Karl Marx: In capitalist society, free-time is produced for one class by the conversion of the whole lifetime of the masses into labour-time. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: There is no, nor should there be, irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of the individual person and the interests of the collective. There should be no such contrast, because collectivism, socialism, does not deny, but combines individual interests with the interests of the collective. Socialism cannot abstract itself from individual interests. Socialist society alone can most fully satisfy these personal interests. More than that; socialist society alone can firmly safeguard the interests of the individual. In this sense there is no irreconcilable contrast between "individualism" and socialism. But can we deny the contrast between classes, between the propertied class, the capitalist class, and the toiling class, the proletarian class? On the one hand we have the propertied class which owns the banks, the factories, the mines, transport, the plantations in colonies. These people see nothing but their own interests, their striving after profits. They do not submit to the will of the collective; they strive to subordinate every collective to their will. On the other hand we have the class of the poor, the exploited class, which owns neither factories nor works, nor banks, which is compelled to live by selling its labour power to the capitalists which lacks the opportunity to satisfy its most elementary requirements. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Che Guevara: The government of the United States is not the champion of freedom, but rather the perpetrator of exploitation and oppression against the peoples of the world and against a large part of its own population. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Karl Marx: There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Fidel Castro: To be internationalist is to pay off our own debt to humanity. Whoever is not able to fight for others will never be able to fight for himself. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Margot Honecker: The GDR was not a paradise. There were defects that complicated daily life, shortcomings in supply, and deficiencies in everyday political life. There were decisions made at various levels in which the people concerned were not always included. However, compared with the conditions now prevailing in most capitalist countries, it was close to heaven. More and more people who experienced life in the GDR understand that. After 25 years, a generation has now grown up which has no living memory of the GDR, because they're too young. This suits the FRG propaganda: Forget about it. The longer the GDR is history, the thicker the lies that are spread about it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: In all bourgeois republics, even the most democratic, the police (like the standing army) is the chief instrument of oppression of the masses, an instrument making for a possible restoration of the monarchy. The police beats up the "common people" in the police stations of New York, Geneva, and Paris; it favours the capitalists either because it is bribed to do so (America and other countries), or because it enjoys wealthy "patronage" and "protection" (Switzerland), or because of a combination of both (France). Separated as it is from the people, forming a professional caste of men trained in the practice of violence upon the poor, men who receive somewhat higher pay and the privileges that go with authority (to say nothing of "gratuities"), the police everywhere, in every republic, however democratic, where the bourgeoisie is in power, always remains the unfailing weapon, the chief support and protection of the bourgeoisie. No important radical reforms in favour of the working masses can be implemented through the police. That is objectively impossible. A people's militia instead of the police force and the standing army is a prerequisite of effective municipal reforms in the interests of the working people. At a time of revolution this prerequisite is practicable. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Margot Honecker: Marxism-Leninism is an ideology, a method of investigation to understand the world, the laws according to which it moves, so you can orient yourself in the world. Some believe in a divine will, others in a predetermined fate. We communists are materialists. We follow a scientific outlook, which assumes that the society and everything that arises in it are the work of human beings. Exploitation and oppression are neither divinely ordained, nor are these evils acceptable. We have to fight for a humane, fair, peaceful world, and today that is more urgent than ever. We must refuse to allow that people perish from war, hunger and disease, and that natural resources and the livelihood of the people be depleted or destroyed by ruthless capitalist exploitation, solely for profit. If humanity is to have a future, the power of the banks and corporations must be broken. They will not give up their power voluntarily. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
R. Palme Dutt: The line of Social Democracy, of the promises of the “democratic path to socialism,” of trust in capitalist “democracy” and legality, of the refusal of the united working-class front, of unity with capitalism, leads inevitably to the victory of Fascism and the servitude of the working-class. If the British workers put their faith in the Labour Party as the defence against Fascism, they will suffer as cruel an awakening as the German workers, who put their faith in German Social Democracy. Let the warning be taken in time. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Hey, it's that time of year again where I remind you that "Happy Holidays" is *** NOT INCLUSIVE ***.
There is no special feature of this time of year that makes "happy holidays" inclusive. It's popular to cite how many holidays occur in winter/fall... but you find just as many in every season.
Happy holidays is purely a stand-in for Merry Christmas, and the whole effort of it is using a nod to minority religions (most commonly my faith) to throw Christmas in our faces while pretending to include us.
Channukah is our least important holiday, acknowledging it when you don't even know our other holidays, let alone what our most sacred holidays are... well, that tells you the whole story itself.
Let alone people don't know when it actually is and will most years be "celebrating" it weeks after it's over.
Holidays don't have to be lumped together, celebrate your holiday. Nobody is offended at you celebrating your holiday, only at it being forced on us.
And "Happy Holidays" only exists as a way to force it on us while pretending to include us.
R. Palme Dutt: Such is the completion of the line of Social Democracy. The Social Democratic leadership first betrays the workers to Fascism, and then passes over to Fascism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Russell Jacoby: Dialectical logic is loyal to the contradictions, not by the reasoning of "on the one hand and the other" but by tracing the contradictions to their fractured source. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bertolt Brecht: Let nothing be called natural in an age of bloody confusion, ordered disorder, planned caprice, and dehumanized humanity, lest all things be held unalterable! wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx's proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called socialism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Parenti: It is ironic that some left intellectuals should deem class struggle to be largely irrelevant at the very time class power is becoming increasingly transparent, at the very time corporate concentration and profit accumulation is more rapacious than ever, and the tax system has become more regressive and oppressive, the upward transfer of income and wealth has accelerated, public sector assets are being privatized, corporate money exercises an increasing control over the political process, people at home and abroad are working harder for less, and throughout the world poverty is growing at a faster rate than overall population. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Yizhak Shamir: The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
György Lukács: It is necessary to create organs which are able to include the whole proletariat, together with all those exploited under capitalism (peasants and soldiers) in one great mass and lead them into battle. These organs - Soviets - are, within bourgeois society, already essentially weapons of the proletariat organizing itself as a class. Once they exist revolution is on the agenda. For as Marx said: 'The class organization of revolutionary elements presupposes the completion of all the forces of production which can ever develop in the womb of the old society.' wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Friedrich Engels: And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine - the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Norman Thomas: The similarities of the economics of the New Deal to the economics of Mussolini's corporative state or Hitler's totalitarian state are both close and obvious. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Hajo Meyer: Since 1967 it has become obvious that political Zionism has one monolithic aim: Maximum land in Palestine with a minimum of Palestinians on it. This aim is pursued with an inexcusable cruelty as demonstrated during the assault on Gaza. The cruelty is explicitly formulated in the Dahiye doctrine of the military and morally supported by the Holocaust religion. I am pained by the parallels I observe between my experiences in Germany prior to 1939 and those suffered by Palestinians today. I cannot help but hear echoes of the Nazi mythos of "blood and soil" in the rhetoric of settler fundamentalism which claims a sacred right to all the lands of biblical Judea and Samaria. The various forms of collective punishment visited upon the Palestinian people -- coerced ghettoization behind a "security wall"; the bulldozing of homes and destruction of fields; the bombing of schools, mosques, and government buildings; an economic blockade that deprives people of the water, food, medicine, education and the basic necessities for dignified survival -- force me to recall the deprivations and humiliations that I experienced in my youth. This century-long process of oppression means unimaginable suffering for Palestinians. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: For capitalist countries war is just as natural and legitimate a condition of things as the exploitation of the working class. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The revolutionary proletariat cannot be victorious unless this evil is combated, unless the opportunist, social-traitor leaders are exposed, discredited and expelled. That is the policy the Third International has embarked on. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
