Yeah! And we need to do it in a way where the incredibly rich and powerful who have a vested interest and desparate need for us to fail won’t kill our movement! In the past and present, any socialist movement was met with
death squads
propaganda
military invasions
assasinations of heads of state
funding, arming, and training the opposition
economic sanctions
so, so much propaganda
all funded by the absurdly wealthy to make nations fail and make them more amenable to re-exploitation by the owning class.
Any ideas on how to defend ourselves against this phenomenon which occurs over and over again?
About the dictatorship problem: How about instead of rallying around a single leader to lead the movement, we set a truely democratic system from the start, council leadership and not a single person.
Short a federation parlament system like switzerlands from the start!
And thats why, among other reasons i am against revolution to archiev socialism. Because there the undemocratic side will have no issue overthrowing a new democracy if they dont like the election outcome (lenin is a good example)
No revolution also solves the death squads and mostly military invasions. Speaking about a place where democracy is already in place in some form and that has strong allies ofc. If change democraticly cant be archieved revolution for democracy is ofc a neccassary first step.
Funding from outside, like russia and china are doing, must be met with laws against MPs being able to earn extra income or get gifts next to their MP revenue.
And a strong seperation of power.
Against real militairy invasion im afraid the only solution is allies…
Propaganda can only be countered threw education.
But most importantly it is unity of the movement and rooting out antidemocratic advocats from the beginning.
The first steps for a workers movement to succeed is to meet the people on their level! Trade Unions! Organizing the workforce to fight for better working conditions. And this doesnt work only for work, but also renting. Its scary how union membership are dropping.
I am currently preparing to start a study why selfishness rises, solidarity and union membership declines (in germany)
Its all easier said than done but i really belief that we are on a breaking point of the old system, the people are mad and the card deck soon will be reshuffled. Only question is: who will come out ontop for the next era. fascists or worker democracys…
Only together can we, the people, the workers, change the course of history, for us and our desendence. Its a hard, never ending fight but the only other option is becoming enslaved and losing what is remaining of the harvest our ancesters fought and died for.
I’m getting strong rest of the owl vibes from a lot of what you say.
So for example, you say you need strong allies. Well, list some candidates! China? They have a policy of non-intervention, so don’t count on it. Cuba? Not very strong. The US, or some other nation that’s captured by the owning class (Netherlands, France, Germany, etc)? Fat chance.
Same with the focus having folks join unions more. I think it’s a great outcome to strive for, but how do we achieve that goal? On a systemic level we see union membership dropping, and that’s no coincidence, because more and more anti-union legislation is enacted across the board in Europe and America. And that in turn is no coincidence because the people who really don’t want us to unionize have enough money to lobby this legislation into existence, and they happen to own the media, so they’re also doing a good job of convincing us that it is against our interests to join a union. Voting a pro-union candidate into power is incredibly difficult for the simple fact that campaign funds are a pretty decent predictor of electoral success, and guess who has the money to contribute significant amounts to those funds? Not me.
The education thing too is pretty great, but it assumes that some worker-friendly entity already has control over the education system. How do you get there?
And education only goes so far of course. At some point folks leave the educational system, and their main source of information becomes the media. I’ve seen well-educated folks be completely convinced that there is no genocide in Gaza, and I could not blame them, because for the first year no major outlet would even utter the word. How do you prevent the media from being captured by the owning class?
Ultimately the problem is that the opponent has the means and willingness to use violence to quell your movement. And they’ve shown time and again that they will use these means, and history shows it works (Allende, the Spanish anarchist revolution, the Paris commune, Indonesia’s takeover by Suharto, Lumumba, etc). How do you defend yourself effectively against a violent aggressor without resorting to illiberal means yourself?
Yeah! And we need to do it in a way where the incredibly rich and powerful who have a vested interest and desparate need for us to fail won’t kill our movement! In the past and present, any socialist movement was met with
all funded by the absurdly wealthy to make nations fail and make them more amenable to re-exploitation by the owning class.
Any ideas on how to defend ourselves against this phenomenon which occurs over and over again?
About the dictatorship problem: How about instead of rallying around a single leader to lead the movement, we set a truely democratic system from the start, council leadership and not a single person. Short a federation parlament system like switzerlands from the start!
And thats why, among other reasons i am against revolution to archiev socialism. Because there the undemocratic side will have no issue overthrowing a new democracy if they dont like the election outcome (lenin is a good example)
No revolution also solves the death squads and mostly military invasions. Speaking about a place where democracy is already in place in some form and that has strong allies ofc. If change democraticly cant be archieved revolution for democracy is ofc a neccassary first step.
Funding from outside, like russia and china are doing, must be met with laws against MPs being able to earn extra income or get gifts next to their MP revenue. And a strong seperation of power.
Against real militairy invasion im afraid the only solution is allies…
Propaganda can only be countered threw education.
But most importantly it is unity of the movement and rooting out antidemocratic advocats from the beginning.
The first steps for a workers movement to succeed is to meet the people on their level! Trade Unions! Organizing the workforce to fight for better working conditions. And this doesnt work only for work, but also renting. Its scary how union membership are dropping. I am currently preparing to start a study why selfishness rises, solidarity and union membership declines (in germany)
Its all easier said than done but i really belief that we are on a breaking point of the old system, the people are mad and the card deck soon will be reshuffled. Only question is: who will come out ontop for the next era. fascists or worker democracys… Only together can we, the people, the workers, change the course of history, for us and our desendence. Its a hard, never ending fight but the only other option is becoming enslaved and losing what is remaining of the harvest our ancesters fought and died for.
I’m getting strong rest of the owl vibes from a lot of what you say.
So for example, you say you need strong allies. Well, list some candidates! China? They have a policy of non-intervention, so don’t count on it. Cuba? Not very strong. The US, or some other nation that’s captured by the owning class (Netherlands, France, Germany, etc)? Fat chance.
Same with the focus having folks join unions more. I think it’s a great outcome to strive for, but how do we achieve that goal? On a systemic level we see union membership dropping, and that’s no coincidence, because more and more anti-union legislation is enacted across the board in Europe and America. And that in turn is no coincidence because the people who really don’t want us to unionize have enough money to lobby this legislation into existence, and they happen to own the media, so they’re also doing a good job of convincing us that it is against our interests to join a union. Voting a pro-union candidate into power is incredibly difficult for the simple fact that campaign funds are a pretty decent predictor of electoral success, and guess who has the money to contribute significant amounts to those funds? Not me.
The education thing too is pretty great, but it assumes that some worker-friendly entity already has control over the education system. How do you get there? And education only goes so far of course. At some point folks leave the educational system, and their main source of information becomes the media. I’ve seen well-educated folks be completely convinced that there is no genocide in Gaza, and I could not blame them, because for the first year no major outlet would even utter the word. How do you prevent the media from being captured by the owning class?
Ultimately the problem is that the opponent has the means and willingness to use violence to quell your movement. And they’ve shown time and again that they will use these means, and history shows it works (Allende, the Spanish anarchist revolution, the Paris commune, Indonesia’s takeover by Suharto, Lumumba, etc). How do you defend yourself effectively against a violent aggressor without resorting to illiberal means yourself?