By Chris Dodge
Last evening I saw a video clip of a Palestinian flag being removed from a Boise, Idaho, venue
as Bernie Sanders tried to continue speaking in front of a huge US flag: “Israel, like any country
on earth, has a right to defend itself from terrorism.” I later woke during the night, still
processing this, and I woke predawn this morning with a thought: Bernie Sanders is the Other
White Meat.
In the late 1980s the US pork industry, responding to a low-fat trend, launched a campaign
branding pork “The Other White Meat” in an attempt to compete with the booming chicken
industry. In the twenty-first century, as the US masses embraced fatty bacon cheeseburgers,
bacon sales rose, and the campaign was silently dropped. As the Other White Meat, Sanders puts
a kinder face on American imperialism, as do all those who wish to “restore democracy.”
Democracy that under Obama deported three million people from the United States and
conducted a covert drone war (killing an estimated 3,800 people, including 320+ civilians).
Democracy that under Biden served the rich, failed the masses (the struggling poor and
dwindling middle class), and sent billions of dollars to “our ally” Israel to massacre Palestinians.
This is representative democracy, so-called.
I am not cut out for any party that would have me as a member, to paraphrase Groucho Marx. I
am an anarchist, albeit one who sometimes votes. An anarchist who is for organization, rooted
and grounded.
Ed Abbey wrote: “Anarchism is not a romantic fable but [rather] the hardheaded realization,
based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives
to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”
That’s part of it, the “anti” part.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon wrote in What Is Revolution?: “To be governed is to be kept in sight,
inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at,
controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor
the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. . . . To be governed is to be at every operation, at every
transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed,
authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public
utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained,
ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then at the slightest
resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked,
abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed,
sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government;
that is its justice; that is its morality.”
I agree with Emma Goldman: “The State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written
and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment”
(“Anarchism: What It Really Stands for”).
And I revisit my own words published in 2001: “The corporate media would have us believe that
‘anarchism’ is something menacing, chaotic—the work of people who wear black bandanas and
throw bombs. But we know better. Anarchism is a theory, practice, and movement of people who
believe in self-regulation.” People who “yearn to . . . grow, and to live more fully.” I quoted the
Declaration of Independence (“When a long train of abuses and usurpations [imposes upon
people] absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government”) and
noted that Thomas Jefferson, slaveholder, was a crypto-anarchist. “If it were left to me to decide
whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a
government,” he wrote, “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
But words are one thing and actions are another.
“The United States is a bastion of freedom and democracy”: these false words have lived a long
life, and I think they are dying.
As for the Bill of Rights, this is not something to beg for. Be leery of those who mostly clamor
for “rights” to be upheld.
I don’t accept that something is a right by virtue of being codified by any group (such as a rich,
mostly white male legislature). Nothing that requires stamps, seals, signatures, ID cards, photos,
personal data, and writing has anything to do with human rights. These are “civil rights,”
perhaps, but anything that can be given and taken away is not a right. Parents do not bestow
rights on their children. States and monarchies do or may bestow rights on “citizens” and
subjects, but these are applied unequally, constrained, and sometimes taken away.
Civil rights. Where to start? Here’s the Eighth Amendment: “Excessive bail shall not be
required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” How many
ways is this problematic? A bail amount excessive for one person is not excessive for another,
and for many any is too much. People have languished and continue to languish in jail for long
periods (over a year) because they couldn’t and can’t afford bail. And isn’t solitary confinement
over the course of years, for political reasons, cruel? Isn’t capital punishment cruel?
Voting rights have always been limited. First to propertied white men, eventually all white men,
then all Black men, and finally women, but legal impediments have been placed on
voting—famously in the South with poll taxes and restrictive citizenship tests. And voting rights
are restricted for most of those convicted of a felony. In four states, they can only be restored via
“individual petition or application to the government.” And what about the sixteen-year-old,
arguably smarter and more politically aware than people of voting age? No, there is an age-
related edict, just as there is for cannabis use and sexual relations (age of consent).
As one writes, “The law is never sacrosanct to those sworn to uphold it. It is a polite fiction, an
alibi, a mask for power.” Government hirelings at every level can arrest, remove via force, jail,
penalize, punish, and threaten one alleged not to have the right papers and permits or one who
does not follow laws, no matter how odious, but in doing so they cling to their power and
authority. This clinging seems also to entail fear of the human rights they attack: the rights to
think, travel, and speak freely.
To champion these human rights and this freedom does not mean to ignore and abide licentious
and hurtful behavior. I will continue to defend my human rights, those of my child and friends,
and those of the most oppressed. (May my fate never become that of Winston Smith, whom
endless torture defeated.)
How to put our ideals into practice? Locally and defiantly, individually and in community.
Models to know about: Indigenous group decision-making and jurisprudence, anarchist
collectivization in pre-World War II Spain, and non-government-approved activities such Food
Not Bombs, Critical Mass community gardening, free schools, and tool-sharing. Move with an
open mind toward good energy. Do not get stuck in the mass toxic morass of negativity and fear.
Human rights need no legislature, but clearly they need defense. They no doubt would benefit
from wise adjudication when attacked, but I do not trust humans in black robes to provide
justice. Yes to the likes of the well-meaning, apparently hardworking people and effectual
actions of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the ACLU. But I place my trust in
my scattered nation—or is it just a small renegade band?—from the Flathead Valley to Berkeley,
Minneapolis, Ithaca, and beyond.
