Three waves of revolt: Where do we aim our fists to strike a death blow to capitalism's body?

[Fire Walk With Me]

EcoAgAA ?@EcoAgAA

Read for the day: Three waves of revolt Where do we aim our fists to strike a death blow to capitalism's body? https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/106/three-waves-revolt.html …

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/106/three-waves-revolt.html

Muscles and Heart

The traditional Marxist answer, embraced by insurrectionaries from Bakunin to Occupy, is to hit the processes of production by going on strike. The total worker’s strike is the dream, once hauntingly imagined by socialist novelist Jack London, of the scales overturned: the rich starving in their mansions while the workers sit idle. The strike strikes at the heart and muscles of capitalism by threatening the system with the paralyzing withdrawal of our collective labor. But the transformations wrought by post-industrial capitalism, combined with decades of organizing for a grand defection that never materializes, have tattered the strike’s proud flag. The last generation to pull it off was the heroes of 1968, who instigated the first-ever wildcat general strike before flaring out.

Brains and Mind

A newer answer urges us to end economic bondage by abolishing debt. Debt, this argument goes, is modern day slavery. Unrepayable debts shackle most of us to the manic-depressive cycles of capitalism, while a decreasing number of men grow increasingly rich. Accordingly, two post-Occupy tactics make debt the bullseye. First is the debt-strike tactic, like the student loan debtors who collectively refuse to repay their loans. Second is the movement to strike debt, like the recently launched Rolling Jubilee. This project, conceived by Adbusters in 2009 and pulled off by a maverick affinity group of Zuccottis in 2012, buys distressed debt for pennies on the dollar – and then forgives it. Like the traditional strike, both angles of debt resistance target the system of production, now epitomized by Goldman Sachs rather than Ford. But such tactics also, as Friedrich Nietzsche and more recently David Graeber have argued, undermine the powerful social and moral bonds that enmesh us in the system. Anti-debt activism thus strikes simultaneously at the material and the ideological: at capitalism’s brains as well as its mind.

(More at the link.)

[Warpy]

1. Actually, "we" can only try to survive

while capitalism does the job to itself. When everything gets really topheavy, it tends to collapse quite efficiently. Since the collapse of 2008 wasn't followed with meaningful reform, another collapse is inevitable. If it's the derivatives casino that goes, then everything will go with it and survival will become a challenge, at least in the short term.

Once a collapse has occurred, the suggestions in that article can be applied. Until it happens, they won't do much good even if by some miracle they can be organized.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. But the collapse did not hurt the very rich. It -did- set the stage for them to steal massive

amounts of money since that time, and they have. Remember that the top 20% of the rich in the US, UK, and Canada are the "actual" economy; there is no "the consumer" according to the Citigroup "Plutonomy" memo. They may insulate themselves from economic difficulty and take advantage of us as we thrash about. For example, again from the memo, equities are the main asset of the very rich, with housing investments being that of the bottom 80%. I'm no economist but as far as I can tell, the housing bubble and subsequent land grab only enrich the rich and cause them no pain.

Scattered analysis of the Citigroup "Plutonomy" memo:
http://occupyobservations.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-leaked-2006-citigroup-plutonomy-memo.html

[Blanks]

3. In the days of factory workers...

Shutting down production would have worked. Technology has advanced so far now that there aren't enough factory production workers to shut the economy down (besides they're lucky to have a job).

It is consumption that would shut them down. If people targeted certain products and companies and refused to buy from them; that would effect their bottom line.

If everyone bought as much second hand goods as they could (either through eBay Craigslist or local flea markets) it wouldn't take very long before the people running this country would notice.

It would take a coordinated effort, but I believe that is what it would take. That and transportation; every time we get into our vehicle and put gas in the car we are supporting the enemy.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. That's a very good point. Globalisation and prison labor have eroded the worker's ability

to shut down the system, and the targeting of goods is necessary...

[Kalidurga]

5. Buy as little as possible...

Reduce, reuse, recycle, buy second hand. It's not just for the environment anymore it's a strategy. I buy as little as possible and I try to reverse boycott, by that I mean buy from companies that are at least better than some RW owned corporation. It's not easy RWers own a lot of stuff.

[Mnemosyne]

6. K&R nt

[dtom67]

7. Dear NSA analyst....

We are not terrorists. We are not plotting the downfall of the USA
.Please do not raid my house tonight and arrest me. I have no interest in visiting Cuba, no matter how lovely it is this time of year.
I am not interested in the sport of "waterboarding".

Please note,however; if you intend to torture me, I will gladly name anyone you like as an enemy combatant, in exchange for immunity.

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. It's absolutely bizarre that none of the "protection" agencies have realized that the 1%

are destroying America and turning it into a corporatocracy/fascist state, eliminating the Constitution/Bill of Rights.

They're snoozing at the wheel while the real enemies kill the country and spread that meme to the entire planet via globalisation efforts.

[dtom67]

10. (D)oubting ThOMas(67) says...

replace the word "bizarre" with "sinister" and that's where I'm at.
I still have some glowing embers of Hope buried in the Ashes of my old Faith in Democracy.
I truly believe that it is time for Human Civilization to evolve, but the logistics of how we get there from here sometimes brings me down.
Realistically, I don't see any chance of meaningful change , unless support is won from some faction of the wealthy Elites. Some of them must realize we are on a collision course with extinction. The rub is that you would have to convince them that the solution should not involve the marginalization( or outright extermination) of 99% of the population.
a Popular uprising might seem like the thing to do, but let's face it; most people who might hit the streets would be doing so to look for food, not freedom from tyranny . Probably less than 10% of those who post on DU would even consider any action to change to a more equitable system. Most still believe change can be affected from within. besides, such movements are easily hijacked. In fact, one might argue that they must be in order to achieve any significant change( usually just a "new boss, same as the old boss" ). Pick a country in Africa and see for yourself.
to be honest, my plan is to try to learn to live sustainably and try to just drop out of the system. If you don't need money, you cannot be enslaved by the system. That doesn't help my fellow man, but , hell, I'm just a middle-aged Autoworker. Trapped by my own foolish financial choices. Debt really is an effective form of Slavery.
And then , some days, I think that maybe the World isn't as far gone as I sometimes believe.

Hamster-wheel schizophrenia, I guess....

[Utopian Leftist]

9. And why is it that unions are so effective in raising our quality of life?

Because together we are STRONGER.

There is safety in numbers.

What will it take for the common people to unite, multiplying our numbers exponentially? What if unions joined together in solidarity? Didn't the nurses union show up to support Occupy or was that in Wisconsin, I can't remember? It could happen though. Change will come at the grass roots level. From the bottom up. When the people get sick and tired of being sick and tired and abused.

Republicans have been using the same old song and dance for a hundred years or more: divide and conquer.