Was Freud right when he Claimed Psychoanalysis is Concerned with ‘social Phenomenon’ Including Politics? , by Burn Shit
Sigmund Freud’s seminal texts on psychoanalysis sealed his position as the unofficial father of modern psychology. Whilst not subscribing to any explicitly political weltanschauung – or world-view – the idea that the study of the individual psyche was inseparable from the social psychology of the group underpins his work. His theoretical analyzes of the unconscious mind and the concept of regression, libidinal development and its sublimation, the division of the mind into three antagonistic parts – Id, ego and superego, and the pleasure instincts and death drives inherent in all human beings are evidently attempts at explaining social phenomenon, currents and patterns of human behavior that run throughout the history of civilization. The significance and importance of psychoanalysis in the twentieth century is self-evident; the rise and fall of fascism and it’s quasi-masochistic ‘mob mentality’, the war of ideologies and the allur... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Vote Yes , by Burn Shit
Tomorrow’s independence referendum affords the Scottish people the best chance in decades to bloody the nose of the British Establishment. Westminster’s suited and booted are out in force to save the 300-year-old Union having been awoken from an aloof stupor of arrogant complacency. Buller Boy’s promises of devo-max and Head Boy Ed’s moist appeals for a sense of British identity, shared history, patriotism and even, for the TUC audience, class unity, smack of desperation, leaving us feeling Wetter Together. This vote is not about Alex Salmond. It’s about self-determination. It’s about securing a guarantee that 5 million people will not face the misfortune of waking up to a Tory government that nobody voted for, extricating themselves from an ultra-centralized, sclerotic system which sees a narrow clique of public schoolboys whooping as they announce that the commoners need to tighten their belts to secure the road to recovery. History is... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Vietnam’s Second Revolution , by Burn Shit
It is, we are told, the dawning of the Asian Century. The global balance of power is shifting again towards the East. The economic powerhouses of China and India put recession-hit European and American markets to shame, with GDP growth rates consistently pushing towards double figures for the last decade. China has capitalized fully on its vast army of cheap labor, high rates of saving and investment, and internal migration from the countryside to burgeoning megacities. An authoritarian, one-party state keeps a tight lid on its power, paying lip-service to Marx, Mao and Lenin while simultaneously spreading its legs for economic liberalization, foreign direct investment, and the heady world of globalization. As the developed economies in the West struggle to pay off their international creditors and manage their structural deficits, the Asian Tigers enjoy a boom. Vietnam’s leaders, predictably, also want a piece of the pie. Almost forty years after the withdrawal of U... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

There’s a Class War On, Dickhead. Pick a Side. , by Burn Shit
For all postmodernism’s rejections of totalizing systems, utopian ideologies and socially-constructed binaries, there’s always the seduction of the old class line, the red (and/or black) banner of world revolution and the fight against the unitary systems of oppression; the state and capital. There’s comfort in the politics of ‘us and them’; a sense of belonging, shared identity and even a self-pitying, self-perpetuating victimhood. The conspiracy theory is the zenith of totalizing socio-political ideas. They superimpose order and meaning where there is none, give a unified and total explanation for what is, a formulaic dual reduction and simplification of all the world’s ills into byproducts of our subjugation by secret global cabals; the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group or the Jews. Power lies with invisible elites, who reveal themselves (to taunt or to leave us some clues?) only through ancient symbols in government-corporate archite... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The State of Revolution , by Burn Shit
It seems the whole world is teetering on the edge of a wonderful oblivion. Stable authoritarian regimes have been toppled by their restive subjects, a tyrant beaten and dragged through the streets by a band of armed insurgents. Egyptians are now back on the streets and in the squares, reinvigorating what seemed like a revolution betrayed by hangers-on from the ancien regime. Across the world, resistance against austerity drives and finance capital is mounting, and in England a police shooting led to three nights of sustained rioting, looting and arson that spread across the country via Blackberry. European capital’s wet-dream of a single-currency trading bloc is on its deathbed as Greeks defend themselves against EU-IMF gangsters with strikes, occupations and molotovs. Italy and Spain will soon follow suit. Today there is no unified struggle against systems of oppression because there is no unified system of oppression. Never has this been more evident than now. Rath... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

from the Barcelona Neighborhood Assemblies
Before the Spanish call-out for a global day of action on October 15, a few critical notes and words of encouragement from the Barcelona neighborhood assemblies… After the courageous revolts of the Arab Spring, the next phenomenon of popular resistance to capture the world media’s attention was the plaza occupation movement that spread across Spain starting on the 15th of May (15M). Subsequently, attention turned back to Greece, and now to the public occupations spreading across the US, inspired by the Wall Street protests. The function of the media is to explain interruptions in the dominant narrative, not to spread lessons useful to the social struggles that generate those ruptures. As such, it is no surprise that they respond to the strategically important moments before and after these mass gatherings with a news blackout. While the central plazas of the cities of Spain are no longer occupied, in some... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

1888
Strikes are a most characteristic form of the struggle between labor and capital in the present century. Their history is important as reflecting all the chief changes that take place from time to time in the political and economic relations between the opposing classes. This history clearly shows a decided tendency to enlarge the field of action and resort to more and more decisive means. At first strikes were sometimes secretly incited by rival manufacturers and traders to injure some competitor whom they feared. Or, if not deliberately incited, they were taken advantage of by rival competitors. The strikers were not alone in the field, and this caused a strike to be dreaded by the masters. They never knew who was at the back of it, or who might come to the rescue of their revolted workmen. This state of things was, however, necessarily temporary; for the employers soon came to understand that such conduct on their part. was in the long run too fav... (From : AnarchyArchives.)

Perhaps the reader thinks he has found a flaw in the above title and that the soviet system and the dictatorship of the proletariat are one and the same thing? No. They are two radically different ideas which, far from being mutually complementary, are mutually opposed. Only an unhealthy party logic could accept a fusion when what really exists is an irreconcilable opposition. The idea of “soviets” is a well defined expression of what we take to be social revolution, being an element belonging entirely to the constructive side of socialism. The origin of the notion of dictatorship is wholly bourgeois and as such, has nothing to do with socialism. It is possible to harness the two terms together artificially, if it is so desired, but all one would get would be a very poor caricature of the original idea of soviets, amounting, as such, to a subversion of the basic notion of socialism. The idea of soviets is not a new one, nor is it one throw... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

1907
May 2, 1907 Dear Mr. Schumm: I am expecting you as usual next Saturday evening. I have just read with interest your well-written letter in tonight’s “Post,” but I don’t agree with it. It seems to me idealistic, based on illusion. A proposal that the United States, for instance, should straightaway abolish its army and navy must be made either by one who does, or by one who does not, value the national existence as such. Your comparison with Roosevelt, since it implies a comparison of different means with a view to one and the same end, indicates that in the “Post” you are arguing from the position of one who does not value the national existence, for that of course is the end that Roosevelt has in view. Now such a proposal as yours, argued from that point of view, seems to me sheer lunacy. To suppose that the result of such a policy would not be the speedy extinction of the U.S. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Not the Daughter But the Mother of Order
“For always in thine eyes, O Liberty! Shines that high light whereby the world is saved; And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.” — John Hay. On Picket Duty. To-morrow is the birthday of Robert Owen, the man who did more perhaps than any other to give impulse to the consideration of industrial wrongs. All friends of labor should unite in doing honor to his memory. Prince Kropotkin is to lecture in the principal cities of England and Scotland for the benefit of the Red Cross fund. His letters recently written to the Newcastle “Chronicle,” Joseph Cowen’s newspaper, containing fresh, interesting, and valuable information concerning the situation in Russia, are soon to appear in pamphlet form. The Red Cross fund has received no more honorable or noteworthy contribution than that from Reuben Cooley, Jr., of Georgia, Vermont, acknowledged in a... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)