What is to be done? No, seriously, what is to be done? Or, the Revolution will not be televised, but it will be streaming on Netflix!
It seems like a month can't go by without us being able to watch a revolution unfold. They are unsurprisingly chaotic, and completely and utterly destroying the idea that a spontaneous, leaderless, movement can take (or abolish) state power. That's the formula right now. Camp out in the city square and soon enough there will be a confrontation which eventually might create enough havoc to shutdown your country. Sure, this sort of "general strike," if we want to call it that, can throw state power up for grabs, but that just makes it easy for any organized social force with even a tad bit of popular support to step in and snatch it. Often times it is simply the opposition political party that has positioned itself to be at the right place at the right time. (If this is the case, you guys might as well have a "managed" democracy like us. Sure it's boring, but less people die. You need not ask who controls the state if you just want to know who controls the government.)
The Arab Revolutions are a mess. The Egyptian military is back in power. Libya is run by militias. Tunisia, which started the whole thing, is looking like the best of the lot, although some political assassinations nearly caused a spiral into chaos last year. Syria is a mess, as nasty bastards like Bashar-al Assad would shoot a kid in the face if it meant a minute more of political power. (It doesn't help matters that the most dedicated fighters in the Free Syrian Army appear to also be jihadist nutjobs.)
It looks like the unfortunately named "gas princess" is out of jail and ready to take charge of the bizarre Ukrainian opposition, which apparently has pro-west liberals holding hands with open fascists in order to topple a dickhead Russian-backed oligarch.
It's a slight relief to read about Venezuela where the forces of revolution and counterrevolution are, despite the media's best efforts, easy enough to decipher. There is an unmistakable class consciousnesses in Latin America that has a lot to do with the obscenely overt rule of that region's flamboyant, and violent, ruling class.
I realize it's rather *privileged to write about such life and death situations from a position of comfort. But the only thing worse than snark from afar is self-righteous anecdotal proclamations about supposed truths from inside the fray. I think Marx, or maybe just some Marxists, significantly underestimated how hard people will cling to social identities. *Eventually it sets in, but shit, how many Americans making $30,000 a year still think they have more in common with their boss than the person who cleans the office? "We're both from the midwest!" Add more poverty, weak state structures, ancient religious arguments that have morphed into ethnic differences, etc., and you have a recipe for a gigantic mess.
This is the part where every leftist analysis says something like "correct leadership of the working class is needed to usher in a world socialist revoution!" Ok, sounds good. But I'm going to add a precursor, which is probably just as daunting- historical progression is not guaranteed. We have to fight for it. Do we do that through tiny "Leninist" groups all trying to poach the most politically conscious people from one another, or do we combine forces based on the 99% of ideas we all agree on? I'd say the latter. We have a whole group of people, who outnumber us by the millions, who still think that a limited social democracy is the best possible result for the future. And they are the ones with good politics. We've got our work cut out for us.
*I hate that fucking word in this sort of context, but try talking to an overeducated liberal who thinks they're a leftist without them belching it out- because it's always the answer to the question you weren't asking.
*I'm realizing that this "eventually people will realize they're being exploited" is an act of faith not terribly different than believing in a messiah coming, or coming back, to save all humankind.
The Arab Revolutions are a mess. The Egyptian military is back in power. Libya is run by militias. Tunisia, which started the whole thing, is looking like the best of the lot, although some political assassinations nearly caused a spiral into chaos last year. Syria is a mess, as nasty bastards like Bashar-al Assad would shoot a kid in the face if it meant a minute more of political power. (It doesn't help matters that the most dedicated fighters in the Free Syrian Army appear to also be jihadist nutjobs.)
It looks like the unfortunately named "gas princess" is out of jail and ready to take charge of the bizarre Ukrainian opposition, which apparently has pro-west liberals holding hands with open fascists in order to topple a dickhead Russian-backed oligarch.
It's a slight relief to read about Venezuela where the forces of revolution and counterrevolution are, despite the media's best efforts, easy enough to decipher. There is an unmistakable class consciousnesses in Latin America that has a lot to do with the obscenely overt rule of that region's flamboyant, and violent, ruling class.
I realize it's rather *privileged to write about such life and death situations from a position of comfort. But the only thing worse than snark from afar is self-righteous anecdotal proclamations about supposed truths from inside the fray. I think Marx, or maybe just some Marxists, significantly underestimated how hard people will cling to social identities. *Eventually it sets in, but shit, how many Americans making $30,000 a year still think they have more in common with their boss than the person who cleans the office? "We're both from the midwest!" Add more poverty, weak state structures, ancient religious arguments that have morphed into ethnic differences, etc., and you have a recipe for a gigantic mess.
This is the part where every leftist analysis says something like "correct leadership of the working class is needed to usher in a world socialist revoution!" Ok, sounds good. But I'm going to add a precursor, which is probably just as daunting- historical progression is not guaranteed. We have to fight for it. Do we do that through tiny "Leninist" groups all trying to poach the most politically conscious people from one another, or do we combine forces based on the 99% of ideas we all agree on? I'd say the latter. We have a whole group of people, who outnumber us by the millions, who still think that a limited social democracy is the best possible result for the future. And they are the ones with good politics. We've got our work cut out for us.
*I hate that fucking word in this sort of context, but try talking to an overeducated liberal who thinks they're a leftist without them belching it out- because it's always the answer to the question you weren't asking.
*I'm realizing that this "eventually people will realize they're being exploited" is an act of faith not terribly different than believing in a messiah coming, or coming back, to save all humankind.
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