You’re attaching a lot to labels to be an anarchist (I am too btw). I place my trust in individual humans not projects, and some of those individuals happen to be MLs. They’re not organizing against any cultural or ethnic groups, they do work that impacts their local communities and no global organizing, so I don’t find much issue with them also having some fantasies about what North Korea is up to.
Right now they’re not doing any harm, and I think an armed revolution is unlikely enough they never will, but that’s still their goal. It’s cool they’re doing good things now, but we can’t mistake that for them being good people any more than we would call a nazi a good person for working at a homeless shelter. I’ll take them doing good things, but they’re my enemy, and I’ll treat them as such if they ever gain enough power to actually go after their enemies (comrades with slightly different ideas on how things should be run)
Exactly, right now we organize together because we share the same intuitions about what the right thing to do is in the context of the issues that impact ourselves and our neighbors. Our long term visions currently differ but, as I’m sure you’re familiar with if you’re an anarchist, there’s no blueprint of what needs to be done in the future we will all need to flex with reality and make the best decisions we can (without sacrificing our core values). Sometimes that means losing a friend but as long as we put people over projects I’m confident we won’t turn into tyrants. I’m quite certain my ML friends would abandon the party before turning on me unless I gave up our shared core values which are based on human decency. Most people I know who are anarchists became MLs first just because it’s a more visible ideology. At least in the US, these groups are not that divided.
That’s a good way to look at it :3 I haven’t read a ton of theory or anything and I struggle to think of how those ideological differences won’t lead to bad things or failure, and a lot of tankies want me dead, but so do fascists and liberalism seems really bad at avoiding that so Idk. The thought just scares me considering how much they seem to love Stalin and how many comrades he locked up or killed after the revolution (Lenin might’ve started that Idk, I just know a lot of revolutionaries got punished for not agreeing on how things should be done).
I know not every revolution is so bloody, and for all I know there are MLs who never turned on their comrades, so I’m sorry if I’ve mischaracterized your friends based on the views of their specific group. I get not all MLs are “tankies”, I just struggle to differentiate them sometimes and not feel hate and fear towards them after seeing a lot of tankies cheer on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and deny + justify multiple genocides and brag about how they’ll kill anarchists after the revolution. I literally had an ML “friend” tell me once that if Stalin killing jews was the price of revolution, then that’s what it takes and it’s justified. I know it’s not reasonable of me, but that’s the first kind of thing that pops into my mind whenever someone says they’re an ML
I’m sorry you’ve run into those people, the world needs people who will think for themselves and remain steadfast in their commitment to human decency and equality regardless of the propaganda that will undoubtedly swirl around us. There could very reasonably be another ‘red scare’ soon and we all know it won’t discriminate between communists and anarchists and will very likely sweep up a number of people who would self-describe as liberals/democratic socialists too. We need to focus on protecting the most vulnerable (where I am—immigrants and people who lack basic food/shelter) and organizing to meet our community’s needs outside the existing government structures where we can. And, perhaps sooner than we’d like or are ready for, networking to get people safely out of hostile states.
And chances are they very much would be organizing against Uyghurs and Ukrainians if they made a decent percentage of immigrants to whatever country you’re in. It’s a lot easier to act cool and tolerant when you don’t often see people you think are terrorists and nazis
You’re attaching a lot to labels to be an anarchist (I am too btw). I place my trust in individual humans not projects, and some of those individuals happen to be MLs. They’re not organizing against any cultural or ethnic groups, they do work that impacts their local communities and no global organizing, so I don’t find much issue with them also having some fantasies about what North Korea is up to.
Right now they’re not doing any harm, and I think an armed revolution is unlikely enough they never will, but that’s still their goal. It’s cool they’re doing good things now, but we can’t mistake that for them being good people any more than we would call a nazi a good person for working at a homeless shelter. I’ll take them doing good things, but they’re my enemy, and I’ll treat them as such if they ever gain enough power to actually go after their enemies (comrades with slightly different ideas on how things should be run)
Exactly, right now we organize together because we share the same intuitions about what the right thing to do is in the context of the issues that impact ourselves and our neighbors. Our long term visions currently differ but, as I’m sure you’re familiar with if you’re an anarchist, there’s no blueprint of what needs to be done in the future we will all need to flex with reality and make the best decisions we can (without sacrificing our core values). Sometimes that means losing a friend but as long as we put people over projects I’m confident we won’t turn into tyrants. I’m quite certain my ML friends would abandon the party before turning on me unless I gave up our shared core values which are based on human decency. Most people I know who are anarchists became MLs first just because it’s a more visible ideology. At least in the US, these groups are not that divided.
That’s a good way to look at it :3 I haven’t read a ton of theory or anything and I struggle to think of how those ideological differences won’t lead to bad things or failure, and a lot of tankies want me dead, but so do fascists and liberalism seems really bad at avoiding that so Idk. The thought just scares me considering how much they seem to love Stalin and how many comrades he locked up or killed after the revolution (Lenin might’ve started that Idk, I just know a lot of revolutionaries got punished for not agreeing on how things should be done).
I know not every revolution is so bloody, and for all I know there are MLs who never turned on their comrades, so I’m sorry if I’ve mischaracterized your friends based on the views of their specific group. I get not all MLs are “tankies”, I just struggle to differentiate them sometimes and not feel hate and fear towards them after seeing a lot of tankies cheer on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and deny + justify multiple genocides and brag about how they’ll kill anarchists after the revolution. I literally had an ML “friend” tell me once that if Stalin killing jews was the price of revolution, then that’s what it takes and it’s justified. I know it’s not reasonable of me, but that’s the first kind of thing that pops into my mind whenever someone says they’re an ML
I’m sorry you’ve run into those people, the world needs people who will think for themselves and remain steadfast in their commitment to human decency and equality regardless of the propaganda that will undoubtedly swirl around us. There could very reasonably be another ‘red scare’ soon and we all know it won’t discriminate between communists and anarchists and will very likely sweep up a number of people who would self-describe as liberals/democratic socialists too. We need to focus on protecting the most vulnerable (where I am—immigrants and people who lack basic food/shelter) and organizing to meet our community’s needs outside the existing government structures where we can. And, perhaps sooner than we’d like or are ready for, networking to get people safely out of hostile states.
And chances are they very much would be organizing against Uyghurs and Ukrainians if they made a decent percentage of immigrants to whatever country you’re in. It’s a lot easier to act cool and tolerant when you don’t often see people you think are terrorists and nazis