Aw shit… I love to dissect this thing theoretically, but I feel like your hopes are honest, and I feel shitty for questioning them.
Maybe awereness does count for something… I’m a philosophical gambler and no gambler can ever predict to 100% certainty (or would want to).
no, no, dissect away - the protestors have my moral support, but that’s about the extent of it - i think it’s good to see people publically calling Wall St out, but “hope” may be too strong a word for what i feel.
Ok my impression:
I agree with the general idea, of why they are protesting. but, when i see people dressed in nice clothes, healthy to obese, waving signs that claim oppression I am disgusted. How can a people be oppressed when they have items like cell phones, Ipods, good clothes , more than enough food in their bellies and freedom to move? I don’t see oppression. Just ask people from truly oppressed countries about oppression. yes the Gov’t sold us out but, we are responsible for that. We allowed it to happen. Protesting is fine but, take it to the polls, create petitions, go to court, etc. Don’t look like an idiot claiming oppression when you so obviously are not oppressed.
spoken like a true slave. “Massa’s so good to me.”
Not that I agree with the protesters, but I don’t think the argument “we could have it worse” actually takes anything away from the argument, “we could have it better.” Yes, there are people starving, yes, there are people being brutalized, yes, there are people in worse situations. Does that mean we should just give up on improving our own situation? No, it doesn’t mean that. Just because other people are being oppressed more does not mean we should be complacent about our own oppression.
I grew up in Venezuela (on the have, rather than have-not side, but still…), so this rings true to me.
Nice topic Pezer, I am glad to see you putting Guattari to good use.
Systems as large and complex as national ideologico-politico-economic sphere/s are prone to instability from “butterfly effects” of unpredictable variables. These systems, in order to exist, must contain certain embedded mechanisms for dealing with uncertainty, and part of this is subverting revolutionary potential. It is always a back and forth. Eventually something will rupture vitally in the clockworks of the system’s necessary functionings, and it will suffer significant collapse as societal organs are re-appropriated under new images or simply vanish and are sublimated entirely. This is inevitable, no social construct is immune to growing pressures from both internal and external threats to its systemic coherency and equilibrium.
Protests, unfortunately, often only serve, as you say, to redirect and diffuse otherwise perhaps more radically potent revolutionary potential. I say “unfortunately” from the perspective of those from where this potential springs, of course. Now, there are different methods with which this marginalizing of radical potential takes place, and perhaps we might begin investigating them here. However it also bears noting that even where systems successfully co-opt and diffuse radical energies the total effects of these otherwise now impotent energies are still essentially unpredictable in nature. No marginalization is ever total, and small effects otherwise marginalized nonetheless still serve several potentially subversive and destabilizing ends - they may lead to subtle ideological shifts in the cultural zeitgeist, they may reveal otherwise hidden cracks in the system, they may force the powers that be to overextend their legitimacy of force, they may lead to snowball effects or to the emergence of new leaders of political movements which may gain traction somewhere down the road.
So I think it is fair to say that no protest movement is ever entirely useless or impotent, no matter the degree to which it serves the cathartic ends of the system itself. In fact maintaining an active and open fidelity to radical potentiality itself is very crucial regardless of the setbacks or losses we suffer - the simple fact of conceding this fidelity in the face of hopelessness, apathy or resignation is the only true murderer of revolutionary possibility. See my signature here for a nice example statement of this. We simply cannot ever give up hope - even if we lose hope in everything else, we must never lose our hope in hope itself, our faith in faith, in the inherent and often unknowable and unpredictable powers which lurk ready to burst forth from the smallest beginnings and proceed to go on and change the world, giving birth to a new future/s. Every great world-changing movement began small.
Way to contribute absolutely nothing.
You could at least try and give yourself the appearance of substance… or would that expose too much, open you up to too much possible criticism?
Why are you here? If you’ve got something to say, by all means, say it. What’s holding you back?
Like I said, some philosophy is gambling, and I was gambling against any geist change or other cracks you mention. I’m probably right in the short-medium run, but I think it would be hard to argue against your point that, eventually, the butterfly effect will result in deep, unpredictable change.
Hey, I’m an anarchist! obviously I have SOME hope of this happening within my lifetime. And I hope I will be wise enough if the time comes to do my part in pushing the change towards complete freedom.
*Noted. I will hack away.
Then there is some of us trying to co-opt the movement as we speak…
That’s why they call it splinter groups.
that’s why? really?
i thought they were called splinter groups because a splinter is a piece of a larger thing which has broken off, just like the splinter group breaks off from the larger group…but maybe that’s not why. maybe they’re called splinter groups because some of you are trying to co-opt the movement as we speak…
Thanks
Why is it necessary to give substance? Just for the sake of giving substance? Just because you say so?..
Why do I need a reason to be here?
I just did
Well, which is it then?
guess you can’t read between the lines. one of my proposed answers is sarcastic. guess which one.
Either be straight forward or stop posting. I don’t have time to read between the lines.
It wasn’t that subtle.
What oppression? Cripes if you can afford to do something you can do it. If you can afford to buy something you can buy it. If you feel like going on a road trip in your own car you can do it, oh and hey if you want to live by yourself in a single family home you can do it and bring home Taco Bell every night. Want to talk to your family? pick up your phone and call them or get on your computer. I am not saying we don’t have problems I am saying we are not oppressed. Spoiled as hell yes, and we want more yes, which is all good. I want more , you want more, and that is fine. But lets put things into perspective. If we got sold out we did it ourselves by allowing our representatives, our employees, make those decisions without having any consequences. we let them decide how much they are going to get paid, can you do that with your boss? uuuh, noo. We did it ,we sat back in our laZboys and felt comfortable letting someone decide our fate. We are not oppressed, just indolently stupid. Can we fix it? hell yes, but not this way not protesting there are better ways.
you’re talking about all these choices that people can make that have nothing to do with the government in order to avoid looking at the choices you don’t have that do have to do with the government. got a bad case of tunnel vision there.
i don’t think it’s about oppression - i think it’s about a call for reform and a change of standards - a challenge to the status quo - it’s not that these people feel oppressed, it’s that they feel cheated by the system, those are two different things.
Kris is right about these people not being oppressed, but Flannel is right that even though some people have it worse, the system is still a legitimate target for protest.