American Marxism

[Poker Player]

In a few days the book American Marxism, written by Mark R. Levin, will be released.

"In American Marxism, Levin explains how the core elements of Marxist ideology are now pervasive in American society and culture—from our schools, the press, and corporations, to Hollywood, the Democratic Party, and the Biden presidency—and how it is often cloaked in deceptive labels like “progressivism,” “democratic socialism,” “social activism,” and more. With his characteristic trenchant analysis, Levin digs into the psychology and tactics of these movements, the widespread brainwashing of students, the anti-American purposes of Critical Race Theory and the Green New Deal, and the escalation of repression and censorship to silence opposing voices and enforce conformity. Levin exposes many of the institutions, intellectuals, scholars, and activists who are leading this revolution, and provides us with some answers and ideas on how to confront them.

As Levin writes: “The counter-revolution to the American Revolution is in full force. And it can no longer be dismissed or ignored for it is devouring our society and culture, swirling around our everyday lives, and ubiquitous in our politics, schools, media, and entertainment.” And, like before, Levin seeks to rally the American people to defend their liberty."

What do you think about it? Is the USA moving towards a marxist country?

[suchmoon]

Having lived in a proper marxist-communist dictatorship, I can't even begin to describe how full of shit all these "Marxist ideology" book experts are. America (as in the United States of) is about as Marxist as my car that I called "communist piece of shit" this morning when the supposedly new brakes started squeaking but I digress. It's not Marxist by any sane use of the term is what I'm trying to say.

The attacks on education are quite telling. Uneducated muggles fearful of Marxism can be easily convinced to vote against imaginary enemies and against their own best interests at the same time.

But hey if we rant about censorship and silencing in the press that is supposedly doing the censorship and silencing maybe nobody will notice how dumb it all is.

[CryptocurencyKing]

If there is one truth of the content of this thread as created by OP, its the fact that, all the postulates by Levin of the American Marxism is just a theory. Which entails that there are more ways it could go of which, his postulate is just one of them and its far from a verified fact hence, it could be wrong or right. By the way, there are different scenarios in our world today that tends to support a particular theory or prove a point today. So, you can almost write a book out if anything but, it doesn't make it the only way to have gone about it or makes the previous system an error entirely.

Censorship and silencing the press could result in a lot of unjust deeds in the system that would always go unnoticed. Sometimes I wounder how someone who went through an educative system would be against education. If you went through the system and yet was able to think out or make postulates that doesn't agree with the system, so could others too.

The whole American Marxism is just another way to bring about a revolution which I doubt would help the country so much especially, now that economies of most nations with America inclusive is just recovering even with the pandemic still amongst us.

[hornetsnest]

.....not just murica.Same the world over

[Cnut237]

America (as in the United States of) is about as Marxist as my car

I'm with suchmoon. Unless the car is a Soviet Lada, in which case I've completely misread the situation.

What do you think about it? Is the USA moving towards a marxist country?

The idea that Marxism in the US is "devouring our society and culture, swirling around our everyday lives, and ubiquitous in our politics, schools, media, and entertainment" is utterly absurd. Marxism? Seriously?
If I had to sum up the whole quote in one word, it would be 'BADeckeresque'.

[Poker Player]

The idea that Marxism in the US is "devouring our society and culture, swirling around our everyday lives, and ubiquitous in our politics, schools, media, and entertainment" is utterly absurd. Marxism? Seriously?
If I had to sum up the whole quote in one word, it would be 'BADeckeresque'.

No, BADecker's bullshit has nothing to do with what he says. What he says is that Marxism comes hidden under labels like "progressivism," "democratic socialism," "social activism," etc. It's something characteristic of the new left, to have moved from class struggle to things like feminism or ecology.

He is a lawyer who, among other things, works for FOX, which should come as no surprise. The weird thing would be if he had a show for CNN and said these things. I guess people who regularly watch Fox would agree with that.

[Cnut237]

'BADeckeresque'

No

Okay, I have another single word summary: 'McCarthyism'. But I stand by my other one word summary, too. I can see no difference (and plenty of similarities) between this thread and the vaccine nanobots threads, the 5G zombification masts threads, the Bill Gates 'forked-tongued demon' threads.

it is often cloaked in deceptive labels like “progressivism,” “democratic socialism,” “social activism,”

So we have two options:
a) “progressivism” is progressivism; “democratic socialism” is democratic socialism; “social activism” is social activism, or
b) “progressivism” is Marxism!!!; “democratic socialism” is Marxism!!!; “social activism” is Marxism!!!.

I'd say one of the above options is a self-evident truth, the other represents the familiar hysterical one-note shrieking of a hard-right zealot who wants to demonise anything he doesn't like, and lacks the imagination or energy to even attempt to form a cogent argument.

the widespread brainwashing of students, the anti-American purposes of

These two phrases are a neat encapsulation of the whole quote. The author appears to be oblivious to the fact that he accuses people of brainwashing, and then in the very next phrase describes - without giving any explanation or evidence - something as having 'anti-American purposes'. He's either a fool, or thinks his readers are fools.

[suchmoon]

I'm with suchmoon. Unless the car is a Soviet Lada, in which case I've completely misread the situation.

The VIN starts with S, which probably stands for "Soviet".

He is a lawyer who, among other things, works for FOX, which should come as no surprise. The weird thing would be if he had a show for CNN and said these things. I guess people who regularly watch Fox would agree with that.

Giuliani is (or used to be) a lawyer too, so that doesn't mean anything. Fox and the right wing media in general found a new scareword that they know their audience will have no clue about and won't care to research so they can attribute it to their political enemies and pretty much anything they don't like.

My favorite is corporations being marxist LOL.

Another layer of irony here is the fact that they support an wannabe dictator trying to overturn a legitimate election.

[ammodotcom]

The minority which is most Marxist is also the most vocal about it. There are plenty of fascist extremists in America as well, but they're rightly shunned whereas commie rats are allowed to spew their filth from seemingly every source of media.

[hornetsnest]

Global marxism=Global plutocrats rule with absolute authority over your way of life and future. The rules and regulations will not affect them...just you #stakeholdercapitalism #plutocracy... not just murica

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-24/when-will-covid-end-we-must-start-planning-for-a-permanent-pandemic

We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic

With coronavirus mutations pitted against vaccinations in a global arms race, we may never go back to normal.

For the past year, an assumption — sometimes explicit, often tacit — has informed almost all our thinking about the pandemic: At some point, it will be over, and then we’ll go “back to normal.”

This premise is almost certainly wrong. SARS-CoV-2, protean and elusive as it is, may become our permanent enemy, like the flu but worse. And even if it peters out eventually, our lives and routines will by then have changed irreversibly. Going “back” won’t be an option; the only way is forward. But to what exactly?

Most epidemics disappear once populations achieve herd immunity and the pathogen has too few vulnerable bodies available as hosts for its self-propagation. This herd protection comes about through the combination of natural immunity in people who’ve recovered from infection and vaccination of the remaining population.

In the case of SARS-CoV-2, however, recent developments suggest that we may never achieve herd immunity. Even the U.S., which leads most other countries in vaccinations and already had large outbreaks, won’t get there. That’s the upshot of an analysis by Christopher Murray at the University of Washington and Peter Piot at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The main reason is the ongoing emergence of new variants that behave almost like new viruses. A clinical vaccine trial in South Africa showed that people in the placebo group who had previously been infected with one strain had no immunity against its mutated descendant and became reinfected. There are similar reports from parts of Brazil that had massive outbreaks and subsequently suffered renewed epidemics.

That leaves only vaccination as a path toward lasting herd immunity. And admittedly, some of the shots available today are still somewhat effective against some of the new variants. But over time they will become powerless against the coming mutations.

Of course, vaccine makers are already feverishly working on making new jabs. In particular, inoculations based on the revolutionary mRNA technology I’ve previously described can be updated faster than any vaccine in history. But the serum still needs to be made, shipped, distributed and jabbed.

And that process can’t happen fast enough, nor cover the planet widely enough. Yes, some of us may win a regional round or two against the virus, by vaccinating one particular population — as Israel has done, for instance. But evolution doesn’t care where it does its work, and the virus replicates wherever it finds warm and unvaccinated bodies with cells that let it reproduce its RNA. As it copies itself, it makes occasional coding mistakes. And some of those chance errors turn into yet more mutations.

These viral avatars are popping up wherever there’s a lot of transmission going on and somebody bothers to look closely. A British, a South African and at least one Brazilian strain have already become notorious, but I’ve also seen reports of viral cousins and nephews showing up in California, Oregon and elsewhere. If we were to sequence samples in more places, we’d probably find even more relatives.

We should therefore assume that the virus is already mutating fast in the many poor countries that have so far received no jabs at all, even if their youthful populations keep mortality manageable and thus mask the severity of local outbreaks. Last month, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, reminded the world that 75% of all shots had been administered in just 10 countries, while 130 others hadn’t primed a single syringe.

A pathogen’s evolution is neither surprising nor automatically worrisome. One frequent pattern is that bugs over time become more contagious but less virulent. After all, not killing your host too efficiently confers an advantage in natural selection. If SARS-CoV-2 goes this route, it’ll eventually become just another common cold.

But that’s not what it’s been doing recently. The variants we know of have become more infectious, but no less lethal. From an epidemiological point of view, that’s the worst news.

Consider two alternative evolutionary paths. In one, a virus becomes more severe but not more transmissible. It will cause more disease and death, but the growth is linear. In the other path, a mutating virus becomes neither more nor less virulent but more contagious. It will cause increases in disease and death that are exponential rather than linear. Adam Kucharski at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine explains the math here.

If this is the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2, we’re in for seemingly endless cycles of outbreaks and remissions, social restrictions and relaxations, lockdowns and reopenings. At least in rich countries, we will probably get vaccinated a couple of times a year, against the latest variant in circulation, but never fast or comprehensively enough to achieve herd immunity.


I’m not arguing for defeatism here. In the grand sweep of history, Covid-19 is still a relatively mild pandemic. Smallpox killed nine out of 10 Native Americans after the Spanish brought it to the Americas in the 16th century. The Black Death carried off about half of the Mediterranean population when it first came to Europe in the sixth century. Worldwide, the coronavirus has killed fewer than four in 10,000 so far. And with our science and technology, we’re armed as our ancestors never were.

But we must also be realistic. Resilience demands that we include this new scenario into our planning. The good news is that we keep getting better at responding. In each lockdown, for example, we damage the economy less than in the previous one. And we may achieve scientific breakthroughs that will eventually make life better. Our Brave New World needn’t be dystopian. But it won’t look anything like the old world.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/radical-green-overhaul-to-avoid-climate-lockdown-by-mariana-mazzucato-2020-09



Avoiding a Climate Lockdown
Sep 22, 2020
Mariana Mazzucato

The world is approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions. Avoiding this scenario will require a green economic transformation – and thus a radical overhaul of corporate governance, finance, policy, and energy systems.

LONDON – As COVID-19 spread earlier this year, governments introduced lockdowns in order to prevent a public-health emergency from spinning out of control. In the near future, the world may need to resort to lockdowns again – this time to tackle a climate emergency.

Shifting Arctic ice, raging wildfires in western US states and elsewhere, and methane leaks in the North Sea are all warning signs that we are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions.Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.Many think of the climate crisis as distinct from the health and economic crises caused by the pandemic. But the three crises – and their solutions – are interconnected.COVID-19 is itself a consequence of environmental degradation: one recent study dubbed it “the disease of the Anthropocene.” Moreover, climate change will exacerbate the social and economic problems highlighted by the pandemic. These include governments’ diminishing capacity to address public-health crises, the private sector’s limited ability to withstand sustained economic disruption, and pervasive social inequality. These shortcomings reflect the distorted values underlying our priorities. For example, we demand the most from “essential workers” (including nurses, supermarket workers, and delivery drivers) while paying them the least. Without fundamental change, climate change will worsen such problems.

The climate crisis is also a public-health crisis. Global warming will cause drinking water to degrade and enable pollution-linked respiratory diseases to thrive. According to some projections, 3.5 billion people globally will live in unbearable heat by 2070.Addressing this triple crisis requires reorienting corporate governance, finance, policy, and energy systems toward a green economic transformation. To achieve this, three obstacles must be removed: business that is shareholder-driven instead of stakeholder-driven, finance that is used in inadequate and inappropriate ways, and government that is based on outdated economic thinking and faulty assumptions.Corporate governance must now reflect stakeholders’ needs instead of shareholders’ whims. Building an inclusive, sustainable economy depends on productive cooperation among the public and private sectors and civil society. This means firms need to listen to trade unions and workers’ collectives, community groups, consumer advocates, and others.Likewise, government assistance to business must be less about subsidies, guarantees, and bailouts, and more about building partnerships. This means attaching strict conditions to any corporate bailouts to ensure that taxpayer money is put to productive use and generates long-term public value, not short-term private profits.In the current crisis, for example, the French government conditioned its bailouts for Renault and Air France-KLM on emission-reduction commitments. France, Belgium, Denmark, and Poland denied state aid to any company domiciled in a European Union-designated tax haven, and barred large recipients from paying dividends or buying back their own shares until 2021. Likewise, US corporations receiving government loans through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act were prohibited from using the funds for share buybacks.These conditions are a start, but are not ambitious enough, either from a climate perspective or in economic terms. The magnitude of government assistance packages does not match firms’ requirements, and the conditions are not always legally binding: for example, the Air France emissions policy applies only to short domestic flights. Far more is needed to achieve a green and sustainable recovery. For example, governments might use the tax code to discourage firms from using certain materials. They might also introduce job guarantees at company or national level so that human capital is not wasted or eroded. This would help the youngest and oldest workers, who have disproportionately suffered job losses owing to the pandemic, and reduce the likely economic shocks in disadvantaged regions already suffering industrial decline. Finance needs fixing, too. During the 2008 global financial crisis, governments flooded markets with liquidity. But, because they did not direct it toward good investment opportunities, much of that funding ended up back in a financial sector unfit for purpose.The current crisis presents an opportunity to harness finance in productive ways to drive long-term growth. Patient long-term finance is key, because a 3-5-year investment cycle doesn’t match the long lifespan of a wind turbine (more than 25 years), or encourage the innovation needed in e-mobility, natural capital development (such as rewilding programs), and green infrastructure.Some governments have already launched sustainable growth initiatives. New Zealand has developed a budget based on “wellbeing” metrics, rather than GDP, to align public spending with broader objectives, while Scotland has established the mission-oriented Scottish National Investment Bank.Along with steering finance toward a green transition, we need to hold the financial sector accountable for its often-destructive environmental impact. The Dutch central bank estimates that Dutch financial institutions’ biodiversity footprint represents a loss of over 58,000 square kilometers (22,394 square miles) of pristine nature – an area 1.4 times larger than the Netherlands.Because markets will not lead a green revolution on their own, government policy must steer them in that direction. This will require an entrepreneurial state that innovates, takes risks, and invests alongside the private sector. Policymakers should therefore redesign procurement contracts in order to move away from low-cost investments by incumbent suppliers, and create mechanisms that “crowd in” innovation from multiple actors to achieve public green goals. Governments should also take a portfolio approach to innovation and investment. In the United Kingdom and the United States, wider industrial policy continues to support the information-technology revolution. Similarly, the EU’s recently launched European Green Deal, Industrial Strategy, and Just Transition Mechanism are acting as the motor and compass for the €750 billion ($888 billion) “Next Generation EU” recovery fund.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter, PS on Sunday

Finally, we need to reorient our energy system around renewable energy – the antidote to climate change and the key to making our economies energy-secure. We must therefore evict fossil-fuel interests and short-termism from business, finance, and politics. Financially powerful institutions such as banks and universities must divest from fossil-fuel companies. Until they do, a carbon-based economy will prevail.
The window for launching a climate revolution – and achieving an inclusive recovery from COVID-19 in the process – is rapidly closing. We need to move quickly if we want to transform the future of work, transit, and energy use, and make the concept of a “green good life” a reality for generations to come. One way or the other, radical change is inevitable; our task is to ensure that we achieve the change we want – while we still have the choice.

[Poker Player]

So we have two options:
a) “progressivism” is progressivism; “democratic socialism” is democratic socialism; “social activism” is social activism, or
b) “progressivism” is Marxism!!!; “democratic socialism” is Marxism!!!; “social activism” is Marxism!!!.

I'd say one of the above options is a self-evident truth, the other represents the familiar hysterical one-note shrieking of a hard-right zealot who wants to demonise anything he doesn't like, and lacks the imagination or energy to even attempt to form a cogent argument.

This is a fallacy. Apply it now:

a) “Central planning” is central planning; “class struggle” is class struggle; “Collective ownership of means of production” is Collective ownership of means of production or
b) “Central planning” is Marxism!!!; “class struggle”” is Marxism!!!; “Collective ownership of means of production” is Marxism!!!.

All this you say without having read more than an excerpt of what he says, because the book is published today, and may be more developed arguments in it.

Fox and the right wing media in general found a new scareword that they know their audience will have no clue about and won't care to research so they can attribute it to their political enemies and pretty much anything they don't like.

Yeah, kind of like accusing someone of being "right-wing-nut" for saying that COVID-19 originated in a lab, and "racist" or "white supremacist" for saying that you don't sympathize with the BLM movement, even though your wife is black.

Do you really think the word Marxism is new?

My favorite is corporations being marxist LOL.

Can you explain this? I don't get it.

[Cnut237]

This is a fallacy. Apply it now:

a) “Central planning” is central planning; “class struggle” is class struggle; “Collective ownership of means of production” is Collective ownership of means of production or
b) “Central planning” is Marxism!!!; “class struggle”” is Marxism!!!; “Collective ownership of means of production” is Marxism!!!.

All this you say without having read more than an excerpt of what he says, because the book is published today, and may be more developed arguments in it.

Okay, come back once the US has switched to collective ownership of the means of production, and I'll start taking this seriously.

[suchmoon]

Do you really think the word Marxism is new?

Really, that's the straw man you're going with?

The word "terrorism" was not new in 2001 but it was a new way to scare people into supporting new wars.

My favorite is corporations being marxist LOL.

Can you explain this? I don't get it.

Private ownership of means of production is about as anti-marxist as it gets and I know you know that because you're referring to it in your own post.

[yhiaali3]

The United States will not turn towards Marxism exactly as the writer is trying to say but I think that Marxism is already in the United States, they are communists when they want and democrats when they want, they control education and the press and direct it as they want, in my opinion there is no freedom of the press or education in the states The United States or any other country. It is completely directed towards the goals that they set for us. All media are owned by businessmen or influential people who spread lies in order to preserve their interests and influence, and we have to believe this nonsense.
In America there are only two parties that control political life in the whole of the United States and control everything press, education and money and direct it all as they want, is this a democracy? It is a different kind of Marxism!!!

[Poker Player]

Okay, come back once the US has switched to collective ownership of the means of production, and I'll start taking this seriously.

I see you are going off on a tangent again. I think it is obvious that I was not saying that in the USA there is collective ownership of the means of production. Obviously not. Nor central planning of the economy, etc.

Really, that's the straw man you're going with?

No, no straw man. I had misunderstood you.

The word "terrorism" was not new in 2001 but it was a new way to scare people into supporting new wars.

This makes it clear to me.

Private ownership of means of production is about as anti-marxist as it gets and I know you know that because you're referring to it in your own post.

Also clear now.

I have to say that I play a bit of devil's advocate since in principle if we take into account the classical Marxism, there would be no Marxism in the USA. That is why I have not taken sides with the author in the OP and simply asked what people thought.

From the quoted excerpt, I assume that in the book what he will develop is that classical Marxism evolved and now presents itself with other faces that are present in the USA.

[suchmoon]

From the quoted excerpt, I assume that in the book what he will develop is that classical Marxism evolved and now presents itself with other faces that are present in the USA.

Fair enough, but that's utterly meaningless. I'm quite certain that "America" can be labeled "the 4th Reich ruled by lizards" if we stretch the definitions of some words.

[hornetsnest]

[Poker Player]

Well, yesterday I saw a couple of Youtube videos of this man talking about the subject and if you saw him, you wouldn't be surprised that he says such things. Just by looking at his face, you would realize that he sees communists everywhere.

It was along the lines of what I said above.

From the quoted excerpt, I assume that in the book what he will develop is that classical Marxism evolved and now presents itself with other faces that are present in the USA.

Fair enough, but that's utterly meaningless. I'm quite certain that "America" can be labeled "the 4th Reich ruled by lizards" if we stretch the definitions of some words.

Probably.

I stopped listening to him the moment he brought up God in the speech.

I just don't understand why intelligent people, who write books, etc., still believe in ghosts today. I think it is a psychological defense mechanism against the fear of death.

Are there right-wing atheists in the US or do all those who defend the free market and capitalism there still believe in the Ghost?

[hornetsnest]

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” ~ Ronald Reagan