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Editor's Note: This text was written as a response to an anonymous essay titled "A Brief Constructive Criticism of 'RAANismo'", which had appeared on anarchist websites three days prior. The entirety of that essay can be read in the Appendix to this reply. 10.10.10 This particular group of RAANistas is positively over-joyed at the fact that someone has taken the time to write a critique of RAAN. As far as we know, this is the first attempt by the larger anarchist scene to articulate or critique the beast that is the Red & Anarchist Action Network. This is not an official reply by the Network itself. The authors of this piece come from both the West and East coasts. This collaboration is for the purposes of explaining RAAN as we see it, and pointing out where the original critique is off. On with the writin's... All publicity is good publicity We love the fact that we have been compared to the RCP, despite them being our fucking enemies. This is simply because people talk about the RCP. We'll explain this in a short while. The authors of the critique accuse us of promoting the name of RAAN only, instead of trying to build political bases within the working class. This is a very common Leftist critique of RAAN and a lot of other insurrectionary (anarchist or communist) individuals and groups. It is a very logical argument; however we reject the idea that it is our duty to politicize the working class. Remember, we don't call ourselves a 'revolutionary organization.' How can we, when none of us have ever experienced anything other than the boring and destructive life of Capital? Despite the illusions that a lot of the 'conscious-building' type people are under, the only people that ever join Parties or get involved in radical politics are people who already feel in their bones that every thing must change. These people have experienced something or a series of somethings and have realized on their own terms how fucked up society is. As of right now, these people often get sucked into the deadening activities of selling ISO or PSL or RCP newspapers, or doing whatever the IWW or NEFAC does, because these kinds of organizations are talked about. There is a connection made with "radical change/revolution" and "IWW" (you can insert whatever Leftist organization here, we are just using examples). From here, these people either get entirely consumed in the illusion that is Leftist activism, or they find themselves moving on to bashing their heads against the wall with what is the current state of Insurrectionary Anarchism (which to be honest, despite our love for many IAs, is just a form of 'very angry' activism). We want to 'save' these people from ever having to deal with any of that. So, no, we aren't just throwing our acronym around just for the hell of it. The continued talk of RAAN within the anarchist scene is only to our advantage. As long as people are talking about RAAN then there will be that one group of people that are just like "Damn, what about RAAN?" "Substitution" for the international worker? We find the words of Fredy Perlman and Roger Gregoire to be very relevant here: "One of the favorite arguments of "anarchists" and "libertarians" at Censier was: 'The workers must make their own decisions; we cannot substitute ourselves for them.' This is a blind application of an anti-bureaucratic tactic to a situation where this tactic had no application at all. It meant that action committee militants had no more of a right to tell workers what to do than a bureaucratic mini-party had. But the situation where this tactic was applied was not the one at which it was aimed..." ~ Worker-Student Action Committees The accusation raised against RAAN, that we are trying to substitute our message for that of the international worker, is completely irrelevant to the action being talked about, and amounts to little more than typical Left anarchist knee-jerkery. What really interests us, however, is that the author(s) go on to say that "the attack on the Democratic headquarters had somewhat of a significant potential in successfully serving as an act of instigation and consciousness-raising" and "[a] catchy or clever slogan connecting the rise of popular anti-DNC sentiment to the tradition of anti-capitalism and workers' struggle against the bourgeoisie would have been very effective." The idea that a revolutionary organization can raise worker's consciousness is, perhaps, the most vile and destructive mindset that has come out of the Left and has, clearly, inflitrated the insurrectionary milieu. We fail to see how this sort of behavior would have not been subsituting ourselves for the international worker. By attaching a "catchy or clever slogan" to the action, the RAANistas involved would have only ended up representing the "worker's struggle" (what worker's struggle? - Remember this action took place in the USA). RAAN only speaks for RAAN. Don't you quote French communists at us... We feel that the premise of your entire argument is flawed. RAAN is not, and can never be, a revolutionary organization. We feel the excerpts you pulled from The Coming Insurrection are excellent critiques of Leftist organizations and Parties, but due to the fact that RAAN is not a revolutionary organization, these excerpts are not relevant. Your first quote is interesting, particularly the part where the Invisible Committee seems to define a Party or organization as having "a history, a head office, a name, resources, a leader, a strategy and a discourse..." And certainly some of this is true of RAAN. Especially the part about having a history and a name. But we don't really see RAAN as having anything else in common with this definition of an organization. RAAN has often been accused of having a leadership (Nachie), but this is not true. RAAN is entirely defined by who is doing things in its name. This means that those who are taking initiative to get things done following the No Bullshit Policy are naturally going to become the face of RAAN. But this is not a problem nor is it indicative of us being the sort of organization you seem to think we are. Even in the larger anarchist scene, there are certain names that become the face of Anarchism simply because they are taking initiative (we are thinking of people such as Crudo, Texas, etc., and things like Fire to the Prisons and Modesto Anarcho). Our strategy is whatever those who are defining RAAN make it to be. Our discourse is the same. We have no desire to be coherent. We think a huge difference between RAAN and the larger anarchist scene is the No Bullshit policy. This means that you are not part of RAAN unless you are actively doing things as RAAN. It is odd that we should be attacked for this when it is something that allows us to safeguard against people who wish to use RAAN for their own personal gain without contributing to the project itself. Perhaps if the anarchist scene were to adopt this policy, then ya'll may be able to be something more than a group of people that is addicted to posting gossip online... However, while we are on the subject of French communists, here is an excerpt we feel is particularly relevant to defining what RAAN is and how it works: "To organize is not to give structure to weakness. It is above all to form bonds - bonds that are by no means neutral - terrible bonds. The degree of organization is measured by the intensity of sharing - material and spiritual. From now on, to materially organize for survival is to materially organize for attack. Everywhere, a new idea of communism is to be elaborated." The idea of RAAN is not something that the Invisible Committee has taken into account. The project as a whole is certainly strengthened by the number of people and crews acting as RAAN but on the local level the strength of these crews is only measured by the depth of their bonds and their ability to work together and take care of each individually. Therefore the actual strength of RAAN lies in the strength of the crews taking its name. We would go as far as to say that the point of RAAN in this stage is not to agitate the working class or even to really do political things but to orient itself for the survival of those taking its name. We wish to grow stronger in the TCI sense for the time when a crisis is upon us and there no longer any illusions around class struggle. Your use of TCI and Call makes us feel that you are trying to play on its popularity within the North American Anarchist scene to possibly paint RAAN in a bad light. This is insincere. It's also strange to appeal to a book as if it is the end-all-be-all of radical discourse in America. At this point, we would like to state that we are unaware of where the "breath of fresh air" is that you mentioned in the beginning of your "Stalinist anti Stalinism" section. As far as we are aware, the same bashing of one's head against an immovable wall that is North American Anarchism (Insurrectionary or otherwise) has been taking place for the last several years. It is taking this into account that we bluntly say that American Anarchists have not yet left behind activism. That there is still the desire to educate the workers or work toward "consciousness-raising" that you so eloquently put it. We feel that you are stuck within the nasty pits of Leftism if you are able to talk about raising consciousness and condemning RAAN for "distracting from the possibility of freedom on a pure conscious level" in the same essay. On Lenin and the Left The attacks on the Left by RAAN always seem to be the actions that come under the most fire. We do not understand this. The first attacks on RCP bookstores several years ago were done to establish a line in the sand to destroy any attempts by the anarchist scene to paint RAAN as "Leninist" or authoritarian because of the inclusion of "Red" in the name. To imply at any level that this is all RAAN amounts to is absolutely ridiculous, and politically dishonest. However, we do feel that attacking the Left is the single most important thing pro-revolutionaries can do. And we also believe that we should not wait until they have poked their ugly faces into a struggle before doing so. We are not reactionary. If we understand that there is no one better than the Left at getting workers back to work during a crisis, and therefore one of the biggest threats to the communist project, then to attack them before they can gain a foothold in an area is of utmost importance. And to call this sort of attack on Leftists "sectarian" is to be blind. One has to be in the same sect as something before attacking it becomes sectarian [sic]. We are not on the same team as the Left. It is true that a lot of the publicity RAAN has gained has been through attacks on Leninist organizations. We do not deny or shrink from this. However, as we have said, to ignore the fact that RAAN has done so many more things that even the most anti-organizational IA can appreciate is politically dishonest. But we do not feel it is our job to list everything RAAN has done, and if people are sincerely interested in looking at the sort of things RAAN has done then they will find ways to read the history section on the RAAN hub. In Conclusion... Your entire critique is off. We feel that you have not taken the time to examine the things that have come out under the RAAN banner, nor have you really taken the time to look at the history of RAAN. Indeed, it seems your entire essay is based off of the last couple months of RAAN things being on @news, which is a very, very small part of the Network's history. Your comparisons of RAAN and the RCP do not add up, and your appeal to certain texts only proves our point even further. Essentially, we see RAAN as a way for like-minded pro-revolutionaries to meet up, and to organize materially. The only reason why we feel that RAAN is the solution to the cripple that is known as North American Anarchism is because NA Anarchists have essentially allowed themselves to be reduced to petty squabbles online and putting a meaner, harder face on activism. To refer to RAAN as an organization such as anyone has come into contact with before is to not understand the nature of RAAN. RAANistas are people who understand themselves as an obscure, practically irrelevant tendency within the larger body known as society. And as such, we are fully aware of our inability to impact anything. We do not wish to raise consciousness because we view that as impossible, and as something that regularly burns out extremely sincere pro-revolutionaries. We are not a revolutionary organization because we are not capable of creating or facilitating revolution. That sort of illusion we leave to the religious Leftists. We are not even a pro-revolutionary organization. We are simply a very loose network of pro-revolutionaries. All that RAAN is or can be is a name which to attach to things done by people in order to meet up with other people. As has already been stated, this is not an official reply from the Network. Something of that sort would be impossible due to the fact that we have no leaders or a central committee of any sort. We are just one group of RAANistas, and hopefully RAANistas elsewhere will reply to you as well, or even better, they will critique this critique. |