If you want change, you have to take power. Power is where the people think it is.
If people can’t even realize their own power as workers and unionize, they’re not about to rise up in some glorious revolution. And even if they did, the majority would just do capitalism again, because most people can’t imagine anything else
But the economic system is collapsing. When it does, we need power. That’s how this works. We take local, State, and federal positions and use them to do progressive things, to improve material conditions.
And then when we get to an inflection point, we need leaders who already have the support of the people. We need populist progressives in power
Power exists where people believe it to be. You want to build up alternate systems? Go for it, I think that’s great. I’d join up. Let me know when that’s an option on the table
But you can’t ignore where the power actually is. No revolution happens without organizing around people already in power.
And as much as you can learn from the past, we’re well into uncharted territory. You can read all the praxis you like, but those are the writings of academics.
At some point you have to talk to people, you have to get average people on board. You can’t do that by giving them pamphlets, they’re not going to read them.
You do it by picking your strongest argument, like housing or taxing the rich, and you get them on board. You give them leaders to rally behind, you gain their trust by improving material conditions for them. You fix their problems and win their loyalty, you tell them you’re going to fix their problems, and then you do everything you can to get money out of politics so that we can unfuck things
If you want to organize on the side, go for it… But we live in an extremely low trust and antisocial society. I just don’t see it happening anytime soon
This is so dumb.
If you want change, you have to take power. Power is where the people think it is.
If people can’t even realize their own power as workers and unionize, they’re not about to rise up in some glorious revolution. And even if they did, the majority would just do capitalism again, because most people can’t imagine anything else
But the economic system is collapsing. When it does, we need power. That’s how this works. We take local, State, and federal positions and use them to do progressive things, to improve material conditions.
And then when we get to an inflection point, we need leaders who already have the support of the people. We need populist progressives in power
Ernst Thälmann tried that
Many others within germany were also trying that too. It did not work
We must build duel power, not power within the bourgeois system
Power exists where people believe it to be. You want to build up alternate systems? Go for it, I think that’s great. I’d join up. Let me know when that’s an option on the table
But you can’t ignore where the power actually is. No revolution happens without organizing around people already in power.
And as much as you can learn from the past, we’re well into uncharted territory. You can read all the praxis you like, but those are the writings of academics.
At some point you have to talk to people, you have to get average people on board. You can’t do that by giving them pamphlets, they’re not going to read them.
You do it by picking your strongest argument, like housing or taxing the rich, and you get them on board. You give them leaders to rally behind, you gain their trust by improving material conditions for them. You fix their problems and win their loyalty, you tell them you’re going to fix their problems, and then you do everything you can to get money out of politics so that we can unfuck things
If you want to organize on the side, go for it… But we live in an extremely low trust and antisocial society. I just don’t see it happening anytime soon
The perfect is the enemy of the good
Power is where the means of production are. Look at your stuff to know where that is.
The reason it’s dumb is because DemSocs don’t actually have the ring of power to be able to cast it into the fire in the first place.
How many Bolsheviks were in positions of government? How much of the PLA was in power in China?
The sad reality is that nearly every successful socialist revolution was born through civil war.