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Dear SecondThought, I would like to see a video on the IWW "Wobblies" (coolest nickname ever) and/or the (almost) general strikes of the early 20th century. Unless you've already done so!
Where ever there is big money involved, count on corruption and bias, and the people involved should never be trusted, as they cannot trust themselves.... Which is why people shouldn't ever trust a politician, preacher, or scientists when our system is governed by big money. This form of capitalism can only exist from the exploitation of vulnerable living beings, who would be idiots to trust those that cater to the same Mr. moneybags that cause so much, and profit from, suffering...
I recall one time arguing with my Dad (a Trump voter) who told me, "Your politics reminds me of your grandpa. That's scary." I found out in that conversation that my Dad's Dad (born 1908) was a socialist and was active in starting the Progressive Miners of America, a left wing labor union that split from the UMWA. It made me proud to be the descendant of a man who, as I have been told, put his life on the line to make sure his fellow workers had more bargaining power.
Workers rights is great and all. But thats not exactly what socialism has brought to the world. Even Concervative Capitalists believe in workers rights and fair wages. So im not really understanding your example. China has sweat shops with kids working around the clock. Communist country. Using Capitalism to prop up their once failing economy. I bet you praise China! Unions are corrupt. Even the ppl in the Unions will tell you that. Yes there is crony Capitalists. But Capitalism itself has brought more ppl out of poverty than any other type of economy.
For real, child labor is making a huge comeback in America. I don't care if it is legal, if I see any company using child labor I'm going to throw a fit and cuss out the slave driver manager and owners.
My brother spent years 15-20 years ago researching the history of the labor movement and it led him to learn about Socialism among many other things and introduced me to it as well. He has passed but I know he would have loved to see this video, I certainly enjoyed it. Thank you very much.
Conservatives are horrified and shocked that so many young people are attracted to socialist ideals. Could this be because conservatives dismiss any opposition to unregulated capitalism as socialism?
I supported Reagan because of the whole "social safety net" thing, and became disaffected when it started to obviously be a lie. I mentioned it to someone, who sneered and said "Well, that sounds like SOCIALISM to me!!" -- so I replied "then I'm socialist now" and never looked back. Hence, Saint Ronnie made me socialist. 😁
My grandmother used to tell me stories of going to visit her own maternal grandparents. They were immigrants and children of immigrants from Germany, living in a community of Germans and Irishmen in Kansas. She'd tell me about how every single year the entire community would get together to harvest each other's fields one at a time. Anyone who wasn't working in the fields was helping to make food and do the other work not directly related to harvesting. Everyone did what they were best able to do without regard of who's grain all of the work was going to. Everyone got as much harvest as was possible in the quickest time possible while distributing the labor evenly across the whole community so everyone got equal responsibility and benefit. Not everyone even spoke the same language, but everyone understood grinding that sweet grain.
@@joncumberbatch852 I am not sure people have become more selfish or just that being selfish is rewarded. Also - maybe the people who would be helped most by banding together just don't have the time, energy or information to do so.
@@user-gu9yq5sj7c I treat as I find because strangely many people see kindness as weakness. I'm not obsessed with money and I have no interest in fancy cars and possessions even if I could afford them!
It's a shame that most people, even socialists, are unaware of the history of socialism prior to the Russian Revolution, and if they know anything its limited to Marx and Engels. They were far from the first or only socialists and every single country has a socialist history to be told.
There was no Christianity before Jesus; heavy metal music did not exist before heavy metal was identified and labeled; socialism did not exist before socialism existed. There were certainly communities and collectives before communitarianism and collectivism were made into official pigeonholes. If something "sort of looks a little like socialism," and especially if it predates the 1800s, the conversation would be improved by using another label, maybe "socialistic."
Certainly socialistic would be a better term in some cases, but socialism is just as much of a retroactive label as it is an ideology to aim for. If a community operates under a system with socialist principles, it can be called socialist retroactively. It’s not like Marx and Engels came up with cooperative economics. They just came up with the name.
Primitive communism is a well established train of thought, although it refers to hunter gatherer time period. I’m not disagreeing btw lol, just chiming in as it was before 1800
@@BengtNordsten I meant literally the socialist thinkers who lived before or at the same time as Marx and Engels, which were part of the ideological explosion that erupted out of the French Revolution.
I'm glad that there was some small mention of indigenous people having socialism implemented in their society. But think it would have been nice if he had mentioned the Mexican revolution and the struggle and fights that a lot of Mexican communists did for labor rights and land rights, not only in the southwest but all over the U.S.
One thing you quickly find when you start discussing Socialism is that Capitalists cannot tolerate even the idea that another system might exist, much less be successful, and all talk of it is to be mocked and quelled. It's no wonder Socialist History has been expunged from our textbooks- the very hope for change represents a grave danger to the ruling class.
@@gabrielespana319 Thanks for proving him right. That Capitalism is a selfish system with no basis on freedom, if only a few people have freedom at the expense of others cause "muh individualism", that's not freedom, that's a dictatorship. Your the authoritarians that you always feared at the end of the day.
Basically this. The elites would not have favored capitalism this much and try destroying any opposition if Socialism was the better tool to instill authoritarianism.
@@gabrielespana319 - And capitalism has never been successful, always devolving into a repressive government/corporate lockstep -- sometimes fascism, but always autocracy, which lacking the balls to devolve fully into the quasi-stability of feudalism either collapses or is overtaken by less-weak nations. So, since you believe that no imperfect system can be allowed, how do you propose to end capitalism, kid?
While doing some reading, I recently learned that my small conservative hometown in Idaho was established by a dairy cooperative. It literally exists because of socialism. Not that I'd expect any of the conservatives there to know that.
@@shoobidyboop8634 It also turns out that wage theft and coercion by starvation and homelessness is fine under capitalism, which has helped establish the existence and success of landlords as a career, and the rapid, continued increase of profits for major corporations.
@@cubesolver2564 LOL you're all the same, lying about being "forced" to work a crappy job because you're too lazy to get skills, blaming capitalists for "starvation" actually caused by nature, criticizing corporations that create the goods we need while creating nothing yourself. Entitled whiney baby. Start a corporation, pay people what they deserve. Buy homes and rent them out for free. Of course you won't. All you can do is try to force others to.
@@RobinHerzigI mean they noted it. Thats pretty polite considering a lot of people don't mention that and then draw conclusions anyway. I day their fine.
"Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free..." - Eugene V. Debs, on the events of Haymarket Square.
@@kaninma7237 i fixed the failed quote i had grabbed. i stopped reading after the quote was correct, apologies on a bad source. was more worried about getting the quote correct, not seeing some kind of weird anarcho-propaganda lol.
The fact that there are centuries of history worth of socialism is all just massive proof of how massive the baked in contradictions of capitalism really are.
American capitalism, and definitely America as we know it, would be dead without socialists movements. Simultaneously it's savior and it's boogeyman. Capitalists' garbage policies and behaviors would have driven the population to violent overthrow a long time ago.
I watched the documentary on PBS about the hidden history of US socialism. Lots of stuff out of Michigan (*or Minnesota), like some of the first socialist public officials, public spaces on river banks, a higher focus on leisure time, and even the first workers compensation laws!
@@darkgardener9577 A mode of production where the means of production are owned by an exploitative ruling class, for the sake of profit, & where the rest of society is employed by them?
Amen. I don't know the name of Second Thought's narrator, but he is a warrior for our time. Especially since millennials and Gen Z are so financially disadvantaged compared to previous generations. Keep up the good work!!
It still amazes me how little I was taught about who the Black Panthers were growing up in the 90s. I was told they were bad extremists who only did terrible things. Learning all the good they did was something I researched on my own.
Indeed. There is a reason they didn't want you to know more about them. Because they feared that you would sympathize with them. I had the same experience with learning about Che Guevara and his struggle.
@@JustSomeDinosaurPerson oh agreed. Looking back on it, it is so obvious that they were afraid of us learning the truth. It got better for awhile but now it's getting even worse.
People describing progressive ideals as "non-American" so they don't have to critically think about them in order to attempt refuting them is funny to me considering the entirety of modern America is non-American.
I highlighted this on previous videos, and I still believe the concept of "un-American" deserves a full video on its own to critically analyse and deconstruct it. As I said before, the use of the term "un-American" is such an American thing, that seems baffling, if not outright ridiculous, to most people from other countries. Surely, in most countries you can criticise someone for being unpatriotic, but it is not the same. I come from Mexico, I have lived in France and the UK, and visited a bunch of other places. In every one of them I have heard people discussing politics and complaining about everything they don't like and that they think should be changed or handled differently, but I have never heard anyone in any language attempting to discredit or dismiss a disagreeing opinion by calling them "un-[nsert nationality of choice]," such as "un-Mexican," "un-French," or "un-British," etc. It would simply sound nonsensical, yet in the US it is so normalised left and right. It's just bizarre and not helpful at all for any constructive debate.
@@darkgardener9577man I hope your like, 14 and not a grown man still spouting this nonsense. So life liberty and the pursuit of property but only for white men like at the time that phrase was coined?
A big ol' American shouting how proud they are to be an American whilst also saying endless anti-capitalist rhetoric would be a huge electoral asset right now and deprive fascists of a lot of votes, given how far the overton window has shifted. We can ditch patriotism when the right is no longer threatening and bourgeois democracy is dying. We should stop letting them own it.
1:18 What's depressing is Conservatives say words like Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Woke & a Majority of them don't have a clue what any of these words mean. They just clap like trained seals. 🦭
They're not conservatives. They're authoritarians. The authority says what they should fear and they do as they're told. So it's about time we take authority and stop letting them tell us what to call them.
Don't be depressed. We don't have to teach every single conservative what these words mean before the revolution can happen. There will always be reactionaries and they all get dealt with in their time.
Graduating school three years ago and watching these videos since then, just shows me how controlled and veiled the history I was thought was. They really drill the idea into your head that capitalism is the default, so much so that they make you believe that supporting the status quo is somehow a lack of a political position, when in reality it's the support of neo-liberal ideals, of course I never learned those kind of terms there, because they always say them in a way that makes them seem like they're not political beliefs, like we rarely even the mention the word capitalism, or how we often call capitalists 'entrepreneurs' . Everytime socialist history was thought, it was vague enough to uphold American exceptionalism, for example, a lot of us were probably thought about the October Revolution, but because it was the main thing behind the Red Scarce, we talked very little about the actual ideals behind it, being thought that things like that would never happen here, because we already live in the best democracy. Never learned about May Day, and the countless fights that let to the conditions we take for granted now, like 40 hr weeks, only vague ideas like Stalin and Mao were the big bad, but the USA is not. Glad the newer generations are acquiring class consciousness dispite these lies, and taking finding the thruth into their own hands, like by finding amazing comrade creators like you JT.
Capitalism is not the default, it's attained by fighting for it. It's what responsible adults want, because it's based on freedom, and therefore works. Children want socialism because they're told it gives free candy. Then they grow up and realize the only "free" candy is offered by the man in the van, and IT AIN'T FREE, BABY!
This could be a whole series. Really great to hear more about Shays rebellion, Thomas Paine, the communist generals that fight in the Civil War, the letter marks wrote to Abraham Lincoln and the battle of Blair Mountain.
You prefacing this video by saying you couldn't do a full history because it's 'too much for one video' makes me wanna see longer-form content on this channel. Full, feature-length documentaries from this channel are an idea that quite catches my fancy.
I think the most important takeaway is just how much we (and the common individual who opposes socialism) take for granted is directly because of socialist movements.
Literally only unions are the result of socialist movements. So be thankful for that if you’re a union guy. Others wise quite literally nothing in this video had anything to with socialism.
@@thebigenchilada678 Would you like to actually refute the source backed claims or are you just blindly denying history because it doesn't match the reality you've crafted in your mind?
Also, then unionize if you haven't so you can get those sweet socialist benefits. Heck, actually even if you're not in one you can benefit from unions indirectly.
@@Necrapocalypse The sources he does cite come from socialist/far left intellectuals lmao, not like that totally discredits them but their views are skewed to deem anything slightly within their sphere of ideological belief as their own. Like women’s rights? Lmao yeah, not socialist. Just because socialism shoots for equity doesn’t mark this as a socialist movement or change, sure there were socialists within the movement absolutely, but it was a simple progressive liberal movement, it was an equity movement, women didn’t want to have rights so their economy could have an even distribution of goods, they wanted fuckin rights to have fuckin rights, come on now. Racial equality? Again not a socialist movement, but just like before there were socialists and communists within the movement, yet the movement as a whole was neither of those things, why? Because the movement had nothing to do with socialist economic standards and everything to do with basic human rights (again). The native Americans weren’t socialist, they were communalists, so were early American settlers. They work together, have no major governing figure outside of a loose “mayor-like” entity, and come to agreements via popular assembly. So basically fuckin tribes. Eugene debs achieved absolutely nothing and got 6% of the popular vote. Most ever for a socialist party candidate tho, good on him. The problems i have with the video isn’t the fact that socialism has had an effect on the country, more so that socialism is being incorrectly associated with concepts it had no actual part in. I’m not an anti socialist guy, i’m fairly progressive, but left leaning ideologies constantly trying to eat eachother and claim them as their own is getting annoying.
I don't disagree. However, there was another group that they dealt with that was more powerful. The FBI. And while the Bureau was scary back in the day, they are full on horror movie now. It would be interesting to see how you'd be able to organize something like the Panthers in modern day, without drawing the eyes of the government guard dogs.
@@ramadjones well you would need 1 of three things. Overwhelming public support for the new group, the group to be more powerful than the government, or the government to not care about the new group
People are sadly to apathetic and accepting of their lot in life to care. Without fire in their bellies, there's not enough of us to be safe together, and especially not against a weaponised and heavily funded intelligence industry.
@@Thorned_Rose It doesn't have to be this way, a lot of people are discontent with their life. Many people are angry about it. And more people than you think know the cause of their problems. People just need to realize that they are not alone and change is possible. You can see a problem, do not accept it. Go out into the world and make changes happen.
It is hard proof of the insidious nature of bourgeois education that I literally knew about none of this - from the Indigenous socialism to the Haymarket bombing to Eugene V Debs - until I was done with my formal schooling and read Zinn’s “People’s History”. They literally try to erase this history, and are trying to do it again right now, starting in Florida.
"insidious nature of bourgeois education" or "there isnt time in the school year to go over every single socialist thing this country has ever done, so we are just gonna hit the big events" jeez, thats like complaining that its the antimormons that wrote the education guidelines because they didnt include everything about joseph smith or brigham young
The average 5th grader in late 18th century, who attended a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie, was reading at what would today be considered 2nd year college level English literature. Kids were too intelligent and well-read back then, had to dumb them down to work factories on assembly lines.
Here in Canada, I’m a part of a reserve that actually does a lot of things that are very similar to socialism. We have homes that cost $50 a month. We also just got through a land claim that gave each of our members $80,000. Spoiler alert, this huge increase in personal finances did not destroy our community. Everyone was still going to work and all that stuff. Another side note, my reservation pays for its members post secondary education. So long as you graduate, you don’t have to pay them anything back. Very cool. I wish this was something that was available for everyone.
Definitely joining on Nebula. I've thought about signing up for it a while now, but signing up and also financially supporting this channel? Take my money.
@@thenathanimal2909 - please stop believing this rubbish. Its propaganda to make you feel better about living in a horrible time. NO the only time that was objectively much worse was the industrial revolution until about 1950. "Capitalism has it's flaws, but it has done incredible things to move forward quality of life for humans." NO IT HAS NOT. "Most humans were subsistence farmers/hunter gatherers," YES THEY WERE and they were happier and healthier than you are. Even medieval peasants have a vastly better life than most people are led to believe. A medieval peasant worked about 1400 hours a year edit a modern American works 1800, and their welfare was ultimately the responsibility of the lord of the manor. The "family unit" was an invention of the industrial revolution to make the FAMILY responsible for its own sick, elderly and children, prior to that the village looked ofter them with the lord of the manor having ultimate responsibility. Industrialists were very keen NOT to take on this burden. Capitalism has moved forward technology but not happiness, and people are less healthy than they were at any time except the middle of the industrial revolution. NO people did not die at 35 in history - this is bad science reported wrongly. The only unequivocally brilliant thing about the modern world is medicine, but even then the medicine in the USSR was astonishingly good - the life expectancy in the USSR went from 38 in 1945 to 77 in 1970. "But Americans have a higher standard of living". NO they have more consumer goods, this does not = a higher quality of life. Yo may have guessed, I'm an author in this field.
I'm French and I'm actually reading "The heart is a lonely hunter" by Carson McCullers. I was shocked to see they mentioned Karl Marx, Socialist unions and Communists, so I went on TH-cam to look for something about the socialist movements in the US, which I didn't know existed. And what do I found ? That one of my favourite TH-camr just released a video about that precise subject !!!! 😍 Большое спасибо, товарищ JT ❤
I’ve been getting really into learning about socialism and communism lately, your channel, and podcast are some of my favorites. I tried to talk to my mom about socialism, she’s a mega-conservative Christian, who thinks communism is basically fascism. Anyway I was telling her about all the flaws of capitalism and she said, “wait a minute, you think that all of our problems are because of the rich?” To which I of course said ya you’ve got it, and she laughed at me. Idk how we are supposed to educate people who fully believe in propaganda and lies, yet are convinced they know the absolute truth. They’re so ignorant it would be funny if it weren’t impossible to overcome.
@@PAL5041Quite a bit, you also have to remember that “Second Thought” is a socialist channel that has been preaching for a soviet style economy in America for a long time now. He even befriended Hakim a well known communist apologized who claimed that the 1990’s famines in North Korea under its autocratic dictatorship was “necessary”
@@chadzahirshah2588 a soviet style economy...ok i dont see whats horribly wrong with that? as for the famine thing, being a friend with someone doesn't mean you have to agree on every idea. and plus, what does he mean by necessary? "communist" countries always go through famines before stability, just like in the USSR and China. i don't think he means necessary by "we gotta do this intentionally", but rather necessary as "inevitable"
As an italian i can't help to mention one of the final chapters of the book "Workers and capital" by marxist philosopher Mario Tronti, recently passed away, called "Marx in Detroit" which thesis is essentially that, while Europe is the homeland of marxism, the ideological approach to it didn't help to achieve its goal, while in the United States, where there is a rejection for marxism (especially in the '60s when the book was written), workers managed to organise themselves in the way Marx expected and achieve higher salaries by this
What do you think of present day socialist organizations and parties in Italy? The only one of any size in my area is Potere al Popolo (I'm replying in English in case other non Italians are interested)
@@lorenzod.987 The problem is that we've got a really unusual history for the worker's movement, as we were in the middle of the cold war (both politically and geographically), we didn't had a great socialist/labourist party like Spain, France or UK, but the biggest COMMUNIST party in the west. After that we took the clintonian third way and until today we never looked back. I believe Democratic Party's new secretary, Elly Schlein, is trying to transform the centre (or centre-right) PD into a party more aligned with other social democratic parties in Europe, and I believe it will be a good thing in the long term, but the path to restore the lost values of Berlinguer's PCI is hard and cannot be pursued in a small populist party completely detached from reality like PaP. I hope for a Spanish model, with a large socialist party (but let it be really socialist!) and a post-communist/ecological/feminist movement to its left.
Solidifying my socialist values has led me to joining my local non profit homeless services organization and utilizing my skills to help fight against American capitalist oppression ✊🏾
In contrast, I have yet t meet someone who has drifted away from their church, after years of coercion into "volunteering" for the church and donating 10%+ of their paycheck as a tithe, has gone on to put that same effort and money toward helping their neighbors and wider community.
No. You should join your union (you have to be a worker) and join your communist party and dedicate your life to the struggle of building a communist workers movement to topple the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Stop that pussy non profit social care shit and start being a fucking communist. Stalin never would've done that pussy shit.
Lol "capitalist oppression" meanwhile millions upon millions migrates to America every year legally and illegally to be oppressed. How dense can you be?
Day by day I realize how much we've all been lied or misspoken about lots of things. And thanks to such people like You we can learn our real history and see everything clear! This is awesome!❤❤
Which lamp burns out first in the dark?!? The true red lamp with strings that has a danny reflection on the ceiling from it or the people alarm balance bud light front where the smiling party jesse pen is?!?
@@AntiFurry927 The "didn't work once" argument is very poor. What about Indonesia's genocide of the Timorese, or the atrocities of Imperial Japan? Those were done in the name of capitalism. Yet it's almost like, even though we give things labels, we should look at the actual idea and not what other concepts of the same name have achieved.
One thing you missed is how the 2nd Red Scare atomised socialist groups into all those single-issue groups you mentioned; organising on the basis of social class got you so much attention, militants figured it'll be easier organising around a specific issue like the environment, gay rights, civil rights, women's liberation, against animal cruelty, against nuclear weapons, etc. And the lack of success of these groups can pretty much be attributed to a lack of a cohesive national program as they get played against one another; and then they all got recuperated by "Intersectionalism" - Class struggle is all the intersectionalism we need.
Many of those atomifications were born in response to the dynamics of class warfare in capitalist countries. Environmentalists and anti-nuclear weapons appeared as a response to the inaction of major worker's movements that were usually bound to the 2nd world, socialist countries, who after IIWW had their own national interests very related to an eternal warfare condition. That's our history and we better face it head on in order to do different next time.
Also, 13:35 ish, is it correct to think of BLM as a socialist movement? As I recall, BLM was endorsed by some wealthy capitalists and many corporations (or their marketing or publicity departments). From my point of view, the BLM protesters were not enunciating, in clear way, a set of policies which would serve as the end goal of the protests. Because the movement did not delineate policy goals, it was essentially a generic virtuous slogan that most anyone could get behind, like saying "I'm for good things and I'm against bad things" or "I'm against murder" or "it makes me angry when police put their knees on people's necks" or "racism is bad" - although I agree with these sentiments, I think that for protests to be successful, there has to be clear policy goals in mind, not just saying some slogan like "racism is bad." This is why BLM accomplished essentially nothing in the long term. I think it would have been better to advocate for policies like ending the drug war; getting people out of prison; and leftist economic policies which would move people (of all races) out of the Poverty Class, the Low-Income Working Class, and the Involuntarily Unemployed class into classes of people who are fairly compensated for their labor and not suffering from poverty. But it seem like some people - like pro-capitalist people who expressed nominal support for BLM - are OK with the existence of poverty and homelessness, as long as there is racial equality within this class system (so, e.g., from their point of view, if there are, say, 50 million people living in poverty and X% of the nation is [insert the name of some other minority group], then having 50 million people in poverty is OK as long as no more than X percent of those people are [the minority group]. Also it is OK if almost all wealth is owned by a few hundred people as long as X% of those people are [the minority group]. Thus, from the point of view of these people, it is OK to have grotesque economic inequality as long there is (the most important thing) racial and gender equality (within the capitalist system). (I know that some BLM protesters did have specific policies in mind, like reducing or eliminating funding for police, but the majority of people who expressed nominal support for BLM were basically just saying that they were against the concept of racism without specifying any policies that they would be willing to support. Since there were no policies attached, it was easy to attract a lot of support for BLM - including support from the capitalist class.)
@@robertjenkins6132 you're describing well how the movement was co-opted. In most cases these [socialist] movements are either co-opted to defang them, or just outright killed (see the Black Panthers for more.) Much in the same way MLK isn't the Santa Claus-like figure he's presented as for the sake of a national holiday, BLM is not what you see it as now after it has been fully co-opted.
@@robertjenkins6132 isnt the percieved lack of policy goals part of the feedback loop of cooption with the endorsments by capitalists? You mention some policy goals that the movement has stood for, like prison abolition for example. Those policy goals slowly fell to the cycle of cooption, becoming more palatable and less scary to capitalists over time, morphed to abolish the police, then defund the police, then reallocate some funding, eventually boiling away in the public perception, becoming "just" black lives matter, with no explicit policy goals. Tldr from my perspective, they did have explicit policy goals, but they were coopted away, atleast in their public perception.
Thank you for delivering the truth. I was born in 1952. I can remember seeing public service films about duck and cover, how much better off we were compared to every other country in the world, how much Russia duped their citizens with propaganda, etc.etc. And I believed it all. Then, when I got old enough to stay up late and listen to Dad and his brothers talk politics, my real education began. They were blue collar, union liberals who read books and thought for themselves. Like Howard Zinn they were all WWII vets who had seen the elephant...multiple times... that included liberating concentration camps, getting ships sunk from beneath them (the Hornet and merchant marine ships), and engaging in the only toe-to-toe slug-out between two battleships in the entire war (the Washington won btw). They understood capitalism ("worshipping the almighty dollar") and socialism. They all saw why we were in Viet Nam and knew the Domino Theory was bullshit. They knew that the US would side with Satan as long as he was anti-communism. Again, thank you for telling it like it is.
💕Thank you...THANK YOU so much for this video! I'm 35 years old & I never knew MLK was a socialist! 😲 And nobody taught me ANYTHING about U.S. history of socialism in school. Also, thanks for showing us books that talk more about this important subject! 😊🇺🇸💙
That's a good start, but this channel is a rabbit hole straight to fascism, the author defends Russia's invasion into Ukraine and runs a podcast with a bunch of other self-proclaimed socialists who mostly defend the worst of nations like the Kim regime or Stalin's USSR.
If you look far enough back, socialism is as much all-American as capitalism is. There isn't only one group of people that gets to decide the vision for our country is.
What's amazing is that capitalism started in the 1500s as a joint project between Dutch, Flemish, & Russian aristocrats who laid the foundation for feudalism's demise by cutting their business partners in on the profits of their mass exploitation rather than paying their tribute to the monarchy. They truly didn't want to change the organizational method of feudalism, they just wanted to replace it with a design that put "owners of things" at the top of the socio-economic hierarchy. They called themselves The Adventurers -- even though they never went on any adventures themselves 😅 in true capitalist fashion they hired the poor, starving, unhoused, & uneducated for pennies & sent them halfway around the globe in search of rare spices, fabrics, & other raw material goods. Most of the workers & sailors never made it back, but the ships did. When you send out a crew of 50 & only 5 make it back but they still have 100% of the goods, that's one hell of a start at "profit maximization" 🙄 That model has been so mythologized that people consider it a way of life worth protecting now. Even worth dying for, or killing the folks who oppose it. Pathetic, isn't it?
One group deciding all is a perfect description for what socialism is, as the government would be the greatest and most powerful monopoly created under such regime. capitalism itself cannot be blamed for creating a benefit to the more powerful as that is a problem among any government structure, especially socialism
@@markrus6712"one group deciding all" is not a weakness of socialism 🙄 as socialism is collective ownership of production & labor. You can't point to a single nation on the planet that now has or ever had 100% collective ownership of labor & survived. "One group deciding all" is conservatism. The structure of conservatism 'conserves' power for the minority ruling class by definition. That's what conservatism is. Socialist nations don't survive because surrounding capitalist & imperialist nations destroy them with intervention, imperialism, colonialism, tariffs, sanctions, etc. That's the blueprint for stomping out socialism & it's worked for centuries. That's not going to change any time soon because out of 8 billion people on the planet everything is decided by about 5,000 ultra rich conservatives who preserve a power structure that relentlessly demolishes all attempts at restructuring society in the majority's favor.
The top resulting definition of socialism when googled is: "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." There are many policy structures which could facilitate that. One attempted structure in multiple countries throughout the 20th century was state communism where a group of elite intelligentsia who were socialist orchestrated a coup and tried imposing their beliefs forcefully on the people, which is what you are referring to. The problem, of course, with that approach is that it isolates the cause from the commoner, and so the state was forced to impose it on them, because your average commoner is gonna see this coup and be like "who the fuck are these dingdongs?" Other more bottom-up democratically decided approaches like in Chile have been attempted, at first finding success, until the global elites of the world who don't like their bottom line being hurt tip off mercenaries or organizations such as the CIA to facilitate a coup there and install a useful puppet dictator there to keep their corporate griphold, and then have the gall to blame the coup THEY orchestrated on socialism.
Thank you for keeping Zinn’s voice alive. My APUSH teacher gave us a people’s history as a supplemental read and it’s the reason I’m a social studies teacher today.
I'm involved in the UKs 'socialist party' for over a year and its been so good for getting people to reach a class conscious state. honestly which ever you join either a communist party, international socialist party or any other socialist group, It is powerful for giving the working class a steering wheel to establish socialism.
Thank you for bringing issue to light. Its especially important to despondent American marxists like myself who have been lead to believe that this country never had a true socialist history (because of course that's what the ruling class wants). Hopefully this will do good to make people like myself less despondent and more willing to do what is right.
Historical materialism developed because folks were analyzing the warp & weave of history to understand "how society got here," with 'here' meaning whatever point in time they were experiencing when they started to look back for an explanation. The history of the U.S. is a huge part of the history of socialism because it's the most massive imperial & industrial power on the planet -- where the class struggle has been the most publicized. Most of U.S. history _is_ class struggle. History is taught in a very specific way, with very specific goals, in the imperial core, & the ruling class of those nations have a vested interest in the workers not knowing their own history.
From its inception the U.S. became the nest of the most sociopathic and brutal but cunning wealthy class of the planet. It's history is the building of the nest of imperial capitalism and leadership of the world market system we know as capitalism. In order to perpetuate this system the USA turned the revolution of 1917 in Russia as the existential challenge and war as the way to perpetuate capitalism and stop socialism from succeeding. Fascism was the decision to justify a war to stop the revolution crushing the European vanguard of the workers leadership under the excuse to defeat fascism . In fact the fascious always was the wealthy class and fascism wasn't defeated. Instead the European working class found their nations destroyed by war and the Russian workers isolated by war and sabotage. The proof fascism wasn't defeated is the USA today having a legitimized neo Nazi party in the GOP exposing its true nature. And a thriving sociopathic group of wealth hoarders and the military industrial complex dictating the rules in the USA.
Well done documentary. Thank you. You might have also mentioned the Ludlow and Blair Mountain Massacres to illustrate how far the capitalists have been willing to go.
Coal corporations did straight up evil things to Appalachians, I’m pretty sure coal companies still don’t want to admit that black lung has anything to do with coal mining
JT, I just wanted to commend how much improved the production quality of your videos have gone up since you made the shift. This video is an excellent example. Just wanted to let you (and your people) know that it hasn't gone unnoticed!
😍Woohoo! Is it gonna feature a bit of Shock Stragegy ala Naomi Klein? The "peaceful revolution" that ended Eastern Germany might feature nicely as well. (They were worked over in a similar fassion to Russia afterwards and that fat prick Helmut Kohl (Germany's Thatcher/Reagan, later followed by Gerhard Schröder, Germany's Blair/Clinton) rode that zombie horse of "Chancellor of Unity" for another 9 Years afterwards.) They haven't really recovered from getting fucked over as a region and are now a hotbed of far right politics since the absolute lack of a politically "viable" socialist/communist alternative or movement in Germany.@@SecondThought
What alot of people dont realize is that socialism exists in America today, but only for the rich. They have every kind of safety net, group-support, golden parachute and buttpad society can offer, and yet the middle.class and poor are left in a merciless dog-eat-dog system of competition to see who can make a wealthy person the wealthiest in exchange for barely enough to make ends meet... Always remember who these companies called 'essential', and never forget how much they compensate them for being so 'essential'...
@sammysosadchoom Revolutionary Optimism my friend! We will make it happen. For now, let's chase after small victories: organizing and agitating, lift of the embargo on Cuba, struggling against imperialism, demanding human rights for everyone, etc.
0:55 I highlighted this on previous videos, and I still believe the concept of "un-American" deserves a full video on its own to critically analyse and deconstruct it. As I said before, the use of the term "un-American" is such an American thing, that seems baffling, if not outright ridiculous, to most people from other countries. Surely, in most countries you can criticise someone for being unpatriotic, but it is not the same. I come from Mexico, I have lived in France and the UK, and visited a bunch of other places. In every one of them I have heard people discussing politics and complaining about everything they don't like and that they think should be changed or handled differently, but I have never heard anyone in any language attempting to discredit or dismiss a disagreeing opinion by calling them "un-[nsert nationality of choice]," such as "un-Mexican," "un-French," or "un-British," etc. It would simply sound nonsensical, yet in the US it is so normalised left and right. It's just bizarre and not helpful at all for any constructive debate.
You really should have talked about the city of Milwaukee and it's long standing history with socialism and having various as Socialists until the 60s.
Around the 9-minute mark I think it's important to note that police also serve to enforce Jim Crow laws and serve as slave patrols. Of course this predates the Haymarket massacre.
"Physical slavery requires the feeding and housing of slaves. Economic slavery requires the slave to feed and house themselves" This single quote has been my guiding principle when it comes to American Capitatim for the last 20 years or so. We are not free. We ARE slaves. Especially if you're poor. It's just a highly advanced form of slavery that keeps getting perfected over the years. I can't remember the source of this quote at the moment so help me out here.
Recently I heard of a group in the U.S. and Canada called the Hutterites. I have no interest particularly in religious groups, but they were portrayed as living in communes that split and 'self replicate' when they grow to about twice their minimum size. Thought it an interesting model.
None of these anabaptist groups, including the amish and the mennonites, have a sustainable model. If their populations double and require continuous colonization of new land then sooner or later they will hit the wall and collapse. These groups also require absolute adherence to their religious doctrines. No one is allowed to question any tenet of their beliefs without risking being ostracized. This is generally referred to as coerced ideological indoctrination, i.e. brainwashing.
These groups also tend to have a fairly high incidence of birth defects due to inbreeding as a result of their dwindling gene pool because of their rigid clannish social structure.
@@dingusdingus2152 They surely have their issues, all groups do. Whether or not that is one for this specific group would require looking deeper than I have to know. My point in mentioning them is that it is an operating model, and for those interested in looking, well, they can gain knowledge. This would include both positive and cautionary lessons.
@@The-Devils-Advocate It notified me with the comment. "Explains why americans during the cold war were happier than russians. Don't humiliate yourself."
And that's the thing. Political education was once a massive part of The Left. Teaching people about themselves and the world around them. So that they can know themselves, and their own strengths. From it, it learn what Solidarity is and the immense power it can bring. Education matters.
The black panthers during their social outreach were told something consistently. "I don't know about this socialism stuff and I don't care. What I know is the black panthers make sure my babies are fed. So I will support the panthers with everything I have".
Here’s the thing, I’ve rarely met a person who disagrees with a socialist economic agenda. Most people don’t think it’s ok for corporations to destroy our planet. Most people don’t think it’s ok for corporations to have pay wages so low that their employees still need government assistance just to make it. Most people enjoy a good work/life balance having some time off to spend with those that are important in their lives. Most people want working mothers to be able to take time off and raise their children without worrying whether or not they can afford basic needs. Most people think a disease like cancer shouldn’t bankrupt you and healthcare is a human right. It’s not the information or education that people lack. It’s the big millstone that the left wing has tied around their neck and jumped off a bridge into a deep never ending sea that kills it where it stands. It’s the LGBTQRSTUV movement that will keep this rocket ship right here on the ground.
@@christopheriman4921 they still are. They’re what’s keeping it from growing. Socialism is an economic system and shouldn’t be tangled with cultural differences. Every time I hear this channel do an episode on the LGBT movement I cringe because I know it’s an automatic shutoff for most normal people in the US. You know what would benefit LGBTQ people? Universal Healthcare. You know what would help them out? Higher wages, safer working conditions, more time off, better sick leave. You know why we can’t get that? Because we want transgender story hour at the local library and every Disney movie to feature a group of transgender furrys.
I understand that this is a brief history, but I am saddened that Milwaukee wasn’t mentioned at all. It was the first major US city, and the only to date, to have a socialist mayor, at a time when it was consistently one of the largest cities in the country. Socialists occupied the mayor’s office for all but four years from 1910-1960.
Thank you so much for this video and much of your other content. I am blue collar, through and through. The majority of my life has been spent as a trashman, a long haul truck driver, a delivery driver, and now a department of transportation highway maintenance worker. Throughout my entire life, the sweaty arms and dirty faces to my left and right, whom I build, produce, clean up and repair our nation with, have been overwhelmingly conservative. I have been stubbornly but respectfully leftist the entire time. A decade ago, I was still arguing for repairing the capitalist system, but the events of the last 10 years have converted me to be an outspoken socialist. Content like this not only arms me for the conversations that have begun to sway the opinions of those around me, but also provide an easy way for me to share the knowledge while avoiding conversations in the workplace, that could make me a lighting rod for "retribution". Once I have identified someone who is reasonable, and at least somewhat sympathetic to the ideas, being able to share a video like this is tremendously powerful in adding yet another grain of sand on our way to the necessary critical mass. Thank you for all that you guys do, please keep it up. Once my pay scale reaches the level where I can afford to pay the union dues and join, I will absolutely be supporting you through patreon or nebula. You are one of four content creators doing things correctly and I cannot possibly express my gratitude for your efforts, diligence and solidarity. ✊🙏 For anyone curious, my regular other go-to sources: Some more news Philosophy tube More perfect union
Lol the capitalist system is not broken. We've been groomed to support a form of capitalism that isn't beneficial for the average person. I suggest you do more research before committing to being a socialist. Socialism sounds nice that's about it.
I try to show Libertarians how their ideology got its roots in early French socialist writings, it was meant to be private ownership of public works but with a HEAVY emphasis on social duty to improve and maintain these works for the enrichment of the country as a whole. Philanthropy on a country wide scale. In the 1970s, in large part thanks to Ayn Rands narcissistic "Selfishness as a Virtue" version of capitalism, it got twisted into the same private ownership of public works but with a HEAVY emphasis on individual profit and tax cuts. No duty to anyone but your own pocket. The original Libertarian ideas were inherently socialist but it became something else entirely once the capitalists realized it could be used to gain ownership and control of vital infrastructure in order to stuff their wallets at our expense.
A GREAT PRESENTATION! This should be used and applied in the classrooms of History, Social Studies, Economics, to name a few. Immediately - learning of the Native American "side of socialism" caught my attention and continued interest. I plan on heading outward on a search for that topic, the book spoken therein. Thank You SecondThought. I have subscribed.
@@dexorne9753a utopia system where people are all treated equally and where people will do more dangerous and/or stressful jobs for the same pay as a safe/easy job just for sake of equality. Putting industry in the hands of 'the workers' who do not have the skills nor ability to properly run that business or even worse having it be government controlled. The ideas of 'free education' which shifts the burden of cost from the individual to the tax payer. No individual repercussions for poor performance in schools, costing taxpayers more money, and even greater repercussions for the industry as a whole due to a decline in workforce skill level. 'Free' is not actually Free.
Learned a lot of this history from Left Reckoning - it's a good channel + people looking to dive into some of these particular cases + movements would enjoy checking out 😃 In fact JT should go do an interview there or on MR to do one with Sam Seder. Great cross promos 👏
Id say one of the greatest achievements of the past 100 years of political climate is to stigmatize Socialism as a word so much, despite when youd agree with it under any other branding.
Somehow missed this earlier, watching it on Hasan now but won't be able to catch the whole thing. Will listen to it again on the clock at work tomorrow.
I know of a couple of comics writers who realized Captain America grew up in NY during the depression, so he'd have a better-informed and more positive view of socialism than anyone from modern times. Hearing this kind of talk coming out of Captain America would be both hilarious and informative...
"Children aren't in the mines anymore"... not if the GOP has anything to say about it. The clock is being turned back and people seemed to have forgotten what it took and who made sure workers got rights.
Howdy, friends! If you appreciate the work I'm doing and you'd like to help keep the lights on, consider signing up for Nebula with my link! You get access to all my content ad-free, plus all the great Nebula Originals and other content on the platform. Your support really does help! go.nebula.tv/secondthought
Hi
hey comrade jt, where are those links you promised me?
Thank you for your outstanding work!
Dear SecondThought,
I would like to see a video on the IWW "Wobblies" (coolest nickname ever) and/or the (almost) general strikes of the early 20th century. Unless you've already done so!
Where ever there is big money involved, count on corruption and bias, and the people involved should never be trusted, as they cannot trust themselves.... Which is why people shouldn't ever trust a politician, preacher, or scientists when our system is governed by big money. This form of capitalism can only exist from the exploitation of vulnerable living beings, who would be idiots to trust those that cater to the same Mr. moneybags that cause so much, and profit from, suffering...
I recall one time arguing with my Dad (a Trump voter) who told me, "Your politics reminds me of your grandpa. That's scary." I found out in that conversation that my Dad's Dad (born 1908) was a socialist and was active in starting the Progressive Miners of America, a left wing labor union that split from the UMWA. It made me proud to be the descendant of a man who, as I have been told, put his life on the line to make sure his fellow workers had more bargaining power.
I would be SOOO tempted to reply "Your politics remind me of Hitler. That's scary."
@angeladansie4378 is that the only comparison you can make??????
It's an accurate one.
Workers rights is great and all. But thats not exactly what socialism has brought to the world. Even Concervative Capitalists believe in workers rights and fair wages. So im not really understanding your example. China has sweat shops with kids working around the clock. Communist country. Using Capitalism to prop up their once failing economy. I bet you praise China! Unions are corrupt. Even the ppl in the Unions will tell you that. Yes there is crony Capitalists. But Capitalism itself has brought more ppl out of poverty than any other type of economy.
He was more than a hero: he was a union man.
That “children aren’t in the mines” thing won’t hold true for long with how things are going in some states.
I was expecting a joke about getting reports that the children are actually back in the mines 🥲
Muricahns will eventually consider children in the mines as socialist.
we just rely on global supply chains that send other people's kids to the mines.
For real, child labor is making a huge comeback in America.
I don't care if it is legal, if I see any company using child labor I'm going to throw a fit and cuss out the slave driver manager and owners.
But they yearn for the mines.
It's actually mind-boggling how twisted the American education system is
most effective propaganda eve
the red scare propaganda is so effective that you can't even solve basic math while being interviewed by a random youtuber
Bro its the whole western education system but the american one definitly is the worst tbf.
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958 that's exactly what propaganda is my friend.
Almost like it’s a system of indoctrination. System of a Down was right the whole time
My brother spent years 15-20 years ago researching the history of the labor movement and it led him to learn about Socialism among many other things and introduced me to it as well. He has passed but I know he would have loved to see this video, I certainly enjoyed it. Thank you very much.
Your brother sounds rad. Thanks for telling us about him.
Conservatives are horrified and shocked that so many young people are attracted to socialist ideals. Could this be because conservatives dismiss any opposition to unregulated capitalism as socialism?
Well it's not just that, it's also the fact many young people are seeing how fucked capitalism is.
I supported Reagan because of the whole "social safety net" thing, and became disaffected when it started to obviously be a lie. I mentioned it to someone, who sneered and said "Well, that sounds like SOCIALISM to me!!" -- so I replied "then I'm socialist now" and never looked back. Hence, Saint Ronnie made me socialist. 😁
Most likely they don't even know what socialism is.
@@rockomcdagger6364as a Gen Z and a still new young socialist I definitely agree with that
@@hectornegron9155yet their stupid because they think it's bad when its not because they don't know what socialism actually is
My grandmother used to tell me stories of going to visit her own maternal grandparents. They were immigrants and children of immigrants from Germany, living in a community of Germans and Irishmen in Kansas. She'd tell me about how every single year the entire community would get together to harvest each other's fields one at a time. Anyone who wasn't working in the fields was helping to make food and do the other work not directly related to harvesting. Everyone did what they were best able to do without regard of who's grain all of the work was going to. Everyone got as much harvest as was possible in the quickest time possible while distributing the labor evenly across the whole community so everyone got equal responsibility and benefit. Not everyone even spoke the same language, but everyone understood grinding that sweet grain.
It sounds like a lovely time it certainly a shame people have become so selfish
@@joncumberbatch852 I am not sure people have become more selfish or just that being selfish is rewarded. Also - maybe the people who would be helped most by banding together just don't have the time, energy or information to do so.
It sounds like Kansans understood comparative advantage. America is now obsessed with competitive advantage, which extracts wealth from laborers.
@@joncumberbatch852 There's still charitable people. Are you charitable? Some socialists are selfish, greedy, or want to be rich too.
@@user-gu9yq5sj7c I treat as I find because strangely many people see kindness as weakness. I'm not obsessed with money and I have no interest in fancy cars and possessions even if I could afford them!
It's a shame that most people, even socialists, are unaware of the history of socialism prior to the Russian Revolution, and if they know anything its limited to Marx and Engels. They were far from the first or only socialists and every single country has a socialist history to be told.
There was no Christianity before Jesus; heavy metal music did not exist before heavy metal was identified and labeled; socialism did not exist before socialism existed. There were certainly communities and collectives before communitarianism and collectivism were made into official pigeonholes. If something "sort of looks a little like socialism," and especially if it predates the 1800s, the conversation would be improved by using another label, maybe "socialistic."
Certainly socialistic would be a better term in some cases, but socialism is just as much of a retroactive label as it is an ideology to aim for. If a community operates under a system with socialist principles, it can be called socialist retroactively. It’s not like Marx and Engels came up with cooperative economics. They just came up with the name.
Primitive communism is a well established train of thought, although it refers to hunter gatherer time period. I’m not disagreeing btw lol, just chiming in as it was before 1800
@@BengtNordsten I meant literally the socialist thinkers who lived before or at the same time as Marx and Engels, which were part of the ideological explosion that erupted out of the French Revolution.
I'm glad that there was some small mention of indigenous people having socialism implemented in their society. But think it would have been nice if he had mentioned the Mexican revolution and the struggle and fights that a lot of Mexican communists did for labor rights and land rights, not only in the southwest but all over the U.S.
One thing you quickly find when you start discussing Socialism is that Capitalists cannot tolerate even the idea that another system might exist, much less be successful, and all talk of it is to be mocked and quelled. It's no wonder Socialist History has been expunged from our textbooks- the very hope for change represents a grave danger to the ruling class.
It’s never been successfully implemented as a full economic system without horrifically infringing upon individual rights.
@@gabrielespana319 thanks for proving my point.
@@gabrielespana319 Thanks for proving him right. That Capitalism is a selfish system with no basis on freedom, if only a few people have freedom at the expense of others cause "muh individualism", that's not freedom, that's a dictatorship. Your the authoritarians that you always feared at the end of the day.
Basically this. The elites would not have favored capitalism this much and try destroying any opposition if Socialism was the better tool to instill authoritarianism.
@@gabrielespana319 - And capitalism has never been successful, always devolving into a repressive government/corporate lockstep -- sometimes fascism, but always autocracy, which lacking the balls to devolve fully into the quasi-stability of feudalism either collapses or is overtaken by less-weak nations. So, since you believe that no imperfect system can be allowed, how do you propose to end capitalism, kid?
While doing some reading, I recently learned that my small conservative hometown in Idaho was established by a dairy cooperative. It literally exists because of socialism. Not that I'd expect any of the conservatives there to know that.
coops arent "socialist"...
Cooperatives are perfectly acceptable under capitalism. So are unions. Anything that doesn't require coercion or theft is fine under capitalism.
@@shoobidyboop8634 It also turns out that wage theft and coercion by starvation and homelessness is fine under capitalism, which has helped establish the existence and success of landlords as a career, and the rapid, continued increase of profits for major corporations.
@@cubesolver2564 LOL you're all the same, lying about being "forced" to work a crappy job because you're too lazy to get skills, blaming capitalists for "starvation" actually caused by nature, criticizing corporations that create the goods we need while creating nothing yourself. Entitled whiney baby. Start a corporation, pay people what they deserve. Buy homes and rent them out for free. Of course you won't. All you can do is try to force others to.
@@shoobidyboop8634 lol
You can destroy a movement, but you can't destroy an idea
Incorrect, no one speaks Carthaginian anymore because Romans had enough.
@@Jonathan-ds6yj well you got me there
@@Jonathan-ds6yjthat's a culture not an idea
Sorry, I haven’t even watched the video, but the minute I saw “forgotten history”, and I was like, “Forgotten? Or erased?”
So weird to me why people comment BEFORE watching the video
Never understand this
@@RobinHerzig Because the comment wasn’t about the video, it was about the title.
@@RobinHerzigI mean they noted it. Thats pretty polite considering a lot of people don't mention that and then draw conclusions anyway. I day their fine.
Erased
"Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free..." - Eugene V. Debs, on the events of Haymarket Square.
Debs died of heart failure in 1926. He was not hanged for anything.
@@kaninma7237 i fixed the failed quote i had grabbed. i stopped reading after the quote was correct, apologies on a bad source. was more worried about getting the quote correct, not seeing some kind of weird anarcho-propaganda lol.
I love this quote!
The fact that there are centuries of history worth of socialism is all just massive proof of how massive the baked in contradictions of capitalism really are.
American capitalism, and definitely America as we know it, would be dead without socialists movements. Simultaneously it's savior and it's boogeyman. Capitalists' garbage policies and behaviors would have driven the population to violent overthrow a long time ago.
I watched the documentary on PBS about the hidden history of US socialism. Lots of stuff out of Michigan (*or Minnesota), like some of the first socialist public officials, public spaces on river banks, a higher focus on leisure time, and even the first workers compensation laws!
So Second Thought is basically a Brillo Pad?
@@AntiFurry927 I guess that neither Cuba nor Vietnam exists.
@@darkgardener9577 A mode of production where the means of production are owned by an exploitative ruling class, for the sake of profit, & where the rest of society is employed by them?
Amen. I don't know the name of Second Thought's narrator, but he is a warrior for our time. Especially since millennials and Gen Z are so financially disadvantaged compared to previous generations. Keep up the good work!!
It still amazes me how little I was taught about who the Black Panthers were growing up in the 90s. I was told they were bad extremists who only did terrible things. Learning all the good they did was something I researched on my own.
Indeed. There is a reason they didn't want you to know more about them. Because they feared that you would sympathize with them. I had the same experience with learning about Che Guevara and his struggle.
@@JustSomeDinosaurPerson oh agreed. Looking back on it, it is so obvious that they were afraid of us learning the truth. It got better for awhile but now it's getting even worse.
People describing progressive ideals as "non-American" so they don't have to critically think about them in order to attempt refuting them is funny to me considering the entirety of modern America is non-American.
@@darkgardener9577 Thanks for highlighting you don't actually understand your opposition hon, was really amusing reading your reply.
I highlighted this on previous videos, and I still believe the concept of "un-American" deserves a full video on its own to critically analyse and deconstruct it. As I said before, the use of the term "un-American" is such an American thing, that seems baffling, if not outright ridiculous, to most people from other countries. Surely, in most countries you can criticise someone for being unpatriotic, but it is not the same. I come from Mexico, I have lived in France and the UK, and visited a bunch of other places. In every one of them I have heard people discussing politics and complaining about everything they don't like and that they think should be changed or handled differently, but I have never heard anyone in any language attempting to discredit or dismiss a disagreeing opinion by calling them "un-[nsert nationality of choice]," such as "un-Mexican," "un-French," or "un-British," etc. It would simply sound nonsensical, yet in the US it is so normalised left and right. It's just bizarre and not helpful at all for any constructive debate.
@@darkgardener9577man I hope your like, 14 and not a grown man still spouting this nonsense. So life liberty and the pursuit of property but only for white men like at the time that phrase was coined?
A big ol' American shouting how proud they are to be an American whilst also saying endless anti-capitalist rhetoric would be a huge electoral asset right now and deprive fascists of a lot of votes, given how far the overton window has shifted. We can ditch patriotism when the right is no longer threatening and bourgeois democracy is dying. We should stop letting them own it.
We have met the enemy, and he is us!
"Socialists going out there. shutting down the economy and burning stuff until things got better" WORD! Unionize! Socialize!
And burninate too!!
Destruction is not Socialism!
Socialists are creators, not destroyers.
Fascism is about destruction and chaos for control.
"Shutting down the economy and burning stuff" sounds like a bunch of entitled brats to me.
cope@@mostlysunny582
@@mostlysunny582The only way to get a capitalists attention is to hit him in the pocketbook - or threaten his life - which do you prefer?
1:18 What's depressing is Conservatives say words like Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Woke & a Majority of them don't have a clue what any of these words mean. They just clap like trained seals. 🦭
@@sfctw1At least when they use those terms they actually know what they mean.
Trained seals that clap are better thinkers.
They really dont
They're not conservatives. They're authoritarians. The authority says what they should fear and they do as they're told. So it's about time we take authority and stop letting them tell us what to call them.
Don't be depressed. We don't have to teach every single conservative what these words mean before the revolution can happen. There will always be reactionaries and they all get dealt with in their time.
Graduating school three years ago and watching these videos since then, just shows me how controlled and veiled the history I was thought was. They really drill the idea into your head that capitalism is the default, so much so that they make you believe that supporting the status quo is somehow a lack of a political position, when in reality it's the support of neo-liberal ideals, of course I never learned those kind of terms there, because they always say them in a way that makes them seem like they're not political beliefs, like we rarely even the mention the word capitalism, or how we often call capitalists 'entrepreneurs' . Everytime socialist history was thought, it was vague enough to uphold American exceptionalism, for example, a lot of us were probably thought about the October Revolution, but because it was the main thing behind the Red Scarce, we talked very little about the actual ideals behind it, being thought that things like that would never happen here, because we already live in the best democracy. Never learned about May Day, and the countless fights that let to the conditions we take for granted now, like 40 hr weeks, only vague ideas like Stalin and Mao were the big bad, but the USA is not. Glad the newer generations are acquiring class consciousness dispite these lies, and taking finding the thruth into their own hands, like by finding amazing comrade creators like you JT.
"There is no alternative" © the Witch
Capitalism is not the default, it's attained by fighting for it. It's what responsible adults want, because it's based on freedom, and therefore works. Children want socialism because they're told it gives free candy. Then they grow up and realize the only "free" candy is offered by the man in the van, and IT AIN'T FREE, BABY!
This could be a whole series. Really great to hear more about Shays rebellion, Thomas Paine, the communist generals that fight in the Civil War, the letter marks wrote to Abraham Lincoln and the battle of Blair Mountain.
You prefacing this video by saying you couldn't do a full history because it's 'too much for one video' makes me wanna see longer-form content on this channel. Full, feature-length documentaries from this channel are an idea that quite catches my fancy.
Knowing better does really nice long videos, not really socialist but shows the history that is left out of history classes
@@hydromic2518He is a Christopher Columbus apologist, not trustworthy at all
It might be better to do it in a series.
Knowing better does centrist history videos. Maybe a bit better than school but not by much
Join nebula. Second thought as a documentary-series project in that plataforma just as the one you are suggesting
I think the most important takeaway is just how much we (and the common individual who opposes socialism) take for granted is directly because of socialist movements.
Literally only unions are the result of socialist movements. So be thankful for that if you’re a union guy.
Others wise quite literally nothing in this video had anything to with socialism.
@@thebigenchilada678 Would you like to actually refute the source backed claims or are you just blindly denying history because it doesn't match the reality you've crafted in your mind?
Also, then unionize if you haven't so you can get those sweet socialist benefits.
Heck, actually even if you're not in one you can benefit from unions indirectly.
@@Necrapocalypse The sources he does cite come from socialist/far left intellectuals lmao, not like that totally discredits them but their views are skewed to deem anything slightly within their sphere of ideological belief as their own. Like women’s rights? Lmao yeah, not socialist.
Just because socialism shoots for equity doesn’t mark this as a socialist movement or change, sure there were socialists within the movement absolutely, but it was a simple progressive liberal movement, it was an equity movement, women didn’t want to have rights so their economy could have an even distribution of goods, they wanted fuckin rights to have fuckin rights, come on now.
Racial equality? Again not a socialist movement, but just like before there were socialists and communists within the movement, yet the movement as a whole was neither of those things, why? Because the movement had nothing to do with socialist economic standards and everything to do with basic human rights (again).
The native Americans weren’t socialist, they were communalists, so were early American settlers. They work together, have no major governing figure outside of a loose “mayor-like” entity, and come to agreements via popular assembly. So basically fuckin tribes.
Eugene debs achieved absolutely nothing and got 6% of the popular vote. Most ever for a socialist party candidate tho, good on him.
The problems i have with the video isn’t the fact that socialism has had an effect on the country, more so that socialism is being incorrectly associated with concepts it had no actual part in. I’m not an anti socialist guy, i’m fairly progressive, but left leaning ideologies constantly trying to eat eachother and claim them as their own is getting annoying.
@@Necrapocalypse and i so benefit from Unions, love those guys.
The black panthers where an extremely power full group that made the cops listen to them. We need that again.
They were killed by the cops and federal government…fuck are you talking about
I don't disagree. However, there was another group that they dealt with that was more powerful. The FBI. And while the Bureau was scary back in the day, they are full on horror movie now. It would be interesting to see how you'd be able to organize something like the Panthers in modern day, without drawing the eyes of the government guard dogs.
@@ramadjones well you would need 1 of three things. Overwhelming public support for the new group, the group to be more powerful than the government, or the government to not care about the new group
People are sadly to apathetic and accepting of their lot in life to care. Without fire in their bellies, there's not enough of us to be safe together, and especially not against a weaponised and heavily funded intelligence industry.
@@Thorned_Rose It doesn't have to be this way, a lot of people are discontent with their life. Many people are angry about it. And more people than you think know the cause of their problems. People just need to realize that they are not alone and change is possible. You can see a problem, do not accept it. Go out into the world and make changes happen.
It is hard proof of the insidious nature of bourgeois education that I literally knew about none of this - from the Indigenous socialism to the Haymarket bombing to Eugene V Debs - until I was done with my formal schooling and read Zinn’s “People’s History”. They literally try to erase this history, and are trying to do it again right now, starting in Florida.
"insidious nature of bourgeois education" or "there isnt time in the school year to go over every single socialist thing this country has ever done, so we are just gonna hit the big events"
jeez, thats like complaining that its the antimormons that wrote the education guidelines because they didnt include everything about joseph smith or brigham young
The average 5th grader in late 18th century, who attended a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie, was reading at what would today be considered 2nd year college level English literature. Kids were too intelligent and well-read back then, had to dumb them down to work factories on assembly lines.
Here in Canada, I’m a part of a reserve that actually does a lot of things that are very similar to socialism. We have homes that cost $50 a month. We also just got through a land claim that gave each of our members $80,000. Spoiler alert, this huge increase in personal finances did not destroy our community. Everyone was still going to work and all that stuff.
Another side note, my reservation pays for its members post secondary education. So long as you graduate, you don’t have to pay them anything back. Very cool. I wish this was something that was available for everyone.
Yet you take that over freedom of speech and right to own a firearm. Under Trudeaus reign of terror.
"We have the best government money can buy." Mark Twain
Definitely joining on Nebula. I've thought about signing up for it a while now, but signing up and also financially supporting this channel? Take my money.
Thank you so much!
*"AMERICA WILL NEVER BE A SOCIALIST COUNTRY"* Translation. "You will never have nice things"
@@AdamSkrzypczak And capitalism isn't anti-democratic either?!
@@thenathanimal2909 - please stop believing this rubbish. Its propaganda to make you feel better about living in a horrible time. NO the only time that was objectively much worse was the industrial revolution until about 1950.
"Capitalism has it's flaws, but it has done incredible things to move forward quality of life for humans." NO IT HAS NOT.
"Most humans were subsistence farmers/hunter gatherers," YES THEY WERE and they were happier and healthier than you are.
Even medieval peasants have a vastly better life than most people are led to believe. A medieval peasant worked about 1400 hours a year edit a modern American works 1800, and their welfare was ultimately the responsibility of the lord of the manor. The "family unit" was an invention of the industrial revolution to make the FAMILY responsible for its own sick, elderly and children, prior to that the village looked ofter them with the lord of the manor having ultimate responsibility. Industrialists were very keen NOT to take on this burden.
Capitalism has moved forward technology but not happiness, and people are less healthy than they were at any time except the middle of the industrial revolution. NO people did not die at 35 in history - this is bad science reported wrongly.
The only unequivocally brilliant thing about the modern world is medicine, but even then the medicine in the USSR was astonishingly good - the life expectancy in the USSR went from 38 in 1945 to 77 in 1970.
"But Americans have a higher standard of living". NO they have more consumer goods, this does not = a higher quality of life.
Yo may have guessed, I'm an author in this field.
@@darkgardener9577 - NO ITS NOT. Dont talk rot. "and the liberty to freely exchange it with others." HAHAHAHAHAHAH
@thenathanimal2909 who's to say that you couldn't achieve that with socialism. Our way of life isn't unique.
You will be an American I guess...??? I'm an author on the collapse of civilisations, I literally write the books on this stuff. @@darkgardener9577
I'm French and I'm actually reading "The heart is a lonely hunter" by Carson McCullers. I was shocked to see they mentioned Karl Marx, Socialist unions and Communists, so I went on TH-cam to look for something about the socialist movements in the US, which I didn't know existed. And what do I found ? That one of my favourite TH-camr just released a video about that precise subject !!!! 😍
Большое спасибо, товарищ JT ❤
That’s a good book, but I don’t remember Socialism being mentioned. I’ll have to reread it.
I’ve been getting really into learning about socialism and communism lately, your channel, and podcast are some of my favorites. I tried to talk to my mom about socialism, she’s a mega-conservative Christian, who thinks communism is basically fascism. Anyway I was telling her about all the flaws of capitalism and she said, “wait a minute, you think that all of our problems are because of the rich?” To which I of course said ya you’ve got it, and she laughed at me. Idk how we are supposed to educate people who fully believe in propaganda and lies, yet are convinced they know the absolute truth. They’re so ignorant it would be funny if it weren’t impossible to overcome.
Your problem is you are financially illiterate. You can learn finance, economics, business, for free on you tube.
I am not an American. But i really really appreciate your videos and get to learn a lot.
Sorry buddy a lot of this video is a lie
@@Paul-xw1lxwhat part?
@@PAL5041Quite a bit, you also have to remember that “Second Thought” is a socialist channel that has been preaching for a soviet style economy in America for a long time now. He even befriended Hakim a well known communist apologized who claimed that the 1990’s famines in North Korea under its autocratic dictatorship was “necessary”
@@chadzahirshah2588 a soviet style economy...ok i dont see whats horribly wrong with that? as for the famine thing, being a friend with someone doesn't mean you have to agree on every idea. and plus, what does he mean by necessary? "communist" countries always go through famines before stability, just like in the USSR and China. i don't think he means necessary by "we gotta do this intentionally", but rather necessary as "inevitable"
@@chadzahirshah2588 so which part is wrong? Tell me that so that i can see for myself🤷♀️
As an italian i can't help to mention one of the final chapters of the book "Workers and capital" by marxist philosopher Mario Tronti, recently passed away, called "Marx in Detroit" which thesis is essentially that, while Europe is the homeland of marxism, the ideological approach to it didn't help to achieve its goal, while in the United States, where there is a rejection for marxism (especially in the '60s when the book was written), workers managed to organise themselves in the way Marx expected and achieve higher salaries by this
What do you think of present day socialist organizations and parties in Italy? The only one of any size in my area is Potere al Popolo (I'm replying in English in case other non Italians are interested)
@@lorenzod.987 The problem is that we've got a really unusual history for the worker's movement, as we were in the middle of the cold war (both politically and geographically), we didn't had a great socialist/labourist party like Spain, France or UK, but the biggest COMMUNIST party in the west. After that we took the clintonian third way and until today we never looked back. I believe Democratic Party's new secretary, Elly Schlein, is trying to transform the centre (or centre-right) PD into a party more aligned with other social democratic parties in Europe, and I believe it will be a good thing in the long term, but the path to restore the lost values of Berlinguer's PCI is hard and cannot be pursued in a small populist party completely detached from reality like PaP. I hope for a Spanish model, with a large socialist party (but let it be really socialist!) and a post-communist/ecological/feminist movement to its left.
Solidifying my socialist values has led me to joining my local non profit homeless services organization and utilizing my skills to help fight against American capitalist oppression ✊🏾
Cheers from Brazil 🇧🇷 ✊🏽 Keep it going comrade! ✊🏽
In contrast, I have yet t meet someone who has drifted away from their church, after years of coercion into "volunteering" for the church and donating 10%+ of their paycheck as a tithe, has gone on to put that same effort and money toward helping their neighbors and wider community.
What do you call the capitalist oppression?
No. You should join your union (you have to be a worker) and join your communist party and dedicate your life to the struggle of building a communist workers movement to topple the capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Stop that pussy non profit social care shit and start being a fucking communist. Stalin never would've done that pussy shit.
Lol "capitalist oppression" meanwhile millions upon millions migrates to America every year legally and illegally to be oppressed. How dense can you be?
Day by day I realize how much we've all been lied or misspoken about lots of things. And thanks to such people like You we can learn our real history and see everything clear!
This is awesome!❤❤
This is one of the most important channels on youtube period
Which lamp burns out first in the dark?!? The true red lamp with strings that has a danny reflection on the ceiling from it or the people alarm balance bud light front where the smiling party jesse pen is?!?
Eugene Debs said probably the greatest words ever uttered by an American in the history of the country.
An American hero
His speech starting with "years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things..." never fails to make me teary eyed.
John Brown tho
America's Socialist Past....This video would blow every Conservatives mind all at once. 🤯
The socialist pill is too strong for them. They'd spit it back out before they ever came close to swallowing it.
that's only if there willing to have the smallest amount of a open mind sadly😢
@@ibkraft6706hot take: conservatives do not deserve to have children
@@AntiFurry927 if you did you would not be a conservative
@@AntiFurry927 The "didn't work once" argument is very poor. What about Indonesia's genocide of the Timorese, or the atrocities of Imperial Japan? Those were done in the name of capitalism. Yet it's almost like, even though we give things labels, we should look at the actual idea and not what other concepts of the same name have achieved.
One thing you missed is how the 2nd Red Scare atomised socialist groups into all those single-issue groups you mentioned; organising on the basis of social class got you so much attention, militants figured it'll be easier organising around a specific issue like the environment, gay rights, civil rights, women's liberation, against animal cruelty, against nuclear weapons, etc. And the lack of success of these groups can pretty much be attributed to a lack of a cohesive national program as they get played against one another; and then they all got recuperated by "Intersectionalism" - Class struggle is all the intersectionalism we need.
I don't think he missed it as much as acknowledging that a single episode is not long enough to cover everything. Good case in point though.
Many of those atomifications were born in response to the dynamics of class warfare in capitalist countries.
Environmentalists and anti-nuclear weapons appeared as a response to the inaction of major worker's movements that were usually bound to the 2nd world, socialist countries, who after IIWW had their own national interests very related to an eternal warfare condition.
That's our history and we better face it head on in order to do different next time.
Also, 13:35 ish, is it correct to think of BLM as a socialist movement? As I recall, BLM was endorsed by some wealthy capitalists and many corporations (or their marketing or publicity departments). From my point of view, the BLM protesters were not enunciating, in clear way, a set of policies which would serve as the end goal of the protests. Because the movement did not delineate policy goals, it was essentially a generic virtuous slogan that most anyone could get behind, like saying "I'm for good things and I'm against bad things" or "I'm against murder" or "it makes me angry when police put their knees on people's necks" or "racism is bad" - although I agree with these sentiments, I think that for protests to be successful, there has to be clear policy goals in mind, not just saying some slogan like "racism is bad." This is why BLM accomplished essentially nothing in the long term. I think it would have been better to advocate for policies like ending the drug war; getting people out of prison; and leftist economic policies which would move people (of all races) out of the Poverty Class, the Low-Income Working Class, and the Involuntarily Unemployed class into classes of people who are fairly compensated for their labor and not suffering from poverty.
But it seem like some people - like pro-capitalist people who expressed nominal support for BLM - are OK with the existence of poverty and homelessness, as long as there is racial equality within this class system (so, e.g., from their point of view, if there are, say, 50 million people living in poverty and X% of the nation is [insert the name of some other minority group], then having 50 million people in poverty is OK as long as no more than X percent of those people are [the minority group]. Also it is OK if almost all wealth is owned by a few hundred people as long as X% of those people are [the minority group]. Thus, from the point of view of these people, it is OK to have grotesque economic inequality as long there is (the most important thing) racial and gender equality (within the capitalist system).
(I know that some BLM protesters did have specific policies in mind, like reducing or eliminating funding for police, but the majority of people who expressed nominal support for BLM were basically just saying that they were against the concept of racism without specifying any policies that they would be willing to support. Since there were no policies attached, it was easy to attract a lot of support for BLM - including support from the capitalist class.)
@@robertjenkins6132 you're describing well how the movement was co-opted. In most cases these [socialist] movements are either co-opted to defang them, or just outright killed (see the Black Panthers for more.) Much in the same way MLK isn't the Santa Claus-like figure he's presented as for the sake of a national holiday, BLM is not what you see it as now after it has been fully co-opted.
@@robertjenkins6132 isnt the percieved lack of policy goals part of the feedback loop of cooption with the endorsments by capitalists? You mention some policy goals that the movement has stood for, like prison abolition for example. Those policy goals slowly fell to the cycle of cooption, becoming more palatable and less scary to capitalists over time, morphed to abolish the police, then defund the police, then reallocate some funding, eventually boiling away in the public perception, becoming "just" black lives matter, with no explicit policy goals.
Tldr from my perspective, they did have explicit policy goals, but they were coopted away, atleast in their public perception.
Thank you for delivering the truth. I was born in 1952. I can remember seeing public service films about duck and cover, how much better off we were compared to every other country in the world, how much Russia duped their citizens with propaganda, etc.etc. And I believed it all. Then, when I got old enough to stay up late and listen to Dad and his brothers talk politics, my real education began. They were blue collar, union liberals who read books and thought for themselves. Like Howard Zinn they were all WWII vets who had seen the elephant...multiple times... that included liberating concentration camps, getting ships sunk from beneath them (the Hornet and merchant marine ships), and engaging in the only toe-to-toe slug-out between two battleships in the entire war (the Washington won btw). They understood capitalism ("worshipping the almighty dollar") and socialism. They all saw why we were in Viet Nam and knew the Domino Theory was bullshit. They knew that the US would side with Satan as long as he was anti-communism. Again, thank you for telling it like it is.
The world was alot bigger then too.
💕Thank you...THANK YOU so much for this video! I'm 35 years old & I never knew MLK was a socialist! 😲 And nobody taught me ANYTHING about U.S. history of socialism in school. Also, thanks for showing us books that talk more about this important subject! 😊🇺🇸💙
That's a good start, but this channel is a rabbit hole straight to fascism, the author defends Russia's invasion into Ukraine and runs a podcast with a bunch of other self-proclaimed socialists who mostly defend the worst of nations like the Kim regime or Stalin's USSR.
Yep Einstein as well. They like to leave that out of the textbooks 🤫
You’d be surprised at the number of famous Americans whose socialist histories were rewritten
And the right-wing haters love to casually toss those terms around (socialist, commies, Marxists) as if they know something.
If you look far enough back, socialism is as much all-American as capitalism is. There isn't only one group of people that gets to decide the vision for our country is.
What's amazing is that capitalism started in the 1500s as a joint project between Dutch, Flemish, & Russian aristocrats who laid the foundation for feudalism's demise by cutting their business partners in on the profits of their mass exploitation rather than paying their tribute to the monarchy. They truly didn't want to change the organizational method of feudalism, they just wanted to replace it with a design that put "owners of things" at the top of the socio-economic hierarchy.
They called themselves The Adventurers -- even though they never went on any adventures themselves 😅 in true capitalist fashion they hired the poor, starving, unhoused, & uneducated for pennies & sent them halfway around the globe in search of rare spices, fabrics, & other raw material goods. Most of the workers & sailors never made it back, but the ships did. When you send out a crew of 50 & only 5 make it back but they still have 100% of the goods, that's one hell of a start at "profit maximization" 🙄
That model has been so mythologized that people consider it a way of life worth protecting now. Even worth dying for, or killing the folks who oppose it.
Pathetic, isn't it?
One group deciding all is a perfect description for what socialism is, as the government would be the greatest and most powerful monopoly created under such regime. capitalism itself cannot be blamed for creating a benefit to the more powerful as that is a problem among any government structure, especially socialism
@@markrus6712"one group deciding all" is not a weakness of socialism 🙄 as socialism is collective ownership of production & labor. You can't point to a single nation on the planet that now has or ever had 100% collective ownership of labor & survived.
"One group deciding all" is conservatism. The structure of conservatism 'conserves' power for the minority ruling class by definition. That's what conservatism is.
Socialist nations don't survive because surrounding capitalist & imperialist nations destroy them with intervention, imperialism, colonialism, tariffs, sanctions, etc. That's the blueprint for stomping out socialism & it's worked for centuries.
That's not going to change any time soon because out of 8 billion people on the planet everything is decided by about 5,000 ultra rich conservatives who preserve a power structure that relentlessly demolishes all attempts at restructuring society in the majority's favor.
The top resulting definition of socialism when googled is: "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." There are many policy structures which could facilitate that. One attempted structure in multiple countries throughout the 20th century was state communism where a group of elite intelligentsia who were socialist orchestrated a coup and tried imposing their beliefs forcefully on the people, which is what you are referring to. The problem, of course, with that approach is that it isolates the cause from the commoner, and so the state was forced to impose it on them, because your average commoner is gonna see this coup and be like "who the fuck are these dingdongs?"
Other more bottom-up democratically decided approaches like in Chile have been attempted, at first finding success, until the global elites of the world who don't like their bottom line being hurt tip off mercenaries or organizations such as the CIA to facilitate a coup there and install a useful puppet dictator there to keep their corporate griphold, and then have the gall to blame the coup THEY orchestrated on socialism.
@@vrahnkeneisenbach9148Project Cybersyn. Allende 🤘
Fantastic as usual. Keep up the good fight, great work! I’ve been sharing these with as many passionately-minded folk as possible. 😊
Thank you for keeping Zinn’s voice alive. My APUSH teacher gave us a people’s history as a supplemental read and it’s the reason I’m a social studies teacher today.
What is “APUSH” - oh nvm AP US History 😅
It’s amazing they gave you that book! My History teachers would NEVER.
I'm involved in the UKs 'socialist party' for over a year and its been so good for getting people to reach a class conscious state. honestly which ever you join either a communist party, international socialist party or any other socialist group, It is powerful for giving the working class a steering wheel to establish socialism.
Thank you for bringing issue to light. Its especially important to despondent American marxists like myself who have been lead to believe that this country never had a true socialist history (because of course that's what the ruling class wants). Hopefully this will do good to make people like myself less despondent and more willing to do what is right.
Historical materialism developed because folks were analyzing the warp & weave of history to understand "how society got here," with 'here' meaning whatever point in time they were experiencing when they started to look back for an explanation.
The history of the U.S. is a huge part of the history of socialism because it's the most massive imperial & industrial power on the planet -- where the class struggle has been the most publicized. Most of U.S. history _is_ class struggle.
History is taught in a very specific way, with very specific goals, in the imperial core, & the ruling class of those nations have a vested interest in the workers not knowing their own history.
From its inception the U.S. became the nest of the most sociopathic and brutal but cunning wealthy class of the planet. It's history is the building of the nest of imperial capitalism and leadership of the world market system we know as capitalism. In order to perpetuate this system the USA turned the revolution of 1917 in Russia as the existential challenge and war as the way to perpetuate capitalism and stop socialism from succeeding. Fascism was the decision to justify a war to stop the revolution crushing the European vanguard of the workers leadership under the excuse to defeat fascism . In fact the fascious always was the wealthy class and fascism wasn't defeated. Instead the European working class found their nations destroyed by war and the Russian workers isolated by war and sabotage. The proof fascism wasn't defeated is the USA today having a legitimized neo Nazi party in the GOP exposing its true nature. And a thriving sociopathic group of wealth hoarders and the military industrial complex dictating the rules in the USA.
I am terrified that there is communist in the usa.
Well done documentary. Thank you.
You might have also mentioned the Ludlow and Blair Mountain Massacres to illustrate how far the capitalists have been willing to go.
Coal corporations did straight up evil things to Appalachians, I’m pretty sure coal companies still don’t want to admit that black lung has anything to do with coal mining
Matewan, as well.
I'm a Nebula member, and I'm totally down for any and all team Deprogram content on Nebula.
Díky!
JT, I just wanted to commend how much improved the production quality of your videos have gone up since you made the shift. This video is an excellent example. Just wanted to let you (and your people) know that it hasn't gone unnoticed!
Thank you for once again making a spot-on video essay with actual ideas for action.
That deep dive with the boys sounds cool, I've been a nebula member for a couple years now. What kind of topics are you thinking about covering?
We’ve got a list of potential topics, but the current frontrunner is the late stages and dissolution of the Soviet Union
😍Woohoo! Is it gonna feature a bit of Shock Stragegy ala Naomi Klein? The "peaceful revolution" that ended Eastern Germany might feature nicely as well. (They were worked over in a similar fassion to Russia afterwards and that fat prick Helmut Kohl (Germany's Thatcher/Reagan, later followed by Gerhard Schröder, Germany's Blair/Clinton) rode that zombie horse of "Chancellor of Unity" for another 9 Years afterwards.) They haven't really recovered from getting fucked over as a region and are now a hotbed of far right politics since the absolute lack of a politically "viable" socialist/communist alternative or movement in Germany.@@SecondThought
If you guys did a deep-dive series like Blowback my life would be complete.
What alot of people dont realize is that socialism exists in America today, but only for the rich. They have every kind of safety net, group-support, golden parachute and buttpad society can offer, and yet the middle.class and poor are left in a merciless dog-eat-dog system of competition to see who can make a wealthy person the wealthiest in exchange for barely enough to make ends meet...
Always remember who these companies called 'essential', and never forget how much they compensate them for being so 'essential'...
It's called an oligarchy.
I can just picture the future where people are asking questions like "what is a billionaire?"
It'll stay in my head
@sammysosadchoom Revolutionary Optimism my friend! We will make it happen. For now, let's chase after small victories: organizing and agitating, lift of the embargo on Cuba, struggling against imperialism, demanding human rights for everyone, etc.
will united states have a socialist president in the future?
Omg a Blowback-esc series with you, Yugo, and Hakim would be so cool!
Howard Zinn would be proud of you JT. Good stuff.
0:55 I highlighted this on previous videos, and I still believe the concept of "un-American" deserves a full video on its own to critically analyse and deconstruct it. As I said before, the use of the term "un-American" is such an American thing, that seems baffling, if not outright ridiculous, to most people from other countries. Surely, in most countries you can criticise someone for being unpatriotic, but it is not the same. I come from Mexico, I have lived in France and the UK, and visited a bunch of other places. In every one of them I have heard people discussing politics and complaining about everything they don't like and that they think should be changed or handled differently, but I have never heard anyone in any language attempting to discredit or dismiss a disagreeing opinion by calling them "un-[nsert nationality of choice]," such as "un-Mexican," "un-French," or "un-British," etc. It would simply sound nonsensical, yet in the US it is so normalised left and right. It's just bizarre and not helpful at all for any constructive debate.
thanks for creating such amazing, informative content, looking forward to seeing more from you hasL
Thank you for bringing this content forward.
Didn't realize ‘The New F Word’ is out now 👏 Congrats JT your work is so necessary + important
Oook let me catch you here! Please, do you know of any other good socialist material on Nebula?
How quickly they can change the narrative and have the public forget…
Hell yeah, a new second thought video just dropped.
Fantastic video. Love how straightforwardly educational this one is. Makes it much easier to share with friends and family members.
Hammer and Hoe, mentioned in the video, is an excellent book and more people need to read it.
You really should have talked about the city of Milwaukee and it's long standing history with socialism and having various as Socialists until the 60s.
Around the 9-minute mark I think it's important to note that police also serve to enforce Jim Crow laws and serve as slave patrols. Of course this predates the Haymarket massacre.
You are rocking this channel!
"Physical slavery requires the feeding and housing of slaves. Economic slavery requires the slave to feed and house themselves" This single quote has been my guiding principle when it comes to American Capitatim for the last 20 years or so. We are not free. We ARE slaves. Especially if you're poor. It's just a highly advanced form of slavery that keeps getting perfected over the years. I can't remember the source of this quote at the moment so help me out here.
Freedom doesn't mean free stuff buddy.
@@meeraj-4774 robot says what? I'm not your Buddy Guy, and that's got nothing to do with what I said.
it does@@meeraj-4774
Thank you JT 😌 Thank you for the video, I will watch it with interest 🙂
The editing in these videos has an energy that gets me excited to tear down capitalism
Recently I heard of a group in the U.S. and Canada called the Hutterites. I have no interest particularly in religious groups, but they were portrayed as living in communes that split and 'self replicate' when they grow to about twice their minimum size. Thought it an interesting model.
None of these anabaptist groups, including the amish and the mennonites, have a sustainable model. If their populations double and require continuous colonization of new land then sooner or later they will hit the wall and collapse. These groups also require absolute adherence to their religious doctrines. No one is allowed to question any tenet of their beliefs without risking being ostracized. This is generally referred to as coerced ideological indoctrination, i.e. brainwashing.
These groups also tend to have a fairly high incidence of birth defects due to inbreeding as a result of their dwindling gene pool because of their rigid clannish social structure.
@@dingusdingus2152 They surely have their issues, all groups do. Whether or not that is one for this specific group would require looking deeper than I have to know. My point in mentioning them is that it is an operating model, and for those interested in looking, well, they can gain knowledge. This would include both positive and cautionary lessons.
this is one of your most important, heartfelt messages yet. you are a hero. lets keep this growing ❤ for a better future, for all of us.
Next time a capitalist tells me “When has socialism worked?” I’ll paraphrase this video
th-cam.com/video/C3HK8ubv7Mg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=d5mfACdJP-ewxzbb
Or mybye this one
"America will never be a socialist country" translates from american into
"America will never be a happy country"
@@AntiFurry927 Source?
@@jakekaywell5972what did they say?
@@The-Devils-Advocate It notified me with the comment.
"Explains why americans during the cold war were happier than russians. Don't humiliate yourself."
@@o5-1-formerlycalvinlucien60 because it's a lie
@@o5-1-formerlycalvinlucien60 ok
If we could just get more people informed on this issue, we just might make things better.
And that's the thing. Political education was once a massive part of The Left. Teaching people about themselves and the world around them. So that they can know themselves, and their own strengths. From it, it learn what Solidarity is and the immense power it can bring. Education matters.
The black panthers during their social outreach were told something consistently.
"I don't know about this socialism stuff and I don't care. What I know is the black panthers make sure my babies are fed. So I will support the panthers with everything I have".
Here’s the thing, I’ve rarely met a person who disagrees with a socialist economic agenda. Most people don’t think it’s ok for corporations to destroy our planet. Most people don’t think it’s ok for corporations to have pay wages so low that their employees still need government assistance just to make it. Most people enjoy a good work/life balance having some time off to spend with those that are important in their lives. Most people want working mothers to be able to take time off and raise their children without worrying whether or not they can afford basic needs. Most people think a disease like cancer shouldn’t bankrupt you and healthcare is a human right. It’s not the information or education that people lack. It’s the big millstone that the left wing has tied around their neck and jumped off a bridge into a deep never ending sea that kills it where it stands. It’s the LGBTQRSTUV movement that will keep this rocket ship right here on the ground.
@@snorkelfish The LGBTQ movements were a large part of our socialistic history as well
@@christopheriman4921 they still are. They’re what’s keeping it from growing. Socialism is an economic system and shouldn’t be tangled with cultural differences. Every time I hear this channel do an episode on the LGBT movement I cringe because I know it’s an automatic shutoff for most normal people in the US. You know what would benefit LGBTQ people? Universal Healthcare. You know what would help them out? Higher wages, safer working conditions, more time off, better sick leave. You know why we can’t get that? Because we want transgender story hour at the local library and every Disney movie to feature a group of transgender furrys.
I understand that this is a brief history, but I am saddened that Milwaukee wasn’t mentioned at all. It was the first major US city, and the only to date, to have a socialist mayor, at a time when it was consistently one of the largest cities in the country. Socialists occupied the mayor’s office for all but four years from 1910-1960.
Alice Cooper taught me that.
Thank you so much for this video and much of your other content. I am blue collar, through and through. The majority of my life has been spent as a trashman, a long haul truck driver, a delivery driver, and now a department of transportation highway maintenance worker. Throughout my entire life, the sweaty arms and dirty faces to my left and right, whom I build, produce, clean up and repair our nation with, have been overwhelmingly conservative. I have been stubbornly but respectfully leftist the entire time. A decade ago, I was still arguing for repairing the capitalist system, but the events of the last 10 years have converted me to be an outspoken socialist. Content like this not only arms me for the conversations that have begun to sway the opinions of those around me, but also provide an easy way for me to share the knowledge while avoiding conversations in the workplace, that could make me a lighting rod for "retribution". Once I have identified someone who is reasonable, and at least somewhat sympathetic to the ideas, being able to share a video like this is tremendously powerful in adding yet another grain of sand on our way to the necessary critical mass. Thank you for all that you guys do, please keep it up. Once my pay scale reaches the level where I can afford to pay the union dues and join, I will absolutely be supporting you through patreon or nebula. You are one of four content creators doing things correctly and I cannot possibly express my gratitude for your efforts, diligence and solidarity. ✊🙏
For anyone curious, my regular other go-to sources:
Some more news
Philosophy tube
More perfect union
Lol the capitalist system is not broken. We've been groomed to support a form of capitalism that isn't beneficial for the average person. I suggest you do more research before committing to being a socialist. Socialism sounds nice that's about it.
Always a joy and educational experience with your work. Thank you.
Yep, people should recognize it sooner!
I try to show Libertarians how their ideology got its roots in early French socialist writings, it was meant to be private ownership of public works but with a HEAVY emphasis on social duty to improve and maintain these works for the enrichment of the country as a whole. Philanthropy on a country wide scale. In the 1970s, in large part thanks to Ayn Rands narcissistic "Selfishness as a Virtue" version of capitalism, it got twisted into the same private ownership of public works but with a HEAVY emphasis on individual profit and tax cuts. No duty to anyone but your own pocket. The original Libertarian ideas were inherently socialist but it became something else entirely once the capitalists realized it could be used to gain ownership and control of vital infrastructure in order to stuff their wallets at our expense.
Lib rights are all either pedos or closet fascists
Another banger of a video. Great stuff.
A GREAT PRESENTATION! This should be used and applied in the classrooms of History, Social Studies, Economics, to name a few. Immediately - learning of the Native American "side of socialism" caught my attention and continued interest. I plan on heading outward on a search for that topic, the book spoken therein. Thank You SecondThought. I have subscribed.
As soon as I mentioned socialism to any of my family they looked at me crazy.
That's how it goes. Stay strong bud
Because it is crazy. The ‘ideas’ don’t hold up at all as soon as you start questioning it.
@@SR16732the only sensible man here
@@SR16732 ideas like?
@@dexorne9753a utopia system where people are all treated equally and where people will do more dangerous and/or stressful jobs for the same pay as a safe/easy job just for sake of equality.
Putting industry in the hands of 'the workers' who do not have the skills nor ability to properly run that business or even worse having it be government controlled.
The ideas of 'free education' which shifts the burden of cost from the individual to the tax payer. No individual repercussions for poor performance in schools, costing taxpayers more money, and even greater repercussions for the industry as a whole due to a decline in workforce skill level. 'Free' is not actually Free.
Oh my god. Thank you so much. I was hungry for this exact topic. Goat!!!!!
Love your content. Keep spreading the word to the masses.
Very interesting! Thanks for the upload!
This video was very funny and enlightening. I like how this channel delivers information in a fun and digestible way without dumbing anything down.
Thanks!
hooray, i'm early! your videos have been getting better and better every year, thank you for educating everyone about socialism!
Your humor has gotten better and better, cant even make it through 15sec without laughing😂
Same here! “So…cialism” broke me 😅
Learned a lot of this history from Left Reckoning - it's a good channel + people looking to dive into some of these particular cases + movements would enjoy checking out 😃
In fact JT should go do an interview there or on MR to do one with Sam Seder. Great cross promos 👏
Yes, please do the deep-dive series on Nebula! That way, you can take the proper time needed to review these overlooked bits of history
Id say one of the greatest achievements of the past 100 years of political climate is to stigmatize Socialism as a word so much, despite when youd agree with it under any other branding.
Great video as always. hasL
Somehow missed this earlier, watching it on Hasan now but won't be able to catch the whole thing. Will listen to it again on the clock at work tomorrow.
I know of a couple of comics writers who realized Captain America grew up in NY during the depression, so he'd have a better-informed and more positive view of socialism than anyone from modern times. Hearing this kind of talk coming out of Captain America would be both hilarious and informative...
"Children aren't in the mines anymore"... not if the GOP has anything to say about it. The clock is being turned back and people seemed to have forgotten what it took and who made sure workers got rights.
Love how you spread the message of battling against oppressions ✊🏽💪🏽
We ought to be ashamed. America has a LOT to answer for!
No. We live in the best country on earth by a long shot
@@sportsrus705 In what way are we the best? Explain, please. Maybe you live in an alternate America, and not the real one?