aspen

ppl really need to cut out the fedjacketing/copjacketing shit. even if its in good faith all youre doing is sewing distrust instead of actually challenging the harmful behavior that you're fedjacketing someone for.

yes fed infiltration is a real concern and im not denying that -- thats why we need to built relationships and communities that can withstand it. you dont have to be a fed or a cop to perpetrate harmful behavior and rhetortic. you can and should call out/in harmful behavior without insinuating someones a cop/fed. its how we help one another grow and if done right, can help generate more trust (rather than distrust) in each other because we're taking time to see one another as people. and people, even rad folks (even you and me), have the capacity for harming each other and its more harmful to pretend like were not. white supremacy, patriarchy, etc can operate in anyone. instead of ignoring that reality and calling everyone who says/does something fucked up a fed, lets take a closer look at how systems of oppression can be perpetrated by anyone, even those who dedicate ourselves to resisting oppressive systems.

like state repression is already intense as it is, our power lies in trusting and caring for another so we can take risks together -- thats something the state will never have so lets not let them take it away from us. the state loves when we dont trust each other. part of building community that can withstand state repression is combatting the systems of oppression that the state operates on (white supremacy, patriarchy, etc) not only in the world but in ourselves and each other. if we want a world where we dont have to rely on the state and other oppressive institutions to survive, we can make it happen now -- but we have to trust each other.

well i was just about to post my big long review of chapter 1 of anarchy works then cohost went blank and i lost everything T___T

anyway the jist of it is: humans act in both authoritarian and anti-authoritarian ways. Regardless of our material conditions we always have the capacity to intentionally choose to resist authoritarian structures and behaviors, even within authoritarian societies and civilizations. There have been multiple examples of peoples “uncivilizing” themselves in rejection of authority and fostering an anti-authoritarian culture in response (hinting the possibility of a post-state and post-civilization future).

One example (albeit hypothesized by peter lamborn wilson) is that anti-authoritarian societies in eastern turtle island formed in resistance to the hierarchical Hopewell mound-building societies.

“Is it possible, Wilson asks, that the much vaunted ecological consciousness of so many Northeast Woodlands societies might not be, as almost everyone assumes, simply a cultural given, but bear traces of a similar conscious rejection of urbanization?” - david graeber, culture as creative refusal

As an anishinaabe person, these are my ancestors. it is striking to me, the possibility that they consciously rejected the authoritarian civilization of the hopewells, just as many of us reject the authoritarian civilization of the western world today.

The common factor that allows societies to avoid domination is an intentional anti-authoritarian culture, just as in the numerous examples gelderloos provides. We must foster cultures of toppling authoritarian structure. Cultures of caring for each other and living in harmony with the earth. A better world will be built on the ashes of this one, but first, we must burn this world down to make soil rich for new life.