Steven Brust

@stevenbrust.bsky.social

1832 Followers 16 Following

Practical ontologist, mad, drunk, and reckless troubadour (RCPM) WSWS.Org

Gerrymandering. The Electoral College. Citizens United. The problems we face in the US present themselves as political issues. But it is easy to become so absorbed in the political excrement that we lose sight of the economic digestive process that produced it. In class society, power is held and wielded by a social class, which uses political parties to shape their policy and settle disputes among themselves. Now, in fact, I would say things have degenerated to the point where it isn't even a social class ruling, but a tiny, elite fragment of that social class. But the point is, so long as power is in the hands of those who live by exploiting the labor of others, political decisions will reflect their needs, not the needs of those being exploited. And getting wrapped up in the particular details of which undemocratic political maneuver they've pulled off this week can turn into a distraction from our efforts to organize and prepare to confront our actual enemy.
"Utopia." "Workers paradise." With such terms, and a sneer on his lips, the reactionary announces that he has no substantive argument to answer socialists. And, obviously, no socialist has ever promised anything remotely like Utopia. Resolving the contradiction between social production and private appropriation will solve many problems, and permit us to begin addressing others, but there will be no shortage of problems and difficulties remaining. But the real point is this: How cynical and demoralized do you have to be in order to believe that universal housing, universal health care, peace, and a decent living are Utopian! Isn't such a world, in fact, the minimum we should demand of a society easily able to provide it?
Imagine that it is July 2nd, 1863, you are in a small Pennsylvania farm town, and you are a member of the 1st Minnesota. General Scott, seeing Confederates coming down the Emmitsburg Road aimed right at a weak spot in the Union line, orders your regiment to attack. Now imagine, in that moment, someone next to you saying, "Wait. We can't know if all of those people are trying to destroy the Union and defend slavery. There are good Confederates, and bad Confederates." He then goes on to talk about how some Confederate soldier shared his rations with a captured Federal, and how another helped a civilian chop her wood, and another brought a wounded enemy back to the field hospital. "You can't judge them all by the actions of a few," explains the guy next to you. To even express this is to show its absurdity; they are in uniform, and, barring cowardice or a timely attack of conscience, they are going to try to kill or capture you. I understand that some of you do not view the institution of the capitalist police force as uniformed enemies of the working class, whose job is to defend exploitation and the property relations that require exploitation, and carry out the inevitable repression and violence needed to defend those property relations. But perhaps this example will, at least, communicate why I do not consider the character of this or that police officer relevant when discussing the role of the police. In my opinion, class war is ongoing, sometimes in the open, and sometimes under the surface, but it is every bit as real as the Minié balls that flew at the 1st Minnesota on that day in 1863.