Talked to somebody who was there and she said it was an spontaneous response that was angry.
Rather a typical political rally supporters at which supporters just boo the capacity crowd there of 13,000 people knew very distinctly that the Governor held the power to sign off on Mamdani’s platform to do so.
In that sense things in NYC are proceeding in a way not seen in a very long time. In other words the argument Occupy Wall St was making in 2011, that the 1% own the country and its elections, seems now to be becoming even more mainstream in the philosophy of the proles.
It’s easy to be cynical now, and there’s things to be concerned in this campaign. It’s not gonna be perfect. But man, you really do feel like something is afoot around these parts.
I think there’s huge upside in this election. Beyond the powerful symbolism of a Socialist being elected in the Financial Capitol of the World the potential of the success of real material transformation in people’s lives can and will reverberate around the world.
People ain’t playing anymore.
This is what they would do if they were smart, but a significant portion of the Dems still regard their constituents as serfs, wholly undeserving of any sort of concessions or relief even if it were in the best interests of preserving the Empire. They are mercenaries who do whatever their short-sighted donors pay them to do, and if their constituents don’t like it, well, I hope they like Trump!
The ultimate shortcoming of social democratic reformism is that it is a project driven by the desire to add creature comforts to the Death Star. Get some lower rents, better wages, better education and transit infrastructure and it doesn’t matter which governments we overthrow or which people we genocide. The billionaires still get to organize society and decide any significant matters of state policy. In truth, Bernie Sanders was their golden fucking ticket to reform the Empire, cut out a lot of the obscene waste and inefficiency, and position the US to remain competitive through the 21st century. They didn’t even consider it for a second. Not in 2016, not in 2020, and nothing is different today. They would rather accumulate the titles to empty luxury condos built with foam-clad particle board in a country full of illiterate peasants.
In the best case, Mamdani won’t be a revolutionary figure, but even in the apparent case, leading the biggest city in the US as a figure in the mold of Sanders, the amount of ire he draws from institutional power for basic policies like rent control and free transit is utterly discrediting to all of these institutions. They would be much better served by embracing and cooping him wholeheartedly, making the financial speculators take a haircut, and building a workforce of educated, LOYAL, and healthy subjects who aren’t living under conditions of debt peonage. Nothing would do more to take the wind out of the sails of revolutionary communism than putting the Millennials in houses and guaranteeing some plausible form of retirement that they won’t get sick and die before reaching, or see their 401Ks gambled away by the world’s most obvious charlatans and perverts if they suffer long enough. Across the board, they could buy themselves another generation or two by doing this, yet they are utterly incapable. Every day they fire up a brand new think tank to try to market doing absolutely fucking nothing as “Abundance,” or to frame the absolute failure of Liberalism as the aftermath of implementing socially progressive policies they never even entertained.
As much as these social democrats won’t save us, they do a tremendous job of showing us how few allies we have. How essential it is to plant the seeds of the social organizations which will replace these decrepit liberal civic institutions. How quickly “our sacred values” like truth, democracy, and the rule of law disappear the second the rent-seeking parasites are forced to consider running a tighter ship.
This is correct, and it’s quite a silly little situation, but if the Death Star staff are discontented, it offers more opportunities for the rebellion to defend themselves from the death star, or maybe they forget how to keep the thing running altogether. It’s quite heartening from that point of view.
By this analogy, wouldn’t you want the worst Death Star administrator rather than one who makes the Death Star employees have better working conditions?
One thing sort of leads to the other, as we are discussing in this thread.
What also breaks the analogy is that the death star was destroyed into non-existence. The colonial entity should be destroyed, but the land itself will still exist after decolonization.
Certainly; why, if things just got that bad, the American people would have no debateable choice but to become communists, as 180 years of historical materialism has consistently predicted. They would have a deep and accurate knowledge of just who stole their surplus value and they definitely wouldn’t be swayed by any number of political illusions, even if they had a smaller and smaller window of what was politically feasible. Their Homo economicus sense would spring into action and conclude that it is in their best interest to become revolutionaries and destroy everything they were familiar with. There would be no learned helplessness, no clinging to the old world, no despondency, no disparate rage, just a cool, rational switch in behavior.
Maybe the most revolutionary communist thing you can do is to directly drive as many people in America into poverty. If it doesn’t lead to revolution then they’re just not poor enough.
As a very dedicated and astute communist yourself, I’m certain you happen to be quite destitute personally.