Please excuse the many “I” sentences in this cri de coeur. I have been trying to get away from highly personalized writing, but I believe the synthesis in this piece will affect the rest of my journey on this planet, so I wanted to share it with others. I’m only confident I’m speaking for me. It is unfair to assume others will agree with my international democratic socialist critique. I’m also suggesting something counter-intuitive: that we embrace rather than reject an epithet (“loser”) meant to divide and rule us. Hopefully for some who read this the “I” will ring true.
This is about how trying to be a committed international democratic socialist at all times and in all places means that one will likely be a loser in society’s eyes. We “losers” live in trying times. And many of us, including those in the UK, on the border, in former colonies, in war torn or occupied territories, in areas without safe drinking water, in prison because of the failed drug war, in the path of a hurricane, or in an atmospherically critical land literally on fire, live in particularly trying places.
We are constantly manipulated to forget the “we” and promote the “me.” The primary technique is to focus on the fact that humans are easily frightened of being identified with the wretched. In truth, the wretched themselves are easily divided. This applies in non-violent political settings as much as it does in situations of active violent engagement.
The enemy is aware of ideological weaknesses, for he analyzes the forces of rebellion and studies more and more carefully the aggregate enemy which makes up a colonial people; he is also aware of the spiritual instability of certain layers of the population. The enemy discovers the existence, side by side with the disciplined and well-organized advance guard of rebellion, of a mass of men whose participation is constantly at the mercy of their being for too long accustomed to physiological wretchedness, humiliation, and irresponsibility. The enemy is ready to pay a high price for the services of this mass.
Even living a privileged life in a first world country, I speak somewhat from experience. Growing up in the South on the slippery bottom edge of the middle class, half-brown, with a mentally ill mother, and Southern Baptist, our family credo was effectively, don’t be a loser. Forgetting, at least when not at church, that when that working class loser Jesus walked the Earth he was hardly a Forbes success story, our lives were full of quiet desperation for material stability if not prosperity. Sports teams and political party were chosen to make us feel like winners and non-threatening to those winners on the periphery of our lives. Thus, it was meant to painfully sting thirty years ago when, after I told my father and brother that I was, despite my upbringing, no longer a Republican and moreover a socialist, my brother chose what would come to be known as the quintessential Trumpian put-down: Loser. (www.washingtonpost.com/...)
Since then our relationships have healed. This is no doubt partially because I choose not to discuss with them my continuing deep devotion to socialism as I understand it and, in particular, to being what to them is the very embodiment of a loser, a socialist. Being a socialist to me, by the way, must include being both democratic and anti-totalitarian.
The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.
But my “family man” brother, who really is a good person, could never get past the “socialist” part. I do not think it is right to discuss this type of thing with him or my father at this time. A few miles from where I live I am fortunate to have living and to regularly help my dad, a sweet feeble old man who 24/7 takes care of my mom, a sweet feeble mentally ill old woman who just had a stroke. In these relationships, I try to do rather than say all manner of socialist things, for socialism must include, but not be limited to, common human decency and sacrifice for others, many of which they see and appreciate without realizing the source, socialism as I understand it.
As a socialist, I don’t believe common human decency and sacrifice for others should end at the nuclear family but rather believe that it should extend to the whole human family. Capitalism accepts inequality as good, with human decency and sacrifice for others not being a “common” right and duty of all to all, while socialism does not. Although, as Orwell himself ably revealed (
en.m.wikipedia.org/...), totalitarian “some are more equal than others” socialist experiments have egregiously failed in this regard, I will give one historical example
from Orwell’s own life of common human decency and sacrifice for others being poignantly associated with socialism. I believe that millions of other examples, most done quietly and many still going on today, exist.
Orwell, part of the Independent Labour Party (en.m.wikipedia.org/...)
contingent sent to Spain, believed he got a taste of socialism in the here and now while fighting alongside Anarchists. To him equality, i.e., a classless society, was a critical component. (Ch. 8.) It is fair to say that he thought the Anarchists of Catalonia were largely getting it right, although he never became one and remained a non-dogmatic socialist who clearly believed in democratic processes and in using government for the common good. Socialism was something he had now "experienced” with other human beings. Looking back it had a "magical quality."
Whatever combination of inspirations allowed his Anarchist comrades to embody socialism so well under such trying circumstances deserved the credit:
[S]paniards, who, with their innate decency and their ever-present Anarchist tinge, would make even the opening stages of Socialism tolerable if they had the chance.
We too can choose to share our own innate decency with an ever-present Anarchist tinge to make wherever we are more tolerable for society’s losers and for others who are standing up for them with us.
I felt thirty years ago and feel today there can be no higher calling than socialism. My brother’s attempt at a vicious insult ironically touched my consciousness with an almost spiritual validation that I now associate with consciously trying to be in solidarity with society’s other “losers.” However, it must be remembered that the side of the losers typically loses, and changing this dynamic is really hard to do.
While I wish that human solidarity would one day capture the zeitgeist and intend to do my part to promote that good spirit, as a Gramscian small “d” democrat I am pessimistic of our chances. I recognize that cultural forces can exercise effective hegemonic control over a society, for good or for bad. Gramsci believed that capitalism is a product not only of economic forces but also of cultural hegemony. Cultural hegemony can convince human beings it is necessary and even good to compete with and if possible dominate other human beings rather than cooperating for our mutual well-being.
As a socialist, I believe that no person truly is living in a democracy when any person in society is deprived of social equality and economic justice. As an internationalist, I don’t believe that any nations should exploit or oppress other nations. While nation-building in the post-colonial context is often necessary, I believe that in general nationalism is bad and that we must, first and foremost, be good citizens of the world.
Taking things a step further, I’m against any nationalistic or “first world”-only vision of even social democracy. I do not accept the paradigm that rich nations supposedly can and should have equitable and just societies behind walls while poor nations can and should be ignored to suffer in silence or relegated to barbaric “enterprise” zones, deny women, LGBTQs, and minorities rights, and export blood-stained materials and products for the benefit of their elite and the rich nations.
Socialism should recognize and fight for everyone’s inalienable rights as human beings on our one shared planet. It should not, like business cycle-dependent capitalism, be dependent upon economic “growth” or inequality between rich and poor nations. In my opinion, it should also not be dependent upon any so-called “modern monetary theory” that at best could benefit a few rich nations with ready access to financial capital which could thereby spend with less hyper-inflationary risk. In addition to being democratic and anti-totalitarian, socialism should be flexible, practical, used in a sustainable and humane fashion everywhere, and not subject poor nations to periodic debt-collection by rich nations.
Such a socialism cannot be imposed from the top down, not that those at the top would ever want to do so. But unless the international working class becomes conscious of its democratic right and duty to control the levers of power worldwide for the good of all, it cannot happen from the bottom up either. Unless you and I can somehow manage to convince billions of others to join what truly must become a worldwide movement, it will not have any hope of reaching critical mass and will surely fail.
Tragically, if any movement seems likely to fail at the present moment it is the one I have just postulated—international democratic socialism. Nationalism seems to be on the ascendance, not only in historically authoritarian places but also in historically politically democratic places.
What then shall we or at least I do? How do we or at least I make the best of things as an international democratic socialist in a highly imperfect world? What does it really mean in practice to sacrifice everything we or I have until the last for the cause of true liberty and justice for all? Surely it doesn’t mean that we are or I am guaranteed any degree of societal approval or success.
Antonio Gramsci, a “loser” if there ever was one, is perhaps best known for his widely quoted “Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will” credo (books.google.com/...). Our deeply democratic journey should not be a matter of wearing a catchy slogan on a t-shirt much less hero worship. I do not think that Gramsci would appreciate us sporting WWAD bracelets.
Still, let us look not only at what Gramsci said but also at how he lived. Gramsci was not speaking hypothetically. His level of personal sacrifice is at least worth mentioning. He was imprisoned and ultimately killed by bad hegemonic forces he himself carefully documented and which are once again gripping the world. The zeitgeist did not work out so well for him, just like it is not working out so well for billions on this planet even today.
On 9 November 1926, the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an alleged attempt on Mussolini's life several days earlier. The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite his parliamentary immunity, and brought him to the Roman prison Regina Coeli.
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Over 11 years in prison, his health deteriorated: "His teeth fell out, his digestive system collapsed so that he could not eat solid food... he had convulsions when he vomited blood, and suffered headaches so violent that he beat his head against the walls of his cell."[31]
An international campaign, organised by Piero Sraffa at Cambridge University and Gramsci's sister-in-law Tatiana, was mounted to demand Gramsci's release.[32] In 1933 he was moved from the prison at Turi to a clinic at Formia,[33] but was still being denied adequate medical attention.[34] Two years later he was moved to the Quisisana clinic in Rome. He was due for release on 21 April 1937 and planned to retire to Sardinia for convalescence, but a combination of arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout and acute gastric disorders meant that he was too ill to move.[34] Gramsci died on 27 April 1937, at the age of 46. His ashes are buried in the Cimitero Acattolico (Non-Catholic Cemetery) in Rome.
(en.m.wikipedia.org/...)
We must not wait to be swept away by some zeitgeist. We must embody and support today and tomorrow what we believe to be just and loving, not what is popular in the present moment or may become so in some hypothesized future.
Although some zeitgeists are good or can be dialectically transformed into good, zeitgeists are often exactly what we should be opposing. Herein lie sad contradictions of our incipient worldwide movement. We cannot trust zeitgeists even as we need good ones. The sometimes competing spirits of the times do not just happen. They are subject to creation, reproduction, and manipulation by the powerful to their own advantage, even as those who are moved by them feel empowered.
The Zeitgeist movement is the first Internet-based apocalyptic cult, centered around a doomsday-proclaiming film and an ideology filled with classic anti-Semitic tropes
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There are lots of strange things about the Zeitgeist phenomenon, but strangest is how it got started. It’s a global organization devoted to a kind of sci-fi planetary communism, but it was sparked by a 2007 documentary steeped in far-right, isolationist, and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The first Zeitgeist documentary borrowed from the work of Eustace Mullins, Lyndon LaRouche, and conspiracy-mad Austin radio host Alex Jones to rail against the cabal of international bankers that purportedly rules the world. It was this documentary that reportedly obsessed Jared L. Loughner, the disturbed young man who allegedly shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
(Goldberg, Michelle, 2011. www.tabletmag.com/...)
I don’t know the way forward. I wish I knew the way to make our praxis perfect and how to make international democratic socialism prevail. I love to hear my tender comrades’ ideas. That’s why I participate in this group at Daily Kos.
I do have some ideas. I support the eventual demilitarization of nation states, worldwide adoption of the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [www.ohchr.org/...] and the so-called Optional Protocol [www.ohchr.org/...], re-formation of the UN with a strong international military force to prevent and respond to genocide, and severe sanctions on any nation destroying rainforest, using coal, and eventually any nation making any non-essential use of fossil fuel.
Honestly though, I don’t expect success but merely plan to die trying. Perhaps if a whole bunch of us losers consciously plan to die trying the cultural hegemony may even change.