LEADERSHIP BY WOMEN IS ESSENTIAL

At a time when some seek to keep women in chains forever it is important to say something about leaders like Benizir Bhutto who make a contribution to leadership even if it is a leadership tainted with corruption and a pandering to imperialism.

There is something important about a woman on the world stage precisely because it is so unusual. She seemed to be a secular if not progressive voice, a woman speaking in the wilderness martyred by men. That is part of the picture even if it remains largely unaddressed by those who rightly condemn her corruption and service to empire.

At a time when women are being told by a militant few and an indifferent majority that they must not speak in public Benizir Bhutto was a fine example of what they are afraid of, an intelligent woman capable of speaking her mind and seeking to lead in the realm of politics.

MORE ABOUT MY USE OF THE TERM "PROGRESSIVE"

If a chain is being broken, an oppressive relationship being resisted or overthrown then it seems like something progressive is probably happening.

Then there is the matter of direction, are things moving in the direction of abolishing oppressive social relations, oppressive relations of production, oppressive sexual relations or sex roles, oppressive racial relations and so on and so forth? If any of these oppressions are being reduced or moved towards oblivion I would tend to regard it as progressive unless, of course, it is somehow pitted against other liberation struggles.

ANARCHISMS AS LIBERATION FRAMEWORKS

Anarchism, like any other ism with any vitality, has numerous variants. Hence the term anarchisms seems appropriate. Similarly the term anarchism has been defined in many ways as have terms like democracy, socialism and christianityism. So, as distasteful as it may be to those who want to pretend there is only one sort of anarchism, we intend to at least make a partial catalogue if not family tree of anarchisms throughout the history of anarchism.

This sounds like a cold dispassionate search for the truth and hence lacks the elan of a more visionary approach. Of course that is the domain of each particular anarchism itself.

Frankly, the multifaceted history of anarchism is virtually unknown. Even the apparently vital anarchist movement in the United States has been unable to educate the broader society about what anarchism means and how it might be relevant to the lives of average citizens.

My own personal bias is that I tend to like what anarchists are saying and doing but remain confused about how they intend to get rid of capitalism and how a new society might emerge. I guess it would be an anarchist society? What does that mean, "anarchist society"?

How does or would anarchism organize production and civil society. If there is to be no state how will personal and social needs be met? Are there illuminating historical examples?

I am also interested in the historic split between the communists in the First International when the marxists split with the anarchists. I am one who bemoans the war waged by anarchists and the Spanish Republic on
one another, especially since this civil war among revolutionaries allowed the fascists under Franco, to win. I currently understand the Spanish Communist Party was servile and obedient to the orders of Comrade Stalin which led to it being heavy handed and otherwise undermined the Spanish Revolution. People need to think for themselves and really consider their own best interests whatever their ideology.

Then there is the spectrum of anarchisms which will undoubtedly reveal more colors than I currently imagine. I am also wondering where some anarchism may overlap with certain revolutionary socialisms.

I shouldn't forget terms like anarchy and anarcho-syndicalism. Hopefully I will not.

DEFINITIONS OF PROGRESS

I don't want to make a special ideology of terms like "progress" and "progressive". I simply use them to refer to that broad spectrum of political entities and ideas that embrace both the bona fide liberal, including religious, secular, revolutionary nationalist, various and sundry socialisms, communisms and anarchisms. I think of all these groups and individuals as having some sort of liberation framework, like anarchism, just for example. Just, for example, it seemed to me that the BPP had a progressive or leftist period, or I could say a liberation struggle building and affirming period.

Of course the idea that things can be better in society is at least belief in the possibility of some
sort of social progress. The fact that the bourgeoisie has taken the hope of progress for all and twisted it into the idea that progress should be for the few, whether that few be the entire
population of the Imperial Republic proper or the sainted economic and political elite within that Republic, is merely a testimony to how their ideas do tend to push out or in this case misdefine progressive ideas.

I leave it to each liberation framework to shed light upon what progress or should I say, progressive progress actually is and especially how we can achieve it.

I certainly like the idea that we see a development of understanding and practice over time
and so we understand progress also in the sense that things are developmental. We need to crawl before we can walk.

I don't mean by progress a naive belief in unlimited production as being a good thing or the idea that technology will solve our social problems in and of itself. I also don't mean using the term progress or progressive in a way that promotes empire or neglects to deal with the reality of empire when considering the role of the domestic population of the "one and only" imperial superpower. I don't think of the prohibition of liquor in the early twentieth century as progressive although I think that women getting the vote was progressive. Of course a woman or black imperial leader in the White House isn't progressive either.

It seems like anarcho-feminism would be progressive since there are problems of patriarchy everywhere.

For me, at least, the word "progressive" is not meant to be a precise term but more of a
grab-bag of liberal to revolutionary leftist ideas and entities.