The brave new world of the phyle-centric micronation

Lothar2009

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Sunday May 11, 2014 · 9:39 AM PDT

2014/05/11 · 09:39

Now that basic 17th Century Westphalian sovereignty is dead (again) in the American West, we need a new model to understand its new political order. I suggest Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and its concept of the "phyle" as group which temporarily or permanently establishes a micronation on a given plot of formerly-sovereign federal land.

Lothar2009

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Friday April 25, 2014 · 11:00 AM PDT

2014/04/25 · 11:00

Beyond its abuses of the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole nations, my home of Georgia has made at least two fundamental historical errors. In 1749, HRM's Province of Georgia permitted slavery over Gen. James Oglethorpe's original intentions for the colony. In 1861, the State of Georgia illegally seceded from the United States of America to protect that institution's existence and expansion. The first error initiated one of the worst generational human rights' abuses in North America. The second lead to my people's defeat, ruination, and earned scorn from the other Several States. Generations passed before Georgia could even begin to recover, albeit incompletely and only in fits and starts.

Genuine solidarity between Georgians of different races still escapes many facets of daily life, be they schooling, health, religion, business, or family. Racial disparities in these institutions continue from slavery, Jim Crow, and white privilege's ugly legacies with little abatement in our new Gilded Age. Progress as it is is fragile, precious, and celebrated, perhaps too easily to the neglect of problems deemed intractable or even unworthy of mention. Still it exists, and as much as the universe's long arc frustrates us, its bend still moves us to inspiration to labor, to speak, to love.

That imagined future emboldens me, but the disasters of Georgia's history continue their haunting presence. When I see Cliven Bundy's armed insurrectionists rally - with impunity - around a man whose dangerous racial and political ideologies are intertwined - my fears of another secession, bloody war, and agonizing recovery from apocalypse come rushing back.

Lothar2009

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Wednesday November 21, 2012 · 9:06 PM PST

2012/11/21 · 21:06

It's interesting when an allegedly left-winger forum (not DKos, another one) punishes a user for wanting his fellow users to engage in polite, but firm left-wing activism. Rule of thumb: don't post about outrages unless readers can do something about them, and don't punish users who advertise potential legal and polite solutions.

Lothar2009

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 07, 2010 · 12:05 PM PST

2010/12/07 · 12:05

I really wasn't of the "primary Obama" camp until today. I was willing to accept the inevitable sausage-making of statecraft. Dirtying one's hands is in large part how sausage is made the old-fashioned way, and considering how timeless human political processes have been, is there any other way to make sausage?

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The brave new world of the phyle-centric micronation

As a Georgian, "secession" and "insurrection" talk frightens me

Punished for seeking justice for others...oh sorry, "asking to harass"

I was never driven to drink...until today