Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Defending ourselves against our government

roachboy · 06-19-2007, 07:05 AM

the militia set has a real problem with the modern state.
rather than outline that problem--you know, make it coherent--they prefer to fetishize the founders and on that basis to pretend that they are the new minutemen conducting preparations for the rerun of the american revolution/tax revolt. so it seems to me that the "get a gun and get freedom" folk simply retreat from a complex world into a make-believe 18th century agrarian society made up of yeomen farmers. it is a projection, a fantasy of the type that could enable some among these folk to maybe even read tocqueville's democracy in america and overlook one of the central underlying arguments: tocqueville was writing about the early 1830s---and even then it seemed clear to him that the political space imagined by the founders was evaporating and that capitalism was the explanation for it--a fundamentally different mode of production was taking shape--at the time, it was primarily confined to the cities--but tocqueville was quite clear about what he saw--the writing was on the wall and this experiment in democracy in america was nearing its conclusion. what remained of it seems to me to have been wiped out by the american civil war. but because if your committment to hallucination is adequate, you can avoid anything, it follows that they could read tocqueville and leave out that part. if they read tocqueville.

what it seems like the militia set is doing politically is waiting for the existing order to collapse on its own.
they are quite sure it will any minute now...... any minute................any minute now..............there it goes--oops no, not quite yet.............soon though..............soon..............

when this collapse comes, it seems that a consequence of it will be the atomization of state power which would be reflected in the evaporation of its police and military functions.
they would just stop.
pfft. all gone now.

and into this imaginary vacuum the minutemen would stride wearing ten league boots and clutching a gun or twelve. the switching away from the capitalist mode of production would also take care of itself because it is all artificial and beneath the surface it is still 1797 pennsylvania somewhere really. we know this because other statements are obviously true, in the way that all such are true: the nation is a substantive entity, it has an internal logic and that logic will deploy automatically. that's why it is important that they claim to be "real americans" or "patriots" you see. they are Prophets awaiting the descent of the Society of Yeomen from where it is Presently Hidden.

meanwhile, in their incoherence and powerlessness, they imagine themselves to be the Only True Upholders of Democracy. that their understanding of history is surreal, their political vision loopy, their plan for the future a retreat into the past--none of that matters. they have guns so they are free. they have mystical insight which allows them Direct Communication with the Founders, who tell them Important Things like nothing ever really changes, all is illusion on the surface and that sooner or later Something Will Happen and that illusion will dissolve. like the air its made of.

they are revolutionaries who are afraid of revolution. they are afraid of the present and are afraid of the future so they run away from both. they have no politics of radical social transformation: they want only to restore the past, which they control since they made it up. there is no plan: none is needed. there are no coherent politics, then. they dont even like democracy particularly--democracy is unstable, it corrodes certainty. yeomen farmers as as they are because they own property--they are wholly adverse to uncertainty--so for them, the political process in any form is superficial and reality is primarily taken up with what you the isolated individual do on your private property. that is why they confuse locke's second treatise on government with a documentary. they think it really existed and that the vision expressed in it is therefore coherent.

06-19-2007, 07:05 AM	#12 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the militia set has a real problem with the modern state. rather than outline that problem--you know, make it coherent--they prefer to fetishize the founders and on that basis to pretend that they are the new minutemen conducting preparations for the rerun of the american revolution/tax revolt. so it seems to me that the "get a gun and get freedom" folk simply retreat from a complex world into a make-believe 18th century agrarian society made up of yeomen farmers. it is a projection, a fantasy of the type that could enable some among these folk to maybe even read tocqueville's democracy in america and overlook one of the central underlying arguments: tocqueville was writing about the early 1830s---and even then it seemed clear to him that the political space imagined by the founders was evaporating and that capitalism was the explanation for it--a fundamentally different mode of production was taking shape--at the time, it was primarily confined to the cities--but tocqueville was quite clear about what he saw--the writing was on the wall and this experiment in democracy in america was nearing its conclusion. what remained of it seems to me to have been wiped out by the american civil war. but because if your committment to hallucination is adequate, you can avoid anything, it follows that they could read tocqueville and leave out that part. if they read tocqueville. what it seems like the militia set is doing politically is waiting for the existing order to collapse on its own. they are quite sure it will any minute now...... any minute................any minute now..............there it goes--oops no, not quite yet.............soon though..............soon.............. when this collapse comes, it seems that a consequence of it will be the atomization of state power which would be reflected in the evaporation of its police and military functions. they would just stop. pfft. all gone now. and into this imaginary vacuum the minutemen would stride wearing ten league boots and clutching a gun or twelve. the switching away from the capitalist mode of production would also take care of itself because it is all artificial and beneath the surface it is still 1797 pennsylvania somewhere really. we know this because other statements are obviously true, in the way that all such are true: the nation is a substantive entity, it has an internal logic and that logic will deploy automatically. that's why it is important that they claim to be "real americans" or "patriots" you see. they are Prophets awaiting the descent of the Society of Yeomen from where it is Presently Hidden. meanwhile, in their incoherence and powerlessness, they imagine themselves to be the Only True Upholders of Democracy. that their understanding of history is surreal, their political vision loopy, their plan for the future a retreat into the past--none of that matters. they have guns so they are free. they have mystical insight which allows them Direct Communication with the Founders, who tell them Important Things like nothing ever really changes, all is illusion on the surface and that sooner or later Something Will Happen and that illusion will dissolve. like the air its made of. they are revolutionaries who are afraid of revolution. they are afraid of the present and are afraid of the future so they run away from both. they have no politics of radical social transformation: they want only to restore the past, which they control since they made it up. there is no plan: none is needed. there are no coherent politics, then. they dont even like democracy particularly--democracy is unstable, it corrodes certainty. yeomen farmers as as they are because they own property--they are wholly adverse to uncertainty--so for them, the political process in any form is superficial and reality is primarily taken up with what you the isolated individual do on your private property. that is why they confuse locke's second treatise on government with a documentary. they think it really existed and that the vision expressed in it is therefore coherent. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 06-19-2007 at 07:08 AM..