Economical Crisis and the Left.

[Delenda Carthago]

What is your views on the crisis?How do you experience it though the revolutionary movements to your country?Do you believe its an opportunity for the Left that is going to be taken or not?Are you optimistic?

[Delenda Carthago]

Noone has a vision on where we are going as revolutionaries in Europe?What can we do to tgrab the opportunity or at least not being swept away by history?

[Rusty Shackleford]

the left is making gains in this crisis but the left should not just be there when crises hit, it should be there ALWAYS.

as for the workers' movement its being lost to the teabaggers. and, if there are anti-teaparty workers they are siding with the democrats because the lins are currently like so:

Left: Democrats
Right: Republican Party, Tea Party movement

Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists are making gains but its not strong enough yet. the mid-term elections and the 2012 elections will provide a picture of the political landscape and if the economy starts to slump again then there will be a new chance.


in short, no revolution in the US but there will be few gains for us, mostly in the organizational realm of things.


EDIT: forgot to add that in california we just got done with 3 moderately large scale protests, 2 about education and 1 by the ANSWER coalition agains the wars. thought the protests are out of the way, im going to be working on agitating students about education cuts. but, students are a small part of it. we want workers' liberation not just students' liberation.

[cyu]

Do you believe its an opportunity for the Left that is going to be taken or not?


It definitely is an opportunity, but the question isn't if other leftists are going to take it. The question is whether you (assuming you consider yourself a leftist) are going to take it.

Even if you don't do much, the most obvious thing you could do is whenever some pro-capitalist claims that socialism always ends in economic disaster, you could simply point him at the world today and ask, "How is capitalism working out for ya?"

[9]

When the crisis was first beginning, I tried to be optimistic by thinking that - if nothing else - it would radicalize workers. TBF, in the US, I think I was by and large extremely wrong about this. My sense at this point, in Washington state, is that workers feel extremely powerless and defeated on one hand and at the same time the attitude among many of them is "I'm just happy I have a job at all, and I'm certainly not going to risk doing anything which could jeopardize it".

There was a garbage workers strike recently in my area, and the night before the workers went on strike, Waste Management put out ads in all the local papers for strikebreakers. The next day, it was reported all over the local news that over 600 applications had already come in and while obviously WM could have inflated this number to intimidate the workers before the strike, I don't think there was any need to; there are enough people out of work that such numbers seem very probable. There is a lab workers strike in PA right now and several of my coworkers as well as my supervisor are planning to fly down there to be strikebreakers. They are being offered 55 dollars an hour with 80 dollars per hour for overtime; it is insane. I was able to talk one of them out of it luckily, but the others had no interest in anything I had to say.

So, there are so many people unemployed right now and it is so hard to find work that the pool of people willing to break strikes is huge. My sense is that, if anything, the crisis has seriously weakened the level of militancy among workers in the US and certainly it is the case in my area.

[Delenda Carthago]

As I see it,with nowdays status,I dont see the Left taking advantage of the system failure.Its sad cause the bipole still stands:socialism or barbarity.I hope I am wrong but I thnik that if the left dont wake up soon,God help us as humanity...

[PurpleLove]

It definitely is an opportunity, but the question isn't if other leftists are going to take it. The question is whether you (assuming you consider yourself a leftist) are going to take it.

Even if you don't do much, the most obvious thing you could do is whenever some pro-capitalist claims that socialism always ends in economic disaster, you could simply point him at the world today and ask, "How is capitalism working out for ya?"

I have some Facebook friends that ask me that.

To the subject at hand, I don't see the left taking advantage of it.
I would love to see the Democratic Socialists of America try to recruit more but of course that takes $.
I did however read an article about the growth in socialist groups due to the economy. It was on some socialist blog I stumbled upon.

I am putting up flyers around my school about democratic socialism. The title starts out, "Economic Bill of Rights." I basically got it off of dsausa.org.

[9]

As I see it,with nowdays status,I dont see the Left taking advantage of the system failure. Its sad cause the bipole still stands:socialism or barbarity.I hope I am wrong but I thnik that if the left dont wake up soon,God help us as humanity...

I agree with this in part. But I don’t think it is a question of "the left"; I think it is a question of the working class becoming conscious of its role, acting in its interests. Where I live, most of "the left" is comprised of the middle class (i.e. well-paid professionals, petit-bourgeoisie, University students from similar background). And in that sense, I really don't want "the left" to "take advantage" of the crisis because I don't think the working class needs middle class shepherds; I think, if anything, such "shepherds" tend to end up acting in the interests either of their own class/strata or of the ruling class which, needless to say, poses a threat in itself insofar as it has the potential to disorient genuine class struggles. But, like I said in my earlier post, in my area working class consciousness - rather than escalating in response to the recession - has really taken a blow. It is very upsetting to see things moving backwards here, and at times it becomes really depressing for me. And I know I am not the only one. But the point I am trying to make is that, without the working class, "the left" is pretty much impotent anyway.

Also, sorry if I sound like a nihilist :-\

[black magick hustla]

(i.e. well-paid professionals, petit-bourgeoisie, University students from similar background).

I don't think this is necessarily true. I mean, there is an awful lot of college educated people in the left, but then again, Phd students are poor as hell and most people doing their dissertation on adorno will probably end up as adjunct lecturers making shit wages with no healthcare:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A15182-2002Jul16

[9]

^It is a fair point, and a good article.

[black magick hustla]

thats why i might not do my phd in something really abstract. but something where i can work in industry. i dont want to have a fuckin mobile office

[Delenda Carthago]

You know,what makes me really wonder in here is that,from what I see,Nepal and India and Chavez gets more attention than what goes on in Europe an US.Lets focus on our shit,Nepalese and Indians know what they are doing.

OFF TOPIC:zappatista's communitys are under attack the last month.how come we dont talk about that?

[blake 3:17]

I think it's really about the massive consumer that neoliberal policy has imposed on the world for the past 30 years. There are opportunties but serious serious dangers.

It really comes down to whether masses of people are going to organize collectively to resist in the defense of a common good or go into individual survivalist mode. Both are happening...

[9]

*bump*

I expected this to be a much livelier thread. Anybody else care to share their observations about working class consciousness/militancy where they live in the wake of the recession?

[Communist]

.
>>Anybody else care to share their observations about working class consciousness/militancy where they live in the wake of the recession?<<

In Pittsburgh, the radicals don't regularly do much high-profile local activism. When things comes up like the recent Jordan Miles beating, the UPMC hospital closing, etc., many do rise to the occasion but not enough sustained agitation is seen - by me, anyway, and I look for it.

The G-20 certainly invigorated the locals but the majority of the activists came from elsewhere. Many residents were amused at how Pittsburgh has been held up by the capitalists as "the town that could overcome" (referencing the ability to adapt following the collapse of the steel industry.) Yes the town has managed but barely. The economic situation here is bad. even if it's not as terrifying as, say, Detroit.

The majority of the working-class have come from generations of Democrats so militancy among them is not high, and the overall population is pretty conservative. Many decades ago Pittsburgh was extremely militant, with a Communist Party branch reportedly the largest in the country.

It's far from terrible, but not as good as it should be, especially with the local colleges. It's challenging but quite hopeful.
In that sense, Pittsburgh is symbolic of the movement everywhere.
.

[which doctor]

most people doing their dissertation on adorno will probably end up as adjunct lecturers making shit wages with no healthcare:

This is true for nearly all humanities majors. And I only know one person who did their dissertation on Adorno and is stuck working as an adjunct.