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There is no conceivable path forward for social democracy in western countries. The brand of "win-win" capitalism simply won't work in a world where increasingly the most important economies are not ones run by europeans or european settlers. Less surplus for western capitalists means less for the workers, the rich certainly aren't going to be the ones taking the beating when it comes to increasing irrelevance. Main Paineframe posted:Ultimately, there's way too much focus on electoralism and not enough focus on having a movement. Not just a political movement, but a human movement. Support organizations dedicated to helping people around us, regardless of race and religion and gender identification and sexual orientation. It's not about charismatic leaders or protest methods or anything else. It's about getting ordinary people to focus on helping and supporting each other, building an intersectional and cross-demographic community movement that recognizes that no matter who we are, almost all of us are in the same boat as workers and consumers being squeezed dry by capitalism. Solidarity is the key aspect from which all other leftist politics flow, so objectives and methods will come together pretty naturally after a while. These are all excellent points, which is why nonprofits and the billionaire foundation industrial complex have spent tens of billions since the 1960s coopting and building elaborate heatsinks to channel dissent into unproductive outlets.
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Dec 14, 2019 03:07
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Guildencrantz posted:In the end, capital controlling the media doesn't just mean they successfully attack socialist parties, first and foremost they successfully attack socialist ideas, and it works regardless of whether we contest elections or not. Anti-electoralism just allows you the comfort of a like-minded bubble in which you never confront the fact that right-wing values - hierarchy, nationalism and greed - are simply more popular than cooperation and equality. The west got rich on those values and western social democracy mostly concerns itself with redistribution of plunder from the global south rather than solidarity with the oppressed peoples. "Cooperation and equality" were a fluke of the system reeling from WWII and the soviet union exporting revolution left and right.
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Dec 14, 2019 18:37
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Venomous posted:
Interesting that Mao and Nehru make the cut of leaders to murder but not any of the imperialist scumbags that run the US and UK. Seems to me the best timeline would going back far enough in history to neuter Europe entirely by letting the Ottomans overrun it from the east and the Moors from the west.
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Dec 16, 2019 02:37
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Infinite Karma posted:We don't even need leaders who lie. We need Sean Hannitys and Roger Aileses and Bill O'Reillys, media personalities who lie. One Mitch McConnell or two in government, not a whole party full of them. You don't see leftist demagogues on TV because 5 corporations run the entire media apparatus, not because leftists are 100% virtuous saints who would never lie, engage in splittism, or indulge their own personal vanities.
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Dec 16, 2019 04:33
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:- Be proud to be American and reclaim patriotism - flagellating the flag and allowing conservatives to lay claim as the only actually patriotic political movement was the self-own of the century While I agree that liberals have coopted identity politics to an absurd degree, you will not win the emerging demographics by whitewashing the crimes of the past and present. White leftists are constantly hoping that demographics will become destiny but the follow through involves articulating a reason why people should cast a vote for your candidate. The default party of most minorities isn't the democrats- it's "I don't vote." KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:- Quit the self-righteous identity politics jerkoff sessions, stop relitigating history, rally around the American identity as a grand unifier and make it clear that everyone is welcome here and is to be treated with respect without being constantly loving overbearing Once again this kind of strasserism has no real home. A bunch of whites carping about how everyone is welcome here is blatant performance given the extreme segregation in housing and employment. How do you think cramming down the flag will work when a huge portion of minorities know they are severely discriminated against in every facet of society?
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Dec 18, 2019 16:46
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:This is barely intelligible and it's hard to know what to pin down here, but suffice it to say that "the nation is fundamentally a false concept" is not how this works on the ground. Electoral politics is not like Left Internet Thunderdome and America means a lot to a lot of people – immigrants especially, try talking to them sometime! – it's deeply dumb to stomp on our own dicks by giving up America as a fundamentally broken and nonexistent concept while we're trying to win American elections. Yeah my entire family consists of immigrants and consider America to be a huge joke. People move here because they can get a better deal than the old country, not because they have signed on to the US leitkultur.
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Dec 18, 2019 22:14
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Fojar38 posted:WW2 GI's and Civil War Unionists 
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Dec 23, 2019 03:50
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The Democratic Party Is Not What You Think Extremely important read from Sophia Burns about the tightly wound nature of "progressive" politics in the US as an appendage and front organization for the democrats: quote:On paper, the Democratic Party is a broad coalition. In practice, it is a cadre party. She makes an interesting point about how even "revolutionary" organizations not affiliated with the party depend on party machinery in order to carry out their activities: quote:Leninist organizations run fronts of their own, attempting to imitate the more successful Democratic ones. However, they also depend on the Democratic base. They draw on the same pool of activists, advocate for the same causes, and usually show up at the same demonstrations. So, they only attract support when they hide their Leninist affiliation and follow the Democrats’ lead – as Refuse Fascism (a Revolutionary Communist Party front) discovered in November, when it called for protests without Democratic support and nobody came. Additionally, there are words about how successful independent organizations eventually get cooped by professional Democrats. Take for example, the Greater Seattle Neighborhood Action Coalition, formed after trump by grassroots leftists, along with a significant number of professional democrats working for SEIU and other front groups. While the communists feuded with each other over minutiae, the liberals moved in lockstep and eventually took over the organization and neutered it completely. As far as her prescriptions go: quote:Well, what does the Left want? Strategy follows goals; tactics follow strategy. For revolutionaries, the goal is to literally overthrow the government. Revolution means replacing the existing political and economic system with a better one, based on the mass cooperative control of economic, cultural, and political life. The working class carries out all the activities that sustain human life and society. However, it’s excluded from power and subjected to oppression by the capitalist class of business owners and investors. So, it has the ability to carry out a revolution – the capitalists need it, but it doesn’t need them. Further, because of its position of exploitation, it stands to benefit from the abolition of class distinctions. I agree with this completely, the left needs a base in the US. This often means doing things that break the law, such as feeding the homeless without a commercial kitchen license, running free clinics with imported drugs (extremely illegal, and yet the FDA allows importation for personal use exactly because they know it is an effective relief valve for high costs), or creating night schools by the working class for the working class. All of these are much greater uses of lawbreaking in service of the people than infantile appeals to violence and revolution.
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Dec 23, 2019 16:19
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UnknownTarget posted:Can you give examples of the night schools thing? I'm interested. Not specifically a night school, the BPP ran its own elementary school separate from the oakland school system: At historic Black Panthers school, Black teachers were key to student success: The Black Panther Party created one of the most durable bases in American politics and if left unchecked would've continued along the dual track path of empowerment.
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Dec 23, 2019 18:23
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I'm not sure from the ant-level worker view that their day to day job would change that much under socialism. They would still have a boss, whether it be an elected boss (like in a Czechoslovakian cooperative) or someone appointed to oversee their work. Even Aeroflot had lavishly appointed first class cabins on their aircraft. There will still be difference, distinction, and hierarchies in a socialist country.
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Dec 29, 2019 02:29
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