Dinh AaronMk

a vaguely not-so-modest proposal

What will happen in the 2020 election

@scribz

American Lenin Boys when?

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Inkarnate@Vilageidiotx

My understanding of communism: lack of personal ownership. Means of production being owned by everyone equally. Some form of regulating income or food that insures equality. Initial purge of ownership, ie: everyone losses their land and businesses to the state.

So maybe I've mis-characterized communism. Let me know if you think I have. To me anything less would be some form of socialism.

What's wrong with it:

lack of freedom. In this system you must produce something of value. I don't think it can work if you let everyone seek their dreams and still get the rashen of money/food, so that means you have to deal with whatever work the government is okay with you doing.

Lack of financial hierarchy. Oh man, isn't that the point though? Well yeah, hierarchy sucks in some ways, but it's kind of integral to human sociaty. Without it, you will have some other form of hierarchy. But here's the big thing, the interesting things throughout history have usually been created by rich people who could spend their time on art. Without a upper class, everyone needs to spend their time working. This also creates a sociaty that would be fundementally non diverse. As everyone would be living a similar lifestyle.

Lack of progress. For the individual, progressing in life and seeking self actualization is the journey. I believe a lack of feeling of progress to our lives would leave us depressed.

For me to feel as though my view is changed, I need to be convinced that the system can work as a whole, not just that I'm wrong about one of my issues with it. Change my view, not just my understanding of how it works.

@Dynamo Frokane

Typically speaking communism recognizes two forms of property. Personal and private. Private is defined as the property owned by the bourgeoisie, the class of people that own the shops, the (sometimes) large farms, factories, and so on. Personal property is just that: personal, this is your house, your car, your clothes, your computer, your clothes, your toothbrush. The communal toothbrush meme is used to deride and make fun of people who haven't heard of this distinction.

The collectivization of private property - the factory - is considered as the next historical step in the rearrangement of property as carried out by the necessary bourgeoisie revolutions of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution in Europe because they illustrated and underscored the process and possibility to rearranging property and the rules of it to meet a broader ownership of said property. In these cases it was seizing the property formally held by noble aristocrats such as dukes and kings and re-consolidating it, often closer to being held by middle-class owners. The final conclusion in the Marxist purview is to fulfill the notions exposed by these revolution by further distributing the land and the property.

Of course no one person in 1860 could have their own personal factory to make all the necessary commodities for their life and comfort, so in the mid-19th century and through he 20th the notion is to give the factories to the workers who work it. Here we have a fundamental split in Communist doctrine that runs through not just the two practiced methodologies of Communism in the 20th century, but all sectarian branches of socialist thought. Predominately Marxist-Leninism exposed by the Soviet State and Titoism in Yugoslavia. This is when we can get into some colorful characteristics fit for essays and probably better explained by those people who get really into the literature, but the basic principle moving on is/was: M-L's think the state gets to run the show, Titoists think the workers can manage it just fine.

Per the point on freedoms: this again may depend on interpretation of communism. If you're going for a strong-state and centralized system under Stalinism then yes you only do what you're told to do because it's found necessary. Council Communism as practiced in Hungary for a while though focuses more on the principle that you do what you can do in your local community, you and your neighbors own what's around you and the unions for the broader systems - like the nation rail service - own that. And for the few months they were permitted to last in 1956 before the Soviets restored order this worked very well. But this is beyond the point really.

What's really hammered on about today in the post-Soviet left is the notion of freedom of access. You're not entitled to operate in one field if you don't want to. But if you want something produced in it then you have all the right or expectation to enter into it to learn how to do it so you can make your own commodity or product there. Peter Kropotkin as well extends the notion that the individual in society goes to do what needs to be done in society to earn what he needs by providing the labor that will produce for society (for four hours a day mind you, he was very interested in and in tune with automation processes in the post-Marx world), and after you may devote what additional time you want for personal endeavors including working in a field you are fascinated with and are happy to work under on your own volition form which you will earn the education and resources necessary to advance one's capability in that particular field; whether it be writing books (he proposes writers should learn to work the presses to print their own books, pointing to the coming invention of the type-writer which was rumored to be coming at the time, today we have computerized printers to make this even easier), art, cooking, astronomy, or any other field of science; it's interesting to note further he was writing in continuation of Ben Franklin's proposal of the five-hour work day.

But, this logic can be applied as well to the capitalist system and even turned on its head. Under the assumption that we must work a set amount of hours a day to earn a wage that basically sets the limits on our standard of living, and thus limiting our freedom to pursue freedom of want and activity, while also setting prohibitive costs on certain commodities set by non-working owners: then are we any more or less free than the sewage worker forced to keep the sewers working in 1950's Moscow? Sure, we have the freedom to accept or decline the position of a sewer worker and the conditions implied as compensated by a set hourly wage; but there's not much choice if it's ultimately work or die.

Similarly: if the mantra of the day is "do what you want, you'll find happiness" then does this too crash the system? When we're told from the moment we can conceive a future to set a goal for adult hood and all of us want to be doctors and computer programmers then who is left to work in the factories and the other essential and not-so-glamorous fields necessary to keep society functioning? If we're judging capitalism as the ultimate freedom of choice in profession and we should all be doctors then the system is as vulnerable to failure as communism in that a misappropriation of roles can lead to its collapse, and like in Stalinist Russia we too have our population of despondent lawyer hopefuls finding themselves working at McDonalds or unrelated, perceived menial fields that was not part of the rose-colored rainbow future we were told to pursue.

At least in this regard Kropotkin recognizes there's shit we gotta do and we should do it, but we're not burdened with it all waking hours of the day. And when it turns out the community is teetering on the brink of collapse because too few or no one is doing what needs to be done, the presumed freedom of movement between necessary functions will get them there. In this regard in The Conquest of Bread he writes about Paris and the region around it cutting ties with the rest of France to become self-sustaining and critics charging that the city would collapse; to which he said let it, so they know they will need to adjust and accommodate.

The notion of going from A to B and all about can bleed into the progress bit. Progress for who or what? Society or the individual? If for society, then the trend of open source programs and projects where individuals can drift in and out making contributions as they see fit really dots the i that progress in advancing technology or a field can be made without the directing influence of a single head of project. And if the community all has a share of or free access to the material they need to produce their own commodities or technology for the whole to make their life easier than the financial burdens of having to be financially supported by a larger parent company are thrown out the window and everyone has the capability to make, or help make something for more in advance than what presently exists or even to modify what presently exists.

If personal progress, this really comes around to what is considered success in the present system and whether or not this is good or bad. While being a high-earning doctor or lawyer or something in any field could be called success in that they are out-ranking their peers, but they are also not happy, is this success? Conversely, people who are happy in their field and are happy to wake up every day to do it irregardless of conditions in that field can be called successful and that there is or may be a marked improvement between their quality of life at a given point in the past, and the present then. And if progress is measured as having a marked material improvement between a point in the past and that point in the present, then it would surely be argued that the freedom of access to material and means to improve the quality of their personal property is a mark of forward change.

You could of course make a point in saying that judging personal progress through a change of and improvement in material condition is the sort of materialist mind-set that capitalism makes sure is enforced, because capitalism now-a-days exists to sell shit like fidget spinners. And like-wise the notion that success and personal progress is through a marked increase in personal wealth is too a factor created by capitalism to enforce itself. Why say this? Because for as long as western materialist society has shared a border with a culture that does not share these traits people have consistently moved towards the other, and never - if not very rarely - in the opposite direction. This is the long trial the US faced in its centuries of conflict with the Native Americans; despite all of the west's material, scientific, and supposed cultural superiority people still walked off into the woods to join the Indians, because there was more purpose, more equability, and a greater sense the individual belongs to something. They were happier.

By this notion progress in the present sense is full of shit. Likewise a functioning society doesn't need hierarchy or a very tall hierarchy even. If the issue is lack of oversight in day-to-day duties or even in specialized areas then in the case of Titoism or some fields of Libertarian-Socialism there's options of community appointed or elected individuals to manage these affairs on behalf of the masses. And even in near-total absence of hierarchical functionaries a society can still advance beyond itself prior; as was the case in Revolutionary Catalonia where Anarcho-Communists and Anarcho-Syndicalists seized control of that quarter of Spain and in many areas managed to increase production by fifty percent or even double through self-management and an open adoption of new principles. Both I might add shoot for the same goal of Marx, but just in more immediate circumstances.

Stalin though fucked them over and the convoluted politics of Republican Spain. But before the Soviet advisers in the area could ruin them by blaming everything that was ever wrong ever on them and Trotskyites they did very well by all accounts.

By financial oversight is also not only wrong and unnecessary, since the end goal is to abolish all money all together. There's no need to oversee what doesn't exist. Getting there though is the question of praxis.

Children of the Greatfather

tfw Googer is probably out bat hunting and we're just sitting here twiddling our thumbs.

Objective fact and sympathy/empathy--let us discuss difficult subjects with both!

@Dinh AaronMk

Nooo, scrawling on pottery and exile!

@Penny

>Not sleeping in a barrel in the street and yelling at kings to get the fuck out of your sunlight.

Objective fact and sympathy/empathy--let us discuss difficult subjects with both!

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

We need to have a constitutional amendment to add Athenian style ostracism to the system.

@Penny

Or alternatively just democratize more things.

a vaguely not-so-modest proposal

Do you think Ja Rule could win?

@Darcs

#JaRule2020
#GulagsForAmerica

a vaguely not-so-modest proposal

Jokes on ya'll, I'm writing in Abdullah Öcalan now and forever.

When will I do the thing?

Taking bets on when the thing will be done

Objective fact and sympathy/empathy--let us discuss difficult subjects with both!

<Snipped quote by Lurking Shadow>

The problem with the Socrates quote is... well, lets pull it out of its context. Socrates in this particular situation isn't necessarily the philosopher himself, but a character in Plato's Republic, where Plato's concept of an ideal society is developed. It's based on the idea that you can create a meritocratic natural order, where an upper level of "Philosopher Kings" can be nurtured to rule.

The problem is that you cannot make a meritocratic natural order. Plato's Republic amounted to saying "It would be great if we always made worthy people into Kings, so we should do that", which is nice sounding, but it's quite Utopian in reality to expect an aristocracy to work that way. Whatever problems democracy has regarding education, dictatorship also has. If the history of Kings and Dictators was a history of meritocracy, sure, we could stick with it. But in reality that history is a history of Carlos IIs and Neros.

In a democracy, the failures can at least be rectified by the reaction of the populous. With Monarchy you have to hope that the next role of the dice is a good one, whereas in a democracy the population itself can intervene through... democracy. And it has worked out that way. Buchanan, the 15th President of the US, is considered the most incompetent in American history. He is directly followed by Abraham Lincoln, who is often rated our best President. Democracy is a good system because it is reactive like that.

@Vilageidiotx

If you're going to analyze history through the lens of basic Hegelian Dialectics, then democracy has the benefit the action-reaction-synthesis of history is carried out relatively faster as opposed to having to raise an army to wage a bloody year, two, or three year war against the present ruler to affect the change you want to see when said ruler is unresponsive to the needs of the populace and society in general. That is provided you're not willing to wait for the kings equally insulated son or next of kin is any better.

The danger in democracy I feel is increasing insulation and isolation of the leaders we elect, and not the system itself. Democracy kind of has that benefit of the resources spread over a larger base so no group is any stronger than the other and it can act with stability without a succession war kicking up every other succession period.

Children of the Greatfather

Ayyy, I hope this is good herr googs

Hider

Realm Name:
Apossimos, the province of

Realm Master:
Kephale Josiario Presach

Master's Biography:
Josario Presach was born into the powerful Presach family in the province of Apossimos, a relatively powerful province in the late Thalasian Empire. For generations the Presach family has derived wealth and power from the wide range of property and prestige it has managed to acquire and hold within the Thalasian imperial structure in the passed two-hundred years. Holding what the family often lauds as “uncountable acreages” or privately held farm-land and an army of serfs, it is really the second stronger family in the province.

Never the less, Josario was born into a life of extreme wealth as the third of ten siblings, his eldest brother passed away from illness at the age of thirteen and his next oldest sibling was his sister Calavinia, so the honor of the next in line to inheriting the family estate passed to him.

According to imperial rights he – along with all of the imperial aristocracy – was pressed into military service to the Empire, and he with the rest of the young nobility and aristocracy of the realm joined the coveted and stratified imperial cavalry. His military career was marked with considerable danger and bravery as he was sent to the southern frontier to swat back at the barbarian cavalry that for the passed eighty years has been raiding and biting at the heels of the Empire by raiding its slavery and ivory caravans from the far-south.

In one recorded and praised circumstance Josario and his unit was ambushed in the red cliffed deserts by a band of dark-skinned mercenaries. The enemy riders, number over three times the imperial force's size assailed the imperial ranks from their head and their flank. When the dust settled it was only Josario who survived holding his hand to his chest, an enemy sword had struck half his left hand from his body and he rode to his unit's destination with a bandage around his wounded hand and a bouquet of barbarian heads held in the other.

On part of his injury and to reward Josario's abilities he was moved to a purely administrative post at the distant outpost he was headed to on the insistence of its fort commander. At the age of only twenty-six he became that officer's sub leftenant, charged with managing the fort's staff and duties of the soldiery on behalf of his commanding officer.

When he turned thirty he heard word from home that his father Barachius Presarch had fallen ill. Having served his time in service to the imperial crown he was given leave and he arrived home in time to see his ailing father on his death bed. A day later he passed and Josario took the reigns of administrating his family holdings.

At the age of thirty-one he married his wife Carolina, who was nineteen at the time. They had three sons: Hakial, Petroclius, and Jussiah.

At forty-nine the old Kephale of the province died, and being a head of a recognized major family in the province was invited to the Conclave of Ministers for the province and elected as the new magistrate for the province.

Realm History:
The province of Apossimos is one of the oldest provinces of the Thalasan Empire, but not belonging to the original Thalasan kingdom is not subject to the imperial law that only Thalasans shall live in the core lands of the Empire. Apossimos also has the distinction has having the richest farm-land in the central Empire and its long rocky coast is broken by numerous shallow rivers flowing from the interior mountains that mark the provinces southern border; which has been a bounty for the provinces early history as it shielded the empire from the warlike barbarians to the far south. It is however notable that for all this the Thalasan people have had a long historical stigma with the region, even if they continually show their loyalty and appreciation for the Empire. The issue is a combination of history and Imperial law.

During the formative stages of the early empire over a millennium ago the province of Apossimos was the center for the rival kingdom of Apossima. The relationship between the kingdom then and the kingdom of the Thalasans was so tense that it was said that when the Thalasans conquered the territory the court magi of the ruling king cast a curse that a great plague will sweep Thalasa should even one of the king's subjects manage to cross the Rumer River forming the border between the Empire. As response the Thalasans conducted a wide-spread campaign of terror and butchery that swept the kingdom killing every man, woman, and child they could find in the conquered province. The ancient Apossima people who had lived there for so long were either killed in such volume the rivers ran red with blood for years as the soil bled the blood it had taken in and the people of the defeated kingdom fled in droves west-ward into mysterious distant lands. Making the situation tougher, the kingdom passed laws forbidding Apossimans from crossing the river Rumer which was expanded in subsequent years to include all non-Thalasans in a strict policy of internal segregation.

Thus barred from the wealth of the Purple Lands of the Thalasan kingdom future imperial subjects seeking bountiful bottom land and rich timbered forests slowly migrated to Apossimos to establish new lives. This process of gradual resettlement rejuvenated the emptied territory which had been slowly settled by ethnic Thalasans. This made for a rowdy, almost frontier culture in the interior of the Empire that reconstructed the Apossiman culture anew.

At a time corresponding with the Thalasan invasion of the northern lands across the sea a curious cult made its appearance in Apossimos. Proclaiming a One God enveloped in the Cloak of Truth, the cult masters who proclaimed their faith made the claim that their god was the father of all life and denounced the superiority of the Sun and Moon cults of the Thalasan people.

Originally disparaged as displaced Born from the north, the curious cult and its native followers migrated throughout the Empire until settling in the internally frontier Apossimos. But their reality is that they were not northerners, but far westerners who themselves were seeking accommodation from and safety from their own homeland where they had been lead out by a Walking King who lead them out of a land ravaged by drought, plague, and invasion far to the west and south.

With many of the imperial provinces at the time housing populations far more established and the Purple Lands off limits to all foreigners the displaced peoples arrived by sea to Apossimos, hop-scotching the heartland to seek settlement.

Hesitantly recognizing the new people, the imperial magistrate of the province at the time – the Kephale – permitted the refugees to settle in his province and offered them land in the mountain interior to live. The Walking King was permitted to keep his honorary title, but had to pledge subservience to the administrative office.

The Walking King as a title was purely honorary, and the real rank was Hakohen Ghadhoul, or the High Priest. The High Priest who had lead his people is often simply referred to as Haron.

For the next several centuries the monotheistic cult and its people lived peacefully in the interior. Further refugees who had heard of the resettlement made their way eastward to Apossimos and integrated themselves within the stripped provincial community. Despite their new homes in the rocky mountain foothills the population thrived, having one advantage most the rest of the population of the province lacked: literacy. As a core tenant of their faith the practitioners had to learn to read to write and they offered this to anyone fore free; and many who came to them to learn the skills and advantages of even basic literacy came to convert in the end, having had the cloak of wisdom wrapped around them and filled with its warmth.

The name given to these people has changed over the centuries, called neutrally as the Shepards, Sephards, or the Apollimites they were else derogatorily derided as the Ghouls or the Wordy Men. But despite the jealousy and hate levee'd against them their population soon grew to prominence and some four-hundred years after the Thalasan failures in the Born lands had infiltrated and assumed office in provincial office.

The Shepards, becoming a full-blown aristocratic class came to enjoy the privileges of and becoming party to the duties and rights of the title. The families who got into political power began using their power and influence to acquire land and ships which they used for trade and commercial activity. The province soon came to a golden age unseen since the exterminate of its original inhabitants.

Realm Seat:
Pollus Apossimos

Realm Boundaries/Location:
Master Googer, I require an outside map if I'm going to fill this role!