Imagine 200 Occupy Candidates This Year...

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Imagine 200 Occupy candidates running for Congress this year – independent of the Democrats and Republicans.
Imagine if these candidates were not careerist politicians, but activists and ordinary people, running as accountable representatives of a real, fighting movement of the 99%.
Imagine homeowners who are facing foreclosure running against local sheriffs, and pledging to stop all evictions.
Imagine teachers fighting union-busting; debt-ridden students fighting for free education; low-wage workers fighting for a living wage; and environmentalists fighting big oil.
Imagine them all running with tens of thousands of Occupy activists backing them up: going door-to-door, rallying, protesting, and using these candidates to build the power of our grassroots mass movement.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article10.php?id=1921

[Ostrinski]

I'm imagining 200 abruptly sobered and disappointed politicians.

[Prometeo liberado]

I want to say yes to this soooo bad, yet the pragmatist in me says otherwise. Eventually we will have to engage the capitalist in it's own arena. I have just not seen the critical mass that can fund this or contend with the capitalist media.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Aren't there a couple of Occupy/Occupation-inspired electoral parties already? :confused:

[The Jay]

I want to say yes to this soooo bad, yet the pragmatist in me says otherwise. Eventually we will have to engage the capitalist in it's own arena. I have just not seen the critical mass that can fund this or contend with the capitalist media.

Exactly. I guess that we're just a bunch of Buzz Killingtons.

[Geiseric]

Occupy won't ever form itself into a party, and if it did it would be co-opted by the petit bourgeois elements inside of it.

We need to form a Labor party. Plain and simple. The unions would be at the core of it, and if you think anything else is possible, well you're ultra left. At least for U.S. comrades, this is plainly the step forward.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Aren't there a couple of Occupy/Occupation-inspired electoral parties already? :confused:

Occupy represents a first, confused rising of the working class.The main problem with Occupy has been its anti-political nature. A movement which politically contested the ruling class, even initially in bourgeois elections, would be a huge boost to working class power.The idea of the article is to bring up the idea that if this anger and rage can be challenged in something more meaningful than has been, for the most part, happening.There are signs of this-foreclosure eviction resistance, bank protests, etc. and this is a good start.

There are socialists organisations running candidates which long predate Occupy but which have been trying to provide a political direction to working class anger and alienation.The article itself appeared in Justice, the paper of Socialist Alternative. We're active in Occupy but of course long predate it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Occupy represents a first, confused rising of the working class. The main problem with Occupy has been its anti-political nature. A movement which politically contested the ruling class, even initially in bourgeois elections, would be a huge boost to working class power.The idea of the article is to bring up the idea that if this anger and rage can be challenged in something more meaningful than has been, for the most part, happening.There are signs of this-foreclosure eviction resistance, bank protests, etc. and this is a good start.

There are socialists organisations running candidates which long predate Occupy but which have been trying to provide a political direction to working class anger and alienation. The article itself appeared in Justice, the paper of Socialist Alternative. We're active in Occupy but of course long predate it.

What I meant was why does the article not promote something like this?

http://theoccupationparty.org/


Occupy won't ever form itself into a party, and if it did it would be co-opted by the petit bourgeois elements inside of it.

We need to form a Labor party. Plain and simple. The unions would be at the core of it, and if you think anything else is possible, well you're ultra left. At least for U.S. comrades, this is plainly the step forward.

Emulating British Labourism is a dead end. German Social Democracy had anything but tred-iunionisty at its core. The American left should look to pre-WWI German Social Democracy and not British Labourism as a model.

A small step forward: Progressive Green Labor Party?

[o well this is ok I guess]

Yo man remember when Proudhon went into government and thought "awesome, I'm gonna make a difference!"?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

That outfit does not look like a political party but more of a loose liberal reformist internet grouping.As Broody Guthrie said, we need a US Labor Party, an organisation which will both work to increase class consciousness and express working class anger.This can happen though specific demands such as bringing the banks and other commanding heights of the economy under public ownership.

As many activists report, it has generally been difficult to bring political direction to Occupy.

[Geiseric]

Obviously not British Laborism... Where did I say that? The SPD that Engels and Marx formed is what I advocate. We need to make working people identify themselves as workers, not "Americans." We need to bring into light the class traitors like Trumka who are the sole force enabling Austerity, unconditionally. We need to form a labor party, which working class Communists will evolve into the future revolutionary party.

However, is the british labor party capable of being turned to class interests though if the union rank and file would oust the leadership? This would take a developed revolutionary cadre, however it isn't impossible.

[kurr]

Occupy won't ever form itself into a party, and if it did it would be co-opted by the petit bourgeois elements inside of it.

We need to form a Labor party. Plain and simple. The unions would be at the core of it, and if you think anything else is possible, well you're ultra left. At least for U.S. comrades, this is plainly the step forward.

Nice to see you're still stuck in 1920.

A Labor party will become nothing more than social democratic in nature. Unions are a dead end.

This is not a step forward. Occupy was not a step forward. It's only telling of predominately White middle class peoples forced into some kind of political "action". Nothing more. Signs of the times.

[Geiseric]

Comrade, I'm aware of the white petit bourgeoisie, and their influence on past movements. The point of the workingman's party is to have the working class as the only driving force behind it, which is the work of communists.

However we can't form a communist party without mass consciousness. A labor party is the only vehicle for this end. Otherwise you'll be forming a sect of leftist intellectuals.

How am I "Stuck in 1920"? I was born in 1994, and every quasi leftist mass movement i've seen since then has been an abject failure, because the working class has nothing to do with it. The Labor Party is the only medium to expose the labor bureaucracy and to propagandize, aggitate, and organize the masses for the overthrow of capitalism.

[Silvr]

Wow, what a load of shit. Its no wonder so many people in the US think liberals are socialists considering that the people calling themselves socialists are indistinguishable from liberals.

Also, this:

http://www.socialistalternative.org/graphics/upload/booth.jpg

is one of the funniest things I have seen recently. :lol:

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I will kindly remind comrades to keep this discussion free of flaming and on a polite path so it may be enjoyed by all and constructive.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

We need to form a Labor party. Plain and simple. The unions would be at the core of it, and if you think anything else is possible, well you're ultra left.

I don't really see any argument here, just a Labour Party fetish. Why exactly would you want to set up a Capitalist party, I wonder? There's plenty of historical and contemporary experience showing that Labour Parties have never been relevant to Socialism.

Rather, a left-of-labour movement should be set up that encourages candidates to run in elections, but not for the purpose of getting elected. The only purpose of bourgeois elections, for us, should be for propaganda and agitation. Candidates should make it clear in their manifesto's that, if they win a seat or whatever, they will not utilise it. Thus, the increasing success of any Socialist movement in terms of 'winning' bourgeois elections will actually lead to the disintegration of the bourgeois political institutions, as opposed to us seeking 'representation' in them, and thus running the huge (and stupid) risk of co-option by the bourgeoisie, as many Eurocommunist (and indeed Labour Parties you so advocate) parties have done in the past few decades.

[Geiseric]

obviously. I'm not advocating running candidates and running the bourgeois state, but if anything using the state to advocate for its destruction. However the role of unions is indespensible to this party, because unions part of the party grow in strength as the party grows, the way I see it at least, which is good for the whole working class. The more unionized the working class is, I think we can all agree, is a good indicator of class consciousness as a whole. At this point working peoples organizations have been under attack for the past decade. Not the recessions are here, and the epoch of imperialist decline is at its begining. This means that the first people under attack, to be squeezed of money of, are the working class. This means that we have to organize a class that represents the working class, which operates in conjunction with the unions.

As for the union bureaucrats, and the opportunists that everybody's afraid of, they are already in the process of having to deal with discontent from the rank and file regarding the failures of wisconsin, and the other obvious reasons that there are to not like people like Trumka. The organizers of the party have the role of defrauding these corrupt officials, and advocating for their removal, unconditionally. After that's been done though there shouldn't be a problem.

[Crux]

Yo man remember when Proudhon went into government and thought "awesome, I'm gonna make a difference!"?
That's anarchists for you.

Silvr:
How about saying something more concrete?


Also I must say, following Kshama Sawants (http://votesawant.org/) campaign so far has been pretty inspiring.
Lizard King, you say 200 disappointed politicians, but that's not how we work or should work anyway. We're not politicians.

[Geiseric]

Wait, we're not politicians? As in we don't see a reason to defend things that were won for us, like social security and some degrees of welfare that allows the working class to live in somewhat bearable conditions? Or there's no point in defending say the education system, or ending wars? Honestly, the labor party is out to end what the bourgeois government is doing against the working class. Eventually a seperate revolutionary party will inevitably be have to be formed, since the concept of a labor party is a united front, for conditions where revolution is unobtainable.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Broody: you say almost simultaneously that we are both at the epoch of imperial decline, and also in conditions where revolution is unobtainable.

If we are in the former, why do we want a labour party/united front? You've not really answered my question: if we know how badly labour parties have historically (and up to this day) failed the working class, co-opted them, collaborated with the bourgeoisie and in many cases become the bourgeoisie, tehn why would we want to form another one?

How can you form a revolutionary party from a labour party? A breakaway would signify by its very nature that the majority elements of a labour party do not want to break away and are reformist elements.

It seems circular logic: we are at the defining decline of capitalism, so let's form a united front labour party to fight for reforms, so that we can break away and form a revolutionary party at some undefined period in the future.

Aside from this circular logic, the last thing we need is another party. Would the unions even back such a party? They've been around for so long, it's unlikely that the union leaderships would want to have their influence co-opted by another party. I just can't see this plan being put into action, nor the positive benefits from expending energy trying to do so.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Obviously not British Laborism... Where did I say that? The SPD that Engels and Marx formed is what I advocate.

You advocated British Labourism when you said that unions need to be at the core of some Labor Party. The SPD didn't have this until the mid-1900s.

[RedSonRising]

Occupy won't ever form itself into a party, and if it did it would be co-opted by the petit bourgeois elements inside of it.

We need to form a Labor party. Plain and simple. The unions would be at the core of it, and if you think anything else is possible, well you're ultra left. At least for U.S. comrades, this is plainly the step forward.

Hell yes. There are enough activist unions, worker cooperatives, community solidarity organizations, and radical political networks to form a strong, unified labor party and make some noise as a social alternative for the masses. Nobody expects to establish socialism through a bourgeois election within the next decade, but it can serve as a platform through which conditions can change on the ground through the creation of autonomous workplace & community projects, all the while reaching out globally and spreading effective media to a broader national audience.

[Positivist]

I would support this not because it would have any practical effect whatsoever but because it would be fun, it would piss a lot of people off, and it would get a non-democrat or republican presence in the government. It would be worth it just for that.

[Positivist]

A small step forward: Progressive Green Labor Party?

Or maybe a Progressive Green Labor front/alliance/movement that hits up the ballot boxes?

[Positivist]

Hell yes. There are enough activist unions, worker cooperatives, community solidarity organizations, and radical political networks to form a strong, unified labor party and make some noise as a social alternative for the masses. Nobody expects to establish socialism through a bourgeois election within the next decade, but it can serve as a platform through which conditions can change on the ground through the creation of autonomous workplace & community projects, all the while reaching out globally and spreading effective media to a broader national audience.

I definitely think a national progressive front would be a good idea, and I think we have the logistics to launch one.

[Mr. Natural]

Lenina Rosenweg, Thanks for a bright, potentially promising thread. It takes some courage for a genuine leftist to suggest working with electoral politics, and it didn't take long for some posters to sic their dogmas on you, but you are right in your sensibilities and vision.

Of course the left in the West can employ that Achilles heel of capitalism--bourgeois democracy--to get something going. Marx and Engels knew this. The question is not whether intelligent left organizing can employ electoral politics to get moving, but how.

And the current left, anarchist to communist, has no idea how to organize, and, indeed, the left has become almost terminally disorganized within the capitalist system.

I know how to organize. We must learn to organize in the same pattern of organization that the rest of life employs, and the "Capra's triangle" I constantly promote models life's universal pattern of organization: the pattern by which matter (people are matter) comes to life on Earth. Life is self-organized community (communism), and the triangle models this organization for us to see and use.

But I do not know how to engage Revlefters or anyone else with systems-complexity science (the Science and Environment forum shuns this new science of organization) and Capra's transcendently revolutionary triangle. Human consciousness does not readily engage organizational relations. That's the Achilles heel of consciousness, and it's killing us.

I'm looking at a "left" and a "Marxism" that refuses to engage the science Marx and Engels would have devoured, and that have almost universally abandoned the materialist dialectic or confined it to the social arena. Yet Marx and Engels defined the materialist dialectic as "the science of the general laws of the motion and development of nature, human society, and thought." (Anti-Duhring) This dialectic is also in agreement with the general principles of the new sciences of organization.

I cannot adequately express just how depressing it is to experience the current conservatism of the left, although I just tried. There are no hidden secrets to be divined from yet another "rummaging through the classics," Comrades. It's way past time to re-revolutionize Marxism, as Marx and Engels would have been doing as capitalism and science developed.

In any case, I am easily able to envision a red-green revolutionary movement that develops in the US by employing electoral politics and Capra's triangle. I don't believe there is any other way to approach revolutionary social change in the US, for that matter. I'm not saying electoral politics are the ultimate answer necessarily, but I do insist that they are the beginning to any successful process.

My red-green best.

[kurr]

Comrade, I'm aware of the white petit bourgeoisie, and their influence on past movements. The point of the workingman's party is to have the working class as the only driving force behind it, which is the work of communists.

If you're aware of their influence, why bother repeating the same old tactics again? Clearly the ruling class will have a way to disrupt, infiltrate, and ultimately destroy any kind of revolutionary potential of trade unions just like they did a century ago. It's a dead end.



How am I "Stuck in 1920"? I was born in 1994, and every quasi leftist mass movement i've seen since then has been an abject failure, because the working class has nothing to do with it. The Labor Party is the only medium to expose the labor bureaucracy and to propagandize, aggitate, and organize the masses for the overthrow of capitalism.

Well, if more reforms are your goal then go right ahead. As far as I know, the International Marxist Tendency/Workers International League has been trying this campaign of a so-called "Mass Party for Labor" for years now and it has gotten nowhere.

Personally, no thanks.

[Geiseric]

It's not about reforming in a time when the working class is militarizing, but the left and the working class is in global retreat. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out! The working class is being threatened with pauperism, and the loss of the welfare that allows a better lifestyle for millions of people. There isn't a question of revolution at this very moment. The question now is to stop austerity worldwide, and to oppose imperialist wars.

Call me a reformist and stay in your basement while millions of people are gutted of the government programs they hold dear, I really don't care.

[Igor]

It's not about reforming in a time when the working class is militarizing, but the left and the working class is in global retreat. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out! The working class is being threatened with pauperism, and the loss of the welfare that allows a better lifestyle for millions of people. There isn't a question of revolution at this very moment. The question now is to stop austerity worldwide, and to oppose imperialist wars.

Call me a reformist and stay in your basement while millions of people are gutted of the government programs they hold dear, I really don't care.

The problem is that even if that isn't the case in the United States, globally those wars and those austerity measures are quite too often backed up by labour parties - and if not, that's usually only because they've had a bad electoral luck lately. Even the newer democratic socialist type parties have been completely useless whenever they've had their shot at cabinet-level politics.

You need to get that people here are not opposed to trying to fight for those reforms and against the war, we're just questioning your strategy, because powerful labour parties haven't stopped dismantling of the welfare state in Europe, they probably won't do that in the United States either. Electoral politics is not an arena we can successfully compete in, trying to get a new party only for it to eventually turn into liberalism and shit is not worth our time. We need to get on the streets, and we need to strike, not make compromises with bougies in the cabinet.

[Crux]

The problem is that even if that isn't the case in the United States, globally those wars and those austerity measures are quite too often backed up by labour parties - and if not, that's usually only because they've had a bad electoral luck lately. Even the newer democratic socialist type parties have been completely useless whenever they've had their shot at cabinet-level politics.

You need to get that people here are not opposed to trying to fight for those reforms and against the war, we're just questioning your strategy, because powerful labour parties haven't stopped dismantling of the welfare state in Europe, they probably won't do that in the United States either. Electoral politics is not an arena we can successfully compete in, trying to get a new party only for it to eventually turn into liberalism and shit is not worth our time. We need to get on the streets, and we need to strike, not make compromises with bougies in the cabinet.
I would argue that is because there virtually are none left.
Also i don't think running electoral campaigns or even getting elected must mean that we get into coalition politics. I don't think there is a contradiction between having a seat in parliament, like for instance the ULA's five seats in ireland, and taking the struggle to the streets.

Oh and speaking of Kshama Sawant:
Breaking News: Sawant Campaign Court Victory! Ruling Upholds Democratic Rights of Candidates and Voters (http://votesawant.org/?q=node/12)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Or maybe a Progressive Green Labor front/alliance/movement that hits up the ballot boxes?

That too (re. an electoral front of some sort).

[The Jay]

That too (re. an electoral front of some sort).

What I think is just as - if not more- important is to build up alternative institutions at the same time. This can mean many things, personally I prefer some type of Industrial Unionism to parallel the political wing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What I think is just as - if not more- important is to build up alternative institutions at the same time. This can mean many things, personally I prefer some type of Industrial Unionism to parallel the political wing.

Did you read my stuff on Alternative Culture / Mutual Aid?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think it would look like 200 confused and wildly different people. I mean just consider this: the majority of people at my local occupy event were right-libertarians most of whom had a fetish for Ron Paul.

[Ostrinski]

You assholes can stop thanking my useless post. Thank you.

[Geiseric]

Holy crap you have alot of rep.

[Ostrinski]

It must be my charm.

I've actually had posts in the past much like that one, i.e. a half ass quip devoid of any quality content and got tons of rep. Many others have done the same thing.

Yet many users make tons of great posts and don't get much rep for it at all. Rep is essentially something you just fish for.

[Crux]

It must be my charm.

I've actually had posts in the past much like that one, i.e. a half ass quip devoid of any quality content and got tons of rep. Many others have done the same thing.

Yet many users make tons of great posts and don't get much rep for it at all. Rep is essentially something you just fish for.
I like socialism!

[The Jay]

Umm. Marx was not the devil?

[Crux]

Umm. Marx was not the devil?
I'm pretty sure he was. \m/
Nevermind, there should be an interesting discussion to be had about how to relate to elections in U.S for socialists in this thread. I could keep dropping news from the Kshama Sawant campaign if people want? (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/08/30/kshama-sawant-explains-to-frank-chopp-the-problem-with-democrats)

[The Jay]

I suppose that you could but what she's saying doesn't seem especially insightful to me. It seems to me that if someone wants to vote for Obama to choose him as the "less bad" candidate, it is only a valid reason if that person works to bring about a better alternative for next time or even building that alternative culture and alternative institutions. Honestly, I'll probably fall into that category. I haven't made up my mind.

[Mr. Natural]

Any other comrades notice that once again a promising thread has gone off the rails as it approached the portals of discussing some actual organizing?

Just once I would like to see some comrades admit the obvious: the left has no clue as to how to organize in the face of global capitalism.

I would also like to see a comrade or two decide to investigate the new sciences of organization as Marx and Engels would have done long ago.

I would also like to see the comrades who pooh-pooh the organizing potential of electoral politics to tell me where Marx was wrong in a speech he delivered in Amsterdam after a congress of the First International. ""You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries--such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland--where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must appeal in order to erect the rule of labor."

Here Marx is modeling a radical, revolutionary openness to engaging conditions as they exist. The only dogma suggested by his statement is that we must apply Marxism and open but critical minds to our situations within global capitalism and thereby devise processes that lead to a realized anarchist/communist human future.

IMO, open but critical minds would admit we are stuck in capitalism's place and would be investigating the new sciences of the organization of life on Earth. The book is Fritjof Capra's Web of Life (1996).

Now that I've done my daily deja vu, I'll offer "My Red-green best" and get outa here.

[The Jay]

I admit that I don't know what I'm doing exactly.

[Robocommie]

Obviously not British Laborism... Where did I say that? The SPD that Engels and Marx formed is what I advocate. We need to make working people identify themselves as workers, not "Americans." We need to bring into light the class traitors like Trumka who are the sole force enabling Austerity, unconditionally. We need to form a labor party, which working class Communists will evolve into the future revolutionary party.

However, is the british labor party capable of being turned to class interests though if the union rank and file would oust the leadership? This would take a developed revolutionary cadre, however it isn't impossible.

I think this sounds great, but how do we prevent this from becoming just one more name in the vast alphabet soup of leftist political parties? And should this party be at least in part made up of a coalition of whatever Marxist/Socialist parties would want to sign on?

In all seriousness, I am excited about this prospect. I personally am sick and tired of what seems like absolutely no forward movement from the left. I feel like all we do as a movement is to sit on our asses, condemn bourgeois parties and politicians, and engage in mind-numbing debates over Communist trivia and minutiae. Now, I mean that in a very general sense, I don't want to dismiss the very worthwhile actions of all those involved in active protest, labor activism, forming strikes and what not. However I think we can all agree that this is a particularly ripe opportunity and we need to try and capitalize on it while we, as a community of diverse socialists, still can.

[Robocommie]

It must be my charm.

I've actually had posts in the past much like that one, i.e. a half ass quip devoid of any quality content and got tons of rep. Many others have done the same thing.

Yet many users make tons of great posts and don't get much rep for it at all. Rep is essentially something you just fish for.

ITS MY FAVORITE HOBBY. :cool:

[Mr. Natural]

Robocommie's post pointed to an apparent problem on the left: "a vast alphabet soup of leftist political parties" and looked toward a "community of diverse socialists." He asked if a left political party were to be formed "shouldn't this party be at least in part made up of a coalition of whatever Marxist/Socialist parties would want to sign on?"

My answer is YES. In fact, life is an organized community of diverse forms, isn't it? And isn't Marx's communism "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all"?

Life is intensely communal; a cell and an ecosystem are communities made up of diverse parts. Community is natural. So our question must be: How does life do this? How does the communal process of life create its communities--"anarchist," "communist" forms of living humanity must emulate?

I found the answers to these questions in the new sciences of organization. The book to read is the theoretical physicist Fritjof Capra's Web of Life, which brings systems-complexity science to Earth for popular comprehension and use.

Then in what my pea brain believes is an astounding, unprecedented, previously unimagined accomplishment, Capra has created a conceptual triangle that models life's universal pattern of organization--the pattern by which we must learn to organize diverse forms of community that themselves contain diverse communities. There's your political party, Robocommie! There's our revolutionary process!

Life has a universal pattern of organization that generates myriad forms of living systems. People readily see the diverse forms but are blind to their organization.

So comrades must first engage the new sciences of organization and learn to organize, and "Capra's triangle" makes bottom-up, grassroots revolutionary processes and political parties doable. The triangle makes the various forms of anarchism/communism doable.

My red-green best.

[Hermes]

This is a stupid question, and hopefully I'm not going too far off-topic, but what is Capra's Triangle? I'm searching for it but can't find, the only other mention seems to be on another forum board.

Another stupid one, but if it were the way that life naturally organizes, wouldn't we do it subconsciously anyway?

[Mr. Natural]

Hermes, I sure hope you haven't asked a "stupid question," for everything I post has Capra's triangle in the back of my mind at the least. Twelve years of intensive but unskilled research has convinced me that the triangle is the key to the human future. This triangle makes it possible for the various left tendencies to organize. The triangle shows how matter (people are matter) self-organizes to life and community on Earth.

"Capra's triangle" is my term for the triadic concept of life's (thus society's) universal pattern of organization that is first introduced in Chapter 7 of The Web of Life (1996). My investigations tell me I'm the only Marxist to engage this masterwork, which presents the new sciences of the organization of life, consciousness, and the universe in clear language avaliable to us all.

The Marxist materialist dialectic understands "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) to be organic, systemic processes, and this is also the understanding of these new sciences. Capra's triangle then makes it possible to "see" life's organization and employ it in our lives.

Hermes, you asked, re-triangle, "if it were the way life naturally organizes, wouldn't we do it subconsciously anyway?" Good question, and I have an excellent answer: We humans consciously not subconsciously organize our lives, and our perception/consciousness cannot see organization. Our perception/consciousness sees the things of life but is blind to the absolutely essential organization of living things. The rest of life enjoys an automatic ecological integration that I think of as "ecological mind." Human consciousness, though, must learn and employ "ecological mind," and Capra's triangle makes this possible.

So what is this triangle? I have presented it several times and recommend you go to Science and the Environment and engage the "A Dialectical Theory of Everything" thread begun by Miguel Detonnaciones. Be sure to check out a couple of the astonishing posts by Miguel: brilliantly unintelligible stuff like this shouldn't be missed. And the infamous but very bright Rosa L. appears at the beginning of the thread to be soon banned for her many sins elsewhere.

My posts 86, 87, and 88 center on the triangle and introduce it. I especially recommend Post 114, "A Red-Green Materialist Dialectic in Three Printer's Sheets" and Post 116, "Capra's Triangle Does Chicago." The former references Marx's remark to Engels that he wanted to present the dialectic in two or three printers' sheets in a manner that the average worker could understand. The latter, Post 116, imagines employing the triangle an actual community revolutionary organizing project.

My difficulties in attempting to introduce Capra's triangle have been enormous and heretofore insoluble, and my personal limitations are considerable. I would appreciate it, Hermes, should you engage any of the material, if you would then give me some feedback. Just sock it to me, good and bad. I'm trying to bridge the human consciousness problem, and it's difficult to get any conscious, conscientious reactions to the triangle presentations I attempt.

I'll close by emphasizing that this triangle is based in science that employs the scientific method, and that no one has found accurate fault with any aspect of the Triangle of Life, Community, and Revolution. But then, no one has understood it, either. It's that consciousness paradigm shift problem.

My red-green best.

[RedSonRising]

Hermes, I sure hope you haven't asked a "stupid question," for everything I post has Capra's triangle in the back of my mind at the least. Twelve years of intensive but unskilled research has convinced me that the triangle is the key to the human future. This triangle makes it possible for the various left tendencies to organize. The triangle shows how matter (people are matter) self-organizes to life and community on Earth.

"Capra's triangle" is my term for the triadic concept of life's (thus society's) universal pattern of organization that is first introduced in Chapter 7 of The Web of Life (1996). My investigations tell me I'm the only Marxist to engage this masterwork, which presents the new sciences of the organization of life, consciousness, and the universe in clear language avaliable to us all.

The Marxist materialist dialectic understands "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) to be organic, systemic processes, and this is also the understanding of these new sciences. Capra's triangle then makes it possible to "see" life's organization and employ it in our lives.

Hermes, you asked, re-triangle, "if it were the way life naturally organizes, wouldn't we do it subconsciously anyway?" Good question, and I have an excellent answer: We humans consciously not subconsciously organize our lives, and our perception/consciousness cannot see organization. Our perception/consciousness sees the things of life but is blind to the absolutely essential organization of living things. The rest of life enjoys an automatic ecological integration that I think of as "ecological mind." Human consciousness, though, must learn and employ "ecological mind," and Capra's triangle makes this possible.

So what is this triangle? I have presented it several times and recommend you go to Science and the Environment and engage the "A Dialectical Theory of Everything" thread begun by Miguel Detonnaciones. Be sure to check out a couple of the astonishing posts by Miguel: brilliantly unintelligible stuff like this shouldn't be missed. And the infamous but very bright Rosa L. appears at the beginning of the thread to be soon banned for her many sins elsewhere.

My posts 86, 87, and 88 center on the triangle and introduce it. I especially recommend Post 114, "A Red-Green Materialist Dialectic in Three Printer's Sheets" and Post 116, "Capra's Triangle Does Chicago." The former references Marx's remark to Engels that he wanted to present the dialectic in two or three printers' sheets in a manner that the average worker could understand. The latter, Post 116, imagines employing the triangle an actual community revolutionary organizing project.

My difficulties in attempting to introduce Capra's triangle have been enormous and heretofore insoluble, and my personal limitations are considerable. I would appreciate it, Hermes, should you engage any of the material, if you would then give me some feedback. Just sock it to me, good and bad. I'm trying to bridge the human consciousness problem, and it's difficult to get any conscious, conscientious reactions to the triangle presentations I attempt.

I'll close by emphasizing that this triangle is based in science that employs the scientific method, and that no one has found accurate fault with any aspect of the Triangle of Life, Community, and Revolution. But then, no one has understood it, either. It's that consciousness paradigm shift problem.

My red-green best.

Comrade, this is all well and good and the concepts genuinely interest me, but is this path of analysis going to get the attention of the mass of workers being exploited and oppressed under the current system in the language and context it's being presented in? I can't say I think so.

[Ravachol]

It's stuff like this that makes me want to run for the hills and never, ever associate with 'the ('radical') left' again...

[Robespierres Neck]

Vermin Supreme 2012.

[Mr. Natural]

Ravachol, Did you forget to mention why the sciences of the organization of life, community, and revolutionary processes make you want to run for the hills? I'm a red-green Marxist, and these sciences make me want to run toward them and comprehend them for praxis, and in doing so I would be running with Marx and Engels.

Are you a revolutionary or a kneejerk naysayer, Ravachol? If you have some concrete objections to what I'm attempting to present, let's hear them. If you don't have any specific objections in mind, might you be conservatively rejecting that which you do not understand?

My red-green, running-with-Marx-and-Engels-and-science best.

[Mr. Natural]

RedSonRising, Thanks for the interest and what is a very important question. Perhaps sometime you would give us an idea of what New York Students Rising is up to. I'd love to be in your area and be able to look up Bertell Ollman, who teaches at NYU, and whose Dance of the Dialectic (2003) is a groundbreaking, essential work on the nature of the Marxist materialist dialectic.

You asked: "Is this path of analysis going to get the attention of the mass of workers being exploited and oppressed under the current language and context it's being presented in? I can't say I think so."

I strongly agree with you. In fact, only a very strong practice aided by explanatory language could reach the mass of workers. I'm attempting is to present a path of understanding life's organization to revolutionaries, who will then be able to devise various approaches to the greater population. All of will need to get hands as well as heads involved in order to really comprehend this material, for it constitutes a perception/consciousness paradigm shift for the human species. We who must consciously create and organize our lives must learn to "see" organization.

People are matter, and on Earth matter has self-organized (such a democratic, revolutionary phenomenon) into living systems (cells to biosphere) that create and compose the life process. This is an absolutely accurate statement based in science, and what I call "Capra's triangle" models the universal pattern of organization of life on Earth for revolutionaries to comprehend and bring into praxis.

But for this to happen, comrades must find ways to engage the triangle. This is an absolutely unprecedented--even unimagined--mental tool that ultimately can enable us all to design revolutionary processes and various forms of anarchist/communist community. All living systems are "communities" that form larger communities in revolutionary processes such as phase transitions and emergences.

Mother Nature is a commie, RedSonRising, and she goes to revolution all the time. It is the greatest frustration that I am still unable to enable comrades to see this "red-green."

Capra's triangle serves to embody the materialist dialectic and bring it to life and potential praxis.

My red-green best.

[Jimmie Higgins]

There isn't a question of revolution at this very moment. The question now is to stop austerity worldwide, and to oppose imperialist wars.Yeah except the answer to that question is: revolution :lol:.

Yeah a little oversimplified.

But at any rate, I disagree, but maybe not in intent. The potential represented by Occupy IMO was a chance to begin to rebuild a more general opposition in this country with radical politics organically a part of that re-emergence. Out of that a real revolutionary network(s) could have emerged (involving serious anarchists and marxists as well as rank and file union militants and community activists) that was broader and more connected to the class.

I think Occupy, candidates or not would have been an excellent vehicle for consolidating the general dissatisfaction with Obama among many workers in the US into an actual political argument against him from the left. This would most effectively be done if forces were similar to what they were at the height of the movement through a protest movement in my opinion, but running protest candidates could also have been a tactic. The way things were situated here in Oakland leads me to believe that a "occupy party" would have just caused a split between radical and liberal elements and both sides would have been the weaker for it, so I really only support that hypothetical situation in the abstract. But, say there had been a little more of a culture of actually having a coalition of left-of Democrat progressive-types and radicals where we could run protest candidates with the aim of opportunistically exposing both parties as the "parties of the 1%" and the banks. This IMO could be effective in consolidating that left-opposition.

As far as a Labor Party goes, while for the US this would be a step forward if only because it implies that there has been a massive revival of the labor movement and rank and file action to the point that the union officials are forced or compelled to break with the Democrats and accomodationist strategy. Or, I guess to put it another way, no labor party is even really a possibility under present conditions in the US simply because of the lack of organized push from below by the rank and file which has resulted from and fed into a lot of control from the top of the unions under a vision of cooperation and supporting Democratic politicians to "protect union rights". In fact, probably the best hope for a Labor Party would have been an occupy party this year which split the union movement between support for the protest 99% candidates and the Democrats... out of this split, maybe those who organized against the Democrats could get together and form the seeds of an organic labor party in the US.

It's all speculation and really I'd have to see what conditions looked like in these situations to make up my mind about what the most effective strategies would be. So either way I think our real imperative right now is in getting people to fight and organize for themselves as much as it is subjectively possible for us to do so. Occupy had a lot of potential in this regard. Had it kept shit together, then maybe we could have really been debating these various possible strategies.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In fact, probably the best hope for a Labor Party would have been an occupy party this year which split the union movement between support for the protest 99% candidates and the Democrats... out of this split, maybe those who organized against the Democrats could get together and form the seeds of an organic labor party in the US.

So long as it's not one based on the trade unions like British Labour, I'm all for it.

[mew]

Mr. Natural you are one of the worst posters. Bunch of meaningless, tired rhetoric with added liberal environmentalist nonsense all wrapped up in a really patronizing and faux-enlightened posting style.

[The Jay]

Mr. Natural you are one of the worst posters. Bunch of meaningless, tired rhetoric with added liberal environmentalist nonsense all wrapped up in a really patronizing and faux-enlightened posting style.

WTF do you do then? I took a look at your posts and they're crap. Why don't you stop spamming insults at people and write something with substance?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Unless armed with a Marxist program for socialism, these activists and ordinary people would be swallowed whole. As long as they wind up working within the system, the results will disappoint the shit out of you. Disparate activists, acting on a vague "progressive" idea, that don't even agree in principle on political fundamentals, trying to work within the capitalist system are doomed to be used or spit-out. I wish this was not so. But everything I know from studying history and my own experience screams this.

[Orange Juche]

Two problems:

1) There is no real "Occupy" platform, considering I've met Ron Paul supporters, Alex Jones nuts, Democrats, and social democrats (lower case d), socialists, anarchists, and just generally insane people with no concrete beliefs all considering themselves within this ill defined, weak movement that's trying to be too all inclusive at the expense of changing anything. (And I don't blame the anarchists and socialists, the ones there at the beginning before it got mucked up). So running "Occupy Candidates" doesn't seem feasible unless the entire platform is "The 1% is screwing us!" without actually defining what "The 1%" even means, considering to a Paul supporter and a socialist - you'd get two entirely different definitions.

2) I don't judge others who choose to keep the whole "99%" "1%" thing in their lexicon, but I personally find it damaging, and I'm not interested in participating in it. It's a weak, side-stepping way of saying "proletariat and bourgeoisie" while being able to avoid actually diagnosing the problem - capitalism, therefore making the lingo itself a part of that very same problem, in my opinion.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So long as it's not one based on the trade unions like British Labour, I'm all for it.Sure, this is why I think it's impossible to say what such a development would look like or if revolutionaries should support it critically, in full coalition, or not at all. This hypothetical opposition or protest campaign is less important in of itself than whatever the forces connected or involved with it might be - that I think would determine how radicals relate to it.


Two problems:

1) There is no real "Occupy" platform, considering I've met Ron Paul supporters, Alex Jones nuts, Democrats, and social democrats (lower case d), socialists, anarchists, and just generally insane people with no concrete beliefs all considering themselves within this ill defined, weak movement that's trying to be too all inclusive at the expense of changing anything. (And I don't blame the anarchists and socialists, the ones there at the beginning before it got mucked up). So running "Occupy Candidates" doesn't seem feasible unless the entire platform is "The 1% is screwing us!" without actually defining what "The 1%" even means, considering to a Paul supporter and a socialist - you'd get two entirely different definitions.Yes, this is why I just don't think it could have happened with the level of politics in Occupy even at its furthest development. It probably would have split the progressives and the radicals because of the whole "diversity of tactics" idea: radicals who oppose any electoral involvement no matter the context would obviously opposed it which would just remove a segment of radicals from the discussion meaning that liberals would have more influence in arguing for the orientation of the campaign. I don't think libertarians or Paulians would support it or have much influence though since they were rather marginal to the actual organizing just because of their views and goals... if not purposefully iced-out by savvy occupiers. I think the bigger question and split would be over the question of "setting up a party" or running an opposition/protest campaign to expose the two parties.


2) I don't judge others who choose to keep the whole "99%" "1%" thing in their lexicon, but I personally find it damaging, and I'm not interested in participating in it. It's a weak, side-stepping way of saying "proletariat and bourgeoisie" while being able to avoid actually diagnosing the problem - capitalism, therefore making the lingo itself a part of that very same problem, in my opinion.It is what it is - we are not influential enough to change the language and so I think in a limited way this formulation was positive in a country where the myths either argue that everyone's middle class and a rising tide lifts all boats (or trickles down) or, interestingly, that people who have a decent wage and some benefits - or just basic air conditioning even - have no right to "complain".

So I've never viewed "99%/1%" as meaning "prols/ruling class" but of "masses/elites" and the general sentiment of occupy being left-populism which is why the politics were all over the places - it was a strength (in that it rallied this general populist sentiment) at some points and also a weakness (having no way to actually break through this low-level of politics) at others.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So long as it's not one based on the trade unions like British Labour, I'm all for it.

Sure, this is why I think it's impossible to say what such a development would look like or if revolutionaries should support it critically, in full coalition, or not at all. This hypothetical opposition or protest campaign is less important in of itself than whatever the forces connected or involved with it might be - that I think would determine how radicals relate to it.

Jimmie, do you even understand what I was polemicizing against? My posts in this thread, the "Workers Party" thread, and the Freelancers Union thread discussed the follies of a particular organizational model.

[Sorry if I've come across as rude there, but the "based on the trade unions" model argument is becoming irritating.]

[Geiseric]

This thread talk about the problem but all I've really seen are basically calls for "marxist unity" or an activist party, which technically wouldn't be a party since it has no link to mass movements. And dnz you are a sectarian, with a petit bourgeois view of unions that I've heard echoed more or less from libertarians.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This thread talk about the problem but all I've really seen are basically calls for "marxist unity" or an activist party, which technically wouldn't be a party since it has no link to mass movements. And dnz you are a sectarian, with a petit bourgeois view of unions that I've heard echoed more or less from libertarians.

"Links to mass movements" implies a sectarian outlook. The party-to-be must become a mass movement too!

My view of unions isn't petit-bourgeois; it's that of a politicized worker outside their structure. But hey, by your logic, you might as well say that class fighters like Lassalle and the rest of German Social Democracy had a view "echoed more or less by/from libertarians," too. :glare:

[Geiseric]

The german social democracy at its height had millions of members of trade unions who were its sole source of support at times. So its irrelevant what any of those people thought.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

That outfit does not look like a political party but more of a loose liberal reformist internet grouping.As Broody Guthrie said, we need a US Labor Party, an organisation which will both work to increase class consciousness and express working class anger.This can happen though specific demands such as bringing the banks and other commanding heights of the economy under public ownership.

As many activists report, it has generally been difficult to bring political direction to Occupy.

Sure, but it will be denounced "socialistic" "communistic" and put workers off. What i think the US now needs is a presentation that change is possible, and only a populist party to hijack the Occupy movement would be accepted by the political system since over 70% of Americans support the message of OWS. This is would be a good start, working people being actually represented by normal guys. At one point in time this popular party would either take power or blatantly be bullied out of the electoral system; if it were to get government in the US bourgeois system, it would be unable to truly implement the change needed, and if it were to fall prey to electoral fraud or the like, it would be a radicalising factor. The point now is to get a populist movement started, which prerequisites a popular cause (what better party identification than Occupy?) then we (the revolutionary left with our own organisation) could criticise its anti-worker positions, being weak on the bourgeoisie (which a party like this liberal populist thing would be) if it were to gain power, or agitate towards the overthrow of the corrupt system if it is hindered.

http://theoccupationparty.org/

[Geiseric]

What? And you're a marxist? The struggles of the petit bourgeoisie don't mean anything. We need to politicize the working class which starts at the unions.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The german social democracy at its height had millions of members of trade unions who were its sole source of support at times. So its irrelevant what any of those people thought.

You're exaggerating the role of the German trade unions. The union bureaucracy factored in only from the mid 1900s afterwards (see the Jena and Mannheim congresses). That was when the bulk of the degeneration set in (certainly that's how Zinoviev saw it in his Comintern literature).

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

What? And you're a marxist? The struggles of the petit bourgeoisie don't mean anything. We need to politicize the working class which starts at the unions.

Allying or having any kind of close relations with these modern bourgeois unions who play their own little power game of supporting Democrats/Social-Democrats and "the lesser" evil, the unions holding the majority of workers today, unions which blatantly place themselves next to the establishment(!); would be an absolute capitulation to bourgeois democracy. (Maybe that is why Trotkyist parties seem to always end up allying with Social democrats and are accepted as "good" and socialists by the bourgeoisie as in France, Brazil, Tunisia, Germany ....)

No, the only way forward is to create an own party, independent of pro-bourgeois influence in the workers movement. The party has to be an independent organ, a party with a Marxist revolutionary stance and own (revolutionary) organisational hegemony in the workers movement.

[Geiseric]

You can only have a workers party, that's the entire point, for he proletariat to organize and politicize itself. And dnz emphasis on "at its height." When. It influenced mass politics and grew to be a mass party, it had trade union support, as a critical base. Is this not true for 1910 on? The kpd grew out of thespd. Thus for us to grow a revolutionary party we need to create a mass bourgeois labor party to establish pro working class politics among a huge amount of the popultion, which has a small segment at this point which is politicizing. The labor party itself could transform into a revolutionary party, but that task is one and the same with the task of growing a mass base to defend against the current bourgeois offensive due to the recession.

[Althusser]

Imagine 200 Occupy candidates running for Congress this year – independent of the Democrats and Republicans.
Imagine if these candidates were not careerist politicians, but activists and ordinary people, running as accountable representatives of a real, fighting movement of the 99%.
Imagine homeowners who are facing foreclosure running against local sheriffs, and pledging to stop all evictions.
Imagine teachers fighting union-busting; debt-ridden students fighting for free education; low-wage workers fighting for a living wage; and environmentalists fighting big oil.
Imagine them all running with tens of thousands of Occupy activists backing them up: going door-to-door, rallying, protesting, and using these candidates to build the power of our grassroots mass movement.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article10.php?id=1921

All you will ever do is imagine it because in order for a non-careerist politician to get into that position, they need to become a careerist politician. This is the kind of thing Democratic Underground talks about. Reform won't solve anything.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You can only have a workers party, that's the entire point, for the proletariat to organize and politicize itself. And dnz emphasis on "at its height." When. It influenced mass politics and grew to be a mass party, it had trade union support, as a critical base. Is this not true for 1910 on?

True, but there were organizational issues after the congresses I mentioned.

Actually, "at its height" can refer to the SPD all the way from 1900 to 1914, so I'm very specific on when. When it didn't have its organizational issues, it had only plenty of trade unionist support.


The kpd grew out of the spd.

That ultra-left, sectarian, adventurist, politically hijacking outfit grew out of an outstanding role model for left politics today: the USPD.


Thus for us to grow a revolutionary party we need to create a mass bourgeois labor party to establish pro working class politics among a huge amount of the popultion, which has a small segment at this point which is politicizing. The labor party itself could transform into a revolutionary party, but that task is one and the same with the task of growing a mass base to defend against the current bourgeois offensive due to the recession.

The USPD didn't have formal ties to the trade unions, yet at one point had more members than the MSPD sellouts to its right.

The ultra-left KPD's formation was tantamount to sectarianism, adventurism, political hijacking, etc.

[Geiseric]

Sectarianism only happened in 1930, and that was because of Stalinism, however in 1928 they had correct politics, and established a mass base with more or less revolutionary politics. Also your analyses doesn't take into account the menshevism that reigned from 1923-1928.

However we can't honestly think that revolutionary rhetoric can win over the masses at this point. Communism isn't accepted by any major section of society, at least in America. This is due to many things, however that has to be accepted as a fact at this point. We need the working class to see itself as a working class with its own political party, so they can vote for a party of their own class, with politics that will benefit them as a class.

The unions though are the only source of support that will be worth anything, and the only source of support that will give the party the legitimacy it needs to be a party of and for the working class.