Orientation toward Occupy
Orientation toward Occupy
(new-power.org)
The Occupy protests continue to dwindle in the Unites States. This is expected. The weather has played a role. It is harder to organize in the winter. The police repression has played a role. The inability of the Democrats to fully co-opt Occupy has resulted in Occupiers losing their status as media darlings. The media has turned against them. Media coverage is much more hostile today than it was at the beginning of the movement. Also, people in the United States have short attention spans. They are easily bored. People lose interest. However, most importantly, Occupy is running up against the social forces of trying to sustain a movement for social change in the First World. The vast majority of First World peoples do not have an interest in radical, egalitarian social change. They simply benefit too much from the system. They are too comfortable. Occupy is not about Leading Light Communism, is not about a radical reorganization at the deepest levels to bring about a world without oppression. Occupy is dominated by social-democratic and populist rhetoric. Even though social-democratic reform is often in the interests of most people in the United States, most people are simply too comfortable to fight very hard for it. People are too a-politicized and comfortable to even stand up for their own bourgeois interests. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, increasing the living standard of First World peoples as a whole is almost always connected to impoverishing Third World peoples. Nonetheless, Occupy still lingers on.
Could Occupy get a second wind? It will pick up a bit in the spring, but probably not return to previous levels. If the economy goes downward, then we could see more people at Occupy in the spring. However, at the moment, it does not appear the economy is falling. Rather, the latest numbers indicate a slight improvement in the situation. Occupy may be able to get a boost of energy by combining its efforts with the May Day efforts of the migrants. Occupy may get some kind of traction out of combining its efforts with the NATO/G8 protests this year. The “full-moon factor” could also boost Occupy’s numbers. It is 2012. Many New Religious Movements believe that 2012 heralds the transformation of the world. This idea, based upon, often chauvinist, misappropriation and misinterpretation of the Maya calendar, is widespread in pop culture. Movies have been made about the supposed significance of 2012. Many tomes have been written on the topic. There is a long history of apocalyptic “Great Awakening”-type movements in the United States. There is a possibility that Occupy could get a second wind if its numbers are boosted by people thinking that Occupy is somehow connected to the end of the world. In a country where economic contradictions are not sharp, culture plays a more significant role in social motion.
The correct orientation toward Occupy is the same as before. Do not bother trying to lead directly. For those who can, create a Leading Light pole in the movement. Look for the most caring, the most daring, and the most intelligent. They are the ones who will be drawn toward the Leading Light. Educate. Recruit. If the economy does go downward, we need to have the organization ready to mobilize that minority who break left, toward internationalism. Discipline. Organization.
Who are the one percent?
Who are the one percent?
(new-power.org)
This is an interesting poster we found online at globalequality.me. We do not know who made it, but we like the sentiment. The numbers aren’t exactly correct. Most Americas fall within the top 10% globally, almost all fall within the top 15%. Now, change will come from the bottom up. It will come from the global poor, not the global rich. Revolution will come from the Third World, not the First World. Revolution will come through global people’s war, not through First Worldist populism. Even so, it is important to educate those in the margins.
First Worldism is social fascism
First Worldism is Social Fascism by ModernMarxist
There is a reason why Third Worldists refer to First Worldists as “social fascists”. We are living in a day and age where imperialism has advanced capitalist centralization of wealth on a global level. The rich countries rape, plunder, pillage, impoverish and enslave the poor countries, coercing and bombing them into submission. If the “leaders” of the third world will not sell out their people and submit their resources and labor to the imperialists, their countries are subject to invasion, slaughter, and ultimately destruction. This is not some kind of secret that only a chosen few know; there are no conspiracy theories or men in suits lobbying in smoke filled rooms. This is common knowledge. Unfortunately, it is common knowledge which, today, few in the First World choose to think about or even acknowledge. Today, the First World’s primary source of wealth and labor is the Third World. When First Worlders, especially First World workers, want more, when they want an increase in their living standards, they are taking that new barbecue or 3D flat-screen right out of the mouths of Third Worlders. They are using luxury and commodity fetishism to rob the Third World of simple austerity measures. They are taking more and more from those who are already barely surviving: those who produce but cannot eat from the fruit of their labor.
During his life, Marx spoke of what criteria defines who is of the proletariat and who is of the bourgeoisie. He described the proletariat as a class receiving far less than the value of their labor - of having nothing to sell but their labor and subsequently being alienated from their labor. This does not describe the vast majority of First World peoples. This does define, however, the majority of Third Worlders. One important criterion of the bourgeoisie is consuming much but producing little or nothing in terms of valuable labor. This is very descriptive of most First World peoples, even those on the lowest strata (who are in and of themselves a minority) in the First World. We can gather from this (as well as all other Marxist criteria of what defines each class) that today’s class contradiction is a global one in the current age of globalization and US hegemony. Today there is a global proletariat struggling to survive under the yolk of a global bourgeoisie. It is the duty of a communist to struggle against the bourgeoise in support of proletarian revolution, even if it means becoming a class traitor.
One who does not even recognize these global class contradictions cannot possibly call oneself a communist. It is laughable that today’s First World “communist” parties are so willing to describe themselves as Marxist (or indeed anything even leftist) when they not only fail to recognize today’s material conditions, the way imperialism has changed the game, but they also fail to support the global proletariat against the global bourgeoisie. In fact (and this is almost shockingly dim), these “communist” parties support the global bourgeoisie in their parasitic devouring of the Third World peoples, the global proletariat. They are the labor aristocracy. They are completely bought off by imperialism. They call for more. More for First World peoples. More wages. More benefits. More at the expense of those who have nothing. Those who truly have nothing to lose but their chains.
In order to wage a People’s War (which some “communist” parties, hilariously, actually have the gall to say might happen in the First World), or even begin any sort of proletarian revolutionary action, you don’t just need a proletariat (which does not exist in any revolutionary form in the First World), but you also need a social base. People have to desire and work for a revolution, because a communist revolution doesn’t just closely involve common people, but it is subsequently composed of the efforts of common people. First Worlders are asleep. They are too busy wallowing in their decadence and consumerism. First Worlders do not make the basis for revolution. They are not concerned with the proletariat. This is a very basic truth. To refuse to acknowledge this is not science. It is not Marxism. To refuse to acknowledge this is to have your head buried in dogma, the dogmatic idea that all workers are exploited and oppressed, regardless of material conditions.
First Worldists are social fascists because they do not want to force First Worlders to give up their privilege. They do not want to give the Third World back what rightfully belongs to them. They want to establish another Third Reich: material prosperity at the expense of others. The only difference is that First World imperialism is based on bourgeois decadence and a standard of living exponentially higher than that of any imperialist power in history. The First Worldists will not halt imperialism. They are the beneficiaries of imperialism. Any First World “revolution” by any First World “socialist” movement would be social imperialism. The First World simply will not receive more from true non-imperialistic socialism: really, they would receive less. The First Worldists will not and would not do what needs to be done to truly establish socialism, to truly take the world on the road to communism. They remain content consuming more while those they take from starve and die, living under the iron gauntlet of imperialism. First Worldists are enemies of equality and enemies of the global proletariat, regardless of whether or not they paint their imperialism red or blue or gold or white or black.
Historically, communist revolution has always come from the darkest of places. It has always come from those who truly had nothing to lose but their chains. It came from those who, for them, revolution meant survival; for those who fought so that their children might be able to live decent, dignified and meaningful lives. Clean, sanitary water. Food. Clothes. Housing that doesn’t blow away or crumble in front of weather, or tanks. Education. Health care. Never has a communist revolution occurred in the rich countries, where the majority of its people could live without much concern for daily needs. In the rich imperialist counties, a different kind of revolution occurred once it’s people’s living standards took a drop. Once the imperialist privilege of these spoiled populations was threatened, they turned to fascism and bourgeois nationalism. They allied with the bourgeoisie, not the proletariat. The most reactionary elements of society took control and reorganized their economies and societies in order to not just allow but demand imperialism. Death was the answer to everything.
First Worldist “communists” are not communists at all. They are social fascists and social imperialists, demanding more for their own people, and actively working to oppress and exploit others to maintain imperialist privilege. They reject science and today’s reality and material conditions, clinging childishly to dogma and revisionism. Socialist redistribution of wealth on a global level is not in the First Worldists’ interests. “Revisionism” means to cut the revolutionary heart out of communism, and that is exactly what First Worldists do. Leading Light Communists are the only real communists today. Be a Leading Light. Support real communism, not First World revisionism.
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