Chicago Rated 1/5 Stars By Anarchists Everywhere

Let's be honest. Chicago is a joke. People who live here, anarchist or not, tend to reflect on the city with a kind of cynical loathing: everything is shit, but what do you expect? It's a sprawling metropolitan complex with long-standing racial divisions, murderous gang conflicts (and even more murderous cops), and politicians so obviously uncaring that residents have long accepted them as an immutable evil.

The analysis presented here isn't meant to be an objective representation of anarchist activity in Chicago, but rather as an overview of a few experiences and ideas – with hopes of encouraging some actual discussion on how anarchists in Chicago might be able to open up greater conflict with the capitalist social order. When the collective “we” is used, it refers to anyone who might identify with the frustrations laid out by this writing, and the desire to come up with new ideas and courses of action.

Talking about anarchist activity is difficult when there's not much to talk about. This lack of both action and analysis makes it practically impossible to develop new tactics and ideas to replace methods that are no longer of much use. Finding affinity with others is likewise a challenge when visible anarchist projects are so few and far between – and those visible projects tend to focus primarily on either leftist activism or syndicalist organizing.

At a recent Little Black Cart speaking event in Chicago, there was a brief discussion of the Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation and the network that preceded it. Specifically, there was an overview of the three main projects advanced by the group way back in 1994: prisoner support (especially in the form of the Anarchist Black Cross), militant anti-racism (as Anti-Racist Action), and broadly anti-authoritarian leftist solidarity (in support of the Zapatistas).

Twenty years after Love & Rage's splitting into various Marxist parties and leftist groups, Chicago's visible anarchist presence is still focused on the same three projects from decades ago.

To conjure some new ideas for the anarchist space of this city, we should start with a look at what exists now.

ANARCHY IN CHICAGO

Shows and Social Events

A couple of times per month, some get-together with a suggested donation box is bound to appear. Usually these are fundraisers for something related to anarchist activity in the city – bail money, prisoner support, funding some organization or another. There are punk shows a-plenty plus occasional dance parties. There's also a once-per-year Anarchist Film Festival, which actually tends to show a lot of leftist- and activist-oriented films. A zine table might make an appearance at any of these events but it's rare that the material is anything new.

Spaces

Physical locations where anarchists can gather are pretty scarce. Legal spaces tend to get shut down by an aggressive application of building code and property use fines, as was the case with the Biblioteca Popular radical library. Squats don't fare much better. (A moment of depressing absurdity: the new Transformers movie involved the controlled explosion of a massive former squat in Chicago.) It's a difficult task to maintain a space while dealing with a hostile city government, rising property costs, and often immense geographical separation of anarchists – but having a place for face-to-face interaction and hosting events is an obvious necessity.

Prisoner Support

At the very least, there's no neglect of prisoner support here. Letter-writing parties happen frequently, and there's a Midwest Books to Prisoners group that has remained in existence for quite a while. These efforts, in addition to being a necessary component of solidarity with anarchist prisoners, are some of the only visible and accessible anarchist projects in Chicago that aren't explicitly connected to a specific ideological tendency or organizing method. This abundance of prisoner support has been pretty consistent, although notable surges in activity were probably in response to a number of high-profile arrests that police and federal agencies have managed to inflict on the anarchist presence here (see: Jeremy and Jason Hammond, the NATO 3, the Tinley Park 5).

Protests and Demonstrations

It's rare to see a public protest in Chicago without a small contingent of participants in black bloc attire. The yearly May Day march (officially sanctioned as a march for immigrant rights) is consistently attended to a gaggle of militantly-dressed anarchists who do nothing different compared to the hundreds of liberal and leftist groups who comprise the rest of the march.

(All together now: What do we want? Walking in circles! When do we want it? Now!)

This is a clear example of how anarchist activity in Chicago never seems to question its overall potential for spreading conflict with capitalism or strengthening the potential for revolt. Any fight taken up by liberal and leftist groups in the city tends to get token participation from anarchists by default. Not that crossing boundaries of political identity is a bad thing – identity is only a sometimes-useful signal of potential affinity. But signing on to leftist campaigns just for the sake of providing black-clad bodies in the crowd doesn't seem like the best way to create anarchy.

Halloween

The yearly Halloween parade is, bizarrely, consistently more exciting and confrontational than Chicago's May Day actions. In examples from years past, the “Capitalism Gives Us the Creeps” march has seen: running through a barricaded bridge to ditch police pursuers, at least one cop car getting a window busted, and a bunch of yuppie shops being visited en masse by some very aggressive trick-or-treaters who left with bags fuller than they came in with. A Starbucks manager briefly tolerated the spectacle of a fully-costumed marching band crashing into the cafe, until he noticed that one of the masked musicians was shoving a hundred dollars' worth of ground coffee products into a bag. Nothing says “Halloween fun” like expropriation. But it leaves something to be desired that this tiny handful of unexpected and un-analyzed happenings represents the city's best examples of joyful, collective revolt – and sometimes nothing really materializes other than a small, costumed crowd running around Wicker Park and shouting slogans until they get bored or the police stop tolerating them.

Anti-Fascism

None of this is to say that Chicago is entirely without militancy, for whatever it's worth. The South Side Chicago chapter of Anti-Racist Action is easily one of the most active in the country. Countless white supremacists have gotten their lives fucked up and events disrupted thanks to the dedicated intelligence gathering and organizing efforts of the ARA. These efforts have definitely damaged the power of overtly racist and fascist movements in the Midwest, but it's worth pointing out that this seems to be the limit of these actions. Fascists and racists may be a danger because they capitalize on conflict and act as the enforcers of the social order when democratic incentives and policing aren't enough – but if anti-fascism sacrifices a strategy of conflict with capitalism and the state in favor of pursuing a grudge match with the far-right, then it seems likely that we'll lose the battle overall.

Communication

Opportunities for communicating theory and action are practically nil. The local Indymedia outlet is underused by everyone but spambots and right-wing conspiracy theorists. Even anarchist news sites have spam prevention strategies, but the “democratic” structure of the IMC news wire allows intentional abuse of this infrastructure by our enemies. Is this laziness on behalf of the moderating team, or just bad tactics inspired by ideology?

This is all without even mentioning the fact that most of the legitimate postings on the site are from, as usual, leftists and liberals, leaving anarchist communications to be watered down in this flood of reformist politics and bland press releases.

Most communication in the anarchist scene appears to happen via Facebook, which should be an obvious threat since it makes our ties and networks clear with a passing glance. Social media might be a vital territory for sharing information, but maybe we could at least use networks that don't track our location and use facial recognition software to identify us in photos.

Counter-Info

Besides internal communications, there aren't many opportunities for spreading anarchist narratives outside of anarchist circles. The only places for circulating ideas are the zine tables at shows and the shelves at a rare few bookstores (shout-out to Quimby's and their weird, wingnutty section for badly-photocopied zines). Are there other avenues that haven't been investigated? Blogs, newsletters, podcasts, mass flyering, public tabling, radio shows, vandalism campaigns, and local news websites aren't untested ideas in other regions, but seem largely untried here.

QUESTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES

How can anarchists here engage in local conflicts without merely being extra bodies in the crowd for liberal campaigns?

It seems like there hasn't been a strong inclination toward analyzing and critiquing activist-oriented politics. Maybe this isn't so surprising, with so few public conversations about strategy and goals. It's generally considered a victory if an anarchist-organized demonstration can bring together 50 or so people to walk around in the street for a while. These protests don't often have an explicit purpose. Getting together with people and partying in the street can be cool. But the stated basis of these demonstrations tends to involve vague abstractions like “justice” rather than any explicitly conflictual stance or analysis. This goes double for anarchist participation in liberal and leftist events.

A recent incarnation of this trend appeared in the form of a demonstration called Anti-Fascist Fridays, which apparently hopes to repeat on a weekly basis. The first march occurred on the north side, with the stated intent of opposing U.S. military intervention in Syria. The actual intent probably has more to do with getting a bunch of rowdy people in the street to disrupt everyday capitalist normalcy – but both of these intents seem to be a little obscured by the title of anti-fascism. Again, it would appear that anarchists feel the need to justify their position by referring to their enemies as unjust, evil, or fascist. These terms, frankly, aren't very useful. Wouldn't it be better to build narratives that clearly and plainly state why we oppose things like police and capitalism, as well as why we desire open conflict with these systems? If we're just echoing the sort of vague moral indignation that liberals rely on, it leaves us open to have our efforts co-opted by reformists and the various managers of revolt that plague Chicago.

Can street demonstrations be an intentional means of strengthening our capacity for revolt? What objectives might be more useful than getting as many people as possible to walk in the street? How can we advance anarchist ideas rather than contributing to vague, leftist populism? It's almost definitely useful to focus on existing conflicts and recent events, but maybe not so much if we're only expressing a morally righteous outrage.

Rather than emphasizing our victimization and indignation, why don't we express our rage and state outright our desire to destroy what destroys us? There are certainly enough opportunities. Police killings are a constant occurrence, but anarchist responses are few and far between. The widespread school shutdowns have only been attacked from the progressive line of abandoning the youth to a bleak academic future and poor career prospects. Public transit fare hikes (like the ones that catalyzed massive protests and riots in Sao Paolo, Brazil) are constantly looming with no apparent hope of deterrence. And always, always there is the hysteria about street crime claiming the lives of innocent citizens, with only two approved responses: the liberals demanding stricter gun laws, and the conservatives demanding stricter policing (if not the outright execution of any suspected criminal on the south side, which should be read as “anyone who isn't white” – an obvious appeal to the fascist sensibilities of good citizens). Again, there's an issue with our lack of theory and discussion causing anarchist perspectives on these conflicts to be practically non-existent.

How can we find new ways of sharing ideas and finding affinity with each other? It seems like a given that every radical group has a blog, but these are generally segmented (having no connection to each other) and disconnected from social media, making it hard to get comprehensive thoughts or even expose people to the blog in the first place. Are there social media outlets besides Facebook that could be used toward this end? Twitter, Tumblr, Diaspora, and Crabgrass certainly exist. There's also possibilities in sites like Puget Sound Anarchists. Many cities on the west coast have functional websites for publishing news of relevance to anarchists. Regionally-focused sites for news, discussions, and events could be useful as long as they're not flooded with trash.

As for real-world interaction, general assemblies could be a viable idea – although not like the Occupy variety with twinkle fingers. Having a space for anarchists to come together in person and describe their current projects and propose their ideas for action could be a way of finding affinity with like-minded people, as well as introducing ideas and projects to people who would otherwise never encounter them. Some assemblies in Greece hold a principle of “no dialogue”: the assembly itself can't be used for debate or discussion or decision-making, only for sharing projects and new ideas and calling attention to local events and conflicts. Discussion comes afterward, when people can approach others whose ideas have caught their interest. Less arguing about decisions and consensus, more organic and autonomous action.

Beyond these formal methods of communication, it needs to be said that there are other opportunities that might be overlooked. When we belong to networks like schools and social scenes, we have the ability to use those networks for other purposes. Locations and events that are already familiar and well-attended can be subverted and transformed. Creative methods of organizing ourselves can arise from approaching things in a new perspective. Massive city events have proved themselves to have the potential of becoming uncontrollable and creating spaces of disorder. Kids organizing flash mobs on Twitter have managed to terrorize the luxury stores of Chicago's biggest tourism and shopping district. Local hangouts already function as spaces for sharing rumors and discontent with the latest happenings. These avenues and others need to be experimented with.

Besides communicating with each other, how can we spread anarchist ideas and tactics and thus open up conflict? How can we begin to act strategically, so that we come out of any fight stronger than we started? Obviously, improving our ability to make plans and communicate would be a step forward. Our communication outside of our circles could be improved with accessible media and more counter-info that runs contrary to the legitimized narratives of the local media.

If the goal is to create anarchy, then what we need is action. Targeting the entire framework and logic of the capitalist social order will make already existing conflicts more apparent. Seeking out new ideas and tactics is necessary to keep us from being mired in petty, symbolic activism focused on quantitative goals and short-term populism. To this end, we need to have ways of speaking and acting and sharing ideas together, so that everyone has a chance to find people and plans to work with and act from there. There are conflicts we can participate in on our own terms rather than on behalf of leftist or activist campaigns. Engaging with these conflicts is a step toward something new and uncontrollable.

There's only so much you can know about a person from seeing them at a punk show, and there's only so much you can do with a picket sign.