A quick note from some friends

We are often asked how an anarchist society would deal with, for instance, murderers. Who would stop them without the police?

Most murders are crimes of passion and therefore unpreventable by police or anyone else. Hopefully, however, in a saner, less frustrating society such `crimes' would be less common.

Our rulers claim to be protecting us from each other. Actually they are more interested in protecting themselves and `their' property from us.

If we, as members of a local community, owned and shared all resources it would become absurd to steal. An important motive for crime would be abolished.

These local communities would need to develop some means of dealing with individuals who harmed others. Instead of a few thousand professional police there would be 51 million in the `United Kingdom' alone. Ultimately, our only protection is each other.

Prisons fail to improve or reform anyone. Local people aware of each others' circumstances would be able to apply more suitable solutions, in keeping with the needs of the victim and the offender. The present penal system, on the other hand, creates criminal behaviour. Long term prisoners are often rendered incapable of surviving outside an institution that makes all their decisions for them. How is locking people up with others of an anti-social turn of mind (the worst of whom are the screws) supposed to develop responsibility and reasonable behaviour? Of course it does just the opposite. The majority of prisoners re-offend.

In this society of course, work is a torment. Naturally, we hate it. This does not mean that we are naturally lazy, it means that we resent being treated like machines, compelled to do mostly meaningless work for someone else's benefit. Work does not have to be like that - and if it were controlled by the people who had to do it, it certainly would not be.

Of course some jobs just have to be done, and there are few methods in sight of making collecting rubbish a fun occupation. Everybody would have to take a share and everybody would have to see to it that nobody got away with shirking their responsibilities.

A further pointworth making is that unemployment is only a problem created by capitalism. In a sensible world there would be no unemployment. Everyone would have a shorter working week, because they would only produce things that were needed. If we were to get rid of the parasitic ruling class, we would be free of most of the economic pressure to work.

If you still need to be convinced that an anarchist society could solve the problem of people failing to meet their responsibilities, then imagine yourself being compelled to face a meeting of the whole community you live in and being publicly discussed as a problem. Ugh!

 

Think outside the box

racism...equality

     I live in a Democratic state.  This state has a Republican governor.  This state was on the side of the Union back in the Civil War days.  This state has had a bad reputation of being racist.  The Boston Red Sox, a local sports team, have been vilified in the last half century as a team that will not accept minorities.  Things are changing for the Red Sox, I don't believe that racism is a problem in that organization any longer.  I am starting to realize that this situation could be a microcosm of the state of the U.S. and it's feelings, beliefs, and actions.  But there STILL is a downside.

     As hard as it is to understand how much history passed before America "became" a country, we have to realize that thousands of years of education have led us to our present state.  I do not believe that racism was an issue in the early days of civilization.  I believe that racism was a reaction to the situations presented by those people with access to public influence.  Eventually people were taught to believe that black people were slaves because they weren't worth being described as human beings.  In the short history of this country we are slowly realizing that we should stop holding back our black brothers.  But that is only seen by the white people.  The blacks still believe that they are at a  disadvantage. 

     I can see both sides of that spectrum.  The blacks ARE still at a disadvantage.  Until I moved from my dull life in the desert to the busy metropolis known as Boston, I didn't think so much about race.  Now that I've lived here, I constantly listen to people complaining about blacks, and it makes me sick.  I'm not sure which makes me sicker, though.  Listening to people openly trashing "Martin Luther King Day" or listening to people trying to pretend that they are not racist, while always portraying a negative attitude whenever black people are involved. 

     I cannot understand how people can not realize that the people they abhor are products of a system that they ignore.  I refuse to believe that I am any smarter than anyone else.  I refuse to believe that I am the only one that can realize how life works. 

     So let's pretend that we are learning, as a society, that peopleare starting to accept each other as humans, and not sub-human life forms.  I think that too many people are starting to accept blacks more, because they have turned their attention to the latest immigrants.  People are worried about various Hispanic groups invading America, and taking away the life that we lead.  I think it is obvious that we are all human beings.  We have so much to provide for each other. 

     I have heard a girl complain about "fucking Brazilians."  I cannot understand her complaint.  She's just your average girl that works for a bank.  She wouldn't even be able to describe a Brazilian without using the words "dirty" or "stupid."  She has been conditioned to hate anybody that isn't "American" but she fails to realize what America is all about. 

     I have never met a Brazilian that I didn't like.  I've met about 10 of them.  Some girls, and some guys.  None of them were dirty...none of them were stupid.  My point is that we all need to come together and share what we have.  Power in numbers.  Don't tell me that some humans have a right to dominate others.

     Equality is non-existent.  Let me rephrase that.  Equality is non-existent.  As long as some of us think that we can trick others into doing all the hard work for us, we will continue to see crime and war, and we will continue to see people trying to fight back through murder, rape, and other violent acts.  What else can I say?  Don't worry...there will be more.

Comcast

     I don't have cable television. That's right. No cable. I find it amusing sometimes, especially because it seems like EVERYBODY has cable nowadays. Now I could explain why I don't have cable in one of two ways. General public opinion will say that I can't have cable because I owe the cable company a little over a $100 and I don't want to pay it. It's not that I don't want to pay it, it's just that I want to decide when paying the balance is worth it. If I had paid the bill when it was due and continued to enjoy cable, I would have spent about $600 since getting my cable disconnected. I have a very good reason for severing my ties with Comcast Television. Actually I have a few reasons.

     I have made excuses. That's right folks! I've made excuses and I am now announcing them. In the course of starting my own business and shedding myself of the boss to employee relationship, I came across hard times. Last winter I dug a pretty good hole and it was very hard to climb out of when my "vacation" for the year was visiting Albuquerque to witness my sister's wedding. That was money that I could have spent getting myself out of the hole, but I wouldn't miss my sister's wedding for anything. After all, It just might be my only chance to see a sibling's wedding. I haven't had a true vacation since 2003. At the same time, some might claim that my life is mostly a vacation. That is because I refuse to fall into the "rat-race trap" that most people believe is reality. So I have no business complaining about not getting a vacation when I choose whether or not I need to work on a daily basis.

     Back to my point. Last winter when I was struggling I stayed in contact with the cable company. Eventually they decided they needed to disconnect my service. I pleaded with them that I was just short on money, but that I had no intention of screwing them over. I begged them to leave my cable on so I could entertain myself through the slowest season of my trade. I thought I gave them every reason to trust my intentions. After all, what are they really losing if they don't shut off my cable? What they are really doing is trying to use scare tactics to make me conform. The only advantage they have is to take away my cable to get their money. Yet they failed to realize that they just lost $600 by trying to play the role of the bully. $600 may not make or break them, but suppose there are  100 people like me. That makes the number $60,000.

     For some reason they believe that we are somehow slaves to their system. And accordingly, we must have given them that power. Now Monday Night Football will be shown on ESPN. According to the pundits, everybody has cable anyway, so what's the difference? The Red Sox have pulled their "Friday Night Baseball" on UPN to put all the games on NESN (New England Sports Network). So now I can't watch my usual Friday night game.

     I am actually considering paying my outstanding balance to get my cable up and running. Or maybe it is really time to ignore all the distractions. I enjoy my sports, but that is because I like the "reality" element that sports holds. With the current steroids and gambling controversies surrounding two of the four major sports, I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother anymore. What is real? I only want cable for a couple of channels. All the sports channels, Comedy Central, The Cartoon Network, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and occasionally one of the "premium" channels such as HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime.

     As great as these entertainment entities are, and all the distractions they provide us, they will always underestimate the human element. The human element can never be ignored. Once freedom is taken away from any animal (humans included) there will be a natural reaction. A reaction to regain the freedom that was once enjoyed. Right now we believe that being able to watch all those channels is freedom.  Freedom from stress and all the worries of today's society.  When cable is no longer about freedom, it will die. 

Sheets in the wind

     I recently read an article that dealt with the question: What makes a song, a hit song?  It was an attempt to make an unpredictable market a little more, well...predictable. What they found was people are more likely to like a song that they believe other people like. There was a study involving over 14,000 people. They did the study twice. They separated everybody and played them some new songs that they would most likely be unfamiliar with. They were separated into groups. One group was an independent group which was tested individually with no knowledge of each others selections. There were eight other groups with about 700 people each. These groups were chosen based on various social influences. Also, each person within a group could see which songs were being given good ratings and being downloaded by other people within the group. What they found was certain songs were likely to be downloaded more once others in the group started downloading the song. In the independent group, the same songs did not gain the same popularity.

     We live in a society where hype can sway a majority. It was obvious in high school, students waiting just long enough to see if the cool kids liked an idea or fashion statement before committing their own opinion. The media is a powerful tool to influence public opinion. If we see on TV that the rest of the country likes a certain TV show, sports team, or even political stance, we are inclined to make our opinions based on that. Not necessarily following the trend, as some make a point of going against the trend. Regardless, the opinion hinges on the opinion of others.

     I can't speak much of how the U.S.S.R. did its business or how it treated its people. But I can tell you the American sentiment on communism. Americans in general hate communism, and get all hot and bothered when you suggest that you or they are communists. I know a particular sports talk radio personality that calls anybody that doesn't agree with him a Socialist. Where a dumb jock gets off throwing around political terms is beyond me, but I won't get into that. I will remind you that I am not a communist, I am an anarchist. But I think the main reason communism is so hated is because countries that have practiced it have also threatened to bomb the U.S. Or at least that's what the media reports say. I don't want to argue the validity of the Cold War, I want to point out that it was not communism that was threatening the U.S. It was Russia, and North Korea, and sometimes China. Luckily we got China off our backs by letting them manufacture just about everything and anything you will find in our discount stores.

     I just ask that you as an American, or you as a human being realize the difference between hype and reality. If you want to believe that songs are better because you know a lot of other people that like them, then you have to realize we as humans are important to each other. We need each other because when it comes down to it, the whole human race is one. Nothing in this world relies solely on your actions, and nothing you do will affect only you. If you choose to leave a comment, please try to think of something you can do that undeniably will not affect another human being. Even masturbating in private can affect others. Somebody you might have run into had you not been hiding away pleasuring yourself, or one sperm that could have been a genius coupled with the right egg. That being said, remember that what you do is important in this world, and you wouldn't be where you were if it wasn't for the collective efforts of millions of human beings before you.

I used to have the link for the article, but it has since been pulled.