CDZ How did we get to this point?

[Tom Paine 1949]

Trotsky's thought process was vastly improved by the application of a pickaxe to his head.

... Spoken like a good Stalinist.

I'm sure you would have cackled when he was assassinated by an agent of Stalin ... in the same way and with the same political foresight as Hillary cackled at the murder of Qaddafi.

 

[Dagosa]

Looking at the "options" we have in November for President, I can't help but wonder how we got here (by the way, if you think your guy is a great option, this thread probably isn't for you). And full disclosure: It could definitely just be me, and maybe I've just become too cynical over years.

Anyway, for those of you who agree with me that we've really sunk in the quality of our "leaders" and "candidates", why do you think that is? Right now, I can only come up with two ideas:

First, with the advent of the internet and the proliferation of "news" sources (ha ha), I strongly suspect that our REAL "Best & Brightest" know to stay the hell out of politics, since anyone who jumps in will be immediately and viciously attacked in real life, online, and in every other possible way. Their families will be scrutinized to an absurd degree, and they and their families' lives may never be the same again. So we end up with people who just exist only on their egos, everything else be damned.

Second, maybe it's just me/us. Maybe as we age, our cynicism increases and people with big names just impress us less. Maybe the quality of our options hasn't increased much, and my frustration is more about being worn down over time by all the BS than it is about the quality of these people.

Your thoughts?

Unfounded fears. Good information on every candidate, their voting records and their polices are all available. If you’re hoodwinked in Believing BS when the real facts are available, maybe you aren’t a qualified voter any more then claiming we have unqualified candidates. Most of the shit talked about here,is immaterial.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

Okay, buddy, this is where you are confused ... most of us are in the "investor class" now, in that we have pensions, investments, 401Ks., etc.

Really?

Did I not explain that the investment class IS the petty bourgeoisie which IS the Democrat Party?

From the comfort of your gated community, you speak of the working class is if it is a neighbour. It is not. You are worlds apart.

Many things in Europe turned out differently than Marx expected. So did Fukuyama’s ‘end of history.’ Yet Marx’ fundamentals stand. And today Marx is more relevant than ever.

Given where I am in life, I indeed ‘ought’ to stand with the petty bourgeoisie in its unprincipled bickering with the 1%. I admit freely that I am a ‘class traitor.’

‘I know a lot of black folks in the Middle Class, they have good educations, they hold down well-paying jobs... By your silly Marxist definition, they are "Petty Bourgeois."’

Precisely!

Democrat Party interests are limited to the advancement of a thin layer of privileged African Americans. It postures such people as a ‘progressive’ tendency as if it matters one whit to minorities that a police crackdown is ordered by someone whose pigmentation resembles their own.

'...Commie Bernie...'

In what world, pray tell?

Senator Sanders can call himself a socialist from now till Doom's Day. He is no Eugene Victor Debs -- and certainly no James P. Canon.

'...I'm starting to agree, maybe we SHOULD cut all this college funding...'

As Trotsky said, the petty bourgeoisie has no agenda of its own and must derive that either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Pressed from the left, one of two responses follows invariably -- it moves toward socialism or the bourgeoisie faction. You've given us a case in point.

Your rejection of the grounds of past defeat is mimicked in the Democrat Party platform.

A dozen times, the 80 page document refers to the 'Obama-Biden Administration' in glowing terms. What it doesn't mention is the 2008 bailout, the Wall Street crash, the forced bankruptcy of the auto industry, or the slashing of wages for new hires by 50%. Nor does it mention the protracted stagnation in jobs and lowered working class living standards. And it doesn't mention drone missile strikes, extrajudicial assassinations, or the US-NATO war on Libya, or US facilitation of the Saudi war on Yemen, or Obama's 'pivot to Asia,' or the deployment of US warships and warplanes against China, or the US-backed coup in Honduras, or the US-backed coup in Ukraine spearheaded by anti-Semites and fascists.

The document doesn't even mention 'Capitalism.'

The working class has nothing invested in either Capitalist party, and it has nothing vested in the November election, if it even occurs. Should there happen to be an election, and if it is declared in Democrat Party favour, it will resolve not one single crisis before the nation and world. Conjure jargon as it may, there is no coming 'recovery' or 'return to 'normal' waiting in the wings. It is time for the proletariat to force its own agenda directly into civic discourse.

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

 

[Mac1958]

Looking at the "options" we have in November for President, I can't help but wonder how we got here (by the way, if you think your guy is a great option, this thread probably isn't for you). And full disclosure: It could definitely just be me, and maybe I've just become too cynical over years.

Anyway, for those of you who agree with me that we've really sunk in the quality of our "leaders" and "candidates", why do you think that is? Right now, I can only come up with two ideas:

First, with the advent of the internet and the proliferation of "news" sources (ha ha), I strongly suspect that our REAL "Best & Brightest" know to stay the hell out of politics, since anyone who jumps in will be immediately and viciously attacked in real life, online, and in every other possible way. Their families will be scrutinized to an absurd degree, and they and their families' lives may never be the same again. So we end up with people who just exist only on their egos, everything else be damned.

Second, maybe it's just me/us. Maybe as we age, our cynicism increases and people with big names just impress us less. Maybe the quality of our options hasn't increased much, and my frustration is more about being worn down over time by all the BS than it is about the quality of these people.

Your thoughts?

Unfounded fears. Good information on every candidate, their voting records and their polices are all available. If you’re hoodwinked in Believing BS when the real facts are available, maybe you aren’t a qualified voter any more then claiming we have unqualified candidates. Most of the shit talked about here,is immaterial.

Or, I'm just observant and honest.

One of the two.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

Trotsky's thought process was vastly improved by the application of a pickaxe to his head.

JoeB131:

I seriously owe you!

'Thank-you so much for this most apt demonstration that the 90% has NOTHING invested in the Democrat Party!

If you have any more great ones, feel free to pass them along!

Thanks again. buddy!

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

 

[Dick Foster]

In answer to the title, complacency and sloth.

 

[JoeB131]

... Spoken like a good Stalinist.

The USSR would have been just as much of a Hellscape under Trotsky as Stalin.

 

[JoeB131]

JoeB131:

I seriously owe you!

'Thank-you so much for this most apt demonstration that the 90% has NOTHING invested in the Democrat Party!

Someday when you get a haircut and a job, you'll realize how silly you sound.

Again- I picture you being in the sixth year of your Bachelors in Political Science, unable to complete those last two credits for a degree.

 

[JoeB131]

Really?

Did I not explain that the investment class IS the petty bourgeoisie which IS the Democrat Party?

From the comfort of your gated community, you speak of the working class is if it is a neighbour. It is not. You are worlds apart.

Uh, guy, I live in a Condo, and my community is hardly gated. I've worked middle class jobs most of my life and I own a small business. I'm not rich enough to vote Republican, but you Campus Communists are just as silly now as you were in the 1980's...

Many things in Europe turned out differently than Marx expected. So did Fukuyama’s ‘end of history.’ Yet Marx’ fundamentals stand. And today Marx is more relevant than ever.

Actually, Marx is as wrong as most socialists are, because socialism doesn't understand human nature. It's human nature to better yourself, so you get the nicer house, the sexier girlfriend, the better car.

And as I've said, Capitalism's problem is that it indulges the worst in human nature... this is why I have no use for the LIbertarians who think the worst thing in the world is that the Koch brothers are prevented from raping all the land.

Time to stop acting like these are the only two choices on the menu...

In what world, pray tell?

Senator Sanders can call himself a socialist from now till Doom's Day. He is no Eugene Victor Debs -- and certainly no James P. Canon.

Naw, he's just a loser whose never held a real job. As much as you guys whine about the working class, most of you have never gotten dirt under your fingernails.

Given where I am in life, I indeed ‘ought’ to stand with the petty bourgeoisie in its unprincipled bickering with the 1%. I admit freely that I am a ‘class traitor.’

Again- I'm sure that you probably think you are smartest guy on the quad.

As Trotsky said, the petty bourgeoisie has no agenda of its own and must derive that either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Pressed from the left, one of two responses follows invariably -- it moves toward socialism or the bourgeoisie faction. You've given us a case in point.

Actually, outside of Campus Marxists - There is no "proletariat". Most working people have investments... and make a good salary. Even our "poor" have a better life than most of the third world... it's why we need fences to keep them out.

A dozen times, the 80 page document refers to the 'Obama-Biden Administration' in glowing terms. What it doesn't mention is the 2008 bailout, the Wall Street crash, the forced bankruptcy of the auto industry, or the slashing of wages for new hires by 50%. Nor does it mention the protracted stagnation in jobs and lowered working class living standards.

Why should it? Frankly, most people saw their lot improve under Obama and all the way up until this year when Trump Plague crashed the party. The real problem with you psuedo Marxists is that Marxism envisioned a world where people who work in manufacturing and agriculture took over the means of production. The thing is, Manufacturing itself is something most people DON'T work in anymore. It's increasingly becoming a thing done by less and less people as automation takes over. Same with agriculture. So while "Baristas of the world unite" might have a nice ring to it, it's kind of silly.

And it doesn't mention drone missile strikes, extrajudicial assassinations, or the US-NATO war on Libya, or US facilitation of the Saudi war on Yemen, or Obama's 'pivot to Asia,' or the deployment of US warships and warplanes against China, or the US-backed coup in Honduras, or the US-backed coup in Ukraine spearheaded by anti-Semites and fascists.

Yes, Obama has the same problem all Democrats have. The US is still the worlds' super power, and it still gets emeshed in the world's messes. This has been the case since 1941, and it's not going to end any time soon.

The working class has nothing invested in either Capitalist party, and it has nothing vested in the November election, if it even occurs. Should there happen to be an election, and if it is declared in Democrat Party favour, it will resolve not one single crisis before the nation and world. Conjure jargon as it may, there is no coming 'recovery' or 'return to 'normal' waiting in the wings. It is time for the proletariat to force its own agenda directly into civic discourse.

Uh, guy, the "Working Class" was doing fine before Trump crashed the car into the wall. The nature of the economy is ALWAYS going to change because the skill sets change. My grandfather worked on a production line in an industrial setting. Those jobs don't exist anymore, they've all been automated. You learn the new skills for the new economy.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

I live in a Condo, and my community is hardly gated.

I'm going to assume that I don't need to explain the metaphor and that you understand full well that I am indicating your refusal to acknowledge the reality of class struggle. Ruling by fiat that there is no proletariat, you grant that. This also means that there can be no working class struggle in classical Marxian terms.

Since you reside in Canada, I propose we evaluate that proposition from the perspective of the working class in Canada. But that should occur on another thread.

So -- my question is simple: are you good for it, or are we done here?

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

 

[Invisibleflash]

OP...it started with queer marriage. Once 2 hairy men can be husband and wife, then anything goes. And once a man with a penis = a woman, anything goes.

And in a world where anything goes, even a lying con-man can be prez.

 

[Likkmee]

You reached this cliff by voting who you had no idea WHO you were voting for.
Famous words. "My granpappy and pappy were _________ and so is I !!!!"
Name the county manager in your county. See what I mean ?

 

[Dagosa]

human nature to better yourself, so you get the nicer house, the sexier girlfriend, the better car.

That’s funny. It’s humane nature to socialize things we can’t do for ourselves so we can get what capitalism provides, the fringe stuff. Real important things we look to socialize. Fire police, healthcare, education, infrastructure ...all partly to fully socialized. I laugh when fake capitalists think they aren’t socialist.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

“How did we get to this point?” is the OP question. That question also arose, and was followed up by another one asked in 1902 in Russia by V.I. Lenin: “What Is to Be Done?” His answer was to build a working-class political party to win state power.

Trotsky's Spectre apparently still believes this is possible. I would like to try to save him years of wasted effort laboring in insignificant “revolutionary socialist” organizations by quoting the most famous leader of the revolutionary Marxist anti-Stalinist movement ... Trotsky himself. In “The USSR in War” (September 1939) published shortly before he was assassinated in Mexican exile, the man who had led the Bolshevik Revolution with Lenin was honest enough to recognize not only that their revolution had become a totalitarian nightmare under Stalin, but that the historical forces they had hoped would lead to socialism, a powerful “proletariat” of industrial workers, might simply not have the ability to transform society as socialists hoped. Indeed, based on the evidence emerging at that time, Trotsky saw that the whole “transitional program” for socialist revolution he had fought for ... might be a utopian dream.

Today the evidence overwhelmingly confirms these thoughts by Trotsky were correct, and not his earlier hopes. Yet the problems of an increasingly unstable state capitalism in the U.S. dominating the world, and of bureaucratic “socialism” (really also state capitalism) in China, . remain to be resolved:

And What if the Socialist Revolution Is Not Accomplished?

The productive forces must be organized in accordance with a plan. But who will accomplish this task – the proletariat, or a new ruling class of “commissars” – politicians, administrators and technicians? Historical experience bears witness, in the opinion of certain rationalizers that one cannot entertain hope in the proletariat. The proletariat proved “incapable” of averting the last imperialist war ... The successes of Fascism after the war were once again the consequence of the “incapacity” of the proletariat to lead capitalist society out of the blind alley. The bureaucratization of the Soviet State was in its turn the consequence of the “incapacity” of the proletariat itself to regulate society through the democratic mechanism. The Spanish revolution was strangled by the Fascist and Stalinist bureaucracies before the very eyes of the world proletariat. Finally, last link in this chain is the new imperialist war, the preparation of which took place quite openly, with complete impotence on the part of the world proletariat....

The Present War and the Fate of Modern Society

By the very march of events this question is now posed very concretely. The second world war has begun.... If this war provokes, as we firmly believe, a proletarian revolution, it must inevitably lead to the overthrow of the bureaucracy in the USSR and regeneration of Soviet democracy on a far higher economic and cultural basis than in 1918.... If, however, it is conceded that the present war will provoke not revolution but a decline of the proletariat, then there remains another alternative: the further decay of monopoly capitalism, its further fusion with the state and the replacement of democracy wherever it still remained ... The inability of the proletariat to take into its hands the leadership of society could actually lead under these conditions to the growth of a new exploiting class from the Bonapartist fascist bureaucracy. This would be, according to all indications, a regime of decline, signalizing the eclipse of civilization.

An analogous result might occur in the event that the proletariat of advanced capitalist countries, having conquered power, should prove incapable of holding it and surrender it, as in the USSR, to a privileged bureaucracy. Then we would be compelled to acknowledge that the reason for the bureaucratic relapse is rooted not in the backwardness of the country and not in the imperialist environment but in the congenital incapacity of the proletariat to become a ruling class....

If the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of fulfilling the mission placed upon it by the course of development, nothing else would remain except openly to recognize that the socialist program based on the internal contradictions of capitalist society, ended as a Utopia. It is self evident that a new “minimum” program would be required ...

Leon Trotsky: The USSR in War (1939)

Leon Trotsky: The USSR in War (July 1939)

www.marxists.org

 

[JoeB131]

... Spoken like a good Stalinist.

I'm sure you would have cackled when he was assassinated by an agent of Stalin ... in the same way and with the same political foresight as Hillary cackled at the murder of Qaddafi.

Hey, I'm perfectly happy when Communists kill each other. In fact, we should lock them all up on a little Island and wait until there is only one left, and then send in a special operations team to give him his "Prize".

I'm going to assume that I don't need to explain the metaphor and that you understand full well that I am indicating your refusal to acknowledge the reality of class struggle. Ruling by fiat that there is no proletariat, you grant that. This also means that there can be no working class struggle in classical Marxian terms.

Since you reside in Canada, I propose we evaluate that proposition from the perspective of the working class in Canada. But that should occur on another thread.

So -- my question is simple: are you good for it, or are we done here?

Wow. I said I live in a CONDO, not CANADA. Good work on those reading skills, that money on your six year bachelor's program is really paying off, buddy.

Our racial problems are completely separate from "class struggle". Just ask any successful black person who had his nice car pulled over for a "DWB" (Driving While Black).

Look, man, I know you think that babbling whatever your professors tell you makes you sound smart, but it really doesn't.

Get out in the real world, then get back to me.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Hey, I'm perfectly happy when Communists kill each other. In fact, we should lock them all up on a little Island and wait until there is only one left, and then send in a special operations team to give him his "Prize".

... Spoken like the scared “petty-bourgeois“ you are. You talk so “liberal” and “tolerant,” but as soon as the going gets rough you mimic the crazed authoritarians of the right, who by the way consider YOU ... a “communist.”

 

[JoeB131]

... Spoken like the scared “petty-bourgeois“ you are. You talk so “liberal” and “tolerant,” but as soon as the going gets rough you mimic the crazed authoritarians of the right, who by the way consider YOU ... a “communist.”

Hey, I'm practical. I like money. I like having stuff. I'm willing to work to have stuff. I really don't want to give my stuff away to people who aren't willing to work for it.

I do actually think we need stronger unions to fight for better pay and working conditions... but the last century has shown us that when you get minimal rewards, you'll get minimal efforts.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

I live in a CONDO, not CANADA

Yes! And there is is -- indicated clearly by the pixels on your computer screen! Canada! And no -- you didn't say 'Canada.'

Yet your assertion of the well-being of the non-existent proletarian/working class, is contradicted by massive socio-economic catastrophe.

30 million lost their jobs.
20% of young mothers with young children experience food insecurity.

So what will be your focus, JoeB131? Will you address such issues as I've named, or continue to dismiss them?

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

 

[JoeB131]

Yet your assertion of the well-being of the non-existent proletarian/working class, is contradicted by massive socio-economic catastrophe.

30 million lost their jobs.
20% of young mothers with young children experience food insecurity.

So what will be your focus, JoeB131? Will you address such issues as I've named, or continue to dismiss them?

I agree. We have a catastrophe on our hands. It's not going to be solved by anything Leon "Icepick to the head" Trotsky said.

I would personally be for what we had when I grew up. Strong unions to protect the working class, the rich pay their fair share in taxes. That's what I'd be for.

Capitalism on a short leash.

 

[Oddball]

Most Americans have chosen Apathy as reflected by low voter turnout. This is nothing new. 2016 saw both parties hack up another Bush and Clinton faceoff which would have led to another elitist family dynasty either way that turned off the voters even more.
Conservatives and Independents like myself, wholeheartedly rejected Bush and supported Trump as an outsider forced to run in a two party system, while the left doubled down pushing a detestable candidate. Now they believe Biden, a lifelong career hack, is their solution. Biden only represents the status quo of business as usual.

Both parties are responsible for Trump getting elected as neither party really cares about Americans. That is how we got where we are.

This goes back to We The People too, because we're not interested enough to change the system under which these people operate. Their motivations are donations and re-election, and that's what animates their behaviors.

"The system" was changed and irreparably damaged over a century ago, by those in charge of it...The peoole in charge of it now have become accustomed to using people's own money to buy their votes, and the power that comes with it...And they are beyond unlikely to willingly give up that power.

People such as yourself, who dolefully wring your hands about the sorry state that we're in because of this, would deem a return to "the system" as it existed before TR and Wilson came along as "barbaric"....Those who stand for such a return to a pre-progressive situation today are demonized as wanting to starve children after their 16-hour shift in the sweatshop, throwing granny over a cliff, and letting big evil corporations run amok with absolutely no regulation or accountability, at the very least....You claim to long for solutions, yet dismiss out-of-hand the obvious one lying right under your nose.

Of course, F.A. Hayek predicted this very thing in the 1940s, in chapter 10 of "The Road to Serfdom", which you've probably never heard of, let alone read.

Why the Worst Get on Top - FEE

There are strong reasons for believing that what to us appear the worst features of the existing totalitarian systems are not accidental byproducts, but phenomena which totalitarianism is certain sooner or later to produce.

fee.org

But, IMO, having such a substantive change of the return to The State remaining in its box isn't what you really want.