141–150 of 168 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can you honestly say that you can't speak freely in Spain? I don't know. Let's ask the imprisoned Catalonian ministers?
First of all, there isn't such a thing as 'Catalonian ministers', and secondly you can't be seriously saying that any politician can't speak freely in Spain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry but that is not true at all. There aren't 'political prisoners' by any means in Spain. There are politicians in prison, and that's quite different. Their imprisonment without bail follows the Spanish Law, based on democratic principles, and it's quite dishonourable to compare Spain and Venezuela political situations. On the other hand, nobody destroyed any edition of 'El Jueves', please see https://www.eldiario…
> There aren't 'political prisoners' by any means in Spain. There are politicians in prison, and that's quite different. >> to the twisted fascist mind, their political prisoners are just 'criminals' QED
Maybe you should think about why you can't prove your point of view, and why you need to resort to name-calling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I "outgrew" it. It's fun when you are in high school. I think capitalism works well so long as people can keep it honest. The invisible hand needs a visible hand because two hands are better than one. I also believe capitalism will eat itself and deliver us a pretty awesome world a hundred or so years from now (assuming we police it in the interim). Eliminate borders, then eliminate around one trillion a year…
> I guess I "outgrew" it. It's fun when you are in high school. I don't think "fun" is the word for anarchism. I mean, maybe you had a very privileged/singular experience of approaching anarchism from a theoretical standpoint. But the bloody repression faced by anarchists around the globe is not "fun". Don't get me wrong, i'm glad you had fun with rebellious ideas. There is fun to have in living in the moment and try…
It could very well be that some institutionalized violence is necessary for society to work, and some injustice is inevitable in the process (humans being imperfect).
If in your perfect anarchist society I was hell bent on smacking you down (and I was quite larger than you), would the society just let it happen, or would it employ some sort of "violence"? And if said society had some rules and/or specific people to handle those situations, wouldn't the violence be "institutionalized"?
>How could capitalist inequalities maintain themselves without a central State to exert violence against those who refuse this rule? How could a tyrannical regime maintain itself without sharing some of the benefits of exploitation with a (capitalist) elite?
Quite easily? We've had tyrannical regimes before capitalism two (feudal, asiastic, and several other forms).
We even had tyrannical regimes promising the end of tyranny and capitalism (e.g. Stalinist USSR).
Nothing to say we couldn't have a tyrannical regime promising anarchism as well. People can use all ideas/ideologies/regimes to serve their own purposes.
And of course you don't need a central state to have inequalities or tyranny.
A number of powerful groups that prey on less powerful ones is enough. They don't even have to be permanent, groups could assemble at will and at different configurations to prey on those less powerful (like e.g. barbaric tribes used to do) and then stop existing after they've succeeded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry but that is not true at all. There aren't 'political prisoners' by any means in Spain. There are politicians in prison, and that's quite different. Their imprisonment without bail follows the Spanish Law, based on democratic principles, and it's quite dishonourable to compare Spain and Venezuela political situations. On the other hand, nobody destroyed any edition of 'El Jueves', please see https://www.eldiario…
> Sorry but that is not true at all. There aren't 'political prisoners' by any means in Spain. There are politicians in prison, and that's quite different. Unless they are in prison because e.g. they were driving under influence, or stealing money, or hit someone, or some other such crime, then it's not different at all... > About Valtonyc, the rapper you're talking about 'in exile to avoid being remanded for singing…
The whole trial has been live streamed.
About your second question, making threats, insulting the Crown, and glorification of terrorism is not just 'singing about the king'.
That's not free speech.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people ruining the planet will be dead before they have to live through the consequences of what they’ve done. Good ‘ol self-interest.
So we should invest more in life extension research - turn that self interest to work for us ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can you honestly say that you can't speak freely in Spain? I don't know. Let's ask the imprisoned Catalonian ministers?
First of all, there isn't such a thing as 'Catalonian ministers', and secondly you can't be seriously saying that any politician can't speak freely in Spain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even though it is true, it is dwarfed in magnitude by the repression in the communist world. From 1789 to the first Empire was only 15 years; to the Thermidorean Reaction even shorter. > The French revolution was attempting to terrorise a political ellite. That's a very generous interpretation. It's certainly what Robespierre would say, sure, but it's just as much what Lenin would say.
We are talking about 4 orders of magnitude differences, of a third of the population in some country. It’s not a matter of a few years. I am not trying to defend the French revolution, which actions were the antithesis of the values it pretended to promote. But for all its horrors, the french revolution wasn’t in the business of mass slaughtering its own population.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sorry but that is not true at all. There aren't 'political prisoners' by any means in Spain. There are politicians in prison, and that's quite different. Unless they are in prison because e.g. they were driving under influence, or stealing money, or hit someone, or some other such crime, then it's not different at all... > About Valtonyc, the rapper you're talking about 'in exile to avoid being remanded for singing…
They aren't in preventive prison due to their political ideas but they're being accused of committing very specific and serious crimes, like rebellion, sedition, and embezzlement. The whole trial has been live streamed. About your second question, making threats, insulting the Crown, and glorification of terrorism is not just 'singing about the king'. That's not free speech.
Well, rebellion and sedition _are_ political ideas. Political ideas are not just "more taxes/less taxes", or "healthcare for all/private healthcare" and other regular everyday party differences.
And of course, the kind of political ideas political prisoners all over the world get in jail for in regimes that stifle political expression are more often than not branded "rebellion", "sedition", by those putting them there...
>The whole trial has been live streamed.
Well, the Moscow trials of Stalin were well reported to the masses as well. That's neither here, nor there.
>About your second question, making threats, insulting the Crown, and glorification of terrorism is not just 'singing about the king'.
Sure. But wanting the king dethroned (if not beheaded, for effect) is a totally legit political idea, that was part of most countries progressing to real civic democracy, and people and politicians should be able to express it. In a modern democracy, if it must have some relic of feudal times in the form of a decorative king, said king shouldn't still be anything sacred.
"and glorification of terrorism" there's no shortage of regimes that labeled anything they didn't like "terrorism".
Heck, the British would also be offended by Americans in the colonies "insulting and threatening the King" and called their fighting terrorism, so there's that.
Just because a regime exists, doesn't mean protecting it is just or should continue to exist.
The Spanish Civil War happens to be one of my favorite historical events. In no small part because I once was really into anarcho-syndicalist beliefs. Not so much anymore, but I still enjoy it from a historical perspective. I highly recommend the Spanish Civil War tour in Barcelona by Nick Lloyd ( https://twitter.com/Civil_War_Spain ). Unfortunately, the war is still a touchy subject in Spain, so his tour is the best…
> Unfortunately, the war is still a touchy subject in Spain I find this quite concerning and rather paternalistic, especially when far-right/fascists keep winning elections and the PP still exists. I'm not ignorant of the attrocities but Spain needs to be able to discuss current issues linked to or reminiscent of that era despite it upsetting a lot people. It's suppressing free speech, and Spain has a disgraceful rec…
The problem with talking about this era is that half the country believes that the republicans were blameless and the nationalists were the devil. Both sides freely executed suspected political enemies, but the left is unwilling to recognize this. If the republicans had won there would have been as many or more executions than under Franco's regime. There would have even been a chance that Spain became communist, which would have resulted in even more deaths.
Now, I agree with you on the lack of freedom of speech in Spain. But it censors the left as much as the right is censored in England or Germany. That is to say, the censorship is shameful but on the same level as the rest of Europe.