Christian National Anarcho-Capitalists

by Keith Preston 

I recently came across a group calling itself Christian National Anarcho-Capitalists. While this group doesn’t reflect my personal views or preferences, as a pan-anarchist I am for the proliferation of many anarchist societies based on the principle of free association, thereby enhancing genuine diversity, and “Christian National Anarcho-Capitalism” may well be one of these.

Christian National Ancaps was founded on these principles:

1. Christianity and anarcho-capitalism are compatible with one another.

2. Nationalism, which is different from nation-statism, is perfectly compatible with Christian anarcho-capitalism. It is not incompatible with the philosophy of freedom; in fact, a libertarian nationalism will be rich and varied, and it will be superior to the nation-statism that has plagued civilization for so many years.

3. All cultures are unique and diverse, and while many cultures are not “Christian” or “libertarian,” they do share aspects of God and the philosophy of liberty in their edifice. Therefore, we seek to promote the best and brightest of every culture, including the cultures of Western and Eastern civilization. Our advice is for each person to respect and intermarry within his “nationality,” as that is the recommended course and the best.

4. “Racial realism,” anti-feminism, and libertarian “patriarchalism” will be a big part of this group, and while these views are politically incorrect and not approved by the Establishment and the political elite, these views are compatible with libertarianism and, as a nationalist group, will be part of the whole

5. Nation-statism, the ideology that mixes nationalism with statism, originated not in true nationalism but in conquest and aggression. As the earlier liberal tradition recognized, and as modern libertarians do, the nation does not equal the state. True nationalism, however, is based from civilization rather than the state, from culture rather than coercion and from community rather than collectivization, from the people rather than the rulers.

6. Secession, the right to break away and become independent (or self-determination) is a central tenet of libertarian nationalism, and in many ways it is an essential tenet of libertarianism, period. Thus, the right of some persons to secede and form their own nation is respected and promoted; it not only is in line with libertarian principles, but it allows for each “nation” and “culture” to preserve their heritage without outside interference. Not only that, but individual self-determination is respected, and one can become a “nation” unto himself.

7. Nationalism is not social egalitarianism. In fact, one of its main opponents is cultural Marxism, which stresses opposition to the family, to capitalism, to traditional values and most importantly to the Bible and the Christian faith.

8. Most importantly, the purpose of Christian Ancap Nationalists is not to promote hatred or division among peoples but rather to foster the great values of faith in God, liberty, cultural conservatism, freedom of association, secession, anarcho-patriarchalism, peace, prosperity, cooperation, love, national pride and the multi-cultural association of different cultures.

The new name is: Christian National Ancaps. “Nationalism” often refers to collectivist statism, and it can get in the way of what we are trying to promote. So I believe the new title gets to the crux of what we want to promote.

[A]. note that we are not (or no longer) condemning the idea of intermarriage between people of two different races. We are not opposed to, say, a white man marrying a black woman or a black man marrying a white woman, if he so desires.

Armed standoff after shots fired at Dallas police HQ

 Real Revolutionary activity, ISIS or another drill? You be the judge-NATA


Via Daily Mail
06:58 EST, 13 June 2015 


Officers are in a standoff with one or more shooters after Dallas police headquarters came under fire early Saturday.
Explosives were later found around the building, the police department said.
Just after midnight, a van, described by witnesses as an armored vehicle, rammed into police squad cars at the headquarters then opened fire, Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters.

 A chase ensued to a nearby suburb south of the city where officers have surrounded the vehicle which contains at least one suspect, Brown said, adding that up to four individuals may have been involved in the headquarters attack.
He said pipe bombs had been found in one of four duffel bags that were "dispersed throughout the front and side of police headquarters."
On Twitter, the police department said that one of the bags "exploded on its own" as a bomb disposal robot attempted to move it, and that another device had been found under a police vehicle and detonated.
No police personnel have been injured so far in the standoff, Brown added.

The Republic is Dead:Long Live the Republic!

by Keith Preston 

This is a very interesting notification I recently received from a reader that illustrates something I have been noticing for a while. It appears there is a broad “axis of dissent” that is developing in the United States that transcends the normal political and cultural boundaries, and whose common thread is a kind of left/right hybrid libertarian-progressive-populism. This axis is represented in the mainstream or relatively mainstream by such individuals as Ron Paul, Jesse Ventura, Ralph Nader, Alex Jones, Cindy McKinney, Dennis Kucinich, Abby Martin, and other comparable figures. It overlaps with the Democratic/Republican duopoly on a peripheral level but is clearly outside the two-party duopoly for the most part.

It also overlaps with particular movements like the 9-11 Truth movement, the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist/voluntaryist liberty movement, newer tendencies like Zeitgeist and the Venus Project, strands within the Occupy movements, and the wider conspiracy milieu. It runs through the entire spectrum of dissident ideologies such as patriots, religious fundamentalists, and white nationalists on the far right through libertarians, radical centrists, ethnic minority dissidents, leftists, progressives, anarchists, various counter-cultural tendencies, and certain dissenting religious perspectives. However, this axis cannot be identified as representing any one ideological tendency. The axis is largely independent of the Democratic/Republican duopoly, but it is also independent of the “normal” far right (fascists, neo-Nazis, theocrats) and the “normal” far left (Communists, PC/SJW totalitarian humanists).

Such an axis is precisely what I have always envisioned the left/right libertarian/populist conservative/progressive black/white radical center/radical fringe demographic base of pan-anarchism and pan-secessionism as actually being. Cultivating the various components of this axis as allies and constituents should be one of our primary strategy objectives as this point.
———————————————————————————————
The Democratic Republic of the United States was overthrown on November 22, 1963; on that day our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, was murdered in Dallas, and nothing has been the same since.

Kennedy was the last Constitutional President of our last Constitutional Republic.
On that day in November, the Anglo/Zionist Military Financial Oligarchs occupied our country. On that day we ceased to be a free people and our nation lost its independence.
We need to regain our independence and our liberty. We must accomplish this through the political process of Restoring our Republic.

Begin to Restore the Republic by organizing Alternate Elections for 2016.
This free electoral process will elect Independent Representatives, who serve only the people.
We suggest a slate of Revolutionary leaders to head our New Republic. Feel free to nominate your own favorites. Edward Snowden, Joan Baez, Cindy McKinney, whomever.
President: Ron Paul
Vice President: Dennis Kucinich
Secretary of State: Ralph Nader
Coordinator of the Militia: Jesse Ventura
Our candidates will be faithful to the existing Constitution of the United States: until the Next Generation can set up Committees of Correspondence where they will decide to continue this one, or to write a new Constitution.


Rules of Political Conduct in a Democratic Republic

1. All candidates will have equal access to the media.
2. No money may be spent on election campaigns.
3. Candidates must be legal residents of ONLY this country.
4. They must register their candidacy, and present a small number of petitions.
5. All candidates may participate in public debates with the other aspirants.
6. The People’s elections will be held in locals controlled by We The People.
7. The voters will have to tell our election officials their name, which will be recorded.
8. Then they will cast a paper ballot.

The results will be announced, and the new people’s government will begin a political confrontation of Dual Power. At first, the people’s new Republican Government will be smaller and weaker than that of the Totalitarian Oligarchs. With time and struggle, the new government will increase in power. Our government will take increasing responsibility for the well-being of its citizens, until, it can replace the usurping government of the Oligarchs and completely restore our Republic and our Honor.

For the New Democratic Republic!

Sons and Daughters of Liberty

IMAGINE

Procés Embat: The desire for anarchist organisation

Via:anarkismo.net


Carlos Taibo recently defended the need for a nation or iberian wide anarchist organisation to unite, consolidate and give greater resonance to anarchist activism (click here). This latter is weakened by dispersion, above all in the face of more organised movements or political parties that endeavour to absorb and assimilate grass roots social movements grounded in direct action. If the context for Taibo’s intervention is spain, similar appear to have surfaced in greece. And Syriza and spain’s Podemos, are perhaps on the “left” the immediate menace to a politics of generalised autonomy, for they present themselves as the representative voices of social movements.

In spain, this idea gains concrete expression in something that has came to be called Procés Embat, originating among catalan libertarian in 2013, and today engendering similar initiatives elsewhere.

Procés Embat is a network of social militants of the libertarian tradition, who have started with the objective to articulate a social trend, organised and willing to contribute to, from a libertarian perspective, the development of the popular movement and the empowerment of the people to achieve a sovereign Catalonia through the development of popular power for greater economic and political democracy.

Procés Embat is not the desired organisation finalised, but a process towards such an organisation, a process that will require extensive debate and reflection. The ambition is not to create a vanguard, but a more incisive network of activists who can “push for the necessary organs for our daily revolutionary practice and accompany the popular sectors and workers in their struggles, while maintaining strategies and resources for the short, medium and long term.”

If we raised questions regarding Taibo’s proposal, it was not to dismiss it (click here). And our attitude remains the same in this instance. Below, we publish in translation an interview accorded to the CNT newspaper by militants of the initiative, to further clarify views and positions.

For the activists of Procés Embat, anarchism today lacks organisation. It tends to it, but it is not yet so. Those who consider themselves libertarians are disorganised, or organised according to personal affinities and not on the basis of defined political positions. This considerably weakens the potential of anarchist ideas and practices, tactics and strategies, and socio-political goals. The aim then is to seek a greater organisational coherence, rooted in practice and not ideology, so as to be able to influence, even shape, broader social movements. “Power should be in the streets, this is our role. To help organise society.”

But is the movement in fact disorganised? Or is its dispersion not a sign of its intrinsic plurality, rather than a symptom of disorder? And what is an anarchist organisation beyond relations of affinity? (For a discussion of anarchism and friendship, click here). Is there not a danger here of institutionalisation, bureaucratisation, in sum, vanguardism? If an anarchist group or movement engages in a politics of creating autonomy in the here and now, that autonomy is inevitably plural. And what organisation is necessary will presumably come from within the plurality according to felt needs and desires. Is not then the effort at organisation on a national scale the effort to give a unity where not only is there none, but where it is not seen to be possible or necessary?

Again, these questions are not intended to be read as a rejection of the initiative. There are more than enough reasons to be interested in it, and thus our concern. But the hesitations, the doubts, are born of ideas expressed not only today, but by older controversies. We may conclude by citing Gustav Landauer.

… this is yet another crucial fallacy: that one can – or must – bring anarchism to the world; that anarchy is an affair of all of humanity; that there will indeed be a day of judgment followed by a millennial era. Those who want “to bring freedom to the world” – which will always be their idea of freedom – are tyrants, not anarchists. Anarchy will never be a matter of the masses, it will never be established by means of military attack or armed revolt, just as the ideal of federalist socialism will never be reached by waiting until the already accumulated capital and the title of the land will fall into the people’s hands. Anarchy is not a matter of the future; it is a matter of the present. It is not a matter of making demands; it is a matter of how one lives. Anarchy is not about the nationalization of the achievements of the past but about a new people arising from humble beginnings in small communities that form in the midst of the old: an inward colonization. Anarchy is not about a struggle between classes – the dispossessed against the possessors – but about free, strong, and sovereign individuals breaking free from mass culture and uniting in new forms. The old opposition between destruction and construction begins to lose its meaning: what is at stake are new forms that have never been.

The interview follows …

Procés Embat presented itself recently in society with the intention of articulating an organised anarchism. In the following interview, they tell us of their vision of the current libertarian movement and their intentions with this new project.

Question. – How does the Procés Embat arise? Why this name?

Response. – Those of us who initiated this Procés Embat felt the necessity of articulating an organized response to the problems of our society in our time. That is to say, to escape from the typical finalisms of revolutionary ideologies and apply our values here and now in an organisational process centred in the social sphere.

We met many who had abandoned the movement, or were in the process of doing so, dispersed in numerous social platforms, movements and organisations, sometimes unrelated to the libertarian. It was a matter of re-establishing contact with these people and to continue contributing to their own struggles, but working from a libertarian perspective, for in spite of the distance we noticed that they continued to work within our own desires.

Embat means blow, or shock, in English, like the shock of a wave against a rocky shore. We believe that the name graphically captures what we wanted to mean, as much for the current libertarian movement as for the social movements.

Q. – We speak of the need for an organised anarchism. But does it not already exist?

R. – Anarchism is not organised. It tends towards organisation, but it is not. Relative to the social sphere, it is organised uniquely in anarcho-syndicalism. But beyond that, the movement is profoundly atomised, with each one acting very much in her/his own space, without their being the possibility of responding as a movement. We believe that we are still in a stage of collectives and not of organisations. That is to say, that those who consider themselves libertarians became disorganised or organised by personal affinities (and not on the basis of political positions), active in small collectives of a local ambit. Some dedicate themselves to cultural activites, others to managing a space (cultural associations and social centres), others to their neighbourhood and others to social questions. There are however more general ambits of work, such as for example, how to give a libertarian response to the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), how to intervene in the issue of housing, what response do we have as a movement to health, retirement pensions, education, unemployment, etc. These are matters that concern us all and the responses that we offer are fragmentary and even at times contradictory. What work is pursued in this direction is not the outcome of efforts on the part of the libertarian movement, but of the organisations of social movements, with the exception of anarcho-syndicalism. We therefore believe that it is necessary to generate this space which presently does not exist.

At present, there exist ever more coordinating bodies of collectives and groups. We think that it is a step forward in the direction of constructing organisations. Nevertheless, we do not believe that it is a solution. We have in fact participated in various efforts at coordination. All failed for the same reason: the absence of shared political positions. Each group thought differently, and even within each group there were divergent positions and this made it practically impossible to arrive at agreements of any importance. Whatever positive that emerged would remain at the level of creating newspapers, making posters, organising campaigns, calling for demonstrations and little more. Of course, this coordinating activity served to meet new comrades, to see with whom you can work and to initiate lines of activity. But having reached this point, we believe that we have arrived at the moment of organisations, in the plural, depending on different tactical and strategic positions or the way of functioning.

Q. – Is there any experience at the national or global level that has motivated you to set out on this process?

R. – Nationally, there are very few. The greatest influence upon comes comes from the social anarchism of Latin America, represented by the FAU (Federación Anarquista Uruguaya) of Uruguay and the FAG (Federação Anarquista Gaúcha), of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), and the long list of organisation that they have generated in the last decade. But despite that, we do not follow them to the letter. We want as our point of departure a close territorial reality. Consequently importing models from the past or from other territories makes little sense.

In fact, we find greater inspiration in the social and popular struggles of Chiapas, of Oaxaca, of the peasants of Columbia, of Kurdistan, in the student movement of Chile, etc., than in the local or international libertarian movement of the last years. Our movement must be adapted to the times, to the organisational traditions and to the struggle of the territory.

Q. – Why until today are anarchist ideas far from, no longer of acquiring relevance, but of winning sympathy in society?

R. – We don’t think that we give rise to excessive antipathies; on the contrary, many people approach us who find in a utopian movement. And this is what is sad, that we don’t give the feeling that one day we could realise our end goals and sometimes we also give the sensation that we don’t believe that we can either. During approximately three decades, the libertarian movement lived closed in upon itself. First in anarcho-syndicalism and its internal conflict, after in the counter-culture and the okupation movement. In each domain, anarchism was too weak to provide a response to the problems of society.

But we believe that we have traveled far. The atmosphere is not as strained as in other times and there are many libertarian people who became active in the last years, with a profound change that is noticeable in the movement. It is then from optimism, humility, militant work, openness, direct contact with social struggles, that we can again gain the sympathies of society.

Q. – However, it can be said of many initiatives of a social character that they drink from libertarian principles. Look at 15M …

R. – 15M is the confirmation that an important part of society has affinities with libertarian ideas. But to have an affinity is not to be a libertarian; it does not have to want the final goals of anarchism. That was the task of the libertarian movement. Anarchist ideas impregnate the fabric of struggles, but there is always someone who tries to appropriate them as if they belonged to their own tradition. It is like the old revolutionary syndicalism that was created at the margins of Marxism and anarchism, and that thanks to the work of very many libertarian activists it ended up being a movement associated with anarchism. In this case, we have to think that movements are not neutral; that in all of them are activists from all of the political parties and that each has their own agenda. Ours is to have social movements be autonomous, independent of parties. And having attained that, we are succeeding, in that in the future this movement will be an ally of the libertarian movement.

Q. – Do you believe that the libertarian movement has in recent times sinned due to an excessive dogmatism? What are the principal weaknesses and strengths that you see in it?

R. – The dogmatism of the libertarian movement we see confirmed in its excess of ideology. In the face of any problem, a collation of principles is reached for. And the principles often impede action in conformity with what reality demands. Accordingly, we want to centre ourselves in practice. A practice based on principles, of course, but also a strategy to attain some objectives. That is why our organisation will be comprised of activists, of persons who militate in movements and who share in the daily struggles of society. That is, we speak of anarchism as a socio-political movement and not only as an ideology. To close oneself in the ideology has been above all an excuse to avoid a reality that was to us adverse. As everything which surrounds us is contrary to our principles, we don’t act and we criticise from our spaces, from within our spaces of comfort. We believe that we have to break with this dynamic and confront the problems that surround us, even equivocally if necessary. Anarchism is a tool for liberation and if it ceases to be so, then it will be no more than a pose.

Q. – What opinion do you have of political organisations such as Podemos or Ganemos [a series of radical political municipalist movements seeking power at the local city level. In some cases, they have allied themselves with Podemos for the upcoming spanish municipal elections. For example, Ganemos Madrid] ? They have in same way taken our territory? How do we recuperate it?

R. – They are expressions of discontent in society. Before the lack of evident victories in the street, people move towards electoral politics. In this case, new versions of a parliamentary left appear. The libertarian of course opposes the electoral game as the easy solution and denounces that electoralism forgets what is truly important: to empower the people. We do not believe that one can attain a great deal through the institutions, given that those who hold power in this country are the capitalists, and not those who govern. Local governments have relatively limited power and what they can realise will be meagre. But neither will we remain with our arms crossed and letting a moment pass without struggling, without carrying with us the demands of people to their end and also proposing new, more ambitious, ends. Power should be in the streets, and that is our role: to help organise society.

Q. – You present yourselves as ambitious … What objectives would you like to reach with this initiative? What will be the stages to attain them?

R. – Let us make it clear that for the moment we are a process of organisation and not an organisation formally constituted. This occurred when different groups that constitute Embat so decided. We have a long journey before us, but recently we have noticed a significant acceleration. In any case, what must grow is not our organisation in itself, but the influence of our ideas and our ways of acting within the social and popular movements. If we can count on some well politicised and autonomous social movements, and furthermore organised between them, we will have something like an organised people. The role of organised anarchism should be that of catalyst and motor of initiatives and that of avoiding the recuperation of struggles by other political movements. At that moment, we will be in a new stage of struggles in this country.

Published: Peridico CNT n° 415 – January 2015

Should Long Island Secede, With Brooklyn As The Capital?

(NATA-NY, wholeheartedly supports The ISL and any and all attempts by the people of Long Island to secede from the city & state of New York and the US federal government if they see fit.)

by Arthur Borko 

 There are lots of people who often joke about New York City seceding from New York State, and I admit, I’m one of them. But imagine my surprise to hear that there’s a secessionist movement for Long Island. As it turns out, Brooklyn is the capital of The Independent State of Long Island. That’s
 right, I was watching the most recent episode of “How The States Got Their Names” on History Channel. This episode focused on the various accents across the country and eventually they got to discussing the accent’s from Long Island. This led to a small segment about The Independent State of Long Island and their dream of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk succeeding into it’s own state. There’s even a pretty clever flag! Well, it got me to thinking. If Brooklyn was the capital of Long Island the 51st state then what would that mean for Sheepshead Bay?
How would things be different around here? Would we get more tax money for infrastructure? Would the port and bay get more development? Would we be a tourist destination? Without the MTA would we retain the focus for public transport to New York, or would easy access to the rest of the island become a priority?
Kinda makes you think doesn’t it? As for The Independent State of Long Island, the movement has been around since 2007. Check out the website for a whole bunch of interesting statistics, they even have a news page! As for me, I kinda wanna get that flag!!

Fiume: The last Pirate Utopia

by groenenationalist

During the golden age of piracy in the 17th and 18th century, heroic rebels plundered the lucrative shipping routes between Europe and the New World. They operated from free ports, the so-called pirate utopia’s on islands and along unreachable coastlines, outside the grasp of civilization. From these anarchist enclaves these free men organized unseen raids with which they undermined mercantilism and the upcoming system of worldwide oppression, slavery and colonialism.
One of the last of these pirate utopias was founded in 1919 by the celebrated poet and well known Italian national hero Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938). He gained fame during the First World War, where he fought in the Italian army, but refused, as did so many of his generation, to conform himself back to civilian life after the war. Therefore Italy became a pool of nationalist and revolutionary aspirations after the war. Futurists, fascists, anarchists: all tried to create a ‘new’ Italy, based on heroism, national glory and overcoming the class struggle.



Fiume (now known as the Croatian Rijeka) was part of the Habsburg Empire for centuries, before the First World War made an end to this. And although the city was then claimed by the Italians, it was given to the Slaves in Versailles by the Entente. D’Annunzio did not agree with this and moved from words to actions by marching from Ronchi di Monfalcone to Fiume in September 1919 with about three thousand deserted Italian soldiers. The city was conquered without even firing one shot and D’Annunzio and his troops were warmly welcomed by the population of the city.



After the Italian government refused to annexate the city, Gabriele D’Annunzio pronounced Fiume to be a Free State and for sixteen months conducted a revolutionary reign. With this Fiume became a social experiment and pilgrimage for all kind of freethinkers, artists and revolutionaries. Together with the national-syndicalist Alceste De Ambris he created the ‘Carta del Carnaro’, which served as the new constitution of the newly formed Free state. The absolute equality of men and women, freedom of religion and a comprehensive social system based on corporatism were the essential principles of this new constitution. Gabriele D’Annunzio wanted to develop a new civilization that was different from the corrupted, shiftless, vulgar and outplayed politicians of western civilization. His free port had to set the example to create a new spiritual storm which would radically change the western world. This new civilization would no longer be based on mammon and power, but on heroism and individual freedom.
D’Annunzio thought it was of a crucial importance that the population of Fiume introduced a new way of living. Each day parades were held, bonfires were ignited and theatrical speeches were given to inspire the population. A participation-democracy was realized with a decentralized government and many forms of direct democracy. This social experiment became the starting point of departure for universal rebellion. And under the leadership of the futurists, revolutionaries and other adventurers that en masse came to the city, it seemed this could work. After a trade-blockade by Italy to undermine the economy of Fiume, D’Annunzio developed an alternative system which was mainly based on piracy. His land- and sea robbers he called ‘Uscocchi’, after the infamous Slavic pirates from the past, who raided the region. One of the most well-known actions of the Uscocchi took place on the 18th of April 1920, when they robbed 46 expensive thoroughbreds from a riding school of the Italian army. The Italian government was furious and threatened with hard sanctions against Fiume, after which D’Annunzio promised to return the horses. However instead of returning the stolen thoroughbreds, D’Annunzio returned 46 emaciated peasant horses to the Italian government. A provocation which inspired many people.



Gabriele D’Annunzio was ahead of his time when he noticed the newly formed League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations) was a conspiracy of thieves and scammers. As an alternative he founded the ‘Lega di Fiume’, a league which had to unify and liberate all the oppressed peoples of the world. Within this league there would be place for the Irish, the Palestinians and other Arab peoples, Asians and of course the Slavic peoples who were oppressed by Serbia. However, these plans came to an abrupt end when in the December month of 1920 the Italian army made a definitive end to D’Annunzio’s pirate utopia, This day became known as ‘Bloody Christmas’.
After the fall of the Free state Fiume, Gabriele D’Annunzio retreated to Italy, where many of his ideas found an entrance in the rising fascism of Mussolini. Although he supported some fascist ideals, he strongly rejected others. The poet supported the corporatist arrangement of the economy and the strife for a new society based on heroism, action and nationalism. However Mussolini’s alliance with the foundations of the ‘old’ Italy – the monarchy and the church – could of course not get his approval. The Free state of Fiume was by no means an example what Italy could expect for the coming two decades. The Free state of Fiume was a social experiment in which the anarchist principles of direct democracy stood at the basis, while the fascism of Mussolini degenerated into a conservative and totalitarian dictatorship. Where the population of Fiume knew an unprecedented individual freedom, many Italians totally forgot the meaning of freedom after twenty years of fascist oppression.
Every attempt to qualify D’Annunzio’s regime as a rightwing or leftwing phenomenon is deemed to fail. The great force of the poet was his ability of acquiring support from a colorful and very diverse companionship that was capable – be it for a short period of time – to create their own reality. With the fall of the Free state of Fiume there came an abrupt end to the glory time of the pirate utopias. In a time in which the influence of modern society seems to be insurmountable and the State seems to influence all aspects of human life, the prospect on such a Free state seems further away than ever before. However, it is exactly because of this that we have to keep on pursuing the ideals of D’Annunzio and other spirited rebels. Only by realizing Free spaces outside the influence sphere of the State – how big or small they maybe -, we can show the people that real freedom can still be achieved.

Proxy Violence: On Killing with "Clean" Hands

Via :The Enigma of Steel

 From our Inception, We Have Been a Species at War.  I strongly feel that the anarchist/ libertarian non-aggression principle to be rooted in utopian fantasy and to operate as an ideal, rather than a historical reality.  (I fully expect written refutations to this in my mailbox.)  It is not non-aggression that has fuelled most technological nor moral/ philosophical advancements that culminated in this “modern” age, but I'll save more in depth discussion of this for another day.   

On many levels, there has been a centuries-long, collective drive - by academics, philosophers, and just ordinary men and women, to move away from this incessant infighting and toward a more Star Trek-style utopia – ultimately devoid of war and sickness – where humanity can work together to improve its existence on this blue-green marble we call Earth.  The way Western Civilization has flourished, it has made perfect sense that many of the old ways would be left behind.  Much of the world we see today barely resembles the more organically-tribalistic patchwork of nation-states that ruled and defined our ancestors for most of human evolution. 

But violence has always been a necessary part of this succession.  It is the constant and implicit structure which has guarded the perimeter, and watched over the darkest nights so that artists can draw, singers can sing, and workers can work without worrying about a face-painted savage (and I mean “savage” in the most complimentary and empowering way – savagery becomes a virtue when negotiations have failed and violence is the only option which remains,)  driving a spear through their cervical spine or a hail of bullets through their thoracic cavity.

Today’s political landscape sees many minority groups petitioning for, and in many cases rightfully obtaining their rights under the law.  Indeed, the 14^thAmendment to the US Constitution promises Equal Protection under the laws for all citizens.  This is necessary for the supreme law of the land to maintain its legitimacy.

Organic Tribalism:However, there are great divisions in our country – fractures along ideological and geographic lines.  This only makes sense when you consider that for most of our species’ existence, we were organized in tribes, and drew strength, comfort, safety, and even our very identities from our fellow tribesmen.  Because of limited technology, and because of simple organic tribalism: that tendency of homo sapiens to group together for survival and assume identities therefrom, that this flourished.  I largely see such differences and many political movements through a tribal lens - political movements adopt similar slogans, speech patterns, logos and insignias, assume a common identity and their own value sets.

All the GPS, live podcasts, and HDTVs haven’t really changed that.  Organic tribalism resonates in many familiar areas of life today – police departments encourage tribalism by donning uniforms.  So do sports teams.  Even when part of a larger organism, such as a branch of the military, smaller units nonetheless display tribal behavior by donning particular insignia, and taking great pride and sometimes even great risk to bring honor to their unit above and beyond the military branch as a whole.

Vicarious wrath and Proxy Violence:  Jack Donovan rightly points out (I’m paraphrasing here, but the essence is the same;)  that an overweight “tough on crime” conservative raising his fist as his TV screen and “feeling tough” about his hard stance against crime is really a sad joke.  In reality, he isn’t standing against crime at all.  He is merely railing in favor of a “low level government employee” pulling a trigger or a switch, or pushing a button.  (If you dig this, you should really follow that link - Donovan is much more articulate than I.) When the switch is pulled, sending electricity pouring into a doomed criminal’s nervous system, that conservative may very well be face deep in a Philly cheese steak, happy about the taking of a life he had little to no part in taking.  This person doesn’t combat the crime himself.  He is content to allow others to do the dirty work so that he can prostrate himself before his God with clean hands.    

The same can be said of certain liberals who cry incessantly for strict gun control.  Make no mistake,  these people are NOT against guns.  The disarmament agenda they vocally and with vitriol espouse cannot operate without the aid of guns.  These talking heads are merely advocating for certain people (who naturally have guns) to barge into the homes of other people and disarm them on threat of death and imprisonment.  

When I have asked many of them if they themselves would be willing to kick down the doors of their fellow gun owning citizens, I generally received some copout about how “they pay taxes” so, naturally, they are entitled to having other people do it for them (as if any amount of tax money is worth a human life,) or occasionally, A poorly thought out script about being pacifisticand against violence in general.

Newsflash: it is very easy to be a pacifist when others stand ready to do violence on your behalf. 

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

- George Orwell

This idea of keeping one’s hands clean, while relying on others to do violence on their behalf is proxy violence.  To some degree, I acknowledge that it is a necessary evil.  There is certainty and predictability in a civilization where vendettas are the exception and not the rule, and where a law enforcement system can track notorious criminals such as serial killers and child rapists in distant states, far from where a husband or father’s retribution could ever reach them.   

The Proliferation of Proxy Violence in the “Modern” Age: However, there is something equally disturbing about the increase in proxy violence in our society, and more disturbing: the comfort at which many of our civilians espouse.  (I adore Heinlein’s model of civic virtue, and appreciate his contrast between a citizen and a civilian.  also acknowledge that this may be an easy philosophy for me to don given my background.)

Warrior-types – whether military or law enforcement instinctively prefer their generals to lead from the front.  Street police are much more comfortable with a road boss who had extensive experience on patrol and/ or time on a tactical team than they would be with a more "bookish" supervisor.  I definitely did.  There was a time when this was the norm – that any leader worth his mettle could only lead his men from the front.  Today, this sort of valor is predictably frowned upon, as the gears of war and order-maintenance become more technical, requiring perhaps less "balls" and more "brains."  But make no mistake – the spirits of men have not changed as fast as our technology, and are yet still compelled to follow courageous leadership.

This movement toward proxy violence manifests in some ways which I consider to be quite ugly – one is the so-called drug war.  There are too many people in this country who are fine with armed and armored SWAT teams throwing grenades into homes of people suspected of smoking marijuana or hiding cocaine.  I try to live a healthy lifestyle, but if someone else wants to do drugs and aren't hurting, abusing, or neglecting another as a result of their addiction, leave them be. 

While I am a proponent of police militarization, I am only such if (1) tactical teams are used as a last resort, (2) tactical teams are used extremely sparingly – such as in response to the events at Columbine, or the North Hollywood shootout, and (3) they are balanced by a citizenry of free men who also retain the right and the ability to militarize should they need to overthrow a future despotic or rogue government, as was (what I firmly believe to be) the true spirit and purpose of the Second Amendmentto the US Constitution. 

(For non-American readers, I make many references to American governance because that is where I reside – if you have any equally compelling doctrines in your nations, feel free to message them to me – I am always appreciative of different ideas regarding this subject matter.)

One of the worst effects of proxy violence is the rise of the defenseless ostrich-men – who have grown with no “street sense,” no ability to defend themselves or others, and who rely solely on the (hopeful) presence of better men than themselves to swoop in and rescue them should violence ever threaten them. 

Rape whistles.  Cell phones.  These are the tools of the unprepared.  Small knife (make sure it's legal,) concealed firearm (make doubly sure it's legal,) now we're talking.  I hope they step it up, because  there are bad and very real people out there who would try to harm them should their paths cross.

I worked in law enforcement for eight years before I was injured in that car wreck, and I can tell you from personal experience that police more often than not arrive to photograph blood spatter and stab wounds, and to load victims into ambulances.  It is less often that we are actually around to intercede in the few seconds that elapse during an assault.

Never have I hoped that an ostrich would back me up when I was fighting a suspect high on PCP.

Implied Violence in the Rule of Law: Law by its very nature cannot rule without the threat/ implication of deadly force for those who resist.  Otherwise, it’s not law at all...merely a suggested behavior protocol.  There exists a commonly reviled but equally necessary political and legislative process by which to amend it, but it often seems clumsy and slow.These are some of the factors that have driven me toward social libertarianism – that fewer laws regulating victimless human behavior are preferable to more laws; that groups of people can assemble peacefully and be at peace in forming their own organic tribal identities.  If one tribe decides that it wants to smoke hashish after work, they shouldn’t fear boots and bullets if they do so.  If another decides that children should be taught to hunt or fight at a young age, that they have the liberty to do so as well, so long as they do not hurt others with such skill sets.

I am of the strong feeling that if you are not willing to swing the axe or pull the trigger yourself, you are living in a fantasy world, and aren’t actually “anti gun,” or “tough on crime.”

It is also very easy to say “well, I would pull the trigger if I had the chance.”

 Let me tell you, I have been in situations where I would have been legally, and perhaps more importantly, morally - under my personal code,  justified in pulling a trigger, and I didn’t.  It isn’t that easy, and I probably sleep better at night because of that choice.   

After having myself, committed proxy violence on behalf of many, many people who I will never meet, I can tell you, it changes the way I look at people.  I was their sin-eater – they got to traipse along knowing that if the going get tough, that I would be the one to see the tough get going.  Don't misunderstand - I accepted that position willingly (quite happily, actually,) and don't regret it at all, it just widened my perception.

Next time you start raving: “kill all those Arabs/Jews/Atheists/blacks/whites/gays/whoever,” think long and hard on whether you would really be willing to commit that violence yourself, or if you are just being a loudmouth and expecting others to do it.  Chances are, you're just being a loudmouth and should knock it off.

Most “Pacifists” are Really Just Afraid of Violence

 VIA: The Enigma of Steel

  I notice that a lot of people like to refer to themselves as “pacifists.”  If I were a betting man, I‘d say that about 10% of them are what they claim to be, and 90% are full of shit. 

First off, pacifism as a belief system, of going forth and doing no harm, is a good thing when chosen freely and voluntarily.  I would like to think that we, as a society, would want to encourage people to ‘go forth and do no harm.’  I am not an anti-pacifist, or a warmonger.  I am generally skeptical when the political and social war drums start beating, but I understand that there is a time and a place...and a very important set of protocols to be mastered when violence becomes an option.

There is a (I’m sad to say) large population of self-described “pacifists” who are simply afraid of and unskilled in the use of violence: a population who hides behind the title as if it were some sort of moral armor. 

I prefer a different term for these people: victims in waiting.  I have more bad news: such victimhood never makes for good armor when armor is most needed. 

You see, there is a stark difference between being a pacifist and simply being someone who is afraid of violence.  If you are on social media, or even hanging out with friends (I like to think that some people still hang out with their friends in real life, and don’t just sit behind keyboards,) and are attacking other peoples’ belief systems, their way of life, their ideas, or their identities; if you like acting superior and being snarky, I have news for you: you probably aren’t a real pacifist.  If you find yourself referring to others as “libtards,” “rednecks” or whatever the vitriolic political insult of the day is...you are basically exercising what is the opposite of pacifism, and are simply choosing to perform these exercises from a physically safe vantage point.   Reducing your ideological adversaries to monosyllabic sound bytes is not a trait of a real pacifist.  This is simply being aggressive in an artificial environment where there is no fear of physical harm.

This is what a real pacifist looks like:

I have a buddy who served on a SWAT team for years, where he was involved in many high risk operations.  He left the PD and basically turned his back on all aspects of violence.    This person consistently scored perfectly on firearms qualifications courses including when under physical stress.  This person threw grenades into dangerous folks' houses and kicked their doors down.  Today, this person won't even touch meat because it was procured by violence.  When a person like that decides to not harm others, and to live peacefully in a life of harmony rather than conflict, he is a true pacifist, because he makes a choice to do so. 

Just because you choose not to train in martial arts, to not acquaint yourself with the tools and tactics of personal security; and instead, rely on persons better than yourself to maintain your physical safety, you do not become a pacifist.  You simply become unprepared.  In order to truly be a pacifist, you must choose to be a pacifist.  In order to choose to abstain from violence, you must be able to inflict it in the first place.  Similarly, you must be trained in the art of diffusing violence, which, in my opinion, is JUST as important as being able to inflict it, if not more.

Otherwise, you’re basically just proud of something that you have no control over - similar to the self-interested pride that many racists and ultra-nationalists espouse.  I understand and recognize tribe as important, but if your belonging to the tribe is your ONLY source of pride, then you are dead weight.  You must be a functional member ---> if you are a nationalist - serve your nation; if you are proud of your race or heritage, serve your race or heritage (provide jobs and opportunity for persons in your ethnic/ racial/ minority group - give them leadership and guidance because you understand your culture and will be able to connect with members of it in a way that outsiders never will.)  I am of the opinion that one’s own deeds and one's own ability should be the primary source of one’s pride, not necessarily one’s heritage or lineage...but that is for another day.

 “Only a warrior chooses pacifism, others are condemned to it.” Is a quote I encountered often in my martial arts training, and it is absolutely true.

If you’re unable to do something, then there is no “choosing” not to perform that something.  If you're still calling yourself a pacifist, that may be you trying to fill the gaping hole in your personal security plan with ego.  And when the glass break, when the bullets fly, and when the rapist/ robber/ drunk guy pulls out his knife, ego counts for shit.

“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

-  Robert E. Howard

Disclaimer (this should not be a surprise:) I make no claim to being a pacifist.  I had a job for many years where I had to inflict violence in order to protect life, property, and myself.  I sleep just fine at night too.  

I’m not over here on the internet trying to say I’m the toughest guy since Simo Häyhä either.  (I don't care if you disagree - I think he is the baddest bad ass of the entire history of western civilization's bad asses).  I’m not – there are way more tough, smart and dangerous mofos out there – there are people who are stronger, faster and more cunning than I am.  I am okay with that.  I have another good friend...let’s call him “Tripp” who put 2 rifle rounds through the same quarter at 500 yards.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that, so don’t take this as patting-myself-on-the-back.  I'm glad he's on my side.

However, I did learn a few things about the nature of violence in my decades of martial arts training and years of police service. Feel free to agree...or to disagree with any of this – I am all ears.

The Government Shutdown: An Anarchist's Dream?

By Nathan Scheiderman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

In his complaints against the wing of the Republican Party that engineered the present government shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid derided his opponents as "Tea Party anarchists." It's hard to decide who should be more annoyed -- the Tea Party or the anarchists. In any case, Reid's remark is revealing of how the long tradition of anarchist philosophy has been thrown under the bus of U.S. political discourse, then rolled over, then dragged along in mangled form so as to be pointed at when doing so seems expedient.

Many may be surprised, for example, that actual anarchists aren't necessarily rejoicing over the U.S. government's latest form of self-annihilation. What they see taking place is a transfer of power from one kind of oppression, by a government that at least pretends to be democratic, to another that has no such pretensions. They point out that the shutdown won't stop the NSA from spying on us, or police from enforcing laws in discriminatory ways, or migrant workers and nonviolent drug users from being imprisoned at staggering rates. The parts of government that the shutdown strips away are among those that bring us closer to being a truly free, egalitarian society: food assistance to ensure that everyone can eat, health care that more people can afford, and even public parks, where some of our greatest natural treasures are held in common. Meanwhile, ever more power is being handed over to corporations that are responsible only to their wealthiest shareholders.
Historically, the so-called libertarians of the Tea Party and anarchists have common roots. The origins of both can be traced to certain freedom-seeking strands of the Enlightenment -- including thinkers like Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson, as well as ones not normally taught in U.S. classrooms like William Godwin and Peter Kropotkin. It's an oddity that in the United States, the main current of libertarian thought has been twisted and inverted into a kind of monstrous stepchild. Rather than seeking an end to all forms of oppression, our libertarians want to do away with only the government kind, leaving the rest of us vulnerable to the forces of corporate greed, racial discrimination, and environmental destruction. The legacy of one firebrand Russian émigré, Emma Goldman, has been traded for that of another, Ayn Rand. The result is that, in this country, what was once the mainstream of libertarian thought -- socialist, democratic anarchism -- has become so forgotten that the word "anarchist" can be mishandled for the sake of a congressional jab.
If anarchism were really just a preference for the absence of government, as many are led to assume, Reid's usage would've been basically correct; the right-wing libertarians he's up against would be thrilled to see our government become less of an obstruction to profiteers. But, since at least the Enlightenment, anarchism has meant much more than that. The rule -- the -archy -- it seeks to dismantle is also the rule of those with too much property over those with not enough, and of those whose privilege of race or gender gives them priority over others. Anarchists seek a society in which ordinary people can freely and democratically govern themselves, organizing to meet everyone's basic needs.
Until that comes to pass, anarchists today disagree about how to relate to institutions like the pseudo-democratic U.S. government. Some, much like their counterparts on the libertarian right, advocate total withdrawal and non-participation, refusing to do things like vote or pay taxes. Others believe that for now government can be a means for pursuing anarchist-friendly ends; "it's completely realistic and rational to work within structures to which you are opposed," writes Noam Chomsky, "because by doing so you can help to move to a situation where then you can challenge those structures."
Most people with anarchist tendencies fall somewhere in between. They're less fixated on debating whether government is good or bad than on rebuilding political life from the ground up, starting in local communities that are connected through global networks. When the anarchist-inspired Occupy movement sprang up two years ago, commentators were quick to compare it to the Tea Party -- and to judge it by whether, like the Tea Party, it elected politicians to office. But this standard seemed beside the point for Occupy participants, who tended to hold a different strategy for making change. The more useful right-wing analogue would be not the Tea Party but churches, whose massive political power stems from being effective centers of mutual support and community. Megachurch pastors generally keep aloof from elected office, but nobody can deny their influence.
Harry Reid's utterance about "Tea Party anarchists" is a symptom of the amnesia that has befallen libertarian political thought in this country -- an amnesia that helps the capitalist class grow stronger with each sequential fiscal crisis and each shrinkage of the social safety net. He might do well to reconsider his words. While in the long run the anarchist tradition seeks to cast mighty men like him from their thrones, in the short-term effort to ensure basic necessities for more people, Reid might find himself sharing a common cause with anarchists.

THE ANCIENT FUTURE: ANARCHO-FEUDALISM!

This essay is included and first published in the recently released 2013 publication,  National-Anarchism: Methodology and Application, edited by Troy Southgate and available from Black Front Press.

By Wayne John Sturgeon

One of the most significant contributions to what could be referred to as a form of anarcho-feudalism is what is sometimes described as ‘Heathian anarchism’. Heathian anarchism is a form of free market libertarianism based on a model of proprietary communitarianism. This was originally defined in the social theory of Spencer Heath (1876-1963) who had been deeply influenced by the land reformism of Henry George (1), who advocated the socialisation of rent via a ‘single tax’ on land value made payable to the government. Heath developed this, but rather advocated a voluntary rent made payable to single private corporations who would provide for all public services out of such a revenue. Thus, this single private landlord would own all the land and housing in a single given geographical area, much like a city-state from medieval and Greek times. Spencer Heath defined this vision in his book, Citadel, Market and Altar(1957), where he develops a Trinitarian theme working throughout history, symbolised by the threefold synergy of human biology transferred to the social and economic spheres (2).

As the human being is made up of a skeleton with muscles and tissues (corresponding to the ‘Citadel’) and a nutritional, circulatory and reproductive system (corresponding to the ‘Market’), plus a neural and nervous system based in the mind (corresponding to the ‘Altar’), their successive and ultimate holistic synthesis and integration would bring about the fully realized spiritual human being and society. This would take place in three stages of historical development and social evolution. Firstly, the ‘Citadel’ or government organism would be progressively absorbed and transcended, when distorted by coercion, and transcended by the principle of co-operation via an evolutionary anarcho-capitalism based in a voluntarist free marketism. This spontaneous order or ‘Market’ stage would eventually become economically successionist and anti-statist before achieving a consummation of market forces in the ‘Altar’, a period within the social organism symbolizing the full realization of art, science and religion.

Heath would also echo elements of medieval apocalyptic and mystical millennialism by referring to these periods as the age of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

Heath based most of his views on the ancient Anglo-Saxon model of society that existed in England before the Norman Conquest, where voluntary revenue of rent provided for all public services. Not until after 1066 was any permanent system of centralized taxation put in place. Land ownership thus became a political and coercive institution, laying the foundations for the latter servile feudalism in contrast to the more decentralized voluntary feudalism that had existed before. Where before ‘to own was to owe’ (private property having a social value defined in service to others) and there were mutualist obligations between landlords and freemen on the land, and whereas these relationships had been defined without either the twin evils of serfdom and servitude through forced and conscripted labour.

The ‘Norman yoke’ inaugurated the Romanist conception of feudalism laying the basis for the authoritarian state. The early conception of Anglo-Saxon voluntary feudalism was based in a free market and proprietary contractual association that was completely non-political. This had been evolving out of the earlier tribal blood bond of allegiance to an earthly king via the custom of public moots and witans, etc. Sadly, this had been historically arrested and distorted by the papal inspired invasion of 1066, along with other events.

Heathian anarchism does not differ from most other modernist schools of anarcho-capitalism, in that Spencer’s vision contains no model of competing security agencies in any one geographical area or zone. There is only the one, although this single provider would be subject to the competition of other city-states or free zones. Where Heath saw these emerging communities as being also in competition to central governments etc., they would also be responsible for protecting their tenants from both criminality on the one hand and statist taxation on the other. It is easy to see here how Heath’s vision has provided the template for many different social and economic experiments in anarcho-capitalist enclaves, retreats, intentional communities and so on.

Heath foresaw voluntarist possibilities in the development of multi-tenant properties such as hotels, holiday camps, industrial business parks, apartment buildings and even shopping malls, if these could be made to function as templates for entrepreneurial opportunity, individual autonomy and quality of community life, towards spiritual realization etc.

 Heath’s grandson Spencer Heath MacCallen would further develop these concepts in his booklets, The Art of Community and The Enterprise of Community, Market Competition, Land and Environment (3). Heath would also form a close friendship in his later life with the radical alternative monetary theorist, E.C. Riegel (who was also influenced by Proudhonist mutualism), and inspired the popular LETS system of community non-governmental credit (4).

Maybe it is time to reclaim this tradition of voluntary ‘Anarcho-Feudalism’, both in its agorist sense of being a model for economic successionism, its Trinitarian model of historical and spiritual development, and its inspiration and celebration of the ancient historical regionalist and non-papal pre-reformation Anglo-Saxon confederate England. In this sense, it looks both backwards and forwards at the same time, in anticipation of realizing the ‘Ancient Future’: this ‘ancient future’ being an attempt at a synthesis of religion and social life akin to a radical traditionalist sacred order that allows for dynamic innovation but is essentially timeless and changeless in its stability, unlike the dynamic of modernity that is constantly striving to change humanity and the world but from a materialist viewpoint.

In this respect, another precursor to a vision or inspiration for an anarcho-feudalism can be found in the writings of the much-celebrated J.R.R. Tolkien (5). Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings sought to reclaim a cultural tradition and revive a ‘mythology for England’ based in what Tolkien referred to as ‘the north-west of the old world’, a world where indigenous peoples and cultures live in harmony with nature but without sentimentality strive to survive against the fascist imposition and union of state power, capital and technology as represented in the book by ‘Mordor’ – ‘One ring to rule them all.’ Tolkien noted in 1943 that ‘my political opinions lean more and more to anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control, not whiskered men with bombs) or to ‘unconstitutional monarchy’. I am not a ‘Socialist’ in any sense – being averse to planning (as must be plain) most of all because the planners when they acquire power become so bad.’

Tolkien was a devote Roman-Catholic, and one of the writers of a famous fraternity of Oxford-based scholars dubbed the ‘Inklings’ that comprised the brilliant Christian apologist C.S. Lewis and the Christian esoteric novelist Charles Williams (6).

Tolkien’s description of ‘The Shire’ very much functions similar to a municipal (as opposed to representative government) direct democracy, half republic and half aristocracy, neo-feudal Paternalism. There are three positions of authority in the hobbits’ Shire, two of them hereditary and one elected, but even here the power or rather duties are minimalist. The hobbits appear self-governing, and even at the end of the book, Lord of the Rings, the king merely grants to the Shire the autonomy and independence it already had as a sovereign province. The king merely serves as a ‘symbol of unity’, much as the concept of ‘Romanity’ served the pre-schism church before the advent of papalism as a true template of ‘subsidiarity’: an orthodox imperium of historical regionalism where decisions are taken at the lowest level possible given the ancient church practice of ‘Sobornosti’ and autocephalous administration.

So Tolkien was very much in one sense a ‘revolutionary conservative’ and anti-modernity, particularly in the ecological sense given his profound love for trees – a theme very much evident in Lord of the Rings (7).

It is tragic that many of the themes Tolkien wanted to reclaim and seed back into popular culture against the cult of modernity, with its worship and idolatry of technocratic centralism and despotism, would be betrayed in the hands of fascism. Writing during the Second World War, he commented, ‘I have in the war a burning private grudge against Hitler for ruining, perverting, misapplying and making forever accursed that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe which I have ever loved and tried to present in its true light’. Indeed, when asked by impending German publishers of The Hobbit as to his racial origins, he sarcastically replied, ‘If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.’

Let us reclaim the northern tradition as a faithful and true guardian over and against those who would like either to hijack it or to destroy it (8).

Notes

1. Other important thinkers and activists in this tradition of Georgist and libertarian/anarchist syntheses being Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, Franz Oppenheimer and Fred E. Foldvary, who has developed a brilliant exposition of natural law or universal ethics from a libertarian standpoint. Please see The Soul of Liberty, The Gutenberg Press, 1980.
2. This concept of tripartite or threefold commonwealth society can also be found in the writings of anthroposophicalism as originated by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner envisaged three separate realms pertaining to ‘equality’ in the political realm, ‘fraternity’ in the economic realm and ‘liberty’ in the cultural realm. The distortion of this being theocracy dominating the political and economic realm, capitalism dominating the political and cultural realm, and communism dominating the cultural and economic realm. Steiner’s conception was that all three realms had to be completely independent and autonomous, but would gradually evolve into what amounts to a form of conciliated Rosicrucian styled corporatism, albeit libertarian rather than essentially fascist. Please refer to The Renewal of the Social Organism, The Anthroposophic Press, 1985, and Tarjei Straume’s website exploring Steinerite anarchism: www.uncletaz.com
3. Also see: The New Approach to Freedom. Escape from Inflation, The Monetary Alternative. A Short Perspective for Land and Social Evolution and Planned Communities without Politics. Finding a Market Solution to the Social and Economic Problems of Common Interest Development. Available on request from sm@look.net
4. Please refer to The Monetary Economics of E.C. Riegel by Jon Matonis at: www.themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com. Also worthy of consideration is Silvio Gesell at: www.complimentarycurrency.org
5. Please refer to the excellent Defending Middle Earth: Tolkien Myth and Modernity by Patrick Curry, Harper Collins, 1998.
6. See The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their Friends by Humphrey Carpenter, Harper Collins, 1997.
7. Consider the impact Lord of the Rings had on the ‘romantic’ counter-cultural protest movements of the 1960s to the 1990s and beyond, and in particular to the anti road-building protests in England throughout the 1990s and the negative media stereotyping of the activist ‘tree hugger’. As William Blake observed, ‘The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.’
8. For a brilliant introduction and exposition on anarcho-feudalism, please see also Anarcho-Feudalism as Practical Model for National Anarchism by Craig Fitzgerald and Jamie O’Hara, published in National Anarchism Theory and Practice, edited by Troy Southgate. Blackfront Press, 2012.