Comments on: The Journal of Informal Patriarchy and Consent http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/ adventures of an anarchic anarchista Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:52:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-317 Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:27:38 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-317 ps I'll massage my partner. You massage yours. all he best Fred ps I’ll massage my partner. You massage yours.

all he best

Fred

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-316 Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:11:45 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-316 Look perhaps I should apologise. But I've been there done that. People aren't interested in perfect worlds. The bullshit one ends up suffering in trying to produce them isn't worth it. I suppose some kind of saint might eventually find some vindication of absolute justice in simply battling on -but frankly that is a victory I find pathetic. Utopias are bullshit-and the politics of real democracy are driven by a craving for personal wholeness that can never exist. What can exist is friendship with people you actually like and paticipation in a very slowly evolving mainstream and its multiple discourses. Forget about anarchism. Its utter crap. Find the courage to tell the inner prig to go to hell. Look perhaps I should apologise. But I’ve been there done that. People aren’t interested in perfect worlds. The bullshit one ends up suffering in trying to produce them isn’t worth it. I suppose some kind of saint might eventually find some vindication of absolute justice in simply battling on -but frankly that is a victory I find pathetic. Utopias are bullshit-and the politics of real democracy are driven by a craving for personal wholeness that can never exist. What can exist is friendship with people you actually like and paticipation in a very slowly evolving mainstream and its multiple discourses. Forget about anarchism. Its utter crap. Find the courage to tell the inner prig to go to hell.

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-315 Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:56:24 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-315 If your "comrades" aren't affected by some concrete denial of some concrete right to the same extent you are it is pointless to expect solidarity from them. Organizing isn't a style, its a matter of effectiveness in acheiving concrete improvements in one's access to the resources one needs to live a fully human life, a life free of want, the arbitrary exercise of power, ie, power backed by real sanctions, such as deprivation of livelihoood, arbitrary arrest, denial of access to medical care including free safe abortion, denial of access to education, legal aid, retirement benefits, denial of access to all these things on grounds of race, gender or sexual orientation, etc-all things that are expressed in measurable things that one can and cannot do, have and not have. It is not a question of politics you like doing, and strategies that suit your style, or whether some pig takes the credit for what you do or not do. Frankly I have better things to occupy my mind and time than bloody politics, gender or otherwise-I am only interested in joining with other people to obtain something real that makes me better off than before without destroying me in the process-the point at which I would risk my life for a political end is a point of desperation I sincerely hope and pray will never be reached-it is certainly not anything that I "like' to contemplate, and hopefully even those on the right are not all that enamoured of it. Political action at any level requires that significant numbers of people see that vital life interests require that they take action. People are not stupid-hence they do not jeopardise the things they have by taking or advocating costly action merely because it appeals to their sense of style. Women and gays and blacks and disabled people took and take action in sufficiant numbers to bring about change when the concrete disadvantage they face is intolerable. Otherwise sensible people simply avoid people they consider fuckwits and where they are free to do so. The important thing is to have this freedom. If enough people do not have it they will join together to demand it, and then there is no problem in finding people you can work with. Same thing with unions-if your leadership is moribund it is relatively easy if people are becoming desperate to get rid of it. If on the other you simply find it irritating that men are sexist, avoid them. People have a right to avoid people or even whole categories of people they do not like, except to the extent that economic life obliges us to engage in impersonal relationships with millions of other people. Which brings me back to my first point-common interest alone constitutes political and economic life and common sense dictates solidarity where it is neccessary to obtain common rights-that is politics, the most tiresome business imaginable, it proceeds from common interest, common self-interest. It is not about gender or race or even class-it is about real concrete rights. If I am a rude sexist pig I will doubtless have to confine my compay to other rude sexist pigs-if you on the other hand as a woman are forced to keep company with me that is a denial of your rights, and the concrete redress of tis denial is expressed in such rights as the right to equal pay, the right to abortion, the right to have assaults on women taken as the trauma such assaults produce etc. But my personal attitude to you is personal-you don't have to have anything to do with me. The worst thing about politics is that common interest may force me to work with people I detest, in which case I take the view that one keeps it concrete stupid. THe reason I reply to you is not that care about gender issues whatever they may be but because I care about politics-politics to should be left neither to wolves nor to children. If your “comrades” aren’t affected by some concrete denial of some concrete right to the same extent you are it is pointless to expect solidarity from them. Organizing isn’t a style, its a matter of effectiveness in acheiving concrete improvements in one’s access to the resources one needs to live a fully human life, a life free of want, the arbitrary exercise of power, ie, power backed by real sanctions, such as deprivation of livelihoood, arbitrary arrest, denial of access to medical care including free safe abortion, denial of access to education, legal aid, retirement benefits, denial of access to all these things on grounds of race, gender or sexual orientation, etc-all things that are expressed in measurable things that one can and cannot do, have and not have. It is not a question of politics you like doing, and strategies that suit your style, or whether some pig takes the credit for what you do or not do. Frankly I have better things to occupy my mind and time than bloody politics, gender or otherwise-I am only interested in joining with other people to obtain something real that makes me better off than before without destroying me in the process-the point at which I would risk my life for a political end is a point of desperation I sincerely hope and pray will never be reached-it is certainly not anything that I “like’ to contemplate, and hopefully even those on the right are not all that
enamoured of it. Political action at any level requires that significant numbers of people see that vital life interests require that they take action. People are not stupid-hence they do not jeopardise the things they have by taking or advocating costly action merely because it appeals to their sense of style. Women and gays and blacks and disabled people took and take action in sufficiant numbers to bring about change when the concrete disadvantage they face is intolerable. Otherwise sensible people simply avoid people they consider fuckwits and where they are free to do so. The important thing is to have this freedom. If enough people do not have it they will join together to demand it, and then there is no problem in finding people you can work with. Same thing with unions-if your leadership is moribund it is relatively easy if people are becoming desperate to get rid of it. If on the other you simply find it irritating that men are sexist, avoid them. People have a right to avoid people or even whole categories of people they do not like, except to the extent that economic life obliges us to engage in impersonal relationships with millions of other people. Which brings me back to my first point-common interest alone constitutes political and economic life and common sense dictates solidarity where it is neccessary to obtain common rights-that is politics, the most tiresome business imaginable, it proceeds from common interest, common self-interest. It is not about gender or race or even class-it is about real concrete rights. If I am a rude sexist pig I will doubtless have to confine my compay to other rude sexist pigs-if you on the other hand as a woman are forced to keep company with me that is a denial of your rights, and the concrete redress of tis denial is expressed in such rights as the right to equal pay, the right to abortion, the right to have assaults on women taken as the trauma such assaults produce etc. But my personal attitude to you is personal-you don’t have to have anything to do with me. The worst thing about politics is that common interest may force me to work with people I detest, in which case I take the view that one keeps it concrete stupid. THe reason I reply to you is not that care about gender issues whatever they may be but because I care about politics-politics to should be left neither to wolves nor to children.

]]> by: Anna Aniston http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-314 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:19:36 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-314 Fred, you most clearly do give a shit about gender issues, or you wouldn't be here. Part of the point of all this is that you can't always rely on your who you think your comrades are to give you solidarity when you need it. The real and concrete issue for me was equity for myself, and for the style of organizing I engage in, and the projects I like to develop, and solidarity was markedly missing from several people whom I thought would be there for me because they didn't think the issues were real. You're showing me the same attitude by discounting gender equity issues in favour of "real" "industrial" issues. Seriously, gender goes to the heart of how I see myself living in this world where everything is fucked up. Everything, especially the fact that I'm often not a 'person', I'm a 'woman'. I think we can all have something to contribute to the struggle. You and me. And your partner with her arthritis (and me with my RSI). Does she want a massage? Fred, you most clearly do give a shit about gender issues, or you wouldn’t be here.

Part of the point of all this is that you can’t always rely on your who you think your comrades are to give you solidarity when you need it. The real and concrete issue for me was equity for myself, and for the style of organizing I engage in, and the projects I like to develop, and solidarity was markedly missing from several people whom I thought would be there for me because they didn’t think the issues were real.

You’re showing me the same attitude by discounting gender equity issues in favour of “real” “industrial” issues. Seriously, gender goes to the heart of how I see myself living in this world where everything is fucked up. Everything, especially the fact that I’m often not a ‘person’, I’m a ‘woman’.

I think we can all have something to contribute to the struggle. You and me. And your partner with her arthritis (and me with my RSI). Does she want a massage?

]]> by: Mr.Rocks http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-313 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:17:46 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-313 Those are the same despicable people who prevent us from having fighting unions. We're talking about how another attempt at real democracy was aborted, and how to notice those signs early on, so we could drop out and do something more useful than work for free for someone else when we think we're building a worker's movement. It is useless to have an union when you find out that it has an owner who is using your family's security to preserve his own job as union manager. That's the same thing. Those are the same despicable people who prevent us from having fighting unions. We’re talking about how another attempt at real democracy was aborted, and how to notice those signs early on, so we could drop out and do something more useful than work for free for someone else when we think we’re building a worker’s movement. It is useless to have an union when you find out that it has an owner who is using your family’s security to preserve his own job as union manager. That’s the same thing.

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-312 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:59:10 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-312 so I will confine my observation to this: actions are by definition directed to ends. Political ends concern people's lives. People's lives drive them in desperation to political action. You discourse on the other hand concerns nothing-i don't even know what you are doing with such despicable people, so I will confine my observation to this: actions are by definition directed to ends. Political ends concern people’s lives. People’s lives drive them in desperation to political action. You discourse on the other hand concerns nothing-i don’t even know what you are doing with such despicable people,

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-311 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:54:58 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-311 for some reason I cannot leave further comment. for some reason I cannot leave further comment.

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-310 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:53:03 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-310 I take it Jura books is an anarchist bookshop run on collectivist lines. I can't help feling that such a thing is a bit like a personal grooming kit run on collectivist lines. Just appoint a manager, pay him/her a wage-and run the thing like a non-profit business specializing in socialist books. Your governing commitee really has very little to do except monitor your market. Why you're all sitting around wondering about the significance of your genitals I have no idea, in fact why you even want to talk to people who so clearly annoy you I most certainly have no idea. Politics is about concrete demands and concrete victories, and it is motivated by real deprivation-not a refusal to grow up. I don't give a shit about how you feel about anything. I only care about things that make it harder for us all to have any kind of life-that is any of us besides the two percent of obscenely rich people who own us. My partner works part-time at a physically demanding job with no superannuation and is crippled with arthritis. I eke out a living marking papers-and struggle to finish uni. We both need a fighting union , not some idiot debating her right to equal time with other idiots in some meandering discourse about some political religion-my question is what is the cost and what are the benefits to me and mine of active involvement in the labot movement. And that is the real question for anyone in a real and not very pleasant world. Grow up! I take it Jura books is an anarchist bookshop run on collectivist lines. I can’t help feling that such a thing is a bit like a personal grooming kit run on collectivist lines. Just appoint a manager, pay him/her a wage-and run the thing like a non-profit business specializing in socialist books. Your governing commitee really has very little to do except monitor your market. Why you’re all sitting around wondering about the significance of your genitals I have no idea, in fact why you even want to talk to people who so clearly annoy you I most certainly have no idea. Politics is about concrete demands and concrete victories, and it is motivated by real deprivation-not a refusal to grow up. I don’t give a shit about how you feel about anything. I only care about things that make it harder for us all to have any kind of life-that is any of us besides the two percent of obscenely rich people who own us. My partner works part-time at a physically demanding job with no superannuation and is crippled with arthritis. I eke out a living marking papers-and struggle to finish uni. We both need a fighting union , not some idiot debating her right to equal time with other idiots in some meandering discourse about some political religion-my question is what is the cost and what are the benefits to me and mine of active involvement in the labot movement. And that is the real question for anyone in a real and not very pleasant world. Grow up!

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-309 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:47:09 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-309 I take it Jura books is an anarchist bookshop run on collectivist lines. I can't help feling that such a thing is a bit like a personal grooming kit run on collectivist lines. Just appoint a manager, pay him/her a wage-and run the thing like a non-profit business specializing in socialist books. Your governing commitee really has very little to do except monitor your market. Why you're all sitting around wondering about the significance of your genitals I have no idea, in fact why you even want to talk to people who so clearly annoy you I most certainly have no idea. Politics is about concrete demands and concrete victories, and it is motivated by real deprivation-not a refusal to grow up. I don't give a shit about how you feel about anything. I only care about things that make it harder for us all to have any kind of life-that is any of us besides the two percent of obscenely rich people who own us. My partner works part-time at a physically demanding job with no superannuation and is crippled with arthritis. I eke out a living marking papers-and struggle to finish uni. We both need a fighting union , not some idiot debating her right to equal time with other idiots in some meandering discourse about some political religion-my question is what is the cost and what are the benefits to me and mine of active involvement in the labot movement. And that is the real question for anyone in a real and not very pleasant world. Grow up! I take it Jura books is an anarchist bookshop run on collectivist lines. I can’t help feling that such a thing is a bit like a personal grooming kit run on collectivist lines. Just appoint a manager, pay him/her a wage-and run the thing like a non-profit business specializing in socialist books. Your governing commitee really has very little to do except monitor your market. Why you’re all sitting around wondering about the significance of your genitals I have no idea, in fact why you even want to talk to people who so clearly annoy you I most certainly have no idea. Politics is about concrete demands and concrete victories, and it is motivated by real deprivation-not a refusal to grow up. I don’t give a shit about how you feel about anything. I only care about things that make it harder for us all to have any kind of life-that is any of us besides the two percent of obscenely rich people who own us. My partner works part-time at a physically demanding job with no superannuation and is crippled with arthritis. I eke out a living marking papers-and struggle to finish uni. We both need a fighting union , not some idiot debating her right to equal time with other idiots in some meandering discourse about some political religion-my question is what is the cost and what are the benefits to me and mine of active involvement in the labot movement. And that is the real question for anyone in a real and not very pleasant world. Grow up!

]]> by: fred http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-308 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:45:21 +0100 http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/05/31/the-journal-of-informal-patriarchy-and-consent/#comment-308 If the matter is urgent there will be real solidarity. If not get a bloody life. If the matter is urgent there will be real solidarity. If not get a bloody life.

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