Reflections on the Battle of Algiers: Poetic Hypertext in Light of Recent Events

The news report from the calm of the eye at the center of the storm in Kabul on CNN is quite eerie. There are also conflicting messages that the United States is sending to the Afghan military with Pentagon representative John Kirby identifying the military advantages of the Afghan military, our officials urging the Afghans to fight, and our destroying documents in our embassy, and our rather immediate evacuation of personnel. Our security advisors have accepted defeat already and our probably already planning for a new phase in the so-called "War on Terror" and The New York Times merely states the obvious.

Years ago, I predicted this would happen. In my generalized madness, I tried to explain to our security forces and the associated press that they didn't understand The Battle of Algiers. It's about much more, you should consider that, but, on some level, the implicit purpose of the café bombings was to draw out the tanks and to bring them to torture, which Jean-Luc Godard, in The Little Soldier, was right to characterize as having been "so monstrous and so sad". It was a way of revealing to the world the brute truth to the French occupation and galvanizing support among the Algerian populace, a way of revealing just what was at stake for all parties involved. Because the National Liberation Front had something to live and die for, they could only win. It's as if, by writ of God, only those with faith in their cause can win.

The Battle of Algiers was Andreas Baader's favorite film. He, of course, was either assassinated or committed suicide in Stammheim Prison. It's our organizational structure, that of the decentralized network, one that was born out of terrorist cells, that groups like the Taliban have adopted, coupled, of course, with what they've learned from American intelligence. In a way, Islamic extremist groups are like a dark projection of fears over anarchism. There is just ruthless fanaticism and generalized chaos.

The Taliban, of course, are quite different from the FLN. Still, though I doubt that he watches many films, were you to ask Abdul Ghani Baradar what his favorite is, I'd bet that he'd tell you that it's The Battle for Algiers.

They still don't get it, and I just don't know how to explain it to anyone.

Maybe the pandemic should serve as a wake-up call and we need to realize that the dream is over and that it's time to start rethinking the whole situation and devising new strategies before it's too late .... — Apollodorus

That's a nice sentiment and all, but, in Afghanistan, I think that we have to accept that it is already too late. The United States isn't going to reengage in the conflict and the ostensive dream of democratic Afghanistan isn't going to come to fruition in any determinate future. Though well aware that it could be potentially harmful to the morale of the Afghans fighting the Taliban now, I just don't think that anything can be done to stop them.

The question is, what solutions can philosophy offer? — Apollodorus

An expression of solidarity in the word, "godspeed", and to figure out what to do about what is to become an influx of refugees, hopefully convincing other countries to give them safe harbor. As for everyone else there, I don't know. All that we can do is to acknowledge that it is a situation beyond our control.

Without the ever-illusive "West" to fight, I think that the Taliban will just kind of internally dissolve. Perhaps, in the aftermath, there will be hope for people there then?

Hopefully, but, y'know, not sticking around to find out is always an option, at least, when it's an option.

How about treating the whole thing as you did treat the previous World Trade Center bombers? To make it a police matter. — ssu

I agree, though, I think that there's a counter-terrorism branch, of what, who knows, in the United States that handles such things internationally.

Quite impossible, I guess. Americans wanted, demanded, and had that 20 years war. — ssu

You don't live here, and, so, don't quite see how the general mindset was sort of instilled. Sure, in any given democracy, even a flawed one like ours, people do still have some relative autonomy, and, so, some things are really autopoietic, but there was a certain element of the American populace having been driven to support the war, in part, by our news media, and, in part, by the Bush administration. I can't say that we would have invaded had even Joe Biden been in office back in 2001. Perhaps? It's all kind of speculative, though.

Edit:

According to Wikipedia, The Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism is a bureau of the United States Department of State, and, so, it is tied to the federal government and there is a counter-terrorism division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but I think that they primarily handle domestic terrorism, whereas this organization, which doesn't really seem to be connected to the FBI, handles international terrorism. To call it a branch of our government may have been somewhat in error, as it could easily be a kind of free floating organization, if you will.

They could be the counter-terrorism division connected to the FBI or just some of administrative counter-terrorism bureau, but, in the general course of my life as an American citizen, I do remember encountering a counter-terrorism organization that didn't seem to be connected to our police, military, or intelligence service. I could have just remembered this incorrectly, but I think that there's some sort of organization that apparently has a certain degree of autonomy who does somehow handle international terrorism. I don't really know, though.

I think that the most responsible thing to do, though it is kind of demoralizing for me to say so, is to begin to prepare for the refugee crisis, which, I am sure, has already begun.

I don't think that I quite believe that stock buybacks are where most of a company's profits go, but, sure, the board directors more or less control any given corporation. I don't think that too many people deny that.

It's not like it's a club, for God's sakes. — Xtrix

Metaphorically speaking, what is a set of references, job experiences, and experiences within higher education other than a set of status symbols? Even not so metaphorically speaking, I could still beg the same question.

I have not once characterized cooperatives as a-political. I'm sure the workers within a cooperative have plenty of ideas about politics. — Xtrix

The point that I am raising about anarchism and cooperatives is that, in so far that a cooperative is aware that a prospective employee is an anarchist, they are probably less likely to hire them, despite, that, in a way, the whole thing is kind of an anarchistesque idea. There are reasons for this, though, some of which are better than others and some of which aren't really all that justified at all.

If you'd rather insist on diverting the discussion into something that interests you, or that you think you're knowledgable about, fine. But then don't whine when people ignore you. — Xtrix

I really did just respond to the thread from my perspective. I took a certain degree of liberty of the aforementioned "perspective", which I will even apologize for, but that is all that really happened. If you think about it, when else will I have the opportunity to talk about libcom's misguided near rejection of participatory economics? There's something to said for listening to people, I guess, but a missed opportunity is just that.

Democracy to work sets actually high standards to the people. — ssu

There's a difference, though, between adequate standards and absurd ones. I generally invoke The New York Times for what I think the expected reading level ought to be for anything that needs to be commonly understood. If something requires a postgraduate education to understand, particularly when it is something that is expected to be understood by most people or when it is something that most people ought to figure out, then, it has not been expressed in a clear and concise enough manner.

Well, what is so wrong with a having a company where the workers own the shares of the company? In the end if you want, you can sell your shares. — ssu

That doesn't seem to pose too much of a problem to me. I don't know, though. I don't live there.

Why? What do you mean by "you are bound to only have a few people who truly understand the democratic process"??? — ssu

In so far that you have a too complex of a democratic process, only a few people will understand how it works.

Good to be honest here. Because many times things that seem OK on paper, when you think of them theoretically, miss the crucial element of the actual people and how they come along with each other. That naturally depends on a variety of things as people can be very different and just one individual in a group can either make it work or make it to brake up — ssu

That's fair enough, but I think that the gradualist elements that I have incorporated do kind of safeguard against potential failures, at least, that's what they're intended to do.

Sure. But as in my country there are large and well performing cooperatives, I'm of the view that in the end the normal day-to-day functions of a cooperative aren't so different from a corporation. Naturally the whole discourse and activity around the company stock doesn't exist, yet they look quite the same. — ssu

Working in a cooperative does seem very much preferable to me than working elsewhere. Alas, though, and I am sure that I have some rather mythic notions in this regard, I don't live in a Nordic country, and, so, will have to figure something else out.

Everyone is welcome, and everyone can be involved. — Xtrix

Welcome, how? You've been nothing but dismissive and snide. Am I considered for membership within a cooperative that you are a part of? Probably not. It's just like the aforementioned coffee shop, or even Occupy. They wanted to be anti-capitalist, as it was in vogue then to be somehow disaffected as it is now, and experiment with direct democracy, having taken a leaf from ¡Democracia Real YA!, who never had this problem, I might add, all under the lucrative direction of Adbusters, but they didn't really care too much for anarchists, communists, socialists, etc. Sure, there were a variegated set of reasons for this, but one of which was that admitting that anti-capitalism is just simply "left-wing" and that the direct democracy that they sought to carry out does ultimate within participatory democracy, of which the two most notable historical examples of are the Paris Commune and certain localities under the Second Spanish Republic, would play into the media characterization of the movement as having been "radical", which, if it does denote that a political philosophy goes beyond liberal democracy, was just simply true. I believe that José María Arizmendiarrieta was an a-political humanist. You, I think, are a left-wing liberal who has characterized cooperatives as being a-political so as to broaden your potential support base, which is just fine, but does kind of leave us out in the process.

Since the term "anarchism" is meaningless until it's explained, I have nothing to support. — Xtrix

The shortest definition for anarchism is "libertarian socialism". Some people prefer to say that it is a political philosophy that attempts to reify the "abolition of all hierarchy", but, though I do think that that is more descriptive of its teleological goal, I don't, necessarily.

My point about cooperatives is that they do have a history that relates to anarchism, as the creator of the Mondragon Corporation narrowly escaped the firing squad during the Spanish Civil War.

My personal kvetch against this a-political, but anti-capitalist initiative that you have proposed is that you seem to want participatory economics, a libertarian socialist idea, without any libertarian socialists involved.

Sorry, I stopped reading your post at this point. Too long -- and you haven't earned the assumption of relevance. — Xtrix

I really don't understand why it is that you feel a need to make consistent demeaning quips, outside, of course, that it does happen to be a rhetorical strategy that offers you the pretense of intellectual superiority. Apt sophistry, pseud.

"The King of Spain" by The Tallest Man on Earth

It does have something to do with anarchism, though. You see, when Fransisco Franco declared himself to be the King of Spain, a civil war began between an alliance of communists, anarchists, and liberals, the "republicans", and fascists and monarchists, the "nationalists". That political history almost definitely inspired José María Arizmendiarrieta, who escaped the firing squad due to administrative oversight, to create the Mondragon Corporation. It is because of that, in the Basque region of Spain, a loosely affiliated set of republican forces, whom we can both adequately and inadequately characterize as anarchists, were willing to live, fight, and die for both the lofty republican ideals that they shared and in opposition to the obvious threat of fascism that we now even have this idea, and it is a good one, of a vaguely participatory economic corporate structure, that of the cooperative.

Stop using "anarchist." This has nothing to do with anarchism, which has a long history, many branches, and many definitions. — Xtrix

Please do not offer me the pretense of knowledge that you have over a political philosophy that you do not support again. There is no reason to be condescending. Perhaps, you are aware of our political differences, but I could probably you a lot more about them than you will ever know.

Yes: I don't think that's remotely true. Most of this is commonsensical and has nothing to do with labels -- socialist, communistic, anarchist, or anything else. For most workers, it simply makes more sense and creates a better working environment. It's better for their morale, they usually receive better compensation, and have say in the place they work. — Xtrix

While that may sound very reasonable and open-minded, it just simply is not true. You're not going to find anyone who supports cooperatives who doesn't chart in the bottom left quadrant of the Political Compass. While you can bill and may even be able to sell cooperatives as appealing to some sort of a-political humanism, which Arizmendiarrieta did, and I don't even really mind, upon entering any form of political debate whatsoever, you will find that such ideas are considered to be "left-wing", if not even "radical".

All of which is to say nothing of what qualms I have with these sort of ostensive a-political initiatives. In so far that both parties are willing to agree to some form of free association, which is to say not to make an attempt to secure any agency over the other, the only kind of ethical socio-political relationship, should such left-wing liberals, and let's be honest, unless you are a very open-minded Libertarian, you can only be a left-wing liberal, be unwilling to ally themselves with us, which you clearly are, though, as a rather isolated anarchist, I do understand as to how and why this is, then it would seem, and I do mean this metaphorically, as there are clear examples of successful cooperatives outside of such caricature, that the cooperative movement should be exclusively for attractive, young, reasonably well well off hipsters who are more than willing to dress as if it was there only chance to see Parquet Courts on a daily basis behind the counter of a coffee shop, or, in short, what, according to Karl Marx is emphatically not, but people do just simply say is "petit bourgeois".

A relatively short note about hipster coffee shops:

The qualms that I have are not with these establishments per se, as I am likely to mill about them, but moreso with that they just won't hire me. It's not that I don't have an eclectic set of interests in music, literature, and film or cool enough clothes purchased on consignment, though there are certain aesthetic considerations to take in there; it's that I am not of a certain aesthetic, intellectual, or socio-economic class. There are a set of circumstantial conditions to be met so as to be of either an aesthetic or intellectual class, but, having a certain degree of monetary wealth, or, at least, growing up with it, is certainly an advantage. To apply the metaphor to what I'm driving at, it's kind of like how some people just don't make it within certain hip gentrifying parts of town on account of not being young, urban, and professional enough to afford an increase in the price of renting an apartment. All of which, I mean as a social critique so as to be willing to put into question, despite what is veritable of it, what you might call, "New School chic", particularly within activist circles.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the cooperative movement, though, aside from its advocates. There's a certain degree of mutual mistrust between anarchists and left-wing liberals, though, which, for both sides, has, at least, some basis, and, so, it is all somehow understandable. I'm just kind of perpetually vexed by never being able to get anything off of the ground. I left the anarchist movement anyways, though. Oh well.

To sort of emphasize this point, the Basque region of Spain was a stronghold for the Republican movement during the Spanish Civil War.

There are people like, let's say, Astra Taylor, who were involved with Occupy whom you could find so as to put such a project into effect, but most of them do have some sort of vague anarchist sympathies and just simply kind of are, among the better of us, which is to say the people who don't feel a need to do things like get into shouting matches at protests, our allies among left-wing Liberals.

Perhaps, I do assume too much, but is seems kind of like you're trying to avoid the choir that this preaches to.

What I am curious of, though, as I have a certain degree of self-interest in clarifying my general praxis in the vain hopes of finding like-minded allies who lurk The Philosophy Forum, as, even Peace News and I have theoretical differences, though I do consider for them to be fairly amicable, I do understand you ignoring my lengthy post about all of this, is as to what you think of the idea that the cooperative movement can be put to the effect of establishing anarchist society.

On some level, there is an inherent subterfuge to such a venture, as we can only really seek to co-opt the movement in our favor. I, however, do genuinely endorse free association, and, so, would prefer a strategic alliance with and not a struggle for control over the cooperative movement. To tell you the full truth, only some anarchists really care enough about free association to also agree to do so.

You may think this somewhat irrelevant, but, what I am going to flat out tell you is that who supports co-ops are anarchists and anarchist sympathizers, and, so, the only people who you are going to find who have any interest in such ideas are, well, us.

Thoughts?

A short note about complexity:

There seems to me, within any given democratic process, to be kind of a Golden Mean between dynamic adaptability and over-complexity. If the democratic process of any social organization whatsoever is complex to a point of requiring a degree in Sociology, specializing in social organization, to understand, then, it will necessarily be too arcane to be effective. You see this within our Liberal democracy with Law. An organization should be able to adapt its process when situations demand that it does, however.

Another short note in defense of my having been in the DSA, for anyone who is curious:

Anarcho-Pacifism is about as popular as anarcho-nihilism was a few years ago, which is to say that there are about seven of us in the world. Needless to say, regardless as to what political organization I join, in part, though only in part, as I kind of agree with Jacques Camatte and Simone Weil, though not completely, as my speculative foray into organizational structures ought to illicit, because of that I just don't currently have any political allies, I am somewhat necessarily engaged in entryism. What the effective political praxis of democratic socialism and anarcho-pacifism turn out to be, however, is effectively the same thing, which is a gradualist transition to participatory democracy with only a slight emphasis upon reform. The real difference between democratic socialism and anarcho-pacifism is in the choice of allies. They align themselves with a broad Left, whereas I would do so with a broad anti-authoritarian movement. I'm no longer in the DSA or even really the anarchist movement anymore, though, and, so, this is all kind of a lot of armchair political philosophy.

There are some considerations to ponder here, namely that you are bound to only have a few people who truly understand the democratic process, but I think a potential solution to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of democratic enterprises could be the creation of complex democratic system.

The consensus-based decision making model, for instance, is something that a lot of people within the libertarian Left try out, which occasionally is lauded for the maximal stake that it offers its participants, but does quite often fail, as, anytime a decision needs to be come to, a meeting needs to be held for long enough for a consensus to be met. Certain Anarchists will tell you all sorts of things about it, even admonishing democracy altogether, an entirely nebulous enterprise, in my opinion, but that is more or less the inherent flaw.

It does work well, however, in small groups that don't have to make a lot of decisions. If you don't require an absolute consensus, if you somehow adapt to consistent minority opinions, as is part and parcel to the project, you can avoid the problem of that one or two people may repeatedly effectively veto any and/or all progress in this or that regard. Though I don't have any real experience within said organizations, I think that this is both fairly common and effective within small-scale mutual aid organizations.

In larger Anarchist organizations, attempts to institute a kind of pure consensus-based decision making model do quite often result in that, well, nothing gets decided upon whatsoever.

Once an organization grows to a certain size, there does seem to be a need to elect delegates, of which, one-member, one vote, seems to be the tried and true method. What doesn't necessarily have to be done is to consider the delegates as having been granted some sort of arbitrary authority over their particular organizational dominion. In the Democratic Socialists of America, for instance, of which, I would give the critique that there was a generalized disinterest in actually reading the by-laws, something that could raised as a point of contention to what I am offering in general, you would elect a chair and co-chair of each committee, the committees would have meetings and decide upon what to do, usually, after an hour or so long conversation, via a standard vote, and the chair or co-chair would go before everyone at the general meeting, wherein there would be a set of discussions and then everyone present at the general meeting would then again vote, which I assume is according to its by-laws, but, as I didn't read them either, I don't really know. They have kind of an elaborate process of adapting so that the organization can live up to its name, but only really the people who have been there forever know anything whatsoever about it.

There is a lot that you could say either for or against the DSA, but I would generally contend that it is an overall pretty good organization.

Anyways, what I'm suggesting is that, in so far that a larger Anarchist organization, or just simply anyone else who is interested in participatory could do, in so far that they would like to adopt the consensus-based decision making model, is to create a dynamic democratic system wherein it could be utilized in small groups, such as committees, as well as for, perhaps necessitating certain caveats, certain key decisions, an example of which, to use the DSA as an example, could be something like both the decision to have endorsed Bernie Sanders and how to do so, as some people wanted to directly participate within the campaign undertaken by the Democratic Party and some people wanted to undertake a campaign solely within the DSA, as such a decision effects the overall direction of the entire movement. For practical considerations, however, such as electing a treasurer after someone leaves the organization, the organization could fall back upon the one member, one vote method.

I should, perhaps, point out that, for all of the extensive knowledge, feuds, partial alliances, revelry, and disdain that I have for the Anarchist fringe, I do have a fairly limited experience within actual Anarchist organizations, and, so, this is all really fairly speculative, as it's mostly just based upon what I've read online here and there from various parties for various reasons.

I guess that what I'm suggesting is that a dynamic and adaptive synthesis of various forms of participatory democracy could be applied so as to both maximize a individual member's stake within an organization and ensure a certain degree of effectiveness and efficiency. The key problem with this, which I have already pointed to with the DSA's by-laws, is that individual members may be unlikely to understand how a complex democratic process works. This, however, I think has more to do with interest and engagement than anything else. The DSA, for instance, became relatively popular due to the coordinated campaign in favor of the election of Bernie Sanders, but, despite a significant increase in membership, will probably return to the relative obscurity that it previously had. The reason for this, I think, though a paradoxical caveat to my being admitted to the organization as an anarcho-pacifist, is due to that it is a "big tent" organization. Anyone who is a socialist can be a member. I am an anarcho-pacifist who defines anarchism as "libertarian socialism" and, so, do qualify. You can also be a member of the DSA as a Marxist-Leninist or Maoist, at least, in so far that you agree to that it is a democratic organization whose socialist vision is also democratic, which kind of results in an endless standoff between the recent Libertarian Socialist Caucus and the more authoritarian marxists in the organization. People within the far-Left develop all sorts of ideas and notions for all sorts of reasons, and, so, I kind of understand their desire to effectively convert said people to some other variant of marxism, but, were I to create a political organization or movement, I would probably make the libertarian aspect of my aforementioned "libertarian socialism" requisite. Perhaps, that's a certain kind of personal preference, though.

Anyways, all of this is to say nothing of the structure of something like a corporation, however. Personally, I am emphatically in favor of prefigurative politics. I don't think that people who are in favor of participatory democracy can ever hope to establish it without practicing it within their own organizations. Libcom, whom you may not consider relevant outside of the libertarian Left, but are actually some of its foremost theorists, aside from, perhaps, the waning trend of Communization, are fairly pessimistic of this general line of reasoning, even to the point of being ostensibly opposed to it. You see this in their critique of parecon. They generally think something along the lines of that only the establishment of libertarian communism, i.e. an effective revolution, insurrection, or near magical peaceful establishment of an Anarchist commune, can produce communist society, all of which is to emphasize that things like participatory economics, participatory democracy, cooperatives, or even mutual aid organizations can not cope with conditions under the current set of wealth and power relations that exist now, which they, in good faith, would just be willing to call "capitalism", which is not wholly untrue, the aforementioned Mondragon Corporation being an example of theirs, but I think their line of reasoning is all-too pessimistic, if not indicative of a certain sectarian militant zealotry. If you go into prefigurative politics without any illusions of actually reifying communist society, as per the general idea, I don't think that such harsh critique is really necessary to prevent anyone from becoming delusional.

Alas, however, I have been boring everyone endlessly and still am not quite on topic.

Similarly to organizations of the libertarian Left itself, should cooperatives adopt a dynamic and adaptative democratic process, perhaps undergoing a fairly gradual transition to some form of economic democracy, then, I do think that, over time, the seeming need for a hierarchical structure, will more or less disappear. A small shop that is run as a cooperative starting out, I do think, just can immediately be established as a kind of pure cooperative and test and try and adapt to what it needs to as such. I do imagine that something like a book store, though ultimately requiring some sort of administrative decisions, can just be run as a cooperative from the immediate outset.

Let's say that Jeff Bezos becomes taken by the cooperative movement, deciding that it is the way of the future, and wants to transform Amazon into a cooperative. I would contend that, even Amazon, though it would probably look a lot different, can be run as a pure cooperative. Perhaps, that is a point of contention that we can discuss, however? What would seem to be unwise is to overhaul such a large company as such overnight. Bezos could, instead, phase in the cooperative elements over time, allowing for the chance to adapt and develop a dynamic democratic process without risking the wholesale bankruptcy of the corporation.

As uncouth as it is to say, I'm kind of impressed. I looked at the news yesterday and they had taken 11 out of the 34 provincial capitals. When I looked at it today, they had taken 17 out of the 34 provincial capitals. This is like the Islamic fundamentalist equivalent of that part of War and Peace when they drive the French army out of Russia.

It's all a very tragic situation, particularly for the Afghan people, though I do think adds a certain credibility to Tolstoy's theory that morale is the decisive factor in military battles, even today.

Had we merely waged a counter-terrorist operation against Al-Qaeda, that could also have been an effective strategy. It probably would have been the most sensible thing for the United States Military to have done.

That, of course, is not what happened, however, and, now, as the Taliban now control half of the provincial capitals, and American security advisors are evacuating the country and have even pleaded with the Taliban not to attack the United States Embassy in Kabul, it seems that their rule is imminent.

Clearly, this is not a great situation for the people of Afghanistan or the world at large. However, without the ever illusive "West" to fight against, I doubt that the Taliban will be capable of retaining power in Afghanistan for any considerable amount of time. It'll function as a hub for Islamic extremism for a period of time before returning to the land of feuding warlords that it more or less has always been, which, of course, is little to no consolation to the Afghan people, but not necessarily a concern of ours.

I guess that they actually do. Crazy!

It's not communist propaganda, and it's not a bid for co-ops. — Xtrix

While the term, "agitprop", did originate in the former Soviet Union, it does generally denote any sort of political art designed to inspire some sort of action or another.

That's what a co-op is, in part. But most importantly is this: they're their own board of directors. They hire and fire CEOs and managers, set pay grades and ratios, decide whether to expand, decide whether they want to bring in private investment and issue stocks, etc. etc. — Xtrix

That does sound like workers' self-management, but I think that it may be a somewhat hopeful depiction of co-ops in general. I'm all for them and all, but I don't think that workers determine their pay grades and ratios all that often, for instance. I could be wrong, though. I don't know too much about them.

I kind of agree with you that it's unlikely for co-ops to catch on. You might not be talking about anarchism, but, I am so inclined to wonder, when we're going to go through the whole business of reorganizing the entire corporate structure, why not just go all the way to workers' self-management?

Occupy Wall Street was a broad-based anti-capitalist movement that became popular in 2011. Slavoj Zizek was sort of involved with it, but it wasn't communist by any stretch of the imagination.

it's not a bid for co-ops — Xtrix

I think co-ops serve as a good alternative model. — Xtrix

I think co-ops are a good idea, too. You can support co-ops if you like.

Eh, I thought it was some pretty good Occupy agitprop and bid for co-ops. A little heavy handed with the totalitarianism and tyranny, but, it is agitprop, I guess.

Upon looking these things up, the transition town movement seems to be all, well, good, and all, but the United States reentered the Paris Agreement by executive decree in January of 2021, and, so, the doom and gloom of this Rupert Read video, I think, has become partially, though not entirely, outdated.

The thing about environmental alarm, though, is that most people who don't support doing anything about climate change just simply think that it's already too late, and, so, though it adds some gravity to the situation, it doesn't necessarily have the effect that anyone might want for it to.

It only took Chernobyl (actually exploded), Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to do it. I tell you there's something psychological about nuclear that commands human irrationality... — Shawn

Well, the opposition to nuclear power was born out of the anti-nuclear movement, originally set forth in favor of disarmament and later led to the creation of a number of environmentalist movements, and, so, you're asking the environmentalist movement to change a basic assumption concerning its original basis. There was Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and it was also quite easy to associate nuclear power with the atomic bomb, which is even still kind of a concern.

Well, the proponents of molten salt and Thorium claim that there is no possibility of creating nuclear weapons due to the reactors, but, it is actually just very difficult to. I'm kind of thinking that, where there's a will, there's a way, y'know what I mean?

Being said, what'll probably happen is that we'll transition to nuclear power for electricity, whilst continuing to develop other clean and renewable energy sources. That's, of course, assuming that even those things happen. If they do, molten salt and Thorium reactors would be preferable.

I still think that we ought to be developing technologies currently and seek to move beyond nuclear power eventually, though.

It says in the "100% renewable energy" article on Wikipedia that "supporters of 100% renewable energy do not consider nuclear power as renewable or sustainable due to perceived risks of disasters and high-level waste management, ignoring scientific consensus about these risks being both manageable and comparable with risks from renewable energy sources, and consider carbon capture and storage to have limited safe storage potential", the citation for said consensus being this document, and, so, I don't really know who to trust. I watched Into Eternity awhile ago and that didn't make it seem like nuclear energy wasn't dangerous.

Molten salt reactors and Thorium reactors are both still preferable to the nuclear reactors that we have now, particularly because of the decrease in waste and difficulties that arise in producing nuclear bombs from them, but, I kind of feel like, should they have been put into effect, it should have happened in the 1950s.

It seems to me that abandoning nuclear power altogether and investing in greener technologies is the only real way forward.

This Vergilian galley race was inspired by the chariot race in the 23rd book of the Iliad, where Eumelos, after running far ahead of Diomedes, suffers the misfortune of smashing his yoke,

“...and Eumelos / himself was sent spinning out beside the wheel of the chariot / so that his elbows were all torn, and his mouth, and his nostrils, / and his forehead was lacerated about the brows, and his eyes / filled with tears, and the springing voice was held fast within him.” — Leghorn

You're really selling this return to the exemplar of ancient Greek sport.

Sure, everyone can participate in the thread however, but it is your prompt that everyone responds to. Most people probably just read your original post and then a few on the last few pages. Most of my threads usually devolve unto debates about Anarchism, which I generally agree to, but do kind of feel like people should stay somehow on topic. I'm pretty open to whatever discourse as well, though.

What did you post? I've been thinking about starting a completely pointless hipster chauvinist contest over this.


I dunno. I'm a pretty lonely guy. Do you like Black Tambourine and The Double Life of Veronique?

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground can even be read as downright anti-rational.

It's all probably somehow due to the habits of certain painters, I think. Unfortunately, we have rather high-flown libertines to blame for all of this.

But Americans are doing it now, when we are supposedly civilized. Most other nations stopped invading other countries long ago. — baker

Ah, the peaceful history of the United Kingdom...

The inexistence of nonviolent liberal communism globally is my refutation of the benevolence of God, at least, in so far that God is omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and all-powerful, but, I suppose that God could just merely be benevolent and incapable of either understanding or having any effect upon the world. I must admit that I do feel that way sometimes.

Right, like, some form of economic democracy, probably somehow coupled with some form of participatory democracy, which it doesn't necessarily have to be, but probably is, all of which, I have no qualms with, but would be a solution beyond Liberal democracy, which is effectively representative democracy.

I think that only gradualist nonviolent Anarchism, a unanimous support the better of the green movements, or both can even completely resolve the ecological crisis. You, I suspect, have a similar postulate.

It's your thread, though, and there is plenty that can be done now, and, so, we don't have to continue to debate this, as it is kind of off-topic.

That's only because you fail to see how nonviolent gradualist Anarchism, blind faith in Noam Chomsky, or Social Democracy are all actual solutions to the ecological crisis.

Let's get back to the topic. — ssu

I was still typing. I don't feel a need to keep debating this, but, that may or may not be possible as @Xtrix's solution to the ecological crisis, like mine, though I'm willing to exit this thread, as they have taken a disliking to me, may involve some sort of alternative to Liberal democracy.

I understand that you have a preference for Social Democracy, which I think is just fine, but you are kind of dismissing distinctions that have been made throughout our political history.

In order to take over the International Workingman's Association, Karl Marx waged a slew of polemical diatribes against the anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin. Such partial demagogy became fully pronounced by one, Vladimir Lenin, in his various diatribes against more or less any of his political opponents, particularly, in this case, the left-wing communists. There was considerable initial support for the so-called "Russian Revolution" on the part of the libertarian Left, but they did, by and large, end up fighting against the Bolsheviks during the latter half of the Russian Civil War. That resulted in their near complete and total elimination from Soviet society during the early stages of the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin, as well as considerable condemnation from various factions of the libertarian Left abroad. There was the lengthy intellectual dispute, of which France was the center, beginning, perhaps, with Socialism ou Barbarie, a notably anti-Leninist and libertarian socialist organization, and subsuquent quote unquote third camp political philosophies to emerge, all of which contributed to the culmination of the protests in France in May of 1968. Within the former Czechslovakia, there was "Socialism with a Human Face" and Prague Spring. Within the United States, there's a clear history of Anarchist movements, most notably, perhaps, the International Workers of the World. A lot of Anarchists came out against Stalin from the immediate outset. It's not like every faction of the libertarian Left took the long course away from Marxism-Leninism like the French Communist Party.

There are plenty are critiques to make of the libertarian Left, a failure to cope with the history of Marxism-Leninism being one of them, of which the notion that the Soviet Union was "state capitalist" you have cited, but, to simply essentialize all of Anarchism, Socialism, and Communism as necessarily resulting in totalitarianism is fairly unfair. There was the Paris Commune, Republican Spain, and a few libertarian Left communities to have arisen throughout all of human history, and, so, we do kind of get of being perpetrators of humanitarian catastrophes purely by only ever having waged failed revolutions, but there is not a historical instance of humanitarian catastrophe that anywhere near approaches that of other political philosophies.

It is called the "graveyard of empires" for a reason.

Considering the situation militarily, it seems to me that we could reengage within the conflict only to come to more or less the same conclusion in another twenty years and be faced with a similar situation, exceed the shock and awe utilized by the Soviet military, perhaps, fourfold and rack up a body-count approaching the number of lives lost during the Rwandan genocide, a strategy that I hope most people are willing to rule out, so as to ostensibly "win", or to, as Joe Biden has, leave it to the Afghan military to just kind of have at it on their own.

In the article you previously posted in this thread, Biden expressed faith within both the military and nation-building capacities of the emergent Afghan government. Perhaps, that'd be a better way of looking at the conflict? As bleak as it is for me to say, as well as even potentially damaging, I just simply don't think that the insurgency either can or will be quelled or even halted in any determinate future. I would advise the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to engage to what limited degree they have to so as to safeguard the livelihood of as many as possible and capitulate when the time comes to do so so as to limit the bloodshed of what is now a civil war as much as possible. Neither they nor anyone else wants to hear that, though.

I hear what you're saying and have even authored a post on it myself, which also devolved unto a debate about Rosa Luxembourg, but you do as a certain disservice when you fail to recognize the distinctions between what I guess that I'll call the "authoritarian" and "libertarian" Left. There's a long and troubled political history of collaboration, persecution, betrayals, conversions, generalized avoidance, and animosity between us. Plenty of people within the libertarian Left have plenty of ideas as to what to do about them, but, I am of a rather exclusive position within the libertarian Left, which is often mistaken for so-called "sectarianism", a very serious problem within the Left that has little to nothing to do with being wholly unwilling to either collaborate or associate with Marxist-Leninists and the like.