We’re out here winning hearts and minds bay-beee

On the 3rd of November 1970, Salvador Allende peacefully and by popular consent established a socialist government in Chile. By the 11th of September 1973 he had been overthrown and killed, his democratic government replaced with the fascist regime of Augustus Pinochet.

The revolution is necessary because the ruling class will fight to the last human to defend their unequal distribution of wealth.

Call it authoritarian if you will, but this is the struggle that must occur if you want to build a better world.

That sounds great but how do you purpose we get there?

People who use violence for their own benefit can not be stopped without violence or a credible threat of violence.

We’re trained not to see the violence all around us, because we’re swimming in it all the time. Here’s a quote about the topic from Mark Twain that got me thinking years ago when I was starting to move left. Maybe it’ll speak to you too:

There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

I love Monty Python, but I’ll never forgive them for turning “Come and see the violence inherent in the system” into a joke. Dennis was spitting FACTS.

I am descending into madness.

so you gonna work with us or

Do you think the capitalists will work with you? Do you believe that their sense of fraternity and human decency will lead them to throw down arms and accept more radical change to the system than the strikes, protests, and abolition movements that the capitalists have met with mass murder for centuries?

The capitalists are not your friends. Their power will not be voted away, it won’t be argued away, it won’t be negotiated away. It can only be removed by force, and removing it is the only way to keep them from using it to sculpt society into an ever-crueler engine of profiteering.

Please tell me how you’re imagining getting people like Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to “work together instead of fighting” and give up their hoarded wealth. What short of sheer force would compel them to do that?

Utopian socialism would be nice if it worked but it patently does not. The bourgeoisie have a very fine time controlling the wealth of the world and they have nothing to gain by accepting democracy. Socialism, like any economic order, is only going to be a reality if it is enforced with violence. If somebody tries to undo the collective ownership to the means of production they will have to be stopped by force, just as force is applied today to stop people from violating bourgeois property rights.

Yeah that would be great, unfortunately the world we live in doesn’t work like that. Asking for cooperation when the other side is perfectly fine using violence and manipulation then you are effectively just advocating for subservience to the bourgeoisie.

Did you have the opportunity to see what the state does in the face of nonviolent resistance when the BLM protests were happening?

our literal entire platform is that the people should work together as much as possible and efforts to divide the people should be met with the harshest punishment

hundreds of thousands of volumes of literature spread across every nation, every language, every race, every gender, every sexuality, spanning centuries, and this is like the one thing we agree on the most

A smooth, voluntary, nonviolent transition to peace and harmony would be every leftist’s dream, but there are institutions with power who have used, are using, and will continue to use violence to prevent it from happening in order to maintain their material interests. Call it whatever you want, but the process of transitioning from our status quo to something better will require dismantling institutions that are capable of defending their existence with violence. It sucks.

That’d be nice. Unfortunately the bourgeoise have class solidarity with each other and not with us, they will prevent change from happening peacefully.

Yeah, us too. Unfortuntely society is currently managed by a bunch of literal sociopaths who are more than willing to throw their stolen wealth into militarized police, private deathsquads, and good ol’ normal armies.

We dont get to dictate the escalation of force, the bourgeoisie have and will do that for us.

Using wikipedia as a reference for political ideology is like asking W Bush which countries are good and bad

rejectetion of political plurality

use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo

reductions in the rule of law

authoritarianism is characterized by reductions in the rule of law?? what???

separation of powers

and Democratic voting

I didn’t say everything is authoritarian, I specifically stated your politics as being authoritarian.

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.

Hey America (and Canada, UK, Australia, etc.), how ya doing?

✅ Rejection of political plurality (See: Range of acceptable thought among mainstream political parties; Also, consider some self-reflection)

✅ Strong central power to preserve the political status quo (See: Mainstream media apparatus, spanning news, movies, tv, etc.)

✅ Reductions in the rule of law (See: Absolute failure to hold politicians or corporations accountable)

✅ Reductions in the separation of powers (See: Politicians funded by and catering to corporate interests)

✅ Reductions in democratic Voting (See again: Politicians funded by and catering to corporate interests + absolute failure to hold politicians accountable; Also see: Rampant gerrymandering, erosion of voters’ right, zero democracy in the workplace or outside of political elections)

So we have to pretend political plurality is inherently and self evidently good now?

wanna explain how that definition applies to us??? it’s really easy to just point at a wikipedia article but you’re not really proving anything by just stating an extremely loaded definition.

Check out the cool political plurality in the USA

I wonder who made that definition.