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Alfredo M. Bonanno Quotes (1937-2023)
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About Alfredo M. Bonanno
Alfredo Maria Bonanno (4 March 1937 β 6 December 2023) was a theorist of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism.
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βAnyone who decides to organise my life for me can never be my comrade.β
βBy abolishing the ethic of production you enter revolutionary reality directly.β
βWe arenβt afraid, just stupidly full of prefabricated ideas we cannot break free from.β
βCourts and sentences are always part of the spectacle of capital, even when it is revolutionaries who act them out.β
βNo real joy can reach us from the rational mechanism of capitalist exploitation. Joy does not have fixed rules to catalogue it.β
βIf production is at the root of capitalist exploitation, to change the mode of production would merely change the mode of exploitation.β
βRemunerated joy, weekends off or annual holidays paid by the boss is like paying to make love. It seems the same but there is something lacking.β
βMany things can be done βplayfullyβ yet most of the things we do, we do very βseriouslyβ wearing the death mask we have borrowed from capital.β
βIn order to break out of the magic circle of the theatricals of commodities we must refuse all roles, including that of the βprofessionalβ revolutionary.β
βThe way capital is physically organised at the present time makes it vulnerable to any revolutionary structure capable of deciding its own timing and means of attack.β
βWhat madness the love of work is!
With great scenic skill capital has succeeded in making the exploited love exploitation, the hanged man the rope and the slave his chains.β
With great scenic skill capital has succeeded in making the exploited love exploitation, the hanged man the rope and the slave his chains.β
βLiberation is seen as setting right a balance that has been upset by the wickedness of capitalism, not as the coming of a world of play to take the place of the world of work.β
βIn the illusory world of commodities, play is also an illusion. We imagine we are playing, while all we are really doing is monotonously repeating the roles assigned to us by capital.β
βWe insistently reaffirm that the use of organized violence against exploiters, even if it takes the form of minoritarian and limited action, is an indispensable instrument in the anarchist struggle against exploitation.β
βThe neutralisation of the individual is a constant practice in capitalβs reified totality. The flattening of opinions is a therapeutic process, a death machine. Production cannot take place without this flattening in the spectacular form of capitalism.β
βWe are all responsible for our dream of storming the heavens. We cannot turn ourselves into dwarves now, after having dreamed, elbow to elbow, each feeling the others' heartbeats, of attacking and overthrowing the gods. This is the dream that makes power afraid.β
βPlay is characterised by a vital impulse that is always new, always in movement. By acting as though we are playing, we charge our action with this impulse. We free ourselves from death. Play makes us feel alive. It gives us the excitement of life. In the other model of acting we do everything as though it were a duty, as though we βhadβ to do it.β
βWhen we say the time is not ripe for an armed attack on the State we are pushing open the doors of the mental asylum for the comrades who are carrying out such attacks; when we say it is not the time for revolution we are tightening the cords of the straightjacket; when we say these actions are objectively a provocation we don the white coats of the torturers.β
βThe reduction of class war to a mere military confrontation carries within it the logical conclusion that, if we undergo a military defeat on this terrain, the class war ceases to exist as such. From this we come to the not just theoretical but practical absurdity that in Italy today, after the defeat of the combatant organizations, there is no longer an actual class war.β
Alfredo M. Bonanno Quotes by Topic
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Alfredo M. Bonanno on Revolution 2 quotes
βBy abolishing the ethic of production you enter revolutionary reality directly.β
Alfredo M. Bonanno on Terrorism
Alfredo M. Bonanno on Guillotine
βA transitory acceptance of the guillotine leads to its institutionalisation.β
Alfredo M. Bonanno on Socialism
βIf production is at the root of capitalist exploitation, to change the mode of production would merely change the mode of exploitation.β
Alfredo M. Bonanno on Insurrectionary anarchism
βWe insistently reaffirm that the use of organized violence against exploiters, even if it takes the form of minoritarian and limited action, is an indispensable instrument in the anarchist struggle against exploitation.β
Alfredo M. Bonanno on Work
βThe reign of capital, which denies our very existence as human beings and reduces us to βthingsβ, seems very serious, methodical and disciplined. But its possessive paroxysm, its ethical rigour, its obsession with βdoingβ all hide a great illusion: the total emptiness of the commodity spectacle, the uselessness of indefinite accumulation and the absurdity of exploitation. So the great seriousness of the world of work and productivity hides a total lack of seriousness.β
About Alfredo M. Bonanno
Alfredo Maria Bonanno (4 March 1937 β 6 December 2023) was a theorist of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism.
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