Speaker 1: That's my getting absolutely screwed over by the medical establishment voice.
Speaker 1: People thought it was another Sheep podcast. They were briefly
Speaker 1: extremely excited. Nope, the Sheep, the Sheep podcast. Will I
Speaker 1: make no promises about the Sheep podcast. What we're going
Speaker 1: to tell them about the Lost Sheep episode? No, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll try. Will just leave that one. Yeah, this is this,
Speaker 1: this is it could happen here, the podcast where you
Speaker 1: would think that the medical issue is a trans thing
Speaker 1: and it's absolutely not. And it's amazing and I love it.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's it's a podcast for I complain about
Speaker 1: medical issues and talk about other stuff with me as James. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a person who complains about medical issues and sometimes
Speaker 1: goes to Mexico to buy drugs yeay, legal drugs, drugs
Speaker 1: while we're being recorded. This The thing that is making
Speaker 1: me think of is I was in oh god, I
Speaker 1: don't remember where in Mexico I was. Um, I was
Speaker 1: not very old, but so we took up, we took
Speaker 1: off Fairy and it was I got like so C sick.
Speaker 1: It was like the most C sick I've ever been.
Speaker 1: So we had to like go back and um, so
Speaker 1: I this my Spanish is not great. At this time,
Speaker 1: my Spanish was much worse than it is now. Um,
Speaker 1: and we have to we go to this drug store
Speaker 1: and we're trying to find something that's like an anti
Speaker 1: C sickness drug, and we buy this drug called vomisin
Speaker 1: and we're looking same. When we're looking through that the thing,
Speaker 1: we find the part where it's says side effects, and
Speaker 1: I remember and I look at this and I and
Speaker 1: I read it and it says said, I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh god, it wound up. Actually it was
Speaker 1: completely yeah, yeah, I did not vomit over the rails again,
Speaker 1: I mean hydrant on the ferry right back. I have
Speaker 1: a good I have a good inadvertent medicine hallucinogen story,
Speaker 1: and then we can we can actually do the podcast.
Speaker 1: And I was when I was a bit younger. I
Speaker 1: was climbing a mountain Morocco and became extremely altitude sick,
Speaker 1: like my fucking nose was just like unleashing my blood.
Speaker 1: Like it was a real momentum. Yeah, I bad, look great,
Speaker 1: and so I tried to get some medicine. We went
Speaker 1: somewhere and like you, I speak French, but most of
Speaker 1: people spoke Berber and it wasn't a language that I
Speaker 1: speak at all. Anyway, I received some medicine which I
Speaker 1: took in the form of I think like a powder
Speaker 1: that I'm mixed with honey, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is unique and different whatever fuck me, did I
Speaker 1: have some incredible dreams. I just kept taking it because zone, well,
Speaker 1: it was definitely opium was the thing I was taking.
Speaker 1: Was like, I bought it down and was like, I
Speaker 1: this stuff just really helped us my altitude sickness. One
Speaker 1: of the adults I with with was like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: dow drugs kids speaking of not doing drugs. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what we are here today talk about democracy, the opm
Speaker 1: of the masses. Yeah. So this this script was originally
Speaker 1: written in a period where I had spent an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of time being forced to watch documentaries about what
Speaker 1: democracy was. And my conclusion from all of this is
Speaker 1: that the history of democracy begins with a mistranslation. Okay,
Speaker 1: So okay, what does that mean? The answer is that, Okay,
Speaker 1: the whatever someone starts talking about democracy, the first thing
Speaker 1: they do is they go like, I'm gonna start, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna start by translating the word democracy. Now,
Speaker 1: the most common translation that you'll see this like like everywhere,
Speaker 1: from like Astra Taylor's like documentary what is Democracy to
Speaker 1: just like the thing that's on Wikipedia holds that democracy
Speaker 1: is derived from two Greek words. Right, you have demos,
Speaker 1: meaning the people, and cradhouse meaning rule. So you put
Speaker 1: these two together, you get demos cradouse, you get democracy.
Speaker 1: My Greek, my camp announce great, fair well, it's fine whatever.
Speaker 1: It's an ancient Greek. Yeah, but you know this means
Speaker 1: rule by the people, so okay. This translation has simphal
Speaker 1: advantages right foremost among them, it is simple enough to
Speaker 1: be taught to a school to school children, and catchy
Speaker 1: enough that is a non zero chance that like the
Speaker 1: most pedantic of them will remember it after the day
Speaker 1: after the test, which presumably is the explanation for why
Speaker 1: this is. This is the translation of democracy. It opens
Speaker 1: every single fucking thing people right about democracy. Unfortunately, appreciunately
Speaker 1: for beleaguered grade school teachers and and sort of those
Speaker 1: are the broader populace as a whole. This translation is
Speaker 1: so blatantly wrong that I have been forced to start
Speaker 1: a thing about democracy and also about rioting yelling about
Speaker 1: ancient Greek So great, Okay, so what what what? What
Speaker 1: is the actual issue here? The actual problem is the
Speaker 1: mistranslation of Kretos in particular is incredibly important both conceptually
Speaker 1: and ideologically, and the actual sort of proper translation and
Speaker 1: the implications of this are worth examining in some detail.
Speaker 1: So the other problem just David graeberds to we have
Speaker 1: mentioned a lot on this show wrote in his regrettably
Speaker 1: very poorly read essay There Never Was a West. He
Speaker 1: describes Credos thus quote in this in turn, might help
Speaker 1: explain the term democracy itself, which appears to have been
Speaker 1: coined as something of a slur by its elitist opponents.
Speaker 1: It literally means the force or even violence of the
Speaker 1: people Kratos, not arcos, the ancient Greek word for ruler,
Speaker 1: also the root of anarchism or without arcos. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so what he's saying there wasn't Cretos a dude? Like
Speaker 1: he's dude, day I undas sold him an immortal dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's Also he's the main character of the god of
Speaker 1: war games. Okay, that is the thing I did not know.
Speaker 1: And hilariously that that is like him him being the
Speaker 1: main character of the god of war games. That is
Speaker 1: actually a better way to understand what credos is than
Speaker 1: the rule by thing that everyone usually translates. This app
Speaker 1: because like, like ancient Greek has a perfectly good word
Speaker 1: for like rule by right, it's arcos. It's the root
Speaker 1: of anarchisms, like an an archos, it's but it's the word.
Speaker 1: It's like the normal thing where you have a Greek
Speaker 1: derived word where you want to say rule by is
Speaker 1: that is arcos? Right, yeah, but democracy is not that, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: like all gark is like that, but like democracy is
Speaker 1: specifically credos. And this is because what democracy literally means
Speaker 1: is ruled by the violence of the people. Fast. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well and this, you know, okay, so like this, this, this, this,
Speaker 1: like this sounds like I am essentially pearl clutching about translations,
Speaker 1: but the context you is actually important rights, as Grammar
Speaker 1: points out, the sort of you know, Athens, which is
Speaker 1: the example or society, society against which the original antidemocratic
Speaker 1: philosopher is rail By the way, this is like Plato
Speaker 1: hates democracy. Most of the people who you read from
Speaker 1: sort of classical Greek, like, yeah, philosophy despised democracy even
Speaker 1: so they live in them a huge you know, not
Speaker 1: not not not to like whitewash Athenian society, but like
Speaker 1: these people are like Sparta apologists, and it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: we haven't really care. It's funny that people have definitely
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've actually recovered Plato or red
Speaker 1: Plato or they just get mad when Donald Trump doesn't
Speaker 1: win elections. But like this whole, like this whole like
Speaker 1: benevolent philosopher king ship has definitely definitely made a comeback
Speaker 1: in recent years, and it's troubling. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: I think part of this, this is this is another
Speaker 1: complaint that I've had about sort of like the way
Speaker 1: that like the sort of like great authors thing is
Speaker 1: taught in in in universities, is they deliberately like there
Speaker 1: was like an in in what in what specific readings
Speaker 1: they assigned, there was like an incredible intellectual effort that
Speaker 1: goes into making sure you never see the absolutely deranged
Speaker 1: shit that these people believe. Like Plato, Plato literally worships
Speaker 1: angular momentum. Yeah, like that is his god is angular
Speaker 1: momentum um. Like he he he's like he hates democracy.
Speaker 1: He loves like spurred in like oligarchy basically, like all
Speaker 1: of this stuff is like that's like something like you
Speaker 1: don't read and know when you get assigned Plato, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a huge like um, as someone who's taught like
Speaker 1: a ton of universities, that's that's this huge fucking impediment
Speaker 1: to you assigning that stuff. Like I've specifically tried to
Speaker 1: assign different stuff in these like writing courses, which which
Speaker 1: ended up being like great white dudes of history, right Like, um,
Speaker 1: like if you kind of signed different things, but like
Speaker 1: the cost of assigning those and that that cost isn't
Speaker 1: born by you or the university, right, it's born by
Speaker 1: your students is massive. Like even if like for a
Speaker 1: while there, like we would just like a lot of texts,
Speaker 1: you know, if you take the time as a professor
Speaker 1: to label out the text, you can take it to
Speaker 1: a print shop, get them to photocopy it, and it
Speaker 1: almost evigbly you need to find someone who's willing to
Speaker 1: kind of play fast and news with copyright. But still
Speaker 1: it will end up costing your students so much more
Speaker 1: than the texts which are in the book that you
Speaker 1: can fucking autogenerate the quizzes because the book also has
Speaker 1: a website and you still get paid like you're doing
Speaker 1: a job when you're not. So yeah yeah and bad yeah.
Speaker 1: And this stuff has had you know, like this has
Speaker 1: had sort of profound ideological influences, has had you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's has sort of profound it's a profound influences
Speaker 1: on like the I mean just sort of the way
Speaker 1: that like ancient Greece and Rome or conceptualized and and
Speaker 1: and I think this also really has uh you know,
Speaker 1: it hasn't It makes it very hard to see what
Speaker 1: was sort of actually going on in a place like Athens.
Speaker 1: And you know, a great grapar sort of points this
Speaker 1: out right, like Athens is a sort of like exemplar
Speaker 1: I like, you know sort of it's as sort of
Speaker 1: an examplar, like it is literally like the place for
Speaker 1: which like like most descriptions of sort of democracy are
Speaker 1: are are sort of originally about and Athens. You know,
Speaker 1: we are trained to think of Athens as like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like, well Athens, this is like the first democracy
Speaker 1: or whatever. This is like actually this is actually like
Speaker 1: a very normal sort of society and it's not this
Speaker 1: is a this is an extremely weird society. And what
Speaker 1: what what Grapar sort of points out about this, right
Speaker 1: is you know the thing that that is you know, okay,
Speaker 1: so like there have been lots of societies over sort
Speaker 1: of the course of human like the you know, hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of years in the sort of like course
Speaker 1: of human history that I've had collaborative decision making systems.
Speaker 1: What is very, very weird and almost unique about Athens
Speaker 1: is it has two things put together. It has a
Speaker 1: decision making apparatus where people have equal say, and it
Speaker 1: also has a violent enforcement mechanism to impose the will
Speaker 1: of the people on other people and as you know,
Speaker 1: as we'll get to you in a second, also impose
Speaker 1: the will of those people on other people. Most society, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that that that turns out to be a very
Speaker 1: important part of sort of vening empire, et cetera. Exaction
Speaker 1: like who the people are? Yeah, this is people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we'll get to that in a second too. But
Speaker 1: so so most societies, grape or argues either have one
Speaker 1: or the other of you know, having a having like
Speaker 1: a decision making apparatus people of equal say, and a
Speaker 1: violent enforcement mechanism right, You have a lot of societies
Speaker 1: with collective decision making apparatus is that involve the entire community.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, these these processes in varyably sort
Speaker 1: of like develop some kind of consensus process as a
Speaker 1: sort of expedient to keep the community from just tearing
Speaker 1: itself apart through costs of conflict, right, because like, okay,
Speaker 1: like if you can't actually without the threat of force, right,
Speaker 1: you can't actually have society where you constantly have really
Speaker 1: really controversial decisions being made by like fifty one forty
Speaker 1: nine splits where both sides absolutely hate each other and
Speaker 1: one side as imposed over the other. Right, And in
Speaker 1: order to sort of like keep your like, you know,
Speaker 1: your like city or your state together, right, you have
Speaker 1: to actually create political solutions that you know, people people,
Speaker 1: not not that they necessarily like fully agree with, but
Speaker 1: that they're willing to live with. And then you know,
Speaker 1: this generates sort of like various so increasingly elaborate, sometimes
Speaker 1: not very elabab but you know, various sort of forms
Speaker 1: of consensus processes. On the other hand, you have societies
Speaker 1: with extremely violent enforcement mechanisms, but these societies are almost
Speaker 1: always incredibly hierarchical and they're ruled either by to monarchs
Speaker 1: or oligarchs who just simply do not care about the
Speaker 1: notion that like people should rule themselves or that you know,
Speaker 1: other like other other people who are not like the
Speaker 1: king or the body of oligarchs, should have like anything
Speaker 1: even remotely to do with making decisions. And that that's
Speaker 1: what makes Athens really weird, right is Athens has both
Speaker 1: of these things. It has a sort of it has
Speaker 1: like a violent it has a way of like imposing
Speaker 1: decisions on people through violence. And also it has this
Speaker 1: principle that like people should be able to make decisions
Speaker 1: for themselves collectively by you know, like through through through
Speaker 1: a sort of process that doesn't involve them all being
Speaker 1: ruled by just like some guy. And you know what
Speaker 1: makes Athens or the other and the other sort of
Speaker 1: Greek democracies, because there are there are other democracies in
Speaker 1: Greece over the sort of period that this goes on.
Speaker 1: What makes them unique is that, like the people quote
Speaker 1: unquote is composed largely of soldiers, as Grabory puts it,
Speaker 1: in other words, if a man is armed, then one
Speaker 1: pretty much has to take his opinion into account. One
Speaker 1: can see how this works and its starkist and Xenophon's
Speaker 1: anabasis I have been I have now been told by
Speaker 1: several dictionary sites that this is, in fact how you
Speaker 1: pronounced it. I don't know. Annabassis sounds terrible to me,
Speaker 1: but such as the will of of I don't know dictionaries,
Speaker 1: which tells the story of a Greek army of mercenaries
Speaker 1: who suddenly find themselves leaderless and lost in the middle
Speaker 1: of Persia. They elect new officers and then hold a
Speaker 1: collective vote to decide what to do next. In a
Speaker 1: case like this, even if the vote was actually sixty forty,
Speaker 1: everyone could see the balance of forces in what would
Speaker 1: happen if things actually came to blows. Every vote was
Speaker 1: in a real sense a conquest. So what we're dealing
Speaker 1: with here right in this is this is sort of
Speaker 1: what democracy is is very rawest form. Is you are
Speaker 1: dealing with a group of very heavily armed men who
Speaker 1: need to find a way to convince slightly more than
Speaker 1: half of the group to agree to help them impose
Speaker 1: their rule on everyone else. Do you know what I
Speaker 1: will get you? Do you do? You? Do you know
Speaker 1: who will fail to pay your mercenary contract? Leaving you
Speaker 1: stranded in the middle of a Persian civil war which
Speaker 1: you have backed the wrong side. Vladimir Putin. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: take mercenary contracts in Vladimir Putin. And we're back. So,
Speaker 1: you know, as I was sort of saying, well, what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with here, right, we have a group of
Speaker 1: very heavily armed men and they they need they need
Speaker 1: to find a way to make you know, they need
Speaker 1: to find a way to make like half of like
Speaker 1: slightly more than half of the group agree with them
Speaker 1: to impose their sort of rule on everyone else. So
Speaker 1: it's slightly more technical terms, right, Athenian, you know, Athenian
Speaker 1: democracy or democracy in the Athenian sense, it's composed of
Speaker 1: two code determining elements fused together. There is a decision
Speaker 1: making apparatus and an enforcement mechanism. The two are code
Speaker 1: determining because the structure of the enforcement mechanism, which is
Speaker 1: fifty one blokes with sticks beating forty nine blokes with
Speaker 1: sticks over the head, also determines the structure of the
Speaker 1: decision making apparatus, which no longer needs to concern itself
Speaker 1: with the opinion of everyone in the group, as they
Speaker 1: would in a society without the ability to sort of
Speaker 1: employ violence to enforce decisions as long as they have
Speaker 1: enough people to sort of militarily defeat a minority of
Speaker 1: the group. Right, you know, you could you could see
Speaker 1: how the structure, how the enforcement mechanism is is the
Speaker 1: thing that is structuring what the decision making process has
Speaker 1: to look like. Right. It's the thing that sort of
Speaker 1: sets its limits. And this something that it turns out,
Speaker 1: is very very sort of important in what a democracy is.
Speaker 1: The enforcement mechanism, too, is also determined by the sort
Speaker 1: of decision making apparatus. Because the people here are soldiers.
Speaker 1: So the fifty one percent that becomes the sort of
Speaker 1: like basis of the democratic majority rule. You know, it
Speaker 1: literally composes the enforcement mechanism itself. And this sort of
Speaker 1: double code determination is the origin of majority rule democracy. Right,
Speaker 1: the institution that you know, in various forms, and we
Speaker 1: will get into this like this has gotten increasingly less
Speaker 1: and less quote unquote democratic over time, but this specific
Speaker 1: form is the thing that has come to sort of
Speaker 1: define what democracy is. If we look at what democracy
Speaker 1: is as a political project, though, right, what we see
Speaker 1: is that the essence of democracy itself is to transform
Speaker 1: the majority from a simple count of military strength into
Speaker 1: into a signal of morality. Right, The citizens of democracies,
Speaker 1: and even even a lot of people who are either
Speaker 1: not citizens of a democracy and live in it or
Speaker 1: who don't live in a democracy, simply believe that is
Speaker 1: the more or all right for a majority of people
Speaker 1: to be able to impose the will in a minority.
Speaker 1: This is this is just this you know, this this this,
Speaker 1: this is what. This is what forms a kind of
Speaker 1: democratic common sense. Right. It is the thing that everyone
Speaker 1: believes that is sort of the basis of everything about
Speaker 1: how a democracy functions. Right, And you know, democracy is
Speaker 1: almost never framed this way explicitly except by you know,
Speaker 1: every once in a while you'll get someone who makes
Speaker 1: his argument who is like I don't know, they're a
Speaker 1: billionaire or they're like, you know, what's his name? I yeah,
Speaker 1: high em will like like if you press him, or
Speaker 1: like Milton Freeman to also well like if you press him,
Speaker 1: will make this argument, right, which is like no one
Speaker 1: actually wants to live in a democracy, because you know,
Speaker 1: like if you you know, if if we actually live
Speaker 1: in a democracy, everyone will just like increase our tax
Speaker 1: rate or like marginalized groups will like these are critiques
Speaker 1: made of the United States as well. Yeah. The earliest inception, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I know, what's his name, I think it was,
Speaker 1: I think was John Adams. So some of the early founders,
Speaker 1: like very explicitly is their argument against, like maye various
Speaker 1: was the anti democratic arguments against giving anyone who didn't
Speaker 1: have property the vote, which was, like, I think that
Speaker 1: the exact line was, if you give people the vote,
Speaker 1: the first thing they will do is erase the debts
Speaker 1: and redistribute the land. Yeah, which was all ast rebellion
Speaker 1: about this, right, yeah, yeah, I wish would have been
Speaker 1: based a good program usually kind of kind of messed
Speaker 1: up in the US where you have to ask where
Speaker 1: that land comes from. But you know, yeah, but like, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is an argument you really only ever
Speaker 1: hear from people who have like the only minority that
Speaker 1: makes this argument are people who have a ship ton
Speaker 1: of property, who are like, oh god, and you know,
Speaker 1: and their their thing here is, well, okay, we need
Speaker 1: to make the system blessed democratics so that people can't
Speaker 1: take our property away, yeah, or give property rights. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, the reason for sort of
Speaker 1: pointing out that this is what democracy is in theory
Speaker 1: is really sort of cynical and like reactionary. But the
Speaker 1: thing that the reason this argument works quote quote works
Speaker 1: with sort of like you know, with with sort of libertarians,
Speaker 1: is that this equation of of sort of numerical superiority
Speaker 1: with the more right to exercise power is like the
Speaker 1: key underlying assumption of democracy. It is the idea without
Speaker 1: which democracy simply seizes the function. Right. But but this
Speaker 1: is something that you know, people don't talk about democracy
Speaker 1: like this, right. The sort of trick of the democratic
Speaker 1: system is to make is to push the enforcement mechanism
Speaker 1: into the background. Right when when when you talk about
Speaker 1: democracy with like regular people, the thing that they walk
Speaker 1: and they normally they think about voting, right, But you know,
Speaker 1: and any any kind of thing that is like a
Speaker 1: collective like decision making process, right, a regular person is
Speaker 1: going to call democracy. And you know, there if that's
Speaker 1: kind of true. But but you know, but if if
Speaker 1: if you want to sort of get like technical about it,
Speaker 1: it's not. And there's an there's an incredibly large ideological
Speaker 1: apparatus that's specifically built up around making sure that people
Speaker 1: don't look at the way that the that the enforcement
Speaker 1: mechanism is as much, if not more so, a sort
Speaker 1: of key element of what of what democracy is than
Speaker 1: the part where you know, where everyone comes together and
Speaker 1: make it makes a decision that everyone talks about all
Speaker 1: the time. I was watching an interview with Gray But
Speaker 1: the other day such other things I do in my
Speaker 1: free time, and he was talking about like democratic confederalism
Speaker 1: in Northeast Syria, right, and he talked about it as
Speaker 1: like democracy without the state, which I think it's interesting,
Speaker 1: like it's him using that vernacular yeah definition, So okay,
Speaker 1: So I think I'm taking a lot of the arguments
Speaker 1: from self grabber wrote, but he backs away from the
Speaker 1: implications of his own argument, right yeah, and goes back
Speaker 1: to albeit like caveating there were and I guess it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that there are a ton of like hugely
Speaker 1: divergent like we're not like prisoners of etymology, right, like
Speaker 1: like yeah them meaning like I think it's Rosa Luxem
Speaker 1: who said government is uh politics into people's interests or
Speaker 1: something that it's kind of bullshit tanky interpretation of that.
Speaker 1: Most people would see it as there are these broad definitions,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think this is something that like
Speaker 1: like Asher Taylor's documentary, right, like you know the part
Speaker 1: about that's good. Right, it's like there's I forget who
Speaker 1: says that there's this like kind of famous political line
Speaker 1: that's like I if if if if if there if
Speaker 1: there is a thing that everyone agrees is good, no
Speaker 1: one will agree on what it is, right, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is something that like you know, like I think
Speaker 1: I think it's it speaks to the power I think
Speaker 1: it sas specifically to the power of the sort of
Speaker 1: like like the idea that more people being like agreeing
Speaker 1: with something like gives gives legitimate gives legitimacy to that thing,
Speaker 1: which is that like every like like even societies that
Speaker 1: are like not even like really remotely democratic. Right, We'll
Speaker 1: pretend that there's soul democracies, right, like the Batists have
Speaker 1: elections every sort of like yeah, I mean like like
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is the thing I think
Speaker 1: isn't very well understood, but like like this this was
Speaker 1: also a thing like for example, China has this like okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: I I I as as as I'm preparing to explain this,
Speaker 1: I'm realizing that the China wa like the like Chinese
Speaker 1: government experts are going to get mad at me because
Speaker 1: I'm I think, I think I'm about to confuse the
Speaker 1: United the United Front with the United Front Works Department.
Speaker 1: But so chin China, like technically speaking, is there are
Speaker 1: like other parties technically that are kind of remnants from
Speaker 1: like you know, for exact example, like the left faction
Speaker 1: of the KMT, which is like the Chinese Nationalist Party. Right,
Speaker 1: there's there's like technically a faction of them that's part
Speaker 1: of this thing called like the United Fronts. There's like
Speaker 1: technically other parties and they have like this like consultative role.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's an incredibly convoluted and elaborate system, but
Speaker 1: you know, like that whole thing and you you you
Speaker 1: can find you know, like the Chinese system is like
Speaker 1: not it's not democratic in this sense of like you
Speaker 1: can like vote for someone or like like okay, like
Speaker 1: it's not democratic in the sense of you can make
Speaker 1: a vote that will make a thing happen, right, you know.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, the US is also not democratic
Speaker 1: in the sense of you can cast a vote and
Speaker 1: make a thing happen, right, But this is sort of
Speaker 1: like you know, okay, like it is. It is a
Speaker 1: in a society that is less democratic than the US,
Speaker 1: which is sort of astounding considering the US like doesn't
Speaker 1: even have one person, one vote. Right. Well, we'll get
Speaker 1: into like republics a bit in a second, but like
Speaker 1: you know, like Chinese like quote unquote democracy is like
Speaker 1: not it has very little to do with like the
Speaker 1: principle of like the mote, like fifty one percent of
Speaker 1: the population votes for a thing and it happened for it.
Speaker 1: But but you know, like if if if you if
Speaker 1: you look, if you look at the sort of rhetoric
Speaker 1: that you that you see from or in the internal
Speaker 1: justification of like like you know you sort of like
Speaker 1: read chinesecratic documents, so you read sort of like that
Speaker 1: their pr stuff. Like they constantly talk about like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make a more democratic society because like that
Speaker 1: legit amas like the idea of democracy is really incredibly
Speaker 1: powerful and enduring, and it's something that like even like
Speaker 1: you know, like I mean, like I don't know, like
Speaker 1: the Saudis don't pretend to be a democracy really, but
Speaker 1: like most of the other like golf monarchies have like
Speaker 1: election ee things, right, Like it's it's it's an idea
Speaker 1: that is that is enduring and powerful enough that even
Speaker 1: people who don't agree with it are forced to sort
Speaker 1: of like do this pageantry of it. And I think
Speaker 1: that's really interesting, and I think it explains a lot
Speaker 1: of the kind of I mean, especially around to occupy,
Speaker 1: but I think it explains a lot of the kind
Speaker 1: of political movements that we've been seeing over the last
Speaker 1: about fifteen years, which is I think this is also
Speaker 1: an explanation for why why we see so many riots
Speaker 1: as as a former as as a form of politics,
Speaker 1: and why you get these demands that are sort of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you like in the two thousand eleven revolutions,
Speaker 1: and so you sort of also see this now you
Speaker 1: get a lot of sort of very abstract calls for
Speaker 1: a democracy while also doing things that like are quote
Speaker 1: unquote not legitimate in a democratic society, like like rioting
Speaker 1: is not supposed to be sort of like a legitimate
Speaker 1: political action in a society because you know, like there's
Speaker 1: this whole like the AA, because there's a system under
Speaker 1: which violence is supposed to be administered, administered right like
Speaker 1: you have a state. The state is the thing that's
Speaker 1: supposed to do violence. If anyone else does it outside
Speaker 1: of that, they're like, you know, they're an illegitimate extremist.
Speaker 1: But okay, if if we go back to our sort
Speaker 1: of based definition of what democracy is, right, democracy is
Speaker 1: a collective decision making apparatus anti enforcement mechanism. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: what is a riot? Right? A riot is both of
Speaker 1: those things happening at the same time. There are a
Speaker 1: bunch of people collectively making a decision and then imposing
Speaker 1: that decision immediately. Yeah, it's ap Thompson who quote the
Speaker 1: Leadites collective bargaining by riot quite possibly. Yeah, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's often like reference now and other stuff like like
Speaker 1: people talk about like you know, like your your here,
Speaker 1: that youth all the time. I think they're the original
Speaker 1: that is, um, what is it Eric Hobbsborn could be
Speaker 1: Hobbsborn anyway. Yeah. Famously the Laddites were called collective bargaining
Speaker 1: by riot. Yeah, I think, well, I think there is
Speaker 1: something sort of interesting there about collective bargaining by sort
Speaker 1: of physical force. It's like the decision making apparatus is
Speaker 1: happening outside of the sort of normal bounds in which
Speaker 1: decision making apparatus is supposed to happen, And I think
Speaker 1: I think there's there's a sort of this isn't there's
Speaker 1: another I forget exactly which graver thing this is from,
Speaker 1: but that you know there's graver there's actually this might
Speaker 1: actually be from about Batman, which is pretty funny. Um.
Speaker 1: What's what's his take on Alfred's class status? I don't
Speaker 1: think he unfortunately, I think that's I think that's the
Speaker 1: one thing he doesn't mentioned. Pretty I'm pretty sure there's
Speaker 1: no Alfred discourse in it. There's lots of other discourse.
Speaker 1: He calls how is it banging it? No, he calls joker,
Speaker 1: he calls one of the Batman villains of Zerzanite, which
Speaker 1: I think is very funny. Um. Yeah, but you know, okay,
Speaker 1: he has this argument about sort of like okay, how
Speaker 1: do you you know? So? So the the other part
Speaker 1: of democracy is it is the part about the people, right,
Speaker 1: And this is always the thing that's that's very much
Speaker 1: in contention, like how do you determine what the people
Speaker 1: quote unquote are? And you know the structure of Athenians
Speaker 1: society is very much determined by who isn't isn't included
Speaker 1: in the people, right, Like, you know, women can't vote.
Speaker 1: If you're a slave, you also can't vote. There are
Speaker 1: lots of people who are directly under Athenian rule who
Speaker 1: can't vote and are you know, not part of the people,
Speaker 1: and therefore sort of like and and this this is
Speaker 1: in some sense the origin of like sort the trajectory
Speaker 1: democracy goes on, right, which is that it goes through
Speaker 1: his republicanism, because you know, like the founders of the US, right,
Speaker 1: if you look at this, that style of fifty fifty
Speaker 1: plus one style majority democracy, right, those guys, you know,
Speaker 1: as we talked about, like they didn't want a democracy
Speaker 1: because they thought into democracy people would vote against their
Speaker 1: sort of like aristocratic interests. Yeah, and so what they
Speaker 1: sign it? Yeah, like yeah, it's like, well, all these
Speaker 1: people own slaves, all these people own a bunch of land,
Speaker 1: all these people like I don't know, or like bankers
Speaker 1: and shit. And they're like, Okay, so it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a bad idea if we let people like decide what
Speaker 1: to do with our stuff. So instead, you know, they
Speaker 1: go to this republican structure. And the republican structure is
Speaker 1: I think very interesting because it takes the fifty plus
Speaker 1: one structure, right, but you know, it abstracts it to
Speaker 1: the point where like the like you like, your vote
Speaker 1: for the most part basically simply does not matter. Like
Speaker 1: every once in a while, like a local election, it
Speaker 1: can do something. But you know, like what what's actually happening,
Speaker 1: right is is you are like you you are selecting
Speaker 1: who is going to rule you. And you know, the
Speaker 1: other part of this is that the enforcement mechanism becomes
Speaker 1: autonomous from the people itself, because you know, unlike unlike
Speaker 1: an Athenian thing where like everyone's either like on a
Speaker 1: ship because they're like a they're you know, they're part
Speaker 1: of the navy, or they like you know, they can
Speaker 1: go strap on their fucking shield and like plates and
Speaker 1: grabbed your big ass spear, right, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was like, ok, well, this is this is the state, right,
Speaker 1: the state is like fucking Jerry and his friend like
Speaker 1: Patricklis or whatever the fuck, you know, like forming forming
Speaker 1: a shield wall with the like the shields they have
Speaker 1: at home. You know. But but you know, and that's
Speaker 1: the thing like in in in in sort of like
Speaker 1: warrior democracies of that out like there are there are
Speaker 1: sort like the Cassatra republic. I think that's it. Um,
Speaker 1: they're they're these sort of like they're like you know,
Speaker 1: they're like they're they're there there. There are republics like
Speaker 1: this or quote unquote republic like this that that that
Speaker 1: exists in in various places in the world where you
Speaker 1: have these sort of like military classes that you know,
Speaker 1: like do fifty plus one, but those people, right, the
Speaker 1: enforcement mechanism is very is very very direct. In a republic,
Speaker 1: the enforcement mechanism becomes autonomous and also the decision making
Speaker 1: apparatus becomes both both of them become autonomous from like
Speaker 1: the people quote unquote who are supposed to be making
Speaker 1: the decisions, and suddenly you have the situation where you know, okay,
Speaker 1: if you live in the US, right, it is very
Speaker 1: very clear that there are lots of things that everyone
Speaker 1: supports that simply like are not is not like like
Speaker 1: it's not happening right like you know, I mean you
Speaker 1: can look at sort of like universal healthcare, like I mean,
Speaker 1: for another example that we could take that's I think
Speaker 1: for poignant right now, is like there was a pretty
Speaker 1: recent study on like what percentage of the population in
Speaker 1: the US supports trans people getting like friends affirming healthcare
Speaker 1: and it was like seventy percent. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I mean but you know, you look at a state
Speaker 1: by state basis, right, and it's like what we'll be
Speaker 1: talking about this more or sort of later, but you know,
Speaker 1: basis like, well, that's not fucking happening, right, people are
Speaker 1: just making it illegal. And it's very easy to look
Speaker 1: at this and go like, well, okay, so the principle
Speaker 1: of fifty plus one is being violated, right, Like, this
Speaker 1: is not a democracy. Something something else has happens. One
Speaker 1: sort of solution to this is to go back to
Speaker 1: you know, is to very literally go back and ask
Speaker 1: the question who is the people? And and this is
Speaker 1: this is you know a lot of ways what occupy
Speaker 1: is doing right, Like occupies answer this is like we
Speaker 1: are the ninety nine percent, right, It's okay, So like
Speaker 1: there there there is a thing that is claiming to
Speaker 1: be the like the demos in in democracy, which is
Speaker 1: you know, Congress, right, but like, okay, Congress trivially is
Speaker 1: not the people rights and the best a section of them.
Speaker 1: It is definitionally in any in any yeah, right, you know,
Speaker 1: and okay, so you have you have lots of versions
Speaker 1: of this like the American one tends to be a
Speaker 1: lot of people sitting in square, you know, but like
Speaker 1: like like can actually convening a something that's kind of
Speaker 1: like a democracy. But even but unless everything was like
Speaker 1: is occupy democracy, right, Like, they don't have violence as
Speaker 1: like a political tool. Really. I mean this isn't to
Speaker 1: say that like there wasn't some weird, shady shit that happens,
Speaker 1: but like, you know, like they don't have the ability
Speaker 1: to sort of like coerce people into accepting like a
Speaker 1: fifty one percent decision that people like genuine they can't
Speaker 1: live list right, So so they don't they don't really
Speaker 1: like they in some sense in challenging democracy, they create
Speaker 1: something that isn't really a democracy, right, They create a
Speaker 1: sort of like elaborateate census process. And this is you know,
Speaker 1: like if if the Kratos pot is I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of a way I've been trying to think for
Speaker 1: ten minutes about way to phrase this, but like if
Speaker 1: the if the strength and power is like is the
Speaker 1: people and it's even distributed among the people as opposed
Speaker 1: to it's a state, and like if some of this
Speaker 1: theoretical abstraction of the will of the majority of the people,
Speaker 1: then that that leads to a consensus almost by definition, right,
Speaker 1: like like if yeah, well, I mean I think I
Speaker 1: think the sort of breaking principle here is if you
Speaker 1: think that it is legitimate to use for a group
Speaker 1: of people to use violence to enforce something, and at
Speaker 1: that point everyone is still armed, then then you you
Speaker 1: get a fifty plus one structure, right, right. But if
Speaker 1: if you don't think it's legitimate to use violence to
Speaker 1: coerce people into sort of like doing whatever the thing
Speaker 1: is you want to enforce, then by definition you get
Speaker 1: some kind of consensus process. But you know, we have
Speaker 1: a system that every everyone like thinks that what's happening,
Speaker 1: like you know, in some sense, like the ideological principle
Speaker 1: is that like you know, everyone thinks that what's happening
Speaker 1: is is you have a fifty plus one system. And
Speaker 1: that's where like the legitimacy of the system comes from,
Speaker 1: because like, you know, we voted for these people, but
Speaker 1: also it's so clearly not and also like the police
Speaker 1: are so clearly just this sort of like roaming like
Speaker 1: bandit force that is like not even like remotely like
Speaker 1: it like they technically drawl agen missy from the people.
Speaker 1: But like you know, okay, like what what what what
Speaker 1: what what happens if you try to convene an assembly
Speaker 1: of the people in the US. The answer is they
Speaker 1: beat the shit out of you with sticks and then
Speaker 1: tear gas you and then like start shooting you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, I mean this is this is sort
Speaker 1: of what you know, like like this this is what
Speaker 1: occupy proved, right, which is like if if you challenge
Speaker 1: the sort of the claim of the government to represent
Speaker 1: the people, right, because like who who the fuck are
Speaker 1: these assholes to like to be like a hey, no,
Speaker 1: like we we we are the people. We are sort
Speaker 1: of like the legitimate manifestation of people. If you want
Speaker 1: to do anything, like you have to go through us.
Speaker 1: Well it's like okay, so like how how did how
Speaker 1: did they get that? How did they get that authority? Right?
Speaker 1: And the answer is they did it. They did it
Speaker 1: by staging an Ard revolution and that that that's what
Speaker 1: they're legion, that's what they're act. Legitimacy derives from, right,
Speaker 1: is they they want they won the Arge Revolution, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and violently dispossess people of that before the diet that
Speaker 1: like backing off colonialism to do an armed revolution, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so like okay, but like you know there their
Speaker 1: legitimacy is incredibly tenuous, right, Like this gives you this
Speaker 1: question of how do you determine like what you know,
Speaker 1: how does a democracy determine what the people are? And
Speaker 1: one one way that you can make a sort of
Speaker 1: counterclaim again against a democracy is by a like physically
Speaker 1: assembling a ship ton of people in a place and
Speaker 1: going like we are like physically we are the people
Speaker 1: and we are going to make decisions. And you know
Speaker 1: that that can that can look like occupy with like
Speaker 1: a seven hour meeting about whether where we want to
Speaker 1: put plants right, or it can look and this is
Speaker 1: you know, you get this a bit and occupy but
Speaker 1: like or it can look like you know, here are
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people like they are going to fight
Speaker 1: there once you just like throw shit at the police
Speaker 1: until the police run away. And you know that that
Speaker 1: is that that that is a that is a thing
Speaker 1: that like we have seen in this country. This this
Speaker 1: will be like another episode, but this this this was
Speaker 1: a thing that happens in Mexico on three thousand and
Speaker 1: six in Wahaka, where people basically ran out the police
Speaker 1: by literally hundreds of thousands of people Like wait, wait,
Speaker 1: waking up to a bunch of police, like a bunch
Speaker 1: of police just beating the ship out of like a
Speaker 1: bunch of striking teachers and then like picking up a
Speaker 1: brick and throwing it. You see it a little bit,
Speaker 1: not really but like in like Podemos in Spain if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with that, Yeah, like they kind of their
Speaker 1: attempt to have people determined their policy platform but not
Speaker 1: last year successful one. But like yeah, well, I mean interesting,
Speaker 1: Obama did that too. I really yeah, this was the
Speaker 1: thing Obama had this job. Like one of Obama's initial
Speaker 1: pitches was like he was gonna have there's gonna be
Speaker 1: this like online thing where people could vote and like
Speaker 1: decide in policy things, and he immediately manded it. And
Speaker 1: Podemos also immediately like this, this is this is one
Speaker 1: of the things that like this is this is like
Speaker 1: one of the ways you try to like capture this
Speaker 1: kind of like yeah, because what what what what you're
Speaker 1: what you're really like when when when riot police are
Speaker 1: like fighting like a bunch of people in the street, right,
Speaker 1: Like what what you're watching is is two kinds of
Speaker 1: democracy fighting with each other. Right, You're you're, you're, you're
Speaker 1: watching a sort of like like you're you're you're watching
Speaker 1: the crowd, which is and you know, a very very
Speaker 1: immediate like for like you know, literal form of democracy
Speaker 1: right where you know, the crowd makes a decision and
Speaker 1: people do things fighting the police, who are like a
Speaker 1: very you know, the like the police are technically like
Speaker 1: a part of a democratic system, right, but the police
Speaker 1: are just purely the sort of like like they're they're
Speaker 1: they're you know, they they they they are the violence
Speaker 1: by which the people rule. And you you are watching,
Speaker 1: but you're watching these two things sort of like clash
Speaker 1: with each other. And you know, I mean I I
Speaker 1: think I think one of the sort of like products
Speaker 1: of of of the way that republicanism like specifically developed
Speaker 1: or like a republicanism in the sense of like this
Speaker 1: is a republic that a democracy like yeah small like
Speaker 1: yeah small r but also in the sense of like, okay,
Speaker 1: so instead of you voting on things directly like you know,
Speaker 1: you vote for some asshole who yeah funding, yeah whatever,
Speaker 1: right like that that sort of like unmooring of of
Speaker 1: of the means of violence from the people, which was
Speaker 1: you know which was is the essence of democracy good
Speaker 1: or bad? Right? And and and I would also say,
Speaker 1: like you know that can go like that that sort
Speaker 1: of like having having violence and democracy like you know,
Speaker 1: violence and decision making being paired together, Like that's not
Speaker 1: always a good thing. That can go really really badly, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, because like like for example, like a
Speaker 1: race riot, right, like like a clan march right is technical,
Speaker 1: like is technically an expression of democracy, right? It is
Speaker 1: you know, it is a group of people convening themselves
Speaker 1: as the people and then doing an action. And you know,
Speaker 1: and you like I this has been something I've been
Speaker 1: sort of been forced to think about it a lot
Speaker 1: with the anti trans laws, which is that like trans
Speaker 1: people are like you know, the most optimistic estimate you
Speaker 1: could like have is like maybe two and a half
Speaker 1: percent of the population if you assume visible to people
Speaker 1: who are trans and don't know that they're trans, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, and if if you were two and
Speaker 1: a half percent of the population in a in a
Speaker 1: fifty plus one system, it is very easy for fifty
Speaker 1: one there is no physical way that you can have
Speaker 1: like if fifty plus one percent of the population decides
Speaker 1: to kill you while there's nothing you can do, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's no amount of like voting that you
Speaker 1: can do that will make you not die, because that
Speaker 1: that's the sort of like the terinat of the majority
Speaker 1: or whatever like or like that. Yeah, yeah, have you're
Speaker 1: familiar with, like the argument it gets utilitarianism that like
Speaker 1: the greatest good for the greatest number, or the greatest
Speaker 1: happiness for the greatest number, if you're looking to serve
Speaker 1: the greatest happiness the greatest number. If like ten people
Speaker 1: get two units of happiness from beating one person to
Speaker 1: death with sticks, yeah, yeah, and then like the kon
Speaker 1: experience as much sadness as the experienced happiness, like yeah,
Speaker 1: democratic impulse in action. Yeah, and you know, like this
Speaker 1: is the thing that is again what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: like is normally brought up by like incredibly corrupt, corrupted
Speaker 1: sort of vital the leads who want to protect their status,
Speaker 1: but like it is also you know, and like this
Speaker 1: is part of the reason why, for example, the US
Speaker 1: just fucking puts like immigrants to camps, right because they
Speaker 1: can't fucking vote, right, Like they're they're not part of
Speaker 1: like quote unquote the people, right, Like there are large
Speaker 1: sections of the populations who are just you know, like
Speaker 1: booted from this entire process, right. Um. This is an
Speaker 1: argument that William C. Anderson and Zoe Samoods you make
Speaker 1: in the book as Blackness Resistance, which is that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like black people like fucking are not part of the ship, right,
Speaker 1: Like they're not like a constituent of like part of
Speaker 1: the people TM right yeah, And you know this they
Speaker 1: they they call this, they call this the anarchism of blackness, um,
Speaker 1: which is this sort of like it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: position of being like removed as like a legit of
Speaker 1: it sort of like subject in the state. Who can
Speaker 1: you know, exercise you're like democratic rights or whatever the
Speaker 1: fuck it is, like yeah, okay, like lots of people
Speaker 1: have never had this, and you know this, even even
Speaker 1: even in this sort of like you know, relatively egalitari
Speaker 1: like you know, like there there have been like parts
Speaker 1: of the US, like especially the early US. Right. You
Speaker 1: have your like sort of like New England town council. Ryan,
Speaker 1: It's like, well, what is what is your New England
Speaker 1: Town council all to do? It's like, well, a vote
Speaker 1: to send out the fucking militia to kill indigenous people, right, like,
Speaker 1: you know, even you can even even even when the
Speaker 1: US has functioned as something that is closer to like
Speaker 1: a like democracy TM, where like the means of violence
Speaker 1: and the means of sort of decision making are actually
Speaker 1: placed in direct directly in people's hands, right, Like that
Speaker 1: doesn't always go well, but yeah, you know, but like
Speaker 1: you know, we we we we we have now developed
Speaker 1: a like we we we we developed a system that
Speaker 1: has like the worst of every single parts of every
Speaker 1: single aspect of this right We're like, okay, so we
Speaker 1: we have fifty plus one as the sort of like
Speaker 1: legitimating factor, but also fifty perside of the population plus
Speaker 1: one does not actually vote for a thing. It is
Speaker 1: possible for like more than half of the popular It's
Speaker 1: possible for a majority of the population to vote for
Speaker 1: a BUSINESSO canidate you get a different one, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's possible. Like we've seen this, like so many fucking
Speaker 1: elections have had this now like two in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: like like and and also also we have we we
Speaker 1: have the other part of it, which is that we
Speaker 1: also have like the we have the other democratic principle
Speaker 1: of like you should be able to enforce a political
Speaker 1: opinion by violence. Yeah, we got that in space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know again, guests get guests gets like get
Speaker 1: guess guess who fucking guests to make that decision. It's
Speaker 1: not fifty plus one of you. Like, it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of assholes and suits and like six cops. I think
Speaker 1: a good way to view the US. It's like a
Speaker 1: bunch of landowners native system where land votes and people don't. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and then and then you know, and then and then
Speaker 1: they went about making sure that like even if the
Speaker 1: land does vote for a thing, if it's not for yourself,
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen or seventy Yeah, there's seventy five weird
Speaker 1: dudes in between your vote and anything actually happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is how you get like this kind of constitutional
Speaker 1: magic the trumpets are always trying to do because like
Speaker 1: it's not actually like that far from reality, right there,
Speaker 1: there are like seventeen magic incantations I have to get
Speaker 1: said after you put your ballot in the box, and
Speaker 1: then an old white dude's in charge again. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, I think, like, you know, the US system
Speaker 1: is like it's stunningly bad, Like it's it's it's like
Speaker 1: a it's a really dogshit like tooroughly written democratic system
Speaker 1: like it is it is designed not to function like that.
Speaker 1: That that was actually the point. Yeah, Yeah, there's like
Speaker 1: a there's a king, a thing that like you shouldn't have,
Speaker 1: like the fur the president is supposed to it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be a king, right, Like I think like if
Speaker 1: if if, if you go back and read like what
Speaker 1: the balance of powers was supposed to be was like
Speaker 1: they're they're doing the Roman thing of like you need
Speaker 1: like you need to combine to king and oligarchy and
Speaker 1: a democracy. And it's like, well, okay, so we have
Speaker 1: like a fucking king who could just like kill people.
Speaker 1: It's great, it's great, it's great, but you know, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: So the I think, I think the the the broad
Speaker 1: total argument that that I want to make here is
Speaker 1: that what we have been seeing over the last about
Speaker 1: fifteen years, right with the certain movement of the squares,
Speaker 1: with the series of uprisings that we saw, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know in twenty twenty the US, but also like
Speaker 1: all over the world from about twenty eighteen to I
Speaker 1: mean some of there're still some of them are still
Speaker 1: going like now right, you know, it's it's, it's. It's.
Speaker 1: It's been a reaction to sort of this right, it's it's.
Speaker 1: It's been a reaction to democracy as a legitimating principle
Speaker 1: not matching like demod like you know, even even even
Speaker 1: what the principle is supposed to be, and then people
Speaker 1: going out into the streets and doing to democracy, and
Speaker 1: the sort of clash between like democracy and theory and
Speaker 1: democracy in action mostly has resulted in democracy in action winning,
Speaker 1: because it turns out the thing about Republicans is that
Speaker 1: they're really, really, really good at creating like military apparatuses
Speaker 1: that are very hard to defeat by just purely fighting them. Yeah, sadly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But however, Comma, sometimes they lose, and you know, and
Speaker 1: as as as as as the old IRA thing goes,
Speaker 1: they have to get lucky every time. We only have
Speaker 1: to get lucky once, so you know, keep collectively bargaining
Speaker 1: by riot. Yeah, what the fuck else are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: You know, like vote like yeah, yeah, yeah, Like your
Speaker 1: life depends on it. Kids, You can vote if you
Speaker 1: want to write like they're there are instances in which
Speaker 1: it might meaningfully reduce the cruelty of the state a
Speaker 1: little bit in some places sometimes, but yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna it's not gonna like take away the central fucking
Speaker 1: connad of the whole thing. Yeah yeah, So I do
Speaker 1: do do do do due democracy by writing that is
Speaker 1: our official legal position. This is legally I'm legally non actionable,
Speaker 1: but also legally actionable at the same time. This is
Speaker 1: called dialectics. And yeah, this, this is what they could
Speaker 1: happen here. Find us in the places, don't find us
Speaker 1: in the places. Read grab yeah I do that. Read
Speaker 1: The Never Was a West. It's great. Nobody reads it.
Speaker 1: It's it's really good. People have been asking for Grabe
Speaker 1: a book because we keep talking about him. So yeah,
Speaker 1: read I Never read The Never Was a West. Read
Speaker 1: towards an anarchist anthropology bullshit jobs. It's good to start.
Speaker 1: If you read if if You, if You, if if you,
Speaker 1: if you, if you want to be the real grave
Speaker 1: head and read something that fucking no one has read.
Speaker 1: Go reads towards an anthropological theory of value. I read
Speaker 1: into one of my cuttings at supermarket the other day
Speaker 1: and we were talking about that, Say, good book, no
Speaker 1: one has ever read it in Uh yeah, read Gray
Speaker 1: but it Could Happen Here as a production of cool
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Speaker 1: for listening.