Strom McCallum

On August 12th, the tenants of Chimney Cove Village, a working class multi-family housing development on Hilton Head Island, were informed by their landlord that they would soon have to vacate their residences- most of them within thirty days, a few of them by dates in October, November, and December. A follow up notice delivered on the 31st of the month, presumably subsequent to the complication or collapse of the sale agreement with a luxury condominium developer that had motivated the issuance of the notice of eviction, rescinded the notice of eviction and informed them that their previous lease agreements were once again in effect. Curiously, however, the owners of the property have responded to inquiry from news media outlets as to whether its residents might again face eviction in the near future only with assurance that an update on the situation will be released at some point.

The spectre of houselessness still looms over these tenants, largely families supported by non-native English speaker first generation immigrant parents (that is, refugees from the abject squalor driven by Western Capital’s reign of terror in Latin America- a reign of terror that has been buttressed by the threat posed by Uncle Sam’s forces under the leadership of, among others, the swathes of field-grade/senior officers, generals, and admirals who retire to and gentrify Beaufort County) working in the island’s hospitality industry or as domestic workers for its resident idle rich. They have been sent on time-consuming and anxiety-wracking searches for non-existent affordable housing- as anyone living the housing affordability crisis or familiar with the South Carolina real estate market would assume, very few properties available to low wage workers are nearby- and will in all likelihood be sent on them again in the coming months. As we can see once more, slumlords don’t at all mind subjecting human souls to tear-welling whiplash and limbo and should not be trusted to provide or service anything.

Religious congregations, community organizations, and the “philanthropic” (that is, reputation laundering) campaigns of short term rental companies promise that they will be able to at least temporarily secure housing for several people among the hundreds almost certainly soon to be displaced.

Several people. Hundreds of people. A vast, vast majority of the parents who, following displacement, will still wish to work on the island, will face forty to ninety minute one way commutes from lower housing cost areas, provided they can make transportation arrangements, and provided they can even locate and rent housing in those areas. And needless to say, the education of the children of the breadwinners in question will be severely disrupted.

These efforts do not meaningfully ameliorate this crisis, just as similar efforts undertaken elsewhere do not meaningfully ameliorate the housing affordability crisis at large. These people are going to be set adrift into a storm. Same ritzy-smelling pluff mud, new day. It is a travesty.

Local and state government officials and controlled opposition NGO mouthpieces speak of limited scope “public-private partnership” workforce housing initiatives that will create fortunes for developer slumlords and lead to the construction of some housing for the island’s hospitality industry and domestic workers in the coming years. And the island’s Carpetbagger mayor has serenaded the sweet little money-mising hearts of his snobby Henry McSlavemaster “local flavor" comprador song and dance routine-loving NIMBY gentrifier carpetbagger support base by suggesting, in marvelously ineloquent prose, that the island establish a long-distance busing- that is, state-sponsored economic apartheid- program for this labor force.

But, of course, no actual solution to the problem that led to the Chimney Cove Village Travesty is being proposed by the local dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Peckerwood Bob who cooks at thegoodtimemargaritasgodblessparrisislandandmcasbeaufortspookyoathkeepeerskullsrockleegreenwoodisthenewwoodyguthriebluelivesmattermorethandotheirthuglivesspqrbabymolonlabetikishrimpshack and some of those damned immigrants who work at Sea Pines are going to have to get off of the island? Tough luck for them! The communities of the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of the Port Royal Experiment have been and are being stolen? Pssssh! Who cares? In fact, it is all to be seen as “progress”! The gentrification, ethnic cleansing, and cultural genocide party must go on! The stinking plebs must be kept out of sight, unless they are on the clock! Get them out! They must not be allowed to spoil the beautiful mosaic of ritzy Garden & Gun plantationplantationplantation lifestyle neighborhoods and resorts! They cannot continue to sully the Salt Life experience!

The situation playing out on Hilton Head Island and in the sections of South Carolina that have become or are in the process of becoming gated communities and playgrounds of the wealthy of the world at large is a perfect demonstration of the need for radical movement towards the decommodification of housing. This atrocity is going to keep playing out on Hilton Head Island, in Beaufort County, and in the chicified sections of South Carolina in general until the democratic socialist minimalist program for housing-a housing guarantee, a serious program for the construction of public housing, the elimination of property taxation upon low value owner-occupied primary residences, the imposition of a severely punitive property tax upon luxury and secondary residences, a ban upon short term rentals and long-term luxury single family home rentals, and prohibition of the construction of sprawling, ecologically destructive single family homes- is won via open, organized class struggle.

This can be a flash point. Comrades of the Lowcountry, South Carolina, and the South, let us seize this opportunity. We cannot continue to procrastinate. It is time we begin to branch out beyond our narrow circles, prioritize fighting these battles, and establish our movement as the force capable of ameliorating the everyday suffering of the proletariat. It is through “unglamorous" political struggles like this one and the labor union struggle that international democratic socialism will begin to establish itself as a credible political force striving towards the revolutionary emancipation of the working class and begin to develop general mature revolutionary proletarian class consciousness.

We must learn how to fight and win local and state reform struggles against the bourgeoisie and its institutions if we wish to build a socialist revolutionary proletarian consensus. We can have no greater immediate priority, apart from the formation of institutions capable of carrying out these efforts. Comrades of the Lowcountry, South Carolina, and the South, let us begin to undertake the task at hand.

Tailing socially reactionary sentiment would lead international democratic socialism to a dead end. So would continuation of its accommodation of exhibitionism practiced under the guise of democratic socialist agitation.

Not only does exhibitionism carried out on Twitter, city streets, TikTok, organizational meetings and conventions, and all spaces in between under the name of democratic socialist organizational effort repel or frighten the vast majority of those that are exploited and oppressed by Capital, the vast majority of those who would make up the ranks of the Socialist Revolution, but it is in itself demonstration of a lack of commitment to a serious revolutionary politics and program, a lack of commitment to a politics and program of development of an international class conscious proletarian consensus, seizure of state power, expropriation of Capital, and realization of a global cooperative commonwealth. It amounts to display of the mindset that Marxism and democratic socialist agitation is simply a pretext for lashing out and being "bad", "edgy", or generally unlike so-called "normies", for ribaldly signaling that one is "different", for throwing temper tantrums of raw, indiscriminate iconoclastic rage.

If a movement is one of trumpeting that its faithful are "different" from and somehow better than the "normies", of shocking and offending simply to shock and offend, of being a boisterous "Catboy", "commie witch" or "commie Satanist", "Tankie"-themed BDSM practitioner, or clotheshorse of styles and articles meant only to be grotesque, it is not one of serious politics of radical social transformation and is, by definition, a movement which is anti-popular. The objective of the democratic socialist project, as laid out by Marx and Engels, is developing the class consciousness of all proletarians to a mature level, freeing humankind from the scourge of capitalism, and building a classless world of human solidarity and democratic production for use economy. It is about emphasizing what the exploited have in common and emancipating the "normie" and the "eccentric" or "queer" oppressed alike. The idea that the eccentric or the exhibitionist libertine is superior to the "normie" is anti-majoritarian, counter-proletarian solidaristic, anti-socialist, bourgeois hyper-individualist nonsense. International democratic socialism must be intolerant of these attitudes, just as it is intolerant of racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation bigotry. How can we continue to allow space for thinking so oppositional to genuine Marxist thought in our institutions of political education and organization?

Intolerance of the practice of exhibitionism in the name of Marxist revolutionary politics does not in any sense amount to intolerance of deviation from aesthetic or sexual norms. It amounts to enforcement of a serious commitment to revolutionary politics and protection of our movement from tendencies opposed to serious constructive mentality and programs of action, to protection of international democratic  socialism from tendencies that would derail the movement. Institutions of international democratic socialism must not accommodate elements which deem the objective of the democratic socialist project to be the advertisement of sexual or aesthetic preferences in a manner designed to offend the "everyman and everywoman", establishment and broadcasting a "subcultural" identity, simple castigation of the "masses" or bragging about how "bad" or "edgy" we democratic socialists are.

No, we cannot write off proletarians practicing this rubbish as "irredeemables" or individuals incapable of becoming revolutionary actors, just as we cannot write off those proletarians under the sway of socially reactionary ideology or "radical" essentialism and identity reductionism as such, but we cannot pretend that they are as of yet serious, genuine Marxists.

Here's my first article in Sublation Magazine, originally released on my blog as "Let Us Proudly Own Our Class Reductionism", and retitled by the publication as "In Defense of Class Reductionism".

Although some of it was edited into a style a bit different from my own, the article as it was republished pretty fairly represents the argument I laid out in the manuscript I sent in.

I must, however, publicly state that, while I do believe her to be a cynical granola profiteer and peddler of bizarre anti-solidaristic, bigotry and capitalism-reinforcing approaches to the problem of racism and post-Age of Discovery race ideology, I do acknowledge that Tema Okun does at least profess the position that this problem is a product of capitalism.

I do not believe her advertised understanding of "race" to be analogous to essentialism of the Hiram Wesley Evans or even the Frank Wilderson sort. The article as it was republished does not accurately represent my take on this one matter.

Don't be mistaken- I think Sublation Magazine is one of the best Marxist publications out there today and will play a role in the development of proletarian class consciousness and a socialist revolutionary consensus. I simply need to issue a clarification of my understanding of an opponent's position.

There is no room for a Red-Brown alliance. The notion of a “popular front” with those factions of the “far-right” (What is popularly referred to as the, “far-right", that is- no one could honestly say that neoliberalism’s blueprint for a technocratic dystopia isn’t also “far-right" plan of its own sort.) which advocate some kind of welfare capitalism (and welfare capitalism typically paired with trade chauvinism, at that) and/or state ownership of segments of the economy is a ludicrous one. 

We are not supposed to be complacent toward the absence of class consciousness in sections of sections of the global working class. Not for even a minute. Proposal of alliance with capitalist political factions which compete with international democratic socialism’s proletarian class consciousness-raising and revolutionary consensus-building efforts is an act rooted in a complacency of that sort. It is nothing less than proposal of dereliction of our educational duty and alignment with enemies of the Socialist Revolution.

We must challenge “far-right” movements of the welfare paternalist, paleoconservative “economic nationalist”, and non-welfarist/laissez-faire “rugged individualist" varieties alike, and recognize the threat they pose to international democratic socialism and the development of class consciousness, the service they provide to Capital as a tool for division of the exploited, and the potentiality of their eventual integration into the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. The “far-right" movements, just like the radical liberal movements, deserve no special treatment- it is the responsibility of us democratic socialists to challenge them just as we challenge all other capitalist political movements.

Yes, their potentiality for integration into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Just like radical liberalism’s. We must clearly spell out the fact that refusal to ally with them isn’t a curmudgeonly “purity test" driven refusal. The “far-right” as a whole is a series of movements that, if push comes to shove, can, like other capitalist political movements, ultimately be co-opted by Capital. With Chinese Capital beginning to squeeze Western Capital, Western Capital may find it most expedient to shift away from “woke" obfuscation memes to mostly national chauvinist ones and seek to incorporate the foulest national chauvinism into its governing strategy.

National chauvinist welfare capitalist ideologies, explicitly fascist and otherwise, may advocate realization of some paternalist social welfare programs and state ownership of some industries, but they do not advocate the expropriation of Capital and the realization of production for use economy, the abolishment of classes and social estates, and the realization of a global cooperative commonwealth, of an international brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity. They treat all “loyal" members of nations, conglomerations of nations, races, or other “in groups" as groups more isomorphic in their interests than the international working class. They reject most Marxian analysis and their goals clash with those of international democratic socialism on a fundamental level. 

Their so-called “socialism” or so-called “anti-capitalism”, when it is called one or both of those things, is totally at odds with our analysis and our program and vision. It is not adjacent to democratic socialism, and recognition of this fact is not a “purity test" delusion . “Far-right” welfare capitalist thought leaders from Keith Woods, to Eric Striker, to Richard Spencer have, even when describing themselves as “socialists” of some sort and seriously entertaining the establishment of some sort of temporary alliance with us, pointed this one out. They have nothing but contempt for our maximalist program and end goal. 

A few more dollars for social spending? At the end of the day, a loss Capital would take to survive. Capitalism and commodity production would be preserved and a weak international democratic socialism that had failed to remain independent could be brutally suppressed. Whenever the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie is ready to invite them to join them, the leaders of these can simply join the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. If we did ally with the forces of the welfarist so-called “far-right”, they would sell us out and brutally suppress us as soon as this opportunity presented itself. 

This is not a situation like that of the 19th Century. United fronts with non-Marxists don’t make sense. This is not an era for alliance with one exploiter class against another exploiter class- we now live under unambiguous Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, and, except in a few places, the remaining symbols of the Pre-Capitalist era, such as royal families, are simply cultural memes used to back up the prevailing order, to back up bourgeois rule. This is the time is for a socialism not in alliance with other factions. Capitalism has been thoroughly established throughout the world. There are no national bourgeoisies, romantic liberal nationalists, and petty chieftains to ally with. The bourgeoisie rules and the Bourgeoisie is the enemy.

None of this is meant to suggest denial of the necessity of striving for the passing of radical reforms. Radical reforms must be won, but radical reforms are reforms won and understood as steps toward the Socialist Revolution, not as anything like ends in themselves.

And none of this is meant to suggest that international democratic socialism should not try to win over those proletarians presently under the sway of socially reactionary ideology and those belonging to the constituencies that different “far-right” factions, whether welfare capitalist, paleoconservative “economic nationalist"/ “right-wing populist", or “rugged individualist", most aggressively evangel to. International democratic socialism seeks to emancipate all of the world’s exploited from capitalism and must strive to develop mature class consciousness and revolutionary consensus in all sections of the world’s exploited. Those written off as “deplorables” will, like all of those among the world’s exploited, be essential to the World Revolution. The fact these people act as some of Capital’s strongest ballast only underscores this point. But efforts to win over non-Marxist individuals as individuals are not proposals of alliance with non-Marxist political factions or movements. There is no room for alliance with welfare capitalist national chauvinism or the “far-right” as welfare capitalist national chauvinism or the “far-right”. 

Nor is any of this meant to suggest that love of one’s home is inherently toxic. Love of one’s home, when it is compatible with the positions of “socialism for all places, including my home", “all national oppression must be destroyed, and all national competition done away with”, and “the whole of humanity’s exploited must be saved and emancipated if any exploited section of humanity is to be saved and emancipated”, when it drives one to build socialist revolutionary sentiment in their immediate surroundings, when it is an internationalist socialist patriotism, is a revolutionary force. The welfarist “far-right” does not support internationalist socialist patriotism, but rather national chauvinism.

-Strom McCallum

The meme of “class reductionism” shouldn’t faze us democratic socialists. If to accept that the world’s great problems are ultimately matters of political economy to be solved through the development of proletarian class consciousness and solidarity, if to be a Marxist, is to be a “class reductionist”, then yes, we are “class reductionists”!

Why should we be intimidated or jarred by the bewailing of our refusal to on any front suspend our historical materialism in favor of something else, of our understanding of the problems of racial and ethnic bigotry as component problems of the grand problem of capitalism that must ultimately be addressed as all other component problems of the grand problem of capitalism must be addressed, of our holding as truth the opening paragraphs of the The Communist Manifesto?

And are the insinuations and explicit accusations which accompany this castigation, the insinuations and explicit accusations that some kind of indifference towards the problems of racism and ethnic bigotry necessarily attends our consistent application of our historical materialism, not insinuations and explicit accusations we can easily demonstrate to be absurd ones? Do we democratic socialists fail to recognize that the ongoing despoliation of the planet could doom humankind simply because we understand it to be a component problem of the grand problem of capitalism that can only be solved through the building of proletarian class consciousness and solidarity? Absolutely not! By the same token, do we fail to recognize that the problems of Post-Age of Discovery racism and ethnic bigotry are among the greatest problems facing humankind simply because we understand them to be products of economic relations, to be, yes, component problems of the grand problem of capitalism that can only be solved through the building of, yes, proletarian class consciousness and solidarity? Absolutely not! We hold them to be, in addition to tools for the organization of exploitation (“exploitation” including, yes, hyperexploitation of the most oppressed castes of the exploited, or the “subaltern”) and protection of property relations, and the driver of tremendous misery corollary to this intended end of exploitation and protection of property relations, potentially terminal problems for humanity! We hold that they are perhaps the most powerful impediment to the realization of a proletarian consensus for the expropriation of Capital and the realization of socialism, and consequently, to the realization of a global cooperative commonwealth, that they could doom humankind!

Whether the slur in question is being used against us by Pseudo-Marxist organizations like the DSA Afrosocialist Caucus who contend that Post-Age of Discovery notions of “race” are a natural reality and inherent component of human psychology, and that racism must be overcome through something more than simple development of proletarian class consciousness and solidarity (something which entails, among other things, a mature sense of proletarian internationalism) , independent polemicists with somewhat less specious claims to “Marxism” such as Yanis Iqbal and the late Louis Proyect who, unlike the mouthpieces of these organizations, do not go as far as suggesting that these conceptions of race are natural realities and inherent components of human psychology which precede the Age of Discovery, but nonetheless act as apologists for the aforementioned apostles of these claims and loudly decry “economic reductionism” all the same, trendy social justice warrior Pseudo-Marxist social media gasbags like Emerican Johnson who, in their incoherent blatherings, sometimes halfway accurately describe race ideology’s role in capitalism, and sometimes contend that White supremacy has somehow violated the laws of labor exploitation and benefitted White workers (workers under the boot of Capital all the same, still oppressed by capitalism’s cultural systems in an ultimate sense, even if they may be privileged in relation to other workers, even if they may be under the boot of Capital’s toe rather than its heel), or admittedly non-Marxist socialists like John Halstead who invoke the rantings of “radical” liberal corporate human resource consultants like Robin DiAngelo and quasi-Afropessimists like Ta-Nehisi Coates in their arguments in support of incoherent stances similar to those taken by the trendies, it never amounts to anything more than what can easily be shown to be propagation of bourgeois race ideology, to be propagation of counter-solidaristic, anti-Marxian hogwash we must show to be bourgeois race ideology and counter-solidaristic anti-Marxian hogwash like any other. It amounts, ultimately, to opposition to our program to overcome these problems, to, just like any other propagation of bourgeois race ideology, reinforcement of the problem themselves.

Let us not be weak-kneed just because we are being spoken to in a derisive tone, just because we are being sprayed with a firehose of bile. Let us respond to their branding of us with confident assertion of the fact that we do understand these problems to be dimensions of the greater problem of capitalism, problems to be solved via the proletarian class struggle against Capital, and that this understanding in no way amounts to a downplaying of the severity of these problems.

In fact, let us own “class reductionism” with pride. Let us embrace this epithet which the “radical” essentialism-peddling opponents of our movement fling at us. Let us seize this weapon from their arsenal and employ it against them.

Acceptance of this label would deny them a cudgel they have used against our movement and provide us an excellent opportunity to both showcase our unifying anti-racism of proletarian solidarity and free our movement from its present popular conflation with the peddlers of sanctimonious “woke” garbage. It would present us an excellent opportunity to juxtapose Marxian historical materialism and proletarian internationalism against race and ethnicity reductionism, against the larger claptrap heap of historical idealism. It is something our movement would only stand to gain from.

Let us be unabashed “class reductionists”.

-Strom McCallum

Charleston and much of its outlying metropolitan area has been transformed into something of a playground and gated community of the wealthy of the world.

This growing and increasingly gilded playground and gated community, this Garden & Gun Disneyland, stands on the back of an extreme and deepening proletarian misery. A most foul opulence is facilitated by an imperialist plague upon the local working class, by the local working class’s impoverishment and dispossession.

Behind the three figure suppers downed by vacationers, compradors, and the Carpetbagger bourgeoisie is the agony and sweat of kitchen workers toiling away in galleys of the twenty first century and paid wages insufficient to cover the cost of living in the city. Delivering meals are in house restaurant employees and gig economy contractors who receive compensation as paltry and face conditions as deplorable as do delivery workers in places where millionaires are far less frequently encountered. Handling front of house operations are servers and bartenders that, outside of the most exclusive establishments and breakneck paced bars and nightclubs, seldom bring home anything which could be described as a “reasonable living”.

Ferrying around tourists and local residents too hammered to pilot their own automobiles or stumble home are gig contractors, taxi company employees, and rickshaw chauffeurs remumerated hardly any more generously than are their food delivery compeers.

Making possible the stays at the area’s ritzy and gaudy hotels are valet drivers, bell hops, concierges, and maids who live economic nightmares.

Maintaining the grounds and facilities of the resorts and golf courses surrounding the city are landscapers toiling (often in suffocating heat and humidity) for pittances and being left in penury.

Keeping spotless and pristine the mobile palaces enjoyed by the marine jetsetter clique and their sycophants, the ostentatious private yachts that clog the local marinas and waterways, are crews who can’t afford private residences, let alone private cruises.

And every year, hundreds of residences housing the area’s hospitality and other blue collar workers are transformed into AirBnB units and luxury housing. Few new “affordable” residences are built in areas within a reasonable commute’s distance from the “action” (not that residential construction of any sort would be anything close to ecologically responsible in most of these areas), and those that do go up are often components of cronyist, tax credit-laden “public/private developer partnership” developments that price out those at the very bottom. The construction of housing developments for high tuition out of state College of Charleston students is sanctioned by the college in gentrifying neighborhoods as their native proletarian inhabitants are pushed out onto the street! General rent control and meaningfully punitive taxation of “investment property” and secondary residences is a treated as a topic that is not to be broached in “respectable” places. Anything more than softly spoken and heavily qualified nominal opposition to the prevailing imperialism is written off by the elite as outright pathology.

But to the present, this ever advancing and worsening immiseration has faced no meaningful opposition. The hospitality and other service industry workers of the city and its outlying metropolitan area remain unorganized and without mutual aid institutions for housing and other pressing concerns.

That isn’t to say that the last year has not turned on light bulbs in the minds of the area’s downtrodden. The slowdown in the operations of the hospitality industry resulting from, and the federal unemployment programs in response to, the SARS-CoV2 pandemic have given idle workers time to begin to realize how atrocious their predicament is and begin to recognize how little of the wealth they produce goes to them, to recognize the severity of their undercompensation, to begin to develop some conception of the whole surplus value thing.

Comrades of the South! Let us begin here! This is the place to launch a first concentrated effort to get the ball rolling! Such inchoate yet passionate sentiments must be developed into a deeper class consciousness, united, and brought into a fighting body, into a new party and attached labor union for the Southern greater working class!

We must show Charleston’s hospitality industry workers that they should take the lead! Charleston, with its name recognition, with its epitomization of the ills of neoliberal capitalism, the service industry economy, and the Garden & Gun chicification and gentrification of the South, with its fame as a historical bastion of reaction, with its opulence juxtaposed against poverty and proletarian misery, is the place to begin a struggle for a worker’s Dixieland. South Carolina, with its regularly hyped right to work law, its political elite’s explicit advertisement of it as an anti-labor race to the bottom destination, and the lowest unionization rate of any state of the South or, for that matter, any state of Uncle Sam’s empire at large, is the place to begin a struggle for a worker’s Dixieland.

Yes- It is certain that, even in the early days of a movement, even in an early highly local struggle by an openly revolutionary party for radical reforms such as wage increases and property tax regime restructure, there will be huge obstacles in our way, including the simple fact that Taft-Hartley and other Second Red Scare era anti-socialist and anti-labor protest legislation is still on the books. There will be display of and testimony to hospitality group owner “paternalism” and showcasing of the most well off managerial and front of house workers. There will be harassment from and surveillance by state and non-state actors. There will be valorization of scabbing. There will be blacklisting and ostracism. There will be attempts to pit workers against workers on racial, ethnic, gender, professional, and sector lines. Early work on the microscale will be strenuous and frustrating all the same.

But none of this changes the fact that Charleston and its outlying metropolitan area is the most fertile ground to plant the first seed for a socialist Dixieland in, and none of this changes the fact that the hospitality sector of the economy, the sector staffed by what is now the most oppressed and class conscious sector of the proletariat, is the place to begin the struggle for radical class consciousness-raising reforms towards a maximalist agenda.

Comrades of the Lowcountry, South Carolina, and the South, let us wait no longer. Let us build a party and attached labor union capable of winning class consciousness-raising radical reforms towards maximalist goals within the near future. This is our first fight to win. Let us get to organizing.

-Strom McCallum

How should we South Carolinian and Southern democratic socialists respond to the Army Corps of Engineers’s “Downtown Charleston" /“Historic District" (what the whole of the pre-1960 West Ashley annexation old city on the Oyster Point Peninsula below the Neck- both Downtown and Uptown- is referred to as these days) sea wall proposal?

We should start off with acknowledgment that the project proposed is a project for the real estate-owning resident and absentee gentrifier Bourgeoisie, as well as the proprietors of Charleston’s tourism, technology, and outlying race to the bottom manufacturing (for whom “Downtown"/the “Historic District" is something of a gaudy showcase, and wining, dining, and gladhanding center) industries- of the imperialist race to the bottom of and native comprador interests

that have over the past few decades transformed the overwhelming majority of the pre-1960 Annexation city and significant portions of the city at large and metropolitan area into something of a Garden and Gun gated community and playground for both the native lapdog capitalists of the Low Country and the wealthy of the larger Western World. It is not a project purposed for the defense of the city’s native greater working class (just consider the blueprint exclusion and reported initial total lack of consultation of the populations of a couple of the Neck’s less affluent communities, as well as the lack of commitment on the part of the Corps of Engineers to anything more than “investigation" of how the proposed sea wall might affect West Ashley and James Island), and would not even be on the table if the aforementioned post-Hugo gentrification boom driven by the investment of outside capital and demographic influx of outside capital C Capital had not taken place. Any protection of the rapidly-gentrifying areas of the peninsula with large numbers of native greater working class people living in them is planned with an eventual total gentrification/ethnic cleansing/cultural genocide of these areas into areas identical to those they border in mind, and for the moment protection of flanks of the cherished property of the wealthy. It is an extremely blatant demonstration of the fact that the state is a general committee of the bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, we know that the city and the metropolitan area neighboring it at large, with its historical value, its remaining native greater working class population, and the potential for the return of its displaced peoples to their old neighborhoods and homes in a more just future, is immediately threatened by anthropogenic global warming- in the sense that sea level rise in itself threatens the city and makes it far more vulnerable than it would be to weather events, and in the sense that Atlantic tropical storm systems will become more numerous as the planet continues to warm. 

We democratic socialists are not advocates of do-nothingism, of green primitivism, or of fatalism and simple submission to furies of nature. Some sort of major environmental remediation project is necessary. Socialist environmental policy is a humanism that both strives to ensure the survival of familiar landscapes and ecologies and ensure the planet will remain hospitable and provide for posterity. We South Carolinian and Southern socialists must come up with and present a counter-proposal, a counter-proposal that is not simply a project for the colonial and native lap dog bourgeoisie and their precious and chic property as their precious and chic property on the peninsula, but a proposal for the people of the South’s metropolitan coastal areas, including the people of Downtown, Uptown, and the Neck, the immediately outlying areas, and the larger Low Country. A proposal that calls for the erection of structures and institution of anti-flooding technologies capable of defending all of the Oyster Point Peninsula and the Neck, West Ashley, and so on, throughout the remainder of this Century, and, again, a proposal that is a component proposal of a proposal to protect similarly threatened urban areas along the coast of Dixie, whether they be massive centers of commerce and production, ritzy centers of rapid gentrification and opulence, or neither of these things!

What the people of South Carolina, the South, and humanity at large, need is an environmental policy that protects humanity and human heritage at large, not simply the most economically vital or favorite locales of Capital. A public debate of this sort in favor of such a series of projects must take place. It is the responsibility of the forces of democratic socialism to aggressively advocate such a project, such a radical reform towards a maximalist agenda, as part of the pre-Revolutionary struggle, as part of the campaign to reveal the state as a tool of class oppression and develop class consciousness.  

-Strom McCallum

Only a few years ago, there was nothing like a significant body of true democratic socialists in the South. There was indeed a sizable number of well-meaning self-misidentified “democratic socialists", of proponents of welfare capitalism who had been involved or aligned with the 2016 presidential campaign of the world’s most famous faux democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, and had themselves come to identify as “democratic socialists", but there was little more than that. True democratic socialists were, outside of humanities department faculties and a few metropolitan areas, very few and far between.

And then, with the worldwide surge of interest in socialism and leftward broadening of the popular Overton Window at the end of the decade (something which lagged slightly behind the popular broadening of the popular Overton Window into overt bigotry in the middle of the decade), something happened. For the first time in generations, small, but significant numbers of young Southerners, including a sizeable minority of the aforementioned self-misidentified “democratic socialists”, began to read the socialist greats, develop materialist perspectives of history, and embrace actual democratic socialism. Thousands came to recognize that our home’s ancient problems could only be addressed by a serious international democratic socialist movement, locally led by its greater working class. Dozens of democratic socialist groups with immediate and maximalist programs sprung up across Dixie. Numerous democratic socialist podcasts and meme pages with explicitly Southern foci were launched.

But while most of these new organizers and activists have a vague conception of the South’s status as a backwater of the “Developed World" and understand the need for a democratic socialist movement of the Southern people capable of taking on the specific problems Capital presents here and hitting Capital’s vulnerabilities here, with few exceptions, neither these organizers and activists, nor democratic socialist organizers and activists outside the South, have yet developed a thorough understanding of the situation here and its significance to humanity at large- Most of them have yet to develop a thorough understanding of what we are faced with, the South’s position in the world, or what the Southern greater working class’s duty is, what its specific crucial mission in the socialist revolution and the realization of international democratic socialism would be. They all understand the need to win over the majority of the Southern people under Capital’s lash, but as of yet, few have developed agendas, historical understandings, and sets of arguments that could, even if spoken and disseminated by an organized and disciplined movement, win over the millions of the South’s social reactionaries and otherwise non-class conscious.

Most of them have yet to develop theses demonstrating international socialism as something that can help Dixielanders as Dixielanders. Most of them have yet to fully appreciate the importance of socialist patriotism and the importance of the opportunity for non-reactionary Southern identity and expression of such identity, or the importance of an explicitly stated notion that we Southerners deserve what all others do and can and must contribute to humanity just as all other peoples can.

And while, once again, a majority of them recognize the South as some sort of economic backwater, while a majority of them see the South’s conspicuous and often extreme economic stratification and poverty, while most of them acknowledge Capital’s runaway plagues of race to the bottom economy, gentrification, displacement, cultural genocide, ecological destruction and sprawl, and imperialist cannon fodder recruitment upon the South, few of them have pieced everything together and developed a coherent understanding of the South’s unique position (contemporary Hawaii, with its statehood status and impoverished indigenous community, in some sense occupies a similar position on a much smaller scale) as an economic colony of Western Capital and historical component of the Global South fully legally incorporated into the metropole of  the principal Western imperial power. Not many yet appreciate the South’s near unique position as a sort of “banana republic", complete with a native comprador bourgeoisie, directly under the insurance policy of Uncle Sam’s sovereign whip. Not many of them fully recognize that the Southern greater working class’s revolutionary duty is, in part, a national liberation struggle capable of challenging Western Capital’s most powerful tool. Not many yet  fully realize that we, the people of the South, are a natural component of the vanguard of the Socialist Revolution- that we, an Atlantic Creole people and people of a Global South heritage both incorporated into the metropole of and under the sovereign whip of the American Empire, have a unique ability to challenge Capital’s legitimacy and reign.

Most of them do not yet understand the need for international democratic socialism to break out of the embryonic stage of movement building and begin to coalesce into serious and disciplined organizations, and most of them have yet to realize the general need for a coherent, independent, and unified Southern organization, within an international of revolutionary democratic socialist parties, capable of bringing the Southern greater working class to a class conscious revolutionary consensus and taking on Capital in the South. Most of them have yet to see that there must be formed a coherent movement organized into a party and attached labor union bloc for the emancipation of the Southern greater working class and the completion of the work of the World Revolution in the Southern context.

A party which recognizes the South’s position in the world, revolutionary potential, and World Revolutionary duty.

A party which recognizes that the South is a nation with a Global South heritage and, like the West Indian nations and the majority of “mainland" Latin American nations, and unlike America (a Greater/Neo-European nation with a foundational industrial “free labor" and peasant proprietor heritage), an Atlantic Creole nation. 

A party which recognizes the American state, Dixieland’s colonial sovereign, as Western Capital’s most powerful tool for the legitimization of its reign.

A party which recognizes the South’s struggle against Capital is a national liberation struggle. Which recognizes that the South is, at present, a colony of Western Capital at large. That recognizes our home provides a low wage, low tax, low and lax labor and ecological regulation, “right to work" environment for Western Capital- that understands our home, with its numerous sui generis attributes, is regarded and treated as perhaps the safest destination for the export of race to the bottom finance capital. That recognizes we must bring an end to this economic imperialism, this imperialism that economically ghettoizes us and uses our home as a weapon against the vestigial economic security, labor standards, and freedoms of the relatively empowered greater working classes of the world -which recognizes that the South, in its capacity as a race to the bottom destination, has been used as a weapon against the relatively empowered proletarians of the world, including those of Western Europe and America proper. A party which is not content with the South’s role as a sweatshop and the exploitation of the Southern greater working class as a tool for the depreciation of the value of the labor of other sections of the world’s greater working class, that seeks to break these toxic imperialist relations and build a post-imperialism world of global mutual aid and advancement towards economic parity.

A party which, along with opposing economic imperialism, rejects without ambiguity the alternative of national chauvinist autarkism.

A party which recognizes the need for especially close cooperation with other colonial peoples under the sovereignty of the American state- in the metropole, namely the American Indian nations under its sovereignty and the indigenous peoples of the states of Alaska and Hawaii (peoples, like us, with access to federal democratic levers), as well as the peoples of the island territories without access to such levers.

A party which recognizes the fact that the South and the other nations of Uncle Sam's empire aside from America proper are disproportionately represented in the military forces of the empire and serve as its backbone. A party which recognizes and unapologetically stands against the targeted recruitment of impoverished Southerners and impoverished members of the other colonial nations into the military of the American State and the disproportionate garrisoning of Southern, other colonial, and American proper troops in our home and the other colonial nations.

A party which appreciates the progressive roles the American state has played at different times in earlier epochs, including its emancipation of a third of the Southern people from chattel slavery, but recognizes its present role as a reactionary one.

A party which strongly and bluntly criticizes all of the historic Capitalist regimes over the South- the Antebellum Plantocracy, the brief era of Yankee bourgeois rule commonly referred to as “Reconstruction”, brought to a close by the Yankee bourgeoisie’s abandonment of partnership with heroic freedman’s radical liberal democracy in favor of alliance and joint rule with the old Antebellum Plantocracy, Young “Redeemers”, and Gradyites, the “New South" joint rule of the Neo-Plantocracy, Gradyite industrial compradors, and Gradyite-partnering Yankee capital, or the “Sunbelt" era of today, the general reign of Western Capital and its compradors beginning in the middle of the last century- from a Marxian historical materialist perspective.

A party which recognizes all members of the Southern greater working class, irrespective of race and gender, as victims of Capital and aggressively reveals to them their common class interest. A movement that shows how working class White Southerners and working class Black Southerners, the respective “Shudras" and “Dalits" of Southern society, alike have been economically oppressed and disadvantaged by the regime of White supremacy that has kept poor Black Southerners under the heel of the boot of the local appendage of Capital, of the local appendage of "the Man", and poor White Southerners under its toe, that has only privileged the White proletarian relative to his or her Black neighbor and has kept both from class consciousness, that has kept both from banding together for radical reforms and eventual revolutionary expropriation of their oppressors and concealed the identity of the grand oppressor and enemy of all greater working class Southerners.

A party which recognizes both the necessity of the unity of the global greater working class and the expression of non-reactionary Southern identity capable of inspiring the self-emancipation of the Southern greater working class and the contribution of the Southern greater working class to the World Revolution at large. A party that works to destroy the incorrect correlation of socialism with some sort of ethnic self-flagellation or surrender to “the other” and properly addresses the absence of a revolutionary Southern pride that serves as an impediment to the embracement of democratic socialism by, and continues the embrace of racially divisive reactionary Southern symbology and pride by, large sections of the Southern greater working class.

A party which stands for humanist environmentalalism, red environmentalism, as opposed to anti-human and green primitivist environmentalism. A movement which recognizes the South’s essential role in combatting the ecological crises facing humanity at large and a movement opposed to the imperialist ecological despoiling and destruction of the South and the imperialist decimation of the South’s natural spaces from a humanist, socialist patriotic, and internationalist position.

A party which unabashedly calls out the transformation of greater working class Southern communities and Southern natural landscapes into ritzy tourist traps and literal and figurative gated communities for the Carpetbagger bourgeoisie and the Southern comprador bourgeoisie for the travesty that it is. A party which recognizes this trend and the general plague of cultural genocide against greater working classes of Dixie and the commodification and ritzification of Dixielander folk culture as intricately related phenomena and components of the imperialist exploitation of our home.

A party which is not self-righteous or arrogant, which strives toward the building of thorough class consciousness and a concomitant destruction of reactionary ideology, but does not expect those who have spent their lifetimes under capitalist cultural hegemony to instantly become thoroughly class conscious. A party which seeks to win over the non-establishment forces of ultra-reaction, recognizing their search for a just alternative to neoliberal hegemony and neoliberal reductionist identity politics, while being fully opposed to the ideology and bigotry they have developed and has been inculcated in them.

A party which loudly acknowledges that greater working class rule can only be established and socialism can only be developed through supermajoritarian class conscious greater working class seizure of state power. A party which loudly denounces Blanquism, Tankieism, and so-called “anarchism”.

A party which recognizes that socialism can only be built with honesty and intellectual integrity, a party that is fully opposed to ideological dishonesty, positing of falsehoods, “sneaking, and Trotskyist entryism.

A party which admires large elements of the February and October Revolutions, but views Leninism and the Leninist experiments of the 20th Century as Blanquist projects that were doomed to develop into despotism and fail to build economic democracy and production for use economy.

A party which recognizes that while democratic socialism in the South is for the moment an almost exclusively Gen Y and Z phenomenon, it will need to win over members of older generations and not simply write them off.

A party which opposes both veneration of the reactionaries of history and general iconoclasm.

A party which supports the formation of party group learning and study institutions for the building of class consciousness and political, historical, and environmental literacy, such as socialist night schools and discussion circles.

A party which supports the formation of party institutions for recreational activity and the study and practice of greater working class Southern folk culture.

A party which recognizes the importance of the arts and the crucial role of the arts in the democratic socialist struggle.

A party which supports the formation of scholarly party institutions for the socialist and historical materialist study of Southern history, natural history, culture, contemporary environmental reality, and contemporary economy and politics.

A party which recognizes the need for establishing, printing, and distributing a popular party publication, as well as the printing and distributing of pamphlets and posters. That recognizes the power and place of physical media.

A party which recognizes it must be able to defend itself from violent harassment, but which also recognizes that socialist revolutionary action can only be carried out by supermajoritarian consensus of the masses, and opposes Blanquist and so-called “anarchist" violence, violent harassment of state and non-state opponents, and general pre-Revolutionary violent outburst.

A party which fights for radical reforms that can raise consciousness and sense of class agency, and values the radical reforms it wins, but never shifts its primary focus away from the maximalist program of ultimate realization of production for use economy and economic democracy.

A party which considers its affiliated labor union struggle to be, and carries its affiliated labor union struggle out as, a radical reform struggle.

A party which recognizes that, with the rapid growth of capacity for automation of labor, as well as the ramping up of ultra-authoritarian state activity and the growth in automation and artificial intelligence-driven ultra-authoritarian state capabilities, we are in a race against time. A party which recognizes that Capital is proceeding towards its end game- towards a consolidation of all power and wealth into its hands and towards a devaluation of the labor of the workers and reduction of their power to challenge those who have lorded over them to nothing. A party which recognizes the need to build a class conscious consensus by the end of the decade.

A party which recognizes that to save and keep our home free in the long run, the whole of humanity must be saved and kept free by the cooperation of the whole of humanity.

A party and attached labor union bloc for the emancipation of the Southern greater working class and the completion of the work of the World Revolution within the Southern context.

In all likelihood, the South will wind up as one of two things- the world’s greatest bulwark of reaction, or one of the principal components of the vanguard of the Socialist Revolution.

Our home, with its old demons, racial divisions, and poverty, could be used by Western Capital to contain and roll back the forces of socialism across the Western World. Social tensions could be inflamed to create scenes of racial and “cultural” warfare and undermine unity of the greater working class against Capital across the world. Anti-socialist anxiety could be employed and the Southern people, White and Black alike, used as anti-revolutionary auxillaries. The South could be used as a safe redoubt of popular support for American Empire and Capital. The South could be used as a showcase for the supposed irreconcilability of racial, ethnic, and other social antagonism.

But the Southern people have an opportunity to stand at the vanguard of the World Revolution. We have an opportunity to make our civilization one of the shining revolutionary lights leading humanity and eviscerating the miseries of the past and the present.

The tragedies of our history- tragedies of Capital’s making- do not doom us. We, as Southerners, can proudly set an example. We can play a role in emancipating and saving humankind and live one of the greatest stories in human history.

Destiny is calling upon us. We have something we must realize and something we must contribute. It is time we establish a program, movement, and party for a free and socialist Dixieland capable of carrying out its world revolutionary duty.

-Strom McCallum

Why “democratic socialism”?

Why not just “Marxism", “communism", or “socialism"? We democratic socialists, we, the forces of Marxist democracy, whatever we may label ourselves, are certainly all of these things. And not only must we not deny that we are these things- we must upfrontly and proudly own the simple fact that we are indeed the inheritors of the philosophy and cause of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

But we must also, in the most upfront and explicit way, identify our general revolutionary strategy and ethic. We must draw a clear line between ourselves and Leninism and the Leninist experiments, between ourselves and Bordigist “left communism", between ourselves and general Marxian Blanquism, and between ourselves and general support of non-supermajoritarian revolution. We must also draw a line between ourselves and left “anarchism".

We must, in direct opposition to invocation of Lenin, Mao, or Bordiga, Proudhon, Bakunin, or Kropotkin, invoke Bebel, Martov, or Debs, invoke the revolutionary Marxist social democracy of yore. We make explicit our conviction that the rule of the greater working class and the realization of socialism/communism- itself classless, superdemocratic production for use economy- must be brought about by supermajoritarian class conscious mandate of the people- and, contrary to the claims of left “anarchists", necessarily entails supermajoritarian conquest of the capitalist state and expropriation of the existing means of production.

If we are describing the classless, economically democratic, production for use society we envision as “democratic socialism”, we are indeed throwing around pleonasm, indeed dealing in redundancy. If we are using “democratic socialism” as a name for a body of thought and movement that posits socialism can only be realized by a class conscious revolutionary consensus of the masses, by democratic means, by a mandate of the people, and such a mandate’s capture of the state, we are not. As we know, socialism, socialist society, is necessarily more democratic than anything which has proceeded it. But we must do everything we can to advertise and emphasize our commitment to building democratic production for use economy by democratic means, by a road of supermajoritarianism and ever increasing democracy, with class conscious mandate of the people.

And in doing so, so long as we are forthright about our differences with them, we are not failing to distinguish ourselves from the faux “democratic socialists”, the welfare capitalists who have appropriated democratic socialism’s name, either. Nor are we playing the game of pacifist “reformism". Let us wrest democratic socialism’s name from the welfare capitalists and that have commandeered it. To do so would not be to sink into cowardice or play a game of “entryism". To do this would be to challenge their misappropriation of democratic socialism’s name and make a stand against welfare capitalism, address popular misconceptions about and accurately define socialism, and explicitly state our revolutionary strategy and ethics.

Let us wear raise this name for our movement up with our red banner. Let us be, as well as self-professed Marxists, communists, and socialists, democratic socialists.

-Strom McCallum

The cause of democratic socialism, the cause we have inherited from our forefathers Marx and Engels, is hindered by the widespread popular conception of it as one of indiscriminate iconoclasm and transgression. We democratic socialists must take care to accurately represent democratic socialism as a constructive ideology, as a constructive revolutionary ideology that recognizes, respects, and admires the very much imperfect but progressive and emancipatory elements of human history that serve as our foundation. As one that, acknowledging this foundation we stand upon, strives to realize a new mode of production and stage in human history, to realize a post-production for exchange world of mutual aid and the reign of a meaningful and thorough democracy (and through doing so emancipate the billions presently under the lash of Capital and safeguard the planet for their progeny), not one of, among other things, simply screaming, raving and tearing things down, one of simple destruction, denigration, and defacement for destruction, denigration, and defacement’s sake.

We must point out that democratic socialism, while a non-conservative, and indeed, revolutionary and futurist ideology, only seeks to denounce and remove from places of veneration that not of the progressive and emancipatory sort, and destroy those things which stand directly in the way of the realization of socialism. That it is, again, an ideology focused on building through majoritarian means a new, majoritarian, production for use economic regime, a new democratic mode of production, on, through majoritarian means, emancipating humanity, not simply one that seeks to denigrate and destroy all which is simply “old” or “normal”. That it is, again, an ideology that respects and admires the progressive forces that brought us to the point where we now stand, that calls for a world unlike any yet realized, but appreciates the fact that we stand on the shoulders of giants, those that have brought us to a place further than square one, that recognizes their lives and efforts were necessary to bring us to this point.

As part of this effort, we must explicitly contrast democratic socialism with contemporary radical liberalsm and anarchism that generally fetishizes iconoclasm, that advocates destruction of all that exists for its own sake. We must contrast the Marxian materialist approach to history with, and loudly oppose, reactionary, right and "left" “relativist”, and left idealist views of the past, as well as the general program and end goals of the various strains of radical liberalism and anarchism. We must make known our admiration for men and women of history who can be deemed progressive forces of history, who helped nudge the world closer to the realization of socialism, from bourgeois radical liberals of the Eighteenth Century to the Hinton Helpers, Harriet Tubmans, and Abraham Lincolns and the Robert Owens, Ferdinand Lassalles, and Vera Zasuliches of the Nineteenth, and so on.

And, as part of this effort, we must not accomodate simple raw destructive impulse, lest we scare off those rightfully opposed to indiscriminate destruction and simple chaos, and lest we cultivate attitudes of opposition to whatever the prevailing order of the day is- attitudes that may be employed by Reaction against the forces of socialism one day. We must not accomodate the sort of attitudes helped fuel both the meteoric rise of the alt-right (with its playfully outlandish Neo-Fascist and Neo-Nazi affronts to many of the “sacred cows” of post-war Western society, typically fueled by desire to simply hurt and transgress as much as by genuine bigotry) several years ago and the raw, hysteric iconoclasm of 2020- the “transgression and spewing of bile for its own sake” attitude of so many disaffected members of Generations Y and Z. It is not as if we should not strive to the uttermost to win over the disaffected and left behind that turn to iconoclasm and raw transgression for emotional release- we definitely should- but these attitudes of rage must be transformed into constructive, class conscious ones towards the tearing down of the Dictatorship of Capital AND building a better world, not simply opposing that which reigns or prevails or has reigned or prevailed simply because it reigns or prevails or has reigned or prevailed, or all which comes to reign or prevail simply because it comes to reign or prevail. We must not simply accomodate such pathology or consider those still under its spell democratic socialists, consider them members of our movement’s ranks, just as we must not simply accomodate reactionary and bigoted social pathology or consider those still under its spell democratic socialists, consider them members of our movement’s ranks.We must educate people and help simple rage develop into Marxian historical materialist understanding and class consciousness.

I am not suggesting we not be vociferous in our opposition to Capital or "love our enemies", be timorous, reticent, or diffident. I am not suggesting we refrain from aggressively campaigning for the removal of reactionary idols from places of veneration or exposing the rogues of history for who they are. But I am saying that in developing opposition to Capital, we must honestly represent democratic socialism and vocally stand against simple opposition to and hatred of all which prevails or has prevailed simply because it has prevailed. We must develop and apply historical materialist analysis and strive to establish a better world, not simply tear down what stands or reigns today simply because it stands or reigns, or, indeed, tear down what stands or reigns tomorrow simply because it reigns then. We must show that democratic socialism is neither an ideology that makes apologies for or calls for the veneration of the reactionaries of history, nor a gerontophobic ideology that hates all that has been simply because it has been. We do not want to establish chaos,we do not wish to bring about simple tumult and disorder.

Democratic socialism must be popularly understood for what it is- an ideology for the emancipation of all under Capital’s whip and a rational, scientific ideology adamantly but cool-headedly seeking to build something better for humanity, rather than one that is simply destructive, rather than one that simply wishes to immolate all which has preceded today. It must show it is meant for all victims of Capital for the whole of the greater working class. It must show it is an ideology of emancipation and redemption for all, not self-righteousness, sanctimony, and non-constructive rage.

-Strom McCallum

Regardless of the fact that some individuals belonging to them may be lovely people off the clock and in their personal lives and/or may carry out the occasional genuine act of self-sanctioned and emotionally-driven heroism, and regardless of the fact that some individuals belonging to them have some misgivings about carrying out certain duties assigned to them and/or misgivings about “police culture” in general, police forces of capitalist governments, are not incidentally or independently foul/oppressive entities capable of being transformed into forces of relative good.  They are intrinsically, among other things, forward pickets and terrorist contingents of Capital’s army. The slogan “ACAB”, in that it does not offer opportunity for resignation, defection, mutiny against the state during the Socialist Revolution, and redemption, may be a bit much, but the statement “all cops as cops are oppressors” most certainly isn’t. Even what is held by most to be the “good” work of capitalist law enforcement agencies, what is deemed by the majority of people to be a simple prevention of theft, protection of property from vandalism and trespassing, and prevention of civil and personal violence, is truly an effort to protect Capital inspire and reinforce in the masses false notions about the nature of the state and protect capitalist economic activity, is principally protection of productive and non-productive property of Capital and the exploitative petty bourgeoisie and an effort to make workers feel life is stable and safe enough for the carrying out of regular economic activity (that is, regular economic activity for Capital). Any good that results from their efforts is pitifully insufficient and a mere concomitant of their intended result. And given that institutions designed to oppress the bulk of the population are necessary components of capitalist states, the grand tools of class oppression, police forces or institutions of civil oppression analogous to them will always exist in capitalist societies. Whatever name they have gone or will go by, as long as capitalist states exist, they are bound to exist. We true democratic socialists, we inheritors of the cause of Marx and Engels, know all of this.

Intra and extra-societal racisms and bigotries of all sorts are everywhere stoked and reinforced by Capital to keep the various sections of the global working class pitted against one another. As long as Capital holds any reins of power, it will employ “divide and conquer” tactics against those rules over. The oppression, demonization, and scapegoating of the Black workers of our societies is an effort to oppress both White workers and the scapegoated Black workers themselves- the bloc of Capital that controls the states of the Western World and their divisions, partly through the actions and policies of the law enforcement agencies and “justice systems” of these states and their divisions, and in its greater effort to preserve their status as obedient reserve mobs and paramilitaries for Capital, prevent them from recognizing that non-White workers face the problems they face themselves and are victimized by their own victimizer, and keep them from meaningfully agitating for the amelioration of even their own economic and social misery, instills bigoted and sanctimonious attitudes towards Black workers in huge sections of White workers. This White hostility in turn produces, and is accompanied by a direct companion campaign on the part of Capital to produce, a general attitude of resentment in a great many Black workers of our societies (together with most other groups of non-White workers of our societies the figurative dalits of Western societies) towards the relatively, but by no means absolutely, privileged White workers (by far the largest group of figurative shudras of Western societies) who reside next to them under the boot of Capital. This hostility serves to keep Black workers from recognizing that White workers are victimized by a common grand victimizer and face a great many of the same problems faced by themselves, and serves to keep Black workers, like the White workers (albeit to a lesser extent, given their consciousness of their relative poverty), from meaningfully agitating for amelioration of even their own economic misery. And as long as Capital remains in control, it will try to sow racial discord. All of this is obvious to any true democratic socialist.

We democratic socialists sympathize with the rank and file of those raging in the streets across the Western World. What we are witnessing is indeed mass rage against what we know to be a deliberately racist and racially-divisive capitalist institution, an arm of the dictatorship of the capitalists. The killing of George Floyd by a sadistic hireling of Capital pushed the justified general zeitgesit of anger, created by another recent crime of Capital (even if it, like the killing of George Floyd, may not be widely understood as such), the disgusting mishandling of SARS-CoV2/COVID-19 crisis, over the top in both Black populations and a great many sections of White populations. Tens of millions upon tens of millions of people are righteously furious.

But we democratic socialists must not, as some previously in our ranks have, be dishonest with ourselves or be outright led away from true Marxism and democratic socialism and into Montagnardism, Blanquism, Leninism, Stirnerism, Proudhonism, Bakuninism, Narodnaya Volyaism, and fetishization of spontaneity. We must not be carried away by wishful thinking, raw feelings, opportunism, or adventurism and deviate from the only path that leads to socialism. We must understand that while it is indeed demonstration of the recent cracking of the prevailing cultural hegemony and development of a most embryonic form of class consciousness in tens of millions upon tens of millions over the past several months, almost none of this movement, this overwhelmingly spontaneous action, is informed by mature class consciousness and none of what it is carrying out is truly socialist revolutionary action. It is not capable of in the areas it is prevalent of overthrowing Capital and the capitalist state, realizing and successfully defending from armed reaction government by the working classes towards the realization of socialism, and starting the Socialist Revolution. It is not anywhere close to class conscious enough in its thinking, nor in possession of enough firepower, nor anywhere close to broad enough to be such a movement- it must be understood that it is not in alliance with class conscious working classes of the non-Western World (indeed, such working classes do not yet exist in the non-Western World any more than they do in the Western World, either in those areas under the whip of the non-Western imperialist blocs of Capital or those areas under the whip Western imperialist blocs of Capital- imperialist blocs of Capital that, in today’s world, could exploit a power vacuum in Western societies caused by socialist revolutionary action if they were not meaningfully challenged by the populaces under their whip while such action was underway in the Western World) and is opposed by massive numbers of heavily-armed presently socially reactionary civilian workers and military personnel (as we know, themselves exploited workers, and while oppressors in the employ of capital, generally more sympathetic with the general public, and less conscious of their “bully” status and much less involved in daily “hands on” oppression of their own societies than those individuals belonging to law enforcement agencies) in the Western World who must be emancipated from their bigotries and developed into socialist revolutionaries, as well.

We are still years of aggressive educational effort, organization, and agitation away from a well-informed and firm socialist revolutionary consensus of all sections of the working classes, from a socialist revolutionary situation, from capacity to overthrow the present regime and realize dictatorship of the working classes. So-called “revolutionary action” in liberal democratic capitalist societies not carried out by a firm class conscious consensus of all sections of the working classes and not guided by efficient organization is in many cases heroic in nature, but it is not socialist revolutionary action.

Yes, the people were furious and a great many of them are now more furious (and, yes- unfortunately, in some cases in reaction to this movement), but they have not yet fully linked the problems at play here and they do not yet understand the structures of power that oppress them. Again, we must see this for what it is- crowds of justified, but insufficiently class conscious and poorly-organized rage. It is partly led by Montagnardist, Blanquist, Leninist, Stirnerist, Proudhonist, Bakuninist, Narodnaya Volyaist adventurists and opportunists who may masquerade as fellow inheritors of the cause of Marx and Engels, as true democratic socialists and some who indeed were genuine Marxists and democratic socialists and have recently fallen into the quagmire of opportunism and adventurism, of Montagnardism, Blanquism, Leninism, Stirnerism, Proudhonism, Bakuninism, and Narodnaya Volyaism. Again, its leadership is not democratic socialist, nor is its rank and file. It is certainly not a democratic socialist, not a Marxist, consensus of all sections of the working classes. Veneration of the present action as socialist revolutionary action on the part of the politically read, including fellow self-described Marxists and democratic socialists, is either dishonesty with ourselves and wishful thinking or genuine descent into opportunism, adventurism, or fetishization of the spontaneous. We know non-supermajoritarianism and spontaneous action in general cannot deliver victory. Belief to the contrary, belief that spontaneity and anything less than widespread, fully class conscious supermajoritarianism can directly begin to deliver the end of the dictatorship of the capitalists and set humankind on the path to socialism is Blanquist, anti-Marxian, and functionally counter-revolutionary.

The predominant conception of the state both in the movement in the streets and outside it is a primitive one that holds it to be independent of Capital- there is occasionally in the minds of many workers belonging to and outside the movement be a vague notion of “the powerful” or “the Man”, but there is little more than that. Most belonging to the movement in question do indeed think that police forces in the employ of the states we live under, through being rebranded, subjected to some “reform” legislation, deprived duties related to simple “mental health” incidents, and forced to recruit more members of the communities they most viciously oppress into their ranks, can be transformed into relative forces for good. Many among the crowds in the streets cheer on the bourgeois politicians and pundits joining the crowds and speaking to them.  Many among them even seem to be halfway pacified by Capital’s efforts to lead the movement down a road of simple general iconoclasm and destruction of stone idols themselves, rather than one that leads towards the destruction of the economic system that put the stone idols up.

And there is nothing like a developed strong democratic socialist internationalist spirit among most of the workers, especially those relatively cold towards and loudly condemning the protests, riots, and occupations. Massive heavily armed sections of the working classes on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, under the whip of the Canadian state, and even in pockets of Europe can be fed racial and ethnic chauvinist red meat and called out to act as divide and conquer paramilitary for Capital and deflect blame for extreme crowd control methods from the state, and the simple truth is that the most socially reactionary civilian citizenry, to say nothing of the political sympathies of those in the law enforcement agencies and militaries, is at the present better-armed in these places than that belonging to this movement is. The old bigotries must suffer severe blows from revelation of the true self-interest of the sections of the working classes they hold sway over before and development of feelings of camaraderie between all sections of the working classes before the Socialist Revolution can take place. The ugly fact is presently non-seditious capitalist militaries, presently non-seditious capitalist law enforcement agencies, and their reactionary auxillaries in waiting at the moment have most of the weapons.

Once again, this all is indeed a manifestation of rage against the oppressors, proof of the development of an embryonic form of class consciousness, and a tremendous opportunity for education, but it is not itself the Socialist Revolution. Once again, this rage manifesting itself in these protests and riots needs to be constructively channeled and, with effort, developed into true democratic socialist revolutionary sentiment. Once again, the anger of the well-armed reactionaries opposing it needs to be destroyed with educational effort and revelation of true self-interest and turned from sentiment that will keep the working classes tied up with infighting into true democratic socialist revolutionary sentiment. Once again, we democratic socialists know only a combined class conscious will of all sections of the working classes, consisting of, among others, both those tens of millions presently belonging to this movement and those tens of millions presently opposed to it alike, can carry out the Socialist Revolution, can abolish the capitalist state, establish the dictatorship of the working classes, and implement a state agenda for the realization of mature socialism, a mode of production under which almost all residual chauvinisms that have survived the initial realization of a socialist revolutionary consensus of the masses in a weakened form are incinerated by the emancipatory light of internationalist economic democracy and global economic cooperation and planning.

Yes- The transition to rule by the working classes, and from thenceforth to the establishment of socialism, would be bloody and partly consist of widespread and severe civil unrest. We democratic socialists, we students of Marx and Engels and inheritors of their cause, do not make a fetish out of simple nonviolence. We know that any mature consensus for the realization of economic democracy demonstrated by even the most lopsided votes would violently clash with the capitalist states and other forces of Capital- any democratic mandate for the establishment of a true government of the working classes and the expropriation of Capital would be reacted against violently. We democratic socialists must work to build such a movement of all sections of the working classes of the world capable of passing such a mandate and defending it with force. But it would take much arduous effort and time to build such a movement. It would take the formation of political parties capable of educating and meaningfully agitating on every front, becoming major components of pre-revolutionary social life and pre-revolutionary mutual aid, and contesting and winning elections. It would take an arming of the whole revolutionary citizenry. It would, once again, take the dealing of severe blows, by revelation of and appeal to real self-interest, of chauvinist attitudes that keep the revolutionary potential of huge sections of the working classes of the world from blossoming into full class consciousness and feelings of universal working class camaraderie. It would take he building of seditious mindsets in the military reactionaries presently in control of most of the weapons- it would take years of former servicemen won over to the cause of socialism hampering the recruitment efforts and propagandizing the ranks of the militaries around the world, revealing the true purposes of the militaries to their active and reserve ranks, and developing potential for widespread mutiny in response to orders to carry out imperialist war and defy the democratic will of citizens. It would take hampering of the the recruitment efforts of law enforcement and encouraging the defection of those members of police officers with a conscience and providing a sense of security to those willing to whistle blow and inform for the forces of socialism.

And across the Western World, that all would amount to, among other things, a radical shift in the thinking of presently reactionary White workers precipitated by educational effort on the part of us democratic socialists- to, among other things, the development of class conscious feelings of camaraderie between presently reactionary White workers and other workers and the bringing of presently reactionary White workers to the realization that they can redeem themselves, be self-confident,  and proudly play an honorable role in history. The Socialist Revolution would certainly not be delivered by accommodation of presently-existing White bigotry and a tempering or belittling of Black and general non-White outrage against racial injustice, but it would also certainly not be delivered by a general assumption that White workers are doomed to descend into general intra-proletarian violent reaction, and/or exclusion of White workers, and/or denial of the fact that they as a group can become a force for good, and/or general sanctimonious garbage and endless White self-flagellation. It would be delivered by socialist radicalization of both the presently genuinely bigoted among the White workers, those workers they presently have bigoted feelings towards, and all other sections of the working classes of the world, and the coalescing of these groups into a movement for the emancipation of mankind.

The Socialist Revolution could begin less than a decade from today! But, again, we have much work to do.

-Strom McCallum

"Darling" has been released! Stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon Music, Deezer, and all other streaming outlets! At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’ll describe my sound as the first thorough mixture of Country and 60's Psychedelic/Baroque Pop.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6EfaO3OEn5Bmc3zdnhOucY?si=NE787XyQRLSnGPP5xhsCjA

"Baby Belle" has been released! Stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon Music, Deezer, and all other streaming outlets! At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’ll describe my sound as the first thorough mixture of Country and 60's Psychedelic/Baroque Pop.

Also- credits!

Baby Belle 3:56 (Strom McCallum) Strom McCallum Music (BMI)

Strom McCallum- Lead and background vocals, lead and rhythm electric guitar, acoustic twelve string guitar

Mel Washington- Rhythm acoustic guitar, mellotron, synths, theremin, and percussion Bryan Daste- Pedal steel guitar, banjo, and double bass Aaron Firetag- Mandolin Jim Graddick- Fiddle

Whit Wright- Dobro

Produced by Strom McCallum and Mel Washington

Mixed by Bryan Daste

Mastered by Vlado Meller 

Recorded at Truphonic Recording in Charleston, South Carolina by engineer Elliott Elsey

Cover design by Strom McCallum

Cover graphic artwork by Michael Geiger  Cover Southern Magnolia flower illustration by Rachel Sullivan 

Strom McCallum Music (#S-001)