anarchotoothbrushist
joined 1 year ago
Great video! He made some really solid points. I hope some of the audience of Contrapoints sees it.
Prefiguration really is the answer in so many cases. I think he could have emphasised, though, that while the road to rebuilding a real revolutionary left is long, every step along the path of prefiguration can and does make a practical difference to people's lives. The pressure that can be brought to bear on elected officials will also grow little by little.
Regarding disengaging from electoral politics, I think that radicals, since they're people who are very interested in politics, have often become so highly engaged with electoral politics that they find it difficult to kick the habit. Also, I think there's a perception that keeping up with the minutiae of bills and appointments is essential for being taken seriously when discussing politics.
I'm no expert, but I'd imagine figuring out a (safe) way to use it with your water heater would be the low-hanging fruit, in terms of least-complexity for the amount of grid consumption you'd potentially save.
A complete tear-down simply confirms the end of the status-quo, with no implication of anything better rising from the ashes.
Most anarchists would advocate a strategy of 'prefiguration', often summarised as 'building the new world in the shell of the old'. You don't have to tear down the old system before you start building its replacement.
In anarchy, those with power reign supreme over those without. Most power and resources are already consolidated in a tiny minority.
Once a society has reached a condition of anarchy, there would, by definition not be a tiny minority with a concentration of power and resources. Anarchy means no rulers/authority.
Boycott HP: https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp
HP-branded corporations play key roles in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. They are complicit in Israel’s occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid regime. They provide computer hardware to the Israeli army and maintain data centers through their servers for the Israeli police. They provide the Itanium servers to operate the Aviv System, the computerized database of Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority. This forms the backbone of Israel’s racial segregation and apartheid.
Did the people downvoting this post even watch the video?
It's been a while since I watched it, but I think it'd be accurate to say the TL;DW is basically that we shouldn't care about 'left unity' if that means abandoning vulnerable people and reliquishing our deepest values. Essentially, if 'the left' doesn't deliver safety for us and the people we love, then 'the left' can suck it.
I would have thought people on an anarchism community could appreciate that, and if they don't, then they need to do some thinking, and maybe learn some history to see how anarchists have responded to demands of 'unity' and been persecuted in its name.
view more: next ›
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism