For that matter, I didn't mention the anarchist organization of the
anarchist whom I knew in the anti-draft movement. He was a dues paying
Wobblie for one thing, but even though that organization was taken over
by anarchists a very long time ago it is not anarchist, per se, just
effectively. The anarchist organization was named the International
Communist Anarchist Federation. By the way, since I was mentioning the
widespread misconceptions about anarchism, I can't tell you how many
times I have referenced an anarchist organization and had someone
guffaw, "Anarchist organization? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"
No, it is not a contradiction in terms and, unfortunately, even people
who claim to be anarchists often have the same reaction. They just make
the claim without understanding what it is that they are claiming to be.
I have seen the same thing with satanists. There are people who claim to
be satanists who worship Satan and belong to the Church of Satan while
the Church of Satan would not even have them if they tried to join. They
are completely clueless that the Church of Satan rejects the existence
of Satan and any other supernatural beings.
On 3/2/2016 5:54 AM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
Well done Roger. While nuances and such are difficult to prescribe in a pithy e-mail you did capture quite a lot in this post.
I would note that many modern anarchists of the left do define themselves as "Socialist Libertarians".
Regardless except for the last sentence, perhaps, I think this might be one of your finest posts to this list.
It might be noted that for a period of time Helen Keller defined herself as "an IWW" which was indeed a socialist anarchist organization.
Many, who got caught up in the Palmer Raids, or who survived similar witch hunts in the 1920's did go on to engage with more Marxist-Lenininist organizations and in the labor movement. That included the likes of Helen "Girly" Brown, and many others who helped organize such things as the UAW and who led the sit-down strikes here in Flint in the 30's.
But, I digress....
I'm old and batterred about and a bit tired of labels altogether.
Still you did a fine job here Roger.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 10:47 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
Anarchism and socialism are very similar. I have explained on this list before that anarchists and communists have pretty much the same goal. Anarchists just call that goal anarchy and communists call it communism. Both tendencies are for the eventual abolition of the state. The main difference is that the anarchists see the biggest obstacle to that eventual goal to be the state itself. They have the idea that class society is caused by the existence of the state and that if the state were abolished then class society would go away. Lenin's book, State and Revolution, was mainly a polemic against the anarchists. He argued that their stance that a classless society could be attained by the abolition of the state would not work because those who had an interest in the state's continued existence would just reestablish it on the instant that it was abolished. I will counterpose scientific socialism to anarchism now because even though I said that socialism and anarchism are very similar it is more accurate to point out that anarchists have always been considered to be socialists, just not of the scientific variety. Scientific socialists hold that class society causes the state, that the state is a way of regulating and administering class relationships and that if class society is abolished then the objective conditions for the continued existence of the state will have been removed and the state will fade away. That is, it will gradually transform from a means of administering people into a means of administering things. By the way, it is important to remember that anarchists call themselves libertarians. They were calling themselves libertarians a long time before the right wing libertarians started calling themselves libertarians. That is why I cringe whenever the word libertarian is used on this list as if right-wing libertarian was the only kind of libertarian. Insofar as they advocate the abolition of the state or its minimization, though, the right-wing libertarians and the left-wing libertarians, the anarchists, have something in common. The main difference between those two camps is that the left-wing libertarians are in favor of the abolition of capitalism and class society in general and the right-wing libertarians are for the elimination of the state, but have no problem with capitalism and with class society in general. Still, though, there are a whole lot of complete misconceptions at large about what anarchism is and, unfortunately, that is true among a lot of people who falsely call themselves anarchists. That is probably why Chuck says that all the anarchists he knows seem so selfish. The point is that the people he knows who call themselves anarchists probably do not know what they are talking about and that Chuck does not know enough about it himself to recognize that.
On 3/1/2016 9:57 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Emma Goldman was an anarchist. There's a book about her on BARD and one on
Bookshare. I haven't gotten through much but she sounds very close to being
a socialist.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 9:21 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
My comment about bringing on the anarchy was intended as a sarcastic
response to your elevation of property over justice for human beings and the
then disparaging indication that otherwise you would have anarchy.
But, actually, I wonder if you have really ever known an anarchist. Most of
the people I have known who call themselves anarchists do not know what they
are talking about. I remember one who was a singer in a punk band who called
himself an anarchist and I asked him which anarchist tradition he adhered
to. He didn't seem to know what I meant so I offered some suggestions,
Kropotkin, Proudhon, Bakunin ... who? He then said that he was not an old
anarchist, he was a new anarchist. Then he threw around some words like
death and destruction. I just shut up having satisfied myself that he did
not have the slightest idea what an anarchist was. Then there was the woman
who claimed to be an anarchist and when I tried to explain to her where I
thought anarchist politics went wrong she also seemed to not know what I was
talking about and then went on to tell me about how important it was to vote
for Bill Clinton.
The list goes on. There have been a few, though, who did adhere to
traditional anarchist collectivism. I worked with a man in the anti-draft
movement who was well grounded in anarchist politics and history. At a later
time I got peripherally involved in the defense of a high school student who
was expelled from school for being an anarchist.
I had some conversations with her and while I found her a bit naive she was
definitely learning about and following anarchist politics. Later she sued
the school board and even though I was not present in the courtroom I caught
a report on television and was surprised that my old comrade in the
anti-draft movement testified as a friend of the court and as an expert on
anarchism. He turned out to be a university professor by then. Since you
describe the anarchists you have known as selfish people I suspect that they
were of the variety who claim to be anarchists but do not understand what
anarchism is. And if you take their claims of being anarchists as good coin
I suspect that you don't know much about it either. I do happen to have some
very strong reservations about anarchism, especially the position about
abolishing the state by decree and the theory that capitalism is a
manifestation of the state rather than the state being a manifestation of
capitalism or some other class system, but it is undeniable that many
anarchists have dedicated themselves to anarchist collectivism as both a
revolutionary goal and as a way of life. That is far from selfishness. In
fact, anarchist philosophy is completely incompatible with selfishness.
On 3/1/2016 12:54 PM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman for
DMARC) wrote:
what has anarchy ever done for people? The anarchists that I know ofcops.
are extremely self-serving and operate out of a very narrow
perspective, their own!
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 5:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy]
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out:
Finicum was flat murdered'
Property before people? How capitalist. Bring on the anarchy.
On 2/23/2016 6:38 AM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman for
DMARC) wrote:
the real issue here is how one chooses to fight for injustice. When
one crosses certain boundaries such as property lines there are
potential consequences. We live in a society where anarchy does not
rule.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 8:31 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
And what does one risk when one chooses to not fight back against
injustice?
On 2/19/2016 9:26 PM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman for
DMARC) wrote:
when one chooses to live as an outlaw and adopt the ways of the wild
west taking over property that doesn't belong to them they run the
risk of being killed or murderedd if one chooses to use the
melodramatic rflare.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2016 6:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
http://themilitant.com/2016/8007/800755.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 7 February 22, 2016
'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
BY SETH GALINSKY
Working people should denounce the cold-blooded Jan. 26 killing of
Robert "LaVoy" Finicum by Oregon State Police and the FBI; the
frame-up conspiracy charges against Ammon Bundy and others who took
part in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge; and
the frame-up of Dwight and Steven Hammond, two Harney County,
Oregon, cattle ranchers, imprisoned for a second time on the same
bogus arson charges dating back to 2001 and 2006.
"The truth will come out. LaVoy was just flat murdered," Tad Houpt,
the owner of a small logging company, said by phone Feb. 7. Finicum
and Bundy were traveling to a Jan. 26 community meeting that Houpt
helped organize in John Day, Oregon, when they were intercepted by the
ranch.Bundy initiated the refuge occupation Jan. 2 to draw attention both
to the frame-up of the Hammonds and to U.S. government land policies
that have been undermining the livelihood of ranchers and farmers.
The persecution of the Hammonds outraged small ranchers and farmers
throughout the West - controlled burns are common to control
invasive plants and to prevent the spread of wildfires.
Despite serving the sentence imposed by the trial judge, the
Hammonds went back to jail Jan. 4, because of a U.S. Appeals Court
ruling that their sentences didn't meet federal minimum rules.
After the trial the U.S. Bureau of Land Management vindictively
revoked the Hammonds' grazing permits, threatening the survival of their
Meanwhile, the Oregonian reported Feb. 6 that the scanty official
information and one grainy video released on the killing confirm
many aspects of the accounts by Shawna Cox and Victoria Sharp - who
were in the pickup truck driven by Finicum.
According to both of them, the cops first fired one shot at the
vehicle they were in after Finicum initially pulled over. Finicum
then shouted out to the cops, "I'm going to see the sheriff," a
reference to Sheriff Glenn Palmer of Grant County, who was also
scheduled to be at the John Day meeting and has been quoted in the
press as saying the Hammonds should be freed.
Finicum tried to drive away, but was soon forced off the road again.
The
Oregonian reports that the FBI admits lethal force was used when the
truck "approached the checkpoint," that is, even before the vehicle
crashed into the snow bank and Finicum gets out with his hands up.
Much of the capitalist press justifies the killing and prosecutions
by labeling Finicum and Bundy as extremists and outside agitators.
"To his detractors," the New York Times said, "he was a doctrinaire
leader of an illegal protest that is deeply opposed by many who live
near the refuge." The paper conveniently leaves out that most people
in the area support the demand to free the Hammonds and are
sympathetic to their opposition to the government land policies.
Many local residents visited the refuge, met Finicum and Bundy or
donated food and supplies to the occupiers.
Some 1,000 people attended Finicum's funeral in Kanab, Utah, Feb . 5.
While pretending to be objective, the Times' description of the
scene plays on many of its readers' prejudices. After the service
there were "cowboys on horseback and members of so-called patriot
groups wearing camouflage and carrying small weapons," it reports.
The Times did quote one rancher from Nevada, Diana Clark, at the
funeral. "All of us ranchers feel like we're backed into a corner,"
she said. "And it's hard to get anyone to acknowledge our needs, and
so they gave us a platform."
At least 22 smaller protests against the killing of Finicum took
place Feb. 6, from Florida to Washington. One common placard was
"Hands Up, Don't Shoot," a slogan first popularized by protesters
against police brutality after the killing of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. At events in John Day and Prineville,
Oregon, dozens of local ranchers participated.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have now indicted 16 supporters of
the occupation with conspiracy to "prevent by force, intimidation
and threats, officers and employees of the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service . from discharging the duties of their office" at
the wildlife refuge.
The list of what the indictment calls "overt acts" to further the
conspiracy is proof itself that the prosecution is a frame-up.
The first "act" it lists is an Oct. 5 meeting where Ammon Bundy
warned Harney County Sheriff David Ward that if the Hammonds went to
jail there could be "extreme civil unrest."
Although the occupiers are not accused of pointing their weapons at
anyone, the indictment claims that they "brandished and carried
firearms." Oregon law allows the open carrying of firearms.
Bundy released a statement from prison Feb. 6, noting that the
occupation was civil disobedience. He encouraged those "who disagree
with my speech" or dislike his ideas to engage in civil discussion.
"If you do not advocate for government to tolerate ideas that it
hates, then the First Amendment and free speech mean nothing," he
said. "Arm yourself with ideas. . Argue and disagree. Be free."
Supporters of the Hammonds continue to organize. A new online
petition calling on President Barack Obama to free the Hammonds had
3,341 signatures as of Feb. 9. The Oregon Cattlemen's Association is
asking that donations be sent to: The Hammond Family, c/o Sandra
Carlon at US Bank, 493 N. Broadway, Burns, Oregon 97720.
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