gyrofry posted:

that's a really long way to say dumb

it's dumb to hit your head on a ceiling lamp every time you walk under it, it's something else to ritualistically slam your braincase into it under the same conditions

le_nelson_mandela_face posted:

thanks. i needed that.

Although it is almost an article of faith among historians of the Weimar Republic that the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) position that Social Democracy paved the way for fascism was wrong and necessitated a tragically mistaken political strategy, the label of “social-fascist”—socialist in words, fascist in deeds—had a very real reference at the time of its coinage. The SPD consistently preferred monopoly capitalism and reactionary Prussian aristocrat-militarism over unity with Communist candidates of the working class. Although historian Arthur Rosenberg, one-time member of the USPD and the KPD, accuses the latter of offering nothing to the still-employed workers of Great Depression- era Weimar Germany, he admits that the Social Democratic German working class “refused to consider” the possibility of revolution and wanted nothing to do with Communism. This contradiction points to a considerable strategic, and not merely tactical, gap between the two German working-class parties in this critical period. Whether this could have been bridged had the KPD possessed a clearer, more comprehensive and realistic policy than it did appears doubtful given the pro-capitalist tendency of the organised German workforce. The fact that the SPD opposed the expropriation of the ruling capitalist class and the removal from power of its major political props (the former aristocracy, the landed oligarchy and officials of the Ancien Regime which constituted the Imperial army as the de facto executive in a Reichstag composed in the main of bourgeois deputies) shows the serious difficulty which revolutionary as opposed to counter-revolutionary forces faced. This fact does not, of course, absolve the KPD of what Rosenberg alleges was its utopianism, ultra-left posturing and generalised lumpen naiveté. However, it does illuminate an alternative explanation for the failure of socialist forces in Germany to meet the challenge of the fascist rise to power. Briefly, that failure was not principally a product of the problematic or sectarian tactics of the KPD, but rather of the lack of a material base for successful anti-fascist politics—that is, a terribly exploited and oppressed working class.

-Divided World, Divided Class, p.284

I suppose we're fortunate that left fascism and right fascism have not combined into a single party and left fascism (labor aristocratic social fascism) remains a prime target for radicalization. But we must always be clear what we are targeting and it is not socialism. I think the only reason people don't think this way is because fascism is such a scary word that evokes Hitler rather than a different shade of bourgeois government that most nations in the world have experienced.

le_nelson_mandela_face posted:

guidoanselmi posted:

dipshit420 posted:

It's probably a best course of action to vote for Bernie in your primary, and vote for the democrat nominee in the general. I wish to avoid total war.

wait did i seriously log onto rhizzone to read this. ive been away from posting too long, my irony meter is not calibrated

María Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos were complete scumbags at last night's debate. They lend credence to the argument of the Republican front-runner that this garbage should be kept out. Hillary should exercise her right not to participate in debates where the moderators are retarded imbeciles with no moderating skills whatsoever. Despite scumbag moderators, Hillary was still awesome. Nevertheless, she was a bird who was prevented from reaching the rhetorical altitude at which she is most comfortable. And she is a bird who is capable of reaching a mighty altitude. The moderators interrupted her at those crucial moments when her rhetorical wings were in the process of acquiring the requisite airlift that takes her to awesome rhetorical heights. The rhetorical heights where she becomes totally unreachable. Inept moderators kept her within range of her opponent and prevented her from demonstrating that she is indeed in a class by herself. Despite thoroughly inferior moderating, she was a classy and awesome woman.

BIRD FACT: you know what bird is capable of flying to the highest altitude? it's vultures

Red_Canadian posted:

Yeah it talks about Syriza as being this great white hope and all that when it's already been discredited, but that's what I'm saying. We need social democracy to be popular, and then be discredited, before radical leftism will have a chance.
The Russian revolution, the Chinese revolution, the Cuban revolution, they all had periods of social democracy before communism could assert itself. Radicalization comes in stages, we all like to hope that it will happen all at once, but history seems to show the opposite.

"15, 20, 50 years of civil wars and struggles" Marx 1850

Edited by swampman (March 12, 2016 23:25:07)