this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Nah, it's cool af
Actions can be both cool and adventurist at the same time. For example, was the assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd, the apartheid president of South Africa, cool? Yes it was. It was incredibly brave and the morally correct thing to do. Was it also adventurist? Unfortunately also yes, as the assassination of Verwoerd did not lead to the collapse of apartheid, it continued for decades afterwards. There was no solid plan for what came after, Verwoerd's assassin (Tsafendas) planned to flee the country and seek refuge in Cuba or Greece. While the actions Tsafendas took were commendable, deserve praise, and came at a great personal sacrifice (of being tortured for the rest of his life in prison), unfortunately they did not lead to his desired goal. Adventuristic violence is a very risky strategy that rarely leads to the desired outcomes. This is why many communists throughout history have spoken and written about the dangers of adventurism. I think the only recent example of successful adventurism was the assassination of Shinzo Abe.
If we're gonna condemn every piece of action that destroys tools of oppression as adventurist nothing will be left but book clubs. There's a genocide going on. Shit like this is long long overdue.
Accurately labeling an action as adventurist is not a moral condemnation, but a tactical one
Doing nothing that actually harms the oppressors is the only good tactics.
You know what really harms the oppressors, mass organizing.
You don't see the Czars around anymore do you?
Good thing the two aren't mutually exclusive.
There's literally someone in this thread involved in Portland area organizing saying this kinda shit has been counterproductive to larger organizing efforts. There's a reason Lenin criticized Adventurism.
I would point out you yourself are just posting rn, if you think this shit is so rad why not go out and [redacted]?
No, they said that anarchists showed up uninvited and started smashing up shit. And that absolutely is counterproductive. But diversity of tactics isn't, quite the opposite.
I would pont out that you have zero idea about what i am doing irl and you will continue to have zero idea about it.
This applies to me equally
People need to follow Palestine Action as an example. Palestine Action actually goes after the factories making drone and other military parts as well as various financial and legal offices supporting those weapons manufacturers. Some dude sneaking into a factory to smash F-35 engine parts is awesome. Palestine Action smashing the windows of banks and vandalizing law offices to the point where the law office send a letter to Palestine Action capitulating to their demands and dropping the weapons manufacturer as a client is awesome. But smashing the windows of frat houses? How the hell does that help Palestinians in any way? A more cynical reading would say that they just want to fuck shit up and are using the Palestinian cause as a cover to boost leftist street cred. Yes, setting pigmobiles on fire is awesome, but it doesn't directly help the Palestinian cause in the same way smashing drone parts that are being directly shipped to the Zionist entity is.
I agree with the frathouse and palestine action part, but i don't agree that harming the genocidal US state - even with something as "simple" as lighting some cars on fire - isn't helping.
Good thing nobody is doing that. What people are saying is that combating these tools of oppression requires actual mass organizing, not dispersed acts of terror by isolated individuals or small cells. Hence why everyone here supports the direct action of the marches and encampments and occupations since those can facilitate broader organizing but are skeptical of some random anarchist kid burning some cop cars that will be replaced in a week.
Well then they will be burned next week as well. And the week after. And after.
Not if they throw your ass in jail, which they probably will eventually if you keep doing the exact same action over and over again.
I don't know where you were in the last two weeks but you absolutely don't have to torch cop cars in order to get thrown in jails.
Yeah but you'll probably get out of jail quicker if you get arrested for protesting rather than domestic terrorism. Also the pool of people willing to do domestic terrorism is way smaller than the pool of people willing to attend a march or encampment so you're gonna burn through that population a lot quicker.
You're acting as if it would become a serious threat the state wouldn't just make it "domestic terrorism" to participate even peaceful pro-palestine rallies.
If things got to that point I'd assume there'd be a left movement well organized enough to mount some kind of coordinated armed struggle, at which point I think burning cop cars would be a more viable tactic. It's the fact this was some isolated rando doing this that I take issue with, not the action itself.
Just going by the historical examples the state will preemptively do it. Hope i will be wrong.
You can't type out a comment and put "disengage" at the end. You either just say "disengage" and leave it or you say your peace and leave the conversation open.
Something can be morally good and strategically ineffective at the same time.
It's really not complicated. The burning of police cars is not the problem. Burning police cars is a show of power. If an organized communist party is showing power then it is good. If anti-communist individualists are doing a show of power, then it is bad.
You're really showing your true colors by making a dozen salty posts about why you can't see that anticommunists showing power is a bad thing.
Burning police cars is a show of power to you, since you are not thinking apart from ML panels. To me and most anarchists burning police cars is a way to make it way more expensive to the state to participate in genocide in any way we can.
In another "salty post" i already clarified that if they are not coordinating their stuff with communists, fuck them. But if burning cop cars is indeed not the problem why do i have to make a dozen salty posts explaining that burning cop cars isn't a problem? Why can't y'all chalk this up as a broken clock being accidentally right?
the insurance payments on these burned old junker training vehicles may actually give PPB a bigger budget to purchase new and fancy weapons and vehicles to replace these old junkers.
this action may end up increasing the power of PPB to project force on the community fighting for divestment from genocide in the long run. the budget office of the PPB and the police chief are probably secretly happy this happened.
just FYI.
K
Direct action is adventurist, internet posting is praxis. K.
Yes that's really a good summation of the analysis people here are presenting, thank you for engaging in good faith discourse.
“Direct action” can absolutely be adventurist, what?
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