Is rebellion possible?

there are different layers or rather nested spheres of anonymous and some of them are more serious than others and some of them are more useful than others. the outermost sphere is the kids who press the button on the ddos widget.

quite honestly i really wish i could just sit on my front porch all day and look at the trees and listen to the birds. all i need really. but then people get involved and things get complicated. trees and birds have taught me the most about life probably. and how to live.

― scott seward, Tuesday, June 11, 2013 6:36 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel u scott, but when i think about this urge i feel guilty/selfish/narcissistic.

― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan)

one of the great tragedies is that there are people like Jordan who feel guilty and selfish for feeling the urge to chill out in nature and get transcendental, and then there are lots of people who get even richer and fuck people over with stuff like subprime loans and credit default swaps don't feel selfish or guilty at ALL.

and i'm not criticizing you, Jordan - i often feel the same way when i get some time to relax

and if the frisson of purchasing never mind the bollocks or whatever is what's being mourned here, even those outermost kids definitely qualify for keeping the dream alive. (xxp 2 myself)

the political rebellion of ineffectual DNS attacks

― Bathory Tub Blues (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 11 June 2013

i thought u were just being highly demanding but in fact u don't know shit about it & are just being a loudmouth for whatever reason

neway. again rebellion reoccurs despite scorn, simulation & spectacle

modern rebellion depends on buying and wearing a halloween mask from a hollywood movie, also posting a lot on 4chan

*pats u on head*

thinking anybody can achieve anything is really overrated

i think one needs to keep in mind the reactions interwoven into apparent acts of rebellion when measuring the real costs and benefits of an action. i've seen bystanders cheer as bank windows were broken, passerby join in pulling newspaper boxes into the street to block traffic, and it was kind of neat. but starry-eyed insurrectionists fetishize that kind of stuff as ~ruptures in the logic of order~ while deliberately ignore the chilling effect brought on by the attendant crackdowns on any temporary sense of solidarity these moments engender.

it really annoys me that insurrectionary claptrap is so fashionable. i grew up on hakim bey and crimethinc, i understand the appeal, but are we past 15 yet ideologically or

xp well yeah, the people who do those things are idiots.

i don't think they're idiots because they do those things, tho i agree with Hoos that tactics need to have long term goals. i don't attribute idiocy to people who act out any more than i attribute it to people who mirror the language of hegemony by bitching and calling them "idiots"

yes--if one isn't thinking strategically one isn't really thinking at all. friend says "i'll see your tactic and raise you a strategy," which is a little pat, but i like it.

well yeah, the people who do those things are idiots.

― Spectrum, Friday, June 14, 2013 1:49 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

;) not here for debate on the advisability of property destruction & direct action, just offering a thought on the larger question from my perspective.

yes, I fall in lockstep with the MAN with my briefcase, cropped haircut and collared shirt. i walk into the office like a robot and punch the clock and I'm just a COG MAAAAAN in this dehumanizing hegemenonic machine. i am the hegemony. LOOK AT ME.

breaking shit accomplishes what, nothing. zilch. nada. it's like jerking off in the street and calling it sex. so what's the left doing here? breaking shit and playing academic party games. if a revolution does happen in some alternate universe, it sure as hell isn't going to be a left wing revolution.

hope that helped with whatever you're feeling today.

misguided energy is still energy, and forming coalitions means bringing people in and negotiating your aims, not name-calling and ostracising

To be perhaps clearer--I'm not interested in jumping off a whole discussion on this subject ~right now in particular~ (lots to do today), but later this weekend I'd like to have some back and forth on these notions if there's interest.

Just so there's no confusion that I'm resolutely refusing to defend or discuss what I've suggested.

i think one needs to keep in mind the reactions interwoven into apparent acts of rebellion when measuring the real costs and benefits of an action. i've seen bystanders cheer as bank windows were broken, passerby join in pulling newspaper boxes into the street to block traffic, and it was kind of neat.

for every bystander that joins in there are 5 people at home watching on tv who are now 100% not going to support whatever the bank-window-breakers wanted them to support

read a great speech once by a native American activist on the subject of never ruling out specific tactics in and of themselves and the need for fellow travellers not to fall out over differences of tactical approach which propositions i broadly agree with

misguided energy is still energy

― possible badger on malware thread (Noodle Vague), Friday, June 14, 2013 2:08 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a big part of what liberatory leadership is about imo--being prepared with strategic direction for spontaneous energy

also think it's a very real possibility that not every heart and mind can be won over to a cause

I want my life to resemble a poster for Les Miserable. Standing atop the chaos of revolution, THE HEART AND SPIRIT OF MAN UNLEASHED, bandana around my face, smoke in the air. I am a revolutionary.

OK, I should probably get back to work.

for every bystander that joins in there are 5 people at home watching on tv who are now 100% not going to support whatever the bank-window-breakers wanted them to support

― iatee, Friday, June 14, 2013 2:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, those people will exist. that's part of the reaction to the action taken that i had in mind.

gotta drop out for a bit

yes, those people will exist.

though i'd like to see your nielsen surveys on the fivefold increase in opposition

breaking stuff is bad, mmmmmkay?

yeah I don't think there are many gallup polls on 'do you approve of property damage as a political act' because the results are kinda obvious. it's a fringe opinion among far left-wing people and far left-wing people already make up a small percentage of the country.

maybe the political opinions that people hold are diverse and subject to change depending on circumstance

maybe that is also true of the extent to which people are "law-abiding"

i'm certainly not arguing there's an insurrectionary silent majority, nor am i the break stuff = the revo guy. i think there's room for nuance here, will bbl w/thotz.

i think self-confirmation bias could be part of it. deep down a person might want to see windows smashed, it's like spitting on the face of the man. there's a primal satisfaction in it. but it's only a primal satisfaction to the people who feel that particular way, and it's easy to generalize how you feel to existing in a wider extent that isn't realistic.

you'd never know for sure, really, you can't go inside everyone's head... the only indication would be wide-spread support among different swaths of people, and even that's hard to gauge. so go to the default of knowing that people don't like seeing property smashed up unless there's some other indication that they do in this instance.

maybe the political opinions that people hold are diverse and subject to change depending on circumstance

yeah but they change slowly nobody turns into a molotov cocktail throwing anarchist overnight and if the goal is convincing people to change their political opinions, and the group of people to convince is exponentially larger than the group you belong to, the best way to do it isn't to play by your own rules and assume they'll 'get it'. violence is scary and repulsive for people who live largely non-violent lives.

on the whole i don't think random outbursts of property destruction achieve much but i also don't think they're especially counterproductive in terms of winning converts. the present problems in terms of the forms of repression Hoos mentioned and in terms of the State using them as object lessons in its own power and the need to keep the barbarians from the gate, maybe

i mean yes, violence is scary and repulsive, but i don't want to rule out any tactic per se in furtherance of political struggle

zp i feel like that conclusion could be confirmation bias, too. another person could see it as: these window smashers are causing unnecessary mayhem, they should be reigned in. and the validity of their "discourse" is not even considered.

terms of the State using them as object lessons in its own power and the need to keep the barbarians from the gate, maybe

yeah 'the state' isn't the only one afraid of barbarians

feel kinda bad for the windows

yeah 'the state' isn't the only one afraid of barbarians

no i agree, the best policeman is the one that lives in your head

it's not just the windows. think about the effects:

there are people who work at that bank.
there are people who use the bank.
this bank belongs to the daily fabric of some peoples' lives.
the sight of violence and mayhem may upset the sense of safety and order people like having in their lives.

so i wouldn't blame people for resenting these bad-ass anarchists for smashing it up. there's more going on here than just some lumbering, monotholic banker smoking a cigar and flicking ashes on the sweaty, filthy masses ungulating like maggots at his feet for the meagrest of handouts.

a cool, bad ass revolutionary might say: WELL THEY HAVE TO WAKE UP, MAAAN. IF THEY DONT LIKE IT THEY"RE THE HEGEMONY. which is like trying to control people. and no healthy person likes that.

it seems quite possible to think that people may not be good judges of their own best interests without wanting to be the mean Stalinist who tells them what to think

but i don't think there are really reluctant capitalists. there are people who don't care, and people who don't understand, and people who are really quite cool with gross inequalities of wealth and life opportunities

yeah, this is actually pretty complex.

right you smash up some local jp morgan chase branch and it makes the lives of the tellers who make 30k marginally more difficult, jamie dimon does not gaf

xp

but i don't think there are really reluctant capitalists. there are people who don't care, and people who don't understand, and people who are really quite cool with gross inequalities of wealth and life opportunities

what does being a 'capitalist' even mean in this context

it means being really quite cool with gross inequalities of wealth and life opportunities

which is the more trite cliche:

a) capitalism is the worst system except for the rest
or b) communism is a great concept on paper

that seems a bit broad, I don't think warren buffet is necssarily cool w/ the gross inequalities of wealth and life opportunities but he is quite clearly a capitalist

xp

xxp it's hard to say if people are "cool" with gross inequalities of wealth and life opportunities. "so, you like being a slithering maggot at the feet of your ALMIGHTY MASTER CHASE BANK?" "yeah, seems alright."

there's so much going on with this that it's hard to parse out offhand on a messageboard.

that's kind of what i was getting at Mordy, people sometimes pretend that they regretfully support the existing economic order because sure, it's awful for all those people at the bottom of the heap but hey, it's the best we've got, but i don't buy the regret. because if the way we distribute resources and the way we allow people to live and die doesn't make you gut-sick deep down to the point of wanting it to change for some better way of living then i doubt you're ever going to be "persuaded" that things could be different