Here are this weeks five uploaded images and graphics to inspire the movement. Look back here every Friday for more updates.
To view all pics/images/graphics you may have missed in the past, follow the below link to the full collection over at Google Photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TUomKrYbsYCMEWC59
A far-left system is the best form of government for the working class to live under. So what we need to do is smash the current, so-called Democratic system we have now that is controlled by the 1%. What to replace it with?
Put a transition government in power: A group or party to move us through the steps of building a new, just society. We must support responsible leaders to take us through the ideological battle with those who will want to keep the old capitalist system in place, namely, the rich and powerful.
But during this time, we may sacrifice some of our freedoms for a short amount of time during the conflict between the rich the workers. Freedom of the press, free speech, freedom to demonstrate maybe stopped for a certain amount of time because we need to crackdown on these current so-called rights because they are controlled by the rich and their dominant ideas which wish to maintain the current, corrupt system. For example, freedom to demonstrate, like a general strike, which means everyone in every occupation goes on strike, will be fought against by the rich by replacing striking workers with scabs, i.e., people who will take the striking workers’ jobs. And believe me, demonstrations will be met with violence from the authorities.
Yet, we must watch the transition leadership very closely.
The USSR tried this idea out, with calling the transition government the “vanguard party” and it led to history’s greatest monster, Josef Stalin, coming into power. Stalin came to power under the force of the newly suppressed rights and became a dictator who committed such crimes that are too many to list here.
So, take this warning seriously. The government of and for the people can be high-jacked if we do not make leaders accountable.
What the people of the working class need to do is smash the current corrupt system controlled by the rich and powerful and replace it with responsible leaders who can lead us through the war of ideas, and probably against violent suppression. And this will mean a crackdown on some of our most cherished freedoms, but they will be returned in time once the rich and powerful have their control over us destroyed. Yet we must keep our eyes on this transition party because a rising leader or group could use the loss of these freedoms to create a dictatorship.
This is what we need.
As I have stated in the subtitle and the About section of this website, Sparking The Left comes from a radical leftist point of view. And I do not use the term “radical” as a negative designation but as a realistic description of our current situation for the current system needs radical change.
The forms that make up a radical or far left system of government here at STL are socialism, communism, anarchism, and all their subsets.
Do not close this tab after reading that!
I know what people think of when hearing of far-left systems: Stalin, gulags, purges, mass starvation. But those are the result of authoritarianism rather than of a radical leftist government. A true form of socialism, much less communism or anarchism, has not been practiced in history. And what a true form of a radical leftist system is about is putting power in the hands of the workers.
Workers should own the companies they work for because they are the ones who are doing the labor. Right now, major stock holders on Wall Street own and control our factories and corporations but do nothing but sit and collect profits while we get crumbs. They don’t unload trucks, sort freight, work a cash register, fill orders, or what-have-you, for often at more than 40 hours a week. The fruits of our labor have been torn away from the rightful owners; that is us, the workers.
If a far-left system were to be won, the new government would take power over, or socialize, the factories and corporations in the name of the people. And when the time is reached, they will be democratized for and by the workers. But I know what you are thinking right now. You’re saying, “How can a corrupt system like ours ever turn over the power to the workers?” The answer is we smash the current approach; the so-called democratic system. It must go.
Now which form of a far-left government we construct in its place is up for debate, and, in all honesty, I’m not sure which exactly one should be. But what I do know is right now socialism is the best form of government possible. In general, I believe the best practice for creating our new society is that we must take the best ideas from socialism, communism, anarchism, and, yes, our current capitalist-state to create a new, truly democratic government. And we must leave behind the Gulags, purges, and mass starvation.
In conclusion, the view of this blog comes from the radical leftist point of view. I take the best ideas of the four forms of government outlined above to build a fairer system for the working class. And although it sounds extreme, our current so-called democratic system must be smashed.
The official stance of Sparking The Left is that voting in so-called democratic elections is useless. It is taking part in a corrupt system.
This opinion is based upon the fact that I would never waste my vote for either of the two dominating political parties out of respect for my own personal dignity.
You probably miss it in the media because it is so common that the media does not report it: Candidates host fundraisers at places like Goldman Sachs and/or JP Morgan Chase all of the time for campaign contributions. They also raise money from special lobbying groups, too, like the pharmaceutical industry and automaker groups. This is every presidential candidate, every leader in Congress, and both the Democratic and Republican party in whole. It’s just the nature of the corrupt beast. They get ridiculous amounts of cash from Wall St so they remain too big to fail. Pharmaceutical prices remain sky high. The auto industry makes cars in the cheapest way by doing the bare minimum to keep cars safe and reduce the amount of pollution they omit. And deregulation is at the center of it all.
Wall St. and special interest groups are not concerned with the well-being of the country. Don’t get that wrong. They are capitalists. They are insuring their financial and/or cultural interests. This is a way of keeping the working class under control. You may think that you are first in the minds of our leaders, but you’re not. This system puts in politicians who are funded and lobbied by individuals and business groups so as to keep their interests first and foremost.
And remember this: One party doesn’t care about the poor; the other party pretends to care about the poor. Don’t think candidates of either party has not sold their soul to Wall St. They hold huge debts to big business and use it as a trade-off: they rule in the interest of those donating large campaign fund amounts.
Therefore, the official stance of STL is to abstain from voting.
If you consider voting a good vehicle for change, go ahead. I’m not here to force my opinion on you. But STL believes in protests, occupations, direct action, mass actions, strikes, and general strikes. The effectiveness of street politics through solidarity is more powerful than participating in our voting system when such a radical change is needed. Voting is just crumbs thrown to us by the rich and powerful to keep us calm and obedient so we don’t threaten the real decision holders: the elite rich.
Five new images for the peoples’ cause!
You can also find the entire collection, past and present, at the link below:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TUomKrYbsYCMEWC59
This is the weekly post for five new images of radical leftist propaganda.
And follow the link to see the complete collection over at Google photos.
According to a NYT op-ed by Peter Navarro, an assistant to the president and the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, published March 19th, 2019, argues that hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on the American military is justified for two reasons:
As to the first point, America spent $610 billion dollars on defense in 2017, the largest amount of any nation. How much did the second-most on the list spend? $228 billion in China. What does that reason? It shows that America has no adversary abroad who could contend with our hegemony. It is beyond any argument that we need to spend this much when we already have a military so advanced. Some have even argued that since America has such an advanced nuclear arsenal it serves enough as a deterrent against others’ aggression, alone. Who needs tanks in a nuclear conflict?
As to point number two, the bloated defense budget is keeping some jobs here in the United States alive. But what we must focus on is the profits being made by companies making military equipment and providing defense services. It is well known that no-bid contracts are awarded more than often to companies by the government by the Dept. of Defense. But also, the heads of these companies are often former government officials who make the decisions about how that $610 billion dollars is spent. For example, V.P. Cheney first worked in the Department of Defense under Pres. Reagan then, once the regime had changed, Cheney went to sit on the board at Halliburton. When Cheney was picked by George W. Bush to be his V.P., and they conducted the invasion of Iraq, Halliburton received many no-bid contracts from the government for various services. Positions of government officials in the defense dept. have a revolving door between their time as so-called “servants of the people” and a private company’s board of directors.
The horrible crime is that even a small amount of $610 billion would be better spent elsewhere. We could rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, solve the housing crisis, fight the opioid epidemic, or even relocate and retrain the former manufacturing employees once their plants closedown. Just a thought…
Venezuela is in deep economic trouble and has a resulting humanitarian crisis on their hands. According to mainstream media reports (even though some contrary anecdotal evidence has been offered up by some far left sources that I am skeptical of; 3 million people not leave their homes for another country for no reason) relay stories of starvation, water shortages, and blackouts. And a ten million-percent inflation on the way by 2020, things look dire for the Latin American country.
What does the West want out of this situation with their sanctions? They want regime change to an oligarchy that get loans from the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and ascending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) allowing Western influences upon the affairs of Venezuelan black crude.
But first things first, the American government is trying through sanctions to force out Pres. Nicolas Maduro, a Chavista socialist with the interests of the poor at the fore and replacing him with self-declared interim president Juan Guaido. America wants Guaido to come in and overthrow the peoples’ leader Maduro with an oligarchy that would kowtow to anything Washington orders. American leaders are the puppet masters behind the International sanctions against Venezuela causing most of the peoples pain. This is the reason for the resulting humanitarian crisis in the Bolivarian Republic.
In the interest of credibility here though let me state that these sanctions alone have not created the current economic situation in Venezuela entirely. Previous leader Hugo Chavez spent the money of the Venezuelan people on the poor quite loosely. New schools, new health clinics, new services everywhere were created. But that was all before the price of oil fell precipitously. Oil is the main export of the country and there were no funds saved by Chavez for a “rainy day.” This caused a large deal of the collapse. But the sanctions have further exacerbated all the problems when they were implemented before Chavez’s death and Maduro’s ascension. They have just now been tightened like a vice on the people in the South American nation to an extreme extent.
Venezuela needs a multi-billion-dollar investment to get back on its feet. The U.S. aid trucks sitting in Colombia are nothing but show pieces for Guaido because it would take thousands upon thousands of trucks to make a dent in the Venezuelan crisis. The only real, if I can use that word, solution to the crisis would be loans from the WB, the IMF, and entrance into the WTO. But let me tell you how this will work against the poor of Venezuela.
These financial organizations will demand in return for their loans the smashing of unions and the implementation of neo-liberal and globalist policies. They will only develop oil as the source of revenue Venezuela and will not allow the nation to create a self-sustaining economy. Globalizing small, poor countries with WB/IMF loans produces single exports to sale on the world market, e.g., if Venezuela’s people want to produce rice for the people themselves, the WB/IMF will not allow them saying they could import in from other poor WTO countries, like in Indochina WTO members who are a singular product economy also. And what happens in most cases is that member countries take loans from the WB/IMF, they cannot pay them back. So what happens? They take out further loans and these crooked institutions make further demands upon the member/leant against countries, like further privatizing sectors of industries, and undermining further progressive initiatives. And this repeats. Therefore Maduro insists there is no crisis in his country. He knows that the admitting of this situation would put too much pressure on the people to fool them into letting in these neo-liberal institutions into the country. That is what is at heart of the Venezuelan crisis.
Oh, and on another note, millions upon millions of Venezuela dollars are frozen here in American financial institutions as part of the sanctions. The Trump administration has stated that they will be released if Guaido’s coup succeeds. Now who cares about the suffering masses now?
I have removed the image gallery widget on the right-hand menu because it was going to be taking up too much space. Therefore, I have started using Google Photos to create a gallery.
All of the previously posted images are included in the gallery and I’ll be adding five new images every week. Follow the link below:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gJxFpfNx64P41f1t6
Glenn Greenwald echoing his story at The Intercept on DemocracyNow! that the protesters that, as the NYT reported as well, set the now-infamous fires of aid trucks in Colombia were anti-Maduro. It was not Maduro’s troops.
This makes Rubio, Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, and their neo-con cronies, look as crooked as they are.
www.democracynow.org/2019/3/11/greenwald_white_house_spread_false_story
Sparking The Left 