miami and the keys picture post

[amw]

Okay. I am something like 15 hours removed from my flight to Panama. I really hope that they don't institute some new bullshit COVID restrictions in the next day because the US and Canada both did. I could very well end up stuck down there without an easy way to get out of the country due to omicron, but i think i'd rather be stuck in a weird

Comments

[olamina]

America is not gonna fix America's problems.

[amw]

That's pessimistic! Do you think an external force will be necessary to readjust? I feel like for internal reform it seems to be most successful when it comes from inside, and not imposed by an outside force. Practically speaking, i don't see any group being powerful enough to change America aside from China, and Chinese hegemony under Xi would be much, much worse. (I wish the UN could play this role, but it doesn't really work the way it could/should.)

[olamina]

You know me...cranky anarchist-type. I don't think nation states are going to be forces for positive change moving forward. Their time is over and they are all just scrambling for the last few crumbs.

[amw]

I am an anarchist idealist, in the sense i appreciate the philosophy and the promise of what it could be. But also i don't think that kind of structure will ever realistically come to be, except as short-lived experiments or breakdowns of traditional forms of control in failed states.

Perhaps i'm the pessimistic one, because i don't see traditional states going anywhere in our lifetimes. I do hope that nation states die, though. That is: states based on ethnic homogeneity. I don't think it's sustainable to run a state like that. I like the idea that there are nations, and there are states, and they may overlap, but there shouldn't be a state that excludes people from other nations from immigrating, if that makes sense. That's anti-democratic.

[olamina]

Anarchism isn't really a structure. I call myself anarchist-type because I have lots of issues with the lack of helpful anarchist vision. The most hopeful thing I can point to is the Rojava project, which against all odds seems to be pushing forward as a viable non-nation system.of governance. It is imperfect but it's rooted in one strain of anarchism.

Corporations are already running multinationally and mostly being regulated by groups like the EU. There are few ethnically homogeneous nation-states. That was always a lie. Racist nation-states, yes. Totally ethnically homogeneous ones, no..
Anyway just rambling. I am not saying anything will just magically fade away but the individual nation state is less and less able to meet the basic needs of its citizenry, forcing people to rely on other structural forms -- be they private or public, larger or smaller, democratic (which almost no government truly is anyway) or dictatorial.