Nearly 35 million people (left axis).

http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/129/US_FOODST1209.gif

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

the Old Mans way is better

You are saying here that Marx has something powerful to say about objective reality, which we can observe independently for ourselves.

I thought we were all supposed to just get into lockstep, be force fed the one true theory, and "believe" things solely because Marx said them, and then make the facts all fit the theory so that we can then effectively sell people on our doctrine. You know, because we can't get laid and have bad attitudes and probably need medication.

We don't need no stinkin' conspiracy theories - we got reality reaching down our ill-nourished throats. Somethin's gotta give...

At almost 50, I can still get laid.

Check out this thread Rocky and tell what you think -

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=103909

Here is a discussion about it (maybe, we'll see) at Andrea's board -

http://oldelmtree.com/discussion/index.php/topic,5113.0.html

I'm working through it right now.

I've come to the conclusion that nothing will be done through the usual channels, and I like the idea of moving beyond the normal channels of the protest movement.

My problem remains the same on many of these philosophical and political discussions; when are we going to do something and stop talking. Sometimes I think the Internet is a double edged sword, giving us a valuable means to connect all the while keeping us at home.

Blockade the Mississippi? I'm there, send me some bus fair. My neighbor across the street is being foreclosed on. This guy is more than my neighbor, he's the friend I smoke a blunt with almost every night on his front porch and I beg him to let me organize, I tell him we'll occupy the house so they don't have to leave, but he's happy to just move along. Him and his wife and 5 boys, one less than a year old, all beaten by a hand that I can't bite. He knows he can't bite it and he seems more okay with that than I am.

As a people we are docile. It's not bad enough, for enough of us to get pissed off yet. I'm afraid by the time it is that bad we'll all have lost our high speed connection and have no idea how to talk face to face. No one will dare make a cocktail.

Right now, my place is in the tall grass. I write a little, piss off a few, connect with a couple and read. And I read. And then I read some more. I watch and wait from here for a sign. I know this, it's been too long for me, more than 10 years now, since I've been carried away by riot police, and I have an itch.

I just want it to mean something when I scratch.

One problem with the article? Too many big and high minded words. And it's two fucking long. The Gettysburg address was 266 words. Ten commandments? 143. You want to attract the people who will take a baton to the side of the head? Appeal to the rightful outrage and the true emotion of the people. Write for fourth graders, like me. Forget the comfortable college punks in the Che t-shirts, piss on them and they run like little boys.

That would be a start.

but that the bolded parts were the best part. They were succinct, and open to a more radical interpretation than the author himself lent them.

And it goes to show that radical points don't have to be long winded or complicated. Capitalism and it's bastard offspring have been deluding and fooling the people for years by putting counterproductive thoughts into simple, catchy slogans and we eat it up.

Change.

Hope.

Two all beef patties...

Which always leads too...

I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

They do it because it works. They do it because they aren't trying to impress, they are trying to profit.

So make the ideas simple. Say them over and over, again and again. Make them fucking rhyme if you have to, but make them words that are productive to the People. It's been done only a few times by the people, but it worked then, and it can work now.

Black is Beautiful

Make love not war

Yes we can (the original)

Hey, hey LBJ...

I don't know the words. I'd like to try a few out, roll them around in my mouth. Actually say them in front of people and see how they sound out loud and not just read off of a computer screen.

Find those words. Those few words, and then those few hundred, maybe even two hundred words to expand on it, and that begins the movement. Let the leaders and those so inclined read the long tombs and agonize over the words, let the People shout the words. Let them put the words into action.

That is what we need to be doing.

It meanders all over the place and is long-winded. I bolded what I thought was the good stuff in it.

Perhaps the mass audience is not "ready" to have Marx rubbed in their faces, but I think the above is at once succinct and also, as Mike said, a clear tying of the old to the present.

And whether they're ready or not, they need a little Marx rubbed in their faces. Just like Mike now agrees he needed some "theory."

Good post.

...or turn it into a slogan, you have to know what it is first.

Land, Peace, Bread.

.

(And I also feel a bit like we're hijacking this thread because Mike and I started jawing at each other. So, sorry to the op for that.)

I've never read Marx. I saw the movie Reds, is it kind of like that? I know no one in my neighborhood has read Marx either, in fact if they would recognize the name Marx at all, they'd be thinking Richard, pop hero of the 80s.

Not to diminish Marx, I know he was a pretty big deal and you and Mike understand the jokes about him here, but I really don't.

I'm not trying to offend, but when you reference Marx in a joke to me, I can't say anything but duh. It's certainly my lacking, not yours. My point about my neighborhood, is these are the pots that need to be boiled, and they won't be boiled by Marx, but maybe by his ideas. I just don't really know them yet.

Almost many slogans in themselves.

I was at one time arguing along the lines of what you are saying here, that we don't need theory, we need action and we need to relate to every day people. Since then I have seen the power of Marx's work as an analytical tool to understand what is happening. I had read Marx and thought I knew it, so it has been an eye-opener and very much worthwhile to work through it here with the others. I wouldn't run around "preaching Marx" to your neighbors, but without it I don't see how we could accurately perceive and interpret what is happening.

I hijack every thread I post on, so you can blame me and no worries.

The movie Reds was based on the book Ten Days That Shook the World
by John Reed. Here is a brief excerpt from the book that you might get a kick out of:

http://socialistindependent.org/reed07.htm

In fact, I'd argue you are making the point anaxarchos did in his reply.

And, though he is as usual, right - I'd suggest that you make the point mo betta.

IDEAS

Well, actually not mere ideas...

Rather, constructs.

Observations.

That is what, via the slogan you rightly point out as being necessary, are what need to go out to the people.

I have had a years long correspondence with a much-loved former coworker is a veritable poster child for southern racist redneck right winger. Natch, we still can't be said to agree on everything. Still though, I copped the OP for a bit o' spam this morning as I often do with these gems.

My friend's response was what I expected and have been getting over the last year or so from him: "They ALL suck."

He is a nihilist and don't even know the term. And, as only I can, I know that I have had just a bit to do with it alongside the narrative of his personal experiences over the years we've known one another and discussed at great length our views on politics and economics and religion and on and on. I have not only this pleasure but also the smug wonderfulness of saying "Told ya so" when he and his wife - whom I have also been close with and enjoyed for a time an independent, private dialogue - when they finally worked their shit out and renewed their marital commitment after much mutual mistreatment and, too often well-placed, mistrust.

It may not be outright class war, but I know if it came down to it that my buddy and I would not find ourselves on opposite sides of the field. He'd never cop to being a leftist, but he totally understands my criticisms of both libs and cons. And he has taken them as his own. It ain't about adopting a label or a brash handle like mine. It is, at least at this time, about adopting and spreading a thoroughly and harshly critical take on all that prevails in our time.

He's done that and in a striking, refreshing way. I'd bet a pocketful he'd be a teabagger were it not for the consequences of our dialogue.

That is, as it were, striking progress. Even as he still harbors racist suspicions and a disdain for the theoretical notions of class. He don't need "theory," he's lived it. And he's a case study in the kinda transformation I pray will be writ large on our society.

That all said, you are a different animal. And you oughtta avail yourself of some of the old man's statements/criticism. You're obviously more open to it, more capable of absorbing it as a tool of much needed agitprop, and you have a truly terrible take on what can be done with it (and that ain't no joke either - I totally agree w/ BP's assessment of your post above. Totally).

Cheers

"we read so you don't have to", you've erred greatly

There is no other way to develop a framework for understanding the world; there is nothing else that will see us through when we're collectively (and individually) getting our asses kicked, there is nothing else that period.

I can read. I can write. I can see, hear and reason. I can knock a guy in the head and I can take a knock to the head, if I have to.

You don't need to know Marx to know how to lock and chain yourself to a bank door. You don't have to love the old man to lay down in front of a riot squad.

No other way? So in order to start a movement, we must sit down a few million people who may have negligible reading skills in the first place, then you keep waiting for your movement to start.

I read Zinn, I read Howard Fast, I try to read Chomsky but he's so long winded I just want to smack him.

You have it wrong my friend. Hungry people can not eat the pages of your book, and you're not going to tell them they need to fine tune their understanding of the world.

Reading is good, in fact it's fundamental. Now that you've all read this magical book, what's next?

is you can go into the streets and fight and chain yourself to the bank doors and all of that, but if you don't know why you are doing it, it will become a tool against you. We need to fight for food, clothing and shelter; fight for a livelihood and for the kids education; fight for health care, fairness, justice, honesty; fight for people to be treated like human beings and not cattle. But the way you fight for that is not just to run down into the streets and start swinging, you got to know what you are doing and why and the goals you are fighting for. A framework to put all that in is what Marx gives you. I think that is what is being said...

Basically, the way people learn, by observation and participation. And that's what were trying to do. That's what we got to do here in this community. And a lot of people don't understand, but there's three basic things that you got to do anytime you intend to have yourself a successful revolution.

A lot of people get the word revolution mixed up and they think revolutions a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having a sore on your body and then you put something on that sore to cure that infection. And Im telling you that were living in an infectious society right now. Im telling you that were living in a sick society. And anybody that endorses integrating into this sick society before its cleaned up is a man whos committing a crime against the people.

If you walk past a hospital room and see a sign that says "Contaminated" and then you try to lead people into that room, either those people are mighty dumb, you understand me, cause if they weren't, they'd tell you that you are an unfair, unjust leader that does not have your followers' interests in mind. And what were saying is simply that leaders have got to become, we've got to start making them accountable for what they do. They're goin' around talking about so-and-so's an Uncle Tom so we're gonna open up a cultural center and teach him what blackness is. And this n****r is more aware than you and me and Malcolm and Martin Luther King and everybody else put together. That's right. They're the ones that are most aware. They're most aware, cause they're the ones that are gonna open up the center. They're gonna tell you where bones come from in Africa that you can't even pronounce the names. Thats right. They'll be telling you about Chaka, the leader of the Bantu freedom fighters, and Jomo Kenyatta, those dingo-dingas. They'll be running all of that down to you. They know about it all. But the point is they do what they're doing because it is beneficial and it is profitable for them.

You see, people get involved in a lot of things that's profitable to them, and we've got to make it less profitable. We've got to make it less beneficial. I'm saying that any program that's brought into our community should be analyzed by the people of that community. It should be analyzed to see that it meets the relevant needs of that community. We don't need no n*****s coming into our community to be having no company to open business for the n*****s. There's too many n*****s in our community that can't get crackers out of the business that they're gonna open.

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you do'nt fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

We ain't gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we're gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we're gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That's what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.

We have to understand very clearly that there's a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's black and sometimes he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist. And we don't care how many programs they have, how long a dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. It flows from the barrel of a gun!

A lot of us running around talking about politics don't even know what politics is. Did you ever see something and pull it and you take it as far as you can and it almost outstretches itself and it goes into something else? If you take it so far that it is two things? As a matter of fact, some things if you stretch it so far, it'll be another thing. Did you ever cook something so long that it turns into something else? Ain't that right?

That's what were talking about with politics.

That politics ain't nothing, but if you stretch it so long that it can't go no further, then you know what you got on your hands? You got an antagonistic contradiction. And when you take that contradiction to the highest level and stretch it as far as you can stretch it, you got what you call war. Politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed. If you don't understand that, you can be a Democrat, Republican, you can be Independent, you can be anything you want to, you ain't nothing.

We don't want any of those n*****s and any of these hunkies and nobody else, radicals or nobody talking about, "I'm on the Independence ticket." That means you sell out the republicans; Independent means you're out for graft and you'll sell out to the highest bidder. You understand?

We want people who want to run on the People's Party, because the people are gonna run it whether they like it or not. The people have proved that they can run it. They run it in China, they're gonna run it right here. They can call it what they want to, they can talk about it. They can call it communism, and think that that's gonna scare somebody, but it ain't gonna scare nobody. - Fred Hampton

I had a 'little epiphany' a short while back while we were reading 'Capital'.

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=101186&mesg_id=102176

Hit me right in the gut. Just what I needed, something else to piss me off....but that is the implication which I drew from just those baby steps.

Sometimes anger is good.

The two are one and the same, not an either/or.

You could say "I don't need a map to drive my car" but obviously a map has its use and the two are not contradictory to one another.

Doing only one or the other - driving around aimlessly and getting lost, or sitting around reading maps and never going anywhere - would be a problem. However right now in the country I would say we have a lot more people driving around in circles and hopelessly lost than we have people sitting around reading the map and not going anywhere, by a factor of 10,000-1.

Most "map" readers are also the most serious "drivers" - the two go hand in hand. Most of those who are resistant to reading the "map" are "driving" around in circles.

I listened to some people explaining it all away for an hour on NPR this morning. They said that Wall Street is recovering nicely thank you very much and that Main Street will eventually follow and everything is just fine. All in a smug and condescending tone of voice, with lots of pathetic little insider jokes thrown in that insult and demean all working people.

One thing I noticed - a couple of dissenters called in, regular folks, not political folks, and it was painful to listen to how they stammered and stuttered and how the "experts" ridiculed them (very subtly and politely always) and made mince meat of them. The working class lacks a narrative with which to smash the shit out of those pompous sleazebags. Or perhaps the call screener intentionally airs dissenters who are not able to make their point very well? The host actaully said in response to a caller saying that things suck worse than ever where he lives "and what do you want Santa to bring you this year?" chuckle chuckle. I just wanted to strangle the person.

I mean literally fucking sick... That goddamn condescension is going to come back on some sons a bitches, just wait...

But I LOVE Diane Reems - are you trying to alienate potential friends and allies???

The NPR "reporters" are terrible, yes, but that is nothing new. What I see is more blue collar people calling in - significant I think - and also how ill-prepared they are to take on the assholes. That relates to the discussion we are having with Rocky - "theory" versus "doing something."

but it still steams me...

When there are two people, one can read the map, and one can drive.

When there are three people, one can drive, one can read the map and one can look out for cops.

When there are four people, one can drive, one can read the map, one can look out for the cops and one can make sandwiches. (Or roll joints, depending on the time of day.)

When there are five people...

Okay? See? It's about division of labor. Show me the map, point out the general direction and I'll go there. And seriously, talk of maps? Why not mapquest it? Or whatever the anti-capitalist version of mapquest that I'm supposed to use.)

Shit Mike. We're all looking at the map, and sometimes we're even looking a different fucking maps. There must be trust among the people in the beginning of a movement, someone must not only read the map, but draw a new map. We can't all be that person.

Jefferson eventually wrote the Declaration after hours of consultation with Adams, Franklin and others. The little red book was not written by a committee, unless I'm mistaken. And Marx, well, is Marx. Right? I don't see anyone driving here.

There must be something wrong with a map so complicated, a map of such unimaginable magnitude, that we never start to drive. That's my whole thing. Perhaps all I do is bang this stuff out because of my frustration, but the Internet is like solitary with a phone. I see so many great minds here, sharing good words and great ideas but doing only that.

One direction. One movement. One job at a time. I'm not an intellectual. I haven't read all the right books, in fact, I'm a high school drop out, so I'm sure there is much I missed. I'm sure that makes me approach the world differently than many here, or on any board for that matter. I would like to find a group of people to start working with, not take another 20 years working out ideas with.

Let's start a movement.

Great post.

I am saying that you in particular would be amazed at how far a little map reading would go at this point in answering the questions you raise and accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

- The map isn't complicated.

- I am driving while I read, and the driving is geting a whole lot more productive.

- You need to know that no one is "doing only that" here, and also that talking about a map when everyone thinks the earth is flat and that you get somewhere by "visualizing" it or by trying harder, IS "doing something" - something very powerful.

You echo my sentiments a couple years ago. Ain't no intellectual, 1 year college. Just wanted to be a 'soldier', didn't care about theory. And the Old Man can be intimidating, left me confused, that's why I'm glad we talk about Capital in detail here. Because we who talk about these things, who have a fire in our hearts, we got a responsibility:

"From each,according to their ability, to each according to their need."

Now I don't know how far I'll get along that road, but I feel it necessary to get as far as I can, in order to be as effective as possible. Your mileage may vary.

I'll see what I learn and I'll take a look at a map.

I keep hoping it's because of one of my favorite record labels, Blind Pig Records, but that can't be it, can it?

As far as where I'm at? Wandering. I was hoping to make something happen, a change I could believe in, so to speak, before I left the world.

It bothers me now, more than ever, that the last time I felt I was really doing something was now more than ten years ago in Seattle, now it feels like wheels spinning.

I'm willing to listen and to learn, life is constant learning, but I'm eager for some action.

It's not hard to find some action (if you need help finding some let us know where you're looking for it). The driver/navigator metaphor is a bit tough for me to understand, but the work is the most important. The theoretical discussions, here, help me understand it better. The Theory/Practice debate is even older than I am, but it's really quite simple. Do what you can to mobilize people around issues. The one thing you know is to always escalate the fight. Try to evaluate how whatever you're doing leads to further mass movements. Once in a while, step back and if you are having trouble finding your way, ask other people for help. Often the answers lie in theory informed by practice. Repeat as needed.

Because otherwise you don't know where you stand and you don't know what you think. Absent that, no matter what you do, it lacks a any meaningful context beyond the moment

That is my idea of why any of this shit matters. Some of the rest -- tempering ourselves in body and mind for the fight ahead AND so we can bring others into the fight and assist them -- thats theory in action. Sometimes it might just be talking things out.

I would invert your formulation above -- practice informed by theory

I've been thinking about why Hegel matters as well for quite a while. Want to write something about it, but also wanting to make sure it doesn't come across as esoteric, because its anything but.

Yep, I like me some blues. But if I wanna hear the blues chorale I just go to DU, they got 'em bad.

Action is coming, I'm thinkin' faster than I anticipated a short while ago, thank you Obama. Gotta be ready. Every day things get worse, the juggernaut must be stopped.

You ever make it out to Ca, the hardest part Stockton, we'll listen to some music and I'll roll us one, or two or three.

I'm a big Pee Wee Crayton guy.