You'll never hear a revolutionary quote..."_______"

[R_P_A_S]

I was talking to a friend whom I feel has very socialist and revolutionary views. Once in a while he jumps on liberal band wagons and what not. He wrote on his facebook status some stupid ghandi quote about non-violence and weak vs stronger men etc. (he ended up deleting it after the status turn into a debate) ANYWAYS! I told him,:

"you said you were a revolutionary, yet you go around quoting Gandhi and this is not your first time."

he tells me... "there's nothing anti-revolutionary or liberal about opening your mind to others ideas and methods, you take the good and progressive of others even if you don't agree 100%."

I then told him that I didn't know any revolutionary/communist or socialist organization or person that has ever quoted Gandhi or used him as a symbol or working class resistance and struggle.

Do you guys?

So It got me to thinking. What other figures in history are used by "the left"(liberals) but NEVER used by revolutionaries?

If you could answer the question why Gandhi is never quoted by us in a sentence what would you say?

[Bronco]

MLK

stupid capital letters rule

[Rusty Shackleford]

MLK and Gandhi were both great leaders, but their better counterparts were Malcom X (or George Jackson/Huey P/ Assata etc.) and Baghat Singh


they both (in both cases) represent 2 sides of the same coin, kind of how republicans and democrats represent the same side of the capitalist coin. not to say they are all bourgeois. Yes MLK and gandhi were bourgeois but have different goals or interests than the status-quo bourgeoisie, but they were fighting for liberation, the more radical elements in the struggle for liberation are much better though, of course.

[Bronco]

MLK and Gandhi were both great leaders, but their better counterparts were Malcom X (or George Jackson/Huey P/ Assata etc.) and Baghat Singh


they both (in both cases) represent 2 sides of the same coin, kind of how republicans and democrats represent the same side of the capitalist coin. not to say they are all bourgeois. Yes MLK and gandhi were bourgeois but have different goals or interests than the status-quo bourgeoisie, but they were fighting for liberation, the more radical elements in the struggle for liberation are much better though, of course.

Yea thats pretty much how I see it too, well with MLK/Malcolm X anyway, don't know as much about Ghandi/Singh

[Ostrinski]

Franklin Roosevelt
Jane Adams
Nelson Mandela
Steve Jobs

[Ostrinski]

Chomsky
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSkZnE6lmO5WEgHshQ2QaSDDhhD7tLea gARYUhTza2VxTyxGON8iQ

[Rusty Shackleford]

chomsky
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:and9gcskzne6lmo5weghshq2qasddhhd7tlea garyuhtza2vxtyxgon8iq
lol

[gorillafuck]

Malcolm X was not so much more anti-capitalist than MLK. he had that quote about capitalism that he gave socialist worker, but later in his life King actually talked more about organized labor than Malcolm X did.

[Ostrinski]

Winston Churchill

[bcbm]

mlk jr had ties to communists and socialized and was organizing with poor people much the way he had organized with the civil rights movement to fight for economic justice and spoke of the 'reconstruction of society.' liberals certainly use his image more than pro-revolutionaries but they almost always get it wrong and i think revolutionaries would do well to learn more from him.

[Искра]

I don't understand Americans and fetish for Malocm X (is this some part of your white guilt trip?), because he was a fucking idiot and a member of Nations of Islam. Every good Bolshevik would hang him on the tree and let him rot. I need no idiots preaching how women should look like a tent...

Also, MLK, Ghandi and all that crap... Ghandi worked for interests of Indian bourgeuis, so that they can get more solid property rights and that they can compete with English capital. I mean people, of course that he's gonna make it he's fighting for the "poor"... what kind of "leader" from third world country would say "yeah, I'm fighting for the interests of our bourgeuise only"?

[dodger]

I don't understand Americans and fetish for Malocm X (is this some part of your white guilt trip?), because he was a fucking idiot and a member of Nations of Islam. Every good Bolshevik would hang him on the tree and let him rot. I need no idiots preaching how women should look like a tent...

Also, MLK, Ghandi and all that crap... Ghandi worked for interests of Indian bourgeuis, so that they can get more solid property rights and that they can compete with English capital. I mean people, of course that he's gonna make it he's fighting for the "poor"... what kind of "leader" from third world country would say "yeah, I'm fighting for the interests of our bourgeuise only"?

Were people in Croatia happy or sad to see the Nazi Germans depart? Perhaps we might understand others from afar.

[Искра]

If by "understanding others" you mean on understanding others national mythology you are writing to wrong person.

[bcbm]

I don't understand Americans and fetish for Malocm X (is this some part of your white guilt trip?), because he was a fucking idiot and a member of Nations of Islam. Every good Bolshevik would hang him on the tree and let him rot. I need no idiots preaching how women should look like a tent...

Also, MLK, Ghandi and all that crap... Ghandi worked for interests of Indian bourgeuis, so that they can get more solid property rights and that they can compete with English capital. I mean people, of course that he's gonna make it he's fighting for the "poor"... what kind of "leader" from third world country would say "yeah, I'm fighting for the interests of our bourgeuise only"?

mlk is different than ghandi

[The Douche]

I don't understand Americans and fetish for Malocm X (is this some part of your white guilt trip?), because he was a fucking idiot and a member of Nations of Islam. Every good Bolshevik would hang him on the tree and let him rot. I need no idiots preaching how women should look like a tent...

Also, MLK, Ghandi and all that crap... Ghandi worked for interests of Indian bourgeuis, so that they can get more solid property rights and that they can compete with English capital. I mean people, of course that he's gonna make it he's fighting for the "poor"... what kind of "leader" from third world country would say "yeah, I'm fighting for the interests of our bourgeuise only"?

Malcolm X bailed on the NOI, and got killed by them for it.

[Susurrus]

Any of the American "Founding Fathers."

Any of the Kennedys.

Mother Teresa

George S. Patton

Jane Austen

Fyodor Doestoevsky

Krushchev or any of the various premiers post-stalin.

[bcbm]

Any of the American "Founding Fathers."
.

no way thomas jeffersons quote about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants is great, have definitely heard benny franklins 'those who would trade liberty for safety deservee neither' and tom paine was p bad ass

[R_P_A_S]

could you guys say why not?.. why wouldn't revolutionaries quote these people...

[Ostrinski]

could you guys say why not?.. why wouldn't revolutionaries quote these people...Some of them kind of speak for themselves, but I do disagree with some of the ones that have been listed.

[Agent Ducky]

Any of the Kennedys.



"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK

I just use this one as their own guy saying "violent revolution is inevitable." Because the bourgeoisie aren't gonna step down.

[Искра]

mlk is different than ghandi
His rich black priest dude...

[bcbm]

i don't think most southern ministers are 'rich' and his political positions are leaps and bounds ahead of ghandi.

[gorillafuck]

I don't understand Americans and fetish for Malocm X (is this some part of your white guilt trip?), because he was a fucking idiot and a member of Nations of Islam. Every good Bolshevik would hang him on the tree and let him rot. I need no idiots preaching how women should look like a tent...most leftists separate between NOI and post-NOI malcolm x. the former was a standard NOI ideologue whereas the latter was a general leftist.

also, calling malcolm x an idiot is pretty stupid. he was a clever fellow.

[The Douche]

His rich black priest dude...

I don't think MLK was rich, he pretty much got his start by taking organizer classes from communist organizations.

[Искра]

He was a just what american liberals needed so that they can scream "yay, black rights"... God forbid that railway worker is leading the struggle... we need nice and clean black priest.

[The Douche]

He was a just what american liberals needed so that they can scream "yay, black rights"... God forbid that railway worker is leading the struggle... we need nice and clean black priest.

How does being a religious leader prevent you from having progressive politics?

I think the civil rights movement was good, and don't really care if it was lead by a clergyman or a reformed drug dealing ex-con.

[bcbm]

He was a just what american liberals needed so that they can scream "yay, black rights"... God forbid that railway worker is leading the struggle... we need nice and clean black priest.

except he wasn't a liberal, he was a socialist and was working against the vietnam war and for a poor people's struggle to more or less challenge the system at the time of his death, quite possibly why he was assassinated. you're applying the benefit of hindsight to him where he has been co-opted and sanitized by the state.

and the civil rights struggle was a broad struggle with leaders from many different backgrounds, mlk was just one part.

and you're ignoring the role of the black church in black communities in the 60s.

[Anarpest]

Saying that MLK is only liberal property is a bit like saying that Marx is only Stalinist property. I think it's quite unfair, especially on the later MLK. I'm also not sure why you would include the American founding fathers in this, since they certainly have been quoted by revolutionaries. They were themselves revolutionary at the time and hence hardly devoid of some insights barred to today's reactionaries.

I do agree on Gandhi, JFK, Mandela and such, though. At least, they wouldn't be quoted in an approving manner, maybe only in a context which undermines their own viewpoint.