PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Crimethinc vs. APOC: A Matter of Revolutionary Discipline, Not Gentrification or Race
by Signalfire.org Tuesday, Aug. 04, 2009 at 1:41 AM

Comments on the conflict between APOC and Crimethinc

It goes without saying that our comrades at APOC are insane. But, like that of Solanas, Kaczynski, or Tyler Durden, it’s a brand of insanity we can’t help but admire.


Of course APOC is wrong to frame the issue as part of the anti-gentrification struggle. No sound-minded realtor would pray for drunken, vandalism-prone crust-punks. Nor is it about race. If “working-class p.o.c.” had organized the 2008 Crimethinc Convergence, and comprised the majority of its body of attendance, it would still be a hedonistic roadshow, a drain on resources needed for the class-war, a perfect fulcrum for local and federal law enforcement to gain a foothold during the ensuing military occupation of Pittsburgh.


The actions of APOC in Pittsburgh seem to have generated more commentary amongst the Internet anarchist mileau than bursts of genuine insurrection in Paris, Athens, Oakland, Tehran, Urumqi, and Lhasa. That’s when the incident in Pittsburgh stops being merely amusing, and begins being kind of sad.



Anarcho-liberals have already referred to this incident as the US anarchist community’s “beer summit”, invoking the alleged power of Obama’s most recent hollow photo-op spectacle. The problem with the Crimethinc Convergence, however, was that it was a “beer summit” in the first place


After being told for months in advance by resident comrades that the Convergence would retard rather than foster the continued development of the anarchist project in Pittsburgh, Crimethinc unwisely chose to proceed. Even when they learned that our enemy was preparing for martial law in Pittsburgh, Crimethinc still refused to set aside childish things, such as an event that could only ever be justified as “fun”, or at best, “social networking”, an event best known as the location of Anna’s first seduction of Eric McDavid, an event that’s always been nothing more than a vacation for restless youth, which up until now relied on rural, wooded enclaves as an exotic backdrop, but this year chose instead as its playground the industrial decay of Pittsburgh, to lend an air of political relevance and working-class legitimacy to a drunken, drug-fueled orgy of bohemianism and self-indulgence.


Across the Atlantic, another violent outburst of anarchist sectarianism serves to parallel events in Pittsburgh. After Anarchist Black Cross was accused of aiding “terrorists” and “serial killers” (in other words, prisoner support) by the macho, Euro-chauvinist, technocratic “anarchists” who congregate on the Libcom forums, an ABC member punched a notorious Libcom forum contributor in the face at a pub. Neither APOC nor ABC began these sectarian feuds, yet they at least had the decency to give them a proper finish. (Even if by “proper”, we only mean dramatic and amusing)


Both incidents shocked the Anglo-American anarchist community. This only serves to show how declawed and defanged we have become, how much we’ve divorced ourselves from the grizzly reality of daily war. Nestor Makhno would never be bothered to push racist “anarchists” down a flight of stairs, or to punch them in the face at a pub. Instead, he tended to shoot them on sight.


That’s not to say APOC should have “gone postal” at the Crimethinc Convergence, (in fact, that’s the last thing they should have done) but rather to illustrate that APOC could only paint “dread-locked white punks” and “traveling college bros” as an external class-enemy because neither APOC nor Crimethinc (nor ourselves, for that matter) are close enough to the fire for issues of internal cohesion and discipline amongst radical political projects to be a serious subject of discussion. But as the G-20 looms over Pittsburgh’s head like an axe, we’re about to learn once more that the bourgeoisie is more than prepared to bring the fire to us. Are we prepared?


by Jeffy

http://signalfire.org/?p=716

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