This video took nearly 2 years to make 😆 but oddly now seems like the best time to have released it. Apologies for the sound issues here and there, I'm at a bit of an itinerant time in my life and finding good places to record is a rare find. Anyway, if all goes well I'll be responding to some grievances in the follow up video as usual.
I want to preface this by saying that I am not from the US, but why do you condemn PSL? I vaguely remember watching an interview with Claudia de la Cruz and thinking her politics were pretty solid. What is it you are urging people to investigate further? Edit: Never mind, just saw the titles of your last two videos. I'm sorry but "tankies" like Thomas Sankara, Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, and others, were not dictatorial monsters, and it's utterly ridiculous to dismiss a century's worth of effort on the part of ordinary people from all over the world, because a handful of powerful, socialist states failed to achieve what they set out to accomplish. None of these revolutions would have occurred had it not been for the working masses of Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. violently protesting the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonisers, and Western capitalists. Most Marxists do not want Soviet-style communism or anything of the sort. One can praise the USSR for providing free education to people *and* condemn the Purges. Just as you can critique electoralism while still participating in it, and just as you can condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine while recognising the role the US played in escalating tensions in region by refusing to halt NATO expansion. It's not a coincidence that arms manufacturers have seen their stock prices skyrocket since the war began.
@@Tofu_va_Bien Why would you condemn the purges? There were some excesses and bad parts - largely thanks to a corrupt NKVD that did things behind Stalin's/ the leadership's back - but if you actually learn about it, it's something that made sense, and was likely necessary. (And btw, "purge" is a more general thing. The first "purge" in the Bolshevik Party occurred under Lenin, of course. But I figured you were talking about "The purges" the way anticommunists do.) Not a whole lot wrong with Soviet-style socialism, either, at least under Stalin. Private property virtually/ close to abolished, markets kept to a minimum (limited one between industry and agriculture), obviously collective ownership of the means of production, etc., and everything that went along with it. It seems like even your understanding/ view may be substantially shaped by anticommunist propaganda. (Though better than many.) And btw, I could be wrong, but the "Tankie" video - at least the first, longer one - wasn't that bad, iirc. I don't think it was the kind of video people that use the word "Tankie" unironically would like. (Though I haven't watched it in a while, and BM did at least *used* to be an anarchist - not sure if he still is.)
@@slipknotboy555 Just doing my best not to frighten the libs. My feelings towards the Soviet Union are far more nuanced than what is expressed in my initial comment but I tend to assume the audience for these kinds of videos has little to no knowledge of the history of Soviet Union apart from the propaganda we've all been exposed to over the last 70+ years.
@@slipknotboy555 If I know I’m speaking to an audience that is deeply uninformed about the particulars of Soviet history, I tend to highlight the uncontroversially “good” Marxist leaders/thinkers/projects instead of attempting to undo the 70+ years worth of anti-communist brainwashing most Westerners have been inculcated with from an early age. I appreciate the added context you’ve provided all the same, just couldn’t be bothered to do it myself. As the saying goes-it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
@@Tofu_va_Bien I didn't say any of which you claim in your second paragraph, when did I say any of that? As for PSL: descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78 Sadly some of the links are down but I'd suggest the podcast as it basically summerizes everything. Some consider it hearsay, however its blatently obvious from the rhetoric of PSL's response to this, where they said stuff like "Anyone who accuses the PSL of harbouring rapists should be 'ashamed'" which is very much abuser rhetoric, shaming individuals who bring forward information about abusers. That alone tells you a lot about the org. docs.google.com/document/d/1Dzh2ATsPUvkYWLd0vTppViuNxb-GZsboj8OhF3JWVhY/edit
Solid video with a solid conclusion. I especially appreciated your shout-out to degrowth, abolition, and post-work as well as your line about quality over quantity in the social revolution.
Concerning restaurants ... they will continue to exist because more than anything, they are a cultural thing. I grew up in a socialist country and we still had them. But! You're right, they were different! They weren't places you went to to be served food and the propriator didn't bend over backwards to please you. They were places you went to to treat yourself to food you weren't able to make yourself, to meet people, and the propriator was your host. They made the rules and you would adhere to them because "the customer is always right" wasn't a thing. At all. They weren't a status thing either, because even the cleaning lady could afford the prices. They basically fell into three different categories: places you went to eat when at work, serving simple, but good quality meals, places that served foreign food (those were insanely popular), and historical places with a long tradition like Auerbach's Keller (of Faust fame, in Leipzig. Yes, that one, it's a real place) or other touristy spots.
This is super interesting to me. I love to eat out because I’m a mediocre cook and I imagine people who actually do like to cook would have more incentive to create great and interesting meals if they didn’t also have a profit incentive.
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." - Letter from Birmingham Jail (ext) By Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963
We need to learn to speak to dolphins, and then we will need a nuclear winter to create enough strife for people to do communism, and as soon as we have it, our alien comrades will arrive and share knowledge with us. Our knowledge of dolphin will help us speak to our alien comrades.
If your org doesn't have *demonstrated power* over one or more bourgeois politicians' ACTIONS (e.g. legislative and executive power), then voting isn't "lesser evil". It's collaboration.
@@Fungoul So it's collaboration unless you're exceptionally successful? Way to present a reason to not try to do anything bud. That's the opposite of what we need.
Curious to why the PSL is not worth voting for. I want to investigate this further so I would appreciate any readings or arguments as to why. Thanks for the work you do.
descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78 I would especially recommend the podcast episodes.
If we just set everything else aside and analyze PSL's electoral campaign platform in isolation, it's actually startlingly reformist. "Seize the biggest 100 corporations", "lock up the corrupt elite", "cut the military budget by 90%", etc. I don't have the same position on elections as BadMouse, and I think there's nothing wrong with revolutionaries using specific reforms as slogan, but PSL's electoral campaign shows no awareness of the traditional Leninist position of using electoral campaigns as a means of agitating for revolution.
@@user-ig4dl4iv1j Reformism is literally all they can promise, knowing as try do that mere election doesn't give anyone the keys to the kingdom. Remember Obama? He was mooted for 6 of his 8 golden years, only appearing "strong" when he did exactly what his pig superiors wanted (e.g. assassinate Gadhafi, OBL, 20,000 Somali wedding goers, etc.).
@cyndaguy yeah I just got done listening to the podcast. What that guy went through sucks but I'm not convinced his experience is universal. I've been around psl for almost a year now, and my experiences have been pretty much the exact opposite of his. We always work with other organizations, we don't look down on other organizations . I don't really get a "in group/out group" vibe. We always treated everyone with respect, whether they were members, members of other left organizations or just regular people not affiliated with anything.
20:36 @Badmouseproductions Care to elaborate? I've read Claudia's campaign page and am not aware of any 'Nick Brans & Cornel West' type of party dysfunction. She seems like any other 3rd party presidential candidate. So i'm not sure what your referencing, I need to search for it.
I ran for congress in 2022 as an independent socialist against Republican Thomas Massie and the dem. The dems were very upset about it. I received 10,111 votes, the most for an independent in my districts history. It felt like it was a waste of time, but there have been some butterfly effects.
I'm sure there have been more effects you aren't even aware of. People are naturally very bad at conceptualizing butterfly effects, and our internalized capitalist individualized notions of success don't help. But the reality is that these butterfly effects are the true basis of all progress and history as a whole. Trust the praxis
We need more independent workers' candidates doing this throughout the US. The current "uncommitted" primary votes may be a positive sign that people are tired of Democrats complacently taking left-leaning voter blocs for granted while offering concessions to the GOP time and again. But socialists in the US have to articulate an alternative that not only exists outside the corrupting influence of the Democrats, but is also willing to transcend the limited imaginations of conservative trade union leadership, the closest thing we have to reformist social democrats in the US. Fighting what seems like a losing electoral battle at the local level, beyond just pissing off/scaring the local Dems, lays one more building block in the broader effort to build the workers' movement, which can crystallize into an independent left party electorally that shouldn't limit its actions and priorities to electoral campaigns.
@@discountchocolate4577"Conservative trade union leadership. The closest we have to reformist social democrats in the US." Uhm. There are at least two social democrats in Congress right now. Both in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders and AOC. Neither of them are conservatives. So I don't know what you're talking about.
@@barbarianandy I'll address this point by point. 1) By "conservative" I don't mean the right wing of liberalism specifically (as represented by, e.g., GOP in the US or Tories in the UK), but conservative as in right-of-center or invested in the status quo. The vast majority of trade union leaders in the US are conservative in the sense that they feel little need to shake up the status quo unless they're directly threatened by management, and even then only after they've gotten heat from the rank and file. In the meantime leaders of US unions such as AFL-CIO, UAW, and Teamsters are more than happy to waste members' dues money on donations to, lobbying, and even endorsements for Democrats, an openly pro-capitalist, right-wing party that pretends to be pro-labor as part of their lesser-evil long con. 2) We likely use different criteria to define who is or isn't a social democrat. To anchor my definition with a reference point, I suspect we agree that Jeremy Corbyn is (or was) a social democrat. Until his expulsion from Labour he based his politics in the tendency we tend to call "Old Labour", i.e. the Labour Party's social-democratic roots, wherein the party had mass membership and participation, had its social and economic base primarily among the workers, etc. To be even a social democrat, never mind an actual socialist, you'd have to be actively involved in a party by and for the workers, not just a party of representatives claiming to represent the workers. Labour's takeover by the Blairite "New Labour" tendency (following the expulsion of the Militant tendency) represented a turn towards neoliberalism and Labour's transformation into a party explicitly and directly influenced by bourgeois interests and contrary to workers' interests, said transformation only recently completed with the expulsion of Corbyn. Which is to say, Labour *was* social-democratic, but it now has much more in common with the Democrats in the US, a party which has never had any true economic or social base among the working class, and which has always answered first and foremost to specific sections of the petty and large bourgeoisie. 3) Segueing into the question of whether Bernie Sanders or AOC are social democrats. One could possibly argue Bernie *was* or aspired to be a socdem in the 20th century when he was just a mayor, but shortly after joining the Senate he had a long track record of consistently voting the Democrats' party line and caucusing with Democrats, despite maintaining nominal political independence up until 2016. Sanders, as a de-facto Democrat, sheepdogs for members of the decidedly not social-democratic Democratic Party during elections and despite his pro-worker rhetoric ultimately bends the knee to openly right-wing, openly pro-capitalist Democratic leaders like the Clintons, Obama, Biden, etc. And at no point has Sanders ever been directly accountable to any working-class mass party membership because the Democratic Party doesn't *have* mass membership to begin with! What the US's two main parties have instead are voter registration lists, effectively fan clubs for the Democrats and Republicans for all intents and purposes. Ordinary voters who call themselves Democrats and Republicans have zero say on party priorities/political platforms, they lack the ability to censure, expel, or recall renegades and saboteurs like Joe Manchin, they don't get to decide which primary candidates are "electable". Capitalist donors and the few elites who are true members of these parties get to decide these. Contrast with Labour before Blair, where at least some of these accountability mechanisms were in place. To run as a Democratic candidate is to align oneself with the urban, technocratic, and financial wing of capital, as party discipline is reserved for the likes of Sanders and AOC, and never for the Manchins or the Sinemas or Joe Liebermans of the party. To operate within the Democratic Party is therefore mutually exclusive with being a social democrat. Like with Sanders entering the Senate as a de-facto Democrat, the moment AOC entered Congress as a capital-D Democrat is the moment she allowed herself to be tethered to Nancy Pelosi's leash, with Pelosi herself leashed by her capitalist donors. And there's no way DSA or the Justice Dems could rein AOC back in the other direction, as AOC is accountable to none of the working-class people or orgs who actually mobilized to get her elected. With a social-democratic politician, which requires membership in a social-democratic party, workers using their purses/wallets to pressure the representative politician from the opposite direction is at least *theoretically* possible. 4) Regarding the similarity of social democratic parties to trade unions. Similar to socdem parties that haven't been Blairized, trade unions (at least nominally) contain structures resembling internal democracy, there is mass membership and participation in locals/branches by ordinary workers and internal elections where rank and file have the ability to decide who's in charge of the union and put forth resolutions/proposals. But much like the European socdem parties whose leaders have turned increasingly conservative over the decades as the workers' movement still recovers from the nadir of the 1980s-1990s, trade union leadership in the US have trended in the same direction over the same time period, in some cases suppressing internal democracy within the union, taking bribes from management, doing closed-door bargaining without letting the workers decide what demands they want the union to make to management, and so on. The political niche of treacherous nominal working class leadership that we would normally associate with social democrats in Europe is entirely occupied by the trade unions in the US for lack of a workers' political party - this is what I meant.
The biggest problem with saying it "holds the line" is that the party or coalition in power (at least in the specific systems we're talking about) can effectively carry that line wherever it feels like once they've formed government. Effectively we're voting one who do we trust with that power. As @fallenswan1670 said in another post on here, it seems like the system itself is degrading. Their hypothesis is that once socialist parties were actual movements, and now (to paraphrase) they're just part of the machine.
That's why I say it's the least you can do. You have to do more. Organize, agitate, build community and contact your representatives. But none of the above matters if you skip out on voting. A liberal can be convinced to enact humane measures, a fascist can't. As bad a liberals are, voting for one takes precedence over not voting.
@@ahouyearno is fascism some alien ideology that fell to earth in the 1920s or does it arise from specific historical conditions, if you're not a liberal you should already know which one is true.
I think if you swap "the" for "a" it's a little more true. I think it's even more complex than that in a way in that the effectivenesses worked differently on different segments of society, and different parts of psychology. They facilitate eachother in a complimentary way.
Revolt whilst we can, Reform if we must seems reasonable. My queer german ass is uncomfortable not voting left, and I think that's pretty valid, since I also know it isn't enough
Here’s how I vote. 1) research all the candidates using my local paper’s questionnaire 2) if that doesn’t create enough distinction, go to their websites 3) pick whoever I think is the best person for the job. It takes me an hour or so on Election Day (~2 times a year including primaries) so it’s not really distracting my time from elsewhere. It’s so simple, but it *infuriates* my liberal friends and family. I’m sorry, but why should I care about the Democrats’ electoral strategy? I’m not a Democrat! I have no loyalty to them. If they want my vote, then they should appeal to ME not the other way around. And that, I think, is a good voting “strategy” for leftists. Have no strategy, but vote religiously. In essence, be the perfect independent undecided voter. That way you don’t have to waste more than a couple hours a year on electoralism (assuming it’s accessible). Importantly, leftists as a whole have pretty similar voting interests, so if parties want our votes, they are going to have to appeal to those common interests by default without us having to do devise an actual political strategy. Though I will note that if this is your organization’s official strategy, you are going to have to also implement a “no talking about who you voted for” rule to avoid any of the tribalism that tends to seep into election talk, and more generally to stay focused on the actual work of revolution instead of horse racing.
I've been in the union a good seven years or so. We only just got enough people in the workplace that I was elected as a delegate but that came about because there were legitimate widespread grievances and I was actively getting involved. One strike day, I was the only person on strike. The others were already rostered off. You have to do things. Keep taking bites, as little or as large as you can and they will accumulate.
"Both tho" is still a valid argument, and you did not do enough to respond to it. Both Malcolm x and MLK advocated for voting and organized struggle. Not that they thought it would the main driver of change, but by getting people who say they agree with you in power and force their hand by organized struggle and the threat of revolution, has been the closes to an effective strategy of change.
30 seconds in, I can already see the analogy you're going to draw, I'm jealous. I wish I thought of it. Also digging the term 'electoralism' here. That's how I've been using it. I've been wanting this to be a theme in political spaces, but it gets so much resistance. Now gonna watch the rest and I'm gonna have "thats what I've been trying to say!" moments for the next half hour. Thanks for this one
You can vote and do direct action. Arguing against voting is incredibly self-defeating. Not voting is privileged and this is coming from one of those marginalized people you try to pretend is siding with you. Whenever I see this argument it's 99% white dudes arguing against voting and mostly trans people or PoC arguing for voting cause we actually have something to lose. No one actually thinks voting will solve everything. If nothing else voting makes people more engaged with politics, not less. And the issue for the left isn't that people are against us, it's that most people don't care enough to engage, by design. The more people involved in politics the better for the working class.
As a chronically ill mom w/ a 5 y/o disabled from rare brain malformations, who's so poor that my living in housing near the children's hospital feels like I won the lottery, I had to shout THANK YOU for saying this! I don't get the luxury of sitting on my hands & not voting when I know if they cut ANY of our benefits , it’d put my son’s survival (& mine) in jeopardy. I can't sit on the sidelines & wait for the revolution to play out while disability protections are stripped away, privitized medicine refuses to cover us, SSDI is ripped away, & so schools can go back to treating students like him like they’re no more than a dirty gym sock; lock them in a proverbial locker & forget about them until the end of the year (unless they begin to get uppity & then the not so friendly neighborhood officer pays them a visit.) So sorry I had to rant after this video, but your comment hit on every point I was feeling watching it! Voting just isn’t a choice when your current democracy is literally keeping your kid & you from probable death if we were to ever loose Medicaid & preexisting condition protections.
White people be like, white people be like, but they the white people that be like. Even if it was true that not voting makes you an ebil fascist what have democrats actually done for trans people or any other minority?
"If nothing else voting makes people more engaged with politics, not less." This hasn't been my experience, and really, did you even watch the video, I mean *really* watch it? Harm reduction only works when harm is actually being reduced. Whoever your "lesser evil" is, they are going to turn right around and screw you, and there'll be nothing you or I can do about it. Electorally, your choices are going to end up being Hitler or Strasser, like it or not.
@@ArtisticlyAlexis You assume you have a democracy to begin with... "Democracy is when voting!" So, early fascist Italy was a democracy then? I didn't think so...
and Stalin objectively held parades in Brest with Nazi Germany, sent them countless materiel as they bombed England, sending them up until Barbarossa happened to the hour. Also check up what Woody "This Machine Kills Fascists" Guthrie spoke about the invasion of Poland (: Stalin also wanted to join the Axis and although Germany woulsnt let them join he was insistent on pursuing it.
@@Rimmy45Actually Soviet went to western countries to make a pact against Germany but they declined ,and soviets needed time to catch with Germany in arms production. After Munich Stalin was also very suspicious of England and France ,He also proposed anglo-french-soviet treaty but you know the communism scared the pants out of royals and privileged.
@@vishalpatkar6819 I am well aware of that. Now you tell me how that was a good reason to fuel the Germans, conduct military offensives together with them? Yall constantly say that 1 nazi at a table with 10 people means theres 10 nazis at that table. If Molotov Ribentrop and parades with Germany and a plethora of resources sent to Germany was to "buy time" then explain a) how giving vital resources to the nation you are planning to invade will be actually beneficial, it will only make them stronger, and they were will all of Europe under their occupation with the British only resisting as well as Partisan groups all while Soviet trucks were delievering resources to the Germans and b) 25 November 1940, for a nation apparently so opposed to Nazism the Soviets were really trying to ally with them and divide the world. Moreover the secret clause of dividing Eastern Europe between the Germans and the USSR, in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, was done so by Molotov by direct requests of Stalin, not by the German side.
@@vishalpatkar6819 good thing The USSR needed to catch the Germans in arms production so they decided to aid them by conquering Poland together and sending raw material up until 22.6.1941! And also even had talks about a 4 way Axis and dividing the world between themselves, as well as Italy and Japan
@@Rimmy45 yeah NAZI and west most anti communist on the planets have more c'mon then USSR with NAZI GERMANY, literally helped nazi escape ,this would have never happened if fucking anti communist proto nazi simply accepted Anglo -Franco-Soviet treaty and allied with Soviets to fuck Nazis up but no they let Prague invasion happen and in the Munich invited Nazis to talk but not USSR ,how the fuck you will believe in idiots like this and build your own infra to fight.
i have heard libs complaining about campism recently and thank you for showing footage from bablyon berlin it is a good television series based off a series of books of the same name
Provisioning of housing and wage labor are 2 major structures that keep the owning class in power. There are difficult roads ahead for workers to seize the means to provision housing, water, food, medical care, other essentials, education, infrastructure ... because the myriad owners and governments of the world hold all of the power. Moving against them requires durable power-bases built by direct action & campaigning as the video author has recommended.
The really hard and important conclusion of this conversation is, if we can't do electoralism, then we must organize. It doesn't matter whether you as an individual vote, terribly, but in any case spend your spare energy on activism or on labour work. Learn to talk well, stay focused, listen intently, be decisive, and lead people. If we are organizing, we must be honest with ourselves and be economical in our work: you should not be engaging in activism from the point of view of achieving maximal moral comfort, or a minimally threatened ego, but from the perspective of a clear image of the necessary tasks and a strategic orientation towards completing them. Everything is about good use of limited time and resources.
Why not solely take to direct action with a variety of tactics instead of legitimizing the state's violence against this very useful and effective tool and the people utilizing it? All voting ever achieves is to confirm the existing Plutocracy in it's place and justify it in the eyes of the workers. It will ultimately change nothing about the economic system because the state inherently exists to violently enforce capitalism. And it will also not "reduce harm" because harm is much more effectively reduced by direct action. If all who support socialist or Anarchist Ideas would stop voting and instead turn to direct action, we would have achieved that famed Revolution since decades or centuries. Look no further to the achievements of the Zapatistas or us Kurds in Rojava as proof to that. A society of people indoctrinated by the idea that voting will serve their interests rather then harming it is not use to any other cause then a capitalist and authoritarian one.
@@CerdurTV Not sure if your comment is just sarcasm because it's hard to tell these days but just in case it's not: You might as well ask why there are countless "Brands" if all of those Brands are ultimately produced by the same exact Corporation and if, for the most part, they are often all more or less the same. Voting is the illusion of power and the illusion of choice. Just like Brands in Capitalism or the promises of ethical production. Its meant to keep the illusion up and the indoctrination going.
@@MissElaineDumontdoubt we will get a mass movement of revolutionary action until the economic collapse of people living in the imperial core. Since many now are still relatively comfortable with their lives.
It is not a good idea to abandon any battlefield to the neoliberal and fascist wings of capitalism. Voting is not the most important form of action, by far, but we need to use every tool available.
15:07 Uh, why (as in, what's up with that jab)? When good/ more legitimate (i.e., anti-revisionist) MLs advocate more for the general position you're supporting? 24:05 Yeah, this. Leftists need to be creating, or supporting/ working for/ in, genuine proletarian organizations. Or at the very least, orgs that aren't connected to the big bourgeois parties, and don't take bourgeois funding. And helping build/ re-build the working class movement in general. We can use the bourgeois electoral system to our advantage*, but it's not a priority. *And what I mean is things like running candidates from an independent left party - not even necessarily to win elections, but as sort of a headcount, and as propaganda/ way to gain support. The electoral work should only make up a small fraction - i.e., 10% or so, of an org/ party's work. And that's IF the party/ org decides to go that route at all. The main focus is on building up these independent left orgs, and doing the work [I'd prefer they be ML orgs, ofc, but at this point, just independent left orgs in general would/ could be good.] I think this is compatible with what you were talking about (if not maybe straight up what you were talking about), unless I'm misunderstanding. [Unless maybe you're coming from some kind of (certain, ig) anarchist position of "No parties/ orgs period - all parties/ orgs bad!" Heh. But I don't think you are?]
In fairness, Mulroney did indeed push neoliberalism a fair bit. He was, however, also beholden to working-class votes that he -- a charismatic, fluently bilingual Paddy from Baie-Comeau -- stole almost singlehandedly from the Liberals of Trudeau the Elder. Mulroney's government was responsible for the Free Trade Agreement with the US, which resulted in widespread unemployment and Mulroney's ouster/retirement. Kim Campbell had to wear that legacy out on the hustings...and she was slaughtered. Chrétien was Papa Trudeau's justice minister, and was responsible for the disgusting 1969 White Paper which sought to municipalize "Indians" and strip their inherent title to land...and Aladdin continues these efforts today! Oh, and for a fun bonus, both the Grits (Liberals) and Tories full-throatedly support the Banderite Nazis...Chrystia is one herself! Edit: 26:52 was the Tories after that election in '93, reduced from almost 200 seats to just two: Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne.
I should also add that Trudeau, Sr. wore the OPEC Crisis (high fuel costs), and Mulroney also carefully courted both Western Tories in the Joe Clark camp, and "Québec" (reactionary) nationalists led by Lucien Bouchard. The fissure of these camps was seen at the end, when several Québec "Tories" went with Bouchard to form the rump Bloc Québécois.
Is the gestation of the new form of the GOP too far along in terms of their capture of popular support? If/when they come to power, how can the remaining Americans properly oppose them?
But in demoncracy we can choose our own demon to torture as in ways we would prefer more. In demoncracy, main question is always: lesser evil, or greater evil? Your choice! Anyway... I personally were part of political party and supported elections in past. But studying past, and trying to understand why in past we had victories, and not any more..? What we could do to win more, why those people in past won so much, and we just lose again and again... I started to realise, how the system really works. In my case, the country is Republic of Finland. Recent decades roughly 8 parties usually get representatives to parliament ("eduskunta" (gathering of representatives), or like some call it "edukskunta" (gathering for profit/benefit)), usually biggest party get 20-25% of votes, and there is three major parties in similar size. In past socialist parties got more votes, then people stopped to believe in them (not really because of USSR vanished - in 1995 elections all leftist parties got major victory - and made government, which made very neo-liberal austerity politics, which destroyed people's believe in these parties. Similar happen in 1970's, when socialists won majority in parliament, second time in history, but didn't do most of things people expected them to do). Well. I found roughly saying this: 1) parliamentary system is slowly "corrupting" - well, in many possible meanings of sentence. But I tried to say, that system itself is changing worse and worse. Wen system was created roughly century ago, it effected very different way, since people who took part of it, saw and acted different way. Socialist movements were movements, doing much more than just voting or waiting representatives to save us all. Opposite, other activity was main thing, having part of elections were one of many ways to act. There was no big money as part of elections, and media was more plural, since socialists had also visible media, not just rich people. This system slowly changed. 2) Power structures in system changed: when Finland were more "progressive" in past, it was minority governments, who made compromises with opposition. This was mainly socialist government with agricultural league (=peasants and petty bourgeoisie) as part of coalition. This was done, because there was fear for revolution: for bourgeoisie it is better deal to give bigger slice of cake, than to lose whole bakery. But when we came to 1990's, system change: (bourgeoisie) majority governments start rule, without caring about (ex-socialist) opposition. There is no more fear for revolution, no more need for compromises. So, system works slowing or preventing changes, if you want build better world, but it increases speed if you want worsening things. This all is of course connection with who control media, and therefore who can influence in people's mind. Those who have lot of money, happen to mainly control media, and those who have lot of money, usually want dominate world and shape it way which benefit them, but is horrible for others. There is no wins in demoncracy. It is structurally dead end. It is spring, what allow you make some progress, in order to eat your momentum, and then it will pull you back. What we need, is power structures which make possible to really improve things.
There's virtually nothing correct in this video, but the most egretious things is that you fall into the mistakes you claim the opposite side is doing. Let's begin. The entire premise of the video is wrong. It criticizes some "Electoralist for life" ideology, while the vast majority of Socialists (unlike you) recognize both the need of violent revolution and electoral change, depending on context, circumstances and period of time. To claim "one solution fits them all" is utopianism, and doomed to fail. In fact most socialists will actually think that both Electoralism and Proactive effort are necessary: to vote for the most left-leaning party that can be elected AND also protest, occupy, build infrastructure that does not depend on the state, and make propaganda. It's not about "Later". If one lives in a fascist dictatorship, like Fascist Italy in the 20s or Saudi Arabia today or Syria, then a revolution is necessary, voting is meaningless or even outlawed. If one lives in the US the two party system is extremely undemocratic, so one should focus a lot more on revolutionary effort, yet NEVER desert an election because Biden won't take your abortion away on it's own. Trump will. They are not the same. And women will die if the wrong candidate wins. If you live in Sweeden, then elections are probably how you will achieve a lot of your objectives You claim that "X Revolutionary", which is obviously Marx, never said that elections are sometimes necessary. And you quote 3 videos (what a grand number of evidences!). You are wrong. Those videos are wrong. Period. Marx (and Engels, Lenin, Trockij, Gramsci and all the other major marxists) all agreed elections are necessary, but they did not refuse violent revolution (which is what makes them different from the other Reformists). If you deny that, you are simply wrong. This is something Marx (and all those others) have said countless times. Citing 3 videos is irrelevant (and those videos have been criticized too. If you want to argue from previous thesis, then you must include previous antithesis. If you think they are correct, then explain why. But you don't, you simply moved to the next part). You claim that the idea that voting for far left parties will help radicalizing people is just speculation, yet you go on to speculate that voting left leaning parties will legitimize the state, despite opposing evidence. You claim that reforms only happened because of "historical context" and would have happened anyway (you are wrong, I will explain later) but yet you seem to believe that revolutions don't follow this pattern and they are free from the bondage of historical precedent. So you tell me the entire eastern europe just so hapened to go tankie "because"? Please. You claim that We as voters are irrelevant because we count very little (that's a Straw Man fallacy,
sorry i just keep leaving comments! one thing that comes to mind as relevant to the harm reduction section is reagan's handling of the hiv/aids pandemic, even compared to other conservative parties in government like the uk
Voting where and when it matters isn't silly in my opinion. If you're in a marginal electorate, think like an ant, not an individual. A no-vote is a vote for Trump, by far the worse of two evils.
Y'all ever think about how in capitalist "democracies", you have more rights if you buy a new sofa and aren't happy with it than it you elect a politician and they go back on their word?
Great video. Im happy finally more people with the platforms to do it are speaking out against the level of cope reformism we have all been in. Honestly, I'm thinking of putting together a historical piece of work on the amount of times here in America we've been falling for the lesser evil trap.
That's why Republicans are ballot caging and throwing black people in jail in an effort to disenfranchise them specifically. Because it doesn't change anything. Genius self-referential quote for a big tough leftist. It legitimately sad how cool you maroons think you are.
Small point of contention, but, while it would be accurate to say that Jean Chretien pushed forward neoliberalism in Canada, it's less accurate to say that it was him and not the Conservatives, as Brian Mulroney was doing it 10 years prior. Chretien played more the Clinton to Mulroney's Reagan, or the Blair to Mulroney's Thatcher. Not the one who started it, but definitely the one who ushered in its status as bipartisan hegemony.
10:00 CHP's thoughts on refugees are very contradictory made even moreso with the supposed change in leadership. But i doubt they support full on forced deportations, that's more for the Zafer crowd of fascists (which they tried to appease in the last election in vain). Not to say that the CHP is above xenophobia or anything, since nationalism is one of its founding principles.
Aristotle wrote about this. Athenian democracy had very little voting involved for exactly the reason that it skews oligarchic. The founders of the US, well versed in the greek classics and being rich as fuck, saw democracy as an end to their oligarchy and made voting their highest goal.
I'd suggest using all of your methods and still vote, but do it thoughtfully because in the realms of politics one can never know what is going to work and what isn't so you must use all the methods that are available to you.
Hey, Badmouse. If I were able to find a reupload of that Carl Benjaman video you mentioned on TH-cam or Bitchute or The Internet Archive (almost certainly the internet archive), would you add it to your video? Because I might be able to do that.
what do we make of groups from the new left during the 1970s? militant groups like the weather underground, red army faction, japanese red army, or front de liberation du quebec? i don't really know what to think of them, but it's difficult for me to think of their approaches as the way forward
It is possible to create real change. Just look at the party Chega! in Portugal. They had 1 MEP in the beginning of 2022 and yesterday they elected 48 MEPs. Tremendous.
There just wont be any eating oppertunies under socialism Everyone will have the glorious right to cook for themselves and close others - because this is what socialism stands for! /s
I think he meant ''restaurants as we know them.'' That is nothing more than small lucrative assets for a private owner to make profit out of, as their employee base gets exploited. A lot of fast-food joints wouldn't exist, because they aren't really tied down to actually feeding a population and have no inherent moral or cultural value. Whereas, in a lot of socialist countries. For example, like Bulgaria. You would have a self-integrated community, restaurants were integrated within the housing complex and was tied to a cultural identity, feeding and social gathering for the members of said community. Public Kitchens will still exist, just not in the fast-food format that we have under capitalism.
I am someone from the US who votes more conservative than liberal but I also have an open mind. I loved the disclaimer in the beginning that this video was made by a socialist for socialist, even if I may not agree I am able to respect someone who respects others. I found this video very informational since I use to really harp the old adage’s “Every vote counts” and “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain” which I am going to reevaluate.
I get to be on a voting roll of 300,000 people who I on average agree with way more than the general population in a mixed member proportional system. And the 300,000 people I’m on a roll with have alternative political structures we can and do invest energy into. So to me the whole voting thing seems chill.
docs.google.com/document/d/1Dzh2ATsPUvkYWLd0vTppViuNxb-GZsboj8OhF3JWVhY/edit soundcloud.com/indoctrinationshow/sharp-edged-party-line-w-jacob Their behaviour has been atrocious.
"Stupid" is an ableist slur, and "silly" is not very useful as a descriptor (neither is, actually). I'm the worst at resorting to name-calling in the heat of the [mental health episode], but I'm pushing myself to do better. The moral/interpersonal aspects are obvious enough, but I believe I've identified a bigger problem with name-calling: It is fatal to any further analysis. I dunno if I'm articulating this well, but I know you're a smart cookie, comrade. It's been a minute...Happy New Year! "Joe The Eurosquatter" (altacct). ✊🛠️🚩
It’s kinda depressing when you realize that the majority of citizens don’t vote, the majority of voters don’t know enough about the issues, and the few that do are so entrenched that they hate the other side and are more interested in punishing them than actually accomplishing anything. Most campaigning is directed at the least involved ones, and the best we can hope for is a slight, compromised, temporary move in our preferred direction while hoping the other side doesn’t straight up revolt because they see any loss of ground as literal tyranny.
But we can also hold that up against places with obligatory voting or proportional representation, for instance, and kind of across the "west" we see similar trends between platforms, and election results. Israel and Australia come to mind as places where the governments have turned out to be further right that the sort of american assumption would have you believe that participation from the non voters would help the left representation in govt. There's something sticky happening, and it isn't JUST the base appeal of reactionaries to a populist base, and it isn't JUST the relative apathy from 'radicals'.
I think Mouse doesn't mean restaurants in the sense of "communal space where you get food" but "privately owned place where you are served food and pay for it and get to scream at an exploited worker". The former will continue to exist because cooking for many people is just way more effective and less wasteful. But the people who will make your food will be your hosts, not your servants.
@@TheSleepyowlet Also, people can have street-food stalls (self-employed, minizes customer interaction and workplace hierarchy) And "de-restaurantized" cafe co-ops... there's options beyond the 'Restaurant' (and similar) presently being stiffled! There's many possible ways for people to make food and share/sell it (Honestly, I'm pro small-scale market co-op ownership stuff) beyond the 'Restaurant' (which is presently a dominant form due to lack of options for workers, the history of aristocracy and servitude to the 'customer', the system of loans, regulations etc. under State-Capitalism, and generally shit for the cook and service staff) There's popular zine called 'Abolish Restaruant', I recommend.
it's a joke about an absurd pseudo-leftist shitstorm that happened on twitter a few years ago. that's why he laughed when he said it. I could wish I had receipts from that mess but...... honestly we're all better off not rehashing it. suffice to say, yes, it makes no sense. and it wasn't intended to make sense here.
Hello, this is me before watching the entire video, and is simply just expressing my personal viewpoint without any context regarding the video. Voting can be silly sometimes due to the fact that (at least in USA) there are two parties with ideological, political and economical objectives and interests which generally aligns very closely. Now this is more of a personal comprehension but the process of voting is a reinforcement of the status quo, to provide the voters and the nation a false illusion of change and democracy, the best way to handle with this game of tactics is by not playing at all.
Yeah just like the best way to handle starving is to do nothing. What wisdom. You people are such clowns. Can you all just stop pretending you care about politics? If electoralism is this big nothing burger then why do socialists like this guy make almost 1 hour videos about it?
A very important part of democratic socialism is that we need democratic capital through co-operatives, for example, that we use to build and influence an (acutal) leftist party. That and our own media, of course. I dont know how well that could be applied to the united states and other countries though. And yeah, of course we cant build socialism just through parliamentary reforms. If people actually think that... i dont even know.
Just in pragmatic terms, voting third party seems sensible. Even just watching the outrage of media and online commenters is worth the small time investment.
PSL is far from perfect but they are effective organizers that do great work. Many of the criticisms they've received have led to positive change or are unfounded and just seems like gate-keeping. Leftists need to unite rather than succumb to counter-productive infighting.
Yeah when you see a pattern of behavior and continue to see it even after the group has apparently gotten better and learnt from it, and the fact you see this behavior amongst other groups that follow the same methods and doctrine, you don't tend to have much faith in the vanguard. Sorry.
I mostly agree with you about Electoralism but not about Reformism. So I mentioned this video in a recent Blog post I just published titled "Reformism is Good Actually", the name of the blog is SolaScripturaChristianLiberty.
I don't think im necessarily anti-reform. I say at the end reform if we must, and if you happen to find reformist referendums and so forth then go for it. But yes, I am against this electoralist practice.
@@Kuudere-Kun tell me you've never read any Marx, Engels, or Lenin without saying it outright. Maybe try to educate yourself on communism if you claim to be one.
@@Joelthedon22 Don't listen to this clown. Most of the links in that article are dead and the ones that do work amount to little more than hearsay. I genuinely don't think this person has a clue what they're talking about.
@@Joelthedon22 Some of the links got taken down, thankfully theres a backup. docs.google.com/document/d/1Dzh2ATsPUvkYWLd0vTppViuNxb-GZsboj8OhF3JWVhY/edit
This is a decent video Bad Mouse, you say alot of things that need to be said and I agree with, and appreciate, the vast majority of your arguments here. Where I differ is that I think that capitalism and representative 'democracy' need to be completely rejected if we are to achieve liberation or make any signiificant change, including in just gaining reforms (as how we do so is crucial). We really need to stop giving any legitimacy to capitalism and the state in my view and that means not voting at all, while also building independent, truly grass roots alternatives and utilising direct action. Its my view that voting strengthens the capitalist class and weakens us., and that representative 'democracy' is a system that has completely failed.
7:14 reminds me so much of the history of the labor party in australia too -- even more so bc the party that introduced neoliberalism in aus WAS the labor party
![[Watch Party] RoV Pro League 2024 Winter | ( Bacon Time Vs PSG )](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zM25REvnJW4/mqdefault.jpg)
This video took nearly 2 years to make 😆 but oddly now seems like the best time to have released it.
Apologies for the sound issues here and there, I'm at a bit of an itinerant time in my life and finding good places to record is a rare find.
Anyway, if all goes well I'll be responding to some grievances in the follow up video as usual.
I want to preface this by saying that I am not from the US, but why do you condemn PSL? I vaguely remember watching an interview with Claudia de la Cruz and thinking her politics were pretty solid. What is it you are urging people to investigate further?
Edit: Never mind, just saw the titles of your last two videos. I'm sorry but "tankies" like Thomas Sankara, Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, and others, were not dictatorial monsters, and it's utterly ridiculous to dismiss a century's worth of effort on the part of ordinary people from all over the world, because a handful of powerful, socialist states failed to achieve what they set out to accomplish. None of these revolutions would have occurred had it not been for the working masses of Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. violently protesting the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonisers, and Western capitalists.
Most Marxists do not want Soviet-style communism or anything of the sort. One can praise the USSR for providing free education to people *and* condemn the Purges. Just as you can critique electoralism while still participating in it, and just as you can condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine while recognising the role the US played in escalating tensions in region by refusing to halt NATO expansion. It's not a coincidence that arms manufacturers have seen their stock prices skyrocket since the war began.
@@Tofu_va_Bien Why would you condemn the purges? There were some excesses and bad parts - largely thanks to a corrupt NKVD that did things behind Stalin's/ the leadership's back - but if you actually learn about it, it's something that made sense, and was likely necessary.
(And btw, "purge" is a more general thing. The first "purge" in the Bolshevik Party occurred under Lenin, of course. But I figured you were talking about "The purges" the way anticommunists do.)
Not a whole lot wrong with Soviet-style socialism, either, at least under Stalin. Private property virtually/ close to abolished, markets kept to a minimum (limited one between industry and agriculture), obviously collective ownership of the means of production, etc., and everything that went along with it.
It seems like even your understanding/ view may be substantially shaped by anticommunist propaganda. (Though better than many.)
And btw, I could be wrong, but the "Tankie" video - at least the first, longer one - wasn't that bad, iirc. I don't think it was the kind of video people that use the word "Tankie" unironically would like. (Though I haven't watched it in a while, and BM did at least *used* to be an anarchist - not sure if he still is.)
@@slipknotboy555 Just doing my best not to frighten the libs. My feelings towards the Soviet Union are far more nuanced than what is expressed in my initial comment but I tend to assume the audience for these kinds of videos has little to no knowledge of the history of Soviet Union apart from the propaganda we've all been exposed to over the last 70+ years.
@@slipknotboy555 If I know I’m speaking to an audience that is deeply uninformed about the particulars of Soviet history, I tend to highlight the uncontroversially “good” Marxist leaders/thinkers/projects instead of attempting to undo the 70+ years worth of anti-communist brainwashing most Westerners have been inculcated with from an early age.
I appreciate the added context you’ve provided all the same, just couldn’t be bothered to do it myself. As the saying goes-it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
@@Tofu_va_Bien
I didn't say any of which you claim in your second paragraph, when did I say any of that?
As for PSL: descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78
Sadly some of the links are down but I'd suggest the podcast as it basically summerizes everything.
Some consider it hearsay, however its blatently obvious from the rhetoric of PSL's response to this, where they said stuff like "Anyone who accuses the PSL of harbouring rapists should be 'ashamed'" which is very much abuser rhetoric, shaming individuals who bring forward information about abusers. That alone tells you a lot about the org.
docs.google.com/document/d/1Dzh2ATsPUvkYWLd0vTppViuNxb-GZsboj8OhF3JWVhY/edit
Solid video with a solid conclusion. I especially appreciated your shout-out to degrowth, abolition, and post-work as well as your line about quality over quantity in the social revolution.
Quality over quantity? That sounds nothing like BadMouse...
Hey, it's Andrewism!
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
-- Frederick Douglass .
If you have no impact on the ballot box, your demands are invisible.
insert "...backed up by a force" between "demand" and a dot. that would be more like the truth.
@@TheUnhappyTroll You're merely showing you don't know what "demand" means.
Political power comes at the end of a gun barrell. -chadman Mao
Concerning restaurants ... they will continue to exist because more than anything, they are a cultural thing. I grew up in a socialist country and we still had them. But! You're right, they were different! They weren't places you went to to be served food and the propriator didn't bend over backwards to please you. They were places you went to to treat yourself to food you weren't able to make yourself, to meet people, and the propriator was your host. They made the rules and you would adhere to them because "the customer is always right" wasn't a thing. At all.
They weren't a status thing either, because even the cleaning lady could afford the prices. They basically fell into three different categories: places you went to eat when at work, serving simple, but good quality meals, places that served foreign food (those were insanely popular), and historical places with a long tradition like Auerbach's Keller (of Faust fame, in Leipzig. Yes, that one, it's a real place) or other touristy spots.
This is super interesting to me. I love to eat out because I’m a mediocre cook and I imagine people who actually do like to cook would have more incentive to create great and interesting meals if they didn’t also have a profit incentive.
What country did you grew up in?
@@SpecopleaderDDR
I think they were referencing a meme and not seriously saying that restaurants are counterrevolutionary
Im sorry but the "socialist nations" had a capitalist mode of production
Take your goofy ass red social democracy somewhere else 😂😂😂😂😂
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
- Letter from Birmingham Jail (ext)
By Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963
I thought accelerationism was DIY nukes.
We need to learn to speak to dolphins, and then we will need a nuclear winter to create enough strife for people to do communism, and as soon as we have it, our alien comrades will arrive and share knowledge with us. Our knowledge of dolphin will help us speak to our alien comrades.
@@mikolajdubiel1384 based
That's posadism liberal
Robert Anton Wilson vibes
Lesser evil voting is a thing you do once every 4 years. Organizing and mutual aid is something you do every day.
this is also my position.
If your org doesn't have *demonstrated power* over one or more bourgeois politicians' ACTIONS (e.g. legislative and executive power), then voting isn't "lesser evil". It's collaboration.
so you didn't listen to the video ?
@@Fungoul So it's collaboration unless you're exceptionally successful? Way to present a reason to not try to do anything bud. That's the opposite of what we need.
@@anarchosnowflakist786 It seems you didnt.
Badmouse returns for his annual quality upload
@@Zucchinna Go vote.
“Annual”
"Revolt whilst we can, reform if we must" is brilliant.
Curious to why the PSL is not worth voting for. I want to investigate this further so I would appreciate any readings or arguments as to why. Thanks for the work you do.
descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78
I would especially recommend the podcast episodes.
If we just set everything else aside and analyze PSL's electoral campaign platform in isolation, it's actually startlingly reformist. "Seize the biggest 100 corporations", "lock up the corrupt elite", "cut the military budget by 90%", etc. I don't have the same position on elections as BadMouse, and I think there's nothing wrong with revolutionaries using specific reforms as slogan, but PSL's electoral campaign shows no awareness of the traditional Leninist position of using electoral campaigns as a means of agitating for revolution.
@@user-ig4dl4iv1j Reformism is literally all they can promise, knowing as try do that mere election doesn't give anyone the keys to the kingdom. Remember Obama? He was mooted for 6 of his 8 golden years, only appearing "strong" when he did exactly what his pig superiors wanted (e.g. assassinate Gadhafi, OBL, 20,000 Somali wedding goers, etc.).
idk my plan is to vote for whoever says they're the most communist and so far it's PSL, don't care about something a Philly chapter did 6 years ago
@cyndaguy yeah I just got done listening to the podcast. What that guy went through sucks but I'm not convinced his experience is universal. I've been around psl for almost a year now, and my experiences have been pretty much the exact opposite of his. We always work with other organizations, we don't look down on other organizations . I don't really get a "in group/out group" vibe. We always treated everyone with respect, whether they were members, members of other left organizations or just regular people not affiliated with anything.
20:36
@Badmouseproductions
Care to elaborate? I've read Claudia's campaign page and am not aware of any 'Nick Brans & Cornel West' type of party dysfunction. She seems like any other 3rd party presidential candidate. So i'm not sure what your referencing, I need to search for it.
descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78
I ran for congress in 2022 as an independent socialist against Republican Thomas Massie and the dem. The dems were very upset about it. I received 10,111 votes, the most for an independent in my districts history. It felt like it was a waste of time, but there have been some butterfly effects.
I'm sure there have been more effects you aren't even aware of. People are naturally very bad at conceptualizing butterfly effects, and our internalized capitalist individualized notions of success don't help. But the reality is that these butterfly effects are the true basis of all progress and history as a whole. Trust the praxis
We need more independent workers' candidates doing this throughout the US. The current "uncommitted" primary votes may be a positive sign that people are tired of Democrats complacently taking left-leaning voter blocs for granted while offering concessions to the GOP time and again. But socialists in the US have to articulate an alternative that not only exists outside the corrupting influence of the Democrats, but is also willing to transcend the limited imaginations of conservative trade union leadership, the closest thing we have to reformist social democrats in the US. Fighting what seems like a losing electoral battle at the local level, beyond just pissing off/scaring the local Dems, lays one more building block in the broader effort to build the workers' movement, which can crystallize into an independent left party electorally that shouldn't limit its actions and priorities to electoral campaigns.
@discountchocolate4577 most definitely. I am also a wildland Firefighter and forester, I am attempting to form a rank and file forestry council
@@discountchocolate4577"Conservative trade union leadership. The closest we have to reformist social democrats in the US."
Uhm. There are at least two social democrats in Congress right now. Both in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders and AOC. Neither of them are conservatives. So I don't know what you're talking about.
@@barbarianandy I'll address this point by point.
1) By "conservative" I don't mean the right wing of liberalism specifically (as represented by, e.g., GOP in the US or Tories in the UK), but conservative as in right-of-center or invested in the status quo. The vast majority of trade union leaders in the US are conservative in the sense that they feel little need to shake up the status quo unless they're directly threatened by management, and even then only after they've gotten heat from the rank and file. In the meantime leaders of US unions such as AFL-CIO, UAW, and Teamsters are more than happy to waste members' dues money on donations to, lobbying, and even endorsements for Democrats, an openly pro-capitalist, right-wing party that pretends to be pro-labor as part of their lesser-evil long con.
2) We likely use different criteria to define who is or isn't a social democrat. To anchor my definition with a reference point, I suspect we agree that Jeremy Corbyn is (or was) a social democrat. Until his expulsion from Labour he based his politics in the tendency we tend to call "Old Labour", i.e. the Labour Party's social-democratic roots, wherein the party had mass membership and participation, had its social and economic base primarily among the workers, etc. To be even a social democrat, never mind an actual socialist, you'd have to be actively involved in a party by and for the workers, not just a party of representatives claiming to represent the workers. Labour's takeover by the Blairite "New Labour" tendency (following the expulsion of the Militant tendency) represented a turn towards neoliberalism and Labour's transformation into a party explicitly and directly influenced by bourgeois interests and contrary to workers' interests, said transformation only recently completed with the expulsion of Corbyn. Which is to say, Labour *was* social-democratic, but it now has much more in common with the Democrats in the US, a party which has never had any true economic or social base among the working class, and which has always answered first and foremost to specific sections of the petty and large bourgeoisie.
3) Segueing into the question of whether Bernie Sanders or AOC are social democrats. One could possibly argue Bernie *was* or aspired to be a socdem in the 20th century when he was just a mayor, but shortly after joining the Senate he had a long track record of consistently voting the Democrats' party line and caucusing with Democrats, despite maintaining nominal political independence up until 2016. Sanders, as a de-facto Democrat, sheepdogs for members of the decidedly not social-democratic Democratic Party during elections and despite his pro-worker rhetoric ultimately bends the knee to openly right-wing, openly pro-capitalist Democratic leaders like the Clintons, Obama, Biden, etc. And at no point has Sanders ever been directly accountable to any working-class mass party membership because the Democratic Party doesn't *have* mass membership to begin with! What the US's two main parties have instead are voter registration lists, effectively fan clubs for the Democrats and Republicans for all intents and purposes. Ordinary voters who call themselves Democrats and Republicans have zero say on party priorities/political platforms, they lack the ability to censure, expel, or recall renegades and saboteurs like Joe Manchin, they don't get to decide which primary candidates are "electable". Capitalist donors and the few elites who are true members of these parties get to decide these. Contrast with Labour before Blair, where at least some of these accountability mechanisms were in place. To run as a Democratic candidate is to align oneself with the urban, technocratic, and financial wing of capital, as party discipline is reserved for the likes of Sanders and AOC, and never for the Manchins or the Sinemas or Joe Liebermans of the party. To operate within the Democratic Party is therefore mutually exclusive with being a social democrat. Like with Sanders entering the Senate as a de-facto Democrat, the moment AOC entered Congress as a capital-D Democrat is the moment she allowed herself to be tethered to Nancy Pelosi's leash, with Pelosi herself leashed by her capitalist donors. And there's no way DSA or the Justice Dems could rein AOC back in the other direction, as AOC is accountable to none of the working-class people or orgs who actually mobilized to get her elected. With a social-democratic politician, which requires membership in a social-democratic party, workers using their purses/wallets to pressure the representative politician from the opposite direction is at least *theoretically* possible.
4) Regarding the similarity of social democratic parties to trade unions. Similar to socdem parties that haven't been Blairized, trade unions (at least nominally) contain structures resembling internal democracy, there is mass membership and participation in locals/branches by ordinary workers and internal elections where rank and file have the ability to decide who's in charge of the union and put forth resolutions/proposals. But much like the European socdem parties whose leaders have turned increasingly conservative over the decades as the workers' movement still recovers from the nadir of the 1980s-1990s, trade union leadership in the US have trended in the same direction over the same time period, in some cases suppressing internal democracy within the union, taking bribes from management, doing closed-door bargaining without letting the workers decide what demands they want the union to make to management, and so on. The political niche of treacherous nominal working class leadership that we would normally associate with social democrats in Europe is entirely occupied by the trade unions in the US for lack of a workers' political party - this is what I meant.
Just wanna say, the production quality in this video is immaculate. The graphics look amazing!
Voting is literally the least you can do. It’s not nothing, but it’s the first step. It merely holds the line
The biggest problem with saying it "holds the line" is that the party or coalition in power (at least in the specific systems we're talking about) can effectively carry that line wherever it feels like once they've formed government. Effectively we're voting one who do we trust with that power. As @fallenswan1670 said in another post on here, it seems like the system itself is degrading. Their hypothesis is that once socialist parties were actual movements, and now (to paraphrase) they're just part of the machine.
Yeah hold the line, the conditions for fascism definitely isn't arising from "the line"
That's why I say it's the least you can do. You have to do more. Organize, agitate, build community and contact your representatives.
But none of the above matters if you skip out on voting. A liberal can be convinced to enact humane measures, a fascist can't. As bad a liberals are, voting for one takes precedence over not voting.
@@ahouyearno is fascism some alien ideology that fell to earth in the 1920s or does it arise from specific historical conditions, if you're not a liberal you should already know which one is true.
Haters gonna say this video is about not voting, watchers of the video know its about "bases"
9:10 _"Obama was not the lesser evil, but the more effective evil."_ -Glen Ford (RIP)
I think if you swap "the" for "a" it's a little more true. I think it's even more complex than that in a way in that the effectivenesses worked differently on different segments of society, and different parts of psychology. They facilitate eachother in a complimentary way.
Revolt whilst we can, Reform if we must seems reasonable. My queer german ass is uncomfortable not voting left, and I think that's pretty valid, since I also know it isn't enough
What's wrong with restaurants?
I like restaurants...
If there are no restaurants I don't want socialism; I can't cook!
All will be revealed in a few days.
Here’s how I vote.
1) research all the candidates using my local paper’s questionnaire
2) if that doesn’t create enough distinction, go to their websites
3) pick whoever I think is the best person for the job.
It takes me an hour or so on Election Day (~2 times a year including primaries) so it’s not really distracting my time from elsewhere.
It’s so simple, but it *infuriates* my liberal friends and family. I’m sorry, but why should I care about the Democrats’ electoral strategy? I’m not a Democrat! I have no loyalty to them. If they want my vote, then they should appeal to ME not the other way around.
And that, I think, is a good voting “strategy” for leftists. Have no strategy, but vote religiously. In essence, be the perfect independent undecided voter. That way you don’t have to waste more than a couple hours a year on electoralism (assuming it’s accessible). Importantly, leftists as a whole have pretty similar voting interests, so if parties want our votes, they are going to have to appeal to those common interests by default without us having to do devise an actual political strategy.
Though I will note that if this is your organization’s official strategy, you are going to have to also implement a “no talking about who you voted for” rule to avoid any of the tribalism that tends to seep into election talk, and more generally to stay focused on the actual work of revolution instead of horse racing.
I've been in the union a good seven years or so. We only just got enough people in the workplace that I was elected as a delegate but that came about because there were legitimate widespread grievances and I was actively getting involved. One strike day, I was the only person on strike. The others were already rostered off. You have to do things. Keep taking bites, as little or as large as you can and they will accumulate.
"Both tho" is still a valid argument, and you did not do enough to respond to it. Both Malcolm x and MLK advocated for voting and organized struggle. Not that they thought it would the main driver of change, but by getting people who say they agree with you in power and force their hand by organized struggle and the threat of revolution, has been the closes to an effective strategy of change.
30 seconds in, I can already see the analogy you're going to draw, I'm jealous. I wish I thought of it. Also digging the term 'electoralism' here. That's how I've been using it. I've been wanting this to be a theme in political spaces, but it gets so much resistance. Now gonna watch the rest and I'm gonna have "thats what I've been trying to say!" moments for the next half hour. Thanks for this one
You can vote and do direct action. Arguing against voting is incredibly self-defeating. Not voting is privileged and this is coming from one of those marginalized people you try to pretend is siding with you. Whenever I see this argument it's 99% white dudes arguing against voting and mostly trans people or PoC arguing for voting cause we actually have something to lose. No one actually thinks voting will solve everything.
If nothing else voting makes people more engaged with politics, not less. And the issue for the left isn't that people are against us, it's that most people don't care enough to engage, by design. The more people involved in politics the better for the working class.
As a chronically ill mom w/ a 5 y/o disabled from rare brain malformations, who's so poor that my living in housing near the children's hospital feels like I won the lottery, I had to shout THANK YOU for saying this! I don't get the luxury of sitting on my hands & not voting when I know if they cut ANY of our benefits , it’d put my son’s survival (& mine) in jeopardy. I can't sit on the sidelines & wait for the revolution to play out while disability protections are stripped away, privitized medicine refuses to cover us, SSDI is ripped away, & so schools can go back to treating students like him like they’re no more than a dirty gym sock; lock them in a proverbial locker & forget about them until the end of the year (unless they begin to get uppity & then the not so friendly neighborhood officer pays them a visit.)
So sorry I had to rant after this video, but your comment hit on every point I was feeling watching it! Voting just isn’t a choice when your current democracy is literally keeping your kid & you from probable death if we were to ever loose Medicaid & preexisting condition protections.
White people be like, white people be like, but they the white people that be like. Even if it was true that not voting makes you an ebil fascist what have democrats actually done for trans people or any other minority?
That voting is not stopping the US from funding and perpetrating crimes across the globe though.
"If nothing else voting makes people more engaged with politics, not less."
This hasn't been my experience, and really, did you even watch the video, I mean *really* watch it?
Harm reduction only works when harm is actually being reduced. Whoever your "lesser evil" is, they are going to turn right around and screw you, and there'll be nothing you or I can do about it. Electorally, your choices are going to end up being Hitler or Strasser, like it or not.
@@ArtisticlyAlexis You assume you have a democracy to begin with...
"Democracy is when voting!" So, early fascist Italy was a democracy then?
I didn't think so...
the spd situation is the exact same today (again)
Nah I'd vote
"Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism"
JV. Stalin
and Stalin objectively held parades in Brest with Nazi Germany, sent them countless materiel as they bombed England, sending them up until Barbarossa happened to the hour. Also check up what Woody "This Machine Kills Fascists" Guthrie spoke about the invasion of Poland (: Stalin also wanted to join the Axis and although Germany woulsnt let them join he was insistent on pursuing it.
@@Rimmy45Actually Soviet went to western countries to make a pact against Germany but they declined ,and soviets needed time to catch with Germany in arms production. After Munich Stalin was also very suspicious of England and France ,He also proposed anglo-french-soviet treaty but you know the communism scared the pants out of royals and privileged.
@@vishalpatkar6819 I am well aware of that. Now you tell me how that was a good reason to fuel the Germans, conduct military offensives together with them? Yall constantly say that 1 nazi at a table with 10 people means theres 10 nazis at that table. If Molotov Ribentrop and parades with Germany and a plethora of resources sent to Germany was to "buy time" then explain a) how giving vital resources to the nation you are planning to invade will be actually beneficial, it will only make them stronger, and they were will all of Europe under their occupation with the British only resisting as well as Partisan groups all while Soviet trucks were delievering resources to the Germans and b) 25 November 1940, for a nation apparently so opposed to Nazism the Soviets were really trying to ally with them and divide the world. Moreover the secret clause of dividing Eastern Europe between the Germans and the USSR, in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, was done so by Molotov by direct requests of Stalin, not by the German side.
@@vishalpatkar6819 good thing The USSR needed to catch the Germans in arms production so they decided to aid them by conquering Poland together and sending raw material up until 22.6.1941! And also even had talks about a 4 way Axis and dividing the world between themselves, as well as Italy and Japan
@@Rimmy45 yeah NAZI and west most anti communist on the planets have more c'mon then USSR with NAZI GERMANY, literally helped nazi escape ,this would have never happened if fucking anti communist proto nazi simply accepted Anglo -Franco-Soviet treaty and allied with Soviets to fuck Nazis up but no they let Prague invasion happen and in the Munich invited Nazis to talk but not USSR ,how the fuck you will believe in idiots like this and build your own infra to fight.
i have heard libs complaining about campism recently and thank you for showing footage from bablyon berlin it is a good television series based off a series of books of the same name
Degrowth is our path, I genuinely believe less is more in this day and age
I just want low rent and a livable wage. Is that too hard to ask
Easy to ask...and what does asking get ya? Your name on a list, that's what. If you're gonna be a target, make it count!
It quite literally is, yes. It will not be given to you by asking nicely, unfortunately
Provisioning of housing and wage labor are 2 major structures that keep the owning class in power. There are difficult roads ahead for workers to seize the means to provision housing, water, food, medical care, other essentials, education, infrastructure ... because the myriad owners and governments of the world hold all of the power. Moving against them requires durable power-bases built by direct action & campaigning as the video author has recommended.
How about no rent, choosing your housing without even buying it, and no need for wages because we can all get what we want?
demanding the employer for a better wage seems more straightforward than putting one's faith in voting
The really hard and important conclusion of this conversation is, if we can't do electoralism, then we must organize. It doesn't matter whether you as an individual vote, terribly, but in any case spend your spare energy on activism or on labour work. Learn to talk well, stay focused, listen intently, be decisive, and lead people. If we are organizing, we must be honest with ourselves and be economical in our work: you should not be engaging in activism from the point of view of achieving maximal moral comfort, or a minimally threatened ego, but from the perspective of a clear image of the necessary tasks and a strategic orientation towards completing them. Everything is about good use of limited time and resources.
Why not solely take to direct action with a variety of tactics instead of legitimizing the state's violence against this very useful and effective tool and the people utilizing it? All voting ever achieves is to confirm the existing Plutocracy in it's place and justify it in the eyes of the workers. It will ultimately change nothing about the economic system because the state inherently exists to violently enforce capitalism. And it will also not "reduce harm" because harm is much more effectively reduced by direct action.
If all who support socialist or Anarchist Ideas would stop voting and instead turn to direct action, we would have achieved that famed Revolution since decades or centuries. Look no further to the achievements of the Zapatistas or us Kurds in Rojava as proof to that. A society of people indoctrinated by the idea that voting will serve their interests rather then harming it is not use to any other cause then a capitalist and authoritarian one.
if voting doesn't matter why are there stark differences between policy in red & blue jurisdictions?
@@CerdurTV Not sure if your comment is just sarcasm because it's hard to tell these days but just in case it's not: You might as well ask why there are countless "Brands" if all of those Brands are ultimately produced by the same exact Corporation and if, for the most part, they are often all more or less the same.
Voting is the illusion of power and the illusion of choice. Just like Brands in Capitalism or the promises of ethical production. Its meant to keep the illusion up and the indoctrination going.
@@MissElaineDumontdoubt we will get a mass movement of revolutionary action until the economic collapse of people living in the imperial core. Since many now are still relatively comfortable with their lives.
@@CerdurTV Each difference would need examination. Wanna name some you find poignant?
It is not a good idea to abandon any battlefield to the neoliberal and fascist wings of capitalism. Voting is not the most important form of action, by far, but we need to use every tool available.
sure..... but we have to have the position and power to use those tools effectively, and so getting to that has to come first.
@@PanEtRosa Exactly. Blindly handing votes over to pigs without the power to punish them is literally the problem.
you have to choose your battles though, otherwise you're just telling people to waste their energy into things that have comparatively minimal impact
so what does voting do
15:07 Uh, why (as in, what's up with that jab)? When good/ more legitimate (i.e., anti-revisionist) MLs advocate more for the general position you're supporting?
24:05 Yeah, this.
Leftists need to be creating, or supporting/ working for/ in, genuine proletarian organizations. Or at the very least, orgs that aren't connected to the big bourgeois parties, and don't take bourgeois funding. And helping build/ re-build the working class movement in general.
We can use the bourgeois electoral system to our advantage*, but it's not a priority. *And what I mean is things like running candidates from an independent left party - not even necessarily to win elections, but as sort of a headcount, and as propaganda/ way to gain support. The electoral work should only make up a small fraction - i.e., 10% or so, of an org/ party's work. And that's IF the party/ org decides to go that route at all.
The main focus is on building up these independent left orgs, and doing the work [I'd prefer they be ML orgs, ofc, but at this point, just independent left orgs in general would/ could be good.]
I think this is compatible with what you were talking about (if not maybe straight up what you were talking about), unless I'm misunderstanding.
[Unless maybe you're coming from some kind of (certain, ig) anarchist position of "No parties/ orgs period - all parties/ orgs bad!" Heh. But I don't think you are?]
In fairness, Mulroney did indeed push neoliberalism a fair bit. He was, however, also beholden to working-class votes that he -- a charismatic, fluently bilingual Paddy from Baie-Comeau -- stole almost singlehandedly from the Liberals of Trudeau the Elder. Mulroney's government was responsible for the Free Trade Agreement with the US, which resulted in widespread unemployment and Mulroney's ouster/retirement. Kim Campbell had to wear that legacy out on the hustings...and she was slaughtered. Chrétien was Papa Trudeau's justice minister, and was responsible for the disgusting 1969 White Paper which sought to municipalize "Indians" and strip their inherent title to land...and Aladdin continues these efforts today! Oh, and for a fun bonus, both the Grits (Liberals) and Tories full-throatedly support the Banderite Nazis...Chrystia is one herself!
Edit: 26:52 was the Tories after that election in '93, reduced from almost 200 seats to just two: Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne.
I should also add that Trudeau, Sr. wore the OPEC Crisis (high fuel costs), and Mulroney also carefully courted both Western Tories in the Joe Clark camp, and "Québec" (reactionary) nationalists led by Lucien Bouchard. The fissure of these camps was seen at the end, when several Québec "Tories" went with Bouchard to form the rump Bloc Québécois.
Is the gestation of the new form of the GOP too far along in terms of their capture of popular support? If/when they come to power, how can the remaining Americans properly oppose them?
Ah, welcome back. I missed your thoughtful videos and informative but eye-gouging color-on-white-background graphics.
But in demoncracy we can choose our own demon to torture as in ways we would prefer more. In demoncracy, main question is always: lesser evil, or greater evil? Your choice!
Anyway... I personally were part of political party and supported elections in past. But studying past, and trying to understand why in past we had victories, and not any more..? What we could do to win more, why those people in past won so much, and we just lose again and again... I started to realise, how the system really works.
In my case, the country is Republic of Finland. Recent decades roughly 8 parties usually get representatives to parliament ("eduskunta" (gathering of representatives), or like some call it "edukskunta" (gathering for profit/benefit)), usually biggest party get 20-25% of votes, and there is three major parties in similar size. In past socialist parties got more votes, then people stopped to believe in them (not really because of USSR vanished - in 1995 elections all leftist parties got major victory - and made government, which made very neo-liberal austerity politics, which destroyed people's believe in these parties. Similar happen in 1970's, when socialists won majority in parliament, second time in history, but didn't do most of things people expected them to do).
Well. I found roughly saying this: 1) parliamentary system is slowly "corrupting" - well, in many possible meanings of sentence. But I tried to say, that system itself is changing worse and worse. Wen system was created roughly century ago, it effected very different way, since people who took part of it, saw and acted different way. Socialist movements were movements, doing much more than just voting or waiting representatives to save us all. Opposite, other activity was main thing, having part of elections were one of many ways to act. There was no big money as part of elections, and media was more plural, since socialists had also visible media, not just rich people. This system slowly changed.
2) Power structures in system changed: when Finland were more "progressive" in past, it was minority governments, who made compromises with opposition. This was mainly socialist government with agricultural league (=peasants and petty bourgeoisie) as part of coalition. This was done, because there was fear for revolution: for bourgeoisie it is better deal to give bigger slice of cake, than to lose whole bakery. But when we came to 1990's, system change: (bourgeoisie) majority governments start rule, without caring about (ex-socialist) opposition. There is no more fear for revolution, no more need for compromises.
So, system works slowing or preventing changes, if you want build better world, but it increases speed if you want worsening things. This all is of course connection with who control media, and therefore who can influence in people's mind. Those who have lot of money, happen to mainly control media, and those who have lot of money, usually want dominate world and shape it way which benefit them, but is horrible for others.
There is no wins in demoncracy. It is structurally dead end. It is spring, what allow you make some progress, in order to eat your momentum, and then it will pull you back. What we need, is power structures which make possible to really improve things.
There's virtually nothing correct in this video, but the most egretious things is that you fall into the mistakes you claim the opposite side is doing.
Let's begin. The entire premise of the video is wrong. It criticizes some "Electoralist for life" ideology, while the vast majority of Socialists (unlike you) recognize both the need of violent revolution and electoral change, depending on context, circumstances and period of time. To claim "one solution fits them all" is utopianism, and doomed to fail. In fact most socialists will actually think that both Electoralism and Proactive effort are necessary: to vote for the most left-leaning party that can be elected AND also protest, occupy, build infrastructure that does not depend on the state, and make propaganda.
It's not about "Later". If one lives in a fascist dictatorship, like Fascist Italy in the 20s or Saudi Arabia today or Syria, then a revolution is necessary, voting is meaningless or even outlawed. If one lives in the US the two party system is extremely undemocratic, so one should focus a lot more on revolutionary effort, yet NEVER desert an election because Biden won't take your abortion away on it's own. Trump will. They are not the same. And women will die if the wrong candidate wins. If you live in Sweeden, then elections are probably how you will achieve a lot of your objectives
You claim that "X Revolutionary", which is obviously Marx, never said that elections are sometimes necessary. And you quote 3 videos (what a grand number of evidences!). You are wrong. Those videos are wrong. Period. Marx (and Engels, Lenin, Trockij, Gramsci and all the other major marxists) all agreed elections are necessary, but they did not refuse violent revolution (which is what makes them different from the other Reformists). If you deny that, you are simply wrong. This is something Marx (and all those others) have said countless times. Citing 3 videos is irrelevant (and those videos have been criticized too. If you want to argue from previous thesis, then you must include previous antithesis. If you think they are correct, then explain why. But you don't, you simply moved to the next part).
You claim that the idea that voting for far left parties will help radicalizing people is just speculation, yet you go on to speculate that voting left leaning parties will legitimize the state, despite opposing evidence. You claim that reforms only happened because of "historical context" and would have happened anyway (you are wrong, I will explain later) but yet you seem to believe that revolutions don't follow this pattern and they are free from the bondage of historical precedent. So you tell me the entire eastern europe just so hapened to go tankie "because"? Please.
You claim that We as voters are irrelevant because we count very little (that's a Straw Man fallacy,
hoes mad 😆😆
sorry i just keep leaving comments! one thing that comes to mind as relevant to the harm reduction section is reagan's handling of the hiv/aids pandemic, even compared to other conservative parties in government like the uk
So glad to know that you are still around.
“pick battles small enough to win and big enough to matter”
Voting where and when it matters isn't silly in my opinion. If you're in a marginal electorate, think like an ant, not an individual. A no-vote is a vote for Trump, by far the worse of two evils.
try watching the video
Why? Is the content not what the title implies?@@anarchosnowflakist786
@@chrissscotttwhy don't you try finding out by watching the video ?
20:54 ; 22:16
Can someone tell me what's wrong with the PSL in the US because I cannot find anything.
Y'all ever think about how in capitalist "democracies", you have more rights if you buy a new sofa and aren't happy with it than it you elect a politician and they go back on their word?
What a brilliant video essay. Such high quality information from a socialist perspective is awesome. More power to BadMouse.
Great video. Im happy finally more people with the platforms to do it are speaking out against the level of cope reformism we have all been in. Honestly, I'm thinking of putting together a historical piece of work on the amount of times here in America we've been falling for the lesser evil trap.
Were you taking potshots at MLs or agreeing with them?
Rosa approves of this video. Probably. Partially.
It’s silly to those who have the privilege to say that.
My family did not have that privilege.
*"If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it."*
~Ken Livingstone
That's why Republicans are ballot caging and throwing black people in jail in an effort to disenfranchise them specifically. Because it doesn't change anything. Genius self-referential quote for a big tough leftist. It legitimately sad how cool you maroons think you are.
Republicans would abolish voting if given the power to do so, and they very well might gain such power this year.
Small point of contention, but, while it would be accurate to say that Jean Chretien pushed forward neoliberalism in Canada, it's less accurate to say that it was him and not the Conservatives, as Brian Mulroney was doing it 10 years prior. Chretien played more the Clinton to Mulroney's Reagan, or the Blair to Mulroney's Thatcher. Not the one who started it, but definitely the one who ushered in its status as bipartisan hegemony.
10:00 CHP's thoughts on refugees are very contradictory made even moreso with the supposed change in leadership. But i doubt they support full on forced deportations, that's more for the Zafer crowd of fascists (which they tried to appease in the last election in vain). Not to say that the CHP is above xenophobia or anything, since nationalism is one of its founding principles.
Let's also keep in mind that they would just keep up the eth. nic. clean. sing. against us Kurds.
A BadMouse video? Goodness, I thought those were a thing of the past...
Still, vote. Non-electoral avenues to pursue grand change will be worse and even less possible under a Trump administration.
this conclusion again is hampered by my other points.
@@BadMouseProductions
You have no conclusion.
Aristotle wrote about this. Athenian democracy had very little voting involved for exactly the reason that it skews oligarchic. The founders of the US, well versed in the greek classics and being rich as fuck, saw democracy as an end to their oligarchy and made voting their highest goal.
I'd suggest using all of your methods and still vote, but do it thoughtfully because in the realms of politics one can never know what is going to work and what isn't so you must use all the methods that are available to you.
14:48 i think it's pretty cool that our 2021 canadian federal election was regarded as the least important election of our generation
Hey, Badmouse. If I were able to find a reupload of that Carl Benjaman video you mentioned on TH-cam or Bitchute or The Internet Archive (almost certainly the internet archive), would you add it to your video? Because I might be able to do that.
Thanks but its done now, can't reupload the video.
Great video. Not sure why you want to dog pile the PSL though are they secretly liberals or just annoying?
descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78
HE’S BACK
(Jazz sax solo plays)
what do we make of groups from the new left during the 1970s? militant groups like the weather underground, red army faction, japanese red army, or front de liberation du quebec? i don't really know what to think of them, but it's difficult for me to think of their approaches as the way forward
But what if I want to be silly?
Eat spaghetti with a spoon.
It is possible to create real change. Just look at the party Chega! in Portugal. They had 1 MEP in the beginning of 2022 and yesterday they elected 48 MEPs. Tremendous.
and what material change have they enacted that you can show wouldn't have happened had others gotten elected ?
What was that about restaurants????
There just wont be any eating oppertunies under socialism
Everyone will have the glorious right to cook for themselves and close others - because this is what socialism stands for! /s
I hope this comment starts a discussion!
I was curious about that as well. Not that I'm so attached to restaurants but didn't actually existing socialist countries still have them?
I think he meant ''restaurants as we know them.'' That is nothing more than small lucrative assets for a private owner to make profit out of, as their employee base gets exploited. A lot of fast-food joints wouldn't exist, because they aren't really tied down to actually feeding a population and have no inherent moral or cultural value.
Whereas, in a lot of socialist countries. For example, like Bulgaria. You would have a self-integrated community, restaurants were integrated within the housing complex and was tied to a cultural identity, feeding and social gathering for the members of said community. Public Kitchens will still exist, just not in the fast-food format that we have under capitalism.
@@blanketcc7125 I think that, if he really wanted to say that, he would have said "fast food chains" instead of "restaurants",
Voting is, indeed, EXTREMELY silly - especially in bourgeois systems
Voting is indeed silly when you want to lose
You've already lost.
@@Fungoul great spirit to have
@@rupen42 Keep flapping, liberal. You know squat.
I’d love for you to tell this story in Syria or anywhere else in the world where people are denied the power to vote. This reeks of privilege.
I am someone from the US who votes more conservative than liberal but I also have an open mind. I loved the disclaimer in the beginning that this video was made by a socialist for socialist, even if I may not agree I am able to respect someone who respects others. I found this video very informational since I use to really harp the old adage’s “Every vote counts” and “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain” which I am going to reevaluate.
have any starter references for PSL being hot garbage? would love to know more
descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78
Ahhh! New Badmouse video!
I get to be on a voting roll of 300,000 people who I on average agree with way more than the general population in a mixed member proportional system. And the 300,000 people I’m on a roll with have alternative political structures we can and do invest energy into. So to me the whole voting thing seems chill.
I get to do a protest vote where someone gets paid to go and protest for the things I generally believe. Which is dope
There should be third option where we choose that neither opposition should be chosen.
Welcome back.🎉🎉🎉🎉
Where can I read or learn more on why not to vote PSL?
docs.google.com/document/d/1Dzh2ATsPUvkYWLd0vTppViuNxb-GZsboj8OhF3JWVhY/edit
soundcloud.com/indoctrinationshow/sharp-edged-party-line-w-jacob
Their behaviour has been atrocious.
@@BadMouseProductions Thank you!
whats wrong with restaurants?
Voting isn't silly it's stupid.
"Stupid" is an ableist slur, and "silly" is not very useful as a descriptor (neither is, actually). I'm the worst at resorting to name-calling in the heat of the [mental health episode], but I'm pushing myself to do better. The moral/interpersonal aspects are obvious enough, but I believe I've identified a bigger problem with name-calling: It is fatal to any further analysis. I dunno if I'm articulating this well, but I know you're a smart cookie, comrade. It's been a minute...Happy New Year! "Joe The Eurosquatter" (altacct). ✊🛠️🚩
It's both
This is why the left always loses.
@@Fungoul an ableist slur ... dude... go outside and switch your phone off
@fungoul it’s not an ableist slur
caught the "embiggened" lol
good to still see some simpsons references
It’s kinda depressing when you realize that the majority of citizens don’t vote, the majority of voters don’t know enough about the issues, and the few that do are so entrenched that they hate the other side and are more interested in punishing them than actually accomplishing anything. Most campaigning is directed at the least involved ones, and the best we can hope for is a slight, compromised, temporary move in our preferred direction while hoping the other side doesn’t straight up revolt because they see any loss of ground as literal tyranny.
But we can also hold that up against places with obligatory voting or proportional representation, for instance, and kind of across the "west" we see similar trends between platforms, and election results. Israel and Australia come to mind as places where the governments have turned out to be further right that the sort of american assumption would have you believe that participation from the non voters would help the left representation in govt. There's something sticky happening, and it isn't JUST the base appeal of reactionaries to a populist base, and it isn't JUST the relative apathy from 'radicals'.
i vote when i can just because i have the opportunity but try to work outside of that as much as possible
imo local elections can often be a lot more relevant and can actually have impacts
There won’t be restaurants…why? That makes no sense
I think Mouse doesn't mean restaurants in the sense of "communal space where you get food" but "privately owned place where you are served food and pay for it and get to scream at an exploited worker". The former will continue to exist because cooking for many people is just way more effective and less wasteful. But the people who will make your food will be your hosts, not your servants.
@@TheSleepyowlet Also, people can have street-food stalls (self-employed, minizes customer interaction and workplace hierarchy) And "de-restaurantized" cafe co-ops... there's options beyond the 'Restaurant' (and similar) presently being stiffled!
There's many possible ways for people to make food and share/sell it (Honestly, I'm pro small-scale market co-op ownership stuff) beyond the 'Restaurant' (which is presently a dominant form due to lack of options for workers, the history of aristocracy and servitude to the 'customer', the system of loans, regulations etc. under State-Capitalism, and generally shit for the cook and service staff) There's popular zine called 'Abolish Restaruant', I recommend.
it's a joke about an absurd pseudo-leftist shitstorm that happened on twitter a few years ago. that's why he laughed when he said it. I could wish I had receipts from that mess but...... honestly we're all better off not rehashing it. suffice to say, yes, it makes no sense. and it wasn't intended to make sense here.
@@alicec1533 holy brap fascism in one food truck
@@williamruth7586 ?
Hello, this is me before watching the entire video, and is simply just expressing my personal viewpoint without any context regarding the video. Voting can be silly sometimes due to the fact that (at least in USA) there are two parties with ideological, political and economical objectives and interests which generally aligns very closely. Now this is more of a personal comprehension but the process of voting is a reinforcement of the status quo, to provide the voters and the nation a false illusion of change and democracy, the best way to handle with this game of tactics is by not playing at all.
Yeah just like the best way to handle starving is to do nothing. What wisdom. You people are such clowns. Can you all just stop pretending you care about politics?
If electoralism is this big nothing burger then why do socialists like this guy make almost 1 hour videos about it?
The GOAT returns, 10/10 as usual
66.6k subscribers. Nice!
A very important part of democratic socialism is that we need democratic capital through co-operatives, for example, that we use to build and influence an (acutal) leftist party. That and our own media, of course. I dont know how well that could be applied to the united states and other countries though.
And yeah, of course we cant build socialism just through parliamentary reforms. If people actually think that... i dont even know.
omg, glad to see you back dude!
Just in pragmatic terms, voting third party seems sensible. Even just watching the outrage of media and online commenters is worth the small time investment.
PSL is far from perfect but they are effective organizers that do great work. Many of the criticisms they've received have led to positive change or are unfounded and just seems like gate-keeping. Leftists need to unite rather than succumb to counter-productive infighting.
Yeah when you see a pattern of behavior and continue to see it even after the group has apparently gotten better and learnt from it, and the fact you see this behavior amongst other groups that follow the same methods and doctrine, you don't tend to have much faith in the vanguard.
Sorry.
9:33 Prime Minister not President
Meh. Chrétien acted kinda _presidential..._
Please explain the PSL thing!
No??
Have a check further down the comments, I've left a few resources to the same question. Simple answer, they're opportunists
Can someone point me in the right direction regarding the PSL being garbage?
No Restaurants tho? Gee thats ruff
Not as they currently exist at least
Thank you so much 👑
I mostly agree with you about Electoralism but not about Reformism. So I mentioned this video in a recent Blog post I just published titled "Reformism is Good Actually", the name of the blog is SolaScripturaChristianLiberty.
I don't think im necessarily anti-reform. I say at the end reform if we must, and if you happen to find reformist referendums and so forth then go for it.
But yes, I am against this electoralist practice.
@@BadMouseProductions You made an Anti Basic Income video in the past, is your position on that the same?
@@Kuudere-Kun are you a trotskyist revisionist??
@@gwynbleidd1917 No, I'm not any kind of Leninist and am uncertain if I ever qualify as a Marxist, I just know I'm a Communist.
@@Kuudere-Kun tell me you've never read any Marx, Engels, or Lenin without saying it outright. Maybe try to educate yourself on communism if you claim to be one.
Please explain why the PSL is bad. Im genuinely curious.
descentrealizer.medium.com/abuse-counterrevolution-in-the-party-for-socialism-liberation-psl-cult-a-compilation-e5e7d54b7c78
@@BadMouseProductions thank you comrade
@@Joelthedon22 Don't listen to this clown. Most of the links in that article are dead and the ones that do work amount to little more than hearsay. I genuinely don't think this person has a clue what they're talking about.
@@Joelthedon22 Some of the links got taken down, thankfully theres a backup. docs.google.com/document/d/1Dzh2ATsPUvkYWLd0vTppViuNxb-GZsboj8OhF3JWVhY/edit
This is a decent video Bad Mouse, you say alot of things that need to be said and I agree with, and appreciate, the vast majority of your arguments here. Where I differ is that I think that capitalism and representative 'democracy' need to be completely rejected if we are to achieve liberation or make any signiificant change, including in just gaining reforms (as how we do so is crucial). We really need to stop giving any legitimacy to capitalism and the state in my view and that means not voting at all, while also building independent, truly grass roots alternatives and utilising direct action. Its my view that voting strengthens the capitalist class and weakens us., and that representative 'democracy' is a system that has completely failed.
7:14 reminds me so much of the history of the labor party in australia too -- even more so bc the party that introduced neoliberalism in aus WAS the labor party
Why does this video have such high downvotes? Feels like its hate downvotes.
Gotdamb, I'd forgot how much I enjoyed your pace and editing.
The feed has fed me, great video
You're alive