karlof1 | Aug 24 2019 6:09 utc | 133
“No(w) how do we get from here to there given the differing factions/adversaries. It seems that job’s up to us, and it will differ within every nation. Luckily, there’s only one Trump.”
The fundamental problem with democratic politics even if it is grassroots oriented is: That it is mainly baased on spreading news or “information” and later on collecting “votes” (expressed in polls, demonstrations, elections etc). Whatever is located inbetween these two poles (within the individual mind) allegedly belongs to individuals (is “private”) and is not deemed to be subject to “organization”, but at most “being influenced” by education or “publishing” ideas (“multiplying” them). The only associations something like “organizing” or “collectivizing” that process of getting to decisions and votes may provoke are such as “brainwashing” and “building a cult”. Now the relative uniformity of thought provided by those huge societal groups of the past defined by class, profession, regional or national provenance, sex/race etc is long gone. And in the same period of time, all three state programs, state socialism, social democracy (welfare state), and neoliberalism, one after the other failed in coping on a permanent basis with the most basic challenges related to organizing cooperation (division of labour, reproduction) on a societal scale: coordination – building consensus – transnational/global relations (particularly with regard to gradients in terms of mentalities, level of production etc) – all of that in conditions of advanced modern industrial production. I think this failure is basically a failure of the “public sphere” as a deficient means of mass communication, and of electing representatives, as a deficient means of settling conflicts and brokering compromises (between interests of big groups). This sphere (or rather “epoch”) of “the state” as the ultimate instrument of social organisation is itself a consequence of an earlier failure of “market economy” to cope with the three tasks above – and the disintegration of traditional groups (and the according more or less “ideological” “group thinking” formed and guided by “interests”) most likely being the main cause of that failure. (Just another traditional “backdrop” resource of the kind Noirette referred to above – and another and most important mistake in classical Marxist theory: Uniformity would be the natural consequence of inevitable class struggle and the resulting consciousness of wage labourers).
And here we are: There is a “real category” (btw one discovered by a Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci) or level of societal organization beyond the state which – in case a sufficient number of people get at that level (enabling themselves to get there etc) – would be able to make good for the failure of the previous two levels, its name is: civil society; not the actual civil society being a passive byproduct of the ongoing manipulation of constituencies in order to ascertain voting results as desired; but as that part of the whole population which is able to process on a collective level incoming information with the help of shared concepts and criteria of relevance, hypotheses and/or tried and tested methods, strategies and rational aims, and common rules of dealing with missing knowledge and uncertainty (risks, chances). The best way to achieve that advanced state of mutual understanding might be: building small groups af 4 or 5 people who (meeting each other face-to-face on a regular basis) try to share and equalize their respective “rules of processing information, ie learning”, at least wrt all topics of societal organisation (Which are the most important ones? first topic of all…). Of course, they would have to build links between them (each member of one of these circles simultaneously belonging to a different circle; or building extra circles for exchange of results reached within the original circles etc) – hereby forming a network where news and new aspects/ideas can be spread and shared at great speed and at the same time can be processed according to the same “principles of learning”. The latter being explicit, the group as a whole is able to explain their results and decisions in each case to a permanent audience of sympathizers (and/or people just interested in listening) which later on may turn into more circles as well.
The main topics to be worked on might be (each on an international “global” level, and in this order):
war (geopolitics, imperial system; complete disarmament)
mass pauperization (imminent or already being there; sustainable equality of preconditions for reproduction and lives everywhere)
ecological transformation of industrial modes of production (repairing the geo- and geosphere; building “redundant” (in a good sense), robust and de-centralized=local, regional etc reproduction cycles (cradle-to-cradle); replacing industrial technologies and materials as far as possible by such embedded within natural cycles).
Of course, in the end such a movement can offer their own candidates and form a party if necessary.
PS: To avoid capturing a thread (even if it is an open one) I invite you to discuss this topic on this special forum

Posted by: franziska | Aug 25 2019 10:40 utc | 201