@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

It may be that what we call "reform" today - e.g. "shuffling around the deck chairs to try and confuse people into thinking something's changed - and what we called "reform" in previous eras of US government are substantially different things.

In this era, esp u40s are (rightly) skeptical of anyone who claims to be a "reformer".

But the implosion/surborning of language has been one of the great betrayals of the modern age, so...

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

While I'm not a fan of exporting industry terms to the public sphere ("don't make perfect the enemy of good" being a stellar example of how dangerous it can be) I do think the concept behind POSIWID is extremely *useful* in an unjust political environment that is both systems-heavy and systems-deferential.

When someone says, for example, that "our incarceration system is broken", it ignores the historical and practical *purpose*...

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

...of that system: to recreate an environment in which slavery can be re-instituted without resistance from most white Americans. After all, the 14th Amendment was really clear that if you wanna, you can enslave prisoners (lol lmao).

Californians in 2024, of all people and times, are like "we're curious about this enslaving prisoners thing, and would like to keep it open as an option".

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

Is it a coincidence that enforcement is much more extensive (and corrupt) in Black communities, or the prison population is disproportionately Black? Is it "broken" that access to good legal counsel requires money, but Black Americans have been systematically cut off from generational wealth building *as a matter of govt policy* for the last 150 years?

Or is it the purpose of the system?

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

It may be that what we call "reform" today - e.g. "shuffling around the deck chairs to try and confuse people into thinking something's changed - and what we called "reform" in previous eras of US government are substantially different things.

In this era, esp u40s are (rightly) skeptical of anyone who claims to be a "reformer".

But the implosion/surborning of language has been one of the great betrayals of the modern age, so...

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

Is it a coincidence that enforcement is much more extensive (and corrupt) in Black communities, or the prison population is disproportionately Black? Is it "broken" that access to good legal counsel requires money, but Black Americans have been systematically cut off from generational wealth building *as a matter of govt policy* for the last 150 years?

Or is it the purpose of the system?

@johnzajac

It's the purpose of the system for the oligarchs who have captured it.

@DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

@johnzajac @EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

Anarchism has always had a consistent understanding of what governmental reform is. In this understanding, it is not a significantly different activity now and in previous eras, just as Trump's actions are not significantly different from past US Presidents'.

The state should not exist. It can not be reformed.

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

It's been the purpose of the system for 150 years. At what point do we stop trying to pretend it was "captured" or it's "broken" and just accept that its purpose has always been thus, and we know this because of what it does and has done, and that it needs to be burned to the point where the atoms separate from one another and it drifts into the cosmos as elemental hydrogen?

I'm tired of giving the depraved system the benefit of the doubt

@richpuchalsky

I agree.

The challenge is to construct a non-hierarchical system that is robust against attempts to rebuild hierarchies.

Most revolutions fail to do this, because they substitute a different hierarchy. Napoleon, Stalin and Trump are only a few examples.

@johnzajac @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

@EricLawton @richpuchalsky @johnzajac @DejahEntendu @bonaventuresoft It's not a thing you can do just once... It has to be maintained and constantly adjusted, refined and recentred. There will always be ways to improve and there will always be times when it goes off in the "wrong" direction.

@cybervegan @EricLawton @johnzajac @DejahEntendu @bonaventuresoft

Reform is always, or periodically, attempted. This results in the preservation of the state, often with a high degree of historical continuity in the state's basic functions. For instance, US military interventions in Latin America have continued under all historic US administrative systems and after/during many different sets of reforms. There has never been and never will be reform that "improves" them.

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

Is it a coincidence that enforcement is much more extensive (and corrupt) in Black communities, or the prison population is disproportionately Black? Is it "broken" that access to good legal counsel requires money, but Black Americans have been systematically cut off from generational wealth building *as a matter of govt policy* for the last 150 years?

Or is it the purpose of the system?

@EricLawton @DejahEntendu @cybervegan @bonaventuresoft

It's been the purpose of the system for 150 years. At what point do we stop trying to pretend it was "captured" or it's "broken" and just accept that its purpose has always been thus, and we know this because of what it does and has done, and that it needs to be burned to the point where the atoms separate from one another and it drifts into the cosmos as elemental hydrogen?

I'm tired of giving the depraved system the benefit of the doubt