the hardest part of being progressive is spelling bourgeoisie.
Blame the french, use spanish or portuguese: burguesia
all my friends hate the french
🍽️
And then theirs the centrist who have a ton of fingers to point and 0 solutions for any of the problems
You don’t understand! The dems would have made everything better if we hadn’t stabbed them in the back! Republicans didn’t win a single seat on blue-state soil!
STABBED IN THE BACK BY COMMUNISTS!
No we don’t want to do anything about the fascism. Thanks.
My favorite part is how dems judiciously avoid discussing the elephant in the room which is that it is their own policies that disenfranchise the public.
No but see its not because the other side us worse so everything I do is fine. Someone else shot you with a cannon (that I built) so me stabbing you was good actually and you’re just too dumb to understand.
the essence of the American political system
i wish there was something that can be said when democrats are in control of the congress and the presidency (again) because of trump, but still aren’t able to do anything because of a few holdouts (also again).
we’ve seen this story play out so many times in the last half century that you’d think people would learn from it; but we don’t so the only conclusion you can draw is that not enough americans pay attention.
i pity future generations that will have to pay the price for this mass negligence and glad that i will be gone before the brunt of it hits.
Nothing will be learned. People will just fearmonger and do lesser evilism again to justify not voting for anyone else.
Saying that when trump is bringing about fascism is ironic.
Great man theory is bunk
The fascism was here all along, it just wasn’t equally distrubuted. The camps were already full, the tent cities were already growing, the war machine was already churning, the secret police were already snatching people to blacksites, the fascists were already supported and the genocide already ongoing. Trump just doesn’t bother with the mask, and liberals mistake that for a qualitative change. He says the quiet part so loud that willful ignorance becomes impossible, and you mistake that change in your awareness for a change in the real conditions. The building has been burning for a long time, he’s just the noxious smoke that wakes you up from your sleep.
Literally, no. Trump is a substantial change. Yes, the usa historically has had a massive amount of problems. Trump is not same old but said allowed, he’s a new level of psychotic and demented fascism. The previous stuff was what laid the foundation for a full on fascist to come to power.
the genocide already ongoing.
There was no genocide perpetrated by the states prior to trump in the last 20 years. Gaza, if that’s what you mean, while supported far too much by the states is done by Israel.
The degree is different.
Yes, the usa historically has had a massive amount of problems.
Fascism for the poor and minorities, yes
he’s a new level of psychotic and demented fascism.
The same actions minus the sheen of reluctant professionalism, yes. We killed a million people in Iraq when I was a child. The only difference now is that white people aren’t insulated, so now it’s fascism.
The previous stuff was what laid the foundation for a full on fascist to come to power.
The previous stuff being fascist actions such as imperial war, police blacksites and indefinite detention without trial
Gaza, if that’s what you mean, while supported far too much by the states is done by Israel.
Israel is a US puppet state that literally cannot exist without a constant flow of money and weapons from us. Their genocide is our genocide. The Democratic governor of my state sent riot cops to shoot college kids with rubber bullets for being against genocide.
The degree is different.
The mask is off.
The only differenc
e now is that white people aren’t insulated, so now it’s fascism.
White people are still insulated from the consequences. Also, genocide and mass murder do not require fascism. You’re mistaking every horrible thing to be equivalent to fascism, when in reality democracies can and do still perpetrate such horrors. Mass murder on a foreign country is horrific, and wrong, but that does not automatically make it fascist.
Israel is a US puppet state
With how much they control USA politics, that is blatantly false.
The mask is off.
The degree is different. You think the banning of lgbtq and immigration is the same as before you’re crazy
The Gaza genocide has been actively going on for over 70 years my man, Octobe 7th just showed the world what a mask off Israel looked like.
Yes. But that’s not perpetrated by the states, especially not with how many nations support Israel, so it is not correct to call it a genocide by the states
Israel is a US millitary base in country form, all of its genocide is committed with the express approval, support, and material assistance of the US Empire.
Absolutely not. It’s not a one way street, Israel is exerting large amounts of bribes and influence to push the states in such a way
If the bourgeoisie turn to violence and terror during crises, how is that different from revolutionaries removing the bourgeoisie from power? I used to identify as an American Democrat but I’m super frustrated with their insistence on useless, vapid displays of “resistance”.
The difference is that violence from the bourgeoisie is directed against the vast majority of society to keep their parasitic profits, while revolutionary violence deposes this system and liberates the working classes.
This reminds me of a heuristic I heard about once, about “punching up” and “punching down”. I heard about it used in a stand-up comedy context but it seems to make sense in a lit of other places as well. Punching down almost always seems unjust, punching up almost always seems just.
Pretty much, it’s a good rule of thumb.
How was fighting against the Nazis different from being the Nazis?
Hey its a good question, and its one that a lot of reforming liberal democrats like yourself, and myself at one time, struggle to understand. A revolution is necessarily violent and authoritarian, right?
Well, kind of, maybe. I’m a Marxist and Marxists tend to think of revolutions as a change in the fundamental relationship that humans have to production. What gets made, who makes it, and why. A group of revolutionaries who seize control of the government but do nothing to change those fundamental relations are not revolutionary. Its just the same system with new leaders, maybe a new flag or something. The capitalist revolution took a solid 250-300 years with about 250-300 years of development beforehand. Kings and queens were replaced by industrialists, the divine right replaced by the social contract, church and god replaced by corporations and profits. The capitalist revolutions were hella bloody, with the exception of maybe the American one, which was based partly on the institution of slavery.
But what ended the divine right of kings wasnt the guillotine, it was taking their shit and redistributing it to the bourgeoisie. The slaves weren’t freed by killing their masters, they freed themselves and went over to the union armies. The changes that made real lasting effect were not cold blooded murderous action, in fact the French revolution didn’t last 15 years. It was social, cultural, political change. It was people changing themselves in order to change the world.
The bourgeoisie will use heinous violence to protect their interests, fascism is one of capitalism’s immune responses from mass organization and revolutionary activity. There are others, but that’s the big scary one we are dealing with now. Revolutionary change in the world begins with revolutionary changes to ourselves, and to each other, a cumulative historic project of liberation of the oppressed from our oppressors.
Deposing the bourgeoisie is not to become a new bourgeois. We can’t do what they do to become something that isn’t them. We will have to defend ourselves from violence but violence will not bring the changes that are necessary to create a better world. There will have to be justice for crimes against humanity, and what that justice will look like will be orders of magnitude more humane, and this bears out in historic examples from the Paris commune, to the Russian revolution (which was almost entirely bloodless until the civil war) to the Cuban revolution, and so forth.
How is the slave owner using a slave driver to whip slaves different from the slaves organizing and killing the slavers?
Well, as someone who hasn’t Read Theory, the last line in the meme seems to disdain use of violence in a very general way. It was just confusing, but I see now that it’s just not well worded
I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list if you want a place to start, FYI
Yeah I saw that in your bio. Thanks for building that 😊 Life’s been stressful lately but it’s on my nightstand
Thanks so much!
That makes sense. The use of violence here is to control the workers and the rest of society. It gets everyone back in line during a crisis reminding people that they have the power, not only to exploit them, but to also kill, imprison, and immiserate. Get in line and you’ll be better off. Work for us help get people in line and you’ll be better off than them.
