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Question about anarchism

Discussion in 'Anarchism and radical activism' started by ama-gi, Jan 7, 2011.

  1. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    When I was a peace punk I believed that people could set aside their differences and become equal through education. Since then I've seen lawless areas and control always defaults to the person who controls the fiercest/more people with the better weapons/most ammo.

    If the US government collapses what will stop the former Marines and Army from controlling swaths of territory around their bases and stop the Navy from using nuclear powered ships to raid coastal settlements for food? How do you stop gangs and militias from using their superior firepower and numbers to force the regular people into serfdom producing food for their oppressors?

    These questions brought me away from anarchism and to my current hybrid of libertarianism and socialism. I'm not sure if there is a way to engineer an "orderly" societal collapse without empowering the strong and the cruel.

    In before "troll"! I was a member of the Alternative Gathering Collective which included Resist and Exist back in 2000 and was a part of the "A" occasions collective in Long Beach in 2002.
     

  2. vAsSiLy77

    vAsSiLy77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    i think it depends very much on "how" the government is collapsing - in just one sudden crisis via a natural desaster or an epidemic - or at the end of a fight between the people and the state. but in both cases i think the military will have a good share of deserters, soldiers are still humans and care for their families and social relations, especially if there is something going on and soldiering for a living or career isn't an option anymore.
    i think most will just leave their bases and go home to protect their own people.
    so the hardcore gangers may not much of a big problem and if they ask for trouble, they can have it - depending on the level of organisation in the conflict zone: an organized militia (like the spanish columns in the revolution) or the more or less organized people of the area defending their homes. firepower and tactical knowledge are problems to deal with, but i think it's only common sense, that weapons from cops- and army arsenals will be seized and secured to prevent the guns ending up in the wrong hands. it's a question how well organized the people in the area are, the more the better and the less criminal chaos.
    a good example "how" the take over could work is the military putsch in july 1936 in Spain, which was defeated in the major parts of spain by the people and the cops/ military that took the peoples side.
    too bad that the germans nazis and italian fascists gave the fascist spanish military enough vital support to turn the initial defeat into a civil war that lasted three years and ended with the franco-regime.
     
  3. JackNegativity

    JackNegativity Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    All I can say is arm & defend yourself and community. Pacifism will only get you preyed upon. You don't fight bullets and bombs with flowers and tofu. I've never believed it would all end peacefully, and there will be a degree of chaos for a while after a government collapses because there are people among us conditioned to rule/be ruled. We just have to work to build our society while defending ourselves and others. Over time our numbers will increase, society will flourish and the chaos will subside.


    Or we die trying. One of those.
     
  4. punkmar77

    punkmar77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    So as a new found libertarian socialist, are you only here to question anarchism now and explain your views on why it won't work?
     
  5. vAsSiLy77

    vAsSiLy77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    come on, we survived the flu - what else could stopp us now? :D
     
  6. Random Person From There

    Random Person From There Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Ooh, ooh, I know, I know! Nuke the earth.


    On a more serious note, it really depends on "how" and "why" the Government collapsed on itself, if it's not through an ideological cause or revolution then we can take the scenario of WTSHTF (When The Shit Hits The Fan) and TEOTWAWKI (The end of the world as we know it), then that... That's really up to what happens and can't be predicted. Would there be a rise of a party? A shadow government? Complete chaos? Nazis and White Supremacists love discussing such things. And as for Anarchism, I don't see Anarchism-sans-adjectives working, more for Anarchist Communism myself.
     
  7. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    I'm not new found libertarian socialist, it is a political view that has evolved over the 18 years that I've had a coherent political view. I've been a conservative, liberal, anarchist, socialist, libertarian, and now weird hybrid libertarian/socialist. I take what works and ditch what turns out to be hyperbole or empty idealism. I have always identified with anarchists, especially anarchosyndicalists, however, the mechanics of the transfer of power from an monolithic power with the ability to wipe out all life on the planet to well armed communes trading x for y without succumbing to tribal warfare has always perplexed me. Why is this not the forum to ask for answers?
     
  8. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    Personally, I have my weapons, ample ammo, 30 days of mres and water, potassium iodine pills, radiation dcom spray, pocket ref, homebuilt IR trip alarms, and a ham radio. Being a former squatter combined with being a Marine does wonders for a person's paranoia level : )
     
  9. punkmar77

    punkmar77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    No, you're in the right place, you must understand the ridiculous amount of trolling we receive on this site so I ask in the spirit of keeping deliberate obfuscation out of debates. Please take a little time to read our "Who are we?" text and by all means continue.
     
  10. vAsSiLy77

    vAsSiLy77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    ask and you'll be given, past libertarians didn't ask but gave propaganda - not the best idea on an Anarchist and anti-capitalist site. guess it was kinda warning shot in case you have read over the line below the search box...
    just behave fair and preach not of a free market in the sky... discussions are education, promoting bourgeois half-measures is bullshit.
    me too, thats why i became arch collectivist - anarcho-syndicalist - communities based upon local relations, workers and neighbors councils are my future - we share the same needs, we share the means to fulfill them and we can mutually work together with any other community/collective which is cooperating willingly.
    i don't believe in political evolutionism, there will be a final clash, at least on the fine day when we drive the state out of it's last refuge, they will not voluntarily leave.
    thats why we must organize and prepare for this and that eventuality, including violence and armed struggle, i think we should always prevent becoming kinda militaristic or succumb to militant elitist/avantgard nightmares - mass action is the key and the multitude of ideas keeps a movement healthy, cancerous nazi shit, patriotism, religious superstitions ect. strictly excluded.
    facing the firepower and tactical odds i would like to hear whats your opinion/experience as an ex-insider about the reliability of the systems uniformed slaves if they are ordered to fight their own people - or as mentioned before, don't you think the majority of them will just desert and leave for home, if there is nothing left to "defend" because the state has lost it's last credibility to them or has already collapsed?
     
  11. nodz

    nodz Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Read Voline and Berkmann and their books on the Russian revolution, many of the soldiers deserted during the revolution so as the governement collapsed there were less soldiers to defend their principles. If the government of a modern country collapsed who would the military report too/take orders from? Many governments have collapsed in South American countries in recent years (last thirty) and were replaced by military junta.
     
  12. snookams

    snookams Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    my personal opinion is that most gangs and violence are responses to society and the pressures therein. if you eliminate the major problems that cause people to resort to violence i think that will help. melt your bullets down to make bikes!!!
     
  13. nodz

    nodz Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    My opinion is that most violence is used to protect what people have or to get what others have.
     
  14. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    @snookams Sorry to say it but gangs are fueled by underground capitalism. The battle for territory is to get more money from prostitution and drugs. If you legalize drugs and prostitution then what is left to fight over?
     
  15. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    @snookams Oh, also, lead makes shitty bikes ; )
     
  16. (Filipe)

    (Filipe) Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    ama-gi , can you tell me/us your story about how and why did you become a marine? :p
     
  17. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    * about trolling* Oh, I understand. I run an asexual blog and a D&D wiki so I keep up with all the stupid /i/ shit so I can can'c my sites before they run my hosting bills up if they decide to troll my stuff.
     
  18. butcher

    butcher Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    Yr right insofar as the absence of a functioning State apparatus does not maketh an anarchist utopia, hence you won't see many anarchists championing say the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or take yr pick of any other failed State) as an example to follow.

    The key point is that anarchism is not simple the absence of the State, but rather the replacement of authoritarian and hierarchical social relationships, currently embodied by Capitalism and the State, with non-hierarchical social models embodied in socialised wealth and direct democratic decision making practises.

    Hence anarchists are constantly banging on about organisation and prefigurative politics.
     
  19. ama-gi

    ama-gi Active Member Forum Member


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    Ok, my Marine story.

    I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, the severe beating kind of conservative. I was told that all non Christians and all popular culture was evil. I was always a voracious reader, in the 4th grade I ditched Stevenson and Swift for Voltaire and Hobbes. I suddenly started to see a conflict with my biblical teachings and the philosophers I was reading. I then began to compare the bible to my family's encyclopedia set. I began to realize that the biblical timeline did not match up with the encyclopedia's timeline. I then compared several denomination's translation of the bible to my school's, my home's, and the public library's encyclopedia's timeline. I found that each encyclopedia's timeline lined up but each translation of the bible had inconsistencies. So at age 11 I became an pseudo-Atheist. I began researching many different religions but expected to find that they were all false, which they turned out to be. My parents found about my beliefs when they found my notes that debunked Zoroastrianism. They were shocked that not only was considering other faiths as possibly true but was also trying to debunk them. They proceeded to rip apart my room and discovered my notes on the bible. At that point they threw me in therapy. They put me on meds which I stuck under my tong and spit out later.

    When I was 16 they started to have serious problems with my other brothers as well as me. By the time I was 17 they barely noticed if I was there or not. I ended up moving in with a pedophile named Marsha. She was 48 and I was 17. She tried to emotionally and physically trap me. I ended up breaking a window in the bedroom and escaping. At that point I hit the street. I ended up squatting around Orange County and later LA. I was involved in AGC. the Resist and Exist Collective for awhile. Later on I moved back down to Long Beach and participated in "A" Occasions collective. By that time I was hooked on meth.

    I'm 6'1 and normally 200 pounds. At that time I was 145. I looked like an escapee from a concentration camp. That is not hyperbole, that is literal. My mom took pity on me and moved me into a rented room. . . which happened to be rented from my drug dealer. After a few police raids I decided that I was going to either die or go to jail. I decided to die in a way that would make my family proud. At that time the Iraq war was on the horizon so I joined the USMC infantry.

    Luckily for me I damaged my feet in boot camp and ended up watching the war on tv. After I recovered and passed bootcamp they told me I could choose a new job so I picked Door Gunner for a CH53. When I got to aircrew school they kicked me for my feet and assigned me to avionics. I aced the school so they sent me to calibration school. I aced that so they sent me to Okinawa, Japan.

    This was the happiest time in the Marines. There were several humanitarian disasters including the 2004 tsunami. We worked 24 hours straight getting our birds off the ground. Our birds were the first on the scene, even before the Phillipine armed forces. They saved over a thousand lives and dropped supplies to many more people. There is nothing better than seeing a CH46/CH53 that you made fly pulling people off roofs. The way we pulled together and worked as hard as humanly possible to save lives is the reason I still wear my Eagle Globe and Anchor on my collar.

    In my experience, for every fucked up person there are five who just want to make the world a better place in the Marines. I remember watching Darfur on TV and how angry that we were that we weren't there to stop it. I've had friends who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan that showed me pictures of the kids in their Area of Operation that they "adopted". They talked about ducking in their turrets as insurgents sprayed AK47s on full auto while holding screaming kids clutching their ears in front of them. They were cleared to fire but they put that kid's life ahead of their lives.

    These are the same people who volunteer to go back because they were sicked by reports of girls having acid splashed in their face for just going to school. They want to see the people have a better and more secure future.

    Sorry for going off on a tangent. I just get sick of the stupid hyperbole that labels my friends and me as heartless murderers or government/corporate pawns.
     
  20. JackNegativity

    JackNegativity Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    That's actually turned into prolonged guerilla warfare. We're winning though.
     
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