judicandusdies:

eateroftrees:

tal9000:

transsupremacy:

Internet Fabulous: about vandalism as activism, “culture jamming” etc

The internet has spoken:  Never take action because all action hurts “the working class.”  An action is only revolutionary if no janitors are inconvenienced.

Because, after all, they’re just janitors</sarcasm>. Classism much?

What the fuck y’all?  Pull your heads out of your asses.  You cannot place the blame of all of the daily problems of capitalism on the people who are trying to destroy it.  Work sucks everyday, not just the days when you are cleaning up vandalism.  Janitors use chemicals everyday, not just the days when they are cleaning up vandalism.  Stealing from a store hurts the managers and the owners, not the workers. 

Lol, ur job sucks all the time, so it doesn’t matter if I make it deliberately more difficult.

Also, no, they specifically said that (and how) stealing from a store helps the workers. Need I quote it again? Here:

tranzient:

Also, when you’re being all cool and fresh and stealing merchandise to stick it to “the man,” you’re doing the opposite. Not only do stores have insurance against theft, they also keep track of how much is stolen and they use that information to cut man hours, because if So-and-So can’t watch against thievery, what good are they here?

So, congrats. You’ve managed to ignore someone you’re ostensibly fighting for telling you something harms them by replying that it doesn’t.

If you have a moral opposition to destruction, that’s naivee, but whatever.  Just don’t claim that it is some sort of solidarity with “the working class.”

That’s so not what anyone in the above thread is saying. There’s actually more to anarchist philosophy than just excuses to smash shit.

We must support all people who fight against their oppressors and empower them to fight by any means they see fit.  Anything else is an authoritarian approach to ‘liberation’ that is inherently contradictory, a failure from the start.  What is the hope for a revolutionary movement that spends all of it’s time insisting that rebellious people are rebelling in the incorrect manner?

No, no we must not do this. If one person’s liberation is another’s oppression, then they cannot liberate themself that way. Another way that liberates both must be found. Horizontal oppression, asshole, do you speak it?

Surely anarchists will recognize that all attempts to channel and control resistance are counter-revolutionary as they are based on a model of elitism where only “activists” know the correct mode of struggle and must ‘convince’ “the oppressed” to channel their anger into these modes.  In these top-down models “activists” become the judges of which actions should be supported.

lol because being told that you’re oppressing someone is top-down control. You really have to watch out for those janitors; they’re the worst of the oppressive dictators.</sarcasm>

Anarchist don’t demand that people only use certain channels to get to liberation.  Anarchist want people to take their lives into their own hands and we support people taking any action they deem to be appropriate against their oppressors.

Making your liberation on the oppression of others is never acceptable. Corporations are ideas, not people, they are not oppressors, they are a power structure, and they insulate the people at the top (the actual oppressors) from petty shit you do to the bottom by shunting it off on the people there.

Also, I don’t know of one person who was made more free by putting wheatpaste on a billboard.

A part of your problem is that you still see “activism” as a good thing.  I see many people proudly say they are activist, but no one explaining what that means or why it is a good thing to be.  I do see a lot of activist attempting to slow down or stop people from taking their lives into their own hands.  WHAT IS ACTIVISM?  IS IT MERELY AN ATTEMPT TO CONTROL THE TONE OF STRUGGLE?

You’ve given me a hard task to make this any more laughable or pathetic. But let me give it a try:

I’m freeing myself! By smashing the windows of the McDonalds, I am making myself magically more free! You can’t tell me to stop even though they’re going to make you handle broken glass, because you’re interfering with my liberation!

The failure of activist is to see themselves as the pinnacle of struggle, as the cutting edge.  This is rarely the case.  They have the elitist view that all struggle depends on them.  This is utter bullshit.

Nor this.

Resistance is a fact.  It is something that is happening now.  No amount of arguing about it will stop this or slow it down one bit.  The real question is why are people who think of themselves as radical taking the same position as the state and the ruling class on this action?

The ruling class also believes that an ecosphere-destroying nuclear war would be a bad thing. Since you don’t ever take the same position as the ruling class, I have to ask you: why do you support ecosphere-destroying nuclear war?

“The state agrees with your conclusions” does not prove the conclusion unsound, much less the reasoning, especially when that reasoning is different from the reasoning of the state.

This is all just some bullshit posturing, people who hate vandalism are trying to claim their position supports janitors or workers because they are too chicken-shit to say that they oppose all vandalism.  As vandalism is a crime against property, we must understand an anti-vandalism position as simultaneously a pro-property position and a pro-state position.  As anarchist we must fiercely oppose this pathetic bullshit.

lol, no. There is more than one reason one might disagree with any given statement. Like, people’s reasoning for opposing vandalism is right there in the rest of the thread. You could just read it. But I guess it’s much easier to rage against people telling you that you’re contributing to their oppression.

Fight the machine! Down with the janitors!</sarcasm>

I’M SO FUCKING ANGRY RIGHT NOW.

Deli.Sub…  I thought you were fucking better than this.

You haven’t addressed any of the arguments or facts presented (you’ve actually ignored them and presented unjustified statements contrary to the facts they’ve given). Your argument is pretty much “well, you must be wrong because the state agrees with your conclusions, even though it is apathetic to your reasoning”.

There is more to anarchy than breaking shit.

Cause this reply is pretty much awesome.

The other obvious fact, since this is on a thread that I started, is I’m not an anarchist. So um.  No I don’t have to do anything as an anarchist :P

(I do like some aspects of anarchism, when they, you know, put some thought into doing more than breaking shit. :P)

Fuck solidarity with, I am “the working class”. My spouse is “the working class”. Almost every single one of my friends is “the working class”. We do not like cleaning up after your “activism”. We do not like providing additional labor so that you can feel like you’ve done some good. If you do not respect that our labor has value, you are our oppressors.

Too often cleaning up after “activism” means that we have twice the work to do in the same amount of time because our jobs don’t allow for overtime, or face termination because we aren’t working efficiently enough. Some of us cannot afford to put in more work hours because we have child care or elder care that we must take up when our regular work hours are over.

Find some way to fight “the system” that does not endanger our livelihoods or add to our burdens.