#79 – The *Real* Truth About Today’s Anarchists: The Ex-Worker Responds to the New York Times

Anarchists and anti-fascists in general, and CrimethInc. in particular, have been the focus of intense hostile government and right-wing attention and censorship efforts in recent weeks. The latest salvo comes from the New York Times, which on June 30th published “The Truth About Today’s Anarchists,” drawing on conspiracy theorists and right-wing talking points to argue that violent anarchists are somehow controlling the ongoing countrywide protests, but don’t actually care about Black lives. The article actually calls out The Ex-Worker Podcast by name! While we’re flattered for the attention—who knew we were such a threat?—the article is both inaccurate and dangerous; more importantly, it touches on critical issues about today’s movements for liberation that we need to clarify. So in this episode, the Ex-Worker lays out the truth about “The Truth About Today’s Anarchists”, refuting the article’s bogus claims one by one, and offering a more accurate perspective on the relationships between anarchists and the ongoing movement to end white supremacy and police violence. We conclude with an audio version of an article we published with Agency in June called This Is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Protests Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action. This episode challenges the myths and distortions about anarchism offered across the spectrum from Trump to the New York Times to provide insight into what anarchists today are really fighting for.

{October 5, 2020}

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:01}
  • The Truth About ‘The Truth About Today’s Anarchists’: The Ex-Worker Responds to the New York Times {6:21}
  • This Is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Protests Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action {40:52}
  • Conclusion {1:02:15}
• This episode focuses on our response to the wretched New York Times opinion piece “The Truth About Today’s Anarchists” by Farah Stockman. We published our rebuttal the following day as “The Truth About ‘The Truth About Today’s Anarchists’: The Ex-Worker Responds to the New York Times.” Our colleagues at It’s Going Down have published a lengthy thread going into many of the specific problems with amateur conspiracy theorist Jeremy Lee Quinn’s reporting (which is Stockman’s main source) in detail, if you want to dig deeper. For a laugh, you can also check out the appallingly bad Network Contagion Research Institute report “NETWORK-ENABLED ANARCHY: How Militant Anarcho-Socialist Networks Use Social Media to Instigate Widespread Violence Against Political Opponents and Law Enforcement”—which Stockman also uncritically promotes.
• To offer a different perspective on anarchist participation in the Black Lives Matter rebellions of the past months, we’ve also included an audio version of a piece co-published with Agency back in June, “This Is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Protests Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action.”
• To read our own account of how the uprising spread and why the authorities themselves were chiefly responsible for the widespread adoption of confrontational tactics, check out the CrimethInc. article “Snapshots from the Uprising.” If you want to know more about what anarchists believe and desire, start with To Change Everything: An Anarchist Appeal.
• On Facebook’s decision to ban and censor anarchist pages, including CrimethInc.’s, check out our response, “On Facebook Banning Pages Associated with Anarchism, and the Digital Censorshop to Come.” Also check out the open letter of support signed by hundreds of publuishers, journalists, educators, and activists to show solidarity.
• Also check out media projects like It’s Going Down, who’ve also been under heavy fire from the right wing, as well as The Final Straw, Rebel Steps, and all the other excellent podcasts from the Channel Zero Network.
• You can find a reference to CrimethInc. around {2:50:46} during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence”, during testimony by one Kyle Shideler, a staffer for the Center for Security Policy—an anti-Muslim hate group, according to watchdog organizations, moonlighting as experts on violent left-wing extremism.
• For more information on Black anarchism, check out Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin’s Anarchism and the Black Revolution, the recent Anarkata Statement, Vanessa Taylor’s excellent Mic.com article “How Black Anarchists Are Keeping the Protest Movement Alive,” and the recent AK Press books As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation by Zoe Samudzi and William Anderson and *Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism by Marquis Bey.
• For an articulate portrayal of exactly why government elites and right-wing authoritarians feel so threatened by us these days, check out the recent essay “Why Anarchism Is Dangerous.”