TOTW: 9 Years Later (BA reference)

It has been nearly 20 years since the WTO and the introduction to the American public of anarchism and our concern with matters small and large. What has changed in that 20 years? What has stayed the same?

In this time of low morale, what still excites you about anarchism as a public position? Do you think anarchists should continue to go big (in the spirit of tortoises and class struggle) or should be become indecipherable and inscrutable (like the French texts so many seem to love)?

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why is the title 9 years later when the post / article says 20?

It's a reference to the hardcore punk band Born Against. Some of us appreciate it.

I was against the WTO and did research and activism about what they did. Globalization did it's thing and did all of what its resisters said it would and more unhappy stuff too. In fact, much of what has happened has created a more widespread discontent with capitalism and interested in other things outside of the system. I think creating spaces where people can live their cooperatively and show how anarchism can ease or take away much of the struggles of capitalism in their daily life in concrete ways will allow people to see the choice between struggling under capitalism and living free in anarchistic communities or even on their own like alternative-living travelling people. Globalization connected us to the world in an unhealthy capitalistic way. Localization in anarchistic communities creates the opposite by connecting people to each other to people around them which also provides an alternative to modern screen social media mediation. We can occupy autonomous zones that are already owned but in a non-owner way where we don't have to pay for it so people are free to live off the land. We can create collectives that live together. There's places like this. Message it if you are interested. https://www.facebook.com/groups/388751901308125/ There's also a video I found that might be cool about someone being interviewed about anarchism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F73Z1BKhIs

love that pic for the TOTW, speaks to me, kind of hurts a little! think i'm having a feeling!

are the French texts themselves indecipherable and inscrutable or are the French texts proposing that anarchists become indecipherable and inscrutable?

Also, may I have a list of texts and authors that speak to this French phenomenon?

Please and thank you.

and deleuze, guattarti, foucault, baudrillard, debord, oh my!

How else to secure your place as an academic? Decades and decades of "wtf did you even mean?!", then you die, then it turns in to a game of telephone with everyone bickering about their misinterpretations.

At least some people, from reading Pomo, began to comprehend "the Other' , which is basic for critical sociological thinking.

it's the biggest antagonist of the US Left, Trump, who's the first major State actor to be standing in the way of the WTO.... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/30/trump-world-trade-organi....

For 24 years, one or maybe two generations of liberal socialists who went Democrat have completely failed to cause any harm to the global neoliberal agenda, that's rather been torn apart pretty easily by some retrograde, full-on bigoted buffoon who's today's best equivalent to Mussolini. Could only happen in Muhrika!

You expected them to "cause harm" to the rich instead of regular people? Why?

Maybe because they at least used to be anticap, which means "let's focus our efforts mantling the capitalists and their system, instead of those being pwned by it on a daily basis", duh.

Now you gotta explain me why should I (you) have expected them to instead cause harm to regular people... because they went smashing windows and fighting cops for a moment back in '99? What's it gotta do with attacking randos? Is your inflammatory reactionary bigot showing, all of a sudden?

where to even start here … you come off as hopelessly troll or randomly hostile or both?

perhaps my favourite part of this gibberish is how you could have possibly have gotten "reactionary" from what I said

they’re probably drunk, or under the influence of another substance, as is more common than you think.

but also, i’m merely projecting, they’re are probably sober, most times people one disagrees with are sober.

cheers.

Aren't we all?

it might be more interesting and helpful to meditate on the past 9 years or so after all....

I agree that the WTO ushered in a false feeling of "the golden age of radical politics" for some, but no, things have largely been the same AND gotten worse. A lot of that inspiration carried over into the occupy movement which had some mildly interesting elements but was just a repetition of boring activist organizing The megalomaniacs, across the whole political spectrum, have continued effectively fooling themselves as being the smart guys/gals in the room and eroding the sanity of their colleagues.

"Do you think anarchists should continue to go big (in the spirit of tortoises and class struggle) or should be become indecipherable and inscrutable (like the French texts so many seem to love)?"

Ya know, i would have thought the knee-jerk anarchist prejudice against binaries would have revealed that this is another dead end question, but I'm glad people are still using poetry...

ahhhh the cul-de-sac of nihilist analysis, plain as day!

"every TOTW of the week is a dead end question! why even have topics?! why even have a website?! what even IS? Or isn't words..?! Wha? BLARGH … " … and then … silence...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ukmjBSQY-c

you didn't even give me any credit for my appreciation of poetry, and you put words in my mouth like you always do. And you assume intellectual superiority, like you always do.

I seriously don't understand how it's possible to not be depressed when thinking in the terms of the TOTW. Politics. Please, don't shut down acidic skepticism in favor of "productivity" and "hope", even if it means you are just angrily sitting on your laptop grumbling about the kids on the street.

Plenty of hours in the day for me to grumble about kids on my lawn AND make some sport of how the obvious rebuttal is - GO MAKE YOUR OWN SITE THEN. As for me, I'm too lazy and inept to go to all that trouble.

PS: I promise to stop assuming the day the situation changes?

In a world of devoid of emancipation
Like leaves, too many question marks
On my conscience, why?
Why look up?
The ground is so much more pleasing
And it's where these eyes belong
I renounce
I renounce myself
What I have become is not
What I wish to be
Break my neck
I've become too accustomed to hopes
Hope's cruel grasp
Progression or regression
It all ends the same
In a world devoid
Emotionless
In a life such as this
Only death is certain
So why wait
Break my heart
Cut my throat
When everything has ended
What have we accomplished?
Slaves by design
Break my neck

captured the emotional forte of the whole exchange and situation.

Yeah, that one's the first hit but since I'm an old fart, prefer Simon and Garfunkel, plus it's just actually better.

DIDNT I SAY OFF THE LAWN?!

IM TIRED OF ALL THESE WEBSITE WHY HAVE A WEBSITE BLLAARRGGG, IM JUST A STUPID FLINTSTONE NIHILIST WHO BASHES CLUB ON THINGS AND CRIES FOR WILMA TO BRING ME SOME JUICY MEAT

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