Midwest Action Network

I wrote this a while ago to provoke a discussion. I think I over-generalized and simplified the topic, but I think it might be relevant for this forum.

---

The situationists saw the purpose of the (pro-)revolutionary organization as the creation of worker councils. The insurrectionary anarchists see its purpose as the creation of insurrection. Both ultimately have simliar goals in mind, but there is a definate difference in approach. Insurrectionary anarchists form affinity groups that attack...or at least that is supposed to be what happens. Pro-situs form propaganda groups.

Anarchists in general aim towards being exemplary individuals. Some don't realize themselves fully and enter activism believing in the illusions of self-sacrifice, but generally if anarchists are to stand on our own feet, we need to recognize our aims are come from a position of strength and we need not assist the projects of liberalism and socialism, which are still apt enough to assist the oppressed, exploited and excluded in every mediocre way to resist the misery and brutality of the present social order through reforms. This is a normal part of the system, much like state sponsored volunteerism via the Social Security System, Americorps or other entity. This is the system being corrected.

Though we can take advantage of activism by using it as a platform for why the system shouldn't be supported, it ultimately reifies revolt and recuperates it into the activities of good citizens fighting for justice, rather than a social war or other conception that recognizes that we are fighting an enemy that is increasingly concentrating its material power into the hands of few and excluding more and more people from making real decisions. An example is the typically middle class state of modern democracy, a professional entity that typically acts in service to those that control the wealth of their society. This has been the typical behavior of the American state, but lately, the state of the United States is becoming increasingly dominated by the actual rich and members of rich or powerful coteries rather than by middle class "public servants".

With this exclusion, public service has moved into activism and democracy is practiced as middle class resistance. Middle class precarity is being challenged and a polarization is increasing as the American economy weakens. The American capitalist grows ever stronger while its state is being pressed into decline. The state is militarized more than ever and the rich keep throwing money at the economy to maintain this war for their power. Meanwhile the middle class attempts to deal with this by presenting a democratic resistance, but the capitalist has not yet completely tossed the middle class to the wind in the United States, its consumerism much be sated and so middle class resistance won't challenge its own privilege as it exists today.

In the United States, the middle class, the citizen consumer, has replaced the proletarian as the agent of change, but the type of change offered by the middle class remains cosmetic, socially isolated and politically divided. The logic of the citizen consumer must appease the ruling class or its own privilege and this is why the resistance offered can be nothing but the normal activities of a secure class unwilling to challenge power as it truly exists.

The activities of the pro-situs are marginal just as the proletarian in society remains marginal. The activities of the insurrectionary minority also are few as pro-insurrectionary resistance breaks the accepted confines of normal activity, sending the majority into a frenzy of fear and paranoia (of state reaction and political marginalization). Insurrectionary anarchists would have to change their daily lives completely and embrace a life filled with misery and exclusion to build a base with a people that have nothing to lose. This is not happening on a visible scale.

So perhaps we should rethink our approach. The United States has a different form and a different context from any other nation and what we are doing is effective only to the point of challenging our privilege, but rarely overcoming it. Anarchists create projects and talk among themselves all the time, what I think we should do is embrace this. Our discussions must be deeper and be based more on real experience in our own cities and towns, aiming for a perpetually evolving critique of present society. We know that there is so many different approaches, but the best approach is from ourselves and for ourselves.