A Critique of Post-Structuralism’s Rejection of “Grand Narratives” and The Need For A “Post-Post-Structuralism”

September 18, 2018

The rejection of “grand narratives” by post-structuralism is no different from Marx’s conclusion that religion would simply no longer exist in a truly free, or classless society. The post-structuralist critique of ideology, like Marx’s critique of religion, is by and large rooted in social reality. But the post-structuralists fail to understand that rejecting all “grand narratives” manifests itself as the biggest grand narrative of all. In attempting to transcend what their critique of society has found, the post-structuralists embrace it in it’s most toxic form. The rejection of ideology is not at all a negation of ideology but on the contrary, it is one of the most toxic forms of ideology in the present society. Like the Stalinist distortion of Marxism, that which is generally correct and emancipatory has been converted into that which is dogmatic, oppressive, and vile. The statue of dead Lenin under Stalinism beats the oppressed worker with the works of Karl Marx just as the early bourgeois conception of Christ beats the rebellious slave with the crucifix.

The real critique here is merely of the “completeness” or the ideological “full circle” of ideological structures and grand narratives, including the “completeness” in the logic of post-structuralism itself. The post-structuralists are correct in their initial critique of ideology, in the application of structural linguistics to society at large and their skepticism towards the alleged objectivity of phenomenology. But to take it to faithfully to its “logical” conclusion brings with it certain dangers that are present in nearly every “correct” ideological school of thought, dangers the post-structuralists themselves know all too well. This is where all ideological systems have a tendency to go from that which is correct, to that which is wrong or at worse, oppressive. Reason itself is the cantor of the rhythm of any correct ideological school of thought. But the subjectivity of experience itself can cause the cantor to turn into an uncompromising fanatic under the illusion of correctness or objectivity. What is needed therefore, is not an abandonment or a rejection of post-structuralism, but a post-post-structuralism that dialectically transcends the initial application of structural linguistics onto society itself. And I am by no means qualified to carry out such a monumental task in modern philosophy. But I can give some initial impressions as to the attitude of such a philosophical system. The basic idea is that ideological schools can bring a people only halfway, even “revolutionary” philosophical outlooks such as post-structuralism. Real praxis then, starts with ideological critique and ends in action, and “logical conclusions” thus, must be based on actual experience rather than concretely on theoretical leaps of logic. But awareness of the shortcomings of ideology naturally should lead one to not take their ideological beliefs too seriously. They should embrace reason and reject fundamentalism whether religious or political. The awareness of the subjectivity of phenomenology does not itself constitute the rejection of “grand narratives”, but on the contrary, it merely demands humbleness of the followers of this or that world outlook. The rejection of “grand narratives” leads politically to stagnation and conservatism. In our world, nothing is needed more than a “grand narrative”. If humanity stops now, the consequences will be catastrophic. Every follower of this or that belief should be completely willing to abandon their views if they are confronted with evidence that demand such an abandonment. Even if one dedicates their whole life to this or that view, they should happily and enthusiastically celebrate the logical destruction of their world outlook, and be grateful to that which is responsible. Like a scientific theory, one’s view can be based largely on what seems to be objective truth, but like a scientific theory, this or that viewpoint can and should be abandoned when new evidence comes to light that fundamentally challenged said theory.

In a word, what for lack of a better word I call ‘post-post-structuralism’, should demand ideological agnosticism. But what do I mean by this? I do not mean agnosticism in the traditional sense of the word (neutrality). A Christian Agnostic for instance, may believe in the basic tenets of the Christian faith. When he dies he may believe he will go to heaven, but such a person does not purport to know that their religious world out-look is correct. Nothing is more arrogant, when faced with the subjectivity of existence and the limitations of phenomenology, than to purport to know objective truth- even when ones views are based on reason and not faith alone. One should accept that in this or that ideology which is based on reason, but the “complete” circular conclusions derived thereof should be viewed with agnosticism. This does not mean they do not believe in the conclusions their logical, political, or philosophical systems arrive at, but that they are agnostic towards them. Overall, the best judge of the benevolence or malevolence of this or that ideology is the actual effect it has on society. Human rights is an excellent example of this. No one is so stupid to believe in the objective existence of human rights. One can look at positive effect it has on society (yes, we have negative liberty in most of the developed world), and the negative (countless imperialist wars and interventions in the name of human rights under the cloak of benevolence). Monolithic ideological systems present in totalitarian political religions do not merely go full circle, they spiral. But in our present era, nothing is more dangerous or hypocritical than to reject “grand narratives” in the name of “rejecting ideology”.

I have tried to express my criticism here briefly, being only familiar with post-structuralism to a certain degree. I am by no means an expert on the matter and will happily accept criticism from readers.

WHY DO SOME PEOPLE SAY, “REAL SOCIALISM/ COMMUNISM HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED”? AND ARE THEY RIGHT?

September 9, 2018

A common argument made on the left is the allegation that real socialism has never been tried. This has, naturally, caught the attention of many right wing bloggers, memers, and think tanks who make fun of such a notion. But the question itself is a valid one, and one worth exploring by anyone who claims to be intellectually honest.

What even is Socialism? What is Communism?

There are no words more commonly misunderstood today than the words socialism and communism. Socialism is, admittedly, an umbrella term. For instance, Hitler’s use of the term ‘socialism’ is radically different from, say, Lenin’s or Rosa Luxemburg’s use of the term. But when referring to economic systems, such as capitalism, feudalism, or socialism, we are generally referring to the Marxist definition of the term socialism. Of course, there is an extremely common, yet incorrect view that the word socialism means government ownership and control over the economy. But as we shall see, the term socialism in and of itself has nothing to do with the government.

So what is the Marxist or economic definition of socialism? It’s actually quite simple. It means: “an economic system characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production (meaning industry, workplaces, enterprises, factories, etc.)” Here is a list of 9 sources, courtesy of Wikipedia, that validate this definition of the term. Such an economic system means, practically speaking that those who produce the wealth in an enterprise, have democratic control over where that wealth goes. Those who produce the all the wealth in society, own and control where all of that wealth goes and how it is used. There is no problem of “running out of other people’s money” as Margret Thatcher famously said, because socialism means social ownership of the means of producing wealth, the expropriation of the expropriators, not temporarily riding a ‘red wave’ off the hoarded wealth of the few. The popularity of this quote by Thatcher is but a testament to the crisis of ignorance and political illiteracy in our society today. Generally the philosophy of socialism, according to Lenin, is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their work“, meaning that workers are paid in proportion to their work. It is a pure myth that “everyone gets paid the same under socialism”, or even under communism. This can be distinguished from communism, which embodies the philosophy “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs“, and this typically refers to a stateless, classless, moneyless society, which is not the topic of this post. Socialism is the lowest stage of communism, it is the economic system of a society in transition to communism. The economic system itself implies democracy. The political system of socialism also implies democracy, but not in the bourgeois or capitalist sense of the word.

In a socialist society, political power rests in the hands of the workers, the proletariat, or what we would call “the 99%” in modern political discourse. This means political power is not subject almost exclusively to the will of wealthy corporate donors, super PACS, political philanthropists, and corporations- but rather to the free opinions of the people themselves. In essence it means divorcing money from politics entirely. Marx claimed that “the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy.” There is no such thing as a true “democracy for all”, for capitalist and worker at the same time. We see that in America this “democracy for all” turns in practice, into a dictatorship of the capitalist class, just as the early democracy of the early Greek Republics was a democracy and a dictatorship of the slave owners at the same time, as only the slave owners had any real power under such a system.

The verdict of history is quite clear- political democracy without industrial democracy amounts to virtual oligarchy in practice. A true “democracy for all” implies equal representation to all members of society without regard to personal wealth, meaning that the working class, the proletariat, or the 99%, would in effect hold all power over the capitalist minority- not through force of arms or political repression, but through the democratic system itself. In this sense, the “dictatorship of the capitalist class” is turned into a “dictatorship of the proletarian class”, just as the dictatorship of the ruling class in feudalism was turned into a dictatorship of the capitalist class in the 18th century, just as the dictatorship of the slave owners was turned into a democracy of the ruling class under feudalism before that. But once the proletariat has power for itself, once it democratizes the economy and society as a whole, class society itself disappears, as no distinction is left between those who own the means of production, and those who toil. This is only possible if the power held by the few is redistributed to the many, if the enterprise itself is democratized. Only in such a society can “we the people” refer to the people as they actually exist and not to meaningless abstractions. The form of democracy here is far more radical in scope than the democracy of our bourgeois society.

Were the USSR, China, North Korea, etc. ‘real socialism’? Were they Communist?

As for communism, no society in the 20th century ever called itself communist. Communism itself implies a stateless, classless, moneyless society- a society without private (not personal) property. The USSR stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR called itself socialist, not communist. Communism has existed historically, 9/10 of the existence of the human species was under what Marx called ‘primitive communism’. The communities built by the early Christian Apostles in the first century AD, as recorded in the Book of Acts, were ardently communistic, more so than the USSR or Karl Marx himself. Socialism, however, is a different question.

In the USSR, People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and other “people’s democracies” of the cold war, there can be little doubt that the means of production were socially owned. The form of ownership this took, most often, was in the form of state ownership. There are other forms of social ownership that would qualify for a socialist system including but not limited to employee ownership, cooperative ownership, citizen ownership of equity, common ownership, collective ownership, etc. State ownership can qualify as social ownership, so the “people’s democracies” clearly meet the first standard for what could be called socialist. However, socialism by its very nature implies democracy, democracy that is industrial as well as political, and moreover, democracy can only exist in a society that allows unlimited individual liberty.

As Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg said in 1918,

“…it is a well-known and indisputable fact that without a free and untrammeled press, without the unlimited right of association and assemblage, the rule of the broad masses of the people is entirely unthinkable…

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.

According to Rosa Luxemburg, no society without genuine democracy and unlimited political and personal freedom qualifies as a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, or a socialist society. This is fully in line with the basic principles of Marxism. Luxemburg not only understood this, but also prophetically foreshadowed the Stalinist despotism that would follow in the later 20th century and cold war:

“Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins! Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc.”

The principle of democracy is universal to socialism.

“Democracy is the road to socialism.” -Karl Marx

“Socialism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.” -Leon Trotsky

“There is no democracy without Socialism and No Socialism without Democracy” -Rosa Luxemburg

So, based on this definition, the question becomes a simple one. Were the “people’s democracies” of the 20th century (such as the USSR, China, North Korea, etc.) genuinely democratic? If you believe the USSR was an example of real socialism in practice, this implies, naturally, that you believe the USSR was a genuinely democratic economic and political system, as it claimed to be. If you say, “No, the USSR was a totalitarian dictatorship, not a genuine democracy”, then you are basically saying “the USSR wasn’t actually a socialist society”. Stalinism tries to justify itself ideologically by cherry picking from the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Even with this cherry picking, Stalinist society still calls itself a “free and democratic” society. If a Stalinist society openly admitted it was not democratic, it would not be able to call itself socialist. If a Stalinist society openly admitted it was not a free society, it would not be able to call itself socialist. Here we find one of the most sinister attributes of Stalinism. In 1989 one of the most common rallying cries of the German workers was “Freedom of the press!” This was a danger to the regime not because it was in principle opposed to a free press, but on the contrary, because “officially”, freedom of the press already existed. “Officially”, there was no press censorship at all. Article 9 of the constitution of the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR, or East Germany) blatantly stipulates, “There is no press censorship.” Needless to say, Rosa Luxemburg’s writings were censored in the GDR, in spite of Rosa’s face appearing on GDR currency, and in spite of GDR soldiers being sent to guard statues made to her by the GDR state.

This Stalinist formalism is the same defense North Korea uses to dodge criticism of its human rights abuses. A UN representative of the North Korean regime asked the United Nations “Have you read our constitution?” as a response to criticisms of its well-documented religious persecution. Of course, the North Korean constitution “officially” guarantees freedom of religion. It even goes further than this:

Article 66.

All citizens who have reached the age of 17 have the right to elect and to be elected, irrespective of sex, race, occupation, length of residence, property status, education, party affiliation, political views or religious belief. Citizens serving in the armed forces also have the right to elect and to be elected. A person who has been disenfranchised by a Court decision and a person legally certified insane do not have the right to elect or to be elected.

Article 67.

Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association. The State shall guarantee the conditions for the free activities of democratic political parties and social organizations.

Article 68.

Citizens have freedom of religious belief. This right is granted through the approval of the construction of religious buildings and the holding of religious ceremonies. Religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State or social order.

Article 69.

Citizens are entitled to submit complaints and petitions. The State shall investigate and deal with complaints and petitions impartially as stipulated by law.

Of course, anyone who used to live in North Korea will tell you these rights are not actually realized in any way whatsoever, because as Rosa Luxemburg correctly said, “freedom is always the freedom of the dissenters”. The same was no doubt the case in every other “socialist” country in the 20th century. If I was a citizen of North Korea who happened to be an anarchist running on a platform opposed to Kim Jong Un and the Workers Party of Korea in an election, I would no doubt be arrested, forcibly ‘reeducated’, or worse. Could I start a newspaper critical of the regime, calling for North Korea to open itself up to the world? Could I call for freedom of information and the introduction of the world wide web into North Korean society? As a free North Korean citizen, I’d imagine I’d have a lot to complain about, and the state has to, according to the constitution, give me not only the right to complain, but also the ability to create an organization of agitation, and the conditions for the free activities of my democratic political party or organization (i.e. the tools to print my newspaper and the ability to distribute it to the masses). Because if I don’t have that freedom, I certainly do not live in a genuinely democratic society, and I most certainly do not live in a socialist society. Not according to some abstract thinker or modern political hack, but according to the founding mothers and fathers of scientific socialism itself. This is why so many socialists today agitate saying these countries are not genuine expressions of socialism, because they are not genuinely free or democratic, even by bourgeois standards. This is why they call for socialism, this is why they condemn Stalinism and capitalism at the same time.

Rethinking Marxism In The 21st Century: Turning Marxism Back On It’s Head

August 22, 2018

In what way do I make the claim of “Rethinking Marxism”? I make the claim only in regards to trends within the socialist movement that have converted Marxism into a political religion. This conversion of Marxism into a political religion is artificial, itself a deviation from Marxist theory that paves the way forward for totalitarianism. My goal is to demonstrate exactly how such a conversion took place, and why it is contrary to Marxist principles and Marxist theory. In “Turning Marxism Back On It’s Head”, we mean to say that at a certain point on the mainstream of the radical left, Marxism was turned onto it’s head, marking it’s conversion into a political religion. Our goal is to reverse this, to turn it upside-down again in order to pave the way for genuine socialist democracy and the global emancipation of labor.

Marxism is Generally Correct

The Marxist analysis of the existing political, economic, and social order both now and historically, is generally correct. The problems historic Marxist movements have faced stem not only from the economic, political, and cultural backwardness and isolation of the nations in question, but from the abstracted nature of Marxism being taken too literally, too seriously, resulting in its conversion into a political religion. There is a great danger that comes with having so correct a world outlook, as certain “idealist” social myths are necessary for society to function. Moreover, the traditional application of Marxist theory onto a society is artificial, (i.e. not genuinely Marxist in application, but idealist in the worst sense of the word) and has thus often caused great social harm historically, even if these harms spring mainly from a totalitarian distortion of Marxist theory.

Is Marxism a Science? Is Communism a Historical Inevitability?

I look at Marxism like psychology. Is psychology a science? Yes. But it’s a science dealing with abstract analyses of concrete phenomena, it is not infallible, it should not be seen as a dogma or some political religion. Is there such thing as historical inevitability? To answer that you have to know whether or not free will exists and to what degree it expresses independence over concrete material conditions. I think to a certain extent there is historical inevitability, but I think at best we can say “this is likely where we are headed”. If true historical inevitability exists, not even dialectical materialism gives man the ability to truly understand what that inevitably actually is, at best we have hints or likely possibilities. To know true historical inevitability one must know all things. Is communism inevitable? No. But it is the likely outcome, in the long term, of a truly free and democratic society in the hands of the working class or majority- and it is something that should be fought for.

The Abstract Nature of the Marxist Method of Analysis

Marxism analyzes society, itself an abstraction (i.e. the sum of all hitherto existing interrelations between all individuals at large or by some category of differentiation). Its method of analysis is dialectical materialism. The conclusions it arrives at when capitalism is put under the microscope, show the likely historical necessity or “inevitability” of socialist revolution and the emancipation of labor. It’s method is scientific, but it is a scientific form of analysis in the sense that psychology is a science. Like psychology, it’s conclusions and formulas exist as an abstraction of that which is unabstracted, or real to the lives of working people. But its conclusions are very clear. What it advocates is democracy, there is no other way. At no point does Marxism advocate the pure application of some abstract theory (yes even that of Marxism itself) onto society. It sees the spontaneous action of the working class as something infinitely more valuable to the socialist movement than action based merely on some preconceived theory. Marxism demands that it’s own abstract analyses be unabstracted through the negative, spontaneous, direct, and democratic movement of the working class in it’s struggle for political power, and through that action alone, does it transform society. Not from the abstract to the concrete, but from the concrete to the abstract. Marxism is but a guide for the workers movement, it is not the engine of the workers movement itself.

Turning Marxism Back on Its Head; The Bolsheviks and The Paris Commune

As aforementioned, genuine socialist action tends to go not from abstract theory into concrete action, but from direct action into abstract theory. Not from the abstract to the concrete, but from the concrete to the abstract. In this we find true Praxis. “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory”, said Engels in this spirit. We shall go on further explaining this position. Rosa Luxemburg in her 1918 pamphlet ‘The Russian Revolution’, affirms this view:

“The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – not the case. Far from being a sum of ready-made prescriptions which have only to be applied, the practical realization of socialism as an economic, social and juridical system is something which lies completely hidden in the mists of the future. What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look for the necessary measures, and the indications are mainly negative in character at that. Thus we know more or less what we must eliminate at the outset in order to free the road for a socialist economy. But when it comes to the nature of the thousand concrete, practical measures, large and small, necessary to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relationships, there is no key in any socialist party program or textbook. That is not a shortcoming but rather the very thing that makes scientific socialism superior to the utopian varieties.

The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which – just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part – has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force – against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways. Only unobstructed, effervescing life falls into a thousand new forms and improvisations, brings to light creative new force, itself corrects all mistaken attempts. The public life of countries with limited freedom is so poverty-stricken, so miserable, so rigid, so unfruitful, precisely because, through the exclusion of democracy, it cuts off the living sources of all spiritual riches and progress. (Proof: the year 1905 and the months from February to October 1917.) There it was political in character; the same thing applies to economic and social life also. The whole mass of the people must take part in it. Otherwise, socialism will be decreed from behind a few official desks by a dozen intellectuals.”

(The Russian Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg).

The “ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice” here, refers to a political force which applies Marxist ideas in an abstracted form, onto a society, rather than a working class movement transforming society in a way that, once analyzed through Marxist methods, seems to conform with the generally predicted “historical inevitability” of the capitalist system. Was it (October) still “real” in spite of its abstracted form? Certainly, it had yet to degenerate into Stalinism and it was based to a large extent, on mass movements and genuine struggle. But it was not purely the result of a working class movement aspiring towards the domination of its class either. These peculiar conditions arise undoubtedly from Russia’s backwardness, and the immaturity of Russia’s working class’s class consciousness and the immaturity of the socialist movement itself (the necessity of a vanguard party, etc.) And for this, no one is to blame.

To better understand my point, it helps to look towards the Paris Commune, a movement that affirmed the revolutionary spontaneity of the masses. Here there was a working class movement, a democracy, that was “Marxist” through and through. Even Marx himself called the commune a dictatorship of the proletariat, and for this he was not wrong. Marx’s criticisms would have been priceless to the commune. Here, Marxist politics best find their expression; as the revolutionary vanguard and critical appraiser of the movement for the emancipation of labor, not as its artificial engine. Marxist politics here, are not forced onto the will of the people. They are accepted or rejected at the people’s will, on primarily an individual and not institutional basis. They exist not as a political dogma or a political religion, but as a guide for labor’s emancipation in the historical and democratic process itself. Hence, “What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look for the necessary measures, and the indications are mainly negative in character at that. Thus we know more or less what we must eliminate at the outset in order to free the road for a socialist economy. But when it comes to the nature of the thousand concrete, practical measures, large and small, necessary to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relationships, there is no key in any socialist party program or textbook. That is not a shortcoming but rather the very thing that makes scientific socialism superior to the utopian varieties.”

Stalinism as a Distortion of Marxist Theory, An Expression of “Upside-Down” Marxism

Historically “Marxism-Leninism”, or Stalinism, embodies a paradoxical analysis of Marxist theory. Upon closer examination, Stalinism is wrought with irreconcilable contradictions, contradictions that show Stalinism to be disingenuous, a system that betrays its own premises. The working class itself, when unabstracted from abstract political theory, consists of countless individuals. Under Stalinism, this class of individuals is said to hold and democratically control all state power. Yet at the same time, and in actuality, the individual is crushed under the despotism of the bureaucratic state, and is not actually free to voice their own opinions, political or otherwise, even by bourgeois standards. What we are referring to here is not a “dictatorship of the proletariat” at all, contrary to both the bourgeois and Stalinist assertions.

Stalinism has its origins in the difficult conditions of revolutionary Russia. For these conditions and the inevitable response derived thereof, no blame really lies on the shoulders of Lenin and Trotsky. To them, the emergency measures taken during the Civil War period were just that, emergency measures. In essence, they understood that their war-time actions were opposed to the principles of Bolshevism. Their continuation into the post-civil war period represents, therefore, a deviation from Bolshevism. The elimination of the original heads of all the communist parties of the world and the heads of their representatives in the Comintern by Stalin, and the execution and persecution of most of the original Bolshevik revolutionaries that fought by Lenin’s side in 1917, are but a testament to this fact.

Let us look again at ‘The Russian Revolution’. In it she writes, or perhaps prophesies is a better word, the following:

“When all this is eliminated, what really remains? In place of the representative bodies created by general, popular elections, Lenin and Trotsky have laid down the soviets as the only true representation of political life in the land as a whole, life in the soviets must also become more and more crippled. Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins (the postponement of the Soviet Congress from three-month periods to six-month periods!) Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc. (Lenin’s speech on discipline and corruption.)”

(Ibid.)

In a Stalinist society you have blatant and brutal press censorship, and a constitution that at the same time stipulates “There is no press censorship” (Article 9, Section 2 of the 1949 G.D.R. constitution) A Stalinist society exists as nothing more than a brutal caricature of a socialist society. It uses Marxist methods in a purely abstracted form, and justifies its abuses purely based on these abstractions. Pointing out the absence of human rights in a Stalinist nation would be responded to by a Stalinist with, “Be materialist”, implying the intrinsic non-existence of human rights. But not even the most liberal human rights activist believes human rights actually exist. It is hard to believe anyone is so stupid. Within the abstraction itself, the Stalinist society finds for itself perfection. Officially, the whole of society is turned into a “paradise on earth” even though in actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.

In a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat such as the Paris Commune, public discourse and democracy are the mainspring of civilization. In a Stalinist society, only the leader and the central committee have any real right to speak, and the bureaucracy ensures that dangerous leaders are removed from power when they get too carried away. Without agitation and freedom of dissent, the working class and popular masses within a society, even a so-called socialist one, can only find stagnation- the opposite of progress. The social conservatism of traditionally Stalinist states in comparison with the increasingly “liberalizing” west is evidence of this fact. The inevitable result, is that the society itself acts as a pressure cooker. It builds up enough steam until it explodes. The social contradictions and antagonisms brought about by this inherently “unfree” society, even by bourgeois standards, essentially means that Stalinism, like capitalism, produces it’s own gravediggers.

As Eugene V. Debs said,

“If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.”

Stalinism is to Marxism as Bonepartism is to Jacobinism- even if Marxism is light years superior, both ethically and politically, to Jacobinism.

Comparing The Experiences of The Commune, The Bolsheviks, and Stalinism; Where on Such a Spectrum Should 21st Century Socialism Lie?

The relationship between theory and action with workers states and self-proclainmed socialist movements can be placed onto a new kind of political spectrum if one so wishes. Stalinism exists on the opposite side of the spectrum to the Commune, for its actual historical expression was itself intrinsically opposed to the experience of the Commune.

If the Paris Commune is on the left (mainly action and genuine democracy), the Bolsheviks in the center (action based mainly on theory), and the Stalinists on the right (nearly all action based on theory to a paradoxical, hypocritical extent), 21th century socialism should aim for a position on this aforementioned spectrum of workers power, farther to the left than even the Paris Commune. In what way could it be further to the left? We shall demonstrate how in a moment.

Freedom, Democracy, Socialism

The Paris Commune had to utilize terror against the overthrown ruling class to secure its position. A modern socialist revolution in an advanced capitalist country today would not need to resort to such measures. It would have no use for them.

“During the bourgeois revolutions, bloodshed, terror, and political murder were an indispensable weapon in the hand of the rising classes.

The proletarian revolution requires no terror for its aims; it hates and despises killing. It does not need these weapons because it does not combat individuals but institutions, because it does not enter the arena with naïve illusions whose disappointment it would seek to revenge. It is not the desperate attempt of a minority to mold the world forcibly according to its ideal, but the action of the great massive millions of the people, destined to fulfill a historic mission and to transform historical necessity into reality.”

(What Does the Spartacus League Want?, Rosa Luxemburg.)

If democracy is the method by which the working class controls society, and the majority truly holds all political power in a state of unlimited political freedom, then social and political life of such a society would be light years ahead of our modern bourgeois society in the age of Trumpism. It would be a democracy more broad and “open” than the Paris Commune or the most democratic of existing republics. It would be so free in essence, to the individual, that our modern capitalist society would appear to be fascistic in nature by comparison. In such a society, the Marxists would likely be elected to hold public office, would lead the revolution’s spirit and inflame the minds of the masses. But Marxism would not be decreed. This society would not aspire to embody “Marxism” or some preconceived notion as to what some thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries would have approved of. It would not implant a monolithic ideological worldview on the masses, it would not aspire to the “official” crystallized perfection of Stalinism. No, it would be considered “Marxist” or “socialist” through the spontaneous organization and democratic conquest of power by the working class, only after would they say “this is a Marxist society”. It would be Marxist once the concrete was abstracted, it would not be “Marxist” by the artificial application of abstract theory onto a society by means of terror, as was the case under Stalinism.

In it’s many errors, debates, and the general messiness of democracy, it would become a true dictatorship of the proletariat.

“Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.”

(Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy, Rosa Luxemburg).

A small revolutionary party would not seize power and decree “Marxism”, getting the masses to unanimously applaud the resolutions of a leader by- unofficially- rule of terror. It would not be so utopian, no, it would be messy. A new event, a thousand new problems, a thousand wild debates. We firmly believe it is only in the mainsprings of unlimited political freedom and unfettered democracy that socialism truly exist. Let the philistines of conservatism who equate us with the Stalinist totalitarian chiefs of the 20th century, search for an audience in their own light. The current of historical progress will sweep away such views and illogical notions by weight of its own evidence, with neither censorship, terror, nor repression at its side.

Why The Left Should Stand Against The Corporate Censorship of Alex Jones

August 18, 2018

Some people, who I would consider “politically suicidal” leftists, recently celebrated the corporate censorship of Alex Jones and InfoWars by Facebook, Youtube, and Apple. I began writing a draft explaining how dangerous this was shortly after this happened, and just after I wrote this draft, Facebook arbitrarily “unpublished” the Facebook page belonging to Venezuelanalysis, a left-wing, grassroots funded, pro-Bolivarian news website similar in content to TeleSur. (Edit: Facebook also just “unpublished” the TeleSur English page as well). Included below is the polished draft I originally intended to publish, with an analysis at the end by a Trotskyist friend and comrade of mine who is also, like myself, a member of Socialist Alternative (US/CWI):

Wikipedia does a nice job explaining what has recently happened to the far-right conspiracy-theory “news” organization InfoWars:

“On August 6, 2018, YouTube, Facebook and Apple all removed content by Alex Jones and Infowars from their platforms, as it had violated their policies. YouTube removed various channels associated with Infowars, including The Alex Jones Channel, which had amassed 2.4 million subscriptions prior to its removal. On Facebook, four pages that were associated with InfoWars and Alex Jones were removed due to repeated violations of the website’s policies. Apple had removed five podcasts associated with Jones from its iTunes platform and its podcast app.”

We, a far-left radical Libertarian Marxist blog, affirm that we do in fact, oppose the corporate censorship of InfoWars, because we are principally opposed to corporate and state censorship, period. For what reason do we say this? Our political views have almost nothing in common apart from the fact that they both claim to be in opposition to the status-quo in one form or another, though for radically different reasons. We of course, fervently condemn InfoWars for it’s dangerous and harmful hate speech, for it’s grotesque, conspiratorial distortion of basic facts, for it’s glutenous profiteering off of the irrational fears of it’s readers, and for it’s thinly veiled fascist sympathies. We are however opposed to censorship, especially when it is done by undemocratic, tyrannical institutions- as corporations inherently are. We give here several reasons for this:

Firstly, the anti-fascists are not in principle opposed to freedom of speech, nor are we “free speech absolutists”. We are, however, opposed to what happens when violent hate speech, freedom of assembly, and the congregation of angry fascist sympathizers converges into a single terrifying mob of hate and reaction targeted either directly or symbolically, at minorities and people who traditionally face one form of oppression or another. This, consequently, is what gets us into trouble with those unsympathetic with our aims. We are also firm believers in the fact that violent speech is not a form of free speech, but rather is an abuse of it. When such conditions manifest themselves, we are not at all opposed to direct action or confrontation. Nor are we Utopian advocates in the social infallibility of the “market-place of ideas”. The explosion in the popularity of InfoWars is an expression of such fallibility, but it is not generally something that should be seen as a serious “threat” to society. Thus we are opposed to censorship. Generally we see the internet as a tool for attaining knowledge, not as a tool for gaining knowledge from the accounts and hearsay of others, but directly from the source with few exceptions. A website, Facebook Page, Podcast or YouTube channel is something very different from a rally. And if a website is “shut down” by society, it ought to be done so in the form of direct action through popular demand from below, not by faceless corporations or by the state (see what happened to The Daily Stormer).

Here let’s quote from Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed: “‘We are not Utopians,’ responded Lenin in 1917 to the bourgeois and reformist theoreticians of the bureaucratic state, and ‘by no means deny the possibility and inevitability of excesses on the part of individual persons, and likewise the necessity for suppressing such excesses. But… for this there is no need of a special machine, a special apparatus of repression. This will be done by the armed people themselves, with the same simplicity and ease with which any crowd of civilized people even in contemporary society separate a couple of fighters or stop an act of violence against a woman.'” Lenin here does not deny that suppression of abuse is sometimes necessary, but he makes the argument that such suppression ought to be done by the people themselves, neither by a state or a corporation, or any other special apparatus of repression. And even then, one still has the right to speak freely, and tools and mechanisms exist to ensure that right is protected. This is one of the many reasons that this site, Thought Foundry Blog, exists as a Tor, I2P, and Freenet hidden service. Even if you are in China or Saudi Arabia, you can find our site on the censorship resistant internet relatively easily and without serious threat to your personal safety or privacy.

Secondly, we as communists are principally opposed to the corporation as an entity. We shall give one example as to why. A corporation is controlled almost entirely by its board of directors. On face value, it is “democratic” because this board is elected by share-holders. But who are the share-holders? It is natural, certainly, of an ordinary person to own a few shares in a big company. But the corporate model is as follows: one share, one vote. Who owns most of the shares on Wall Street? The top 1%, an undeniable fact. The people who are directly affected by the decisions made by the company- the workers and the public at large- have democracy only insofar as they own shares. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that this model is as “democratic” as the “estates” of pre-revolutionary France, or the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea. The board of directors of so large a corporation as Google, have near absolute power over their company. Criminal acts are in effect, legal for such an entity, because the organization can easily pay off fines and lawsuits, assuming it’s team of highly skilled lawyers somehow fails to get a case dismissed. And the workers? Well, they can be fired for almost any reason, or for no reason at all. Are they paid what they are worth? An absurd proposition. Profits in capitalist society are but the unpaid wages of the working class. That is what capital is, the surplus value produced by the worker that the worker does not receive in turn. Do we want such an organization, itself exclusively in the hands of the ruling class, to be able to decide what speech is and is not acceptable? Would it not, in holding such power, turn the weapon of censorship towards its chief enemies (i.e. the socialists) when it feels the socialists, like InfoWars, are becoming too popular? What is the lesson of history here? Where power can be abused, it will be. The power here to censor and silence, simply should not exist. There is nothing in politics so suicidally reckless as for a socialist to cheer at a corporation’s censorship of an organization or individual on account of their political beliefs. (We saw this weapon turned against the socialist left just the other day with Venezuelanalysis and TeleSur).

Thirdly, what effect does censorship have on a society? To answer this question we have to carefully examine the history of the 20th century, whose horrors those sympathetic to our aims, even in distorted form, are partially responsible. I have often said here that privacy is the only real prerequisite to individual liberty in the digital age. But what does having privacy really, in and of itself, guarantee? Freedom of privacy guarantees that the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press can exist unfettered without intimidation or repression. Yes, it even allows abuses! But history shows us that the abuses of individuals are far less harmful to humanity than the abuses of institutions, corporations, and states. That is an irrefutable fact. Typically here I would quote a lengthy excerpt from Chapter 5 and 6 of Rosa Luxemburg’s pamphlet, ‘The Russian Revolution’ written in 1918 in which she gives her principled proletarian defense of unlimited individual and political freedom, and lays such freedoms down forth as an indispensable necessity for any society to be called a dictatorship of the proletariat, or a socialist society. People see an act of corporate censorship as acceptable because corporations are private institutions. But the effect it has in a corporate dominated world is no less grotesque an abuse than government censorship in a one-party state. As Hannah Arendt said in 1974, “What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed?” How can anyone truly be opposed to InfoWars if one cannot find primary source material, only hearing what others say about it? How can one truly be an anti-fascist if Mein Kampf is banned? No, we are opposed to InfoWars because we have seen it. We are opposed to fascism not only because we have seen the effect it has on society, but because we have read and understand the fascist thinkers of the 20th century. YouTube may not as an organization yet have the power to “erase” InfoWars, but it would if it could, and that is the problem. When an organization such as YouTube becomes so universal, it ceases to effectively be a “private” organization. We are of course opposed to the existence of private property, but even someone not sympathetic to our views can see the logic of our argument here.

But back to the point, a democracy is impossible without a truly informed population. That is the effect censorship has on a society, it makes it much more difficult for a population to be informed. Democracy is impossible in a censored society, freedom also is impossible, and socialism with that. I will quote briefly here from Rosa Luxeburg’s pamphlet mentioned above, “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.” Alex Jones is a buffoon, a bigot, and a dangerous one at that. But to say he should be allowed no form of freedom of expression paves the way towards a truly totalitarian society. A slippery slope? Indeed. But the slippery slope only exists because centralized censorship by corporations (or states for that matter) is allowed to exist by society. Let the people censor themselves, the people do not need to be “protected” from dangerous ideas. If the people are truly free, they can choose not to watch InfoWars of their own free will, and if something is truly vile, the people will shut it down, or will obfuscate access to it themselves. There is no need for a special mechanism of repression. Also as a side note, the self-censorship we refer to here is entirely different from the “self-censorship” we speak of the the context of the mass surveillance society, where people limit or “self-censor” their intellectual inquiries due to the awareness that they are being watched and recorded by corporate and state institutions, and by those in power.

We do not have a democratic press. The capitalist “freedom of the press” has only recently been somewhat actualized with the emergence of the internet, where anyone can publish their opinion somewhat freely. This website is but an expression of that freedom. But even still, our world is dominated by the corporate media, by institutions owned largely by only a handful of powerful corporations who are controlled exclusively by a few privileged members of the ruling class. We do not have a democratic press, nor do we have a press that is truly free from censorship. Here we would reluctantly agree with InfoWars and Donald Trump’s criticism of the press, but not at all for the same reasons. Of course the corporate media is “fake news”, even if it is less so than InfoWars or Donald Trump’s Twitter page. Contrary to the principled defense of CNN and MSNBC as heralded by many liberals, the corporate media, as Glenn Greenwald said, is a “neutered, impotent, and obsolete” organization full of “slimy beasts”. I am quoting from two separate interviews here, but I think the description stands. The popularity of InfoWars is itself partially the fault of the left. Socialists aren’t the only ones who see through the farce that is the corporate media. InfoWars is an expression of reactionary petty-bourgeois defiance to the bourgeois corporate media. There are very few anti-establishment left-wing news sources, and even fewer that are explicitly socialist. And even those news sources fail to become as popular as the infamous “InfoWars”. Noam Chomsky has always been a fierce advocate of a “democratic press”, an idea that causes the ruling class owners of the corporate media to tremble and falsely cry “censorship”. If we as a society are serious about combating “fake news”, a democratic press is something we should seriously consider creating, even as something that co-exists, side-by-side, with the corporate media and the bourgeois press under capitalism.

There is no such thing as “apolitical” journalism when it comes to politics. The vacuum not sufficiently filled by the left has been filled by right-wing conspiracy-minded “anti-establishment” journalism- if it can be called that- that in actuality only reinforces the existing dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class. Even still though, to consider it a “threat to democracy” is farcical. Censorship is a far greater threat to our bourgeois democracy, and to the existence of individual liberty as such. Truly working class politics demand the existence of a free and unfettered press, it demands the continual expansion of positive and negative liberty, as opposed to it’s gradual erosion under modern late stage capitalism and the mass surveillance society.

In closing, I would like to quote from a friend and comrade of mine on Facebook’s recent censorship of Venezuelanalysis (this was before TeleSur was also censored):

“For those on the left celebrating Facebook, YouTube, etc ‘de-platforming’ Alex Jones — this is the other side of the equation.

A NATO funded team is advising Facebook on how to combat the fevered ‘fake news’ paranoia in the wake of the highly overblown Russiagate episode and organizations such as Venezuela Analysis are seen as a similar threat to acceptable discourse. There is already evidence that Facebook and other platforms have de-prioritized independent left content in their news feed algorithms.

It’s not hard to imagine a not so distant future where organizations on the left are de-platformed as well or aggressively de-prioritized to the point where our content is hardly accessible to anyone that isn’t directly connected to our organizations.

Imagine if the Bush administration had this kind of power after September 11, 2001.

People can denounce ‘free speech absolutists’ all they want but if we have any confidence in the working class’s ability to transform society we shouldn’t see Alex Jones and others like him as a fundamental obstacle to our project. The fact that their ilk were able to spread their garbage on Facebook shouldn’t phase us. The pendulum can quickly swing the other way and we need access to social media tools as much as we need constitutional free speech protections.”

We do not believe Apple, Facebook, and YouTube (itself owned by Google) have any business censoring people on account of their political beliefs. As institutions that are de facto public, they have no such right. We at the Thought Foundry Blog, humbly proclaim that we will resist both corporate and state censorship, from a socialist perspective, with our last ounce of strength. You cannot advocate giving these institutions power over right-wing organizations without giving them power over left wing organizations also. Facebook has shown that it has no qualms silencing independent political journalism, will we be next?

My Thoughts on What The Distant Future Can and Should Look Like

July 22, 2018

I’d have to co-opt a phrase by Marx when it comes to the future, “I do not have a crystal ball”. But if I had to speculate the kind of society that follows this one, I’d have to say that Marx’s prediction is probably not only the most likely, but also the most ideal. But such a society I don’t think would declare itself dogmatically “Marxist”, these are merely my speculations, hopes, and dreams as to what our common future holds.

The United Earth Confederation would serve as a union of sovereign republics and territories. It’s articles of agreement, merely a mutual respect for human rights, peace, liberty, and equality, will be ratified by all member nations and territories. All member nations and territories will have the right to suceed from the union by popular vote. It will be a socialist, and ultimately communistic union without any centralized authority, all territories and republics being equal in rights and privileges. It’s flag shall be the red unicolor flag of the world socialist republic. Real authority will exist only insofar as the long term survival of the human species is concerned (i.e. regulationg emissions, fossil fuels, transfering the worlds energy source into 100% renewable green energy), and in military affairs. It will not be a “one world government” so much as there will be no actual state entity or central authority, either to the central power or individual territories. There will be no state in this new world, the people themselves will be armed and will govern themselves. It’s associations will be purely voluntary and without political coercion or coercion of conscience.

It would have no currency whatsoever or medium of exchange. All disputes between regions, territories, and republics must be settled diplomatically, war itself being considered an act of aggression against the whole Confederation.

Trade will be conducted on an egalitarian basis, with efforts made to rapidly reduce the wealth differential between historically imperialist and historically oppressed nations. The nations and territories of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East will spring fourth as a land of “wealthy nations and territories”.

The whole of humanity will speak a common second language. Hunger, poverty, war and want will be considered primitive conditions of the past, after taking advantage of the means we already have to abolish these grave social ills in our modern society. With a strong emphasis on scientific advancement, humanity will dip its toes into the planets, moons, and stars above.

Work will be preformed from each according to their ability, and each will take from society according to their needs, after a period in which income must be proportionate to actual work (including for former capitalists). The economy will be democratically planned. Workers will have direct democracy on the local level, elected and recallable technocrats and experts will plan the economy on the higher level. The economy will be centralized and decentralized at the same time, in regards to different industries and fields of work. Innovators will be given even more opportunities than they have under capitalism to forge new industries and products, and the workers who create and use the products will provide input for products and the production process itself to be better and more efficient. Bad ideas and bad products will be allowed to fail without the drastic social expense of poverty and unemployment workers and capitalists both face currently under the capitalist system. The relationship between the intellectual workers who draft new ideas and products and the physical laborers who create the products, will truly be voluntary and equal through the democratic process itself, both within and outside the workplace.

The political process in most countries I think, would be as follows: direct democracy and community self-governance on the local levels, representative democracy on the higher levels, with all elected representatives being instantly recallable by popular petition at any time.

There will be freedom or religion in this world socialist republic. It will officially promote state agnosticism as opposed to the state atheism of the “Marxist-Leninist” states of the 20th century. Groups of believers will be free to build houses of worship and promote their views publicly. There will be not only freedom of the press, but also decentralized democratic press confederations of journalists and citizens. Censorship by design, will be impossible.

The internet will be a vital part of the United Earth Confederation. Unlike the internet of today, the world wide web will be privacy respecting by default. It will be so to such a degree that a user simply browsing the net will be completely anonymous. Servers will be location hidden by default making censorship a virtual impossibility. Mass surveillance will be a thing of the past, considered an institutional violation of the rights of humanity.

Later on insofar as the distant future is concerned, it is likely that my predictions will become even more divorced from the actual historical process. I’d speculate that human genetic engineering and cybernetics would become popular trends in some areas of life. People would become genetically resillient to many of the diseases and illnesses that routinely plague humanity today and scientists would ensure a certain level of genetic diversity as a safety precaution through artificial means. I’d speculate that women would finally be liberated of the pain of childbirth through artificial wombs and hatcheries. I’d speculate that neural implants would offer many significant cognitive enhancements and inter-connectedness. Voluntary thought sharing in this era, may come about. The internet may become, quite literally, a way to surf the currently existing and historical thoughts of humanity in a way that is voluntary for all parties involved. I could foresee needless conflict coming about because of these technological advancements, between the so-called “superior” and “primitive”. But I hope the egalitarian spirit of the world republic would displace such conflicts, and that the spirit of socialist voluntaryism would win out. To choose to genetically engineer a child, to work, to give birth in the body or outside of it, to connect to the internet at all, to use cybernetic implants, or euthenasia, should all be purely voluntary matters of individual conscience. I predict that the old will be given new, robotic bodies through science, maybe even uploading their consciousness or transfering itto one of these robots. Even through medical science alone, I foresee a mankind that is ammortal. People will live to become 1000 and sometimes far older.

I predict the word “human” will extend to non-homo sapien organisms, either intelligent extra-terrestrial life if we find it, genetically engineered super-intelligent animals, or artificial intelligence created by man. Such beings should and must have the same rights as man, so much so that the word “human” will apply to them as the term “foreigner” came to be know by our distant tribal ancestors.

I predict marriage and the family will be radically altered in many ways, but that marriage will still be sacred and involiable to many if not most. I predict polygamy will become normal and accepted, even among the religious, that it will be purely a matter of individual conscience to the consenting adults involved. Women will sometimes have multiple husbands or wives, and men will sometimes have multiple wives or husbands. Gender norms too will become radically altered and doing activities traditionally associated with the opposite sex will become normalized. Different gender identities will become widely accepted by all of society.

I would hope at this point that humanity will extend not only to a terraformed Mars and the outer reaches of the solar system, but to Alpha Centauri and beyond. Perhaps we will find like minded civilizations out there who would not consider us too hostile or too primitive, and who would not be too hostile themselves.

All this is speculation of course, we could easily kill ourselves off in a mass extinction event caused by our reckless consumerism and polluting industries, all for the sake of profit. Or perhaps there are still darker paths our species could take. But I have to hope humanity is not as stubborn as it sometimes appears, that radical change will come to our world order, that this change will be a means not only to the long term survival of the human species, but towards greater individual liberty and shared abundance for all. I think my hopes can be said as follows: Out of many, one. A free humanity.

Marxism Against The Conversion of Marxism Into a Political Religion

July 12, 2018

What did Marx and Engels imagine when in 1848 they wrote in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, “WORKERS OF ALL LANDS, UNITE!”? In the same manifesto, they wrote, “We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy.”

Looking back, half a century later, Frederick Engels said:

“The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the struggle for the general franchise, for democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat . . .” (Introduction to Class Struggles in France 1895)

Only four years after the Communist Manifesto Marx emphasised the point in an article in the New York Tribune (25 August 1852):

“The carrying of universal suffrage in England would . . . be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent. It’s inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class.”

In their early years of political activity Marx and Engels had been optimistic about the speed with which developments would take place. With greater experience they had to recognize that the obstacles—the resourcefulness of the ruling class, the adaptability of capitalism, and the slowness with which socialist ideas were accepted by the workers—were much greater than they had supposed.

Engels, in the work already mentioned summarised this:

“The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required . . . . Even in France the Socialists realise more and more that no durable success is possible unless they win over in advance the great mass of the people, which, in this case, means the peasants. The slow work of propaganda and parliamentary activity are here also recognised as the next task of the party”.

(https://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/marx_demo.htm)

What did Engels say of socialism in “The Principles of Communism”? He said, “Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.”

What is the attitude of Marxism towards the question of authority and the cult of personality?

“Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the personality cult that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous moves— originating from various countries— to accord me public honour, I never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity, nor did I ever reply to them, save with an occasional snub. When Engels and I first joined the secret communist society, we did so only on condition that anything conducive to a superstitious belief in authority be eliminated from the Rules.” (Marx, Engels Collected Works V. 46, P. 288)

On the question of criticism Marx said his method of analysis embodied “the ruthless criticism of all that exists: ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.”

The Marxist view is that a socialist society cannot but be a democracy, even if its methods of attaining such a society are revolutionary. Marxism does not see the building of socialism as something that can be decreed or ordered from above, but something that can only emerge in the democratic struggle and process itself.

Such a view mirrors Luxemburg’s critique of the Russian Revolution, when she said in her 1918 pamphlet:

“The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – not the case. Far from being a sum of ready-made prescriptions which have only to be applied, the practical realization of socialism as an economic, social and juridical system is something which lies completely hidden in the mists of the future. What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look for the necessary measures, and the indications are mainly negative in character at that. Thus we know more or less what we must eliminate at the outset in order to free the road for a socialist economy. But when it comes to the nature of the thousand concrete, practical measures, large and small, necessary to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relationships, there is no key in any socialist party program or textbook. That is not a shortcoming but rather the very thing that makes scientific socialism superior to the utopian varieties.

The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which – just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part – has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force – against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways. Only unobstructed, effervescing life falls into a thousand new forms and improvisations, brings to light creative new force, itself corrects all mistaken attempts. The public life of countries with limited freedom is so poverty-stricken, so miserable, so rigid, so unfruitful, precisely because, through the exclusion of democracy, it cuts off the living sources of all spiritual riches and progress. (Proof: the year 1905 and the months from February to October 1917.) There it was political in character; the same thing applies to economic and social life also. The whole mass of the people must take part in it. Otherwise, socialism will be decreed from behind a few official desks by a dozen intellectuals.”

Furthermore in another work Rosa says again,

“The modern proletarian class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight… That’s exactly what is laudable about it, that’s exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers’ movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation.”

Yet somewhere along the way in the 20th century socialist experiment, this principle of mass rule and unfettered democracy was turned on its head. One of the peculiarities of Stalinism is its basis in Marxist theory, yet we see historically that a Stalinist society can only be maintained by political repression, murder, and the forcible suppression of actually existing political will. This violence is not against the “remnants” of the bourgeois class as our Stalinist theoreticians would allege but against the actually existing proletariat itself. The seasonal “renewal” of the class struggle as decreed by party bosses is not in actuality a renewal of class struggle, but of political repression against those workers and peasants who express discontent with the status quo. Its own justification for its existence is theoretical and abstract, it is the “historical necessity of progress towards communism”, “communism”, or even “history itself”. If 95% of the population (i.e. the proletariat) is opposed to the Stalinist dictatorship, it does not matter because every brutal act is justified for those who will exist under communism. But it is impossible to know just how many people genuinely support the Stalinist system of a particular country due to the repressive nature of a Stalinist dictatorship. Officially, everyone is a “free and happy people” who support the government. It is impossible to know how many people disapprove of the status quo because those who speak out are labeled as “class traitors”, “enemies of the people”, are arrested, imprisoned, exiled, or disappeared. Officially this doesn’t happen at all, but pointing out that it does “unofficially” happen is far more dangerous a thing to do than to proclaim oneself critical of the leader.

Social contradictions in a Stalinist society therefore, can only but build up to the point of social implosion. There is no real internal mechanism to address social contradictions and popular discontent. Thus it is only a matter of time before the whole system destroys itself. Like capitalism, Stalinism creates its own gravediggers.

The purpose of socialism is to actively and democratically address social contradictions to build a better world, not only the contradictions of the previous society, but the contradictions created in the construction of a new one. Revolution itself is an act of dissent, and that freedom of popular dissent cannot be limited without being lost. Eugene V. Debs said of this, “If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.”

Somewhere along the way socialism became not only something different from what Marx, Engels, or Rosa Luxemburg advocated, but entirely opposite. For example, Kim Jong Il said in his theoretical magnum opus “On The Juche Idea”:

“The core in the Juche outlook on the revolution is loyalty to the party and the leader. The cause of socialism and communism is started by the leader and is carried out under the guidance of the party and the leader. The revolutionary movement will be victorious only when it follows the guidance of the party and the leader. Therefore, to establish a correct outlook on the revolution, one must always put the main emphasis on increasing loyalty to the party and the leader…

The revolutionary practice of communists is nothing less than a struggle to implement the revolutionary idea of the leader and party policy. A man who upholds the revolutionary idea of the leader and dedicates his all to the struggle to carry out party policy is a genuine communist revolutionary with a correct outlook on the revolution.

Whether one has a correct outlook on the revolution or not is revealed particularly at a time of severe trials. People reveal their true nature in adverse circumstances. He who is determined to be infinitely faithful to the party and the leader even if he would have to give up his life and who remains loyal to his revolutionary principles on the scaffold, is a true revolutionary with a firm Juche outlook on the revolution.”

Somehow miraculously, the movement embodying “the ruthless criticism of all that exists: ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be”, was turned into, “always [putting] the main emphasis on increasing loyalty to the party and the leader.”

The conversion of Marxism into a political religion would not only have mortified Marx, but is something intrinsically opposed to the principles of Marxism. The democratic rule of the masses as they actually exist, free to determine their own destiny, was replaced by something entirely different. As Enver Hoxha said, “Our Marxist-Leninist theory teaches us: Every revolutionary activity must be guided by the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory which the Marxist Leninist party masters, defends and faithfully applies.” It is not a question of democracy, but a question of faithful adherence to a particular ideology, to a single political party, and moreover to the central committee of that political party.

When Marx said, “WORKERS OF ALL LANDS, UNITE!” he did not by any means imagine his face next to Engels, with the faces of several other revolutionaries plastered to a wall behind a central committee giving a speech on “increasing loyalty to the leader” and “turning every cadre into ideologically sound anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists”. On the contrary, Marx imagined that the working class, having won the battle of democracy, would be free to forge its own destiny unfettered by the past, unfettered even his own opinions and ideas. The socioeconomic system called communism was seen by Marx as a likely historical inevitability that would come about as a result of the seizure of power by the proletariat and the establishment of its democratic control of society, and not something brought about by faithfully and religiously following the ideas of Karl Marx or any other revolutionary. We again must reiterate, “That the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice is, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – not the case.”

The point of this overemphasis on the quotes of long dead revolutionaries is not to advocate their conversion into icons, but to show to those who do convert them into icons that their ideological heroes deplore their own sanctification and the conversion of their ideas into a political religion. The future is unclear, undetermined by any one book, thinker, or theory. We can use reason and tools such as a historical materialist analysis to infer what kind of society would result from this or that measure, from this or that class seizing political power at this time or place. But we can never really know. Marx’s catchphrase was, “I do not have a crystal ball”. We must emphasize this view. In using reason we can infer that the results of the proletarian majority, or working class, seizing political power for itself and establishing a genuinely democratic society, could only be benevolent, especially if applied to a developed society where negative liberty and formal democracy are already the norm and eagerly long for expansion. The introduction of industrial democracy and community self-governance, we believe, can only be benevolent, can only expand the liberty we enjoy now, can only be a means to greater shared abundance.

“The great only appear great because we are on our knees – let us rise”. -James Connolly

An Open Letter to Kim Jong Un

June 23, 2018

To The Supreme Leader of The Korean People,

Marshall Kim Jong Un,

Greetings! I can only hope you have come across this letter and are willing to read what I have to say. I am a student of history and a socialist in the United States of America. I have studied your country’s history and the Juche idea with great detail in order to better understand the DPRK. I also have read extensively on the ‘cold war’ era, and on Albanian history in particular, a subject I am writing a book on as we speak. This book is very critical of the Stalinist system, not out of hatred, but out of love for the socialist cause. Until recently I did not see much of a chance for genuinely socialist reforms benevolent to the working people of your country. But the historic DPRK-US summit and the comments of your friend Dennis Rodman have changed my view on the matter. I have spent a lot of time writing this letter, laying out my views. I hope you will take the time to read them, and I only ask that you forgive me if my writings seem too critical or disrespectful, as I can assure you that this is the opposite of what I intend.

I am enthusiastic about a DPRK that is implementing reforms, but my fear is that the DPRK will collapse entirely if it naively implements “shock therapy” or similarly misguided market reforms, abandoning socialism entirely. The result of this in my opinion, would be tragic. When the USSR fell, life expectancy plummeted by decades and the Soviet people endured many hardships. Mr. Gorbachev’s reforms were not, in my view, misguided politically. Only in the economic field were they misguided. Politically, the liberalization of the USSR was fully in line with genuine socialist politics. Gorbachev thought he could either continue flawed Stalinist top-down state planning of the economy, or move towards a market economy (similar to, but more capitalist in nature than Lenin’s ‘New Economic Policy’ that some historians argue Lenin would have continued). But this is a false dichotomy.

Your country, after successfully fighting against Japanese imperialism, was liberated by Kim Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea. However, tragically, the model implemented by Kim Il Sung was not one that emerged organically in the course of struggle and the seizure of power by the working class and peasantry. Nor was it based on the Paris Commune or even on the early democratic principles of the Russian Revolution. Instead, it was based on Stalinist Russia. Leon Trotsky, I think, best explains the nature of a Stalinist state. He wrote in 1938 of Stalinism in the USSR:

“The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers’ state. State ownership of the means of production, a necessary prerequisite to socialist development, opened up the possibility of rapid growth of the productive forces. But the apparatus of the workers’ state underwent a complete degeneration at the same time: it was transformed from a weapon of the working class into a weapon of bureaucratic violence against the working class and more and more a weapon for the sabotage of the country’s economy. The bureaucratization of a backward and isolated workers’ state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste constitute the most convincing refutation – not only theoretically, but this time, practically – of the theory of socialism in one country.

The USSR thus embodies terrific contradictions. But it still remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such is the social diagnosis. The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of property and plunge the country back to capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.” (The USSR and Problems of The Transitional Epoch).

Kim Jong Il rightfully pointed out in Our Socialism Centered on The Masses Shall Not Perish, that the systems embodied in the USSR and Eastern Europe represented totalitarian deviations from what socialism was supposed to represent. Kim Jong Il says in this speech, “Our socialist society is a genuinely democratic society which fully provides the people with true political rights and freedom. By nature, socialism cannot be separated from democracy.” The former, I will discuss in detail later on. The latter, is an undeniable fact. Socialism is indispensable to democracy and democracy to socialism. Political democracy without industrial democracy (socialism) amounts to virtual oligarchy in practice (see my country, the United States or any other bourgeois republic). But the reverse can also be said. A country that formally has industrial democracy without any real individual liberty also amounts to virtual oligarchy in practice.

It is my belief that Stalin lied when he declared the USSR had fully constructed a socialist system in the 1930’s. The construction of a socialist system takes enormous time and effort, and cannot be completed in one country alone, not in Korea or even in a country as big as the former Soviet Union. A planned economy alone is not socialist, but is state-capitalist. Only a democratically planned economy that does not exist in isolation can truly be called socialist, where the working people and the whole of society democratically control production and society as a whole. The Bolsheviks fully acknowledged that socialism could not be built in Russia alone. Lenin and the Bolsheviks repeatedly stressed that the success of the Russian revolution depended entirely on international revolution as socialism could not be built in one country alone. But with the failure of the German revolution and Lenin’s untimely death, Stalin and Bukharin invented the “theory” that socialism could be built in one country alone. The first world war was an imperialist war that came about chiefly due to the fact that the internal contradictions of a capitalist economy could no longer be reconciled within the confines of the nation state (certainly not by the mere assassination of a single politician as our bourgeois historians claim). Socialism, a higher stage of historical and social development, would naturally also not be able to exist in one country alone, in isolation. The inevitable result of this would be autarky, and inevitable economic stagnation. With the collapse not only of the USSR but of the Eastern Blog as well, the DPRK has been left virtually isolated by no fault of its own. This poses a serious problem for the people of the DPRK. Your country’s economy cannot be modernized from within. But it is surrounded by hostile capitalist powers who want a “McDonald’s and a Starbucks on every street corner”, who see the workers of the DPRK as nothing more than a potential source of “cheap labor”. This contradiction must be addressed.

It is clear that Marx and Lenin underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system, it’s ability to utilize the state to artificially prolong it’s lifespan. As such, I believe it is crucial to implement some market reforms and to open your country’s economy up to the rest of the world. At this point, market reforms alone can rapidly modernize the DPRK. But without political reforms, this would shatter your country. I would like to quote from Communist Revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg’s best work, The Russian Revolution (1918), as I think it best illustrates my views on a genuinely socialist system, which is miles away from the Stalinist system, and sadly, from the reality of the DPRK today:

“On the other hand, it is a well-known and indisputable fact that without a free and untrammeled press, without the unlimited right of association and assemblage, the rule of the broad masses of the people is entirely unthinkable…

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege…

The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – not the case. Far from being a sum of ready-made prescriptions which have only to be applied, the practical realization of socialism as an economic, social and juridical system is something which lies completely hidden in the mists of the future. What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look for the necessary measures, and the indications are mainly negative in character at that. Thus we know more or less what we must eliminate at the outset in order to free the road for a socialist economy. But when it comes to the nature of the thousand concrete, practical measures, large and small, necessary to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relationships, there is no key in any socialist party program or textbook. That is not a shortcoming but rather the very thing that makes scientific socialism superior to the utopian varieties.

The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which – just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part – has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force – against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways. Only unobstructed, effervescing life falls into a thousand new forms and improvisations, brings to light creative new force, itself corrects all mistaken attempts. The public life of countries with limited freedom is so poverty-stricken, so miserable, so rigid, so unfruitful, precisely because, through the exclusion of democracy, it cuts off the living sources of all spiritual riches and progress. (Proof: the year 1905 and the months from February to October 1917.) There it was political in character; the same thing applies to economic and social life also. The whole mass of the people must take part in it. Otherwise, socialism will be decreed from behind a few official desks by a dozen intellectuals.

Public control is indispensably necessary. Otherwise the exchange of experiences remains only with the closed circle of the officials of the new regime. Corruption becomes inevitable. (Lenin’s words, Bulletin No.29) Socialism in life demands a complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois rule. Social instincts in place of egotistical ones, mass initiative in place of inertia, idealism which conquers all suffering, etc., etc. No one knows this better, describes it more penetratingly; repeats it more stubbornly than Lenin. But he is completely mistaken in the means he employs. Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconian penalties, rule by terror – all these things are but palliatives. The only way to a rebirth is the school of public life itself, the most unlimited, the broadest democracy and public opinion. It is rule by terror which demoralizes.

When all this is eliminated, what really remains? In place of the representative bodies created by general, popular elections, Lenin and Trotsky have laid down the soviets as the only true representation of political life in the land as a whole, life in the soviets must also become more and more crippled. Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins (the postponement of the Soviet Congress from three-month periods to six-month periods!) Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc. (Lenin’s speech on discipline and corruption.)”

Unfortunately Rosa Luxemburg here is correct, and her writings are prophetic in describing what I regard as the Stalinist tragedy of the 20th century. I believe that political reforms are crucial to your country’s survival. Currently the DPRK is the envy of the developing world in regards to positive liberty (healthcare, education, housing, the right to employment, etc.) But sadly the DPRK lacks almost entirely negative liberty (freedom of speech, protest, religion, assembly, information, internet, press, etc.) which is as fundamental to socialism as positive liberty. This inherent lack of real individual liberty is why many working people do not look onto your country favorably. This lack of liberty will inevitably lead to the total collapse of the DPRK without serious political reforms. This is the lesson of 1989. And the opposite is also true, if you implement too many reforms too quickly, in a reckless way, it will also inevitably lead to the collapse of the DPRK. Hence the motto, if you recklessly and in an unplanned way “give the people an inch, they will take a yard”. You want them to have the yard, but in a way that does not plunge them into extreme poverty.

One of the key aspects of a Stalinist country is that it denies the actually existing material conditions of political and social life. Officially, the DPRK or any other historic Stalinist country is full of “free and happy” people who wholeheartedly support the government. But unofficially, and in actuality, this is not the case. And often times, no one really takes the “official” ideology seriously, except perhaps children and the country’s leader and central committee, which in a Stalinist country serves as “the only thinking element”, as Luxemburg claimed. These conditions are a result of an unfree society that (unofficially) utilizes post-revolutionary state terror, a hallmark of the Stalinist system. I do not blame you personally, Kim Jong Un, for the conditions of the country who’s leadership you inherited. I do not even blame your father or grandfather. I place the blame onto Stalin himself and on the backward conditions from which the world’s first Workers republic emerged. The tragedy of the Russian revolution is a genuine one.

Recall in 1967 when Lin Biao arrogantly proclaimed, “The ever-victorious thought of Mao Tse-tung is Marxism-Leninism in the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing toward worldwide victory.” In reality the opposite was true. It was Lin Biao’s Stalinism that was heading for total collapse and imperialism that was heading for worldwide victory, precisely because of the contradictions I have laid out.. Naturally I believe socialism will return, but it will be miles away from the Stalinism of the 20th century. Such slogans of the “inevitable” victory of a Stalinist political system or of the “invincibility” of a political party, can be made only in total denial of the actually existing material conditions of a country. In East Germany there was a song called “The Party is Always Right”. A true Marxist must acknowledge that the party is not always right. In your country for instance, eventually you will grow old and like your father and grandfather you will pass away. The person who takes your place could stand opposed to everything you stand for. He or she could be the devil himself and still the party would proclaim this person to be a “dear leader” and a “comrade” who’s words are “followed faithfully” by the people who “love and admire” them regardless of if the people even approve of that persons leadership. In a day the people could go from officially having “total love and admiration” of the leader to executing him in a way similar to how Ceausescu was overthrown. The masses would have no right to dissent or speak out as they actually exist in society. “The rule of the masses” would be, and is, only a theoretical abstraction totally divorced from the real social conditions of the country. And that is the problem, the same problem that led to the total collapse of the Eastern Bloc. In our country and in the West, we socialists have a website we often go to called Marxists.org. This website says correctly of freedom and socialism:

“In hitherto existing Socialist states, like the Soviet Union and China, ‘negative freedoms’ were severely restricted, while ‘positive freedoms’ were advanced. All people had universal access to health care, full university education, etc, but people could only use those things they had in a particular way – in support of the government. In the most advanced capitalist governments, this relationship is the other way around: ‘positive freedoms’ are restricted or do not exist all together, while ‘negative freedoms’ are more advanced than ever before. A worker in capitalist society has the freedom to say whatever she believes, but she does not have the freedom to live if crippled by a disease regardless of how much money she has. A socialist society that has been established from a capitalist society will strengthen ‘negative freedoms’, while ushering in real ‘positive freedoms’ across the board, ensuring equal and free access to social services by all.”

In 1968 Czechoslovakia during the ‘Prague Spring’, the key contradiction I pointed out in the Stalinist universe (between public and private opinions) was directly addressed. Everyone before 1968 had a “public opinion” that supported the “leader and the party”, and a “private opinion” which while often in support of socialism, was usually fervently opposed to Stalinism and the dictatorship of the central committee. The Prague Spring tried to abolish this contradiction. It tried to make the “rule of the popular masses” a reality by allowing the masses to voice their opinions as they actually existed without fear of repression or individuals “disappearing” because of the opinions they hold. They said in their actions, “The proletariat is not some mythical people that will exist under communism for which all brutal measures that the state takes are justified. No, we are the proletariat, the common people who actually exist today and we demand political freedom, the same freedoms that have actually materialized to a large degree in the capitalist countries, and no longer ‘merely on paper’. Listen to us, and not the Central Committee”. The result as I am sure you know, was an onslaught of Soviet tanks and an armed invasion from the armies of the USSR and Eastern Blog, the publishing of the dreaded “Brezhnev Doctrine”. In your country too, there is a vast contradiction between people’s “public” and “private” opinion. And the more repressive the DPRK state apparatus is, the stronger this contradiction will become.

If you recall, a single speech from someone in your position can change a nation, can change the world. In 1956 Khrushchev delivered a speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He denounced Stalin and Stalinism. He openly pointed out the terrible abuses, murders, and political repression that existed under Stalin’s rule. While these terrible crimes were primarily the sins of the Stalinist bureaucracy of which Khrushchev was a part, and while he incorrectly blamed Stalin the individual only, it was nonetheless a revolutionary speech that sent shock-waves throughout the world. It heralded in the “De-Stalinization” of the Soviet Union. While it remained a totalitarian society, it nonetheless made significant reforms. Gorbachev too, made serious reforms in his country. And it should be noted that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused primarily by the hard-line conservative Stalinist bureaucracy that created the 1991 August Coup in an effort to undo Gorbachev’s reforms and to destroy the newly emerged, genuine dictatorship of the proletariat. Boris Yeltsin managed to take advantage of the situation to illegally abolish the Soviet Union and establish a “Commonwealth of Independent States”. Thus it can be said that it was not Gorbachev who destroyed the Soviet Union. Perestroika did not fail. Glasnost did not fail. The Stalinists who tried to retake power failed. The fall of the USSR is on them alone.

In light of all this, I can only ask: Who else can change the conditions of your country but yourself? Reforms are inevitable and the Korean people are starving for real individual liberty and modernization. If you do not act, the people will inevitably rise up and overthrow you, and the chaos that ensues will destroy the DPRK and in all likelihood, will plunge the nation into the same extreme poverty and misery that the Soviet people endured in the 1990’s. You are the supreme leader of the Korean people. They look up to you. They listen to you. I do think your grandfather, President Kim Il Sung, made many mistakes. I think the cult of personality that surrounded him is as tragic as the one that surrounds you today. But I do not doubt the sincerity of his belief that a better world is possible. In fact, I share this belief, even if I fervently disagree with his Stalinist methods.

I will not pretend that the problems your country and people face are easy. In fact, they are in many ways more difficult than those faced by the early Soviet Union. But if you lead your people on a road that brings them real political freedom, modernization through cautious market reforms, and truly socialist democratic control and planning of the economy (similar to the People’s Republic of China) and the state, I think the respect and reverence the Korean people have of you will truly have been earned, and not the natural result of an unfree Stalinist society and a censored press that only praises you. I would call on you, respected Marshall Kim Jong Un, to implement real reforms for the Korean people. I would call on you to implement a more cautious but nonetheless revolutionary Glasnost and a truly socialist Perestroika, learning from the mistakes of Gorbachev, and applying it’s key principles to the material conditions of the DPRK. I would call on you to implement a ‘Korean Spring’, similar to the Prague Spring of 1968. There are no Soviet tanks that could roll into Pyongyang today and I think China would approve of cautious, revolutionary reforms as they would guarantee the long-term stability of the DPRK.

If you succeed, your country will not only be like China in regards to economic success, but also it will be country with real human rights and socialist democracy, a country where the working class is truly in power and not merely a handful of politicians. In fact, in time there would probably even be popular demand in the South for a unification with the DPRK’s reformed government and economic system. In several decades the DPRK could be the envy not only of the developing world, but of the developed world as well. You constantly stress in your speeches the importance of ideological work. You alone can say to the masses, for instance, “We have fallen behind decades economically due to the imperialist blockade. In the years when my father and grandfather ruled, somewhere along the way we became a totalitarian society. We have made many mistakes. The state has suppressed real workers democracy and human rights. It has silently imprisoned and repressed political dissidents and falsely claimed we were a free society. But I believe in socialism, and I believe real individual liberty and genuine democracy are fundamental prerequisites to socialism. I believe that the rule of the masses is impossible without a free and untrampled press. So we will found a congress of people’s deputies like the one Gorbachev founded. We will invite freely elected representatives of the people, some of whom are not even in the Workers’ Party of Korea, to an assembly where they can debate, speak freely, air old grudges, ask questions, propose measures, and cast votes. It will be an assembly where there is real power. There was a time when I decided what questions were allowed, where I alone made the decisions. But now I will have the help of ~3,000 elected representatives of the common people. Now there will be a congress of people’s deputies held in Pyongyang that will be aired on live television to the tens of millions of fellow countrymen and women, and to the world where we can say to our people and to the world ‘We are learning democracy. We are working to build real socialism.’ We will make the dictatorship of the proletariat a reality. In time we will become the envy not only of the developing world, but of the developed world. We will accept cautious market reforms while maintaining independence and building workers power. We will become a country so free and democratic that the people of the West will become envious of us. That is what we will do.”

A socialist in my country named Eugene V. Debs once said to our people, “If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.” If you want socialism sir, if you want a prosperous and free nation, you have to let the Korean people air their grievances without fear. You have to let them speak freely. A Korean Congress of People’s Deputies would be the perfect platform for such a change. It would be a platform for the people to implement real changes without endangering the political stability of the nation. Like the Chinese people, the Korean people are fond of socialism. While they are repressed by the state, they nonetheless understand the importance of positive socialist liberty, of a country in the hands of the majority and not the minority. So while the DPRK today is not as Kim Jong Il claimed, a “genuine democracy with real freedom”, it certainly can be if you implement reforms.

Marxism is based on criticism, and I make my criticisms in that spirit alone. Marx described this as being “the ruthless criticism of all that exists: ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.” Understand that I write to you in defense of socialism, not against it. I write only against the Stalinist despotism that has poisoned the words ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ in my country, that has subjected the emancipatory struggle for freedom and socialism to a despotism far worse that the tyranny of the market.

Kim Jong Un, perhaps I have too high hopes for you. But perhaps I do not. If you agree with what I have said even a little bit, or have any questions at all, please write back to me. Please investigate what I have said for yourself. I know you are a very busy man, and I am extremely grateful to you for taking the time to read this letter. I am only a young intellectual and writer but I speak on behalf of many who hold similar views. I implore you, sir, change your country, change the world.

Sincerely,

Thought Foundry Blog

A Marxist’s Defense of Privacy in The Age of Mass Surveillance

June 12, 2018

Over 200 hundred years ago today, a famous bourgeois revolutionary named John Adams wrote the following in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:

“When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.”(15 July 1817)

John Adams couldn’t have been more correct. As a bourgeois revolutionary who fought in the American revolution, John Adams and his contemporaries understood the revolutionary potential of capitalism. They understood that it had, was, and was going to transform human society irrevocably. For them, they hoped this progress would work towards the betterment of mankind. As such, the bourgeois-democratic republic they established was one in which individual liberty was to be protected by a rigid adherence to formal guarantees of liberty, to a jury by ones peers whose decisions were bound to interpretations of these texts, and to a free press which was to challenge a state power already limited by the separation of powers. These bourgeois republicans had found within their system something fundamental to any so-called free society. Most of the rights they proclaimed therein “for all” were not actualized for the majority until the civil rights movement, and the countless working class struggles from below. Every nation thus far which has attempted to ‘skip over’ a bourgeois stage of development and go directly into socialism has failed miserably not only because of economic backwardness and isolation, but because of the lack of liberty that came as a result of this backwardness, and the suffocating effect it has on any attempt of socialism or the rule of the masses. Trotsky once said “socialism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen”. We can only affirm how right he was.

As Rosa Luxemburg has said, “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.”

Naturally, “On the other hand, it is a well-known and indisputable fact that without a free and untrammeled press, without the unlimited right of association and assemblage, the rule of the broad masses of the people is entirely unthinkable.”

(The Russian Revolution, Chapters 5 and 6).

Why did John Adams say to Jefferson he could “only laugh” at the assertion of any real freedom of speech, writing, or thought? Yes, we can say Adams recognized the limitations of formal bourgeois declarations of liberty and equality, especially in the 19th century. But more than that, Adams also realized the revolutionary potential of capitalism and the technological innovations it would inevitably bring, innovations that would revolutionize human communication forever. I do not think in this Adams predicted the coming invention of the internet per se, but I do think he believed a new form of anonymous communication was bound to come about. But as he said in his letter, it could come about only hundreds of years after he and Jefferson spoke no more.

As I have stated previously in my article ‘The Marxist Defense of Human Rights’, and ‘The Dictatorship of The Proletariat and America Today’, I believe the ethics of the bourgeoisie no longer are in line with liberty or equality, but are opposed to them. I believe that when the bourgeoisie in 1776 took control of society in the name of society, that its interests were those of the people at large. Hence the great slogan of sovereignty: “We the People”. But today, the bourgeoisie has outlived its usefulness and its right to rule. It has endangered the future of humanity by its reckless and nihilistic plundering of the earth, it’s destruction of the prerequisites of human prosperity for the generations to come, and its refusal to address the fundamental social ills that still plague humanity of which, it alone is responsible for. I believe that only the revolutionary proletariat has the potential and self-interest to preserve human freedom, strengthen it, and bring about real equality for all in actuality and not merely on paper.

When Adams and Jefferson spoke of liberty, their interests were those of the people at large. The interests of the bourgeoisie were, for a very long time, the actual interests of the people. It is in this that the bourgeois founders of the American republic said fearlessly to the tyrant king “We the People”. Today when Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton speaks of “freedom” it is an empty catch-phrase to gain the popular support of the bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeoisie, and the upper strata of the proletariat. It means nothing in actuality. At every possible instance the modern ruling class has acted against the interests of liberty by attacking its only real prerequisite in the modern age: privacy.

Teresa May of the United Kingdom, where GCHQ already siphons and stores not just the metadata, but the content of the digital communications of every citizen, has called for the total ban of encryption altogether! She later quietly changed her mind when told banking would be made impossible without encryption, but the fact remains. If the modern bourgeoisie could, it would place cameras in every home, it would collect and store every digital communication, it would ban encryption and any technology that gives the individual any power above that of the state. Not in the name of totalitarianism, not as some evil plan, but in the name of “national security” and “safety”. Far from being enthusiastic about the new recent actualization of fundamental liberties, the modern bourgeoisie is horrified by the technologies that have now been invented that make freedom of speech, thought, and writing a possibility. Sadly still, most people are apathetic to the abuses of mass surveillance, and to the possibilities these new technologies offer for liberty as such.

The Cypherpunks of the 1980’s and 1990’s rightfully predicted the importance freedom of privacy has to a “free” society. The Cypherpunk Manifesto by Eric Hughes is short. I have included it in its entirety here:

“Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.

If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to.

Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.

Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.

Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to reveal one’s identity with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the cryptographic signature.

We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor’s younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.

We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.

We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.

Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can’t get privacy unless we all do, we’re going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don’t much care if you don’t approve of the software we write. We know that software can’t be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can’t be shut down.

Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act. The act of encryption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a nation’s border and the arm of its violence. Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it makes possible.

For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common good. Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one’s fellows in society. We the Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and hope we may engage you so that we do not deceive ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals.

The Cypherpunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for privacy. Let us proceed together apace.

Onward.”

The technologies Hughes speaks of here, are the very same technologies spoken of by Adams to Jefferson. They are the very same technologies that the modern bourgeoisie opposes in every instance. The US funds the Tor project only because it serves its interests abroad by helping political dissidents in China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran speak out against an invasive government. But when the people use these tools against the invasions and abuses of our government, it tries to stop them. It detains Tor’s developers and spokespersons when they try to travel. It approaches developers of key technologies and services all over the board and subpoena’s them to place a backdoor in their software, and to hand over their records as a matter of “national security”. The NSA motto is the same as the Stasi’s: “Collect everything”, “Know everything”.

In addition to the class struggle on the streets, with its many signs of protest, another struggle is taking place all around us. The defenders of liberty in the modern age take to the keyboard and write software that realizes the freedoms Adams spoke of, they build software that makes freedom of speech, writing, and thought a reality. They give the individual with all their faults, supreme power over the state with cryptography: mathematical algorithms that not even the most determined state or three letter agency can solve. They continuously update and perfect software designed to anonymize and secure communications between individuals and organizations. They work to free information from the fetters of “intellectual copyrights” and to free individuals from data-capitalism and intrusive state surveillance at the same time. In small niche’s of digital communities, a heroic people of varying religious, political, social, national, and ethnic backgrounds are fighting with persistence and heroism for the preservation of liberty, and privacy. Their names are not known to us but in small corners of the internet. Many contribute without ever revealing their true identity. These are the real heroes of the modern age.

But those who do not regard these heroic acts and vital technologies with apathy, often view them with disdain. Like any freedom, there are those who abuse it. But a person who utilizes freedom of movement to strangle his neighbor does not merely use his freedom, he abuses it. In having the freedom to go where one wishes, there are inevitably casualties. But everytime someone strangles his neighbor, the enemies of liberty do not pop up to advocate the abolition of freedom of movement. In the digital world, by some strange alchemy, it is different. If someone uses Tor to create a marketplace where one can easily find unregistered firearms, we naturally condemn that person as far as morality is concerned. But the enemies of liberty go further. An abuse of the right to privacy in their mind necessitates the abolition of the right itself. Surely people wouldn’t sell guns over the internet if they had no right to privacy, but so too would a person never kidnap anyone if the police routinely barged into peoples homes without even the mere suspicion of a crime. Crime would be abolished overnight in a police state. But the question here is neither safety nor crime, it is one of liberty.

Those who do not regard these heroic technologies with apathy, all to often view them with the narrow lens of self-interest alone. A college student might use Tor to buy weed online instead of meeting a shady drug dealer. While I cannot condemn this act in particular as far as morality is concerned, one has to admit that the darknet is far too often used for criminal activities, many of which are far worse than buying the occasional gram.

Finally there are those who regard these heroic technologies as supremely benevolent. Those in authoritarian countries are extremely offended by the Western use of the term “Darknet”. For them it is the only place where they can speak freely, organize, and air grievances without fear of persecution. When one goes to ZeroTalk (a default site when one installs Zeronet), one will find a large amount of Chinese comments. What does one find when one translates these comments? They find that the Chinese people openly talk about the Tienanmen Square massacres without fear. People who were part of the protests speak out. They keenly re-post news articles from the West and discuss them with great interest. They talk about the tyranny the people suffer under the yoke of the Stalinist Communist Party. In other authoritarian countries, we find the same thing.

By design, these networks are resilient to censorship. Even when some form of speech is horrible or causes real world harm, information itself and the tools used to exchange it are morally neutral. The abundance of criminality on the darknet is a result only of the irrational comfort a people feel in a surveillance state that at any time could turn into a police state. They are convinced that such a thing “would never happen here”. But so said the people of Germany and countless other “free” nations before degenerating into totalitarianism. Free society is dying and we are fighting on the loosing side. But in this fight we will never surrender. And in the end when all is said and done, we just might win. The bourgeois politicians clamor on about “freedom” but at every instance they condemn the only prerequisite to civil liberty in the modern age: privacy. “National security” is not the same thing as public safety nor is the national interest the public interest. National security is and always will be, in a bourgeois republic, the security of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

When one buys a computer, they are by default forced into using proprietary software which limits the users freedom and invades their right to privacy. When you use a modern phone or computer, it is 99% of the time, defective by design. It comes with a proprietary operating system that spies on you. You use a search engine which sells your search history to advertisers and governments. As of 2017 your internet service provider in the United States can sell your internet history without your consent. When you connect to the internet without using a VPN or Tor, you are merely giving everything you do to an institution with almost unlimited power, that operates with virtually no oversight. When you do so, your information is being stored in massive state-owned data centers. Where in 5 or 10 years, the state can hypothetically blackmail or threaten you if and when you become “interesting”.

Those who do not oppose mass surveillance, consent to mass surveillance. Here there is no middle ground. For now real privacy is not a pipe-dream. It is realized by those who seek to find it. Right now, anyone in a western liberal democracy can use encryption tools, and with these tools you can circumvent mass surveillance and data-capitalism. You as an individual still have the freedom to say “I do not consent.”

By default, though, this freedom is illusory. By default you are forced to consent to mass surveillance, for wherever you, the average consumer turns, you will find only technologies, services, and computers that are privacy invasive. But those who seek out such tools will find them. And in finding them, the individual will find that in spite of the many complexities of the modern world, that they can exercise supreme power over the powers that be. They will find that far from being an inconvenience, they will be able to say and do whatever they like without fear of being watched and spied on.

Soon they will find the invasions of the modern world- mass surveillance and data capitalism, are intolerable. When they connect to the internet without using a VPN or Tor, they feel as a person changing feels in front of an open window at night. Suddenly the indifference and apathy they once felt, and were conditioned to feel by the modern world, peels away and they are at once horrified by those who still use privacy invasive technologies without thinking twice, and by those who oppose privacy respecting tools out of concerns for “national security”.

Many unintentionally quote Joseph Goebbels when they say, “If I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear”. Yet the same person closes their window blinds at night, and locks the door when they use the bathroom. The same person whispers when they speak of something private to a friend. Such a person may have “nothing to hide” but they certainly have nearly everything to protect.

Snowden hit the nail on the head when he said:

“Technology can actually increase privacy. The question is: why are our private details that are transmitted online, why are private details that are stored on our personal devices, any different than the details and private records of our lives that are stored in our private journals? I think, you know, saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. It’s a deeply anti-social principal because rights are not just individual – they’re collective. What may not have value to you today, may have value to an entire, you know, population, entire people, an entire way of life tomorrow. And if you don’t stand up for it, then who will?”

Such people expect people like us who use these tools to justify the use of our rights. But on the contrary, we do not have to defend our right to privacy. It is the government which has to defend any invasion of our right to privacy. And in the modern age of mass surveillance, where everyone is being spied on by default, it cannot do so. So I will not consent, nor will I ever consent. To defend privacy in the age of mass surveillance is to defend the very existence of liberty.

But more than that, I call on everyone reading this to refuse to consent also. Included on my blog (clearnet) is a mirror of PrivacyTools.io titled “Privacy Tools for Activists” which every person without exception should take advantage of. In my post “Why Every Activist Should Use a VPN/Tor” I elaborate further on this position. I Invite you, as an individual, to use a VPN, to install Tor, to install I2P, and to try out a Linux based operating system. I invite you to put tape over the cameras on your phone and computer. I invite you to use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. I invite you to encrypt every aspect of your digital life without exception and I invite everyone to do the same. In this fight for privacy only one side can win: the people who value their freedom, or the enemies of liberty. Edward Snowden made his choice. Now it is time to make yours.

What Makes Stalinist State Terror Different From Leninism and Jacobinism?

June 2, 2018

Article 9 of the Stalinist German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) constitution stipulates blatantly, “There is no press censorship.”

Of course, anyone familiar with East German protests knows the slogan “Freedom of the press!” was a common one. And naturally, such protests were brutally suppressed by the police. The thing that makes Stalinism and Stalinist terror unique is its blatant denial of actually existing social conditions in favor of a more “comfortable” interpretation. “Officially” everyone is a “free and happy people”. Officially, it is a paradise on earth. When Stalin proclaimed that the USSR had “achieved socialism”, I believe the lie itself became the reality.

When the peasants in revolutionary France and demanded, “Make terror the order of the day!” The Jacobins did so. Never at any point did Robespierre claim that France was not a totalitarian dictatorship that ruthlessly purged counter-revolutionaries in the name of establishing “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and political democracy as the social norm.

When 14 armies of the most powerful armies on earth invaded the new RSFSR, aiding the White Army in its anti-Jewish pogroms, Lenin and Trotsky openly admitted that they intended to suspend democracy, use Red Terror against the White Terror, and restore order. Once again, this totalitarianism that had emerged, like the French terror in time of war, was brutally honest and made no excuses. Obviously I am against these tactics, but you cannot deny that there is something different about Stalinism.

After Tito liberated Yugoslavia from the Italian and German invaders, Stalin wanted Tito to proclaim Yugoslavia a “people’s democracy”. But Tito realized how absurd this was and openly proclaimed the early Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia a “totalitarian one-party dictatorship”.

It is precisely rule by terror demoralizes, that makes popular rule of the masses impossible, and it is something that should never be used even in times of war. But, you know, Stalinist terror is unique among these historical examples in that it uses terror in time of peace. And unlike these other examples, it is brutally dishonest because officially it doesn’t exist. If you were to criticize “comrade Stalin” at a public meeting, you would disappear the next day. But if you pointed out that in criticizing “comrade Stalin”, that you would inevitably disappear the next day, you would actually disappear that night- twice as fast!

This is what makes Stalinism so tragic. This is what makes Stalinism a betrayal not only of Marxism, but of its own official ideology. It is politically dishonest to the point of hypocrisy. Socialists used to always disagree with one another, it wasn’t until Stalinism though, that questions of disagreement were so casually solved with bullets in the head.

I won’t get into the serious totalitarian distortions of Leninism that Stalinism embodies here, but I merely wanted to point out how absurd the Stalinist political system is. Pick a former or currently existing Stalinist state and you will see the same blatant falsehoods in the constitution.

The Dictatorship of The Proletariat and America Today

May 31, 2018

What do the Libertarian Marxists want?

The most pompous and misinformed servants of the existing order cry that because we are Marxists, even “Libertarian Marxists”, that we want to instill upon America the same despotism that reigned in East Germany, in Romania, in the Soviet Union, the same tyranny that reigns in China and North Korea today. “They want a dictatorship! They want to overthrow our democracy and create a dictatorship of the proletariat!” so our misinformed worker/ proletarian cries.

We certainly do want to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat. But what even is “the proletariat”? The proletariat is really just another word for the working class. But in America the “working class” typically refers to the most impoverished subsection of the proletariat. A proletarian is anyone who lives off their own labor, is anyone who receives a wage or a salary. In popular terms, the “proletariat” refers to the 99%.

Our hypothetical critic (who no doubt exists) is horrified by the word “dictatorship”. But such a person has not the faintest knowledge of the class nature of our capitalist/ bourgeois society, or of the role social classes have played throughout human history generally.

The word “bourgeois” or “bourgeoisie” refers to the capitalist class, who does not derive its income from its own work, but rather lives off the labor of the proletariat, or the working class. The bourgeoisie is the ruling class in capitalist society, the class that owns the “means of production”, the factories, enterprises, and implements used by the workers to create all the wealth in our society. This is what is meant by the term “private property”.

Our most ancient knowledge of democracy in practice stems from where? The Greek city slave states. The first real exercise of democracy in practice, while an enormous step forward, was nonetheless an expression of a democracy and a dictatorship at the same time. No democracy in all of human history has ceased to be a class dictatorship in one form or another.

In Ancient Greece the only people allowed to vote and run for office, the only people with any real power or influence, were members of the ruling social class that owned the instruments of production– the slave-owners. Ancient Greek democracy, according to the Marxist interpretation of history, was a dictatorship of the slave-owning class by means of democracy. After those thousand or so years of feudalism, in which democracy was once again proclaimed by the nobility and feudal lords (the ruling class of feudalism) to be “against human nature” and something that “if tried always fails and reverts back to the God-ordained order of the monarchy”, democracy once again emerged supreme.

The early French and American revolutions only solidified the political and economic rule of the emerging bourgeoisie or capitalist class. The newly declared capitalist/ bourgeois republics did this by abolishing feudalism and toppling the monarchy, they then took control of society not in the name of its own class, but in the name of the whole of society. At once, it identified its own class interests with those of the people as a whole.

But history is not a straight line, progress is the trend, but not the rule. In France, for instance, the first French republic was overthrown and the monarchy was restored. The economic rule of the capitalist class, however, remained unchallenged. In America too the first real expression of bourgeois/ capitalist state power failed miserably and the Articles of Confederation were graduated into the dustbin of history. It was, nonetheless, a heroic attempt to establish a bourgeois republic.

The class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie historically becomes self-evident when looks at how the electoral process works. The bourgeois/ capitalist Founding Fathers of America, who were though well intentioned, the top 1% of the 1%, wanted to establish a system that, while serving the interests of the whole people and maintaining liberty, represented exclusively the minority bourgeois/ capitalist class to the exclusion of the majority proletariat/ working class, slave, and the agrarian petty-bourgeois classes. So it was said in the constitutional convention of Philadelphia by John Jay, “Those who own the country (the bourgeoisie) ought to control it”. The right to vote was restricted not only to the male sex, but to the minority subsection of the male sex that owned the means of production in one form or another (private, not personal property). No matter how benevolent and in the actual interests of the whole people this republic was, it was still a dictatorship of the bourgeois/ capitalist class minority to the exclusion of the majority. A bourgeois/ capitalist republic, no matter how open a society it creates, still represents a class dictatorship of the minority to the exclusion of the majority.

But, naturally, we must take into account the countless proletarian/ working class social movements from below that did away with the formal bourgeois/ capitalist restriction on electoral politics, that abolished slavery and gave the black man the right to vote and be elected, that gave women the right to vote and be elected, that opened the way for a democracy of “the whole people”. The natural development of our bourgeois/ capitalist democracy is a people unconsciously longing to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, a democracy of the majority in practice and not merely on paper.

A proletarian today is not merely the “industrial factory worker of the 19th century”, but according to the Marxist analysis of society, is anyone who earns a salary or a wage, is anyone who works and does not live off the labor of others. This is why we refer to the Marxian “working class” as the proletariat, because “working class” refers to the lowest strata of the proletariat in American society. Certainly, then, the proletariat constitutes the overwhelming majority of society. The expression “the 99%” and “the proletariat” are in actuality, the same thing.

In spite of these formal declarations of a democracy “of the whole people”, we nonetheless find that those who hold positions of power in electoral politics are members of the bourgeois class, are capitalists, or rich men and women. We find that the two parties in this country are thoroughly bourgeois/ capitalist in nature. We find that candidates running for office only become successful through the corporate funding and financing of bourgeois/ capitalist institutions. To receive money from wall street is the only way to get elected to a high office in this country, with the small exception of people like Bernie Sanders and Kshama Sawant who had massive grass-roots social movements behind them.

Let us look at how corporations fund candidates. The workers in any industry or enterprise, produce all the wealth “made” by that enterprise (minus initial investments on the part of the capitalist). An individual worker, let’s call him Karl, produces 40$ an hour on average. Karl earns a salary that is the equivalent of about 10$ an hour. “But wait! What happens to the other 30$ that Karl makes?” you might ask. The answer is simple. To keep the business running, naturally 2$ or so needs to go to keeping the lights on and paying the bills, and another 3$ or so needs to go towards buying more raw materials needed in the production process. But that still leaves another $25 that Karl is making but not getting. Where does this go? Well Karl, working in a capitalist enterprise or corporation, has bosses, not merely the managers he “sees” everyday but the ones he doesn’t see, the ones who may have never even been to the place Karl works. Those bosses happen to be the ones who own the building Karl works at, who own the tools Karl uses to make whatever it is he makes. In other words, they own the means of production.

These bosses aren’t elected by people like Karl, Karl has no say in how the business (in which he spends over half of his life) operates, nor is he represented by them. Instead the board of directors at the top is elected by share-holders, where one share is equal to one vote. Naturally, the top 1% owns over 50% of all the stocks on the market, so naturally it is they who are being represented more than anyone else. The board of directors can do whatever it likes, if it wants to, it can decide not to pay any dividends to the share-holders at all (though this would probably be a bad idea and isn’t all too common). The board of directors, naturally, has to pay taxes to the government. Assuming there aren’t any Islands in the Caribbean where they can funnel their funds, let us assume that this business does, in fact, pay taxes. 5$, we will say, goes to taxes. From the $20 left, the board decides it will invest 5$ into the further expansion of the business. The bigger the company is, the more there is to make. But they realize that Karl is making 10$ an hour in America, and that workers in Mexico or China only are paid 3$ an hour. So that 5$ goes to the construction of a plant in Mexico or China, a plant that will eventually take Karl’s job. Karl has no say in this, in fact he doesn’t even know it’s going to happen. He will simply show up for work one day only to find he no longer has a job.

But then there is still 15$ Karl makes but does not receive. What happens to this? Well the board of directors and CEO feels they have been working very hard and deserve a raise, already they are taking 3$ of Karl’s labor every hour (all to go into the pockets of 10-15 people) but that is not enough, so they decide to give themselves a raise in celebration of the increased profit margins they will get out of foreign labor, say, an additional 2$ from Karl’s labor (which adds up to a whole lot, that’s 5$ from every working employee at the company per hour on average). They have 10$ left, and decide that they should pay dividends, so they give 1$ away to the share holders to encourage further investment. So what do they do with the remaining 9$? Well the workers have managers and clerks who do the paperwork and make sure the workers are actually working, so for the managers, 5$ from the remaining 9$ is taken. When that 5$ is taken from the average $40 or so every worker makes, the managers end up making significantly more than Karl.

But then of course there is the (albeit unlikely) danger that the workers will realize what a scam this all is in the future. The capitalists at the top want to ensure this system of exploitation (making lots of money without really working very hard) continues. But there is still 4$ left. Where does this go? The board of directors decides they want to fund a candidate who is running for office, a candidate that, being pro-capitalist, will look after their interests and ensure the cycle of exploitation continues unfettered (they may call it innovation of course). If the workers are seriously disgruntled, they can fund a democrat who will give the workers small enough concessions to keep everything running smoothly for the people on top. If they want, they can fund a candidate who will blame everyone but themselves (who are in actuality responsible) for all the jobs that are going overseas, someone who will blame the individual Mexican and Chinese workers instead of the people making the decisions. This is all very good for the capitalists/ bourgeois class.

In a nutshell, Karl says he “makes 10$ an hour”. In Karl’s mind, this is a “fair wage”. But Karl doesn’t think about the fact that he is in fact producing an average of $40 an hour because he never sees those numbers. Out of the 40$ made in one hour, 10$ is going to Karl (who made the entire $40), $5 goes to “necessary expenditures” paying the bills, buying more raw materials, another 5$ goes into investing further into the business (by exporting Karl’s job abroad), and another 5$ goes towards paying taxes, and another 5$ goes to the salaries of the clerks and managers. $10, though, is left over for the capitalists at the top to do with as they will. It should come as no surprise that they decide to make $5 an hour off of every $40 Karl produces (the equivalent of half of Karl’s wage), and that this “$5” is in fact exponentially greater than $5 alone because they make $5 per hour, per employee who works for the company. 1$ of the $5 left goes to dividends, and the remaining 4$ goes towards a politician who will look after not Karl’s interests, but the interests of the people running the corporations who funded said candidate.

Just over half of the total amount of work Karl does is actually necessary to produce his wage (and pay the bills, get the raw materials, pay his managers salaries, and pay taxes). This is Karl’s socially necessary labor time, the minimum amount of time he has to work to start producing a profit for those who own the means of production. For the rest of the time he spends at work though, he is actually producing the extremely high salary his bosses at the very top make He is also making money for share-holders and producing the funds that will be poured into the political system, to fund candidates chosen by the board of directors. It doesn’t matter if Karl here is pro-choice, his bosses can use the money he directly produced to fund a pro-life candidate or vice versa. He has no say in the matter. This is capitalism in a nutshell.

When Karl is fired from his job and learns that his job was taken by someone in Mexico, he rallies behind a billionaire politician (who was, consequently, funded by his former bosses) who demonizes the workers in Mexico and those who are coming across the border illegally to “take our jobs”. It never occurs to Karl how corrupt this whole system really is. The idea of democracy in the workplace (socialism) certainly never crossed Karl’s mind. Socialism to Karl, means the dictatorship of a central committee, of a one party state. Socialism in Karl’s (Karl being fictitious and bearing no relation to Karl Marx) mind, is a system where “the state controls everything and there is no freedom”.

It doesn’t matter what pompous slogans of a “democracy of the whole people” the bourgeoisie/ capitalist class promotes. Yes, everyone can vote, but not everyone can or does pour money into ensuring a particular political candidate is heard. That privilege belongs almost exclusively to the bourgeois/ capitalist class, the big capitalists who own the means of production. The American political system in a nutshell, belongs to Wall Street.

No matter how “open” a bourgeois/ capitalist democracy is, those who hold office will consist overwhelmingly of those who either are capitalists, or those who represent the interests of the capitalist class to the exclusion of the proletarian majority. Lenin once said the ratio of capitalists to non-capitalists in such a republic was about “nine tenths” to one. But if we look at the socioeconomic makeup of the federal Government in America, we see that “nine tenths” is far too conservative an estimate.

(SEE IMAGE)

Many people promote the idea of “going back” to a supposedly more democratic America, before Wall Street “corrupted” American democracy. But such a thing never existed. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the relationship between wall street and American politics has always been there. Yes, America is an astoundingly free country, and all of human civilization should aspire to have such negative liberty as we Americans enjoy, but we have reached an impasse beyond which point America can only become a freer and more democratic nation by ousting the political and economic rule of the bourgeois/ capitalist class, by divorcing money from politics and abolishing the capitalist system. This can only be done by the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and with it, direct democracy at the local level.

To our misinformed critic who accuses us of wanting to abolish our bourgeois/ capitalist “democracy” and replace it with the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, we plead guilty. But in place of our bourgeois/ capitalist democracy we do not want a “dictatorship” of one party or of a small group of politicians as we saw under Stalinism in the 20th century. That is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois/ capitalist sense of the word, in the sense of the Jacobin’s.

America, though a democracy, is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie/ capitalist class because its democratic institutions are dominated almost exclusively by the bourgeois/ capitalist class, a class that is the 1%, or the extreme minority. When we say we want the “dictatorship of the proletariat” we mean that we want our political institutions to represent the majority, the 99% or proletarian class, and not the wealthy minority. Such a system can but only be a democracy so “open” and “free” that it would make modern America look like an authoritarian nation. We do not want to abolish freedom of the press as some accuse us. We are not Stalinists, we recognize that the political rule of the masses is impossible without an absolutely free and unfettered press. But we go further, as Rosa Luxemburg said,

“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege…

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois/ capitalist sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins! Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc.”

Rosa here foreshadows the Stalinist despotism that would rule in Europe for nearly a century, but in the same sentence she also dismisses any notion of such a tyranny being by any interpretation a “dictatorship of the proletariat” as many liberals and Stalinists claim today. The dictatorship of the proletariat means exorcising from our current flawed notions of “democracy” its domination by wall street, big business, and the bourgeois/ capitalist class generally. It means a political system “of the people, by the people, and for the people” in actuality and not merely on paper. Not of the bourgeoisie in the name of the people, but of the people themselves. We believe that political democracy without industrial democracy (socialism) amounts to virtual oligarchy in practice.

Some claim we are “totalitarians” because we say we are communists. But such a flawed understanding of the word “communism” negates entirely the entire school of socialist thought. By those standards, anarcho-communists too, are “totalitarians” because they too say they are communists. By such an absurd definition, we could call them “radically anti-authoritarian-totalitarians”. Such a contradiction in terms alone would make the entire broad school of anarcho-communist thought invalid. But communism means the establishment of a classless, moneyless, stateless society. We believe that with the expansion of industrial and scientific achievements, coupled with industrial and political democracy, such a state of being is inevitable. Unlike the Stalinists, we are vehemently opposed to the totalitarian pursuit of a socialist or communist society. Such a pursuit is, in and of itself, anti-Marxist. Communism has nothing to do with totalitarianism, it is the method of pursuing such a society, that can be either totalitarian or radically anti-authoritarian in nature. This goes for capitalism too.

The Jacobins were totalitarian capitalists, but no one today claims that “to be a capitalist means you must be a totalitarian”. Such notions are dismissed by the clearly non-totalitarian paths many nations took to establish a capitalist political and economic system. The only reason they say such things about communism is because the only notable historical expression of the attempt to realize such a society in the public’s mind, has thus far has been totalitarian in nature. We are as horrified by such systems as anyone else. If anything, the current state of affairs in America today is far more authoritarian than any political system we seek to bring about. We, for instance, view mass surveillance programs as indefensible in any society, and believe they should be done away with entirely. The broad consensus of the masses is that individual liberty is precious and should be protected at all costs, that state power is a threat to civil liberty and should be limited, that we should expand the rights we have now to include education, health-care, housing, etc. This is what the socialists want.

As Rosa Luxemburg said, “The proletarian revolution requires no terror for its aims; it hates and despises killing. It does not need these weapons because it does not combat individuals but institutions, because it does not enter the arena with naive illusions whose disappointment it would seek to revenge. It is not the desperate attempt of a minority to mold the world forcibly according to its ideal, but the action of the great massive millions of the people, destined to fulfill a historic mission and to transform historical necessity into reality.”

The dictatorship of the proletariat in America will not come as the result of some armed violent insurrection by a small party of intellectuals. On the contrary, it will come as a result of the conscious actions of tens of millions of people who want a freer, more equal and just world. It will not be something opposed to the popular will of the people, but something that is fully in line with the will of the overwhelming majority, and something that can only come about by the popular will of the people themselves. It will not declare itself militantly atheistic, but something compatible with all religious faiths.

As Leon Trotsky said, “Should America go communist as a result of the difficulties and problems that your capitalist social order is unable to solve, it will discover that communism, far from being an intolerable bureaucratic tyranny and individual regimentation, will be the means of greater individual liberty and shared abundance.

At present most Americans regard communism solely in the light of the experience of the Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the Soviet Union… Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II… Who else will fight against communism? Your corporal’s guard of billionaires and multimillionaires? Your Mellons, Morgans, Fords and Rockefellers? They will cease struggling as soon as they fail to find other people to fight for them.”

We are not utopians who claim the path to such a society lies as a ready-made formula in the book of some political party. On the contrary, it can come about only through the open and free democratic process itself. The arguments against industrial democracy (socialism) by the bourgeois/ capitalist class today are no different from the arguments against political democracy made by the feudal nobility in the middle ages. They too will be graduated into the dustbin of history. As Rosa Luxemburg said,

“The modern proletarian class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight… That’s exactly what is laudable about it, that’s exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers’ movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation.”

The dictatorship of the proletariat is against the political rule of a “central committee”, which almost always constitutes itself as the “only thinking element” within a political party. As Rosa also correctly said,

“The nimble acrobat fails to perceive that the only ‘subject’ which merits today the role of director is the collective ‘ego’ of the working class. The working class demands the right to make its mistakes and learn the dialectic of history.

Let us speak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.”

Our call is a call for the dictatorship of the proletariat is a call for the preservation of individual liberty in a world where privacy, the only real prerequisite to civil liberty in the digital age, is being eroded more and more, day by day, by an increasingly authoritarian far-right shift in global politics. We believe only the socialism can act to truly preserve the grand ideas of freedom, democracy, and equality. And more than that, we believe that only socialism can realize these grand ideas in actuality and not merely on paper. The cause of socialism is the cause of liberty. Such is the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Why Every Activist Should Use a VPN/Tor and Oppose Mass Surveillance

May 29, 2018

In terms of cyber-security, activists tend to be the most vulnerable to attack both in the sense of their likelihood to be targeted by governments and mass surveillance programs, and in regards to the notoriously weak cyber-security measures they as individuals, and as a community take. In 2017 when the Senate voted to make it legal for Internet Service Provider’s (ISPs) to sell your internet history to the highest bidder, a tech blog I follow called ‘The Tin Hat‘ (who I borrowed the above image from) made the claim that “Privacy in America now starts with a VPN”. Every activist should have a VPN and use Tor, and I will explain why below. And it is certainly true that a good VPN can restore the internet to what it once was, that it can give you the freedom to have reasonable security from entities hell-bent on violating your right to privacy. But the situation is far graver than just “privacy” alone. Mass surveillance is a cancer in the very heart of our “free society”.

“When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.” — John Adams Letter to Thomas Jefferson (15 July 1817).

This freedom existed briefly, I claim, shortly after the internet exploded in popularity. Children could talk in forums about Astronomy with experts in the field and no one knew or had any way of knowing who the other person was. People were free to say and think and research anything they wanted without fear of being watched or meticulously recorded. But then 9/11 happened and the NSA started watching everyone. Finding out about that destroyed the sanctity of the web, but the people have the right to know what their government is doing and Edward Snowden is a hero for what he did.

We had those freedoms once. I remember what the Internet was like before the NSA started spying on everyone and the government made it legal for ISP’s to sell your internet history to the highest bidder. As I said in my article “The Marxist case for Human Rights”, “In the digital age the right to privacy is also withering away more and more even (and especially) in the most “freedom loving” liberal democracies. But as Rosa Luxemburg correctly pointed out, “freedom is always the freedom of the dissenters… of the one who thinks differently”. Privacy in the digital age is the only real prerequisite to civil liberty. One is not truly free to dissent if one is being watched at every moment, (it is a well known and independently verifiable fact that people alter their behaviors when they are being watched, especially by authorities, and especially when these authorities retain everything a person said or thought or did indefinitely) and if one is being watched at every moment, one is not free at all. One doesn’t even have to wield this power to the fullest extent possible to destroy human liberty, its very existence is a terminal illness to every form of human freedom. In light of the horrendous abuses of power by NSA, GCHQ, and its accomplices, the Marxist left is bound by its principles to fight against mass surveillance, for the preservation of human freedom.” We are bound by our principles to fight against these abuses of power in the political realm, but it is also necessary to protect ourselves and our communities at the individual level as well.

Freedom and mass surveillance are incompatible, period. And activists, who dutifully express their right to dissent, are under extra scrutiny by mass surveillance programs. In East Germany, the purpose of the Stasi’s mass surveillance was not merely to “catch dissidents”. It’s primary purpose was psychological: to cause the people to self-censor out of fear of how a certain action or conversation might look to the authorities. In Czechoslovakia before the Prague Spring people had a “public opinion” which venerated the Stalinist government and a “private opinion” which often was opposed to it. We are not yet at that point, but more and more people are silencing themselves out of fear. “I wonder what this will look like to a government agent or employer in 5 or 10 years when I search for this or go to this website.” Surely all of us have decided not to search for something because of how it might look to big brother. For me I avoided researching the war in Iraq because I was afraid. A family member’s professor, I remembered, was interrogated by the FBI for doing research on the very same topic. People often joke about appearing on “the list”, as if it’s some trivial thing. Well us activists actually are on “the list” and some of us aren’t even doing the bare minimum to protect ourselves against the illegal mass surveillance programs targeting activists and activist organizations explicitly.

I came across a Reddit post awhile ago that laid out the dangers of mass surveillance that I think best lays out why one ought to be politically opposed to mass surveillance programs:

“I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren’t realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn’t about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It’s about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points:

1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.

Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you’re now considered a dangerous person.

With this tech in place, the government doesn’t have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you’re reporting on them to protect your dad.

2) Let’s say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They’re shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won’t be responsible for anyone dying. That’s going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they’re next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.

3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you’ve never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can’t say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn’t feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it’s infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police.

You decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren’t home. You can’t reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven’t been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn’t there.

4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It’s like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him “fuck you dude what are you laughing at can’t you see I’ve got a fucking wound on my leg?”

“Sorry,” he says. “I just didn’t know anyone read the news anymore.” There haven’t been any real journalists for months. They’re all in jail.

Everyone walking around is scared. They can’t talk to anyone else because they don’t know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they’re sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It’s always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons.

You want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you’re basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can’t use a phone or email. You can’t get a job. You can’t even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don’t want to lose their jobs. They don’t want to be labeled as traitors.

This all happened in the country where I live.

You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality.

Maybe Obama won’t do it. Maybe the next guy won’t, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn’t about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it’s about your daughter or your son. We just don’t know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not?

You know for me, the reason I’m upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant “liberty and justice for all.” You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That’s what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren’t standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety?

Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe?

I didn’t make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn’t happen in America. But guess what? It’s starting to happen.

I actually get really upset when people say “I don’t have anything to hide. Let them read everything.” People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.”

Every activist who values human freedom regardless of their political affiliations or tendencies has a duty to abuse these programs. They are grotesque abuses of power and constitute a mortal threat to any notion of a “free society”. We are one terrorist attack away from the “turn-key tyranny” Edward Snowden warned us about. If the United States becomes a dictatorship, or becomes unstable in any way, the socialists and dissenters will be the first to go. The threat of such a thing happening within the next 10-20 years has never been higher. But the fight against these programs on the political level is indispensable from the fight against these abuses of power on the individual level.

DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) came out last year recommending intermittent Tor usage for their members and fellow activists. But Tor alone, in my view, does not go nearly far enough.

Many socialists and activists today happily use digital tools critically vulnerable to mass surveillance without thinking twice. Even socialist organizations coordinate their actions exclusively through Google and Facebook with no backup for if –god forbid– things go wrong. If some awful terrorist attack happened and the increasingly far-right government took emergency measures to ensure its “political stability and national security”, the socialist left today would disappear with a whimper not a cry.

Even in our pre-1984 world, political repression against the socialist left is very real. Members of Occupy Wall-street were routinely harassed and surveilled by the FBI, leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement even got their doors kicked in when protests became “too big” of “violent” (as if somehow they were responsible for the rogue actions of a few individuals!). The Stalinist-Maoist FRSO (Freedom Road Socialist Organization) was successfully infiltrated by the FBI less than 10 years ago, and these activities are routine even in the post-cold war era. And unlike Maoism, the ideas of democratic socialism actually resonate with millions of Americans today. Socialism is coming back, and so too is the government repression of the socialist movement. Surely DSA and other democratic socialist organizations are seen as a much bigger “threat” to the status quo than a few cloak-and-dagger Maoists. A Trotskyist comrade I know claims he even found out that his wife, the woman he married, was an undercover FBI agent. A black activist was recently jailed by the FBI for the speaking out against police brutality on Facebook. You cannot make this stuff up.

In light of Snowden’s revelations, you would have to be an idiot to assume that this harassment and surveillance was limited to the physical world alone.

If you are an activist with any level of influence or popularity, you are being watched, your communications are being intercepted. And I don’t mean you are being watched in the same sense that everyone is, I mean the bulk data the government collects on you is subject to actual scrutiny by real people. Content, not just metadata. If you go to a protest the police can find out who you are simply by intercepting your cell phone signal with an IMSI catcher, something extremely common in urban areas, and from then on you are on a list.

Everyone, but especially activists, should take measures to avoid and obfuscate the governments illegal mass surveillance programs.

Here is a list of resources you can use to gain the information you need to protect yourself (Tor, I2P, and ZeroNet users should do a DuckDuckGo search of these resources):

Privacytools.io (mirrored on Thought Foundry Blog)

EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense Guide

EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense for Activists

EFF’s Guide for attending protests (US)

EFF’s Guide for attending protests (international)

Tor Project

Non-biased VPN reviews (ThatOnePrivacySite)

As a standard for individual activists, I personally would recommend the following:

You should use a good VPN, not a “free” VPN but a paid one. Non-biased VPN reviews can be found at ThatOnePrivacySite. You should keep your VPN on all the time, and test for DNS leaks, so as to ensure all internet traffic 24/7 coming to and from your phone or computer is encrypted. When you are researching political topics, you should use the Tor Browser to further encrypt your communications. You should be running Linux by default, even an easy-to-use Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. You should avoid OS X, and Windows 10 like the plague. Don’t store anything embarrassing or that can be used against you on iCloud or Google Drive. Remember when the FBI tried to get Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself by threatening to release knowledge of his affair? Yeah, don’t let that happen to you. Your computer and phone should use a strong passphrse (not password) and everything without exception should be encrypted. Don’t message other activists using SMS of Facebook Chat, use Signal or another end-to-end encrypted messaging system. If you go to a protest, bring a burner or keep your phone turned OFF. And finally, tape your damn webcams. Do it on your laptop, your phone, everything. You may think this is “paranoid”, but the reality is, you are being watched, and you are extremely vulnerable if you do not do even the bare minimum to protect yourself.

As a standard for socialist and activist organizations, I personally recommend the following:

Communications within an organization should be end-to-end encrypted by default. Emails should use PGP encryption as the standard. Websites for socialist organizations should use HTTPS encryption and ideally be mirrored on the Tor network. Facebook may be crucial to organizing protests and other events, but individual members of socialist organizations should use mediums of communication that are much more difficult for the government to intercept.

Now many people will probably try to defend these programs and claim “I have nothing to hide”! But you know, it was confirmed by the white house that mass surveillance programs haven’t stopped a single terrorist attack since their inception. Also the quote “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” was popularized by Joseph Goebbels, you know, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany. I hope I have laid out why privacy in the digital age is the only real prerequisite to civil liberty today, that it isn’t a matter of having something to “hide” (i.e. wrongdoing) but a matter of having everything to protect. Freedom is always and exclusively the freedom of dissent! If this doesn’t convince you still, let me resort to the spirit of the law, as much as I hate legal formalism. Here is the fourth amendment, that by some alchemy “doesn’t apply” to the digital world- so say the enemies of liberty within our own government:

Amendment IV

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Also Article 12 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights echo’s this proclamation:

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

As Benjamin Franklin correctly said, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”. We would be much “safer” if the police could search anyone at any time without reason, and surely crime would go down exponentially. This is the philosophy NSA uses to justify it’s illegal and immoral mass surveillance programs. But the point of liberty is to protect the people from the very threat the state poses to the people. The point of liberty is freedom, not “safety” or “security”. And as activists who face a much grander threat to our liberty than ordinary people, we can, should, and must defend ourselves from these malevolent intrusions and abuses of power.

Using Mao’s own Quotes Against Him

May 29, 2018

I saw this old video of Chinese youth rallying and chanting denunciations of “Khrushchevite revisionism”. Naturally this would excite any self-proclaimed Maoist. But then you remember the old saying, “What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed?” — Hannah Arendt, 1974

It’s a strange condition in which all the “free and happy” people in every “people’s democracy” all seem to unanimously agree with the leader and the central committee on all issues. If there is no press freedom, and the only information people get is in support of the party, how then can they come to their own conclusions about anything?

Here Mao refutes himself when he said in “Oppose Book Worship” that, “Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense.”

Clearly then, the top down Stalinist bureaucracy of Mao is, in and of itself, anti-Marxist. Not according to someone else, but by Mao’s own standards. This is what Slavoj Žižek means when he says that Stalinism betrays its own standards, it rejects its own premises. Stalinism fails on its own terms.

Historical Justice For The Crimes of a People’s Ancestors. To What Degree it Justice?

May 26, 2018

(See image for this post)

It is fun to joke about a Native American president deporting all Caucasians back to Europe, and this would be a form of ‘total historical justice’ for the Native American people, but are a people innately responsible for the crimes of their ancestors? No, but they are responsible for whatever injustice the present generation imposes onto a people. Every year that goes by after an occupation, the morality of restoring the old society in full grows increasingly grey as new generations emerge. But this grayness does not in the least give a people the right to continually oppress or exploit the deposed peoples. No, they have no such right.

Take for instance the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The initial act of “taking back” Israel was a criminal and unjust act, even if it was in response to another injustice (the holocaust). Most of Israel is not responsible for this. But the present generation of Israel mercilessly oppresses the Palestinian people, continues to steal the land that belongs to the Palestinian people, and wages a war against a people that borders on genocide. In this, all of Israel is guilty of crimes against humanity. Those who stand by and do nothing are guilty. Neutrality always is on the side of the oppressor.

The solution is not, however, the ousting of the present generation of Israel. Nor is the solution to the oppression of the indigenous peoples of America the “ousting” of all Caucasians to Europe. Israel and Palestine should be restored to the pre-1967 borders by force of arms if necessary. Those who advocate total seizure of the land by one group of another are morally bankrupt in either case, regardless of historical injustices. The Native American people today suffer horrendous injustices even if on a lesser scale than the Palestinian people. But nonetheless it is our fault if we do not help them, if we do not do what we can to restore the dignity and self-determination they have lost due to the crimes of our ancestors.

Force, naturally, is the only option to restore order to a people who have been brainwashed to hate one another, justly or unjustly, with good reason or without. Due to such a situation, the “right to national self-determination” of Israel has no moral grounds to exist, nor would it for America if we treated our natives as horribly as Israel treats the Palestinians. Historical justice is not necessarily justice proper, when total for one party, it is in nearly every instance a form of injustice against a people whose only crime was being caught in the cross-fire.

“Turn To Him The Other Cheek Also” An Essay on Liberation Theology

May 23, 2018

We are all familiar with the following Bible verse about turning the other cheek:

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you for something, and when someone takes what is yours, do not ask for it back. Do for others just what you want them to do for you.” -Luke 6:27-31 

On the individual level, this humility and selflessness is admirable. But according to the political line of the early Bolshevik party, as espoused by Bukharin in The ABCs of Communism, 

“…the Christian code runs: ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ In most cases there is an irreconcilable conflict between the principles of communist tactics and the commandments of religion. A communist who rejects the commandments of religion and acts in accordance with the directions of the party, ceases to be one of the faithful. On the other hand, one who, while calling himself a communist, continues to cling to his religious faith, one who in the name of religious commandments infringes the prescriptions of the party, ceases thereby to be a communist.”

But Bukharin, and any other socialist or Marxist who defends this ultra-leftist semi-feudal attitude towards religion, fails to understand the underlying philosophy and basic principles of the Christian faith. Christianity in no way supports “turning the other cheek” to systematic forms of oppression and exploitation with no underlying socioeconomic justification of their social existence.

It can be said that the attitude Christianity takes towards this question is as follows, “If you oppress me or strike me as an individual, I shall turn the other cheek. But if you oppress or strike my neighbor, my brother, or my sister, and do so on a systematic basis, then I will not hesitate to deliver them from the yoke of oppression you have forced upon them”.

This is a principle that is fully in line with the basic tenets of the Christian faith:

“This is what the LORD says: “Uphold justice and righteousness. Deliver from their oppressor those who have been robbed. Don’t mistreat or do violence to the alien, the orphan, or the widow, or shed the blood of innocent people in this place.”

-Jeremiah 22:3

Taking into context the historical materialist view on human history, it is no surprise that the Bolsheviks took a hostile attitude towards religion and the church, especially given the backward state of the Russian Empire. The ruling class of each age uses religion, as it uses every other instrument available in the existing superstructure of society, to legitimize its social rule and existence as a class regardless of the actual principles of a religious faith which often are directly opposed to the ‘ethics’ and ideas of the ruling class. But the Bolsheviks did not oppose religion on this basis, on the basis of the Russian Orthodox Church’s reverence of the Tsar as holy, of its antisemitism, of its persecution of protestants and atheists alike, of its semi-feudal and bourgeois character. On the contrary, it opposed religion as such, as a matter of principle. This was one of the most tragic mistakes of the Bolshevik party, a mistake I have elaborated on ceaselessly before.

Take for instance the sign of the cross. What is the cross? In ancient times the cross was not a religious symbol at all, on the contrary, it was a symbol of the political repression and state terror of the Roman Empire. It is easy to forget this fact after 20 odd millenniums of human social development, but the adaptation of the symbol of the cross by the adherents to the Christian faith was the radical transformation of a weapon of the oppressor into the weapon of the oppressed. This is precisely what Liberation Theology and Christian Communism attempts to do today. It takes Christianity, which has been converted by the bourgeoisie into a tool to justify its own existence and oppression of the poor, and it converts it into a weapon of the oppressed to be used against the oppressor. Not only does it do that, but it abolishes the ruling class character of Christianity which has been used to distort the principles of Christianity and  justify oppressive social systems for nearly 2000 years. It brings Christianity back to its roots, which are undeniably communistic in nature.

According to Rosa Luxemburg, in her pamphlet Socialism and the Churches (a pamphlet I recommend anyone interested in this topic to check out),

“The Social-Democrats want to bring about the state of ‘communism’; that is chiefly what the clergy have against them. First of all, it is striking to notice that the priests of today who fight against ‘Communism’ condemn in reality first Christian Apostles. For these latter were nothing else than ardent communists…”

After going into great detail as to the specifics of the communistic nature of the early Christians and the Christian faith, she reiterates her attack on bourgeois Christianity, an attack we can say is still valid against the mainstream, conservative Christianity of today,

“But it is in vain that you put yourselves about, you degenerate servants of Christianity who have become the servants of Nero. It is in vain that you help our murderers and our killers, in vain that you protect the exploiters of the proletariat under the sign of the cross. Your cruelties and your calumnies in former times could not prevent the victory of the Christian idea, the idea which you have sacrificed to the Golden Calf; today your efforts will raise no obstacle to the coming of Socialism. Today it is you, in your lies and your teachings, who are pagans, and it is we who bring to the poor, to the exploited the tidings of fraternity and equality. It is we who are marching to the conquest of the world as he did formerly who proclaimed that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

She finishes by stressing, directly in opposition to the ultra-leftist, semi-feudal attitude of the Bolsheviks, the compatibility between religion and socialism saying,

“And here is the answer to all the attacks of the clergy: the Social-Democracy in no way fights against religious beliefs. On the contrary, it demands complete freedom of conscience for every individual and the widest possible toleration for every faith and every opinion. But, from the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the proletariat, whether he be in a cassock or in the uniform of the police.”

Christianity teaches love, humility, forgiveness, mercy and justice at the same time. These principles are not hypocritical to one another, but rather they express themselves dialectically in the living action of the holy spirit as embodied in the believers of Christianity and its teachings. The philosophy this embodies best is not a Kantian resistance to all forms of liberation struggles on the grounds of universal standpoint of morality as many on the right-wing claim, but rather an adherence to taking whatever path causes the least possible social harm to others. On an individual level, it would be harmful and morally indefensible to lash out violently against someone because a wrong or form of oppression they caused you. This is what turning the other cheek means. Many ultra-leftists fail to understand this principle. They sink into degeneracy and moral cowardice, they abandon the basic ethics of socialism and Christianity alike when they enthusiastically celebrate the death or killing of a police officer or a capitalist or a landlord- as if the crimes of an entire social class manifest themselves entirely into a single individual, a product of the world they were born into, who probably never questioned the fundamental superstructure of society at all! Such despicable “celebratory remarks” are innately anti-socialist in character.

It is on the social basis alone that socialism wages the class struggle, that the ethics of Christianity wholeheartedly support. It seeks, yes, first and foremost to liberate the poor and oppressed, but its goal is the liberation of the whole of humanity without exception. It seeks to make life better for all and not merely for the oppressed. It does this for the former oppressor on a spiritual level, if not a material one. By abolishing the antagonism of social classes, socialism reconciles the former bourgeoisie and the former proletariat into a single class, the working class, and thereby it creates a classless society. This represents even for the former bourgeois, a liberation from the immorality of exploitation and the moral bankruptcy caused by living off of the labor of the poor. This represents also, the abolition of the social conditions which cause the petty-bourgeois to go bankrupt and homeless after a business they start fails, or when the investments a bourgeois has placed into a single company collapses in a stock market crisis, bringing the sum total of an entire life’s work to naught. Socialism and Christianity support the class war because it causes the least possible social harm.

Some would argue that Christianity and Communism are incompatible on the grounds of the “violence” revolutionary socialism has historically employed. Ignoring the pacifism of some socialists, we must say that if socialism utilizes positive violence, it does so as a tragic necessity (and it rarely does so). It does so only as a reaction to, and in an effort to stifle counter-revolutionary violence. Socialism seeks to abolish the negative violence represented by the toil and sweat, cold and homelessness, heartbreak and hidden tears of the oppressed, of the working class and the poor. Socialism struggles to make the state itself superfluous, the organization in our society with a monopoly on violence that forcefully maintains the existence of class society. Negative violence is itself a form of violence. As fellow comrade and Christian Communist blogger Christian Chiakulas (who’s blog you can find here) said,

“In a world that produces enough food to feed each and every one of us, starvation is violence.  In a society where vacant houses outnumber homeless people six to one, homelessness is violence.  A country in which health insurance companies rake in billions in profits while leaving nearly thirty million people uninsured and unable to access medical care is a violent society.

This is the everyday violence of capitalism – if it is profitable to let somebody die, or languish in abject poverty, we do so.  That is a violent society.”

Christianity opposes violence as a tactic when at all possible, but when the path to reconciliation of a social contradiction that is profoundly violent can only be reconciled by a lesser violence alone, that is the path it takes. Non-action is itself a form of action, it is better to act and cause a little harm than to refuse to act, and in moral cowardice, cause a far greater harm by not acting. This is the moral justification on which Christianity has supported just wars over the centuries. This moral justification is no different when it comes to socialist tactics. It does not, as no socialist should, glorify or fetishize acts of violence. But it does not take a liberal Kantian attitude towards the question either.

Jesus said “turn to him the other cheek also” because non-action in this case causes the least possible social harm. Despite the claims of various ruling classes over the centuries, Christian ethics is not and never has taken such a position of non-action towards social and systematic forms of oppression and exploitation, at which point the slogan “liberate the oppressed from the oppressor” comes into play. If a form of oppression or exploitation are historical necessities (as slave, feudal, and bourgeois society was), Christianity sought to reduce the violence associated with this antagonism on the individual and systemic level, even if the ruling class hijacked Christianity for its own ends. It did this because we live in a “fallen world”, in an effort to cause the least amount of harm possible. It did not take a Utopian stance towards a revolution during the early Roman Empire. It did seek to build a communist society within the community of believers by peaceful means, who held all property in common. Even if the experiment failed and had no social basis to succeed, the first act of the early Christians was an attempt to establish a communist society. Christianity has never been opposed to struggles for social justice or liberation. Because we have the means to realize the communistic society the early Christians hoped to build, to eradicate poverty, hunger, and homelessness on a global level, Christians and socialists alike should support the fight to realize such a society. There ought to be no contradiction between socialism and Christianity. The symbol of the cross alone repels the advocates of continuing the existing order of misery and oppression. Let the symbol of the cross bury the present bourgeois society as it buried the Roman Empire! Let that be the slogan of Christianity today!

Democratic Centralism: Great Under Capitalism, Not So Great Under Socialism

April 8, 2018

Democratic centralism as a tactic is crucial to modern socialist and communist parties under capitalism. During periods where the strength of capital is unfettered, it is a crucial organizational tool for the working class. Its effectiveness is self-evident when compared to parties that do not utilize this method of organization. It is capable of mobilizing and rallying the masses to the streets with a fervor and concreteness of action that no other model of political organization can bring. A socialist party of 3,000 can have more of an impact under such a model than one of 300,000.

But in reflecting on the history of the 20th century, one must come to the conclusion that the democratic centralist model is not at all applicable to a revolutionary government or post-revolutionary state. It is not at all applicable to the organization of a socialist society as such. Within such a framework, under any system, the central organs of party (and thereby state) power act as the sacred maintainers of the ‘correct’ political ideology and the ‘correct’ political line. Insofar as the party is of reasonable size, and insofar as democracy within the party is maintained, and insofar as it is a party taking a critical attitude towards the history of the 20th century, this is not a problem.

But when such a party becomes ‘the party’ for an entire society or a new emergency government, it converts Marxism into a political religion, into an alien dogma which cannot be questioned or genuinely believed in without such a person being half suspected of being a dissident. In this we the roots of a potentially totalitarian society. When Stalin took power, we saw precisely what such a state of affairs can bring to a country.

As victory becomes increasingly inevitable, millions flock to join the ‘winning’ party and the democratic aspect of democratic centralism is done away with to preserve the radical nature of the revolution. Under such a state of affairs, we find (as in the case of the Bolsheviks) that state terror becomes a lash by which the spiritual rebirth of the people is enforced at the direction of a small number of party intellectuals. But such a society is contradictory in the extreme, socialist democracy and the spontaneous action of the masses is the only thing that can bring a genuine spiritual rebirth in political life. And unrestricted individual liberty is a prerequisite to such a rebirth. It is rule by terror that demoralizes. Here we find one of the biggest mistakes of the Bolsheviks, one of the most accurate criticisms of Lenin and Trotsky.

But without a democratic centralist framework in capitalist society, in the midst of class struggle, the contradictions within a party of professional revolutionaries become innumerable. The agreed upon historical analysis of the history of the 20th century, the role of the Bolsheviks, the attitude a workers party should take in regards to modern political affairs, to economic affairs, to electoral politics, to historical figures, to methods of struggle, to anarchist tactics, to modern politicians and parties, and so forth, become so contradictory within such a party that its effectiveness on the battlefield of class struggle disintegrates entirely. It opens itself up as a ‘multi-tendency party’, meaning a party without a firm scientific or Marxist analysis of society.

Such a party and mode of political organization does have a time and place in which it should exist, as it is one that embodies the purest of democratic philosophies. But it should not exist as a party of professional revolutionaries and revolutionary intellectuals with the intent of leading the masses as they overthrow bourgeois society. It should not exist in a society where class consciousness is extremely low. These innumerable questions as to the positions such a party must take on various issues should be freely discussed and debated within the party, but once a decision has been made it must be accepted. This is the essence of democratic centralism: freedom in discussion, unity in action. When such a party becomes the only legal party in a newly born society, freedom of discussion vanishes, and the central leadership effectively becomes a dictatorship. Not a genuinely free and democratic dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense of the word, in the Jacobin sense of the word. Such is the essence of Rosa Luxemburg’s early criticisms of the Russian Revolution.

A socialist party not ascribing to a particular variant of Marxist thought, that is not a democratic centralist party, has the potential of being a proletarian party in the truest sense of the word: a party in line with the will of the proletariat and the broad masses as it actually exists in a socialist society. Such a party, or parties, or such a political organization, can and should emerge in the spiritual rebirth that a genuinely free and democratic socialist society brings. Society must be shaped in line with the will of the working people, not in line with the will of a few political theorists and party intellectuals. But such a party has no place in a capitalist society with extremely low class consciousness, or as an effective revolutionary socialist party within capitalist society.

It is in this that we can declare democratic centralism to be good under capitalism, but bad under socialism. Of course it is never so black and white, but this is generally our analysis.

America Only Has A Criminal ‘Injustice’ System

April 8, 2018

America does not have a criminal justice system, it has a criminal injustice system. It does not ‘rehabilitate’ people. On the contrary, it turns decent people convicted of petty or one-time crimes into actual criminals. 4/5ths of those ‘rehabilitated’ return to prison. It denies female prisoners the most basic of feminine hygiene products and punishes them when they bleed openly because of it. It punishes those who are troubled by isolating them from everyone and everything in a most cruel punishment, which only makes their problems worse. It makes those convicted of even petty sex crimes social outcasts by putting them on sex offender registries. It does nothing to help people when they are released from prison. It does nothing for transgender prisoners, forcing them into prisons populated by members of their birth sex where they are raped, abused, and murdered. It refuses them vitally needed hormone replacement therapy. It disproportionately targets people of color and the poor. It is a heartless institution. It does nothing to address the material conditions of physical and spiritual poverty that create crime, on the contrary, it worsens them. It is a racist, criminal, sadistic, unjust system that has no moral justification to exist.

Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash 

‘Free Society’ is Dying: The Diagnosis of 21th Century Geopolitics And Its Remedy

March 29, 2018

There has been a hard authoritarian right wing shift in global politics: the emergence of Trumpism, Brexit, and the triumph of Chinese state capitalism are all symptoms of this social transformation. What is happening and why? And what is to be done about it? I hope to address all of these things here.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF MODERN SOCIETY: THE REVOLUTION

There is a general trend in the course of recent human events. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, the masses of common men and women have fought bravely for their individual liberty and their liberation from oppression and exploitation in all its forms. The American revolution, the French revolution, the Haitian revolution, the revolutions of the 1840’s, the workers revolution that founded The Paris Commune, the Russian revolution, the Cuban revolution, the Chinese revolution, and even the revolutions of 1989 have all been a part of this great revolution. Such a revolution undoes itself when it is betrayed, or when it no longer represents the interests of the liberation of the people. It may not do so immediately, it may take many years of struggle. This is what we saw in 1989 with the fall of Stalinism in Eastern Europe. This revolution is not a straight line, it is a spiral of self-contradictions. But the general trend is almost universal: two steps forward, one step back.

The revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries fought mainly and almost exclusively for negative liberty, the barest of human rights. The revolutions of the 20th century fought mainly and almost exclusively for positive liberty, in societies that never had negative liberty to begin with.  The revolutions of 1989 made clear that no people can achieve liberation by negating the most basic negative liberties in the pursuit of a society that guarantees positive liberty.

This is what the ‘fall of communism’ symbolized. There can be no socialism without unfettered liberty and democracy, and no real liberty and democracy without socialism. The latter, however, was lost on such a disillusioned people as the Eastern European’s of 1989, and for this we cannot blame them. All these social contradictions and antagonisms, and especially those of our modern society, make clear the need for yet another expansion in the realm of personal liberty, another great revolution, this time for positive liberty on top of the negative liberty we already have in Western countries. This time what is needed is a revolution for a truly democratic and free socialist society, a society in line with the ethics of all the major religions of the world, not one like ours which is against those ethics. This is what we socialists believe.

But the information and telecommunications revolution, itself a phase of the industrial revolution, has revolutionized society to such an extent that it has struck at the very heart of the revolution. It has placed all of ‘free society’ in mortal danger. Not because technology is evil or bad, but because of the way technology functions in our liberal bourgeois society.

WHAT IS THE DIAGNOSIS?

Global politics has taken a hard authoritarian right wing shift in recent few years. There are several reasons for this and I believe the diagnosis is far more serious than anyone realizes. The reasons and consequences of this are as follows:

1.) Neoliberalism is a failed economic and political system that has not only lost all faith in itself, but it has lost the faith of the people.

2.) The establishment liberal left offers no viable alternatives to the existing order. Since the collapse of the USSR and co, the social democratic left offers no viable alternatives to the existing social order that will not be completely undone by capital via privatization and neoliberal ‘reforms’ just years after implementation. This is not because said social programs ‘failed’, but because the bourgeoisie is in power and it puts its own interest above the general interest. There is no USSR left to compete with in regards to ensuring a social safety net for the common people of western nations. As a result, social democracy alone is no longer a viable alternative. The majority of far-left parties are Stalinist, advocating a return not to the democratic ideas of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg, but to a return to the totalitarianism of Stalinism. No one takes Stalinism seriously as a potential alternative. Politically it is a dead end. Anything other than Stalinism is preferable, including the existing social order. The almost total lack of a viable left wing alternative is entirely the fault of the left.

3.) In spite of the fact that we are statistically living in the safest era in all of human history, we are also more connected than we ever have been before thanks to the information and telecommunications revolution and with it, the creation of the internet. The human brain evolved to know only several hundred people that geographically live around the person in question. This is a recipe for disaster when terrorism is introduced to an over-informed and hyper-connected society. This is especially true given the fact that the media is a capitalist organization whose goal is typically to entertain and sensationalize rather then to objectively inform. A terrorist attack that happens 1000’s of miles away killing a few dozen people causes people all over the world to feel unsafe. Even though you are more likely to be struck by lightning, people FEEL like terrorism is a serious threat, they FEEL unsafe and are willing to give up their liberty for illusory promises of security. In our political era, feelings tend to be equated with facts: fear becomes policy.

4.) The later stages of the information and telecommunications revolution has caused a logarithmic growth in the emergence and creation new technologies and with it, new frontiers have emerged for the abuse of state power and the violation of the rights of the people. In combination with the perceived threat of terrorism, this threat is terminal to the existence of any ‘free’ society.

5.) Due to the nature of liberal democracies, there is a significant delay between the creation of new technologies and the creation of ethical legislation regarding the ethical use of said technologies by the state. The laws “protecting” our rights in the digital age are mostly from the 1980’s and earlier. The fourth amendment and the 12th article of the UN’s declaration of human rights guarantee privacy to be a fundamental human right. However, these rights are declared to be null and void in regards to the digital world. Freedom is always and exclusively the freedom of dissent. A free society is one in which the people can meaningfully oppose state power without fear, without self-censorship or surveillance. Privacy is therefore not only a right, but it is the only real prerequisite to the realization of virtually all other rights. Nearly all legislation passed in the United States and similar ‘liberal democracies’ in this regard has been unethical, illiberal, and in direct violation of the rights of the people (ex. House of Reps repealing regulation that forbade ISPs from selling your internet history to the highest bidder in 2017, NSA mass surveillance or ‘bulk collection’ of metadata as revealed by Snowden in 2014 w/ PRISM, TEMPORA, five, nine and fourteen eyes alliances, etc.)

6.) Despite ‘economic growth’ for the rich, real wages have not risen with productivity since the 1970’s and the life quality of working people continues to stagnate or decline. Working people have become increasingly disillusioned with establishment politics. The liberal left’s obsession with political correctness has only furthered this disillusionment. Liberal leaders such as Obama have failed to implement any transparency or “change”, but have instead done the exact opposite.

Conclusion:

7.) The combination of all these things has caused a resurgence in right wing and far-right politics and with it, vast increases in authoritarianism and gradual decreases in civil liberty. Privacy is not only a right, but it is the only real prerequisite to all human freedom. Freedom is always and exclusively the freedom of dissent, and the erosion of privacy means the erosion of the capacity of the people to effectively dissent. The state has vastly increased its own power and has effectively decreased the power the people have to meaningfully oppose said power. Censorship is superfluous in a society that imposes mass surveillance. Instead of implementing external censorship and physically crushing dissent, mass surveillance causes people to self-censor themselves because everyone’s most personal secrets are known or are readily available to the state with no real oversight. Anyone who stands effectively in defiance of the state or state policy is an easy target for state-sponsored blackmail, slander, or demonization- and these powers are only growing stronger with time. The safeguards in place, which are policy, not legislation, change every 2 to 4 years in a liberal democracy and are gradually being eroded in the name of ‘security’. This erosion will only speed up in the coming decades.

The governments of the western nations, of the ‘freest’ countries in the world, no longer represent either the will or the general interests of the people. They are the biggest threats to individual and liberal rights that have ever existed in all of human history. Snowden is right in claiming that they have constructed and are continually strengthening architectures of oppression far surpassing those of the wildest dreams of the Stasi and the Nazi Gestapo. Establishment liberal politicians who promise more transparency and less authoritarian measures are Machiavellians in the truest sense of the word. Even the White House review panel on NSA surveillance programs has come to the conclusion that these programs have not stopped a single terrorist attack since their inception. But our political system, like our whole bourgeois society, is not based on reason and facts, it is based on feelings. These Machiavellians know that if they end these Orwellian programs, that they personally will be blamed for the next terrorist attack that happens. It is far too rare for an elected official holding high office to subjugate the individual interest to the social interest, and as such, we cannot rely on elected officials to implement the changes that are necessary.

The common people are conditioned not to be involved in politics. The nature of the political system is such that it is designed to keep things the same, even when there is minor change, it is done by offering small enough concessions to continue the growth of the capitalist system. Freedom in a stable society is always only ever a fundamental issue to the dissenting minority, it is never a question of the majority interest but of the minority interest- and it is an absolutely crucial minority interest just the same. Only when a society becomes authoritarian or unstable (as our society is becoming) do these rights become essential for an entire society. The information and telecommunications revolution has created such an expanse in the emergence of new technologies that abuses of said technologies are deemed to be acceptable to the non-political class precisely because the current political system is designed to keep things the way they are, to maintain existing forms of oppression and exploitation. By design, it alienates the masses from the affairs of the political class, which just so happens to consist mainly of the petty-bourgeoisie and big bourgeoisie.

The only successful form of capitalism in our era is the Chinese model of authoritarian state capitalism, a capitalism wholly divorced from democracy. The future of the capitalist system is a capitalism divorced from democracy. If the United States and Europe continue under capitalism in the coming decades, they will likely and out of necessity, become more like China.

It is for these reasons that we believe that there is an extremely high risk that the late 21st century will consist mainly of a people crushed under the weight of totalitarianism if the current system is allowed to continue. The erosion of privacy, the only real prerequisite to civil liberty in our society, is but a first step in this social transformation. It is a betrayal of almost every revolution that has taken place since 1774. The increasingly authoritarian rightward shift in global geopolitics reflects this diagnosis of society.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The solution to these grave social ills can only be a left wing solution. This cannot mean a solution consisting of a small group of intellectuals seizing power nor of any manner of individual terrorism. It must be a revolution if the people. It cannot aim to establish a Stalinist state or a one-party dictatorship. Only the people are capable of liberating themselves and governing themselves. Nothing can nor will change without the support of the people. We believe the solution to right wing authoritarianism is not left wing authoritarianism, but a democratic, anti-authoritarian, mass socialist movement. This is in line with the ideas of Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg as well as the principles of Trotskyism. Luxemburgism, Trotskyism, and some of the anarchist ideas on the radical left that no one took seriously for most of the 20th century, must be taken seriously today if the people of the 21st and 22nd century are to be free and healthy.

The slogan of socialism in the 21st century is that of expanded individual liberty as much as it is the introduction of industrial democracy, of this be sure. Rosa Luxemburg, in her perhaps misplaced criticism of the Russian Revolution (in Ch.6 of a pamphlet titled ‘The Russian Revolution’), famously declared the necessity of liberty in a socialist society. To quote,

“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege…

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins (the postponement of the Soviet Congress from three-month periods to six-month periods!) Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc.”

Any socialist movement worth its salt in the 21st century must defend and expand the liberal rights that have been won through decades of working class struggle.

The way for society to progress in a stable world would be to wait for the inevitable: the later stages of the information and telecommunications revolution will bring vast increases in automation technologies. The automation of most forms of physical labor will make communism (a stateless, classless, moneyless society) a virtual historical inevitability. But we do not live in a stable world. In addition to increasing authoritarianism and the erosion of civil liberty, the capitalist system is utterly nihilistic when it comes to acknowledging its own effect on the environment. To ensure its own survival, it has sacrificed the entire future of humanity to further its own ends. It accepts that it has destroyed the environment beyond repair and refuses to do anything of meaning to address this, it accepts that we are probably living in the final centuries of humanity. It blames the individual for climate change, not its own systematic rape of mother earth. From a species perspective, capitalist society has become so illogical that we would not be wrong to call it suicidal. By the time the automation revolution comes, the effects of climate change will become so acute that the potential such technologies have for ensuring human liberation will become superfluous in its wake.

For this reason, the working people of the world cannot wait for some far off historical inevitability. As Lenin said, “sometimes history needs a push”. And in the advanced capitalist countries where civil liberty already exists and the economy is highly industrialized, where socialism can already be built without the iron whip of Stalinism, we have to agree. As liberal democracies become increasingly unstable, it is only a matter of time before they degenerate completely into a system similar to the Chinese system of authoritarian state capitalism, and this will likely happen far before the automation revolution. It is precisely at this moment of destabilization and crisis that the common people, the working people, must seize all state power and work to ensure the future survival and freedom of the human race. This is the only way that we can cast Trumpism, the suicidal perpetuation of technologies that are destroying the environment, authoritarianism, and capitalism into the dustbin of history. The slogan of such a movement is the same as it was in the 20th century, “Workers of All Countries, Unite!” People should not fear political change, they should not fear a radical restructuring of society. If it is something done by the will of the people, with the people truly in power, have faith that it will be done in a way that changes the world for the better. Only this, we believe, can get us out of our current predicament.

What Would Socialism Look Like In The 21st Century?

March 24, 2018

I claim that only the revolutionary socialists of the 21st century can be the real guardians of unfettered liberty and true democracy. What would a socialist society look like in the 21st century? It would be as far different from Stalinism as Bernie Sanders is from Tsar Nicholas II. Unlike Marx we can take the liberty of guessing what such a society would look like. I claim that orthodox Marxism (the ideas and principles of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg) have more in common with anarchism than with the totalitarian distortions of Stalinism. This is true even of Leninism and Trotskyism. We would undoubtedly base many democratic principles on those of the Paris Commune. Unlike revolutionary Russia or France, advanced capitalist countries do not exist in such a state of material and spiritual poverty. The masses are educated, literate, and have an abundance of material wealth. Unlike these countries, liberal rights have already been won in our society and the people will not stand for any form of tyranny. As such, historical reflections of the ‘totalitarian excesses’ of the French and Russian revolutions would not be able to emerge if such a revolution emerged first in the advanced capitalist countries, as Marx predicted they would.

It would be a revolution not of a small group of intellectuals seizing power for themselves in the name of the workers or the people. This is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense of the word. In our society, governing institutions could but only consist of elected representatives of the people themselves. Any socialist movement worth its salt would not only defend, but would expand the liberal and human rights won through decades of struggle. Representatives would have extremely short terms of service and would be instantly re-callable by popular petition at any time. This was a fundamental democratic aspect of the Paris Commune.

There would be no need for such governing institutions to suppress a free press or demonstrations of the people. A revolution at its purest is reason in revolt, a revolution IS dissent. If it is to truly be a revolution of the people, the people themselves would decide the course of the revolution and not an ‘enlightened’ central committee of a single monolithic party. This means also, that such a society would not be a one party state as were the Stalinist states of the 20th century.

Such a revolution by design would place a great amount of faith in the masses. In the Stalinist states of the 20th century, those in power tried to censor what information the masses could attain. It coddled the masses out of fear that the masses, if given a choice, would not support the existing social order. We see this today in North Korea, and to a lesser extent in Cuba, China, and Vietnam. Only Laos has taken real steps towards allowing unfettered access of the masses to free information. These restrictions on the rights of the people are an abomination to Marxism and to scientific socialism and must be seen in such a society as grotesque remnants of a much darker past.

In a socialist society of the 21st century there would be, on the contrary, unfettered and free access to information in the country in question and abroad. The internet would be free and democratically controlled with an abolition of intellectual property, proprietary software, and absurd copyright laws (downloading pirated movies would be legal). The established order by design would have no right to use powers of mass surveillance. The architectures of oppression that have been built in our society by shadowy intelligence organizations, and intelligence organizations generally, would be dismantled in full by the will of the people. The state would have no right to this criminally attained information. The only just course of action would be its destruction.

Such a society would have faith that the people would not join protests against the new order, that they would not petition and rally en mass to return to the old order. And if something was fundamentally wrong with the revolution, if something needed to be addressed, those elected would by design be forced either to address it or be instantly removed from office by popular petition. At no point would the approval ratings of those in power drop below the level of majority support of the masses. If it did those in power would be instantly removed from office by popular petition and a new election would take place to put into power a person genuinely supported by, and in support of, the popular masses. Those who did hold office would hold extremely short terms of service.

The purpose of such a revolution would be to bring about a spiritual rebirth in social life, to bring the masses into political life and political affairs directly, to have public debates and discussions, (subjected to reason, fact checks, and an analysis of logical fallacies,) about the necessary courses of action. The masses today cannot be bothered with politics. Even if they had the time, the bourgeois state only changes things just enough that the fundamental base and superstructure of society stay the same. By design the bourgeois state and bourgeois society in general alienate the masses of working people from political life. Such debates and discussions would educate the masses on various political, ethical, and philosophical issues. It would at no point indoctrinate them into an obscure political ideology. It would not convert Marxism into a political religion as did the Stalinist states of the 20th century. Such conversion of Marxism into a political religion is by is very nature, anti-Marxist. It would not dictate Marxism and Marxist philosophy to the masses. Marxism by design recognizes that not even Marxism is infallible. Like everything, it is constantly changing and reevaluating its validity in the dialectical process of world history.

Contrary to popular belief, a genuinely socialist economy would not mean state ownership and control of industry. This is not socialism. Socialism means social (can be state) ownership AND democratic control of industry. Neither state nor private controlled industry can be trusted to truly represent the people and not bring about vast abuses of power. Instead, the working people and public must have democratic control over production. Industrial democracy is socialism at its purest, not the tyrannical control of owners and board members as we see under modern capitalism, nor the despotism of state bureaucrats and unelected officials as we saw in the former Soviet Union.

Production would be democratically planned by public representatives in collaboration with similar industries and changes to the way business is done would require approval of the workers directly. No factory floor would ever have agreed to fire everyone and send their jobs to Mexico if workers had such power in our society. The same principles of democratic elections and the ability to instantly recall elected officials by popular petition would apply here too. Computers would be utilized to ensure that production was planned in accordance with the material and social resources available. The purpose of production would be to meet human and social needs directly, not to enrich a handful of ‘owners’, board members, and share holders as is the case under capitalism. The surplus value created by an industry would not be ‘profits’ or ‘capital’, it would rightfully be recognized as the unpaid wages of the working class.

Socialism would mean a democratization of the whole of society, industry included. It would expand, not squander the human and liberal rights won through decades of struggle, and those rights enshrined in the documents marking the establishment of the bourgeois era. It would add positive liberty to the negative liberty we enjoy in our bourgeois society. In addition to freedom of speech, religion, press, personal property, organization, etc. the people would for the first time have positive liberties such as the right to education, housing, healthcare, food, internet access, transportation, and the means necessary to truly realize their essential negative liberties. Make no mistake, it would be such an “open” society that the “open” society we have today, that liberals lust over, would look to this socialist society like a “closed” society. This is the goal of socialism in the 21st century.

The purpose of the press would no longer be the generation of capital for the bourgeois owners of the press. It would, after the overthrow of bourgeois ownership and rule, not use sensationalism and mindless entertainment to generate profit as the generation of capital would no longer be the goal. On the contrary, its purpose would be to objectively inform the masses. It would be allowed to maintain its adversarial and skeptical stance to government and the government by design would have no right to suppress a free press. At no point would it be converted into an organ for state or party propaganda as it was in the 20th century Stalinist states. A free press would be a cornerstone of such a socialist society. This includes the freedom of independent journalists and groups of people to form press organizations, even ones adversarial, freely.

Unlike the Stalinist states of the 20th century, the transition period between socialism and communism would be not only inherently democratic and anti-totalitarian, but it would have a visible end in sight. Its purpose would be to directly attain a free communist society. Here the democratic, not totalitarian pursuit of communism, would be the goal. The state would be designed to wither away and the armed people would ensure it attained this aim. I predict the tribal and nationalistic ‘intelligence organizations’ of the old society would be substituted in an an act of parody with WikiLeaks! It would be made clear that the state has no right to exist after the socialization of industry was achieved. The Stalinist “strengthening of the state against the ‘remnants’ of the bourgeoisie”, that gross totalitarian distortion of Marxism, would by design not possible and the armed people, organized into various voluntary militias, would be right to abolish it by force if it did not wither away. Here anarchists would serve a vital function as the protectors and ensurers of the attainment of a stateless society.

The increasing capacity of society to realize its full potential to meet human needs would usher in a new ethical paradigm. Working 40 hours a week would no longer be seen as morally desirable. It would be seen for what it is, a state of being that reduces the potential for individual growth, a state of being which deprives the individual of their humanity. The mass unemployment that will inevitably result from increasing automation would bring would not mean homelessness, hunger, misery and want for the working people as it means in our capitalist society. On the contrary, it would mean their freedom and liberation from ceaseless labor.

Unlike in the 20th century, the call of socialism would never be a call for militant atheism. Such a society by design would protect the peoples right to practice religion freely and publicly, for religious communities to construct new religious buildings and places of worship, to publish their teachings and to preach unfettered. State atheism would be deemed a grotesque remnant of the past. Not even in a communist society would atheism be enforced. The state and ruling apparatus by design would not be allowed to take a stance on religion. It would be a purely secular institution, neither ‘Christian’, ‘Muslim’, or ‘Atheist’. It would protect the rights of the people to follow whatever religious ideal or lack thereof which aligned with their conscience. The right to practice religion is a personal and a family matter, the state would have no right to to interfere with that right. Organized religious institutions would be compelled to either support the cause for human liberation from oppression and exploitation or the lose material and moral support of the masses. In addition to being grossly immoral, for the state to take an adversarial stance against religion in general would mean a loss of support for the cause of liberation from the people. I have written extensively on my views on the question of religion and socialism.

We are not Utopians. We make no such claim that such a revolution would solve all the problems of society. On the contrary, we openly admit that such a revolution is bound to cause even more problems. But the problems of homelessness, hunger, poverty, excesses of crime, overwork, and alienation- the problems of state and capitalist oppression and exploitation, the exploitation of man by man, those we aim to abolish. The abolition of every possibility of oppression and exploitation- this is our slogan!

These are not a series of ‘plans’ that an enlightened people should apply dogmatically to society. A revolution is a dialectical action. One learns from it and decides what principles to apply as it happens. There is no ‘guidebook’ to attaining a socialist or communist society to be found in small party of enlightened intellectuals that will liberate mankind ‘if only it is followed enthusiastically by the masses’. We can only make predictions and suggestions of what can and should emerge in our society. We libertarian Marxists, Luxemburgists, Trotskyists, and other revolutionary socialists wish to bring to the world a viable left wing alternative to the existing order. One thing is for sure, the totalitarian pursuit of a communist society is grossly immoral and should never be repeated. We accept only a truly democratic socialistic and communistic society. We accept only the rights respecting, democratic attainment of such a system.

We believe revolution will likely be necessary to end the capitalist system and destroy the bourgeois state, but we believe that this revolution can be achieved largely with only the threat of popular violence. It can be a largely bloodless revolution. Also, it can only be done with and by the will of the masses themselves. With the increasingly authoritarian right wing shift in geopolitics today, the world socialist revolution appears even more and more likely.

Should the overthrown ruling classes of bourgeois society rise up to seize power once again, any bloodshed would be on their hands alone. Should they start a civil war in one of these countries, the people would strive to re-implement democracy and liberal rights as soon as possible. For it is rule by terror that demoralizes, it is rule by terror that poses a greater threat to the revolution than anything else. We sincerely doubt the potential for victory of a dying social order in such a scenario.

Capitalism in the 21st century can only survive if it takes up the Chinese state capitalist model. The neoliberal model of capitalism is dead, the social democratic model is dead, even the Latin American model is dead. Even today neoliberalism has lost all faith in itself, first economically and now politically. Global capitalism can only survive if it further and further divorces itself from democracy, from even bourgeois democracy. The capitalism of the future, if it is to survive, is the capitalism of China increasingly turning to a sort of neo-fascism. It can only be a right wing surveillance state. This is late capitalism in decay. It is for this reason that the revolutionary socialists of the 21st century are the only real guardians of liberty and democracy. With the increasing rudeness and lack of respect of the conservative right, the socialist left must also become the guardians of decency, kindness, and respect for humanity. We must take a stand against the political correctness of the liberal left while at the same time reiterating the necessity of the rights for people of color, LGBT+ persons, women, Muslims, and other oppressed groups.

All of this relies on the principle that the first revolutions marking the end of capitalism, as Marx predicted, will happen in the most advanced capitalist countries first and not in the ‘weakest links in the chain of world imperialism’ as seemed to be the case in 1917. If a communist revolution succeeded in India or Africa today, it would likely be marked by a resurgence of Stalinist politics. It would be a deformed workers state from the beginning, and it would become a massive propaganda machine. Both the US and this Stalinist country would agree that the system these Stalinists have implemented is ‘socialism’, even if it is objectively not so. And it would be impossible for real revolutionary socialists to convince the masses that the one thing the two biggest propaganda machines in the world agree on is not actually true. The people of the western imperialist nations would never in principle support such a revolution. It would end up being confined to that country alone or to similarly impoverished countries. It would in principle stand against liberal rights and real workers democracy. In short, it would be another cold war with both sides being morally indefensible yet again.

If such a revolution happened in the advanced countries first, it would quickly spread to the rest of the world. The lackeys who work in the service of world imperialism, who hold power in the oppressed nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America would quickly be overthrown by the popular masses. It would be abundantly clear that this revolution was substantially different and infinitely more desirable and respectful of popular democracy and liberal rights than the Stalinist countries of the 20th century. As the wealthier countries met the human needs of the people in their own countries, there would be a decline in the exponential expansion of technological innovation and growth that we see in the present era of the later stages of the information and telecommunications revolution. This is not because socialism ‘squanders innovation’ as some bourgeois lackeys suggest. On the contrary, socialism has the potential to increase innovation to an extent far surpassing its ability under capitalism. This decline in innovation would be intentional and design. To advocate the slowing down of the information and telecommunications revolution, as I am aware, is political heresy. The wealthier countries would have a responsibility to provide aid for the newly socialist countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. Those nations formerly oppressed by imperialism would be brought up to the standards of living and modernity we consider acceptable in the west with the aid of western countries. This would not mean a decline of the standards of living for people in western countries, but an increased standard of living as society was restructured to primarily meet human needs. It would however, mean a decrease in innovation temporarily.

This revolution would place the interests of humanity above those of capital. As such, the long term survival of the human species would be prioritized over the ‘profits’ of the fossil fuel industry and big corporations. The crisis of climate change would immediately be addressed by the transformation of the world energy system into one that runs on 100% renewable green energy. New cities would be built in preparation for the already inevitable drastic rise in sea levels. Plastics would be done away with and plans initiated to clean the oceans and rivers of plastic and other forms of waste. Fishing would be cut substantially to allow the fish populations to return to normal. The industrialization of the poorer countries would be done exclusively on ecological grounds and mass reforestation programs would be initiated globally.

Social democratic countries like Norway today claim that they have figured out how to be truly ecological under capitalism. “Norway has 100% renewable green energy!” says our petty-bourgeois democrat. Indeed it does, but even Norway, bastion of green social democracy, has fossil fuels overwhelmingly as its largest exports. Norway has created a fortress of ecology within its own national borders, it has merely ‘exported’ the crisis of climate change to other countries! A world socialist system would allow a country (Norway, for instance) to stop fossil fuel exports and resource exploitation entirely without a serious hit to that nations economy as other nations would provide it with aid.

I have taken the time also to make a series of points that would be generally applicable to nearly all the advanced countries, and could reasonably emerge in a socialist 21st century. Some of them have already been stated above and I hope the reader can forgive my repetition. Note that as I have said before, this is mostly speculation, I do not have a crystal ball. This is merely what one would hope to, and expect to see:

-Direct democracy on the local level, representative democracy on the higher levels. High officials occupying offices in specialized fields are to be elected by the people on the basis of their expertise in said specialized fields. Scientists only would be allowed to run for office and hold positions in fields dictating policy for scientific affairs (environmental regulations, etc.) The same applies to all other fields of government. The goal here would be to ensure that society ran smoothly and without constant “meetings of the masses” to discuss “how our community will get water this week”. We would want an engineer with experience with water systems to be responsible for the public water service, not merely a ‘comedic’ populist. We would want a scientist in control of a socialist EPA, not someone like Jeff Sessions.

-A spiritual rebirth and reemergence of the popular masses and workers into political life with the emergence of a system where the people are truly in power. An absence of Marxism as a political religion or mandated political dogma enforced by those in power.

-All political and industrial officials are to be elected, have an extremely short term of service, and be instantly recallable at any time by popular petition of the people.

-The abolition of private property, its substitution not with state ownership and control but with social ownership and democratic control by the workers themselves and representatives of the public at large. The state, we believe, can and should aid in this transformation. These representatives too would be democratically elected and instantly recallable by popular petition at any time. Such a change would not be implemented overnight and therefore necessitates the existence of a state to aid in this social transformation. The state should, upon seizing power, take the largest 500 or so corporations into social ownership and democratic control after a very brief transitional period of state ownership and control. Everyone would have to “go back to work” the day after a revolution. A revolution is an economic trauma as much as it is a political one. Effort would have to be made to return the (likely falling apart) economy to a stable state of being before serious reforms were implemented.

-An abolition of all rights to inheritance. Small businesses also would no longer be passed down from generation to generation. We have no intention of robbing small business owners of their businesses that they have legitimately worked hard to create without reason. Means of production would likely be seized by the state and transferred to the workers upon death of the respective owners. Small businesses as they exist today are a fundamental aspect of the economy. Simply seizing ALL the means of production instantly would be disastrous for the economy and for society at large, as would be a ‘too rapid’ transformation of society. It would be the biggest economic disaster in all of human history, far more so than the state of Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1990’s. The workers could still elect members of that persons family if they truly represent the interests of the workers and the public at large. It could in effect, still be a ‘family business’.

-The right of working people to form their own workers self directed enterprises. This necessarily entails an abolition of wage labor. All workers would be paid in proportion to their quality and quantity of work, and in proportion to their needs.

-An abolition of individual taxation for the overwhelming majority of society. Capitalists, millionaires, and billionaires possessing over 10 million dollars would have all funds seized except for 10 million dollars or its equivalent. 10 million dollars would be the maximum allowed net worth of an individual. Emigrants who fled the country and capitalists who took arms against the revolution would be deprived of all funds and property by default, both personal and private. The vast amounts of hoarded wealth would be distributed to the working people and be made to fund social welfare programs. It would also be reinvested back into production.

-The immediate release of all non-violent criminals and those arrested for crimes whose origins emerge from poverty. The total reconstitution of the criminal justice system on a reform, not a punishment basis. An abolition of the current criminal injustice system. Such a system should aim to spiritually enrich those imprisoned and give them the means to have a stable and meaningful life upon release. It should not dehumanize them, use cruel and unusual punishments like solitary confinement, etc. This also entails an abolition of the death penalty and the establishment of a “maximum” sentence for prisoners (perhaps ~30 years).

-An immediate abolition of homelessness via the seizure of all empty homes from their respective landowners and landlords. Systems should be put in place to help those with mental disorders and addiction. The formerly homeless should be guaranteed either employment or a guaranteed means of subsistence. (Even in America today there are 5 empty homes for every homeless person). All land and property rents would be abolished and the sacred and inviolable right of the home would be preserved.

-The abolition of all existing government institutions and their immediate replacement by grassroots workers councils representing the true will of the people. Such councils then would elect representatives of their local communities to the nation as a whole, who would naturally be instantly recallable by popular petition at any time.

-The organization and armament of the masses and their organization into various voluntary militias to replace the traditional military. An immediate recall of all troops stationed overseas and closure of foreign military bases. An immediate end to all wars and the abolition of all treaties and trade agreements made with all other countries. A backup reserve could still be maintained and recruited exclusively for the defense of country from foreign invasion. To go to war with another country would require a popular vote of the people themselves (not merely their federal representatives) and such a decision would have to be done on a purely rational and calm basis. This makes the likelihood of an aggressive war against another nation almost non-existent. No people in all of human history have ever willingly and in reason made the decision to start an act of aggression against the people of another nation without the indoctrination of the ruling class and profiteers of warfare. No nation at war has ever objectively informed the masses about the aims and views of the other side. Such a system would aim to do just that.

-The transformation of the police into a truly public service, not a weapon of the state. The police would be instantly recallable at all time by members of the community, and its head would be democratically elected and instantly recallable at any time. It would exist solely to stop violent crime, as an organization responsible exclusively to the public. If a community felt alienated by the police, it would have the right to bar the police from entering said community and to recall elected officials of the community and/or the policing institutions.

-Potentially a rotating office in the highest seats of leadership in both cities and in the country at large

-An established and expanded version of the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the removal of all rights to private property (the exploitation of labor) and the inclusion of positive liberty.

-The withering away of the state as soon as the economy is sufficiently socialized. State power to be replaced with peoples self-government. This would mark the beginning of stateless communism.

-The transfer to 100% green energy globally, massive reforestation programs

-Large amounts of foreign aid to formerly oppressed countries to industrialize and modernize on an ecological basis

-An increase in public funds for arts and sciences, including the creation of a new space program

-Increased funds into organizations specializing in robotics and automation with the goal being the eventual full automation of production and the liberation of humanity from physical labor.

-Strict regulations put in place in regards to potentially dangerous new technologies and scientific discoveries such as genetic engineering, disease research, and artificial intelligence. (We don’t want to give an AI unfettered internet access without understanding it first)

-The reconstituion of the production of agriculture and foodstuffs for the purpose of ending world hunger entirely (We alredy produce enough food to feed 10 billion a year)

-The abolition of extreme poverty globally with an emphasis on the abolition of poverty generally. (In 2017 the profit of billionaires alone was enough to abolish extreme poverty globally over 7 times over)

-State secularism as opposed to state atheism

-An abolition of mass surveillance and the re-stressing of the importance of liberty over the elusive idea of ‘security’. Technology would be made to increase privacy by design and not to track users. The internet would be decentralized, proprietary software and current privacy laws would be abolished. (You could read the source code and the community could make edits to OS X, Microsoft Windows, Adobe Photoshop, etc.)

These are some of the general predictions of what a world socialist revolution in the 21st century would look like. Its purpose would be to bring ordinary working people into power, to overthrow capitalist and corporate domination of the state and to establish a system that truly represents the people. With this, it would end once and for all every form of private and state oppression and exploitation. It would aim to liberate humanity and all the oppressed peoples of the world. These are merely my own speculations.

In this era of increasing right-wing authoritarianism, the erosion of privacy (the only real prerequisite to individual liberty), and the further divorce of even bourgeois democracy from capitalism, we can definitively say once again, as Rosa Luxemburg correctly did in 1920’s Germany, that in this era, at this time in human history, it is either socialism or barbarism! Our slogan today is the same as it was then, Workers of All Countries, Unite! Unite under the banner of liberty and socialist democracy! You have a world to win, you have nothing to lose but your chains!

The Necessity of Exposing Social Constructs and Illusory Manifestations of Social Life: Exposing Some Basic Concepts

March 18, 2018

In order for human society to function, it requires countless abstractions (i.e. illusory manifestations of social phenomena that do not in actuality exist). Society itself is one such abstraction. The basis of any real critique of bourgeois society, of the later phases of the information and telecommunications revolution, or of human society in general, entails the peeling back and exposure of said illusions. It is only in this way that one can achieve, as close as possible, pure objectivity in criticism and analysis of social phenomena. Here we will attempt to expose some of these illusory manifestations of social phenomena as rudimentary examples. We will critique the fundamental notions we hold of society, humanity, the nation state, class society, liberal and universal human rights, etc. both on the left and generally.

To begin as our first example, countries do not exist. A country is as real as Santa Claus. People do not believe in it because it exists. It exists (even without substance) solely because people believe in it.

One does not see proof of the existence of the object itself, but rather the real consequences of its perceived existence. The socially accepted perception of its existence manifests itself to the individual as evidence of its existence. This illusion in particular is historically necessary insofar as class society exists.

Social hierarchies and seemingly organic organizations of social life manifest themselves as unchangeable, morally defensible and necessary absolutes. Like all things, they too change with time and with the evolution of a society. These manifestations largely define the ethics, values, and socially accepted morality of an epoch.

These ethics, values, and morals are almost exclusively those of that epochs ruling class. “The ruling ideas of each age have only ever been the ruling ideas of that ages ruling class”, said Marx. Therefore we can say with reason that every socioeconomic and political system follows a moral system based squarely on the justification of its own existence. This system is adopted by the oppressed and exploited social classes in times of geopolitical and economic stability as much as it is promoted by the ruling class. Education systems and the press both promote the ruling ideas of a particular epoch, which are, as we have previously stated, those of that epochs ruling class.

There are many commonly held oversimplifications of the idea of the ruling class on the left. These too are illusions, and these too hurt the cause of human liberation. To begin, a member of the ruling class (except in cases so immoral that it is indefensible even to that members social class) does not perceive (typically his) actions as being immoral. On the contrary, he is merely an individual acting in the same way as those around them. He is merely mirroring the society from which his own psychologically ingrained moral code of conduct emerged.

When it occurs, a member of the ruling class is naturally taken aback by the eruption of a social revolution or a radical social movement. Because he lacks the experience of the oppressed classes, he does not understand why the revolution or mass movement has emerged. In case of revolution, the destruction of long standing social hierarchies and traditional manifestations of social life is such a shock to the status quo that such an individual clings to his own perceived and long ingrained notions of right and wrong. He therefore renounces objective reason in revolt and clings to the subjective ‘reason’ and ‘order’ of a dying social system.

Only the successful manifestation on positive social change brought about by a social revolution or movement can change the mind of such an individual.

But an individual is bound by their own experiences. A vast improvement of the social life of the majority in such a short span of time necessarily implies a reduction in quality of life, luxury and privilege for the ruling elite. This is why universal healthcare, in the liberal countries where it exists, is deemed to be ‘a disaster’ by the bourgeoisie who can no longer pay for ‘premium’ (see, better) healthcare due to their privileged status in society. Thus begs the question, “Is universal healthcare a disaster?” But we say that the question itself is invalid. To the proletariat and the working majority it is largely a godsend, to the bourgeoisie it is a nightmare.

In spite of the subjectivity of morality, there are certain actions universally abominable in virtually every society regardless of historical epoch. These actions almost always act against the interests of human civilization and the long-term survival of the human species.

The individual is infinitely malleable only because the potential course of human evolution is infinite. There is no such thing as ‘human’, this too is an illusion. A human is only the currently existing, statistical average homo sapien, and the homo sapien is constantly evolving even at what seems to be a snails pace. Within the bounds of natural evolution, there are certain facets of human nature that do not change with even the most radical social revolution. The constellations in the sky are not timeless and eternal, but the individual stars are moving. Their motion is not detectable to us as individuals, even over eons. But they are not static, the stars too are in motion.

The basis of our critiques are the identification of social illusions as they manifest themselves in the socialist movement, and in society at large. It is in this that we hope to soon publish our work on the information and telecommunications revolution, tribalism, and the erosion of liberty in late capitalist society.

A Change In Themes

February 18, 2018

If you follow my blog you will have noticed that after over a year of regular posting I have suddenly stopped for several months. This is not because I have abandoned the Thought Foundry Blog or socialism but because my interests and life in general has changed slightly and I did not know how to integrate this change into this blog.

I recently have suffered a very deep personal tragedy and have been trying to cope with it. I am the kind of person who gets deeply absorbed in learning. I have always found certain subjects that captivate me to such an extent that I get lost in them. I have a deeply ingrained need to learn everything there is to know about them. Politics has been one such thing. I am a Marxist but my life does not necessarily revolve around Marxism. I am a person first and I have many interests. I have recently been swept away in learning many new things, in updating my knowledge in some areas and exploring new fields of study.
In the past few months I have written several posts for the Thought Foundry Blog but have discarded them for one reason or another. I have sought out to drastically improve the quality of my posts and have gone back and deleted old ones which did not meet my current standards of professionalism.

The topics and posts of this blog are still going to be socialistic in nature but are going to go even deeper in its critique of modern society and the existing socioeconomic and political order than my previous posts. They are going to be less radical in some regards, and more radical in others. Among these topics are: digital rights, mass surveillance, libertarian Marxism, tribalism, the information and telecommunications revolution, the automation revolution, and other critiques of advanced industrial society. Digital rights, technology, and the Internet will be a particularly large subject in the future.

Currently I am working on a manifesto regarding the information and telecommunications revolution in which I attempt to address our current predicament and the measures necessary for the long term survival of the human species and the protection of civil liberty. It is a work in progress. But to my readers let me be clear, the Thought Foundry Blog is not dead. It is not going away, and for the foreseeable long term future it will not go away.

The Four Prerequisites to Full Democracy And A Reason Why Stalinism Failed

November 9, 2017 

There are, in my view, four prerequisites to democracy that unfold historically with the progression of human social development, each progression allowing for a fuller democracy. Mankind has found democracy to be the most ideal system, the system that best represents the will of the majority of the population. But democracy under capitalism is limited, is a democracy that de facto serves only the capitalist class. Let us look at what these prerequisites are, and how each stage represents an ever increasing democratic progression, from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and finally, to stateless communism. In this, I also will attempt to explain the inherent lack of liberty and genuine democracy in the 20th century Marxist-Leninist states. This is a new theory.

1: Industrial Development And The Social Development That Accompanies It (Feudalism to Capitalism) As The First Prerequisite To Democracy

The industrial revolution, and the decline of feudalism, brought forth the initial prerequisites of bourgeois democracy on a massive scale. Industrialization, and the social consequences that come with it (literacy, increases in the average knowledge of each individual, education, etc.) provided a solid foundation for the emerging dominance of the capitalist mode of production. But this alone was merely the necessary prerequisite for bourgeois democracy. Democracy did not come about merely from this new emergence in human society. It is also worth noting, that the lack of these characteristics largely explains the failures of U.S. imperialism’s attempt at grafting liberal democracy onto backward nations such as Iraq, and why dictatorship is sometimes necessary before liberal democracy can come about (see South Korea)

2: Declaration Of The Rights Of Humanity (Negative Liberty, Human Rights) As The Second Prerequisite To Democracy (Capitalism)

The great bourgeois revolutions of the late 18th century introduced the idea of negative liberty into human society. With these social explosions, notions of what we would call human rights came about. Individuals were granted the freedom of speech, protest, press, religion, etc. Of course, these freedoms remained mainly bourgeois in character, because they were only in actuality, privileges mainly of the bourgeois class. Built into the doctrine of these great social advances, is the right, or more accurately put, the privilege, of the ruling class to own private property. In a word, the entitlement to all a worker produces solely by owning the means of production is written into the bill of rights itself. Private property rights are negated with the transcendence of this stage, into a more democratic society.

These two developments form the necessary prerequisites not only for bourgeois democracy, but for democracy in general, excluding as aforesaid, private property “rights”. No form of democracy, neither bourgeois or proletarian, can exist without sufficient industrial development and the social development that comes with it, as well as the negative liberty that bourgeois revolutions establish (excluding private property).

I hope the reader will forgive me for using this quote again by Rosa Luxemburg,

“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege…

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch06.htm 

But with this alone, private property and all, the Fukuyamaists declare liberal capitalism to be the end of history! They declare neoliberal capitalism to be the highest stage of human development! They declare bourgeois democracy to be the epitome of democratic institutions! But as we shall see, these are opinions blinded by historical limitations.

“Bourgeois democracy”, says Lenin, “although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor.” In fact, bourgeois democracy is only different from the democracy of the Greek Slave states in that it takes on a truly national character, in that it guarantees the formal rights of the oppressed classes. It is a “democracy” all right, but a democracy for who? What social class does it represent? In ancient Greece, the answer is simple: the ruling class, the slave owners. In America, the answer is the same: the ruling class, the capitalists. The image below shows beyond doubt the bourgeois character of the American government, the true nature of this so-called “bastion of democracy”.

There are two ruling political parties in the United States, both are owned and controlled exclusively by the capitalist class. The recent election between the hated Donald Trump, a billionaire capitalist, and the loathed Hillary Clinton, a mega-millionaire, is evidence of this fact. The DNC rigging of the election against Bernie Sanders is evidence of this fact. The overwhelming majority of people voted for one solely out of having more hatred for the other. There is no real democracy here. Every election, regardless of size, is intangibly bound up with the interests of capital. It is built into the base of the capitalist mode of production. The inherently undemocratic nature of capitalism creates an inherently undemocratic government, or rather, one that is subservient and “democratic” only for the bourgeois class. The video below of a lecture by Richard Wolff explains the undemocratic nature of capitalism, and its effect on political democracy, perfectly.

3: Industrial Democracy (Socialism) And Positive Liberty As The Third Prerequisite To Genuine Political Democracy (Capitalism to Socialism)

Thus we come to the next stage of democratic development. It is not one independent of the previous two stages (industrial/ social development and negative liberty), but is entirely reliant on it. In an advanced capitalist country, where bourgeois democracy and industry are fully developed, it’s inherently undemocratic nature in regards to the overwhelming propertyless majority becomes increasingly apparent, and socialist revolution brings the abolition of capitalism. Despite “formal” declarations of equality, despite the bourgeois class making concessions to women, people of color, and to the poor, it still exists as an equality in spite of inequality. That is, equality in spite of the actual inequality between rich and poor. The influence of the rich in the government becomes so apparent that the existing bourgeois government is abolished by the will of the proletariat.

In its place, a new prerequisite to real political democracy is declared: industrial democracy. No more shall the capitalist be entitled to what the worker produces merely by “owning” the means of production! No more shall the capitalist fund political candidates and parties to look after their own interests! From this stage onward, the working masses themselves have democratic control over what is done with the fruits of their common labor. Negative liberty is not abolished, but on the contrary, it is expanded in this stage of development. For the first time, all are guaranteed not only the fundamental rights of man and citizen, but are provided the means to realize those rights in the form of positive liberty. The rights to housing, healthcare, food, education, labor, rest and leisure, a dignified existence, etc. are declared to be absolutely fundamental human rights. This is the only possible way for “money to be separated from politics”. Only those ignorant of the way our bourgeois society functions declare the possibility of the “separation of capital and politics” without the abolition of capitalism. Because the state in this stage of development represents the overwhelming majority of society, and is the ever vanishing dictatorship of the proletariat, the next stage begins to emerge.

4: Stateless Society And The End Of Class Society, The Abolition Of Class Democracy (Communism)

But democracy as we know it, while it is certainly a democracy, is a dictatorship of one class over another. “Democracy” in the class sense of the word, becomes superfluous. With the abolition of the state, this limited notion of democracy is also abolished. In this sense, only with the coming of stateless communism, can a “fully democratic system” emerge. While this is the withering away of democracy in one sense, it is the ultimate unfolding of the pure essence of democracy in another. At this stage, class interests cease to be, for class society ceases to be.

20th Century Marxism-Leninism: “Socialist” “Democracy” Without Any Of These Prerequisites

The socialist revolutions of the 20th century took place in the most backward countries of the world. They were as far from advanced capitalist countries as one can get (excluding, of course, war torn Germany). We have to acknowledge the fact that most of these countries were in the midst of, or had yet to have, bourgeois revolutions. A bourgeois revolution can occur, and be immediately followed by the seizure of power by the proletariat. However, if the proletariat is to have not fought in vain, the revolution must spread abroad, favorably towards the advanced capitalist countries of the earth. The imperialist world wars came as a result of the fact that the internal contradictions of the most advanced capitalist countries of the world could no longer be reconciled within the confines of the nation state. Because of this, the construction of socialism, the mode of production more efficient and advanced than capitalism, cannot possibly be completed in one country alone as the Stalinists insist.

However, these prerequisites I have laid out, are not dogmas. Historical stages are not dogmas, as Trotsky points out in his history of the Russian Revolution saying,

“The privilege of historic backwardness – and such a privilege exists – permits, or rather compels, the adoption of whatever is ready in advance of any specified date, skipping a whole series of intermediate stages. Savages throw away their bows and arrows for rifles all at once, without traveling the road which lay between those two weapons in the past.”

The October Revolution was a permanent revolution, but it ceased its permanent character when the fervent pursuit of international revolution was abandoned and the Stalinist bureaucracy took power.

The socialist states of the 20th century, while basing themselves on Stalinism, decided to ‘skip over’ the advanced capitalist phase of development. While this was no doubt difficult, it was theoretically possible. With Trotsky’s genius idea of rapid industrialization, a plan implemented under Stalin, it was thought that these socialist states could emulate the capitalist stage of development without having to pass through it. But a crucial element is missing from this formula: democracy, or more specifically, the necessary prerequisites of even bourgeois democracy. So this system, by the way, was not socialist! Of course, one of the aims of this rapid industrialization was to establish the necessary prerequisites to democracy (Industrial development, literacy, education, etc.). And it no doubt succeeded in this regard. Illiteracy was abolished in the Stalinist countries, industrial output quintupled, life expectance was doubled, education was mandatory, healthcare was free for all, and other positive liberties were expanded exponentially. However, under Stalinism in these previously semi-feudal, now degenerated workers states, the negative liberty that develops naturally under capitalism was missing entirely. This negative liberty is not only a necessary prerequisite to bourgeois democracy, but to socialist democracy as well!

Socialism without negative liberty, is therefore impossible, for democracy without negative liberty is impossible. Since socialism without democracy is impossible, we cannot call those Stalinist countries that lacked negative liberty socialist, or anything other than degenerated or deformer workers states.

This is one of the key reasons why Stalinism failed. While these countries did not naturally undergo a bourgeois stage of development, and they did try to emulate the industrial and social development that comes with it, they did not emulate the exponential expansion of negative liberty that occurs under capitalism. What we were left with, is a country with positive liberty, but no negative liberty. This contradiction, as we know, was reversed entirely in 1991. The positive liberty in the former Stalinist countries was abolished in its entirety and replaced with negative liberty alone. Life expectancy dropped some 10 years in Russia, homelessness returned, and all the social ills of capitalism.

I have quoted it perhaps too often in my articles, but I hope the reader will forgive me if I quote again from Marxists Internet Archive’s encyclopedia:

“In hitherto existing Socialist states, like the Soviet Union and China, “negative freedoms” were severely restricted, while “positive freedoms” were advanced. All people had universal access to health care, full university education, etc, but people could only use those things they had in a particular way – in support of the government. In the most advanced capitalist governments, this relationship is the other way around: “positive freedoms” are restricted or do not exist all together, while “negative freedoms” are more advanced than ever before. A worker in capitalist society has the freedom to say whatever she believes, but she does not have the freedom to live if crippled by a disease regardless of how much money she has. A socialist society that has been established from a capitalist society will strengthen “negative freedoms”, while ushering in real “positive freedoms” across the board, ensuring equal and free access to social services by all.

The fullest development of positive freedom is impossible however without a further development of negative freedom – people cannot be forced to be free.”

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/r.htm#freedom 

We have never had a socialist revolution in an advanced capitalist country. When we do, the contradiction mentioned here will cease to be, and a free society such as the one mentioned above, will inevitably come about in a developed society that already enjoys negative liberty.

Onward, the historical dialectic unfolds.

Ecological Catastrophe: The Global Superstate That May Become Necessary For Our Survival

November 23, 2017

In most of the developed world, denial of climate change is on par with denying the moon landing, the theory of evolution, or the fact that the earth is round. In America however, in the heart of world imperialism, climate change and science denial is extremely common. So common in fact, that the current President of The United States, billionaire capitalist Donald Trump, is a known climate change denier. His policies such as stripping the EPA (environmental protection agency) of funds necessary for it to function, and the American withdrawal of the Paris Agreement, are evidence of this fact.

It is well known that the fossil fuel industry, one of the leading polluting industries in the world, is in the pockets of U.S. politicians and (often debunked) scientists who promote the idea of the “climate change hoax”. We see the same thing today in America with climate change denial as we saw several decades ago when it was still widely disputed that tobacco was addictive or caused cancer. No honest climate scientist denies that climate change is happening, nor do they deny that tobacco is addictive/ causes cancer. Many scientists believe we are past the point of no return, that with rising sea levels hundreds of millions of people are going to be displaced from their homes, and this is only the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended).

One Possible Future 

What I fear may eventually become essential, for the long term survival of the human species, is the pursuit of the long term survival of the human race by any means necessary. Of course, this implies a planned economy on a global scale, but more than that, maybe even a one-party state to enforce reforestation programs, the transfer to 100% renewable energy, ecological friendly industrialization, and programs for our long term survival above all else.

If we truly have passed the point of no return, then material comfort and luxury are superfluous for this entire generation, and perhaps even the one to follow our own. When this becomes the case, in the not too distant future (assuming capitalism continues), the only thing that will matter is minimizing the damage to such an extent that our great great grandchildren can have a planet to call home.

Scientific investigation, economic planning, and skepticism alone would be the guide for this monstrous superstate. To drive a gasoline car would eventually become illegal as green alternatives emerged. Massive amounts of money would go into educating a generation of scientists, finding alternative energy sources such as cold fusion, getting people to Mars, etc. This is not an ideal place to live, make no mistake. I pray to God such a thing would never, ever become necessary. I hope we never mess things up to such an extent. But I can easily imagine a world in which we have. I can envision a global state mechanism, or possibly inter-state mechanism, that enforces these aims by terror and fear alone, but doing so in such a way that the overwhelming majority recognize its necessity.

The Ideal Solution 

To prevent either the eventual global totalitarian pursuit of the long term survival of the human species, or its annihilation under capitalism, an inter-state power is necessary, but the sooner this happens, the less likely such extreme measures, such as terror and authoritarianism, will become. To truly regulate and eventually abolish pollution, the state power of one country alone is simply not enough. This is a global crisis, it requires therefore, a global solution. All country’s on the earth should be held to a predetermined environmental standard set by scientists, the violation of which, necessitates a total and immediate economic embargo on the country in question by all the country’s of the earth until the crisis is resolved, or, in extreme circumstances, war and the overthrow of that country’s government, a measure which is, by the way, a violation of that nations right to self-determination, but a necessary one. In this way, we could see a world relying on 100% renewable energy, the emergence of massive reforestation programs on a global scale, industrialization of less developed country’s along ecological friendly lines, and eventually a planned economy on a global scale. The idea of such a system existing under capitalism is utopian, but the frameworks for such a system have already been laid in international organizations such as the United Nations under capitalism. Only a democratically planned economy, along with inter-state cooperation on a global scale, can ensure the abolition of the continual man-made destruction of our planet, and the long term survival of the human species as a whole.

The Internet is Humanity’s Best Achievement: Let Us Use It To Better Ourselves

November 1, 2017

I think the internet was humanity’s best achievement thus far. All other innovations pale in comparison. All of human knowledge is now knowable instantaneously. Never before was this possible in any previous epoch. We are all connected to one another through this medium of communication and anonymous exchange.

Let us preserve this great achievement and protect it from all governments and private interests who wish to control, censor, or profit off of it. The internet is mine as it is yours. It belongs to all of us, not to any one individual. All of us have the right to freely add to and take from it, and to hopefully use it to improve ourselves and the rest of humanity.

The internet is often something we take for granted. In the past people had to go to the library to learn about something. Now we just press a few keys and buttons and the whole of human knowledge is before our eyes, in an instant. I often say that ‘books are thought traps’. They are something sacred. You think a thought and it disappears, you tell it to another and they forget. But if you write it down and publish it, there it is on the pages for aeons and aeons after your death. The internet is like this but on a much grander scale. What is done on the internet cannot be undone, but it’s so big that it doesn’t really matter.

It is potentially the most dangerous weapon, the most toxic poison if we are not careful. But conversely, it is potentially the saving grace of humanity, a tool to exponentially increase human innovation and growth, a tool saturated in the optimism of progress. Let us take this tool and use it to better ourselves and the lives of those around us. In the name of knowledge let us demand the barriers on human thought be lifted and made free to all. Truly we are living in a remarkable age.

Atheism and Trotskyism: Both Negations of certain Ideology’s, Both Attacked For Similar Reasons

October 29, 2017

Atheism is the negation of religion. Trotskyism is Marxism and Leninism with the negation of “Marxism-Leninism”, i.e., Stalinism. Both atheism and Trotskyism are defined by the fundamental negation of an aspect considered “normal” of the thing of which they are a part of, i.e. theology or Leninism (Marxism in the era of imperialism).

This negation is precisely what makes people uncomfortable, because it is a the negation of what many consider to be a fundamental aspect of the thing, and this is what what defines the ideology in question, i.e., the negation.

But many atheists would consider the ideological negation of religion in the fields of reason and morality a fundamental aspect of these fields, as a necessary negation due to the immorality of religious fundamentalism, the illogic of faith, etc, etc. While some may not agree, this is the view of the atheist, and this position is not taken up without reason (no pun intended).

Similarly, a comparison can be made with Trotskyism. Trotskyists agree with the necessity of Leninism, i.e. Marxism in the age of imperialism, i.e. the contributions to Marxist thought made by Lenin. They defend the genuinely democratic gains of the Russian Revolution. However, the negation is found with Lenin’s successor, Stalin, and all the ideological extensions of Marxism-Leninism after Stalin (Maoism, Hoxhaism, Juche, etc.). It is found with the theory of “socialism in one country” as opposed to “permanent revolution”, and the international character of the socialist revolution.

Furthermore, Trotskyism is a criticism of Marxism-Leninism, it is a fundamental characteristic of Trotskyism as such. Atheism is a criticism of religion, it is a fundamental characteristic of atheism as such. Many theists hate atheism, and many Marxist-Leninists hate Trotskyism for the same reasons: both criticize a larger ideology, of which they are but a negation. Both theists and Marxist-Leninists promote the intentional obfuscation of the ideology that presents itself as a criticism of their own ideology. I.e. “atheists are inherently immoral” or “Trotskyists don’t want people in third world countries to make revolution and they want them to just ‘wait’ for international revolution abroad and suffer under the yoke of imperialism in the mean time”. In reality, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. These are baseless ideological attacks that serve an obvious end: the hostility to criticism and the avoidance of it at all costs.

In the wake of rising religious extremism, fundamentalism in schools, the fact that 40% of Americans think the earth is less than 10,000 years old and don’t believe in evolution, etc, etc, I think it is safe to say that, even as a follower of Liberation Theology, that atheistic criticisms of our society today are warranted. In the wake of the “fall of communism” in 1989-1991, the inherent lack of democracy (the ‘democratic’ aspect of democratic centralism) in the Marxist-Leninist states, the lack of any real substantial negative liberty’s for the people of those country’s, the failure of the universal applicability of the theory of “socialism in one country” (see DPRK’s economy today, or any other Marxist-Leninist autarky in the 20th century), and the overwhelmingly disastrous fall of the Marxist-Leninist world, I think it is safe to say that criticism is warranted.

Trotskyism represents itself as a socially revolutionary criticism of capitalism and imperialism, as well as a politically revolutionary criticism of Stalinism. It is not an attribute of imperialism because it sees imperialism, not Stalinism, as it’s number one enemy. When the USSR fell, Trotskyists united to rally behind and defend the Cuban Revolution, to attack Yeltsin’s counter-revolution in Russia. When the USSR fell, the overwhelming number of genuine Trotskyists were on the side of the working people, against imperialism and the introduction of capitalism in Soviet society (note I say genuine Trotskyists, not organizations like the ISO). It’s hostility towards imperialism and capitalism are inherent, it’s criticism of Stalinism, therefore, is as should be self-evident, a Marxist one.

Trotskyism Today and What Needs To Be Done 

In the period between the fall of the USSR and the coming socialist revolution that will inevitably spring from the coming automation revolution, there is the manifestation of a ‘post-ideological’ ideology, an intangible ideology which claims to reject ideology itself. Revolts are happening around the world without any real ideological basis. Post-modernist ideology has made any all encompassing ideology seem superfluous and meaningless, Marxism included. In this desperate atmosphere, the last thing we need is the entire political left consisting of anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists who have learned virtually nothing from the 20th century, except for the fact that “revising and reforming Stalinism caused the collapse of socialism”, that, and, social-democrats who think that capitalism can merely be reformed or given a “human face”, that we need a “balance of both sides”.

The only way out of this ideological crisis is through a clear, concise, Marxist criticism of the failures of Stalinism, and a radical movement that challenges the framework of global capitalism from a Marxist, yet anti-Stalinist position. We need a revolution, to put it simply. We need a revolution that takes Leninism from ‘The State and Revolution’, not the Leninism that emerged from the conditions of 1920’s Russia. We need a revolution that seeks not merely to rapidly industrialize this or that underdeveloped country, but a revolution in an already advanced capitalist country, one inside the beating heart of world imperialism itself.

Such a revolution, where the prerequisites of democracy and socialism are already in place, makes the bureaucratization of the state, the one-party system, indefinite restriction of negative freedoms in the post-revolutionary period, and the necessity of “strengthening the people’s state power” constantly, etc, superfluous. A revolution in the U.S., for instance, would cause Mexico and Canada to join the new United States of North and South America like “iron filings attracted to a magnet”, as Trotsky put it. International revolution would become a reality, the Marxist theory mentioned in ‘The State and Revolution’ would become a reality, and the state would begin to wither away as it never even began to in the Soviet Union.

To break the chains of this post-ideological age, fierce Marxist criticism of the past is essential. From this criticism, comes revolution, from this revolution, comes a third red scare, the smashing of post-modernism, and inevitably, world socialist revolution. All of this begins with the negation of Marxism-Leninism (Stalinism) from Leninism, i.e. Trotskyism, just as the criticism of religion begins with its negation, i.e. atheism.

Why The Liberal “Cultural Revolution” Against Racism Is Doomed To Fail

October 26, 2017

Going on today is what I see as an unofficial, disorganized, and very liberal “cultural revolution” that, while recognizing the racist nature of our society, is not addressing the institutional roots of the problem. On the contrary, is individualistically and idealistically slandering individuals and commodities for taking part in a system of which, they too, are an intrinsic and fundamental part of. The remedy to racism in our society lay in either regressing into even stronger idealism (i.e. conservatism, denying there is even a problem), or, in actually addressing the institutionally racist superstructure, and, most essentially, it’s economic base: capitalism.

A key component of liberalism is the defense of the prevailing socioeconomic system (capitalism). To be critical of capitalism while still wanting to “reform” it is to still be a camp of liberalism. But to be critical of it enough to want its replacement with a more just, democratic, efficient, and humane economic system transcends liberalism and its idealistic limitations. It then goes into the camp of materialism. The democratic party, by its very nature, is incapable of this transcendence. And so long as the two-party system exists, the root of the problem will exist and remain unchallenged. So long as this is the case, any attempts at “eliminating and exposing racism” will ultimately fail in the long run. We see today the failures of the “formal” declarations of racial equality that emerged purely as concessions from the ruling class due to the civil rights movement.

Liberalism identifies individuals as the root of society’s problems, and not the social and economic forces that shape the individual into the person they ultimately become. As such, it is more concerned with attacking certain individuals or even commodities who are (correctly or incorrectly) labeled as racist, than with addressing the system that institutionally creates, shapes, and maintains this racist hegemony in our society that keeps racial minorities in de facto bondage and produces those who end up promoting racist views. Liberalism cuts the weeds instead of killing the seeds that produce the weeds. This is why the good intentioned witch hunt for racism on the liberal left is ultimately doomed to failure, because it tries to destroy racism solely on an individual, and not an institutional basis.

Engels explains the de jure declarations of equality in bourgeois society quite well saying,

“Equality is set aside again by restraining it to a mere “equality before the law”, which means equality in spite of the inequality of rich and poor — equality within the limits of the chief inequality existing—which means, in short, nothing else but giving inequality the name of equality.” (Collected Works Volume 6, p. 28-29).

Inequality becomes equality in bourgeois society, just like slavery becomes freedom, ignorance becomes strength, and war becomes peace. The solutions to these grave social ills lay solely outside of the prevailing socioeconomic system, if it were not so, this writing would have long since become unnecessary. It should be self-evident by now that the conclusion Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Huey P. Newton all came to is correct: the problem of racism cannot be solved until capitalism is abolished.

The Existence of Homelessness in America Today is a Crime Against Humanity!

October 25, 2017

Any elected official with any real power that does not make the abolition of homelessness a concrete goal is guilty of crimes against humanity in my eyes. At present, that is almost every elected official, republican or democrat, in the country. When you give food to the homeless do not be fooled for one second into thinking that you are doing a “good deed”, on the contrary, you are doing what society should have been doing all along. By merely allowing homelessness to exist, our entire society is guilty of unspeakable crimes against humanity.

In honestly investigating the root of this problem, one can come to only one conclusion: our capitalist order has to die so that humanity may live. We need abolitionists for homelessness just as we needed abolitionists of slavery 200 years ago. It is an unspeakable atrocity that we can de facto force people to go sleep outside in the cold, to have to dig through the trash for food, to be barred from entering stores like animals. We have so many homeless people, and even more empty homes. Why is this? Because capitalism values the exchange values of commodities instead of its actual use value. In a word, it values profit over human needs.

It cannot be reformed to be “more humane”, you cannot have “capitalism with a human face”, it can, will and inevitably must be abolished and replaced with the introduction of industrial democracy, the abolition of private property, the abolition of the production merely of exchange value and its replacement with production explicitly for use value. There is no other way to permanently abolish this grave social evil. It’s continuation in even the most advanced countries is an abomination, a stain on humanity, and on our history. We are not civilized, we are barbarians so long as we continue these crimes!

To quote Hélder Câmara, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” This is the view we must take, it is not enough to give food to the poor. Hunger itself must be abolished. It is not enough to feed or give money to the homeless, to volunteer at a homeless shelter. Homelessness itself must be abolished. This is not some utopian dream. We know we have the productive capacity as a society to do this 5 times over, but the ruling class consciously or unconsciously, chooses not to.

Homelessness is an act of class war, and the response we should take to it must be an act of class war as well. This time, not against the helpless poor but against the super rich, against the slumlords, against those who own empty homes and apartments and allow them to deteriorate. But even still we must go even further, we must eradicate the very root of the problem: capitalism. There is a very real class war in America, and currently that war is being waged almost exclusively by the bourgeoisie, not even our billionaires deny this fact! To quote my fried, comrade, and fellow blogger Christian Chiakulas (who’s blog you can find here):

“In a world that produces enough food to feed each and every one of us, starvation is violence.  In a society where vacant houses outnumber homeless people six to one, homelessness is violence.  A country in which health insurance companies rake in billions in profits while leaving nearly thirty million people uninsured and unable to access medical care is a violent society.

This is the everyday violence of capitalism – if it is profitable to let somebody die, or languish in abject poverty, we do so.  That is a violent society.”

History will not remember our current society well. In the history books, the pages of early 21st century America will be filled with pictures of the homeless, the poor, those who could not afford healthcare, our imperialist wars, and the minorities who fought and died for real social equality. I would bet that such pages will also include the acknowledgement of the absurdity of the capitalist system, its inability to address these social ills, and the barbarity of our modern bourgeois society.

History is in our hands. We must do our duty according to our lights, to the lights of reason and compassion, and leave the final verdict to God and to history.

Religion and Socialism: A New Answer To The Religious Question

October 25, 2017

Religion and Socialism: A New Answer To The Religious Question

The Russian Revolution

In 1917 a revolution in Russia erupted that shook the very foundation of the new world. Democracy up to that point had been the democracy of the property owning minority to the exclusion of the toiling masses, who hitherto had made up the overwhelming majority of human civilization. The concept of democracy according to the ancient Greeks, and consequently the democracy of America, was turned on its head into a democracy of the 99%, of the workers and peasants, to the exclusion of the property holding minority. It represented therefore an inversion of the dictatorship of the rich ruling class (the bourgeoisie) through bourgeois democracy, and its conversion into a dictatorship of the majority of society, of the workers and peasants through proletarian democracy.

At the same time, the revolution sought to establish a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in accordance with the principles of Marxism, in a society that had not yet undergone an advanced level of capitalist development. This is an issue not only because a certain level of material abundance, education, and advancement are necessary for any democracy (socialist or capitalist) to even exist, but also because the industrial proletariat is a majority only in advanced capitalist societies. In Russia the overwhelming majority constituted the peasantry, the proletariat was a minority, and moreover an extremely backward and impoverished minority. Whereas in an advanced capitalist society the dawning of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" to supplement the existing "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" would mean the transference of power into the hands of a cultured, advanced, majority, in Russia this meant the transfer of power into a minority. This in addition to the extremely underdeveloped nature of industry, meant that socialist rule in Russia could only be a dictatorship in the political sense of the word. Without foreign aid the struggle would be a hundred times as terrible, the resistance on account of the propertied classes a hundred times as great. Without aid from abroad in modernizing the country, the early hopes of a genuinely free and democratic society would be crushed, and the revolution lost. This is why the early Bolsheviks believed the only hope, the only salvation for Russian socialism lay in spreading socialist revolution abroad.

In early Soviet Russia, women were, for the first time in world history, given full political and economic equality. Racism was prohibited and lost its institutional basis. Homosexuality was decriminalized and the Bolsheviks initially sought direct workers control of industry until the extremely backward state of Russian capitalism made socialist industrial democracy, and labor conscription through a form of state-capitalism necessary. Immediately after the revolution, 16 imperialist countries invaded the young Soviet Republic, waging a bloody civil war with the fervent monarchist, anti-semitic, and reactionary white army. This invasion was supported by the former ruling class, the landowners and capitalists. It was supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, an institution that had taught the Russian people to revere the Tsar as a saint, to blindly follow him into battle against other working people in whatever imperialist war he wished to wage at their expense.

Most socialists and Marxists were shocked at dawning of the October revolution, according to Marxism the first socialist revolutions ought to happen in the most advanced capitalist countries first, at the end of capitalist development. Instead the opposite happened, in a backward country where 65% to 80% of the population could not read! While not in conformity with Orthodox Marxian theory up to that time, it is nonetheless said by Marxists that an ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. The imperialist expansion of the most advanced capitalist economies in the world, ultimately culminating in the first World War, was largely the cause of the Russian Revolutions surprising emergence in world history.

The Civil War period forced upon the Bolsheviks a necessary policy of Red Terror against the White Terror, a reinvented form of Jacobinism to defend the gains of the revolution. The attacks on the Bolsheviks from other parties, even socialist ones, in these conditions, led to the eventual formation of a one-party socialist state, a system never mentioned in the writings of Marx, Engels nor Lenin. Though tragic, it emerged as a historical necessity to defend the Russian Revolution from its enemies.

The success of the revolution depended entirely upon revolution on the international scale, a fact often stressed by Lenin, Trotsky, and even Stalin in those early years. Many fought and died for this cause, but unfortunately the Bolshevik’s salvation never came. For a time socialist revolutions and Soviet republics though, did spring up all over old Europe. The Free Socialist Republic of Germany was founded for a small period of time, in the most advanced capitalist country in the world, on radically democratic and libertarian grounds. Needless to say had Germany succeeded in overthrowing capitalism, Hitler never would have come to power, and moreover when speaking of this period the Russian Revolution would have been but a minor footnote. Instead we would speak of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and the ideas of socialism and communism as radically anti-authoritarian, libertarian, and democratic. The imperialist war that led to the revolution was a result of the fact that the contradictions of the economic system of capitalism, the internal contradictions brought about by a market economy could no longer be reconciled within a nation state. It was long thought that socialism, a system more advanced than capitalism, could also only be achieved as an economic system on an international scale, the advent of imperialism furthered this reasoning. When Lenin died and international revolution never happened there was a split in the communist movement, a split between Trotsky and Stalin. Stalin and Bukharin advocated a theory of Socialism in one country, while Trotsky advocated a theory of Permanent Revolution.

Trotsky was exiled by Stalin in 1927 and was eventually murdered by one of Stalin’s agents in 1940. Trotsky believed that the Russian Revolution had been lost under the Stalinist bureaucracy, that it had become undemocratic, despotic, and that it had betrayed the revolution. Stalin on the other hand believed that he had only done what was necessary to keep Russia together under the socialist cause. After WW2 a whole series of liberated countries from fascist Germany and Italy set up systems mirrored not on the 1917 revolution, but on Stalin’s Russia. Stalinism was their political foundation and the once liberated people's were subjected to a totalitarian nightmare in some ways worse than their former fascist oppressors. All of these countries with the exception of former Yugoslavia, starting in 1917, were led by parties that waged a relentless struggle against religious belief.

However, herein lies the most interesting facet of this historical examination: the early Bolsheviks and the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party from which the Bolsheviks formed, were up until the Russian Revolution wholly unique in their extremely anti-religious attitude. The overwhelming majority of socialist parties were not dogmatically atheistic, espousing the personal religious views of Karl Marx, but regarded religious belief as fully compatible with socialist politics. It is my proposition that the anti-religious attitudes of the Bolsheviks over-emphasized the atheistic ideas of Karl Marx as a fundamental aspect of socialist politics due largely to the material backwardness of Russia. Semi-feudal Russia by all accounts, held back for hundreds of years due to the influence of religion. Religion was used as a weapon of the ruling class in a way far more severe and terrible than in any advanced capitalist country. The extremely anti-religious attitudes of the Bolsheviks in that regard is understandable, however it is not a product of a workers party in an advanced capitalist country, but rather of a workers party in an extremely poor semi-feudal one. Thus we can say that the militant atheism of Bolshevism has its origins not in capitalist development, but in the remnants of feudalism.

Such is the basis of my criticism. In 1989-1991 the USSR, followed by the entire Eastern Bloc, fell to capitalism and what gains were won were lost. Of course those countries were, with the exception of the USSR, at that time totalitarian dictatorships. Religious persecution was one of the major reasons for the “fall of communism”, however it was not in the least the only one. In addition to Trotskyism are the profound criticisms of Rosa Luxemburg of the authoritarian methods of the Bolsheviks in the early revolution.

The Critique of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et al.

Historical materialism shows that religion, and organized religion in particular, has, in every epoch, acted in defense of the prevailing socioeconomic order, and every socioeconomic order since the emergence of agriculture has been fundamentally based on exploitation. Therefore Lenin states,

“Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious [organization], as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 15, p. 403).

While this certainly seems to be true in Lenin's time, let us analyze this quotation for a moment in the modern world. Is this true? In Latin America there developed in the spirit of the socialist revolutions that overtook the world in the 20th century, liberation theology, a form of Christianity that saw the material emancipation of the oppressed and exploited peoples of the world as a necessary prerequisite to Christianity. In Soviet Russia, after the revolution, there developed a “living church” that supported the ideals of socialism and communism in spite of the Bolsheviks ideological war on religion as such, it was a church that attempted to distance itself from the reactionary Russian Orthodox Church. There is the National Liberation Army of Columbia that ascribes to an interpretation of Marxism-Leninism through the lens of Liberation Theology. There is the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a militant political movement that ascribes to an Islamic variant of Marxism. There are countless progressive churches in the United States and abroad with a staunch anti-capitalist, pro-socialist programme. Can we therefore say that Lenin was correct in saying that “all modern religions and churches”, and “each and every religious organization” are “instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and befuddle the working class”? Not in the least. In this regard, history has proved Lenin wrong.

These are religious organizations and movements that share in the optimism of progress we all on the left of the political spectrum feel. This puts to bed Trotsky’s declaration in The Revolution Betrayed that

“Marxism is saturated with the optimism of progress, and that alone, by the way, makes it irreconcilably opposed to religion.” (p. 27)

Stalin was once asked the following question,

“We know that some good Communists do not altogether agree with the Communist Party’s demand that all new members must be atheists, because the reactionary clergy are now suppressed. Could the Communist Party in the future take a neutral attitude towards a religion [that] supported all the teachings of science and did not oppose communism? Could you in the future permit Party members to hold religious convictions if the latter did not conflict with Party loyalty?”

He answered dogmatically,

“I do not know of any ‘good Communists’ such as the delegation mentions here. It is doubtful whether any such Communists exist at all.” (Stalin, Works, p.137).

Trotsky once remarked,

“…Perhaps you intended to imply that religion is of no political importance? That it is possible to be religious and at the same time a consistent communist and revolutionary fighter? You will hardly venture so rash an assertion.” (Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism, p. 52: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/ch03.htm).

All of these assertions have been completely debased and put to bed by the development of liberation theology and other genuinely proletarian religious movements for the liberation of the proletariat.

Of course, one doesn't blame Copernicus for believing the sun to be the center of the universe, just as one shouldn't blame Lenin for believing that "each and every religious organization" is an instrument of reaction and bourgeois obfuscation of the proletariat. These men were limited by the historical knowledge and material conditions of human progress in their time. This does not in the least mean that Copernicus or Lenin were not wrong in their final conclusions, merely that the result of their conclusion was underdeveloped by the limits of human knowledge and world history.

In this spirit of ideological hostility to religious belief Lenin declared,

“The party of the proletariat demands that the state should declare religion a private matter, but does not regard the fight against the opium of the people, the fight against religious superstitions, etc., as a ‘private matter’. The opportunists distort the question to mean that the Social-Democratic Party regards religion as a private matter!”(ibid. 410)

Of course, this proclamation directly contradicts the proclamation of German communist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg when she said,

“Social-Democracy in no way fights against religious beliefs. On the contrary, it demands complete freedom of conscience for every individual and the widest possible toleration for every faith and every opinion. But, from the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the proletariat, whether he be in a cassock or in the uniform of the police.”(https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/socialism-churches.htm)

Not even Marx declared that atheism should be an essential policy of a workers party. When the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy proposed as rule number 1 of its program,

“The Alliance declares itself atheist; it wants abolition of cults, substitution of science for faith, and human justice for divine justice.”

Marx replied in a side note,

“As if one could declareby decreethe abolition of faith!” (Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 21 p. 208).

In the Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith, Engels says,

“All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous* and brings about their disappearance.” .( https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm).

This is in conformity with the Marxist interpretation of religion as the opium of the people, as religion (the tool for the oppressed worker) is no longer needed when the oppression of the worker ceases to be. The word Engels uses here is superfluous, not abolished by force, not something that comes about by “convincing the masses ideologically”, not something that is established as a prerequisite to communism, but as something that comes about with communism. All this rests though, on the Marxist theory that religion is solely an expression of socioeconomic conditions, is solely “the opium of the people”. Marx also once remarked,

“Communism begins from the outset (Owen) with atheism; but atheism is at first far from being communism; indeed, that atheism is still mostly an abstraction.” (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm)

But even with this Marx is describing communism in the abstract, not in the concrete as a socioeconomic system.

Marx’s interpretation of communism is, no doubt, atheistic. However would it not befuddle the worker to proclaim Marx a prophet? As someone who’s vision of communism was to be carried out exactly as Marx envisioned? Would it not be rash to consider the ideology of the proletariat in the 21st century to be exactly Marx’s ideology with no historical context? Is it revisionist to make such a claim? Perhaps. But it is thoroughly based on the historical context of the 20th century and the material conditions of the 21st.

Marx’s famous quote about religion has been grotesquely misinterpreted by Stalinists and idealistically by “new atheists” alike. To quote it in full,

“It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.” (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm)

Truly this is a beautiful quote by Marx, but let us first analyze what Marx is saying. Religion as it is portrayed in this way is a false light in a world of darkness. Marx is calling on its abolition “as the illusory happiness of the people”. He is calling on the abolition of the “conditions that require illusions”. He is not merely attacking religious ideas as illusions as such, but he is calling for their abolition as they manifest themselves as an illusory happiness.

Can anyone who is sincerely religious say they want their religious convictions to be merely a tool for people to achieve illusory happiness in grotesque conditions? Can anyone sincerely religious say they want religion to merely be an opiate for people who live in oppressive conditions? Religious ethics compel one to be compassionate, and therefore compel the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people. There is no contradiction here. It was once alleged correctly that Mother Teresa was “a friend of poverty, not of the poor”. Is this what a “true Christian” is? Someone who takes pleasure in the religious suffering of others in order to spread their faith to the widest possible masses? Not in the least! This is an ethical betrayal of Christianity!

The Contradiction Between The Party and The State

Let us assume, for a moment, that religion should be combated directly by the party of the proletariat. Well and good then, but what happens when the party comes to power? Marx, Engels, and Lenin never once mentioned or wrote about a one-party state. It emerged in a later phase of the Russian Revolution and there is no indication that such a system was to remain permanent. If, under such a system, the party controls the state, controls the schools, and all other state, public, and social organs, how can the state be neutral on the grounds of religion and the party not be? Here there is a glaring contradiction that was never once addressed under the Stalinist system. Instead it led to the total abandonment even of Leninism, and even of this contradictory Stalinist interpretation of Leninism.

While there was no “official” state persecution, there were, still, constant anti-religious campaigns carried out by the party, de facto carried out by the state during the entire existence of the USSR and the other Marxist-Leninist states. In Stalinist Albania, this contradiction eventually led to the abolition of freedom of religion entirely! All religion was made illegal in 1967, over 2000 (the total number of) churches and mosques were closed down by the state in a matter of months. It was an action carried out in total violation of even Marxist-Leninist principles as a result of this contradiction. Even the British-Albanian Friendship Association (an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist organization if there ever was one) distributed a lengthy document labeled "Discussion Document Only - Not for Publication" within its ranks (because it did not want to damage the image of Stalinist Albania) that wholly condemned Hoxha’s anti-religious campaign. It did not in the least point out or even acknowledge this contradiction, but instead blamed it on “hidden revisionists who - by taking advantage of the 'cult of personality' built up around Hoxha - sought to [utilize] this sectarian action to discredit the country's Marxist-Leninist leadership around Hoxha as part of a broader aim of reversing the construction of socialism in Albania” in the typical Hoxhaist bunker mentality of Stalinist anti-revisionism.

The conclusion of the entire lengthy British-Albanian Friendship Association’s analysis is as follows:

“In the context of the anti-religious struggle carried out in socialist Albania, the closure of its religious institutions in 1966-67 had been:

1) in violation of Marxist-Leninist principles;

2) in violation of the Constitution of the PR of Albania;

3) not in compliance with Albania's international obligations as a UN member;

4) an action embodying certain features of the 'cultural revolution' which was simultaneously proceeding in China;

5) an action which must have alienated to some extent religious believers within Albania who might otherwise have been full supporters of the socialist regime;

6) an action which assisted international anti-socialist propaganda;

7) an action which alienated to some extent religious believers who might otherwise have been [favorably] disposed towards socialist Albania;

8) an action which held back to some extent the international Marxist-Leninist movement, of which socialist Albania had been the sole citadel during the sixties, seventies, and eighties, by presenting the image of a state which arbitrarily permits the violation of its constitutional rights, and by alienating to some extent religious believers who might otherwise have been firm supporters of the movement;

9) not initiated by the leading group in the party and state around the PLA First Secretary, Hoxha;

10) initiated by an [organized] and influential group of hidden revisionists who - by taking advantage of the 'cult of personality' built up around Hoxha - sought to [utilize] this sectarian action to discredit the country's Marxist-Leninist leadership around Hoxha as part of a broader aim of reversing the construction of socialism in Albania.”

Even the British-Albanian Friendship Association admitted religious people would have fully supported the government had it not carried out these policies. Dare we not go a step further and say that the Leninist attitude towards religion in general alienated the people who resided in Leninist Russia, the later USSR, and other Marxist-Leninists states to such an extent that it was a major contributing factor in the “fall of communism” in the USSR and Eastern Europe? We have already established that Lenin’s view of religion as being something that, “in every instance”, opposes the liberation of the proletariat to be a wrong interpretation in light of modern conditions. This was his entire basis for his opposition to religion as such, next to, of course, his Marxist interpretation of materialist philosophy.

Materialism

How did Lenin regard materialism? Lenin said, “Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as was the materialism of the eighteenth- century Encyclopaedists or the materialism of Feuerbach.” (Lenin, Collected Works Volume 15, p. 405). Lunacharsky, yes the same Bolshevik who in 1918 held a mock trial and execution of God himself, in his earlier years was a leading proponent of the “God Builder” faction of the Bolshevik Party. Though he wanted to create a “new secular religion” to replace the old, he held that the workers party should be agnostic, that true materialism is agnostic and not atheistic as the existence or non-existence of God was not an obviously apparent. He said:

"From the socialist point of view, the attitude of the proletarian movement toward religious organizations is built on the basis of their positions in the class struggle. Socialism looks at religious movements from the point of view of the common good, as well as physical, moral and mental development, which implies the following:

1. Socialism is fighting against religious superstitions and prejudices based on empirical knowledge of objective and subjective science. 2. Socialism is fighting against the religious intellectuals serving the bourgeoisie, just as with the secular intellectuals supporting the bourgeoisie. 3. Socialism is alien to militant atheism, based on opposing prejudice and violence against people. 4. Socialist freedom also implies freedom of religion and an independent search for the truth for every person. 5. Socialism cannot dogmatically hold any one position on the statements 'God is' or 'There is no God', and takes a position of agnosticism or 'open possibilities'. 6. Socialism unites secular and religious ideological groups in the struggle for the proletariat. Any action aiming to merge socialism with religious fanaticism, or militant atheism, are actions aimed at splitting the proletarian class and have the formula of “divide and rule”, which plays into the hands of bourgeois dictatorship." (Anatoly Lunacharsky. Religion and Socialism, Moscow (1908))

There is an obvious contradiction in views here as well between the views of Lunacharsky and Lenin. Though Lunacharsky eventually came around to the Leninist view of religion in the years of the revolution, we cannot dismiss his earlier writings. What is the interpretation of materialism according to James Connolly? Connolly said,

“Modern Socialism, in fact, as it exists in the minds of its leading exponents, and as it is held and worked for by an increasing number of enthusiastic adherents throughout the [civilized] world, has an essentially material, matter-of-fact foundation. We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their Socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of Scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity. They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold.”

It should suffice, then, that socialists have a materialist interpretation of history, view the world through the lens of materialist dialectics in which “God” is not a variable for change, but on the question of personal belief and conscience in regards to religious belief, it should never compel a fighting socialist to abandon their religious convictions or, as a party, to spread “anti-religious propaganda”.

A New Historical Materialist Approach To The Question

Religion has, in all previous epochs, defended the prevailing socioeconomic system. If we take into account only Asiatic, slave, feudal, and capitalist society we can say that religion has always stood for exploitation and oppression because of its defensive attitude towards the prevailing socioeconomic system. But if we consider for a moment that the ethics of every single religion today are irrevocably hostile to capitalist “ethics”, and are in total sync with the ethics of socialism, why should we assume that organized religious institutions and religion in general would not support a socialist world order? We have no reason to believe that it would as an eventuality. Initially, as always, many if not most religious institutions are undoubtedly reactionary in nature and would initially be hostile to social change. This necessitates an ideological battle against these institutions not on the basis of their being religious as such, but on the basis of them being bourgeois. The exposure of the hostility of these institutions towards a system no doubt resembling that of the early apostles, no doubt in line with the ethics of most every religious doctrine, would cause a massive reformation of religion as it exists today. It would, no doubt, cause new and reformed religious institutions to mercilessly defend socialism. To quote St. Paisios of Mt. Athos,

“Personally, if the communists weren’t atheist, if they didn’t hunt Christ, I would agree with them. It’s good for the plots of land, the factories, to belong to everyone; not for one to be hungry while someone else is throwing away food.”

In this regard, Lenin’s declared official hostility of the Bolsheviks to religion as such, and not to its bourgeois character in the (then) present epoch, actually worked against the cause of socialism. For the religious institutions of Russia, or any other country for that matter, would never, and never did support a militantly atheistic socialist system. This actually led to the fall of Marxism-Leninism in the 20th century. Pope John Paul II’s speech in Poland is widely regarded as the speech that inspired the workers of Poland to finally destroy the Stalinist system, and with that, the first domino in the Eastern Bloc fell. It played directly into the hands of world imperialism and reaction. It was the reason the U.S. added “In God We Trust” to currency as a reaction to Stalinist atheism!

Making the struggle against religion a “natural and indispensable part of scientific socialism” was one of the biggest contributing factors in the fall of Marxism-Leninism in Russian and Eastern Europe. I say that not with any desire whatsoever to rehabilitate the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which in my view has its place only in history books and in the memory of modern socialism. Its dogmatic approach to the religious question alienated the majority of the population and made both believers and the church institutions themselves wage a now hidden, now open ideological fight against the communists, a fight that could have ended either in the utopian abolition of religion under socialism at large, or in the destruction of the Marxist-Leninist system as a whole. History, as we know now, unfolded upon the latter.

What should have been something in conformity with the ethics of all the major religions was turned into something militantly hostile to religious belief. The socioeconomic base of the Marxist-Leninist system lacked the justification and support it had from religious institutions under the asiatic, slave, feudal, and capitalist modes of production and their natural socio-political counterparts. The religious institutions were reactionary because they were capitalist under capitalism. They only remained capitalist because the new socioeconomic order would never allow them to exist freely in society without hinderance, constant ideological war, and persecution.

Conclusion

What, then, should the policy of the workers party be towards religion? It should, as Rosa Luxemburg said,

“in no way [fight] against religious beliefs”,

on the contrary, it must

“[demand] complete freedom of conscience for every individual and the widest possible toleration for every faith and every opinion. But, from the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the proletariat, whether he be in a cassock or in the uniform of the police.”

Religion always justifies and endorses the existing social order, even if it is intrinsically opposed to the principles of that established religion insofar as it is not fundamentally hostile to religion itself.

In regards to Russia we can say that yes, religion held back Russian society for hundreds of years, the semi-feudal state of Russia in my mind was largely to blame for the Bolsheviks anti-religious policies. It was something born in the womb of feudalism rather than an advanced capitalist society. For that reason if none other it must be rejected. So in that sense, the militant atheism of the early Bolsheviks is to a certain extent forgivable or at the very least understandable. But by the late 1980's under Gorbachev, by the time Russia had begun to become a democratic society in practice and not merely on paper, the totalitarian, rigid, and dogmatic ideas of the past had already been crystallized into the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

Now, if by some alchemy their ideology cast off the fetters of its roots in a society based on material scarcity and semi-feudal backwardness by admitting that there is no necessary contradiction between Marxian socioeconomic views or at the very least communism and religion and religious belief, religion would over time cease to be reactionary because the social base ceased to be militantly opposed to religion as such. Just as Christian fundamentalism today, its origins in the teachings of a man who said "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" embraces capitalism in bourgeois society, so too would Christianity under a socialism that was not explicitly anti-religious embrace socialism and endorse the progress that comes with it. Herein lies the crux of the matter.

This application of the basic philosophy of historical materialism to the social function of religion, much to my surprise, was shared almost word for word with the Irish Catholic and Marxist revolutionary James Connolly in his 1908 article Roman Catholicism and Socialism which he published in The Harp. In it he said:

"This (Roman Catholicism and Socialism*) is the title of a pamphlet by Patrick J. Cooney of Bridgeport, Conn., which we would like to see in the hands of all our readers, and especially those who are struggling towards the light out of the economic darkness of today. To Catholics who have been repelled from socialism by the blatant and rude atheism of some of its irresponsible advocates and unfortunately the number of such Catholics is legion this book will be as refreshing as an oasis in the desert to the tired and thirsty traveller.

The author is an active Catholic and at the same time a militant socialist, and in his presentation of our socialist doctrines he never wavers in his allegiance to either. Here and there indeed his loyalty to the Church seems to betray him into statements regarding her position which to our mind would hardly stand the test of modern criticism and historical research. But we confess that in that respect his attitude is a refreshing change from that of the crudely superficial thinkers (?) and scribblers who so commonly discredit the socialist ranks by their dogmatisms on that subject. If we had to choose between the perfervid Catholicity of our author and the blatant anti-Catholicism of the men who are so fond of repelling earnest Catholics by their assertion that the great conflict of the social revolution will be between the forces of the Catholic Church and those of socialism, then we should prefer the position of Comrade Cooney as containing the highest propagandist value, as well as being, if historical precedents count for anything, the most probable to last and stand the test of time. As a matter of fact the Catholic Church always accepts the established order, even if it has warred upon those who had striven to establish such order.*

To use a homely adage the Church “does not put all her eggs in one basket,”* and the man who imagines that in the supreme hour of the proletarian struggle for victory the Church will definitely line up with the forces of capitalism, and pledge her very existence as a Church upon the hazardous chance of the capitalists winning, simply does not understand the first thing about the policy of the Church in the social or political revolutions of the past. Just as in Ireland the Church denounced every Irish revolutionary movement in its day of activity, as in 1798, 1848 and 1867, and yet allowed its priests to deliver speeches in eulogy of the active spirits of those movements a generation afterwards, so in the future the Church, which has its hand close upon the pulse of human society, when it realises that the cause of capitalism is a lost cause it will find excuse enough to allow freedom of speech and expression to those lowly priests whose socialist declarations it will then use to cover and hide the absolute anti-socialism of the Roman Propaganda. When that day comes the Papal Encyclical against socialism will be conveniently forgotten by the Papal historians, and the socialist utterances, of the von Kettelers, the McGlynns, and McGradys will be heralded forth and the communistic utterances of the early fathers as proofs of Catholic sympathy with progressive ideas. Thus it has been in the past. Thus it will be, at least attempted, in the future.* We are not concerned to champion or to deny the morality of such a cause in anticipation, we are simply attempting to read the lessons of the past into the future. And, we modestly submit, this forecast has infinitely more of probability in it than the dreams of those who tell us so glibly of a coming Armageddon between the forces of socialism and Catholicism. Such dreams are not the product of modern socialist philosophy, they are a survival from the obsolete philosophy of the days preceding the first French Revolution.

To the free-thinkers and rebels of those days and the professional free-thinkers of today have not advanced much beyond that mental stage God and the Church were nothing more than the schemes of a designing priesthood intent on enslaving and robbing the credulous masses.* Religion was a systematised business of deception and trickery invented and perpetuated by men thoroughly aware of its falsehood and baseness, and consciously laying plans to maintain and spread it for their own selfish ends. Kings and rulers of all kinds were the creation of this crafty priesthood which used them to its own purposes. That we are not in the slightest degree mistating the ideas of the times we are criticising any student of the early freethought literature will readily concede. That many otherwise excellent comrades have brought such ideas over into the camp of socialism is also undeniable. But that they are also held by an even greater number of enemies of socialism is truer still. And it is in truth in the camp of the enemy such ideas belong, such doctrines are the legitimate children of the teachings of individualism, and their first progenitors both in England and France were also the first great exponents of the capitalist doctrines of free trade and free competition, free contract and free labour. Such conceptions of religion are entirely opposed to the modern doctrine that the intellectual conceptions of men are the product of their material conditions, and flow in the grooves channelled out by [the] economic environment..."*

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1908/09/cathsoc.htm

James Connolly lays out the attitude any socialist party can, should and must take in his work Socialism and Religion (1899) saying,

“The Socialist Party of Ireland prohibits the discussion, of theological or anti-theological questions at its meetings, public or private. This is in conformity with the practice of the chief Socialist parties of the world, which have frequently, in Germany for example, declared Religion to be a private matter, and outside the scope of Socialist action.* Modern Socialism, in fact, as it exists in the minds of its leading exponents, and as it is held and worked for by an increasing number of enthusiastic adherents throughout the [civilized] world, has an essentially material, matter-of-fact foundation. We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their Socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of Scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity. They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold. As a political party they wisely prefer to take their stand upon the actual phenomena of social life as they can be observed in operation amongst us [today], or as they can be traced in the recorded facts of history. If any special interpretation of the meanings of Scripture tends to influence human thought in the direction of Socialism, or is found to be on a plane with the postulates of Socialist doctrine, then the scientific Socialist considers that the said interpretation is stronger because of its identity with the teachings of Socialism, but he does not necessarily believe that Socialism is stronger, or its position more impregnable, because of its theological ally. He [realizes] that the facts upon which his Socialist faith are based are strong enough in themselves to withstand every shock, and attacks from every quarter, and therefore while he is at all times willing to accept help from every extraneous source, he will only accept it on one condition, viz., that he is not to be required in return to identify his cause with any other whose discomfiture might also involve Socialism in discredit. This is the main reason why Socialists fight shy of theological dogmas and religions generally: because we feel that Socialism is based upon a series of facts requiring only unassisted human reason to grasp and master all their details, whereas Religion of every kind is admittedly based upon ‘faith’ in the occurrence in past ages of a series of phenomena inexplicable by any process of mere human reasoning. Obviously, therefore, to identify Socialism with Religion would be to abandon at once that universal, non-sectarian character which to-day we find indispensable to working-class unity, as it would mean that our members would be required to conform to one religious creed, as well as to one specific economic faith a course of action we have no intention of entering upon as it would inevitably entangle us in the disputes of the warring sects of the world, and thus lead to the disintegration of the Socialist Party.

Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its individual members if they so will. It is neither Freethinker nor Christian, Turk nor Jew, Buddhist nor [Idolater], [Muslim] nor Parsee it is only human.”*

(https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1901/evangel/socrel.htm)

It is this attitude that socialism of the 21st century must take towards religious belief. It must not condone religious intolerance and religious bigotry, or anti-religious intolerance and anti-religious bigotry. As essential as the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky are to the history of the socialist movement, we must take their views into historical context, and, when they are wrong such as in the instance of the religious question, fundamentally revise them. Socialism is, after all, only human.

*My Italics or bold- TFB

Historical Materialism and Religion: A New Theory

October 24, 2018

Historical materialism shows that religion, and organized religion in particular, has, in every epoch, acted in defense of the prevailing socioeconomic order. Therefore Lenin states, “Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious [organization], as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 15, p. 403).

Let us analyze this quotation for a moment in the modern world. Is this true? In Latin America there developed in the spirit of the socialist revolutions that overtook the world in the 20th century, liberation theology. In Soviet Russia, after the revolution, there developed a “living church” that supported the ideals of socialism and communism in spite of the Bolsheviks ideological war on religion as such, it was a church that attempted to distance itself from the reactionary Russian Orthodox Church. There is the National Liberation Army of Columbia that ascribes to an interpretation of Marxism-Leninism through the lens of Liberation Theology. There is the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a militant political movement that ascribes to an Islamic variant of Marxism. There are countless progressive churches in the United States and abroad with a staunch anti-capitalist, pro-socialist programme. Can we therefore say that Lenin was correct in saying that “all modern religions and churches”, and “each and every religious organization” are “instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and befuddle the working class”? Not in the least. In this regard, history has proved Lenin wrong. And in this regard, we have to acknowledge the fact that religion will justify a socialist order if and when that order arises, but only insofar as the socialist order is not inherently atheistic or militantly atheistic in nature. 

Briefly On The Constant Existential and Moral Terror

October 20, 2018

How anyone can harm an old person, a child, or an animal escapes me. The world is filled with terror, not actual terror but emotional terror. There are laws of physics that cannot be broken, and written laws that exist only because they can be broken. The worst atrocities can take place in 3 seconds, at any time, at any place. People seem sane and calm in everyday life, then when something awful happens it is terrifying and it breaks them. But what is even more terrifying, to me, is that horrible things can happen at any time, at any place, seemingly without reason. There is no solace from this. This is, of course, merely terror caused by the physical. It is not, the ever greater terror of existence. How we aren’t in constant fear and trembling at the inevitability of death, the unknown, the possibility of atrocity, etc. is beyond me.

Against Christian Fundamentalism

October 19, 2017

45% of Americans believe the universe is less than 10,000 years old. How did we get here? I had thought most everyone accepted the big bang theory and the theory of evolution as a scientific fact. This statistic terrifies me. If you make it a war of science vs. religion, science will always win. Evolution and the big bang are theories backed by mountains and mountains of scientific evidence. Creationism is a great creation myth, but it’s literalism is just that, a myth. I’m sorry but outside this ancient text, these ancient scribblings, written by men, perhaps inspired by God as I and many Christians believe they are, there is no actual scientific evidence for the universe being 6000 years old. In fact, the scientific method illuminates empirical truth through reason and skepticism, it reveals that there is not one shred of evidence for such a claim.

The modern conception of God to many Christians is, in my view, horribly wrong. God is not supposed to be, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson put it, “an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance”. God is not some being that acts directly through some hitherto undiscovered scientific mechanism of action. 45% of Americans are ignorant of, or blatantly in denial of, basic scientific fact. When they discover the truth, many of them will abandon religion altogether as I once did. This will no doubt spark a nietzschean moral and existential crisis, the likes of which have never been seen in Western society. The Creation Museum is a museum of human ignorance. For every one person it “saves”, ten more are irrevocably turned away from the Christian faith, for Christianity becomes, in their mind, merely a testament to the ignorance and stupidity of the dark ages.

The denial of reason and the embrace of superstition is not a testament of faith, but on the contrary, it is evidence of a faith so weak that it has to deny and attempt to bury any and all rational arguments against it. The true testament of faith is found in one who accepts new evidence against old interpretations of scriptures, one who subjugates their religious convictions to the light of reason and scientific evidence, who asks questions and does not dogmatically follow the flock.

If you claim that the only way there is a God is if evolution is a “satanic conspiracy” and the big bang is a “hoax”, then I would claim that there is no God. But this rigid, literalist interpretation of Christianity is not the only one in the least. Many Christian sects are coming around and saying that there is no contradiction between science and religious belief, that the evidence of the big bang and evolution is evidence that our literalist interpretation of scripture is wrong.

But I go one step further. I claim that while I believe in God, I also believe a time will come when virtually every single phenomenon will be explained by science and the laws of physics. The backward view of God as this ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance will be abolished and thrust into the dustbin of human ignorance. God, as we believers understand him, will take on a radically different form. I do not claim this form will be inherently atheistic, but that it will do away with the ignorance and rigidity of the religions of the past. This, of course, will affect all existing religions, not just Christianity.

Christian institutions, and indeed all religious institutions, in every epoch, justifies and ideologically reinforces the prevailing socioeconomic order (hitherto in slave, feudal and capitalist societies, forms of oppression and exploitation). Modern bourgeois Christianity takes Americanism and turns American Fundamentalist Christianity into a civil religion that directly justifies U.S. imperialism, military expansion, the police force, economic exploitation, oppression of minorities, violence, and decadence of our capitalist order. Even more so, it declares America to be “God’s chosen nation today”. But nothing could be further from the truth, nothing could be more in opposition to Christian moral values than capitalism and imperialism. A billionaire is to a Christian as Ted Bundy is to Saint Basil. There can be no comparison.

Even worse is the social hostility of modern Christians towards women’s and LGBT+ rights. Such abominable and backward views are ethically anti-Christian, yet those adhering to the alleged infallibility of the Bible ceaselessly defend such backwardness in the name of religious freedom. Christianity is thereby turned from a religion which proclaims God is love into one that proclaims God is hate. 

In a word, what modern Christianity needs to do is to break away from its scientific ignorance and its ceaseless defense of capitalism and imperialism. The tool to do this, I believe, lies in Liberation Theology. But what is also needed is a historical materialist critique of Christianity through the ages (slave, feudal, bourgeois) and how our religion is alienated from itself in each epoch and used to justify oppression and exploitation, how our religion must adapt institutionally to condemn capitalist exploitation and defend socialist democracy if it is to truly take on a Christian character.

I know nothing! All I know is but a part of myself even though it exists outside of myself!

September 24, 2017

I hold an apple in my hand realizing that the apple in my hand which I am perceiving is not the apple that exists outside of me, but rather exists as an internal abstraction of the apple itself. Therein begins the terrifying realization that everything I know or think I know is only that which I have perceived or learned, is only that which has been interpreted by my sense organs, filtered by them, reflected into my brain, filtered by my brain, and finally perceived by my brain.

Nothing I know is objective, only that which has been perceived. Perception of our higher reality, while being of this plane of existence, without filtration, is impossible. The apple to me exists as an abstraction, and thus as a concept. It exists as that which is, though material in nature, idealist to me. The apple is certainly infinite in scope, down to the smallest subatomic particles it is mathematically possible to go down in our analysis of the size of the parts of the apple forever. But it exists in actuality as a finite infinity. For to perceive the apple in its entirety is impossible, only a part can be perceived by us. Even this merely implies an analysis the apple as it exists in a moment frozen in time, not even taking into account the constant dialectic of decay and change in which the apple is undergoing.

What about who I am to myself? I must filter my perception of myself as well even though it is myself. And those around me I love and care about? They too are but abstractions who I can never truly know. In this I am utterly alone, in this, though together, we are all alone. But in realizing this it also comes to mind that, even the good things about life are also internalized reflections of the external, and that they too are a part of me in some small way. Entering into a field of extreme skepticism one can easily come to idealist conclusions that I am the only thing that exists and the world around me is merely a figment of my imagination. But one must accept a scientific analysis if one wishes to retain sanity. The external is real and the mind is an emanation of the material, though no doubt highly organized. But in a spirit of skepticism I can never really know the answer to this question, or the objective answer to any question. In short, the only thing that I know is that I know nothing, nothing at all. And this too is but an abstraction.

The Foundation of the Idea of Objective and Subjective injustice and its Relation to Mercy

September 24, 2017

I once said that “one cannot fight injustice with injustice”. But I realize now that this only touches the tip of the iceberg. More specifically, it can be said that “one cannot fight objective injustice with objective injustice”, or that “one cannot fight merely subjective injustice with any form of injustice”.

First of all, what do I mean by this? Objective injustice is precisely how it sounds: that which is objectively unjust. If a person slaughters an innocent for no real purpose at all, with malicious intent, we can say that this was objectively unjust. There was and can be no real justification for this. To the accused, the price for their violating the civil liberty of another is rightfully the violation of their own civil liberty. To the murderer, he experiences a subjective by being imprisoned. Can we say that this subjective injustice was objectively unjust? Not in the least. Therefore this subjective injustice was objectively just.

Objective injustice is always morally abominable. Subjective injustice and mercy are the only ways to address an objectively unjust phenomenon. When equality of white and black people was formally declared it released a whole wave of reaction among some white people who felt that they were being oppressed. But on the contrary! This oppression may have been a subjective injustice to the white man, but it was objectively just, and therefore certainly right! Equality always feels like oppression when you come from a position of privilege.

In response to 9/11, a truly abominable act of terrorism, the U.S. found its alleged justification for unleashing a wave of terror of its own against the middle east. Was this just? It may have seemed that way to the United States but this is merely an example of fighting that which is objectively unjust with objective injustice. It is, therefore, a form of injustice which cannot be justified. Abolitionist John Brown found the only truly emancipatory solution to slavery to be the creation of a violent slave rebellion. Was this unjust? Not in the least! It was a response to an objectively unjust institution which perpetually created injustice. The response was subjectively unjust to the slaveowners, but by merit of being slaveowners they were guilty of an enormous crime against humanity. Brown’s response to slavery was therefore objectively just, and arguably, didn’t go far enough against the slaveowners.

What then is the relationship between mercy and justice? It must be said that mercy towards an individual objective injustice in which the injustice is perpetrated solely against the individual who, in contemplation of what to do arrives at the conclusion that inflicting subjective injustice against the accused is just, is certainly admirable and a worthy deed. However, in instances in which the objective injustice is institutional, collective, and systematically reinforced, the act of mercy against that institution or the perpetrators of it, is itself, merciless against the victims of that objective injustice. Therefore mercy against that which has no mercy in its objective injustice towards others, is itself an act of moral cowardice and barbarity. There can be no mercy against that which is objectively unjust and institutional in nature. This is, in and of itself, an act of objective justice.

We go back to an earlier post, ‘The Elements of Leadership: Immoral, Moral and Immorally Moral Pragmatism’, to ask a simple question. Is it not an act of moral cowardice for one to refuse to kill 5 people if it is the only way to save of 5 million? It may seem to that individual to be wrong, to be an act of barbarism, but objectively the act is eerily just. The ideas of objective and subjective justice and injustice are therefore aspects of utilitarianism, and my contribution to it.

A Letter to My Professor About Equating Communism With Fascism

September 22, 2017

During an in class discussion earlier today, the phenomenon of fascism was brought up. Eventually, as often happens in these sorts of discussions, communism came up as well. In agreement with a large section of the populous, it was mentioned that “communism and fascism are two sides of the same coin”, that coin being totalitarianism. Naturally, as a Marxist and a Trotskyist with libertarian tendencies, I was compelled to politely write her a letter on why this was not the case, on why communism does not equal fascism, even if one wishes to equate Stalinism with communism generally. I have nothing but the utmost respect for my professor, but naturally I did felt compelled to write the following letter:

Dear Professor (Name Omitted),

I certainly enjoyed today’s discussion and while I took absolutely no offense to it in any way whatsoever, I wanted to address something that was said because it commonly comes up in discussions I have with other people. That is, the misconceptions of Marxism brought about by the tragedy of Stalinism in the 20th century and, consequently, what it has done to the image of the Marxist movement as a whole.

Initially, nearly all of the early socialists and communists of the 20th century took on an attitude that the state was an inherently evil institution, and even went so far as to criticize the roots of totalitarianism that emerged in Russia before the Stalinist period. Rosa Luxemburg for instance, a leading figure of the attempted communist revolution in Germany, had this to say in light of the despotism that had emerged in the early Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic:

“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege… Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.”

Even within the Russian Revolution itself, there developed an intangible bureaucracy in which all the genuinely democratic gains of the early revolution were lost. When Stalin came to power he not only continued the revolutionary despotism of the civil war era into the post-revolutionary period, but he also amplified and obfuscated its role in the development of Soviet society. Stalin murdered, imprisoned, exiled, or otherwise “disappeared” nearly all of the original Bolsheviks who first served in the October revolution, numbering in the thousands.

He did this in the name of Marx, Engels and Lenin, who, contrary to popular belief, never once wrote about a one-party state. Trotsky, a man who most considered to be Lenin’s no. 2 during the revolution, was exiled by Stalin for opposing the bureaucracy within the party. For the rest of his life he fought for genuine democracy and liberty within Soviet society and for political revolution before being murdered by one of Stalin’s henchmen in his own home.

As for Marx, he was first and foremost an economist; he studied above all else capitalism and its relation to the earlier economic systems of human history. After decades of intense investigation of political economy (including a tedious analysis of all the written works of the prominent economists of and before his time) and human history, he made a scientific prediction that capitalism, like feudalism before it, would eventually be surpassed by a more efficient, democratic socioeconomic system. The means of producing wealth in our society, which are today exclusively owned by the property owning class who de facto hold all state power, would be held in common and would be brought not under state control, but the democratic control of the workers themselves, thereby abolishing private property. Those who produce all the wealth in our society would have democratic control over what is to be done with that wealth. The objective of the produce of human labor would thus become addressing human needs rather than blind profit.

The idea was that eventually humankind, after abolishing private (not to be confused with personal) property, would necessarily enter into a stateless society. Because to Marx and Engels, the state was, as Engels put it, “nothing but an instrument of oppression of one class by another – no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.” Marxists certainly never saw it as a good thing. The violent organization that we call the state would be replaced with the democratic management of society. Eventually when human society became productive enough, people could work according to ones abilities and take freely (without money as a medium of exchange) to each according to their needs. This, and not the totalitarian despotism of Stalinism, is what we call communism.

The question of how to get to this society has many answers, some in anarchist (anti-statist) tactics from the beginning, some in the initial use of the state under a more libertarian pretext, others through sheer state terror and totalitarianism (Stalinism). Thus the proposition of achieving a communist society has no inherent basis in the use of the state, let alone a totalitarian one. I consider myself to be a libertarian Marxist, meaning that while I agree with Marx’s critique of capitalism; I wholly and unequivocally condemn any form of totalitarianism to get to a more democratic and equal society.

As for fascism on the other hand, while its totalitarianism and lack of personal liberty is, admittedly, comparable to the Stalinist despotism that devolved in the cold war era, it sees the use of the state as an end and not a means to an end. Hitler wanted his “Reich” to last a thousand years. Lenin wanted the state to wither away as soon as possible, for the state is always a barrier to the genuine fulfillment of human liberty. Contrary to Marxism, it sees democracy as a negative aspect of human society, it sees classes and inequality as a good thing. As Mussolini, Hitler’s biggest inspiration put it,

“After Socialism, Fascism attacks the whole complex of democratic ideologies and rejects them both in their theoretical premises and in their applications or practical manifestations. Fascism denies that the majority, through the mere fact of being a majority, can rule human societies; it denies that this majority can govern by means of a periodical consultation; it affirms the irremediable, fruitful and beneficent inequality of men, who cannot be leveled by such a mechanical and extrinsic fact as universal suffrage. . . . Democracy is a regime without a king, but with very many kings, perhaps more exclusive, tyrannical and violent than one king even though a tyrant. . . .”

Marx and Lenin, on the other hand, supported a system in which the working masses (the overwhelming majority), to the exclusion of the property holding class, would hold and democratically control all state power. In this way it is an inversion of the early American democracy, a bourgeois democracy in which only white, property owners had an exclusive dictatorship over the state. In this way, we can say that such a system is inherently even more democratic than our own (if applied properly and developed in ideal conditions). For Lenin, freedom and democracy were always a goal for working people, for example, he said,

“Freedom and equality for the oppressed sex! Freedom and equality for the workers, for the toiling peasants! Down with the liars who are talking of freedom and equality for all, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes, while there is private ownership of capital, of shares, while there are the well-fed with their surplus of bread who keep the hungry in bondage. Not freedom  for all, not equality for all, but a fight against the oppressors and exploiters, the abolition of every possibility of oppression and exploitation-that is our slogan!”

In short, I merely wanted to respectfully lay out my views on the matter. I know you may disagree with me, as is certainly and should be your right, but I just wanted you to be informed of the basics of these ideas, ideas which have suffered intentional obfuscation by those in power since their inception.

Respectfully,

(Name Omitted)

A Materialist Case For The Potential Existence of The Soul

September 21, 2017

A common idealist interpretation of consciousness

Materialism as a philosophy proclaims that matter and energy are all that exist. Traditionally materialism, especially the materialism of Feuerbach and Marx, correctly leaves no room for the medieval idea of the incorporeal spirit controlling the body, being the force which drives human consciousness. Consciousness is rightfully proclaimed to be the highest known organizational form of matter. This notion therefore, traditionally does away with the idea of an afterlife, of an immortal soul, of a God, etc. As to the specifics of this I have no intention of trying to specifically justify my views about the nature of God, the afterlife, etc. but only to postulate the potentiality of the existence of the soul within a materialist framework. If this is possible, then all else follows.

The materialist viewpoint seems to conform to what we know science tells us about the world. But all of this assumes the traditional model of consciousness, a form of consciousness based on the physics embodied in the theories of classical mechanics. Traditionally the debate between idealism and materialism in regards to consciousness has been as follows: the mind exists either as science understands it, being material and a product of the processes of the brain in materialism, or as part of an incorporeal spirit that is immaterial in idealism. Obviously this medieval notion of a purely incorporeal spirit is nonsense. It follows then, traditionally, that there is no such thing as the soul. But all of this, as previously stated, rests on the traditional model of consciousness.

It can no doubt be said that the traditional model hitherto conforms with known scientific laws, that the exception with which I am to bring up is merely a scientific hypotheses and not a theory. But its possibility throws into question the very atheistic shell of materialist philosophy and should thus be, at the very least, investigated by any self-proclaimed materialist. The hypotheses which I am referring to is known as the quantum mind, or quantum consciousness hypothesis. To explain it in a nutshell I will reluctantly quote Wikipedia:

“The quantum mind or quantum consciousness group of hypotheses propose that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness. It posits that quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and superposition, may play an important part in the brain’s function and could form the basis of an explanation of consciousness.” [2]

But what does this have to do with idealism vs. materialism? With atheism and theism? With the existence of the soul? To answer this question we have to go back to another hypothesis that is a part of the quantum mind hypothesis called “Orchestrated objective reduction”. It was first formulated by theoretical physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in the 90’s. It should be said that Hameroff is, by his own admission, an idealist. He believes that consciousness does, to a certain extent, create the material world. But even with this, one can easily take his hypothesis and apply it to a materialist framework. For his hypothesis in and of itself, makes no assertion to the immaterial nature of consciousness, for quantum physics is as material a process as Newtonian physics. The hypothesis says that

“consciousness in the brain originates from processes inside neurons, rather than from connections between neurons (the conventional view). The mechanism is held to be a quantum physics process called objective reduction that is orchestrated by molecular structures called microtubules. Objective reduction is proposed to be influenced by non-computable factors imbedded in spacetime geometry which thus may account for the Hard Problem of Consciousness.” [3]

When we take the traditional model of consciousness into account we can conclude that consciousness dies with the decay of the human brain, that it does not and can not go on after death by any known processes. If we presume consciousness to be quantum in nature, it follows then that consciousness obeys the laws of quantum physics. We know that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, that for it to do so is a violation of the laws of Newtonian physics. But in quantum physics there exists the process of quantum entanglement, which is the

“physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance—instead, a quantum state must be described for the system as a whole… This has been shown to occur even when the measurements are performed more quickly than light could travel between the sites of measurement: there is no lightspeed or slower influence that can pass between the entangled particles.” [4]

It is in this process that the adherents of the Quantum Consciousness hypothesis find a potential mechanism for how consciousness could escape the body in the form of quantum information at a speed faster than the speed of light without violating the known laws of physics. It is precisely in this spirit that Hameroff postulates how his theory might apply to life after death:

“‘Let’s say the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, the microtubules lose their quantum state. The quantum information within the microtubules is not destroyed, it can’t be destroyed, it just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large,’ Dr. Hameroff told the Science Channel’s ‘Through the Wormhole’ documentary.

If the patient is revived, however, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and that is what we describe as ‘a near death experience‘.

‘If they’re not revived, and the patient dies, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul,’ Dr. Hameroff said…

‘The energy of your consciousness peels away from the physical vehicle at death, in the same way that a pianist can get up and walk away from the piano,’ Steven Bancarz wrote in an article.” [5]

Some would say that materialism degrades the human condition by asserting that consciousness is merely a result of physical phenomena. But on the contrary, I say it empowers the human spirit by showing the complexity not only of the universe but of the human mind. As for the idea of quantum consciousness, it is all, of course, speculative, as the hypothesis is just that- a hypothesis. But if true its ramifications could be enormous in the field of materialist philosophy and philosophy at large. Is it a bit of a stretch? Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. What do you think?

Sources:

Image 

2: Quantum Mind 

3: Orch OR-Quantum 

4: Quantum Entanglement 

5: Hameroff Quote 

Controversial View: Religion Should Be A Private Matter Not only In Relation To The State, But To The Party Of The Advanced Proletariat

September 19, 2018

“I am a seminarian and I will join the New People’s Army! Christians For National Liberation!”

I will start by saying that while I consider myself to be a (rather unorthodox) Leninist and a Trotskyist, I fundamentally disagree with Lenin’s and Trotsky’s position on how religion relates to the party of the advanced proletariat.

The Traditional Leninist Position 

It should be said that, contrary to myth, Lenin never outlawed religion as such, and made it explicitly clear in his writings that freedom of conscience should reign in socialist society. In The Attitude of The Workers’ Party to Religion, Lenin stated that while

“Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious organization, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class” (Lenin Collected Works Volume 15, p. 403)

that,

“Engels frequently condemned the efforts of people who desired to be ‘more left’ or ‘more revolutionary’ than the Social-Democrats to introduce into the programme of the workers’ party an explicit proclamation of atheism, in the sense of declaring war on religion”(Ibid).

This, by the way, shows the anti-Leninist attitude of Albania under Enver Hoxha, who declared all religious worship and practice to be illegal in 1967 and barred religious cadres from joining the party. This pseudo-revolutionary policy of barring religious cadres is also taken up by the Communist Party of China today.

Furthermore, Lenin goes on saying that

“…in 1877, too, in his Anti- Dühring, while ruthlessly attacking the slightest concessions made by Dühring the philosopher to idealism and religion, Engels no less resolutely condemns Dühring’s pseudo-revolutionary idea that religion should be prohibited in socialist society. To declare such a war on-religion, Engels says, is to ‘out-Bismarck Bismarck’, i.e., to repeat the folly of Bismarck’s struggle against the clericals…” (Ibid).

But make no mistake as to Lenin’s position on the matter. Lenin also said

Social-Democrats regard religion as a private matter in relation to the state, but not in relation to themselves, not in relation to Marxism, and not in relation to the workers’ party” (Idib, 404).

Despite this, Lenin actually advocated the allowances of religious members and even priests into the communist party if they so wished, saying,

“If a priest comes to us to take part in our common political work and conscientiously performs Party duties, without opposing the programme of the Party, he may be allowed to join the ranks of the Social-Democrats; for the contradiction between the spirit and principles of our programme and the religious convictions of the priest would in such circumstances be something that concerned him alone, his own private contradiction; and a political organisation cannot put its members through an examination to see if there is no contradiction between their views and the Party programme.” (Ibid, 408).

“Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated.” (Lenin Collected Works, Volume 10, p. 84)

But Lenin constantly emphasized the atheism of materialism and Marxism in saying,

“Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as was the materialism of the eighteenth- century Encyclopaedists or the materialism of Feuerbach. This is beyond doubt. But the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels goes further than the Encyclopaedists and Feuerbach, for it applies the materialist philosophy to the do- main of history, to the domain of the social sciences. We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism.” (Lenin Collected Works Volume 15, p. 405)

In short, Lenin believed that religion should be a private affair in regard to the state, but not in regard to the party of the advanced proletariat. Lenin taught that the party of the advanced proletariat should fight against religious beliefs as such, even though it never believed in barring religious members from joining, as the contradiction of doing so was a purely personal one. Lenin believed that religion itself was to be combatted, and not merely the bourgeois nature of modern religion.

The Position of Rosa Luxemburg and James Connolly, and Consequently, My Position 

Rosa Luxemburg and James Connolly, two of the famous revolutionary Marxists of the 20th century take an entirely different position on the matter of religion in regards to the party of the advanced proletariat. It is precisely their position that I advocate instead of Lenin’s and Trotsky’s.

James Connolly explicitly addresses his view on the matter in a section of Workers’ Republic, June 17, 1899 titled The New Evangel, Socialism and Religion, The Known and the Unknowable. Connolly begins by addressing the fact that the relationship between socialism and atheism is often used as a last ditch attack by the bourgeoisie against the principles of socialism. We saw this in the 20th century with the addition of “In God We Trust” to American currency during the height of the Cold War to combat “Godless” Communism. But in the case of the Cold War, this bourgeois attack had a material basis in the shameful religious persecutions that took place in the so-called Marxist-Leninist states of the 20th Century. Connolly states that this intentional bourgeois obfuscation on the question of religion and socialism often works negatively to deter a religious worker away from socialist politics. A firmly established position of atheism no doubt turns the religious worker away from any socialist party 9/10 of the time, and is undoubtedly negative. In fact, religious persecution was one of the main factors contributing to the fall of the USSR and Eastern Bloc. Connolly further clarifies the pre-Leninist position of the socialists saying that,

“The Socialist Party of Ireland prohibits the discussion, of theological or anti-theological questions at its meetings, public or private. This is in conformity with the practice of the chief Socialist parties of the world, which have frequently, in Germany for example, declared Religion to be a private matter, and outside the scope of Socialist action.* Modern Socialism, in fact, as it exists in the minds of its leading exponents, and as it is held and worked for by an increasing number of enthusiastic adherents throughout the civilized world, has an essentially material, matter-of-fact foundation. We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their Socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of Scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity.* They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold. As a political party they wisely prefer to take their stand upon the actual phenomena of social life as they can be observed in operation amongst us to-day, or as they can be traced in the recorded facts of history. If any special interpretation of the meanings of Scripture tends to influence human thought in the direction of Socialism, or is found to be on a plane with the postulates of Socialist doctrine, then the scientific Socialist considers that the said interpretation is stronger because of its identity with the teachings of Socialism, but he does not necessarily believe that Socialism is stronger, or its position more impregnable, because of its theological ally. He realises that the facts upon which his Socialist faith are based are strong enough in themselves to withstand every shock, and attacks from every quarter, and therefore while he is at all times willing to accept help from every extraneous source, he will only accept it on one condition, viz., that he is not to be required in return to identify his cause with any other whose discomfiture might also involve Socialism in discredit. This is the main reason why Socialists fight shy of theological dogmas and religions generally: because we feel that Socialism is based upon a series of facts requiring only unassisted human reason to grasp and master all their details, whereas Religion of every kind is admittedly based upon ‘faith’ in the occurrence in past ages of a series of phenomena inexplicable by any process of mere human reasoning. Obviously, therefore, to identify Socialism with Religion would be to abandon at once that universal, non-sectarian character which to-day we find indispensable to working-class unity, as it would mean that our members would be required to conform to one religious creed, as well as to one specific economic faith – a course of action we have no intention of entering upon as it would inevitably entangle us in the disputes of the warring sects of the world, and thus lead to the disintegration of the Socialist Party.

Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its individual members if they so will. It is neither Freethinker nor Christian, Turk nor Jew, Buddhist nor Idolator, Mohammedan nor Parsee – it is only human” (Socialism and Religion, 1899, James Connolly).

*My Bold – TFB

Rosa Luxemburg, a figure so famous among the left that there can no doubt as to her loyalty to Marxism, goes a step further saying that not only should religion be considered a private matter in relation to the party of the advanced proletariat, but to social-democracy as such, saying,

“And here is the answer to all the attacks of the clergy: the Social-Democracy in no way fights against religious beliefs. On the contrary, it demands complete freedom of conscience for every individual and the widest possible toleration for every faith and every opinion.* But, from the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the proletariat, whether he be in a cassock or in the uniform of the police.” (Socialism and The Churches, 1905, Rosa Luxemburg).

*My bold – TFB

It is in this tradition, that of the pre-Leninist Marxists that I fall. It is well known to my readers that I am a follower of Liberation Theology, and, consequently, a religious communist. It must be said, however, that while we have to combat bourgeois religion due to its loyalty to the bourgeoisie, this fight should be taken up because it is bourgeois and not because it is religion as such. This fight should be taken up by religious communists as well, for every minute a religious institution supports capitalism, it betrays its own emancipatory foundations. We should support any religious movement that tries to emancipate itself from the chains of bourgeois ideology and the defense of capitalist exploitation. Religion always defends the prevailing socioeconomic order, but, with the stubborn struggle against social change, it eventually comes around to support the new order once it is firmly established. Such will no doubt be the path taken by the church when socialism inevitably triumphs over the earth. But by making the struggle against religion an active policy of the party of the advanced proletariat, as was the case in the 20th century, it actually works to prevent this future support by religious institutions of socialism. On the contrary, religious institutions under a socialist state hostile to religious belief will never come around to support socialist society as they did support capitalist society, even though the ethics of socialism fall infinitely more in line with religious teachings than those of capitalism. Such institutions under such conditions will act to militantly defend the reign of the bourgeoisie, and be permanently opposed to socialism.

To quote St. Paisios of Mt. Athos,

“Personally, if the communists weren’t atheist, if they didn’t hunt Christ, I would agree with them. It’s good for the plots of land, the factories, to belong to everyone; not for one to be hungry while someone else is throwing away food.”
-Elder Paisios

That is the only contradiction between religion and socialism the socialist movement of the 21st century need worry about.

I consider myself to be a materialist but not an atheist, and no, there is no contradiction. An actual philosophical inquiry as to my interpretation of materialism and consciousness, however, will be saved for a future post as it would be too lengthy to go into in this post.

I strongly advocate that socialist and communist parties everywhere, not only in the spirit of Rosa Luxemburg and James Connolly, but in the spirit of learning from the horrendous tragedies of the 20th century Marxist-Leninist states, take on an attitude of neutrality towards religion as such.

Sources:

Lenin Collected Works Volume 10 

Lenin Collected Works Volume 15 

Socialism and Religion, James Connolly 

Socialism and The Churches, 1905, Rosa Luxemburg 

Elder Paisios Quote 

The Marxist Case for Human Rights

September 19, 2017

“Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.” -Article 4 of the Declaration of The Rights of Man and Citizen, 1789

Call into memory the philosophy of Karl Popper. To be tolerant of intolerance as a position leads society towards the abandonment of tolerance as its prime virtue. Indeed with the passage of time we can say that inevitably such tolerance of intolerance leads towards a fundamentally intolerant society.

The Marxist Critique of the liberal approach to human rights is generally correct in regarding such rights as fundamental but not universal. By this it is meant that such rights do not prevail historically in times of war or revolution, but that they require a socioeconomic foundation. Moreover, Western human rights embodies the utmost expansion of negative liberty with the squandering of positive liberty. The Stalinist/ Marxist rights of humanity historically (taking the 20th century as an active example) embody the utmost expansion of positive liberty with the squandering of negative liberty.

To quote Marxists Internet Archive’s definition of negative and positive freedom: “In hitherto existing Socialist states, like the Soviet Union and China, ‘negative freedoms’ were severely restricted, while ‘positive freedoms’ were advanced. All people had universal access to health care, full university education, etc, but people could only use those things they had in a particular way – in support of the government. In the most advanced capitalist governments, this relationship is the other way around: ‘positive freedoms’ are restricted or do not exist all together, while ‘negative freedoms’ are more advanced than ever before. A worker in capitalist society has the freedom to say whatever she believes, but she does not have the freedom to live if crippled by a disease regardless of how much money she has. A socialist society that has been established from a capitalist society will strengthen ‘negative freedoms’, while ushering in real ‘positive freedoms’ across the board, ensuring equal and free access to social services by all.”

It is in this that we find the foundational basis for an expansion of what we think of as “human rights”. Also, we find in Popper’s philosophical analysis a justification of the Marxist critique of liberal human rights. We cannot be tolerant of political organizations and movements fundamentally based on intolerance, as a matter of fundamental law. This is not a sign of an unfree or intolerant society, but rather of one so free and tolerant that the roots of unfreedom and intolerance can never get a grip on its fundamental virtue: tolerance.

This, as well as the socialist character of such a declaration (the full expansion of positive freedom) strips from our bourgeois notion of liberty its capitalist character, exorcizing it of its status as a bourgeois ideology and bringing about its birth as a true proletarian ideology. It serves to be the largest possible expansion of the idea of human freedom, not it’s Stalinist squandering in the name of some future, far off society. If there is something to be learned from the Stalinist tragedy of the 20th century it is that the Marxist-Leninist approach to bourgeois liberty today is outdated. It was the “Marxist-Leninist” states that were compelled to sign a formal declaration respecting human rights by the capitalist countries, not the other way around. The liberty we know today, though no doubt limited and not actualized for a large portion of the population due to the near total absence of positive freedom, is in fact to a certain degree, real, and not merely a “bourgeois declaration”. It is real because of the bloody and peaceful working class struggles of the 20th century to gain true, even if largely formal, equality for women, people of color, etc. This is not something Lenin or Marx could have foreseen. Of course, the struggle continues today thanks to the heroic work of the Feminist movement and organizations like Black Lives Matter, but the original Marxist-Leninist critique of liberty still fails the test of time when we take the 20th century into account.

Still even today, despite the experiences of the 20th century, some Stalinists totally ignore the material reality of what took place in those countries and still clamor on about the “illusion” and “falseness” of a declaration of human rights. There is nothing more tragic than this. Socialism, especially coming from an advanced capitalist society, should serve as an enormous expansion of human rights (negative liberty) through providing the means for its actualization via the expansion of positive liberty.

To quote Engels, the aim of the communists is “to organize society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society.”

To quote Rosa Luxemburg, “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege… Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously – at bottom, then, a clique affair – a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense, in the sense of the rule of the Jacobins (the postponement of the Soviet Congress from three-month periods to six-month periods!) Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc. (Lenin’s speech on discipline and corruption.)”

It is in this spirit that I make the case for the socialist and communist parties of the world to learn from the mistakes of the past and to declare not only the rights of humanity, but human rights, to be a fundamental aim of socialism. As socialists we aim not for liberal declarations of human rights but their actualization. We aim not for their Stalinist destitution in the name of communism, but their fulfillment in the name of communism. We aim for the total and complete liberation of the poor and the exploited classes, for a society in which that old phrase “all humans are born equal and free” is embodied by human society at large, where all have an equal chance to succeed at life, to pursue happiness and better themselves.

Sources:

Declaration of The Rights of Man and Citizen: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp

Karl Popper on tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

MIA on Liberty: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/r.htm#freedom

Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith by Engels: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm

Rosa Luxemburg on The Russian Revolution: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch06.htm

Briefly on the unspoken rule regarding torture and Trump’s disregarding of it

September 9, 2017

No, of course torture should be dogmatically rejected by any politician. But secretly as an unspoken rule, in order to maintain the illusion of civility we do it anyways but keep it on the hush hush. Of course it becomes necessary when someone hid a bomb somewhere that’ll go off at X time in a busy city. You torture them, threaten their family, etc. Of course you do this, it’s a horrible thing to prevent an even more horrible atrocity. It is just to kill 5 people to directly prevent the deaths of 5000. You don’t make public an affirmation of the act, to do so is to normalize the innate barbarity of the state. Trump doesn’t understand this rule. This is what makes him dangerous.

I condemn the act of torture, but I recognize its necessity under extenuating circumstances when the lives of the innocent are at stake. There has to be someone willing to do the necessary thing, the unpleasant thing, when the situation calls for it. Cold, yes. Pragmatic, even more so.

On Freedom and Socialism (By Marxists Internet Archive)

September 5, 2017

On the intentional obfuscation of the explanation of Marxism practiced by bourgeois educators

August 19, 2017

My old political science professor once pointed to someone’s laptop as an example of private property and said to the class that this was what the cold war was about. “Wouldn’t you want to live in a society where your laptop, phone, and house belongs to you?” Yes! Of course, I, as a Marxist, would! But Marx never said a negative thing about your personal property, he was against private property. This was the same obfuscated explanation of communism I was taught back in high school. I was furious at this absurdity and explained the difference between personal property (such as your phone, laptop, home) and private property (factories, enterprises, i.e. the means of production). I remember that the class seemed rightfully baffled at such an obfuscation of one of the most basic ideas of Marxism

Marx himself wrote in The Communist Manifesto that,

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.”

By this absurd equation of private and personal property, my professor would have been implying that Marx thought that 9/10 of the population had no personal belongings, something that throughout human history, has never been the case in the least.

Such explanations are one of the many attempts on account of bourgeois intellectuals and educators to obfuscate the logic of Marxism, for if it were presented as it actually was to the broad masses of people, no one would ever deny its logic. In fact, if Marxism was taught by Marxists in schools, even side by side with bourgeois lectures on the necessity of greed, 9/10 of the population would identify as Marxist.

Who does the “Alt-Left” hate?

August 16, 2017

Recently Trump gave a speech about the massive alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Instead of unilaterally condemning the racist violence, hatred, and bigotry of the alt-right, Trump claimed that “there was blame on both sides”, and coined the term “the alt-left” to refer to the leftist counter-protestors. Despite the outbreak of racist violence at the rally, accompanied with domestic terrorism from the far-right, Trump de facto placed more blame on the left for “not having a permit”.

As of late, many conservative and libertarian (as in libertarian capitalist) media outlets have been on a frenzy condemning what they call “hate on both sides”. In this sense, they equate the far left and the far right as equally bad, a concept similar to the “Horseshoe Theory” which I debunked in an earlier post. As an example of this meme frenzy, let’s take a look at a meme shared by Turning Point USA on the issue:

(SEE IMAGE)

What is meant by the term “hate”? Lets break this down by separating the far-right organizations mentioned (which everyone knows are inherently hateful) from the left-wing organizations mentioned. Who or what exactly do these left-wing organizations hate?

What does Black Lives Matter hate? Black Lives Matter is an organization created to address the horrific abuses suffered by African Americans by the United States Criminal Justice System. As an organization, it has condemned racially oriented violence, violent tactics, and police brutality. In a word, it hates racism and oppression.

What did The Black Panther Party hate? The Black Panther Party was an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist Party formed during the beginning of the American civil rights movement as a militant anti-racist organization to address the horrific injustices suffered by the working class and African Americans. It was a revolutionary Marxist organization that was militantly opposed to the 400 years of oppression suffered by black people in America. Never did the organization, or Black Lives Matter, for that matter, advocate Black Supremacy or racist politics. As a matter of fact, both organizations had white members and white majority organizations that stood in solidarity with them. In a word, it hated racism and exploitation.

What do the communists hate? The communists hate a social system where 5 people have expropriated the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of humanity (3.5 billion people), a system that awards those who produced that great wealth barely enough to maintain a wretched existence. They hate a social system that has the productive potential to end homelessness, hunger, poverty, and treatable diseases 20 times over but refuses to do so because it “isn’t profitable”. In the words of the late American socialist Eugene V. Debs, “I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.” Communists recognize that the history of all human history is a history of class struggles. Throughout human history there has always been social classes that produce all the wealth in a given society, and has the lions share of what it produces taken from it by a ruling class in the form of economic exploitation (everything the slave produced, what the peasant produced 3 days of the week, the surplus value produced by the worker today). The members of the ruling class in each epoch typically did no work of their own but rather lived off of the labor of others. The class or classes that owned the means of production, in every epoch, controlled the state and used it to its own advantage. The communists recognize that our capitalist society is no different from earlier epochs in this regard, and that as such, is fundamentally based on exploitation. They wish to create a social system where all members of society own the means of producing wealth, and have democratic control over them. In such a society the state (an inherently violent institution) would become superfluous, money as a form of exchange would become superfluous, and social classes (classes that exist with a particular relation to the means of production) would disappear. In a word, the communists hate oppression and exploitation.

What does CIAR (The Council of Islamic-American Relations) hate? The organization says that they “promote civil rights, diversity and freedom of religion and oppose policies that limit civil rights, permit racial, ethnic or religious profiling, infringe on due process, or that prevent Muslims and others from participating fully in American civic life.” Based on their actions, we can say that this is an accurate summery of the CIAR. Thus it can be said that, in a word, they hate religious persecution and oppression.

What do the anti-fascists hate? As anyone can tell by the name, the anti-fascists hate fascism. Generally the anti-fascists are anarchists (typically anarcho-communists) and communists. In a word, the anarchists hate fascism, and the oppression and exploitation that fascism brings.

What, then have we established? The KKK, the White Supremacists, and the Nazi’s hate people, and they hate people because of things they cannot help (race, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality and religion in particular). The Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter, CIAR, and the communists do not tend to hate individuals in particular, but various forms of oppression or exploitation. Whenever they do hate individuals, they hate those who directly and unapologetically perpetrate various forms of oppression and exploitation.

What, then, is the position of the “alt-left” in regards to hate? The general position is that the “alt-left” hates every single form of oppression and exploitation. When the “alt-left” does hate individuals, it is because they directly and unapologetically perpetrate various forms of oppression and exploitation. What is detestable to the “Alt-Left” is the hatred of the far-right, a group that hates people because of things that they generally cannot help, such as their nationality, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion. When centrists and conservatives say that “all hate is bad” and condemn “both sides”, they mean hatred of anything, regardless of whether that thing is good or bad. They mean not only hatred of individuals, but hatred of things in particular, they mean the feeling of hatred itself. Was it wrong for a slave to hate slavery? Not in the least. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this kind of reasoning used by centrists and conservatives is absolute nonsense and that there is no comparison between the “Alt-Right” and the so-called “Alt-Left”.

Why I am a Socialist

August 15, 2017

I am a socialist because I simply refuse to accept that the richest country on earth “can not afford to” provide housing for all, employment for all, guarantee a means of subsistence to all who work, provide universal healthcare, and not exploit the third world. Somehow, it is “unethical” to seize the means of producing wealth in our society, a society that has expropriated an amount of wealth equal to what the bottom half of humanity (3.5 billion people) owns, into the hands of just 5 people, and does not give it the people who produced the wealth in the first place (who themselves live in extreme poverty). Yet somehow it is “ethical” to allow 100 million people die preventable deaths from hunger, poverty, treatable diseases and lack of access to essential (yet abundant) resources every 5.5 years, deaths by the way, that are directly attributable to capitalism. Somehow it is “ethical” to rob Africa, India, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America of their resources and labor for U.S. corporations and economic interests. But it is “unethical” when one of those nations stands up for their people, against the foreign and domestic capitalists who de facto own that country’s political system, but it is “ethical” when that country is attacked mercilessly by the United States and CIA, overthrown and replaced by a government subservient to US imperialism.

I am a socialist because history demonstrates that every economic system and country in the past (primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, and yes, capitalism too) has a beginning, a middle and an end, that going from one to the other often fails at first, and is often rigidly authoritarian and disastrous before eventually it becomes the dominant system in a less extreme form. And if you think that capitalism and the American empire are somehow exceptions to the laws of history then I think it is you who are on the wrong side of history.

I am a socialist because we live in a world where there are 5 empty homes for every homeless person, because there are billionaires with 20 yachts at the same time as there are millions of children without shoes, food, or shelter. I am a socialist because capitalism has outlived its historical necessity, because private property (meaning the private, dictatorial ownership and control of industry and the entitlement to what others produce by a small minority) is fundamentally immoral and wrong. I am a socialist because the working class, the class that makes up 95% of our population and produces ALL the wealth in our society, is robbed of the fruits of their labor by the capitalist class that does no work of its own, but lives on the labor of others.

I am a socialist because capitalism has proven itself to be wholly incapable of addressing not only these issues, but also the impending climate crisis that will undoubtedly be the end of humanity as we know it if we allow it to continue. I am a socialist because I believe in democracy and I recognize the fact that “democracy” cannot exist when money is allowed in politics, and that our current political system and two parties are wholly owned by corporate interests. I am a socialist because I believe a better world is possible, because I believe we can scientifically and democratically plan the economy to work for the many and not the few.

I am a socialist because I was raised a Christian, and because I was always taught by my parents to have empathy and compassion for the poor and oppressed, for the less fortunate. To be a socialist is to look at the world and say that we as a species can do better than this. It is to look at vast amounts of wealth amongst vast amounts of poverty and to say that this is fundamentally wrong. It is to recognize, as Kropotkin put it, that “everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor”. It is to recognize, as Marx put it, that, “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win!” It is to recognize that capitalism is fundamentally based on exploitation and theft. It is to recognize that the “ethics” of capitalism are opposed to the ethical and moral principles of every single major religion, that the current socioeconomic system we live under is fundamentally immoral. In a word, it is to care about the poor and oppressed.

I am a socialist because I recognize that the early socialist revolutions happened in the least ideal countries, at the least ideal times. I recognize that Marx himself thought that socialism could only succeed in the most advanced capitalist countries first, at the end of capitalist development. I take a favorable view of the Russian Revolution, of the genuine democratic gains by the early Bolsheviks. But I recognize the predicament that these early socialist states faced, and if I was alive at the time, even as a socialist, I’d believe they would likely have failed entirely or degenerated. I am a socialist because I recognize the difference between socialism and Stalinism, between the totalitarian pursuit of an economic system and the system itself. I am a socialist because I can recognize that, as Rosa Luxemburg said, “democracy is indispensable to socialism and socialism is indispensable to democracy”. I am a socialist because our society puts profits before people, and not people before profits.

That, in a nutshell, is why I am a socialist.

Pope Francis on Christianity and Communism, and my views as a Christian and a Communist

July 25, 2017

Pope Francis himself said:

“I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the centre of the Gospel… Communists say that all this is communism. Sure, 20 centuries later. So when they speak, one can say to them: ‘but then you are Christian'”

“The option for the poor (liberation theology) comes from the first centuries of Christianity. It’s the Gospel itself. If you were to read one of the sermons of the first fathers of the Church, from the second or third centuries, about how you should treat the poor, you’d say it was Maoist or Trotskyist.”

“It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom”

I am extremely critical of the Catholic church as an organization. I do not approve of the Catholic church or some of the popes more reactionary views. I do however, feel that he is right about this. I have the unique experience of being both a Christian and a communist. They do not contradict one another, on the contrary, my Christianity and my communism nurture and define each other. It is because I am a Christian that I have become a communist. It is the only view, in my mind, that is in sync with the message espoused by Christ.

The flag of true Christianity is not an American flag with a thin blue line and an arrow through an LGBT+ symbol. No, the flag of true Christianity is a red flag with a cross and a sickle.

A criticism of the Stalinist “one-party state”. If the working class is not free to oppose it, then the working class is not truly in power!

July 15, 2017

“If the sovereign is free to oppose them and does not do so, we must take universal silence as evidence of popular consent” -Rousseau, The Social Contact p. 36

This quote by Rousseau alone makes the claim of Stalin that the one party state is necessary for the dictatorship of the proletariat fall apart. As I have stated many times before, you will not find a single mention of a one-party state in the writings of Marx, Engels or Lenin. In a Stalinist state the sole legal political party is said to represent “the working class”, even coalition parties are banned from challenging the rule of the communist party. But in fact the working class cannot legally object to the despotism of this monolithic party, even when it betrays its own premises, even when it becomes entangled in a monstrous bureaucracy, comes under the domination of a small clique, becomes extremely unpopular, becomes revisionist, or capitalist.

There are many examples of this that prove my point, but Poland in my view is one of the best examples. In Poland the communist party remained the sole legal party until 1989 when the government was forced to capitulate to the Solidarity protest movement (a movement by the working class, mind you). When Solidarity was on the ballot, the communists lost 100% of the vote, and solidarity won 100% of the seats. Not 60%, not 90%, but 100%. The party had long before become despotic, tyrannical against the working class, revisionist, and the defining feature of the Polish degenerated workers state. It ceased to represent the will of the working class, but because of its Stalinist heritage, the working class could not object to its rule or found its own party in opposition. Then of course there is the economic consequences of building socialism in one country, but I will refrain from getting into that here.

If the people are NOT free to oppose the ruling state apparatus, universal silence means neither universal consent OR opposition. It is only when the people ARE free to oppose the ruling party that universal consent can be gauged.

But would the working class in those countries have supported a communist government naturally? Certainly in many. But in Eastern Europe especially, the working class likely would have ended up supporting a social democratic party, and not an expressly communist one. This in particular contributed to furthering the development of Stalinism in the 20th century. In Asia however, the overwhelming majority of workers and peasants supported Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Kim Il Sung, etc. The U.S. president at the time even admitted that he was suppressing democratic elections in Vietnam because Ho Chi Minh would receive over 80% of the vote. The important thing is not wether the working class initially supported the communist party, but if it was free to oppose it under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Because it was not, all but 5 Stalinist states collapsed in the period of 1989-1991.

The experience of Stalinism necessarily should lead to a complete abandonment of a one-party dictatorship, and the favorability of a multi-party system instead, under the dictatorship of the proletariat (the 99%). Democratic rule of the working class can only be maintained insofar as there is genuine democracy among the working class. And after a revolutionary period, the continued despotism of a single monolithic, unchallengeable political party is the anti-thesis of workers democracy. As Rosa Luxemburg said, “democracy is indispensable to socialism and socialism is indispensable to democracy”. And as Rosa also said, “freedom is always the freedom of dissent”.

How can the working class be in control of a country when the individual members of the working class are not free to voice their opposition? How can they be in control if they are not free to run against the ruling bureaucracy, speak freely, believe what they wish, follow whatever religion they prefer or none at all, to write freely and to be free to act in accordance with their conscience? If the individual members of the working class is not free to do these things after a revolutionary period, then it is not truly in control of the state, and it is not a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat.

Freedom in the time of Marx and Lenin was exclusively bourgeois freedom, that is, freedom for the bourgeoisie to the exclusion of the proletariat. However times have changed. Even if many freedoms are limited and bourgeois in nature, (such as freedom of the press and travel which requires significant wealth), we are in many ways free. We are free in these ways because of the life and death struggle of leftists in the 20th century. Of course I’m not a moron, full freedom can only exist in a classless society, but the gains made in regards to individual liberty are not merely characters of bourgeois ideology, they are real. But even with this, as Žižek says, “We feel free because we lack the language to really articulate our unfreedom”

A true dictatorship of the proletariat represents an advance in human society, not a retreat. The republic laid by a socialist revolution should cause the working class to be more free, even if not completely free, than it is in modern bourgeois society.

But what of revolution? Does revolution not strip away freedom from a portion of society for a time? Certainly, as Engels himself said,

“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?”

But what distinguishes a revolution from the republic which the revolution founds? For this I prefer to quote Robespierre,

“The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.”

In this regard we should think of a revolution as a two staged event. First it destroys the old class rule and state apparatus of the old society. It does this in ways aforementioned by Engels. During this period, historically there can be no freedom of dissent. In this regard my beliefs are the most radical. “Do you want a revolution without a revolution?” A social revolution, at least in its initial stages, can only be a true rupture in the social order, and not merely a formal change of political power. It is the only way to shorten the death agony of capitalism and the birth pains of the new social order.

But afterwards what is to be done? A socialist republic is born from the ashes of the old society. Can it be anything less than an advance forward for the working class? For freedom and democracy of the working people? No! It cannot. By simply dismissing formal liberty as ‘bourgeois’ you are taking a massive step back in human development. Stalinism changed the nature of the initial Red Terror to maintain it, even when it was formally done away with after the civil war. Formally he declared in the 1936 ‘Stalin Constitution’ your typical freedoms that are found in any modern constitution. But history tells us that this was not truly implemented in Soviet society. In Stalin’s Russia, as Slavoj Žižek pointed out on several occasions, you could not publicly criticize ‘Comrade Stalin’ or his policies. If you did, you would not be seen the next day. But here is the strange part, if you pointed out this contradiction publicly (that the constitution guarantees you the right to do so but doing so will get you shot) and claimed that it existed, you would not be seen later that night! Žižek claims that this is how ideology functions, not as the official rules of a society, but as the social, unwritten rules.

But doesn’t the dictatorship of the proletariat require that he overthrown bourgeois class is held down by the state power? Certainly. What was the nature of democracy in our country when it was founded? It was purely bourgeois. Only white, male, property owners could vote or participate in the democratic process. This was maintained by the state power. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, only the working class (the 99%) has the right to vote or participate in the democratic process. It is the dictatorship of the formerly exploited over the former exploiters. It is not the dictatorship of a small bureaucracy over proletarian and bourgeoisie alike. After a time, with the disillusion of social classes in a given society, democracy is given back to all members of society as a whole. This is not to say, however, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is done away with! On the contrary, in comparison with other capitalist states it remains a militant dictatorship of the proletariat, but merely one in a higher stage of development. Khrushchev’s claim of an ‘all people’s state’ is inherently reactionary, in this I agree with the anti-revisionists.

So to summarize, what are my views on this? The one-party state is purely a vestige of Stalinism. To claim it is necessary is to ignore 100 years of Marxist history. The ideal dictatorship of the proletariat is one in which the proletariat truly, and not merely formally, holds all state power. This means that individual workers are free to create or join parties (so long as they are not capitalist or fascist) as they wish, and are free to criticize the government, speak what they wish, follow any or no religion, protest, write, and, in a word, think what they wish. The ideal system is a multi-party state. Individual liberties have been won, even in a limited, bourgeois form, by radical leftists in the last 100 years and should not be done away with under the dictatorship of the proletariat. If anything they should be expanded. A revolution is a most authoritarian rupture which brings about this transformation. The purpose of the revolutionary government is to lay the foundation of the socialist republic, and the nature of the revolutionary government and the republic it seeks to lay have a different character in actuality, and not mere formality. The dictatorship of the proletariat holds down the former oppressor class and forbids it to participate in the democratic process for a certain time, and afterwards, even after this distinction is done away with, it still remains the dictatorship of the proletariat because the state still exists, and international capital still exists in some countries.

Lenin On Imperialism, On Exploitation In Our Country and Abroad

July 8, 2017

“[There is] the need constantly to explain and expose among the broadest working masses of all countries, and particularly of the backward countries, the deception systematically practiced by the imperialist powers, which, under the guise of politically independent states, set up states that are wholly dependent upon them economically, financially and militarily.”

– Vladimir Lenin

(V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 31, p. 150, Eng. ed.)

That is one of the ways imperialist countries like the United States dominate the world and constantly stay on top. The wealth of our national bourgeoisie is the source of the poverty of the “underdeveloped” or, in reality, the over-exploited, poorer nations of the world. This seems to be a fact that everyone knows, but is “too depressing” to be looked at or dealt with.

The device you are reading this on was assembled by extremely poor factory workers making just dollars per week, whose working conditions are comparable to slavery. Their factories have nets to prevent them from committing suicide because there is no end to their exploitation. The raw materials of your device were probably mined by child laborers in the Congo, among other desolate places. Your clothing was made in sweatshops by people who work 16 hours a day for mere pennies. You say that capitalism is best demonstrated by a walk in an American shopping mall. I say that capitalism is best demonstrated by going to where the raw materials used to produce your commodities first come from, where they are assembled, how they come to you, and how you get them. The end of the line is like a polished diamond, its  beginning is like brimstone from hell.

Yet despite these desolate conditions, if you receive a wage or a salary in this country, in America, then you too are being exploited. You produce 50$ an hour, the people on the top “give you” 15$ an hour back, and pocket the 35$, or the 20$ that is leftover after taxes and other necessary expenditures needed to maintain the business for themselves. You work 50 hours a week and still live in poverty? Can’t afford rent or to feed your kids? You’re told “tough shit, pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. You need food assistance? You’re taught to call people on food stamps “lazy fucks” and “welfare queens”. Well, the real welfare queens are the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, whose wealth is the source of the poverty of the poor. The real welfare queens are those capitalists who do no productive work of their own, and live off of the life blood of those who do- the working class.

When Karl Marx said “Workers of all countries, Unite!” he didn’t mean merely that the end goal was better wages, or social democratic reforms. He meant that the working class should unite to seize the means of production, the means of creating wealth in our society, and bring them under common ownership and democratic control. He meant that workers are entitled to all that they produce, and those who do no work are not entitled to anything- until society is productive enough to make constant toiling obsolete. You want to hate those who do no work and still eat? Don’t hate the poor, who require food stamps and government assistance, hate up. If you have to hate, hate the people who pocket half of what the super poor produce in this country and take the rest for themselves, leaving them in poverty and hunger. Hate the people who create the material conditions that cause people to require food stamps. You’re being taught to hate down and its disgusting.

“Does not caring about politics make me a bad person?” No, it does not.

June 21, 2017

A friend asked me “does not caring about politics make me a bad person, in your opinion?” I said no, for several reasons.

First let us look at Rousseau, in the ‘Social Contract’:
“If the sovereign (meaning the people) is free to oppose them and does not do so, we must take universal silence as evidence of popular consent”

But this only applies insofar as we take a bourgeois republic seriously, as the will of the people and not as the will of the bourgeoisie. Which any serious look at politics in the U.S. or Europe shows that these republics represent the will of the 1%, to put this in terms that most people can understand.

Plato once said that “The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men”. But we are still ignoring one of the key facets of modern politics: it is intentionally alienating.

Lenin once said in ‘The State and Revolution’ that “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-­democratic republic can shake it.”

Naturally it follows from this that the proletariat is alienated from politics. Why? Because as Lenin said, the bourgeoisie establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-­democratic republic can shake it.

So why should anyone be interested in whether Clinton or Trump is elected? The fundamentally exploitative social system we live under will not change, the bombs will not stop falling from the skies, the proletariat will gain no meaningful concessions from the ruling class. Politics is designed to be this way. What difference will it make to someone working 50 hours a week and still living in poverty? Or someone who is unemployed? Why should they vote for a party that won’t even give the working class 15$ an hour?

On that age old question of existence, part 2

June 15, 2017

The formless static from which being emerges is called nothingness. The creation of nothingness separated by time (+1 and -1) is called being. The coming into being is called the birth of reality. The collision of +1 and -1 is called annihilation, or the end of being. 
Within the virtual particles, with their endless coming into being and annihilation without actually creating anything that adds up to more or less that zero, is the secret rational answer to that age old question: why does anything exist instead of nothing? For in fact, mathematically nothing does, or can exist. Everything adds up to nothing.

On existence, an answer to the question of “Why does something exist instead of nothing?”

June 14, 2017

What is said to be that which cannot be, yet is? It is existence, it is being, it is not however, nothingness. Why? There is no why, there simply is. Nothingness cannot simply be, it can only be the static from which being arises. How? Can something be created out of nothing? In principle, no, in actuality, yes. +1 and -1 can come into being simultaneously, and so long as they are separated by some variable (such as time), they can exist for a “time”. +1 and -1 can only come into being because they add up to zero, to nothingness. But time and space are relative. So, within +1 or -1, time can be infinite. +1 and -1 can infinitely approach one another without ever joining together and annihilating. It could be said that “the” universe undergoes endless cycles of deaths and rebirths, but insofar as time as relative, our universe can in essence be eternal. Does “time” exist in the void in which these infinite variables of equal but opposite values arise? In principle yes, in actuality no. Such is the answer to the grand question “Why does anything exist instead of nothing?” For nothing does exist, everything adds up to nothing! This is the answer which my existential crisis has brought me to.

Briefly, In Praise of Lenin

June 3, 2017

Lenin made some mistakes, as I will be the first to admit. But that man dedicated his entire life to the total freedom and liberation of the human race from every possible form of oppression and exploitation. People like Lenin come around once every few centuries, if we are lucky. People today often falsely equate Leninism with Stalinism, but such grievances are of the historically illiterate.

Anyone who has read ‘The State and Revolution’ can tell you that the society that Lenin believed in could not have possibly came about in backwards Russia, and that it was the epitome of democracy. The society Lenin was fighting for could not possibly have more personal liberty or virtue.

The story of Leninism in the 20th century is a tragedy, it was a beautiful flower that tried to bloom far before it was ready, in bad soil. Marx believed that successful socialist revolutions would first happen in the most ADVANCED capitalist countries, at the END of capitalist development. Instead, due to the conditions of imperialism, the first socialist revolution happened in Russia in 1917, a semi-feudal country, one of the poorest in the world, that also JUST HAD a capitalist revolution. Despite these major setbacks and limitations, for the first time in human history, under Lenin’s leadership, all political power was in the hands of the workers and peasants- to the exclusion of the exploiting, property owning classes.

Compare THAT form of democracy with the Greek and American democracies. In Greece and early America, only white, male, property/ slave owners could vote- to the exclusion of the oppressed and exploited masses. Today our American “democracy” is de facto owned and controlled by wall street and big business- by the property owning class, and 9/10 of our public representatives are capitalists, or rich men. Contrary to popular belief, you will not find one mention of a one-party state in the works of Marx, Engels, or Lenin. It is purely a vestige of Stalinism. So we should perhaps, rethink the way we view Lenin. He was a champion of liberty and democracy, not of tyranny.

Socialism, Capitalist Exploitation, and Innovation Under Socialism

June 2, 2017

“How could we ask our poor bourgeois to pay more taxes to help out the wage laborers that produced his wealth in the first place?” Obviously by the logic of the capitalist system, if you produce something, it doesn’t belong to you. So if you produce ~30$ in an hour and receive only 15$ in return, or, if you produce 200$ in an hour, and receive only 50$ in return, then by the natural laws of the capitalist system, you are owed nothing but a wage, even if that wage is so low that you are impoverished, hungry, can’t afford rent, healthcare, etc. Under the guise of “free contract” many may find this appealing. But this is but the tip of the iceberg of the capitalist mode of production, even if this fact is exploitative by nature.

On the other hand, the bourgeois can, and occasionally we find that he does, do absolutely no work of his own, being a non-acting board member or owner, who votes once every few months if that, and collects a check for millions of dollars- containing the leftover surplus produced by hundreds of thousands of working people whose poverty is the source of their bourgeois wealth. This is, of course, an extreme example. But I have met people who happen to be on the boards of very large companies who do just that.

He can, and often does, also vote to take the surplus (after necessary expenditures and investments for the enterprise) and give it to one of the TWO political parties in this country to systematically protect and maintain this exploitative social system. We would call such a thing a Super-PAC, and it’s almost the exclusive funding of most politicians today. In a word, he lives off of the labor of others, off of those who own no property of their own, and are compelled to either sell their labor at a fraction of its value, off of the proletarian class which constitutes 95% of our society.

“We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We called those the barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger.” -Pytor Kropotkin. The statement still applies, of course, but due to the revolutionized condition of the productive forces since then, we could say that the worker today gives up half of what he produces to the capitalist class, and not a fourth as the feudal peasant would be obliged to give.

The bourgeois may, and more often than not does, do non-productive (but still essential) work to manage the affairs of the enterprise, but because of private property, he is “entitled” to oftentimes 5000x more per hour than his workers produced, that 5000x, mind you, along with all other profits, having been produced by the workers themselves.

I am not saying that innovators and inventors should NOT be compensated, indeed they absolutely should be. A study funded by the Federal Reserve Bank by Daniel Pink (a capitalist organization if there ever was one), found that MODERATE compensation was best to encourage further innovation from a creative individual. Meaning that it would be better for, say, Bill Gates, to have received a 150,000$ salary for his invention, than a 5 Billion dollar one. The study found that LOW and HIGH financial compensation had almost identical results in promoting further innovation. This study only furthers the evidence that capitalism, while it socialized the productive forces which made rapid innovation and expansion possible, is not the best mode of production if innovation is the concern. On the contrary, socialism, and communism would be.

Under a socialist system, or a market socialist system as would be the first step towards the complete socialist mode of production (which, mind you, has never been established in an advanced capitalist country as Marx believed it would have to be as a prerequisite to socialism, can elaborate further if asked), the board of directors which determine WHAT is produced, how much is produced, etc. would be DEMOCRATICALLY elected by the workers themselves and the general public, would receive NO MORE THAN A WORKMAN’S WAGE (not millions), and subject to immediate recall at anytime. The surplus produced by ALL THE WORKERS, would be democratically distributed BACK TO ALL THE WORKERS, instead of going into the pockets of a few. The workers themselves would decide what to do with the surplus they collectively produced. If it was the STATE deciding what was produced, then that would be state-capitalism, not socialism, and certainly not communism as communism requires the absence of the state altogether.

Also, I can provide a feasible example of how innovation would even increase under socialism. My friends and I, given a year or two, could program and create a computer program in which orders for a restaurant could be spoken directly to the computer and inputed (using the various incorrect terms and sayings that customers use). This could and would negate the need for cashiers altogether even though would vastly increase net profits for an enterprise and speed up production speed. HOWEVER, if we DID create such a thing, we would no doubt lose our jobs. Under a socialist system, such an innovation would mean increased profits not for a capitalist at the top, but for the workers as a whole. Automation would mean vacations, not lay-offs. Workers would be inspired to innovate because they know that said innovation would benefit them, and not someone at the top. Not to mention that the workers would no doubt decide to appropriate a larger wage to those innovators from the surplus that they collectively produced.

Briefly, On the Sacred Nature of Literature : Books Are Thought Traps!

June 2, 2017

Long ago when someone wanted to preserve a message, they carved it on stone in the form of a picture. Today we have written language and books, allowing us to send complicated messages, thoughts, and ideas into the indefinite future. Books are thought traps! That is the essence of my appreciation of literature. You can collaborate on a project with Isaac Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, etc. without ever having met said person. When you read something, your thoughts become their thoughts, even if for just a moment. You quite literally hear the thoughts of dead geniuses in your own head, for you to freely contemplate, listen to patiently, and build off of. The thoughts of those long gone, still echo off the bookshelf. I cannot emphasize the miraculous nature of such a phenomenon enough.

Literature, and written language are the SOLE reason for human progress today. As Isaac Newton himself said, “If I have seen further than others, it is by having stood on the shoulders of giants.” This is a direct reference to the written literature of brilliant minds who had long ceased to be when Newton took up their torch. Human endeavor is a collaborative effort, stretching across both time and space. Next time you read a book, remember that whoever wrote it decided to preserve that thought, idea, or story in time indefinitely, to exist for hundreds if not thousands of years after their physical mind ceased to be. Appreciate literature, it is sacred.

What is Needed To Combat Climate Change is both Socialism, and an International Body With Real Power

June 2, 2017

Anyone can tell you that Trump lied MANY times in his speech today regarding the Paris Agreement. It is with great sadness that I come to the conclusion that in order to ensure the long term survival of the human species, drastic measures must be taken by all nations. “Ecologically friendly capitalism” is a pipe-dream. It is on par with “ethical slavery”. If we are to fix this issue, then a vast increase on international, multilateral state power will become essential. Even if it is futile, such measures must be attempted, preferably under a socialist system, as the above link indicates.

To solve the climate crisis, even under a socialist system, it necessarily requires a semi-merger of international state powers into an international body, or confederation, with REAL POWER. If I had to speculate, I would say that this confederation would force all nations, be they developed or undeveloped, to transfer to a 100% green, renewable energy source by a certain date, stop burning fossil fuels, practice vast reforestation, drastically reduce the meat industry, and the use and production of most plastics and other non-biodegradable commodities, etc.

Violations of established measures, to certain degrees, would mean war not on one state or another, but on all of humanity. The suspect country would be sanctioned economically by all other countries in the confederation, then if they continue violations they would be embargoed, then, as a last resort, attacked militarily. Every single other state in the confederation would reign down hellfire on the country in violation, until either it is overthrown, or until it cooperates.

There is always a sense, when it comes to the climate, that there is “always time to debate this next year”. When, in reality, the time to debate this issue was 30 years ago. The science is settled. There can be no doubt. The time to act was yesterday. If we continue on the path we are on, our grandchildren will have come to the conclusion that NO PRICE is too much for the long term survival of the human species, even the deaths of 5 billion people, even sending humanity back to the dark ages. They will not be wrong, sadly, in this murderous reasoning. In the next 100 years, massive cities will be constructed to house those refugees whose homes have vanished under the rising ocean’s waters. This is an inevitability independent of human action, collaboration, or will.

At such a point, say, 100 years from now, if capitalism still prevails, when hope is so far gone, only a totalitarian global state will be able to ensure the long term survival of the human species. This is not a world that you or I want our grandchildren to live in. The time for action is NOW. The suicidal actions of Trump today only further demonstrate the impotence in reasoning of the capitalist system, that values profits over both people today and the long term survival of the human species. The only way to counteract this disaster is by the transfer to a (democratic) socialist system on a global scale, the abolition of capitalism and the formation of an international confederation equipped to deal with the climate crisis that we face.

On Unfiltered Thinking, The Miracle of The Psychedelic Experience and Human Genius

May 31, 2017

When you think, focus on thinking with the part of your brain that forms thoughts, not the part that says them aloud in your head. When that filter is removed in times of extreme meditation, psychedelic experiences, etc. you will find that thoughts can flow like a turbulent river, whereas before it was only a trickle. But such a skill can be cultivated in the sober mind as well. This, I believe, is a key to human genius. It exists in all of us, regardless of if we know it or not. 
In normal times of sober reflection, we notice that we think in 2 stages, first we know what we are going to say in our mind, and then we say it aloud in our head. Focus on that part that spontaneously brings thoughts into being. Listen to it, and it alone when you need inspiration, or to think quickly.
Thoughts arise naturally, independent of language. This is the realization that comes from such thinking. We imagine first the essence of what we want to think, then the words. The essence forms in our minds 50x quicker than it takes to say the thought aloud. If we focus on the essence, and not the time consuming process of putting it into words, we will find the genius of the human mind, regardless of who is thinking.
I believe such thinking can only be fully unleashed during spiritual and psychedelic experiences, when the filter between the essence of our thoughts coming into being, and it’s translation, is removed. In such a state we think of 50 thoughts per second. Incredible realizations about life, language, ordinary phenomena, inventions, being, etc. These experiences of completely unfiltered thinking under the influence of psychedelics have led to incredible innovations and discovery. I will give you several examples.
The shape of DNA was discovered on LSD. A group of scientists had been working for many months on trying to figure out the shape of DNA. They all dropped acid one day, and within several hours had discovered that the double helix was the best shape to bring the molecules of life together in a functioning pattern. Steve Jobs and Bill Gated both attribute LSD to their success. And most of the music on your phone without doubt came from someone on some form of psychedelic. 
I too have experienced the profound realizations that come under psilocybin, I speak from experience alone. Unfiltered thinking can be cultivated, I believe, in a mind that has not had such an experience. Unfiltered thinking is natural thinking, divorced entirely from language. I believe it, along with psychedelic drugs, to be keys of human genius.

20th Century Marxism-Leninism: Not a failure of “socialism” but of skipping over capitalism to reach socialism

May 25, 2017

Initially I wrote something longer and much more complex, but I will keep this short and simple. 
According to the official Marxist-Leninist ideology in Albania, the purpose of the communist movement was “leading it (the country) from its backward semi-feudal state to socialism, bypassing the phase of advanced capitalism” -History of The Party of Labor of Albania, 1st edition (p.6-7). 

Indeed this was the ideology of practically every Marxist-Leninist state of the 20th Century. But what did Marx believe? Precisely the opposite, that socialism would likely only be achieved by building off of the progress made by the advanced capitalist phase of development, in the most advanced countries first as a result of the internal contradictions of the capitalist system and not the external contradictions of imperialism. 

It must be said that Marx did have high hopes that Russia in particular could go through a new phase of development, bypassing capitalism. But he never based such a view on any evidence, purely speculation, as he stressed. All of Marx’s works support the notion that socialism can only be achieved in the most advanced capitalist countries first. This view is supported by the overwhelming majority of Marx’s writings on capitalism.
Thus the failure of the 20th Century was not by any means a failure of ‘socialism’, but of the attempt to ‘skip over’ an advanced capitalist stage of development, to reach socialism in semi-feudal countries without the help of revolution in advanced capitalist countries. Thus we go back to the theory of ‘socialism in one country’, and its failure.

On that annoying Margret Thatcher quote, and others

May 25, 2017

“Under socialism we’d all be equally poor” Yeah, in one of the poorest countries on earth if you just immediately transferred to socialism, you’d all be equally poor. That’s why rapid industrialization was a thing. Shall I even mention the fact that every single socialist revolution took place in the poorest countries on earth? You honestly think ALL the wealth in our bourgeois society would simple vanish into thin air?

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” This statement results from a complete and total lack of knowledge as to what socialism even IS. Socialism is NOT just taking money from the rich, it’s taking the MEANS OF CREATING WEALTH (means of production) from the property owning class that “owns” them, placing them under public ownership and democratic control by the workers and the general public.

Let’s Clear Up Some Misconceptions About What Socialism and Communism ARE and ARE NOT, Once and For All

May 23, 2017

What is socialism?

❌ Social Welfare Programs

❌ State-Run Enterprises (UPS, Fire Department, etc.)

❌ Full State Ownership Of The Economy

❌ Full State Control of The Economy

❌ When The Government Does Stuff

✔ State Owned Economy With Workplace Democracy by The Working Class and General Public Under The Dictatorship of The Proletariat

✔ Social Ownership of The Means of Production With Democratic Control over The Means of Production

✔ Industrial Democracy W/ some form of Common Ownership of Enterprise

✔ “From each according to their ability, to each according to their work”

✔ A system where no one who is able bodied (especially capitalists) can live off of, or make a fortune off of the labor of another.

What is Communism?

❌ A one-party state

❌ Authoritarianism

❌ Dictatorship

❌ Totalitarianism, Some Orwellian Dystopia

❌ Any Form of State

❌A society where no one owns personal possessions (Laptops, houses, cars, etc.)

✔ A society which abolishes private property (Private ownership of enterprise, in a word, the abolition of the entitlement to what one does not produce)

✔ A society that deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.

✔ A stateless, classless, moneyless society embodying the principle of “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”

✔ A society where there is no exploitation by economic means, nor oppression by a state

✔ The doctrine for the liberation of the proletariat

✔ Inevitable

What did Karl Marx study and write most about?

❌ Communism

❌ Socialism

❌ The State

❌ Poetry

✔ Capitalist Economics

✔ Human Society and History (including, mind you, human nature)

*If you search all 50 volumes of Marx’s works, you will find less than 7 pages describing what a communist society would look like, when asked, he would always say, “I don’t have a crystal ball” The overwhelming majority of his works are a detailed study and critique of how capitalism works.*

When and where did Karl Marx believe the first successful socialist revolutions would take place?

❌ The most backward countries on earth (Russia, China, Albania, Cuba, etc.)

❌ At the beginning of capitalist development and at the end of feudalism (Russia, China, etc.)

✔ In the most advanced capitalist countries in the world

✔ At the end of capitalist development, building off of capitalism as capitalism built off of feudalism (the modern era, not 1917)

Why then, was Marx wrong?

❌ He did not understand the inner contradictions of the capitalist system

✔ He lived before the time of imperialism, whose conditions brought the first socialist revolution in the world to Russia, and subsequent revolutions

(Now from a Trotskyist perspective)

What, then, was the USSR?

❌ An ideal example of socialism

❌ A socialist economy in the proper sense

❌ A purely state-capitalist economy (technically in some ways, but not really)

❌ A failure of socialism, or communism

✔ A failure of Stalinism

✔ A degenerated workers state where democratic control of the economy was replaced by that of a small bureaucratic elite (Stalinism)

✔ A betrayal of the original democratic ideals and gains of the October Revolution

Why was this?

❌ Human Nature

✔ An almost inevitability due to 1.) The backwardness of Russia 2.) The fact that international revolution (which Lenin and Trotsky both believed to be the sole hope of the RSFSR) 3.) The failure of ‘Socialism in one Country’ (Stalinism).

Why has every socialist revolution not attained favorable results?

❌ Human Nature

❌ The superiority of Capitalism

✔ Every single socialist revolution since October has been based, not on the early October revolution or the Paris Commune, but on the Stalinist example of a one-party state, and the theory of ‘socialism in one country’. We live in a global, integrated economy. Revolution must be international in scope, or at least in several advanced countries. The completion of the socialist revolution in one country alone is unthinkable.

✔ Revolution in an advanced capitalist country has yet to take place, we are only just recently finding ourselves in the conditions Marx wrote about in which the internal contradictions of capitalism bring us to proletarian revolution in said countries. Without aid from an advanced country, revolution in a poor country will be mercilessly crushed by U.S. imperialism, even given its already dim prospects

✔ Every single socialist revolution has happened in the most backward countries in the world, (and not the most advanced as Marx and Engels believed necessary) attaining remarkable yet still not desired results

✔ We are only now entering the era of late stage capitalism, of the end of capitalism

Briefly, On the accusations of the (God forbid) “atheism” of Marx and Lenin by the right- From a Christian and a Communist

May 22, 2017

Yes, Marx and Lenin were atheists! Do you know what else? Buddha was a Buddhist. Martin Luther King was a Christian. Malcom X was a Muslim. Great men are great regardless of their religious convictions. Your attempts to slenderize Marx and Lenin for being atheists are wholly baseless. Were they wrong for being atheists? I believe so, but their criticism of religion was not unfounded.

What has “christian charity” done to lift broadly, the toiling masses out of extreme poverty? What has mindfulness done to improve the material conditions of the poor? They are not wrong in their criticism, if anything, they were atheists out of love for working people, out of their desire for the complete freedom of working people. And yes, I say that as both a Christian and a communist. That is your first mistake.

Your second is the ignorant accusation that atheism implies immorality and malevolence. I am friends with many atheists, some of the best, most loving, most dedicated, most compassionate and inspiring people I know happen to be atheists. Religious belief is absolutely no indication whatsoever of a persons ability to feel empathy and to be a decent person and an implication of such indicates a lack of empathy, something that is, to put it bluntly, inhuman.

We must assume the people to be good and the state evil (Reflections on our society)

May 10, 2017

“We must assume the people good and the state evil.”(1) Obviously the state, as an inherently violent institution, is a necessary evil both in our bourgeois society, and in the society which will be born of the triumph of labor under capital, it will be necessary until that day when bourgeois right ceases to be.
We say that the people are of good nature. What do we mean? Anyone who goes to a place where the poor are numerous and paupers beg for change will find abnormally high rates of crime. Everywhere the mentality will be ‘every man for himself’. The poor, who are deprived of the means of subsistence, of the means of production, are found to be in a constant state of stress and disorientation. Their concern is for themselves and their immediate relatives, for their immediate needs.
Then we go to those who own the means of subsistence, who grow extremely wealthy for owning the means of production with which the poor toil day and night without ever making a penny more than the capitalist allows. We find here an extremely wealthy fellow, whose “wealth springs quite literally from the poverty of the poor”(2). He lives off the labor of others, off the poor who have nothing to sell but their labor power as the precious commodity that it is, while he does no real work himself. We find a man who, unlike the pauper, has secured the means of maintaining his immediate survival and happiness. But even among him, selfishness runs rampant. It is a selfishness far worse than that which is forced onto the poor. He is in a state of constant struggle not only against the poor who, lacking class consciousness, want only better wages and better working conditions, but also against his fellow capitalist, both within his enterprise and in those enterprises competing against him.
If he grows concerned for the well being of his workers, for their humanity, he will certainly find himself going down a slippery slope. If he goes so far as to forfeit the means of production to the working class, then he will be forced to work like they do, under explorative conditions, with nothing to sell but his labor power. If he runs his business like the good Christian he claims to be, he will soon go out of business and become a laughingstock among the whole capitalist class.(3)
His own survival is based on his greed, on the ceaseless accumulation of capital. We see for both rich and poor alike that self-interest is compelled to become selfishness. “We see that the worker is compelled to work under feudal conditions, or die of hunger”(2), to look after only his own hide, or risk going hungry. We see that the selfishness of the ruling class becomes the ruling ideas of our age, for rich and poor alike. 
So what madness is it to assume the people good? Everywhere we look around we see that greed and selfishness are the sole motivating factors of our society. But we also know that “the ruling ideas of each age have only ever been the ruling ideas of each ages ruling class.”(4) If we imagine instead, “a free association of producers with the means of production held in common”(5), where the means of production are democratically controlled by society at large, then we see that greed ceases to be the sole motivator, the sole ruling idea of society. We see that the pursuit of meeting actual human needs instead of profits exorcizes the hold that greed has over our society.
Only in such a society can the natural virtue of the people by embodied, only in such a society can today’s rich and poor alike live free from constant want and worry, for the states of rich and poor alike will cease to be. Only in such a society can equality be real, and not “the formal inequality in spite of rich and poor, ‘equality’ in spite of inequality.”(6) Only in such a society can democracy embody the true will of all of society, and not only that of the ruling class. When man is free from manmade poverty, and from being compelled to live off of the conditions that create poverty, we will find a society in which the natural virtue of man is truly embodied. As James Connolly once said, “The.. people will only be free when they own everything from the plough to the stars”.(7)
1: Robespierre, Speech/ Rousseau

2: Kropotkin, Conquest of Bread

3: Connolly, Socialism Made Easy

4: Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto

5: Marx, Capital

6: Engels, Marx Engels Collected Works Volume 6

7: James Connolly

On The “Over-Emphasis” of LGBT+ Rights in Modern Culture

May 9, 2017

A common talking point of the far right today is the alleged ‘over-emphasis’ on LGBT+ rights in modern culture. Indeed, there is an excessive emphasis on LGBT+ rights in modern movies, TV shows, music, ads, etc. But why is this? I argue that such an over-emphasis is not only acceptable, but also necessary. This over-emphasis is not in the least a result of ‘negative influences’ but on the contrary, it is much needed and long overdue.

I do not have any doubts as to the nature of such an over-emphasis on LGBT+ rights in modern society. Taking up a ‘liberal’ stance on social issues has always resulted in boosted ratings for celebrities, and it is nearly impossible to tell when it is out of a genuine concern for LGBT+ rights and when it is merely a stunt to get ratings. But this social mechanism of the appraisal of celebrities who take up such views is good, because it changes the ways in which society and culture develop.

Beyond the emphasis on LGBT+ rights merely for ratings, there is the genuine burning passion for equality that dwells within many. For us it must be said that such an over-emphasis on LGBT+ rights is, as the conservatives accuse us of, intentional. Yes! To this crime we plead guilty. But what the conservative critics of modern culture fail to see is that such an over-emphasis on LGBT+ rights is necessary. I argue that once we have full LGBT+ rights and equality, in actuality and not just on paper, it will be no different than how we treat issues of race today. You don’t think conservatives were complaining about ‘liberals’ overemphasizing race during the civil rights movement? Of course they were.

Conservatives insist on the ‘evil’ nature of LGBT+ rights. But even taking into account this attitude of religious bigotry (which is absolutely wrong), tell me, which was worse? The mandated chemical castration, psychiatric abuse, imprisonment, harassment, lynching, etc. of LGBT+ peoples in the past or allowing LGBT+ people to exist freely in our society without direct or systemic attacks by society? The answer to this question is both obvious, and extreme! Extreme measures are necessary to end centuries of bigotry.

Latest Victim of U.S. Imperialism: Venezuela, an excerpt from Slavoj Žižek and a Statement of Solidarity

May 4, 2017

“In 1970, in the notes of a meeting with President Richard Nixon on how to undermine the democratically elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende, CIA Director Richard Helms wrote succinctly: ‘Make the economy scream.’ Top US representatives openly admit that today the same strategy is being applied in Venezuela: former US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said on Fox News that Chávez’s appeal to the Venezuelan people ‘only works so long as the populace of Venezuela sees some ability for a better standard of living. If at some point the economy gets really bad, Chávez’s popularity within the country will certainly decrease and it’s the one weapon we have against him to begin with and which we should be using, namely the economic tools of trying to make the economy even worse so that his appeal in the country and the region goes down… Anything we can do to make their economy more difficult for them is a good thing, but let’s do it in ways that do not get us into direct conflict with Venezuela if we can get away with it.” -Slavoj Žižek
That alone is reason enough to stand in solidarity with Venezuela as it endures the economic hardships caused by U.S. imperialism and its running dogs. The economic crisis in Venezuela was caused by imperialist aggression, indirect as it was. It was an act of, or due to its lack of action, economic warfare. 

The condition of Venezuela today is not a reason to disavow ‘socialism’ but it most certainly is a reason to sharpen the rhetoric on the left against U.S. Imperialism. The tactics being used on Venezuela today are the same tactics used on Chile and Cuba, are the same tactics the U.S. has used for the past 70 years to terrorize those in the third world who dared stand up against imperialist exploitation of labor and resources. Some on the left have rightfully been critical of Venezuela, but this criticism should not feed into the imperialist propaganda about the real reasons for that country’s crisis, nor should it be used to attack the genuine successes and triumphs of the Venezuelan people. If anything, such criticisms, right though they may be, should be pointed at as examples of the crimes of U.S. Imperialism and neoliberal economic warfare.

In that, I express my solidarity with the Venezuealan people.

“If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers’ State which we have helped to create, we shall never achieve socialism.” -Leon Trotsky 

To my fellow Christians and people of faith, an open letter from a Christian Socialist

March 26, 2017

When I drive my car, I see that people either have the Jesus fish on their car or the Darwin fish with legs. Well then, I must ask, why not both? An expression of the total acceptance of the Darwin fish, that all humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor, and, at the same time, the acceptance of the Jesus fish because religion and science are not mutually exclusive insofar as one does not subjugate reason to faith. Why, WHY must you object to the subjugation of your faith to reason?

I tell a grim warning, that our religion will die out in a few generations if you refuse to accept rudimentary, basic, undeniable scientific fact. It will die out completely if you cling to your outdated myths. It will die out completely if you cling to literalist interpretations of creation which are, in actuality, and because of their fundamentalist interpretation, illusions. Let’s not beat around the bush here, to think the earth is 6000 years old is an illusion, a fog of scientific denial and ignorance of material reality.

If your God is but an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance, and not the totality of the scientific endeavor, the force that set all matter into motion, then in 500 years or perhaps even less we will have disproven your foolish notion of ‘God’ and along with it all faiths that refuse to accept scientific fact will go into the dustbin of history.

Even more problematic is those that use my faith, and religion generally, to tell the oppressed and exploited people of the earth to work hard, accept their oppressive conditions, to be pacifists and refuse to change their conditions here on earth in hope of a better life after death! What mockery of the Christian legacy is that? No! True Christianity is an emancipatory doctrine firmly rooted in the principle that the meek shall inherit the earth, it is an emancipatory doctrine of liberation! Both liberation in the spiritual sense and thereby, necessarily, of those in this life here on this earth from poverty, oppression, and exploitation everywhere!

It is absolutely, positively, and irrevocably incompatible with capitalism, feudalism, and all class society, as well as all forms of systematic oppression and exploitation beyond their historical necessity. And it is against capitalism even more so than feudalism because of its foundations in the sins of greed, gluttony, and pride. It is not to be used as a tool to numb the pain of those who are oppressed but to rouse them up in an open and unrestrained fight against the oppressors and exploiters of the earth!

To promote Christianity is one thing, but the realization of the impossibility of secular Judeo-Christian ethics being the foundation of our social structure is another. As Christian Socialist James Connolly said, “We know that Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we also know that if a capitalist attempted to run his business upon that plan his relatives would have no difficulty in getting lawyers, judges and physicians to declare him incompetent to conduct his affairs in the business world… Personally I am opposed to any system wherein the capitalist is more powerful than God Almighty. You need not serve God unless you like, and may refuse to serve him and grow fat, prosperous and universally respected. But if you refuse to serve the capitalist your doom is sealed; misery and poverty and public odium await you. No worker is compelled to enter a church and to serve God; every worker is compelled to enter the employment of a capitalist and serve him. As Socialists we are concerned to free mankind from the servitude forced upon them as a necessity of their life; we propose to allow the question of all kinds of service voluntarily rendered to be settled by the emancipated human race of the future.”

Even to you self-proclaimed pacifists, when you assert that your religion, your church should be embodied in, officialized and have power over the state do you not realize what you are doing? The state is that organ in a given society that has a sole, absolute, and legitimate monopoly on violence. It is an inherently repressive institution whereby one class subjugates another by the police, the army, the courts, etc. In other words, by the barrel of a gun. What Christian, in their right mind could claim to be a pacifist and support anything but strict state secularism? And even those like me who are not pacifists, you cannot in your right mind support the state in capitalist society, a tool used to hold down the oppressed and not the oppressors. A tool used solely to keep the poor and bondage by enforcing and prolonging their exploitation.

What else is there to say? I admit wholeheartedly that the atheist’s criticism of religion is correct up to and excluding the point where it dictates the necessity of atheism. Take a look in the mirror, when I read the works of Karl Marx on issues such as religion, I, a religious person, find myself agreeing with him. What does that say about our faith? That it was Marx, a brilliant man no doubt, but an atheist, who first discovered and unveiled the laws that dominate human society and the capitalist economy at large? It was Marx, not a man of God, who correctly discovered such things. What does that say about us? Take a look in the mirror damn it! If you truly care about your faith, subjugate it to reason and scrutiny. Reject any and all literalist interpretations, especially those of creation, and stop using it as a tool to keep the oppressed and exploited people’s of the earth in bondage! Turn all organized religion upsidedown from a tool of the oppressor to a tool of the oppressed. You think religion is powerless and pacifistic, but in reality, it is a weapon. For centuries it has been used to hold down the oppressed. Now let it be used to encourage the oppressed to hold down the oppressors until the systematic exploitation of man by man is no more! What more can I say?

To Be Born Is Arguably The Worst Injustice, Consent and Existentialism, Psychoanalysis and Parenting

March 23, 2017

To be born is arguably the worst injustice, one cannot consent to being thrust into existence, for to say “I consent” implies that there is an I, that existence is already attained. It is to be, in the inverted sense, raped by mother nature, a one in a trillion rape, a one in a trillion, horrific injustice. And of course, we are wired to consent after the fact, after we already exist. “I don’t want to die” is the norm thanks to natural selection, and I say that not cynically. I say that as someone who has had depression in the past. In absolutely no way do I defend or support social Darwinism, but natural selection as opposed to human selection has hitherto been responsible for shaping our instincts and minds from birth, not to say that they are not largely malleable by the material conditions and society this mind finds itself in, but that the general trend has been a desire to live and survive, the most deeply rooted instincts.

This is also not an argument against procreation. Yes, we should have fewer babies because of overpopulation, but by all means, have children if you so will. Just know that it is as you will, or the material conditions you find yourself in (i.e. sex, rape, moral stance against abortion or contraception, etc.) and not a non-existent other, not according to the will of the thing you are going to thrust into the world without its consent. But there is a silver lining, being a good parent helps to atone for this injustice, in fac, if you are responsible for creating this thing then it is you alone, with (hopefully) the obligation of the other, that can, and therefore must do to atone for this injustice. 

Perhaps this can explain the paternal/ maternal instinct. “My god I have brought this innocent thing into the world, It’s so helpless.” And then in the subconscious, “It couldn’t even consent to being thrust into existence, I have to give it a happy life and be a good parent to make up for this”, even though it is in most every regard a most happy moment. I think this may be a valid form of subconscious moral reasoning. In essence, you do not choose to exist, someone and something else did. To be born, to exist against your will is in the absolute sense, injustice. But this is an absolutely necessary, and permanent injustice. Not in the sense that immorality, oppression, and exploitation are unjust, but in another, wholly existential and absolute form.

Reforms, Icons and Liberty

March 18, 2017

Without more unions, without a militant, politically independent and class-conscious working class, any gains in regards to healthcare, pay, and other necessary reforms will be attacked with the utmost scrutiny by the ruling class. The bourgeoisie will declare such reforms a failure despite its successes, horrendously attack it and look only at its faults. It will undo such progress, privatize, and fool the masses into loving the fact that they are essentially being robbed. 
Reforms can come in our current society only by the ruling class, particularly by the liberal bourgeoisie, making concessions to the workers who threaten independence from the two party system. Political movements are de-radicalized by the democrats and turned into a reluctant concession out of fear at best, or totally destroyed by the henchmen of the bourgeoisie at worst. 
Political radicals and leaders who were persecuted by the ruling class in life are canonized, turned into harmless icons and stripped of their radical message by that same ruling class after death. By owning the mainstream media, which are in essence for-profit institutions, the ruling class shapes public opinion. It scorns reform, and fools the masses into hating that while benefits the overwhelming majority of society and embracing that which only benefits the top 1%. 

“Freedom of press” is our slogan too, but their “freedom of press” is subject to the domination of those with capital, those who own the earth, and those who wish to continue and defend this exploitative system, giving the opposition not an ounce of real criticism. 

Democracy at work, along with the grand notions of equality that founded the liberal republics are shaken off and dismissed as ‘socialism’. So long as capital rules, so long as the leftover surplus produced by 100,000 is dictatorially owned by, and given to a tiny minority consisting of 10-20 people in board rooms, so long as there are oppressor classes and private property, slogans of “democracy, equality, liberty” will be just that- slogans. 

Tell me, what liberty is enjoyed by the homeless person, the unemployed, by those who toil 50 hours a week and still live in hunger and poverty, who live in constant fear of losing their job, their home, their food. What liberty is that? True liberty can only exist where there is no systematic exploitation of one person over another, where there is no unemployment, homelessness or poverty. True liberty can only be attained not through formal declaration but by a fight against the oppressors and exploiters of the earth! 

True liberty can exist only in a socialist society, transforming formal declarations of the rights of man, of human rights, from mere formal recognitions and into material reality. True liberty can only exist where there is no state, where there is no ruling class. Onward to socialism!

Why does something exist instead of nothing? And what of God? A philosophical hypotheses 

March 12, 2017

The subjugation of the absolute is infinitely malleable, though it appears the exact opposite, and often is for human affairs. To bring the absolute under scientific laws which are to us, constant, implies that the laws themselves are the absolute. Yet we know that our universe has a beginning, therefore the absolute we can say is subjugated to the conditions it finds itself in. 

We find everywhere, in the smallest and most finite spaces that there exists infinite finite infinities. Can we say that the all, the universe, the sum of the whole is in fact the absolute? We can indeed, however what we find is the absolute here, we also find to be the absolute there. The absolute is the infinite sum of all possible infinities, it is unfathomable but to the infinite creator (assuming it is a conscious force). 

In theoretical physics, though I do not claim to be any sort of expert in the field by any means whatsoever, we find what we know as virtual particles. Spontaneous particles with an equal and opposite anti-particle come into being and annihilate with one another. Mathematically we can say that +1 and -1 come into being simultaneously and then collide, becoming 0. This is a sort of eternal dialectical process going on all around us, like popcorn (with the exception of Hawking radiation in which one of these particles falls into a blackhole and the other escapes). 

Matter cannot be created or destroyed, yet we know that matter can spontaneously come into being so long as its absolute opposite accompanies its creation. Is it absurd to suggest that, perhaps what happens on the smallest scale so too happens on the largest? That the universe has an equal, opposite counterpart? This could in fact answer the question of “why does something exist instead of nothing?” For in actuality nothing does exist. All we know is a value of -1, and somewhere outside of our reality is an equal but opposite +1. 

Therefore everything adds together into nothing. If then there is a God, an infinite being, than in its infinite power it would forever and irrevocably put up a barrier between itself and its opposite. Therefore God could exist forever, and could have always existed. God, coming into being in the same way I speculate the universe coming into being, a force that is of the substance of spontaneous creation and therefore the creator of itself, the master of mathematics and all of creation, in every possible form. Thus we can say that the subjugation of the absolute is infinitely malleable.

Christianity and Socialism (With a section by James Connolly)

March 1, 2017

Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to enter into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. This is absolute, there are no exceptions. You cannot be a kind exploiter or a generous thief. It is one or the other. There is some room for a gray area for the moral, but ineptitude is the state of the moral capitalist. If a capitalist set up his business in a way that attempted to please God he would at once be found insane and made a joke of by his business rivals. It is impossible for such a man to exist. Exploitation is exploitation. There is no generous exploitation, no just injustice. This is absolute. This is not to say people cannot change. For they certainly can, such is the foundation of Christianity. But to continually exploit the poor for personal profit and to serve God at the same time is impossible. This is inseparable from the Christian faith. Christ spoke more of material wealth and greed than anything else. Christianity is supposed to be the religion of the exploited and oppressed, not the exploiter and the oppressor. Let’s take it back to its roots, a religion of radical emancipation of the poor and oppressed.

James Connolly outlines this general sentiment quite well in his work Socialism Made Easy. He does a much better job explaining the necessity of socialism to the Christian faith than I. I have included his section on Religion below:

BUT SOCIALISM IS AGAINST RELIGION. I CAN’T BE A SOCIALIST AND BE A CHRISTIAN.

O, quit your fooling! That talk is all right for those who know nothing of the relations between capital and labor, or are innocent of any knowledge of the processes of modern industry, or imagine that men, in their daily struggles for bread or fortunes, are governed by the Sermon on the Mount.

But between workingmen that talk is absurd. We know that Socialism bears upon our daily life in the workshop, and that religion does not; we know that the man who never set foot in a church in his lifetime will, if he is rich, be more honored by Christian society than the poor man who goes to church every Sunday, and says his prayers morning and evening; we know that the capitalists of all religions pay more for the service of a good lawyer to keep them out of the clutches of the law than for the services of a good priest to keep them out of the clutches of the devil; and we never heard of a capitalist, who, in his business, respected the Sermon on the Mount as much as he did the decisions of the Supreme Court.

These things we know. We also know that neither capitalist nor worker can practice the moral precepts of religion, and without its moral precepts a religion is simply a sham. If a religion cannot enforce its moral teachings upon its votaries it has as little relation to actual life as the pre-election promises of a politician have to legislation.

We know that Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we also know that if a capitalist attempted to run his business upon that plan his relatives would have no difficulty in getting lawyers, judges and physicians to declare him incompetent to conduct his affairs in the business world.

He would not be half as certain of reaching Heaven in the next world as he would be of getting into the ‘bughouse’ in this.

And, as for the worker. Well, in the fall of 1908, the New York World printed an advertisement for a teamster in Brooklyn, wages to be $12 per week. Over 700 applicants responded. Now, could each of these men love their neighbors in that line of hungry competitors for that pitiful wage?

As each man stood in line in that awful parade of misery could he pray for his neighbor to get the job, and could he be expected to follow up his prayer by giving up his chance, and so making certain the prolongation of the misery of his wife and little ones?

No, my friend, Socialism is a bread and butter question. It is a question of the stomach; it is going to be settled in the factories, mines and ballot boxes of this country and is not going to be settled at the altar or in the church.

This is what our well-fed friends call a ‘base, material standpoint’, but remember that beauty, and genius and art and poetry and all the finer efflorescences of the higher nature of man can only be realized in all their completeness upon the material basis of a healthy body, that not only an army but the whole human race marches upon its stomach, and then you will grasp the full wisdom of our position.

That the question to be settled by Socialism is the effect of private ownership of the means of production upon the well-being of the race; that we are determined to have a straight fight upon the question between those who believe that such private ownership is destructive of human well-being and those who believe it to be beneficial, that as men of all religions and of none are in the ranks of the capitalists, and men of all religions and of none are on the side of the workers the attempt to make religion an issue in the question is an intrusion, an impertinence and an absurdity.

Personally I am opposed to any system wherein the capitalist is more powerful than God Almighty. You need not serve God unless you like, and may refuse to serve him and grow fat, prosperous and universally respected. But if you refuse to serve the capitalist your doom is sealed; misery and poverty and public odium await you.

No worker is compelled to enter a church and to serve God; every worker is compelled to enter the employment of a capitalist and serve him.

As Socialists we are concerned to free mankind from the servitude forced upon them as a necessity of their life; we propose to allow the question of all kinds of service voluntarily rendered to be settled by the emancipated human race of the future.

I do not deny that Socialists often leave the church. But why do they do so? Is their defection from the church a result of our attitude towards religion; or is it the result of the attitude of the church and its ministers toward Socialism?

Let us take a case in point, one of those cases that are being paralleled every day in our midst. An Irish Catholic joins the Socialist movement. He finds that as a rule the Socialist men and women are better educated than their fellows; he finds that they are immensely cleaner in speech and thought than are the adherents of capitalism in the same class; that they are devoted husbands and loyal wives, loving and cheerful fathers and mothers, skilful and industrious workers in the shops and office, and that although poor and needy as a rule, yet that they continually bleed themselves to support their cause, and give up for Socialism what many others spend in the saloon.

He finds that a drunken Socialist is as rare as a white black-bird, and that a Socialist of criminal tendencies is such a rara avis that when one is found the public press heralds it forth as a great discovery.

Democratic and republican jailbirds are so common that the public press do not regard their existence as ‘news’ to anybody, nor yet does the public press think it necessary to say that certain criminals belong to the Protestant or Catholic religions. That is nothing unusual, and therefore not worth printing. But a criminal Socialist – that would be news indeed!

Our Irish Catholic Socialist gradually begins to notice these things. He looks around and he finds the press full of reports of crimes, murders, robberies, bank swindlers, forgeries, debauches, gambling transactions, and midnight orgies in which the most revolting indecencies are perpetrated. He investigates and he discovers that the perpetrators of these crimes were respectable capitalists, pillars of society, and red-hot enemies of Socialism, and that the dives in which the highest and the lowest meet together in a saturnalia of vice contribute a large proportion of the campaign funds of the capitalist political parties.

Some Sunday he goes to Mass as usual, and he finds that at Gospel the priest launches out into a political speech and tells the congregation that the honest, self-sacrificing, industrious, clean men and women, whom he calls ‘comrades,’ are a wicked, impious, dissolute sect, desiring to destroy the home, to distribute the earnings of the provident among the idle and lazy of the world, and reveling in all sorts of impure thoughts about women.

And as this Irish Catholic Socialist listens to this foul libel, what wonder if the hot blood of anger rushes to his face, and he begins to believe that the temple of God has itself been sold to the all desecrating grasp of the capitalist?

While he is yet wondering what to think of the matter, he hears that his immortal soul will be lost if he fails to vote for capitalism, and he reflects that if he lined up with the brothel keepers, gambling house proprietors, race track swindlers, and white slave traders to vote the capitalist ticket, this same priest would tell him he was a good Catholic and loyal son of the church.

At such a juncture the Irish Catholic Socialist often rises up, goes out of the church and wipes its dust off his feet forever. Then we are told that Socialism took him away from the church. But did it? Was it not rather the horrible spectacle of a priest of God standing up in the Holy Presence lying about and slandering honest men and women, and helping to support political parties whose campaign fund in every large city represents more bestiality than ever Sodom and Gomorrah knew?

These are the things that drive Socialists from the church, and the responsibility for every soul so lost lies upon those slanderers and not upon the Socialist movement.

For more Connolly check out: Marxist.net (CWI source)

Also, there is a section on Marxists.org 

On Trump’s Address to the Joint Session of Congress: Immigration, Poverty and The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie

February 28, 2017

In Trump’s Address to the Joint Session of Congress, he declared that he created an institution for the ‘Victims of illegal immigration’. In light of the evidence, I must ask: What kind of bullshit xenophobic garbage is this? It’s actually proven that Illegal Immigrants commit less violent crimes than ordinary U.S. citizens.[1] But in a world of ‘alternative facts’, I suppose this isn’t too much of a surprise. They are being scapegoated for our countries problems, but most of us know they are entirely not to blame.

Trump says we can solve poverty by addressing violence. But this is an entirely backward analysis. Anti-social behavior is a result of poverty.[2] Even Aristotle spoke of poverty being the “parent of crime”.  That is why the poor are disproportionately more violent. Violence doesn’t cause poverty, poverty causes violence. Now, if you want to address the root cause of poverty in the world today it’s people like Trump, billionaires and multi-millionaire capitalists who live off the labor of others. Those in poverty entirely make up “that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor.”(Engels, 42).  And people like Trump live off their labor alone, amounting ‘their’ billions. His vast wealth is solely due to the poverty of the poor.

Trump makes grand statements of national solidarity, prosperity, liberty and democracy. But these are false slogans, they cannot and will not exist as anything more than an empty slogan in our present society. His use of bringing in the families of the ‘victims of illegal immigrants’ and of fallen soldiers is but a pathetic means to an end. The people will not be free so long as they live under a dictatorship of the rich (or as Marx called a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie), under a dictatorship of two capitalist parties who are ideologically identical in nature. The oligarchy of the property owning class is the only institution in our society that actively holds all formal political power, its power is derived from the two-party system that people are ideologically compelled to participate in. In this way, the cycle of oppression can be celebrated as ‘democracy’. Poverty can be celebrated as a ‘free choice’ even if it is practically forced upon its subjects.

People like Trump are the problem, not illegal immigrants and certainly not other countries whose labor people like Trump exploit! I think it’s high time that the workers of America unite to build their own party, to smash the fetters of the false democracy, of the two-party system, and of the capitalist state. To take back what is rightfully theirs and solemnly declare that “labor creates the world, labor is entitled to all it creates!”

Sources:

1 Immigration Study 

2 Crime and poverty 

3 Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels

Mankind shall only be free once they own everything from the factories to the stars!

February 26, 2017

Immigrant workers may work harder than natives. But only because their conditions of exploitation are much worse. We must never forget this fact. They must own the farms they work. The land belongs to those who till it! They must have a democratic say in their workplaces. The factories and businesses belong to those who toil within them! In essence, the world belongs to those who do labor, for there would be no world at all without labor. And yes, the slums and apartments, the homes and dwellings of the people belong to those who live within them! Not to the banks, not to the landlords, not to the capitalists. No! They belong to the people! We must not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, creed, gender, and yes, or of nationality! We shall say to the capitalist that they too much work and actively contribute to society, no longer shall they live off the labor and toil of others. No longer shall they be entitled to what other people produce, but that they themselves must work. Compensation shall be paid on the basis of proven need of small investors, of small capitalists, not millionaires. The Large industries are to be immediately brought into public ownership and democratic management of the working class. The right to inherit private property shall be abolished and thereby small businesses will be brought into the ownership of the working class upon the death of the owner/s, or by the sale of the company to the workers. I wholeheartedly believe that the people of the world will not be free until they own everything from the farms, restaurants, and factories to the stars!

Immigration, The Future of Capitalism, and a Defense of Trotskyism

February 25, 2017

Immigration 

When we look at the world today we do not see a very pretty picture. European social democracy isn’t doing so well and its economic crisis is worsened by the immigration crisis and with it the reactionary response among the more conservative elements of European society. Indeed European society is in a crisis unforeseen in the world today. The immigration crisis on top of that is unprecedented, and the solution to this problem is impossible without issues.

Anyone who asserts the immigration crisis can simply be solved entirely by some kind of ‘peaceful integration’ is a fool. Such things are not so easy, there will always be a clash of cultures like oil and water. But by no means is it acceptable for a state responsible for bombing a countries people to turn them down when they seek refuge. It is morally wrong. It is unjust. We must let them in, it is our duty as citizens of the earth! We must let them in allow them their dignity and right to exist! But we must also acknowledge the problems that inevitably arise in mixing two cultures together in such a rapid way. It is impossible to ignore their backward customs, regarding women in particular.

On one hand, you have liberals advocating that full integration will have no problems and on the other, you have conservatives such as Milo and Trump advocating total exclusion (i.e. ‘extreme vetting’, nationalism, etc.) on the basis of religion or nationality. Both are absurd notions even if their initial premise is based on a kernel of truth.

The Future of Capitalism 

Slavoj Žižek in his book Trouble in Paradise makes a good argument for the state of the world today. I am admittedly inspired by this work in this regard. It is an eye-opening look at world events today. Let’s look at the 4 great forces of capitalism in the world today. European social democracy is collapsing, US neoliberalism is in an era of seemingly permanent recession and Latin America’s capitalism isn’t doing so much better either. The only capitalism that is working in the world today in Asia, is the so-called ‘capitalism with Asian values’. It is highly authoritarian in nature and totally incompatible with democracy, and because of its success in comparison with the other 3 prevailing versions of capitalism, it is undeniably the future of the capitalist system. The two principles of democracy and of capitalism have always been contradictory, but their total divorce is inevitable as capitalist society progresses. Slavoj Žižek has taken on the role of the social alarmist in this regard, and rightfully so.

Slavoj Žižek makes another valid point in posing the question: Who has the must brutally efficient, successful capitalism? It is none other than the kind advocated by the Communist Party of China. What irony is this? In China, it is illegal to point out this contradiction, that the CPC still justifies itself on a Marxist line yet fully embraces a total bureaucratic dictatorship and a virtual dictatorship of the foreign and domestic bourgeoisie. It is even illegal to point out that it is illegal to point out this contradiction. So many intellectuals, thinkers, and socialists have been imprisoned for breaking this, which is one of many, unspoken rules of Chinese society.

Trotskyism 

People often hit me with this question, “what about China? You are a socialist so you must support the Chinese one-party dictatorship, Stalin, Mao, etc.” But this is absolute nonsense. I am a member of Socialist Alternative yes, and it is a Marxist organization. But not a Marxist-Leninist organization. We are Trotskyists, and as such we are militantly opposed to Stalinism. We are also militantly opposed to a one-party state. Contrary to common belief you will not find a single page written by Lenin that advocates such a one-party system. In fact, up to 1924 in Russia, there were several mainstream political parties (the Left-Mensheviks, Anarchists, Social-Revolutionaries, etc.).

Worse still you accuse us, the most vocal opponents of totalitarianism and Stalinism of advocating the very things we are militantly and vocally opposed to. Socialist Alternative is part of the CWI, the Committee for a Workers International. It is an international Trotskyist organization and it just so happens that our Chinese counterparts have recently been illegally raided by the Chinese authorities for calling for an abolition of the Chinese dictatorship. Yes! In China, our organization’s counterpart has advocated the overthrow of the Chinese government you so fervently accuse us of supporting because we just so happen to fly the red banner.

Who supported the early worker’s revolts in Soviet Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia? It was us, the Trotskyists advocating the overthrow of Stalinism and the establishment of actual socialist democracy! 95% of the population, of the proletariat, was opposed to the Stalinist state during this time. They were calling not for the reestablishment of capitalism against socialism, but for socialism against Stalinism! Yes, it was we who supported their efforts, yes it was we who abhorred the lack of free speech, general elections, the lack of freedom of press and assembly, the religious persecution, and the one-party system that was the foundation of Stalinism in the USSR and the Marxist states of the 20th century! So how can we help but laugh when you accuse us of advocating these things? It is nonsense, total nonsense!

The Dialectic of The Two Party System: The Illusion of Free Will and The Only Way Out

February 24, 2017

When you think of the American two-party system as a dialectic, only then does the realization of total political class servitude enter into the mind. In American society the liberal “left” and conservative right is designed to act as the thesis and anti-thesis of this dialectic. So that the only viable outcome (the synthesis) is the result of a conflict of these two ideologies, which are inherently favorable the same capitalist ideology of both the synthesis and anti-synthesis. There are fundamental issues of grave importance that are not discussed in the two party system, as any socialist can tell you.

In order to have free will, there has to be a recollection between these two sides (the synthesis). You have to pick a side to influence change in the political sphere. But in the two-party system, this is an intentionally limited paradigm so that the only conclusions one can come to in mainstream politics is one that reinforces the existing social order, and this synthesis can do nothing but. This is the dialectic of the two party system. There are those of us who do not fit into this two-party dialectic (we socialists in particular). For those of us who do not fit into the two-party system, it is our duty to do away with it entirely by introducing a rogue variable into the political sphere that will smash it entirely. This is our call to the working class.

The two-party system is but an illusion of free will and democracy. The two parties are nothing but toys of the ruling class, which when politicized in bourgeois society (as it always is) becomes an oligarchy. To quote the question posed by one of my favorite early Marxists, Ernest Untermann, “Has history not taught us that mere political democracy without industrial democracy amounts to virtual oligarchy in practice?” This oligarchy supports both parties because they both support the interests of the oligarchy and thereby of the ruling class.

As Engels says in his 1891 work The Civil War in France, “It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. and nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends* — and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.”

There is virtually no difference between this system of limited, truncated and false “democracy” and a one party state except for this illusion of choice. And I by no means am advocating a one-party system. The only solutions that can be found for the problems we face today on a large scale are wholly outside the two-party system, for the bourgeoisie itself (acting through this two-party system) is wholly responsible for creating and maintaining these problems on a massive scale, for producing the problems of capitalist society which are innumerable. The synthesis of the dialectic will only ever solidify the rule of the oligarchy, the reign of the ruling class. The synthesis may address feeble problems that concern this ruling class’s hold on power but never will it threaten that power directly, even in circumstances of dire emergency.

Has this not, on the other hand, brought us many progressive reforms to the capitalist system? Indeed it has, but at the same time, there are problems posed by the very capitalist system itself, fundamental problems that threaten our very existence, that cannot be solved but by the abolition of the capitalist system entirely. These are the problems of homelessness, poverty, hunger, the anarchy of production, vast wealth inequality, alienation, unhappiness, climate change, imperialism, imperialist war, capitalist exploitation itself, lack of real political democracy, total lack of any real industrial democracy, the crippling of the individual, of individual liberty and creative expression, etc. Sure they can put band-aids on these issues to soften their blow, or dazzle them with grand words of liberty and duty but in the end, they cannot solve these problems inside the capitalist system. For when capitalism is abolished there will be nothing pushing back on such reforms, these problems can be addressed directly without challenging the fundamental nature of the prevailing socio-economic system. In fact, socialism demands these problems be solved immediately and without hesitation. There is no conflict of interest in pursuing these issues absolutely and without excuse under a socialist system. And for these grave evils, there certainly is no acceptable excuse to be made in addressing them.

This, my friends, is why at Socialist Alternative we call for a new party of the 99%. A party that will not be a part of this dialectic, nor part of a three-party dialectic of the same nature (if you can imagine such a thing). It will be wholly outside the scope of the action of this oligarchy, and thereby it will directly threaten its power. Thus it forms a new dialectic between the 99% and the 1% directly. The interests of the majority and of the bourgeoisie go head to head against one another. This new party is but a step in our transitional program (see Trotsky’s Transitional Program). We at Socialist Alternative do not claim to be this party, nor do we want to be. We call on the working class itself to unify in struggle and build it themselves! We simply wish to be a leading force in guiding this party, the party of the 99%, towards total liberation. This is not to say that this party will by any means lead directly to some sort of revolutionary struggle, but rather that it will unify the proletarian masses to allow for such a dialectic to exist in a much more powerfull way. The synthesis of a unified, class-conscious proletariat and the bourgeoisie can be only in what Marx would call “the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions”, in the establishment of absolute and genuine democracy, for true liberty and equality for all. And that my friends, is the end of capitalism.

*  My Italics -TFB

What Ever Happened to all the Old Racist Whites from those Civil Rights Photos?

February 22, 2017

External link:

http://afrosapiophile.com/2017/02/21/same-old-bigots 

The LSD Trip That Made Me Abandon Atheism

February 11, 2017

I took some LSD and had the trip of a lifetime. I cannot scientifically explain the events that took place this night and have documented them after finding details of what I saw in an ancient occult text. I have not used drugs in the past 2 years because I no longer feel the need to do so. I must say that if you are going to do LSD or MDMA or any drug other than cannabis that you buy and use a test-kit because you never know for sure what you are getting. It could save your life or yourself from a very bad experience. An additional 15-20$ is worth it trust me. Though I do not condone drug use per se, I respect the individual liberty of those who care to do so and I do not believe it should be infringed upon.

This is an account of the experience I had that I cannot scientifically explain while on 1 tab of some very potent LSD. This experience led me to abandon my atheism only after doing research on one of the spirits name and coming to learn that it was real and in an ancient occult book which I found descriptions, names, appearances and functions of the other beings (spirits, or demons) that I encountered.

In order:
~2 AM or so

Played “I put a spell on you”

https://youtu.be/PwXai-sgM-s    The song that began the visions 

Note that this was several years ago and I have written only what I remember well. I am attempting to describe the indescribable. The state of mind I was in cannot be put into words, but alas I will do my best. This kind of consciousness is truly of another world.

I sense a being during or after the song, not a spirit per se but some sort of entity capable of going through the earth and snatching people up in some weird metaphysical way. To the beat of the song part of me calls out to the universe in a strange way. There I have visions of a strange being approaching. With hair on the bottom of its feet. It is a grotesque, large thing with a stick of some kind (staff or scepter?). The being was what can best be described as a humanoid monster. I sensed it was the thing that could snatch beings up and take them to another world/ an afterlife of some sort but I sensed no danger from it. It was not a hostile vision. In fact all of my visions in this time were not hostile. They were strange and alien but not hostile.

Then after this I find myself laying on the couch and I look up to the mirror to see a somewhat transparent but not like any kind of physical substance I can describe, smoke like thing coming out of the mirror. I hear it speak to me in a distorted, hoarse, almost electronic voice, “I AM ASMODEUS”. Kind of like “ASZZZMOAHDEEYUS”. Then I have visions of this 6 animal legged lion headed being (later identified with Buer) dancing and with it I sense madness, the madness of the state I am in because of the LSD.

Then come the visions of what very well may be hell. Visions of fiery cavernous world. Blades of grass move to and fro with the wind. But instead of grass they are flames. To my right a yellow cave, a large rock and in it I sense there is Asmodeus (later found a myth of Asmodeus in Islamic folklore as ‘the demon in the rocks’). Beyond the grassy field in the distance there are shadowy figures of a towering castle. In the windows there is a red glow of fire and behind it is smoke or clouds glowing with some distant red/ yellow light. In front of (or behind, I don’t remember) is a path. There what can best be described as phantoms with no faces and large eyes (like shy guys almost) hover over the ground. I think I remember them carrying spears or swords of some sort.

Then I sense another demon whose terrible musicalal notes I hear. It is a psychedelic sound, it cannot be described with any words I know but alas I must try. It was like piano notes but instead of a normal piano sound it was like shattering glass and destruction. It wasn’t painful but it wasn’t pleasant. It was so alien to me. These beings were WEIRD, but strangely beautiful. In this entire time I did not think they were ‘spirits’ or ‘demons’ or anything other than a projection of my own mind. It wasn’t until after the trip that after misspelling “asmodeus” in google 10 times that I had a hit. This led me to the Ars Goetia (the lesser key of solomon) in which I found Asmodeus and the names of the other beings I saw during this trip. I had no prior knowledge of the occult. I never cared for it as an atheist and growing up I was too afraid to look at that kind of thing as I came from a religious family. I am 100% certain I would’ve remembered reading something so strange, especially an ancient occult text about summoning demons. I have since abandoned atheism.

For the Occult savvy:

First sense Ronove, then came Asmodeus out of the mirror and finally visions of Buer and other demons.
Later learning the names of all but Asmodeus who gave me his name immediately.

Demons seen that I most recognize listed in the Ars Goetia:

Asmodeus: Told name specifically, appeared as hazy smoke coming out of mirror. Like in another dimension almost.
Ronove: Vision of common form and sensed purpose was to take souls to hell. Hairy soles of feet, carried stick thing, monstrous
Buer: Danced around me in form same as Dictionnaire Infernal
Amdusias?: Played music in vision of fiery world (hell?)

Psychedelic drugs are powerful tools. Use them responsibly!

The Elements of Leadership: Immoral, Moral and Immorally Moral Pragmatism

February 9, 2017

The dramatic introduction in the very first scene to Frank Underwood, the protagonist in the Netflix Original Series House of Cards is worthy of an analysis for this post. The scene I am referring to can be found below. There is no doubt a reason why this is the viewers introduction to the shows main character as this embodies a fundamental characteristic not only of Frank Underwood himself but one inherent to leadership in general. As to not spoil the show I recommend you to stop reading here if you have not watched the first three seasons of House of Cards.

*Note that the video was taken down for a copyright notice. Frank Underwood goes out onto the street to find an injured dog that is the victim of a hit and run. While he tells a neighbor to go wake up the owners of the pet, he puts the dog out of its misery for the dogs sake, and for the sake of the dogs owners.

“Moments like this require someone who will act, [someone who will] do the unpleasant thing, the necessary thing… There, no more suffering” 

This ability to act, to do the unthinkable when it is necessary is the embodiment of pragmatism. By ‘pragmatism’ I do not mean it in the philosophical sense of the word but rather the ability to realize what is necessary and logical in a given situation and the ability to do it. Pragmatism is of course necessary for any leader to have. When governing a large number of people you have to be willing to sacrifice the few for the many without a moment’s hesitation. However as you may very well know Frank Underwood is not your typical pragmatic acting only when it is right but he is immorally pragmatic. We see this in the fact that he acts in such a way when it threatens his political career and not merely the status and security of the sovereign. Was it pragmatic to kill Zoe Barnes or Peter Russo? It was necessary only insofar as to protect Frank’s political career. In this sense such actions were not justified by any external element or purpose higher than himself but rather solely by his thirst for power. Such selfish pragmatism I shall refer to immoral or absolute pragmatism.

Moral pragmatism on the other hand is the use of pragmatism only when it is moral. In this sense of the word many actions a leader or even a normal person in day-to-day life can be an expression of moral pragmatism. However sometimes the most moral act is inherently immoral. This is the kind of situation leaders are faced with everyday. For an example of this moral dilemma I shall refer to a film (that can be found on Netflix) called Unthinkable. 

The general synopsis of the film is that there is a terrorist who sets 3 nuclear weapons in unknown cities across the United States. He makes a film and releases it to the public threatening they will go off in X days and then intentionally gets arrested. He promises to reveal the location of the three bombs if they (the various intelligence agencies interrogating him) meet his demands, which are that the US stop funding puppet dictators and withdraw all troops from Muslim countries. But his demands here are irrelevant. What is relevant is the moral dilemma that the movie poses. Of course I recommend going and seeing this film for yourself, it is a very good film but it is not necessary.

What we have in this movie is essentially the use of torture that gets increasingly brutal and morally unacceptable in order to compel him (the terrorist) to reveal the locations of the bombs. The question comes down to whether there is a limit of justifiable injustice you can inflict on 1, 2 or 10 people to save millions. Towards the end of the movie, the torture ‘specialist’ named H decides to take things to the next level and gets the terrorists children into the interrogation room to kill them in front of him. The shows protagonist, (an FBI agent on the case) argues from the moralistic side that we must take the moral high ground and not torture, and that we must not resort to such brutality. Now I am assuming the obvious here, that torture under specific circumstances and when applied correctly works. But the question of if torture works generally will not be addressed here.

While H drags the children into the room various members of other intelligence agencies are arguing for its immorality, trying to shut it down, etc. The CIA however, of which H is a part of, threatens to use force on anyone who stops H from acting and potentially killing these innocent children. I will not spoil the film but the question remains, is it moral? Is it just?

Can what is inherently unjust be just under certain circumstances? The CIA director in the film, along with H seems to argue that it can absolutely be just. They argue that it is immoral of course, however it is necessary to torture/ kill 2 innocent children in order to prevent the deaths of millions of innocent children. Because of this necessity it truly becomes the lesser of the two evils. By taking the ‘moral high ground’ and refusing to hurt two innocent children you are in fact acting immorally because you are essentially responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent children by not acting. For it is truly the only way to uncover the locations of the two bombs.

I argue that it is the moral obligation of H to go through with the horrific act. H is in a predicament where he must act. By not acting H would be making a conscious decision to let some 6 million people die in a nuclear inferno. Are you not therefore responsible for this then? Yes and no. Whoever planted the bombs in the first place (the antagonist) is of course directly responsible and most of the blame falls on him. However, you have it in your power to prevent this enormous injustice that he plans to orchestrate and therefore by not doing everything in your power, even the unthinkable, you are responsible to an undeniably significant degree.

Thus to not act you are committing an ever graver crime than by acting. By refusing to get your hands dirty and do the unthinkable you are willing to stand by and allow millions to die because your conscience prevents you from acting. Should the conscience be ignored in this act? Not at all! The conscience should be the part of you urging you to do the unthinkable act. It should be the driving force in the recognition that by doing nothing you are doing something, a something that will lead to the deaths of millions. What you are left with is the compulsion to ultimate lesser evil.

By doing nothing at all it may appear that you are taking the moral high ground, by not sinking to their level. But this is a mistake; by being in that situation you have to choose between one or the other. It comes down to a simple question: do you want 2 innocent children to die (even by your own hands) or millions of innocent children? The moral high ground in this situation is precisely putting your own morals and values aside and committing the unthinkable act. You have to sacrifice the children for the greater good, but also your own moral dignity, your own values and likely your mental health as well. The heroic thing becomes not the refusal to act due to the horrific nature of the act itself but the ability to do so regardless.

This is the kind of pragmatism we are referring to, it is moral pragmatism because it is morally justifiable even if the act itself is inherently immoral. However it is not merely moral pragmatism, it is immorally moral pragmatism. Decisions like this are made on a daily basis by leaders trying to do what is best for their people. But sometimes they act with immoral pragmatism, disregarding the well being of the people for their own personal gain (i.e. to stay in power, to gain material wealth, etc.) Frank Underwood is a perfect example of immoral pragmatism.

Frank takes things to the absolute extreme and thereby transcends moral pragmatism. This is the double-sided coin of absolute or immoral pragmatism. Pragmatism is a necessary trait in a leader, but too much pragmatism is not a good thing at all. Absolute or immoral pragmatism is the ability to completely disregard morality in order to do what is necessary. This is not what we are referring to here. The pragmatism we are referring to is precisely the ability to use moral reasoning to quickly judge what is the lesser evil and to act without hesitation and not to disregard morality entirely. Absolute pragmatism disregards this.

In the situation in Unthinkable, both the moral pragmatism and the absolute pragmatism lead us to the same conclusion that two people have to die so that millions can live. But the absolute pragmatic does not do so out of moral conviction to do what is just or what is right. For them it is merely cold reasoning, they have no concern for the well being of one or of millions. Their concern is their own self-interest. The element of conscience is absent entirely in their logical formulation of what is necessary. This kind of pragmatism is the most dangerous form as it takes an illogical and immoral attribute in many situations. To kill 5 people to stay in power or stay out of jail ceases to be an issue even if the lives of 5 good people are worth more than 1 bad one.

The moral (the immorally moral) pragmatic is the most heroic in the situation of doing the unthinkable. Not only are they using moral reasoning to decide what to do but also they are sacrificing their own well-being, their own innocence for the greater good. The absolute or immoral pragmatic loses nothing from committing this act; they have no conscience that prevents them from casually doing so without reason. To know that it is an injustice on a relatively small scale, even when it is extremely disturbing to the perpetrator, and to do it anyways is arguably the most heroic thing a person can do in this situation. Thus the moral pragmatic embodies moral immorality while the absolute pragmatic embodies only immorality.

The best kind of leader is one that recognizes that the well being of the many is worth more than the well being of the few, even if that means doing the unnecessary, often horrible act with their own hands to prevent something even worse from happening. The best kind of leader formulates moral reasoning into the analysis that leads them to such actions as a necessary prerequisite to the action itself. To use moral justification and not merely cold, emotionless reasoning is absolutely crucial. Only can such a leader genuinely care about his/her subjects and not merely their position of power.

This kind of leader has a conscience but uses it constructively in this moral reasoning process. They use it to justify their actions even if they are immoral insofar as they prevent an even worse injustice, and thus the action becomes moral (or immorally moral). This kind of leader is logical but not cold in his reasoning. They feel the pain of those they hurt but they also know the pain of those that would have been hurt by their non-action (which itself is an action). Empathy is crucial to responsible leadership however it must be understood that sometimes a small injustice is necessary to prevent an even greater one. The best leader is morally, even immorally morally pragmatic while the worst leader is merely immorally or absolutely pragmatic.

Trump’s ‘morality’ on Immigration is a immorality, legality ≠ morality

January 26, 2017

What is the classic excuse among Trump supporters towards the issue of immigration? “They shouldn’t have broke the law and came over here in the first place!” This equates legality with morality, not only a grave mistake but historically a source of great evil. I hold firm to my convictions that laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws.

Thus to say, “They broke the law!” is not a moral justification for punishing them if the law was unjust in the first place. In fact this is not only not a moral justification, it is immoral in and of itself! Morality does not, nor has it ever been equal to legality. As Thomas Jefferson said, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” Authoritarianism depends on ‘law & order’ above morality. It recognizes no morality above the law. This must be combatted with the utmost vigor!

“Fuck people who voted for Trump” -The saying of the misguided liberals

January 26, 2017

“Fuck people who voted for Trump!”

This is the typical liberal attitude. Working people voted for Trump because they saw tax cuts for the rich and petty jobs programs as better than massive foreign trade agreements by the neoliberal ‘left’. Most people didn’t vote, either out of alienation from the political process or out of disdain for the two god awful candidates. But the majority of those who did vote voted out of fear of the other evil, NOT out of conviction, dedication or belief in the candidate they voted for. This is crucial, the MAJORITY of people who voted for Trump or Hillary did NOT believe in them! They just saw them as the slightly better alternative than the other absolute disaster! And lets face it, they are both absolute disasters. We must smash the two party system that alienates so many Americans! Smash it with the utmost brutality! Labor voting for a billionaire!? There is nothing more absurd. This alone demonstrates that the democratic party does not now- nor did it ever have the interests of working people at heart. We need a new party of the 99%! An American Labor Party- like the one in the UK but better, something that looks solely after the interests of working people. Why should a working person vote for the republican or democratic party? Why should a billionaire vote for the socialist party? For precisely the same reason that a billionaire would not vote for the socialist party, a working person should not vote for the republican or democratic party- and the working people make up the overwhelming majority of the country. They are the 99%.

The ‘small government’ far-right in power

January 24, 2017

The ‘small government’ far-right is now in power! It now fills all three branches of government! This seems strange that they always rave about ‘small government’ whenever it helps poor people or is even perceived as threatening the dictatorship of the rich. Of course this ‘threat’ from the ‘left’ is always an inconvenience to the neoliberal center-right democratic party which only gives concessions when the people force its hand and threaten to leave its shitty reactionary party. Funny that this ‘small government’ party- now that it is in power wants to make it a crime to call them bigots when they are being bigots (1), wants to make protesting illegal (2) , wants to send Muslim’s to concentration- er I mean internment camps (3) , wants to deport 3 million hard working people (4) , wants to regulate a woman’s body and punish them for having an abortion (5) , wants to send people to jail on the basis of what they do with other consenting adults (6) , wants to electrocute- er I mean ‘convert’ gay people (7) , wants to discriminate against people on the basis of their gender identity (8) , uses ‘alternative facts’ like doublethink in 1984 (9) , calls anything it doesn’t like ‘ungerman’, anti-sovet’- er I mean ‘unamerican’, wants to teach pseudoscience and religion in the classroom, wants poor people who can’t afford healthcare to die (10) , wants poor people to stay poor and rich people to get richer, wants corporations to effectively wield all state power and pollute the earth as much as they want (11) . Am I forgetting something?

Connolly’s Socialist Party on Religion: A Model for any Socialist Organization

January 23, 2017

“The Socialist Party of Ireland prohibits the discussion, of theological or anti-theological questions at its meetings, public or private. This is in conformity with the practice of the chief Socialist parties of the world, which have frequently, in Germany for example, declared Religion to be a private matter, and outside the scope of Socialist action. Modern Socialism, in fact, as it exists in the minds of its leading exponents, and as it is held and worked for by an increasing number of enthusiastic adherents throughout the civilised world, has an essentially material, matter-of-fact foundation. We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their Socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of Scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity. They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold. As a political party they wisely prefer to take their stand upon the actual phenomena of social life as they can be observed in operation amongst us to-day, or as they can be traced in the recorded facts of history. If any special interpretation of the meanings of Scripture tends to influence human thought in the direction of Socialism, or is found to be on a plane with the postulates of Socialist doctrine, then the scientific Socialist considers that the said interpretation is stronger because of its identity with the teachings of Socialism, but he does not necessarily believe that Socialism is stronger, or its position more impregnable, because of its theological ally. He realises that the facts upon which his Socialist faith are based are strong enough in themselves to withstand every shock, and attacks from every quarter, and therefore while he is at all times willing to accept help from every extraneous source, he will only accept it on one condition, viz., that he is not to be required in return to identify his cause with any other whose discomfiture might also involve Socialism in discredit. This is the main reason why Socialists fight shy of theological dogmas and religions generally: because we feel that Socialism is based upon a series of facts requiring only unassisted human reason to grasp and master all their details, whereas Religion of every kind is admittedly based upon ‘faith’ in the occurrence in past ages of a series of phenomena inexplicable by any process of mere human reasoning. Obviously, therefore, to identify Socialism with Religion would be to abandon at once that universal, non-sectarian character which to-day we find indispensable to working-class unity, as it would mean that our members would be required to conform to one religious creed, as well as to one specific economic faith – a course of action we have no intention of entering upon as it would inevitably entangle us in the disputes of the warring sects of the world, and thus lead to the disintegration of the Socialist Party.

Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its individual members if they so will. It is neither Freethinker nor Christian, Turk nor Jew, Buddhist nor Idolator, Mahommedan nor Parsee – it is only human.”

I have posted this image here before but I think it deserves another post because to me it is so fundamental. I think one of the Bolsheviks biggest mistakes was foregoing this principle, the Bolshevik Party accepted religious members but the party itself was inherently atheistic. On this issue I side with the party of Connolly and the early German party. Marxist materialism to me is an analytical tool, why insist upon matters of God as absolute fact? Criticize religion, yes! Please do by all means! Religious fundamentalism is something I despise as much as the next person. Replace ‘religion’ itself with ‘religious fundamentalism’ and I’ll agree with everything Marx has to say on the issue.

Firstly it is a mistake to insist on such matters as any business of the state, secondly from a strategic point of view it is simply guaranteeing that you will increase bourgeois and religious reaction towards socialism tenfold. State atheism is one of the key factors that led to the fall of communism in Europe. You cannot prohibit religion in the same way that you cannot prohibit drugs or alcohol, the state cannot insist upon one theological belief or lack thereof. State secularism must be the policy of any future socialist policy, on religion it must take the attitude of Connolly.

Go back to Marx, his belief was that communism would make religion superfluous, NOT that it was something to be prohibited or done away with by any means of force, except when the church and state are merged and in that case- even I support such actions. He believed that religion is the reaction to the human suffering brought about by class society. That removing the root cause of this suffering would remove the need for something like religion to appease that suffering. I do not share in this view. Religion is yes used by the ruling class to solidify its rule. But will it ever go away? I certainly do not think so, even in a thousand years people will still find reason to believe in a higher power or system of beliefs that there is something better after death. The reasons people cling to religion are not merely class antagonisms or the suffering brought about by the bourgeoisie, this to me is absurd.

Of course I agree that such a belief system should not and cannot reinforce systematic suffering and oppression here on earth, in this sense Marx’s criticism of religion is correct. Instead of upholding atheism, having such neutrality on this issue will cause religion to first rebel against any change to the social order as it always does. But then it will act as it has in all previous epochs- as a force which solidifies the new ruling class which is the proletariat and thereby defend the destruction of class society. In this way religion acts not in opposition to socialism but wholly in support of it- not merely out of self interest but because this ideology returns itself to its ideological roots.

Has class society not tainted religion in every possible way? Has it not been forced defended systems fundamentally based on greed, extortion, violence, and theft, systems that betray its own ideology in the name of self preservation? Has it not been obliged by the material conditions it finds itself in to reject the very founding principles of the faith itself? The abolition of class society is the abolition of its poisonous effect on all things including its poisonous effect on religion. The call for socialism is thus a call for religion to turn back to its ideological roots, in Christianity in particular that is the call for the rejection of greed, selfishness and even the state itself.

“Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.” – The Communist Manifesto 

“Why do you oppose the two party system” Take a good look at what it has gotten us. We need a new party of the 99%!

January 22, 2017

We solemnly declare the need for a new party of the 99%. Before the election liberals and conservatives alike went to us and said, “Why are you opposing the two party system? Just vote for the lesser of the two evils! Don’t throw your vote away!” Look now at exactly what this attitude has gotten us, look at the news right now. Donald Trump is in the Whitehouse, he is president of the United States. Do you know why? Because half the country was so scared of the other horrible candidate that they had to ‘vote for the lesser of the two evils’. Yes, Hillary would have been a disaster too. Make no mistake. The recognition of this fact is crucial, absolutely crucial. Look at what 40 years of absolutely horrible neoliberal politics from the ‘left’ have gotten us. Wages haven’t risen with productivity since the 1970’s.

There is absolutely no solution to be found from the center-right democratic party for working people. It has irrevocably betrayed the working and middle class. There is a reason traditional lower class blue voters have voted for Trump and refused to vote for Clinton. There is a reason for why many of the major unions backed Trump. It’s not because they are ‘dumb’ or ‘racist’ or whatever other term liberals like to throw at the ‘deplorables’ (though these are contributing factors). It is literally a contest to see who is the least popular, and to a lot of working people Trump looked like the best candidate.

Neither the Republican or Democratic party have, nor have they ever had the interests of working people at heart. Has this ever been more clear? The DNC rigged the election against Bernie Sanders and in favor of the  Hillary Clinton, the Wall Street friendly capitalist. Meanwhile the Republican party backed a billionaire. We’ve always known the country is run by the rich and powerful but now we have a billionaire (the top 1/10 of 1%) in the Whitehouse. This is precisely what a dictatorship of the rich looks like.

Lesser evilism has forced the 99% to take concessions from the ruling class to avoid one travesty over another. People weren’t insane for not voting for a war hawk. Hillary Clinton is literally the embodiment of brutal neoliberal global capitalism with a human face. I’m sure you all see Trump in a similar light, now you see how the Trump voters feel! The working people have no mainstream party which supports their interests, only the interests of the capitalist class.

As Eugene V. Debs said,

“The ignorant workingman who supports either of the two parties forges his own fetters (chains) and is the unconscious author of his own misery… Why should a workingman support the Republican (or Democratic) Party? Why should a millionaire support the Socialist Party? For precisely the same reason that all millionaires are opposed to the Socialist Party, all workers should be opposed the Republican (and Democratic) Parties.”

Do you honestly believe that most people who voted for Trump genuinely believe in him? That they genuinely want him to be POTUS above all other viable alternatives? Absolutely not. It was him (horrible) versus Hillary (terrible). I bet only 1/4 of his votes were cast by people who genuinely believe in him, and the same goes for Clinton. How many more future Trumps and future Clintons have to come around before the working people in this country, the 99%, say enough is enough? We at Socialist Alternative continually say, “We need a party of the 99%!” This is not some empty phrase. This is truly our only salvation. I call on all working people regardless of who you voted for, regardless of your, social, cultural, or religious beliefs to gather together in the name of self preservation, in the name of true and absolute democracy.

This new party we speak of is not some radical communist party. It is to be a democratic-socialist party, an american labor party, similar to the labor party in the UK. But nonetheless it will be irrevocably opposed to the reign of capital, its interests, and its cronies. It is to solely represent the proletarian class (those who sell their labor to live, the 99%). It is to be democratically run by its members from the bottom up under the principles of democratic-centralism and not some bureaucratic leviathan at the top. It is to be a force that brings the hard working men and women who toil away 50 hours a week just to secure a wretched existence into the front lines of American politics, it is to shake the very foundations of bourgeois democracy. It is to bring all who have been alienated by the two-parties of big business into the political process, to represent their and their interests alone. It is to smash the two-party system which alienates so many from the political process! It is to be a grassroots movement devoid of corporate cash or billionaire influence! It’s coming about shall be soon. Let the masters stop the wheels of history if they can! Workers of America Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

I Believe In Absolute Democracy

January 11, 2017

I believe in absolute democracy, may the 99% have 99% of the political power and the 1% have 1% alone. “Too much democracy!” means you want democracy to protect and serve the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Democracy must serve the overwhelming majority, the oppressed class of the 99%, the proletariat. In this sense the limited democracy today which only serves the 1%, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, becomes the absolute democracy of the majority, the dictatorship of the proletariat. True democracy is nothing but a dictatorship of the majority while today’s ‘democracy’ is but a dictatorship of the minority, a virtual oligarchy. This does not mean I do not support limits on state power, I most certainly do. Constitutional restrictions (among other)s, as to what can or cannot be passed are necessary. But it is absolutely necessary that the overwhelming majority of society be armed and have a direct say in how the state operates, it is necessary that the people rise up and overthrow that government if it betrays the interests of the proletariat. This includes the necessary and inevitable abolition of private (not personal) property and the whole of the capitalist system which will result from such a system.

To truly be morally pro-life you must support pro-choice legislation

January 21, 2017

Morally I understand the pro-life AND pro-choice argument. However one must step aside from these moral arguments and look at the objective facts. Women in places where abortion is completely illegal and criminalized have more abortions than in places where it is completely legal, according to The Lancet (one of the most prestigious and respected medical journals). Therefore I argue that if you are morally pro-life, you must support a pro-choice policy. A policy in which abortions are legal with the inclusion of state mandated free contraceptives and birth control to all in order to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies to begin with. It is only in this way that the real abortion rate (clinical and illegal) can go down. Abortion is a tragic necessity. We must all look at these objective facts and accept that the only way to decrease the abortion rate is to allow safe, accessible abortions and contraceptives. To be pro-life is actually to support policies such as the prohibition of abortion that actually increase the abortion rate. Morally I can say that I do not like abortion and I discourage women from getting one but ultimately it is not my right, nor the right of the state to say what she can do with her body- especially that making such an act illegal is linked to an increase chance of having an abortion. If prohibition worked (really for anything) it would be a different matter entirely. A woman dies every seven minutes from an unsafe abortion. This is a death to the mother as well, a desperate mother. It is well know that unsafe (prohibited) abortions are on the rise while safe abortions in places where abortion is legal are substantially lower and not experiencing a similar rise. To be morally pro-life you must support a pro-choice policy.

The Powell Memo and its Significance to The Left Today

January 18, 2017

What the ruling class fears is democracy, to see blatant evidence of this look no further than the so called “Powell Memo”, a memorandum by associate of the US supreme court Lewis F. Powell titled “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System”. The purpose of this memo was to act as “an anti-communist, anti-new deal blueprint for conservative business interests to retake America for the chamber.”[1]. Essentially the memo was a response in 1971 to the rising activism and democratic movements of the left during the 1960’s. Just by reading the memo it is clear that democracy was the biggest perceived threat of the ruling class at the time.

But what significance is this today? It is absolutely vital that activists in the Trump era take this warning to heart. Indeed when far-right presidents take power there is often a surge in left-wing opposition, especially among student activism. Combine this with the growing left wing in America and the loss of faith in the system brought about by the recession it is absolutely crucial that activists are prepared for a ferocious pushback from the system to suppress democratic rights and left wing activism by any means necessary. The Powell Memo is a prime example of the right-wing establishment’s response to demands for full democracy among the lower classes and any criticism of the capitalist system. It is a document of right wing reaction specifically targeting college campuses and high school education, student activism, television, advertising, government, media, press and virtually all other aspects of American information. It seeks to undermine any left opposition or criticism by injecting pro-big business propaganda and right wing reaction into all aspects of American life. It was of course leaked and not released to the US public- thanks to journalist Jack Anderson.

Here is an ordered list of significant excerpts from the Powell Memo. I apologize for its somewhat lengthy quotations but every passage selected is- what I feel to be of great significance and I hope you take the time to read it. It serves as the document outlining the overtaking of It is as significant today in the Trump era as it was back then. Take heed of this warning! From beginning to end, in order with occasional commentary:

“No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack.”

“We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts.”

“One of the bewildering paradoxes of our time is the extent to which the enterprise system tolerates, if not participates in, its own destruction. The campuses from which much of the criticism emanates are supported by (i) tax funds generated largely from American business, and (ii) contributions from capital funds controlled or generated by American business. The boards of trustees of our universities overwhelmingly are composed of men and women who are leaders in the system.”

“This setting of the ‘rich’ against the ‘poor,’ of business against the people, is the cheapest and most dangerous kind of politics. Most of the media, including the national TV systems, are owned and theoretically controlled by corporations which depend upon profits, and the enterprise system to survive” Here Powell recognizes that even though the media and universities are in the pocket of big business and the ruling class they are not in this time acting entirely on their behalf and giving the left a platform. He also recognizes the clear and concise danger class consciousness poses to the current system.

“If our system is to survive, top management must be equally concerned with protecting and preserving the system itself. This involves far more than an increased emphasis on ‘public relations’ or ‘governmental affairs’ — two areas in which corporations long have invested substantial sums.” This is a common theme of the Powell Memo. It serves as an ideological basis for big business to take over all aspects of American life, namely by exerting as much influence over public relations and governmental affairs as possible.

“Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations. Moreover, there is the quite understandable reluctance on the part of any one corporation to get too far out in front and to make itself too visible a target. The role of the National Chamber of Commerce is therefore vital. Other national organizations (especially those of various industrial and commercial groups) should join in the effort, but no other organizations appear to be as well situated as the Chamber.”

“The ultimate responsibility for intellectual integrity on the campus must remain on the administrations and faculties of our colleges and universities. But organizations such as the Chamber can assist and activate constructive change in many ways, including the following: The Chamber should consider establishing a staff of highly qualified scholars in the social sciences who do believe in the system. It should include several of national reputation whose authorship would be widely respected — even when disagreed with… In addition to full-time staff personnel, the Chamber should have a Speaker’s Bureau which should include the ablest and most effective advocates from the top echelons of American business… The staff of scholars (or preferably a panel of independent scholars) should evaluate social science textbooks, especially in economics, political science and sociology. This should be a continuing program.” This here is the very clear plan to skew the education system in favor of big business. Essentially it is inserting this specific social dogma in universities in order for students to come to a conclusion which is in support of the prevailing socioeconomic system. In fact I recently published an article of this very clear bastardization of any criticism of the economic and political system in an economics Textbook. Unfortunately it gets worse.

“The Chamber should insist upon equal time on the college speaking circuit. The FBI publishes each year a list of speeches made on college campuses by avowed Communists. The number in 1970 exceeded 100. There were, of course, many hundreds of appearances by leftists and ultra liberals who urge the types of viewpoints indicated earlier in this memorandum. There was no corresponding representation of American business, or indeed by individuals or organizations who appeared in support of the American system of government and business. Every campus has its formal and informal groups which invite speakers. Each law school does the same thing. Many universities and colleges officially sponsor lecture and speaking programs. We all know the inadequacy of the representation of business in the programs. It will be said that few invitations would be extended to Chamber speakers. This undoubtedly would be true unless the Chamber aggressively insisted upon the right to be heard — in effect, insisted upon ‘equal time.’” Do we not see this on college campuses today? Do we not see Turning Point USA and other pro-big business organizations seeking to undermine any criticism among the left?

“While the first priority should be at the college level, the trends mentioned above are increasingly evidenced in the high schools. Action programs, tailored to the high schools and similar to those mentioned, should be considered.”

“Reaching the campus and the secondary schools is vital for the long-term.”

“The national television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. This applies not merely to so-called educational programs (such as “Selling of the Pentagon”), but to the daily ‘news analysis’ which so often includes the most insidious type of criticism of the enterprise system. Whether this criticism results from hostility or economic ignorance, the result is the gradual erosion of confidence in ‘business’ and free enterprise. This monitoring, to be effective, would require constant examination of the texts of adequate samples of programs. Complaints — to the media and to the Federal Communications Commission — should be made promptly and strongly when programs are unfair or inaccurate. Equal time should be demanded when appropriate. Effort should be made to see that the forum-type programs (the Today Show, Meet the Press, etc.) afford at least as much opportunity for supporters of the American system to participate as these programs do for those who attack it. Radio and the press are also important, and every available means should be employed to challenge and refute unfair attacks, as well as to present the affirmative case through these media.” Note that it mentions that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. But it goes much further than this, it targets all sources of public knowledge.

“It is especially important for the Chamber’s “faculty of scholars” to publish. One of the keys to the success of the liberal and leftist faculty members has been their passion for “publication” and “lecturing.” A similar passion must exist among the Chamber’s scholars. Incentives might be devised to induce more “publishing” by independent scholars who do believe in the system. There should be a fairly steady flow of scholarly articles presented to a broad spectrum of magazines and periodicals — ranging from the popular magazines (Life, Look, Reader’s Digest, etc.) to the more intellectual ones (Atlantic, Harper’s, Saturday Review, New York, etc.) and to the various professional journals. The news stands — at airports, drugstores, and elsewhere — are filled with paperbacks and pamphlets advocating everything from revolution to erotic free love. One finds almost no attractive, well-written paperbacks or pamphlets on “our side.” It will be difficult to compete with an Eldridge Cleaver or even a Charles Reich for reader attention, but unless the effort is made — on a large enough scale and with appropriate imagination to assure some success — this opportunity for educating the public will be irretrievably lost.” 

“Business pays hundreds of millions of dollars to the media for advertisements. Most of this supports specific products; much of it supports institutional image making; and some fraction of it does support the system. But the latter has been more or less tangential, and rarely part of a sustained, major effort to inform and enlighten the American people. If American business devoted only 10% of its total annual advertising budget to this overall purpose, it would be a statesman-like expenditure.”

“In the final analysis, the payoff — short-of revolution — is what government does. Business has been the favorite whipping-boy of many politicians for many years. But the measure of how far this has gone is perhaps best found in the anti-business views now being expressed by several leading candidates for President of the United States. It is still Marxist doctrine that the “capitalist” countries are controlled by big business. This doctrine, consistently a part of leftist propaganda all over the world, has a wide public following among Americans. Yet, as every business executive knows, few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders. If one doubts this, let him undertake the role of “lobbyist” for the business point of view before Congressional committees. The same situation obtains in the legislative halls of most states and major cities. One does not exaggerate to say that, in terms of political influence with respect to the course of legislation and government action, the American business executive is truly the ‘forgotten man.'” Of course the state always reinforces the prevailing economic system, however it wasn’t always necessary as it is today for business to take such a decisive role in controlling all aspects of the state and public affairs. This was a turning point for US politics, big business was seeping its tentacles into the last stretches of uninfluenced American life. It will continue to erode democracy further as this threat to the system is increased.

“Current examples of the impotency of business, and of the near-contempt with which businessmen’s views are held, are the stampedes by politicians to support almost any legislation related to ‘consumerism’ or to the ‘environment.’ Politicians reflect what they believe to be majority views of their constituents. It is thus evident that most politicians are making the judgment that the public has little sympathy for the businessman or his viewpoint. The educational programs suggested above would be designed to enlighten public thinking — not so much about the businessman and his individual role as about the system which he administers, and which provides the goods, services and jobs on which our country depends. But one should not postpone more direct political action, while awaiting the gradual change in public opinion to be effected through education and information. Business must learn the lesson, long ago learned by labor and other self-interest groups. This is the lesson that political power is necessary; that such power must be assidously (sic) cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination — without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”

“American business and the enterprise system have been affected as much by the courts as by the executive and legislative branches of government. Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change. Other organizations and groups, recognizing this, have been far more astute in exploiting judicial action than American business. Perhaps the most active exploiters of the judicial system have been groups ranging in political orientation from “liberal” to the far left. The American Civil Liberties Union is one example.”

“The average member of the public thinks of “business” as an impersonal corporate entity, owned by the very rich and managed by over-paid executives…”

“Business interests — especially big business and their national trade organizations — have (hitherto- my insertion) tried to maintain low profiles, especially with respect to political action. As suggested in the Wall Street Journal article, it has been fairly characteristic of the average business executive to be tolerant — at least in public — of those who attack his corporation and the system. Very few businessmen or business organizations respond in kind. There has been a disposition to appease; to regard the opposition as willing to compromise, or as likely to fade away in due time. Business has shunted confrontation politics. Business, quite understandably, has been repelled by the multiplicity of non-negotiable “demands” made constantly by self-interest groups of all kinds. While neither responsible business interests, nor the United States Chamber of Commerce, would engage in the irresponsible tactics of some pressure groups, it is essential that spokesmen for the enterprise system — at all levels and at every opportunity — be far more aggressive than in the past. There should be no hesitation to attack the Naders, the Marcuses and others who openly seek destruction of the system. There should not be the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it. Lessons can be learned from organized labor in this respect. The head of the AFL-CIO may not appeal to businessmen as the most endearing or public-minded of citizens. Yet, over many years the heads of national labor organizations have done what they were paid to do very effectively. They may not have been beloved, but they have been respected — where it counts the most — by politicians, on the campus, and among the media. It is time for American business — which has demonstrated the greatest capacity in all history to produce and to influence consumer decisions — to apply their great talents vigorously to the preservation of the system itself.” This indicates a shift in the role of big business in government. What was said then cannot be said today. It is clear that the Powell Memo, its movement and propositions have forever and irrevocably changed US politics forever.

“The type of program described above (which includes a broadly based combination of education and political action), if undertaken long term and adequately staffed, would require far more generous financial support from American corporations than the Chamber has ever received in the past. High level management participation in Chamber affairs also would be required.”

And finally the conclusion:

“It hardly need be said that the views expressed above are tentative and suggestive. The first step should be a thorough study. But this would be an exercise in futility unless the Board of Directors of the Chamber accepts the fundamental premise of this paper, namely, that business and the enterprise system are in deep trouble, and the hour is late.”

Source for the whole Powell Memo and selected excerpts above: [2]

As a note from the source to the significance of this document:

“Patient nurturing of movement-building work remains the exception to the rule among foundations that purport to strengthen democracy and citizen engagement. The growing movement to revoke corporate personhood is supported almost entirely from contributions by individual (real) people like you. Please consider supporting the work of groups like Move to Amend, Free Speech for People and Reclaim Democracy! that devote themselves to this essential movement-building work, rather than short-term projects and results demanded by most foundations.” – Reclaim Democracy

Is it not absolutely clear that this document sought to radically shift US politics to the right when presented with a clear ideological threat from a growing left wing in the United States? The Powell document should serve as a warning to all activists. The left wing opposition will no doubt grow in the face of the new Trump establishment. But we should expect a reactionary response as, if not more ideologically potent than the Powell document in response to this. The left should focus as much on opposing Trump as it should on defending itself from growing reactionary attacks. In the struggle for political power the people have no other weapon but organization. The Powell Memo is nothing but a criticism and attack of “too much democracy” among the lower classes. This is- in many ways our strongest weapon. We want the working class to be represented in proportion to its size, which would be the overwhelming majority and thus in a truly democratic system would wield virtually all political power.

Sources:

[1] Mayer, Jane (2016-01-19). Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (Kindle Locations 1381-1382). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ 

MLK Was hated like Black Lives Matter Today, Do Not Blunt His Radical Message

January 16, 2017

I decided to write a special edition today dedicated to this great man, I spent a considerable amount of time writing this piece so I hope you enjoy reading it!

Martin Luther King has been hailed as a hero today by everyone ranging from Donald Trump to the most devout socialists. But in his time he was hated just as badly as the Black Lives Matter movement is today. This is a crucial historical parallel, these kinds of movements go against the status quo in promoting equality and social justice and as such are despised by a large number of people in their time only to be resurrected as heroes later. First we shall look at what MLK had to say about the two parties, both of which claim to ironically support his message today (ignoring it’s radical sentiment entirely),

“Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right wing northern Republicans. And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.” – Martin Luther King Jr.[1]

Martin Luther King recognized that neither party has the interests of black people in mind. While today the democratic party parades slogans of progress and tolerance it is ideologically bound by its neoliberal convictions to support an economic system which is racist to its core. Democratic leaders have led the massive gentrification of urban housing at the expense of countless poor, mostly black urban tenets- not just in one city or two but across the whole country. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of poor black people were and continue to be kicked out of their homes in these (often democrat sponsored) city development projects. Beyond this one example, the capitalist system is solely responsible for systematically creating and maintaining poverty in the world today and it does not shy away from doing this at the disproportional expense of black lives, regardless of how racially and sexually ‘balanced’ a corporate board of directors meeting is.

King was often accused of being a communist which- at the time was considered to be a grave sin in America. It was a time when the Committee of Unamerican Activities ran rampant in suppressing and arresting suspected communists, as such King repeatedly denied being a communist. However Dr. King, like Malcom X came to an unequivocal anti-capitalist conclusion later in his life saying,

“[W]e are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism…. There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” – Speech to his staff, 1966.

“Capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It takes necessities from the masses and gives luxuries to the classes” – King’s 1952 letter to Coretta Scott

Of course King repudiated communism during his life however he was a staunch advocate of democratic socialism which is by definition and contrary to the common use of the term today, a form of socialism and not the capitalist social democracy of Bernie Sanders and co. Martin Luther King was revered by few during his time, yet today he is remembered as a martyr and a hero by all. In fact every year on this day we set aside a day of respect for him as a national holiday automatically. But during his time this was not the case. In fact the Southern Poverty Law Center released today a set of images (sources contained) which show that not only was King not revered in his time but adamantly despised by the majority. I have taken the liberty to upload these images below.

Naturally one can come to the conclusion that often these heroic leaders and the movements they started were in most regards despised by the majority of people in their time and then canonized later by those same people as ‘great men’ and ‘friends of freedom’ as a means of consolidating their supporters and deradicalizing their message entirely. But I point this out solely because there is a historical parallel today, and that is the Black Lives Matter movement today. Black Lives Matter, as most of you know, is a movement for the rights of African Americans in America today which contrary to popular belief are still a monumental problem, but I will return to this shortly.

MLK was seen not only negatively by the majority of people in his time but he was repeatedly targeted by the FBI and other agents of the US government. They even went so far as to threaten to blackmail him by releasing incriminating information on him to the public if he did not commit suicide. The full letter can be found below and additional information on the FBI’s ‘suicide letter’ here.

The letter:

“KING,

In view of your low grade... I will not dignify your name with either a Mr. or a Reverend or a Dr. And, your last name calls to mind only the type of King such as King Henry the VIII...

King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own but I am sure they don't have one at this time anywhere near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. You could not believe in God... Clearly you don't believe in any personal moral principles.

King, like all frauds your end is approaching. You could have been our greatest leader. You, even at an early age have turned out to be not a leader but a dissolute, abnormal moral imbecile. We will now have to depend on our older leaders like Wilkins, a man of character and thank God we have others like him. But you are done. Your "honorary" degrees, your Nobel Prize (what a grim farce) and other awards will not save you. King, I repeat you are done.

No person can overcome facts, not even a fraud like yourself. Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure. You will find yourself and all your dirt, filth, evil, and moronic talk exposed on the record for all time. I repeat — no person can argue successfully against facts. You are finished. You will on the record for all time your filthy, dirty, evil companions, male and females giving expression to you with your Gospel hideous abnormalities. And some of them to pretend to be ministers of the Gospel. Satan could not do more. What incredible evilness. It is all there on the record, your sexual orgies. Listen to yourself you filthy, abnormal animal. You are on the record. You have been on the record - all your adulterous acts, your sexual orgies extending far into the past. This one is but a tiny sample. You will understand this. Yes, from your various evil playmates on the east coast to [sic] and others on the west coast and outside the country you are on the record. King you are done.

The American public, the church organizations that have been helping — Protestant, Catholic and Jews will know you for what you are — an evil, abnormal beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done.

King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do it (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significance). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”

The historical parallel to the Black Lives Matter movement today is uncanny. There are many today who think that, just like in 1964, the BLM movement is violent and hurts its own cause. We’ve all heard this on the news. There is a reason that just 19% of black voters think that the justice system is fair to blacks and hispanics. In fact one only has to make a comparison to a crime which black and white populations commit equally and then compare incarceration rates. Marijuana use rates among white and black populations are roughly equal, however in being black you are 4 times as likely to be arrested and incarcerated for the same crime as your white counterparts.[2] Naturally I am keen on providing even more infuriating charts below, as always sources contained within the image:

If this is not a clear example of how African Americans are still being systematically oppressed simply because of their race I do not know what is. This fact alone should cause even the most devout conservative to turn his head. Indeed we do not deny that black people are disproportionately affected by poverty, and that poverty breeds anti-social behavior. But this alone is not a sufficient excuse for the above chart, for when particular ‘crime’ rates are the same for black and white populations there can be no morally acceptable excuse. This isn’t because black people are ‘doing it more’, this is solely the use of systematic racism- regardless of its intentions.

The Black Lives Matter movement is a movement of racial equality and not racial supremacy, contrary to what Fox news would have you believe. This is a fundamental principle of the organization that cannot be ignored. But when people are so convinced that black people do not systematically suffer more hardships then their white counterparts the message is lost in its entirety. Black Lives Matter is not saying that All Lives don’t matter or that Black Lives Matter more than other lives, they are saying that black lives are still facing systematic oppression and disenfranchisement that cannot be ignored, and because of this fact it becomes necessary to focus on this one group of minorities.

It is also often for (usually white) people today to say that protestors today should “be more like Martin Luther King” by not blocking roads or being violent. Only this is a vast misinterpretation of what King was doing. For he was blocking roads for his marches, he was trespassing, he was breaking the law. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. Often their requests to protesters mirror something like, “you should go protest in the corner where no one can see or hear you”.

It is also often said that MLK would condemn riots as being too violent. While MLK was opposed to violent protest, he did not speak out against this in this way. MLK understood the nature of the riot, unlike the conservative commentators who saw them as rowdy, poor, uneducated black people taking to the streets to loot he said,

“…I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”[3]

Martin Luther King today would have said that Black Lives Matter, he would have continued to condemn the capitalist system down to its racist core. He would have openly shown that riots are the voice of the unheard and his radical message would not be blunted by a neoliberal democratic or republican party which uses his name only to further its own reactionary message while continuing to blindly support the system responsible for systematic racism today.

Thank you for reading, for more you can follow my blog and like my page on Facebook.

Dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr.

[1] King Jr., Martin Luther (2000). Carson, Clayborne; Holloran, Peter; Luker, Ralph; Russell, Penny A., eds. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957 – December 1958. University of California Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-520-22231-1.

[2]”Report: The War on Marijuana in Black and White.” American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., June 2013. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.

[3] Rothman, Lily. “What Martin Luther King Jr Really Thought About Riots.” Time. Time, 28 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.

Germany remembers, America forgets

January 15, 2017

95,000,000 to 114,000,000 Native Americans murdered by various means on this land and we celebrate the bastard who personally killed half a million of them? No talk of the Great American Genocide, not talk of Slavery. No signs, no posts, no museums dedicated to making people remember that this land was stolen, the ancestors of your black friends and family were stolen from their homelands and made to be slaves by the barrel of a gun. Not a shred of remembrance or sorrow for all those who were raped, murdered and enslaved. Let’s put up some damn signs to tell people, “You see this? Our ancestors killed people here and thought God told them it was okay”. “You see this? A whole tribe, families and all were murdered here so you could build your house here”. Germany remembers, America forgets.

Rant on poverty in America, Obamacare

January 15, 2017

I don’t care how ‘rich’ and ‘prosperous’ America claims to be. I don’t care how luxurious the cars and mansions of the rich are, how many boats and vacation homes they have. I don’t care how many skyscrapers they exploit labor to build. When 1 in 5 children in this ‘prosperous’ country go hungry it makes no difference. History will not remember our country kindly. Earlier this week I heard about poor, african american children going to school and crying in class because they are so hungry in my hometown in North Carolina. What the hell is wrong with our country? What kind of country does this?

What is happening in this country is a joke. The mainstream media is not addressing the problems of the poor, the problems of the vast majority of Americans. One only has to turn on Fox news to see how blatantly obvious this manipulation is. All the bourgeois media is simply a bunch of rich people telling middle class people to blame poor people for problems caused by rich people. Look at Obamacare, they are clearly telling the poor majority of Fox’s audience to be enthusiastic about losing Obamacare.

Let’s be clear, I do not like Obamacare. It does not go nearly far enough, that being said it is the only thing they have and it should be at the very least reformed. Never should it be done away with, the people cannot afford to go back to fully privatized healthcare. The cost of Obamacare was paid by increasing taxes ONLY on people making 250K+ / year (top 1/10th of 1%). This is payback by the rich who put Obama into office, as much as I can’t stand the guy. They will save $195,000/ year by cutting Obamacare. 30 million people lose health care coverage. Guess they can die then? You can learn more about Obamacare and the lies spread about this program below.

https://youtu.be/G4gPXvW3DG4 

Stand up not only for human rights but for the rights of humanity

January 10, 2017

My problem with ‘human rights’ is that they go nearly far enough. Look at what rights we have now, freedom of speech, press, religion, protest, etc. There’s nothing radical about them. What of the rights of humanity? The right to housing, medical care, employment? The right to have an equal chance to succeed in life regardless of what family you are born into? These are not recognized as rights in our society but as privileges and it’s disgusting. Fidel Castro may seem an ironic person to quote on this issue but alas I am bound to my convictions, after the Bay of Pigs invasion Cuba took an unfortunate authoritarian turn for the worse. But Fidel has always been a proponent for the rights of humanity, for the liberation of all oppressed peoples and victims of imperialism. He in part- inspired me to speak on this saying, “There’s often talk of human rights, but it’s also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who don’t have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick that have no medicine, of those denied their rights to life and human dignity.” Everyone stands for human rights, but who is there willing to stand up for the rights of humanity?

A Philosophical understanding of the Christian God

January 8, 2017

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” — 1 John 4:8

Thus to say that God does everything with a magic wand as was the belief in the middle ages cannot be correct. For this would imply that God is the active and driving force for sin, corruption, impurity and all suffering (which biblically cannot be in the direct presence of, or directly caused by God). God to my understanding is the force which first set all matter into motion, its motion or rather the virtue of the substance itself being somehow corrupted (symbolized in the fall of Adam). Thus we put God not in some material form but in the immaterial or spiritual, separate yet irrevocably linked to the material. God being wholly personal and wholly impersonal. Such a view is similar to yet fundamentally different from the philosophical view of Spinoza, a view which I am formulating more and more day by day. God does not wave a magic wand. We could easily reason that this means that we are on our own but the bible doesn’t put off such an attitude. It is the belief that man can know God personally- namely through love, acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ, and devotion. There is also the more literal aspect of prayer which serves the belief that God can have some power to alter the material world to a certain extent. Not to say he has no power to alter it entirely but that he choses to allow matter to move about its course largely undisturbed for whatever reason. But therein lies the fatal flaw for atheists. But this is not some divine wrath or evil, it is the freewill of man, the chosen path of mankind. If the nature of God truly is that of love then the biblical narrative of a ‘fallen’ or ‘corrupted’ world is irrevocable to the Christian world view, as embodied (what I believe to be symbolically) through the book of Genesis. But in my feeble reasoning of such grand notions it is important to note as I often say, bacteria are to man as man is to God. Yet even this grand symbolism doesn’t do justice to an ‘infinite’ God.

Capitalism has caused more deaths in India alone than in the entire ‘Black Book of Communism’

January 8, 2017

Someone quoted the ‘black book of communism’ recently to me. Indeed, 20th century communism taking the form of Marxism-Leninism was an enormous tragedy, one which I do not ever wish to happen again. I do not side with these Marxist-Leninist (stalinists) who idealize Stalin and Mao looking only at their accomplishments and never their mistakes. Such historical revisionism is- to me disgusting and a hypocritical thing for a ‘materialist’ to do. The construction of a massive, bureaucratic, one-party state embodies everything Marx and socialism is against- namely the ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy. Having a socialist revolution in the 20th century before capitalism had begun to die would be like having the French revolution in the 16th century, it was destined to fail- many of the early Bolsheviks thought Lenin was mad for thinking it could succeed. It’s truly amazing that it managed to last until 1991, a testament to the genius of Lenin. For the book in particular, I think Noam Chomsky set the record straight. Chomsky is in most every regard a devout anarchist utterly and completely opposed to Leninism and state socialism, his criticisms of Stalinism are among the best I have seen. His political ideology is that of anarchism, the same as George Orwell. “Noam Chomsky has criticized the book and its reception as one-sided by outlining economist Amartya Sen’s research on hunger: while India’s democratic institutions prevented famines, its excess of mortality over the (Great Chinese Famine)—attributable to the latter’s more equal distribution of medical and other resources—was nonetheless close to 4 million per year, for non-famine years. Chomsky argued that, ‘supposing we now apply the methodology of the Black Book and its reviewers’ to India, ‘the democratic capitalist ‘experiment’ has caused more deaths than in the entire history of […] Communism everywhere since 1917: over 100 million deaths by 1979, and tens of millions more since, in India alone.'” Indeed using the same methods the black book of communism implores, capitalism has caused more deaths in India alone than in the entire history of Marxism-Leninist states (from 1917-1991).

Sources and actual sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism#Criticism 

Noam, Chomsky. “Counting the Bodies”. Spectrezine. Retrieved 2016-09-18.

Karl Marx Voted Greatest Thinker of the Millennium

January 7, 2017

I second the motion:

http://theredphoenixapl.org/2011/09/16/karl-marx-voted-greatest-thinker-of-the-millennium 

On “Security” and “Safety” in the Modern State and the use of Mass Surveillance

January 7, 2017

It is at this point well known that our rights are being stripped away from us in the name of security and counter-terrorism. However I argue that the solution posed by the modern states to this perceived threat is actually the only real threat to human liberty and thereby safety. Indeed the world does not feel as safe as it once did, but I assure you this is merely a feeling. In 2013, “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey informed the Senate Armed Service Committee (SASC), ‘I will personally attest to the fact that [the world is] more dangerous than it has ever been.'[1]  In fact most statistics suggest the very opposite, that we are living in the safest time in all of human history (and prehistory).[2] These government policies I am attacking utilize the use of fear, or terror if you will for the express purpose of creating an illusion of security which is in fact the hallmark of totalitarianism. These policies do the exact opposite of making us safer. They provide the illusion of safety when in reality they make us susceptible to totalitarianism.

In order to actually argue  this it is imperative that I cite empirical data towards this. The data which supports the claim that we are living in the safest time in human history is enormous and irrefutable (see second source). In fact most people do not realize the scope of violence which plagued human history and prehistory. In the time before state society violence was the norm. Allow me to show you several graphs which prove my point further.

You can see my point, the emergence of government society (or state society, in the non-marxian term) has caused humankind to fall into an era of untold peace. We are truly living in the safest times in all of human history. We are also, however, living in the most interconnected society in all of human history. If something significant happens in China (literally the other side of the earth) I hear about it instantly. Consequently I also hear about a terrorist attack somewhere in America or Europe instantly. It fills the news for weeks on end, it is only natural to see how this breeds fear and causes people like Martin Dempsey to claim that we have never been more unsafe. This is of course, a grotesque lie which serves no other purpose than to allow the government to strip away our rights in the name of counter-terrorism.

What ‘government programs’ am I referring to particularly? There are many. But for this we will emphasize on the most infamous programs of all, as revealed by Edward Snowden, programs which came about mostly in secrecy thanks to the Patriot Act [5]. Snowden revealed (illegally, of course) that the NSA had been illegally spying on hundreds of millions of innocent US citizens using massive data harvesting techniques. Let’s take a look at one of these NSA spying programs, PRISM (which the NSA is still using). PRISM is a NSA spying program which collects internet communications and data from at least nine major internet companies [4]. Snowden leaked this program because the government was”Without asking for public permission, the NSA is running network operations that affect millions of innocent people.” I’ve taken the liberty to show a few of the screenshots leaked by Snowden below.

Of course the companies listed (in 2013) had and continue to have a practical monopoly over internet communications. Noting that this is just one of the NSA mass spying programs revealed by Snowden it must be said that there is no practical use for these mass spying programs. Why? Because they haven’t stopped a single terrorist attack since their creation! [6] These programs solely exist because popular opinion is that we are living in the ‘most dangerous times in human history’ and that they are actually stopping the (actually rare) terrorist attack, both of which are false.

So what danger is posed by these programs? By this attitude which favors security over privacy? The danger of the total erosion of all civil liberty. Am I being dramatic? Not in the least, we often say that “oh our government would never do that” when confronted with the horrific atrocities committed by the many 20th century states without realizing that people in Nazi Germany said the exact same thing. It is absolutely imperative to enforce the view that the freedom to privacy has infinitely more value than the illusion of security and safety (something we already have more of now than in all human history). As Edward Snowden said, “Saying you don’t care about the freedom of privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say”. The mere fact that states today have this kind of information on their people is more than cause for alarm. What happens tomorrow when the state becomes tyrannical or is overthrown? What could the US do if it was a stalinist or fascist state (which is entirely possible) in 20 years time? The information the state has on everyone, and I mean everyone is more than enough to go after an entire group people solely based on their religious, political, or societal beliefs. What our government has now is the tool for the engineering of the perfect totalitarian state. It is the tyrants dream to have this much information on their people. What would Hitler do if he had this kind of access to information about his people? The German government before the Nazi’s took power easily could have had such a database if the technology allowed for it. If this was the case the whole world would likely to this day salute the third reich, think about that for a minute. So you tell me, which is more dangerous? The near impossible death from a terrorist attack or a government which illegally spies and knows everything about each one of its people?

Privacy > “Security”

Sources:

[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/02/26/most-dangerous-world-ever/ 

[2] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html 

[3] Gellman, Barton; Poitras, Laura (June 6, 2013). “US Intelligence Mining Data from Nine U.S. Internet Companies in Broad Secret Program”. The Washington Post. Retrieved June 15, 2013. 

[4]  http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-479709

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/06/how-congress-unknowingly-legalized-prism-in-2007/?utm_term=.b30c298c4fcf 

[6] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/nsa-program-stopped-no-terror-attacks-says-white-house-panel-f2D11783588 

“We Only Want The Earth”

January 6, 2017

We Only Want The Earth (1907), a poem by James Connolly 

Some men, faint-hearted, ever seek Our programme to retouch, And will insist, whene’er they speak That we demand too much. ’Tis passing strange, yet I declare Such statements give me mirth, For our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth. “Be moderate,” the trimmers cry, Who dread the tyrants’ thunder. “You ask too much and people By From you aghast in wonder.” ’Tis passing strange, for I declare Such statements give me mirth, For our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth. Our masters all a godly crew, Whose hearts throb for the poor, Their sympathies assure us, too, If our demands were fewer. Most generous souls! But please observe, What they enjoy from birth Is all we ever had the nerve To ask, that is, the earth. The “labour fakir” full of guile, Base doctrine ever preaches, And whilst he bleeds the rank and file Tame moderation teaches. Yet, in despite, we’ll see the day When, with sword in its girth, Labour shall march in war array To realize its own, the earth. For labour long, with sighs and tears, To its oppressors knelt. But never yet, to aught save fears, Did the heart of tyrant melt. We need not kneel, our cause no dearth Of loyal soldiers’ needs And our victorious rallying cry Shall be we want the earth!

Gross misrepresentation of Marxian economics in College textbook

January 4, 2017

When I say bourgeois economists misrepresent Marx it is not an exaggeration. I read a bit of economics. I am pretty well versed in Keynes, Smith AND Marx. Whoever wrote this textbook however clearly is not. It starts in the bold, Marx NEVER argued that the government should own the means of production. Marx didn’t care about the government. He argued SOLELY that the workers should own and democratically manage the means of production. And that’s out of the incredibly small amount of writing Marx devoted to this subject. Marx wrote about capitalism. If you could condense everything Marx ever wrote into some 50 volumes, his writing on future communist and socialist society and socialist government would amount to no more than 6 pages. Secondly Das Capital is ONLY about how capitalism works, it’s extremely lengthy and detailed about the functions of the capitalist system. No where in it does he formulate the foundations for a “socialist government”. The same is true for the Communist Manifesto. It’s solely about the history of class struggle, human history, and communism as an economic solution to the contradictions of class society. NO WHERE does he “lay the foundations for a communist state” (which is itself an oxymoron). And absolutely nowhere does he EVER argue that the government would be the “master of economic outcomes”. Socialism has absolutely nothing to do with government, it is an economic system. I cannot emphasize this enough, socialism is when the workers collectively own the enterprises they work for and democratically elect representatives and democratically control industry. The system this book describes is STILL private ownership of the means of production (capitalism), it is simply run more efficiently by the state. We call this state-capitalism. The USSR utilized this system as a PREREQUISITE to socialism until Stalin “declared” the Soviet Union to have achieved socialism despite ample evidence that it didn’t. This is a gross and intentional misrepresentation of Marxian economics to sway curious students away from a Marxist conclusion. This is educational and literary heresy!
I intend on further elaborating later on this issue and updating this article.

On Islam and Christianity: Then and Now

January 1, 2017

When I look at the world back in the old days, and then again now I have to say it’s funny how times have changed. Christians don’t hold your head so high, lest we forget that it was in the name of our faith that the church burned those who were different and suppressed the furthering of scientific knowledge. It was our church that set mankind back a thousand years. It was our church that raped and plundered, that enforced theocratic totalitarianism for centuries. Muslims do not hold your head so low. When Christianity sent Europe into madness it was the people of your religion which held high the torch of reason to further the pursuit of human knowledge. Without your religion we would likely still be in the dark ages! What is happening now in the Muslim theocracies, the middle east and central Africa is a perversion of your faith (as you well know) just as the early church’s theocracy was of ours.

You will find most extremists and terrorists do not follow the words of The Quran, many do not read it for themselves and know only what verses are cherry picked to support their perverted cause. Most people do not know that the early Christian and Catholic church forcibly suppressed the expansion of the early printing press. They knew that their social system could not be justified by the bible (as they claimed) and if the people could read it for themselves they would risk losing power- likely by force. For ISIS and the other radical groups it is no different. They would see what a perversion of Islam they are committing! A lot of your religion had descended into a dark age of its own. But do not lose hope, our “Christian” nations (though I firmly believe in state secularism) will hold high the torch of reason to further the pursuit of human knowledge for you as you did for us all those centuries ago. I can only hope for a great awakening of members of all faiths, away from religious fundamentalism and the dogmatic denial of science. An awakening against intolerance and bigotry of all kinds. An awakening towards a bright future where we can stand hand in hand and declare that this whole world is ours.

The Complete Anti-Fascist Reading List

December 29, 2016

http://antifascistnews.net/2016/12/27/the-complete-anti-fascist-reading-list 

On the cold war- both sides recognized 1 of the 2 evils of society

December 19, 2016

What a strange time to live in the world during the cold war. You see there are two great evils in the world today. They are the evils of both economic and state oppression and exploitation. On one hand you have the west which blatantly ignores the economic oppression but wholeheartedly supports the struggle against government exploitation- at least in theory. Then you have the east which recognized and acted on combatting economic exploitation, even recognizing more firmly the inherently negative nature of the state yet did not act on it. This is absolutely absurd. The best system is one which is founded on enlightenment ideals of a democratic republic with limited government and full political democracy along WITH socialist democracy and the abolition of capitalist exploitation. Only then can the prerequisite of true liberation be set.

How can you stand to watch the homeless suffer in the cold?

December 16, 2016

Was shocked to see the homeless sitting out in the cold at downtown Cincinnati, trying to cover themselves from the terrible wind. History will forgive neither you nor your cities if you do nothing about this madness! Donate or volunteer at the Cincinnati homeless coalition, I plan to volunteer soon. Cincinnati will be remembered as one of the countless cities that callously looked away from the poor in suffering.

Cursed city of desolation,

The bourgeoisie shall soon be overthrown,

They must pay their reparations,

Lest their hearts forever be made of stone

Accursed wealth of Cincinnati

Those who turned their eyes from those in need

Those who hoard vast wealth to become happy

Those who only greed not love or kindness feed

History will not remember you well

For your pockets full of unpaid labor swell

https://cincihomeless.org/ 

What is the most totalitarian regime in the world?

December 12, 2016

If I were to do a poll on people on the street asking “What country is the worst for human rights violations, for totalitarianism?” 99 out of 100 would say North Korea. But the fact of the matter is that it isn’t North Korea, that would be #2 on the list. The worst country in the world is widely known among experts on the matter to be Eritrea. It is a country far worse than North Korea yet most haven’t even heard of it. Why you ask? Because it is in Africa. You know, that continent most people casually make a sympathetic comment towards but otherwise ignore. That continent that is plagued by war, poverty and hunger. That continent which is widely exploited for its resources by western corporations. Yes, that one. We should certainly condemn North Korea for its human rights violations, but we should also condemn Eritrea- even more. African lives matter just as much as European or American lives. It’s a damn shame Eritrea isn’t even a country most people have heard of, a damn shame.

Anti-Muslim hate propaganda at Walmart checkout

December 11, 2016

I was absolutely disgusted to see a little girl at Walmart pick up this magazine at the checkout line. It was right there so everyone could see it. Imagine for a moment how you would feel if it said ‘Christian spies’ instead of Muslim. You’d be raving on about the corrupt world and the end times! To make matters worse I had a feeling the girl might have been muslim herself! Shame! I ended up putting them behind the other magazines so no one could see this hate speech. Absolutely appalling. What has the world come to? Children are reading this garbage! What are they to think? That muslims are the enemy? What are muslims supposed to think? That western civilization is their enemy like it was for the German Jew? Shame!

A worthy fight, a poem

December 10, 2016

Under the protection of the divineOr simply fooled by the power of my mind

The feeling is one of tradition

To save the soul from perdition
Belief is one followed by faith

But faith alone is not its base

For I had an experience science could not easily explain

And I knew myself certainly not insane
They say it is the opium of the people

But I’d love to use another prescription refill

Addicted to the power of God

A lovely concoction of mind, spirit, bod

Belief based on love alone

For of all things empathy is what I have known
From intellectual pursuit of truth

To find myself feeling aged but still in youth

To help mankind my sole delight

To theist or atheist a worthy fight
To sit and read with an open mind

But above all else to always be kind

Climate Change: Follow The MONEY

December 8, 2016

If 97% of scientists are in agreement on analysis of a certain issue we can take that as fact for the time being and act accordingly. If 97% of astronomers said that a meteor was going to hit earth would you listen to them? Even if there was a 3% chance they were wrong? Of course you would. But if that 3% was somehow PROFITING off of suppressing that information and promoted the idea that a meteor was not going to hit Earth a lot of people who didn’t know a lot about the issue would probably believe it. Think about it, who is profiting off of denying climate change? The MASSIVE fossil fuel industry. The LAST thing you want is renewable energy- even if it could save humanity. Just follow the money.

If you see a ghost confront it and demand proof of its existence

December 7, 2016

When people claim to see ghosts they always say they ran, but if you see a ghost do not run. Confront the ghost, demand evidence of its existence through the attainment of divine or religious knowledge which you can later confirm (assuming you do not already know it) and thus prove the existence of the supernatural beyond a reasonable doubt. Such an experience I believe to be necessary to quell the healthy intellectual skepticism of such phenomena and religious ideology at large. Though I will admit I am not sure of the possibility of the attainment of such experiences without powerful psychedelic drugs. 

I say I am a Christian and I certainly am- though a rather unorthodox one I will admit for my political views and largely materialist conception of the universe. But also in the regard that I do not believe on faith alone. I believe because I had such an experience. The burden of proof was unbearable and I was compelled to abandon atheism. The nature of this expeirence involved a significant amount of what may or may not have been a powerful psychedelic drug. During said experience I encountered beings in what can best be described as another dimension. These beings revealed themselves to me, told be their names and functions, gave me visions of strange, firey dimensions, etc. It was only after the experience upon googling the name of one of the beings I encountered that I found out it actually existed in a rare midaeval occult text. In this book is listed the names of many spirits, their appearences and functions. Upon reading the book I recognized several beings I encountered in name, appearance and function. Given my practically nonexistent knowlege of such things at the time I knew that such knowledge was not already found within my own mind and thus I had to accept my experience as more than likely supernatural in origin.

So if you are like me and you demand proof of existence before belief, I suggest not to run from the ghost if you ever see one. But rather confront it and demand proof of its existence for it may be the chance you get!

The right to bear arms

December 3, 2016

If there’s one thing liberals hate it’s guns, however this fear is misplaced. It is quite true that America has a gun problem in comparison with other countries. Common sense gun laws seem logical to reducing this problem, and they most certainly would. But at what cost?

The danger imposed by an increasingly authoritarive govermnet is much more a threat to personal liberty than having an armed population. Now chances are that the govermeny isn’t going to become tyrannical and such actions will not be necessary. However it remains entirely within the realm of possibility- and the first step towards totalitarianism is to disarm and ban firearms. 

“All political power grows out the barrel of a gun. You register and ban the firearms before the slaughter” -Mao Tse Tung. I of course remain highly critical of Mao, however in this regard he is right. Ultimately political power comes down to your capability to protect yourself and your liberty. When a goverment takes away your right to own a firearm it takes away your right to defend yourself against a government which turns totalitarian- a right guarenteed by the constitution no less. 

Some would argue that it is ‘barbaric’ or ‘outdated’ that common people should have access to military grade weapons. Indeed these weapons have killed a lot of innocent people, but the right to bear arms is not based in the right of mere self defense or to hunt but to overthrow a tryannical government. It is the right for the common people to take power into their own hands as a democratic decision among themselves if and when the government no longer follows it’s own laws and turns into a tyranny. For such a right the people cannot fight against a fascist military or fascist police state with pistols and pepper spray.

This is of course only the case if the government becomes tyrannical. Some liberals say that ‘it’s the 21st century’ and that this would never happen. Such was the saying in Nazi Germany. Now we live in the age of mass surveillance, in the age of risig right-wing nationalism and authroitarianism which eerily mirrors the fascist uprising of the 20th century. Now is the time of monsters, not of peace. The common people must be armed and willing to protect themselves if history demands it. Not just in the United States but all over the world.

It is the working class which makes up the oppressed class in our society, and it is the workers who will be most oppressed if such terrible events ever do take place. “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” -Karl Marx. Marx understood this more than most. Indeed if the state ever violated the constitution and tried to disarm the population by raiding homes for guns and ammunition the people must take up arms and all vow to use force if necessary. Such an action would threaten revolution, and the state would be forced to listen to the will of te people.

Decreasing gun violence is important, but it would be insane to say it is more important than preserving personal liberty from an unknown future. We don’t know what the future holds, and it only makes sense for the people to be prepared for anything. 

Housing the homeless

December 3, 2016

I never understood why we can’t take in those in need. It’s ‘dangerous’ to house a stranger they say. But I’d rather die trying to help someone in need than drive by seeing a homeless person outside in the cold. What is human life worth if we don’t treat it with dignity? The “greatest country in the world” is too greedy to feed its poor, heal the sick, and house the homeless. “It can’t be done” they say, but Cuba, a poor country that’s been hammered with an economic embargo which has caused the economy to completely stagnate since the 1960’s has managed to eradicate homelessness and maintain one of the best universal healthcare systems in the world. Shame!

A just response to making flag burning illegal is to burn the flag

November 29, 2016

I never considered burning a flag in protest. But if this does become a law I will do it, but please let me explain. It is not out of disrespect for anyone who has served or disrespect for her people. Ironically making flag burning illegal betrays everything America is supposed to represent and thus making flag burning illegal symbolically burns the flag. It would simply be transferring such a gesture into material reality for the whole world to see. You can hate it, but you cross a line you can’t come back from when you make it illegal. It is a line crossed by every totalitarian or authoritarian regime in the past which doesn’t allow political dissent. I’m going to hate myself for doing it but it must be done. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so”. Thus it becomes an obligation, a moral obligation and a patriotic duty to burn the flag if burning the flag becomes illegal. 

But it is said, “If you show resent for the symbol that gives you those freedoms, then why should you keep the freedom?” The answer to this is simple. By making flag burning illegal political dissent can thereby be framed as hatred of freedom even though it the concise expression of freedom, and thus freedom of the individual in this regard is abolished. It masquerades as something which protects freedom but in actuality only protecting what is supposed to be a symbol of freedom. The American flag is not a symbol of freedom but of America- which embodies the good and the bad of Americanism. When tyranny becomes law the bad outweighs the good and it’s representation of freedom becomes false and thus irrelevant. The US flag may represent freedom in the hearts and minds of Americans. But for people in Latin America, Asia, the middle east, and other poor parts of the world the US flag represents imperialism and exploitation, the very opposite of freedom. If the US flag was a flag which solely embodied the virtue of liberty and had no correlation with and country or government it would be a different matter. Freedom is always the freedom of dissent. The minute you make dissent illegal you make freedom illegal. The only response to such an unjust law is to violate it openly and without hesitation.

JAMES CONNOLLY

November 29, 2016

https://robertlynd.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/james-connolly 

Never assume others will do what needs to be done

November 27, 2016

Do not ever assume that others will be what needs to be done, no matter how desperately it is needed. It is only natural for man as a social being to assume that other members of society will do what is necessary, to solve a desperate problem. But do not ever fall for this folly. It is only by becoming conscious of this social dilemma that man can overcome it. Thus it is necessary for each and every person to become familiar with the bystander effect. Because of the above mentioned moral flaw (the bystander effect) hundreds of men and women in busy streets have simply walked past innocent people bleeding out on the street. Why? Because they all assumed someone else was going to do something about it. This is folly, to overcome this as a society everyone must be taught of this phenomenon from birth and instructed to militantly fight against it. Only then will a glaringly obvious problem come about in which man as a social being wastes no time to fix, and does not rely on the conscience of others to do so. The problem however will continue to persist regardless of what little impact my words will have on the world. I can however have an impact on you, the reader. Therefore I say to you, the reader that you take heed of my words and not hesitate to help those in need. Never assume someone else will do what needs to be done.

Doubt yourself in every step

November 27, 2016

I see others whose view of the world couldn’t be more wrong yet they are even more confident than I. So how could I not tread carefully and doubt every step? It is the fools who are so arrogant as to assure themselves that they have all the answers, that they must be right. To constantly doubt oneself is a sign of sanity, while to not should be a sign of much greater worry than all else.

A Tribute to Fidel Castro

November 26, 2016

To understand Fidel one must look at the living conditions before and after he came to power in Cuba. In pre-revolutionary Cuba poverty, hunger, and illiteracy were the norm. The island was under control of the brutal, U.S. backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. There were as many as 11,500 women resorting to sex work in Havana just to survive. The entire island was essentially run by various mafia families who often bribed government officials to turn the other cheek at rampant crime and illegal activity- even worse still there were strong links between organized crime families and Batista’s regime. Gambling and Sex Work were the major tourist industries in pre-industrial Cuba. It was widely considered the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. On top of all this was crippling poverty that was systematically maintained by U.S. imperialist policies.

John F. Kennedy even admitted this saying,

“At the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba’s imports.” 

Earlier he is even quoted condemning US support of the Batista regime saying,

“Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years … and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state—destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista—hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend—at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.” 

Once the revolution took over he cautiously praised it saying,

“I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.” 

Before the revolution Fidel looked to his countries people in despair, their suffering systematically created and maintained by US imperialistic policies which were brutally enforced by their puppet dictator. Fidel’s response to this was just. After a failed coup Fidel was arrested and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment where he and his comrades founded the “26th of July” revolutionary movement. He was let out of prison by Batista due to public outcry and in order to maintain a good image among the people. After several violent protests Batista ordered a crackdown on dissent. Because of this Fidel and Raul left for Mexico to evade arrest. This is where he met Ernesto Che Guevara.

Little over a year later Fidel, Raul, Che, and a total of 81 armed revolutionaries set sail from Mexico to Cuba aboard the infamous Granma vessel. The small group of revolutionaries would later grow to the thousands. Over the next three years the revolutionaries waged relentless guerrilla warfare against the Batista regime. Fidel was widely seen by the people as both a liberator and a hero. The government responded in this time to the revolutionaries with mass arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings. Thousands of innocent people were killed by the Batista regime in this time. When Fidel initially took to power those who killed and tortured innocents in that time were killed. As Fidel himself said, “We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it.” Of course there are those who condemn Che and Fidel for killing people, but tell me, in what revolution has there not been killings? If we held George Washington to the same standard we could say that he too was a murderer. By the time Fidel took power, Batista had already fled with a whopping $300,000,000 US dollars.

After establishing a provisional government Fidel worked tirelessly to begin construction of a new socialist state. He first passed the “First agrarian reform law” which limited the amount of land one could own, forbade foreigners from owning land and entitled 200,000 peasants for the first time to the land they worked. Fidel’s focus was on social programs- even at the temporary expense of the economy. In the first 30 months of his coming to power more classrooms opened than in the previous 30 years. Health care was nationalized and expanded, this included Universal vaccination of all children which led to a massive decline in infant mortality. In his first 6 months over 600 miles of road were constructed while another 300 million was spent on water and sanitation projects to provide the people with clean running water and sewage systems. In an effort to abolish homelessness over 800 houses per month were built for the first few years of his rule, along with the construction of day-care and elderly centers.

The workers, peasants and students which made up the majority of the population were almost unanimously in support of Castro while the upper classes and capitalists were typically very cautious of his reign, causing many to flee to America once they realized that he was a socialist. Castro was not popular among the capitalist class, they felt that Castro had stolen from them in giving the peasants the land they tilled day and night. As a result many Cuban-Americans and their descendants, particularly in Florida but also all over America are bitter towards Castro and towards Socialist Cuba. The CIA in particular had already begun recruiting exiles and mafia members to overthrow Castro’s regime at this time. President Eisenhower agreed to overthrow the government and an economic blockade was issued which still exists to cripple Cuba’s economy to this day. In retaliation all privately run US businesses were seized by the state and nationalized.Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60% and 76%. Fidel issued a massive year long literacy campaign which was considered to be a massive success, by 1986 literacy was at around 100%, actually higher then that of the US. Infant mortality is still even lower than it is the US today.

There was of course the failed bay of pigs invasion, among others in which the CIA attempted to overthrow and kill Castro. In total Castro survived 638 CIA assassination attempts, breaking a world record. The CIA was so desperate as to create the infamous CIA ‘Operation Northwoods’ in which the US planned a series of homeland terrorist attacks in order to blame Cuba and provoke war, but luckily never enacted by President Kennedy. The US was desperate to destroy Cuba by any means necessary. As a result the political climate inside Cuba is tense. While a majority no doubt supported and continue to support Castro, the CIA was and continues to attempt to infiltrate the country and turn the people against Fidel. Even recently it was revealed that the US government created ZunZuneo, a social media app similar to Twitter used by Cuban citizens which was used to attempt to radicalize the Cuban people against the government. While I am critical of Castro’s use of political repression, it is partially justified given the United State’s countless attempts at turning the Cuban people against the government by any means necessary. In essence it is a problem created largely by external pressure on account of the US government which continues to inspire the people to counter-revolution. If the US is truly so critical as to criticize them for human rights violations it would agree to back down and mind its own damned business- to lift the blockade and agree to never interfere with matters of the Cuban government ever again. Only then could Cuba cautiously lift the veil of political repression away confident that the US wasn’t going to use it to attempt once again to destroy Socialist Cuba from the inside.

Despite US economic blockades Cuba flourished under the rule of Castro. The lives of Cubans as well as those of the poor and oppressed all over the world were greatly improved thanks to Fidel. Cuba’s medical services are largely considered to be world-renowned in their innovation and openness to treat people from all over the world. Thanks to Fidel over 10 million people in Latin America and all over the world now have the ability to read and write. Cuba was always willing to offer military assistance to countries in their various liberation struggles. South Africa’s liberation was aided by Cuban troops, a military move so vital that the use of nuclear weapons was considered. Fidel Castro made many mistakes as I will be one of the first to admit- as I am very critical of how authoritative his regime was in not allowing any real political dissent outside of the election room. HOWEVER Cuba made enormous progress under his rule. Most of the people would still be illiterate, hungry and without access to basic medical care without him. He made mistakes sure but his achievements FAR outweigh his mistakes. I have no doubt that if Cuba didn’t have it’s revolution it would be 10x worse off than it is now. I am VERY critical of 20th century communism (Marxism-Leninism) for it’s typically authoritarian nature, however it’s success in transforming the most backward countries in the world into world superpowers is undeniable- and in Cuba particular it is worthy of critical but nonetheless full hearted praise. Though Fidel is dead he will continue to live on in the hearts of those who wish to make the world a better place. Hasta Siempre, Comandante.

“Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me” -Fidel Castro

A critique on Robespierre’s famous quote on education and tyranny.

November 24, 2016

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” – Maximillian Robespierre. This quote is completely accurate in every regard, however it negates the type of education which is taught. In our society education is only taught which favors the prevailing capitalist social order. If you truly want to understand capitalism you have to read Smith, Keynes and other pro-capitalist economists. But you have to read Marx and other economists who are critical of it to get an accurate view of- and come to a rational conclusion about the nature of the capitalist system. Modern American education completely negates this, and as a result we have some 200 million people all believing the capitalism is the best system by default without actually educating themselves on the matter, people who are directly exploited and oppressed by the same tyrannical system. However, our society also founds itself on the enlightenment principle of free speech. As a result Marx- while not taught in school can easily be found in the book store or online. Marx believed that education was going to dig the grave of capitalism, and on that he is completely right. The only problem is that people can only accurately teach themselves to look at both sides of the capitalist question because the modern education system only gives one side of the argument, and thus is extremely biased. So do yourself a favor and read Smith, read Keynes. But also read Marx. As Robespierre himself said, “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

Several issues of capitalism not addressed by Marx

November 24, 2016

There are several issues under modern capitalism that I wish to point out. The first is that of bosses and how they have changed forms in the past century. Under modern capitalism the boss is not some heartless man at the head of a factory of 10,000 men. No, there is a cushioning by the modern corporation to prevent such clear class antagonisms from arising. The boss under the modern corporation is also a worker, bound to wage labor and facing the same exploitation as the worker. They are often friendly with their workers and even good friends with many. When we socialists declare ourselves against bosses we are not declaring ourselves against them, but against their boss and their bosses boss. Class antagonisms are designed to appear nonexistent by modern corporations. Most workers have never laid eyes on the bosses whom all the money they are making is going to. The system is designed this way intentionally, make no mistake. So when we workers strike or demand a union it is often those bosses we have come to respect and befriend that we are set in opposition to and not the actual bosses. To overcome this it is essential to explain the situation to the boss once action is already being taken, that it is in their best interest as well to fight with the workers.

The other is a contradiction I have yet to see identified by Marx or any other Marxian economist. It is often said by those ignorant of socialism that socialism encourages laziness. Actually it is the other way around. You see the modern wage laborer is paid a flat wage regardless of if he/ she works hard or not. The modern worker does not wish to work hard, in fact he (using male pronouns out of connivence) wishes not to work hard. For the least amount of work will warrant him the same pay as if he is compelled to double his labor- something that Marx actually does point out in that the labor done in a certain time is rapidly increased to increase the surplus value taken by the capitalist. However in this regard the worker does not want the enterprise to be successful, in fact he wants the least amount of customers and therefore the least amount of work to be done. His compulsion to work is the same as under socialism- to eat. However under socialism work and the success of the enterprise is directly proportional to the workers pay, and not to the pey of a few capitalists at the top who own the business. Because of this, we say that socialism not only will not cause laziness, but will actually increase the work and encourage the worker to work even harder and welcome increased production for it means he will make more money. This is how money is supposed to work, in that labor is directly proportional to labor received.

Don’t fetishize the past, work to create the future!

November 23, 2016

When I was a child I thought that the ‘old days’ were best, I wanted to have grown up in the early 1900’s. At that time I knew nothing of child labor, hunger, the merciless exploitation of the poor and mass oppression which has manifested itself in all hitherto existing society. At this point as an adult, I want nothing more than to live in the future, even if I have to pave the way to it myself.

Fetishization of the past is a common occurrence, especially among the older members of our society. But in studying human history one can see that all human history has manifested widespread misery in one form another, with nothing any of the people at that time could have done about it. But with the explosion of innovation and the productive forces in the past 300 years with the emergence of capitalism we have the tools to craft an ideal future ready-made for the taking.

Once we advance away and out of capitalist society, the innovations and advancements in technology will work to serve to benefit and ease the labor of all instead of allowing a handful of men to grow rich at the expense of tens and hundreds of millions of people. A world Christ spoke of, where the meek shall inherit the earth. As Pope Francis said, “Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom, If anything it is the Communists who think like Christians”.

Because we have free will the future society is not predetermined, nothing is certain and as things are now no one is quite sure where society will go. Since this is the case, it is essential for the people to stand up against fascism and other misguided ideologies which are rooted in the fetishization of the past. Instead we must learn from the mistakes of the past to create a better world for everyone and not a few people at the expense of billions of people. With 21st century technology we have the ability to create such a world, or a horrendous Orwellian dystopia. For this, collective self-determination is key. The only solution is to fight mercilessly against what is wrong in the world, against every possibly and existing form of oppression and exploitation.

Kindness ought not to be a virtue

November 23, 2016

Kindness ought not to be a virtue, but something which comes naturally out of the fraternal nature of community which hitherto has yet to exist on a large scale.

The current social system makes such fraternal existence impossible. It is only in a classless society that such brotherhood can truly emerge, when exploitation and oppression are forcibly abolished and the forcible mechanisms which ensure their abolition have withered away. The abolition of class distinctions abolishes the very foundation of economic exploitation and thus every conceivable cause of mass oppression and exploitation (by state, by slavery, by genocide, etc.). It is not some utopia, but rather it is the end result of 10,000 years of advancement in the productive forces. With the abolition of class religion no longer serves the ruling class but instead all humanity. Race is never again systematically used as an excuse to exploit one group of people over another. Women are liberated in their totality from patriarchial oppression.

The eternal brotherhood of mankind will ensure that humanity advances not in hostility towards one another but through cooperation and acceptance. Society will, for the first time honestly proclaim itself to ensure Liberty, Justice, Equality and Fraternity for ALL!

On Absolute Purpose

November 21, 2016

Absolute purpose is the purpose we seek to find, even if that means accepting that there is no inherent purpose to anything- which itself is a realization of absolute purpose. We must understand that ‘purpose’ is a concept transfixed within the confines of time, and when we speak of absolute purpose we are moving beyond this. Not only the purpose of the here and now but the purpose of all things in all times in all hypothetical realities. Do these ‘other’ realities therefore have different purposes? Of course, the purpose of each would be relative to its own existence. Perhaps many of these ‘other’ realities or universes have their own gods in some which bring them into being and in others no god at all. But absolute purpose transcends these limitations. If certain theoretical physicists are correct, then these other universes are all interconnected in some way (though perhaps infinite infinities infinitely separate is a possibility but we shall ignore this for now). Assuming this is the case then absolute purpose can be found in what relation exists between our reality and all possible realities. Thus begs the question, is there a god which made all realities? When dealing with the infinite we shall say it must be so! But in infinity also shows infinite possibilities, so thus we are brought to the possibility of there being no god or gods which maintain this superstructure of all superstructures. Take my own religious convictions for instance if you will allow me to inject them into this philosophical rant. I subscribe to the Judeo-Christian religion, I have a materialist conception of the universe but nonetheless believe in God. So my God, assuming he is real as I inherently do, is said to be all powerful. But does this mean that he is infinitely powerful within the confines of our universe and/ or another? Or all universes? Which would therefore dictate that he is the overseer of all infinities. Is he a manifestation of some divine consciousness which manifests itself as absolute purpose?  Or does absolute purpose transcend even God? Let us suppose that it does, though there is no real way to know for sure. Therefore we must come to the conclusion that either God or the Universe came into being from nothing at one point in time, but aha! Time is merely a construct of the reality we know! Time for us began at the beginning of our universe. Therefore it is entirely possible that absolute purpose does indeed manifest itself not as the beginning of this web of universes or the beginning of God but rather in the actual manifestation of the whole multiverse itself. Absolute purpose is in what is. It is not in the beginning of what is because there only was a beginning for our universe and we must come to the conclusion that ‘other’ universes also had beginnings independent of our relative concept of time. Therefore time as we know it has no place in absolute purpose. There are thus several possibilities.

• There is no purpose- which thus is absolute and thus is absolute purpose

• Purpose is relative only to individual universes, it is the highest stage of purpose possible as the multiverse has none

• Absolute purpose is the existing and ever existing manifestation of the entirety of the multiverse or of God

• Absolute purpose is the intrinsic meaning coming into being of the entire multiverse- independent of our concept of time

• Absolute purpose is the purpose of our universe only as no others exist

• And so on and so on

On “Money doesn’t buy happiness”, a scientific refutation (study)

November 20, 2016

Of all the vicious lies told in the service of the ruling class none is more heinous than the phrase ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’. While no doubt a reflection of the virtue of putting aside an economic materialist view point the phrase couldn’t be more wrong. In fact a study done by University of Michigan professors Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson shows a direct correlation between increased wealth and increased happiness. The study, which can be found summarized here completely debunks the previously boasted Easterlin paradox which was used to justify this famous proverb. In fact, money does buy happiness and there appears to be no evidence as of yet for a drop off point of the ideal sum of wealth for peak happiness. Here is precisely what Wolfers and Stevenson found:

Linear, empirical, hard scientific data which completely refutes the claim that ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’. While a virtuous claim, it certainly has no merit in reality. First of all money doesn’t just buy happiness, it buys the essential foundations of human life. These are of course food, water, shelter and transportation. Aside from these the more wealth you have the more you have to dispose of. Money translates to human experiences which translate to happiness. Having an abundance of wealth means you have an abundance of potential ‘premium’ and exotic experiences which are bound to put a smile on any persons face. It means that once your basic requirements of being a social being are met you have a massive surplus of money which you are free to do with as you will. Money in modern society is in essence- liberty. The more money you have, the more liberty (or individual freedom) you have to do as you will. What liberty is enjoyed by one who works yet does not get enough back from the boss who he is enriching to meet his basic requirements, who lives in fear of losing his job, his home, his food? No liberty at all! Such a grave perversion, such a stain on a society which hypocritically inscribes upon its banner ‘liberty for ALL’!

Ultimately I know that I know nothing

November 19, 2016

As Socrates once said, “I know that I know nothing”. I reluctantly agree with such a self-analysis. I am but one man, a limited mind in a universe full of infinite knowledge. I know that I don’t have the answers to life’s problems. I look for solutions in a logical way of course but I can never be sure that I am actually right without trying said solution- which often proves impossible given the limited nature of being just one man and contemplating such complex and grand problems. My hope is that in some way someone who is interested in finding the solutions and understanding the same things I am sees the logic of my various ideas and uses them to actually make real change in the world- or in the vary least build off his/ her own ideas. My goal is of course real change- I want nothing more than to change the world in a positive way, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t doubt myself all the time. I’d actually be worried if I didn’t. If you think you have a solution to some big problem or that you have found a potential solution and do not fundamentally doubt yourself- you do not know enough about said thing. The more I know the less I become sure of myself. This may seem paradoxical but ultimately it is true with any intellectual matter. Without transferring ideas into material reality there is always a million things that can go wrong with your idea- and the material world is unforgiving. The more I know, the more I realize the limited character of my knowledge. Ultimately in the grand scheme of things I know nothing. The truth is that I do not have the answers- no one really does. All I can do is try, all anyone can do is try. If I boasted like a child that ‘I HAVE ALL THE SOLUTIONS TO EVERYTHING’ then I would be a fool. I most certainly do not. I realize that sometimes formulating my thoughts on the internet like this may come off in that way but know that is never my intention. What you don’t see on my posts are my doubts about what I am saying, to think one is right or going in the right direction is completely different from being right. Only a fool could stand up and declare that they have the solutions to all the worlds problems because they spent a few solemn months in silent meditation and thought. The only legitimate realization I can come to is that ultimately I know that I know nothing.

On using the phrase “God is in control” to passively stand by

November 18, 2016

“God is in control” may be true, but it is certainly no excuse to passively accept injustice, or any form of oppression or exploitation. God didn’t stop Hitler, people did. Now you can argue that God works through people, and therefore through the material forces of the universe whose laws he set into motion, but if that is the case then it is the people (in whatever they do) who are acting in accordance with some divine plan. So in that case there is absolutely no excuse to use such a phrase to passively defend injustice. In fighting against injustice you are therefore acting in accordance with some divine will, and thereby still using such logic. Therefore act in accordance with what is right, do not expect God to come around and stop whatever evil thing is happening or about to happen. God doesn’t do that, he leaves it up to the people. Take the common sense to act for yourself and those around you, do not wait for some divine hand. We have free will, we must use it to better the world and fight against injustice in every form.

We are obligated to take sides in the dawn of these dark days

November 18, 2016

As Elie Wiesel so elegantly put, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” The recent victory of Donald Trump is alarming in and of itself. But with the coming of white supremacist Steve Bannon onto Trump’s staff and calls for an interment camp policy similar to that of WW2  by his advisors it is absolutely critical to take note of what Elie has said. Every citizen is obligated to take sides on this issue. By not taking sides they are taking the side of the oppressor. It is possible that Trump is not an ideologue and thus will pass through without much trouble, but all the signs point at the opposite of this. All citizens who value freedom and democracy in any sense of the word must stand with the muslims who will be affected by these barbarous laws. Every citizen who follows the law of conscience over the dogmatic written law must stand with the illegal immigrants and their families to fight against this oppressive, bigoted, and racist call for such mass deportations. Every citizen with a sense of empathy must stand with members of the LGBTQ community in defense of their rights, for even if it contradicts their own personal views no one can deny that said views are no business of the state. Citizens must accept that the law of conscience dominates over the written law. Laws that violate the law of common conscience are laws that ought not to be respected. It is up to every citizen to side with the oppressor or the oppressed. There is no in between, there is no neutrality for neutrality embodies silence against oppression and thus passive acceptance of such.

As Thomas Jefferson once said,”If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” So if the time comes when such barbaric laws come to fruition, do not hesitate to fight for justice. For justice is not what is written in some law book! Justice is a virtue whose spirit goes far beyond what any written law can embody or enforce!

The ideals of liberty without the virtue of communism are impotent. The path to communism without the ideals of liberty is lethal.

November 17, 2016

The ideals of liberty without the virtue of communism are impotent. The path to communism without the ideals of liberty is lethal. At face value they are contradicting ideologies, one focuses on liberation from political repression while ignoring the exploitative nature of capitalism, the other on the liberation of the economic repression of capitalism while ignoring the repressive nature of the government (particularly Marxism-Leninism) towards the majority with the emergence of a one-party state. The idea is to take the tenets of a ‘free’ society in the political sense like America or Europe were dissidence is allowed within the frameworks of a capitalist system and translate them over to a socialist system where the same political freedoms are enjoyed by all citizens along with the liberation from capitalist exploitation. It doesn’t have to be one of the other. The ideal society is one similar to that envisioned by Thomas Paine and Rousseau with a limited government and unalienable human rights which it cannot violate along with the economic and revolutionary foundation as advocated by Karl Marx, including the utmost authoritarianism during the revolution itself initially. A system cannot be politically free without the principles of liberty as advocated by Thomas Paine, nor can it be economically free without a socialist or communist system as advocated by Karl Marx. The very point of socialism is not to squander but to expand personal liberty. Of course the liberty advocated by Thomas Paine is unconsciously a communist liberty, it can only be fully actualized in a communist society.

One must not disregard the revolutionary line of socialism, but recognize the difference in a short period during which a revolutionary government lays the foundation for such a republic and then the implementation of a constitutional democratic socialist republic which would fully embody enlightenment principles which we have- at least on paper today. “The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.” -Maximilien Robespierre.

I arrive at such a conclusion through my critique in studying the USSR, China, Albania, etc. It is in studying these countries that it becomes apparent that such principles weren’t implemented in actuality because they didn’t recognize the difference between the two consecutive and distinct forms of government which revolution brings about. Robespierre for instance was very clear on such a distinction, one lays its foundation and the other preserves the republic. Liberty can only flourish in a republic where the foundations for its existence are solid. While it is true that any state cannot truly call itself ‘free’, such a republic will be 10 times as ‘free’ as even the most democratic republics today. Full Liberty cannot flourish in class society, it can only be actualized totally and in reality in a classless society. This means that in the transition to a society which embodies the virtue of liberty, there must be a transition from bourgeois society which subjugates the majority to the will of the minority to a proletarian society which subjugates the minority to the majority. Between these two forms of society lies the revolutionary transformation of society as a whole. If we have socialism, we will not yet have full liberation. For true liberty under socialism will only exist for 9/10 of the population. Only when all classes have been abolished through the abolition of private property can liberty truly be achieved, in the higher stage of communist society where there is no state, where there is no exploitation or oppression on a systemic scale.

The substance and purpose of Protest and it’s relation to Riot

November 17, 2016

Non-action passes for consent in the eyes of the state and the people at large. This is why protest is so important, it is violent (in the emotive, not physical sense) dissatisfaction realized, concentrated and brought into the material world in a way that other disenfranchised individuals look up and take notice- and some will even join the cause if it is a righteous cause. The thing you are protesting has a clear and definitive ideological resistance that is so concise and loud that no one will be able to say that whatever thing you protested went down having the support of the people, all the people, without any real resistance. The first goal of protest is to stop whatever you are protesting against and/ or to get what you want. The secondary goal is often overlooked and is realized in many protests. It brings people in who otherwise would not be involved or opinionated on the issue. It causes those who wish to learn to learn both sides of the story. It causes those in opposition to take notice and (ideally) listen and come to their own conclusions. Protest when done right breeds more protest, more resistance, more social turmoil. In certain circumstances it can spark something truly magnificent, it can create such a tear in society that whatever issues exist are forcibly resolved by the people (typically through democratic means). Take for instance the British Tea Party which helped spark the American Revolution. Or look at the small group of student protesters in Stalinist Albania who brought down an authoritative regime by sparking a chain of key events. Protest, unlike riot is resistance organized, peaceful and loud. Loud in the sense that others hear the message in its true form. Riots cause the subject matter which is protested to be overlooked at best, and demonized at worse. Riots are the voice of the unheard, violent and angry. Protest are the voice of the unheard organized and angry yet peaceful in a way that the message- no matter how contorted or demonized by the elements of society which serve such a purpose- is heard. In the struggle for real political power the people at large have no other weapon than organization and democracy. It is the only means to achieve real social change. It is the only way for society to take firm notice that the people, all the people, did not go along with the event you are protesting against. Democracy without protest is false, protest without democracy is chaos.

The personal struggle of living with ADD

November 14, 2016

Now I know this is rather uncommon for me to post an article relating to my personal life but I feel that I need to get this off my chest. At a young age I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. I was in denial at first, forced to take stimulants (which I now realize was for my own good, even though they had side effects), and generally had a rough time at school as a child and up to adulthood. It wasn’t that I couldn’t concentrate, it was that I could only concentrate for a long time on things that peaked my interest, or by teaching myself things to myself through books or the internet. In school I would completely ‘zone-out’ and continue to do so today.

One could see how this could lead to low grades, and the frustration of knowing you could easily ace all of your classes if only you had the attention span and motivation to do so. There is another side of this though- largely due to my personality in which I get very intensely focused on topics that peak my interest. The points of focus vary from time to time, most recently it was understanding economics and society at large. It was only after reading Smith, Keynes, Marx, and others that I actually came to the socialist conclusion. I’ve tried to know everything I possibly can about Space, about the Titanic (the ship that sank in 1912), and other obscure topics which some may dismiss as boring. These things of course divert my attention away from my studies- and therein lies the problem. Being intensely focused on working out problems and mentally trying to find solutions to real world problems- whether real of philosophical, leads one to do poorly in school if they cannot also focus on their studies.

But all hope is not lost, even if at times it seems as such. There are stimulants I am prescribed to ‘treat’ the issue. They do work, I will not deny that. But they work at a price. For one my creativity, the ability to really think creatively, intuitively and come to logical conclusions to real world problems with little effort is essentially done away with. I become mentally numb- so to speak. I become socially awkward, and extremely focused not on one particular topic of interest but everything. And worse still, I become extremely anxious. It has reached the point where for long periods of time due to anxiety I am unable to take my medication because they give me anxiety attacks. So instead of taking my medicine, I have gone the whole summer and semester without them. But at what cost? On one hand I have learned more about economics, sociology, human history, and philosophy then I ever would have before. My personal relationships (the few that I have) are flourishing, and my mind is capable of thinking clearly, concisely and non-linearly (how I come up with some 90% of ideas that I come up with). For me, ideas spring into my conscious mind with little mental effort naturally. But on stimulants most all thought becomes linear, and thus the spark of human intuitiveness and creativity is somehow lost in the process. These are all good things that I have experienced. I have read more books in this period then when I actually was on my medication. But on the other hand, my grades suffer severely. It becomes such an issue that I cannot focus on something I find utterly and completely boring (90% of school) for more than 5 minutes without going off in my head mentally trying to solve some problem of thinking about something. At first school is easy as I know the basics of many of the subjects taught- especially in the easier classes I am taking. But actually doing the homework, showing up on time to class and generally doing the work becomes a challenge which I cannot mentally overcome without some actual existential fear. Thus my only option at this point is to face my demons and take the stimulant. If I do not I will almost certainly do poorly in several classes. But if I take this mind numbing drug I will certainly succeed in all of my studies. The only problem is that last time I did this I ended up having 4 panic attacks in one day, but such is the price of progress I suppose.

For those who wish to change the world

November 13, 2016

To want to change the world and the conditions of the people around you, one cannot be inspired by hatred or disgust at the world as it exists today, one cannot hate their own country. One certainly can hate or dislike their government and how it misrepresents the people, but for the people and the country at large, the desire to change it can only be guided by a great feeling of empathy and love. I question anyone who’s desire to make the world a better place is not guided by these things. The desire to make the world a better place cannot be guided by self interest or greed, it can only be guided by love.

Don’t get angry at Trump supporters or ridicule them

November 11, 2016

It may be hard to do, as I- like many on the left am angry and upset at the election results, but as hard as it is to say, you can’t get mad at people for voting Trump. Yes, he is a bigot, a xenophobe and his campaign was fueled by racism and hate. But Trump ran on an anti-establishment platform, everyone knows the system is rigged against them and the politicians are corrupt, what they don’t know is how. You have to understand that this whole election is what decades of lesser evilism has done to us as a nation.

Most people only voted for Trump because Hillary is such a terrible candidate and in essence- nothing but a corporate shill. The same goes for Hillary supporters, the only reason 9 out of 10 people voted for her is because Trump is a xenophobe and a bigot. Everyone knows the DNC was rigged against Bernie Sanders from the beginning. Hillary Clinton was an establishment candidate, like it or not. Trump is still a member of the bourgeoisie, of the ruling class but he ran on an anti-establishment platform and many people who didn’t understand how the system is rigged against them saw him as a viable option. The republican AND democratic party only represent the rich and powerful. They DO NOT represent the people. So long as money and politics are so irreparably intertwined and so long as the ruling class is able to throw money at the establishment candidate which represents their interests first, and that of the working masses second, nothing will ever change. Everyone knows the system is rigged against them, but the majority of people are not class conscious in any real way. They do not understand how capitalism works, they do not understand the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the state. Most of them don’t even know what the bourgeoisie and proletariat are. Trump prayed on this sentiment in a non class conscious way, it is 100% true that the system is rigged, but it is rigged by the bourgeoisie themselves… and Trump is literally as bourgeois as a candidate can get. Thus it is well established that he will not offer any real solutions to working people as he will never address the root causes of their problems, for they are utterly and irrevocably contradictory to both his interests and his class interests.

We need a mass workers party, like the British Labour party. A party that runs on a democratic socialist, and utterly anti-capitalist platform to truly represent the interests of working people and not the rich ruling elite. Many people, especially the youth are more than ready to embrace a democratic socialist party, Bernie Sander’s campaign alone vindicates this. But in order to really build a mass party we need to go to the masses ourselves and educate them from our side while encouraging them to hear out the other side as well.

We need to raise class consciousness, not condemn people who don’t understand in what ways the system is rigged against them and voted for someone who seemed to be against it in order to get into office. We must educate the masses, not alienate them by putting them down or ridiculing them. History has taught us that mere political democracy without industrial democracy amounts to virtual oligarchy in practice, and the people are beyond fed up with oligarchs like Hillary Clinton. The only solution is to democratize the enterprise! To make the government represent the 99% and not the 1%!

Of course the literal definition of socialism is work-place democracy, so this will not be an easy progress as most people don’t spend a year reading both pro-capitalist and anti-capitalist economists to come to a logical conclusion before flaunting their uninformed opinions in the air. But I am convinced that if more people take a logical and well informed approach to these things like I did that many of them will come to the socialist conclusion, like I did. Of course not everyone will, but education is a weapon. We need to encourage people to read Marx, but also pro-capitalist economists like Keynes and Smith. People need to come to informed conclusions and not simply repeat bourgeois propaganda whenever they hear the word socialism. Education is a weapon, we need to use it!

American Democracy is a Joke (No really)

November 9, 2016

As Ernest Untermann wrote in in 1907, “mere political democracy without industrial democracy amounts in practice to a virtual oligarchy” (Untermann, 109). This is a fundamental truth to ‘democracy’ in not just America but any capitalist system. The term ‘industrial democracy’ is a grand thing, everyone wants economic democracy, collective ownership and democratic control of industry. “What a great idea!” they say. But then you tell them exactly what economic democracy and collective ownership is, and that of course is the dictionary definition of socialism. The American people certainly want socialism, they just don’t want the name, and they fail to separate it from the stigma of stalinism. But so long as the ruling class owns the means of creating wealth, it will own the vast majority of wealth in the country and have the vast majority- if not a complete monopoly over influencing elections.

But then you have American democracy, the embodiment of bourgeois democracy. American democracy is a joke, a rigged competition of the least hated. It does not represent the will of the people, so long as capital and politics are as inseparable as they are now they will only represent the will of the rich, the corporations and ultimately that of the capitalist class and not the will of the majority which is poor in comparison and exploited by the very people funding these bourgeois candidates. How do candidates even get popular so you get to hear about them? With money of course! All one has to do is follow the money! Both candidates are funded by wall street and corporations which best represent their interests which are of course against those of the people. When a corporation endorses a candidate is it truly the will of the workers under that corporation? Of course not! It’s the will of the board of directors, of the CEO or president that the workers hard earned money which funnels up the bureaucratic corporate latter for them to do with as they wish- including funding presidential (and other) candidates which best represent their interests (i.e. defending the capitalist mode of expropriation, to defend how they earn their millions without having to actually they themselves work for it).

One only has to take a look at the presidential run of Bernie Sanders to see what corporate corruption permeates the so called ‘democratic’ party. Which candidate best represented the will of the people, the interests of the poor and of working people? The answer was obviously Bernie Sanders and polls SHOWED he would have defeated Trump in an actual election run. However we know (thanks to wikileaks) that several higher ups in the DNC intentionally and systematically made sure that Bernie would not be nominated to run. As Bernie said, “I don’t think wall street is going to like me very much”. Hillary, on the other hand is practically the poster child of corporate politics. Her campaign was funded almost entirely by corporate entities and banks which supported her. Bernie, on the other had was funded by millions of individual donations from working people- which averaged a total of 27$. As Hillary so charismatically said, “Hillary is a president for all Americans” in response to Bernie’s claims of not being liked by Wall Street. Though in truth this is impossible, you can serve wall street or the people. There is no middle ground, just as the DNC knew. This DNC failed to recognize the material conditions for both Bernie and Trump’s anti-establishment and often fanatical support, and thus chose to disenfranchise the Sanders campaign- which was in the best interest of wall street, and subsequently the party.

Trump’s rise to power cannot be blamed solely on the DNC though. The support for Trump is as rational as the support for Hillary. Both candidates have unfavorability ratings higher than any other mainstream candidates in US history. The two-party system intentionally maintains the illusion that ‘there are only two choices’ and this lie in fact becomes truth when enough people believe it. 9 out of 10 people who voted for Trump were only doing so because Clinton is such a horrible candidate, and the same goes for those who voted for Clinton. In essence American democracy is a competition to find the least hated candidate, and it turns out that candidate is Trump. Trump’s anti-establishment platform reflects the very real nature of American democracy in a non class-conscious way. The American people know the system is rigged against them, and Trump, to them seems to be a viable option for real change. The only problem is that Trump is part of the problem, practically funding his own campaign with his billions. The American people fail to realize that the inseparable relation of capital to politics is not only inherent to all bourgeois democracy but is actually a very bad thing. Liberal politics fail to recognize this, and parade slogans of progress when in reality they are impeding it.
Liberalism, in comparison to the absolute monarchies which triumphed before it by divine right to rule, is a significant advance. But society needs- now more than ever to advance beyond it in a way that does not contradict itself (as liberalism does). As Vladimir Lenin once said, “Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor”. This statement holds true now more than ever. Establishing a ruling class not of the capitalist minority we have now but of the working majority itself is the only solution to this problem. To have political democracy like we have now that is real and truly represents the will of THE PEOPLE, and with that collective ownership of the economy and democracy in the workplace itself! As Marx said, “Instead of deciding once every 3 or 6 years which members of the ruling class were to misrepresent the people in parliament, universal suffrage was to serve THE PEOPLE (my caps)”. So my demand is simple, the expansion of democracy to the workplace and the establishment of a democratic system which truly represents the people! Such a system is impossible under capitalism. The lack of such a system is the reason US politics are so absurd in their contradictory nature. Will of the people to them is the same as will of the rich. As they say, money is power. The more money you have the more power you have. Equal representation under the state is an illusion, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that. A better world IS POSSIBLE, but we have to fight for it and pull back the veil over the people’s eyes, to show them what the real problem with American democracy is.

Today is a mockery of the word ‘democracy’

November 8, 2016

In truth it doesn’t matter who wins tomorrow, the American people lose. Instead of deciding which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people every 2 or 4 years, universal suffrage was to serve THE PEOPLE. This is a treacherous mockery of democracy. It only solidifies the truth that mere political democracy without industrial democracy (socialism) amounts to, in practice, virtual oligarchy. The government does not serve the people, it serves the rich, the capitalists. It always has and it always will. As I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again. Democracy is a two-winged bird. In America one wing is crippled. There is but tyranny in the workplace, there is absolutely no economic democracy of any kind. The other wing, political democracy is just as false. It serves the oligarchs, the candidates the ruling class funds which best represent its own interests. There is no real democracy for the American people! The whole system only serves the rich! The ballots don’t give people power, power is something they have to take into their own hands! The people have to come together and demand real social change!

Clinton and Trump are both two sides of the same corrupt coin

November 7, 2016

It is proclaimed that Trump is a successful businessman, and that Hillary is a champion of social progress. These are of course, facades to win votes from poor working people. Trump made his wealth by giving his workers as little as he possibly could, by denying them union rights and essentially robbing them blind by taking everything they made for himself and giving back to them only enough to survive. In essence Trump did not make himself a billionaire, his workers did. And what did they get for that? Not a damned thing. It’s no wonder his own employees have spoken out against him, that he’s been sued thousands of times by both them and his business ‘partners’ who he exploits for his own personal profit as mercilessly as his workers.

But then it is proclaimed that Trump is ‘generous’, giving money to the homeless, offering them jobs, offering flood relief supplies. Once again these are merely facades at best, at worst it is a way of appeasing his own bourgeois guilt. By putting a band-aid on the wound that he and his class inflicted on society. Indeed Rockefeller and Gates both give a large portion of their wealth over to society, but the expropriation of wealth on account of the capitalist class itself is the only thing which systematically maintains poverty in modern society- for it is essential to the capitalist system. Indeed it is merely a way to attempt to fix a problem that he himself and those like him systematically create and maintain by extracting capital from those who actually produce the wealth- who themselves are impoverished in the process. But why does this occur? Why do those who produce the wealth have nothing and those who do not actively contribute to society have everything? Because those like Trump own the means of creating wealth and use it to extract the most amount of profit possible from working people. In short to say Trump should be president because he is a successful businessman is like saying we should elect a slave owner or feudal lord because of the amount of profit they extracted from their slaves/ serfs.

So then one turns to Hillary, she seems like a viable alternative, yes? Wrong again! Hillary is the living embodiment of the inseparable relation between the capitalist and the popular republican/ democratic politician. Hillary proclaims that she will be a “president for everybody” when Bernie said that “wall street would not like him very much”. What this proves is that Hillary is in the pocket of wall-street, something already firmly established that doesn’t seem to bother most Americans. You cannot be for wall street and for working people. You cannot be a business man and for working people. These are irreconcilable contradictions. Of course the average American who is not class-conscious in any sense of the word sees no issue here. But material reality does not lie. The reality of class antagonisms is crystal clear for he/ she who cares to analyze society in a scientific way. Hillary is for wall street, and Trump is for big business. Both their priorities are filling their pockets, their friends pockets, and the pockets of the ruling elites at the expense of hundreds of millions of working people- so long as they get to stay in power. These petty ‘progressive’ moves are nothing but a facade to maintain her popularity. It’s no secret that no less than 10 years ago she was militantly opposed to same sex marriage, something she now brags about being a ‘champion’ of.

Then there is the issue of foreign policy. Hillary will pass international trade deals which give corporations power over the law. They will cripple the struggle for workers rights and unionization. Hillary and Trump will both continue the legacy of all the previous presidents, to mercilessly act as the imperialist ‘policemen of the world’ so long as American corporations make a profit. War is indeed a very profitable business, and profit in capitalist society comes well before human life.

If the past 300 years of human history have taught us anything it’s this: Political democracy without industrial democracy amounts to, in practice, virtual oligarchy. It is fundamental to the ruling elites that this oligarchy maintain the facade of democracy- with elections and candidates preselected and funded by those with the money- the ruling class, and the living embodiment of the ruling class; the corporation to work in their best interest and not in the best interest of the American people. US democracy- so long as it is merely political and under the shell of capitalism, will continue to be a snare, a deceptive facade for the poor and the oppressed and a paradise for the rich. Between the two there is no choice, no compromise. As Eugene V. Debs once said, “I’d rather cast my vote for someone I want and not get it then cast my vote for someone I don’t want and get it”.

There is Jill Stein (who I am supporting), with the green party which stands a real chance of getting 5% of the national vote. This is a transitional demand of course, if the green party gets 5% of the national vote they will get 20 Million dollars next election cycle and on the ballot in all 50 states. This is a small step to ending the tyranny of the two-party capitalist system, but a step nonetheless. There is also Mimi Soltysik for the Socialist Party and Gloria La Riva for the PSL. But please for the love of God don’t vote Clinton or Trump.

‘LIBERTY! EQUALITY! FRATERNITY!’ An Analysis of Modern Society

October 22, 2016

‘LIBERTY! EQUALITY! FRATERNITY!’ (Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité) The slogan and promise of the French Revolution which ushered in on a mass scale a radical new social order which was said to deliver on this promise: capitalism. However no one can deny that even the fundamental sentiments of this promise have been squandered, bastardized and repudiated by bourgeois society. Indeed capitalism has brought forth advancements and innovations far beyond that of the past 3000 years before it combined- even it’s most thorough critics did not deny this fact. It was a necessary advancement beyond feudalism and should be seen as such, but clearly it has not delivered on its promise and a better world which does deliver on these sentiments is still possible. Let us examine how modern society bastardizes and repudiates the promise that capitalism would deliver these things by analyzing how society emulates them (or lack thereof):

Equality 

Our society edited ‘equality’ out of the revolutionary slogan of ‘LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY‘. Equality (meaning the equal chance to succeed in life) is demonized, called ‘socialism’, one of the most misunderstood and bastardized ideas in the world today- and the reason for this is clear. Equality is not a component of capitalist society and can never be. Equality is something which completely betrays the concept of the ownership of private enterprise and bourgeois society. It is utterly and completely impossible under capitalism. Because 62 people own more wealth than the bottom HALF of humanity (3.5 BILLION) it became necessary to substitute equality for superiority, for social darwinism which utterly betrays human empathy, compassion and reason. Equality is not something that can come out of a system fundamentally based on the privilege of the few to own and enrich themselves on the fruits of the labor of working people. It is a system fundamentally based on inequality, on exploitation. Equality exists only for the rich. It’s considered a social norm that people can afford to eat, yet 1 in 5 children in our own country still go hungry. Hunger is turned away from, the poor- instead of going hungry because of famine as was the case in the past are merely discarded like trash. There is too much food to sell. Restaurants and grocery stores throw out their surplus of food, why? Because they can’t turn a profit off of it. If we abolished this ludicrous sentiment of placing profits before people world hunger could be abolished in a decades time. But why don’t we do so? Because it is not profitable (in the monetary sense of the word), yet abolishing world hunger would be more valuable to humankind than any previous social program. As Dom Helder Camara said, “When I give food to the poor they call be a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist”. A well-fed man is a thinking man while a hungry man only longs for food. Imagine the innovative potential which is squandered by this grave evil. Equality in our society is nonexistent. In fact the world today has more inequality than ever before in human history.

Liberty 

No doubt liberty in bourgeois society is only enjoyed by the rich, as to have liberty you must have capital. To roam and exist freely you can be nothing less than wealthy. While I am extremely critical of the man, J.V. Stalin summed up the lack of liberty in bourgeois society quite well saying, “It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed hungry person. True freedom can only be where there is no exploitation and oppression of one person by another; where there is not unemployment, and where a person is not living in fear of losing his job, his home and his bread. Only in such a society personal and any other freedom can exist for real and not on paper.” We praise the statue of liberty as an American and French icon, liberty is a fundamental pillar in our society. Yet that pillar is truncated, and false. It is a deception to the poor and a blessing to the rich.

Fraternity 

Because of the predatory and competitive nature of the capitalist machine, fraternity in capitalist society is but a pipe-dream. It cannot be achieved so long as man is turned against his fellow man in the accumulation of capital and so long as thousands of independent, competing enterprises exist in such an anarchistic economic order- one which “booms and busts like man sighs and breaths”, as Trotsky said. Frederick Engels summed up the ludicrous nature of capitalist competition in The Dialectics of Nature saying, “Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind, and especially on his countrymen, when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organization of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can elevate mankind above the rest of the animal world socially in the same way that production in general has done this for man specifically. Historical development makes such an organization daily more indispensable, but also with everyday more possible. From it will date a new epoch of history, in which mankind itself, and with mankind all branches of its activity, and especially natural science, will experience an advance before which everything preceding it will pale in insignificance.” Indeed, the order of society itself is just that- animal, a sort of disorganized organization. But what does any of this have to do with fraternity? Because workers are competing against one another, they are not uniting amongst themselves to achieve a common goal. In uniting they achieve a sense of fraternity. The alienating character of capitalism is not one which can provide any sense of common goal making or common unity in the workplace. The workers only share in their common suffering, their common exploitation, their common expropriation of labor by the capitalist class. Fraternity is impossible without equality, not absolute egalitarianism by any means but rather equal chance to succeed in life instead of one person gaining an unfair advantage to succeed in life by class, race, religion, gender, etc. It does not mean that everyone gets paid the same but rather that everyone has an equal chance and with the abolition of capitalism the wage-gap is substantially reduced to the point where real fraternity is truly possible among all members of society regardless of wealth as no one is entitled by property right to the fruits of the labor by another. Not only can he not profit off another’s labor, but he cannot live off it and moreover he cannot amass such a fortune off of someone else’s work to find himself among a small elite of less than a hundred men which owns more than half the world. Strange times are these when bellies full of food and access to not only abundant running water but luxuries and technologies beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors and yet kindness and fraternity are still considered a virtue- a rare trait to be found in society. One would reason that such advancements would bring people together more rapidly than any previous social era. We have no food to fight over- so why is there still war? We have substituted the pursuit of food for that of capital- the pursuit of which manifests itself as a thirst that can never be quenched: greed. Food of course, is not readily available in society though our current struggle for food pales in comparison to that of 9/10 of human prehistory. Wars today are not over food, they are fought over money, over profit, they are imperialist wars. Modern society is more divided by class than by culture, it is more divided by class than by nationality, more divided by class than gender, than religion, than ethnicity, than any other social subset which divides us. We must work to abolish these differences. Only in such a society can society inscribe upon its banner ‘LIBERTY! EQUALITY! FRATERNITY!‘. Only in a socialist society can we work towards these ends, and only can they be fully realized in a stateless, classless communist society where freedom for all truly reigns. Let us openly declare that these three sentiments were not attained and cannot be attained under capitalism, to work towards a better world which truly provides for all, which puts human needs above greed and the pursuit of capital. A better world is possible, now more than ever.

What is Socialism & Communism? A (Very Basic) Rundown

October 22, 2016

The idea of society placing human needs above the profit motive is certainly an old one. Critics say that it cannot be done, yet in our current society the goal of meeting human needs is still there- but the accumulation of capital takes a priority. The priority of the accumulation of profit over human needs squanders the value of human life to the point where exploitation and even death of the individual is acceptable so long as it generates capital. It turns man against himself so much so that two hostile classes emerge in the capitalist mode of production (the history of all hitherto existing society is of course- the history of class struggle). There is the class which owns the means of creating wealth- the bourgeoisie, yet they themselves create nothing and live off the fruits of the labor of those who do. Then there is the class which makes up the overwhelming majority of society- the proletariat, or the working class who have nothing but their own labor power to sell off. This class creates all the commodities of modern society, it creates not only the commodities, but the machines that create the commodities. It is the provider of all, nothing gets done without the proletariat. Socialism takes this order of one class owning everything and creating nothing and the other class owning nothing and creating everything and flips it upside-down. It declares that no longer will one be able to live off of- let alone make a fortune off of the hard work of other people. No longer are the producers of society impoverished and all will enjoy the fruits of their common labor- not a handful of rich men. The means of production which were previously owned by a small minority of society become the ownership not of the state (state-capitalism, as what happened in the USSR) but of the workers themselves. Socialism (and especially Communism) ,like capitalism have nothing to do with the government. It means the abolition of private (not personal) property. It means that the land belongs to those who till it, the homes to those who dwell within them, and the factories and businesses to those who work within them. A radical new concept is introduced into the workplace: democracy. Wage labor is abolished as the worker reaps the whole of the fruit of his labor (excluding of course taxes, costs of maintaining the business, etc) instead of having the lions share taken by the capitalist who did nothing to earn it but ‘own’ the means of generating wealth. The ruling class in such a society becomes the workers themselves- for the first time in human history the ruling class becomes the class of the majority and not a small elite. This allows real (both political and economic) democracy to flourish. Democracy for the majority instead of merely the minority (even with universal suffrage our ‘democracy’ still serves the rich) as the majority is the ruling class. Instead of society allowing someone to get rich off the labor of others without they themselves working, society declares that ‘those who do not work (excluding the disabled), do not eat’. This is, of course but a step towards eliminating social classes (the privileged relations to the means of production, not differences in wealth per se) altogether. Just 62 people own as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion, under socialism labor is directly proportional to capital received. Under communism it (taking a surplus from society) is directly proportional to the NEEDS of the individual. In this regard socialism is a step up from capitalism in that labor is actually proportional to wealth- instead of a flat wage given out regardless of work done. But an independent man earns as much as a single mother of 4 assuming they have the same job and work the same amount. This is still an injustice- even under socialism. Communism swipes this injustice away by inscribing upon the banner of society, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his NEEDS”. Thus the single mother of 4 does what she can and takes from society what she NEEDS. All basic human needs are met and luxuries are also provided to the masses. Of course, even under socialism the well being of the individual is placed much higher than under capitalism. The very basic human needs for all people will be met under socialism, but the injustice of ‘he who does not work, does not eat’ still continues until communism is achieved. Regardless, socialist society puts people and the planet before profit. Instead of setting human empathy and morality aside in the name of greed is no more. Freedom for all (something that is only an illusion in our own society) certainly seems more realized under socialism than under capitalism, but it is only truly realized under communism- once the state itself has withered away and class struggle is no more. Under capitalism there is the illusion of ‘volunteerism’. This however is false. When the economy is privately owned the worker has no choice to sell but what he owns- his labor. As Peter Kropotkin said, “We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered his lord a fourth of his crop. We called those barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger.” The worker under capitalism can accept the conditions of capitalist society- to be oppressed or to he himself oppress, or die of hunger. A better world IS possible. These are not pipe-dreams. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.

This election as and example of ‘democracy’, our society as an example of ‘freedom’, ‘equality’, ‘liberty’, ‘justice’

October 19, 2016

In a truly democratic system THE PEOPLE would only ALLOW candidates they (the majority) like and approve of to make it this far. But because capital has such a sway, things are not democratic. Don’t be fooled. This election is a sheer and complete mockery of even the word ‘democracy’. The people hate both candidates and the only reason one will win is because they are slightly less hated than the other. The American people are being fooled to vote against their own interests in a two-party oligarchy under the guise of a democratic process. Indeed the people are allowed to elect every 2 or 4 years which members of the ruling class they want to oppress them, but universal suffrage was not intended to be this way, it was intended to SERVE THE PEOPLE. Government in capitalist society serves the capitalist, not the working masses. It seeks only to defend the prevailing social order and to limit and cripple any real social change- including the expansion of democratic rights (such as REAL political democracy along with economic democracy) and civil liberties which are impossible under capitalism. Freedom, democracy, equality, liberty and justice are grand words. But in our society it is only freedom to conform, democracy which is truncated, false- a snare which deceives the poor and the oppressed into thinking real social change is possible under the prevailing social order. It is not equality (as was promised to be delivered under capitalism circa the French Revolution) but rather the highest rate of inequality in all of human history, liberty only for the wealthy and justice is served out only to the poor. These grand words inscribed upon the banner of our society are utterly and completely false in material reality, and will remain so as long as the prevailing social order continues to exist.

Socialism is NOT where ‘everyone gets paid the same’, or having ANYTHING to do with the government

October 17, 2016

I found this quote that sums up the idea of socialism pretty clearly. To be fair I am a Trotskyist and am VERY critical of Stalin and Stalinism but on this issue he hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately the USSR never actually achieved socialism as Stalin, equating the dream with the reality for the Russian people declared socialism having been achieved. The state had seized the means of production- achieving state-capitalism which was a necessary prerequisite to socialism in countries (like Russia, China, etc.) which had not undergone an advanced capitalist phase of development. Lenin recognized the neccesity of this and had great confidence that the party would see socialism through. But in the 30’s Stalin- after some 15 years of revolutionary struggle and hardship on account of the Russian people made a political decision to tell the Russian people that ‘socialism has been achieved’, that what Russia had WAS socialism. Of course any marxian economist can tell you that it was not socialism as the state owned and controlled the means of production- and not the workers. What Russia had is what we call state-capitalism, which is inherently authoritarian because the state (and not the workers democratically) controlled the economy. Socialism has nothing to do with the government. Like capitalism it can be libertarian or authoritarian in nature. I myself prefer a small government- and yes I am a socialist. There is another misconception about socialism which I think Stalin (sigh) clears up very well. The misconception that the egalitarianism of socialism is not mere equal chance to succeed but actual, forced equality. This is ludicrous as Stalin clarifies by saying,

“The kind of socialism under which everybody would receive the same pay, an equal quantity of meat, an equal quantity, of bread, would wear the same kind of clothes and would receive the same kind of goods and in equal quantities—such a kind of socialism is unknown to Marxism. All that Marxism declares is that until classes have been completely abolished, and until work has been transformed from being a means of maintaining existence, into a prime necessity of life, into voluntary labour performed for the benefit of society, people will continue to be paid for their labour in accordance with the amount of labour performed. ‘From each according to his capacity, to each according to the work he performs,’ such is the Marxian formula of socialism, i.e., the first stage of communism, the first stage of a communist society. Only in the highest phase of communism will people, working in accordance with their capacity, receive recompense therefor in accordance with their needs: ‘From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs.’

It is obvious that people’s needs vary and will vary under socialism. Socialism never denied that people differed in their tastes, and in the quantity and quality of their needs. Read Marx’s criticism of Stirner’s inclination toward equalitarianism; read Marx’s criticism of the Gotha Programme of 1875; read the subsequent works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and you will see how severely they attacked equalitarianism. The roots of equalitarianism lie in the mentality of the peasant, in the psychology of share and share alike, the psychology of primitive peasant ‘communism.’ Equalitarianism is entirely alien to Marxian socialism. It is those who know nothing about Marxism who have the primitive idea that the Russian Bolsheviks want to pool all wealth and then share it out equally. It is the idea of those who have never had anything in common with Marxism. It was the idea of communism entertained by such people as the primitive ‘communists’ of the time of Cromwell and the French Revolution. But Marxism and Russian Bolshevism have nothing in common with the equalitarian ‘communists.'”

Indeed, socialism doesn’t force people to be equal. It merely provides and equal chance for all to succeed regardless of what family or neighborhood they are born into.

“I think therefore I am” existence and consciousness

October 17, 2016

It is certainly a logical conclusion. But at what point do we establish thought capable of being considered consciousness? Does the spider think to bind his web? Or is it his nature? If nature is the defining trait then to intentionally betray ones own nature would be an act of conscious being. But human nature is to rebel against nature- both the natural world and human nature. We cannot claim that mankind lacks predefined nature, but we can say that human nature is to a large extent malleable. Perhaps it is the unconscious or subconscious mind which programs a spider to act the way it does, in this case consciousness is an advanced form of the subconscious mind. But whose to say that there isn’t a species of even greater intelligence whose subconscious mind is made up of the alien equivalent of our conscious mind? To them are we mere primitive animals with limited will? To be is to exist. To exist is absurdity. Existence cannot to rationalized for its origin is the beginning of logic and reason itself.

Two countries at war

October 16, 2016 

Two countries people cry out to their government in solidarity with the other countries people before going to war. Both governments shame their people for not being patriotic and putting the country in danger. But the governments were the only danger. Both governments cried democracy, freedom, for god and for country- never suspecting their enemy was no different. They too saw the war as a business opportunity. It was eastern versus western imperialism, nothing more and nothing else. And both sides sent young, impressionable boys and girls to the grave for profit. Imperialists sending workers to go kill other workers who are doing the same thing. Shame.

Trump’s absurd claim of a Republican ‘Workers Party’

October 14, 2016

Billionaires don’t speak for- and will never speak for workers. It is an insult to the working class to have a billionaire, the top 10% of the 1% tell the working people that he’s going to turn the republican party into a ‘workers party’. No Mr. Trump, when there’s a workers party it will be against you, your class and everything you stand for. There will be no praise for those whose vast wealth is made off the labor of others. Those who work will reap the full fruits of their own labor, and those who profit off of the labor of others- whose wealth springs from the poverty of the poor who will be no more. All will have to work and actively contribute to society.

A rambling on Clinton, Trump and the joke that is American democracy

October 14, 2016

On policy both candidates are absolutely awful. Then we have the Trump Tapes and the email scandals which are equally bad, they’re both TERRIBLE candidates, the debates are an absolute joke, what serious topics did they debate? What serious policy was discussed? Nothing but a horse show. 9/10th out of every vote isn’t because they believe in the candidate but rather because they hate the other one so much. A wise man once said, “Instead of electing which members of the ruling class were to misrepresent the people, universal suffrage was to serve the PEOPLE”. American democracy is a joke, a facade, truncated to fool the poor and serve the rich. Not only is it limited to mere ‘formal’ political democracy, but that formal democracy is limited- to serve those with money, the capitalists, or rich men. You want to talk about democracy? Get money out of politics, get rid of the whole social system altogether! Give people REAL democracy, not just real political democracy but economic democracy- democratic control in the workplace, which is just as important. American democracy is a joke, it is an insult to the American people. What we need is a mass party of the 99%, a workers party which stands up to big money interests. It’s time to smash the two-party dictatorhip which alienates so many Americans. To reject the lesser evil and fight for yhe greater good. It is but a first step towards lehitimizing the struggles of the masses, the strugle for socialism, but neccesary nonetheless.We must stop ALL future Trump’s. This begins with smashing the system that gave us Trump and Hillary in the first place.

Liberty for few, equality for none, freedom to conform, and democracy that is limited

October 14, 2016

Liberty, Equality, Freedom, Democracy. These are all grand words which our society parades onto its banner but where is it enjoyed? Liberty for few, equality for none, freedom to conform, and democracy that is limited to the political sphere, democracy that is false, truncated, and which serves only the ruling minority which holds the seats of our government, 9/10 of which consist of capitalists- or rich men. Tell me, am I mad for wanting to expand these things? To do away with them in their limited form which serve no purpose but to insult the people by their sheer absurd limitations? Real social change to achieve this cannot be voted for, it cannot come about in an election. The massses and only the massses can lunge forward with such momentum to break the shackles of capitalism off societies legs once and for all. If the people only knew the power they hold… Poverty would be no more.

A Simple Critique of Religious Fundamentalism, Militant Atheism, and The Universe in General

October 9, 2016

A Critique of Religious Fundamentalism and Denial of Science 

I have long since abandoned young earth creationism, the denial of basic science as a prerequisite for my belief in God. It caused me to completely lose my faith, it’s a miracle I came back to it. You cannot convince people to follow your religion if it denies basic science. Science is a tool we use to understand how the universe works, an indispensable tool. If you believe in God you cannot deny that science gives us the ability to truly understand HOW God works.

The Contradictions of The Atheist and the Fundamentalist 

Science and religion are trying to answer different questions, do not use one to contradict the other unless the contradiction is already apparent. In the case or literalist interpretations of religious texts which deny basic science- you must have a non-literal view for such a belief to be valid, and the contradiction is already apparent and thus needs to be investigated and taken to its logical conclusion. In the case of militant atheism, the atheist concludes that all things have a scientific and materialist explanation and thus the need for a god is null. The contradiction here is that science, that materialism disproves god. It negates the belief that God works through the material conditions of the universe, that science and logic do not inherently contradict a belief in God. But to say that you can’t disprove something certainly isn’t an argument for something. I could say you have no evidence for unicorns but that isn’t much of an argument for unicorns. Of course God is a different matter as it is a relatively simple concept- that there is some conscious force that created the universe.

The Absurdity of The Universe 

The universe as we understand it came into being out of nothing (which does not violate the laws of the very, very small). The belief that a God could come out of nothing is equally absurd. Yet the universe did in essence come out of nothing. What does this mean? That the more science explains the universe, the more the lens of true reality is set into focus the more it appears that reality itself is utterly and completely absurd. The logical conclusion is that there should be nothing, that nothing should exist. But instead something does exist, we exist, the universe exists. So who is to say that some primal consciousness did not thrust the universe into being, what is to prevent us from taking the extra step to come to this conclusion? Logic would dictate that the simplest solution is the most valid. But here we are talking about the origin of all logic, of all being itself.

A Final Conclusion 

Ultimately we are just things thrust into existence without knowing why. For the wandering man to come to the conclusion that there is a why and there is some grand consciousness like himself which created the universe or that there is no why, that the universe just is- both conclusions from a mere logical perspective are equally absurd, and thus equally valid.

God and an Untraditional Materialist Conception of The Universe

October 7, 2016

The language of the material universe is mathematics. Down to the smallest atom and even beyond that to the quarks which hold the atoms together and up to the grandest structures in the observable universe. The mystical conception of God has more and more become obsolete. Does this mean God is disappearing from our conceptions of the universe? Yes but not out of neccesity. For millennia God has been used to explain material phenomena that we could not yet scientifically explain. For instance Thor, the thunder God becomes a lot less likely when we discover the mechanics of lightning. This is not to say that there aren’t experiences, phenomenon and things out there which cannot be scientifically, rationally or materialistically explained- for I myself have had such an experience which caused me to abandon atheism and even agnosticism. But this is to say that the traditional idea of God as a mystical being working outside the confines of the material universe- a being used to explain material phenomena is becoming ever more obsolete. Does this signify the atheist or agnostic conclusion? This is certainly one interpretation. But as a religious person I accept that God works through the material forces of the universe, that in my opinion they are the forces of God at work. Not contradicting science, but through science. A belief that God is not somehow separate from the universe- as the mystical component and function of God is undeniably dwindling away with the ever increasing scientific explanation of natural phenomena but rather that God works through these natural laws. That God is everywhere, at all times. That the universe is his handiwork, like a master clock set into eternal motion. It is my belief that science does not discredit God, but rather gives us a better idea of how he works. So in that I say I am a materialist, not that I believe that matter is all there is, but rather that all physical phenomenon- from the most basic chemical reactions to consciousness itself can be scientifically explained. Traditionally religion- especially ancient religion was used to explain both how and why the universe acts the way it does. With the advancements of science the mystical conceptions of God- of even the geocentric model itself are crossed out. However even in this there can be no valid scientific explanation for why the universe is. For this both the belief in a God and the belief in no God at all are equally understandable. This is certainly not to say that such an understanding of the universe requires God, I do not make such a claim. But after having a truly unexplainable experience this is the only conclusion I have come to. It’s certainly a rather untraditional materialist conception of the universe, but nonetheless valid and worthy of critique.

War today: A warning

October 6, 2016

Capitalists sending workers to other countries to kill other workers who are being told to kill those same workers by their own capitalists. That’s 9 out of 10 wars today. Sometimes war is necessary, but rarely for imperialist war- the war that dominates modern warfare in the age of imperialism. There is no excuse for this kind of warfare, war for profit, war for territory, war for resources, war for the domination of capital. It’s easy to convince people to go to war. You just accuse everyone who doesn’t support it of being unpatriotic. You disguise the war as a war for freedom, those brave soldiers dying for our freedoms. But why are they fighting for our freedom all the way over there? How the hell did our freedoms get there? Freedom is a grand word, a perfect justification for war. As Hermann Goering so elegantly put it in the Nuremberg Trials, “Naturally, the common people don’t want war, neither in America, nor for that matter in Germany. This is understood. But people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country”.  

On World War 1, Lenin rightfully recognized the nature of this grand imperialist war, which is fairly basic for nearly all wars waged today:

“…It is deluding the working class and the labouring masses by asserting that it is waging war in defence of the fatherland, freedom, and civilisation, for the liberation of the peoples oppressed by tsardom, for the destruction of reactionary tsardom…

[The other nation] …which is deluding the working class and the labouring masses by asserting that it is waging war for the defence of their native lands, freedom, and civilisation, against the militarism and despotism of Germany…

In reality, the object of the struggle of the British and French bourgeoisie is to seize the German colonies and to ruin a competing nation which has displayed a more rapid rate of economic development. And, in pursuit of this noble aim, the “advanced” democratic nations are helping the savage tsarist regime to strangle Poland, the Ukraine, and so on, and to throttle revolution in Russia more thoroughly.”

For anyone with a conscience, their duty as citizens of the earth is to oppose any and all war for profit, resources, territory, domination, and imperialism. One should be especially wary of the term ‘freedom’ which is so often thrown around in war times. One must ask themselves, Is the statement valid? Who is being freed in the conflict and from whom? Do they want this ‘freedom’ or are there other- as there almost always are- reasons for the conflict. What corporations and organizations are profiting off of this war? To profit off of war is to profit off of mass murder and terror. What will your country gain from this conflict? Territory? What is in this territory? Oil? Has military intervention in this area in the past made the situation better or worse? Does the enemy pose a real existential threat to your countries existence? If not why would you support it? Who is to blame for the war? Who is provoking it? Why? One must ask themselves these questions. The real patriots are those who call for peace, not war. Only those who are invaded have a right to war.

There has been talk of war with Syria and Russia

October 6, 2016

There’s been talk of war with Russia. Workers going to kill other workers in the name of imperialism. There is nothing more foolish. Eastern Imperialism, western imperialism. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Fight against it in all forms, not in the name of the evil domination one country over another. Such a war is not our war, but the war of the imperialists, let them fight amongst themselves instead of tricking people to kill people they do not know for reasons they do not understand.

Authoritarianism: WW2, 2 radically different examples and why they’re both bad

October 6, 2016

When The Soviets invaded Nazi Germany many people in German occupied territory saw The Soviets as liberators. When Nazi Germany invaded The Soviet Union many Soviet citizens also saw the Nazi’s as liberators. What does this say? All excessive authoritarianism regardless of political leaning is bad. Left wing, right wing it does not matter. Sure many people in both Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were very happy and one cannot easily compare the two leaders. However, both used excessive authoritarianism and state terror after each of their revolutions were secured respectively. For this there is no excuse. The people are more telling in their acceptance of armies that totally betray their beliefs in order to be (in their minds) liberated from oppression.

On Trump and Pence

October 5, 2016 

Authoritarians like Pence or Trump have no place in a civilized society. He caters to individuals who need a strong authority figures to lead them, who feel threatened by progress. He represents the poison of traditionalism, the ignorance of those who are repulsed by the mere suggestion of social progress. Before society moves onward these men will rise to snuff out the progress we have made as a society. If they come to power we will see a last desperate fight of the old society against the new. Those who feel the need to go back in time to the days before equal rights, before we smashed the oppression of the past flock under their wings.

Democracy is a two-winged bird, for it needs both wings to fly

October 1, 2016

Just as a bird cannot fly without both wings in prime condition so too can a democracy not flourish without the two fundamental types of democracy. On the right wing is formal- or political democracy, the democratic right to elect representative officials into office in service of the state. On the left wing is economic democracy- or democracy in the work place. In our system the left wing is broken beyond repair and the right wing is injured, it is not democratic in the sense that it serves the masses but rather the ruling class, the 1%. Just as our formal democracy is flawed, so too was the economic democracy of the Soviet Union, for the economy was state owned and the interests of the state were in contradiction to the democratic rights of the workers. Just as our economic democracy wing was broken- so too was the political democracy wing of the Soviet Union. So how can a society truly become democratic? The formal democracy always serves the interests of the ruling class, so the ruling class cannot be the capitalist class- the 1% but rather the class of the working masses- of the 99%. The economic democracy must not be in contradiction with the state. For this to work the economy must be truly socialist in nature (worker, not state owned and democratically controlled), unlike the largely state-capitalist economic systems of the Soviet Union and China. In America today, unlike the Soviet Union and China, we are already an advanced capitalist society and thus state-ownership of the economy is not a necessary prerequisite to a socialist system in our country. Thus we have the potential to fix both wings so the bird can fly. For the first time in history we cannot have merely formal or economic democracy, but both forms which are indispensable to the democratic system. The only way we can have real democracy is by the establishment of a state which serves the interests of the working masses and not the 1%, and by establishing a worker owned- democratic, and truly socialist economy for the first time in human history. This is the only way for both wings of democracy to function, to have a truly democratic society.

Traditionalism vs. Progressivism. Which side are you on?

October 1, 2016

There are those who cling to tradition, to the old way of doing things and there are those who pave the road of human progress. The traditionalists have been opposed to progress since the dawn of recorded human history, yet still the progressive elements have triumphed. What does this say? That there are two sides to fight for- the side for a better future or the side against that better future. Fear of change is a healthy fear, it keeps men from going mad with frenzied the bashing of all things known. But ultimately the fear of change is reactionary, and must be combated so long as that change is rational, scientific and for the greater good. So which side are you on? Will you fight as the slave owners did for the preservation of slavery? Will you fight as the feudal lords did for the preservation of feudalism? Will you fight with the capitalists for the preservation of capitalism? The choice is yours.

Trotsky on Hitler’s upsising and its simalarity to Trump’s

September 25, 2016

There is a striking similarity in both Hitler and Trump’s rise to power as highlighted by Leon Trotsky in his work Hitler’s Program (written in the time Hitler had come to power). To quote, 
“Hitler has been widely regarded as a demagogue, a hysterical person, and a comedian. Such opinions are the reflections of a diplomacy incapable of vision or understanding save in the most ordinary routine matters… Woe to those who do not awaken to this fact in time! The leaders of German labor refused to take Hitler seriously, they dismissed his program as an impossible blend of reaction and utopia. Today, as a result of their ghastly mistake, their organizations have been shattered to bits. What will happen if this mistake is repeated in the field of world politics?”

It is usually a sign of immaturity to compare a modern politician to Hitler, but when an actual fascist comes onto the national debate stage, no one takes these cries seriously. Potentially this is a horrendous mistake.

You can read Trotsky’s full essay here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/xx/hitler.htm 

The Two Fundamental Types of Democracy, and the one we are deprived of

September 25, 2016

When we think of the word democracy we usually think of going to the polls every few years to decide who we want to elect into office. But this is only one type of democracy, formal democracy. There is- in effect only one type of democracy in the United States and in all capitalist countries and that is not merely formal democracy, but formal bourgeois democracy. There is also a second form of democracy, a form of democracy that can only exist under socialism. That democracy is workers’ democracy. When the workers own the means of production they can only control it democratically- or else there is only private or state ownership, which is the definition of capitalism and state-capitalism respectably. Not only do we merely have formal democracy, but we have formal democracy which favors the property owning class, the class of the 1%, or the bourgeoisie. In a socialist state democracy is still skewed in favor of one class over another, such is the nature of all state power. However in a socialist state that democracy is not skewed in favor of the former 1%, of the rich elite but rather it is in favor of the 99%, of the proletariat or the working masses. As Marx said, “Instead of deciding once every three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, …”

Economic democracy is arguably even more important- but nonetheless indispensable to political democracy. People spend the majority of their time at work- however under the modern society we effectively live under a tyranny in the workplace, where the capitalist has the final say and the workers voice is blunted. All excess profit under the current mode of production goes not to the worker but to the capitalist- who did nothing of any particular value to earn that capital. Our government recognizes the importance of political democracy, however it completely negates economic democracy. If we took the principles of our political democracy to a workers’ state where instead of bourgeois political democracy it was proletarian democracy we would have an undeniable expanse in democratic representation of the masses. However, when combined with economic democracy the effect is utterly undeniable. It is a complete expansion of democracy in every possible form. As Rosa Luxembourg said, “Democracy is indispensable to socialism and socialism is indispensable to democracy.” With economic democracy undeniably comes economic rights. Before I go on I will admit that I am a Trotskyist, and thus I am VERY critical of Stalin’s principles and policies in the USSR. However his 1936 Soviet Constitution is a prime example of economic rights. Stalin’s version of democracy negated any real political democracy- much like our own system negates economic democracy. Most people are utterly unfamiliar with this concept so I will elaborate on some of the rights given to the soviet people under these new (for the time, and even today) provisions.

To quote section x of the 1936 Soviet Constitution (FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF ALL CITIZENS):

Article 118
Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.
The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.

Article 119
Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

Article 120
Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

Article 121
Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people.

Article 122
Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

Article 123
Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

Article 124
In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.

Article 125
In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:

1. freedom of speech;

2. freedom of the press;

3. freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;

4. freedom of street processions and demonstrations.

These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.

We recognize some of these rights in our own constitution, however many seem alien to us. For instance the ‘right to work’ means something completely different in our society. In our society it is a right of the capitalist to fire workers without explanation, a very obvious anti-worker law. In the Soviet constitution the work day is legally restricted to the majority of the masses to a mere 7 hours, something unthinkable even in a modern capitalist society. The right of relaxation is completely overlooked in our society. We are not legally required any vacation time, and paid vacation are almost unheard of. Not only this but leisure facilities such as spas are freely available to all working people. They also had an unalienable right to be taken care of in sickness, old age or otherwise in any incapacity to work. All healthcare was free to all citizens. All higher education was free. In their constitution (back in 1936, mind you) women were legally equal to men, something we don’t even have today in America. All women received paid maternity leave. We also see staunch anti-racist laws 30 years before the civil rights movement in America, laws that suppress racism from taking up a significant role in the social intellectual sphere. We even see separation of church and state as something guaranteed in the constitution. (However I will say that in the Soviet Union the Church was separate from the State, but the State was not separate from the Church, something I am very critical of and you can read more about this issue here.) Of course the Soviet Union also had its own ‘bill of rights’ which was similar to ours. This in combination with democracy in the workplace was a huge triumph for working people.

However the Soviet Union never did actually achieve socialism in the traditional sense of the word. Socialism requires the workers to own AND democratically control the means of production. In the Soviet Union the state still owned most of the industry and agriculture and often set quotas to be met by the working people, this top-down leadership was often at odds with workers’ democracy because the means of production were still state-owned. We call this system state-capitalism, in which the state owns the means of production. However it was arguably a mix between state-capitalism and a very basic form of socialism due to the level of economic democracy guaranteed to all citizens, but this is often debated by even the most prominent economists and scholars. State ownership of the means of production was a necessary prerequisite to socialism because Russia had its revolution before passing through an advanced capitalist phase of development.

If you’re a Trotskyist like me you believe that the Soviet state actually became a tool against the working masses due to this excessively bureaucratic, top-down leadership that was in direct conflict with workers’ democracy. As a result I do not advocate the Soviet model, and I actually would call it a ‘deformed workers state’. I am advocating for worker- not state ownership of the means of production (as it is no longer needed) and democratic control over both the economic and political spheres. I am fighting for the same economic democracy and rights guaranteed to the Soviets in 1936 along with the political democracy we have now in a proletarian- not bourgeois form. That being said, the USSR certainly made undeniable progress, and even in its limited accomplishments it continues to make us look bad 80 years after the fact. And that certainly speaks volumes.

Fascism and it’s fatal flaw

September 15, 2016

The whole political ideology of white supremacists and fascists is based on the denial of basic history, of basic science. It is a fundamental aspect of their ideology because to accept that the holocaust happened is to accept that genocide is the end result of their political beliefs. What separates the Marxists from the Fascists is this, in the past both communists and fascists committed horrible atrocities. To the communists the ends always seemed to justify the means (building a ‘bright communist future’, rapidly industrializing to prepare for the next world war, etc.). Yes terrible things were done by the communists in the name of building communism but the ends and the means were always separate. The fascists on the other hand cannot separate the ends from the means. The fascist ideology is inherently based on these extreme ends, the means for them are just as extreme and evil as their ends. White separatism, anti-semitism, white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and blatant racism are the foundations of their ideology. The eradication of the jews who are supposedly in charge of the world is a cornerstone to their ideology, yet they claim the holocaust never even happened. They claim the death camps were in fact ‘prison camps’, clinging to that justification as if even that were okay. Many Marxists on the other hand do not deny the past (myself included). We try to learn from the mistakes of the past, the extreme measures and extreme authoritarianism that was used in order to ensure that history does not repeat itself. For us the denial of credible and commonly accepted history is not a fundamental part of our ideology. Find me a Nazi who accepts that the holocaust happened and I’ll find you a medal.

A defense of ‘critical’ views of history in regard to politics

September 15, 2016

I am hesitant to turn my gaze to a ‘preferred’ history that matches my politics. The truth is elusive and one will find a hundred varying accounts of any single topic. In my mind a critical approach is best as one cannot forge an iron-clad future without learning from the mistakes of the past, whether real or or falsified. In history- especially in regard to politics one will hardly ever find a non-biased account on a particular subject. History offers us a way to deny or minimalize the mistakes of the past, while these views should absolutely be explored in the pursuit of truth, one must remain non-biased in the realm of actual politics and I hold that a critical view is best. The pursuit of truth is no doubt important, but it will become twisted and contorted in favor of ones political stance on an issue. Thus we have the holocost deniars and others who cling to such views. If you believe in something you must be absolutely critical of its previous applications in the real world, otherwise history (not the history you think happened) is bound to repeat itself.

Note* I am not saying to discard facts. Only that certain political ideologies are dependent on it. That their theoretical views must take into account the most hostile criticisms instead of merely discarding them. Otherwise history is bound to repeat itself. Truth is the most important thing but not when it comes to defending political theory for in that regard even the most vicious lie must be prevented from repeating itself (whether it happened in the first place or not). You are bound to deny the holocost if you are a Nazi, etc. This was the goal of this writing.

A message from Albert Speer, “The Nazi who said sorry”

September 14, 2016

I was looking into people with my personality type (INTP) and I came across a peculiar fellow named Albert Speer. He was the Minister of Armaments in Nazi Germany, and he was the only one to apologize for the crimes he had committed in the Nuremberg Trials, the only one to take any moral responsibility. You can spend time looking at the Nazi’s, at all the crimes they committed but not a single one of the big ones will never apologize, none of them except Mr. Albert Speer. He committed terrible crimes, but strangely enough after his release from prison he wrote books about his experience inside the third reich, even donating up to 80% of his book sales to Jewish charities anonymously. But I’m not here to defend Mr. Speer, not by any means. I am here because Mr. Speer had a message to the world that needs to be heard. There is something Mr. Speer said that I think has more merit today than in his lifetime, and that is this:

“Technology [can be used] to multiply [genocide]. … The more technological the world becomes, the more essential … individual freedom and the self-awareness of the individual human being [will be] as a counterpoise to technology.”

What does this imply? Well Mr. Speer certainly knew what he was talking about, he was a very bright man (IQ of 128). He wanted to warn the world of the dangers of technology, the dangers it poses to freedom, to individuality. As we become increasingly interconnected as technology progresses we must not lose out individuality, our ability to think as individuals human beings. We must remain vigilant, militantly opposed to the slightest erosion of our rights in the name of ‘security’ or ‘counter-terrorism’. Modern technology poses a greater existential threat to our freedom than anything else in all human history, while it has the potential to- and undeniably has radically improved our lives, this truth cannot be forgotten. This I believe is the essence of Mr. Speer’s message.

On Justice and the worst if humanity

September 7, 2016

I don’t know how I feel about humanity. Through the lens of the internet I have probed into some of the darkest aspects of humankind. Some of the worst atrocities and most terrible crimes against humanity are done seemingly without any real reason at all. I cannot accept that there is a part of society that lacks empathy to such an extent that human suffering becomes mere entertainment. It’s easy to alienate such people from the mere concept of ‘humanity’, to dehumanize them as they dehumanize others. Perhaps they alone aren’t to blame, perhaps it is society as much as the individual. A society that is no different from the worst individuals, calling for blood, calling for the death penalty, calling for fellow human beings to ‘rot in jail’. If we are truly different than those we call animals we should rise above them and base our judicial system on forgiveness, empathy and correction. I too have called for blood, and it still makes sense that certain people who do certain things shouldn’t be allowed to exist, part of me advocates that the worst criminals should simply be shot. But what does that say about society where such a philosophy becomes law? What do want our justice based on? Forgiveness & hope or death & punishment? This is something each of us must decide for themselves.

Social Structure, Automated Labor, Communism, Housing, a rambling

September 7, 2016

Social Structures, Community, and Architecture 

The best society is one that combines the interconnectedness of a large society with the sense of community of a small society. The internet allows us more interconnectedness than ever before. Thus we collectively as a society can begin to change the social dynamic in the real world to address the lack of community we feel in such an interconnected, large, and monotone society. This begins with architecture. When we begin to build neighborhoods, communities, buildings in a way that society begins to extend its hand unto itself. We can begin to build the world in a more diverse way, so you see the best building styles, cultures, art, and social systems all mixed together. To see grand Egyptian style monuments, Greek columned buildings, Victorian and Italian homes, etc. But this is simply a means of diversifying the visual world. So when someone in Florida drives to California he feels himself to be another place entirely. He see’s different buildings, different styles of art, architecture, etc. The present society has had the effect of making the visual world in regard to the road system undeniably bland and monotone in nature, something which must be actively fought against.

Automation of labor 

With technology comes rapid increases in automation. Automated labor under capitalism strikes fear and terror into the modern worker, for he/ she knows they have no job security, no safety net, and no way to survive if and when their labor is replaced with a robot. Under both socialism automated labor breathes a sigh of relief into the worker. For he knows that no longer will men have to toil away on menial tasks, he will be provided for and his needs will be met by society and by the business which he is democratically a part of. He will be able to actively contribute to society in another, more useful way. The surplus produced by the robot will go to the workers themselves thus increasing overall wealth and also to those who were put off of work until they can find new employment/ change tasks. With the increasing amount of automated labor socialism will become even more- a necessity.

The future of communism with the coming of automated labor 

I dream one day (maybe in 200 years or so) that all manual labor will be done by robots. All farming and hard, industrial labor will be done by robots. All blue collar jobs will be done by robots and for the first time man will be free from having to toil away hours on end meaninglessly and will be able to pursue his/her own creative passions as well as the pursuit of science, art, literature, etc. Society will be run on 100% renewable energy, likely involving cold-fusion. Already communism frees man from the already existing state of menial labor. As the productive forces grow exponentially man will be able to merely give to society, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. The practical theories of communism came about long before the automobile. Even then they saw the potential of the industrial revolution, the potential capitalism had to revolutionize the world. What they didn’t see was the coming of robots- actual machines made to do complex tasks on their own. With their invention, along with the invention of the automobile, the internet, and all other grand technological achievements which have been invented in the last 100 years it is undeniable that the communist system will- or at the very least has the potential to- inevitably prevail. One day, and only when the state is gone, man will be free. Only then will mankind reach the ultimate expansion of freedom, democracy, equality, fraternity and personal liberty for all. But this could easily be achieved without robots, it could be done by man alone. The invention of robotics merely compliments the possibility of a real global communist system. Each day the productive forces are exponentially increasing and the modern economy is struggling to keep up- as evidenced by its decreasing ability to provide for those who create the wealth: the working and middle class, the pride of the American dream. I can only hope one day for a system that is fundamentally based on human needs and not greed, where the sacred chant that ‘all men are created equal’ is mirrored by the very fabric of society, so all men have an equal chance to succeed in life. 

Wealth Inequality in proportion to Housing 

We live in a society where capital is not only not proportional to hard work- but actually contradicts it in many ways. This is not to say that the rich do not work hard, but that the poor also work hard- oftentimes more so. No I do not wish everyone to be paid equally, but only that labor is directly proportional to capital received, and ultimately the abolition of money completely. But there is the housing question. Some of the hardest workers in our society have the smallest homes, not only is wealth disproportionate to hard work but so too is housing. You cannot force people out of their homes, you cannot leave the hardest working people in society in absurdly cramped homes either. The only real solution would be one that could only take place over a very long period of time, one that does not infringe of people’s right to personal (not private) property. It would be easy to say that homes not deemed fit for human living be demolished but this is impractical. I have not figured out a practical potential solution to this problem as of yet, but I do know one thing. The land belongs to those who work it, and the home belongs to those who dwell within it.

Labor Unions for Labor Day

September 3, 2016

I heard someone say we don’t need labor unions anymore… Sure, we don’t need labor unions when migrant workers have to wear adult diapers at factories because they aren’t allowed bathroom breaks, we don’t need labor unions when people are still working 60 hours a week and still struggling to feed themselves and their families, sure we don’t need labor unions anymore when people have to chose between eating or paying rent. Oh and contrary to what you may have heard, it’s illegal for you to be fired for starting/ joining a union. We need labor unions in every enterprise there is, we need people to stand up and say enough is enough. You think we have a 40 hour workweek standard, no child labor, and the freaking weekend because capitalists gave those things to you out of the kindness of their heart? No! Those things were earned with the blood, sweat and vicious struggle of labor unions and worker movements of the past. We don’t even celebrate May Day (the REAL labor day) anymore even though it was founded- not in Moscow but in America! If you and your fellow workers are being mistreated, suffering due to low wages or being overworked: join or start a union! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

The meaning of “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”

September 1, 2016

“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” means when the productive forces become so productive that people can give only what they can to the work force and take what they need from society. There is always more than could ever possibly consumed, and if there isn’t they can always produce more. Everyone in society is fed, clothed, and has a roof over their head. There is no more poverty, no more hunger. There is no more exploitation of one group of people over another, this is the embodiment of true liberty.

The distinction here is that the present society does not resemble this pholosohy in any way, shape or form. Labor in modern society is not only not proportional to weapth but the hardest workers in our society are the poorest. The first step to addressing this problem is to make work proportional to wealth, to end thr systematic oppression which makes this so. By abolishing the distinctions between those who make the wealth (workers) and those who take the wealth (capitalists), we introduce for the first time real democracy. Not merely the formal democracy we see today, but real democracy, democracy in the workplace. Thus the philosphy becomes “he who does not (aside from those who physically/ mentally cannot) work, does not eat”. We call this system socialism. However even this is still an injustice as income is for the first time directly proportional to work, but not to NEEDS. Thus the single mother of 4 makes the same as the independant man so long as they work the same amount. Thus the goal of socialism is not socialism itself, but communism, where the last injustices which survive under socialism are abolished. The state is abolished, currency is abolished and the alienation of work itself is abolished. Thus the philosophy of communism is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their NEEDS (not proportional to work)”. Only under a global economic system with the modern advancements of industry and agriculture is this possible. And with this, comes the end result of thousands of years of innovation and struggle, as Einstein put it, it’s about “advancing beyond the predatory phase of human development”. This I believe.

Is the productive potential already beyond what capitalism can provide?

August 20, 2016

The fact that the hardest workers under capitalism are the poorest speaks volumes to its inefficiency. There is no denying that in not rewarding hard work, it has become a burden to the productive forces. Moreover with the very recent exponential increase of technological advancements we see that it is taking more and more innovation to sustain the capitalist economy. Capitalism, according to both pro-capitalist economists and marxian economists requires constant growth (around 3% annually) just to function properly. There is no doubt that we are pushing our economic system continually to the absolute limit, with such an amount of constant growth required, the economy must continue to produce new innovations exponentially in order to function. While the productive potential itself is also fundamentally rising, eventually the productive potential will rise far beyond what is economically feasible under capitalism, far beyond its potential to provide a decent life to those who actually produce societies wealth. It is arguable that this has already taken place, that the proletarianization of the American middle class itself is a sign of the decline in the economies power to sustain a strong middle class, and thus meet its productive potential. Thus the people of the world will soon have to confront the fact that we live in a system, and moreover have lived in a system for a long time now with the productive potential to feed, house, and otherwise provide the necessities to every man, woman and child however it is set up in such a rigid, outdated way that it’s innovations are unable to provide for and enrich the lives of those who actually produce the wealth of our society. This is undeniable proof that the current productive potential cannot be met under capitalism, that even though we are seeing an exponential increase in technological growth, it is not because the economy is keeping up with the productive potential, but rather that the productive potential is so far beyond what the capitalist economy can provide that the economy itself cannot keep up, that it is struggling to provide and grow at a constant rate, and that its struggling so much that it is impoverishing the middle class, the pride of the American dream.

Why Socialism?

August 19, 2016

“We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We called those the barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same*, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger.” -Peter Kropotkin

I decided to write this because I wanted to justify my views to the world, and I am not alone. You will find that the bulk of this explains the socialist system, but in doing so provides undeniable merit to its neccesity. Originally Albert Einstein published an article called Why Socialism? in 1949 in the first issue of the American socialist journal called the Monthly Review. His article was the inspiration for this post, I look up to Einstein not only as a role model but as a mentor. As a soon-to-be Astronomer/ Astrophysicist I have always looked up to Einstein for his genius, his contribution to the scientific realm and for his love and curiosity of the universe. The original Why Socialism? can be found here. If you’re going to read my version, I highly encourage you to read his. Mine goes into much more detail explaining what socialism and communism actually are than his. I’ll also post the link at the end of the article.

There is an alarming amount of hostile misinformation at best, or rather intentional propaganda against the mere term socialism. This is the reason for why I am going insofar as to explain what socialism actually is and how it works. In fact 9 out of 10, or rather 99 out of 100 people cannot actually tell you what socialism actually is, let alone how it works. Yet they are more than willing to tell you why it is wrong. So before you read any further I ask you to forget everything you’ve ever been taught about socialism, what it means, what it does, what it is, etc. Forget everything, and I truly mean everything. “Unless you have investigated a problem you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Is that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and past history, and know nothing of the essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense” -Mao Zedong.

I am an intellectual, and with that comes a disdain for blindly accepting social dogmas, particularly in my case with the blind appraisal for the capitalist system in society today. Thus I have probed into sources which praise capitalism, and sources which criticize it. You cannot come to a conclusion about something so important without fully knowing both sides of the story, so that’s exactly what I did. After countless, countless days of research, I find myself fully siding with an intellectual concept which is not only at odds, but blindly hated by a majority of those in our society. Thus I feel compelled to have those who question my decision to advocate socialism hear my side of the story. As a Christian I feel compelled to not only reject capitalism, a system which is fundamentally based on greed and the love of money but to support the socialist, the fairer system.

To begin, Karl Marx was Capitalism’s most intelligent and thorough critic of the capitalist system. Even though he was born in 1818 nearly everything he predicted about the future of the capitalist system has come to pass, everything except a communistic revolution in an advanced capitalist country. Marx himself was an economist and a philosopher. He never actually wrote an article, let alone a book on communism. He scientifically analyzed the capitalist system. He was up to date on all the latest economic theories of his time, in fact he painstakingly poured over literally everything ever written by the major economists of his time before even beginning to criticize the capitalist system. He combined the philosopher Hegel’s concept of analysis via dialectics with the philosophical concept of materialism to form both dialectical and historical materialism. In doing such, he provided a clear, logical lens in which to scientifically analyze both the present world and both the past, taking into account the relations and complexities of the production of the necessities of life. Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism are the fundamental cornerstone of Marx’s theories, of his scientific analysis of the world. Now, I’m writing an article on my blog, not a book. So if you want to really understand Marx’s theories go him yourself! I can only take you so far, as to give you a very, very basic introduction into his theories on Marxian economics, and the basics of socialism and communism. Seeking Marx out for yourself is really the only way to learn about Marxian economics in the United States. There are hardly any college courses (in the US) which even teach Marxian economics, you can actually get a PHD in economics without ever once being required to read Marx in the United States. There are several reasons for this, firstly the United States is much more afraid of socialism (given the cold war) than many European countries, where Marxian economics are taught along side the traditional, neoclassical economics. Secondly, we live in a society which for the most part, blindly praises capitalism without even having to criticize it.

A fundamental part of Marx’s worldview takes into account class distinctions and class conflict. Class, in Marxian terms is not mere economic inequality (though that is a result of class conflict). It is the conflict between the makers which in capitalist society are the workers, or the proletariat and the takers which in capitalist society are called the capitalists or the bourgeoisie. So for this I’ll give you a real world example of some very basic Marxian economics, and yes I’m sorry but it requires a little math: The worker produces say 100 dollars in the span of an hour. The capitalist takes that whole hundred dollars and naturally uses that 100 to pay the worker his wage, say 8 dollars. The rest of that money is what we call the surplus value. So the capitalist takes the rest of that money to pay for the resources for the raw materials of production, taxes, etc. which we’ll say totals 35 dollars. But that leaves 57 dollars left over which the worker made, yet does not receive. So the capitalist takes the whole of that 57 dollars, perhaps some of it goes to the board of directors if we’re talking about a corporation, but in essence, that 57 dollars, the bulk of the profit, is not taken by the worker who made it, but by the capitalist. The goal of the capitalist is to maximize his profit by maximizing the amount of the surplus value he takes to the bank, also to minimize the other expenses including the workers’ wage. So what does he do? He pays the worker the lowest wage humanly possible. In the days of the early industrial revolution, before workers unions came around he payed the worker enough to merely survive, to maintain a wretched, yet real existence. Obviously he has to pay the worker enough to eat, because if he dies the capitalist loses a major source of income. Thus the human being is dehumanized, or alienated by his labor. He is no longer a human being, but merely a tool of production to make money for the capitalist. Alienation appears not only as the result of production, but also in the act of production itself. Where the worker “feels himself at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless. His work is not voluntary but imposed, (compulsory) forced labor. (His work) is not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means for satisfying other needs (food, water, shelter, etc.). Its alien character is clearly shown by the fact that as soon as there is no physical or other compulsion it is avoided like a plague.” [3]. The goal of socialism is communism, and while socialism alleviates some of this alienation, the worker is not completely emancipated from it until communism has been fully achieved.

In modern society we have a minimum wage, but that is not a living wage. Every once in a while the wage goes up, but it does not go up with inflation. It is a constant struggle on the part of the workers, a class struggle to continually raise the wage so the workers have enough to survive. The capitalist also doesn’t want to pay taxes, that’s less money for him. So naturally he dodges paying taxes by any means necessary, as we often hear about corporations in the news with so called off-shore ‘tax havens’. Also to save money the capitalist will outsource labor to third world countries, where he can pay the workers their significantly less! Why pay 8 dollars to the US worker when you can pay the foreign worker $2.50? With the abundance of mass production the raw materials of production are lower than ever! Why even pay a worker at all when you can replace him with a robot that will do the exact some thing for free? The state, the government, the media, all things which capital has a hand in, are ruled by- or at least heavily influenced by the bourgeoisie, the ruling class to maintain the prevailing social order, such is the nature of the ruling class in any social system. The capitalist doesn’t want socialism because under socialism he himself would be required to work to survive! Under socialism those who make the surplus value, get the leftover surplus value (after taxes, raw materials, etc)! Socialism does not cause laziness, rather socialism directly rewards hard work, unlike capitalism where the wage stays the same regardless of how hard the worker works! The philosophy of socialism is “He who does not (apart from those who physically, mentally cannot) work does not eat”. Thus socialism is not the system which takes from people who work hard and gives it to people who don’t deserve it, that is actually capitalism!

To understand what Marx and Engels meant by saying that, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” in the Communist Manifesto it is essential to look at the world today, but also at all human history through the lens of historical materialism, to see how humans develop in relation to the materials they produce which are essential to life. I will try to make this analysis as brief as possible, but it is essential to truly beginning to understand the answer to the question of Why Socialism? 

The original hunter gatherer societies were what Marx called Primitive Communist societies. He called them this because the way the necessities of life were organized. “They depended on finding enough food to survive through a combination of hunting and scavenging wild animals and gathering wild plants. They were at the mercy of their environment and had no way of storing more than small amounts of food long-term, particularly as they usually had to travel long distances to find food. Everyone was involved in producing the necessities of life (food, shelter etc) because otherwise the group would starve. There was no room for an elite to develop who could exploit the labour of others…Studies of hunter-gatherer societies carried out in the last century show that in many cases they had developed a complex system of sharing resources within and between the groups as a kind of insurance against famine or conflict. In hunter-gatherer society, if one group does well it is in their own long-term interests to share the fruits of their success with other groups. If they have a surplus of food they cannot eat or store they give some to other groups, understanding that if another group is successful the original group will be able to share their surplus. This not only helps the groups through the times when food is scarce, it also reduces conflict between them. When everyone is dependent on each other, it is in everyone’s interests to avoid conflict”.[1]

Thus the communistic, and even biblical principle of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” was met in these primitive communist societies. Such a philosophy, both in primitive times and when communism, as many intellectuals such as myself believe, inevitably triumphs over the whole world “in turn produces a democratic and co-operative method of decision-making.”[1] Democracy is absolutely essential to any socialist or communist system. Socialism is- in essence the extension of democracy, contrary to what you may have heard. When the bourgeoisie are overthrown who will replace them? In our present society, the workplace cannot be described as anything less than a dictatorship. The workers are a mere tool of the capitalist to produce a profit, they have no democratic control of the business they sacrifice their livelihood to maintain. Under socialism AND communism democracy is extended from mere formal democracy into real democracy, democracy in the work place. As Lenin said, “Democracy is indispensable to socialism”.

About 10,000 years ago came the first use of agriculture, of farming. “For the first time ever, human society was able to produce a permanent surplus (the amount of food and goods produced over and above what they needed to survive). This allowed a section of society to be released from the day-to-day work of producing the necessities of life without endangering the survival of the group.” This is the dawn of modern society, of all documented human history. “As the productivity of labour increased and some societies became more complex, a layer of administrators also emerged. For example the first known writing system in the world was developed by the Sumerians in the years leading up to 3,000 BC.”[1] With this came the emergence of class society. With it, there are historically 3 systems which have dominated recent human history, these are Slavery, Feudalism, and Capitalism.

“SLAVERY: The ancient slave societies, for example Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, were based on 57 the exploitation of slave labour on a massive scale. Large cities where wealthy landowners lived were supported by huge numbers of slaves (mostly captured in war) who worked the land and made most of the goods such as oil, wine, pottery and jewellery that made the slave societies so rich.

FEUDALISM: is a peasant-based economy where the peasants control what they produce on their “own” plot of land but are forced to give a portion of the fruits of their labour to the feudal lord who owns or controls the land where they live. This surplus taken by the lord can take many forms, for instance: the peasant doing a certain number of days labour on the lord’s land; giving a certain proportion of the year’s produce; or paying money rent. The landowning aristocracy are the ruling class under feudalism. Although the state usually centres round the monarchy, the royal family is generally drawn from the landowning aristocracy and follows their interests.

CAPITALISM: the economic system which dominates the world today, is based on private ownership of the means of production (manufacturing industry, the raw materials and resources needed for industry and, today, even the seeds necessary for food production) and exploitation of the labour of the working-class. The working-class, with no land or substantial inherited wealth, have no means of supporting themselves and are forced to sell their labour to survive. Capitalists buy this labour power, then get their money back and make profits by selling necessities and other products to the working-class and other classes in society.” [1]

Thus we see what Marx and Engels meant in the Communist Manifesto when they said, “In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.” [2]

The slogan of the French revolution was Liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). They thought that by overthrowing feudalism and replacing it with capitalism these things would be achieved. Even today, 300+ years after the birth of modern capitalism this has yet to be achieved, even worse, with the forces of production growing ever faster inequality is actually exponentially more than it was in the days of feudalism. Marx recognized that capitalism was not a system which could deliver on its promise of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. He did, however praise capitalism for it’s vast technological advancements. Through the lens of historical materialism he saw that the socioeconomic systems historically lag behind the technological advancements of the means of production, that the old ways of doing things (slave economies, feudalism, capitalism, etc.) eventually become outdated, and the people realize that there can be a better way, a more efficient and humane way to run society. So the people rightfully take up arms and through means of revolution overthrow all existing social conditions and build a radical, new social order. Marx knew that with the coming of capitalism, society would be radically transformed. He accurately predicted that the living conditions of the proletariat would increase with the advancement of society, as they have today. But so long as capitalism exists, the bulk of the surplus value (the economic fruits of the workers labor) would be taken by the capitalist (bourgeoisie), who had not worked for it, in exchange for a wage or a salary. Marx saw that while capitalism would bring the world into a new age, humanity could do better, and must do better.

The only thing that can change this is the  abolition of private property (meaning private, individual ownership of the economy, not personal property). Thus with this comes social ownership of the means of production and for the first time the workers, those who produce the product enjoy the full fruits of their labour, for the first time have democratic control over their business and thus the economy moves from operating under the motive of capital (accumulation of money through greed), to the bettering of society as a whole. For the reasons of doing away with the grave evils that pervade our society today (vast inequality, poverty, greed, etc.) I support the transition to a socialist economy. No one should have the fruits of their labor stolen from them, no one should be able to amass a fortune without they themselves working for it. In the present capitalist society, Kropotkin accurately states that “Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor”. This is a fundamental truth to the capitalist system. 

Another thing that bothered Marx is that since capitalism is a system of hundreds if not thousands of individual, separate firms, there is no real central planning in the production of goods. Thus, under capitalism we regularly face crisis’ of overproduction. Where we produce too much food, too much of a basic economic essential to life. Because of this we regularly see booms and busts. The economy regularly crashes with appalling human consequences. But do we as a society label this as a failure of capitalism? No! We blame corporate greed, bankers, etc. for the fundamental problems associated with the capitalist system.“…capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.” -Leon Trotsky

With the lack of centralized planning we see another alarming fact of the capitalist system. In the past famine was caused by lack of food, but in the present society we have more than enough food to feed everyone who is hungry. We in fact have too much food. Thus in the present society people go hungry not because they don’t work, not because there isn’t enough food, but because the poor are merely discarded as trash. We have enough food, water, shelter, raw materials, etc. for every man, woman and child on earth. But so long as profit is the motive, and not humanity, the poor will be discarded as trash. This is arguably the most appalling aspect of the capitalist system. Poverty is not only a result of capitalism, but it is essential, intentional, and systematically maintained. We have incredible, unprecedented productive potential as a global society, and we are tragically pursuing a profit motive rather than one that both provides and is based on providing the basic essentials for all. The only economy I believe in is one that aims to meet the basic needs of all human beings. Poverty today can be completely eliminated worldwide, but never through a system which places profits before people. The only system which can do this is socialism, and eventually through socialism: communism.

Capitalism has been a catastrophe for the exploited peoples in third-world countries, people who are forced to work for hours on end for just pennies a day in exchange for their labor, their countries resources, etc. Arguably even worse is the unsustainability of the capitalist system. Capitalism, according to both pro-capitalist economists and marxian economists requires constant growth (around 3% annually) just to function properly. There is also the climate emergency which we are facing today, it is only to be expected of a system which puts profits before both people and planet. There is no question that capitalist is unsustainable. Socialism is the only real solution to this problem.

As with any radical new idea, people often take it to the extreme. The early emergence of capitalism was no different in this regard. We saw this in Russia in the 1930’s, in Albania, in China, etc. While there is a vast amount of misinformation out there, it is imperative to learn from the mistakes of the past, and to condemn them. As much as I understand why Stalin did what he did, having foresaw WW2 back in the 1920’s and the need to prepare the country, the ends did not justify the means. I see Stalinism as the bastardization of Leninism, as many critics of Stalinism often do. The original tenets of the October revolution were largely abandoned when Stalin came to power and all the original Bolsheviks from the period of the October revolution were executed under Stalin’s orders. For if they realized how far off from the original tenets of Leninism he had gone, they would have undoubtedly tried to stop him. Thus every single country which is or has ever been Marxist-Leninist has based their country off- not the tenets of the October revolution, but off of Stalin’s Russia. This to me, is a huge mistake, and even more than that a tragedy. This bastardized version of socialism is what comes to mind when we hear the word socialism. Under Stalinism we often see religious oppression, a lack of democracy, the existence of state capitalism longer than needed rather than socialism, etc. Though it is impossible to deny that even this bastardized version of Leninism, of centralized planning has has impeccable results. Russia had just gone through a violent revolution which- as revolutions so often do- traumatized the economy. The country had just ended WW1 devastated, and they were in the midst of a famine. Yet within 20 years they had become a modern, industrial superpower. People were fed, literacy was comparable with the West. This never would have happened so fast without a socialist revolution. China in the 30’s was a largely feudal peasant society, 4 out of 5 people were poor peasants. Only the wealthy could read and mass famine was common. Yet after Mao Zedong came to power, after many failed and often tragic mass social experiments, the country was once again radically transformed into a period of food stability, literacy, industrialization, etc. China even now rivals the United States. If you look at Cuba before Fidel Castro came to power you will see the same thing. Over 40% of the land owned by 1% of the people, often American corporations, child mortality and illiteracy were among the highest in the world, etc. Today Cuba has a better literacy and child mortality rate than the United States. Many socialist countries have been severely damaged, if not totally destroyed by the US. The Cuban trade embargo has left Cuba trapped in the 60’s, yet still they persevere. In Chile the worlds first democratically elected Marxist president was violently overthrown by the CIA and replaced with a brutal, puppet military dictatorship which caused the lives of thousands of innocent people. In North Korea, few people realize that it is the trade restrictions imposed by the US and not the North Korean government which is actually starving the people of North Korea. Quality of life was actually better in North Korea than in South Korea in the time before the fall of the USSR. None of these revolutions were the revolution that Marx predicted, but they still show the sheer power of having a scientifically planned economy, and offer great lessons to be learned from in the future. While I condemn many of these states, I see them as examples to learn from in the future as not to allow the negative aspects of history to repeat themselves. As a footnote, socialism has not been achieved in many of these countries, many of them never went past the (arguably unnecessary in an advanced capitalist society such as the US) state-capitalism phase. Communism has never been achieved in any country ever, and it can only be achieved globally. The US and other imperialist powers will stop at nothing to ensure that socialism is crushed. Just take a look at the declassified operation blackwoods in which the US planned a massive series of homeland terrorist attacks to provoke war with Cuba.

Many of these countries are based not only on Stalinism, but with that on Stalin’s theory of Socialism in one country. This theory advocates the building of socialism in one country, then, once world revolution comes along, the transition to full communism. I, and many others disagree with this theory. The capitalist economy is a world economy, so too must be the socialist economy. The main reason, in my opinion that Socialism in one country does not work is because outside threats, such as the US pose too great a risk and thus the regime can easily become oppressive to hold onto power and to fight foreign imperialist influence. The only solution is the emergence of a communistic revolution in an advanced capitalist country which will help to bring about worldwide, permanent revolution. The existence of any single socialist country in a capitalist world economy is the same as a single capitalist country in a feudal world economy. The Feudal lords would impost trade restrictions, provoke war with and try to tear apart the capitalist country from the inside because capitalism is a direct threat to the monarchs power. It is no different with socialist countries today, the leaders of the capitalist system want nothing less than the complete destruction of these countries. As a result many of them end up becoming highly authoritarian. I myself am a libertarian socialist, I condemn excessive authoritarianism, though some would of course be necessary.

I cannot emphasize this next point enough. Socialism is an economic system based on social (worker, sometimes public) ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is an economic system based on private (capitalist, individual) ownership of the means of production. Socialism and capitalism both can exist in an authoritarian or libertarian country alike. There are anarchist-socialists, anarchist-capitalists, and anarchist-communists who advocate these systems without the existence of government. Contrary to what you may have heard, socialism has nothing to do with the government.  

As I said earlier, there is no ruling class under socialism, no one under socialism gets rich without they themselves producing the fruits of the labor they receive. Yes capitalism has brought us iPhones and flat screen tv’s and I praise it for that. But historically there comes a point in time when the prevailing socioeconomic system, be it slavery, feudalism, or capitalism lags behind the productive potential (or sustainability) of the forces of production, something which has arguably already begun. Capitalism is proving to be more and more unsustainable. And thus the people- realizing that the ruling class is not only no longer needed but an actual hindrance to the productive forces, to their livelihoods, revolt in an act of revolution. Historically this is the replacing of one ruling class with the other. But here is what makes socialism different. In the case of socialism, it removes class distinctions completely, there is no one to hold onto the surplus value produced by the workers themselves. Under socialism, ‘he who does not work (excluding those who cannot work) does not eat’. Under capitalism the rich get richer by contributing absolutely nothing to the forces of production, and to society at large. Thus the hardest workers under capitalism, are the poorest, while the richest are the laziest. Under capitalism it is possible to become wealthy and simply live off the wealth, and the ever increasing interest rates, stocks, etc. And it is possible, nay it is common for one to amass a fortune by contributing absolutely nothing to society, while impoverishing those who actually produce the wealth. Socialism turns that upside down, the hardest workers of society make the most money. This is the essence of socialism.

However socialism is only the first step, communism is the end goal. With the emergence of communism the state is set up in such a rigid way that it withers away. What is the state? The state is the aspect of the government which exists for the domination and suppression of one class over another. In the case of the capitalist countries today the state serves the bourgeoisie and thus works to suppress the proletariat to maintain the prevailing social system (capitalism). I said earlier that there is no ruling class under socialism, but this is only partially true. For the majority (proletariats) become the ruling class, because they are the makers and the takers, they are the only real class. The bourgeoisie, or moreover the former bourgeoisie are prevented by the state from returning to power, just as the French state prevented the feudal lords from returning to power. Thus we call any capitalist country a ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’ (regardless of how ‘free’ it might seem) and likewise a socialist country we call a’dictatorship of the proletariat’ (of the working masses, the 99%). The goal of socialism is to rid of the state completely, as Lenin said, “So long as the state exists, there is no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no state“. This is not to say that Lenin was advocating that the state intentionally deprive the masses of freedom, for he also said that “It is sheer mockery of the working and exploited people to speak of pure democracy, of democracy in general, of equality, freedom and universal rights when the workers and all working people are ill-fed, ill-clad, ruined and worn out not only as a result of capitalist wage-slavery, but as a consequence of four years of predatory war, while the capitalists and profiteers remain in possession of the ‘property’ usurped by them and the ‘ready-made’ apparatus of state power… Never share the ‘superstitious belief’ in the ‘state’ and never forget that the state even in the most democratic republic, and not only in a monarchy, is simply a machine for the suppression of one class by another.” Thus the goal of socialism is to move to where the state apparatus of the government no longer exists. With this, the various governments around the world also become heavily decentralized. This only happens once lower level communism has been achieved, once all former class distinctions have vanished. In our society today it is arguable that all former class distinctions of feudal society have also long since vanished, so too will those of capitalism.

So what is the difference between socialism and communism? Under socialism the philosophy is that each working individual is entitled to the full fruits of his labor, basically the idea that ‘he who does not work, does not eat’. Under communism the philosophy is this: From each according to their ability to each according to their needs. Communism can only exist once the productive forces have become so productive that it is no longer necessary to toil away at meaningless tasks to receive a meager wage to sustain a basic existence. The means of production have become so productive that meaningless work for long hours on end no longer becomes necessary, and that work which is necessary is not destined to be done solely by any one individual but by all. Under communism money is completely abolished, wages are completely abolished, and the state is completely abolished, and (according to some anarcho-communists) the government itself is abolished. Like renting a book from the library, the librarian does not ask what you have contributed to society before you rent a book. Under communism the essential amount of work is done, but it is not asked what you have contributed to society to meet your basic needs (food, water, shelter, etc.). The world economy, having been transformed in such a productive way no longer requires long hours of hard work just to maintain a basic existence and thus the work week is drastically reduced. The freedom of the individual is expanded to such an extent never before seen. People have much more time to work on things that really matter such as science, literature, philosophy, art, etc. People are free from toiling away, wasting their time for hours and hours on end, from all former oppression. Thus the philosophy of the whole world becomes, “From each according to their ability to each according to their NEEDS (not to the amount of labor they produced). Such a society, with common ownership of the means of production, which puts people before profits and does away with the profit incentive (and money) altogether we call communism.

Given this accurate explanation of what socialism and communism are is it really necessary for me to go on? As Einstein said in the original Why Socialism? which can be found here, socialism “is about moving past the predatory phase of human development”. It doesn’t mean the government should control anything, it means that the workers, those who produce the wealth should reap the full fruits of their labor and thus control the world they themselves democratically build. It means that it is time for humanity to move on in the name of freedom and democracy, to abolish all poverty, all inequality, to give every child an equal chance to succeed. It is the ultimate extension and expression of true freedom. Why socialism? Why not socialism? Need I say more?

Thus allow me to finish with the final words of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto:

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working Men of All Countries, Unite! 

* My italics

Special thanks to Jordan S. and others at SA for giving me advice on what to write about!

[1] Socialist Alternative New Member Reading

[2] The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Fredrich Engels

[3] Karl Marx The Essential Writings: Second Edition edited by Frederic L. Bender and Westview Press

On separation of Church and State

August 14, 2016

I believe in absolute separation of church and state. What I mean by this is absolute separation of the church from the state and absolute separation of the state from the church. Never do I believe that the intertwining of any religious institution with the state can benefit society at large. We all know examples of where there is no separation of the state from the church. We see this now in Saudi Arabia, where women’s rights are horrendously oppressed. In Saudi Arabia conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death. Gay people are forced to become surgically transexual (even though gender identity and sexual orientation are completely separate) or face execution, etc. etc. Many proponents of even minor theocracy, who advocate only some separation of of the church from the state argue that examples such as these are the result of Islam, and somehow not a Christian issue. But historically this is not true, one only has to look at the oppressive theocratic institutions of the dark ages to see that such a claim is not mutually exclusive. The theocratic state, by definition oppresses all non-adherents to the dominant state religion from which the state derives it’s power. There is also the issue, which is of equal importance, of the separation of the state from the church. This became an issue, historically only relatively recently in the course of human development. With the progression of science, humanity leaves behind the superstitious ideals and explanations for natural phenomenon, though they do not in essence discredit religious beliefs. The emergence of ‘state atheism’ justified by the strictest dialectical materialistic viewpoint of the world in so-called ‘Marxist’ states. This, often oppressive version of Marxism-Leninism has been called the “bastardization of Leninism” (though even Lenin himself was a proponent of state atheism to a certain extent) by critics like myself who are very critical of Stalinism but still see the need for real egalitarianism, such as those proposed by Marx and Engels in the modern day. The worst cases of this historically took place in Albania during the 1960’s when all religious institutions were completely destroyed by the state, thus making it the world’s ‘first atheist state’. Even in modern day China and the DPRK (North Korea) we see heavy regulations on religion (i.e. requirements to register to practice religion, religious adherents forbidden from running for office, the destruction of ‘Sunday school’, and even limitations on religious doctrines). Cuba however, by and large has lifted it’s former religious restrictions which is certainly something worth mentioning. Given the atrocities of the lack of the separation of the church from the state AND the state from the church I have come to the conclusion that the absolute separation of church and state is the only way forward. Officially the state should hold no positions on religious affairs, neither theistic or atheistic. I hesitate as the whether to even call this ideal stance on religion state agnosticism as even that would imply that the state favors agnosticism over theism or atheism. Thus, I call this religious neutrality, or a religiously neutral state. Such is the nature of separation of church and state.

Does anything really matter?

August 14, 2016

I’ve often pondered this, wondering about what meaning we have. We are things- things that were thrust into existence without our consent. When I think about what should exist I often come to the conclusion that nothing should exist. Not just empty space which itself is governed by natural laws but truly nothing at all. This can be a hard concept to grasp, especially in a universe where it appears to be the exact opposite of this. There is of course, the existence of virtual particles which shows us that the universe can spontaneously thrust particles into existence so long as an equal but opposite anti-particle is also produced and manages to collide with the twin parter, thus annihilating. To put this principle in mathematical terms, we can say 1 (particle) + (-1) (anti-particle) = 0 (nothing). So perhaps the universe itself is simply a virtual particle waiting to annihilate with it’s anti-universe in an even bigger universe. Perhaps if you zoom out forever you’ll keep finding yourself zooming out of the same- or a similar virtual particle (or similar thing), and this- along with every possible thing which nature allows is all there is. Pondering such things which cannot be proven can be exhausting as one is never really satisfied with the conclusions. What makes it even worse is the question it always comes back to- does anything really matter? Where do I play a role in all of this? To answer this question you have to come to the realization that to matter is in fact an abstract concept (not to say it has no value, money itself is an abstract concept). My friends matter to me,  my family, those around me, etc. But for someone in China, what matters to him is fundamentally quite different. A rock sitting on the surface of Venus or some far off, unknown world does not matter. Entire individual galaxies, while grandiose structures which are to be respected do not matter to me. Even on the smallest of scales we see the opposite, when a new element is produced the whole world celebrates at the birth of a single atom which existed for a fraction of a second before decaying. We have people saying that everything has a purpose even if we don’t understand it, and perhaps this is true. But fundamentally to matter is a relative concept, dependent on the subject. To matter arguably requires a conscious being to care about something, or to later be grateful for it (ex. the first life on Earth). So to say that nothing really matters and to say that everything matters are both true statements. Nothing really matters to inanimate empty space and everything matters to say God or someone who truly believes that everything has a purpose. Sometimes it’s just best to accept the flame as hot and go from there. To say that the flame is hot, that is concrete, that is a material thing which is tangible. Instead of getting worked up on the meaning of life, existence, etc. you can simply accept the fundamental concrete (even if you do not yet understand it) and move on from there, to focus on say human affairs. To decide to spend your mental energy on human problems and human issues, things which matter to people. Thus everything matters, some things matter depending on the subject and nothing matters, all of these are true statements. Thus to matter, being a relative concept, is also relative to you the reader. So perhaps the question is not merely an existential one, but a personal one.

Race and Crime, a brief analysis and criticism of racism and the current economic, judicial system

August 13, 2016

I decided to do this because I’ve seen all the evidence for my hypothesis individually however I wanted to make this to connect all the dots and back my research with scientific studies. It is well known that minority groups are disproportionately affected by poverty. However with this progressive ‘wave’ that emerged as a result of the civil rights movement, “the number of black and Hispanic elected officials has dramatically increased, and a black middle class is thriving. On the other hand, some members within the different groups have fallen even further behind…” [1]. What makes this important is that (According to University of Alberta research) “Children in low-income families start off with higher levels of antisocial behaviour than children from more advantaged households. And if the home remains poor as the children grow up, antisocial behaviour becomes much worse over time compared to children living in households that are never poor or later move out of poverty” [2]. By ‘anti-social behaviour’ it is meant criminal and malicious behaviour. So given this it would be clear to say that poverty and crime as a result of poverty disproportionately affects ethnic minorities. Indeed it does, the murder rate among Black and Hispanics is significantly higher than any racial group, and it remains this way today even though murder rates are down significantly among all populations [3]. So does that mean that the criminal justice system is NOT racially biased? NO! Quite the contrary! There is an increase among violent crime among minority populations however one can clearly see the racial bias in the criminal justice system by looking at the statistics of a real-world example. Take this into account: Marijuana use rates are roughly equal among white and black populations however black people are 4X as likely to be arrested [5]. This shows the baffling, blatant racism which permeates the criminal justice system. To look at fixing this issue we have to look at the root causes of poverty. Allow me to quote one of my famous philosophers, “Everywhere you will find that the poverty of the poor springs from the wealth of the wealthy” -Peter Kropotkin. “Revealing studies on poverty in rich countries in the United States and Great Britain have strikingly confirmed that the misery of these old-age pensioners, unemployed, sick homeless, degraded or irregularly working lower layers of the proletariat is indeed a permanent feature of capitalism, including the capitalism of the ‘welfare state’.”  [4](Mandel, 71). We also see that, “Capitalist economy is thus a gigantic enterprise of dehumanization, of transforming of human beings from goals in themselves into instruments and means of money-making and capital accumulation… It is not the machine, nor any technological compulsion, which inevitably transforms workers and men and women in general into appendices and slaves of monstrous equipment. It is the capitalist principle of profit maximization by individual firms which unleashes this terrifying trend.” [4] (Mandel, 65). In Marx’s analysis of the capitalist system we see that poverty is an essential part of the system, that humanizing labor, that putting people before profits, that the worker receives the full fruits of his or her labor, that those who do not work do not eat, etc. are impossible in the capitalist system. Capitalism creates poverty, poverty disproportionately affects minorities, poverty increases anti-social behavior (crime), which is thus met with over-policing and excessive force among minority populations and individuals. Thus it is not race that is to be blamed as it is by the ignorant reactionaries who spew these hateful lies about our fellow Americans, NO! It is poverty which is to be blamed, and more-so the fundamental cause of poverty: capitalism. Before I close let me finish by criticizing the ‘private prison’ industry. It is a barbaric and disgusting trend to allow anyone to capitalize off of these so called ‘correctional facilities’. In America calling a prison a ‘correctional facility’ is like saying ‘Freedom is slavery!’ (from 1984).Prison is a business, it capitalizes off of having some of the highest reincarceration rates in the world, in having the largest prison population in the world. They make more money by not rehabilitating prisoners as we see in European countries with mere 20% reincarceration rates, compared to our 80%. When prisoners return to prison it means more money for them, even though they know it means that it makes society more dangerous, less safe, and morally degenerate. Capitalism has absolutely no business in the prison system, or in society at large.

Sources:

1:   http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc112d.pdf 

2:  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060206171449.htm 

3: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/violent-crime-united-states-youth-minorities-public-awareness 

4: Capital Volume 1 by Karl Marx (Penguin Classics edition) with an introduction by Ernest Mandel.

5:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/us/marijuana-arrests-four-times-as-likely-for-blacks.html 

Respect those distant Suns, gentle wanderer

August 13, 2016

To me it seems, that to catalog a star as a number is almost an insult. It stupefies the importance, the millions of mysteries hitherto ignored by mankind regarding that particular star. It’s not just a star you are labeling, but a complex system of planets, asteroids, comets, stars (if binary system) etc. The star in and of itself is worthy of the respect we pay to the sun itself. Without sunlight the world would be filled with darkness, without starlight the universe would be filled with darkness. Stars nourish the universe with life, they are the bringers of light in a universe cloaked in darkness. The universe is filled with a divine essence, we find the beauty of geometry and other mathematics from the grandest of scales down to the smallest subatomic particles (even if things get rather odd at such small levels). The universe itself is governed by laws only recently (and largely still not) understood by man, which are sacred and for all intents and purposes- eternal and universal laws. The macro universe moves like clockwork, nothing moves beyond it’s assigned path. Like the atom is to the micro universe, so to is the star to the macro universe. It is the essential element from which the universe itself is built. Without atoms the universe would be stranger beyond comprehension, if there was nothing to replace the atom, the universe would appear largely empty (no pun intended (gold foil experiment)). If it weren’t for stars there would be no light, and the universe would be cloaked in darkness. The ancients speculated about the nature of stars, but few philosophers and great thinkers of their time had the sacred realization that stars are other suns! But the sun itself was seen as an object truly worthy of respect and sometimes even worship. Akhenaten, the Egyptian pharaoh who ruled from ~1353-1336 BC disregarded the traditional (for all intents and purposes) polytheistic religion which had dominated Egypt for thousands of years and instead chose what he saw as the one true thing worthy of his praise- the sun which he called the Aten. On the cliffs of the city of the sun (Amarna) he had etched a poem of praise to honor the sun for all it’s glory and splendor:

“You arise beauteous in the horizon of the heavens

Oh living Aten who creates life.

When you shine forth in the Eastern horizon you fill every land with your beauty.

You are so beautiful: you are great; gleaming and high over every land.

Your rays embrace the lands and all you have created;

You are Re and reach out to all your creations, and hold them for your beloved Son.

You are afar, but your rays touch the earth;

Men see you, but know not your ways.

When you set in the Western horizon of the sky

The earth is in darkness like the dead.

People sleep in their rooms with covered heads;

They do not see each other.

If all their possessions were stolen

They would know it not.

Every lion leaves its lair;

All snakes bite;

Darkness covers all.

The world is silent

For the creator rests in his horizon.

When you rise from the horizon the earth grows bright;

You shine as the Aten in the sky and drive away the darkness;

When your rays gleam forth, the whole of Egypt is festive.

People wake and stand on their feet

For you have lifted them up.

They wash their limbs and take up their clothes and dress;

They raise their arms to you in adoration.

Then the whole of the land does its work;

All cattle enjoy their pastures,

Trees and plants grow green,

Birds fly up from their nests

And raise their wings in praise of your spirit.

Goats frisk on their feet,

And all fluttering and flying things come alive

Because you shine on them.

Boats sail up and downstream,

All ways are opened because you have appeared.

The fish in the river leap up to you

Your rays are in the deep of the sea.

You are the creator of the issue in woman,

The seed in men;

You give life to the son in his mother’s womb

Soothing him so he does not cry

Oh nurse within the womb.

You give the breath of life to all your creations

From the day they are born.

You open their mouths and give them sustenance.

To the chick that cries “tweet” while still in the egg

You give breath in the shell to let him live,

And make the time for him to break the shell

And come out of the egg at the moment for him to chirp

And patter on his two feet.

How manifold are your works: they are secret from our sight

Oh unique god, no other is like you.

You made the earth after your own heart

When you were alone. All men, herds

And flocks, all on the earth that goes on its feet;

and all that is in the sky and flies with its wings.

The land of Egypt, the foreign lands of Syria and Nubia too –

You put every man in his place and fulfil his needs;

Each one with his sustenance and the days of his life counted,

Their language is different,

And they look different;

Their complexions are different,

For you have distinguished the nations.

You make the seasons to bring into being all your creatures;

Winter to cool them,

And the heat of summer to come from you.

You have made the sky afar off

So when you rise you can see all you have made.

You alone rise in the form of the living Aten

Shining afar, yet close at hand.

You make millions of forms out of you alone,

Towns and villages, fields, roads and river.

All eyes see you before them

For you are the Aten of the day, over all the earth.

You are in my heart and none other knows thee

But your son “Akhenaten”;

You have given him understanding of your designs and your power.

The people of the world are in your hand

Just as you have created them.

All men since you have made the earth you have raised for your son

Who came forth from your body,

The King of Egypt who lives in truth,

Lord of Diadems, Akhenaten, whose life is long:

And for his beloved wife

Mistress of Two Lands, NefernefruatenNefertiti

May she live and flourish in eternity.”

Thus I say once more that it is disrespectful to label a sun as a mere number. I imagine that our son is labeled as something like HIP 294038927 in some alien language, a mere speck in an ocean of light. Of course I realize the logistics of cataloging stars with actual names, we’d quite literally run out of words and word combinations! But I cannot stress the importance of respecting the sacred essence of those distant suns. God only knows how many poems and praises have been written to the Aten’s of the intelligent extraterrestrial beings which (as logic would dictate) dominate the heavens.

The war that never was, US planned to terrorize it’s own citizens to start war

August 11, 2016

“According to secret and long-hidden documents obtained for Body of Secrets, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. In the name of antiCommunism, they proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba.” You can read more about Operation Northwoods here. 

I used to think those people who think ‘9/11 was an inside job’ were insane. ‘There’s no way our government would do that!’. Then, after looking into the history of CIA operations here and across the world I see that it’s not that insane of an idea. I’m skeptical of course and any claim such as that needs to be validated but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. The CIA has replaced democratically elected presidents (usually socialist or anti-imperialist) with bloody insurgencies and replaced the heads of state with a violent military puppet dictatorship which allows the US to exploit cheap labor for profit, they’ve forcibly and involuntarily drugged countless US citizens with powerful hallucinogenic drugs for months at a time in the infamous ‘MKUltra’ mind control experiment, collaborated with mass surveillance, assassinated key figures in social movements or otherwise tried to discredit them, etc, etc. And that’s all we actually know about, there’s no telling what untold horrors are being committed by our government today. Our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people. It is not something that is supposed to be something that terrorizes the people, manipulates the people, and sends the people off to war for mere socioeconomic reasons. I’m probably going to be on a watch-list for even talking about these things openly online but people have a right to know what our own government did.

Operation Northwoods 

MKUltra1973  

Chile Coup1954  

Guatamala Coup 

Smashing of the Two-Party System

August 3, 2016

It’s time to smash the two party system which alienates so many Americans. Now is the time, America is ready now more than ever. With both candidates having the lowest unfavorability ratings in US history it would be foolish not to seize the moment to the advantage of the masses. Neither party truly represents the working masses but rather the corporate elite. This is precisely what happens when we allow big-money into the political process. Given the fact that both parties place big-money interests over the people they are supposed to represent, we have a huge alienating force at work, a force which allows no opposition. Any deviation from the social norm is met with comments that ‘you are throwing your vote away if you vote third party’ or ‘third party will never win’. Essentially we have two bourgeois parties dominating the political arena, each claiming to represent the working masses while only truly catering to the rich elite. Even when they get on board with big social movements it is only because their hands are forced by the overwhelming majority. So how does one seize the moment? The answer is simple. Support third party candidates such as Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. This goes far beyond mere opposition to Trump and Clinton. As you can see in detail here, if the Green or Libertarian party get more than 5% of the vote in general, they will receive ~20 Million dollars in federal funds in the next election cycle. This is huge for third party politics. Moreover, if either candidate gets more than 15% in the polls they will be allowed to join in the main debates between Clinton and Trump. Supporting third party candidates is also not conforming the bourgeois lesser-evilism ideology which is a direct result of the two party system. The election is very far away, and supporting third-party now does not necessarily mean you will actually vote third party come election time, depending on what the polls are showing then. Between the 4 candidates Jill Stein is the only one not tainted by big-money or corporate interests, beyond that we agree ideologically to an extent far greater than the other 3. For these reasons I have decided to support Jill Stein and I invite others to join me. But it is absolutely imperative that the American people stand up and vote their conscience, the two-party system only has at much power as the people give it. It is a social construct, not to say that it does not have power, but that it’s power can be done away with entirely if the people stand up and let their voice be heard.

On Democracy; an unconventional analysis

July 26, 2016

To really get a good look at Democracy, it becomes necessary to take an unconventional look at the phenomenon in present day society. For this I will analyze US democracy from a Marxian/ Leninist perspective. What we have here in America and most other countries is formal democracy, democracy among government only. I agree with representative democracy, as not everyone is concerned with government affairs. What I find frustrating, and appealing about the Marxian perspective of democracy is that our formal democracy does not provide us with the liberties and freedoms to democratically manage and elect officials for the place we spend 9/10ths of our life- the workplace. We have made great strides in the past century in regards to suffrage, however we must remember that although our democratic republic provides us with great liberties, “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell … it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.”- V. I. Lenin. In fact, even this is not enough to appease those in power. We see democracy itself trampled even in our present society. While there have been many great struggles and much blood shed in the name of suffrage, there still only exists ‘formal’ democracy. What I wish to see is true democracy. In these areas of life which we spend 9/10ths of our life we only see, when you get down to it; dictatorship. Where the workers- those who produce the fruits of their labor only receive a fraction (a wage) of the fruits of the commodity they produced while someone else pockets the rest for themselves, despite having not worked for it. This Marxist ideas is not really Marxist at all, in fact capitalists foolishly proclaim it to be the philosophy of capitalism. It is the idea that those who work shall receive the profits of their labor, and not have it taken from them. Usually they go about this by speaking of the government, that the government taking their money is somehow ‘socialism’ and therefore bad. Such a claim is ludicrous. They fail to grasp the basic notion of socialism, they think that it has to do something with the government! The philosophy of socialism is “he who does not work shall not eat”, that the means of production shall be socially- not government owned. It is NOT “he who sits around shall receive other peoples well earned money”, that would be capitalism! The bourgeoisie do NOT want socialism because it would require them to actually work in order to receive the basic commodities of life, rather than receiving them via the workers’ surplus value, money they did not work for. We see such a savage mutilation of the term ‘socialism’ that over 9/10ths of the population cannot actually define what it means or explain it, yet are somehow convinced that it is something bad. Indeed the masses are taught to praise capitalism as the superior system from an early age, the embodiment of true human nature (as if capitalism had been around for even a thousand years). Only those who seek out the truth will see past these lies, which- according to Lenin serve only to suppress the working class and its ability to recognize it’s exploitation (a logical analysis, given the rampant misinformation). In fact, even the idea of democracy is suppressed. If you view my previous blog post on oligarchy you will see my point. The United States, along with most other countries have morphed from a democracy into an oligarchy, serving the interests of the rich ruling class. There is an actual scientific study on this which you can find linked in my former post on Oligarchy. “Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty” – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., – we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.” -V.I. Lenin. While many things mentioned here have passed with time (residential qualifications, exclusion of women) there is still a great deal of voter repression and fraud today. Poor people do not vote, that is a fact. It is very difficult for them to do so. Many voters in poor, predominately black areas have to wait in line for many hours before actually being able to vote. There is no national holiday for voters, and thus many poor voters cannot vote because they cannot afford to get off work for several hours just to vote. There is also the issue of gerrymandering, not to mention the two-party system in which neither party represents the working class. The two party system continues to alienate a vast number of Americans from participating in government. Even more alarming is the vast influence corporate interests have on the government. If the Leninist idea that “elected officials shall receive no more than a workers wage” was implemented we would not have this problem. If financial contributions to representatives were banned perhaps our government would better represent the interests of the masses. As our society continues to evolve, it becomes essential to view our present system from every possible perspective in a scientific manner, even those that are unconventional. Only then can we truly address the problems accurately and attempt to fix them.

Consent and Existence

July 24, 2016

It is impossible to give consent to be thrust into existence, into consciousness. For to consent implies that existence, that consciousness already exists. Thus we have a universal injustice, a universal truth until it is proven false by some psychedelic madness. So what is the nature of existence? Chaos would imply that whatever wretched beast comes about by a random chain of events would be a torturous, mutilated thing longing for nonexistence. Yet we find order amongst the chaos, our existence is perfected through the eternal process of natural selection, which acts to ensure that we largely consent to our existence after the fact. Yet where does consciousness truly begin? Is a spider truly conscious when it winds its web? Is a man truly conscious when he writes a book or drives a car? Thus we see differing levels of consciousness in differing beings. Perhaps the spider is simply acting merely on instinct, perfected over billions of years of evolution, lest we say that men are no different from the perspective of an outside, nonhuman observer? No! Humans seem to deviate from mere instinctual behaviors, collectively and individually we change through our own intellect. We do not still wander among caves with primitive wooden sticks, we change far ahead of what is necessary. But what of God? I like to think that bacteria are to men as men are to God. It is unfathomable by the limits of the human mind. But what of God? Did God himself consent to existence? Did God himself emerge as a construct of the laws of time which we are so familiar with or is he not bound by them at all? Did God create time itself? Of this one can only speculate. For whatever conclusion is come to, one cannot be assured of it’s truth unless one confronts God himself which would be even greater still.

Global Warming

July 23, 2016

Our children’s children are all going to die a slow, painful, suffocating death if we do not address the threat of global warming immediately, before it’s too late. Even though many scientists are saying that BECAUSE our corrupt government did nothing these past few decades, we have reached the point of no return, there is still hope of somehow reversing the effect. It’s in our hands. The runaway greenhouse effect is very real (see Venus, compare to Mercury). People who deny what scientists are saying like Donald Trump and the big billionaire oil companies will be held responsible for the death of all of humanity for refusing to see the problem and addressing it. When a scientist goes and tells congress ‘a meteor is going to his earth and cause a mass extinction event if we don’t do something immediately’ you don’t hear the congressman saying ‘oh I’m not a scientist’. Every single climate denying congressman and woman who’s receiving any donations from the fossil fuel industry needs to be fired immediately and all such donations need to be banned. You can argue about marriage equality, abortion, the military, immigration, and all that stuff later. This IS the future of humanity we are talking about here. If we do nothing, everyone WILL die and it will be our fault. Global warming is the single most important issue we face. That’s why I’m voting Jill Stein for President.

Religion and Society: A Theory

July 22, 2016

I see the logic in the statement by Marx that religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, religious suffering is the expression of real suffering, and that religion is the opium of the people. That being said, I do not believe in Marx’s strict adherence to atheism, his dismissal of religion as a simple social construct brought about by class struggle. Furthermore I do not see dialectical or historical materialism as being inherently atheistic in nature, the science of which seems to me to be agnostic rather than atheistic. Orthodox Marxists and many Marxist-Leninists often see atheism as the only way forward, as religion being something- like class oppression, which the proletarian masses need to be liberated from. I fundamentally disagree with this analysis. Historically policies of State Atheism such as those in the USSR and China have resulted in mass religious persecution. Not only is this persecution wrong, but it is/ was a hinderance to their revolutionary struggles. I see religion as having a peculiar effect on society. Regardless of how religion evolves, it strictly adheres and defends the prevailing socioeconomic system as the ‘best’, or most ‘moral’ system. It acts as a kind of social glue, binding a significant majority of the populous to defend the prevailing socioeconomic system. We see this in early Christianity with primitive slave society. We see texts saying to ‘treat your slaves kind, treat them as you treat your wife’. Christianity is more concerned with not going to hell than the prevailing issues and class conflicts which we find in society. We also see examples of this phenomenon in Feudal Europe. The Church intertwines itself in the Feudal system, defending it with the utmost conviction. Any deviation from the social norm being seen a potential threat to the church. We even see this today in capitalist society. Despite the fact that it is a social system based on greed, which puts people before profits, it is adamantly defended by the religious people. So thus, religion acts as a kind of glue which holds society to the prevailing socioeconomic system. However there is another effect, which comes with religious persecution. Religious persecution alienates the religious people from the state and from the prevailing socioeconomic system. They will practice their religion in private, they will pray for the destruction of the state. This is a threat to any governing body. It cannot be weakened by increasing religious persecution, this only increases the alienation and this increases the threat to the state. The only solution is a complete lack of any religious persecution, along with the strict separation of Church and State.

Dropping ‘FREEDOM’ on Syria

July 22, 2016

There’s this twist on the english language I see a lot when it comes to war. It’s usually half serious be it’s still concerning. The U.S. Isn’t dropping FREEDOM on Syria. No, it’s dropping bombs. It’s killing people, a lot of people, some of which, yes are bad. But only 1 out of 10 people killed in these drone strikes are actually terrorists. That isn’t freedom fighting, no, that is just fighting terror with terror. What exactly do you think war is? You have to be absolutely sure that who you’re killing is a terrorist and not an innocent family who’s just trying to get by. Otherwise you’re just killing people you don’t know for reasons you don’t understand.

On the recent drone strikes

July 22, 2016

Apparently it’s only terrorism if a.) a minority does it and b.) it’s intentional. Because every time the US kills a bunch of civilians in a drone strike it’s an ‘accident’ or a ‘mistake’ yet they never seem to learn from these mistakes. You’re almost as bad as the terrorists you are fighting when you do not alter your policies to ensure that acts of mass murder against innocent families never happen again. It’s unacceptable, mistake or not. The act is the exact same as when ISIS does it. The public needs to force them to take up measures to reduce the chances of this happening in the future by protesting and mourning those innocent lives that were taken. We need the public to condemn these atrocities and demand that they never happen again.

On Voting

July 21, 2016

Your vote represents who you support, who you agree with, and who best represents YOUR interests. It is not a compromise, it is not something you give somebody because you do not like the other mainstream candidate. It is not a matter of ‘voting for the lesser of the two evils’. Let’s face it, the Republican and Democratic parties only represent corporate interests and the billionaire class. They do NOT have working and middle class American’s interests at heart. It’s time to smash the two party system which alienates so many Americans. That’s why I’m voting for Jill Stein. She may not currently have more than 10% of the vote, but she represents my beliefs and interests. And you know what? It would be a lot more than 10% if people actually started voting their conscience.

On Universal Healthcare

July 20, 2016

“We can’t have free, universal healthcare for poor people who can’t go to the doctor when they’re sick and injured! Who will pay for it?”

I’ll just leave these here, I think they speak for themselves on this one.

“You have to accept the flame as hot and go from there”

July 19, 2016

The above quote is from a friend of mine. It’s easy to get carried away in thought pondering the meaning of life, existence, reality, etc. This is something I’ve given much thought to. The idea I prefer to explain the existence of ‘everything’ is that ‘everything adds up to nothing’. I know, it sounds illogical but hear me out. In physics there is this thing called ‘virtual particles’. All around us, all the time pairs of particles are popping into existence and annihilating. “But wait a minute!”, you say, “The law of conservation of mass says that matter cannot be created or destroyed!”. Yes, you are entirely right! However virtual particles (and certain laws of quantum mechanics which I won’t mention) are an exception to this rule. But how? Let’s say one of these particles has a mathematical value of +1, and the other is -1. You can see where I’m going with this. Basically no ‘new’ matter is created, because both particles add up to 0! Thus they annihilate! So how does this play into reality? It’s simple! Basically you can think of the universe itself as one of these virtual particles, with another ‘anti-universe’ in another dimension. Both of these come together and annihilate. So in the grand scheme of things, nothing really exists (apart from God of course). The other idea is that every particle is ‘unique’ in that there is some kind of underlying code which makes each and every particle in the universe completely unique from every other particle. In another dimension, the anti-particles are coming together, very gradually, eventually combining with it’s counterpart all at once and annihilating the whole universe! You can see how I get lost in thought pondering such things, there is no simple explanation to these problems. But I’ve come to accept that no matter what conclusion I come to, there is no real way to prove my hypothesis. Thus, it is better to focus on human affairs, on something I can study that is concrete. Sometimes it’s just best to accept that the flame is hot and go from there.

The pursuit of Truth

July 18, 2016

In the pursuit of truth you have to set aside all personal beliefs, all socioeconomic and political beliefs. You have to set aside what those around you will think of any potential conclusion you come to. You have to investigate every possibility, from every side of the argument. You have to indulge in the works of your most hated and criticized thinkers and theorists. You have to accept the conclusion you come to, so long as it is logical and scientific. You have to throw out all social norms and traditions to accept the truth. Because “Insanity among individuals is rare, but among groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the norm” -Friedrich Nietzsche

Atheism vs. Theism

July 16, 2016

Existence isn’t proof of God OR lack thereof. To say there is no God because there is no sound evidence for it is to say there is to say that you believe that there are no undiscovered scientific phenomena because you see no evidence for it. The answer, in the purest logical sense it that we don’t know for sure. Many of us claim to know, I certainly do. I fully believe in God and I am a Christian. The most commonly used arguments on both sides of the debate table are logical and sound in many senses, but deeply flawed in others. I do not see evidence of God in the sunset, I do not see any reason to deny the theory of evolution, or any sound scientific theory for that matter. I do not see any lack of evidence of God because I believe in the big bang or evolution (only the strictest literal interpretations of the book of Genesis). I think that the purely logical, even the dialectical materialist outlook of the world, while a good and sensible way to look at it (and various socioeconomic situations, as well as human history through historical materialism) is not the only way to see things. To proclaim that ‘this is all there is’ is foolish in my opinion. If you know me, you know that I am an extremely logical and rational person, I will attempt to dismantle any view or position that contradicts science and logic, even my most valued beliefs and opinions. However I do not see the belief in God as something which contradicts this, and I was an atheist for some time and this is the conclusion I have come to. In my mind, it only makes sense that NOTHING should exist. Why does anything exist? I’ve pondered this far too long, even knowing that any conclusion I come to will likely be flawed. So to believe in a random big bang or in God are both sensical, sound arguments. While you may disagree with me, this is the conclusion I have come to, and each of us are entitled to our own opinions.

Human history

July 16, 2016

Almost all of human history can be described as replacing one group of armed thugs with another. However there are some exceptions. There are times when society is radically changed in short amounts of time, as V.I Lenin once said, “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen”. Often these ‘weeks’ where decades seem to take place have historically been bloody. Look at the emergence of feudalism in Europe and Japan. Look at the period of change from Feudal to Capitalist society. The French Revolution and World War 1 were the horrifically bloody aftermath of such rapid, radical social change. You can also look at the Chinese and Bolshevik revolutions. Whereby early capitalist societies with remnants of feudalism are rapidly and radically overthrown. If you told a 20th century historian that Russia and China, two of the poorest, most backwards countries on the face of the earth would emerge as the most powerful and advanced nations in human history they would have laughed in your face. Yet it happened, for all the blood and sweat that was shed it happened. We are moving ever foreword to something, what that is I can only speculate, and hope for.

Hillary or Trump? Lesser of the two evils?

July 16, 2016

Hillary cares so much about workers rights that she’ll raise the US wage to 15/hr! Oh wait that’s right she collaborated with big business to keep slave wages in Haiti, one of the poorest countries on earth. So I guess she doesn’t really care all that much about workers OR human rights outside of the US. So I guess that means she’s an imperialist scumbag just like the rest of them. But we can still vote for Trump right? Oh wait he wants to do away with federal minimum wage entirely, he even thinks the current poverty wage in the US is ‘too high’. He wants a flat tax that will increase taxes on the poor and give wealthy business owners like himself huge tax breaks. But he’s a successful businessman! No, if everyday going back to April of 2007 represented an individual lawsuit, that’s how many lawsuits Trump would have against him by fellow business colleagues, many of whom have spoken out and said publicly that he’s a con-man. So I guess he’s a bonafide Capitalist pig who puts profits over people. It’s kind of like choosing which kind of cancer is better. I think I’ll just vote for Jill Stein. But ‘if you aren’t voting for Hillary you’re voting for Trump’, say the liberals. And ‘if you aren’t voting for Trump you’re voting for Hillary’, say the conservatives. Please, just stop. The two-party system is a joke. It’s not ‘throwing your vote away’ when both candidates have the highest unfavorability ratings in US history. This is the first time in US history where we have even the smallest chance of getting a third party candidate into office, or at least get our message across and having the voices of millions of independents heard. It’s not choosing between the lesser of the two evils, it’s protesting the absurdity of the two-party system, the absurdity of US politics.

What do these great minds have in common?

July 14, 2016

Albert Einstein, George Orwell, Helen Keller, Pablo Picasso, Martin Luther King Jr., Bertrand Russell, and Nelson Mandela. Get ready for it… They were all socialists. Surely if favoring a scientifically planned economy was such a terrible thing the most renowned geniuses of our time would have rejected it. Just some food for thought.

On isolated trans bathroom assaults

July 14, 2016

One Trans person sexually assaults someone in the restroom. Reactionaries: “see! Of course that’s what happens when you allow all the ‘its’ into the bathroom, they’re all sexually depraved animals!”
Earlier…
One black person assaults a white student in a public school.

Reactionaries: “see! Of course that’s what happens when you allow n—— to integrate into schools, they’re all violent animals!”

Books are thought traps!

July 12, 2016

Literature is by far the single greatest achievement of human intuition. In the past, before it’s construction all ideas, stories and beliefs were passed down by word of mouth. Either by person to person or down through the generations. There was a problem with this of course, as anyone who’s ever played the childhood game Telephone knows. Each time something even as simple as a sentence is passed down from person to person it is vulnerable to change and manipulation- either intentional or unintentional. Thus the original meaning and message is forever lost. But with the invention of literature came something which does away with this entirely. For the first time the thoughts of a human being can be directly recorded- in paper or stone indefinitely. In this way your mind can directly mirror the exact thoughts of the person who wrote the text. In this way time knows no bounds. For people who lived and existed thousands of years apart can in essence collaborate through the reader to construct a truly amazing thing. Books and other methods of recording thoughts take them and trap them in the pages, to last far beyond the natural lifespan of the person who first wrote them. In this way, the most cherished thoughts and ideas of those long departed still echo off the bookshelf. As Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen farther than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.

Consciousness and Reality

July 12, 2016

We’ll never actually know if consciousness creates reality or if consciousness is a product of reality. For to remove consciousness, reality cannot be tested because there is nothing to experience reality, and obviously one cannot remove reality for without it there can be no consciousness. Let us say for a moment that the material world is simply the product of consciousness. There are two possible scenarios. Either you- the reader are the only conscious being which exists in the universe and all other conscious beings are products of your own mind to combat the unbearable loneliness/ boredom of being the only sentient being in the universe, or all conscious beings come together to create material reality through mutual and differing experiences. Then there is the other scenario of course, where consciousness is a result of the material conditions of the universe. Either by natural phenomenon or divine intervention consciousness came about from a world which inherently was devoid of conscious beings (apart of course from the divine). But there is no way to test this, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Logically we say yes, but there is no real way to test this, we can never know.

Apathy on human affairs

July 11, 2016

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men” -Plato

Transgender Civil and Human rights today

July 11, 2016

What made me want to write this was this article in which a Pakistani Trans-activist was shot 6 times by a gang in a hate crime. She was transported to the hospital and would have survived if the hospital hadn’t refused to treat her urgent condition on the grounds that they ‘couldn’t decide if she belonged in the male or female ward’. But this isn’t just an issue reserved for the middle east, in countries which are hammered for their gross violation of human and women’s rights, this is happening in America as well. North Carolina passed HB2 which forces trans people into the bathroom of their ‘birth sex’. Take a look at this image and tell me that you don’t see the blatant absurdity of such a law:

What made me want to write this was this article in which a Pakistani Trans-activist was shot 6 times by a gang in a hate crime. She was transported to the hospital and would have survived if the hospital hadn’t refused to treat her urgent condition on the grounds that they ‘couldn’t decide if she belonged in the male or female ward’. But this isn’t just an issue reserved for the middle east, in countries which are hammered for their gross violation of human and women’s rights, this is happening in America as well. North Carolina passed HB2 which forces trans people into the bathroom of their ‘birth sex’. Take a look at this image and tell me that you don’t see the blatant absurdity of such a law:

North Carolina is not the only State to pass such laws which have received robust criticisms for violating basic civil rights, these laws are frequently passed on city levels. Transgender people only make up less than 1% of the population. Unlike other minority groups, many people do not understand the very basic nature of the issue. Most people don’t even understand what the word ‘transgender’ even means. Because of their ignorance on the issue and their fundamental refusal to even acknowledge the fact that such people exist they go on preaching that these laws somehow protect women from being sexually assaulted. Which is great, apart from the fact that it’s not even an issue. Transgender people are no more likely to sexually assault someone than the general population. Since HB2 received international attention, many people (mainly conservatives) have become enraged by the very fact that people are bringing up the fact that yes, this is a civil and human rights issue. There have been reports on transgender people being assaulted for simply using the bathroom. This is a gross violation of human rights. These people are as worthy of being protected under the law as anyone else.

People don’t realize the realities of being an oppressed minority in society today. To bring this back to the original article I have to say the was this was handled is utterly and completely disgusting. If these obvious gross violations of civil rights don’t make you furious than what will? Why can’t people just say, “I may not agree with who or what you are, but I respect you as a fellow human being, and you deserve the same rights and respect as any other human being regardless.” The way transgender people are treated in the world today is disgusting. How would you like to be called an ‘it’ simply for being who you are? How would you like to be forced into the bathroom of the opposite sex by law where you could get raped or assaulted? This is a civil and human rights issue period, people who are against it are the very people who- at best do not understand or want to understand that these people exist, and at worst are disgusted and enraged by the very fact that these people exist. It’s like saying, “Integration is great and all but what if a black person assaults a white person in the class room? I just don’t understand it. I don’t think these people should exist”.

The key to combating hate and ignorance is educating people that yes, these people do exist and that their needs to live and function in our society should be addressed. The suicide rate for transgender people is astronomical, thanks largely to the way these people are treated in our society. Demonizing minorities is the most disgusting thing you can do. Don’t take sides on issues which you know nothing about.

Kintsugi, to repair with gold

July 11, 2016

There are many things in life which can break a person. I like to look at it like smashing a piece of pottery, there are things which can smash a vase quickly and traumatically, things that are so stressful that they traumatize the very way your mind perceives the world, making you think you are always in danger, ordinary experiences begin to be perceived as existential threats. Then there are other things too like depression which can slowly chip away at the vase. Those things can equally break a person down but in a much slower, more gradual way. But the end result is still the same, you find yourself broken, smashed into a million pieces bearing no similarity to who you once were. You struggle but eventually you pick the pieces up and find the strength to glue yourself back together again. But that’s not all, there is a flip side to all of this, sometimes the person you glue back together is stronger than the one which was broken in the first place. You take away something from the experience which somehow makes you stronger than you ever thought you could be. There is an ancient Japanese word called Kintsugi, which literally means ‘to repair with gold’. It’s when you take a broken piece of pottery and instead of discarding it you glue it back together with a paste mixed with gold dust. In this way you create a piece of pottery which is more beautiful and unique than the pottery which was smashed in the first place, it’s a beautiful metaphor for these depressing subjects. Always remember there is hope.

You don’t feel safe in the world anymore?

July 10, 2016

The world is statistically the safest it’s ever been in human history. There are just more cameras. The world is more interconnected than it ever has been before. Thus we hear about things that happen that we naturally would remain unaware of. It gives off the illusion that the world is a much more dangerous place than it actually is. Don’t let people strip you of your right to privacy and your rights as a human being simply to promise you security and peace of mind. Privacy > Security.

Voyager 1 and 2: Floating museums of discovery

July 10, 2016

On September 5, 1977 NASA launched it’s first Voyager probe into space. For the first time it would get a close up view of Jupiter and Saturn. It revealed that the moons of Jupiter and Saturn were in fact geologically active, even more so than Mercury, Venus and Mars. Voyager 2 was later launched but didn’t stop at Saturn. It went on to Uranus and Neptune, thus making it the only man made craft to pass these icy giants to this day. More than that Voyager 1 and 2 contain the golden records. On them are the sounds of Earth, greetings from world leaders and people of all languages and cultures. It also contains humanities best music as well as images of man and woman. It also contains detailed instructions on how to read the record and find Earth using nearby pulsars as a map. Billions of years after we’re gone, the Voyager probes may be all that remain of our long lost civilization. A floating museum of a world long gone.

Sputnik 1: First artificial Satellite

July 10, 2016

On October 4, 1957 the first satellite was launched into space. This was the first time in human history that an object had been launched into orbit around the earth. News of the launch sent shock-waves across the international community. Americans were terrified of the idea of a Soviet robot tumbling over their heads every 90 minutes. The event shattered the image brought on by US propaganda of technological superiority and of the Soviet Union being a backward country. After another Soviet satellite was launched a televised US satellite (Vanguard TV3) failed and fueled US feelings of dismay. These events led to what is known as the Space Race, a period in time in which two superpowers competed to build the best space technology and thus led to one of the most productive periods in the development in space technology.

Vostok 1: First Man in Space

July 10, 2016

On April 12, 1961 Soviet spacecraft Vostok 1 sent Yuri Gagarin to space for the first time in human history. “During prelaunch preparations, it was decided to paint “СССР” on Gagarin’s helmet in large red letters as a form of identification after landing so that any local police or security personnel who spotted him would know he wasn’t a foreign agent parachuted from an aircraft into the Soviet Union”. This mission is arguably as important as the Apollo mission which landed Niel Armstrong on the moon.

Fundamentally:

July 9, 2016

In light of the recent police shootings and police who were shot, I have only this to say, fundamentally:

You cannot fight injustice with injustice.

There is no excuse for terrorism. Period. Change comes through democracy, when the people use their freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful protest to demand change. This isn’t Tsarist Russia people, we don’t have to resort to violence to be heard, and it would be foolish not to use our rights to better the human condition of our fellow countrymen and women. If you fight an unjust system with injustice you are no better than the racist criminal justice system. When you declare all police officers to be guilty of the crimes of a few, you are no better than a police officer who declares all black people are guilty of the crimes of a few. Terror, in and of itself has only ever historically been effective post-revolution in bringing about rapid, radical change to the former prevailing social conditions. We see this in the French and Bolshevik revolutions, even then morally it is a very terrible (no pun intended) thing.

Racism isn’t dead, support Black Lives Matter

July 7, 2016

Marijuana use rates equal among white and black people yet you’re 4 times as likely to go to jail over marijuana possession if you’re black. Young black men are 9x as likely to be shot by police. This has to stop, for this there is no excuse. Obviously all lives matter, we don’t NEED a ‘White lives matter’ or an ‘All lives matter’ movement, we NEED a ‘Black lives matter’ movement, period. It’s NOT about superiority, it’s about equality, it’s about ending 400+ years of racism and oppression. It’s about liberation and true freedom and equality for all. Full and total support for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement! No support for the ‘All Lives Matter’ movement or any organization which white-washes the horrendous reality of what is happening in our country.

AI Dictator

June 29, 2016

Perhaps one day in the distant future, when the human mind is successfully emulated on a computer, we will find a way to extend the desirable and virtuous aspects of the human mind in such a way that it becomes a super intelligent, superior, benevolent being who is put in charge of what would normally be the affairs of the state. This totalitarian benevolent all knowing dictator could rule either a horrifying, real time surveillance monitored 24/7 by the AI dictator, or perhaps act merely as an advisor of human affairs, even guiding humanity into a new age of reason and justice. It’s a scary thought with frightening implications. The thought came about while reading Republic by Plato. His idea of a ‘Philosopher king’ made me wonder about the possibility of combining his ideas with AI technology. Then again if we ever do really create AI’s we’ll have a different problem entirely.

Quote

June 28, 2016

“Good people don’t need laws to tell them to act responsibly and bad people will find a way around the laws” -Plato

Wave

June 28, 2016

Waves roll back and fourth

Salty wind whirls with the waves

Sun shines through streaks of cloud

Work and Money

June 28, 2016

The basic philosophy behind currency is that labor = capital received. The current socioeconomic system twists, bends and distorts this philosophy so that those with the most capital are not the hardest workers, but instead make fortunes off the exploitation of those who do work the hardest in return for a meager wage in order to maintain a wretched existence. Thus crime, exploitation, greed, immorality and corruption are seen as better procurers of capital than hard work. The hardest workers are the poorest people and those who do nothing of any particular importance amass excessive wealth. Thus, in the move towards a society without money, capital must be directly tied to labor. Even if this means doing away with paper money in exchange for digital currency.

Oligarchy, not Democracy

June 26, 2016

Democracy, by definition is the dictatorship of the majority. However a major Scientific Study shows that the United States is actually an oligarchy, not a democracy. Thanks largely to the financial power of the ruling class, our government has decided to put their interests above ours. Highly organized special interest groups and Economic Elites are the ones whom our government represents. The individual, along with the interests of the common people are swept aside to serve this small ruling class. Thus, our democracy, while a dictatorship of the majority in theory, is a dictatorship of the minority.

This actually plays into Marxist theory which I am reading heavily and will discuss in later posts. Marxists often speak of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Naturally, those unfamiliar with Marxism cringe at the word dictatorship. They do not realize that the goal of the class-conscious proletariat (Working class which becomes aware of their oppression) is to overthrow the already existing ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’ (Capitalist ruling class minority). So naturally one looks at his present condition and realizes that the word dictatorship is not dictatorship at all. In fact, a dictatorship of the majority, as stated above is best done through democracy. So when reading through Marxist thought, one eventually finds that this ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ is actually a call for immediate representative democracy which serves only the working class, under which it is illegal to serve the interests of the minority bourgeoisie. This is the fullest democracy achievable at our current stage of social development, such a system is the mortal opposite of a tyrannical dictatorship. Our current system is a ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’ i.e. oligarchy, masquerading itself as a democracy which serves the bourgeoisie. Realizing this, anyone can see the need to change to a better system, which fully represents the interests of the people. Not to mention it seeks to get rid of the fundamental causes of poverty and hunger, to mirror the sacred doctrine that ‘all men are created equal’ by giving all men the same chance to succeed in life, regardless of whatever family they were born into.

Another misconception I’ve found is that communism is when ‘the state controls everything’ or the state has ‘absolute power’. The fact is, in the process of moving to achieve communism the goal is to make the state ‘wither away’ and collapse, dissolving it’s power and giving that power to the people. Such a misconception about such a fundamentally basic part of an ideology has awakened me to the fact that anytime someone says ‘communism’ they have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. So thus, I have to look even further into this ideology to find out how it actually works, to sift through the lies and find the truth. There is an alarming amount of misinformation out there, not only about countries which have tried to achieve communism, but about what it actually IS.

That being said, one cannot look away at the totalitarian regimes of the past. We see that full authoritarianism actually strips away the rights of the very people it seeks to emancipate from the oppressive social conditions brought about by capitalism. (Although there is expected to be some element of this in the Marxist-Leninist road to socialism, Stalin blew the whole thing out of proportion. In the early USSR, the mastermind of Leninism, Lenin, tried to warn the party of Stalin. He foresaw that his brutality and cruelty would only spell disaster for the country. Thus Stalin’s brutality was legendary, he wished to achieve communism at any cost, the next leader of the USSR heavily condemned his actions. Thus many countries after the fact wishing to begin the road to communism based their government on Stalinist Russia, and not the original tenets of the October revolution.) On the opposite side of the spectrum, anarchists often see the emancipation of the individual as something to come first before the emancipation of the masses. But why hasn’t any system so far combined the two to create the best of both worlds? A system which does not restrict the freedoms and pursuits of the individual in any way (I am VERY critical of many Marx’s and many Marxist’s attitude toward religion) while simultaneously guides the ever changing social conditions of the masses, moving them ever closer towards communism. Anyone who looks at the theory behind communist society can see that it a fundamentally good thing, the problems and conflicts occur when actually struggling the achieve communism, like the struggles to achieve feudalism and capitalism which were equally bloody. So far no country has ever achieved communism, and it is widely to believed to only happen on a global scale. Anarchists and Communists both have the same ends in mind: the disappearance of the state apparatus. If true communism had ever been achieved, there would be NO state to oppress anyone. Communism is not ‘total control of the state’, it is actually the exact opposite.

For the record, I know this is very controversial and I do not see myself as neither a communist or a capitalist. I like to hear both sides of the story before I take sides. Communist ideals certainly have a lot to offer the world and can really make it a much much better place- if done right. I certainly agree with most of it, but to say I’m a communist is quite the stretch. I need to delve further into neoclassical economic theory before I even begin to consider making such a claim. I have a habit of reading books I’m not supposed to read, of seeking out the truth even when it is not popular or socially accepted, this is exactly what I am doing. Sifting through the lies to find the truth.

Evolutions True Purpose

June 26, 2016

All of natural evolution is nature trying to find a dominant intelligent species smart enough to prevent it’s own mass extinction event, and to take evolution into it’s own hands. Over billions of years of evolution, after countless mass extinction events, this is the inevitable type of organism to survive past it’s own would be extinction event. Intelligent life is rare, sometimes it takes billions of years to evolve. But the true test of it’s ability to survive comes with it’s mass extinction event, if it can persevere and continue to evolve and leave the planet from whence it came. Thus for mankind to survive, it must remain vigilant. It must watch out for dangers, including a run away greenhouse effect. Perhaps one day our distant descendants will thank us for our vigilance. (For the record I am a devout Christian who believes in evolution and that the universe is 13 billion years old)

Speaking on things you know nothing of

June 18, 2016

“Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn't that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense.” -Mao Zedong 

If more people understood this, there would be much more constructive debates. Mao didn’t know how to effectively lead a country, but he sure knew how to lead a revolution. For all his controversy I see him a truly brilliant and gifted man. His ideas are immortal. 

George Stinney: Falsely charged with murder, executed at 14

June 8, 2016

https://youtu.be/oIsovWTejRc 

Everyone needs to see this video, especially those who support capital punishment. South Caroline wrongly convicted and executed this 14 year old boy while his family was forced to flee because they were threatened with lynching. This was the straw that broke the camels back for me when it comes to capital punishment. We already have a backwards, racist, corrupt criminal justice system. I’m not trusting them to kill a potential innocent person. In theory, it makes sense, but this isn’t in theory. This is real life. If you still aren’t convinced, here’s a link showing a reenactment of what happened to George in his final moments. I usually don’t appeal to pathos but I’m making an exception here. I have to warn you, this video is extremely disturbing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNarYKEaHgY Watch at your own risk.

Akhenaten: An ancient egyptian monotheist

June 7, 2016

The ancient Egyptian religion is known for it’s evolutionary polytheist belief system. There are many different gods responsible for creation according to many different myths. The religion itself evolved a great deal through the 1000’s of years that the society thrived. The first ‘monotheism’ was actually a form of polytheism through the worship of Amun/ Amun-Ra. However, there was one pharaoh who threw out 1000’s of years of religious tradition and established his own, radical, truly monotheistic religion. His name was Akhenaten.

Son of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten (born Amenhotep IV) was raised to worship Amun, and through the worship of Amun he worshiped the old gods. However all of this changed with the death of his father. Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and ordered that a new city be built. This city was built in the desert, unlike most Egyptian cities which thrive of the Nile. Akhenaten ordered the destruction of all references to the old gods. This sparked quite the controversy as many priests of Amun were forced into religious persecution. Along with this new religious system came a new system of art, as you can see in the image above. This style of art portrays the pharaoh with his wife Nefertiti and children in a way unheard of among the pharaohs. This surprisingly human art form portrays Akhenaten as a loving father, rather than a perfect incarnation of the god Horus.

The Aten was what Akhenaten and his followers called the sun. It’s life giving power extended beyond the p0wer of the old gods, it was the one true god. The suns life giving rays were celebrated, and ancient poetry still exists on the natural rock faces of Amarna to this day. However, Akhenaten served his god over his people. The people were skeptical and horrified by his new religion, which ignored the overly embraced traditional preparations for the afterlife.

Akhenaten’s son is perhaps more heard of, his name was Tutankhamen, originally named Tutankhaten. After the death of his father, the sun cult gradually fell to the way of the old gods. His name was erased from history. He was labeled a traitor and a heretic to the old gods. The city Amarna was abandoned and the old order was restored. It is said that the city of Amarna’s buildings lacked roofs in order to embrace the Aten’s life giving rays. I like to imagine than sunburns were pretty bad in Amarna.

Absurdity of the current Minimum Wage

June 7, 2016

http://www.attn.com/stories/8727/map-shows-united-states-affordable-housing-crisis 

I found this article interesting, The current minimum wage only provides the bare minimum in order for the worker to exist, and even that is an exaggeration. Workers can’t even work 50 hours a week to pay rent, let alone pay bills, buy food, groceries, etc. I find this incredibly infuriating to say the least.