HW: Hawkwind political messages
Jonathan Jarrett
jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK
Mon Dec 18 14:19:56 EST 2006
On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 10:58:28AM +0000, M Holmes typed out:
> Give free MP3 downloads with the State ID card and 90% of De Yoot will
> have 'em in a trice.
Thankfully while big business provides such a proportion of
party backing that's one carrot that they can't use.
> Jonathan Jarrett writes:
> > So I guess maybe `Hawkwind'
> > politics is surer about who the enemies are and how we don't need them
> > than what we could do instead. Which is certainly quite like some
> > anarchists I know
>
> That's the whole point of anarchy innit? Not prescribing what people
> should do, but leaving them free to do what they want within the law?
The more realistic-sounding anarchists I've debated with would,
I think, say that the whole point is organisation on a basis of
equality. Autonomous organisation, yes, but it isn't going to happen or
continue to happen without some forms of generally-acceptable
organisation.
Likewise, however much you may rail against the Man, he isn't
going to give up and go away unless his opposition has a plan or two.
> Ummm. I'm for arming the populace for a polite society and I'm happy to
> sa that we'd work it out somehow if we abolished The Man's means of
> putting out the Tax Hat with menaces.
>
> Not all of us anarchists are pacifists.
And this stage of the argument goes, `if everyone's armed how do
you stop people using force to coerce others', the answer comes, `if
everybody's armed they can make sure such people don't get to do it
twice', and the historian in me looks at briefly-successful anarchies,
all of which got stamped out by bigger coercive organisations, and says,
`but to make that work, *everywhere's* got to be anarchist at the same
time and then continue to reject the possibility of organising *against*
other groups for a bigger slice of local resources! How can you hope to
make this stick without the very kind of righteous absolutist army that,
for example, fought the Crusades?'
> I'd certainly rather bands got the music right than strove to be
> politically correct.
Well, yes, I mean clearly we agree about this much or we'd not
be here :-) Yours,
Jon
ObCD: The Brain - _Access and Amplify_
--
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
(Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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