Information War wants to be free
to serve the struggle to end bourgeois rule
to serve the struggle to end bourgeois rule
The Nature of Our Coming Victory (Letter to comrade X)
The Nature of Our Coming Victory
(Letter to comrade X)
-- Part 1 --
The Ideological Core of Our Movement
Introducing a Public Correspondence
The revolutionary movement has a rich tradition of both public and private
correspondence. Generally, public letters have been reserved for either:
(a) criticism and/or disagreements or (b) things which were especially
important.
I am writing a letter to comrade X for a different reason.
Basically, (1) I need someone to talk to and (2) I need to "warm up"
with public comments on a variety of issues related to the struggle
within our movement to understand the nature of our most decisive tasks.
My regular readers (all two or three of them) will understand who comrade
X is. I am only only calling him "X" (for now) as a temporary concession
to the expectations of a revolutionary community which I believe is still
getting used to the idea of correspondence which is both public and casual.
This correspondence will develop, I hope, over time. My contributions
will be in installments. Readers are welcome to comment (and I will post
any email which has the word "public" in the title).
The first installment (below) is adapted from a private email exchange.
The social democrats come at us from every angle.
We defeat them once and they pop back up the next day.
We will get used to this.
They would prefer to ignore us--but the logic of the class struggle
compels them to attack.
If we consider each attack to be like a single drop of rain, then we may
be lucky enough to experience a continuous storm for the next several years.
At least that is my hope.
They only attack us with such viciousness when we are winning.
Do they attack when we're winning or when they think
the movement is starting to die out so they expect to come in
like vultures to pick off new activists to staff their projects?
From the limited and restricted perspective of some of these groups,
they may come in like vultures.
But, in that case, their actions would be more like a mopping up operation
than an attack of significance.
From a larger, class view, they will attack when the bourgeoisie most needs
them to attack (or when they think we are vulnerable and weak--and there is
therefore good opportunities and little risk in attacking us).
I believe the bourgeoisie, most likely, understands quite well that we are
not as weak as they would like us to believe. (Of course, they may be
underestimating us--but we should never count on this.)
Generally, the social democrats risk exposure (which makes them useless)
when they attack us. So the bourgeoisie has a cost, an expense, a "burn rate"
(to use the language of venture capital) in which its reserves of social democratic
credibility get consumed when they attack us. So they will not be inclined to
attack carelessly and waste resources. Wars of any sort (including ideological
wars) are generally organized around campaigns: organized concentrations of
resources with definite objectives.
The bourgeoisie is waging a counter-offensive against us. If a critical mass
of advanced activists understand the nature of this counter-offensive and the
decisive tasks in defeating it--we can certainly make it work to our advantage.
We are in a knife fight. But we have a gun in our hands. We just need to
understand what it is and how to use it. We need a critical mass of activists
who understand who and what our enemy is, and who have made up their
mind that life demands that we aim the gun and pull the trigger.
All the conditions for this to happen are maturing.
The "gun", so to speak, is the weapon of information war (understood as a war
of ideas, organized on a mass scale).
Are we still winning?
This depends entirely on our perspective.
If we are focused on the most concrete and visible actions that are relatively easy
to see and understand and which take place on a daily or weekly timeframe, then
some days we win and some days we lose (and some days we do both).
But from the perspective of the development of a healthy, powerful and conscious
movement of the masses--we are certainly kicking butt big time.
A section of activists is beginning to understand that the social-democratic attacks
we are experiencing are not unfortunate or random events--but are useful ways of
raising our consciousness in ways that will help us understand the nature of our
most fundamental and decisive work.
The Occupy movement experienced a defeat in terms of maintaining encampments.
Generally, this was inevitable in the present conditions. The initial attacks of the
bourgeoisie (based mainly on suppression by the police) failed. Their second round
of attacks was far better organized after the bourgeoisie first took the time to organize their
immense social-democratic resources for an ideological counter-offensive. That is what
(to give one example) the Stranger's town hall meeting was all about: either give in to them
or they will do their best to make us look "smelly" and clueless.
Most activists around the movement did not clearly understand the nature of this offensive
and how to fight back.
But what is GOOD in the present conditions--is we cannot advance forward WITHOUT
fighting back. Most activists have little stomach (in normal conditions) for fighting back
against social democracy (they mistakenly think we should be engaged in "winning over"
these scorpions). This is the class meaning (in many cases) of clueless slogans like
"Unite All Who Can Be United".
The ideological core of our movement revolves around two fundamental ideas:
(1) We (the working class and oppressed) need to overthrow the system of bourgeoise
.... rule, run society ourselves and begin the lengthy transition to an economy which is
.... not based on commodity production.
(2) We need to build a MACHINE that will allow us to mobilize millions for this purpose.
This machine is sometimes called a "party". But the groups today which use the word
"party" use this word to describe either (a) a fortress-like, isolating prison or (b) a weapon
of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. SAIC-CVO is an example of the first usage,
and the ISO and SA are examples of the second.
Real progress, at this time, will require that we decisively confront and resolve the Augean
Stables' worth of contradictions that have piled up over these questions during the last 90
years.
If we are determined to win--we must understand our weaknesses and overcome them.
The simple truth is that, when we do this, we will discover that we hold a weapon in
our hands that is powerful beyond imagination.
All the best,
Ben
--[]--
(Letter to comrade X)
-- Part 1 --
The Ideological Core of Our Movement
Introducing a Public Correspondence
The revolutionary movement has a rich tradition of both public and private
correspondence. Generally, public letters have been reserved for either:
(a) criticism and/or disagreements or (b) things which were especially
important.
I am writing a letter to comrade X for a different reason.
Basically, (1) I need someone to talk to and (2) I need to "warm up"
with public comments on a variety of issues related to the struggle
within our movement to understand the nature of our most decisive tasks.
My regular readers (all two or three of them) will understand who comrade
X is. I am only only calling him "X" (for now) as a temporary concession
to the expectations of a revolutionary community which I believe is still
getting used to the idea of correspondence which is both public and casual.
This correspondence will develop, I hope, over time. My contributions
will be in installments. Readers are welcome to comment (and I will post
any email which has the word "public" in the title).
The first installment (below) is adapted from a private email exchange.
The social democrats come at us from every angle.
We defeat them once and they pop back up the next day.
We will get used to this.
They would prefer to ignore us--but the logic of the class struggle
compels them to attack.
If we consider each attack to be like a single drop of rain, then we may
be lucky enough to experience a continuous storm for the next several years.
At least that is my hope.
They only attack us with such viciousness when we are winning.
Do they attack when we're winning or when they think
the movement is starting to die out so they expect to come in
like vultures to pick off new activists to staff their projects?
From the limited and restricted perspective of some of these groups,
they may come in like vultures.
But, in that case, their actions would be more like a mopping up operation
than an attack of significance.
From a larger, class view, they will attack when the bourgeoisie most needs
them to attack (or when they think we are vulnerable and weak--and there is
therefore good opportunities and little risk in attacking us).
I believe the bourgeoisie, most likely, understands quite well that we are
not as weak as they would like us to believe. (Of course, they may be
underestimating us--but we should never count on this.)
Generally, the social democrats risk exposure (which makes them useless)
when they attack us. So the bourgeoisie has a cost, an expense, a "burn rate"
(to use the language of venture capital) in which its reserves of social democratic
credibility get consumed when they attack us. So they will not be inclined to
attack carelessly and waste resources. Wars of any sort (including ideological
wars) are generally organized around campaigns: organized concentrations of
resources with definite objectives.
The bourgeoisie is waging a counter-offensive against us. If a critical mass
of advanced activists understand the nature of this counter-offensive and the
decisive tasks in defeating it--we can certainly make it work to our advantage.
We are in a knife fight. But we have a gun in our hands. We just need to
understand what it is and how to use it. We need a critical mass of activists
who understand who and what our enemy is, and who have made up their
mind that life demands that we aim the gun and pull the trigger.
All the conditions for this to happen are maturing.
The "gun", so to speak, is the weapon of information war (understood as a war
of ideas, organized on a mass scale).
Are we still winning?
This depends entirely on our perspective.
If we are focused on the most concrete and visible actions that are relatively easy
to see and understand and which take place on a daily or weekly timeframe, then
some days we win and some days we lose (and some days we do both).
But from the perspective of the development of a healthy, powerful and conscious
movement of the masses--we are certainly kicking butt big time.
A section of activists is beginning to understand that the social-democratic attacks
we are experiencing are not unfortunate or random events--but are useful ways of
raising our consciousness in ways that will help us understand the nature of our
most fundamental and decisive work.
The Occupy movement experienced a defeat in terms of maintaining encampments.
Generally, this was inevitable in the present conditions. The initial attacks of the
bourgeoisie (based mainly on suppression by the police) failed. Their second round
of attacks was far better organized after the bourgeoisie first took the time to organize their
immense social-democratic resources for an ideological counter-offensive. That is what
(to give one example) the Stranger's town hall meeting was all about: either give in to them
or they will do their best to make us look "smelly" and clueless.
Most activists around the movement did not clearly understand the nature of this offensive
and how to fight back.
But what is GOOD in the present conditions--is we cannot advance forward WITHOUT
fighting back. Most activists have little stomach (in normal conditions) for fighting back
against social democracy (they mistakenly think we should be engaged in "winning over"
these scorpions). This is the class meaning (in many cases) of clueless slogans like
"Unite All Who Can Be United".
The ideological core of our movement
Deathstalker scorpion--We cannot "win it over"
The ideological core of our movement revolves around two fundamental ideas:
(1) We (the working class and oppressed) need to overthrow the system of bourgeoise
.... rule, run society ourselves and begin the lengthy transition to an economy which is
.... not based on commodity production.
(2) We need to build a MACHINE that will allow us to mobilize millions for this purpose.
This machine is sometimes called a "party". But the groups today which use the word
"party" use this word to describe either (a) a fortress-like, isolating prison or (b) a weapon
of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. SAIC-CVO is an example of the first usage,
and the ISO and SA are examples of the second.
Real progress, at this time, will require that we decisively confront and resolve the Augean
Stables' worth of contradictions that have piled up over these questions during the last 90
years.
Hercules rerouting the rivers Alpheus and
Peneus to clean up the Augean Stables
(Roman mosaic, 3rd century AD)
We have suffered defeats because of our weaknesses.
A more modern image of
the amazing feat of Hercules
If we are determined to win--we must understand our weaknesses and overcome them.
The simple truth is that, when we do this, we will discover that we hold a weapon in
our hands that is powerful beyond imagination.
All the best,
Ben
--[]--
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