“Politicians Won’t Fix This:
Friendly Anarchist Tips for Breaking Free of the Liberal Box”
Length: prose, approx. 75 to 250 words
Due: by or before September 26
Email: cbmilstein [at] yahoo [dot] com
First, if you haven’t seen the previous zines in this series, each with numerous anarchist(ic) voices speaking to a specific theme, you can find them as readable and print-ready PDFs on two websites, thanks to the good graces of It’s Going Down (https://itsgoingdown.org/author/cindy-milstein/) and @sheerspite (https://sheerspite.ca/brand/cindy-barukh-milstein/). Take a peek at those, if you haven’t done so already, before considering a submission to this latest zine. And of course, all of my zines are labors of love, intended to be freely downloaded, printed, and distro’d as a way to win hearts and minds to the side of life.
Onward to this latest one—an outgrowth of three observations:
1. I’m increasing impatient with liberals (which includes progressive ones). Many claim to have finally seen the light about fascism, and express openness to liberatory, nonstatist sensibilities, yet seem incapable of thinking, acting, and dreaming outside of their liberal lens. I’m impatient because unless they do, they hold open the gates for fascism as its willing accomplices.
2. Then again, many liberals have had their eyes opened, yet lack the anarchic know-how, street smarts, and vision to shift their practices. They can’t (yet) see out of their liberal (ballot) box—and need welcoming hands to do so.
3. Even if many of us anarchists feel like the liberals’ learning curve will be the death of many of us, we can’t retreat from the best of anarchism: all that we’re “for,” and all that we know humans can do well via forms of self-organization and self-governance. We must put our beautiful ideas out into the world, modeling forms of freedom with our projects, spaces, social relations, structures, etc.
So if you could give liberals a piece of advice that just might convince them to finally break free, what would you say (to your parents, siblings, neighbors, coworkers, other anarchists working with liberals, etc.)?
(Photo: sticker reading “politicians won’t save us” against a fiery background, as seen on a grungy street post on the stolen lands of Montreal/Tio’tià:ke/Mooniyang in July 2025.)
