Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 31 2006 @ 04:39 PM CST

"In Argentina there was a massive upheaval back in 2001 and what did it lead to? Nothing, absolutely nothing 6 years later. The ruling class after the barricades could easily re organise and re build a discredited State and capitalist ruling class in the absence of a serious revolutionary project"

Nothin happened in Argentina after 2001 that is relevant 6 years later? I supposed nothing happened after 1994 when the Zapatistas launched their struggle? After all, in both of these struggles the capitalist state remains largely structurally intact. Yet to make such comments is to not understand what it is those people wanted and are organizing for. They do have programs, but perhaphs their programs don't fit into the textbook version of the "Great Revolution," that single historical moment when society changes and a new system is ushered in to replace the current one. They belive they are creating a diffrent world, an ongoing process that will continue to develope autonomous of the state. I personally don't belive we are going to have many opportunities to see any "Great Revolutions" happen in our lifetime, but the revolution of everyday life is happening and the struggle of the Zapatistas or of the social movements in Argentina are representative of this. If our goal as anarchist is to simply overthrow the capitalist state in one revolutionary sweep, or if that will continue to be our measure for success, then we will continue to be dissapointed by the diffrent levels of progress of autonomous or anti-authoritarian struggles

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 02 2007 @ 03:19 PM CST

"They belive they are creating ...an ongoing process that will continue to develope autonomous of the state. I personally don't belive we are going to have many opportunities to see any "Great Revolutions" ...but the revolution of everyday life is happening... If our goal as anarchist is to simply overthrow the capitalist state in one revolutionary sweep..."

Superficially this statement seems to be the opposite of the Insurrectionist school of anarchism. It expresses a view which is, I think, much more widespread than Insurrectionism: the belief in gradual change, building up alternative institutions, to peacefully overcome capitalism and the state (the anarchist version of reformism). What this fantasy has in common with Insurrectionism is its disbelief in popular, mass, revolution. Yet the events in Latin America and elsewhere in the world indicate that real revolutions could actually happen in our lifetimes. We class-struggle revolutionary anarchists have not given up on revolution by the working class and all oppressed.

Instead the writer and his/her co-thinkers accept the domination of the state, hoping to work their way around the state without directly challenging it, let alone aiming to overthrow it. While Jose Antonio's statement may have gone too far (I would not say that nothing has been achieved in Argentina), he is basically right: the capitalist class still rules and its state is still firmly in place. "The revolution of everday life" is what our rulers want us to believe in.

Wayne

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 02 2007 @ 06:38 PM CST

Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?

"The strength of a collective lies in its social organization, not its numbers. Once you think in terms of recruiting, you might as well join the Army. The difference between expansion and reproduction is the difference between adding and multiplying. The first based its strength on numbers and the second on relationships between people."

"The choice is between joining the mass or creating the class. The revolutionary project is to do it yourself."

"The mass is an aggregate of couples who are separate, detached and anonymous. They live in cities physically close yet socially apart. Their lives are privatised and depraved. Coca-Cola and loneliness. The social existence of the mass

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 02 2007 @ 07:50 PM CST

By the way, to return to this false opposite of "planned" vs. "spontaneus" uprisings and so on. If you follow your own logic all the way through you might wanna ask yourself what the point of the spanish civil war was? What did they accomplish? Nothing. A fascist state. What was the point of the russian revolution, what did they achieve? Nothing but another form of capitalism. So then all action is meaningless, by your own logic.

I think the diffrence is in how we see classwar and indeed capitalism. You see it as something political, where as i, and marx by the way, see it as something beyond politics (and economics too, by the way), i see it as social relations. So the point of the classwar is to attack, challenge, confront those social relations that keeps you in chains (while at the same time create new communist ones with your comrades), now and allways, big and small. And so then i see that they achived quite alot in Argentina because they attacked the social relations on a mass scale. And they managed to create some new relations, communist ones even, in the meantime. That is very good. Did the state survive and in the end manage to repress and recuperate the uprising. Yes. So what? It has done so in all revolutions and uprisings so far. Why did the uprising in Argentina fail? Well, lots of reason, one of them is prolly because they werent concious enough, whatever that means (i doubt it means that they have the right "revolutionary program" anyway). In the spanish civil war they spent decades trying to educate the workingclass in revolutionary theory ("conciousness") and the anarcho-syndicalist revolutioinary program, and they still ended up joining the fucking state in the end!

Conciousness is something that you achieve in praxis, in the actual struggle (you might even call it by the propaganda by deed), and im pretty sure that many of the people in Argentina got alot of conciousness from taking part in that uprising. So i wouldnt say that they achieved nothing, but quite alot actually. So the point of [revolutionary] class struggle is to "attack and withdraw" (http://www.riff-raff.se/en/7/attack_rough.pdf) social relations that oppresses us and create a space to building new communist ones, ideally atleast.

But now its late and im babbeling. Sorry about that.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 03 2007 @ 12:45 PM CST

""The revolution of everday life" is what our rulers want us to believe in."

Really? So digging where you stand, connecting the abstract notion of something called capitalism, into real social relations that affects your own personal life, is what the rulers wants us to do?Intressting...

[ Reply to This | # ]