taking back the reigns: how anarchism may save us - brandee eubank

7/28/2019 Taking Back the Reigns: How Anarchism May Save Us - Brandee Eubank

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We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we arefinally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. George Orwell

I have long been a political junkie. Its fair to say that in the absence of any interest in hockey, or soccer, or football- politics is my sport. Through the years Ive enjoyed the complex maneuveringand attempts to manipulate, the gleeful shock of the media and public alike when a politicianslips and falls, the ensuing excitement when his comrades in power swiftly kick him or her over the cliff rather than risk contamination. Its all very titillating, as blood sports are apt to be. WhatIve come to resent is that Im not merely a spectator but a participant, or more accurately abenefactor, without my express consent. I cannot choose not to attend a game, or the game ,bec ause the arena has grown and grown so that it now encompasses every fa cet of life, everyinch of the planet.

In everything else, if I grow bored or disinterested, decide that its not a worthy expense in termsof money, energy, or time- I can opt out. Ive divorced, changed careers, move d, Ive altered mylifes tyle- but I cannot of my own free will make the decision not to fund the gov ernment and theinnumerable mandatory sc hemes it sees fit to i mpose. I have accepted this fact over the years asnecessary for the greater good. Unhappy with this government, Ill vote for that one next time, andthen another the time after that. My allegiance is to values, not a particular team. The disturbingfact that Ive had to come to terms with though is that my sport is about as relevant assyn chronized swimming. It has not been an easy transition for me, and I hav e fought just as hardwith my own conscience as I have with friends and acquaintances in an atte mpt to justify thenec essity of good government, to defend the notion that those equipped to p ull off this feat simplyarent in play yet. The games going to pick up, I promise you. The next one will be better. Theproblem being- while a proponent of good government, Ive never actually seen one in practice.

Award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger offers, This is not to sayparliamentary politics is meaningless. It has one meaning now: the replacement of democracywith a business plan for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope, everychild born. While this may sound extreme, I would go one further to propose that democracy hasexisted more within a dreamy mindscape than any realized reality. Take the Canadian example-in the last election the Conservatives won a majority government based on the confidence of 1 in4 eligible voters. You would be hard pressed to explain just how this math works out to anyschool age child, but so it is. The Conservatives now run the House with an iron fist, shushing notonly opposition members but members of their own party who dare to disagree. Hardly inkeeping with Harpers victory speech in which he said that, " We are intensely aware that we areand we must be the government of all Canadians, including those who did not vote for us, but noless than weve come to expect from this, one of the worlds leading democracies.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges points out that, There is no way to vote againstcorporate power. Citizens have no way to bring about the prosecution of Wall Street bankers andfina nciers for fraud, military and intelligence officials for torture and war crimes , or security andsurv eillance officers for human rights abuses. Still, we trust in democratic gov ernment to theexte nt that we continue to participate, to finance it, and to herald its virtues. Ou r politiciansunderstand our fanatical attachment and use it to garner public support for war mongering thatmight otherwise be unpalatable just spreading democracy folks, dont worry- well be out assoon as we secure their resources, er, freedom. We believe in the principles of democracy for good reason though- the premise that citizens, given a voice, will act in the publics best interestsis a noble one and, I believe, in essence true. It is in believing that a hierarchal, authoritarianpower structure will ever represent the truest values of democracy that we err, where we enter

into Orwells doublethink .

Lets examine the global economic crisis briefly, or as I prefer to call it: the failure of a humanconstruct based on nonsensical models in the netherworld. Firstly, I would like to express myundying admiration for the people who managed to anthropomorphize the economy to such an
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rise_up_or_die_20130519/http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rise_up_or_die_20130519/http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/05/02/cv-election-main.htmlhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/05/02/cv-election-main.htmlhttp://thecanadianpoliticalscene.blogspot.ca/2013/04/conservative-backbenchers-resist.htmlhttp://johnpilger.com/articles/the-party-game-is-over-stand-and-fighthttp://johnpilger.com/articles/the-party-game-is-over-stand-and-fighthttp://johnpilger.com/articles/the-party-game-is-over-stand-and-fighthttp://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nosehttp://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nosehttp://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nosehttp://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nosehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethinkhttp://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rise_up_or_die_20130519/http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/05/02/cv-election-main.htmlhttp://thecanadianpoliticalscene.blogspot.ca/2013/04/conservative-backbenchers-resist.htmlhttp://johnpilger.com/articles/the-party-game-is-over-stand-and-fighthttp://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nose


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extent that mere mention that it is in crisis sends even the most pragmatic of persons into atailspin- brilliantly done old chaps! It doesnt matter that the average person cant explain why or how things took such a drastic turn for the worse, never mind the basic mechanics of theeconomy, we are willing to do whatever we can to save it. We will work harder and longer, dowith less, sacrifice our neighbours- whatever it takes. There is a definite Twilight Zone element tothe whole thing but youd be wrong to deny the spin doctors credit on this one. Hedges observes,There is nothing in 5,000 years of economic history to justify the belief that human societiesshould structure their behavior around the demands of the marketplace. This is an absurd,

utopian ideology. The airy promises of the market economy have, by now, all been exposed aslies. Yet we continue to structure our lives around those lies.

Now lets look at the crisis in real terms. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicinereports that the suicide rate in Greece rose 40% in 2011- a complete reversal of the pre-2007trend which saw rates steadily declining. There has been an exponential rise in HIV, as well asoutbreaks of malaria, West Nile virus, and dengue fever directly related to cuts in preventativeprograms. Likewise, Mental Health Europe estimates that requests for antidepressants haverisen by 28% between 2007 and 2011 , while European countries deepen cuts to healthcare by

up to 50%. The European Parliament warns, that the economic and financial crisis is a threat tohuman rights as a whole, including civil and political rights in particular that it has haddetrimental effects on access to food, health care and education for the most vulnerable groups insociety, in both urban and rural areas, and has resulted in dramatically increased poverty levelsglobally among other dire observations and predictions.

According to an economic report at Money Morning the real unemployment rate as of April 2013in the United States is 13.9% (AEIdeas reports 11.3% for the same period, CNBC 13.8% ); thiswithout the sunshiney outlook presented by the government and related institutions that bring the

percentage as low as 7.5% by discounting the existence of large segments of the population.633,782 people in the United States are homeless and this number is expected to increase as 85billion in sequestration cuts take effect. In Canada the government spent a large part of 2012slashing environmental programs and legislation in hopes of stimulating the economy , whilstencouraging (read: legislating) people to work more, retire later . One step further, the Canadiangovernment is hard at work preventing people from collecting unemployment insurance (aprogram citizens are forced to pay into, and is sold as insurance), and making cuts to theCanada Revenue Agency at the same time that the Auditor General reports that the CRAsuncollected tax (expected to be hidden in offshore tax havens) has risen to roughly 29 billion inthe last seven years . But regardless of the toll of the financial crisis on people in developedcountries, there is no argument that those in developing countries have been impacted moredrastically and in greater numbers.

Author Derrick Jensens premise that, The property of those higher on the hierarchy is morevaluable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they controlin everyday language, to make moneyby destroying or taking the livesof those below , is evident throughout history, but perhaps particularly so in todays financialcrisis. From American taxpayer money being used to bail out financial institutions even whilemany taxpayers found themselves without employment and forced out of their homes, to theCypriot banking crisis which saw account holders locked out of their accounts or allowed towithdraw only small amounts of money in increments with unemployment over 14%, all the whilethe ruling elite discussed what portion of public money could be seized to secure more loans. AsJensen elaborates in his book Endgame, Within this culture, economicsnot community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itselfdrives social decisions.
http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/1-Premises.htmhttp://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/1-Premises.htmhttp://www.canada.com/business/Canada+Revenue+Agency+create+SWAT+team+help+fight+evasion/8356169/story.htmlhttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/conservatives-budget-to-reset-retirement-at-age-67/article4097398/http://envirolaw.com/slash-burn-drastic-cuts-navigable-waters-protection-act/http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/30/science-cuts-muzzling-canada-conservatives_n_3112348.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/09/usa-homeless-numbers-spending-cutshttp://www.cnbc.com/id/100691168http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/05/is-the-real-us-unemployment-rate-11-3-or-7-5-a-new-goldman-sachs-study-offers-an-answer/http://moneymorning.com/2013/04/05/u-s-jobs-report-how-unemployment-is-really-14/http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A7-2013-0057&language=ENhttp://www.cnbc.com/id/48883704http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/03/26/financial-crisis-health-disease-The%20suicide_n_2959506.htmlhttp://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rise_up_or_die_20130519/


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The economy is a failed experiment no more or less utopian than the belief that authoritarian ruleis required to manage communities in a sustainable and egalitarian way but we cannot see clear to challenge the status quo in a meaningful way. We embrace the evil we know for fear of theunknown, which might be understandable but for the fact that history and current events shouldbe enough to demonstrate that we ought to at least to consider the alternatives. The semi-popular notion that collecting more money through taxes may help to fund ailing social programs neglects

the fact that we are funding a dysfunctional machine, or a well-oiled perfectly functioningmachine dependent on your perspective. If governments priority was to fund socialprogramming- it would, but where do the cuts happen first in so-called hard times?

Hardly anyone would disagree that these are desperate times. What is stunning is how easily thepublic is persuaded by government and mainstream media claims that weve turned a corner, or are about to, and continue to be willing to put all of our money and faith into an inherently corruptand irreparably broken system. Its a mark of desperation but also willful ignorance that can onlybe explained by cognitive dissonance. Faced with the reality that our governments have

prioritized corporate and banking interests over public interests, but that a democraticgovernment is the best form of representative government, we must pin all of our hopes on thenext political candidate or party to put the public interests first. In the words of George Orwell, if you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself , so I am going to say out loud whatso many of us know to be true but are afraid to acknowledge- we cannot trust government to fix the situation . In fact, the only thing that we can trust is that our governments will do whatever ittakes to preserve their power and that does not involve engaging in meaningful dialogue with thepublic, let alone direct action as a result of such a conversation. Its not personal; its how thesystem works.

You may have cottoned on to the fact that what I am suggesting as our only real alternative is

anarchism, and some of you may be starting to squirm in your chairs. Please, bear with me-anarchism is not what youve been led to believe anymore than you can believe governmentwhen it tells you that the problem is the solution. But there has been a remarkable and sustainedpublic relations campaign that has even anarchists refusing to identify themselves as such. In aninterview with Ziga Vodovnik, renowned historian Howard Zinn observed that, The termanarchism has become associated with two phenomena with which real anarchists dont want toassociate themselves with. One is violence, and the other is disorder or chaos. The popular conception of anarchism is on the one hand bomb-throwing and terrorism, and on the other handno rules, no regulations, no discipline, everybody does what they want, confusion, etc. That iswhy there is a reluctance to use the term anarchism.

I would be hard-pressed to disagree that public opinion favours the notion that anarchism is adestructive, violent, and chaotic movement. Its quite simply wrong though, no matter howwidespread the belief, as many of our collective thoughts have proven to be. Inuncharacteristically simple terms, Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics(Emeritus) at MIT describes anarchism as, a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in humanlife over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, andit asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in aposition of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have togive a reason for it, a justification. And if they cant justify that authority and power and control,which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by somethingmore free and just.
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I suspect that the aversion to anarchism can be attributed not to a single lie though, but to aseries of them that we have been conditioned to believe, ironically while holding the dissonantview that democracy is the hallmark of an evolved society: people cant be trusted, people cantorganize without a leader, people are inherently selfish, violent, and unable to reach theconsensus required to accomplish large goals. These truisms dont apply to you , of course, but toyour neighbour, or those persons of a different race, economic status, educational background,sexual identity, religion, political affiliation- whatever difference is easiest for you to distrust. Surewe think it best for everyone to have a voice, but

The fact is that people organize selflessly without authoritarian intervention all the time. We seethis in everything from people organizing to clean up trash in their communities and on the side of the highway, local fundraising activities to improve community infrastructure, community buildingefforts, financial support of a local family in crisis, and much more. Perhaps nowhere is it moreobvious than in times of emergency though. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the largest

Atlantic hurricane in history, Occupy Sandy volunteers (an off-shoot of the wider Occupymovement) were not only some of the first on the scene but also the most effective organizers asreported by the New York Times (and multiple other media outlets) in their article, Where FEMAFell Short, Occupy Sandy was There . Indeed while critics of the Occupy movement described itas unorganized and ineffective, the Occupy movement has continued to mobilize volunteers,raise funds, and distribute donations across a multitude of communities in crisis.

Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) is a nongovernmental organization that sees doctors travel allover the world, frequently into dangerous conflict zones, risking their lives to save others. Whywould doctors of all people, who earn a considerable wage working in hospitals and privatepractice, leave the comfort and safety of their homes to help strangers- sometimes strangers withwhom they disagree with completely on ideological grounds- potentially never to return?

Although government and media would have us believe that it is the few, those exceptionalhuman beings who warrant special interest stories, who are willing to go to great lengths to helpanother almost any of us would answer a direct call to assist.

Would there be crime in an anarchist society? No doubt. There is crime now, in an authoritariansociety. Funnily enough, declaring something illegal and setting punishments ranging fromincarceration to murder (or as the Americans prefer to call it, capital punishment) has notdeterred criminals. But the notion that more people would steal or commit murder if it wasntillegal is nonsensical. I havent personally killed anyone not because Im not allowed to or fear punishment so much as that it would be wrong. I dont operate on the assumption that this makesme exceptional- I suspect that my neighbour, and yours, and the person without neighbours,have the same moral compass. If we were to use the case of murder as an example,governments are responsible for more deaths worldwide (generally in pursuit of resourcesacquisition, or power) than all individual cases taken together. Yet governments remain immuneto prosecution, even when evidence exists that those acts were committed in contravention of international law. Not only that, regardless of your own personal values, you are required tofinance these actions with a portion of your daily wage.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressureto make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisionsand to consume, says Chomsky of our modern world. Key in this statement is the silent pactbetween government and people. Their job is to tell us why we need them and ours is to believethem, no matter the incongruence. But from the Arab Spring, to the Occupy and Idle No Moremovements, to the current protests in Turkey (and too many others to list here) people are wakingu to the realization that overnments cannot be trusted, and that re resentative democrac
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exists more in the streets than in boardrooms and back rooms. The violent backlash againstthese movements is evidence that governments are concerned but not to the degree that theywont continue to favour private interests, from opening the public purse for private consumptionto loosening regulations that would make corporations accountable, all the while tighteningcontrol of individual liberties. They are not truly frightened because they know we wontdismantle the system, well just elect new players to the game.

While the problem of government may seem insurmountable and we will undoubtedly have toexist alongside it for some time to come, there are definite steps that we can take towardsfreedom, perhaps none more important than to credit ourselves with the power imbued in us. Wecan think for ourselves- start questioning authority, require reasoning over dictates. Of mediareports, we can ask ourselves who are the stakeholders in this story? Challenge authority whenit doesnt make sense, even if it involves breaking the rules. Support other rule breakers- divideand conquer remains one of the surest ways to victory and our governments make frequent useof this tool. Especially support the rule-breakers when they flout absurd regulations- like offeringyou farm fresh eggs in an area that doesnt approve of farm fresh eggs, or harvesting rainwater, or not asking permission to build a deck in their backyard, or building that deck out of milk cartons if

they so choose.

Determine what it is that you really need, and then see if you (or a neighbour) cant supply thatneed. If you can afford to invest in alternative energy- do it, build a greenhouse or garden toprovide your own produce, support a local farmer by buying direct, pay someone local- better yet,trade services or goods. The less money you need to support yourself, the less involved you willneed to be in the cash economy, and the less money you will pay in taxes. Form or supportcommunity cooperatives. Again- especially support those community cooperatives if governmentshows up with a stick because those organizations havent met all of the guidelines. Protest,

loudly and often, where abuses occur. Protest not just the irreparable damage to our planet butevery abuse that occurs in your name as though someone had attached a banner bearing your personal endorsement- because it is no less than that . There are considerably more ways toreclaim our power than there are ways to subjugate us.

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taking back the reigns: how anarchism may save us - brandee eubank

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