Bernie Sanders Killed Rosa Luxemburg

Print from Max Beckmann, The Martyrdom of Rosa Luxemburg

Bernie Sanders killed Rosa Luxemburg.

Well, no of course he didn't. But his ideological predecessors did. They did it because, like Sanders, they embraced and defended capitalist state power against actual revolution. They, like Sanders, redefined socialism to mean something so much less than the bravest of revolutionary philosophers actually understood. It's a pleasant fantasy to think of Sanders' electoral campaign as some kind of "political revolution," but nothing could be further from the real truth.

There are no short cuts to actual revolution—unfortunately!—and in the extraordinarily unlikely event that Sanders is elected, he will be custodian of the most massive instruments of repression the world has ever known, and like a previous pleasant fantasy (Obama's "change we can believe in") he will use them. Sanders' modest list of reforms, which will not actually be enacted, do not add up to the actual radical realignment of society we so desperately need. Socialism is not the system of state-administered programs Sanders supporters suggest but the transfer of power from the capitalist class to the working class, and that is something no electoral candidate can deliver.

It is very very frustrating that reality disproves the optimism of many Sanders voters, which is why I am beyond frustrated at leftists who are cynically lying about the possibilities behind his campaign. The truth needs to remain our weapon. Sure, the Republican candidates represent some of the worst of humanity; they're terrifying in obvious ways. But look deeper: the truth is that Sanders, Clinton, or Obama before them are a terribly inadequate line of defense against those forces of reaction, and actually if you look into the totality of their records, they are examples of some pretty horrible humanity themselves. Obama, for instance, who speaks movingly about gun violence while green lighting massive violence against civilians in other countries. Remember it was mostly not horrible Republicans who smashed the Occupy movement in acts of violence, it was Obama and the nation's liberal and Democratic party establishment. Bernie Sanders has sat in government for decades funding the machineries of war and vigorously backing such US allies as apartheid Israel. 

Rosa Luxemburg and her collaborators challenged the socialist (social-democratic, more accurately) mainstream of her own time when she loudly condemned German socialists for supporting German imperialism in WW1. In the ruins of Germany's defeat, she dared lead an insurrection, attempting to take advantage of capitalism's disarray. The social democratic mainstream chose instead to defend the German state from that insurrection, and drowned the insurrection in blood. Luxemburg is remembered by today's left as a kind of symbolically humanist alternative to Lenin, who bourgeois history has written off as discredited. Nothing could actually be further from reality, and let us not miss the main point of Luxemburg's lifelong dedication, like Lenin's: the overthrow of capitalism. Because to do this thing is the only way to save humanity from the cannibal brutality of the system that has now survived her murder by almost a century. 

It is beyond obvious that there is no organized revolutionary force capable of challenging the capitalist status quo in the USA. Indeed even Rosa Luxemburg's insurrection was probably premature and rash. But as long as we blind ourselves to the lessons of history — speaking of American exceptionalism! — the seeds and sprouts that signal the possibility of a better world (Occupy, ‪#‎BLM‬) will fall, unwatered, on the sterile ground of playing electoral games that by design cannot actually meet our actual needs. Sure, we have to start somewhere, we need a real and legitimate mass movement. But the Bernie Sanders election campaign is not that movement, not even the seed of that movement. That's gotta be painful for some to hear in a season when we could really use some hope. 

I'm glad my Facebook feed is filled with memorial postings to Rosa Luxemburg: in 21st-century America that's kind of a miracle. But the best way to honor her memory is to finish her actual work.

I really don't want to #FeelTheBern.

#LessVotingMoreRevolution

(crossposted from my Facebook)

May Day 2014

Here's my yearly inspirational post on May Day. This is crossposted from the Kasama website:

MAY FIRST: RAISE A RED BANNER!

It's May Day, the international workers' holiday, the communist holiday. (And you can read about the origins of the holiday here.)

It's not a holiday to give gifts, to eat a big meal with the family, to contemplate a trip to the beach. It's a holiday to remember what we're in this for, a holiday to go outside and shout about what's wrong with the world and what should be, can be, must be, fixed.

It's not a day to talk about which lying and cheating candidate to vote for in the next election: it's a day to talk about less voting and more revolution.

It's not a day to talk about begging the bosses for a few more crumbs: it's a day to talk about a world without bosses.

It's not a day to settle for a slightly higher minimum wage: it's a day to proclaim the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”

It's not a day to think about taxing the rich, it's a day to envision ending the system that perpetuates inequality once and for all, and shaking off that 1% for good.

It's not a day to be locked down by the pain of racism, of sexism, of heterosexism, of transphobia: it's a day to be proud of who we are, knowing that by struggling together we're building a better world in our own image; it's a day to treat each other with respect.

It's not a day to question the right of people to live where they want, on this day nobody is illegal. Or maybe, everybody is illegal: we're all rejecting the rotten terms of "citizenship" in this society together. It's a day to embrace our sisters and brothers regardless of documentation, to walk together in solidarity, to speak our many languages openly and equally, to demand a home for all.

It's not a day to fear the police and the government snoops and snitches. It's a day to remember our vast power as the majority, aware of our right to fight, conscious of the righteousness of our cause. It's a day for us to own the streets, a day for us not to fear the shadows behind us.

It's not a day to be locked inside: it's a day to talk about smashing open the prisons and freeing our loved ones, about re-imagining how a truly just world might wipe away injustice and heal selfish hearts.

It's not a day to listen to the words of our so-called leaders as they try to trick us into supporting — and fighting in — new wars. It's a day to call them on their bullshit, to openly oppose them, to denounce their plans for world domination. It's a day to talk about a different world free of imperialism.

It's not a day, here in the belly of the beast, to decorate with red, white and blue. It's a day to remember that the proletariat has no country — has all countries — and the troops we need to be supporting are the liberation warriors fighting in the forests and mountains of India, of Nepal, of the Philippines.

It's not a day to shoot down our dreams as unrealistic, it's a day to proudly proclaim our struggle for a just society liberated from capitalism once and for all. It's a day to unleash those dreams.

It's not a day to be silent, it's a day to talk about what we want and to plan how to get it; it's a day to demand what is right.

It's not a day to talk about hoping things get better, it's a day to fight to make things better.

It's not a day to be only a radical or a leftist, to moderate our language or worry about what people think: it's a day to be a communist, a red, a revolutionary fighter for human liberation.

It's a good day to raise a red flag. It's a good day to link arms with your comrades, to take the streets, to act like we own those streets, which, in fact we do. It's a good day to talk to your neighbor about what needs to be changed in the world. It's a good day to help open the eyes of a friend to the reality of the world we live in. It's a good day to recommit to the struggle's long haul, to remember the martyrs we have lost, and to remember the words of the brilliant thinkers who help us to make sense and strategy of the world and its challenges. It's a good day to be inspired and reinvigorated.

As the dawn breaks red on the horizon, wake up and celebrate. And may tomorrow be as good as today. It's right to rebel!