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Strife Dispatch Leftist dispatches to educate, motivate and incite direct action

Simply saying that we are "doing capitalism wrong" is a very attractive idea because it doesn't actually require any rea...
27/09/2020

Simply saying that we are "doing capitalism wrong" is a very attractive idea because it doesn't actually require any real change to society. If we are simply "doing it wrong" then everything can be solved by some tweaks to the system and removal of the "bad people". But arguments like this always conveniently ignore the question of WHY we are doing it wrong and how we will stop others from doing it wrong again. It ignores the fundamental problems and replaces them with incidental ones.

Capitalism isn't broken. It's working exactly as intended towards its purpose, that purpose being to funnel wealth and power to a vanishingly small elite and cement a hierarchy of power based on that wealth. It is a thin veneer of meritocracy, but not to ensure social mobility, but rather to calcify it, granting justification to everyone for why they are "in their place".

When talking to someone about "rights" or "freedom" or "liberty", it is always essential to ask the follow-up questions....
26/09/2020

When talking to someone about "rights" or "freedom" or "liberty", it is always essential to ask the follow-up questions.

Right to...what?
Freedom to (or from)...what? or whom?
Liberty to do...what?

None of these concepts exist in a vacuum, and a great deal can be told about what a person actually wants by asking these basic questions. Capitalists like to talk about freedom a lot, but somehow it always seems to be freedom for those with money and power rather than freedom for those without.

Capitalist governments like to pretend that we cannot solve the problems caused by capitalism. They always say there sim...
26/09/2020

Capitalist governments like to pretend that we cannot solve the problems caused by capitalism. They always say there simply isn't enough money to do so. But this clearly isn't the case when you look at the money that is spent without question. Even without the (very necessary) work of serious redistribution, we could solve homelessness. The reason we don't is ideological, not practical. Our governments CHOOSE to let people suffer and die because the idea that the capitalist system has failed them is uncomfortable for those invested in maintaining capitalism.

To all those who are still uncomfortable with the idea of socialism, seeing it as somehow foreign or "un-American", this...
26/09/2020

To all those who are still uncomfortable with the idea of socialism, seeing it as somehow foreign or "un-American", this has been a very deliberate campaign by the rich and powerful to paint everything even tangentially associated with socialism or communism as sinister and alien. The trouble with this project is that it largely depends on a lack of curiosity on the part of the people, as even a cursory look back in time will find a thriving socialist popular movement in America, just as there were thriving socialist popular movements in much of the world.

Challenge yourselves and take a look. You might be surprised at just which famous American icons were quite open socialists.

Liberalism is a veneer of democracy haphazardly thrown over the unaccountable hierarchal dictatorship of capitalism. Whe...
26/09/2020

Liberalism is a veneer of democracy haphazardly thrown over the unaccountable hierarchal dictatorship of capitalism. When conservatives talk about shrinking government, what they mean is to take that thin veil of democracy and thin and weaken it further, allowing capitalists more direct power and less accountability to anyone. It is a desire to remove the mask that got people to accept the absurdity of capitalism in the first place, a belief (correct in far too many cases) that the indoctrination has progressed far enough now that capitalism was simply assumed as part of the natural order, and the veneer of democracy is no longer necessary to maintain their power.

Treating symptoms is an important part of medicine. But when treating symptoms it is always important to ask what they a...
25/09/2020

Treating symptoms is an important part of medicine. But when treating symptoms it is always important to ask what they are symptoms of, particularly if the same symptoms continue to reappear.

For industrialists like Henry Ford, antisemitism was a quite useful and welcome tool, a technology just as important to ...
25/09/2020

For industrialists like Henry Ford, antisemitism was a quite useful and welcome tool, a technology just as important to him as the production line. The technology of antisemitism served him and many others like him by manufacturing a version of the "elite", against which the workers were starting to direct their ire, that did not include Henry Ford.

The target changes (though Jews remain a regular feature), but the technology is still in active service today.

Where I live in Bellevue, WA, during a debate over whether or not to invest in a light rail linking us to Seattle, there...
25/09/2020

Where I live in Bellevue, WA, during a debate over whether or not to invest in a light rail linking us to Seattle, there were many prominent voices quite openly arguing that if Bellevue were connected to Seattle, then poor people from Seattle would more easily come to Bellevue and we would be overrun with poor people.

I have never seen a more perfect illustration of exactly why capitalists dislike public transit.

Capitalism cannot solve a problem that capital prospers from. By its very nature, capitalism will always pursue what is ...
25/09/2020

Capitalism cannot solve a problem that capital prospers from. By its very nature, capitalism will always pursue what is in the best interests of the already wealthy at the expense of everything and everyone else. "Green capitalism" is nonsense and always was.

American capitalism has long depended on covering up its problems with the idea that it simply can't be any better than ...
24/09/2020

American capitalism has long depended on covering up its problems with the idea that it simply can't be any better than this. As long as most Americans had no real or regular contact with anyone outside our borders, this proceeded just fine. But there is a reason their excuses ring so hollow these days, now that the internet has allowed all of us to see just how badly we are being screwed, not even in comparison to some theoretical perfect state, but in comparison to a large number of currently existing and successful states.

Liberal democracy lives in terror of the day that the publicly stated principles it claims to uphold are applied to the ...
24/09/2020

Liberal democracy lives in terror of the day that the publicly stated principles it claims to uphold are applied to the economic sphere. When this happens, those principles must be swiftly abandoned, instead of applying the capitalist values of unaccountable power and strict hierarchy to the public arena. We call this process fascism.

Capitalism fundamentally depends on taking value from your labour and giving to other people who didn't perform any labo...
24/09/2020

Capitalism fundamentally depends on taking value from your labour and giving to other people who didn't perform any labour. And it isn't a minor amount, it is the majority, and the rate is increasing every year.

Nothing happening this year is random or unpredictable. 2020 is the year that all the things leftists have been screamin...
24/09/2020

Nothing happening this year is random or unpredictable. 2020 is the year that all the things leftists have been screaming that we have no defense against for decades are actually happening and, big surprise, we have no defense against them.

Throughout history those with a transitory station of power have sought to crystallize that transitory power through acq...
23/09/2020

Throughout history those with a transitory station of power have sought to crystallize that transitory power through acquisition of the means of production and the labour of others. When trying to judge future actions like this, look to what they actually do, not to what they are called.

Capital will always take care of its own. The interests of private banks who hold the money and private industry who sip...
23/09/2020

Capital will always take care of its own. The interests of private banks who hold the money and private industry who siphon money into said banks will always align more neatly than any association with workers who actually need to spend that money.

Society is a construct that exists to care for people. It does not have any value other than in taking care of people. S...
23/09/2020

Society is a construct that exists to care for people. It does not have any value other than in taking care of people. Saying that people are a burden on society is like saying that washing dishes is a burden on your dishwasher.

When you hear libertarians whine about how "we never tried real capitalism" we got damn close, and this is what it looke...
21/09/2020

When you hear libertarians whine about how "we never tried real capitalism" we got damn close, and this is what it looked like. Rich people will not suddenly become good and generous people because the government isn't hold them back.

Capitalists have taken the concept of market forces and elevated this beyond the level of ideology and into the realm of...
20/09/2020

Capitalists have taken the concept of market forces and elevated this beyond the level of ideology and into the realm of religion. Listen to them talk about "the Invisible Hand of the Market" and how the market will naturally fix everything and it is disturbingly similar to hearing a religious person talk about placing their faith in the god of their choice rather than actually address the situation at hand. Some go even further and anthropomorphize the market, referring to "the will of the market" as if it truly were a deity that must be pleased or we will feel its wrath.

Listen for these kinds of phrases the next time you find yourself speaking with a capitalist. They use them quite often and don't seem to see anything odd about it.

When you read the latest op ed piece in the Washington Post or watch the night's special on MSNBC, you are listening to ...
20/09/2020

When you read the latest op ed piece in the Washington Post or watch the night's special on MSNBC, you are listening to the voices and opinions of those who cannot comprehend the reality of the suffering happening around them.

The philosopher Miranda Fricker had a concept she called Epistemic Injustice, literally a harm done to the collective knowledge of humanity by forbidding certain people from accessing that knowledge pool, either by contributing or withdrawing their knowledge. As long as the privileged maintain this monopoly on narrative, the majority of people suffer a harm in being denied the knowledge of the many millions who cannot contribute their knowledge, which means it is not there to be accessed by others.

If you want to determine a state's priorities, who and what they care about, look not at how much money they spend, but ...
20/09/2020

If you want to determine a state's priorities, who and what they care about, look not at how much money they spend, but on where and how they choose to spend it.

Those who are responsible for our abuse and oppression are quite happy with the way things are. There will not be some m...
20/09/2020

Those who are responsible for our abuse and oppression are quite happy with the way things are. There will not be some magical moment where we make them see the suffering they cause and they have a change of heart. This is a liberal fantasy. The status quo is working quite well for them and they have no intention of surrendering one iota of their power and privilege without a fight (and no I don't mean an election, I mean a fight).

The tactic of right wingers calling whatever they didn't like "socialism" isn't a new one. What changed was that after B...
19/09/2020

The tactic of right wingers calling whatever they didn't like "socialism" isn't a new one. What changed was that after Bill Clinton, democrats decided they should be afraid of this tactic and not do anything for fear of being called socialists.

People use their labour to make things. This is true today and will continue to be true with or without a parasitic owne...
19/09/2020

People use their labour to make things. This is true today and will continue to be true with or without a parasitic owner class stealing the majority of the profit of this labour.

To a capitalist, any deaths that occur in capitalist countries are simply incidental, all unavoidable and normal, while ...
19/09/2020

To a capitalist, any deaths that occur in capitalist countries are simply incidental, all unavoidable and normal, while any and every death in a socialist country (including literal N**i soldiers killed in WWII according to some "official counts") are considered part of the "death toll of communism".

It's a farce.

Republicans: your resistance is futile
19/09/2020

Republicans: your resistance is futile

Human greed will never be eliminated. There will always be those who seek their own advancement at the expense of others...
18/09/2020

Human greed will never be eliminated. There will always be those who seek their own advancement at the expense of others. But there are a hell of a lot more such people when the dominant economic system across the majority of the world actively encourages and incentivizes this behaviour and directly punishes those who don't sufficiently exploit those around them.

Remember activists, if you fight back in any way or are even rude or mean to the people actively brutalizing you, the en...
17/09/2020

Remember activists, if you fight back in any way or are even rude or mean to the people actively brutalizing you, the entire cause becomes illegitimate. It is your responsibility to sit there stoically while you are beaten and killed if you ever want your message to be heard. These are the extremely logical rules that definitely don't exist solely to ensure liberals always have an excuse to comfortably side with the ruling class.

Under capitalism, the level of necessity and contribution a given task holds for the community is irrelevant. If anythin...
17/09/2020

Under capitalism, the level of necessity and contribution a given task holds for the community is irrelevant. If anything, the jobs which constitute actually necessary tasks are the least useful to the purpose of capitalism, namely funneling wealth upwards to the ruling class, and so tend to be the most exploited and least well-paid and well-regarded. Those who perform an essential service are a constant annoyance to capitalists, because they represent a piece of society and the economy that they cannot ever fully commodify, and since they cannot fully commodify these roles, those who fill them are derided and the roles themselves given less social value as a way of reinforcing the fact that all of society exists only to serve the ruling class.

It truly has been an incredible achievement on the part of the ruling class to successfully convince the majority of Ame...
17/09/2020

It truly has been an incredible achievement on the part of the ruling class to successfully convince the majority of Americans that propaganda only exists in its most obvious form and only comes from state sources.

Capitalism is a system the quite openly and proudly rewards greed and exploitation. We can pretend to condemn such thing...
17/09/2020

Capitalism is a system the quite openly and proudly rewards greed and exploitation. We can pretend to condemn such things all we like, but as long as we maintain a system that actively rewards doing harm to others and to society as a whole in the interest of one's own profit, the suffering is inevitable.

Greed will never go away. But we can and we must stop rewarding it as a matter of policy.

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