We should look to Lenin. Pundits do very very little for the working class. Unless we're out there building class consciousness in our communities (which I know many here are!), nothing will come of all the coming pain.
Lenin said the three primary struggles: the economic struggle (unionizing, getting better pay, safety, reducing working hours, etc.), the political struggle (socialists in parliament, building the party), and the theoretical struggle (wider spread understanding of Marx but also building on the work he left) are all necessary and not one can be privileged over the others for socialism to succeed. Those basics haven't changed, we still need all three.
You're right, but unfortunately, I don't think we have any of the 3 right now. I wasn't against punditry, but I'm against opportunistic punditry. I wouldn't be so fast to lay that claim on people like Virgil and Bri just yet, but I don't feel like they've been overtly pushing Marxism (admittedly haven't listened in a few months though). Rashida Tlaib is also the only house member other than Tulsi to vote nay on the stimulus/omnibus bill. Now there's certainly a process to all this and maybe this is all ramping up to more overtly ML ideas being pushed in public, but the popular and mainstream left feel very superficial atm. We need hard stances and loud overt Marxists in positions of power. I'm not in a position to judge the elected left, but Sanders endorsing Biden and AOC voting for the stimulus bill and continually giving in to capital isn't the answer.
We should look to Lenin. Pundits do very very little for the working class. Unless we're out there building class consciousness in our communities (which I know many here are!), nothing will come of all the coming pain.
Lenin said the three primary struggles: the economic struggle (unionizing, getting better pay, safety, reducing working hours, etc.), the political struggle (socialists in parliament, building the party), and the theoretical struggle (wider spread understanding of Marx but also building on the work he left) are all necessary and not one can be privileged over the others for socialism to succeed. Those basics haven't changed, we still need all three.
You're right, but unfortunately, I don't think we have any of the 3 right now. I wasn't against punditry, but I'm against opportunistic punditry. I wouldn't be so fast to lay that claim on people like Virgil and Bri just yet, but I don't feel like they've been overtly pushing Marxism (admittedly haven't listened in a few months though). Rashida Tlaib is also the only house member other than Tulsi to vote nay on the stimulus/omnibus bill. Now there's certainly a process to all this and maybe this is all ramping up to more overtly ML ideas being pushed in public, but the popular and mainstream left feel very superficial atm. We need hard stances and loud overt Marxists in positions of power. I'm not in a position to judge the elected left, but Sanders endorsing Biden and AOC voting for the stimulus bill and continually giving in to capital isn't the answer.