[Marxism] RE: The real kerry after the election

[M. Junaid Alam]

"

This assumption makes the mistake of thinking that the policies of any White 
House administration is a true reflection of the aspirations of the majority 
of the people over whom it governs. It isn't. It is, instead, a reflection of 
the needs of the economic forces which fund the respective mainstream political 
parties combined with the agenda of those forces which require a bellicose 
agenda at home and abroad - namely the Pentagon and the internal security 
apparatus. Of course the media, who are part of the same corporate nexus, would have 
us believe that everyone wants to bomb the shit out of every nation in the 
world which dares oppose US economic hegemony. Capitalism is an irrational and 
violent economic system which requires equally irrational and violent policies "
in order to ensure its growth and survival."

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Frankly, this is merely bombastic boilerplate. Economic forces and White House
policies and government organizations and capitalism and economic hegemony and 
corporate nexus, all that shit, it is not robotic or automatic, it's not lifeless 
and predetermined. 

There are people making the determinations at the top levels. And they exploit
the worst and most backward currents and ideas in society, lift them up to
the level of sanctity, and hammer them throughout all of society to create
moral pillars of support. 

So the people don't start out wanting "to bomb the shit out of everyone." So what? 
They can easily be turned to that opinion. All that is required is that the forces of 
hegemony peddles hatred far and wide, and the supposed forces of counter-hegemony 
peddles only its own principles to the highest bidder.

We can cry and whine all day about the existence and power of "the Pentagon and
the internal security apparatus" and everything else. None of that is going to
simply disappear. The excuse on the proverbial day of judgement for radicals can't be,
"well we failed because the Pentagon and corporate nexus were around." 

They are not the only reason half of all Americans
think Hussein courted al-Qaeda, can't find Iraq on a world map,  conflates all
Muslims with terrorism, and are choosing between a draft dodger and a war criminal
to lead them.  That situation exists not only because the suits have been selling certain ideas, 
but because people have been buying them. And they're buying them up because all 
the left is selling is rotten apples, if our creaky cart even gets to the market in 
the first place without someone selling the wheels along the way in the name of 
"pragmatism" or "realism".
 
So it doesn't matter a damn about some mythical "true reflections of the aspirations
of the majority". There is no such beast in existence. There are only potentialities. 
One potentiality is barbarism, the other is socialism. The people promoting barbarism, 
they have their shit together, they are organized. 

And we do not. That is the heart of the matter.