Date:  Thu, 11 Sep 2003 01:33:28 EDT 
From:  Garyrumor@aol.com 
To:  peacelovingtreehugger@planet-save.com 
Reply-to:  shermanaustinlegal@lists.riseup.net 
Subject:  [shermanaustinlegal] Re: anarchists, chaos,.... 
Anarchism is not chaos. It is the way we interact naturaly with an 
intellegent bias against the tendency of a few anti social bastards to impose their will 
on the rest of us. Most people for most of prehistory have existed in tribal 
societies that were relatvly non violent. The introduction of capitalism and 
technologies such as iron hatchets and rewards for scalps brought to North 
America by the Dutch Settlers in the Hudson River Valley in approx 1625 helped 
exaserbate the warlike tendencies of young native americans. 
The Aztecs didn't need any help from europeans to develop a particularly 
blood thirsty religion that demanded that hearts be cut out with obsidian blades 
and that the rewards were greatest for the warrior who brought home the most 
captives for the sacrifice. That definatly indicates the need for a bias to look 
out for the power mad, they manifest their illness in many ways and if the 
person is carasmatic enough can influence millions. 
Are we naturally more cooperative than agressive? I tend to think so. There 
are periods in development when agressive tendencies show, early childhood 
posessivness, competativeness especially among boys and then the interesting 
period of sexual maturing that affects teenagers all can be twisted out of the 
normal course in societies that encourage pathological competition, sexual 
predation and materialistic fetishism. They are abberations that are seen in the 
modern American society more than in most. It breeds an illfitting-ness that makes 
it hard to breathe naturaly and creates disturbed creatures that are becoming 
more and more the norm in our technological world. 
The anarchist option is the identification with the "Natural Man" in our day, 
in the late 19th century it was the "Modern Man" that was seen as the way out 
of the mess. It was going to be more technology. Now we are begining to say 
no to that and looking for the natural man/woman. I think it is more of an 
unlearning of certain paraniod tendencies that have been associated with survival 
of the species and of the individual. It has to do with fear and ignorance. It 
is a condition that the 19th century man was to be enlightened from. But the 
20th century man realized that mere knowledge would not provide the meaningful 
escape from fear. It just let to more sophisticated terrors. No, the answer 
will be found in this century or we will be forced to hide underground from our 
mistakes. 
It is not primitive or knowledgeable man, it is not stripping people of their 
data and returning them to a primeval state. It is not escapeing to the 
stars. It is learning to let go of the fears and paranoias that have been instilled 
in us from birth. It is learning to see things as they are, not as they are 
hyped to be or not to be. If we are to call it anarchist, it is to take the 
political pundant, and the media mogul and the educational harpie and the man of 
the hour and kick them all out on their butts. It is taking apart the 
dangerous life threatening systems, utilizing the resources intellegently and giving 
up this addiction to things beyond any useful amount. The Gas chambers have to 
be dismantled. The minds that fear death and being alone and being quiet for 
five minutes have to be reassured like children, yes you will die, and it is no 
more or less of a big deal now than it ever was. Live and let live, and maybe 
if we are able to relax from this race to the imaginary top of the heap long 
enough to watch a sunrise or sunset, then maybe we will be able to live life 
as it is and not in some freinzied fantasy of doom. - Gary Rumor



In a message dated 9/8/2003 2:00:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peacelovingtreehugger@planet-save.com writes:


 Subj: anarchists, chaos,.... 
  Date: 9/8/2003 2:00:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time
  From: peacelovingtreehugger@planet-save.com
  To: peacelovingtreehugger@planet-save.com
  Sent from the Internet 
 
 
 
 howdy pholks and phamily.... my brother in Eugene sent this to me so i was 
 wondering what think ye you of this. peace*love*Life*Light
 Why I don't take "sides" within the anarchist movement; I met someone from 
 Somalia and he knows what can happen when the state collapses, and why it can 
 be bad.. This article I found on the web seems to explain pretty well the 
 situation as far as I understand it : ------------------------- 
 http://vof.cat.org.au/visions/barb.htm ANARCHISM OR BARBARISM As central authority collapses 
 in Afghanistan, Liberia, Rwanda and Somalia, these former centralized nation 
 states find themselves in a state of perpetual civil war. As various groups 
 strive to recapture state power and impose their will on the people and the 
 country, tens of thousands are slaughtered in the worst imaginable ways, social 
 infrastructure breaks down and the economy is reduced to a struggle for 
 survival which is based on the worst aspects of a laissez faire (winner take all) 
 economic system. All over the world the collapse of centralized forms of 
 government are being followed by mass slaughter and economic and social 
 disruption and disintegration. The chaos that seems to follow the breakdown of a 
 hierarchical nation state poses some very important questions for anarchists not 
 just here in Australia, but all over the world. As the nation state collapses 
 and personal security cannot be guaranteed by a police force or by the armed 
 forces, people DON'T spontaneously form a decentralized non-hierarchical 
 society but strive for security by becoming insular and throwing in their lot 
 with people of similar religious, racial or cultural backgrounds. The breakdown 
 of central authority is not normally accompanied by a mad dash for freedom, 
 but it's accompanied by a search for security through hierarchy, leadership 
 and domination. This dash to re-impose hierarchy leads to the destruction of 
 peoples and cultures that are seen as threats to the emerging hierarchical 
 society. No wonder most people see Anarchism as some naive gossamer dream. Human 
 beings are neither good nor bad, evil butchers or peaceful angels. What most 
 of us are capable of doing depends to a large degree not on our genetic 
 makeup but on our social conditioning. With the collapse of the Third Reich some 
 of the most frightful Nazi butchers become model citizens almost overnight. 
 In Rwanda the people that are butchering men and women and children with 
 knives and machetes are not monsters but are practicing Christians, honest farm 
 workers, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. The carnage that we are 
 witnessing as central authority breaks down can be seen in regions as culturally 
 diverse as Bosnia and Rwanda. The question that we should ask ourselves as 
 anarchist activists is whether the chaos that follows the breakdown of a nation 
 state or centralized authority is inevitable. If it's inevitable all that we 
 have talked about and all that we have tried to do is a waste of time and we 
 should disband our organizations and take up dog breeding or some other hobby. 
 If it's not inevitable we should be asking ourselves why the collapse of 
 centralized authority around the world today is normally followed by carnage and 
 social and economic disintegration while the collapse of centralized 
 authority in Spain after 1936 was followed by the creation of an egalitarian society 
 that was based on the creation of a federation of workplace and community 
 councils. The answer is so simple it's breathtaking. The Spanish Revolution was 
 preceded by years of anarchist agitation and the formation of anarchist 
 organizations up and down the breadth of Spain. From the smallest hamlet to the 
 largest urban centres anarchist organizations grew and flourished. When 
 centralized authority and the state collapsed these organizations were able to form 
 the nucleus of a new society whose security depended on co-operation and 
 equal access to power and wealth. Whether the collapse of centralized authority 
 leads to carnage and social and economic disintegration and eventually to the 
 reimposition of a new centralized authority based on a political philosophy 
 or a new racial, religious or ethnic authority depends on the extent of 
 ANARCHIST ORGANIZATION. If the groundwork has been done and people are familiar 
 with anarchist ideas and modes of organization, the possibility that the state 
 and centralized authority can be replaced by a federation of community and 
 workplace councils, is a living breathing possibility. If Anarchist 
 organization and modes of thought are missing from the equation, the ensuing struggle to 
 fill the power void created by the collapse of centralized authority will 
 ALWAYS create human carnage and economic and social disintegration. Thus the 
 future of the world depends, at this hour, on whether we will create anarchist 
 organizations which will be ready when the old society breaks down, or 
 whether we are doomed to a hellish future full of warlords and death squads. 
 ------------------ FUNDAMENTALS OF ANARCHISM WHAT IS FREE ASSOCIATION? Free 
 Association is the idea that we cannot be free as individuals without having free 
 relationships with others, that no one person can be free unless we are all 
 free and that for each of us to be free we must work together to insure that 
 everyone else is free. ---------------- from 
 http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/talks/anarANDfreedom.html Why is freedom important? 
 In the words of Bakunin: "What man, what group of individuals, no matter how 
 great their genius, would dare to think themselves able to embrace and 
 understand the plethora of interests, attitudes and activities so various in every 
 country, every province, locality and profession." diversity of people Simply 
 put, everyone is different and so diversity is the rule in humanity. What is 
 good for you is not necessarily good for someone else. What the majority 
 think is not always right and minority viewpoints would not be the best for all. 
 Pretty obvious, really. Diversity of life In this anarchism respects and 
 reproduces the fundamental law of nature -- namely that conformity is death. 
 Diversity is the law of life. The different needs of different areas and regions 
 must be the starting point of any political theory, the basis on which we 
 create specific programmes to improve our societies, eco-systems and world. If 
 we do not recognise the diversity inherent in a world of billions of people, 
 millions of eco-systems, thousands of cultures, hundreds of regions then we 
 cannot improve our lives. Again, pretty obvious. Development of individuals and 
 of society Society and individuals, therefore, both need freedom. The 
 freedom to experiment and to think is essential. It is the only way we can discover 
 what the best ideas are, by discussing them and trying them out in practice. 
 What may be good for one person or community may be bad for another. As 
 Malatesta put it "Experience through freedom is the only means to arrive at the 
 truth and the best solutions; and there is no freedom if there is not the 
 freedom to be wrong." Only by the process of free debate can society develop and 
 people's ideas change. Without freedom to discuss and debate, society and 
 individuals will stagnant. Without the freedom to experiment and live your own 
 life as you think is best for you (collectively and individually, I stress) no 
 one will be happy -- which is the whole point, after all. Without freedom, 
 we cannot be shown the errors of our ways or prove that our ideas and actions 
 are valid and worthy of acceptance. Kropotkin stressed the importance of 
 discussion and debate in his history of the French Revolution: "The 'permanence' 
 of the general assemblies of the sections -- that is, the possibility of 
 calling the general assembly whenever it was wanted by the members of the section 
 and of discussing everything in the general . . . will educate every citizen 
 politically. . . The section in permanence -- the forum always open -- is 
 the only way . . . to assure an honest and intelligent administration." This 
 process ensured the politicisation of those involved: "by degrees, the 
 revolutionary education of the people was being accomplished by the revolution 
 itself." Any society will have an uneven level of political and social awareness. 
 Only freedom can ensure these change for the better. Only the power of truth, 
 of argument, can ensure that ideas change. When Emma meet Peter... Emma 
 Goldman was in Europe attending an international anarchist gathering and she meet 
 such famous anarchists as Malatesta and Kropotkin. When she meet Kropotkin, 
 he said how good he thought Goldman's paper Mother Earth was but he thought it 
 spent too long on the sexual issues. Goldman replied by stating that 
 perhaps, once she was as old as Kropotkin, she would be less interested in the 
 question of sex and sexual liberation, but not everyone is that age yet. Kropotkin 
 could only laugh and agree with her. By actually acting and defending her 
 actions by free discussion, she showed Kropotkin that he was wrong. Abstract 
 liberty Much nonsense has been written about freedom. First, I must stress that 
 by freedom or liberty anarchists do not mean an abstract kind of freedom 
 which ignores such trifles as time, circumstances and society. We seek social 
 freedom, not the kind of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo which often gets spoken off. 
 Freedom a social relationship This means that freedom is fundamentally a 
 social relationship. A person is born into society and can become human within 
 society. Isolation quickly drives people insane. This means that, as Bakunin 
 argued, liberty is a "feature not of isolation but of interaction." This means 
 that it is the links we make or can make with other people that determines 
 our liberty. We can only be considered free in relation to how other people 
 treated us. Circumstances important As freedom is a product of interaction, the 
 basis on which individuals interact is important. If circumstances are such 
 that one party has an advantage over another, then, clearly, any relationships 
 formed between the two will benefit the stronger. When social inequality 
 prevails, questions arise about what counts as voluntary entry into a contract. 
 People may be legally free and equal citizens, but, in unequal social 
 conditions, the possibility exists that some or many contracts create relationships 
 that bear uncomfortable similarities to a slave contract. This means that 
 free association, by itself, is not enough. In an unequal society, where a 
 minority owns or controls the means of life, then free association will simply 
 mean the many sell their liberty to the few. Relationships within organisations 
 important As well as circumstances, the nature of organisations people join 
 are important. Freedom only exists in time. This means that the social 
 relationships people experience determines their liberty, not what happens when they 
 are alone. Freedom, to put it another way, is not an abstract legal concept, 
 but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full 
 development all their powers, capacities, and talents which nature has endowed 
 them. A key aspect of this is to govern one own actions when within 
 associations (self-management). Therefore anarchists consider the circumstances in 
 which a decision is reached as equally as important as the kind of association 
 joined. --------------------- 
 http://flag.blackened.net/asr/articles/llr14-2.html What infighting leads to: http://vof.cat.org.au/visions/barb.htm