there is nothing secret about revolution.

And who, exactly, do you think is doing that?

But who on this forum is suggesting any of those?

I think most people here agree with bottom up organisations, but that doesn't mean we tell the bosses and the state what we are doing.

Is anyone suggesting this?

a fantasy world, except that it actually existed. you sir, are a buffoon.

Many of the people on these forums do a lot more than spread their ideas through internet forums, as you so disparagingly put it. Firstly, doing that has does have value or else you wouldn't be here. But most of the people on here are politically active in the real world, too, intervening on pickets and strikes, organising public meetings, getting involved at struggles at work.

And some of them, particularly (but not always), those in the "crazed dictatorships" you mention put themselves in real, physical danger by doing so. Member of the ICC in Mexico and Venezuela have been threatened with death by various leftist guerilla groups and others - and, believe me, these kind of people do not mess around! I heard rumours of other groups in the US being picked up by the cops shortly after 9/11. A student at my college was interviewed by MI5 and Special Branch because he was a known left-winger and studying Arabian history. I'm sure others can offer their own annecdotes.

But to you it's all a big joke.

Frankly, you do seem to be incredibly naive in your approach to this question. But I don't think that's the only problem. At rock bottom, what motivates this point of view is the idea that the "democracy" so regularly promoted by the bourgeoisie actually exists and that the things that happen in Turkey 27 years ago can't possibly happen "here" (the US for you, I believe). Except, of course, that it is happening - even in the "democratic" countries, revolutionaries are harrassed by the police when it suits them and there's plenty of legislation that allows them to lock us up and throw away the key. Do you think all those stories about the CIA and "extraordinary rendition" were just made up to scare people? Real people are being kidnapped by real government stooges and tortured and killed in (mostly) foreign prison cells. This is happening today, not 27 years ago in "paranoid" Turkey. If they will do that for today's current bogeyman (islamic terrorism) what makes you think they won't do it to us if we ever become a threat?

For all that, you are obviously right that we shouldn't let fear paralyze us but given most of the people on libcom are already organising themselves to fight for a better world - even if we disagree about exactly how to do that - this is something of a moot point.

You are crack fix propaganda and i claim my £5

are you for real? seriously, i'm away for a few months and look what happens.

i know people who have squatted, i have no problem with it. But to make out it's some kind of political act is just stupid. You can't just unilaterally withdraw from capitalism.

Also, wtf are you talking about with the communist comment? Do you seriously believe anyone here is using the word communism to describe some kind of stalinist society they want to achieve?

(Edited to make up for typing spaz)

anyone who would rather get sacked from crap jobs than work (& keep for as long as it suits you) a cushy job (or make their current job into one) is pretty @#$% in the head.

I really can't stand this lifestyle BS attitude that being able to feed yourself and keep yourself from getting evicted is somehow "selling out". The majority of what you'd call "cushy" jobs are working-class through and through. And NOBODY is getting "rich" off of wage-labour, that's for damn sure.

I doubt that many people on here are afraid of being open with anyone they think that they can really talk to or seriously engage in any sort of organizing endeavor. However, putting yourself totally "out there" for the world to see online is bad tactics, and plain stupid to boot. Many employers do google new applicants and new hires. Many of them also use Facebook and Myspace to check out workers' backgrounds. This is not paranoia, this is fact.

Things aren't the way they "ought" to be, else why rebel? You aren't upsetting some potential boss by making it easy to weed out potential disruptive workers, they have plenty to choose from, the only person who will suffer from you not being able to get a job is you. If you want to really upset them you should get a job, get organised with you fellow workers and force the boss to give you better pay/conditions

The reason I am a revolutionary is because I can't be free in this world, and neither can anyone else, so I will do what every I can to destroy it, and make a new one.
The government is not all powerful, if we can make our selfs a real threat to the system they wont be able to "take care" of us quickly
But to be a really threat we need to be inside the system, not on the edge of it.

wouldn't you rather destroy there world than give up and die?

you seem to be saying you're not interested in changing anything, which requires collective action, you 'get more done on your own', you 'just want to be free now' etc. well, this is classic individualist lifestylism - you can't be free in a meaningful sense under capitalism. it's also a myth to think you can be 'outside' capitalism, even if you're squatting/dumpster diving you're living of 'the system', just in a perirpheral way.

the point is capitalism isn't a 'system', it's a social relation most of us have little choice but to participate in, but therein lies its weakness: capital needs our compliance more than we need capital, and so in principle collective working class action can put an end to it, as well as defending our living standards in the here and now. class struggle is not inherently reformist, and at least contains the potential to abolish capitalism, which escapist, individualist lifesylism doesn't.

i mean just cos i work doesn't mean i'm 'just another cog in the wheel' - i'm not entirely defined by the 8 hours a day of dead time i do to pay the bills, same for everyone else. we have our own lives, and of course we try and make use of what freedom we have to enjoy our lives as much as we can in the here and now. but i don't mistake this for politics.

fwiw i'm not saying 'get a job' or reducing class struggle to workplace activity. if you can live the life you want to lead without wage labour than more power to you, but at least recognise most people aren't in that position.

And in Egypt you get rounded up, put in administrative detention, tortured, having your family threatened etc. for simply joining "support the strike" groups on Facebook. These Facebook activists (as they are known as here) aren't even hardened revolutionaries, but rather middle-class folks whose activism starts and stops on Facebook. What happens to communists and Muslim Brothers is much much worse. Talking to "anyone" or openly exposing your identity is the same as asking for the secret police to come knocking. AJ, even your lifestyle-brand bs politics would land you in trouble. Heavy Metal fans get arrested and beaten up for being "satanists", homosexuals are rounded up for being just that and etc. Your squatting, dumpster diving freegan shit wouldn't get you far here.

What is surprising is that you have Jordan in your nick. That place has a mukhabarat which is even worse than in Egypt, and still you espouse your nonsense. I suggest that you go to those sites Kattmannen suggested.

Nobody on here is talking about some wonderful future they have under capitalism, if they were, they wouldn't be on this site in the first place, soft arse.

And the day I let some condescending little fuckwit too priveleged to understand that just quitting your job and living in a squat isn't an option for some people tell me how to act is the day I give on life altogether.

AJ

This sums your position up very well:

And then tell use you are well known in your own town i.e., your activty is centred around you: not the anonymous struggle to be part of the proletariat's struggle to free humanity from capitalism. Your vision is that of bourgeoisie democracy where every man himself has his say.
This democratic ideology is seen clearly here:

It is precisely this delusion of freedom that is such a powerful weapon for the ruling class. There is no freedom under capitalism for the working class we are still wage slaves, the only difference with democracy is that the bourgeoisie find it easier to sell the idea we have a stake in their system.
Your vision is also rather little Englander as long as their is freedom in this country etc. Yes we can say we are communists, can organise, sell our press on the street, hold public meetings, take part in demonstrations etc, but all of this is carried out under the observation of one of the most sophisticated surveillance systems, where once you leave home and go to a populated area you are potentialy watched, every e-mail you send is stored, phone calls tapped, all of your details are shared between agencies, and there are the terror laws in place to imprison you, place you under house arrest, detain you for 42 days etc etc. And by the way this 'free country' an't so free if you are a young asian, black or a muslim. But in the end you do no see this because you judge everything as it relates to you, i.e., just the way the ruling class want to see things.
The vision you have is also the product of the fact that the revolutionary movement is so small. 100 years ago when there were thousands of militants there was a clear vision that militancy was something one did for the proletariat as a whole not to make some form of individual statement. It may seem stupid and cowardly to you to have a vision based on working for a wider movement if that does not mean making yourself well known in your home town, which would be rather difficult for comrades living in big cities.

"If freedom dies in this country, I'll die with it", says AJ along with other expressions of illusions in what can only be 'democratic freedom', ie the imperialist state.
The illusion in "freedom and democracy" is one that AJ's been peddling throughout this thread and now he's stated it explicitly. Democracy and freedom is, as Ernie says above, a very powerful weapon of the ruling class and it's not surprising that AJ, with his individual "actions", is entirely caught up in it.

I think it's in reference to the name, not the place.

New on Ruthless Criticism:

What is Freedom?

Freedom must always first be granted by state power . . .

Ooops... I realize that now (how do you do that blush smiley?). I think I must've confused him with some actual Jordanian anarchists that have posted here a few times. I dunno why I thought that as their respective writing styles and politics are completely different.

I thought that to at first, I worked it out only when he mentioned where he lived on some other tread. There's a thread called anarchsim in jordan, no wonder the names familar
Smileys are just above you're name when you right a reply, if you click on the writing a box opens.

Dang, it's been there all the time. I've never noticed it

That sounds freaking sweet, I can't believe I've never noticed it. Link?

It's in the middle east forum I remember reading it ages ago, here it is.

now i'm half-inclined to think you're a joke account, cos i haven't heard this kinda crimethinc-esque nonsense in ages, but anyway...

this makes me think you haven't read a word anybody's said. no-one's proud of working for a wage...

you appear to be the one talking in abstractions, what with 'the people' and all. in fact the reason people have brought up having to work is precisely because they're talking about their concrete experiences as workers and not some abstract 'the workers.'

you realise no-one thinks wage-rises will abolish capitalism right? and you do betray a whiff of privelege by implying fighting for them is some kind of optional, principled activity rather than a pretty necessary way to put food on the table/pay the bills in a time of rising inflation (food/energy up 10-20%). and really you should read some history if you think workplace/class based organising can't threaten capitalism, but presumably lifestyle changes can.

the crux of the criticism of lifestylism is not the criticism of this or that particular lifestyle, live how the fuck you want. it's a crticism of mistaking lifestyle choices for political action, something you're doing in spades, including here.

do you think people on this board need to be reminded of this by someone who is clearly so divorced from the reality of a working life that they genuinely cannot understand why people don't just "distance themselves" from the necessity of wage labour, you brainless patronising cunt? i realise this is in 'theory' and i'm probably flaming you, but enough is enough and you need to take your downright offensive spoilt brat "politics" elsewhere. If and when you ever need to get a job to pay rent or bills or support a family or anything else that requires money you don't have, then you might understand why we get so enthusiastic about people "trying to make a little more money by organizing within that shitty set of circumstances". Now come on, fuck off.

edit: okay so Joseph K. got there a little quicker and in politer terms

i realise replying is entirely futile but apparently i'm doing so anyway.

actually - contributing to the wealth of society isn't something we shouldn't be proud of. it's just the nature of that "contribution", i.e. a forced one, and the fact that we aren't entitled to our fair share of that wealth because it is owned by whoever we work for, that makes us not proud of it.

well apart from the idiot idealist scare quotes around 'wealth' (yes i know the bourgeoisie are alienated too, poor diddums), you're talking shit. again. i produce nothing, even in capitalist terms (i work for a credit company that makes its profits from the rates we charge other capitalists), and i'm certainly not proud of it. i've argued at length against the concept of 'class pride' on another thread recently too (here).

STICK IT TO THE (STRAW) MAN!!!11

oh noes that was totally our plan! shot down in flames!