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Just Who Are These Anarchists?
(reposted from Black Powder Press on Instagram, an introduction to anarchism. I'll put the text from the slides in a long thread below the images.)
(reposted from Black Powder Press on Instagram, an introduction to anarchism. I'll put the text from the slides in a long thread below the images.)
Just Who Are These Anarchists?
The government wants you to believe that without government, the world would fall into chaos. That without authoritarian power structures, we wouldn’t be able to organize to meet our needs. This isn’t true.
The government wants you to believe that without government, the world would fall into chaos. That without authoritarian power structures, we wouldn’t be able to organize to meet our needs. This isn’t true.
Anarchists know that it’s easier, not harder, to be responsible and caring in a world without rulers.
Anarchism is a loose framework of ideas and movements that share the goal of helping people live without oppressive systems like capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and yes, the state.
Anarchists are among those who dream of a free world—a truly free world. We’re willing to fight for it.
POLICE AND PRISON ABOLITION
Anarchists believe in the abolition of police and prison alike. We believe justice cannot be found by incarceration and punishment. We know that investing some small, specialized portion of society with absolute power and impunity cannot work
Anarchists believe in the abolition of police and prison alike. We believe justice cannot be found by incarceration and punishment. We know that investing some small, specialized portion of society with absolute power and impunity cannot work
(and yet our detractors claim that we are the ones who work against human nature!). We know that isolating people and punishing people does not help them learn to engage in society, nor does it stop others from acting badly.
DIRECT ACTION
Anarchists practice direct action. As the recently deceased anarchist David Graeber put it, “direct action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.”
Anarchists practice direct action. As the recently deceased anarchist David Graeber put it, “direct action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.”
State society is a society in which each of us is stripped of our individual and collective agency, in which we are told we cannot solve problems directly. We insist otherwise. Which, incidentally, is why so much of what we do is criminal.
Direct action can be a rent strike, a factory takeover, a food distribution program. It can be conflict mediation and de-escalation. It can be blocking evictions with our bodies. It can be neighbors organizing to fix each other’s houses.
It can be taking things from the rich and distributing them to the poor. It can be driving back the police in the streets.
It can be de-arresting people at protests.
Nothing says love like a de-arrest.
It can be de-arresting people at protests.
Nothing says love like a de-arrest.
ANTI-CAPITALISM
Capitalists claim that the only alternative to capitalism is Soviet-style “communism.” This isn’t true. There are so many ways we can organize an economy. We don’t have to pick between two shitty options.
Capitalists claim that the only alternative to capitalism is Soviet-style “communism.” This isn’t true. There are so many ways we can organize an economy. We don’t have to pick between two shitty options.
Not all of us are communists—though many of us are—but all of us are against capitalism. Capitalism is not “a society in which you work to make money to then buy things.” It’s the opposite of that.
Capitalism is a society in which some small number of people leverage the stuff they already own, the capital, to make money from the rest of us who labor.
Capitalism is bullshit. It’s killing us, and it’s destroying the world, and it needs to be stopped.
Capitalism is bullshit. It’s killing us, and it’s destroying the world, and it needs to be stopped.
MUTUAL AID
Anarchists practice mutual aid. In contrast to top-down models like traditional charities, mutual aid is a process by which we help one another, as equals. As free equals.
Anarchists practice mutual aid. In contrast to top-down models like traditional charities, mutual aid is a process by which we help one another, as equals. As free equals.
When the Spanish anarchists began collectivizing farms during the revolution, they offered each small farmer a choice: collectivize or not. Many chose not to collectivize.
Within a year, most of those farmers looked around and saw the bounty, and the beauty, of collectivization and changed their minds—of their own free will.
Anarchists organize mutual aid networks so that we can all provide ourselves and each other with our basic needs.
We prove that we don’t need the state’s help, that we don’t need bureaucratic help. That we can take care of ourselves and each other.
We prove that we don’t need the state’s help, that we don’t need bureaucratic help. That we can take care of ourselves and each other.
UTOPIAN DREAMING?
There is no one specific utopian dream that all anarchists share, because we believe in a world in which many worlds are possible. Individuals, communities, and entire societies will be free to determine for themselves how they want to live.
There is no one specific utopian dream that all anarchists share, because we believe in a world in which many worlds are possible. Individuals, communities, and entire societies will be free to determine for themselves how they want to live.
Lacking some specific, carefully laid-out blueprint of a better society does not stop us from fighting against oppression here and now.
We insist that, if we are being beaten with clubs, we don’t have to articulate exactly how we would prefer society function before we’re allowed to fight against the people beating us with clubs.
Still, we have some ideas about what anarchist society can look like. And more importantly, we put those ideas into place here, and now, in our lives. In how we struggle but also how we treat one another.
DOES ANARCHY WORK?
We know anarchism can work because it has worked and it does work. Countless egalitarian, non-authoritarian societies have existed throughout history.
We know anarchism can work because it has worked and it does work. Countless egalitarian, non-authoritarian societies have existed throughout history.
There were at least three large scale anarchist societies in the 20th century—the Spanish anarchists, the Ukrainian anarchists, and the Korean anarchists all organized societies of millions of people.
Each of those societies lasted for years and only fell when the forces of authoritarian communism and authoritarian counterrevolution worked in tandem to destroy them.
But mostly, we know anarchism can work because it works for us, here, now. To live as an anarchist is to live a life full of beauty and meaning. Not always an easy life, but a worthwhile one.
WHO WE ARE
Anarchists fight in the streets at demonstrations sometimes, and we’re proud of our skills in the black bloc, as vandals and militants, as medics and doctors, as lawyers, as organizers and supply-runners.
Anarchists fight in the streets at demonstrations sometimes, and we’re proud of our skills in the black bloc, as vandals and militants, as medics and doctors, as lawyers, as organizers and supply-runners.
But the bloc is the smallest little sliver of the tip of the iceberg. Anarchists are teachers, farmers, social workers. Programmers, community organizers. Bookkeepers and daydreamers. Thieves and beggars and wanderers. Sex workers. Parents, children. Hermits and party organizers.
Musicians, writers. Assassins and pacifists alike. Atheists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans.
We aren’t cops, we aren’t jailers, we aren’t politicians… and we aren’t gatekeepers.
You can be an anarchist too.
You can be an anarchist too.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Think about what you’re good at, or what you enjoy doing, and think about how you can apply those skills to the struggle for a free world.
Think about what you’re good at, or what you enjoy doing, and think about how you can apply those skills to the struggle for a free world.
Get together with your friends and your community. Think about problems you collectively face and how you can solve them directly, together.
Treat people as equals. Fight the cop in your head. Dismantle the oppressive social systems around you, and the ones you participate in.
Treat people as equals. Fight the cop in your head. Dismantle the oppressive social systems around you, and the ones you participate in.
Connect with the broader anarchist movement, locally and internationally. Build affinity with people.
Support prisoners.
Be brave. You can’t be brave unless you’re afraid. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the means by which we overcome fear.
Support prisoners.
Be brave. You can’t be brave unless you’re afraid. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the means by which we overcome fear.
A better world is possible. We can see it. We can feel it. We can bring it into being.
“I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.”
—Emma Goldman
—Emma Goldman
Brought to you by some anarchists
