Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Rich Puchalsky :anarchism: (richpuchalsky@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 23:42:51 JST Rich Puchalsky :anarchism:

   Another world is not possible.

   Too often I see "another world is possible" as an aspirational slogan used to get people to fantasize about quick changes, people rising up, lucky rolls of the historical dice etc. I don't believe in historical inevitability or historical progression through stages, but I do believe that our current world is an outgrowth of widespread basic beliefs that do not change quickly or easily. To make another world really possible, it has to finally become as inevitable as our current world is.

   A lot of that has to do with having the courage to reject basic beliefs that inevitably lead to bad ends even if they temporarily can seem not that bad. If you believe in a state or in capitalism, your beliefs lead to all of the bad things happening now.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Puchalsky :anarchism: (richpuchalsky@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 23:42:50 JST Rich Puchalsky :anarchism:

     in reply to

     If you want the US to continue under the US Constitution, please stop using the "Never Again" slogan, if only out of some kind of basic human decency or respect for rationality.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Puchalsky :anarchism: (richpuchalsky@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2023 23:42:51 JST Rich Puchalsky :anarchism:

     in reply to

     In particular, I've really disliked the "Never Again" slogan for many decades now. It seems clear to me that people living in nation-states really like committing genocide and that nothing in the international system that we've set up really restrains people from genocide. There's something extra horrible about a "never again" slogan that is broken again and again.

     The US bears special responsibility for ending whatever rhetorical commitment there was against genocide because we so obviously support death squads, official torture, deadly borders, forced relocation, concentration camps, and other adjuncts or preliminaries to full genocide and because the US was a primary author of the post WW II settlement that really made a commitment against it.

     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ repeated this.