[lbo-talk] Credit Where Credit is Due

amadeus amadeus amadeus482000 at yahoo.com
Wed Jan 26 10:10:29 PST 2005


--- "B." <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Asking Chuck0 to provide a detailed blueprint of a
> post-revolutionary, anarchist society probably isn't
> the way to go. In fact, it just makes me wonder what
> everyone else's plans are for an ideal society, on
> the
> list. I mean, why should anarchists get all the heat
> -- why should anarchism have to present a
> super-lucid,
> meticulously detailed blueprint [which its many
> theorists have actually developed over the years,
> incidentally, if one really cares to look], whereas
> folks who advocate some type of liberal reformism,
> or
> state socialism, don't seem to feel compelled to do
> the same?

I honestly think that the large sectors of the left who got wrapped up in the ideological and strategic constraints of 2nd-international leftism, 3rd-international leftism, or some type of liberalism can't help but feel envy towards anarchism. Obviously I can't prove this, but it's my opinion. The ideological and strategic limitations of the former caused them to be impotent and detached, and lacking much of any teeth or guts. (Though, to their credit, numerous police whuppings in the 60s are the prime informant of their reticence.) Whether we like it or not, it is anarchists who lead the way in radical organizing, especially among youth. Actually, make that any type of left organizing. (The Howard Dean kids put away their condoms and party favors for at least another four years, if they're not too discouraged to come back at all.) And as far as radicalism, anarchists are certainly far better organized and more outspoken than this or that Marxist-Leninist(-Maoist) or Trotskyist splinter sect. The outdated forms of leftism are akin to those embarassing college hook-ups, who leave you red in the face when you encounter your old campus chums. Anarchism is not yet an anachronism (say that five times fast)-- she's that cute girl who lived in the dorm across the quad who you've been fantasizing about for the last few decades, who you may run into on the street when you least expect it. --adx

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