How do you stop them from existing? “Hey, how about the [x+1] of us work together on the things we can agree on so we can outvote the people who don’t agree with us” is a winning strategy people are going to pursue if there isn’t a rule against it, but it’s hard to create effective rules against that sort of thing without blowing up the whole right to free association.
That’s absolutely valid question. And it’s not as radical or as hard as some people might think. As recently as the early 20th century we were much closer. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the comedian Adam Conover. He had a video not too long ago specifically addressing this and making a number of good points. About how all the parties not just the Democratic party. But Democrats in particular we’re much more local and Community focused before the latter 20th century. That the centralization and siloing of power in the National Party is What’s led to a lot of the problems with the current Democratic party and others. And they’re seeming lack of desire to actually listen to what people want.
As an anarchist I am absolutely all for Mutual Aid and cooperation. 1,000%. The problem comes from giving control to the National parties. National parties should serve the state and local parties. Not to be the leader of the people and the state parties.
Huh, I haven’t had time to watch that Conover video, but it sounds a bit like arguments I heard on this “Know Your Enemy” podcast episode where they interviewed a couple of political scientists who wrote a book called “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics” that sounded interesting enough to at least get on to my reading list, so that might be something you’d dig.
At any rate, I completely agree the national Democratic party is awful and tone deaf and out of touch, and I do think the centralization doesn’t help (like, if I have to hear one more liberal from California or New York tell me that Medicare for All lose us votes in the rust belt and then immediately start pushing gun control policies I’m going to scream (I scream a lot)). And I do like the idea of a political leadership who organizes around local issues and makes things like mutual aid and bail funds part of their political work (which is something the old school hyper local parties would do, though a lot of people called it corruption.
That all said, I’m not sure if it’s centralization or if it’s just oligarch money in a world without campaign finance laws steamrolling us, and I’m just as worried about, like, the Democratic party of Louisiana or Montana or New Hampshire or somewhere doing horrible bigoted shit that gets a local majority because redneck shitholes drive out almost everybody who disagrees eventually. Like, this is pretty much exactly how Jim Crow went for the first half of the 20th century and we do not want to go back to that.
Also, I wonder to what degree the decentralization was just a thing induced by the availability of technology when power structures came into being (like, for example I think we would have had more New York politicians running around Chicago when they were setting up if it didn’t take 2 or 3 days to go back and forth at the time) and if it isn’t kind of inevitable.
Either way, I definitely agree whatever the national Democratic party is doing isn’t working. Also, I wouldn’t exactly call myself a good spokesperson for anarchism because I’ve got a few state-ish sympathies in my brain (that one time the feds sent the national guard into Little Rock to fuck up some segregationist assholes was tight), but I will say that most hierarchies of authority are bullshit (maybe necessary bullshit, but they are still total bullshit that end up empowering the dumbest assholes), and anybody who says stuff like “we need to respect the office” make me want to light a bong with a burning flag and blow the smoke in their face (yes, that would be a lot of things to juggle and I would probably end up lighting myself on fire, but I guess that sends the right message too).
Centralization leads to corruption. Corruption leads to oligarchs. Oligarchs lead to centralization. As long as human nature exists they can’t be separated.
Technology enabled the vast expansion of centralization. But those at least aren’t so intrinsically linked. If we can survive the onslaught of AI coming there may be some hope.
Peoples and nations are natural. But relinquishing power isn’t. And that’s the problem. As a people/Nation there’s often no problem with mutual aid. But in the last few hundred years that concept has been stretched and strained to the point of breaking. We aren’t one people. We aren’t truly a nation. And there is nothing wrong with that. We need to get back to a point where we can be. We need to take power back because the national parties are simply incapable of representing us, even if they wanted to.
We can still have continental unions and congresses where it makes sense. But power shouldn’t be unquestionable, allowed to calcify and harden under the inscrutably detached weight of history. Anyone that would pretend not to question the founding father’s should be questioned themselves.
Part of why people feel disengaged and trapped for better or for worse is that calcified bulk. Often times not understanding why something was done, and just as often not being able to truly object that something was done. Genocides being funded or ordered in our name despite our objections to it for instance. They do it precisely because they don’t respect our wishes.
Power should never be secure. Never beyond being questioned. I mean just look what happened with even the slightest pushback. When CEOs found out that they were just as expendable as everyone else. When a single person took it upon themselves. The lot of them are terrified. And that’s the way it should be. All power should have an expiration date. It should never be indefinite whether in simple appearance or fact. Even if that means every generation must re-ratify every treaty law and agreement. They will value it and understand it more for their participation in it.
How do you stop them from existing? “Hey, how about the [x+1] of us work together on the things we can agree on so we can outvote the people who don’t agree with us” is a winning strategy people are going to pursue if there isn’t a rule against it, but it’s hard to create effective rules against that sort of thing without blowing up the whole right to free association.
That’s absolutely valid question. And it’s not as radical or as hard as some people might think. As recently as the early 20th century we were much closer. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the comedian Adam Conover. He had a video not too long ago specifically addressing this and making a number of good points. About how all the parties not just the Democratic party. But Democrats in particular we’re much more local and Community focused before the latter 20th century. That the centralization and siloing of power in the National Party is What’s led to a lot of the problems with the current Democratic party and others. And they’re seeming lack of desire to actually listen to what people want.
As an anarchist I am absolutely all for Mutual Aid and cooperation. 1,000%. The problem comes from giving control to the National parties. National parties should serve the state and local parties. Not to be the leader of the people and the state parties.
Huh, I haven’t had time to watch that Conover video, but it sounds a bit like arguments I heard on this “Know Your Enemy” podcast episode where they interviewed a couple of political scientists who wrote a book called “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics” that sounded interesting enough to at least get on to my reading list, so that might be something you’d dig.
At any rate, I completely agree the national Democratic party is awful and tone deaf and out of touch, and I do think the centralization doesn’t help (like, if I have to hear one more liberal from California or New York tell me that Medicare for All lose us votes in the rust belt and then immediately start pushing gun control policies I’m going to scream (I scream a lot)). And I do like the idea of a political leadership who organizes around local issues and makes things like mutual aid and bail funds part of their political work (which is something the old school hyper local parties would do, though a lot of people called it corruption.
That all said, I’m not sure if it’s centralization or if it’s just oligarch money in a world without campaign finance laws steamrolling us, and I’m just as worried about, like, the Democratic party of Louisiana or Montana or New Hampshire or somewhere doing horrible bigoted shit that gets a local majority because redneck shitholes drive out almost everybody who disagrees eventually. Like, this is pretty much exactly how Jim Crow went for the first half of the 20th century and we do not want to go back to that.
Also, I wonder to what degree the decentralization was just a thing induced by the availability of technology when power structures came into being (like, for example I think we would have had more New York politicians running around Chicago when they were setting up if it didn’t take 2 or 3 days to go back and forth at the time) and if it isn’t kind of inevitable.
Either way, I definitely agree whatever the national Democratic party is doing isn’t working. Also, I wouldn’t exactly call myself a good spokesperson for anarchism because I’ve got a few state-ish sympathies in my brain (that one time the feds sent the national guard into Little Rock to fuck up some segregationist assholes was tight), but I will say that most hierarchies of authority are bullshit (maybe necessary bullshit, but they are still total bullshit that end up empowering the dumbest assholes), and anybody who says stuff like “we need to respect the office” make me want to light a bong with a burning flag and blow the smoke in their face (yes, that would be a lot of things to juggle and I would probably end up lighting myself on fire, but I guess that sends the right message too).
Centralization leads to corruption. Corruption leads to oligarchs. Oligarchs lead to centralization. As long as human nature exists they can’t be separated.
Technology enabled the vast expansion of centralization. But those at least aren’t so intrinsically linked. If we can survive the onslaught of AI coming there may be some hope.
Peoples and nations are natural. But relinquishing power isn’t. And that’s the problem. As a people/Nation there’s often no problem with mutual aid. But in the last few hundred years that concept has been stretched and strained to the point of breaking. We aren’t one people. We aren’t truly a nation. And there is nothing wrong with that. We need to get back to a point where we can be. We need to take power back because the national parties are simply incapable of representing us, even if they wanted to.
We can still have continental unions and congresses where it makes sense. But power shouldn’t be unquestionable, allowed to calcify and harden under the inscrutably detached weight of history. Anyone that would pretend not to question the founding father’s should be questioned themselves.
Part of why people feel disengaged and trapped for better or for worse is that calcified bulk. Often times not understanding why something was done, and just as often not being able to truly object that something was done. Genocides being funded or ordered in our name despite our objections to it for instance. They do it precisely because they don’t respect our wishes.
Power should never be secure. Never beyond being questioned. I mean just look what happened with even the slightest pushback. When CEOs found out that they were just as expendable as everyone else. When a single person took it upon themselves. The lot of them are terrified. And that’s the way it should be. All power should have an expiration date. It should never be indefinite whether in simple appearance or fact. Even if that means every generation must re-ratify every treaty law and agreement. They will value it and understand it more for their participation in it.