Defend Zack de la Rocha!

[Red Heretic]

A big cheers to Zack de la Rocha of the band Rage Against the Machine for his strong and defiant statement against the Bush Regime, and the system behind it, at the Coachella Music Festival on April 29. Rage Against the Machine broke up in 2000, but they reunited to play at Coachella.

To introduce "Wake Up," one of the songs in their set, Zack said that the Nuremburg laws that were applied to the Nazis after World War 2 should be applied to all the U.S. presidents from Truman on, including the current one. Then he went on to say, “But the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations. Way beyond elections. Way beyond every four years of pulling levers. Way beyond that. Because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel, that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries and profit from their reconstruction, in order to survive. And that is not a system that changes every four years; it's a system that we have to break down – generation after generation, after generation, after generation…WAKE UP!!!”

The next day, Fox News' Hannity and Colmes hosted right-wing rocker Ted Nugent and flaming reactionary commentator Ann Coulter, to attack Zack and the band. They claimed that Zack had threatened Bush, distorting what he said to hide the point that he was making--that Bush and other U.S. presidents were guilty of war crimes. Hannity called for the Secret Service to investigate and even arrest the band, calling what Zack said a "terroristic threat." So now telling a very basic and undeniable truth is deemed "terrorism" and the reactionary mouthpieces demand that the state come in! NO WAY! Zack and Rage must be supported against any attempt by reactionaries to go after them.

Revolution will have more on the Coachella festival and Rage Against the Machine's performance in a future issue.

Revolution #88 (http://revcom.us/a/088/ratm-en.html)

[Red Heretic]

P.S. This was the best show I've been to in my entire life.

[Red October]

I envy you so much.

Do you have a link to a video of the fox news broadcast?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

lucky bastard!!

Yo tickets were sold out in 22 minutes here in New York. I didn't even realize they were on sale by the same they sold out for the 7/28 RATM concert. W/e though, I'm gonna show up and see what happens. I think I might be able to get in by working at the RCP table.

[Enragé]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 09, 2007 01:04 am
P.S. This was the best show I've been to in my entire life.


i should've simply swam over there and broke down the fences around coachella :(

[Angry Young Man]

Wow I know Lenny Bruce said "Take away the right to say fuck and you lose the right to say 'Fuck the Govt'", but now they're trying to take away the right to say "Fuck the Govt"???

Fuckem

[thescarface1989]

Here is a video
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0fc_1178047414
Not sure if its this exact speech.

[thescarface1989]

Video From Fox
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermo...ewsitemID=71727 (http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=71727)

People At Fox are Idiots! :angry:

[Red October]

Originally posted by Down-For-People's-War!@May 08, 2007 09:29 pm
lucky bastard!!

Yo tickets were sold out in 22 minutes here in New York. I didn't even realize they were on sale by the same they sold out for the 7/28 RATM concert. W/e though, I'm gonna show up and see what happens. I think I might be able to get in by working at the RCP table.
The RCP is going to have a table inside the show?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Red October+May 09, 2007 10:49 pm--> (Red October @ May 09, 2007 10:49 pm)
Down-For-People's-War!@May 08, 2007 09:29 pm
lucky bastard!!

Yo tickets were sold out in 22 minutes here in New York. I didn't even realize they were on sale by the same they sold out for the 7/28 RATM concert. W/e though, I'm gonna show up and see what happens. I think I might be able to get in by working at the RCP table.
The RCP is going to have a table inside the show? [/b]
Well there was free tabling in Coachella according to someone who was organizing for it w/ WCW. Also I think RATM are supporters of the RCP (they support the Peruvian Communist Party (Shining Path)) after all.

[Red October]

Hm, I thought RATM leaned more towards anarchism than Maoism. But it seems like they'll support just about any good revolutionary movement.

[redcannon]

Zach de la Rocha's dating a phys ed teacher at my school

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 09, 2007 10:49 pm
The RCP is going to have a table inside the show?
It's actually a Revolution Newspaper table (the Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party). They had a table at Coachella, as well. It was fucking awesome.

And no, tabling at Coachella was NOT free. I went with World Can't Wait (they got me into the show to do political work for free), and I know that it cost them thousands to do everything they did ($17,000 including all of the materials we got out there).

[Red Heretic]

Also, Tom Morello and Rage Against the Machine as a whole have been very supportive of both World Can't Wait and the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (the youth group fo the RCP). If it weren't for them, Coachella would not have let Revolution Newspaper or World Can't Wait into Coachella. The Coachella company did NOT want us there, but Rage made it one of their demands in playing at the show.

I've got so much love for them!

[EneME]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 10:26 am
Here is a video
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0fc_1178047414
Not sure if its this exact speech.
thats the speech.

[Sir_No_Sir]

Well, de la Rocha is right.
Every president since WW2 should be killed. Justice for all.

[Sickle of Justice]

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act"

-George Orwell


Welcome to 1984, Comrades.

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 03:45 pm
Well, de la Rocha is right.
Every president since WW2 should be killed. Justice for all.
I think it was originally Chomsky who said it.

[FOREVER LEFT]

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm

[Invader Zim]

Zack de la Rocha is a hypocritical, mansion owning, humvee driving, self righteous, pretentious, capitalist wanker.

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 11, 2007 04:58 pm
Zack de la Rocha is a hypocritical, mansion owning, humvee driving, self righteous, pretentious, capitalist wanker.
Attack revolutionary comrades when they are the subject of a fascist attack, how revolutionary.

[Rawthentic]

If he's what Invader Zim really describes him as, then fuck him too.

I'm for class war.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by Red Heretic+May 10, 2007 05:05 am--> (Red Heretic @ May 10, 2007 05:05 am)
Red [email protected] 09, 2007 10:49 pm
The RCP is going to have a table inside the show?
It's actually a Revolution Newspaper table (the Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party). They had a table at Coachella, as well. It was fucking awesome.

And no, tabling at Coachella was NOT free. I went with World Can't Wait (they got me into the show to do political work for free), and I know that it cost them thousands to do everything they did ($17,000 including all of the materials we got out there). [/b]
werd?? Turns out I can't go, I'm not gonna be in NYC at the time which sucks ass. Anyhow, it would be optomistic to think they'd let me in doing political work I think

[Rawthentic]

If this Zack de la Rocha guy is really a rich dude in a mansion, then why do you endorse him?

Or does he hold a proletarian "class line?" :lol:

[Political_Chucky]

Invader Zim

Zack de la Rocha is a hypocritical, mansion owning, humvee driving, self righteous, pretentious, capitalist wanker.
hastalavictoria

If he's what Invader Zim really describes him as, then fuck him too.

I'm for class war.
hastalavictoria

If this Zack de la Rocha guy is really a rich dude in a mansion, then why do you endorse him?

Or does he hold a proletarian "class line?" laugh.gif

Besides the point that for the most part he stands up for a lot of what we believe in? Besides the point that he is a pretty big voice in the media sways the opinions of many young leftists?

I have seen you stand up for the EZLN and Zack praises the EZLN and has stated a lot of Comandante Marcos's politics influences his. Depending on your politics, and whether or not you view the reformist EZLN a productive organization, Zack is a revolutionary if you give him credit for his music and his messages. His status is largely criticized because Rage is such a successful band and the fact they are signed under a label, but Tom Morello reponds by saying


When you live in a capitalistic society, the currency of the dissemination of information goes through capitalistic channels. Would Noam Chomsky object to his works being sold at Barnes & Noble? No, because that's where people buy their books. We're not interested in preaching to just the converted. It's great to play abandoned squats run by anarchists, but it's also great to be able to reach people with a revolutionary message, people from Granada Hills to Stuttgart.[5]

Click here for the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine)

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 02:25 am
If this Zack de la Rocha guy is really a rich dude in a mansion, then why do you endorse him?

Or does he hold a proletarian "class line?" :lol:
1) RATM is a really sick band. Listen to their music, its abour a revolutionary as can be.
2) notice how IZ didn't post a source to his claim? He's a popular musician so he might be living better than most proles, but I don't think what IZ said is true
3) We should unite with all we can unite with. I'll say it again. You want to lose the revolution, I want to win. You want to concentrate on asking everyones class and occupation rather than shooting your weapon. I want to win the revolution. I don't give a fuck who joins as long as they are down with the proletariat vanguard and down with overthrowing the bourgeoisie.

I have the feeling you've never listened to RATM, just to give you an idea, there are people on this forum who have proposed that any RATM song is the official leftist national anthem above the international and Soviet Union hymn and the Red Flag and Bandiera Rossa

[OneBrickOneVoice]

RATM -- Bombtrack lyrics (http://www.ratm.net/lyrics/bom.html)
Guerilla Radio Lyrics (http://www.musicfanclubs.org/rage/lyrics/guerrilla.htm)
Testify Music Video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=1JSBhI_0at0&mode=related&search=)

[Rawthentic]

We should unite with all we can unite with. I'll say it again. You want to lose the revolution, I want to win. You want to concentrate on asking everyones class and occupation rather than shooting your weapon. I want to win the revolution. I don't give a fuck who joins as long as they are down with the proletariat vanguard and down with overthrowing the bourgeoisie.
Nah. Its been refuted in this thread: Small Criticism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66128&st=25), mainly the second page.

That "United Front" is an excuse for the denigration of the class content of Marxism, shown precisely by the RCP and Avakian. He is the avowed "leader" of the proletariat because he holds a proletarian "class line", even though he is petty-bourgeois. Tell me, if the RCP was a party full of bourgeois but had a proletarian "class line", you wouldnt care? Of course you wouldnt. If you do care, then it shows that the class line shit is ...shit. If you don't then you mean to say that because the bourgeois hold a proletarian "class line" out of who knows where, that they are consciously plotting their overthrow, which is against the very crux of materialism.

"Behind all the accusations of economism, behind the marginalization of the historic role of the proletariat, behind the denigration of class politics as "identity politics" is the cold, dead hand of what Marx and Engels called "True Socialism". The RCP's line is nothing new. In fact, Marx and Engels dealt with it in the Communist Manifesto":


"It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote 'Alienation of Humanity', and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote 'Dethronement of the Category of the General', and so forth.

The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed 'Philosophy of Action', 'True Socialism', 'German Science of Socialism', 'Philosophical Foundation of Socialism', and so on.

The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome 'French one-sidedness' and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy....

While this 'True' Socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of German Philistines. In Germany, the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under the various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things."

"Social being determines consciousness. That is, to have proletarian class consciousness, one must have the social being of a proletarian. This is the materialist method of looking at the world. One cannot have a proletarian class outlook if their social being is not proletarian. In the past, when it was possible to "de-class" and touch on the social being of the proletariat, without actually integrating one's self into that class, one could divine that consciousness and extrapolate that into a relatively coherent class outlook. However, with the reorganization of class relations in the epoch of imperialism, this understanding has become more crystallized and its application narrowed.

This is the point we make when talking about non-proletarian elements that seek to present themselves as "leaders of the proletariat", like Avakian (but certainly not limited to him -- there are definitely worse ones out there, such as the WSWS's David North, who, under his real name, is the CEO of a large printing company in the metropolitan Detroit area, Grand River Publishing).

"Line is decisive". This is true, for as far as it goes. We would argue that the only way for the line to be correct is for its class basis to be rooted in material conditions -- in the material social relations and social being that determines consciousness. This is why we reject the "condescending saviors" that come to the proletariat and proclaim themselves as the leaders of our class.

You may call that "liberal identity politics", but that is little more than an expression of exactly how divorced from proletarian class politics you actually are."

"This is what is missed by the "True" leftists that dominate the spectrum today. Their theory and understanding of class relations is a century old and they have steadfastly refused to analyze the development of classes and their relationships on their own. This is understandable, given the composition of these organizations. Put simply, it is not in the interests of the self-appointed "leaders of the proletariat" to expose their own social and historical being, how it is fundamentally different from those they emulate from a century ago, and how their role today is truly that of a falsifier."

So, basically, the "class line" thing is bullshit and part of and old and outdated struggle. Make whatever you want of it. I have made my conclusions.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by Red Heretic+May 12, 2007 03:06 am--> (Red Heretic @ May 12, 2007 03:06 am)
Invader [email protected] 11, 2007 04:58 pm
Zack de la Rocha is a hypocritical, mansion owning, humvee driving, self righteous, pretentious, capitalist wanker.
Attack revolutionary comrades when they are the subject of a fascist attack, how revolutionary. [/b]
Zack de la Rocha is a capitalist parasite using a revolutionary political stance to sell records to "rebel" kids.

And Ted Nugent is many things, asshole being top of the list, fascist however - he is not. He is just a rightwing conservative cock.

Don't talk about ideologies you clearly fail to understand.

[Rawthentic]

And the RCP goes and supports him..

Some people never get past the struggles of the old...

And y'all know what I mean.

[Red October]

I would like to see a source proving all the accusations against ZDLR. As far as I can see, he is a successful musician who makes awesome music and is down with the struggle. If he wanted to make money, he could make non-political music. But he doesn't do that, he writes great revolutionary music and has done a hell of a lot of non-musical work for the struggle. He has gone way beyond the minimum standards for just looking like a revolutionary, he is a revolutionary. Stop hating.

[Rawthentic]

He might be in the struggle, but would you not consider it hypocritical if he lived in a mansion and all? I would also like to see sources though.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 04:11 am
He might be in the struggle, but would you not consider it hypocritical if he lived in a mansion and all? I would also like to see sources though.
Look at famous peoples houses on Google earth if you don't believe me.


http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile21431/Zac...use-in-L.A..htm (http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile21431/Zach-De-La-Rocha-of-Rage-Against-the-Machine---House-in-L.A..htm)

[Red October]

that's a really poor quality aerial photo of a house that really doesn't look that big. hardly proof of anything other than he doesn't live in a shack.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

No it wasn't Engels was a factory owner shithead end of story, yet he was able to recognize that while the proletariat lead, its about alot more than jus proletariat liberation and self-emancipation, its about the emancipation of all humanity, from woman, to gays, to oppressed minorities and about the elimination of homelessness and wage-slavery.

I just noticed your sig link

You are officially a scum bag piece of shit. The most sectarian dickface I have ever met. All you do is attack other organizations because it must make you feel better, or you just like the idea of trying to tear apart the communist movement. All your posts are about how the united front is dumb because that would mean we would win the revolution or about how teh stalinism is evil. Just shut the fuck up.

Can someone tell me how I can block users again???

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 13, 2007 10:03 pm
that's a really poor quality aerial photo of a house that really doesn't look that big. hardly proof of anything other than he doesn't live in a shack.
Apart from the fact he lives in a posh suburb, has a big house even in comparison to numerous other houses around his own and there are tree's and shit like that outside his house?

Despite there being photographic evidence available there is still no convincing some people and I'm not stupid enough to try.

[Fawkes]

there are tree's and shit like that outside his house?
Oh, God, trees you say? That bourgeois ass. :rolleyes: His class status is really a non-issue seeing as how he is only one person and the revolution is not a one-man thing.

[Rawthentic]

You are officially a scum bag piece of shit. The most sectarian dickface I have ever met. All you do is attack other organizations because it must make you feel better, or you just like the idea of trying to tear apart the communist movement. All your posts are about how the united front is dumb because that would mean we would win the revolution or about how teh stalinism is evil. Just shut the fuck up.
Ditto for Avakian. You just can't refute what I said or that link. The "United Front" crap has been refuted.

Better yet, go to that thread in my sig and spark the discussion again, see if you can refute anything said.

And I will criticize to no end the RCP and Avakian because of their shit politics.

But like I said, you have the inability to refute it.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

what a bullchit pic. Look here's my house. I have photgraphic evidence. THE EVIDENCE IS UNDENIABLE

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/campbell/images/Taj%20Mahal.jpg

btw dude he's a frickin professional muscian. His music reaches millions with revolutionary lyrics.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 10:22 pm

there are tree's and shit like that outside his house?
Oh, God, trees you say? That bourgeois ass. :rolleyes: His class status is really a non-issue seeing as how he is only one person and the revolution is not a one-man thing.
Maybe fellows like you are loaded enough to have trees outside your house in the middle of a massive city, but some of us ain't.

But whatever you say, obviously profit from teh revolutionz is rad man!


Look here's my house. I have photgraphic evidence. THE EVIDENCE IS UNDENIABLE

OMG!!!11!!1!!1!!!!!!!ONE!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!ELEVENZ!!! 1!!!!!

Tiz conspircy, really Zack lives in a cardboard box outside Walmart, how truly fucking stupid of me!


His music reaches millions with revolutionary lyrics.

And maybe a few hundred actually take note and become self righteous wannabe-rebel kids. Fuckin dope dude!

[OneBrickOneVoice]

oh right I forgot no one ever lied about anything, especially on Google Earth right. Doesn't Castro have like 15 residences on that site

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by Down-For-People's-War!@May 13, 2007 11:01 pm
oh right I forgot no one ever lied about anything, especially on Google Earth right. Doesn't Castro have like 15 residences on that site
OMG Tiz conspiricy... wait this sounds familiar!

[CrunchyMilk]

I'm curious as to what Hannity and Colmes reaction would have been had Zach attacked someone like Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.

[Red October]

I'm curious as to what Hannity's reaction would have been if Zach had attacked Hillary Clinton. We all know he wouldn't give a shit. But I would really love to see his reaction to Zach kicking his teeth in.

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 04:39 am
Nah. Its been refuted in this thread: Small Criticism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66128&st=25), mainly the second page.
You didn't "refute" shit! I shredded your economist line in that thread!

It's like arguing with a Christian fundamentalist about evolution. No matter how much evidence you present them with, they still have their dogma and they keep arguing the same fucking argument in circles. Your line was refuted and it's time to move on!

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by Down-For-People's-War!@May 13, 2007 09:05 pm
You are officially a scum bag piece of shit. The most sectarian dickface I have ever met. All you do is attack other organizations because it must make you feel better, or you just like the idea of trying to tear apart the communist movement. All your posts are about how the united front is dumb because that would mean we would win the revolution or about how teh stalinism is evil. Just shut the fuck up.
Comrade, I know that HLV's dogma is extremely frustrating, but try to remain principled. Don't engage in personal attacks.

[Rawthentic]

I was actually referring to what Miles said.

You didnt look at that did you? He thrashed your ass.

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 12, 2007 10:56 pm
And Ted Nugent is many things, asshole being top of the list, fascist however - he is not. He is just a rightwing conservative cock.
I was referring to Sean Hannity.... who IS a fascist. The attack on Zack (calling him a terrorist, calling on the secret service to interogate him) was coming from Sean Hannity.

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 03:47 am
I was actually referring to what Miles said.

You didnt look at that did you? He thrashed your ass.
I looked at it, and I responded to it in a previous thread. It's just the same old economist dogma.

You on the other hand, never responded to Lenin's extremely important points on this matter.


Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected—unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding—it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding—of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance.

Smash economist revisionism and liberal identity politics!

[Rawthentic]

And Miles said this, which sums up my position as well:


This passage is important, both for what it says and, for our purposes, what it doesn't say. Let's start with the first sentence: "Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected — unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other." This is quite true and, for the League, has been an important part of our understanding from the beginning. Remember, the League was formed in the wake of what I would call the second Bush coup in 2004 -- a coup that (again, in my opinion) sealed the doomed fate of American bourgeois democracy. We formulated a Platform of Action that was oriented toward revolutionary-democratic action in the political arena and began our organizing to that end. We even went so far as to participate in the work of the World Can't Wait campaign because of our understanding of this position.

Moreover, we approached this from the perspective outlined in the second sentence: "The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events, to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population." We in the League seek to learn what moves and motivates each class to take the actions they do -- what moves them forward or backward (or laterally), causes them to unify or divide, and makes them act in the manner they do. But we do so with the understanding that this is something that workers must learn in order for our class to undertake its responsibilities. We observe and learn about all other classes -- their history and development, their transformations and amalgamations -- in order for our class to be able to fulfill its mission. Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don't need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

This is why we agree with Lenin's criticism in his third sentence: "Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life." Yes, it is necessary to not limit our understanding to the internal machinations of our own class. This is why we participate in antiwar demonstrations, democratic-rights protests and similar actions. This is why we have members that keep tabs on liberal-democratic and radical-democratic movements and organizations, attend their meetings and events, engage with their members, etc. This is why we make a point to interact with elements from other classes -- which, incidentally, includes interacting with left organizations like yours on occasion. But we do all this from the material and political standpoint of the proletariat -- our class.

This is also why we agree with the last sentence in this passage from Lenin: "For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance." The class struggle is a political struggle. It is in the political arena that all classes vie for power and control in society, and it is therefore necessary that communists actively engage this political struggle on political terms. We have our Platform of Action, our Basic Principles and our understanding of where we are going.

[Red Heretic]

On the subject of this thread, have people noticed the ad on the top bar?:

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/1367/uhohvh7.png

[Red Heretic]

I hadn't seen that quote HVL. It's great that you guys have worked with World Can't Wait, I wasn't aware of that.

Either, none of that excuses liberal identity politics, which I have already argued against. People need to realize, that is a petty bourgeois line!

Carl Dix, spokesperson for the RCP, said this about identity politics in response to the question of Avakian being white:


Look, here’s the deal. There is a leader who has come forward, who is pointing to the way out of this, who is pointing to a future that we can get to, and is showing us the way to get there.

The challenge for people is to look at the content of what the leader is bringing forward. That’s what we gotta grab hold of. Because if you want to get out of all this mess the criteria for leadership is not, what nationality is the leader:what race:or what gender. But instead, what is the content of the vision that leader is putting forward, and, what is the program they’re putting forward to realize that?

You see, that is the challenge. We are not saying, ‘follow Bob Avakian blindly’ or ‘follow the RCP blindly.’ We’re saying, grapple with the content of the vision of the future society being brought forward. And grapple with the program that’s being brought forward to realize this.

[Rawthentic]

About "liberal identity politics", I'll quote Miles again. I don't like to quote others as much, but he really put the smack down on the RCP's politics.


"Line is decisive". This is true, for as far as it goes. We would argue that the only way for the line to be correct is for its class basis to be rooted in material conditions -- in the material social relations and social being that determines consciousness. This is why we reject the "condescending saviors" that come to the proletariat and proclaim themselves as the leaders of our class.

You may call that "liberal identity politics", but that is little more than an expression of exactly how divorced from proletarian class politics you actually are.


Our own modern-day "True" Maoists of the RCP do similarly. Under the Russian criticism of economism they write "liberal identity politics". Under the Russian revolutionary-democratic platform they write "struggle for the center". In a stroke, all "one-sidedness" of communism is cast aside ... and, along with it, the understanding of communism as a political trend that expresses the class struggle. They might use the words of "class struggle" and "proletarian revolution" on websites or in tepid documents, but the reality is the negation of that "one-sidedness" -- not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of "the people" and "the masses", who belong to no class, have no reality ... other than that given to them by the leading lights of the RCP.

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 04:09 am

In a stroke, all "one-sidedness" of communism is cast aside ... and, along with it, the understanding of communism as a political trend that expresses the class struggle. They might use the words of "class struggle" and "proletarian revolution" on websites or in tepid documents, but the reality is the negation of that "one-sidedness" -- not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of "the people" and "the masses", who belong to no class, have no reality ... other than that given to them by the leading lights of the RCP.
Is the proletariat the new god, or is the proletariat only important because it is the first class in history which can be the emancipator of humanity? Many classes have been oppressed throughout history besides the proletariat, but the proletariat is important because is can abolish classes. It is important only in that context.

Bob Avakian thoroughly refusted this economist line in his talk:

Communism: A Whole New World And The Emancipation of All Humanity – Not "The Last Shall Be First, And the First Shall Be Last" Part 1 (http://bobavakian.net/sound/new/3_communism-a_whole_new_world_1.mp3)

Communism: A Whole New World And The Emancipation of All Humanity – Not "The Last Shall Be First, And the First Shall Be Last" Part 2 (http://bobavakian.net/sound/new/3_communism-a_whole_new_world_2.mp3)

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by Red Heretic+May 16, 2007 04:47 am--> (Red Heretic @ May 16, 2007 04:47 am)
Invader [email protected] 12, 2007 10:56 pm
And Ted Nugent is many things, asshole being top of the list, fascist however - he is not. He is just a rightwing conservative cock.
I was referring to Sean Hannity.... who IS a fascist. The attack on Zack (calling him a terrorist, calling on the secret service to interogate him) was coming from Sean Hannity. [/b]

No, again he is not. Go get a fucking clue about politics then come back. Yes, fascists are those who are hard right nationalists, but they also reject parliamentary democracy, something Hannity most certainly does not do. He, like Nugent is just a rightwing wanker.

[Rawthentic]

I'm not sure what or who you're trying to disprove RH, but I'd have to say that the proletariat is important because it is the exploited class and the only one able to abolish classes.

But this is not a substitute for the class struggle. The proletariat must take things into its own hands, furnish leaders from its own class, not rely on "Messiahs" from the propertied classes.

What I want, as a working person, is the emancipation of the proletariat before anything else. We are the oppressed ones. Oh, those poor exploited bourgeois! Those poor and exploited petty-bourgeois!

This is classical petty-bourgeois socialism. Class? What class?! This is about the classless "humanity" and "ending all forms of exploitation", because, after all, the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie are exploited and oppressed too. Those poor, oppressed bourgeois! Someone has to save them!

Behind all the accusations of economism, behind the marginalization of the historic role of the proletariat, behind the denigration of class politics as "identity politics" is the cold, dead hand of what Marx and Engels called "True Socialism". The RCP's line is nothing new. In fact, Marx and Engels dealt with it in the Communist Manifesto:



(Communist Manifesto @ Chapter III)
"It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote 'Alienation of Humanity', and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote 'Dethronement of the Category of the General', and so forth.

The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed 'Philosophy of Action', 'True Socialism', 'German Science of Socialism', 'Philosophical Foundation of Socialism', and so on.

The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome 'French one-sidedness' and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy....

While this 'True' Socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of German Philistines. In Germany, the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under the various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things."

[Red October]

Hannity isn't a fascist, he's just a conservative asshole.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by Invader Zim+May 12, 2007 02:56 pm--> (Invader Zim @ May 12, 2007 02:56 pm)
Originally posted by Red [email protected] 12, 2007 03:06 am

Invader [email protected] 11, 2007 04:58 pm
Zack de la Rocha is a hypocritical, mansion owning, humvee driving, self righteous, pretentious, capitalist wanker.
Attack revolutionary comrades when they are the subject of a fascist attack, how revolutionary.
Zack de la Rocha is a capitalist parasite using a revolutionary political stance to sell records to "rebel" kids.

[/b]
Please if you do not know what you are talking about then don't speak. To you he might be just another head on the TV but until you go out to labor marches and community meetings and see him and talk to him you can't say anything about his politics.

About a year ago South Central LA had the biggest urban farm in the nation. Many working class people grew food to sell and eat there. The person who "owned" the land long ago decided those people couldn't be there anymore so the city and this guy were trying to kick everyone off.

I went down there to show my solidarity with them and he was there too and everyone there had a good time and tried to learn a bit and donate to the cause. Now I don't know how you define keeping land for the proletariat but I certainly don't define it as being parasitic. I have seen him all around LA at little community meetings, art shows and cultural exhibits. I don't know if he has a mansion and I don't really care. As long as he is still hanging around what's the problem. Maybe iyou are just an angry petite bourgeois kid on a computer hundreds of miles away that feels good talking shit. You see how easy it is to say something without knowing anything?

South Central Farms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlgOnITihVQ...related&search= (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlgOnITihVQ&mode=related&search=)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juMe8ls3yOI

Zach when he was not rich, when he was not in a band that was on MTV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqGl14rPrAw...related&search= (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqGl14rPrAw&mode=related&search=)

Random Workers stuff that they participate in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf3UItyT23I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czp_-HFO2Bo

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by Invader Zim+May 13, 2007 01:18 pm--> (Invader Zim @ May 13, 2007 01:18 pm)
Red [email protected] 13, 2007 10:03 pm
that's a really poor quality aerial photo of a house that really doesn't look that big. hardly proof of anything other than he doesn't live in a shack.
Apart from the fact he lives in a posh suburb, has a big house even in comparison to numerous other houses around his own and there are tree's and shit like that outside his house?

Despite there being photographic evidence available there is still no convincing some people and I'm not stupid enough to try. [/b]
Trees you say? Listen buddy I grew up in LA we have trees everywhere....... Even in Watts and Compton.

I really don't see what your deal is. He is a musician. Musicians and artists and what not are proletariat. If you play the "thou is not prole enough" game you are going to be left alone with a flag in one hand and a machete in the other starting the one man revolution.

[Invader Zim]

Maybe iyou are just an angry petite bourgeois kid on a computer hundreds of miles away that feels good talking shit. You see how easy it is to say something without knowing anything?

Maybe you're just patronising loser with a fetish for parasitic Champaign socialists? I guess neither of us will find out.

[Martin Blank]

I don't have a lot of time here, since I am in the middle of helping to produce some League publications, but I wanted to say something about this.


Originally posted by Red [email protected] 16, 2007 12:06 am
Either, none of that excuses liberal identity politics, which I have already argued against. People need to realize, that is a petty bourgeois line!

Carl Dix, spokesperson for the RCP, said this about identity politics in response to the question of Avakian being white:


Look, here’s the deal. There is a leader who has come forward, who is pointing to the way out of this, who is pointing to a future that we can get to, and is showing us the way to get there.

The challenge for people is to look at the content of what the leader is bringing forward. That’s what we gotta grab hold of. Because if you want to get out of all this mess the criteria for leadership is not, what nationality is the leader:what race:or what gender. But instead, what is the content of the vision that leader is putting forward, and, what is the program they’re putting forward to realize that?

You see, that is the challenge. We are not saying, ‘follow Bob Avakian blindly’ or ‘follow the RCP blindly.’ We’re saying, grapple with the content of the vision of the future society being brought forward. And grapple with the program that’s being brought forward to realize this.

First of all, being white and being working class are two fundamentally different things. Class cuts across race and nationality, gender, sexuality, age, religion, ability, etc. To reduce it to the level of "identity" is, as I have said before, to erase the central importance of class and the class struggle to the victory of communism.

But there is another point to make here when it comes to the differences between communists and petty-bourgeois socialists like the RCP on this issue.

It has more or less become a catechism among self-described "Marxist-Leninists" to criticize anarchists over their differences related to the transition from capitalism to communism. "You cannot abolish the state with the stroke of a pen!", they will repeat. The more learned will also point out, "You cannot abolish classes with the stroke of a pen". Both of the statements are correct. Material conditions cannot change overnight; there is a process of development that has to happen in order for the fundamental differences between the two social systems to transform from one to the other.

In my view, the same can be said about this issue of classes. Put simply, one cannot abolish their previous class consciousness and social being with the stroke of a pen. That takes time and a transformation of material conditions. The social dynamics that are at work in the transition from one system to another are paralleled by similar social dynamics in an individual's transition from one social being to another and from one type of class consciousness to another. Material reality is not suspended when we go from the social to the individual. It might take different forms, and those forms might seem to amplify or diminish certain elements of social dynamics, but those forms do not fundamentally alter the content.

When someone generalizes the view that "line is decisive", for example, to the point where social being and material conditions no longer have a primary relationship to political line, they accept a method that is akin to that of the anarchists who believe the state and class society can be abolished with the stroke of a pen.

But that kind of analogy, in and of itself, would be unfair ... to the anarchists. This is because those people who believe that one can abolish their own social being and class consciousness within the confines of existing capitalist class society have more in common with the utopians of the early 19th century, like Robert Owen.

Owen and the utopian pre-communists believed that it was possible to establish little cloistered communes where the harshness of class society and existing social being could be suspended and people could live happily ever after. The method employed by those who think that an individual can suspend their social being and adopt a "proletarian line" without adopting a proletarian reality is more in line with Owen and the utopians than with communism or even anarchism. They believe they can create their own little classless commune within the confines of their own organization or movement.

Well, it's worth pointing out what Owen, upon reflecting on his experiences at New Lanarck, thought of his own utopian method. He realized that, even though the Lanarck utopian community was self-contained and sought to keep the rest of society at a distance, society itself did not return the favor. In fact, far from abolishing social relations within the community, New Lanarck transformed all involved into "slaves" for the community and the rest of society. In effect, his utopianism had become a new form of slavery -- albeit one where the slaves were better off than in most other situations historically. Moreover, Owen realized that even though everyone in the Lanarck commune worked and was "equal" in status, social hierarchy continued to exist within the community and that the "slavery" that developed ended up serving those who had the skills and time to administer the cloistered society.

Marx and Engels learned from Owen's experiences and used them as a negative confirmation of the importance they placed on both internationalism and class. Their understanding that "social being determines consciousness" derives, in part, from what they learned from the experiences of utopians like Owen.

It is truly unfortunate that, 175 years after New Lanarck, we still have to argue against the crass utopianism that Owen himself admitted was a failure and led to a "new form of slavery".

Miles

[Martin Blank]

All of this aside, personally, I like Rage Against the Machine and their music, and have all of their albums. I take things for what they're worth.

Miles

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Miles look. Calling the RCP petty bourgeois socialist just because they don't follow identity is silly. Class does cut accross race, sex, religion and etc... but so does sex, religion, and race cutting accross one another and class. That doesn't separate it from other forms of identity politics. Chicano Shamrock makes a good point about these type of narrow minded politics just narrowing down your forces, Lenin makes some good points in What is To Be Done? when he thouroughly critiscizes this economism. Bob Avakian talks about it a bit as well and makes some good points. The point is that the proletariat is the leading class for many reason, but to just resort to the proletariat being the only class will just get us nowhere it's like the proles are just better than non proles in a sense. As communists we want gender liberation, worker's liberation, oppressed nationality liberation and etc.. and the reason why the proletariat leads it is not just because of its productive force or its militantcy, but also because of the reasons your organization supports but not limited to it.

HVL,

please switch your avatar, or your sig, or learn your fucking history. Stalin's works and Mao's works were required reading if you wanted to be a member of the Black Panther Party.

[Rawthentic]

Wow. Muchas gracias Miles.

I seem to try and explain this, but can never do it in your fashion.

DFPW, I will keep the avatar as long as I damn choose, because Huey was a proletarian fighting capitalism, just like the Hungarian workers were fighting Stalinism.

And Miles just shut down any RCP comeback. You didnt even address what he said.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 02:40 pm
I'm not sure what or who you're trying to disprove RH, but I'd have to say that the proletariat is important because it is the exploited class and the only one able to abolish classes.

But this is not a substitute for the class struggle. The proletariat must take things into its own hands, furnish leaders from its own class, not rely on "Messiahs" from the propertied classes.

What I want, as a working person, is the emancipation of the proletariat before anything else. We are the oppressed ones. Oh, those poor exploited bourgeois! Those poor and exploited petty-bourgeois!

This is classical petty-bourgeois socialism. Class? What class?! This is about the classless "humanity" and "ending all forms of exploitation", because, after all, the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie are exploited and oppressed too. Those poor, oppressed bourgeois! Someone has to save them!

Behind all the accusations of economism, behind the marginalization of the historic role of the proletariat, behind the denigration of class politics as "identity politics" is the cold, dead hand of what Marx and Engels called "True Socialism". The RCP's line is nothing new. In fact, Marx and Engels dealt with it in the Communist Manifesto:



(Communist Manifesto @ Chapter III)
"It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote 'Alienation of Humanity', and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote 'Dethronement of the Category of the General', and so forth.

The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed 'Philosophy of Action', 'True Socialism', 'German Science of Socialism', 'Philosophical Foundation of Socialism', and so on.

The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome 'French one-sidedness' and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy....

While this 'True' Socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of German Philistines. In Germany, the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under the various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things."
why do you continue to spout such ignorance I've corrected you in regards to Bob Avakian several times already including in private messages. And he isn't a messiah. Leadership doesn't translate to messiah. Its natural to a revolution and is why every lasting revolution has had solid inspiring revolution. The Communist Manifesto passage has no relevence to the disscussion. As for your oh so clever remark, that's not what we're saying at all. auxilary revolutionary classes are revolutionary because capitalism sucks for everyone besides for the bourgeiosie, and the RCP makes this clear in its draft programme, because while it is the emancipation of the working class, its also the emancipation from things like police brutality and racial discrimination or sex discrimination and so many other oppressive contradictions that are encouraged by capitalism. That is why non proletariats have fought in past revolutions and that's why they will join us if we don't shoot them like you want to as opposed to shooting those who are shooting at us, which you don't want to do as that would be productive. If you don't think they'll join us, then what the fuck are you worried about. You're just putting on a show.

[Rawthentic]

I suppose I'll reply to this.


Calling the RCP petty bourgeois socialist just because they don't follow identity is silly.
They are petty-bourgeois socialist mainly because of the "class line", which Miles greatly discussed, and their failure to learn from history.


Chicano Shamrock makes a good point about these type of narrow minded politics just narrowing down your forces, Lenin makes some good points in What is To Be Done? when he thouroughly critiscizes this economism. Bob Avakian talks about it a bit as well and makes some good points

Miles said this in the Small Criticism thread:


Behind all the accusations of economism, behind the marginalization of the historic role of the proletariat, behind the denigration of class politics as "identity politics" is the cold, dead hand of what Marx and Engels called "True Socialism". The RCP's line is nothing new. In fact, Marx and Engels dealt with it in the Communist Manifesto:


(Communist Manifesto @ Chapter III)
"It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote 'Alienation of Humanity', and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote 'Dethronement of the Category of the General', and so forth.

The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed 'Philosophy of Action', 'True Socialism', 'German Science of Socialism', 'Philosophical Foundation of Socialism', and so on.

The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome 'French one-sidedness' and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy....

While this 'True' Socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of German Philistines. In Germany, the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under the various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things."


Our own modern-day "True" Maoists of the RCP do similarly. Under the Russian criticism of economism they write "liberal identity politics". Under the Russian revolutionary-democratic platform they write "struggle for the center". In a stroke, all "one-sidedness" of communism is cast aside ... and, along with it, the understanding of communism as a political trend that expresses the class struggle. They might use the words of "class struggle" and "proletarian revolution" on websites or in tepid documents, but the reality is the negation of that "one-sidedness" -- not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of "the people" and "the masses", who belong to no class, have no reality ... other than that given to them by the leading lights of the RCP.


Just get over it, the RCP's politics have been shaken.

[Rawthentic]

why do you continue to spout such ignorance I've corrected you in regards to Bob Avakian several times already including in private messages. And he isn't a messiah. Leadership doesn't translate to messiah. Its natural to a revolution and is why every lasting revolution has had solid inspiring revolution. The Communist Manifesto passage has no relevence to the disscussion. As for your oh so clever remark, that's not what we're saying at all. auxilary revolutionary classes are revolutionary because capitalism sucks for everyone besides for the bourgeiosie, and the RCP makes this clear in its draft programme, because while it is the emancipation of the working class, its also the emancipation from things like police brutality and racial discrimination or sex discrimination and so many other oppressive contradictions that are encouraged by capitalism. That is why non proletariats have fought in past revolutions and that's why they will join us if we don't shoot them like you want to as opposed to shooting those who are shooting at us, which you don't want to do as that would be productive. If you don't think they'll join us, then what the fuck are you worried about. You're just putting on a show.
Ha, whats an auxiliary revolutionary class? The petty-bourgeoisie?! This is so stupid, about "not shooting" or that crap. This is about working class liberation, if the petty-bourgeois want to join in a revolutionary situation, as Engels pointed out, then they are welcome. Bob Avakian's "leadership" translates to petty-bourgeois socialism. He does not hold a "proletarian line", thats been refuted. Get over it.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

no he didn't. The rest was some rant. All he then said was the typical part where he rejects marx, lenin, and engels as communists because they weren't proletariat. At the same time you claim they were and that they must of held proletariat lines. Which of course is because being in this capitalist gutter, determines your consciousness for liberation. but you haven't realized that yet.

And you should take off that avatar because it is a real shame and a disgrace to Huey's memory. If you knew your history, you'd know there's no such thing as stalinism and that the Hungarian revolution was iniated by pro-stalin marxist-leninsts who didn't want to see the restoration of capitalism but was hijacked by reactionary nationalist and fascist students and workers. just like the cultural revolution in a sense although it wasn't hijacked and was supported by the socialist government. Also, you'd know that Huey P supported the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China which you accuse of capitalism so thus you are saying Huey P supported capitalism and that is why you are a disgrace

[Rawthentic]

All he then said was the typical part where he rejects marx, lenin, and engels as communists because they weren't proletariat. At the same time you claim they were and that they must of held proletariat lines. Which of course is because being in this capitalist gutter, determines your consciousness for liberation. but you haven't realized that yet.
No need to get angry now. I mean, or ignorant for that matter. Marx was a proletarian, Lenin tried to break with his class background but was not successful at it, as Marx was. And you have degraded back into your "petty-bourgeoisiness". Can a capitalist, living in this "capitalist gutter" hold a "consciousness for liberation?" No. I'm about real class struggle and real revolution. To hold a "proletarian line", you have to live a proletarian reality, so stop trying to mystify working class consciousness. I have realized that Avakian is petty-bourgeois and thus cannot hold a "proletarian line". Thats a fact.

So, the workers of Hungary were fighting Stalinism while at the same time being lead by Stalinists? Interesting and paradoxical. Huey could have supported Stalin and Mao, but that doesnt change a thing. I accept for myself what I see as necessary, discard the crap. Thats why I won't call myself a "Maoist" if I accept that ideas about continuing dissent and rebellion. And I dont care if Huey supported the USSR, it doesnt change the fact that it was capitalist.

[Coggeh]

I hate that blonde cow so much its not even funny >:( .... foxnews is just full of airhead idiots ... some of whom have actually written books :o !

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 05:35 am

why do you continue to spout such ignorance I've corrected you in regards to Bob Avakian several times already including in private messages. And he isn't a messiah. Leadership doesn't translate to messiah. Its natural to a revolution and is why every lasting revolution has had solid inspiring revolution. The Communist Manifesto passage has no relevence to the disscussion. As for your oh so clever remark, that's not what we're saying at all. auxilary revolutionary classes are revolutionary because capitalism sucks for everyone besides for the bourgeiosie, and the RCP makes this clear in its draft programme, because while it is the emancipation of the working class, its also the emancipation from things like police brutality and racial discrimination or sex discrimination and so many other oppressive contradictions that are encouraged by capitalism. That is why non proletariats have fought in past revolutions and that's why they will join us if we don't shoot them like you want to as opposed to shooting those who are shooting at us, which you don't want to do as that would be productive. If you don't think they'll join us, then what the fuck are you worried about. You're just putting on a show.
Ha, whats an auxiliary revolutionary class? The petty-bourgeoisie?! This is so stupid, about "not shooting" or that crap. This is about working class liberation, if the petty-bourgeois want to join in a revolutionary situation, as Engels pointed out, then they are welcome. Bob Avakian's "leadership" translates to petty-bourgeois socialism. He does not hold a "proletarian line", thats been refuted. Get over it.
um yes he does read the draft programme read anything before you open your mouth please. Your organization is not saying that the petty bourgeoisie can join in, you're saying that you'll first shoot the potential allies, as the bourgeisoisie are shooting at you, then you'll prepare you troops to fight the bourgieoisie, but you'll check everyones class first, as the bourgeisoise are shooting at you, and then if you're still there you'll attack the bourgieousie.

It's so fucking funny that you call us petty bourgeiosie socialist and then point out that Engels held our exact line. Lenin tore your economism to shreds a century ago, try reading. Also notice how you completely ignored my comment about Engels being petty bourgeiosie, and then tried to pretend that marx was thoroughly proletarian


So, the workers of Hungary were fighting Stalinism

no it wasn't the workers, stalin was dead, and it was parralel to the Nazis fighting the soviet union but i'm sure you'd support them too.


uey could have supported Stalin and Mao, but that doesnt change a thing. I accept for myself what I see as necessary, discard the crap.

STOP BEING A FUCKING HYPOCRIT, you're fighting against everything Huey fought for.

[Rawthentic]

um yes he does read the draft programme read anything before you open your mouth please
I have the draft programme here in my house. By saying that Avakian holds a "proletarian line", which Miles already refuted, you are literally saying that consciousness determines being, which is the opposite of materialism. Thats just something you can't get around.


Your organization is not saying that the petty bourgeoisie can join in, you're saying that you'll first shoot the potential allies, as the bourgeisoisie are shooting at you, then you'll prepare you troops to fight the bourgieoisie, but you'll check everyones class first, as the bourgeisoise are shooting at you, and then if you're still there you'll attack the bourgieousie.

Get serious. We are saying unlike many so-called "communist" parties, that the working class is capable of self-emancipation, and that we go by what Engels said of the petty-bourgeoisie, and that is that the proletariat can only ally with them in a revolutionary situation or where they had left their political mark. The RCP violates this.


It's so fucking funny that you call us petty bourgeiosie socialist and then point out that Engels held our exact line. Lenin tore your economism to shreds a century ago, try reading. Also notice how you completely ignored my comment about Engels being petty bourgeiosie, and then tried to pretend that marx was thoroughly proletarian
No he didnt we are not economist. Engels lived in a time period where the propertied and upper classes were the ones that had the ability and time to do the studying and theorizing, while the working class could not. We are not living in that time period, so get over it. Marx was a proletarian, so get over that as well. About the economism crap, which Miles dealt with and Red Heretic accused us as well here it goes to shut your ignorant trap:



(Red Heretic @ May 06, 2007 12:27 pm)
"Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected—unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding—it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding—of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance."


This passage is important, both for what it says and, for our purposes, what it doesn't say. Let's start with the first sentence: "Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected — unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other." This is quite true and, for the League, has been an important part of our understanding from the beginning. Remember, the League was formed in the wake of what I would call the second Bush coup in 2004 -- a coup that (again, in my opinion) sealed the doomed fate of American bourgeois democracy. We formulated a Platform of Action that was oriented toward revolutionary-democratic action in the political arena and began our organizing to that end. We even went so far as to participate in the work of the World Can't Wait campaign because of our understanding of this position.

Moreover, we approached this from the perspective outlined in the second sentence: "The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events, to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population." We in the League seek to learn what moves and motivates each class to take the actions they do -- what moves them forward or backward (or laterally), causes them to unify or divide, and makes them act in the manner they do. But we do so with the understanding that this is something that workers must learn in order for our class to undertake its responsibilities. We observe and learn about all other classes -- their history and development, their transformations and amalgamations -- in order for our class to be able to fulfill its mission. Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don't need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

This is why we agree with Lenin's criticism in his third sentence: "Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life." Yes, it is necessary to not limit our understanding to the internal machinations of our own class. This is why we participate in antiwar demonstrations, democratic-rights protests and similar actions. This is why we have members that keep tabs on liberal-democratic and radical-democratic movements and organizations, attend their meetings and events, engage with their members, etc. This is why we make a point to interact with elements from other classes -- which, incidentally, includes interacting with left organizations like yours on occasion. But we do all this from the material and political standpoint of the proletariat -- our class.

This is also why we agree with the last sentence in this passage from Lenin: "For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance." The class struggle is a political struggle. It is in the political arena that all classes vie for power and control in society, and it is therefore necessary that communists actively engage this political struggle on political terms. We have our Platform of Action, our Basic Principles and our understanding of where we are going.



STOP BEING A FUCKING HYPOCRIT, you're fighting against everything Huey fought for.
Huey was a proletarian communist fighting oppression, so were the Hungarian workers. Just because I disagree with some of his politics, doesnt mean that I cant respect him for fighting against capitalist oppression, unlike some so-called "leaders" who have never suffered being a proletarian. And these stupid personalistic attacks against me show how empty your politics are.

[Invader Zim]

I see the Maoists have come out the woodwork. But could we get back to the point; Zack de la Rocha?

[Rawthentic]

Zim, what do you make of the debate DFPW and I are having?

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 12:40 am
Zim, what do you make of the debate DFPW and I are having?
I disagree with Avakain and think he is an arse and that Maoists in general share that attribute, present company excluded of course.


This is about working class liberation, if the petty-bourgeois want to join in a revolutionary situation, as Engels pointed out, then they are welcome.

This I agree with. The rest of the discussion is worthless. If a person has good politics and supports the creation of a classless society then their class under capitalism is utterly irrelevent.

[Rawthentic]

Thanks. I hate when people, mainly the RCPers, speak of a "humanity", a term with no class connection, and typical of petty-bourgeois socialism.

Besides defining the proletariat as "those who have nothing to lose but their chains".

And for all the talk about Engels that DFPW rants about, I repeated the conditions that Engels outlined as to when the proletariat could ally with the petty-bourgeoisie.

[Invader Zim]

Personally my main idsgareement with any kind of Leninist surrounds the idea of a vanguard. But that is for another discussion.

On your discussion, it strikes me as irrelevent. If a person is on the right side of the barricade and wants to abolish class, then it doesn't matter what their status was before the barricades were constructed.

My problem with Zack de la Rocha is not that he has money, but that he has made his money exploiting leftwing politics and I don't believe him to be genuine. Maybe I'm wrong, but in the case of Nicky Wire, the lyrcist of the MSP a band that has also made records that have shifted millions of units and holds socialist views, he still lives in the small working class mining town that he was brought up in and until the press published his house address he lived in a terrace house. I have no idea where in Blackwood he lives now, but it isn't going to be a mansion. In short I trust Wire because of facts like this, Zack de la Rocha who has spent his money (made by selling off the back of revolutionary political rhetoric) on actively seperating himself from what he preaches. Even if I am wrong about him, it still makes him a hypocrit.

[Rawthentic]

I don't know about a "Leninist" vanguard, but I do adhere to the Marxist one, that is, the class conscious section of the proletariat.

I agree that the proletariat should unite forces, but in a non-revolutionary period like now, it is backwards and petty-bourgeois to try and ally with the "middle class
as Avakian points out. Today, we must focus on those who will make the revolution, the working class, not the petty-bourgeois.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 20, 2007 05:59 pm
My problem with Zack de la Rocha is not that he has money, but that he has made his money exploiting leftwing politics and I don't believe him to be genuine. Maybe I'm wrong, but in the case of Nicky Wire, the lyrcist of the MSP a band that has also made records that have shifted millions of units and holds socialist views, he still lives in the small working class mining town that he was brought up in and until the press published his house address he lived in a terrace house. I have no idea where in Blackwood he lives now, but it isn't going to be a mansion. In short I trust Wire because of facts like this, Zack de la Rocha who has spent his money (made by selling off the back of revolutionary political rhetoric) on actively seperating himself from what he preaches. Even if I am wrong about him, it still makes him a hypocrit.
I have made my money transferring capitalist commodities to and from other capitalist nations. Is what I do more "noble" than your theory of "exploiting left wing politics"? What is it that makes you feel he isn't genuine?

Do you know where Zack lives? If that picture was really where he lives do you blame people from moving away from drive-bys and gangsters? Isn't that what we all want? It's sure as hell what I want and you could call me petite-bourgeois or whatever else but I will say without fear of looking like a hypocrite that I want to move to a better neighborhood.

He has spent his money separating himself from what he preaches? Didn't I already tell you about fighting for proletarian land? Didn't I tell you about community meetings in east LA? How is this separating himself? Is moving to a better neighborhood separating himself from what he preaches? I have every Rage album and a few songs from Zack's solo things and I have never heard one lyric about how it is cool to live in the slums. I have never heard one line talking about how fun it is to go hungry at night. So far all you talk about I really don't see any evidence for you to back it up.

I personally don't know the man but I just can't stand people attacking fellow musicians because it makes them feel high and mighty. The bolded part made me laugh. He's a hypocrite? NO SHIT! We all are. Everyone on this message board is a hypocrite because we actively help the system subsist.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 06:17 pm
I don't know about a "Leninist" vanguard, but I do adhere to the Marxist one, that is, the class conscious section of the proletariat.

I agree that the proletariat should unite forces, but in a non-revolutionary period like now, it is backwards and petty-bourgeois to try and ally with the "middle class
as Avakian points out. Today, we must focus on those who will make the revolution, the working class, not the petty-bourgeois.
I am no RCPer but Avakian is right. You need to ally with whoever you can at this point. Pickers can't be choosers and a lot of the "middle class" is proletarian. I don't see what your beef with the "middle class" is. They are also negatively affected by the capitalist system. You shouldn't play into the divide and conquer mentality. That was one of the things Malcolm X regretted later on in life. White people would ask him how they could help and he shunned them. You ought not shun people who are looking to help you.

Also I never knew that "petty bourgeois" was an adjective.

[Invader Zim]

Is what I do more "noble" than your theory of "exploiting left wing politics"?

Considerably, because you aren't making a vast fortune selling a message which promotes the exact opposite.


What is it that makes you feel he isn't genuine?

I already told you why.


If that picture was really where he lives do you blame people from moving away from drive-bys and gangsters?

Your argument is fucking stupid especially when we note that other leftwing musicians who have shifted millions of units don't feal the need to re-locate to plush surroundings. Its all very well escaping crime and poverty, but it is quite something else when you have a message as vitriolic as that to move to such upper class surroundings. Or do you disagree and not see anything more hypocritical in preaching the overthrow of capitalism while sipping Tanqueray No. Ten which you bought by selling the message condemning unfair wealth distribution than day to day life in capitalism for a leftist? If so, then you are very naive.



I personally don't know the man but I just can't stand people attacking fellow musicians because it makes them feel high and mighty.

I don't give a shit what you can or can't stand. I have my quite probably cynical opinions and I'm going to post them, if you don't like it; tough.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 20, 2007 07:43 pm
I don't give a shit what you can or can't stand. I have my quite probably cynical opinions and I'm going to post them, if you don't like it; tough.
Yes you have your cynical opinions but have you backed them up with any facts yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UG_9YaZXtg

These videos don't exactly paint a portrait of sitting back and accepting royalty checks while sipping Tanqueray. If you are right and he just made this shit up to make money(which doesn't make sense when you look at his old band Inside Out's music) than why is he out in the community around here helping out? That certainly doesn't make him any money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZXsN0pw8aU

In that interview there he says he was/is straight edge. I never knew that. Weird shit, I like drugs :D

[Rawthentic]

Pickers can't be choosers and a lot of the "middle class" is proletarian. I don't see what your beef with the "middle class" is. They are also negatively affected by the capitalist system. You shouldn't play into the divide and conquer mentality
I'm talking about the petty-bourgeoisie, dont be a moron. We the working class are the exploited class, and this is class struggle. I already pointed out when the working class could ally with the petty-bourgeoisie. And about Malcolm X, he regretted his racial separationism, I'm talking about class struggle.

[Red October]

I agree with shamrock. ZDLR has done so much for the community and the cause that it makes no sense for him to be doing this for the money. He's not like greenday or shit like that, he is down with the people and does a ton of stuff to help them out.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 01:38 am
Thanks. I hate when people, mainly the RCPers, speak of a "humanity", a term with no class connection, and typical of petty-bourgeois socialism.

Besides defining the proletariat as "those who have nothing to lose but their chains".

And for all the talk about Engels that DFPW rants about, I repeated the conditions that Engels outlined as to when the proletariat could ally with the petty-bourgeoisie.
yeah and there are conditions for the alignment. Humanity is used because we are for proletarian emancipation, but more than that. If saw it just in that light, we would be economists like you. I seriously suggest you read What is To Be Done? When I brought up your party to a few comrades of mine one of them chuckled and said we should air drop copies of What is To Be Done on your meetings. Look, communism is also about the liberation of black people and chicano peoples, about the liberation of women, about the liberation from wage slavery, about the end of police brutality and 14 hour days, about the creation of a productive dissent which empowers the masses to run society, not some suit in an office hundreds of miles away who is a rich fat white piggy pig and has almost always, always been one. That's really all I can say, these things do cut accross class largely which is WHY in the FIRST PLACE non-proletariats have picked up a gun and put their life on the line ready to give it all for OUR ideology. No one is saying the proletariat WON't Be the vangaurd of this, because they have to be but to just try to alienate your forces as much as possible and call other revolutionaries petty bourgeiosie or some other shit gets us no where fast. The thing is, that the period we face to today is not a "non-revolutionary period" its a period which really fucking calls for a revolution more than it has in a while. With bloody wars for empire being waged COMPLETLY AGAINST our interests, more and more people are being turned on to our message. And as they come to us, we can't shut them out. The petty bourgieoisie do have a history of making shit happen in this country. The 1960s saw a mass students movement which had large non-proletarian stratas active in it. What the real problem was in the 60s was not that the working class wasn't being mobilized as it was largely by the Black Panthers, it was that there was no vanguard to lead the masses and that the only forces that were vanguards played the sectarian card or had a line that was rigid with flaws. Last 2 things, first, your little excuse for Engels is utter bullshizer. In Engels day some workers did find ways to educate themselves (like disputably marx) and most didnt'. The same goes today. Why? Because the system hasn't fundamentally changed. It still IS the DICTATORSHIP OF THE BOURGEIOSIE. It's primary function is to keep the proletariat as uneducated as it can get away with and as suppressed as it can. The reason why I think Stalin had to bring in factory managers, even if they were elected as a comrade told me they were, was because the masses didn't know alot of things that the educated classes did. The same goes today. And we need to work to change that. And I think it was changed in Revolutionary China where the factories were finally taken over by factory committees of the workers. And Last, I'm glad you took away the Huey P. avatar.

[Rawthentic]

I have refuted the claim about economism, so done with that.

I have read What is to be Done? so dont patronize me.

The rest is an incoherent rant which has nothing to do with anything.

Marx and Engels refuted your petty-bourgeois socialism, but it seems like you still cant get it.

But I'm done trying to prove to the deluded their dillusion.

[Rawthentic]

Thats where I refuted the "economism" crap, which I assume you ignore on purpose.





(Red Heretic @ May 06, 2007 12:27 pm)
"Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected—unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding—it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding—of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance."


This passage is important, both for what it says and, for our purposes, what it doesn't say. Let's start with the first sentence: "Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected — unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a communist point of view and no other." This is quite true and, for the League, has been an important part of our understanding from the beginning. Remember, the League was formed in the wake of what I would call the second Bush coup in 2004 -- a coup that (again, in my opinion) sealed the doomed fate of American bourgeois democracy. We formulated a Platform of Action that was oriented toward revolutionary-democratic action in the political arena and began our organizing to that end. We even went so far as to participate in the work of the World Can't Wait campaign because of our understanding of this position.

Moreover, we approached this from the perspective outlined in the second sentence: "The consciousness of the working class cannot be genuine class consciousness unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical political facts and events, to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population." We in the League seek to learn what moves and motivates each class to take the actions they do -- what moves them forward or backward (or laterally), causes them to unify or divide, and makes them act in the manner they do. But we do so with the understanding that this is something that workers must learn in order for our class to undertake its responsibilities. We observe and learn about all other classes -- their history and development, their transformations and amalgamations -- in order for our class to be able to fulfill its mission. Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don't need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

This is why we agree with Lenin's criticism in his third sentence: "Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not communists; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life." Yes, it is necessary to not limit our understanding to the internal machinations of our own class. This is why we participate in antiwar demonstrations, democratic-rights protests and similar actions. This is why we have members that keep tabs on liberal-democratic and radical-democratic movements and organizations, attend their meetings and events, engage with their members, etc. This is why we make a point to interact with elements from other classes -- which, incidentally, includes interacting with left organizations like yours on occasion. But we do all this from the material and political standpoint of the proletariat -- our class.

This is also why we agree with the last sentence in this passage from Lenin: "For this reason the conception of economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance." The class struggle is a political struggle. It is in the political arena that all classes vie for power and control in society, and it is therefore necessary that communists actively engage this political struggle on political terms. We have our Platform of Action, our Basic Principles and our understanding of where we are going.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 06:33 am

Pickers can't be choosers and a lot of the "middle class" is proletarian. I don't see what your beef with the "middle class" is. They are also negatively affected by the capitalist system. You shouldn't play into the divide and conquer mentality
I'm talking about the petty-bourgeoisie, dont be a moron. We the working class are the exploited class, and this is class struggle. I already pointed out when the working class could ally with the petty-bourgeoisie. And about Malcolm X, he regretted his racial separationism, I'm talking about class struggle.
No need for name calling comrade. I didn't realize you meant petite-bourgeois. You said middle class so I assumed that was what you meant.

[Rawthentic]

No need for name calling comrade. I didn't realize you meant petite-bourgeois. You said middle class so I assumed that was what you meant.
I'm sorry comrade, I just worked up in the face of such ignorance, symbolized by um...
well I think you get the point. Me disculpas?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

It would be helpful if you read my post. Then you'll be able to comment on it. Mile's post stands against everything you've been arguing. I've already refuted your name calling.

[Red Militant]

I shall defend RATM by attacking the false logic behind the two most prevalent backstabbing attacks from fellow radicals on them; Firstly that they are bourgeoisie,
and Secondly that they are "sellouts":

-RATM Bourgeoisie?

For all you fucks who say RATM is bourgeoisie or "middle-class", you are the ones who don't understand class.

CLASS IS NOT BASED ON INCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :angry:

A Proletarian is someone who does not own the means of production and sells their labour to the capitalists in exchange for a wage.
A band does not own all the means to the production of they're music they own the musical instruments and they rarely own the recording studio and the do not own the all the other means by which they're music is recorded on to CD's advertised and sold.
They do sell they're labour to the capitalist for wage/salary albeit a much larger one than most prole's but nonetheless a wage being a fraction of the actual revenue generated by they're labour.
So how in the fraking hell is RATM or any band for that matter bourgeoisie, same goes for sports players and so on and so on.
Any argument to the contrary is based upon a misunderstanding of class analysis.
So Fuck OFF

-RATM Sell Outs?

Now to those sub-culturists fucktards who say RATM are sellouts ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh :lol: big diss, go back to junior high.
Would you rather reach the working masses with agitprop or just your little secluded oh so special smarter than the "Mainstream" subculture?
Then what is your subculture going to make revolution because numb minded mainstreamers are to stupid to liberate ourselves? Who is vanguardist now?!
That is the attitude of sub-culturism and it is not compatible with class analysis and class struggle. Because sub-culturistism often (not always) promotes elitist and vanguardist ideas like the mainstream is incompetent and our subculture is intellectually superior.

Only the Working masses (who make up the majority or "mainstream") can create socialism that means the mainstream of society must be class-conscience. Agitprop (especially including political bands) must reach into the mainstream and promote class-. Consciousness For a political band to do this it is far more effective to sign to a major label (sellout :o ) where they're music will reach a larger audience (thus more fellow proletarians).

A Band can only Sell Out if they change they're sound and lyrics to become more popular and make more money. That's what selling out really is!!!
And RATM lyrics are pretty damn fraking revolutionary and they have risked they're careers on several occasios with controversial actions and statements not to mention just they're lyrics.
So Fuck OFF


And by the way

"Under Ground" or "Indie" record labels are a Business too they just parade around as "Under-Dogs" they are wolves in sheep's clothing

And "Under-Ground" Bands/Artists who don't sign to labels who own all the means to the production and distribution of they're music are guess what...............Petty-bourgeoisie small capitalists!!!
I have no problem with these bands\Artists because they typically do not employ wage labour (except maybe roadies)but if you want to get technical lets get fraking technical!

So you if you want to reach to reach only fringe elements of society with your music than go ahead hate on the "sell outs"
But those of us who are serious about revolution will work to spread agitprop to the working MASSES!


And by the way again if ZDLR has a Hummer I'm sure he could mount a 50 cal machinegun (which "selling out" gives him the money for) on top by the sun roof and put it to good use in the revolution!
-Now that's kick ass :ph34r:

[Rawthentic]

It would be helpful if you read my post. Then you'll be able to comment on it. Mile's post stands against everything you've been arguing. I've already refuted your name calling.
I did and refuted all of it, as well as provided an earlier post to refute the false accusation of "economism."

[OneBrickOneVoice]

no you didn't, miles post is irrelevent and at best contradictatory to your arguement.

[Rawthentic]

What is contradictory to Miles argument?

Take a look at the post where I refuted the shit about economism. RedHeretic, that fucking Avakianist robot said the same crap and Miles refuted it. Get serious.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 22, 2007 10:40 am


And "Under-Ground" Bands/Artists who don't sign to labels who own all the means to the production and distribution of they're music are guess what...............Petty-bourgeoisie small capitalists!!!

You had a good post until the very end here. That line is bullshit and wrong. Saying that is the same as saying a shoe shiner is petite-bourgeois because he owns the shine box and all the supplies needed to shine shoes.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

This is really the only part of Miles' post which I think challenges the RCP


Where we differ from the RCP and other left organizations is that we believe we don't need non-proletarian elements to teach us these things; we believe that we, as a class, can learn these things ourselves -- that we are smart and savvy enough to "get it".

Of course, but the capitalist system stops us from trying to learn these things. The real reason why Marx and Engels were the first people to really sum up scientific socialism and why Stalin had to bring in managers (weither elected by workers or not) is because the only way to break down mental and manual contradictions in labor is to mix them together and have them work together I think. Look its complicated but the proletariat is meant to be uneducated under this system because if we are properly educated, we would surely rise up in a second. We have to learn from those who are I think to a certain extent while they have to learn from us.

[Rawthentic]

I dont think that thats the only thing. The "class line" as Miles, shows is crap to put it bluntly, that somehow one can have a proletarian line without being proletarian. Sure, petty-bourgeois can become communists, like Avakian, but there worldwide is quite different than that of the proletariat, obviously due to class interests.

In the ascendant phase of capitalism, Marx and Lenin at least attempted to break from their old class relations, but Marx was the only one that was succesfull at it. Today, class relations have crystallized to a point where one cannot float from one class to the next as Marx and Lenin did, but either stay in one or the other. That is why, from a historical perspective from 2007, the petty-bourgeoisie has ceased to be a class ally for the proletariat. If petty-bourgeois want to join the proletarian movement as communists, they must break with their old class relation to develop a revolutionary proletarian outlook. Marx understood this, and Lenin attempted to act on it.

The point that you bring on about Miles is completely connected to this, that the proletariat can become their own class intellectuals, that we should not and cannot depend on those from the higher classes to do it for us, because we can do it. As for Avakian, who never broke with his petty-bourgeois class relations, you can clearly see my point. Had he understood the historical perspective, he would have broken with his class background and developed a real "proletarian line" by living a proletarian reality.

The problem in Russia was that the class conscious workers were killed in the civil war because they were put in the military instead of in the factories, and this did hurt the worker power very early on, and indirectly lead to "specialists" and functionaries from the now ruling class party to monitor the work place, logically destroying the voice that the soviets had. Those are experiences that we must learn on and develop from. Like Avakian, we are all theorists as well as proletarians. We put all our conscious efforts into producing proletarian intellectuals instead of relying on one static leader to do it for us. In such manner, class relations are not replicated within our organization, and we can this develop a revolutionary proletarian consciousness, while being the theorists and practitioners.

We in the League have made our conclusions, and are currently working on it.

[Red Militant]

Originally posted by Chicano Shamrock+May 22, 2007 10:34 pm--> (Chicano Shamrock @ May 22, 2007 10:34 pm)
Red [email protected] 22, 2007 10:40 am


And "Under-Ground" Bands/Artists who don't sign to labels who own all the means to the production and distribution of they're music are guess what...............Petty-bourgeoisie small capitalists!!!

You had a good post until the very end here. That line is bullshit and wrong. Saying that is the same as saying a shoe shiner is petite-bourgeois because he owns the shine box and all the supplies needed to shine shoes. [/b]
This brings to question a better understanding of capitalism, since capital is accumulated (/concentrated) labour then I was wrong because if a neither independent band/artist or shoe shiner (and so and so on) does not employ wage labour then are not capitalists but they are not proleteriat either however they are an ally to the proleteriat.

A Capitalist not only owns the means of production but employ wage labour (capital is accumulated labour- Marx). So yes I was wrong in that argument.

Also It may sound as if I do not have any critical view of mainstream society, this is not the case the prevailing ideas in societies tend to be those of the ruling class and in market capitalism these are things like consumerism, hyper-indivualism, nationalism, and jiongism all things I absolutely despise and condemn :angry: what I'm saying is that sub-culturism is not an effective means to combat this because it creates clicks and alienates people not in the sub-culture (mainstreamers) from people in the sub-culture, as well as further alienating people in the sub-culture from the mainstream of society(and other subcultures) people who may have already been excluded begin to exclude themselves(sub-cultures also sometimes promote anti-social behavior), instead we should promote class-consciousness in the main-stream. Instead of creating a culture within a culture work to change the ideas which prevail in the larger culture.

I don't deny that some sub-cultures have good things about them but it is a weapon we succeed with its actually one we only kill ourselves with by marginalizing the struggle.

But I’m kind of getting of topic here my point is RATM is not bourgeoisie or sellouts.

[socialistsoldier51]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 09, 2007 01:04 am
P.S. This was the best show I've been to in my entire life.
you lucky bastard. i LOVE rage and anyone who attacks rage, attacks me, so fuck fox and all those other fascist pigs who want them arrested

[Ander]

I can feel my brain cells imploding as I shift through post after post of dogmatic idiocy. All I wanted to add was the full quote according to Wikipedia is:


Originally posted by Zack de la Rocha
A good friend of ours said that if the same laws were applied to U.S. presidents as were applied to the Nazis after World War 2 that every single one of them, every last rich white one of them from Truman on would have been hung to death and shot - and this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be. But the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations, way beyond elections, way beyond every four years of pulling levers, way beyond that. Because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries and profit from their reconstruction in order to survive - and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down, generation after generation after generation after generation after generation... Wake up.

[praxis1966]

Admittedly, I haven't read the whole thread, but I do feel a need to defend Zach to some of the respondents. The fact is, in between the release of RATM's debut and Evil Empire, the band broke up for 6 months. In the mean time, you know what Zach did? Went and tought in Zapatista schools in Chiapas for free. Not to mention he still donates large amounts of money to activist organizations and charities.

All of this is more than could probably be said for any of his critics, who type petty criticisms on message boards from the comfort of their air conditioned houses. How revolutionary. Fact is, 40% of all American homes are without computers. If you own one, that puts you in a higher socio-economic class than 40% of the people. In other words, you're at the very least middle class, so get over yourselves and stop making irrelevant ad hominem attacks.

[Red Militant]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 10:48 am
Admittedly, I haven't read the whole thread, but I do feel a need to defend Zach to some of the respondents. The fact is, in between the release of RATM's debut and Evil Empire, the band broke up for 6 months. In the mean time, you know what Zach did? Went and tought in Zapatista schools in Chiapas for free. Not to mention he still donates large amounts of money to activist organizations and charities.

All of this is more than could probably be said for any of his critics, who type petty criticisms on message boards from the comfort of their air conditioned houses. How revolutionary. Fact is, 40% of all American homes are without computers. If you own one, that puts you in a higher socio-economic class than 40% of the people. In other words, you're at the very least middle class, so get over yourselves and stop making irrelevant ad hominem attacks.


Admittedly, I haven't read the whole thread, but I do feel a need to defend Zach to some of the respondents. The fact is, in between the release of RATM's debut and Evil Empire, the band broke up for 6 months. In the mean time, you know what Zach did? Went and tought in Zapatista schools in Chiapas for free. Not to mention he still donates large amounts of money to activist organizations and charities.

All of this is more than could probably be said for any of his critics, who type petty criticisms on message boards from the comfort of their air conditioned houses. How revolutionary.


Good Point Generaly, but in saying



Fact is, 40% of all American homes are without computers. If you own one, that puts you in a higher socio-economic class than 40% of the people. In other words, you're at the very least middle class


you have contributed to the myth of class being based on income.
We as Communists(cross-factionaly[Anarchist through Leninist]) must fight to dispel such missconceptions, we cannot afford to contribute to false understandings of capitalism.
Class is based on the relations to production.

[Dr Mindbender]

Jees that Ann Coulter makes me glad I dont live in America, what an ignorant idiot! I loved her remark that ''no right wingers are ever violent, its always the left''. I suppose that makes the KKK and christian fundamentalist abortion clinic bombers peace loving citizens! :D

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.htm...&News&180&&&new (http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?050207/050207_hc_coulter&Hannity_Colmes&Caught%20on%20Tape%21&Rage%20Against%20the%20Machine%20musicians%20tell% 20concert-goers%20that%20Bush%20administration%20members%20s hould%20be%20hung%2C%20tried%20and%20SHOT%21&Politics&20&News&180&&&new)