from Ed D’Angelo (Anytime Now Discussion Forum)

I think racial politics in the anarchist movement derives from the broader American Left, for which race has been a key issue since the abolitionists of the pre-Civil War period. Class based analysis is not common in American politics, especially in the present day. Most Americans view themselves as middle class, which is not entirely inaccurate. The American working class is either invisible or is seen only through the lens of race, as if to be working class can be equated with being a “minority” (ie, non-white or non-native born). Although a class struggle perspective is found in the revolutionary anarchist tradition (Bakunin and the communist anarchists), I think the larger source of class struggle perspectives is the Marxist tradition, which is relatively weak in the USA. Even some Marxist parties, such as the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist Party with roots in SDS and the 60s New Left, is more focused on race (particularly the black race) than class (or confuses the two). In this case, it’s clear that the preoccupation with blacks derives from the Civil Rights struggles of the 50s and 60s. 
 
So, racial reductionism in the anarchist movement is due, I think, to the influence of the larger American Left, and beyond that, American culture in general, on the American anarchist movement. As radical as we might think we are, we are all still products of our cultures.
 
Because the American working class, at least since WW II, has been so conservative –coopted by business unions in the early post-war years and by consumerism, suburban sprawl, etc. — anarchism in the USA has had little appeal to workers. Most anarchists in the USA are bohemians with roots in the (largely, but not exclusively, white) college educated middle class. For them, anarchism is not about their own struggle for liberation and autonomy, but is a moral mission to help the oppressed other. And in mainstream American culture, the face of oppression is black. So it’s not surprising that you would find many white anarchists with a moral concern for racial issues. This tendency in the anarchist movement goes back at least to the 1940s, when anarchists were among the first to participate in the early Civil Rights movement.
 
What can we do? The only way to free yourself from the past, I think, is to become aware of how it continues to shape your views, even when it is past. So we can try to educate ourselves and others about this history, and how circumstances have changed. The same can be said for the influence of mainstream culture. The more we become critically aware of mainstream culture, the more we can free ourselves of it. I think it’s a good idea to turn off the mainstream media, too, because to some extent it’s impossible to immunize yourself against it, no matter how sharp your critical reasoning skills are.
 
We can also educate ourselves about anarchist history. In this respect, I am finding Eugene Lunn’s book, “Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer,” to be particularly interesting, because Landauer’s anarchism is a prime example of an anarchism that is not class or race based, that was explicitly formulated in opposition to Marxist currents, and that is based in the individual spirit (understood as a mystical microcosm of the community and volk). Landauer was a pacifist and evolutionary anarchist who believed that the road to anarchism is paved with the construction of voluntary cooperative communties within the interstice so the old, rather than in the violent overthrow of existing structures. Violent revolution, Landauer would have argued, is impossible because authority is sustained by the voluntary servitude of the oppressed who would reconstruct oppressive structures once the old ones were destroyed — as occurred in the Soviet Union. What is needed is a cultural revolution not a political one.

by Keith Preston

Three important works by Karl Marx, written early in his career as a revolutionary theorist, contain the core ideas that would provide the foundation of the vast intellectual system later to be identified with his name. Among these are his conceptions of historical materialism, class theory, the nature of political economy and the historical function of revolutionary struggles as they emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. The later works of Marx (most famously Das Kapital) can be regarded as the accumulation of sophisticated embellishments of these principal theses. 

          The first of these works, The German Ideology, produced in collaboration with Friedrich Engels circa 1844, provides the most comprehensive description of the Marxist notion of historical materialism to be found in any of the works of Marx. Written as an attempted rebuttal of the Hegel-influenced Idealist philosophical outlook to be found in German intellectual circles at the time, attacking in particular the views of Bruno Bauer, “Max Stirner” (Johann Caspar Schmidt) and Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach. The thesis of this work can be summarized quite well with the authors’ statement: “Let us revolt against the rule of thoughts.” [Karl Marx, “The German Ideology”, in Karl Marx: selected writings, ed. David McLellan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 reprint, p.176] Arguing against the view that ideas are the guiding force of history, Marx and Engels insist that ideas are themselves the product of material conditions found within the context of a given historical epoch. The material conditions of existence are expressed in a particular “mode of production”, i.e., the methodology by which human animals produce their actual subsistence. The mode of production determines not only the relationship between nations but also the domestic social structure of any given nation. The division of labor that is a corollary to a specific mode of production has the effect of grouping individual laborers into specific class categories with these classes in turn having a specific relationship to one another. [Ibid., p. 176]

          Human history subsequently unfolds through paradigmatic shifts in mode of production. These shifts can be identified in particular stages. The first of these, “tribal ownership“, involves a limited division of labor and is organize around the extended family, with the primary productive activities including hunting, fishing, the raising of livestock and primitive farming. The second stage includes the emergence of the State and the grouping of tribes into a system of communal ownership of property organized on the basis of the citizen/slave distinction. At this point, the institution of private property is

more clearly delineated. The division of labor grows wider, greater distinctions between economic groupings on a geographical or functional basis can be observed, and a more rigid class structure emerges. The third stage is represented by feudalism. This mode of production extends over a wider geographical area. Feudalism reverses the relationship of city and country found in the second stage and the “directly producing class” shifts from the slaves to peasant serfs. Co-existing with the feudal manors are the small property holders organized into guilds. Out of feudalism there emerges a fourth stage and a new mode of production: capitalism.[Ibid., p. 179]

          The relevance of this unfolding process to human intellectual life is reflected in the claim that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force“. [Ibid., p. 192] Human intellectual life is shaped by the material conditions in which it occurs, and these conditions are not something the individual chooses but are the product of external social forces beyond his/her control. “Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. ” [Ibid., p. 183]”Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of the ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking.[Ibid., p.183]

          Marx and Engels further expound upon this theme in The Communist Manifesto, an application of their theory to the political upheavals of their era. They begin with the bold assertion that the “history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. [Karl Marx, “The Communist Manifesto”, in Karl Marx: selected writings, ed. David McLellan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.246] The historical evolution of nineteenth century capitalism is summarized. Capitalism grew out of the medieval towns. The rise of the market economy and ever-expanding byways of trade commerce came to eventually challenge the static feudal economy. Technological innovations allowed for a shift away from small-scale production towards the advent of modern industry. This development brought with it a newly emerging class, “the industrial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois. [Ibid., p. 247] As the bourgeois has become the dominant class of the capitalist mode of production, the bourgeoisie has obtained political power as well. The bourgeoisie has overthrown feudalism and established republican and parliamentary expressions of the state. These states serve as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie.

          Corresponding to the rise of the bourgeoisie has been the rise of urbanization, the centralization of wealth and property (“the means of production‘) and the proletarianization of the peasantry and the small property holder. This has created an unprecedented polarization in class relations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The workers, or proletarians, have become mere slaves to the industrial process lorded over by the bourgeoisie. The workers have no means to life other than through the sale of their labor to the forces of capital. The process of production has become mechanized and militarized, thereby alienating the worker from the product of his labor and subjecting the worker to exploitation. The workers have organized trade unions and political parties for their own defense and the class struggle is underway. Class solidarity by the proletariat is the path to victory. As the proletariat emerges as the revolutionary class, some in the bourgeoisie have joined their ranks including “a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending

 theoretically the historical movement as a whole.[Ibid. p.248-253] This latter statement is likely a reference to the middle-class intellectuals, including Marx and Engels themselves, who are among the leadership of the Communist movement.

          The Communists emerge as the intellectual and activist vanguard of the proletarian revolution. The Communists are the most militant and radical of the proletarian forces who aim to build an international revolutionary movement among the proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie on a world scale. Just as the French Revolution abolished feudal property relations, so do the Communists wish to abolish bourgeoisie, or capitalist, property relations. Marx and Engels expend much effort in the pamphlet mocking the hypocrisy of the intellectual apologists for the ruling class who defend the present condition of things in the name of “freedom” while reducing the proletariat to destitution and wage slavery. They also attack the subordinate position of women and the exploitation of female labor, child labor, the unavailability of education for the working class, and argue against national patriotism on the part of the working class: “The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.“[Ibid., pp.255-260] In other words, the proletariat should replace national patriotism with class patriotism and strive to become the ruling class.

          Marx applies his approach to class theory and political economy further in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, an analysis of the event surrounding the seizure of the French state by the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. He begins with an explanation of how those engaged in contemporary struggles mythologize the past as a means of interpreting the present: “Similarly, at a another stage of development a century earlier, Cromwell and the English people had borrowed speech, passions and illusions from the Old Testament for their bourgeois revolution. When the real aim had been achieved, when the bourgeois transformation of English society had been accomplished, Locke supplanted Habakkuk.“[Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, in Karl Marx: selected writings, ed. David McLellan; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.330-331]

          Marx likewise attempts to explain setbacks in the course of an revolutionary struggle that is alleged to be inevitable and ordained by history. While bourgeois revolutions “storm swiftly from success to success;….proletarian revolutions….criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses, and paltrinesses of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again,” [Ibid., p. 332] Marx raises the question of why the bourgeoisie would welcome a coup against the parliamentary regime by Louis Bonaparte if the parliament itself is the political expression of the bourgeoisie as a class. The bourgeoisie does this because its continued existence is more safely guaranteed if it relinquishes self-rule in favor of rule by an autocrat. Consequently, the bourgeoisie supports the repression of its parliament, “its politicians and its literati, its platform and its press, in order that it might then be able to pursue its private affairs with full confidence in the protection of a strong and unrestricted government. It declared unequivocally that it longed to get rid of its own political rule in order to get rid of the troubles and dangers of ruling.” [Ibid., pp. 335-336] As the politicians and literati are only part of the ideological superstructure of the bourgeoisie, these can be jettisoned without damaging the material base of the bourgeoisie. Indeed, this material basis can be strengthened if an autocrat removes political obstacles to the advancement of trade and commerce and represses proletarian insurgencies. Marx’s analysis of the coup carried out by Louis Bonaparte is remarkably similar to the interpretation later Marxist theoreticians would give to the rise of Fascism and Nazism in the twentieth century.

          In two lectures presented fifteen years apart, the British Marxist historiographer Eric Hobsbawm attempts to assess the relevant contributions of Marx to the broader study of history. [Eric Hobsbawm, On History, ed. Eric Hobsbawm, “What do Historian Owe to Karl Marx?” and “Marx and History”; New York: New Press, 1997, pp. 141-170]  Hobsbawn begins with an effort to differentiate the actual  thought of Marx from the tendency toward the vulgarization his work (and the tendency of this approach toward crude reductionism) by subsets of later Marxists theoreticians. Hobsbawm regards the principal contribution of Marx to historical studies and the social sciences as derivative of his notion of “base and superstructure”, noting that, conceptually speaking, one need not adhere with particular rigidity to Marx’s application of this idea to recognize its value, further acknowledging that many non-Marxist historians do just that. Marxism also differs from its rivals in the social science in its efforts to explain the process of social evolution. [Ibid., pp. 157-149]

           Marxist influence is also credited with the decline of emphasis on political, religious and national histories towards a greater focus on social and economic history and a movement away from the idealist approach to historical interpretation towards a more materialist orientation, or at least one giving greater attention to the role of social forces. Likewise, the impact of Marxism has been to orient, at least implicitly, many historians towards a more teleological view of historical evolution. [Ibid., p. 143] Indeed, Hobsbawm states his own “conviction that Marx’s approach is still the only one which enables us to explain the entire span of human history, and forms the most fruitful starting-point for modern discussion.” (Ibid., p. 155).

          This last notion seems problematical. First, the question arises as to whether is it necessary, or even possible, “to explain the entire span of human history” and whether or not the Marxist position has actually done so. Hobsbawm concedes this difficulty, quoting Weber: “That the very Reformation is ascribed to an economic cause, that the length of the Thirty Years War was due to economic causes, the Crusades to feudal land-hunger, the evolution of the family to economic causes, and that Descartes’ view of animals as machines can be brought into relation with the growth of the Manufacturing system.” [Ibid, p. 147]

          More difficulties arise from Hobsbawm’s interpretation of the Marxist theory of the state:” The state will normally legitimate the social order by controlling the class conflict within a stable framework of institutions and values, ostensibly standing above and outside them (the remote king as ‘fountain of justice’), and in doing so perpetrate a society which would otherwise be driven asunder by its internal tensions.” [Ibid, p. 154]

But is this theory of the state Marxist in nature? Is not the state, according to Marx, the mere “executive committee” of the ruling class? And are not a “stable framework of institutions and values” mere chimera derived from an ideological superstructure whose function is to legitimize class rule? It would appear that the theory of the state as “standing above and outside” class conflict and the ideological superstructure of those controlling the means of production is more Hobbesian (or, in more recent terms, Schmittian) than Marxist.

          Hobsbawm also notes the irony involved in the impact of Marx on historians, given that Marx himself wrote very little on history itself. Marx developed a theory of history, i.e., historical materialism, but was not a historian as such. Hobsbawm observes that the “bulk of Marx’s historical work is thus integrated into his theoretical and political writings.” [Ibid., p. 158] That some major theoretical problems, even outright errors, can be found in Marx’s work is a point conceded by Hobsbawm, noting, for instance, the failure of those societies Marx labeled as “Asiatic” to evolve along the economic lines Marxist theory would predict, a fact that Marx himself acknowledged. [Ibid., p. 164}Does this failure not reduce the Marxist interpretation of economic evolution to a particularist one? Does this not explode the notion of the historical predestination of the proletariat towards inevitable, ultimate victory? 

          More than one hundred fifty years after Marx produced these writings, the classical Marxist ideal  of proletarian supremacy has yet to come into being. Instead, the industrial proletariat has been assimilated into the institutional framework of liberal-capitalism and parliamentary democracy with worker organizations like trade unions becoming part of the status quo. The historic working class has been elevated to the status of a de facto middle class and stratified and fragmented by a myriad of sectional interests. Furthermore, the Marxist derision of particularistic attachments like religion, family, nationality, culture, ethnicity and language has proved untenable. Indeed, these kinds of attachments have been most evident among the historic proletariat whom Marxists claim to champion. At the onset of the First World War, the working classes of Europe rallied behind their respective national regimes in opposition to the working classes of other nations. 

          Marxist-influenced revolutions in Asian, African and Latin American countries whose economies were still primarily in an agricultural stage have merely replaced their indigenous autocracies, oligarchies and aristocracies with new ones organized on the basis of ideological concepts imported from Europe. To the degree that capitalism has been severely altered or compromised in any industrialized nation it has been on the basis of a nationalistic collectivism (Fascism, National Socialism, Peronism, Ba’athism) or corporatist social-democracy (U.S. corporate liberalism and the welfare states of Western Europe) rather than proletarian socialism.

           Marx did accurately predict the eventual globalization of capital and the breaking down of traditional national and cultural boundaries by this process. This is a process that is only now taking place and threatens the middle class workers of the developed world with re-proletarianization as the newly emerging proletariat of the Third World becomes more readily exploitable by international capital.   Traditional nation-states are also in the process of breaking down but this hardly the “withering away of the state” predicted by Marx. Rather, nations are combining into multinational federations, ethno-separatist breakaway states are demanding autonomy, non-state entities (transnational corporations and financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and international bodies like the United Nations) are assuming more responsibilities and non-state militaries are challenging the state’s traditional monopoly on violence. To the degree that the globalization process is being resisted, it is being done by populist-nationalists (like Hugo Chavez) or non-state religious militants (like Osama bin Laden) who appeal to the very particularist sentiments that Marxists vociferously reject. It would appear that the historical legacy of Marxism will be similar that of other interesting, occasionally correct, but severely flawed systems of thought (like Platonism or Calvinism) that have achieved great influence for a time and then declined.

Why Read the Sunday Papers When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com!

Quote of the Week:

“Most of the official left has retreated into the loving arms of Whole Foods culture and the self loathing feel-goodism of identity politics.”

                                                                                                              -Dylan Hales

“It may be that the Old Right will come into its inheritance at last 20 or 30 years from now, in one of the little fragment nations that will emerge when corruption, fiscal incompetence, demographic idiocy, educational romanticism, willful scientific ignorance, ethnic warfare, and missionary imperialism have finally destroyed the United States of America.”

                                                                                                   -John Derbyshire

Mother, Should I Trust the Government? by Kevin Carson

We Don’t Want to Rule the World by Mark Weisbrot

Seventy Years Ago: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by Robert Higgs

War Coverage and the Obama Cult by Justin Raimondo

In Bush’s Footsteps by Jeff Huber

Renditioning Under Obama by Anthony Gregory

What Every American Should Know About the Inspector General Torture Report by Glenn Greenwald

For an Antiwar Movement from the Right by Patrick Krey

From Citizen to Serf in 200 Years by Paul Craig Roberts

The Politics of Guilt by Paul Gottfried

Follow the Money-Toward Community Independence by Keith Humphrey

Secret Prisons and Executive Sovereignty by Bernard Keenan

Obama to Expand War in Colombia by Moira Birss

The Coming Media Bailout by Justin Raimondo

We’re All Socialists Now by Jack Hunter

The Hawaiian Independence Movement Gains Momentum by Tony Sachs

Democracy: The God That Failed by Pat Buchanan

Beautiful Losers: Review of Paul Gottfried’s Encounters by John Derbyshire

Democracy Is Not Liberty from No Third Solution

U.S. Prison Mania: Enough Is Enough by Robert Foss

New England Republicans and Southern Democrats by Razib Khan

Rapists On Patrol from Rad Geek

Barack Hussein Obama in Wonderland by Ilana Mercer

How to Bring Peace to Afghanistan by Eric Margolis

The City That Ended Hunger by Francois Tremblay

Hitler Was a Vegetarian by Robert Stacy McCain

Pluralist Libertarianism’s Far Left Counterpart by Mupetblast

A Patriotic Conservative by Jack Hunter

Occupy, Resist, Produce! by Francois Tremblay

Christoper Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution by Jared Taylor

The Electronic Police State by Tom Burghardt

Fidel Castro Enabler by Humberto Fontova

Back Door Gun Control by John Silveira

Do It Yourself Cigarettes by Steve Szkotak

Critical Analysis of the Left: Let’s Clean House by Joaquin Cienfuegos

Four New Books on Conservatism by Filmer

Israel: A Stalemated Action of History by Gabriel Kolko

Whatever Happened to the Antiwar Movement? by Byron York

Obama and the Black Elite by Patricia J. Williams

Remembering Ruby Ridge

Another One Bites the Dust Rot in Hell, Teddy Kennedy by Dylan Hales

Liberals for the Draft? WTF? by Richard Spencer

A Future of Poverty and Upheaval by Chris Martin

Environmentalists for Another Great Depression by John R. Wennersten

Charles Murray: Pro-Torture Libertarian In His Own Words

Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis: Two Great Men Who Died on the Same Day as JFK by Lew Rockwell

The Silence of the Antiwar Movement by John V. Walsh

What the Inspector General Found by Joanne Mariner

Eric Holder Rejects Nuremberg Principle by Thomas Eddlem

Afghanistan Apocalypse by Robert Dreyfuss

Closing in on the Torturers by Ray McGovern

A Terrible Blogger is Back! by Ray Mangum

Proudhon on Man’s Labor Being Dependent on Society by Francois Tremblay

Bailouts, Bullshit and Blackmail: How Banks Profit in the 21st Century from No Third Solution

Proudhon on the Labor Theory of Value from Francois Tremblay

Creep: The Trouble with Ted by Jack Hunter

The Mythical Antiwar Movement  by Dylan Hales

More on Internment Camps by Chuck Baldwin

Hate Crime Hysteria Equals Hate Speech Totalitarianism from Washington Watcher

If Americans Knew…What Every American Needs to Know About Israel/Palestine (hat tip to Chris Donnellan)

Teddy Kennedy: The Hollow Champion by Alexander Cockburn

Vague Senate Bill Would Grant President Emergency Control of Internet from Weaver

Decentralization for Freedom by Donald W. Livingstone

Advancements in Drug Decriminalization by David Kramer

How Jewish is Hollywood? by David Kramer

PIG to Protestors: “It Ain’t America No More, OK?” 

The Useless PIGS by Ryan McMaken

Put Dick Cheney in the Dock Ray McGovern interviewed by Scott Horton

Can Libertarians Lead the Antiwar Movement? James Ostrowski interviewed by Scott Horton

Thugs of Fortune by Jeff Huber

Making Afghanistan Safe for Democracy by Anthony Gregory

Weekly Reading of Scripture

Russian Anarchists and the Civil War by Paul Avrich

Life in Revolutionary Barcelona by Manolo Gonzalez

On Representative Government and Universal Suffrage by Mikhail Bakunin

Military Anarchism and the Reality in Spain by Frederica Montseny

A Nation of Sheep, Ruled by Wolves, Owned by Pigs

The Revolution Within Anarchism 

Forty Years in the Wilderness? 

Liberty and Populism: Building An Effective Resistance Movement for North America

For three years in a row, between 2006 and 2008, a North American secessionist convention was held where delegates from actual secessionist organizations and interested observers gathered to discuss the possibility of decentralizing the United States into smaller political units. Thus far, it does not appear there will be another convention for 2009. I suspect this is for the better. I only attended the third such convention, but to my knowledge there was no growth in attendance or media coverage of these events over the three years they took place.

In spite of the fact that the secessionist movement in North America seems to have peaked for the time being, there has been a subsequent growth in so-called “state sovereignty” resolutions, i.e, legislation passed or at least introduced in state governmental bodies upholding the federalist principles of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A majority of the fifty states have either considered or enacted such resolutions. The highlight of this movement was Texas Governor Rick Perry’s no doubt insincere comments expressing sympathy for secession.

For the most part, these state sovereignty resolutions are simply matters of partisan political grandstanding initiated by members of the opposition Republican Party in order to embarrass or antagonize the Obama regime. I used to hear a lot about the Tenth Amendment the last time the Republicans were out of power, during the Clinton era, and it was often said in those days that Republican politicians carry copies of the Tenth Amendment in their back pockets but carry capitalist whore money in their front pockets.

During the era of the Bush the Younger, the roles reversed a bit, and it was not uncommon to see individual localities and a few states with liberal leanings issue resolutions denouncing the Iraq War or the Patriot Act. About 300 local governmental bodies did so. Now that the Democrats are back, the tides have turned once again. Only a handful of these recently issued state sovereignty resolutions include any genuinely radical provisions or even hint at secession.

Nevertheless, these resolutions may provide a rhetorical tool that genuine radicals can exploit. But a change in tactics will be necessary for the decentralist movement. Thus far, efforts to promote such actions as secession have involved holding continent-wide conferences attended by only a few dozen people, who in turn represent very small organizations or movements. However, these self-appointed secessionist organizations often claim to speak for entire regions containing millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of people. This would seem to be a case of putting the cart ahead of the horse.

Of course, this is not to say that the secessionist movement thus far has achieved nothing. Past efforts have brought a certain amount of publicity, and the Zogby poll commissioned by the Middlebury Institute indicates the raw materials do indeed exist for the development of a large scale secessionist effort at some point in the future. Yet, to continue to move such efforts along, it needs to be understood that before we can run, we have to crawl.

It is highly unlikely that secession by individual states or regions of any size will be viable for the forseeable future. For instance, the League of the South is the largest single secessionist organization with membership in the thousands. The southern nationalists do indeed raise legitimate and serious issues concerning the hysterical prejudice often displayed by liberal elites against white working class Southerners, and their history, culture, religion, language and so forth. Yet, it is also true that sympathy for what used to be known as the “Lost Cause” (i.e., the Confederate secession) is at an all time low among Southerners. This is because quite a few people can be found in the South today who have no historical connections to the Confederate era, e.g., transplanted Northerners and their offspring, European immigrants and their offspring, more recent immigrants from Latin America, and, of course, a large African-American population that is alienated from Confederate heritage for obvious reasons, and many liberal, cosmopolitan, urban whites who resent the South’s conservative image. In other words, the prospect for a unified secession by the former Confederate states under the Stars and Bars is just about zero.

This is not to say that instances of a full-blown, secessionist fervor by certain states are not possible. It is imaginable that Texas and Vermont, both of which were once independent nations, could actually secede at some point. The same could be said concerning Alaska and Hawaii, neither of which are connected to the American mainland and both of which have their own indigenous cultures that have been subject to colonial subjugation by the United States. The indigenous people of the American mainland itself are another possibility for secession.

For the most part, however, it is far too soon in the game to begin thinking of secession by entire regions, such as Cascadia, New England, Novocadia, the former Confederate States, or California. Instead, it is better to begin with something a little less grandiose, and start agitating for secession by towns, cities, neighborhoods, counties or communities. This is not to say that we should not have a long-term vision. In my view, the only way we will win in the long run is if we have numbers on our side. For instance, the majority of the population of the United States will need to either recognize the right of secession or not actively oppose it. Right now, the numbers are only at about twenty percent. Also, it is likely we will need for there to be a secession by at least a majority of the territory of the United States, and at least the majority of the residents of the seceded territories will need to hold pro-secessionist sympathies. This does not mean than an individual secessionist tendency cannot be very small. For instance, a single county or small town. But such a secession will need to be part of a much larger pan-secessionist alliance, or at least under the umbrella of such an alliance. Otherwise, the secessionists will end up like the Branch Davidians.

It would seem that the best course of action at present would be to begin promoting the decentralist idea in local communities. This gives us a great deal of leeway in terms of how to proceed. For instance, we can simply stick with the idea of secession or independence as an end unto itself and do so in a non-ideological manner, or we can advocate secession for a broader ideological purpose. If one wishes to pursue the former approach, then our local propaganda should simply emphasize the common benefits of independence: “Wouldn’t it be better if our tax dollars stayed in our community without going to the parasites in Washington?”; “Did you know that our locality gets less in services than what we pay in taxes?”; “Wouldn’t it be better if we could simply make our own laws here in our community rather than suffer the dictates of the feds or the state capital?”; “Look at Liechtenstein! If they can do it, why can’t we?”.

The other approach would be to agitate for a more specific ideological program, the way that the Free Staters are doing in New Hampshire, or the Christian Exodus has attempted in South Carolina and elsewhere. If this approach is what one prefers, then it is essential to pick an actual locality where the local culture is conducive to one’s wider agenda. There are also options as to how radical one wants to make one’s secessionist platform. In certain communities, it may at present be a bit of an overload to advocate full-blown secession from the United States itself, even if that is the overall goal. Instead, it might be better to advocate secession by regions (for instance, turning northern California into a separate state within the U.S.), or by cities (turning New York City into the 51st state), or by municipality (turning Long Island into an independent city from NYC). This more moderate approach does not mean that we cannot maintain the dissolution of the present state-capitalist regime as an ultimate goal, and there may be at present certain regions or localities where agitation for full-blown secession from the U.S. is the proper route.

At this point in the game, the cultivation of effective propaganda is obviously a primary task. Hans Hermann Hoppe has remarked that answering the question of “How to Win?” means asking the question of “How to win the sympathy of the youth?”  The reasons for this should be obvious enough. If and when the pan-secessionist movement becomes a mass movement, those who are currently older will most likely be deceased. Youth are the future. So our propaganda should primarily be directed at younger audiences. Also, it is the younger people who have demonstrated the greatest proclivity towards secessionist sympathies, and who have the weakest degree of sympathy for the present regime. For instance, the writer Tom Wolfe once remarked that the incidents of September 11, 2001 did little to inspire long-term patriotic sentiments among young Americans, as much as it was just another event they saw on television. Likewise, it has been said that while the older members of the current “post-paleo” movement who came out of the Ron Paul campaign adhere to older paleoconservative ideas, many of the younger members adhere to more radical libertarian, anarchist or anarcho-capitalist positions. And we have seen the rapid growth of national-anarchism in North America in recent times as well.

Our propaganda campaigns should include three indispensable elements. First, the principle of “peace through separatism” should be upheld to the letter. It makes little sense to advocate secession only by those sharing a uniform ideological stance if one of our objectives to maintain and respect genuine cultural diversity and if achieving civil and political peace is one of the reasons for separatism. Second, the “good riddance” argument must be emphasized. We should say to conservatives: “Don’t you want to be rid of all those godless atheists, ungrateful minorities, bitchy feminists, perverted homosexual deviants, tree-hugging eco-freaks, gun-grabbers and smelly, drug-addled, tofu-munching, lice-infested hippies?”. Likewise, we should say to liberals: “Don’t you want to be rid of all those Bible-banging, flag-waving, share-cropping, inbred, gun nut, gay-bashing, fetus-hugging, cross-burning, goose-stepping, trailer trash?” In other words, we should exploit and capitalize on the hatred that the dominant factions of the mainstream “culture wars” have for one another. Lastly, we should ignore the forces of political correctness when they attack, as they inevitably will. There should be no capitulation, accommodation, apology, rebuttal, attempted clarification, recognition or respect given to the forces of PC. To give an inch of ground is to play into the hands of the enemy. PC is not only the ideological superstructure of the ruling class, but its primary rhetorical and propaganda weapon. We should disarm our enemies by openly defying them.

I have in the past mentioned the possibility of infiltration into larger organizations by those holding pan-secessionist and related sympathies. For instance, the minor political parties, local units of the major parties, and single-issue pressure groups. Mr. Larry Kilgore, a conservative Christian activist, ran for the Senate in the Republican primary for Texas on an explicitly secessionist platform and won 225, 000 votes. That’s quite an achievement. I would suggest the use of local symbolic electoral campaigns as a propaganda tool. The goal would not so much be to win as much as to publicize the separatist cause. Let’s say that in a few years a wide network emerges of young people running for mayor, city council, or state representative positions in local elections, and doing so explicitly as anarchists, national-anarchists, pluralists, tribalists, decentralists and avowed secessionists. The uniqueness of such an action, e.g., a large number of such campaigns occurring simultaneously and the radical nature of the ideas of the campaigners, will likely be enough by itself to generate a fair amount of media attention. Likewise, a wider participation in ordinary, mainstream community activities and community activism by those holding such views, for example, “adopt-a-highway” campaigns, volunteering for shelters and homeless feeding programs, setting up neighborhood watch and copwatch programs, will naturally enhance our credibility. In the process of building up the classical Spanish anarchist movement prior to the Civil War, it was not uncommon for some villages and towns to have anarchist mayors, and anarchists were among the ranks of prominent community leaders, and not just fringe figures as they are today. So we have a historical model to draw on. It need only to be adapted to contemporary circumstances.

R

by Keith Preston

I. Gandhi as Spiritual Godfather of the Indian Independence Movement

II. Critics of Gandhi and the Conservative Hindu Backlash

Early Life and the Beginnings of Gandhi’s Radicalism        

           Mohandas K. Gandhi originated from India’s business caste and grew up amidst Vaishnovite and Jain influences. From youth onward, he was a devout vegetarian and even belonged to an association for vegetarians during his time studying law in London. Gandhi began his adult life as an Anglophile, once referring to Great Britain as “the land of poets and philosophers”. His radicalization began when he went to practice law in South Africa and experienced the discrimination against the Indian community to be found there. He became active in the struggle for Indian civil rights, initially arguing that because Indians were British subjects, they were entitled to the “full rights of Englishmen” recognized by British law. After beginning his struggle in South Africa, he moved his efforts to India itself and began organizing poor farmers and workers against oppressive taxation and discrimination. Following the massacre at Punjab, Gandhi came to believe that Indians would require full independence from Great Britain in order to be assured of their human rights. Over time he would completely abandon his initially favorable view of the West, eventually remarking that Western civilization “would be a good idea”, implying that he regarded Westerners as barbarians.

Satyagraha and the Philosophy of Non-Violence

          Gandhi’s views on non-violence are widely misunderstood, particularly among Westerners. The evidence refutes the ideas that Gandhi was a conventional pacifist, as pacifism is commonly understood. Indeed, Gandhi was highly critical of efforts by the British to deprive Indians of “the right to bear arms”.  His support for the British war effort in World War One was justified in part by his desire to see the right of Indians to possess arms restored. As he stated in his autobiography:

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the arms act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to the government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.” (Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Beacon Press, Boston, 1957, pp. 446-447)

Gandhi supported both the Boer War and the First World War and urged other Indians to do so arguing that support for British war efforts would demonstrate their loyalty as British subjects and motivate the British to recognize the civil rights of Indians. By the time of the Second World War, Gandhi had altered his position, arguing that Indians had no obligation to support a British regime that denied them their freedom and independence. Gandhi’s views on non-violence were a matter of strategy as much as principle or morality. He regarded violent resistance to oppression as preferable to doing nothing at all although he also regarded non-violent resistance as superior to violence. Gandhi also expressed concern that non-violence might be used by some as a mask for cowardice. He once noted:

‘I do believe,’ he wrote, ‘that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.'” (Joan Valerie Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 28)

“At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan‘s influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bear their breasts to the bullets.” (Bondurant, p.139)

Much of Gandhi’s reasoning behind his adoption of non-violence is likely traceably to two core ideas. First, the British Empire was in its twilight years and in a state of decline. Gandhi may well have recognized that eventually the British would no longer be able to afford to maintain India as a dependent colony and would have to grant her independence. Meanwhile, violence by the Indians would have only a provocative effect, strengthening the resolve of Britain to keep her rebellious colony in line. Secondly, the use of non-violence carried much weight in the court of world opinion. The sight of peaceful, non-violent Indian protestors being attacked by British soldiers and policemen could only serve to increase sympathy for the Indian cause on the international level. Violence might well alienate world opinion and the Indians might be condemned as terrorists whom the British were justified in repressing. A contemporary military historian, Martin Van Creveld, explains the immense propaganda value of creating the popular perception of operating from a position of weakness against an overwhelming and brutal enemy:

“In private life, an adult who keeps beating down on a five year old – even

such a one as originally attacked him with a knife – will be perceived as committing a crime; therefore he will lose the support of bystanders and end up by being arrested, tried and convicted. In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up by losing the support of its allies, its own people, and its own troops. Depending on the quality of the forces – whether they are draftees or professionals, the effectiveness of the propaganda machine, the nature of the political process, and so on – things may happen quickly or take a long time to mature. However, the outcome is always the same. He (or she) who does not understand this does not understand anything about war; or, indeed, human nature.”

“In other words, he who fights against the weak – and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed – and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however, advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat; if U.S troops in Iraq have not yet started fragging their officers, the suicide rate among them is already exceptionally high. That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one did. Namely, with the last US troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters’ skids.” (Martin Van Creveld, “Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did”, http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crevald1.html)

An important criticism sometimes leveled at Gandhi involves the matter of his passive approach to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Gandhi stated that it would have been preferable for the Jews to commit mass suicide rather than to allow the Germans to exterminate them en masse.

“The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They

should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” (“The Gandhi

Nobody Knows”, Richard Grenier[From the magazine, “Commentary,”

March 1983, published monthly by the American Jewish Committee, New

York, NY.])

To Westerners, particularly Jews, such a statement no doubt seems inordinately extreme, an example of pacifism reductio ad absurdum. However, such a sentiment might be best understood within the context of Asian rather than Western culture. In some Asian traditions, the notion of suicide being preferable to defeat is commonly accepted. A prime example of this, of course, is the classical Japanese tradition of hari-kari. Even Japanese civilians would sometimes take their own lives rather than allow themselves to fall into the hands of their American enemies during WW2. In other words, these Japanese actually practiced what Gandhi suggested European Jews should do in the face of relentless persecution and eventual extermination by the Nazis. Indeed, it was the Tamil Tigers of India who first popularized the notion of the suicide bomber in the contemporary world. So perhaps Gandhi’s views on this question are better understood within the context of the “honor before life” value systems to be found within some other Asian traditions (Bushido, for example). Perhaps Islamic concepts of martyrdom also influenced Gandhi’s thinking in this area.

Defending the Oppressed

Gandhi’s efforts on behalf of the downtrodden sectors of Indian society are well-known. Throughout his lengthy career as a public figure, Gandhi undertook numerous campaigns to improve the position of workers, farmers, the untouchables and the lower castes, women, racial and religious minorities and others under attack by the status quo. One of his earliest efforts of this type was to organize serfs, landless peasants and small landowners in Champaran (in the Indian state of Bahir) against the landlords and British military forces that required them grow indigo (a profitable export crop for the British) rather than crops more suitable for their own immediate sustenance and survival. A constant theme of Gandhi’s ongoing crusades was his persistent emphasis on the importance of hygiene, sanitation and cleanliness. Some of his statements on this matter now seem quaint or archaic to the modern mind, but it was an issue of vital importance in pre-independence India, as poor hygiene and sanitation practices were a major public health problem.

When considering Gandhi’s work on behalf of the oppressed, it is important to remember that he would not have qualified as a “liberal”, either by contemporary standards or even by the Western standards of his time. For instance, Gandhi was always resolutely opposed to contraception, viewing it as an attack on the sanctity of life and he once debated the matter with the American feminist and pioneer advocate of birth control, Margaret Sanger.(“Mrs. Sanger’s Version”, by Margaret Sanger, in The Gandhi Reader, edited by Homer A. Jack, AMS Press, New York, 1956, p.306)  In this respect, Gandhi was no different from later religious humanitarians like Mother Theresa of Calcutta, but his thinking certainly went against progressive orthodoxy.

One of the areas of Indian life where Gandhi achieved his greatest success was in his efforts to curb some of the more extreme excesses concerning the treatment of the “untouchables” whom he renamed the “Harijan”, meaning “Children of God”. While his work in this area was obviously quite radical for its time, it is far from clear that Gandhi ever fully renounced the caste system itself. In many ways, he remained throughout his life a conservative-traditionalist Hindu, opposing the severities of caste discrimination but remaining committed to the varna system. His views on the role of the untouchables, or “Dalits” put him in conflict with the outspoken advocate of Dalits’ rights, Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. Gandhi was much more traditional in his social outlook than Ambedkar, who supported birth control and criticized and attacked Hinduism as a religion of oppression, responsible for the inflicting the caste system on his people. He urged the Dalits to reject Hinduism and convert to Buddhism instead. Ambedkar also called for separate electorates for the Dalitsm which Gandhi opposed as divisive to the Indian people. Indeed, when the British granted separate electorates in the Communal Award of 1932, Gandhi went on a fast to expression opposition to the provision. Gandhi and Ambedkar eventually compromised with Ambedkar agreeing to drop the separate electorates in exchange for greater representation in the Congress Party for the Dalits and greater efforts by Hindu religious leaders to oppose caste discrimination.

Another area where Gandhi has come under criticism involves his views on racism and blacks. Following his return from South Africa, Gandhi said in a public speech:

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness (from a speech delivered September 26, 1896, Collected Works Volume 2, p. 74)

This passage is widely cited as indication that Gandhi held racist attitudes towards the black peoples of Africa, Asia and North America. If this were indeed the case, he would not have been particularly usual in this regard. Even the most progressive European thinkers of that time held similar views of blacks. For example, Bertrand Russell, widely regarded as the most liberal intellectual of his era, stopped short of advocating the sterilization of blacks only because, he argued, they possessed greater capabilities for manual labor. Also, the passage cited above was from a speech delivered by Gandhi very early in his career as an activist. Over the next fifty years, his views seemed to evolve considerably. He remarked in a 1947 radio interview:

“Those who agree that racial inequality must be removed and yet do nothing to fight the evil are impotent. I cannot have anything to say to such people…If you think of the vast size of Africa, the distance and natural obstacles separating its various parts, the scattered condition of its people and the terrible divisions among them, the task might well appear to be hopeless. But there is a charm which can overcome all these handicaps.” (Interview on All-India Radio, October 23, 1947. Government of India Information Service, Washington, D.C., Bulletin No. 3531)

Later in his career, Gandhi also corresponded with black activists in the United States, offering advice on how to apply his tactics towards the black struggle in North America. (Harijan, March 14, 1936). He also frequently expressed disapproval of the treatment of American blacks to his American visitors. (Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, Part II, p. 425)

Political and Economic Views of Gandhi

The central idea behind Gandhi’s political outlook was his insistence on the complete independence of India, not only political but economically, culturally, spiritually and morally. He was highly critical not only of British rule over India but also of efforts by the British to impose Western concepts of law, economics, philosophy and the relationship between humanity and nature on the Indians. Gandhi is well-known for his advocacy of boycotting imported foreign goods, particularly British textiles, by the Indians and his urging of the Indian people to begin spinning their own cloth. Some of his motivation for taking this position was clearly strategic in nature. He wanted to hit the British where it would hurt the most: in the pocketbook. However, Gandhi had several other important reasons for this position as well. One was to build unity among the Indian people in their struggle for independence. He insisted that persons from all layers of Indian society, from Brahmins to Dalits, should engage in the spinning of cloth. Another purpose to be served by this activity was the uplifiting of women. However, central to Gandhi’s emphasis on economic self-sufficiency was his critique and rejection of Western economic and cultural notions with their emphasis on materialism, consumerism, technology, and industrialization. Gandhi even remarked on occasion, only half in jest, that “he actually wouldn’t mind if the British remained in India, to police it, conduct foreign policy, and such trivia, if it would only take away its factories and railways.”(“The Gandhi Nobody Knows”, Richard Grenier[From the magazine, “Commentary,” March 1983, published monthly by the American Jewish Committee, New York, NY.])

Gandhi said of the British: “Money is their god”. He believed that the British has been able to achieve and maintain imperial domination over India partially because the Indians had internalized and adopted much of the materialistic ethos of the British. Gandhi regarded Western capitalism as having a corrupting effect on the human spirit and Indian society as it elevated the satisfaction of never-ending material wants to the highest value. Therefore, the transformation of India would have to first be a moral transformation before there could be an economic or political transformation. Gandhi observed that the British justified their colonial rule over India by claiming to have achieved a superior civilization whose virtues they were bringing to the Indians. The Indians had allowed their own enslavement and its continuation by adopting the values of the British. Gandhi’s criticism’s of British imperialism in India rested on three central points:

1) The British were an economic drain on India through domination of its industries and control over its trade.

2) India had as much right to sovereignty and self-rule as did the British.

3) The cultural integrity of India and its traditions must be preserved against the cultural imperialism of the British.

Gandhi regarded the conflict with Britain to be rooted not in a battle between East and West but between the ancient world and traditional society against modern industrial civilization. Traditional society was, in his view, oriented towards religion and spirituality while modern civilization was oriented toward materialism and technology. The resulting technocratic age brought with it the dehumanization of man as its result. He considered modern democratic regimes to be organized on the basis of voting blocks pursuing their own narrow, material self-interest and cultivating a population that, in spite of its higher literacy rates, was immensely susceptible to false propaganda generated by the establishment press. Gandhi did praise modern civilization for its spirit of scientific inquiry, its improvements in the areas of health and medicine and it organizational abilities, but felt the achievements of modernity had been put to a perverted usage. (Gandhi’s Political Philosophy, by Bhikhu Parekh, University of Notre Dame Press, 1989, pp. 11-35).

Gandhi was also highly critical of modern conceptions of the state. He regarded the modern state as impersonal, amoral, demanding uniformity and hostile to differences among communities, castes and sects. The state, in Gandhi’s view, functioned as a type of abstraction that had grown so large that it took on a life of its own. Individual citizens and state functionaries alike were simply cogs in a machine or flies in a wheel over which they had no personal control. One highly detrimental result of this arrangement of politics was the complete loss of any sense of personal or moral responsibility. A bureaucrat or official involved in the administration of the inhuman bureaucracy of the state could absolve himself of responsibility for the human or moral consequences of his actions by deferring to a higher authority, the abstract personage of the state itself, towards whom his relationship was that of an obedient and dutiful servant and nothing. Therefore, tyranny in its modern form was not traceable to the singular actions of individual kings or autocrats, but to the collection of action of individuals acting as automatons, responding to pressure imposed upon them by their place in an amoral, impersonal state machine.

Gandhi himself created a model for the political organization of an independent India that he called “ordered anarchy”, system of self-governing and self-sufficient local communities managed by “panchayats” of five persons elected annually by all literate persons in the community from ages of 18 to 50. These self-managed villages would then be organized into “expanding circles” of “takulas”, districts, and provinces. Each of these would at each level be a federation of the lower units and function with great autonomy from the central government, whose only purpose would be to hold the local communities together. Gandhi was also highly critical of the penal institutions maintained by the state, and argued against forms of criminal justice whose sole purpose was the retributive punishment of offenders. Instead, he favored more humane forms of rehabilitation.  On economic matters, Gandhi was a staunch opponent of both capitalism and communism. He regarded both systems as motivated by a materialist ethos that was foreign to the traditional spiritual life of India. In contrast to these, he proposed a system of “trusteeship” based on fostering a spirit of cooperation and responsibility between social classes. Gandhi wished to “socialize the means of production without nationalizing it” by encouraging employers to regard employees as family members whose welfare they were responsible for and by regulating the use of private property for the common good. Gandhi’s economic views at times put him in conflict with the Marxists who favored a class war between the capitalists and the proletariat. Gandhi rejected these views as fostering divisiveness and disunity among the Indian people and ultimately playing a subversive role in the struggle for national independence and national regeneration. (Parekh, pp.110-141).

Critics of Gandhi and the Conservative Hindu Backlash

Gandhi was a staunch proponent of the view that all Indians were part of a national brotherhood and community regardless of religion, ethnicity or caste. He was a tireless champion of religious toleration and deplored religious persecution of any kind. Indeed, Gandhi described himself as a practitioner of each of the major religious traditions:

“Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence. I could not understand the raison d’etre of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God? If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me, so were Muslim friends. Abdullah Sheth had kept on inducing me to study Islam and of course he had always something to say regarding its beauty”. (Autobiography, p.137)

Gandhi regarded himself not only as a Hindu but “also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew”. He vigorously opposed those who either desired to partition India into separate nations for different religions or to create a national regime ordered on the basis of Hindu supremacy. His own vision was one of a unified but internally decentralized India that granted equal rights of citizenship to all persons irrespective of their religious identity. For this reason, Gandhi made many enemies of conservative Hindus and Muslims alike. Many traditional Hindus were appalled by Gandhi’s desire to ease caste restrictions or raise the status of women, and were equally appalled by his insistence upon equal toleration for all religions. Both Muslims and Hindus frequently accused Gandhi of not doing enough for their respective causes.

The greatest controversy of this type involved the partition of the Indian subcontinent following the achievement of independence. The Muslim League, led primarily by M.A. Jinnah, had long insisted that the predominately Muslim regions of northwestern and eastern India be separated into an independent nation, while Gandhi and his Indian National Congress thought such an idea to be absurd, observing that Indian Muslims and Hindus alike both spoke the same languages, shared similar styles of dress, engaged in commercial life with one another and maintained similar diets and entertainment interests. Gandhi regarded differences of religious observance as a private matter that the secular, democratic state that he preferred for India would play no role in. However, Muslim leaders insisted that as a minority, the Islamic community in India would achieve only the status of permanently disadvantaged minority following independence. The Muslim League had previously demanded a guarantee of a set minimum number of seats in the electoral system, just as the Dalits had demanded a similar arrangement for their own community.

The idea of a separate Islamic state caught on among Indian Muslims who feared discrimination at the hands of the Hindu majority. Also, the idea appealed to those Muslim who were fondly reminiscent of the earlier times when Muslims ruled India. Islamic feudal landlords opposed to the Indian National Congress’ call for land reform saw in the idea of partition a means of protecting their economic interests as did Islamic businessmen, civil servants and traders who viewed separatism as method of eliminating Hindu competitors. Gandhi and his allies like Jawaharlal Nehru accused the Muslim League of demagoguery and inciting religious bigotry. Nehru even compared the rhetoric of Islamic separatist leaders like Jinnah with the racist and anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis, a powerful accusation in the midst of the Second World War. Gandhi countered the arguments of the separatists by pointing to the examples of the United States, Canada and the USSR as unified nations with diverse peoples who managed to co-exist under a common political bond. As independence for India drew nearer and partition seemed inevitable, Gandhi resigned himself to the idea but still spoke against. As violence between Hindus and Muslims began to break out in 1946, the general consensus among Indian and British leaders alike was that partition was necessary to prevent a full-on civil war. (Gandhi and His Critics, by B. R. Nanda, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1985, pp.77-97)

At the time of the partition in 1947, the disastrous decision was made to attempt to divide the police and military forces, along with the civilian civil administration, along religious lines. The result of this was the complete paralysis of government and of “law and order” as the partitioning process was taking place. Minority groups in various regions across India began to fear for their safety under a new regime led by a hostile majority and impassioned majorities began to engage in acts of violence against local minorities. Millions, perhaps tens of millions, of refugees fled towards regions where members of their religion were a majority. Large-scale massacres occurred during this time. Gandhi managed to curb the violence in Calcutta when he visited the city and went on a “fast until death” in protest of the upheaval. So powerful was Gandhi’s presence and reputation that the citizens of Calcutta apparently ended their pogroms rather be make themselves responsible for the death of Gandhi. Gandhi then went to Delhi, another scene of much bloodshed, and applied the same tactic. Gandhi’s fast had a great impact and the Indian government agreed to pay funds owed to Pakistan there were being held in the dispute over the province of Kashmir. Gandhi also won the sympathy of many Muslims who had been made suspicious of him by Islamic separatist propaganda that portrayed Gandhi as hostile to Muslim interests. Violence between Hindus and Muslims began to decline. On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu militant who accused Gandhi of making too many concessions to the Muslims. (Nanda, pp. 98-110)

Gandhi’s assassin was Nathuram Godse, a follower of the militant Hindu nationalist Vinayak Savarkar. In the controversy concerning the division of India’s assets between India and Pakistan, Gandhi had taken a concessionary approach to the Muslims of Pakistan, though he personally was strongly opposed to the partition. Savarkar was one of Gandhi’s harshest critics, believing him to be far too accommodating to minorities and strongly disapproving of Gandhi’s pacifism and non-violent methods. Savarkar favored a strong nationalist regime for India, Hindu-dominated and militarily powerful. Godse had been a member of Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha and apparently the two men had known one another. Savarkar was suspected of involvement in Gandhi’s murder and was arrested and indicted but acquitted at trial. Much controversy remains concerning the degree of Savarkar’s involvement with the assassination of Gandhi. (AG Noorani, Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection, LeftWord, New Delhi, 2002)

An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, by Mohandas K. Gandhi

(Beacon Press, Boston, 1957)

Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism, by Catherine Clement

(Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 1989)

The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, by Louis Fischer

(Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, 1950)

The Gandhi Reader: A Source Book of His Life and Writings, edited by Homer A. Jack

(AMS Press, New York, 1956)

Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination, by Bhikhu Parekh

(University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1989)

Gandhi and His Critics, B.R. Nanda

(Oxford University Press, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, 1985)

The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas

by Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Louis Fischer with a preface by Eknath Easwaran

(Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York, 1962, copyright renewed 1990)

Indian Critiques of Gandhi, edited by Harold Coward

(State University of New York Press, 2003)

Mahatma Gandhi: Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet, by Dhananjay Keer

(Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1973)

Gandhi: Profiles in Power, by David Arnold

(Pearson Education Limited, Edinburgh, 2001)

Gandhi’s Dilemma: Non-Violent Principles and Nationalist Power, by Manfred B. Steger

(Palgrave Macmillan, 1st edition, 2000)

“The Ambivalence About Gandhi: Southasia’s Difficulties with Gandhi’s Legacy” by Ashis Nandy

Himal Southasian, March-April 2006, Volume 18, No. 5

“Gandhi and the Politics of Non-Violence” by Meneejeh Moradian and David Whitehouse

International Socialist Review, Issue 14, October-November 2000

“Gandhi As a Political Strategist” by Gene Sharp

(Porter Sargent, Boston, 1979)

“Gandhi’s Vision and Values” by Vivek Pinto

(Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1998)

“The Great Trial of 1922: Chauri Chaura and Gandhi’s Vision of Responsibility”

by Niranjan Ramakrishnan, Counterpunch, March 20, 2004

“Country Studies-India-Mahatma Gandhi”

http://countrystudies.us/india/20.htm

“Gandhi: The Political, Personal and Practical Revolutionary” by George Woodcock

Resource Center for Non-Violence, Santa Cruz, California

“Was Gandhi an Anarchist?” by Josh Fattal

Peace Power: Berkeley’s Journal of Principled Non-Violence and Conflict Transformation. Volume 2, Issue 1, Winter 2006

“Village Republics” by Andre Beteille

The Hindu, September 3, 2002

“Gandhi’s Swadeshi: The Economics of Permanence” by Satish Kumer

The Case Against the Global Economy and for a Turn Toward the Local, edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith

Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, by Joan Valerie Bondurant

(Princeton University Press, 1988)

“Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did”, by Martin Van Creveld http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crevald1.html)

“The Gandhi Nobody Knows”, Richard Grenier[From the magazine, “Commentary,” March 1983, published monthly by the American Jewish Committee, New York, NY.)

 Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection, by A. G. Noorani, LeftWord, New Delhi, 2002

For any movement or system of thought to remain relevant or dynamic, it must possess the internal capability of periodically reassessing its present course and shifting its focus and direction. Thus far, political anarchism has experienced two distinct stages. The first of these was the era of “classical” anarchism. Roughly defined, this was the period between the Marx/Bakunin split in the 1870s and the defeat of the Spanish anarchists in the 1930s. The second stage began during the 1960s with the emergence of a brand of anarchism that internalized the ideological framework of the New Left, and it is this framework that still prevails at the present time.

The classical anarchist movement was primarily oriented towards proletarian revolution and the historic labor movement. This was appropriate as the “labor question” was the principal political struggle of the time. The New Left-influenced anarchist movement (“neo-anarchism”) oriented itself towards the movements that emerged during its own era. These included “anti-racism” (for instance, the movement against American and South African racial apartheid systems), “anti-colonialism” (opposition to the Vietnam War and other manifestations of imperialist aggression), “the womens’ movement” (second wave feminism), “gay liberation” (homosexuals were previously regarded as criminals, deviants or mentally ill by the wider society), the ecology movement, a variety of tendencies collectively known as “counterculturalism”  and other comparable but lesser known movements, all of which had the purpose of challenging traditional institutions, systems of authority, social practices, cultural norms and so forth. The overwhelming majority of contemporary anarchists continue to function within this particular paradigm.

However, the question needs to be asked as to whether this paradigm is really appropriate in the early 21st century. If it were found to be inappropriate, what might the alternative be? In more recent times, an number of tendencies have emerged within the anarchist milieu that have challenged the dominant New Left-derived paradigm. These include primitivists, eco-anarchists, anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-monarchists, national-anarchists, tribal anarchists, anarcho-pluralists, a variety of ideologies that might be collectively labeled “free-market anti-capitalists”, post-left anarchists, Christian anarchists, and a number of other perspectives. While there are significant differences between these tendencies, and each of these rejects the dominant New Left paradigm with varying degrees of consistency or fervor, collectively they compromise a dissident force within anarchism that seeks to move past the current second stage in the history of anarchism and into a new era.

The two most serious weaknesses of contemporary anarchism are illustrated by the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on anarchism:

Anarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state (anarchy.)Specific anarchists may have additional criteria for what constitutes anarchism, and they often disagree with each other on what these criteria are. According to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy “there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance.”

Among many contemporary anarchists, there is an observable tendency to ignore the struggle against the state, or the treat the battle against the state as only one matter on a laundry list of preferred causes, usually those of a conventionally leftist or countercultural nature. This is the first weakness. The other is the matter of sectarianism, i.e., setting an amount of “additional criteria for what constitutes anarchism” that is so large that it becomes self-defeating when it comes to the matter of building an actual movement that can wield political influence. 

There needs to be a revolution within the anarchist movement itself. This should be a revolution that re-orients the anarchist movement towards the primary anarchist objective of state abolitionism. Second, there needs to be a shift in contemporary anarchist thought and action that involves a retreat from the current tunnel-visioned focus on ultra-leftism and counterculturalism. A new focus that is broader and that speaks to a wider variety of issues and population groups is necessary. Third, there needs to be an evaluation of tactics, and the adoption of new tactics that are relevant to current political realities.

An interesting list of historic anarchist communities can be viewed here. One thing that is immediately noticeable about these anarchist polities from the past is how different many of them were from one another. Consequently, it is probable that in a civilization where anarchist communities became widespread there would be wide variation in the specific ideological, cultural or structural content of these communities. This automatically means that the sectarian differences between competing strands within anarchism are irrelevant. Different kinds of anarchists will form different kinds of communities in those geographical regions where their own tendencies are prevalent. For instance, anarcho-communists and anarcho-capitalists, leftist anti-racist anarchists and national-anarchists, anarcho-futurists and primitivists, gay anarchists and Christian anarchists, anarcha-feminists and anarcho-monarchists, may not even consider one another to be “true” anarchists, but these battles simply do not matter if different kinds of anarchists are simply “doing their own thing” within the context of their own communities, institutions and organizations.

How, in a nation-state like the United States, could an anarchist movement become large enough, or influential or powerful enough, to actually carry out a revolution rivaling that of, for instance, the Spanish anarchists of the 1930s? Clearly the anarchist movement in North America could never do such a thing, given its small size and narrow focus. But what about a much larger popular movement, in which anarchists assume leadership roles, and with a much broader focus than what is found in the anarchist milieu at present?

Read this essay by the military historian Martin Van Creveld on the present decline of the state as an institution. Now, read this series of articles on the possible scenarios that will bring about the downfall of the American regime itself. Then read this review of a book that describes how Americans are in the process of sorting themselves out into communities specifically oriented towards their own political, cultural or lifestyle interests. Now, take a look at this opinion poll showing the amount of support for secessionist movements in the U.S., and the surprising nature of these numbers. Then take a look at two books (here and here) which offer us an alternative economic paradigm beyond the standard “big business vs big government” false dichotomy.

My friends, these works contain the ideas and information necessary to develop a popular revolutionary movement in North America. This essay is an attempt to synthesize these ideas and develop a comprehensive strategy for their application. No single reader is likely to agree with every argument or position taken in that essay, but its purpose is to “get the ball rolling” concerning the debate as to how anarchist revolution in North America will actually be carried out. And this essay is a discussion of considerations concerning time frames.

The single idea of state abolitionism will never be popular enough to become a mass movement. Most people simply are not that averse to political authority. However, the idea of secession has its roots in American history, culture and tradition. Therefore, anarchists should simply work to develop their own independent enclaves reflecting the value systems of their particular sect of anarchism, encourage other secession movements, and work to popularize the idea of secession. An effort should be made to appeal to those demographic groups most under attack by the state, those with single issues that put them in conflict with the state, and those who have the least to lose and most to gain by rejecting the state. 

Further, anarchists should position themselves as the upholders of the economic interests of ordinary people. This opinion poll   indicates that the issues of most concern to the public at large at present are unemployment, government spending and healthcare. What, if anything, do anarchists plan to do about these matters? How many individual anarchists have even given any thought to such topics? There are some ideas on these here, here, and here. If you do not like these, then come up with something of your own.

Particularly problematic is the question of people and groups with polar opposite views on many issues participating in the same movement. For instance, the conflicts between the various anarchist sects (Anarchist People of Color and Crimethinc come immediately to mind), or the conflict between secessionists holding opposing cultural or ideological perspectives. No doubt, there are some people who will not enter into a movement that includes others with whom they strongly disagree on certain questions no matter what. These individuals will simply have to fall by the wayside. The proper response to such questions is the “good riddance” argument.  In a decentralized political system, with voluntary association and community autonomy, leftist anti-racist anarchists and national-anarchists need not have any association with one another, nor anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists, nor gays and religious conservatives, nor racists and racial minorities, nor snobby rich people and slummy poor people, nor druggies and straight edges, nor feminists and male chauvinist pigs. Nor Crimethinc and Anarchist People of Color. Everyone wins but the state, the ruling class and the empire.

“Certain attitudes derived from the New Left and the so-called counter-culture permeated neo-anarchism and had a deleterious effect upon it. Chief among these was elitism. It was the common belief among the New Left that the majority of the population were “coopted”, “sold-out”, “racist” and “sexist”. For the hippie-left, most people were considered to be beer-swilling, short-haired rednecks. Much of this youthful hostility was directed against their parents and hence was more of an expression of adolescent rebellion than political insight. With the exception of those who opted for anarcho-syndicalism, most neo-anarchists carried this contemptuous attitude with them. The majority was written-off as hopelessly corrupted and this attitude still continues today. Such contempt is in complete contrast to classical anarchism, which even at its most vanguardist, saw itself as only a catalyzer or spokesman for the masses. While rejecting the majority, they became infatuated with minorities. The New Left, scorning workers, turned to racial minorities and the “poor” as possible agents of social change. Native people, prisoners, drop-outs, homosexuals, all have been given a high profile, virtually to the exclusion of the rest of the population.”

                                                              -Larry Gambone, Sane Anarchy, 1995

A recent article in the Intelligence Report, the journal of the state-connected, crony-capitalist, cop-friendly, “private” espionage and surveillance agency known the Southern Poverty Law Center remarked: “Unifying anarchists has been likened to herding cats. But if there is one theme that most anarchists will rally around, it is that of stamping out racism, especially organized racism driven by white nationalist ideology. Many younger anarchists are members of Anti-Racist Action, a national coalition of direct-action “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”) groups that confront neo-Nazis and racist skinheads in the street, often resulting in violence.”

And what do these anarchists have to show for all of this “anti-racist” zealotry? How well are these anarchists regarded by actually existing people of color for their efforts? An item that has recently been circulating in the anarchist milieu with the revealing title, “Smack a White Boy, Round Two“, demonstrates just how much “solidarity” is felt towards the mostly, white, middle-class, left-anarchist movement by the supposed beneficiaries of its anti-racism:

Dread locked white punks, crusties with their scabies friends, and traveling college bros swarmed a space on the dividing line of gentrification in the Bloomfield/Garfield/Friendship area late July 2009 in Pittsburgh for the annual CrimethInc convergence. Whereas previous CrimethInc convergences had been located deep in wooded areas, this particular one took place in a poor, black neighborhood that is being pushed to the borders by entering white progressive forces.

There were those that had experienced CrimethInc’s oppressive culture and people for years and others who had experienced enough oppression after just a few days. Our goals were to stop CrimethInc, their gentrifying force, and to end the convergence right then and there for all that they had done.

Just a few blocks away, eight anarchist/autonomous/anti-authoritarian people of color* gathered to discuss a direct confrontation. We arrived from different parts of these stolen lands of the Turtle Island. Some came from the Midwest, some from the Northeast, some born and raised in Pittsburgh. Altogether we represented 7 different locations, half of us socialized as female a variety of sizes, skin color, with identities of queers, trans, gender-queers, gender variants, and womyn. With little time and a desire for full consensus, we quickly devised a plan.

The majority of the CrimethInc kids were in the ballroom on the second floor watching and participating in a cabaret. A group of us began gathering attendees’ packs, bags, shoes, banjos, and such from the other rooms on the second floor and moving it all down the hallway towards the stairs. We had gone pretty unnoticed, mostly due to lack of lighting.

Once those rooms had been emptied, it was time for the main event. We gathered at the ballroom’s doorway furthest from the stairs following the final act of the cabaret.

On the count of three. One, two, three!” one APOCista said.

Get the fuck out!”, we all shouted.

And the eviction began. One apocer began reading ‘An Open Letter to White Radicals/Progressives’, while the others began yelling at the attendees to gather their things and leave. Irritated by their continued inaction after about 10 minutes or so, one of the people involved in the action shouted,

This is not an act! Get your shit, or we’ll remove it for you!”

So much for the claims of anarchists to be exemplars of multicultural brotherly love. Now, before I get to other questions, let me say that I actually think the “Anarchist People of Color” group who carried out this “eviction” had a point. Many white leftists and progressives do indeed regard non-whites as children in need of rescue by enlightened folks such as themselves, and often assume a paternalistic attitude when dealing with people of color. And while I’m not so sure that “gentrification” by white anarchist kids is quite on the level of gentrification by upper-middle class, affluent, professional people organized into state-connected “civic organizations” and “business associations”, and operating in collusion with crony-capitalist “developers”, the overall point is still well-taken. Gentrification does indeed frequently assume the character of a kind of urban imperialism, and white, middle-class “progressives” who never tire of wearing their racial liberalism on their sleeves are often at the forefront of such efforts. Indeed, it might be argued that gentrification serves the same purpose in modern urban societies as the dispossession of native or indigenous peoples’ in frontier or colonial societies, i.e., naked robbery carried out under the banner of enlightenment, progress, paternalism or cultural and class chauvinsim. Some would go even further and argue that mass immigration serves a similar purpose, e.g., economic and cultural dispossession of the indigenous poor and working class in order to provide labor for capitalists, clients for social services bureaucrats and voters for political parties and ethnic lobbies. But that might be “racism”.

The obsession with “racism” exhibited by modern leftists appears to be rooted in a number of things. Some are the obvious, e.g., the political, cultural and intellectual backlash against such horrors as Nazism, South African apartheid, “Jim Crow” in the American South, the Vietnam War and other manifestions of extreme colonialism. Another is the need for the radical Left to find a new cause once the horrors of Communism were revealed. Still another is the universalist ethos that emerged from Enlightenment rationalism. Yet another is the adolescent rebellion against society mentioned by Gambone. And another is the quasi-Christian moralism exhibited by many left-wingers: “Love thy exotically colored neighbor.”

It’s like this, my fellow anarchist comrades: World War Two is over. Hitler is dead. George Wallace is dead. Bull Conner is dead. Jim Crow has been relegated into the dustbin of history. Apartheid is finished, and Nelson Mandela eventually became South Africa’s head of state. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the United States now has a black President. Many of the largest American cities have black-dominated governments. In the wider society, “racism” has become the ultimate sin, much like communism or homosexuality might have been in the 1950s. By continuing to beat the dead horse of “white supremacy”, anarchists are simply making our movement look like fools.

No doubt many reading this will raise the issues of the high rates of imprisonment among blacks and Hispanics, police brutality, the medical neglect of illegal immigrants in detention centers, or the high unemployment rates in American inner cities. Do you really think that no whites have ever been adversely affected by these things? Do you think there are no whites in jail or prison for frivolous reasons? Who receive shoddy medical care? Who are adversely affected by state-capitalism and plutocratic rule? Who are subject to police harrassment or violence, or who are shabbily treated by agents or bureaucrats of the state? Who are subject to social ostracism because of their class, culture, religion or lifestyle?

There is certainly nothing wrong with opposing the genuine oppression of people of other races or colors, and many anarchists and other radicals engage in laudable displays of support for the people of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tibet, Latin America, and indigenous ethnic groups who are subjected to occupation or imperialist aggression. Yet, the obsession with “racism” found among many Western radicals has become pathological in nature. Whenever I encounter these “anti-racism” hysterics, I am reminded of the cultic, fundamentalists religious sects, where no amount of devotion to the cause is ever good enough. Go to church three times a week? Not good enough, you need to be there six times a week. And there is little doubt that the war between Anarchist People of Color and Crimethinc will produce a great deal of “What are we doing wrong, us shitty white supremacists?” self-flagellation among many”anti-racist” left-anarchists.

This obsession with “racism” on the part of many anarchists might be worth it if it had the effect of recruiting or converting many thousands or millions of people of color to our cause.  Yet, the simple truth is that decades of anti-racism hysteria has produced an anarchist movement that is as white as it ever was. This does not mean that there are never any non-whites to be found in anarchist circles. Of course there are. But are they representative of the cultural norms of the ethnic or racial groups from where they came? Not in my experience. Instead, the relatively small number of people of color who can be found in North American anarchist circles are usually immigrants from other places, or products of ethnic minority cultures that have assimilated into a wider white culture, for instance, blacks who grew up in white middle-class neighborhoods or minorities who participate in white youth subcultures, like punk rock. Honestly speaking, what would a typical African-American or Latino think if they wandered into the standard anarchist discussion group and found themselves in the midst of the usual anarchist banter about “racism”? What would they think, other than, “What a bunch of freaks!”

This does not mean that anarchists should become “pro-racist”. It simply means that it would be more productive if anarchists would simply re-orient themselves towards the ostensible purpose of anarchism, i.e., “a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and promote the elimination of the state or anarchy.” I recently came across a Facebook page with the heading “The Other Anarchists” which described itself thus: “For those who wish to see the state abolished, but are not nihilists, terrorists, or idiots. Including some: free market anti-capitalists, anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-monarchists, voluntaryists, social anarchists, Christian anarchists, Green anarchists, and our fellow travelers ( [non-violent] Luddites, paleoconservatives, minarchists, left-conservatives, retroprogressives, and the like).”

This would seem to be about right. Perhaps we can work with the nihilists and terrorists, but the idiots really need to be shown the door. What should anarchists do about “racism”? Just forget about it. Yes, you read that right and if you need more elaboration, watch this. And this. Many anarchists engage in many worthwhile projects that many different kinds of people can benefit from, like antiwar activism, labor solidarity, prisoner defense, support for the homeless, resistance to police brutality, the protection of animals from cruelty, environmental preservation, alternative media or alternative education.  These are issues that transcend color lines. Just stick to these and let “people of color” work out their own problems for themselves.

The APOC/Crimethinc battle may well be indicative of what the future of the political Left will be. I have predicted before that the center-left will be dominant in American politics for the next several decades due to demographic, cultural and generational change in U.S. society. It is widely predicted that the non-white populations will collectively outnumber whites in the U.S. by the 2040s. As the non-white population grows due to demographic trends and large-scale immigration, and as class divisions widen, there is likely to be a split within liberalism between the mostly white, upper middle class, cultural progressives and the mostly black and Hispanic lower classes, which include many persons with more conservative views on social questions like gender roles, abortion, homosexuality and religion.

A Zogby poll taken last year concerning the level of public sympathy for the matter of secession indicated that the principal source of support for genuinely radical ideas (like separatism) comes not from the “far right” or backwoods militiamen but from young, unemployed, uneducated blacks and Hispanics in the heavily populated areas of the U.S.. In a few decades, the crumbling U.S. empire and its liberal-capitalist-multiculturalist elites and affluent classes may well be facing an insurgency by the expanded non-white underclass. There are an estimated one million urban gang members in the U.S., mostly blacks and Hispanics, and these are organized into thousands of armed groups. Are these not a domestic American version of the “fourth generation” insurgent movements that exist in other parts of the world like Latin America or the Middle East?

What will be the condition of American society in the decades ahead as the liberal-capitalist-multiculturalist ruling class begins to lose its grip and is faced with an insurgency by the black and Hispanic underclass? What should be the response of the mostly white anarchist movement to such a turn of events? How should the anarchist movement seek to handle such a scenario? Play your cards wrong and you’ll end up in a situation infinitely worse than that faced by Crimethinc.

The anarchist milieu needs to re-think its positions concerning racial matters. Continuing to perpetrate anti-racism hysteria year after year, decade after decade, is a dead end. There is zero evidence that such a stance will bring the masses of North American blacks and Hispanics into our ranks, and much compelling evidence that such efforts are futile, foolish and counterproductive. For many years, the anarchist movement’s obsession with “social issues” has been a distraction from what ought to be the primary objective of anarchism, i.e., the abolition of the state. This is not to say that anti-statism is the only value, or that anarchists should not be concerned with other matters. It does mean that a more constructive stance on certain questions should be pursued.

For one thing, it might be helpful if anarchists would display an interest in issues other than run of the mill left-wing causes like those involving race, gender, sexual orientation, ecology and the like. Why are anarchists not involved in the movement for the defense of the right to keep and bear arms? In a sensible anarchist movement, there would be anarchists sitting on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. Why are anarchists not involved in the various movements for local or regional autonomy, or secession by states and communities? Certainly, such efforts should fit well with the supposed anarchist emphasis on decentralization.

What might be a more sensible approach to racial and cultural differences than the hysterical approach currently taken? A venerable American tradition is one of “separation of church and state.” This is a tradition that has worked quite well throughout U.S. history. Individual Americans are largely free to practice or not practice whatever religion they wish. Yes, fringe religious groups like the Branch Davidians are sometimes subject to persecution. Yes, state laws such as the ban on the use of psychedelic drugs impedes powerless groups like certain indigenous tribes from practicing their religion. Yes, children from sects whose tenants prohibit certain medical practices are sometimes forcibly subjected to such practices. Yes, religious do-gooders sometimes wish to use the force of the laws to suppress activities deemed immoral, like gambling, vice or alcohol. But for the most part, most people practice their religion or non-religion of choice most of the time with very little interference from either the state, or from society at-large. Compare this with the situation in, say, Saudi Arabia or North Korea, and it can be determined that “separation of church and state” is a system that works quite well. Research shows, for instance, that atheists are a minority group that is more widely disliked than any of the groups championed by the Left: blacks, immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims. Yet atheists, of whom I am one, are hardly an “oppressed minority” but an intellectually and culturally elite group who are heavily represented within the ranks of leading scientists, philosophers, academics, journalists, authors, artists and entertainers. As far back as 1910, Thomas Edison was able to proclaim his heretical religious views with to the New York Times with impunity.

I submit that the appropriate attitude for anarchists to take concerning racial and cultural matters is one of “separation of race and state” or “separation of culture and state.” Within such a context, all state legislation or regulation concerning race and culture would be eliminated, and individuals and groups would be able to engage in whatever racial or cultural practices they wished within the context of their own voluntary associations. Just as some religious organizations or institutions are very conservative or exclusionary in nature, and others are very liberal and inclusive, so might some racial or cultural organizations and institutions be similarly conservative or liberal, exclusionary or inclusive. For instance, the Anarchist People of Color and other like-minded groups could have their own schools, communities, neighborhoods, commercial enterprises and other institutions where white folks are verboten. Likewise, the Nation of Islam, Aztlan Nation, evangelical Christians, Mormons, paleoconservatives, or “national-anarchists” might also have their own homogenous communities as well. Feminists and queers might implement similar arrangments for themselves.

As I have said before, we need a “revolution within anarchism itself”. We need an anarchist movement that is not just an all-purposes leftist movement, but a movement that has abolition of the state as its central focus, and an approach to matters of race, culture, religion and so forth that is workable in a highly diverse society. This renovated anarchist movement would shift its focus towards the building of autonomous, voluntary communties, reflecting a wide assortment of cultural, economic or ideological themes, within the context of a wider pan-separatist ethos who principle enemy is the overarching state. It should be understood that severe and irreconcilable differences among different kinds of people will inevitably arise, and that such differences are best managed according to the principle of “peace through separatism.” As Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn observed: “The ideological and philosophical struggles, which can neither be suppressed nor made an organic part of the governmental machine, have to be relegated to the private sphere of society.”

Quotes of the Week:

“We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves.”

                                                                                                                -Errico Malatesta

“We are bound first to imform ourselves concerning so great a matter as the revolt of millions of people- what they are struggling for, what they are struggling against, and how the struggle stands- from day to day…as best you can; and second, to spread this knowledge among others, and endeavor to do what little you can to awaken the consciousness and sympathy of others.”
                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                          -Voltairine de Cleyre

Secession is the Future  An Interview with Kirkpatrick Sale

First Steps Taken to Implement Preventive Detention, Military Commissions by Glenn Greenwald

Unfashionable Nation-Building by Dan Phillips

Proudhon on Capital and Usury from Francois Tremblay

Anarchism, Class Struggle and Political Organization by Tom Wetz

Israel Jumps the Shark by Justin Raimondo

Anarchism and the Movement for a New Society by Andrew Cornell

Care Tactics: Weaponizing Human Rights by Chase Madar

A Compilation of Critiques on “Hate Crimes” Legislation from Infoshop.Org

Threatening Iran by Paul Craig Roberts

The Democrats: Fake Party of Compassion by Kevin Carson

Revolt of an Elite: On Henry Louis Gates by Elizabeth Wright

Prisoner Insurrection in Canada by Joe Warmington, Pete Fisher and Andrea Houston

Nine States Quietly Declare Their Independence by John Paul Mitchell

The Fiscal Ruin of the Western World by Ambrose Evans Pritchard

We Are in the Midst of an Economic Disaster by Gary North

The Masters of Perfidy: AIG and the System by Jeffrey St. Clair

Obama Escalates Afghanistan Quagmire by Patrick Krey

Living in a Police State by Dave Lindorff

The American Revolution Revisited by Chuck Baldwin

Eastern Europe and the Habit of Servitude by Justin Raimondo

The Unconscious of a Liberal by Jack Hunter

Invisible Iraq by Robert Dreyfuss

How to Argue Against Torture by Bernard Chazelle

Benjamin R. Tucker and Gertrude B. Kelly on Education by Libertarian Labyrinth

Blackwater Seeks Gag Order by Jeremy Scahill

“Humanitarian” Efforts Are Often a Pretext for Aggression by Paul J. Nyden

The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras by Nikolas Kozloff

Bush’s Third Term by James Joyner

The Technique of a Coup d’Etat by John Laughland

The Battle Begins: ATF vs the 2nd Amendment by Bryce Shonka

Obama’s Free Lunch is Over by Philip Giraldi

Back to the Future? Return to El Salvador by Clifton Ross

Obama’s Disappointing Secrecy by Benjamin H. Friedman

Previous Governments: To Prosecute or Not? by Michael Tennant

“A Damned Murder, Inc.” by Alexander Cockburn

Is America a Racist Nation? by Ian Huyett

The U.S. Has No Business Being in the Murder Business by Eric Margolis

A Victim of the System Needs Help (Update here)

Chinese Imperialism and Its Discontents by John Derbyshire

This Is Your Country on Drugs by Laura Miller

Why War in Afghanistan Is Futile by Malou Innocent

When Mark Levin Attacks by Jack Hunter

Is Food for Africa Working? by Brian Doherty 

Obama’s Court of Red Czars by Ilana Mercer

What Americans Can Learn From the British Experience with Surveillance by Jacob Sullum

Will the Republicans Save Us? by Laurence Vance

Never Believe Uncorroborated Police Testimony by William Norman Grigg

Uninformed Ingraham by Patrick J. Ford

Too Many Other People by William Norman Grigg

25 Scary Facts About Brainwashing by Jill Gordon

Cops Gone Wild by Dave Lindorff

Police State Wisconsin

Watch Who You Call Extremist by Steven Greenhut

Bruno: A Glimpse Into Zionism by Gilad Atzmon

Politicizing Crime by Daniel Coleman

Why More Atheists Than Anarchists? from Francois Tremblay

Quote of the Week:

““Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany is a horror; Adolf Hitler at a town meeting would be an asshole.”

                                                                                              -Karl Hess

It’s Not Just Fundamentalists Who Are Ignorant by TGGP

Rot in Hell, Robert McNamara: The Life of  a Monster Considered by Ray Mangum (Hear Daniel Ellsberg on McNamara’s Scumbaggery; and Alexander Cockburn and Robert Scheer)

Secession is the Answer by Claire Wolfe

Anatomy of a Wrongful Conviction by Bill Anderson

Celebrate Secession by John Payne

One Step Forward, One Step Back by William S. Lind

Fourth Generation Warfare from AnarchoNation

Why the Global Warming Hoax is Being Perpetrated by Gary North

Vatican City as a Voluntary Society by Carlo Lottieri

U.S. Imperial Aggression Against Diego Garcia by Murray Polner

Obama in Russia by Justin Raimondo

Are Afghan Lives Worth Anything? by Tom Engelhardt

Al Franken, Chickenhawk by Anthony Gregory

So This is What Victory Looks Like? by Scott Ritter

Obama Slouching Towards an Iran War? by Tony Karon

Victory is Impossible in Afghanistan by Matthew Parris

The Honduran Drama by Justin Raimondo

Ten Steps to Close Down an Open Society by Naomi Wolf

A Quagmire for Obama by Derrick Z. Jackson

What’s That Imperial Base in Honduras For? by Jacob Hornberger

Pentagon Report Verified Detainee Torture by Thomas Eddlem

The “Values” Fetish by Paul Gottfried

First They Will Come for the Hate Criminals by Peter Brimelow

The Pie Graph of Theft by Francois Tremblay

Unity, Diversity and Divisiveness in Marxism by Larry Gambone

Obama’s Strategic Blindspot by Andrew Bacevich

Prison Rape as Policy by David Rosen

The New McCarthyism by Neil Clark

Time to End the War on Drugs from the Cato Institute

Towards a Soviet America by Bill Anderson

“It’s Discrimination!” by Ben O’Neill

Tase Early, Tase Often by Patrick Bedard

Why Do Feminists Support the Afghan War? by Sonali Kolhatkar and Mariam Rawi

China’s Porcelain Empire by Justin Raimondo

Hands Off  Honduras by Philip Giraldi

The Myth of the Surge by Stephen Walt

Real ID: A Real Warning on the Danger of Government  by James Bovard

“Staying the Course” Prolongs Afghan War by Malou Innocent

Norks and Nukes by Ted Galen Carpenter

Can Ethnonationalism Bring Down America’s Tower of Babel? 

High Infidelity  by Jack Hunter

The Tyranny of Mark Levin’s “Liberty” by Jack Hunter

Americana: The 2nd Revolutionary War 

Obama’s Biden Problem by Alexander Cockburn

Rural America Needs More Than Listening Sessions by Jim Goodman

Quote of the Week:

“A century ago, anarchism was a major force within the European revolutionary movement, and the name of Michael Bakunin, its foremost champion and prophet, was as well-known among the workers and radical intellectuals of Europe as that of Karl Marx.”

                                                                           -Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits

Down With the Therapeutic Left and Managerial Right by Mark Wegierski

Obama’s Denial of Reality by Lew Rockwell

Not So Huddled Masses: Multiculturalism and Foreign Policy by Scott McDonnell

The Origins of Fascism by Charles A. Burris

Stay Out of Iran! by Jack Hunter

Gun Control: What’s the Real Agenda? by Paul Craig Roberts

Obama and the Torturers by James Bovard

Mainstreaming Censorship by Harrison Bergeron 2

Ignorance is Strength by Paul Craig Roberts

Free Leonard Peltier by Michael Gaddy

The Four Stages of Revolution, Part One by Bay Area National Anarchists

Neither the U.S. Nor Israel is a Genuine “Party to Peace” by Noam Chomsky

Was 50 Million Deaths Really Necessary? by Anthony Gregory

Is Realism Better Than Idealism? byIvan Eland

Do Iranians Deserve Progressive and Liberal Sympathy? by Mupetblast

Iran: It’s All About US, Or Is It? by Justin Raimondo

Popular Support for Israel Eroding Ira Chernus interviewed by Scott Horton

Ten Days That Shook Iran by Pat Buchanan

Loose Ends by Justin Raimondo

Iran’s Green Revolution: Made in America? by Justin Raimondo

Seeing Through All the Propaganda About Iran by Eric Margolis

Iran Falling to U.S. PSYOPS? by Paul Craig Roberts

Better Load Your .44, This is Civil War by TGGP

The War at Home, Up Close by Kevin Annett

Belief in Government Means Ignoring the Evidence from No Third Solution

Noam Chomsky vs Michel Foucault (thanks, Francois!)

Conceptualizing Political Economy on the Humane Scale by Cato the Younger

What Actually Happened in the Iranian Elections? by Esam Al-Amin

 Stay Out of Iran’s Evolutionary Process by Philip Giraldi

Generation Gap by Steve Sailer

Obama’s Undeclared War Against Pakistan by Jeremy Scahill

The “Neda” Video and the Truth-Revealing Power of Images by Glenn Greenwald

What Iran Means by Stephen Walt

Dumbest Idea on the Planet by Jeff Huber

Intifada in Iran by Robert Fisk

PIG Kills Man at Stoplight by William Norman Grigg

California Is America’s Future by Pat Buchanan

San Diego Jury: PIGS Are Above the Law (of course!) by William Norman Grigg

Michelle Braun and Her Plea Bargain by Tim Worstall

When the Jackbooted Ones Strike… by William Norman Grigg

The Myth of Our Regeneration by Michael O’Meara

The U.S. Government is Evil by Francois Tremblay

Turkish Sex Workers Look to Form Union 

What the Big Banks Have Won by Mike Whitney

Arrest of Gang Intervention Leader Raises Concerns 

Building Fascism by Lew Rockwell

The Government Owns Your Body from theConverted

Parents of Unruly Students to be Jailed 

Debtors’ Prisons Are Making a Comeback by Francois Tremblay

Sicko by Ilana Mercer

Interview with Anarchist People of Color founder Ashanti Alston by Jose Antonio Gutierrez

The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard by Alexander Cockburn

Secession: Deep in the Heart of Texas

Recently at the No Treason site, Josh Rhodes made the following point concerning the recent rhetorical warfare between myself and some in the “left-libertarian” community:

As someone who has read quite a bit of Keith’s work and corresponded with him extensively, I can assure you that he is not by any stretch of the imagination some kind of queer-bashing neo-nazi. That many people consider him to be so is more indicative of the sorry intellectual state of much of contemporary anarchism and libertarianism than anything Keith’s actually written.

Reflecting a bit on Josh’s observations about “the sorry intellectual state of much of contemporary anarchism and libertarianism” and watching the video records of the latest conference of the Property and Freedom Society, I came up the with this fictional program for what an American Revolutionary Vanguard-Attack the System conference of scholars and activists might look like. Just for the purpose of amusement , here ’tis:

Day One: The Incorrigible Nature of the State

9 am-‘The Advancement of the Anarchist Struggle in the Twenty-First Century“-Welcome by Keith Preston

9:45 am-“The Political Theory of Anarchism” –Dr. April Carter lectures on traditional anarchism

10:30 am-“The State as Augustine’s Robber Band Writ Large” -an Augustinian monk and scholar presents Saint Augustine’s views on the State

11:15 am-“The Rothbardian View of the State“-the thought of Rothbard described by Justin Raimondo

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“Historical Overview of the Classical Anarchist Movement“-Phd student presents his scholarly research

1:45 pm-“The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War“-94 yr old Spanish Civil War veteran relates his experiences

2:30 pm-“Comparison and Contrast of Classical Liberalism, Classical Anarchism and Modern Libertarianism“-political scientist and professor of political philosophy expounds on these systems of thought and their relationship

3:15 pm-“The Virtue of Human Scale Institutions“-by Dr. Kirkpatrick Sale

4:00 pm-“The Case for National-Anarchism“-by Troy Southgate

Break

7 pm-viewing of rare newsreel footage of classical anarchist figures

7:30 pm-“The Rise and Decline of the State“-evening dinner lecture by Professor Martin Van Creveld

Day Two: The Economics of Anarchism and Anti-Statism

9 am-“The Contending Schools of Libertarian Economic Thought“-by Keith Preston

9:45-“Libertarian and Marxist Theories of the Ruling Class Compared“-by Dr. Sean Gabb

10:30 am-“Reconciling Property Rights with Collective Bargaining Rights“-a joint presentation by an anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-capitalist

11:15 am-“The Case for Geoanarchism” by Dr. Fred Foldvary

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“Statement to the Convention by Kevin Carson“-read by Keith Preston

1:30 pm-“The Legitimate Foundations of Ownership Rights“-panel discussion featuring a Lockean, mutualist, syndicalist, distributist, Georgist and anarcho-communist, with questions from the audience

2 pm-“Cooperative Economics in Action“-lecture by a member of the Mondragon Cooperative Federation

2:30 pm-“Anarchic Socialism or Cutting Edge Capitalism?”-lecture from heterodox businessman Ricardo Semler

3 pm-“Land Rights Struggles for Indigenous Peoples“-indigenous person from Latin American country gives an overview

3:30 pm-“I Was a Teen-Aged Anarcho-Communist“-person raised on an Israeli kibbutz gives a first-hand report

4 pm-“The Case for Competing Currencies“-an economist makes an argument

4:30 pm-“The Prussian Militarist Origins of the Welfare State“-by Richard Ebeling

Break

7 pm-Film presentation on Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War

8 pm-“The Future of the World Economy“-noted trends researcher Gerald Celente outlines his predictions in evening dinner lecture

Day Three: The American Empire

9 am-“The Costs of the Empire to America“-by Dr. Robert Higgs

9:45 am-“The Costs of the Empire to the World“-by William Blum

10:30 am-“How I Went to Iraq and Saw the Light“-U.S. military veteran speaks

11 am-“What Happened to My Country Because of the U.S. Invasion“-an Iraqi refugee speaks

11:30 am-“How the U.S. Imperialists Crushed the Indigenous South Vietnamese Resistance and Allowed My Country to Fall to Communism“-a former South Vietnamese Buddhist militiaman speaks

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“George W. Bush and Cronies Belong on Death Row“-by Vincent Bugliosi

2 pm-“Life in the Occupied Territories“-a Palestinian refugee speaks

2:30 pm-“The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty“-a survivor speaks

3 pm-“The Human Costs of the U.S. War Against Central America in the 1980s“-presentation by a former refugee from the civil war in El Salvador

3:30 pm-“Zionist Influence On American Foreign Policy“-by Dr. James Petras

4 pm-“Combating Zionist Influence in Domestic American Politics“-panel discussion with questions from the audience

Break

7 pm-film presentation of John Pilger’s early documentary on the role of the U.S. in the coming to power of the Pol Pot regime of Cambodia, and U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnamese invasion in 1979

8 pm-“On Resisting Imperialism“-evening dinner lecture by Alexander Cockburn

Day Four: Political Correctness

9 am-“Classical Anarchist and Classical Liberal Critiques of Marxism and the Historic Rivalry between Anarchists and Communists: Proudon, Bakunin, Goldman, Berkman, Mill, Russell, Kronstadt and Barcelona“-by Keith Preston

9:45 am-“The Communist Origins of Political Correctness“-by William S. Lind

10:30 am-“What I Experienced in China During the Cultural Revolution“-a survivor compares Western political correctness with Maoism

11:00 am-“My Imprisonment in Sweden“-a Christian pastor tells of his persecution under European PC laws

11:30 am-“Political Prisoners in Europe“-a European lawyer gives an overview

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“American Progressives’ Contributions to Political Correctness“-by Paul Gottfried

1:45 pm-“Judeo-Christian Roots of Political Correctness“-by Tomislav Sunic

2:30 pm-“The Emerging Totalitarian Humanism”-by Keith Preston

3:15 pm-“Political Correctness on American University Campuses“- a student activist speaks

4 pm-“How to Combat Political Correctness“-panel discussion with audience questions

Break

7 pm-“The Trial”-film adaption of the classic Kafka novel featuring Orson Welles

8:30 pm-“The Therapeutic State“-evening dinner lecture by Dr. Thomas Szasz

Day Five: Culture and Philosophy

9 am-“Peace Through Separatism: An Alternative to the Culture Wars“-by Keith Preston

9:30 am-“America’s Cultural Legacy of Anti-Statism“-by Thomas Woods

10:15 am-“The American Radical Tradition“-by Bill Kauffman 

11 am-“Has Brave New World Won Out Over 1984?”-discussion of the dystopian literary classics

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“Where the Gay Rights Movement Goes Wrong“-by Justin Raimondo

1:30 pm-“Women and the State”-presentation and panel discussion from anarcha-feminists, libertarian-feminists, individualist feminists, sex-positive feminists and anti-feminist female anarchists and libertarians

2:30–“Race-Realists Are Not the Devil“-lecture by Jared Taylor

3 pm-“The Nationalities Question“-presentations by members of the Nation of Islam, Lakota Republic, Atzlan, Puerto Rico independence and Hawaiian and Alaskan people’s movements

4:30 pm-“The Americans for Self-Determination Plan“-by Jeff Anderson

Break

 7 pm-“-“Rescuing the Conservative Revolution from the Legacy of Nazism“-presentation from a historian of Weimar intellectual history

8 pm-“The Big Sort“-evening dinner lecture from Bill Bishop

Day Six: Taking It to the Streets

9 am-“Building an Active Anarchist Local Community“-presentation from members of Bay Area National Anarchists

9:30 am-“Making Use of Alternative Media“-panel discussion with alternative radio operators, bloggers, ‘zine publishers, public access TV broadcasters, and podcasters

10:15 am-“Neither Cops Nor Criminals“-joint presentation by members of neighborhood watch and copwatch programs

10:45 am-“Social Services without the State“-scholarly presentation on  historic and contemporary non-state social service systems

11:15 am-“Putting It Into Action“-representatives of non-state assistance programs for the homeless, mentally ill, orphans, battered women, hospices, drug treatment programs, the elderly and the disabled

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“What Elite Theory Tells Us About Anarchist Political Organization“-by Keith Preston

1:30-“The Role of Zoning Laws in Class Oppression“-presentation from a critic

2 pm-“Organizing for the Class Struggle“-panel discussion featuring representatives of labor, consumers, tenants, claimants, and students rights organizations

2:45 pm-“Forming Alternative Schools“-presentation from a critic

3:15 pm-“The Oppression of Youth“-panel discussion on drinking ages, compulsory school attendance, treatment of students by schools, the rights of runaways, curfews, alternatives to both abusive parents and statist institutions, squatting and discrimination against alternative youth cultures

4 pm-“Alternatives to Both Prisons and Capital Punishment“-discussion of possibilities such as restitution, penal colonies and exile

7 pm-“Are HIV Skeptics On to Something?”-debate between an orthodox scientist and a heretic

8 pm-“Global Warming: Dangerous Reality or Political Scam?”-a believer and unbeliever debate during dinner

Day Seven: Defending the Undefendable

9 am-“Overview of the U.S. Prison-Industrial Complex“-presentation from American Civil Liberties Union representative

9:45 am-“The National Socialist German and Contemporary American Police States Compared“-by Richard Lawrence Miller

10:30 am-“The Militarization of U.S. Law Enforcement’-by William Norman Grigg

11:15 am-“Resisting the War on Drugs“-presentation from November Coalition

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“Prisoner Medical Neglect“-presentation from Wrongful Death Institute

1:30 pm-“The War Against Patients’ Rights and Medical Freedom“-a victim tells their story

2 pm-“The Persecution of the Homeless“-presentation from homeless advocacy group

2:30 pm-“What It’s Really Like on the Inside“-former prison inmates tell their stories

3 pm-“Fathers Are People, Too“-overview of the fathers’ rights movement

3:30 pm-“The Nature of Psychiatric Coercion“-lecture from a dissident psychiatrist

4 pm-“The Last Minority: Prostitutes and Other Sex Workers“-presentation on sex worker rights

4:30 pm-“I Was a Crip: What the Street Life is Really Like“-current and former gang members tell their stories

Break

7 pm-“The State’s War on Self-Defense“-presentation from Gun Owners of America

8 pm-“Stateless Legal Systems“-evening dinner lecture from Edward Stringham

Day Eight: Getting There From Here

9 am-“Historic Anarchic Communities: An Overview” by Keith Preston

9:45 am-“The Ups and Downs of Electoral Action“-presentation by a veteran of the Ron Paul campaign

10:30 am-“My Dad’s Maverick Campaign for Mayor of New York City“-by John Buffalo Mailer

11:15 am-“Lessons of the 1990s Militia Movement“-a former militiaman speaks

12 noon-Lunch

1 pm-“Political Alignments and Re-Alignments in American Political History“-by Keith Preston

1:45 pm-‘The Legitimacy of Secession“-by Thomas DiLorenzo

2:30 pm–“The Case for a Secessionist Strategy” by Dr. Kirpatrick Sale

3:15 pm-“Lessons of the Indian Independence Movement and the Partitioning of India and Pakistan“-joint presentation from a Ghandi scholar and a historian of South Asia

4 pm-“Global Guerrillas: The Rise of Fourth Generation Warfare” by John Robb

Break

7 pm-viewing of documentary about Hezbollah militia in Lebanon

8:30 pm-“Blow It Out Your Ass, Uncle Sam!”-keynote address by Commander Marcos of the EZLN