Reasons why I am an anti-capitalist

1.) Because I find it morally and ethically repugnant to restrict access to the things one needs to survive for a profit. This is exploitation, and to me is no different than choking someone, depriving them of air, and then demanding a fee to let go of their neck.

2.) Because risk does not entail reward. Some cat burglars are very skilled, and take a great deal of risk when entering a house uninvited to steal someones belongings. This does not in any way confer a “right” to the belongings of others just as the possible risk of loss of investment does not confer ones right to the product of an others labor.

3.) Because labor is the true cost of everything. When you remove all forms of currency and all economic abstractions, the only thing required for production is labor and access to raw materials. Even their precious capital was at the very beginning the product of people’s labor, and while it can be argued that those initial laborers have a “right” to the product of their labor, this right does not confer an infinite entitlement to value produced with that product.

4.) Because nobody has claim to the earth. Private property is an intentionally created social construct designed to centralize wealth and perpetuate class society by granting entitlement to value produced by labor in a legally defined territory.  It is justified with the claim that purchase entails a right of increase from ownership, but since there was no original purchase of land there is no legitimate claim.

The Bane Prison Speech (How It Should’ve Been)

I and the people beside me are here today to tell you that you are no longer just a number in a system, but you are free men.  Many of us have made some mistakes, and have some regrets, myself included, but we must no longer look at each other and point fingers as to who is to blame for this chaotic climate of death and despair which drives men to commit petty crimes and aggressions against their neighbors to fulfill their wants and needs. We must look forward to the future that we can build with our labor combined.  I truly believe that each and every one of you can achieve something great if only you were granted the means to do so, and that is what I am proposing to you today. The beginning of a new society free from the plagues of corporatism and poverty which restricted you from attaining a decent education and the means to satisfy your natural human desires. A society where each and every individual has a legitimate stake in the full product of their labor and the ability to better themselves with free access to information. I ask of you today to help us build that new world, so that our children’s children may enjoy life without ever knowing the horrors of these prison walls. So that they may look back at history and reflect about how petty and absolutely barbaric we were to allow these institutions  to run amok over our societies.

Forward to victory! Untill all are free!

An Activists Guide for Dealing with COINTELPRO and The Legal System

1. Anyone who offers you high grade explosives is a cop. (Yes, anyone.) The best thing to do when you feel like someone is trying to entrap you is to state firmly that you do not agree with/wish to participate in the questionable action they are suggesting and disassociate with them.

2. Never brag about illegal activities online or to friends. I don’t care how cool they are, or how long you’ve known them, everyone has a breaking point. When people get scared they will sing like a canary. The safest bet is to tell NO ONE.
3. The state almost never has a case until somebody talks. NEVER incriminate your comrades. They will use your fear against you. They’ll tell you they have all the evidence in the world and that you’re going to jail for the rest of your life. They will tell you that all your friends are turning on you. They are almost always lying.  In The United States there is no penalty for refusing to incriminate yourself, a.k.a. pleading the Fifth Amendment. Direct all tough guy harassing cops to your lawyer.

4. The public defender is not your friend. They are being paid to be there whether they win or lose. They have absolutely no professional investment in your case. Many times the public defenders are ex-prosecutors who work with the judges to get convictions by scaring their clients into plea deals. Do not reveal incriminating evidence to them if you can help it. NEVER admit guilt, even to them. If you can afford it, a paid attorney is your best legal defense.

5. The cops have no moral investment in whether or not you walk out of that court house or are led out in chains. Never trust them. Their job is to fuck you over in any way they can. They will not jeopardize their careers  to make moral decisions which are at odds with the legal system that they work for. They do not want to help you, so don’t fall for it.

Voluntaryism is an exploiters wet dream, whether voluntaryists intend it to be or not

Let me begin by saying that voluntaryism in my assessment is just a new word for anarchism being used by pro-capitalist, right-wing “libertarians” who got tired of defending their views on the wage system and absentee land ownership from criticism by actual anarchists. And yes, I have a right to say “actual anarchists”. Anarchists are historically and ideologically anti-capitalist.  Anarchism is the belief in the creation of human societies where all individuals are free to reach their greatest possible potential absent coercion, not a clean slate where individuals can position themselves above others in society and use that position to extract wealth from their labor.

Voluntaryists like to reduce all matters of moral action down to the voluntary consent of individuals while completely ignoring presupposed environmental variables which they sneak in the backdoor. For instance, one can easily say that I “voluntarily” pay rent to live in this apartment. And indeed, I of my own will cash my check and deposit the money into the landlord’s account on a monthly basis. Indeed, I signed the contract agreeing to pay this amount monthly. What voluntaryists ignore however, is that I by my very nature do not have a choice in whether I occupy space on the planet, or whether the “right” to occupy that specific space has been claimed by someone else. They ignore the consequences of not paying rent, homelessness, while claiming that the payment of rent represents a voluntary agreement. The threat of homelessness in this case could be easily equated to the threat of an armed robbers gun. Sure it can be said one voluntarily gives up their valuables to the robber if we choose to ignore the coercive variable which compel them to do so, their own necessity. It could just as easily be said that a 19th century English peasant voluntarily accepted monarchy by bowing to royalty if we ignore the law commanding them to do so.

These rationalizations for rent and usury are just logical extensions of what Walter Block called “Voluntary Slavery”. It stems from the idea that individuals should be able to barter their present liberty as a bargaining chip in an economic exchange. Rather than renting ones self to a capitalist, Block argues that you should be able to sell your future liberty indefinitely. While not all voluntaryists agree with this extreme example, they do agree in principle that a person should be able to sell their liberty, in part, for access to necessary property, i.e. wage employment.

So what is the justification for it all? Well natural rights, of course! “This man owns his property!” they cry, “who could dispossess him of it without being a thief or a tyrant?”.  They argue that legitimate property is made legitimate by voluntary purchase, and that that purchase grants them an absolute right to the use value of said property, again, without consideration of their presupposition that an absolute right to the use of physical matter, or property, is legitimate in the first place. They do not consider a voluntary agreement to this absolutist conception of property as a qualifier for voluntary action in regard to it, and they go to great lengths to hide that fact. Some even claim to reject natural rights, like Ludwig Von Mises, instead favoring “universal absolutes”, which are basically the exact same thing. They will say “Look around you, property is everywhere! One cannot even live without the use of property!” without ever reconciling the fact that they have merely just labeled all physical matter that can be potentially possessed by humans as their conception of “property”. One using or possessing something has absolutely no correlation to it being considered their property, therefore one cannot make the argument that things merely being used or possessed makes the concept of property a “universal absolute”. One may use the light of the moon to navigate in the darkness, yet they do not own it, likewise one may own a building they never step foot in. One is not mutually exclusive to the other.

So why does it matter? As an anarchist I believe in the unimpeded right of all individuals to reach their greatest possible potential. I see anarchism as the liberatory force which can free humanity from these imagined social spooks which cause unending social ills and are the source of exploitation of man by man. When I see people arguing for what I believe to be the complete subjugation of millions of people to propertied individuals under the title of anarchism I am compelled to speak out against it. When I see people arguing for the “liberty” to sell ones liberty for economic necessity under the banner of human liberation I am outraged and disgusted, and rightfully so. Anarchist apartheid? No, Roderick, this is a defense of anarchism from people who have clearly stated goals which are the antithesis of anarchism. This is an intellectual purging of the enemies of human liberty.

Until all are free

Private property is a social disease that over the course of human history has worked itself into the very fabric of society. One cannot imagine going almost anywhere or doing almost anything in the world without money. And what do we pay for? We pay for the RIGHT to access physical matter, to simply possess space that some other great ape made a fiat claim to. Imagine that, a whole world full of

physical mass and information with only a handful of people with the “right” to access it. How did we get here humanity? Who invented the central polity to enforce property rights and why? What does it have to do with your position in life as working class stiff? Why do you work every day only to end up with just enough to pay the rich for access to life sustaining property? You need to ask yourself these questions, for I am confident that if you do you will come to only one conclusion: Social Revolution.

It’s a fine line between comedy and counterrevolution.

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with populists. Do they really want a revolution in name only? Do they really value popularity over principle? We don’t appeal to the masses simply because they are the masses. The United States population for example is full of social climbing, racist, misogynist, classist fucking assholes, with no solidarity or class consciousness and not a single care in the world about starving children down the block from them, much less in Ethiopia. We have to ask ourselves do we really want them running around calling themselves anarchists? People need to check themselves on this “tactic” of mass recruitment.

Sure, I want them to be anarchists too. It’s true, we need the people to be on our side. But that’s just it, I want them to BE anarchists, not say that they are anarchists and then exhibit every characteristic I fucking despise about this social order. I don’t want to hang out at the proverbial watercooler at a co-op with guys making rape jokes and laughing at African-American culture. I don’t want to be at the public seminar hearing about how “faggots are an abomination” from some asshole with a black and red flag. I’m glad anarchists are exclusive because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We don’t accept every batshit right-wing nutjob that walks around calling himself an anarchist for the same reasons we don’t call a mental patient a goose when they flap their arms like they have wings.

I’m tired of this knee-jerk reactionary hit squad of primarily teenage and college age white males who go around thinking that the freedom of speech means they can mock, ridicule and dehumanize any person or group they want without repercussion, and that anyone who dare defy them is an authoritarian monster equivalent to Joseph Stalin. That our criticism of their offensive language and attitude is comparative to the political executions attributed to the Bolshevik regime.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of comedians who use racially charged criteria to make hilarious political statements, but there is a difference between comedy and mockery. Comedy is when everyone is laughing together about a stupid stereotype that we know shouldn’t exist because we know people who don’t exhibit those characteristics, mockery is taking the stereotype as a standard and then laughing at the entire group. As radicals we need to have clearly defined lines about acceptable conduct or else we will find ourselves like so many other movements, far from our principles with a bunch of people talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

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