'Communist Manifesto' a hit in Madrid

[Starry Messenger]

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/08/inenglish/1339173554_663120.html

One of the surprise bestsellers at the Madrid Book Fair, a major literary event currently underway in the capital has been a beautifully illustrated edition of the Communist Manifesto.

Published by a small outfit called Nórdica and illustrated by Fernando Vicente, the seminal work by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels appears to be thriving in the current crisis, as though readers not only wanted to understand what is going on in the world, but also to find out whether there are any alternatives out there.

The numerous inflammatory booklets of the "Time for Outrage" type seemed to have filled that void with their explanations of why governments addressed the crisis by unanimously implementing programs championed by conservative parties during boom times. But what Marx and Engels propose is a complete overhaul of the capitalist system, and it could well be that behind the unexpected success of the Communist Manifesto there lies a desire to see which parts of it might still be relevant and bring some hope to nations that have lost it almost completely.

<snip>

The Manifesto thus explores, in an exceptionally well-crafted tale, an ancestral face-off that occasionally harks back to the Gilgamesh and Enkidu of Babylon or the biblical angels and their swords of fire. The literary wonders inside the Manifesto are as abundant as in the best epic poems of old, as when Marx and Engels describe communism as a specter that is haunting Europe, or the cruelty of labor relations as the "icy water of egotistical calculation."

[phantom power]

1. In the last Depression, we got FDR, but it might have been Stalin, or Hitler.

If the 1%-ers weren't so full of their own self image, that might give them pause for thought.

[Starry Messenger]

2. They don't give any thought beyond their next quarterly report.

I just watched this film that was posted in GD this week. In one of his last interviews before his death, Milton Friedman tells the film-maker that poverty is basically the broken eggs from making omelets. If you have about 90 minutes, watch it, if you haven't already.

The 1% should worry more about the 99%, but they won't. It's up to us to make them notice.

[xchrom]

3. I agree - but seemingly there's no need to worry about the 99% yet.

There's increased self awareness in the masses but it's not translating yet.

I don't know if that will change.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Sadly, in the US, it always seems like we need something to galvanize us.

Usually something bad.

We have a couple of advantages over the Depression era, better base of organized labor and still some safety nets. It makes keeping those things battleground issues. But it seems people have gotten so used to having those things that it must seem odd to have to make a special effort to fight there.

I use my mom's reaction to things as a barometer. She's been bemused by my turn more left, but she's starting to get that her Social Security might be at risk. She's starting to notice attitudes and remark on wealth disparities.

[xchrom]

5. Honest to god, dude(êtte)

When it comes to America - I don't know.

The diminishing of unions has something to do with it - but it's not the whole answer.

Like - when did 'poor' whites in the south decide to trust the 'company store'?

There's a long, long tradition of not trusting the 'owners' regionally in this country - a natural skepticism born of share cropping, industry, mining, etc

Where is it?

The evangelical movement, racism - it's not the whole picture - something isn't right.

Its like the answer is there - & some how I keep thinking of Huey Long.

[TBF]

7. I may have shared this quote with you already -

I know I've put it out in GD a couple of times the past few days. My comrade Dahlgren has this to say re class and American workers:

Working class people currently do not vote in the interests of the working class; they vote in "self interest" which is how they are supposed to vote in this political culture. Each individual votes for or against what he/she perceives as his/her personal interest. If anyone wants to know why anyone voted one way or the other you would need to ask the individual voter - and so far no has asked.

It is illogical to expect working people to vote in support of the working class when they have been brought up from the cradle with the ideas and aspirations of the "individualist", eschewing membership in groups or unions except in blatant self-interest. We fight and compete against each other in the shameless way we are trained to. Liberals and progressive "can't understand why these people vote against their interests." The actual bottom line is, they don't. They just don't act as a class...yet.

Next question, how do we get class consciousness?

Workers have to start thinking of themselves as workers, not Americans or Baptists or Democrats or whatever. That was what the unions always did so well: focus workers energies onto the struggle, the fight against the other class. It demonstrated in clear, unequivocal language the separation of the classes and the antagonisms that are inescapable. This is where the capitalist government and sold-out union leadership has done so much damage - damage that must be undone. I am not the one to come up with "how", I don't have the chops.

One thing that has to be recognized is that working to establish a consciously class oriented union is very dangerous. Curtb could teach a class on this (where is he?). It cannot be done in secret or through dissimulation and will be strongly opposed on all fronts. Besides working through unions and workers organizations I have no ideas.

I think he's pretty much nailed it.

[Starry Messenger]

8. I don't know either.

All of those things seem to link into each other. I think racism is foremost--of all the developed industrialized countries, we are the one with the biggest lingering scars from both slavery and colonialism. I'm trying to figure it out too though.

It seems as long as the long arm of US imperialism was doing things far away, out of sight, people thought we were safe back in the nest here. But all of those things are done by the same people who run things here--why would they leave the resources of the US untapped forever? People seem to think there was some unspoken bargain that they wouldn't "go there"--but there never was.

[jtuck004]

13. Look back through the last century or so, and there were organizers. They

went out among the crowds, got people to talk out what their issues were, raised consciousness. They got preachers to address it.

But then we seemed to stop doing it as we all got better jobs and houses, tv.

Today you are more likely to find a liberal web page or radio show waiting for people to show up. I no longer see much effort by labor or outside organizers putting on dinners or get-togethers, and I don't think much is taught in the school.

I hear people say "they are crazy" or "why do they vote like that" or "they should just wake up" - and I think back to years ago when organizers helped people to discover why they voted like they did, to identify and address oppression. Now it's like nearly everyone is standing around waiting for them to change.

Those are age old techniques, The Tea party kind of does it now, to much better effect. Simple messages, top down, not interested in their neighbor's lives except as another vote. Effective.

I got a couple invitations from the TP last year, iirc. Both in people's homes, no donations asked for, food - didn't go, but a few people did. They only had to do a little, the change in our culture has done a bit as well.

Something like that may be the only way to win against lavish spending by the enemy.

I am not being critical, organizing/training takes money and leadership. Yet those with the $ on the left seem to gravitate toward candidates rather than the people. Perhaps they have a strategy that is more selfish than inclusive. I don't see much real organizing and teaching except when they want a vote, and even then...




.

[HiPointDem]

15. That was the work that the CP did, and also unionists. It stopped being done as the unions

made the "grand bargain" with capital -- we'll give you labor if you'll give us regular raises (& give the bigshots a place at your table). And increasing wages & consumer goods made people "fat & lazy" thinking they had what they had because they were (individually) so clever, hard-working, smart, whatever.

Workers don't even think of themselves as workers anymore. They think they're not workers if they went to college, are professionals, are upper-middle class. They think of "workers" only as factory workers.

But as more people fall, they're less inclined to accept that they "deserve it" because they're not clever, hard-working, smart etc. enough. That's an easy attitude to take when you're riding high, but people are less likely to hold it when they're not.

[jtuck004]

17. "But as more people fall, they're less inclined to accept" We're on the same side, so please

understand why I am inclined to call "bullshit" on that.

I've read through a bit of history, and spent some time studying and (a little) organizing with some very effective people. I can find little to nothing that supports the idea that there is some innate rebellious streak in the masses. Sometimes people will run away from or mob up and kill oppressors (just replacing them), but there is nothing I have found that says they will confront and change it until they have verbalized, in their own words, language, and actions that there exists and they are the oppressed, and an oppressor exists greater than all their other tribulations, and that their condition is a direct result of the oppressor's actions.

What I do find is plenty of evidence that suggests a real political fight REQUIRES teaching, opening minds, organizing, all of which precedes any really effective action. Heck, this country's conception took place amid a huge training and educational effort, (when they could spare the time from killing the indigenous people with smallpox) albeit co-opted by capitalists from time-to-time.

Absent a real face-to-face educational effort the most likely course is that people will continue to serve the banks in a slow but sure decline of their standard of living, interrupted by bigger declines, a few mob actions.

Most everything we say now is framed in the language of our oppressors. We aren't even politically astute enough to address THAT. An example - education as a banking product. You don't need Paulo Freire to tell you we no longer talk about it as an investment in the security and wealth-creating capability of this country. You may not believe this, but we have Democrats (DEMOCRATS!) actually arguing to keep interest rates down on student loans, instead of orating about the return on investment we got from subsidies to the baby boomers. Instead we subsidize banks that are too-politically-connected-to-fail with about $14 Billion a year, while whole segments of the population are depleting the little bit they had for retirement.

Huh?

That work hasn't stopped. The right knows that they control the framing, and they educate every day without having to worry about it because there is nearly no real opposition acting as a barrier. A few talking heads on MSNBC, demonstrations and marches, a few laws get passed, mostly motivated by self-interest, with not a damn inkling that their self-interest is all tied up with everyone else's. Rights are important, but what good are they if you have no jobs or housing you can really call your own?

As you described, a bargain. What happens to Faust, I wonder?

[HiPointDem]

18. not saying they necessarily rebel. just that they stop believing in they myths of the ruling

order.

which manifests as cynicism, withdrawl of consent or willingness to sacrifice or extend oneself for the ruling order, etc.

[jtuck004]

19. They don't have the political language to describe what is happening to them, and until they

do, nothing changes. They only know words like employee, boss, betters, efficiency, lazy, time clock...oppressor/oppressed is not even in their vocabulary, and won't be until someone teaches them a language, let's them create pictures in their mind, mostly by letting them talk in a place where they can begin to identify that in their own life.

They are thoroughly embroiled in a world-view that teaches their fortune, or misfortune, is solely a product of their own making. They have no way to see the barriers placed around them, no way to call them what they are.

That will never change, not for an appreciable number, unless someone teaches them, whether it rises from books they have read or from a large educational effort.

[HiPointDem]

20. i don't disagree with you except that experience is a good teacher.

[HiPointDem]

14. Seems the skepticism about corporations was transferred to the government (at least until recently).

But it seems like all of labor history was disappeared after WW2, for most people.

I think it's weird how in the 50's the "average joe" was patriotic, trusted the government -- and there was a right fringe who felt basically the same except that it feared the "good" government was being infiltrated by "bad" communists.

Then in the 60s the left fringe turned that around -- the government was bad because it was controlled by business/wealth & used to amass power, turn people into machines, etc.

After that, the right fringe took the stance that government was bad, period. And that has become kind of a pervasive & mainstream sentiment on all sides.

[socialist_n_TN]

16. The distrust of government was cemented in the 60s/70s.......

for a large generation, the Baby Boomers. There were good reasons for this, the Vietnam War being the main one (it was the government that seemed to be hell-bent on trying to kill us after all), but the scandals of Nixon and the other clandestine governmental actions against the anti-war movement also contributed a large part to that distrust. The problem was that very few made the connection between the government and their owners, the capitalists who ruled behind the scenes. Actually the focus of the anger worked the way it was supposed to work, in that it took the anger of the populace and focused it on the front (in individual terms- the patsy), the government, and ignored the real power that actually controlled the government.

Fast forward a few years and Reagan was elected on the basis of hatred of all things governmental. Reagan found fertile ground for his anti-government crop of hatred among people who already had a distrust of government from the war and the scandals.

Ironically, it wasn't the generation that suffered the most from the war and the scandals that actually bought this load of bullshit whole-heartedly (IOW, it wasn't the Boomers), but it was the PREVIOUS generation who felt most betrayed BY the government. Disillusionment always runs strongest in the ones who trusted the most in what they become disillusioned about.

The generation who were the patriots in the 60s/70s were the ones who supported Reagan. The majority of Boomers, although they didn't support Reagan, didn't help because they were still disillusioned by the previous two decades. IOW, they didn't actively support Reagan, but they mostly sat politics out for the next few years which allowed Reagan and the anti-government meme to become strongly entrenched in the American mindset.

Of course the capitalists with all of their money and power were able to manipulate the public using a whole plethora of anti-governement memes and anecdotes about people who were actually helped by the government like the poor and people of color.

The one glaring positive that I see now, is that there is a revival of the knowledge that the government is merely a front for the capitalists' power behind the throne. Once enough people see that the economic, the political, and the social are ALL interconnected and ALL have to be fixed AT THE SAME TIME, then we (as a society) will have actually identified the problem. With that identification, the solutions become more obvious.

[TBF]

6. Same with my mom - they must be around the same age

When I excitedly told my mom about Occupy she said something like "oh we tried that - they killed kids at Kent State". She's a mainstream dem now, but she was pretty leftist in her youth - I remember her and my dad being the only votes for Jesse Jackson in our area when he ran in one of the primaries (must've been the 80s because I was still in Wisconsin then). Now she is focused on what is happening with Social Security and BadgerCare (which will be wiped out unless the state senate can slow down Walker).

[Starry Messenger]

9. Yeah, she's 68 now.

Funny thing, she and my dad were both big union-hating Reaganites for years. She moved to being a moderate Dem after they got divorced and Dan Quayle made that crack about single moms. She's always had kind of a distaste for hippies and counter-culture people. She actually moved *out* of the Haight in the Summer of Love, lol. But she grew up really really poor in Butte, which has a working class tradition. She talks more now about her memories about bringing extra sandwiches to school for kids whose parents were out on strike from the mines. I've always suspected she had a latent subversive streak and it is coming out more now.

[TBF]

10. Mine too - 68

but will be 69 this fall. She was from a pretty well off farm family, but she was the oldest and had to work pretty hard on the farm growing up. They were democrats and then she married my dad, a union worker. I was probably the most conservative person in our house when I was growing up in the 80s - I bought into all that "you can grow up to be whatever you want if you work hard" stuff even as I painted strike signs with them. But as they say good breeding wins out, in this case it didn't take me long when I got to Washington DC to see it was all a bunch of hooey. It's fine to be smart, but it's still a mountain to climb when you're competing against the kids who come in with the Ivy League educations and trust funds. I worked hard and still needed 2 jobs to pay my rent ... nobody was paying it for me (unlike many of my new friends). The higher I got in the corporate chain the more liberal I became ... because you actually find out what they say about workers once you are allowed into the board room.

[white_wolf]

11. You know, if we could record some of those board room meetings, it would be great propaganda..

I bet they say some pretty awful things about workers in there.

[TBF]

12. It's not really petty from what I saw -

just very matter-of-fact about saving the company and keeping partner profits intact (law firms) or keeping their share high (private firms). Very blatant about doing layoffs to influence the views on the Street, etc... Also they are usually very removed from having to deal with actually firing someone unless it is high level. They will just tell the VP's to have every department head cut 30% or whatever.

When I worked at a company that was doing a plant closing it was even more blatant though - I remember a secretary coming to me one morning after she had opened a budget sent to her boss the CFO (she opened all his email as directed and then forwarded it to him in order of importance). On the new budget her position was eliminated in the next quarter, which she was not expecting (she thought she'd be there for the duration of the year as they closed down the plant bit by bit). So we did her resume that morning and I helped her get in touch with a recruiter etc... it was ridiculous. She made all of 35K or so ... and yet he misled her on how long he needed her so she wouldn't proactively leave. Asshole.