The scale and depth of the attack on our institutions means that there is no simple way for a pro-democracy coalition to flip the lights back on after Trump. We need transformative thinking.
Better yet, let’s learn from the success of socialist countries and smash the capitalist state, replace it with a socialist one, and gradually collectivize production and distribution with a focus on meeting the needs of the people.
Ok, but how do we get there? How do we keep oligarchs, (like the ones who own Palantir and work with other oligarchs like Netenyahu using remote weapons of mass genocide to fight for them and gain ground in order to control others), from taking advantage of the power vacuum left by destabilization?
Again, taking cues from socialist countries, creating a mass working class party to overthrow and replace the state. We aren’t talking about just attacking with no plan going forward, but organizing directly so as to already have an organization in place. Capitalists only have the power they do because of the state, if we smash and replace it they have no power.
The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and many more serve as valuable lessons for us. We can’t cleanly map their conditions onto ours, as the US is a dying Empire rather than an underdeveloped/agrarian society liberating themselved from colonialism like many of these countries were before socialism, but we can still learn from their methods.
As for the millitary, that’s an aspect of the state. Capitalists only control the resources they do because the state backs them up. Revolutionary history teaches us how this unfolds.
You realize that all of those are a massive failure right? Living in those places was and is a nightmare. You know that right? If not, then you’re not smart enough to be replacing any form of government.
It’s much the opposite, living in those places was and is very good, especially when viewed over time and not as an individual snapshot. The USSR, for example, managed to double life expectancy, provide free, high quality healthcare, education, and low-cost or free housing for all, lowered working hours, and had one of the fastest growing economies in the world while democratizing society. The PRC is on track to become the world’s indusputably most advanced country in the following decades. What’s going on is that socialism and socialist countries have been systemically demonized in the west to prevent the working classes from seeking an alternative.
I’m not a genius by any stretch, but I’ve studied these countries, engaged with theory, organize in real life, and more. I’m smart enough to understand this, which I’d say everyone is if they put in the effort. Intelligence isn’t nearly as striated as liberals would have you believe.
You clearly have NO idea about how bad the USSR actually was. And you clearly have no idea how many of its citizens were killed by the government or died from starvation or cold. Not do you have any idea as to how much funding it was given from the US and other countries just to stay afloat (especially in WW2) because they couldn’t organize their own factories that were useful etc etc and the US has to send OUR tank building teams over to them just to show them how to efficiently build tanks, and we sent them 13,000 tanks, 400,000 jeeps and trucks, and 14,000 aircraft. Aka the USSR couldn’t even stand on its own 2 feet against Germany and we had to send them an insane amount of firepower to ensure them not falling. And about the life expectancy thing. It did double life expectancy between 1915 and the 1960s as did most countries around the world including the US due to improved birthrates and better sanitation and vaccines and antibiotics. However from 1960-1980 other countries like the US continued to go up while the USSR actually started declining again. So yes please continue to spread your false lies. And let’s talk about how every one of those countries you spoke of couldn’t survive without support from other countries. Meanwhile the country that you hate so much (the US) continues to survive and thrive while heavily supporting a dozen of other countries and are contributing some form of assistance to over 175 countries worldwide.
History should teach you that the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation was traveling around Moscow and Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it never really gets talked about for some reason.
A conservative who essentially birthed Project 2025 and is famously quoted as saying “I don’t want everyone to vote,” was sneaking in computers and other electronics to Soviet dissidents while teaching soviet politicians all about American “democracy” just prior to the collapse.
Then he and several other members of Heritage were ready to fill the power vacuum and help establish the first go between for U.S. and Russian capitalist businesses.
“You capture the Soviet Union --I’m going to capture the states.”-Thomas Roe, Heritage Foundation board member and founder of the State Policy Network
to fellow Heritage Foundation board member Robert Krieble.
I’m aware of the dissolution of the USSR. It lasted for nearly a full century, and the causes of its dissolution have been studied by every single communist party in existence thoroughly. They didn’t dissolve because a random far-right Statesian whispered evil things, that was a symptom of the dissolution.
Further, without the US Empire, there aren’t going to be nearly as many ways for the remaining capitalists to exert their will or coup.
Folks can’t remember Bush Jr at all, much less Clinton, Bush Sr or Reagan. They can barely remember Obama, except through a haze of nostalgia.
What’s notable about Trump isn’t his fascism - plenty of presidents have been openly fascist. What’s notable is how many middle class white people are getting sucked up into the current dragnet.
I don’t really get how that contradicts needing a 3rd reconstruction that dismantles the government agencies that carry out that kind of shit and didn’t even exist until WWII rather than dismantling a democracy?
you guys are just upset it is happening at home now and not Iraq.
Can’t argue with you there, but that’s also part of what makes me question who’s best interest would be dismantling U.S. democracy instead of dismantling specific agencies within the government, with no plan for where we go next?
Because it kinda seems like those agencies would carry on doing whatever they want even after a union fully dissolves. They would just have fewer obstacles in their way.
When you think about how an American agency, for example, the CIA operates this playbook in other countries, what is their intended goal?
Their goal is to destabilize a country in order to remove any obstacles to taking full control. They usually achieve destabilization by undermining public trust in a system and the leaders of that system, so that the public will either dismantle the government for them or be less resistant once it is dismantled (see the Soviet Union in the late 80s). Once that happens, they already hold all the resources and power, and install somebody they already have lined up.
Considering that there seems to currently be a global campaign to spread disinformation and install far right leaders across the globe, it makes me question if this is happening everywhere bc global destabilization is the goal.
Currently, just about anywhere in the world, who holds the majority of the resources? The people or a small group of oligarchs? When destabilization happens and a local government collapses who has the upper hand when it comes to filling the power vacuum?
No no no. In socialist countries, the Big Government is in control. There’s no freedom. Everyone lives in fear. You don’t even own your own toothbrush.
Anyone who supports socialism is a Tankie who just wants to kill rich white people for fun and doesn’t understand how awful their lives will be afterwards.
Like which countries specifically? Bc I can almost guarantee there is currently a far right disinformation campaign targeted at undermining that country’s government.
the disinformation campaign has been running since the mid 1930’s and it’s been taught in our schools and disseminated via legacy media since the 1940’s.
a key feature of the campaign is to make americans predisposed to outright reject the alternatives that have already been proven to work in irl and all of those alternatives are aligned with what @Cowbee@lemmy.ml already told you.
anything else is going to be a rinse and repeat of what we already have.
a key feature of the campaign is to make americans predisposed to outright reject the alternatives that have already been proven to work
Not just with socialism. This was the response to the civil rights movement of the 60s/70s, to the environmentalism of the 80s/90s, and to the anti-war movement of the 00s/10s.
Every progressive position is pillared as unworkable, overly expensive, and jobs-killing.
Meanwhile, we sink $1T/year into chat bots that spam your Twitter feed with racist porn and armies of tweaked out sheriffs deputies to crash their cars into anyone they consider illegally brown
the civil rights movement – the black panthers in particular – was literally socialists and bombed (also literally) because of it. MLK jr.'s cadre took great pains to ensure that their efforts didn’t get labeled as socialist because of it. the environmentalists of the 80’s/90’s – green peace in particular – was also heavily socialist influenced and got labeled as such for not making efforts like MLK jr did.
now-a-days, the campaign misinforms americans that leftists don’t reliably vote despite examples like clinton and obama proving otherwise and there being enough green, psl, dsa, cpusa votes to counter republicans easily. this misinformation is done to cover for the fact that the democrats don’t want to adopt platforms that left leaning voters want and this is most recently self evident in kamala harris’ campaign and its attempt to sway republicans to vote democrat rather than shore up her democratic base.
Cuba, the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc. There are far-right disinformation campaigns from western countries trying to undermine them, but these countries have sovereignty over their media, industry, and infrastructure, and thus show no signs of collapse. If the US Empire was overthrown, there’s no chance the EU could meaningfully overturn that, they are far too weak at this point, and couldn’t even overturn the soviets when Europe was stronger and right next door.
I don’t really get how that contradicts needing a 3rd reconstruction that dismantles the government agencies that carry out that kind of shit and didn’t even exist until WWII rather than dismantling a democracy?
You don’t have a democracy, you live in a dictatorship of capital
You never completed the second reconstruction, what makes you think you can handle a third
What makes you think oligarchs haven’t been continuing to undermine and dismantle the second reconstruction this entire time, and aren’t using their established global institutions (like banks, corporations, and conservative think tanks) to do exactly what they’ve been projecting and accusing progressives of doing?
Do you honestly think there isn’t a good chance a global cabal of far right conservatives might be ready to use their collective wealth and resources they hoard and pass down for generations to take full global control?
I started to read ultimately skimmed through a lot of flowery language and hot air that seems to toe the center left message of just organize, protest, and vote harder. Did I miss something?
•to move us from our undemocratic present to a more democratic future, we need to institutionalize our commitments to a more inclusive and responsive democracy in more durable forms. These might encompass everything from alternative economic regulatory institutions and new approaches to anti-discrimination to a more universal safety net that secures the essential guarantees of health, housing, and income that individuals and communities need to thrive.
•A second reconstructionist strategy lies in containing reactionary power and backlash. We should presume that there will always be efforts to roll back egalitarian expansions of democracy. Part of how democracies survive and thrive is through institutions that contain the potential resurgence of anti-democratic policies and forces. The democratic institutions of the future will similarly need to develop ways to contain authoritarian power. This will require laws and institutions that respond to techniques that are emerging in the current moment, such as new forms of state and private surveillance, or the weaponization of presidential control of funding flows.
•The third institutional transformation strategy is to democratize our governing institutions, making policymaking more directly responsive to and shaped by ordinary constituents. One important area is the balance of power between the branches. Even before Trump, the trend has been to centralize power in an imperial presidency. The legislature, by contrast, has been central to past moments of democratization. Any future reconstructionist agenda will need to be built on congressional majorities and a legislature willing to check and permanently shift away from the overreliance on presidential power.
Yep pretty much it seems that’s all we can do, which is why we haven’t been able to affect much change. We need revolutionary uprising and revolting, but that requires every oppressed person to be in solidarity on one united front but many of them are so brainwashed by the media which is genius at dividing people against each other. As long as they can keep the plebeians in-fighting and arguing with each other about stupid inconsequential things, the plebeians cannot rise up to revolution and revolt against the true oppressors.
The Case for a Third Reconstruction
Better yet, let’s learn from the success of socialist countries and smash the capitalist state, replace it with a socialist one, and gradually collectivize production and distribution with a focus on meeting the needs of the people.
Ok, but how do we get there? How do we keep oligarchs, (like the ones who own Palantir and work with other oligarchs like Netenyahu using remote weapons of mass genocide to fight for them and gain ground in order to control others), from taking advantage of the power vacuum left by destabilization?
Again, taking cues from socialist countries, creating a mass working class party to overthrow and replace the state. We aren’t talking about just attacking with no plan going forward, but organizing directly so as to already have an organization in place. Capitalists only have the power they do because of the state, if we smash and replace it they have no power.
Which socialist country would be the best example?
The state, as well as the public and private military and resources they hoard and control.
The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and many more serve as valuable lessons for us. We can’t cleanly map their conditions onto ours, as the US is a dying Empire rather than an underdeveloped/agrarian society liberating themselved from colonialism like many of these countries were before socialism, but we can still learn from their methods.
As for the millitary, that’s an aspect of the state. Capitalists only control the resources they do because the state backs them up. Revolutionary history teaches us how this unfolds.
You realize that all of those are a massive failure right? Living in those places was and is a nightmare. You know that right? If not, then you’re not smart enough to be replacing any form of government.
It’s much the opposite, living in those places was and is very good, especially when viewed over time and not as an individual snapshot. The USSR, for example, managed to double life expectancy, provide free, high quality healthcare, education, and low-cost or free housing for all, lowered working hours, and had one of the fastest growing economies in the world while democratizing society. The PRC is on track to become the world’s indusputably most advanced country in the following decades. What’s going on is that socialism and socialist countries have been systemically demonized in the west to prevent the working classes from seeking an alternative.
I’m not a genius by any stretch, but I’ve studied these countries, engaged with theory, organize in real life, and more. I’m smart enough to understand this, which I’d say everyone is if they put in the effort. Intelligence isn’t nearly as striated as liberals would have you believe.
You clearly have NO idea about how bad the USSR actually was. And you clearly have no idea how many of its citizens were killed by the government or died from starvation or cold. Not do you have any idea as to how much funding it was given from the US and other countries just to stay afloat (especially in WW2) because they couldn’t organize their own factories that were useful etc etc and the US has to send OUR tank building teams over to them just to show them how to efficiently build tanks, and we sent them 13,000 tanks, 400,000 jeeps and trucks, and 14,000 aircraft. Aka the USSR couldn’t even stand on its own 2 feet against Germany and we had to send them an insane amount of firepower to ensure them not falling. And about the life expectancy thing. It did double life expectancy between 1915 and the 1960s as did most countries around the world including the US due to improved birthrates and better sanitation and vaccines and antibiotics. However from 1960-1980 other countries like the US continued to go up while the USSR actually started declining again. So yes please continue to spread your false lies. And let’s talk about how every one of those countries you spoke of couldn’t survive without support from other countries. Meanwhile the country that you hate so much (the US) continues to survive and thrive while heavily supporting a dozen of other countries and are contributing some form of assistance to over 175 countries worldwide.
Uhh…
History should teach you that the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation was traveling around Moscow and Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it never really gets talked about for some reason.
A conservative who essentially birthed Project 2025 and is famously quoted as saying “I don’t want everyone to vote,” was sneaking in computers and other electronics to Soviet dissidents while teaching soviet politicians all about American “democracy” just prior to the collapse.
Then he and several other members of Heritage were ready to fill the power vacuum and help establish the first go between for U.S. and Russian capitalist businesses.
“You capture the Soviet Union --I’m going to capture the states.”-Thomas Roe, Heritage Foundation board member and founder of the State Policy Network to fellow Heritage Foundation board member Robert Krieble.
In 1989, the Krieble Institute was created “to promote democracy and economic freedom in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.”
1989: A Republican in Moscow (WaPo article about Weyrich holding mock elections)
1991: RUSSIA HOUSE, TRADING IN ITS NAME WaPo Article about the first ever go between for U.S. and Russian businesses involving Weyrich and Krieble
PBS Documentary about Weyrich and Krieble involvement in Collapse of USSR Playing For Power (2012)
I’m aware of the dissolution of the USSR. It lasted for nearly a full century, and the causes of its dissolution have been studied by every single communist party in existence thoroughly. They didn’t dissolve because a random far-right Statesian whispered evil things, that was a symptom of the dissolution.
Further, without the US Empire, there aren’t going to be nearly as many ways for the remaining capitalists to exert their will or coup.
Trump is normal for America and how America acts around the world, you guys are just upset it is happening at home now and not Iraq.
Folks can’t remember Bush Jr at all, much less Clinton, Bush Sr or Reagan. They can barely remember Obama, except through a haze of nostalgia.
What’s notable about Trump isn’t his fascism - plenty of presidents have been openly fascist. What’s notable is how many middle class white people are getting sucked up into the current dragnet.
I don’t really get how that contradicts needing a 3rd reconstruction that dismantles the government agencies that carry out that kind of shit and didn’t even exist until WWII rather than dismantling a democracy?
Can’t argue with you there, but that’s also part of what makes me question who’s best interest would be dismantling U.S. democracy instead of dismantling specific agencies within the government, with no plan for where we go next?
Because it kinda seems like those agencies would carry on doing whatever they want even after a union fully dissolves. They would just have fewer obstacles in their way.
When you think about how an American agency, for example, the CIA operates this playbook in other countries, what is their intended goal?
Their goal is to destabilize a country in order to remove any obstacles to taking full control. They usually achieve destabilization by undermining public trust in a system and the leaders of that system, so that the public will either dismantle the government for them or be less resistant once it is dismantled (see the Soviet Union in the late 80s). Once that happens, they already hold all the resources and power, and install somebody they already have lined up.
Considering that there seems to currently be a global campaign to spread disinformation and install far right leaders across the globe, it makes me question if this is happening everywhere bc global destabilization is the goal.
Currently, just about anywhere in the world, who holds the majority of the resources? The people or a small group of oligarchs? When destabilization happens and a local government collapses who has the upper hand when it comes to filling the power vacuum?
In socialist countries, the working classes are in control. We can learn from them.
No no no. In socialist countries, the Big Government is in control. There’s no freedom. Everyone lives in fear. You don’t even own your own toothbrush.
Anyone who supports socialism is a Tankie who just wants to kill rich white people for fun and doesn’t understand how awful their lives will be afterwards.
Like which countries specifically? Bc I can almost guarantee there is currently a far right disinformation campaign targeted at undermining that country’s government.
the disinformation campaign has been running since the mid 1930’s and it’s been taught in our schools and disseminated via legacy media since the 1940’s.
a key feature of the campaign is to make americans predisposed to outright reject the alternatives that have already been proven to work in irl and all of those alternatives are aligned with what @Cowbee@lemmy.ml already told you.
anything else is going to be a rinse and repeat of what we already have.
Not just with socialism. This was the response to the civil rights movement of the 60s/70s, to the environmentalism of the 80s/90s, and to the anti-war movement of the 00s/10s.
Every progressive position is pillared as unworkable, overly expensive, and jobs-killing.
Meanwhile, we sink $1T/year into chat bots that spam your Twitter feed with racist porn and armies of tweaked out sheriffs deputies to crash their cars into anyone they consider illegally brown
those were all socialist aligned movements:
the civil rights movement – the black panthers in particular – was literally socialists and bombed (also literally) because of it. MLK jr.'s cadre took great pains to ensure that their efforts didn’t get labeled as socialist because of it. the environmentalists of the 80’s/90’s – green peace in particular – was also heavily socialist influenced and got labeled as such for not making efforts like MLK jr did.
now-a-days, the campaign misinforms americans that leftists don’t reliably vote despite examples like clinton and obama proving otherwise and there being enough green, psl, dsa, cpusa votes to counter republicans easily. this misinformation is done to cover for the fact that the democrats don’t want to adopt platforms that left leaning voters want and this is most recently self evident in kamala harris’ campaign and its attempt to sway republicans to vote democrat rather than shore up her democratic base.
Cuba, the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc. There are far-right disinformation campaigns from western countries trying to undermine them, but these countries have sovereignty over their media, industry, and infrastructure, and thus show no signs of collapse. If the US Empire was overthrown, there’s no chance the EU could meaningfully overturn that, they are far too weak at this point, and couldn’t even overturn the soviets when Europe was stronger and right next door.
What makes you think oligarchs haven’t been continuing to undermine and dismantle the second reconstruction this entire time, and aren’t using their established global institutions (like banks, corporations, and conservative think tanks) to do exactly what they’ve been projecting and accusing progressives of doing?
Do you honestly think there isn’t a good chance a global cabal of far right conservatives might be ready to use their collective wealth and resources they hoard and pass down for generations to take full global control?
Example: The CIA and the Royal family working together to overthrow a progressive leader in Australia in the 1970s.
Or Steve Kangas on the Origins of the overclass and the crimes of the CIA
I started to read ultimately skimmed through a lot of flowery language and hot air that seems to toe the center left message of just organize, protest, and vote harder. Did I miss something?
•to move us from our undemocratic present to a more democratic future, we need to institutionalize our commitments to a more inclusive and responsive democracy in more durable forms. These might encompass everything from alternative economic regulatory institutions and new approaches to anti-discrimination to a more universal safety net that secures the essential guarantees of health, housing, and income that individuals and communities need to thrive.
•A second reconstructionist strategy lies in containing reactionary power and backlash. We should presume that there will always be efforts to roll back egalitarian expansions of democracy. Part of how democracies survive and thrive is through institutions that contain the potential resurgence of anti-democratic policies and forces. The democratic institutions of the future will similarly need to develop ways to contain authoritarian power. This will require laws and institutions that respond to techniques that are emerging in the current moment, such as new forms of state and private surveillance, or the weaponization of presidential control of funding flows.
•The third institutional transformation strategy is to democratize our governing institutions, making policymaking more directly responsive to and shaped by ordinary constituents. One important area is the balance of power between the branches. Even before Trump, the trend has been to centralize power in an imperial presidency. The legislature, by contrast, has been central to past moments of democratization. Any future reconstructionist agenda will need to be built on congressional majorities and a legislature willing to check and permanently shift away from the overreliance on presidential power.
Yep pretty much it seems that’s all we can do, which is why we haven’t been able to affect much change. We need revolutionary uprising and revolting, but that requires every oppressed person to be in solidarity on one united front but many of them are so brainwashed by the media which is genius at dividing people against each other. As long as they can keep the plebeians in-fighting and arguing with each other about stupid inconsequential things, the plebeians cannot rise up to revolution and revolt against the true oppressors.