We don’t do demos. We prioritise organisation over mobilisation. Most of our political energy goes to building autonomy from an injust world, not in perpetual reaction to punctual injustices.
We help one another. Our core work is mutual aid. Our politics is the tangible, material, bodily politics of the every day. Our politics is to help one another with food, a job, a place to spay, emotional support, collective defence, access to hormones, abortions, handling bureaucracies, childcare, elder care, sickcare, we care.
We will not cancel us. We reject all police, including the cop in our heads. We are calm and confident in our collective power to protect and heal the targets of harm while transforming the patterns of harm in the doer. We build this trust in our power by constant study and practice of transformative justice. We practice how to handle conflict, harm and abuse before they happen. We do not kick people out of our group only for them to do harm to other people, less equipped to deal with them. We handle our own messes because we are strong enough to take collective responsibility.
We stay together. We are comrades. We know who is the enemy, and we distinguish internal conflict from the enemy. We strive to make every comrade feel seen, welcome, and treasured. Our bond is the metal of identity and ethics and shared dreams; our bond is tempered by the fire of the struggle and the pressure of oppression; our bond is stronger than nation, stronger than family, stronger than individual relationships.
We build meaning. We remind one another of how our lived experiences are part of a larger struggle. We talk of our ancestors and our goals so that we can find ourselves here, between past and future, at our turn carrying the torch of rebellion, we look at one another and we stan.
We are visible. When we spot our symbols in another we feel calmer and safer, we drop the tension of our jaws and breathe with relief, for we know we found someone we can count on. When our enemies see our symbols they tremble, for they know that harm to one will mobilise all.
We occupy territory. We do not stay hidden in our concrete cages but take to the streets, we meet visibly in our hangout spots, and in doing so make our hangout spots ours. Our allies know they are safer in our territory; our enemies shiver and hide their emblems of oppression.
We empower. Our meetings do not drain energy; they energise. Our meetings are abundant: they abound with fun, with music and laughter, with crying and mourning, our voices lift with emotion, with belief, with life. Our meetings reject the logic of capitalism, of work culture, our politics is not a second job, our politics is a feast and a party and a rage and a hug in the dark. We hype.
We call upon our ancestors. We learn the stories of those who came before us in the struggle, those who carried us to where we are. In remembering the dead we bring them to life in our bodies, we live the lives that they strove to let us have. We remember our dead in mourning, yes, but also in celebration and power, we do not remember them merely for the tragedy of their oppression, but for the joy and freedom of their lifes in defiance, fully aware that there are no heroes and their glory is our glory, that we today in our bodies are nothing but power and glory.
We are reliable. Our meetings happen regularly and we can trust ourselves to show up. We know we will show up, because we want to show up, we look forward to showing up, because our meetings build up, rather than grind down. We understand the power of ritual, of regularity, of rhythm, because in the rhythm we can dance.
We do not take these rules too seriously. We will not forget that the human spirit cannot be predicted in words, theories, and systems. We bow to no authority, least of all the authority of the dead letter. We will never let an ideology trample a human heart. We are big kids and we can question ourselves.
The cause of their depression and anxiety is their lack of freedom. The First World leftist lives a domesticated life, where the body is constantly policed by external and internalised authority, by law and social norms and shame. Every hour of every day is decided by some authority since infancy, from parents to teachers to bosses. Cross-culturally, most of humanity would look at this and call it a servant’s life.
The First World leftist finds relief from their bondage in consumer goods. But this relief lasts but an instant.
The First World leftist feels permanently guilty over their own oppression: “I have all this privileged wealth yet I’m miserable”.
But it is the privilege which makes you miserable in the first place, because the price of privilege is submission. The system always takes more of you than it gives. The dice are loaded and the house always wins.
Therefore, privilege guilt works to obscure the scam: like all scams, by tricking the scammed into believing themself to be complicit to their exploitation. Privilege guilt serves the system.
The system maintains control through normalised terror. By obscuring any possibility of freedom, the system offers wealth as the only source of joy. Because the joy of wealth is short-lived, this sets up the leftist to be terrified of losing it: “If I’m this miserable even with all the good stuff, how much more miserable I would be in prison, poverty, a house without heating!” Thus invested, everyone is too terrified of police to do anything.
By never letting the First World leftist experience freedom, the system denies them the knowledge of who they are under material conditions of freedom. They only know themselves under bondage, and so believe themselves to be utterly dependent to all the little treats the system gives them—without realising this dependency is constructed by the system in the first place.
This is the dynamics of an abusive relationship, massified.
The only way to break out of the terror is to taste freedom, to learn in your body how much more empowering it is than wealth. The only treatment for the First World leftist’s chronic depression is burnacopcartherapy.
Who built Thebes of the Seven Gates? All articles name the names of kings; I gather the kings brought those boulders on their royal backs? And great Babylon, who fell and fell again, Who put'er back together, every time? In which flats of gold-paved Lima lived the road-pavers? The night the Great Wall of China was finished, where did the construction crew hang out? Awesome Rome is full of triumphal archs. Who arched them up? Also— who did the Caesars triumph over? We sing the palaces of Byzantium— the whole thing was just palaces? Even Atlantis of tall tales shouted, choking, as the seas swallowed it whole—
for its slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India. All by himself then? Caesar defeated the Gauls. Did he bring along a cook at least? Felipe de España, el Prudente, cried when his Armada sunk into the sea. So nobody else cried that day? In the Seven Years' War, Federico Secondo grasped victory. Who else grabbed it with him?
All these pages, all these conquests. All those feasts—who did the dishes? Every ten years a new Great Man. Who covered the budget?
For some two-and-a-half years, activists occupied the old German village of Lützerath to prevent the expansion of a brown coal mine, Garzweiller II, owned by the RWE megacorp. Nature defenders made of Lützerath a prefigurative space, a living example of what a better world could be, until the brutal eviction of 2023. I’m writing as their machines still finish their job of destruction, because I want to talk of Lützerath: his life, his people, his politics.
The Plush Vigil, standing watch over the mine.(Continued)
(Warmly): Lovely siblings, dear allies, thank you! I’m not actually involved in any of the orgas doing this protest, but we’re all anarchists so I’ll speak for them anyway: thank you so much for being here on such a short notice, when you all are still coping, as am I. And ag-do, thanks for the space for my little speech.
But it gets a little bit heavy, so here’s the content warnings. (Softly:) Content warning: Feminist theory. (Increasingly loudly:) Content warning: Academia. Content warning: Terfs. Content warning: Europeans. (Screaming towards the university hall): Content warning: The definition of woman. Content Warning: ANTI-TRANSGENDER HATE. Content warning: ANTI-TRANSGENDER VIOLENCE. CONTENT WARNING: ANTI-TRANSGENDER GENOCIDE.
(Happily warmly again): I have three things to tell you: one about the terfs, one about the fascists, and one about you.
(In standard-issue antifa windbreaker, latex black pants, pink mask covering face and head:)
My lovely siblings, I’m so sorry my voice is hard to hear. The police took our microphones. Today, you see, is not only TDoR but also Totensonntag, which is a mandatory silent observance. The cops make our dead speak softly, so as not to bother the Christian dead.
Since 2012, an area in northeastern Syria is self-managed without a State or centralised government, with a novel form of bottom-up coordination called ‘democratic confederalism’.
People there reorganised society into communes of 100~250 families each (the medium-term goal is even smaller communes). Most decisions that directly affect a commune are done locally by assemblies and committees, via discussion and voting and consensus.
You know, like, ¡A las Barricadas!, All You Fascists, Go On Home British Soldiers and so on. They didn’t really feel… leftist.
Modern political songs are about ideology, ethics, psychology, feelings, experiences. They explores the values that we have. The old ones are basically battle songs. There is an enemy and we gotta be brave. Tweak some buzzwords and they could be about any conflict, really. I felt much more empathy for modern lyrics.
But then one fair morning, I woke up early, (oh bella ciao, bella ciao,
goodbye
beautiful,)
one fair morning, I woke up early, to find the fascist
at my door.
