Capitalism Keeps Us Pacified As It Drags Us Ever Closer To Doom, by Rainer Shea

Within today’s capitalist world, particularly the core imperialist countries, the system is held together by a type of cultural hegemony which fits our increasingly grim conditions. This cultural hegemony goes deeper than the set of myths and propaganda narratives that the imperialist media spins to justify the U.S./NATO empire’s perpetual war operations, or the free market fundamentalist dogma that our ruling class uses to justify its cruel neoliberal economic designs. These ideological constructs remain dominant in our culture because for the average person in our society, no cohesive alternative cultural narratives are detectable. It’s due to our lack of culture and guiding ideology that the hypocritical, dishonest ideologies which our ruling class has manufactured are allowed to go unchallenged.

Capitalism Keeps Us Pacified As It Drags Us Ever Closer To Doom, by Rainer Shea

Neither Washington Nor Beijing?

Neither Washington Nor Beijing?

Regardless of what one thinks of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, anyone on the left must support China against US-led imperialist attacks and the New Cold War. The prominent Belgian Trotskyist economist Ernest Mandel was by no means a supporter of Soviet socialism, but he insisted firmly that the Soviet Union must be defended against imperialism. Arguing against Tony Cliff’s slogan of Neither Washington nor Moscow, he wrote: “Why, if it is conceivable to defend the SPD [German Social Democratic Party] against fascism, despite its being led by the Noskes, the assassins of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, is it ‘inconceivable’ to defend the USSR against imperialism?”111

Related:

[2018] Is China Still Socialist?

For International Women’s Day March 8: Words of Clara Zetkin

Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement by Elsa Rassbach

For the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, here’s a clip from my 1972 film, “His/story” (which I made as a student in Germany) about the legendary German socialist and feminist, Clara Zetkin, and her visit to the Soviet Union in 1920.

For International Women’s Day March 8: Words of Clara Zetkin

Related:

Lenin on the Women’s Question

Writings of Clara Zetkin