@Radical_EgoCom

I wanna highlight a couple disagreements I have with this post, hope that’s okay.

First, what does ‘violence’ mean in this context Think about it, why does the movement’s attempts at liberation and the empowerment of the people get classed as violence but the state’s reliance on war and police brutality and its upholding of capitalist property law don’t get acknowledged as violence? The state is often defined as a polity with a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, while that isn’t a conclusive definition, it is crucial to understanding this discrepancy. The average person doesn’t question the state’s violence because justifications for it have been shoved down their throat since they were a toddler and so it’s been legitimized almost to the point of being viewed as a law of nature. The glorification of war and pigs is not treated by fascists the same way revolutionary ‘violence’ is treated because ultimately, it’s not about the violence itself. We could be absolutist pacifists and never kill a fly but still viewed as terrorists by fascists because it is not and has never been about violence itself. The violence in their eyes is not the physical force but the aim, i.e. the revolution. We are not nearly as legitimized as the state is in the eyes of many.

As such, fascists will always attempt to discredit any and all revolutionaries and will go to extreme lengths to do so with supreme disregard to reality, including disregard to whether or not the revolutionary in question was violent. Think about how heavily the capitalist-owned news outlets misportrayed George Floyd’s autopsy or how many fascists earnestly believe Tortuguita shot first or how the killers of Nex Benedict claim that Nex throwing water in response to months-long bullying justified murder. Fascists rely upon misinformation because noone would be fascist if they were properly informed and this will include misinformation about the nature of our actions. We will be misportrayed regardless of whether or not we are violent.

I think it’s also important to mention how harmful this line of thinking often is and its resemblance to completely and utterly nonsensical respectability politics. We appeal to the people through facilitating mutual aid and free association and other forms of libertaire prefigurative politics, not by worrying ourselves about what fascists and capitalists will maliciously insist about us. If we occupy ourselves primarily with conforming to how they perceive us, we will cease to be revolutionaries.

As for specific instances of revolutionary force, all libertaire revolutions ever have required physical defence in some form. From the 1936 Spanish Revolution to the Free Soviets in Ukraine to the revolutionaries in Korea and Manchuria to the AANES, physical defence of the revolution has proven necessary. Thích Quảng Đức's self-immolation inspired countless anti-Vietnam War protests which facilitated Vietnam’s (Maoist, but nonetheless) revolution. Various self-immolations incited people to revolution during the Arab Spring.

Demonstrations which only use force against capitalists, fascists, and others who actively and directly threaten the wellbeing of the people will always be justified and so will completely willing and consensual acts of defiance such as Aaron Bushnell’s choice to become a martyr for the movement. On the other hand, ‘propaganda of the deed’ as the murder of innocents/noncombattants is dictionary definition terrorism and is actual violence.