It's all right for YOU to be neither alarmed nor depressed by all this--you're a "blue" (or green) person living in a blue place. But this analysis ignores the reality that all states are purple, in varying shades. This hits very close to home for me because I am a radical leftist and green activist living in West Virginia. Outsiders usually are unaware that 25 years ago WV was as heavily Democrat as it is Republican now. Well not quite--in the recent election we had a sea of red, with only 4 out of 100 House seats and a similar number out of 34 Senate seats left to Democrats. I shudder to think what the legislative session that starts in a few days will bring. I think sometimes of trying to start some kind of local initiative like a Transition Town or mutual aid group--and am too daunted to even try. I'm 68. my husband is 72, I can't persuade him to uproot us and try to find somewhere else we could live on what little we could get for the homestead we've been building for 15 years. But I am so sick of fighting endless stupid shit, I have a longing that's becoming an ache, to be part of a work to build something good.
I am highly aware that much of the country is far from blue. I only have to go a little out of town to find such places. That is why we need to build power in all places. I have written elsewhere about not abandoning rural areas, and I think we need a politics that does this. You are in a particularly hard place because it is dominated by the coal industry, while Democrats have not offered much of an alternative. That is what we need to do.
Let me add that I urged people not to be alarmed or depressed because these developments promote such feelings, but they can be paralyzing and work against us taking action, which obviously we must.
"I have a longing that's becoming an ache, to be part of a work to build something good."
Where I live is very "blue" but far from very green, sadly, even though it has a misguided perception of also being 'green'.
Anyway, I can relate! I have this very same ache -- but mine is for a massive expansion of non-state politics within a culture where that very idea is not even conceivable to most people. Not that I'd suddenly eliminate 'the state'! I would not. Not under such cultural conditions as we have, where the state provides almost the entire sense of what it means to be 'political'.
I like this perspective of more regional power. However, I struggle to imagine how a bioregion would allocate resources with public money. Would the dollar still be used?
In order to create its own currency, in my understanding, a region would need the power to raise taxes and the power to enforce their collection. If this were possible, I believe many great things could flow for the public benefit of capture by powerful forces could be avoided-as is the case with current governments.
But how could it work?
Also what would defence look like and how would it be funded?
I don’t think I’ve seen these kind of issues addressed in any of the pro Bioregional literature.
That’s a complex discussion. Some see bioregions taking on a state form, which would imply all the functions you mentioned. Others of a more anarchistic bent see a new, cooperative society growing in the shell of the old, eventually replacing state functions with distributed networks organized in a confederation. Murray Bookchin may have taken this line of thought the furthest with his libertarian municipalism. His last book, a selection of his writings, is here. https://files.libcom.org/files/Murray%20Bookchin-The%20Next%20Revolution.%20Popular%20Assemblies%20and%20the%20Promise%20of%20Direct%20Democracy-Verso%20(2015).pdf There’s no one view on this. I actually think reclaiming control of capital through public and cooperative banking is a huge step, which can involve both existing governments and new community institutions. Also, local currencies and computer-based local trading systems are out there.
"That’s a complex discussion. Some see bioregions taking on a state form, which would imply all the functions you mentioned. Others of a more anarchistic bent see a new, cooperative society growing in the shell of the old, eventually replacing state functions with distributed networks organized in a confederation."
I definitely lean strongly in this anarchistic bent direction, but I'm not foolish enough to assume 'state functions' can automatically and spontaneously emerge from state forms in the blink of an eye. Rather, I believe we ought to use the state forms while they are present, while tranforming everything so that the state is not necessary, because not needed or wanted.
Quite possibly the full force of my argument in that essay is found in this one paragraph:
"The communal sphere is a social space in which giving, caring, nurturing, supporting, collaborating... on egalitarian terms is the core ethos, that which informs and inspires our aliveness, our ethos, our politics. In the communal sphere we are not set into competition with one another, but rather do quite the inverse. We seek to empower one another by distributing power centrifugally, as opposed to hoarding it and concentrating it centripetally. Our aim is to liberate ourselves by liberating one another, and to liberate one another by liberating ourselves. In short, we are not interested in hegemony. We are motivated by love."
In a communally organized society, is there actually a need for taxes, which are a form of coercion? I think not.
Great but none of this changes the fact that there's over 420 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere that we haven't even fell the full range of effects from on our civilization. Any attempt to "green the economy" without solving the extraction methods used is a looney toon type character. We are 100 seconds to midnight need I remind you. So we squabble about minor BS bills meanwhile the life support systems are going to get literally shut down. Going down in flames pointing fingers, what a sad & pathetic race of beings. Go watch the 60 minutes on the sixth mass extinction that we are currently in. If you honestly think we can survive with even 10% less of the wildlife biodiversity in the world then you are mental. As if most of the American population, in denial. Look, the changes we're seeing in the earth climate system are exponential. We're tipping into a hot house earth. So maybe we go full blown government breakdown after the next election. But one thing's for certain, at this rate, we'll be fighting for our lives by 2030 & by 2040 you'll wish you were dead. Yes I'm 34 college educated with a course In geology & sociology under my belt. I won't even get to your age without my surroundings approximating comething close to a complete & utter hellscape.
As someone who has devoted much focus to the climate crisis over more than two decades, and who came to the issue partly by being active in the movement to save the old growth forests of Cascadia, who has made some modest contributions to maybe turning the curve to hell down a bit, and even has spent a bit of time in county jail for putting my body on the way, I am acutely aware that the breakdown of our political institutions puts us behind the curve. I believe we must move in the channels where action is possible, and as I write, I see that substantially at local, state and regional/bioregional levels. That is also where we can build the kind of societies and economies that will enable us to avert catastrophe. If you scroll back on The Raven you will find a bunch of my writing on this. I may be twice your age but I have a 26-year-old daughter, and I am deeply concerned about the world in which she will live. I believe we still have a chance to turn from the hellscape you fear.
"In the end, a national political system that no longer works opens the possibilities to create more horizontal arrangements, where institutions at local, state and regional/bioregional scales are empowered to tackle challenges and build societies more amenable to the human spirit and in tune with the nature of which we all are, finally, a part. Let us neither be alarmed or depressed by breakdowns at the national level. Instead, let it be a motivation to build our movements and strength closer to home, to be prepared for whatever might come."
It's all right for YOU to be neither alarmed nor depressed by all this--you're a "blue" (or green) person living in a blue place. But this analysis ignores the reality that all states are purple, in varying shades. This hits very close to home for me because I am a radical leftist and green activist living in West Virginia. Outsiders usually are unaware that 25 years ago WV was as heavily Democrat as it is Republican now. Well not quite--in the recent election we had a sea of red, with only 4 out of 100 House seats and a similar number out of 34 Senate seats left to Democrats. I shudder to think what the legislative session that starts in a few days will bring. I think sometimes of trying to start some kind of local initiative like a Transition Town or mutual aid group--and am too daunted to even try. I'm 68. my husband is 72, I can't persuade him to uproot us and try to find somewhere else we could live on what little we could get for the homestead we've been building for 15 years. But I am so sick of fighting endless stupid shit, I have a longing that's becoming an ache, to be part of a work to build something good.
I am highly aware that much of the country is far from blue. I only have to go a little out of town to find such places. That is why we need to build power in all places. I have written elsewhere about not abandoning rural areas, and I think we need a politics that does this. You are in a particularly hard place because it is dominated by the coal industry, while Democrats have not offered much of an alternative. That is what we need to do.
Let me add that I urged people not to be alarmed or depressed because these developments promote such feelings, but they can be paralyzing and work against us taking action, which obviously we must.
"I have a longing that's becoming an ache, to be part of a work to build something good."
Where I live is very "blue" but far from very green, sadly, even though it has a misguided perception of also being 'green'.
Anyway, I can relate! I have this very same ache -- but mine is for a massive expansion of non-state politics within a culture where that very idea is not even conceivable to most people. Not that I'd suddenly eliminate 'the state'! I would not. Not under such cultural conditions as we have, where the state provides almost the entire sense of what it means to be 'political'.
I like this perspective of more regional power. However, I struggle to imagine how a bioregion would allocate resources with public money. Would the dollar still be used?
In order to create its own currency, in my understanding, a region would need the power to raise taxes and the power to enforce their collection. If this were possible, I believe many great things could flow for the public benefit of capture by powerful forces could be avoided-as is the case with current governments.
But how could it work?
Also what would defence look like and how would it be funded?
I don’t think I’ve seen these kind of issues addressed in any of the pro Bioregional literature.
Could you point me to anything?
Thank you for all of your work.
David
That’s a complex discussion. Some see bioregions taking on a state form, which would imply all the functions you mentioned. Others of a more anarchistic bent see a new, cooperative society growing in the shell of the old, eventually replacing state functions with distributed networks organized in a confederation. Murray Bookchin may have taken this line of thought the furthest with his libertarian municipalism. His last book, a selection of his writings, is here. https://files.libcom.org/files/Murray%20Bookchin-The%20Next%20Revolution.%20Popular%20Assemblies%20and%20the%20Promise%20of%20Direct%20Democracy-Verso%20(2015).pdf There’s no one view on this. I actually think reclaiming control of capital through public and cooperative banking is a huge step, which can involve both existing governments and new community institutions. Also, local currencies and computer-based local trading systems are out there.
"That’s a complex discussion. Some see bioregions taking on a state form, which would imply all the functions you mentioned. Others of a more anarchistic bent see a new, cooperative society growing in the shell of the old, eventually replacing state functions with distributed networks organized in a confederation."
I definitely lean strongly in this anarchistic bent direction, but I'm not foolish enough to assume 'state functions' can automatically and spontaneously emerge from state forms in the blink of an eye. Rather, I believe we ought to use the state forms while they are present, while tranforming everything so that the state is not necessary, because not needed or wanted.
I address some of the basic philosophical issues and topics here (but far from all of them!). https://rword.substack.com/p/on-commoning
Quite possibly the full force of my argument in that essay is found in this one paragraph:
"The communal sphere is a social space in which giving, caring, nurturing, supporting, collaborating... on egalitarian terms is the core ethos, that which informs and inspires our aliveness, our ethos, our politics. In the communal sphere we are not set into competition with one another, but rather do quite the inverse. We seek to empower one another by distributing power centrifugally, as opposed to hoarding it and concentrating it centripetally. Our aim is to liberate ourselves by liberating one another, and to liberate one another by liberating ourselves. In short, we are not interested in hegemony. We are motivated by love."
In a communally organized society, is there actually a need for taxes, which are a form of coercion? I think not.
Great but none of this changes the fact that there's over 420 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere that we haven't even fell the full range of effects from on our civilization. Any attempt to "green the economy" without solving the extraction methods used is a looney toon type character. We are 100 seconds to midnight need I remind you. So we squabble about minor BS bills meanwhile the life support systems are going to get literally shut down. Going down in flames pointing fingers, what a sad & pathetic race of beings. Go watch the 60 minutes on the sixth mass extinction that we are currently in. If you honestly think we can survive with even 10% less of the wildlife biodiversity in the world then you are mental. As if most of the American population, in denial. Look, the changes we're seeing in the earth climate system are exponential. We're tipping into a hot house earth. So maybe we go full blown government breakdown after the next election. But one thing's for certain, at this rate, we'll be fighting for our lives by 2030 & by 2040 you'll wish you were dead. Yes I'm 34 college educated with a course In geology & sociology under my belt. I won't even get to your age without my surroundings approximating comething close to a complete & utter hellscape.
As someone who has devoted much focus to the climate crisis over more than two decades, and who came to the issue partly by being active in the movement to save the old growth forests of Cascadia, who has made some modest contributions to maybe turning the curve to hell down a bit, and even has spent a bit of time in county jail for putting my body on the way, I am acutely aware that the breakdown of our political institutions puts us behind the curve. I believe we must move in the channels where action is possible, and as I write, I see that substantially at local, state and regional/bioregional levels. That is also where we can build the kind of societies and economies that will enable us to avert catastrophe. If you scroll back on The Raven you will find a bunch of my writing on this. I may be twice your age but I have a 26-year-old daughter, and I am deeply concerned about the world in which she will live. I believe we still have a chance to turn from the hellscape you fear.
I adore this paragraph!
"In the end, a national political system that no longer works opens the possibilities to create more horizontal arrangements, where institutions at local, state and regional/bioregional scales are empowered to tackle challenges and build societies more amenable to the human spirit and in tune with the nature of which we all are, finally, a part. Let us neither be alarmed or depressed by breakdowns at the national level. Instead, let it be a motivation to build our movements and strength closer to home, to be prepared for whatever might come."
Thanks brother!