Response to A "Letter" Addressed to Antifa/Anarcho-Communists
Somebody posted a copy-paste of an article/letter to antifa which I was going to respond to there, but figured these are common questions amongst people who do not understand antifa, anarcho-communism, etc, which fits perfectly up with most people on here.
So why not make a post about it?
This is a response to: This which was brought to my attention by this post by @wimpiam
It is my understanding you are an Anarcho-Communist organization that opposes fascism. How does that work exactly? Are not those two things one in the same?
Fascism in the literal since is state-ran private industries, essentially state capitalism. This is why many of us refer to the current system and it's supporters as fascists, or "corporate-fascists" to clarify the position.
What also comes with fascism however is typically (really always) extreme nationalism and thus typically discrimination against others who you believe do not fit in the country you are nationalistic to.
Anarcho-Communism is stateless and leaderless, it's essentially a decentralized network of different communities that can choose to band to together for common goals and mutual aide, where each individual simply does what they enjoy and lives a good life, or what is needed and lives a slightly better life, or if they have the fortune of inventing something, maybe even a luxurious life, but not because they used their advantage or luck to exploit, but rather because society appreciates their contribution.
Everything from where you work to where you live to who you listen to or associate with is voluntary, and thus it resembles nothing of fascism, especially because fundementally there is no division between land, origin, color, gender, or anything else. You're an abstract human/person, nothing else.
What is the difference between Anarcho-Communism and Communism?
Anarcho-Communism is how I described above.
Communism in the literal since is basically what I said above, and the anarcho part is more to clarify, but so-called "communism" from the Soviet Union resembled more fascist policies than communist ones.
The soviet union was basically Nazi Germany 2.0 once Stalin was in, which is why they were so hostile and backstabby to each other. They were both fascist more or less, as they operated as such, it's just the Soviet chose to say (but not behave) like everybody is welcomed, while Hitler did the complete opposite and blamed the Jews.
The difference between the Soviet-Communism and Anarcho-Communism is that there are no rulers, leaders, central authority or state, or anything of the such. Things are done locally as a community.
Essentially instead of a pyramid where the top speaks to the bottom, the bottom speaks/commands the top.
You claim to be justified in assaulting individuals because they are Nazis, yet it seems everyone you disagree with is a Nazi. Is anything you justify OK? What is the limit?
The NAP states essentially if someone is the aggressor, the abuser, etc, and is violating and hurting you and others, then self-defense is appropriate be it from yourself or another.
The right blames immigrants and refugees often, blindly, and blanket-like, not to mention promotes capitalism and extremely idiotic policies.
They're literal fascists or fascist-supports, even if they don't know it, as the USA for example is ran by an elite ring of rich corporates that dictate and control everything in politics and the government. That's essentially fascism with the face of "democracy."
Because there is no rational way to deal with someone like that, as they and their position is inherently irrational and hateful, violence and/or terrorism is the only way to solve this issue. Here's a post I did a little over a week ago talking about if Terrorism is really a bad thing, if you want to complain about that, check it out first.
struggling in a country still recovering financially from war.
What the fuck are you talking about? The USA and western powers run off war. That's why the US is always at war.
That's why we want to smash the state and burn those corporate motherfuckers alive.
500 -> 1000billion dollars spent on useless weapons and disgusting conservatives, all to funnel into that ring of corporates, from our taxes.
No, we did not consent to it, nor would we have put our money there.
Instead they could have paid for college education (bachelor's) for every single child in America for about $20-40 billion a year.
Instead they could have eliminated homelessness and poverty in the country for around 6-10billion, and made that good quality of life for 20billion a year.
Instead they could have built some motherfucking public transport or bicycles paths.
Instead they could upgrade every motherfucking car in this country to a Tesla or similar and dump the gas entirely for that budget in not even two years.
Sorry but you've lost your fucking mind if you think people in the west struggle because of war, that has nothing to do with it. Why people struggle is because the system is fucked and to make it worse every 5-10years it blows up because the elite over-exploit things and create a bubble.
muh property
It doesn't matter if the public pays for it as that money would have been wasted on war, the police, or some other useless garbage anyways.
Besides, rarely is something destroyed that's truly public. Nobody gets angle-grinders and fucks up benches.
Still raw and unedited, just saying it how it is.
Sources for the photographs used in which are not explicitly open for use or personally done:
Money
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If you are against capitalism, then why not decline rewards for your posts? The hole concept of steemit is to be a decentralized free market capitalist platform to reward content creators.
If you decline your post that means other people receive the profits of the post, which means capitalists receive more profits (as more capitalists use the network than anyone).
It'd be better to receive the funds myself to spread the good message on here by having more steem power, or by funding various actions/gifts in real life.
Essentially accepting payouts is no different than accepting handouts from the government. While you may not want to use money, in this society it's useful and gains you (and thus the cause) influence/power, so you'll (I'll) gladly take it and turn it around, be it to smash the state, capitalism in general, or to contribute to other (real) anarchists on steem.
it gives us the ability to buy more weapons.....
which is all we really need now
Where would you say anarcho-communists disagree with anarcho-capitalists?
And I mean actual AnCaps aka voluntaryists who hold to the NAP. It seems the same as what you're describing (just with a different loaded term that people often misunderstand hehe)
If it's complicated you could consider a separate blog post sometime (I realize it isn't exactly the point here, I'm just curious)
Essentially voluntaryists say that it is not a violation of the NAP to claim you do not use and then refuse access/shelter/development/passage to another person, even if it's life-threatening.
So essentially if somebody cannot find a job, they're left to starve, but also cannot simply go out into the wild as private property is a thing and in the eyes of voluntaryists they would be violating the NAP if they crossed into their land during travel or simply to make a camp and basic shelter.
Anarcho-communism essentially anyone part of the collective will have a say, potentially more or less depending on their contributions determined by the collective it's self (essentially delegated voice), and no private property is respected, only personal property. That means if the collective has a plot of and of 2000acres, and there's a few houses on the eastern side of it, taking up about 10acres, you cannot go set up a tent right next to them, however you can always ask the collective (or the people there) if you can build and join in next to them, and until then you can always go stealth-camp (leave no trace camping) out into those 2000acres, as you will not be disturbing anybody. You could also of course ask to camp next to the houses, which likely they'd be okay with, but even if not because the other 1500+ acres aren't pretty much ever even visited you will not be disturbing anybody and thus you can do as you please as long as it doesn't damage the land.
In voluntaryism or really any "an"-cap subset everybody is an individual and private property does exist, which means you cannot simply go stealth-camp and everything is based off money rather than the feelings of the residents.
Because of this, an-coms say that they're violating the NAP because it is aggressive to bar someone from using land that you are not using that they need to use to survive. It is also aggressive to restrict movement over said land if movement is needed and nothing is disturbed in the travels.
There's also some problems with the economics and classes and how private property would function (they could simply keep buying and become a mini-state in due time, forcing rent payments with force and creating rules because it's "his land") which scream that it wouldn't actually be voluntary for long, and it'd only be voluntary for the people who were treated correctly.
Because an-coms see it as a violation of the NAP in general, that means defensive actions are permitted if need be, which obviously may end up a commie militia overthrowing local capitalists and their mercenaries, unless they agree to not use the NAP as a justification and instead have the collective simply economically suffocate the capitalist/voluntaryists by acting as a single capitalist their self.
Woops I made it long :)
I hate re-writing because there's no way to capture the original flavor. But I can't find it, my general points were something like:
I agree with your attitude about how the world should work and whatnot.
Once a pack of dogs chased after me while I was bicycle touring and thought it might be ok to cut through a yard to get back to the street. This annoyed me and did not seem peaceful or civil etc
Land is unique because it was here in the first place, it's nobody's creation, there's just a fixed amount of it that by default we share. So it should follow different rules than things we produce and create ourselves like pencils
To me it seems like what you're describing for the AnCap position is just people who have a bad view of how claims to land ownership should work and who misapply their own principle .. like, when the dogs chase after me, that IS an act of aggression .. so to me the issue doesn't seem like voluntaryist principles but rather the way some people apply them. And when people start blocking the ability to pass through and whatnot, you'd just regard that as an act of aggression.
I mentioned that I was making it long too, lulz
Then I said it seems like you're maybe conflating AnCap with love of money, and I mentioned how there are AnCaps who do this, like Jefferey Tucker loves glorifying consumerism and weirdly talking about how great McDonald's is (even tho it doesn't exist without govt aid) .. but that I don't think this is actually what flows out of volntaryist principles or what a voluntary society would look like
In my mind a voluntary society looks essentially like you're describing, driven by social esteem and perceived contribution.
Money may actually just be a figment of the scarcity that the current order of things creates. When you have everything you need, money seems moot. So voluntary societies who keep what they produce and it doesn't all get drained by powerful leeches .. seems like money (as we think of it now anyways) naturally stops mattering
That's the problem though, I've never met someone who wasn't an an-com who agrees with that. Every non-commmunist anarchist seems to think private property is #1 and it's not aggressive if someone owns the property, as it's their choice what goes on in the property.
That's the reason I have a problem with people who identify as "an"-cap as because of machines and the robotics that are here and easily implemented there's simply no role for money or capitalism.
Unless the capitalist artificially makes things worse, like they do in this society, and then essentially "farms" everybody else, then he must make them all die in the streets as they provide no value in a traditional capitalist sense.
I agree voluntarism should be the same as what I'm saying, but most I see still think capitalism can be voluntary when they force things like private property on people who have no capital, which thus puts them in the position to work for the capitalist or die.
That's not voluntary. You need basic human needs given or the ability for someone to find it on their own, such as out in nature, but with private property that isn't really a thing, at least without "muh nap" being brought up as an excuse to enslave.
@@ -1300,32 +1300,42 @@
u're describing
+for AnCap
is people who ho
Jfc, I edited something and it changed my post to this 😡😡
My original post should be on the blockchain right? I'm looking on steemd.com but only see this bizarre post and not the original
"property is theft" - the first self-proclaimed anarchist. We disagree with you on every level.
interesting
I wish you would've paid a little more attention. I am the author of the original article. It was written in jest. Not so much a copy paste.
A little more attention to...oh wait that's right you didn't want a response, you just wanted to bitch and complain about your boogie man.
If you're the original writing, okay, but that's sort of a silly to wait a month to post it on here, but I suppose that's because you didn't join till recently.
Now you're putting words in my mouth. I wanted a response otherwise I wouldn't have posted it. I didn't wait at all, I posted it a day after joining. If you look at my bio it links to the site I write for, where I wrote that piece. In the future try not to make assumptions like that please.
Yeah no, that post wasn't putting words in your mouth.
Great job, just like the typical unintellectual ""an""cap, refusing to address anything and meerly whine and say how I need to pay more attention and making vague bullshit statements rather than having a discussion.
Typical.
You saidi didn't want a response, i did. Just not a rude one.