Anews Podcast 224 – 8.20.21

Anews Podcast 224 – 8.20.21

From Anews Podcast

Welcome to the anews podcast. This podcast is on anarchist activity, ideas, and conversations from the previous week on anarchistnews.org.

Sound editing by Greg.

What’s New written by chisel, read by chisel and a friend.


Thanks to Octox and Max for TotW week conversation: Anarchist Anti-Vaxxers

Reading – AHAL reading by Bugs for Very Bad Audio Distro

Music:
1. Terry Jennings / Charlemagne Palestine – Short & Sweet
2. Disturbed – Down with the Sickness

There are 28 Comments

Eh, this TOTW seems to be about trash and landfills, not the vax topic

weird, it plays the new one for me, refresh your page or something

I really enjoyed how in depth you took the topic of the week discussion. I felt you really touched on most of the different threads in the comments while also bringing your own responses to the question.

You mentioned how it seems people are uniquely or more vocally upset about the vaccine passports compared to regular passports. While I think it's important to point out how the methods of control that we see due to covid aren't new exactly, the reason we see this ficus on the vaccine passport as opposed to the regular passport is because it is a new specific method of control that is relevant due to its placement temporally. It has not been normalized yet and so especially symbolic actions against perhaps have more of a chance to combat this normalization.

Similar arguments could definitely be made about anti war activists and how people tried to resist the normalization of things like the patriot act. Obviously they were unsuccessful in the grand scheme of things but today we can still see mappings of how 9/11 has directly influenced the control we feel in our day to day lives.

With this comparison then while obviously it might make sense for an Anarchist to just give in and go through TSA to take a flight, I think the interesting question that relates to anarchism as a school of thought less so then a body of people, is for those who do want to resist these mandates and methods of control, in what way can they be avoided?

I think you make an interesting point with how many right wing anti-vaxxers simply wish to avoid mandates in order to consume, so to counter pose that stance I think where an interesting "anarchist perspective" lies in how one can avoid the mandates/control without consumption.

Which as I e stated elsewhere, isn't to state somehow that following mandates makes one not an anarchist, just as flying doesn't make one not an anarchist, but it's at least my perspective that these should be understood as the compromises one may make, and thus unrelated to anarchism as a school of thought.

I think it's unclear in the discussion, in the middle of fast changing to different aspects of the topic, but I think the mention of passports and Patriot Act, and other more entrenched and formalized forms of control, is not to dissuade people from contesting the new ones that are popping up and could be made to go away before they entrench, but to think about the harder question about what to do about the entrenched ones that don't fade away just because a new one comes along.

The compromise and acceptance comes from the lack of power to change them. Could they ever be changed? But if we can't change them that doesn't mean we have to like them or approve of them, but we'll still have to deal with them.

Totally and I would say my stance is that they cannot be changed but that even though they can't be changed we shouldn't accept them/normalize them. As well it I at least my own project to find how can I escape these things, which goes beyond for example not just how one can live without getting the vaccine, but also without interacting with those institutions that require the vaccine. With compromise however it is very difficult for one to be completely removed from everything they are opposed to so I see compromise then as something that one cannot remove themselves yet but that I would want to move away from.

just changing the subject and insert the same dialogue such are the generalisations by both... nothing specific. Robert Malone who came up with MRNA gene therapy advises against the injection unless you are at high risk of respiractory failure. Listen to Union of The Unwanted ep 31.

Damn, good thing that there aren't any scientists working with MRNA who disagree with this guy who's decided to cash in his already modest mark on history by trying to peddle ivermectin and chatting with steve bannon and any other creep who'll give him a platform to speak on

your appeal to authority has no power here!

If you listen to Malone, he has said people on the left spectrum refuse to interview him because of his stance regards the prolific use of MRNA gene therapy as 'vaccines.' So, to get his warning out to the people, his only platform is being provided by those more to the right.

i much prefer sensible generalizations to the senseless minutia of the conspiranoid philofascistic fringe

All I know is that anecdotally the unwanted expendable classes, the activists and the infirm are dying at 8 times the rate of the elitist and the bourgeoisie, and as much as I steer away from leftist class politics, this covid virus, all diseases included, do discriminate against the poorer segment of the population.
One of the inbuilt characteristics of the capitalist systems' wealth based self-generating outcomes is the virus MO itself, the destruction of the hosts' cells is analogous to the destruction of this unproductive part of the organism (organization ), those not contributing as workers. It is the workers and the politicians who are the first to get immunized, and the anti-vaxxers are playing right into the capitalist script, they will be marginalized and further excluded from free travel and access to services and the poor of underdeveloped nations will die.
Eugenics by stealth, and with the next Lambda strain possibly emerging, with fatality rates around 10%,
Get the shot whenever you can my non-workerist friends.

It's pretty ineffective as a genocidal device.

I don't see where you're taking these 10% for the next variant, or maybe you're just trolling for attention...

No, I'm just a student of microbiological pandemics and probability, and I don't regard nature as a trifling power that is incapable of correcting any organically bred imbalance.
I study overcrowded rats in cages.

Plz tell us more about overcrowded "rat cages".

"this covid virus, all diseases included, do discriminate against the poorer segment of the population."

the virus itself does not discriminate. the living conditions of many poor folks, including health care, food availability, wages, etc, are what make the virus' impacts on poor folks much more discernable.

So, “rightwing anti-vaxxers” oppose mandates and vaxxports in order to... consume.

But not the anarchists? Are anarchists really that different from the tons of regular people who oppose NewNormalism and who are coming from all over the political spectrum, not just the right. Do most anarchists not also just basically “consume” like everybody else?

Opposing mandatory injections and the internal passport system has nothing to do with wanting to consume. If anything, it’s the people who are rushing to get injected and 100% complying with newnormalism who are frothing at the mouth to get back to consuming. The state is making the resisting of its mandates extraordinarily inconvenient for those who want to consume again (think restaurants, concerts, etc).

So I really don’t understand this point, would the collective care to elaborate?

Its not consumption per se, its the excess of consumption. But I concure about the fetishization of consumption.

The problem is definitely consumption not "excess" consumption. Where even would you draw the line?

Old grandad used to say everything within moderation, in modern terms this is ethical mindfulness. We are not like the fox enslaved by its instincts who kills ALL the hens in the coop but only eats one.

how do you define "consumption", if you say it is "the problem"? eating wildcrafted foods is consumption. burning wood for cooking or warmth is consumption.

Being right-wing, being anti-vaxxer, mandates and vaxxports are all each problems in themselves.
They were not mocked because they were so, in order to consume.
The part about consuming was mentioned when responding to those that want to adopt a consistently contrarian attitude and approach to mandates and the logic behind them, and mainstream knowledge, conventions etc.
It was mentioned that always doing the opposite of what "THEY" want you to do might lead you to do things that play into what different parties involved would want you to do. Meaning that it's best to consider your own criteria and interests instead of playing 5-d chess trying to guess multiple players' intentions and next moves.

So yes, oppose the existence of states and authority, not turn states' and authority's mandates into an inverse game of Simon Says.
Anarchists find states in themselves to be "extraordinarily inconvenient".
Meaning: vaccines give you some protection from the virus, so should you want that protection, it's there.
Complying, defying, subverting, evading any control measures is your call how and when to do it.
Disregarding astroturfing rightists punching people for wearing masks or waving american flags with signs asking to unmask the children, or commenting conspiracy theory on this site, as well as the leftists who support authoritarian measures imposed on the population "for the greater good", enforced by law police, etc.

Ok its just I take issue with this strawmanning of all who oppose the covid vaxxes as white, trump supporting Alex Jones types. Historically, the non-white diaspora have all the reason in the world to distrust the medical system and doctors, not just the legal system and cops... Remember the Tuskegee experiment?

Also, sorry, but I believe it is the people in your camp who are being unreasonably contrarian and reactive. Not to the state, but to elements of the rightwing. Basically, because they have been the loudest faction to oppose newnormalism, a lot of anarcholeftists are reflexively siding with the state and assuming the opponents of newnormalism are all AJ-trump types when, as I just mentioned, there are tons of various peoples who oppose this, for a diversity of reasons, but mainly because they correctly see whats happening as a massive step towards a police state.

Perhaps if anarchists were less interested in the opinions of liberals, and how they look, relative to the right, and more interested in a free world, perhaps more interesting things would be happening. But as it stands it would appear we are all headed towards the same totalitarian techy shithole that is France and Australia at the moment.

It's valid to point out most self-proclaimed anarchists are actually liberals.
It's valid to point out the state carries atrocities in the name of public health.
I still don't see this as a reason to foment a symbolic alliance with rightist elements.
The critique of mass-movements, the limits of protests as action, the politics of populism, apply left and right.
Painting any group with a broad brush will lead to hurt feelings due to mischaracterization.
Just as it's unfair to paint all rightists as ignorant bigoted racist Trumpists, it's unfair to characterize liberals as mindless statist sycophants feminazis SJWs.
The politics of the status quo, left and right, are philosophically and scientifically bolstered by the brightest and most competent (and most plentiful) and even charming people money can buy/fund.
The "System" is not running smoothly because "They" are dumb.
Some populist demagogues peddle the oversimplification that "They" want to keep you ignorant to keep you down.
Ideology is more complicated than just depriving you of facts and information, it's making you capable of understanding the world intricately enough to be highly effective at impacting it, yet it instrumentalizes critical thinking into reinforcing and justifying a particular worldview which underpins and drives the action.

Perhaps if rightists were less interested in nagging anarchists into a united front with them while renouncing the liberals...it wouldn't make a difference. But as it stands it would appear we are all headed towards the same totalitarian techy shithole that is everywhere at the moment. But it's not due to the failure of anarchists to cuddle with the right, but more due the scientific and technical proficiency of the technocrats in power who understand things like how virus and vaccines work (as learned by funding natural sciences), and how to better control population (as learned by funding social sciences and humanities, all with the help of computer science).

"Think harder about -fuckin- how the world works."

Pardon me, but where did I say anything about forging alliances with the right? That is not wtf I said, neither implicitly nor explicitly. They can oppose newnormalism from out of their own corner, while we oppose it from our own. We can both oppose the same thing, while remaining parallel and basically never intersecting with one another.

What I said is that we shouldn’t embrace newnormalism just because some people on the right oppose it. I once read that rightwingers like to breathe air... does that mean we should hold our breath and die?

This isn’t a right vs. left issue.

The new normal (business as usual, disaster as usual) is just another buzzword for the present, and we all compose it, rather than oppose it, from each of our own little corners, as much as it composes us. I agree that your angle of analysis remains obtuse, your forced perspective has a vanishing point. If one of us would hold our breath and die, at least we'd be getting somewhere.

And please don’t use the fact we already live in an alienating technological society to downplay and deflect from what is clearly an unprecedented further deepening of the misery and social control of everyday life. Judging from your response I am not sure you are grasping the gravity and severe implications for social struggles of all kinds that will come from the internal electronic passport system. Comparing it to the analog passports we use to cross national boundaries misses the point that we are facing an intensification, a gross expansion of prison society beyond anything I ever thought I would see in my lifetime.

I hope you're setting fire to 5g antennas with all that fury towards the technological hellspace. You're getting riled up about vaccine passports which might not amount to more than an extension of the health certificate (along with certificate of good conduct, and background check) already required for many menial jobs. Meanwhile passports and citizenships are used to hunt down people that cross borders like vermin, and making it hard for people to flee warzones.

You think you have it particularly hard because of the imposition of vaccines with the threat of more control? Recently churches were burnt in Canada due to the unearthing of the fact that schools were responsible for the death of many indigenous children. Colonialism has long imposed disease on the colonized since it arrived. Meanwhile you complain because children are required vaccines to go to school, to protect them from disease.

Even before passports existed, the way lepers were handled before a better understanding of the disease, including relatively more recently in USA (look in the histories of Hawaii, Samoa, Lousiana; read "Colonizing Leprosy: Imperialism and the Politics of Public Health in the United States" by Michelle T. Moran for a taste), was particularly Dantesque "prison society" as well.

We're all living in a cyberpunk Decameron and it's frustrating to see remakes of the same plots but with updated tech. The tired tropes of science fiction have long become the nuisances of daily life. Worry more about robocop (1987), and less about "paperless" health certificates in "the cloud". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbQh8HegLU
Focus your eyes on server facilities, cables, antennas (one more 80's rerun, ca. 1988 https://ia803206.us.archive.org/26/items/Insurrection5/Insurrection%205.pdf), and less on apps with less tracking and control capabilities than the sprawling totalitarian nudge architecture of facebook and twitter.

Nothing of what you said should downplay the fact that there is a civilized software update going on right now that will bring in entrenched soft power social credit driven control. The reason you should try and stop this update is to BUILD on it and focus on the others. The reason why anarchists have such daunting challenges is partly due to the fact that something like this happened in the 20th century and it happened during the key innerwars and post-ww2 period where anarchism/anarchy was weak and and hard power statist ideologies were strong. Anarchists are in a better place this time even though they are not as primed as they political ancestors before ww1.

Monkeywrenching a great reset should an important priority less you want the Philip K Dick in the ass society to come without at least providing a strong challenge to it. Simply slowing the cancer growth should be a goal to pursue.

In regards to 5G, you are talking about the internet and the fact that it is an addictive surrogate activity. As I said, one problem at a time but at least try to stop the thing that will lead to a new era of social credit societal control for fux sakes.

This Max guy ain't exactly Stirner. His ceding of territory to science is exactly why late state post-ww2 anarchism is in such a shitty state. There needs to be good science critique and for a time there was if we were to go back to people like Paul Feyerabend. He also has a completely uncritical idea of public health(there's no such thing as 'the public'). There are simply individuals who make marginal calculated decisions. Some of those decisions can be outside what science and state says is good.

Bring on the new age of anarchy already most of it is all science cucked at this point.

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