To get you all up to speed - I consider myself a "commie agitator", a Marxist, and someone who detests intellectual conceit. I have also been active for around 2 years campaigning to get rid of this inhumane system called capitalism. I am under no illusions that the "revolution" is just around the corner, but I do understand why capitalism will never solve human misery. I love being an activist, I hate capitalism.I've also been following this site for about 2 years now and it's always interesting to see the ideas that come up. The funniest and most interesting are always when the fruit-cakes (like Rick the little Nazi) try to "tell it like it is". It's the responses to these dickheads that I like to follow as this tells volumes about what people are trying to do in response to populist, ultra right wing ideas.
To put this into perspective, in Queensland, Australia (where I live), a racist, nationalist, populist, right winger called Pauline Hanson has led her party, One Nation, to a reasonable electoral success in our recent state elections. People here (and all around the world) are sick and tired of economic insecurity, cuts to social services, and high unemployment. This situation is the result of an economic rationalist agenda (neo-liberalism) that is a world wide phenomenon -it's only now causing a reaction down under. Everybody here is scratching their heads about what to do. Resistance thinks we know what to do- but how do we know?
I want to throw down a challenge to everyone who considers that they are trying to change the world. This includes anyone who is: politically minded, active, socially aware, etc.
This is the question. Who has a forum to be WRONG in?
Who here regularly gets together with like-minded people, with established democratic organisational principles, and discusses their recent attempts to agitate, organise and educate those members of the masses that are on the streets in every city in the world?
Who here has discussed for a finite amount of time, our genuine attempts to convince people that already know there is something wrong in the world (ie they know to some degree that the system we are all forced to live by, the system of capitalism, is stuffed) that they should get active and do something about it?
And most importantly, who here has taken the final deciding democratic vote, and no matter which "side" you were on (ie the majority vote, or the minority), you were still disciplined enough to carry out the wishes of the majority. I want to repeat that this is in the framework of an organisation of like minded people - ie you agree in principle of what you are trying to achieve (in my case socialism) but all the fine tuning of activity and strategy has to be constantly worked out and decided on. I am specifically NOT talking about parliamentary politics.
I am not directing this question at the little Hitlers of the world. This question is for everyone else!
The reason I ask this? The reason is - there is so much bullshit! - there are so many people involved in "doing something" who are just pissing in the wind. There are so many arm-chair politicians who've never tested their ideas out in public. There are so many activists who will never know that their activities are pointless. This is called (to Marxists and others) petty bourgeois individualism, or, more simply, "I'm right - you're wrong."
Get off your high horse and get out in the streets and agitate!
But then, return to the other people you do it with and work out the best way to move forward!
In other words - in order to change the world, you must try to understand it. In order to understand the world, you must try to change it. Anything else is just not good enough.
To finish off with a quote from the guy who decided to not leave things up to chance. This guy worked out a scientific way to get rid of capitalism. This guy's first name is Karl. He said this a long time ago, but it rings true today like it was yesterday.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world. However, the point is to change it."
The point for those who do want to change the world - being wrong (or the potential to be wrong) is: human, inevitable, educational, and necessary.
