Oolite Bulletins

Diziet Sma wrote:

As one of my favourite anarchists, Emma Goldman, once said, "If voting actually changed anything, it would be illegal."

If spouting anarchist slogans could actually change anything it would be illegal. But it isn't. What does that tell you?

cim wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

Then there's our constitution. There isn't one.

This, I'm okay with. The only constitution which would get majority support for introduction is one that codified the current mess, and made it even harder to fix later.

And given the general faffing about that the US has with its written constitution (which seems to be treated much like Holy Writ handed down from sacred forefathers in certain quarters), I too am thinking an unwritten "constitution" isn't necessarily a bad idea either. The one we inherited from Blighty doesn't seem to have done us much harm

Wildeblood wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

As one of my favourite anarchists, Emma Goldman, once said, "If voting actually changed anything, it would be illegal."

If spouting anarchist slogans could actually change anything it would be illegal. But it isn't. What does that tell you?

Well, it explains why anarchists are, and always have been, far more about Direct Action than "spouting slogans" (rather interesting term you use, incidentally, for what is actually just "quoting an historic figure", btw.. )

Diziet Sma wrote:

Well, it explains why anarchists are, and always have been, far more about Direct Action than "spouting slogans" (rather interesting term you use, incidentally, for what is actually just "quoting an historic figure", btw.. )

Yeah, it was the lead-in to a rant about the "free speech" decoy that I changed my mind about. In retrospect, I should have deleted the whole post. I really didn't intend "spout" to have a pejorative implication.

I'll stand by "slogans" though. A slogan with specific attribution is still just a slogan. Oh, there's another rant about the maladaptive nature of sloganeering coming on. Must not rant. I'm trying to turn over a new, less-ranting leaf, and you aren't helping.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Maybe Dizzie is right!

Of course he is..

As one of my favourite anarchists, Emma Goldman, once said, "If voting actually changed anything, it would be illegal."

And Democracies? There's never been one. All "Democracies" are, are thinly disguised Oligarchies, where dog-and-pony shows elections are held now and then to give the people the illusion that they get to have a say. But the same hands continue to steer the ship, regardless of who "wins".

Yes Minister comes to mind... lol run by the bureaucracy with all its inherent inertia. governments come and go but the departments still chug along....
Governments rarely have the time to make enough change to the "system" before they are booted out for the opposition mob... We just oscillate between one mob of morons and the other while the public service and corporations just keep on going ignoring them...

Diziet Sma wrote:

And Democracies? There's never been one. All "Democracies" are, are thinly disguised Oligarchies, where dog-and-pony shows elections are held now and then to give the people the illusion that they get to have a say. But the same hands continue to steer the ship, regardless of who "wins".

I find this to be very true. Canada is a "democratic country", but I don't really see it that way. The Conservatives (who're in power) passed a bunch of family benefits and other things, which only profit a small percentage of Canadians it's unreal. They don't really care about the people, all they care about is profiting themselves. Sure, we can have protests and whatnot, but does the government really care? No. Exactly an oligarchy.

And Democracies? There's never been one

The original (and the best) was. The Greek system of policy making and white ball/black ball (for all but slaves) was as fair as it gets. Only undone when faced with War and the whole shooting match was handed over to their Admiral.

As for the expense and not paying their 'taxes'. These Megacorps etc collect and pay huge amounts of VAT into HMRC, so don't expect too much action there.

IMHO any product or service traded in any country should be taxed at the local POS, not manoeuvred out of that country into a country that has set itself up to 'process' these sums. In India to trade there you have to have an Indian company which is 51% owned by Indians (this may be out of date somewhat but was the case when I spent some time there). It's one of the reasons that Coke regularly get shut down there as if they get caught being naughty then the Indian 51% are forced to act.

NigelJK wrote:

And Democracies? There's never been one

The original (and the best) was. The Greek system of policy making and white ball/black ball (for all but slaves) [...]

Or women - who, as the property of their fathers or husbands, were pretty much all slaves in all but name, anyway. Only free Athenian males had the vote in Athens - so a lot less than half the population.

NigelJK wrote:

As for the expense and not paying their 'taxes'. These Megacorps etc collect and pay huge amounts of VAT into HMRC, so don't expect too much action there.

They're also heavily subsidised by the taxpayer: we fork over vast sums of money to top up the starvation wages being paid to their employees by e.g. Amazon and Starbucks (most welfare payments in the UK - excluding pensions - go to people in work). This allows e.g. Amazon and Starbucks to undercut other businesses which do pay taxes (including VAT) and higher wages, driving them out of business (and it also ignores the decade or so in which Amazon blithely avoided VAT by routing all its VATable sales via the Channel Islands). This is a line of tax attack which could be exploited, though - governments could force companies with a sufficiently large turnover to pay their employees a living wage. If they go bust, other, better, less monopolistic companies will fill the gap.