kano

kano wrote (edited )

I think I might have understood what you are asking, but if you look at the 'rights' the person talks about, none of them are actually real, and they talk about them as guarantees, who is doing the guaranteeing?

The right to life? there's no such thing, everything that's alive dies, much of it before it even has a chance to complete a lifecycle (in case that's what is meant with right to life). Who can guarantee to something that's alive that it will stay that way?

the right to autonomy? again there's obviously no such thing, people and groups are denied autonomy all the time even under rights based frameworks we have now which are affirmative such as the right of peoples to self determination. So who can guarantee to an individual or group autonomy? probably only that person or group

Again the right to political participation, that also exists now and is a mirage. and again its clear that this right doesn't exist as many people are denied the ability to participate in 'legitimate' politics at least. So again who can guarantee to an individual the ability to do politics? probably only that person or group.

It makes a lot more sense to think of stuff in terms of what's actually possible to do in your contexts, which has little or nothing to do with what a law or rule says.

Its funny that the commenter in the image above says freedom of association is disruptive. This why anarchists like the idea, authority is an ongoing social relationship, one of the easiest ways to avoid this relationship is to be careful which people and groups you associate yourself with. and its something you can just do if you are willing to put the effort in.

Rights are always just asking some higher power for a guarantee to be able to do something, it only makes sense in a statist or authoritarian context where people/groups/institutions which have power are actively trying to limit what is possible to do and or imagine. Then they can throw the dominated groups a bone and say well at least I promise to let you say whatever you want or I promise to let you own a gun, or I promise to let you have political participation, but only under my terms, and these tend to all be a lie anyway. The problem here is that stuff is(conceptualised as) being allowed or not. I think it doesn't make that such sense for an anarchist to thin about things that way.

rights frameworks are just asking for some other authority figure to do something or guarantee something, it has nothing to do with direct action at all, which is an actual anarchist principle unlike democracy.

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by Hyperreality in Harm Reduction Voting by Hyperreality

m sorry did we forget why we called it lesser "evil"ism or harm "reduction"?

I didn't forget and you never realised it seems. So there's no we here.

Peoole like to pretend that by casting their fucking vote that they are combatting fascism/right wing extremism. This ignore the ways that modern neoliberal and post colonial states have all made extensive use of fascist practices which were honed in settler and franchise colonies all over the world. It also ignores how 'left' (which is a signifier I find pretty meaningless) parties and politicians are always creeping further to the right.

I dont know why you bring up Ukraine as if it's the 'USA' duty and responsibility to do something with regard to Russia's invasion of Ukraine which I find deplorable btw.

The 'USA' has it's hands dirty in other ongoing genocides such as the one in Palestine or the one against indigenous peoples living on territory occupied by the 'USA' itself. Maybe it's and it's people's priority should be to stop those crimes which are actually being carried out by that entity. And it will no matter who is in charge of the state apparatus.

The while notion of harm reduction or lesser evilism when applied to electoral politics is just a manipulation of people's fear to get them to support a party which they perceive as more beneficial to their interests. The problem with this is that it's an optical illusion, if you are actually anti authoritsarian. No matter who is in charge the USA and other states continue with a colonialist/imperial policy at home and abroad, continue to militarise the borders, continue to attack the social benefits that were accrued by mostly white working classes in Europe and the USA in a previous generation of struggle, which never managed to actually break or destabilise the forms of modern states(this is made clear by austerity policies which bring national health systems, unemployment systems, and social security systems to their knees), the way minorities especially into the US are incorporated in a way that legitimises and reifies the settler project which based on turfing indigenous people off of their land and the exploitation of racialised people's labour especially black peoples.

There's seriously no lesser evil rulers, they can only create this view by displacing the worst harms onto minority populations and throwing some bones to the demographics they want to buy. A real approach to solidarity with the groups who get the most fucked over would involve a complete rejection of statist politics and therefore also the vote.

Anarchists are into direct action which means doing shit to make the world in a way they/we want it, and not begging a politician for scraps. History made it clear already that if people want concessions/cosmetic changes from the state they need to actually do something to fuck up the day to day operations, not meekly ask the state for more rights or money or whatever. And even this is a losing battle which provides the state with a lot of leverage

For most people around the world the president of the 'USA' is irrelevant as the colonial and imperial foreign policy will continue mostly unchanged to the extreme detriment of colonised people everywhere the 'USA' intervenes.

So lesser evilism or harm reduction is a misnomer that only channels energy back into reifying statist political structures which cannot be relied on for any type of meaningful social or political change. It's just counterinsurgency tactics.

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by Hyperreality in Harm Reduction Voting by Hyperreality

You telling us to vote for the guy and saying it reduces harm is advocating for him, your motivations are not that relevant. Because your point about voting for some shitty politician who has their hands in all manner of fucked up shit as harm reduction doesnt fly.

Since politicians aren't interested in abolishing states, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy or whatever else, why should an anarchist have any interest in the shit they say they want to do? It's completely incompatible with anti authoritarian practice or 'goals'

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by Hyperreality in Harm Reduction Voting by Hyperreality

The state is trying to maintain and expand it's level of control and domination. If it appears to be (trying to be ) morally consistent you can be pretty sure your looking at some counterinsurgeny tactics.

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by lentils in Friday free talk by lentils

dunno what your plans are for them or really what a grow bag is, but I planted potatoes just in the ground in the beginning of May and they finished their lifecycle by late september early october. They aren't really something that needs to get started indoors to have enough time despite the shorter warm period this far north.

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kano wrote

Yes I would also say that the list they link to the at the end of counter info sites isnt really international on the level that makes me actually appreciate Abm.

And I think the last sentence on my previous post is basically my feelings about every media I bother reading. But would be cool if some other counter info shit in English was less relentlessly focussed on US and Europe

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by soairse in Friday free talk by lentils

I'm on the land and not in a town so my main criteria are places that not a lot of people go, as all the land is privately owned or managed by the state, that will get enough sun, close to a water source, and that are not near any type of game trail or animal nesting spot.

I will need to clear some ground of nettles and long grass and whatever else tho definitely. Since I'm lazy I'm not gonna so hard on preparing a plot like I would on land that we have that is dedicated to growing. I'm just gonna clear enough that I can the plants in the ground and to give them a chance to survive.

I guess if I was in the city I'd basically be looking for some empty/abandoned lot where there's dirt/shit growing already and if there's long grass or whatever else it will need to be cleared. While keeping in mind the sun and that I don't want to have a pain the ass to water my plants.

I don't know the legal situation about this here or anywhere else but I'd assume it's a violation possibly in multiple ways.

I guess for you one of those areas with long grass is pretty solid.

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by ruminator in Friday free talk by lentils

Yes both points are true. From my kind of outside perspective it's kind of funny tho tbh. The differences in how my parents relate to the issue I mean. They mostly talk to me about completely different aspects and put importance on different things and even tell me different shit about the same shit in terms of plans and steps to take.

But yo my mom is hardcore and clever and has a solid social circle so I think she'll come thru alright

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kano OP wrote

I finished reading Palestine a 4000 year history. I have to say I kind of like reading history, because you get a lot of events and shit that happened and can try to interpret them in a way which is more appropriate. It's a bit nicer than straight up political theory shit I'd say. And historians talk about shit that the political theory ppl didn't really get too.

I've also been rereading Islam and anarchism from Mohamed Abdou because it's that worth it imo. Read the first 3 chapters and am on the 4th now. There's a lot of good interesting shit in there.

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kano wrote

It's not been freezing at night in the last days almost but not quite.

One Guerilla gardening area I have picked out might be frequented by wild boars, not sure if they pass through regularly or just randomly shortly before the last time I came thru. Hope it's the latter tho.

Don't have enough time for all the shit I'm trying to do because of work which is annoying the fuck out of me.

Am slowly getting used to cycling off-road on a bike which is made for it. An extra 20mm on the tires goes a long way tbh

Still lots of drama in the family, my siblings partner of a couple years also decided to end the relationship cos they can't handle it. That annoys my mom, but it makes sense to me tbh. I think the bulk of handling the situation is falling on my mom and my dad doesn't seem particularly equipped to handle it tbh. What a surprise.

Should be a busy weekend bike repair, garden work and socialising.

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kano OP wrote

Reply to comment by Circe in FREE chat friday by kano

This topic is one that has been in my head for probably 10 years or something so I'm not really over it tbh. If you had more to say and wanted to I'd find it interesting.

I actually think guns are next to useless for personal defense against humans, but immensely valuable in the defense of others/group defense

This seems contradictory to me tbh. Like if it doesn't work for the first then why for the second? Also personal experience contradicts your first point if we replace guns with another type of weapon( in a place where there's a lot less guns about than in the USA).

And I think having a policy/ability with regard to weaponry in general would be a necessary part of any 'security plan'. I.e. in my context what do we do if theres a bunch of Nazis before the house looking for trouble, among other possible/likely possibilities. That's a situation where running away isn't very attractive or even necessarily possible, but based on what I know from other projects in the general area is a strong possibility. I'm not sure if this something you include in your idea of 'community defence' or not.

It's the same people here who got scared of the crossbow, who love to argue with me about the state restricting access to weaponry in general which is why I also brought it up

I guess as a baseline, I think an attempt at autonomy in a world where Hella institutions/people/groups who have weapons and would like to deny that autonomy, probably necessitates that the attempt involves having weaponry about. (Although that's far from the only thing).

But maybe your right about the we, every violent situation that I was in where I was alone, I either got beat, robbed (or both) or ran away. Only ones that went well for me were situations where friends backed me or we backed each other.

So I guess my position is that I don't trust a states motives for disarming people or keeping them unarmed, and that it's worthwhile for people with a anti authoritarian set of politics to have access to and know how to use weapons in general. Pretty sure history agrees with me on this one.

I actually didn't realise that you misunderstood me tbh.

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kano wrote

Like a lot more than I count, more than I can remember tbh in terms of people who call themselves that.

If we're talking about people who are like good quality or mostly consistent in their anti authoritarian politics it's a lot less, and not all of them are in the first group.

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kano wrote

Reply to comment by lentils in Twensday free talk by OneSock

Pretty sure if you get some carrots with the leaves still on, you can chop off most of the carrot, plant the last part with the leaves and it'll grow back.

Think it's just that there's some plants you normally clone or grow from tubers and theres other you normally grow from seed.

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kano wrote

Emma Goldman's My disillusionment in Russia and My further disillusionment in Russia are a good shout for this.

Also there is the book In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese revolutionary by Van Ngo, which shows that the Stalinists in Vietnam were already on purging before they got control in Vietnam.

Maybe also Voline is useful for the USSR topic.

I think George Orwell got a little bit into this as well in Homage to Catalonia (another cases of purges before the communists were really in power).

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kano wrote

Busy times Hella people coming down this week.

I feel like I'm living some kind of medieval lifestyle where I'm on the land during the week and travelling to the city at the weekend to conduct business.

Killing weeds and preparing the garden plots. Planted like 60 garlic's last week and still have about the same more to get in the ground.

Very casually allowing conflicts to occur at the moment in the household, I'm kind of enjoying it.

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