Defending Anarchy

ETS!,

Mike Runion's letter in issue #14 invites a good response. "Anarchy in my mind is a very tired and useless philosophy," he writes, without further comment. Unfortunately, Mike doesn't specify what he means by "anarchy." I suspect he's absorbed the demonized version of "anarchy" propagated by those in power to justify the hierarchical and oppressive system in which we live. We all know that story--rule by the mob, crude and random acts of violence, etc.

What he probably doesn't know is that "anarchy" is a form of social organization that is, arguably, the most enlightened and the most appropriate for both small-scale, rural, and advanced industrial societies. (Examples include the early Israeli kibbutzim and Barcelona after the Anarchist Revolution of 1936.)

Elements of anarchy inform all cultures--from the spontaneous, creative impulses that spring uncoerced from individuals, to those democratic institutions where power is shared collectively among members (co-ops, etc.).

Rather than being "tired and useless," I would counter that anarchy is the fresh approach to politics needed in an era where both global capitalism and state socialism have each failed to promote the kind of society that fulfills the best impulses in all of us. For more information, see the essay on anarchism by Howard Zinn in the recently published Howard Zinn Reader.

--Colin Wright, Seattle

Day 18, Mile 6315

Mary Laveau was a voodoo goddess. Her grave, located near the French Quarter, is a shrine. Each day new tokens are laid nearby: coins, flowers, bottled water, gold-foil wrapped bricks. In New Orleans the dead have power.

Mary's tomb is ten-feet tall and several wide, constructed above ground of cement with an engraved granite faceplate. Her believers have covered it with X's, marked with a fingernail or rock into the soft, crumbling stone. They represent wishes made. A circled X indicates a wish granted. Very few X's are circled.The cemetery is a miniature city of these monuments, packed tightly into chaotic rows, a maze of alleys and small, windowless buildings. Some are even surrounded by spiked wrought-iron fence, defending a few square feet of grass from eternal neighbors and earthly interlopers.

We stop at the monument for Dr. John, a black doctor said to have The Power. The sides of his plaster casket are covered with X's, some of them blood red. I put my hand on the pitted cement. Close my eyes. Try to feel his power. With my right thumb, I scratch a tiny X, no bigger than a mosquito-bite pacifier. But I forget to make a wish. May Doctor J. have mercy on my soul.But will the spirits have mercy on Madam Laveau's, a small Burbon Street boutique? The place sells chicken feet, wooden masks, and magic herbs to the drunken frat boys and amused yuppie tourists who wander in. Whether or not voodoo is real, it seems a bad idea to sell the secrets of the Living Dead to moneyed gawkers.

--Matt Asher, New Orleans

More on Anarchy

ETS!,

You're right-the bastard Florida fuck Mike Runion inspired this anarchist to write in and explain that ol' Mike is the one who is "tired and useless" for believing that one day an honest politician will come along and straighten everything out, and that corporations will put a lid on their corruption and greed. He's also "tired and useless" for not reading about anarchy and accepting what capitalists and communists say on the issue. If he would put down his Bud Lite and find out, he'd see anarchy finds its practical expression through syndicalism, which creates a direct democracy instead of a representative one. At least ol' fun lovin' Mike is grasping for answers-which puts him ahead of the sleepyheads who might catch a little Peter Jennings or Brokaw at six...P.S. As for you, Geov, your journalistic endeavors are great and so are you-but we all make mistakes. Dammit, if I want to use a gun for a paperweight I should be able to whether it's a particularly brilliant idea or not. Besides, 911 and baseball bats just aren't terribly effective for late night, uninvited guests! The only reason I don't have a gun is because I'm too cheap and lazy.

Yer pal,

--Benjamin F., Seattle

G.P. replies: Whatever their other uses, guns aren't too effective for uninvited guests, either; they're far more likely, on average, to kill family members than intruders. And assuming that M.R. hasn't read anything about anarchism--he didn't say--is just the sort of arrogance that alienates most people and ensures that the perspectives of anarchists (and lots of other politically marginalized folks) are rarely heard.

Bonds Revisited

Dear Educational Testing Service (ETS!),

I don't want to beat a dead horse, and I'd be willing to let Dave Albergine have the last word on bonds as a source of government funding. But his letter (ETS! #2-15, Dec. 16, 1997) raises a larger issue that needs attention.

The core of his argument lies in the statement that "those who have cash (to loan or buy bonds with) will always be [emphasis added] in a better position than those who don't." This reveals the triumph of capitalist ideology: convincing people in their bones that an artificial and unnecessary situation is natural, inevitable, eternal.

The fact is, vast inequalities of wealth, and the control they give people over economic and political decisions, are neither natural nor necessary. And one way to go about reducing them is to examine precisely those mechanisms whereby wealth expands and perpetuates itself at the expense of society at large.

It is not a question of "virtue" and "vice" (moral categories?), but of structural relations that exacerbate inequality. If bonds are, as Dave Albergine believes, the "messenger," then never was there a more appropriate application of the clichi, "The medium is the message."

--Davis Oldham, Seattle

Final Thoughts

Here are some deep thoughts, based on my observations of America and her people.

It doesn't matter where you live; you won't take advantage of it--we met a middle-aged guy living an hour from the Grand Canyon who hadn't been since he was 8 (and living elsewhere). We met people in the desert who never explored it, and people near mountains who never hiked. Most seem to get sucked into a routine--job, TV, bars, family--and that's it.

There may have been a time when the main drags of medium-sized towns all had different restaurants and stores, but no longer: Burger King, McDonalds, Wendy's Arby's, Taco Bell, Perkins. If you are in the South, Waffle House. In the West, Jack in the Box. Local flavor means more sugar in the Coke syrup.

America is still empty. Even along the Eastern Seaboard, there are large unpopulated areas: forests, fields, endless farms. Taking the right path, you could probably hike from one coast to the other without seeing another human. You could definitely do it from top-to-bottom, following the Rockies or Appalachians.

There are a lot of towns which need a good free weekly. Enough said.

--Matt Asher, back in Seattle