Revolution can't win here

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Keeping on my recent forays into pragmatism i gonna say something controversal. For at least the next 100 years Revolution can't succeed in the U.S. Think about it:

1)Due to being the seat of capitalism the U.S is the most ant leftist (besides Islamist held areas) place on earth.

2) The rural areas of the nation are dominated by reactionary elements and will probably continue to shift right as time goes by.

3) Its military is the most advanced on earth, is heavily populated by conservatives and if all else fails relies greatly on drones

4) The U.S masterfully uses the art of the spectacle to distract and control the masses

5) What you call the lumpenproletariat continue to grow amongst the working class

6) Religious evangelicalism and Pentecostalism dull the peoples desire for change (and its a bad sign that the biggest religious group in the nation that is closest to the left is Catholic)

7) Racial and ethnic divides are still strong and still tilt visibly in the white mans favor (You can talk all you want about how this is really caused by economic factors and how poor whites are just as oppressed, but no matter what you say poor whites should be generally viewed as backwards peasants who would go full on Yugoslavia mode if chaos reigned as it would during a widespread revolt)

8) The cities can and would be quickly reduced to WW2 ghettos if the shit got real

9) The Light of Zartha and Castro's Cuba couldn't come to our aid if the U.S went in an extremely tyrannical direction (and Cuba would be taken out as a means of distracting the masses and killing the terrorists.)

10) Preparations have already been made in the event of mass protest (see fema camps and the loosely worded provisions Obama signed into law with "extreme reservations")

11) Libertarians probably outnumber leftists 3 to 1.

In summary: Social democracy esque reforms are as far as you'll likely go in this lifetime in America


disclaimer: I'm not happy about this but i'm calling it as i see it.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Why 100 years? Is something dramatic going to change after that period of time? America, and progress in general, doesn't simply happen because time moves on, rather, you have to be the one to push it forward. If this happens on a large enough scale than events (like revolution) can happen. Who is to say when revolution will happen; 20, 45, 100, 700 years? It is hard to say because of capitalism's cycles, the left opposition's strength, and the ruling class's agenda (and the form it takes).

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Why 100 years? Is something dramatic going to change after that period of time? America, and progress in general, doesn't simply happen because time moves on, rather, you have to be the one to push it forward. If this happens on a large enough scale than events (like revolution) can happen. Who is to say when revolution will happen; 20, 45, 100, 700 years? It is hard to say because of capitalism's cycles, the left opposition's strength, and the ruling class's agenda (and the form it takes).

I said at least 100 years as a way of stating that we'd all have finished our natural lifetimes by them. Unless free energy or catastrophic disasters overtake us, i don't think a major shift past social democracy would happen in America.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I said at least 100 years as a way of stating that we'd all have finished our natural lifetimes by them. Unless free energy or catastrophic disasters overtake us, i don't think a major shift past social democracy would happen in America.

Hard to say to be honest. While it certainly seems like things can be static this isn't to say that the political situation will always be like this. After all, a lot can happen in a few decades; even if it isn't the revolution is could be the build up to a revolution.

I personally do not think the revolution will happen in my lifetime but I hold out hope for later in my life. After all, capitalism is in a state of decay right now and much could change if we, as revolutionaries, are willing to place in our efforts to help the working class in the right direction.

[Psy]

Revolutionary potential tend to build up under the surface then suddenly erupting with massive force. For example take the 1877 railway strike, what started a run of the mill railway strike escalated into a rebellion that quickly spread from Martinsburg West Virgina to Chicago Illinois as fed up workers saw rebellion was possible as the deployed National Guard troops sent to quell the workers were rift with mutinies and many offered to join the workers in their rebellion against the capitalists.

Workers don't need to be told their are oppressed, it is kind of hard to miss, what they need is to see they can do something about their oppression. Also the historical nature of revolutions means you are not going to get much signs of impending revolution, with the hours prior to the revolution seeming to just be another day as the workers have yet to reach their limit of taking their lumps from the capitalists.

[Prometeo liberado]

I was thinking about this very subject when writing in the Gang thread. If we are to believe Lenin's maxim to strike not where the Bourgeois are at their strongest, but where they are at their weakest then we in the U.S. have failed. Within our borders exist generations and pockets of apolitical resistance that have never hesitated to take it to the pigs whenever they see fit. Fearing neither as lifetime of jail or early death these gangland acts revolutionary acts in a very conformist society. Rebellion against anything for nothing, yet a revolutionary act none the less. We have thus far failed to understand it and/or utilize it. IMO.

[Weezer]

Keep in mind we don't have really have any idea what will happen tomorrow, let alone the next 100 years. I'm pessimistic too, but who knows really. Things have changed quicker.

[Let's Get Free]

Revolution is bound to happen, as long as the capitalists and the proletarians are at antagonistic contradiction in society, there will be struggle.

Revolution is not a thing that is built or a destination, revolution is a process that has been going on forever and will always be going on, because the old is always going to be struggling with the new for domination and the new is always going to win.

[jookyle]

Just because we're not reaching a socialist utopia tomorrow doesn't mean we should stop working towards our goals

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Saying "revolution can't succeed," even in non-revolutionary times, is defeatism.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Defeatism is punishable by firing squad buddy.

Seriously now, however bleak the situation looks the class struggle continues and it will boil over into revolution. Maybe it happens next week, maybe in 100 years. Our only job as communists at the moment is to agitate and educate.

It's always darkest before the dawn, and all that good stuff. Don't worry about how shitty the situation is at the moment. Things change rather quickly when the people realize their well being is at stake. Maybe the US isn't the first place to revolt, but it doesn't mean that it won't happen.


“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

-Lenin

[Strannik]

The problem with pragmatism is that it takes ahistorical viewpoint on what is. Ideology is influenced by material conditions. To say "ideological situation remains the same for next 100 years" is to say "material conditions remain the same for next 100 years" - but this is rather hard to believe. I could argue for example:

1) could also mean USA is furthest along in the course of historical development of capitalism and the place where influence of social contradictions hits first.

2) But isn't situation a lot better than it was in Russia - people can actually read, for example and have access to more channels of information than just church?

3) Soviet revolutionaries used no less reactionary czarist officers in their armies. There is no ideology on the battlefield, everybody not shooting at you is a friend. Drones just do whatever they are programmed to do.

5) I agree that lumpenization of proletariat is the main weapon that keeps modern bourgeoise in power. But at this point lumpenization of proletariat has started to affect negatively the capitalists themselves.

4, 6, 7, 11 are all about ideology. From historical materialism follows that even the most fanatical ideology lasts as a social factor mere hours after the material hunger kicks in. True fanatics whose beliefs ignore material conditions are eliminated by the same material conditions. Their ignorance may be undefeatable force, but their bodies are not. On the other hand, for most people bread comes before faith. That's a muslim saying, by the way.

9) But political intervention by foreign bourgeois armies is also extremely unlikely.

8) and 10) one thing is to start these changes, another to maintain them. You need a lot of manpower to maintain a tyrannical control over majority of people.

I do not live in USA, so perhaps I'm wrong and you are right but there are always positive and negative sides to everything.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

For at least the next 100 years Revolution can't succeed in the U.S.

Within the next few months western Capitalism will collapse. Bourgeois Economists hope that they can prolong this for another "3 to 5 years maybe" but then a "depression will come that will last decades". Why? That is because the amount of debt in the system is too much to carry for the economic actors. 2008 saw a massive socialization of private Debts to government Debts, now governments everywhere are running into problems as they have massive debts and their capitalist economies have low growth rates as rates of profit fall.

My graph,
http://www.revleft.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=8745&d=1337913928

Harvard's graph
http://ttbtsdisclose.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/limitsofgrowth1.jpg

Within the next 20 years there will be a massive collapse of the Capitalist system, and we have to make sure that it will not be replaced by Fascism, but by Socialism and Communism.

[Philosophos]

Well Greece was (and still is in a large scale) a very conservative and religious country. When Aris Velouhiotis who served the KKE, was fighting the nazis and the capitalists at the same time he created (or found) an enviroment which was ready to accept the principals of communism, even a conservative country.

He managed to take the principals of the greek people and connect them with communism without any huge changes. He was talking about being patriotic but not in a scale of nationalism but in the scale of the workers. When he had a speach the crowd was almost "hanging from his mouth and words".

Before him there were just a few poets and artists who were communists. After him (if Stalin didn't abandon Greece) we were this close of having socialism, but this bastard Churchil ruined everything....

What I want to say is that what a revolution needs is the proper enviroment, some educated people to show to the uneducated what communism truly is. You can't say with just numbers and statistics when or if it's going to happen. There are many unpredictable variables in humans' psychology and way of thinking.

Don't give up!

[Avanti]

why not break the usa into 200-300 states? that will create much better opportunities for revolution?

[Geiseric]

That won't help at all. However we should expect the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Greece, Italy, and Spain to complete themselves if we are to have the slightest hope for an American Revolution. But we've seen with Wisconsin and Ohio that you can get hundreds of thousands of people mobilized. The only thing the left is lacking is an actual party to organize itself.

[Comrade #138672]

I was thinking about this very subject when writing in the Gang thread. If we are to believe Lenin's maxim to strike not where the Bourgeois are at their strongest, but where they are at their weakest then we in the U.S. have failed. Within our borders exist generations and pockets of apolitical resistance that have never hesitated to take it to the pigs whenever they see fit. Fearing neither as lifetime of jail or early death these gangland acts revolutionary acts in a very conformist society. Rebellion against anything for nothing, yet a revolutionary act none the less. We have thus far failed to understand it and/or utilize it. IMO.Very interesting idea. I believe the same thing. There's a lot of potential not utilized, or at least not sufficiently directed against Capitalism. I think it's because many Socialists fear and/or underestimate them. Or that many Socialists are still too conformist to be able to relate to these people.

[cynicles]

What do you base this theory of so called 'islamist held areas' being as anti-leftist as the US on?

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

What do you base this theory of so called 'islamist held areas' being as anti-leftist as the US on?

I meant islamic fundamentalist held areas. Come to think of it, islamist conservatism is just as bad and probably worse than American conservatism due to the fact that unlike the hypocritical and bullshit methods of American conservatism, islamic conservatism actually has the means to enforce some of their more extreme views on society.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Very interesting idea. I believe the same thing. There's a lot of potential not utilized, or at least not sufficiently directed against Capitalism. I think it's because many Socialists fear and/or underestimate them. Or that many Socialists are still too conformist to be able to relate to these people.

I'm not exactly sure what he was talking about, but I assume he meant gangsters and such? Nothing to be gained from those people in my opinion. The only reason they hate the police is because the cops interfere with slinging dope and gangbanging. Nothing revolutionary about shooting someone just like yourself over a jacket, a street corner or a dice game.

[Let's Get Free]

Let me take on each of your points


1)Due to being the seat of capitalism the U.S is the most ant leftist (besides Islamist held areas) place on earth.
In the period from the 1870s to the 1930s the USA had the most violent labor conflict of the advanced capitalist countries (with maybe the exception of Spain). Militancy & radicalism grew during that period, tho socialism did not gain as much of a mass following in the working class as it did in Europe in that era. And after World War 2, the class compromise of the '30s led to a period of rising real working class incomes & benefits til the '70s. Throughout that period wages were higher in the USA than in Europe in part due to higher labor productivity levels. Racism also made it very difficult to build class unionism, that is, based on solidarity class-wide rather than among members of particular craft or industry groups. And this retarded development of acceptance of a socialist aspiration, as people couldn't see the means to realize it. Conditions today are different. Whites are a smaller proportion of the working class. Wages & benefits have diminished greatly, especially for unskilled workers, since the late '70s. There is no longer any expectation of things getting better. The main problem now is more about fatalism, and the lack of momentum of struggle. Among working class youth there is no longer much legitimacy for the old anti-socialist arguments.


2) The rural areas of the nation are dominated by reactionary elements and will probably continue to shift right as time goes by.

But few people in the U.S. live in rural areas. Nor is this statement true of all rural areas. In rural areas of New Mexico most of the population are Latino or Natives, for example.



3) Its military is the most advanced on earth, is heavily populated by conservatives and if all else fails relies greatly on drones
It is hoped that in a revolutionary situation, revolutionary ideas would spread to all sectors of society, including the military.


4) The U.S masterfully uses the art of the spectacle to distract and control the masses

People know what their own direct experience is.


5) What you call the lumpenproletariat continue to grow amongst the working class

There is no such thing really, unless you mean criminal element. And there is no evidence of any increased crime rate, just the opposite.




6) Religious evangelicalism and Pentecostalism dull the peoples desire for change (and its a bad sign that the biggest religious group in the nation that is closest to the left is Catholic)


Rate of religious identification has been rapidly dropping, especially among the youth. American Catholics often don't pay too much heed to bishops, especially in regard to politics. See for example attitudes on contraception & abortion.



7) Racial and ethnic divides are still strong and still tilt visibly in the white mans favor (You can talk all you want about how this is really caused by economic factors and how poor whites are just as oppressed, but no matter what you say poor whites should be generally viewed as backwards peasants who would go full on Yugoslavia mode if chaos reigned as it would during a widespread revolt)

America is in fact a deeply divided nation, but more working class whites are in mixed situations in their social & work life etc., and this undermines the old attitudes.


8) The cities can and would be quickly reduced to WW2 ghettos if the shit got real

You mean the capitalists' main property is going to be incinerated? Not likely


9) The Light of Zartha and Castro's Cuba couldn't come to our aid if the U.S went in an extremely tyrannical direction (and Cuba would be taken out as a means of distracting the masses and killing the terrorists.)

A revolution in the USA is feasible to the extent the state authority breaks down & there is a split in the military. Also, you have to keep in mind that there are tens of millions of guns owned by ordinary people.


10) Preparations have already been made in the event of mass protest (see fema camps and the loosely worded provisions Obama signed into law with "extreme
reservations")
as with all state measures requires people to carry them out. a working class revolt would involve the public sector.


11) Libertarians probably outnumber leftists 3 to 1.


"Libertarians" tend to be limited to the middle classes. And anyway a revolution presupposes a change in mass consciousness. So this equation is worthless.

[Avanti]

there won't be one revolution in the usa.

there would be thousands.

[Raúl Duke]

I'm a pessimistic person, although quite a few revolutionaries were quite pessimistic. Some say most "pessimistic/cynical" people are really just "disillusioned optimists/idealist"

I believe Lenin back to a short time before the Russian Revolution himself thought that revolution for Russia was to be something "long time away" yet he was wrong.

It's best to be neither defeatist or overly optimistic.

[Delenda Carthago]

USA will be one of the first countries to have a full blown revolution.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

3) Its military is the most advanced on earth, is heavily populated by conservatives and if all else fails relies greatly on drones

That's been my main concern in terms of violent revolution.

[GoddessCleoLover]

To quote a phrase; "pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will".

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

To quote a phrase; "pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will".

Lets not forget the phrase; "Reality on the ground"

[Ocean Seal]

Yo yo yo, lemme tell you a really cool story.

Imagine a country of 185 million people with 12 million people in the army.
That's ~1:15. For comparison the US right now has a ratio of 1:200.
Now imagine that the country is very culturally backwards with racism and anti-semetism being strongly embedded into the culture.

I think you get where I'm going with this.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Yo yo yo, lemme tell you a really cool story.

Imagine a country of 185 million people with 12 million people in the army.
That's ~1:15. For comparison the US right now has a ratio of 1:200.
Now imagine that the country is very culturally backwards with racism and anti-semetism being strongly embedded into the culture.

I think you get where I'm going with this.

Tech has advanced way past 1915 levels

[cynicles]

I meant islamic fundamentalist held areas. Come to think of it, islamist conservatism is just as bad and probably worse than American conservatism due to the fact that unlike the hypocritical and bullshit methods of American conservatism, islamic conservatism actually has the means to enforce some of their more extreme views on society.
huh? Why doesn't American conservatism have the ability to enforce its view and why do Islamic conservatives have even more? Which islamic conservatives? Shia, Sunni or Sufi? Are they functioning in some liberal democracy or are we talking about dictatorships? I don't think you understand some of the limitations and dynamics of middle eastern politics. Hezbollah tried to enforce social conservatism with limitted success because it's own constiuency rejected bans on alcohol.

[Avanti]

russia in 1917 was a failing dictatorship.

it was centralised to st. petersburg.

usa today can easily reallocate its government.

the only kind of revolution that can succeed.

is if you turn the states against washington.

and break the usa into minor states.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

huh? Why doesn't American conservatism have the ability to enforce its view and why do Islamic conservatives have even more? Which islamic conservatives? Shia, Sunni or Sufi? Are they functioning in some liberal democracy or are we talking about dictatorships? I don't think you understand some of the limitations and dynamics of middle eastern politics. Hezbollah tried to enforce social conservatism with limitted success because it's own constiuency rejected bans on alcohol.

1. Republicans use conservatism as a means of rabble rousing their core. No matter how bad it gets, American conservatism will never push for public decency laws on the Christian equivalents of the arab world's treatment of women and religious minorities. This isn't because they're superior, only because their society has advanced farther.

2. I don't think Sufi conservatism is an issue seeing as though they need to preach tolerance in the age of the islamic reformation

3. I'm mainly referring to Salafis and their kin

4. It's weird, but many of the falling dictatorships in the Middle East will be seen as less conservative than their successors (although if multi party systems can survive there in the mid term that can be avoided)

PS

Let's not forget that Baathists are bastards though

[TheOther]

Dear friend, good observation about the political tastes of most americans. But I get to difer from you. I do really think that the majority of americans are really *closet socialists*. The USA is slowly moving toward anti-racism (with Obama winning US presidency) and toward socialism. The thing is that americans call socialism by another name like progressive government, anti-war government. I do really think that socialism is on the rise in USA.

In fact americans are socialists in a lot of ways, the music of USA and culture has lots of socialism. Like blues, rock music, rap and other kind of protesting music. And americans beginning to hate corporations.

Americans are really closet socialists, the thing is that most americans depend on their jobs and working within the system. Because if most americans admit that they hate capitalism, they would be fired from their jobs. And americans have stomachs to feed like their children etc.

But having said all this, i really think that the USA will have a third party in the white house, at least The Green Party in the near future





Keeping on my recent forays into pragmatism i gonna say something controversal. For at least the next 100 years Revolution can't succeed in the U.S. Think about it:

1)Due to being the seat of capitalism the U.S is the most ant leftist (besides Islamist held areas) place on earth.

2) The rural areas of the nation are dominated by reactionary elements and will probably continue to shift right as time goes by.

3) Its military is the most advanced on earth, is heavily populated by conservatives and if all else fails relies greatly on drones

4) The U.S masterfully uses the art of the spectacle to distract and control the masses

5) What you call the lumpenproletariat continue to grow amongst the working class

6) Religious evangelicalism and Pentecostalism dull the peoples desire for change (and its a bad sign that the biggest religious group in the nation that is closest to the left is Catholic)

7) Racial and ethnic divides are still strong and still tilt visibly in the white mans favor (You can talk all you want about how this is really caused by economic factors and how poor whites are just as oppressed, but no matter what you say poor whites should be generally viewed as backwards peasants who would go full on Yugoslavia mode if chaos reigned as it would during a widespread revolt)

8) The cities can and would be quickly reduced to WW2 ghettos if the shit got real

9) The Light of Zartha and Castro's Cuba couldn't come to our aid if the U.S went in an extremely tyrannical direction (and Cuba would be taken out as a means of distracting the masses and killing the terrorists.)

10) Preparations have already been made in the event of mass protest (see fema camps and the loosely worded provisions Obama signed into law with "extreme reservations")

11) Libertarians probably outnumber leftists 3 to 1.

In summary: Social democracy esque reforms are as far as you'll likely go in this lifetime in America


disclaimer: I'm not happy about this but i'm calling it as i see it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Keeping on my recent forays into pragmatism i gonna say something controversal. For at least the next 100 years Revolution can't succeed in the U.S. Think about it:Ok. Well I think time-tables for or against world-changing events are pretty tricky - especially when it comes to class struggle. And this is definately true in the US where due to various specific circumstances there has not been a consistant left in terms of institutions or organization (like in some of Europe or Latin America) but there have been very sharp and rapid periods of explosive change (or at least movements) instead.

IMO this "explosiveness" is connected to the lack of consistant organization because the objective circumstances of the US are not all that different than in many other capitalist countries, but the subjective barriers (like a different kind of racism than in some other places, more brutal repression than other parlemenary capitalist states, etc) to an ongoing class movement, once overcome, produce a rapid advance of all that pent-up class anger. This could be explosions of movements that don't go anywhere or it could lead to a more lasting effect on the class, but the point is that these breaks with class stability represent the opportunity to build something here.


1)Due to being the seat of capitalism the U.S is the most ant leftist (besides Islamist held areas) place on earth.Well much of the "Islamacist" areas have only been that way for a short time and the rise of political Islam was a reaction of the failures of Nationalist and Stalinist/Maoist movements and governments. People used to say that Egyptians were too passive to challenge the dictatorship and we've all seen how that's changed. The rise of political Islam in some areas is because of the volitility and anger at both economic issues and imperialism. OF course it's a diversion of that class anger into other things, but I think ultimately it means that there is no barrier to a revolutionary movement as far as consiousness - Islamic parties might represent a physical barrier, but consiousness can rapidly change.

The same goes for the US. Our government and ruling class is definately top imperialist, the mainstream political institutions and parties are very much to the right, but the population - issue by issue - tends to be to the left of the Democrats by and large - especially the younger population.

The rapid and "surprising" movements of Occupy and Wisconsin show how when the hegemony of our rulers and the demoralization of the working class crack even a little, there is a very fast advance. People in a "middle class country" instantly begin talking about being "working class" in Wisconsin, anti-capitalist ideas gained a large hearing in Occupy.

These are small things, but it shows the potential. Explosions like the black power movement or the wildcats of the 1970s or the strike waves of the 1930/40s all followed periods where the left was declared dead, crisis was declared over, and a decade of right-wing and ruling class gains.

Of course we have had 30 years of "the 1920s" before now, so it's understandable that people would be pessimistic - but in the long-view, optimism for future struggles is not misplaced or wishful thinking at all.


2) The rural areas of the nation are dominated by reactionary elements and will probably continue to shift right as time goes by.Why would they shift right? Again, part of this is political control - some state's mainstream politics are basically controlled outright by one or two industries (West Virginia) and other states with small populations, but lots of resources to exploit. But many of the current "red states" also had explosive anarchist and marxist movements - as well as the populist movement at an earlier time. In the South and Southwest, industruy has been explanding and growing thanks to "right-to-work" anti-union laws. This means that the objective changes are actually making struggle there MORE likely. A revived labor movement or class struggle in the US will have to take on questions of both racism as well as the non-union south and southwest. Such struggles would radically alter politics in those areas just as it did in the midwest 100 years ago after they had industrialized.


3) Its military is the most advanced on earth, is heavily populated by conservatives and if all else fails relies greatly on drones:DYes, this is a major fucking propblem, not just for us, but any revolution anywhere in the world. The US would become the organizer of world counter-revolution, just as they have been the diverter and destroyer of the uprisings in North Africa.

But to me this is all the more reason to build a revolutionay movement and anti-imperialist politics in the US right now. The US may not be the likely place for a revolutionary wave to start, but US workers will play a big role in helping these movements if we can build opposition here.

The weak-point of all imperialist militaries are the low-ranking soldiers. Drone strikes are a problem, but not an insurmountable one. For one thing, bombing has a limited effect, it can destabilize, but actual troops (not necisarily ones from the imperial center) on the ground are always needed for the imperialists to actually pacify the population and "win" for the imperialists.

But as far as drones go, they are still piloted, only remotely. And as the Brecht poem says (loosely paraphrasing): "that's a mighty fine drone you have there general, too bad the person controlling it has a heart, eyes, and brain". In vietnam ENLISTED air-force officers actually began to refuse to carry out bombings in Vietnam - it wasn't a lot but it scared the shit out of the military. Of course it took a resistance force in Vietnam, a domestic protest movement, as well as revolts within the military to influence these pilots enough to break from command - but it shows that it is possible and again it's a reason we should try as much as we can to organize now ahead of such a situation arising.


4) The U.S masterfully uses the art of the spectacle to distract and control the massesNah. The US convinces people not to revolt by convincing them it's not worth it. This begins with propaganda and all the myths we hear, but ultimately includes co-opting movements, and direct repression.


5) What you call the lumpenproletariat continue to grow amongst the working classNot sure on the numbers here. I think what has actually happened is that more workers have been pushed further to the margins which has caused more people in the US to find casusal ways to make ends meet - but for the most part, aside from high level drug dealers, pimps, and professional crimials (people doing fraud and organized crime rackets), the people who are being locked up in prisons would have interests aligned with the working class. Most are simply unemployed workers who've been picked up for low-level shit because of racism and because poor people are easier (and more deliberate) targets for police.

What's happened is that the prison system has become a system of control for both race and a permanent surplus labor pool.


6) Religious evangelicalism and Pentecostalism dull the peoples desire for change (and its a bad sign that the biggest religious group in the nation that is closest to the left is Catholic)Religion matters and it doesn't. IMO the people's religious ideas or spirituality is a mile wide and an inch thick when it comes to the class struggle. How religion does matter in the US, is that it had been used since the late 1970s as the social base for the new right. So as a grassroots organizing tool for the right-wing and the neoliberal agenda in general, it has played a big part. But this actually seems to be weakening. Ironically the catholic church, which at the neighborhood level in the US has typically been more liberal than the international Catholic chruch has become increasingly influenced by right-wing movements within the church such as the catholic anti-defimation league. In California, it plays a contradictory role of supporting immigrant rights movmements (in a very liberal way which is problematic enough) on the local level while supporting anti-LGBT initiatives and poltics on the state-level.

At any rate, a class movement will actually draw people away from some of that conservative influence within the church (while not necissarily making people aetheists) - this has pretty much happened in every wave of working class struggle in the US.


7) Racial and ethnic divides are still strong and still tilt visibly in the white mans favor (You can talk all you want about how this is really caused by economic factors and how poor whites are just as oppressed, but no matter what you say poor whites should be generally viewed as backwards peasants who would go full on Yugoslavia mode if chaos reigned as it would during a widespread revolt)I grew up in a "lower middle class" while and Latino area where there were white-power gangs so I know first-hand that there are many racist workers. But even then, in my experience, I think it's actually the more petit-bourgois population which is currently more of a "racist threat". In my high school it was the kids whose parents owned small contracting companies or shops who were the most violent racists and right-wingers... they drove trucks with gun-racks and confederate flags... and this was in Nor California.

But at any rate, this is probably the biggest barrier from within the class historically and is another reason we need to organize now so that if a more general class upsurge happens, there are working class groups and tradditions of anti-racist class struggle that will have a chance to attack either fascist/organized racist threats as well as racism within the class preventing effective class struggle.


8) The cities can and would be quickly reduced to WW2 ghettos if the shit got realYes which is why again, we need to organize a very large and confident class movement with wide roots so that a working class uprising would also split the military along class lines preventing coordinated action by the military. For the rulign class to destroy urban centers, it would mean that they are directly fearing the guillotene (figuratively:lol:) and figure they have nothing left to loose. They would be reluctant domestically because it could spark a world-wide revolution in reaction and even if it didn't they would have just destroyed their own economic power in the process of destroying large sections of the workforce, infrastructure, and means of production. But it's a definate possibility and a wounded and scared ruling class is a coiled snake.


9) The Light of Zartha and Castro's Cuba couldn't come to our aid if the U.S went in an extremely tyrannical direction (and Cuba would be taken out as a means of distracting the masses and killing the terrorists.):confused:


10) Preparations have already been made in the event of mass protest (see fema camps and the loosely worded provisions Obama signed into law with "extreme reservations")Sure if they can no longer contain us through the Democratic party and other methods of cooption, then they will (and have) resorted to direct action.

Again this is why we need a large broad working class struggle in the US. I think we need to also have coordinated efforts on a level (especially as workers taking power becomes a real possibility) but we also need a movement where workers are self-confident and their own leaders. This goes for the class as well as specific radical organizations. We have to build our specific marxist and anarchist formations and networks keeping in mind that at some point our parties might be made illegal and so we can't have just a small group of radical leaders with large parties of followers, we need formations where everyone is an active, thinking, leader.


11) Libertarians probably outnumber leftists 3 to 1.On the internet, but in real life our positions are more popular in the general population.

The tea party had the support of Billionaries and a whole TV network - yet a spontanious uprising of workers and students in Wisconsin shatterd the tea-parties efforts to counter-demonstrate without breaking a sweat. I think this is more of a problem of organization than of the character of people in the US. A better comparison would be libertarians and social-democrats and even though there is no explicit soc-dem party in the 2-party dictatorship... a large chunk of Democratic Party supporters are probably closer in viewpoint with European Social-democrats/reformists than with the neoliberal Democrats. Libertarians by and large in the US are a splinter from the Republicans that began in the 1970s.


In summary: Social democracy esque reforms are as far as you'll likely go in this lifetime in AmericaMaybe, but personally I think that even to enact meaningful reforms in the US, it would actually take a wave of radicalization and militancy - and if we achieve that, then people will likely not settle with just the reforms. Refomists in the US in the age of austeriy only fight for the shitty staus-quo - they don't even try and reform anything because expectations are so low.

But a movement to win union rights in the South, to challenge the racist institution of the prisons and policing policies, would require much more than just reformist politics and tactics. So with any struggle to make short-term reforms in the US, I think the possibility for much deeper radicalization is possible for the broad movement and definately for a radical core within the broader movemnt.

I think this is the process we can see when people began to break to the left of FDR in the 1930s and with the black power movement. Initial attempts at refoms mobilized people, but then winning some reforms encouraged more demands and more hopes while also exposing the limits of the refoms (for at least a section of these movements) causing greater radicalization for a time.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

I didn't realize so many socialists had psychic powers!?
do I get mine after finishing Capital Vol. 3? :wub:

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

I didn't realize so many socialists had psychic powers!?
do I get mine after finishing Capital Vol. 3? :wub:

Only if you read it in German:rolleyes:

[GoddessCleoLover]

Wasn't the third volume of Capital compiled by Engels from MArx's notes? Frankly, I never even entirely got through the first volume, which was the only one actually written by Marx. Not ashamed to admit that IMO Capital is not exactly an easy read. Anyone else on Revleft willing to admit that Capital is not an easy read?

[cantwealljustgetalong]

considering there is a cottage industry of books and lectures about how to read Capital, I think that's a pretty reasonable claim

[LiberationTheologist]

Will the Republicans stand up for states marijuana rights and destroy federal drug laws? This should be a good disillusionment phase forthe Democrat and Republican minority voting bloc which still believe Democrats or Republicans are looking out for their interests or have an ounce principles.

Mass disillusionment will bring a large shift in people who will stop propping up this political system. Same thing will happen as the republicans and democrats start going after the public employees pensions, raising the retirement age and cutting everything besides the war machine and corporate welfare.

What I am trying to say is that revolution is now becoming more and more possible within next few months due to political disillusionment and increasingly palpable economic despair as the people realize they are war debt slaves.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

1)Due to being the seat of capitalism the U.S is the most ant leftist (besides Islamist held areas) place on earth.I really don't think this is true. I know that our politicians and media are pretty "anti-leftist" but I think the most outrageous, stupidest, anti-leftist shit you hear and see in America is coming from a very vocal minority of Americans(Who can only be so loud because they got lots of fuckin' money, which should be of no surprise).


2) The rural areas of the nation are dominated by reactionary elements and will probably continue to shift right as time goes by.This may be true, rural areas may go further right than they already are. Of course it's not set in stone and of course there can be struggle in those areas. I remember driving through a tiny rural town in Northern California, miles and miles of crops all around you. You drive through some very surreal shit, one part of the town is nice houses, nice cars, then five minutes later you enter a part of town with shitty cars, rundown houses. Spanish words placarded onto buildings, it was like Little Mexico or something. My point being half the town lived in some upscale houses with nice cars while the other half lived in places that could barely be considered a house. Who do you think is hired to pick the crops, wash the floors at the local gas station, etc? Rural areas are full of extremely exploited poor folks. People the left can't ignore and people that have shown can and will take part in the struggle *cough* United Farm Workers, Cesar Chavez *cough*.

3) Its military is the most advanced on earth, is heavily populated by conservatives and if all else fails relies greatly on dronesAnd history has shown that soldiers can easily be turned into friends(and that they better be come revolution time or you'll probably just end up with a military dictatorship). During the Vietnam War you had soldiers refusing orders as (Jimmie points out), throwing away medals, protesting in large numbers against it, fragging officers, etc, (some of which is happening with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans too). Not only that but you have a lot of people coming out of the military after a 4-8 years in service who know how to shoot/operate military machinery who realize the benefits they were promised aren't really that great(and are currently under attack).


4) The U.S masterfully uses the art of the spectacle to distract and control the massesThey do that in every country, it's not special to the U.S. As the struggle goes on less and less people will give a shit about what shoes Kim Kardashian was wearing.


5) What you call the lumpenproletariat continue to grow amongst the working classDoes it? I'm not so sure, compared to the stuff going on in my neighborhood when I was in a gang it's pretty much the same stuff and the same numbers. Here and there there are flare ups and then periods of quite. Right now it's kind of flaring up again but it probably won't last long. At least that's where I live, it's probably different everywhere you go. I'd like to see where you're getting this from though if you're not just pulling it out of your ass.


6) Religious evangelicalism and Pentecostalism dull the peoples desire for change (and its a bad sign that the biggest religious group in the nation that is closest to the left is Catholic)Well I don't see the problem here considering less and less people are describing themselves as religious nowadays and the trend isn't slowing down. Within 100 years we'll be sitting here laughing at the Christian minority if trends continue as they do. And even then I don't see it as a huge problem, people often ignore what they hear at church. Whenever there is a great upswing in class struggle here in the U.S. many people seem to forget that Jesus said to be good servants to the State and get more interested in Jesus telling the rich to give up their shit. Sometimes you even get some left-wing preachers. Fathers leading prayers before going out on the picket line and stuff. Being religious doesn't automatically make one a conservative reactionary right-winger. My sister for example is highly religious, believes in a 6,000 year old Earth, the Great Flood story, etc. But get her talking about money and poverty and how they want to fuck over students and workers and you'll swear her religious text was the Communist Manifesto, not the Bible.


7) Racial and ethnic divides are still strong and still tilt visibly in the white mans favor (You can talk all you want about how this is really caused by economic factors and how poor whites are just as oppressed, but no matter what you say poor whites should be generally viewed as backwards peasants who would go full on Yugoslavia mode if chaos reigned as it would during a widespread revolt)Yeah I don't see racism as strong as it has been historically in this country and it only seems to be getting less and less relevant. Sure there is a racist structure but as the working class struggle against capitalism and it's ugly realities more and more the more people come together in struggle. When the victims of police brutality went to the picket lines in Oakland today to show support for longshoreman's strike it means something, it helps build community ties not along racial lines.


8) The cities can and would be quickly reduced to WW2 ghettos if the shit got realWhich is why you need support from at least a large enough minority of the military. If not cities could be conquered without getting reduced to rubble. If "shit got real" we've got to come to the understanding that we can lose and that the consequences would be huge either way.


9) The Light of Zartha and Castro's Cuba couldn't come to our aid if the U.S went in an extremely tyrannical direction (and Cuba would be taken out as a means of distracting the masses and killing the terrorists.)Light of Zartha? Not a lot of countries would come to our aid but by this point if the U.S. is having a legit revolution I'd be surprised if other parts of the world aren't having serious problems themselves controlling their populations.


10) Preparations have already been made in the event of mass protest (see fema camps and the loosely worded provisions Obama signed into law with "extreme reservations")So? They have plans to suppress a revolutionary movement? Let's hope we win then right :thumbup1:


11) Libertarians probably outnumber leftists 3 to 1.If it were true, I ask again: so?


In summary: Social democracy esque reforms are as far as you'll likely go in this lifetime in AmericaConsidering even the reformists are telling Americans to take cuts to their services left and right, I highly doubt that. If you haven't noticed we're living in the world where the Social Democratic parties are pushing austerity on the people.

The thing with "pragmatism"(I hate using that word as I don't really think it conveys the correct message of what being pragmatic means much the same way "Objectivism" doesn't correctly convey what the term "objective" means) is it traps you within a paradigm that is always shifting and a paradigm of what can and can't change. If you believe Social Democracy is pragmatically the only feasible option then you're going to agitate, educate, and perform action that reflects that. Which means you're undermining what can be revolutionary potential or you're lying about what you believe and people can tell when you don't believe what you yourself are pushing.

And maybe our politics are really fucked up but when you ask people what their positions are on individual things a majority are of people are to the left of the mainstream Democratic Party. And statistics show that more and more Americans are getting comfortable with the idea of socialism and even communism. I remember I made a thread months ago talking about how a poll showed 1/10 respondents had a favorable view of communism. The youth aren't hugely anti-socialist and as they enter the workforce and live under four years of a administration who is a "reformer" who pushes for austerity on us do you think people are just going to go to the right?

And people's minds change all the time, movements sometimes grow exponentially out of nowhere. Were people really thinking the first worker's revolt to hold power for more than a couple months was going to be in Russia? The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries scoffed and laughed at Lenin when he arrived in Russia. Lol, this fool is saying All Power to the Soviets? What an idiot. A few months later they weren't laughing...

[TheOther]

it is fair to assume that most people in USA are really closet-progressives, or at least closet-social-democrats. Not closet-marxists, but at least closet-anti-corporations. Most americans thru conspiracy theory websites, 9-11 truth sites, alternative social-democrat sites and thru other sources are waking about about the corporate plutocracy. All this information about how evil the coporate oligarchic economic system we have in USA are even in the lyrics of music bands like Bon Jovi, Poison, Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar, Rage Against The Machine, The Who, rap music, Calle 13, punk music, metal. This country has been revolutionary for a long time and has been closet-progressive. Americans hate the republican party. And americans love leftist ideology a lot more than right-wing ideology. The thing is that you guys have to understand that if its true that USA has a corporate oligarchic system, that system we have it, because it is *forced down the throats of americans* thru all the mainstream TV channels of the country, thru all the commercials of JC Penney, Macys, the *forced compulsive selling tactics*, literally forcing americans to be pro-active participants of credit cards, of the lay-away loan scams.

Having said all this, the right-wing philosophy that americans might have is because it is injected in their brains against their wills. But I bet that most people at least the middle classes and the lower classes hate the capitalist system. But are too shy, or really scared to be fired from their jobs where they work because they have a family to feed, if they come out of their political closet and they admit out in the open how evil capitalism is.

But even celebrities today like Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, are promoting socialism. Ideas are like fashion, like trends, and nothing in this world not even Hitler can stop ideas and trends. And I think that socialism is becoming a trend in USA and in the whole world.

But I think that what we need in USA is a sort of organized leftist party which would be able to hire celebrities like Sean Penn and Oliver Stone, so that the socialist party would be more marketable to the masses. We need to attract democrat voters and republican party voters to an organized socialist party for the 2016 elections








Will the Republicans stand up for states marijuana rights and destroy federal drug laws? This should be a good disillusionment phase forthe Democrat and Republican minority voting bloc which still believe Democrats or Republicans are looking out for their interests or have an ounce principles.

Mass disillusionment will bring a large shift in people who will stop propping up this political system. Same thing will happen as the republicans and democrats start going after the public employees pensions, raising the retirement age and cutting everything besides the war machine and corporate welfare.

What I am trying to say is that revolution is now becoming more and more possible within next few months due to political disillusionment and increasingly palpable economic despair as the people realize they are war debt slaves.