User:Adam-Krok/sandbox

Article evaluation for Deliberative Democracy:
 * 1) My first impressions of the page were very good since I thought the article addressed the broadest aspects of Deliberative Democracy, its essence and some essential particulars— outlining the several theories of the most prominent figures like Fishkin's. To sum in a few words: the form of the content is good
 * 2) However, the article does have serious drawbacks when it comes to the particulars of process, of citations. There are too many broad claims left without citations. Many citations themselves are poorly rendered as well. Going to the bottom of the page, the reader cannot help but be taken aback at the number of errors in the citation section.
 * 3) The silver lining is that many commentators in the talk page have noticed this discepancy between Wikipedia's standards and the articles current look—a virtual testamant to the process of crowd wisdom. In the talk section many readers give long detailed feedback on where the article falls short, and even commit themselves to doing a certain amount of the work in a given time (eg.  "I'll try to get to this over the next week or so". --Lorenking 20:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC). To me this is a positive sign of the goodhearted commitment many wikipedia genuinely have, and their sincere determination to contribute to an open encyclopedia of the world.

Blog about the experience of the class.

Very excited to start my first blog about Beyond Rep Gov. I think I'll talk about my initial impressions and first thoughts.
 * 1) The dominating thought on my mind is that government, and particularly the people in government (for what is government if not the individuals who comprise it) often lag behind the public in terms of what they desire or want. There is a huge gap between how individuals act in their everyday lives, whose dominating concern might be how do I get groceries quicker, or with less effort, how can I get my children to school faster, and the constant political discourse over ,say, transgender rights. This is not to say that transgender rights are not important, in fact they are crucial to a fair and even democracy, but that the individual concerns of voters are often bulldozed by dominant political narratives. How can democracy flourish in the age of intense, individualization.
 * 2) What are the legitimate aims of a democracy? Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there is a general tendency around the world to ignore utopian, or idealistic thinking, and instead focus less on a moral goal, and some arbitrary direction (e.g. the obsession with GDP growth in the world today, which equates neither with welfare, nor good production per se). Can we move back the pendulum to greater moral aims of democracy, that is achieving the right to a fulfilled life for every individual regardless of the cicrumstances of their birth, or any other arbitrary circumstances like the fluctuation of a random economy.

Blog about the potential changes to Democratic Confederalism page

Initial thoughts: 1. My first paragraph will update, and better summarize the core definition of Democratic Confederalism. Currently, the previous editors have described the concept in terms directly lifted from the Abdullah Ocalan. While the reference is admirable, and a good start, I want to describe Democratic Confederalism from what it is not; since that is the original method Ocalan himself wrote; i.e. that it is a non-state democracy, or a political organization which separates the notions of democracy and the state: the former characterized by collective- and consenus-based decision-making processes and the latter as political administration.

2. I need to revamp the entire article structure. Presently, the article is split into three parts: Introduction/ Summary, History and Platform. The first is fine and inevitable; the second currently is vague; and the third is not only too scarcely written, but conceptually not clear enough under just the heading of Platform. Having read Ocalan's writings, there is far more to Democratic Confederalism than presently shown.

3. I want to go through a line-by line critique of the paragraphs of platform, to give me a starting point for when I edit: "Adherents do not see the revolutionary overthrow of a state as a way to create sustainable change". This is the opening sentence of the paragraph. Several problems: first, there is no citation attached to this sentence. Second, this seems more of the opening paragraph of a chapter about the tactics of installing democratic confederalism, as opposed to the central tenets of democratic confederalism itself. While the two are related, (no doubt tactics do form one type of pillar of democratic confederalism) it is inadvisable to begin with the imposition of the ideology, as opposed to the explication of such an ideology.

"Rather, social issues and issues relating to freedom and justice must be resolved by a democratic-confederal process" This is better, and salvageable since it points to the actual crux of the theory, which is a kind of democratic-decision making process. It would be worthwhile to stretch out the meaning of a democratic-confederal process at this point, and provide relevant quotes from the original source.

" If a nation-state chooses to go on the offensive, however, supporters may resist with the self-defense force of the democratic confederation (such as the People's Protection Units, YPG)." This statement has two problems: first it lacks relevant citation. Secondly, it is another example of tactics. I am thinking at this point of creating a sub-header under platform of tactics, and placing these two sentences there.

The next paragraph:

"Adherents allow the creation of a global confederate assembly which could put forward a platform of civil liberties, as an alternative to the United Nations which they see as an association of nation-states and dominated by the great powers." This is an interesting point, and can loosely be around the topic of global-outview of democratic confederalism. There is an interesting distinction to be drawn around DC's insistence local-view in Rojava, and the global picture of nation-states.

"However under democratic confederalism the focus is on the local level; organizing confederalism globally is not excluded, but not the primary interest of the ideology." This second sentence, and the end of the paragraph, forms a coherent, although not extensive description of the global picture of DC. I will conserve this paragraph; while adding more detail and more references to the original work.

"The ideology has experienced a growth in interest since adherents such as the YPG of the Rojava conflict have engaged in combat against ISIS." This sentence, while interesting, probably belongs more in the history section of the ideology. Right now it is awkwardly situated in the Platform section as a stand-alone sentence. This gives me the idea of perhaps tracing the evolution of the movement's growth in the history section as oppposed to a pure ideological growth over time.

All in all, the article requires an extensive reboot: one that is more faithful to the entirety, and extensiveness of the ideological thinking of Abdullah Ocalan, and one that has more structural direction (ie. intentionality of each paragraph).

Therefore what I aim to achieve is this: Restructure introduction (1st paragraph) Add one pargraph and restructure some of the writing in the history paragraph (2nd Paragragh) Add three paragraphs and restructure some of the writing, as explained, in the platform section (3-5 paragraphs)

First Stumbling block of the My biggest problem so far is that few, if any secondary sources exist directly addressing the concept of Democratic Confederalism. The only secondary sources which do exist tend to be the articles by David Graeber, and the. Therefore in order not to stretch the extensive reliance on the primary source of Abdullah Ocalan's writings (which Wikipedia generally discourages), I will be changing some aspects o of which five paragraphs to change.

1. I will keep the original idea to change, or update the introduction (1st paragraph) and add, and fix, one paragraph in the history section. (2nd paragrah)

2. I will have two paragraphs (3rd and 4th paragraphs) dedicated to the actual implementation in Syria of the various structures of Democratic Confederalism taken from Graeber's writings

3. I will still update the platform section of the article, adding only one of my own. (5th article)

FIRST DRAFT OF 5 PARAGRAPHS:

History

According to Ocalan, Democratic Confederalism is the outcome of thirty years of evolving ideology within the PKK (Kurdistan’s Workers’ Party) attempt to form a state for Kurds. In the 1970s the PKK was ideological sympathetic to the socialist decolonization movements of the Cold War era, and accepted the necessity of the state for social change. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the PKK veered away from the discredited centralized political models of socialism, and focused on models of creating a nation without a state. Democratic Confederalism is a blueprint for solving the Kurdish Question without the reliance on a nation-state structure.

(sources cited: Öcalan, Abdullah."Democratic Confederalism. Transmedia Publishing Ltd., 2011.)

Intro

Democratic Confederalism is the political ideology of creating a “non-state political administration or a democracy without a state.” Within the theory, democracy is defined as a decision-making process founded on collective consensus, and direct rule more in line with Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s conceptions of direct democracy than with James Madison’s conceptions of representative democracy. In contrast, the state is defined as administration founded on power.

(sources cited: Öcalan, Abdullah."Democratic Confederalism. Transmedia Publishing Ltd., 2011.) (will need to hyperlink Rousseau and Madison)

Platform:

Democratic confederalism is defined by five principles. First, the right to self-determination of a people to govern themselves. Second, the necessity of a non-state paradigm to effect self-determination. Third, grass-roots participation. Four, self-government as a form of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist resistance to the global world order. Fifth, the anti-nationalist and non-exclusive nature of the future ‘Kurdish” state which recognizes the need for a federal structure so as not to question the existing political borders.

(sources cited: Öcalan, Abdullah."Democratic Confederalism. Transmedia Publishing Ltd., 2011.)

Implementation in Rojava:

The Rojava polity in Syria has actively realized the objective structures of self-organization elaborated by Ocalan since forcing the Assad regime to retreat from the territory in 2011. The revolutionary Rojava party (PYD) has instituted bottom-up political units of popular assemblies, composed of a “careful ethnic balance” (the top three offices have to be a Kurd, an Arab and an Assyrian or Armenian Christian). The PYD has also created youth and women’s councils as well as a feminist militia called the “YPJ star”.

(sources cited: Graeber's guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/why-world-ignoring-revolutionary-kurds-syria-isis)

The Rojava experiment, as it has become popularly known in the West, is lauded for its emphasis on the liberation of women through integration in every sector of society, as well as leadership. While forming an implicit part of the democratic-confederalist doctrine, the full equality of women comes from a related theory written by Ocalan, known as Jineology. Jineology’s core premise is that society can only be free through the freedom of women.

( will hyperlink Jineology, and provide link to the pdf of Jineology on the free Ocalan website http://www.freeocalan.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/liberating-Lifefinal.pdf)

Bookchin background

“Born in January 1921 in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants, Bookchin was raised under the very shadow of the Russian Revolution,”

Murray Bookchin’s advocacy for socialism came initially from his family heritage, and the deteriorating economic conditions of his time .As working Russian-Jewish Immigrants living in New York City in the early 20th century, the Bookchin family were influenced by the Russian Revolution, and its promise to liberate workers from immiserating labour conditions. Murray's grandmother had been involved in a quasi-anarchist, populist movement in Czarist Russia, called the Social Revolutionaries. Murray grew up in the tumultuous economic period of the Great Depression, a period in which vast poverty and unemployment stimulated him to take up the cause of worker’s revolution. Murray never remained politically committed to one form of socialism but rather shifted between different movements according to ideological splits and strategic calculations. He moved over the course of his early life from the American communist movement’s youth organizations (where he headed the educational programme), to Trotskyist groups, and then libertarian-socialist organizations headed by the exiled German Josef Weber. This same ideological flexibility would culminate in the formation of Murray’s more mature social theories around hierarchies and ecological societies as an argumentative response to the later 20th century predominance of markets.

The fusion of Ecology and Anarchism

Bookchin’s theory of political ecology sets out a framework for the maximization of spontaneous, varied elements within society through an anarchic, classless arrangement along natural, ecological development. It is a synthesis of anarchistic ideals of progress and ecological principles of harmony and balance— one strain of anarchic thinking posits the fully developed individual contributes to the fullness of the whole, just as ecological thinking posits the varied member of a species contributes to the successful propagation of the species. According to Murray the ecologist and anarchist both seek to understand, manage and promote spontaneity and differentiation, the former in the social realm the latter in the natural realm. Both share an underlying disdain for the inhibitory nature of authority, considering authority as an unnatural check on individual creativity and differentiation. The core of his argument is that an anarchist system is the precondition for achieving the optimal ecological system (where optimality is defined by a species ability to maximally enlarge its environment)—by widening the range of social experience in a classless society, and creating a more fully rounded human that interacts with his whole environment, instead of the current atomization of man under a strict national division of labor. Murray’s ecological society is meant to imitate the city-states of antiquity, where face-to-face interactions are prioritized, over top-down imposition by civic authorities, for the sake of creating genuine communities.

Institutional Arrangement of a Bookchinian democracy:

Bookchin proposes deconstructing the current centralized structure of the means of production into a decentralized, community-orientated system. He claims a direct relationship between the the disintegration of community and the centralization of the means of production: “ to the degree that material production is decentralized and localized, the primacy of the community is asserted over national institutions.” Bookchin asserts that the centralization of production originates in the scale of technology itself, and following current trends, suggests that the increasing miniaturization of technology will allow society to develop mid-to-small size communities centred around smaller, more manageable all-purpose machines. The form of government in these mid-to-small scale communities will be popular assemblies in face-to-face democracy. The Kojevian democracy has adopted much of this political thinking in the construction of its bottom-up democracy.