A blogger has called for 'Regrouping the libertarian revolutionist left' here;
Requirements for revolutionist regroupment
1.Belief, even if it errs on the side of pessimism that the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism is possible and that it is the only way to put the breaks on the current environmental crisis and halt the onward march of authoritarianism and the far right.
2.For full rights for Trans and non binary people.
3.For free safe and legal abortion and contraception, bodily autonomy in continued pregnancy and birth rights.
4.Against national borders, for free movement of people.
5.Against all forms of prejudice – racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, ableism.
6.Belief that parliamentary democracy is a rigged game and a terrain where we cannot win – regardless of elections won or not – see SYRIZA.
7.For the abolition of wage labour and monetary exchange as an indispensable part of the revolutionary creation of a new society.
8.For participatory direct democracy at all levels of society.
9.Committed to building community organisation and workers unions that operate on the basis of participatory democracy, solidarity and intersectional approaches to gender and race.
10.Committed to building what we advocate within community orgs- urban agriculture projects, energy and water projects under community self management.
11.Support for the Rojava revolution – in it’s struggle against Daesh, and the Turkish and Syrian states, and in building direct democracy, destroying patriarchy and advancing communal economic models.
12.Anti-Imperialism
Sounds much like what we
Sounds much like what we would expect from a member or sympathiser of the Irish based Workers Solidarity Movement who situate themselves somewhere at the anarchist end of Leftism. Better than some but still confused.
So regrouoment into a new
So regrouoment into a new organization that has exactly the same politics as every other existing org? But with the typical nationalist bollocks towards the end. So a pretty underwhelming document.
In any case, it's not our politics that need to change, but how we organize and do shit.
Spikymike wrote: Better than
Spikymike
I'm sure you're trying to be nice, Mike. But really, it was dire.
Yeah that's me kids. 1. I'm
Yeah that's me kids.
1. I'm an ex-member of WSM and have different views on organisation now, so try not to be reductionist.
2. Nationalist bollocks at the end? You'd want to have some weird ideological lense on to see that.
3. I'm not calling for a new organisation per se. You read that into it yourself. "I deliberately don’t deal with the question of ideological anarchist group organisation here as I want to come back to that in greater detail."
4. I'm having discussions with other anarchists in Ireland right now about how we organise and do stuff. Any input welcome as long as it's constructive.
5. Serge, do you ever say anything positive?
6. Maybe it makes more sense in an Irish context coz it has generally gone down well with non-aligned anarchists here.
Like I do explain a lot of the reasoning behind it.
Flava O Flav wrote: Serge, do
Flava O Flav
Hey dontcha know, my middle name is Sunshine!
Flava wrote: 2. Nationalist
Flava
Eh, not really. Anti-imperialism typically ends up as support for national liberation movements. Granted, you may mean something else with the word, but in my living experience all groupsicles, organizations and movements that are anti-imperialist almost always picks a side in inter-bourgeois wars.
With Rojava, I am skeptical of it being more than just a Kurdish national project. I hope I am proven wrong on this, however.
So no "weird" ideological lense, but rather a principled stance against nationalism against whatever form they take. And yes, that you're ex-WSM may explain the differences in opinion on these matters. My ideologcal lense is the "mainstream" libcom one (given that I took part in those debates where that "line" was adopted).
Flava
Fair enough; I read the comment you quoted as meaning that regroupment is part of a new organisation, but you would leave it for a later post.
FWIW, I think a new one is warranted, but only insofar as it is new in the sense of being an expression of recomposed working class (given that I argue that we are currently in a phase where the WC is utterly decomposed with only signs of a recomposition). At the moment, it is quite clear that whatever it is that we are doing organizationally is not working.
And overall, sure you do explain your reasoning, but it's not anything that I haven't seen before, several times even. Sure, I'd agree with points 1-10 but then again what anarchist org doesn't include them (even if it's only lip-service)? What is needed is creativity in terms of organizing, propaganda, reaching out to folks and so on. On those points, I have no idea what may work (but for being excited about the Quebec student strike and Occupy Sandy), but I know from years of experience that what we are doing is just not working properly.
Well at the time I almost
Well at the time I almost specified that this was related to Ireland in particular in the title but left it thinking, well maybe it will be of use somewhere else. As it stands, you have the WSM, which is very very small - has done some good work over the years both in the realm of organising and in propaganda - but failed miserably to grow (or at least it grew briefly and then shrunk as rapidly) and I feel like setting up an organisation and declaring it the thing for anarchists to join is not the way to go. So you have a lot of anarchists in Ireland who are scattered through various social movements and working in small groups or just alone among non anarchists and what I'm interested in doing is building formal links between these groups, loosely enough at first and then see where it goes. And that's pretty much what the above piece was aimed at.
Quote: .I feel like setting
Yup, I agree on that point. Just doing that has been done so many times.
That last comment of yours made more sense out of your blog post. Where I'm living we're in a similar- ish situation.