Anarchism

Cross-posted from "The taxman always gets their due" by @Db0@dbzer0.com in !dbzer0.com@dbzer0.com

Author's Note: Initially I was planning to just post it here, but then I though, "hey I have an actual blog for this reason". So anyway, I'm just crossposting here anyway :)

Someone made the comment about the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO and mentioned that the clients to private security forces are going to skyrocket. This is true.

It made me think of how much companies like these have profited from lobbying the government to remove their social contributions (i.e. taxes) while also being directly responsible for destroying those social safeties themselves.

The companies constantly lobby the government to reduce or remove their tax burden while retaining their state protections. But they don’t recognize that the more their actions erode the life of the working class, the more the social contract people accept to not take matters into their own hands is discarded.

As such, you start seeing things like assassinations and kidnappings, which in turn force the rich to use the money they saved by not paying taxes, to pay for private security instead.

This naturally leads to a more and more polarized society where the rich live in increasingly isolated and defended enclaves, while the proles live outside in slums and favelas. Sometimes directly next to each other, as this iconic photos from Sao Paolo exemplifies.

Of course, eventually, the dissolution of the social contract is going to make even this insufficient. More and more wealth will need to be used merely to protect their life and property, once the state has been sufficiently defunded, until at some point, you own private security will be either so powerful as to become a de-facto state, or they will turn themselves against the rich and claim their wealth for themselves.

Under capitalism, the taxman always gets their due.

Crossposting for mutual aid. I'm not the op.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/18893269

I have recently become involved in the "Trans Housing Network" which was started by xilliah@beehaw.org. I am in the midst of restructuring this into a broader "Trans Solidarity Network", a network of mutual aid communities across the United States. Due in large part to a rapidly evolving political situation in the US trans people are going to have to rely more and more on community to provide aid to them. The government of the US cannot be trusted to provide that aid. Trans people in deep red states may need to escape from them, many of whom do not have the resources to do so on their own. Trans people arriving in blue states will need help finding their feet and accessing care in their communities.

In that vein I am interested in building communities of trans people in localities across the US. You do not have to have anything to be a part of a mutual aid organization. Mutual aid means the community coming together and providing for each other. It means support networks without hierarchy, where your action has a direct impact on the lives of others.

Those with means are important here. Cisgender people can also be part of our mutual aid communities. We need people with a spare room, people with cars, people who can invest a few hours of their week checking in on their community members and giving food and emotional support to those that need it. Don't bother if you're close-minded or you're not open to being corrected on transphobic behavior. We are creating these networks to liberate trans people and protect them from violence. It goes without saying that transphobic people are not welcome, and that a level of scrutiny will be applied to new comers.

This whole thing is an entirely new project that I have been working on since the results of the election were declared. I am following principles of mutual organization and assistance. This is not a charity organization by any means. It is a way for trans people and allies to come together in light of extraordinary circumstances and help each other to be safe and healthy and secure.

The plan I have is (eventually) for communities to be relatively cut off from each other, and to be based around region. Right now in our earliest stages people from all over will be brought together, and as numbers grow will be divided into smaller regional groups. Keeping people geographically close to each other in touch and building networks of communication that extend longer distances. Financial contributions would be person to person, not person to entity to person. If you have money and want to contribute the best way to do so is by joining yourself and becoming a part of this network. I do not have interest in making a formal non-profit or charity organization. This is about private individuals helping each other when the government will not help us (or actively tries to harm us). I am looking for ways that international aid can be provided as well. If you live outside the US you can join the broader mutual aid network but what we need most of all is those who can provide direct assistance.

I am also looking for people who have experience with mutual aid, people who have experience with self-hosted technology, and people who are connected with groups on other social media to promote and spread word about this solidarity network. We need diverse skillsets to provide support to those who need it. Nothing is categorically unhelpful in a mutual aid group.

If you are interested in joining my efforts (which are very early on in terms of development) please message me on Matrix @ladyautumn:chat.blahaj.zone or email me at TransSolidarityNetwork@proton.me.

TL;DR: Is it possible to define hierarchy, as a useful term for communication and association between anarchists? If so, what are some of those definitions?

There are many different strains of anarchism, and specially since anarchists mostly believe in decentralization, I feel like many of our efforts go diluted for lack of collective organization. Sure, there are big anarchist collectives doing work out there, but I have the sensation that most youth or influential people who identify themselves with anarchist causes get lost in the plot simply for lack of a bigger movement. For most of the modes of anarchism there is one big bad evil guy, commonly named "hierarchy"; although writers and academics define those terms in their publications, I can't help but notice, at least in the forums I've been around, your average anarchists could be talking about two completely different concepts of hierarchy or oppression. Maybe if we had agreed upon definitions to those hot topics it would be easier to associate. Is that even possible? That we all agree on the same meaning for a word? Do we call Chomsky to solve this linguistical issue?

Or am I completely wrong in my questionings?

Came across this site while looking for the manual for the robot dogs now patrolling trump's place, looks like a great source of helpful info.

Why do you believe in it, do you approve it in theory or also in practice? I think a lot of people approve of anarchism in theory but rejects the possibility of it to be put in practice unless we live in an utopia.. which I don't think we do, unfortunately. Maybe techno-anarchism would be more practical? Technology is such badly regulated and ordinary people are punished harsher than corporate so I really think techno-anarchism deserves a lot more attention (not saying anarchism itself doesn't) I see a lot of people here are more knowledgeable than me so don't take my word so seriously, maybe I shouldn't be expressing my idiot thoughts on it, or maybe just embrace it and ask regardless of any shame I might get.

I'm not trying to be mean to anyone, just genuinely wanted to discuss with whoever is willing to chip in on the topic.

Havnt looked into the actual thinking behind anarchism. Played a lot of 2b2t.org back in my day so thats my reference point. Please enlighten me on your thinking.

Hi! I apologize in advance if this is not the place for such posts.

I have recently happened upon descriptions of anarchism and its core ideas and, to my surprise, realized that I very much agree with all that I read. I would like to figure out what can I do to at least make an attempt to change the world into this direction.

Thing is, I grew up and currently live in Ukraine. I'm not sure what can I even do when my country is in a state of war, especially considering I'd rather not stick around in public places too much (being a guy and all).

Are there any online communities for Ukrainian anarchists that anyone knows of? I would also welcome any materials you think would be useful to study for someone new to anarchists' ideas

Thank you for reading this!

Note: This is not a Sovereign Citizen thing. It's intentionally anational: It doesn't matter where you were born or who you were born to, everyone should have the same chances. Similar to Fridtjof Nansen's stateless passports in the 1920s or Garry Davis's world citizen passports.

A philosophical project for an open source non-government ID: https://memdeklaro.github.io/

Article: https://medium.com/@memdeklaro/self-declaration-of-identity-memdeklaro-de-identeco-5fd96231da44

There’s no central database, just a self-declaration of your (self-chosen) name, birth date, photo and signature that you print yourself.

Looks similar to the Digitalcourage ID (https://shop.digitalcourage.de/gadgets/lichtbildausweis-mit-selbst-waehlbaren-daten.html) and World Citizen Passport (https://worldcitizengov.org/what-is-the-world-passport/).

Beefing up the institutions through which the fascists will enact their policies is complicity. Normalizing violence against the people that the fascists intend to target is complicity. Turning over the communications platforms via which people share information is complicity. Discouraging people from the kind of tactics one needs to fight against a fascist regime is complicity. Over the past four years, the Democrats have done every single one of these things.

I was originally planning to copy the whole post in a lemmy body, but mastodon makes it too painful to copy-paste as it truncates each link and images have to be copied manually. I also don't know if it fits in a post body. Anyway, If anyone wants to try their hand at copy pasting it in its entirety here, feel free.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the bombing at a Chicago workers' rally in 1886 and the trial, execution and subsequent pardoning of anarchists blamed for inciting the attack. Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the notorious attack of 4th of May 1886 at a workers rally in Chicago when somebody threw a bomb that killed a policeman, Mathias J. Degan. The chaotic shooting that followed left more people dead and sent shockwaves across America and Europe. This was in Haymarket Square at a protest for an eight hour working day following a call for a general strike and the police killing of striking workers the day before, at a time when labour relations in America were marked by violent conflict. The bomber was never identified but two of the speakers at the rally, both of then anarchists and six of their supporters were accused of inciting murder. Four of them, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies were hanged on 11th November 1887 only to be pardoned in the following years while a fifth, Louis Ling, had killed himself after he was convicted. The May International Workers Day was created in their memory.

It's Going Down

How do you organize mutual aid in a city without power, water, and internet?

Don't miss our latest episode of This Is America, featuring an interview with someone from Rural Organizing and Resiliance (ROAR) and volunteers @firestorm in #Asheville.

We discuss how hundreds of people across the city came together following #HurricaneHelene in mass meetings and helped to organize autonomous disaster relief and mutual aid. ROAR speaks about the challenges of mobilizing in rural areas.

We also speak with the two hosts of 'The Dugout' a Black anarchist podcast, roundup resistance news, and talk about how Trump is already moving to contest the next election.

Just looking for ways to get involved with my community at the local level. Seems like the kind of thing you have to ask around for.

This goes to all the peeps who support parliamentary voting as a valid political action.

If your society has been steadily progressing towards fascism for decades regardless of your voting (like the USA has been), is there any point, any action which will convince you that voting ultimately doesn't work?

Is so, what is it? What would your government have to do for you to acknowledge that voting doesn't matter? For many people, it was of course, supporting genocide (which is why so many states desperately try to deny a genocide is ongoing). But if genocide isn't, what is yours?

Eventually a society which has been slowly progressing towards fascism regardless of voting, will become fascist. And we all know what comes after that. There's always one thing where I think even the most hardcore parliamentarian will agree that voting ultimately didn't work: When they're personally being force-marched to the mass grave-sites.

Would that be your point? Or does it come earlier? If so, when?

I know these federated communities exist as well as raddle, but it still seems like most people will stay on toxic and corporate-run platforms like reddit or Twitter. I'm far from perfect myself and I still use reddit sometimes, especially for more niche communities, but when it comes to ideologically strong communities like the anarchist ones, it just feels wrong that the majority still hang out on reddit. Or you know, moving to something like Bsky when Twitter became too toxic but which is still run by a large, for-profit corporation (if they moved in the first place). What are your thoughts? Is there any justification for this?