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In reply to the discussion: Twelve Reasons We Need to Strike Syria Now: [View all]Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)43. Sure, why not:
Since you can't be bothered to educate yourself before taking jabs at me, I guess I'll do some of the leg work for you.
Howard Zinn:
Howard Zinn: I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization. In other words to use globalization -- it is nothing wrong with idea of globalization -- in a way that bypasses national boundaries and of course that there is not involved corporate control of the economic decisions that are made about people all over the world.
Ziga Vodovnik: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once wrote that: "Freedom is the mother, not the daughter of order." Where do you see life after or beyond (nation) states?
Howard Zinn: Beyond the nation states? (laughter) I think what lies beyond the nation states is a world without national boundaries, but also with people organized. But not organized as nations, but people organized as groups, as collectives, without national and any kind of boundaries. Without any kind of borders, passports, visas. None of that! Of collectives of different sizes, depending on the function of the collective, having contacts with one another. You cannot have self-sufficient little collectives, because these collectives have different resources available to them. This is something anarchist theory has not worked out and maybe cannot possibly work out in advance, because it would have to work itself out in practice.
Ziga Vodovnik: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once wrote that: "Freedom is the mother, not the daughter of order." Where do you see life after or beyond (nation) states?
Howard Zinn: Beyond the nation states? (laughter) I think what lies beyond the nation states is a world without national boundaries, but also with people organized. But not organized as nations, but people organized as groups, as collectives, without national and any kind of boundaries. Without any kind of borders, passports, visas. None of that! Of collectives of different sizes, depending on the function of the collective, having contacts with one another. You cannot have self-sufficient little collectives, because these collectives have different resources available to them. This is something anarchist theory has not worked out and maybe cannot possibly work out in advance, because it would have to work itself out in practice.
Howard Zinn: Anarchism Shouldn't Be a Dirty Word
Orwell and Hemingway referred to themselves primarily as libertarian socialists, a synonym for anarchism (Orwell was disillusioned with Marxism; Hemingway with Leninism). Both fought with the socialists and anarchists against the fascist Franco forces in the Spanish Civil War:
The Spanish Civil War played the most important part in defining Orwell's socialism. He wrote to Cyril Connolly from Barcelona on 8 June 1937: "I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which I never did before."[149][150] Having witnessed the success of the anarcho-syndicalist communities, for example in Anarchist Catalonia, and the subsequent brutal suppression of the anarcho-syndicalists, anti-Stalin communist parties and revolutionaries by the Soviet Union-backed Communists, Orwell returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and joined the Independent Labour Party, his card being issued on 13 June 1938.[91] Although he was never a Trotskyist, he was strongly influenced by the Trotskyist and anarchist critiques of the Soviet regime, and by the anarchists' emphasis on individual freedom. In Part 2 of The Road to Wigan Pier, published by the Left Book Club, Orwell stated: "a real Socialist is one who wishes not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes to see tyranny overthrown." Orwell stated in "Why I Write" (1946): "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it."[151] Orwell was a proponent of a federal socialist Europe, a position outlined in his 1947 essay "Toward European Unity," which first appeared in Partisan Review.
<snip>
On anarchism, Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier: "I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone." He continued however and argued that "it is always necessary to protect peaceful people from violence. In any state of society where crime can be profitable you have got to have a harsh criminal law and administer it ruthlessly."
Large-scale anti-fascist movements were first seen in the 1930s, during the Spanish Civil War. The Republican Government and army, the Communist Party(PCE) the International Brigades, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and Spanish anarchist militias such as the Iron Column fought the rise of Francisco Franco with military force. The Friends of Durruti were a particularly militant group, associated with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). Thousands of people from many countries went to Spain in support of the anti-fascist cause, joining units such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the British Battalion, the Dabrowski Battalion, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and the Naftali Botwin Company. Notable anti-fascists who worked internationally against Franco included: George Orwell (who fought in the POUM militia and wrote Homage to Catalonia about this experience), Ernest Hemingway (a supporter of the International Brigades who wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls about this experience), and radical journalist Martha Gellhorn.
<snip>
On anarchism, Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier: "I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone." He continued however and argued that "it is always necessary to protect peaceful people from violence. In any state of society where crime can be profitable you have got to have a harsh criminal law and administer it ruthlessly."
Large-scale anti-fascist movements were first seen in the 1930s, during the Spanish Civil War. The Republican Government and army, the Communist Party(PCE) the International Brigades, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and Spanish anarchist militias such as the Iron Column fought the rise of Francisco Franco with military force. The Friends of Durruti were a particularly militant group, associated with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). Thousands of people from many countries went to Spain in support of the anti-fascist cause, joining units such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the British Battalion, the Dabrowski Battalion, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and the Naftali Botwin Company. Notable anti-fascists who worked internationally against Franco included: George Orwell (who fought in the POUM militia and wrote Homage to Catalonia about this experience), Ernest Hemingway (a supporter of the International Brigades who wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls about this experience), and radical journalist Martha Gellhorn.
Gandhi was influenced by the Christian anarchist, Leo Tolstoy:
The local conditions were pertinent to the development of the heavily anarchic Satyagraha movement in India. George Woodcock claimed Mohandas Gandhi self-identified as an anarchist.[10] Anarchism in India finds its first well-known expression with a statement by Gandhi:[1]
The state evil is not the cause but the effect of social evil, just as the sea-waves are the effect not the cause of the storm. The only way of curing the disease is by removing the cause itself.
In Gandhi's view, violence is the source of social problems, and the state is the manifestation of this violence. Hence he concluded that "[t]hat state is perfect and non-violent where the people are governed the least. The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on nonviolence."[1] For Gandhi, the way to achieve such a state of total nonviolence (ahimsa) was changing of the people's minds rather than changing the state which governs people. Self-governance (swaraj) is the principle behind his theory of satyagraha. This swaraj starts from the individual, then moves outward to the village level, and then to the national level; the basic principle is the moral autonomy of the individual is above all other considerations.[1]
Gandhis admiration for collective liberation started from the very anarchic notion of individualism. According to Gandhi, the conscience of the individual is the only legitimate form of government. Gandhi averred that "Swaraj will be an absurdity if individuals have to surrender their judgment to a majority." He opined that a single good opinion is far better and beneficial than that of the majority of the population if the majority opinion is unsound. Due to this swaraj individualism, he rejected both parliamentary politics and their instrument of legitimization, political parties. According to swaraj individualism the notion that the individual exists for the good of the larger organization had to be discarded in favor of the notion that the larger organization exists for the good of the individual, and one must always be free to leave and to dissent.[1] Gandhi also considered Leo Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God is Within You, a book about practical anarchist organization, as the text to have the most influence in his life.[11]
The state evil is not the cause but the effect of social evil, just as the sea-waves are the effect not the cause of the storm. The only way of curing the disease is by removing the cause itself.
In Gandhi's view, violence is the source of social problems, and the state is the manifestation of this violence. Hence he concluded that "[t]hat state is perfect and non-violent where the people are governed the least. The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on nonviolence."[1] For Gandhi, the way to achieve such a state of total nonviolence (ahimsa) was changing of the people's minds rather than changing the state which governs people. Self-governance (swaraj) is the principle behind his theory of satyagraha. This swaraj starts from the individual, then moves outward to the village level, and then to the national level; the basic principle is the moral autonomy of the individual is above all other considerations.[1]
Gandhis admiration for collective liberation started from the very anarchic notion of individualism. According to Gandhi, the conscience of the individual is the only legitimate form of government. Gandhi averred that "Swaraj will be an absurdity if individuals have to surrender their judgment to a majority." He opined that a single good opinion is far better and beneficial than that of the majority of the population if the majority opinion is unsound. Due to this swaraj individualism, he rejected both parliamentary politics and their instrument of legitimization, political parties. According to swaraj individualism the notion that the individual exists for the good of the larger organization had to be discarded in favor of the notion that the larger organization exists for the good of the individual, and one must always be free to leave and to dissent.[1] Gandhi also considered Leo Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God is Within You, a book about practical anarchist organization, as the text to have the most influence in his life.[11]
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first self-proclaimed anarchist in the politically modern sense. His book, What is Property? should be required reading. He proclaimed that "anarchy is theft!" referring to the capitalists owning the means of production. He also stated that it is liberty that is the mother, not the daughter, of order.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (French: [pjɛʁ ʒɔzɛf pʁudɔ̃]) (15 January 1809 19 January 1865) was a French politician, founder of Mutualist philosophy, economist, and libertarian socialist. He is the first person to call himself an "anarchist", and considered among its most influential theorists. He is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism".[1] He became a member of the French Parliament after the revolution of 1848, whereon he referred to himself as a "federalist".[2]
You can read his Wikipedia page for yourself and, perhaps, understand the anarchist philosophy.
Henry David Thoreau, while never claiming anarchism for himself, did make statements declaring his distrust of the state. Anarchists of all currents cite him as an influence:
Although Thoreau is sometimes cited as an anarchist,[4] Civil Disobedience seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government"I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"[5]the direction of this improvement points toward anarchism: "'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."[5] Richard Drinnon partly blames Thoreau for the ambiguity, noting that Thoreau's "sly satire, his liking for wide margins for his writing, and his fondness for paradox provided ammunition for widely divergent interpretations of 'Civil Disobedience.'"[6]
Walt Whitman American poet (1819-1892)
The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough a modest living and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.
Paris Communards
The workload of the Commune leaders was enormous. The Council members (who were not "representatives" but delegates, subject in theory to immediate recall by their electors) were expected to carry out many executive and military functions as well as their legislative ones. The numerous ad hoc organisations set up during the siege in the localities ("quartiers" to meet social needs (canteens and first aid stations, for example) continued to thrive and cooperate with the Commune.[citation needed]
Paris, May 29, 1871
At the same time, these local assemblies pursued their own goals, usually under the direction of local workers. Despite the formal reformism of the Commune council, the composition of the Commune as a whole was much more revolutionary. Revolutionary factions included Proudhonists (an early form of moderate anarchism), members of the international socialists, Blanquists, and more libertarian republicans. The Paris Commune has been celebrated by anarchists and Marxists ever since then, due to the variety of political undercurrents, the high degree of workers' control, and the remarkable co-operation among different revolutionists.[citation needed]
For example, in the third arrondissement, school materials were provided free, three parochial schools were "laicised", and an orphanage was established. In the twentieth arrondissement, schoolchildren were provided with free clothing and food. There were many similar examples, but a vital ingredient in the Commune's relative success, at this stage, was the initiative shown by ordinary workers who managed to take on the responsibilities of the administrators and specialists who had been removed by Thiers.
Paris, May 29, 1871
At the same time, these local assemblies pursued their own goals, usually under the direction of local workers. Despite the formal reformism of the Commune council, the composition of the Commune as a whole was much more revolutionary. Revolutionary factions included Proudhonists (an early form of moderate anarchism), members of the international socialists, Blanquists, and more libertarian republicans. The Paris Commune has been celebrated by anarchists and Marxists ever since then, due to the variety of political undercurrents, the high degree of workers' control, and the remarkable co-operation among different revolutionists.[citation needed]
For example, in the third arrondissement, school materials were provided free, three parochial schools were "laicised", and an orphanage was established. In the twentieth arrondissement, schoolchildren were provided with free clothing and food. There were many similar examples, but a vital ingredient in the Commune's relative success, at this stage, was the initiative shown by ordinary workers who managed to take on the responsibilities of the administrators and specialists who had been removed by Thiers.
Prince Peter Kropotkin was a self-proclaimed anarchist-communist who wrote The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (my personal favorite). Both books are extremely influential to anarchists of all stripes.
From Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution:
In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.
Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.
Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.
Some folks you may have not known were anarchists (or practices anarchist ideas):
Leo Tolstoy
Alexander Berkman
Noam Chomsky
Emma Goldman
Benjamin Tucker
Mikhail Bakunin
Buenaventura Durruti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco
Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Nestor Makhno
William Godwin
Murray Bookchin
Daniel Guerin
Voltairine de Cleyre
Paul Goodman
The Haymarket Martyrs (You know, those guys that helped bring us the eight hour workday and weekends off!)
Industrial Workers of the World
George Woodcock
Emile Armand
Paul Avrich
Jello Biafra
Kevin Carson
Lev Chernyi
Alexander Cockburn
Dorothy Day
Uri Gordon
Big Bill Haywood
The English Levellers
Abbie Hoffman
Mother Jones
Franz Kafka
Lao Tzu
Zapatista Movement
Rage Against the Machine
Josiah Warren
Albert Parsons
Lucy Parsons
Rudolph Rocker
Mary Shelley
August Spies
Lysander Spooner
Joe Sturmmer
Hunter S. Thompson
Oscar Wilde
Emiliano Zapata
Subcommandant Marcos
So, instead of going "Pffffffft" at something you clearly have no clue about, why don't you just educate yourself? I did this the last time we had this exchange.
I'll start you off since I'm feeling generous:
Anarchism: From Theory to Practice by Daniel Guerin
Do read it.
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The only ones who didn't were Thoreau (and that's the modern political sense).
Fantastic Anarchist
Sep 2013
#54
See thats the thing...in this contex...you don't get to just "crown people" Anarchists...
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#62
you are deeming them Anarchists...when most have never made any such claim.
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#95
Did Whitman call himself an Anarchist...or is he just another that you claim is?
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#168
I have never talked about the history of anarchy...talking about what it means...
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#389
they hate ALL govt...get it? We are Democrats...one in fact kept mentioning Plato..
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#350
NO an Anarchist at a Democratic forum....is the very epitome of Troll!
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#180
No....that is not Anarchists. Anarchist despise ALL forms of government
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#377
but you are not a Fantastic Socialist...you are the Fantastic Anarchist.
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#390
Republicans would be accepted...BUT they wouldn't be able to change the "atmosphere".
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#391
See my point is Anarchists hate government and want them all disbanded...
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#392
I have shown time and time again...I know EXACTLY what it means...and I have the actual
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#167
I'm not an Anarchist....I have nothing to prove...but as long as we are on the subject..
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#293
No I am not interested in Plato right now....Do you deny the core principle of Anarchy
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#309
the still share the same core principle..hatred of all types of govt....violent or not...
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#388
You do know that Henry Clay Frick had murdered hundreds of workers.
Fantastic Anarchist
Sep 2013
#322
I wasnt supporting Frick was I? I was opposing your bullshit about Anarchy!
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#324
Okay now you are a Socialist...I don't blame you for trying that tactic...
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#317
Wow, you better tell that to all the libertarian socialists and anarchists then.
Fantastic Anarchist
Sep 2013
#331
You don't even read the material and then profess to tell me who I am?
Fantastic Anarchist
Sep 2013
#333
More like willfully refuse to fall for the inanity that anarchy is something beside the absence of
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#393
Nope...but the Anarchists have been trolling this site for a couple weeks now!
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#155
You mean Platos Retreat...that nasty Wife Swapping Club from the 1970's
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#321
LOL, my aren't you the self important little bully, OK then, ignore my advice, call out members
Dragonfli
Sep 2013
#352
I haven't broken rules.....this place is for Democrats...not anti-govt types
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#354
You are not a bully but you are gunning for people that identify as Anarchists? You said you want to
Dragonfli
Sep 2013
#355
You damn skippy...they are Anarchists...they are anti-govt...ANY govt....this is Democratic
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#357
I wouldn't say nerves.... a few funny bones maybe... you are rather amusing at times. /nt
Dragonfli
Sep 2013
#353
So you admit you are just here trolling the Democratic Underground....
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#197
"Anarchy" and "anarchism" are not perfectly synonymous. That, perhaps, is the crux of the problem
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#206
That's the thing though. You keep repeating the dictionary definition of "anarchy" without any
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#211
As you've been told by others, a one-sentence dictionary definition doesn't tell the whole story.
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#216
Simplified or not...that's the core principle behind it...no denying that.
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#223
Yes they ARE trying to redefine the world... Anarchy is the absence of state correct..
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#395
How about Anarchist....lets see what the dictionary says about that....
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#209
It's really hopeless to argue with someone who won't educate themselves, carla.
Th1onein
Sep 2013
#133
I happen to have a great education....and I know what an Anarchist stands for
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#261
I am replying to nearly 10 people at the moment...sorry to insult you with a little typo in my zest.
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#130
So now the major malfunction is I don't write long posts to you? So you are insulted
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#210
If they really wanted to, I highly doubt you'd have the power individually to stop it...
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#208
No, I really don't think so. I think your fear of anarchist infiltration is a bit overstated.
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#397
Believe what you will. I just don't think things are quite that black and white.
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#407
who is lying...I was born in 61....got a problem with that? Decidely much older huh?
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#106
then why did you pop in to defend a debate with Anarchists about what Anarchy is?
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#349
Really, you trust Boehner more than Emma Goldman, Gandhi, or Howard Zinn?
Downtown Hound
Sep 2013
#282
Dictionary definitions of a political philosophy as complex as anarchy will not suffice.
Fantastic Anarchist
Sep 2013
#113
I said dictionary definitions about a complex philosophy don't suffice.
Fantastic Anarchist
Sep 2013
#120
and its still Democratic Underground....the Full On Anarchist takeover of it hasn't yet happened.
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#29
Oh, I see. So when you are proven wrong you change the wording. Doesn't work.
cui bono
Sep 2013
#198
You are insulted by being called an Anarchist and being told this isnt Anarchist Underground
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#111
but its still not Anarchist Underground...its Democratic Underground..
VanillaRhapsody
Sep 2013
#253
What's interesting to me is how you keep repeating that this is "Democratic Underground"....
beerandjesus
Sep 2013
#275
Yeah, blowing civilians ("collateral damage") to pieces is really liberating for them, right?
nomorenomore08
Sep 2013
#215
Unlike the expert on the subject, I din't start chewin' me tobaccee 'till my 5th
Dragonfli
Sep 2013
#231
You forgot this one: "We're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here"
W T F
Sep 2013
#35
This is the result of eight years of Kerry's efforts to bring peace to Syria.
OnyxCollie
Sep 2013
#36
K&R you missed Do you stand with the leader of the Democratic Party? Or do you stand with Rand Paul?
idwiyo
Sep 2013
#135
I saw your responce :) I just thought that OP was classic "Let's bomb'em 'cause FUCK RON PAUL!11!!!"
idwiyo
Sep 2013
#138
A duer posted one I thought was funny, (If we don't bomb) "We will look like pussies!"
quinnox
Sep 2013
#194
I'm against this war, but this OP adds nothing to the discussion. Only one of the reasons
stevenleser
Sep 2013
#236
The 9% whom are FOR any bombing, invasion or intervention should be drafted....
Bohemianwriter
Sep 2013
#272
The 1% has WAY TOO MUCH MONEY on its hands ... must think about ways to spend it !!!
blkmusclmachine
Sep 2013
#284
EXACTLY. I still remember Cheney and the "mushroom cloud." Such appalling fear-mongering.
anneboleyn
Sep 2013
#290