NEW POLL:

WHAT IS THE FREEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD ?

Freedom means different things to different people. It may be economic, personal or political. What sort of freedom a person thinks is important will undoubtedly influence what they consider "the freest country in the world". The various freedoms may be tied together, but they are not unified. A country, for instance, may have extensive "economic freedom for the business class" while being a repressive dictatorship in general and also severely limiting the 'economic freedom' of workers to struggle in their own self interest. China, of course, comes to mind.

Freedom is also not the same thing as "democracy". Switzerland is arguably the most democratic country in the world, but it is well behind many others in personal freedom, as the recent 'minaret vote' demonstrated. Neither is freedom the same thing as "equality", though the two are connected. The Scandinavian countries probably rank higher on some sort of "freedom scale" than say the USA because they are far more egalitarian and thus the "freedom to" is available to a far greater percentage of the population than in America. On the other hand there are unique things about the USA which lead one to say it is "freer" in other ways.

In any case the whole matter is quite arguable. Hence this poll. I've even added a couple of communist countries both for that tiny minority still deluded by same and for the amusement of civilized people. Then, of course, there is the "some other country" option for those who value one particular aspect of "freedom" or who have more geopolitical knowledge than I do. Feel free to write in what you mean ie "which one" as a comment on this post. Yes...we'll even accept 'Vatican City' here. this is, after all, a free speech zone.

POLL NUMBER 19:
WHAT FIVE THINGS DO YOU THINK ARE MOST IMPORTANT FOR ANARCHISTS TODAY ?:


The results of Molly's poll number 19, 'What Five Things Do You Think Are Most Important for Anarchists Today ?' are now in. Thirty five people voted in this poll, and the two top items chosen were 'Labour issues/organizing' and 'Community Politics'. These, of course, are the traditional big two in anarchism throughout its history, and it's not surprising (though in a way relieving) that they were chosen so overwhelmingly. It adds fuel to my contention that efforts on the part of such things as the primitivists and the post-leftists have been overwhelmingly unsuccessful in defining what anarchism is today, and that anarchism is what it always was...anarchism and not some American fad. But, as Larry Gambone of the Porkupine Blog has commented elsewhere, "it is possible that the crazies don't read Molly's Blog". Perhaps the results are more indicative of Molly's Blog readership than of anarchism in general.




It is interesting to look at the "near runners-up". While the big two got overwhelming endorsement other issues such as poverty, racism, and feminism received respectable votes. Is this reflective of anarchism in general or perhaps of the "Canadian content" of the readers of Molly's Blog ? In this country the first two issues have attracted large numbers of anarchists. Perhaps this is not true. The low number of votes for "indigenous issues" as compared to "racism" would suggest a readership from other countries rather than Canada. Here in the frozen North "racism" is largely a matter of "indigenous issues". Who knows ?




Beyond this second tier there were other items that gathered at least the same amount of support as the fingers on a hand. These included theory (7), anti-fascism (7), general solidarity work (7), prisoner support (6), publishing (5), music (5) and ecology (5). I suspect that, if this same question had been asked 10 or 15 years ago that the latter would have had a much larger following. Some of these questions are, of course, ambiguous. What sort of theory ? What sort of prisoners ? What sort of publishing ? General solidarity with whom and what ? Even what sort of ecology ? I now regret that I didn't include a 'specific anarchist organizing' category.




My own choices, for what it was worth were, in the following order: 1)labour issues, 2)community politics, 3)general solidarity work, 4)national politics and 5)feminism. I guess that this is pretty reflective of the issues that I tend to give priority to over at Molly's Blog.




That's about it for now. What do you think ? Are the results of this poll reflective of anarchism today in general or of the readership of Molly's Blog ? Or what is more likely somewhere in between. If it is reflective of the general state of the anarchist movement it seems to me to be quite hopeful, though the low number of votes for 'child rearing' and 'free schools' suggests to me that anarchism is unfortunately still very much ghettoized amongst the young and unattached, ie those without children. Hopefully this young crew will stick around.

POLL NUMBER 7:

STEVEN HARPER IS...:

This one is more or less for Canadians and for fun. As anyone who has visited Molly's Blog knows Steven Harper aka Sneaky Stevie is one of Molly's bêtes noires. Here is your chance to voice your opinion about our Prime Minster. Please feel free to leave any other options or comments as a comment at the end of this post.

POLL NUMBER ONE/POLL NUMBER FOUR:

SUMMING UP AND MOVING ON:

Well, I'm not living up to my ambition of "a poll a day", but It can sometimes be hard to frame good questions. It may also be for the best as I don't want to bore people. Poll number one, 'How do you describe yourself politically ?' is now closed. It seems I have a surfeit of anarchocommunists here (11), though anarchists without any other qualifier (8) weren't very far behind. Anarcho-syndicalist(4) and socialist (2) also came in with more than one vote. I will leave the poll up for a few days and then delete it as others come on line. I think that the results, with as few respondents as there were (22) gives a pretty accurate estimate of my "anarchist readership". When I repeat the question further down the line I hope to be able to draw in the majority, non-anarchist, who visit Molly's Blog.

Poll number 4, 'Who is your favourite historical anarchist ?' is obviously restricted to anarchists or those with some familiarity with same. There are still a few days left to vote in this poll. I've tried to be as comprehensive as I can with this poll, though, obviously, "Others not mentioned" could be a legitimate answer for many. I wonder what those "others" are. If you are one who replied as such hozza bout you make your suggestion plain as a comment here. So far Kropotkin is running at # 1, but there are too few votes in to say much for now.

POLL NUMBER 3:

WILL THERE BE A REVOLUTION IN A DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE NEXT 20 YEARS ?:

It has been pointed out that this poll doesn't contain enough shades of opinion to cover every possible opinion. That is probably true , and I apologize for this. I'll probably repeat the question sometime in the future with a different format. What I do see from the voting so far is that those who have bothered to respond have a realistic view of the immediate prospects for such a thing. I guess that I'm not getting the "readership" from the "have a protest so big the police run away in terror and THIS is THE REVOLUTION" crowd. YES, I once saw this proposed "seriously", by a person who is old enough to know better but who promulgates such nonsense for his own peculiar reasons. A revolution ,which I think neither desirable nor likely is , by the very necessity of reality, a violent and chaotic period when old political and economic "realities" are dissolved. It necessarily involves a great amount of human tragedy. It happens without the conscious direction of "revolutionists" (those who believe in revolution in the abstract as opposed to those "revolutionaries" who actually do revolution in revolutionary times instead of pretending that rhetoric and child-like petty terrorism is "the revolution" in non-revolutionary times). In non-revolutionary times the revolutionist prepares organization that will direct a revolution to a desired goal.

My own opinion....I can see the argument for revolution as necessary to clear away historical deadwood, but I cannot agree. I stand by my gradualist prescription as the best and least costly way to achieve a libertarian society. THAT'S my vote. Neither likely NOR desirable. The first is separate from the second. The first is a matter of cold calculation. The second is a matter of moral choice. The essential point is that the organization that a gradualist such as myself proposes is not different in any way from that which a revolutionist would propose to prepare the way for a revolution. All points are exactly the same, and disagreement would only revolve around particular tactics in the here and now. It is actually possible (inevitable actually) that the "revolutionists" would hold a less intransigent line at certain times than a gradualist would. That being said the general way that a sensible revolutionist and a gradualist would organize are virtually indistinguishable.

WELCOME TO MOLLY'S POLLS:

This site is a development of Molly's Blog. Its purpose...to serve as the host site for Mollymew's opinion surveys. The polls are listed to the left. Join in. Have fun. Make any suggestions for further polls here as a comment.