Stop selling us our own (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) dissatisfaction >>MOD WARNING<<

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by CausalityBreakdown, Jun 6, 2016.

  1. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    MOD WARNING!!!! (Read this before posting)

    You've seen it before. Everyone knows things are bad, especially the people who want to profit off of it. It used to just be $70 Che Guevara T-Shirts, but things are advancing beyond that. There's an entire industry dedicated to taking all of us who are looking at the world and saying "The way things are just isn't right" and crippling our ability to actually change it by saying "It's alright, just buy my product instead and you can make a difference without any meaningful change in your life."

    No, damn it, buying Starbucks Coffee isn't going to make a meaningful difference in the world. I don't care if those shoes are made from recycled tires and all of the proceeds (creatively defined to be almost nothing) go to children in Africa. They're illusions. Spooks. You aren't fixing anything by buying away your consumer guilt.

    I think we're all sick of vapid hipsters pretending at activism when they're really just buying the image of an alternative lifestyle.

    Here's my alternative: Mob in the streets. Scream at the top of your lungs. <Rule 6> Structural change is necessary. The shallow existence we attribute to consumerism is a symptom of the capitalist west dying. Humanity and Nature are united as enemies of Late Capitalism.
     
  2. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Can I wear Tom's shoes during the revolution or should I have some proper Doc Martens?
     
  3. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    Whatever you're prepared to get stained.
     
  4. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    .

    I have a better idea. Maybe you could hurry up and build some of those robots you keep telling me are going to do all the work of society in the future.

    You know..actually do something <Mod Edit>
     
  5. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    <Reply to Deleted>

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    The robots already exist. Labour can already be automated. We don't have an excuse.
     
  6. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What do you mean we? What's your excuse? That whole pesky property ownership concept and the fact that the robots aren't yours to do with as you wish?
     
  7. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    Very much so. Capitalist property is standing in the way of a more automated and luxurious society. Common ownership of the means of production is the only way that this technology can benefit us all.
     
  8. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    <Reply to Deleted>

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    Actually, my ideas on revolutionary practice revolve a lot around dual-power programs. I think the best idea the black panthers ever had was establishing their free breakfast programs. You can undermine the state without going to war in the streets by serving the community and talking about what people ought to be angry about. The authorities will eventually try to stomp you out, and that's when you defend yourselves violently, but violence is a tool that ought to be handled carefully because you don't want to ever step into attacking people who weren't attacking you.
     
  9. Bluespade

    Bluespade Banned

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    <Rule 8>

    I fail to to take anyone serious who lectures people how they should take to the streets, while doing nothing themselves.

    That ok, Shagrilla??
     
  10. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The panthers were never attacked violently or otherwise for handing out food. Where do you get this crap?
     
  11. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In that case I will just watch the livestream of the revolution from the comfort of my home.
     
  12. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    Huey Newton's doctoral thesis War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America contains accounts of their repression.

    They were attacked by cops a few times. Newton was famously arrested after he killed one in self defense.

    Most of the repression took the form of subterfuge, but there was violence.

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    Agitprop is a timeless art. People tune out the things that are wrong in society as just normal. It takes somebody saying "No, that isn't okay, we should be angry" for people to realize that they aren't alone and that they've been the victim of an injustice.
     
  13. sawyer

    sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As I said the panthers were never attacked for handing out food. Only when the panthers became violent did they get violence in return
     
  14. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    MOD WARNING!!

    Calls for protest is one thing, but any calls for violence will not be tolerated, and you can in fact be reported to the authorities.
    Furthermore, the rules regarding personal attacks and thread derailment apply here as they do anywhere else. I'll leave this thread open for now,
    for anyone who wants to continue, but if posters cannot stop with the personal attacks and stick to the topic, and do so without inciting violence,
    infractions will be handed out and the thread will be closed.


    -Meta
     
  15. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Other people's property is your excuse why you haven't spent your life's capital on building robots to achieve your dream of an automated society?

    What exactly is stopping you from producing these robots and giving them to society? Won't stuff just start working the way you claim it does once people no longer have to work?

    What makes you think people will start working together the way you claim they will if first you steal their stuff from them?
     
  16. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am wondering what you are doing to change this terrific situation? I mean besides impotently complaining and holding your crotch while you pose as someone brave. My guess is that as soon as the revolution starts you hide in your bunker (Moms Basement) and watch overpriced Porn.
     
  17. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't have consumer guilt. You are free to have your own MSM community so long as you are not imperialist and permit other societies to coexist beside you. Leave me alone in the bush to live in peace.
     
  18. CausalityBreakdown

    CausalityBreakdown Banned at Members Request

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    The capital and technology already exists. I'm saying that the problem is that it's in the hands of a privileged elite.

    I don't have the idle time that the bourgeoisie have to build a personal fortune. I'm busy providing for myself.

    If that capital was seized, rolling out automation would be exponentially easier and would not negatively impact people due to a planned economy. I don't really care if anyone thinks that the seizure of capital is theft, because it's an entirely different thing to taking something that people actually use and have a legitimate claim to. The workers use the capital, so it ought to belong to the workers.

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    Mostly I agitate. I talk about the problems with society and encourage other people to do the same. I'm not at a place in my life where I can dedicate myself to an organization yet, so that's the most direct action I can manage.
     
  19. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your ability to design and build robots is in the hands of privileged elite?

    Rather than being busy providing for other people...like you suppose will happen in your ideal society? Why not just stop providing for yourself and provide for others? What's your problem? Are you selfish or something?
     

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