> But who gets to decide what the goals are, liberal or radical? You reject
> any democratic control or even aspiration of democratic decision-making over
> those goals, but secede from cooperation automatically when your Black Bloc
> groups wants to pursue its own agenda.
This is pretty ridiculous. Your assumption is that the Black Bloc doesn't work well with others. The black bloc is a tactic, not an organization, and anarchists involved with black blocs have a good track record of working with others.
Who gets to decide? If we are working together on some campaign, we work together democratically. Outside of that specific campaign or event, why the fuck do we as anarchists have to heed the goals of liberals? I don't see any liberals going around heeding the goals of anarchists, nor do i expect them to. When it comes to the big picture, anarchists and liberals have diametrically opposite goals. You know, liberals want a strong state run by liberals and we anarchists want no states.
> You know we agree on the WWP/ANSWER folks, but my criticism of them is that
> they reject democratic-decisionmaking just as much as your anarchist
> tendency. Their anti-democratic tendency operates in a different way-- and
> I obviously believe that the anarchist ideals are less noxious than the
> Stalinism of the ANSWER folks.
That's just bullshit. Anarchists support democratic decision-making and we practice what we preach. We get shit because we come across as a bit too focused on process, but anarchists think that you should practice what you preach. That's why we use democratic methods and criticize the authoritarian groups such as the WWP which are the opposite of democratic.
> -When I attack other groups for insisting that my group of movement
> -subordinate itself to their authority, I do so our of the common sense
> -understanding that there are different groups and movement with
> -different goals, strategies and tactics.
>
> Exactly. You fetishize strategies and tactics as equivalent to goals, and
> would rather undermine cooperation than subordinate your own tactics to
> coordination with other groups.
No, I don't. My goal is creating an anarchist planet. My choice of tactics and strategies is always informed by my overall goals.
> -Would the liberal wing of the anti-war
> -movement subordinate its goals to anarchist ones?
>
> The point is for no organization to subordinate to other organization, but
> for all to subordinate themselves to democratic decision-making by the
> members of a broader movement.
Sigh. We aren't part of some ONE movement. That's what you old school leftists just don't get. There are many movements out there. Anarchists are not part of the same movement as the liberal peace activists or the religious peace movement. There is no one MOVEMENT. Come on, there wasn't even a MOVEMENT back in the 1960s. Jesus fucking christ.
Let me be more direct. Anarchists have the right to make decisions about what they do as a movement, just as religious activists have a right to control their movement. The same goes for the other movements. When we work together, we work stuff out, but that doesn't mean that we are one movement with the same goals.
> Now, you may prefer complete organizational independence, which is a valid
> position, but don't say you promote movement-building. You promote
> individual groups doing their own thing and occasionally doing them at the
> same time. But that's not a movement, just a bunch of individualists.
Am I banging my head against the wall when I reply to Nathan. Does Nathan just not understand the terrain or is he deliberately repeating this anti-anarchist rhetoric about anarchists being individualists?
I'm in favor of movement-building. That's what I fucking do everyday, for very little money. I build the anarchist movement and to a lesser degree, other movements like the anti-capitalist one. I'm not interesting in building the liberal movement, the religious social justic movement, or the libertarian movement against war and imperialism. Please stop conflating all of the social movements with the old canard "THE MOVEMENT" which supposedly has some kind of common goals and structure.
Chuck