Quote:
what goes on on these forums makes little or no difference to the real world, it never will. At most it serves as a resource for information and debate, which can help anarchists coordinate our activity.
Quoting things in context is fun, don't you think? 
These boards have potential as a resource, but I think you overestimate their importance quite considerably. The stock transfer thing is interesting though, do you have a link?
Comrade Madashell wrote the above statement in a discussion on libcommunity about the persistent flaming that plagues the forums here. I have a great deal of difficulty with this position. It seems to me to reflect an anti-organisational viewpoint that is quite prevalent here, and in fact is part of the ideological apologia for the flaming.
I am concerned that those who hold this viewpoint haven't really grasped the concrete reality of what has been going on on libcom for some time now. What we have here is international collaboration and discussion from comrades across the Anglophone world, and indeed now beyond it (EKS for example). Surely the potential for that must be fucking obvious. Imagine if our comrades in the 19th century had been able to communicate instantaneously across oceans, circulate positions, discuss differing opinions and organise! I very much doubt they would have had much time for that kind of position.
So far this week libcom has allowed some of us in Glasgow to make contact with a comrade in Inverness who we would never have met otherwise. It has enabled me to make contact with comrades active in housing struggles in the US and I will be following that up for concrete organisational purposes. it has enabled us (along with anarkismo, to which this debate also applies) to spread information about the existence of our little group here. And it has helped me at least in the theoretical discussion to understand in a more nuanced way the Parecon ideas of Albert and Hahnel and others.
Last week it helped in the organising of a successful anarchist bookfair, which brought comrades in Glasgow together in a fruitful way for the first time in ages. I also found a possible route for future organisational discussion during a debate in which comrade Nate contributed, surrounding international transport workers organisation.
If we look back over the entire past year there are so many personal examples where I would say libcom has helped with organisation it barely. To take one example, as a result of some discussions here comrade 'the porkadian' started a movement which defeated stock tranfer in the Highlands. Through libcom he was able to put the campaign there in touch with the STO from a very early stage.
This is to say nothing of the solid and inspiring work comrades involved in the libcom collective did around the CPE movement, or have been doing in building an internationally significant liobrary or in creating a forum of such awesome potential. Anyone who can't see the organisational potential of libcom is frankly just not looking hard enough, or, I would suggest, is trying very hard not to look. Once the flaming has been sorted out, given the number of solid new posters and comrades who have come aboard here, particularly from North America, it can only become increasingly organisationally relevant.