Five

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“it is easy to call land stolen, but what about the innocent purchasers who acquired in good faith in the interim? Are they thieves?”

This is the kind of shit that makes me think capitalists don't actually believe in property. They only have an issue with theft when the loot isn't laundered properly. 'Civilization' is just a word that means 'fence' to them.

Five @slrpnk.net 3w ago

That tracks. I think you'll have a better time in the city.

Large protests are a great place to meet allies who can support you building alternatives to 'politics as usual' in rural areas too.

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Five @slrpnk.net 3w ago

Please don't spread FUD about direct actions against the Trump regime. In some small towns, Democrats are the only game in town, and can control the protest agenda. In large cities, these protests are organized by a coalition of organizations, with Democrats playing a much smaller role.

If someone at the march has a problem with Palestinian liberation, you can always tell them to fuck off or you can find a section of the march where you're in good company. I have never seen a 1k+ person No Kings march without Palestinian flags.

Five @slrpnk.net 3w ago

National Shutdown, tomorrow.

Five @slrpnk.net 3w ago

National Shutdown, this Friday.

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Five @slrpnk.net 3w ago

Anarchy is invigorating. Living under a tyrannical regime is exhausting.

Five @slrpnk.net 4w ago

Bryan answered by explaining in a post that the song “hits on both sides of the aisle”. He later added: “Left wing or right wing, we’re all one bird and American. To be clear, I’m on neither of these radical sides.” But this both-sides-ism felt incongruent with the song’s scathing message, heard in full for the first time on 9 January: law enforcement, ICE, and the onslaught of gun violence in America are contributing to the “fading of the red, white and blue”. (Bryan’s team declined an interview offer.)

It's a start, but it is so milquetoast.

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Five @slrpnk.net 2mo ago

Chomsky is neither a Zionist nor anti-BDS:

‘I am opposed to any appearance in Israel that is used for nationalistic or other propaganda purposes to cover up its occupation and denial of Palestinian human rights. I’ve been involved in activities to hold Israel accountable for its international law violations since before the BDS movement took shape. While I have some tactical differences with the BDS movement, I strongly support the actions and continue to participate in them.’

https://bdsmovement.net/news/chomsky-clarifies-position-cultural-boycott-israel

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Five @slrpnk.net 2mo ago

Even taking the Chinese government at its word, they're getting ~60% of their energy from Coal, and are opening new coal-fired power plants at a pace not matched by any other industrialized country. Framing their solar adventures as anything other than supplementary power for their growing fossil fuel economy is wildly irresponsible. China is #1 producing 3x the CO2 as the next largest producer (United States) and they're not resting on their laurels.

People in the pro-Xi camp might claim China is planning to transition to renewables based on the rate of growth of their alternative energy sector, but that's not a claim the Party has ever made or is likely to make. Their top priority is growing their economy, preventing global warming isn't even on the list. They over-produced solar because it seemed like the west was signalling they were going in that direction, but now that demand is depressed, they're likely to cut back production. Based on the Chinese government numbers on installed capacity vs. actual solar energy power use, they're sending surplus panels to the Tibetan desert to rot.

The reporters at NPR are pining for more competent authoritarians. They don't care about global warming either, or they'd do actual journalism on the subject.

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Five @slrpnk.net 3mo ago

I agree and I'm aware it has negative connotations -- it is inseparable from modern methods of administering power. Without records, how can you demonstrate you're distributing resources equitably? I recognize that my role as admin is basically an anarchist bureaucrat -- approving applications, responding to reports, writing reports on progress for the community each month; it's done digitally now, but it's the stuff that would otherwise be the paperwork for which bureaucracy was made famous.

Bureaucracy was invented in France during the reign of kings, in hopes that it might quell the frequent revolutionary uprisings. It used to be that the only way you could get a license to do anything was through an audience with the king, or access via one of his courtiers -- a role similar to modern lobbyists. This exclusivity of access meant the richest and most well connected were granted corporate charters, business licenses, or land titles, creating extremely stark class division between the bourgeoisie and even the petit bourgeoisie.

The role of bureaucracy (named after the drawers where they kept the mountains of paper this activity generated) was to 'democratize' distribution of licensing and grants to everyone based on meeting the same requirements and paying the same fees. It was popular enough to get grafted into the organs of the new republic once one of the uprisings hit the mark.

It was 'democratic' in the same sense that electoral 'democracy' is democratic - that is, it is closer to the ideal of freedom than autocratic rule. But citizens are still vulnerable to the whims of tyrannical bureaucrats. Even at the local level and at small scale, a bureaucrat can do a lot of damage if there isn't popular power prepared to resist him.

For example in Chennai, the Zero Rupee was invented to build popular power against a culture of compulsive bribery that is endemic to all levels of the state bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a burden that's accepted because the alternative is clearly worse, like the French kings of old. But all bureaucracies are not the same, and merely making them smaller or 'distributed' does not solve the problems that can arise when they are not open to public challenge.

The primary purpose of distribution centers is to serve capital, and there are plenty of private libraries. In the case of a library or dispensary, a bureaucracy can definitely increase the equanimity of the distribution of wealth in a society, but that relies on both the bureaucrats and the public they are supposed to serve to be willing to fight for that ideal.

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Five @slrpnk.net 3mo ago

I think wider discussion of micro-bureaucracies would be valuable. During the November meta, a member requested some kind of vote on our descision to defederate nazi instances, which I think was adequately discussed and concluded. It stood out to me that the member objected to my description of voting in this manner as 'bureaucratic' -- a word I felt I was using descriptively, but was interpreted as pejorative. I think it's interesting that different people have different definitions of bureaucracy.

What is bureaucracy?

Five @slrpnk.net 3mo ago

Yikes.

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Five @slrpnk.net 3mo ago

No more math!

Five @slrpnk.net 3mo ago

Boosted: https://slrpnk.net/post/30070139

Five @slrpnk.net 3mo ago

I'm glad you said something. I don't mind so much when pieces that are critical of solarpunk or a corruption of the aesthetic are occasionally posted here because it gives the community an opportunity to define itself against those representations. I tend to skip over them myself though. I think introspection and criticism are core to the Solarpunk ideal, and I'm glad this essay was a fresh carafe of that tea.