'Why do all left wing revolutions end up as oppressive dictatorships?'

Why do all left wing revolutions end up as oppressive dictatorships?

My very right-wing father asked me this on Facebook, after I shared a post praising Ho Chi Minh. I just thought I'd keep a log here of the response that I sent him. It's a bit of a ramble.

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Oppression and tyranny are FAR more associated with capitalism than socialism. It is always implemented by brutal, totalitarian regimes. Think Pinochet, Suharto, Batista, etc etc etc etc etc. All the at behest of the US/western capital. Colonialism never really ended.

And capitalist empires led to two world wars!!!

What exactly are these totalitarians implementing? A monopolized system of corporate control that destroys the environment, lives, the food we eat, etc; all that matters is quick profit; you get extreme exploitation, inequality, as the few steal all the wealth from the many, and buy the government, and just generally wreak havoc on the world. Not sure you noticed, but a handful of men now have more wealth than the bottom 50%! Meanwhile, 1 billion go undernourished. God knows how many thousands die every day thanks to capitalism’s imperialism, poisoning of food/nature, and inequality. (Not to mention how many will die from pandemics thanks to capitalism’s inability to prepare for and cope with them!).

There’s very little democratic about any of it. It’s oligarchy.

Those who resist this system here end up in prison at worst (see Assange), or suppressed/smeared by media at best. Revolutionary movements in the colonized global south that resist; that seek to end their oppression and empower their people, are likely to end up sanctioned/starved, bombed, and/or attacked by US-backed mercenaries etc. They are incredibly courageous for resisting, but it is obviously very difficult to set up a new system from scratch, (and made much, much more difficult by that constant imperialist threat). There will obviously be very varied results as people try and recover from, often centuries, of colonial rule. It’s trial and error, and a constant struggle. 

What is the alternative to resistance? That everyone in that perpetually exploited global south just allow themselves to continue to be subjugated by US-installed dictators, for the benefit of western corporations? That everyone in the US just accept a life of misery working in Walmart, earning barely enough to survive (as the fruits of their labour go to wealthy shareholders), with a choice between two identical, bought-off political parties to ‘choose’ between every few years, neither of which give a damn about them? That people get so depressed and hopeless that there’s an epidemic of suicide, and 1% of the adult population turn to crime and end up incarcerated, (as in the US)? All profitable for the prison industry through! That’s all that matters in this system. This is your definition of ‘democracy and freedom’?! It is freedom for a wealthy elite few, that is all.

The UK and other capitalist states developed via centuries of colonialism and tyranny. NOT via democracy!!! And we only achieved any kind of decency for our society by constant resistance to capitalism from social movements. The NHS, worker’s rights, etc, weren’t just given to us out of the kindness of capitalism’s heart.

Others want to develop via socialism. What socialist Cuba has achieved is amazing. Cuban people have built their own society, rather than being dictated to and exploited by an oligarchy under the thumb of the west. As a result, they eradicated illiteracy almost overnight, they have free healthcare, they have a higher life expectancy than the US, etc. And they send doctors around the world, not bombs. And they’ve achieved all this despite constant oppression - economic blockade - from the US. 

I think most people ultimately would just like a mixed economy with a strong public sector and a government that truly represents the people, to ensure everyone has a decent life, and to prevent monopolisation, corruption, tax avoidance, extreme inequality, imperialism. Worker-ownership of industry (cooperatives) is probably the best hope for preventing all that, and this is the kind of socialism that most socialists in the developed world are calling for today, but many really are just calling for a Finland-style social democracy. Neoliberal ‘centrist’ extremists won’t even allow that. Market fundamentalism of Thatcher, Reagan, Clinton, Blair ruined us.

Why is it exactly that you are so desperate to deny rights to people and to keep them oppressed, exploited and colonized? To argue that this = democracy, is the most Orwellian thing ever.

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His response: Can’t beat a good ramble to avoid answering the question

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And I replied with...

I did answer your question:

‘There will obviously be very varied results as people try and recover from, often centuries, of colonial rule. It’s trial and error, and a constant struggle’. 

It would be good if you could stop this gaslighting and be honest with me and with yourself. Just say it - you have always supported the western neo/colonization of the world, and those who dare to resist that global tyranny, are inhuman to you. Even when a country, like Venezuela, sticks with a multi-party system, you support all imperialist efforts against it. Disgusting.

And we both know that you are seeking to draw equivalence between colonial, totalitarian/fascist capitalist dictatorships, which destroy millions of lives for the benefit of a few, and sovereign, one-party socialist states like Cuba and Vietnam, that are (FAR more so than any kind of capitalist state) run by and for working people. It is horrific to equate these. 

You are unbelievably indoctrinated. I really don’t know why you keep trolling. 

Coronavirus: some thoughts

Regarding the Coronavirus pandemic, I have focussed on the failings of neoliberalism to cope with crises; the inability to prepare for them, and thus, the inability to enact sufficient state led responses to them - due to privatisation, austerity, market fundamentalism. This surely explains why, for example, Germany, (where there have been a similar number of tests per million as the UK), have had far fewer deaths. (Germany is by no means socialist, but is at least less of a neoliberal state than the UK). And it explains how anti-neoliberal, 'socialism with Chinese characteristics', China, has been capable of responding as it did, earning praise from the World Health Organisation. (China had a few more cases of the virus in Wuhan last week, and they subsequently set about testing the entire population of the city in 10 days!).

This is a vital point to make - that neoliberalism, which has diminished our state sector and prioritizes the individual over the collective, has massively affected our ability to handle crises, which require a collective and state-led response, and investment in things that are not profitable. There is huge denial about this.

Lately, my focus has increasingly been on concern that the reaction (lockdowns) to the virus has actually done far more harm than good, as it has led to massive collateral damage: over one hundred million more people now face acute hunger. But this again, is due to neoliberalism. Neoliberal globalization has created an extremely exploitative, inhuman and precarious global system, meaning that economic lockdowns in the global north lead to disaster; (or I should say, an even greater disaster than that system was already inflicting).

Also, there is a further corporate heist of our economies underway, as the lockdowns (along with neoliberal leadership) lead to economic collapse and small businesses going bust/being put into more debt - which will do nothing to end that neoliberal globalisation! Even more concentration of wealth and power is afoot.

I've also been starting to wonder whether the virus is actually as bad as feared? Where I live - in California - the medium age of those who’ve died of it is 79. The life expectancy here is 81. In other regions of the US, and the world, the median age of those who’ve died is actually higher than the local life expectancy.

I have seen many people point out that those dying may well have died ‘with’ the virus, but not actually ‘of’ the virus. But their deaths are being logged (I think?) as the latter. The vast majority had underlying health conditions - is there certainty that their deaths were caused by Covid, rather than by their other illnesses?

And what percentage of ‘excess deaths’ are of those who couldn’t/were too afraid of going to hospital for other illnesses?

Read: The BMJ: Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by covid-19, new data have shown. 

The response from China, and several other countries (South Korea, New Zealand), to the virus, has been commendable, but it seems very likely to me that the response from most of the global north will do vastly more damage than the virus itself. Should we have accepted that there is no chance that neoliberal states can do as China did and so should we have avoided strict lockdowns that have led to horrific repercussions? Should we have accepted that this is a pandemic that only really threatens those who’re already near the end of their lives? Was our panicked response a sign of our inability to accept our mortality? Were we made to panic so that certain individuals and corporations could profit/expand surveillance measures? Should we have done as Sweden did? Was the Covid death rate definitely exponential, or was it always going to peter out? Do we need to accept new viruses as a fact of life, (though made more likely by our/capitalism’s destruction of nature)? Why have we not been this panicked about other diseases? How accurate are the statistics?

These are all questions that run through my head right now. As ever, my main conclusion is that we need a massive redistribution of power and wealth, so that we can have strong public services, a world run by people, not corporations, and an emphasis on localization, rather than globalization, which has exploited the global south, leaving millions, if not billions, extremely vulnerable.

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More thoughts:

• ‪Given that lockdowns are highly profitable for some elites, and given the crisis is being used to advance certain agendas - like digital ID - I think it important that we be alert to the possibility of authorities seeking to extend lockdown more than necessary. 

• I’m confused re why there isn’t yet a second wave of the virus. It’s been weeks since lockdown relaxed and everyone flocked to the beach. 

Covid Cold War

Boris Johnson is now reducing Hauwei’s role in Britain’s 5G network, falling more into line with the US.

Instead of learning some lessons from Covid, mainly about how shit neoliberal capitalism is, it looks like we’re going to intensify the new Cold War against socialist China instead. Yay.

Western elites didn’t accept the presence of the Soviet Union on the world stage, (nor any other country that rejects western domination), so they sure as hell won’t be accepting China, now that they’ve got all they can get out of cheap Chinese labor. The CIA will likely currently be targeting all nations that are forging close ties with China.

We need an anti-imperialist, peace movement now more than ever, to oppose this new Cold War, (which will be hot for many, just as the last one was. And could potentially be extremely hot for all of us).

Watch John Pilger’s doc, broadcast on ITV a couple of years ago:

Tories screw British farmers

Read here.

The EU is crap, but Brexit’s slogan of ‘taking back control’ really just meant handing even more control over to US corporations. Now we’ll get shitter quality, environmentally awful food that’ll make us all sicker, so that we then have to use an expensive healthcare system (as we’ll also gradually lose control of that), all for the benefit of those corporations!

Tories do not care about us. And there’s nothing conservative about them, just as there’s nothing liberal about most liberal parties. They’re all career politicians and puppets of transnational corporations, to varying extents. People+planet be damned.

CHINA IS NOT THE AGGRESSOR

Some links:

Hillary Clinton: "We discovered Japan"; "We" are going to "ring China" with the US military

ex US ambassador to China admitted Chinese President Xi Jinping didn't want to militarize the South China Sea and offered a peace agreement, but the Obama admin rejected his olive branch and continued militarizing the region

Watch this documentary.

Yanis on China.

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Debunking anti-China propaganda:

Info about Xinjiang coming from a guy funded by the CIA who blames the downfall of the world on homosexuality.

The truth about fake news.

The fake "independent institute" promoting the China "threat" in the West is the Australan Strategic Policy Institute, the go-to source for Vichy journalists currently hoodwinking the public. It's exposed here as a front for warmongers and arms companies.

Anti-China Rhetoric Is On The Rise. Is The US Right To Be Worried?

Viral Fake Footage Of “Chinese” Atrocities Shows The Power Of Narrative Spin

Biking to Xinjiang with Jerry Grey

The BBC cites Epoch Times as a Credible “Anti-establishment” newspaper 

Capitalism to blame for hunger

The world currently produces enough food for 12-14 billion people. (And we could produce even more than that if we did away with the industrial food system).

Yet nearly 1 billion are undernourished, and 235 million are now facing acute hunger.

On current projections, the global population is set to peak at 11 billion in 80 years time.

Capitalism’s extreme irrationality, monopolisation, need for growth, imperialism, exploitation, and inequality, is the major problem - not population. Covid has exposed this more than ever

More social media censorship

This image of the Soviet flag is being banned on Facebook.

This is so messed up!

Like it or not, this is the flag of those who did most to defeat Nazism. That’s a fact agreed upon by most western historians, and even Winston Churchill! (Though that madman did want to wage war on the Soviets once Hitler was dealt with - Operation Unthinkable).

What about the British flag? Why is that allowed? Britain colonised most of the world! Millions killed/subjugated. But the Union Jack is cool? Ditto the US flag. Millions killed by their Empire these last 75 years. Ugh!

It is not surprising that China and others want their own internet and want to stay well away from ours!

Shock Doctrine, and we can't even organize and protest

If enforced social distancing is the new normal, until there is a vaccine - which may never come - then how will people be able to organize and demand political change?

A tragic consequence of the Coronavirus is that all those anti-neoliberal social movements that took off last year all around the world, will now not be possible/allowed.

Are neoliberal elites going to use this crisis to further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few, to expand authoritarian surveilance, and to further suppress dissent, thus effectively turning us into a much shitter version of China? At least over there they seem to have a system that puts people before corporate profit!

Coronavirus + Globalisation = Famine

(Repeating some of the stuff here that I wrote in my last post, which was a bit of a rant).


Largely thanks to the globalised, horrifyingly exploitative/unequal world that we now have as a result of capitalism, these economic shutdowns in response to Covid have massively increased the number of people at risk of acute hunger in the global south.

Watch this: Vandana Shiva On the Real Cause of World Hunger.

Covid has made clearer than ever that we need to demand a radically different world. We need to end imperialism. We need to cooperate, not exploit. We need fair distribution of resources. We need to re-localise. We need people power, not corporate power.

But sadly it looks like we’re headed in the opposite direction...

As a result of the lockdowns, billionaires are currently getting richer, whilst small, local businesses are going bust/being put into more debt - great for big business and bankers.

Read this: Why The Crisis May Make Powerful Corporations Even More Powerful.

I previously thought that most elites would be anti-lockdown, because it would be bad for the economy. But actually, it looks like it’s the opposite. Without appropriate and sufficient government action, this is and will continue to be a boon for many of them.

Yet more monopolisation, exploitation, inequality on the way. And thanks to social distancing, it’s harder than ever for people to organize and resist it.

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How are the powers that be exploiting the crisis? I'm going to keep a list here:

Under Cover of Mass Death, Andrew Cuomo Calls in the Billionaires to Build a High-Tech Dystopia.

Proptech is leading to new forms of housing injustice in ways that increase the power of landlords and further disempower tenants and those seeking shelter.

TFL

Controversial tech company pitches facial recognition to track COVID-19

Covid: medicine worse than the disease?

A bit of a ramble...

Having thought about it some more, I’ve been reconsidering and am now very undecided about what is the best strategy for coping with Covid 19.

I’m mindful of the fact that we now, sadly, live in a globalised capitalist world, and that economic shutdowns in wealthy countries will be disastrous for the global south. Predictions are not good.

‪Obviously that global capitalist system was already disastrous for those poor countries, pre Covid; mass exploitation, poverty, hunger, etc. But tragically it is what it is for now, and they are to an extent reliant on (enslaved to) the wealthy north; and with the north shut down, aren’t they even more at risk?‬ With their land taken by western agribusiness etc, they're barely even able to grow their own food?

I guess what all wealthy nations should’ve done is what China, South Korea, etc, did - in terms of mass testing and containment - thus preventing deaths AND keeping the economy going. But thanks to neoliberalism diminishing our states, we don’t really have that capacity, nor leaders who’re capable of such competent leadership and state intervention - it goes against their entire ideology.‬ (Side note: the surveillance that that entails does scare me somewhat, particularly given the nature of our authorities, who are likely to exploit it).

Our focus needs to not just be on our own societies in the global north, (where of course there is also huge poverty and hunger - victims of neoliberal globalisation are in the north as well as the south), but also and perhaps most importantly we need to focus on the wellbeing of those in the exploited south; especially given that the south is vulnerable and suffering from hunger and poverty precisely because of the north’s corporate imperialism; forcing them into the global market (so that the corporations can plunder them and their resources), leaving them with a severe lack of independence and capability to manage crises - just as we in the north now are, to a much lesser extent.

Of course, people like Trump and Johnson are not motivated by anything other than ensuring that the exploitative global system can continue. But perhaps that is actually a less destructive option overall than shutting everything down? Perhaps, for the sake of the south, the least bad option is to keep the global economy going, even if that means we have to suffer more Covid fatalities in the north?

I guess whatever happens, we should hope that this crisis will reverse globalisation, and lead to independence/social movements in the south, (and the north).

Also - Trump, Johnson and their ilk will of course want to use the crisis as an opportunity to make the system even more privatized and exploitative - watch The Shock Doctrine. But are the shutdowns actually helping to enable that, as small businesses struggle to survive and get eaten up by the corporations?  Perhaps this could be avoided with appropriate government intervention on the side of those small businesses, but as I say, sadly we do not have the kind of governments that are going to do that.

We should be mindful that the huge economic crisis brought on by these lockdowns will make for ripe conditions for a further rise of fascism, as Trump, Johnson, inevitably handle it in such a way that will lead to greater inequality and anger. Ideally it should lead to a rise in left radicalism as well, but as has been demonstrated in recent years, the left has been decimated by decades of neoliberalism, and attempts to reorganize have so far failed to beat the right, (largely thanks to the 'centrist' establishment equating the two).

I just thought I'd put down in writing some of the things running through my head right now. I guess realistically, it seems to me that our options now are either to let hundreds of thousands (mostly) elderly people die in the global north, or to let millions more die of hunger in the global south, and risk a rise in right-wing extremism in the north.

The damage that the economic depression will do to the global south is as a result of capitalism/globalization; not as a result of the virus itself. I don't really know what the answer is in the short term, as the options are all terrible, but long term, we need to stop enslaving and exploiting poor countries so that they are under-developed and dependent on exports to the rich countries. We need to re-localize, and we need cooperation, not exploitation; this will require a political revolution to change the system of perpetual growth and profit for greedy corporations. We need people power.

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And what if it takes years for a vaccine? It may well do. Lockdown in places like the UK was probably important to flatten the curve, but is containment via testing and tracing realistic? I doubt it, (even if we had a well functioning and resourced state). Perhaps the Swedish model is the best compromise strategy going forward...?

Russiagate, another big lie

Watch this.

As has been obvious for years now, to anyone outside of the mainstream media/liberal bubble, ‘Russiagate’ really was fake news, as Trump has claimed all along. It has been a giant gift for him. God forbid liberals actually oppose him on real issues - this is not really possible, given that they agree with him on most of those issues; neoliberalism and imperialism are bipartisan. So they and the 'deep state' chose to focus on a nonsense story about Trump and Russia, to distract and avoid scrutiny for their submission to that neoliberalism in recent decades - which is the real culprit for giving us Trump.

But nothing will change. The media organizations that peddled this propaganda for 4 years, whilst the US continued meddling in countries around the world, bombing Yemen, etc, will not change. And they will continue to be seen as arbiters of truth by Silicon Valley; they'll continue getting favorable algorithms and high placing on Google etc, whilst small, independent media sites are suppressed. Consent will continue to be manufactured.

And the Democrats will remain a neoliberal, corporatist party of the elite.

VE Day: History falsified so that the plunder can continue

Read here.

Britain and the US faced 10 German divisions. The Russians faced 200.

The Nazis lost 1 million on the western front, and 6 million on the eastern front.

The majority of western historians agree that it was the Soviet Union that turned the ride in the war.

Furthermore, Britain and France rejected attempts by the Soviet Union to form an anti-Nazi pact, in the years running up to the war. It seems an inescapable truth than many capitalists in the west were perfectly happy with Nazi rule in Germany - they were great for business, and a bulwark against communism, the ultimate threat to capitalism.

But following 70+ years of propaganda (just think of all the Hollywood war movies!), most westerners are evidently clueless about much of this.

It is such a travesty that history is continuously being falsified to manufacture consent for never-ending western imperialism.

And it is massively disrespectful to the 27 million Russians, (and the 10-15 million Chinese), who were killed, and to our parents/grandparents in the west who fought in alliance with them for a peaceful world.

Or so they thought...

I’m no historian, but it seems to me that WW2 ultimately united a bunch of empires into one, under American leadership. And that empire then went on to violently suppress people’s movements -and support fascism - all around the world, to advance capitalist interests; i.e. to continue that never-ending imperialism.

And all that suppression of socialism and support for fascism around the world has now come home to bite, as in the US and Europe, we now have overtly fascistic leaders like Trump and Farage on the rise again. And we have the normalized targeting and imprisonment of journalists (Julian Assange) - which was happening before those idiot fascists came along and made it all more obvious, under the leadership of 'liberal' leaders like Obama.

As Labour MP Ny Bevan said in 1945, "Europe must either go on to socialist reconstruction or back to the conditions which led to fascism. The Anglo-American armies are in the control of men who are opposed to socialism.”

And as Lenin said, "fascism is capitalism in decline".

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I'm keeping a list here of all the interesting and often illuminating articles that I've read about WW2 (and about Winston Churchill):

What Was the Turning Point of World War II?

Correcting WWII history: How the USA erased the USSR victory over Nazi Germany - with Peter Kuznick

What Russia Rightfully Remembers, America Forgets

The Real Winston Churchill

Hitler didn’t start indiscriminate bombings — Churchill did

The Churchill you didn't know

How Churchill Crushed Greece’s Anti-Fascist Resistance

What if 'Operation Unthinkable' Happened?

Stalin planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed

The Hitler-Stalin Pact, reconsidered

The Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 23, 1939: Myth and Reality

Eighty years on: The shame and tragedy of Munich

What Poland Has to Hide About the Origins of World War II

The Forgotten Soviet-Japanese War of 1939

The Soviet Invasion of Manchuria led to Japan’s Greatest Defeat

The Economy of Evil

Poland Joined Hitler in Dismembering Czechoslovakia

They don't teach you about the Nazi-Poland Pact

Behind the infant Queen’s gesture lies a dark history of aristocratic Nazi links

The CIA’s Worst-Kept Secret: Newly Declassified Files Confirm United States Collaboration with Nazis

Bank of England helped in sale of looted Nazi gold

Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

How Thousands Of Nazis Were 'Rewarded' With Life In The U.S.

Who put up the Berlin Wall?

Don't just blame the Tories: Blame Blair. Blame Thatcher. Blame Neoliberalism.

In 1997, Tony Blair won the election on a left-wing, populistic platform. He then proceeded to renege on that - he acknowledged in 2013, “my job was to build on Thatcher’s policies”. Thatcher even described New Labour as her "greatest achievement".

He accelerated the dismantling of the NHS; he implemented tuition fees; he continued deregulation; he kept workers disempowered, etc. (Oh, and he killed/maimed/tortured/displaced millions of people in illegal wars).

None of the good social policies he implemented to temporarily lessen the damage of neoliberalism make up for the fact that he ultimately served the interests of the plutocrats and corporations, which has been incredibly harmful for all of us in the long term. (It is very odd that many hardcore anti-Brexit folks are still in love with the man who definitely played a huge role in fuelling the conditions that led people to vote Leave!).

By submitting the Labour Party to the neoliberal ideology, Blair pretty much destroyed hope of an alternative to the system imposed by Thatcher. Along with their counterparts in the US - Reagan and Clinton - Thatcher and Blair surely bear most of the blame for destroying democracy and peace, handing over people+planet to the plutocrats and corporations killing the planet for profit.

Liberals don't even support right-wing UBI?!

Many liberals seem to think that Universal Basic Income is some crazy socialist idea and completely unrealistic. Truth is, it’s a right-wing idea, promoted by one of the architects of neoliberalism, Milton Friedman.

(Under an actual socialist system, with power in the hands of workers, there should be no need for UBI, as resources would naturally be distributed more fairly).

It seems many liberals are even more right-wing than Milton Friedman!

With the rise of automation, and with millions already in in-work poverty, as a result of capitalism's inevitable accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, the only options - assuming we don’t want people to starve to death - are UBI or socialism. (Or perhaps a mixture of both).