We Must, Without Delay, Challenge the Phony “Democratic Socialist” Controlled Opposition and the Misuse of “Democratic Socialism”
What defines the global working class’s generally dismal state of class consciousness? What, at this point in history, in this “information age”, in this era of possibility for the speedy dissemination of the truth to the most remote and backward corners of the earth, keeps its constituent regional working classes and their various factions from swiftly developing full self-awareness and unifying into a global revolutionary democratic movement capable of vanquishing the various cartels of capital?
Nothing more than the refusal of we, the vanguard of democratic socialism, to organize a meaningful direct challenge to the disinformation campaigns of capital. Nothing more than the unwillingness of we, the vanguard of democratic socialism, to directly cut through the capitalist news media and political theater, “popular culture”, “organized religion”, and academic indoctrination-fueled nescience of common men and women to the the true nature, structure, and charted course of the order they find themselves oppressed, jaded, divided, burgled, and mortally threatened under and their concomitant nescience to the potentiality of democratic socialist society.
Serious consideration of this simple truism and the fact that, at this point in history, there is time for nothing other than the immediate and direct awakening of the common people immediately followed by the procession of revolutionary democratic action, can only awaken us from listlessness and demoralization and bring us to recognize that task directly before us is, yes, the perfectly simple and for the moment still fully accomplishable task of directly awakening and developing full class consciousness in the common people of the world. It is the task of winning an information war with nothing but the truth and intellectual honesty, presenting the blueprint to democratic socialism, and building informed and revolutionary consensus in proletarians and other non-labor exploiters- it is the task of enlightening them and awakening them to the fact that they have an opportunity to free themselves from the tyranny they suffer under and democratize life, save their posterity, and redeem humankind with their own hands.
There is no component task of this greater task more significant than the showing of what is perhaps the weakest link in the obfuscation campaign of the capitalists, the equation of “democratic socialism” with social liberal welfare capitalism popular in societies with presently-existing constitutional potential for popular electoral seizure of bourgeois state power, for the product of gatekeeping fraud that it is and the phony leftist controlled opposition that owns this definition of democratic socialism- the various loudly “socialist” “left wings” of the parties of the “Socialist International”, the Bernie Sanderses, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes, the Cynthia Nixons, the Jeremy Corbyns, the Benoît Hamons, and their supporting mercenary writers, editors, and podcast hosts- for the power, fame, and money-hungry opportunists, the fraudsters, the hired tricksters, and the dividers and oppressors of common people, the pushers of abrasive and class consciousness-suppressing social liberalism and race to the bottom cosmopolitanism masked as internationalism, that they are.
To play confused, timid, and dishonest games of “entryism” and “fellow traveling” with these elements would be to do nothing more than play ball with the capitalists and wholly give up the fight. To unmask this sham and these actors, on the other hand, would be to obliterate the capitalists’ political theater in the mentioned societies and present actual democratic socialism to both the socially progressive and traditionalist elements of their the working classes. It would be to get unstoppable revolutionary momentum going in these societies and to begin to inspire disobedience and protest in societies where electoral freedoms that can democratically legitimate seizure of power were not won in the past and can only be won now if leftist opposition strong enough to convince capital to throw its hands up and go gentle into that good night can materialize.
So let us get the ball rolling. Let us move at once to discredit the equation of democratic socialism with social liberal welfare capitalism and the phony “democratic socialist” controlled opposition- in opinion articles and YouTube videos, on talk shows and livestreams, at the town halls of phony “democratic socialist” candidates, everywhere. Let us present a vision of a world with democratic economy, with socialized means of production and management of workplaces by those who labor in them, with the management and guidance of economies at large and its constituent cooperatives and unions by recallable representatives of the people through recallable legislative representatives from both the various localities and industries for the furthering of their own and their posterity’s interest, with the ownership and management of natural resources by the people at large, with direct to consumption agreements between worker cooperatives and unions, and with absolute right to personal home ownership and ownership of the necessities of life. Let us point out the fact that the welfare capitalists argue for none of this- let us draw attention to the simple reality that welfare capitalism calls for the preservation of the ancient capitalist-employee dynamic, non-employee/investor stockholding and business ownership, the “financial industry”, rent and the non-existence of a legal right to home ownership, the continuation of the global race to the bottom, and markets and money in general in their present forms. Let us highlight the fact that the programs of global cosmopolitan “race to the bottom” capitalism and environmentally-conscious working class socialist internationalism are not the same. Let us be kind to socially traditionalist people, let us reason with them and show them that democratic socialism is not social liberal welfare capitalism and that any coalition capable of defeating capitalism will need their involvement- let us show them that genuine democratic socialism is not their enemy and that less socially traditionalist working class people are their natural comrades, and let us show them that while capitalism will destroy all of the tradition they hold dear, democratic socialism can see to the survival of much of it that is truly valuable and non-problematic.
Again, the clock is ticking. We are in a state of affairs much worse than the socialists of yore could have ever imagined possible. It is not inevitable, as they insisted, that capital will be overthrown and exiled to the dustbin of history at some point- the reckless industrialization and technological advancements of recent times have made that much evident. The avaricious creeps and parasites will be able, unless they are removed from power and expropriated soon, to do whatever they wish to do with those they have lorded over. There can be a final defeat of common people. We cannot take things slowly and easily, nor can we reassure ourselves with the idea that some future generation of the working classes of the world and its intellectual vanguard will win the battle if we don’t. In this world of the intensification of the pitting of the world’s common peoples against each other and the acceleration of the new style imperialist pillaging of the poorest peoples of the world, dizzyingly rapid cultural genocide and destruction of whatever tradition is worth a single damn, anthropogenic climate change and environmental ruination and that, if allowed to play out, will make extensive organized human existence impossible for everyone but the wealthiest by the end of the century, narrow artificial intelligence development and automation that if allowed to continue to proceed will within the next couple of decades render almost all people obsolete to the capitalists and facilitate the creation of capitalist-commanded armies and law enforcement forces not kept in check by a need for the living and breathing working man and woman’s labor or the mutinous potential of those less than thoroughly sociopathic human soldiers and law enforcement personnel, there just isn’t time for anything other than rapid development of full class consciousness and organization of revolutionary democratic action.
So let us not waste another minute. So let us take this crucial first step. So let us begin to show the men and women of the global working class the actual grand scheme of things and awaken them to the fact that they can free themselves from the oppression they suffer under, save their posterity, and redeem humankind with their own hands. We have no time to lose.
-Strom McCallum
(Republished from my blog)
