"...I am disturbed by the conservative tone of "Bakunin", who seems all about, as Bob Black said once, "venerat[ing] their victimized forebears with a morbid devotion which occasions suspicion that the anarchists, like everybody else, think the only good anarchist is a dead one." NEFAC, as well, troubles me in this respect with their near rabid defense of all things anarchist and 19th century (except the individualists, of course). Well, in case neither they nor "Bakunin" noticed, things are quite different now and, well, those revolutions failed. I do not enjoy seeing the role of anarchist as conservative played out like this. Our role, as anarchists, is to carefully examine our history, look at its flaws and evaluate it in the context of the current situation. Has strict and formalized organization led to social revolution? No. Are these types of organizations subject to the same critique of power that political parties and states are? Yes. If we want a revolution that has a chance to survive, perhaps it's best to look around society and see what kinds of informal organization is already there and encourage and support those. Our revolution today is not going to look like the Spanish Revolution of '36 (except, hopefully, in the anti-work character of the working class). Those organizations, if they were ever relevant (and history suggests that they were not), are dinosaurs now. Our role is not to force the working class into organizing along the lines of some anarchists tired concepts of organization. American workers have rejected both revolutionary unionism and its reformist counterpart. Let's not herd them back in. The political repression by the CNT on dissenters among the rank and file alone ought to caution against that. As a short aside, I also recommend David F. Noble's "Progress Without People: In Defense of Luddism". Despite its name, it is a great history of workers autonomous, anti-organizational struggles within unions. This is a history we ought to be paying careful attention to because it's still being made all around us. It's just a little harder to see for those who rely on the Leftist habit of only recognizing revolt when its caged within parties, unions or federations. FROM http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/02/17/2157346
