Excellent post John; Green Liberty is in solidarity. We are slated for a debate / discussion with Thomas Smith on "what way forward" and means for getting there. Thomas is a Marxist, you aren't, nor am I, but we all agree on an egalitarian revolution. Thomas argues that the revolutionists must all agree with his premise for a "central" committee to direct the revolution; and would have the power to punish locals that don't follow confederation rules.
In any case, I will argue that an organization that hosts the delegates from the free cities, that that organization, the confederal agency of the confederation of libertarian municipalities, will be the central committee Thomas is so passionate about. Thomas should be confident that an egalitarian revolution will fullfill all his revolutionary wishes. And your point about the 'central' committee commanding militia makes sense and is a good distinction. but another point, a 'central committee' that sets the rules is a sitting duck for the deep state to take out. Better to be decentralized and locally empowered.
There's another problem with both your and John's contributions here, when you agree with John's imputation to Marxism of the idea that a "'central committee' should set the rules" (Chuck) or that it should "tell lots of other people what to do, and expects (demands) they will obey because of a (supposedly) persuasive argument that they ought to obey."
In the first place, within the Marxist movement, this was always a matter of debate. Two prominent socialist intellectuals in 1904 disputed with Lenin this idea, in terms of organizing, which he had presented in his WHAT IS TO BE DONE. Both Trotsky, in his pamphlet, OUR POLITICAL QUESTIONS, and Rosa Luxemburg, in her ORGANIZATIONAL QUESTIONS OF RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.
So it's not true that any and all Marxists subscribe to this view.
Nevertheless, I believe that Lenin, under the conditions the Russian socialists found themselves in, was right, and also that he could justly based his view on Marx and Engels' ADDRESS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TO THE COMMUNIST LEAGUE.
Why? Because a revolution is not a summer tea party. It is a desperate struggle, and the other side--the Tsarists, the aristocrats, the liberals, the conservatives, the fascists--is fully centralized and disciplined.
So we all just can't go off and do as we please, whenever we want to. We NEED central coordination. As I have already commented to a previous article by John, the result when we DON'T do that, has been one revolutionary attempt after another, DROWNED IN BLOOD.
IF JOHN IS TOO ENAMORED OF HIS OWN IDEALS TO ENGAGE WITH THIS HISTORICAL RECORD, THEN YOU STILL NEED TO, CHUCK! Don't give us this blather about liberatory municipalism. I've already answered in detail why that WON'T WORK. Engage my arguments!
Thomas, your posts in this conversation are obviously intended to reclaim Marx from the negative characterizations and elevate him as the chief hero of revolutionary possibilities. If your goal is for me to become a "marxist" and adopt your view point, then our December "debate" will be a waste of time because it will dead end on your demand for rhetorical agreement at least with a revolutionary demand for "We NEED central coordination." I have no problem with 'coordination' or that there would evolve a 'central committee' of some sort (but it will be a sitting duck and you better be thinking about security measures to protect those at the "center."
You impugn the ideas for confederation by dismissing out right that free cities wouldn't seek coordination (but would alienate into local parochialism); however, there is no reason to think a confederal agency wouldn't accomplish the "central coordination" you emphasize. You are making argument without grounds for the complaint. I concede the point. We can discuss and debate the "power" of the confederal agency to coordinate.
Furthermore, Murray Bookchin is more compelling than you are. I don't see that I will drop my allegiance to his idea that the locus for revolution is the city of egalitarians who confederate with all other free cities to lever power from the plutocracy. you reify the "worker" as a physical force but don't theorize about the leveraging of power from plutocracy to democracy. Where is the locus of your 'revolutionary socialist workers' movement? the streets? then what? where does power focus; by your reasoning to the central vanguard leadership committee ( a sitting duck).
Bookchin is a drop out from the political school you are endeavoring to rebuild, or resurrect. I have lost track of your email where in you dismiss libertarian municipalism, but I remember not finding your remarks compelling. Bookchin makes sense to me and at our debate I will endeavor to honor his message about a confederation of free citites that follow egalitarian principles as the revolutionary approach. Also, I reject that I am anti-marxist, and accept that we are all egalitarians.
Finally, the other point of interest and debate is the transition, the getting from here to there. I find this very interesting to consider, more interesting than debating Marxist history (not to dismiss any valuable lessons). Stu introduced the distinction between advancing a united front versus a popular front. maybe we discuss this in December in the context of making transitional demands. I agree with the principle of an egalitarian revolution that the revolution leads with the assertion and demand for the rich to be removed from power to have real and not fake democracy and create an egalitarian society determined by principles of mutual aid and solidarity and freedom for all to work and achieve well being and we restore nature and natural systems.
You are welcome to become the cell for the Marxist Caucus within the Green Liberty bloc; maybe this is your destiny.
Just looking at the beginning of your most recent comment, Chuck. That is really bad form, to say at the beginning of a debate, "You will not convince me of your position" and, effectively, you are telling me that it is wrong of me to intend to convince you of my position.
You obviously don't understand the first thing about what the purpose is to debate. And as long as I've known you, you have never displayed such an awareness. You have displayed contempt for the value of debate, repeatedly. As on the Green Liberation Society website, when Judith asked me about a web site, and I told her that it was probably Maoist. You replied that we don't want to turn this list...into a Debating Society?!
Is that because you want your own way? That you want your own views to prevail, and that you can't tolerate challenge?!
That's the way it seems to me. That's the way it always seemed to me. That's why I was surprised when you actually carried through with your promise to debate me, Dec. 2nd.
This comment indicates to me, however, that you are still fishing for ways to get out of it!
Debate is A GAME. The intention is to WIN. To convince the other side of one's own position. But that is not the requirement one needs to enter into the debate. The auxilliary purpose is to convince members of the AUDIENCE, that they might accept or just listen to, one's position, even if one's opponent is too BULL HEADED to do so.
I will NEVER enter into a debate by first saying there is no way you will ever convince me of your position. That is downright rude and stubborn. I will accept your argument, if you have the evidence, and it's solid enough.
As to the actual substance of your comment here. By its very nature, the kind of confederal authority that you and John are proposing, because it is purely VOLUNTARY, can NOT have sufficient force to guard against subversion by pro-bourgeois forces. This was Morrow's point, in his Revolution and Counterrevolution in Spain.
You ask me what is the locus of the revolutionary socialist workers movement. ? What do you mean by that? do you mean the locus of centralized authority?! I have told you over and over and over again that it would be the coalition of revolutionary parties, such as that was initially created between the Bolsheviks, and the Left SRs, in the Russian Revolution.
But the problem with this alliance, was
a) Despite the fact that the Left SRs represented the majority, they were not given the paramountcy of decision making, through the farce of only giving the peasants 1/10 of the voting power that the urban workers enjoyed.
b) The Bolsheviks sabotaged the alliance with the false flag operation of the murder of count Mirbach.
Well, Thomas, are you willing to have your point of view about revolution changed on account of what I argue? You seem pretty set in your ways; I am just giving you a warning that your argument doesn't beat Bookchin's when talking about a revolution. I do read what you posts; and no, I am not backing out of this debate, I am open to ideas, your demand for centralized leadership, and evocations of past revolutionary failures as lessons for today is not compelling; you have time to sharpen your rhetoric, and make a more compelling case. I will do everything in my rhetorical power to persuade you that Bookchin is the most sensible revolutionary since Trotsky. But as you observe, others watching the debate might be persuaded to adopt the egalitarian perspective. But if you are sincerely open to adopting the egalitarian revolutionary perspective than good for you; given that you are open to being convinced, what would you like me to explain so your could overcome your objections? Do you want me to demonstrate how a confederation of free cities would accomplish the centralized planning program you cite as critical? I can do that fairly easily.
Chuck, YOU SEEM PRETTY SET IN YOUR WAYS, TOO! I WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. THAT'S THE WAY WE DEBATE.
My guess is you were never in any collegiate debating society. Otherwise you wouldn't be saying ANY of this stuff. You would never accuse me of doing something wrong by being willing simply to ARGUE MY POSITION!
That's ridiculous.
You are welcome to demonstrate how a confederation of free cities would accomplish the central coordinating function during the revolutionary process, and then afterward, the central economic planning process for the new society, that I think is critical. You are welcome to demonstrate it on December 2nd.
Go right ahead. I'm the last person that would try to stop you. I WELCOME DEBATE. Have I finally made myself clear?!!!!!!!!!!
But to convince me, you will need to address the historical evidence I and Wilhelm have presented that we think refutes your proposal. Turin, in the late teens. Germany, 1923. Barcelona, and Catalonia, 1936. Look at the evidence we've presented, engage with it, and show us where you think we have gone wrong. It doesn't work, It drowns the revolution in blood. Over and over again.
You can present your demonstration here, if John would like that. Or, better yet, in addition to presenting it on December 2nd, I invite you to make comments on my Freedom and Socialism page, on the last article I wrote, at https://bmccproftomsmith7.substack.com/p/talk-on-behalf-of-the-white-rose .
If you'd like, send me a polished rebuttal, and I'll print the whole thing as a separate article on my page--but of course, I'll then print my response.
Where'd you get the idea that I'm some kind of repressive political commissar, straight out of Doctor Zhivago?
I DON'T expect to convince a stubborn Bookchinite like you to adopt Marxism during this debate. I expect what any person who enters into a debate would expect--that I will get others, in the audience, who were wavering on the fence between Bookchinism and Marxism, who might be convinced by my arguments, to come over to Marxism.
You have every right to expect that you may win over some of those wavering elements to your, Bookchinite position.
That's all either of can realistically expect.
But you CONSISTENTLY turn it into this anti-communist accusation that I'm some kind of Svengali who expects to completely win YOU over to my position, and, since you're not about to do that, I 'm going to force you to do that somehow (through hypnosis), or that I'm wasting my time.
I'M NOT WASTING MY TIME. I'm presenting my point of view, as clearly as I can. I invite you to do otherwise. Let's see how many in the audience we can win over to our respective positions.
By all means! Why would you think I would object to that? Whether we in the White Rose win a majority on Dec. 2nd, or not, it's still a win win, because we may still win over a FEW. And that's ALL we expect to get out of this. Exposing our Marxist point of view to as many people as we can, in the hopes that we'll win over just one or two. That's enough for us.
Fantastic post John, dense with supportive links and persuasive arguments. Pity the comments section is tainted with the token Marxist propaganda. These people always betray their arrogance and sense of superiority especially when confronted with someone who promotes freedoms based on equality and not an hierarchical system of governance.
How, Mr or Ms. JAS, have I betrayed my "arrogance and sense of superiority"? How have I revealed that I am frightened of "someone who promotes freedoms based on equality"? Where O where have I expressed any desire for "an hierarchical system of governance." Your comment is a piece of anti communist bigotry and has no correspondence with the actual facts. With fans like you, John Spritzler should be very sorry.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the single edition of the journal of Marx and Engels' Communist League, the Kommunist, published in 1847. How is this in any way expressive of a desire for hierarchy, or phobic toward freedom based on equality? Do some serious scholarship before you spew any more of your bigoted nonsense:
[Our goal is]
a democratic State wherein each party would be able by word or in writing to win a majority over to its ideas…. We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. . . . We have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced … that in no social order will personal freedom be so assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.iv
Thomas, calling John an "ignorant...bigot" is rude. you should apologize; if you use language at the Green Liberty debate in December you will be muted and maybe removed. As you say, debate the points don't slur the messenger.
I will not insult anyone during the debate? And I didn't call John an ignorant bigot here. I called JAS an ignorant bigot. To my knowledge, they are two different people. JAS called me, as a Marxist, arrogant and an opponent of freedom and equality.
Still looking for an excuse to call off the debate, Chuck?
If you do, you'll only expose your inability to accept challenge to your views. Which I've seen time and time again.
A lot of nice stuff here, but there is also a very disturbing omission. Not one word about the working class, their central role in bringing about egalitarian revolution, their fundamental alienation from capitalism and how to intersect that alienation in order to get them on board--for example, with a transitional program.
No it's all about just the sudden realization that we want equality?!
I hardly think so, John. I don't think that's enough.
I refer to building a "movement of hundreds of millions of Americans." Gee, do you think that might be another way of referring to the working class? Or are you one of those people who think the "working class" is that minority of people (in the U.S.) who work blue collar jobs and that only they are the real force for revolution?
By the way, maybe you did a word search for "working class" but I doubt you read my post in full because your comment came too quickly after I posted it.
My problem is that you don't deal with them AS workers, in their current, existentially alienated conditions.
Gee, John, do you think that might be because of your animus toward Marx's ideas that they ARE alienated, since you deem those ideas elitist, snobbish, a basis for totalitarianism, and not sufficiently romanticizing the working class as completely blemish-less?
And that it might also have something to do with your fear that going beyond organizing as mere "group therapy" for collective awareness of common egalitarian sentiment--to move toward actually any form of LEADERSHIP (which is what the presentation of a transitional program to address those existentially alienated conditions MUST involve!), will slide us down the slippery slope toward "centralized authority" (horrors!) and thus, to the Gulag Archipelago, all over again?
Why don't you write about how YOU are organizing based on your Marxism. Then we'll compare your approach with mine and people can decide what makes more sense.
I have been involved for the past few years in attempting, on both a local level (the NYC Medical Freedom Alliance/Party) and a national level (the Green Liberty Caucus) to debate members on the need for political groups precisely to raise transitional demands in order to gain the support of the working class for our medical freedom program, as well as for internal democratic structures wherein such discussions can be fruitfully and rationally held.
One result of my struggle has been the plan on the part of the GLC to host a debate between me, and you and other of its leaders, on the evening of December 2nd.
What if I merely, as you suggest, argue for equalitarianism?
In the NYC MFA-P, that would not go over very well. There are quite a few right wing libertarian anti-communists who think that market freedom is the only freedom to make them free, and that equality is an ideal of the sinister totalitarian communists behind the Great Reset.
So I need to debate them on these issues, on the basis of practical necessity. For example, the NYC Medical Freedom Party has collapsed, not only due to the misogyny of its sole decision maker, but also, because they fetishized merely getting their candidates on the ballot, WITHOUT talking about a broad program that might bring over the NYC working class to our side, away from the Democrats.
There is no point for me to try to liberate within them an egalitarian sentiment they simply do not feel.
Learn to tell ordinary people that they are RIGHT, instead of just looking for people you can debate with, if you want to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement.
Instead of using excuses for not building the egalitarian revolutionary movement as you do in your comment, I suggest building that movement by doing the kind of things I spell out in great detail in my post and articles it links to. I didn’t get more than 500 of my zip code neighbors to publicly declare they aimed for egalitarian revolution by complaining about some libertarians.
Thomas Smith would make this same criticism; but John said in his essay that an egalitarian revolution will take a mass movement of millions to accomplish; embedded in that millions of mass movement will be the working class. Bookchin's point about libertarian municipalism, the political theory for an egalitarian society, is that the city becomes the locus for revolutionary change and in the city the working class with all others, makes the egalitarian society.
Excellent post John; Green Liberty is in solidarity. We are slated for a debate / discussion with Thomas Smith on "what way forward" and means for getting there. Thomas is a Marxist, you aren't, nor am I, but we all agree on an egalitarian revolution. Thomas argues that the revolutionists must all agree with his premise for a "central" committee to direct the revolution; and would have the power to punish locals that don't follow confederation rules.
In any case, I will argue that an organization that hosts the delegates from the free cities, that that organization, the confederal agency of the confederation of libertarian municipalities, will be the central committee Thomas is so passionate about. Thomas should be confident that an egalitarian revolution will fullfill all his revolutionary wishes. And your point about the 'central' committee commanding militia makes sense and is a good distinction. but another point, a 'central committee' that sets the rules is a sitting duck for the deep state to take out. Better to be decentralized and locally empowered.
Yes. Your "sitting duck" point is very important; I write about at https://www.pdrboston.org/why-laws-only-made-by-local-assemblies .
There's another problem with both your and John's contributions here, when you agree with John's imputation to Marxism of the idea that a "'central committee' should set the rules" (Chuck) or that it should "tell lots of other people what to do, and expects (demands) they will obey because of a (supposedly) persuasive argument that they ought to obey."
In the first place, within the Marxist movement, this was always a matter of debate. Two prominent socialist intellectuals in 1904 disputed with Lenin this idea, in terms of organizing, which he had presented in his WHAT IS TO BE DONE. Both Trotsky, in his pamphlet, OUR POLITICAL QUESTIONS, and Rosa Luxemburg, in her ORGANIZATIONAL QUESTIONS OF RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.
So it's not true that any and all Marxists subscribe to this view.
Nevertheless, I believe that Lenin, under the conditions the Russian socialists found themselves in, was right, and also that he could justly based his view on Marx and Engels' ADDRESS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE TO THE COMMUNIST LEAGUE.
Why? Because a revolution is not a summer tea party. It is a desperate struggle, and the other side--the Tsarists, the aristocrats, the liberals, the conservatives, the fascists--is fully centralized and disciplined.
So we all just can't go off and do as we please, whenever we want to. We NEED central coordination. As I have already commented to a previous article by John, the result when we DON'T do that, has been one revolutionary attempt after another, DROWNED IN BLOOD.
IF JOHN IS TOO ENAMORED OF HIS OWN IDEALS TO ENGAGE WITH THIS HISTORICAL RECORD, THEN YOU STILL NEED TO, CHUCK! Don't give us this blather about liberatory municipalism. I've already answered in detail why that WON'T WORK. Engage my arguments!
Thomas, your posts in this conversation are obviously intended to reclaim Marx from the negative characterizations and elevate him as the chief hero of revolutionary possibilities. If your goal is for me to become a "marxist" and adopt your view point, then our December "debate" will be a waste of time because it will dead end on your demand for rhetorical agreement at least with a revolutionary demand for "We NEED central coordination." I have no problem with 'coordination' or that there would evolve a 'central committee' of some sort (but it will be a sitting duck and you better be thinking about security measures to protect those at the "center."
You impugn the ideas for confederation by dismissing out right that free cities wouldn't seek coordination (but would alienate into local parochialism); however, there is no reason to think a confederal agency wouldn't accomplish the "central coordination" you emphasize. You are making argument without grounds for the complaint. I concede the point. We can discuss and debate the "power" of the confederal agency to coordinate.
Furthermore, Murray Bookchin is more compelling than you are. I don't see that I will drop my allegiance to his idea that the locus for revolution is the city of egalitarians who confederate with all other free cities to lever power from the plutocracy. you reify the "worker" as a physical force but don't theorize about the leveraging of power from plutocracy to democracy. Where is the locus of your 'revolutionary socialist workers' movement? the streets? then what? where does power focus; by your reasoning to the central vanguard leadership committee ( a sitting duck).
Bookchin is a drop out from the political school you are endeavoring to rebuild, or resurrect. I have lost track of your email where in you dismiss libertarian municipalism, but I remember not finding your remarks compelling. Bookchin makes sense to me and at our debate I will endeavor to honor his message about a confederation of free citites that follow egalitarian principles as the revolutionary approach. Also, I reject that I am anti-marxist, and accept that we are all egalitarians.
Finally, the other point of interest and debate is the transition, the getting from here to there. I find this very interesting to consider, more interesting than debating Marxist history (not to dismiss any valuable lessons). Stu introduced the distinction between advancing a united front versus a popular front. maybe we discuss this in December in the context of making transitional demands. I agree with the principle of an egalitarian revolution that the revolution leads with the assertion and demand for the rich to be removed from power to have real and not fake democracy and create an egalitarian society determined by principles of mutual aid and solidarity and freedom for all to work and achieve well being and we restore nature and natural systems.
You are welcome to become the cell for the Marxist Caucus within the Green Liberty bloc; maybe this is your destiny.
chuck
Just looking at the beginning of your most recent comment, Chuck. That is really bad form, to say at the beginning of a debate, "You will not convince me of your position" and, effectively, you are telling me that it is wrong of me to intend to convince you of my position.
You obviously don't understand the first thing about what the purpose is to debate. And as long as I've known you, you have never displayed such an awareness. You have displayed contempt for the value of debate, repeatedly. As on the Green Liberation Society website, when Judith asked me about a web site, and I told her that it was probably Maoist. You replied that we don't want to turn this list...into a Debating Society?!
Is that because you want your own way? That you want your own views to prevail, and that you can't tolerate challenge?!
That's the way it seems to me. That's the way it always seemed to me. That's why I was surprised when you actually carried through with your promise to debate me, Dec. 2nd.
This comment indicates to me, however, that you are still fishing for ways to get out of it!
Debate is A GAME. The intention is to WIN. To convince the other side of one's own position. But that is not the requirement one needs to enter into the debate. The auxilliary purpose is to convince members of the AUDIENCE, that they might accept or just listen to, one's position, even if one's opponent is too BULL HEADED to do so.
I will NEVER enter into a debate by first saying there is no way you will ever convince me of your position. That is downright rude and stubborn. I will accept your argument, if you have the evidence, and it's solid enough.
As to the actual substance of your comment here. By its very nature, the kind of confederal authority that you and John are proposing, because it is purely VOLUNTARY, can NOT have sufficient force to guard against subversion by pro-bourgeois forces. This was Morrow's point, in his Revolution and Counterrevolution in Spain.
You ask me what is the locus of the revolutionary socialist workers movement. ? What do you mean by that? do you mean the locus of centralized authority?! I have told you over and over and over again that it would be the coalition of revolutionary parties, such as that was initially created between the Bolsheviks, and the Left SRs, in the Russian Revolution.
But the problem with this alliance, was
a) Despite the fact that the Left SRs represented the majority, they were not given the paramountcy of decision making, through the farce of only giving the peasants 1/10 of the voting power that the urban workers enjoyed.
b) The Bolsheviks sabotaged the alliance with the false flag operation of the murder of count Mirbach.
Well, Thomas, are you willing to have your point of view about revolution changed on account of what I argue? You seem pretty set in your ways; I am just giving you a warning that your argument doesn't beat Bookchin's when talking about a revolution. I do read what you posts; and no, I am not backing out of this debate, I am open to ideas, your demand for centralized leadership, and evocations of past revolutionary failures as lessons for today is not compelling; you have time to sharpen your rhetoric, and make a more compelling case. I will do everything in my rhetorical power to persuade you that Bookchin is the most sensible revolutionary since Trotsky. But as you observe, others watching the debate might be persuaded to adopt the egalitarian perspective. But if you are sincerely open to adopting the egalitarian revolutionary perspective than good for you; given that you are open to being convinced, what would you like me to explain so your could overcome your objections? Do you want me to demonstrate how a confederation of free cities would accomplish the centralized planning program you cite as critical? I can do that fairly easily.
Chuck, YOU SEEM PRETTY SET IN YOUR WAYS, TOO! I WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. THAT'S THE WAY WE DEBATE.
My guess is you were never in any collegiate debating society. Otherwise you wouldn't be saying ANY of this stuff. You would never accuse me of doing something wrong by being willing simply to ARGUE MY POSITION!
That's ridiculous.
You are welcome to demonstrate how a confederation of free cities would accomplish the central coordinating function during the revolutionary process, and then afterward, the central economic planning process for the new society, that I think is critical. You are welcome to demonstrate it on December 2nd.
Go right ahead. I'm the last person that would try to stop you. I WELCOME DEBATE. Have I finally made myself clear?!!!!!!!!!!
But to convince me, you will need to address the historical evidence I and Wilhelm have presented that we think refutes your proposal. Turin, in the late teens. Germany, 1923. Barcelona, and Catalonia, 1936. Look at the evidence we've presented, engage with it, and show us where you think we have gone wrong. It doesn't work, It drowns the revolution in blood. Over and over again.
You can present your demonstration here, if John would like that. Or, better yet, in addition to presenting it on December 2nd, I invite you to make comments on my Freedom and Socialism page, on the last article I wrote, at https://bmccproftomsmith7.substack.com/p/talk-on-behalf-of-the-white-rose .
If you'd like, send me a polished rebuttal, and I'll print the whole thing as a separate article on my page--but of course, I'll then print my response.
Where'd you get the idea that I'm some kind of repressive political commissar, straight out of Doctor Zhivago?
I DON'T expect to convince a stubborn Bookchinite like you to adopt Marxism during this debate. I expect what any person who enters into a debate would expect--that I will get others, in the audience, who were wavering on the fence between Bookchinism and Marxism, who might be convinced by my arguments, to come over to Marxism.
You have every right to expect that you may win over some of those wavering elements to your, Bookchinite position.
That's all either of can realistically expect.
But you CONSISTENTLY turn it into this anti-communist accusation that I'm some kind of Svengali who expects to completely win YOU over to my position, and, since you're not about to do that, I 'm going to force you to do that somehow (through hypnosis), or that I'm wasting my time.
I'M NOT WASTING MY TIME. I'm presenting my point of view, as clearly as I can. I invite you to do otherwise. Let's see how many in the audience we can win over to our respective positions.
Do you GET it NOW?!!!!!!!!!!!!
Should we take a vote from the audience on who wins? We can post a survey in the zoom I think.
By all means! Why would you think I would object to that? Whether we in the White Rose win a majority on Dec. 2nd, or not, it's still a win win, because we may still win over a FEW. And that's ALL we expect to get out of this. Exposing our Marxist point of view to as many people as we can, in the hopes that we'll win over just one or two. That's enough for us.
Fantastic post John, dense with supportive links and persuasive arguments. Pity the comments section is tainted with the token Marxist propaganda. These people always betray their arrogance and sense of superiority especially when confronted with someone who promotes freedoms based on equality and not an hierarchical system of governance.
Thank you! :)
How, Mr or Ms. JAS, have I betrayed my "arrogance and sense of superiority"? How have I revealed that I am frightened of "someone who promotes freedoms based on equality"? Where O where have I expressed any desire for "an hierarchical system of governance." Your comment is a piece of anti communist bigotry and has no correspondence with the actual facts. With fans like you, John Spritzler should be very sorry.
Here is an excerpt from an article in the single edition of the journal of Marx and Engels' Communist League, the Kommunist, published in 1847. How is this in any way expressive of a desire for hierarchy, or phobic toward freedom based on equality? Do some serious scholarship before you spew any more of your bigoted nonsense:
[Our goal is]
a democratic State wherein each party would be able by word or in writing to win a majority over to its ideas…. We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. . . . We have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced … that in no social order will personal freedom be so assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.iv
For further reading--and you need to do a LOT of that!--see the following: https://bmccproftomsmith7.substack.com/p/was-the-bolshevik-regime-and-its
I am a Marxist, Mr. JAS, who believes in freedom and equality. So did Marx and Engels. You are an ignorant anti-communist bigot.
Thomas, calling John an "ignorant...bigot" is rude. you should apologize; if you use language at the Green Liberty debate in December you will be muted and maybe removed. As you say, debate the points don't slur the messenger.
I will not insult anyone during the debate? And I didn't call John an ignorant bigot here. I called JAS an ignorant bigot. To my knowledge, they are two different people. JAS called me, as a Marxist, arrogant and an opponent of freedom and equality.
Still looking for an excuse to call off the debate, Chuck?
If you do, you'll only expose your inability to accept challenge to your views. Which I've seen time and time again.
Sorry, meant to write, "I will not insult anyone during the debate." Period.
A lot of nice stuff here, but there is also a very disturbing omission. Not one word about the working class, their central role in bringing about egalitarian revolution, their fundamental alienation from capitalism and how to intersect that alienation in order to get them on board--for example, with a transitional program.
No it's all about just the sudden realization that we want equality?!
I hardly think so, John. I don't think that's enough.
I refer to building a "movement of hundreds of millions of Americans." Gee, do you think that might be another way of referring to the working class? Or are you one of those people who think the "working class" is that minority of people (in the U.S.) who work blue collar jobs and that only they are the real force for revolution?
By the way, maybe you did a word search for "working class" but I doubt you read my post in full because your comment came too quickly after I posted it.
My problem is that you don't deal with them AS workers, in their current, existentially alienated conditions.
Gee, John, do you think that might be because of your animus toward Marx's ideas that they ARE alienated, since you deem those ideas elitist, snobbish, a basis for totalitarianism, and not sufficiently romanticizing the working class as completely blemish-less?
And that it might also have something to do with your fear that going beyond organizing as mere "group therapy" for collective awareness of common egalitarian sentiment--to move toward actually any form of LEADERSHIP (which is what the presentation of a transitional program to address those existentially alienated conditions MUST involve!), will slide us down the slippery slope toward "centralized authority" (horrors!) and thus, to the Gulag Archipelago, all over again?
Why don't you write about how YOU are organizing based on your Marxism. Then we'll compare your approach with mine and people can decide what makes more sense.
I have been involved for the past few years in attempting, on both a local level (the NYC Medical Freedom Alliance/Party) and a national level (the Green Liberty Caucus) to debate members on the need for political groups precisely to raise transitional demands in order to gain the support of the working class for our medical freedom program, as well as for internal democratic structures wherein such discussions can be fruitfully and rationally held.
One result of my struggle has been the plan on the part of the GLC to host a debate between me, and you and other of its leaders, on the evening of December 2nd.
What if I merely, as you suggest, argue for equalitarianism?
In the NYC MFA-P, that would not go over very well. There are quite a few right wing libertarian anti-communists who think that market freedom is the only freedom to make them free, and that equality is an ideal of the sinister totalitarian communists behind the Great Reset.
So I need to debate them on these issues, on the basis of practical necessity. For example, the NYC Medical Freedom Party has collapsed, not only due to the misogyny of its sole decision maker, but also, because they fetishized merely getting their candidates on the ballot, WITHOUT talking about a broad program that might bring over the NYC working class to our side, away from the Democrats.
There is no point for me to try to liberate within them an egalitarian sentiment they simply do not feel.
Learn to tell ordinary people that they are RIGHT, instead of just looking for people you can debate with, if you want to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement.
Instead of using excuses for not building the egalitarian revolutionary movement as you do in your comment, I suggest building that movement by doing the kind of things I spell out in great detail in my post and articles it links to. I didn’t get more than 500 of my zip code neighbors to publicly declare they aimed for egalitarian revolution by complaining about some libertarians.
Thomas Smith would make this same criticism; but John said in his essay that an egalitarian revolution will take a mass movement of millions to accomplish; embedded in that millions of mass movement will be the working class. Bookchin's point about libertarian municipalism, the political theory for an egalitarian society, is that the city becomes the locus for revolutionary change and in the city the working class with all others, makes the egalitarian society.