"And yes, it’s in a very public place, but it’s really about how you’re filming, not that you’re filming. If you’re a journalist familiar with protests, familiar with these actions, and you’re stupid enough to walk into a black bloc—I don’t want to say the responsibility is on you, but you made the choice. It’s not what you’re filming, it’s how you’re filming it."

So, which is it?

Really, Mercury? Pathetic.

Mr Jeffrey Singer isn't making a compelling argument for himself or his friends.

After some thought, punk seems quite appropriate.

An anarchist telling people about how things should be is self contradictory, no?

In any event, in the unlikely event that this thinking ever gained traction, you would see a hierarchy emerge in the movement and it would be led by entitled white guys. Anyone doubt that?

So police are bad, but subsidized community college is fine? Why does Jeff want the state to steal my money and then use it to educate him? Couldn't he and the other folks who want the education just band together and pay the teachers themselves? I think an anarchist student union at a public college is pretty hypocritical.

Anarchism is by definition a without a group of individuals with the implicit monopoly over

I appreciate the interview and the forthrightness of Jeff. That said, it really does seem like he hasn't met very many actual people in his life. He freely talks about power and violence and authority, but the only mention he makes of responsibility is in response to a direct question on the topic, and then he shifts the responsibility to another individual/group. He views authority solely as privilege rather than privilege weighed down with responsibility. His group can't even manage to convince their own to smash only the proper targets and avoid "drunk smashing". How does he think he can convince anyone of anything? His group accepts zero responsibility for anything nor does it provide remedies for what should happen when bad behavior does occur.

If he can solve the problem of scarcity of resources, I'm willing to give his world-view a listen, but short of that utopian landmark, I find it impossible to see his actions as anything other than just smashing stuff because he wants what he wants and is upset that he doesn't have the authority to get it.

Snickerdoodle has it right. Anarchism is a pedestrian, amateur political philosophy wholly incapable of dealing with the world as it is. It might work in small, collective groups. Guess what, society moved passed that centuries ago. It would never work on a city level, much less a state or nation or global level. So at the end of the day, they are fighting and destroying things in service to a bush league ideology.

"Anarchism is a pedestrian, amateur political philosophy."

You won't say that after you read the piece linked below. What is "pedestrian," ignoring the classist implications of your word choice for the moment, is reading one or a handful of internet sources and thinking that that gives you enough data points to make a valid generalization from.

https://humaniterations.net/2015/08 /18/science-as-radicalism/

Actually Samantha is quite right. Nowhere here do I see mentioned hundreds of years of anarchist philosophy and political action, nor the multitude anarchists of pop culture (Charlie Chaplin, for instance) and local community who go unrecognized. Peter Kropotkin, considered by many to be one of the main roots of anarchist thought, was a celebrated scientist who pioneered the theory of mutual aid and contributed important ideas to evolutionary theory-- ideas which support horizontal organization in a far more scientific and thorough way than one of the commenters above who tried to debunk it with off the cuff armchair philosophizing.

Just off the top of my head, there's MIT professor Noam Chomsky, a professor of more than fifty years, who is one of the most celebrated linguists of the modern era, and literally the most quoted intellectual of all time. His works, such as "Understanding Power," are monoliths of analysis of Unites States imperialism which include more data than it seems one person should be able to retain in a single mind alone. To call such a work "pedestrian," is laughable at best.

There are countless other anarchist intelectuals I could mention, hidden in physics and systems science and mathematics and philosophy departments around the country, around the world-- or even right here in Portland. Many people may be unaware of exactly how many professors at our local colleges are anarchists. You will find Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" in more than one professor's office. And they probably loan it to their students.

Aside from academically, however, anarchists and their ilk have a long history of working class struggle and revolutionary movements of historical significance, the most known of which are revolutionary Catalonia, the Paris Commune and the EZLN in Chiapas. One prime motivator for insurrectionist anarchist tactics in the United States, and in fact one motivation for May Day itself, was the execution of four anarchists by the state; one committed suicide in prison; one served a sentence of 15 years, and two served life sentences, making for eight anarchists who were convicted and five who lost their lives over dynamite thrown during a rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago for the eight-hour workday. Yet there was no decisive evidence tying them to the bombing.

This country used to be a place where workers lived in capitalist-owned towns, where they worked twelve or sixteen hour a day shifts in mines that often took their lives, and where Pinkertons beat and killed anyone who resisted seriously enough. This is not some heady history lesson; you can learn about these things even in Hollywood movies. They are accepted even by nonhistorians as well-known events in US history. Anarchism was one of the prime motivators in putting an end to these conditions, which you can read about in the writings of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.

Aside from this US history around May Day, there are numerous anarchist and anarchist-influenced movements all around the world, both past and present. It's not possible to do justice to them, or Haymarket for that matter, in one comment on the internet. Anarchism has a long and involved ideological history and features figures considered to be "towering figures" in the typical language used by, well, let's face it, the mostly white males of academics-- figures like Max Stirner who is known to have basically provided all the foundations of Neitszche's philosophy. Whether I agree with the movements and people I am mentioning is irrelevant. The main attack in the ten above comments is that anarchism is juvenile and undeveloped. Well, I have debunked that. Really what is happening here is people need to learn how to read views they disagree with in depth before coming to the pompous conclusion that they understand it, which is a flagrant confirmation of the Dunning-Krueger effect and not very flattering to oneself.

The other argument I see being made in the comments is that anarchists cannot go to school or use roads or receive government money. We largely reject these purist deontological philosophies and find them very typical of people who don't realize fully how much of a mark fundamentalist religion has marred us all with. Why is a deontological analysis assumed? In fact we are consequentialists, many of us. What this means is that it's perfectly well and good to take money from anyone at all as long as it minimizes oppression and maximizes anarchist ideals of justice and liberty. We are not trying to sleep easy at night, we are trying to make the world a better place, and make all the hard decisions that come along with that. I'd rather take the government's money and use it to destroy tyranny than to leave them a surplus to be diverted to state needs of their choice, which often fuel the prison and military industrial complexes. The argumentation in the comments is intellectually juvenile at best.

More here: https://weareforall.wordpress.com/

I actually sympathize with the anarchists, but this whole "destroying property is not violence" is something only privileged barren white males would come up with. Try stealing someone's cellphone, especially if it's the only connection they have to work and family. Try destroying someone's bike if it's the only way they can get to work. Smash the window of the woman's business, who voted for Bernie Sanders, and see if she comes away from that in favor of anarchy. Anarchy means self-governance, not reckelessly attacking people with whom you have no quarrel. And whining that your life is not like Trump's children shows that you are just another leftist disguising an old fashioned human emotion -- envy. I don't envy the rich or anyone for that matter because I do believe in self governance and avoid buying into the idea that what I own defines who I am. But this guy sounds like he's just mad at things not turning out his way in life, not actually in touch with real people. It doesn't matter the society you construct, we all have to work one way or another, whether as peasant farmers or techies in cubicles. The question is how do we share the wealth? One way to start is to not act like petulant profane children just because half the country was so frustrated they voted for a complete incompetent as president.

"Many people may be unaware of exactly how many professors at our local colleges are anarchists." Thanks for the good laugh! Now if you're serious, start a business based on sharing your wealth. Get your medical friends to open a free health clinic. Talk to your local food market about sharing its gleanings with the poor. It's easy for an academic to be an anarchist. What exactly is the cost? It's a lot harder for a cop, but until you convert a cop or a guy just back from Iraq after his third tour, this movement will remain marginalized and, as its alleged representatives in Portland seem intent on doing, increasingly be seen as just another episode of Portlandia and not a serious remodeling of society.

"Anarchists don’t believe any one human being has any right to exercise authority over another."

-The only reason Anarchists are in the news right now is because they organize to violently stop specific people from speaking in public.

Mr Greener, exactly why do you think anarchists are not doing any of this:

" start a business based on sharing your wealth. Get your medical friends to open a free health clinic. Talk to your local food market about sharing its gleanings with the poor."

is beyond me. Search google. There's Food Not Bombs, the Icarus Project and plenty of infoshops and collectives all over the country like Anarres in your very own city which are doing exactly that. Why people think their ignorance is excusable is beyond me when all of this is readily available on google.

In fact, Mr. Greener, the very link I already gave which you must not have clicked on describes some of these projects in great detail. It is clear here that some other bias is fueling your flippant responses.

A lot of business culture books over the past decade have promoted the idea of non-hierarchical organisational structure as a way to promote innovation and increase productivity. So it's not just Jeff the College Student talking that game. I'm not a converted anarchist, but it was an interesting read.

LOL at claiming anarchist credit for basically the entire labor movement. Lost all credibility with that one. Are there intellectuals who are/were anarchists? Sure. That doesn't make the basic philosophy or the dude quoted in the article or you practitioners making great use of your Thesaurus any more pedestrian (oh, I'm sorry, I'll use the word "stupid" instead - why use a $20 word when a $2 word will do!).

The fact that you can only trot out a handful of legitimate examples of anarchist "influence" (and most of them you're taking credit for a much larger movement) pretty much speaks to how small and fairly insignificant it actually is in the context of the larger human machine.

@Natron - yes, non-hierarchical structures/organizations do have benefits in some contexts. In other contexts, more gets done more efficiently with a hierarchy. That's why it's lazy thinking for anarchists to think the core of their philosophy applies (or could even be semi-workable) across the board in society. It's not at all a good argument for anarchy generally.

These people are anarchists who are rioting for bigger government. Anyone see the irony here?

During the Reagan years some of the same sentiments regarding unjust authority over individuals was in the forefront.
For example, saber rattling by neo cons, marginalizing immigrants, defunding govt programs aimed at educating, feeding and healing of the poor.
Bakunins' ideas became interesting to me and I read some of his works and took them to heart. Fast forward 34 yrs and here we are bullied by a pouty, groping, infantile "man" posing as a leader and people are searching for answers as to why, how and what to do to direct their anger.
Direct action against what he represents makes sense to me in theory but store front smashing cant win any converts and will lose the battle before its begun. The police side with and protect Nazi sympathisers, Patriot Prayer, Oath Keepers because they give cops respect...deserved or not..they know how to keep cops on their side. And that will determine the fate of any movement in this society.

Some say Black bloc or Antifa, forgive me I see them as overlapping, have done good works in protecting innocents from assault by White Nationalists/Nazis etc and I think thats a good thing. I mingled amongst them for 20 mins on June 4 in Portland.
I was struck by their diversity and youth.
I dont care how they came aboutbeing radicalized, it takes big guts for...excuse me...skinny, unmilitary trained youth to stand up to what I call ChristoFascists or The Violent Right.
Im not saying this excuses property damage in the name of injustice.

Far be it for me, a middle age white guy with a bank account to offer direction to the resistors..but..just imagine the results if Antifa, Black bloc, Redneck Revolt etc were trained to a much higher level of discipline. No more smashing or pelting cops with bricks. A unified, highly disciplined (yeah, not fun I know) movement of people able to surround and shut down fascists at will. Something to think about next time the guy/gal next to you is throwing a bottle at a window that has no connection to Trump and cops thump down on you, tv news condemns you, "patriots" vow to kill you etc.
Having a central command is contrary to anarchist teachings I know but times change movements need to adapt in order to succeed. Put down the brick and gather strategy.