To Those That Fear Socialism

The Far Right is pulling no punches to instill fear in the voters because the DSA has made great progress in the elections….they even go as far as saying that people are voting for a Soviet style candidate.

To that I say….total bullshit!

But if they, those that are fearing the “socialist wave”, if you will, there is a simple, maybe not as simple as I make out, to calm the fear….

Everywhere I look, I see people expressing alarm about the popularity of socialism. It polls in the mid-to-high 30s, and considerably higher among younger people. Older people, who have a living memory of the various socialist regimes that once dotted the planet, which at best didn’t deliver prosperity to their people and at worst threw them in jail by the thousands, can’t understand how this could be and seem to want to talk endlessly about it.

I, however, marvel at the other consistent result of all these polls, which these people don’t seem nearly as interested in talking about. I refer to the ratings Americans give to capitalism. They’re terrible. A big Gallup poll from last fall is representative. Socialism won the approval of 39 percent, while capitalism’s positive number was 54 percent.

That is pathetic—barely half the country! In the country that invented modern capitalism and where it is worshipped by the elite class! And you know what? It’s entirely deserved. In fact, it deserves to be a little worse (as it is among Democrats). The kind of capitalism we’ve been practicing in this country over the last 40-plus years is cruel, corrupt, and a perversion of what humane capitalism ought to be. The people who are so freaked out about socialism ought to realize that the only way they’re going to arrest its rise is to change capitalism for the better.

From the founding of the country until the stock market crash of 1929, the general belief was that government should be small and markets should not be regulated. Some people say it worked pretty well until 1929, but in fact, that isn’t true. It worked well enough to perpetuate itself, because if capitalism is anything it’s elastic and dynamic, but that’s about it.

https://newrepublic.com/article/214122/fear-socialism-try-fix-capitalism

This is saying that capitalism should be fixed and maybe progressives would not be gaining popularity.

I think that is an excellent idea but let’s be honest….the oligarchs have a stranglehold on the economy and the government and fixing the problem will entail some harsh policies….policies that I do not think many will support.

The reality is if profitability drops all reform must disappear. That as it is today is the sad reality. Then the question needs asking….can capitalism be reformed?

My opinion is no it cannot be reformed successfully….if that is the case then we need to replace it.

How about my readers any ideas?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

The Reconstruction Papers

Just like the 1870s the US will need a reconstruction period after we successfully remove the hemorrhoid of a president ….lots of work will be needed to repair a struggling nation.

First of all I hate the word ‘liberal’ it does not describe anything other than opposition of conserv policies.

This is a paper brought to you by Liberal Currents….

Liberal Currents publishes writers of diverse perspectives who share an unflinching commitment to freedom, pluralism, and democracy, in opposition to authoritarianism at home and around the world. Our mission is to create a home for mere liberalism, where the many conflicting currents of the liberal tradition can enter into productive conversation.

Liberalism around the world is facing its greatest crisis since the 1930s. If we rest on our laurels, we will be overtaken. We must be bold. We must exercise creativity and ingenuity. But we must never lose sight of the liberal values we seek to promote in doing so. To meet this moment, Liberal Currents promotes thinkers who advance ambitious agendas to foster a truly open society.

Click to access The-Reconstruction-Papers-7.pdf

This paper covers many subjects and issues, all 184 pages, it is a bit much for those that could care less but for those that truly care about the direction of this country it is a source of information.

Personally I think the agenda should be more radical…..fight radicalism with radicalism….mamby pamby issues will do little to repair this nation….but that is just me.

Please let me know what you think of the paper and the ideas it puts forth.

There are movements that are fighting back…..

It is difficult to find inspiration on this Juneteenth. We are still living in difficult times. In the last year, hundreds of thousands of African Americans have lost jobs. Some state legislatures in the South — Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi — have sought to dilute Black political power after the Supreme Court issued its Louisiana v. Callais decision. Meanwhile, this new administration has enacted a white nationalist immigration policy — effectively closing the Southern border; throwing undocumented people into prisons and camps; deporting thousands, including children; and unleashing the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) onto blue cities like Los Angeles and Minneapolis. However, there is hope to be found even in the bleakest of times, as our strong movements continue to challenge growing authoritarianism.

…

While we live in a more reactionary moment, we are also witnessing powerful collective actions and expressions of solidarity. What is demonstrated in the current opposition to this administration’s mass deportation strategy and its support for anti-Black policies is the willingness of more people to not just engage in important mass protests like “No Kings,” but also to engage in ongoing collective self-defense. Many participants in political struggle demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice for the greater purpose of defending and protecting vulnerable people.

Despite the State’s Attempts to Stamp Out Opposition, Our Movements Persevere

It is time for the real patriots to step up…..stop whining and get involved….and for god’s sake pull your head out of the sand and stand proud.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

DSA Is Full Of Marxists

Well that is the storyline the MAGA rags would have its readers believe…..invoking more Red Scare….and sadly it works on those with meager mental capabilities. They like to paint opposition in broad strokes….matters not that it is inaccurate for the most part.

The truth is there are Marxists within the DSA but that does not make the whole organization Marxist just like the GOP’s Log Cabin Republicans does not make the whole GOP gay.

So yes there are some Marxist in the DSA but they are a faction not the controlling body….there are even some, few, Leninists and Maoists within the organization.

But why would Marxists enter into a organization of social democracy?

For decades, DSA was an anti-communist, Labor Zionist, social democratic organization. However, in 2016, a massive wave of new members completely overran its existing membership, and DSA was unable to draw them into its existing ideology. Due to the ideological diversity of this wave of new members, that old alignment was not replaced by any fully developed ideology. DSA’s new politics came to be defined by a strong electoral orientation, as many people saw the rapid rise in DSA’s membership between 2016 and 2019 as the direct result of the Bernie, Trump, and AOC campaigns. Many of the new members were initially inspired by Bernie and AOC’s brand of social democracy, and DSA’s success was often framed, accurately or not, via electoral success, securing that social democratic tendency a presence in the new DSA.

That said…..what does a Marxist organization say about the DSA….

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has become a serious political force. As of February 2026, DSA said it had surpassed 100,000 members, and Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s 2025 mayoral election gave the organization its most visible municipal triumph to date. Yet from a rigorous Marxist standpoint, the organization’s present political and organizational trajectory raises deep strategic concerns. The problem is not that its immediate demands are necessarily wrong. The problem is that the methods and structures it has adopted may systematically prevent those demands from ever being realized. This essay argues that DSA’s commitment to electoralism within the Democratic Party, its reformism without a developed theory of the state, its class composition, and its ideologically diffuse “big tent” model together forms a set of contradictions that Marxist analysis reveals as structural rather than accidental.

…

Social democracy assumes that capitalism can be durably civilized through redistribution, regulation, and welfare-state management. Marxism insists that such gains are real but unstable, because they rest on a social order whose core relation is exploitation and whose dominant class retains structural power over investment, employment, credit, and the state itself. The difference is not semantic. It concerns whether the goal is to humanize capitalism or to supersede it.

A Marxist critique of DSA

As you see they are not the same and to lump them all together is pure lunacy.

This in nothing more that propaganda and fearmongering….the two things that MAGA excels at doing ….matters not that it is mostly bovine fecal matter.

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

“Everyone Is A Bit Marxist…”

The title is a quote from Italian Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist theorist, ideologue, philosopher and journalist, has long been associated exclusively with communism and socialism. And yet his thoughts are showing up in the strange places….the far Right talking points…

The entire quote is….”Everyone is a bit of a Marxist….without being aware of it”

We see this in the presence of Gramsci’s theories and his phrases in speeches and publications.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister who studied Gramsci in the 1980s, rarely misses an opportunity to speak of the need to fight liberal-left ideas, parties and movements.

Elsewhere, Gramsci’s presence is more implicit. In the 900-page Mandate for Leadership, a document published by Project 2025 — the staffing and policy planning organization aimed at institutionalizing “Trumpism” — there’s no shortage of Gramsci talking points expressed in the inimitable style of the New Right in the United States.

Right-wing Gramsci adherents simplify and vulgarize Gramsci’s thought, reducing it to slogans and simple formulas. In doing so, they are doing what Gramsci expected right-wingers to do under democratic conditions — protect the capitalist status quo while framing “the left” as the cause of all manner of social, economic and geopolitical ills.

This should be another reason to read Gramsci.

The existential climate crisis aside, many of the problems that concerned Gramsci then are eerily similar to the problems that concern us today — a failing global economic system, multiplying military conflict, massive geopolitical shifts and the hollowing of representative political institutions.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-radical-right-has-turned-to-the-teachings-of-an-italian-marxist-thinker-237531

A little more background may be helpful….

Gramsci undertook a series of historical and theoretical reflections on the conditions for revolution in modern states—such as Italy’s—where degrees of popular consent had been achieved. He employed the concept “hegemony” to describe a process of “intellectual and moral leadership” that embedded a ruling class across society. He rejected the economic determinism of classical Marxism in favor of a nuanced political analysis attuned to contingent variation in historical circumstance. Gramsci brought Marxism into dialogue with neo-idealist insights into practical subjectivity and he sketched a revolutionary strategy aimed at preparing a new collective identity.

Interesting how a group that hates ‘Marxists’ turns to them for their inspiration.

Really should not be a surprise since the Trumpites have been doing a Stalin-esque style of political purges to get the ‘proper’ people in places they need.

You should read Gramsci maybe you will learn something.Or not…you see one needs to be able to think to see the conflict and most of those supporters gave up thinking and let the ‘rulers’ do it for them.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

“cognito ergo agito”