Anarchism 1

What is the way forward?

Since the riots of 2011 - such as they were - the government has made sure that people are afraid of standing up and fighting back. But that is what it will take.

I do not condone burning down other people's houses and belongings, that's just divide and rule. Working class people should not be fighting each other. 

Unfortunately it seems increasingly clear that we have a government that wants to do nothing more than assault ordinary people, laughing like the cruellest bully as it gets away with this in plain sight. People stand back while the poorest are kicked and punched by a vicious bully that revels in the spotlight as it does so, daring itself to go even harder knowing that we, apparently, lack the spine to do anything. 

On the fringes of our society, people are falling apart. Mental health problems born of pressure split families, increasing workloads and social stresses and isolation induce those problems into a nightmare feedback loop. Yet the media looks the other way, painting a selective picture of a Britain unrecognisable to anyone with a conscience. 

It is painfully clear that our systems have failed us. They are controlled by a neo feudal capitalist aristocracy; middle men for corporate bottom lines and trans-national agendas that only ever exploit. Yet people seem to be waiting for a solution that never comes. They look to old men like Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders (a 74 year old white man ffs). These people are still participants in a system that, by virtue of that participation, will persist. That system needs to be torn down. There is no other way.

The most common response is: what do you replace it with. This is actually irrelevant. If you are sick and your doctor has prescribed a medicine that is exacerbating the problem you do not stick with that medicine if an alternative is not readily available, you get off that medicine. We are sick, our society is falling apart. 

It is predicated on unsustainable principles that set people against each other: in a society that compels people to believe in 'winners and losers', what provision is made for the loser? None of course, since that would be the antithesis of this system. 

Anarchism calls on people to question the authority that is imposed upon us, without consent. People are trained to believe that voting - parliamentary democracy - is that consent. They are told that not voting is akin to surrender to fascism; people are abused by propaganda that positions fathers and grandfathers, as soldiers in the wars (equally exploited), against them, shaming them into compliance. We must question these ideas and reject those that are found wanting. 

It is of paramount importance that we reject and remove capitalism, but the argument is not based on what to replace it with. I am not an authority and I do not seek to be. I seek only to be part of the discussion and to offer an equal voice in the effort to remove capitalism and instil a better system. It is not about replacing capitalism, it is about empowering people to have control over their lives and their aspirations and removing those systems that have no legitimacy: the sorceries of finance for example. Do we even need money?

The greatest mischief that has been done to us is to convince us we need others to tell us what to do and how to live, and to profit from that position. I do not grant that chinless wonders in Westminstershire are expert over my needs and I do not legitimise their efforts to control me, and neither should you.