Hello, Babette,

>>"There is a 'statute of limitations' not only in law but in history."

     There's a statute of limitations in history? I've never heard of that in any history book I've come across. Something is so old that it never happened?

     And of course there's a statute of limitations in law. The law was the one who stole the land. Of course the law has the limitation that it can never be enforced equally. So, I have an idea. How about we just pass a law to appropriate the property of all of the Capitalists, and to give it to the workers? We won't have to call it Socialism. We'll just ignore the demands of the Capitalists for their property back until "the statute of limitations" has run out. And, of course, a dishonest interpretation and program of social change could never lead to anything but real social change, right? Sure, sure...

>>"Actually from a pre-historic point of view, the Aborigines probably walked across the Asian landmass which was joined to Australia and grabbed the vacant landmass in tribal fashion. No individual ownership - they hunted and fished and walked on when they had exhausted the resources in one area - and there were tribal wars."

     Oh, yes, tribal wars -- of which, probably, there was most likely fewer casualties than Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let alone counting the concentration camps built by the US, the UK, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. Do you really think you're more civilized because your governments kill people with the atom and the germ instead of the spear and the stone?

     As far as "exhausting the resources in one area," I'd like to see an anthropology book back that up. It's true, that humanity wherever it has spread has eaten up the local resources. But the Native Americans in North America, for example, have lived in compatibility with nature for more than 30,000 years. Tribes have lived almost exclusively off of the buffalo for this entire period. But where are the buffalo today? Where are the fish, the forests, etc.? Almost entirely wiped out. And the extinction did not begin with "Native Peoples." It began when the native peoples became colonized by a vicious, merciless, European power. In the Amazon or in the Outback, this has always been the trend. Otherwise, how is it possible that these people have lived off the land for thousands of years, and only now, with Capitalism, they are starving?

     If you've never heard of the British author Thomas Spence, you ought to take a look at it. It applies well to today, even though it was written around 1775... "I began, Sir, to look round to know the cause of this piercing grievance, and I found thousands rioting in all the abominations of luxury and dissipation, as if there had been no being in heaven or earth but themselves, and as if they had been created for the sole purpose of destroying the fruits of the earth; and again, I beheld myriads in a much worse condition than my own family. Then I began to read, and I found the savages in Greenland, America, and at the Cape of Good Hope, could all by their hunting and fishing procure subsistence for their families. Then I enquired whether men left the rude state of a savage voluntarily for greater comforts in a state of civilisation, or whether they were conquered, and compelled into it for the benefit of their conquerors."

     It would be pretty amazing if these 10,000 year-old cultures were just about to starve to death when the white colonists came, and that they were saved by this "invasion." Sounds quite absurd, that every people, from South America to India to China to Australia to Africa, were just moments away from starvation -- when the white settlers stole their land. It's just a coincidence, right? And they were actually saved by the colonists, because it was the colonists who brought the food, right? Actually, this is the exact opposite almost everywhere: from the colonies of New England to those of Australia.

>>"I don't expect to see you walking around handing out food bags, but I do expect a coherent written plan as to how you intend to implement anarchy -besides abusing long dead dictators and Popes that is."

     Easy. Abolish law, state, and Capitalism. Every factory, farm, business, industry, shop, warehouse, etc., is now owned, operated, and controlled by the people who work there. These cooperative businesses voluntarily cooperate with each other for wider social schemes, such as civil defense, public education, international diplomacy, and the like, forming an industrial congress. But the industrial congress is only made up of cooperatives that want to participate voluntarily, and the cooperatives, too, are only made up of workers who want to participate voluntarily. In this way, the people make society, according to how it fits their needs -- instead of having a government, that tries to fit people according to the needs of the state.

     Towns and bigger regions would form their own neighborhood associations, where every geography would be able to represent its interests on equal terms to the power of other associations. A type of equilibrium, or pure anarchy, results. Every person, possibly belonging to some oppressed group, stands on equal footing toward the other powers of society. On the first day of anarchy in Spain in 1936, 30,000 women joined together to form the largest, militant Feminist organization that Europe had ever seen. Condoms, contraception, and abortion were made freely available to all. Even the oppressed, racial minorities were wholly accepted in an otherwise conservative nation -- the editors of Anarchist newspapers declared themselves "Murcian," "Moroccan," etc., "by principle" though not by fact, simply because these were violently oppressed, racial minorities in Spain.

     Catalonia Spain and the Ukraine, Korea and Paris -- there have been a handful of places where this type of Anarchist organization has been implemented. But, I am only drawing from the experience of history in making these judgments of Anarchist-Syndicalist territories. Are you familiar with George Orwell and the anti-Soviet book he wrote titled "Animal Farm"? Probably. What you probably are not familiar with is his pro-Anarcho-Syndicalist book, based on his experience fighting with the Anarchists in Spain in 1936: "Homage to Catalonia." The details of these societies are widely open to any student who wants to research them.

Sincerely,
Andy Carloff

"What else is the meaning of the expansion of the United States within the last generation? Why have we taken over Hawaii, the Phillippines, Puerto Rico, and why have we virtually held a protectorate over Cuba? Why is American capital so interested in Mexico? Why is it that we go to South America for much of our meat supply--and only within the past few years? Why do American packers control much of the cattle and most of the packing industry in South America? What is the meaning of our heavy importations of rice?"
          --Margaret Sanger, 1919
          "Vanderlip's Speech -- A Warning"