How Nonviolence Protects the State: Footnote 121 – Stick it to the Manarchy

For example, Robin Morgan, The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989). The Rock Block Collective’s pamphlet, Stick it to the Manarchy (Decentralized publication and distribution, 2001), makes valid criticisms against machismo in white anarchist circles, but suggests that militancy itself is macho, and that women, people of color, and other oppressed groups are somehow too fragile to participate in violent revolution.

Peter can't read and reads what he wants into things people say. Also, before I get into the critique of this footnote, I need to make it clear that, when Peter uses anarchist sources, he always finds ones that he disagrees with and critiques in the text and footnotes. This one makes the claim in the text saying that:

Pacifists and reformist feminists have often charged that it is militant activists who are sexist. In many specific cases, the accusation has been valid. But the criticism is frequently broadened to suggest that the use of violent activism itself is sexist, masculine, or otherwise privileged.

Which is true, but it's also not the total story.

So I looked for Stick it to the Manarchy (it's... whatever).

But I think we need to take this paragraph in conjunction with the above:

To build the movement we must be more than merely relentlessly physically rugged, devoted to the cause, self-sacrificial, and militant. Those who cannot afford – monetarily, physically, or emotionally – to risk arrest, lawsuits, of physical assault are excluded from this club. This means that many women, people of color, the young and elderly, and the economically disadvantaged do not have what it takes to participate in the manarchist revolution. Is this a revolution to benefit the participants who are mostly middle/upper class white males, or is this a revolution of young warriors sacrificing themselves for the good of the women and children they exclude? Both are unacceptable.

A key phrase: “we must be more than relentlessly physically rugged...”

This phrase indicates that they are okay with these actions taking place, not that they don't want them to happen. However, what they wanted is for there to be more options available and for people to do more than the stereotypically macho ways of behaving.

They then state that “those who cannot afford ... to risk arrest, lawsuits, [or] physical assault are excluded from this club.” This is also true, which Peter ignores. They are not saying, as Peter indicates in his footnote, that any person from these marginalised groups is “somehow too fragile” (the fact that he says “somehow” indicates that he isn't even thinking of how these people might be impacted, such as many of them being core parts of ensuring their families' survival, which thus means that many of them have been socialised to be more risk averse).

They also state:

Marching in the Black Bloc we have found many are tough enough to get hit on the head, but not open enough to say hello, let alone communicate tactical ideas, need, or feelings. This embodies the typical male gender role.

Which, again, highlights that we need far more than just the aggressive tactics that a lot of manarchists embody and promote.

Hell, earlier? And this is something that Peter sort of snidely discusses... they say this:

In this critique, Slip raises an important point about the need for militancy, defiance, and fundamental subversion of the system. Yet, his analysis around “NO COMPROMISE” remains problematic. In a capitalist system, we all must compromise. No one is perfect, and we are all implicated with the oppression that this system is built on. Some are more implicated and privileged than others are. It's ironic that the more privileged are often the ones who make the call for “no compromise” at mass actions. We should question who is able to “not compromise” at large demonstrations. For example, as four white, college students, it's pretty easy for us to be militants at mass actions. In addition to easy access to lawyers, the cops and courts treat us better than classes of people who are traditionally victimized. It is much harder for people of color, the economically disadvantaged, and people who are not physically capable of intense physical confrontation to take such a position.

This is largely true, but this is one of the parts where I have some degree of disagreement with them, and that disagreement stems from the following sentence:

In a capitalist system, we all must compromise. No one is perfect, and we are all implicated with the oppression that this system is built on.

That is nonsensical and doesn't explain why we should compromise, as the implications are that we should compromise with the state to ensure our continued survival... which is counter-intuitive. I think it's that these four people, at least when they wrote this, have little understanding of what militancy can be and that we should compromise as little as possible. The fact that we do should be interrogated, particularly when we choose to do it and how we do it... They're missing that aspect.

But so is Peter because he doesn't even engage with what they actually wrote and insists that they claimed that they had said people were “too fragile” when they didn't.

(Ironically, shitbag Wolfi Landstreicher sent them a response which they should've thrown in a bin because we shouldn't engage with an anti-feminist, which has been known for years. Granted, they also responded, so.)