Anarchy: a journal of desire armed. #36, Spring 1993 anticopyright - Anarchy may be reprinted at will for non-profit purposes, except in the case of individual copyrighted contributions. LETTERS -includes part two of three @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Participation mystique Dear Anarchy, I've just received my first copy of Anarchy (#33) and wonder how I've not encountered you earlier. I was particularly intrigued with John Zerzan's "Future Primitive." Mr. Zerzan's article may have been written before the publication earlier this year of Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime by Robert Lawlor, which presents a picture of symbol, ritual and myth being used very consciously to avoid any contamination of the traditional hunter/gatherer lifestyle as it had been practiced for more than 100,000 years, according to aboriginal account. This work has reinforced my own view that the dreamtime of the aborigines parallels the ideas of David Bohm, Karl Pribram and others concerning the holographic nature of reality. It seems to me time the traditional hostility of radical politics toward all aspects of the spiritual should be put aside so that this fundamental part of human nature can be allowed to unfold and enrich the vision of our return to a simpler and more natural life. I'm very interested in working with others to develop a func- tioning post-industrial community based on the premise that it is possible to reclaim our primitive birthright, re-establish the participation mystique, without blindly sacrificing everything that has been learned by this strange journey into the mass insanity we call civilization. I would like to correspond with anyone who shares an interest in this goal. Sincerely, William Andros POB 47 McCleary, WA. 98557 Scare tactics Dear Anarchy, Judging from Jason's response to the letter from an IWW member in issue #34 on pages 68-69, your editorial policy amounts to the slogan, "Never give a syndicalist an even break." While I can agree that the IWW and Earth First! do not share enough common ground to form a political alliance (the IWW calls for a balance between in- dustry and nature, whereas Earth First! is a wilderness supremacist organization), Jason is totally off the wall when he claims that the IWW is an opportunist "political racket" with totalitarian aims. His interpretation of the slogan "One Big Union" as a desire by wobblies for world domination, is a smear and an attempt to turn anarchists away from the IWW by the use of scare tactics. Try reading the IWW's Preamble, which outlines the organization's goals. As the Preamble indicates, behind the slogan of "One Big Un- ion" are two concepts. The first is the notion of industrial union- ism, that all workers who have the same employer or work in the same industry should not allow jurisdictional boundaries, i.e. the craft and trade divisions of the AFL, get in the way of their common fight with the employers. The second, is that the workers should organize as a class to overthrow the wage system. That's it folks, no deep dark conspiracy, just the basic principles of revo- lutionary unionism. I realize that Anarchy does not agree with these principles, but let's criticize them for what they are, not make things up. Jason just gives no evidence to back up his claim that the IWW is a political racket. So what if the IWW prints a newspaper? If that makes them part of the `spectacle', what does that make you? Just because Collu and Cammatte say all leftist organizations are political rackets does not make it so. Their thesis isn't even all that original. Robert Michels said pretty much the same thing in his book, Political Parties, at the beginning of the century. Michels claimed there is an "Iron Law of Oligarchy" which makes all organization bureaucratic. Let's assume this thesis, or Collu and Cammatte's rehash of it, is true. Where does that leave us anarchists? Social life is im- possible without organization. Whether it involves putting out a newspaper, or even running a simple hunting and gathering community. If decentralized, self-managed organization cannot exist without degenerating into bureaucracy or a `racket', we anarchists are hopeless dreamers. Perhaps just carping about the injustices of the `spectacle' without any possibility of making real social changes is the best we could ever do. This is not anarchism, however, it is an anti-anarchist theory that accepts the same basic assumptions about politics as the bourgeois liberals and the marxists. Let us not forget that situationism, whatever insights it might have, was a development from ultra-left marxism, not anarchism. Anarchist consumers of these theories should take them with a grain of salt. Jeff Stein, Champaign, IL. Jason comments: Union members beware While I can appreciate that you feel a certain amount of defensive- ness at my criticisms - considering you're a long-time IWW member, I wish you and other syndicalists would examine the practice of the IWW organization from a little more self-critical perspective. It is largely because rank and file memberships so frequently allow their de facto leaderships to get away with manipulative practices that routine manipulation, deception, internal hierarchies and spectacular representations have become the rule in leftist organizations. In fact, the less naive and idealistic leftists (like all straightforward liberals and conservatives) usually seem to expect such manipulative practices to be the favored mode of business-as-usual! It doesn't do any of us much good to blame the critics of oppor- tunistic and manipulative organizational practices for pointing them out. Would we all be better off if anarchists withheld such criticisms in order to portray a self-deceived, but `united' front? Or does it make more sense for anarchists to be in the forefront of organizational criticism, especially where organizations with anti- authoritarian pretensions are concerned? One look at the fatal historical experiences of the anarchists who allowed themselves to be manipulated by the collaborationist informal leadership (the so- called "leading militants") of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist CNT during the 1936 revolution should be enough to convince us to closely examine the actual practice of any syndicalist organiza- tions currently hunting for cannon fodder for their very own "work- ers' struggles." If the IWW is not only less than a fully "de- centralized, self-managed organization," but also requires patriotic members to attack critics while papering over manip- ulative union practices, doesn't this suggest that it may not have much genuinely in common with anarchist concerns for transparent communication and association? Or should we all go out and uncriti- cally join existing organizations because you say there is no other realistic choice? That's a pretty lame response to highly pertinent criticisms of specific organizational practices. Whatever the IWW's `preamble' may say (and I don't usually judge leftist organizations by their fine print, any more than I judge political parties by their platforms), the IWW's spotlighted mes- sage isn't "Join the self-organized struggle against the wage system." So don't blame me for pointing out the totalitarian-sound- ing implications of its "Join the One Big Union" slogan, which has been repeatedly displayed in the Industrial Worker and elsewhere for years. (`Totalitarian', by the way, usually designates groups characterized by attempts to uphold an image of monolithic unity, not groups desiring "world domination"!) Hell if I'll ever join "One Big" anything, whatever it wants. I may choose to work in autonomous local groups which seek and maintain ties with people in similar groups in other locales. But I absolutely refuse to join any membership organization which seeks to substitute its own pre- arranged organizational forms (and centralized bureaucratic hier- archy) for the initiative and activities of local rebels. Is this really all the better we can do? I sure hope not. Proletarian dictatorship My Komrades! Hello [...] I write to request back issues of Anarchy #8-15 and #33. I have passed along the rest of the Anarchys you have sent after I finished reading them. Also since you review a magazine called On Our Backs and Caught Looking, I can not afford to pay for such magazines which I am sure want money. So this is why I ask you for like a back issue which you have already reviewed. [Note: Not available from us, any readers out there who have a copy they want to send?] Politically you would not agree with me. Politically we both want America's bourgeois system dismantled. But we differ about what is to replace it. I want a Dictatorship of the Prole- tarian! You want a system of No Law, No Authority, No Government (I believe?). We need not be enemies. I do not hate anybody truly. I very much dislike the bourgeois American system. I believe anarchists are very good at expressing their beliefs and not allowing the American establishment to cow them as McCarthy scared the shit out of socialists. Well I have my thoughts on dealing with people like Sen. Joseph McCarthy. But I guess this is why the bourgeois have locked me in their gulag! I know a lot of my fellow komrades anarchist or socialist alike are a little bit upset by my letter. Now I believe that socialism failed in Soviet Russia for now, and of course in Eastern Europe as well, but I do not believe socialism is dead. I know many anarchists out there are appalled by my belief system?! But all I can say is socialism failed due to Stalin's gross distortion of true socialism, with his "socialism in one country" shit, or with his "one Soviet tractor is worth more than 10,000 foreign communalists" shit! Now our beliefs on certain issues are the same such as...absolute equal rights for our female komrades. And of course as stated before our American governmental corruption. I do believe that almost nothing is truly achieved by holding hands and singing! Does anyone truly believe anyone cares if a group of people stand around in the fucken snow singing? Does any one think that the Russian bourgeois would of been overthrown if the workers all stood around singing a few fucken songs. Does anyone not remember Adolf Hitler? Did he care when the German Kommunist Party was peacefully distributing literature? No! By 1934 the German Kommunist Party was dismantled. Alright granted that violence is not always the best way, but I believe even with peaceful demonstrations (which can help a little) there should be sabotage taking place somewhere for the same cause. I do not dislike any anarchists really, actually I believe if both anarchists and socialists came together for a com- mon cause it would be very productive. Well you are probably won- dering where I have been for the last 40 years? Well let me tell you I am not even 40 years old! Plus I shall tell you that I do realize that in the USSR & in most of Eastern Europe was a deformed workers state! But people do not realize that this is because of Josef Stalin's twisted thought process. It cannot be denied that Leon Trotsky would of lead the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to a place in world history which has never been achieved by a nation as of yet! Feel free to print my address & number. I would be happy to receive feedback from komrades out there or from people who hate me because of my words in this letter or because of whatever. All shall receive a reply but for a real quick response send an (embossed) SASE. I am very interested in others ideas on revolution. I have been reading Feral Faun's articles and I must say I truly admire her writings. Well please send me what I asked for. I hope my letter did not make you too mad to do so? Peace through revolution! Jayson Josef Strieter #186727 Green Bay Corr. Institution POB 19033 Green Bay, WI. 54307-9033 In defense of play (Dear Lev, While on a recent trip to Seattle, and after finding myself with a dearth of decent reading material I stumbled into Left Bank Books to purchase a few evil screeds that might amuse me. I innocently enough purchased a copy of Anarchy #34 and after returning to my room and reading about two pages of letters I came across a personal, obnoxious [and wholly undeserved] attack launched by Mitchell Halberstadt at my "Seven Theses on Play." [Note: see Anarchy #23, p.11 for the "Seven Theses" and Anarchy #34, p.73 for Halberstadt's letter] The last thing I recall of that evening is phoning room service and demanding more cognac and a paste made of Mitchell Halberstadt's liver and brain. I remember getting the cognac and being informed as to my order that "some things you just can't get in Seattle." And so, by way of self-defense, I offer the following letter.) After having found and read a copy of Halberstadt's Anarchy and Civilization, a number of first impressions came immediately to mind. Foremost of these was the very personal impression that M.H. had inadvertently lumped me together with Zerzan, Bradford, the Fifth Estate Crew and the Earth First! maniac brigade. I admit to a certain amount of respect for these malcontents (in decreasing proportion, by mention) but in non way consider myself an exponent of either primitivism or biocentrism. Second was the overriding sentiment that I had just read the script for a half hour "info- mmercial" sponsored by IBM or Apple. For instance, the statement that "our role as conscious beings is to handle information," I consider as an affront to everything I give a damn about in my own human-ness. Personally, I would much rather play with my three year old daughter, or fuck like an animal with my wife than play video games or access some Burmese data base. But to each his own. Finally, for all M.H.'s whining about the misplaced sense of nostalgia that the primitivists and biocentrists seem to operate under, M.H. demands the return to the Enlightenment project of the rational search for the "perfect society." Disregarding utterly that the current dominant culture is part and parcel of the realization of this very project. As to defending the "Seven Theses on Play," in M.H.'s essay he compares my second thesis to the Old Testament description of the Garden of Eden and then chastises both myself and Moses for failing to footnote our respective writings. Then he goes on to state that, "Actually, controversy and uncertainty...have long characterized our knowledge of pre-history." First I must say that I was writing theses and was making statements without feeling the requisite need to provide "hard documentation." But as documentation does exist for the conclusions I reach in the second thesis, let's do it. I would direct M.H.'s attention to the work of Stanley Diamond, In Search of the Primitive, to Marshall Sahlin's book Stone Age Economics, to Huizinga's Homo Ludens, or to any anthropological or historical article on the Kwaikiutl potlatch cultures of the Pacific Northwest or the horse cultures of the Great Plains. Note also, that with the exception of Sahlins, none of the sources I used for the second thesis are based on research into `pre- historic' groupings. Indeed, I avoided the use of the term pre- history in the thesis for the specific reason that next to none of the research I base it on is of `pre-historic' groupings. Thus, M.H.'s contention about the ambiguity of pre-history may be valid, but not to my thesis. Pre-agricultural societies did not just die out some time around 2,000 BC, there are numerous examples in the historical record of such cultures and more importantly, of the primacy of play in such cultures. M.H. goes on to state that my claim that in pre-agricultural societies play was the common denominator of all activity is tantamount to intellectual dishonesty. He continues by making the assertion that it would be just as truthful to claim that work was the common denominator of all activity, because (he says) I assume that there is no distinction between the two activities in pre- agricultural societies. Dead wrong. I never set the two activities into such a dialectic tension, nor would I. Work is an activity that only begins to acquire a concrete, general meaning with the onset of agriculture, because it is only then that food-generating activity becomes coerced, via the potential negative of a poor har- vest and hence privation. Alternatively, pre-agricultural groupings were (are?) relatively immune from privation, if a hunt fails, there's always tomorrow, if the group exhausts the potential for gathering in one area, they move on. Note that these conclusions are not based on speculation but on observations (by contemporaries) of the movements and activities of indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. Finally, let's assume that work and play are dialectically related to each other (as M.H. does). Then, in theory at least, a synthetic activity should arise that would include elements of both work and play, yet given the centrality of coercion to work this activity must in some way be a coerced activity, and hence, not play. Also, note that the concept of work necessarily implies remuneration, either via the wage, a good harvest or whatever. Play on the other hand is almost a paradigmatically ambivalent activity, ever climb a tree and fall; ever climb a tree and not fall? The outcome of play is always an unknown quantity; the outcome of work sure as hell better be a check that clears. Clearly, the two concepts are mutually exclusive and not dialectically related. They co-exist now as they did in pre-history, the real question is, which one is given primacy? I know where I stand, and I think Halberstadt's position is pretty easy to infer. M.H. ultimately rejects the entire "anthropological argument" on the basis of it's being inapplicable to post-industrial societies. It is here that M.H. makes a real mistake. First, he assumes that I'm positing a return to hunter-gatherer society as a `solution' to the ills of modern society. Dead wrong. I harbor no illusions as to such a possibility. I used pre-agricultural society as an example, or rather as a paradigm of how play has been integrated as a foundation in a social totality. Further, I am certain that the creation of such a society, where play is given primacy over work, is still possible. Why? Because I'm an anarchist, an egoist, a dreamer, and goddammit, I want to play! Finally, M.H. states in his letter to Anarchy #34 that my essay is "silly, fatuous and unoriginal." Unoriginal? Certainly. Nothing really new has been written in the last century, including M.H.'s Anarchy and Civilization. Silly? Fatuous? Hardly. M.H. spent two sections in his essay and an additional paragraph in his letter attempting to critique the thesis. For all his effort, he failed. It just goes to show, that before you go out to play, you have to do your homework.... Paul Z. Simons, Brooklyn, NY. Reply to Zerzan G'day, You're dead right John Zerzan. My letter (Anarchy #34, Fall '92) Wasn't so much a critique of your article ("The Catastrophe of Postmodernism," Anarchy #30, Fall '91) as a general defence of my postmodernist worldview. But more importantly, my contribution wasn't even intended for publication. It was an excerpt from a personal letter I'd written to a (then distant) friend. I try for a bit more consistency when I'm writing for strangers, and with fewer local references. But I guess Jason knew what he was doing in printing it. So few of Zerzan's articles get the thoughtful response they deserve. Probably because his essays draw upon such a formidable accumulation of knowledge that one feels it a bit churlish to question to his conclusions. Mind you in my case I have no difficulty in reconciling my `postmodernism' with my anarchism. The two coexist quite happily in side my head. Occasionally they even talk to one another in what I like to think are bouts of dialectical thinking or conceptual complementarity. But it's probably more due to the fact that the debate entered into by John Zerzan is now long exhausted (which explains the limp ending to my letter). Here in the depressed '90s there are new concerns which will probably inspire new theories. In Australia the cultural commentators are once again talking morality. But as usual it's just talk, talk designed to mask the same old manoeuvering for positions of privilege. Of course there is a problem my postmodern anarchism has never been able to solve. With so much good reading around it's hard to find the time for doing. And you're part of the problem John Zerzan. (How's that for a cryptic compliment?) Yours in non-oppressive individuality and equality, Steve Charman Balwyn, Australia [Editors' note: We had no idea that this letter was not intended for publication. Readers, please, if you write letters not intended for publication, always make this explicit by spelling out "Not for publication." Otherwise we have no way to be sure what your desires are. -Jason] More prison censorship Dear Sir: A publication titled Anarchy, #34/Fall 1992, addressed to the above named individual, an inmate confined at this institution, is being rejected for the reasons outlined in the attached memorandum addressed to the inmate. [Note: The accompanying memorandum states that "Pursuant to Bureau of Prisons' Program Statement 5266.5, and specifically Institution Supplement LEW 5266.5 dated September 9, 1991, a publication may be rejected if `It depicts, describes, or encourages activities which may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption.' Specifically, on page 4 `Inside Anarchy', the Fall 1992 issue's central theme is devoted to`Crime and Criminalization.'"] You may obtain an independent review of the rejection by writing to the Regional Director, Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Customs House, Second and Chestnut Streets, 7th Floor, Philadelphia, PA. 19106, within 15 days of receipt of this letter. We will maintain possession of that publication for 15 days, after which time, unless an appeal is noted, the publication will be returned to you. Sincerely, E.J. Brennan, Warden U.S. Penitentiary Lewisburg, PA. 17837 Support SLAPP victims A Chara, Just going through the letters section of issue #34. MCS, Oakland, CA. is incorrect when saying that "most of Berkeley radicals were in Santa Rita during the rioting and looting." Most were in S.F. paying back the state. Those that stayed in the East Bay helped folks bust stuff up with only a couple of arrests none from the Direct Action, Anarchist, Radical community. The folks that MCS refers to are the whine and snivel liberals who have absolutely no moral or political principles. They are content to pat themselves on the back for being voluntary victims of the state. Yes things are escalating in Berkeley. For over a year we have defended our community from the rich parasitic landlords, and the U.C. Now a federal interstate flight warrant has been issued for Carol "Blue Sky" Johnson who was convicted earlier for having played a stinky practical joke on the Berkeley City Council. Sur- prise the Feds have shown! Additionally a month ago the authorities murdered Anarchist Rosebud and our city is occupied by almost 100 cops patrolling Telegraph Avenue on the weekends. Not content with that, the U.C. as a tool of the ruling class has escalated its civil, legal, and covert attacks against two local Anarchists myself and Bob Sparks. Bob has survived three covert attacks on his life and his conviction for attacking the volleyball courts with a chainsaw is currently on appeal. For myself, I am facing several criminal charges and am now in danger of having my probation revoked which would result in 810 days a as a guest of the state. Both Bob and I are members of The Gang of Four which the U.C. has named as principle defendants in a civil lawsuit commonly known as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). A SLAPP suit's main goal is not monetary, but to silence the oppositional movement. On Sept. 18th, the U.C. dragged us back into court claiming we were in contempt of an injunction granted in March. Our crime why two of us (David Nadel and Carol Denney) wrote in chalk anti-U.C. slogans on their prized volleyball court. I defended myself from a physical attack by a provocateur. David and I were found innocent, but Carol received three days in Santa Rita. Bob was uncharged. To the North American and International Anarchist community: Two comrades are under attack from the state. We ask you to help us defend ourselves. We have spent $20,000 so far, but this is a long struggle and we especially need financial help, just a buck or two. For more information on other ways you can help, drop a line or two. MCS bring your ass out of Oakland and help build the barricades. Michael Lee 537 Jones #1584 S.F., CA. 94102 More prison censorship Publication Denial Notification Title of publication: Anarchy Fall 1992 N34. The above publication has been reviewed and denied in accordance with Section 3.9 of the TDCJ Rules and Regulations for the reason(s) below: A specific factual determination has been made that the publication is detrimental to prisoner's rehabilitation because it would encourage deviate criminal sexual behavior. Remarks: Page 80 contains sex with a child. (Qualifies for clip- ping. Page 80 [1 page «].) If there is a desire to appeal the rejection of the aforementioned publication, this may be accomplished by writing to: Director's Review Committee POB 99 Huntsville, TX. 77340. Behind enemy lines Boy howdy, Thanks for the complimentary Summer Issue. As a P.O.W. in the "War on Drugs" (I refused to give any other information other than age, number of acid trips, and estimated amount of still active brain cells) currently being held deep behind enemy lines, it's gratifying to find publications such as yours that give enough of a damn about prisoners to provide free subscriptions. Interesting reading, too. When I first entered the prison system, I was told I needed drug treatment. Long as I could pick the drugs I'd treat myself with, I told 'em it was fine with me. So far no treats have been forthcoming. We live in hope, though. Now take my psychia- trist, somewhere else!! But seriously folks, just a few days ago as of this writing, the Wisconsin courts just gave someone a natural life (life without parole) sentence on a drug charge. Other states have been doing this for years. I'll admit the current dope scene is pretty awful, but Draconian laws such as this are only going to create more violence. People are going to keep on getting high; the only thing screwball laws do is to drive already outrageous prices even higher, causing more thefts and armed robberies (and shootings) which create more statistics for Der Staadt to use in justifying the notion that drugs cause crime, giving the green light to more oppressive laws, round and round, ad nauseam. Whew, that took a lot out of me. Anyways, please keep me on your mailing list; please publish any portion of this here you might find useful as space-filler or whatever. Anyone who'd like to write letters, send Red Cross packages, what have you(?) please contact me at: Dan Weik #42019 F.L.C.I. Box 147 Fox Lake, WI. 53933 On the Indianerkommune Hello Lev (aka Jason) and everyone, When i left the Indianer commune in Nurnberg, Germany [Note: see the short description in Anarchy #22/Nov.-Dec.'89, p.17] this past summer i was determined not to bow down to the emotionalism that had been my reaction to living for five nights there. In my memories haunt the most confrontive member of the commune, Klaus, whose words had been carved and eaten away and shaped by prejudicial and non-empathetic experience of past visitors. And i felt that he was attempting to categorize me into that "enemy population" - one filled to the brim with `anarchists' as well as "radical youth liberationists," in which he - while certainly an anarchist himself, had been conditioned into despising. I have no interest here in submitting to this categorization simply because i fled, dissented, and questioned. More significantly, i choose not to pass judgment, but instead, seek opinions and discussion from others who've been there (or have read any German arguments) and work for progress in the anarchist ideology of young people's liberation and justice. And, with twenty years of activism, i think the Indianer commune (an anarchic experiment in itself, i think) deserves a more fair and analytical approach than it has possibly received. I saw in the volunteers in the Indianer a passion that was willing to put the communal goals before the personal. True, this passion included what looked like high levels of emotional and physical self-abuse and could conveniently be swept aside as `cultist', but there was commitment in it - and front-line activism, which in reality as we may understand includes outsider harassment of many forms. The `fanaticism' which others might proclaim upon the Indianer was, instead, i believe, due to high stress gone unchecked and overlooked. At least one other member (adult) agreed with me that sleep had become our only escape - the only one `allowed'. And a nonconstructive escape it was. Others might leave (freely) but be harangued when they returned because of their `failure' to stay around when `needed'. The over-riding group-think seemed to further revolve around an "all or nothing" attitude - a symptom, i think, of activists who put "the cause" and "survival of self" together. If there was a continued `failure' of the adult members to keep their activism going without rest, then the demise of "all they had worked for" was immediately at hand and nothing ever again could be activated to "save the children." But in their stress, they were blind to see that their mindset was the actual problem, and that they were aiding their own demise (ideological and even physical) by their vows of duty to "the children." (The word `children' further evidences the emotion with which the activists succumbed to in their narrow focus). But they aren't alone in this insidious mindset business, as the emotional and `conclusive' judgments of hundreds (if not thousands) of visiting "friends of young people" has proved. By Klaus' angry position on self-claimed `anarchists' and "sex radicals" i can assume that in his experience, such persons took the easier route of dis-association, anti-crusade, and even hate; some turned to violence when in a Berlin action during the falling of the wall a rumor of "sexual abuse" was put around by visitors and resulted in Klaus getting beaten up and thrown out of a commune he had helped start - interestingly, the young girl named in the `abuse' is still a regular activist today. Here, i'd like to pose significant statements/questions to the still emotional-laden: you'd condemn the Indianer commune for all their anger and cursing (most which emanates from stress), but would you condemn all other passionate directives who must soak up harassment from all sides? In all these years hasn't the Indianer learned anything? In all these years hasn't parenthood learned anything? Hasn't the anarchist movement learned anything? How about that we're all imperfect! Experimental living on the edge of ideology is the biggest Bush, George Bush, we ever faced. We are so nearly perfect violently - after centuries of bloodshed, yet we are so primitive when it comes to facing ourselves and our needs. In his book Out of Weakness, Andrew Bard Schmookler states that we are warlike out of weakness. And i say that those among the Indianer commune who remain are among the most courageous among we who may name ourselves youth activists. Instead of working to destroy bridges between us and them out of our weakness to identify our own conditioned and emotional reactions, we should find the courage to arrive at an understanding. Then again, the Indianer does not need, shallow gifts of intellectuality - it is a current action needing a helping hand from those of us most committed to the freedom and justice of the young. There are young people who go voluntarily to the Indianer commune. And it is very powerful, i believe, that they remain even during situations of high stress; the tenured young were not intimidated (as i, only a visitor was) and even kept trying to push in their ideas (tho they ought to be given a bullhorn in order that the adults learn humility) into the conversation. If they remained silent, they did so at close quarters to the always hyper Klaus, posing significant ideas later when they had a more equal resonance. Sure, they fell to emotionalism, just like Klaus, but we are all so imperfect! I want to say that i have more of a positive feeling about such stressed-out (but nonviolent) tension done amidst interactive living where all concerned are conscious of their ideology, than i do for those who work along the calculated lines of `intelligent' discussion in radical publications. Those actually openly living every day in such situations tend to be more loudly honest about their feelings and experiences, while authors of words can be saying things that they don't really feel - and do so in order to align/`lead' a particular ideological agenda. The Indianer commune daily treads on the novel, the new, the uncertain - the virgin ground, and should not be so easily judged as negative and categorized as `fanatic' or `cultist'. The fact that no one else (the Indianer or i know of) on Earth is attempting such a challenge as continually accepting of new-comers, can be evidence enough for a reworked and more thorough analysis. Imper- fect but in action and trying, and that's a lot more than most of us probably have even the guts to contemplate. If there are people willing to obtain a perspective into the Indianer they can write to them to obtain their English-language zine (reviewed in Anarchy #34); Klaus said that we should keep letters to one page. Plus, i would also recommend learning German if contemplating a visit. But they're mostly looking for serious persons who can commit at least three months. Be forewarned, it may be one of the most challenging mental adventures of your lifetime. C.D., Boston, MA. "Howls from the hole" Anarchy, I just received #34/Fall '92. I completely agree with Ann Howe's article "Howls from the Hole." Being locked up myself I have seen many other brain washing techniques used by the `officers' here in the Arizona system. I myself have found that there are many ways around their techniques. The prisoner has to find a way to distract his mind from the surroundings. That way he/she can escape not in a physical sense but in a mental one. As for myself I'm a self-proclaimed artist and I try to `escape' with my drawings. I use my drawings to combat the `system' but even then you can still see that my surroundings deeply influence the things I draw. Many of my fellow inmates feel that I should sell my drawings to magazines and such but what they fail to realize is I draw to escape not to make money or help someone else. My "Anti System" drawings and comic strip, "A Hart of Gold," have been in numerous underground magazines, and it has put me in the hole lots of times. That only shows me that I'm doing something with my talent and something they don't want me to do! But their own laws state that they cannot stop me from having contact with the `outside'. Therefore they can never stop me! They can lock me up physically but they will never be able to lock up my mind! Enclosed you will find a couple of my drawings and I hope you could use them. Respectfully, Allen Moller, Goodyear, AZ. Improbability high Anarchy, Thanks for the fine mag. It's nice to see someone has a brain left in this world. Please send me a full set of your back issues #8- #33. Enclosed is $45 to cover all costs. A small price to pay for good reading. Why is it that the Fifth Estate is never mentioned in your mag- azine? A personal question. Do you think your intellectual articles help to support anarchist movements? Do you think that you even have a chance to change conditions on this planet? The improbability of any of the concepts that you write about coming to live is very high, >99.999%. Reality is power. Nonreality is anarchy and myself. Please do not write any more articles that imply that this age is coming to a new end. Please let John Zerzan know that his ideals are nice on paper but that he fails to accept that these ideas will never be implemented. I truly support people who write about alternatives but I know that this New World Order has its reins pulled hard. I am sure you are aware of this, as any anarchist action will send you straight to the Fed. Pen. for the rest of your life. Not pessimistic. Not optimistic. Realistic is the word here. Anyway, please broaden my horizons with your mag. Thank you, E.G., Camarillo, CA. Best issue so far Greetings Anarchy, I really liked #34. I reckon it's about the best issue so far with all the articles on the April-May U.S. riots, prison, crime and drugs. I much prefer to read about these sorts of day-to-day problems resulting from the capitalist reality, and how they can be overcome, than about abstract intellectual issues like postmodernism. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd say most people are too busy working out how they're going to survive next week and next year to worry about that kind of stuff. Sometimes it is interesting and worthwhile but I would like to see more down-to-earth material about resisting authority and taking back control of our lives. The letters pages are always a good read. The massive U.S.A. riots in April-May sent rays of hope and inspiration around the world. Even in this little town people were getting excited and spraypainted messages of support for the uprising appeared on walls. For several days we were enthralled as the mass media informed us that the rioting continues in the land of the free(!) The capitalist media put a wet blanket on it of course, with its insidious lies and distortions. As a result even some people who should have known better started to believe it was just mindless thuggery and black racism against whites and Koreans and "stupid black people burning down their own neighborhoods." But the insurrection was so huge and widespread that these distortions were only partially successful. The message was clear except for those who didn't want to hear it. Next time we'll take it beyond borders, we hope. But we have to learn how to organize ourselves. A lot of work needed there. Continue to resist. S.6, Darwin, Australia A good gang-bang Dear editor, I just picked up Anarchy #34 (first time I ever saw your magazine) and I'm impressed. You really do have the guts to stick up for what anarchy really means, from defending the `looting' in L.A. to attacking age-of-consent laws. L.C. hit the nail on the head (page 66), drug laws, vandalism laws, age-of-consent laws, it's all just laws against freedom. The only thing I don't get is the attitude about rape (mostly in the letters section). Why aren't "anti-rape laws" on L.C.'s list? After all, in a real anarchist society, there wouldn't be laws against anything, right? If looting is OK, why isn't rape? It's the same principle. You see what you want, you go for it, and if the `owner' doesn't want to let you have it, too bad for them! Rape is a very empowering thing for men of the suppressed underclass, especially racial minorities. That kind of man is surrounded every day on the street by yuppie (mostly whites) women who do all they can to look as classy and tantalizing as possible but would never in a million years consider letting a "social inferior" fuck them, just like he's surrounded by ads and store windows flaunting goods at him that he knows he'll never be able to afford. Check out the lady in the collage on page 47. Could she use a good gang-bang to show her what it's all about, or what? If it happened, would you feel sorry her, or would you cheer the guys on? The real revolution will mean "open season" on overprivileged, sheltered women like her. Even better, if an anarchist society gets rid of high-tech, they won't be able to get abortions afterward! "Fear of a Tad Planet" had the right idea: "selective forced mis- cegenation." As I said, you've got a good, gutsy magazine here, but I think you need to be a little more open-minded about this particular subject. Sincerely, A.I., Berkeley, CA. Jason aka L.C. responds: Genteel racism There will always be cunning opponents of revolution posing as gen- teel supporters of the status quo. Such people wil always ignore the results of the enforced misery of the system they defend. Instead, they exploit racism, fear of the underclass and the fear of freedom to further their agenda of mass repression and mass mur- der in the pursuit of profit...and in the name of a hundred imaginary ideals, including the defense of upper-class women from the threat of underclass rapists. Though, it's not too often that we get such articulately reactionary letters as the one above. A.I. sounds like he would have been quite at home as a propagandist on the staff of Alabama governor George Wallace or any KKK local back in the sixties. He earns my complete contempt and I invite him and other would-be racist demagogues to fuck off. Greek Orthodox protest Greetings from us at @.B.W.!!! On October 25th I flipped open the new issue of Anarchy. The first thing that angered me was the repression update written by a fellow from Greece. I have read past reports here and there as the main news sources do not print info on this subject. I then flipped open the local paper here in Albany, NY. to find that the General Consul, Stratos Doukas was going to speak at a Greek Orthodox church here two days from them. Acting quickly, we reproduced an edited version of the account of brutality and got together a couple of friends and went to the service on Sunday. There wasn't enough time to organize a media event or protest but we did give this flyer to members of the con- gregation and confronted them about this brutality by the government. Although we did not get to speak to the consul himself we got to argue the points with some of his big men security. They were quite surprised and very nervous anyone showed up at all. They constantly told us his trip here was not political and to go away. We told them that being a consul is very political and to let us in to speak with him and generally just had fun giving his men a hard time. Hopefully we reached out to inform the congregation that these acts of police state are taking place and promoted an issue here in Albany as well as letting the consul know there are others all over that know about these atrocities. I hope this helped your cause a little if not put a little pressure on the old boy at least. Good luck with your struggle for Freedom. Splatt and friends, A Better World POB 1834 Albany, NY. 12201-1834 Ps. This letter was sent to a few people in Greece. Non-thought and race hatred Dear Anarchy, Q. What do Nazis (Neo and Paleo), Larouche zombies, Marxists and now, apparently, anarchists, have in common? A. An insatiable desire for the destruction of Israel. I'm not talking about the dismantling of the State of Israel; I mean dead Jews - the more the better. Re your review of Confessions of a Holocaust Revisionist in Anarchy #34, I'm disappointed that a publication such as yours, which I have generally found to be both refreshingly free and incisively critical of left platitudes, would stoop to the kind of non-thought and race hatred evidenced in this piece. To begin with, the reviewer assumes a ridiculously untenable `neutrality' towards the whole subject of Holocaust Revisionism, accepting the author's claims that the nature and extent of Nazi atrocities are fabrications. This is like a science journal giving credence to the basic premises of Creationists' arguments. The mistake in both cases is confusing the form with the content. The writers of both Holocaust Revisionist and Creationism tracts have learned that mimicking the form and presentation of academic historical or scientific publications lends a cachet of seriousness and respectability to their work. At base, however, neither are interested in advancing knowledge, but only in promoting crackpot theories with no factual basis. Either evolution happened or God has a strange sense of humor, because when I get up in the morning, unshaven and with a hard-on, I look a hell of a lot like an ape. Either the Holocaust happened or my grandfather went on vacation to Poland in a German train and liked it so much he stayed for fifty years. Common sense tells you most of what you need to know in deciding these questions. To continue, the reviewer states that it is "undeniable that `The Holocaust' has [his emphasis] been magnified into a larger than life tale of historical racial persecution - largely in order to justify the continuing atrocities by Zionists in the racist state of Israel." This one sentence is so loaded with shit that I am nearly unable to dig myself out in order to respond. First off, the literature on the Holocaust is primarily made up of two types of accounts: the personal narratives of authors such as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Jorge Semprun (a non-Jewish Spanish leftist), and many others whose works are, for the most part, attempts to unburden themselves of the horrible memories and guilt feelings they experienced in the camps, and to try to make some sense or derive some meaning from the fact of their own survival. To have read any of these stories and believe that they are propaganda requires a truly deranged mind. The second type of Holocaust literature consists of academic and popular historical accounts. I will ignore the popular accounts - films like Holocaust - since they are intended to sell deodorant. As for the academics (e.g. Dawidowisc), they have been benefitted by the German predilection for `efficiency' and bureaucracy; two pursuits that require infinite amounts of documentation and records. The simple fact is that we know not only that millions (not "hundreds of thousands" as your reviewer ingenuously asserts) of Jews, gays, gypsies, communists and anarchists were killed in the death camps; we also know their names, their cities of origin, and how and when they died, because the Nazis (not the victims) wrote everything down. What one chooses to do with this information is irrelevant to the fact of its existence. The fact that the Holocaust has been so frequently analyzed, discussed, and thus generally become part of the common cultural knowledge of the West is due in part, then, to the Nazi penchant for record keeping. Pol Pot probably never generated a tenth of the paperwork of Himmler. The other reason is that Jews tend to analyze, discuss and write about things that are important to them. Only recently have American Indian, Cambodian and Armenian docu- ments relating to their genocides been made generally available or been written. I hope for these peoples' and the world's sake that more is written and disseminated. So, let's talk about those goddamn `Zionists' and their "racist state of Israel." If we understand that a Zionist is someone who believes in a national homeland in Israel for the Jews, then all Israelis are Zionists, and therefore, according to the reviewer, all are guilty of committing atrocities. This is clearly a ridiculous statement. If, on the other hand, the term Zionist as used here equates to the U.N. and Arab world's definition of Zionism as racism, then the sentence is simply redundant. Either way, the information content is nil. It is of course just possible that the reviewer intended only to refer to that part (a too powerful minority) of the Israeli polity that believes in "Greater Israel" (i.e. no return of land to Arabs) and promotes hatred of Palestinians, or to a specific government's military policy of repression of Palestinian political activity. This is not at all evident and I suspect that the reviewer is less interested in informing or analyzing than in sloganeering and Jew-baiting. Israel is a diverse society, where despite the burden of military press censorship, there is a broad spectrum of ideas being discussed, an active peace movement working toward reconciliation with the Palestinians (some of their publications are reviewed in Anarchy), and a degree of self-criticism not possible elsewhere in that part of the world (Palestinians who reject the party line of `rejectionism' are frequently killed as collaborators). I might mention Yoram Binur's My Enemy, Myself, as an example of Israel's attempt to understand its dilemma with regard to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Binur (an Israeli Jew) followed the example of Black Like Me and, posing as a Palestinian Arab, worked as a menial laborer for Jewish employers. His account of racism and humiliation cuts deep into Israelis' self-conception that they are tolerant and lacking prejudice. The point is that thinking Israelis, like thinking people of all countries, are willing to look at the undesirable aspects of their national behav- ior and willing to attempt change. As for the "racist state of Israel," does the writer intend us to understand that the state apparatus of Israel, like that of Canada and Belgium and every other state in the world, is guilty of perpetrating and encouraging racism? I don't think so. The essential message conveyed by terms (as used here) like Zionism and "racist state" has nothing to do with an anarchist critique of the state as such, or even with its particular manifestation in Israel (compared, you got to be kidding, by the reviewer to Nazi Germany as "another of the most powerful and ruthless states the world has ever known"), but rather is nothing but the same tired old Marx- ist/Arab call for the destruction of the Israelis as people. After all, Jews are OK if they are powerless or better dead; it's those nasty ones with guns and typewriters and politics that get so annoying. Yah, there are racist Jews, greedy Jews, even cruel Jews in Israel and everywhere else our presence has been tolerated; but only Marxists, Nazis, Arabs and their sympathizers attempt to use this to justify elimination of a people. Finally, it is ironic that your reviewer claims so vehemently that Israel uses appeals to the Holocaust to bolster its racist policies at a time when the changing demographics of the country leave it populated largely by Jews whose parents were not refugees from Europe. The racism - or at least great distrust - towards Arabs by these people stems from the direct or recounted experience of abuse and humiliation as second class citizens in racist Arab countries such as Yemen and Syria. It is rarely mentioned that the 1948 war resulted in an exchange of refugees between Israel and Arab countries. These Jews don't need the Holocaust to be reminded of the fragility of their existence; the proximity of their old `hosts' is enough, and SCUD attacks only serve to drive the point home. My purpose in this letter is to encourage contributors to Anarchy to avoid bandying about hate-charged code words and phrases which serve to obfuscate rather than clarify complex issues. A publication which sees itself as dedicated to cutting through the enslaving rhetoric of contemporary mass society should be wary of the special lexicon (some of it pointedly anti-Semitic) that Marxists, Fascists, Stalinists and their ilk have historically used to crush individuality and discourage free thought. Sincerely, J.R., N. Hollywood, CA. Jason responds: Anti-semite-baiting is despicable The massive hypocrisy of J.R.'s letter is truly breathtaking. He tells us in a serious tone that the purpose of his letter "is to encourage contributors to Anarchy to avoid bandying about hate- charged code words and phrases." Yet his aim throughout this same letter is to consistently and insistently claim that any criticism of the holy state of Israel can only come from `anti-Semitic', `Jew-baiting', `race-hatred' requiring "a truly deranged mind." Of course, no evidence for any of these baseless charges is ever given - only a piling on of epithets, non-sequiturs and self-righteous defensiveness. Charges of anti-semitism are wearing thinner and thinner nowadays precisely because they have so often and for so long been thrown around with such abandon whenever anyone anywhere has the indiscretion to question or criticize the Israeli state for its behavior and its policies. And J.R.'s anti-Semite-baiting is as despicable as these charges come. The real facts are that: (1) In my review I never once questioned the existence of the Nazi death camps, nor did I question the fact of the massive imprison- ment and effective elimination of Central and Eastern European Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, communists, anarchists and others. As anyone with a shred of integrity will note, my review was critical of Bradley Smith's Confessions of a Holocaust Revisionist precisely because "from a few examples of exaggeration..., of baseless anti- Nazi propaganda stories, and of Zionist prevarication in the service of Jewish nationalism, Smith jumps to the conslusion that the Jewish holocaust never happened and that the Nazis have been unfairly taken advantage of in the annals of popular history." (The quotation is from my review.) As I went on to say in the review of the book, "what purpose is really served by a campaign to completely dismiss the actual suffering of hundreds of thousands of people at the hands of another of the most powerful states the world has known? Unfortunately, the sappy writing in Confessions...is not just sloppy `revisionism', it even fails to convincingly `confess' why the author has made it his `job' to mount a one-man anti-holocaust crusade on college campuses. Save your five bucks. This is a pamphlet worth missing." (2) "The Holocaust" has been magnified into a larger-than-life tale of historical persecution - that's why in popular Western terms it is almost always referred to as the absolute epitome of evil, rather than as one particular episode amidst a number of other epi- sodes of similar scale and horror - like the genocidal European conquest of the Americas, the Stalinist terror, the Armenian geno- cide, the U.S. annihilation of the Vietnamese, the genocidal U.S. & Israeli-supported death squads in Central & South America, etc. In common with this magnification has been the romanticization of the `idealistic' Zionist resistance (despite the fact that the Zionists were effectively Nazi collaborators - see Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, especially the chapter "German Zionism Offers to Collaborate with Nazism") and the creation of the `heroic' Israeli state on the corpses of its genetically-defined enemies. (3) In regard to excessive military power and its ruthless employm- ent, Israel is certainly now playing in the same league with any other modern state except for the U.S., Russia and possibly China. Already by 1982 the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies estimated that Israel's military power was exceeded by only the U.S., the USSR and China. While Israelis themselves ranked themselves higher, describing Israeli power as lagging behind only the U.S. and USSR. Given the massively increased firepower developed since World War II (especially in the last decade), this clearly puts modern Israel in a position to have overpowered a 1939 Nazi Germany should one wish to imagine such a contest. Thus there is every reason in my review to describe Nazi Germany as "another of the most powerful and ruthless states the world has known," rather than demonizing only the Nazi state in order to play along with the media cover-up for the current and continuing massive list of atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. and Israel, as well as by the former USSR, China and other powerful states. (4) As Lenni Brenner has noted in Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, "Zionism is not now, nor was it ever, co-extensive with either Judaism or the Jewish people...It is scarcely necessary to add that all attempts to equate Jews and Zionists, and therefore to attack Jews as such, are criminal...." In the same fashion, attempts to equate Jews and Zionists, and therefore to attack anti- Zionists as anti-Semitic, are disgusting as well. Zionism is an explicitly racist, settler-state ideology. The fact remains that a significant, if minority, portion of the Israeli population remains anti-racist and thus anti-Zionist, despite J.R.'s illogical contortions attempting to prove otherwise. For example, Israel Shahak, a retired professor at Hebrew University and a survivor of the Nazi terror, wrote in 1977, "By any standard the State of Isra- el must be considered a racist state. After all, citizens of this state fall prey to a perfectly legal and firmly institutionalized discrimination, depending on nothing but their ethnic origins. Far from being marginal, this racist discrimination affects the most basic needs and vital interests of its victims. In my view it originates with the Zionist ideology. Consequently, the Zionist movement organizations, acting in concert with the state authori- ties, are the primary carriers of racism." (5) The obvious reason that the institutionally embedded racism of the state of Israel is so often singled out by world opinion (often comparing it to South African apartheid), is that it is so obvi- ously expressed in Israel's brutal displacement and bloody suppres- sion of native Palestinians. There is no humane justification for such treatment, only the racist, expansionist justifications of the Zionists. I'm sure J.R. is aware that Israel was founded on an explicitly racist basis, though he will not admit this. When the officially Jewish state was founded, it proclaimed the "Law of Return," a law which allows pedigreed Jews from anywhere in the world to assume automatic Israeli citizenship as well as extensive housing and income allowances, while at the same time the native Palestinians who were driven from their land are denied re-entry, and those still within the Israeli borders are increasingly denied participation in all facets of society. For those in the occupied territories, treatment rivals that dispensed by the Nazis to ghetto residents during World War Two. For readers unfamiliar with the history leading to the current situation in Israel and the occupied territories, I highly recommend two books for a firm grounding in reality instead of ideology: Noam Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle, and Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. In addition, I highly recommend subscriptions to two Israeli periodicals which cover the current situation: Challenge (POB 14338, Tel Aviv 61142, Israel) and The Other Israel (ICIPP, POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel). Check the "Alternative press review" in this issue for details. Missouri censorship Dear People, I was notified 9/29/92 that Anarchy #34, was confiscated by the mailroom and censored by the "censorship committee" (all asst. superintendents) because the publication "advocates armed disobedience and criminals as heroes." I was then asked to sign a "Covenant Not To Sue" which I refused to sign. It appears that at Moberly (MO) Correctional Center (M.C.C.) we are not allowed freedom of thought, and if we have any hopes or dreams then we'd better keep them secret before Big Brother confiscates them as contraband as well! I was not given a chance to rebut their decision nor to receive even the articles in the issue they did find acceptable. What I find most absurd is that in the local college at the prison, of which I am a graduate, Civil Disobedience and The Declaration of Independence were required reading! White and Black supremacy magazines are allowed in. Of course, Anarchy and publications by Native American groups such as A.I.M. are targeted for censorship. I hope your publisher will call Teresa Thornburg, committee chair, and protest this censorship, and perhaps request your readers to xerox copies of articles from Anarchy #34 and send them to me as I enjoy expanding my mind. By protesting this censorship, I subject myself to the harassment of the department, but when I believe the "keepers of the human zoo" have overstepped the bounds of their fascist authority, I do protest, and this is only one of the battles I have waged over basic human rights. Please allow me to say, keep fighting, and someday we may free Mother Earth. Mitakuye Oyasin. Paul "Medicine Bear" Bosch #170455 M.C.C. P.O. Box 7 3A678 Moberly, MO 65270 Capitalist anarchism Dear Mr. Price, I read your review of Laws of the Jungle [see Anarchy #34, page 15] with great interest and would like to make a few comments on it. But first I have to apologize for my overly free use of the word anarchist. When I wrote the book, I was only vaguely aware that calling myself an anarchist might provoke some hard feelings among people who feel that they are the only true anarchists. It be- fuddles me when some anarchist insults another by casting doubt on his anarchism or excommunicates him from the great church of anar- chy. My definition of government is that group of people who hold the generally accepted monopoly on the use of acceptable violence. That's what I'm against. You conclude your review by characterizing my ideas on anarchy as "Chauvinistic, conservative, stateless, but certainly not anarchy." By my definition, statelessness is anarchy. Perhaps we disagree. I hope I can put the first two adjectives in a little more perspective. Anarchocapitalism is an unfortunate choice of label. I do come from that tradition but I don't think I ever used the word itself. For now, let's call these people Libertarian Party Anarchists (LPAs). The LPAs I know use the word capitalism in a specialized way that probably misleads many people. To an LPA, capitalism is any economic activity without government intervention of any kind. To the modern English speaker, capitalism is the American economic system. When an LPA calls himself an anarchocapitalist, many listeners hear anarcho-fascist because the American system is substantially that partnership of state, capital, and labor celebrated by Mussolini. The LPA understands an anarchocapitalist to be an anarchist who favors an economic system without government intervention. To him, it's a sort of tautology. I suppose that he uses the label to comfort people but he often misleads them. I know that anarchocapitalists have written books showing how the functions of the state can be taken over by capitalistic enterprises. But even the most utopian of these writers would not deny the possibility that other economic systems could exist in anarchy. Nor would their existence distress them. I did not paint a picture of large corporations taking over the state's functions and I don't think most LPAs have that vision in mind. They certainly believe that there's a place for large businesses in anarchy. But let's say that an LPA came across some people living in stateless syndicalism. I don't know if you would permit them to call themselves anarchists but that's what the LPA would call them. Furthermore, the LPA would call their economic arrangement anarchocapitalism because there would be no government intervention in their economy. I know it sounds stupid but that's what LPAs mean by capitalism. I suppose some would be horrified by stateless collectivism and some might even disagree with my definition. But most LPAs mean economic anarchy when they speak of capitalism. You rightly say that I "fail to challenge the underlying hierar- chical assumptions of capitalism." I'm only interested in reducing and eliminating the state; the whole social and economic structure can be left as it is. If there's something wrong with that system, it's up to the people in it to change it to their liking, not mine. I've even suggested a method for destroying government's monopoly without touching anything else. [My] essay, "Biarchy," outlines a method for turning the Republican and Democratic parties into private enterprises that compete for tax dollars. When I talk about what will happen without a state, I only predict. Your magazine prescribes. I predict that some very large businesses will continue to exist without a state. If I turn out to be wrong, I'll admit I was mistaken. At least, I'll try to weasel out of my prediction. If Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed's prescriptions are not followed, you will simply pronounce, "stateless, but not anarchy." I've tried not to make too many predictions about the shape of anarchy because I'm afraid that my predictions will be taken as descriptions or even prescriptions. You might label me "propertarian" since I believe that current concepts of property ownership will persist without a state; but I'm sure that other forms of ownership will also exist. They do now. You have a nice paragraphy linking anarchocapitalism to Reaganomics; and I can see how you wouldn't want to leave it out. But I think you're a little too eager to brand me an anarchocapitalist so that I can fit your attack. When I predict that nearly everyone might accept "No trespassing" as a single law that everyone might accept, you seize on the prediction and chide me for codifying the status quo. If the workers seize all the industrial property and set up a stateless communism, I wouldn't be disturbed a bit, as long as they did not form a state to prohibit other economic systems. To me, the problem is the state and its monopoly on violence. Once that is gone, we will probably have economic systems that neither of us imagine (or perhaps approve of). Maybe I misunderstand your suspicion of a "No trespassing" agreement. Would it be OK for a group of capitalists to seize the communists' property by force? If you mean "Everyone may trespass," I understand and agree. But if you have a certain class of people in mind who may trespass with impunity, we already have that. We call it the state. I've heard Libertarian Party members suggest that a benevolent Libertarian despot would be very desirable. Such a tyrant would limit government to national defense and the protection of life and property. I disagree with these people. They think their own conceptions of ownership are self-evident and don't realize that they would be using the state to uphold their unexamined system. No one in America could believe that there is one obvious religion that everyone would naturally subscribe to. We have something very close to religious anarchy in America today: the state has only a minimal influence over religion and that is waning. But even as the last vestiges of state control over religion are being destroyed, religion and religious fanaticism are stronger than ever. We see that the results of religious anarchy are not atheism or even the destruction of hierarchical religious assumptions. I can't think that Anarchy is pleased with the strength of many American religions. Could it be that total anarchy will not deliver the economic system you have in mind? Just as religious anarchy has allowed people to seek religious gratification in different (and sometimes bizarre) ways, so anarchy would free them to find social and economic systems that they find agreeable. Will it break your heart if a lot of people choose something like the status quo? Will you then long for a benevolent despot? You refer to my "muddled form of anarcho-capitalism." If you understand how most Libertarians use the word "capitalism," you see that anarcho- capitalism is, by its nature, a muddled mess. It's just like the American religious system. There is no American religious system. People do what they want to. Is this chaos bad? I don't think so. Personally, any religious consensus would scare me to death. I don't doubt that the writers of Anarchy are passionately committed to a host of positions. But this very fervor is a problem for me. Can't a racist be against the state? Can't the rich man inherit the kingdom of Anarchy? I don't know anyone who agrees with Anarchy on every issue. Let's say we both agree that slavery is wrong and ought to be ended. You tell me, "We have to challenge the hierarchical assumptions that lead to slavery and the wage slavery we call capitalism." I reply, "Uh?" You elaborate, "Slavery and capitalism are really the same thing; it's futile to destroy slavery and leave capitalism intact. Masterless, yes, but hardly free." I would certainly be convinced that you were against capitalism but I would doubt your seriousness about ending slavery. From your point of view, I have failed to come to terms with the real economic issues and so have apologized for the present system. From my point of view, you have yoked a political platform to the simple idea of statelessness and so have turned anarchy into your personal property. I, too, wish we could find different words to describe ourselves but I'll just have to keep calling myself an anarchist because there's no other word in English for what I believe. I thank you for your attention to my book. You must have found parts of it excruciating. And I would also like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to write three pages without once answering the question, "Yeah, but what if someone killed your wife?" Best wishes, Allen Thornton, Vermilion, OH. Ben G. Price responds: Who'd believe it? Mr. Thornton: Your critique of my review of your book is laced with misinfor- mation and/or misunderstanding. To clear up a few of the most glaring examples, I am writing this response. First, Anarchy is not `my' magazine, and when I write that your book prescribes (`predicts', if you insist) a society that is "stateless, but not anarchy," I am in no way demanding that your ideas should adhere to some agenda that you suggest is being promoted by the publishers of Anarchy. I do not speak for them. I have never met them. I write reviews that they either publish or reject, based on their own criteria. Now, if they only publish the reviews I write with which they agree, I continue to express my own point of view in each instance. You will necessarily get a rather one dimensional view of me, if that's the case. But I am not a magazine. I am not Anarchy. I speak for myself. I'm not even sure I qualify for the term `anarchist'. But if you want to call yourself an anarchist you won't be offending me. Your point is a good one, that people who identify themselves as `anarchists' spend an inordinate amount of time and energy arguing over who is the "only true anarchist," as you put it. From my point of view, what you are is defined more by what you do than by what label you volunteer to wear. Labels are a form of social camouflage. You say in your letter that you come from the `tradition' of anarchocapitalism, and you suggest we "call these people Liber- tarian Party Anarchists (LPAs)." If LPAs want to call themselves anarchocapitalists or anarchists, fine. If at the same time they want to say they oppose government coercion, I think they are being disingenuous, if your representation of their point of view is accurate. Rather than continue to disagree over the definition of terms, let's settle for some of the definitions you propose in your letter and then see if there's anything consistently anti-coercive in what you promote, by whatever name: 1) "My definition of government is that group of people who hold the generally accepted monopoly on the use of acceptable violence." You say, "this is what I'm against." But this eminently acceptable definition seems to get flushed away as you continue to discuss the meaning and implications of the form of `anarchy' promoted in your book and defended in your letter. Let's have a look at your next definition: 2) "By my definition, statelessness is anarchy." Admitting that your book fails to challenge the underlying hier- archical assumptions of capitalism, you go on to suggest "economic anarchy" as the definition of capitalism acceptable to LPAs. In other words, capitalism without "the state." You say, "I'm only interested in reducing and eliminating the state; the whole social and economic structure can be left as it is." This stance defines our difference, and it is the essence of my scepticism about your opposition to government, as you define it. My criticism doesn't come from a preference for collectivist coercion (a preference you seem to impute to me). I focus on the kind of corporate coercion you seem loath to admit exists because it is germane to a discussion in which one party promotes unfettered capitalism. I'm all for your definition of government, so let's stick to it. The `state' may embody the monopoly on acceptable violence in this historic era of nation-states. But if nation-states were to be swept away, would the monopoly on violence go with it, or would the power to `govern' be assumed by the more powerful entitites in the social and economic structure you wouldn't mind preserving? 3) "Anarchofascism...that partnership of state, capital, and labor celebrated by Mussolini." You say that when you talk about anarchocapitalism many people confuse it with an image of `anarchofascism'. Your `clarification' of the issue is unsettling: "The LPA understands an anar- chocapitalist to be an anarchist who favors an economic system without government intervention." I'll bet that really successful anarchocapitalists wouldn't mind getting rid of government intervention in their business enterprises. Yes, Ronald Reagan and his cronies, for instance. But isn't that the "partnership of state, capital, and labor" you talked about when you defined the term `anarchofascism'? If any social entity, be it state, church, corporation, guild, union, mob, army, etc., can supercede your will, dictate your behavior, and coerce certain social interactions, whether personal or economic, does this not consti- tute a government, by your definition? And in the presence of such a coercive monopoly, can anarchy, by any definition, be argued to exist? I suppose you could argue that, unlike `states', corporations don't control a monopoly on violence, since there are so many corporations competing against each other. There are also quite a few states competing against each other. So perhaps at issue is the size of the social arena in which coercion and violence take place? A state practices a monopoly on violence within its borders and its colonies. A corporation practices coercion and violence only insofar as its lobbyist can cajole and buy government influence, and in the offices of its domain, where it can dictate everything from dress codes to party affiliations, lifestyles to random drug tests. Of course, some corporations are larger than some nation states, so the argument gets rather blurry. We could find ourselves arguing that when Union Carbide's poison inadvertantly kills off hundreds of people with gases it intended to sell to states who would then use the poison to intentionally kill off thousands of people, that we should like to see the disbanding of the states, but not the corporation that profits from its activities. I find myself pondering how hard it is to be for a brand of anarchy that promises business as usual. If "that state" functioned the way history's travel brochures, the world's heap of national constitutions, say they are supposed to, we might have a better opinion of the institution. We might say that what we `like' about the state are the regulations it imposes on others more powerful than us so that they do not use violence and coercion against us. But in real life, the things we hate about "the state" are when it uses violence and coercion against us. The reason we dislike government probably isn't because it prevents us from using coercion and violence against others. We dislike it because it claims to protect us, then overtaxes us to insure that `protection', but instead victimizes and extorts "protection mon- ey," that it turns around and gives to our oppressors. Getting rid of the state would probably change the method of collection, but I don't think getting rid of the state and keeping the social and economic structures intact will do much to enhance anyone's life. It would finish the task of freeing fascistic capitalism from public accountability. Absent the state, the IRS might not be the tax man to whom you answer, but I have little doubt that some functionary of the surviving hierarchy will collect a `tithe', a tax, or a plain payoff at regular intervals. I fall back on the description of this arrangement I used in my review of your book: Feudalism. Ah, the good old days! Just what kind of economic system "total anarchy," as you put it, would deliver I don't presume to say. When you use the phrase "total anarchy" it has overtones that ring like the word `chaos'. In common parlance, chaos suggests rudderless mayhem. So too does the term `anarchy'. Ill defined terms seem to be the order of the day. You say that I have "yoked a political platform to the simple idea of statelessness and so have turned anarchy into (my) personal property." I was going to object, but on second thought, why not agree on this: although I have not advanced anyone's political platform, I do, in fact, claim anarchy as my personal property! Isn't that the whole point? I'm saying that my life, my lifestyle, and the governance of my affairs belong to me! Anyone claiming to be an anarchist, supporting the notion of a stateless society, but willing to abide coercive hierarchies in a technically stateless society, just lost his claim to owning a piece of the kind of anarchy I claim as my personal possession. And the kind of system he promotes isn't what I think of as anarchy. But I certainly wouldn't dream of depriving him of his right to call himself an `anarchist'. So far, I can still get away with calling him what I think he is, and that's all I really ask for. But now that I've had my say, here's an excerpt from the review of your book I could have written: "A fantastic, intellectually stimulating and objective romp through the coming stateless society! Predictions of utopian peace and harmony that are demonstrably the natural outgrowth of capitalism, freed from the bondage of government! A philosopher's tour de force! A statesman's recipe for social renewal! It's morning in America!" Nah. Who'd ever believe a line like that? Consenting child Dear Editor, I write as a response to Joel Featherstone's excellent article in the 1992 Summer edition of Anarchy which he titled, "Positive Child-Adult Sex: The Evidence." I have long wanted to hear the pro side of the argument on this subject. I thank him for presenting it eloquently and I thank Anarchy for printing it. One side in this argument has too long dominated (and slanted) the issue. Open discussion on this issue is not usually allowed. Since Mr. Featherstone has started perhaps the first real dialogue on the issue as a psychotherapist I would like to continue it. The present professional stand on child-adult sex is not one that has been developed by professionals. Judges, politicians and legislatures have dictated a law that professionals must follow. The age of consent was set politically by government authority not by professionals who researched or understood the subject. In fact so little open discussion has been allowed to be presented that fear and not reason has prevailed. Lack of open discussion and legal interference have prevented professionals (or anyone) from openly exploring the issue. In an attempt to join with Mr. Featherstone in serious consider- ation of the subject I would like to relate more information that is rarely considered on this topic. Since this information comes in the form of my personal experiences with being a consenting child many years ago I will not sign this letter. I am sure that most people will understand the emotional pressures that make this necessary. The issue of consenting children is close to me because I once was one. I more than consented to having sex with adults, I seduced adults of both sexes. I continue to think lovingly of my adult partners from my childhood. I enjoyed every sexual contact I had with adults when I was a child. Still there is a hitch that I feel must be considered. As I am now a psychotherapist I must consider the issue of sex with children very seriously. I know that I must take a position that will protect children from psychological harm. I do not allow myself to be influenced by panic peddlers on the issue especially since my own experiences give me a unique perspective that cuts through blind fear. As a political person I understand the long range ramifications of the positions I take. I also see the slanting of this issue by professionals who are closed minded. I try not to be closed minded. I consider both sides and I hope Mr. Featherstone will find more public formats so we can all consider the issue from a completely educated position. I would like to tell you my own story because it illustrates many points that I feel are important. I am a male from the baby boom generation. I was lovingly fondled sexually while still a small infant by my mother and grandmother. In the case of my grandmother this continued until I was about age six. This had a powerful psychological effect on me that I feel is pertinent to the issue. What happened has been revealed to also have happened to others whom I have given therapy to. At the age of six I came to understand the enormous consequences that would occur if my grandmother and I were ever caught. For that reason I stopped consenting to the sex we had been having. We never mentioned it again and I believe she died thinking that I had forgotten it before I reached adulthood. The issue however did not end there. My mother and grandmother had woken in me a deep love for sex. This is in fact the classic pattern. Since the sex we had was very loving I associated sex strongly with love. When I stopped having sex I no longer felt loved. My mother beat me quite often because she was raised to believe that she should not spare the rod. Her demonstrations of love were sporadic at best. My love and my sensitivity had been opened up with the very powerful tool of sex and then the love was turned off. The emotional pain after I had first been opened up was very severe. I began to seek sex at the age of six because without it I did not feel loved. I went to my peers for sex and was rejected because no one had turned on their sexuality as mine had been turned on. As a sexual six year old my peers only considered me weird and avoided me. I became more isolated because I was different. Make no mistake children who are as sexual as adults are a minority and will be treated different. Rejected by children who did not yet have a sexuality I turned to adults for sex. I knew this was dangerous because I knew that some adults who have sex with children are abusive. I was very careful. When I could seduce an adult they were usually quite normal people who were without a partner and would not have chosen a child if they had a choice. I could see afterwards that they felt very guilty for breaking the rules and having sex with me. I loved the sex but it was often hard to make them repeat it because of their guilt. Sometimes I felt that I was bad because I had manipulated them and they regretted what they had done. At about 12 I was able to find more frequent but still not regular sex with male pedophiles (ok in a pinch but I would have preferred females). Sometimes I felt guilty, bad or dirty because that is how I was treated on the occasions that it was discovered that I had a fully awake sexuality. I came to hate myself due to being rejected for my sexuality and also because of my homosexual acts and desires. You see while my sexuality was awake all of my reasoning powers were not. In the absence of a supportive group of gays which an adult would find I was unable to fight off the criticism that homosexuality (or my bisexuality) was bad. I was only a child but I had to fight adult authority. In the absence of a support group to tell me that it was ok to be sexual I believed people who told me I was dirty, bad and abnormal. I often hated myself for being sexual but I couldn't stop. I would even hate myself for desiring sex while I was abstinent. The worst pain of all was that it was so hard to find partners who could keep the secret. I often went months without sex because partners were hard to find. I can't tell you how much this hurt. Without sex I had trouble feeling loved. The constant desire for sex hurt a great deal when I couldn't get it which was most of the time. I was isolated socially because I was sexual, also I felt emotionally abandoned and rejected when I did not have a partner. Most of my childhood was painful because of these things. When I finally became an adult I had to seek therapy because my childhood was so different and difficult that it left me with many scars. So you see the factor of consenting children is not the whole issue. We know from studies done inthe Pacific Islands that consenting children can have healthy sex with adults. But can our society protect consenting children at this time? My childhood was ruined from my consent as was part of my adult life ruined from the aftermath. Perhaps it would be better to say I was ruined by the aloneness of rarely having anyone to consent with. After an adult woke up my sexuality the society around me could not handle a sexual child and so punished that child and forced a cruel isolation on him. I felt beauty and love while having sex with adults when I was a child but the aftermath was hell. Actually the aftermath could have been worse. Once a child with his sexuality open begins to seek sex what will he find? I found some loving sex but also rejection from narrow people who did not want children to be sexual. I was lucky I did not seek sex so hard that I found sick people who hurt children. If this had happened I may never have recovered instead of only spending 10 years recovering. Think hard about this. Look at the increase in drug use and vio- lence. What does a sexual child find if he uses a child's restricted judgment to find a partner. A child does not see the warning signs of drug use or psychosis, he seeks only love. He may find a nightmare. As a person who was once a consenting child I agree with Mr. Featherstone that child/adult sex can be beautiful. But can we protect children from the possible dangers in this obviously sick society? We are a much more violent and abusive culture than the Pacific Islanders who have sex with children. Unlike them we can not protect the children from the extreme ramifications that may result. If you must have sex with children go to the Pacific where a whole culture will protect the children, in America the dangers are simply too great. New Reader, somewhere in IL.