noavbazzer posted:
communal brotherhood based on justice and peace

lol still laughing about this

noavbazzer posted:
and honestly you guys are great but it might be somewhat conceited to think that we are gonna be the ones to figure out how to marshal support to a revolutionary movement in 21st century america and take the state. its fun to think about maybe but lets be real

doesn't this seem very pessimistic? crow wrote a lot of things in this very thread that are very realistic and possible for any of us, and don't propose any grand solutions or characterize anybody working today as the person to 'figure out how to marshal support to a revolutionary movement and take the state'

noavbazzer posted:
strategizing how to build a mass movement and rally your communities is at least way less sociopathic than "millions will inevitably die in the grand revolution that seizes state power and plasters my face on every wall and then as iron fisted IMPERATOR i will send all the academics to the fields to work and die so that they can learn and we will have equality forever"

is this, like, what you used to believe or something? why do you expect the worst from everyone else? why do you think that people are thinking like this? where was any of this in the thread?

noavbazzer posted:
im not sure you can have it both ways. shennong's idea is that this stuff can and perhaps ought to exist seperate from the state and if people start providing for their own communities the the state will naturally divest itself morally from having to do that anymore. capitalism learned its lesson and figured out that its way easier to throw us a bone, even if its only a bigger bone than the next guy has, so that there wont be unrest and violent bloody revolutions. we have even more bones now than ever like bonclay pointed out with the constant stream of whitenoise from our ipads and phones and tvs and computers etc etc

they wont stop providing services entirely until its necessary for them to do so or we are no longer necessary and the latter is perhaps what is rapidly becoming the case

right, but this is really problematic. because the welfare state hid violence, but now that it is 'withering' as shennong puts it, and takes on new repressive characteristics, it is expanding the violence to unmentioned levels, and communities are rupturing in its global wake.

our ipads and iphones and computers even, were borne by the neoliberal age. i dont think it's easy to divest this technology meaningfully from this overriding structure

noavbazzer posted:
maybe im just pessimistic and i dont see how anyone of us could formulate and transmit a message to the people in our communities that would inspire them to forget about working to make enough money to eat and watching their favorite shows and playing the new virtua fighter and selling cocaine to high school kids and participating in their social lives and their fictions and their bullshit that makes them feel happy and secure

if the answer is wait for things to get worse and then they will finally see, well then....

this is a very grim outlook on your fellow humans. i dont agree with this at all.

i saw a talk by finkelstein recently (i'll post it soon in the finkelstein thread) and he talked about how little people have faith in their brothers and sisters. this is what i see time and time again, and its very sad. he talked about how he spent much of his youth as a radical, and eventually he grew frustrated and gave up anticapitalist struggle for other life pursuits. so when the occupy movement first started up, he was skeptical, but when he heard hundreds of people were arrested at brooklyn bridge, he thought 'why am I sitting on the sidelines?' he took to the streets.

there is a wealth of experience, and sometimes people just need hope and something to rally around. that's exactly what i'm talking about

noavbazzer posted:
and honestly you guys are great but it might be somewhat conceited to think that we are gonna be the ones to figure out how to marshal support to a revolutionary movement in 21st century america and take the state. its fun to think about maybe but lets be real

but this isnt just a self-help forum? i dont think that's what the intent here is? i really, honestly doubt many people here have serious delusions of like heading up a politburo or overseeing some slave work camp or something. that's really not what i have in mind whatsoever.

noavbazzer posted:
strategizing how to build a mass movement and rally your communities is at least way less sociopathic than "millions will inevitably die in the grand revolution that seizes state power and plasters my face on every wall and then as iron fisted IMPERATOR i will send all the academics to the fields to work and die so that they can learn and we will have equality forever"

is this what you think the october revolution was about? stop reading terry eagleton and goerge orwell, bro

Crow posted:
is this, like, what you used to believe or something? why do you expect the worst from everyone else? why do you think that people are thinking like this? where was any of this in the thread?

calm down dude, im not the one having histrionic freak outs on tom's profile

right, but this is really problematic. because the welfare state hid violence, but now that it is 'withering' as shennong puts it, and takes on new repressive characteristics, it is expanding the violence to unmentioned levels, and communities are rupturing in its global wake.

our ipads and iphones and computers even, were borne by the neoliberal age. i dont think it's easy to divest this technology meaningfully from this overriding structure

certainly

this is a very grim outlook on your fellow humans. i dont agree with this at all.

i saw a talk by finkelstein recently (i'll post it soon in the finkelstein thread) and he talked about how little people have faith in their brothers and sisters. this is what i see time and time again, and its very sad. he talked about how he spent much of his youth as a radical, and eventually he grew frustrated and gave up anticapitalist struggle for other life pursuits. so when the occupy movement first started up, he was skeptical, but when he heard hundreds of people were arrested at brooklyn bridge, he thought 'why am I sitting on the sidelines?' he took to the streets.

there is a wealth of experience, and sometimes people just need hope and something to rally around. that's exactly what i'm talking about

what im saying is that for all those people who participated in occupy there were way more who didn't, and we are all familiar with the class demographics and serious problems of occupy. this is what i mean by wait for things to get worse so that people will finally see, until people have their lives and their fictions shattered by this coming violence then its a moot point because they are not going to camp out anywhere for anything. there is still an overwhelming portion of americans who get up every day real early and do things until they go to bed at night and it will take a lot to interrupt that. thats the basis of everything they have and believe in.

discipline posted:

noavbazzer posted:
im not sure you can have it both ways. shennong's idea is that this stuff can and perhaps ought to exist seperate from the state and if people start providing for their own communities the the state will naturally divest itself morally from having to do that anymore. capitalism learned its lesson and figured out that its way easier to throw us a bone, even if its only a bigger bone than the next guy has, so that there wont be unrest and violent bloody revolutions.

this sounds like antifederalism at best (anarcho-libertarianism at worst?), which I can comprehend, but at the same time capital wants the state to shift from being accountable to the people to being oppressor of the people on capital's behalf. to what end? well that's something they can argue about

but in the meanwhile, even if you have the service provision as a way to seduce the population away from their ipads, there is a political and an armed wing of every parallel state system. because the state (or capital more likely) inevitably flexes its muscles. they could care about occupy in a real way right now as anything past consciousness raising.. but if an org showed up providing barefoot doctors to rural appalachia you can bet they'd start asking questions. look at the panthers. that's when they ruffled feathers. so the trick is to build something complete and whole, something that does not just give out free breakfasts but also addresses the reasons why there are no free breakfasts. I used to dream about a community center. and sure it's a sweet idealistic start. rural people's farming too.

but the state, if it acts on behalf of capital, will then lend legitimacy to the reactionary groups providing services (charter schools perhaps) while undercutting the more progressive groups. so there needs to be a way to strategize around this as well. maybe figure out what it is the people need more than free breakfasts. dignity is a nice place to start. but how to give dignity?

this is why i think discounting oil availability as simply an unknown factor is unhelpful. i dont think its ridiculous to assert that in the coming decades oil prices will rise due to either our military adventurism or peak oil or both and that this will open up spaces where the state won't bother governing because its simply too expensive and too unimportant. and these are the spaces where things can be done and managed without the US governments intervention.

noavbazzer posted:

Crow posted:
is this, like, what you used to believe or something? why do you expect the worst from everyone else? why do you think that people are thinking like this? where was any of this in the thread?

calm down dude, im not the one having histrionic freak outs on tom's profile

haha no instead you are parading your weird sociopathic fantasies in new clothes, as if you are fooling anyone but yourself. i suggest you take your obsessive power projections elsewhere before a bully comes down and beats you down to size. it wont be me though.. *looks out across the planes* i gave up that life long ago..

noavbazzer posted:

right, but this is really problematic. because the welfare state hid violence, but now that it is 'withering' as shennong puts it, and takes on new repressive characteristics, it is expanding the violence to unmentioned levels, and communities are rupturing in its global wake.

our ipads and iphones and computers even, were borne by the neoliberal age. i dont think it's easy to divest this technology meaningfully from this overriding structure

certainly

this is a very grim outlook on your fellow humans. i dont agree with this at all.

i saw a talk by finkelstein recently (i'll post it soon in the finkelstein thread) and he talked about how little people have faith in their brothers and sisters. this is what i see time and time again, and its very sad. he talked about how he spent much of his youth as a radical, and eventually he grew frustrated and gave up anticapitalist struggle for other life pursuits. so when the occupy movement first started up, he was skeptical, but when he heard hundreds of people were arrested at brooklyn bridge, he thought 'why am I sitting on the sidelines?' he took to the streets.

there is a wealth of experience, and sometimes people just need hope and something to rally around. that's exactly what i'm talking about

what im saying is that for all those people who participated in occupy there were way more who didn't, and we are all familiar with the class demographics and serious problems of occupy. this is what i mean by wait for things to get worse so that people will finally see, until people have their lives and their fictions shattered by this coming violence then its a moot point because they are not going to camp out anywhere for anything. there is still an overwhelming portion of americans who get up every day real early and do things until they go to bed at night and it will take a lot to interrupt that. thats the basis of everything they have and believe in.

of course there were way more who didn't, but that's just how it goes. even if it is stunningly successful, for the most part you'd just have a largely passive public, with a sizeable amount of dedicated activists.

really, though, you can wait, that's a personal strategy that i don't think anyone has any business talking down to you about. but there's plenty of work to be done, and politically engaging with public opinion (this is what finkelstein stresses) is really important. the public opinion is already there in support of economic initiatives such as raising taxes for the rich, it's already there in terms of outrage, it's already there in terms of distrust of the repressive state. there is plenty to work with here for the occupy movement, as long as their present tactics are peaceful disobedience (in my opinion)

Crow posted:

A babe outside my door weeps to this chant. h()ley babey. hir parents know

haha no instead you are parading your weird sociopathic fantasies in new clothes, as if you are fooling anyone but yourself. i suggest you take your obsessive power projections elsewhere before a bully comes down and beats you down to size. it wont be me though.. *looks out across the planes* i gave up that life long ago..

lol what

really, though, you can wait, that's a personal strategy that i don't think anyone has any business talking down to you about. but there's plenty of work to be done, and politically engaging with public opinion (this is what finkelstein stresses) is really important. the public opinion is already there in support of economic initiatives such as raising taxes for the rich, it's already there in terms of outrage, it's already there in terms of distrust of the repressive state. there is plenty to work with here for the occupy movement, as long as their present tactics are peaceful disobedience (in my opinion)

dont misunderstand me, i dont have a personal strategy for being an activist because i am not an activist. thats just where im coming from when i think about the barriers to accomplishing mass action. people holding opinions about The State are one thing, but them being a part of a movement is giant leap across a big chasm.

Impper posted:
histrionic freakuot? tom was being a major dickhole in that thread. passive aggressive shit

how is it passive aggressive to abstain from posting in a bad thread and instead to compliment someone who did for doing so with dignity, and to do so in private? jesus christ you people are such blustering arrogant jackholes

babyfinland posted:

Impper posted:
histrionic freakuot? tom was being a major dickhole in that thread. passive aggressive shit

how is it passive aggressive to abstain from posting in a bad thread and instead to compliment someone who did for doing so with dignity, and to do so in private? jesus christ you people are such blustering arrogant jackholes

Haha maybe the problem here is you don't understand what 'in private' means