"I'm tired of people who protest for the sake of it, who seek to cause mayhem without any real commitment to a cause - basically the rent-a-crowds and the bandwagoners. I don't identify with those "anarchists". If you want to criticize something, you should offer a credible alternative."

Dolphinwolf

Actually the whole idea of it is in a society, sometimes it is the less fortunate, harder working and usually (unfortunately dumber) people in society that are the only ones who realize the problems. We have to identify them first, usually through activism and awareness and then propose solutions. To even get society to want to change anything involves convincing them first that they are doing the wrong thing to begin with, which most egotistically intellectual assholes (most of society) don't ever want to admit

Activism is rarely understood, often misrepresented and always credited with bringing awareness to something that otherwise had no awareness to it. In our pop culture, activism is the way we try to communicate to the masses of dumb fucks. (everyone)

What makes our society so beautiful is by allowing this process, little bitch assholes like you can criticize them and then come forward with the solutions they aren't smart enough to figure out and you didn't have the balls or brains to begin thinking about before the activism began anyway.

Its a symbiotic relationship but you are the one who is actually begin difficult about the situation, not the activists. Of course, your ego is always in the way whenever people confront you with anything you don't want to see, that is just human nature.

jskeetjr

I think that protesting during class hours weakens their cause.

Is this guy fucking serious? Next he'll be telling striking workers not to picket during work hours.

briesa37

He says he will "happily co-operate with the police."

Fuck this guy, we don't want him.

As for solutions, sometimes it's necessary for activism to say "no," like at an antiwar protest. But more often, it's saying "yes" through the things you're working on outside of protesting. Anarchist-created projects are often little glimpses of the society we want to built. They are small models of our solutions in action. Witness the success of projects like Food Not Bombs (share food) and Really Really Free Markets (share stuff). These are examples of the non-hierarchical gift economy that many anarchists seek to create.

superiority

Last I checked, anarchists have been offereing an alternative (I suppose some might disagree over whether it's "credible") for over a century. An alternative that was put into practice in Barcelona before the republicans ruined everything.

skeptic2525

Fuck this guy.

karacho

Why I broke up with activism

UnboughtStuffedDogs

I agree with all of that but the end, pointing out something that is flawed and wrong can be important even if one does not have a solution.

dbzer0

Hey look, the mod of freethought has picked up an anti-anarchist perspective and now scrounging the nets to find articles which support it.

enkeps

This guy should really ask anarchists what anarchism is, not the dictionary. Also, I think he misinterprets the dictionary definition: "rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority" = rejection of all forms of coercive control and coercive authority. At least, that's what most anarchists reject.

pernicat

At a campus atheist/secular discussion group:

Douche-bag neo-hippie: We need to protest man.

me: We need to protest what?

hippie: The Church.

me: Why? Is their a particular church that is doing something?

hippie: I just want to get out and protest man.

me: If we just go stand outside the church with signs or protest Sunday services without any good reason it seems like that might do more harm then good.

hippie: We just need to get out and start protesting man.

I am not opposed to protesting when there is a good reason to, but it seemed like this guy just wanted to do it for the fun of it.

anothertran

So you hate the French?

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