We would like our relationship with capitalism to be simple; we are against it. But behind the simplicity of taking a firm stance is the tragedy of the anarchist archetype. A fixed stance against capitalism, hierarchy, god, the state, oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia (and more); demonstrating curiosity only to find new things to say “no” to. If anarchism[1] is going to continue being interesting, relevant, or challenging into this century, then our reactionary pose has to be confronted.
Let’s establish terms. Let us enclose our understanding of capitalism within an anarchist framework rather than a dictionary definition or being enclosed within it ourselves.
Up till now anarchists have defined themselve... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I’m standing by the edge of the river. My bare feet gently touch the surface of the crispy mulch leaning against the cold solid rocks. From my skin rises a slow pliant steam following every movement I make as I walk further down. As slowly as I can I immerse myself in the dark waters. I want to feel it all, the fullness of every tiny step.
It’s late fall, and the moon is close to dark. Amanitas and Liberty caps has been gathering in witch rings and shit dungs all around my cabin. I knew this was the time, and I felt that the sauna was the obvious choice. So, one by one, cap and stem, I had put them under my tongue, let those weird mycelial creatures sink through the floor of my mouth, penetrate my intestinal wall, enter m... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I. As I write these lines, election season is in full swing. The walls are plastered with posters of every color where people claim to be of every flag, every “color” of opinion. Who doesn’t have his party, his program, his profession of faith? Who is not either a socialist, a radical, a progressive, a liberal, or a “proportionalist” — the newest fad? This abnegation of the self is the great malady of the century. One belongs to an association, a union, a party; one shares the opinions, the convictions, the rule of conduct of another. One is led, a follower, a disciple, a slave, never oneself.
It’s true that this is less taxing. To belong to a party, adopting someone else’s program, adj... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
We know how painful it’s to be separated from our own comrades, and we have no recipes nor lessons to give about the way to take them out the fastest (to take them all out, forgetting the distinction between ‘guilty’ and ‘innocent’). The rapid notes that follow are the fruit of several thoughts born out of different experiences lived in Italy, hoping they could be useful to our French comrades.
The Tarnac arrests represent a serious fact, not only as an attack against everybody who already fights, with critics and practices, against the State and the Capital, but also as a tentative of intimidation against all the potential allies of a social war more diffused. Actually, the repression aims at hitting, f... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Martini Tower
The church tower
is the tallest building in this flat city.
They used to let people to the top
and charge them for the view
until one pragmatic local
threw himself off
and hit the cobblestones
in front of the German tourists
drinking in their cafés
on the market square. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
"No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."—Luke xvi. 13.
"He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathers not for me
scatters abroad."—Matthew xii. 30.
Enormous tracts of the very best lands by which millions of now poverty-stricken families might be supported are devoted to tobacco, vineyards, barley, hemp, and especially rye and potatoes, employed in the production of intoxicating beverages: wine, beer, and mainly brandy.
Millions of laborers who might be making things useful for men are occupied in the production of these things. In England it is estimated that one-tenth of... (From: Wikisource.org.)
Payment Due
For thousands of years, the struggle between rich and poor has largely taken the form of conflicts between creditors and debtors—of arguments about the rights and wrongs of interest payments, debt peonage, amnesty, repossession, restitution, the sequestering of sheep, the seizing of vineyards, and the selling of debtors’ children into slavery. By the same token, for the past five thousand years, with remarkable regularity, popular insurrections have begun the same way: with the ritual destruction of debt records—tablets, papyri, ledgers; whatever form they might have taken in any particular time and place. In the throes of the recent economic crisis, with the very defining institutions of capitalism crum... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I know a woman (in the profane, rather than in the sacred sense of that verb). She was born in far Norseland, and the bloom on her cheeks vied with the aurora borealis, the one dazzling young fishermen by day as the other did by night. Radiant in beauty and health, an eidelweiss on the bleak snow-covered scenery, the natural instincts which burn even in polar regions had their way: she married early. She gave birth to six children.
She is now thirty and in this land of liberty. Free, or a deserted wife to earn her own living by “taking in washing.” At first, like all honeymoons, everything went sweetly. But her husband with inborn continental instinct, was “master;” hence jars arose. Leaving her surviving chil... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Esteemed comrades,
We regret to have to draw to your attention a serious and urgent question about which you would ordinarily know more than we, who are far away and foreigners.[1] But we are obligated to note the diverse circumstances that until now have made it impossible for you to know certain facts or their meaning. We believe it necessary, therefore, to clearly expose those facts to you, as well as the circumstances that have prevented them from reaching you.
At this moment, more than fifty libertarians are being held in the prisons of Spain, and many among them have been held many years without being tried. The whole world, which every day hears about the struggles of the Basques,[2] completely ignores this aspect of th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Bickford world is on fire,
and there are evil clouds over the country!
“Adaptatsiya”
Those of us who understand revolution as something real, as something that will inavoidably occur in foreseeable future, face a number of painful contradictions. Sometimes it seems that there is a whole gulf between revolution and our reality.
History gives us a consolation. It teaches us that even the darkest eras, when society is enmeshed in reactionary obscurantism, passivity and indifference, can suddenly be replaced by a tremendous liberation movement in a very short time.
Perhaps, we are spectators of the first signs of awakening. The period of total loyalty to the regime and system, the peak of whick fell in... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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