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Who are the Real Authoritarians
Rejoinder to "anti-authoritarians who booted socialists from book fair and call for boycott of conference.
Who are the real authoritarians?
The Midwest Matches and Mayhem anarchist gathering in Chicago billed itself as a forum where radical ideas and strategies would be discussed and debated. But at Saturday afternoon’s book fair, members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) who had paid and registered for a table were booted from the book fair in the name of anti-authoritarian anarchism. Organizers of the event, unlike the overwhelming majority of participants, demanded that organized socialists not be allowed to sell literature and discuss ideas at their anti-authoritarian event. Today, there is an email message from an anti-authoritarian anarchist on the Indymedia site calling for a boycott of the ISO’s Socialist Summer School where hundreds of militants from the U.S., Latin America, Africa, and Europe will debate politics and strategies for the current struggles.
Why the attempt to silence organized socialists and prevent political activists from hearing for themselves what socialists have to say? These anarchists are exposing the contradictions of their own ideas.
In the name of anti-authoritarianism, these anarchists defend the right of a tiny, unelected leadership to impose its authority on other revolutionaries. Many of the literature tables at the event were filled with writings by socialists, but it seems that only those who act on the arguments in those books were targeted for removal. Howard Zinn’s writings were available on many tables, yet only the ISO’s "Why You Should be a Socialist" with a foreword by Zinn and his play "Marx in Soho" touring the U.S. with all proceeds going to the ISO’s magazine were banned.
There is a new left developing out of the anti-globalization, Palestinian solidarity, civil rights and other struggles erupting in cities across the country. All of us on the left have to learn how to work together in these movements and how to debate our disagreements, not shut them down. We all have a common enemy in the capitalist system that destroys lives, the environment and our future—and if we’re serious about fighting for an alternative society, open debate is crucial. All those who want hear from activists in the Maquiladoras and Black union militants in South Carolina and who want to hear for themselves a socialist analysis of history, theory and current perspectives—including those who disagree—are welcome at the ISO’s summer school June 14-17 in Chicago. Check it out at http://www.socialistsummerschool.org.
http://www.socialistsummerschool.org
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The Midwest Matches and Mayhem anarchist gathering in Chicago billed itself as a forum where radical ideas and strategies would be discussed and debated. But at Saturday afternoon’s book fair, members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) who had paid and registered for a table were booted from the book fair in the name of anti-authoritarian anarchism. Organizers of the event, unlike the overwhelming majority of participants, demanded that organized socialists not be allowed to sell literature and discuss ideas at their anti-authoritarian event. Today, there is an email message from an anti-authoritarian anarchist on the Indymedia site calling for a boycott of the ISO’s Socialist Summer School where hundreds of militants from the U.S., Latin America, Africa, and Europe will debate politics and strategies for the current struggles.
Why the attempt to silence organized socialists and prevent political activists from hearing for themselves what socialists have to say? These anarchists are exposing the contradictions of their own ideas.
In the name of anti-authoritarianism, these anarchists defend the right of a tiny, unelected leadership to impose its authority on other revolutionaries. Many of the literature tables at the event were filled with writings by socialists, but it seems that only those who act on the arguments in those books were targeted for removal. Howard Zinn’s writings were available on many tables, yet only the ISO’s "Why You Should be a Socialist" with a foreword by Zinn and his play "Marx in Soho" touring the U.S. with all proceeds going to the ISO’s magazine were banned.
There is a new left developing out of the anti-globalization, Palestinian solidarity, civil rights and other struggles erupting in cities across the country. All of us on the left have to learn how to work together in these movements and how to debate our disagreements, not shut them down. We all have a common enemy in the capitalist system that destroys lives, the environment and our future—and if we’re serious about fighting for an alternative society, open debate is crucial. All those who want hear from activists in the Maquiladoras and Black union militants in South Carolina and who want to hear for themselves a socialist analysis of history, theory and current perspectives—including those who disagree—are welcome at the ISO’s summer school June 14-17 in Chicago. Check it out at http://www.socialistsummerschool.org.
http://www.socialistsummerschool.org
add your own comments
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I called for a boycott of the ISO Summer School. Sherry says I also kicked them out of Matches and Mayhem (http://www.digipunk.com/mnm/). I wasn't even at Matches and Mayhem.
She also says ISO paid for a table at the event before being kicked out. However, I read several reports elsewhere on IMC from people who were at M&M. The ISO did not pre-register for a table, because the event was not a forum for debate of "radical ideas," it was a celebration of anarchist ideas and culture. The registration information made it clear that racists, political parties, authoritarian leftists, and the front groups for all these were not allowed to table or present at the event. It was an explicitly anarchist event, not a forum for all comers. The ISO tried to share table space with another organization that had registered and paid for a table, and when an event goer complained, the ISO was asked to leave.
Do these people ever stop lying? That post was from the same person who will be giving the "Limits of Anarchism" presentation at the ISO Summer School. Nobody is trying to "silence" them. I just hope to encourage people to see their lies and irrelevancy to our struggles. Please don't pay for their event.
If you think M&M refusing to give you a platform is "censorship," Sherry, surely you will insist on at least one anarchist to share the stage with you during your lecture on anarchism at the ISO Summer School. I'm sure you'll also insist all the Chicago area anarchists have literature tables, and their own worskshops and forums. Lead by example, "vanguard."
Sincerely,
Anarchist Redneck
p.s. Here is my call to boycott the ISO school that Sherry is talking about:
Please Do Not Pay For This Event
Ads, ads, ads... is this IMC or TV?
I see that the International Socialist Organization (ISO) at their summer school will host a "featured event" called:
THE LIMITS OF ANARCHISM, with SHERRY WOLF
Rather than subject myself to more of their lies and misrepresentations, I will recall the last ISO lecture in Chicago about anarchism I had the misfortune to witness. In it, the speaker ranted in a hostile fashion against anarchism and anarchists. The speaker included gems like the claim that Emma Goldman was anti-worker, had no faith in the people, and "like all anarchists" was essentially middle class and elitist. Emma was the famous anarchist feminist and labor agitator who was jailed repeatedly for teaching about birth control. She was deported for her radicalism and agitation on behalf of workers. She assisted Alexander Berkman in his attempt on the life of Henry Clay Frick, the steel baron who ordered his thugs to kill strikers. This "international socialist" speaker had the gall to get up in front of an American audience and denounce Emma as an enemy of the workers! If it weren't for Emma, this scummy politician wouldn't be able to speak in the U.S.A. against capitalism without fear of deportation! Emma Goldman was a poor, passionate, articulate, radical immigrant. Emma always advocated for the oppressed. The only thing that allowed this speaker to forge such astounding lies is the fact that Americans today have an impoverished understanding of history, beaten into them by a government school system: just the kind of propaganda machine these "socialists" would love to run. This ISO speaker railed on and on, with the lies and distortions about anarchism and anarchists piling up on each other so fast that it was difficult to tell where one lie ended and the next distortion began.
After this speech, I saw the speaker outside, alone. I posed the following question: "Since you've obviously done a good deal of research on anarchism and its history, why would you then make up lies and distortions about it, if you care about the people and revolution? Why not just tell the truth, and let people make up their own minds?"
The response: "Because I don't think anarchism will work. Socialism will."
Never mind the fact that bossy, authoritarian, statist, lying, party "socialists" do not have the monopoly of socialism that they would like to have over politics, society, and the economy. Most anarchists and many other anti-authoritarians are also socialists. We just happen to believe that "vanguards" and "socialist governments" are corporations by a different name and reorganized capitalism, respectively. The only limit to anarchism is that you've gotta love freedom. But you won't hear an anarchist perspective at the ISO workshop on anarchism.
The ISO are also hosting their workshop on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) at their summer school. When they held this workshop in Seattle after the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial, they claimed that the IWW was purely historical, that it "ended" during the Red Scares early in the twentieth century. Well, there just happened to be Wobblies (IWW members) at the workshop who challenged this falsehood! In fact, the IWW had a big presence at the WTO protests, and helped lead a big contingent of militant unionists from the AFL-CIO labor march to the direct actions downtown on November 30. The IWW had two big banners, one reading "One Big Union," the other "Capitalism Cannot Be Reformed." All this while there was no ISO in sight. The IWW actively organizes workplaces, pickets, rallies, marches, literature, community radio, the second longest running union website in the world, community projects, solidarity actions with groups like Earth First! (EF!) and other labor unions, and much else. There is an ongoing lawsuit, about to enter court, against the FBI and the Oakland PD for the car bombing of IWW and EF! organizer, Judi Bari! If the IWW is dead, why is the FBI still trying to kill it? If the IWW is dead, while the ISO only puts on workshops and sells papers full of lies, what does that make the ISO? You won't hear from a Wobbly at the IWW workshop, either.
See http://www.infoshop.org/news5/iww_iso.html for more info on the ISO lecture in Seattle.
Rather than let people base their opinions on the truth, the frustrated little bosses at the ISO prefer to manipulate the people they so despise. They do not think that if the people knew the truth, they would make revolution. So, the bossy socialists and communists believe the people must be tricked into revolution, not approached as equals deserving of the truth.
No wonder the ISO will also host a speech entitled IN DEFENSE OF LENINISM. If this is what Leninism looks like, it needs vigorous defense. The ISO gives the same kind of defense capitalism needs and has displayed at mobilizations for the last few years: lies, distortion, and violence by their media and police. Expect identical behavior from authoritarian "socialists" and "communists," and their media and police.
Maybe they can explain to us how "Liberty," in the view of such authoritarian communist and socialist groups like the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and International Socialist Organization (ISO), really means only freedom from exploitation by capitalists. If we REALLY understood communism, we would know that exploitation by some nutty "vanguard party," or better yet, "revolutionary government," is infinitely preferable, and is in fact necessary for total freedom and liberation. As is clear today, such Party Dictatorships are, in fact, the worst lie ever perpetrated: that people can be "made free" by a totalitarian regime.
It is pure bunk.
Given that this group is willing to falsify, manufacture, and distort information to suit their manipulative ends, don't attend their conference expecting to learn. If you must go, go to disrupt these lying, phony "revolutionaries" with the truth. Go armed with information, and expect to call them on their rivers of crap. The only reason they are better than the FTAA, WTO, FBI, or the Pinkertons, is that they currently have less power. But they want as much power as they can get.
As for all the great work they have done organizing for mobilizations in the last year, it's also bunk. They've brought people to events to sell papers. At the Republican National Convention, a "cadre" of ISO "vanguards" committed themselves to blockading a strategic point during the day of direct action. As soon as the police asked them to leave, they got up and left, abandoning the people they had agreed to assist in making things difficult for the Republicans. There were more ISO "vanguard" at the Democratic National Convention shortly thereafter. This "vanguard" actually tried physically to shove anarchists out of a march! Some ISO members have complained that this simple request not to pay for their conference is a waste of energy that should be directed at capitalists. Meanwhile, they spend their energy trying physically to shove away peaceful march participants who they disagree with.
As a former ISO member later confided to me that his time in the ISO prepared him well for the corporate world. He said the ISO included all the same backstabbing, hierarchy, and opportunistic focus on growth and recruiting rather than doing what is right. They see people as "human resources," just like capitalists do. They also see the rest of the world as "natural resources." Just like capitalists, they believe resources exist to be exploited. They've even been kicked out of their international affiliation, which makes them a National Socialist Organization, doesn't it?
These people are a cult. The party bosses meddle in the personal and sexual lives of the rank and file members in a way that would qualify as sexual harassment in any capitalist workplace. The ISO engage in a vast amount of lying, manipulation, falsification, and deception within their group - about revolutionary history, about current disputes with other groups, other movements, and other philosophies, about contemporary politics (they supported NAFTA!), and about virtually everything else they can think of. Do not expect from them a "summer school" any more honest than you would expect from the U.S. government or a corporation like Shell or Exxon.
No single ideology or philosophy has directed the recent surge of activism. However, anarchism has been an enormous force within it, and continues to be. At the "big win" that energized a lot of this movement, the WTO in Seattle, there were no bossy leftists in sight during the main events. The labor march was organized by AFL-CIO liberals (although many of the rank and file are quite militant and revolutionary, they are still typically not members of authoritarian groups like the ISO). The direct actions (blockades, street parties, squatting, and corporation-smashing) were virtually all organized by anarchist and other anti-authoritarian activists. Days after the city exploded in insurrection, the bossy left showed up on the streets, at marches, handing out hastily xeroxed leaflets at the prisoner solidarity marches.
As usual since the fall of the Iron Curtain, authoritarian communists and socialists have been trying to claim credit for the work of and discredit anarchists, just as they did in the 1930's to the anarchist industries, farms, hospitals, and militias in Spain that fought the fascist Franco. Rather than fight fascists, the socialists and communists used their guns to round up anarchist and libertarian-marxist political prisoners far behind the front lines. Because of their betrayal, Spain was lost to fascism until 1975. Franco's victory emboldened Hitler and Mussolini to begin WWII.
Please don't let it happen again. Do not walk naively into this ISO event. Either do not attend, or go prepared to challenge some very slick lies, the way you would approach any earth raping, worker crushing corporation. Since the ISO is crummy, don't give them your money.
I would like to see Kenneth Riley - one of the persecuted South Carolina dockworkers, Ronald Jones - exonerated death row inmate, Oscar Olivera - Bolivian water activist, and several other speakers listed. In fact, I would love to debate the issues of power and domination in leftist organizations, during the Leninism and Anarchism workshops, but there is no way I will hand these professional liars $75-150. Besides, having seen similar ISO events, I know it will be a tightly controlled lecture format with a strictly limited question/answer period, not real debate. However, to pay to register and attend would be giving direct material support to a scummy corporation in the guise of a revolutionary organization. Instead, please make your donation directly to a strike support fund, anti-death penalty group, an ongoing environmental struggle, or some other legitimate cause. Talk to the guest speakers outside this conference. Get in free, if you can.
Let's get free,
Anarchist Redneck
p.s. Since the ISO have begun posting a form reply to my criticism which explicitly rejects the idea of actually responding to a single point of mine (they say I'm wrong about the price, but without explaining why their own website has the same info), I'll add this quote, from "The Professional Paranoid's Page on Disinformation," at http://www.proparanoid.com/truth.htm#s:
"Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation
Rule Number 9: Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
Example: 'Nothing you say makes any sense. Your logic is idiotic. Your facts nonexistent. Better go back to the drawing board and try again.'
Proper response: 'You are avoiding the issue with disinformation tactics. You evade the issues with your own form of nonsense while others, perhaps more intelligent than you pretend to be, have no trouble with the material. Why do you refuse to address the issues by use of such disinformation tactics (rule 9 - play dumb)?'"