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Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2020 19:32:17 GMT
Real Revolution Means Expanding Consciousness, Both Outwardly And Inwardly medium.com/@caityjohnstone/real-revolution-means-expanding-consciousness-both-outwardly-and-inwardly-7f6a57a2c386The fight to liberate humanity from oppression, exploitation, butchery and madness is really a fight to expand consciousness. The existential threats our species now faces are ultimately due to the fact that powerful people advance omnicidal, ecocidal, oppressive, violent and exploitative agendas behind veils of secrecy and propaganda distortion. They do evil things while deliberately keeping people unconscious of those evil things, so that the people will not use the power of their numbers to stop them. The people do not use the power of their numbers to force a change into a healthy paradigm which puts human interests first because their perception of the world is aggressively manipulated by power structures who have a vested interest in keeping that from happening. Wealth and power are kept in the hands of elites and their underlings by propagandizing people into believing the current status quo is the only way things can be. War agendas are consented to because people are propagandized into believing this or that boogie man poses some imminent threat and needs to be eliminated. Surveillance, censorship, government secrecy and police militarization are tolerated because people are manipulated into believing they need these things. And so on. In all cases, the key carrying agent for all of these toxic agendas is unconsciousness. If people were conscious of the real nature of these agendas and how badly they’re being robbed in order to advance them, they would refuse to consent to them and force them to stop. So they are kept unconscious of their reality by perceptual manipulation like propaganda, government opacity, internet censorship, and the war on adversarial journalism.
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Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2020 17:53:18 GMT
July 2, 2020 THE QUEST FOR A REVOLUTIONARY THEORY: GRAMSCI IN ALTHUSSER'S EYES www.hamptonthink.org/read/the-quest-for-a-revolutionary-theory-gramsci-in-althussers-eyesBy Youssef Shawky Magdy "There is no revolutionary movement, without a revolutionary theory" -V.I. Lenin ("What is to be done?") "In order to continue to be a theory that interests in Reality and at the same time provides critical concepts and theoretical tools to interpret this reality, Marxist theory should not fold upon itself in a dogmatic manner, as this self closure is contradicting the theory itself and its alluding to reality, as well as its finite formulation; as the importance of Marxist theory (especially, Marxist critique to capitalism) will diminish upon changing conditions and Realities, this changing what the theory is all about. On the other hand, we find many revisionist approaches and the harmonizing tendency with the spirit of the era: as the mechanistic and economistic views of Marxism, Neo-kantian formulations, humanistic interpretations, postmodern Marxism...Etc. All these discourses, regardless of their different forms and the conditions in which they are produced, have the tendency to minimize or cut the critical distance between Marxism and other philosophies and Ideologies. But as we know, Marxist theory contains a critical philosophy, as it tries to absorb or enclose other philosophies within the Marxist framework; this closure means simply interpreting these ideologies from an objective materialistic stance by relating them to the social formation with its interwoven complex structures. This implies that in order to do this job, Marxist theory should not subordinate theoretically to the problematics of these philosophies which means fleeing their magic and "laying bare" what is consolidated under colorful rhetoric. What makes this clearer is the discovery of struggle between Idealism and Materialism in every ideological or philosophical system. In this context we may refer to how Lenin read Hegel, as Lenin had discovered that the Hegelian "absolute idea" is Materialistic rather than idealistic. This discovery or laying bare was done through Hegel's system itself, as Hegel had asserted that: "Logic" is a process without a subject or a center, even Logic negates itself and with that, negating the center or the beginning. This negation corresponds to scientific objectivity that Marx adopted in Das Kapital (Althusser 1971, 123). The pioneers of this Marxist critical stance are Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser, as they had gone beyond the return and rereading of Marx and emancipation of Marxism from prevalent ideologies, drawing great attention to more or less successful revolutionary practices which happened around them and extracting from their critique very important theoretical conclusions. From this stance, it is important to make up an imaginary discussion between the two figures, and that’s what Althusser did. But from the point of view of justice is it right to hold this discussion when one of the two figures didn't reply to the other? It is not that simple, as there is no winner and loser here, rather what should concern us is the struggle over the interpretation of Gramsci and currents of thoughts that try to absorb him. This struggle has originated partially because of special conditions related to the life and thought of Gramsci as can be discussed in few points: Althusserian theses were directed partially to prevalent Humanistic Marxism in France, so in case of Gramsci we can't separate between theoretical abstract theses of Gramsci and what happened in Italy in the period that preceded the rise of Fascism when the labor movements had lost many decisive battles. According to Gramsci, this loss was linked to the economistic view that was adopted by Italian socialist party, this stance implies that the economic struggle (strikes and so on) is sufficient for the workers to win their battles against capitalism , so accordingly the party was not interested in the formation of coalitions between different factions of popular classes (Simon 1999, 15) as peasants, Agricultural laborers, low middle class employees and so forth, these coalitions which would have taken a political color. And from this point we can understand Gramsci's assertion about the importance of both political and ideological moments in the struggle for Hegemony. These moments which need a kind of human volunteerism or agency. In some cases we may find a difficulty to fully understand some of Gramsci's theses but of course that isn't related to the difficulty of Gramsci's style of writing or thought, but to the circumstances in which Prison Notebooks had been written as it included a severe watchful periodical inspection from the guards, this dictated a self censorship carried by Gramsci through a distracting style of writing and choosing of words. This in addition to his illness and great difficulty to have books in prison. When Gramsci wrote about Marx, he warned us from oeuvres that were published posthumously, as they are far from being complete and distinct but they contain ideas which are in development and adjustment, and if the author had an opportunity to complete or adjust his works, he might denounce them or regard them as insufficient (Gramsci 1999, 715-716), this short story says a lot about what Gramsci had thought about the notebooks he was writing. And now we can tell that the struggle about Gramsci is related to two points: Firstly: interpretation of Gramsci, as Humanistic Marxism in France, had given a humanistic interpretation to Gramsci supported by some obvious texts, as well as the Neo-Marxist interpretation that exploits the notion of historical bloc to take in theoretically the new type of protests which can be designated as liberal, for example: 3rd wave feminism and environmentalism. The direct obvious content of these protests didn't change considerably but what changed is the social relationship that this content has kept with the whole social struggle, especially class struggle. What is obvious today is detachment of the content from the whole social framework and harmonization of these movements with late capitalist context. Secondly: does Gramsci represent a self-sufficient (Adequate) intellectual system? Does he provide concepts and theoretical tools (which as any tools need to be improved continuously) wich make up a system that doesn't contain any central or fundamental problems within the structure of the theory itself (regardless of regular problems that face any intellectual system and get resolved with time)? Roughly, we can say that Althusser was interested in the second point, which means that he didn't think that Gramsci's intellectual project can form a complete or self-sufficient theoretical system. But this didn't stop Althusser from appreciating what Gramsci asserted about the state, which can't be reduced to a coercive apparatus but also includes the civil society with its different organizations, even if Gramsci didn't indicate systematically the effect of each apparatus and its relatively different role (Althusser 2014, 242, note 7). And in other places, Althusser appreciated the welding nature of ideology that was discovered by Gramsci (Althusser 2014, 227), who said that ideology resembles cement because it connects different elements of the hegemonic/ruling bloc. This doesn't mean that Gramsci's system doesn't contain crucial flaws that, according to Althusser, can have serious outcomes in relation to theoretical and political practice. For example, Gramsci's failure to formulate an obvious relationship between philosophy and science (Althusser 2016, a letter) as we will discuss shortly. Althusser's critique, which is somehow scattered in various texts, culminated into an article which then became a chapter in Reading Capital. This article will be our main source besides Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. The distinct trait in Gramsci's texts is "humanistic historicism," which means that every social phenomena is in an ongoing state of change and historical development as successive historical eras, thus there is no kind of knowledge that supersedes history. To make it simple: historical era dictates any kind of knowledge. That's the historical part; the other part indicates that people or "Human" is responsible for this historical process by taking part through her free will in various practices that change history. And of course these practices are participated in the "present" (a moment in history) which humans want to change. There is a distinction between historicism and humanism but, according to Althusser, this difference is superficial and they share the same problems."
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Post by Admin on Jul 8, 2020 9:19:29 GMT
Helen Zia recommends Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen Ishizuka. This book documents the generation of radical Americans of Asian descent who emerged out of the 1960s, who had been inspired and activated by the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. After creating what is now known as the Asian American movement, many of these radicals threw themselves into a lifetime of activism; collectively, they have made vast contributions to social change in America that has affected every American. Yet, these good deeds and stories are flat out invisible to most Americans. This book fills in that missing history by putting Asian Americans smack dab in the midst of multiracial revolutionary movements for social justice, of which even many progressive activists are ignorant. INTO THE STREETS: WRITERS RECOMMEND BOOKS OF PROTEST pen.org/into-the-streets-writers-recommend-books-of-protest/
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Post by Admin on Jul 18, 2020 21:17:38 GMT
"In this article, I try to answer the question of what kind of political organization workers and oppressed people need in order to fight against the intensifying barbarism of contemporary capitalism. I argue that, in the context of a no-growth capitalist economy characterized by increasingly predatory political interventions by the capitalist state, strategies of electoral socialism are utopian. Rebellions, not electoralism, get results. But to carry workers to power, rebellions must cohere into a democratic organization through which street and workplace fighters can connect, debate and decide strategy, and expand the collective power we enact in moments of rupture like the one we are currently experiencing. We need, in short, an organization that is best suited to what Lenin conceptualized as “the actuality of the revolution.” I review two prominent strategies currently being offered by the socialist Left in the United States and conclude by supporting a third strategy: for a class struggle, combat party of the working class, based upon a program for revolutionary socialism and a tactic of transitional demands." Cohering the Rebellions: For a Combat Party of the Working Class Post on: July 18, 2020 Ahmed Kanna Large sections of the socialist left — in venues like Jacobin — argue for channelling the ongoing rebellions against the capitalist state into electoralism and the Democratic Party. In the context of no-growth, predatory capitalism, this is utopian. We need instead a fighting, independent party of the working class to cohere the rebellions and to win power. www.leftvoice.org/cohering-the-rebellions-for-a-combat-party-of-the-working-class
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2020 21:23:53 GMT
UN chief: World 'at the breaking point' with vast inequality A new generation of social protection is needed - including universal healthcare and a universal basic income: Guterres. 18 Jul 2020 www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/chief-world-breaking-point-vast-inequality-200718163541857.htmlUnited Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the world is at a "breaking point" and calls for a new model for global governance to tackle inequalities exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Delivering the annual Nelson Mandela lecture online on Saturday, Guterres said the pandemic "has been likened to an X-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built". "It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: The lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; the fiction that unpaid care work is not work; the delusion that we live in a post-racist world; the myth that we are all in the same boat," the UN chief said. He outlined the main drivers of inequality including systemic racism, the legacy of colonialism, patriarchy, gaps in access to technology, and inequalities in global governance. "The nations that came out on top 70 years ago have refused to contemplate the reforms needed to change power relations in international institutions," Guterres said in his blunt speech, pointing to the voting rights in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), where the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia and the United States have veto powers. Guterres said the response to the pandemic "must be based on a new social contract and a new global deal that create equal opportunities for all and respect the rights and freedoms of all". The new model would ensure inclusive and equal participation in global institutions, fair globalisation, a stronger voice for the developing world in global decision-making, and a more inclusive and balanced multilateral trading system, he said. He said developed countries are strongly invested in their own survival and have "failed to deliver the support needed to help the developing world through these dangerous times". The novel coronavirus has infected more than 14 million people and there have been nearly 600,000 known deaths worldwide. The UN has appealed for $10.3bn to help poor states, but has received only $1.7bn.
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Post by Admin on Jul 22, 2020 19:47:02 GMT
The system has to be stopped: On state terror and collective rebellion. thisishell.com/interviews/1179-henry-girouxThe future is fighting collectively. The future is taking advantage of the energy of young people, and bringing them together. The future is about getting rid of the factions we see on the left. The future is talking about a society that is just, equitable and serious about democratic participation, economic equality and social justice. We need a new language, we need radical imagination machines, we need alternative media - but we need a mass movement that sees education and collective struggle as inseparable. Cultural critic Henry Giroux examines the social and political landscape of America, mid-revolt - from capitalism's violence against minds and bodies for generations, to the rising tide of people rising up against oppression, and for a new world built by our own hands. Henry wrote the article Racial Domestic Terrorism and the Legacy of State Violence for Counterpunch. His most recent book is The Terror of the Unforeseen from Los Angeles Review of Books.
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Post by Admin on Jul 23, 2020 5:40:01 GMT
“The struggle against capitalism isn’t as simple as waiting for capitalism to experience a great crisis; as Price observed, crises are a routine part of how capitalism functions. Without an adequate power structure to carry out the revolution that the masses want, the anger of the masses will be impotent, and the ruling class will ultimately come out on top. Mr. Robot recognizes this. When Alderson replies to Price’s remark about crises by stating that ‘I am a leader,’ Price says: ‘Then where are your followers? Can’t force an agenda, Mr Alderson. You have to inspire one.’” Crises can either bring revolution or strengthen the capitalist power structure medium.com/@rainershea612/crises-can-either-bring-revolution-or-strengthen-the-capitalist-power-structure-b406075e7923Consider the scenario presented by the TV series Mr. Robot, wherein a group of hackers aims to take down the giant conglomerate E Corp-known by the head hacker Elliot Alderson as Evil Corp. To put an end to Evil Corp’s hegemonic control over finance, the hackers sabotage its ability to keep count of how much debt people owe it. When the first big digital attack happens in the show’s universe in 2015, Evil Corp is struggling, hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost, the public is protesting Evil Corp over its failures to provide for society’s needs, and the capitalist world is falling into a depression. Watching Mr. Robot in 2020, the parallels to how capitalism has actually fared in the years after the 2008 crash are apparent. Without help from hackers, the global economy has entered a place far worse than it was in during the last recession, the big banks have become on the verge of collapse, and the increasingly impoverished masses are protesting the evils of the capitalist power structure. Yet like the besieged billionaires in Mr. Robot, the ruling class haven’t lost their power simply because of this initial catastrophe. Unless the aspiring revolutionaries successfully maintain their war against the system while presenting a viable alternative for the masses to embrace, the only people who end up getting hurt by the crises will be the lower classes. Evil Corp CEO Phillip Price expresses this by saying that he isn’t worried about the ramifications from the hack, because the people who seek to end capitalism are merely human beings like himself-except he has the weight of the largest conglomerate in history behind him. “When you have that,” Price says, “matters like this, they tend to crack under that weight.” The upper hand that Price and the others in his class have amid the crisis is further shown by his statement to Alderson that “World catastrophes like this, they aren’t caused by lone wolves like you. They occur because men like me allow them. You just had to stumble onto one of them.” Price was speaking from the position of confidence that’s afforded to the super rich, who don’t just stand above the hardships that crises cause but are able to come out of them richer than before. Power profits from disaster, and during the era of neoliberalism the capitalist oligarchy has come to regularly exploit a certain “shock doctrine” formula. This formula was perfected in Chile, where Pinochet’s dictatorship came to power after the U.S. overthrew the country’s socialist former president Salvador Allende. Washington’s approach for undermining Allende’s presidency, as Nixon famously said, was to “make the economy scream.” When this was accomplished, Milton Friedman’s approach for economic “shock therapy”-wherein living standards and economic stability are rapidly undermined by neoliberal austerity policies-made the U.S. corporatocracy carry out its plan to destroy Chile’s former checks on capitalist power. The shock doctrine has since been the norm of how global capitalism functions, facilitating the implementation of Reaganomics, the corporate looting of post-invasion Iraq, the fraudulently “necessary” 2008 Wall Street bailout, and all the other developments that have exacerbated global inequality in recent decades.
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Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2020 1:43:28 GMT
The Revolution After The Crisis www.forbes.com/sites/danielaraya/2020/03/31/the-revolution-after-the-crisis/#5cdce095101eWe are on the cusp of a massive economic contraction and a total reset of the global economy. The Coronavirus pandemic has metastasized into a global crisis that experts predict will very likely kill millions and unleash a worldwide economic depression. As economist Nouriel Roubani writes, the sudden shock to the global economy from the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating a massive collapse that will be more severe than either the 2008 global financial crisis or the Great Depression. A propellant for both a liquidity crisis and a solvency crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic is currently engulfing a wide breadth of industries and capital investments at a pace we have not seen before. Even as central banks leverage quantitative easing (QE) to stimulate the global economy, the impact of the pandemic on employment and therefore consumption will ensure a collapse that is both broad and deep. In fact, we are witnessing a restructuring of the global economic order that could lead to an entirely new civilization. Building on a range of coordinated social and economic policies that must come, we will also see the rise of a new global system. Among these new policies will be a shift to universal basic income (UBI) and the rise of a highly automated production infrastructure. Just as revolutionary movements have emerged in the past, so the combination of disease and economic contraction will provoke a new era and a new global order. Indeed, even as we confront the prospect of economic collapse, we will also witness the application of policies that move our society beyond a dying fossil fuel era and into an era of cheap renewables. Beyond the age of combustion and the wanton destruction of the Earth, we are on the cusp of a digital Renaissance.
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 9:52:18 GMT
From The Socialist newspaper, 24 April 2019 www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/29022/24-04-2019/the-striking-relevance-of-leon-trotskys-theory-of-permanent-revolutionThe striking relevance of Leon Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution Tony Saunois, secretary, Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) The revolutionary movements shaking Sudan and Algeria and mass upheavals in other parts of the neocolonial world, underlines the relevance of Leon Trotsky's¹ 'theory of permanent revolution'. The devastating economic and social crisis in Asia, Africa and Latin America today is producing social convulsions and devastating the lives of millions. The slaughter of millions in wars in the Middle East and Africa, the direct consequences of intervention by the imperialist powers, together with miserable economic conditions, is the reality of life on the basis of capitalism and landlordism in these countries. For millions, capitalism means, to quote the revolutionary socialist Lenin, "horror without end". Yet the crucial question facing the masses is how to put a stop to it. In providing an answer in the countries of the neocolonial world, Trotsky's permanent revolution provides the key to understanding the class forces involved, and the programme and tasks facing the working class. Following the events of the first Russian revolution in 1905, Trotsky - who played a leading role in the capital, St Petersburg - was able to draw conclusions that brilliantly anticipated the class forces involved in the victorious outcome of the Russian revolution in October 1917. Russia then was a semi-feudal system that meant slavery for the mass of the population, who were forced to eke out an existence on narrow strips of land. In the urban centres, which had seen the rapid development of industry, the industrial working class was ruthlessly exploited and oppressed. 'Democratic revolution' Russia in that period had not completed the bourgeois (capitalist)-democratic revolutions of countries like England in the 17th century and France in the 18th century. The main historic tasks of these revolutions consisted in the elimination of feudal and semi-feudal relations on the land and the unification of the country into a nation-state. These changes in social and economic relations paved the way for the eventual development of industry and the working class. Side by side with these developments was the introduction of basic capitalist-democratic rights, including the right to vote, a free press, the election of a parliament - usually won as a consequence of long and bitter struggles by the masses. The tasks of the capitalist-democratic revolution, however, were not completed by the Russian ruling class - as they still have not been fully completed in the neocolonial world, today. In the modern era of capitalism and imperialism², the tasks of the capitalist-democratic revolution are also bound together with breaking from the domination of imperialism. In the case of Russia in 1917, this was particularly centred on Anglo-French imperialism, which viewed Russia as a virtual colony, at that time. Marxists had thought that it was more likely that the socialist revolution would first be carried through in the advanced capitalist countries, given the development of modern industry and a powerful industrial working class. The question posed in Russia in 1917 was, what would happen should the revolution break there first, and not in Germany, France or Britain, where capitalist-democratic revolutions had already been carried through? Too late, too weak The capitalist class in the neocolonial world came onto the scene of history too late, and was too weak and tied to imperialism to complete the tasks of the capitalist revolution. The same issue is posed today throughout the neocolonial world. In countries like India, there remains both capitalist and feudal land relations, and even slavery. This can be seen in Brazil, despite having a capitalist class and some highly developed aspects of modern industry. As Trotsky explained, it is a question of 'combined and uneven development' - where features of a modern capitalist economy exist side by side with elements of feudalism. However, despite industrial and technological development in countries such as Brazil and India, they have not broken free from the domination of the major imperialist powers. They have failed to fully complete the tasks of the capitalist-democratic revolution. Brazil's much-praised industrial development has gone into reverse and been weakened. It is now more dependent on raw materials, which account for 65% of its exports, than it was 20 years ago. The increased globalisation of the world economy has bound these countries together, even more, to the major imperialist powers. At the same time, the working class is far stronger throughout the neocolonial world than it was when Trotsky developed his theory. This is reflected in the explosion of urban centres and cities. By 2014, for the first time, over 50% of the global population was concentrated in cities. This poses the prospect of collective class struggle. In pre-revolutionary Russia, all trends of socialist opinion saw the main task as the completion of the capitalist-democratic revolution. However, the Mensheviks - right-wing, reformist socialists - believed that the task of the working class was to be tied to the coat-tails of the so-called liberal wing of the capitalist class, which they saw as playing the main role in the revolution. The working class was to play second fiddle. Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had not developed the ideas of the permanent revolution as Trotsky was able to do, by the 1850s they had coined the term 'permanent revolution'. They used it as a means of arguing for a strategy for the revolutionary class to pursue a struggle for its own class interests and independence, and they strongly denounced the cowardly role of the capitalists. The Mensheviks saw the revolution as a purely 'national Russian' affair. These 'Menshevik' ideas are all echoed throughout the neo-colonial world today. They relegate the question of socialism to the dim and distant future. Instead, they emphasise the 'democratic revolution' first, to be followed by a period of capitalist development and democracy. These ideas of 'stageism' have been repeated by Stalinist parties and others on the left. A new 'stage' has often been added recently: that it is necessary to defeat 'neoliberal capitalism' first, and only then proceed to develop a more 'humane' capitalism. In Bolivia, the idea of a period of 'Andean capitalism' was advocated by president Evo Morales, and others, before it would be possible to begin to embark on a struggle for socialism! When attempting to enact serious land reform or reforms for the working class, however, these ideas have always come up against the interests of the capitalists and landlords. These classes are linked together; the landlords invest in industry and the capitalists invest in land. Both are intrinsically tied to imperialism through the banks and multinational companies. They will act in their own class interests against those of the working class and peasantry. This has been seen, time and again, throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. It was also a feature of the Spanish revolution and civil war in the 1930s. In the theory of the permanent revolution, Leon Trotsky was able to anticipate brilliantly how the apparent contradiction of completing the tasks of the capitalist-democratic revolution was to be achieved when the capitalist class was to too weak or cowardly to do so. His prognosis was to be borne out in the Russian revolution in 1917.
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 13:06:09 GMT
Narrative Is Crumbling medium.com/@caityjohnstone/narrative-is-crumbling-f6bf85b4367bNarrative is crumbling. It’s difficult to understand what’s going on in the world. It’s difficult to understand what’s going on in the world because powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what’s going on in the world. Powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what’s going on in the world because if the public understood what’s going on in the world, they would rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful. The public would rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful if they understood what’s going on in their world because then they would understand that the powerful have been exploiting, oppressing, robbing, cheating and deceiving them while destroying the ecosystem, stockpiling weapons of armageddon and waging endless wars, for no other reason than so that they can maintain and expand their power. The public do not rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful because they have been successfully manipulated into not wanting to.
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Post by Admin on Jul 27, 2020 12:01:21 GMT
"There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises, — in drawing room as in cabaret, in the writings of philosophers as in daily conversation. Political, economic, and social institutions are crumbling; the social structure, having become uninhabitable, is hindering, even preventing the development of the seeds which are being propagated within its damaged walls and being brought forth around them." Pëtr Kropotkin The Spirit of Revolt theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-spirit-of-revolt
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Post by Admin on Jul 31, 2020 17:28:59 GMT
"There is another way. There is the traditional Lakota way and the ways of the American Indian peoples. It is the way that knows that humans do not have the right to degrade Mother Earth, that there are forces beyond anything the European mind has conceived, that humans must be in harmony with all relations or the relations will eventually eliminate the disharmony. A lopsided emphasis on humans by humans--the Europeans' arrogance of acting as though they were beyond the nature of all related things--can only result in a total disharmony and a readjustment which cuts arrogant humans down to size, gives them a taste of that reality beyond their grasp or control and restores the harmony. There is no need for a revolutionary theory to bring this about; it's beyond human control. The nature peoples of this planet know this and so they do not theorize about it. Theory is an abstract; our knowledge is real.... All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused, and this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, the whole environment will retaliate, and the abusers will be eliminated. Things come full circle, back to where they started. That's revolution. And that's a prophecy of my people, of the Hopi people and of other correct peoples. " Revolution and American Indians: “Marxism is as Alien to My Culture as Capitalism” By Russell Means / blackhawkproductions.com / Nov 12, 2011 www.filmsforaction.org/news/revolution-and-american-indians-marxism-is-as-alien-to-my-culture-as-capitalism/
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 22:50:55 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 23:14:47 GMT
“If another crisis hits the US economy which is highly likely, the US financial market will be even less important in driving the global demand. Socialist model of Chinese Globalisation 2.0 will start to dominate.” qutnyti.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/third-wave-of-revolution-is-coming/Third Wave of Revolution is Coming Introduction With the global capitalist economy shaken to the core and geopolitical rivalry resulting in the disruption of global trade. The situation is turning ripe for the Third Wave of revolutions across the globe. The First Wave was from the French Revolution to Paris Commune (1789-1871) and Second Wave from Bolshevik Revolution to end of Sandinista Revolution of Nicaragua (1917-1979). The gap between the First and Second waves was marked by the transformation of competitive productive capitalism to monopoly productive capitalism and the tendency of advanced capitalist countries to conquer pre-capitalist societies. Then to turn them into part of the formers’ respective national supply chain. Similarly, the gap between the Second and Third waves are marked by the transformation of monopoly productive capitalism, to monopoly financial capitalism and the national supply chain is replaced by the global supply chain. Therefore, the revolutionaries need to identify the changes and formulate policies accordingly. The Second Wave revolutions were mostly led by Marxists-Leninists and by years of experience and struggles have perfected the following steps to carry out the revolutions: Step 1: Nations to be given the right to self-determination (Finland broke out of the Russian empire after the Bolshevik Revolution) Step 2: Agrarian land reforms. Step 3: Appropriation of petty producers (Stalin appropriated kulaks). Step 4: Massive non-profit planned investment in human capital (education and health); physical capital (infrastructure and heavy industries); digital capital (3rd and 4th industrial revolution made it compulsory). Step 5: Allow profit motive and market mechanism to take advantage of competitive cheap yet productive labour in the global market (Deng reforms in China and also Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and also North Korea even though slowed down by sanctions). Step 6: Supply base, per capita income and wage rate have become high enough such that the global market is no longer enough to sustain growth. Hence bring state and state enterprises to start to invest non-profitably but productively to create demand (China under Xi). In the twentieth century, most countries had feudal relations in agriculture and hence revolutionaries can start from first or second steps. Anti-imperialism, nationalism and land reformation attracted huge number of people to revolutionary parties in the period from 1917 to 1979. In the twenty-first century, we are in a situation where different countries have attained a different level of success in the above six steps under bourgeoisie or revolutionary leadership. As a result, direct imperialist governments are very few in number. Rather within a Third World country one particular ethnic group often dominates generating debate among non-dominant nations whether to form separate nationhood.
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 23:39:06 GMT
After COVID-19, We Must Choose www.thevenusproject.com/multimedia/after_covid-19_we_must_choose/When the government takes away your ability to make money, and you still have bills to pay, they just create money out of thin air and give it to you. But, the nation is now much more deeply enslaved by debt. To whom? Why did we need money in the first place? Look what the existence of money has done to our species and our planet. Our culture’s perceived need for profit in order to survive has ironically and tragically superseded the well-being of the very people and planet upon which our lives depend. Our species is now at a uniquely pivotal point in what will be recorded as our history. Never before have our leaders so quickly surrendered the rights and privileges of the citizen in the name of public safety. In our acceptance of these drastic restrictions, communities worldwide demonstrate that money was never the thing which holds our civilization together. Money is the thing which so effectively divides us, on a most primal level. Now that we see and fully realize that the concept of money never was the catalyst in the solution to any of Humanity’s problems, it is time that we all reach a level of maturity high enough to choose another path for our species. A coherent path: one devoid of corrupt political construct, in absence of the currently ubiquitous motive to profit. We MUST choose the Life Sequence of Value over the Monetary Sequence of Value. In the face of overwhelming planetary abundance, combined with our ability to automate, the decision to rid ourselves of this childishly dysfunctional paradigm, which has plagued Humankind for millennia, is simply obvious. #choice #newsystem #covid19 #timeforchange #actiontime #ResourceBasedEconomy #RBE #capitalism #TheVenusProject #TVP #RoxanneMeadows #JacqueFresco
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