For the ISE blog: Mason Herson-Hord explains the unfolding genocide against Palestinians in Gaza through the history of Israel's radical right's ascension to power. "Over the course of these decades, there was a resulting shift in Israeli political consciousness where the historical necessity of the Nakba for the creation of the Jewish state transitioned from a truth to be masked or denied to one to be embraced and carried forward into Israel’s expansionist future."

I am hesitant to suggest a “descent into fascism” narrative about Israel. The State of Israel has always been fascistic in relation to its Palestinian subjects. In the entirety of Israel’s modern history, there were only a scarce few months where at least hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were not living under its martial law and military dictatorship: between the end of apartheid military rule over the subject class of Palestinians remaining after the Nakba in what became Israel (1949-1966) and the capture of the other Palestinian territories and the creation of the Israeli Military Governorate (1967 onwards).32 These systems of Israeli military rule over Palestinians can only be adequately described as totalitarian: through 1994, they entailed complete bans on any Palestinian political activity or freedom of expression; incarceration (often without trial or even charges) at rates far exceeding anything seen in Soviet gulags or the American prison-industrial complex; and state control over all areas of life through checkpoints, secret police, kangaroo courts, torture, and surveillance.33 Taken together with the racial ideology of the state, it is difficult to draw clear boundaries between the Israeli occupation regime and other fascist states historically.

That being said, a qualitative shift in Israeli civil society and political life has nevertheless been underway, as the fascism that characterizes the occupation has metastasized within the body politic on the other side of the Green Line. A campaign is being waged to eliminate checks on the government’s power, criminalize dissent, and strip so-called “enemies of the state” of civil and political rights. Netanyahu has led this effort with increasingly dark and fascistic language, moving the needle towards dictatorship ever further. In 2018, for example, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that “In the Middle East, and in many parts of the world, there is a simple truth: There is no place for the weak. The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.”

The evidence at this point is, in my view, unmistakable: Israel is a fascist society, in the classical sense. It is not merely governed by populist right-wing would-be authoritarians, or fond of dog whistle racism, or other qualities characterizing the right-wing nationalist resurgence internationally that is often loosely given the label “fascist.” It is the real deal. Fascism in Israel has a mass character—there are violent street movements attacking enemies of the state while carrying out the settler project of ethnic cleansing block by block with the state’s simultaneous approval and (im)plausible deniability. And the end goal of this fascism is the expulsion of all Palestinians, killing all who refuse to leave, and the violent suppression of all democratic elements of Israeli society who would object to this.

Prison industrial complex abolition is “a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment." — Critical Resistance

Abolition requires us examine and do away with the ways in which all systems and institutions replicate methods of surveillance and punishment as a means of social control. Resources in this section cover fundamental concepts of abolition and histories of what it looks like in practice.

Najwan Darwish: Who Remembers the Armenians?

I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I'm drinking it with them

You, murderer ―
Who remembers you?

Sophia Armen: Who Remembers the Palestinians? (after Najwan Darwish)

We do
and I ride the bus to the Nakba protest with them
each day
and my soorj, this morning
We are drinking it with them

You, genocider—
Who remembers you?

Philosophers like Murray Bookchin argued that the natural world tends towards greater and greater diversity. Now scientists in collaboration with philosophers argue that this tendency to complexify could constitute a natural law of the universe.

Significance The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws do not seem to adequately describe these systems. Recognizing that the identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature, we approach a potential “missing law” by looking for equivalencies among evolving systems. We suggest that all evolving systems—including but not limited to life—are composed of diverse components that can combine into configurational states that are then selected for or against based on function. We then identify the fundamental sources of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—and propose a time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s).

Abstract Physical laws—such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics—codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. We propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving universe. An important feature of the classical laws of physics is the conceptual equivalence of specific characteristics shared by an extensive, seemingly diverse body of natural phenomena. Identifying potential equivalencies among disparate phenomena—for example, falling apples and orbiting moons or hot objects and compressed springs—has been instrumental in advancing the scientific understanding of our world through the articulation of laws of nature. A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function. We identify universal concepts of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—that underpin function and drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system. Accordingly, we propose a “law of increasing functional information”: The functional information of a system will increase (i.e., the system will evolve) if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.

A team of physicists, astrobiologists, and philosophers developed a thesis that they hope to be accepted as a new fundamental law of the universe, the "law of increasing functional information." Many of us familiar with Murray Bookchin's work on social ecological philosophy already know that nature does tend towards increasing variety and diversity. Wong et al. argue that this law of increasing functional information applies to not only the metabolic processes on Earth, but to phenomena all over the universe, a whole universe-wide drama of evolutionary selection of functions that evolve to develop more and more functions and therefore information.

I think it might be interesting for integrating this theory into social ecology and find out what dialogue could emerge from it.

Significance The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws do not seem to adequately describe these systems. Recognizing that the identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature, we approach a potential “missing law” by looking for equivalencies among evolving systems. We suggest that all evolving systems—including but not limited to life—are composed of diverse components that can combine into configurational states that are then selected for or against based on function. We then identify the fundamental sources of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—and propose a time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s).

Abstract Physical laws—such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics—codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. We propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving universe. An important feature of the classical laws of physics is the conceptual equivalence of specific characteristics shared by an extensive, seemingly diverse body of natural phenomena. Identifying potential equivalencies among disparate phenomena—for example, falling apples and orbiting moons or hot objects and compressed springs—has been instrumental in advancing the scientific understanding of our world through the articulation of laws of nature. A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function. We identify universal concepts of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—that underpin function and drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system. Accordingly, we propose a “law of increasing functional information”: The functional information of a system will increase (i.e., the system will evolve) if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.

Vietnam 2021, the mood in the air seems to be that of optimism. The government's relentless pursuit of a Zero-COVID strategy has won them widespread approval both domestically and internationally. The economy managed to squeeze out positive growth whereas many of its neighbours suffered a decline from the pandemic. Yet underneath all this bravado, one could sense that something is amiss. There's this nagging feeling that no one seems to be able to put a finger on. Almost as if, there is a spectre haunting Vietnam, the spectre of communism — the true kind without any bells and whistles.

As Emma Goldman astutely observed, there was no communism in the USSR. The same can be said of present-day Vietnam. The party in power — the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) — has long strayed from the path to communism.

Before the current party leader assumes his third term (2020–2025), he formulated an ambitious road map, in which by 2045 Vietnam would become a “developed” country, on par with Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. To us radicals, this is a betrayal to the working class, indigenous people, and marginalised groups who sacrificed so much for Vietnam's revolution. But as Marxist-Leninists with bright eyes and adamant conviction would tell you, that's all part of the plan™ and 2045 will be the long-awaited year when Vietnam finally advances to a classless, moneyless, and stateless, country.​​​​​​​

However, a closer look at Vietnam's society today would show that the plan is but an illusion, and the promises are mere justification for the ruling class and capitalist class to continue sucking the life out of Vietnam for a while longer. The difference between what the party elites preach and what they allow to happen in reality is that between day and night.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/anarchism/t/36133

One of the many stereotypes included in the generally negative – occasionally Romantic – representations and discourses that have burdened the Romani people is the alleged existence of a natural link between the ‘Gypsy’ way of life and anarchism. This article studies the extent of an actual historical relationship between anarchism as a political worldview and the ‘Gypsy’-Roma ethnic status beyond reductionist stereotypes. It investigates, on the one hand, the agency of Romani subjects in the labour movement and anarchism by means of a case study of Spain in the interwar years, and, on the other, it examines the cases of a number of European emigrants who chose to closely link anarchism as a political option to a Romani identity in their struggle against capitalism and fascism. Both sets of case studies are used to reflect on the political nature of racial-ethnic identity constructions, to question the dilemmas of cultural appropriation and to propose a dense analysis that reveals the historicity of identities of this type.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/1334427

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/post/1110691