Rusty Childress and the False Class Consciousness of the Minutemen -- Revisited.

After some prodding from comrades, I've been considering putting out a collection of Phoenix Insurgent pieces from the last few years. As a result, I've been re-reading older pieces in order to evaluate what might make a cut if I went ahead and did it. I'm still not convinced there's much point in the project, given that everything is already mostly available free on the internet. One of the problems, of course, is that the old PI articles tended not to fit too well into either the blog format or the article format: they were long pieces but I'm not really sure that they translate well into print, given all the hyper-links and quoting going on. Putting some of the essays into physical form would require some work to annotate and I'm not sure I want to do that.

Anyhow, in the course of this re-visiting -- and partly inspired by a reunion with my old enemy Rusty Childress at one of the recent pro-migrant marches in Phoenix -- I rediscovered an piece that I wrote about this rich playboy masquerading as a working class Joe. Given the ongoing crisis surrounding migration, especially in the context of racist politico Russell Pierce's recent spate of xenophobic legislation, I thought it would be worthwhile to bring this piece back, both for comment and for consideration.

One of the problems with the immigrant movement, as I see it, is the failure to develop an understanding of why white people act politically the way they do. After all, why don't white working class people find common cause with folks of color from their same class? This question is the eternal demand made of revolutionary actors and theoreticians in the US. Answering it is important.

We here at PCWC subscribe to an analysis of American society that says that whiteness is a political identity rather than a racial one -- an alliance -- in which what we call 'white people' create a cross-class bargain, poor and rich, to defend collectively a privileged position for some people over others in exchange for not overturning the apple cart of capitalism. This undermines class unity and pits whites against people of color and, in the bigger scheme, defends capitalism and the exploitation of everyone -- including white workers, ironically. After all, in the end, even white working class people are exploited by capitalism.

Obviously this is problematic for revolutionary organizing. Towards rectifying this, we at PCWC recommend that white revolutionaries take on the vital task of both undermining this political alliance and addressing to white folks the revolutionary argument against white supremacy. If the alliance of white supremacy cannot be counted on by the ruling class to undermine our collective struggle against Capital, then anything is possible, and that's precisely what we want at PCWC. As long as the glue of white supremacy remains intact, however, the white working class will tend to fight to defend its class position through the familiar paths of white privilege, which in the end will only reinforce the domination of the capitalist class over everyone.

It is precisely into this pool of contradiction that my piece on Rusty dives. While I know that readers from outside Phoenix may not be familiar with Rusty, I think the piece is still quite instructive in terms of excavating the false class consciousness of the anti-immigration movement and the contradictions in the arguments it makes (especially to the extent that they are couched in class terms).

In that spirit, I re-post here the article I wrote three years ago. I should say, before I go, that I take some pride in the fact that when you search Google for Rusty's name, my article is number two in the list on the first page. Let's hope that it has made some impact, then, within the Minuteman and related milieu, exposing the argument of white supremacy for what it is: an argument for continued class domination by the rich over the poor and working class regardless of race or origin. The destruction of capitalism requires the destruction of white supremacy.

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Racist Jet-Set: Rusty Childress and the false class consciousness of the Minutemen

By Phoenix Insurgent

I was surfing the Save Our State and other right-wing web forums yesterday and I came across a link to some pictures from the protest last Monday. Mostly, they're not all that interesting. I forwarded the link on to a friend who, it turns out, had just discovered it himself. "That's Rusty Childress' photo folder," he told me.

For those who don't know, Rusty is the owner of Childress Automall in Phoenix - and one of the big financial backers of the anti-immigrant movement in Arizona. He pumped money into Arizona's racist so-called "Protect Arizona Now" Proposition 200, which passed in November 2004, denying vital services to immigrants. Since Prop 200's passage, he continues to be one of the sugar daddies of the anti-immigration movement. Here I quote Rusty from an Arizona Republic article that ran in September of that year:

"We're tired of (picking up) the tab of illegal immigration. We are no longer willing to subsidize this. My business has sustained around $45,000 in damages since I got involved. It has been vandalized. There have been gunshots to windows and gases sprayed on our vehicles. For me in particular it is about speaking up on the issue of illegal immigration and demanding that politicians do something."

Because of his reactionary politics, Childress' business was the subject of a series of boycotts, protests and, as Rusty himself noted, direct action in 2004 by Latino groups and their allies in Phoenix.

Typical of the anti-immigrant movement, while the foot soldiers come from the white working class, the big money comes from rich white folks. And so it comes as no surprise that Rusty was born into the lucky sperm club of wealth and privilege. His online resume proudly proclaims his many awards and elite affiliations at the same time he projects a working class, good ol' boy facade. He is a man of contradictions, like President Bush, eager to appear and appeal to the working class, while also living a life of wealth and privilege.



According to the Inc. Magazine article from 1995, Rusty took over the company, as most rich kids do, thanks not to hard work and sticktoitiveness, but due to the everyday nepotism of capitalism. His father's car dealership, now one of GM's top 50 Buick dealerships, was then in financial crisis.

The senior Childress and then general manager Jerry Hughes had no answers. Hughes called in Childress's son -- at the time, head of marketing -- and asked for his help. The energetic twenty-something who'd once wanted to become a geologist so he could play on top of volcanoes now had something just as hot to handle. The challenge came with a new title -- owner-relations manager. And it came with tacit permission to change the entire organization.

You have to understand something about Rusty Childress. For being such a regular-looking guy and for all the Tom Peters slogans he uses, he's quite the hotdogger. The back of his business card tells all: hometown, Tucson; education, Northern Arizona University (B.S. Geology/B.S. Earth Science) and NADA Dealer Academy; interests, Harley-Davidson, Mardi Gras, the beach, and so on -- kayaking, Swedish massage, speaking on total quality management. One wall of his office is all photos of himself running big white water in his kayak. Overhauling his father's company was "The Next Big Adventure" -- white-water rapids for the workweek.

Regardless of his "git r' done" affectation, Rusty's jet-setting playboy lifestyle betrays him as something other than just another working class guy.

Aside from the Minutemen and other anti-immigrant groups, he counts among his political associations Sheriff Joe's Maricopa County Sheriff’s Executive Posse (famous for it's connections to organized crime), the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce Crime Council and the Phoenix Block Watch Advisory Board. He was also Chairman of the Arizona Automobile Dealers Association Ethics Judiciary Committee. Like all rich people, Rusty loves fighting crime. He's not a friend of the working class, and he links to the downtown anti-poor gentrification organization "N.A.I.L.E.M." from his website, which itself links to Mesa Racist and anti-immigrant legislator Russell Pierce. Both N.A.I.L.E.M. and Pierce supported PAN.

And, like every good fascist, and despite his silver spoon upbringing, Rusty loves to pretend to defend the little guy. In a letter to the editor to Sonoran News, he wrote,

The political elitists in their D.C. ivory towers again go against the will of the people and support an amnesty of even greater proportions than in the past. Why do the interests of Mexico and corporate America continue to override the poll results of American citizens on immigration? This is the United States, where the laws are supposed to be followed and the elected officials are supposed to legislate the will of the people by the people, for the people.

Why are the lawmakers siding with lawbreakers? Why are “willing workers” and “willing employers” so willing to break immigration law? Our law enforcement personnel are already out manned, outgunned, out funded . . . and yet the people in D.C. continue to make their jobs even more dangerous.

Rusty's identity confusion shows in the special "Rusty Trivia and Women's Guide" section of his website. Right next to each other are these contradictory tidbits:

...there’s a jacuzzi on his balcony

...fights for the underdog [my emphasis]

...drives a rag top Corvette

...travels the western U.S. on a Harley each year

Truly a man of the people. An avid world traveler, you'll know he's in town when you see his license plate, "LVITUP," in the parking lot of his multi-million dollar business. Thanks to his wealth, though, Rusty's international vacationing sets him apart from that of the poor migrants he spends so much time and money persecuting. They can't afford the plane trips and luxury resorts that he enjoys so much - and, neither can most Minutemen. Thanks to his unearned wealth, his regular jet-set border hopping to his vacation time share in Cancun violates no law and allow him access to privileges most working class folks will never share. There are no borders when it comes to money and privilege, and Rusty disregards them for his own benefit. But he loves them when it comes to poor people.



In another letter to the Sonoran News in 2004, Rusty again displayed his trademark Joe Sixpack schtick, railing against immigration and playing the race card by singling out "high fertility rates" and "ethnic lobbies" for particular attention.

Bush’s immigration initiatives pander to ethnic lobbies and business interests, foregoing the idea that we are a nation of laws and limited resources. Essentially what the President is doing, or proposing, is to turn immigration over to big business. If companies can’t find an American worker to do the job at the price they are willing to pay, they can go looking all over the world to find somebody, with no regard to population limits.

The problem is that mass immigration and high fertility rates are having a profound impact on our nation [my emphasis].

Europeans have obviously figured out that there are many benefits to couples having only one child – or none – as opposed to the financial, social, and environmental drawbacks of having multiple children. Fewer people on the planet means a better quality of life for everyone.

Without a doubt, Rusty's talk of fertility rates is racist code for white minority, a fear that goes to the heart of the immigration issue for whites, and represents their fear of an erosion of white privilege. This acknowledgement of privilege is sometimes camouflaged in their rhetoric as the rewards of "hard work" or "playing by the rules" and separates them from the poverty and imprisonment faced by so many working class people of color who work equally hard but face a racist system of vast inequality and repression. In reality, these privileges represent not the result of hard work, but the social contract between wealthy whites and working class whites, in which some privileges are extended to all whites in exchange for their complicity in the exploitation of people of color, a source of vast profits and at the same time problems for the rich in this country.

The code words may be hard to decipher at first, but, by just what twisted standard is Childress, owner of one of the nation's biggest Buick dealerships, not considered a "business interest?" He hopes that by playing on white fears, he can obscure his own wealth and privilege. Keen to play on play on white paranoia for this purpose, he has also resurrected an old immigrant stereotype, linking immigrants to disease. In an article from the Phoenix Business Journal last year, he said,

"This is one of the cheap thrills of cheap labor. As you may have noticed, many immigrants, legal or otherwise, are employed -- if they are at all -- as cooks, dishwashers, waiters and food handlers. And it's a fact that Hepatitis A, B, and C show up in fast food environments."

But, setting aside the racist leap of logic, for a guy who spends so much time in Mexico, in restaurants and drinking Mexican beer, it's a bizarre statement indeed. It sure is benevolent of him to worry about us regular folks down here at the bottom, especially since he himself has little to fear from the cooking on the cruises and five star resorts where he vacations in Mexico.



When it comes to economics, Childress unsurprisingly shifts the blame for economic conditions off rich white folks like himself and onto undocumented workers. As part of the ruling class, he certainly wouldn't want the working class people to which he addresses his racist, nationalist appeals to transcend their white supremacist politics and develop a class analysis of American society.

Illegal immigrants are an economic burden to society. They are filling up our jails, prisons, universities, welfare lines, hospitals and K-12 schools, all at taxpayers’ expense.

They drive down wages, create urban sprawl and drive away good businesses, and their sales tax revenues. As a result, state revenues have decreased and the budget has exploded, spelling economic disaster.

But, despite Rusty's assertions, it isn't immigrants who "drive down wages, create urban sprawl and drive away good businesses, and their sales tax revenues" - those are all things that rich people do. After all, it's rich people like Childress who set wages, hire and fire, control the city planning office, run the government, hold elected office and own the construction and development companies - some of the same people, ironically, who the Minutemen are working with to build their racist border wall.

For too long, Rusty Childress has manipulated to his own benefit a false class consciousness amongst white workers in Arizona. The Minuteman movement professes to defend the jobs and incomes of working class and middle class workers at the same time that it defends the participation of rich people like Rusty Childress whose economic interests are diametrically opposed to those of working class folks!

When defenders of immigrants - especially when white - appear, the movement is quick to denounce them as middle class outsiders, as one regular participant did recently on the Save Our State forum:

...those "anarchists" were little high school dorks. Hard core socialists? Hardly. They love to spew their comic book fantasy mantra's then go back to their upper middle class homes, all paid for by mommy & daddy. They're out there for something to do. They wouldn't survive 2 minutes on the mean streets of Chicago.

Another movement member, defended Rusty's wealth and privilege this way by using that familiar coded argument, saying, "Rusty is a great person, it sounds to me that maybe you have a problem with people that have made it in life." What bizarre apologetics from a movement that pretends to defend the little gal. To have had so much wealth handed to him and to have failed would have been shocking indeed.

The fact is, the Minuteman movement and its rich benefactors aren't fighting for the average working Joanne, as is betrayed by their political contradictions. A white movement that slanders it's white opponents as middle class, asserts itself as defending the little guy and yet defends the participation of the wealthy in it's organizations can only make sense when we realize that the object of the Minutemen is not to defend the working class, or "jobs", but rather to defend white supremacy, which by nature crosses class lines.

And so, rich politicos like Childress, because they defend and maintain the cross-class alliance of whiteness, get a pass on the class analysis, revealing the bogus class position of the Minutemen and their "Americans First" allies to be mere opportunistic window dressing on a racist defense of white privilege. This goes a long way towards explaining the anger of participants in the movement and the defensiveness they express when their opponents justifiably level accusations of racism at them. After all, how can a white movement bent on the deportation of 12 million Latinos not be racist, especially given the history of the region.

White workers need to wake up and realize that white skin privilege is the cause that the Minutemen truly defend. The entitlement that white workers feel to good jobs and political power, to be first hired and last fired, to health care, better schools and some economic mobility, however, is a racist struggle unless broadened to include all workers, regardless of color and regardless of legal status.

Many white workers are justified in their complaints against capitalism. This system is waging a viscious war against the working and middle classes right now. The rich are remaking the economy in conscious ways that undermine the gains that all workers have fought so hard for since this country was founded. However, turning on ourselves - attacking one part of the class to which we also belong - only empowers the rich to continue their exploitation of all of us.

Attacking immigrant labor only validates the class war strategy of the wealthy and strengthens their hand against us. As long as white workers fight to exclude undocumented laborers, we by default continue to maintain a key weapon the rich use against the working class as a whole. On the face of it, we must ask ourselves - if attacking part of the working class will increase workers bargaining power and thus raise wages and benefits, why would rich people like Childress support it? The rich have no interest in higher wages or increased worker power.

The analysis of the Minutemen is a false class consciousness, and not one that will challenge the overall structure of capitalist exploitation. By fragmenting rather than building workers power, it offers nothing towards solving the long or short term problems faced by workers of all colors in this country. Further, the diversion of class struggle into race struggle shifts the fight onto terrain that does not threaten the very wealthy in this country, given their overwhelming shared white status. The problems workers face derive not from the desires of millions of immigrant workers to build better lives but from the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small, wealth elite. The strategy advocated by the Minutemen and rich people like Rusty Childress maintains and exacerbates divisions within the working class that benefit the wealthy.

However, a unified working class, in which white workers saw common cause with their immigrant brothers and sisters, could build the kind of power that might put all workers in a position to dictate to the bosses for a change. There can be no successful struggle against the rich elites, whether in Washington or Arizona, without working class unity. And that's something you'll never see Rusty Childress spend his millions on.

PCWC interviews Chris from Propagandhi

A few weeks ago after tabling the show, PCWC got the opportunity to interview Chris, the singer and guitarist for the great anarchist punk band Propagandhi. We had tons of questions in mind for him, but knowing his enthusiasm for hockey, we decided to limit our discussion to sports and anarchy. PCWC has an unofficial anarchist Phoenix Suns supporter group, so we are very interested in the relationship that anti-capitalists have to professional sports.

Our set up at the Propagandhi show

Chris was very generous and even stayed to chat long after our camera's battery died. If you haven't yet, you'd be doing yourself a favor by getting your hands on a copy of Propagandhi's newest album. Unlike a lot of bands from the early Fat Wreck Chords days, they continue to challenge themselves and to put out interesting, quality music.

Anyhow, being anarchists and therefore procrastinators, we have only now gotten around to editing the footage and putting it on the interweb. We hope you enjoy it.

Beer and Revolution: Art in resistance, anarchism, and currency experiments

Collin Sick

The second Beer and Revolution is coming up, and we're excited to have Joey G. as the featured speaker for our second B&R. The first B&R was held earlier this month at the bar Boulders on Broadway in Tempe, over 20 anarchists and anti-authoritarians came out, joined by a few Marxists and constitutionalists as well. The discussions, debates, and conversations went long past the self designated Midnight ending we anticipated, despite some significant political disagreements everyone was in good humor, and the bartender kept the beer pouring.

The next two B&Rs will be a step up, we have lined up some fantastic speakers for these events. The July get together will feature local anarchist, librarian, artist, and local currency proponent Joey G, Joey's been in the news lately for a local currency experiment that he and other Phoenix artists are pushing called PHX BUX, the project is picking up steam as over two dozen local businesses now participate. Many already know Joey G for his promotion of the local arts scene and curating the long running anarchist library, an accessible archive he's made available to the public for nearly a decade, and his belief in art as a tool in the struggle for a better and freer world. These are some of the subjects that Joey G will be talking about at the July installment of Beer and Revolution, we look forward to all the debate, thought, criticism, and inspiration this event may further.

Once again, Beer and Revolution begins at 9 PM, and Joey will speak a little later, giving folks time to get there, get settled, and grab a couple of brews.

Come down to Tempe on Sunday, July 12, have some tasty beers and interesting talk, and enjoy the company of other anarchists and anti-authoritarians from the valley. Joel Olson, a longtime agitator, anarchist, and member of Bring the Ruckus, is scheduled as to speak on his study of fanaticism at the August B&R, more information on this to come soon.

We at PCWC look forward to seeing you in July, cheers!

Kansas Bleeding Again

By Phoenix Insurgent

When former director of victim's services for the Shawnee County District Attorney's office, Suzanne James, was asked by the LA Times how she would characterize anti-abortion militants like Dr. George Tiller's alleged killer Scott Roeder, she said, "Some of these guys had that John Brown look in their eyes."

The killing of Dr. Tiller by an anti-abortion militant has again raised the issue of fanaticism in the public consciousness. The fanatic has always occupied a unique space within American politics. Generally despised by the political mainstream as beyond reason, even mentally ill, the political zealot combines extremism and often violence in ways that brings moderates of the right and left together in harmonious -- if disingenuous -- choruses consisting of the righteous denunciation of violence on one hand and the moralistic defense of democratic debate on the other.

Insanity is a common epithet applied to zealots and fanatics. John Brown suffered them. Likewise, Roeder has been characterized as mentally ill, an all-too-common diagnosis in this society for those who act politically beyond what is considered moderate and 'rational'. The LA Times reported, however, that his fellow anti-abortion militants considered that he "held 'fringe' beliefs but was no hard-line lunatic." This is telling.

If not the product of the insane then, fanaticism, we are reminded at times like these, is at least anti-democratic and dangerous. Reasonable people, we are told, act in reasonable ways, and that means moderation and middle ground. Compromise and civility. The fanatic rejects these ideas and acts to obliterate them through her actions and words.

That anti-abortion activists describe pro-choice doctors as "baby killers" or Nazi doctors is an example of this framing. It draws a clear line that allows very little wiggle room for moderation and tends to force a choosing of sides on terms beneficial to the fanatic. After all, goes the argument, how can one be expected to compromise with those who would kill babies?

But the anti-choice militant is only the most recent manifestation of American fanaticism. And although anarchists oppose this extremist and his agenda for good reason, other fanatics have come before him and not all of them from the reactionary right. As a result, anarchists would do well to consider the politics of the fanatic and to consider if there is anything that we can learn from it.

When we look closely, what we see is that fanaticism is not a mental state or a political position opposed to "reasonableness" or "democracy". In fact, fanaticism is a political strategy, and one that can sometimes deliver positive results when employed by people with progressive politics, even if in this specific case it has not. Studying this application, then, even if we as anarchists would oppose the particular desired outcome of anti-choice militants, can be instructive for our own strategies and how we frame debates with regard to our own political opponents.

THE FANATICAL DEMOCRACY OF THE GARRISONIANS

In a recent talk, entitled "Politics of Protestant Violence: Abolitionists and Anti-Abortionists", NAU professor Joel Olson analyzed the two movements by comparing their use of fanatical violence to polarize the respective politics of their times. An anarchist himself, Olson has done a lot of interesting research on fanaticism, and specializes in the politics of the abolitionist movement. His insights on the matter are the perfect place to start for anarchists interested in the politics of the fanatic and I have drawn on them extensively for this essay.

The Garrisonian abolitionists, led by William Lloyd Garrison and his comrade Wendell Phillips, took an uncompromising stand towards the destruction of the slave system. Writing in their journal, Liberation, and acting through debate and civil disobedience, the Garrisonian movement refused to compromise on the question of slavery. Their demand was for an immediate and total end to the slave system and as a result they were routinely denounced as fanatics.

At the same time, they often took their arguments directly to anti-slavery moderates, which frequently led to physical confrontations, sometimes in their churches. Those that did not demand the immediate and total abolition of slavery were accused by the radicals as being just as complicit as the slave owner himself. One Garrisonian, Stephen Foster (famous for disrupting services at churches that didn't take a stand on slavery), denounced less fervent Northerners as “the basest of slaves, the vilest of hypocrites and the most execrable of man-stealers, inasmuch as they voluntarily consent to be the watch-dogs of the plantation.”

When challenged by less radical abolitionists, who advocated a more gradualist position, Garrison was famous for comparing the question of ending slavery to a house on fire: “You do not ‘gradually’ call for the firemen to come ‘gradually’, to ‘gradually’ put out your fire … you want it immediately extinquished”. When further faced with the charge that surely, regardless, an immediate end to slavery was not likely, Garrison would reply, “We have never said that slavery would be overthrown by a single blow, that it ought to be we shall always contend”.

The Garrisonians pushed hard for an uncompromising position on slavery, but their extremism didn't end there. As Olson writes in his interesting essay, "The Freshness of Fanaticism: The Abolitionist Defense of Zealotry", while the Garrisonians were definitely fanatics,

[t]hey were also passionate democrats. They defended the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, fought against racial discrimination, advocated for women’s rights, and condemned the exploitation of industrial workers. Garrisonians championed free speech, welcomed African Americans and white women into their organizations, and developed new participatory practices in public meetings. Their zeal for the antislavery cause reflected their commitment to democracy; in turn, their democratic beliefs inspired fanatical opposition to enslavement and racial inequality. Garrisonians brimmed with zealotry, yet they used their fanaticism to strengthen democracy rather than undermine it.

That is, their brand of fanaticism sought to broaden democratic participation, not to limit it.

Understandably, this brought them into conflict with other abolitionists. They denounced the Republicans -- Lincoln in particular -- as preservationists of the slave system by the fact of their commitment to the maintenance of the Union over the abolition of slavery. In other words, the political moderation of the less radical abolitionists was in fact, in the eyes of the Garrisonians, a capitulation and therefore equivalent the position of the slavocrats. Moderation, then, not just the slave owner, was the enemy of the liberation of the slave in the eyes of the Garrisonians.

FANATACISM AS A POLITICAL STRATEGY

In another presentation in 2006, Olson described fanaticism as "'the mobilization of collectivities according to a friends/enemies dichotomy by non-state actors who are willing to sacrifice themselves or others in such a mobilization.'" He reported that from his research on the abolitionist movement, particularly the radical Garrisonians, what he had found was that rather than being cowed by appellations like "zealot" and "fanatic", they embraced them in their quest to defeat slavery and broaden the democratic character of American society.

Olson continued: "[W]hen we understand fanaticism in this way, we see that it's not inherently undemocratic. That what zealotry really is is a critique and a rejection of political moderation - not a rejection of reason, of rationality or anything like that. And, as such, fanaticism and reason can be consistent. And furthermore, it can be consistent with justice and democracy in times when moderation lends support to the enemies of democracy... so at certain points in history perhaps fanaticism is the more democratic option over liberal moderation."

I take the question Olson has been investigating lately to be one of the orientation that revolutionary movements ought to take towards moderate or liberal elements. These elements often frame themselves against supposedly irrational radical - or fanatical - movements at the same time that they immerse themselves in the liberal democratic myth of the responsible middle ground, in which disagreeing sides can dialogue and come to compromises. American democracy treats the middle ground as hallowed ground. In this 'pragmatic' democratic tradition, fanaticism is treated as irrational or unrealistic, and fanatics are denounced by so-called reasonable moderates in the name of justice and democracy.

However, although Olson's conclusions contradict this commonly held American belief, those of us who study history and have organized in broader movements will probably understand it quite well. It expresses a common relationship that anarchists have to moderate elements in the movements in which we participate. While it can be useful at times, the moderate middle is also the engine of co-optation and recuperation -- and also sometimes the vehicle of left-cover reaction by the ruling class.

So how should committed revolutionaries relate to this malleable center? One possibility is to treat it as a potential ally and therefore to moderate our own actions and rhetoric in service of some larger goal that it is perceived can be achieved through such unity. This has been a path that many anarchists and other radicals have taken in the anti-war movement, for instance. The hope seems to be that either the moderates will come around to our way of thinking, or, perhaps, that their belief (and despite our equal un-belief) in the reasonableness of the system will somehow manifest in reality, persuading through speaking truth to power and other such measures.

But another way of looking at this dilemma is to view the moderate middle as an impediment to revolutionary progress. They are not to be persuaded so much as made irrelevant or politically eliminated from the terrain of political contestation. In that case, perhaps the proper course is not to take a moderate stance, but rather to stick to extremist positions, putting pressure on the middle, thus polarizing the debate and forcing recuperationist moderate elements to choose sides. In this sense, organizing in a fanatical manner means having two targets in mind when one acts: the opponent and the political moderate. This was the strategy of the Garrisonian abolitionists.

With that in mind, and recognizing the reactionary character of the attack and the goals of the anti-choice movement, I think that looking at the case of the murder of Dr. Tiller can in fact provide useful information for anarchists engaged in our own admittedly quite different struggle.

There are three key elements to the fanatical approach to politics playing out as a result of the attack. They can be discovered first by looking at whether and how the action contributes to a polarization in the debate both within the broader popular discussion and within the anti-abortion movement itself. Then, let's consider the question of whether this fanatical act contributes or challenges notions of democracy because, as Olson has pointed out so aptly, fanatacism and democracy are not necessarily at odds, even if the two are generally portrayed as opposites. In fact, as in the case of the abolitionists, fanaticism can actually open up space for broad democratic participation.

THE NATIONAL DEBATE

The national media reacted to the murder of Tiller with near universal condemnation and revulsion. Katie Couric posted on her CBS News blog: "No matter what your moral position may be on abortion, Tiller was first and foremost a doctor and acting within the law. That should not have cost him his life." President Obama echoed this point, saying that "[h]owever profound our differences over difficult issues, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence." The New York Times concurred, calling for increasing national police attention to the issue of extremism while calling on anti-abortion advocates to "refrain from the 'baby killer' rhetoric that inflames an already heated debate." The Dallas Morning News called the murder "a tragedy".

If anything then, this attack seems to have provoked from within the mainstream media a call to a national spirit of moderatism that the Garrisonians would have found familiar. We can enjoy the obvious hypocrisy of the NY Times, head chearleader of the war in Iraq, and Obama, replacement architect of this war, denouncing political violence as a means of accomplishing political goals. But this is to be expected. Certainly their tendency to defend the moderate middle is due in part to the fact that the national press is the beneficiary of its position as the official mediator of the national dialogue. Likewise the "Washington Consensus" and other elite capitalist policy positions reflect a genuine unity in the capitalist class, which may differ internally on some tactical questions but tends to agree broadly on most strategic questions. The press reflects this tendency as well for obvious reasons.

What's interesting about this attack is that it comes as the religious right finds itself in retreat and political disarray. Yet, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, 87% of counties in the US lack an abortion provider and that is largely thanks to the actions of militants like Roeder. While the media appeals to moderatism, in fact the bombings, the murders and the fake anthrax attacks have had their desired effect. The fanatical application of violence, sabotage and civil disobedience has accomplished genuine reactionary victories that affect real people's lives. And the decision of Tiller's clinic not to re-open following the murder only puts an exclamation point on this fact.

The question now becomes whether this attack will reverse or advance the achievements of the militant wing of the movement. In 1994 and 1998, when two past murders of abortion providers happened, the right was in the ascent. This is not the case now. Will the changed political terrain further the attack against abortion providers outside the legal arena, or will there finally be some push back from the society at large? What effect will the attack have on the positions held by Americans on the question of abortion? This murder will be a test case. Will the moderate middle in the abortion debate be pushed to one side or another by this action? Or will a general moderatism continue to prevail?

One problem that pro-choice organizers have when debate is polarized around abortion is reflected in the growing numbers of Americans who report that they sympathize more with anti-abortion arguments than with pro-choice ones. Because of the general lack of a discussion around abortion that centers around the equality and liberation of women -- that is, of the centrality of abortion rights to women's equality -- the pro-choice movement has little to fall back on when fanatical anti-abortion militants take action to frame the discussion in harsh terms. In a religious country like the US, allowing the terrain to shift towards the moral rather than the libertarian puts the reactionary militant in a powerful position to project his will and this is precisely why they do it. Likewise, the lack of an equivalent response from pro-choice militants maintains a space defined by religious right moralists and this is to their advantage.

THE INTERNAL DEBATE

Now let's turn to the question of what effect the action had inside the anti-abortion movement. It is vital to recognize that this murder aimed to affect the debate there as well, which the attacker seems to have viewed as broadly too moderate. Because this is a fanatical act, it is aimed both at movement enemies - Tiller in particular and those that provide abortions in general - but also, critically, at the anti-abortion movement as well. It's a two-pronged tactic that seeks to evaporate the middle ground so that all that remains is the political extreme represented by the killer and his comrades in the movement. So, the New York Times only gets half the story when they report that the attack was aimed "toward the dwindling cadre of physicians who risk their safety to perform legal medical procedures." Clearly that, but not just that.

When we look at the debate in the religious right, what we see on one side is a fear of a backlash and the pressure to moderate and hunker down. The AP reports that, rather than striking a mortal blow to those few remaining doctors willing to perform abortions, the killing has actually put some in the anti-abortion movement on the defensive. At a recent press conference denouncing the president's supreme court nominee, the Christian Defense Coalition headman Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney was flanked by activists from Operation Save America, an anti-abortion group that promises to use "only biblical principles" in its fight against abortion rights.

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said, "In the immediate future, it makes it difficult to even speak about an issue we've been speaking about for 365 days a year. Anything you say — somebody is going to pounce on us." Anti-abortion groups in Kansas distanced themselves from the killer and lamented the timing with regard to the upcoming debate on Obama's supreme court nominee.

The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president, Richard Land, explained his reaction this way, saying, "First of all, I thought, 'how horrible'. I thought this is going to be the same song and dance that we had the last time this happened, people trying to paint all of us as wild-eyed crazies." Rev. Pat Mahoney of the anti-abortion Christian Defense Coalition complained, "Please, don't use this tragic situation to broad-brush the pro-life community as extremists... politically, this could not have happened at a worse time."

However, on the other hand, extremists within the movement have taken a harsher stand. “Scott is not my hero in that sense; he has not inspired me to shoot an abortionist," wrote Dave Leach, publisher of Prayer and Action News, a publication to which Roeder subscribed. "But, definitely, he will be the hero to thousands of babies who will not be slain because Scott sacrificed everything for them.” Roeder himself allegedly posted to anti-choice websites comparing Tiller to a Nazi: "Tiller is the concentration camp 'Mengele' of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation."

Randall A. Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, wrote in an editorial on June 1st that "[i]t now falls to pro-life leaders like myself to stand strong and unflinching in the face of the unjust criticism we will now endure because of his killing. And so I turn my attention to the attacks that will follow his death. We must use this as a 'teaching moment;' a chance for 'dialogue' with our fellow Americans concerning this terrific holocaust of the unborn." Rejecting the call for moderation, he closed his piece saying, "These foolish accusations fly in the face of equally radical rhetoric, images, and images in the civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, and the abolitionist movement. If Dr. Martin Luther King had followed the advice of the timid in his day, President Obama would still be riding in the back of the bus."

That's certainly a hell of a comparison for a movement that generally sat out or even opposed the civil rights movement and took quite a conservative stand on women's liberation. Nevertheless, it's worth noting the recurring reference to the abolitionists within the anti-abortion movement, and there has been some discussion within the movement of the abolitionists as a model.

So, it does seem like Roeder has at least hit on a division within his own movement and time will tell whether the rush to moderation by some anti-choice elements will result in a political vacuum that can be filled by more fanatical elements. His attack has if nothing else forced the taking of sides in his own movement, which is a primary goal of fanatical political actors. Kansas City anti-abortion activist Regina Dinwiddie said, "If anybody needed killing, George Tiller needed killing. The gut reaction from everybody who doesn't have their thoughts filtered by fear is 'Yahoo!' "

DEMOCRACY?

The remaining question is whether the attack has broadened or narrowed the space for democratic activity. This should concern anarchists not because we either limit ourselves to bourgeois definitions of democracy, but because broadening the participation of people in the society they live is one of our goals. In a sense, knowing the truth of the bourgeois press's general lack of commitment to actual democracy is enlightening in the context of their galloping defense of it in the face of fanatical acts. Therefore, it's worth considering the way that the mainstream defenders of that narrow spectrum that masquerades as the democratic debate related to this murder. We should analyze the response understanding that some fanatical acts can open space for democracy even if this one may not have.

Defending the traditional church of moderation, Brad Hirschfield wrote in his blog in the "On Faith" section for Newsweek: "Ultimately though, we need to reframe this debate from one about abortion to one about democracy. This debate needs to be framed as being about nothing less than democracy in America. When zealots act as they did this week in Kansas, they are making war on America, upon the constitution and the rule of law."

Similarly, a Dallas Morning News editorial denounced the polarizing rhetoric surrounding the issue, claiming that "Violence undermines any hope of a civil debate about important issues. Sadly, this atrocity is likely to push both sides further from finding any common ground. Democracy is noisy, but it should not be violent. Abortion opponents must focus their efforts on changing the law — not taking it into their own hands."

While violence may or may not push apart opposing sides depending on the circumstances, it's far from clear that violence in all cases is contrary to democracy, as Olson has noted in his research. In the case of the abolitionists it led to the expansion of democratic forces both within the abolitionist movement and American society as a whole.

However, the question for anarchists is not whether the attack broadens democracy in the anti-choice movement (although that would be interesting in itself), but whether it has any potential to broaden democratic participation beyond that. Given the nature of the anti-choice movement's goal of restricting the options available for women with regard to reproduction and the power that flows from that, however, this would indeed be very, very unlikely.

Unlike the civil rights movement and the liberation movements that preceded it, the anti-abortion movement seeks to limit choices that are central to whether women can operate in society as free and equal human beings. Indeed, the anti-abortion movement's historical points of comparison fail when they try to frame themselves as liberators of the unborn. After all, if Tiller is Mengele, then what is the woman who goes to him for an abortion? Is she a Nazi as well? Just a 'good German'? In the end, what we see is that in fact it is ultimately the woman herself who is the target of the anti-choice movement. This can't help but have reactionary results with regard to democracy. As anarchists, however, it is this argument that should appeal to us, not the fake and self-serving defenses of the moderate middle ground and capitalist democracy by the bourgeois press.

CONCLUSION

What awaits the anti-abortion movement and its militants remains to be seen. As American politics has taken a vaguely noticeable turn to the left, will the movement turn increasingly towards fanaticism in the political sense or will the moderate elements maintain the politically advantageous terrain of broker between their opponents, the American public and the extremists? Already, we see more moderate activists within the movement shifting gears to more local and state-level activity. This is a reflection of their evaluation of their diminished opportunities in the new administration.

Interestingly, Roeder said in a recent interview with the AP that he knew that more attacks were planned by others for the future. And meanwhile, the Daily Mail in the UK reports what so many Americans know: secretly, there are millions who support the murder. "I don't lose sleep over the death of anyone who pushes a needle through a crying baby's brain," said a woman interviewed in the article.

The proof will come in whether the debate polarizes and if a solution to the extremists liking is forthcoming. For anarchists, it will be worth keeping our attention on the movement, not leastwise because our fates are tied up in it, but also because political developments there may provide lessons for us in how we orient towards the movements with which we find ourselves allied, whether through political convenience or historical inertia.

The anarchist movement has a well-known history of falling victim to the knives of our so-called allies on the left and in the popular fronts, so the fanatical strategy is one anarchists ought to consider. Certainly as many liberals and leftists continue their failed moderate strategies with regard to issues like never-ending wars and a collapsing environment -- at the same time that these very crises continue to grow and worsen -- the question of how to relate to these so-called progressive forces will become more and more pressing.

When the alliances we find ourselves in keep us muzzled or marginalized, it might just be worth questioning whether it's time to re-evaluate the allies we keep and our orientation towards them. A break with the "play nice" strategy that can tend to dominate big tent coalition-type organizing may be in order. If so, a fanatical voice for liberation may be the appropriate response.

First Friday Transformed! Observers of art become participants in their own lives! Police confronted by mob after raiding the UM gallery

by Jon Riley

First Friday on "Roosevelt Row" took a decidedly confrontational turn last week after undercover Phoenix police officers ran a sting on the UM gallery down on 5th st. PCWC was tabling that night when we noticed everyone in the gallery being pushed out by a handful of uniformed and a couple of undercover cops. The crowd grew in the yard as word spread that they were busted for serving alcohol, particularly angering people as alcohol is prevalent at most of the spaces on First Friday, and to make matters worse the host of the gallery, a DJ, and two artists were held in hand cuffs inside.

Everybody forced out was pretty angry that the police were breaking up the show, so people took photos of both the uniformed and the undercover officers, yelled at the police, and chanted "Let them go!". It was nice to see a united group challenging the actions of the cops, even after the police brought the DJ out in an appeal to the crowd to leave the crowd, people saw through such a cynical move by not leaving, and instead shouting out support and blaming the cops for sending him out. In addition to that a cop came down and tried to talk to someone they perceived as a leader only to have the man cover his ears when the cop spoke, and a local art community big name tried to do one for the cops only to be told off. Everyone wanted their friends freed, right then and there, no compromise, no debate. The handful of cops called in reinforcements, and soon after 30+ cops arrived and cleared the front yard, many people stood their ground and refused to leave, causing a scuffle between a few people and a cop.

The folks inside were eventually released, only after being cited for serving without a permit, and everyone flooded into the gallery to take a last look at the art before the venue shuttered for the night. As we were walking off, word spread that a police car had been tagged, excitedly we turned around to check out a little anti-cop action! We were happy to see a few spray painted tags on the police SUV (one of the many police cars jamming 5th st up), even though one man was arrested.

All in all, a lovely cool late spring night in central Phoenix; an inspiring show of solidarity between young and old, art lovers, radicals, passer-bys, and friends of the detained; and mostly a spontaneous social rupture that Phoenix has needed for sometime. It was rewarding to see the smiles on faces when the police left the gallery with no one in cuffs, to hear people talking about how much fun confronting the police had been, and the crowd of people surrounding the police SUV laughing and taking pictures of the tags while the police stood by wearing grimaces. It was nice to see the police on the defensive! And, best if all, our resistance worked: all charges were dropped a couple weeks later!

We need to remember victories like this and how they happen if we want to defend our own autonomous spaces. When we all stand up in solidarity behind our collective desire to live our individual desires free from the control of Capital and the State, we liberate each other and ourselves. What will we do next time?

Nearly 20 cops stand guard over the gallery in the front yard.

The cops have left, people excitedly return to the UM gallery!

Art is everywhere: A beautiful site in downtown Phoenix.

Restless Sleep

Phoenix Insurgent

I recently came across the Situationist-inspired film "Call It Sleep". As expected, the movie spends some time discussing and explaining various Situationist themes, many of which are quite relevant today, or at least remain open questions. Revolutionaries who haven't yet encountered the Situationists or their theories (or, for instance, the May 1968 uprising in France) would find this film well-worth watching as something of a primer on their theory, as well as a work that still rings true today in many ways in terms of describing the broad strokes in which Capital paints our lives today.

Probably the foremost analytical "discovery" of the Situationists is the idea of the Spectacle, which is different, though related, to the idea of the mass media. The Spectacle, as I have heard Nowtopia author Chris Carlsson explain it best, is the voice of power telling you that your lived experience is nonsense and that the only story worth knowing (and comparing yourself to) is the narrative of Capital. It's clear to me that this analysis has been borne out, with one of it's chief symptoms being the increasing "medicization" of the western world. What modern society calls depression comes from the divorce between your desires, the desires that are implanted in you by power, your lived reality and the isolation that results from an atomized spectacularized capitalism. Capital is everywhere and you are nowhere. It is everything and you are nothing.

Nevertheless, I do have some minor disagreements with this film. First, and it will come as no surprise to Phoenix Insurgent readers, but while the Situationist-influenced dialogue posits (and often wishes were true because of its own generally white composition) the decomposition of traditional modes of social ordering and social control like race and gender, these categories have not yet ceased operating in the real world. The position of the Situationists is one of putting the theoretical cart before the actual horse.

To take an example, we at PCWC still maintain that the cross-class relationship of white supremacy remains a critical component supporting the maintenance of modern capitalist domination in the US. While I can appreciate the perhaps future and even particular desire of certain factions within Capital to remake this relationship and to replace it with a broader narrative, it's clear to anyone living in the southwest that this hasn't happened yet. Thus, attacking white supremacy is still a worthwhile endeavor for those that seek total liberation given the defining role it plays within American society.

That these decompositions haven't happened yet is perhaps a bizarre reflection of both the schizophrenia of the elite class in the new era and the power of the working class itself to maintain the petty privileges of whiteness in an era of globalized re-ordering, even if they are (in the case of whiteness) regressive identities and, perhaps, on the wane. In a sense, the continuing appeal of whiteness itself is an ironic proof that the white working class thinks and acts politically, which is good news. Sadly, however, it isn't a liberatory position in the long run. Still, recognizing this is a step above the dumb trailer trash elitist analysis so prevalent on the left. Without understand the continuing power of white supremacy to define the political framework for the white working class, I think theorists are at a loss to explain the actual positions taken by it.

By way of explaining this continuing appeal, it does seem that what we are seeing play out in Arizona, for instance, is a battle between two capitalist classes -- one older and rooted in ideas of traditional class divisions and allied by convenience with the white working class, and one new and rooted in transnationalism (although not internationalism, as the libertarian Right wrongly assumes). Perhaps it's the ground level expression of the classic contest between Marx's industrial Capital and finance Capital. That this battle is being waged within the elite class -- especially now in a day when GM has to fight for scraps while the banks get trillions without question -- cannot be denied. And it's precisely the fact that there is a contest around this issue that we know that it has not yet been settled.

In a broader sense, I'm very interested in the congruence between the anti-Bolshevik/Cadre argument of Situationism, the anti-Leftist and anti-organizational argument of post-Leftism and the fanatical argument being made by Joel Olson. "Call It Sleep" ends with the Soweto youth uprising of 1976 in South Africa, in which youth attacked Capital and the State and at the same time refused (and assaulted) the progressive and even radical mediators who sought to give voice to their struggle in their place. In true fanatical fashion, they attacked the moderate middle, demanding all or nothing, total emancipation or zilch. This put both the State and the recuperators in the middle and in the same boat.

One is reminded of the revolt in Paris in 2006 in which suburban North African French likewise attacked both state and capital, police car and store front, and at the same time worked their way through the anti-CPE protests of the students, robbing and stealing IPods from the protesters as they went. There is no room for compromise, perhaps, it turns out. At the least, we see parallels here that are worth exploring.

So, the post-Leftist seeks to refuse the default alliance of the left while the Situationist seeks to attack the anti-democratic, mediated and elitist role of the Bolshevik. And at the same time, the fanatic tries to evaporate the moderate middle ground, from which the compromising and recuperationist liberal emerges. Surely there is something in common here that can be investigated. And maybe that's our role now, viewing this film twenty-some years later.

Watch the full version here:

PCWC presents Beer and Revolution

Collin Sick

A long discussed idea has been made real, an anarchist bar night here in the valley. Years back an essay about the turn of the century German anarchist bar culture had made the rounds here in Phoenix. This piece, Beer and Revolution: Some Aspects of German Anarchist Culture in New York, 1880-1900 ran in Social Anarchism journal back in 2002 (if I recall), and had been passed around by some of the Phoenix anarchists of the day, unfortunately it has since been out of circulation for some time as the Social Anarchism (SA) website hadn't been updated in sometime. As PCWC talked more seriously about starting some sort of a "pub night," I found contact information for the author of the piece, Tom Goyens, and contacted him about reprinting the piece, which he supported and sent the full version to me.

I have a few criticisms of the piece, mainly the attack on "individualist anarchists." PCWC doesn't hold a strict "either/or" ideological conviction on the anarchist schools of thought, rather we look for the most usable pieces of ideas to construct a vision that jibes with our lived experiences. Mostly, Goyens piece offers valuable insights into the workings of the radical milleau of the time, and clearly we are supportive and thankful for his research. For those of you really excited by this history you will want to check out his 2007 book Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880-1914.

This brings me to our latest endeavor. Inspired by the attempts at building a social culture around political discussion and ideas, we have decided to give it a shot here in the valley. We've chosen a local bar in Tempe, Boulders on Broadway (click link for map) , after spending a few Sunday nights there sampling their wide selection of tasty beers. The staff is friendly, there's a great selection of drinks, lots of space, and there's in-door bike parking for all of our bike loving friends. The first night will be held at Boulders on Broadway on Sunday, June 7. Boulders on Broadway is located at the northeast corner of Broadway Rd. & Roosevelt in Tempe. The event will kick off at 9 and last for a couple hours or until people want to leave.

We hope our readers, anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and other radicals join us for our latest experiment in politics. We hope to have a few surprises as well, making this a night to remember, and a future event that will hopefully contribute to an active, critical, and thinking anarchist movement here in the valley of the sun. Below is the flier we distributed at last night's Propagandhi show, we have a few hundred more to get out in the next two weeks. Spread the word!




PCWC is glad to finally premiere the first web appearance of Goyens' entertaining article on the immigrant German anarchist culture below. Cheers!

Beer and Revolution: Some Aspects of German Anarchist Culture in New York, 1880-1900

by Tom Goyens

Paul Goodman once characterized a free society as the "extension of spheres of free action until they make up most of the social life" (Parisi, ed., 1986, p.26). In a similar spirit, Colin Ward thought an anarchist society existed or could be formed "like a seed beneath the snow" (Parisi, ed., 1986, p.16). Goodman and Ward are but two authors who, during the fifties and beyond, launched new ideas in the hope to revitalize the anarchist movement in the West. It is generally understood that the radicalism of the sixties heralded a new kind of anarchism, as Gerald Runkle portrayed in Anarchism: Old and New, published in 1972. The New Anarchism distanced itself from pre-World War I anarchism dominated by immigrant groups and seemingly preoccupied with violence and outmoded analyses of class and power.

In this sense, the German immigrant anarchists of the 1880s and 1890s, personified by the figure of Johann Most, could be said to be of the old school of revolutionaries, having little in common with the subtleties of contemporary activists and thinkers. On the surface this is true. The printed record of this movement such as newspaper accounts, anarchist editorials, manifestoes and pamphlets, clearly shows the impact of Bakunin's notion of underground groups, conspiratorial action, the need for a violent revolution to bring down the bastions of power and greed. Acts of regicide, even if not committed by an anarchist, were hailed as genuinely revolutionary statements. In short, as James Joll put it, the phrase 'propaganda by the deed' was "taking on a more sinister meaning" (Joll, 1964, p.124).

But this same record, beyond the editorial pages, also reveals the workings of an alternative "sphere of free action," maintained by German anarchists who lived and worked in the hive of the American metropolis. Admittedly, linking Goodman and Most would be ridiculous. Nonetheless, the concept of a defiantly built community has antecedents in the life and times of the German anarchists, who not all followed the ranting of Most. This is not to obscure the historical context in which immigrant radicalism operated, a context of murderous violence on the part of the elite that unquestionably drove some of the disaffected to extremism. Nonetheless, parallels exist between an immigrant anarchist community as it thrived in New York City during the 1880s and 1890s, and the network of autonomous anarchist groups, infoshops, and grassroots activists of today.

Setting Up a Federative Network

The German radical socialists of the 1870s and 1880s were the first group to launch an anarchist movement in the United States. Of course individualist anarchists had been active in America since the 1840s, but they tended to either escape from mainstream society by setting up alternative but insular commun(iti)es, or they engaged in scattered polemic and authorial attacks on America's problems. As radical individualists they shunned collective organizing and stayed away from active involvement in the workers' movement. The Germans, and later other ethnic groups, walked a different path. It is their network of meeting places in which politics, leisure and togetherness were cultivated that deserves attention.

The groundwork for the German immigrant anarchist movement was laid in November 1880 when a number of social-revolutionaries (as the anarchists initially called themselves) formed the New York Social-Revolutionary Club after being expelled from the increasingly authoritarian Socialist Labor Party. Nearly all members of the Club were German exiles, victims of Bismarck's anti-socialist legislation which caused widespread emigration of radicals. In New York there also existed the remnant of a German section of the moribund International, most of them radical socialists. The next step was the formation of the Revolutionary Socialist Party during a poorly attended congress of revolutionaries in Chicago in 1881.

But the event that energized and publicized this tiny rather obscure German movement was the arrival of Johann Most in New York in December 1882. Much has been written about Most and his impetuous fervor for revolution in word and deed. His emphasis on violence and terrorism in order to overthrow the established order has been rightly criticized, though he never committed acts of violence himself. However, Most had built a solid reputation as an electrifying speaker and first-rate editor. These qualities he eagerly lent to the project of building a collective (and visible) anarchist movement. After a highly effective lecture tour throughout the Northeast and Midwest, Most championed a newly proposed congress in Pittsburgh in 1883. This convention and especially the resulting manifesto constituted the first relatively successful attempt at non-authoritarian organization; an honor that has been overlooked by many scholars. Despite clauses advocating violent revolution and a few inconsistencies, the Pittsburgh Manifesto outlined a blueprint for the formation of autonomous groups, an Information Bureau and the endorsement of anarchist papers as "official" mouthpieces of the movement (among them Freiheit, edited by Most). Key objectives included equality regardless of gender and race, cooperative production and exchange, and the federalist principle (no central authority) exemplified by the newly formed International Working People's Association (IWPA).

Each group possessed complete autonomy. In cities where more than one group existed, such as in New York and the New Jersey industrial belt, it was proposed to form a General Committee to coordinate joint actions. The Information Bureau, stripped of executive powers, functioned as a means for communication between the often polyglot groups, and also served as an archive. Ultimately though, the center of activity was located within the group with memberships ranging from a dozen to about one hundred each. The Pittsburgh gathering had thus, for the first time, clearly defined the line between Socialism and Anarchism in America.

One has to zoom in to the group level to appreciate the kaleidoscopic character of this early Anarchist movement –a perspective often absent from the myopic studies of the "formal" embodiment of anarchism in this country. The strength of this German anarchist community in New York City, as estimated in Freiheit, was about 2500, with another 5000 anarchists living in Chicago, and some 1700 in other cities (Freiheit, 6 December 1886).

Saloons and Picnics: A Micro-sphere of German-American Anarchists

In his social history of the Chicago anarchist movement, Bruce Nelson came to the conclusion that they had created and maintained a "self-consciously visible, vital and militant movement culture." "Without its club life, press, unions and culture," Nelson asserts, "the ideology of that movement is unintelligent" (Nelson, 1988, p.240-1). Much the same is true for the movement on the east coast, particularly in New York.

Despite the staggering growth of industrial capitalism, the brotherliness between business and politics, and the ubiquitous parade of police power, the German immigrant anarchists succeeded in building a "sphere of free action" in which they could move and expand. Even though this program of group building was conceived as a means toward the realization of Social Revolution, and not so much as a revolutionary act in itself, it is worth examining this "sphere," for it illustrates the need for an autonomous space, a concept still (if not more) relevant today. As will be seen, this "sphere" was not entirely static or insulated; it showed quite some initiative to organize and educate non-anarchists.

The German working-class saloon was the most characteristic meeting place of German anarchists. Owned by Germans, these saloons dotted the streetscape of the Lower East Side, New York's immigrant ghetto. They served the famed lager-beer with hot meals and were different from the traditional American saloons in that women were allowed to enter (quite to the astonishment of reporters). As a radical meeting place, the saloon or bierhal had its origin in the German socialist movement of the 1860s and 1870s, but the dens frequented by anarchists in New York quickly became distinguished from those chosen by socialists. Typically, each group or club conducted its regular bi-monthly meetings in its own pub. New York Group I, of which Most was a leader, gathered at Frederic Krämer's place, and later at Paul Wilzig's saloon, whereas Group Newark invariably met at Edward Willms’ place, to name but a few.

The most famous saloon of all, the "gathering-place for all bold, joyful, and freedom-loving spirits," as its owner advertised, was Justus Schwab's place on First Street (Avrich, 1984, p.50). In popularity, Schwab was seconded only by Most. He had been in New York since the 1870s and became quite well-off, but never relinquished the spirit of rebellion and solidarity with the less-fortunate. Schwab's place was not just a taproom, however, but functioned in every sense as the foremost infoshop of New York radicals. Besides billboards and a piano it featured a library of no less than 600 volumes (of which Emma Goldman made ample use). The backroom, as in all saloons, served as a forum for discussion. Schwab, a close friend of Most, also acted as primary agent for Freiheit in the New York area. It is perhaps no surprise that the death of Justus Schwab in 1900 was seen as another blow to the declining German anarchist movement. His funeral brought together some 2000 people in a procession through the streets of the East Side, as it was witnessed by one New York Times reporter (NYT, 21 December 1900).

Oratory was a central community-building instrument as well as an effective weapon against tyranny and oppression. Perhaps less so today, lectures and speechmaking were as much part of the anarchist community as group meetings and socializing. Lectures were given in saloons, but more importantly, mass meetings were frequently organized to address the entire anarchist (and others) community. These gatherings took place in large halls such as Cooper Union or Germania Assembly Rooms, to name a few. Johann Most was of course the most respected speaker, and his monthly schedule, as gleaned from the anarchist papers, was truly impressive. He spoke at occasions such as the anniversary of the Paris Commune or the commemoration of the 1887 execution of the Chicago anarchists. He addressed general protest meetings attended by thousands of men and women as well as smaller meetings of the Russian Progressive Union or the Pioneers of Liberty, the first Jewish anarchist organization in the 1890s. Such congregations significantly contributed to the bonding of radicals in the urban centers. As many now believe, anarchism is essentially about building relationships, engendering a feeling of solidarity among like-minded people, a feeling that surely must have inspired many attendants. But mass meetings also enabled the movement to demonstrate, even flaunt, solidarity by way of filling a large hall to voice protest. They knew that these rallies were not only attended by workers, but also by plainclothesmen and a legion of reporters.

If propaganda was the main activity of the anarchists' public campaign, the need to practice anarchist ideals almost went without saying. It is this internal club life in all its manifestations that has been so neglected by historians, yet it rendered a meaningfulness to an otherwise dreary and frustrating life of the proletarian activist. One could argue that the participation in a fellowship of anarchists offered more satisfaction (for the rank and file members) than a Nechaev-esque commitment to the cause as it was outlined in the public expressions of anarchism (by mainstream and radical media alike).

Nothing can illustrate this camaraderie better than the frequency with which the German anarchists (often in collaboration with other ethnic groups) organized picnics and outings. Not only did the neighboring parks offer a welcome retreat from the slums of Manhattan, but these occasions embodied anarchism itself. Invariably, beer drinking, music and target shooting formed the cornerstone of these family gatherings in which women and children were as involved as the men (children's games and a raffle never failed). Usually the red or black flag was carried along, and speeches by Most and others clarified their mission once again.

The importance of vocal and instrumental music to the anarchist community cannot be overstated. Nearly every union that was organized along anarchist principles had its own singing society or concert band. In December 1886, the independent singing society Vorwärts (Forward) was formed. They held regular meetings every Friday evening at Lauda's Hall, and it was advertised that only "revolutionary-minded workers" were admitted (Freiheit, 11 December 1886). In Newark alone no fewer than four German anarchist singing societies were active in the Spring of 1887, with names such as "Liberty" and "Teutonia" (Freiheit, 19 March 1887). Singing and dancing were always part of a large meeting. "Women and youngsters fond of dancing," reported the Freiheit after a large Commune-fest, "were not a little happy when after the winding up of the actual Program, a section of the older attendants with their wives withdrew from the festivities thus creating some space for the well-represented youth" (Freiheit, 26 March 1887). Other activities generously sponsored by the German anarchists were theater, Midsummer Night and Christmas celebrations, as well as discussion and mutual aid groups.

It was clear that much of this community life was carried by elements of ethnicity such as a common language, and a love of beer and music. But the solidarity among multi-ethnic radical workers should not be underestimated. Anarchists did not view national identity as un-anarchistic, but rather as a celebration of pluralism. An event such as the remembrance of the Paris Commune, often organized under German leadership, attracted French, Italian, Bohemian and Russian groups, who, at the end of the evening, could all stand up and sing the Marseillaise accompanied by Sundersdorf's music ensemble.

Extending the "Sphere of Free Action"

Despite the community of spirits among immigrant radicals, the glaring absence of English-speaking workers was painfully visible. Why was it that the large majority of socialists and anarchists were from European descent? This typical pre-WWI phenomenon has been food for thought for many scholars, but it is significant to realize that it also troubled the German anarchists during the last two decades of the nineteenth-century. In a larger perspective, this brings to light the question of how inclusive an anarchist organization should be without compromising too much its own principles –an issue still relevant today.

To some extent, the anarchist groups that were formed in the wake of the Pittsburgh Congress possessed some exclusivity in the sense that they were based on card-holding membership and a near-underground status. This can partly be explained by the rampant repression after the Haymarket incident, which produced a veritable Red Scare. For fear of infiltration, the admission of new members was subjected to identity checks and even a two-week surveillance of the newcomer.

But even more essential was the forging of a constructive relationship with the larger body of American working men and women as well as with American middle-class liberals. Again, nineteenth-century anarchists faced the same issues that contemporary organizers need to tackle. In an article published in November 2001, Kim Fyke and Gabriel Sayegh attempt to put this crucial issue at the forefront. They rightly criticize modern anarchists for their lack of broad-based organizing and their aversion to any notions of leadership. The authors call for the building of an "anti-authoritarian revolutionary project" that can uplift an anarchist elite, dominated by white middle-class males, now doomed by "self-imposed isolation" (Fyke & Sayegh, 2001, p.2).

The core of these ideas can easily be traced back to the first anarchists engaged in collective action, the immigrant radicals. It was imperative, they thought, that inroads be made into the vast passivity (as they saw it) of the American workers, an ever-growing segment of the country's population. From the conclusion of the Pittsburgh Congress until 1884, not one English-language paper was included as official organ of the IWPA (there were, however, seven German and two Czech papers). When in 1884 the English-language paper Alarm joined the ranks it was welcomed as a valuable addition in the arsenal of propaganda geared towards the native-born worker. But organizing Anglo-American workers proved difficult. One reason, according to a writer in Freiheit, was the lack of funds, which was complicated by the fact that there was no central treasury. One speaker, associated with the Germans, who did make some inroads was Hamilton Garside who delivered several lectures on the right to rebel in the 1889. But when in June 1889 a meeting for American workers was called at which Most improvised a speech in English, it turned out that most attendants were immigrants.

These frustrations were aggravated by the massive display of patriotism at the centennial celebration of the drafting of the Constitution in May 1887. But even if Most, who criticized American hypocrisy, realized that the patriotic fervor was mostly indulged in by the elite, he nonetheless dismissed the average American as an unscrupulous egoist. "The Americans," he wrote in Freiheit, "are on average devoid of any Idealism" (Freiheit, 27 February 1887).

The problem of building a "non-authoritarian revolutionary project," to use Fyke and Sayegh's phrase, for the German anarchist continued during the 1890s. Such a project was still believed to be largely proletarian, and needed to include English-speaking American workers. The position and influence of Johann Most was in decline, which for some was a blessing. Younger anarchists abandoned Bakunin's collectivist ideas and embraced the tenets of communist-anarchism as espoused by Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta. Among them was Claus Timmermann who in 1891 moved from St. Louis to New York and established his newspaper Der Anarchist on East 5th Street on the Lower East Side.

Timmermann's venture quickly attracted a number of young activists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, both of whom had been disciples of Most. Not only did they transcend the ethnic boundaries by offering lectures in English, but also by widening the scope of issue which, they believed, anarchists should concern themselves. These issues ranged from prison reform and birth control to free speech and sexual liberation. Most importantly, Goldman was able to forge strong alliances with American liberals and progressives, especially during the first decades of the twentieth-century.

During the 1890s, Timmermann, who mastered the English language, published two more German-language anarchist periodicals, and soon realized that what was needed was English-language propaganda. He decided to devote his energy to the publication of pamphlets in English, including translations of the work of Kropotkin and Elisée Reclus, two prominent theoreticians of communist-anarchism.

The German anarchists naturally also sought to include more German workers, or workers of the same trade. Trade unionism was a cornerstone of German radicalism and a large portion of anarchists were involved in what they called progressive unions. They tended to criticize parliamentary politics and embraced a kind of anarcho-syndicalism. This branch was heavily present in Chicago where the anarchists were in the forefront of the workers' and eight-hour day movements. The trade unions with the most anarchists in the New York City area were the machine operators, the furniture workers and the cabinet-makers, all holding regular meetings, picnics, outings and get-togethers.

On the group or club level this spirit of recruitment was also visible, though members proceeded with caution. Most of the time the business meetings were conducted by the members only, whereas club gatherings with a topical speaker were often open to visitors. The Social-Revolutionary Club, founded in 1880, when advertising its meetings invariably included the postscript: "Opponents of Anarchy will have freedom of speech" (Freiheit, 5 February 1887). Also, when in 1887 a proposal to re-locate the Information Bureau to New York was approved by all the groups, it was suggested that the identities of all contact persons be kept secret. This secrecy was immediately opposed by the groups in St. Louis who argued that open information on how to set up groups could be useful for individuals outside the IWPA. Another initiative was taken by some of the leaders of the New York Group I, such as Johann Most and Carl Wölky, when they urged members to announce the meetings to their co-workers, the tactic of word-of-mouth.

Despite these efforts, the German anarchist movement was slowly being superseded by another ethnic group that was growing enormously during the first decades of the new century, the Russian-Jewish socialists. These young radicals, such as Roman Lewis, Saul Yanovsky and others, were influenced by Most and took over much of the German infrastructure to build their own Yiddish-speaking anarchist culture. Some of these Jewish anarchists were able to expand their audience and became American radicals, forging a broader radical front in which younger generation Germans also participated, such as Timmermann, Carl Nold and Max Baginski.

It seems that the barriers for extending the anarchist sphere during the turn of the century consisted of ethnic, generational and ideological conflicts. Still the anarchist movement was able, in a small way, to join the growing progressive momentum during the 1910s, where the potential for a broad-based front of liberal forces was possible, a potential repeated during the 1960s and early 1970s.

But to a large extent, it was anarchism's uncompromising critique of capitalism and parliamentary politics and its call for revolutionary measures that alienated it from the larger American society, especially liberals. In an essay on the abolitionist movement, Martin Duberman points to the powerfully engrained optimism of the American mainstream, which caused it to discard any radical attack on institutions. "And so the majority has generally found it necessary," Duberman writes, "to label 'extreme' any measures that calls for large-scale readjustment" (Duberman, 1999, p.5-6). An insight that is as relevant for the nineteenth as for our own century.

References:

Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Martin Duberman, Left Out: The Politics of Exclusion/Essays/1964-1999. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Kim Fyke & Gabriel Sayegh, "Anarchism and the Struggle to Move Forward," published on the website of

the Richmond Independent Media Center, November 2001.

http://richmond.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=927&group=webcast

James Joll, The Anarchists. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964.

Bruce Nelson, Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History of Chicago's Anarchists, 1870-1900. New

Brunswick, NJ & London: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

Peter Parisi, ed. Artist of the Actual: Essays on Paul Goodman. Metuchen, NJ & London: Scarecrow

Press, 1986.

Gerald Runkle, Anarchism: Old and New. New York: Dell Publishing, 1972.

Bio: Tom Goyens

This is my first contribution to SA. I am a graduate student at the University of Leuven, Belgium working on a dissertation about immigrant anarchists in New York City. I live in Williamsburg where friends and I run an infoshop.

News of interest 5/18/09

How to survive the coming century

ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C.

Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only what this world of the future might be like, but how it could sustain a growing human population. They argue that surviving in the kinds of numbers that exist today, or even more, will be possible, but only if we use our uniquely human ingenuity to cooperate as a species to radically reorganise our world.

The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained. But maintaining the current global population of nearly 7 billion, or more, is going to require serious planning.

-New Scientist

Militants threaten to blockade oil vessels

Nigeria's main militant group said on Monday it would blockade key waterways in the Niger Delta to try to prevent crude oil exports after days of military helicopter and gunboat raids on its camps.

The security forces launched an offensive against militant camps around Warri in the western Niger Delta on Friday after two oil vessels were hijacked and its soldiers were attacked, leading to the heaviest fighting in at least eight months.

"We have ordered the blockade of key waterway channels to oil industry vessels both for the export of crude and gas and importation of refined petroleum products," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said.

"This means vessels now ply such routes at their risk," the group said in an e-mailed statement.

-NEXT

Reliving the Sean Bell Case by Renaming a Street

New York politicians love to rename streets, and the battles that ensue range from the explosive to the mundane.

The City Council’s vote in 2007 to reject renaming a street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, after the black activist Sonny Carson came closer to dividing the Council along racial lines than any issue that members could recall. On the other hand, when Rose Feiss, the founder of a lampshade factory, was honored in 1987 with an eponymous boulevard in the South Bronx, the main objection was that the change might confuse people looking for the former Walnut Street.

So William G. Bell is prepared for anything as he pushes for a Sean Bell Way in Jamaica, Queens. “I can’t get no more disappointed than what I already went through,” said Mr. Bell, who is seeking to rename several blocks of Liverpool Street for his son Sean, 23, who was killed there in a barrage of police bullets as he left a nightclub on what would have been his wedding day, Nov. 25, 2006.

Police officers testified that in a chaotic scene outside the club they believed that a friend of Sean Bell’s had a gun. No gun was found. When a Queens judge last year acquitted the three detectives involved, the decision spurred protests that led to hundreds of arrests.

-New York Times

Indigenous Chiapans Insist They Are in Prison For Belonging to the EZLN

El Amate, Chiapas. May 6 - "I have been detained because I belong to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation" (EZLN), Miguel Vazquez Moreno declared today when he gave his testimony in the second criminal court in the State Center for Social Rehabilitation of Convicts (CERSS in its Spanish initials) number 14, El Amate, where none of the officials and employees, of course, are wearing face masks. Nor do they seem aware that there is a national and state health emergency.

In contrast to his first "statement" given under coercion in pre-charge detention, Vazquez Moreno is assisted by an interpreter who speaks his language, or at least a variation of his dialect (the interpreter the authorities have provided is from Cancuc, while the eight detained men from San Sebastian Bachajon speak the tzeltal dialect of Chilon). But, at least they understand each other, and that is enough.

From behind the railing he declares himself innocent of the charges against him, and requests that he be freed for lack of evidence to proceed with a trial. And he introduces himself in this manner: "I am from the ejido San Sebastian Bachajon and I belong to the support bases of the EZLN, an organization that defends its right to exercise autonomy and self-determination as indigenous peoples, its right to territory and natural resources."

-La Journada (translated to English by Kristin Bricker)