First SC Marcos,now Weird Al and the Arschloch Nessie monster are dissing
anarchism and anarchists...I dunno what we did to deserve it but it may
indicate an outbreak of real anarchy south of the border.
Deconstructing the Al and Nessie Show Trial
by profrv@etc � Saturday December 21, 2002 at 10:54 AM
profrv@(nospam)fuckmicrosoft.com
This is a longish response to the 'interview' between 'Nessie' and weird Al
Giordano,where both insult anarchists and the readers intelligence.
When anarchist frauds Nessie and Al Giordano get together the bs runs
free.Please enjoy my take on their mendacity.
Longish piece from a longer one at SF Indy.
SF-IMC Interviews Al Giordano About Venezuela, the Media and Anarchism, by
Nessie Full Article: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1552703.php
Subject: You can call me Al.
Alarm bells...Nessie consults an 'expert',okay,fine,lets rely on 'experts'
all our lives.
Expert Al Quotes old Karl Marx and Negri...mmm,some expert,those guys need
armies of experts to translate.
"The guy with the pipe and the pen is beginning to speak again."
Whoopty Doo,did you hear HIM on anarchists lately.What are we Masochists
all of a sudden?
"The third big event of 2002 was November's "surprise" election of Colonel
Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador. Again, the positive military symbol,
exorcising, like Marcos and Chávez before him, the ghosts of the military
juntas of the late 20th century."
More alarm bells,does anyone remember Castro,Che? HELLO!
"...Al Giordano: Somebody claims to be an "anarchist" and we have to take
them seriously? What have they ever done?..."
Indeed.What anarchists has big Al quoted in this interview up till then?
"a true-to-life anarcho-syndicalist of strong Situationist tendencies."
One moribund tendency,one stone dead.
"...This "libertario" group is nothing more than a few dilettantes who have
never accomplished anything. Serious revolutionaries and anarchists down
here laugh at them, and suspect their motives. I don't think this group is
showing any leadership, intelligence, or analysis, at this hour of moral
crisis and I can't help but wonder about their motives.
If you're in the White House "situation room" and watching your coup in
Venezuela fall apart, in part because of actions on IndyMedia like the
hundreds of signatures adding up on DC IndyMedia against the Bush coup
plot, what do you do? If you're the White House, and you've failed to
divide the left from the right, you try to divide it from the left. Don't
you? It seems very transparent to me.
If you'll recall, the same kind of group pops up from time to time to
attack the Zapatistas in Mexico. It's a standard element of disinfo
campaigns. It pisses me off, too. How dare these non-entities use the word
"anarchist" to try and divide us on a basic issue: Are we for a coup d'etat
or not? Once one makes the decision that, no, we're not for a coup d'etat,
whatever differences in shades we have with the elected government - and of
course you, I, and most other people have differences with any government!
- become irrelevant..."
Denounce the deviationists,accuse them of being dillettantes AND
counterrevolutionaries and then attempt to stampede the masses.This guy Al
is good."You are with us,or you are with the terrorists."
"...The issue right now is the coup: yes or no. I distrust protagonists
like those in this libertarios group who want to confuse people right now..."
And I distrust those who say absolutely,YES or NO as a demand,don't you?
I also worry less everyday about people being confused...unless it's by
experts.
"...In many ways, they are worse than the overt coup-mongers, because they
are less honest about their true agenda..."
Now wouldn't a real gonzo journalist check his sources before saying stuff
like this? Maybe they are a the CIA but we'll never know from this 'expert'
commentary.
"...Al Giordano: I think the post by these so-called "anarchists," and
their timing, is a cowardly act of aggression against the progress of all
Latin American social movements right now..."
This is like the Marcos Committe response to 'Ted Kascinski.'Over the top
hyperbole that does little to inspire confidence.
"...Al Giordano: If you put aside some of the personal bile in Murray
Bookchin's dialectic of "lifestyle anarchism" vs. "social anarchism," he in
fact made a very good point. There is this kind of incoherent version of
anarchism that relates more to punk rock (and I like punk rock, but that is
an aesthetic, not a political, taste), nose rings, dyed hair and other
superficial fashion statements than it does to Workers Councils or
Bolivarian Circles.
I mean, I recently got an email from a colleague, the economic libertarian
Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam who addressed me as "fellow anarchist."
And Alex of course was joking because he's not an anarchist and certainly
not an anarcho-syndicalist. The word 'anarchist' is often poorly used. Some
other prominent left intellectuals have gotten into problems by trying to
define themselves as anarchists but then backing away from the term. I
don't back away from it. I am an anarchist, and it goes way beyond my
lifestyle - which, as Flores Magón said, "The true revolutionary is an
illegal par excellence. The man who adjusts his actions to the Law can be,
in the end, a good domesticated animal; but not a revolutionary" - and I
guess after 27 arrests, various border problems and getting my ass sued by
billionaire narco-bankers I feel very much a Magonista. You know, he was an
Authentic Journalist, too..."
So the criticism of lifestylers is they are what?...egodriven? If they are
truly incoherant then there is aboslutely nothing to worry about.
Anarchism ranges from council communists to Spooner/Stirner individuals.Any
real anarch knows that and doesn't subscribe to this crappy 'dielectic'.(Al
actually calls it this in flattering way!'solid'below.) boring on...
"...But anarchist thought and action have to confront the single biggest
shift of our times in State Power. State Power has shifted from governments
to economic institutions..."
Isn't it great to have experts?
"...I addressed this on page one of my 1997 work, "The Medium is the
Middleman: For a Revolution Against Media." I said, basically, that Media
has become The State. It has supplanted Churches, Governments and even
Productive Industry as Tyrant Number One on this earth. After five years of
keeping that document off the Internet, I finally broke down and published
it last year on Narco News: ..."
Break down seems about right.Tyrant number one is CBS,This corelates with
what David Letterman and the Smothers bros have been saying for years.
"...And it was the masses in Venezuela surrounding the TV stations that
convinced me to do that, and also to add some footnotes with some changes
in my thinking, the major one being that the only solution right now to
this tyranny of media and economic power is a class struggle from below..."
Gee,he really is an anarchist!
"...The thoughtful anarchist might not use the same words as I do, and
that's just fine, we're pluralists, but she and he does recognize that "The
State" is today in a different form than simply "Government." Globalization
is The State. Money is The State. Commercial Media is this larger, more
powerful, form of The State's number one police force. So the entity that
previously was "The State," the governments of formerly sovereign
countries, are now subsidiaries of that global State..."
That state is tricky,we're lucky we have experts like Al on its case.
"...And, yes, governments are always horrible..."
Except Chavez's and Lula's and some colonel in Ecuador.
"...They can't help themselves, it is in their genetic coding. And at this
crucial juncture, some confused "lifestyle anarchists" who are still stuck
in this outmoded view of where State Power really lies, can't understand
that in the larger war against this Globalized Media-Economic Beast that is
conquesting all life on earth at great expense for the majority of people,
The State has morphed into a much meaner and more powerful global entity..."
Yeah that big naughty ghost,but we are safe with ghostbuster Al.Whoyagoincall?
"...nessie: I don't think it's just "life style anarchists" who
misunderstand where the real power lies on this planet. A lot of "social
anarchists" also have trouble seeing the strings on which the governments
dance..."
Not like our friend Nessie who was all broken up over the end of the
Kennedy dynasty and gives out bs advice on internet anonymity.But Nessie
consults experts first so we should trust Nessie to give us the drum on
governments.
"...And a lot of what passes for "life style anarchism" isn't even
anarchism, even when practiced by otherwise real anarchists. It's nothing
but subcultural chauvinism. It stems from pride, a mind clouding emotion,
and not from the cold, clear logic of rational analysis..."
Alarm bell,nessies on crack.
"...Other people, myself for one, say that the dichotomy between "life
style anarchism" and "social anarchism" is a false one in that it is self
imposed unnecessarily. We can go beyond "life style anarchism" without
leaving it behind, much as we can go beyond "anarchist syndicalism" without
leaving it behind either. We must build on our past, not discard it
arbitrarily. What do you think? Can modern anarchists retain our
culture(s), of which we are justly proud, and still grow as
internationalists to the point where our political analysis is consistent
with the undeniable facts on the ground? Can we synthesize what we know
already with what we are learning today? Or is the best we can come up with
is a handful of bohemian enclaves, scattered across the globe?..."
Nessie's Candace Bucknall technique in overdrive.
"...Al Giordano: Hakim Bey was, I think, very unfairly labeled a "lifestyle
anarchist" by Bookchin. That was very sad, because it personalized and
cheapened what was otherwise a very solid dialectic - "lifestyle anarchism"
vs. "social anarchism" - put forward by Bookchin. Unfortunately, as ever,
personal rivalry got in the way of a cleaner analysis. But in the late
1990s, Hakim Bey wrote an essay - I'm sorry, I don't have it here in my
nomadic newsroom, I've lost or given away almost every book I've ever read
- I think it was in the last chapter of his book *Millennium*, published by
Autonomedia. And in that essay, Hakim Bey surprised a lot of people by
pointing out a great truth: that in an age when the State has become this
global economic machine, previous enemies - religions and governments,
among them - may become tools that can be used against this larger State..."
I'm sure UBL will be relived to hear this!
And if you really want a handfull of bohemian enclaves scattered like
little cushions then Hakims your man.Personally I would rather listen to
Zerzen on Bey's bs.
Hakim Bey appeals to Tim May and that sets off a new set of alarm
bells.There is one troubling aspect to this question of the government Vs
the state and thats a real experts opinion.Noam Chompski is said to favour
something called widening the cage that actually calls for more state
power.This is something anarchists might argue productively over.As opposed
to all the red herrings raised to date by Al and Ness.(the experts)
"...I don't expect any interlocutor to be a Saint or perfect. I like to
find the truth from whomever states it, the part of what they say that
rings true to me, or that helps me understand the situation better. And
Bookchin's analysis helped me to understand a frustration I have with a
certain type of person who calls himself or herself an anarchist but ends
up being a sap for the ruling class..."
I must say I share that frustration only I think Al and Nessie are the
saps,and they are dripping today,aren't they?
"...When I used to volunteer at Blackout Books, the late anarchist
bookstore on New York's Lower East Side, I was shocked to find that most of
the people who came to committee meetings had not read the books on the
shelves!..."
The only anarchist book Al seems to have read is a duff one by the Dean.Oh
and a smattering of Magon.Is Hakim Bey an anarchist or an anachronism.
"...I basically volunteered there so I could read the books for free. I had
no money, no job, I've never owned property, I had left the Boston Phoenix,
had left journalism, and was trying to understand and put words to my
instinctual revulsion at what had happened to journalism in my lifetime.
For me, it was like going back to school.
One of the works that definitely changed my way of thinking was part of
Sylvere Lotringer's Semiotext(e) series: "Nomadology: The War Machine," by
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Later, when my girlfriend's patience
ran out and I was homeless and jobless with $800 to my name and headed to
Chiapas, the thinking in that book was crucial to helping me understand the
Zapatistas. "The war machine," said Deleuze and Guattari, "is exterior to
the State apparatus."
Al clearly is an expert because he's left me in the dust,I'll run a search
on that dazzling anarchist classic.How could I have missed it?
It must have come out while I was getting a mohawk.
"...nessie: What, exactly, can anarchists learn from the Zapatistas?
Al Giordano: The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) is a 'war
machine..."
Yes I read one of their comuniques recently.It was directed at anarchists
btw.Everyone seen it?
"...It doesn't call itself anarchist, but as many good anarchists have
observed, it has very strong anarchist tendencies..."
'Had',might be the operative word nowdays.
"... At the same time, the Zapatistas speak of "nation" and carry the
Mexican flag. Their major battle of 2001 was on behalf of an Indigenous
Rights Law. Despite the inherent contradictions, this does not generally
upset the lifestyle anarchists. They still have their Marcos tee shirts.
And good..."
Alarm bells for sale.Cheap.
"...nessie: That's Marcos. What about Chávez?
Al Giordano: Chávez makes some of these people uncomfortable, especially
when he has taunted the former ruling class by calling them "anarchists,"
some self-described anarchists have claimed (I think they are incorrect in
thinking it's about them; they're not exactly at center stage in Venezuela)
that this was an attack on "anarchists." There is also (at least in this
Libertario magazine bunch) a transparent willingness to play along with the
former ruling class game. They pop up at moments like this to get attention
for themselves and destabilize the situation..."
I have called Shrub an anarchist because it's a broad word and can be used
lightheartedly.
Look this thing with the L magazine bunch is ugly,nasty possibly worse than
the Ugandan anarchist army? The Norway anarchist armies?
If they are a small bunch no ones heard of before or pays much attention
to,how can they,'destabilize the situation.'
SC Marcos doesn't like anarchists using words like that btw.
"...Hey, when the battle is joined, in times of crisis, people really show
their true colors. Remember that in Spain the anarchists fought against
fascism. They didn't claim neutrality during an hour of moral crisis! I
have read the "analysis" that this group claims to offer. It's quite rote.
They claim to offer reporting on what is going on in Venezuela, but they're
not reporting any news. They just complain. Somebody called them "beautiful
losers." I'd say that shoe fits..."
As you have vitually accused them of being in the pay of the US,thats a
relief!
Though some call the spanish anarchists that too Al.
Why are they worth all this vinegar wind though? 'Moral crisis?'
In your pants!
"...And the arguments they use against Chávez could be used against Marcos
and the Zapatistas, too: use of uniforms, national flags, appeals to
government..."
Marcos seems lining up to run for government.He deserves to be stripped of
the good name Zapata IMHO.
"...But the Zapatistas don't upset these types because, well, the
neoliberals are still in power in Mexico. These types of "lifestyle
anarchists" get most upset about one thing: Winning. That Chávez has won,
that he is popular, that really bothers them..."
Bakunin forbid anarchists should get worked up over who is head of state.
"...They are positively insulting toward the poor, toward the masses. One
professor affiliated with them wrote to me his view that the poor of
Venezuela had no real political development or consciousness. Huh? Has he
left his office lately?..."
Would'nt an anarchist regard that as good thing? "the poor of Venezuela had
no real political development or consciousness." I need an expert to tell
me why that is not good.
We'll see who really patronize's the poor and huddled masses soon,if we
haven't already.
"...nessie: Are you saying that, win or lose, Chávez is being driven from
below, by the ordinary working people themselves, that the Bolivarian
Circles are the wave that is sweeping society, and Chávez is surfing it?
Al Giordano: The Bolivarian Circles are very similar to the Workers
Councils of Paris 1968..."
Al really is an expert because later he tell us that the BC's are created
by the ruling party.Go figure.
"...There's also a Situationist tendency in some of what we see in the
Venezuelan revolution..."
Al has raised the dead! It's a miracle!
"...One of my best writers recently put that word, revolution, in quotation
marks, but I don't. The surrounding of the TV stations, the confrontation
with "the spectacle," Chávez's own willingness to confront the corrupt
Commercial Media and legalize Community TV and radio, these things are
showing the entire world a way out of this media mess. I love it..."
It's not even a Spectacle! It's a miracle!
I think you love butch latin types in combat fatigues Al,not that theres
anything wrong with that.
"...None of this means I think that a Chávez government or a Lula
government or a Lucio government or any other government is all honey over
cornflakes...."
Thats eminem.
"...But the insistence that any movement be "perfect" or "correct" is the
quickest route to a permanent state of defeat..."
Lets stop calling ourselves anarchista's...how about reformista's?
"... What we've seen in Venezuela is that the government (the classic
concept of the state) has taken very key actions, like legalizing Community
Media as a Constitutional right, and smashing to bits the previous corrupt
two-party system,.."
A one party state? Don't they traditionally mass murder the most?
Sorry,thats trying to be perfect,right?
"... has opened a space for more anarcho-syndicalist and self-valorized
activity to gain a foothold in society, where previously it had none..."
AS is fine,I am down with that,but this,'self valorization,'Que?
Could'nt be,"subcultural chauvinism. It stems from pride..."
Could it? Macheesemo? Perish the thought!
"...And this is the change that will outlast the Chávez government. Even
the "squalid ones," the former ruling class, admits this over and over
again in its discourse: that the damage is already done and every month
that goes by and these tendencies (non- governmental tendencies, popular
and cultural tendencies) grow, the door slams on tyranny from establishing
a foothold ever again..."
All these tendencies except one from a small magazine.Yeah right.
"...nessie: When I see the army occupying police stations to keep the
police off the backs of the people, I can't help but wonder. It's a fairly
mind boggling sight, for a gringo, anyway. How do Venezuelans feel about that?
Al Giordano: Today, in Venezuela, the uniformed Armed Forces build housing
and infrastructure. It's interesting; one of the key demands of the
'opposition' is to prohibit the army from building houses! The poor cheer
when the military enters their neighborhoods, because they're usually
coming to build some houses. Not, like before, when they came to round up
the dissidents and repress the social movements..."
If the military are onside why all the fuss over a tiny magazine?
It's a fairly mind boggling sight for an anarchist,anyway.
"...Chávez's reform of the military, his purge of the "School of the
Americas" trained coup-plotters, his opening the spaces for Community TV
and radio, his political movement's creation of and support for the
Bolivarian Circles,..."
The same BC's that were so situationist,like Paris 68!?
Now I'm worried again.
"...this, no one can deny, is a revolution by any standard. I'm not going
to hold it against him or them that they did it via an electoral path..."
Specially now the two party system is gone,eh Al?
(Id check on that and get confirmation if I were you,just mind how you
go,it's a one party military 'situation')
"...To the contrary, the Venezuelan "war machine" has drawn a new map for
how to navigate government power to fight the larger global State. In
April, the battle forever changed the military. In December, the battle
forever changed the oil apparatus and economic structure. Next up: the
revolution in Media.."
This sounds promising,anarchists could support Saddam as long as he was
fighting the global state.The revolution in media will crack down on all
those incorrect line magazines won't it?
"...So when Washington or Wall Street or the multinational oil companies
come, as they do this month, to destroy this process, there is no neutral
ground for the serious social anarchist. One either fights against the
coup, or is part of it. The only respectable anarchist position is to fight
tooth and nail against these coup attempts. Who was it that said, "the
hottest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral at times
of moral crisis." People who sit on the sidelines today, make themselves
deservedly irrelevant tomorrow. I don't want to share a foxhole with people
like that. I say to them, "see ya across the barricades. I'll be on the
side with the masses..."
You can have your foxhole all to yourself Al.Thanks for the
military-entertainment strength prose journalism.Castro would be proud.
add your own comments
The Heretics of Venezuala. (english)
A-infos 4:29am Sat Dec 21 '02
comment#224385
Warning! Reading this could destabilize a situation in a star journalists
pants...
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1550624_comment.php#1550723
Scroll up,Nessie and Al are scrolling low.
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1552961.php
