(December 29th, 2017)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s that holiday time of the year again where things seem to slow down a bit for a moment and we try and look back on the year in review. This has without a doubt been the year of the antifa and all the social media posts, podcasts, book reviews, and interviews are full of the pundits pontificating making and selling their latest books of concisely curated content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One such writer who recently dropped their new book into the marketplace of ideas is Shane Burley, who describes themselves as a \u201cfilmmaker, educator, and writer\u201d. Going alongside the book he published \u201cTwenty-Five Theses on Fascism\u201d via The Institute for Anarchist Studies which was shared as a story on ANEWS recently. Paul Z. Simmons wrote a response text and then Alexander Reid Ross wrote a rejoinder to Simmons, coming to the side and perspective of Burley. Among Burley and Reid Ross, Mark Bray also seems to be the other big name in writing about antifa, fascism, and the surrounding world of ideas for an anarchist audience. I haven\u2019t had the time to digest the writings of Burley, Reid Ross, and Bray but as a fellow traveler (I mean, they\u2019re anarchists right?), I\u2019m sure there is a lot of good things to digest within their respective texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m sure there are also some things I may strongly disagree with. For example, ANEWS is directly called out by Reid Ross in their rejoinder text as being an infiltration point for \u201canarcho-fascist\u201d tendencies because \u201cfascism, in its earliest phases, relies on insinuating itself within subcultures and left-wing factions to grow, those tendencies must remain actively aware of these basics, or else fall prey to its machinations.\u201d So basically, what I understand from this statement, because honestly it seems confusing enough on its own, is that the people behind ANEWS, which includes yours truly are in bed with \u201canarcho-fascists\u201d or worse we are the \u201canarcho-fascists\u201d\u2026? Jesus. Well, thanks for letting me know. Taken another way, could not the exact same statement cover every single anarchist website\/space in the world theater? What\u2019s so specific about ANEWS that you really dislike? Be honest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For one, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve heard a bigger oxymoron recently than the term \u201canarcho-fascist\u201d. An anarchist that is a fascist? Well, I\u2019m sorry but that just doesn\u2019t make much sense similar to the much maligned and totally contradictory term of \u201canarcho-capitalist\u201d. Perhaps, I\u2019m taking things too literal in my reading and need to be more creative like you. Two, if these people who you are calling \u201canarcho-fascists\u201d believe they\u2019re anarchists (which they\u2019re not), why are you giving them the benefit of the doubt by using their terminology? Three, why are you lumping ANEWS, which is a non-sectarian anarchist news site, into the likes of people we all despise? Why is it that the other \u201canarchists\u201d hating on ANEWS so much also seem like the most partisan actors in everything they do and at the same time extremely popular? Is this how you sell books? 2017 could also be the year in review of anarchists attacking other anarchists, but I\u2019m pretty sure that happens every year unfortunately. Not only is it sad to hear ANEWS and projects you work on and put your heart into attacked, but it\u2019s also extremely upsetting to see it being done by other so-called anarchists with an axe to grind. Critique is healthy, but this kind of mud-slinging is just lazy asinine sectarian capital P for Politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I\u2019ve never spoken personally to Reid Ross, I have had the overwhelming displeasure of having a private conversation with some other well known antifa writers, where I was absolutely shocked by their opinions of other very successful and popular anarchist projects (and I\u2019m not talking about ANEWS anymore). I wonder if they know that their publisher AK Press has also published some other writers who we may deem bad? Among the handful, did you know that Noam Chomsky recently gave a bunch of money to Bernie Sanders? I recently learned that the Chomsky\u2019s co-writer of \u201cManufacturing Consent\u201d Edward S. Herman who just passed away held some controversial positions on the Srebrenica [s<\/em>ray-bren-nitz-ya]<\/em> massacre. Where is the outrage? This is mostly a tongue-in-cheek critique to make a point about the complexities of everything. I actually don\u2019t mind AK Press, but seriously this kind of drama is a huge turnoff for people coming into anarchism and those of us who have been here for many years, just tiring and a distraction to who the real enemy is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s dig a little deeper and visit another controversy from some years ago that has recently been brought up on our Twitter feed. In George Ciccariello-Maher\u2019s 2014 essay for Roar Magazine entitled, \u201cEl Libertario: beware Venezuela\u2019s false \u2018anarchists\u2019\u201d. He wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot everyone who calls themselves anarchists are worthy of the name, and before revolutionaries in the U.S. or elsewhere re-post articles, translate books, or organize speaking tours, we should be clear what it is we are supporting. Especially in Latin America, moreover, we must be attentive to the thousands engaged in revolutionary anti-state activity that don\u2019t even call themselves \u201canarchists.\u201d To support middle-class, liberal anarchists like El Libertario is to be against the revolution, against concrete popular struggles of the Venezuelan poor, and even against anarchism itself<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after, in 2014 longtime anarchist writer Charlatan Stew responded herein:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the midst of the flood of conflicting sources of information and analysis, one of the collective members of the new journal, \u201cAbolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics\u201d, [1] George Ciccariello-Maher, recently wrote an article titled: \u201cEl Libertario: beware Venezuela\u2019s false \u2018anarchists\u2019\u201d. [2] It is not irrelevant that Ciccariello-Maher is an unashamedly Chavista government and \u201cBolivarian Revolution\u201d supporter, as is clear from his book, We Created Chavez: A People\u2019s History of the Venezuelan Revolution<\/em>, and several articles and interviews. Reading what he writes it becomes clear that we cannot take him seriously as a significant critic of centralized rule from the top down, nor as an advocate of anarchist goals or methods of egalitarian self-governance from the bottom up. The article is meant to convince us of the revolutionary credentials of the state he supports by discrediting El Libertario<\/em> in the eyes of anarchists and anti-authoritarians, and to convince us that those \u201cfalse anarchists\u201d are endangering this good state and the gains made through it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all of this, who do you believe? I can honestly say I\u2019m not well versed enough in the Venezuelan space to tell exactly who is being the most dishonest here. Ciccariello-Maher is a pretty well-respected professor who just left their job and Charlatan Stew is a long-time writer who also seems to make some convincing points. I\u2019m sure many people already have their minds made up and have chosen their side in the battle of ideas, between the good and bad anarchists. Obviously I have my research cut out for me. Maybe I\u2019ll write a book about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess that\u2019s 2017 for me. Welcome to the hate factory, where people on the same team treat their co-conspirators like the enemy. Of course, this is not everyone, but I must say it feels more and more prevalent nowadays, at least online, than the previous occasional snide comment in a meeting somewhere. Happy New Year everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s that holiday time of the year again where things seem to slow down a bit for a moment and we try and look back on the year in review. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocinante.anarchyplanet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}