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“I Want Out” Anti-Vietnam war poster by the Committee to Unsell the War, which was a group of advertising professionals and artists, 1970

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Seattle May Day is Going to be Stellar

For one reason or another folks have decided to start this years Seattle May Day Anticapitalist March in Westlake Park. Tactical concerns aside this May Day could make for a pretty wonderful time. The last several May Days have crafted a tradition of “riotous play” that continues to bring lived revolt against capitalism and the state to the streets of Seattle. If your reading this an wondering why capitalism and the state are undesirable suffice to say that all forms or rulership are undesirable. Capitalism is the rule of capital and the state is a entity who rules. Capitalism—along with its predecessors like mercantilism, different organized religions, feudalism, and so on—has worked in tandem with nation-states and empires to create this hellworld we now occupy. Poverty, in its totality, is not an accident. State violence, in its totality, is not an accident. These are the results of the current ruling order whose main pillars are white supremacy, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, capitalism, and statecraft.

The video at the top of all this is a response to the call out for 2016’s Seattle May Day Anticapitalist March. At the end of the video the text reads, “This May Day—whether for communism, the wild, vengeance, or ourselves—let’s take steps to destroying our enemies and actualizing our desires!” This call resounds in me and I hoped to answer it as well as extend it’s reach.

It also lists several resources as follows: Surveillance Self Defense (https://ssd.eff.org/en)

Staying Safe in the Streets (http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2014/08/14/staying-safe-in-the-streets/)

Fashion Tips for the Brave (http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2008/10/11/fashion-tips-for-the-brave/)

Blocs, Black or otherwise (http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/pastfeatures/blocs.php)

Swarming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarming_%28military%29)

How Riot Control Works (http://people.howstuffworks.com/riot-control.htm)

I would like to add the following resources too this list in a similar spirit:

This video showing how a swarm of birds out maneuvers a predator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUpGRQK7o78&nohtml5=False)

This article on situational awareness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_awareness)

This article on the Observe Orient Decide Act loop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

This VICE article—LOL—on crowd control (https://www.vice.com/read/crowd-control-v23n1)

I would also like to add that whether or not you are actually going to break the law often times the state is only looking for actionable information and not accurate intel so doing things like talking about getting a ride to Seattle openly on facebook or over any non-encrypted/non-secure channel whether your intention is to go there and do illegal activity or not may lead to being investigated especially if you’re crossing state lines. I say this not to paralyze you into in action, but to take simple and perfectly legal steps to avoid such hassles.

I would like to remind folks of the tactics SPD uses such as pepper-spray, snatching followed by encirclement, and bicycles as weapons, shields, and mobility devices. I would like to remind people that these tactics although new in many ways are based off of Roman tactics. I would like to remind everyone that the police are hierarchical organization that lack the mobility and reaction time of a network. Since their embarrassment during May Day 2012 when their hierarchy fell a apart and rendered them laughable they have taken steps to better themselves in such regards.

I also think that the best if the enemy does not know your hand as much as possible. Surprise is wonderful and so is the potential of autonomous action.

Before I end this I would like to take this time to remind everyone that these systems are rotten to their core. They have their foundations in slavery and death. To get specific SPD has bashed me and countless others for being queer and their membership are well aware of the actions of their comrades and they still have the nerve to put up “SAFE SPACE” stickers with their logo smeared all over them. This hellworld—this leviathan—is poisoning our environment, exploiting us, wounding us, imprisoning us, and killing us. The reasons for fighting back are evident to the extreme.

Down with the state its trappings!

Down with capitalism and the world that produced it!

Hurrah for May Day!

Hurrah for Anarchy!

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Are their any resources such as podcasts, documentaries, YouTube videos etc you'd recommend for someone looking to expand their knowledge of anarchism but struggles with reading? Any help would be greatly appreciated

Have you checked out the audio tag on libcom?

http://libcom.org/tags/audio

and there’s a plethora of anarchist films, documentaries etc on Stuart Christie’s site:

http://www.christiebooks.com/player/anarchy.html

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Another world is possible

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“Man’s inhumanity to man” is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep.” Alexander Berkman - Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912), Ch. 18: “The Solitary”

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Black bloc

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Poster: “Staying Safer In The Streets”

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Written by: Dolomite

Biography

A well-educated man, Robert Nozick, was a prominent American philosopher throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Nozick acquired a bachelor’s degree and his PhD in philosophy from Columbia and Princeton University, which inspired him to create a dissertation on decision theory (Duignan). Decision theory, in general, analyzes the statistical probability of a certain outcome occurring in order to discover the best strategy to decide between different options based on their predicted risks and outcomes.

Nozick, like many of his high school classmates in Brooklyn, had become an ardent socialist during his early teens, an enthusiasm that continued at Columbia. During his graduate school years, however, he had begun reexamining his political beliefs as he focused on political philosophy and the works of John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Moving toward the middle of the political spectrum, Nozick now questioned the most basic tenets of socialism: that human labor was the only source of value, that capitalism should be rejected because it exploited and profited from that labor, and that the state should control the means of production and allocate its resources (Keene). Nozick continued to question and explore the views of John Locke and developed his individual stance on society and the general citizen’s rights and freedoms.

 Anarchist views/ideas

 Nozick struggled with the issues of “human economic and social freedom and its political ramifications” and had come to believe in libertarianism, which is the “belief that the state exists only to protect its citizens from harm and should not otherwise interfere with human activity” (Keene). This libertarian view positions the role of the government to protect citizens only when their rights are violated. He believed that everyone encompasses the natural rights to life, liberty, and property, however he supported that “everyone also has the natural right to punish those who violate or attempt to violate one’s own natural rights” (Duignan).  His view supported very minimal government to its most definite form. 

 Popularly known as the "night watchman" state, a libertarian form of government intervenes only when a person's natural rights--summed up as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the American Declaration of Independence--are violated (Duignan). He argued that “respect for individual rights is the key standard for assessing state action and, hence, that the only legitimate state is a minimal state that restricts its activities to the protection of the rights of life, liberty, property, and contract” (Robert Nozick's Political Philosophy). These arguments prove that his views are anarchic. Nozick wishes the individuals in our society could live their lives without being interfered by government.

Specific example/event 

“Anarchy, State, and Utopia” (1974)

Nozick's book Anarchy, State and Utopia was published in 1974.  As stated above, Nozick was a firm believer that the state only exists to protect the citizens and should not govern any further than that. The purpose of his book was to “to show that the minimal state, and only the minimal state, is morally justified” (Duignan).  This argument is for a minimal state and his book further solidifies his view arguing that a state should be "limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on” (Anarchy, State, and Utopia Wiki). This perspective is anarchic by definition, from the desire for the least amount of government needed for society to function.  Nozick was not an anarchist in the most extreme way, as he supported a government that had minimal involvement versus no government at all.  

 Nozick is passionate about this topic as he believes that when states govern more completely than to just service these goals, citizens' rights are violated. In his book, Nozick “presents an argument that illustrates how the minimalist state arises naturally from anarchy and how any expansion of state power past this minimalist threshold is unjustified" (Anarchy, State, and Utopia Wiki). Anarchy, State, and Utopia was named one of the "100 most influential books since the war" (1945–1995) by the U.K. Times Literary Supplement" (Anarchy, State, and Utopia Wiki). His book reaches out to a lot of people and encourages readers to form their own opinions about the government and its role in our society being justified or unjustified.

 Works Cited

 "Anarchy, State, and Utopia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia >.

 Duignan, Brian. "Robert Nozick." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. <http://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Nozick >.

 Keene, Ann T. "American National Biography Online: Nozick, Robert."American National Biography Online: Nozick, Robert. Oxford University Press, Feb. 2000. Web. <http://www.anb.org/articles/08/08-02380.html >.

 "Robert Nozick's Political Philosophy." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University Library, 22 June 2014. Web. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nozick-political/#MinStaVerIndAna >.

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