Benjamin Britton > Recent Status Updates

If we rebuild our communities and begin to derive more meaning and a sense of the good life from them, many of us are going to be less susceptible to the siren song of mindless consumerism.

This is worth underlining: Trump didn’t create the problem - he exploited it. And because he understood the conventions of fake reality better than anyone, he took the game to a whole new level.

Meet violence with violence. But not violence in the form of individual terror - that will surely fail. But rather violence as the power of revolutionary organized proletarian class struggle.

Meet violence with violence. But not violence in the form of individual terror - that will surely fail. But rather violence as the power of revolutionary organized proletarian class struggle.

“If it’s branding empire loses enough revenue, and his personal boss image is sufficiently battered, Trump might just course-correct on some of his more inflammatory policies.”

“If his branding empire loses enough revenue, and his personal boss image is sufficiently battered, Trump might just course-correct on some of his more inflammatory policies.”

"Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a tank... And only a fighting unity with Social Democratic workers can bring victory."
L. Trotsky

“March separately, but strike together.”
L. Trotsky

It can be stated with certainty, that the party owes the rapid coming over of the garrison into the camp of the Soviets and the skillful work of the revolutionary military committee above all and essentially to Comrade Trotsky.
Stalin
1917

The only unpardonable sin which the Russian working class can’t commit at this moment is that of indulgence towards it to class enemies

“They have a divine mission to take away our rights as private citizens.”

"Political decadence occurs when the forms that a state pretends to observe are known to be empty of all meaning."

"I would stop all military aid to the Middle East."

"The right to rebel is a censurable doctrine derived from Lucifer, the father of rebellions."
Jonathan Boucher

Remarkably, it is not uncommon today to hear media pundits, politicians, social critics, and celebrities-most notably Bill Cosby-complain that the biggest problem black men have today is that they "have no shame."

"After Thermidor, politics would no longer be the place of a division of sensibilities; it rather became the place of professional distribution of knowledge of the social art."

“Classical economics on the other hand is located on the terrain of science, and it is on that terrain that the difference between it and Marx’s scientific discourse is established.”

"The question, 'How was Terror put on the agenda?' Should thus be replaced by the question, 'How was the dread instilled in the revolutionaries by their enemies overcome and transformed into the demand for terror?' And beyond this, how was it this demand was understood and accepted?"

"The question, 'How was Terror put on the agenda?' Should thus be replaced by the question, 'How was the dread instilled in the revolutionaries by their enemies overcome and transformed into the demand for terror?' And beyond this, how was it this demand was understood and accepted?"

'I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. 'To be able to see Nobody! And at this distance too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'

Yet both the regime and its armed opponents are alienating the people they are ostensibly trying to cultivate, as they jointly demolish Aleppo's economy, the historical monuments that give the city it's unique charm and identity, the lives and safety of its citizens, and the social cohesion that had made it a model of intersectarian harmony.

Yet both the regime and its armed opponents are alienating the people they are ostensibly trying to cultivate, as they jointly demolish Aleppo's economy, the historical monuments that give the city it's unique charm and identity, the lives and safety of its citizens, and the social cohesion that had made it a model of intersectarian harmony.

“The capitalist believes that his calculation determines the movement of value whereas the former is determined by the latter.”

•Louis Althusser

"Revolutions produce surprising outcomes, and those who start them must be prepared for the unintended consequences of success as much as for failure."

“It appears to them, rather, that the profit which they pocket is something different from the surplus-value they extort; that the grounds for compensation do not simply equalize their participation in the total surplus-value, but that they actually create profit itself, since profit seems to derive simply from the addition to the cost price made with one justification or another”

“All the rights and gains we have, they’re never given to us as acts of charity and generosity by the rich and powerful. They are won by the struggle and sacrifice of people from below — the people in this room, your mothers, your fathers, your grandmothers, your grandfathers, your ancestors before them.”

•Jeremy Scahill

“To be clear: Clinton was an empire politician, a corporate Democrat. But I don’t care if a fascist once in a while says something I agree with: no alliance with fascists.

Nothing in this country will fundamentally change until...
we shatter the two-party system that gives us a choice between a corporate Democrat and a fascist minus the little mustache”

Jeremy Scahill

“The point of all of this is that single protests, as important as they are, have never changed anything. But the social movements of linked protest are the lifeblood of resistance. That is the only thing, ultimately, that has changed anything: civil disobedience, boycotts, sit ins, prison solidarity networks, abortion funds, sanctuary spaces, all of it.”

Anand Gopal

“The point of all of this is that single protests, as important as they are, have never changed anything. But the social movements of linked protest are the lifeblood of resistance. That is the only thing, ultimately, that has changed anything: civil disobedience, boycotts, sit ins, prison solidarity networks, abortion funds, sanctuary spaces, all of it.”

Anand Gopal