seattle indymedia center

is this an anti-authoritarian anti-imperialist march, or a march of any anti-imperialists? because there are many people who would consider themselves "anti-imperialist" and want a world where THEY are in control so they can stop CAPITALIST imperialism and perpetuate their own.

thanks.

i sadly can't make it to the meeting since i have to work, but i will be there to help you in the streets. i do wish you luck with the meeting and hope you can keep the authoritarian aspects of the anti imperialist movement where they belong; in the wastebasket with the rest of the fascists!


peace, love, revolution

Yes, there are many fraudulent anti-imperialists, for example, revisionists and opportunists who disconnect imperialism from the class struggle. PSL and WWP of ANSWER are the two most relevant examples when it comes to preparing for S-24. Yesterday, they supported the tyrant and regional imperialist Saddam Hussein in his struggle U.S. imperialism. Today they support the insurgency of the out-of-power Ba’athists and reactionary clerics---forces who would not only brutally oppress the masses of Iraqi people, but whose greatest dream is that Iraq once again become a regional power. (Naturally, because of their class nature, these forces may at some point cut a deal with the U.S. imperialists and Iraqi government, and there have already been talks.) The PSL and WWP are shamefaced about this support, but it’s very real. A place to check this out is  http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php?aid=421.

There are also the extreme left-wing Democratic Party politicians who talk against the imperialism of Bush and the neocons, but only because they want to replace it with some form of multilateral imperialism. They too disconnect imperialism from the issue of class.

Although Edward and I have different political opinions about several things, we’re militantly behind this call because we’re convinced that if the anti-war movement is to become a really powerful movement an anti-imperialist pole must be developed within it. But this isn’t going to happen by itself, and the political trends and organizations presently dominating the movement are dead-set against it. So we put out the above call for anti-imperialists to come together to plan a feeder-march and contingent, organize to mobilize people to attend, etc. Furthermore, we would like to see a continuing unity of anti-imperialists after S-24, i.e., more links and organization among us so that we can build further actions or events.

Edward and I both consider ourselves communists, not anti-authoritarians in the sense that anarchists use the word, and you seem to associate yourself with some trend within anarchism. But we’re not sectarians. For my part, I know for certain that there will be people at the meeting that I have political disagreement with, but I’m willing to honestly and militantly work with them on this project because I think that the development of the anti-war movement DEMANDS that I do this. So if you consider yourself an anarchist, support the idea of this march and contingent, and want to work to build it, come to the meeting. Moreover, you (like everyone else) are entirely free to develop your own posters and agitation to build for it, free to shout your own slogans in the march, etc., etc. Our target is imperialism. Our stand is with the working and other oppressed people of Iraq, this country, and all countries.

Thanks, anon.

(reply to aa and anon)

Because of the way that history has unfolded --and also because many so groups on the left are manipulative -- many activists are distrustful of the "authoritarian" groups and ideology.

Here is the thing to keep in mind: The working class is not a bunch of idiots. And the working class is not going to put a bunch of people in power that will simply set up another kind of dictatorship. So there is no need to be afraid of the "authoritarian" groups. They have their problems, to be sure, but they are not going to crawl out from underneath your bed while you are sleeping and chew off your toes in the middle of the might.

We must live, and fight, in this world. This means that we must, fearlessly, deal with it as it is.

We live in world which is dominated by imperialism.

A section of the imperialist political machine wants to dominate and control the antiwar movement. In order to oppose this -- and in order to build an antiwar movement which is powerful and militant -- those who are disgusted with the domination of the antiwar movement by liberal-imperialist politics, slogans, speeches and ideas -- must take independent action.

Some of those who see the need to take independent action may have mistaken ideas about this or that. But what is important is that they see the need to take independent action. On the other hand, those who oppose the idea of taking independent action on the excuse that others may have wrong ideas -- are in practice standing aside and, by their passivity, doing nothing to oppose the domination of the antiwar movement by liberal lesser-evil politics.

Ben Seattle -  http://struggle.net/ben

Isolated from one another we are easily defeated.
Connected to one another no force on earth can stop us
 http://MediaWeapon.com

Thank you Frank, Ben, and all. What a remarkable conversation. I too will march Sep 24 and I'm glad the antiwar movement is growing. And I'm also skeptical of the authoritarian and statist solutions many of the left seem to suggest.

There are 6 billion people and they've got a perfect right to work and struggle and argue, and organize their economy. For example half the economy in the seattle area is pure bullshit information manipulating businesses like mortgage lending, telecommunications/media, regulatory/counterregulatory bureaucracy, accounting, law, marketing, etc. The other half is just the bulldozers and builders, and the transportation industry.

Don't be so focused on abstractions like global imperialism. We need to build P2P transaction infrastructure to conduct businss outside the surveillance, blockage, and economic toll collectors of today's economy. THAT is a gift of Seattle to the world. All this revolutionary struggle crap is not useful,

todd boyle - kirkland 425-827-3107 anytime.
www.ledgerism.net my p2p transaction stuff.
www.refusenik.org my economic refusal campaign.

well, all of that BS sounded like a bunch of skirting around the issue of authoritarianism. sounds like a bunch of bullshit. i am an anarchist. i will fight authoritarianism of any stripe, "anti-imperialist" or not. so i won't be coming to your commie working-class fetishizing fest of a meeting. and i am just wondering, what is this "militancy" all of you seem to speak of? loud chants criticizing capitalism and war? i have yet to see any "militant" action come out of the privilidged ivory-tower communist groups in this country. take your fetishizing of the working class and shove it up your ass, in the same place your store all of your intellectualist privilidge.

laterz.

"aa" said:

> well, all of that BS sounded like a bunch of
> skirting around the issue of authoritarianism.
> sounds like a bunch of bullshit. i am an anarchist.
> i will fight authoritarianism of any stripe,
> "anti-imperialist" or not. so i won't be coming to
> your commie working-class fetishizing fest of a
> meeting. and i am just wondering, what is this
> "militancy" all of you seem to speak of? loud
> chants criticizing capitalism and war? i have yet
> to see any "militant" action come out of the
> privilidged ivory-tower communist groups in this
> country. take your fetishizing of the working class
> and shove it up your ass, in the same place your
> store all of your intellectualist privilidge.

The antiwar movement includes many young activists who are upset because most of the groups that they try to talk to respond with attempts to manipulate them in one way or the other.

Unfortunately that is the way the "left ecosystem" works at the present time. The left includes what is best -- as well as what is worst -- in society. There is no shortage of many forms of dishonesty and self-deception. There is also no shortage of honest people who are very confused.

I have confidence that the left will change. The current situation cannot last.

"aa" raises 2 main points.

a) On the one hand "aa" says he will not attend the meeting because the two activists who initiated the idea for it -- have different views than he does over how society will be organized 20 or 30 or 50 years from now.

This strikes me as being immature and silly. After all, if Edward and Frank (who proposed that all serious activists organize an anti-imperialist contingent) are correct in their view that this is what is necesssary today -- is it really all that important if they may have mistaken ideas about what people will decide to do after bourgeois rule is overthrown?

"aa" is essentially saying that he refuses to work with (or be in the same room as) anyone who has different views than he does. This is a form of sectarianism. Sectarianism weakens the left. US imperialism is waging a very brutal war against the Iraqi people. Antiwar activists who want to see our movement become powerful have a responsibility to find ways of working together even if they have different ideas. This is part of what it means to be a serious activist.

b) aa's other comment, however, is deserving of greater attention. "aa" asks about the content of "militancy" and explains that he is sceptical that genuine militancy will emerge from the actions of "communist" groups.

I am not going to get into the subject of what "communism" is or is not. There are many different groups which have different ideas and, more importantly, act in very different ways.

The more interesting question concerns: "what is militancy?".

I assert that genuine militancy flows from our movement being independent of the influence of imperialist politics. I assert that this follows as night follows day.

The imperialist Democratic Party, for example, works to channel the energy of activists into pathways that lead to demoralization and passivity. I do not consider that militancy.

The mass movements in the United States in the 20th century show many examples of mass defiance of bourgeois respectibility and bourgeois law. On many occasions very large and spirited mass actions aimed at taking a political message to the masses as well as causing trouble for the bourgeoisie authorities. Sometimes these actions included self-defense on a large scale and people died in the process. This is part of our history.

The 1999 anti-WTO protests included various actions that were militant. For example protesters picked up tear-gas canisters and threw them back at the police. I think that was a good thing. But the most important thing was simply that there was open defiance of the police and the requirements of bourgeois respectibility and law on a _mass_ scale (ie: not isolated "heroes" -- but large groups of people).

This is why the city politicians were forced to declare a form of martial law that covered most of downtown.

And the point here is that there is a direct relationship between these kinds of actions (ie: mass defiance of police and bourgeois law) and the influence of the Democratic Party. Where the influence of the Democratic Party is strong there will be fewer mass actions and fewer actions in which there is mass defiance. On the other hand when the mass of activists recognize the need to break with the Democratic Party (and the need to break with the strata of trade union bureaucrats, liberal-labor politicians, religious misleaders, poverty pimps, "progressive" media personalities and professional "opinion leaders" that are in orbit around the Democratic Party -- and who serve as vehicles of Democratic Party influence) then there will be an increase in mass militancy -- in a great many forms.

So this is the big question for our movement: will we let the antiwar movement be led down the path of demoralization and begging for peace from the gods of war? Or will we fight for a movement which is independent of bourgeois influence -- and powerful?

Some well-known anarchists (like Noam Chomsky -- and locally Geov Parrish, the editor of "Eat the State") have unfortunately allowed themselves to be used as shills for the Democratic Party and the "anybody but Bush" fiasco. Others, like "aa" would appear to prefer to do nothing -- than to take action to challenge the domination of liberal lesser-evil politics in the antiwar movement.

But I know that there are anarchists in Seattle who are more thoughtful and serious than this -- I would very much like to see some of them at the meeting this Saturday.

Ben Seattle -  http://struggle.net/ben

Isolated from one another we are easily defeated.
Connected to one another no force on earth can stop us
 http://MediaWeapon.com

(see also my correction of my previous post below)

--------------------
Correction
--------------------

It is not often that I fail to proof-read my comments before posting. But it does happen. One sentence from my previous post is potentially misleading.

was:
----

And the working class is not going to put
a bunch of people in power that will simply
set up another kind of dictatorship.

should have been:
-----------------

will simply set up their own kind
of dictatorship.

comment on above:
-----------------

History has never witnessed a country or nation
that has been controlled by the working class.
The closest that has been seen was working class
rule _in embryo_ (ie: in an extremely undeveloped
stage -- for a few years in early Soviet Russia).
I have written more about this in an essay at
 http://proletarism.com

"This strikes me as being immature and silly. After all, if Edward and Frank (who proposed that all serious activists organize an anti-imperialist contingent) are correct in their view that this is what is necesssary today -- is it really all that important if they may have mistaken ideas about what people will decide to do after bourgeois rule is overthrown? "

it's not about what people will try to do afterwards. statist communists have a proven track record that in EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE where they state that it is NECESSARY (as if they are all-knowing) to "organize an anti-imperialist contingent" they leave off the end of the sentence, which is "under the leadership of us"- be they communists, or statists of any stripe, this is always the case.

and i don't consider myself an "activist"- especially not a "serious activist", my life is more full of joy, spontenaity, and fun for THAT to be how i think of myself. i fight for a better world because i am sick of living in this shithole excuse for a society, where prisons are overflowing and people starve while the rich get richer and drop their bombs and impose control over me and those i love.... i am not an "activist" to help those poor "other" souls of the working class or poor or whoever. that IS me. i am fighting for myself and my friends and my family. "activists" fight for other people. i fight for my own freedom, joy, and life.

so anyone who considers themselves a "serious activist" should get off my back, because your a fckin carpet-bagger.

until civilization implodes.....
aa

- - - It couldn't of been said better - - - - - - - - GOOD TO KNOW YOUR OUT-THERE - - - - Hope you do well -

(sorry if this came up twice)

...this anarchism of the extreme sectarian, vehemently anti-worker variety.

Frank writes that "you (like everyone else) are entirely free to develop your own posters and agitation to build for it, free to shout your own slogans in the march, etc., etc." Yet aa moans that the contingent will be organized "under the leadership of us". One wonders whether aa attends demonstrations at all. Certainly the WWP or PSL which spearheads ANSWER is not anti-authoritarian. Or is an ANSWER demonstration safe to attend because ANSWER includes the participation of open reformists and liberals?

The call states that imperialism needs to be fought "through the independent political action of the masses, particularly the workers, oppressed nationalities and youth". Merely mentioning workers among other categories of people is enough to earn aa's fury.

You say that you are "fighting" (who? activists?) "for myself and my friends and my family", and that "the working class or poor or whoever" don't mean a dime to you. So why not at least spare us the cheap melodramatic rhetoric (that's really all it can be coming from your mouth) about "this shithole excuse for a society, where prisons are overflowing and people starve while the rich get richer and drop their bombs", etc.

---

On a seperate issue, while I obviously agree with Ben's opposing aa's sectarianism, I think he is wrong to belittle the theoretical struggle regarding the transition to socialism, to belittle criticism of the bureaucratic vision of "socialism" (actually state-capitalism) held by the Trotskyists and Stalinists, for example; saying blithely that things will work themselves out: "The working class is not a bunch of idiots. And the working class is not going to put a bunch of people in power that will simply set up another kind of dictatorship." For one who prides himself on his semi-anti-authoritarian writings about future revolutions, it seems ironic to in effect claim that whatever forces come to power in the initial stage of a proletarian revolution are by definition infallibly correct revolutionaries.

“i am fighting for myself and my friends and my family” = “I fight for me and mine”. Progressive social movements cannot be built on this basis.

By the way, Edward and I did not use the phrase “serious activists” in our call. Personally, I consider anti-war activists serious people. But it’s hard to view someone as an activist if they will only go to a march on condition that it be composed of people they already agree with. And, since aa mocks activism, and says “i don't consider myself an ‘activist‘” I guess we agree on one thing.

hi jeff it is good to hear from you.

You said:

> while I obviously agree with Ben's opposing
> aa's sectarianism, I think he is wrong to
> belittle the theoretical struggle regarding
> the transition to socialism, to belittle
> criticism of the bureaucratic vision of
> "socialism" (actually state-capitalism) held
> by the Trotskyists and Stalinists, for example;
> saying blithely that things will work themselves
> out: "The working class is not a bunch of idiots.
> And the working class is not going to put a
> bunch of people in power that will simply set up
> another kind of dictatorship." For one who
> prides himself on his semi-anti-authoritarian
> writings about future revolutions, it seems
> ironic to in effect claim that whatever forces
> come to power in the initial stage of a
> proletarian revolution are by definition
> infallibly correct revolutionaries.

If I did claim the things that you assert that I claim -- then I would indeed be wrong.

However, it appears to me that you are reading into my statement many things that I do not actually say.

My statement addresses a fear that many anarchists have. This fear is that "authoritarians" will be placed into power by the working class -- and will create a single-party state that suppresses all opposition.

In effect, this section of anarchists are afraid that a group like the RCP will come to power and suppress them. Of course the RCP also imagines that it may come to power. I consider this to be a fantasy on the part of the RCP. But a section of anarchists have this exact same fantasy -- except of course that, to them, it is a nightmare.

I do not consider such a fantasy (or nightmare) to be realistic -- and have discussed this in many places including "The Future Transparent Workers' State" (available on the net at:  http://struggle.net/ALDS/essay_160_content.htm ).

Of course the bourgeoisie may, as an emergency measure, resort to fascism and institute an extremely repressive single-party state. But if they did -- they would be unlikely to select a group like the RCP to be their gestapo.

Now it is possible, of course, that the initial stages of a proletarian revolution may result in a group in power that is anti-worker and repressive (ie: counter-revolutionary while pretending to be the opposite). Such could happen because bourgeois and anti-worker forces might be able to disguise their nature and manuever enough to bring this about. But in such a case I do not believe it would be accurate to say that the anti-worker group was put into power by the workers (even if many workers voted for or otherwise supported such a group) any more than it would be accurate to say that the workers put Bush or Clinton into power.

Rather, when I speak of the working class putting people in power -- I am describing a conscious movement which is focused on principles.

And the principles which I believe will capture the attention and respect of the working class are not the principles that correspond to a single-party state that suppresses the voice of its opposition. I do not believe that such principles correspond to the material interests of the working class in the conditions of a modern society with a modern economy and communications infrastructure. Rather, the working class will run society and will exercize its rule (or dictatorship if you prefer) but will find it neither practical nor necessary to deprive it opponents (even bourgeois, counter-revolutionary opponents) of fundamental democratic rights.

(Note: I am not describing above the initial stage of a revolution or a period corresponding to the conclusion of a civil war -- since such a period could be full of all kinds of turbulent or chaotic events. Rather I am describing a period that could be properly and correctly called the rule of the working class. It is this period that is of the greatest importance from the point of view of theory -- because if we fail to develop a solid and reliable understanding of our _goal_ -- then we will have a much more difficult time making this goal understandable to millions of people.)

> I think he [ie: Ben] is wrong to belittle
> the theoretical struggle regarding the
> transition to socialism,

Jeff, I know you are aware that I have written about these principles at length in many places.

I have also done my best, Jeff, to engage you.

The theoretical struggle requires not only knowledge and work -- but also requires humility. History will judge you and me and everyone else on the basis of how well we were able to focus on the tasks which were decisive for our time.

I believe that confronting the crisis of theory is decisive.

Whatever else you may say about me, Jeff, I believe that you will agree that I have made efforts to engage you.

If you would like, now or in the future, to engage me on the topic of theory -- to make comments or ask me questions or maybe present a criticism -- I would welcome your participation on the pof-200 list. The pof-200 list has an audience that may be as large as this indymedia thread. More than this -- the pof-200 list is designed for the kind of discussion that requires more thought than tends to be practical on an indymedia page that loses 98 percent of its audience as soon as it falls off the front page. The pof-200 list is designed for discussions that consist of one or two posts per week -- without the time pressure involved in making a quick response.

More about the pof-200 email list, the public archives and how to join can be found at the web site of the Media Weapon community at:  http://MediaWeapon.com

I would look forward, Jeff, to engaging you in a situation where I do not have to stay up so late in order to respond to you publically. And I believe it likely that the depth of your reponses would be greater if your posts were not made under the kind of time-pressure that is typical of posts on indymedia threads.

Sincerely and revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle -  http://struggle.net/ben

Isolated from one another we are easily defeated.
Connected to one another no force on earth can stop us
 http://MediaWeapon.com