On Mar 8, 2013, at 12:59 PM, Julio Huato wrote:
> Mark's initiative is worth reflecting on and discussing:
>
> http://portside.org/print/2013-03-06/whither-socialist-left-thinking-%E2%80%9Cunthinkable%E2%80%9D
What Mark completely fails to understand is how profoundly discredited the word "socialism" has been by the self-proclaimed Socialists and Communists. They mainly claimed that the tyrannical state-capitalist regimes of Stalin, Mao, and their epigonoi represented Socialism, Really Existing Socialism. They now mourn the "failures" of their beloved "socialist experiments" and so reinforce the fatal association of socialism with capitalist totalitarianism of the Stalinist variety. Most of the rest portrayed Socialism as their own version of capitalism, in which Socialists just happened to enjoy highly paid, corruption-prone, positions in government and economic administration. The popular movements are learning to avoid the linguistic trap. SYRIZA and Cinque Stelle had the sense not to proclaim their programs as Socialism but as populist responses to the people's pressing needs. And the capitalist press, unanimously, makes "populist" the worst insult they can manage. The left must see itself as populist, or it will see itself die.
Shane Mage
This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
kindling in measures and going out in measures.
Herakleitos of Ephesos