What’s With The Fake Anarchists?

Look, I’m no anarchist myself but like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said he knew obscenity when he saw it, I feel safe in saying that know anarchism when I don’t see it.

Just like I knew that no true anarchists would endanger some goats to protest a sweep of houseless campers (who themselves then went out of their way to help those very goats), I know that Woody Harrelson is not an anarchist sticking up for film crews.

“It’s not fair to the crews,” he continued. “I don’t have to wear the mask. Why should they? Why should they have to be vaccinated? How’s that not up to the individual? I shouldn’t be talking about this [expletive]. It makes me angry for the crew. The anarchist part of me, I don’t feel that we should have forced testing, forced masking and forced vaccination. That’s not a free country.”

As I said after the goats incident, real anarchists believe in mutual aid. They believe in building solidarity and capacity. They don’t blithely, let alone indignantly, believe in putting people at risk “because mandates”. Harrelson seems to think he’s flexing his privilege to help the working class. What might better help these below-the-line workers is calling out actors like him who, as he repeatedly says, “can get out of” abiding by Covid protocols.

Honestly, if Hollywood really does still have some firm Covid protocols in place, hooray for Hollywood.