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submitted 2 weeks ago by Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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I'm back on reddit for one hour and I'm actually arguing with some of the stupidest people on the planet who keep pivoting back to blaming protesters and can't blame the DNC for even a single minute. So many people, so, so, so many people who all just want to blame the protesters and won't say a single word about how Biden and Kamala tanked their election.

They literally keep going back and talking about the protesters, literally, and LITERALLY won't say a word in their response in criticism of Kamala or Biden. This is utterly ridiculous; I left reddit initially because of the shocking amounts of bigotry and now I'm heading off again because these people are pigheaded children in response to people refusing to vote for genociders; they're literally mocking that the protesters are protesting and even claiming they're just doing it for tiktok and don't actually care.

These people are so hateful and vile. God I wish I could teleport them into Gaza.

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[-] landlords_morghulis@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Very briefly:

Capitalism is a system of exploitation and inequality. Capitalism is right-wing.
Liberalism is inherently right-wing because it's the system through which capital interest captures political control.
Democrats are liberals.
Conservatives are basically liberals with more nationalist and traditionalist identity politics.
Progressives are liberals who sheepdog leftist movement back to the right into supporting liberalism to prevent the emergence of class consciousness and other dangerous threats to their bourgeois political monopoly.
All political factions in mainstream US politics are right-wing and always move in that ideological direction, which is why this keeps happening.

You have not been betrayed by a few bad actors in a system which can be fixed with reforms; you are a hostage to a monopoly of power that occasionally gives you the illusion of being able to interact with a system designed to exploit you. The ruling class in the US does not care which candidate wins, because it has hand-picked the two choices which are no threat to its interest, and has and will continue to prevent any threat to capital interest from emerging in an electoral system they fully control.

The notion that "the wrong person won" is not a concern of the ruling class, but it's presented as a dire concern to the exploited class so they will fight amongst themselves instead of uniting against their oppressors.

[-] Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yes I agree with all of that... Do you think there's any way to overcome this? Realistically speaking, the "ruling class" has been ruling since the Sumerians... In one way or another

[-] landlords_morghulis@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 weeks ago

Big question. Again, very "briefly" ; )

There was a reduction of classes from earlier pre-capitalist points in history into two primary classes in an industrial capitalist society:

A class of laborers that do everything. Create everything. Build everything. Keep everything maintained. Who represent nearly the complete mass of society and all productive force. The proletariat.
A bourgeois owner class that exists to endlessly extract from the productive forces through economic coercion and violence. This class represents a very small minority of people, but an efficient parasite to the improvement of conditions which should be a natural result of the productive force.

This coersion is accomplished through the concept of "ownership", where ownership of the land and means of production give them the exclusive right to dictate to you how little you must sell your labor for, and how much the cost of goods will be (which are produced by the same labor). By controlling both wages and cost of goods, the owner class can manipulate economic conditions and markets to maximize their own profit growth, which is their primary class interest.

If we create / do / build everything, why do we allow ourselves to be exploited? We have the numbers. We have the tools. We have the knowledge. But we are conditioned to submit to the authority of the owner class, because they tell us they own our labor; own our time; own our land; own our workplaces; own our farms; own our factories -- that we do not own them. But that's an illusion and a lie. Do you really need someone to be a c-suite billionaire to perform your job duties? You're paid from a tiny fraction of the value your labor creates, not from the generosity of the parasite.

The productive capacity of humanity belongs to the good of humanity, not to a small cadre of people which enjoy unimaginable wealth, security and comfort at the expense of everyone else on earth. We first must recognize that this productive capacity belongs to those who perform it, not those who suck its blood.

Can it be done? It has been done!

There have been a number of successful revolutions against the rule of the bourgeoisie. The first was the USSR. Other liberation struggles followed, such as China, Korea, Viet Nam, Cuba, Guatamala, El Salvidor, Iran, Afghanistan, Chile, etc. Parenthetically, consider how the US, the capitalist military empire, responded to those struggles and how many million of people the US killed to prevent them from succeeding; how many times the US threatened to end the world if it could not rule over everything. These countries are saddled with illegal unilateral sanctions, blockades, bombed, invaded, couped, and robbed to keep them from succeeding against capitalist control. That success would be a dangerous example to others.

Overcoming the forces of capitalism is an international struggle. It requires us to awaken a global class consciousness and unite as a class interest which can begin displacing this unjust system by taking ownership of it. That requires the creation of a new state which has the power and will to oppress the interests of capital and direct productive forces toward the needs of the people.

Some good starting points:

Obligatory Yellow Parenti

Michael Parenti - Blackshirts and Reds

Marx & Engles - Communist Manifesto

Marx - Wage Labor and Capital

Vladimir Lenin - What is to be Done?

[-] Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

Peasants
Aristocracy

Just pointing out that the titles have changed, but the roles haven't

I agree with everything you "briefly" stated lol

But I guess I just wonder how we get from where we are, to the global awakening of the peasants you're talking about... USSR might have done it, but that was just 1 country so the oligarchy was able to rally the rest of the countries against them. I'd also say that where you're putting "the US did something" I'd say the global oligarchy did it using the US military machine... The people of the US have never really had a say (same for most countries)

[-] landlords_morghulis@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Just pointing out that the titles have changed, but the roles haven’t

I don't want to quote paragraphs here, but read chapter 1 which gives a pretty simple intro to that analysis.

But I guess I just wonder how we get from where we are, to the global awakening

For me to answer that would mean poorly paraphrasing the sources I listed. The scientific analysis of this question has been done, and the historical examples we can learn from have been written. Both are fascinating and engaging once we get over the hurdles of our societal conditioning. Historical truth seen in contrast to the western narrative is radicalizing. I recommend going through that material and seeing what questions you have afterward.

I know that sounds like a brushoff; it isn't. Our shared understanding of the scientific analysis of the problem really is how we crack the nut of class consciousness. We have to coherently understand the problem to effectively communicate it and wake up others, and the success of that process is borne out by history. Without class consciousness we will never cohere to fight our class struggle. We all awaken in this system as individuals; you, me, all of us. The capitalist system will show us its contradictions, the existing ML analysis gives us a framework for understanding and communicating those contradictions.

I’d also say that where you’re putting “the US did something” I’d say the global oligarchy did it using the US military machine

I hope I don't sound condescending, but learn the history of the empire and imperialism. It's an endless bloody nightmare in the intentional blindspot of US history. Americans realizing they've been lied to about pretty much everything is part of the fun.