What to be Revolutionary About
The underlying theme of most of my blogging is the need to replace the present world order. That is a big reason why I seem to be so choked on social media. I am not ideological about it but I am a supporter of anti capitalist revolution and socialism in the right meaning of the term.
I cannot call myself a revolutionary because I can do nothing to actively participate in making a revolution. I am severely disabled and not someone who inspires confidence as a leader or counselor. I do not have any education or experience which could qualify as a leader of the needed revolution.
I can only write and try to promote logical thinking about the ways of removing capitalist oligarchy, and most importantly, of what to replace it with. That puts me above most of the blockheads who think they are being revolutionary, or “Marxist”, or anticapitalist. I understand that before oligarchy is ever replaced, there must be a clear idea of what to replace it with.
The problem with most people in the “Marxist tradition” is that they have the idea that they should not try to prescribe real socialism. With them it is; the people will finally revolt, we will assume leadership, we will kill all the rich bastards, and we will work it out from there. I do not think Marx actually subscribed to this idea.
I am Trotskyite to the extent that oligarchic elites of one country will generally help out those of another country where the unruly masses are threatening to overthrow them. Countries which have overthrown capitalism, or in fact never really developed it, will always be a threat and always under siege. Therefore a real anticapitalist revolution must necessarily be world wide, with non capitalist countries helping the publics of other countries to run their own capitalists out of town, as a way of defending themselves.
I think I am also very Gramscian about some things. Most of the time, a successful revolution is not going to be a “storm the palace” type of thing. It will be this “long march through the institutions”; of gradually forcing a replacement of capitalism as the hold of the old capitalist oligarchy weakens.
The way it is looking now, it will not be as long a march as Gramsci thought. It looks like the world centre for the imperialist stage of capitalism is about to collapse. This is not going toward a world revolution, but to the “multipolar world”, with most of the poles still under some form of oligarchy.
If I read my crystal ball right, for the next few decades we will see the fall, one by one, of these old oligarchic regimes. They will be replaced by socialist government modelled first after China. Later we shall see improved models.
This will be anathema to orthodox Marxists. However, achieving an effective socialism does not require tearing everything down to the ground and starting over from scratch. In fact it is much better not to do it that way.
Only a few critical things need to change to eliminate oligarchic government and to create an effective socialism. The simplest and most important thing is to get rid of private banks. Public banks need to issue the credit and currency.
The next thing is to create public ownership of land and resources. These are then leased back to those who can put them to proper use. This, by itself, will solve the ‘cost of living’ crises and the economic uncompetitiveness of ‘developed’ economies.
The third big thing is to develop an effective government. Any really effective government is always both a democracy and a meritocracy. China and a few smaller governments have achieved this reasonably well, but they can be improved on.
It seems here that my basic views on post capitalism can be actually be stated quite concisely. That surprises me.
Russia and Reality
Most of the pushback I get from commentators on my little blogging project comes from my support of Russia and its resistance to NATO. I make it clear that I am not a fan of many aspects of the Russian government. However, Russia must be respected for very bravely carrying the battle against the Atlanticist empire as it flails about in its death spiral.
I have always been slightly Russophilic. Russia has always stood up as a centre of resistance to the various fascistic tendencies in the world. Without the Red Army in the 1940s, the Nazis would have won.
Without the Soviet Union and its nuclear deterrent all during the cold war, and maintained even during Russia’s period of upheaval, we would be in a much worse world than we have. Russia was a main factor in maintaining the seventy five years of post world war peace. It is doubtful if the human progress made in that era would have been possible otherwise.
So we get to the present NATO/Russia war. I have followed Russian and independent media for some time. If you read my older work you know I have been following the Ukraine story from the start.
I know who is what and what is so about this situation, otherwise I would refrain from writing about it. I get my ideas about it the same way I get my take on other subjects important to me. I examine multiple information sources over time and determine which ones are real.
The electronic revolution and the Internet are great things for enabling the truth. It is now impossible for power to hide the truth from those who seriously seek it out. The only way truth can still be suppressed for most of the population is by plain intimidation methods.
This is the real problem with those people who are criticizing my postings on the NATO/Russia conflict. Some call this problem “cognitive dissonance”. It is really a problem of being unable to decide what ‘side’ to be on, of frustration at being unable to be on both sides at once.
I keep getting asked; “where I am getting all this stuff from, Russian bloggers?” Yes, there are bloggers in Russia, ranging from the really smart to the really crazy, just like in the English language blogosphere.
The most useful bloggers on this topic are the truly transnational people who can read and write in Russian and English. Gilbert Doctorow is very good. So is “Black Mountain” and “Awful Avalanche”.
The official Russian media is actually pretty watchable. A problem with it is that it often gives play to right wing screw heads regarding the domestic problems of the Atlantic countries. But regarding the NATO/Russia war, they know they have right on their side, they are winning, and that they have little reason to shade anything.
Compare this with western establishment media which has become so ridiculous as to be nearly unwatchable. As it becomes impossible to deny that Russia is winning, they are gradually going into brain meltdown. The worst things about it are the atrocity stories; trying to pin on the Russians things the Ukronazis actually are doing.
I am being called ‘naive’ for saying that the Russian army is doing everything it can to minimize civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure, and to avoid casualties to its own forces. There is nothing naive about it; it is what is taught in the staff colleges of armies all around the world. Or used to be, I do not know about US and NATO armies anymore.
Of course the Russians will seek to minimize casualties and will apply the principle of economy of force. They do not want to deplete themselves or draw down their domestic economy.
They will try to cause minimum harm to civilians and to infrastructure in the territories they are working to liberate. These are their own, Russian speaking people. They expect to govern this population, on that territory, after this is over and to integrate them back into Russia.
The Russian state will bear the cost of rebuilding everything when this war is done. Thus they do not blow bridges and dams, destroy the electric system, ruin water and sewer systems, and level cities. The Atlanticist empire does this kind of thing on the principle of destroying whatever they cannot control.
The thing people have the most trouble grasping about the Ukraine war is that there will be no diplomatic solution. People who understand why the war started understand that. This is an all out effort for the Atlantic empire to maintain its control.
For Russia it is about survival as an independent nation. The war is going until one or the other collapses. It is becoming clear that the Atlanticist NATO side will fail first. At that point, the risk of a nuclear war will be greatest.
Reviewing an article about NDP
Here is an article from ‘Canadian Dimension’ from a few weeks ago. Its author believes that the NDP as it is, has become a spent force. It needs to be renewed from within or a new party formed.
Readers of my own bloggings know that I am not a fan of political parties or electoral politics. Read all about it here. Elections are how an oligarchy works, not a democracy.
This piece is a slightly revised and expanded version of a comment I left under the article. I do not think too many Canadian Dimension types grasped what I was saying. However, I think it is good enough to add to my latest odds and ends post but not quite enough to develop into a post of its own.
The author’s focus is on magically reconstructing NDP from within. There are not many lines here about forming a new party. My view of it, copied by many other commentators on the article, is that trying to do this would be an utter waste of time.
Every attempt to reform NDP from within has been crushed. This is the only thing the NDP appears to be good at. I remember the “waffles” from the 1970s, and the “New Politics Initiative” from the nineties.
The author, Noakes, is disturbed by the failure of NDP to win two recent provincial elections it should easily have won. There should be no surprises there; NDP has been like this for generations. I have long stopped wondering why, when most people are essentially ‘left’ in their beliefs, even if they do not think of themselves as such, yet the nominally ‘left’ party rarely wins.
Noakes is frustrated at the disunity between the federal and the various provincial wings of the party. This of course is a problem with all political parties in Canada. It is about the fragmented governmental structure in the country, which has been crying for reform for a long time, but which will not be done by any political party.
Noake’s notions of NDP history are askew. He praises NDP leader Jack Layton as somehow making NDP more progressive. In fact Layton helped to jack NDP over to the ‘centre’, removing all references to ‘socialism’ from the party constitution.
He says that Layton was responsible for the NDP surge during the Harper years. That seems to have had more to do with the problems within the liberal party. Layton actually kept the Harper conservatives in government, with dire effects for working people in Canada.
Noakes is also a fan of Ed Broadbent. Here he rewrites history, saying that in the 1988, ‘free trade’ election, Broadbent won more votes than NDP ever had by opposing free trade, because it would ‘hurt Canadian workers’.
I was there. I worked for NDP on that election, until most of us walked out precisely because Broadbent refused to bring up the issue of free trade. The polls at the start were such that people were talking about an NDP majority government.
This support fell off drastically because of Broadbent’s bizarre behavior. People had been against free trade but they became confused when the NDP would not come out against it. Years later Broadbent said that his reason for this was that the auto workers unions wanted free trade so as to keep their Canadian and American wings together.
Noakes speaks about the present day NDP arrangement with the Liberals, to let them do anything else they want as long as they come up with a national dental plan. The Liberals have now slow walked the plan for several years, and keep watering it down. This reminds me of the most cogent analysis of the NDP I have ever heard; that they seem unable to understand how things work.
Next, Noakes bemoans the failure of NDP to support the ‘climate agenda’. Especially, the Notley Alberta NDP’s refusal to accept the idea of dismantling that province’s oil and gas economy. Yet he simultaneously thinks NDP is out of touch with its potential support and with working people in general.
Noakes also speaks briefly about the need for the NDP to somehow build or connect with a “powerful social movement”. He does not pursue the theme. He believes NDP may be beyond saving, in which case “…a true progressive alternative (must) be created, as soon as possible, to hasten its demise.”
This would mean, to run candidates against the NDP, which will split the progressive vote. There have been some attempts to create an alternative to the NDP, which have gone nowhere. The NDP will be very hard to get rid of.
This progressive alternative party would have a very hard uphill fight to displace the NDP, defeat the intense resistance and powerful obstacles against such a party, get into government, and assuming it knows what to do then, to make the changes which are needed. Seeing the rapid way things are collapsing at present, we may not have enough time for this to develop.
The question to ask is, what if we dispensed with the new progressive party and instead build a new, powerful progressive movement on the quick? What if we just stopped wasting our time with electoral politics? What if we just learned how to force all political parties to comply with the public interest?
The problems of the NDP are eventually the problems of all ‘progressive’ parties. They are stuck in electoral politics. We need to move beyond that.
Some short comments on being “revolutionary”, about Russia and Reality, and on how the Canadian NDP political party needs to go away.