The Empty Phrases of The Democrats

Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.

--Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, London, March 1850

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The Reactionary Mask

Reactionary politics the world over is hardly known for its robust intellectual foundation. Whether Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, the core of this politics is built upon “the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back,” as Corey Robin has noted. This is not to suggest that reactionaries are thoughtless. Rather that many of their justifications are contrived because they are driven simply by the desire to strike back at the “the emancipation of the lower orders.” For example, Edmond Burke’s objection to the French Revolution has less to do with its gratuitous violence and more to do with the overhaul of established deference and command. Indeed, conservatism claims that unequal relationships need to be preserved, as they are necessary for the advancement of civilization. Burke plays up the violence to create an affective charge in service of that agenda. Which brings us to David Bullard. Bullard is a minor figure in the small world of the South A...

"It was a thousand times better to act alone than in bad company."

Derrida Playing Cricket.

I will never be the better theorist, but I can rest assured that I am the better batsman.

Marxist Apologetics

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