Bay Area National Anarchists

This email is to inform you of a public BANA meeting on July 5th from
2-5 pm in Dublin.

The meeting is looking to be quite an exciting time as we expect
representatives of the tribe from all over the Bay Area including
Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento.  The
very exciting agenda is as follows:

* White Cross announcement.  We are formally announcing the White
Cross initiative to activists and will be looking for volunteers to
help make a difference for our people who have been adversely affected
by the capitalist system.

* Informal discussions: vent, share, and bring a "can do" attitude to
help understand the issues on peoples mind.

* A large selection of literature available for purchase from
Rising Press.  Rising Press is affiliated with the English New
Right and we have several thought provoking titles to choose from.
Quantities are limited and first come is first served!

* A limited quantity of BANA armbands for purchase.

* A short talk on the life and death of National Anarchist martyr
Eduardo Rozsa Flores.

* Gathering of the Tribe, an informal round table to discuss ideas for
future BANA activities.

* Announcement of the July Activist Challenge.

* And of course there will be more TBA.

Dinner and after meeting social activities are TBD.

Please share this announcement to like minded people and bring your
friends and family members that support the BANA mission.  If you can
make it please contact the usual suspects for venue information or
write back to info@bayareanationalanarchists.com 

Link:

"J'attends les Cosaques et le Saint-Esprit."
-Leon Bloy

My talk this evening is about what might be called "the power of myth."

I refer here not to the Bill Moyers' program of the same name, but rather to the politics of white racial preservation and specifically to what preservation entails at the deepest level of the human psyche, at that level of primordial symbolical activity which is the realm of myth and epic poetry.

In approaching this subject, let me start with a few words about The Occidental Quarterly, for that's where the subject begins.

The Quarterly's project is not about myth per se, but about "metapolitics," which, though it has a mythic dimension, deals mainly with rationally-examined ideas and values.

What is "metapolitics"?

This is a term you won't find in the dictionary, and when it enters political discourse its meaning is often unclear.

As I understand the term -- and I understand "metapolitics" mainly by analogy -- it is to politics as metaphysics is to physics.

What, then, is the relationship of metaphysics to physics?

According to my dictionary, physics is "the science of matter and energy and of the interaction between the two."

"Metaphysics," by contrast, is about that which is beyond physics -- that is, it's about the ultimate reality (assuming there is one) upon which the world of energy and matter rests.

Metaphysics, then, studies that which is the basis for the study of physics (whatever that may be).

Now if metapolitics is to politics as metaphysics is to physics, then metapolitics might be defined as that which addresses all those things that make politics possible.

Like the broad sense of metaphysics, metapolitics refers to a number of possible subjects.  For example: It can refer to ideology, to culture, to the prevailing conceptual paradigms, to the social hegemonies shaping the political field and framing the way we approach it, it can even refer to the irrational and subliminal forces affecting public behavior.

I can't give you a precise definition of "metapolitics" (I think none exists), but I can explain something of what metapolitics means to The Occidental Quarterly.

The Quarterly's subtitle is: "Western Perspectives on Man, Culture, and Politics."

"Western Perspectives" here means "white" or "European-American" perspectives on man, culture, and politics.

Accordingly, the Quarterly's metapolitical project examines and entertains ideas of man, culture, and politics from the perspective of what they mean for white men -- and by implication what they mean in terms of their fitness, suitability, and adaptability to the politics of white racial preservation.

This metapolitical project is important not simply because ideas, as our conservatives tell us, "have consequences."  But also because we live in an age of inversion, where all the traditional ideas, along with all the traditional values and beliefs, have been subverted and turned against whites.

The Quarterly's metapolitical project, it follows, is about intellectually arming whites so that, at one level, horizontally, they can collectively orient to the inverted forces threatening them as a people -- and that, vertically, they can affirm and assert those ideas and values which are distinct to the  European-American spirit.

Yet, despite all this and despite the fact that its metapolitical project addresses the most elemental aspects of our existence, the Quarterly's focus on ideas, and sometimes high ideas, is of interest, alas, to but a few.

The people as a mass lack any interest in what they see as the unreal, impractical, and often inaccessible realm of ideas.

Whenever they enter the historical arena under the banner of the great social and nationalist movements, they are, for this reason, moved not by ideas, not even by self-interest, but by something else entirely -- which has to do with (let's call it) the mythic core of metapolitics.

Before getting to this, let me just quickly finish what I started to say about The Occidental Quarterly.  The writers, activists, and sponsors who support its metapolitical project are not merely interested in understanding and interpreting the inverted world that seeks the destruction of their kind.  They would also like to change this world.

The Quarterly's metapolitical project aims, thus, at putting in motion a movement -- in thought, to start -- that will lead to the eventual founding of a white ethnostate and, with it, a restoration of the white man's rightful place in the world -- and I don't mean this in any Hollywood Nazi sense, but rather in terms of a people's national right to retain the ownership and control of their own lands

If history is any guide, the great transformative movements of the past depended on a variety of subjective and objective factors.  Objectively, some sort of crisis of regime has usually been a precondition for setting an oppositional movement in motion; this could entail a crisis of legitimacy or a  social or economic breakdown.  Such a crisis will not, however, culminate in a revolutionary transformation unless certain subjective forces -- in the form of a revolutionary movement -- are prepared to exploit the crisis for the movement's sake. Generally, this entails that a movement possesses both a cadre (capable of leading the movement) and a mass following (that gives the movement's leadership the social leverage to carry out a revolutionary transformation of the existing system).

The cadre are the active minorities, the militants and intellectuals, who possess the communication and bargaining skills to articulate and define the movement's cause, who establish the organizations that represent the cause in the real world, and who lay the groundwork that -- ideally -- will eventually intersect the mobilized masses, whose leadership they aspire to win.

These active minorities are the movement's brains and hands, for their cultural and organizational activities prepare the way for the movement's history-changing role.

The Quarterly's metapolitical project falls within the domain of such activity, which is why it has an important role to play in this period.

But if every great movement is articulated and organized by its active minorities, who constitute, in effect, a potential counter-elite, challenging the ruling elites, its success in the end depends less on the quality of their ideas or even the viability of their organization than on the masses who identify with their struggle and willingly make the sacrifices necessary to realize the movement's goals.

Indeed, without significant mass support, no revolutionary movement has ever reached its goal.

As one German nationalist put it: "The history of the world is made by [active] minorities only if they embody the will and aspirations of the majority."

If the heroism and self-sacrifice of the masses have been pivotal to virtually every revolutionary transformation of the modern era -- and if these same masses are moved not by ideas or self-interest -- how, then, are they to be rallied to the cause of white racial preservation?

One of the great revolutionaries who started us thinking about this question is Georges Sorel, who, not coincidentally, had a major influence on the anti-liberal wing of the labor movement, as well as on the anti-liberal wing of the nationalist movement (and its worth mentioning that the historical synthesis of these two movements -- of the revolutionary labor and nationalist movements -- in the interwar period [1918 - 1939] led directly to the emergence of Fascism, National Socialism, and other anti-liberal Third Way tendencies representing the historical high-water mark of revolutionary nationalism).

The motive force behind mass movements, Sorel saw, cannot be explained, as liberals and Marxists do, in terms of rationalist, pragmatic, materialist, or self-interested factors -- for the masses making up a social movement do not behave like liberalism's Economic Man. Sorel, in fact, saw excessive rationalism as both a source and a symptom of contemporary decadence.

The bonds that tie men to reality and compel them to act are rarely based on cold reason or calculation.  The human intellect, especially its rationalist mode, is simply part of a larger human consciousness -- a consciousness synonymous not just with man's reasoning mind, but more fundamentally with his life as a social, moral being.  At this level, the consciousness that motivates collective behavior is "irrational" to the degree that it is dictated not by self-interest and calculation, but by more elemental passions associated with the world of the great masses.

Reason, self-interest, and other such factors may, of course, motivate reform and self-improvement and every social system depends on them, but these factors never propel men into battle at the risk of life and limb, they never cause a people to go beyond the bounds of reasonable considerations, to shun their narrow egoism, and to take risks that challenge the prevailing state of things.

Something more primordial is always at work whenever the masses enter the historical arena.

For Sorel, a people assumes a historical role only when they are seized by an enthralling myth, whose symbols embody both their conscious and unconscious worldview and accords with their moral and ethical judgments about what's fair or just.  Myth, as such, forms communities of like-minded people and thus a sense of solidarity, just as the heroic sensibility it fosters makes possible the social and moral renewal that's part of every revolutionary transformation.

"As long as there are no myths accepted by the masses," Sorel writes, "one may go on talking of revolt indefinitely, without provoking any revolutionary movement."

In Sorel's view, myth is that "body of images which, by intuition alone," is "capable of evoking . . . the sentiments which corresponds to the different manifestations" of a people's distinct spirit, as this people struggles to assert itself as a specific life form.

Myth thus translates a people's hopes and needs into their own idiom and feeds these hopes and needs back to them in ways that render them plausible and attractive.

Myth, in this Sorelian sense, grows out of the unmediated life of those who come to believe it.

Born, thus, from a people's sense of itself, myth creates not just a sense of mission, but the courage to act -- as a self-conscious, self-asserting life force.

In this way, it serves as an assertion of a people's will, the projection or the imagining of an alternative life that appeals to what is best in the spirit of their kind.

The myth can be about the Second Coming of Christ or about the General Strike of the syndicalists.  What's important is that the myth condenses and amalgamates the beliefs of its believers into a single compelling image that overwhelms every category opposing it.

As an unconscious but compelling life force, myth justifies a people, it explains why they differ from other people, it affirms them in their right to assert themselves as who they are, it defines them and their friends, just as it distinguishes them from their enemies.  One might even follow Schelling in believing that myth is what founds a people as a community of consciousness.

Because it arises from a people's conviction and experience (some of which go back to Homer), it has nothing to do with Utopian or ideological plans for what should be or can be.

Myth is indeed not a description of things or a rational alternative to the present, but an expression of a determination to act.

To use a religious term (though it is not necessarily about religion), myth has an eschatological role to play, for it refers to the Final Days, to "ultimate and last things," or to that coming catastrophic collision between the forces of good and evil.

Given its eschatological role, myth, ultimately, is a matter of faith -- the faith of those who believe that no matter how grim or disappointing the present may be, their cause and their kind are bound to triumph once the moment of decision strikes -- because their cause and their kind await a higher destiny than the negative one that their enemies would have them follow.

This heroic and self-confident faith is what imbues the myth's believers with the willingness to make great sacrifices, even to die, for their beliefs -- these same people who would normally never go out of their way for an idea, a political project, or a theory.

Those in the grip of a great myth -- Irish nationalists in communion with Pearse's Blood Sacrifice, sixteenth-century Calvinists convinced of their Predestination -- such peoples, through the force that myth exerts on their character, acquire the power to make history.

But lacking such a captivating myth, there can be no history-changing movement.

In this context, The Occidental Quarterly may play a role in educating active minorities in the tradition they inherit, which is crucial to any future organization or tendency representing the white nationalist movement, but without the simultaneous spread of a myth that grips the white masses and instills in them a sense of historical meaning, there will be no National Revolution to liberate white America.

At this point, the question inevitably arises: What myth could possibly capture the imagination of the white masses and instill in them the enthusiasm for a white homeland?

Unfortunately, there's no way to know.  A myth cannot be rationally constructed and imposed on a people.

It cannot even become self-conscious, for once it is seen as a myth it ceases to work.

By nature, a myth grows out of a people's life and speaks to the sense they have of themselves.

But after saying this, I nevertheless think it's safe to claim that the white nationalist myth will have little to do with IQ scores, black crime rates, Jewish malfeasance, or the superiority of European culture (though it will likely have a lot to do with the anti-white practices that have come with the colored invasion of white lands).  To the degree any of these issues have the capacity to move the white masses, I suspect it will be in conjunction with whatever myth ends up capturing their imagination.  For however important, these things in themselves are not the stuff of myth.

No one can predict, then, what the founding myth of a white nationalist movement will be.

But speaking personally, I know that I myself am already in the grips of a powerful myth -- the myth of what I call the White Republic.

Other possible myths probably exist or will come to exist.

But for me it's the White Republic that evokes the total captivating image of what we are about as a movement.

I recently wrote: "The prospect of an independent white homeland in North America, free of the Jew-ridden US government, with its colored multitudes and parasitic institutions: This one image says everything, explains everything, promises everything."

Why?  Because the myth of a White Republic means secession from the  United States.  It implies, as such, an all-white national community, which, in turn, would mean a total rejection of the blood-sucking system of cultural-racial chaos that shames us and causes us to hate the world in which we have to live.

At the same time, the myth of a White Republic implies an end to miscegenation, to affirmative action, to the rising tide of color.  But above all, the image of the White Republic implies a regeneration of our people, reborn on the basis of principles of self-assertion, self-interest, self-determination, and sovereignty.

I believe all these implications, which the image of a White Republic awakens in us, are the stuff of myth, for, in my mind at least, its image says everything, explains everything, promises everything.

The Occidental Quarterly will continue, of course, to validate the truths that inspire the white nationalist project, the truths whose criterion is life, not bloodless reason.  But what we white nationalists await most impatiently is the moment when our people begin to take inspiration from their own myths.

For if white men should ever again come to believe in themselves and their myths, then, at that point, all the diseased and contemptible human offshoots of late twentieth-century American barbarism, whose culminating abomination is the existing anti-white System, will at last be forced, as the wheel of history turns, to flee in fear of their lives.

It is images of this sort, I believe, that will shape the white nationalist myth.

Source: Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, trans. T. E. Hume and J. Roth (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1950).

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If you like independent media, and if you think that an activist and anarchist-centered news service is worth having, why not drop us a few dollars. If even half of our monthly visitors would donate 1 dollar (forget about appeals like 'buy us a beer,' we're talking about one dollar) we would be able to meet and exceed our fundraising expectations.

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http://www.infoshop.org/

By John Robb

STANDING ORDER 1: Break Networks

STANDING ORDER 2: Grow Black Economies

While we normally don't write about articles written about the BANA network but the recent National Anarchism: California Racists Claim They're Anarchists contains a number of factual and fanciful embellishments we want to fix for the public record.

CLAIM:

"We are racial separatists for a number of reasons, such as our desire to maintain our cultural continuity, the principle of voluntary association, and as a self-defensive measure to protect each other from being victimized by crime from other races," BANA co-founder Andrew Yeoman told the Intelligence Report.

FACT:

Andrew Yeoman is the founder of the BANA network however the network is run collectively.

CLAIM:

"Calling themselves the Bay Area National Anarchists (BANA), they envision a future race war leading to neo-tribal, whites-only enclaves to be called "National Autonomous Zones.""

FACT:

As mentioned in our Frequently Asked Questions page does not advocate for race war, quite the contrary.  Neither do National Autonomous Zones have meaning only for a single racial group.  A NAZ is formed either deliberately or ad hoc when a group defends it's interests.

CLAIM:

"The group also recently formed at least a fleeting alliance with the American Front, a skinhead group based in Sacramento, Calif. American Front leader David Lynch credits BANA online with helping raise funds on behalf of a member of the domestic extreme-right terrorist group The Order who's due to be released from prison early next year."

FACT:

BANA supports a variety of political prisoners of which The Order is one.  It has been our policy not to discuss our prisoner support efforts publicly.

CLAIM:

"National anarchists appeal to these youths in part by avoiding the trappings of skinhead culture -- flight jackets, shaved heads and combat boots -- in favor of hooded sweatshirts and bandanas. They act the part of stereotypical anarchists, as envisioned by most Americans outside of far-left circles: black-clad protesters wreaking havoc at political conventions and anti-globalization rallies."

FACT:

Implying that we are (or are all former skinheads) misrepresents who we are and our individual backgrounds.  We are not nor have we ever been a skinhead movement, we have nothing to offer people who find the skinhead lifestyle appealing. 

CLAIM:

"Yeoman said it was this do-it-yourself ethos that inspired him to become involved with the anarchist movement not long after the sometimes-violent 1999 anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle drew international notice."

FACT:

Andrew Yeoman's interest in anarchism started from his first hand experience of anarchism in Detroit Michigan and not from the 1999 WTO protest.

CLAIM:

"BANA first began appearing in public in San Francisco only in late 2007. Since then, BANA members with "Keep Our Children Safe" signs have protested alongside Christian Right demonstrators outside a gay leather subculture festival in San Francisco and organized a cleanup of San Francisco Bay shores."

FACT:

Our anti-Folsom Street Fair protest was not done alongside Christian Right demonstrators.  If there were any so-called Christian Right demonstrators that day we certainly didn't see them.

CLAIM:

"Practicing full-blown entryism, they marched between groups carrying the Palestinian flag and the gay-pride flag, while shouting, "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck Zionism!""

FACT:

The exact phrase was "Fuck, Fuck, Zionism!"

CLAIM:

"The "network" has caches of food stashed throughout the Bay Area, which members collect and bring together at a "National Autonomous Zone, where people can be trusted to keep the zombies away." The "zombies" are non-whites, who "emerge from the confines of the projects and barrios where the city likes to keep their surplus labor contained." "

FACT:

The zombie metaphor is a common description for people in a crowd and is not limited to race.  Claiming it only means non white people is an attempt to sex up the article to the SPLC's cash cow demographic.  In fact in our experience white people tend to be the most numerous zombies around.

CLAIM:

""A PLE has all the problems inherent with an open-door hippie commune in the 1970s, with the free-love mentality," Yeoman said. "We're what a PLE would be if it had higher standards.""

FACT:

A NAZ is what a PLE would be if it had higher quality control standards.

CLAIM:

"The movement, PRA concluded, could become the new face of the radical right."

FACT:

As stated in our FAQ we thoroughly and unconditionally reject the labels of right-wing or left-wing.  Our rejection of the mainstream political process assures that we do not fit into neat categories the SPLC would like to fit us in.

If you would like further information about National Anarchism or the Bay Area National Anarchists please feel free to write us at info@bayareanationalanarchists.com or the mail box at the top of the website.

HAYWARD, Calif. - If Nick Glasgow were white, he would have a nearly 90 percent chance of finding a matching bone marrow donor who could cure his leukemia.

But because the 28-year-old bodybuilder is one-quarter Japanese, his doctor warned him the outlook was grim. Glasgow's background would make it almost impossible to find a match, which usually comes from a patient's own ethnic group.

The doctor "didn't say it was slim-to-none. He didn't say it would be hard. He said 'zero chance,'" Glasgow's mother, Carole Wiegand, recalled with tears in her eyes. "When Nick heard that, it sent him plummeting."

At a time when the number of multiracial Americans is rising, only a tiny fraction of donors on the national bone-marrow registry are of mixed race. The National Marrow Donor Program is trying to change that by seeking more diverse donors for patients suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases.

"The truth is, when people of different backgrounds marry and produce offspring, it creates more types that are harder to match," said Michelle Setterholm, the program's director of scientific services. "The probability just gets lower when you have people of mixed ancestral DNA."

The number of people who identify themselves as multiracial in the United States has grown from 3.9 million in 2000, the first year the census included the category, to 5.2 million in 2008. Mixed-race people account for 1.6 percent of the U.S. population.

The donor program has been pushing for years to recruit more racial minorities and mixed-race donors. So far, multiracial volunteers make up just 3 percent of the 7 million people on the registry.

That is higher than the percentage of mixed-race people in the U.S. But there are so many possible racial and ethnic combinations that finding a match can still be extremely difficult.

The reason that mixed-heritage patients are so hard to match can be found in the immune system.

Populations in different parts of the world developed certain proteins, or markers, that are part of the body's natural defenses. These markers help the immune system determine which cells are foreign and should be rejected.

A match between two people who share many markers will reduce the risk of the donor and recipient cells attacking each other. Because certain markers tend to cluster in particular ethnic groups, matches are most often found among people of shared backgrounds. Multiracial patients often have uncommon profiles and a much harder time finding a donor.

About 6,000 patients in the U.S. are awaiting a bone marrow match.

Finding compatible organs for transplant is simpler. Organ matches rely essentially on blood type, which is not related to race.

Glasgow's grandfather, an Army soldier from South Carolina, fell in love while stationed in Japan after World War II and married across racial lines at a time when it was illegal to do so in many states.

From his Japanese grandmother, Glasgow got the almond shape of his eyes and cell markers that set him apart from most other whites. From his white grandparents, he got markers that set him apart from other Japanese.

Geary Moya's background -- part Navajo, part Mexican -- has kept his life on hold since 2005, when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Chemotherapy has put his cancer in remission, but a bone marrow transplant is his only hope for a cure.

"I can't work. I can't plan. I just don't know what tomorrow will hold for me," said Moya, a 51-year-old former manager of an appliance company.

He often visits bone marrow drives, where he tries to encourage prospective donors to sign up.

"If it's not for me, it'll help someone," he said last week as he stopped by a booth registering potential bone marrow donors at California State University in Hayward. "There's a whole list of people out there waiting for someone to come along."

Moya watched and answered questions as a trickle of students filled out forms with their health history and ethnic makeup before swabbing the inside of their cheeks to collect the genetic material that will be used to match them to waiting patients.

If a match is found, they will undergo a painful procedure in which doctors withdraw liquid marrow from the back of their pelvic bones.

Among those filling out donor forms was Abe Rindal, a retired engineer who heard through friends about Glasgow.

Rindal was born to a Norwegian-American father and Japanese mother who met in Japan after World War II. They started a family before interracial marriage bans were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967. Rindal remembers meeting only two other people with similar ethnicity.

"It was socially unacceptable back then," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090527/ap_on_he_me/mixed_race_donors

by Curious George Brigade, August 2002, NYC

For too long, anarchist projects have been mismanaged by arrogant fantasies of mass. We have unconsciously adopted the Statist, Capitalist and Authoritarian belief that "bigger equals better" and that we must tailor our actions and groups towards this end. Despite our intuitive understandings that large organizations rarely accomplish more than small, tight groups working together, the desire for mass remains strong. We must re-examine how we organize projects in order to awake from the nightmare of over-structure that inevitably leads to bureaucracy, centralization and ineffective anarchist work. This article suggests a few ideas on how anarchists can reject the trap of mass and reinvent ourselves, our groups and our work: from local community activities to large revolutionary mobilizations. The rejection of mass organizations as the be-all, end-all of organizing is vital for the creation and rediscovery of possibilities for empowerment and effective anarchist work.

The Tyranny of Structure

Most mass structures are a result of habit, inertia and the lack of creative critique. Desire for mass is accepted as common sense in the same way it is 'common sense' that groups must have leaders, or that that they must make decisions by voting. Even anarchists have been tricked into accepting the necessity of super structures and large organizations for the sake of efficiency, mass, or unity. These super structures have become a badge of legitimacy and they are often the only conduits by which outsiders, whether the media, the police or other leftists, can understand us. The result is an alphabet soup of mega-groups which largely exist to propagate themselves and, sadly, do little else. Unfortunately, we haven't just been tricked into accepting superstructures as the overriding venue of our work: many of us have gone along willingly, because the promise of mass is a seductive one.

Large coalitions and super-structures have become the coin of the realm not only for leftist groups in general but also for anarchist enterprises. They appeal to activists' arrogant fantasies of mass: the authoritarian impulse to be leading (or at least be part of) a large group of people that reinforce and legitimize our deeply held ideologies and beliefs. Even our best intentions and wildest dreams are often crowded out by visions of the black clad mob storming the Bastille or the IMF headquarters.

The price of the arrogant dream of mass is appallingly high and the promised returns never come. Super-structures, which include federations, centralized networks and mass organizations, demand energy and resources to survive. They are not perpetual motion machines which produce more energy than what is poured into them. In a community of limited resources and energy like ours, a super-structure can consume most of these available resources and energies, rendering the group ineffective. Mainstream non-profits have recently illustrated this tendency. Large organizations like the Salvation Army commonly spend 2/3 of their monies (and even larger amounts of its labor) on simply maintaining its existence: officers, outreach, meetings and public appearance. At best, only 1/3 of their output actually goes to their stated goals. The same trend is replicated in our political organizations.

We all know that most large coalitions and super-structures have exceedingly long meetings. Here's a valuable exercise: The next time you find yourself bored by an overlong meeting, count the number of people in attendance. Then multiply that number by how long the meeting lasts: this will give you the number of person-hours devoted to keeping the organization alive. Factor in travel time, outreach time and the propaganda involved in promoting the meeting and that will give you a rough estimate of the amount of activist hours consumed by greedy maw of the superstructure. After that nightmarish vision, stop and visualize how much actual work could be accomplished if this immense amount of time and energy were actually spent on the project at hand instead of what is so innocently referred to as 'organizing'.

Affinity or Bust

Not only are super-structures wasteful and inefficient, but they also require that we mortgage our ideals and affinities. By definition, coalitions seek to create and enforce agendas. These are not merely agendas for a particular meeting but larger priorities for what type of work is important. Within non-anarchist groups, this prioritization often leads to an organizational hierarchy to ensure that all members of the group promote the overall agenda.

A common example is the role of the media person or 'spokesman' (and it is almost always a man) whose comments are accepted as the opinion for dozens, hundreds or sometimes thousands of people. In groups without a party line or platform, we certainly shouldn't accept any other person speaking for us--as individuals, affinity groups or collectives. While the delusions of media stars and spokespeople are merely annoying, superstructures can lead to scenarios with much graver consequences. In mass mobilizations or actions, the tactics of an entire coalition are often decided by a handful of people. Many of the disasters of particular recent mobilizations can be squarely blamed on the centralization of information and tactical decisions on a tiny cadre of individuals within the larger coalition/organization (which might include dozens of collectives and affinity groups). For anarchists, such a concentration of influence and power in the hands of a few is simply unacceptable.

It has long been a guiding principle of anarchist philosophy that people should engage in activities based on their affinities and that our work should be meaningful, productive and enjoyable. This is the hidden benefit of voluntary association. It is arrogant to believe that members in a large structure, which again can number in the hundreds or thousands of people, should all have identical affinities and ideals. It is arrogant to believe that through discussion and debate, any one group should convince all the others that their particular agenda will be meaningful, productive and enjoyable for all. Due to this nearly impossible situation, organizations rely on coercion to get their agendas accepted by their membership. The coercion is not necessarily physical (like the State) or based on deprivation (like Capitalism) but based on some sense of loyalty or solidarity or unity. This type of coercion is the stock and trade of the vanguard.

Organizations spend a significant amount of their time at meetings trying to convince you that your affinities are disloyal to the greater organization and that your desires and interests obstruct or remove you from solidarity with some group or another. When these appeals fail, the organization will label your differences as obstructionist or breaking 'unity' --the hobgoblin of efficiency. Unity is an arrogant ideal which is too often used against groups who refuse to cede their autonomy to a larger super-structure.

Many anarchists whose primary work is done in large organizations often never develop their own affinities or skills and instead, do work based on the needs of super-structures. Without affinity groups or collective work of their own, activists become tied to the mass abstract political goals of the organization, which leads to even greater inefficiency and the ever present "burn-out" that is so epidemic in large coalitions and super-structures.

Liberty, Trust and True Solidarity

"All Liberty is based on Mutual Trust" --Sam Adams

If we seek a truly liberated society in which to flourish, we must also create a trusting society. Cops, armies, laws, governments, religious specialists and all other hierarchies are essentially based on mistrust. Super-structures and coalitions mimic this basic distrust that is so rampant and detrimental in the wider society. In the grand tradition of the Left, large organizations today feel that due to their size or mission, they have a right to micromanage the decisions and actions of all its members. For many activists, this feeling of being something larger that themselves fosters an allegiance to the organization above all. These are the same principles that foster nationalism and patriotism. Instead of working through and building initiatives and groups that we ourselves have created and are based in our own communities, we work for a larger organization with diluted goals, hoping to convince others to join us. This is the trap of the Party, the three letter acronym group and the large coalition.

In large groups, power is centralized, controlled by officers (or certain working groups) and divvied out, as it would be done by any bureaucratic organization. In fact a great deal of its energies are devoted to guarding this power from others in the coalition. In groups which attempt to attract anarchists (such as anti-globalization coalitions) this centralization of power is transferred to certain high profile working groups such as 'media' or 'tactical'. Regardless of how it appears on the outside, superstructures foster a climate in which tiny minorities have disproportionate influence over others in the organization.

As anarchists, we should reject all notions of centralized power and power hoarding. We should be critical of anything that demands the realignment of our affinities and passions for the good of an organization or abstract principle. We should guard our autonomy with the same ferocity with which the super-structure wishes to strip us of it.

Mutual aid has long been the guiding principle by which anarchists work together. The paradox of mutual aid is that we can only protect our own autonomy by trusting others to be autonomous. Super-structures do the opposite and seek to limit autonomy and work based on affinity in exchange for playing on our arrogant fantasies and the doling out power. Decentralization is the basis of not only autonomy (which is the hallmark of liberty), but also of trust. To have genuine freedom, we have to allow others to engage in their work based on their desires and skills while we do the same. We can hold no power from them or try to coerce them into accepting our agenda. The successes that we have in the streets and in our local communities almost always come from groups working together: not because they are coerced and feel duty-bound, but out of genuine mutual aid and solidarity.

We should continue to encourage others to do their work in coordination with ours. In our anarchist work, we should come together as equals: deciding for ourselves with whom we wish to form affinity groups or collectives. In accordance with that principle, each affinity group would be able to work individually with other groups. These alliances might last for weeks or for years, for a single action or for a sustained campaign, with two groups or two hundred. Our downfall is when the larger organization becomes our focus, not the work which it was created for. We should work together, but only with equal status and with no outside force, neither the state, god nor some coalition, determining the direction or shape of the work we do. Mutual trust allows us to be generous with mutual aid. Trust promotes relationships where bureaucracies, formal procedures and large meetings promote alienation and atomization. We can afford to be generous with our limited energies and resources while working with others because these relationships are voluntary and based on a principle of equality. No group should sacrifice their affinity, autonomy or passions for the privilege to work with others. Just as we are very careful with whom we would work within affinity group, we should not offer to join in coalition with groups with whom we do not share mutual trust.

We can and should work with other groups and collectives, but only on the basis of autonomy and trust. It is unwise and undesirable to demand that particular group must agree with the decisions of every other group. During demonstrations, this principle is the foundation of the philosophy of "diversity of tactics". It is bizarre that anarchists demand diversity of tactics in the streets but then are coerced by calls for 'unity' in these large coalitions. Can't we do better? Fortunately, we can.

Radical Decentralization: A New Beginning

So let us begin our work not in large coalitions and super structures but in small affinity groups. Within the context of our communities, the radical decentralization of work, projects and responsibility strengthens the ability of anarchist groups to thrive and do work which best suits them. We must reject the default of ineffective, tyrannical super structures as the only means to get work done and must strengthen and support existing affinity groups and collectives. Let us be as critical of the need for large federations, coalitions and other super-structures as we are of the State, religion, bureaucracies and corporations. Our recent successes have defied the belief that we must be part of some giant organization "to get anything done". We should take to heart the thousands of anarchist DIY projects being done around the world outside super structures. Let us come to meetings as equals and work based on our passions and ideals, and then find others with whom we share these ideals. Let us protect our autonomy and continue to fight for liberty, trust and true solidarity.

Anarchy works! All power to the affinity groups!

An essay by the BANA collectives Andrew Yeoman has been published at the online journal Synthesis and can be read at http://www.rosenoire.org/articles/rhodesian_scouts.php

This article analyzes the racial and military forces of the Rhodesian civil war in the 1970s and how a mixed white and black unit was able to disrupt a broad terrorist campaign instigated by foreign powers.

A group of 50 American nationals of the WLF Bloc (White Left-fascist bloc) went on a window shopping spree in San Francisco demanding an end to the exploitation of child workers and sweatshop conditions exploited by globalization.  Unable to find the windows they were looking for they pelted them with blunt objects instead.

The National Anarchists demanded that the corporations so targeted bring their factories back to America and implement a strict occupational safety and living wage package for all workers. 

Other anarchists who were at the scene had no comment on why they committed the actions they did, or were at a loss to explain it other than "Jim Jones made me do it." 

So far there have been no arrests but police are providing protection to the broken glass lest it be stolen before it is swept away. 

Anarchists who were present have congratulated themselves on damaging property and making themselves feel like they did something important to damage capitalism.  The BANA network tried but failed to find out how exactly the store windows were oppressing anyone but we suspect they may have been considered racist.  There may be a symbolic link between capitalism and windows we are unfamiliar with that only real anarchists of lumpenfodder are able to recognize.  I bet their homes are windy.  Only time will tell if this action will matter in the anarchist struggle against capitalism. We suspect that, as usual, it won't. 

An article on the Rad Geek blog features commentary by many on the subject of National Anarchism.  I have posted a comment on the article but seeing that it has not been published will do so here.

Hello, there are a few comments in this discussion that interested me. I'm not sure if someone directly involved in the subject being discussed will be prohibited from commenting or not but here it is.

 "National Anarchism is a political tendency that allows different communities to form a political structure >according to their own values. That's it."

"I'd have no objection to National Anarchism if I thought that was an adequate summary of it."

Excellent! I believe that the freedom of voluntary association is fundamental to all other liberties and that the decentralizing political and economic power (the opposite of globalization) is critical to achieving this.

"I am extremely concerned about the spread of the nouvelle driot third positionist philosophy which underlies (among other things) national anarchism. The essential purpose of that project is precisely to make the philosophical ideas underlying fascism intellectually respectable as a prelude to the social acceptance of fascist sociopolitical movement. De Benoist and his ilk shouldn't be taken lightly- unfortunately they're competent as philosophers and know what it takes to change the tacit premises which underly cultural >institutions and political structures."

Thank you for the frank assessment however I'm baffled as to why you are more petrified of the nouvelle droite then current world leaders.  I would think a libertarian minded person would have their priorities in the right order.  The only more irreverent tendency of political thinkers are paleo-conservatives (irregardless of how much I agree or disagree with their ideas).  The National Anarchist network I associate with was recently accused by a Left-fascist of "successfully using the language used in the post-left, anti-civ, green, and individualist anarchism."  That may be more or less true but what they fail to mention is that I came to this from the Left.  The more I have been doing this however the less I care if someone is Right or Left, I care about what they do.  Do they actually hit the streets, contribute to their community, and keep their word, or are they that person that always plans on showing up but somehow never happens to make it. 

I would say that National Anarchism is most definitely beyond the pale. There's too much of a hit taken by cooperating with them. I think us anarchists already have a hard enough time shaking off the bomb-throwing image without being saddled with accusations of
crypto-Nazism."

But of course you realize that accusations are a weapon and not a fact.  Anarchism will never get beyond the bomb throwing image, it's too deeply ingrained in pop culture.  Neither will racial separatists (and secessionists) of any stripe be free of accusations of nazism.  The controversy both ideas intrinsically carry from historical examples is greater then what any individual is capable of changing.  But here's my take on the crypto-fascism you accuse us of.  All philosophies, lifestyles, or ideologies that reject the hegemony of historical materialism on political issues is, as taught by the education systems of Western countries, "crypto-fascism."  The largely liberal system we live under has a vested interest in keeping it that way.

A primary characteristic of the "soft power" of liberalism, is that opposition is neutralized or bribed into compliance and the system maintains the illusion of democratic fairness.  In my experience the ruling class is so entrenched in it's power over peoples actions that everyone has a lot less to fear of those in power then powerless people who do their work of terror for them.

But ultimately such actions won't matter.  My goals are (in no particular order) are consistent with a pragmatic libertarian anti-capitalist holistic ethnocentric worldview.  This is why I advocate for 1) less government authority and the repealing of many laws, 2) greater autonomy for the self-determination of all peoples, and 3) believe it or not, greater cooperation between powerless political factions.  With caveats I will work with people who I disagree with on most issues because the philosophy I live by is to organize with different but like minded tribes.  This tenet is continuously emphasized by National Anarchists like Troy Southgate.  Disagreeing with me on issues is fine, but you will never tell me or my tribe how we shall live our lives.  You will also never be able to say that National Anarchists are not a galvanizing force to the Left and the Right. "I would say that National Anarchism is most definitely beyond the pale" you're not alone, the fear and loathing you express belays the power our movement has to paralyze political factions that have nothing else going for them other than their opposition to us.  But don't worry, we will continue to champion your right to live in the kind of society you want as long as we can have the one we want.


For revolution,
Andrew

We have decided to create a series highlighting the lives of BANA activists.  In this portrait Andrew Yeoman will share a bit about himself.

Hello, well where to begin?  I live in San Francisco and work as a system administrator, specializing in Linux administration.  I was born in Michigan in 1981.  I was raised by a single mother who had a disability that to say the least made growing up more complex then the typical nuclear family.  My ancestors, who I was able to learn about in a lovingly crafted genealogical history by my grandmother, have been on America for four hundred years. I was raised in a perhaps typically Christian background and some of my fondest memories growing up are exploring the woods and reading.  I was never particularly fond of classrooms and I never did particularly well in my studies and dropped out of High School after my older friends had already left. 


As a teenager I was hugely interested in philosophy, Nietzsche in particular seemed to speak to my soul. I was always interested in politics.  Coming from a conservative home I gradually- and abruptly- explored a variety of ideologies, finally settling on anarchism.  In Detroit I knew first hand black revolutionary workers such as General Baker (written about in the book "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying"), Marxists, and an assortment of others.  What really brought me on to anarchism, beyond merely reading about it, was seeing it in action at the Trumbullplex.  Here was, in the middle of the Detroit urban wasteland, on a narrow road of boarded up homes and grassy lots where homes once stood, two rickety and desolate looking Victorian houses- run by an anarchist housing collective.  On the inside however, it was like stepping into another world.  The rooms were smartly finished and there was always a flurry of activity going on.  There were shows, movie nights, an organic garden, a bus being built for biodiesel, cooperative living quarters, etc, that I would later be able to call just like the house in Fight Club (well, almost!).  Here was a group of people living to a large extent off the grid.  I was a visitor at Trumbelplex but helped with other activities including Food Not Bombs.  After leaving Detroit and living in several different states I could describe to people I met that I have seen anarchism in action, a small taste of what a functioning microcosm of an anarchist society would be like.  This was an experience that would only increase in time.

There was however what I perceived to be troubling tendencies in the anarchist milieu.  Infighting, rampant drug use, heroin, alcoholism, personality disorders, and tolerated personal problems that led to a lot of conflicts.  Things that destroy lives. Other problems were more political in nature.  Through a strange quirk of fate, anarchists have somehow gotten the idea that choosing to represent the interests of numerically tiny minorities (such as "transgendered" people) rather than the interests of the vast majority, with the idea that they will be able to increase their adherents.  In the last few years illegal immigrants have become a similar celebrated cause for this purpose.  The 2001 meeting of the Anarchist People of Color meeting in Detroit was another one.  This was organized, to great praise by anti-racists, with a sign that said "No Whites Allowed."  This was taken to be a sign of black anarchists self-determination without the oppressive white anarchists giving them a hassle.  White anarchists (99% of all anarchists) tended to agree.  I didn't.  I tried for a time to believe that race was a social construct.  It was easier that way.  Just do what the teachers tell you is true in school.  Fewer hassles that way.  Eventually, I stopped carrying about hassles and chose to live my life with the facts as I knew them.  But even though I had these reservations about anarchist practice I still called myself one because no one ultimately controls what anarchism is, the people that represent anarchism do.

Fast forward to 2007.  An event happened that would change the direction of my life.  I read a wikipedia article.  Okay I know it might sound cliche to say that reading a wiki article changed my life, and I've read thousands of articles in my day, but that day it became true.  The article was entitled National Anarchism.  It was vague, obtuse, and difficult to read from a dozen edit warriors all trying to sabotage the substance if not all coherence of the article.  But in the ideas it conveyed I had my "aha!" moment. 

National Anarchism is a political tendency that allows different communities to form a political structure according to their own values.  That's it.  That's the solution to the irreconcilable differences between me and other anarchists, different lifestyles, religions, and even races that have historically had problems living together (above and beyond mere class conflict). 

I would go on to get to know the early proponent of these ideas to the English speaking world, Troy Southgate, and meet in person the National Anarchist who developed the first National Anarchist street protests in the world: Welf Herfurth.  After meeting Welf I knew that National Anarchism was an idea that I needed to share with other people.  This wasn't something I wanted to do just for a hobby or self amusement.  This was something I had to do.  People need these ideas if we (radicals of all stripes) are to make any progress against globalization and a ruling class, that I had spent in one way or another fighting over the previous decade yet failed to make any tangible effect.  Something had to be done.  That something was the Bay Area National Anarchists.  Since those early days BANA has grown into something it would of been impossible to imagine a couple years ago.  We have points of contacts in over seventeen cities.  We have supported a sister network in Sacramento (the delicious SNAC!) and Sonoma (the infamous WANK),  Sometimes I continue to be amazed at the things our people have done.  But when I stop and think of the love I have for my people and the knowledge that this love is as widespread as our people I'm not surprised but honored to be partaking in an incredibly important transformation of the zeitgeist. We have an extremely gifted core of intelligent, dedicated, and hardworking people that have been attracted to our cause.  What's most gratifying to me is that BANA has developed to the point where no single person controls it's development. There's been a couple times that I've been overruled on a decision, but that's how a consensus driven network should operate. It's my long term goal to develop the people in our tribe that want to be activists, leaders, and inspirations to others around the world.  So far we have been having a great success not just with the youth, as some have claimed, but with genuine working class people and substantial supporters among the baby boomer generation.  But there's a lot more that needs to be done for us to accomplish our goals of reclaiming our culture, decentralizing political power, establish National Autonomous Zones, and allow people the choice on how they want to live- something the present system discourages, or flat out denies.  We have also been having success angering old school anarchists because they see in us the success they are failing to generate: a genuine alternative to the system, appeal to the youth, and the higher standards we set for ourselves, and others.  It is however unworthy to dwell on the conformity enforcers of anarchofundamentalists.

If a perfect world would develop out of our activities I would wish that Bay Area political movements transform: the Right into an anti-imperialist ethnocentric force opposed to neocons, naziism, and paleoconstitutionalists.  And on the Left to transform social justice concerns away from anti-white bigotry and towards a folk accepting, community orientated, live and let live mentality that incorporates the radical Left ideals into a program the ruling class cannot co-opt and squash due to lack of representation in a diverse cross segment of the population (here's looking at you, anarchists).  As far as I see it this is the only way to solve the problems we have as a society.

My challenge to old school anarchists is this: either get your act in gear and become an effective movement of social change or we will ignite a movement across the country and inspire people around the world to do it without you.  You can count on me to work tirelessly to make that happen.

BANANoAmnesty.pdf

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