QUOTE (damjan1138 @ 3/8/2011, 12:40)
Humanism, fairness, practical democracy etc... just to name the few. Not much debate here is necessary or even needed I believe.
Practical democracy is an unfamiliar term. What he describes is an idealized representative democracy. As for the other terms: anybody agrees with those, even the ruling political parties across the spectrum: yet they have caused the resentful sentiment which you try to capitalize on... If the manifest is just to make people feel warm, then I'm not impressed.
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This particular political direction is relatively new but is crystallizing and many people around the world share it although it does not have a concise representative so it has not been yet physically represented anywhere.
Since it is so vague, it could be a lot of things, but crystallized, it is not. Anti-clerical social-democratic technocracy is what it would probably be called, so far. Granted: that particular combination doesn't exist yet, and it probably never will: if it gains enough momentum, particular points of it can easily enough be adopted into official party lines, because it does not differ fundamentally, except on the drug- and religion issue, which you will see is actually a great impediment, particularly on the religion line.
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I do hope and believe Nathan's idea was not anarcho-socialism specially the kind which lulzsec popularized because as much as it may seem fashionable it is politically utterly childish and (no offence) silly. If this movement shifts to anarcho-socialism I'm out...
In this comment, the disadvantage of the left is revealed.
I do happen to believe that anarcho-syndicalism is a valuable contribution to political theory: it wasn't childish and silly in Barcelona in '36; it wasn't silly to Lenin before he abandoned it to become a Communist Bolshevik; and it isn't childish to Chomsky. It's impractical, I give you that: No political party believes in the organizational capacity of normal people, workers, craftsmen and professionals, so it's unlikely to ever be adopted within the current political climate. In fact, the establishment, consisting mainly of corporations, hates the concept that bosses are a superfluous 'luxury', and that the wealth divide is harmful: they
thrive on exactly those ideas.
However, when you take worker cooperation and 'business democracy' seriously, anarcho-syndicalism is within reach. I don't mind if you don't subscribe to it, but it's unfortunate, I think, to write it off as just childish and silly and not consider it seriously. I could make similar comments about the anti-clerical stance you've adopted, and the 'evidence-based' politics: when you start to seriously consider both sides, they are not as clear cut ridiculous or out of this time as you may think. For example, there is a tradition of solidarity among some Christian denominations, which has greatly helped the poor (If they take the teachings of Christ in the New Testament seriously, they stop stoning people and give massive aid to the poor and downtrodden), and they tend to form constructive communities against oppressive establishment throughout history. I wouldn't hang too much weight on the extremists: they are "extremist" after all, literally exceptions, from Latin extrema, outside. If the bible would be banned and forgotten, I could take films of Charlie Chaplin to justify a violent attack on whatever target I choose. Or the teachings of Jersey Shore. Extremists like to hide behind religions, but they poison it, and now you act on that. A shame. (By the way, would some terrorist in the near future please claim to be inspired by Jersey Shore? That show is rubbish and if that's what it takes to get it off the air, then at least the terrorism has been somewhat helpful.
)
As for 'evidence-based' politics: I like the general idea, but this argument has also lead to a culture of bean-counters: the reduction of all political argument into numbers and stats. The CATO institute in America has lots of figures and numbers that could pretty convincingly show you that helping the poor is detrimental to the economy, and widening the wealth division is great for innovation and GDP. Politics is not so much about numbers, but about deciding what counts as valuable. If "the economy" is valuable in itself, we should probably listen to whatever CATO says. If emancipation and rights of the poor is valuable, they have nothing to say at all, with all their evidence. So again, the vagueness is not helping in the long run.
Which is why I argued for a meta-manifest earlier, and to view your version as just one of the many possible actual manifests in people's heads: in your case the anti-clerical, social-democratic technocracy manifest. Then it wouldn't matter if you got bogged down in arguments about any of its aspects, because it would be forever a (personal) work in progress, but a constructive bogging down informing your and other people's political opinions, on some of the issues you find important.
ETA: sorry if it's a bit cross-threading with the other thread...
Edited by Vninect - 3/8/2011, 15:25
I vote yea on this. Sounds good to me
