mambabasa

“the fascists call us ‘degenerates’, blaming us for all of society's woes, while the liberal ‘left’ throw us under the bus again and again, blaming anyone but themselves for their loss of state power.”

it’s scary but “we slowly build a future for ourselves by fostering communities of all kinds”

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Greta Thunberg @GretaThunberg

#UsaElection #USA2024 #StopArminglsrael #FreePalestine #ClimateJusticeNow

This year we have seen many defining elections all over the world. On November 5th, It is time for one of the most powerful countries in the world — the USA — to go to the polls. It is probably Impossible to overestimate the consequences this specific election will have for the world and for the future of humanity.

There is no doubt that one of the candidates — Trump — is way more dangerous than the other. But no matter if Trump or Harris wins, the USA — a country built on stolen land and genocide on indigenous people -will soll be an imperialist hyper-capitalist world power that will ultimately continue to lead the world further into a racist, unequal world with an ever increasingly escalating climate- and environmental emergency.

With this in mind, my main message to Americans is to remember that you cannot only settle for the least worst option. Democracy is not only every four years on election day, but also every hour of every day in between. You cannot think you have done "enough' only by voting, especially when both those candidates have blood on their hands. Lets not forget that the genocide in Palestine is happening under the Biden and Harris administration, with American money and complicity. It is not in any way 'feminist." "progressive" or "humanitarian" to bomb innocent children and civilians — it is the opposite, even It it is a woman in charge. And this is of course one example among many of American imperialism. I cannot for my life understand how some can even pretend to talk about humanitarian values, without even questioning their own role In further deepening global oppression and massacres of entire countries.

So, Americans, you must do everything in your power to call out this extreme hypocrisy and the catastrophic consequences American Imperialism has on a global scale. Be uncomfortable, fill the streets, block, organise, boycott, occupy, explicitly call out those in power whose actions and Inaction lead to death and destruction. Join and support those who are resisting and leading the change. Nothing less will ever be acceptable.

In this article, we argue that a Slow Feminism, which evolves through the slow but consistent support of other women that is embedded in care, compassion and constructive challenge against patriarchal expectations, is essential for the future of feminist praxis within higher education. This work emerged from our coming together to reflect-on-action on our experiences as disabled, women, postgraduate researchers in different disciplines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeling ‘othered’ by and invisible to hierarchal structures, we sought to understand our individual challenges through a collective lens. Relational ethics and a praxis of care in line with feminist epistemology underpinned our systematic ‘feminist collaborative autoethnography’, whereby we critically engaged with individual reflections and together in online meetings to interpret shared social, emotional and structural challenges. In this article, we draw on our experiences sharing this data through poetry, during the stage of our collaborative project in which we utilised ‘poems’ to identify the challenges of being a disabled woman navigating higher education, and the resistance we employed individually, and collectively, in support of one another. Through this process, we challenged the neoliberal, patriarchal and oppressive systems that we are forced to engage with daily and our own complicity in them. Using our individual, collective and overlapping voices, whereby we recognise the tensions and supportive narratives created by and within our research conversations, we identify that feminist activism and feminist futures are not solely a response to extreme events.

The ideas of the Resistance Committees historically were explored as early as the 1990s. The idea was to provide the opposition with a closely knitted organizational front. The Communist Party had a long history of encouraging the idea of communes as a form of democracy based on the Soviet experience and as a response to the state’s excessive and violent crackdown on multiple forms of political representation. It was also part of a more inclusive democratization narrative where people sought to substitute politics from above and big man politics with micro governance systems where they redefined their relationship with the state and its institutions and tried to find ways to hold it accountable at a local level.

In 2013 and 2014 when the first uprisings took place, The National Consensus Front, of which the Communist Party was a member, sought to deal with popular detachment from politics through building political organization in the workplace for unions and neighborhood committees. They worried that the weakness of the two main coalitions active at the time – Sudan Call and the National Consensus Front – combined with the proliferation of liberal civic agendas funded by Western aid money would increase the rift between them and the popular masses. At that point the Resistance Committees were composed of members representing their political institutions and served as a dormant though extended group of the affiliated political bodies.

It was only in December 2018 and forward that the Resistance Committees emerged in their current form and organizational outlook, and started expressing political agendas and demands away from mainstream politics and politicians.

1. Participants know they are part of a group and what the group is about (Wilson, 2016).
2. Agreements for sharing and at times rotating labor/work and implementation of decisions as well as for sharing the fruits thereof (Kropotkin, 1906, Sixth Commission of the EZLN, 2016, Ostrom, 2021, Usufruct Collective, 2022). People can co-create a cornucopia where there is more than enough for all or otherwise agree to specific ways of distributing less abundant fruits of re/production according to needs.   
3. Direct collective decision making by participants through deliberation. For there to be self-management of each and all, there must also be mutual non-domination. By extension, community assemblies related to the commons should utilize direct, participatory, and non-hierarchical forms of democracy (Bookchin, 2005b).  
4. Organizational transparency that allows participants to mutually-monitor the commons (Atkins, Wilson, Hayes, 2019). This can happen through the process of co-managing and interacting with the commons, collective action, living in community with others, relevant accounting/calculation as needed, and availability of relevant information to participants. 
5. Graduated defense against domination and exploitation such as: informal social disapproval, self-defense and defense of others as needed, and recourse to expelling someone from a particular collective (through deliberation, assembly, and due process) in response to the most extreme violations of the commons and freedoms of persons (Boehm, 2001, Ostrom, 2021, Usufruct Collective, 2023).  
6. Good-enough conflict resolution such as: people talking directly to each other, mediation to find out how to move forward, dispute resolution to resolve disputes, restorative justice and transformative justice processes for people to repair harm and transform causes thereof, and organization-wide assembly when the conflict is in regards to organizational form and content. (Kaba, 2019, Usufruct Collective, 2023). 
7. Communities and participants need sufficient autonomy to organize. 
8. The use of co-federation and embedded councils. Community assemblies can co-manage inter-communal commons in a way where policy-making power is held by participants and assemblies directly (Bookchin, 1992, Ocalan, 2014). This enables self-management and mutual aid within and between communities as well as inter-communal management of the commons. Community assemblies can utilize mandated and recallable councils and rotating delegates to implement decisions within the bounds of policies made by community assemblies directly (Bookchin, 1992, 2007, 2018). 

Heya, I wanted to ask if you know of other forms of indigenous meat alternatives like tempeh? When I mean meat alternatives, I mean prepared similar to meat, so lentils aren't it I think. I'm also aware of like mushrooms, but I'm not in a position to forage :/ but I do stock dried mushrooms at home.

The Core Issues Driving the Protests

1. Election Law Changes: The protests have been significantly fueled by recent amendments to Indonesia’s election laws. Many Indonesians view these changes as undermining democratic principles and increasing the influence of entrenched political elites. Some see the amendments as facilitating the manipulation of electoral outcomes, which has raised concerns about fairness and transparency in the democratic process.

2. Political Corruption: Corruption remains a longstanding issue in Indonesian politics. The perception of widespread corruption among political elites, including members of powerful political dynasties, has contributed to popular frustration. Many protesters are demanding a fair trial and punishment for the offenders, as well as greater accountability and transparency from relevant institutions such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Additional Factors

1. Historical Grievances: Indonesia has a history of political turbulence, and recent protests are influenced by historical grievances, including previous movements against authoritarian rule and corruption. The legacy of the Suharto era and the 1998 Reformasi (“Reformation”) movement continues to impact people sentiment and activism to this day.

2. Economic Discontent: Economic issues also play a significant role. Rising inequality, unemployment, and dissatisfaction with economic policies have fueled discontent. Many Indonesians feel that the benefits of economic growth have not been evenly distributed, exacerbating social and economic tensions.

3. Social Media and Activism: The role of social media in organizing and amplifying dissent cannot be overlooked. Social media platforms have enabled activists to mobilize and spread information rapidly, contributing to the scale and intensity of the protests. This led to increased popular oversight of their performance and any crimes they commit. Hashtag movements have also expanded, with the term “no viral, no justice” emerging in response to ongoing issues.

4. Current Leadership: President Jokowi has faced criticism for failures in handling corruption and political reforms and issuing unpopular draft laws. Over the ten years he has been in power, Jokowi’s administration has been accused of not doing enough to address the systemic issues that contribute to popular disillusionment. Jokowi’s focus during his presidency has been to promote forms of development that have been detrimental to society and the environment. This has generated significant criticism and conflict at the grassroots level, where communities are directly affected by his policies.

5. Police Brutality: There is anger about police violence against protesters, arbitrary arrests, mistreatment of detainees, abuse of power, corruption, the increase in the national budget for armaments, the use of tear gas in demonstrations, professional misconduct, and police involvement in the “protection” of illegal online gambling, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and the “security” of mining and palm oil plantation areas in conflict with local communities. Critics argue that this reflects systemic issues within the police force, such as lack of accountability, inadequate oversight, and a tendency toward authoritarian practices. Human rights organizations, activists, and other people often call for reforms to improve policing practices, ensure greater transparency, and protect civil liberties. Anarchists call to end the institution and fight them.

A family friend who's a psychiatrist told us that tofu can worsen depression. I'm skeptical, but a web search revealed the following:

Even though soy is packed with lean protein, it's also packed with trypsin and protease inhibitors—enzymes that make the digestion of protein incredibly difficult. Soy is also high in copper, a mineral linked to anxious behavior, and loaded with oligosaccharides, which are known to cause flatulence. (Link, TW: meat)

The article also says tempeh is better than tofu in this regard, so that's good since I like tempeh more than tofu (harder to source though). I wanted to ask here who are more along in life.

My family is trying to get me to eat less lentils because they said it's full of uric acid. But they curiously don't say the same thing about eating meat everyday. How much uric acid is even in lentils compared to meat? Is meat worse on uric acid altogether or is there a nuance I'm missing?

Continuing a discussion on an old thread, perhaps we can ask: "Will there be police and prisons under socialism?"

I'm sure there will be a number of different answers from socialists, but this is c/abolition, so of course the answer would be no.

But wait, one might say, weren't and aren't there police and prisons in "actually existing socialism"? Yes, but for varying reasons, the "socialism" of these projects was merely the political ideology of their ruling parties, not in terms of their mode of production. All of these countries had wage-labor, proletarianization, money, commodities, et cetera—all features of a capitalism. Because they had these features of capitalism, these state socialist projects necessarily needed police and prisons to enforce the rule of state capital.

When Marx talked about socialism, he most clearly outlines it in his Critique of the Gotha Program where he uses the term "lower-phase communism" that Second International Marxism and later pre-Bolshevized Comintern Marxism interpreted as "socialism." In socialism or lower-phase communism, the state is already abolished because classes are already abolished. In doing so, we can necessarily expect the cruelest features of the state like police and prisons are necessarily also abolished.

Police and prisons are historically contingent to class society. They serve as a mode of upholding class society. Across Europe and North America during the development of capitalism, police and prisons were used to enforce the rule of wage-labor and force previously non-proletarian peoples into proletarianization. These institutions would drive people off their land, enclose the commons, and then impose regimes of terror to enforce class society.

But how about, a socialist might ask, the enforcement of class rule of the proletariat? The dictatorship of the proletariat? First, it is important to note that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not yet socialism. It is the transition period to socialism. Second, the dictatorship of the proletariat is indeed a class dictatorship, just like the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie we currently live under. Third, the class dictatorship of the proletariat cannot look like previous modes of class dictatorship because it is a class dictatorship for the transition from a class society to a classless society, not a transition from a class society to another class society. Previous modes of class dictatorship used the terror of police and prisons to transition from a monarchist system to a republican system, or the class dictatorship of the aristocracy to the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian class dictatorship is different in that it is a class dictatorship that abolishes class distinctions, the most important of which is proletarianization. Logically, if proletarianziation needs police and prisons to be enforced, then the class dictatorship to abolish proletarianization likewise does away with police and prisons, simply because one cannot use the enforcement of proletarianization to do away with proletarianization.

However, the crucial feature of class dictatorship is its dictatorship, the ability for a class to enforce its will on all other classes. We have previously noted here that previous modes of class dictatorship does this using police and prisons. How is proletarian class dictatorship supposed to do this without police and prisons? Very simply, the power of a proletariat as a class-for-itself does not come from the barrel of a gun or a ballot box, but by their ability to subvert what they are as proletarianized beings. This does not mean that there will be no violence, far from it, but that this violence is ordered towards subversion of class society rather than reproducing it. Commonly, Second International Marxism, especially as embodied by Lenin in State and Revolution, advocates for a whole armed proletariat as opposed to special bodies of armed force (e.g. police and prisons). For whatever reason, Lenin disregarded this when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, thus reproducing class society and all that that entailed, leading the Soviet Union down a path of an unambiguous class society where the proletariat continued to be proletarianized.

Abolition communism means moving beyond this failure to abolish police and prisons under a transitional period and forwarding abolition and communization in its place.

So no, there would not be police and prisons in socialism nor in the transitional period to it, unless of course that transitional period was not transitioning to socialism at all but back to capitalism.