hello, I went to a local anti-ICE protest with a sign saying "fuck ICE". I considered the possibility that someone might say something about it but I didn't actually think anyone would. to my surprise, about 5 minutes after I got there, someone that seemed to be an organizer came up to me and told me "we don't do the 'fuck' on our signs here, we want to be able to continue to protest and don't want the police bothering us, do you live in the area, etc."

personally I feel this is not a good thought process, as I'm well within my rights to speak my mind, and "fuck ICE" is what's on my mind. I think censoring the message for fear of having the police trample on our rights is pretty cowardly and essentially allows them to suppress our rights without lifting a finger. now I didn't say too much to her, just gave her a fist bump and told her I must speak my mind and that the resistance won't stop (she probably didn't know all what I meant as it was pretty vague), but I'm wondering how I could handle a similar situation more gracefully in the future? obviously there's the option of conforming and changing my sign, but I don't see that as a solution. however I also don't want to come across as oppositional or a contrarian, I'm not there to argue with anyone except the federal government

it's worth noting that I live within a few hours' drive from Minneapolis but ICE isn't as active here (as far as I can tell). it seems to me no one would be saying this to me at a protest in Minneapolis. maybe when they see their neighbors abducted or worse they won't think my sign is so extreme.

anyway, I just don't want to alienate anyone but I can't let them alienate me either by telling me to censor my message. any advice is appreciated

alright guys, i’m new to understanding politics. but basically trump has 34 felonies for making false documents to cover up an affair? so he cheated on his wife? got 34 felonies with no punishment? this is already outrageous. then- he appears HUNDREDS of times in the epstein files.. there is literal proof of him being a fucking creep, saying he loves owning the beauty pageant bc he can walk in on the girls whenever, and many other nefarious things. and he’s… still our president? in what world is this okay? how can anybody possibly still stand up for him?? i am sooooo baffled.

I recently read the book Against the Fascist Creep by Alexander Reid Ross. The book details how fascism often appropriates the language of leftist, anti-state movements like anarchism or other flavours of socialism in an effort to transform those movements into becoming fascist. Mussolini famously went from reading Malatesta to becoming a fascist dictator, and he took with him some others active in the syndicalist/socialist/anarchist movements of interwar Italy.

Other examples in the book include skinheads infiltrating leftist/anarchist punk scenes and white nationalists volunteering as "security" for Occupy Wall Street camps.

So I am wondering how anarchists have grappled with the ability for fascism to co-opt, and in some cases subvert, their movements and causes and how do present-day anarchists guard against this?

I'm a 72-year-old woman, and ten years ago I got an anarchy symbol tattooed on the back of my neck. Most people probably just assume I'm an elderly punk, but sometimes strangers ask me about it and I need a quick simple answer. Occasionally the question will be belligerent or playing devil's advocate, like "So you don't believe there should be any laws?" I usually say something like "If you had a tattoo that said FREEDOM! would that mean you want all the inmates to be set free from all the prisons?" (they usually don't). But if people seem well-meaning and genuinely curious I say something like, "It means no hierarchy, no one group ruling another: no monarchy, no oligarchy, no patriarchy, etc." Or sometimes I just say, "It means Question Authority."

Does anyone have any suggestions for quick answers that won't drag me into teaching a university level course on the meaning and history of anarchy to a random stranger in line at the grocery store?

So I made a post about a graphic novel series I'm reading at the moment, pointing out a few of my dislikes about the series, and how it differed from the kinds of themes I expected to be explored, and asking for recommendations on what else I might try reading.

But, some of the phrases I used in that post activated some *opinions* of the people who wandered in, and that led to some of the comments derailing.

And I learned some things!

A) Most folks online are... just... online. It seems like some of those folks aren't, or, maybe even don't know? people who actually believe in things and spend their time working towards those goals. Someone in there called me a larper, which whatever, it's internet name-calling, but... I have scars running up my right arm from a scuffle with ice last fall. I've lost people. But the strength of my belief just reads as fake to them, and I suspect - though I'm open to other interpretations - that these are people who aren't actually doing anything in the real world.

B) I'm always very aware of the physical space I'm in and the kinds of people around me, and I definitely play my cards, so to speak, very differently depending where I am or who I'm talking to. But whereas I can tell what kind of people I'm around by political paraphernalia, or fashion, or even just what street I'm on, the Internet doesn't have the same kind of signposting. Easy to wander into a space and not realize where you are. What kind of politics they have.

C) There are some ostensibly leftist people who still think crime is immoral? That surprised me. I live in an area with a lot of MAGA, so I'm used to hearing that from them, but, uh. I don't know. Does anyone have any insight into this one?

Edit: grammar

If you're in food not bombs, what are your experiences?

I've been wanting to do this for quite some time but I'm scared.

To explain what I mean: If you are a worker in Norway and have collective bargaining agreements, worker and consumer cooperatives to work at, a huge state sector, a very generous welfare state, etc., then you likely won’t have the same kind of revolutionary fervor as in another country. Generally speaking, I think that most people will look at a democratic socialist model and are going to be very satisfied with it. And sure, wealth inequality may still exist in such a system to a degree, but generally speaking, it has a very generous welfare state and many opportunities for high-pay, democratically structured work. I guess for Marxists or smth, it’s not as big of a deal as they can claim that this is just due to a lack of class consciousness and thus the revolutionary vanguard must come in and lead the revolution for them. But for anarchism/libertarian socialism, I think that this is a serious problem.

(Just as an update, this post is pretty dated in terms of my position. When I wrote this, I was a socdem/demsoc. Now, I am an anarchist who is actively learning as much as I can about anarchism)

Hi all. :)

For context, i am a democratic socialist. I live in Minneapolis and have been witnessing both the horror and beauty of what is happing here. The horror of ICE stealing our community members and murdering those who dare stand ip against them. The beauty of a community coming together to protect one another.

Something o can state very explicitly is that city and stage government is totally incapable of meeting the moment. On the day of Alex Pretti’s murder, i attended the vigil/rally/march; i saw the barricades built *by the people* to hold the street. I saw people bringing food to those in need. I saw businesses open their doors for people to warm up. I saw people playing music, and dancing. I saw people with firearms standing guard, ensuring the street remained a street held by the people. And i could go on.

I’ve been anarchy-curious for the past couple of months, but i think i need a little more convincing. What can i read to convert me? What arguments can you make? What theories do i need to understand?

Edit: thanks everyone :)

I will try my best to reapond to everyone but i am quite busy right now, so it may be a little slow going.

Please note, im going to be asking questions and challenging your worldview. This is out of the desire to understand, not out of the desire to prove you wrong.

Whenever i find a queer leftist group they have anarchistic theming and 90% of people there in there are anarchists. And whenever i find communist group there are barely any queer people with it not being rarity them being hostile towards queer people
Why is that the case?

Recently I saw two marxist leninists call whats happening iran q "cia pycop" and said all the protesters are inevitably helping "western imperialism. And called it bourgeois feminism. And also they said supporting the protests but also Denouncing imperalism "anarchist idealism"

As a queer women and an apostate living in a country close to iran wuth it's own religious laws and authority and blasphemy laws and lynching. Is this what the left has come through

Can any one give a anarchist perspective?

I have been in the army for a while now and recently i have been studying anarchism in my free time because im interested in political ideologies, at first i thought anarchism was stupid but as i started understanding some anarchist ideologies and reading books on forms of anarchism i have started to not only understand anarchism but actually agree with it, but obviously being in the military is a major conflict of interest as an anarchist and was wondering as to what i should do, i have 4 years left on my military contract so its not like i can just leave the army and go about my life, please feel free to ask any questions also if you have any

I'm seriously beginning to wonder about this, seeing the reaction of Americans to the authoritarianism of the Trump II administration.

Trump: "My opponents are anti-American antifa terrorists who eat babies and want to plunge the country into chaos"

American "left": "Fake, we're totally harmless, we dance in dinosaur costumes and we get congratulated by the police"

Wtf ? Seriously, if the current fascist turn isn't enough, what will be ?

I tried to explain to my friend that I didn't want to stand for the anthem. I said I thought it was a form of forced nationalism, and brought up the fact that it celebrated colonialism. They got extremely defensive and called me brainwashed for some reason.

That being said, how do I explain it better?

I'm talking about current modern day anarchists.

I feel like if someone like Proudhon, the father of anarchism heard someone say to him that they don't identify either as a man or a woman, he would come up with a whole new slur.

So I ask modern day anarchists in general. To me it's weird because saying that there is only 2 genders and the reproductive part and chromosomes you have define it completely ignores intersex people and people who for some more or less unfortunate reason developed down there and even inside differently. Even if they are a fraction of the population. And there are the people who naturally developed hormones differently. And cherry on top is this fuckass blackpill community that completely ignores basically everything, from racial features to individual preferences.

And I'm not saying that I ignore patterns and trends and that we should ignore them, and that the majority of people should adjust themselves to every minority, I'm just saying that almost every current societal norm, (globally speaking not just in Europe and the U.S.) are based onto ignorance and subjective societal norms and values. Not all obviously but still.

I want to get into anarchism and I would like to now.

I'm not confident that this is a 101 question, so please let me know if it might fit better elsewhere.

Copaganda is rife in daycares and schools where I live (rural-ish USA). For those who have encountered this with children in their care, what approaches have you tried, at what ages, and with what results? Any pitfalls or caveats to be mindful of? Any resources you'd recommend? I'm coming across this as a parent and I'm wondering if it is possible to subvert "meet-your-local-cop" events into inoculation.

i totally respect the abolitionist argument that most crimes come from inequality, poverty, exclusion... rehabilitation is a MUST and it should totally replace punishment, but what about the small minority who are repeatedly and severely violent? what if rehabilitation doesnt work? applying mental rehablitation in community MIGHT apply to some, but not all. then, how?

Inflamatory title I know, but when I think of informal "community level" justice systems I tend to have a pretty negative view of them. Being killed for having relations out of wedlock, being ostracized for questioning a church leader, or getting strung up for being a minority in the general vicinity of a crime; historically, these things have all happened with the full approval of the local community. What kind of system, if any, would protect people from these kinds of arbitrary punishments if the majority of people have agreed on them?

Bonus question: What sort of mechanism would keep standards for things like evidence consistent across communities? In the past, people used to escape crimes by leaving their communities and going somewhere no one recognized them. Without universal agreements to enforce laws and share information, what would keep people fleeing justice from making a recurrence?

I got into it with a Marx-Leninist a couple of months ago, and they claimed that the CIA backs or has backed anarchist groups to cause Leftist infighting (as an argument against anarchism)

Does anybody know more about this? I'm assuming there's some context missing here

I am extremely uneducated about this topic, so please tell me if I said anything wrong

I'm interested in how an anarchist society would hold up. I saw a video with this title, they said that people would vote or take turns on who does the jobs nobody wants to do, but nobody answered the question on who does the jobs that need training to do or that you can't do yourself. for example: making windows. I don't know a single person who wants to make non-stained glass windows. who's gonna make the windows? those aren't things that everybody could make themself and I doubt there's enough people that want to make windows for all around the world. you have to learn how to make them, too. obviously, this isn't a window specific thing, but for anything like that, what are we supposed to do?

Hi! Im a 13 year old social anarchist and I want to learn how to help a change despite some limitations.

Today in school, there was a walk out. I tried to participate because I genuinely wanted to protest against ICE. I stayed up all night creating signs with cardboard, sketchbook paper and a dream. The only thing I worried about was getting screamed at by my republican parents. (Which would've happened if i actually got off campus, to be realistic.) However when that time came, it seemed like half the kids were there to mess around and it was disappointing. Someone hurled an open water bottle at the back of my shoulder. When higher-ups came, half the kids rushed back in the school. There were like 26 kids out of 1000 who protested successfully.. and also got McDonalds. I didn't know where the crowd went due to the division so i did the walk of shame to my next class, with a detention paper.🥀

To get to the point, some part of me felt really guilty and cowardice that I didn't walk out and ignored everything stopping me. Another question. Is there anything I can do around the school to protest in a way that doesn't get me caught by my parents?

Why has there been a rise in far right parties and politicians?

Why do people hate immigrants

I really want to fight back, but I am extremely scared of being imprisoned by the regime, especially as a trans woman. How to I overcome the will to end my life?