How did we get here? (@[email protected])
c.im
Attached: 1 image [Note: this thread was copied from another instance with the full knowledge and endorsement of the original poster who wants to remain anonymous here.] HOW DID WE GET HERE? (a thread of threads, quotes, and links) This is a collection of writings and research concerned with how we got where we are today, which is in fact the story of what has been done *to* us, and what has been *taken from us*. By "us" we're talking about "the 99%", "workers", "wage slaves", all non-owners of private property, "the poor", unhoused people, indigenous people, even plenty of people who swear by capitalism and identify as "capitalist" yet have no capital of their own and no serious hope of ever having any worth speaking of. In other words almost everyone except for the very few who have had the power to exploit us and shape our lives to serve their agenda. We're going to examine institutions and concepts that have deeply altered our world at all levels, both our external and internal realities. By "here" we are talking about climate crisis and myriad other environmental catastrophes resulting from hyper-excessive extraction, consumption and waste; a world of rampant inequality, exploitation and oppression, hunger and starvation, genocide and war; a world of fences, walls, gatekeepers, prisons, police, bullshit jobs and criminalized poverty; a world overrun with cars and preventable disease; a world of vanishing biodiversity and blooming fascism; a world where "democracy" results in being led by some of the worst of humanity; a world ruled by an imaginary but all-powerful and single-minded god: Capital. Our inspiration and structural framework for this survey is this quote from THE PREHISTORY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY, an important book from political philosopher Karl Widerquist and anthropologist Grant S. McCall: "After hundreds of millennia in which all humans had direct access to the commons, it took only a few centuries for enclosure, colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization to cut off the vast majority of people on Earth from direct access to the means of economic production and therefore to rob them of the power to say no. It took only a few generations to convince most people that this situation was natural and inevitable. That false lesson needs to be unlearned." https://widerquist.com/books-3/#2b Also recommended: PREHISTORIC MYTHS IN MODERN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY https://widerquist.com/books-3/#4b 1/30

I was originally planning to copy the whole post in a lemmy body, but mastodon makes it too painful to copy-paste as it truncates each link and images have to be copied manually. I also don’t know if it fits in a post body. Anyway, If anyone wants to try their hand at copy pasting it in its entirety here, feel free.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
      3·
      5 days ago

      i’m not an anarchist, but i am a leftist and lemmy has taught me that the ideological overlap isn’t sufficient to engage like that; my intention was to lurk only and see content like this since i hadn’t yet seen it on mastadon.

      timeline style social media doesn’t work for me; but they usually have social circles that you can see in something like a friends list. i’ll start there with yours and thanks.

      • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
        61·
        5 days ago

        I mean, if you don’t want to use microblogging you can just sub in communities like this one. This is why I crossposted it here, for people like you.