PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

A Message to Anti-Authoritarians and Anarchists
by kero Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2003 at 2:01 PM
keroism@hotmail.com pittsburgh

for pittsburgh indymedia. this is an article copied from one written to the AA folks in northeast ohio. i think it has a lot of relevence here, and at least could spark some important discussion.

A Message to Anti-Authoritarians and Anarchists

(Note: this article was originally posted by "Class War" on the cleveland indymedia page, and aimed at the AAs there, but i thought it had some points that are very relevent here in PGH. hopefully it will at least spark some discussion. again, these aren't MY opinions per se, but i do agree with a lot that the original poster had to say)...

This is a message to all Anti-Authoritarians and Anarchists in North East Ohio. If the movement for libertarian Social Revolution is to move forward we must analyze the work we have been currently doing. I am putting forward the opinion that the work that we all have been doing so far has been a joke. If we wish to become a serious revolutionary force we must change many of the ways we operate.

The first thing which we must start doing is taking ourselves and the Social Revolution which we dream of seriously. Many of us behave as if this struggle is only a hobby, and only put in the amount of work necessary for a hobby. This is unacceptable. The struggle for Social Revolution must become central to our lives, or it will never be achievable. This doesn’t mean that we can’t have personal lives, but it does mean that we often have to make sacrifices. Sometimes you need to give up the expensive luxury you wanted in order to help finance the cause. Sometimes you need to skip the event you wanted to attend because your help in the struggle is needed. We must learn to function as if the Social Revolution is not only attainable, but is possible within our lifetimes.

The Anti-Authoritarian and Anarchist movements are currently weighted down with destructive bourgeois and middle-class attitudes and ideas. These must be rooted out of us and whipped out. For our movements to move forwards they must be grounded in the working class. How are the people who have a material basis for the destruction of capitalism supposed to take you serious while you’re telling them about the evils of consumerism when they’re trying to decide which bills they can actually pay that month. By grounding ourselves in the working class I do not mean middle-class activists making choices to be poor. What I mean is for those of us with privileges to use those privileges to attack the systems that oppress people. Take that well-paying job, live thrifty and use the excess money you are paid to fund revolutionary projects.

Another thing that we are missing from our movements is any kind of strategy. How do we get from where we are currently to that Social Revolution that we all so desperately want and need? We are up against some very complex and pliable forms of oppression: White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism, and the State. To be able to attack and destroy them we must think strategically about how to go about it. We must make important decisions about what our battles will be. Much of what people currently decide to work on will not do this. Riding bikes and telling people to buy organic produce will do nothing to destroy oppression.

Anti-Authoritarians and Anarchists in North East Ohio greatly outnumber any of the commie groups that exist here. So why do we tend to be so much weaker in revolutionary significance? I suggest that it is because we don’t have the slightest organization amongst us. There is currently only one explicit anarchist organization functioning in all of North East Ohio. This shows how weak we are right now. I’m not suggesting that we all join up in one organization. Our politics vary far too much for that. But there must be some way for all of us to work together better to form a strong Anti-Authoritarian and Anarchist movement here. During the Spanish Revolution, the CNT, the FAI and the FIJL would meet as the Libertarian Movement to discuss how to move the revolution forward.* Perhaps this is something we could learn from.

Hopefully this short message will spark some discussion within our movements. Please send this to any and all Anti-Authoritarians and Anarchists in North East Ohio, along with anarchistic projects like Food Not Bombs.

Onward to the Social Revolution!

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