how are short term anarchist goals different from long term ones?

Question

or are they?

Answer 1

I find Alfredo Bonanno's The Anarchist Tension to be a beautifully articulate grappling with this question as well as others. On this, he argues that in the face of politicians who criticize us for having a utopian vision that would never work, we have to admit that it is true that anarchy is not something we can concretely realize tomorrow or perhaps ever, it is not something we can take a step toward. It is a tension toward a vision that is completely unlike this world. But with this there is still an immediate reality we are faced with and have to engage with in some way.

"So we continually need to maintain a relationship between this tension towards something absolutely other, the unthinkable, the unsayable, a dimension we must realise without very well knowing how to, and the daily experience of the things we can and do, do. A precise relationship of change, of transformation."

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-the-anarchist-tension

So personally I don't think so much in terms of short-term goals and long-term goals. I have what one might call a long-term goal but which I consider an impossibility. This impossibility is what I have decided to strive toward in full knowledge of its impossibility, which to me is also its great beauty. It is not a destination but rather a direction. What one might call a short-term goal I would just call my life, what I am immediately faced with and which can also be beautiful but is not a perfected thing nor do I want it to be, and here are the things I do with the people around me who share a dream and a stake on the impossible, our experiments in creative-destruction as we swim through life's absurd currents.

Outside of this, I think anarchists have a tendency to set themselves short- and long-term goals, which I think is a fine way to entertain yourself, but I think it's silly to think of anarchy, insurrection or revolution (the usual long-term goals) as finish-lines one can reach by taking a certain number of steps. That kind of logic is not worth buying into, and I think is a large part of the way that mass upheavals have been converted into systems like communist dictatorships and planned economies promising that all this is a transition toward freedom and everything good. Anarchists often put blame on "authoritarianism" and forget that millions also participate in the system for concrete reasons, including the power of ideologies that promise a quantitative transition to an ideal world.

Answer 2

Short term goals usually refers to goals intended to be achieved in a smaller time interval than long term goals. So it's all relative to what yr doin', homie.

Answer 3

I believe that there can be short and long term goals of anarchy or to anarchy.  An approach of goals action can bring about a stradegy or at least a forward moving direction.

What if here could be an orderly and smooth transition to anarchy?  Wouldn't that be a perferred way?  
First) a group of free, creatve, and problem solving thinker would need to come togehter; a group who would believe thie transition is possible.  

Secondly) The only way for such a transition, is to design and create something the works better that the current systems and has more desirable results.

Thirdly)  The design must work for "all" people.  The effort must see that people are the solution, and not the problem.  The problems are the current values and the systems that teach and sustain those values.

Fourth) The systems designed must work effectively; and work within and sustain the environment of anarchy.