|
ballsalsa
Universally Loathed and Reviled



Registered: 03/11/15
Posts: 22,490
Loc: Foreign Lands
|
HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists
#27857943 - 07/10/22 08:59 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Y'all think this is ignorance or an intentional mischaracterization? https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/10/entertainment/the-anarchists-review/index.html
Quote:
Schramke does an adequate job explaining the roots of the anarchist impulse and how all roads lead to author Ayn Rand, whose books and celebration of individualism have echoed through the decades.
Quote:
Ultimately, the documentary serves as an obvious cautionary tale about the appeal of nonconformist movements that require cooperation among people who aren't inclined to trust anyone, including each other.
--------------------
Like cannabis topics? Read my cannabis blog here
|
Kryptos
Stranger

Registered: 11/01/14
Posts: 12,848
Last seen: 15 minutes, 22 seconds
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: ballsalsa]
#27857952 - 07/10/22 09:06 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Bit of both.
Ultimately, actual anarchists would be accurately described as left libertarians, in the sense that they fall under the left economics/loose social control quadrant of the political compass.
US libertarians fall well within the US Overton window, which is heavily skewed to the right. There should really be a distinction drawn between libertarianism as a belief in loose social regulations and libertarianism in the Ayn Rand/Rand Paul republicans that like to smoke weed sense.
Perhaps the distinction has already been made, and I am not aware of it. Shivas?
|
ballsalsa
Universally Loathed and Reviled



Registered: 03/11/15
Posts: 22,490
Loc: Foreign Lands
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: Kryptos] 1
#27857979 - 07/10/22 09:25 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
I'm pretty sure ancaps came up with the label to try and be crypto because most people in the know already know that U.S. libertarians are disgusting fascist-adjacent Randophiles
|
Tulipslave
Homo sapiens sapiens, lol

Registered: 07/25/17
Posts: 11,980
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: ballsalsa]
#27858282 - 07/11/22 07:05 AM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
I dunno. HBO's Syria documentary some years back was pretty one-sided.
|
Kryptos
Stranger

Registered: 11/01/14
Posts: 12,848
Last seen: 15 minutes, 22 seconds
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: ballsalsa]
#27858471 - 07/11/22 10:36 AM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ballsalsa said: I'm pretty sure ancaps came up with the label to try and be crypto because most people in the know already know that U.S. libertarians are disgusting fascist-adjacent Randophiles

I remember reading Snow Crash and becoming an ancap for a few months in middle school...I also remember being mercilessly made fun of by my debate teacher and their assistant coach for it.
|
ballsalsa
Universally Loathed and Reviled



Registered: 03/11/15
Posts: 22,490
Loc: Foreign Lands
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: Kryptos]
#27858481 - 07/11/22 10:42 AM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if you don't become an ancap around the age of 12 you're probably an idiot while, conversely, if you're still an ancap beyond age 20 you're also probably an idiot.
(I don't mean "you" specifically)
--------------------
Like cannabis topics? Read my cannabis blog here
|
shivas.wisdom
בּ



Registered: 02/19/09
Posts: 13,487
Loc: Turtle Island
Last seen: 3 hours, 21 minutes
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: ballsalsa] 1
#27858594 - 07/11/22 11:55 AM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Seriously... all roads lead to Ayn Rand as if she could ever hope to be so relevant to political thought. It's almost certainly intentional ignorance - what benefit would either state or corporate entities gain from an accurate portrayal of anarchy?
That festival looks like a clusterfuck though. There's a longstanding pattern of fascist-adjacent political movements encorporating anarchist symbolism and tactics. Libertarianism didn't need to be specifically differentiated until some free market capitalists began referring to themselves as such - outside of the USA, this distinction is not always as necessary, but internet culture has effected that a little bit - I've seen vary manifestations of 'social libertarian' or 'left libertarian'. An-cap is basically a repetition of that cycle where anarchism must now be specifically differentiated lest it be confused with some ethno-nationalist movement. For all their talk about 'Conservative is the new punk', there is a lot of effort to take on the shallowest trappings of the old punk.
I've never really felt too concerned about what label I qualify for, but I do wonder how effective these campaigns of confusion are for the greater populace. That anarchy is still often considered synonymous with chaos is a good example. I consider my effort better spent giving people a lived experience of anarchy rather than arguing over the defer of anarchism.
--------------------
|
The Ecstatic
Chilldog Extraordinaire


Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 34,046
Loc: 'Merica
Last seen: 2 hours, 6 minutes
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: ballsalsa] 2
#27858595 - 07/11/22 11:56 AM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
ballsalsa said: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if you don't become an ancap around the age of 12 you're probably an idiot while, conversely, if you're still an ancap beyond age 20 you're also probably an idiot.
(I don't mean "you" specifically)
Absolutely. When you live in the imperial core, left politics are so out of reach that, when you deduce that both parties serve the same master, the only place to turn is to libertarianism/ancap.
--------------------
|
Crafty
OTD Sainthood
Registered: 07/11/22
Posts: 226
Loc: Heaven
Last seen: 1 year, 9 months
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: The Ecstatic]
#27858762 - 07/11/22 01:47 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
The anarchists of the past wanted to divide the industries of the nation into workers’ co-ops. They had more in common with communists than capitalists. American libertarians are generally not anarchists or even libertarian in the classical sense. They seem to tend more toward the bourgeois and adhere to a neoliberal philosophy of freedom of choice (in so far as an ability to participate in the market, having enough personal wealth, gives a person agency over their life).
The Reagan revolution was neoliberalism coming into its own. Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman. The supremacy of the market. It’s a far cry from traditional anarchism as a form of society, and we’re in the process of watching it degenerate into a sort of overt fascism where the market’s failure and diminishing returns are going to be shored up by force (military, police, surveillance state, judicial).
Margret Thatcher’s own words on the neoliberal ethos: https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-4/margaret-thatcher-theres-no-such-thing-as-society
None of it amounted to any more freedom, just more privatization and hollow societies fraught with inequalities and corporate lawlessness. If you have any historical knowledge of anarchy, neoliberalism seems a pretty far cry from it and the American brand libertarianism of the last 20 years was basically just that. The entire movement was underwritten by major multinational corporations and billionaires like Koch Industries. https://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/
Looking at the textbook definition of anarchy, we can say that libertarianism, for better and for worse, does contain some anarchistic qualities:
anarchy noun an·ar·chy | \ ˈa-nər-kē , -ˌnär- \ Definition of anarchy 1a : absence of government b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority the city's descent into anarchy c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government 2a : absence or denial of any authority or established order anarchy prevailed in the war zone b : absence of order : DISORDER
HBO (and CNN obviously) is bourgeois in and of itself. It promotes a one dimensional neoliberal vision of the world in a lot of its docs. All the major streaming services do this because that’s the world where they’re most profitable; they have a specific segment of the population in mind when they devise their programming. The documentary sounds misleading, but I have no idea because I haven’t seen it and probably won’t.
--------------------
Is this still permitted?
Edited by Crafty (07/11/22 02:38 PM)
|
shivas.wisdom
בּ



Registered: 02/19/09
Posts: 13,487
Loc: Turtle Island
Last seen: 3 hours, 21 minutes
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: Crafty] 1
#27858905 - 07/11/22 04:01 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
--------------------
|
Kryptos
Stranger

Registered: 11/01/14
Posts: 12,848
Last seen: 15 minutes, 22 seconds
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: shivas.wisdom]
#27858926 - 07/11/22 04:24 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
shivas.wisdom said: but I do wonder how effective these campaigns of confusion are for the greater populace.
Very. I recently had a conversation with an (older) coworker that was...interesting. He's one of those guys that self identifies as a libertarian but falls a lot closer to the authoritarian right in ideology. At first, I didn't challenge him at all on his points, but did tell him that I was not politically right, and he would say "it's nice to be able to have a respectful discussion even if we disagree". Of course, when I did begin to slightly push back against the more...obviously false points that he made, suddenly he wasn't willing to talk politics anymore, but oh well, that's besides the point.
He did once ask me what my politics were, and I told him "Left Libertarian" and just watched his brain give a 404 error. He just had this look of utter confusion on his face, for a good 5-10 seconds.
I don't think saying "anarchist" would have had the intended effect.
Otherwise, though, you are right. Specifically fascist groups have a long history of co-opting leftist, populist, and pro-labor language into far right ideologies. I mean, there's a reason the Nazis called themselves National Socialists...to capitalize on socialist movements and use them to support capital.
|
ballsalsa
Universally Loathed and Reviled



Registered: 03/11/15
Posts: 22,490
Loc: Foreign Lands
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: shivas.wisdom]
#27859072 - 07/11/22 06:13 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Great tune, one of my favs
--------------------
Like cannabis topics? Read my cannabis blog here
|
Psilynut2
Stranger

Registered: 04/28/17
Posts: 5,356
Last seen: 50 minutes, 1 second
|
Re: HBO documentary equates American Libertarians with Anarchists [Re: Crafty]
#27859163 - 07/11/22 07:34 PM (1 year, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
All the major streaming services do this because that’s the world where they’re most profitable; they have a specific segment of the population in mind when they devise their programming
Ya the majority , you get the most profit catering to that segment .
|
|