Ashamed of the Left

Posted on March 23, 2011

Found this online, something I wrote back in 2001, ten years ago now, in response to the way the institutional left blamed anarchists and the black bloc for “violence” at the mass protests instead of recognizing the state’s obvious divide and conquer tactics for what they were. At the time I hadn’t posted it to indymedia but had sent it out as a mass email to several of the mailing lists I was on and someone else must have re-posted it from there.

Ten years on and I’m sorry to say I see all the same things happening. The State uses divide and conquer to split our movements up and they are gleefully aided and abetted by all the irrelevant little leftist sects who can’t wait to see mass movements fall apart so they can dismember the corpse and use its memory to recruit. Back then Bill Clinton was president, America was at war, and people were outraged and ready for change. Today most of the key members of the Clinton administration are calling shots in the Obama administration and things are even worse. We need that revolution now more then ever. And all the Left can do is bicker over which list of organizer-approved chants to shout at the rally no one but no one is going to attend anyway.

This letter marked a turning point for me because it was the last time I publicly called for Left unity.   After the events of that August I slowly began to realize just how dire things really are – that just because someone marched next to me against the WTO didn’t mean they’d be there in solidarity when the pigs came knocking.  And that just as often as not the pigs got their intel from sellouts in our own movement, people who pretended to be our comrades.  I read a lot more about the Spanish Civil war and how the Communists there murdered Anarchist revolutionaries by the thousands.  And then about Russia and China and Korea where they did the same thing.   And finally it started to sink in.

We need a new movement. And when we move, we need to leave all the charlatans and parasites of both the left and right behind us.  Because when push comes to shove, they’ll shove us right out in front of a firing squad if we let them.

So this is me, saying goodbye to my naivete and re-posting this for old times sake.  There is no unified left and there never will be.  And that’s ok.  Our place isn’t on the Left or Right, it’s at the intersection of Freedom, Equality, and Personal Responsibility.  We are against capitalism, against the State, and ultimately against anyone and everyone who wants to strengthen the power of either of those institutions – be they Corporatist, Marxist, Liberal, or Republican.

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