Walk don't run with Molotov's
Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia - A molotov cocktail was thrown at the home of Kampung Tunku state assemblyman Datuk Dr Wong Sai Hou around 3:45 am Sunday morning. His wife, Datin Jennifer Wong, and her maid (name unknown), who were awake at the time, were the only ones home. After hearing the explosion they ran outside to see the roof and porch on fire. They were able to extinguish the blaze quickly with a garden hose. Although Dr. Wong claimed "I can’t think of any reason that anyone may have for doing this as I don’t have any enemies," some people think that squatters whom the government is forcibly relocating may be responsible.
November 29, 2005 05:40 AM
lema_oda — Further thoughts on dealing with right-wingers
i went for a walk tonight because i needed some exercise and i did some thinking about this issue.
i think the best course of action for us is to simply ignore the right-wingers who try to get a reaction out of us and drag us (albeit with our complicity) into heated, loud, potentially violent confrontations with them by giving us the finger, saying "fuck you," saying that we're "pathetic" repeatedly like a mantra, or who trot out the pro-war clichés about the gassing of the Kurds, etc. (This is what i meant when i wrote in an earlier comment on Liz's LJ that we have been taking their bait.) i don't think we have anything to gain from these encounters although i recognize they allow us to vent the anger we feel at the stupidity, ignorance, dysfuntionality and oppression that pervades our society. Unfortunately, the more alcohol-fueled and testosterone-saturated right-wingers are not interested in having serious, intelligent, respectful discussions with us in which we have a civil exchanges of views and explore why we feel the way we do about these divisive and contentious issues. Instead they're like schoolyard bullies who enjoy starting fights and throwing their weight around at people they think are "weak." (Although it shows how stupid they are that they confront a crowd of several dozen people.) This is typical of the macho, authoritarian, "might-makes-right" mentality of the people who support the war in Iraq, militarism, force as a solution to problems and Bush. (Anarchists and the left are not going to change the views of these hardcore people; what may influence them will be the views of paleo-conservatives and libertarians, as represented by such websites as antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com and magazines such as The American Conservative.)
We should keep moving rather than stopping to react to their taunts, or turn our back on them if we're not yet ready to keep moving. Don't say "leave us alone," or anything like that, though, because that only incites them since it is part of the reaction they want, and gives them hope for more. By moving on or turning our back on them, we're actually frustrating them because we're depriving them of what they want, which is a confrontation with us, something they need in order to feel "brave" and "important" in their pathetic minds. If they persist, we should push them or kick them to get them to leave us alone -- again the opposite of what they're expecting from us and it's what bullies deserve -- and then get moving. i'm serious about this. (Legally this is battery, but use situational awareness; i.e. make sure there aren't any cops around, and once you do it, meld into the crowd of your fellow protestors, making it harder to find you. Maybe mask up and then remove your bandanna after you meld into the crowd.)
Obviously, if someone wants to have a serious and civil discussion about the war, or whatever the issue may be, then by all means engage with them. These people could at times, however, be few and far between.
We need a flyer that explains concisely and cogently why we're against the war to hand to people who may support it, but whose minds could in the longrun be changed with exposure to reason and facts. (These most likely will be the people watching us but not trying to drag us into a confrontation.) We should continue to have anarchist literature against the war to hand out, also. i feel it's important for us as anarchists to take every opportunity to get our ideas out there, but at the same time we need to recognize that not everyone is prepared to grapple with anti-authoritarian perspectives, particularly people whose minds are awash in authoritarianism, so we need at least one flyer that we can give them along with the anarchist flyers that may be more suited to their current intellectual comfort level. We missed a tremendous opportunity Saturday night by not heavily flyering everywhere we went. i feel real contempt for many of the people we saw downtown, even the ones who didn't taunt us or bait us; they're idiots, yet part of me, now that i've calmed down and come off the high i always feel after our actions, truly believes they're not idiots all the time. Who knows? They could read some flyers, get exposed to some new ideas and have a germ of doubt planted in their minds about what they're being told by the State and the corporate-controlled media and about the surety of their beliefs. This is the beginning of hope and the possibilities for positive change.
i guess this sense of optimism is part of the sense of optimism i feel as an anarchist about humanity. Bourgeois society presumes that the majority of people are stupid and need leaders/authority figures and authoritarian and hierarahical social structures in order to have a society that isn't, as Thomas Hobbes said, in a perpetual "condition of war of everyone against everyone" in which our lives are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." As an anarchist i believe that people are capable of living peaceably and productively with each other on the basis of equality, liberty, autonomy and cooperation and without authorities and hierarchy. What is hindering us from realizing this next stage of human development is both our current social structures and the fact that many people are ignorant, but not stupid. They're capable of learning, i.e. the opposite of stupid, which implies an inability to learn, but lack knowledge, i.e. live in a state of ignorance. So one of our tasks as anarchists always, always is to struggle against ignorance, in ourselves and others.
LOVE AND HUGS TO EVERYONE WHO READS THIS. From Anarchoblogs
November 29, 2005 05:40 AM
lema_oda — Further thoughts on dealing with right-wingers
i went for a walk tonight because i needed some exercise and i did some thinking about this issue.
i think the best course of action for us is to simply ignore the right-wingers who try to get a reaction out of us and drag us (albeit with our complicity) into heated, loud, potentially violent confrontations with them by giving us the finger, saying "fuck you," saying that we're "pathetic" repeatedly like a mantra, or who trot out the pro-war clichés about the gassing of the Kurds, etc. (This is what i meant when i wrote in an earlier comment on Liz's LJ that we have been taking their bait.) i don't think we have anything to gain from these encounters although i recognize they allow us to vent the anger we feel at the stupidity, ignorance, dysfuntionality and oppression that pervades our society. Unfortunately, the more alcohol-fueled and testosterone-saturated right-wingers are not interested in having serious, intelligent, respectful discussions with us in which we have a civil exchanges of views and explore why we feel the way we do about these divisive and contentious issues. Instead they're like schoolyard bullies who enjoy starting fights and throwing their weight around at people they think are "weak." (Although it shows how stupid they are that they confront a crowd of several dozen people.) This is typical of the macho, authoritarian, "might-makes-right" mentality of the people who support the war in Iraq, militarism, force as a solution to problems and Bush. (Anarchists and the left are not going to change the views of these hardcore people; what may influence them will be the views of paleo-conservatives and libertarians, as represented by such websites as antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com and magazines such as The American Conservative.)
We should keep moving rather than stopping to react to their taunts, or turn our back on them if we're not yet ready to keep moving. Don't say "leave us alone," or anything like that, though, because that only incites them since it is part of the reaction they want, and gives them hope for more. By moving on or turning our back on them, we're actually frustrating them because we're depriving them of what they want, which is a confrontation with us, something they need in order to feel "brave" and "important" in their pathetic minds. If they persist, we should push them or kick them to get them to leave us alone -- again the opposite of what they're expecting from us and it's what bullies deserve -- and then get moving. i'm serious about this. (Legally this is battery, but use situational awareness; i.e. make sure there aren't any cops around, and once you do it, meld into the crowd of your fellow protestors, making it harder to find you. Maybe mask up and then remove your bandanna after you meld into the crowd.)
Obviously, if someone wants to have a serious and civil discussion about the war, or whatever the issue may be, then by all means engage with them. These people could at times, however, be few and far between.
We need a flyer that explains concisely and cogently why we're against the war to hand to people who may support it, but whose minds could in the longrun be changed with exposure to reason and facts. (These most likely will be the people watching us but not trying to drag us into a confrontation.) We should continue to have anarchist literature against the war to hand out, also. i feel it's important for us as anarchists to take every opportunity to get our ideas out there, but at the same time we need to recognize that not everyone is prepared to grapple with anti-authoritarian perspectives, particularly people whose minds are awash in authoritarianism, so we need at least one flyer that we can give them along with the anarchist flyers that may be more suited to their current intellectual comfort level. We missed a tremendous opportunity Saturday night by not heavily flyering everywhere we went. i feel real contempt for many of the people we saw downtown, even the ones who didn't taunt us or bait us; they're idiots, yet part of me, now that i've calmed down and come off the high i always feel after our actions, truly believes they're not idiots all the time. Who knows? They could read some flyers, get exposed to some new ideas and have a germ of doubt planted in their minds about what they're being told by the State and the corporate-controlled media and about the surety of their beliefs. This is the beginning of hope and the possibilities for positive change.
i guess this sense of optimism is part of the sense of optimism i feel as an anarchist about humanity. Bourgeois society presumes that the majority of people are stupid and need leaders/authority figures and authoritarian and hierarahical social structures in order to have a society that isn't, as Thomas Hobbes said, in a perpetual "condition of war of everyone against everyone" in which our lives are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." As an anarchist i believe that people are capable of living peaceably and productively with each other on the basis of equality, liberty, autonomy and cooperation and without authorities and hierarchy. What is hindering us from realizing this next stage of human development is both our current social structures and the fact that many people are ignorant, but not stupid. They're capable of learning, i.e. the opposite of stupid, which implies an inability to learn, but lack knowledge, i.e. live in a state of ignorance. So one of our tasks as anarchists always, always is to struggle against ignorance, in ourselves and others.
LOVE AND HUGS TO EVERYONE WHO READS THIS. From Anarchoblogs
posted by professor rat at 7:51 AM
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