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00973: Re: [WDDM] WDDM Committee, anarchy away

From: Giorgio Menon <giorgio.menon(at)pd.infn.it>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:03:06 +0100
Subject: Re: [WDDM] WDDM Committee, anarchy away

Bruce Eggum wrote:

Dear Giorgio Menon,

I apologize for misspelling your name.
Yes Georg is George Kokkas

I received your email in my Gmail account: Jan 29, 2007 from WDDM.
Giorgio Menon <giorgio.menon(at)pd.infn.it>
hide details Jan 29 (2 days ago)

reply-to wddm@world-wide-democracy.net

to wddm@world-wide-democracy.net

date
Jan 29, 2007 3:51 AM

subject
Re: [WDDM] Democracy and Anarchy do not mix

mailed-by
world-wide-democracy.net <http://world-wide-democracy.net>


I do not have access to the email process, Mirek does if it needs tracing.
Sometimes, my "sent" emails do not show up in the "received" folder
for some reason. I suppose it depends on your email program.

Did others receive Giorgio Menon's email of 29 January?

Regards, Bruce


Deal All,
despite the thick fog of this web mystery i try again to drive my
messages to the right bin (dust bin?) by simply copying it:
Let's face it: democracy is no democracy at all, history says. In
ancient Greece only 12% of humans had the right to decide. Of the
250,000 inhabitants only some 30,000 on average were citizens. The
remaining were women, metics and slaves, people who did work. Their
masters had plenty of time to spend in democratic plays. Things don't go
much differently these days: the Biggest of All Democracies (BAD=USA)
has an average partecipation of eligible voters around 50%. Of such 50%
the majority is 25.5%, representing 51% of 50%. Thus only 25.5% of
eligible voters makes a majority and determines a governmental right to
decide over 100% of population. Pretty odd, isn't it? We're living in a
place where numbers (for statistical, scientific, virtual, communicative
etc.. purpose) are ruling our lives. Not wisdom, honest confrontations,
open discussions, agreements found upon mutual satisfaction, but
numbers. Abstractions. In this sense we've gone no better than our
ancestors who had a King with divine lineage ruling them. God or
numbers, what difference can it make? A King with God behind him or a
President with Numbers backing him, what difference can ever make for
people who must work hard all day to bring the bread home?
This said, when someone tries to implement anarchy into this can be
anything but a bad idea. Anarchy, as i understand it, is a commonly
accepted form of equal rights and equal powers where no number nor god
can ever make sense. Anyone preaching further divisions, new ruling
casts, more elites to defend our rights and powers has been caught by
divine or numeric logics. We've already know this, methinks. Besides:
we're just a small community, and small communities are the best places
to practice equal rights and equal powers. If we accept to be ruled by a
strict minority (elite, or cast) we'll fall again in the trap of one
King-most power ( or its modern version: one President+presidential
crew-most power) and the remaining power (unsufficient to grant anything
sensible) spread with different digrees relatively to the power of the
cast.
Should this be the case i'm no longer in the position of finding of any
sense my partecipation to this forum.

Regards

Giorgio

PS i'd like to hear more about the differences between anarchy and
democracy, but i'm quite sure the discussion would turn into a
meaningless academism where intentions and proposals have not the same
weight as facts and history.



Now Bruce asks:
"Democracy has been a "catch phrase" rather than a method of the people
actually controlling their government. As you point out, has there ever
been a real democracy?"

I think democracy has always meant an elite ruling a population which
was taught to believe they were controlling the elite. Democratic means
good for the community, doesn't it? Well it's not so, history says. A
President (or a Prime Minister in European democracies) is not different
from a King: we can have an enlightened or a moron one, and we can
benefit or curse their governance with equal intensity. Please note that
Noble is synonim of ethical behaviour, exactly like Democratic. These
words have been drop forged in the workshop of the past nobility and
recent democracy. Again to give us poor slobs the impression that
they're working for us, for our good. It's not so. It's never been so.
We might have forced them to adopt a more decent (for us) behaviour, but
they have always tried to insure the greatest benefits for their own
class or elite at our expenses. Briefly: there's almost no governance
that i know fighting for the rights of the people, not even a communist
governance (see the People's Republic of China case of these days) or
it's no governance at all. Thus anarchy.

"No, WDDM will not fall to anarchism providing the members become active
and take the responsibility of running this organization." "As to
further discussion of anarchy, I believe anarchy is so self-centered,
that no group discussion is possible, nor do they believe in group
decisions." continues Bruce.
Well, who decides it? Us, or the elite representing the governance of
WDDM? More interestingly: why aren't we responsible enough to run this
organization?
Who decides it? I see a bias hidden behind these statements, a bias
(guess what?) drop forged in the workshops of both nobility and
democracy: anarchy is evil. Noble democracy is the rule, and works. I
have no doubts: it works, it's making kings, presidents, CEOs and their
crew very wealthy at our expenses. But it's making our life a hell, in
many cases. Shall we accept a system that makes our life a hell to keep
their butt warm?

"As to further discussion of anarchy, I believe anarchy is so
self-centered, that no group discussion is possible, nor do they believe
in group decisions."
I don't know how many anarchists you've talked to, Bruce. Not many, i
think. It happens that anarchists meet in groups, have sites where they
post and freely discuss. Try "anarchist blog" on Google. Or "anarchist
organization". You'll be surprised.

" Organization which is, after all, only the practice of cooperation and
solidarity, is a natural and necessary condition of social life; it is
an inescapable fact which forces itself on everybody, as much on human
society in general as on any group of people who are working towards a
common objective. Since humanity neither wishes to, nor can, live in
isolation it is inevitable that those people who have neither the means,
nor a sufficiently developed social conscience to permit them to
associate freely with those of a like mind and with common interests,
are subjected to the organization by others, generally constituted in a
class or as a ruling group, with the aim of exploiting the labor of
others for their personal advantage. And the agelong oppression of the
masses by a small privileged group has always been the result of the
inability of the oppressed to agree among themselves to organize with
others for production, for enjoyment and for the possible needs of
defense against whoever might wish to exploit and oppress them.
Anarchism exists to remedy this state of affairs..."
So wrote Errico Malatesta in 1897.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/malatest/sp001864.html
I therefore urge to ask you all: do Malatesta's words make any sense or
not? If yes we should rethink the whole concept of anarchy seen as the
worst of evils. Maybe the worst of evils is something else, something
we've already seen and touched and we're currently sustaining, no matter
how unconsciously.

Best regards

Giorgio



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