...almost
order-of-lenin
You had it all along!
It is annoying to find with no keywords and needing the hypens though.
ya probably, I'm using a Lemmy app that doesn't have a menu (or show emoji in just the double colon form), so I thought it'd be funnier to do this rather than actually potentially have it wrong lol
You fool! You can only change the system by working inside the system that's spent the last century making sure the system can never be changed by working within the system!
The system can be changed from the inside as long as you follow its inherent rightward trajectory.
Vote blue if you want to hold healthcare CEOs responsible
But what has 12 out of the last 16 years of Democratic rule done to reign in the healthcare industry?
Wow, so you're a Trump supporter then
people on hexbear will really be like "you believe in shooting health insurance CEOs? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, organizing" and then not organize
I think they're actually telling you to look at past examples of the propaganda of the deed and how they pale to mass movement.
My take is that both feed into one another. The larger a mass movement gets the more propaganda of the deed happens and you literally can't stop it, people WILL do it and you must incorporate it into your plans one way or another because you can't stop it.
The more frequent it becomes, the closer you are to the real revolutionary moment.
Yes and no. I don't think they "feed" each other more as they are a result of the same conditions.
That would be nice, but 15 years from now if another Kaczynski type rises up I don't think P.S.L taking credit or supporting the action will help them in anyway unless they already have achieved "mass-movement". We only have a few big parties that could achieve something like this. Understanding why this is is far more important than preparing to go Punisher, at least in my opinion.
But you are right, I can't stop anyone from doing anything. I agree with that.
If anything, them existing as they do now is a mutually beneficial agreement. I also said before that in my opinion, there are more effective ways of "direct action." Sabotage is what comes to mind immediately. I said earlier that destroying a clean-room does a lot more damage than icing a CEO. Perhaps sabotage and other actions like this can be under a separate militant wing. There's precedence for that.
what if like, things didn't exist in vacuums, what if "individuals" and "lone wolfs" weren't actual things but rather framings of things, and instead these people and their actions existed within, as a part of, the system, rather than separate from it?? gosh, could a mass movement ever be influenced by any sort of propaganda, in the same way these individuals' actions were influenced by the system within which they lived?????
Nothing exists in a vacuum. I said if people want to go ice a CEO, they should do it. My point is that we've had evidence of this, which yes, in 1910s-1920s russia and 1800s America, that it is something that grows more common with revolutionary sentiment. You can do these things; but they have almost never influenced a mass movement.
“We believe that even a hundred regicides can never produce so stimulating and educational an effect as this participation of tens of thousands of working people in meetings where their vital interests and the links between politics and these interests are discussed, and as this participation in a struggle, which really rouses ever new and “untapped” sections of the proletariat to greater political consciousness, to a broader revolutionary struggle.” ~ Lenin
You aren't getting scoffed at or told not to do it or that it is a bad thing necessarily OR that it cannot co-exist with a mass movement. People are just pointing to the history and theory we have on the topic and specifically the quote above is especially relevant. Lenin held adventurism in a bit more disdain, but I think conditions are different in every nation.
Russia in the turn of the last century is far different than America now. Does that mean history will change entirely? No. I don't doubt that this will become more common. It was propaganda of the deed-day every day in early America. If anything, they were successfully able to manufacture an effective "red scare" from the actions of anarchists then. Hell, one even shot a president, Leon Czolgosz. What did that do? McKinley's death is a joke now because they didn't use the X-Ray machine that was present at his assassination. That is in reference to American history.
"gosh, could a mass movement ever be influenced by any sort of propaganda, in the same way these individuals’ actions were influenced by the system within which they lived???"
No one is denying that. They're saying how it ends up. If someone wants to sacrifice their life entirely to try and influence a heavily crippled working class and labor aristocracy in America, they're free to do it and people will probably cheer for it. The problem is America barely has a cognizant "mass-movement". and instead some powerful socialist parties. We're getting there, though.
i feel like ive just seen a lot of people arguing that this is a bad thing and i don't get where they're coming from. like i can see it being ineffective but honestly this site seems more against it than anywhere else on the internet.
They're not arguing it's a bad thing. Propaganda of the deed spells it out pretty clearly. What they're against is random acts of adventurism that are ultimately futile other than short-term propaganda and because all it actually does it get you a couple of doots and popularity on the internet that could be better served organizing and working with others in your community.
Feeding someone is worth far more than smashing a cop car window that will get ultimately covered by insurance. Trying to twist it as "civility brain-worms" is disingenuous compared to the mountain of theory we have on the topic.
Edit: I should also say that protests and other escalations are different. if you really wanna go ice a CEO, go for it. We went through this in the 1800s and it ultimately paled in comparison to Bolshevism as a major example.
i wasn't trying to make it about civility, i understand that they all know he deserved to die. what you're saying is the argument i don't get though. right now, i'm not serving my community, i've never worked at a soup kitchen or anything, i've never tried to organize locally beyond my polycule. am i doing a better job than the assassin? it's not one or the other, it's not like he took time out of his packed good deeds schedule to plan the assassination. i feel like the fact that there's a better use for his time is irrelevant, because he probably wouldn't use that time for whatever better thing you have in mind. aside from that, i'm not completely convinced that what he did was utterly useless. leftists have a really hard time swaying public opinion to any degree, and i don't think i've ever seen more anti capitalist revolutionary sentiment in america than right now, as a direct result of this propaganda.
In the other case, yeah, it is good propaganda. It's something great to stir revolutionary sentiment, truly. Honestly, myself, I'd like to see more. That's really it though. It's just a one-off event, perhaps with a couple copy-cats that result in nothing more than added security and bulletproof limousines. Countries in the exploited periphery still have yet to tear off their shackles despite their long history of direct-action. Left-wing urban guerillas in West Germany are a great example of this in the imperial core; they had plenty propaganda of the deed to draw people to their side and even enjoyed popular support. Without mass organization, however, they were unable to actually effect the conditions around them.
Those who engage in that form of practice in mass-organization successfully are culled. Fred Hampton, M.L.K, etc. Of course it isn't completely useless, it's called propaganda of the deed for a reason. It's that we have history to compare it to that shows us that ultimately it isn't much worth for change.
You're not going to be able to actually "change" anything without addressing the imperialism and the exploited periphery to deal with the labor aristocracy. What you can do is make an effect on your local community or build one, agitprop and engage in other forms of adventurism when you can. There are more effective things than shooting C.E.Os. I'd look towards the contamination of Israeli clean-rooms as an example of more effective sabotage.
i think it's basically a prerequisite right now. now that the propaganda has been so effective, i think any attempt to organize people for real change would be a whole lot easier.
A prerequisite to what? The 1800s era of propaganda of the deed? It was effective in stirring sentiment, sure, but it didn't accomplish anything compared to other examples I mentioned and to what I said.
I also personally think people who advocate for this type of risky direct action should be leading the example. As who of those that advocate organization; not everyone on here is just "not organizing".
