TOTW: Make it happen here!

Among trends of political polarization, "The Second American Civil War" is making rounds in mainstream media, alternative media, and public discourse as a fear-mongering rhetorical device. Is it merely a reflection of the anxieties that run deep through the roots of America's culture, that at times like these become palpable as high tension? Or does this meme also reflect alienated and desperate aspirations towards the abolition of the extant?

Circulated among the far-right more often as an explicitly stated aspiration or a desired horizon, and by the liberal left as a hopefully avoidable tragedy. Tragedy because of the great loss of life, but also because it would disrupt the business-as-usual of the technocratic management of conflict that allows for the comforts of a pacified population subject to wage-slavery. At the factory, I hear folks regularly express a desire to burn it all down, blow it up, etc. There are generalized deeply repressed desires that are touched on by the "civil war" meme. We've seen in other contexts, such as Chile recently, how bold incendiary attacks are instigators that resonate widely, instead of having a chilling effect on those with the desire to revolt. Those popular eruptions were quickly followed by the expected repression and cost of life inflicted by the state in response.

In the realm of anarchist memes, anarchists are often guilty of implying extreme acts of violence against the existing order and then backing off from the real implications. The awkward response to actions such those of Willem Von Spronsen are noteworthy in this regard. Meanwhile the far right has shown time and again to follow-up on their threats, beyond the realm of memes. Anarchists who have insurrection in their horizon know that it's indistinguishable from civil war. That the maintenance of class society requires the constant operation of counter-insurgency. That class conflict is arguably the constant state of low intensity domestic conflict a la civil war. That not every civil war is a revolution, but every revolution is a civil war. Tiqqun and The Invisible Committee have employed the language of civil war in there texts for close to two decades. These texts and projects are the subject of heated debate within the anarchist milieu. The main disagreements are curiously not along the lines of attack, but rather the communist, individualists, or nihilist affinities of the would be attackers.

Taking a break from dreading a Second American Civil War with doom and gloom, begrudgingly saying It could happen here : Let's imagine a scenario where the anarchists, far from playing the role of the firefighters quelling the flames of far right insurgency, are instead those most committed to exacerbating the underlying tensions in America to an explosive breaking point.

Let's discuss how we can make it happen here!

There are 96 Comments

nice try FBI!

so you’re saying as long as you’re a liberal or on the far right you’re allowed to discuss this type of scenario in detail on talk shows or podcasts, but not if you’re an anarchist?

oh wait...

"Let's imagine a scenario where the anarchists, far from playing the role of the firefighters quelling the flames of far right insurgency, are instead those most committed to exacerbating the underlying tensions in America to an explosive breaking point.

Let's discuss how we can make it happen here!"

that's an inevitable train of though if you are an anarchist. But the problem is, do you really want to exacerbate tensions? Wouldn't we be better off attacking people who control major institutions, or deconstructing those institutions in a way that doesn't involve essays? I'm not gonna do it, but for the sake of the thought experiment...

Agreed. We should be attacking those who control or work for major institutions, including the major propagandists in the media. CEOs, cops, right-wing demagogues, etc. In the 1960s-70s, the government killed leftists and anarchists like they used to slaughter buffalo. This was all considered acceptable by most of the public. These killings changed the course of American history as it effectively stopped the counter culture movement in its tracks. Hippies retreated into communes where they posed no danger to the state. Other leftists turned inward to spiritual self help movements like EST. The rest simply imploded into paranoia caused by COINTELPRO.

What we learn from this, is violence works. Kill the right people, and kill enough of them, and you can get their behavior to change. Evil people who are dead can't continue to do evil things. All the things wrong with the world are caused by people, not by windows, not by bank machines, not by bulldozers....but people. There is no point in smashing a window. It's people who cause events to happen. People make choices to act, whether it's cops, CEOs, landlords, security guards, your boss, media demagogues, etc. They choose to be evil. Kill them.

Murray Berserker you go purge everyone and then elect your new village hìerarchy!!

Where did I say anything about a hierarchy?

You don't see any hierarchy or problematic power dynamics in sweeping generalizations about killing people Murray?

What "sweeping generalizations"? What hierarchy?

"They choose to be evil [according to you]. Kill them [says you]."

^^^ still don't see any problem?

No. I. Don't.

THEY are the ones imposing and inflicting authority and hierarchy on everyone else, often by gunpoint, under the aegis of the state and capitalism.. Defending ourselves against hierarchy and authority is not somehow hierarchy and authority. I have no idea where you are getting this idea from.

Are you on the right website? This is an anarchist website, you know, for people who are AGAINST authority and hierarchy.

You should really spend some more time unravelling some of those threads. At this point, your best hope is that you're just chest thumping online because your reasoning needs some work.

To your dickheaded question at the end; us sharing the view of a huge problem is why we're both here but no, you can't just jam THEREFORE KILL THEM ALL in there without any questions from the floor lol

yeah, i oppose this "kill them all" shenanigans

what is this, a metallica album?

So you still can't back up your claim of hierarchy then? You just move on to the next smear?

Okay, then...pathetic.

i think your sentiments and rationale is not that unreasonable.
can it be carried out and how seem to be interesting questions for me.
seeing it done would be necessary next step to judge its effectiveness and make my mind up on how I feel about it.
would we recoil in disgust at ourselves before the impact made a visible dent in how the world is run around us?
would we give birth to a world that no one wanted or asked for brought by despicable monsters that no one wants to love?

Alright ya little blowhard jackass, let's play. I'm bored anyways lol

What do you think the original concept of the so called "divine right of kings" even was?

You know, the ancient "law" of might that gave rise to monarchy? Which led to the Magna Carta, which lead to the rule of the booj because they wanted to share power with the throne? Which lead to all modern revolutionary theory? Where you get your whole edgy little lexicon from? You know?

(Eurocentric alert!!! I'm oversimplifying)

Anyway, it was the self-declared right to kill whoever. That's what the OG hierarchy is all about. Who gets the monopoly on life and death? Why would your homicidal tendencies be any better or different? I mean, you already seem like a total asshole and you don't even have any real power yet.

thanato-politics--->bio-politics--->buzzword genealogy--->etc.--->bottom text

yeah, some murdery guy is asshole, but sometimes it takes an asshole to make a weird fetish kinky omelette
there are assholes of all kinds, maybe we need some assholes "on our side".
there are in fact already many kinds of assholes "on our side".
how do we deal with them? there are many ways, i'm lazy i won't write a book about them.
maybe some assholes should be encouraged and guided? not that we'd want them as cuddle buddies, but i mean the far-right and the center-right love each other as useful idiots.
why can't idiots all across the board be useful to us?

maybe we've prescribed against it because that's what were all about, or maybe for others it's just because we don't know how or afraid to get our hands dirty with bad ideas. i mean. i've regretted little things i've said or written for months, i don't know if i could outlive mistakes of greater magnitude. but opportunity cost of things not done, and no one outliving life, and reasons. i dunno.

Whaddayah think I'm trying to do here?! Sniff my own fartbong?!

My only requirement for such talk is rigorous analysis. I ain't a fukin pacifist. Anyone remember the last few times some dumbass said "I know! Let's KILL THEM ALL!"

Doesn't end well for the anarchists ... It never ends well for us ... *sob*

references to fartbongs have exceeded the maximum i expected from my life, which was zero

maybe it ends well if we hold hands and skip towards the sunset every day

Gladly!

Ok...now the truth comes out. So your objection is based on some kind of sniveling moralist pacifist attitude towards violence. I get it now.

You confuse self-defense with "might". You confuse a tactic and strategy with "divine right of kings". You confuse fighting against authoritarian oppression with seeking to "share power" . And you confuse stopping assholes with being an asshole.

The only conclusion one can draw from all this self-righteous pearl-clutching is that you are just deeply confused on all levels.

Nobody is "claiming" any "rights". What I'm proposing isn't based on "rights'. It's purely practical, strategic, tactical, and aimed at getting rid of people who are already imposing their authoritarian ideology on me and threatening my survival. It has nothing to do with being "edgy". Nor does it have anything to do with "hierarchy". There's no hierarchy involved, in fact quite the opposite. Killing people in positions of existing hierarchy reduces hierarchy. In hunter gathering societies, killing big man wannabes intent on imposing their own hierarchy on everyone else, helps maintain the egalitarian structure of the group. I am not interested in killing people in order to establish a different hierarchy, but to get rid of the existing hierarchy and prevent any other hierarchy from forming. Frankly I'm shocked I actually have to explain this to you on an anarchist forum.

Dude, we are in a war, except only one side is fighting. I don't know how you plan to bring about anarchy, but not physically fighting this corrupt order isn't an option. I am interested in results and winning, not being morally pure. 50-100 years from now, nobody is going to remember who was killed or why, and nobody is going to be wringing their hands over the ethics of what happened. Just like nobody today cares about all the leftists or anarchists who were slaughtered during the 19th century, the 1930s, or the 1960s. It's all ancient history. Violence is how history changes. It has always been the case. The sooner you realize that the better.

So how in the actual fuck you managed to get the "monarchy" and "divine right of kings" out of what I said is simply astonishing, and must have involved a lot of strong psychedelic drugs.

One of us is confused and you're too busy talking to listen. Frequent problem associated with youth. You realize the state always argues its violence is "defensive" too, yes?

Anyway, Makhno actually did the thing you're only typing about. There's your thought experiment. First, you'll need an insurrectionary army willing to march and die under the black flag. Quit pissing on your computer screen and get to work.

A mindless false equivalency. You are now confusing a similarity in rhetoric with a similarity in reality. The state wants to 'defend' its interests, yes. And as anarchists, we want want to 'defend' our interests. But they are completely different interests. The present state social order is not the same thing as anarchy and freedom.

As for your other idiotic comment, right, fine, then let's get an insurrectionary army together. Pretty fucking simple. At least Makno did something, unlike you.

Now that you're fully worked up, you somehow magically know everything I do?! That's amazing! But what a waste of your powers of omniscience tho!

I know you are not doing anything, since you even admitted you are bored and have the time "to play". And you still haven't addressed anything I've said.

So you don't have an argument then? Just more smears? Thought so.

This is so great! Let's recap!

Nobody can question your edicts about "killing them all" unless they're too busy doing all the things to question you AND you don't see how this little power fantasy of yours relates to hierarchy. Too good!

By all means, blather on some more!

LMAO! I never once said "kill them all!". You just made that up. Keep straw manning me, it's quite entertaining.

And you still haven't explained how killing people in positions of hierarchy is somehow hierarchical!! What a hoot!

Do you even read your own comments?

Actually I did explain. You just can't be bothered to read. You've already forgotten your original post where you said, AND I QUOTE "They choose to be evil, kill them." which I slightly altered to "kill them all" because I'm mocking your keyboard warrior grandstanding.

You're obviously busy trying to be right. I'll continue to be extremely hostile and skeptical of anyone making generalizations about lethal violence because they're just as likely to be my enemy as the cops and their masters, if they're not completely full of shit, which is damn near always.

i agree with you up to a point. which is why i said 8:20 (and put a few grains of sand towards the totw shhh).
can weeee dig iiiitt?- warriors
yes we can! -bob the builder intro song crowd
aye aye, captain!- sponge bob intro song crowd

"Killing people in positions of existing hierarchy reduces hierarchy. "

no, it doesn't reduce hierarchy as long as the position of power/hierarchy itself continues to exist; the position will be promptly filled with another power monger. that is structural hierarchy, the kind the state and the other institutions of domination specialize in.

That's true, it's like if you change the the hens in the chicken coop there will still be a pecking order, albeit of different hens, but it must be the coop that has to change, and the patriarchal dynamic of the rooster. But whose going to pruduce eggs in a non-coop society which produces hens AND roosters who both share the duties of brooding and chick caring?

where the dead are things like money, institutions, morality, etc. It doesn't matter who the president is, or the next wealthy person.

Especially if you don't want to get infe ted with leftist ressentiment huh?

especially because leftists frequently confuse political realities with the lived realities in their neighborhoods. I hate it when im surrounded by meatsacks who are similar to me but i can't even talk to them anymore because NOW I'M THE CAPITALIST-PSYCHOPATH ENEMY.

Isn't the neighborhood rhetoric more like " Capitalist fatcat scum" ."Psychopath enemy" sounds too Bataillean.

they would say "capitalist scum" or "capitalist fatcat scum", i was just going for emotional effect rather than accuracy. And i applaud anarchists who understand such a broad range of history and authors they use "Bataillean", I'm reading some chuang tzu right now but nobody really talks about that stuff cuz it's too old. I wish i had friends who were like you (well maybe not...)

Anyone with an average knowledge of pomo authors are like me, maybe you should hang out with philosophy students, but be careful of fans of Althusser, senileoldtroll is a big fan of him and his psychology ;)

have told me to become a philosophy major, and thanks for the recommendation but that's really fucking expensive and i like my pets.

That's only true if you stop, and pretend the killings won't have any ripple effects. I just finished explaining what happened in the 1960s when the government slaughtered key members of the countercultural movement all over the country. It stopped it in its tracks. Those key members were not replaced. Historical proof.

Or take al qaeda, ISIS, the IRA, the Batista regime in Cuba, etc. Whether it's a small group or a whole government, removing key people reduces hierarchy. But you have to keep it up until you see results.

I wasn't expecting you to ďrop in on this thread also, its getting into an holistic hate and slaughter fest!

Many of those 60s counterculture movements were communist inspired, drugged Utopianist fantasies actually.

Whatever political ideology they were doesn't change the fact that killing key members drastically weakened their movements or even stopped the counter culture in its tracks.

I'm not sure if it was just the targeted killings of key figures. In an insurrectionary movement you'd expect the opposite reaction (vengeance, or just more radicalization) for when key members are killed. At least that's what we've seen in the Niger Delta.

I cannot pretend knowing it all, but it seems that there were lighter, softer factors involved in the gradual collapse of the Black liberation movement in the '70s. Like the upward mobility of a part of the White radicals, happening at the same time than some militants were executed or exiled. The spread of cocaine, just like the spectacularization of the insurgency was also playing a part.

Cocaine and disco music destroyed the counterculture movement. A feelgood mode of recuperation which replaced the flowerpower feelgood mode of enlightenment.

The counter cultural movement had been more or less broken by the mid-1970s. The last big act of state terror was probably the MOVE bombings in Philadelphia in 1975.

Cocaine had been around and available since the late 19th century. It didn't become really widespread until the mid-1970s, and then it was mostly a white upper middle class drug. The crack epidemic among blacks didn't happen until the early 1980s.

They weren't exactly slaughtered out of existence. The reason the counter culture faded was due to multiple factors including things such as radical fatigue in the absence of revolutionary change(see Bob Black withered anarchism), changing post-fordist polyecon institutional structures that successfully recuperated the non revolutionary aspect of the counterculture(who ended up becoming the cyberspace movement), the rise of late 20th century Marxist structural dominant theory which hurt the anarchist anarchic element of the CC ect. It was not CCs being slaughtered like buffalo. In certain radical militant groups like the Panthers and The AIM the simply killed each other from the inside and imploded.

The thing about overton windows is you need some kind of unplanned event to go your way and push things over the edge as political intentionality historically does not deliver the warm blooded radical aspirations of the given radicals. Usually there is recuperation or the radical tendency plays a role in facilitating a new phase of continuing history(1st international 1886 ideology and now post ww2 1968 ideology). Outside of some type of happy accident or collapse radical failure is the norm.

violence as a role it would play for egoistic humans who's heads are not ridden with spooks. I prefer not to be violent but this topic will keep rearing its head and i think how people react to it is pretty important. Or maybe it should just remain completely unacceptable socially and its control and outlets for expression should change? I view nothing as being necessary but there will be blood even if it seems like there never is.

I never said they were slaughtered "out of existence", I said the government killed enough of them to effectively kill their movements. And by counter cultural, I mean everything from reformist groups, to civil rights activists, to Marxists, to radical urban guerilla groups, to even reformist politicians like JFK and RFK. Most of the killings happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the height of these movements when they were strongest. So all those other factors and reasons you mention don't amount to much. It was the cumulative effect of all the killings that took its toll. The government proved that violence works. It also works for the mafia, street gangs, etc. It worked for about 6 months in Spain too. .

There's always mind and bodies to replaced the killed. It's the mental discursive and motivation that matters. The movement was not at it's strongest in the early 70s(again read Withered Anarchism by Bob Black). It was clearly declining with split offs happening either in the direction of recuperation or niche zone radical existence(genX in the 80s and 90s basically). The killing was a small factor driven by an overreacting state who are obsessed with keeping things under control. The MOVE collective for instance was never going to be a revolutionary threat to the US. Yes state violence keeps things going but the state has to be believed to keep existing(voluntary servitude) and in revolutionary moments it's usually the revolution that does itself in via recuperation or it exhausts itself out.

and you sound like some parody of some position too...
saying "Evil people" is the giveaway.
do i taste a hint of z? nah...it's more abstracted...the edgy bois camp
aren't all-arguments-ever so naive?

before the night of all shallows eve i'll shall say something profound!

Murray blockchain wins my troll of the week award, even if they are serious!

KILL KILL KILL, KILL THE PRIESTS POLITICIANS AND EVERYONE ELSE BECAUSE THEY WILL REPLACE THEM!

Dude … YES YOU DID, ya little weasel. It's right fukin there. Who cares if you worded it slightly different. Own your shit ya fukin liar. lol

If I did, then you should be able to quote me, right? So go ahead, please quote me saying, "KILL KILL KILL, KILL THE PRIESTS POLITICIANS AND EVERYONE ELSE !" I'll wait...

Also, never go full caps lock. It makes you look like a retard. And you never want to go full retard.

Damn! That's some mighty fine framing of a discussion right there!

So yeah, my old rant on this subject goes like: one of the key differences (IMO) between the radical left and/or anarchism of a century ago and today, is the proliferation of disenfranchised military veterans within the milieu. Europe and elsewhere, flooded with fucked up, traumatized, desperate people with military training, usually having gone through pretty horrendous direct experiences on battlefields, then tossed back to wherever they came from.

Recently learned about Vonnegut's absolutely jaw dropping experiences with the war. Orwell, Durruti, Makhno, the list goes on and on.

I would argue the defining difference is this mass familiarity with horrifying violence and at least some acceptance of it as necessary.

The far right understands this ... Perhaps better than anyone else? Please note that I'm not being prescriptive at all, only making an observation haha

"The far right understands this ... Perhaps better than anyone else? Please note that I'm not being prescriptive at all, only making an observation haha"

the far right does understand the framing of issues surrounding violence much more than the leftists/liberals do. That's why people usually want to distance themselves from the far right or anyone who seems to be associated with their trains of thought, is that life can be super horrible, and everyone in todays society just wants to forget about that and sleep. I really don't blame them for that. I wouldn't sympathize with anarchists or right wingers if i wasn't traumatized by this reality in some way or another...the difference between the two groups is rooted in how to respond to fear. Most people just want to resort to the easiest solution which is why many of them are closer to being fascists.

Mostly agree. Can't fault your reasoning but one huge thing tho!

I DO blame them. Complacent in decadence, about to collapse under it's own bloated weight... I do blame and I won't forgive.

I wouldn't presume to dish out punishment, mind you. That's the difference between me and the indiscriminate violence types: its arrogant nonsense to elect yourself as the purifier through violence IMO BUT ... I do blame them.

Their complacency is a huge piece of "the banality of evil", isn't it? What sort of defense is that? To say because they haven't suffered much yet, they get remain asleep until their selfishness pulls their shiny plastic world down around their dumbass ears?

Then we all get to share the suffering equally in the future apocalypse .... Yaaay! Full communism achieved kind of! But like, with desperation cannibalism and stuff! Great plan everyone!

but blame doesn't really change anything and I would argue that it's the "democratic" states bidding that creates the illusion that someone's opinion is "what they are", whereas i'm more of the opinion that what you do is what you are, but in the end none of us are really anything anyway....reality changes literally every moment. I could see myself being a neo-nazi as a teenager if i grew up in different circumstances.

i don't have it in me anymore to think that someone who's happy in their complacency is doing anything "wrong". I love being complacent, maybe it will come again some day lol. I can't fight the state, maybe if i got a group together then i could put the odds in my favor but this is unlikely and i don't want to be a general anyway. I'd rather be the person shooting the gun! That's why i have a hard time understanding why people spend a whole lot of time in activism.

It's unfortunate though that people's complacency can make them really dumb and cling more tightly to their prejudaces than they ever did though.

Sure, yeah. Hate to argue the toss here but let's use your logic: if people are what they do and people do pretty much nothing, what are they?

That's pretty much what I mean by "blame" haha. I only belabour this point in a social context where so many people have their faces strapped to electric mirages all the time.

"you are nothing" in favor of "you aren't really anything", because thinking people are "NOTHING" is obviously bullshit, i would argue from an EE perspective that they have become too much!

Just a random anon here thinking about what keeps people in a state of decadent complacency and it appears to me that the spectacle and commodity (not that those are inseparable) are the key issues. Most people are waiting for the next episode of their favorite show to be released or the new product that will make their tiny lives easier to drop. As long as there are enough distractions, they'll remain distracted from their increasingly powerless lives.

It seems that if a somewhat sizable amount of anarchists could disrupt manufacture and transport severely enough, through a really intense series of sabotage of crucial transportation, manufacturing and communication centers, the majority of people would have no choice but to talk with each other and work together, which might lead to many of them questioning the fundamental oppression they have in common.

No internet (not sure how that's possible, maybe severed fiber optics cables?) + No new stuff to buy (because the ports, major freeways and railroads are compromised) + Precarious food security (see transportation sabotage) + increased State repression (trying to round people up who would be responsible and pissing people off in the process) might = a situation where people could become less complacent and have more of a chance of working together for something cooler than what we have.

hahahahahahaha, you sound like a parody of myself! what sick demented fool would do this?
very amusing nonetheless.
one key difference tho:
i don't believe my own bullshit.
nothing good ever happens.
things are endlessly more complicated and you will suck at what you try and everyone is better than you.
you underestimate the odds against you and overestimate your ability to assess the situation.

i have personally dropped any sort of activisty planning and terroristic thinking from my life, because plans are basically meant to be shit on by a perpetually changing reality

however, i do think people talking to each other, being frank, and dropping their egos (not trying to protect their position) on a regular basis could have some sort of positive revolutionary circumstance...but will they?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...you really couldn't make fiction more absurd than the current human condition!

What you said is not what differentiates anarchists from fascists the most. It's the latter's bigotry and poverty of philosophy, the lack of questioning of their own beliefs, including the narratives that feeds their fears. Anarchist ethics, imo, has to do with confronting our fears -every singe one- and overcoming them.

We learn fear, and therefore there is a process to critically and rationally *unlearn*. This is what's strange to the right-wingers, as the objects of their fears as well as the narrative is perceived as some living things, instead of concepts and perception.

to say that anarchists are similar to right wingers in terms of an ability to talk frankly about violence does not "vindicate" right wingers if that's what you're going for. It's just a basic fact: leftists and liberals typically do not want to talk about violence at all, or atleast talk about it in a different way. Anarchists are more similar to leftists and liberals because they have more of an issue with hierarchy and bullying, which is something that far-right wingers love.

What i was trying to say about fear is not any different from what you said about it, right wingers respond to fear by giving into it and making it a target of anger and hatred and try not to question it. It's easy for people with right wing points of view to do this because most people are racist.

It's really fucked up in my opinion, and says a lot about the poverty of anarchists, to say that just because i don't think people are really that different from each other (even if they are never the same), is "hippy", across the course of my life i've noticed a lot of people respond the same way to a lot of different things. Having experiences does not make you this "pathetic pacifistic drug user liberal faggot" in your eyes!

Yeah DL, you two don't even really disagree IMO, just choosing to emphasize different things.

The disenfranchisement is what they share in common, the "extremes" of the left and right, as well as many anarchists and others who are neither.

This alienation is a blank slate and the analysis of society and what to do about it is the difference between say, a hippy green anarchist who wants better lives for many and a far-right militant shooting up a mosque.

Something something horseshoe theory isn't a perfect term but yeah.

true in the sense that when a way of thinking becomes either very "extreme" or "tepid" it becomes very similar in nature especially because political systems generally have to have a very simple goal in mind. People think anarchists and right wingers are more likely to use bombs than anyone else but that isn't true currently and it mostly just comes out of the images of anarchist illegalists that are no longer a significant part of anarchists in general. I really appreciated reading about them in "enemies of society" because it opened my mind up to more perspectives that people could have and not be "bad people", in the depth of my ultra-cynical heart i don't even believe that there are any bad people unless they're all bad. I'm probably similar to other anarchists on here though that i would like to avoid being around most of them most of the time.

Society has this insult called "sociopath" but i don't believe they really exist because you don't have to be a sociopath to lack empathy for people and animals...in fact, why would anyone have real empathy for animals when factories and farmers can still butcher them mercilessly without anyone attacking them?

im more of an eco-extremist. I know hippies, they're usually pretty fucking stupid. PEACE, PEACE! My lifestyle is more hippy-ish, but im angry so much of the time.

Suuure yar. Don't let me keep you from your tiedyed drum circles and fish concerts or whatever ;)

I wanted the world to be full of love;
not full of hatred and violence.
I wanted to make myself a nice
bath with some salts and relax.

However, people have not proven
that they are worthy of my love,
and I'm not quite sure if I'm worthy
of theirs.

Oh general sanders,
you had such wondrous colors of
glory. But you wanted to escape
my hospitality, you could not trust me,
now you are in my backyard forever.

I live in the gray house on the hill,
it seems like it's abandoned and
there are just too many weeds.

A pretty terrible choice to play the role of your therapist my dear. Bad casting. On par with Jared Leto's joker. Best of luck tho!

my previous insult directed against you was removed by @news. I understand their policy of keeping people from attacking each other, so im not bothered by it.

However, i will say this: your attempt to criticize my poetry failed. Just to say "that sucks because it's mainstream and corny" doesn't cut it. I have not seen joke and i do not have a therapist, so the whole thing is pretty off base. I'm merely mocking the fact that everyone keeps wanting to refer to me as a hippy.

And i am not a hippy, there's very little about the way i look and the way that i live that makes me a hippy. If resembling any bogus category is a crime, then please fucking kill me. It really does suck to be "black".

my previous insult directed against you was removed by @news. I understand their policy of keeping people from attacking each other, so im not bothered by it.

However, i will say this: your attempt to criticize my poetry failed. Just to say "that sucks because it's mainstream and corny" doesn't cut it. I have not seen joke and i do not have a therapist, so the whole thing is pretty off base. I'm merely mocking the fact that everyone keeps wanting to refer to me as a hippy.

And i am not a hippy, there's very little about the way i look and the way that i live that makes me a hippy. If resembling any bogus category is a crime, then please fucking kill me. It really does suck to be "black".

oh and @news stop accusing me of a CAPTCHA reuse attack, the one i entered the first time was the correct one, and my internet connection just fucking sucks.

We were only teasing. Apparently calling you a hippy is fighting words? What happens if I'm actually mean?!

you die!

If you wanna live
Treat me good
If you wanna live, live
I beg you treat me good

I'm like a walking razor
Don't you watch my size
I'm dangerous
Said I'm dangerous

YEAH I KILL EVERYONE WHO IS MEAN TO ME HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i mean how am i supposed to know someone on the internet is teasing?! I remember conversations on IM back when i was younger and people would get so mad at me when i was joking and the conversations were so weird and then we just came to the conclusion it had to do with the fact that nobody knows your joking when your on the internet. Sound familiar senileoldtroll? You've gotten mad when i've insulted activism before. But yeah you're right im fucked up in the sense that i react to things!

Wow, this binary stuff is sooo boring to discuss, its like reruns of b-grade 50's romantic dramas located òn some remote airforce base in Alaska during the Cold War. Sooo clichèd and predictable, its like history has come a whole circle.

reading it and thinking about how boring it is. Every single topic on this site has to do with binaries, they're not something to be banned they're only something to be skeptical about because they're frequently used to trick people into choosing "better" options.

So, you don't want boring topics, you want topics that are interesting, so that you can escape the binary?

Yes, I want exciting ideas, not stale old boring ones, and the only way we're going to escape the monotonous regurgitation of dichotomies is to forge nunique (as in new unique) paradigms. My quest for new paradigms is my name, Nuniquest, AND I WILL EXPELL BOREDOM FROM MY DOMAIN!!!

Reality check: In the United Snakes we are in a country where the voting public thinks we are 66% of the way to a civil war(see below). The class war is already underway, as the bosses scoop up more and more for themselves. Police are already engaging in outright race war, shooting down people of color for nothing. The rich are preparing for "lifeboat" scenarios hoping to be the only survivors of catastrophic climate change setting off migrations and war.

Are people left of the liberals ready for this?

A recent Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service poll found that the average of all US voters considers the us to now be 2/3ds of the way to the start of civil war. Already we have had some very close calls. The worst was probably Charlottesville. Had the shot fired by that KKK member hit someone, the John Brown Gun Club et all would have been forced to respond. That in turn could easily have caused the 3%ers to open fire on them, sparking an all-out infantry battle while everyone else on BOTH sides tried to get out of the line of fire as thousands of rounds were fired. From that point forward, it would have been ON.

There is so much racial, ethnic, and religious hate this war could look a lot like Syria. Imagine Trump is Assad, Pence is the head of ISIS, and at the start of the war we have an Assad/ISIS coalition government. We don't know whether this faction will hold the Federal government or be fighting from the outside (well actually from the inside of the continent, the police, and the military) at the start of the conflict. The 2020 election might decide that question, assuming the campaign and impeachment proceedings don't ignite the whole mess.

No matter how it starts, we soon are looking at a Confederacy in the South, Christian State in the center, Cascadia in the NW, the Azanian Republic in California, and the New England Federation (or whatever they call it). Any progressive zones in the Midwest are in danger of being cut off by Christian State, though a Kobane style stand at the Canadian border is possible. It is a certainty that Christian State will engage in wholesale genocide and ethnic cleansing, and very likely the Confederacy will follow suit.

Worst choice of all might be not to fight, now as it was in WWII. If everyone else does nothing fearing war, the Confederates and Christian State types could well get control of the entire US. Maybe the GOP's 2020 election slogan should be "vote Trump and never have to vote again?"

You realize ISIS and Assad are fighting each other in Syria, right? So in your analogy, why would their American dopplegangers be in a coalition?

Assad is a fascist, ISIS is theocrats. Trump is a fascist, Pence is a theocrat. In Syria these factions are at war because Assad is a secular fascist-and because ISIS is Sunni while Assad as Alawite and also has much shiite support. It is as though Trump was Catholic and Pence protestant during the Reformation/Armada era.

Here, the corporate agenda papers that over and fascists and theocrats usually ally with each other. That is a key difference, in that what is two sides in Syria become one side in the US. In practice this means "Christian State" and the reborn Confederacy would be allies at least and there is the possibility they would be a single larger country.

Oh yeah, DC's a crazy place: belly of the beast and some of the worst gentrification on the entire planet. We are rapidly running out of assets in this town as everyone who is not rich gets dehoused and driven away.

Luke from DC, has anyone ever called you crazy? Cos I'm reading your comment and I'm thinking, from DC means from being Damn Crazy!!

im from the dc area, i can't really say too much better about the surrounding areas. Remember, the white house is in dc, and so is congress and the senate. It's hard to find an apartment under $1000 unless you move to the ghetto or the surrounding areas in maryland. There is a huge gentrification program going on. As a result, the general vibe is there are lots of pissed off homeless and black people in the streets and it's fucking hard to ignore their misery! If i was luke i'd probably be fucking crazy too.

Actually, DC means Despises Cops, like all good activists. Even the cops who run into burning buildings and rescue kids, they're also loathed. Sure, its a Damn Crazy broad hatred to carry around 24/7, but that's binary warfare bias.

luke, you doing okay there, bud? so you believe a protest in charlottesville could've started a full blown civil war had someone been shot by the kkk and the 8 people in this john brown club responded by shooting someone in the kkk? that would've ignited the civil war and next thing you notice there's an all out infantry battle lol against the 8 people in this john brown club?

Keep in mind, it's not what happened or could have happened at Cville, it's what would have happened AFTER a shootout between the John Brown Gun Club and the KKK and 3%ers. Whoever took the most casualties would surely have retaliated, and a tit for tat escalatory spiral would have resulted. Unless something limited horizontal escalation it could have spread until all of the left was fighting all of the right. Doesn't mean it would have for sure, but means it sure as hell could have.

On the other hand, it's also possible the far-right would lose their taste for murder and death after being on the receiving end, or that what Trump calls the "deep state" would move to limit the violence for their own reason. Something like the latter may have happened a few years ago in Greece: Golden Dawn started killing people, then someone went after them exactly once, and from what I remember the government cracked down a little on Golden Dawn, at which point the shooting war petered out. The former happened in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. The Orange Order's most extreme supporters started boarding busses and shooting anyone who crossd themselves when the bus passed a Catholic church. The IRA paid them back in kind once only, and that part of "the troubles" ground to a halt.

true that. that is an accurate account of what an alternate history could have been.

maybe since it’s economic interests of elites and ruling class that drive war, a second civil war has not happened, since it’s not in the interest of any of them, and there are not competing economic models, like the plantation and slave ownership of the south vs whatever the fuck the north had or wanted. someone refresh me this fucking history, i ain’t learn it. slavery is still around, prisons and shit.

anarcho-non-interventionism has its merits, it’s: realistic, pragmatic, well-infomed, critical, low-risk, sustainable, uncontroversial, fool-proof, accessible, mature, refined, plausibly deniable, innocent, safe, boring, compatible with citizenism yet critical of it, on the side of being right, on the side of “i told you so”, compatible with a long and fulfilling life. If things happen, they happen, you just happen to be nearby, nodding in approval, disapproval, or indifference, very thoughtful deep in thought.
There is no alternative, except running with the program of those with power and initiative, of the big thrust of massive trends and interactions that make you beside the point. If you have a will to live, you can make a nest a dodge the bullets.

Friendly amendment: "For now, cuz apparently you're one of the lucky ones ..."

to realize that as a human you have control over next to nothing! I might die tomorrow *turns back into a nihilist* awesome!

funny how i detest this position and was merely parodying it, like that other anon. it might still be true tho, but i don’t have to like it!

Add new comment