To My Critics: My Own Peculiar Albatross

To My Critics: My Own Peculiar Albatross

From Bellamy Fitzpatrick dot com by Bellamy Fitzpatrick

Under different circumstances, I would not have brought this issue up so early in my blog, and perhaps would never have brought it up, but the recent mention of me on The Solecast has made me think it is necessary to lay this issue to rest once and for all. My hope is that I will never have to comment on it again, but will be able to reference this blog entry and the podcast links associated with it to any and all future critics.

I was alerted to the mention of my publication Backwoods in the December 13th, 2019, episode of Solecast entitled “A Conversation about Desert w/ Alfredo of Occupied Southwest Distro” by a frequent correspondent of mine who expressed amusement at the continuing unfolding (over five years now) of subcultural micro-drama over statements I have made related to the ITS/RS (usually translated from Spanish to English as Individualists Tending Toward the Wild/Wild Reaction) phenomena and the way these are usually taken with a total lack of nuance or sympathy.

To be clear, I have no ill-will toward Sole. In fact, we have lightly corresponded in a friendly manner and have friends in common – from what little I know of him, he seems by all accounts to be a solid guy. I am not familiar with his oeuvre but have no reason currently to think he is a bad faith actor, and I do not believe he maliciously threw me under the bus. In fact, he has invited me to speak on his show, and I will probably soon take him up on the offer. Even so, I had to sardonically grin at the fact that he apparently felt it necessary, even as he positively referenced my writing, to disavow me as a human in a circumspect manner, which I assume is all but obligatory in the It’s Going Down/CrimethInc./Submedia/Channel Zero milieux. I will unpack this in the following entry, though I will save his apparent grievances with my use of the term “slavery” for a future entry, since it needs its own, full discussion.

To further ensure clarity and good faith communication, I will clarify here that Sole made no explicit mention of ITS/RS in carefully distancing himself from me, but his vague referral to the fact that I was a somehow controversial figure leaves little doubt in my mind that that is, at minimum, to what he is referring.

I feel I already have made my position on the ITS/RS phenomenon exhaustively, even ridiculously clear, but I am a creature of the Eternal Present, who lives in a world of five-second talking points, mass illiteracy, and thoroughgoing lack of nuance. Thus, I have been heavily criticized for supposedly endorsing or at least apologizing for ITS/RS and their policy of “indiscriminate attack,” not only by goofball anonymous Internet commenters but by well-known personalities in the subculture like the anarcho-primitivists John Zerzan and Kevin Tucker as well as William Gillis of Center for a Stateless Society. None of these absurd claims could ever meet my simple, oft-repeated challenge of ‘Find me one, single quote from anything I have podcasted or written that can justify the claim that I endorsed eco-extremism or championed their policy of indiscriminate attack.’ Not one of my critics could ever do this, but that did not stop them from persisting in manufacturing pointless, fractious drama – whether this was motivated by purity spiraling, Manichaeism, pointless scene-feuding, or la drama pour la drama is unclear to me.

Zerzan, who was the most frequent high-profile critic, and I have since made amends, and I have no quarrel with him – in fact, we had a recent productive conversation on the audiozine Oak, which I understand will be published soon. That said, I responded to Zerzan’s criticisms of me exhaustively in episode 91 of The Brilliant. Tucker has (as far as I know) assiduously avoided discussing me since I published my small-book-length critique of anarcho-primitivism, Corrosive Consciousness, after having previously personally informed me that his strategy of dealing with critics is to entirely avoid discussing them. I address the eco-extremist issue within the book as well as offer other criticisms (I since completely disagree with the nihilist-existentialist positive view put forward by me the book, see my previous blog post opening this blog). The worst and most dishonest critic, however, has been Gillis, whom I will address in a moment.

By episode 41, January 2017 of The Brilliant, I unequivocally said that eco-extremism was not an anarchist tendency – this was on top of previous instances of Free Radical Radio in which I had criticized the tendency and had, again, never endorsed it. My great and terrible crime had been to say two things, which I will reiterate here, and with which I still agree:

  1. Given that the eco-extremists were previously green anarchists, it is interesting, relevant, and valuable for current anarchists to learn about them and to understand why they shifted to a terroristic, misanthropic mode of being.
  2. The anarchists with Marxist and/or insurrectionary tendencies – that is, those who advocate for an abrupt, violent overturning of the current order – are, depending on their particular political orientation, more or less hypocritical for condemning a set of groups who have committed violence that has injured or killed a relatively small number of persons when the sudden insurrection-cum-revolution advocated by these anarcho-communists or insurrectionary anarchists would almost certainly result in the death and injury of enormous numbers of people. I suggested that they consider what their ethics around violence really are.

None of my critics has specifically responded to either of these claims with the exception of #2 being addressed by Gills, who, as a brief aside in condemning me in a full-length feature on his defunct podcast, vaguely referenced a partial admittance of the fact that perhaps some people during his fantasized revolution would not be reached by medical first-responders in time, as though only some small number of unfortunates would unintentionally be allowed to die by all those involved in overthrowing the existent, a response so shallow, cursory, and unserious that I find it difficult to believe that he himself could truly think what he is saying without considerable cognitive dissonance.

In episode 50 of The Brilliant, in June 2017, I responded with neurasthenic exhaustiveness to the meandering-yet-malicious critique given on episode #4 of Gillis’ podcast Horizontal Hostility, no mean feat given that it was 92 minutes almost entirely devoted to how apparently awful Aragorn! and I are. By then, I had already written a piece called “Revolutionary Dissonance” for Black Seed #5, which would be published a few weeks later, which reiterates in detail the two points made above while also specifying, yet again, that I in no way endorsed ITS/RS’s analysis or actions.

As I emphasized in my podcast response, these critics from Horizontal Hostility, quote literally nothing, not one single line of writing or podcast episode or timestamp is referenced. Instead, strawman after strawman is erected and knocked down. I find this kind of citationless critique not only dishonest and cowardly in that it evades a real intellectual clash in favor of battling one’s own sockpuppet, but also incredibly disrespectful to one’s audience. The audience is not only misled and kept from the real debate, but they are further denied the opportunity to look up the original sources themselves without having to do some digging. There is nothing either intellectually or morally honest about behaving this way.

Indeed, this criticism was so goofballish and hackneyed that, within the same episode, William Gillis claimed both that Aragorn and I had previously claimed that we had problems with the exo-extremist analysis but applauded the fact that they were at least doing something actively, and that we were for the eco-extremism analysis and yet against their actions, separated by about 45 minutes in the podcast. You cannot make up this sort of nonsense. This obvious self-contradiction, both arms of which are false (since I have clearly critiqued and rejected both the analysis and the actions of the eco-extremists, both in writing and in speech), demonstrates that Gillis is either sufficiently incompetent as to not actually know what I believe or even notice what he himself says across the space of 45 minutes and is instead merely hyperventilating in public, or that he is a bad faith actor who is deliberately throwing shrapnel to see what sticks – or, perhaps, some combination is the case. Does he really disrespect his own audience so much that he thinks they are too foolish or ideological to notice this contradiction, or does he not notice it himself for the same reasons?

Moreover, I have shown throughout everything I have done in media that I am obviously against the commonplace shut up and do something approach to anarchism – indeed, the most consistent criticism of The Brilliant podcast during my stay there was that Aragorn! and I were armchair intellectuals who lambasted everyone who was attempting real action – so the idea that I would cheerlead eco-extremists because At Least They’re Doin’ Somethin’ is laughable.  My consistent refrain since the Free Radical Radio days has been, as opinion polls in the U.S. clearly show, that there is plenty of discontent toward the status quo, but that people are very misguided and confused in how they express it.

To put icing on the cake, the Horizontal Hostility cast of pseudo-liberationists engaged in reprehensible smearing. They attempted to associate Aragorn! and me both with an apparent schizophrenic who, among a whole hodgepodge of ideologies, called himself a nihilist and also committed a random stabbing incident against people who intervened in his alleged harassment of Muslim women on public transportation – after all, the absurdity of these slanderers goes, we all advocated nihilism. They further connected us with a then-recent communiqué by ITS advocating indiscriminate attack and therefore, de facto, random murder. They implied Aragorn! and I would somehow support both of these actions, and they even had the audacity to call us straight-up quasi-psychopaths in the last statement of their show.

How either Aragorn or I could possibly be seen to endorse random stabbing (ostensibly racially/religiously motivated, but it is hard to say since this person appeared to have no coherent ideology whatsoever, probably due to his schizophrenia) or indiscriminate attack is left entirely unexplained, precisely because it is entirely inexplicable; it was not an intellectually sincere critique aimed at bettering anarchism, but only a moronic slur directed at a worldview that they either struggle to understand or are intentionally misrepresenting. 

I have never had either the gall or desire to claim any theoretical opponent of mine is depraved, murderous, or psychopathic, even when I think their ideologies necessarily imply oppression and violence, both because I do not claim to have the ability to read minds and because I believe in the realism and importance of logical fallacies and therefore the fact that personal smearing is a fallacious distraction from the issue of whether a given idea is good or bad. I actually believe that logical coherence and intellectual honesty matter, and I bellieve my record of engaging with critique and critics shows this fact. I don’t viciously smear people whom I have never met simply because I disagree with them, because I consider doing so to be dishonest, cowardly, malicious, and generally destructive to human decency and intellectual discourse. I don’t avoid citing people and strawman them. When you cannot honestly debate, when you cannot cite or quote your opponents, and when you cannot even keep your own arguments straight across the course of an hour, you resort to vile, dishonest, incoherent slander.

Predictably, the same personage of William Gillis had occasion to outdo himself around the same time in writing with his essay On No Platform and ITS. Gillis slightly lessened his previous ambiguous dishonesty and/or incompetence by at least quoting one brief passage of my piece, but he failed (deliberately or not) to even remotely display my main points with his extremely decontextualized quotation. Gillis is untroubled by any scholarly concerns of trying to honestly steelman your opponent before critiquing them. 

Worse yet, in a remarkably slimy manner, he followed my decontextualized quotation immediately with an entirely imaginary, hypothetical quotation of mine (complete with quotation marks) referring to people criticizing opponents of ITS as “cucks.” He then momentarily self-identifies as a “cuck” a few sentences later in positioning himself as opposing me. Gillis appears much more concerned with cuckery than I, as someone who has never used that word in even one single instance of my hundreds of hours of podcasting and many thousands of words of published writing. To be fair, Gillis never explicitly claims that I used this language, but by engaging in this mind-reading in which he imaginatively put words in my mouth, using quotation marks immediately following an actual quotation by me, a careless or gullible reader might come away with the impression that I actually referred to, or might believably hypothetically refer to, critics of ITS with the alt-right shibboleth of “cucks.” I can reasonably confidently speculate that it was precisely Gillis’ intention to indirectly associate me with the alt-right by using this language, which he must know is tantamount to unpersoning someone in post-2010, heavily Woke/Antifa-influenced anarchism in which moral panics and denunciations are common. 

When Gillis posted his essay on the forum anarchistnews.org, I responded exhaustively in the comments section (now lost to time on anarchistnews.org). The response was largely similar to the above and so does not bear repeating in what is already a long post about petty drama from either ideologically blind or dishonest people with whom I already lament having to deal. I cited the fact that he had not responded in any way to my systematic response to his previous podcast criticism. He similarly responded not at all to my lengthy comment. In spite of his willful unaccountability to engagement, this essay of Gillis’ is still available in full form on his website. Given that Gillis chose not to respond to either my critical response to his podcast or his writing – in both of which I pointed out his bad faith misquotes or misinterpretations of me – I have to conclude (in spite of not knowing him at all personally) that he is an unserious critic motivated by brute, realpolitik ideological concerns and pointless scene-infighting rather than intellectual and ethical concerns of improving American anarchism and moving us all toward freedom and dignity.

Having considered this issue now at length, I do not see anything that should leave room for lingering doubts here regarding either my personal ethics as regards eco-extremism or my circumspection in responding to my critics.

There are 137 Comments

Wait, why is CrimethInc. getting lumped into this? Did they ever say anything against Bellamy?

I have no personal quarrels with CrimethInc beyond mild annoyance I mention on the forthcoming episode of /The Brilliant/ - my point is that that group has overlapping milieux.

Bellamy, your essay about slander against you contains slander against CrimethInc. Why? You engage in the same implication without quotes or evidence that you spend the whole essay railing against. It's a pretty bad look.

Oh no! He slighted THE NETWORK. Never slight or "slander" THE NETWORK!

I honestly don't see myself as having slandered them and had no intention of doing so. I only mentioned them once, and simply said that there is a certain loose similarity among those tendencies and that Solecast reflects and participates in those tendencies. I don't see how that is insulting anyone. Maybe I am missing your point.

I did not post this here myself. I am guessing whoever did so was supporting me, but, honestly, the point of this blog post was to put an energy-wasting scene-fighting issue to rest by having a statement I could direct curious people to permanently, whereas I suspect the effect of putting it on @news will be to inflame the whole EE issue again. I am personally done debating this.

It would definitely be cool if this energy-wasting / scene-fighting issue could be put to rest. I feel for you.

Done before you started? Many of us don't have access to Corrosive Consciousness. It's confusing what you even still agree of what you wrote there if we did. The only critique of substance you have seems to be that nihilism to you means a rejection of ll -isms, and that the "righteous violence" (Bellamy) of the eco-extremists is a contest over who is more nihilistic, and is "theological", "revolutionary", "reactionary", and "total moralism" (Bellamy).

Are you not embracing spiritualism and some elements of what's sometimes called reactionary anarchism yourself at this point?

Has Bellamy read into eco-extremism much at all? How about others here? Or did everyone stop after the accusations of fascism and Atassa controversy? For example, have you read any of the Regresion journal? Atltlachinolli: Eco-extremist Dialogues (where J. Jacobi debates them)? Eco-extremist reflections? Invocation? Chichimecas of War? What about Chahta-Imas writing? Eco-extremism seems to have more in common with postanarchism, antihumanism, and animal studies than anything Bellamy has asserted it's about in the past. The ethics of eco-extremism is still an interesting field of inquiry and discussion could continue. Can anti-humanism have an ethic when morality is a wholly humanistic concept?

does a hurricane read into eco-extremism much at all?
that's what i thought. CHECKMATE

Hurricane Goon Squad, Feral Operative #42

I'm pretty sure you could gain 'access to Corrosive Consciouness if you searched around the internet a bit, I'm presuming that by 'access' you mean a free copy. It is out there in PDF somewhere in internet land, you'll just have to search a little more creatively...or something.

No one seems to read anything on Eco-extremism besides the typical retread of atassa = fascism, which is ignorant but for another time

there numerous writings on eco-extremism, a lot(the majority) of it coming from Indigenous/Native people, and an Indigenous/Native critique

I find it funny that anarchists don't call the lies and slander surrounding eco-extremism as anti-indigenous, just because it hurt their feelings

I personally used to be a really huge fan of anti-civ thinking, and for that reason I read a lot of eco-extremist texts and did contemplate killing people. However, I see the fact I wanted to do that as being more about my own naivety and sadness more than a "wild impulse".

"there numerous writings on eco-extremism, a lot(the majority) of it coming from Indigenous/Native people, and an Indigenous/Native critique"

lol, there were no indigenous eco-extremists. Yes, there were certainly many indigenous murderers, using the word indigenous to describe people who had a more tribal and un-civilized lifestyle. Eco-extremism can be summed up as thus: "humans are pitiful and killing any of them will do". The people referred to in EE writing that are "indigenous eco-extremists" had no such ideas, they were simply killing people from the more civilized cultures because they were disgusted by it. They had no plans of killing themselves after they were through with killing their enemies. A real Eco-extremist would kill themselves after killing everyone else, and if there is anything to admire about EE...it is that!

In the end EE is nothing but a bundle of rhetoric, and pretty well written I might add. In the end though, nothing they write about has anything to do with "ecology", it's all just about murder and a poorly masked hatred of civilization. The major issue I have with it is it's all driven by binaries that don't get questioned in green anarchist spaces: like "human" vs. "the wild", "inhuman" vs. "humanism". Eco-extremists hate things which are pitiful, but the whole thing is about hating the human race for the one thing that doesn't make them pitiful: being capable of planetary genocides!

And in that way, anarchists shouldn't get bent out of shape when EE is compared to fascism, because if you only hate "people who are pitiful", you are incredibly similar to hitler himself! Fascists hate weakness and find it disgusting, looking to turn everyone but their blessed race into chattel slaves.

0/10 trolling here. You must not have read enough. And a large number of Mexican ITS terrorists are indeed indigenous. Xale is Teochichimeca for example.

some hyper-civilized angsty teenager is good enough to be considered "indigenous"? In that case, were all indigenous, everywhere, and we're all natural, nature based, hunter gatherer, green, green washed people of the earth. This is fucking identity politics. People who existed without needing civilization's money did not kill based on the fact that their enemies "were human". They killed them because they were under threat of losing their way of life, or were lamenting the fact that they lost their way of life for a life of slavery, toil, humiliation.

There used to be an essay on theanarchistlibrary.org about a tribe, i think out in the california region, who killed and tortured europeans from the surrounding civilization, and one of the tribe members ended up living among them, and shared his thoughts. The people who submitted the essay called this "eco-extremism", but to the credit of this tribe, it was actually something completely different, to say that the human race "is pitiful", and then to hate yourself for being pitiful, means you can't be anything other than some whiny internet troll. You can't even be a serial killer with that type of psychology. You might as well just kill yourself so that you miss out on being the most pathetic type of human imaginable.

And i don't really understand what "enough" means to you, you should start an eco-extremist curriculum at your local university.

Do you only believe that indigenous people only come from the USA... are you so god damn stupid that you can't understand the Native tribes from Mexico, Chile, Brasil and all the other lands

so are you saying that eco-extremists that have indigenous blood and ancestry are not indigenous/native because they come from Mexico, and outside of the USA...

pinche pendejo

the "taoist" has apparently stumbled in to a classic noble savage fallacy.

"indigenous people did/did not [insert categorical statement]."

^^^this is always dumb and racist, kids. please make a note of it.

'to say that the human race "is pitiful", and then to hate yourself for being pitiful etc'

you keep quoting that as if it's somehow central to all EE thinking when really it's just two words you picked up skim reading Atassa

the indigenous person you're referring to is Ishi. look him up. I think it's fair to say his tribe were extremists

The article taoist is referring to is Ishi and the War Against Civilization. Active Distribution in the UK is distroing it and I don't see anyone up in arms about it.

my comments were already purposefully misinterpreted, i didn't skim eco-extremism, and i never said that people who are outside the united states aren't indigenous, that's just what everyone else said, not me. If you want to actually read what i said, the thing that really got people bent out of shape is me saying that eco-extremism has little or nothing to do with indigenous people.

and yes eco-extremism is about indiscriminate attack and killing everyone because they are pitiful and have destroyed the planet. Actual indigenous tribes have never written an eco-extremist book, and yes that's true. Eco-extremism clearly came out of resentment over very modern anarchist politics, and it's either trolling or a type of id-pol. It's definitely not racist to say that eco-extremism has nothing to do with indigeneity.

Man, what a fucked up website, so you make a criticism about people who write about how being pitiful means you deserve to die, and then all these random idiots pop up and start criticizing you because they didn't even put any thought into what the critique actually was saying. You all realize that being an eco-extremist is about killing people, and none of you have actually killed anybody? Such vulnerable followers of cults everywhere! No wonder people think cops are necessary! If cops are the only thing that protects me from stupid internet bullies, than yes i want cops to be around and i'm not an anarchist. Go say hi to your friends on 8 chan for me.

i tested the eco-extremists DNA, they are in fact indigenous!

everybody wrong except meeeeeeee!!!

"none of you have actually killed anybody!!!"

so "taoist." very wu-wei.

beep

because you get to answer people who misunderstood minsinterpreted you? yea.
sucks.

> ragequit

Taoist: this 'fucked up' site isn't an echo chamber - it''s not /completeanarchy. People will disagree with you. Try not to take it to heart.

and you know they are not indigenous because... you said so? have you read anything past Atassa? any of the communiques? any of the other journals or publications?

because I can say with certainty they are indigenous/native, and the majority if not all of the eco-extremists writing is based on indigenous/native tribes

yes @news is an echo chamber for a narrow set of ideas, and those ideas are actually enforced through trolling and content deletion.

I see you're trying to turn this into a "oh, Taoist just doesn't like it when people disagree with him", which is very clever, because it's the type of thing that people tend to rally behind. Also for whatever reason my latest response got deleted even though all the really stupid posts above stayed up. So my shit-posting can be labeled as racist, and then when i call the people who said it stupid that is eligible for deletion? Just sayin', so people have insulted me directly on here, and the comments were allowed to stay up.

No, eco-extremism is not an "indigenous trend", and that much is very obvious. It's more or less co-opting the recordings of anthropologists to make a new ideology that comes straight out of the green-leaning [green-washed] subsection of the anarchist culture.

If I get mad, then that is a genuine wild reaction, and has nothing to do with any of their antics, and the same thing is true for actual serial killers and psychopaths. You seem to missing the real reason that any of that stuff was published, and the reason why it's good that it WAS published.

And you also seem to be forgetting about the fact that it is most likely an attempt to "troll the left-wing/humanist anarchists".

look, I know you've been taking a beating over this but for the possibility of a more interesting discussion, what if at least some of the anons here are trying to point to actual philosophical problems that came out of some experiments with anti-civ tactics and indigenous identity?

things like, for example, an appeal to a poorly defined and authoritarian "natural law" that gets referred to as "tradition" or "wild nature" or some other woo bullshit like that. when I've been around people trying to tackle things like land defence and sovereignty, there's real problems that crop up out of these ideas that are very tightly woven in to a lot of indigenous identity, long before the trajectory of struggle gets anywhere near the use of lethal violence to "defend the land" or "attack civilization" or whatever. Further more, these are problems of identity in general. EE is just a dramatic, recent example.

It could be interpreted as a warning about ANY identity and how toxic it can easily become, using it to rationalize things. Then again, some form of identity is pretty necessary to galvanize resistance movements and serious resistance will inevitably require some form of defensive violence at the very least so … yeah! fascinating stuff. unresolved problems. maybe more to think about?

completely, in this last comment, but my original critique was an anon who said that EE is "indigenous". And i was just saying that it's not, to me the main thing i admire about "the indigenous" is that they depended completely on the cruelty of this world we live in: disease, death, TORTURE...you name it! Short and sweet, whereas everyone now adays seems to be a fucking safety control freak! Now adays, if you don't live to 80 yo...what a tragedy! How HORRIBLE! Says something about their character!

I like the EE critique of human beings overall, even though it also has problems. The biggest one is making a big deal over how pitiful we are. To me, the biggest problem with the human race IS THEY ARE NOT PITIFUL, they're taking up too much fucking space, i would hit the button that kills everyone including me, i guess depending on the delivery of the person who was asking me to press it. However, EEs seem to lament the fact that human beings are NOT pitiful, that we're very close to destroying and domesticating every single other variant of "life" on this planet.

However, if you know some other way of life than living a "double life" and going to jail in light of this, then TAKE IT, because clearly the great earth mother does not give a shit about you and your first world problems, ahahahhaa!

You are the great earth mother, and fuck anyone else who says otherwise.

there are funner games to play than getting to the root of all evil and mourning the end of life on earth

why should capitalists be the main purveyors of fun?

well, you are wrong... or should I assume you are Native/indigenous and have read anything past Atassa and you somehow know more than other Native/Indigenous people or the Native/Indigenous peoples that are the majority of eco-extremists writings

it does not matter who i know or who i am. Get it? Geez...

What good does it do for you to continue to defend the action figures found on this website? Entertain me, critique something i say that goes beyond my identity: critique something i said for what it is

Ecoextremism rejects revolutionism.

“Ecoextremists reject the idea of revolution since this always tends to deform itself and it has always helped to maintain the idea of modern human progress.
The concept has been used for an unending series of causes or political doctrines as an end for its theoretical presuppositions. The ‘revolution’ is a prostitute who sells herself to the highest bidder; it can be used by opposing sides of the same struggle. It is an abused ghost that enters the mouths and pens of intellectuals and militants of whichever struggle. It gives itself over to many misunderstandings and deviations. That’s why the ecoextremists don’t seek it, nor do they strive for it, nor does it hold their interest.
Ecoextremism has rejected the term ‘revolution’ as an end or a means. In our view, we have stopped being utopians and dreaming of a ‘better tomorrow’." (Atltlachionolli, On Wildism and Ecoextremism 2)

“We have no certainty that ‘revolutionaries’ will hasten ‘the destruction of the system.’ Frankly, we think that if one day a movement emerges that seeks to destroy the system, it will be crushed immediately. Would the nuclear, timber, pharmaceutical, automobile, mining, and oil industries allow such a movement to exist, a movement that seeks to halt the forces that propel science and technology? Would they allow that movement to obtain victories that destroy the techno-industrial system that they have forged over the decades? No, they would not allow it, unless they could find a manner to profit from the situation after the supposed ‘destruction’ of the system’.” (Regresion #1, Editorial 2)

Ecoextremism is not anarchism.

“In fact, the anarchist who sympathizes with ecoextremism would have to subvert much of what was said by traditional anarchist thinkers, shaking off the humanism and progressivism that aims to obtain a better world without ‘State-Capital.’ He or she would have to leave aside utopias and focus on the decadent and pessimist present in which we find ourselves. He or she would have to assume the role of an individual within our present circumstances and act accordingly. He or she would have to disregard all that is human (in philosophical terms). He or she would have to act in a cold and calculated manner without regard to collateral damage. He or she would have to be like Di Giovanni, like Mario Buda, like Santiago Salvador, like the galleanist anarchists.” (Atltlachionolli, Hard Words 4)

“I don’t believe for a minute that progressives, anarchists, or Marxists are “materialists”: they are selective idealists. They cling to certain aspects of material reality but anxiously avoid others to prevent the soiling of their ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. These are articles of faith based on wishful thinking.” (A. Cabrera, Public safety)

Ecoextremism supports the use of terrorism and violence.

Ecoextremism is inspired by the resistance to civilization perpetuated by tribal people, which is still continuing today, whether by nomadic hunter-gatherers or any of the one-hundred or so remaining uncivilized (uncontacted) tribes.

“What we are confronting here is the Great Hologram of Civilization: one that
compels us to care about people we never will meet, to have deep empathy for the abstract citizen, comrade, or child of God.” (Collateral Damage, 2)

“Isn’t that the great narrative of civilization: we are all in this together? That’s a lie, because we aren’t. Your life is merely a cog in a great Machine, and should the Machine decide to spit you out, you will be spit out. You have no agency, your morality is an illusion. It just covers up a lot of violence and death that went into making the clothes on your back and the food you eat. It’s alright for massive numbers of animals to die, to burn down forests and pave over meadows. It’s okay to enslave people in factories, to erect monuments to those who buried the worlds of wild savages, to sacrifice the dreams and sanity of those alive today for a better tomorrow.” (Collateral Damage, 2)

“Those who cower in disgust at individualist acts of violence are really defending the right of the State and civilization to have exclusive power of life and death over civilized human animals.” (Collateral Damage, 2)

Ecoextremism rejects pacifism, as a means and an end; militarism (in the sense of mimicry of the state war machine) is not a goal either.

Ecoextremism does not act under a program and does not plan future strategies.

Ecoextremism does not await a total societal collapse, nor does it attempt to catalyze it. It has no hope for the future.

“You can’t create a strategy based on assumptions, thinking that all will go according to plan and with assured victory.” (INCORRECT, 2)

Ecoextremism rejects anthropocentrism.

Ecoextremism rejects modernity, humanism/humanity, and civilization.

Ecoextremism rejects science.

Ecoextremism rejects all moral codes of modern society.

“To posit ‘amorality’ is to seek to destroy all obstacles as you go. It is to posit
the individual over society, chaos over order. It is to posit that sins of omission
(not doing anything) are no less grave than sins of commission (doing
something). That civilized peace is built on the pile of bleached bones of
extinct savages. That you can’t buy off the universe with good behavior. That
you refuse the bargain of the Golden Rule because only slavery and vice
come from it (and not the commendable kind). ‘Amorality’ acknowledges that
we all have ‘blood on our hands’ because we have all bathed in this blood.
Our society was irrigated by it.” (A. Cabrera, Thoughts on morality)

Ecoextremism rejects “Western” and monotheistic religion.

Ecoextremism rejects populism and “movement-building”.

Ecoextremism is individualism. It rejects communism or any form of mass society.

Ecoextremism rejects racism. It asserts that racism, and the anti-racism that inversely legitimizes it, is not only a mark of ignorance but a monumental fraud.

Ecoextremism rejects domestication.

Ecoextremist pessimism is pessimism aimed towards humanity and civilization, rather than nature and the cosmos.

it doesn't matter who you know or what you are, but you are making claims that are wrong and in the process erasing any indigenous/Native part of eco-extremism and eco-extremists which is the majority if not all of what eco-extremist is based on...

Eco-extremism clearly rejects many of the exact same things that green anarchism does, but who is an eco-extremist based on Attassa, Attassa #2, and many of the other texts than i have read? An eco-extremist is someone who kills people (ANY person) because people are pathetic. ITS did not call themselves eco-extremists ( i don't think ), but they theoretically are because they say that killing humans, any and all humans, as some sort of a wild rebellion, is desirable.

You said it: eco-extremism is based on the murderous activities of indigenous people, the "noble savage" fallacy that most anti-civs subscribe to, and the green anarchist fascination with how people can live without civilization.

In my own readings of the murderous activities of indigenous people, none of them said "humans are pitiful, lets kill them!", no, it was either based on some basic rage or inclination towards violence, as is the case with most murders in general, or it was some sort of warlike activity for resources, some sort of defense of lands, revenge, attempt to wipe out another culture, all the normal reasons. The yanomani developed a warrior culture, where manly aggression and violence were/are(?) prized. Yes there are parallels, but parallels are not equations. Just because Abe Carbrera talks about the yanomani does not make them eco-extremists. I have just as much "rightness" or authority to make such statements as you do. You are clearly not an expert on talking.

So people are violent and murderous, that does not make anybody an eco-extremist, eco-extremism is an ideological invention seemingly coming from Americans and Europeans.

I'm not fucking erasing shit you goddamn...sigh...if i insult anybody it might get erased. I'm just saying you have to be a fool to think that eco-extremism or the people who practice it (if they exist...) really have some sort of uniquely indigenous property. Most likely, in my estimations, a self-proclaimed eco-extremist is a shameless by-product of modern society.

We are all indigenous! Retroactively claiming some sort of genetics or heritage to make an ideology sound more appealing is green washing! Saying that people exclusively human, and everyone else is exclusively in-human, is foolishly trying to draw a line in the sand where one doesn't even exist!

Likewise, saying "EE is indigenous" is just the same thing as saying "EE is not indigenous", but your reaction to my latter statement is comical and shows that you are in some way trying to defend somebody, not exactly sure who! The eco-extremist authors? They don't need defending, as we don't even know who they are. The innocenct and oppressed indigenous people across the world? Aw! How cute!

"eco-extremism is an ideological invention seemingly coming from Americans and Europeans."

it started in Mexico.. with you know Native/indigenous peoples

you clearly have a low-level of understanding about eco-extremisism is and the people who are/write the journals/texts

"it started in Mexico.. with you know Native/indigenous peoples"

according to the eco-extremists, it began with the call of the wild, the wild urge to strike down the pathetic human! The last possible form of rebellion against civilization, the only true form of egoism!

how the fuck would i have a high level of knowledge about people who purposely hide their identity and take claim for murders that don't even exist? I feel that anarchists seem to be so fucking full of themselves, just cuz you read something in a book doesn't mean it happened, and just because someone invents a construct and attaches some rhetoric to it doesn't mean i should give a flying fuck about it.

Also, yeah i'm aware that ITS originated in Mexico, but were they the ones who coined the term "eco-extremism"? I don't know, i admit that. How the fuck would you even pretend to know that they are indigenous or not? Are you really that much of a liberal snowflake that you are still upset about me saying that EE is not indigenous? Stop believing every damn thing you read.

so, yes, you clearly don't know what you are talking about...

when your only argument left is to try and insult me with "liberal snowflake"... pathetic, stay mad

"so, yes, you clearly don't know what you are talking about..."

the persistent appeals to intellectual authority on a supposedly anarchist website!

Let me give you a hint, and repeat the exact some thing i already said in so many other ways: eco-extremism is historically a very new term to only describe something that exists in the people who write eco-extremist texts. It's incredibly spooky. If you bring out the most important elements, it's just a clever way of beating someone over the head with words!

And oh back to the american discussion. Mexico is part of North America, and america itself is a European invention.

I lived in south america for half a year, and when i told people "i was american", they thought this was a strange way to put it and they got a little offended by it, because "they were americans too".

The fact that you think eco-extremism is any more useful than learning something about your own misanthropy and anti-social tendencies makes you a reflection of the worst elements of the anarchist scene.

I'm still waiting for some citations indicating that indigenous people had a word for eco-extremism.

suspect you just came down with a bad case of the zhachevs ;)

"the persistent appeals to intellectual authority on a supposedly anarchist website!"

I am no appealing to anything, I said you don't know what you are talking about as a fact not as an opinion

"I'm still waiting for some citations indicating that indigenous people had a word for eco-extremism."

no one ever said they did, but the majority of the eco-extremists critique is based on Native resistance, and indigenous/native people are the ones that created this "eco-extremism" critique and attack

keep trying, and stay mad

"I am no appealing to anything, I said you don't know what you are talking about as a fact not as an opinion"

-first of all, i long ago pointed out the ridiculousness of the "enough knowledge" bias you still clearly have. I definetly am not a lazy reader, sometimes i refuse to keep reading when i don't like where it's going, but i've read both Attasas cover to cover, several EE essays online, and a little bit of ITS communiques. If EE is anything, it's a nihilistic and indiscriminate attack on all humans, you can't just lump every violent act or murder into that category. For example, a lot of general murders take place over relationship disputes and money. Can you retroactively called the people who did these things eco-extremists? No, you can't. Any attempt to say actual indigenous people are eco extremists because they have killed is doing the exact same thing. What is more interesting to me than this ridiculous form of id-pol is the correlation between eco-extremism and serial killers. I've long been a fan of serial killers, even though i have not killed anyone yet. You picked the wrong psychopath to try and pwn. The whole time i've just heard repeated attempts to say "NO EEs ARE INDIGENOUS AND THAT'S WHERE IT CAME FROM" and "your stupid! show me you doctorate in eco-extremism!"

-ITS may or may not be eco-extremists, abe cabrera pointed out that one of the deaths they took credit didn't seem to have any other likely suspects, but i read the news article on that death and the police think it had something to do with a personal vengence. Who knows? Who cares?

-ITS are not necessarily indigenous, they could be could even be students. It is crystal clear, however, that most of the deaths they took credit for were not caused by them. ITS is really the only mexican link to real eco-extemism. What seems obvious to me is they used to be highly moralistic vegans, which makes the student possibility even more plausible.

-My theory, is that actual eco-extremism, is based entirely off of NA resentment towards the generally academic and "maoist" characterstic of NA anarchism:

Attassa #2 p. 62 "Breaking Down the Bars of Anarchist Cages"

"It has been many months of short-circuits. It's easier to eat whatever there is, to not look for "alternative" positions, styles, or ways of life that go nowhere and only serve to give the appearance of being on the offensive. Oh, the offensive! There's nothing left to do but separate yourself from the herd of black sheep and their self-referential meetings, far from the offensive that looks very much like the defensive...the mental molds are a cage worse than any jail, almost on the same level of civilization...."

and the fact that the EEs see it this way means that i don't really see them as "pitiful humans", even though their appeal to the indigenous and "the environment" is pretty fucking funny

Yeah TaoGal, the similarity of, the serial killer, assassin, eco-extremism, commando, is a human archetype casually referreď to as the psychopath, to a lesser degree sociopaths or those lacking in empathy, and how they coalesce within a binary system to good/bad variants. The ruthless billionaire CEO/the poor serial killer etc.

the more you type the more you prove you know nothing on eco-extremism, you are owning yourself at this point

you are creating our own narrative spinning things your own way, things I haven't even implied to attempt to prove your knowledge and you were right, but the fact always remains, you know nothing of this subject, so keep trying and stay mad

"according to the eco-extremists, it began with the call of the wild, the wild urge to strike down the pathetic human!"

Okay, so, some warm-blooded dude in Mexico had the runs, then ran in full anger through a thick crowd for a poo and ended up smashing heads *indiscriminately*, yelling some incoherent diatribe about "ancestors" and maybe some genetic spiritual heritage. Then ITS was born.

"Done before you started? Many of us don't have access to Corrosive Consciousness."

People have uploaded it - it's not hard to find. I'm not sure what you are trying to say with the first question.

"It's confusing what you even still agree of what you wrote there if we did"

I was peak nihilism/Stirner when I wrote it. I believe this only became confusing because John Zerzan kept insisting I had entirely disavowed the book, which is not true. I clarify this in an angry rant on The Brilliant 91.

"Are you not embracing spiritualism and some elements of what's sometimes called reactionary anarchism yourself at this point?"

Yes, but I had not at the time I wrote the piece from which you're quoting (which I believe is the Black Seed one). Depending on your definition of "reactionary" (big, loaded word), I would not necessarily reject the label.

"Has Bellamy read into eco-extremism much at all? How about others here? Or did everyone stop after the accusations of fascism and Atassa controversy?"

Goofy accusations of fascism (no one has ever explained remotely to my satisfaction how an anti-statist, anti-collectivist tendency could possibly be fascist) would not make me stop reading something. I read all of Atassa #1, have read parts of Regresion and Chahta-Ima, yes, but it sounds like you are more well-read than I on EE. Of course I don't disagree with everything they have said, but I am ultimately not misanthropic, not for collective guilt and punishment of humanity, and definitely not ethically or strategically okay with indiscriminate attack.

"People have uploaded it - it's not hard to find. I'm not sure what you are trying to say with the first question."

I've never seen a copy and have been on the lookout for years. Not a newb pirate either. Live somewhere without decent @infoshops and that can't be shipped to. My understanding is that it's also out of print.

"Goofy accusations of fascism (no one has ever explained remotely to my satisfaction how an anti-statist, anti-collectivist tendency could possibly be fascist) would not make me stop reading something."

I agree the fascism comparison is non-sensical.

"...it sounds like you are more well-read than I on EE. Of course I don't disagree with everything they have said, but I am ultimately not misanthropic..."

So you reject misanthropy. How about humanism? Would love to know, here, or on in a blog post, wherever. Not making demand, just curious. I understand I'm not entitled to anything in that way, but it seems a useful convo to have for many folks benefit. Been following your ideas for a while and you seem entangled in a lot of Enlightenment stuff, possibly including humanism?

Ecoextremism rejects strategy altogether. This has been discussed in Regresion and the other Mexican zines. Eco-extremists don't view murder as a strategy, for example it's understood around three hundred million people would need to die annually just to counteract the birthrate, which is so incredibly ridiculous. Eco-extremists are therefore not genocidal or xenocidal, as they understand the totality of the German state pre-WWII and during killed six million, Stalin forty million. Even the worst genocides, Columbian contact and that of Genghis Khan, sixty and forty million respectively, led to negligible amounts of "rewilding" and less than half a degree of tempature difference via the removal of carbon producing human activity.

Indiscriminate attack is also misunderstood. I assure you ITS isn't killing randomly. As probably even state security knows, there's method to the "madness". Ironically, it is similar with all multiple murderers. That method is nihilistic terrorism. Not political terrorism for pressure or a demand or goal. It serves as a reminder of the brutality that exists within the human animal, and wild nature (more on that at the end), when the thinnly-veiled veneer of the state is peeled back. It's what the rejection of humanism looks like in action. Active nihilism. It's something earlier anarchist terrorists embraced. An unapologeticism. Ecoextremists don't pretend people die for some "greater good" like social anarchists and communists. It's the tankies who want to create great statist war apparatuses and systemtically purge people for a self-aacknowledge class dictatorship. The ecoextremist, like Frankensteins monster, is galvanized by certain forces, sometimes unknown, into action. As the latest ITS communique writes: "We look at you with hatred, your celebrations disgust us, you created us and now face the consequences."

Finally, ecoextremists don't give a fuck about the abstraction that is "the human", this spook "TaoistSlut" keeps bringing up. They don't care if the human is pitiful or not, master or slave, burger or prole. It's not a sense of Nietzschean aristocraticism. It's that the human is a bogus concept, a very manufactured lie, something out of Feuerbach — the inverted abrahamic God. Neither is "wild nature" some empty catch-term. It is an acknowledgment of the Dionysian, the Dao, the abyss of cosmic chaos, of Pan. It's not biocentric moralism. It's an acknowledgment that the human isn't the perfected end-state of billions of years of biological and cosmic "evolution". It's an acknowledgement that there are inescapable laws of nature, like there's an inescapable law of gravity (see Quinn's Ishmael), and that if our species jumps off a cliff expecting to fly it can only lead to a fastly approaching ending. That when we oppose certain authorities, when we seek freedom from certain constraints, we'll end up being wiped out in the end.

you had nothing to defend/clarify/explain. anyone who can't recognize the value in understanding WHY I.T.S is what they are and do what they do, are never going to accept anything you say. they are keyboard warriors with nothing better to do than pretend to be productive calling out people like you.

you bear no comprehension of how similar you are to your "keyboard warriors" bogeymen in putting everyone in the same box as value-less critics of your archon/guru/rock star. Just another disciple defending their authority figure of intellectual domination. I am very tempted to post this Tammy Wynette video once again.

Again, who the fucking cares if your Bellamy was even really attacked by some false critics? How is this affecting you, or any of us?

Let's finish this by applying Bellamy's same morale when it comes to international solidarity, as expressed in an episode of The Brilliant...

"It's not people I know, not my fam or friends; then why should I care supporting these people?"

You obviously ignored my comments above. Things I think people should be concerned with now:
1. Possibility of war with Iran
2. Pan-secessionism
3. Local food autonomy
4. Community self-defense
5. Overcoming relatively minor culture wars issues to find common cause with anyone against the Leviathan states, the high-tech infrastructure, and globalization

1- worse outcome is that young Americans would get drafter. Not cool, but as long as it's not you or some of your friends?
2- You mean ethno-nationalism? Yeah, how about you show us by the example of what to do about it? You know it can be very easy... the FBI has been pretty good at nailing down those people back in the '90s.
3- That sounds right. But food for who? You and your friends, amirite?
4- Same than 3.
5- Common causes? Who is this guy... same guy who's been talking about limited solidarity with only the people he knows and holds dear? Or maybe you changed your mind over the years. I dunno... happens!

You're parodying comments I've made in the past.

1. Worst outcome is enormous levels of death, destruction of cultural sites, and environmental degradation.
2. This is the usual smear. Do you imagine a global anarchist society with universal values? Could this be done without something that would actually be a state, even if not called that ? I mean the propagation of voluntary communities based on the land where they are and as much free association, voluntarism, and mutual aid as possible.
3. Food for everyone where they are, with whom they find themselves, from an ecologically harmonious relationship with their environment.
4. People taking responsibility for their own safety and not relying on external, alienated bodies for defense and conflict resolution - everywhere. Voluntary communities engaging in mutual self-defense and non-intereference agreements with each other against heteronomous encroachment.
5. I'm always self-critiquing and changing my mind as I learn. I'm less cynical and pessimistic than I used to be, but I am still against Anarcho-World-Domination Society, a.k.a. Communism 2.0.

I agree with most of this, but

oh you're that dumbass who kept calling me a "sycophant" just because not everything that comes out of my keyboard is some noxious rebel venom.

You have more in common with the Eco-extremists and 8 chan losers than you think! You should drop them a line sometime!

You also ignored the fact that I said I did not post this.

I always find this "anarcho-celebrity" critique hilarious. There's this bizarre meme out there that I've seen repeated over and over that I have somehow gotten money, sex, and an academic career out of making anarcho-media. What benefits do you imagine people who put their names/faces/voices out there get? At most, a floor to sleep on when visiting a new town.

"The critics I've been having of your discourse and attitude has zero to do with any of this ITS crap"

If you have a criticism, say it.

If you mean the text above, I'm pretty sure it's on your blog linked above. I'm confused.

I did not post my blog entry to ANews and would not have done so because it was intended to be a mere reference for random e-mails and critiques I get for past comments on podcasts. I don't consider it "news" relevant. But here we are.

It has not launched yet. Probably late January it will be up.

I personally find nihilism, egoism and religious universalism to be equally aborrhent philosophies but we should at least acknowledge that they are different and not continue smearing someone for the shit they have said in the past when they've already admitted they were wrong and have changed their mind. we're still humans who learn things and change our minds right?

Universalism is the philosophical and theological concept that some ideas have universal application or applicability.

A belief in one fundamental truth is another important tenet in Universalism. The living truth is seen as more far-reaching than the national, cultural, or religious boundaries or interpretations of that one truth.

or from mirriam webster:
a: a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved
b : the principles and practices of a liberal Christian denomination founded in the 18th century originally to uphold belief in universal salvation and now united with Unitarianism
2 : something that is universal in scope

yep, all of those suck.

Hey B,

On this thread you used the phrase "pan-seccessionism," which is a term literally only used by National anarchists like Keith Preston, who regularly speaks alongside Richard Spencer and other white nationalists. This term promotes the idea of various currents, "Left" or "Right," including ethno-nationalists seceding from the State. Noticed on Attack the System Preston praises an episode of the Brilliant and you by name on his website. Listened to the episode and you make clear you are aware of Preston and his ideas; this is back in 2018. So...is it safe to assume that you have warmed to national anarchist ideas now? Or at least, want to consider them as part of a possible future collective "seccession?"

Funny, anon @16:33 should mention Keith Preston considering he joined the Center for a Stateless Society as the Center’s first paid staff member back in 2008. By the way doesn't William Gillis write for C4SS also? Yea forget Bellamy! What's up with C4SS?

Hi Bellamy,

I was the one who posted your text here to ANEWS. First off, thank you for writing this as I found your text informative and worthwhile. Yes, it’s not really news so to speak, like anarchist actions, and it isn’t even anything necessarily new as this topic, as some have said, is like beating a dead horse. I would definitely agree because usually when I read something along these lines or hear the latest drama, the sentiment is just really upsetting, the facts missing, and more than a bit shocking to see how anarchists have reacted to other each other. Your text brings up some things that I think are important for anarchists to take note of with things like no platforming, relationships between anarchists and their projects, how people on the same team so-to-speak critique and communicate with each other, and just how terrible a community can be.

Always the best intentions in sharing, the intention was not to cause you more trouble. I wanted to let you know that I appreciated you writing this text, as it resonates strongly with me and my experience in the terrible community.

cheers,
- thecollective_1.8

EDIT: I forgot to mention - in your text you mention William Gillis posted their text in reference to ANEWS. They didn't share it here on ANEWS, it was shared by thecollective. Perhaps, you meant the comments section exchange between William and you; I don't know.

Share more critiques of "no platforming". You know they are wack, so why not create the anarchy you wanna see in the world by completely tearing anarcho-liberal lefty concepts to pieces here?

The joke is on all the people giving Bellamy shit for stating the obvious: there is valuable things to learn from ITS. All you people who are secretly scared of people like Bellamy, just remember, monsters have existed forever. You are powerless to stop them all. muwahahaha!

"Share more critiques of "no platforming". You know they are wack, so why not create the anarchy you wanna see in the world by completely tearing anarcho-liberal lefty concepts to pieces here?"

Do It Yourself, why do you ask thecollective to do it for you

Thecollective 1.8, you are talking about no-platforming in the context of Alt Right or just plain neofash having permeated this site for years, as well as more recently the anarchyplanet IRC which is agonizing these days, with moderators not only doing jack shit about their presence, but treating them as worthy partners to engage in dialogue with. You are at fault if you are assuming those people to be in the anarcho team, just because of talking points that somewhat fit with anti-civ.

And just who the fuck else than ethno-nationalists or identitarians see "universalism" as a problem?

the only alt-right kind leaning person that comes into the IRC is Z and associated sockpuppets until they get kicked and banned, usually after saying something asinine and offensive without being provoked.

It's interesting you're mentioning this, as I did witness some obvious racist, homophobic shit coming from Plast, lately, and the other regs were either dead silent about it, or kept chatting as if everything's fine. :-/ That's the kind of situation where you realize you're hanging out in the wrong trench.

So maybe the dude was being flippant, but if so that's some really poor online sarcasm in the form of "fuck niggers I hate them, but hey that's a joke. or not? hahaha" . Which is, like, totally inclusive to the eventuality of the guy being an actual racist and using these online spaces as his platform for his hate speech and bigotry. Especially when he never fucking apologizes in any sort of way or even claims to be joking... like.

As for Zachev, most certainly is an alt-right spook, but also another good scapegoat to throw all the trash at. Was his only problem is to be behaving like a stalky, pissy asshole in the IRC chat?

Stick around and maybe your outrage will be tempered when you learn that Plast is both black and queer and still gets blasted constantly for his edgy zoomer speech. Or don't. :-(

last time i was on there someone was throwing around the n word, fag, retard etc. idk who it was because people change up often on there. the person wasn't kicked. not saying that makes y'all fash, but it's not a good look.

moderators aren't sitting at their keyboards 24/7 waiting to kick every edgy troll that happens to drop by the irc and be edgy and trolly.

you are beautiful, no matter what they say. their words can't bring you down.

@11:56, and you just sat their and said nothing (while waiting for an authority to kick them instead) as they were committing these not good looking acts? sounds like complicity to me...

These heinous acts were a false flag action by a secret transnational network of CIA backed actors.
Regular civilians do not have access to such potent terms of abuse.
We must act with care so as not to fall prey to the state's machinations.

When some user is using blatant racist and homophobic slur on in an anarcho chat room, that doesn't require anyone raising a red flag for others to recognize there's a major bad apple in there. Failure to take action is what makes me and others raised eyebrows on the true motivations of the mods.

Not amalgamating this with Thecollective, as they did remove some Far Right posts over the years.

red flags, raised eyebrows, and amalgamating.
truly a hmmm, wow.

shh, take a nap moralfag

slurs being used ironically by the target identities as gallows humour <--- older than the internet

(sigh) Shall I explain to you and other big brains here...

Slur, even sarcatic, becomes something else in a communicational environment (the internet, and chat rooms) deprived of any f2f contact or or irl knowledge of people. There's your side of things, and there's the people that read your posts, in complete ignorance of where you're from. The latter -the insight from the interpersonal dimension- is what allowed sarcasm to work, instead of couter-productively making you look like the exact characters you're satirizing.

The point is that, in the context of this allegation, there's no way to determine whether Plast is being (recklessly) sarcastic or an actual pissy Far Right asshole, other than by knowing this character irl. And yes, there's been at least one or two of these types hanging out around the @planet IRC. Like I recall someone posted a link to an obvious Alt Right chan on the @planet's pad, about a year back. Was that some troll, or an actual ganggang acolyte... who knows?

What are your needs? If it is to demand that only unambiguous text communication takes place or ideological unity because optics, good luck (sarcasm intended) with that anywhere

Also there is any number of reasons why any given person might not respond with swift denunciation. Not the least of which is "not feeding the trolls" (but here I am feeding you). I don't think you should pretend that trying to moderate and stick to anarchist values (which vary mind you) is some easy and static task.

What is your goal here? Are you satisfied in proclaiming or at least sewing enough doubt and fear about the IRC being some crypto alt-right den? Just trying to feel like you dominate this comment thread, getting the last word and calling everyone that has a counterpoint stupid?

"Slur, even sarcatic, becomes something else in a communicational environment (the internet, and chat rooms) deprived of any f2f contact or or irl knowledge of people. There's your side of things, and there's the people that read your posts, in complete ignorance of where you're from. The latter -the insight from the interpersonal dimension- is what allowed sarcasm to work, instead of couter-productively making you look like the exact characters you're satirizing."

It isn't as though this is a minority opinion. What is your solution? Stop using the internet? ok

"The point is that, in the context of this allegation, there's no way to determine whether Plast is being (recklessly) sarcastic or an actual pissy Far Right asshole, other than by knowing this character irl. And yes, there's been at least one or two of these types hanging out around the @planet IRC. Like I recall someone posted a link to an obvious Alt Right chan on the @planet's pad, about a year back. Was that some troll, or an actual ganggang acolyte... who knows?"

It isn't a secure, identity-authenticated medium amongst people with irl connections, treat it as such. That's the trade off of being open, much like anews comments.

So basically your view of moderating chats or a forum is the same than neoliberal idiots like Chris Poole and Steve Huffman, who did a very good job allowing for hate speech as well as more general nationalist or racist bigotry to have its place online, in the name of having an "open" or "free" medium. It's an issue of you not willing to do anything about it, or just doing what mods can, i.e. !kickban, or at least advising the parties with problematic behavior to stop being asshats. And doing something about it does not equate to policing. It's acknowledging there are basic principles of discussion, and if some people are being jerks, they just gotta find another place to spill their hate. Like a mirror in their bathroom (if they can!), or something.

It's pretty easy what you can do.

When it's all said and done, you're just failing to recognize the things you can't change, aka whining.

"wisdom to know the difference" between what you can and can't change. That's where you FAIL anon. Do better, k? ;)

so you're upset that someone who is black used the n-word on an online chat and think the moderators should kick or ban this person, yet you're allowed to use it freely in this comment? Could it be, hmmm, that context is relevant to the usage of words? Or are you the only authority on when it's permissible and when it should be policed?

Now this is some fucking poor deflection attempt. You pretend ignoring that the n-word was in a line put between hyphens, so to mock or reflect on what has been clearly written by Plast.

"policed"

No moderated, you attention whore 4chan moron. As every forum, chat room or website is, outside of your chan Nanny States.

if you log in to an irc channel and people are shouting chad this, n- that, fag, retard etc etc then I think it's fair to presume you're in a shitty, possibly fashy place

So a black kid uses the n-word and that makes you uncomfortable therefore the whole place is fashy? Spend any time around black folx, @03:49? GTFO

Which N word are we talking about?

Ok, just to recap: it's not ok for a black person to use the n-word, but it is ok for you to call me an attention whore moron. and the IRC is a Nanny State because it has a policy of refusing to police language. got it.

Apparently you aren't familiar with the mention/use distinction?

how is Z "alt-right leaning"? My impression is that they have serious beef with the anews folks, not that they're fash.

beep

"And just who the fuck else than ethno-nationalists or identitarians see "universalism" as a problem?"

me for one. i am no kind of nationalist or identity freak. universalism implies "one size fits all", and that is probably the biggest issue i have with the mentality of governance, civilization and "progress".

Universalism is the one ring to rule them all value. You don't have to be a nationaloid to see how fucked up and unanarchic that is. The most radical and individuated of anarchists(Novatore, Martucci, Armand ect) did not even like a singular polyecon system(ancom) let alone a universalist set of values. Ethno-Nationalism and the other spooks are driven by reified impersonal ancestral ID structures, as well as honor and loyalty fetishism. That's not what me and meone are about.

What I want is vibrant biomorphoregional divergence in the spirit of a Bolo Bolo landscape. Only a universalist retard like William Gillis would see something nationalistic in this.

Everybody knows this;)

This is in no way meant to be a slight, but just a practical concern. Does the contrast between background and text on the blog give anyone else a headache? Not sure why it's happening to me as dark grey and white isn't usually a problem, perhaps I have a brain tumor, diagnose me damnit!

Weird...I just happened to read this article today while also receiving my copy of Backwoods 2 this morning in the mail. The issue is dated Spring 2019.

Did Backwoods 2 get really delayed and only got printed now? Or am I just receiving it late?

Anyway, thank you Bellamy.

You're receiving it late. I got my copy (from a bookfair) in Spring of 2019.

Why the hell do all the best comments always get deleted? Just finished work and was gonna respond to the "stale cheetos, spilled bong water and semen encrusted underpants' comment but it's gone!

please stop calling yourselves "taoist" just because you flipped through the Shambhala pocket Zhuangzi and it, like, spoke to you! and then you read the wikipedia on daddy Stirner and it was, like, all connected!!!

Savage burn detected.

Also, every time you fuckers sign troll posts with the winkyface, you owe me $2 in royalties!

a. there is a higher ratio of shit-talking to content
b. empty comments of support or denigration
c. personal back and forths that mean nothing to anyone other than the two people involved (see a.)

one of the removers, .4

I think thecollective really missed the mark on this thread. this is a conversation about spaces that don't police what people say. it's a hard conversation. we're not talking about freeze peach, we're definitely taking about trolling. and thecollective has moderated this conversation into banality, and somehow given more of a platform to the fashjacketers than the people trolling them with their own nonsense. removing the comment about not having proof that plast is black was weird. leaving the "moralfag" comment and removing the "cunt" comment was weird. twice now comments have been deleted while I've been replying to them. several people have started screenshotting and sharing the comments in other places. the thread is sterile and pointless now. I have sympathy for the people who complain about the comments being removed. maybe lighten up a little.

elsewhere. this is the point of having different forums, right? no website is going to be all things to all people.
right?
as for whether the thread is pointless and banal, other ways to respond to that is to a. start a forum topic, b. figure out a way to make your points that is more focused.
nice to have options, right?

thecollective .4

Calling moderation "policing" is a bad-faith argument in the first place. That moderators are some police working for an invisible State monopoly... this is also dumb. Like those noodleheads who still can't tell a difference between ethics and moralism, or responsibility and guilt, just because they somewhat look similar on the surface.

There is a difference between moderation, which refers to curating threads to stay on topic, and policing, by which I mean kicking / banning / no-platforming someone who says things we don't like, and the associated witchhunts and fashjacketing that go hand-in-hand.

I am not implying that thecollective is policing these threads by moderating them, I am saying that a conversation about the IRC being fashy because it doesn't blacklist people for using words is a conversation about language policing. the openness of the IRC regarding who can join and say what solves some problems and creates others. People don't have to like it, they can go to reddit for a safe space. But acting like it's somehow okay to call someone an "attention whore moron" for not moderating language to their liking - - talk about bad faith!

No one said anything about "blacklisting". It's about someone who went on posting racist slur and thrown homophobic insults at a member for absolutely no fucking reason other than being intoxicated by some substance and/or being an asshat.

Then you defending this through a "no you" tactic at that last sentence... helps further giving substance to my doubts on the people running this IRC. I'm seeing here a behavioral overlap with Far Right tools in their typical self-righteousness and dogshit bigotry, or what they themselves call "unapologetic".

"a. there is a higher ratio of shit-talking to content
b. empty comments of support or denigration
c. personal back and forths that mean nothing to anyone other than the two people involved (see a.)

one of the removers, .4"

so yes i understand that you don't want your precious website to be denigrated by advertisements for energy drinks and porn. You deserve to control the content. It's your forum, however, i have some critiques of how you select content for deletion:

"a. there is a higher ratio of shit-talking to content"

and so what is the different between "shit-talking" and "content"? That's completely subjective, and yes you are the mod, you have the absolute freedom to choose what goes up on this forum and what gets deleted. You have said that you delete personal attacks, this is not something i'm offended by, because people kill themselves over personal attacks and doxxing, and yes you want to control the quality of your website. However, you don't seem to be very good at telling the difference between personal attacks and more generalized attacks. Most of my attacks on here, historically, have been about either certain types of people, or people who don't seem to participate in these conversations on here. However, you delete both kinds.

"b. empty comments of support or denigration"

if it's a comment it's by this fact alone that it is not empty. Newsflash: everything is superficial, everything is about as deep as it goes. This is why as an artist i hate it when people say i'm "deep", because i've realized, i ain't much deeper than anyone else in this crazy fucking universe. Now do people have alterior motives and trojan horses? Fuck yes. Don't trust anybody.

"c. personal back and forths that mean nothing to anyone other than the two people involved (see a.)"

i don't see that you even care about any of the people on this forum, so who cares? Arguments, especially when they are most rude and vulgar, are important to any bystander!

You sound like my fucking mom: so when i say something that is troubling to you, it's immediately "an argument that should stop"? Please, enough with the patronage and censorship.

Well then.

I always like to refer people to the "About Us" link in the sidebar that contains some information about our moderation policy:
https://anarchistnews.org/about_us

"About moderation: Posts will be deleted when they do any of the following: consist of single words or empty affirmation or accusation (eg: "this", "this is great!", "boring", etc) especially when the poster is not logged in; meaningless shit talking of this website; posts that are flamebait (yes, this is a judgement call); talking shit to another poster without actual content (eg: "You suck, idiot" will be removed but not--for example--"Comparing nihilists to literary figures is idiotically simplistic"). In the rare case of a post that is sufficiently worthwhile and yet has distracting and stupid words in it, we might edit those words out in order to keep the benefit of the good part, but in general we think that tone is part of the message, and are more likely to just remove it entirely."

- thecollective_1.8

You use the term "pan-seccessionism" here in this thread and on your twitter profile, which seems to who half the people you are following to be far-Right/Right-Libertarian/or Alt-Right accounts. See you're also sharing Cynthia McKinney, who's a former Green Party person that's gone in a far-Right direction, promoting anti-Semitism and going on white nationalist podcasts. Being that "pan-seccessionism is a term only used by national anarchists like Keith Preston, who gave you a shout out on his national anarchist website, is it fair to say you are opening more to a national anarchist outlook?

See Bellamy talking positively about about paleoconservative Paul Gottfried, who helped popularize the term Alternative Right, along with Richard Spencer. Think this still hasn't gotten to the core question which Bellamy should answer, is what is his relationship with national anarchist, paleoconserative, and over all, ethno-nationalist ideas. Seems he's endorsing them, echoing their talking points, and according to his twitter, seems fine with being followed by those on the Alt-Right and RT people on the far-Right.

"this still hasn't gotten to the core question which Bellamy should answer"

so entitled. maybe ask him on his website's comments or on twitter if you think he owes you an explanation.

I think that Bellamy, in his usual super-convoluted essays that attempt to emulate the gazillion of academic authors he's reading (which ain't in any way more problematic than many other "anarchist" authors in the English world), ain't really taking a position on Gottfriend, while he is crediting his analysis of the Left and Right.

The biggest problem here is how he's ignoring or dismissing the dimension of determinism vs constructivism, where a much clearer ontological and epistemological line can be seen between conservative and radical thinking, not Left and Right. This is the weakness in Bellamy's text, as the tendency to explain human behavior by causes that are immutable, such as genetics and/or "laws of nature" has been also present among the Left, and especially among the marxists. In fact, determinism has always been that other argument raised against Marx through the 20th century. Marx was an evolutionist. This makes several schools of the Left as much conservative as Right wingers.

Social change, to them, is eventually possible, but only through obedience to Law and Order, to property... yeees... and the wider institutional processes of dominant bureaucratic structures.

Marxists believe that humans are determined by the economic forces of capital, and none can escape them ("there is no freedom" is what any hardcore marxist will tell you with a straight face, before you learn that he's an undercover cop). Therefore they must take hold of these forces so to change them from within, through a long transitional process (haha) that either is driven by class struggle, or seeks to pacify it through eternal integration processes (socialism, or now social capitalism), so that one day... in a thousand years...

Marx believed humans are shaped (not determined) by the economic conditions they find themselves in. But he also believed economic conditions could be changed (otherwise, why bother criticizing them?) and that the proletariat were the ones to change them.. Since economic conditions could be changed, this logically entails that these changed economic conditions would in turn shape and change humans, and therefore there is no such thing as an immutable human nature. I've never heard a Marxist (hardcore or otherwise) proclaim that "there is no human freedom". Not sure who you (21:58) are hanging out with, but they obviously have never read Marx. And I say this as a non-Marxist.

I'm jumping in here and overriding the thread by saying that the anon is correct in saying Marxists said " There is no freedom" because they described life as continuous struggle and work, that there is no Utopia(I agree with that part), they went a step further and denounced the eschatological Christian doctrine.

11:59 Marxist source for "there is no freedom" please...

You ask for a source? IT WAS HIS FREAKIN DOCTRINE OF WORK AND WAGE SLAVERY FOR THE STATE!!
There is no nuanced dialogue when it comes to describing the psychological definition of freedom living under the Marxist. The same can be said about capitalism.

I didn't say Marx doesn't believe in changing economic conditions. But he was for an evolutionary model of change that required some messy and self-serving despotic measures, enforced by the proletariat's elite. Nowhere Marx or the Bolcheviks though communism can be achieved in just a few years, not even he overthrow of capitalism. This is why marxians are so much into that "waiting for the right revolutionary moment" paradigm. And 20th century marxians like Bordiga and Deleuze/Guattari further defined the "science" by bringing the idea that there are breaches and openings that can be exploited to push change further and easier. Deleuze's writings were bluntly a physics of social change; it was silently reviving the pretense of marxist theory as a revolutionary science.

Proletarians don't change shit but TV channels, soda brands, and politicians.

Politicians elect or select each other through typical gangster dynamics. In the best democracies, they'll throw a bunch of candidates at you once they were already selected. So it's really all an elitist process managed by some intelligentsia.

to me Bellamy (more than most writing on philosophy/theory within an academic context) seems to go out of his way to make clear his argumentation. if the language is confusing to you, is resorting to dismissal the first approach?
"attempt to emulate the gazillion of academic authors"
just think about this a minute.

nevertheless, I think your point of immutable human nature gets closer to something worth responding to, if it werent stated in such bad faith.

“immutable _ nature” is an oxymoron.
there will always be comfort in saying “that’s just the way _ is”

indeed. see anon 21:58, thats why I think if there is an interesting critique in Bellamy's conception of the left/right divide, that timestamped anon was possibly was getting somewhere, if it werent so bad faith.

that Bellamy is taking so much time to apologetically mention the fact that "there is no bad blood" between them and their critics, and spends all their time only talking about gossip and hearsay concerning their writing.

If someone could point me to a link to corrosive consciousness, then i would be glad to chime in on the general discussion. I have read so much anarchist stuff and I'm kind of tired of it at this point, BUT if it's something i can interpret a little better than meta analysis of discussions....

Yes my sweet TaoistSlurt, (forgive my Texan drawl), I am behind you always, hanging on desperatly to the anarch ethos, only Stirner offering me a tendril of expectancy that life on @news does not descend into the maelstrom of neo-liberalism.

if you could send over a list of approved authors who one is allowed to take ideas from that'd be great

I was not on this website for several days and am just seeing these questions/comments now. I have to say this does feel a bit like a "When did you stop beating your wife?" The title of the post is becoming more true with this comment thread.

No, I do not agree with Paul Gottfried's politics or with paleoconservatism in general (which I would think would be obvious, given that it is obviously non/anti-anarchist), but I do think his definition of Left vs. Right is one the better ones. The same applies for Thomas Sowell. As usual, I do not know why citing someone would suggest agreement with them on anything other than the particular idea I am citing and saying that I like. And I've never remotely believed in the idea that you should just ignore people because you disagree with them.

To be honest, I basically don't even know who Cynthia McKinney is beyond the vaguest terms, I just liked the quote; so please don't read any retweet as an endorsement of an entire human being's ideas, either. Again, I don't know why this should be necessary to say.

"Seems he's endorsing them, echoing their talking points, and according to his twitter, seems fine with being followed by those on the Alt-Right and RT people on the far-Right."

I don't know what "talking points" you are referring to or who you think I am endorsing. I endorse anarchism, and I agree with others roughly insofar as they are anarchist. I adopt ideas because I consider them to be good, not because of from whom they come. Let's not do Hitler-was-a-vegetarian-and-environmentalist. If far-right people are following my tiny Twitter account, great - I hope they become open to anarchist ideas. I hope they read things I have written. I hope they quote and RT me and have people in their comment threads asking why they are associating with "a left-wing degenerate." I hope I get followed by as wide a variety of people as possible so as to disseminate anarchist ideas in as many political tendencies as possible. Do you want me to insist that only anarchists listen to me, or even only left-anarchists?

I'm also not a determinist, whether biological or economic. I do think we can meaningfully speak of human nature, yes, but that nature is not completely fixed.

I actually didn't know that I was using a Prestonite shibboleth by saying "pan-secessionism," so thank you for drawing my attention to that. I don't know enough about his ideas to really comment on this time, but I have been planning on researching them and probably writing something and/or debating/interviewing him in the future since he is interested in radical decentralization. I know that people believe he is some sort of crypto-white nationalist but cannot speak to that one way or another until I read his stuff directly because I do not assume the worst about someone simply because of accusations, since our subculture is obsessed with accusations and I myself am frequently accused of all manner of things.

I know very little about national-anarchism except for what Aragorn! discussed on /The Brilliant/ and that it is a very stupid name. The guy Aragorn! interviewed did not seem heinous to me. I have not read their magazine, but I will also need to research, discuss, debate/interview these people since I seem to have bumped up against the decentralism issue hard and am being asked about them. I personally do not see race as a basis for relationships and do not live my life that way, but it is pretty obvious to me that most people do, whether they say so openly or not. When I was first becoming radicalized, I thought that concerns about race would eventually fall by the wayside for humanity - now, I think that is probably not the case. I think people should come together because of similar values, goals, and projects, but it is clear that many people consider race to be among those, and I have no interest in policing everyone's behavior and telling them they should only come together for reasons that I think are good. I do not think it would be practical or ethical to do so. When I was in and among the Bay Area LGBTQ subculture, for instance, I met a lot of people who wanted to form entirely LGBTQ communities and not associate with any straight people at all, which I thought was extremely weird and self-limiting, but, if they want to do that, that's fine with me.

If people want to voluntarily associate freely and are not preventing freedom of movement, I don't have a problem with it, per se, other things being equal, even if I don't like their reasons for coming together. In practice, almost everyone who claims to be an anarchist is not really one in my book (they will usually cave to some form of socialism or liberalism under enough pressure), so that might very well be the case with these people as well. I agree that N@ism means there is a potential danger of right-authoritarian ideas entering anarchist thinking, but anarchist discourse/thought is constantly being besieged by authoritarian ideas of all kinds, all the time, so this is not a special case but more of the same. So, I am fine with separatism for basically any reason if it is well and truly voluntarily chosen and does not unduly infringe upon others, but it has to be predicated on a real, complex, serious discussion on who has access to what land and what resources.

My vision is pretty similar to what is sketched out in bolo'bolo - I of course take issue with some of the details there, but I think the general idea of fracturing the oncoming World-Leviathan into many thousands of small communities is the best shot (certainly far from perfect) at increasing human freedom. I do not believe almost any kind of revolution would not reproduce some new form of Leviathan. I do not believe in trying to force a similar way of life and thinking on everyone in the world is either possible or desirable. Some anarchists seem to think we can essentially create a global anarchist culture with our values; I do not. This difference is probably related to Sowell's "constrained" versus "unconstrained" vision.

I can answer further questions, but please do not assume I am avoiding a question just because I do not respond quickly to it.

Bellamy, I can imagine your frustration with being put on trial here, but the attention youre receiving goes to show how important your work is, and how badly your perspective is needed in opposition to townsfolk running around with pitchforks like a cheap horror film looking for perceived heretics who speak and act on terms other than theirs. but these folks have and will always be around, so I hope you dont get too burnt out on all this ; ]

and given that I keep seeing Taoism written about everywhere here, maybe wu wei is an appropriate strategy to bear in mind,, ha

good response, bellamy.

i find it mind boggling how many supposedly critical thinkers cannot wrap their heads around the idea that you can take what makes sense from *any* ideas/books/people/etc, without being a supporter of - or adherent to - some overarching ideology held or promoted by them at any point in time. take what you like and leave the rest, has always been my take on that. i seriously don't get it.

and any so-called anarchist that cannot grok the concept of free/voluntary association/disassociation is lacking some fundamental understanding of anarchy. the attempt to dominate natural resources (including land) will not likely go away even with a massive reduction in both human population and the scale of human social groupings. that level of competition exists at every level of life, even when there is also "cooperation" and symbiotic relating. conflict will not go away; hopefully, the way humans deal with conflict will change without overarching institutions of domination and (thought) control.

Yeah, talking all the sense. Also! Dig how community self defence made the original list of worthwhile discussions, instead of this trololol kangaroo court bullshit. keyboard warriors only know how to burn imaginary witches.

I think there are not enough anarchists who look into core values and assumptions when it comes to the values that derive from 18th/19th century French seating.

I myself do default to nurture based analysis and I have a preference for leftist associated sentiments and sensibilities. I do however have a structural place for physical tragedy in the same vein as a Novatore. When I think of where the extremes of leftism can go I think of various things such as veganism, anti-natalism and transhumanism. The latter does not appeal to me at all, the middle I have some sympathies with though I ultimately affirm life and I think there is a place for some kind of vegan seasonal way of life even though I think there will always a meat eating predatorial element to life as a whole.

What really needs to happen is a break from materialism. Anarchy is base made to be a psychism based conception of the world. I also think negation should not be the default operation of anarchy as opposed to personal proclamation based orientation with the world which is more thoroughly Stirnerian and Nietzschean.

These are the sorts of things that make my anarch-egoism different from anarchism. Anarchy needs to be distinct from the positionality of anarchy which is what anarchism is for the most part. A secessional strategy also makes sense as anarchy should be an exit/escape based discourse and not a voice based one(again using Hirschman's concepts). No more class war and analysis for instance as class is simply a consequence of a Leviathan belief structure, not an imposition in and of itself. Voluntary servitude is real and I see it everyday at work.

My problem with him is that he's what I would call a structural anti-imperialist. Much of his flaws can be pinned down to that core fact. Anti-Imperialist logic tends to turn into elective an pan unification strategy which can only put together strange bedfellows. It's too much of a voice based strategy. Anti-imperialism-from an anti-leviathan perspective-is a branching problem not a root problem.

Again it should be about a collective exit and escape from a dominant assimilating discursive order. There does not have to be a unified strategy on how to do this. Preston's approach also takes to many leviathan constructed IDs at face value. I can accept that there will be those who internalize an impersonal historical construct but I don't think an anarchist/anarch strategy should be enabling that. National Anarchism is an obvious absurd outgrowth from that strategy.

That's essentially my problem with Preston and his strange bedfellows approach. What I equally don't care for though is the universalist ideologues who have problem with him and make him out to be some fascist ideologue which he clearly isn't. It's people like William Gillis who will play a pawning role in a more assimilated world not a less one.

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