Welcome to the MARI Advertisement Union page

Please read this first!

Due to the lack of government impact in any form of self advertisement, we've created this page to give information to anybody who would like to know more about our beautiful nation.

Enjoy your read :)

HISTORY

The following paragraphs will outline the events leading up to our indipendence from the United States, if you'd like to know about events prior to that, please read this.

From state to nation

Most people most likely remember the fall from grace that California initially had during the early 21st century. That was back when it was part of the United States. Ever since its peak during the 80s and 90s, things just haven’t been the same.

There were already many problems in California during that period of grace, like inequality and police brutality, although it was largely ignored because it mainly affected a marginalized part of society. Things really took a turn once those big corporations developed during the 90s started leaving the state. They were mostly high value industries that moved to somewhere like Texas for lower taxes. They also took away many of the people that were once Californians. The place was in a situation similar to the old “Rust Belt” cities where it was overdeveloped for the amount of people that are in each city. This increased insecurity and crime in the streets.

Subsequently, the state government started tightening social services and worker’s protections to try to stimulate GDP growth which only exacerbated the inequality issue. Protests started popping up on the streets and in university campuses against those measures against public services. A lot of the sentiment started changing within younger social groups: they were dissatisfied by the way corporate capitalism has abandoned a once economically thriving state. They knew that something had to change. The sentiment was especially popular in the Bay Area where the exodus of the technology sector has taken a huge toll in the income of the population.

The was a subsequent rise in Student Unions, especially in UC Berkeley, which started the development of many ideas for how they would fix the issue at hand. There was a significant rise in anarchist and leftist ideas inside of those student groups. They needed a way to write those discussions on paper, which prompted for the creation of OUR manifesto. At the same time, there was the resurgence of socially conscious literature, art and music in many black communities throughout the state. They especially discontentment in distribution of wealth within the state and also the exodus of richer black individuals that refuse to give money back to the community. This created the mainstream appeal of Afro-Futurism in the region which had a huge resurgence in sales. (Ogbunu) Additionally, those many forms of art also presented fear for the future and how close they are to a dystopia. This as been use warnings to strike urgency identify current issues. (Parker 246)

Unfortunately, during those times, due to the stringent political structure at the time, it was impossible to elect any candidate that would support any kind of progressive ideas without breaking constitutional laws concerning property. Interestingly, these protests coincided with the loosening of control from the United States Federal government due to the increasing political power of more conservative states and corporate lobbying.

Many activists at the time were arguing for the necessity of Californian independence to be able to apply any form of solution. Unfortunately, no politician that supported this idea was able to be elected due to the significant funds that the opposition had due to the lobbying from out of state American corporations.

As matters got worse and more people fled the state, riots started popping up all across its major cities. They were reminiscent of the Los Angeles riot of 1992, although this time it was done by a much wider group of people from all ethnicities and social classes. These riots were also a lot more organized and were prompted groups that supported the idea of organized property damage to cause in change. Those groups eventually started forming alliances within cities and eventually seized control of every major city in the California. As they were mostly acting in homage to OUR manifesto, these different city groups conspired to take control of state the government.

They named themselves the Californian city union and were constituted of most of the adult population of California. They created a new political party which ended up winning the State elections by a landslide. Immediately after the win, there was a referendum for the independence of California. The results ended with a 76.4% in favour of independence. Ever since, the government continues to maintain many of the ideas from OUR manifesto while doing constant social and economic research to maintain stability.

About California

Please read this first!

This part will contain everything that you need to know about California and the many intricacies of our culture, politics, architecture, and art! We will also dive into some details specific to the Los Angeles County. 

Political Structure 

Our political system tries to incorporate many of the values presented in OUR manifesto. One of those values was proper representation without any sort of corporate influence or obstruction caused by some powerful individual. Initially, most city union members wanted to keep autonomy while promoting collaboration between cities. They inspired themselves from previous Utopian literature works like Thomas More’s city states within a federation. (Parker 296) Here in California, we use a very bottom-heavy type of political structure to prioritize population participation. This means that most political affairs are done at a city level, like architecture, urban design, transportation, industries, health, and education. Those different cities are combined into three different geographical conferences (Southern, Northern and Central). These conferences are used for trade purposes between each other and to prepare the bi-annual national debate. The national debate mostly serves as debate in trade between different conferences. For example, the southern conference needing fresh water from the north has been a recurring theme. As compensation, the south needs to put in significant research into a clean way to purify salt water.

The National Government does not have much political role. This lack of big responsibilities was mostly put in place to prevent any kind of centralization of power. It only serves as a research group to identify flaws in laws, propose solutions to them and to also propose constitutional changes roughly every 5 years. And that is pretty much it, laws can vary a lot depending on which city you’re in, this is really to maximize representation and adjust for local variations.

In terms of citizenship, it does not really exist. Citizenship statuses are mostly honorary and for understanding with other countries. Your vote will be based on your community implication. If you are an adult and serve your community, you can vote. In fact, each neighbourhood has meeting halls where individuals can discuss many plans. These discussions are separate from the political structure, we have direct impact in what happens in our neighbourhoods! 

Groups, coops and guilds 

So... basically... companies don’t really exist here. Well, the private ones at least. Each company is part of an industrial group and are required to meet the guidelines in their respective groups. Imagine being part of a group to be a certificate to do business, it is required. Groups cannot extend across city borders and neither can their companies. Although companies can collaborate with other groups and similar groups across borders, they cannot invest directly into a company from a different group.

Investment is done with cooperatives, where different companies invest in money for big projects. Additionally, workers within the company own shares of the company and have influence in the decision-making process.

An interesting fact about groups is their ability to promote independence and individuality. This is especially shown in the prominence of guilds, which are spread all around each city and are especially prominent in artistic groups. (Parker) Guilds are learning and sharing facilities where individuals can train and share their expertise in their respective field. Guilds are ran and funded by members of their neighbourhoods to serve to educate students. People that graduate from guilds usually end up creating their own companies or start privately teaching. Many artists have previously noticed their significant lack of freedom when they work under big corporations.

Having this system that prioritizes this artistic freedom adds a significant of happiness to all artists. This is not only limited to art. Through worker’s ownership, labourers actually have some implication in the structure of a company. As many indivduals have stated in the past : “Work is a central part of what makes us human”. (Parker 16) We have definitely noticed the increase in happiness of the general population as we have changed laws surrounding work.

Architecture and urban design 

This section for architecture will vary significantly depending on which Californian city we’re talking about. But for the specifics of Los Angeles, it has been a significant transition from its car-centric design to a significantly more thoughtful design. One of the preaches from OUR manifesto was to adopt a significantly less ecologically damaging lifestyle. So, we’ve undergone a process that we call the “de-sprawlinization” of Los Angeles.

Many of the buildings have been repurposed are our significant population decline as public spaces. Many urban freeways have been demolished, and we have tried to regrow the local fauna and flora. A significant amount of research has been done to create suitable high-speed rail and metro networks within the city to connect the many neighbourhoods of Los Angeles.

Now that these developments have slowed down, the city has mostly focused on trying to make itself as good to live as possible by incorporating human happiness indexes and worker satisfaction levels. These metrics have been much more efficient at quantifying process without necessitating constant economic growth. (Hiskel)

It has also focused on its internal beauty. While most architectural projects have been free form. Most neighbourhoods inspired themselves with traditional Mexican architecture. This means colourful square houses closely knit to each other. These houses seamlessly mold into hilly terrain while looking sleek from afar and human scale up closely. The majority of housing is based on communal housing. This means that most individuals live in cheaper housing with common spaces. Buildings are also divided by stone streets that are inviting to bikes and tramways.

Art and culture

Much of the culture of California and especially Los Angeles has changed ever since our secession from the United States. This was mostly caused by the impossibility for a small group of individuals to live a distinctively lavish lifestyle above others. The city was a cultural hub of the world, so we wanted to keep this distinction while sharing it with all our residents. It started with making artists independent and cutting reliance to big multinational corporations.

The previously mentioned group structure has helped us turn that into a reality. This feeling of reluctance towards corporations has made us significantly more mindful of our ecological footprint. Artists started making comments on our ulterior devastation of nature and started promoting the cleaning of beaches, deserts, mountains and forests. Many scholars have outlined aspects to social ecology within OUR manifesto which have made us more mindful of our ecological impact. A lot of science fiction has been made outlining a potential societal collapse if we don’t treat the climate issue seriously. Much of this art is honestly pretty ridiculous, they’re mostly extremely pessimistic and fearful of how nature could backlash if we neglect it. Much of the mentality nowadays has incorporated humans to the same level as nature. (Leonard) Things like that the musical and film industry have stayed relevant in Angeleno and Californian culture. It has simply taken a much more independent form. 

Economy

Manifesto

Here is our glorious manifesto