HW: Hawkwind political messages

[Jonathan Jarrett]

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