Anarchist PIzza
Back in my wild and wooly college days at the University of Michigan I ran around with various political reform groups, including Students for a Democratic Society. At the time, SDS was deliberately non-Marxist; it even had an Anti-Totalitarian clause in its constitution which forbade membership to any "supporter of totalitarianism" -- which meant total government control of society. Of course SDS was an irresistible target for the Marxists, who kept trying to infiltrate it and take over. In reaction to these attempts a number of us began studying the opposite of totalitarianism, which is Anarchism. One thing that both fascists and communists can agree on is that they totally hate real ideological anarchists. Dealing with attacks by both of them tends to give the anarchists a weird sense of humor.
For example, some snarky political jokes:
Q: What's the difference between a Communist and an Anarchist? A: Communists want the government to run everything; Anarchists want the government to run nothing -- not even to exist.
Q: What's the difference between a Socialist and an Anarchist? A: Anarchists grow up and get real jobs.
Q: What's the difference between a Libertarian and an Anarchist? A: About $20,000 a year.
Another cute trick we used on the Marxists was to infiltrate their meetings and shame them into "reality-tripping": getting working-class ID and spending at least their summers taking working-class jobs and living on that income -- and nothing else -- in real working-class neighborhoods. This proved wonderfully effective; those who managed to stick it out for a whole summer or more were no longer Marxists when they came back to school, but were eminently practical and realistic -- and tended to vote Republican.
We also went to big all-day rallies and got ourselves on the speakers' lists under various unremarkable names, such as "The Polyindustrial League", and sing our own folksongs instead. For example, after a long and boring speech -- carefully repeated, word-for-word in Spanish -- by a droning Marxist, my buddies and I stood up and said: "We're the Anarchists. Long speeches make us tired, so we'll just sing instead." And then I and my buddies broke into a lively rendition of Joe Hill's "The Preacher and the Slave", followed by half an hour of other songs. Needless to add, the audiences liked us a lot better than the speakers.
We would also hold well-planned but impromptu-looking square-dances (or other dances) at lunch hour in any handy park. While crowds gathered and watched, we'd circulate among them handing out one-page flyers saying things like: "When people fight for your country in war, the least they deserve is full citizenship in the country they've defended" -- practical statements like that, which worked a lot better than political moralizing about The Ruling Class.
One of my favorite stunts, though, happened at the next-to-last SDS national convention, which was held at dear old U of M, in the South Lecture Hall. The Marxists showed up in force, the Liberals did likewise, and we Anarchists managed to get a literature table in the front vestibule. It soon became clear that the Liberals were losing ground to two competing factions of Marxists -- Progressive Labor and the Weathermen, who were later to tear the organization apart with their feuding -- but one thing they could unite behind was their absolute hatred of the Anarchists. Seeing how the political winds were indeed blowing, we spent our efforts pitting the Marxists against each other and diverting them from ganging up on the Liberals. Some of our distractions were distinctly surreal -- such as throwing paper airplanes whose noses had been dipped in tiny amounts of NI3 explosive, so that they'd go off with a snap-crackle and flash when they landed -- but probably our best stunt was purely spontaneous.
After speechifying and voting and arguing all day, the other delegates were ready to take a break and go "caucus" -- plot and scheme among themselves -- for an hour or so. None of them wanted to leave the building and go outside, where the non-campus police might grab them, they planned to hold their meetings in the various rooms inside South Hall. Seeing what was coming, we Anarchists plotted to order a pizza: extra large, with mushrooms and pepperoni, from the local Domino's Pizza, which had made itself famous the year before by delivering pizzas to occupied buildings. We weren't about to desert our literature table to the mercies of the Marxists, either, so we asked specifically that the pizza be delivered to "the Anarchist literature table in the foyer of South Hall, at the SDS convention". Few were the restaurants that would have delivered to that address, but we figured that Domino's would have the guts to do it.
Soon enough the moderator -- as I recall it was either Mike Klonsky himself or his sidekick -- stood up and announced: "Caucus break! Caucus break for an hour. Weatherman Caucus, go to room 120 down the hall to your right, and bring your notebooks. League for Industrial Democracy, go to room 140 in the same corridor, and bring your position papers. Progressive Labor, go to room 110 in the same hall, to the left, and bring your policy statements. Anarchists..." Then he got a pole-axed look as he announced slowly: "Go to your literature table in the front foyer. Your pizza has arrived."
And all of us Anarchists jumped up and stampeded out the door to the front foyer.
A bunch of fascinated Liberals followed us out, and got to our table to see us surrounding a nervous pizza-delivery boy and a box opened on the table, displaying a mouth-watering pizza. My buddy Rick was arguing: "Being Anarchists, we don't believe in government-controlled money, so we shouldn't use it." My buddy Mary replied: "We can argue about proper labor-exchange mediums in the future, but right now the economy is run on cash money. And if the pizza-shop doesn't get paid, it won't make any more pizzas, which will harm all of us. 'The laborer is worthy of his hire'." My pal Kathy piped up: "And they gave us exactly what we asked for, and still hot, too. Good behavior deserves its reward." To which I added: "We should also reward the employee who had the guts to deliver a pizza to the 'Anarchist table at the SDS convention'." So we quickly gave the pizza-boy the twenty dollars for the pizza and a twenty-dollar tip for himself plus a fistful of literature. Then we happily fell upon the pizza. The watching Liberals gave us a spontaneous round of applause, and the pizza-boy strolled out mumbling: "...Yeah, Anarchism."
I learned the rest of the story a couple weeks later. It seems the pizza-boy had gone back to the local Domino's shop telling tales about his adventure and displaying the leaflets we'd given him. He was a high school senior himself, working that summer to save up for college, and the incident got him interested in odd political theories. Starting with the brief bibliographies listed in the flyers, he'd started going to the library and looking up books on Anarchism, and regaled his buddies with odd information from the books he'd read. One questioned he'd relayed back to us was: "Who was Max Stirner, and why did Karl Marx hate him so much?" to which we replied: "A wild-ass teacher in a girls' junior high school, who liked to shock stodgy people."
I never heard anything further about the radicalized students in that pizza joint, but I always figured that our stunt was a good day's work.
--Leslie <;)))>< Fish
