You are the Makers of History!
  • Home
  • More Historic Pictures!
  • Books
  • Hit Us Up
  • Blog
  • Coming Events
  • Videos
  • Donations

Trump, Cruz, Clinton, Sanders, and other Cartoon Characters

3/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
I do have to admit.  At least this year's election campaign is interesting, but not for the reasons you may think.  Although the capitalist media talking heads keep marveling at how well Donald Trump is doing among working class voters, its not difficult to understand why and how this is happening.  Working people are perpetually exploited by the super rich in this capitalist system.  A quick example is that so many people are working longer and harder to make ends meet, to no avail, while ill responsible corporations receive record breaking bailouts.  These types of obvious contradictions are making people more and more angry.  Then along comes Trump talking about these contradictions as if he's your uncle at the family reunion.  The only person in the room who isn't afraid to call out the domineering relative.  At least that's how the capitalist system portrays him and its also how his supporters see him.  That isn't hard to understand.  The problem is that isn't remotely what's actually happening because Trump is very much a part of the capitalist system.  The same system that is the cause of all your problems.  He can say whatever he wants while he's running, but if he were to win, he would have no choice except to submit to the dictates of the system and he could do that very easily because he's already a part of it.  He has participated in it as a developer, banker, product producer, and entertainer.  Are there any better ways someone can demonstrate their place within the capitalist system? 

I don't blame people for being blinded by his rhetoric though because to the untrained eye, that can happen easily enough.  What's interesting is how quick and simple the Trump folks have been sold the con game that a billionaire, any billionaire, is going to be able to identify with your working class problems.  And, that this billionaire is really going to do something to alleviate your suffering when people like him made their billions exploiting the conditions of people like you.  In fact, all of them are corporate politicians.  That goes for Hillary Clinton, the former WalMart Board Member, Bernie Sanders - Ted Cruz, and all the rest of this election's cast of characters.   And the way you know that they are all corporate politicians, despite their campaign rhetoric, is based on their records.  Isn't that why history is important?  Down the line, regardless of party, all of them believe issues of poverty, white supremacy, patriarchy, police terrorism. houselessness, etc. will be resolved by reforming the capitalist system.  Those of us who have spent our lives battling capitalism know that this is the ultimate political scam because a system built on exploitation cannot be amended to be non-exploitative.  Even Bernie Sanders, the alleged socialist, can be easily exposed on this contradiction.  We see the videos and stories his supporters keep pushing on us showing his participation in the civil rights movement as if that somehow validates him as a warrior for justice.  There are thousands of people who marched, got arrested, and did this and that action on the right side of history before selling out the masses.  Tom Watson was a populist leader 100 years ago who worked tirelessly to mobilize people of all races into the Populist Party, but when the reforms broke down and that pathway was no longer politically available, he ended up joining the Ku Klux Klan.  So, students of history know better.  Sanders keeps talking about a political revolution.  Maybe he doesn't understand what a revolution is?  No revolution has been won by winning votes inside of the exploitative system.  Revolutions overturn systems, they don't create space to fit inside of the society they are fighting against.  Besides, even if a real revolutionary were to exist inside the capitalist political system, that revolutionary would be outvoted on every bill and issue that came to the floor by the corporate financed politicians that make up this system.  And any real revolutionary would not, could not, support the zionist state of Israel, a regime based on theft, murder, and oppression of the Palestinian people.  No real revolutionary would vote to extradite Assata Shakur from Cuba to return to a racist system that seeks her death and/or imprisonment for daring to stand up against it.  These are just two of the reactionary positions taken by Sanders, but maybe this is possible in his arbitrary world of "political revolution."  Our definition of revolution is a process to transform an exploitative capitalist system into a socialist system.  This process takes place only through a mass political education campaign and a relentless effort to organize the people to rise up against the system.  Rising up looks like mass strikes.  It looks like guerrilla warfare against the capitalist state.  It looks like sustained efforts to push the system to the state of collapse.  Then, it looks like the people seizing power and building a socialist system based on the principles of a planned economy, free health care, free education, etc.  None of this lines up with Sander's reformist rhetoric so calling him a socialist is like calling Huey P. Newton a member of the republican party in the tradition of Ronald Reagan.

Corporate system friendly politicians is what you are watching.  And for us that means any politician who pretends we can get serious changes within the capitalist system without having a mass movement that functions effectively outside of the system to hold the system accountable.  Since most people do not belong to any organizations there is no organized capacity among the masses of people.  That means the only course of action left to you is voting, which without the movement, is an extremely powerless activity that can at best, hopefully influence some possible and limited good, and at worse, is simply a rubber stamp for an already decided capitalist agenda. 

Whether it's Trump, Sanders, or anyone of them in between, this system is still based on millions of dollars of finance to win.  That means you are extremely naive if you believe your interests will be met simply because its the right thing to do.  Your interests will only be met when you organize to exert power to achieve your objectives.  So, if you believe the answer is to vote, do your thing, but remember, if you don't belong to an organization that is working to build a movement designed to hold the capitalist system accountable, you are fooling yourself.  No where in history has any oppressed people gained their liberation simply by working through the system of the people exploiting them.  Even by militantly working within that system it hasn't happened.  Our only ability to hold the system accountable is when we are organized to do so and this cannot happen just by having a few individuals speaking out.  Only when the masses come together will there be safety.  In other words, that means we won't organize and win by you being content to be keyboard revolutionaries.  The capitalists don't rely on social media to organize every facet of your lives.  They build institutions to do that and they build institutions to deal with you when you don't cooperate.  So, fantasy won't beat them.  Only true work will do that.

Short of that work, for those of us who want something better than what we have in front of us today, the best scenario this election represents is a chance at maybe breaking off a few more crumbs, but most likely, it is just another clown show from the traveling circus that comes to your town every two to four years.  Its entertaining, but like the circus, its magic.  Its not real folks.  And when the show is over, just like real life, we will go back to our day to day lives of waiting for the next circus to bring some light and hope into our oppression.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle."  Our brains are muscles.  Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve.  Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    June 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.