Don't you know that any potential leader is probably just a grifter? If you want to build an effective leftist movement, you have to have no leaders whatsoever. Directionless resentment is surely the only way forward.
In the Gilets jaunes, leadership was a task, not a vested rank. Followers freely did so, or not. The leadership condition ends when the task is done. The Pashtun of Afghanistan have something similar. Many tribes' chieftains had no force of command, only of persuasion.
Such structures tend to spring up spontaneously where there is collective work to be done and no fucking Anglo cracker to impose their dom/sub hangups on it.
And how's that gonna work out for a movement that needs millions of followers sustained over many years?
There are still Pashtun in Afghanistan. You should ask them how they've been doing beating back not one but two empires for the past 40-50 years.
The last time someone successfully controlled Afganistan he was named Alexander the Great. A good chunk of those Pashtuns are the remains of his armies. They don't fuck around with johnny-come-lately amateurs.
Noice. I did not know that far back. The Art of Not Being Governed is still in my get-to pile.
I thought Genghis Khan also successfully conquered Afghanistan.
Invaded and burned, yes...conquered...well technically they were in the Mongol sphere, practically not so much. Timur had to burn it down al over again. Aghans can't catch a break.
Timur showed up over 100 years later, though. A few cursory searches seems to indicate that the Mongol Empire held the territory for quite a while after the conquest in 1221. (Alexander's empire, meanwhile, fell apart when he died...)
they've been doing that for thousands of years. May as well ask americans to just abandon the love of guns while you're at it
I mean, they're the largest group in that whole area of afghanistan but the taliban didn't have universal support from them
He is a leader in the BreadTube community.
(Excuse me while I puke.)
Who the fuck is screaming "Follow Ryan Knight and Jimmy Dore" at my house? Show yourself coward, I will never follow Ryan Knight and Jimmy Dore.
Aw man we never get to have nice things this house sucks your not my real dad
I'm gonna whore for Dore and you can't fucken stop me
Our local Portland OWS took over a city park and then tried gunning for homeless rights for 3 months.
They had no leadership everything came down to council meetings to make shared proclamations, and then everyone gave up and just drank and did drugs until the cops sweeped them out one night.
Anyone that tried to organize leadership was shouted down. So most people with any organizational background left early. It was a fucking embarasing mess in the end. They had to dig up two feet of topsoil because they had been using the grassy areas as an open latrine. It was like Lord of the Flies with crust punks.
Ah yes because if there's one thing leftists know, it's that the problem with capitalism is that we have the wrong leaders in charge, not the hierarchy itself. What a shitlib take
Movements need hierarchy. Infinite struggle sessions where everyone wants to lay out their opinion on everything don't work. Eventually you need specialists.
Capitalism has a pyramidal hierarchy but other hierarchies can be relatively flat like the soviets (worker councils) where delegates were elected only so long as they had the majority of the council's votes -- so, instant recalls.
Social hierarchies are at the core of all social animals and we can't get away from it. Humans are just highly evolved social animals. We aren't the borg or some shit.
Folks like to forget that capitalism works as an organizational structure. It's practitioners dominate physical space and productive materials, mobilize large amounts of human labor, and generate significant new economic value.
This is also what Communists want to do. They want a different social relationship between participants, not a Return To Monke.
Social hierarchies are at the core of all social animals and we can’t get away from it.
Animals periodically reorganize their hierarchies, even branching into entirely different structures, over time. Humans absolutely have the capacity to advance past tribal organizations, city-states, kingdoms, and empires or regress back into hermitage. Social organization doesn't have to be rigidly vertical. But you do still need some level of respect between participants such that instruction from one individual is not endlessly countervailed by others.
I think it's easy to neglect that the basis of hierarchy isn't brutality. It is trust. A hierarchy built on trust can be healthy and good, if the participants are well-informed and the relationship is fruitful. Constant cynicism and doubt isn't any kind of basis for any kind of leftist philosophy, nevermind the Social Animals argument.
Movements need coordination. That's a completely different thing from hierarchy.
Disorganization was a fatal flaw of OWS but that doesn't mean you have to have one person over other people, fractally repeating everywhere. Organization and subordination are not the same at all.
You're talking out of both sides of your mouth . I love how when talking about Occupy you say "They had no leadership everything came down to council meetings to make shared proclamations, and then everyone gave up and just drank and did drugs until the cops sweeped them out one night." But then in the next breath you're endorsing the "flat hierarchy" lfmao, of soviet worker councils and their delegates. "Flat heirarchy" is about as oxymoronic as "capitalist democracy." Delegates arent leaders, they're messengers. Nor are "specialists." You are talking nonsense.
There's a reason antifa doesnt have a leader, but you probably think that's dumb.
Some hierarchies are flatter than others. Delegates from soviet councils had wide executive powers to obtain goods, services, and general labor. They weren't just messengers. They were more like project managers who worked for the workers obtaining, managing, and divvying up the grants from the national council.
Ancoms, Iron Front, and probably even libs all claim antifa. The whole idea is to be leaderless for operational security. It is not dumb, it is smart. Outside of street fights though hierarchies are needed. You can't have people choosing a different person they want to try to engineer a bridge every other day, that is anarchy.
Delegates from soviet councils had wide executive powers to obtain goods, services, and general labor. They weren’t just messengers.
"In a system with temporary and instantly revocable delegates, workers decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. They also mandate a temporary delegate to divulge and pursue them. The temporary delegates are elected among the workers themselves, can be instantly revoked if they betray their mandate, and are supposed to change frequently. The delegates act as messengers, carrying and interchanging the intention of the groups of workers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_council
hierarchies are needed. You can’t have people choosing a different person they want to try to engineer a bridge every other day, that is anarchy.
holy fuck what a shit take. Hierarchy is not specialization. The engineers do not have rule over the steelworkers who weld the bridge. Anarchy is not doing whatever you want jesus fucking christ.
We don't even have a working class movement in the US but you're going to compare it to Soviet councils? LOL.
Movements do need hierarchy and leaders and the left has none of that in the US. Compare it to the far right. They have a central figure they rally around (Trump), who do we have? No one. Maybe it was Sanders, but the left is so divided and infights over the most stupid petty bullshit, that he wasn't good enough before dropping out and shilling for Biden.
And Occupy was a shitshow and I would know cause I was involved and following it from day 1. Occupy was proof that the bourgeoise are not intimidated or threatened by peaceful protests. It led to nothing and went out with a whimper.
Movements do need hierarchy and leaders and the left has none of that in the US
Because they're all dead or in jail you fucking genius
Occupy was proof that the bourgeoise are not intimidated or threatened by peaceful protests. It led to nothing and went out with a whimper.
Riiiiight, which is why they had a massive police presence from day one, were under constant harassment by cops, and went out with a violent raid nationally coordinated by the FBI. Fuck off.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
That is why I said soviet. We are talking about two different things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)
Engineers do have rule over who can work on a bridge. Name a bridge that was built without a foreman. I never said anarchy was doing whatever you want. Direct democracy can't apply everywhere and at all times. There have to be leaders.
Name a bridge that was built without a foreman
Most foremen are in a temporary position that's assigned by the union. Even under capitalism foreman is a temporary position of power with a very specific purview.
I'm sorry you didnt say anarchy is doing whatever you want, you said anarchy is picking a new person to try to build a bridge every other day. Wow the anarchy understander has arrived my apologies.
Almost every ill of Western civilzation can be traced back to private property, and in this case leadership is no exception.
Lenin: "We should establish a Vanguard from which to educate and mobilize the proletariat en mass. "
Some guy on the internet: "Uh, yeah, let's see how far that gets you, you stupid lib."
The cops beat them and gassed them in the middle of the night in a coordinated raid with the FBI dumbass
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
Angela Davis said one of the things thats great about the BLM movement is there is no face to assassinate.
Wasn't anyone to assassinate with Occupy, and that ultimately did it no favors.
Occupy was a shitshow that ended with a whimper.
The thing that worries me with BLM is how corporatized it's become. When you have corporations pushing BLM and pretending that they care, it's not a good sign. It's becoming a money pit and liberals have co-opted into cancerous ID-POL nonsense which is being used to divide the protests up.
Angela Davis also said vote for Biden.
She’s gone lib in her old age. Directionless leaderless horizontal movements have never gotten anywhere except coopted.
I was reading this yesterday about this same thing. Gives me a lot of anxiety about the future of this country with how unorganized we all are.
https://illwilleditions.com/at-the-wendys/
Hey, thanks for posting that. Interesting read. Aligns with a lot of what I've been thinking about since things kicked off this summer.
If you want to build an effective leftist movement, you have to have no leaders whatsoever.
This but unironically
