Chomsky writes: "If you're a serious revolutionary, then you are not looking for an autocratic revolution, but a popular one which will move towards freedom and democracy."
Noam Chomsky has been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)
May Day
29 April 12
eople seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That's because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning. For example, Ronald Reagan designated what he called "Law Day" -- a day of jingoist fanaticism, like an extra twist of the knife in the labor movement. Today, there is a renewed awareness, energized by the Occupy movement's organizing, around May Day, and its relevance for reform and perhaps eventual revolution.
If you're a serious revolutionary, then you are not looking for an autocratic revolution, but a popular one which will move towards freedom and democracy. That can take place only if a mass of the population is implementing it, carrying it out, and solving problems. They're not going to undertake that commitment, understandably, unless they have discovered for themselves that there are limits to reform.
A sensible revolutionary will try to push reform to the limits, for two good reasons. First, because the reforms can be valuable in themselves. People should have an eight-hour day rather than a twelve-hour day. And in general, we should want to act in accord with decent ethical values.
Secondly, on strategic grounds, you have to show that there are limits to reform. Perhaps sometimes the system will accommodate to needed reforms. If so, well and good. But if it won't, then new questions arise. Perhaps that is a moment when resistance is necessary, steps to overcome the barriers to justified changes. Perhaps the time has come to resort to coercive measures in defense of rights and justice, a form of self-defense. Unless the general population recognizes such measures to be a form of self-defense, they're not going to take part in them, at least they shouldn't.
If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions.
May Day started here, but then became an international day in support of American workers who were being subjected to brutal violence and judicial punishment.
Today, the struggle continues to celebrate May Day not as a "law day" as defined by political leaders, but as a day whose meaning is decided by the people, a day rooted in organizing and working for a better future for the whole of society.
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Our corporatized nation will always attempt to keep the overwhelming majority in a state of ignorant bliss. "Occupy" may have been a good start to cracking the shell of ignorance,howev er, MSN never has really covered this movement with the fairness and respect it deserves. It always seemed as if their coverage was of an "us versus those unemployed radicals" mind set-intended,of course, to sway the minds of the white working class against "Occupy." Convincing an angry white working class that a leftist movement is for their best interests is very challenging. The message is always a bit muddled, while the right wing nationalists (Tea Party)keep it real simple for the angry masses.
Occupy!
So ends the joy of life and the May Pole and all things related. That is the course folks have set for themselves. Rather than children celebrating with ribbons and flowers, we hurt and protest. Do you realize that it hasn't been very many years since American schools actually held that day as a celebration?
No civilized society exists without taxes,in one form or another. To think we will never again raise taxes is foolish. For rich , powerful people to think this country is here for them alone is selfish and fails to recognize the true "power of the people". Vote and save this country.
Hmm. May I make an observation? Thank you: Did you work hard in your tax payer funded english classes? I am thinking that you are a pot calling a kettle black. Perhaps some truth in that?
Note my corrections.
We have to set the example in many ways, people.
Perhaps Banks needing bailouts are also not working and bludging, ior perhaps they are all symptoms not causes as you suggest.
Other problems now await the attention of Civilization.
Chomsky talks big but ignores big things tht need to be addressed...lik e Charley Taylor's inflicting a new Holocaust in Africa and other events that seem not to qualify for his narcissistic rhetoric." I pointed out that Chomsky "ignores" Charley Taylor because it's an issue that is being taken care of and has nothing whatsoever to do with his essay, not because of Chomsky's "narcissistic rhetoric." I was pointing out that joehonick is wrong, and you accuse me of making an imaginary implication about the International Court. That's a pretty big leap!
But, without you doing your part, Occupy can not make it happen. Please join the nearest group, and work to take back your country. Yes, it still is your country, but it won't be if we fail to turn back the corporate take down of democracy.
OCCUPY LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!!!
If you mean socialist track, like we are all citizens and should be treated equal, or at least have equal opportunity...t hen call me a Socialist-Democ rat...names don't hurt me. I desire a better society for all.
The one thing I regret in the brief statement here is that it seems to leave open the door to violence. The great insight of the Buddha, of Jesus, of MLK, is that a resort to violence is a surrender on the part of the would-be reformer. The "reformer" has begun speaking the language of the oppressor. History shows that conversion to the language and rationalization s of the oppressor invariably paves the way for further oppression. We're back where we started--with a mere change in personnel.
Let "We the People" be represented again, not those dogs who fight over us and all we have and are as if we were bones.
Right now, there's a conservative, somewhere, typing just exactly the opposite of what I write. This won't be easy, but we need to go out and just do what we do - and do it better and more often.
Let it be known that the 1st of May was not a spontaneous uprising. It was a protest that began with at least a year or so of organizing and demands for a decent work day and conditions. It was not even a full blast walk out, nor the occupation of factories. It was a parade with speeches in the evening and then the police began an attack on a peaceful crowd. Propaganda has it that the police were responding to arms and bombs, but what started the violence was "preemptive" police rioting not unlike we see in some efforts to break up the "Occupy" presence.
But revolution would not be easy. The entire Homeland Security system, including militarized police, extensive domestic spying powers, and the biggest incarceration system in the world, will be turned full force against anyone who truly threatens the system. Only if huge numbers of people join together can we fight forces like that.
We have witnessed our constitution amended and abridged by the supreme court and congress, and although many of those changes (ie Patriot Act) may need to be reascended and outlawed, we must always keep in mind that times change and citizen's lifestyles and beliefs change as well. Laws need to keep pace with evolving changes, but those changes should not be left to the whim of congress without it really being mandated by popular support.
"I believe most Americans have limited knowledge about May Day"
please!
Most Americans have a limited knowledge
about everything!
The average American is as complacent as
a seriously, senile, elderly person being fed by an equally complacent media.
And how can it be different, when the
very few investigative journalists are
mostly writing for the alternative media
that the average American never reads.
Lenin believed that day would be too long in coming; that the revolution had to be organized and implemented by a cadre of revolutionaries.
With today's technology in the hands of the state, I do not see Lenin's method as a possibility. The leaders and their cadre would be rounded up and sent to Uzbekistan for the tender mercies of the Empire's friend, PM Mirziyoyev.
Chomsky's approach seems like Marx's. What was it H.L. Mencken said, "Never overestimate the intelligence of the average American!" Maybe Chomsky forgot that.
If democracy is to bloom again, I think it will first have to be nourished in more fertile soil; maybe in a Latin American country.
Have you not noticed that the tremendous increase in our debt under Obama (see Cloward-Piven theorum) has put us under attack by China and other countries who want to remove the dollar as the world reserve currency, which would remove the safety net that is keeping the dollar from free-falling and throwing us into a hyperinflationa ry, ruinous economic situation. No country in history has ever recovered from borrowing more than 50% of its debt wihout a crash of its currency, the loss of EVERYONE's savings (except the politicians and bankers), the devaluation of buying power, and severe shortages in basic goods that our worthless dollar can no longer buy. Welvome to third world America, Socialist Utopia.
The systems of Socialism and Communism are not wrong in themselves, it's just that they are co-opted by those who use them to gain personal power. "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.", is a beautiful idea that must be implemented by people whose characters are just as beautiful.
Learn the drill - and BE part of it.
"I think it is going to take a revolution, or something very close,
to make the changes that must be made to save our country....
Only if huge numbers of people join
together can we fight forces like that"
OCCUPY OCCUPY OCCUPY !
Gandhi style:
Step 1: sit down and get arrested
PEACEFULLY.
Step 2: when released after a few hours
repeat Step 1.
Where will they put all these people?
Guantanamo?
Concentration Camps?
and show their true face.
Overload the whole system!
(Please google Gandhi and see how he managed)
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
-- Adolf Hitler Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by John Toland, Adolf Hitler (1976, p. 236).
Hitler's first act as German chancellor was to make May 1 a national holiday.
Here are some more inconvenient facts of history regarding socialists Hitler, Marx, and Engels of which you are also no doubt unaware:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3uFUxMwA1w&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6FB95CEDFF22BB3E
This above YouTube video excerpt features Professor George Watson, St. Johns College, Cambridge. Watson is the author of The Lost Literature of Socialism, discussed in the article below:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/burris/burris15.1.html
Rotten analogy devoid of historical knowledge, I.V.
Readers should consider the creation of Hitler's National Socialist Party, Soviet Socialist Party and American unions were founded and supported by the Illuminati. The Illuminati's ultimate goal is to unify everyone globally and thus creating a global social order. Is it any wonder that May Day is an international holiday?
If Illuminati has their way, there will be many more global holidays and mutual celebrations commemorating this new order which has been in the works since Weishaupt's creation of the Illuminati. That new order of course is the New World Order which is now a subject openly declared by both George Bush's, Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and a few other notable figures.
May Day commemorates the beginning of this new social order, not what we all think it commemorates.
set your own agenda apart from the bureau. Chomsky seems to have forgotten...
Overproducing means export surplus or die. Export unbalances domestic consumption in other countries developing to achieve the same full employment and a profit share for Capital. Banana republics can't consume Developed World surplus.
The revolution that is forthcoming is the Un-Industrial Revolution, or War the destroy for new consumption demand.
I thank you for the honour which you have done me by sending me your great work on Capital; & I heartily wish that I was more worthy to receive it, by understanding more of the deep and important subject of political Economy. Though our studies have been so different, I believe that we both earnestly desire the extension of Knowledge, & that this is in the long run sure to add to the happiness of Mankind.
I remain, Dear Sir
Yours faithfully,
Charles Darwin
Darwin's wife's objection to Marx was that he was an atheist and had nothing to do with his ideas on political economy so this point is both highly misleading and seems hardly relevant at all. As for "Marx wanting to use Darwin's Theory of Evolutioon to his benefit" i presume you are referring to the myth that Marx wanted to dedicate Das Capital (or at least Volume 2) to Darwin...sorry, but this is myth (i.e., wrong, didn't happen) and not history -- see e.g., http://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/2000/marx
Add together divisions caused by politics, religion, race, and gender, and unity seems all but impossible.
All legitimacy in our country derives from the consent of the governed. This was asserted in the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776 in its second paragraph. That consent was achieved in 1789 through the ratification of the new Constitution of the United States, and that ratification was based on the promise of guaranteed rights to be amended to the Constitution. They were amended among the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights.
Now and since the presidencies especially of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama, many of those promised rights in the Bill have been weakened to the point of futility.
The Constitution is no longer our principal law. It is being ignored by all three branches of our government. Therefore, there is no longer the consent of the governed for which the separation from British rule was fought.
The government of the United States is now an illegitimate government. It rules not by law but by force!
Hitler "borrowed" most of his symbolism, such the swastika, from other cultures. He also borrowed May Day and spoke of Socialism and rejection of Capitalism however where did he get the money for his re-armament, for the building of the new state buildings and the payment of the SS and army?
It was from the Capitalists,Kru pp and the rest of the German military/indust rial complex as well as financing from the Union Bank in New York, with members of the Bush family as directors.
I am so fed up with references to Hitler and the NAZIs, as if they had something good to offer that we are overlooking!
Ask Ralph Nader about getting on state ballots. He could tell you what a fight that is.
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