chapotraphouse

Lol some anarchish kids were handing out this zine in my locale. Along with a whole lot of based literature, there was this turd of a mccarthyite pamphlet, just trying to slip in like

The person handing it out was warning people not to join any sort of communist/socialist orgs because "they want to throw us in camps and praise their dictators," to paraphrase. Really lame, and the zine is conspicuously without any attribution, I mean it probably came from Langley so of course they won't credit any authors. The other literature was usually attributed to some collective or locale. But I don't think anti communism is a view held universally by everyone in that circle. A lot of different tendencies are involved in anarchistic organizing here, I'm finding.

But I'm not sectarian and so far these anarchists have been really accepting and have a lot of skills, energy, and will to put their resources to use in mutual aid and building dual power, I definitely have a lot to learn but I'm trying to figure out how to link up all the disparate groups and tendencies. Anyway, hope we can get over this shit like we see in that awful little state department pamphlet. I've been thinking of posting it so.... Here we are.

Beware any tankies you see trying to "organize" or follow a "strategy" or "work together"

I wish I loved anything as much as the writer loves quotation marks. So the "anti-imperialists" oppose the "Western world", namely the "US", due to "Marcyist" "Campism". Wow, you really wouldn't want to write this sentence without those scare quotes!

This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: Who was right?

In Guatemala, was it Arbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?

Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit's unarmed party didn't survive. Allende's democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the d'etente between the Soviets and Washington.

Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence of a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported -- what the rich countries said, rather than what they did.

That group was annihilated.

• Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method

Anarcho-libs / "Libertarian Leftists" love movements that maintained their moral purity by failing. As movements they're relatively easy to defend. Because they never meaningfully took power, they're never made to deal with the baggage of a real government that exists in a hostile capitalist world. Forever morally pristine and beautiful, in failure and death.

Some of these are absolutely ridiculous. “WATCH OUT FOR CHARISMATIC LEADERS!” Yes, if you want to make sure your organization is safe, make sure the leaders are unlikable morons who smell bad.