Things seem to just be getting more and more fucked up all the time.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I look back at around the same time a year ago, and for one of the first times in my young life I was actually somewhat optimistic about the direction the world was headed. For one of the first times it seemed that, if not explicitely leftist forces, at least there was some somewhat progressive resistance to the aftershocks of the financial crisis. The assemblies in both Greece and Spain seemed especially interesting.

But now it seems like it's all gone completely to shit. The USA fucked the people in both Bahrain and Yemen (in regard to Yemen specifically, this is a pretty good read (http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/obamas_new_free_speech_threat/)). Libya now seems to be more-or-less lawless and at the discretion of various armed groups. Egypt is going to choose between a Muslim Brotherhood toadie and a old regime toadie. Tunisia probably came off better than most places, but it's still not really a progressive government, to put it mildly. We all know what a clusterfuck Syria is. The austerity train keeps running through Greece and Spain, in Greece in particular I definitely don't see the disaster stopping, despite SYRIZA and the rest of the eccentrics. The European far right continues to grow.

And in Wisconsin, the heady days of 100,000's of people at the state capital seem very far behind us, as the recall campaign is probably going to fail (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/31/us-wisconsin-recall-poll-idUSBRE84T18L20120531). That will probably result in a devastating loss of morale and an emboldened right-wing. Not that a successful recall would've been a huge victory, in many ways what happened in Wisconsin is already an irredemable loss.

OWS seems done to me. The only thing that may have come out of it is a wider and more emboldened American anarchist movement, although I don't know what practical value there is to be had in that (probably none).

And finally the security-state in the USA has grown exponentially in the past few years. The law has now codified federal abilities that people would've been shocked and disgusted by less than ten years ago. You may think that it won't effect you now, but the mere presence of the infrastructure available to the federal government means that it's going to be used on you, in fact laws related to making merely protesting a serious crime have already been used on people.

I'm not complaining because "teh revolution" hasn't already swept the globe and we're now living in global communism, I know it's a long slog, but honestly I'm looking for one concrete gain for us in recent times and I don't see anything. The only bright spot I see is the Quebec protests at the moment.

[Rocky Rococo]

It's a long-term crisis. I've been involved in the rear-guard battle for most of the 35 years I've been a self-identified leftist (though I did spend 10 years inactive out of total disgust 1992-2002, the runup to the Iraq War forced me back off my ass.) And that's all it has been for the 35 years, a constant series of rear-guard battles always in the end lost.

There's a passage in "The Coming Insurrection" where young rebels are advised to avoid or ignore the likes of me, and the reasons the authors give are exactly right. People like me have seen too much defeat, exhausted ourselves into insensibility trying to stem the rising tide of hegemonic Reaganism-Thatcherism.

The reality is that yes, this isn't last year, but these days are still more promising than anything else we've seen in the last 35 years. (For all its defeats, 1849 still suggested more promise for the future than 1847 did.) The Left forces that have emerged may be conflicted and wavering, but at long last in at least a few places authentically Left forces have emerged.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Don't give up hope. Its been said that we are now in a period of "revolution and counter revolution". We are in a revolutionary period, there can be no doubt about that. Things are very fucked up for average people but...they are fucked up for the ruling classes as well.
They fact that the security state is being ramped up shows they are worried.

True, the Occupy movement hasn't gone anywhere and appears to be dying. The Arab Spring is being rolled back, not that it directly accomplished much anyway. But..the old way of doing things is over.Ruling classes can no longer rule in the same way. They no longer have popular legitimacy, and they know it. If they can't rule by consent, they must use fear and brute force.

I remember in the late 90s (yeah, I'm that old) I would regard anything before say, 1991 as ancient history. In the early 2000s anything before 1999 was ancient history. Things are now moving so fast that when I reade an article by a leftist writer, if it was written longer than two weeks previously, its out of date. Things are changing that fast.

A friend of mine seriously thinks the US labor movement may be rebuilt, within the next few years, out of the various foreclosure blockade actions around the US.

I have no doubt that, before this century is over, nation states will no longer exist and our planet will be socialist.I don't know how or when this will happen but we are seeing the early stages of the revolution.

There is a (probably bogus as far as I can tell) Chinese saying, "may you live in interesting times". These are difficult but interesting times.

[The Young Pioneer]

I remember in the late 90s (yeah, I'm that old) I would regard anything before say, 1991 as ancient history.

:rolleyes:



OP-

Every generation says this shit. Nothing's getting worse. Humans fuck up, and they've been fucking up, and they'll continue to fuck up.

Calm down and enjoy the earth's spin, baby.:thumbup1:

[Os Cangaceiros]

OP-

Every generation says this shit. Nothing's getting worse. Humans fuck up, and they've been fucking up, and they'll continue to fuck up.

Calm down and enjoy the earth's spin, baby.:thumbup1:

My post is in relation to the past year. Not 1900. In comparison to 1900, we're probably better off (materially speaking). In comparison to 2011, it sucks.

If you're perspective is simply the acceptance of the fact that humans will simply fuck up anything eventually, then what's the point in being a communist? History shows that it inevitably gets fucked up anyway, so why even bother?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

There are bright spots... Chile's student movement is powerful, Quebec as you mention is, Mexico has a new protest movement springing up, and it seems segments at least of Spain, France and Italy have been waking up for some time. I happen to know of some new movements which are organizing for the severe issues of austerity, like in California.

In part though I'm being the devil's advocate. The far left has had a long way to go ever since the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. By the time WWII was over, liberal capitalism, reformist social democracy, and bureaucratic statism simply seemed more realistic modes of reform for broad swaths of the working class for much of the next few decades. If anything, 2012 is still looking more optimistic than most other times since that revolutionary period in the 60s. In the 80s Latin America was largely conquered by authoritarian regimes and East Asia was getting rich off of exploiting the workers. In Latin America, Asia and Africa saw the rapid advance of neoliberal ideology, while in Mexico the anti-neoliberal Zapatista uprising was brutally beaten back and contained by the Mexican state . In 2001-2003, we saw the USA begin two new imperialistic wars without any real mass political blowback, except in one or two countries on the international periphery.

Perhaps people still see the far left as too utopian? Too much a challenge to long-cherished cultural values and identities? Part of the problem might be because every single person out there thinks Communism consists of KGB spies and gulags or that Anarchists want to turn the whole world into Somalia. I also think people on the Left will need to accept that the working class, even when organized, in our era still gravitates towards political patrons.

Anyways, there's a lot of crisis left to work its way out. Europe is fucked and there is no way for the working class to save their standard of living without a real socio-economic revolution. Whether or not they discover that is a different issue of course.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I happen to know of some new movements which are organizing for the severe issues of austerity, like in California.

Care to enlighten a comrade?

[wsg1991]

no , there is some advance :

for Egypt : Hamdeen sabahi a nasserist came a close third , with his supporters financial support , actually is better that way , and there is still a live protests movements , you remember lately how a huge protests happened asking for Mubarak execution

Tunisia , there is still hope
the trade union has election a new leadership that appears not corrupt , and causing trouble to the conservative government
left has gained momentum , and nationalist as well (bcause of Hamdeen sabahi )

but i gotta say that the general population is becoming desperate , as no change after 2 years of the uprising , without it the left can't do much either in election or any activity

Yemen , i know now why we no longer hear anything from there

i like to stay optimist , and active

who even thought that the arab uprising will happens ?

[Geiseric]

In Algeria the Workers Party is making bounds of progress. It's the biggest party in the country, and at a whim can count on hundreds of thousands of workers in Algiers to occupy the capitol. We need to form a workers party in the U.S. alongside with some radical unions and minority community assemblies. Occupy, especially the Petit Bourgeois Black Blocers have been the biggest impediment to the students and workers movement asofar in terms of internal problems. We need to get a set of demands that the majority of the working class would accept, such as nationalize the banks, shorten the working day, and keep up wages with inflation. That's how we can build a common identity with the workers movement, evolving into the soon to be international communist movement.

[wsg1991]

In Algeria the Workers Party is making bounds of progress. It's the biggest party in the country, and at a whim can count on hundreds of thousands of workers in Algiers to occupy the capitol. We need to form a workers party in the U.S. alongside with some radical unions and minority community assemblies. Occupy, especially the Petit Bourgeois Black Blocers have been the biggest impediment to the students and workers movement asofar in terms of internal problems. We need to get a set of demands that the majority of the working class would accept, such as nationalize the banks, shorten the working day, and keep up wages with inflation. That's how we can build a common identity with the workers movement, evolving into the soon to be international communist movement.

i believe this time you can go radical on USA banks such nationalizing , since there are the one blamed for the crisis . everyone is blaming the banks , some of the extreme right like Ron Paul blame the Fed (look like a bank to me ) .
but for the rest , a social democrat approach is the best you can do

[Geiseric]

Nationalising the banks, putting them entirely under state control would be a huge step. Forclosures would stop entirely, and the entire capitalist system would be turned on its head. Instead of investing in wars, funds would go to schools, hospitals, and reversing the damage done by NAFTA, all over North America, and the entire process of dividing labor on a country to country basis. The rust belt wouldn't be a region of factories with no employees in them. However I myself have no idea about the specifics, but we need to grasp away control of the economy from the bourgeoisie and I don't know a better way to do so.

Obviously at the same time we support workers occupations and strikes. The point of nationalizing the banks and major industries such as energy is to use their capacity to benefit the population by creating state monopolies. This is a process and a million things will need to happen in between now and that point. The ultimate goal though is a workers government, and we need to show that socialist economics are in all ways superior to capitalists economics.

[Grenzer]

In Algeria the Workers Party is making bounds of progress. It's the biggest party in the country, and at a whim can count on hundreds of thousands of workers in Algiers to occupy the capitol. We need to form a workers party in the U.S. alongside with some radical unions and minority community assemblies. Occupy, especially the Petit Bourgeois Black Blocers have been the biggest impediment to the students and workers movement asofar in terms of internal problems. We need to get a set of demands that the majority of the working class would accept, such as nationalize the banks, shorten the working day, and keep up wages with inflation. That's how we can build a common identity with the workers movement, evolving into the soon to be international communist movement.

There is no "workers' party" in Algeria. The most we have there is a social-democratic party.

I agree with you that we do need to build up a movement that is connected with the desires and needs of ordinary workers though. The key thing is that this needs to be done in a way that avoids economism. It needs to be done in a way that builds revolutionary consciousness and furthers the class interests of the proletariat. Oftentimes, especially here on Revleft, the best way to establish prole cred is to pursue maximalist rhetoric. In other words, telling the workerss that we need to immediately move to socialism, but this has proven to be a failure. This doesn't mean we should compromise our goal of achieving it, far from it. What we need to do is pursue a programme that raises the class consciousness of the workers, falls within the realm of their current demands, and raises international solidarity.

This used to be a cornerstone of revolutionary politics, but especially since the 1930's, it's been forgotten more and more over time. While maximlaist rhetoric may be appealing, it's not actually what the workers are interested since they are dominated by bourgeois ideology. We have to recognize this and worth with it, which again, in no way implies compromising our fundamental goal of social revolution. We do, however, need to go beyond mere wage increases which is fundamentally a concern of trade unionism. We need to recognize that oftentimes, the spontaneous desires of the workers amounts to trade unionism, and that we need to bring them beyond that.

[Geiseric]

"Socialism now," isn't Maximalism, that's ultra leftism in the context that I think you're using it, the difference goes back to the Bolshevik-Menshevik split. "Down with the provisional government," is what i'd consider maximalism, as well as pretty much anything that pushes the struggle foward instead of staying defensist.

And Algeria definately has a workers party, it's never talked about in the news, even though it's the largest party in Algeria. I don't know where you're getting your information on about it being a "Social Democrat Party." There's already one of those in Algeria, it's called the FFS, it's the reformist socialist party. The Workers Party is far beyond Socialist International, Euro Socialist politics. It had the power to make the government make a public statement condemning the Iraqui Invasion less than a day after the Algerian Government put out its support for it, after mobilizing the entire city for a demonstration. That can't be done unless it was a party that the workers see as their own, and which has like I said advanced the Union struggle into the political struggle. Also despite efforts for the FLN to give European Banks control of the oil in Algeria, the PT has mobilized strikes in huge proportions to deny them that request.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I look back at around the same time a year ago, and for one of the first times in my young life I was actually somewhat optimistic about the direction the world was headed. For one of the first times it seemed that, if not explicitely leftist forces, at least there was some somewhat progressive resistance to the aftershocks of the financial crisis. The assemblies in both Greece and Spain seemed especially interesting.

But now it seems like it's all gone completely to shit. The USA fucked the people in both Bahrain and Yemen (in regard to Yemen specifically, this is a pretty good read (http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/obamas_new_free_speech_threat/)). Libya now seems to be more-or-less lawless and at the discretion of various armed groups. Egypt is going to choose between a Muslim Brotherhood toadie and a old regime toadie. Tunisia probably came off better than most places, but it's still not really a progressive government, to put it mildly. We all know what a clusterfuck Syria is. The austerity train keeps running through Greece and Spain, in Greece in particular I definitely don't see the disaster stopping, despite SYRIZA and the rest of the eccentrics. The European far right continues to grow.

And in Wisconsin, the heady days of 100,000's of people at the state capital seem very far behind us, as the recall campaign is probably going to fail (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/31/us-wisconsin-recall-poll-idUSBRE84T18L20120531). That will probably result in a devastating loss of morale and an emboldened right-wing. Not that a successful recall would've been a huge victory, in many ways what happened in Wisconsin is already an irredemable loss.

OWS seems done to me. The only thing that may have come out of it is a wider and more emboldened American anarchist movement, although I don't know what practical value there is to be had in that (probably none).

And finally the security-state in the USA has grown exponentially in the past few years. The law has now codified federal abilities that people would've been shocked and disgusted by less than ten years ago. You may think that it won't effect you now, but the mere presence of the infrastructure available to the federal government means that it's going to be used on you, in fact laws related to making merely protesting a serious crime have already been used on people.

I'm not complaining because "teh revolution" hasn't already swept the globe and we're now living in global communism, I know it's a long slog, but honestly I'm looking for one concrete gain for us in recent times and I don't see anything. The only bright spot I see is the Quebec protests at the moment.

There were a lot of failures in the early years of the Depression. First there was no popular response as people were confused and demoralized while the bosses took advantage and made cuts (sound familiar?). Radicals worked on small campaigns against foreclosures and helped organize the unemployed. There were sporadic flair ups, but people were afraid to strike and were still hoping that politicians might do something. Even when things changed, there were 3 massive general strikes in the US (two years before the strike wave) and none of them were decisive victories - they were either losses or mixed. But this period of "low" struggle paved the way for much wider radicalization and militancy in the 2nd half of the decade.

The Civil Rights movement was declared dead numerous times - even by supporters. Struggle has a dynamic and our class hasn't even begun to fight. Things like OWS and Wisconsin in the US show the POTENTIAL and willingness of people and a new militancy that's possible; but it's like seeing a baby's first steps and wondering if they will win a marathon. We are at the begining of the possibility of renewed class militancy and struggle, but in the large picture we are still - at this point - only the recipients of a one-sided class war.

In the US, we haven't even seen the full right-wing reaction to OWS yet. We've seen the police reaction, but if we keep going at some point we will probably face vigilante actions from tea-party or minutemen types.

North Africa is a little different because the struggle is at a much higher pitch. But there you can already see the dynamic of struggle. There's the popular phase where all classes can agree that the present system isn't working; Mubarak is gone, but then what? The regime was able to win back some momentum through confusion on our side and lack of organization by radicals and militant workers. The regime convinced the middle classes that "peace" and "stability" was needed and could be achieved through the parliamentary process and so workers and other forces that wanted further change were isolated. The repression by Arab and North African regimes as well as the US helped stop the tide of popular uprisings by confusing things and creating new alliances and so on and this had an effect in Egypt too. The protest movement was declared over and protests shrank in size over the spring and summer. Then repression started back up, but it was miscalculated and renewed anti-regime protests which gained a wider hearing by rallying everyone who was not satisfied with the minimal changes that had happened.

This protest dynamic inside Egypt or Greece or where-ever will probably go on for many years. The larger international dynamic of struggle (judging by the ruling class's inability to "fix" the crisis without much much more destruction - as well as our side's immaturity in terms of independent class organization) could likely take decades just like the instability in the late-mid 1800s or the early 20th century economic ups and downs.

So I think it's important to take a long-view and realistically assess where our side is in terms of power and confidence and organization - while also not missing the short-term opportunities and possibilities to help our class fight in its own interests.

[Igor]

If you're perspective is simply the acceptance of the fact that humans will simply fuck up anything eventually, then what's the point in being a communist? History shows that it inevitably gets fucked up anyway, so why even bother?

Well, communists will probably fuck it up anyways. After all that, what we have at hand is probably a notably better society where people are better off than before but that doesn't mean we can't remain fucking things up and some human beings continue being as terrible as ever. Not everything can be fixed.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If there is another crash, it won't be like the last time. People will not give the mainstream politicians and pundits the benefit of the doubt and sacrifice wages and so on in hopes that our bosses can "turn it around".

If anything 2011 only singled the end of the one sided class war, people didn't accept neoliberal dictators or austerity as the only solution and began to mobilize themselves. But we still haven't seen our class push forward or really begin to fight back yet. If they don't, then we are in for some shit - massive increases to inequality and probably an imperialist world-war type situation.

[ed miliband]

i think it is testament to the hopelessness that op talks about that a bloody nasserist coming third in egypt, and a "workers' party" (all the others have been glorious victories, right? lol) getting a stunning 6.5% in the last algerian elections, are mentioned as positive signs.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Things are pretty bad right now. The bourgeoisie continue to hold on to their position by any means, and they have become much more open about their positions blatantly defending their class interests.

I believe that the people in places hit hardest by the crisis such as Greece and Spain know subconsciously that their only way out is revolution. However, they are trying to avoid the conflict that will come from a revolution and are hoping desperately for some reform or some kind of a magic change that requires no serious action. Revolutions are messy and violent, and people will try to desperately avoid violence until all of their other resources have been exhausted. When all else fails, then is when we will see a revolution. Until they truly have nothing left to lose but their chains, they will not mobilize.

I hope I'm wrong though and the people get on their feet tomorrow.

[Mr. Natural]

Os Cangaceiros, That was an eloquent, accurate OP. Thanks. It was also a hopeful OP, for it recognized reality. Those who are claiming to see life in the left and effective organizing somewhere are simply "whistling past the graveyard."

Capitalism has triumphed, comrades, and we and the human species are currently fucked. Os Cangaceiros and a couple of others recognize this reality, which is be the starting point for change.

What has gone wrong? Marx and Engels nailed capitalism, the mortal enemy of life on Earth. Why hasn't the left--anarchism, communism--been able to employ Marxism's radical insights into life and society and organize revolutionary processes out of capitalism into a human future?

Answer: the left has never known how to organize. All of the living systems of share the same pattern of organization, which is the pattern of community/communism. This is the pattern by which matter came to life on Earth 4 billion years ago and continues to come to life; this is the pattern by which humanity must consciously come to life in anarchist/communist forms of community.

So, comrades, we will either learn how to consciously organize in the manner that the rest of life unconsciously, automatically organizes, or we are out of here. Most fortunately, we now have access to the new sciences of organizational relations and a deeply radical, transcendent conceptual triangle created by the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra, that models life's (thus society's) universal pattern of organization. So the left can now learn to play a decent game of God and create living forms of community that begin to move us out of capitalism into a realized human future.

That's the potential offered us by the new sciences of organizational relations and Capra's triangle. I've broached this theme dozens of times, though, and no one seems to understand what I'm saying. Indeed, these new sciences have been ignored by Marxists, while Marx and Engels eagerly devoured the scientific advances of their day.

Science has now dramatically progressed. Are current Marxists going to continue to ignore their lifeblood?

Comrades interested in engaging this new science are invited to pick up Fritjof Capra's masterwork, The Web of Life (1996), which brings the new sciences of organization down to Earth for regular, revolutionary human beings to understand and employ.

My red-green best.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Care to enlighten a comrade?

There is currently a lot of organizing among students, faculty, staff and concerned citizens around education cutbacks, and talk is in the air of organizing a state-wide democratic student union, possibly modeled on Chile's or Quebec's depending on the strategic needs of the time. I don't really want to jinx it though by getting anybody's hopes up that we will see Montreal or Santiago style scenes in Santa Monica and Oakland of course. Although it is interesting to see a broad leftwing rejection of the Democrats and their governor here. He has been instituting the cuts to these institutions, and there is increasing blowback against both the way the public universities/k-12 are financed and the way they are managed by overpaid technocratic appointees.

Also this year, Occupy SF has been disrupting home auctions and foreclosures, which is significant and shows an improved level of political consciousness from what was the norm in the US. I know people of different class backgrounds etc who have been a part of that

Neither are really revolutions in of themselves but they are interesting efforts which I think show potential. I don't know what's going on in the rest of the country.

[Geiseric]

Occupy has been much more functional and centralized in everywhere except for the West and East coasts, they don't have any Blac Bloc anarchists in say Madison or most mid western occupy events. Our duty as marxists is to make sure things go in the right direction, we need to learn from occupy and figure out why it was a failure (in the west and east coasts at least).

[wsg1991]

There is currently a lot of organizing among students, faculty, staff and concerned citizens around education cutbacks, and talk is in the air of organizing a state-wide democratic student union, possibly modeled on Chile's or Quebec's depending on the strategic needs of the time. I don't really want to jinx it though by getting anybody's hopes up that we will see Montreal or Santiago style scenes in Santa Monica and Oakland of course. Although it is interesting to see a broad leftwing rejection of the Democrats and their governor here. He has been instituting the cuts to these institutions, and there is increasing blowback against both the way the public universities/k-12 are financed and the way they are managed by overpaid technocratic appointees.

Also this year, Occupy SF has been disrupting home auctions and foreclosures, which is significant and shows an improved level of political consciousness from what was the norm in the US. I know people of different class backgrounds etc who have been a part of that

Neither are really revolutions in of themselves but they are interesting efforts which I think show potential. I don't know what's going on in the rest of the country.

sorry i don't believe that student unions , in a society that higher education is is privatize will be any good . for instance i am a medical student , from lower middle class it cost me 60 dollars as fee to my university , 1 dollar to it's Library so i can borrow expensive medical book (which i haven't payed yet )


in a privatized high education system such as USA , you won't find much mediocre origins students which are very important to your cause
i wouldn't be able to attend medical school in USA , or drowned in Debt , and unable to think about occupy or something like that

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

sorry i don't believe that student unions , in a society that higher education is is privatize will be any good . for instance i am a medical student , from lower middle class it cost me 60 dollars as fee to my university , 1 dollar to it's Library so i can borrow expensive medical book (which i haven't payed yet )


in a privatized high education system such as USA , you won't find much mediocre origins students which are very important to your cause
i wouldn't be able to attend medical school in USA , or drowned in Debt , and unable to think about occupy or something like that

You are mistaken in thinking California's universities are all private. California has one of the world's largest public school systems which is quite good and which is also currently undergoing a slow-motion privatization. Every state in America has different policies, and California's public schools are a strong asset.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Community_College

There are millions of students, faculty and staff in public higher education in California.

[wsg1991]

You are mistaken in thinking California's universities are all private. California has one of the world's largest public school systems which is quite good and which is also currently undergoing a slow-motion privatization. Every state in America has different policies, and California's public schools are a strong asset.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Community_College

There are millions of students, faculty and staff in public higher education in California.

sorry i don't have enough info , but i just read couple articles about how expensive medicine studies in USA ( about 100,000 to 120,000 students loans )

i think my point is clear ,
private university students are no good
public ones ( including me ) are good

[Hexen]

:rolleyes:



OP-

Every generation says this shit. Nothing's getting worse. Humans fuck up, and they've been fucking up, and they'll continue to fuck up.

Calm down and enjoy the earth's spin, baby.:thumbup1:



If you're perspective is simply the acceptance of the fact that humans will simply fuck up anything eventually, then what's the point in being a communist? History shows that it inevitably gets fucked up anyway, so why even bother?


Well, communists will probably fuck it up anyways. After all that, what we have at hand is probably a notably better society where people are better off than before but that doesn't mean we can't remain fucking things up and some human beings continue being as terrible as ever. Not everything can be fixed.

You three have fallen into the "Human Nature" trap again which is common defeatist jargon.

There are other reasons why "things fuck up" without delving into misanthropy territory which is what the Human Nature argument leads to.

[The Young Pioneer]

If you're perspective is simply the acceptance of the fact that humans will simply fuck up anything eventually, then what's the point in being a communist? History shows that it inevitably gets fucked up anyway, so why even bother?

I didn't say they'll fuck up anything just that humans can and do fuck up. But yes, I have a hard time swallowing the idea that a post-capitalist society could be without fuck-ups (or, fuck-up-less, if you will). The point of being communist is being aware that there is a better way with less fuck-ups.

But hey, if you or anyone else can create a world revolution that brings in a communist Utopia, I'll take it all back. ;)


And Hexen- Human nature is a stupid theory, and I don't believe in it. I do believe in mistakes, and that people make them. It's equally stupid theory to think anyone can make a perfect world under communism (or anything else).

[Prometeo liberado]

Occupy has been much more functional and centralized in everywhere except for the West and East coasts, they don't have any Blac Bloc anarchists in say Madison or most mid western occupy events. Our duty as marxists is to make sure things go in the right direction, we need to learn from occupy and figure out why it was a failure (in the west and east coasts at least).

Everywhere save for half the country huh? Marxist dont "make sure things go in the right direction" when that thing is merely a set of tactics called "Occupy". Our goal is to offer analysis, cultivate class consciousness and lead by experience. We call that ML. Occupy faltered, not failed, because it had no coherent theory beyond rudimentary tactics and marketing. Better days and solid wins will only be won when tactics and theory maneuver along the same path.

[bcbm]

I
And finally the security-state in the USA has grown exponentially in the past few years. The law has now codified federal abilities that people would've been shocked and disgusted by less than ten years ago. You may think that it won't effect you now, but the mere presence of the infrastructure available to the federal government means that it's going to be used on you, in fact laws related to making merely protesting a serious crime have already been used on people.

i think this is an important point and it extends beyond the security state apparatus to all the techniques of repression with the subtler forms being perhaps even more developed. pro-revolutionaries are incredibly outgunned across the board and as yet have not managed to develop any coherent counter-techniques. most are stuck in stillborn methods of the past and those who try to adapt seem to just end up rehashing other things from the past and suffering the same fate of irrelevance.

[Mr. Natural]

Os Cangaceiros, bcbm, I agree with the two of you on the escalating entrapment of the human species within global capitalism's security-surveillance state and on the absence of any viable left theory or actions in response. Most unfortunately, the three of us are correct.

When I look to the near-future of these developments in the US and Western Europe, Russia, and China, I initially see Orwell's 1984. These degenerate security states will then disappear along with their captive humans as the various hanging catastrophes global capitalism has created are triggered.

Capitalism is a system and it has triumphed. Capitalism has become the human ecosystem, and capitalism functions as a cancer of all forms of life.

To counter this desperate scenario, the left must learn to organize as life against the cancer of capitalism. There are new sciences of organizational relations that illuminate and facilitate such developments, and there is a conceptual triangle created by Fritjof Capra that models the universal pattern of organization of living systems (people and their communities are living systems). However, current Marxists and other leftists ignore this science, despite being unable to organize.

I've been over this again and again. My daily deja vu. I don't give up, for I cannot, and I also know there is a way. I also know that Marx and Engels would have devoured this science and employed it to bring life to revolutionary processes out of capitalism into a realized human future.

I don't have a crystal ball: I have Marxism and the new science(s) of the organization of life, community, and revolution.

My red-green best.

[Os Cangaceiros]

i think this is an important point and it extends beyond the security state apparatus to all the techniques of repression with the subtler forms being perhaps even more developed. pro-revolutionaries are incredibly outgunned across the board and as yet have not managed to develop any coherent counter-techniques. most are stuck in stillborn methods of the past and those who try to adapt seem to just end up rehashing other things from the past and suffering the same fate of irrelevance.

I found this interesting, from a recent article:



The domestic spying program was first disclosed by The New York Times in December 2005, and the government subsequently admitted that the the National Security Agency was eavesdropping on Americans’ telephone calls without warrants if the government believed the person on the other line was overseas and associated with terrorism. Further news investigations found that the government had secretly enlisted the help of major U.S. telecoms, including AT&T, to spy on Americans’ phone and internet communications without getting warrants as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Parts of the surveillance program were so egregious that the upper echelon of the Justice Department, including then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, threatened to resign (http://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/NSA-program-led-to-standoff-at-Ashcroft-s-sickbed-1237491.php) en masse if it wasn’t changed.

I don't know how many people here remember this, but John Ashcroft was kind of looked at as a Darth Vader-type figure on the left during this time period, along with Dick Cheney. And even he was revolted by the very same policies that the Obama administration is now defending as absolutely necessary. Things have really changed for the worse.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/warrantless-spying-challenge/

[black magick hustla]

i think this is an important point and it extends beyond the security state apparatus to all the techniques of repression with the subtler forms being perhaps even more developed. pro-revolutionaries are incredibly outgunned across the board and as yet have not managed to develop any coherent counter-techniques. most are stuck in stillborn methods of the past and those who try to adapt seem to just end up rehashing other things from the past and suffering the same fate of irrelevance.

:shrugs: because of this i don't think there is really room for any conception of pro-revolutionaries as clandestine, disciplined cadre. i think the future is either open revolt or nothing.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think there may be room for clandestine groups, but the sort of rigid vanguard-type urban guerrilla stuff is definitely a lot more difficult.

Maybe not the best example, but the ELF was actually a pretty successful group back in the day, and the authorities admit today that they had very little to no evidence connecting the attacks to specific individuals. It was only through manipulating a paranoid heroin addict who was a co-conspirator and who all of the defendants knew that the "1st generation" ELF was brought down.

I think that "illegalist" groups that are loosely linked together will probably persist into the future, although their overall influence will of course be nil.

But this doesn't really have much to do with my OP, I suppose.

[Firebrand]

We live in interesting times my friends
The gloves are off and we're choosing up sides, the stuff thats been happening up until this point has just been the warmup. The practice run to let everyone see where the lines have been drawn. Things are about to kick off, you can feel it in the air. I don't know if we'll suceed but something big is definately on the cards over the next year or so.

[bcbm]

:shrugs: because of this i don't think there is really room for any conception of pro-revolutionaries as clandestine, disciplined cadre. i think the future is either open revolt or nothing.

probably nothing. if the shit that has been happening isnt enough to generate some serious revolts i dont know what it will take. i dont want to see what it will take.


We live in interesting times my friends
The gloves are off and we're choosing up sides, the stuff thats been happening up until this point has just been the warmup. The practice run to let everyone see where the lines have been drawn. Things are about to kick off, you can feel it in the air.

well i hope you are right but im not holding my breath. even if things kick off i dont think it will necessarily be good for 'the left'

[Ismail]

and a "workers' party" (all the others have been glorious victories, right? lol) getting a stunning 6.5% in the last algerian elections, are mentioned as positive signs.To be fair it isn't like elections in Algeria are taken seriously by most people.

Anyway, my view is that the communist movement needs to actually be identified with workers' interests again. As it stands, it's identified with academia and students. American leftists have, historically, been rather bad at actually developing class consciousness amongst the working-class. Even in the 1900s Daniel De Leon was like "European socialists keep on asking why America is lagging behind in creating a socialist movement." Today early 1900's USA looked like it had a huge socialist movement, even though back then it was a fair bit smaller and far less influential than the movements in Germany, Russia, France and even Spain.

[ed miliband]

To be fair it isn't like elections in Algeria are taken seriously by most people.


a far more positive sign than the the algerian workers' parties electoral results, then.

[Terminator X]

Anyway, my view is that the communist movement needs to actually be identified with workers' interests again.

Couldn't agree more. I mean, just look at these statistics from the recall election in Wisconsin - over one-third of union households actually voted for Scott Walker!


There is no way to dispute that the biggest loser in the Wisconsin recall has to be the labor unions—in Wisconsin and beyond. Not so much because they picked a fight where they could not deliver a win—although that is certainly problematic—but because 37 percent of union households in the state voted for Scott Walker.

When the unions succeed in turning out their members to vote —as they did—only to find that over 1/3 of the union households voted against the union agenda, it is more than reasonable to suggest that the unions no longer are in tune with a large share of the membership. In an era where unions continue to decline in influence, this must be the most damning message of all.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/06/requiem-for-a-recall/


That is an abject failure on the part of union officials relaying the correct message to their constituents, and not stressing the importance of voting in the favor of one's own interests. Labor leaders are as worthless as tits on a nun these days, and the left needs to step in and take advantage of this - the anarcho-syndicalist movement in particular, which I think has HUGE potential in raising class consciousness and acting on behalf of workers' interests.

[wsg1991]

. Labor leaders are as worthless as tits on a nun these days,.

:lol:

[Ocean Seal]

I'm going to go ahead and say that things aren't as bad as they have been in the past. Especially in the pre-occupy, pre-Spain/Greek protests.
We have made certain important gains.
#1 Victory of the Workers in Kazakhstan
This took months, lives, among other things to achieve
#2 Scott Walker Recall
The fact that this actually took place and it took place because he targeted workers rights, not some constitutional bullshit is in fact an achievement. Sure he won, and that truly is disheartening because I don't think that the working class learned a valuable lesson here. Which is the fact that they can strike back against austerity, but this is something that ten or even five years ago we wouldn't have thought possible.
# 3 General strike in Oakland
Okay so it wasn't a general strike, but it was the first time that such a massive day of action actually resembled a general strike. Something like 18-20% of all workers didn't go to work. Not to mention that the bourgeoisie are giving the workers there a platform everytime that they write an article about how shitty Oakland's occupiers are.
# 5 Anti-Austerity Still Strong Across Southern Europe
This is a defeat to some extent because some anti-austerity parties are proto-fascist.
# 6 Return to the Battle for a Living Wage
It took a whole movement to ignite the idea that something like this could be possible. The defeat of exclusively parliamentary tactics in the US.
# 7 Workers of Egypt are not actually fully disciplined by their military government
People are still on the streets, and well aren't taking too well to their controllers.
# 8 Over the past few years China has become the place for strikes, riots, anti-government actions, among other things.
# 9 Quebec Student Protests/ London Student Protests
The evolution of the power of student protest, and the creation of militant students who are at the very least a headache for the bourgeoisie.
# 10 No War against Iran
Be grateful, a pre-emptive anti-war feeling that hasn't been allowed to be swept from the consciousness of the masses by opportunists.
# 11 India's Maoists still roam the red corridor, larger than they have ever been before, and enjoy widespread support from the locals, well certainly more than the Indian government.
Okay so its not world communism, but its certainly worth our time to go ahead and look at what's actually been accomplished.

[blake 3:17]

MY WORLD is getting scarier. Many of the benefits of living in an imperialist country with an OK welfare state are being eroded very very quickly. I make slightly less money per hour than I did 12 years, and that is after a degree and a diploma. In the last year I have started to feel nervous taking money out of a bank machine. There is more desperation. Attacks on the public sector, reorganization of the national economy, attacks on workers rights, attacks on social rights are enormous.

I live in Ontario, and the rightwing attacks on the Quebec students are having a bit of blow back effect. From centrist liberals to revolutionary socialists and anarchists, thereès an acknowledgement and respect for this struggle.

Occupy has given a great wind to many movements and movement activists.

The opposition to the Alberta tar sands in the US and Canada is terrific.

SYRIZA is a great move forward, on the national and international level.

It is a long haul.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Capitalism persists.

I think that if you look longer term, the class struggle has definitely intensified over the past few decades. The bad news is that the rise of neo-liberalism in the late 70s/early 80s, combined with the fall of the USSR a decade later and the Capitalist triumphalism that followed, has led to a significant period of retreat for the working class.

I guess it's not really enough to have a theoretical alternative to Capitalism. As long as there is no alternative in praxis, then Capitalism can rule as it likes, which is what we are seeing happening. Grotesque as the USSR was, it did at least act as a realpolitik buffer to the worst of the west's imperial excesses. Of course, you then have to weigh that against the USSRs own imperialism.

Whilst I do not see the return of Socialism at this particular juncture in history, I do think that Capitalism is sustaining damage that is perhaps chronic. A large chunk of the world has had their industrial revolutions, and no longer have the capacity (nor the will) to become industrial on a scaleable level again. Financial Capitalism is proving, in its current form at least, to be a failure.

As a class, what we need to do is not only highlight the failures of Financial Capitalism and Capitalism in general (I think these things, particularly the former, are being done even in the mainstream right now). What we also do not need to do is spend a lot of time insularly masturbating over shit that happened a long time ago, or waving the red flag. What we need are real victories for the working class; victorious economic struggles (so here in Britain i'd be looking to reverse tuition fee rises, reverse healthcare privatisation and stop the horrendous back-door privatisation and red-tape involved in education, over the next 4 or 5 years) combined with growing political struggles (self-organisation of the working class, wildcat solidarity strikes, secondary picketing and so on).

[Lenin's Cat]

You are mistaken in thinking California's universities are all private. California has one of the world's largest public school systems which is quite good and which is also currently undergoing a slow-motion privatization. Every state in America has different policies, and California's public schools are a strong asset.

There are millions of students, faculty and staff in public higher education in California.

CA has a huge "public" university system with high tuition and a sparse grant program. That means working class students use low-wage jobs and student loans to fund their educations, even in the State university system. In the University of California system which includes UC Berkeley, UCLA, Davis, etc. - their tuitions are even higher.

Don't kid yourself - our "public" education system here in CA is a joke. And Gov. Brown continues to cut back community college funding and university funding while increasing tuition, making higher education less accessible to the working class.

[wsg1991]

CA has a huge "public" university system with high tuition and a sparse grant program. That means working class students use low-wage jobs and student loans to fund their educations, even in the State university system. In the University of California system which includes UC Berkeley, UCLA, Davis, etc. - their tuitions are even higher.

Don't kid yourself - our "public" education system here in CA is a joke. And Gov. Brown continues to cut back community college funding and university funding while increasing tuition, making higher education less accessible to the working class.

well thanks , i don't think that could be considered public