"Basically, every positive measure that falls short of your impossible ideal. Revolutions and non-revolutionary mass movements led by non-anarchists and dominated by non-anarchist ideologies has resulted in the abolition of slavery, national independence, a living wage, equal rights for women, land reform so that people in the countryside don't starve, and so on - there are thousands of positives I could list."

When have I dismissed this? Where have I said that anarchism is the only thing that has achived anything?

"But you think less about these things that what the revolutions/mass movements haven't achieved. You're always looking at the bottle and seeing it half empty rather than half full. And ordinary people just don't relate to your thinking, because they don't think in the same way as you."

And 'ordinary' people go around calling each other comrade? Your assumptions of the mindset of every anarchist on the planet is staggering!

To dismiss the anarchist influence in past mass movements is to dismiss key characteristics of communal struggle, direct action, wildcat strikes etc etc, characteristics shown by 'ordinary' people, and by anarchism as a whole.

My personal (take note, PERSONAL) view of the definition of reform — while completely crucial to social change and emancipation, and for ordinary people to take measure of their collective power — is something that fails to challenge the on-going existance of Capitalism. So while we must struggle for reforms —again, in order to gain awareness of our collective power — they should not become the aim, and any progress will only be reforms while any kind of opressive, expoitative system remains in place. Far from dismissing mass movements, anarchists embrace and encourage them — we just wouldn't be quick to embrace their 'leaders'.

I'm sorry to say it, but the only one 'up in the clouds' here is yourself, by thinking that our ideas are in the bin. History and 'ordinary people' trashed Marxism, Leninism, Trotskysim and other systems a long time ago. With the growing anti-globilisation movement, de-centarlised indigenous struggle, and other movements, anarchism is alive and well.

Cheers!

Jared D