Declaration of the Toronto Commune

[Alaric Malgraith]

I am becoming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ2BnxFZ4wg

[bzfgt]

I have to say, Alaric, whatever criticisms people make, and however sarcastic the tone of them (not picking on anyone, this includes me) I salute you for being a remarkably good sport.

[Alaric Malgraith]

Thanks. Out of all the things I don't take seriously, I am top among them.

[Newman]

Alaric, that declaration was gibberish man. What does "declaring war against the institutions of biopower" entail? Bumper stickers? Eco freindly shopping bags? squatting in tents in a forest until the commune collapses in bitter dissension over who spends more time cleaning up the squat (two months, tops)? Or does it just entail typing up some meaningless declaration and posting it on a message board in an attempt to display your vast, polymathic intelligence through the vehicle of nonsensical abstract babbling?

And what was with the imitation of the declaration of independence? Did you realize that Thomas Jefferson was the early prototype for liars in public office, the DOI a work of fictional claims to lofty aspirations that he never really held, and imitated the DOI as your way of letting everyone know that the your declaration was meant in jest?

also "social imagination"? How valid could your ideology be if you're still relying on the rhetorical devices of Soc 1? You kids these days and your attempts to contribute valid political ideals grown from the bed of welfare state dogma inserted into your head as part of your general ed requirements make me fear for the future of humanity.

"to secure these "rights", all governments are to be dismantled and the alienated power from which particular governments manifest themselves from the state-form will be reembodied by individuals."

and I thought Marx was being intentionally obtuse when he claimed that the dictatorship of the proletariate would "wither away". You just described a broad and intricate process requiring a life choice to studying how to implement it (and then only arriving at a preliminary hypothesis), but you did it in one sentence. Are you honestly taking yourself seriously?

"the present form-of-Life has become destructive of these ends and it is the right of the people to utterly abolish it,"

You should keep in mind a refrain used in retail establishments- "You break it, you bought it". No one has a right to engage in the destruction of a society when they have no clue how to remedy the damage that would cause. it's the responsibility of the people to learn how to abolish it and create the foundations of a rational society to replace it; any subsequent rights depend on the fulfillment of that primary responsibility.

"laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing our power in such a way, as to us shall seem most likely to effect our freedom and happiness."

That's your plan in it's entirety? I'd say you should go back to the afore mentioned responsibility before you start demanding your right to abolish society.

Such has been the patient sufferance of we proletarians;

Right. I'd bet dollars to donuts that you're far from a member of the proletariate, that you're the product of an upwardly mobile family and an expensive education. That would explain why you've laid out simplistic elitism under the delusion that you are being "communistic".

kid, you're a dumbass. The Dubya admin made more sense that you.

[Alaric Malgraith]

What does "declaring war against the institutions of biopower" entail?

It might include what you mentioned, but it must necessarily also include a campaign of selective sabotage against genetic modification, chemical companies, schools, prisons, pharmaceutical companies, surveillance and security companies, etc. It also requires a positive project of the affirmation of unconstrained human life including local food security through neighborhood permaculture and any other way one can think of promoting non-institutional biotic fecundity.

And what was with the imitation of the declaration of independence? Did you realize that Thomas Jefferson was the early prototype for liars in public office, the DOI a work of fictional claims to lofty aspirations that he never really held, and imitated the DOI as your way of letting everyone know that the your declaration was meant in jest?

Even Thomas Jefferson can redeemed by taking the eloquence of his document's form and realigning it's content in such a way that what Jefferson never saw through to it's necessary conclusion (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) is realizable. I was playing with the text and being a little silly, true, but the ideas expressed were sincere.

also "social imagination"? How valid could your ideology be if you're still relying on the rhetorical devices of Soc 1?

I was speaking of the general form of the ideality behind Cornelius Castoriadis' "Social Imaginary Significations" meaning ideas held to be significant and "real" be society that have no basis in objective natural-scientific processes. For instance the taboo against murder. It cannot be said that nature is fundamentally adverse to creatures of the same species killing each other, but the social imagination deems otherwise. Thus the taboo against murder is a social imaginary signification.
Castoriadis, btw, was not fundamentally against social imaginary institutions but only postulated that it should be admitted that the are social creations made be fallible humans and not forced on us by God or "natural law" and this they are subject to change. I agree with his analysis.

You just described a broad and intricate process requiring a life choice to studying how to implement it (and then only arriving at a preliminary hypothesis), but you did it in one sentence.

I wrote a short document. So I exchanged a little practicality for brevity's sake.

Right. I'd bet dollars to donuts that you're far from a member of the proletariate, that you're the product of an upwardly mobile family and an expensive education. That would explain why you've laid out simplistic elitism under the delusion that you are being "communistic".

Not exactly. My single mother is a public service worker, but financially speaking I guess I could be described as vaguely middle class. I'm taking a year of university now, but, as I'm now unemployed again, I won't be going back, at least not next year. My education, beside public primary and secondary, has mostly amounted to many trips to the book store and library.

[Newman]

I was speaking of the general form of the ideality behind Cornelius Castoriadis' "Social Imaginary Significations" meaning ideas held to be significant and "real" be society that have no basis in objective natural-scientific processes. For instance the taboo against murder. It cannot be said that nature is fundamentally adverse to creatures of the same species killing each other, but the social imagination deems otherwise. Thus the taboo against murder is a social imaginary signification.

in other words= yes, your reasoning has been marginalized by indoctrination in the social "sciences". Nature has never defined any scientific formula by which human culture is formed. nature didn't need to engage in that study because in forming man with the overwhelming imperative to organize into cooperative groups in order to survive, nature saw fit to inscribe into man's genetic makeup the faculties of abstract thought and language so that we would be well qualified to do just that. there's never been a need for developing a "science" or group of "sciences" to do for humanity what humanity was endowed to do by virtue of his creation. Of course I'm personifying nature here because the social scientists have been engaging in that sleight of hand for so long as an excuse to build their totalitarian utopia that I thought it would be fun to point out that nature doesn't need any goddamn "scientists" working around the clock instituting social controls, divisions of labor, and welfare states to get us to do what we'd do much better if the manipulation of our society by those "scientists"wasn't working feverishly to undo every step of progress that a population makes.

"Not exactly. My single mother is a public service worker, but financially speaking I guess I could be described as vaguely middle class."

I hit the nail right on the head then in my assessment of you, didn't I?

Here's something that I think would be beneficial to you to put some thought into. Proponents of social engineering that have designed their glorious society on paper and are committed to doing anything that's needed to create that society are tyrants. regardless of their stated goals and methods, they are engaged in tyranny. Marx's classless society was, despite the brilliance and original thought marx was able to display in the development of his ideology, a roadmap to tyranny. no eelite class of intelligentsia has the right to dictate society to the masses. Abandon your utopia and set yourself to learn how to create organization within society that crosses boundaries created and maintained through social controls, and then devote your resources to challenging and ending existing inequity in society. Let human society progress in the way human society always will if it is given the freedom to.don't try to dictate the course, just remove present obstacles to freedom. Don't listen to your professors, they will never deal honestly with you. They are consciously manipulating you because you are at an age that is well known as one of the most impressionable and defenseless stages in the development of human maturity. you're too old to be a teen, but you're not a man yet. you haven't gone through the sausage factory of advanced education and been shit out the ass end as an automaton perfectly fitted to fill some economic role, but you know that you soon will be, and you'll bend over backwards for anyone that you think can make you into a man. You have the youthful rebellion and commitment to freedom of thought and being that is the manifest evidence of the sunset of your childhood. It's like the last warm weekend before the winter chill sets in and you want to make the most of it because you know that the frigid depths of winter lie ahead and you've already planned on abandoning you idealism as soon as it's required of you. You don't want to admit that to yourself, of course, but you have.

Quit deluding yourself. Quit living in denial. either join the dissent or join the elite, but quit pretending to be one when you know that you are of the other.

[Vice]

Marx's classless society was, despite the brilliance and original thought marx was able to display in the development of his ideology, a roadmap to tyranny.

What about the class society of Hammurabi and the mass murdering big men(and gullible followers) who prefigured him in Mesopotamia?

[Alaric Malgraith]

Why so anti-theoretical?

[Newman]

Why so anti-theoretical?

I'm not anti-theoretical, I just know where your theory comes from. You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled (to quote Malcom X). Let me try to clear this up for you- In a nutshell- Socialists in the 1800's finally managed to challenge business dominance of American government. business realized that the welfare of the working class had to be provided for in order for them to keep their capital, but they didn't want socialists to gain any power and they didn't want to spend the money themselves. Woodrow Wilson launched a campaign to eradicate the socialist party in 1916-19, he Jailed Eugene V Debs, the socialist party financial backing, and the leadership. Immediately afterwards, JDR jr., through Rockefeller philanthropy and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial funded over 70 academic social science organizations,(aside from the spent 21 million on the university of chicago, 127 million on the General Education Board, and the tens of millions to universities) to institutionalize the social sciences in higher education. Refer to charles ellwood, robert parks EW Burgess, and william hockings, Edward Brunays, William Skinner for an grasp of social science in America on rockefeller's terms. Business, in collaboration with government, eliminated the socialist party and then transferred the expense of maintaining a working class to the middle class through taxation, welfare apparatus, and a widely expanded prison system. This killed three birds with one stone- it succeeded in providing workers with just enough income to keep them from revolution, it manufactured a reason for the Bourgeois to resent the under classes and side with the wealthy even more than they already had traditionally, and it increased the tax burden on all the classes under them (thereby decreasing their economic competitiveness). with The social sciences are the "fake shemp", filling socialism's shoes- making all this possible.

This is where you come in. society isn't scientific. So what? Wouldn't you expect a species endowed with imagination to create imaginary societies, imaginary rules, imaginary loyalties? In the words of Alan Moore "Fantasy isn't some light, decorative thing". Would you deny humanity their fantasy and call that a better world? Or worse yet, would you map the terrain of that fantasy and turn it against us? Because the current empire wants time to stand still and their power to extend to eternity, and the intelligentsia (who you've fallen under the influence of) is scraping and grovelling to be the instrument to bring that about. Are you looking forward to a career prescribing anti-psychotics to the children of the poor, longer jail sentences to the parents of those children? No, you're a zealot, you think that some noble calling awaits. You're going to change the world. But what's the goal of the social sciences? To ease the sting of the totalitarianism that they have long been predicting, to create a "kinder, gentler" totalitarianism, and in so doing, ensure that humanity is successfully herded into it.

And you're quoting those fucking faggots to me as revered teachers under the guise of being a rebel; an "Intellectual". Castoriadis was a mindless fucking jerk-off that was halfway through life before he even heard of Hume or skepticism, and the novelty of them caused him to go chasing after them like a little fat girl after the ice cream truck. He accomplished with the last part of his life what he accomplished with the first, and that was precisely nothing. The best thing he could have done is hold hands with Durkheim and jumped into a wood-chipper.

[HPWombat]

Good stuff Newman. You've spoke at length about an anarchist engagement in militancy. I'm personally interested in what the anarchist subject can do as an anti-authoritarian if their role in the creation of revolution is minimal at best and substitutive at worst. I think the anarchist subject is too harsh on itself because its flaws in relation to history. When an anarchist stops viewing things as a God and looks at things from the ground, we are talking about real affects within society.

Some complain about the affects of a broken window. It holds little propaganda power, does an insignificant amount of real damage to a business and so on. This is the view from the tower. From the street, "yeah them motherfucking anarchists fucked up that business around the corner"...no media attention at the street level, the conversation, the folklore of street level power is all that exists, all that counts in the creation of how "them motherfucking anarchists" existed in the 2010's. This does continue the narrative of the 70s motherfuckers and hooligan street gangs finding glory in destruction with little to no real media reporting of their significance versus the more commonly known drug dealing/turf claiming/thug gangs. But the local lore would often remembers what happens in an area, despite the lack of spectacular attention. This would be "anarchist" as a more glorious expression of pyromania, kleptomania, a subjectivity of glory within banality. This would also be a type of romantic or ideal portrayal of the anarchist, when in fact the typical anarchist versus our ideals of what an anarchist could be/should be/has been is very far removed.

The glories of quasi-military can be appealing, as can battles in the workplace, in protest, through rioting and so on. But if the anarchist subject is alien to these things, then the story of the anarchist is something else. Right now it is the story of infoshops, dumpster diving, college rebellion, hipster parties, date rape, discussion groups and so on. Anarchists seem to be very interested in divisions, when their impediment to each other in real activity only exists because all the differing anarchists are feeding from the same pool of people in search of fellow travelers. So instead of making local history and defining neighborhoods with a rich history of rebellion, anarchists seek each other out in their teens and twenties. But then again this is just my narrative playing against what I feel is an impediment to the kinds of anarchist rebellion I'd like to see and take part in.

What do the older anarchists do? What can older anarchists do? Do we want to create a relationship with younger anarchists and/or create an example that they could emulate in some way? Does it matter that anarchists affect the narrative of rebellion as both participants and historians of it? Does it really matter if anarchists are glory seekers, passionate lovers of rebellion, looking for the latest battle against those that hold power? Attacking the left and impediments to rebellion may not be the anarchist practice of the future, since anarchists have so many authorities to disrespect. Perhaps they are only worthy of derisive mention? Maybe we have other things to do than care about how the left pollutes a scene that already sucks the life out of anarchist practice?