Dear Occupiers (a letter from anarchists)

[TBF]

This was posted today on Occupy Wall Street's FB page. I may not agree with all elements of it, and you may not either, but I thought it was pretty brilliant as a whole:

Why should you listen to us? In short, because we’ve been at this a long time already. We’ve spent
decades struggling against capitalism, organizing occupations, and making decisions by consensus. If
this new movement doesn’t learn from the mistakes of previous ones, we run the risk of repeating them.
We’ve summarized some of our hard-won lessons here. Occupation is nothing new. The land we stand on is
already occupied territory. The United States was founded upon the extermination of indigenous peoples and the
colonization of their land, not to mention centuries of slavery and exploitation ...

The problem isn’t just a few “bad apples.” The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment
bankers; it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cutthroat competition at every level of
society ...

Police can’t be trusted. They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class ...


Much more here (in pdf form so you can print it if you like for easier reading): http://cloudfront.crimethinc.com/images/occupy/dearoccupiers.pdf

[Cal Carpenter]

1. This is very important - thanks for posting.

In some of the Occupy sites, it seems like they are trying to reinvent the wheel. They need to be open not only to the insight of current anarchist groups, but also historical examples of this type of movement - where they have failed and succeeded...

This is an early time in a potentially powerful movement, and I hope ideas like the ones above (and I am not an anarchist) are being considered and discussed, as opposed to the current mainstream thinkers and opportunists who will co-opt and destroy this movement before it gets anywhere.

The Chicago site has 'fetishized obedience to the law' to a fault, there are many there who are calling them out on it. I hope they are making progress. It's the main reason, IMO, that the numbers there are so small. At Wall Street it is obvious that the numbers grow everytime there is a disturbance involving arrests etc no matter who 'started it'. Tactics are important. Direct action should not be taken lightly but it can help galvanize and mobilize more people when done strategically.

The movement needs to be careful not to romanticize or idealize some notion of the US as being a great country founded on 'freedom' and 'democracy' that has somehow gone astray - those are dangerous traps.

OWS and it's offshoots are getting the conversation started, helping people learn what words really mean, and the difference between political rhetoric and reality. There is much potential here but it will take a lot of discipline and hard work to get anywhere.

Intellectual honesty is key. Romanticizing rhetoric ('speaking truth to power' aka begging for crumbs) will destroy the movement.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

7. Spanish Civil War and the Paris Commune.

Yes, I'm thinking big!

[flamingdem]

151. Anarchist ideology can be just as dysfunctional as any other - especially violent tactics

It's also a dangerous trap to view the USA as a fascist state. Nothing is black and white, that's the problem with ideologies.

[Mr Deltoid]

2. In the 'Battle of Seattle' anarchists were wallowing around...

...with hammers smashing parking meters, store windows, car windows....anything they could break. They brought police down hard on top of everyone else. They took over an abandoned building and camped out there til the cops found out where they were and raided them.

Clueless idiots.

[TBF]

3. Dude, that's a movie.

Granted there are sometimes folks who are violent - sometimes they are protesters and sometimes they are plants (agent provocateurs).

I have great respect for the organizers of Occupy Wall Street (whomever they are) but I do think we can learn from past movements though (particularly the civil rights movement). Why reinvent the wheel?

Anyway, food for thought and thanks for your comment.

[tama]

4. Who they were and are

Much about the recent history behind the OWS in this interview of Kalle the Addbuster:

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/10/07/Kalle-Lasn-Occupy-Wall-Street/

[Mr Deltoid]

13. They were a group of anarchists from Eugene Oregon

[TBF]

17. Thank you for this. nt

[Mr Deltoid]

15. It wasn't 'a movie'.

We watched them smashing things for Over an hour. The cops used it as an excuse to start randomly macing people.

[socialist_n_TN]

34. Once again, blaming the victim........

THE COPS WERE WRONG OR PAID OFF IF THEY USED VANDALISM BY A FEW PEOPLE TO RANDOMLY MACE PEOPLE WHO HADN'T DONE THE VANDALISM! THEY WERE IN THE WRONG! The anarchists might have been in the wrong also, but the anarchists don't have the legal right to kill or detain like government officials do. Do you blame an abused spouse because "She asked for it."?

DAMN! That pisses me off and I see it SO much by some on here.

[TBF]

45. Blaming the victim is part of this administration's modus operandi -

as all of us "professional leftists" have learned ...

[white_wolf]

58. So about this "professional leftist" thing.

The word professional implies we get paid, so where's my check? Is it still in the mail?

[TBF]

80. No pay for me either -

I think you have to be part of the DLC crew to get the bennies ... :argh:

[socialist_n_TN]

89. The DLC crew is "professional left"????

:rofl: They're not eve CENTRIST left. :) But you're definitely right that they're the only ones that get paid.

[TBF]

94. Yeah

for some reason when "pay" came up my mind went straight to DLC ... we know how they operate

:toast:

[socialist_n_TN]

96. True dat........

Money and the DLC go together like a horse and carriage. :)

[Remember Me]

62. Shre the cops used it as an excuse -- most likely the "anarchists" were cops too

It's an old and time-honored "tradition" to throw in agents provocateurs whenever protests stand a chance of doing some good.

Whenever you hear of property destruction or violence, you should ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS suspect agents provocateurs first and foremost and stay with that until it's proven otherwise. Lefties are far and away nonviolent people; we don't usually approve of destroying things either.

Here are just a few examples:

Conservative Magazine Brags of its Agent Provacateur's Role in Provoking Police Action in D.C.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2084473

EXPOSED! - G20 Police in Black Bloc Anarchist Gear @ 0:45 - Toronto
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x480166#480169

Were Agents Provocateur Used in Denver at the DNC?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4440044

What you may not know about the 'Battle of Seattle' and COINTELPRO
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6627977#6628766

[leftstreet]

5. Bullshit

:eyes:

[Mr Deltoid]

26. Read

http://www.carolmoore.net/sfm/seattle.html

[leftstreet]

55. Try again. That woman is a Libertarian nutcase n/t

[snooper2]

135. I am a longtime student of consciousness and libertarian decentralist pacifist activist

I don't like long walks as my cankles can't take it, but do enjoy trolling youtube.

I only eat what I am able to grow in my back yard.

I'm looking for a partner who can help me with my website so it doesn't look like 1999 and can sit through my ramblings all hours of the day.




:rofl:

[tama]

6. Your harsh language

is counterproductive and divisive ideological blame gaming. "Anarchist" is any one who engages anarchic practices like General Assemblies and participates in leaderless decentralized movements.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

9. How he could call Howard Zinn who was an anarchist an idiot is idiotic.

[white_wolf]

11. I am a Marxist so I of course disgree with anarchists, but calling them idiots is the height

of stupidity. Zinn was a brilliant man, and Chomsky is the most respected intellectual in the world.

[tama]

20. A personal question

about bad blood history (Kronstadt, Makhno, Spain etc.) and party discipline. If your Marxist party leaders ordered you to attack anarchists, would you?

[white_wolf]

21. In nearly any circumstances no. I despise violence, especially the senseless kind.

If the anarchists started the conflict and left no other choice I would, but it's important to remember despite the bad blood, anarchists and Marxists have fought along side each other before. You mentioned Spain, the Trotskyists fought alongside the anarchists against Franco's fascist and the Stalinists traitors in the Spanish Civil War. As for Kronsdalt, that was a a terrible thing and one of Lenin and Trotsky's great mistakes. Honestly, I'd be much more unwilling to work with Stalinists and Maoists than anarchists, those two groups worry me.

[tama]

22. Thanks, comrade nt

[Mr Deltoid]

24. Chomsky wasn't running amok in Seattle

'Black Block' is the group out of Eugene that ran amok smashing stuff in Seattle.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

30. I disagree with Marxists on some issues, but they're still my comrades in arms!

:toast:

[joshcryer]

70. IMO, I can only deal with libertarian Marxists. As soon as they start calling for hierarchy...

...I am going to distance myself, because that's one thing that can very easily kill the OWS movement.

[TBF]

82. Sure because that would actually threaten you.

I'm the non-violent type by nature, most leftists are, but look at what we accomplished with the Paris Commune. Two months longevity and that is being generous vs. Russia/Cuba ...

I'm still looking for that happy middle as I'm not a fan of authoritarianism, but ya gotta admit going up against capital is tough. They're not going to give in easily.

[Mr Deltoid]

25. Howard Zinn wasn't runnung amok in Seattle

An anarchist group named ' Black Block' did the misdeed.

[Mr Deltoid]

23. My 'harsh language'

Describes what happened.

Black Block Runs Amok
http://www.carolmoore.net/sfm/seattle.html

[tama]

32. I have just one experience

of participating in Black Block action. It was solidarity march when Greeks rioted 2008 after police murdered young anarchist in Athens. There was no "Amok", the group acted very organized in organic way. Best part was that when police apprehended one marcher, dozen young women surrounded the police car where the comrade was taken screaming very loudly, kicking the car and blocking all traffic until police released the comrade. Then the march continued as peacefully as before.

So in my experience Black Block is about fearless self-defense against police and state violence, not about violence for violence sake. And of course also individual self-identified anarchists can be and act like idiots, just like members of any group.

[jwirr]

18. True story or not this example brings out a real problem. Civil disobedience

and random violence are too different things. I suspect that when the average citizen see someone deliberately destroy public property that they paid for with their tax money it does not sit well with them. On the other hand walking into a "bank" and staging a sit-in is an understandable act with a clear message that does not hurt the very people you want to impress.

I think that any protest should carefully select their targets to give a clear message. When the rethug infiltrators of OccupyDC led protesters to try to push into a museum many people were kind of shocked: Why? They are not a part of Wall Street.

I believe that civil disobedience is a legitimate part of any protest but it needs to be targeted to send the right message. So far as I have seen the protesters have been very targeted and emphasize the real problems of the country. If we move from that it will only hurt the movement.

[KurtNYC]

131. we have entered the phase of Occupy where the opposition will

infiltrate, disrupt and discredit the movement. It is SOP for the PTB.

[joshcryer]

27. Property destruction in Seattle was a response to violent police tactics.

[H2O Man]

39. oh, sure

[inna]

8. kr

[tama]

10. A hint

Anarchist texts like this can be copied and spread freely in their entirety without fear of breaking any copyright. They are copyleft or rather fuck copyright publications.

[TBF]

12. Now, now ... nt

[tama]

14. Ehm, now what?

Just a practicality, you can copy more than four paragraphs of anarchist texts and save the readers the trouble of clicking.

[TBF]

16. I follow the DU rules. nt

[tama]

19. That's the point

it's not against DU rules to post copyleft or fuck copyright texts in entirety - just make a note that the text is not a copyright text.

Done that with Narconews texts etc., no problems from mods.

[TBF]

28. OK, thank you! nt

[mdmc]

29. kr

thanks for the OP

[Fantastic Anarchist]

31. An Essay Written by Voltairine de Cleyre

Check it out here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x630673

[lunatica]

33. So what is it that anarchists want?

I've never understood the ideology.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

36. Direct democracy, classless society ...

No hierarchy, social justice, egalitarianism, Labor in possession of the means of production and its own product, etc.

[lunatica]

40. That doesn't answer my question so maybe I should have asked differently

All those things you list are things everyone wants. My question is how does it happen? With a government collecting taxes? Without any government regulating anything at all? Who decides what labor does? Unions? Nepotism? Socialism? If people are in charge of their own possession of production and the profit is there any rules of minimum standards that other groups can rely on to feel comfortable purchasing or swapping with them?

Is every decision made by committee? I don't get how that will work. Most people would rather have others do that job.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

41. It depends on the anarchist current ...

Individualist, Mutualist, Collectivist, Communist, Syndicalist.

Mutualism retains its free-market features (true free-market) but with Labor in control and possession of the means of production. And yes, out of the differing variants, there are committees at various levels - but everything is decentralized and federated. Free association and solidarity.

And as to who decides, it's not nepotism. All anarchists are socialists, but it's just a question of strategy on how to get him from here to an anarchist society. Proudhon, through his mutualism, believed in working within the system until it eventually the last vestiges of capitalism disappeared via worker own cooperatives. Mikhail Bakunin(collectivist and Proudhon's disciple) took a more radical and revolutionary approach (not to say that Proudhon wasn't ready for revolution). Errico Malatesta was a militant syndicalist and favored trade union action. Peter Kropotkin (communist) believed in revolution but was more scientific in terms of his research and book Mutual Aid. Josiah Warren (Individualist) had basically the same ideas and put into practice at the same time those of Proudhon's mutualisim - though neither one knew about the other.

I realize it's a bit too simple what I wrote above, but there's no way for me to describe all of the different anarchist currents in a post.

I can start you, however, on an excellent online book by Daniel Guerin entitled:

Anarchism: From Theory to Practice

For a comparison between anarchism and Marxism, you can have a gander at this (though this is admittedly from an anarchist perspective)

The Paris Commune, Marxism and Anarchism

This should clarify some of your questions.

[tama]

50. Do you count

(Anarco)Primitivism as a current? And/or anarchic/non-hierarchic "primitive" tribes who have never heard of anarchism or other European concepts, but according to anthopologists behave anarchically?

[Fantastic Anarchist]

51. I do ... but not necessarily one that I agree with.

And yes, "primitive" tribes using anarchic concepts are, by definition anarchists, though, they don't use the term obviously.

[tama]

53. What is your disagreement?

I see anarchoprimitivism as radical "Green Anarchist" intellectual criticism of civilization and technocracy, without a distinct political program. Zerzan does not hunt and gather nor toil the garden soil nor advice others to do so, he writes and talks. It is not identical with but has some connections with ecovillages, neotribalism and similar anarchic movements which in my experience, if they have anything to do with the CONCEPT of anarchism, then with practical Kropotkinism, but usually they don't use the concept or even share the common mistrust towards it, and just live anarchically.

[tama]

48. One real life example

of issuing the very real problem of sharing the responsibility of council work you bring up, are the Zapatista Councils of Good Government (JBG from Spanish initials) which:
"apply a rotation method of those who serve on the council. Each citizen within the jurisdiction of the JBG is required to serve on the council for two weeks, and then a new council is put into power. It is set up this way in order to secure that no political figures become corrupt or fall under the influence of outside forces. It also accommodates the needs, interests and concerns of each member within the area that the JBG covers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Good_Government

[Fantastic Anarchist]

52. Yes, I've heard of that. Thanks for bringing that up.

:toast:

[lunatica]

57. So people are forced into doing something they may not have any interest or aptitude for

Aren't Anarchists supposed to be independent of committees and government? It seems like people would be forced to govern. Yet it seems governing isn't what Anarchists want.

[tama]

60. Many people

seem to suppose what anarchists are supposed to be and do. I don't suppose, people decide by themselves. Anarchism starts with the acceptation that I AM LEADER. The great current of life LEADS through me and I go with the flow. I am the boss of my own life and responsible of how I use my freedom and treat others.

Anarchists don't suppose, they do as they like. Zapatistas want to live together as communities and they have common decisions to make and common things to take care of, and they don't want to live under the rule of corrupt politicians who start to think they are more equal than others, they want self rule.

And if you read the link, it gets even worse: drugs are not allowed. Not because they oppose drugs as such, but because they are surrounded be hostile armed forces in a country raped by bloody civil war because of US drug policies, armed forces that would and could use drugs as pretext to invade and torture and murder them as is happening elsewhere in Mexico.

Anarchists are not supposed to be self-deserving idiots except in imaginations that project their own. Like all people, anarchists have priorities that demand self-discipline. And like all good people, good anarchist priorities are life and compassion. It's the way of the heart, and when heart is in the right place, mind follows and serves in good balance.

[socialist_n_TN]

35. Also not an anarchist, but a Marxist

but I agree with the general sentiment of the advice. There's no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to revolutionary or even radical politics and political action.

OWS might think they're doing something totally different than has ever been seen in the world, but they're not. This kind of stuff has gone on before and they do need to learn from the mistakes made in the past.

That's the reason they need to take to deep heart, the Marxist warnings about being co-option. It's a PRIME tactic of the owner class to dissapate movements like this.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

42. Regardless, we're both socialists. Solidarity, brother.

:toast:

[socialist_n_TN]

59. Solidarity........

Right back at you! :) I wish they had a smilie of a :solidarityfist: :)

[joshcryer]

69. I'm sorry but I think they are doing something totally different. They're sticking to it.

I've been involved in these kinds of actions before, and it's dissolved quite as quickly as it's started. This is a first in at least 80+ years that we've got people who aren't going to go away.

I have held out making this observation because I'm committing to it, I could be wrong and it could dissolve, but I don't think so, not now.

[socialist_n_TN]

91. Nope, not different...........

Four weeks does not a movement make. It makes for the possible START of a movement. In addition, they've gotten NONE of that laundry list of abuses rectified and they're already in danger of being co-opted by the bourgeoisie.

I'll give them all props for bringing attention to the interrelationship of economics, politics, and power. I'm still not sure (and neither are they) what they're going to DO with that attention. When they come up with goals and an action plan to clean up the mess that capitalism is making for the "99%", then there might be something else to support. Until then, not so much.

[TBF]

93. I agree -

while it's fantastic to see some (any) resistance, this thing has been pretty bourgeoisie from the start with the fancy websites and coordinated movement in multiple cities etc... It strikes me as another effort at begging for crumbs.

I'm still optimistic though. When enough people are unemployed and have nowhere to go we might as well start occupying the parks/streets. Get enough of us out there we might be able to do something with a little discipline. I can't say "look to past movements" loud enough. Especially interesting to look back at photos from the civil rights movements - the faces are young in those pictures. And we have that with this movement - the kids are involved and that's important.

[socialist_n_TN]

98. That is important.......

One thing about ALL of the Nashville actions I've been in on this year is that it's all us OLD folks involved. And most of us are white. So it's good to see an economic protest involving younger people.

And co-opting this is a REAL danger. Did you see the post about a REPUBLICAN candidate getting involved in supporting OWS? Really? A Republican? Let the co-opting begin! They need to pay a little more attention to the Marxists (and maybe even the anarchists in some areas) who've been fighting this fight a LONG time. We've seen this kind of thing before and DO know the dangers.

[joshcryer]

138. It doesn't really matter who originates the anti-political message, what matters is keeping at it.

You have no idea how many times I have plead with various other activists to keep at it, only for the entire event to dissolve in due course, myself standing there like a complete idiot.

You're not going to suddenly make the police and cops and capitalists start giving a shit. That's a given. But you're damn sure going to make an impact on the collective psyche of society.

[joshcryer]

136. They started off as petit-bourgeois and has elements of the bourgeois.

That's why it's so special.

[socialist_n_TN]

139. All that means is that some won't EVER abandon

their system. Agree that they are petit bourgois. I think that MOST are petit bourgeoisie But the petit bourgeoisie CAN be a force in a revolutionary situation IF they side with the working class. NOT different.

[joshcryer]

140. But, they are siding with the working class.

What's interesting is that the entire bourgeois vs petit-bourgeois vs proletariat distinction is wafting away, just as the anarchists have wanted for so long.

[socialist_n_TN]

142. Not different Josh.........

The bourgeoisie will NEVER willingly give up their power to the working class. And as I said the petit bourgeoisie have in the past sided with the working class, most notably in October '17. The distinction is still there, it's just blurred a little by the petit bourgies because, AT THE MOMENT, they're siding with the working class.

But that's where the danger of co-opting comes in. Right now they're siding with the working class, but as soon as a fascist or Bonapartist type comes along to catch their imaginations, they'll waffle and split. Like they always do. I'm already seeing the signs. There is a strong Ron Paul libertarian streak making it's presence felt. I saw it in Nashville day before yesterday. There was a post about the same thing happening in upstate NY yesterday. It's a REAL danger now that this has gained a little popularity.

I'm not holding out hope that this will turn into Petrograd, 1917 until they decide EXACTLY what they want out of this movement. But if they continue to think that they're immune to the tactics of the bourgeoisie used to divide and conquer or divide and dissapate these types of movements throughout history, they WILL be subject to co-option.

They're not any different than the petit bourgeoisie in Germany before Hitler came to power.

[joshcryer]

144. They don't have to give up their power.

We live in a aristocratic democracy, power can be taken if the aristocracy is voted out. OWS is a movement to remove the aristocracy, and it's started by the middle class and lower middle class as opposed to the proletariat. It's a major shift because the middle and lower middle have been increasingly controlled or manipulated by the aristocracy (starting with Regan but it goes back further to the roots of neoliberalism), and indeed, pit against the proletariat for a long time now. It's one thing that anarchists don't understand or at least can't get a real handle on, because we view people as all human beings and we view certain power structures as inevitable end results of hierarchy. So when we see the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie go head to head it really pisses us off.

I know some state socialists (typed "authoritarian" here, but I don't want to disengage) don't like the idea of voting out the aristocracy, but it's our single best method to achieve what we want without resorting to violence and civil war in which case the people complaining about roads being blocked will have a shit load more to complain about (ie, people dying in the streets, etc).

[socialist_n_TN]

146. Voting out the "aristocracy" will never work........

Look at Wisconsin for proof. Also look at all the laws being enacted by state legislatures to discourage and strip voting rights from people. ELECTIONS AND LAWS ARE ONLY IN PLACE TO KEEP THE SYSTEM IN PLACE. To quote an anarchist, "If voting did any good, they'd make it illegal." That's the truth.

[joshcryer]

149. Wisconsin, where recalls are going out enmasse?

Wisconsin, predating the OWS movement before mass consciousness could take hold? Before OWS started polling higher than the Tea Party?

I am fully understanding the voting aspects (I spent years struggling with whether to vote or not), but I do not see OWS creating a civil war here, nor would I wish it. Therefore if we are going to change the system we must do it from within, bottom up. OWS is not setting out to do that, but by creating mass consciousness and keeping it in the psyche of the people, it will happen.

[socialist_n_TN]

150. Yep Wisconsin, where after all the hoopla,

NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Walker's union busting laws are still on the books and will probably stay on the books. There's no guarantee that Walker will BE recalled, especially if election officials in Waukesha County have anything to say about it. Not to claim the Nostradamus Award or nothing, but I did predict this when it became obvious that the working class in Wisconsin was putting all their eggs in the recall basket.

Believing that any REAL change will come from electoral politics is like believing you're going to get money from the Tooth Fairy when the capitalists thugs of XE knock your teeth out.
And as I've said often, that doesn't mean not vote. Vote early and often. Unfortunately, people have to be beat over the head over and over about the futility of electoral politics before they begin to believe that other measures are necessary.

[joshcryer]

154. That was before OWS, though, and it nearly made an impact.

I predict that Walker will be recalled and he will be ousted in due course.

I would like you to explain what "other measures are necessary." If you're advocating violence, obviously we can't talk about it here, but if you're advocating things like wildcat strikes which will only make people lose jobs and employees will just hire lower wage workers, then that's fine, but I find it useless. We do live in a democracy whether we like it or not. What we have had though is an aristocracy that has controlled our politics for so long, and the only way to be rid of it is mass consciousness and a rejection of the aristocracy.

The only way you get rid of the aristocracy without resorting to violence and civil war is to vote it out. That's the only way. It's indisputable.

[socialist_n_TN]

157. We might have reached a fundamental impasse

based on differing conclusions drawn from events and philosophy. Agree to disagree? :)

And I've often said that a six week general strike and "bank repayment strike" would bring the power structure to it's knees in the LEAST violent way.

[white_wolf]

153. How can you vote out the aristocracy when all of the candidates are aristocrats?

If the 08 elections proved anything, it's that directorial politics alone aren't the answer.

[joshcryer]

155. And what do you propose? You're starting with your conclusion, so I can't convince you...

...that mass consciousness can result in the aristocracy being voted out.

2008 was the first consumer election where a politician was sold and people bought it without understanding the implications. 2010 was an election that was a corporate-led love affair where the Tea Party managed to get out 9% more votes than the left. 2012, if OWS continues to make their demands known and doesn't dissolve because of a harsh winter (we'll looking at another extremely harsh winter, I hope the models are wrong) will permeate the psyche of the politics and result in the ouster of a lot of right wing candidates. Already the media is pitting OWS against the Tea Party (it makes a good story), and people will be in the ballot box and as they go to check the Tea Party-like candidate, they'll think twice.

[chrisa]

37. Anarchists = Stupid spoiled kids rebelling against their parents

They ruin real protests, and most of them are as dumb as a light post.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

38. What an incredibly moronic thing to say ...

Especially if you've read any anarchist history at all.

[chrisa]

108. Sorry, I don't have a good opinion of groups that want less government and

less regulations.

[TBF]

43. Way to back up the status quo.

Remember, there are 99% of us and 1% of you. And if you are not in the 1% you will at some point figure out how quickly they will get rid of you, like anyone else they tire of.

[chrisa]

106. lol

I wish I were that rich, but not supporting pampered college kids who want to start fires and steal stuff doesn't mean I support the 1%.

But let them wear black masks and think that they're cool for the day. Just do it somewhere else away from Occupy Wall Street.

[white_wolf]

44. So Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky are dumb?

What about Orwell, who wasn't an anarchist, but fought along side them and was strongly influenced by them. I swear some people are so ignorant.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

46. Ernest Hemmingway, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Henry David Thoreau, etc.

[Warren Stupidity]

81. My dad is long dead and my mom is elderly and feeble.

I am 60 and I am an anarchist. I am not rebelling against my parents. I am revolted by a system that benefits the 1% and screws the other 99%. Libertarian socialism has a long and proud history. Perhaps you should read up on it. You might learn something.

I support Occupy Wall Street. So should you.

[Name removed]

85. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blindpig]

87. Yeah, it's like 'jumbo shrimp'.... n/t

[Fantastic Anarchist]

88. Look up the First International ...

The followers of Proudhon and Bakunin from those of Marx and the Blanquists. The latter became state socialists, while the former became libertarian socialists (anarchists). Read a little history of anarchism/socialism, and you won't see the "contradiction."

[Warren Stupidity]

101. That is because you are ignorant.

When I am ignorant and realize it, I try to find out more information. I've noticed however that many other people react to their own ignorance with defensive bluster and refuse to learn or try to improve their condition. That is too bad, as it is ignorance of our own history as a people that is largely to blame for why we are in the plight we are in, and where the path out might be.

[chrisa]

107. Libertarian Socialism doesn't make any sense. The two conflict with each other.

You need Government in order to have Socialism. Less Government always means less Socialism.

[Warren Stupidity]

115. no they don't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

But I wonder why you and others make these assertions without even taking the two seconds it takes to google the topic?

[itsallhappening]

122. Not to old hippies who are looking to be "different."

Because it's far out, duuuuuude.

[Warren Stupidity]

130. hippy-punch much?

[itsallhappening]

121. So you believe in a stateless society.

Did you oppose the Affordable Care Act?

[white_wolf]

124. You really have no clue what Socialism means by "stateless society" do you?

Oh, and yes I do oppose the Affordable Care Act since it forces the working class to give even more of their money to capitalist parasites in the insurance industry.

[dajoki]

47. K&R

[alfredo]

49. "May your every dream come true" is a curse. Some dreams are

nightmares.

That quote is at the bottom of the page.

[TBF]

54. I saw that quote -

I would say the biggest nightmare is the "American Dream". Just my two cents.

[alfredo]

99. I gave up on the dream when I was in the Army. My

decision was reinforced by my attempts at finding work. Veterans are persona non gratia in the private sector. We are just crazy killers to them.

[tama]

56. Even better quote:

When having a nightmare, wake up! This is what this movement is about, waking up from the nightmare. :)

As for wishing, I don't object to wishes coming true but accept the advice of wishing carefully. So far wishing for nice surprises seems to be working quite well.

[Danse]

61. Anarchy II

People who say things like "anarchists are just dumb kids" are only revealing their own ignorance. Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Chris Hedges, Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi, Oscar Wilde, Henry David Thoreau, Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, Lao Tzu, Dorothy Day and scores of other great and noble thinkers do not strike me as "dumb kids".

My guess is that the reference to misguided youth is referring to the "Black Bloc" tactic -- which I agree is rather dumb. That's why undercover cops are frequently caught dressing up in black pajamas and breaking windows at protests. There are even examples where police have admitted to doing this -- eg the Montebello Summit in Quebec -- where a union leader exposed two "anarchists" carrying rocks and attempting to incite a riot. Even more egregious tactics were employed in Toronto at the recent G20 summit. Google "Police State Canada" for my short film on the subject.

As I understand it, the original Black Bloc originated in Germany and was actually a method of defending protesters from the cops. From there the tactic went off the rails. In Seattle, most of the kids engaging in the black bloc tactic were probably sincere, if misguided. They felt that smashing corporate symbols would send a strong message to the PTB and spark a more militant movement. In the end, all it really did was provide a pretext for a militant assault on other protesters.

In Genoa, according to the anarchist activist "Starhawk", the black bloc was "completely infiltrated" by "fascists working in collaboration with the police". They went around smashing mom and pop stores and again inviting repression.

Today, it can almost be assumed that the Black Bloc is made up almost entirely of provocateurs, nihilists and misguided youth who have probably never read Chomsky, let alone Bakunin. Far from protecting protesters, they shed their black clothing after smashing up windows, then leave the other protesters at the mercy of the police. The media then use the images of chaos to justify the subsequent brutalization, as well as increased police state measures.

Many anarchists do not condemn the Black Bloc tactic because they consider it ridiculous to become outraged at a few broken windows in the face of massive systemic violence. However, the simple reality is that most people have been trained to view property as more important than people. In response to the assault on the Paris Commune, Marx wrote that "The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre ... is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar." Little has changed.

One area in which I would disagree with some of the previous posters is that Trotskyists and anarchists are "natural allies." Since anarchists are socialists they have indeed historically allied themselves with other socialist movements. Yet it has often been a one way street. Trotsky himself considered anarchists more dangerous than capitalists because the "common people" responded to their ideas. Thus, in Chomsky's words, the Bolsheviks "went to war" against the anarchists and succeeded in wiping them out. Similarly, during the Spanish revolution, the communists betrayed the anarchists and slaughtered them with an almost equal fervor to that of the fascists. Nor did Roosevelt have his hands clean. He defied his own non-intervention policy by permitting the sale of oil to Franco's army.

There have also been exceptions to this rule -- eg the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, or the participatory governments that sprung up in Greece in Italy following WWII -- only to be crushed by the allies.

The point here is that nothing frightens the ruling class more than anarchism. Why? Because anarchists do not, in fact, advocate chaos; they advocate directly democratic decision making such as is occurring with OWS. Since there are no rulers, there is no head to cut off. Since there is no centralized leadership, there is less potential for co-optation These are not new tactics. They are borrowed from the philosophy of anarchism. According to Richard Heinberg, the philosophy of anarchism is itself borrowed from indigenous peoples. I wouldn't go quite that far, but contact with the "New World" certainly led to an explosion in anarchist writings in Europe. Many anthropologists now suggest that mankind has lived anarchically for 99% of our time on planet Earth.

Some people object that modern society could not function anarchistically due to the problem of scale. This is probably accurate, which is why anarchists emphasize decentralization and Federation. The Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) people, described by the French as the Iroquois Federation numbered in the tens of thousands.

Iroquois Population in 1995, by Doug George-Kanentiio, p. 61.

It is not unreasonable to guess the Iroquois numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Physical evidence seems to sustain this argument because there is virtually no place within our aboriginal territories which was not settled, cultivated or otherwise occupied by the Iroquois. . . .
Today, According to the Canadian and U.S. census there are 74,518 Iroquois in North America, the majority of whom live north of the border.

Despite this scale and the vast numbers of people involved, The Iroquois maintained a directly democratic system of decision making.

Indeed, it is my opinion that it is not scale but lack of scale that has doomed recent experiments in anarchism. Since all of these experiments have been limited to small regions, they have been easily crushed by capitalist violence.

With the birth of the internet, and the increasingly international character of these uprisings, it may be possible for the first time in centuries to implement something approaching real democracy -- aka anarchy.

[tama]

64. Thank you, very informative

and welcome to DU!

Couple comments. I wouldn't attempt to deny that Black Block tactics contributed from their part to what was the real issue and defensive victory of Seattle: WTO has been stalled ever since, and that wave didn't end because of disagreement about Black Block but because 9/11 took the initiative and channeled popular attention and energy into futile and reactionary anti-war campaign. On the other hand, I'm not joining the small chorus of "Black Block" or "radical anarchists" complaints when they complained about strict non-violence of OWS movement, and then complained that the Anonymous network of anarchists threatened to publish the names of anarchists who exhort violence in this movement in the same manner as publicly shaming Tony Baloney.

Eurocentric philosophies of anarchism and socialism etc. are largely borrowed from indigenous people, most well known example is Utopia by Thomas More that was based on description of indigenous tribe living in the coast of Brazil. Problem with Marx, Lenin and Trotsky was that both in practice and theory by "dictatorship of proletariat" they meant dictatorship of technocratic urban factory workers and distrust of primary production peasants who feed them, and chose to submit peasants and rural life under the control of factory workers and city bourgoise - which instantly lead to dictatorship of technocratic and intellectual party leadership and terror and mass murder of peasant population. Especially anarchist Ukrainian Peasants who when fighting in alliance with Lenin and Trotsky against white generals had been feeding their urban people for free when they had nothing left to barter.

The main problem with riots like Greece in 2008 is that urban anarchist movements can by "smashing things up" only bring down the system but not feed the population. The conflict between urban and rural remains unsolved both in Eurocentric Marxist and Anarchist urban philosophies, because rural are not essentially dependent from urban, but urban are essentially dependent from rural.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

95. "Anarchy is Order!" - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Yours is one of the best posts I've seen in quite a long time.

Bravo!

[Admiral Loinpresser]

63. Dear Anarchists (and all other ideologues):

Sooner of later, your karma will run over your dogma.

[Danse]

65. Anarchism as Anti-Ideology

"Sooner of later, your karma will run over your dogma."

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, though your use of the word "karma" seems to indicate that you subscribe to some sort of ideology of your own.

Anarchism has long been referred to as "anti-ideology", for reasons that Chomsky explains below.

From Notes on Anarchism

"A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that "anarchism has a broad back, like paper it endures anything" -- including, he noted those whose acts are such that "a mortal enemy of anarchism could not have done better."1 There have been many styles of thought and action that have been referred to as "anarchist." It would be hopeless to try to encompass all of these conflicting tendencies in some general theory or ideology. And even if we proceed to extract from the history of libertarian thought a living, evolving tradition, as Daniel Guérin does in Anarchism, it remains difficult to formulate its doctrines as a specific and determinate theory of society and social change. The anarchist historian Rudolph Rocker, who presents a systematic conception of the development of anarchist thought towards anarchosyndicalism, along lines that bear comparison to Guérins work, puts the matter well when he writes that anarchism is not

a fixed, self-enclosed social system but rather a definite trend in the historic development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to become broader and to affect wider circles in more manifold ways. For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.2

[Admiral Loinpresser]

66. Here is what I meant.

"Sooner of later, your karma will run over your dogma."

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, though your use of the word "karma" seems to indicate that you subscribe to some sort of ideology of your own.

Whenever any ideology attempts a comprehensive social, economic or political theory, that theory is contradicted at some point by experience. I appreciate many ideas of anarchism, Marxism, socialism and liberalism. I am probably most influenced by the principles expressed in the Enlightenment, Taoism and northern plains native spirituality (such as the Lakota).

But in responding to your previous post, I was put off by your blanket statement that the police can't be trusted. I have lived long enough to experience many positive and negative interactions with police. Police brutality is a terrible problem in America, but to objectify all human beings in a class is ideological to me.

Let me quote from your response for another idea which to me is ideological:

For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account.

I do not believe that the full development of every human being can be turned to social account, if I understand the author. My experience is that human beings as a population include sociopaths who cannot empathize, but rather prey on members of their own species in a variety of ways including sexual abuse and violence and economic exploitation. In a world without government or bureaucracy, individuals with sociopathic tendencies (e.g. Charles Manson or Donald Trump) would continue to predate on others in a host of ways. That is what my experience tells me.

My belief is that a large majority of people have strong altruistic impulses, but that a minority are naturally evil. We can have a nature/nurture discussion. I suspect that genetics plays a strong role in sociopathic behavior.

[TBF]

92. Wouldn't it be easier to institutionalize the few sociopaths (1% or so) -

and let the rest of us live in peace without them? Why do we have to play their game (capitalism) which only encourages and rewards anti-social behaviors?

[truedelphi]

126. It would be easier to wall off that one percent if they

Weren't the ones in charge.

[flamingdem]

152. +1 well put Admiral L

[Buddyblazon]

67. "..and making decisions by consensus."

How very un-Anarchist of them.

[joshcryer]

73. You don't apparently know much about anarchism for you to believe that.

[MFrohike]

68. I didn't care for it

I thought the intro regarding "a long line of resistance" to be romantic bullshit. The general underlying theme of protesting in America lies in the Glorious Revolution, not the Indian Wars and their predecessors. Protests are attempts to be treated as people, not to resist. This letter would have been better directed to members of the French resistance in WW2 than modern-day Americans. It's all too romantic to pretend that people complaining that the current system is diseased is somehow the same as a slave revolt. It's not. It's a bit silly to pretend a desperate, knowingly doomed chance at literal freedom from bondage is somehow the same as protected conduct. This country has had enough of silly, romantic drama. More is not the answer.

The letter was long on platitudes, short on specifics. The only part I found worthwhile was the part about no centralized power will ever wlliningly put the needs of the common people before the needs of the powerful. To say there's some truth to this is to say rain is somewhat wet. The problem, as I see it, is that the author of the letter has the wrong perspective. The focus of this movement, in my opinion, should be both national and local. The national focus, in the short term, would be to limit money in politics. I'd love to say eliminate, but elimination is likely impossible. It's easy to require campaigns be publicly funded, but it's a different thing entirely to regulate political spending outside of the candidates. The local focus would be to finally remove congressional redistricting from state legislatures (a few states have done this) and require districts to be drawn on as close to a geographical basis as possible. This would mean no more ridiculous districts like virtually anything in NC the last 20 years or so, which ignore geography on the basis of electing a particular party. People in different areas have different interests. It's a bit silly to pretend they're served by a representative covering multiple, very different areas.

At base, I simply disagree that this is a "system of occupation." It strikes me as meaningless symbolic language. We've seen enough symbols readily manufactured over the last 30 years. It's time for reality.

[Danse]

71. Admiral Loinpresser

“Whenever any ideology attempts a comprehensive social, economic or political theory, that theory is contradicted at some point by experience.”

I agree with you, and I suspect most self-proclaimed anarchists would as well. David Graeber, the former Yale professor of Anthropology (and author of “Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology”), has stated that “There are many, in fact, who take anarchist principles of anti-sectarianism and open-endedness so seriously that they refuse to refer to themselves as 'anarchists' for that very reason.” Note that Graeber was one of the original organizers of the occupation in NY.

“But in responding to your previous post, I was put off by your blanket statement that the police can't be trusted. I have lived long enough to experience many positive and negative interactions with police. Police brutality is a terrible problem in America, but to objectify all human beings in a class is ideological to me.”

Just to be clear, I am not the author of the OP, nor am I affiliated with Crimethink. Once again I agree with you. My cousin’s a cop. I also agree with the general thrust (through crudely expressed) of Crimethink's remarks on the police as an institution; namely that they have historically fought against movements for positive social change.

“My experience is that human beings as a population include sociopaths who cannot empathize, but rather prey on members of their own species in a variety of ways including sexual abuse and violence and economic exploitation. In a world without government or bureaucracy, individuals with sociopathic tendencies (e.g. Charles Manson or Donald Trump) would continue to predate on others in a host of ways. That is what my experience tells me.

My belief is that a large majority of people have strong altruistic impulses, but that a minority are naturally evil.”

This seems to me like a highly ideological, and moreover unsupported, position. I encourage you to read the work of anthropologist Elliot Leyton, considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on serial and mass murder. There is no evidence whatsoever that 3 percent of the human population are natural born killers. We know that some societies are extremely violent, and some are extremely peaceful. In Richard Lee’s studies of the Kung he observed that they considered violence “stupid”.

“individuals with sociopathic tendencies (e.g. Charles Manson or Donald Trump) would continue to predate on others in a host of ways.”

This may or may not be true, but the goal is not “Utopia”. The goal is a better society where hopefully people like Manson or Trump will (assuming that “evil” is “naturally born” -- which I highly doubt) will not be allowed to do so much damage.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

79. Thanks for the thoughtful response.

Discussions like this are a big reason why I stay on DU although more than once I have been tempted to walk away. A give and take involving critical thinking is something sorely lacking in America and even, sadly, on DU.

I agree that police have been generally an agent of preserving political power, especially for economic elites. That is a clear matter of historical fact as far as I can tell.

As to your assertion of my framing humanity in a "good-guy/bad-guy" bifurcation, as ideological, I don't agree. Without consulting a dictionary, "ideology" to me is a set of ideas focused perhaps around a small group of tenets. I expressed simply one belief based on my personal experience and the smattering of genetics and sociobiology with which I am familiar. Perhaps that belief is somewhat influenced as well by Taoism and Gaussian statistical distribution.

Most of the ideologies I have encountered on this issue tend to an absolute view, either that man is inherently good or inherently evil. I interpreted the anarchy quote about human potential as postulating the inherent goodness of humanity on the basis of the phrase regarding "social account."

I reject that notion because in my experience most intelligent mammal species (homo sapiens included) seem to exhibit a spectrum of personality characteristics regarding aggression which suggest otherwise. But that belief is not part of some broader set of ideas, so I don't consider it ideological.

I am certainly sympathetic to and supportive of a society based on the decentralization of economic and political power. But agriculture and other technological developments seem to enable the formation of city states, which are inherently centralizing. Perhaps a true advancement of society can obviate that sequence. I hope that is true. But in my life experience I have no reason to believe that yet. At this point I have nothing better than the exhortation of Voltaire: cultivate your garden.

But in the short term I have hope that, in the Age of Reagan, perhaps a new chapter is unfolding with the Occupy movement. That the tenets of Reaganism (don't tax the rich, deregulate everything and be militaristic) can be rejected by a populist uprising. Perhaps an ideology is emerging around this nascent movement: the world is broken economically and politically, the 1% are to blame, the only effective method of change is nonviolent in nature and we need to tax the rich. If that is an ideology I embrace it, because I believe it is close enough to the truth to potentially effect positive change.

Thank you for the heads up on Elliot Leyton. It sounds like he comes down on the "nurture" side of the debate. I'm sure I can learn plenty from reading his work and want to do so when time allows.

[Danse]

112. Sorry for the late reply

I am new to commenting on this website so am not used to the up and down nature of the comments.

I also appreciate the candid, yet respectful tone of your posts.

You haven't really said anything I disagree with here, so I guess I'll leave it at that. Except to add --

I am by no means "certain" of anything regarding "human nature". So far as I can tell, human beings seem to be extremely adaptable. We can adapt to war-like societies, and we can adapt to peaceful societies. Blanket statements regarding human nature are dangerous, imo, unless we're talking about the desire to love, be loved, have sex, eat, sleep, and so forth.

There is a very good reason why Anthropology is not taught in schools. Anthropology reveals that human beings actually behave very differently in differently structured societies. Along with sociology, the discipline debunks the myth that we are "inherently evil" or will forever be "fallen from grace" and are incapable of redeeming ourselves. It is non-scientific, yet strikes a chord, because we live in a society that encourages the worst aspects of "human nature", ie what we are capable of in our nightmares. So it is naturally assumed that "human evil" in the worst possible sense is inevitable, and requires authority to "control". This "control" frequently takes on the form of wars which kill millions of people.

Why it is that, if we are so evil, "authority" should make the problem diminish, is never really explained. This is especially striking considering the obvious fact that power corrupts, and that rulers throughout history have sacrificed their people like so many insects to a sadistic child.

Too much chimp, not enough bonobo?

We have roughly the same amount of DNA as those two sub-species. I say we solve our problems through sex rather than violence ;)

[Admiral Loinpresser]

120. More bonobo influence in America and less chimps!

Absolutely. That to me was one of the healthiest effects of the hippie movement decades ago, in the spirit of the Transcendentalists, free thinkers, etc.

Shifting topics, there is another sub-thread on here where indigenous nations are invoked for the proposition that a society may function effectively without law or authority (very rough paraphrase). I would like to inject a word of caution about the risk of cultural projection.

"Gary Nash describes Iroquois culture. No laws and ordinances, sheriffs and constables, judges and juries, or courts or jails - the apparatus of authority in European societies - were to be found in the northeast woodlands prior to European arrival. Yet boundaries of acceptable behaviour were firmly set. Though priding themselves on the autonomous individual, the Iroquois maintained a strict sense of right and wrong..."

My experience and study of native culture leads me to a more nuanced view of native peoples on this continent, both before and after the buffalo disappeared. Before the buffalo was wiped out by US policy, a lot of tribes had highly regulated and socially structured societies. It's just that most people voluntarily complied with the required conduct. I'm referring to spiritual practices and tribal ceremonies. While most European people were required to work a great deal, and often socially pressured to participate in church activities, native people were generally spending a great deal more time on tribal and clan ceremonies voluntarily, as well as a lot of socializing, especially in the winter. As one old Potawatomi man once told me "there were a lot of dos and don'ts." The difference is that native people generally controlled their own means of production and so were economically freer than most Europeans.

So I can't speak to the Iroquois, knowing much less about them. But I am skeptical that Gary Nash may be, because of cultural blinders, unable to appreciate a great deal of regulation underlying the society, greater than in European societies, where the kin structures were not generally so robust. The biggest difference might be that European societies generally relied heavily on external authority and implied force, while native societies were regulated more by the pressure of belief and custom.

[Danse]

72. Internationale

I didn't care for it

Neither did I. It came across as condescending, short on details/analysis, and rather simpleminded. It failed to draw significant attention to the similarities between anarchism and the organizing principles of OWS, nor to the many anarchists already involved in the campaign. It didn’t provide the “lessons” it promised. It didn’t bother to dispel any of the myths associated with anarchism, even though most people associate the term with the Black Bloc and chaos.

The bit on direct action was also simplistic. People have every right to be concerned with Black Bloc tactics, especially considering the recent history of police being caught dressed up as Black Blockers. It didn’t acknowledge the history of protesters being incited to violence, eg during COINTELPRO and Operation Gladio. It didn’t draw any distinction between productive acts of civil disobedience which necessarily involve breaking the law, and unproductive unlawful acts such as terrorism.

As someone who identifies with anarchism I found it disappointing, even if I agreed with the overall thrust.

The national focus, in the short term, would be to limit money in politics. I'd love to say eliminate, but elimination is likely impossible.

Here I strongly disagree. “Limiting the money in politics” without a complete overhaul of the system is a pipe dream, imo. One of the criticisms of so-called radicals is that their ideas are “unrealistic”; on the contrary, I think it is unrealistic – almost to the point of moon-eyed idealism – that a few pieces of “tough legislation” will stop this runaway train. It amounts to plugging a few holes in a dam about to burst. Radical solutions are indeed required. One of the greatest strengths of this movement – so far – is that it has not set out some laundry list of demands, thereby pigeonholing it.

There will always be more than enough establishment liberals to propose reforms. Let the movement continue to grow organically and stay independent of elite institutions. Eventually elites will have to bow to the collective will. If there is one demand to be made it should be for direct democracy. Since elites will not concede this demand, the process can continue indefinitely, as it must. Legislation will follow.

I also disagree that the focus should be "local and national". The process should be local, national and INTERNATIONAL.

[MFrohike]

74. Curious

1. The elimination of money in politics. It's very easy to write a constitutional amendment that bans giving money to candidates and candidates from receiving them. A section giving Congress and the states the necessary power, and responsibility, to publicly fund campaigns is also very easy. It is not easy to regulate what used to be called soft money. One option to completely bar spending on advertising for political purposes unless done by candidates with public funds. I don't like this idea at all. I don't like laws that shut down speech. The McCain-Feingold idea of barring ads just prior to elections was similarly flawed. I'm not a fan of blanket prohibitions on conduct, especially conduct that is as beneficial as free speech.

The radicality of the solution is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not a believer that one law, or ten laws, will really make a difference. The only method which has been shown to work is vigilance. Maybe that's the most radical idea of all. I think that changes should be made, not just to campaign finance, but in other areas as well (though I'm completely blanking at the moment). I think none of those changes will matter if people stop paying attention after a while. These problems are not new. They are at least 150 years old now. It's just that few pay attention to actual history instead of the so-called "lessons of history" which no one ever seems to be able to define.

2. I considered talking about an international focus. I decided it was pointless at the present. If you want to effect change in America, you don't do it by talking about foreigners. You do it by talking about Americans. Changes can made much more easily within a country than between them.

3. Direct democracy is sort of irrelevant. It would be better to focus on the multiple working parts of a democratic society and how to make them function better for all rather than shoot for wholesale change. Start with juries, the most basic part. There needs to be some change made to empower the jury in the courtroom, so that they aren't continually neutered by overeducated judges and lawyers. Juries do need instruction on the law at hand, but they don't need to be stifled in passing judgment on that law through their verdict.

If you view the parts as an interconnected whole, you can see that citizens have multiple avenues to effect change. They have to get up and do it.

[Danse]

75. Relevance

Everything you say is perfectly sensible. The problem as I see it is that most people who climb to the top of institutional hierarchies do not seem to be particularly concerned with what is sensible. They’re concerned with power. Moreover, “simple constitutional amendments” can themselves be amended. Loopholes found. Other methods of persuasion adopted. Crises manufactured. It doesn’t solve the central issue of who is calling the shots.

Chomsky sums up the problem quite nicely –

“The idea is that policies flowing from any kind of decision-making apparatus are going to tend to reflect the interests of the people involved in making the decisions—which certainly seems plausible. So if a decision is made by some centralized authority, it is going to represent the interests of the particular group which is in power. But if power is actually rooted in large parts of the population—if people can actually participate in social planning—then they will presumably do so in terms of their own interests, and you can expect the decisions to reflect those interests. Well, the interest of the general population is to preserve human life; the interest of corporation is to make profits—those are fundamentally different interests.”

3. Direct democracy is sort of irrelevant.

I feel the same way about “representative” democracy; or, to put it another way: representative “democracy” is relevant in the sense that it has proven itself useless as a means of solving any of the significant problems facing humanity, but increasingly irrelevant as a path to equality, freedom and survival of the species. Not only is direct democracy relevant according to this interpretation, it may be our last hope.

[MFrohike]

76. I get you

Chomsky has never gotten it and never will. That quotation is proof. Power can only be "rooted" in the population if the population cares. That's my point about vigilance. It matters less what structure you use than people care about it and making sure it works.

Direct democracy is a silver bullet fallacy. You can lead the horse to water, but it's up to him if he drinks. The same is true of direct democracy. What effect will it have if people aren't paying attention? Further, direct democracy has a pretty terrible track record in this country. Ballot initiatives are the most moronic way to make laws I've ever seen. They reflect popular passions and rarely, if ever, accord well with the laws that already exist. The body of American law is so vast and complex that it's wildly unrealistic to expect the average voter to understand every nuance. A more practical approach, where the voters track actions by the legislators and track their results, is preferred.

The concerns of equality, freedom, and survival aren't dependent on one particular method. I prefer using the current system because it's here and it's known. The weaknesses and strengths are readily apparent. Rather than, to borrow from the letter, reinvent the wheel, it's easier, and wiser, to work with the tools at hand. From juries to administrative agencies to legislatures, the amount of opportunities that citizens have to address government policy is staggering. It's up to them to care.

[Danse]

77. Nurture

Power can only be "rooted" in the population if the population cares.

I’m quite sure that if John Q. had a choice of whether he wanted his local river polluted, or not, or whether he wanted a pay raise, or not, or health care, or not, or to end a war, or not, he would show up at a local assembly or two. I would go so far as to say he might become addicted to the process. Americans are not necessarily “apathetic” about these issues – they just realize their political process is a ridiculous sham.

Take the issue of workplace democracy, which would necessarily go hand in hand with direct democracy.

In their study, “where have all the robots gone”, Harold Shepherd and Neil Herrick confirmed that people trapped in an unrewarding work life were not only more likely to be dissatisfied, but were also more likely to suffer from “low self-esteem, a feeling of helplessness, alienation, and to be plagued by a variety of mental disorders. The workers who were the most dissatisfied and whose mental health was the most impaired, were the least likely to vote or participate in community organizations.

America’s culture is DESIGNED to foster these feelings. So it’s hardly surprising that the country has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the West.

Conversely, studies involving increased worker participation show the opposite effects –

"the evidence supports the arguments . . . that we do learn to participate by participating and that feelings of political efficacy are more likely to be developed in a participatory environment. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that experience of a participatory authority structure might also be effective in diminishing tendencies towards non-democratic attitudes in the individual." Carole Pateman - Participation and Democratic Theory

This last statement is particularly relevant in terms of your opinion of ballot initiatives. In a hierarchical system based on massive wealth inequalities, elites need to redirect the rage of the masses onto scapegoats. Gays, illegal immigrants, minorities, intellectuals and so forth. Behaviorists call it the frustration-aggression hypothesis. The problem cannot be solved by the American political system precisely because it was DESIGNED to marginalize the majority of the population from participation. The great fear, as expressed by James Madison, was “leveling tendencies” (aka redistribution of wealth) which would result from direct democracy. Well, here is the result.

You can’t learn how to swim if you’re not allowed to put a toe in the water. The same is true of democracy. Kant argued that “One cannot arrive at the maturity for freedom without having already acquired it. One must be free to learn how to make use of one’s powers freely and usefully.” He also argued that “the first attempts would be brutal”, and indeed they have been. But brutal is better than dead. And I think we now have enough collective wisdom to do far, far better than our current crop of oligarchs and their antiquated governing structures.

It matters less what structure you use than people care about it and making sure it works.

Well, I am sorry to say that this structure doesn’t seem to “work” at all – at least for the 99%.

The body of American law is so vast and complex that it's wildly unrealistic to expect the average voter to understand every nuance

Indeed. The body of American law might as well be written in hieroglyphics so far as the public is concerned. This is not a shortcoming of the American citizen but of the absurdity of the legal system itself. Bob Black wrote a great essay on this subject.

“Constitutionalists look upon law as the word-magic of lawyer-necromancers who draw their wizardly powers from grimoires, from books of magic spells they have selfishly withheld from the people. Constitutionalists have extracted from these books -- from judicial opinions, from the Constitution, from legal dictionaries, from the Bible, from what-have-you -- white magic with which to confound the dark powers of legislation, equity, and common sense. Never mind what words like "Sovereign Citizen" or "Lawful Money" mean -- what does "abacadabra" mean? -- it's what they do that counts. Unfortunately, Constitutionalist words don't do anything but lose court cases and invite sanctions. Constitutionalism is the white man's version of the Ghost Dance. But believing you are invulnerable to bullets puts you in more, not less, danger of being shot.”

“…Constitutionalism combines the worst features of superstition and reality without the attractions of either. Like real law, it's dull as dirt; unlike real law, it doesn't work. Like superstition, it's silly, self-contradictory, obscurantist and ineffectual; but it entirely lacks the poetry and pageantry which often enliven myth and faith. Very few people espouse belief-systems as complicated and crackpot as Constitutionalism without being brought up in them, which has hitherto been the fate of only an unfortunate few -- very unfortunate but happily very few.”

“But the very absurdity of so-called Constitutionalism should be more alarming than amusing to lawyers. That the ideology has any acceptance at all -- and it does have some -- attests to deep and deeply conflicted popular ideas of law and lawyers. It's not news that many people look upon law as a mysterious, malignant power manipulated by an unholy priesthood of judges and lawyers. What is perhaps more newsworthy, but at least as important, is that many people -- most of them the same people -- look upon law as the foundation of social order and a fount of justice.”

From juries to administrative agencies to legislatures, the amount of opportunities that citizens have to address government policy is staggering.

I’ll leave it up to other readers to decide whether this statement is remotely accurate.

[MFrohike]

86. Hmm

1. Do people "realize" their political process is a sham? Unlikely. I'd agree that there's widespread cynicism concerning the political process, but they definitely don't see any sham in it. If so, issues such as abortion, gay rights, and any other social issue you care to name would instantly cease to be a big deal. If people really saw things as false, they'd clearly recognize that no GOP elected official has the slightest desire to outlaw abortion or completely marginalize gay people. If you do that, where's the controversy? It's really hard to get votes when you run out of targets for fear and hate. When I see a large majority of the American people say the wedge issues are bullshit, I'll be more inclined to believe the sham argument.

You cited a study about how involvement leads to greater involvement. You used that as the basis to claim American culture is designed to make people apathetic. Is it? I don't think so. I think apathy comes from multiple sources. First, no one with any degree of power is ever held accountable for anything. Presidents are officially immune from prosecution from acts committed during their presidencies without showing it was illegal, which is near impossible. The Wall Street Masters of the Universe have been bailed out multiple times over the last 40 years, hell even longer, because they are unable to assess risk in any size, shape, or form. I could go on, but you get my point. Second, the basic materialistic impulse of American culture, which is not a bad thing, has been put into overdrive. This is pretty apparent just walking around these days. Third, the overemphasis of the "public's right to know." News has turned into trivia. It was never unbiased, but it's just absurd now. Does the network news, during their nightly news, really need to mention Kim Kardashian?

I don't see a design, I see things that happened. Apathy and cynicism have become edgy. Of course, their edginess is widespread, which should reduce its appeal but the funny part is that it doesn't.

2. You could magically make the US a socialist republic or direct democracy overnight and it wouldn't change a damn thing. Structure doesn't matter unless someone is there making sure it's respected. No system can work without rules and a means of enforcing them. When those break down, it's no shock that the structure appears weak.

3. The quotation from Bob Black, who I had to look up, makes no sense. I guess it's valuable as an outsider's perspective, but I'm not really sure as to the point. Oh wait, I do get it. I had to read it a couple of times. Yeah, he makes a very valid point about how tax protestors and their far right friends view the Constitution, but what's your point?

My point about the size and complexity of American law is really simple. Without legal training, or indoctrination if you prefer, the law is mysterious. It has an underlying logic all its own. It's been built on centuries of thought, argument, and violence. It's absurd to think that "common sense" on the part of the average citizen is going to be able to constructively add to this body with no previous knowledge. Yes, it really is that complex. A direct democracy would have people directly voting on the laws they wanted. I can only assume they'd be writing them as well. God help us. It's not that I think lawyers are a superior breed, it's that I think they should know enough (notice I said should, no guarantees) not to make the simple, disastrous mistakes that would result from amateur lawmaking. No thanks.

4. Opportunities are vast. They often depend on personalities, which can be very idiosyncratic, but what doesn't in life?

I don't see anarchism as a solution. It may have merits for particular localities, but it seems very unlikely to scale up well.

[lunatica]

78. This thread is great!

[TBF]

83. It's nice to talk about ideas sometimes -

I've enjoyed the different perspectives as well.

[lunatica]

84. It's also nice to just quietly listen to them too on threads like this

[Danse]

90. MFrohike

Do people "realize" their political process is a sham? Unlikely.

A poll conducted in 2001 showed that “80 per cent of the American public believes that the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.”

So yeah, the vast majority of the public think it’s a sham. And they’re right of course. That doesn’t mean a lot of people don’t embrace a distant hope that things will change for the better; this seems to be expressed by a Sisyphian ritual in which voters “throw the bums out” in exchange for a new set of bums. But I think most people realize it’s an exercise in futility. The 2001 poll would certainly indicate as much.

Political scientist Walter Dean Burnham notes that voting percentages correlate with income – that is, the more well off are more likely to vote than the lower classes. This affirms the study mentioned above showing that the more alienated you are from society the less likely you are to become involved in the political process. It also points to the fact that it’s very important for the managerial class to maintain faith in the system if the system is to survive. When I worked as a Cab Driver I found much more common sense and political acumen in poor neighborhoods than in their rich or well off counterparts. This makes a certain amount of sense, since poor people tend not to read propaganda from sources like the NY Times.

Both of those factoids are courtesy of Chomsky, incidentally, whom you dismiss as Utopian or out to lunch, but whose work on this subject is instructive. He notes for example that the “landslide victory” for Ronald Reagan represented 30% of the potential electorate. Approximately half of the population doesn’t even bother with the ritual. They regard it in the manner of Atheist going to church. They’ll attend a wedding or a funeral and maybe even bow their heads when the Priest says “let us pray”, but they don’t actually think the Sky-God is gonna send them to heaven.

When I see a large majority of the American people say the wedge issues are bullshit, I'll be more inclined to believe the sham argument.

This is a fair point, but I fail to see how representative “democracy” aids us in overcoming the problem. Politicians RELY on wedge issues because the important ones are intentionally left off the table; the process therefore exacerbates the problem rather than diminishing it. One of the more interesting things about direct democracy is that it forces people to actually meet face to face with their “enemies” and discuss policy. Studies show that racists, for example, become far less so when they actually interact with the alleged “lesser” person.

I don't see a design, I see things that happened.

You may be interested in my film “Human Resources”. It’s available to watch for free online. Topics covered include Behaviorism, Scientific Management, Eugenics, military training and schooling. Suffice it to say that Rockefeller didn't establish the Yale Institute of Human Relations just for fun.

2. You could magically make the US a socialist republic or direct democracy overnight and it wouldn't change a damn thing.

You go on to claim that the consequences of non-lawyers and judges acting in a legal capacity would be “disastrous”. Which one is it?

In any case, no one is arguing for “magically turning the US into a direct democracy overnight”. There is a great book entitled “Orgasms of History” in which the author cites numerous examples of people spontaneously organizing in anarchic fashion during various uprisings from Spartucus to May '68. Without having ever heard of the term “anarchy”. But my personal opinion is that it should be viewed as a process.

My point about the size and complexity of American law is really simple. Without legal training, or indoctrination if you prefer, the law is mysterious. It has an underlying logic all its own. It's been built on centuries of thought, argument, and violence. It's absurd to think that "common sense" on the part of the average citizen is going to be able to constructively add to this body with no previous knowledge.

This was also my point, and Black’s. Unlike customs, the law is indeed “mysterious” to most people because it is largely nonsensical. It makes about as much sense as Jabberwocky. Lawbooks are dense to the point of inscrutably. Courtrooms are circuses. Elites change supposedly sacrosanct laws whenever it suits them. Law doesn’t solve crime. Indeed the emphasis on alleged property rights is the cause of most crime. To quote Emma Goldman –

“Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only in crease, but never do away with, crime. What does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and degradation.”

I am not impressed with laws. They create giant, corrupt, parasitic bureaucracies and systems of oppression. They cause the problems they are supposed to solve, then use those problems as an excuse for the necessity of the original problem! Far more impressive to me is the following –

"Gary Nash describes Iroquois culture. No laws and ordinances, sheriffs and constables, judges and juries, or courts or jails - the apparatus of authority in European societies - were to be found in the northeast woodlands prior to European arrival. Yet boundaries of acceptable behaviour were firmly set. Though priding themselves on the autonomous individual, the Iroquois maintained a strict sense of right and wrong..."


I don't see anarchism as a solution. It may have merits for particular localities, but it seems very unlikely to scale up well.

Well, I just mentioned the Iroquois, and they are a good example. They numbered in the hundreds of thousands yet retained direct democracy through a highly sophisticated system of decentralization, federation and delegation.

I’m not trying to claim that the Iroquois were “Utopian”, only that people were actually allowed to make decisions on matters that affected them. It seems crazy to me that some guy hundreds of miles away is permitted to make profound decisions about my future without my having any say in the matter. Call it whatever you want, but it is remote from democracy and freedom.

Once again, I am not claiming that a democratic society can be “magically created overnight”, only that this is the direction we should be moving in. The old model has failed miserably. Perhaps it’s time to admit that allowing rich psychos to make all of the important decisions “on our behalf” isn’t a terribly good idea.

[blackball]

100. Decentralized Democracy will only mean oppression

Democracy requires a large pool of voters so that no individual set of interests will over power any of the others. All we have to do to see instances of oppression is to look at immigration law at the state level. There's a deep undercurrent of xenophobia in American politics that has been especially highlighted by the tea party movement. Decentralized government will just allow corporations and racism to dominate the government at the state level.

Alternatively, our currently highly centralized system also allows the wealthy to dominate the political system which is primarily because politicians like to fill their campaign coffers and bring wasteful government spending to their districts. The military/medical/prison/agri industrial complexes are all a result of the influence of money in politics. There needs to be significant campaign and lobbying reform before we can address any real problems. This will be exceedingly difficult because big business will fight any reform we try to bring by using their excessive political influence.

Furthermore, all democracy requires a well educated constituency. Democracy simply cannot function when voters do not understand the issues, or even how our government runs; n uneducated constituency leads to mob rule.

However, part of the reason education is "failing" in America has to do with poverty in the inner city. Conditions for kids living in bad neighborhoods combined with busy working class parents will drive kids into violence, drugs, and gangs. This is why our inner city schools have such abysmal literacy rates. The failure of the lower education levels is primarily one of the ill effects caused by poverty.

Going further into the the issue of poverty, we will find that it is deindustrialization that has served to create much of the urban strife we see today. The shipping of jobs over seas created massive unenployment in urban areas as workers witnessed a massive shift in industry causing displacement and non-union jobs that didn't pay as well.

As this deindustrialization took place, many wealthy families fled to the suburbs to avoid the slums that the displacement of workers created. As a result of this movement, we now have highly polarized communities where good schools are the primary driving force for parents. This speaks volumes about our society; that parents have to move to good neighboorhoods in order to provide their children with a good education. Undoubtedly what happens is many working class families cannot afford homes the areas with good schools.

We need to increase funding for schools in general; make the teaching profession more prestigious by raising salaries across the board. We should also implement a highy rigorous teacher certification process that weeds out those who do not deserve this higher salary. The reason teachers are not paid well is because the product they create is often intangible so it is nearly impossible to tell who the good ones are. Different teachers have different teaching methods, and their "effectiveness" is hard to measure.

How can you measure the inspiration that an eccentric highschool chemistry teacher bestows upon his students? You can't.The love of learning that our teachers give us is simply priceless.

But ultimately, the argument over "good" and "bad" teachers detracts from the real issue, which is giving students a positive environment in which to grow intellectually. This can be done by giving school districts and individual schools the option of extending the school day. The time can be used for extra practice for remedial students as well as extracurricular activities such as art,drama,music,and sports for students who are not failing. Grow their minds,bodies,and souls.

Extracurricular activities can give students who hate school an incentive to stay in school and maintain a passing GPA in order to stay in the programs.

Furthermore, students could take school sponsored paid internships within the community so as to give them experience in the real world as well as an opportunity to earn money in a meaningful way. The money could come in the form of tax breaks for businesses that take these interns.

As I stated before, flexibility within the system is key to the success of this idea; it should be up to principals and school districts to determine how best to use their resources so as to not impose restrictions that hinder real learning. Leave the big decisions up to the local level, but make the funds available if they do choose to extend the school day.

If we can create an environment that is conducive to learning for students of all backgrounds then we can begin to address the real problems of society, as well as the problem of poverty, through the democratic process.

But the problem is the wealthy who live in suburbia and are isolated from the sort of suffering that is common in inner-cities. They will fight hand and tooth over any increases in taxes or spending for public schools as well as spending to help working class families make ends meet.

So the whole issue basically boils down to who is in control of society. And in case you haven't figured it out, it's the wealthy. The only way to change society for the better is to remove the corporate model of authoritarian rule and replace it with corporation where the CEO's are elected by the people. This will allow them to continue making business decisions using their greater knowledge and contacts but will also make them accountable to workers. This will stop worker wage exploitation and and raise the standard of living for every single American; except for the 1% of course. They probably won't be able to afford that second summerhouse in the Hamptons anymore, but such is life...

[blackball]

102. More the on the Subject Of Corporatism

Lassez-Fairy Tales: Of Conservatives,Corporations,and Democracy
by a young marxist

Conservative philosophy originates from the belief that the purpose of government is to protect a person's rights so that they may go about their own pursuits with as little interference as possible so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. Conservatives also believe that government intervention distorts free market forces and hampers economic growth, and that because redistribution in the form of taxes and social spending also reduces the amount of money that people can spend freely, their choices and thereby their freedoms are reduced. The statement that fewer choices almost always equates to less freedom, when taken alone, seems to be undeniably true.

On paper, conservatives and Lassez-Faire economics appear to offer the greatest amount of freedom for the individual in both the social and economic spheres. But on closer examination,a Lassez-Faire approach to the work place fails to fulfill government's primary function to protect the rights and freedoms of its people.

This conclusion can be drawn from the fact that all modern businesses are based on the authoritarian model. The parallels in power structure that can be drawn between corporations,slavery, and the feudal model are astonishing. In Feudalism, the lords who owned all the land and thereby the means to grow food allowed the serfs to work the land. In return, the lord allowed the serfs to grow their own crops on a tiny portion of the land. The injustice in this system (in case you couldn't figure it out!) comes from the fact that fruits of the serfs labor are taken away from him; he is only allowed to keep a tiny portion of the value he creates and this is the core feature of feudalism,slavery, and the modern business model.

Today as employees, we spend our time producing a product for a company which then proceeds to sell that good and in turn gives us a portion of the profits in the form of a wage. Wage labor is what makes worker exploitation possible, but wage labor is not necessarily exploitation.

This is because it is necessary to take a portion of the profit created by selling what a worker has produced and use it to pay workers like truck drivers or managers who do not create value that can be easily measured, as well as pay maintenance costs for the business: electricity, raw material,etc... But tyranny in the work place arises because it is the board of directors that collects the money and then decides who will get how much.

The inherent problem with this model is that board of directors is essentially an oligarchy that is unaccountable to the workers and is at the same time incentivized to pay them as little as possible in order to maximize profits. The modern business model creates a massive imbalance of power in the work place causing workers to often be paid far less than their fair share; in other words, economic slavery.

Conservatives might argue that workers are free to find new jobs or even unionize if they are unsatisfied with wages. While these seem like valid points, they do nothing but further highlight the imbalance of power that exists within the current system.

Businesses have vast resources like high powered lawyers,contacts in Washington,and large amounts capital that they can muster in response to unionization. They can afford to go for months, sometimes years, without turning a profit in the face of a strike. Whereas today, your average employee has a family to feed, a mortgage to make, car loan repayments, college tuition costs, and copiously high health insurance premiums that continue to rise. Short term emergency funds and savings can only last so long in the face of these rising monthly expenses.

Furthermore, unions have steadily been in decline for years now as hordes of lobbyists with massive campaign contributions have loyally worked at sweeping away legislation aimed at protecting unions. Ron Paul has the guts to call the influence of big business on American politics “corporatism” but he offers little in the way of solutions for reining in control over their influence. One can't seriously blame him though. Who, if not the corporations, will fill his campaign coffers?

As for finding new work, jobs seekers must often restrict themselves to searching within the local area because the cost of moving to a new city can be prohibitively expensive, time consuming, and mentally taxing on a family that has settled and made connections within the community. Not only that, but many Americans buy their homes and depend on a steady income from both parents, so relocating to find better paying work is simply not an option.

On the other hand, corporations have no qualms about relocating their headquarters to states that are “business friendly” ie, those that provide cheap labor and tax holidays. They can also recruit new employees from around the country or outsource for even cheaper labor. Caterpillar, for one, has invested large sums of capital towards building inactive manufacturing plants in developing nations with dirt cheap labor with the expectation of using those plants once workers strike. Many companies even keep a backlog of unemployed workers so that if any of their current workers step out of line they can always find people who are willing to work.

So how should we go about correcting the injustices set upon us by these ruthless authoritarian states? The most common way in the past to fight back has to tax them and use the money on social services. However, this does nothing to solve the structural problems inherent in corporations who will continue to cut worker benefits and use lobbyists to give themselves tax cuts and subsides as well as influence cuts on social services in the future.

Keeping this line of thinking in mind, nothing lasting can be done until the influence of money is completely removed from politics. We must amend the constitution to state that corporations do not have the rights of people. Corporations are not people, they are mindless, heartless, exploitation machines that are to be crushed underfoot. Campaign contributions from corporations must stopped and only to be received from individuals at the limit of a few hundred dollars. Throw the paid lobbyists who wine and dine our leaders out of Washington. Only when we push these reforms through can we make lasting change to the tax code.

Fox News pundits will surely cry foul, calling taxation and social spending thievery. But redistribution is not thievery. It is in fact the opposite of thievery. It is our reclaiming of the fruits of our labor that were taken from us in the workplace. If a robber breaks into your house and steals your television, when he is taken by the police and the television returned, does he have any right to call you a thief? The corporations have turned the media on us in an attempt to shame us and keep us from what is rightfully ours. Embrace their smears of “class warfare” because the “war” is very real, and they are winning. But the tides of war do change, and soon we will bleed the rich dry.

Of course, reforms as simple as campaign contributions, and getting rid of the paid lobbyists can only serve to stifle the corporate war machine. In order to defeat tyranny, you must destroy it. Let us replace the corporate model of tyranny with democracy.

Democracy!? In the work place you ask!? Fox pundits would likely make me out as a socialist or a communist but those are simply antiquated smears that play on the fears of ignorant and narrow-minded individuals(namely the tea party, if you will). Our goal should be to oppose tyranny in all forms whether it be in the political, economic, or social realm. Corporations are run by tyrants who have no responsibility to the people who work under them or the people who use their products. The only morally acceptable replacement of despotism is democracy.

Now many will shake their heads in disbelief; democracy has never been tried in the workplace. But these people would also have you forget that America was founded on an ideal that was also thought to be radical and insane in 1776.The little idea that could, democracy.

But how will this system work? I don't pretend to have all the answers and it will require much discussion and discourse, just as the implementation of our political system necessitated. Now lets be clear here, I am advocating for neither socialism nor communism, what I am advocating for is a democratic republic model for corporations. People should be allowed to vote for their corporate executives. Plain and simple. This will make executives beholden to the people, not to profits. Corporations can still be run efficiently by the executives who will still be able to use their contacts and business knowledge to make executive decisions and capitalize on business opportunities, but they will also be accountable for their actions. And most of all; they'll stop taking advantage of workers.

The biggest problem with implementing this model is the polarization of our political system and the ability of the wealthy to control the political system. The GOP, which is so blatantly on the side of big business and corporations would scream bloody murder and never let this go down without a long drawn out fight. And that's only if the democrats could even muster the political willpower to propose the idea in congress, which is unlikely because they too belong to big business.

Neither party will help us on this path to freedom but now is the perfect time to rally the left into a revival of a general Progressive movement. We can bring a spirit of equality and freedom to American politics that it has never been seen before. The struggle will be a long and arduous one, but do not despair! “It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” -Samuel Adams. If our goals are noble, then we cannot fail and as the truth about our oppression spreads like a wildfire, many more will be added to our numbers.

Currently there are thousands occupying Wall Street, and the movement is gaining momentum each day. Satellite movements have emerged in DC, Boston, Austin, Seattle,San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. These occupations have no end in sight, and in fact, it appears that they will continue to pick up steam and ultimately embody the dissatisfaction that the American people have felt as a result of pure corporate greed. Finally! This is a cause that every man, woman, and child can have reason to be in! All people, regardless of race,religion, or creed can rally around the banner of freedom and equality and begin to march against our economic oppressors.

When the government allows the market to determine wages and benefits for workers, it is failing to uphold it's purpose,to protect the rights of the people. In light of this we the people have a sovereign right to overthrow the government that has so failed to protect our economic freedom. This overthrowing of the government will not be a violent one that descends into bloodshed. Rather,it will be a democratic coup, an over throwing of ideas.


By allowing corporations to rob workers unabashed we have allowed tyranny to run its course and impose itself on the American people for far too long. The free market approach to the workplace that conservatives advocate does nothing to promote the ideas of freedom that we all hold so dearly. The idea that the market will regulate itself in a fair and orderly fashion in regards to labor is simply the failure of ivory tower economic thinking that seems to plague politics these days. Economic models have never and will never be accurate representations of the real world but right -wing thought seems to be steeped in the fluffy “half” logic assumptions that these models are based on.

I will concede however, that Laissez-Faire in the work place does increase freedom and choice, but only for the few. For the rest of us, it is the freedom to be exploited; the freedom to work far too hard, for far too long, for far too little, and to have nothing to show for it.

“Those who work in the mills ought to own them”-Lowell Mill Girls

[Danse]

104. I am the Mob

Furthermore, all democracy requires a well educated constituency. Democracy simply cannot function when voters do not understand the issues, or even how our government runs; n uneducated constituency leads to mob rule.

“Mob rule” is elite speak for real democracy. Your position is little different than that of Walter Lippman and Edward Bernays. Lippman referred to the masses a “bewildered herd”. I am also reminded of this quote by Voline –

"Incapacity of the masses." What a tool for all exploiters and dominators, past, present, and future, and especially for the modern aspiring enslavers, whatever their insignia -- Nazism, Bolshevism, Fascism, or Communism. "Incapacity of the masses." The is a point on which the reactionaries of all colors are in perfect agreement with the "communists." And this agreement is exceedingly significant.
- Voline

The quote “incapacity of the masses” derives from Trotsky, who after slaughtering the anarchist communes commented that in order to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs.

If you want to wait around until the American people become “educated” according to whatever doctrine you espouse you might as wait for the next asteroid to strike Earth. The American people cannot become “educated” – especially against bigotry – in a system that is premised on it – a system that RELIES on divide and conquer stratagems based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and so forth. The only way people will begin to behave responsibly and open their minds is when they meet face to face in democratic assemblies. It is difficult for many people to recognize the humanity of others when they only hear about them on talk radio.

Until real democracy develops, people will be stuck in their echo chambers, atomized from one another and propagandized into a perpetual state of rage against phantom enemies. We already live under “Mob rule” – not of the “mob” feared by Eric Cantor but a mob in the Sicilian sense – a gangster clique of capitalist warmongers.

In John A. Manley’s essential work “The case against the constitution”, he notes that in town hall assemblies prior to the convention, it was often lamented by wealthy landowners that the “lowliest, uneducated craftsmen” were permitted to debate and even formulate policy. These elites were not concerned about the persecution of minorities – (again, American society has been premised, from the very beginning, on scapegoating and racial/cultural supremacy) – but the threat of wealth redistribution.

What do elites do when things go sour? They pick scapegoats and persecute/kill them. Under the centralized state they do so with ruthless efficiency. If you think minorities will be better off under elite management you are sorely mistaken. Decentralized democracy will allow safe havens, whereas the centralized state concentrates violence and oppression like the tip of a knife. The only road to equality is direct democracy.

I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB

I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.

- Carl Sandburg

[Zorra]

97. Recommend.

"Police can’t be trusted...their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class ..."

[Supply Side Jesus]

103. **YAWN**

those types STILL around? LoL. what a joke.

[Danse]

105. Some friendly advice

those types STILL around? LoL. what a joke.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln (definitely not an anarchist)

[Supply Side Jesus]

127. ya, I guess the Anarchists should've kept their fucking mouths shut

fuckin douche bags

[Fantastic Anarchist]

133. You make yourself look like a fool when you say that. n/t

[MilesColtrane]

109. "Why should you listen to us? In short, because we’ve been at this a long time..."

Well, thanks for the punk rock at least.

[TBF]

110. That is what I liked about these comments -

all the anti-capitalist sentiment. It's been a very conservative 30 years in this country, but did you think we'd all just die under rocks somewhere or something? Granted the 1% would like nothing better than that, but that's the great thing about getting into the streets and meeting up. Turns out there are quite a few of us and we do not like the way things are going.

It's no wonder the protests were first covered by the financial papers. Capital knows they have a lot to lose.

[Danse]

111. MilesColtrane

You may also want to thank anarchists for

- allowing the human race to survive for 99% of our time on planet Earth

- spearheading the effort for the 8 hr work day in the United States (see Haymarket)

- Creating the first large-scale American unions that allowed women, people of color and immigrants (see IWW)

- establishing the first directly democratic (industrial) societies in the 20th Century, including, for example, in Spain, Greece and Italy, prior to and after WWII

- Spearheading the May 68 movement in France (Situationists), which had the effect of buttressing and expanding social democracy in that country for decades.

- Organizing much of what became known as the anti-globalization movement

- Nudism, at least in its modern form ;)

- Outlining the principles of non-violence beyond simply "turning the other cheek" (Tolstoy)

- Further outlining the principles of non-violence (Gandhi)

- Creating the first major European text on Feminism, "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" (Wollstonecraft)

- The Ferrer school of Education, which stresses child development and independence rather than rote learning and conformity.

- A People's History of the United States

- The collected works of Noam Chomsky

- The collected works of Dr. Seuss

- The collected works of Thoreau

- The collected works of The Clash, Crass and the Dead Kennedy's

- The philosophy of Taosim

- The first major rebellions in Europe against monarchy and the "Divine Rights of Kings" via figures like John Ball, Watts and later, the Diggers, Levellers etc.

- The Beat movement, which in turn evolved in the counter-culture of the 60's

- The Hippie and Yippie movements

- William Blake

- The Zapatistas

- The Read guards of the Shengwulian, which continue to provide a real socialist alternative to Maoism-cum-"McCommunism" in China

- A real socialist alternative -- period -- to the violent, hyper centralized monstrosity which became known as Communism

- The American Constitution, much of which (minus the democratic elements) was borrowed from the Iroquois Federation

- The Factory occupations in Argentina and the co-op movement worldwide.

- Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker's movement, which spawned much of what become known as "liberation theology"

- "God and the State" by Bakunin, which provided a political underpinning for Atheism long before Dawkins.

- the revolution in anthropology via figures like Kropotkin and Marcel Mauss, which completely inverted our understanding of human nature and nature in general via concepts like mutual aid and "gift-giving economies".

- Every time you go camping or hang out with friends and don't appoint a "leader" to tell you what to do.

- The organizational strategies of the OWS

I could literally go on all day here.

Perhaps the most striking/sadly ironic aspect to the above chart is that it gauges the "success" of "anarchy" at nothing. Even putting aside the above examples, the designer fails to understand the "Anarchy of everyday life" -- that is, that competition, hierarchy, war (competition writ large), fear and so on, exist against a backdrop of cooperation, equality, peace and love, without which the human race would have become extinct long, long ago. And most of the other "social" creatures as well.

“Competition is not the ubiquitous force that many ecologist have believed. Why, then, have they been so preoccupied with competition? Competition occupies a central position in Western culture—witness its expression in sports, economics, space exploration, international politics, or warfare. Little wonder, then, that community ecologists expected that the primary factor organizing communities would be competition.”

Biologist John A. Wiens


"Darwin's theory of the struggle for existence and the selectivity connected with it has by many people been cited as authorization of the encouragement of the spirit of competition. Some people also in such a way have tried to prove pseudoscientifically the necessity of the destructive economic struggle of competition between individuals. But this is wrong, because man owes his strength in the struggle for existence to the fact that he is a socially living animal. As little as a battle between ants of an ant hill is essential for survival, just so little is this the case with the individual members of a human community."

- Albert Einstein


I should also mention that the examples I cite were/are not exclusively anarchist, obviously (the term itself didn't appear until 1642) -- anarchism does not fit in a box, or a silly little chart -- and anarchism, as an organic tendency (rather than fre-fab ideology), has always intertwined with other, less democratic or "radical" movements -- but the point should be obvious.

The juvenile dismissal of anarchism is something I expect from the corporate media, but not from real progressives, nor Marxists for that matter.

Marx considered anarchism "Utopian"; conversely, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin considered Marxism DYStopian -- a recipe for disaster. He said, "If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself." In the wake of the Soviet Union, "Communist" China and Pol Pot, I think it is pretty clear who won that particular debate. Ironically, Marx and Bakunin struggled for leadership of the Internationale. It became a scurrilous affair, with Marx creating fake rumors about Bakunin, and Bakunin resorting to base anti-Semitism.

This is not to detract from Marx's brilliant critique of capitalism, which is unparalleled (though he "borrowed" from a good many other, previous socialists, including Proudhon, for whom he held special contempt). Toward the end of his life, Marx increasingly focused on the revolutionary potential of so-called "peasants", questioning his own beliefs regarding the necessity of an industrial proletariat in fulfilling his communist revolution. Sadly, Lenin and Trotsky chose to ignore this aspect of his work, apparently believing that the only means to successful revolution was to force the Russian peasantry into their machine-model of "socialism". They destroyed the real "soviets"/worker cooperatives - which were anarchist in nature -- even though Marx himself insisted (rather naively) that the State should be subservient to the factory councils. Marx had a much more advanced understanding of economics than Bakunin, but a much more superficial (indeed, Utopian) understanding of hierarchy and power.

Anyway, I guess what I don't quite understand is the hostility with which many liberals regard anarchism. I understand the hatred toward the Black Bloc, which has ruined many a protest. But the Black Bloc no more represents anarchism than Obama represents liberalism. For the ignorant amongst us this hostility is completely understandable. In the modern Orwellian Lexicon (Orwell slyly referred to himself as a "Trotskyist anarchist") the term is right up there with "terrorist". But if there is one thing we should have learned about the corporate media by now, it is that their branding exercises leave a great deal to be desired.

My impression is that most of us agree on the desirable outcome, save establishment liberal hacks, but disagree rather fiercely on the means to the end. Perhaps these issues can be explored more fully as the revolution evolves.

Peace

[MilesColtrane]

113. "I could literally go on all day here."

No doubt.

But, the retroactive tagging of philosophical and political achievements as triumphs of anarchists doesn't make them so.

[Danse]

114. Anarchy for dummies?

As opposed to what, triumphs of Yogists?

Please do discuss where I have gone astray. I don't mean this as an insult; I'm not here to pick fights; as I previously stated, the term itself has only existed for a few hundred years. As I also stated, anarchism is a tendency and set of principles, not a pseudo-scientific political philosophy along the lines of the Utopian fantasies of a Milton Friedman or Chairman Mao.

Nevertheless, there are generally agreed upon characteristics of anarchist philosophy, which include --

Decentralization, federation, direct democracy, equality, cooperation, mutual aid, the network model, leaderless resistance, direct action and so on.

In all of the above cited examples these principles were/are explicit. In most cases the participants were self-defined anarchists.

Claiming that these examples are "retroactive tagging" is like saying that Orwell didn't understand the perversion of language because he never heard the term "collateral damage".

[MilesColtrane]

117. Everyone who has ever been suspicious of their government is not an anarchist.

Neither is everyone who has ever believed in nonviolence.

Should I be thanking the existentialists for Sophocles, the Buddha's teachings, and St. Augustine's "Confessions"?

[Danse]

118. Religion and Spirituality

Idiocy

[MilesColtrane]

119. You must pity Tolstoy, Gandhi, Wollstonecraft, Thoreau, John Ball, and Dorothy Day.

...poor, "anarchist", religious "idiots" that they were.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

134. That's not what he's claiming ... n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

116. +1; it is so much easier to ridicule than to learn.

[TBF]

123. Excellent post - thank you! nt

[Danse]

125. Tiny humans

Meh

[Fantastic Anarchist]

132. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid ...

... stressed the importance of cooperation in intra-species and inter-species survival, in fact, saying it was more important than "competition" in determining those species' who had very successful survival rates. Also, that the type of environment will tend to produce certain individuals; cooperative societies selected for cooperative individuals, and competitive societies selected for competitive individuals.

Also, can't overlook the accomplishments of Josiah Warren, Benjamin, Nestor Mahkno, Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, and the Haymarket Martyrs.

Excellent post, Danse!

[joshcryer]

137. Amazing post. Welcome to DU. :)

[joshcryer]

128. Anyone question the anarchists now? The raids tonight prove they were right.

[TBF]

129. Thanks Josh - can certainly agree with you here. nt

[DeSwiss]

141. Simpatico.....

The revolution will not be shown on television. Nothing will be on television... or if anything is, no one will notice.

The revolution will not provide you with political clout, a luxury car or designer antidepressants. It will render such things superfluous.

The revolution will not help you build muscle mass or tone your flabby thighs. It will make it possible for you to feel beautiful in your body, not because of it.

The revolution will not put the right people in control of the government or impose limits on the conduct of corporations. It will abolish control, government, limits, corporations.

The revolution will not give you superhuman powers of creativity, audacity, or conflict resolution. It will push aside the obstacles that inhibit you from exercising the power you already have.

The revolution will not put an end to violence, struggle or interpersonal strife. It will offer you the chance to right for your own interests, for once, and let the chips fall where they may.

The revolution will not just put all genders, ethnicities, and nationalities on equal footing - it will dissolve the borders that distinguish them.

The revolution will not make you self-sufficient. It will equip you to take care of others, and others to take care of you.

The revolution will not provide you with the man or woman of your dreams. It will bring out the unique beauty of the ones already around you.

The revolution might not always feed or house or heal you, but hunger and thirst and cold and even sickness will trouble you a lot less.

The revolution will not mean you finally get what you deserve. It will give you treasures no one could ever deserve, just as it will sometimes hurt with a pain nothing in your life has warranted.

The revolution will not be simple or clean or easy. It will help you to find meaning in difficult things, to be courageous in facing complexities and contradictions, to get your hands dirty and like it.

The revolution is not going to happen tomorrow -- it's never going to happen. It's taking place right now. It is an alternate universe that runs parallel to this one, waiting for you to switch sides.

CrimethInc, http://zinelibrary.info/expect-resistance">EXPECT RESISTANCE

[stevenleser]

143. Why would OWS, who are successful at moving the debate forward, listen to people who havent been?

Just a simple question that immediately comes to mind.

[joshcryer]

145. OWS has elements of anarchism, and some anarchists are participating, in fact.

So your comment doesn't make any sense.

[white_wolf]

147. In fact there was a couple of anarchists at my local Occupy movement.

[joshcryer]

156. I'm heading down to Occupy Colorado Springs next weekend. They have indefinite permission to stay.*

It's really awesome. Going to hang out all weekend. I have a pretty stressful long hours job though and I am not ready to quit just yet. But if this thing keeps growing I'm seriously contemplating it.

*as long as they're not sleeping down there, which is ironic in a way because you could sleep within city limits until this group of homeless people (after the big crash) were camping out by a bike trial within city limits, they passed a recent ordinance that forbids it. It's ironic because the ordinance wouldn't have been passed without a major homeless crisis spurred by a serious recession which itself wouldn't have caused OWS to start.

[TBF]

148. "Successful at moving the debate forward" -

OK, they've accomplished what? They're sitting peacefully in parks nationwide. That could be the start of something but it isn't anything but that yet.

And I will refer you to post #111 on accomplishments of Anarchists through history. Haymarket alone resulted in 8-hr workdays. No they didn't establish new countries as communists did in the Soviet Union and Cuba, but they've been instrumental in resistance for centuries.

I hope you're right and they do move people towards massive resistance in this country, but comparing their efforts at this stage is silly.