Anarchism’s greatest potential is as a mass movement based on the desires and effort of a broad range of people. As a political idea it seeks to democratize power and divide it fairly amongst people.
Freedom is the ability to freely consent, without coercion. Consent is based on free and open communication. So why would anarchists do anything other than finely hone their skills to communicate with all types of people?
Anarchists who work hidden away behind pictures of angry cops, masks and alienating cliques marginalize themselves and limit how effective they can be in the process of building real democracy.
Being a revolutionary means working with people who make you uncomfortable, it means making the effort to reach out to them even if they are not going to make that effort back right away. Because smashing the state and fucking the pigs is only one small part, it is just the coup d’etat. Those are only revolutionary acts when there is a strong people’s movement to take advantage of the power. Lacking that, such actions are at best ineffective and alienating, at worst scary and dangerous for those of us not born steeped in privilege.
I couldn’t agree more. Love the graphic too.
Just added a link here from my blog
Awesome. My criticism of anarchism practiced today is its exclusiveness. You are saying that Anarchism should be inclusive. I am in great agreement with you because that is its philosophy.
“Direct Action . . . implies that the working class subscribes to notions of freedom & autonomy instead of genuflecting before the principle of authority. Now, it is thanks to this authority principle, the pivot of the modern world — democracy being its latest incarnation — that the human being, tied down by a thousand ropes, moral as well as material, is bereft of any opportunity to display will & initiative.”
— Emile Pouget, DIRECT ACTION
Heey. Well written. Just do not fuck the pigs, they don’t deserve it.