” the most detailed fictional treatment of the movement from a world recognizably like our own to an anarchist society that I have read.. imagined strongly enough to allow readers to believe that events could happen this way.”
One of the thorniest issues faced by anarchists is imagining a viable process by means of which the contemporary world of dominance and oppression passes into a world of freedom and equality. Is the process to be evolutionary or revolutionary, and if the latter, is it to be violent or non-violent? Interestingly, not many anarchist fictions are dedicated to describing such a transformative process. Most either assume that the anarchist society already exists and devote little attention to how it came about, or they posit some catastrophic event that ends the old order and allows a new one to emerge.
Rarely does an author patiently outline a process of transformation that shows a continuous progress from something like the current state of society to an anarchist one. 1*
It is for this reason that M. Gilliland’s The Free merits an essay here.2.*
It is the most detailed fictional treatment of the movement from a world recognizably like our own to an anarchist society that I have read. More importantly, it is imagined strongly enough to allow readers to believe that events could happen this way. That is to say, it gives plausible answers to the two most important questions regarding such a transformation: under what preconditions is it likely to occur, and once it starts what factors most contribute to its success? After a brief summary of the plot, I trace the answers that The Free gives to these questions.3*…
BY TYLER DURDEN Zero Hedge All is not going according to plan in the biggest global rollout of what is arguably the most important vaccine in a century, and it is not just growing US mistrust in the covid injection effort that was rolled out in record time: an unexpected spike in allergic reactions to […]
Do you remember taking multiple-choice exams in school? I hated these tests because there were certain instances when I knew the answer to a question, but the answers that were available to select didn’t fit the question.
As an associate professor of clinical sciences, I always made my exams in an essay format. I wanted to see if my students knew the subject matter and could articulate those answers intelligently.
What do you do in an uncomfortable situation where a multiple-choice question doesn’t have an acceptable choice for an answer? Hopefully, if the exam is written properly, you can choose the detractor “none of the above” and move on.
There is never a time when taking one of these tests that you should select a multiple-choice answer you know is the wrong one.
When should you receive an untested, unproven, experimental vaccine?
Continuaron las movilizaciones populares y bloqueos de carretera en rechazo de la norma avalada por la comisión de Economía y que el Congreso de la República debería ser aprobada hoy lunes. Por Alix Santamaría Dirigentes de los trabajadores de la agro-exportación de Perú han manifestado que el nuevo proyecto de ley para el sector agrario no […]
Tensions in society are on the rise on daily basis. The epidemic is increasingly revealing the contradictions and cracks of the capitalist system, whose manager – the state – no longer even tries to give the impression that its aim is to reduce the devastating effects of the deadly virus.
In our bureaucratically managed and highly monitored world, nothing comes naturally and by chance, even if the rulers try to convince us that the pandemic is just that. What is weakening society’s ability to combat this kind of crisis is not some irresponsible “merry partygoers” or private gatherings, but decades of deliberate destruction of public services that should be available to all, and their gradual conversion into consumer goods.
The failure of the current government to make major investments in public infrastructure is not a reflection of the malignancy of Janez Janša and his accomplices. It is a symptom of a policy that can see no further than achieving short-term economic growth, even if that means the general destruction of people and nature.
The consequences are felt by all of us who are not represented by the lobbies of capital and are therefore forced to obediently accept ever harsher working and living conditions as any form of criticism is banned and sanctioned. The government and capital see us as nothing more than a consumable commodity whose only duty is to produce, spend and obey.
In this crisis, the death of the elderly and the weak is collateral damage to the fierce efforts to maintain the system of exploitation and devastation.
On top of all this, we as a society are struggling not only with the consequences of dealing with the pandemic that rewards capitalists and increasingly excludes, neglects, and disables the vast majority of people, but also with the aggressive attempt to impose authoritarian rule.
It is clear that this episode of “Janšizem” [the policy named after the prime minister Janez Janša] is not just a provincial and local symptom of a kind of Slovenian psychosis, but a reflection of the global transformation of neoliberal consent into a new model of organizing society.
One of its features is the final dissolution of the so-called liberal and democratic “rubbish” that to some extent restrained authoritarian intervention and capital accumulation. A number of countries, including Slovenia, have turned into experimental fields during the epidemics in order to push the boundaries of governance under the conditions of the state of emergency.
This process is neither accidental, nor necessary, nor spontaneous, nor chaotic, as the people who benefit from it try to show. All of this is illustrated by the fact that, in circumstances that are still primarily a health crisis, the political extreme centre easily discarded the postures of the “rule of law” and “civil society” to quickly find out that it is much easier to satisfy the interests of the capital networks through authoritarian governance.
The only thing that bothers the representatives of the extreme centre is the sheer straightforwardness of their far-right partners. Unlike the latter, the extreme centre likes to cloak the implementation of the same policies as the extreme right under a veil of inconspicuousness. The goal of both the extreme centre and the extreme right is to deliberately create an atmosphere of arbitrariness and chaos in which only the arbitrary decrees of the state political and economic elite prevail.
At the same time, the vulgar, insulting and aggressive communication media prevents any criticism of their measures.
While the rulers try to convince us that we must stand together in times of crisis, they are widening the gap between those who have all the privileges and those who are more and more sidelined. At the end of the crisis, the rich will be even richer, the political elite and the state bureaucracy will greatly expand their authority and control over our lives, while we face even more brutal precarity, the loss of our loved ones, the dismantling of our rights, and a future filled with anxiety and terror.
Yet even in this darkest of times there is a ray of hope. After all, all the wealth of the few, as well as their privileges and their power over our lives, depends on our labor and our cooperation in the system of exploitation. It is enough to reject the role of expendable human material into which they force us, in order to gain the right to make real choices about our lives.
The idea of a general strike, already circulating in public, seems a good step in this direction. However, we cannot rely on servile syndicates imbued with the interests of their leaders. There will be no savior to lead us out of this disaster. We can only rely on each other, on the levers of social power, and on a shared vision of a better future made up of freedom, dignity, autonomy and equality.
In these times rebellion has even greater importance than usual. The authorities, with perhaps unprecedented repression, have crushed the ways of rebellion to which we were accustomed, but have not thereby removed the causes of it. On the contrary, it has only produced more reasons and firmly confirmed them. Under these conditions the spark may come from unexpected directions.
Perhaps from the workers whose bosses will not let them go on sick leave, or from the school-age youth who are locked in their homes and left alone with electronic devices.
Maybe it comes from the technical specialists in health care, or from young and old people who are labeled expendable, criminal, and spoiled by capital. Even if we do not create this spark ourselves, let’s help it grow into the fire of rebellion.
Let’s spread the virus of rebellion in the workplaces, on the streets and in the neighborhoods!
Note> Armed resistance continues to the Moroccan occupation of UN recognised Western Sahara. However in a cynical move the USA has recognised Moriccan sovereignty over the country, in exchange for Morocco recognising Israel. With US control over the world financial system this could finish off the tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees still camped in the desert.
– The committee of the families of the 15 kidnapped Sahrawi people has attributed, to the Moroccan occupation authorities, the full and direct responsibility over the disappearing of their children since 25 December 2005, demanding that they reveal where they, as well as the other missing Sahrawi people (victims of forced disappearance) are detained.
According to a statement reported Thursday by Saharawi media and released to mark the 15th anniversary of their disappearance, the Committee states that the dismissal of the complaint, lodged by the families against the Moroccan Navy and the Gendarmerie, made Moroccan justice an accomplice.
Remember the televangelist Pat Robertson‘s much more modern, but no less astonishing, tirade that “feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians”?
Ah, the joys of being a woman: basically, throughout 98 percent of human history, it’s involved being told insulting and ridiculous things by members of the opposite sex.
But there are some examples so spectacular, so influential and/or so maddeningly daft that they deserve a special place in our hearts. They need to be gold-plated and put above everybody’s bedstead, under the title “This Is Why We Need Feminism”. And this is only the stuff we know; ancient Mesopotamians or lost civilizations now long dead may have had even more hilarious opinions about women’s weaknesses, inability to have their own emotions, or think in straight lines.
So here, enjoy what is perhaps the 10 most ridiculously sexist things ever said, and I’ll understand if you need a minute afterward.
1. When Aristotle Said Women Are Defective Men
“The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities; we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.”
2. When St. Thomas Aquinas Said Women Are Sperm Accidents
“… A female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided by the female parent] is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as the winds from the south which make the atmosphere humid.”
3. When Napoleon Said Women Are Just Slaves
“Nature intended women to be our slaves… they are our property; we are not theirs. They belong to us, just as a tree that bears fruit belongs to a gardener…. Women are nothing more than machines for producing children.”
4. When Cato The Elder Argued That All Women Are Wild Animals
“Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein…. Women want total freedom or rather – to call things by their names – total license. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters.”
5. When Pliny The Elder Warned That Menstrual Blood Is Poisonous
“On the approach of a woman in this state, must become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die immediately.”
6. When Plutarch Did Not Approve Of Independent Lady-Emotions
“A wife should have no feelings of her own, but share her husband’s seriousness and sport, his anxiety and his laughter.”
7. When Friedrich Nietzsche Was Basically Just Friedrich Nietzsche
“The whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to counsel them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them – these are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their infancy.”
“Finally – a woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant – a woman needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, being humbled as divine.”
8. When Jean-Jacques Rousseau Said Ladies Only Need To Be Taught About Men
9. When Sigmund Freud Despaired Of Grown Ladies’ Sexuality
“The sexual life of adult women is a ‘dark continent’ for psychology.”
10. When James Joyce Was A Bit Of An Idiot
“Men are governed by lines of intellect – women: by curves of emotion.”
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Dr. John Reizer
The Free 