The Anarchist Voting Strategy

I wonder if we share the same disconnect upon lack of knowledge?

How many of us now have to add an adjective or hyphenate when we discuss our politics...real socialism..genuine socialism...authentic socialism...libertarian socialism...so we do not get included in the Sanders democratic socialism or general labourism of the left-wing

Can anarchist now differentiate themselves from those who identify anarchism with certain protest tactics - ie Black Bloc or the means of engaging in struggle such as direct action rather than the goal of anarchism...which again many hyphenate to anarcho-communism.

Others make up a word...social ecology a la Bookchin...participatory economics aka Michael Albert.

I was fortunate, my first reading was a cheap Freedom Press edition of Alexander Berkman's ABC of Anarchism sold to me in a pub one night. I still extol its value.

How vital is basic education in terms and definitions and meanings?

Is it worth trying to roll back the tide of words being usurped by mainstream media. We lost libertarian in North America. Are we going to lose anarchism to radical liberals?

But you're in a parliamentarist party so can't credibly be considered an anarchist by any considered understanding of the historical distinction between parliamentarism and anti-parliamentarism. Your continued (opportunist?) revisionist attempt to blur that distinction isn't even convincing to many in your Party. So as for 'losing definitions and meanings' maybe you should get your own house in order first.

I try to show a similarity in how we are disadvantaged in the media - even the so-called progressive - our definitions are usurped and corrupted and perverted and it is revisionist of me - anarchists and socialists do not share that extra difficulty... i even indicate the under-lying motive for the placement of the article. ...But it is opportunist of me ...nope...more than that...it is revisionist of me ...anarchism and socialism does not share a commonality, i would guess from your comment.

It has been argued back and forth on this website if the SPGB simply a parliamentarian party as any other that stands for election. I think the preponderance of opinion is that we are not a run-of-the-mill parliamentarist party to be viewed with all the rest. That our approach to elections and parliament and the capture of state-power to end capitalism and the State is, in these times, a very nuanced and a fairly unique position.

I could also extend this to the Marxist V. anti-Marxist stand-off that some wish to impose. Marx the authoritarian or Marx the libertarian. Where does he get the credibility, as i do?

Engels wrote in a letter to Bebel in March 1875, "Marx's book against Proudhon and later the Communist Manifesto directly declare that with the introduction of the socialist order of society the state will dissolve itself and disappear" .

“To all socialists anarchy means this: the aim of the proletarian movement--that is to say the abolition of social classes--once achieved, the power of the state, which now serves only to keep the vast majority of producers under the yoke of a small minority of exploiters, will vanish, and the functions of government become purely administrative"

I stick with Dietzgen, even if it might be to the consternation of my fellow SPGBers.

"The terms anarchist, socialist, communist should be so "mixed" together, that no muddlehead could tell which is which. Language serves not only the purpose of distinguishing things but also of uniting them- for it is dialectic." June 9, 1886
And on anarchists and socialists generally , he said :
"For my part, I lay little stress on the distinction, whether a man is an anarchist or a socialist, because it seems to me that too much weight is attributed to this difference."....
"While the anarchists may have mad and brainless individuals in their ranks, the socialists have an abundance of cowards. For this reason I care as much for one as the other."... "The majority in both camps are still in great need of education, and this will bring about a reconciliation in time."- April 20, 1886

But it always takes two to tango and some anarchists and left communists are intransigent as some in the SPGB, perhaps more so some could argue, to changing political times as the point of my post was...we in the Socialist Party are losing our definition of the word (and even possibly our actual party name) - the anarchists have for half the world lost the meaning of libertarian and now most likely the use of anarchism.

We could go over it all again about the position of the SPGB on parliament but use the search facility and save others on the website the bother of re-reading the old debates and discussions all over again.