More Anarchist or Communist?

I’m firmly rooted in my beliefs as an anarcho-communist, but what does that mean? Am I an anarchist or a communist? How can one be both? Every political label has a built-in identity crisis, but few produce quite as much confusion as anarcho-communism. People squint at it like it’s a glitch in the ideological matrix: “Are they more anarchist or more communist? Which part matters more?”

Here’s the honest answer: you can’t pull the two apart without breaking the whole thing. Anarcho-communists aren’t halfway between the two. They’re the union overlap in the Venn diagram. Let’s break it down:

Anarchism: The Method

Anarchism begins with one foundational argument: hierarchy is not self-justifying. If someone claims the right to rule you, the burden of proof is on them. And good luck making a convincing case.

For anarchists, freedom isn’t something the state grants. It’s something the state obstructs. No kings, no presidents, no vanguards, no bosses, no landlords. Human beings coordinate their own lives without coercive authority. So when anarcho-communists talk about society without a state, they aren’t being edgy. They’re being consistent.

Communism: The Goal

Take the classic communist vision:

No classes

No private ownership of the means of production

No wage labor

No markets

No state

Marx called this the “higher phase of communism.” The endpoint. Anarcho-communists don’t disagree with that goal. They disagree with the path.

Where Marxists-Leninists picture a transitional state to shepherd you into communism, anarcho-communists see the contradiction immediately: You can’t build a stateless society by strengthening the state.

To them, that’s like saying the way to eliminate fire is to pour gasoline on it “temporarily.”

So which matters more? This is the fun part:

They’re anarchists in strategy and communist in outcome.

If you ask Marxist-Leninists then anarcho-communists are “too anarchist” because we reject the transitional state.

If you ask a market anarchist they’re “too communist” because we reject markets entirely.

If you ask an anarcho-communist then we’ll tell you the question is wrong. We see anarchism and communism as two sides of the same project: a society without domination, whether political or economic.

For us, you can’t be truly anarchist if you still allow economic hierarchy, and you can’t be truly communist if you preserve political hierarchy. Authority and exploitation are one machine with two gears.

So what’s the cleanest definition? Anarcho-communism is communism without the state and anarchism without the market. No bosses, no state, no landlords, no wage slavery, just cooperative, decentralized, freely associated communities handling things together.

The “more anarchist or communist?” debate only makes sense from the outside. From within, the two are inseparable.

Candide Through an Absurd and Anti-Natalist Lens

I finished Voltaire’s Candide. I bought it I don’t know how long ago, but I’d get distracted with other books as I often do and just forgot about it until recently. All I can say is “Wow!” It was an excellent satire of philosophy in general. Me, being who I am though, I read it through a lens of pessimism, absurdism, and anti-natalism. It’s surprisingly modern and disturbingly relevant.

Right from the start the main character — Candide — and his world are full of relentless misfortune: he starts out expelled from his home, pushed into a brutal army; he witnesses earthquakes, massacres, and hangings. Everywhere he goes, human cruelty and disaster dominate.

For someone like me that’s attuned to anti-natalist thought, the lesson is clear: life is unpredictably cruel, and no amount of idealism or hope can shield anyone from suffering. The character of Pangloss and his philosophy — “this is the best of all possible worlds” — is not comforting. It’s absurd. Voltaire mocks it precisely to show that optimism can blind us to reality.

Candide meets kings unthroned, slaves chained to oars, prostitutes forced by circumstance, and monks trapped in religious life against their will. From the sites of Libson to El Dorado and Paris to Venice, suffering is universal. It doesn’t discriminate by wealth, status, or virtue.

All of this perfectly aligns with anti-natalism. Why bring new life into a world so unpredictable, so cruel, and so universally painful? Voltaire’s stories of absurdly recurring disasters reinforce the ethical argument that procreation inevitably imposes suffering on others. Human ideas are fragile. Pursuits that seem meaningful such as love, wealth, status, and fame often collapse under the weight of reality. For an absurdist like myself, this is expected. The universe offers no inherent purpose and our “ideals” are more likely than not arbitrary constructs.

The end of the book says “We must cultivate our garden.” This is Voltaire’s practical work. Life is absurd and full of suffering, but we can still create meaning in small, tangible ways: tending to our responsibilities, helping others, or our own little personal projects. For an absurdist anti-natalist this means to me:

Accept the universe’s lack’s lack of inherent meaning. Do what you can to reduce suffering wherever possible. And focus on tangible, ethical, or creative work rather than abstract speculation.

So, what did I take away from the satirical work? I learned through its absurd coincidences, relentless misfortunes, and philosophical debates that it mirrors these truths: life is cruel, unpredictable, and often meaningless.

However, like Candide, we are not powerless. We can act, work, and cultivate our little gardens in such a chaotic world, and in doing so, carve out a fragile, ethical, and perhaps even joyful corner of existence.

Freedom, American-Style: Guns Over Healthcare

It says a lot about the state of America when you point out that the U.S. has fallen to 57th place in the global freedom index, and the response you get from a Trump supporter is: “Yeah, well, I get to own guns.”

This is the American illusion of freedom distilled into a single sentence. Forget healthcare, forget workers’ rights, forget privacy, forget the surveillance state, forget the crushing weight of debt—because hey, you can still buy a gun. That’s supposed to make us the freest country on Earth.

But what kind of freedom is that, really? Is it freedom when millions can’t afford basic healthcare? When a medical emergency can bankrupt a family? When corporations own politicians, and workers are trapped in jobs just to keep health insurance? Is it freedom when your choices are narrowed down to which corporate brand you’ll consume, which billionaire will own your data, and which politician will fail you more slowly?

The gun argument is really a confession. It’s saying: “We’ve lost so much freedom that the only one we cling to is the ability to arm ourselves.” Guns have become the consolation prize in a country where every other right and protection is chipped away.

You can’t afford insulin, but you can afford an AR-15. You can’t get mental healthcare, but you can stockpile ammo. You can’t get your child’s asthma medication covered, but you can walk into a Walmart and walk out with a weapon of war. This isn’t freedom. It’s a parody of it.

Real freedom isn’t just the right to own a gun. Real freedom is the right to live without fear of medical bankruptcy, to have control over your workplace and your government, to exist without being exploited by corporations or surveilled by the state. Real freedom is collective, not individualistic. It’s not about clutching a weapon in the ruins, it’s about building a society where weapons aren’t necessary.

The sad truth is that when a Trump supporter says “I get to own guns,” what they’re really saying is: “This is the only freedom I have left, and I’m going to cling to it no matter what else is taken from me.” But clinging to a single hollow freedom while the rest are stripped away isn’t liberty. It’s defeat dressed up as patriotism.

And that’s why America is 57th in freedom. Because we’ve traded healthcare for hardware, dignity for firepower, and genuine liberty for a cheap illusion of it.

Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?

The September 11th attacks shocked the world, but the question of why they happened — and whether they could have been prevented — has complex answers. While it’s easy to reduce the tragedy to “terrorists hate America,” the reality is far more nuanced. U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East played a major role in creating the conditions of al-Qaeda’s attacks.

Osama bin Laden didn’t randomly choose the U.S. as a target. His motivations were explicitly tied to American actions in the Middle East such as:

U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia: After the Gulf War (1990-1991), the U.S. stationed forces in the kingdom that hosts Islam’s two holiest sites. Bin Laden called this “the greatest of calamities” and used it to rally followers.

Support for Israel: U.S. financial and military support for Israel, especially during the Palestinian intifadas, was repeatedly cited in al-Qaeda statements.

Sanctions and bombings in Iraq: The 1990s saw widespread suffering from U.S.-led sanctions and military actions, which bin Laden highlighted as crimes against Muslims.

Backing authoritarian regimes: Support for rulers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere fed narratives of Western oppression.

Bin Laden’s 1996 fatwa called for expelling U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia. His 1998 fatwa, issued jointly with other jihadist leaders went further: it authorized attacks on Americans, including civilians, citing U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, sanctions and bombings in Iraq, and support for Israel.

Even after 9/11, he framed the attacks as a defensive retaliation against decades of U.S. policies harming Muslims.

Even American authorities and politicians recognized that foreign policy mattered.

The 9/11 Commission Report (2004): Directly linked al-Qaeda’s motivations to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Middle East policies.

CIA analysts and intelligence officers repeatedly stated that bin Laden’s grievances were policy-driven, not about “hating American freedom.”

Political leaders such as Bill Clinton admitted troop presence enraged bin Laden, and even George W. Bush acknowledged the strategic challenge of stationing forces in Saudi Arabia.

Now, the question is “Could it have been prevented?” Experts highlight several ways different choices might have reduced the risk such as…

Moving U.S. forces out of Saudi Arabia sooner could have removed the most symbolic grievance. Reducing heavy-handed interventions, rethinking support for authoritarian regimes, and avoiding civilian harm could have undermined the al-Qaeda narrative.

Agencies had multiple warnings that something was going to happen but failed to connect the dots. Better sharing might have stopped the plot.

Targeting the financial and communications networks of extremist groups early could have reduced recruitment. And investments in education and development could have made al-Qaeda’s message less appealing to potential recruits.

Even small adjustments in U.S. policy and intelligence could have drastically lowered the likelihood of the attacks.

9/11 wasn’t simply an attack on American freedoms, it was a violent response to decades of U.S. actions in the Middle East. Understanding these connections isn’t about excusing terrorism; it’s about recognizing how foreign policy decisions have real-world consequences. By studying history, we can see how better choices might prevent future tragedies.

TL/DR: 9/11 wasn’t random. Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. in response to American policies in the Middle East: troops in Saudi Arabia, support for Israel, sanctions and bombings in Iraq, and backing authoritarian regimes. Bin Laden’s fatwas explicitly cited these grievances. U.S. officials later acknowledged the connection. Better foreign policy, intelligent coordination, and limiting extremist networks might have prevented the attacks

Why the U.S. Hired Nazis but Hated the USSR

It’s one of the strangest contradictions in American history: right after fighting a war against Nazi Germany, the United States turned around and gave hundreds of Nazis safe passage, jobs, and paychecks. At the same time, it launched a global crusade against the Soviet Union, its former ally in the war. So why were ex-Nazis welcomed into the U.S. while Communists were treated like the ultimate enemy?

After World War II, the U.S. quietly recruited more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians through a program called Operation Paperclip. These weren’t just neutral “lab coat” types. Many had been members of the Nazi Party or had worked directly for Hitler’s war machine.

Wernher von Braun, who built V-2 rockets with slave labor, later became the father of the U.S. space program. Hubertus Strughold, the “father of space medicine,” had ties to medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Why hire them? Because knowledge was power. The U.S. wanted their rocket science, their chemistry, their military technology, and just as importantly, it didn’t want those brains falling into Soviet hands.

While the U.S. was willing to rehabilitate Nazis, it drew a hard line against Communists.

The U.S. was built on capitalism; the USSR was Communist. American leaders saw Communism as a direct threat to private property and global markets. Geopolitics: After the war, the USSR controlled Eastern Europe and projected influence worldwide. The U.S. wanted global dominance and couldn’t tolerate a rival system. Once the Soviets tested an atomic bomb in 1949, the competition turned existential. Anti-Communism fueled McCarthyism and justified military budgets, CIA coups, and repression of leftists at home.

In short, fighting Communism was about preserving U.S. power, not morality.

This is the big contradiction: The U.S. claimed it was defending freedom and democracy, but its actions told a different story. Nazis were a defeated enemy who could be repurposed. Communists were a living enemy offering an alternative vision of the world. So America struck a deal with its conscience: use the Nazis, fight the Soviets, and sell the public a story about good versus evil.

This history cuts through the myth that U.S. foreign policy is about values. The real driver is power. The U.S. was never “pro-freedom vs. anti-fascism.” It was always pro-Capitalism vs. anti-Communism, and if that meant hiring Nazis to help win the Cold War, so be it.

Bill Hicks and Joe Rogan

I’m tired of this whole bro culture that’s going on right now and Joe Rogan seems to be the man in charge of it. He never really amounted to much until someone decided it’d be a good idea to give him a podcast. Years ago I thought he was decent enough because he admired Bill Hicks and he was friends with Doug Stanhope. Hicks and Stanhope are two of my all-time favorite comedians. Then things shifted.

I think Hicks and Stanhope would have differing opinions on Rogan though. Stanhope openly says he doesn’t care if he bombs on stage. He’d rather be himself than pander to an audience. I don’t see this being Rogan’s attitude. However, the difference between Hicks and Stanhope would be Hicks would roast Rogan and Stanhope would shrug, pour another drink, and say “Who gives a shit?” That’s just who Stanhope is. Hicks though? He wouldn’t stand for it.

Rogan would always bring up Bill Hicks and call him a hero, a genius, a prophet. Hicks was all of those things, but if Hicks were alive today he’d tear Rogan to shreds. Hicks spent his career railing against corporations, conformity, American militarism, consumer culture, and the numbing stupidity of mass entertainment. Hicks wasn’t trying to “be edgy.” He was trying to wake people up. He was pissed off because we were all sleepwalking through a corporate-controlled nightmare.

Now look at Rogan. His whole empire rests on platforming reactionary voices, selling supplements, and playing culture-war middleman. He’s not smashing the system, he’s feeding it. Rogan is what Hicks warned us about: the corporatized, commodified version of counterculture. He’s a watered-down rebel packaged for the masses.

Bill Hicks didn’t attack “wokeness.” He attacked greed, imperialism, and consumer hypnosis. Rogan, meanwhile, obsesses over trans athletes while pretending that’s the frontline of free thought. Hicks went after presidents and generals. Rogan goes after strawmen and invited presidential candidates and billionaires on his podcast.

There’s a difference between using a microphone to question power and using it to launder power’s talking points. Hicks’ comedy was dangerous. Rogan’s podcast is safe. It’s safe enough for Spotify to cut him a $200 million check.

Bill Hicks wanted us to stop being sheep. Joe Rogan built a career herding sheep in new directions.

Bill Hicks was a prophet of rage against the machine. Joe Rogan is the machine.

Elon Musk Has a Breeding Fetish and it Creeps Me Out

Let’s talk about Apartheid Clyde again. Not the genius inventor, not the Mars guy, not the billionaire memelord, but the man on a bizarre, almost dystopian crusade to impregnate the planet. At this point it’s not just “having a lot of kids.” It’s a full-blown ideology. A fetish wrapped in futurism. A techno-breeding manifesto disguised as civilization-saving.

Apartheid Clyde has at least 14 children (that we know of) with multiple women, including employees. He’s tweeted things like “population collapse is the biggest threat to humanity” and “I’m doing my part haha,” as if civilization hinges on him personally repopulating the Earth — or Mars — with his offspring. That’s not family planning. That’s legacy-building with a hint of sci-fi eugenics.

He’s literally turned human reproduction into a status symbol. It’s not about love or parenting or raising decent people. It’s about seeding the future … with himself. He thinks he’s a mythological figure tasked with restarting the species after the collapse.

It’s not subtle. He has said he believes “smart people” aren’t reproducing enough. He reportedly fathered twins with a Neuralink executive. He once called birth control a “civilization-ending experiment.” He’s flirted with the logic of eugenics while acting like he’s just being a rationalist.

In any other context, this would be horrifying. But because he’s rich and quirky, people brush it off as just another Musk-ism. But imagine any regular man walking around, telling the world it’s his moral duty to have as many children as possible because his DNA is just that important. That’s not just arrogant. That’s a fetish.

This isn’t about children. It’s about control. Power. Legacy. Apartheid Clyde talks about colonizing Mars, building superintelligence, and rewriting human history, always with himself as the central node. He doesn’t want to save the word. He wants to remake it in his image, and apparently that starts in the bedroom. He’s not trying to be your kid’s role model. He’s trying to be their ancestor.

Here’s the kicker: Apartheid Clyde doesn’t believe in collective solutions. He doesn’t trust democracy. He doesn’t care about building a better society. He wants a genetically optimized future ruled by the right kind of people: him and his kind.

And that’s why his weird, hyper-capitalist breeding campaign is so creepy. Because it’s not just personal. It’s political. It’s patriarchal. And it’s deeply authoritarian in disguise. We don’t need more Musk children. We need fewer billionaires treating the Earth — and our bodies — like a startup they can scale.

Can you be a Marxist/Leninist/Kropotkinist/Chomskyist?

Short answer? Yeah. Long answer? It’s complicated, but that’s never stopped me before.

Look, these four thinkers don’t exactly hold hands and sing the Internationale together. They’ve got different blueprints for tearing down capitalism and building something better. That doesn’t mean you can’t steal the best tools from each of them and sharpen your own.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Marx gives you the blueprint.

He’s the one who showed us that capitalism isn’t a glitch, it’s the whole fucking operating system. Class struggle. Alienation. Historical materialism. Without Marx, you’re just vibing in the ruins, not naming the enemy.

Lenin says “Great. Now do something.”

Marx diagnosed the disease. Lenin started the surgery. He understood that capitalism doesn’t die politely. You need pressure, structure, and a strategy. That’s the whole vanguard party thing: not perfect, but a reminder that wishful thinking doesn’t start revolutions. Power has to be seized, not begged for.

Kropotkin asks, “But what are you building?”

The anarchist in the mix who is the heart. He reminds you that the goal isn’t just a new boss in a red hat. It’s no boss. Mutual aid. Voluntary cooperation. No centralized state. No boot, no neck. A vision beyond power games.

Chomsky cuts through the bullshit.

The living dissident. He’s not storming palaces, but he’s tearing down lies. He’s a scalpel for empire, for propaganda, for power dressed in liberal clothing. Chomsky shows you how to spot the cage even when it’s painted blue.

So can you be all four?

Only if you’re okay with contradiction. With mess. With not having all the answers but refusing to settle for anyone else’s either. You take Marx’s critique, Lenin’s urgency, Kropotkin’s ideals, and Chomsky’s clarity, and you use them all to fight the system while knowing none of them alone are enough.

It’s not a clean ideology. It’s a war room.

Capitalism is adaptive, violent, and relentless. Fighting it means pulling from every angle: materialist analysis, revolutionary strategy, anarchist ethics, and relentless truth-telling. That’s not confusion, that’s firepower.

So yeah, I’m a Marxist/Leninist/Kropotkinist/Chomskyist. Call it a contradiction. I call it a strategy.

What I take from Marx, Lenin, Kropotkin, and Chomsky

American politics are broken. Not just crooked or corrupt, but structurally, irredeemably broken. Corporate power is propped up, sociopaths are rewarded, and it dangles just enough hope to keep people from revolting. Voting feels like choosing flavors of decay, while the wealthy buy policy and workers beg for crumbs.

Instead of looking to the ballot box ever four or two years for salvation, I’m looking to four thinkers: Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Peter Kropotkin, and Noam Chomsky. I’m not looking to them as prophets, but as strategists, builders, and demolition experts. Each of these people offer a different tool for ripping this thing apart and reimagining what politics could be. I’m not interested in dogma. I’m interested in results.

From Marx, I take the foundation that class struggle is everything. Marx didn’t give us a blueprint. He gave us a lens, a way to see power for what it is. Capitalism isn’t just unfair; it’s a system that demands exploitation to survive. You can’t vote away the class war. You have to understand that politics is economics in disguise, and that real change starts by confronting the structures that divide labor from power.

You want to change America? Then start by naming the enemy: capital.

From Lenin, I take the strategy that power doesn’t surrender, it gets taken.

Lenin knew that moments of chaos don’t organize themselves. He built a disciplined machine not to preserve power, but to capture and redirect it. I don’t want a vanguard party or a permanent state, but I do believe in planning, timing, and coordination. American politics love spectacle but fear movement. If we want to be more than angry individuals yelling online, we need to move with purpose. The system isn’t going to implode on its own. You either build power or beg from it.

From Kropotkin, I take the vision that mutual aid is not utopia but strategy.

This country is obsessed with bootstraps and billionaires. Kropotkin said fuck that. Cooperation is how we survive, and always has been. Fuck waiting for the state to save us. Let’s build networks, councils, co-ops, and clinics … parallel structures that meet people’s needs now, not after the revolution. Politics don’t just happen in voting booths. It happens in kitchens, strike lines, and occupied buildings. Real change starts when we stop asking permission and start taking care of each other.

From Chomsky I take the filter, meaning if an institution can’t justify its power then burn it down.

Chomsky taught me to look at power and say: “Prove you deserve to exist.” The state, the police, the military-industrial complex, corporate media … none of them pass that test. He also taught me to not waste time reinventing the wheel. If a structure is doing harm then dismantle it. If it’s helping people then democratize it. Reform what you must. Abolish what you can. Build what they fear.

American politics are a shell game designed to keep us chasing scraps while the ruling class counts profits. I’m done playing. If we want to change things then we have to stop trying to fix a broken system and start building a new one from the ground up.

The state won’t save us. The market won’t feed us. But we might if we finally get to work.

Reconciling Ozzy’s Legacy

Ozzy Osbourne was never meant to be a saint. He bit the head off a bat and dove, survived decades of drug abuse, tried to kill his wife (while under the influence of drugs), and still made his way into a global icon. Like many public figures though — especially from his generation — he carried contradictions. And lately, one of those contradictions has come under fire: his support for Zionism.

As someone who grew up worshipping Sabbath and Ozzy, I’ve been struggling to reconcile my love for his legacy with my politics. I’m anti-Zionist. I believe in the liberation of Palestine and the end of apartheid. And Ozzy’s apparent support for Israel during a time of intense suffering in Gaza felt like a gut punch.

But then came his farewell show: Back to the Beginning. A titanic goodbye organize by none other than Tom Morello: guitar god, anti-Zionist activist, and arguably one of the most politically consistent artists of our time. Morello curated the whole event, helped raise nearly $200 million for Parkinson’s and children’s hospitals, and sat side-by-side with Ozzy to send him off.

So what the hell do I do with that?

Do I cancel Ozzy? Do I cancel Morello for working with him? Do I cancel myself for loving them both?

No. I sit with the contradictions. Because real politics aren’t clean. They’re messy, emotional, and riddled with human inconsistency.

Ozzy supported Black Lives Matter. He stood up for the LGBTQ+. He raised a staggering amount of money for causes that matter. He was also, like many aging boomers, wildly out of his depth when it came to the geopolitics of Israel and Palestine. That doesn’t excuse it, but it does contextualize it, especially considering his declining health and the heavy medications he was on during his final years.

Morello’s participation doesn’t “excuse” Ozzy either, but it does suggest that celebrating someone’s musical legacy doesn’t always mean endorsing their politics. That nuance is lost in today’s discourse, which often demands total purity or total exile. But art, like people, is rarely so simple.

I can love “Mr. Crowley” and still rage against apartheid. I can blast “War Pigs” and say Ozzy got it wrong. And I can respect the farewell show while also wishing that one of the final statements of a metal god hadn’t included a blind spot so many in the West still carry.

Again, rest in power, Ozzy. And may the rest of us keep pushing — louder, harder, and more unapologetically — for a world where all people live free from occupation and oppression.

Free Palestine.