rpg gaming
(midwest.social)
Deceptichum
Memes of ProductionAs I always say when this comes up...
If you've got a plan to make it happen before the next election, I'm on-fucking-board. Otherwise, harm reduction is not morally optional when the question is fascism vs. anyone less fascist, including neoliberal ghouls. The question of significant reduction of harm, even if in a still-fundamentally-fucked-system, is not something that can be dismissed on grounds of ideological purity, unless one holds that personal ideological purity with no concrete gain for the ideology's actual goals (and potentially significant damage to the cause) is worth the lives of millions of marginalized peoples.
Those in polities with less-fucked politics, electoral systems, and executive power than the USA might find it less necessary at present, but I would argue that the point is broadly applicable even there.
Great to hear you're on board! Please make your way to a local anarchist collective for more information.
Also, ha, "next election", good one.
Though I am curious: why are you not on board with plans that take more than one election? It's not like planning to break the system prevents you from voting in the mean time. You're allowed to have hobbies.
Also, ha, “next election”, good one.
Thanks, humor is the only thing that keeps me going in this kafkaesque nightmare of the coutnry
Though I am curious: why are you not on board with plans that take more than one election? It’s not like planning to break the system prevents you from voting in the mean time. You’re allowed to have hobbies.
I only mean that as in "If you want offer this course of action as an alternative to voting, it better take effect before the next election."
Reasonably speaking we should all be onboard for long-term planning for what comes after the fall of the current system.
... I've played enough milsims and seen enough combat footage that I could hear this image.
Like I've always said don't accept false binaries derail the train.
Instructions unclear, everyone is dead.
On the upside, we just achieved multi-track drifting.
Noooo! That's uncivil!
Civilization is the most uncivil human creation
Yeah, having no government or legal infrastructure would turn out really well for those marginalized people.
The government and it's legal infrastructure is the main source of oppression for those marginalized people. Systemic shit, comes from systems in power.
What ICE is doing right now is just a small taste of what some men will do when they think there will be no accountability. You don’t really want society to return to a state of nature.
what some men will do when they think there will be no accountability
This proves my point. The police are already not accountable. Just look at "qualified immunity", and their protections are written into the law.
Anarchy doesn't mean no accountability. It means no gods and no masters.
https://anarchymag.org/2015/08/for-the-abolition-of-police/
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/strangers-in-a-tangled-wilderness-life-without-law
...But in reality, the people in this world who act with total freedom and no responsibility are those so privileged in our society so as to be above reproach, such as the police and the ultra rich. Most of the rest of us understand that in order to be free we must hold ourselves accountable to those we care about and those our actions might impede upon: our communities and families and friends.
An anarchist is one who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.
- Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974
The police are already not accountable.
This is just obviously not true. The police get away with committing crimes sometimes, but it isn’t unlimited unaccountability like it would be in a stateless society. Even ICE, with their supposed “immunity”, aren’t roving minority neighborhoods lynching every brown person they can catch. That’s what a lot of them would like to do, and would do, if childish anarchists got their wish.
There's not unlimited unaccountability in a stateless society. Did you even read the comment you replied to? If you're gonna proselytize from your liberal high horse, at least read some theory so you can form a coherent argument
You caught me. I didn’t read your pamphlets.
Are you genuinely ignorant of the fact that anarchist theory exists? Zines and essays are great, and you should read some, but there're plenty of books too. Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bookchin... Anarchism isn't inherently childish- you just have a childish view of it
Yeah it really would. Look at how well marginalised peoples were in the Rojava vs Syria.
Rojava had a great deal of pre-existing organizational infrastructure from ~70 years of activism and irregular warfare.
I'm not saying you're wrong to knock the legs out from under the state. But I am saying, when you do, you have to have something ready for when everyone tumbles down, not just a wing and a prayer, or a concept of a plan.
We are already ready though, we do it all the time. Your local rec league, your DnD group, hell even at a protest you'll find ad hoc organization that arises from collaboration. You put people in an area, have em share a language, share stories, a culture arises. No nation state needed.
You're currently in the middle of a massive example of self governance just posting to the fediverse.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448251336440
All that being said, love you boo. @PugJesus@piefed.social your posts in noncredible defense, power tripping bastards and the rest encouraged me to make an account on here.
Oh no, man, I am absolutely not saying that it's not possible. It absolutely is possible. I'm just saying that the parallel institutions have to be set up before you knock down all the pins if you want things to go... somewhat reliably in the favor of anarchy and not nostalgia for authority.
I mean, fuck, getting five people together for a D&D group is hard enough on short notice. When the state falls, you'll be dealing with literal millions of people, all of whom have different needs, schedules, desires, reliability, and locations. Hell, as for our own little slice of the Fediverse, we've had plenty of growing pains, and unreliability was a nonzero factor in the loss of many of the initial exiles in 2023. Self-governance is possible, absolutely. But no governance is possible at scale without preparation and experience.
It's like... a collective food pantry is absolutely an alternative to a capitalist grocery store. But neither are able to serve thousands just by flinging open the doors with some volunteers and gumption. You have to know who can do what, where the goods are coming from, how reliable the goods are, how to redistribute them, how to sort them, how to deal with wastage and accidents, record-keeping, etc etc etc. Parallel institutions learn that as they operate - which is why it's so important to form them now, before shit goes down. They/You/We need the experience if there's any hope of successfully providing, even just in part, the needs of the people after a collapse of the state.
Like I said about Rojava - they had parallel institutions, even though they hadn't replaced state institutions, ready to go because of a long history of pre-existing activity in those sectors. And also because some of it has been tied in with traditional Kurdish cultural institutions, which is conditionally helpful, but not always desirable depending on the... traditions of one's region. I wouldn't trust the pre-existing social structures of my hometown in deeply conservative America, for example, as a auxiliary to developing an anarchist society. In fact, I would posit the opposite. So that option isn't always there. But the lack of 'friendly' cultural institutions just makes things take a little more time and effort, that's all.
Be Rojava. Be CNT-FAI. Be ready for the opportunity. Otherwise, you'll have a hard time competing with other, more established parallel institutions that are NOT anarchist (churches, ideological orgs, clans or social groupings, etc), and likely be unable to draw majority support away from them. A better tomorrow means very little to most people if they lose a loved one today. If Trusty John's Church-And-Gas-Station is giving medicine to True Believers when the state falls, and anarchist parallel institutions aren't ready to do the same, most people with sick loved ones are not going to take the better future. They're going to take their loved one's short-term survival.
When the traditional state failed in Somalia, warlords and traditional patriarchal clan structures took its place. If you don't have parallel institutions ready, that's exactly what will happen anywhere else - warlords and local traditions of conflict resolution, which are often not in-line with anarchist ideals.
Thank you, by the way, hearing that my posting amuses always brightens my day!
When the traditional state failed in Somalia, warlords and traditional patriarchal clan structures took its place. If you don’t have parallel institutions ready, that’s exactly what will happen anywhere else - warlords and local traditions of conflict resolution, which are often not in-line with anarchist ideals.
Regarding Somalia I think a larger influence was/is external colonial powers who are greatly incentivized to build systemic systems of oppression that are leveraged to create out groups and encourage genocide. Specifically the Isaaq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaaq_genocide
These systems you're explaining though, they organize themselves from mutual aid groups currently doing the work. We're in agreement. I just wanted to express the fact that every person practices self governance in their day to day life. Being like Rojava, it builds from a pattern of collaboration. Self governance is a habit. Jineology is a prime example of that. Plus, believe it or not, femme bodied people are often the best shots.....
Ask Chiapas, it went well for them.
Not like governments are the leading cause of marginalized oppression.
Governments don't build infrastructure, people do, governments gatekeep infrastructure
Para todos todo, para nosotros nada
Can it be worse than genocide?
Yeah, it could extend to the diaspora in the US. Which is what would happen if the US was in a state of anarchy.
The visionary answer is yes, a totally controlled society.
The historical answer is no. But nuclear war is still on the table.
Compare Brazil, a country with endemic corruption to the point of anarchy. Gangsters regularly murder political opponents. And has a particularly high prison population. So yeah, pretty bad.
Turns out solving systemic problems through destroying systems is like digging a hole in the beach. We have to provide better systems as alternatives. Which is why we support lemmy.
I don't think you know what anarchism is.
Compare Brazil
Brazil has an enormous institutional government both at the national level and via the various local mayoralties. Totally nuts to claim the second largest armed force in the Americas is "no government or legal institutions". FFS, they did a soft coup with Operation Carwash that amounted to a defacto military dictatorship, until Bolsonaro basically shat himself out of office.
Turns out solving systemic problems through destroying systems
What system did Brazilian anarchists destroy?
The closest you could claim was Bolsonaro's devolution of authority to corporate-aligned lackeys in the major metro areas. But then you're in the position of claiming Kleptocracy and Corporationism are the same thing as No Government.
And you're still left explaining how Lula's been gradually clawing all that power back up to the top or where his sweeping economic reforms are coming from.
