As the author of the Tea Party article in question, I'm a little confused about the apparent controversy around it. The link to the article which appears on the right hand side of the main news.infoshop.org page has generated interesting and rather limited debate, non of which seems like an aggressive indictment of infoshop's anarchist politics.

Though I'm sympathetic to many anarchist figures and ideas, I do not identify as an anarchist, mostly because I've organized in no context where that seemed particularly useful to do. I also think many strains of anarchism lack an analysis of political economy.

But really, that's besides the point. Infoshop is a movement website. I felt like the article (which I actually was not the one to submit to infoshop) was a conversation starter for a movement (or movement-to-be). 

I apologize if it's caused difficulties for the purity of anyone's anarchist politics.

- Andrew Epstein

The anarchists have actually reacted in a less puritanical manner than usual. What's interesting is the response your little call has generated among Tea Party activists. There are many people in that movement who have every right to be angry about contemporary politics, but I've concluded that the movement is mostly a re-hash of the same hate-filled Republican Party politics of the past 30 years.

The Tea Party is more or less an astroturf movement at this point for Fox News and it's controllers. What may have been rooted in the Ron Paul movement a few years ago, is totally a mess of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck disciples.

Chuck

interesting. are any of the tea party responses publicly posted or were they sent directly to the administrators? i'd be very curious to see them.

- Andrew

 wait. i take this all back. i thought this post was referring to the article I submitted, "Tea Parties & The White Working Class." It's now my understanding that this Infoshop Disclaimer is referring to the article about "Crashing the Tea Parties."

or am i mistaken?

- Andrew Epstein

Our statement concerns the story about crashing the tea parties.

If you didn't write that, then we have a mystery. Did an anarchist even write that "call to action"?

We have to share one of the more hilarious emails sent to us about the Tea Party rally story. The kicker is at the very end:

Dear Infoshop,

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco had a meeting which included frank discussions about the racism, homophobia and the fact that the local neo-cons dominate that little enclave called the San Francisco Tea Party.  We decided as a group to skip it.

To be brief - we weren't there as a collective.  Some individuals may have shown up but I can verify we weren't at any Tea Party event as a group.  I can attest because I was at the meeting where that decision was made.

It's time for a proper introduction.

We understand anarchy.  We understand statism.  We understand the use of the word "anarchists" to describe people who believe in government entitlement programs.  TRUTH: Real anarchism is living without government sponsored safety nets.  Please see: Independent Institute policy.

Here's what we know about some local anarchists.  They are really really ignorant about Libertarians, true anarchist policy and while you guys have decent libraries - they are filled with statist "get the government to fix it" rhetoric.

You misunderstand free markets. You misunderstand it's adversarial relationship to capitalism. You misunderstand civil liberty and personal responsibility.

Whether or not this is deliberate or simply ignorant - I wanted to reach out.  I know anarchy. It is not wearing banadanas and make-up, doing cool political performance art and fighting with anyone directly and actively engaged with the political processes and problems in front of them.  That's hollow bodied poses that do not perform the function of actual anarchy or government restructuring to decentralize power and allow persons to rule themselves.

So who the hell are we?  We are diverse: women, latinos, blacks, asians, native americans, gays and muslims, christians and athiest.

You don't know any Libertarians; you published some fear driven rhetoric that is not based in fact. You're no better than FOX when you abuse the news.

Your report  proves you don't know who we are or what you are talking about.  We can drop off some books so you can get a better idea though.

Best,

Sheila Dean
Philip Berg for Congress

aaahahahaahahaha!

>>Philip Berg for Congress<<

...so wait, the person lecturing us on what anarchy is and isn't & what statism is & isn't is campaigning for a congressmen? That's awesome.

The best part is that Philip Berg is also the person who has been filing cases against Obama, claiming he is, in Bergs words, an illegal alien. The brilliance is there for all to see.

I posted the original article, along with the articles about it at the conservative sites Jawa Report, Gateway Pundit, and FOX Nation, plus the progressive sites Raw Story and AlterNet, noting the increasing distortion and baseless fearmongering by the conservitives about "violent anarchists" issuing a "call to arms" to wage "war" on the Tea Parties:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/message/13020

I'll be continuing to post articles about this story as I find them.