Green Anarchy Fest!

Only a Tsunami Will Do
For a Post-Feminist Anarchy
by Rita Katrina-Andrews
Green Anarchy

"Are you ready to smash the reefs of the old world before they wreck your desires? Lovers should love their pleasure with more consequence and more poetry. Some of us have fallen in love with the pleasure of loving without reserve — passionately enough to offer our love to the magnificent bed of a revolution."
—Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

Anarchists who cling to Leftist ideology as if it's a life raft are not worth the energy of a tirade. But, when another self-described post-left anarchist used an essentialist feminist scheme to explain away a much more complex situation, one of my peri-menopausal rants became inevitable. If it leaves you cold and uninspired – good; I'll have reflected the subject matter well. If you are already preparing your defense, gwan-get to a 'safe space' to vilify me as 'maleidentified', 'manarchist' or ... But look, I'm not dissing you, 'sister' or 'brother'; always do what pleases you most. It's just that the endless 60's reruns of "Men: Oppressors – Original Problem" and "Women: Nurturers – Only Solution" are tiresome. Depressing. Frustrating. And the latest newsflashes, "Man Deviates From Essential Nature, Becomes More Feminine; Crochets Scarf" or "Woman Takes Male Privilege; Abuses Iraqi Prisoners" are just spinning attempts to aerate a stagnant pool liberally polluted with the flotsam and jetsam of feminism's (p)receding two Waves.

When feminists proclaimed "the personal is the political" they conveniently ignored the fact that politics require de-personalization; de-uniquing and de-individualizing, massified roles with near verbatim scripts. I insist, the personal can only be the anti-political – ungoverned and ungovernable unique humans whose liberation can have no interceptors, interpreters, or redirectors. For those who need to identify the roles and scripts of my life to better position me on their revoltving stage – here's some personal for you.

I'm a woman/female/girl. Mostly 'caucasian'. Omni-sexual. Enslaved by mother starting age five (ironing boards don't fold that low for the young maids?). Army brat raped by military intelligence father for six-plus years starting at age ten until I swore the 'masculine' vow to kill him if he touched me again. Battered for years, never fully broken. And no matter how hard They squeezed, an intractable rebel girl. I was also (and still am when it suits me) a damned good actress (or is it actor), which saved my ass more than once. I left 'home' as soon as I found a way out – and oh, what a way! Mother, military wife – age 17. Prostitute in training, age 19. Single mother of two by 24. Sexy bartender, thieving comptroller by 29. Kick-ass electronics tech, ace network engineer – 33. With one final agonizing push from below, disgusted corporate executive – age 35. Throughout it all, scores of lovers, but damn few close and trusting relationships – male or female. Who do you trust in a world filled with used/users and ideologues who can rarely be 'real'? All this Progress and Success in the 'man's world' brought death too close by 40. I ignored the warnings for two more years while I searched for a gradual escape. Once I realized that route didn't exist, I simply bailed. For 7 years I embraced life as a stinking desert rat and outlaw. My only aspiration then, as now, is to be a 'wild thing'. By doing what I wanted, when I wanted – and mostly alone – I gained a level of health I'd not had at any age. Now I'm 50 and the long-forbidden tears of pain merge with those of rage when I hear anarchists spouting the same shit, thousands of different days later; "conform to appropriate behavior or else". My health is waning again and I have real playing to get caught up with/in, but I can't escape this reeling stage no matter how remotely I go! Everywhere life suffers and dies before its time, if my experience is any reflection and it's us human 'brothers' and 'sisters' doing the murder while indignantly pointing the finger (some preferring the middle digit) at each other. Sibling rivalry has gone global and our quarrels, deadly.

Continued...