onoira [they/them]

a lumpen creature trying their best between constant crises

Previously @[email protected]
  • 6 Posts
  • 48 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: January 14th, 2024

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  • shut your gringo ass up you ballotmunching Uncle Tom freak

    demanding that the opposition not trail the right-wing on every single talking point and give a single fuck about the lives that the so-called US would continue to destroy beyond its borders is not accelerationism or ‘whiteness’.

    when non-‘United’ SStateSSians have to listen to you about your fucking ‘damage control’ instead of actually doing anything you sound like two SS officers bickering over how painful our torment should be. we don’t fucking care about your comfort you imperial hog.

    the collapse of US soft power institutions under Trump has been a fucking godsend for the rest of us trying to actually improve our nations.

    stop running DARVO for your abuser and find a healthier relationship with politics.






  • it’s breadtube, but Andrewism is still the first online source i’ve found to define ‘authority’ the way i and meatspace comrades have used it:

    https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/andrewism-how-anarchy-works#toc2 (~5 minutes to read)

    he references Bakunin, with some generative critique.

    full citations

    Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.

    — Mikhail Bakunin, God and the state, Chapter 2


    Expertise merely refers to one’s knowledge or skill in a particular field, but my understanding of CPR or ability to bake shortbread cookies does not make me an authority over you. Other than the conflation of force and authority, this is one of the most common confusions people have about anarchism, made worse by the fact that there are some anarchists who still use authority to refer to both command and expertise just because Bakunin did. Personally, I find that creates needless confusion. If you’re using the word authority to describe everything from slavery to knowing how to build a bridge, then why use the word at all? Just use the word expertise when you’re talking about expertise. Listening to medical advice isn’t a hierarchy. Having expertise doesn’t give me the right to command you unless I hold a position in a hierarchical power structure that grants me that authority. As Bakunin himself said:

    …we ask nothing better than to see men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and, above all, great hearts, exert over us a natural and legitimate influence, freely accepted and never imposed in the name of any official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial.

    — Andrewism, How Anarchy Works » Dissecting Authority (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrTzjaXskUU)


  • i see. so we must escalate the security dilemma and bolster the capitalist military to defeat the Oriental Hordes to protect our managers’ very peaceloving and democratic ways of life. only once the capitalists have installed someone nicer to manage the Orient can we hope to return to begging the capitalists to relinquish their weapons and their power, of which they now have more of, and which many more people have been integrated into. in the meantime, leftists need to put their shit on hold. none of this will contribute to the rise of the far right or stoke xenophobic tendencies. i’m not a nationalist; joining the military is simply the forward-thinking thing to do. military service very famously attracts good people with good intentions. this is definitely not a right-wing position based in false consciousness and a Tom Clancy-esque view of geopolitics. this posturing has no relation to how we ended up in this situation. the fact that all of this benefits international capital is merely a coïncidence. mutually assured destruction means nothing to me.

    with business going so well for the MIC, Gaza beach resorts should be open just in time for the postwar economy to swing back around! we could all use a little time in the sun after making everything worse.

    /s


    Use the tools that you have right now, and figure out something better once you have the breathing room to do so.

    the military is not my/our tools. it’s the state’s tools.

    our tools are being torn at to make way for a war economy, for a war that isn’t ours.

    and if you tell me you’re not advocating for joining the military, then who does?


  • onoira [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoAnarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.comOn finding a job.
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    5 months ago

    If it’s to provide opposition to Russian aggression, that is something that should be done. I am fully behind opposing fascism and imperialism.

    ‘social’ patriotism is still fascism. the proletariat have nothing to gain in a war waged under capitalism. you can oppose the war without supporting the military-industrial complex. revolutionary defeatism remains as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago.

    just as then, this clash of civilisations narrative is creating a left-to-right pipeline and disappearing comrades into militaries or (if they refuse) prisons. anticapitalism is being sidelined for ‘national unity’ and ‘social cohesion’. money that previously didn’t exist is now allocated to US-bound tributes and funding for corporations which are in the business of fucking killing people, to support the nationalist programme of a Banderite State as these two capitalist countries grind each other’s lower classes against each other. surveillance becomes a ‘necessity’ to defeat the Evil Nonwhite (read: Nonhuman) Hordes. the Bad Refugees need to be expelled to make space for the Good Refugees. housing and funding for refugees and integration programmes suddenly materialises, and these Good Refugees get expedited (and sometimes exclusive) access to such help. literal nazi ideology and dogwhistles are rehabilitated to make all this more palatable.

    where is the antiïmperialism in this? where’s the antifascism? i am convinced militarist-patriotic ‘left’-ists don’t personally know any comrades from Ukraine.




  • there is no contradiction between private property abolition and land-back.

    private property abolition is about ending rentseeking and recommoning the means of (re)production.

    land-back is about self-determination and reparations for the descendants of these genocided peoples; peoples whose destruction still benefits the living descandants of settlers. it’s about returning to broken treaties, ending extractive capitalism on their sacred land, and ending the process of enclosure which cuts them off from their culture, families and neighbours. it’s about restoring rights and laws of stewardship to the people who actually live there and have a connection to the land.

    land-back doesn’t mean transferring private property. it means reöpening it and giving indigenous peoples back their right of stewardship.

    land-back is private property abolition. it’s also an environmental movement.





  • where you defer to someone else for their expertise because maybe they’re the only doctor available who can treat your illness, so you need to do as they say to get better.

    you have the right word for it: expertise (see my other comment).

    it becomes a hierarchy if the doctor involuntarily hospitalises you or uses the courts to force you to undergo the treatment; the power (force) to do that is authority. so long as you still have the power to challenge or otherwise discuss the prognosis, it is not a hierarchy, especially if the treatment is gratis and libre.


  • Expertise merely refers to one’s knowledge or skill in a particular field, but my understanding of CPR or ability to bake shortbread cookies does not make me an authority over you. Other than the conflation of force and authority, this is one of the most common confusions people have about anarchism, made worse by the fact that there are some anarchists who still use authority to refer to both command and expertise just because Bakunin did. Personally, I find that creates needless confusion. If you’re using the word authority to describe everything from slavery to knowing how to build a bridge, then why use the word at all? Just use the word expertise when you’re talking about expertise. Listening to medical advice isn’t a hierarchy. Having expertise doesn’t give me the right to command you unless I hold a position in a hierarchical power structure that grants me that authority. As Bakunin himself said:

    …we ask nothing better than to see men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and, above all, great hearts, exert over us a natural and legitimate influence, freely accepted and never imposed in the name of any official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial.

    — Andrewism, How Anarchy Works » Dissecting Authority (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrTzjaXskUU)


  • a hierarchy (from Greek, for ‘rule of priests’) is a structure which creatures superiors and subordinates.

    Like if I invite a bunch of friends over to help me move into a new apartment, is there a hierarchy because I’m telling everyone where to put the boxes?

    if your friends want to help you, then they’re helping you. they of course needs to defer to you for instructions, because you’re the one who knows what you need help with. if they’re doing so without the guarantee/demand of anything in return (because they care about you), then this is mutual aid.