| Theory |
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Overcoming Reformist Folly October 18, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
If you're anything like me, then you're no doubt anticipating the end of "Election Season" in the U.S. with relish. It lasts longer than the Superbowl and is even less entertaining.
The worst of it is that all of the reformists come crawling out from under their rocks...my mailbox is jammed with electoral crap and the message boards are polluted with all the old garbage.
"This time your vote is of vital importance and will make a crucial difference to the survival of humanity!"...blah, blah, blah.
In my opinion, the worst of the worst comes from people who ought to know better...the "leftists" who tell us that we must "support progressive candidates" or "vote for the lesser evil".
It's as if they think we have no memory.
I do!
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quote:
You vote in an election and your automatically a fuckin' reformist are you?? Well I stood in local elections so that definitely makes me one then!
Well, the first step towards correcting a mistake is recognizing that you've made one.
Actually, it's not the physical act of voting that makes anyone a "fuckin' reformist"...it's telling people to vote that is a reformist act.
When you told people to "vote for you", the explicit message was that "things will be better" if you were elected to public office "because" you're "a good guy" and your opponents are all wankers.
But the truth of the matter is that nothing would have changed "for the better" at all.
Even if Westminster were packed with 600 clones of yourself, still nothing would change "for the better". Sure, you could shift the rhetoric of public discourse to the "left"...but any attempt to change the class structure of British society would meet with overwhelming resistance by the ruling class. There would be a "capital strike"; the civil service would refuse to carry out your decisions; and the army would overthrow you.
And do not think for a minute that the people who elected you are going to pour into the streets to defend you. You've taught them that voting is the right way to "make things better". If you try to "switch messages" and call for revolution, they won't hear you...at least not in time to do you any good.
If you want a revolution, then your "message" must be consistently revolutionary. That means that you attack the legitimacy of the existing social order and its institutions across the board.
Your message has to be NO COMPROMISE WITH CAPITALIST DESPOTISM!
Of course, revolutionaries are very "marginal" at the present time...few will listen to such a message and even fewer will respond.
So, if you want to be "popular" and "get a good job", then, by all means, spend your time and energy "tinkering" with the existing system on the (false) premise that you can make it "work better".
That's the character of modern reformism.
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If given the choice of :
Labour
Tories
BNP
I'm voting Labour every time!!
At the present time, a vote for "Labour" is a vote for British imperialism.
If that doesn't "bother you", what would?
You see, you have no real choices. Stop pretending that you do.
In a capitalist "democracy", all the electoral "options" are bad ones.
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I vote tactically or not at all, until the revolution, I don't see what choice I have!
I repeat: you have no choices "tactical" or otherwise...until you understand that you must struggle outside and against the capitalist system.
Those who succeed in becoming "insiders" inevitably become corrupt bastards.
No matter how "well-meaning" they were when they started.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 11, 2004
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quote:
Agreed, but it's never so simple as just saying "vote for me" -- they always want to know why and it is always the why that determines whether you're reformist or not.
Actually it is, in practice, just that simple.
Why? Because no matter what you promise, the only thing you can deliver is more of what already exists.
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NOTHING? That's a bit of a stretch. Some things can change for the better, but not things that really matter, and even still never indefinitely.
A verbal distinction which doesn't apply, as you admit, to "things that really matter".
There's no way to change the class structure of a capitalist society through its electoral machinery.
All possible changes are thus trivial.
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What if you've told them all along that revolution was the only way? What if when you told them that they said "I don't believe you... we live in a democracy, voting counts," how do you prove to them that reform does not work without showing first hand that no matter how progressive the candidate it will not matter?
At least half the electorate in the advanced capitalist countries already knows that "they're all bastards". They don't even bother to participate in the farce of capitalist "elections". There's even a small but growing trend (in the United States) that regards "elections" as rigged.
This doesn't mean they're revolutionaries; it just means that they see no reasonable chance for any real improvement through a mechanism that's been repeatedly shown to make no substantive difference.
I don't see how it helps us to "prove" what has already been proven; instead, we should concentrate our energies on making the case for revolution...something that has not been proven.
Telling people to "vote for us" and at the same time telling them that voting is useless and revolution is required is sending the worst kind of mixed message. Saying "voting is useless" and then turning around and running for office simply tells people that we are, at best, confused and, at worst, dishonest.
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I agree, but how can you attack that legitimacy if you have no conclusive proof of it's illegitimacy to show them?
"Conclusiveness" is in the mind of the beholder, but there is abundant and growing evidence of the corruption and incompetence of capitalist governments.
Pound away at that message and even the thickest skull will eventually yield to the overwhelmingly obvious.
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My point exactly, now the true question is, why are they marginal? Is it because too many people believe revolution can't work, or because too many people believe reform can?
I pick door number one. Ever since 1917, the ruling class has propagandized heavily with the message "revolution would just make things worse" and "is impossible anyway".
It will, admittedly, take quite a while to mount an effective counter-message...but I think that's the only way to go.
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...but why can we not use the system to illustrate its failures? What better way to know a car won't start than to let the person try and start it themselves?
If someone is really convinced that transportation = car, then there's no arguing them out of it, of course. But why should we send that message when we "know better"? Capitalism produces a steady stream of reformist ideologues eager to earn their supper singing the virtues of electoral reforms.
Our tasks are different because we have a different message.
The road to revolution begins with active popular resistance to capitalist despotism -- and not with crushed hopes in "progressive" candidates and their persistent failure to "deliver on their promises".
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Whilst voting might not accomplish anything, it doesn't do any harm per se...
As I noted in my previous post, the "physical act of voting" makes no difference at all...go right ahead if you feel like wasting your time in that particular fashion.
It's when you tell people to vote that you've stepped "over the line" into falsehood.
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If someone with this mentality gets inside the wall, and successfully avoids their own corruption, the destruction of the wall is a far simpler process. If not, no loss.
-- emphasis added.
Wrong. They will become corrupt and we've lost them. Also, anyone who sincerely supported them is likely to conclude that all politics is "hopeless" and so we've lost them as well.
The political landscape of the U.S. is littered with the burned-out shells of people who once sought to "change the world" through "progressive" electoral politics.
What's left ain't a pretty sight.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 12, 2004
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quote:
The point is though if you vote Labour or Conservative, sure you will be voting for Imperialism, but if you don't vote, you are effectively saying that you don't care if the Nazis get in or not.
Did voting "stop" the Nazis "getting in" back in 1933?
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Yes, I pointed out that the major parties are the same and that they should vote for me not because I could implement reforms but that I could aid the people to get the things they need and encourage the people to fight against cuts in local services and fight against local tax (Council tax) rises.
But those cuts in local services and Council tax rises are going to happen anyway, aren't they? And they would happen even if you had been elected, wouldn't they?
So you were telling people a lie, weren't you?
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At all times I put forward a Socialist programme and stressed the need for a 'mass workers party' that could overthrow Capitalism because the major parties no longer represented them.
What good did that do? People could see with their own eyes that you wanted a job in the existing government.
Your "socialist programme" was obviously rhetoric...in the real world, you just wanted to "be in office" like every other politician.
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I believe that tireless campaigning and endless stalls provided everybody with education on their doorstep and put forward Marxist ideas and Socialist propaganda they were otherwise unaware of. When was the last time you spoke to some 100 people in one day about Socialist issues?
Setting aside the claims of "Marxism" and "socialism", just exactly why did you have to run for office in order to "reach" 100 people per day?
As to myself...well, according to the owner of Che-Lives, it gets about 3,500 hits and 25,000 page views each and every day...so I have a pretty good-sized potential audience every time I post.
So do you.
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but when workers see a Socialist politician in action they realise that Socialism isn't a pipe dream and can benefit them.
Not if they have any sense. My guess is that a sensible worker regards a "socialist politician" with the same contempt that s/he has for all other politicians.
They're all bastards!
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What better way to show up its failures than to have a Socialist candidate point it out!! Our candidates' popularity has grown massively and as they've been re-elected their vote count has grown. We don't stand to try and change the system from inside the belly of the beast, we constantly stress the need for revolution.
Instead of more and more people actively resisting capitalism, you are creating more and more people voting for "socialist politicians"...and you think of that as a way of "stressing the need for revolution".
Does one laugh...or weep?
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What is needed is someone working people can vote for - a completely different kind of political party - a party that is made up of ordinary working-class people and which fights for their interests.
It won't happen...ever. Most such parties never get off the ground and the ones that are successful become corrupt faster than you can say "betrayal".
What is really needed is a working class movement that organizes direct resistance to capitalist despotism and wipes its ass with the bourgeois ballot.
No group of politicians (no matter what they call themselves) will ever "fight for our interests".
We must do that ourselves, directly, in the workplace and on the streets.
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...the reformists can say "Well, have you ever had someone in power who was outside of those parties?" -- We need to push for those people, and in hope have them try to push for meaningful reform, and then watch it go down in smoke... and when it does, point it out every damn time until people have lost ALL faith in bourgeoisie democracy.
No, we need not "push" those people at all...they are very self-motivated.
But when they do "crash and burn", we can, of course, say that "we told you so".
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But still, they are trivial changes that can help the worker, if even only for that candidate's term and are of no real value. Just because the ultimate goal is to change the class structure doesn't mean that we should ignore helping people wherever we can along the way.
I think this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how "reforms" come into existence.
Many seem to think it happens because people "elect progressives" to public office and these folks dutifully represent the people's will and enact the reforms into law.
No. The only time meaningful reforms become law is on those occasions when people are actively resisting the inequities of the existing system.
Where there is active resistance, even conservatives will vote for reforms. And where there is little or none, even "progressives" will vote to repeal reforms or in favor of measures that will make things worse.
People don't remember that Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected and inaugurated as a conservative Democrat...during his campaign, he actually attacked incumbent President Hoover for reckless over-spending.
The "great new dealer" did not set out to be one...he was driven to it by the visible collapse of capitalism and the "spectre of communism".
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As I've mentioned before, people here seem to be mistaking lost faith in candidates as lost faith in the system. This isn't the case. Many people have not lost faith in the system itself, they have merely lost faith in Democrats and Republicans. Many of them are still well aware of 3rd parties, and they WOULD vote for them, but they know even with their vote it'd never be enough to win.
Well, if the Democrats are no good and the Republicans are no good and the 3rd parties "can't win", then what's left?
It looks like "lost faith" in the system to me...they ignore capitalist elections as irrelevant.
Correctly.
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What these people need to wake up and realize is that if every single one of them that feels this way got up and voted, a 3rd party candidate COULD win.
Possibly...but what stops that winning 3rd party candidate from becoming or turning out to already be just another corrupt bastard?
Like all the rest.
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In short, preaching revolution is asking them to overthrow a system they still believe in...
"Preaching" is always a bad approach.
They still believe, by and large, in the American Empire (as long as it keeps winning)...but I don't think they believe in the American political system any longer.
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It's been proven only that we can't get a majority vote for a 3rd party progressive candidate, namely due to the fact that people are too lazy to take the 10 minutes it takes to vote because they think even that 10 minutes is wasted cause the guy will never get elected.
No, because even if he did get elected, he would turn out like all the rest.
And "laziness" is not much of an argument...most of those people work their asses off in shitty jobs with rotten pay.
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They don't want to hear revolution, they're still reformist. Once again, it's not the idea of reform they've lost faith in, it's the reformers.
I think a credible revolutionary message would get a hearing.
That rules out all the Leninist sectarians, of course.
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Furthermore, you seem to have this idea that the "we" as communists should be pushing a candidate of our own.
Completely wrong. We should not run candidates or tell people to vote for other candidates or have anything to do with the whole charade except attack it relentlessly.
Demonstrate Against Fake "Elections"!
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Our position is simply to mobilize non-voters.
Why? To what purpose?
And how? You want us to tell them that "this progressive" is "the real thing"?
You want us to lie to people so that...what? They'll believe us afterwards when we tell them about revolution?
That makes no sense at all.
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So the goal isn't to let people realize the system doesn't work, it's to yell it at them until they haven't heard anything else?
Sounds funny, doesn't it? But yes, I would "yell" at them just like I "yell" at people on this board.
Just like I would "yell" at someone about to step in front of a truck!
Because the system really doesn't work and that truck would really crush them.
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...it sounds like class brainwashing.
Don't get carried away; remember that we have no power to "make" people believe us.
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We have conclusive proof when no one is able to logically deny it. If people can still break it down and counter it, then it's not very conclusive is it?
People may sincerely "believe" that they have a "logical counter-argument"...that doesn't necessarily make it so.
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So I guess where the "reformists" like me, and the "revolutionaries" like you differ is quite simple that you believe people are ready to hear about revolution and the possibilities, I believe people are still stuck up on reform.
Even if your version were accurate, that still leaves the proposition that revolutionaries "should" support reformism completely unsupported.
As I noted earlier, there's no shortage of professional reformists with a bags full of empty promises around.
Why the hell should we do it?
Why shouldn't we attack the reformists for the liars that they are?
Are we obligated in some sense to "give them a fair chance"? Each of them? All of them? Forever???
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I don't see why we can't recognize both. Why is it one or the other?
Because those two paths go in different directions. One says "patch up the existing system and make it work better". The other says "scrap it and start over".
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Why can we not recognize, SOME people are ready to hear about revolution, and SOME people still need to be shown that reform doesn't work.
This is unclear. The case for resistance leading to revolution is at least partially based on the historical experience of reformist movements...we have seen how hopelessly inadequate they really are.
I am perfectly willing to continue making that historical argument to people who "still need to be shown that reformism doesn't work".
They'll either listen or they won't...I can't help that. I can tell them (truthfully) that "if you do X, the result will be Y"...but they may well go ahead and do X anyway.
But if I think that X is wrong because it always leads to Y, then I'm not going to "change my tune" and flatter the poor judgment of those who choose to do X.
To do X is fucked up...and we should say so with no equivocation whatsoever.
That may not be "popular"...but it's "the right thing to do."
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There's always this sickly idea of waiting with communists.... that we must "wait until the system has destroyed itself" or that we must "wait until its oppression is too grand for anyone to ignore."
I don't know who you're angry with here...unless you're trying to say that voting is the only "activity" that "matters".
Voting doesn't matter at all...that's why it's permitted.
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But you can't constantly pretend that the modern passive revolutionary tactics are working.
"Passive revolutionary" is an oxymoron. What revolutionaries need to figure out is how to organize active resistance to capitalist despotism.
A daunting task, to be sure.
But it's "what is to be done".
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You seem to see this as a bad thing... I see these people as those who will seek alternative means, i.e., revolution.
That doesn't seem to be how it actually works. People who really get wrapped up in reformist enthusiasm only to see their hopes crushed just "drop out" of politics altogether.
What ever happened to all those people in Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition"?
Gone.
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If everyone's argument is that voting supports the bourgeoisie, then how is that any different than you working and making money to live?
Because we have to work and make money...we've no choice in the matter. We are wage-slaves.
But we do not have to go to the polls and vote "yes" for wage-slavery.
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No matter what, there is still a "lesser of two evils," and if we're going to live in a capitalist nations, we might as well pick the one that is going to let us live in our capitalist nations better.
I think the "lesser of two evils" is an illusion. But if you sincerely feel otherwise, then by all means go right ahead and vote for the "lesser evil".
Just don't tell other people that it's going to make any difference.
Don't lie to people.
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So, until the Revolution, I'm going to let my views take a backseat to my family's well-being.
Well, if you're in politics for the money, I think you've come to the wrong board.
Both Republicans and Democrats will pay you a lot better (thus contributing to "your family's well-being") than any revolutionary movement ever will.
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I still know what I believe in, but until everyone stops hiding behind words, ideologies and hundred year-old books and ends this struggle, this is how I'm going to have to live.
To each their own.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 13, 2004
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You make the assumption they will crash and burn, I do not.
It's not an "assumption"...it's what has actually happened.
Although people generally use 1914 as a point of demarcation, it was actually in 1912 (in Belgium) that a "socialist party" first took a minority position in a capitalist coalition government.
Needless to say, there were no "steps towards socialism" as an outcome.
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When they die off you may find that the new generation is just as strong as ever with trying to change the system through electoral reform, then they need to find out all over again the failings of the system.
I disagree; I think it perfectly possible to "learn from history" and that people actually do that.
Of course that is a role that revolutionaries can and should play: to remind people of what's happened before.
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If you have, once again what I would call, conclusive proof, then you have something to point them to as well.
As far as I'm concerned, we have it! We've had it since 1914!
Does that stop people from arguing with us over the same old crap? Of course not.
If your concept of "conclusive proof" includes the proposition that "no one will disagree", then I think your quest is in vain.
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Any truly progressive candidate would push such resistance, think Eugene V. Debs for a minute.
Really? Debs never held public office, so we don't know what he would have done "when the bribes were on the table".
The U.S. Socialist Party has been elected to local offices though...and we know what they did to "push resistance".
Nothing.
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This doesn't mean they've lost faith. What you propose is that people must say "Even if a 3rd party candidate was elected it wouldn't make a difference"; what these people say are "I would vote, but a 3rd party candidate will never get in, and they're the only ones who truly represent me." Do you not see a difference in those two statements?
I see no practical difference at all; in both cases, the conclusion is that "elections" are completely irrelevant.
That's "lost faith".
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It could be the fact that they've been fighting for the people all along and haven't yet been corrupted... you must remember that a lot of progressive candidates have been in positions where they should have been corrupted a long time ago....why weren't they corrupted then?
I think a closer look would reveal that they've already become corrupt...the very process of taking the capitalist electoral system seriously is corrupting before the first bribe hits the table.
Unless we're "insiders", we're unlikely to learn the details, of course. But sometimes we can tell.
Consider your earlier example of Debs. Perhaps he personally never took a bribe.
But his Socialist Party, while he was alive and in at least a nominal position of leadership, expelled thousands of members for pro-Bolshevik and pro-revolutionary sentiments (the entire membership in the state of Michigan was expelled).
To the best of my knowledge, Debs never so much as whispered a word against this outrage.
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I'm not going to lie to you, last I checked Nader was a multi-millionaire.... that doesn't seem to stop him from dumping that money back into the non-profit organizations he runs and supports. Nor has it stopped him from working pro-bono in the past.
Nader is uninterested in personal "luxury". So was Stalin. So am I.
But what message does Nader -- a left-bourgeois reformist -- offer to the people?
American "democracy" can be "real" and "meaningful"? The American legal system is "truly impartial" and an "arena in which justice can be secured"? Corporate behavior can be "reformed"?
He is lying...and it's difficult for me to believe he's not aware of that -- he's not a teenager posting at Che-Lives, after all.
Remember that he didn't make the 4 or 5 million dollars that he has accumulated by advocating revolution.
Or by paying his staff a living wage.
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Then whatever you tell them about revolution isn't going to help. Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't the goal of the revolution to overthrow capitalism? Not the US electoral system? The American Empire was built and WINS on capitalism, not on its election system.
The ruling class "finds it useful" to give the appearance of popular sovereignty while reserving the substance for itself.
Destroying this illusion is a meaningful step towards revolution.
We are advocating, after all, that people discard the illusion in order to seize the reality of popular sovereignty.
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When was the last time you saw a DNC or RNC protest and someone had signs that said "STOP ELECTIONS, START REVOLUTION"?
You'll recall I already responded to this point.
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This doesn't mean they're revolutionaries; it just means that they see no reasonable chance for any real improvement through a mechanism that's been repeatedly shown to make no substantive difference.
As to the attitudes of those who specifically protested at the DNC and the RNC, many of those folks were (and remain) anarchists...who were, I think, explicitly demonstrating against the entire farce of electoral politics.
We have no way of knowing, of course, but I don't think most of those kids are going to vote for Kerry...or anyone.
I agree that more explicit attacks on fake bourgeois "elections" would be a "good thing"...perhaps that will emerge in the coming decades.
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...but once again, that doesn't mean they feel that if "their candidate" DID win that they'd not be able to change anything anyway.
And once again, there's no way of knowing that.
But revolutionaries should be telling them the truth...that "their candidate" is a bosses' candidate.
That's the only kind that's possible.
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...but I don't believe taking time out of your day to vote (on a single day of the year) and taking a little time out to explain to other people why you vote is a bad thing. Hell, I've been taking probably hours cumulatively with these posts to explain why I vote.
At this point in history, the "legitimacy" of capitalist elections is a "hot button issue" on the "left".
In my opinion, it will be difficult to make any progress towards revolution until a "general consensus" is reached that mucking about in that crap is simply unacceptable!
Like racism or sexism.
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I want you to tell them that what they're taking the time to vote for is to prove this to the rest of the world.
What? The "rest of the world"?
I don't understand the relevance of "world opinion" to this matter.
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I don't believe they HAVE lost faith...so my personal argument would be a bit different, something along the lines of "We're trying to push a third party candidate in to see if change can actually be made; if it can't, we're going to use that failure to promote alternative means of struggle."
Go ahead, if that's what you want to do. You'll just burn out a bunch of people who might have done something useful.
And, if history is any guide, you won't "promote alternative means of struggle" at all.
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...but unless they realize it on their own, you're just another smelly kid handing out pamphlets.
As I've said elsewhere, I think that people fundamentally "convert" themselves to revolutionary politics. Our task is to make revolutionary ideas accessible to the working class...but each person decides if or when "it is right for them".
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Maybe they don't need to be shaken from the old system before they are led to a new one, maybe they CAN be shaken from the old system directly to the new one, but I've never seen it happen.
There are lots of different ways and circumstances in which people dramatically change their political perspectives...some slowly, some quickly, some from reading, some from events, etc., etc., etc.
It's too complicated to make a credible generalization.
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You can yell as much as you want, but these people have been brought up on the way the system is, even if their parents don't support it.
I did not make any claims as to revolution being the "quick & easy" way to substantive social change.
It's very hard and faces daunting obstacles.
But the possibility of substantive social change via bourgeois "elections" is already known to be zero.
There is a clear distinction between difficult and impossible.
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I don't see using the system to prove its failure as supporting reformism.
That's what your practical activity will amount to...telling people that change is possible through voting for "progressive" or "lesser evil" politicians.
Even though you "know better".
That's supporting reformism.
It's also lying.
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...what I am saying is "try and patch up the system so that you can see the patch doesn't work."
And they say "ok, that patch failed but what about this one?" And then "well, those two didn't work, how about this new patch?" Ad infinitum.
There'll never be any shortage of "new patches".
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Which historical argument is that?
That every attempt to change the nature of capitalism through electoral reformism has been an abysmal failure.
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But you can help that, you can help that by showing them what will happen rather than telling them what will happen.
No, I will not "hold their hands" while they do something stupid.
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But let me ask you this, what if voting was the only way to show that revolution is the only activity that matters?
A bizarre question. What if pigs could fly?
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I've got a million and one ideas on this, all of which will mean death for many. I'm not saying that's wrong... but it's tough to convince someone that they should die for something if you've not convinced them first that that something is the only way to make change.
I will read your ideas with interest. But I must caution you that "apocalyptic visions" ratchet up my skepticism to a very high setting.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 13, 2004
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The point was if I was elected I would rally the people together to fight the cuts!! As I am now.
In other words, you can "do it" without holding public office.
So what do you need a public office for other than a government paycheck?
Do you think that public office in a capitalist government confers a "special legitimacy" to your views?
Why would you want to encourage such a counter-revolutionary opinion?
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I put Marxist ideas to people who would otherwise have not heard them; when was the last time you saw a big newspaper with (actual) Leftist views in it?
So...you ran for office so that your ideas would be reported in the bourgeois press.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper just to buy a display ad?
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They could also see a working class person who lived on their estate who actually gave a rat's ass about what they wanted, and understood their struggles.
You don't have bourgeois politicians in the U.K. who can sing like Bill Clinton? You know, "I feel your pain."
Every politician "truly cares about the people"...don't they all say that?
Of course, you "really mean it"...so what?
Why should anyone pick you out as the guy who's "not a bastard"...unlike all the rest?!
Bigger promises?
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...I got out there on a personal level listened to people's struggles and points and was offering an alternative.
The "alternative" being to put yourself in public office...where you admit you would have made no difference whatsoever.
Why can't you "get out there on a personal level" without asking people to give you a job?
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Very nice, but why would someone come to this board? Because they are already well aware of the alternative.
I disagree. Most of the people who come here are curious about that guy on their t-shirt...and know almost nothing about communism.
Some of them stay to learn.
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So I'm a bastard, cheers! The fact that you don't know me doesn't seem to be a factor in this, does it?
No it's not...because I didn't say that "you are a bastard". I said that sensible workers regard all politicians -- even "socialist" ones -- as bastards.
I think you are well-meaning but very naive...you (and probably most of your "party") simply have not really thought through what you're really doing.
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Surprisingly, for yourself, a huge amount of people were glad there was an alternative...
Finished second, did you? *laughs*
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I never put forward anything I didn't think I could deliver.
Well, if you were being honest, then your campaign speeches must have consisted of 30 minutes of silence...as you could not really deliver anything but a sympathetic ear.
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As I already pointed out the need for revolution was my top priority, hence the call for a 'Mass Workers Party' to overthrow Capitalism!!
How will the MWP "overthrow capitalism"?
Your candidacy implies your answer...through bourgeois "elections".
You can say otherwise all you want...but people watch what you do and judge accordingly.
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A mass workers party with the sole purpose of overthrowing capitalism will become corrupt?
It's happened so many times that even a list would make for a very long post.
And it's not your "sole purpose" anyway. Remember, you want to begin "overthrowing capitalism" by stopping service cuts and rate hikes.
But you can't even do that!
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Well...we are reaching out to the working class and trade unions everyday, joining their struggles and stressing the need for a revolution.
So if you're doing those good things, why do you want a government job?
You know what would happen if your "MWP" managed to achieve a modicum of electoral success? A member of your party -- a judge, no less -- would issue a court injunction ordering striking workers back to work. A government body controlled by your "MWP" would denounce workers for "unrealistic demands" and "lack of productivity".
And sooner or later, a police force would be ordered by your "MWP" to shoot down rebellious workers in the streets...an order that they would carry out with their usual enthusiasm.
That's where "running for office" gets you...if you "win".
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Even if they are working class? Fighting against Capitalism? Calling for a mass working class movement (party)?
Afraid so. Bourgeois "elections" are corrupting in and of themselves...they are designed to work in that fashion.
It does not matter what you say you are for...if you are serious about winning them, then you must "get dirty".
If you are not serious about winning them, then you are just dicking people around.
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And something members of our party do everyday!!
In their spare time between election campaigns, no doubt.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 14, 2004
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This is why I think we need something applicable for here and now.
Well, I suppose you could take a look at what the American Green Party has been able to accomplish; they have won some local offices in California and (I think) a few other states.
They haven't done anything to speak of. I don't expect they ever will.
(In California, there's a ballot proposition expected to pass that will make it impossible for the Greens and other small parties to run state-wide candidates for public office at all...another little "refinement" of bourgeois "democracy".)
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I think it's possible, but it means that kids have to take a look at that history, and they have to take a look at it from an independent or at least equally biased in the opposite direction point of view. This type of learning is not the type of learning we're brought up on, and I'm not sure what there is that guarantees we as a current communist generation will "teach" any more than we currently have. In short, what guarantee is there that the numbers can even grow through such means? It just seems like we are replacing one generation with an equally sizable generation, maybe even smaller when you judge for overall population increase.
Certainly there are no "guarantees"...all we can do is try and see how it goes.
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Why not try to create a more modern example?
Because "modern examples" are quite sparse...most sensible people have given up on the idea.
By your logic, it would take some massive wins by "progressives" to create a modern demonstration of 1914...but since then (and through all the intervening years) not enough people have even wanted to try.
For good reason.
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This argument that no one can stand up to the bourgeoisie bribes is frankly getting a little old, and is beyond difficult to back up. There are some people who they will HAVE TO use other means on.
Indeed...but those people are found outside the area of electoral politics. When people directly resist capitalist despotism, then the mask comes off and capitalism reveals its real nature...a dictatorship.
But when people are still willing to play their game on their turf by their rules...then "appearances" can be "kept up".
And even the most fiery "progressive" can be brought "on board".
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Elections at the most... this makes no argument whether or not such people still support the rest of bourgeoisie politics.
I agree; as I noted, they "support the empire"...as long as it keeps winning.
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This is why some people fight for election reform as a major issue, because they think that's one of the FEW problems wrong with the system. It's a flaw, but hardly it's biggest, and it CAN be overcome.
No it can't. "Election reforms" are just like the "reforms" periodically enacted by the Securities & Exchange Commission...the game of fleecing the suckers continues.
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Then you and I have a very different idea of what is corrupt. I don't consider naive idealism corruption, nor do I think anyone should.
They don't stay "naively idealistic" very long.
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People want reform for the same reason people want revolution, they believe it can change things.
I think that's too simplistic. It's the kinds of changes that people want that are significant.
Professional reformists want "capitalism with a human face". As I've argued elsewhere, there are economic reasons why I think that is no longer possible.
Revolutionaries want an end to wage-slavery...something altogether different and even frightening to the reformist.
What role is there for a "kind and generous master" in a world without masters?
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Something I don't think anyone can believe in if they already believe reform CAN do the same if it's done right.
That's all the more reason why the harshest possible criticism of reformism is required.
People who begin to travel the reformist road must be "turned back" as quickly as possible...before they burn out or become corrupted.
And all we have are words...so they had better be good ones.
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I don't see how it's so impossible for someone to believe wholeheartedly that reform can work, particularly when a huge majority of Americans believe in the exact same thing.
The "huge majority of Americans" are rarely privy to how the ruling class makes decisions; Nader knows.
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We know because they hold signs up that say "stop the war in Iraq" and not "Stop capitalist pseudo-democracy."
Do you know where the signs at "big" demonstrations come from? They are created by the professional reformists that organize these demonstrations and printed in massive numbers.
They don't necessarily reflect the full spectrum of views of the participants.
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I can say with confidence that I don't think they're using such explicit attacks because that's not what they're attacking, nor do they see a need to attack it because the majority of them still think it to be possible to achieve change through it.
Well, right or wrong, I wish I had your confidence. But if you believe as you say, then their signs would have had Kerry's mug on them.
They didn't.
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What you propose seems to be more of the same which doesn't appear to have done much to help that general consensus.
More of the same what? I actually do propose that we should start explicitly attacking fake "elections".
Maybe it's "too soon" for that to happen yet...but I think it must happen before any real progress is made.
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Literally speaking to prove it to the rest of the American people who don't already believe it.
Eventually, I think reformism will "kill its own credibility" through persistent failure...if that hasn't largely already happened.
For revolutionaries, the problem is that reformism still attracts far too many people who are predisposed to political activity...and who get burned out by trying to "make reformism work".
These people "ought" to be becoming revolutionaries...and we need to reach far more of them than we are.
It's a tough job...but it can't be made any "easier" by encouraging them in their folly.
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If anything I may revive some. At the worst I can only end up burning out those who have already been burned out.
I doubt that you will "revive" many...they've already been through the experience that you propose to offer them.
No, the danger of your strategy is that you will burn out the new ones...the "naive and idealistic".
Instead of warning them off their proposed folly, you will encourage it.
With the predictable consequences.
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I can promote alternative means of struggle from the start, I can do so by addressing those who are already willing to listen to me on that issue.
Well, you wouldn't be the first to "talk out of alternate sides of your mouth" to different audiences.
But, you know, that doesn't really work. The "wrong audience" will inevitably hear the "wrong message".
And after a while, people won't trust anything you say.
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Do you believe others aren't ready for revolution because they still believe in reform? To those people you talk about the possibility of revolution as an alternative to reform.
This is inconsistent with the general tone of your posts in this thread. If you're going to encourage people to "have the reformist experience" so they'll "see for themselves" that it's "unsatisfactory"...then you can't very well "mix in" stuff about revolutionary alternatives...it doesn't "fit" and undermines your objective.
When you send a mixed message, people don't just pick out the parts intended "for them" and ignore the rest...they see the whole thing and usually conclude that you are either confused or dishonest or both.
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Have you never dared someone to do something just to prove to them that they would or could not?
Not since I was ten.
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I'm not telling them that change is possible through voting progressive, I'm telling them that change isn't possible through voting PERIOD. "So why are you telling me to vote?" they may ask... and I can very frankly reply "because not all people are able to see that yet and this is the only way I believe we can make it visible to them."
Sending them off, scratching their heads, and pondering the deep subtlety of your strategy, no doubt.
Perhaps I lack the "Machiavelli gene" but I prefer a more straightforward approach.
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This is why I argue that it must be done indefinitely, until ENOUGH people have given up on patches.
Whew!
Frankly, I think that sounds like such a demoralizing strategy for the people who actually have to implement it...that it simply won't happen.
A consistent opposition to reformism may have very limited appeal at the present time...but what you are proposing will not, in my opinion, appeal to anyone, reformist or revolutionary.
Reformists don't need your strategy...they can be reformists without reservations already. And revolutionaries would find your strategy infinitely depressing...even if it met with limited success.
So give it a try if you feel you must...but I don't think it will ever get off the ground.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 14, 2004
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quote:
We've been seeing how it goes. In case you haven't noticed it goes nowhere. Take the Trotskyist's post where he says he doesn't want to be another "nut in the high street who hates Blair, war, etc., and is trying to flog them a paper about my 'nutty, commie, Red' ideas."
Whether you care to believe it or not, this is how we are seen with all current approaches.
I am quite sympathetic to his lament about "flogging tabloids in the street". It's always been my view that if you produce a revolutionary newspaper, you should use newspaper vending machines to distribute it.
Or mass mailings of sample copies to residents in working class neighborhoods.
Or even leave copies in the employee cafeteria.
As to being "seen" as "nuts"...well, sure. What approach could possibly avoid that "impression" in the present period?"
A "revolutionary" running for public office certainly looks just as nutty...and confused/dishonest to boot.
Are there any ways to advocate revolution and communism during a reactionary period that "don't" look "nutty"?
Based on past experience, there will come a time when those ideas don't look so "nutty".
At least that's what's always happened in the past.
I see no reason to assume that it won't happen again.
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That doesn't mean that 3rd parties can't open eyes to the fact that we're in what you concede is a dictatorship.
You don't need "3rd parties" to demonstrate that fact. In the U.S. today, well more than 90% of all incumbents are re-elected with regularity.
But what actually reveals the nature of the bourgeois dictatorship is its responses to resistance (e.g., the "Miami model").
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Compare the amount of socially aware people in the early 1900s to the amount today.
Well, the early 1900s was a period of resistance as well as reformism, the IWW being the outstanding example.
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There's simply not enough people who see a need to resist [capitalism]...
At the present time. That will not always be the case...especially if revolutionaries are busy encouraging it and, where possible, participating in it.
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...the bourgeoisie will continue to make social compromise to "calm" these types of people when their majority attempt to oppose it; sadly that is all some of them need to feel the government is still on their side.
Will the government "inevitably get away" with this response? Will it even always be capable of this response?
I do not think so.
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Even still, those who do resist and unmask capitalism only do so for themselves, all others hear their word as little more than "nutty communism."
We can never know when some seemingly "trivial" form of resistance will "strike a chord" and explode into a massive uprising.
Four "nutty" black kids enter a whites-only restaurant and refuse to leave...pretty trivial, eh?
A handful of intellectual "nuts" hand out some leaflets in a working class university on the outskirts of Paris...
A group of "nutty" women in Petrograd waiting in line to buy bread get spontaneously pissed off...
We never know.
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I suspect you know this from your first hand experience with it.... that's the only way I think you'd be able to be so sure of it.
Good guess. When I was young, I spent several months working on the Kennedy campaign...and saw a little something of bourgeois politics "close up". Naturally I was much too junior a figure to actually see the money; but I noticed quickly the attitudes of the "professionals"...the cynicism, the manipulative approaches, etc.
That cured me.
Perhaps you think this example validates your argument; if personal experience worked for me, why not for everyone?
Well, no. You see, I had a friend who went through that experience with me...and it didn't "cure" him, it sucked him right in! He adapted to that atmosphere and went on to become a minor-league reformist in his own right (in West Virginia).
A damn shame! And one that is as common as dirt.
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It continues to amaze me that communists will play the corruption card for the leftist of the left candidates yet will deny it to their death when the capitalists say that the corruption and greed of people would lead just the same to the destruction of any attempt to get to communism.
You are too easily "amazed".
Think about it. As one California politician put it: "Money is the mother's milk of politics."
Bourgeois electoral politics is about who gets the money. Those who already have a lot will get even more; those who don't will be squeezed out...unless they sign on with those who already have.
In bourgeois politics, money is like a "gravitational field"...its effects are felt across the whole political spectrum. Any serious campaign for public office is subject to that "pull"...and the more serious the attempt to actually win, the greater that pull is.
I don't know if a study has ever been done to establish the correlation between winning electoral campaigns and money spent thereon, but I expect it's very high...probably between 0.8 and 0.9 (a correlation of 1.0 is "perfect" -- the candidate that spends the most always wins).
Of course most "left" or "progressive" campaigns are not serious; they are "symbolic gestures" of self-flattery (Nader) or "platforms of legitimacy" (the Trotskyist).
In bourgeois politics, if you don't have serious money behind you, then you're not serious, period.
But if you go out and get that serious money, then you must become just another corrupt bastard.
Q.E.D.
This has no relation to communist society, of course...where very different standards would apply.
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You effectively say that no reformist can be for the end of wage-slavery, and that all those for an end to wage-slavery are not reformist and are furthermore alienated from reformists. I just don't assume that the entire lot of leftists is that black and white.
Well, someone like the Trotskyist and his party can say they are "for" the end of wage-slavery...but their practice of running for bourgeois public office demonstrates otherwise. Do they think that if their party had a majority in parliament, that they could abolish wage-slavery? They'd answer: no, of course not.
Then why do they want those seats?
Because at heart they're reformists, that's why. They have no real intention of abolishing wage-slavery at all. If they were ever successful, they would probably end up resembling the British "Labour" Party c.1950...if even that "progressive".
So yes, I do think it's pretty "black and white". Anyone who says they're "for" an end to wage-slavery but behaves as if capitalist institutions are "legitimate" is just blowing smoke.
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Before Nader was "corrupt", he didn't know how the system worked. Upon figuring out how the system worked he either had to become a revolutionary or corrupt? You're either against the system or corrupted by it... right?
Right!
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Strange that these people who supposedly oppose the capitalist despotism and fail to believe that reform can change it would organize under professional reformists.
Again, who's got the money? Big formal demonstrations don't come cheap.
There were many informal acts of resistance in New York City during the RNC...and people carried no signs at all.
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More of the same handing out pamphlets, soapbox rants, and general propaganda that is more often than not dismissed once again as "nutty communism."...but this brings up my famous oxymoron, "passive revolutionary," once again. We can always wait until it "kills its own credibility" and we can always wait until capitalism "collapses into inevitable revolution." How long should we wait? A decade... a century... a millennium?
This is an interesting equation that you propose:
1. Propaganda for revolution and communism is "nutty".
2. And it's also "passive".
3. Therefore, we should be involved in reformist electoral politics...supporting their campaigns, telling people to vote for them, etc.
4. And someday people will finally learn that reformism doesn't work. How long? A decade? A century? A millennium?
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I'm not encouraging people to have a reformist experience, I'm encouraging people to vote for reformists so that we can prove to those very same reformists that it doesn't work.
If we already know that reformism doesn't work, why can't we simply tell them?
If they are so thick-headed that words are "not enough", then they'll do it anyway and learn from personal experience.
But what is gained by telling people to do something stupid when you know that it's stupid?
If you knew that a certain restaurant served really lousy food, would you tell people to "go there and see for yourself how bad it is" in the belief that when enough people had eaten there and knew first-hand how bad it really was...everybody would finally stop going there and the restaurant would have to close?
Wouldn't you just tell people "hey, don't go there, it sucks!"?
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Sure I can *tell* people [reformism] doesn't work, but it's me against 1,000 bourgeois influences telling them the exact opposite and that's assuming people have an open mind to begin with; for most I will still be a "nutty communist."
You seem somewhat obsessed with the fact that communism is an unpopular idea these days.
Do you want to be popular? Join the Democrats or the Republicans.
Popularity is easy!
I've always wanted to tell people the truth...and hence I've never been very popular.
That's never bothered me. Why does it bother you?
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Which may very well work, if human beings were that straightforward.
Well, aren't they? Or must they be "cleverly" manipulated into seeing their own best interests?
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It may also have very limited appeal until the end of time.... what good is this appeal if with the impending collapse of capitalism the world is driven to a war to end all wars?
I'm not responsible for "the end of the world"...if humans are so stupid as to do that, then so be it.
One cannot "plan" for catastrophe because by its very nature it overwhelms all possible "plans".
So I don't bother.
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...but if it is indeed the nature of the bourgeoisie to use working class people to fight their wars, then it is our revolutionaries who would die in the bourgeoisie's internal struggles before they ever die in the struggle against the bourgeoisie.
Revolutionaries would not fight in the bourgeoisie's wars and we'd tell people not to do it.
Whether they would listen to us or not is completely unpredictable.
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Might I ask what makes it the revolutionary's concern that revolution be brought about in a certain way and a certain way alone?
It's not so much a conviction that there's "only one road" to revolution as it is a conviction that certain roads will never lead to revolution.
Mucking about with the reformists, bourgeois "elections", etc. is something that's been historically demonstrated as hopeless.
Therefore we have the obligation as revolutionaries to tell our class in forceful terms: DON'T DO THAT!
And hope they listen.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 15, 2004
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Firstly, your knowledge of British politics is crap.
I think every U.K. Trotskyist on this board has made that assertion at one time or another...in spite of all my efforts to avoid any commentary on the specifics of your political situation there.
I'm well aware that "I don't know crap" about, for example, exactly how power is divided between local, regional, and national political bodies...I don't even know what the public office that you ran for does.
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Secondly, your knowledge of our party and its intentions is even worse.
Guilty, "your Lordship" (do people still say that there?).
Someone once posted here that there are 40 distinct Leninist groups in the U.K. -- no one but the most driven antiquarian could possibly hope to keep track of their petty differences.
What I do know is something of the nature of bourgeois politics itself...some general things that apply in all advanced capitalist countries.
1. No genuinely revolutionary group will ever be permitted to win more than token representation in a bourgeois parliament.
2. The main obstacle to such representation is financial; no genuinely revolutionary group can accumulate the resources to run a winning campaign without becoming corrupted in the process.
3. Symbolic campaigns -- those with no chance of winning -- are permitted (sometimes) because they teach futility. They show that anyone who offers any alternative worth speaking of has no chance of winning.
4. Such campaigns also confirm the "legitimacy" of existing bourgeois practices and institutions; "the reason the real alternatives always lose is that no one supports them".
5. Thus all "left" parties that are serious about electoral politics must be reformist and must, in seeking victory at the polls, become corrupted in the process. Even their reformism gets weaker with every campaign.
That's how bourgeois "democracy" has been designed to work...and it works superbly. It keeps the "proles" in order with a minimal use of violence.
When self-styled "revolutionary parties" take part in this charade, they only serve to increase its effectiveness.
You see, I don't have to "know the details" of British politics or of your particular Trotskyist party to say these things. They are true in every advanced capitalist "democracy" and true of every so-called "revolutionary" party that wallows in that muck.
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I use it as a platform; at least then people may listen to me...
Just as I said...you think that being a "candidate for office" confers some kind of special "legitimacy" to your ideas. People would shun you as an individual "nutter" but are "willing to listen" when you put on your "candidate's robes".
But if they are "willing to listen" to you only if you're a candidate for office, then what does that imply?
Doesn't it mean that, in the eyes of the "listeners", that bourgeois "democracy" is itself legitimate?
And what are you doing but confirming that erroneous opinion?
Not necessarily by what you say but by what you are visibly doing.
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In Liverpool in the 80's, the 47 (most of them Socialist) councilors managed to get 65 million pounds [of] extra funding from the tight claw of Thatcher. You're right, we didn't make a difference.
I'm right, you didn't. 65 million pounds? That sounds like a lot of money to you or me...as a percentage of total U.K. public spending in that period, it didn't amount to a bucket of warm spit.
In fact, your statement sounds remarkably "American". One of the main jobs of local politicians in the U.S. is to try and pry loose some extra federal funding for local projects of one sort or another.
When successful, the signs go up: "Your Tax Dollars at Work, blah, blah, blah, the Hon. Thomas A. Turd, Mayor".
This is your party's idea of "stressing the need for revolution"? *laughs*
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At what point did I say that? Go on show me where I said that?
You said it here...
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... they should vote for me...because ...I could aid the people to get the things they need and encourage the people to fight against cuts in local services and fight against local tax (Council tax) rises.
I know, you said a whole lot of other stuff as well...solemnly reciting the entire Trotskyist catechism, no doubt.
But let's not kid ourselves...your only chance for a "decent showing" was a heavy emphasis on local concerns.
And since you did gather 16% of the vote, I presume you did exactly that.
Revolution had nothing to do with it.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 15, 2004
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And people are supposed to see this as a dictatorship, HOW? when it is the case that they are "re-elected."
People did not seem to have much difficulty in seeing the USSR, etc. as "dictatorships" when the incumbents in those countries always ran unopposed and were always "re-elected".
The House of Representatives is our most "democratic" national body; but decades of redistricting have created a situation in which even a candidate of the opposing major party has almost no chance to win...effectively, most of the congressional districts in the U.S. are "one-party" districts.
In the House elections of 2000, exactly four of the 435 incumbents were not re-elected.
I think this is a point we can easily raise and document as part of our attack on bourgeois "democracy".
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So it's IMPOSSIBLE that the reformism [in the early 1900s] had anything to do with raising the awareness so that others would be willing to resist?
"Anything" is "possible"...but I doubt if the IWW's class war approach had much appeal to the "progressives" that era or vice versa.
I'm not aware that there were any significant number of "progressives" in that period who concluded that "reformism doesn't work" and switched to the IWW.
In fact, one of the characteristics of that era was that the case for reformism was quite strong...as was the case for participation in bourgeois "elections".
"Progressives" and even "socialists" did sometimes win elections and even when they lost, the Democrats and sometimes even the Republicans would enact significant reform legislation.
When capitalism was young and vigorous, there was "room" for reform.
It's my opinion that the "era of reform" in the U.S. came to an end by 1970 or so...and it won't be returning. (As a rough guess, the end came sometime in the early 1980s for the U.K.)
America in the 21st century will look a great deal more like America in the 19th century than like the 20th. The capitalist class will wage class war against the working class more and more relentlessly...and things are going to get a lot worse here before they get any better.
And reformism will simply look more and more pathetic.
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...but I do believe it will attempt (and possibly succeed) at ending human existence before it has lost that argument completely.
If you are truly consistent with this argument, then you should be saying "we should support reformism to stave off the final catastrophe".
Because if the bourgeoisie are willing to drive the human species to extinction rather than give up their power, then proletarian revolution is impossible.
And we shouldn't even bother trying.
That's why I summarily dismiss "end-of-the-world" scenarios...from a revolutionary standpoint, they are all literally "dead-ends".
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The second one is so vague that it doesn't even imply a certain point in history.
The "nutty kids" were situationists and the university was called, I believe, Nantes (or something like that). They succeeded in arousing the students to occupy the place in March...leading, two eventful months later, to the French general strike of May 1968.
We never know what "trivial act" by "commie nuts" or even just ordinary non-ideological people will "set things off".
But we know that no election campaign will ever do it.
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I believe I said PROGRESSIVE candidates.
Picky. In those days, Kennedy was widely regarded as the "progressive" Democrat (his opponent was, if you remember, one Richard M. Nixon). Of course, Adlai Stevenson was the sentimental favorite of the "old progressives"...but he'd already run twice and been defeated by Eisenhower both times.
Are there any prominent Democrats today who are as "progressive" as Kennedy was? I can't think of any.
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I'm not recommending that people even get as close up and personal with reform as you did... I'm simply recommending they prove to themselves that it cannot work, this doesn't require them to help out a campaign other than a single vote.
Now you have confused me. If "all" you want revolutionaries to do is take ten minutes to vote for a reformist...that's very much less than you appeared to be advocating earlier -- active and public support of reformism "in order" to expose its failings.
As far as the physical act of voting goes, I think it's like masturbation -- if one must do it, one should do it privately and wash one's hands afterwards.
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You make no account of the naive people who think that if they had a majority they COULD abolish wage-slavery.
All I can do is tell them the truth in the most convincing way I can...but I can't "make" them listen to reason.
As the old bourgeois revolutionary once said: "Experience is a hard school, but a fool will have no other."
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And for some (I would argue many), they will not be shown that a majority cannot change it until they have the majority and still can't change it.
I trust that most people, in the long run, will not be fools.
But...I could be wrong.
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It costs about $2.50 for someone to make a sign that expresses a truly revolutionary ideology -- there's no excuse for them not to have such a sign other than they don't truly believe what you assume them to believe.
No, they have a very good "excuse"...they believe that the direct act is better propaganda for their views than a sign.
One might argue with them about that, depending on the circumstances. (One activist complained on the NYC Indymedia site that all the written propaganda came from reformists or Leninist sects...even though anarchists were actually doing most of the activity.)
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What is passive is believing that it doesn't really matter if only 1 out of 100 people reads your propaganda because in the end those 100 people will see the light anyway with the eventual collapse of capitalism.
Is this an argument for more propaganda or better propaganda?
I'd "like" every single person who reads a communist leaflet to immediately begin resisting capitalist despotism right away!
But I don't "expect" that to happen...is that "passive"?
quote:
Who is it exactly that witnesses your defiance to this system and says "Oh, he's right... I shouldn't vote either."
The person who reads a leaflet, a newspaper article, a web posting...or even sees a demonstration that directly attacks capitalist "elections", of course.
I'm not advocating "private abstention" but a direct public attack on the whole farce.
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However long it may be, it will be far less time than what our current methods offer.
Come on...you're speculating just as I am.
quote:
Once again, they will argue the reformer, not reform itself.
Well, for what it's worth, I agree with you here...reformists often do explain away their failures with the excuse of "personal villainy" (Leninists like that excuse a lot too).
Let's face it, there are going to be people still advocating reformism at the very moment that 50 million people are filling the streets, calling for the heads of the ruling class.
Not much we can do about that.
quote:
It bothers me because unlike other things, political ideologies succeed when they are popular. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of people with revolutionary thought is not going to succeed because they have "truth" on their side. Especially if people don't believe it's the truth.
Well, looking over the broad sweep of human history, does "truth" win out over falsehood in the long run?
I would say it does...but others do feel differently on that score.
So we'll see.
quote:
When someone else is cleverly manipulating them into supporting something not in their own best interests, I would say yes, they must be cleverly manipulated into supporting something in their own best interest...
I disagree completely with this approach.
Why? Because it won't work for us.
In fact, I think that absolute honesty ("warts and all") is the only thing we have to distinguish what we say from all the bourgeois hype...the only thing that will make people actively seek out our views.
20th century Leninist parties in the "west" developed an infamous reputation for lying and manipulation...something which we must avoid like the plague if we are to do well in this century.
In addition to which, of course, is the fact that the bourgeoisie are expert at lying and manipulation...the 20th century Leninists were bumbling amateurs by comparison and we would be even more inept.
As with bourgeois "elections", there's no way we can successfully play their game on their turf by their rules.
Revolutionaries have to be different...in every way.
quote:
I also believe our current methods have "been historically demonstrated as hopeless." Something which apparently you do not.
No, I don't. On rare occasions, even the 20th century Leninists were able to encourage significant resistance to capitalist despotism in the "west"...and I see no reason why we can't learn from the "good stuff" while rejecting the "bad stuff".
When revolutionaries are a tiny minority of the population, vigorous propaganda for revolution may well be "all" that is possible.
Later (and no, I don't know "how much later"), other things become possible.
History does not take place "at our convenience".
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 16, 2004
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quote:
In short, what I'm saying to you is that had it not been for me seeing directly the failure of electoral politics, I'd not be here. I think it's safe to say that many of us are the same way, you included, who concedes that your personal experience with reform soured its taste for you. In fact, I think it would be interesting to look at how many of us who actually consider ourselves supporters of revolution are here because someone handed us a leaflet and how many of us are here because we've seen first hand the failure of reform. If it is indeed the case that the majority of us are here because we've watched reform fail, why SHOULDN'T we promote that kind of "enlightenment" for others? Why should we just abandon using the tool that turned our heads the other way?
A good summary of the disagreement.
The reason I think that revolutionaries should not "promote" what brought us here is that there are others out there who already promote it...namely reformists.
Our "assistance" is unnecessary.
Beyond this, of course, is the fact that reformism is an "inefficient" way of developing revolutionaries...for every individual revolutionary it produces, it produces hundreds and perhaps thousands of burned-out wrecks as well as adding to the supply of cynical, manipulative, and corrupt professional reformists.
I think, perhaps misguidedly, that we "ought" to be able to do better than that. We should be able to show people in words the impotence/corruption of reformism "with a minimum of fuss"...so they will not waste years or decades in hopeless "activity".
Another way to frame this disagreement: is it "inevitable" (or highly probable) that people "must" pass through a "reformist phase" before they can become revolutionaries?
And if so, what's the best way to get them "through it" as quickly as possible (with minimal damage to their integrity)?
Should we acquiesce to their folly? Encourage it? Participate in it ourselves?
Or should we simply tell them, over and over again, that it's folly...and wait (that "terrible" word!) for our message to resonate with their own experiences.
Funny thing about my experience with reformism...after Kennedy was elected (and yes, I voted for him anyway), I felt I was in a kind of political "twilight zone" -- there didn't seem to be any form of politics that spoke to me.
However, when Kennedy later invaded Cuba, it hit me...American foreign policy is not "stupid", it's evil. I actually started looking for books about U.S. imperialism in the local library...and then discovered Marx, of course.
A good "leaflet" -- one that told me the truth -- could have saved me a couple of years.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 16, 2004
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quote:
My question to you would then be, what would make you accept that leaflet as truth? And why should others?
Well, as I noted earlier, what seems to be truth to us is that which "resonates" with our personal experiences and observations.
Most people don't have a coherent view of things at this point in history...and most of those who do, have one that is simply wrong (bourgeois).
So, at least when we are young, we have a "mix" of semi-coherent views, intimations, limited observations and experiences, etc.
A "good leaflet" is one that "makes sense" of all that mixed-up stuff; when you read it, you say to yourself "of course! I knew that!".
In fairness, most "communist propaganda" these days does not measure up to that standard. That's probably because much of it is produced by Leninist sects, written in "Comintern-speak" (that turgid language that Leninists adopted after Lenin died).
Also, the heart of the Leninist appeal is not that different from the appeal of any bourgeois political group: "don't follow other leaders, follow us!"
Hardly a message to inspire confidence.
(Note that the general purpose of Leninist writings addressed to the working class is to recruit the "most advanced elements" into the "revolutionary" party -- hence the insistence on "traditional terminology".)
As difficult as it may seem, I think we need to learn the language that ordinary working people speak -- one that essentially has no "specialized terminology".
I think that should be the language we use to convey the message of proletarian revolution and communism to the working class.
Also, there is the matter of "tone" (for want of a better word) -- our messages must be clearly rebellious in tone. Anger and sarcastic humor are appropriate...scholarly detachment and the pretense of "objectivity" are not.
We want to not only explain things to people, we want to piss them off at the ruling class. We are indeed "rabble rousers" and we want to rouse them to open rebellion.
If we don't have that objective, then we may just as well find a small university and become "professors of Marxism".
But if we do have resistance leading to revolution as our objective, then what we say to people has to reflect that.
And it has to be in language that can be understood.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 17, 2004
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