The co-producer of the landmark documentary film reflects on its legacy amid today’s challenges
~ Joel Sucher ~
Anarchism in America is the title of a documentary produced way back in 1980; a time when the world was a far different place and the embers of the older strains of the movement —communist, individualist and syndicalist —were still alight. I was one of the producers of that documentary and was lucky enough to rub elbows with a variety of anarchists —Italians, Jews, Spaniards, Russians among others —who shared a common vision of a better world. They dreamed of a universal terrain without the shackles of authoritarian structures, governments and their corporate lackeys; churches, with their superstitions, and armed police to enforce the dictates of oligarchs and authoritarians.
The documentary was financed, ironically, by a liberal institution —National Endowment for the Humanities —established by Lyndon Johnson in 1965 when the idea of intellectual stimulation was still part and parcel of a democratic sensibility. Flawed, I’d reckon, because it was an ideal steeped in the belief of US exceptionalism. Propping up this notion these days has plunged America further down the bowels of a new dark age, replete with heaping helpings of stupidity, racism, white supremacy, hyper masculinity and racism. It’s a time for idiots to open mouths before engaging brains.
The original documentary was strung together with a questionable premise drawn from a 1978 book written by David DeLeon, titled The American as Anarchist, Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism. It postulated that there are those who explicitly tag themselves anarchists (like yours truly) but there are plenty more whose thinking embodies anti-authoritarian ideas without applying specific labels. Extended by DeLeon’s implication, these folks have inherited an anti-authoritarian DNA that’s become entwined and defined in the American character.
The script was written by an old pal and comrade, Paul Berman, and was so good that for a few years the NEH staff waved it around as an example of what they would fund; that is, until Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. In the backwash of the election —presaging what’s happening today —the NEH staff bristling from the change in political sensibilities sheepishly asked us to take their names off the credits (we didn’t).
Well, many decades on I’m gazing through the looking glass and see the American-as-anarchist in a different guise: that is as a MAGA supporter.
For instance, we interviewed an independent truck driver —“Lil John” —standing by his big rig and railing on about how government dos and don’ts had cut into his livelihood.
“We’re not really independent because you talk about independent truck drivers and then you get into the political bureaucracy that run the United States government … mainly the rules and regulations. I mean, I don’t think a man in Washington, DC can dictate to me how to operate this truck, financially”.
Touching a key point, he concluded
“Just because you get elected to an office or you become a politician… don’t necessarily make you the big brother that’s got to oversee everything that’s under your domain … the people out there feel that they got to be the big brother, that we’re not smart enough down here to do our own thing”.
Perhaps another fly in the American as anarchist ointment is the idea, espoused in the documentary by the late working-class anarchist poet, Philip Levine, about how Americans are “smart enough” to hate rules and conformity especially in places that have a sense of orderliness in their culture.
“One of the things that struck me most when I went to Europe and lived there for a couple of years, was how fucking law abiding the people were, and how I broke all the laws. And I think I didn’t break the laws so much because I was an anarchist, it was just because I was an American. I mean, if I came to a traffic light, nobody was there. I went through the goddamn thing. It was just an attitude, you know, what’s the point of staying here? … I found that my European neighbors went crazy. stay in line, you know, it was sort of the stay in line, be this way, queue up in England, you know. And I’d say, fuck you, you know, the first one to the bus gets on, you know…. We are a people who are very smart, you know, that we got a lot of street smarts…I mean, we know what the law is all about. We know who made it and how it gets enforced. I mean, I think if you stop the average American say, what’s the law all about? Did God make it? He’d say, bullshit. He didn’t have anything to do with it. John D Rockefeller made it”.
In retrospect, this “truth” has embedded itself in the viscera of MAGA as a justification for releasing all that pent-up rage against the edicts of what they call the Washington swamp. Unfortunately, their goal is to create a new swamp overseen by a charismatic leader who has sold them a bill of goods about how he’ll make their lives better.
Obviously, as events in America unfold with deliberate shock and awe, it’s clear the confusion provides cover for rolling out a “brave new fascist world”. The blueprints are already out there (see my Covert Action piece on Curtis Yarvin). Anyone with even the slightest left of centre perspective will find themselves on hit lists with ambiguous outcomes. Handwriting is on the proverbial wall and the 2023 Cop City protests outside of Atlanta, where one activist was killed, provides more than enough evidence to highlight that the State has placed a target on the backs of the anti-authoritarian movement.
Will anarchists be the next group —after immigrants and pro-Palestinians —to be carted off? A definite possibility. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to guess what may be coming next.
So, what to be done?
Well, mutual aid; that foundational anarchist theory-into-practice concept remains as alive and relevant today as it did and has given us the incentive —the power —to act in concert with like-minded folk for the benefit of our local communities. No need to wrap A’s in circles around our foreheads. It’s a demonstration of what is innate in the human character: an empathy that transcends greed and cruelty and one that infuses anarchist thought.
Encouraging self-management in the small and medium business realm maintains credibility even now when Wall Street and its predatory banking buddies seek to control everything and anything.
Back in the day many of us were infatuated by the anarchist hue and cry, “don’t vote, it only encourages them”.
Times have changed severely and I, for one, believe that voting, primarily in local elections, where a vote counts for something—is an imperative that should be heeded. The old New England “town hall” ideal which we discussed in the documentary —gathering local citizens to discuss political affairs —remains a crucial exercise of power.
As the resistance starts to take root anarchists need to heed the pitfalls and traps set up in this new world of surveillance and AI. Welcome to “predictive policing” where science fiction meets science fact and where algorithms drive lead-generated police investigations.
No longer are police gumshoes hiding in hotel rooms listening to bugs they have planted via crappy, old vacuum tube transmitters. The modern detective is fixed to a computer screen watching algorithms make —in essence —criminal predictions.
We have turned a page; one Philip K Dick wrote about in his dystopian 1956 novel, Minority Report (later a compelling film starring Tom Cruise).
The incompetent fools currently playing with the levers of US power take China as an example of how you can control an unruly population. It’s a true 1984 world where surveillance is translated into social control where, literally, points are deducted if you’re late to pay a bill or jaywalk; yes, it is a scheme to turn the population into good, obedient boys and girls.
An awareness that you’re being watched needs to be just that and something that shouldn’t damp down activism. Having been involved in producing films like the 1970 documentary, Red Squad, I’m cognisant about the dangers posed by the surveillance State but there are plenty of counter-measures. Keep your circle of friends small (“affinity groups”, we used to call them); use secure platforms like Signal for communications and don’t invite all those you think may want to be on the down-low. If that means tamping down social media posts proclaiming support for Palestine, well, for the time being that should be considered. The other side will be monitoring and the threat is real. Anything is possible. I was born in a Displaced Persons camp outside of Lubeck, Germany, after the War and came over to the States and naturalised as a citizen. Could I, theoretically, be denaturalised? Sure.
Anarchism, like the proverbial Seventh Wave, seems to engulf successive generations of young people eager to act on anti-authoritarian impulses and that’s a good thing, in my estimation, so long as they understand it’s a long-term commitment. It’s all too easy for the young kid waving around a black flag with an A in a circle to succumb to the seductive temptations of materialism, power-mongering and fame-whoring.
While I believe that Anarchism in America is a deeply flawed film, I’d maintain that there are lessons to be learned and that after the authoritarians and capitalists melt down —which I’m sure they will —then anarchists can get back to the task of proffering the vision of a better world.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2025 issue of Freedom anarchist journal