A few thoughts…

While watching this drama unfold I couldn't help but think of my studies in anarchism. Perhaps this blog will help somewhat.

First of all, division isn’t always a bad thing:

"The anarchist alternative is that of fragmentation, fission rather than fusion, diversity rather than unity, a mass of societies rather than a mass society" (Ward)

This is another way of saying that individual freedom should be respected above all else, and that people should not be coerced into “fusing” with the mass like one-celled amoeba.

But division can also produce the aforementioned “people’s front of Judea” phenomenon: squabbling camps easily manipulated by a united enemy.

There is a simple analogy in Kurosawa’s masterpiece “Kagemusha”, based on King Lear. The father breaks a single stick over his leg, then tries to do the same with a bundle of sticks. He can’t. The idea is to show his sons the value of solidarity in protecting the clan. Historically, however, there is a catch. This is actually where the term “fascism” arose from: fascia, or a “bundle of sticks tied tightly.”

In Kurosawa’s film, one of the sons comes up with a solution: he breaks the bundle over his knee. The father is not amused.

This is why I have always respected so-called "individualist" anarchists like the American Benjamin Tucker; while I agree that public resources such as timber or water or the Sun need to be shared, we cannot force people into Soviet style collectivization.

In addition to the idea that “small is beautiful”, anarchists have also stressed the concept of federation between smaller units – in other words, cooperation – lest “anarchy” in the popular sense of the word reign (actually, statism seems to be far more conducive to “anarchy” than actual anarchism, as Bakunin pointed out hundreds of years ago). The ruling class is united in their goals, and there’s no reason we can’t be either. Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book.

“Libertarian organization must reflect the complexity of societal relationships and promote solidarity on the widest possible scale. It can be defined as federalism: coordination through free agreement -- locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.”
- Sam Dolgoff, "The Relevance of Anarchism to Modern Society"

In his “breakdown of nations” Leopold Kohr suggested “harmony” as an alternative to “unity”. Unity implies lock-step conformity while harmony implies substantial differences in opinion between region (and sub-region, right down to the community and individual) yet cooperation in achieving common goals and maintaining peace. Typically, the nation-state is far too large a conglomeration to achieve this. It is bureaucratic, inefficient, maintains grotesque property relations, is addicted to war and it forces people to take orders from politicians hundreds of miles away. In a decentralized environment with functioning democracy none of this would be necessary.

Another point on solidarity:

I think one of the things people have to remember is that COINTELPRO has traditionally served two functions: disinformation on the one hand (eg the Black Panthers coloring book) and sewing division on the other (eg the FBI writing letters accusing this or that panther of being an informant, when the true informants were actually those writing the letters). In other words, we should try to refrain from making it personal; arguing on the basis of facts alone is sufficient.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: let’s try and maintain cooperation between the various (sane) camps of the truth movement. This will suit us better in the long run. The individuals in charge of blogger seem to be undergoing something of a power trip, but I think they’ll smarten up.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to see an alternative blossoming. This also applies to truthaction.org and other sites which have been receiving more traffic recently. Monopoly sucks! And I applaud you for your efforts.

:)

P.S.: I’m curious to know why you (RT) were banned.