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The perspectives on this web-site may seem novel or eccentric to some readers. But they haven't emerged in a vacuum. The main theoretical influences on my politics are The Situationists, left-communism, and anti-syndicalist class war anarchism. My descriptions will be short and not too sweet --

The SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL was an avant-guard and ultra-left tendency in Europe in the 1960's, active mainly in France. The Situationists were the most sophisticated radicals in the global social movement of their day. Their politics were a synthesis of the better elements of ultra-left Marxism and anarchism. The S.I.'s methods of subversive agitation played a significant role in the May 1968 events in France. This was the last time that a major industrialized democracy came close to being overwhelmed by revolution.

A work by a prominent San Francisco housing activist in a context of ongoing defeat for San Francisco renters

THE ANARCHISTS AND SPAIN: "COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA..."

As I write this, in early March 2003, the rulers of the United States are about to attack Iraq. If the prevalent guesses are correct, the American empire will rapidly defeat and destroy Saddam Hussein's regime, seize Iraqi oil fields, and occupy major urban centers. This will probably be accomplished with an initially low number of US military casualties, and a very high number of deaths among Iraqi civilians and military personnel. The United States will attempt to cobble together a client regime analogous to that of Karzai's in Afghanistan, and it will be at this point, the high-point of an apparently overwhelming and inexpensive US military victory, that a real, enduring defeat for the United States may begin.

By Kevin Keating

A Sleepwalker's Guide To San Francisco

In 1983 I became involved in sustained political activity outside of conventional leftism. I joined an anarchist group, ``Workers Emancipation,'' which was nominally focused on the class struggle and published a magazine called Ideas and Action.

This article was originally written to refute lies about the history of 20th century revolutionary movements peddled by the comically obnoxious Trotskyoids of the Spartacus League, in their newspaper Workers Vanguard (sic). Fearing that they may be losing ground to an admittedly incoherent contemporary anarchism, and hungry for fresh cannon fodder, the Sparts ran an occasionally informative series of articles by Joseph Seymour, titled "Marxism vs. Anarchism", tracing the historic differences between anarchism and the Sparts' version of "Marxism".

In part 7 of this series, (W. V., page 7, 8/30/1996), the part dealing with the Russian Revolution of 1917-1921, Seymour claimed:

It's the holiday season, shoppers -- That time of year when commodity fetishism goes ballistic, expressing what our most fundamental duty as obedient American citizens is: feeding the profit-hunger of our master's economy! Quick now, buy something! Buy anything, buy it all, and buy all that it implies! From plastic reindeer on suburban lawns and corporate office parties, charity concerts from millionaire rock stars and mawkish television specials...to all this, I say "Bah Humbug!"

But the death-trip of the market economy that the Christmas Shopping season expresses in frenzied form finds opposition from pissed-off proletarians every day of the year. As Harry Cleaver noted in Reading Capital Politically:

(The Real Food Company is two expensive natural food stores in San Francisco’s Russian Hill and Marina District neighborhoods. I was employed as a cashier at the Polk Street store from March 2012 to March 2013. After I got fired I wrote this leaflet. A friend and I distributed about 1500 of them to customers outside both stores on a series of Sunday and Monday evenings in June and July 2013. Sunday and Monday evenings are the busiest periods at the stores.

As a former employee of Real Food who left on good terms with my fellow wage slaves, my perspective had credibility with my former co-workers. And as someone who was no longer employed here I could now act with a complete impunity that is unavailable to people still employed there.

In early spring of 2012, announcements appeared at various internet sites calling for a “Workers Against Work -- Precarious and Service Workers Assembly,” ostensibly connected to or an outgrowth of the Occupy movement in Oakland, California.

The first leaflet I saw for it said this: