Attack the System

by Keith Preston

  One of these days a truly charismatic individual is going to walk out of the heartland of America and point out that the Declaration of Independence has never been repealed and that it requires all citizens to rise up against an oppressive government. With the current attitude toward our government and the people who populate it, a massive groundswell of support for throwing the current crop to the dogs and starting over again might not be so difficult.

  As for the ability of the American citizens to successfully wage a guerrilla war on their own government, the likes of which this world has never seen nor contemplated before, I am absolutely convinced that it could be done, and a lot more swiftly than many might believe possible. How many highly-capable long-range snipers can your county put together?

  I have absolutely no doubt that a determined left/right-black/ white-libertarian/populist alliance could, if it played its cards right, achieve such a victory. There are over thirty thousand street gangs in America, with their collective membership totaling more than one million people. The nationalist/ separatist elements of the various minority groups who would be an essential part of any resistance alliance command the respect of these groups. A nationwide alliance of urban street gangs into a militia/paramilitary force could easily defeat and eliminate municipal police departments loyal to the ruling class. Suburban militias composed of rebellious youth and countercultural radicals organized in a manner similar to Mao’s Red Guards or Colombia’s FARC could easily defeat the rent-a-cops that comprise suburban police departments. Just as the LAPD turned and ran during the “L.A. Riots” so did the suburban SWAT team at the scene of the Columbine massacre in 1999 hide behind ambulances and fire trucks cowering in fear of two teeny-boppers with ordinary household firearms. The principal problem of many of these wayward youth, urban gang members, and suburban “school shooters” alike, is that they realize instinctively that they are under attack, but are unable to trace these feelings to their proper source, so they simply take it out on the nearest target, their schools, neighborhoods, or each other. What they need is something worthwhile to fight for, like eliminating the present depraved regime and the creation of a superior civilization, one that is liberated from the parasitical albatross of state and capital.

  Citizen militias drawn from rural, small town, and heartland communities, including within their ranks many military veterans of the Timothy McVeigh model, could wage an insurgent war against the US regime in the same manner as the present-day insurgents in Iraq. As Tariq Aziz said prior to the US invasion of Iraq:

  People say tome, you [i.e., the Iraqis] are not the Vietnamese. You have no jungles and swamps to hide in. I reply, let our cities be our swamps and our buildings our jungles.

  Indeed, these militias, mercenaries, guerrillas, gangs, and paramilitaries will be the foundation of the defense forces of our future Jeffersonian-Proudhonian-Bakuninist-Rothbardian federations of anarchies and republics of republics. As Jefferson reminded us:

  God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

  Let’s do Uncle Tom proud!

  Smashing the State:

  Thoughts on Anarchist Strategy

  For nearly two centuries, anarchist thinkers have drawn from the fields of philosophy, economics, history, cultural studies, military science, political science, and many other disciplines to produce a voluminous amount of empirical evidence that destroys the very notion of the legitimacy of the state. Yet the state continues to exist, and in a more potent and destructive form than ever before. Of all of the prevalent myths of the modern age, none are as false and deadly as the idea that the state is somehow a positive expression of human social evolution capable of benevolence and the fostering of progress. Belief in the state is simply the flat earth theory or the geocentric model of the solar system of the present era. The question that remains is the matter of how the idea of the state could be so wrong intellectually yet enjoy near universal acceptance.

  Past states of the ancien régime variety were typically justified in the name of religion. The emperor was regarded as a descendent of the sun god. The king ruled by divine right as the Creator’s appointed earthly steward. Ideas of this type were demolished by the political, scientific, and intellectual revolutions that emerged from the Enlightenment. With all due respect to my religious friends, most intellectuals in the advanced countries, including myself, no longer believe in God or the divine sanctioning of human institutions. Similarly, most variations of the state— fascist, communist, monarchical, theocratic, aristocratic, military—are considered illegitimate as well. Only democratic states, ostensibly justified in the name of popular sovereignty, social contract, and the general will, retain their legitimacy in the eyes of contemporary intellectual elites. For this reason, democracy is the primary enemy of anarchism. The deadliest battles we anarchists will fight in the future will be not with communists and fascists but with democrats. In our fight against the state, we should begin by heaping ridicule and scorn upon the very notion of democracy.[177]

  Anarchist thinkers as diverse as Murray Rothbard and Noam Chomsky have recognized that a new class of “court intellectuals” has emerged as apologists for the modern state. These elements, drawn primarily from the realms of media and academia, collectively formulate a type of “secular priesthood” whose political function is the use of their positions of perceived authority and expertise to inculcate in the masses the idea of the benevolence, wisdom, and virtue of the state and those who control it.[178] Consequently, it is a grave strategic error for anarchists to appeal to the intellectual classes as a means of advancing their ideas. Intellectual elites have a vested interest in the preservation of the state, the primary source of their affluence and prestige. For every Noam Chomsky or Gore Vidal, there are a thousand Henry Kissingers, James Carvilles, or David Horowitzes willing to act as a mouthpiece for state power. Instead, anarchists should take their message directly to those most victimized by the state.

  Anarchist ideas on strategy for the abolition of the state are thus far grossly underdeveloped. Most of what we have seen in the realm of anarchist or free market strategy so far provides us with little more than some examples of what not to do. For instance, the Cato Institute began as a think tank set up to promote the ideas of Murray Rothbard and subsequently succumbed to the lure of corporate money and Beltway access and somewhere along the way developed the idea that kissing Republican ass is the way to advance liberty.[179] The principal strategic contribution of the Ayn “nuke ’em towelheads” Randroids has been to set up a fanatical cult primarily oriented towards the excommunication of heretics. The “conservative libertarian” Foundation for Economic Education featured arch-police statist Rudy Giuliani as the keynote speaker at one of its events. The paleolibertarians, admittedly a much better group than the others, apparently seek to appeal to the remnants of the old WASP culture that has been slowly dying since the 1960s. Last and perhaps least, the leftist-anarchist movement has taken up every crackpot left-reactionary cause yet to be invented and postulated nothing quite so much as an incoherent brand of “anarcho-social democracy.” Clearly, the anarchist and libertarian milieus are desperately in need of new ideas on strategy.

  One mistake many anarchists make is to employ what I call an “evangelical” approach to the dissemination of their ideas. What I mean is that these anarchists attempt to “convert” others
to the anarchist position by means of intellectual argument or moral suasion. Very few people are interested in ideology. Fewer still have much in the way of moral substance beyond that of personal interests and cues taken from peers and leaders.[180] I suspect this is the main reason why the Libertarian Party and other groups heavy on ideological content have not gotten very far. Intellectual or moral arguments may sway a handful of people, but my experience has been that most people simply do not care enough about these matters for this approach to work on any large-scale basis. It seems that a better approach would be to simply appeal to the immediate self-interest of as many different groups and individuals with a grievance against the state as possible with the broader goal of forming a large enough coalition of disparate interest groups to effectively weaken and destroy the state.

  The classical anarchist Bakunin envisioned a cadre of “principled militants” serving as the intellectual and activist leadership corps of a mass movement for the overthrow of the state. The function of such militants would be to inspire the masses by example and simultaneously articulate the political desires of the masses of those exploited by the state.[181] This classical Bakuninist approach, adapted to the modern world and modified to fit the framework imposed by the modern state, may show some promise yet. It is doubtful that anarchists will ever be more than a relatively small number of people. I tend to concur with Emma Goldman that anarchists are born rather than made. At the risk of hubris, we might say that anarchists are the natural aristocracy, a type of natural vanguard, in the historic struggle against the state.

  The abolition of the state would, of course, be an event of profound historical significance akin to the Protestant Reformation or the American Revolution. I suspect that the anarchist “movement” is currently in the same stage of its evolution as the classical liberalism that overthrew the ancien régime was in the early days of seventeenth-century rationalism. The classical anarchism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries provides us with a flawed but inspiring prototype that we can use as a foundation on which to build a more perfect body of anarchist thought. Later anarchist thinkers, such as Rothbard and Hoppe, have helped to point us in the right direction. It is up to us to take it from there. Liberal democracy, once a radical and revolutionary doctrine feared by the ruling classes, has now become all but universal. It has taken root even in much of the Third World.[182] The realization of anarchism necessarily involves the overthrow of liberal democracy in the same manner as the gradual elimination of traditional monarchies in earlier times.

  It should go without saying that anyone attempting foment revolution against the existing political order ought to, when considering questions of strategy, attempt to appeal to the indigenous culture of the common people and the cultural history of the country in question. This is one of the reasons why the contemporary leftist-anarchist movement, with its fanatical hostility to all things “American,” hatred of authentic working class culture, and adoption of a Euro-leftist cultural stance, is doomed to failure. Fortunately, we Americans enjoy cultural traditions of rebellion against tyrannical government as expansive as those of any nation. These traditions, symbolized by such historical phenomena as the Boston Tea Party, Whiskey Rebellion, Underground Railroad, the Southern War of Independence, the Haymarket martyrs, labor uprisings, the civil rights movement, etc., provide us with a broad cultural history that we can play to and build upon.

  Much can be said for the philosophy of “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” When attempting to communicate with the broader public, anarchists should avoid reference to arcane ideological abstractions. Instead, it is best to remain focused on a handful of issues that are the most serious and most immediate. At present, such issues would be the coming war with Iraq, and its role as a component in a larger program of globalist imperialism, and the ongoing assaults on civil liberties under the guise of the wars on terrorism, drugs, crime, etc., and the role of these as means to the consolidation of state power into a totalitarian state apparatus. Already, a number of local communities have issued resolutions opposing both the Iraq war and the Orwellian USA PATRIOT Act. This phenomenon of grassroots, popular-based local revolt against central tyranny provides us with some clues as to how we might proceed in our efforts to advance the broader anarchist cause.

  Local rebellion against the state has its roots in the best elements of American political and cultural history, whether we are considering the original secession of the thirteen colonies from the Crown or the Confederate secession from the Lincoln regime. More recently, the “county rights” movement in the West has resulted in formal refusal by localities to comply with directives issued by federal bureaucracies. Similarly, during the Persian Gulf War, the city of Madison, Wisconsin, declared that it would grant safe haven to draft resisters in the event of imposition of military conscription. The proliferation of localized resistance movements of this type seems to be the best bet for effectively engaging Leviathan. Towards this end, anarchists should seek to become influential in grassroots opposition activities of the type previously described.

  Anarchists should seek to become leaders within their own communities. This might involve joining community organizations, neighborhood associations, pressure groups, or other intermediary institutions involved with local issues and using one’s influence to advance the anarchist agenda. A similar tactic might be employed on a national level. Anarchists should join single-issue pressure groups and seek leadership positions. Clusters of anarchists on the boards of directors of the National Rifle Association or the American Civil Liberties Union would probably be much more useful than a motley crew of tofu-munching ne’er-do-wells carrying tacky hand-lettered signs outside the latest convention of the International Monetary Fund or some other globalist entity. Furthermore, anarchist involvement in local and regional secessionist activities could expand our influence enormously. Anarchists should make common cause with groups like the Free State Project, the League of the South, and the Republic of Texas. Think of the advantages of a large regional secession movement whose leaders and hard-core activists included a substantial minority of anarchists.

  I cannot overemphasize the importance of anti-state coalition building. If we look at the mainstream political system, we see that all effective political coalitions involve seemingly incongruous alignments of divergent groups. What do country club Republicans have in common with the “religious right”? What do labor unions have in common with the gay lobby? Yet these types of coalitions provide the major voting blocs for the Republicans and Democrats alike. A similar strategy employed by the anti-state movement might yield significant dividends, particularly if it had the effect of successfully disrupting and neutralizing the grassroots coalitions maintained by the ruling class. For example, if gun rights supporters or ethnic minorities were to defect en masse from the Republican and Democratic parties respectively, the “big tents” relied upon by these interests might begin to implode. Once anarchists began to establish themselves as effective and influential community leaders and grassroots activists, they could begin to draw others to them by means of coalitions organized around common issues. For example, opposition to zoning ordinances could draw support from poor people victimized by such intrusions along with conservative defenders of property rights. Opposition to the public schools could draw support from both religious fundamentalists and countercultural youth. It would then be the responsibility of leaders within various movements to combine their forces into a broader popular front against the state in its entirety.

  Secessionist efforts could be a central rallying point for many single-issue groups. Imagine, for instance, a California independence movement with anarchists heavily represented among its leadership and including among its grassroots support base elements as diverse as advocates of medical marijuana, homeschoolers, property rights advocates, AIDS activists, proponents of alternative medicine, unions opposed to NAFTA, antiwar activists, Hispanic separatists and immigration opponents alike, gun rights defenders,
pro-lifers alongside gay militants in San Francisco, leftist radicals in Berkeley, and far-right tax resisters. Each of these elements could have their own reasons for desiring secession with each disagreeing with all on many, perhaps even most, issues. Some of these differences might be dealt with pragmatically through the decentralization of state politics to the local and then to the community or neighborhood level. A movement like this in California could then align itself with a similar movements in the South, or Alaska, or New England, or wherever. Black militants in the inner cities might even become the inadvertent allies of white separatists in Idaho and vice versa. Anarchists, as keepers of the anti-state faith, might serve as facilitators of dialogue between disparate antigovernment groups, mediators during the course of negotiations occurring during the process of coalition building, and coordinators of joint activities and actions around common issues and purposes.

  There exists throughout the United States a huge variety of groups and movements who are hostile to the state in many ways, particularly the federal government. Most of these would not qualify as anarchists or even libertarians in any consistent or pure sense. Yet they are collectively a potential source of support for a radical populism with an explicitly anti-state bent and a potential goldmine of activist manpower. Revolutions are typically made not by majorities but by impassioned minorities. The government’s Vietnam War effort was effectively stalled by an antiwar movement involving no more than five percent of the US population. Only five percent of the population of the thirteen colonies favored independence from Britain when it was initially declared. Only two percent participated in the military efforts of the revolutionaries. By the time independence had been won only a third had come to favor it. Anti-statists have not even begun to consider the possible strategic alliances that might come into being through greater outreach efforts. Those whom with we might make common cause include Muslim and Arab-American groups opposed to the US government’s use of funds looted from American taxpayers to subsidize the tyrannical state of Israel,[183] religious cults harassed and persecuted by government agencies, “hate” groups attacked through trumped up lawsuits and hate crimes laws, poor inner-city minorities whose family members are being herded into the state’s massive prison industry via the drug war,[184] advocates of minority self-help and self-determination like the Nation of Islam, American Indian groups fighting for their land rights, small farmers plowed under by state-subsidized agribusiness cartels and federal lending programs,[185] citizens militia groups, and common law advocates. These are just a few examples.