Month: September 2021

Reading Amyl and the Sniffers’ “Capital” Politically

“Comfort to me, what does that even mean? One reason, do we persevere?/
Existing for the sake of existing, meaning disappears.”

Thus opens the song “Capital” from the Australian punk band Amyl and the Sniffers’ new album, Comfort To Me. The album is shaped by the same driving intensity of their previous music, but it takes further steps towards conscious political opposition to patriarchy, capitalism, and settler colonialism. In this short piece, I analyze the lyrics of “Capital” to explore this political evolution. After detouring through Marx’s “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” I ultimately argue for the utility of cultivating radical political consciousness in subcultural milieus, which seemingly laid the foundation for Amyl and the Sniffers’ political turn.

***

The turn to conscious politics is signaled first by the recognition of the politics of personal experience. The singer, Amy, attempts to reclaim her body and life from the world of patriarchal standards and violence, and she recognizes this as the first step in “basic politics”:

“Meanwhile, I only just started learning basic politics/
Meanwhile, they sexualize my body and get mad when I exploit it”

On another song on the album, “Knifey,” she addresses the threat of violence against women and vows to fight back.

“All I ever wanted was to walk by the park/
All I ever wanted was to walk by the river, see the stars/
Please! Stop fucking me up
. . .
Out comes the night, out comes my knifey/
This is how I get home nicely.”

Since society will not accept her efforts at self-determination or even basic safety, Amy realizes that she has to fight for it. This basic recognition of the contradictions of patriarchal violence and exploitation lay the foundation for a broader reckoning with a sick culture that is ultimately driven by capital. The chorus of the song puts it simply:

“It’s just for capital/
Am I an animal?/
It’s just for capital, capital, capital./
But do I care at all?”

The “animalization” of humanity by capital takes us back to Marx’s early analysis of wage labor under capitalism in his “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” Marx argues that labor under capitalism has been transformed into an experience that alienates us (removes us) from what makes us human, and thus reduces us to the level of animals.

Marx argues that capitalism is experienced as an intensely alienating social system because it perverts the fundamental activity that makes us human. Unlike animals, humans produce the conditions of our own social lives: food, clothing, shelter, culture, etc. When we labor, we put part of ourselves into the object of production. In a non-capitalist system, we produce goods for the use of ourselves, our families, and our communities. We put our life into the products, but we “regain” this life when our community uses the goods.

Under capitalist wage labor, commodities are produced not for use but rather for exchange value. We labor not to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves and our community, but rather for the sake of profit for a capitalist. We imbue the commodities we produce with our life, but they confront us as something outside of ourselves, in control of another person for their profit. These commodities become “fetishes”: they seem to be imbued with energy of their own which is disconnected from the labor that has produced them. Capitalism becomes a system in which commodities interact with each other in the marketplace, disguising the real social relations between humans. We suffer a profound disconnect with the world and our own sense of humanity.

The characteristic of labor as external to the worker means that “the worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.” But this feeling of alienation at work has expanded to encompass our entire lives. Unlike in Marx’s time, we are now confronted with an entire world that takes the commodity form. Western societies have turned into mass consumer societies, where what makes us human outside of work is literally buying commodities. If these commodities are the products of something that is so alien to us, this is bound to be a very alienating existence. We have as little control over the world of commodities as we do over the political processes that lead to the destruction of the natural world. Again, “It’s just for capital/Am I an animal?”

***

In the next verse, Amyl and the Sniffers turn towards the destructive effects of climate change:

“Australia is burning, but, aye, I’m not learning how to be more conscious/
And the farmers hope for rain while the landscape torches/
Swimming in the river, I’m part of the river, not convinced how much will change/
Experiencing experiences as if they’re all the same”

Amy is swimming in the river of existence, seeing the terrible effects of climate change but unable to conceive of how her actions could change the situation. She is left with a feeling of alienation from existence, alienation from her own experience. This is a classic response to the alienation of life under capitalism. As she says in a second part of the chorus: “Freedom don’t exist/humans don’t exist/existing to exist/life is meaningless.” This again reflects Marx’s analysis: capitalism animalizes us, meaning that humans no longer exist; under capitalism, we exist just to exist, work just to survive, and thus life is meaningless.

***

After beginning with her own experience as a woman under capitalism, Amy begins to question the entire existence of Australia itself. In the next verse, she snarls that:

“First port of call should be changing the date and changing the flag/
Of course I have disdain for this place, what are you thinking?/
You took their kids and you locked them up, up in a prison”

She is referring to the process of settler colonialism in Australia, specifically how the children of the aboriginal peoples were stolen as official government policy up until the 1960s and into the 1970s. Settler colonialism and genocide of the indigenous peoples laid the foundation for Australia as a country. Thus, the entire project is rotten and must be challenged at its core.

The key here, for me, is how she expresses this analysis: “*of course* I have disdain for this place.” It is a common sense rejection of the brutality of settler colonialism, a common sense rejection of the Australian project: “of course.” And yet, this is clearly not broadly shared across Australian society. Rather, I think it is a common sense that is actively cultivated in youth subculture, particularly punk. This is how a punk band such as Amyl and the Sniffers can release a song with a “common sense” rejection of the Australian state and capitalism. The common sense is also based on an ethical connection between the personal and the political: Amy easily connects her own experience as a woman fighting to determine her own relationship to her body and sexuality to an ethical rejection of settler colonialism and capitalist exploitation.

***

So, where do we go from here? Given our alienation and the meaninglessness of life under late capitalism, perhaps an answer begins with the cultivation of intensity: new forms of life that are non-commodified, that prioritize direct experience in the search for meaning. The last verse of “Capital” gestures towards this possibility:

“So ordinary and normal, don’t see the intensity that it is/
And I wonder why I get dopamine released when I give/
Disdain and excitement dually, the illusion can be fleeting/
I love feeling drunk on the illusion of meaning”

Of course, this ends on an ambivalent note. Does the intensity of a punk show provide real meaning, or is it just another illusion? The next step, I think, is to take the intensity of a punk show—and the broader forms of life and common sense that the punk scene enables—and draw connections with other oppositional spaces, intensities, and projects. This can help create archipelagos of resistance, networks that produce a fighting coalition of (sub)cultural forms that together can challenge capital and replace its animalization with a meaningful life. The question then becomes how to move from scattered subcultural resistance to a broader, more coherent counterhegemonic force. We can start with punk, but we cannot end there.

Creating ‘New Porn’: Anarcha-Feminism vs. Onlyfans

What can anarcha-feminists in the late 20th century offer our analysis of the recent Onlyfans debacle, when the company unsuccessfully attempted to ban pornography from the online platform? Going back to Emma Goldman and the Industrial Workers of the World, anarchists have long supported organizing alongside sex workers in their fight for better working conditions and, ultimately, an end to both patriarchal and capitalist violence. A century later, as debates over pornography raged in the late 20th century, anarchists in Love and Rage (1989-98) analyzed porn from an anti-state feminist framework. Although some members opposed pornography and advocated direct action to disrupt its production, most supported a new vision of liberatory pornography. This “new porn” would model consensual, joyful sex outside the rigid bounds of heterosexual patriarchy. Crucially, it would be controlled by sex workers themselves, who would have autonomy and self-determination in their work.

The debate in Love and Rage was kicked off in 1991, when anti-porn feminists argued in the organization’s newspaper that pornography perpetuated violence against women and reinforced male supremacy. In his 1991 article “Porn in Flames,” Richard Blake argues that pornography is inherently dehumanizing, oppressive, and violent. Although he disagrees with the state-focused tactics of Andrea Dworkin, he maintains that anarchists should resolutely oppose the porn industry and work against it. But what could this look like with an anti-state orientation?

Blake argues that the state cannot be expected to take action on pornography, and that even if it did, legal changes would not actually prevent pornography from being made and distributed.[1] Instead of seeking to outlaw pornography, He urges anarchists to “fight it in the streets and on the job and in the home, in the same places where you claim to be fighting the state which sponsors it.”[2] Ultimately, Blake maintains that “an anarchist movement that’s not dedicated to fighting the pornography industry isn’t a real anarchist movement.”[3] The fight against pornography was ultimately a struggle for freedom, equality, and justice. As long as pornography existed, women would continue to be exploited and abused by men for profit and sexual pleasure.

Most Love and Ragers, however, disagreed with Blake’s analysis. Although they were not “pro-porn” per se, most anarchists opposed the anti-porn movement for its moralism and common advocacy of governmental censorship. Anarchists supported organizing alongside sex workers rather than view them as helpless “victims” to be saved by either the state or misguided activists.[4] This, Laura Lib insists, is a much better anarchist approach to the problem of exploitation and oppression than a moralistic critique of the industry. Ultimately, they advocated for a new kind of pornography that would not oppress and exploit women, but rather be an avenue towards sexual liberation. What was needed was not to outlaw or abolish pornography, but rather to spread education and alternative models of sexuality.

Liz Highleyman argues that “since the typical pornographic representations of sexuality are so narrow and incomplete, we can make expanded and alternative images of sex and sexuality available, images that convey our own values of equality, mutuality, and consensuality.”[5] Ms. Tommy Lawless agrees, explaining that she does not want to ban porn but rather see it “drastically changed”: “this is what creating ‘new porn’ means to me. It means asserting the personhood, will, and true desires of wimmin.”[6] This “new porn” would also move beyond the bounds of heterosexuality and the male gaze. Queer pornography in particular could perhaps play a more liberating role than the usual heterosexual focus. Pornography as such was not inherently good or bad but rather was a tool and a medium that could be used either to oppress or to liberate.

What does this analysis have to offer to the situation with Onlyfans? Sex workers turned to Onlyfans in part to escape their exploitation and lack of control in the porn industry. Onlyfans gave them a platform to establish their own sources of revenue that they ostensibly controlled. This enabled them a degree of autonomy and self-determination, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. But because sex workers did not actually control the company, the Onlyfans bosses could make its own decisions without the workers’ input; thus, threatened with a loss of credit card revenue, they decided to ban pornography from the platform. Although a mass outcry eventually forced Onlyfans to reverse course, many sex workers had learned their lesson: they needed to build a platform that they controlled. Several alternatives are gaining popularity, including some that appear more sex-worker friendly, such as one started by a notable gay porn star. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to compete with Onlyfans and survive in the capitalist market.

The problem is not pornography per se, but rather the social structures surrounding it: patriarchy, capitalism, heterosexism, white supremacy. But until those are overthrown, self-determination and autonomy through organizing unions, worker cooperatives, and new online platforms would afford sex workers much more control over their lives, money, and working conditions. All this outside the purview of state control or censorship; a solution that the anarcha-feminists in Love and Rage could surely support.

[1] Richard Blake, “Porn In Flames,” 3.

[2] Richard Blake, “Porn In Flames,” 3.

[3] Richard Blake, “Porn In Flames,” 3.

[4] Laura Lib, “Love and Justice? Porn Debate: A Reply to Richard Blake’s ‘Porn in Flames,’” 7.

[5] Liz A. Highleyman, “1-900-XXX-Talk,” 2.

[6] Ms. Tommy Lawless, “D’Ya Believe in Homicide?” 3.

Living Communism: Theory and Practice of Autonomy and Attack

“So the revolutionary gesture no longer consists in a simple violent appropriation of this world; it divides into two. On the one hand, there are worlds to be made, forms of life made to grow apart from what reigns, including by salvaging what can be salvaged from the present state of things, and on the other, there is the imperative to attack, to simply destroy the world of capital… it’s clear that the worlds one constructs can maintain their apartness from capital only together with the fact of attacking it and conspiring against it… Only an affirmation has the potential for accomplishing the work of destruction. The destituent gesture is thus desertion and attack, creation and wrecking, and all at once, in the same gesture.”

The Invisible Committee[1]

I wrote this piece after I read Now (2017) when all I could think and write about was the Invisible Committee. I’m revisiting it to decide if I want to do anything with it. It still feels useful to me. Here’s the introduction:

May Day, 1987: thousands of Autonomen, the mysterious masked and black-clad “unruly youth” who are the terror of West Germany, riot in West Berlin. After a decade spent honing their street-fighting tactics, the revolutionaries stage an offensive against state repression by blocking streets, occupying buildings, and fighting a low-intensity urban guerrilla war against state forces. Continually expanding their liberated zone throughout the night, the Autonomen eventually control much of Kreuzberg, the dilapidated neighborhood that is their base. After a night of violent jubilation, they return to their numerous squatted houses and social centers to nurse their wounds, curse the police, and celebrate a temporary victory. Although the German media depicted the Autonomen as little more than violent mobs whose only motivation was destruction,[2] the radicals had also spent the previous decade painstakingly constructing—and fighting to defend—an extensive network of squatted alternative infrastructure across West Berlin and throughout West Germany.

Throughout the 1980s, the Autonomen squatted hundreds of abandoned buildings and turned them into group housing, social centers, movement bars, and cultural spaces used by the thousands of squatters and tens of thousands of supporters. They constructed rich networks of autonomous spaces meant to provide both alternative forms of living and bases of attack. At their best, these networks of alternative spaces and infrastructure functioned as dual power and urban liberated territory in which the revolution was lived through a communism of everyday life.

More recently, the Invisible Committee has theorized the commune as a space of everyday communism that constructs counter-infrastructure, transforms our relationship to each other and the territory we inhabit, and destitutes state power. The Invisible Committee is a collective of French post-autonomist communists (formerly operating under the moniker Tiqqun) who trace their intellectual lineage through Italian Autonomia and the German Autonomen, among others.[3] The collective is the best known of the contemporary theorists of post-autonomist communization.[4]

Though born in the Parisian squatting scene, the collective grew disillusioned with the radical subcultural milieu in the capital and moved to the tiny town of Tarnac, where they live communally and collectively run a farm, bar, and general store.[5] Introduced to the American popular imagination primarily through the controversy surrounding their book The Coming Insurrection (2007, 2009) and their sensational trial for domestic terrorism beginning in 2008 which finally concluded with acquittals earlier this year, the Invisible Committee has greatly influenced the contemporary ultra-Left in the United States.[6]

The Invisible Committee continued to develop their particular variety of post-autonomist communization theory in To Our Friends (2014), which reflects on the European movements of the squares and associated spectacular abortive insurrections (especially in Greece), and their latest work, Now (2017), which explores the possibilities and practices of communism present within the fragmented world of late capitalism. Although the collective is relatively widely read (sometimes even beyond the academic post-autonomist ultra-Left!), their historical and theoretical background is less well-known in the United States. This paper in part attempts to connect the collective’s theoretical work with the history and praxis of European autonomous movements that it draws from.

This paper will combine historical insights from the Autonomen with theoretical interventions from the Invisible Committee in order to make several related arguments. First, the commune form creates alternative worlds in which liberalism is combatted and collective struggle against alienation takes place. Second, communes operate according to a unique spatial logic that ruptures capitalist geography, promotes new spatial practices, and establishes non-alienated inhabitation of territory. Third, the Autonomen and the Invisible Committee theorize and act upon a new conception of communism as a collective practice of living the “good life” in revolutionary struggle rather than as solely a (future) economic system of organizing production. Fourth, alternative infrastructure provides the means to practice this everyday lived communism. Finally, revolutionary insurrectionary practice takes the form of networks of communes seceding from the capitalist system to form liberated territory that functions as a base from which to attack and destitute capitalist state power.

[1] The Invisible Committee, Now, 86-88.

[2] A stereotype that many within the movement cared little to contest; indeed, some Autonomen went so far as to believe that “freedom is the short moment between throwing a rock and the rock hitting its target. However, we all agree that, in the first place, we want to dismantle and to destroy—to formulate affirmative ideals is not our priority.” “Autonomous Theses 1981,” Fire and Flames, 174. I take some issue with this intentionally provocative statement though: as this paper details, it is clear that the Autonomen did indeed formulate affirmative ideals and act on them.

[3] In an early work of theirs, the Invisible Committee make this connection explicit. It is well worth quoting this section in full, in part to orient ourselves to the radical position from which to write of communes and revolution: “The ‘we’ that speaks here is not a delimitable, isolated we, the we of a group. It is the we of a position. In these times this position is asserted as a double secession: secession first with the process of capitalist valorisation; then secession with all the sterility entailed by a mere opposition to empire, extra-parliamentary or otherwise; thus a secession with the left. Here ‘secession’ means less a practical refusal to communicate than a disposition to forms of communication so intense that, when put into practice, they snatch from the enemy most of its force. To put it briefly, such a position refers to the force of irruption of the Black Panthers and the collective canteens of the German Autonomen, to the tree houses and art of sabotage of the British neo-luddites, to the careful choice of words of the radical feminists, to the mass self-reductions of the Italian autonomists, and the armed joy of the June 2nd Movement. From now on all friendship is political.” The Invisible Committee, Call, 10.

[4] The closest equivalent in the United States revolves around the currents of anarchism associated with CrimethInc. and the more recent formations expressed through the popular autonomist/anarchist website “It’s Going Down,” as well as the journal Endnotes (which is international, though mostly based in the UK). The Invisible Committee’s work is put out in the US by Semiotext(e), which has been responsible for the translation and popularization of much Italian and French autonomist theory. Several other small radical presses, including Minor Compositions, Autonomedia, and Little Black Cart, also publish (post-)autonomist theoretical work. See for example Benjamin Noys’s edited volume Communization and its Discontents: Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles (2011) for a contemporary exploration of some of the theoretical currents of post-autonomism and communization.

[5] Aaron Lake Smith, “Vive Le Tarnac Nine!”

[6] For US anarchist analysis of the trial and its impact, see CrimethInc., “The Tarnac Verdicts: Unraveling the Logic of Anti-Terrorism,” which traces the history of the trial as well as a little of the impact of the Invisible Committee on the US radical scene and the common roots and resonances of the Invisible Committee and CrimethInc.; and It’s Going Down, “The Palace of Justice: Inside the Tarnac Nine Trial.” The trial received widespread international attention because the (alleged) members of the Invisible Committee were charged with domestic terrorism for the act of (allegedly) sabotaging a train line that was transporting nuclear waste to Germany. Sabotage is, of course, a time-honored tradition in France, and many were aghast that this venerable historical practice was being treated as “terrorism.”

On Writing: Identity vs. Practice

I’m sure many friends can relate to this tweet. It made me laugh out loud. But I’m going to take it seriously: I think it reveals the problem of viewing one’s life through the framework of identity rather than practice (or Being rather than Becoming, or representation rather than production). I have spent a good chunk of my time in therapy over the past couple years working through this issue in my own life; the transformation of my own relationship to writing is evidence of how my approach has changed.

I used to view writing through the lens of identity. I AM a writer. I AM an academic. The extent to which I live up to these identities is the measure of how successful I am as a person—indeed, the degree to which I am “good.” This means that when I do not write I am failing my identity. I am not simply “not doing” a thing: I am a failure at the kind of person that I want to be.

This focus on the identity of “writer” was demonstrably counterproductive for me. It in fact prevented me from doing the actual act of writing. The pressure to live up to the ideal was too great, and it was easier to avoid it altogether than to work through the problem. This resulted in a whole host of negative reactions and even a good deal of self-loathing (all too common for grad students).

Talking through this problem with my therapist over the course of months was extremely helpful. Together, we practiced identifying the emotions I felt around writing, feeling them in my body, connecting them to specific experiences, and understanding the thought-patterns that fed into them. Once I had this understanding, I could begin to break away from the identity-based approach. Instead, I understood the problem as a set of processes and thus a set of practices. The solution would not be found through finally “living up” to the identity, being a “good” writer (and thus a “good” person). Rather, the solution was to be found in abandoning this focus on Being in favor of a practice of never-ending Becoming.

As part of my re-orientation, I read several books about writing, including Stephen King’s On Writing, Paul J. Silvia’s How to Write a Lot, and Wendy Laura Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. The authors of each of these books approach writing as a set of practices to be cultivated rather than as an identity. It turns out that the key to writing is… writing. You have to actually sit down and write, whether you want to or not, whether you “feel inspired” or not.

Following this, I have cultivated the practice of writing as part of my morning routine. I wake up, I drink coffee and read, and then I sit down at my computer and write for at least fifteen minutes. It can be about anything, although usually it is connected to my academic work in some way. I don’t check my email. I don’t go looking for a source. I write.

The key for me is to simply write. This is not the time for editing, not the time for revising. I simply get words down on the page for at least fifteen minutes. I do not identify with them, and I do not identity with the representation of myself as a “writer.” I just produce words. I write. And I do it every day. These sessions add up, and they form the basis for longer writing sessions in which I bring the ideas together, revise, and form them into something that I want to share with others. This post is itself the product of a morning writing session.

I do not mean to trivialize this or present a facile solution. “Oh, the key to writing is to write? Sure, super helpful, thanks.” This is the product of many hours of therapy and a long, at times painful, process of self-evaluation and transformation. Writing is but one of many manifestations of this re-orientation in my life.

But I maintain that the shift from identity and representation to practice and production has completely transformed my relationship with writing. Instead of worrying about being a good writer, I write. And it has been by far the most productive year of my life.

Neither East Nor West: Anarchism and the Soviet Dissolution

Since I’m based at the Interference Archive for a whole semester, I decided to start sharing interesting things that I find. Here is one: an anarchist analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union as it is happening, in 1990.

It’s fascinating to read an anarchist analysis of the Soviet Bloc at this time. Bob McGlynn of “NYC Neither East Nor West,” who had extensive contacts with anarchists and other lefty dissidents in Eastern Europe, wrote an article in the Love and Rage newspaper (April 1990) titled “Whoopie! East Bloc Explodes!” in which he expresses the great hope but also danger of the time.

The hope:
“Watching one Stalinoid dictatorship after another crumble with embarrassing speed is even more fun than drinking beer! (Well almost.). . .

Many wonder if this [East-West solidarity] movement is over. Not at all. In fact, it’s needed now more than ever, given that Western capitalism is poised to eat the East alive, through debt and capital penetration. . . .

Opposition movements in the Soviet bloc remain. These are made up of anarchists, independent socialists, draft resisters, ecologists, anti-nuclear activists, workers, women, youth, gays. The battle for relative civil liberties may appear to be won, but the war for everything else is on. . .

In many ways, we’re only just beginning. For instance, the sporadic contacts between anarchists in both blocs can now be cemented. In April and Italian group is sponsoring a large gathering of East and West anarchists – the first time ever. In a sense we are at point zero. Now we can really move.”

The danger:
“Western capitalism is poised to eat the East alive, through debt and capital penetration. . . .

The barbed wire and concrete borders are now being replaced by a border less tangible: that of money/commodity relations and rule. And this game, like the old one, has only enough room for a few players.”

In 1990, the future was open for action. McGlynn ends:
“The paradox is that as the world has gotten very interesting recently, it’s also simultaneously becoming increasingly monotone and banal. Pepsi power, etc. This, then, is prime territory for adventurers seeking seams in this seemingly seamless whole. It’s been remarked that with Stalinism collapsing, we are now ‘at the end of history.’ Rather, perhaps, we are only at its beginning.”

Indeed. But McGlynn’s fears were realized as capitalism remade the former Soviet Bloc in its image. Could this have been prevented with more effective anti-state socialist organizing and more widespread solidarity work across borders from below? Was a libertarian socialist alternative possible? Or was the choice always simply between Stalinism and neoliberalism?

“We’re Here, We’re Queer, and We Hate the Government!”: Queer Anarchism in Love and Rage

Anarchists in Love and Rage (1989-98) pushed the struggle for queer liberation in radical directions. Members actively participated in gay and lesbian marches, developed an anarchist approach to queer politics, and joined ACT UP in fighting for people with AIDS.

Anarchists often had a visible presence at queer demonstrations and pushed radical action at them. For instance, Jan Kraker from the NYC Autonomous Anarchist Action describes how AAA brought a militant edge to queer organizing at a 1990 rally commemorating the Stonewall uprising. They dressed in Black Bloc and brought a banner to the rally that provided direction for the otherwise inchoate crowd. Kraker describes how “what had been a [sic] unorganized mass of people outside a bar had turned into a spirited march behind a ‘Queer Without Fear—Autonomous Anarchist Action’ banner.”[1]

This exemplifies how Love and Rage encouraged broader movements to take a more radical, confrontational approach. It was not necessarily about convincing them to become anarchists or join the organization, but rather spreading new tactics and values that had been developed within the anarchist movement of the 1980s. In this vein, Liz A. Highleyman advocated collective participation in the queer march on Washington in 1993, arguing that “it is important that anarchists have a presence in the march to let people know that we cannot rely on laws and the government to guarantee queer liberation.”[2] Anarchist chants included “We’re fucking anarchists, we’ll fuck whoever we want!” and “We’re here, we’re Queer, and we hate the government!”[3] A group of Red & Anarchist Skinheads marched with a banner reading “Anti-Racist Skinheads and Punx Against Homophobia” and chanted “Oi! Oi! Oi! We fuck boys!”[4]

Beyond participating in queer activism, anarcha-feminists argued that there was something inherently queer about the anarchist rejection of all structures of social domination. For instance, Highleyman notes about the anarchist contingent at the 1993 march that “Gay, Lesbian, Bi, hetero or undefined, all the anarchists were queer in their own way.”[5] Lin L. Elliot goes further, arguing in a powerful article linking queer and indigenous resistance that the “new activism of the 80s and 90s has already shown us the way. ACT UP and, more recently, Queer Nation, embody an unmistakably Queer perspective; non-hierarchical, even anarchical, they combine seriousness with humor, politics with play.”[6] Queer and anarchist politics both embodied this non-hierarchical, fluid approach to the world.

This perspective prefigured later developments in queer anarchist theory. The Mary Nardini Gang argues in “Toward the Queerest Insurrection” in 2014 that queer is not simply a sexual identity but rather “the qualitative position of opposition to presentations of stability […] Queer is the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world. […] By ‘queer’, we mean ‘social war.’ And when we speak of queer as a conflict with all domination, we mean it.”[7] In this view, anarchism is inherently queer because it rejects the “normalcy” of capitalist patriarchy and struggles against all forms of hierarchy and oppression.

Anarchists also participated in AIDS activism, although they critiqued the state-centric elements of the movement. ACT UP drew upon many anarchistic values and practices: it was decentralized, grassroots, and direct-action oriented, and it operated outside of the state in many ways. Members formed alternative health networks, squatted buildings for people with AIDS to live in, provided safer-sex education, volunteer service organizations, and more.[8] Despite this, ACT UP focused largely on spectacular actions meant to pressure the government to act on AIDS. Anarchists generally rejected this strategy on principle.

Liz Highleyman critiques ACT UP from an anarchist perspective in her article “Anarchism and AIDS Activism.” She argues that “the government does not represent our best interests [so] it would be foolish to rely on it as a source of solutions […] we would be better off putting the time, money (including taxes), and effort that we currently devote to petitioning, supporting, and evading the government into alternative activities that meet our needs directly.”[9]

It is unclear from Highleyman’s piece, however, what she sees as the alternative: despite her call to “develop solutions that do not rely on the state,” would it really have been possible or practical to quickly develop effective treatments for AIDS without state intervention?[10] Indeed, Highleyman’s critique of ACT UP did not go unchallenged. In the next issue of the newspaper, a letter from Eric L. Sambach pushed back against her conclusion that ACT UP did not live up to the “anarchist ideal.” Sambach says that

ACT UP was not set up as an anarchist ideal, but to develop an effective response to the AIDS crisis. ACT UP members see a situation where rapidly growing numbers of people are dying as an emergency. In an emergency we do whatever works to enhance and save lives. Whether that action fits an anarchist or other model of social organization is another, and in these terms, theoretical question.[11]

Whether or not ACT UP strictly conformed to anarchist theory and practice was beside the point; AIDS activists took whatever opportunity they could to respond to an existential crisis. It may be useful to lay out an anarchist critique of state-centered AIDS activism, but to apply a “pure” anarchist standard to ACT UP verged on a dogmatic prioritization of anarchist politics over the lives of people with AIDS.

[1] Jan Kraker, “Faeries, Anarchists and Others Commemorate Stonewall,” Love and Rage, Vol. 1 No. 5 (August 1990), 4-5.

[2] Liz A. Highleyman, “Queer March in April,” Love and Rage, Vol. 4, No. 1 (February/March 1993), 3.

[3] Liz A. Highleyman, “Anarchists Join Queer March,” Love and Rage, Vol. 4 No. 3 (June/July 1993), 1. I personally witnessed a similar chant at the NATO summit protests in Chicago in 2012: “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re anarchists we’ll fuck you up!”

[4] Ibid., 6.

[5] Ibid., 6.

[6] Lin L. Elliot, “500 Queers of Resistance,” Love and Rage, Vol. 3, No. 5 (June 1992), 2.

[7] Mary Nardini Gang, “Toward the Queerest Insurrection,” (2014).

[8] Liz Highleyman, “Anarchism and AIDS Activism,” Love and Rage, Vol 2. No. 6 (June/July 1991), 10.

[9] Ibid., 11.

[10] Ibid., 11.

[11] Eric L. Sambach, letter titled “Purpose Pragmatism and Privilege,” Love and Rage, Vol. 2 No. 7 (August 1991), 2.

“To Repulse The State From Our Uteri”: Anarcha-Feminist Abortion Struggle

Woman holding a flag and a sign reading “Free my uterus! And all other political prisoners.” From Liz A. Highleyman, “Reproductive Freedom in Everyday Life,” Love and Rage Vol. 3, No. 2, 1992.

I’ve been working on an article on anarcha-feminism in the late 1980s-90s, focusing primarily on abortion struggle (in part in response to the new Texas anti-abortion law). As the anarcha-feminist Liz Highleyman put it in 1992, “The day when abortion is again made illegal may come sooner than we like to think. We must be ready to take our bodies and our lives into our own hands.”

Anarcha-feminists were on the front lines of the militant struggle for abortion. They were convinced that Roe v. Wade would not last forever and that they could not depend on the state and the legal system to protect abortion, so their analysis and political practice feel particularly relevant today. Anarcha-feminists generally took a three-pronged approach to abortion struggle: construction of women’s infrastructure, defense of abortion infrastructure, and a combative relationship with the state. (Note that the language in this post is very gender-normative because this is the language that the feminists I’m looking at used at the time.)

1. Construction of women’s infrastructure: establishing autonomous infrastructure (health clinics, etc.) and self-help groups in which women learned to take care of their own bodies and induce abortions on their own terms. As one anonymous anarchist put it in an article called “Laws and Outlaws,” “Medicine is something we must take into our own hands. Because how can you smash the state if you’re still walking funny from a visit to the gynecologist’s?”

This meant first and foremost an urgent need to (as Highleyman wrote) “rebuild the network of feminist women’s health and reproductive resources that existed in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s,” particularly organizations like the Chicago Jane Collective which provided underground abortions before they were legalized. While anarcha-feminists supported abortions provided by accredited doctors, their focus on women’s autonomy led them to draw on alternative traditions of women-controlled health practices. This includes herbal and holistic methods which women have used “throughout the ages […] to control their fertility and reproduction.” Thus anarchists advocated expanding grassroots infrastructure and self-organization to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their own reproductive care. This would produce true reproductive freedom and autonomy, independent of the state and its laws.

2. Defense of abortion infrastructure: physically protecting abortion clinics from the attacks of Operation Rescue and others. Many non-anarchists took part in this, of course, but anarcha-feminists brought Black Bloc tactics and a willingness to engage in physical confrontation, and they were very successful in preventing Operation Rescue from shutting down clinics in NYC, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and in many other places across the country.

But anarcha-feminists believed that defense of infrastructure was not enough. They vowed to go after Operation Rescue, prevent them from meeting, and disrupt them anywhere they went. When Operation Rescue attempted to host a summer training camp in Minneapolis in 1993, anarchists physically confronted Operation Rescue, blocked them in their church, disrupted their meetings, vandalized their materials, protected clinics from their attacks, and generally made them unwelcome. Although some liberals opposed these tactics, anarchists and other militants handed Operation Rescue a major defeat and ran them out of town.

Reflecting on the experience, an anarchist named Liza wrote in an article titled “Minnesota Not Nice to Operation Rescue,” that “it seems like no matter how hard activists fight, we rarely win. Except this time we were victorious. We fought against these fascists […] We saw the demise of Operation Rescue in the Twin Cities, partly due to our unprecedented aggressiveness and opposition, and partly because their movement is losing, big time.”

3. Combative relationship with the state: anarcha-feminists did not appeal to the state to maintain the right to abortion. They believed that the state was inherently patriarchal and was ultimately the enemy of women. In place of the slogan “we’re pro-choice and we vote,” anarcha-feminists marched behind a banner reading “we’re pro-choice and we riot.”

Anarcha-feminists attempted to insert anarchist analysis into the mainstream feminist movement and convince feminists not to focus on legalistic, state-centered activism. They supported struggles to maintain legal abortion, but they cautioned that the state could not be trusted to maintain the right to abortion, and women must be ready to act on their own terms to maintain their bodily autonomy and self-determination. This meant taking power into their own hands.

As Sunshine Smith remarks, forming self-help medical groups and abortion infrastructure in the Bay Area “has, in very concrete ways, made our struggle against the anti-abortion group Operation ‘Rescue’ and the ‘Supreme’ Court stronger and more effective. We have learned that if the time comes, we can and will do home abortions. We are becoming physically aware of the invasion the government is conducting into our bodies. We are now able to repulse the state from our uteri because we are gaining the knowledge that enables us to control our own bodies.”

David Graeber’s Anarchism: A Vision, an Attitude, and a Set of Practices

I realized that I missed the anniversary of David Graeber’s death a few days ago. I want to mark it, because Graeber was in many ways a model for the kind of engaged intellectual work that I aspire to do.

Graeber’s book on anarchism in the anti-globalization movement, Direct Action: An Ethnography, remains one of my favorites. I used a section of it, combined with his classic short pamphlet “Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!” to introduce anarchism in a class on American Anarchism that I taught to first-year college students a couple years ago. In Direct Action, Graeber argues that anarchism consists of three interlocking parts: a vision, an attitude, and a set of practices.

1. First, the anarchist vision refers to people who endorse an explicitly anarchist doctrine or what Graeber refers to as “a certain vision of human possibilities” (214)

2. Second is the anarchist attitude, meaning a rejection of unjust authority and hierarchy. In this sense, anarchism has always existed, across time and across every society, for people have always rebelled against unjust authority and have fought for equality and justice

3. Third is a set of practices—or a set of institutions, habits, and practices. This entails building egalitarian forms of organization which produce and are supported by an egalitarian ethos.

Graeber says that it is the combination of these three things—the vision, the attitude, and the set of practices—that produces something we can call anarchism: “It’s when the three reinforce each other—when a revulsion against oppression causes people to try to live their lives in a more self-consciously egalitarian fashion, when they draw on those experiences to produce visions of a more just society, when those visions, in turn, cause them to see existing social arrangements as even more illegitimate and obnoxious—that one can begin to talk about anarchism. Hence anarchism is in no sense a doctrine. It’s a movement, a relationship, a process of purification, inspiration, and experiment. This is its very substance” (215-16).

And of course, let us all remember Graeber’s ultimate insistence that “direct action is a matter of acting as if you were already free.” But it is clear that we must simultaneously act as if we were free today AND build the structures, organizations, relationships, and institutions that enable true freedom for all. This is the task and the promise of anarchism.