ITT: Discuss potential for Burgerland

Fascism isn’t nearly as organized this time around. While anti-fascism is becoming more disciplined and organized. In spite of everything I think that tomorrow will be better than today.

So are you saying America needs to be balkanized?

You might not like the Red Guards, but the sunbelt thesis of getting the native americans, chicanos, and the black belt to rise up in wars of national liberation has some serious merit imo

I don't disagree, but how likely is that?

more likely than effette liberals in new york and california rising up that's for sure

That might as well be an actual quote.

Attached: kim jong un information offensive.jpg (732x785 113.35 KB, 79.65K)

The problem is that they won’t get any sympathy from the military who will use shock and awe to overwhelm them. The reason the bolsheviks succeeded is that the Russian soldiers by and large supported them, so they either defected to the red cause or did nothing to stop them. Any uprising in America need support from a large chunk of the military to succeed. This is true in almost every country.

...

Zero. 2019 is not 1919, and nobody outside of neo-millenarian Trot and Stalinist sects are so blind to real life conditions that they think it will.

There's the possibility of building a pink broad-left reformist movement, out of which a more radical milieu might emerge, but that's so far in the future that it's almost not even worth considering at this point.

Join a union, join some shitty reformist party, and work towards building class solidarity so that your children have a chance at Socialism. Leave pontificating about alt-futures to children and delusional neurotics.

LOL. It would not get anywhere. Maybe if you actually lived here you would have a clue. This retarded Maoist adventurism has no future. We aren't rural China and applying that analysis to the United States is pure retardation.

Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, but I don’t think we’ll see socialism in any first world country in our lifetimes. At the best, we get social democracy.

Pretty much.

You don't cut & run, liberal,you organize and bide your time. Besides who can afford to just up and leave, or are you drifting to Cuba in a raft?

Attached: liberal guilt.png (595x592, 439.88K)

Is it true that the 2008 crisis almost crashed capitalism, and that the next crisis will be even "worse"?

What are the odds of America becoming socialist?
Tbh whenever this question comes up I just can't be optimistic. The US is probably one of the few countries in the world that imo will never be socialist. Decades of anticommunist propaganda, even poor people there have many luxuries (and tend to be reactionary beyond salvation) and just a lack of knowledge that will never allow americans to embrace class consciousness. I think at best the US would turn into a (hopefully) antiimperialist non-interventionist welfare state, but that's already a stretch.

It's not going to happen. America has more of a chance to collapse into an open corporate dictatorship or balkanize than it does to have a socialist revolution. The socialist "movement" in the USA is so hilariously fragmented (to the point where reforms not even considered radical in the times of Otto von Bismarck are called far left) and miniscule to the point where it will very unlikely to ever get the popular support for a mass movement or guerrilla war: ESPECIALLY when you consider the amount of so-called ""socialist"" groups which have completely abandoned materialism for identity politics.

Also
That's legitimately retarded, especially considering any instability in the USA will absolutely affect Cuba, as it could lead to the bombing campaign and covert war being continued against them.

The US is quite far from being the most reactionary nation on Earth. But it's obvious from your writing style this is a pretty emotional subject for you so I'll try and tread lightly here. Third Worldists do get pretty cranky when someone points out their pet Islamic Theocracies aren't likely to aid communism.

Uh, no. That's retarded. Did you even read my post, or did you shut off at the moment you realized it was critical of the USA? The point is that the US "socialist" """movement""" is one of the most fragmented, unsupported and undeveloped in the entire first world, to the point where the most popular self proclaimed figures of it aren't even socialists (Sanders, AOC, certain significants parts of the D.S A), and socialism completely lacks popular support plus any real political or economic organizations. The IWW, for instance, only has a couple thousand members, the D.S. A mostly supports capitalism plus welfare, and the PSL's party line involves forcing white workers to pay reparations for slavery and only nationalizing a few key industries. And none of these, despite being the largest self proclaimed socialists, are relevant on a national scale. How are you going to overthrow or replace the government with so little to work with?

Let's take the UK and France as examples. The former's Labour party is reintroducing explicit communists and socialists (I don't mean well intentioned socdems like Corbyn), like John McDonnell to politics and allowing them to take positions that would otherwise be blocked out to them. France's labour movement (which unfortunately is not explicitly socialist) is extremely well organized against neoliberalism, especially in comparison to the USA,and (ex)communist party members are rising to political relevance due to poor government policy. No such thing exists in the United States, and most of the population is still in the mindset of "Socialism is when the government does good things" vs "Socialism is when the government does bad things.".

This is actually a valid point. The CPUSA is the American party with a comparably large base, the longest tradition and has "communist" in the name. What you'd need is to infiltrate leading positions and purge every cop/Hillary shill and make it a vanguard party again. If Corbyn can turn New Labour into proper SocDem/DemSoc again, it should be possible for a party that is literally a communist party.

I mean, look at the others. PSL is a Marcyist IdPol cesspit. Democrat Cops of America is SocDem/left-liberal. The rest are tiny cults, including Ismail's little Hoxhaist experiment.

Which is by communists need to bring conscription back. Make the mercenary army a people's army again. Also remember that during Vietnam class consciousness was considerably high. Unoriginzed, because all communist orgs were purged in the 50s, but it existed.

Okay buddy, let's hear your solutions

I support balkanizing US territory: New England, Great Lakes, Appalachia, Black Belt, give Aztlan back to the Mexicans, give Natives their autonomy, etc.

Actually this is quite necessary if socialism is to occur. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, for comparison, broke up after WWI which lead to socialist revolutions in Hungary and whatnot. Had the empire remained intact none of that would have happened.

While we’re dealing in fictional countries, let’s give all of South America to Greece because it’s the lost isle of Atlantis.

Uuuuh, what? That's probably the dumbest thing you could bring up, especially considering that the Hungarian Soviet did not even last 6 months. If you're going to have a black nationalist revolution, a white nationalist and a Native American ethnic revolt, you're not establishing socialism, you're working on completely reactionary lines of dividing the working class among its self.

Wherever there is a working class, socialism is possible. Workers don’t need to even support socialism, but their striving for a better life will inevitably strike against the capitalist system and radicalize them. Take the numerous teachers strikes in the USA and the anti union Matamaros strike on the border. This is just a small taste of what is to come. The economy is now heading towards a crash so just imagine the massive strike waves that will break out in the US when that happens. There is a vanguard and that is the SEP which is holding demonstrations in one day calling for workers to link up internationally and strike against transnational corporations with the ultimate aim of overthrowing capitalism.

Just a reminder that before 1917, the bolsheviks only had a handful of members. Revolution is something which is decided by the material conditions of the time and is surely possible in the USA. What is needed are socialists who aren’t demoralized and are ready to give up their lives to guide workers into emancipating themselves

If we are to take America at least one of these things should happen to atleast guide it down a socialist path:
1.) Organize an all-encompassing labor Union to unite the working class as much as possible, instead of having the dozens of smaller unions like teachers and trade unions and what not.
2.) Wait for the next economic collapse. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And when it does happen, shit WILL hit the fan and there is bound to be atleast SOME revolutionary activity, we would just have to get the workers to side with us before the far-right can shove their shit down their throats.
3.) Support state secessionist movements. This is mainly coming from the idea of D&C, it would be an uphill battle to take on the United States as it is right now, so we should all work on whatever separatist movements there are in the states we live in, and if all goes well, reunite all the states under a single vanguard party.
This is the only way I can see Burgerland becoming truly socialist instead of some SocDem shit.

When it comes to music, the North Koreans really outdone themselves. Moranbong Band proves itself to be of high artistic level and steamrolls the cheap spectacle of SNSD and other K-pop bands.

Other bands also are a worthy mention, yet the language barrier poses a great limit to the spread of the videos. The music itself is basically limited to those who are already for socialism, do not have a knee-jerk negative emotional reaction to North Korea and are in a process of learning korean language.

If there is to be an all encompassing union, it needs to cooperate with the WFTU - World Federation of Trade Unions which openly speaks about class, about capital and about imperialism, while ITUC, AFL-CIO are prone to corruption of class collaboration.

Only WFTU can lead to working class solidarity, as it is an established structure which deals with lack of funds because no one wants to fund their political enemies.

wftucentral.org/
youtube.com/watch?v=iWUsT7r9Oo8

Attached: moranbong.jpg (1200x900, 168.43K)

Lmao

Read Haywood
marxists.org/archive/haywood/negro-liberation/ch07.htm

Unlikely wihout some sort of natural collapse. The best way to improve the chances in the event of collapse though is to get as broad of a support as possible.

I also see what needs to be done is to promote a new idea of america, akin to what mao did in China. This idea however, must not be done through a Lenin circlejerk. While lenin was an invaluable theorist and the soviet union a valuable experiment with large amounts of success, it was still heavily flawed. Lenin's contemporaries like Luxemburg and James Conolly as well as later theorists like Gyorgy Lukacs had many of the same ideas and had other insites and critiques that were just as valuable and should be placed on the same platform as Lenin.

By natural collapse i mean like decay of the empire, not environmental

Lol why did you even write this you absolute dumbass? You already admitted the examples you used of France & Britain suffer from the same problems. It appears my point that you are blinded by an emotional grudge remains valid.

With that said, I don't contest that the US labor movement lags behind Europe. I just disagree with your belief that it is impossible for communists to do anything here and all of our efforts should be unsupported and ignored.
You could say the same thing about almost every country on the planet lmao. And the answer is because every movement is capable of growth, you absolute dipshit. What, do you think the socialist movement at it's peak in the early 20th century just popped out of thin air? It was built up from nothing over many decades.

You already said communism was never going to happen in the US, and it's very obvious you don't want it to happen. So what are you really? A communist, or just another rabid bourgeois nationalist?

twitter.com/PhilGreaves01/status/1093111876425302016

There is zero revolutionary potential until Lenin's fundamental law of revolution is met: revolution can only occur in a nationwide crisis that affects both exploiters and exploited alike, when the exploiters can no longer live the way they do and when the exploited are fed up with living the way they do. America experienced a very long period of relative prosperity for most of its population with better conditions and wages for generation after generation. This is starting to slow down and falter, of course, and the only way to know for sure is to observe the material conditions as they develop and a continuing appraisal of all classes forces in the US.

Tbh that's not the kind of rhetoric or even logic American socialists need to be working with. Socialism will never get anywhere in America if its not presented as the logical conclusion of America's founding (i.e. enlightenment) values. The worker's revolution in America needs to be presented as American Revolution 3.0 (2.0 being the Civil War). Saying "socialism will destroy America" will be a lot less effective than saying "socialism will finish the task begun in 1776."

America wasn't founded on enlightenment ideals. That's complete revisionism. They basically created an old time-y republic but for land owning white people instead of aristocrats. It had more in common with the "glorious revolution" that occurred almost a hundred years prior (which, incidentally, is what Locke was primarily concerned with justifying in his Second treatise, a text which Jefferson would later plagiarize to justify his own "revolution") than the French revolution which was actually based around enlightenment ideals.

Attached: stop 4039284.png (1920x1080, 1.7M)

You realize that Jefferson literally helped write The Declaration of the Rights of Man don't you? The American revolution was considerably less revolutionary than the French, but it was still explicitly founded on the same ideals, which had just not yet been taken to their conclusion as they would in the Civil War. Regardless of the reality of the matter, I'm talking about the effectiveness of the rhetoric and imagery of the American Revolution for the left. We're all aware of your hateboner for anything American Christanon, but even you have to admit that nobody is likely to be attracted to our cause if we just drone on and on about how evil America and everybody in it are and always have been. The fact is that resistance to oppression is no less a part of the American story and character than oppression itself.

Attached: 1255.JPG (1000x786, 183.78K)

Literally the worst poster on this board

M8 the Second Treatise is literally one of the most important works of liberal and enlightenment political thought.

This is literally the worst position you can take on the liberal revolutions. The correct position is, of course, that we are going to finish what they started, the emancipation of mankind

In all seriousness why don't secret service members in capitalist turn? Other spies turn.

You mean spies in socialist countries did turn? i suppose the pay keeps the capitalist ones at bay.

There are some instances of capitalist spies turning
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Western_Bloc_defectors

Attached: 37798964_205050336842569_8367658742962978816_n.jpg (850x400, 32.59K)

I have no mouth, yet I must shill.
That being said the International Workers of the World is based, and has great optics, with folk, and isn't idpoled, and Reeing about Stalin, while not being sectarian

Attached: when-someone-brings-up-white-privledge-at-the-iww-meeting-15372239.png (500x500 104.95 KB, 91.92K)

Based Phil. We're gonna put another S in the USA.

This is what anarkiddies ACTUALLY believe.

Hey SEP is good, their organizing auto-workers to march against plant closures.

We're actually agreeing with each other here. The thread is effectively asking if America will have a socialist revolution "soon", given that he's mentioning moving if there's no hope of one in his lifetime. The idea that America cannot ever have a socialist movement because "LMAO AMERICANS ARE MEAN AND STUPID" is completely ignorant of Marx and also the history of the American labor movement. I was trying, in my first post, to put forward the point that the USA is, considering how entrenched the right wing is, more likely to get worse before it gets better.

Literally no one cares about the "founding fathers" anymore dude hating them has become the new norm in many places. The Dems have totally given up on the rhetoric and ideals espoused by Old US, rarely even mentioning liberty anymore, and even the GOP pretends less-and-less to care about muh markets and freedom and more about muh nation. Appealing to 1776 is about as likely to resonate with anyone as the Creek or Black Hawk wars.

The founding fathers is just a ploy to get people listening, but I do agree that both parties have kinda slowed down on references to them. I think we should use people of the labor movement in America, like Deleon and "Big Bill" Haywood.

"When fascism comes to America, it'll come in a cross wrapped in the flag."

Fascism is more likely to happen than socialism. In fact, with the religious right having Pussy-Grabber In Chief on their side, the racists are getting bolder.

Attached: the-fourth-crusade-jerusale-onstantinople-31253529.png (500x583, 156.45K)

What state should I move to if I want to be politically active? I've been researching all the regions & states of the US by poverty, political affiliation etc. etc. and I've established some "no-go" areas like Wyoming where it seems basically impossible to spread communism. NM, Arizona, and the South have a lot of impoverished people and seem like they might have good potential. I like cold, dark climates personality but it seems like it might not be an option as the northern parts of the country are all relatively well-off. Help me, anons.

I live in SC atm for the record but I'm not staying here any longer.

If you want an impoverished part of the North you could go to a Rust Belt city like Detroit or Buffalo.

Attempts to grow Marxism in the U.S. are mostly hindered by Marxists themselves, I would imagine.

I've talked to people across the isle, I've got friends who are Republicans and friends who are democrats. Perhaps most intriguing is that the republicans I know approach a really vulgar kind of Marxism, or arrive on the outskirts of Marxism, far more than the democrats. I won't forget that one of my Republican friends–gun owner, lives out in the woods, real "red blooded conservative" type, once mentioned to me something along the lines of: "What these people don't understand is it's not about race. At the end of the day what people care about is how well off you are. Black, white, or yellow your paycheck is a lot more important than your race. Whether you're paying your bills and putting food on the table matters more than some social causes."

Similarly, you have Tucker Carlson of all people expressing mistrust of Capital and its impact on America.

So why is it that Marxism isn't more popular? Sure we can tread over the same ground and say it's merely the result of decades of propaganda, but I'd say it's a bit more than that.

One of the most common things I've heard of the CPUSA, in all that I've read about them, is that they went from the "American Communist Party" to "The Soviet Communist Party in America". The creation of communism in the united states has always been hindered by the idea that it's a "foreign" thing that can only be "imported" from overseas, and thus it became so tied to the soviets that I'm sure some people on the right imagine Karl Marx was actually Russian, while some liberals see it as the best system "for the Russians".

This apparent foreignness of communism has sadly been mimicked by American Communists themselves, enough that I would say that becoming a Communist is less–in America–about accepting its principles, but more a kind of Trans Nationalism: a spooky adherence to the long-dead Soviet Union over the United States. In the case of Maoists especially, one gets the impression that their ideology here in America was influenced in part by choosing something exceptionally "oriental" and seemingly in opposition to the first world Western culture they grew up in, even to the detriment of actual Maoist theory.

American Marxists merely borrow symbols and language and even some theory from foreign countries, perhaps not out of any serious belief in them, but to showcase their "otherness" from American life. Take the hammer and sickle for example: to most Americans they're symbols of the Soviet Union, even those who know its true meaning know it represents an alliance between the industrial worker and the peasant.

Well America has no peasants. It had no historical peasant class (though slavery was quite similar to serfdom, admittedly, this is only a tiny slice of American economic life) and so why borrow the sickle as an american symbol?

Well it's because the intention isn't to wave around something "American" but rather something foreign. To loudly proclaim to the world "I'm not like you, my loyalties like in opposition to you". There's too many Marxists in America who are Marxists born from alienation with American society and nothing more than that.

As I said earlier, theory and attitudes are similarly imported. I would say most European Marxists with their anti-capitalist resentment are guilty of a kind of nationalism themselves: namely America supplanting the Europe's "place in the sun" and reducing the sundry Empires of the old world to hegemonic rump states. They'll go into a long list of America's historical and modern crimes, but these are crimes their countries are just as guilty of as any other, and there's no reason to believe they wouldn't be back to their same tricks if their nations had the power to engage in imperialism once again.

At least third worlders feel some of the worst effects of American imperialism, but their anti-imperialism just as quickly veers into anti-capitalistism as others.

American society, traumatized after the events of 9/11 and waking up from a stupor of psuedo-isolationism that was always inherent in its culture, suddenly finds itself surrounded in a dark jungle with enemies on all sides. The prevalence of foreigners to express utter disgust and hatred at American society and Americans doesn't dissuade this notion, and the appearance of "anti-nationalists" (in reality, anti-capitalist liberals) in American society itself is provoking the worst kind of reactionary backlash.

Attached: 8ypv6s8bjzb21.jpg (391x766, 85.43K)

Finally I'll say this: anti-nationalism wont win in America.

This isn't to say Marxists should be nationalists, or even drop anti-nationalism, but if they actually live in American society they must understand the American conception of Nationalism in opposition to the European one.

Europeans see nationalism as the thing that caused wars on their own borders and destruction for the civilian population. They see it as a thing that justifies the worst kind of fascism and racism. The last time America fought a war on her own borders was during the Civil War… and ironically enough, the rift in American society that created was "healed" with a veneer of a wider American Nationalism rather than internationalism. Yankee, Dixie, and African Americans were supposed to come together under the banner of "Well we're all Americans". The Nationalism of the south was countered with a larger American Nationalism.

Nationalism is indistinguishable from Patriotism in America. The fact almost all of our wars after the Civil War have been foreign adventures where we fought "Evil Empires" and solidified our own strength over the rest of the globe has only strengthened American patriotism, not diminished it.

Thus the solution is to not try and shame Americans out of patriotism, or convince them that their country is evil. Rather the national question should be ignored in America in favor of a wider kind of Working-Class Patriotism.

Attached: 2g2s13jp25h11.jpg (818x1024, 84.09K)

0%, Americans are fat, stupid, slavishly devoted to authority, and soulless

They lack any kind of creative spark and happily choose authoritarian rule instead of self-determination and social responsibility, every single time

America will only have socialism when there are no Americans left.

Are you even fucking human? Ever since I came to the Southwest i really can't figure out why anyone would choose to live anywhere that isn't warm year-round. We're tropical animals m8.

Anyway the most active commies are in the same places they were active in the 30s: Detroit, Philly, Chicago, Pittsburgh. All the big Midwest cities and to a lesser extent Northeast and Southern cities. But cities fucking suck and tbh despite the organization being there it's my impression that it's getting progressively harder to meet our target audience in places that are either gentrified to the point of driving all the proles out or so fucking devestated that no one lives there and anyone who does is trying to leave. They're expensive and shitty.

Arizona and New Mexico are amazing. Literally the most beautiful part of the country IMO. Northern Arizona is perfect if you want out of the heat. It's all wet rainy ponderosa forests during the summer and high altitudes keep the temperature brisk (or freezing) year-round. Best part is you don't have to drive more than hour outside flagstaff before you're out of the mountains and hit barren desert in every direction. Riduculous amount of variety. New Mexico is similar though I haven't spent time actually living in towns there (worked backcountry in the Gila wilderness for a few months). Pics related are all arizona.

Attached: image.jpg (3529x1028 117.95 KB, 1.29M)

this is what I’ve seen to people are becoming more anti capitalist but not the right direction hopefully left liberals will come to outside

Tbh don't mean to be a pessimist but as an American this is the most correct post here. The best platform for comrades in America would be:

a) a genuine, no strings attached, isolationist foreign and trade policy complete with withdrawal of troops overseas and diplomatic/financial support to foreign powers
b) devolution of federal government and empowerment of individual state governments

Not only are these policies genuinely popular with Americans (and likely to become more popular with time), they will cripple or permanently disable American imperialism. Giving the rest of the world at least a chance to build socialism must be priority number 1 before anything else, even 'socialist' policies in America.

Attached: image.jpg (730x413, 94.48K)

So I take it you just reject the existence of the labor aristocracy as a concept or…?

You get used to the comfiness
t.new england user, whose bed sheets are just a enormous paper mache cover, made out of Robert Frost poems

It's very amusing that Seattle was once a hotbed for radical leftist politics in the 20th century. Hell, it was even called the "Soviet of Washington"
depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/curwick.shtml

Attached: Statue_of_Lenin_Seattle.jpg (257x387, 31.94K)

kys str*sserite

I mean it still kinda is: only elected trot in the US, the WTO protests, heck now they're even trying to fight Benzos.

Where you live. Moving to a place to agitate makes you seem weird.

This is retardation.

Your clearly not from the mid-west.

This is not true. They became the Communist Party of the Petti Bourgs (of Israel).

Many homesteaders did face similar conditions and filled a similar role to peasents.

Sharecroppers were peasants. Regardless, the point of the Hammer and Sickle is that it's instantly recognizable as a symbol of communism, which is why parties still use it. I personally don't think a logo is going to make or break the revolution either way.

This is because this is where all the Industry is. The Midwest has 60% of american Industry.

well for one thing, making an effort to unite the over 9000 splinter groups that infight constantly and call each other revisionist, counter-revolutionary and so on. it's a fucking mess, but not an unsolvable one. strong leadership and organisation would go a long way.

Posting from my phone, I will be brief here cause I’m at work: the “labor aristocracy” is a stupid idea pushed by some alienated “Maoists” (not all, but some) and intelligence agents.

To be an aristocracy, the American proletariat must gain some tangible benefit from American imperialism: higher wages, more benefits, so on. In short Imperialism against developing countries is used to benefit workers in developed countries.

The problem with this line of thinking is that American workers have seen their wages stagnate, they’re watching their jobs get shipped overseas and they’re left angry and unemployed. The money is going to the rich and the army, and all the while our infrastructure is falling apart and people are becoming poorer and worse off.

The “labor aristocracy” is used as an excuse to justify useless fatalism and, again, anti-capitalist attitudes from mostly Europeans and stemming from a serious inferiority complex.

Adherence to authority as opposed to you brave Euros who let your governments disarm you, spy on you on every street corner, and do all this under the smug assumption that you’re more socialist because you can vote for SocDems that practice austerity just as much as conservatives right?

Guess really is right. American Communists aren’t Communists because they like Communism, their communists because they hate that their American and think Communism is anti-capitalist so they support it. The reality is that Communist ideology is compatible with all nations. Including America.

Entire nations aren’t labor aristocrats.

Wages only began to stagnate relatively recently, though. Might it be argued that the labor aristocracy is a shrinking class because American imperialism can no longer generate enough superprofits to sustain it, and that's ALSO why we're seeing a resurgent left and a rise of the reactionary right in America?

You don't need the ENTIRE nation to be labor aristocrats to keep Marxism from gaining popularity. You just need a large enough labor aristocracy and petite bourgeoisie that proletarians with revolutionary potential don't make up a majority, thus keeping Marxist theory marginalized. Revolutionary communism gets its power from the masses, after all, and if the masses don't actually share a common class interest then there's no chance for revolution.
But, like I said here I think we are at a turning point. It seems the tendency for the rate of profit to fall applies to imperialism as well.

Except the conditions by which people imagine Americans “became” labor aristocrats; namely the massive expansion of the country mixed with labor shortages allowing for a higher rate of entrepreneurs and highly paid workers are not altogether different from countries with similar histories and conditions, but strong Marxist parties—such as a few in South America. While they may not have engaged in imperialism on the same scale as America, they had a very similar expansion against Native Tribes.

Similarly, America has a very prominent revolutionary and labor history. Our labor movement often fought violently against the federal government. Where Europeans debated in parliaments, we had union bosses being assassinated, workers being bombed, and shootouts with the Feds.

This isn’t to denigrate European comrades, but I would say they honestly cause problems for Marxism here, especially when Americans mimic their attitudes.

These. Marx argued in the 18th Burmaire that although historical movements always cloak themselves in the language and imagery of the past, communism must necessarily be different. I think he's wrong about this, and history shows that he was wrong. Don't forget that the American radical labour movement before WW2 borrowed from American history heavily. It's not a coincidence that Solidarity Forever is sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Even the Bolsheviks did this to an extent, since they wrote songs to the tune of Les Marsailles and other French Revolutionary music. The point being that American socialism will have to be American to its core, it will have to borrow from what radical and progressive traditions exist in America (abolitionism, fighting the Nazis, labour movement, civil rights, etc.) It can't afford to be this weird, foreign, unfamiliar thing, and on the contrary needs to do everything possible to merge American identity and radical politics. This isn't unprecedented in the postwar period either. Even the Black Panthers borrowed language from the Declaration of Independence in their ten point program.

Attached: 955.JPG (1600x1005 93.19 KB, 554.74K)

Blessed take

People shit-talk Stalinism, and rightly so, but at the end of the day the security & global power of the Soviet state were secured under his rule. And it would be absolute foolish to neglect that this achievement owed much to his promotion of Russian culture and nationalism. The GPW was pretty much entirely portrayed by the state as, above all, a national liberation war.

What about middle and executive management? Heads of departments and so on, the kind of position where the employee doesn't own means of production that others use, may well not even have shares in the company, but makes significantly more than labourers and their immediate supervisors/managers.

High paying jobs that do not technically fall under the classification of the bourgeoisie has always been a point of contention for Marxists. For the sake of total honesty, I will admit that I am coming at this from the perspective of someone who’s grandfather was a middle manager, and whose parents are workers, I myself am a worker.

The position of middle managers are tenuous, in many cases they are a paycheck away from ending up a prole, but as you say they undoubtedly make more than other workers and at times they adopt an attitude that is somewhat in line with the bourgeoisie—the whole “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” Clap trap.

Simultaneously, can anyone really fault a person for trying to better their circumstances given the tools available? I’m sure that many people will say that Communism will better their circumstances, and that’s true, but I would say most people approach things under the assumption that the world we have now can only continue to exist in perpetuity.

Middle managers do not make up the whole of the American Proletariat, and in their case I think they can only be judged on individual terms, we should not openly reject them, but our appeals would be better spent on poor workers.

You know, I don’t even think it’s a matter of “those who stand outside history” versus “those who don’t”, my chief problem with American Communism is that it doesn’t even make attempts to stand outside history, but rather it embraces a separate history. George Orwell—and I know he isn’t very well liked by a few people here—noted this tendency and named it “trans-nationalism”, rather than overcoming nationalist rhetoric, he noted that people instead replaced it with a bunch of different, little nationalisms: adopting foreign religions or cultures as their cause.

The cause of far too many Marxists in the USA is the cause of Marxism as it was in Russia or China; this isn’t to say that Lenin and Mao were not fantastic revolutionaries and that they shouldn’t be read, but rather by adopting Marxism as a “foreign” ideology, people adopt a kind of odd costumed Sovietism; they adopt foreign costumes and symbols and even fonts, all for the sake of showing how foreign they are.

Given the option between two revolutionary movements that act WITHIN history, I would say that the one which adopts their nation’s history will do better than the one which adopts a foreign history, for obvious reasons.

In the case of American Marxism, I believe we can still keep something decidedly American while not entirely parodying history: a simple change of symbolism may do the trick. To use a bright blue star instead of a red one. To sing “This Land is Your Land” instead of (ridiculously enough) some horribly translated version of the Soviet Anthem, to talk about some of the founders even in spite of their faults, this I think will work.

Tbh the Battle Hymn of the Republic should be the number one choice. Not only is it itself a great song rooted in the abolitionist movement, it's also the tune to a bunch of other radical songs, like John Brown's Body, Solidarity Forever, and Blood on the Risers.
I think it needs to go beyond that. Something I think Marxists need to admit is that although things like religion and nationalism have historically played highly reactionary roles, they have also done the opposite. The left needs to offer a re-imagining of American history and the American character to create a left nationalism in the US. This doesn't mean ignoring or erasing the reactionary parts of American history. It just means taking the good parts and emphasizing them as true American values that ought to be emulated by true Americans. We should be telling people that abolitionists, wobblies, anti-fascists (the WW2 and Abraham Lincoln Brigade kind, not the faggy Antifa kind), civil rights activists, Black Panthers and Young Patriots, etc were real Americans upholding the enlightenment values that America was founded on.

Attached: union.PNG (1607x898, 2.05M)

Literally what are you talking about? Most "Marxists" in the USA adopt an idealized Marxism that has never existed and REJECT Marxism as it was in Russia or China as being authoritarian or Not Real Socialism.

In the70s,sure, but not today. Just look at the twitter ☭TANKIE☭s. Grated they have adopted a highly prevented form of ML.

Just because some internet ☭TANKIE☭s bullied you for being a Trot doesn't mean that ML or MLM is IN ANY WAY dominant among America's "Marxists". On Twitter it's easy to find highly alienated people that have decided to abandon reality to LARP out their self-hating fantasies about Kim Jong-un nuking California, but that's just a loud online minority. If you actually talk to an average American in a Marxist org, union, or party you'll find that their point of view is mostly consistent with other Americans.

That pretty much echos my views. I often feel conflicted about managers. On the one hand, they're an extension of the hand of the bourgeoisie, but on the other, they don't always make a significant wage. They are coerced into enforcing the capitalist's will among the workers, ie increase productivity.

This. I'm not fully out as a commie to some of my friends, but I had a frank conversation about worldviews with a very religious one. He said that after growing up and looking at the Bible he thinks that the actual teachings of Jesus are profound (but mostly abandoned by religious people) and support socialism or communism much more than capitalism, and that people who use the bible to justify the status quo just seem bizarre to him.

What needs to be remembered is that great historical movements don’t necessarily express themselves in an explicit fashion. The Glorious Revolution in England didn’t set out to establish a bourgeois republic based on enlightenment liberalism, and yet it contributed greatly to the establishment of bourgeois rule in Britain. It should be expected that movements which drive the progress of history forwards will not always express themselves openly as such, as the French or Russian Revolutions did. They will often express themselves cloaked in the rhetoric and traditions of their conditions. What matters is to what extent they move history forwards. It doesn’t matter if history advances in America thanks to worker’s Soviets aiming to establish socialism or thanks to Christian communes aiming to establish God’s kingdom on Earth. What matters is whether or not they contribute to the breakdown of he capitalist order and the realization of radical democracy and socialism.

Attached: 12A9CC43-F5DB-4921-AE05-A47CE3556CDE.jpeg (720x720, 88.88K)

0 percent. We will fight the evil, unethical ideology of socialism/ communism to the death. We do not like totalitarianism, nor mass genocide and cannibalism. We do love our freedom, family, and community. Crony Wallstreet bankers funded socialists Trotsky, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. who induced famine and murdered hundreds of millions. Can't fool all the people all the time. We live free and do not tolerate the oppression of others.

Do you actually believe this?

Attached: 3D7B8A7C-7CAD-4694-A152-B736421D9335.png (600x700, 306.48K)

this is exactly what I'd expect a neocon boomer's posts would be like on Zig Forums

lenin, stalin and mao where ok, trostky and hitler tho? fucking shitfucks

Annnnnd back on my computer. Time to respond to a few things.

I think it needs to go beyond that. Something I think Marxists need to admit is that although things like religion and nationalism have historically played highly reactionary roles, they have also done the opposite.

So, I come at this from the perspective of a Catholic who's struggled over his faith in the past, but ultimately I still believe in God and love the idea of the Catholic Church (even though its physical institutions here on earth are prone to failure).

More than any force on earth, I think, Religion has driven history forward. It's the miracle of the jews, that in a world ruled by naturalistic, pagan gods, who were faulty, who wanted nothing but humans to scrape and serve and please them, they came to know a God who, beyond ceremony, also demanded that they act justly and rightly and who punished his chosen people for failing to act in a just manner. It's the miracle of Christianity that, from this very legalistic environment, under the rule of a foreign power, a new conception of this God was born: gone was the need for sacrifices, gone was the extremely detailed ceremonial code and purity laws, gone was the psuedo-nationalism of Judaism, the God of Christianity was the universal God, the God of *mankind*.

Never before had a religion, I believe, conceived of mankind in such a universal context, nor of the equality of all men.

And if I could offer any compliment towards my Muslim brothers and sisters, it's that their faith similarly protected human knowledge for centuries and perceives a universal character to humanity just as ours does–perhaps more noble is that it attempted to evolve itself explicitly in political theory, in an effort to create a perfect law for the human species, even if I have some criticism for how this inevitably panned out.

Religion has been responsible for a great deal of proto-socialism. In fact one might see echoes of the class war in Savonarola, and a proto-communism in the early Christian communities. I believe Religion can act as a positive force for real social change.

I'm sorry but that hasn't really been my experience. I've heard some Social Democrats reject the Soviet Union, but everywhere I've looked, every kind of U.S. Marxism I've seen, has adopted at least the aesthetics of the Soviets.

Your ideology is an empty lie. You wish to steal from the wealthy, which causes capital flight, leaving only poverty, slave dependence on the state (funded by feudal crony-capitalists) that uses famine as a tool to cull excess population of useless eaters. Bureaucrats keep the wealth and live like kings while peasants deprived of fruits of labor, are reduced to slavery famine and cannibalism. Neo-cons push international socialism called the New World Order.