Can anyone answer me this?

where do we start?
how about the founding of our oh so glorious republic.
After the revolution our first president was the only one in history to not be apart of any political parties. George washington, opposed all political parties because he knew that once formed, they would fight and eventually stop progressing the united states. However for the past 157 years we've had the same two parties in and out of office (excluding Andrew Johnson); Thus squandering progress. Every four years a new president is elected, unless HE was revoted in. This would lead them to think on a short term basis rather than focusing on long term goals. In our representative democracy (or republic), the people don't have the power to decide, but they do have the power to decide who decides for them. Now that corporate and other special interest groups are allowed to fund any political campaign they choose (E.g. Target and Tom Emmer) the U.S. is pretty much fucked. Direct democracy would put the politicians out of business

These are only a few purely political reasons why this system is crap,
If you want to get into economics and human rights, do some research
i'm just throwing in my 2 cents.

 

head anywhere south of the US border, go ask someone there

 

or the Indig folks who happened to be in the way of establishing the US.

 

AHAHHA i cant believe he just asked that my choice of rant for why the government blows is

"that the government brainwashes soldiers to war to shoot and kill while to starve is the poor
wear all still wondering what its for its simply cause there money whores next wear all buying suvs to pollute the earth and live a fucked socialistic creed.." ((song im writing by the way))

 

I'll take the bait...
The problem is hydra-headed. I'm only going to speak for myself as to why I think it's despotic. I'll try to cover as much as I can. You're free to look up anything you don't understand.
There's the structural; government, economy (capitalism), emergency services (police/fire/EMS/care), banking, military, and private ownership etc.
There's the cultural (material and nonmaterial); values,religion, political leanings, cars, music, movies etc.
There's also the concept of liberty and the concept of freedom. They aren't the same. Liberty being unbridled freedom, with NO structural restraints. It's the ideal and unattainable. Freedom being the limited rights you have under some structural formation. It's an important point to make. Freedom is and will always be realitive to the structure that surrounds it. You should come to the conclusion that the more structure you have, the less freedom you'll get. This may sound like some conservative talking point, but it's not; beyond this point, people tend to splinter into seperate ideologies. Those different ideolgies have generally centered themselves around economics within some political landscape.
There is a common perception that there is a "political spectrum" and that an individual must fit, according to his convictions, into that spectrum. The government itself reinforces it and propagandizes those convictions through political parties. The problem is, there is no such spectrum. As CRASS said, "government is government, and all government is force." It is more apt to view government as a singular edifice that is built on the path as an obstruction to liberty. It matters not what party is in power as so many believe, but that government itself IS STILL IN POWER. (does it suck yet?)
The capitalist system ( U.S. economic system) was created by one man, Adam Smith, who literally wrote the book on it, "The Wealth Of Nations" in 1776. He believed in individual rights and believed that ethics should play very little to no role, stating that "the ambition of each individual will serve the common good" ( ) We, post-industrial, now know that the personal ambition of the individual is to secure enough capital to at least survive on. Everything else is secondary to personal wealth, and there is no defined boundery to what or how much personal wealth one invidual can amass. Capitalists buy into this and generally regard "the common good" as a negative. More importantly, with no ethics injected into capitalism, those at the top are free to exploit, manipulate, lie to, union-bust, extort, outsource, buy politicians and even kill to secure more capital. They do it to their own workers and the public alike. CAPITALISTS DO NOT AND WILL NOT REGULATE THEMSELVES. At least not on any ethical or moral grounds. So...what entity is large enough to enact and enforce relgulations on them? GOVERNMENT. Which puts anarchist in this paradox type dilema and why most people label anarchists as "leftists"; because not only do we have collectivist ideals, but we believe that workers are paramount and deserve protections. If they can't unionize, or otherwise organize for change, and the company won't act, what other recourse is there? Direct or insurectionary action certianly has its place but can't withstand reprisal consistantly(I wish it could), so government is the last option. I'm not on the government's side, I don't want either.
Government is still the biggest supporter of capitalism and the fact that we hold up representative government where 535 people are responsible for voicing 312 million voices is nonsense. The biggest industries all have lobbyist that live in DC and directly influence congress, where "we the people" have little to no access. (Suck now?) With free trade agreements throughout the world, collapsing economies to better suit coporate interest, propping up dictators, including Efraín Ríos Montt, who was the Guatemalan dictator that was backed by our CIA in the 80s, it shouldn't be incredibly hard to figure out why one would choose anarchy over everything else.

If you're asking us why individuals in CRASS shirts whom we don't know can't explain to you why government sucks, which could take countless resources they may or may not have, or simply are caught off guard when asked, or maybe you get conflicting " rashomon effect" type answers because people's social location can be vastly different, then I can't answer that for you.

 

i think in terms of what i see in my local community to answer this question, which fundamentally are all outcomes of the above statements. But culture and heritage in my community is constantly being eradicated to make way for corporate industries taking route and making it impossible for the working class and lower class to survive. This leads to a little thing called gentrification.

I'm not sure if you've noticed this in Pacoima. But head down the five south, take a look at all the corporate adds and business that make the way, and remember that this once all belonged to the indigenous people.


ON TOP OF MANY OTHER THINGS, i think this is a very grass roots answer of what is wrong that you should be able to see locally.

 

very nice Ryan...I'm glad someone still has the patience for a rational explanation.

 

how can we believe congress gives a fuck, should we attain the ability to have them hear us? some of the top 2% know they are stepping on the throats of billions of others in order to accrue and maintain their wealth, and some of them have the absolute abortion of an idea that poor people are poor because they choose to be. either way they are not going to listen to you or me because that would mean saying good bye to their massive incomes. this is ironic because true wealth is attained by seeing that helping others is helping yourself. there is a minimum wage and there needs to be a maximum wage to ensure no person or group of people is earning over 350 times as much as the peon working at the bottom of the capitalist food chain. being rich is social obesity. many die of starvation so a few can die of over consumption. it is a sickening state that has persisted for longer than i can truly comprehend. what can one person do? i struggle with that question often. so much money is spent on advertising, but again an irony, the most effective advertising is (usually) free and it is word of mouth. having a gentle and respectful conversation with someone is more likely to have a lasting effect on them and cause them to spread the information than talking down to them and treating them like shit (which is not to say they don't deserve it...). the prelude to action is thought. speech, if properly used, spreads thought. so speech, if properly used, spreads action. i say live your life and enjoy the little things. if you spread seeds of symbiotic autonomy along the way, you will have done your part. the good thing about the system is that it will inevitably destroy itself with or without our intervention. and then (at latest but hopefully sooner) the seeds will grow. or we will have global extinction but hey either way the universe goes about its business. and i think thats pretty fucking cool.

 

Organise.

Yeah, fuck doing anything or fighting to regain control over our everyday lives. Just sit around and think and know you don't have to do anything, cos the revo is inevitable. Karma dude, karma

 

sounds almost exactly like the conversation we had the other night, and remember your friend who was almost blaming the poor for not pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps....I forget his name but his theories were pretty whack

 

@ dogma
Doing most things through the government is a mistake and is counter to liberty as a whole. What is attainable will be caught in red tape and watered down to the point where no one will recognize it any longer.

Direct action is the best recourse, when I say that, I don't mean strictly "violent actions" but ANY action that helps people understand the real meaning of solidarity, community and anarchism. I believe we need to support all forms of resistance.

I realize the graphic is hard to see but it illustrates the importance of different social movements that should be considered under the greater anarchist movement. FOOD NOT BOMBS would be considered an alternative social movement as it is limited in scope and seeks to feed specific segment of the population; deprived, disadvantaged persons (I realize that FNB is for everyone but the aim is to serve those who are at a disadvantage). It also encorages those involved to network within their community and provide something that is regular and recognizable.
Those that promote animal rights/veganism would fall under a reformative social movement; targeting everone with a limited focus on change regarding animal rights.
Redemptive movements such as those in unions/workers rights that serve to create better conditions and protections in their workplace while promoting a radical self-management agenda that would cancel out management for good.
And the whole damn Anarchist movement as revolutionary change which tries to encompass all of the above and coalese it into a better social structure that would serve us all in an equitable fashion.
These are pretty well known examples and there are thousands of organzations like them so you have zero excuses.

What can you do? PLAN. FOR FUCK'S SAKE, PLAN LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT.

You need to know what you want to do to help others understand, you need to know your scope and realize that it should be eqiuvilate to the resouces at your disposal. So many good things have failed because the people within FAILED TO PLAN.

Good Luck.
ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE!

 

Direct action is any action undertaken by subjugated groups to lesser or abolish their oppression, not mediated by 'representational' groups or persons, and prefigurative.

 

These kids you're talking about wear these things more so as a style. Because of course to be a punk (assuming you're talking about punks) you need to be an anarchist (not).

 

I may be parsing, but I disagree on one point; "not mediated by 'representational' groups or persons and prefigurative." That's not always the case. Take FOOD NOT BOMBS as an example: They are committing to a direct action that serves living recipients to attain their goal. Those recipients have now gone to a third party (FNB) instead of 'obtaining food' from some other source directly (if they can or not is still debatable, some can but choose FNB anyway), but they are no less paticipating in direct action themselves. FNB is now acting as a symbolic 'representational' group that is being the change they want to be, and hopefully changing attitudes in doing so.

 

A couple of problems. Firstly, stating a 'commitment to direct action' does not necessarily maketh one actually engaging in direct action. For example, a propaganda publication of a vanguardist trot party in my town is titled 'direct action'.

Now, I'm not arguing that FNB is not engaged in direct action. Two points, firstly, are those within FNB not members of a working class community? Are they not taking direct action in offering mutual aid and solidarity, insofar as providing the means of subsistence for themselves and others?
Further, FNB tries to break down the divide between the provider of food and the recipient, thus attempts to break down the binary divides implicit in charity, which only act to reinforce class divisions and dependency.
Now, whether or not FNB actually does these things would kinda dictate, for me, its status as a direct action. If its just a bunch of middle class ppl feeding 'those poor people' its just charity, the only difference being the attached propaganda is anarchist rather than about Jesus or some shit.