I fully understand that, but i let my thoughts run and I get carried away. Thank you again for gently pulling me back into focus.

“Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.” – Derrick Jensen

“Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.


"We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us… I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation." - Malcolm X

Even a cursory look at the history of government/state violent and repressive actions against any and all anarchist or any other type of alternative/counter culture movements, collectives and communities that have attempted to “drop out of the system” or to in various ways “live off the grid”, or create a parallel culture shows that we will never ultimately be allowed in this civilization to merely “put our energy into creating what we want.” While I support the ideal and action of building positive alternative, sustainable, egalitarian, decentralized, bioregional, smaller local communities, I believe that it would be very naïve and fatal to believe that “the powers that be” will ever allow any of us to do this in peace. Anarchist thought, philosophy, theory, practices, communities and action has been more fiercely repressed and supressed than any other philosophy and practice in the history of Western Civilization because we by definition and through our social/community/economic/ecological vision pose the greatest threat for subverting the dominant paradigm.

I, too, do not want to waste my energy in focussing only on “fighting what we do not want”, but we must create, as well as defend, by any and all means necessary, when all “peaceful” means have been exhausted (which arguably they already have), what we do want. As Malcolm X said, “We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us… Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks… You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”

And as Emma Goldman once pointed out, "The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or a woman's right to her soul.... The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man (and woman), the right of every human (and non-human)being to liberty and well-being…No real social change has ever been about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action."