Welcome everyone to another edition of The Partisan!
I am your host, Phisto Sobanii, here with the second installment of our series Partisan Heroes. On the show today we’ll be highlighting one Gian Piero de Bellis. Known to me as the man behind Panarchy.org (“A Gateway to Selected Documents and Websites”) he recently published a work called “The Saint-Imier Gathering (19-23 July 2023).” You can read Part I and II here.
In July of this year a large group of “anti-authoritarians” gathered and made total idiots of themselves. I won’t reinvent the wheel here, as you can read de Bellis’ words for yourself, but let’s just say anyone familiar with the stupidity of groups like ANTIFA or the madness of places like Seattle and Portland will instantly understand the kind of thing I’m talking about.
And that’s the thing that drives me crazy about the philosophy I try to espouse in deed and word: anarchists as a whole are fucking morons. Bellis, to his endless credit, has solved this problem with the phrase “anarchism without anarchists.”
Now before you roll your eyes and type a five page paper single spaced on whatever axe you grind at the mention of “anarchism” kindly stay your righteousness for a moment and hear me out. The rising global totalitarian states (as described by such folks as N.S. Lyons here and C.J. Hopkins here) seek to control our thought, our movements, the very meaning of all words we speak to express anything and everything. Of course anarchism has been co-opted by the kinds of folks de Bellis describes:
folk anarchists: they impersonate the image of the anarchist as portrayed by the state: chaotic, disorganised, disrespectful, uncivilised, violent, dirtying the walls with graffiti, misusing, or misappropriating other people resources, etc. To offer just an example of uncivilised behaviour, during the Saint-Imier gathering, the crossing of the railway line while a train was approaching led to the interruption of the regular traffic on the line and a consequent disruption that lasted for days. No need here to pinpoint to other specific unpleasant occurrences that also took place.
fake anarchists: they are a sort of radical chic anarchists, who consider themselves quite superior to the common people because they are engaged in a political movement that they qualify as revolutionary of the extreme left. They ignore that the classic anarchists abhorred politics and all aspects related to it, and that left and right are party collocations in a state parliament and so are categories that have nothing to do with anarchy.
fraudulent anarchists: they are the real infiltrators and provocateurs, the true pillars of the state, those who commit gratuitous acts of violence and, in so doing, justify the existence of the Big Brother State as the supposed guarantor of peace and security for all.
I follow a wide variety of people on Substack and see these same kinds of people all over the place. It’s not just anarchism, but any -ism or -ist that once was useful in describing a group’s views. We’re all in the various stages of totalitarian capture. Diversity, whatever the elites and their mobs might claim, is being eliminated in favor of subservience to The Party, the State, whatever one wishes to name it.
This monster, this Old One, is coming for us all and the only hope any of us have is recognizing the fact and acting upon it with everything we got. The only true battle is libertarian vs. authoritarian and it’s one where we fight or we die.
In the interest of solidarity and sparking ideas with which we can each bring to our families and communities and do good work I wish to highlight Part II of de Bellis’ piece. In it he describes what these totalitarian fools favor and, with the kind of negation that gave anarchism its name, what we should consider being for.
It is, in brief, self-governance. What better way to fight back?
I find much to appreciate in Part II, as I think you will as well. Let me know what you think in the comments. Or don’t. I won’t tell you what to do.
In conclusion, I simply thank you for your time and kindness in reading what I have to say. As a token of my esteem and proof of fealty to the battle so described above I say without qualification or hesitation: ANARCHISM WITHOUT ANARCHISTS!
That reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's "Church of Jesus Christ without Jesus Christ" for whom the protagonist, Mr. Motes was an evangelist. I appreciate your writing style.
"whatever the elites and their mobs might claim..." Do elites have mobs?
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Well, my good man, it looks like good stuff. Maybe you are a little too quick at jumping to conclusions? This writing is an attempt to assess, an attempt to understand where we are. That is a good project, I applaud you. I will keep reading and let you know when I really start to hate you!!!!# (!!!!# mean "joke" in my language/lingo)