My two cents:

Yes, that guy could probably habe reached more sustainable success by cooperating with other workers against the system.

However this fire might shake some workers up that without their consent and cooperation that current system wouldn’t be working. The owner class relies on acceptence of their wealth and belongings by the masses after all… or, differently said: It takes just one unsurveilled angry worker to turn estate into a huge pile of ash. And there are billions of them.

Of course they do… they also bombed Iran during the last two negotiations, didn’t they?

That assumes that the current narcissist in power is even willing to accept that he has lost… given that they seem to be preparing to label everything to the left of MAGA as terrorism and the federal government is currently buying tear gas in bulk, I would put a big question mark on that.

“Those who fall asleep in a democracy may wake up in a dictatorship.”

Saw a post few hours ago that apparently the feds are massively stocking up on ,less lethal" chemical weapons… I guess that translates to tear gas etc. So the crackdown might be coming, maybe after he manipiulated the midterms and still lost.

He would’ve been stopped during Trump I. That’s why he’s now in Trump II relying on yes-men without at least a bit of competence on their resorts.

Obviously we’re now resorting to kidnapping and blackmail… wow.

I’m saying to cease telling the news would be giving in to malaise and burying one’s head in the sand.

Okay, that makes sense.

Then let me put it another way: Personally, I’m tired of reading articles that fuel hope that an obviously corrupt system will actually work.

Personally, I don’t believe that the oligarchy surrounding Trump—and least of all Trump himself—will accept defeat, even in the midterms. Personally, I believe it will take significantly more activism than relying on “court rulings to restore the rule of law” when the other side has obviously long since started playing dirty.

Okay I get that.

Honest question: Could the states prevent Trump from interfering in the local election process through the U.S. Postal Service? That seems to be exactly what’s behind all the current commotion.

Malaise and burying one’s head in the sand won’t move the needle either.

And as long as American civil society doesn’t get its act together (which seems to be a long way off)

Well I didn’t say that, did I?

What bothers me about reports like these is that, while we do have an “informed public”—strictly speaking, for the past year or so, or even longer for those who go through life with their eyes wide open—it has no real consequences. There are no general strikes, just one-day protests announced well in advance. The activism of many, even here in our bubble, seems to be limited to liking such articles.

How often did we read articles during Trump’s first term along the lines of “Things are really getting tight for him now!”? That didn’t change a thing except to lull parts of the moderate spectrum into a false sense of security that “everything will somehow work out.” In my opinion, these articles therefore do not currently promote activism (anymore) but, on the contrary, lull people into complacency, which is why I’ve criticized this one here in my sarcastic way.

Do you remember the first few months of Trump II? The homogenization of the state apparatus and the filling of vacant positions with loyalists (for example, at the Post Office, to draw the connection) were aimed precisely at the current situation: MAGA supporters are not deterred by even the most numerous lost court cases; they will do what the leader commands, regardless of the legal situation.
From the very beginning, the goal was to continue exercising power even when it is obviously wrong.

Playing the devils advocate here:

Why is this still news? The Trump admin gets sued left and right and loses many cases… but unless there’s someone willing to enforce the rulings (which there obviously isn’t, neither in the judiciary nor in Parliament… why should the admin be bothered? They can keep ignoring the defeats and continue and that’s what they’ll be doing.

At a time when the separation of powers has clearly failed, it is no longer a question of who is right, but of who has the power to get their way—or to simply take it. And as long as American civil society doesn’t get its act together (which seems to be a long way off), that power appears to lie with Trump and his oligarchic government.

I understand exactly what you mean.

But at the same time, I also believe that the inherent problem with our representative democracies is this: Voters are asked about EVERY issue all at once every four years and then vote for ONE representative party. So, in the end, everyone ends up voting on a whole bunch of issues that neither interest nor affect them. Worse still: when checks and balances are undermined, as is currently the case, the elected representatives can do whatever they want for four years.

In the best-case scenario, the majority of today’s voters inform themselves about the current campaign promises and forecasts a few weeks before the election and then lose interest again for four years. Or, to put it another way, the system actually provokes the “I don’t do politics” attitude among a majority of voters.

However, if the effects of their own decisions were transparent and immediate, I believe there would be a greater willingness to actually inform themselves.

And on the topic of demagoguery and populism: If people had the opportunity to vote against immigration (even if you don’t agree with that position) without undermining democracy through a corrupt bunch of politicians, we as a society would still be better off than in the current situation, where emotionally charged issues are used to make dictators and shitty politics palatable to people.

That’s a framework for a technocracy. The question here was for a blueprint for an anarchist society.

And if we take your line of thinking further: At what point do you stop denying people the right to vote?

Should only those in a particular industry have a say when it comes to regulating that industry? In that case, issues like environmental and consumer protection would become unenforceable… because why would a CEO or worker care about the impact their own actions have on the rest of society if regulation can be framed as a threat to their own job?

I would argue that neither you nor most other people like making bad decisions, right?

If, after the vote, there’s no representative—aka “those up there”—to blame for your own bad decision, that probably sets off a learning process where you either do better research next time or, if you’re too unsure or not interested in the topic, stay out of it and leave the choice to people who think they know more about it.

Without fixed terms, you can vote again in six months if you realize that your decision isn’t solving the problem and enough other people feel the same way… whereas now you have to rely on a representative to make decisions in your best interest (and not in the interest of their own wallet), and, if the decision turns out to be bad for you, hope that another government will revisit the law in 20 years.

You may as well just form government by having your largest 500 companies nominate a representative from their board.

That’s basically the case right now, so it wouldn’t even constitute a deterioration?

In the system I’ve proposed, however, this would only work until enough resistance to corporate practices builds up because the business model harms the majority. Since there are no legislative terms, such practices could be stopped more quickly than in today’s system, where industry simply buys off the newly elected representatives and can then carry on as before for another four years…

Thank you!

That’s my point.

I basically agree with you.

However, the slowness of paper-based administration is the reason why we’ve ended up with the (increasingly) poor solution of representative systems and the corruption that goes hand in hand with them.

In an age where fake news and propaganda spread in real time, I believe our democracies must also find a way to react more quickly… The internet allows anyone to communicate with anyone else in real time; in my opinion, it’s time to use this FOR rather than AGAINST our societies.

f that is the premise, then any form of anarchist society is obsolete.

I was responding here to a question about a blueprint for an anarchist social order. That presupposes a reasonably positive view of human nature… which, in my opinion, is actually the more realistic one.

Otherwise, we’ll always need an authoritarian system that patronizes “the stupid people” and looks after them… a narrative that is used to justify domination over others and is deeply rooted in our societies today.

Open source, direct internet democracy.

Let anyone vote on anything basically.

My hope is voters tend to vote on matters relevant to them providing initative to get/beeing informed on the matter they vote on.

I see representative systems as root of corruption so my solution calls for a system with direct decisions without political representatives.

Left out the part where the US/Israel bombed Iran TWICE during ongoing negotiations. Read earlier that the draft for an UN security council resolution demands Iran to go ,with good faith" into negotiations with US/Israel… who came up with this, did they miss the last two rounds of negotiation-bombing?

I don’t know the answer but citrus propagation is a very interesting topic! Thank you for the post… reminded me I intended to do something similar this spring before I forgot about it ^^’