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ate all the Oreos posted:So because I'm curious and also hate myself I took a browse through conservative memes dot com. Let's call it, uh, opposition research. Most of it was the infuriating or ignorant stuff you'd expect but I did get an interesting insight into what I assume is the average Trump die-hard fan (or at least the average Trump mom who shares funy memes on Facebook): http://www.clickhole.com/video/attention-patriots-share-video-your-facebook-wall--6083
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Jul 14, 2017 18:55
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ekuNNN posted:Actually, almost every single (European) Labour party has embraced neoliberalism and betrayed their working class roots. True, but, for example, UK labour was an actual labour party before that and may be returning there. The US does not, to my knowledge, have an actual organized labour party that has ever held substantial power, merely a party which has occasionally adopted part of the desires of organized labour when it is convenient. To many European labour movements, the neolib bit is the aberration, not the norm.
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Jul 14, 2017 19:13
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I don't know how accurate this is, but I recall an Oxford talk Bill Maher did. He said the Clintons were like Blair for the Democrats and then never got a resurgence to the traditional left after Bill left office. To me, this means something like Jeremy Corbyn, but I have a feeling his idea of traditional left is very different in America, owing to Democrats look very much like UK Tories.
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Jul 14, 2017 19:31
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Yeah, maybe it's just because of the context of what he'd call the "traditional left," but that sounds far too intelligent to have come out of Bill Maher's mouth. He's the favourite person of every incredibly smug liberal I know who just want to call Trump supporters morons and are violently allergic to any etiology of why they feel the way they do.
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Jul 14, 2017 21:11
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, maybe it's just because of the context of what he'd call the "traditional left," but that sounds far too intelligent to have come out of Bill Maher's mouth. He's the favourite person of every incredibly smug liberal I know who just want to call Trump supporters morons and are violently allergic to any etiology of why they feel the way they do. Seconding this, maher is an idiot and also a douchebag.
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Jul 14, 2017 23:56
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Miftan posted:Seconding this, maher is an idiot and also a douchebag. And also an anti-vaxxer, although that's redundant.
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Jul 15, 2017 00:59
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Was reading this article: https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/byung-chul-han/why-revolution-is-no-longer-possible The basic premise is that mass revolution and mass action is much more difficult in the current capitalist climate, because the modern neoliberal state has turned the worker against himself and against all other workers. Previously, there was a clear delineation between labor and management (and management practiced clear acts of repression). Today, in the gig economy, there is no visible management and most repression is of the subtle variety (commodification of basic needs and emotions, etc). I guess there are a few counter-arguments. The article mentions South Korea, but was written before the mass protests that kicked out a sitting President and led to the election of a center-left party, so mass action clearly resonates in SK (even if it's just at the political level and not at the labor level). Automation will once again recreate stark lines of separation, but this time between the unemployed and management, but that's at least a decade off. Still, it leaves me wondering if it's going to be much more difficult to get mass action going when few of us have little in common besides political ideas and a general understanding that the capitalist system is exploitative and broken. Abstract politics is usually a harder sell than watching the people you've worked and bonded with get executed by the Pinkertons or some other privatized corporate police force. Pembroke Fuse fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jul 15, 2017 |
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Jul 15, 2017 16:33
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The mass protests in South Korea were not leftist in origin.
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Jul 15, 2017 17:58
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xcheopis posted:The mass protests in South Korea were not leftist in origin. Fair point. I didn't claim that they were, only in that they led to a center-left president. Unfortunately, I think that makes the article's case stronger.
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Jul 15, 2017 18:13
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It's really frustrating talking about unions with neoliberals. They all seem to have the exact same stance as your average Republican: That unions are bad, violent, and are not necessary anymore. How do these people expect for workers to be able to act as a countervailing force against corporations and concentrated power? I'm sure unions have their problems and I'm sure there is always going to be work todo, but you don't abolish government because it has its flaws. You don't outlaw religion because the Catholic church protected kiddy-touchers. You don't do away with police because they like shooting black people. You work to fix problems in these very important systems. You don't just demolish the system and pretend you're better off. It's just interesting that the only one they are for demolishing just happens to be the one that helps empower the powerless.
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Jul 15, 2017 19:11
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Internet Explorer posted:It's really frustrating talking about unions with neoliberals. They all seem to have the exact same stance as your average Republican: That unions are bad, violent, and are not necessary anymore. How do these people expect for workers to be able to act as a countervailing force against corporations and concentrated power? I'm sure unions have their problems and I'm sure there is always going to be work todo, but you don't abolish government because it has its flaws. You don't outlaw religion because the Catholic church protected kiddy-touchers. You don't do away with police because they like shooting black people. You work to fix problems in these very important systems. You don't just demolish the system and pretend you're better off. It's just interesting that the only one they are for demolishing just happens to be the one that helps empower the powerless.  for real though, a lot of good ideas have been written specifically about tearing poo poo down and starting fresh with different methods. They're not that far fetched, you just have survive the initial military invasion. I would argue that some things cannot be reformed: states are inherently racist and bad, for example.
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Jul 15, 2017 19:18
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It is difficult to understand an argument against unionization that is not also an argument against democracy.
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Jul 15, 2017 19:23
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Internet Explorer posted:It's really frustrating talking about unions with neoliberals. They all seem to have the exact same stance as your average Republican: That unions are bad, violent, and are not necessary anymore. How do these people expect for workers to be able to act as a countervailing force against corporations and concentrated power? I'm sure unions have their problems and I'm sure there is always going to be work todo, but you don't abolish government because it has its flaws. You don't outlaw religion because the Catholic church protected kiddy-touchers. You don't do away with police because they like shooting black people. You work to fix problems in these very important systems. You don't just demolish the system and pretend you're better off. It's just interesting that the only one they are for demolishing just happens to be the one that helps empower the powerless. It's because they believe in meritocracy and the whig vision of history. It's inconceivable to them that the world won't simply get better at giving everyone exactly what they deserve. Both democrats and republicans are liberals in this sense.
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Jul 15, 2017 19:34
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Internet Explorer posted:It's really frustrating talking about unions with neoliberals. They all seem to have the exact same stance as your average Republican: I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. Why wouldn't Republicans have the same stance as a guy like Reagan?
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Jul 15, 2017 19:34
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. Why wouldn't Republicans have the same stance as a guy like Reagan? Yeah, I'm sure you're having trouble understanding that I'm trying to say. 
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Jul 15, 2017 19:38
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Internet Explorer posted:Yeah, I'm sure you're having trouble understanding that I'm trying to say. I don't. Neoliberalism is basically conservatism with a double dose of gently caress unions. It was exemplified by Reagan and Thatcher and has become a core ideology within the Republican party. Edit: Are you arguing with libertarians? Maybe couch it in the frame of people making voluntary contracts to work together as a union, and then negotiating voluntary contracts with businesses to employ only the union for labor. If people want to work outside of a union, they can make a voluntary contract with the company, assuming the deal is so good it'd be worth breaking the voluntary contract with the union. It's important to use the word voluntary over and over again. Dr. Arbitrary fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jul 15, 2017 |
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Jul 15, 2017 19:46
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I don't. Neoliberalism is basically conservatism with a double dose of gently caress unions. It was exemplified by Reagan and Thatcher and has become a core ideology within the Republican party. I think some of the newly minted leftists in the US think neoliberalism is something it isn't because it just sounds like it fits the description of someone who isn't a leftist but also not a fascist.
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Jul 15, 2017 20:24
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FAUXTON posted:I think some of the newly minted leftists in the US think neoliberalism is something it isn't because it just sounds like it fits the description of someone who isn't a leftist but also not a fascist. It describes all non-tea-party republicans except Paul and all democrats since Carter. Clinton looked like maybe she was listing back toward the old tax-and-spend model, but now we'll never know. It is consistent with fascism but most of the US authoritarian bloc is isolationist. It's just post-Keynes regular capitalism.
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Jul 15, 2017 20:40
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Sorry, neoliberal democrats. Now maybe we can move on with our lives, because it wasn't clear at all from context.
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Jul 15, 2017 21:24
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Internet Explorer posted:It's really frustrating talking about unions with neoliberals. They all seem to have the exact same stance as your average Republican: That unions are bad, violent, and are not necessary anymore. How do these people expect for workers to be able to act as a countervailing force against corporations and concentrated power? I'm sure unions have their problems and I'm sure there is always going to be work todo, but you don't abolish government because it has its flaws. You don't outlaw religion because the Catholic church protected kiddy-touchers. You don't do away with police because they like shooting black people. You work to fix problems in these very important systems. You don't just demolish the system and pretend you're better off. It's just interesting that the only one they are for demolishing just happens to be the one that helps empower the powerless. You'll note that the government, the church, and the police are not contrary to the interests of the capitalist class and thus do not always have various media apparatuses blasting about how bad and corrupt and bad they are at every opportunity. Also I'm in favor of abolishing all of the examples you mentioned aside from unions so  and/or
SomeMathGuy fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 00:07
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SomeMathGuy posted:You'll note that the government, the church, and the police are not contrary to the interests of the capitalist class and thus do not always have various media apparatuses blasting about how bad and corrupt and bad they are at every opportunity. Just out of curiosity, since I know we there is a good amount of overlap with DSA / anarchists, what would things ideally look like without government or police?
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Jul 16, 2017 00:40
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If you ask five self-identified anarchists what their vision of society is you'll probably get five different answers, but I favor highly decentralized face-to-face direct democracy. Basically everybody living in big communes. The idea then with police is that you don't need them because the incentives for the majority of crimes vanish with the abolition of private property and hierarchies and those small remaining crimes of passion are dealt with via labor penalties (go work more) or exile (get out). In practice for me that means I'm usually supporting anything that increases lowercase d democratic control of institutions, the disempowerment of capitalist institutions (so maybe paradoxically I don't mind some things like healthcare being nationalized for the time being, I don't claim a high ground based on coherence), and/or the reduction of the state's current monopoly on violence and control. Consequently I feel pretty comfortable working within the DSA framework. Now there are other anarchists who think even awesome communal living is just another form of the state, I don't know what they plan on the world looking like, nor do I sweat it too much. I do think they raise a good point that even in my "ideal" society we would have to remain vigilant against potential abuses and constantly be willing to reevaluate.
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Jul 16, 2017 01:57
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If you want to look at real life attempts, I'd look up the Free Territory (which was anarcho-communist), Revolutionary Catalonia (anarcho-syndicalist), and Rojava (democratic confederalist I think?). I'd give links but I'm phone posting.
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Jul 16, 2017 02:01
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The most interesting person I've met at a DSA meeting was an ex-anarchist who decided Medicare could only be operated a state, and that the socialists probably weren't angling to throw her kind in camps anymore.
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Jul 16, 2017 02:03
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SomeMathGuy posted:those small remaining crimes of passion are dealt with via labor penalties (go work more) or exile (get out). How do you enact work penalties or keep the exiles out if you have no police-like mechanism, does everyone in the entire country have to just sorta agree "Jim's a dick, we don't talk to Jim anymore"? Because I've talked to anarcho-communists who basically think that's a viable option and I've never ever heard a satisfying answer to the question of what happens the moment Jim finds a gun and meets all the other exiles and they team up to take over.
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Jul 16, 2017 04:35
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I think generally the idea is that communities would practice self defence there, anarchists aren't anti-consensus-decisions, they're anti government.
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Jul 16, 2017 04:38
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Thank you guys for those answers. They're really informative.
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Jul 16, 2017 05:02
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ate all the Oreos posted:How do you enact work penalties or keep the exiles out if you have no police-like mechanism, does everyone in the entire country have to just sorta agree "Jim's a dick, we don't talk to Jim anymore"? Because I've talked to anarcho-communists who basically think that's a viable option and I've never ever heard a satisfying answer to the question of what happens the moment Jim finds a gun and meets all the other exiles and they team up to take over. At that point members of the community could agree to organize a militia to defend against Jim et al in much the way that occurred in Ukraine and Spain. That said the belief (or the hope) is that there wouldn't be many Jims in the first place. SomeMathGuy fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 05:53
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SomeMathGuy posted:At that point members of the community could agree to organize a militia to defend against Jim et al in much the way that occurred in Ukraine and Spain. I guess that's fine (though I'm not sure how that would work for the forced labor punishment) but it at least makes sense. The anarcho-communist I've actually talked to the most was much more "radical" in that he was interested in removing any semblance of hierarchy - like not just eliminating an upper or lower class but all hierarchies - so a functional militia would be effectively impossible because there would be nobody actually telling the militia where to go or what to do. He thought people would just magically self-organize "because they see things need to be done and do them" with no direction or planning.
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Jul 16, 2017 06:31
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You can have consensus without hierarchy, it's just that basically all of our current decision making systems are based on establishing hierarchy. This seems like a good introduction: https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/consensus It is slower than simple vote-for-majority systems and can collapse, I would suggest that it would require a substantial cultural change to perpetuate the idea that participating in consensus is virtuous, currently even our democratic practices value hierarchy, you seek to dominate your opposition and you compete with them for control and authority. Anarchists tend to disagree with that idea, and argue that even democratic majorities are not sufficiently representative of the voting base in many circumstances. A preferred system would be two-way, where issues are discussed until people agree on a position going forward. Though as the site suggests, it has prerequisites that majority-driven voting does not.
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Jul 16, 2017 07:14
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OwlFancier posted:You can have consensus without hierarchy, it's just that basically all of our current decision making systems are based on establishing hierarchy. My problem with it isn't so much that you'd need hierarchy to reach consensus, it's that you'd need hierarchy to get anything done that needs to be done quickly - the "Jim's army" attack scenario would need to be met with coordinated defense that could adapt and evolve rapidly and doesn't really have the time to discuss things with everyone in the commune and agree on them. Even if you theoretically could make that work I'd say people would still naturally and automatically fall into leader/follower roles (which admittedly could change based on the situation) in everything they do because it's just plain easier. You'd still need managers (or the equivalent of managers) to coordinate teams to get anything beyond a certain size done, etc. This person I was talking to wanted to get rid of all hierarchy, of any kind, which thinking back now I'm pretty sure was mostly for "no YOU shut the gently caress up dad!!!" reasons.
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Jul 16, 2017 08:12
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I sincerely doubt the goal of anarchism is the elimination of expertise.
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Jul 16, 2017 11:16
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Coordination of complex public services would be challenge for this reason. You can`t have every borough in a major city decide how they want to dispose of sewage and other waste in isolation for instance. Civilian air travel is made easier by the fact that all air tower controllers are trained in the same way. They use the same language, thechnical terms etc. Someone need to be in charge of making sure this continues. Currently the world`s oceans are being destroyed by too much pollution and extremely unsustainble fishing pratices. Someone needs to in charge of making sure that stops. And if that means being extremel respressive against anarchic seaside communes who decide to be selfish with resoursces everyone depends on then so be it. We live in complex and interconnected world. If anarchism is to work it must take that into consideration. Should the great revolution ever happened you won`t just be the heirs of small sustainble farming communes. But of cities filled with millions and the vast logistics network that somehow keeps civilization going forward. Organizing that from tbe bottom up in a such way that every decision is anchored in consensus will be a tad more difficult then getting everyone to exile Jim the rapist from Utopiaville. Not saying it can`t be done but i am a little but sceptical. Regarding exile: What gives a community the rigth to dispose of its human trash onto it`s neighbours lawn. Jim is the responsbility of the community he wronged. Exile is a irresponsible and selfish way to deal with criminal elements. Do what you want with Jim, but don`t make it everyone elses problem to dealt with.
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Jul 16, 2017 14:12
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Exile also has a storied history of blowing up in a community's face, one way or another. Hell, not like we don't have existing cases of social alienation connecting up enough to form their own social groups that rapidly fall down rabbit holes of terribleness without any supervision or connection to mainstream society.
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Jul 16, 2017 16:08
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Baudolino posted:Coordination of complex public services would be challenge for this reason. You can`t have every borough in a major city decide how they want to dispose of sewage and other waste in isolation for instance. Civilian air travel is made easier by the fact that all air tower controllers are trained in the same way. They use the same language, thechnical terms etc. Someone need to be in charge of making sure this continues. Currently the world`s oceans are being destroyed by too much pollution and extremely unsustainble fishing pratices. Someone needs to in charge of making sure that stops. And if that means being extremel respressive against anarchic seaside communes who decide to be selfish with resoursces everyone depends on then so be it. We live in complex and interconnected world. If anarchism is to work it must take that into consideration. Should the great revolution ever happened you won`t just be the heirs of small sustainble farming communes. But of cities filled with millions and the vast logistics network that somehow keeps civilization going forward. Organizing that from tbe bottom up in a such way that every decision is anchored in consensus will be a tad more difficult then getting everyone to exile Jim the rapist from Utopiaville. Not saying it can`t be done but i am a little but sceptical The thinking is that democratically organized communes would coordinate in a confederation of equals (sort of like in Rojava) and that truly wasteful/resource intensive practices are a consequence of capitalism rather than what would occur under communist material conditions. Municipal functions and responsibilities, like all necessary functions and responsibilities, could be hashed out democratically. Baudolino posted:Regarding exile: What gives a community the rigth to dispose of its human trash onto it`s neighbours lawn. Jim is the responsbility of the community he wronged. Exile is a irresponsible and selfish way to deal with criminal elements. Do what you want with Jim, but don`t make it everyone elses problem to dealt with. I think that's a fair critique, I'll admit I haven't spent a tremendous amount of time on thinking through precise systems on that end because 1. I think the overwhelming majority of crimes are byproducts of artificial scarcity and entitlement mindsets and 2. at some point you have to be willing to admit to yourself that your spitballing about idyllic end goals rather than addressing current reality (or at least that's how I excuse myself). There's a hell of a lot of theory on how anarchist societies could be organized and I'd encourage curious folks to seek it out. Handily a lot of it is easily available for free because, well, anarchists. And if you don't agree, hey, that's okay, we're nowhere near there anyway. Inescapable Duck posted:Exile also has a storied history of blowing up in a community's face, one way or another. Hell, not like we don't have existing cases of social alienation connecting up enough to form their own social groups that rapidly fall down rabbit holes of terribleness without any supervision or connection to mainstream society. I'm assuming this is a reference to Internet nazis, but those ideologies are produced by combinations of alienating material conditions and the proliferation of toxic tendencies within current hierarchical worldviews (e.g. the patriarchy, colonialism, &c.), and the goal here would be the abolition of those things.
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Jul 16, 2017 16:32
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Well, I was meaning more 'what happens when all the people you exile meet up and come back with guns?'
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Jul 16, 2017 18:31
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Tias posted:Sign ideas off the top of my head: My favourite is the Scottish classic, "Master race? Mair like the puddin' race!"
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Jul 16, 2017 19:09
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OwlFancier posted:It is difficult to understand an argument against unionization that is not also an argument against democracy. That's sort of rich, considering most of the laborers who originally unionized were for federated socialist democracy, which aims to empower a lot more people than any other system.
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Jul 16, 2017 19:20
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Tias posted:That's sort of rich, considering most of the laborers who originally unionized were for federated socialist democracy, which aims to empower a lot more people than any other system. Well, yes, that's my point, what is more democratic than organizing together to pursue a goal beneficial to all? Arguments used to say that's a bad thing can be turned very easily against the democratic institutions that liberals at least nominally, support.
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Jul 16, 2017 20:33
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ate all the Oreos posted:How do you enact work penalties or keep the exiles out if you have no police-like mechanism, does everyone in the entire country have to just sorta agree "Jim's a dick, we don't talk to Jim anymore"? Because I've talked to anarcho-communists who basically think that's a viable option and I've never ever heard a satisfying answer to the question of what happens the moment Jim finds a gun and meets all the other exiles and they team up to take over. Generally a anarchists believe in arming yourself. You go far enough left, and you get your guns back.
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Jul 17, 2017 02:09
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