This is some good history; thanks for sharing.

I actually had a thought about this in a discussion last night. Capitalism is based on the assumption of infinite growth, which is physically impossible with finite resources. So it turns inward, in a process of internal reduction. People are reduced to numbers, life is reduced to statistics, and so on. But that is also unsustainable, because this reduction weakens the core. To quote Yeats, the center cannot hold. These social movements like punk and goth get hollowed out by the commodification you describe, until they collapse. But hey, I’m a bit drunk right now, so maybe I’m just rambling.

I absolutely agree. To me, anarchism is, and always has been, about empathy, mutual respect and the dignity of life. Capitalist media made it about aggression and destruction, because that is the lens through which capitalism views the world. Conquest and subjugation.

I got “Never stop thinking about the thing with which you think.” It has gotten me far.

Man. Country used to be cool. Like John Prine, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie. Not these bootlicking slop shovelers we see these days.

I once met an AWB member. Actual quote: “We don’t hate racial slur. Don’t think we hate racial slur.” Just as casual as talking about a cup of tea.

Somehow, this is generally considered to be a radical position.