Thursday, April 19, 2012

Is Ferrerman A Marxist?

At the very least, I'm a Groucho Marxist. Since childhood, I've admired his humor. Once I figured out half of it was pretty dirty for the time, I was glad I was a fan.

But, as far as politics goes, after a quick check on Wiki, I'm not a Marxist after all, despite the proclamations of many idiots on Topix. Nor am I a communist. I doubt I'm Muslim either. The bacon, pork chops thing again. Socialism comes pretty close but not if by "socialist" you mean "communist" as most republicans define it via Foxnews.

In the mid 19th century when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles were paling around, the world was quite a different place. It was a more agrarian society, pretty much anywhere you went. People were living on farms and growing things but cities were starting to expand and folks were making things too. Talk about 1%ers though! Vanderbilt's and Carnegie's were the super rich of the times. I have no idea how they made their money except that it probably wasn't Credit Default Swap Derivatives or Social Networking sites. Nor was it their skill at digging ditches. No one had really found a use for oil yet either.

Marx and Engles noted the vast disparity between rich and poor that capitalism produced and predicted class struggle would result.  In their opinion, Capitalism would eat itself. It *works* if it works for you as a Vanderbilt but, it defeats it's own purpose when it only works for a small percentage of people. It's really wasn't a fine line between rich and poor back then. There wasn't much of a middle class. The 99% back then were *the working class* and, let's face it; it didn't pay very well. I can't fault them at all for working on a seemingly better system that benefited far more people. That was actually pretty thoughtful of them.

Think back to any revolution- even our own- and you have to see that  something had to be done. I used to have a boss who was fond of saying: "Let's do something, even if it's wrong!"

Usually if that's your plan, wrong usually is the result. But, hey- you tried.

I doubt that Marx or Engles would approve of the end result of the communist revolutions that were done, more or less, in their names. Imagine life in Czarist Russia and you can imagine the need for armed insurrection. The same with China and Cuba. The majority of people in those countries, at those times, did not have the good life. They had nothing- literally- to lose but their lives in fighting to make it better for all. Sometimes you just got to say: "What the fuck?"

I doubt our glorious founders would approve of the current state of America. And, of course I don't mean Barack Obama's America. Something got lost in the interpretation of their United States in the last couple hundred years, not the last three. Indeed, history may one day find that we the people rediscovered ourselves in this very time. That is, if we're lucky.

See, when people have nothing and strive to have something, it's one thing. When people who had something have that something taken away from them, it's just as bad as having nothing in the first place. In fact, in a way, it's worse. One way it's worse is when the people- the proletariat- co-conspire with the bourgeois to take away their own something. That is a whole different 'What the fuck?'

These assholes in the threads and on Fox who scream about unions and teachers and how they are ruining the country would have been the first to get killed in any revolution in the history of the world. They'd be the Tories of our revolution, the White Russians of Russia's revolution. NOT the good guys. They're the company rats whom the bosses pretend to like but, won't have them in their home. They get a little more, being rats, and they know on which side their cheese is buttered and who butters it. Fuckin' pussies.

I'm a big fan of revolution, even the communist ones. I know why they happened. The thing is, I don't approve of what the winners did with their victory. In all cases of communist revolution, the winners traded one totalitarian regime for another. This always causes me to say: "What the fuck?" It's never what anyone signs up for. It's not even in the fine print. It just works out that way and, if anyone see's it coming, they're probably taken out back and shot.

Communism may work one day but, no one's done it right yet. In fact, looking at the more popular communist countries (China, Russia, VietNam) they're not exactly communist anymore. They're a whole lot more like us than they set out be, back in the day. Capitalism hasn't exactly consumed itself either but, to be sure, it hasn't exactly been a rousing success either. I've noticed over the years that, as the communist countries gained more freedom and prosperity, we lost more of the same. This mightcould be that they learned from their mistakes and from ours.

No one system works or is right. This is why we, as a democracy (or as the republicans who evidently hate democracy prefer to call it "a republic") borrow from the others, specifically from SOCIALISM.  We know that the good side of capitalism is that more people can prosper. We know that the downside is that, not everone can. Mitt Romney may think that "all Americans should be the one percent" but, the math just doesn't work out that way. In other words, we have to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. It is how society works. It's how Jesus would have wanted it, according to his press releases of the time. By the way, would he recognize Christianity- the religion named for him? I doubt it. I think he might say: "What the fuck?!" Story for another day...

Anyways, we're heading down the road to perhaps the worst 'ism' of all. Corporatism. It's not what the founders or Jesus or anybody envisioned but, it's the way things are going. We haven't learned a thing in our couple hundred years of espousing our greatness. Everyone has learned from us but us. Each day we lose a bit more of us while the rhetoric of our greatness gets louder, drowning us out. Plutocracy. Corporations are people too. They are not more important than you or I but....they have more money than we do....and they are 'job creators'....

They sound like Kings or Czars to me. Remember when we were against those types?

Sigh. There will be another revolution. I still can't fucking believe they let us have guns! I promise you though, when the shit goes down and these working class rethuglicans realize that they got chumped BIG TIME, I will not share a foxhole with these ignorant fucks who fucked themselves while fucking us all. Their heads will be on pikes where they belong.

Unless we get our act together soon, there will be a revolution. I wonder who will help us? Not the Chinese. Those communists seem to have a vested interest in our corporations.

Maybe we should give this democracy thing another go? It might not be too late. 

10 comments:

Hegel said...

The rethuglicans are nothing if not easily led! They eat those buzzwords for breakfast.

Hey, I'll let them call me a Marxist as long as I can remind them they really aren't Christians:)

Maggie said...

(((clapping))) Man, you are good.

Mysterious man from the Shadows said...

Your former boss's quote reminds me of a line from the British comedy "Yes, Minister":

"Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it."

Personally, I've always thought that both "capitalism" and "communism" were just theoretical models that can never really exist in the real world. They're ideals, in other words.

Karl Marx made some good critiques of the system that existed at the time, but many of his theories never made sense to me, especially his "labor theory of value".

ex-ferrer said...

They all have good intentions. So do all religions, which are theoretical as well. Any system is what you make of it and the best intention, whether it be political or religious, is don't hurt anybody in doing it. It took us years of blood and trillions of dollars to realize that all we had to do to defeat communism was let it run around in circles until it collapsed. Who knew? The smart money in the world seems to be on corporate plutocracy. That won't work either. Maybe they'll figure that out some day....

Sue J said...

I'd vote for you! Very well expressed, and I don't think you're on the road to 'corporatism' - you're already there - and the western world seems to be following you.
I see socialism as a very much larger version of village-style community. In a small society people look out for one another, but these days most people live in cities and that sense of community has been lost.
There will always be people in society who, for one reason or another, are not able to take care of themselves either at all or at some point in their lives and need help - and it could quite easily be a republican!

Sue J said...

Me again. I've never been able to understand why America was so afraid of communism it had to seek out and either undermine or attack those who chose it.
I can only assume there were vested interests involved ie. you've got something we want!

ex-ferrer said...

There's big money in fighting communists, Sue. At least there was. Now it's terrorists. It seems to me that ignoring them both is cheaper and easier but, I don't build tanks for a living. I guess we feared it because of the Godlessness of it all but, Islam has a God- it just happens to be their own.

I agree with socialism on the village scale. Look at Europe and it's smaller nations too. The repub's here act like Obama brought all the social programs in '08 but, we've had them since FDR. Sheesh- it's a part of democracy as well as Christianity to take care of those in need. I don't get how they can't grasp that.

Anonymous said...

have you seen "Bound For Glory" lately?
.
it's a few decades old, but it's a nice reminder of what the US was like before minimum wage, unions, and workers rights.
It should be re-released nationally to remind people.
.
oh, and I totally agree, no surprise there. ;)
.
Ferrerman 2012
.
xoxo
Annie

ex-ferrer said...

I haven't seen it lately, Annie. I've always felt we came very close to communism during the depression. When so many people have nothing and so few have it all, what do they expect people to do? Fortunately, socialism saved us. Workers organized and forced management to aquiesce to better working conditions and pay. The "New Deal" got folks working again, with food in children's bellies. Greedy people aren't very smart but, they dodged a literal bullet by (reluctantly) going along with the positive changes for the 99%. But, here they are, doing it again. I think that's why all these creeps in the threads scream about *communism*. The people who tell them to fear it, are the one's who fear it. They haven't noticed it doesn't work but they don't want the people to notice that capitalism only really works for them.

Sue J said...

They should all read 'A Tale of Two Cities'. That would give them food for thought and possibly change their attitude somewhat.