Engaging in direct action is the responsibility of every progressive citizen.

[lord of flies]

The capitalist system, as an economic, political and social system, cannot be destroyed from within. To put it another way, participation in "bourgeois" parliamentarianism cannot truly reform the creature. The entire economic, political and social system of modern capitalism is focused on the livelihood of a microscopic minority of monopolists. One can look far and wide for the ways this is true. Since many (most?) posters here are from the United States, here are a few examples from the last few years in USA internal politics: the bank bailout, the recent health care reform (a massive handout to insurance companies) and the continued and increased persecution of illegal immigrants (e.g. SB1070) in order to create a permanent underclass of workers for capitalists to exploit.

 

Why do corporations exercise disproportionate power over the political structure of the country? It would be easy to say that it is because of the United States system of massive campaign donations, but this is simply a way to shift the blame onto something that can be reformed. In 2000 and 2002, the number of political offices in Vermont which could be obtained by the use of public financing jumped sharply. However, the current tax rates on corporations in Vermont, which vary from 6 to 8.5 percent based on tax bracket (and were identical in 2009 and 2008), have actually gone down from 2000, when they were from 7 to 9.75 percent based on tax bracket.

 

As this example illustrates, the use of campaign funding by political candidates has little-to-nothing to do with their behavior in office. Politicians in the United States are almost completely representatives of the interests of the modern capitalist monopolists. There are a few obvious reasons: the large number of politicians who are millionaires (in 2008, a total of 244 Senators and Representatives had an estimated net worth above one million dollars, and there may be even more), the strength and support of corporate lobbyists in comparison to labor, minority, anti-war and other progressive interests, etc.

 

The most important reason, however, is simple: the United States has an economy which, like the economy of any other developed capitalist country, is virtually completely reliant on the monopoly capitalists, barring major upheaval. The politicians of our country, like any other developed capitalist country, outright strike out the possibility of such a major upheaval. Because of this, the capitalists must be dealt with in a "fair" and "reasonable" manner. The politicians view it as absolutely necessary to maintain a "reasonable" (i.e. free market capitalist) economy, to the point that a change can be viewed as a catastrophic destruction of the system. Any good leader confronted with the catastrophic destruction of his nation, state or people would balk at willingly taking it on, even if popular consensus was against him.

 

Without a traditional democratic methodology by which to seek correction for the economic situation by which we have been enslaved and subjugated, we must resort to the means by which a hundred other movements have succeeded and thrived: direct action. The use of direct action, even when explicitly nonviolent, constitutes an implicit and violent threat to the state, as can be seen by the sometimes extreme reaction of the state to peaceful protests (e.g. Kent State shootings, the May Day Melee). With the addition of this implicit force, the insane fears of the capitalists' representatives in the state are stoked, but against fear of public agitation. It is the only way by which political change can really be achieved.

 

To put it simply: the system which supports the modern capitalist state is supported by the monopoly capitalists. Thus, expecting the so-called "rulers" (i.e. politicians) to act seriously against the interests of the monopoly capitalists is ridiculous. The only way to make them willing to engage in what they view as undermining the supports of the state is to make an even greater threat against the supports of the state: direct action.

Edited May 17, 2010 by lord of flies

[theslug]

Didn't read anything except the first half of the first sentence but sounds like some kind of anti-government propaganda. Reported to the CIA. Suspected terrorist list. Mwhahaha.

[lord of flies]

Didn't read anything except the first half of the first sentence but sounds like some kind of anti-government propaganda. Reported to the CIA. Suspected terrorist list. Mwhahaha.

There is a tl;dr summary at the bottom.

 

Also, I post via proxy.

 

"Mwhahaha."

[Humodour]

My direct action is getting hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

[Walsingham]

I'll be sure to mention your theories on the validity of using violence to attack a democratically elected government the next time I'm chatting to the BNP. Im sure that they, and countless other dingbats with an axe to grind and no actual democratic support will agree with you.

[I want teh kotor 3]

We already knew you supported murder. These threads are getting redundant. Just out of curiosity, LoF, have you ever participated in a revolution?

[Hurlshort]

Eh, I'm pretty comfortable with the way things are, thanks though.

 

Obviously there are a few things I'd like to adjust, but the system as a whole is pretty nice.

[Darque]

While the system does need to be changed, let's not lose sight of the fact there are lots of types of "direct action"... and not all of them violent.

[Gfted1]

^aaaaannd another one takes the bait.

[Darque]

^aaaaannd another one takes the bait.

 

Got anything constructive to add?

[Humodour]

^aaaaannd another one takes the bait.

 

Kind of like Ghandi took the bait?

[Walsingham]

Oh, before I forget. I looked up as much as could online about the Maoist revolution in Nepal. Nothing in my local library. Nothing in my local bookshops.

 

1. 4000 dead estimate by rebels, plus about 8000 dead from govt. Mere grist to the mill, right?

2. The communist party don't really seem to have done anything particularly communist, which was my point. Let's see how they get on when they start trying to enforce communism. This means when they announce their draft constitution on May 29th.

3. I note that the Nepalese Moaist 'New Path' seems to have been influenced heavily by the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru. Sendero Luminoso regard vilence as a critical tool, and are accused in many sources of 'purging' the left wing my killing moderates, and starving villagers who attempt small scale capitalism by taking food to market. To give you a taste of their view on humanity this below is quoted on their Wiki page and is stupendous Marxist intellectualism.

 

For us, human rights are contradictory to the rights of the people, because we base rights in man as a social product, not man as an abstract with innate rights. "Human rights" do not exist except for the bourgeois man, a position that was at the forefront of feudalism, like liberty, equality, and fraternity were advanced for the bourgeoisie of the past. But today, since the appearance of the proletariat as an organized class in the Communist Party, with the experience of triumphant revolutions, with the construction of socialism, new democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat, it has been proven that human rights serve the oppressor class and the exploiters who run the imperialist and landowner-bureaucratic states. Bourgeois states in general. . . . Our position is very clear. We reject and condemn human rights because they are bourgeois, reactionary, counterrevolutionary rights, and are today a weapon of revisionists and imperialists, principally Yankee imperialists.

 

 

[Gfted1]

^aaaaannd another one takes the bait.

 

Got anything constructive to add?

 

Yes, youre wastine your time. Run away. Or, alternatively, you can save yourself a crapton of time by reading the exhausive replies from Wals and 1337 in any of the other 15 threads that all boil down to the same thing.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Gfted1

[lord of flies]

The use of direct action, even when explicitly nonviolent, constitutes an implicit and violent threat to the state, as can be seen by the sometimes extreme reaction of the state to peaceful protests (e.g. Kent State shootings, the May Day Melee).

Jeez, you could at least read the original post. 90% of direct action is nonviolent.

1. 4000 dead estimate by rebels, plus about 8000 dead from govt. Mere grist to the mill, right?

Oh no, a few thousand people died in the pursuit of a progressive cause. Try again.

3. I note that the Nepalese Moaist 'New Path' seems to have been influenced heavily by the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru. Sendero Luminoso regard vilence as a critical tool, and are accused in many sources of 'purging' the left wing my killing moderates, and starving villagers who attempt small scale capitalism by taking food to market. To give you a taste of their view on humanity this below is quoted on their Wiki page and is stupendous Marxist intellectualism.

 

For us, human rights are contradictory to the rights of the people, because we base rights in man as a social product, not man as an abstract with innate rights. "Human rights" do not exist except for the bourgeois man, a position that was at the forefront of feudalism, like liberty, equality, and fraternity were advanced for the bourgeoisie of the past. But today, since the appearance of the proletariat as an organized class in the Communist Party, with the experience of triumphant revolutions, with the construction of socialism, new democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat, it has been proven that human rights serve the oppressor class and the exploiters who run the imperialist and landowner-bureaucratic states. Bourgeois states in general. . . . Our position is very clear. We reject and condemn human rights because they are bourgeois, reactionary, counterrevolutionary rights, and are today a weapon of revisionists and imperialists, principally Yankee imperialists.

 

 

[Guard Dog]

I've been coming to this board less and less because the discussions are repetitive and pretty tiresome. Plus there are only like six people posting here now and a dozen or so alts. But I came back today and what do I find, LoF has started yet another communisim thread. Ho hum. I'm sure the conversation will be at least as scintillating as the last several dozen. This is like internet deja vu.

[Walsingham]

I am not ignoring the rest of your post, but homing in on the important bottom line. Correct me if I am wrong, but you suggest people use any means up to and including lethal force - on their own initiative - to provoke political change. Granted, you argue that real political change cannot come through democratic means, but I ask you:

 

 

What difference is there between

a) your calls to excise a class of people from society (the capitalist and bourgeoise) through direct action, including violence, because the State cannot be trusted to act.

and

b) Combat 18's calls to excise a class of people from society (immigrants) through direct action, including violence, because the State cannot be trusted to act.

 

 

~~

 

The US Civil War is a bogus analogy, since the secession was provoked precisely because democracy had wrought a significant change. In any case the deaths were the upshot of conflict between two (relatively) duly appointed state executives, not a conflict between a self-appointed 'direct actioneer' and a duly appointed 'state'.

[lord of flies]

I am not ignoring the rest of your post, but homing in on the important bottom line. Correct me if I am wrong, but you suggest people use any means up to and including lethal force - on their own initiative - to provoke political change. Granted, you argue that real political change cannot come through democratic means, but I ask you:

 

 

What difference is there between

a) your calls to excise a class of people from society (the capitalist and bourgeoise) through direct action, including violence, because the State cannot be trusted to act.

and

b) Combat 18's calls to excise a class of people from society (immigrants) through direct action, including violence, because the State cannot be trusted to act.

What we are dealing with here is displacement in the Freudian sense of the term (Verschiebung): Nazism displaces class struggle onto racial struggle and in doing so obfuscates its true nature. What changes in the passage from Communism to Nazism is a matter of form, and it is in this that the Nazi ideological mystification resides: the political struggle is naturalised as racial conflict, the class antagonism inherent in the social structure reduced to the invasion of a foreign (Jewish) body which disturbs the harmony of the Aryan community. It is not, as Nolte claims, that there is in both cases the same formal antagonistic structure, but that the place of the enemy is filled by a different element (class, race). Class antagonism, unlike racial difference and conflict, is absolutely inherent to and constitutive of the social field; Fascism displaces this essential antagonism.

The US Civil War is a bogus analogy, since the secession was provoked precisely because democracy had wrought a significant change. In any case the deaths were the upshot of conflict between two (relatively) duly appointed state executives, not a conflict between a self-appointed 'direct actioneer' and a duly appointed 'state'.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't cite the US Civil War (abolition of slavery was after the civil war began, btw). Was the Romanian Revolution unjustified too?

[Walsingham]

To paraphrase Zizek, you are saying that the difference is it's OK to hate and attack a class of people because you have chosen the correct class of people to hate?

[213374U]

It's all quite neatly summed up in the old commie saying: "no war but class war" -- by blindly following Marx's mad ideas on "class struggle", anything is justified.

[lord of flies]

To paraphrase Zizek, you are saying that the difference is it's OK to hate and attack a class of people because you have chosen the correct class of people to hate?

Class antagonism, unlike racial antagonism, Actually Exists. The rich are really ****ing over the poor, whereas the immigrants are not. It is the difference between any valid struggle and an invalid one: what is struggled against? The state is struggled against in the socialist struggle because it perpetuates a system of class relations which is wrong and evil. For the bourgeois democrat struggling against the monarchy two centuries ago, the reason is precisely the same (the monarchist state perpetuates the feudal class system).

[Walsingham]

And so your right to use force is validated by... your personal insistence that the rich are ****ing the poor? Judging by your copious free time posting online I doubt you are poor, so I'm suspicious of that validity.

 

Irrespective of your personal circumstances, which you studiously avoid discussing in even the most anonymous terms, what possible authority has any individual or clique of individuals to rule on the questions:

 

a) Who the rich are

b) Who the poor are

c) What precisely is meant by 'being ****ed'

d) The right of those same individuals to use extra-democratic methods (within a democracy) to pursue some theoretically un****ing agenda

[Darque]

^aaaaannd another one takes the bait.

 

Got anything constructive to add?

 

Yes, youre wastine your time. Run away. Or, alternatively, you can save yourself a crapton of time by reading the exhausive replies from Wals and 1337 in any of the other 15 threads that all boil down to the same thing.

 

Yeah, I've kinda noticed a trend.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Lol @ GD... Very true...

[lord of flies]

And so your right to use force is validated by... your personal insistence that the rich are ****ing the poor? Judging by your copious free time posting online I doubt you are poor, so I'm suspicious of that validity.

 

Irrespective of your personal circumstances, which you studiously avoid discussing in even the most anonymous terms, what possible authority has any individual or clique of individuals to rule on the questions:

 

a) Who the rich are

b) Who the poor are

c) What precisely is meant by 'being ****ed'

d) The right of those same individuals to use extra-democratic methods (within a democracy) to pursue some theoretically un****ing agenda

The authority of an objective view of reality? Figuring out who is rich and who is poor is not that difficult: people who own or manage the means of production (CEOs, investors, etc.) are "rich." Those who are forced to continually work for an indefinite period of time (or their whole live) or fail to function within society (have access to food, water, shelter, etc) are "poor." The taking of the surplus value of the labor of the worker by the corporation is "being ****ed."

 

As a form of "extra-democratic method," direct action has a long history that you have chosen to rewrite (as liberals are want to do). Of course only those methods of trying for political change that don't actually work are "okay." Was the civil rights movement unjustified because it was built on direct action? Was the long fight for women's suffrage evil? The national liberation struggle in the various colonies of the western imperialist powers? Mai 68? Kent State? Poor People's Campaign? EDSA? Oh, who am I kidding, of course they were...

[I want teh kotor 3]

I don't recall the women's rights movement as being violent...