What Is To Be Undone?

[resisting arrest with violence]

Make no mistake, the Capitalist state needs to be overthrown not a mere president or the Congress. The whole capitalist state needs to be smashed to a thousand pieces! One way to lend effort to this end is to not participate in the capitalist economy as much as humanly possible. Don't eat at McDonalds, don't watch stupid t.v. sitcoms, don't eat their candy-junk, don't work at their stupid wage-slave jobs!

Vandalize all corporate headquarters.

http://www.earthliberationfront.com/

[Zingu]

Yeah...what, and run off and live in caves and eat grass with our tree brothers....?

We're in the capitalist system, cutting yourself off completely from it will only result in your death most likely. Especially "not working".

[Organic Revolution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 07:37 PM


We're in the capitalist system, cutting yourself off completely from it will only result in your death most likely. Especially "not working".

Yeah...what, and run off and live in caves and eat grass with our tree brothers....?
why not? it must be more interesting than living in the cement, wood, ect. cofins you call a house.


We're in the capitalist system,

yes but shouldnt we try and resist it... or should we let it roll over us.


cutting yourself off completely from it will only result in your death most likely

wrong. your used to being able to walk down the street and geting what ever you want from an unknown source. whats wrong with picking or ::gasp:: growing it!


Especially "not working".

wrong again. your just used to having everything you have sitting in front of you on a silver platter.

[codyvo]

See, this is why we need self sufficient communes, you don't work for the capitalist, you don't support the capitalist economy, you are surrounded by other leftists and if you want you can go visit your tree brothers.

[Donnie]

You're post puzzled me. You said that the capitalist system must be smashed which I completely agree with you but then you suggest by smashing the system we must basically not conform to the system by what our comrades said "running off into the hills". No that is not the answer we must resist by class unity and direct action not just individual acts like not eating at Mc Donald’s.
What we should do is not eat at Mc Donald’s and sabotage it and make it difficult for it to run by doing this we must unite. We should do the same with all capitalist and state institutions.

[Martin Blank]

Am I the only one who sees the irony in the Earth Liberation Front having a website?

Miles

[Donnie]

I definitely see it now lmao. They sound like primitivists though don't you think?
They probably have the monkey wrench symbol symbolizing "Earth First" movement.

[More Fire for the People]

I'm not sure that they are primitivists but more about simple society with keeping some of the "good stuff" from civilization like health care and computers.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 10:56 AM
I'm not sure that they are primitivists but more about simple society with keeping some of the "good stuff" from civilization like health care and computers.
Unfortunately, that's not "how things work".

If you want to "keep computers", then there's a whole bunch of other stuff that you also "have to keep". The same goes for anything that a consumer uses.

There's plenty of shit we could indeed abolish and never miss -- has Cuban society collapsed for lack of commercial advertising?

But a modern technological society is "like" an eco-system...it's all tied together in very complex ways. If you "take an ax to it" -- which seems to be the "Earth Liberation Front" approach -- then it will just collapse on you and you won't get to "keep" any of "the good stuff".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[anomaly]

But redstar, in a thrid world nation, would you not support a more 'primitivist' approach, although this 'primitivist' label is quite relative, as they do not have the access we do to certain commodities? What is the thing these people desperately need in their lives? This is no opinion of mine here, but the sad truth - they need subsistence, life. Now, imagine if these same people were to begin some sort of agrarian minded commune, and a group of people could have their subsistence, their life. These people haven't the slightest need for computers.

[BOZG]

Originally posted by resisting arrest with [email protected] 15 2005, 12:33 AM
Make no mistake, the Capitalist state needs to be overthrown not a mere president or the Congress. The whole capitalist state needs to be smashed to a thousand pieces! One way to lend effort to this end is to not participate in the capitalist economy as much as humanly possible. Don't eat at McDonalds, don't watch stupid t.v. sitcoms, don't eat their candy-junk, don't work at their stupid wage-slave jobs!

Vandalize all corporate headquarters.

http://www.earthliberationfront.com/
And what would a boycott of a couple of thousand lefties achieve? Absolutely nothing. For a boycott to occur on the scale needed to smash the system, you'd have to acheive a massive leap in the levels of consciousness that exist and on a majority of the population. If you had acheived these levels and scale, you wouldn't need boycotts, you'd be in the middle of a revolutionary period, you could actually physically smash the system by a massive revolutionary strike and upheaval.

[danny android]

It is true that we must boycot certain aspects of the capitolist system. For example it is one of my personal goals to never own a credit card. But not participating in it all together is not wise. Like it or not we have to live in this system. It is the system that provides us with everything that we need, (well maybe not everything) but we must live in it to maintain our own lives. It is true we can run off and start growing food for ourselves and build our own house, but who would really do that. We need self sufficiant communes. Are there any in Amerika?

[Raisa]

Originally posted by rise [email protected] 15 2005, 04:41 AM


We're in the capitalist system,

yes but shouldnt we try and resist it... or should we let it roll over us.

We should take it back!

[Organic Revolution]

Originally posted by Raisa+Jul 24 2005, 02:10 AM--> (Raisa @ Jul 24 2005, 02:10 AM)
rise [email protected] 15 2005, 04:41 AM


We're in the capitalist system,

yes but shouldnt we try and resist it... or should we let it roll over us.

We should take it back! [/b]
take back the capitalist system? and turn into socialist capitalism? no we should completly destroy all institutions of the capitalist system and not keep the shell of the 'old ways'

[Social Greenman]

I believe I mentioned this before. Marx wrote in "Critique of the Gotha Program" about the use of Time Labor Vouchers (TLVs). This would replace capitalist institutions of money and banks. TLVs would work in a sense like capitalist money which includes a pay scale but the profit motive is removed completely. Workers accumulate their TLVs on the job. A certain amount of TLV's are added to each hour of work which is then subtracted to pay for research, developement, education, social services, public works, and health care. Kinda like a tax except that there is no actual deduction from any worker's earned income. When workers go to the store to purchase clothes, groceries, furniture, power tools, or even to buy a vehicle those earned TLVs simply vanish during transaction. Of course keep your receipt in case you need to exchange what is purchased or have your TLVs returned to your account due to a defective product or simply being not happy with what you purchased.

Basically what I am saying is that life would go on. Workers would take work orders and produce and ship as always except there would be no bosses exploiting profits from anyone. Workers would own and run their own plants or agricultural operations. Better equipment would be made, purchased, and put to use thus producing more which keeps prices down. More workers would be involved which means more leisure time for everyone.

[coda]

Greenman,

Have you ever heard of "Ithaca Hours", a credit voucher system started in Ithaca, New York in 1991 and picked up by Baltimore, MD in 2001. A few other cities are also using similiar models. I think it has an interesting potential, minus a few flaws, in that the government has since jumped on it as taxable accountable income. (Down Boys!)

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/7813/ccs-ithi.htm

http://www.ithacahours.com/

http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/di.../1258/index.php (http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/1258/index.php)

[Social Greenman]

Yes I am familiar with Ithica Hours program and also the Vancouver Paragon Collective: http://vanparecon.resist.ca/

When the U.S. cappie government jumps on something like Hours you know that it got the cappies worried which is why Hours is regulated and taxed under the rules of capitalism.

TLV's are very similar to Hours except that it would be a national and international economic system without any government regulations or taxation. We do not need or want a market transition to socialism. We do not need or want a state transition to socialism. Everything needed for socialism is already in place. Workers already do everything from planning, administration, research, development, fabrication, shipping, health care, education, etc. What is needed is an economic system based on labor rather than greed for profit.

[Anarchist Freedom]

The ELF are indeed primitivists.

[coda]

How is Parecon working out in Vancouver?

Yeah, The ''hours' or vouchers are still an enumeration of labor as per any economic system. I don't know if it would be considered a transition to socialism which socialism is by definition. The system is already tainted if it's adhering to tax regulations. What they need are a bold group of tax resisters. I think mainly what the "hours" are actually doing is expropriating the Treasury of it's dominancy by producing it's own currency and setting the LV within specific regional cost of living expenditures outside the world economic system. It no doubt shows a sinkhole in the capitalist system if you can start manufacturing and circulating what is technically counterfeit money on a black market basis!!

[bolshevik butcher]

I think that running away in a commune is very egotistical, we have to change the whole system not just ourselves.

[Social Greenman]

Well, I don't live in Vancouver but I hear they are doing okay. As for Hours it been going on for quite a number of years and has expanded.

Indigo wrote:

It no doubt shows a sinkhole in the capitalist system if you can start manufacturing and circulating what is technically counterfeit money on a black market basis!!

That is a very good concept of a black market currency outside capitalist rules and regulations. Perhaps a Industrial State can be created on the back of capitalism. Setting up a frame work of so-called businesses that are employee owned and run that uses the TLV to take orders, produce and deliver to other cooperative businesses in an effort to develop the new economic system nationally that can spread to Canada and Mexico hopefully to catch on internationally. Of course the use of capital will have to be used to begin with unfortunately. If Socialism does indeed develop out of Capitalism then perhaps those who developed Hours and Paragon are hinting that we are to develop a new economic system that will show to workers everywhere that prolatariet and bourgeoisie have nothing in common.

Instead of printing currency a software program could be used instead. However, to get there a lot of brainstorming has to be done to phase in TLVs. If you think of it...employees (the cooperative work force) can order food and products from TLV participating stores that are on the internet. Thanks Indigo for the black market currency concept.