Anarchy 101

As an anarchist, and one who will be traveling to New York City to protest the Republican National Convention, I must respond to Geraldine Baum’s Aug. 2 piece (“A City Bracing for the What-Ifs”).

Baum’s article suggests that she believes anarchists are misguided teenagers hell-bent on chaos. That is not correct. Anarchism as a political theory traces its roots to the 19th century. Anarchists fought Bolsheviks in Krondtstat in 1918. They fought Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. The anarchist labor union, the IWW, once had thousands of members. Simply put, anarchism is the idea that life can be lived without authority or hierarchy; without prisons or wars.

Eric Stuit

Lawrence, Kan.