"This the TTF micronation page.
October 15, 2001 7:31 AM Subscribe
"This the TTF micronation page. A micronation is a real nation or people without any official recognition." [warning: comes with sound]
Slightly more seriously: We've discussed Sealand before. Here are some other microstate links.
hey those microstate links look cool!
another one on the frivolous side i remember seeing awhile back is lizbekistan :)
and also "slightly more seriously" (old - circa 2000) articles from the guardian on nationhood for gypsies and corsican independence, on our way to burbclaves and phyles...
posted by kliuless at 8:02 AM on October 15, 2001
another one on the frivolous side i remember seeing awhile back is lizbekistan :)
and also "slightly more seriously" (old - circa 2000) articles from the guardian on nationhood for gypsies and corsican independence, on our way to burbclaves and phyles...
posted by kliuless at 8:02 AM on October 15, 2001
I had never seen a picture of Sealand before! All I can think of is that Costner "Waterworld" movie....
In some way, I think this is similar to that town in Utah that declared itself a "UN-Free Zone." Some people have what might be considered a curious notion of freedom (as something to be hoarded rather than celebrated) and choose to "protect" it by carving out little safe-havens (in their views) for themselves, sort of like the treehouse notion mentioned above. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you; many of the Founding Fathers of the US had similar notions. I say, more power to them; just don't go blowing up any buildings of the state you view as oppressive.
posted by arco at 8:11 AM on October 15, 2001
In some way, I think this is similar to that town in Utah that declared itself a "UN-Free Zone." Some people have what might be considered a curious notion of freedom (as something to be hoarded rather than celebrated) and choose to "protect" it by carving out little safe-havens (in their views) for themselves, sort of like the treehouse notion mentioned above. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you; many of the Founding Fathers of the US had similar notions. I say, more power to them; just don't go blowing up any buildings of the state you view as oppressive.
posted by arco at 8:11 AM on October 15, 2001
What I found most interesting was the link from the micronations page to the Red Cross...and the Red Cross's effort to create a new, inclusive emblem.
posted by jennak at 8:37 AM on October 15, 2001
posted by jennak at 8:37 AM on October 15, 2001
I think the concept of 'micronations' is a very interesting phenomenon. The historical 'age of the nation-state' is coming to an end I think, and the micronation argues, in an albeit quirky and farcical way, for that point. Sure, invent a flag, some documents, and sometimes a currency and then you're a nation. Except you're not. And what does this prove? -- it's the last gasp of people trying to derive meaning from a system that has less and less relevance these days.
Globalization (huge companies running the world, increasingly 'directing' countries) and international terrorism (which countries are basically powerless to prevent; just ask Israel) show that the structure of the world-as-we-know-it is changing. The U.S. is in a war with an idea -- what does that tell you?
'Nations' used to be an effective way of organizing the world, but now they seem like checks -- so 1700s.
posted by zpousman at 8:52 AM on October 15, 2001
Globalization (huge companies running the world, increasingly 'directing' countries) and international terrorism (which countries are basically powerless to prevent; just ask Israel) show that the structure of the world-as-we-know-it is changing. The U.S. is in a war with an idea -- what does that tell you?
'Nations' used to be an effective way of organizing the world, but now they seem like checks -- so 1700s.
posted by zpousman at 8:52 AM on October 15, 2001
Red Cross's effort to create a new, inclusive emblem.
Donate to the Red Diamond?
posted by iceberg273 at 9:01 AM on October 15, 2001
Donate to the Red Diamond?
posted by iceberg273 at 9:01 AM on October 15, 2001
Sealand is cool. I plan to colocate there as soon as possible.
posted by tweebiscuit at 9:12 AM on October 15, 2001
posted by tweebiscuit at 9:12 AM on October 15, 2001
Interesting ideas, zpousman. I had been looking at it more pessimistically (well, to be honest, I don't know if the multinational-controlled state vision is optimistic either, but). The current system is so all-embracing that it's kind of nightmarish. What if you truly wanted to belong to no state? You can't, except for marginal experiments like Sealand that survive by the indulgence or neglect of the state. You can't go out in the middle of the ocean and establish a new state. Every rock, every seamount, every reef is somebody's. There are no cracks. (Are there? In Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica he imagines a renegade society living in the ice.)
So one way of looking at these microstates is that people want a less total apparatus of state control. Like, when I'm in my treehouse, mom won't know where I am or what I'm doing. And the smaller the state is, the more likely it will represent me. The poet Jack Spicer once remarked that he would never go to war for his country, but he might for his school district.
(A darker view, of course is: isn't it ironic that when people want to opt out of state control, they do it by creating more states? What wouls it be like to live your life out from under the state umbrella entirely?)
posted by rodii at 10:48 AM on October 15, 2001
So one way of looking at these microstates is that people want a less total apparatus of state control. Like, when I'm in my treehouse, mom won't know where I am or what I'm doing. And the smaller the state is, the more likely it will represent me. The poet Jack Spicer once remarked that he would never go to war for his country, but he might for his school district.
(A darker view, of course is: isn't it ironic that when people want to opt out of state control, they do it by creating more states? What wouls it be like to live your life out from under the state umbrella entirely?)
posted by rodii at 10:48 AM on October 15, 2001
greg egan's distress takes place on "stateless," a functional anarchy in the middle of the ocean (a bioengineered island) that has to contend with sovereign national and multinational corporate interests.
posted by kliuless at 12:05 PM on October 15, 2001
posted by kliuless at 12:05 PM on October 15, 2001
Communes do it all the time. They buy or lease some land and start creating their own rules and culture.
like the wicker man :)
nothing can stop you from making your own currency
interestingly, the austrian and US central banks shut down community currency systems operating at the onset of the great depression which were helping create gainful employment and thriving local economies.
"We'll never know what would have happened, because the Austrian Central Bank closed down the Worgl experiment, and the same month he took office in March 1933, Roosevelt did the same to the stamp scrip currencies. They still have an honourable place in the history of depression America." [*]
arguably, community currencies could have prevented global depression and subsequently world war II, since it would have been harder for fascists to come to power -- people not needing a "national savior" or some such complementary large-scale central mobilization.
posted by kliuless at 5:45 PM on October 15, 2001
like the wicker man :)
nothing can stop you from making your own currency
interestingly, the austrian and US central banks shut down community currency systems operating at the onset of the great depression which were helping create gainful employment and thriving local economies.
"We'll never know what would have happened, because the Austrian Central Bank closed down the Worgl experiment, and the same month he took office in March 1933, Roosevelt did the same to the stamp scrip currencies. They still have an honourable place in the history of depression America." [*]
arguably, community currencies could have prevented global depression and subsequently world war II, since it would have been harder for fascists to come to power -- people not needing a "national savior" or some such complementary large-scale central mobilization.
posted by kliuless at 5:45 PM on October 15, 2001
At least on an economic scale, the shift has been away from a city-nation-global mindset towards a neighborhood-region-global point of view. It seems that the micronation movement (if there is such a creature) tends to push the idea that nations are no longer as relevant as they used to be. Indeed, with increased emigration from country to country, the entire idea of nationalization becomes moot, and folks identify more readily with ideas and their immediate neighbors than with a sovereign nation (except in the case of dire circumstances).
posted by Avogadro at 9:37 AM on October 16, 2001
posted by Avogadro at 9:37 AM on October 16, 2001
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posted by rodii at 7:41 AM on October 15, 2001