GrnBlck

GrnBlck wrote

Yeah, tbh, I think the Non-Violent part is legal cover at best and naivety at worst. My country is literally talking about rolling out the army to bust unions, and is fracking in spite of tremors, rebellion needs more rebellion.

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GrnBlck wrote

Raised National Conservative (was basically a fascist) -> Right-libertarian -> Drifted towards center axis -> Realised I actually kinda liked the sound of socialism -> Libertarian Social Democrat -> Anarchist (Somewhere between Mutualist and Ancom)

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GrnBlck wrote

If you had to put a label on it, I'd call myself an Anti-Bookchinite Social Ecologist. Basically, I like the work that he's done and think LM and DC are some of the best vehicles we have for social change at the moment, as Syndicalism was in the past. However, I really don't like where he took his later works, because of its fostering of an undercurrent of elitism in Communalism. I far prefer Ocalan's work, in this respect, because it's easily understandable (and translatable). Trying to read Bookchin's deeper work is at times like trying to read another language. Some Bookchinites like this, because it allows for a feeling of superiority. But I believe that if you can't communicate your ideas in plain language, they're not worth communicating. This essay is the most horrifying thing I've ever read, that only managed to communicate one idea to me - that dialectics could be defined as "negative thinking". Ever since I read that, I've been desperately trying to simplify these ideas into plain language.

I've generally never cared for ideological purity, so if I don't agree with something Bookchin said, that doesn't mean I have to espouse that anyway. The idea that there is some "end of history" brought about by one systematic change is one I don't wish to promote. When looked at dialectically, I don't see how much more Communalism can be other than a vehicle for further change. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, just as there isn't anything wrong with Syndicalism's idea of revolutionary change, but "Post-Scarcity" doesn't imply an end, we will continue to evolve and change.

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GrnBlck wrote

I would definitely call Communalism a school of anarchist thought, in spite of Bookchin's break with anarchism. The second pillar of Social Ecology, after all, involves a radical analysis of the history of hierarchy. Libertarian Municipalism and Democratic Confederalism are both forms of organization of dual power against the state. Communalism is to citizens what Syndicalism is to workers, I think it works primarily as a guide to how to bring about the revolution. Anarcho-Communism may be the dream, but we need things like Communalism, Syndicalism and Platformism to provide a map to achieving anarcho-communism. As you said, they are a means, not an end.

Even as someone that identifies themselves with Bookchin's thought, I could never defend 'Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism', which I found unnessecarily sectarian, in spite of his points against writers like Zerzan and Black. 21st century Anarchism is largely informed by the synthesis of Individualist Communism, bridging the 'Unbridgable Chasm' that Bookchin described. Lifestylism is essentially Bookchin's version of the Lumpenproletariat, people that he can look down on and blame for not working hard enough.

I'd agree with you on the issue of majority-rule, which is the main part of Communalism I can't find myself agreeing with. However, it is worth noting that majority decisions are only made at the confederal level, local communes (as seen at the lowest level in Rojava) often do use consensus decision making in practise. His idea that consensus decision making is authoritarian doesn't really hold up at the basest level, in my experience.

Regarding this paragraph:

Anarchy allows for communities to be adaptable to the conditions present in the place and time where the community exists. Rigid ideological structures should always be avoided as they rapidly become outmoded. Historically, communities revolving around political ideologies tend to become dogmatic, and as a result fail to adapt as conditions prove unfavorable to the demands of the ideology.

I don't think this is necessarily true to Communalism, which promotes a philosophy of dialectical naturalism. The idea that defines nature as evolution, organic life evolving into more complex and diverse forms and human thought or society evolving into more complex and diverse forms. Unlike Marxist Dialectical Materialism, it directly accounts for the evolution of thought over time. I think Bookchin may have forgotten all this during his later 'break with anarchism', which was apparently due to anarchism being too diverse... which is exactly the point. To be quite honest, I don't like most of Bookchin's later stuff and tend to be a lot more critical of it.

The 'A Green Anarchist Perspective' section is the only part of this I didn't really agree with. I'd like to respond to each part, at some point, but for now I'll just say that if this is included I'd rather it be changed to 'A Post-Civ Perspective' or something similar. Using 'Green Anarchist' is too broad a label to apply to what you are describing. Overall, good essay!

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GrnBlck OP wrote (edited )

Greenland as an Autonomous Constituent Country within Denmark has its own parliament and domestic politics. Its politics are far to the left of Denmark's, with only a few small center-right movements for unionism with Denmark, only one of them has an official affiliation with a Danish political party.

Denmark's resident fascists - the Danish People's Party, are the second largest party in the Folketing, currently propping up the liberal-conservative coalition government.

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GrnBlck OP wrote (edited )

That's correct. In a lot of those cases there is still an opposition that could (in theory) take power back. A fascist state has no effective opposition within its power structures.

You've made a fair point about the US, though I think it's important to distinguish between fascism and imperialism. The US and Brazil may have power structures that allow for a fascist takeover, however that doesn't necessarily mean they actively practise fascist ideology. The Weimar Republic was extremely conservative, for example, but I wouldn't call that fascist. That conservatism allowed for fascists to take power, as they always do. The US was always far enough to the right on the overton window, that this could happen.

There are a few countries on this that don't have noteable fascist presence because they are left-wing dictatorships. I take strong issue with their authoritarianism, but it'd be too far to call them fascist, because they don't demonstrate the same policy in practice as fascists do.

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GrnBlck OP wrote (edited )

Of course!

I would compare Sisi to Mussolini, who also had no real ideology except power, and who came to that power through similar means. Sisi's strongman right-wing military regime has allied itself with Putin, in trying to install a puppet dictator in neighbouring Libya, and has been pictured doing weird shit like this.

As for Saudi, that's a bit trickier. The state itself is inherently fascististic, given its traditionalist partnership of the monarchy and wahhabi clerics. It's also going through a transition period with Mohammed Bin Salman's rise to power, though I wouldn't describe what he's doing as un-despotic either. Princes also have a habit of driving over the bridge to Bahrain to quench their thirst for alcohol. Their foreign policy, however, leaves little room for debate. They might as well be colonizing their neighbours, with their actions since the Arab Spring. Unless MBS does something drastic that pivots the state away from the 14 points, I hesitate to move them. Hypocrisy doesn't necessarily revoke their ideology.

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