Global Exchange and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin is only one of many well-known leaders of the US left being attacked by self-described anarchists. If you're confused by this, you're not alone.
This is so brilliant David. Thank you so much for dissecting the many ways in which this group’s thinking is so incredibly wacky. What you didn’t know is that the incredible hatred they displayed towards me led to one of them snatching my phone, and then the veteran who tried to retrieve it getting beaten up so badly he had to be taken to the hospital.
If I was an Ukrainian, I would have joined the fight of the people of Donbass, Kharkov, Odessa, Dnipro, Crimea and other Russian speaking regions against the fascist Maidan regime. It has been an Ukrainian civil war since the 2013 protests, with one side supported by NATO countries and western secret services attracting all the Nazis in Ukraine and the other side comprising the majority of Russian speaking Ukrainians and leftists.
I used to consider myself an anarchist, but after seeing many anarchists' support for the empire wars and their focusing on attacking leftists governments and organizations, I stopped calling myself an anarchist.
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. You have a much closer view of the anarcho-puritans than I do, and your reasoning makes sense. I've thought that they must be composed mostly of infiltrators, naive idealists, and some people with a very warped view of what is important in organizing. (I'm tempted to say mental illness or trauma, but find myself unwilling to diagnose invisible people who are so far away from me. They tend to attack my friends rather than me; I'm probably not important enough.
You always give me a lot to think about. I don’t agree with everything you say here, but there may be important nuance being lost (yet: there are fascists on both sides of this war and anarchists only on the Ukrainian side) and I certainly don’t endorse those tactics against fellow activists (but I now see that the incidents I refer to are in fact disputed. According to the other side, a member of Medea’s group shoved someone into a ditch in response to only shouting when she began filming them. She then called the cops, which seems like a very un leftist thing to do. In particular the claim of someone trying to steal her phone, they say was actually someone trying to get her phone out of their face, and as for “striking an elderly man”: “An elderly man struck an individual in our group. Cognizant of the fact that this man was quite elderly, the person attempted primarily to push him away, not hurt him. The man fell to the ground, at which point another person from our group tried to help him up. The elderly person then decided to punch the person helping him up.”
I think we should be as aware of the potential presence/influence of the equivalents of the CIA from the governments of Russia, China, etc. as we are of the CIA and its friends. I keep coming back to this that kind of gets at the red/brown thing well https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/the-enemys-enemy-is-not-your-friend/
Something happened during Covid and lockdowns and Trumpism. Books are written on it. The grumbling underbelly of disenfranchised workers in America felt heard and affirmed by Trump, little did they know
of his wrecking ball ways, they only heard his rhetoric that gave them hope that the romantic notion of a former glory America would rise again. Everything has been upside down and inside out since then, as David said in this essay, these thug bully activists who get their self validation playing the heroes, have it all upside down. This is a mirror almost of so many things becoming distortions of the truth, maybe its the power of social media that communicates so much information with no filters, but bottom line is, it is dangerous. A lot of passionate fighters for a cause do not understand what the real issues are. There is an ignorance of history, and the people align with causes that appeal to their fantasy dreams that are not rooted in real change, and will probably self implode, causing a lot of damage to the real causes. It was ever thus.
Great read. I would be interested on hearing some of your viewpoints on the band Gogol Bordello and there support of the war in Ukraine. Which has included showing the humanity of the soldiers on the front line by touring the Ukraine and getting musicians from the front lines to temporary put down there guns and rock and roll on stage with the band.
I believe in peaceful protest, Laughtivism, and disruptive tactics to derail global capitalism. I think Grassroots community building, and unions changing the system from within are part of the answer to helping our world. I have no idea how to use those tactics to rid the world of border moving war politics and create a compassionate coexistence with people who kill innocent people for money and power.
Thank you for your analysis. It surprises me that you would have to go to the lengths you do to explain the actions of those that work so hard to cause you hassle. I admire your tenacity, resiliance, patience and ethics, I don't know how you do it.
highlight quotes for me:
"It is becoming increasingly obvious to many that sometimes there is no good solution to a problem, just courses of action that are less horrible than other options."
The line after it even more poigniant
"Sometimes if you've spent a century creating a problem, you can't just solve it _when your efforts at destabilization_ are successful"
and closing with
"If the answer is sending billions of dollars of arms and ammunition to another country, blowing up pipelines, completely derailing any global response to the imminent threat of unstoppable climate chaos, watching a generation of men slaughter each other, and coming closer than ever before to a possible nuclear exchange, then we are asking the wrong question."
There's so much to unpack in this article, it feels so real. Thank you for writing it.
This is so brilliant David. Thank you so much for dissecting the many ways in which this group’s thinking is so incredibly wacky. What you didn’t know is that the incredible hatred they displayed towards me led to one of them snatching my phone, and then the veteran who tried to retrieve it getting beaten up so badly he had to be taken to the hospital.
If I was an Ukrainian, I would have joined the fight of the people of Donbass, Kharkov, Odessa, Dnipro, Crimea and other Russian speaking regions against the fascist Maidan regime. It has been an Ukrainian civil war since the 2013 protests, with one side supported by NATO countries and western secret services attracting all the Nazis in Ukraine and the other side comprising the majority of Russian speaking Ukrainians and leftists.
I used to consider myself an anarchist, but after seeing many anarchists' support for the empire wars and their focusing on attacking leftists governments and organizations, I stopped calling myself an anarchist.
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. You have a much closer view of the anarcho-puritans than I do, and your reasoning makes sense. I've thought that they must be composed mostly of infiltrators, naive idealists, and some people with a very warped view of what is important in organizing. (I'm tempted to say mental illness or trauma, but find myself unwilling to diagnose invisible people who are so far away from me. They tend to attack my friends rather than me; I'm probably not important enough.
You always give me a lot to think about. I don’t agree with everything you say here, but there may be important nuance being lost (yet: there are fascists on both sides of this war and anarchists only on the Ukrainian side) and I certainly don’t endorse those tactics against fellow activists (but I now see that the incidents I refer to are in fact disputed. According to the other side, a member of Medea’s group shoved someone into a ditch in response to only shouting when she began filming them. She then called the cops, which seems like a very un leftist thing to do. In particular the claim of someone trying to steal her phone, they say was actually someone trying to get her phone out of their face, and as for “striking an elderly man”: “An elderly man struck an individual in our group. Cognizant of the fact that this man was quite elderly, the person attempted primarily to push him away, not hurt him. The man fell to the ground, at which point another person from our group tried to help him up. The elderly person then decided to punch the person helping him up.”
I think we should be as aware of the potential presence/influence of the equivalents of the CIA from the governments of Russia, China, etc. as we are of the CIA and its friends. I keep coming back to this that kind of gets at the red/brown thing well https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/the-enemys-enemy-is-not-your-friend/
Also, it’s really hard for those of us with friends from Hong Kong to tolerate pro-CCP behavior (e.g. see https://www.cutthepentagon.org/chinaandtheleft)
Something happened during Covid and lockdowns and Trumpism. Books are written on it. The grumbling underbelly of disenfranchised workers in America felt heard and affirmed by Trump, little did they know
of his wrecking ball ways, they only heard his rhetoric that gave them hope that the romantic notion of a former glory America would rise again. Everything has been upside down and inside out since then, as David said in this essay, these thug bully activists who get their self validation playing the heroes, have it all upside down. This is a mirror almost of so many things becoming distortions of the truth, maybe its the power of social media that communicates so much information with no filters, but bottom line is, it is dangerous. A lot of passionate fighters for a cause do not understand what the real issues are. There is an ignorance of history, and the people align with causes that appeal to their fantasy dreams that are not rooted in real change, and will probably self implode, causing a lot of damage to the real causes. It was ever thus.
Great read. I would be interested on hearing some of your viewpoints on the band Gogol Bordello and there support of the war in Ukraine. Which has included showing the humanity of the soldiers on the front line by touring the Ukraine and getting musicians from the front lines to temporary put down there guns and rock and roll on stage with the band.
I believe in peaceful protest, Laughtivism, and disruptive tactics to derail global capitalism. I think Grassroots community building, and unions changing the system from within are part of the answer to helping our world. I have no idea how to use those tactics to rid the world of border moving war politics and create a compassionate coexistence with people who kill innocent people for money and power.
Thank you for your analysis. It surprises me that you would have to go to the lengths you do to explain the actions of those that work so hard to cause you hassle. I admire your tenacity, resiliance, patience and ethics, I don't know how you do it.
highlight quotes for me:
"It is becoming increasingly obvious to many that sometimes there is no good solution to a problem, just courses of action that are less horrible than other options."
The line after it even more poigniant
"Sometimes if you've spent a century creating a problem, you can't just solve it _when your efforts at destabilization_ are successful"
and closing with
"If the answer is sending billions of dollars of arms and ammunition to another country, blowing up pipelines, completely derailing any global response to the imminent threat of unstoppable climate chaos, watching a generation of men slaughter each other, and coming closer than ever before to a possible nuclear exchange, then we are asking the wrong question."
There's so much to unpack in this article, it feels so real. Thank you for writing it.
god how do you still believe in this childish stuff at your age? bickering with teenagers about who is the true anarchist.
Thank you!!!! ✌️💖