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1. I’m struck by the Leftist language of the people do wrote the results of this survey.

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2. Sure. Despite their pretenses to the contrary, most “anarchists” are white, middle class, college students (or drop outs). They’re simply regurgitating the rhetoric they get from the academic left, which they assume is anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian. Some of them are the kids of hippies who are just repeating what they got from their parents, and others come from staunch Republican families and think being a leftist is the hip, cool, ostensibly rebellious thing to be.

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3. For anarchists to be an effective movement, they need to develop an attitude of “radical Otherness.” Meaning they need to dramatically set themselves apart from mainstream society in terms of values and attitudes. Right now, if the majority of “anarchists” sat down and had a conversation with Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton they’d probably find a lot of agreement, probably much, much more than they would find disagreement.

   For instance, promoting anti-racism hysteria seems to be the favorite cause of the mainstream anarchists. Being labeled a “racist” is the worst thing that can possible happen in their view. This attitude puts them in the same camp with George W. Bush whom they probably regard as a crypto-Nazi: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/04/george-w-bush-kanye-west

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4. I’ve started to notice more and more challenges to this kind of stuff among anarchists over the last few years. It’s not just N-As and Hoppeans who dissent from the PC orthodoxy of the wider anarchist milieu. Some of the non-white anarchists are starting to get fed up with the patronizing attitudes of the left-anarchists towards minorities. The Anarchist People of Color group gave Crimethinc a good ass kicking a few years ago. I think some of the situationists and post-left types are getting really turned off my the moralistic attitudes of the PCers. That’s predictable enough. Also, the growth of the primitivists and anti-civilization types has really started to challenge the hegemony of the leftoids.I know of some antifa who have come to accept points of view like N-A as a legitimate branch of anarchism.

   My goal is for a perspective like ours to eventually dominate the wider anarchist movement, irrespective of the particular orientations of individuals and specific groups. A pluralist anarchist movement composed of many different kinds of anti-state tendencies but with a general strategic consensus on forging an alliance of dissidents and subcultures towards the goal of pan-secessionism would actually put us on the map, and anarchism would no longer be dismissed as a joke movement like it is today.

   I think that our perspective is compatible with anarcho-capitalism, N-A, neo-tribalism, black anarchism, native anarchism, post-lefism, situationism, primitivism, Christian anarchism, syndicalism, etc. It’s compatible with anarcha-feminist or gay anarchist tribalism. But it’s not compatible with cultural Marxism that has dominated anarchism since the 1980s and its implicit totalitarianism, so that is what needs to be purged.

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5. BTW a local friend was involved with the Anarchists of Color/Crimethinc mess. He pretty much told me the AOC just didn’t want the white anarchists in the neighborhood making a scene(!) Kind of ironic I suppose. He told me Crimethinc were about to wrap up operations in Pittsburgh at the time of the conflict anyways…

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6. I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that 95% of the people who self identify as any sort of radical are liabilities to whatever cause they “support”. It seems axiomatic that the various radical milieus would be the ideal recruiting ground for any emerging radical political movement however given that these people have totally failed to advance the agendas they have been advocating for about a century; maybe not. Maybe a better strategy would be to seek the support of either disenchanted elements of the existing elite, who at least have some idea of how to achieve something politically, or even competent groups from other fields.

   In the UK a movement to save steam engines and local train lines has in fifty years managed to acquire and operate 2,500 trains operating on 108 railways with 525 miles of track between them employing 2,000 people, carrying 7 million passengers last year in an industry worth $150 million. In the same time the combined efforts of a dozen radical traditions in the UK have achieved exactly nothing.

   To discover that 15% or whatever of “anarchists” got into anarchism because of the Sex Pistols I feel is yet more evidence for this theory.

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7. Huh. The Sex Pistols (good as they might’ve been) was not the reason for me to turn anarchist. Neither was Crass, who although are intelligent people always struck me as a bit dull besides not being good musicians.

   Actually I sheepishly admit it was reading about Bill White that made me turn that way. *Shudder!* I know he’s quite an unpleasant nut-zi now, but before he turned that way he seemed to prove you don’t have to be on the left to be anarchist.

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8. Here’s how I arrived at a secessionist position. I went to Iraq for 7 months where I was presented with what a collapsed industrial society actually looks like, plus realised the significance of the whole resource depletion thing (since I can’t believe such a monumental fuck up would have been contemplated had there not been a pressing need to secure that oil resource). When I got back what had hitherto been a theoretical and abstract issue, the long term none sustainability of Western economies and and particularly multi-ethnic societies seemed a hell of a lot less abstract and theoretical. Plus having just been desensitised to risk of the usual social inhibitions to political activity……

   So it naturally I gravitated to those who seemed to share those concerns and had what on the face of it seemed some workable proposals. That organisation was the British National Party which seemed an even more natural choice since it was easily the most successful radical group of any operating in my local area.
   Over about a year I learned several important lessons. Firstly that the establishment was weak at local level, desperately sort of activists and popular support. Secondly that however weak they were the advantages they held in terms of tactics and entrenched position were such that no political force currently in existence was anywhere near sophisticated enough to mount any sort of effective challenge at any level. Thirdly that the radical right was so hopelessly mired in conspiracy theory and stupidity that most of it was beyond any hope of ever becoming effective. Moreover it became clear to me that a significant element of the BNP were fascists, nazi sympathisers and anti-Semitic simpletons (including a great many in senior positions) and that this was tolerated by the rest of the group. I might have tolerated failure and gradually worked to implement more effective tactics even if that was a pretty hopeless endeavour but there was no way I was going to knowingly collaborate with fascists so I left the Party.

   After this episode I started to consider how an effective challenge might be made to establishment power and what sort of organisation would be required to implement it. I also began to think about the moral and practical problems generated by the issues of governance, like “what right would I have to impose my solution on society against the wishes of a significant element of it”. This led me to consider the moral basis of nationalism as an ideology, after all what does self determination mean if 49% of the nation (or more) are being forced to be governed a certain way against their will?

   From that it pretty much falls together fairly simply. It’s not consistent with nationalist ideology to impose anything on a nation, and the only way to reconcile that with the concept of nationhood is if each component of the nation, at individual and community level, are free to determine their own political arrangements. (Moreover what is the point of saving a nation from itself? A nation must be able to survive by its own merits or it is just in an intensive care ward and dies the moment the ward fails. Even if you could protect a nation with a state all you would do is encourage that nation to weaken behind those artificial defences) This then removes the problem of building a workable alliance since there is very little to object to in that position of “do what whatever you like and see how it works out for you”. It also allows a strategy of localisation to be developed which removes the need to do the impossible in taking control of the state and allows incremental advance rather than “all or nothing” (with an strong emphasis on nothing). Since you don’t need to take on the state at its own game you then don’t need a top down hierarchical conventional party so have the option of decentralised multiple redundancy cell style networks which are resilient to the traditional weapons of the state.

   The whole thing clangs together with a beautiful elegance of simplicity, all the moral, philosophic, strategic and tactical problems simply melt away leaving only a vicious anti-establishment weapon with almost no target profile.

   So then I went looking for people who had reached a similar conclusion. So far you are it.

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