SonofRage
25th December 2003, 07:45
Originally posted by guest#34+Dec 24 2003, 11:54 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (guest#34 @ Dec 24 2003, 11:54 PM)yes, that answeres some of it, but how does one come upon educating the capitalist-believing-propaganda masses? Those who listen to capitalist/imperialist propaganda are too stuborn to change their ways. wot do i do then?[/b]
All you can really do is point out the flaws and injustice of capitalism and educate them on the alternatives.
Originally posted by "Guest#34"+--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE ("Guest#34")
WHAT about organizing the unions into one union? We NEED massive reform! [/b]
Debs was a believer in the idea of one big union (Industrial Unionism). He was one of the founders of the IWW. Here is an excerpt from a speech he gave on industrial unionism:
</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE ("Eugene Debs")
The old unionism is organized upon the basis of the identity of interests of the capitalist and working classes. It spends its time and energy trying to harmonize these two essentially antagonistic classes...
The Industrial Workers has been organized for an opposite purpose, and its representatives come in your presence to tell you that there can be no peace bteween you, the working class, and the capitalist class who exploit you of what you produce; that as workers, you have economic interests apart from and opposed to their interests, and that you must organize by and for yourselves; and that if you are intelligent enough to understand these interests, you will sever your relations with the old unions in which you are divided and sub-divided, and join the Industrial Workers, in which all are organized and united upon the basis of the class struggle.[/b][/quote]
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Why wouldnt u consider debs a socialist democrat?
Social Democrats tend to focus on implementing "Capitalism with a friendly face." The perfect example of this is the Scandinavian countries. While the standard of living in these countries is very high, it falls short of socialism and seems highly unlikely to ever lead to socialism. By having a welfare state in a capitalist system, they are in effect propping up the capitalist system.
Eugene Debs did not believe in reforming capitalism. He was a revolutionary and called for the abolition of wage-slavery.
If you believe that a revolutionary Industrial Union (one big union for all workers) should be the main means of class struggle (as do I), you may want to look into Marxist-DeLeonism. Here is an excerpt from an editorial by Daniel De Leon on Industrial Unionism:
"Daniel De Leon"
In performing this all-embracing function, Industrial Unionism, the legitimate offspring of civilization, comes equipped with all the experience of the age.
Without indulging in the delusion that its progress will be a “dress parade"; and, knowing that its program carries in its fold that acute stage of all evolutionary processes known as revolution, the Industrial Union connects with the achievements of the revolutionary fathers of the country, the first to frame a constitution that denies the perpetuity of their own social system, and that, by its amendment clause, legalizes revolution. Connecting with that great achievement of the American revolution, fully aware that the revolution, which it is big with, being one that concerns the masses and that needs the masses for its execution, excludes the bare idea of conspiracy, and imperatively commands an open and above board agitational, educational and organizing activity; finally, its path lighted by the beacon tenet of Marx that none but the bona fide Union can set on foot the true political party of labor; Industrial Unionism bends its efforts to unite the working class upon the political as well as the industrial field,”on the industrial field because, without the integrally organized union of the working class, the revolutionary act is impossible; on the political field, because on none other can be proclaimed the revolutionary purpose, without consciousness of which the Union is a rope of sand.
Industrial Unionism is the Socialist Republic in the making; and the goal once reached, the Industrial Union is the Socialist Republic in operation.
Accordingly, the Industrial Union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of Capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself.