02-23-2021, 03:12 AM
(02-23-2021, 12:44 AM)Einzige Wrote:(02-23-2021, 12:15 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(02-22-2021, 02:48 AM)Einzige Wrote:We know there's a group of Republicans who are in cahoots with the Democrats (5 Senators, 10 Congress people). We refer to them as half Republicans or Rhino's these days. We've known about them for many years now. They're about as spineless and wishy washy and eager to please/bow down to the media and corporations/donor class as the Democrats these days.(02-22-2021, 02:27 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(02-22-2021, 01:02 AM)Einzige Wrote: I love the assumption, coming from well-to-do (relatively apeaking) members of the American labor aristocracy as populate this board, that a proletarian revolution would be immiserating.
For you, perhaps.
I think it would be both proper and fitting for the Democratic party and its strongholds to end by succumbing to a proletarian revolution myself.
That goes for the Republicans, too. It never fails to amaze me that conservatives don't see that the GOP is just the functional counterpoint of the Democratic Party- white Christian identity politics etc.
You, as a small business owner, are doomed by the capitalist system. It wants to resubmerge you back into the proletariat, and will succeed. You can either embrace the forces trying to destroy you or see that the only alternative is a united working class, global in scope, that smashes their system and all its workings into junk. And you can work for that even if it does not come to fruition in your time.
No, you twit - they're all in cahoots with each other.
Actually, this is a gross oversimplification- they genuinely believe that they are all in opposition to each other, and this false consciousness impels them to act in ways that are self-destructive of the system. But there is a fundamental unity of class interest st the very bottom of things, which manifests as different competing strategies (the needs of a rural capitalist miner are very different from a NYC importer). They are a band of warring brothers, and this extends to AOC, Sanders, Paul, all of them.
Both the Democrat representing NYC and the Republican representing OKC rely on the same strategies (identity politics etc.) to get elected. Once elected, they tie those strategies into the needs of their local capitalist class. They are all the enemy, every last one of them.
Political life at its best is transactional: that one gives up something to get something. It requires people to contemplate that the Other Side of some sectarian, regional, interethnic, or interclass rift is legitimate. When that breaks down one gets at first gridlock, and perhaps (if nothing resolves itself) a command-and-control system.
Marxism depends upon the assumption that the economic elites operate as a monolith without conflicts between urban and rural elites, between ownership and management, and between the blatant money-grubbers and the creative people. When the economic elites are all joined in purpose, then Marx' depiction of capitalist society fits well. When Marxism describes the economic and political order well, that order has decayed into a nightmare.
The ultimate expression of identity politics is the class struggle.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.