza got thir asses.kicked.

We were maxed out on Dec 12 and close to it on Nov 14, responsability for that rests squarely with those who told people to stay home.

If the liberals had told people to fight the fash, we would have still needed to deploy and the resulting broad front could have won. It would have been like Cville but like there we would have had the advantage and prevented the fash from achieving their goals.

Now think about what would have happened if the cops and National Guard whom everyone but us relied on for defense on Jan 6 had sided with Trump wholesale. A GOP-only vote would have overturned Trump's defeat, GOP states only would have recognized that vote, and the whole US would now be in a shooting civil war.

You and your 'fash' nemesis just kept the police busy for a few afternoons. Glad you enjoyed the LARP tho.

Larping? Larpers don't have to wear real armor against real knives and real guns. We are ALL lucky this didn't blow all the way up. The fighting of last year culminated 4 years of Trumpist terror, as like fascists everywhere Trump reached out for absolute power after being defeated in the 2020 election.

This was real fighting for real objectives: the fash were fighting to keep Trump in office, we were fighting both to oppose Trump and to directly defend DC residents from physical (and in some cases armed) assault by fascists MAGAts. I had to wear body armor all over town five days in a row because adding 14 pounds of steel to my loaded weight was a lot better than getting stabbed or shot. Problem was my helmet turned out to be incompatable with my goggles, so those were not usable, causing problems on Jan 6.

On Nov 14 the Proud Boys stabbed three people, one of whom was saved from a serious chest wound by body armor. Dec 12 someone got cornered, and outnumbered 100 to 1 paid back the Proud Boys in cold steel. They were arrested but charges were dropped after video evidence showed a clear case of self-defense.

I took an injury fighting the fash on Nov 14 that is still not all the way healed, yet managed to deploy on Dec 12 and even to BLM Plaza on Jan 6, where I had to withdraw after the wind turned mace fired at the Proud Boys into a nasty yellow cloud of friendly fire that blew back on us and temporarily put my right eye out of action. Shortly therafter one of our SE DC residents knocked out a Proud Boy with a single stout punch. We went nowhere near the Capitol as that part of the day wasn't our responsability, though if the Fash had held it and taken state power we might have regretted that.

This is a lot more than "live action roleplaying" and could so easily have been the opening battles of a brutal civil war that for the moment seems to have been postponed if not necessarily avoided.

Wow. You're right, Luke, you weren't LARPing. You honestly believed you were in a war against fascists. Not sure what the word for that is. Delusions of grandeur maybe.

Is this really how you think power works, like a game of capture the flag? If you and your 'soldiers' weren't 'deployed' in DC that day then the 'fascists' would have marched into the target building and, what? Suddenly be in control of all the state institutions in the US? It must be satisfying to think you change the course of history that day.

I think delusions of grandeur is the right term. You sound exactly like the #StormTheCapitol people, who really seemed to believe that if they got to sit in Nancy Pelosi's chair for an hour, she'd suddenly lose all her power, and it'd be transferred to them. The reality is what you were doing was no different, and no less trivial, than when me and my friends used to fight with skinheads outside punk gigs.

you know, it's too bad that you're only interested in being a shithead to luke about this topic because the murky threshold between the use of political violence for attack or defense and the "LARP" spectacle of it is actually pretty interesting stuff imo.

for example, have you ever noticed how cops and soldiers have a ton of rhetorical tricks always locked and loaded so that no outsiders get to question the sometimes performative nature of what they do? standing around and/or seemingly just going through the motions? it's almost as if taking on the designated role of conflict always has some version of this problem.

who's to say when the LARP jumps in to the real? Is it when somebody gets hurt? Is it when some of the "LARPers" actually have a clue what they're doing? How many of them need to know what they're doing? so many questions!

"You and your 'fash' nemesis just kept the police busy for a few afternoons. "

Sure they got busy... out-of-town cops were with the fash in the first place, dimwit.

Lol, sorry, but its sorta funny hearing the War Against Trump like its related to the campaigns of WWII. Hahaa, wow you really take things seriously in the DC bubble, but I guess when your whole identity is invested in the binary warfare narrative I 'spose that's part of the script, to be believed in?

it's very cheap to NOT be taking anything seriously from your basement, as opposed to being in the streets in DC when things heat up, like when facing a bunch of violent CHUDs or militarized police.

can someone pls let privates anon and luke know that it's not the 1930s

"America First" along with KKK openly doing street attacks, brutally killing protesters... when was the last time you seen that? Yes, the '30s.

Check your own history before pretending being able to lecture others about historical context.

> "America First" along with KKK openly doing street attacks, brutally killing protesters... when was the last time you seen that? Yes, the '30s.

Erm, the 2010s? The 2000s? The 1990s? 80s? 70s? It might be new to you, child, but it's not new to me.

While you're here, let me tell you that it's extremely distasteful if not outright insulting to compare the last four years in the US - where most people's lives carried on exactly as normal - to 1930s Germany. Stop doing that.

1930s... yeah, Historical analogies are lazy and insulting. There's no reason to think that wildly different cultural contexts will contain many (or any) meaningful overlaps. Also, comparing current not very polarized American culture (despite the shrill extremists) to another country in another era where it was virtually impossible to remain neutral is (unintentionally?) hilarious. The plethora is idiocies rampant in the US are stupid enough on their own terms without requiring metaphorical parallels with phenomena from somewhere else where people know to be outraged.

there's a really huge issue acting based on historical precedents for "this is the extreme bad", practically every president that has existed since i was old enough to really start comprehending discussions was called hitler by somebody, and yes all presidents resemble hitler in terms of the sheer privilege to inflict damage on other people...yet they are very different at the same time. The whole anti-fascist cause is predicated on the belief that right wingers are totally horrible in comparison to people on the left. Overall, I'm convinced that a lot of the older crime thinc writings (more specifically that manual they wrote) were correct in stating that far right nazis etc. have a particularly traumatizing form of violence, but there's all this horrible stuff that goes on behind the curtains every single day in the united states. Are rapes any worse than what the FBI classifies as "a hate crime"? Uh, we have no evidence whatsoever to believe this. Is child abuse EVER classified as a hate crime? What about the little stressors of daily life which people often believe we have no right to complain about because we can compare it to some worse situation. Americans love hitler, they talk so much about the horrible things he did when there are abundent examples that the american empire may be even more damaging in the long run.

"The plethora is idiocies rampant in the US are stupid enough on their own terms without requiring metaphorical parallels with phenomena from somewhere else where people know to be outraged."

i think you would be shocked to discover that the stupidities and iron-fists that exist in other countries aren't dramatically different from what goes on in other countries. Are there really any axiomatic truths?? You probably will conclude i'm stupid but in the end what's obvious and what isn't is entirely subjective.

"not very polarized American culture"

how fucking out of touch does one have to be to think the u.s. is not seriously polarized?

During the 1930's, part of what Shitler promised Germans was getting their normal lives BACK from economic catastrophe. Trump made similar promises, this one is very common. Shitler delivered on it to some extent, and thus we had things like people partying in Berlin nightclubs the night British bombers retalitated with a pinprick raid for a single German He-111 bomber that got lost, dropped their bombs, and found when they landed they had just bombed London for the first time.

Entirely too many people not only in Germany but even in Occupied France etc ignored the political nightmare and continued business as usual, running the economy and empowering the war machine, shopping while bombs were dropping. Sound familiar? Surface normalcy 2017-2021 proves nothing

Nothing is going to convince Luke that he didn't save the world from Hitler, just like his grandaddy did.

You bigots are playing on the differences between how the world was 90 years back and now, but there are old patterns that pervade and prevail. Business as usual is the compromise given by dictatorships to stay in charge and prevent mass revolts and strikes from happening. This is using the soft power to reinforce the hard power.

"Entirely too many people not only in Germany but even in Occupied France etc ignored the political nightmare and continued business as usual, running the economy and empowering the war machine, shopping while bombs were dropping. Sound familiar? Surface normalcy 2017-2021 proves nothing"

how is that evidence that the trump administration is a repeat of WW2? I'm pretty sure ~90% of time, people in authoritarian situations are just acting out of survival, while i have nothing against you personally for doing what you love, i do find it to be really grating when people compare their enemies to hitler. That's pretty much standard america-fare, it's easy to do and gives a false sense of clarity/satisfaction to make references to someone who hired a cadre of sadists to roam the countryside (the SS) and cooked millions of jews in ovens after torturing/murdering them. In my opinion, George Bush was much more comparable to hitler than Trump, even though they are both fascists, i guess now they are ex-presidents they're not really fascists anymore using the word in a meaningful way, but you never know what a wealthy business person is cooking up...

but you see? Some people were saying bush was hitler, but he didn't appear racist enough to keep everyone on the left awake at night as trump did. I remember the bush administration very clearly, and most people just weren't that concerned. Maybe that's just an illusion created by the internet, but i somehow doubt that.

Interesting to bring up "Dubya" Bush. What empowered him to be the monster he was 9-11, which he tried to use as an Enabling Act. Otherwise he would have been remembered as the Texacutioner at most, and by many as the "golf President." Had something like 9-11 with an overseas human source (instead of a virus) happened on Trump's watch, anything could have happened.

As it wasm Bush was more about murder in other countries (Hitler's foreign policy and that of so many other governments) while Trump was more interested in racial and ethnic "cleansing" at home (Hitler's worst domestic policy). Both were extreme nationalists, both wanted to be kings. Bush had the term "Unitary executive" but it went nowhere. Trump made a serious attempt to remain in power after his term ended, an act limited to dictators and wannabe dictators. Wars for resources are a crime committed by fascist and "democratic" governments alike.

In the end, Fascism is a degenerate phase of capitalism and even of democracy, due to its "mob rule" aspect. Mussolini said as much about the latter portion of this.

Is basically just an antifa cartoon at this point. A relic of punk/skin political gang fighting taken to greater grand narrative levels of laughability. Fascism-while an authoritarian tendency-is simply not the historical force and issue that it was 80-90+ years ago. The issue to day is cybernetic power structures which have quite a lot of institutional leftwing power input.

'Fascism is a degenerate phase of capitalism'

Luke outs himself as a Leninist

lenin isn't the only one who noticed how far right goon squads seem to suddenly find a lot of funding and support when the rich get nervous

Dumbo anti-americanist doesn't even know about the America First Committee.

There was a huge pro-Nazi movement back in the '30s that can be somewhat compared to what happened with MAGA... This, with uniformed KKK and neonazi thug gangs coming back to attack protests. It's not and cannot be "just like" the '30s, yet there's been converging lines.

Also noticed how most mass shootings are motivated by racial or political/religious Far Right ideology? Outside of a tiny few examples like the Oklahoma Bombing I don't see many instances. Mass shooters were always deeply fucked up people and it's hard to expect nice politics as their motives, yet here we had a specific character behind these actions. Some of them like the MAGA Bomber were also doing it for Trump.

How about all the really embarrassing failures to understand the difference between structural arguments and identity at a personal level?

like the worst sort of egoists (or worse, ancaps) that don't get how economics and power are real phenomena that actually happen to people, same as or literally a punch in the face?

or myopic identity bullshit like how anarchists can't do or build anything because they're "settlers on stolen land" or need to defer to [insert abstract identity], which somehow negates how autonomy has always worked?

or pretty much any time one person points at another who isn't a millionaire or a cop and says YOU ARE [insert structural oppression talking point]?

or are the only commenters left here still butthurt trolling about antifa as if this is 2017 facebook? be more interesting you pathetic losers. saying this as one troll to the others. try harder.

Shutup with your mansplaning Whiteboi and defer to POC authority!!!

Seriously all IDPol shit is an embarrassment in general but especially amongst anarchist circles. "Anarchists" towing the state party line supporting the authoritarian covid-1984 lockdowns is a huge embarrassment, and their praising of "Science" as their secular religion.

" supporting the authoritarian covid-1984 lockdowns"

maybe, just MAYBE, those folks are not supporting lockdowns or bowing to some SCIENCE god, but using their own common sense to avoid getting and spreading the virus?

anybody that "supports" the state's authoritarianism is NOT an anarchist. period.

"or pretty much any time one person points at another who isn't a millionaire or a cop and says YOU ARE [insert structural oppression talking point]?"

So you think calling a proud boy (obviously few of them are cops or millionaires) a racist, chauvinist, or nationalist is an embarrassment?? Or maybe youre just coming around to the idea that playing head games with people online when your fash alarm goes off is embarrassing in itself?? Lol, nice trolling keep it up.

uh ... no? how'd you get there from what I said without being deliberately dumb as shit?

whats the difference between a proud boy and a cop? not much. the farm team, basically? the dumbass, dirty work, hangaround, wannabe, bootlicker juniors...? big brother's derpy little goof cousin? birthed from the ass of gavin mcguiness? shall I go on?

"whats the difference between a proud boy and a cop?"

the full support of the state and all its tools and techniques.

but worth acknowledging that the proud boys enjoyed no small amount of tacit state support and the far right always does when it becomes useful as a hammer to smash grass roots and leftist uprisings, or co-opt them, or both.

Kevin Tucker being a social media/tech addict so much so it ruins his totally primal marriage.

That story was indeed an even bigger embarrassment than ARR and Dr Bones.

using alcohol of taking advantage of trans people [in the anarchist scene] is pretty...X-D...horrible. But yeah seeing a very clear example of ironic justice like with kevin tucker can feel pretty satisfying. It's obviously not a good idea to marry an anarchist celebrity! They obviously are either too powerful to fuck with (tucker) or just don't have have anything to steal (bones) when the shit hits the fan. For all the crap people give aragorn, none of his lovers seemed to be traumatized by the chance encounter with him, which had to do with him giving enough of a shit about his ideas not to marry people.

I would love to rant about ARR, but i just kinda tuned him out when he pidgeon holed one of my favorite writers as a right-winger in a book, he clearly has never reflected about the historical/political role of being a right winger or as in the US they call "a conservative". US conservatives typically don't conserve anything, so thank you for your clarity ARR. Maybe i should join the FBI and open up an anti-anti-fa office or something, i don't feel any more love for anti-fa than i do for your standard boot-thumping neo-nazi. Less contempt? Yes, but certainly zero love for both parts of that fake/spectacular conflict.

Great sex can't hold a candle to feeling of finishing a giant essay.

Nearly all of "anarchist" youtube media is cring as fuck.

There are various ways one could look at this. One is to say that it's the scarce anarchist milieu that is the embarrassment to the even fewer anarchists that prefer not to get involved with it. Why is this? Conformism and pandering to liberals and other movements, wanting to be everything to everyone, the umbrella for all activism. The haste to call themselves an anarchist before examining if that's what they really mean and desire, distorting it with different kinds of servitude and secularized christianity and vocational pedagogy. Many tiny personality cults vying for attention in an attention economy, mostly online. Among many other things.

"What do these embarrassments tell us about anarchism? How do anarchists effectively critique such things, if at all?"

That maybe anarchists are more prone to ridicule themselves and each other, and to feel embarrassment and shame, rather than self-aggrandize or celebrate each other, shower each other with praise. How true is this? At least this would seem to be consistent with a desire to tear hierarchies down and prevent authoritarians among them from amassing followers, and being vigilant of that. is it effective? At times it seems that some build their following on their ability to ridicule or cashing-in on the attention that being embarrassing brings them.

Another way of looking at it is that to be a happy anarchist, you must be shameless, if not you're gonna be embarrassed at being "the losers of history" or not a success by society's standards, many of which anarchists are ostensibly against. Or embarrassed by mere association to the many different clowns that mean something different when they say anarchism. Or embarrassed by your failure to live up to some impossible ideal.

yeah, there's probably a tendency towards inferiority complexes lurking underneath some of that pathos but as you said, cutting everybody down a bit when they get a big head can be a very healthy thing.

the thing about this kind of clout chasing social capital that I think you're talking about, the points you score by shitting on other people, dunking on chuds or punching sideways at other marginalized people: the thing about it is just how cheap and ineffective that type of power truly is. it's basically just an illusion. you can watch the instagram kids trying to substitute it for real organizing and it's like a puff of dry leaves on the breeze.

anarchists who think they are doing 'real organizing' are beyond embarrassing

The radfem anarchas in Eugene in the early 2000s get my vote. Complete embarrassment to anarchy. Then cancel culture exploded and normalized that pathetic shit. Yuk.

You might have got cancelled two decades back over groping some young women around, or more deeply abused a few women in relationships... who knows?

Yes the KT shit ranks up there for sure.

Then again, how many have felt embarrassed just listening to JZ talk?

The anarchistic tendencies of Jesus embarrass and infuriate me when as the insurrectionist against the Romano-Judaen hegemony in the Israel of his era, like Abbie Hoffman he got coopted by the very ones he warned against. His turn the other cheek was sooo contradictory to his turning the merchants tables over at the temple. Very embarrassed when they all become capitalists.

Go and listen to Bellamy and Amory repeatedly tell the podcast listeners about the forthcoming guests, individual podcasts, dedicated episodes and more to come on this and that... Great! And fuck all came of it. WFT happened??? Lol.

if you don't like their podcasts, don't listen (i gave up). people make plans and life interferes; it happens to everybody so there's no reason to find that embarrassing. get over yourself.

it's not about "switching the TV channel", but that Bellamy's media practices of getting on board with conservatives White people -that'd I'd describe at least as "foolhardy"- has also become an embarrassment of equal magnitude than KT and ARR. But that's only one aspect... the other being his recent move to become yet another psychotherapist guru. Frankly I don't know why some of you are still compelled to endorse the guy... but I suppose it's gotta do with your own conservative views?

comparing kt to arr is ridiculous. kt some people don't like for personal taste in anarchy. honestly who cares.... the other works with retired career dhs, cia, and police in a think tank that is geared towards helping govt and law enforcement.

Most embarrassing is the way those within an anarchist milieu start behaving like precocious prima donnas in a B grade soap opera tv midday series.

"getting on board with conservatives White people"

- uh, how's his project cater to conservative White people?

"his recent move to become yet another psychotherapist guru"

- you mean getting a job being your own boss controlling your hours and not bad pay? what do you do for money?

What... Liberty & Logos has had plenty of White right-wingers guests and interviewees. Where've you been? Was Bellamy trying to teach his own view of "green anarchy" to a bunch of reactionary White youtubers, or just helping them recuperate this tendency?

I wonder... when was the last time Bellamy had non-White anarchists on his shows? Or native people, save for (ok) Aragorn! ? Especially ever since he's no longer on the Brilliant, it's all a bunch of greasy White libertarian dicks talking about (private) land projects and some rather conservative environmentalism.

"you mean getting a job being your own boss controlling your hours and not bad pay?"

Oh snap! It's that crappy argument again. How am I going to answer... That there are other jobs that aren't low-wage yet aren't involving grooming people under mentally-abusive relationships for money?

Look, if it's for ripping off upper middle-class impressionable liberals, I got no issue with that. Tho is that the case?

But to answer your question about myself: In accordance to my stance for degrowth, I've been reducing my economic "needs" for money to a minimum, so that gives me the possibility to sustain with lower incomes or save more money. Don't buy a car or at least don't use it for everything... Reduce services accounts and insurances to a minimum. AVOID buying property. Recycle and reuse as much as possible, and learn to do with little...

Less the money less the demands for it. Less is more.

> What... Liberty & Logos has had plenty of White right-wingers guests and interviewees. Where've you been?

Liberty & Logos is literally just Bellamy and one other guy for the whole series.

> when was the last time Bellamy had non-White anarchists on his shows? Or native people, save for (ok) Aragorn! ? Especially ever since he's no longer on the Brilliant

The Brilliant finished when Aragorn! died, obviously. Bellamy was a regular on the podcast until then. They must've done the best part of a hundred hours together.

It helps to know what you're outraged about, generally.

"What... Liberty & Logos has had plenty of White right-wingers guests and interviewees. Where've you been?"

apparently Ive been paying attention to these projects, unlike you who is making up shit like: "it's all a bunch of greasy White libertarian dicks talking about (private) land projects and some rather conservative environmentalism. "

its obvious you haven't listened to any of these projects and are just throwing lies out there hoping they will stick.

you didn't answer how you make money, only how you try to not spend it.

Who's spewing bullshit without sources here... you?

These are people who had Bellamy on their show lately:

Amory Deveureux? https://twitter.com/amorydevereux?lang=en His retweets speak a lot of his Qanon positions.

White right-wing libertarians:

https://libertarianinstitute.org/mance/461/ From that "property is the way" White guy.

https://mrpseu.podbean.com/e/136-revelations-from-the-fringes-with-bella... crypto ancap also promoting Brandon Quittem's absurd neo-darwinist theory with Bitcoin as trigger for human evolution.

So what is Bellamy's doing with these whack jobs?

umm... these are not guests on L&L (which did not have any, and seems to either be on hiatus or defunct btw) or any other project they co-hosted. Amory, the L&L co-host, took an obviously differing, more reactionary position than Bellamy, I assume to have more DISAGREEABLE conversations, rather than have 2 people sit and nod in unison for hours on end like most other projects out there.

they were interviewed by a libertarian on the topic of Ted K. oh shit... they are white, what a crime! wait a tick, Quinones? does that make them white? probably. ok whatever..

oh, and another libertarian sort to discuss "discuss the philosophy of left-anarchism, decentralization, permaculture, symbiosis, and embracing self-ownership to build a brighter future." what a disgrace!

where's the controversy here? fuck off with your puritan witch hunt trash.

Oh yeah.... the fact Bellamy's for some reason doing collabs with White Right-wing whacks from the cesspools of Youtube is puritanism. Tho the people he's hosting aren't the closest thing to literal Puritans in the most historic sense!

Interesting. Tell us more on your view of Puritanism.

In addition, there are jobs that got being your own boss as condition, without requiring submission to bosses for years at university, then to become a psychological boss to somebody else. I had the chance to do jobs like these and enjoyed it. In fact it's the last real job I had.

While it's true that being your own boss is an anarchistic kind of work, micro-managing other people's behavior and mental health surely ain't.

...The worst thing in the world.

Above commenter is obviously just someone withh an axe to grind about Bellamy Fitzpatrick for one reason or another. Perhaps Bellamy wouldn't have them on the radio back in the FRR days or something. Who knows. Either way, going after someone for what they have to do for money is low. Even lower than saying 'how many non white people have you ever had on your show' (he had an audio only radio show for half a decade - how would he even know?) as if that's some kind of GOTCHA, NAZI killer line.

Everyone does shit for money. A! was anti-civ but worked in tech. Are you trying to cancel him? No, you clearly have a problem with BF. Just be honest about it and be honest about your reasons for it.

"Either way, going after someone for what they have to do for money is low."

Okaaayyy... So my anarchist buddy works for a private intelligence agency, reporting people the the feds. He's infiltrating them and had kids with a few young women in there. They pay him a lot for it. But it's pretty low to question their job, like anyone doing that probably has an axe to grind against my friend coz he's successful and makes money. Loooo-sers.

you'd think it went without saying that working for the cops and other state institutions wasn't okay. do you really equate being a counselor with being a cop?

To be honest, now I find anarchists at protests alongside Idpol liberals very very embarrassing. And the Idpol are so condescending to the minority anarchists who mingle amongst them. Now, the whole political arena has become a toxic reformist Statist amusement park. I know their hearts are in the right place, but so dumbed down, why so stupid, don't they all read books ever? Do they even comprehend authority and mind control?

is not doing justice to the issue. it's not *embarassing* that people passing as anarchists work with the feds, etc. that's a problem.

why the de-valuation of collaboration, ffs?

I can think for a clear embarrassment the loads of so-called anarchists who fell for the social media trap for years, and using it to organize and run projects. That's not only embarrassment but also the manifestation of a terrible weakness in people. Make no mistake... my addiction to porn is no better, tho it doesn't dominate my worldview and relations as much as the Internet 2.0 social media trap did.

This also coincided with the unprecedented rise of ID pols of all kinds everywhere, that turned a vast portion of the anarcho-left into hyper-managerial drones and gave the outlook of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers kinda situation.

Being an anarchist in Portland and seeing the local anarchists fix potholes and clean bank and starbucks windows for PR. Its so cringy.

I recall talking about a local anarchist in another city about how ridiculous that is. All they gave as explanation was " well, we gotta bring something positive to other people in some way..."

*rolling eyes*

I noticed that cars and people tend to get confused in NA, I dunno why "anarchists" should maintain this view tho.

I get not being interested in PR as an anarchist. (I am not, either!) But I don't get why it's cringey. Do you have a reason for disliking people who fix potholes other than it being an activity you aren't personally interested in?

1) roads and cars are literally bringing in the apocalypse
2) remember that kid at school who tried to get people to like him by doing their homework for them?

"roads and cars are literally bringing in the apocalypse"

just curious - do you ever purchase anything from a store owned by a capitalist? if so, you are supporting the apocalypse every bit as much as a pothole filler.

gtfo your pathetic dogma.

nice of you to drop by, pothole guy!

"Jet- plane- use is also a major contribution to apocalyptic omens and their runways. WWII and mass bombing was done and won with runways. Tourism and beef consumption are the new Apocalyptic occupations"

just read all the comments and can't info on how ARR works with police, nothing is coming up when i google either. can someone share the deets on this? what are we talking here, should i be worried about mutuals? sorry i'm late to the party.

This is ARR bragging about the report he co-authored with two people that worked for DHS and CIA: https://twitter.com/areidross/status/1370040277075824643?s=20

This is a report by the same think tank about anarchists: https://networkcontagion.us/reports/network-enabled-anarchy/

Anti Defamation League’s press-release concerning their partnership with NCRI reveals a little more about what that all means:

“Their multidisciplinary scientists and engineers are working closely with extremism experts at ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) to harness cutting-edge technology to track developments and provide intelligence and analysis to technology companies, law enforcement, public officials and community leaders.”

They're working together in this think tank to create a referential body of "knowledge" so that any government or press agency can use for further policy. It is indeed pretty much into line with the ADL's problematic narratives, conflating of the radleft (especially eco-radical) with the Far Right.

There's still no evidence of collaboration with the cops or even DHS here -or at least not directly- even if, indeed, ARR's involvements with this think tank are a problem for the entire anarchist and radleft milieus. Perhaps you could confront it more and make him accountable for it?

I command people to also look at the critcism thrown at The Greyzone as it's not the first time they're throwing a bunch of poorly-sourced slander at some Leftists. It's a battle between two villains here.

I didn't read the Greyzone article, I just followed their links to the thinktank websites and saw ARR's name listed longside CIA and DHS people. I don't know what more evidence you need tbh. The guy is a fucking creep, and people defending him are no better than the libcom admins who closed rank when one of their own was found to be on the paid lecture circuit teaching police how to best handle riots.

Do you live in a world of binaries where you are either anarchist or a cop? All we got as clear evidence is that ARR has provided his "expertise" to a statist think tank. This think tank has no power over the DHS or any local police, and the (of course very one-sided) analysis in the documents are only a reference for identifying some groups and tendencies.

So the only big outrage is that this liberal Leftist ARR is a... statist? Ok.

It is a serious issue that so many antifascists are not anarchist, or "anarchist" only the surface. And no greater or smaller issue than some "anarchists" also being anti-antifa.

thinktanks aren't supposed to "have power over", they influence policy ... they feed intel and analysis, skewing reality to suit predetermined agendas ... in this case, of law enforcement and counter insurgency. how in the fuck could you possibly not see why that would be of concern to the type of people who will likely be targeted by these efforts of "counter insurgency"?

are you just that dense or do you have skin in the game?

> are you just that dense or do you have skin in the game?

This person is clearly trying to obfuscate the point at hand, namely that AK Press published author Alexander Reid Ross has been engaging in anti-anarchist activity for money.

> the documents are only a reference for identifying some groups and tendencies.

And one of those groups is anarchists. Funny how you missed that bit out.

Where did I say the opposite to anything you said here? Do you want me to repeat for the 17th time that ARR has to be made accountable for this collaboration he did?

Perhaps you could activate and go after ARR in however you deem suitable, instead of wasting time and energy with me?

why don't you quit bickering with people if you don't like the debate you're spurring on? lol

Perhaps you could MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS and go after ARR in however you deem suitable, instead of wasting time and energy with me?

Bye, bro!

Learned about the ARR thing from this thread too. Come for the trolling, stay for the grim realizations.

Embarrassment though: online North American anarchist culture becoming mostly hostile to action or, more rarely, hostile to critique. It actually was better when you had to break window AND THEN write the communique.

But then came the Popes of Theory (i.e. newer, edgier generation of armchair anarchists, to replace the stinking old farts like Chumpsky and Book Chin) with fully identifiable names and legalist mainstream practices irl. You know who I mean... there were plenty hanging out and publishing their stuff here.

Personally, I thought a while back, of a nice gimmick. You do an ATTACK, but use the ATTACK to spread a theory, or critique, or poems, or anything else that can raise consciousness about an issue. RAF went in that direction back in the days, regardless of their sectarian character and tankie ideals. Kinda like backing writings with ATTACK as the gold standard.... Would make sense, no?

Due to how the practice quickly becomes dangerous, this causes the posers and fluffies to find a better occupation than anarchism, leaving those willing to put up an actual fight with society. The dangers of it would make the people involve build a support infrastructure similar to a secret society, which would create in itself possibles for freer social arrangements where dignity is restored between people.

But we had to "choose" the capitalist utopia. Same "chosen" by all the normies around, so now that NA anarchism got super fucking lame, lost in big words and deflated to a point of irrelevance by our tireless Armchair Anarchists. Speaking of "embarrassments"... it's easy to pick this or that dude for having been fucking clowns or maybe traitors, but let's look at the sorry state where "our" collective choices have led us.

So, realizing that, maybe it's a good time to reinvent the wheel?

Let's take the last 10 years, since Occupy a s a survey.

What has all the armchair, or attack activism done? Society has shifted even further right.

Also: what's the point in categorizing people this way? Some of us aren't interested in armchairs, activism, or joyless professional militancy (and you might want to look at how that often contributes to being a political pawn for other groups and also the state (because so often the conversation from the word jump is to put an automatic target on ones back with a fixation on scale of violence before anything else has been laid down).

None of these mindsets leave any sort of lasting impression or infrastructure so as not to have to keep rebuilding skills, relations, memories. But, making a bolo or exarchia isn't the sexy work.

I'd like to create and live anarchy. This obsession with attack seems a rather one dimensional role. Is one allowed adequate sleep? The story of elephant editions plays out as death or prison. Even at scale the stock exchange, and world trade center were rebuilt. From the relatively homogenous cultures these ideas have been imported to america from: section 127bis (sorry if wrong on the title of this italian code), and the creation of type c prisons just for those that go on the attack (greece). You have any workarounds to the CMUs and that type of mentality? What can we do to not make our social isolation worse? I don't see how being a sacrificial lamb for some cause would help. You cannot predict the outcome of 'attack.' That's not me, but basic military strategy. It would greatly help to think more strategically. Are tom nomad's books too 'armchair'?

Plus, the idea of attack post ww2 (where weapons are at the ready to destroy life as we no it didn't exist previously) seems hilariously laughable. In our current context, it was deemed acceptable for over 200,000 to die to keep the US economy going. Got that? The system didn't flinch at a projected loss of a quarter million lives sacrificed. You and whose army!?

"attack activism" hasn't done much, especially in comparison to the online and print "activity". On the other hand, indeed, it's my biggest critique of the early past decades uprisings in that they created NOTHING, while they were not the creative nothing. Just privileged White kids having an outburst of releasing their social anxiety doesn't create anything, and most of the rioters are not interested in changing their conditions coz they might know theyse conditions were already fine... they go hang out and mate in their same-age polycules in generic bands that are copy-pasted from the next band. The generic culture of conformity (NO IT'S NOT JUST HETERONORMATIVITY, ID pols fucktards) is one of the aspects we yet failed to "ATTACK".

How can it be attacked? By overturning the conditions that sustain it, and render them useless, I guess. Not a Global Revolution stupid delusion of grandeur overturning, but yea, things like bolos and "exarkhia" (even if Exarkhia totally sucks as an anarchist zone, only special to American tourists (lol) and other people who haven't seen better as anarchist social arragenements). That's what it really is about. This is why the squats have been attacked repeatedly for years in Europe and hardly even exist in NA. Or why most punk communities in NA are a bunch of intoxicated consumerist morons who don't last beyond 27 years old either because they die from overdose like street rock stars or become yuppies.

Why does an insurgency never lasts beyond a sudden punctual manifestation? It's very simple. Because those taking part are just not interested/motivated/driven to make it become permanent present that undermines the world around.

It's not much about armchair vs strugglismo dichotomy, even if the former is less likely than the latter to bring about what's above. And unlikely positive still better than a complete false positive. Anyways that's another problematic dichtonomy and I just see anarchist as someone who's both theory and action, or theory in reality. Whatever hatchet divides these two spaces is the State's hatchet.

What sudden outbursts achieve... is at best a" sneak peek" into a radically different social situation. Sometimes I've seen them used more intelligently to open free spaces, profiting from the leverage chaotic momentum and massive support, as the police forces are overwhelmed.

What matters is to go beyond doing a demonstration and create the new social grounds for the life you wanna have. This can mean urban/suburban occupations where the landscape is just buildings, but in NA I'm rather inclined to see autonomous communes in the wild without having to buy land.

>What has all the armchair, or attack activism done? Society has shifted even further right.

1. what must attack do? why? attack is simply a refusal. attack can simply be attack. there's often joy in it. that can be enough.
2. how are you measuring society's shift? why should anarchists care if it shifts left or right?

>mindsets

a word i loathe. a concept to be attacked.

>I'd like to create and live anarchy.

you can live anarchy every day in your interactions with others right now--you don't need to build or create a thing. you don't need to wait for a bolo or for society(!!!) to *be* a certain way.

>The story of elephant editions plays out as death or prison

ask Alfredo C. if he thinks it was worth it. who are the prisoners outside the walls to tell the prisoners inside the walls that they are more (or less) free or living anarchistically?

>You cannot predict the outcome of 'attack.' That's not me, but basic military strategy

this is one of the reasons why it is beautiful. this is one of the problems with anarchists that wish to control everything and then take issue with other anarchists who are doing it differently or embracing the chaos. who reject a proper "mindset." don't get me started on "military strategy"...

>the idea of attack post ww2 (where weapons are at the ready to destroy life as we no it didn't exist previously) seems hilariously laughable. In our current context, it was deemed acceptable for over 200,000 to die to keep the US economy going.

laughable "ha ha! --Novatore" or laughable "milITaRiLly"? i'd recommend against measuring the "success" of attack based on some sort of objective anything. additionally... in 1945 it was acceptable to vaporize two Japanese cities in an instant... "today" it's acceptable to use technology every single day that relies on a global supply chain of slaves and ecological devastation, to consume the lives of billions of others, and then sit and think anything you do at all will matter when measured against that.

welcome to you freedom.

s/attack/ATTACK/g

What many don't recognize is that Idpol is the new 21st century manifestation of bourgeois identity. Nothing actually changes socially, its mainly a display of intellectual assets within a feelgood bubble. Ever noticed how they never get shot at or imprisoned, wow, some even use botox and the guys have perms.

Broadly speaking, I guess its the pretenarchists who embarrass me the most. Sometimes I think I'm too cynical and mean and should stfu with my critical opinions about folk. Why can't more folk just be like me and then the world would be sooo good?

Anarchism really is in the twilight zone with some of these @banner assclowns. Obvs I'm part of the reprobate.

It's a subculture, not a milieu. And the entire subculture is something of an embarrassment, frankly.

Genuinely curious, what is the difference between a subculture and a milieu?

stunned nobody mentioned Commune magazine self-destructing-- for me their total and totally unnecesary collapse is easily one of the biggest anarchist self-inflicted injuries of the last several years.

Demand utopia

stunned nobody mentioned Commune magazine self-destructing-- for me their total and totally unnecessary collapse is easily one of the biggest anarchist self-inflicted injuries of the last several years.

What exactly happened with "Commune", anyway? They weren't really anarchists. They were, or are, nominal Marxists of the all important bourgeois academy stripe: subjectively insurrectionary grad students indulging in recreational implacable posturing while, in the real world, they meekly and obediently trudge down their milquetoast careers paths in the bourgeois academy.

A grad student is less an exploited proletarian than they are a temporarily embarrassed member of the upper middle class.

hey, you never know! that embarrassment could easily last a lifetime

Got that right -- especially in the crowd that produces efforts like 'Commune.'

People like that -- and there are a veritable Red Army of them in the US today -- are under the staggering illusion that going to a few demos and maybe throwing a rock or two makes them battle-hardened veterans of the revolutionary struggle. In reality, their lived experience of class struggle is and always shall be limited to weaseling out of undergrad seminar lecture assignments.

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