Where to begin? I guess it started several months ago. I began to feel bored of mainstream music, then I got annoyed, and then finally I just couldn't bare to listen to it anymore and I began to start checking out indie and revolutionary music that some friends recomended. I started listening to bands like Propaghandi, Anti-Flag, Black Flag, Leftover Crack, and Reagan Youth, but I soon found that revolutionary music is few and far between. It's a sad reflection but it seems like music today is mostly meaningless songs by bands who are really just in it for the money. I think that's the main reason mainstream music is now more than ever; pure shit! In anycase, the purpose of this post was to ask readers if they have any band recomendations, just post a comment and I'll check it out. Much appreciated.
Lately I've been pondering this. Are cops really necessary in society? I've come to this conclusion. Cops are necessary in the current system we have where there are social classes and there is an enormous inequality of wealth. In a system where people can't afford to pay their rent, can barely afford food and clothing, and in which everyday is a struggle will definatly need cops because that system is a breeding ground for theft and robbery. In a system where wealth is non-exsistant in the sense that no one has more wealth than another person, and where pretty much everything you needis accessable to all, theft would be pointless, especially since the only person you're stealing from is the people you work with. The Paris Commune is a good example of how crime disapeared. The Paris Commune was a socialist state in Paris during the mid 1800s. Although it lasted only several months, it was the perfect example of Marx's 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' All officials were elected through universal sufferage and were recallable at any moment. Worker's rights increased drastically, and most importantly, (at least in reference to this blog entry) there were no cops and there was no crime.
The only thing left out is violent crimes. Violent crimes just happen and some sort of police force will always be neccessary to deal with them, but I believe that they are greatly encouraged in the capitalist system. Why? Well, the answer is complex. In inner-city ghettos, where there is the most murder and shootings take place, residents are usually impoverished and the result is that a very violent atmosphere is created because of the struggle to move up the social ladder. Gangs often form and with those gangs rivalries form. As those rivalries heat up, shootings and murder occur. Now of course not all murder happens as a result of gangs, but a good part does.
Another reason was described to me by a friend I know who used to work in a 'juvenile hall.' She explained to me that often, many people that murder others have commited smaller crimes before. Basically jail, creates a violent atmosphere and has been proven not to work, but to make matters worse. It should only be reserved for the worst criminals.
In sum, the point I was trying to get at in this entry is that capitalism and it's institutions are a major reason why there is crime and why there is a need for often oppressive police. In a system where alot of the problems of capitalism are solved naturally, such things will not really be necessary.
The only thing left out is violent crimes. Violent crimes just happen and some sort of police force will always be neccessary to deal with them, but I believe that they are greatly encouraged in the capitalist system. Why? Well, the answer is complex. In inner-city ghettos, where there is the most murder and shootings take place, residents are usually impoverished and the result is that a very violent atmosphere is created because of the struggle to move up the social ladder. Gangs often form and with those gangs rivalries form. As those rivalries heat up, shootings and murder occur. Now of course not all murder happens as a result of gangs, but a good part does.
Another reason was described to me by a friend I know who used to work in a 'juvenile hall.' She explained to me that often, many people that murder others have commited smaller crimes before. Basically jail, creates a violent atmosphere and has been proven not to work, but to make matters worse. It should only be reserved for the worst criminals.
In sum, the point I was trying to get at in this entry is that capitalism and it's institutions are a major reason why there is crime and why there is a need for often oppressive police. In a system where alot of the problems of capitalism are solved naturally, such things will not really be necessary.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines slavery like this,
slav·er·y (slv-r, slvr) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. slav·er·ies
1.The state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or
household.
I remember as a middle school student learning about the brutalities of slavery and about the liberation of slaves, and I remember thinking in theoretical terms, "What's the difference between a slave on a field and a wage worker on a field?"
The only real difference I could think of, in theoretical terms, was a wage. I didn't get it. I thought that a wage doesn't make that much difference to a worker, especially when it's that low. Eventually, as I became more and more interested in socialism, I learned about places like India, Pakistan, Taiwan, and many other countries around the world where there is a real slavery exsisting in corporate run sweatshops.
Workers have no option but to work for the few cents their corporations pay them and obey every wish their manager asks, or face dire consequences. For example, there have been numerous instances where workers are locked into their factories and told that if they don't work, they'll be fired or won't be payed. In other countries, companies have hired intimidators and right-wing paramilitaries to scare workers into submission and stop worker organization. This brand of slavery is called wage-slavery and exsists in every country, but more in some than in others. Whenever I talk about this subject with capitalists, they always say it's bullshit. I would to if I didn't know better about the conditions in many countries and how we are dependant on the exploitation of the labor of those countries. It's really a sad reflection thinking that nations like America were built on slavery and still run on it today...
slav·er·y (slv-r, slvr) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. slav·er·ies
1.The state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or
household.
I remember as a middle school student learning about the brutalities of slavery and about the liberation of slaves, and I remember thinking in theoretical terms, "What's the difference between a slave on a field and a wage worker on a field?"
The only real difference I could think of, in theoretical terms, was a wage. I didn't get it. I thought that a wage doesn't make that much difference to a worker, especially when it's that low. Eventually, as I became more and more interested in socialism, I learned about places like India, Pakistan, Taiwan, and many other countries around the world where there is a real slavery exsisting in corporate run sweatshops.
Workers have no option but to work for the few cents their corporations pay them and obey every wish their manager asks, or face dire consequences. For example, there have been numerous instances where workers are locked into their factories and told that if they don't work, they'll be fired or won't be payed. In other countries, companies have hired intimidators and right-wing paramilitaries to scare workers into submission and stop worker organization. This brand of slavery is called wage-slavery and exsists in every country, but more in some than in others. Whenever I talk about this subject with capitalists, they always say it's bullshit. I would to if I didn't know better about the conditions in many countries and how we are dependant on the exploitation of the labor of those countries. It's really a sad reflection thinking that nations like America were built on slavery and still run on it today...
I was bored as hell this afternoon and felt like seeing a movie, so I looked in the paper to see what was playing. There were several movies which I was interested in, however the movie that caught my eye and intrigued me the most was Jesus Camp. Jesus Camp is a real life story about a camp which is run somewhere in North Dakota by a pastor who indoctrinates and brainwashes children into following a fundamentalist christian religion which claims George W. Bush was chosen by god to lead this country and that this generation will be "the soldiers of god" and "will win back America" for christians. The controversial movie depicts children of all ages who are often homeschooled doing things like holding pro-life vigils with their pastors and dancing to 'Christian' heavy metal.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I walked into the movie, but when I walked out, I felt like puking. I still can't believe that people are actually that brainwashed, and that adults can be so sick as to force their perverted views upon their children. A movie of this stature obviously isn't playing in most theaters, and in fact there is only one theater playing it where I live, here in New York City. If you do by chance, live near a theater that is play this movie than I reccomend you see it, as it is a really shocking movie.
October 5th: The World Can't Wait to Drive Out the Bush Regime!
0 Comments Published by LeftyHenry on Thursday at 10:17 PM.
According to www.worldcan'twait.net,
"On October 5, people everywhere will walk out of school, take off work, and come to the downtowns & townsquares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to join us - making a powerful statement: "NO! THIS REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL DRIVE IT OUT!"
On October 5th a group called The World Can't Wait to Drive out the Bush Regime! Will hold nationwide protests all over the US. On October 5th, I plan on taking the day off and heading uptown to 59th street and 1st avenue where a protest will be held. The World Can't Wait is run by a maoist group called the Revolutionary Communist Party, but also has endorsements from other organizations and parties. I, for one, completely disagree with the Bush regime, however I don't see what exactly the alternative is. Cheney? A reformist liberal politician? Still, I will try to be there because I haven't really attended any anti-war protests and this is a definitive one. Here is the world can't wait's URL,
The World Can't Wait
"On October 5, people everywhere will walk out of school, take off work, and come to the downtowns & townsquares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to join us - making a powerful statement: "NO! THIS REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL DRIVE IT OUT!"
On October 5th a group called The World Can't Wait to Drive out the Bush Regime! Will hold nationwide protests all over the US. On October 5th, I plan on taking the day off and heading uptown to 59th street and 1st avenue where a protest will be held. The World Can't Wait is run by a maoist group called the Revolutionary Communist Party, but also has endorsements from other organizations and parties. I, for one, completely disagree with the Bush regime, however I don't see what exactly the alternative is. Cheney? A reformist liberal politician? Still, I will try to be there because I haven't really attended any anti-war protests and this is a definitive one. Here is the world can't wait's URL,
Today Chavez was speaking before the U.N. and said, "the devil was here yesterday. He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world... In this very spot it still smells like sulfur." Chavez then went on to recommend a book by Noam Chomsky to the Security Council. Neo-cons immediatly jumped on chavez claiming he is "totalitarian mad-man." It's kind of funny see the reactions of people to Chavez especially when they have no understanding of him or Venezulan politics.
Anyhow here's the link.
A couple of days ago I stumbled upon this article. Bascially some Princeton University researchers did a demonstration in which they took a diebold blackbox voting machine, which is a common voting machine used in US elections today, and rigged the machines tally by unlocking the memory storage compartment of the Diebold Voting machine, and switching the memory card. This could be done easily my an election worker who has access to keys that would allow him or her to do that. It has long been alleged that black box voting machines used in US elections were unsafe because they had no paper trail. This just makes matters worse.
Link Here
And Here
As a Bolshevik-Leninist, or Trotskyist, I disagree with Stalin and Mao's political policies and think that they were not adherent to true communism and socialism. However, I do think that what Stalin and Mao did economically was incredible and without them both Russia and China would still be backwards worse-than-third-world countries. Here is a post that was directed at on a political forum I am part of, and here is my response.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TurtleDude on Debatepolitics.com
Psychobabble. THe killing fields-1.5 million by a COMMUNIST
Pol-Pot was not a communist or a socialist. Pol-Pot disowned communists all over and was eventually ousted by communists. He may have called himself communist but so what? Were the crusaders who raped woman and pillaged villages Christians? He was a Red fascist and was never considered a communist by any movement besides his own. On another note, he was US backed and recieved much aid from Republicans and Democrats and the US also pushed for internatioal Aid to Pol Pot. Also it's funny that you even bring that up considering that almost a million people were slaughtered as a result of US bombing in Cambodia and many more in Vietnam.
Quote:
MAO-20-40 Million BY A COMMUNIST
Can you provide a lnk for that outrageous claim? Have you ever studied China? If you did you would know that famines and floods are common in Chinese history. The GLF came during a famine and drought. Capitalists jumped on this and blamed it on Mao. It was not Mao's fault. If Jishi had been in power it would have been far worse, and it was only because of the collectivizism and equal rationing that many, many more didn't die. In 1986, 76,000 blacks died in the US because of lack of aquedate healthcare. If The US was as big as China it would be 300,000 people. If there were as many blacks as Chinese, it would be over 2 million (a year)!
Quote:
Stalin-2-40 MILLION-by a COMMUNIST
Again Russia also has a history of Famine. Stalin had the same problems as Mao. It's very easy to crtitize Stalin except when you realize what history would be like without him. First, Stalin industrialized a country that was a 100 years backward in 10 years. Life expectency doubled, People had electricty in their homes, people had clothes, people had quality education and healthcare, people sanitation, and woman had equal rights thanks to the revolution. Most importantly, Russia now had basic infastructure and technology. When the Nazi war machine attacked Russia, the centrally planned economy was able to turn newly built tractor factories into tank factories and repel the Nazis. It was only because the Russians had the most tanks in the continent thanks to Stalin that the Soviets were able to repel to Nazis. If Russia had stayed under the Czar, Russia would have fallen in days for lack of infastructure and technology and considering that Russia was responsible for 75% of Nazi casualties according to historian James Bradely in his book Flags of our Fathers, the worldwould be a very different place today...
Quote:
life expectancy didn't double for the millions upon millions killed.
Don't act like America is some angelic nation. While Stalin was purging fascists, we were imprisoning, repressing, and beating blacks. They were a subserviant people at that time. And look at the actrocities we've commited in the past against Native Americans and Blacks. Capitalism is responisble for slavery and the starvation of millions in exploited third world countries!
Quote:
Communism is a disease and the sooner it is eradicated the better the world will be.
Capitalism is a disease which causes people to starve everyday despite the fact that there is food on the shelves. It lets people die on the streets like stray animals and puts people in the third world in terrible gulag-sweatshops where they are slaves. Capitalism is responsible for everything bad system wise and until it is defeated, our world will be plagued by nationalist wars, poverty, starvation, widespread diesease, crime, and other horrors which exsist.
Most people don't know what the difference between communism and socialism. I thought I'd devote this relatively short blog entry to defining each and how they're different.
Socialism, as Lenin once said, is the first step towards communism. Socialism is a 'worker's state', or as Marx called it, the 'dictatorship of the proleteriat'. By dictatorship of the proletariat, he did not mean a literal dictatorship, but instead was pointing out that in every system where there is a state, one class rules over the others. In capitalism, monarchy, and fascism it is the bourgeoius who are in power. The bourgieous are the class which control the means of production such as managers in factories and offices, executives and CEOs, and politicians. So Marx called capitalism, monarchy, and fascism 'dictatorships of the bourgieous'. Socialism is different. In socialism it is the dictatorship of the proletariat, which means dictatorship of the 'masses' or people. Marx in no way meant a literal despotism. It was just a strange choice of words. In socialism there is still money, there is a elected parliament, and many other things that come with a typical state however there are no classes. That is socialism.
Communism is the system of the distant future. It comes after a permanent revolution, or worldwide worker's revolution. In communism there is no state, there are no countries, and everything is handled within the community. Marx and Lenin both said that when there is a state, there can be no freedom. Power corrupts itself and every state has some level of oppression. The idea behind it is that when we learn to think of everyone as a whole and stop being materialists, we will get rid of every horror that comes with capitalism, fascism, and monarchy and states in general.
Mexico has long been a place where elections are fraudulant, ballot boxes have been stuffed, and legitimate votes stolen. For 75 years one party was in power. Now Mexico again faces a struggle in democracy which should come as no suprise. Obrador, a candidate of the Democratic Revolution Party has been holding a month-long demonstration for a full recount of an election decided by a almost non-exisistant margin. Obrador and his party are the first to offer a solution to mexico's real problems like poverty and corruption and the two other major parties, PAN and the PRI, have been determined to stop him from getting into power. PAN, a right-wing party, even went so far as to pull it's candidate in a governoral race in order to help the PRI, a centerist party, have a shot at winning. The electoral tribune in Mexico decided to do a 'partial recount' of a mere 9% of the votes which reveiled massive systematic failure (http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article2010.html). Tommorow the electoral tribunal council has a constitutional deadline to decide wheither or not the election was valid and they are expected to say it is. It will be a sad day for democracy and Mexico.
