Protests and coronavirus: How to reduce the risk of infection while protesting –

Tips for reducing the risk of spreading the coronavirus in a mass gathering, from public health experts.

Source: Protests and coronavirus: How to reduce the risk of infection while protesting – Vox

The onset of the revolutionary moment…

At a time of crisis and social disintegration there is nothing that can deal with the reality on the ground. We confront climate change and can be almost grateful events forced us to see the possibility of social disintegration. Now the issue of black exploitation has exploded.
In many ways a revolution is underway already.
The world is going over a cliff and desperately needs a movement for the times, but none are visible.

The Red Forty-eight Group is an abstracted version or template for a hypothetical movement that speaks to revolution and/or reformist groups. But at this point it should transition to the basis for real movement that can deal with capitalism, the climate crisis, the near derelict US, socialism, both in one country and new ideas for an International. We have often spoken of ‘virtual revolution’, a good exercise for evolutionary reformists to see the limits of activism and the factor of revolutionary transformation.

While it learns a lot from marxism it is critical of the legacy there and considers that the public won’t again accept that legacy until it is completely recast and breaks with the calamity of bolshevism. It is hard to believe that leftist sects still can’t adopt a critical post-marxism that can reconfigure issues of history, society, economics…The world has run out of time and yet no movement exists that can address the current crisis.
The Red Forty-eight Group refers to the explosive period of 1848 whose moment still resonates in our era because it struck a kind of fundamental note in a period of the birth of socialism. This name stands beyond particular ideologies born at that period to a superset of all that arrives from that period. A critical stance often ends up in reformist perspectives in shallow compromise. We might critique legacy leftist ideologies but they convey from the early modern the reality of revolutionary action and remind us, although we must equally speak to social democrats and reformers, that all the freedoms of modern man were achieved by revolution, not least the American. What conclusion are we to draw from that?

Two Manifestos: Toward a New Communist Manifesto–Democratic Market Neo-communism

Last And First Men Online Continue reading “The onset of the revolutionary moment…” →

Riots, rage and the emerging revolutionary moment

We are entering a revolutionary moment, in potential, but there are no parties able to take advantage of that extraordinary concordance of factors. The calamity of climate change, the pandemic, Trump, and now the explosion of black rage with interracial riots in the street of major cities is an omen of the mysterious collapse of the american system. We should almost be grateful it is happening sooner than later: we can begin to see the coming calamity and stop procrastinating.
We have been critical of the marxist legacy. It has proven a failure. We have a host of suggestions on that account.

Our idea of the Red Forty-eight Group is intended to create a sort of virtual movement for revolutionary/evolutionary socialism: it comes with a lot of resources in terms of books, free, Kindle, etc…
We have two manifestos, with a construct of Democratic Market Neo-communism, along with sundry other books.
There is an immense literature of marxism, and yet almost nothing practical in the way of social reconstruction. The result has been that the left has wasted every opportunity presented. Not a single successful socialist construct has ever happened.
And yet the problem should be relatively easy to solve given some idea of what is needed, beyond the endless parade of marxist jargon.

Introduction
The current moment stands transfixed by the moving calamity of climate change, and now in our immediate present, in the US, the tragedy/farce of the Trump presidency. The eerie strangeness of such a drone fascist pretender has generated a mysterious revolution in reverse gear, a sort of tragicomic coup d’etat that moves in the tide of reactionary anti-democratic forces attempting to undo modernity as such.
Last And First Men Online

Out of Revolution
The place of the left is to stand ready for a rescue operation that can diagnose the tragedy unfolding via capitalism and take the path to a new social formation, assuming it can envision what that might be. It might be socialism but the term is too vague at this point and we become specific about what that means. Continue reading “Riots, rage and the emerging revolutionary moment” →

Are marxists revolutionary??…/Re: [Marxism] Are riots revolutionary?

The confusion of riots tokens a revolutionary impulse and in this case a sense that the current society is a hopeless case. Marxists themselves have lost the thread of what they are doing, it seems, and are decidedly ‘revolutionary hohum’. The reason is the now defunct character of marxist ideology, its record of failure, and the dogmatic practice of a ‘Marx religion’. Every revolution we know of started like what we see now: people who have had enough and go into the streets. Continue reading “Are marxists revolutionary??…/Re: [Marxism] Are riots revolutionary? “ →

Blacks, revolutionary rage, and a new socialist society…

The expression of rage in the protests over George Floyd expressed at first a kind of despair and pointed to a sense that the current system is beyond repair. Despite a certain transient empathy in the news media and politic rhetoric department it is doubtful if the question can resolve in the capitalist legacy. Blacks however have little in the way of leadership and such as it is it is in overlap with a black bourgeoisie that is now part of the overall system, sports, hollywood, the media. Black sports stars making multimillions a year are not leadership. They are well unionized, great.

One thing is sure, nothing is going to change. Fifty years after Martin Luther King we got a racist in the white house. What do you expect in another fifty years? Only a revolutionary social transformation could do anything here. This moment is slightly different: a social system is coming to the end of the line, and beside that sense of despair is a potent force. Social leadership is desperate and a phase of black rage is a small price to pay if it can deflect attention from the real problem of capitalist domination. The powers that be wouldn’t allow this kind of media venting of the last week if it didn’t serve their interests…

At that point it is worth asking if ‘socialist’ projections are adequate as a response. The mood of these protests is not radical at this point, but that mood is already moving. It is clear we need a new socialist platform that can also take up the issues in a multiplicity of movements. Most of the left remains crippled by the bolshevik legacy but a new reformulation can start over and in the process adopt a balanced set of allied movements. Our idea of working class, universal class allows a kind of ‘set theory’ generalized perspective on the relations of all possible groups, subsets, and their reifications. Clearly in the US a socialist (or neo-communist) transformation could make dealing with racism (and gender) central next to the economic issue of how to survive into postcapitalism. Many in the sphere of black bourgoisie leadership will try to stop a socialist transition (and did so already in the sinking of Sanders), but the movement seen in the streets in the last few days shows already a new gestating unity beyond the racist capitalism that is dominant, controls the media and is regulating the spigot of fine words in all parties, black and white.
Blacks may not realize they are triggering a kind of revolution and at that point a tidal wave of multiracial groups and issues are going to confront an economic catastrophe cast in pandemic horror show with climate catastrophe rising to grasp your attention, whatever is left of social attention span in this media monstrosity…

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/white-supremacy-groups-are-hoping-to-leverage-george-floyds-death-into-their-longed-for-race-war/

Instead of calls for things to simply calm down and “go back to normal,” said New York Congresswoman, “let’s create a new world—one where all people are held to the same standard of the rule of law.”

Source: ‘If You Want to End Unrest, End the Conditions That Create It,’ Declares Ocasio-Cortez Amid Nationwide Protest | Common Dreams News

latest…

‘Insanity Outside the White House’: After Trump Stokes Tensions, Fresh Clashes Between Police and Protesters in US Capitol

“I call upon our city and our nation to exercise great restraint even while this President continues to try to divide us,” said DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser in response to president’s comments.

Source: ‘Insanity Outside the White House’: After Trump Stokes Tensions, Fresh Clashes Between Police and Protesters in US Capitol | Common Dreams News