AnarchyRulesOK

During the last week there were a series of huge set piece meetings held in various European cities. These were the London G20 economic summit followed by the NATO gathering of our political leaders held on the border of Germany and France.

Also present at both were protesters who are entitled, some would say obliged, to peacefully protest in our profoundly democratic countries. Their attendance and voicing of their profound disquiet about the management of the world economy and conflicts is not only fitting but essential.

What else can you do when you agree with the sentiments expressed in an article by Douglas Rushkoff called Let It Die in which he stated, "... We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme."

Trying to wreck these gatherings were the usual motley gang of fundamentally anti capitalist, anti democratic and anti free choice groups. These include revolutionary Trotskyites, Maoists, but more of interest to me right now, Anarchists.

Anarchy is defined in my dictionary as; Absence of government, disorder, lawlessness; The principles of anarchy are a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than a submission to law and authority and an anarchist is One opposed to all forms of government.

These days the anarchists wear a uniform for their protests. They dress all in black with hoods up and scarves around their faces to disguise their identities. It seems odd to me that people against all conformity dress identically to intimidate. But they are full of contradictions these anarchists, willing to wear a uniform, any uniform, as long as it is not a uniform in which to serve any country.

The English anarchists promised the end of capitalism would begin with their “Four Horseman” protests in London on April First, but it hasn’t worked out that way. In fact, although the systematic failures of capitalism are all around us we still haven’t devised a better system for our trade and lives to prosper.

It might seem unnecessarily jaded to state that if anarchists could ever organize anything, which is, in itself somewhat of an oxymoronic thought process, there should be an anarchists league table. I am usually proud of British accomplishments but in this instance I think the British would come woefully down the pecking order. We are, as a nation, a bit too much into organizational structures to be any good at spontaneous anarchy. You would, in my view, favor the more laid back Latin nations or perhaps the newly de-communized East Europeans to furnish the best kind of anarchists.

The police in England handled the anarchists very well and in fact the protestors finished by looking silly, their threats to “eat the bankers” ringing hollow. It wasn’t quite the same jolly affair on the borders of France and Germany where the anarchists and their fellow travelers managed to torch a few shops and other buildings, sling some Molotov cocktails and attack the police.

There is almost universal agreement that the world’s economic and terrorist problems are huge and ongoing. However the general population remains remarkably, prosperous and peaceful when compared to any other period of history. This prosperity and peace was brought about by the application of the capitalist system and organizations such as NATO. The near total collapse of the financial system and the over emphasized threat of fundamentalist Islamic terror was engendered and inspired by a toxic mixture of fear, greed and ego, topped out by a lack of transparency and unwarranted over complication. No one really understood the entirety of how sophisticated shadow trading and hedge funds worked. Concurrently we fought the terrorists in an asymmetric conflict with no strategy but armed only with knee jerk tactical reactions.

Both will now change since President Obama does have a strategic vision and the rest of the democracies are beginning to listen to and respect renewed and enhanced American leadership.

It isn’t enough to be a black clad anarchist shouting at and burning hated symbols of capitalism when you have nothing to replace it with.