From: damico@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (bill d'Amico)
Subject: Anarchists (was Re: WoD: Frontline Report -- 2-Oct-92)
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 13:12:39 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.031708.2553@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>Paul, since most places require petitioners to be registered to vote, the

Most places require petitioners to be registered to vote? Depending upon
the content of the petition you don't even have to be registered to vote
to _sign_ a petition in Indiana. However politicians are more likely to
take you seriously if the 10,000 signatures you bring to them are
registered voters. From experience in Bloomington petitioning I'd say
that even if you question the prospective signatory concerning whether
they are registered, and live in the district that the petition is
covering there will probably be at least 20% that either aren't
registered or aren't registered at the address they give on the
petition. This makes ballot access a real pain. In other petitions the
officials that the petition is addressed to do not have to pay any heed
to the petition whatsoever. Nor does the county clerk have to do any
certification of whether the signatories are registered, etc. 

>I think that Dennis was right on.  I could be called an anarchist, yet I'm
>not ready to give up on reforming the system from within.  When I am, it'll
>be to begin abolition, not to be fashionably leftist!
>
I talked with Dennis for a while after the talk. We concluded that most of
these "anarchists" are suffering from hormonal imbalances, and need to
act out in order to attract sex partners. It's just youth in most cases,
and they will realize as time goes on that while they may not like the
game or the rules, there really is very little chance of their behavior
changing it. Dennis made an analogy to showing up at a poker game with a
chess set - you aren't going to get many takers, and if you're insistent
you may get a fight. Now if you show up with some money, and a good
grasp of probability as applied to poker you may walk away with more money
in your pocket, and some new friends. 

On the bright side, some of the anarchist activity in this town has been
entertaining to say the least. There are a number of people making use
of photocopiers and wheat paste, and some of them are good artists. One
of my favorite wheat paste posters goes after Roman Catholic
masturbators as the killers of billions of "mini-babies". Evidently this
poster is not original to our locale, but to Berkeley, as evidenced by a
small blurb on the poster giving a PO box address for "Sister Rescue".
Are anarchists in other communities doing similar things? I'd like to
note that wheat paste posters, while they are defacing property, they
are also much easier to remove than spray painted grafitti. As far as
anarchist action goes I must say I like it more than bomb throwing, and
a clever poster can cause some people to think about the issue the
poster addresses. 

>
>Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
>starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu
>
>"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
>oneself and others." - Voltaire


--
bill d'Amico                  | The highest that a man can attain is to 
damico@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu | be able to do  - Georg Gurdjieff