discipline posted:3. That food, shelter, medical care, education and full employment are basic human rights
liberalism
NoFreeWill posted:actually existing socialism didn't actually work out that well (propoganda battle wise, regardless of facts) so you can't convince anyone. which, along with theoretical problems and philosophical problems with marxism, mean a new political economic philosophy is needed. and then you organize whatever that is.
then how did all of us get ocnvinced
Of course there are revolutionary organizations that have tried to do these things and have done nothing at all, besides the fact that most of these orgs are like 10 people the biggest problem is they fail to link these with the wider contradictions in the first world.
Different organizations have gotten glimpses of what should be done: the PSL has a vast network of anti-war activists and can mobilize over 100,000 people against imperialism (lr at least it could under Bush), MIM (prisons) found the revolutionary potential in the right place and we've seen a big increase in prison strikes and organization recently, Occupy got people barely interested in socialism to use their bodies as weapons and created a politics that encompassed all of life, even the ISO gets rich college students to give them money. I guess the reason they can't link up and create a real party is because class consciousness hasn't reached that stage yet and won't until the economy gets much worse.
imo
swampman posted:well ok, i think a practical organizing challenge in america is that most self-styled communists want to be educators and organizers rather than do what is proven to be effective: provide services to the community first and foremost. for example what about a clean streets initiative in NYC? identify one block with really bad trash problems and clean it up, beyond promoting yourself to the locals you would post the before and after pictures online. in some cases you could call out the owners of the property for not doing this themselves
its true that politics needs to involve the community and taking over services that the state does not or cannot do, but this is just intellectual self-hatred. successful communists have their own schools, their own sports clubs, their own places for people to meet and get married, their own health services and charity organizations, etc but these are always primarily political. there are plenty of NGOs and liberals who do the things you propose, communists are in fact educators and a vanguard who's purpose is to use these small actions to link up with a larger struggle and not grovel at the feet of poor people.
NoFreeWill posted:by problems i mean utopianism, modernism, and humanism, all of which are massively fail, and are kinda the heart of the communist project.
if by "the communist project" you mean trot academics then you are correct. if you mean to say Mao, Stalin, Castro, Hoxha were "humanists" and "utopians" than lol, my friend...lol
babyhueypnewton posted:.custom196657{}NoFreeWill posted:by problems i mean utopianism, modernism, and humanism, all of which are massively fail, and are kinda the heart of the communist project.
if by "the communist project" you mean trot academics then you are correct. if you mean to say Mao, Stalin, Castro, Hoxha were "humanists" and "utopians" than lol, my friend...lol
i don't think they were humanists, but definitely modernists and utopian (in the sense of a vision of a grand future). planning an economy is a quintessentially modernist and rationalist activity.
NoFreeWill posted:babyhueypnewton posted:.custom196657{}NoFreeWill posted:by problems i mean utopianism, modernism, and humanism, all of which are massively fail, and are kinda the heart of the communist project.
if by "the communist project" you mean trot academics then you are correct. if you mean to say Mao, Stalin, Castro, Hoxha were "humanists" and "utopians" than lol, my friend...lol
i don't think they were humanists, but definitely modernists and utopian (in the sense of a vision of a grand future). planning an economy is a quintessentially modernist and rationalist activity.
well then why don't you go over your specific criticisms of marxism as utopian liberal modernity then?
ok, young POCs, prisoners, immigrant labor, meth heads, slivers of the advanced white left, joeys mom heh heh the gramscian idea of the party as collective intellectual, solidarity unionism and prison strikes BREAK
stegosaurus posted:trots
Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle.
Without mass struggle there can be no revolution.
Without armed struggle there can be no victory.
It will not be immediate, for the enemy is entrenched and intractable. It will require lengthy, deliberate political and armed struggle to build the organized power of the people and to wear away a! the power of the enemy. Many people have given their lives in this struggle and many more will have to. Paradoxically, this protracted struggle is the shortest and least costly road to revolution.
We are at an early stage, going from small to large. The mass armed capability which will destroy the enemy has its beginnings in armed action. It matures unevenly, with setbacks and at great cost. It will not spring full-blown on the scene at the magical moment of insurrection. We cannot leave the organizing and preparation for armed struggle to some more perfect future time. It would be suicidal. There is no predetermined model for revolution —we are always figuring it out. But for some, armed struggle is always too soon, although it is underway here and around the world.
ilmdge posted:NoFreeWill posted:actually existing socialism didn't actually work out that well (propoganda battle wise, regardless of facts) so you can't convince anyone. which, along with theoretical problems and philosophical problems with marxism, mean a new political economic philosophy is needed. and then you organize whatever that is.
then how did all of us get ocnvinced
nobody expects the vanguard party. our weapons are surprise and fear
NoFreeWill posted:and marx is definitely those three things and those people are all marxists, so...
Either put on the glasses or I'm giving you a swirly, nerd.
i remember seeing stuff about lib communities popping up with the vision of atlus shrugged etc. they're all engaged with community service and whatnot. i really don't think itd be too hard to co-opt these.
Economism has many masks. It may be expressed in a leftish form of "going to the workers," not by creating revolutionary consciousness and action but by sacrificing principle in the hope of gaining a place in the labor movement. This is a corrupt politics, proven bankrupt again and again.
so that doesn't necessarily mean that organizing the remainder isn't a good/best use of time. but it might? maybe that level of developing the remainder will only stiffen the resolve of the majority? maybe a necessary first step is the ideological development of a wider base of solidarity.
but i do not know, i am a liberal now
Goatstein_Ascendant posted:Communism has really bad PR. First step is to stop lionizing the 20th century's greatest monsters, even "ironically," imo
Stalin:
"No."
"There exists one more non-revisionist ideology."
<pointing to own head>
"You must lower me into the steel."
<hands smelt chamber controls over to Khrushchev>
*the collective of Marxist-Lenists begin crying*
"No!"
"You mustn't!"
Stalin:
<wiping tear from adolescent Marxist's cheek>
"I know now why you cry."
"But it is something I can never do."
Goatstein_Ascendant posted:Communism has really bad PR. First step is to stop lionizing the 20th century's greatest monsters, even "ironically," imo
this. also changes in material and social conditions that make new ideology necessary, etc.
read this post even tho its written by a liberal.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/a-new-ideology/
