Best Article on Occupy Movement
Check this out at
posted by Larry Gambone at
4:21 PM
Sunday, October 16, 2011
A blog devoted to my interests which include anarchism and social movements, history, archeology, and anything else I choose to write about.
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5 Comments:
Thanks for this heads up, Larry!
"...its underlying spirit is strongly antiauthoritarian, drawing inspiration not only from recent popular movements in Argentina, Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Spain and other countries, but from anarchist and situationist theories and tactics..."
Kind of hard to see this. The rallies/gatherings are composed of disparate groups, yes, but they are also surprisingly homogenous in their demands.
What's going on is the age-old game of "lobby government for your demands".
Look at the attendees: leftist politicians, trade unionists, environmentalists, tax-the-rich income redistributors, anti-big business, advocates around homelessness, poverty, sexuality, race, and students, together with anti-war types.
NO ONE there is calling for individual liberty. For smaller government, for lower taxes, for less regulation, for the right to speak, dress, employ, work, build or buy and sell - and, yes, discriminate - as one wishes...
This is driven by economic envy. It's pure lobbying OF government, not against it...
Move along, please...there's nothing new to see here...
Actually the movement was started by anarchists. Indeed all the anarchists around the world have targeted this movement for support. This is an anti-corruption movement and an anti-corporate movement. One of the main demands that have arisen is that of abolishing corporate personhood. What is wrong with the attendees? They are the people who are actually concerned about the mess we are in, and their involvement in this movement is radicalizing them. Certainly the demand are social democratic, but the totalitarian nature of present capitalism makes such demands virtually unrealizable. It would take a virtual revolution to restore the sort of social system we once had. By fighting for the restoration of social democracy the masses will be pushed to revolutionary positions that can challenge the corporate state in total. And if we do nothing more than squeeze out some reforms, we have at least improved the lives of working people.
Economic envy? No one envies these greedy selfish narcissists and megalomaniacs. We envy them as much as a man with a tape worm envies his parasite. If you want to find envy look at right wingers like yourself - whining if someone is collecting welfare or a person with a union job makes more than you do. No one I have ever known on the left has ever objected to someone making more money than someone else. It is just the people who make billions through state granted privilege, corporate welfare and who evade their taxes, buy governments, start wars etc and etc.
No one has the right to discriminate against another person as it is an attack upon their personhood, and thus a form of coercion.
The society you wish is a society of freedom for the wealthy and powerful, not freedom for the ordinary person. In order for us to be free the privileges of the one percent must be restricted. While for an anarchist this means abolishing corporate law, patents, eminent domain, eliminating private banking privileges, abolishing all forms of corporate welfare such as the military and prison industrial complexes, we are also aware that this will not happen overnight and that social democratic approaches may prevail such as reintroducing Glass Steagal, a Tobin tax, closing overseas tax dodging etc. This too serves to restrict the power of the one percent and thus enlarge the sphere of freedom for the average person. Thus we welcome them as partial measures
This is good! I welcome the public engaging in any form of protest.
And I too would abolish any form of "state-granted privilege". But not only for the rich, the warfare industry, the connected, corrupt and powerful: ALL forms of coercive state activity such as taxation, welfare, mandatory insurance schemes, exactions for public education, and overpriced monopoly "public" fire, military and police services are also forms of bailout and cannot be justified. They are infringements of private property, of the person. Let's end them, returning such decision-making to a very local scale and to market forces.
"No one has the right to discriminate against another person as it is an attack upon their personhood, and thus a form of coercion."
I think you are mixed up here. Coercion? Stealing ANYONE's legitimately-obtained property is a form of coercion! Were I a businessowner who chose to discriminate against old people, women, fat people or whatever, it would deprive no one else of anything belonging to them. It is a factor of the business being the property of the businessowner, who therefore should have the right to sell to whoever he or she wishes.
You can easily see that property rights are an extension of the non-coercion and no personal infringement principle.
Although we all have similar targets here, our objectives differ: obviously, there is a difference between "socialist anarchism" and "anarcho-capitalism"...
When I see the link, I just click it and stumble with the other site but then again I read all the post. I could say it's a very detailed info. and you have a great job making your topics interesting. You are a great content writer...
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