ANews Podcast 295 – 12.30.22

ANews Podcast 295 – 12.30.22

From ANews Podcast

Welcome to this week’s podcast. This podcast is on anarchist activity, ideas, and comments from the previous week on anarchistnews.org.

Notes:

What’s New

Written by chisel, read by chisel & chuckle-umpoulous

A reading from theanarchistlibrary:

John Zerzan – “Silence” (Excerpt)

Read & sound edited by Max Res

A discussion prompted by:
Anarqxista Goldman – “Just Eat My Asshole and Tell Me About Your Desire To Live Outside the Law”, from “Anarchy Against The Law and The State”

w/ special guest Lettuce Leafer, & octox

sound editing by octox

Samples & Music:

Humberto Ramírez – Fin de Año

Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas
Mulholland Drive clip 

Text-to-speech voice from Narakeet

Bad Bunny x Jowell & Randy x Ñengo Flow – SAFAERA

Bad Bunny – Ser Bichote [slowed x0.51 + reverb]

There are 33 Comments

Its a fact that if no one ever acts differently to the system then the system plays out as it will to its inevitable end and never gets any better. Thus, my simple logic is that someone, at least, has to challenge the norm absolutely and completely and stand for something different, awakening people to the fact that they are in prison and need to get out - a fact they might not actually be aware of at all. Part of this activity is the impugning of "the ways things are" and their obvious causes. Another angle on this is the post-anarchist thinking inspired by both Max Stirner and Étienne de La Boétie that, in the end, we are prisoners of our own will to servitude. There are are no masters unless their are people who settle for being slaves [or workers]. Now add into this the thinking demonstrated by people like the French anarchists Ravachol, Auguste Vaillant and Émile Henry [who actually bombed the bourgeoisie because he held them responsible for keeping society going] and the Italian Sante Caserio [all of whom obviously acted physically and directly against those they thought guilty of the system that imprisons us all]. If you read their court speeches or the explanations for their crimes that they provide [documentation is on The Anarchist Library and I discuss it myself in chapter 8 of my own book "Nothing To Stick To: Anarchism for Free Spirits"] you reveal deep emotional concern for the state of people in general but also the need to act, perhaps even in desperate ways.

This is the dilemma my book "Anarchy Against The Law and The State" presents: are we, anarchists who are supposedly "against the law", insurrectionists and illegal in the eyes of the state, going to sit and do nothing material about this or are we going to act against the system in a cry of defiance and in activity which refuses the norms of our society to which we are intended to become indifferent according to its own dictates and desires? To put this another way: What point is there in the excuse of survival [the regular worker's excuse is "I am just trying to survive"] if all you do is settle down, accept your life in a miserable prison system of a society and say, "Oh well, that's just the way it is?" Is that an autonomy that can be ascribed to anarchy or is that simple conformity and anarchy is a game we play as a dream to keep us sane as we go through our ultimately self-willed prison existence?

My suggestion, one I find informed by my copious reading of anarchism in general as is exampled throughout my own writing about it, is that the only way to be "autonomous" is TO ACTUALLY BECOME AUTONOMOUS. That's why Sofia Johnson is in my book. She, of course, is also proof of consequences [and my own history is not immune to such brushes with the law either]. But if, as anarchists, we aren't prepared for consequences then what are we doing at all? Cosplay anarchism? We already have enough of that across the social media landscape thanks very much. Anarchism, then, is about getting real and facing consequences or its about nothing. That's how you could sum up my book "Anarchy Against The Law and The State".

Fucking Elon musk then fedi block nonsense has forced you to have to communicate in the anews comment section. TT, I wouldn't even force my enemies such misery.

Idk figured I'd send u a message so you didn't think I was super happy that you got suspended from ni.hil.ist. I would have been pretty frustrated if that happened

On the other hand, Lettuce... A site that is account-free like this one, even if this looks to you like a cesspool, allows people to provide more infos on bans that occurred on account-based platforms.

Speaking of which... I'd like to get more details on Anarchista Goldman's ban from ni.hil.ist. Is this related to the mods being ID pols fanatics?

Nah, I was disappointed you left but bugs reasoning was that largely about getting fedi blocked by all the other anarchist instances if they let you talk openly about your positions on age of consent.

Ni.hil.ist getting blocked by all the anarchist instances would suck and most users were could with suspending you to prevent fedi block.

Bugs said they talked to you about it so I assumed you knew

No, sorry, LL... I'm not "Anarquista Goldman". I just wanted to have more details on the grounds for their banning as I didn't read their controversial postsand had zero clue of what's going on. I understand that the negative distraction being written on PLW and Wolfi is more than enough and there's no need for more pedo-promotion, or enabling.

I wrote the previous comment before Bugs answered me on another platform.

"going to sit and do nothing material about this or are we going to act against the system in a cry of defiance and in activity which refuses the norms of our society to which we are intended to become indifferent "
SooOoo, one individualist anarch, by entering into a relationship with an enslaved normie, and introducing them to the ideas of opposing "Oh well, that's just the way it is", is according to your MO, spreading and actively participating in being against the law and state, and therefore doing their bit, because you know, if everyone does this, maths, 1 becomes 2, becomes 4, becomes 8, bc 16, 32, 64, ,,,,,,,millions,,etc.
Isn't this how social change usually occured, the idea must be palatable, desirable, comfortable, ,,,Ooor aaAaall is lost?
Just one anarch doing their own little bit towards the cause, it's all they are able to do to get the best result, one now becomes 2 within the cosiness of a loving relationship. Isn't that enough for one humble anarch to achieve? * rebelliously swoons "

welcome back chisel & chuckles,

anyway, the discussion was, uh, wow... ".. working at a convenience store is worse than slavery" ??? "these people just don't understand they are in prison" ???

i am paraphrasing but not that far off. the caucasity!

i don't disagree that attack is necessary yet when one loses sight of the humanity of other people something vital has been lost. when anarchists think they know what other people believe about their own circumstances i'm at a loss as to where the anarchy is.

and it isn't that this view [ag, sj, etc.] is all wrong, it's just that it isn't the whole of the matter. nothing is all of one thing and none of the other. a lot of us want to have relationships with other beings, not just be autonomous individuals, absolutely free in our isolation. [imo, impossible]. for myself, this means i don't run roughshod over others to get what i need, i cooperate. no limits, no boundaries, is the logic of cancer.

In order to fight "cancer", my friend, you have to literally kill it, rip it out, destroy it, for it will never give in.

Do you have the drive, guts, motivation and courage for that? Or would you rather sit comtemplating "humanity" [a Stirnerite spook if ever I heard one] while we all get royally fucked in the ass?

If you acknowledge the necessity for "attack" then you need to say who is attacked and why and actually get to doing it. We are not in a "casualty free" situation here: its us or them.

In short, read the third chapter of my book that was discussed in the podcast. The metaphor I give there from DS9 is right on point in this respect: the powers that be are always going to put innocents in our way to our systemic freedom. They are betting we won't have the stomach for the fight. They are saying that if you try to leave the prison they have built, they will kill those left behind. Its meant to hamstring us, tie us down, keep us tame.

Well, do we have the stomach for the fight or are we already so tame as to make inauthentic excuses for our quite obvious cowardice?

""humanity" [a Stirnerite spook if ever I heard one] "
Umm nOooO, humanity is flesh blood and bones with feelings, not an illusionary ghost detached from reality.(

What makes you think "illusionary ghosts" are "detached from reality"?

As America, of all places, proves every day, people believe quite real stupid shit every day of their lives. In fact, they dedicate their lives to doing so with very real consequences. "Illusions" - another name for imagination - are very real and have real effects and that's the problem.

The problem is WHAT WE THINK and, to keep it on the topic of the podcast, the problem is that we think clinging to capitalism that's on the road to global ruin is our only choice and we do nothing to accelerate its demise.

That's no anarchism worth the name.

Yeah, spooks are real in the minds of deluded people. It's not people clinging to capitalism, its people born into the hegemony with no alternative but to survive
within it.

What is real?

Can we spare the Western Einsteinian physics and atomic space time theory and just enjoy our spontaneous blood and bone dasein existentialism please ?

if you reread the sentence, i am not talking about Humanity, some abstract entity, but the humanity of actual flesh & blood squishy bodies. what i'm getting at is that your black & white / us & them approach IS more the problem than a clerk at a convenience store.

to be clear, either / or thinking is what builds this world. which is not to say it has no uses, or is not a powerful tool for some things.

both / and thinking is a way out of this world,

let me put it this way: if you see only us and them what happens after you kill off all of them? do you forsee a constant war on the thems as they arise?
how exhausting & tedious.

i did read the section the totw discussion was about. the problem with using fictional scenarios to prove a point is that those are fictional scenarios. i don't see that most convenience store clerks or anarchists are in anything like such a scenario. the fault lines separating us from them runs through each of us, in our bodies.

you go ahead and attack willy-nilly. for myself, the situation is hardly ever that clear. when it is clear, that's when i act.

"both / and thinking is a way out of this world, "

Explain this. To me it's just as much woo-woo nonsense as what you're opposing. Where is "out of this world." What then?

now there pertains this notion that (for whatever x) [x] has to be this or that. ie, [x] is either true or false.

but if one sits still for a spell one can observe [x] is true. [x] is false. [x] is both true and false. [x] is neither true nor false. all at the same time.

reality is strange and weird. only in particularly circumscribed circumstances will it be obvious where the thin edge of the wedge should go, if you catch my drift.

you're too kind

I am a non-strugglismo convenience store clerk with anarcho-nihilist tendencies, NOT a binary us/them malcontent seething with ressentiment. So there!

You're a spook.

I disagree with the idea that workers are slaves it's a misunderstanding of slavery. Just because the legal way to get housing is by working for money doesn't make you a slave. It is coersion to work sure but not even close to slavery.

I think my points in the podcast would be way more controversial if I was insinuating all workers were slaves with no agency to do anything else.

And I agree that cooperation is good. No person stands alone. Tho you can't attack capitalism if you are cooperating and enabling the life blood of capitalism itself. Who you cooperate with needs to be well thought out. And I think law following people who do nothing but enable the system will be poor choices of people to cooperate with.

So I think I agree with the meat of your argument. Just I interpret how to do that and what it means differently

We hope the flood waters wash away your mansions and liberate the means of production from your capitalist clutches

still posting

still seething

you hate to see it

This is very kind of you. Maybe what they say about you is all wrong. Thank you, friends!

i disagree with the statements expressed in the discussion segment. all cashiers should be curb-stomped. indiscriminate attack, death to the passerby!

My bad, I won't use the podcast as a nightcap anymore.

He dared to question the legitimacy of thecollective's authoritarian voice in a milieu they do not even participate in. He spoke out against the potential of an authoritarian trend being promoted by thecollective that nearly caused real life harm to anarchists he is comrades with. He dared to try and help make the world around him better for people around him and stood up for himself when he was being ridiculed by thecollective for being too much of "an activist."

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