An interesting article, with an odd approach. Should we judge who’s an intellectual based on who writes books and gets them published? I think not.
In politics there are strategists, donors, and supporters of conservatism who have a great deal of influence, but aren’t in the public eye. It’s puppet masters behind the pols, courts, religious leaders, and talking heads - architects of social change in public and private institutions - who need our focus. Unfortunately, that’s a difficult and dangerous process, especially when they’ve been playing the long game.
Scratch someone who fancies himself an educated conservative and you will often find a person who reveres the past; unfortunately they leave out details like slavery, witch burning and childbed fever.
No, they don’t. Of the three core beliefs the author described, I only agree with one - inequality. In their utopia, a small group of men with money and power rule. That’s their only tradition and religion. They have no problem supporting subjugation and/or death for anyone who doesn’t serve their needs.
The hateful written rhetoric exists to raise the numbers of useful idiots when the appearance of popularity or justifications for overreach are necessary. A side benefit is lining the pockets of the folks who produce it. Once power has been seized by the fortunate few, useful idiots are no longer needed. Now they bus folks to the rally, get footage for the media, and then leave them in the cold. If they get enough power to eliminate mass transit, the media, and the social safety net, their have-not supporters will pull themselves up by their bootstraps or die trying. That’s the conservative way.
This is what a real revolution looks like in 2023. This is how the adventure begins. Not with dead bankers swinging from the lampposts but with a tight-knit tribal community building their own little pirate utopia right here and now that doesn’t need Joe Biden’s filthy hand-outs to survive the bigots he shares cocktails with when the cameras aren’t rolling.
It’s about two little words that mean something far bigger than bombs. The first one is Agorism, a theory of revolutionary resistance that rejects party politics in favor of starving the toxic conglomeration of big government and big business by creating a counter-economy of subsistence level gray market institutions that rely on things like bartering and mutual aid while offering the system nothing to tax or profit from. To put it in simple terms, this monster cannot thrive if we simply refuse feed it anymore.
The second word is Panarchy, which I believe should be the ultimate goal of Agorism. Panarchy is the creation of not one, but thousands of stateless little pirate utopias devoted to everything and anything from Maoism to Objectivism so long as they all remain completely voluntary in nature. You chose your own damn nation, not the other way around, and you choose when you’ve had enough of it and want to take off and start a new one down the street. Once again, to put it in the simplest of terms, keep your monsters small enough to drown in the crick.
The dream isn’t a climactic final gun battle with those fag-bashers in the white pick-up truck. It’s to show them that they don’t have to like our utopia to coexist with it. Quite the contrary, they themselves will need a diverse collection of allied weirdos like us if they ever want to escape Brandon’s boot like we do. We don’t have to be enemies or friends. All we have to do is abandon the state as a bludgeon to wield against each other for the sin of choosing to live our lives differently. That game is a trap that only guarantees that we all get bloody and stupid while the state gets strong on a steady diet of our battered brain matter. Panarchy is for everybody, even faggots and assholes.
I wish I could get the entire Queer community to see the sun set on this place. I wish Misfit Manor could become the new Stonewall. But if there is one thing that my new family has taught me it’s that you can’t force change on the people you love without strangling them in the process. It’s far better to simply start your own little revolution in the backyard and leave a space for them by the fire in case they come around.
Damn! I don’t agree with everything in there, but that was an excellent rant!
Another from that writer, from her blog:
So many threads this could go in:
This brings to my mind one of the stories from Radicalized, Masque of the Red Death…
Replying here just to keep from drifting too far off-topic here: General Moderation Topic - #2474 by ClutchLinkey.
Good, interesting reading from a decade ago.
Great portrayal here of daily life in a very challenging place to live.
Robert Reich published a very interesting course called Wealth & Poverty on YouTube (14 classes):
The course is a thoughtful look* at history involving workers, government policy, activities in the private sector, economies, and migration. He discusses how they have caused or supported inequality in the US and around the world. He’s lecturing to students at UC Berkeley, and the polls conducted with them provide an interesting perspective on young people when it comes to questions about careers, income, class, and opportunity. Some of it is a refresher, and other parts had me doing this:
* The kind of look the forces against anything “woke” really hate, which makes me hope this goes viral. 
(excerpt) The American Community Survey’s report says that 674,740 people left Florida for another state in 2021. This is higher than any other state…
Since Laibach came up in the thread about the guy defecting to North Korea… Here is one of their documentaries that’s on Youtube…
In one section, discusses an art installation in an active mine in their hometown of Trbovlje… some of the miners weigh in on the work…
“Us and Them,” an episode of the series The Story of Us that focuses on what divides or connects groups of people around the world. It features people working to change hearts and minds:
Dear Younger Version of Me,
I am imagining sending this to you (me) through some kinda imaginary email-time-machine.
I hope you find time to read it. It is all the advice and encouragement you’ll need for decades. And it explains why some artists somehow just had a bunch of really lucky circumstances. In some cases, for life.
Be brave.
Work hard.
It is everything. Or nearly so.
Signed,
Older Me
I think it also does a nice job of destigmatizing the day job that many successful artists under capitalism do to get by. And that work doesn’t necessarily have to be full time (although the need for health insurance makes it more so).
I think any social order should subsidize the artistcally inclined, and some recent ones have, at least minimally. Didn’t the 1960s - 80s pop waves from England come somewhat from that? Maybe you could address that @Mindysan33?
Something about the piece seems too accepting to me of capitalism/neoliberal deprivation as just the way it is. But then, for an aspiring artist without a wealthy background, I guess that just is what it is.
If by that, you mean that some of them were on the dole when they got started, then sure… other artists came from privilege (ie Kate Bush). There was some money for the arts in the UK, but that came with certain risks, vis-a-vis censoring yourself. Throbbing Gristle got some arts funding, but there was an attempt to punish arts centers that sponsored them because of works like Cosey’s pornography exhibition, etc. But the division between commercial pop and the arts were pretty firm, and many pop groups did not get great benefits, other than playing at arts centers during that period.
And we all remember what happened when the NEA supported Robert Mapplethorpe’s work here in the US.
Agreed. but of course, you get into the question “who gets the support based on what kind of art they’re producing”? Who gets to define what is “art” and what isn’t for the sake of funding? So it quickly becomes difficult to sort out differing definitions of “art” and what is proper for the state to support.
Thanks, complicated UK situation indeed.
For sure. Better than nothing though. A UBI would of course be helpful, even a small one.
