Forum Post: There is no government. We live in anarchy.
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 11, 2012, 3:47 p.m. EST by GirlMonday
(5)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Government is an abstract idea that lives in minds. It exists in the same way God exists in minds. Once, you stop thinking about government or God.
You are free.
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http://occupywallst.org/forum/bones-season-7-episode-6-the-crack-in-the-code/
your a fool.....you live in dream land...that's the same kind of bullshit i used to hear watching keith carradine in kung fu back in the 70's
So where exactly does the military come from little miss poser?
I was sort-a thinking about something like this the other day, maybe not the same thing, but here it goes. A critique I commonly hear leveled against anarchists is they always target "the man" (metaphorically speaking of course). "The man" could have been their best friend yesterday, if he gets elected to congress the next day, he's fair game.
Well, I'm not sure if this is true or not, but isn't society like this generally speaking? I mean, doesn't the mainstream and alternative media always target those in power (not just politicians, but corporate leaders, famous scientists, actors, whatever)?
So this may be indicative of some sort of sociological dynamic (I'm not a sociologist, if anyone here is, your comments would be appreciated). So in this sense ... maybe everyone is an anarchist?
I think I see what you mean. If someone is a "leader" of any sort, government, scientist, whatever. Has some sort of power that could affect society. I think its natural and smart for people to be critical. We'd be idiots not to. To question him to make sure he is right. We don't want idiots leading us. If we question and find out he's an idiot, we don't follow him anymore. If we don't question, we're the idiots.
I don't think this has anything to do with anarchy. It's just being smart.
Are you high or something?
The government collects your money, builds your roads, pays the police/military/fireman, enforces regulations, pays for people's college, etc...
You do not need money, you need what it buys. We do not need police and military, we need education. College should be free and will be free starting tomorrow(to a degree). The government is nothing but a glorified slave holder. All my opinion. If you do not agree or I failed to explain myself please ask questions. I am free to answer them. I do ask that you do not judge me you ask why I come to these conclusions.
Corporations and the 1% hate government because it is the only recourse common citizens have against the coercive power of concentrated wealth. Corporations and the 1% have been waging a culture war for decades, and have been successful in popularizing Libertarian, anti-government ideas to a level that, despite being nowhere near a majority, is historically unprecedented. When Koch founded the John Birch society with the explicit purpose of Libertarian culture war, he never could have dreamed that his fringe, racist ideology only shared by a tiny core group Randian 1%ers, would eventually become a major political force threatening to overturn the Republican party establishment in an election year.
get over yourself you dishonest wannabe intellectual elitist...your not fooling anyone.
go back to ronpaulforums.com, your not fooling anyone
we know who the enemy is :
Repelicans to undermine the Occupy Movement:
Forum Post: Memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street
original PDF document:
and we know who the TeaParty is:
The Billionaires TeaParty
and:
The New Yorker - Covert Operations
Chomsky on The Tea Party v The Occupy Movement
More on the TeaParty:
InformationClearingHouse
InformationClearingHouse Jan.'11
And we know Otpor was funded by repelicans:, including:
SourceWatch - Otpor
Wiki on Otpor
see also:
hahahahahahaha...you are delusional and so is chomsky...typical of ows and its ilk...what you watch, read and follow is intellectual and morally dishonest
LoL!
that's funny coming from a rightie
the repelican party is DONE
They don't hate the government. It is a tool just like a gun, and they can afford to buy all of the guns and all of the government they need to keep us in line. And they do.
That is also why they hate civil courts, and want to shove "tort reform" down our throats; as if civil suites (one of the last remaining ways people can defend themselves against corporate predation) were the problem. People simply must get educated and see when their anger is being used to further the power of those who have caused that anger in the first place.
ok. Abstract. Anarchy happens. Shit happens too. That doesn't mean I want to live in shit.
I to, do not want to live in shit. I actually don't even want to live near shit. I want a totally shit-free zone all around me.
Yes, perfect. I agree! I think we pretty much have that now. It's called a sewage system. Thanks to government and capitalism! I suppose a good sewage system is not exclusive to a capitalist society run by a strong government. However, I would need to know if a good sewage system has ever been implemented successfully in an anarchistic society.
Well I wouldn't go accusing our government of being strong. Just sayin'. And yes, the port-a-potties at Lollapalooza were implemented by such a society. They were freakin' sweet bro! lol
lol. I don't consider port-a-potties an effective sewage system. But that's just me. It's not that far from like 100 years ago when people used to dig a hole in the ground for a toilet. We have evolved from anarchy and holes in the ground to shit in.
A big thumbs up to whoever installed them though. Lollapalooza wouldn't be the same without them. Well done! Work on the cleanliness and odor part of it. Then, talk to me.
I wouldn't say effective but they keep it contained so its not all over the place. I can't think of any actual sewage system set up by an anarchist system. The only reason being that anarchists could not come together on such an idea and consistently and continually do the work until the job is completed.
Exactly! I'm thinking by the time they got their direct democracy act together, twiddling fingers around, or God forbid, trying to implement an online voting system for digging a shit hole in the ground, we'd be up shits creek.
Right there. That's just it. A decent sewage system is an absolute necessity for a society. There's diseases for God's sake! I am not about to abandon our form of government unless and until the anarchists prove they can successfully implement a damn good sewage system, in whatever egalitarian type society, on a large scale, that is safe and reliable, over an extended period of time.
Haha you are being funny and its definitely making me laugh but you are correct. Without sewage and fuel infrastructures we as a society would fall apart. You brought up the point of an online direct democracy but couldn't we do it the way we do now but with out the electoral college?
I could be open to that idea. Actually, I don't really understand why people have a problem with the electoral college. Doesn't the electoral college follow the popular vote nearly 100% of the time. It does take into account population right? Isn't that the whole idea? I'm not sure what the problem is.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
NationalPopularVote Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via nationalpopularvoteinc
Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections. 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 Million votes.
Wow, I had no idea there was such a difference. Thanks for the research. I'll do some of my own and consider!
Well whatever your problem and reason for wanting an open democracy can be fixed by making it a direct democracy using the system we have where you can go to vote on what you want and everyone's vote means something. It seems a little safer than online voting because it would take an incredible amount of security to keep hackers out. Like I mentioned above about infrastructure, we already have it so why not use it?
What does this have to do with the electoral college?
When you said - couldn't we do it the way we do now - I thought you meant a Representative Republic. Which I vote to keep.
Go to vote on what I want? You mean like bills and legislation? Why on earth would I want to do that? That's my Representatives job. Not mine.
Ok my mistake I thought that's what you wanted
Oh gosh no! That funny part - sarcasm intended! Not the sewage part though, good sewage is a must.
Ok we can agree on that:)
Try going to a national rainbow gathering. I went to one in Colorado (in I believe 1992 ?), there where around twenty thousand people there, and yes the sht system worked well. As did the free food and healthcare.
So your lame assumptions of what anarchists are capable of are just that, your lame assumptions with absolutely no basis in reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gathering
I've never been to lollapalooza.
lol. You nailed the port-a-pottie thing anyway.
Among thinkers and scholars, even an anarchy is a highly organized soceity - where government falls in the hands of the people. Chomsky explains the purpose behind OWS protests, anarchy, and human nature in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-Nq_rBQHk
And it gravitates to Somalia, where once again the 1%er's do just fine. Meanwhile, the rest of us will try to fix this mess.
If the government is an abstract as you say, why is it costing me and a lot of other taxpayers so much money?
I think she means (cannot speak for her of course) that we give it the power it has by simply agreeing to participate in it, in so many different ways, every day.
I think she's saying something like... if we were more careful how and what we agree to participate in, our choices would demand more respect. Their power is our agreement of participation.
I see many people are already trying to change their minds, too. By researching more about what bank they use, who's products they buy, and from where. What's in it. They are deciding not spending so much & cutting up their credit cards, buying local, all sorts of things.
We can create more change ourselves, just by -being- the change we want to see in the world, than government could ever create through any unfunded mandate. (Because the people are waking up now, the tide is turning) . The people are never as weak as government thinks they are. The Government is never as powerful as the people think they are.
Hopefully I am not tooo off the mark (((Power to the Peaceful)))
that is a great solution. I appreciate you stopping and thinking about your actions. People do not realize they help kill people by paying taxes. This value system we call civilized must end and peace must begin.
I agree - I remember back in the 60's there were no laws about wearing seatbelts, child car seats, fuel economy, smoking or any of the mass amounts of govenment laws that can have an effect on an individuals day to day life.
Now that is not to say that some of these laws are needed but not all.
It starts at home. If it doesn't then it doesn't matter because the government will teach and it will teach you to be "dependent on them".
You have to be honest here: When there is no form of law enforcement to be found or when there is no way for law to be enforced, law becomes a mere line in the sand which you have to pretend is an invisible wall you can't cross.
How long do you stand there and pretend until you realise its just a line in the sand and cross it?
don't get violent
I was making an observation about life which doesn't necessarily suggest violence (in fact that was the very thing I wasn't thinking about when I wrote that.) I was suggesting that many people would cut corners and take acceptable risks to get around laws they oppose or see no value in following.
just adding a non-violent statement
I thank you.
What??
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girlmonday - it's another repelican shill, that's what the name is about - both girlfriday and hitgirl have a certain amount of credibility and popularity this clown is attempting to capitalize on.
The statement of the op is a reflection of the reality that all of our government is actually little more than a system of belief, one where social organization has become highly structured and specialized, no doubt - but still a system of belief non the less.
Repelicans are hoping that by fostering support of anarchist views they will increase the odds of their guy getting elected. They are attempting to undercut the President's base of support as it was seen in the last election - young voters.
While government itself is a bit more concrete than concepts of God, which truly is abstract - it remains, the post has a large element of truth to it.
It is clever really - attempting to capitalize on the various systems of belief that exist in the US - all to further deregulation, maintain control over energy policy, and ensure that geo-engineering is requisite in the centuries ahead.
I really do hope the NSA gets on board with the process of car accidents and plane crashes to thin out the right wing plotters and assorted Koch suckers - our task will be so much easier in that event.
Sometimes I think the republicans are doing our job for us. I really hope they get Romney elected too, because little will change in terms of government policy but it'll make liberals angry enough to join the revolution :)
I can't tell you how much I disagree. The very nature of government is that it governs you with physical force... you can't just stop believing in something that exists in the material world. This is what I call "magical thinking". I mean, tell the people who're in prison for possession of plant matter that the government is just an "idea", or the people who get peppersprayed in the face for holding a peaceful sit in. The government dominates every aspect of our lives and the more you try and distance yourself from it to live autonomously and create alternatives, like creating community centers in abandoned properties, the more the government clamps down and ruthlessly beats you back into submission.
Yeah it sucks. The system has it's own built in army. As soon as you step out of line and start making noise, the status quo puts you right back in line and says shut the f#ck up! The system likes its robots nice and rigid.
I tend to agree with that, precisely BECAUSE Romney is so awful. 4 years of Romney may constitute just the kind of "shock treatment" that tens millions of unawakened Americans unfortunately seem to need at this point.
Obama is probably much more dangerous than Romney because he is no fool , and such a smooth talker, crafty and devious. I suspect he still has tens of millions of Americans under his spell, in a hopeless state of "chronic Obamamania"...
Oh, common man. The President has done good stuff - he changed military policy in Afghanistan - and fired at least two generals in the process of changing that policy - to which the Pentagon responded by suggesting to one of his aides that a photo op using Air Force One over Manhattan was a good idea . . .
He has attempted practical solutions to the debt - which repelicans have scorned, insisting that to solve the debt we must end social security etc
He kept GM alive - and he kept the banks solvent, and despite repelican assertions to the contrary, this has kept unemployment below 10 percent.
I'd love to see him get some support --like Liz warren getting elected and a few of the useless tea party congress fired. We know Romney will be a huge 1% kiss a$$, Obama's biggest flaw IMO is trying to compromise with the GOP and hiring to many guys from Goldman and City Bank.
I think he has gotten the message that compromise with the repelicans is not happening - but you cannot convince me he is a dummy so it stands to reason he saw that fact long ago - it is something I haven't gotten my brain around.
He may not have expected the brinkmanship of the debt ceiling debate - maybe that opened his eyes - I don't know.
As far as the wall street insiders go - I suspect that what we are seeing is a demonstration of the perceived risk that remains to our economy.
I think wall street in conjunction with repelicans are somehow holding a credible threat of economic meltdown if certain perceptions of stability are not maintained - and to do that you need insiders in the President's cabinet -
I think it has to be something like that. Of course, he isn't an economist - he's a lawyer.
I think he should declare martial law and arrest all the righties . . .
we can water board them for entertainment every friday night . . .
That's how we got into this mess, the people who understand the complex deals that got us into trouble are likely to be making money from them. The risks and scams have been so egregious that simplifying them would only expose the truth so they say "it's complicated you wouldn't understand it. Let the experts handle it" The good news is that during last week I've had several folks on this site who were obviously financial professionals who agree with us on these subjects. A lot of people who went into that business did so because they believed in the system, the last decade has been a rude awakening.
That is excellent news. I keep saying we have got to demand an appearance before the judge for all those who have engaged in fraud. That is the only way to restore credibility to the market, not to mention our legal system itself.
Government does exist in the material world - but it is still just a physical manifestation of ideas about how to organize society. Most importantly, those ideas are subject to change.
Like the idea that it is ok to pepperspray - where high profile instances of abuse have taken place you can bet the whole concept has undergone some revision - and I'm sure that is a process that will continue this summer . . . : \
The ideas of our government, when it comes to less than trivial matters, are not subject to change without revolution. For instance pepper spray was never the problem. If the government stopped pepper spraying us, then they would just use all their other torture devices more. The problem is that the government has power and attacks anyone seeking to subvert that power.
Please define revolution. (Not being sarcastic, but wanting to understand your definition of a word that's thrown around by many without being specific.)
In the context of political discussion, revolution means overthrowing the government.
Thanks for your answer.
That leads me (of course) to other questions: In what manner do you foresee overthrowing the government? How will this be accomplished?
In terms of overthrowing, are your being literal, in the sense of overthrowing the system of government itself, the one based on the Constitution, or do you mean something more akin to "throw the bums out"? Or something in between?
If you are looking for a complete overthrow, what system of government do you hope to replace the current system with?
Are your views shared, as far as you know, with the current consensus of OWS?
Am I being literal? Of course I am, this isn't a joke. It saddens me that this idea is treated as so unthinkable that there is simply no way to clearly state revolutionary intentions without people thinking that you're using some sort of clever euphemism. The US Government needs to stop existing or be stripped of control to the greatest extent possible. Yes, I actually dared to go there... As we say on the front page, the only solution is world revolution (in both the political and social sense).
I believe the best system of government is no government, a view I feel many other individuals in the movement share considering the fact that anarchists started ows. I'm not saying revolution is something we can make happen tomorrow, but it should be a long-term goal of anyone seriously committed to systemic change.
What is your short term and medium term goal?
Since I don't believe we can get to no government anytime soon (in my lifetime, in fact) and this country needs positive change now, what do you propose?
In the short term I'd like to see this movement continuing to do what it's been doing: reclaiming public spaces, experimenting with alternatives to our current society, horizontal network building, creating a visible resistance through militant nonviolent direct action, and shifting the public dialog towards issues like wealth inequality which raises revolutionary class consciousness. </radical-buzzwords>
Except you don't really care about this country. All you care about saving is an idea because how can your compassion be divided amongst 300,000,000 people? You don't really care if they live or if they die.
Thinking of change in terms of entire nations is the greatest neurosis of politically minded. It's incredibly masochistic to devote so much time and mental energy to that over which you have no control. If you want change, start thinking in terms of that which you personally have the power to change. Think about the people in your life, think about your community, the people you love and care about. What can you do today to make their lives just a little bit better?
Wait, even better... what can you do to make their lives better that also fucks over the people in power? :) One of my favorite emerging stratagems in this movement is the campaign to occupy homes. Here's an idea for how you could participate. Right now 11% of homes in New Jersey are being foreclosed. This means that right now one of your friends is being kicked out of their home. As you read this, someone you care about is being screwed over by Wall Street.
Go to your town hall, ask the clerks for help, and go through the list of foreclosures. Figure out which one of your friends is being preyed upon by the banks and help them! Chances are your friend will refuse your help but do not accept no as an answer. Most Americans facing foreclosure believe it's their fault and accept their fate without putting up a fight. The majority don't even bother filing a response which would buy them at least a few more months to live in their home and cost the bank a whole bunch in legal fees. When you're losing everything it's easy to slip into a pattern of avoidant behavior. They need someone who cares about them and isn't emotionally attached to the situation to sit down, hold their hand, do the research/paperwork together, and give them the strength to fight back against the banks.
If you do that for just one person, you'll have created more change than an entire lifetime of voting, signing internet petitions, and ignored letters to your congressperson. You'll have made the world a better place.
here you are seeing government as a monolithic entity - which it isn't. The ideological differences that exist in Congress are very real - look at Senator Sanders.
Look at the policy differences between many on the right, who insist that water boarding is an effective tool, and the response by the Justice Department to that issue, and their demonstration with the arrest of the underwear bomber that torture is not only not necessary, but not as effective as other techniques.
There are vast differences between police response nationwide to the Occupy Movement. Much of those differences depend in large measure on the ideology of the political establishment that the individual departments answer to.
I think that if you examine the issue closely - you will see that generally, though perhaps not in every case - but generally it is repelicans who attack their opponents with the most vigor - as demonstrated on this very forum, as well as out in the real world.
edit
Torture itself has been a subject of interest - since Cheesy instituted water boarding. I don't believe water boarding could have been instituted as a matter of policy were it not for wide spread use of tools and techniques developed under MKULTRA.
Waterboarding as a part of our national policy has since been scrapped. Which I think says something positive about our political system. MKULTRA and it's spinoffs remain a taboo subject - largely due to perceptions and a distinct lack of data.
I agree. "The government" is not some static entity. It's a bunch of people who constantly change relating to each other through a structure that constantly changes using laws that constantly change to run a nation that constantly changes for its citizens that constantly change. The people who will be in government in 20 years, are citizens today. With protests such as OWS people have the power to change how the government works, and, for positive change to happen, you don't necessarily need to scrap the whole governmental setup and replace it with some new untested idea like anarchy with general assemblies on each street corner.
Perhaps I've simply not yet reached the state of pessimism that jart has? Who knows? Maybe in a few years I'll agree with her that we need to tear the whole government apart. For now, I remain positive that we can make some alterations for the better.
BTW - Thank you for not using profanity in your last comment. It makes for a more pleasant read.
one reason law has become overly complex
True. Always modifying, adding, and deleting elements in any type of structure will do that. The fact that laws interact with each other and often have have contradictory elements doesn't help either.
kiss my ass
; D
You really are in your anal stage. Maybe it comes back a second time for some people during their senior years? It's like a second childhood right? I'll have to get my Freudian theory works out. It's been awhile since I studied the matter. You definitely are in the anal stage though. I'll check what comes next. I think it's penis envy for girls.
go away
. . .you pink pantied penis poser . . .
We said the same thing with Bush.In fact, it was I hope you do reelect Bush because you are done.
I agree wholeheartedly that the nature of government is that it governs you with a physical force. I find myself dismayed with the amount of theorizing that is done on it rather than a focus on the application or strategy for implementation. It makes me angry that we talk about people in prison but we make no major discussion on the privatization of prisons, what constitutes rehabilitation and how to effectively get people back into society. Nor do we discuss the ramifications of deinstitutionalization.
But when Bush was getting elected, the middle class just lived through a glorious ten year booming economy. Now we live in a time where the middle class has lost most of its privilege, having lived through twelve years of economic misery. The only thing that's keeping them going is false hope from the lies of politicians. The sooner this illusion is shattered, the sooner we can move forward.
I'm so happy I'm not the only person who feels this way.
I fell this way as well. Lots of bark and not much bite.
You don't know what anarchy is. Unlimited freedom and limited laws because nobody trying to follow them as it should be done so
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Hohoho. You are a slave.
No the government is a real entity. Now the economy is just an idea. The only reason there is a government is because we the people allow there to be one. They derive their just powers from majority consent. OWS does not have majority consent.
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So if you were raped you wouldn't go to court?
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http://occupywallst.org/forum/15-years-for-racist-obama-to-get-a-clue-that-even-/
Obama is both.