Progressives vs. anarco-primitivists

[tama]

Kissinger (/Cheney/Clinton/Obama/McCain) to protestors:
- If you want progress, energy slaves and all that good stuff, Empire is the only way to rob the resources that our progress requires.

Progressives:
- OK, in the name of progress, then let's have Empire, we need our good stuff and cant live without our energy slaves. Let's go cut last forests and and drill the last drop of oil, but can we pretend it's not our fault and plead ignorance, please?

"Primitivist" hippies:
- No thanks, we'll rather learn to live without all the "good stuff" and energy slaves provided by technocracy. Let's go start an ecovillage, permaculture gardening with sun power sounds like gas!

[But....]

1. Do you own stuff...

or does stuff own you?:hide:

[nashville_brook]

2. here's a great article on the difference btwn "liberal" and "progressive"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/whats-the-difference-bet_b_9140.html

Liberal and a Progressive?
David Sirota

I often get asked what the difference between a "liberal" and a "progressive" is. The questions from the media on this subject are always something like, "Isn't 'progressive' just another name for 'liberal' that people want to use because 'liberal' has become a bad word?"

The answer, in my opinion, is no - there is a fundamental difference when it comes to core economic issues. It seems to me that traditional "liberals" in our current parlance are those who focus on using taxpayer money to help better society. A "progressive" are those who focus on using government power to make large institutions play by a set of rules.

To put it in more concrete terms - a liberal solution to some of our current problems with high energy costs would be to increase funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A more "progressive" solution would be to increase LIHEAP but also crack down on price gouging and pass laws better-regulating the oil industry's profiteering and market manipulation tactics. A liberal policy towards prescription drugs is one that would throw a lot of taxpayer cash at the pharmaceutical industry to get them to provide medicine to the poor; A progressive prescription drug policy would be one that centered around price regulations and bulk purchasing in order to force down the actual cost of medicine in America (much of which was originally developed with taxpayer R&D money).

Let's be clear - most progressives are also liberals, and liberal goals in better funding America's social safety net are noble and critical. It's the other direction that's the problem. Many of today's liberals are not fully comfortable with progressivism as defined in these terms. Many of today's Democratic politicians, for instance, are simply not comfortable taking a more confrontational posture towards large economic institutions (many of whom fund their campaigns) - institutions that regularly take a confrontational posture towards America's middle-class.

We can see a good example of this hestitation from Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in his "health care to hybrids" proposal. As the Detroit News reports, Obama is calling "for using government money to relieve Detroit automakers of some of their staggering health care obligations if they commit to improving fuel economy by 3 percent a year for 15 years."

Here's the thing - we all want to see autoworkers' health care preserved, and we all want to see better fuel efficiency standards for cars. But is this really the road we want to go down as a society? I'd say no. The fact is, the auto industry should be forced to produce more fuel efficient cars through higher government fuel efficiency mandates, without taxpayers having to bail out the industry. It's not like those mandates would be asking the industry to do something that doesn't make good business sense - demand for higher fuel-efficiency cars is skyrocketing.

Paying off corporations to do what they already should be doing sets a dangerous precedent - it sends a message to Big Business that they can leverage their irresponsible behavior into government handouts. In this case, the auto industry would be leveraging its refusal to produce more fuel efficient cars and preserve its workers' health care into a giant taxpayer-funded subsidy.

To be sure, Obama has solid motives in pushing his proposal, and it is a creative cross of issues (health care and energy/environment). But the general unwillingness of Democrats to consistently push for more sharp-edged progressive solutions is a big problem right now. The "free market" conservatives have so dominated the political debate over the last two decades that our side seems only comfortable proposing to pay off different economic players, instead of forcing those players to behave themselves. It's time for that to change. The government has a job to play in protecting Americans from being ripped off, and that doesn't mean just handing the economic bullies a bribe. It means pushing back - hard.

[bananas]

4. And the anarco-primitive solutions:

"To put it in more concrete terms - a liberal solution to some of our current problems with high energy costs would be to increase funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A more "progressive" solution would be to increase LIHEAP but also crack down on price gouging and pass laws better-regulating the oil industry's profiteering and market manipulation tactics."

The anarco-primitive solution is to let poor people fend for themselves in the wild (freeze to death).

"A liberal policy towards prescription drugs is one that would throw a lot of taxpayer cash at the pharmaceutical industry to get them to provide medicine to the poor; A progressive prescription drug policy would be one that centered around price regulations and bulk purchasing in order to force down the actual cost of medicine in America (much of which was originally developed with taxpayer R&D money)."

The anarco-primitive solution is let poor people fend for themselves in the wild (get sick and die).

[tama]

5. It is possible

To live with nature ("wild") instead of fearing nature and making war against it, as the cancer of "progressive" technocivilization does.

We know allready how, most intensive and efficient gardening that does not harm the soil (permaculture, agroforest etc.), to grow our food and medicine and clothes and firewood naturally. And we can learn to garden better and better by working with nature and not against it - real progress instead of devastation of Earth that currently goes by the name "progress".

"In life, nothing is as important as gardening. And even that isn't so important".

[nashville_brook]

8. i think it might be possible to build on a-p principles toward a "community" ideal

like, "extreme localization" or some such variety of modern-primitive. i don't think the a-p way is meant as a large-scale metaphor, b/c almost by definition a-p is an individualistic metaphor.

i've known plenty of anarco-primitives who i dearly love and have utmost respect for. they have built communities and raised AMAZING children with no freezing to death or allowing people to get sick and die. a midwife friend of mine pointed out that the most useful drugs in anyone's medicine cabinet are quite common -- aspirin, antihistamines, and other anti-inflamatories. our strongest pain relievers are ancient preparations like morphine.

i think a-p is best understood as a personal lifestyle choice, rather than a large-scale social model.

[tama]

10. Sense of community

based on sharing rather than taking is to my understanding the crucial issue, together with localism and variety. Ecovillages and other intentional communities are IMHO the seeds planted as the "large-scale social model" is collapsing, and if the seeds are good, they can bear beautifull fruit - maybe even on planetary scale.

And yes, you get aspirin from tree-bark.

[bluereality]

3. I'm an anarco-primitivist

According to the definitions.

[tama]

6. Interesting reading

http://www.rainbowbody.net/Finalempire/index.html

[Fovea]

7. I don't think you have it quite right.

NeoCons want oil and hegemony. They hope for a world where profit is derived directly from having brown people kill more brown people. What we sometimes call the good old days.

PaleoCons just want all the oil, and soft hegemony.

Theocons want Jesus to come back and start smiting.

Moderates are like your Progressives. They want it all, and to be loved for being good consumers, as their masters demand of them. What did Bush tell people to do after 911?
They have the right side of the Democrats and the left wing of the Libertarians.

Libertarians want the magic bean economy to start working just like in 'Atlas Shrugged'.

Greens want sustainability and less toxic living conditions, also social justice.
What BTW is an energy slave? Would a windmill qualify? It uses energy to replace human work. They have besides the Green Party, many of those former Democrats who were not Cons, but could not abide the third way and no longer vote for someone else's interests.

Progressives want what we used to call modern society -- scientific advancement, justice, social opportunity, fair trade and fair labor practices under the rule of law.

Liberal is the term fouled by cons of all stripes as a pejorative. It used to mean progressives. We could have saved it back in the Reagan years. There is no point in even discussing it. We let the word become a bad joke.

Anarcho-Theo-PaleoAgronimisists. Those who want to return to an idyllic medieval agronomy don't know enough about history. These are not the Greens. Greens want everything they can get that is sustainable.

That is how I see the political taxonomy in the world of 2008.

[tama]

9. Greens

don't want sustainable, they just speak about sustainable and want to become corrupt with power like everybody else and join right wing governements - at least in Europe that's how it goes.

Anarcho-primitivists are not speaking about return to medieval (feodalism), but (re)learning pre-/post-civilization permaculture gardening. Such as practiced for example by "Zapatista" tribes in the jungle of Lacandon, living sustainably for ages.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Progressive: Find a better way to play the game. Primivists: Give up altogether.

[tama]

12. Yup: life is not a game n/t