multiple actions that don’t cause a huge ruckus are the backbone of the change and in fact the important part

Can you give examples of this?

Organizing, coordinating, building social structures and cohesive support systems. spreading information and creating conciousness.

Reversing your points on elections:

Even when “left” parties do get elected they always succumb to the coercive forces of the capitalist class and never have any opportunity to impact any change.

True. Still not reaching real change does not mean complete still stand. And even still stand is better than getting worse. Gay and trans rights throughout the west world have depended on left wing parties. Women’s reproduction right, the same. In the obvious Trump case, nearly everybody is worse off from him being there. This is a comparative improvement.

First of all they haven’t and they likely never will be considering the ruling capitalist class has complete control over the press.

And now we arrive to where most conversation with meconverge: the biggest problem right now in the world bar none is information. Information shapes our reality and we simply cannot make good choices without good information and we definitely can’t agree if our input differs wildly. This is also why I am immensely frustrated with everyone and everything, since nobody is addressing it or acting against it (maybe they are and I am just not informed). Attached to it is the fact that the onus on being well informed is always put on the individual, while knowing how humans work it has to lie on the system to be effective. That’s actually the reason why in this discussion I put the bar on revolutionary action to what breaks the information barrier.

We are pretty much in agreement, most of the point has been about the viewpoint we are choosing for the words. I am trying to look at it as an outsider who freezes the action today. In that situation, I would be strict in what is considered revolutionary by looking at which actions have led to noticeable response by a changing system. If you look at it from the people leading the change, multiple actions that don’t cause a huge ruckus are the backbone of the change and in fact the important part. A limited analogy is what appears in the elementary history books versus master’s degree analysis.

And while voting doesn’t produce the revolutionary changes, everybody except affluent white people is in a worse situation than they would be if “the most left wing of the large parties” had governed with consistency in any western country, so it does do something and it shouldn’t be discouraged but used as the least important tool for change, but a tool nonetheless. Also, elections are by far the best situation for the spreading of political ideas under neutral conditions and the information strategy is abysmal, so much more thought should be given about using elections instead of disparaging them.

The expected delayed effect of austerity politics that were so successfully exported throughout the European Union with great efficiency and cruelty.

Throughout history, magnicides by individuals have happened. The US alone has had a couple with some extra tries. On the other hand magnicides leading to a regime change are less common, but Trujillo’s assasination is one example, even with the failed follow through.

In that case the whole discussion from the beginning is semantic, so that’s all what the discussion has been about.

Again, revolutionary within the scope of health care in the US. There is more than one kind of revolution possible. And if you don’t think that a system that’s causing the death of thousand of people and uncountable amount of pain due to lack of care improves the lives of workers then that’s a different discussion.

For the greater movement no. If a second CEO had been murdered, do you think that there would have been no changes at all in any sense?

“That’s practical work, and is necessary” 100% agree. Now let’s say a natural disaster wipes one of the organizations out. Would any of their current actions have moved the revolutionary movement further? Or would it have disappeared along with the group? If their actions have moved the revolutionary work movement forward even if they stop existing right now, please point me to a specific instance. That’s all I’m saying.

I meant the act. I don’t consider him a revolutionary either.

Returning to Luigi, he definitely didn’t move the general movement forward. As I said, he can only be considered within the context of privatized healthcare and even then as a failed spark. But failing is not the same as not existing, that’s where we disagree.

It’s not that I am more concerned with it, it’s that the whole point of the post is to deride people for choosing voting over the revolution. So my answer was that right now nobody is carrying out revolutionary acts. You seem to think that they are and therefore the point focuses on what such an act is. It is not that I don’t see value in other actions, just that they don’t fall in the category of the car in the picture going straight.

Again, there are actions important for a revolutionary movement that are not revolutionary in themselves. To put a historical example: Lenin’s activities in London were vital for the Russian Revolution, they were not revolutionary actions, since all he did was legal in the UK at the time. So the answer is a clear no, the PSL is not doing less for the revolutionary movement. But the PSL is not, by my knowledge carrying out revolutionary actions. Perhaps you can point me to a specific action you consider revolutionary.

The least important part of my original comment, but I accept that is your main contention.

Going just by this last comment: “abstract violence detached from organizing work does nothing to weaken the capitalist state nor to prepare the working classes for revolution. It’s just an outlet for one person to express their rage at the system.”

There I keep trying to get you to tell me if the same action carried out by a member of an organization vs. a lone person can be considered differently. I posit that it can’t. Now, if a specific action is revolutionary, that’s the next topic.

I have never shifted a goalpost in this conversation. In fact, my original point is made regardless of the example you are focusing on, which is that no revolutionary actions are happening right now and therefore OP’s hate on an pretty undefined but huge set of people is completely hypocritical and counterproductive.

Now for the example I put. Luigi’s action is not revolutionary in the context of a complete regime change, but it can be taken as such within the private healthcare context. Sitting on the front in a bus didn’t change the US government, but it was revolutionary in the civil rights context. Now if you disagree that a revolutionary act can happen at all outside a complete regime change, that’s another topic.

I am engaging with the point, you are the one focusing on the least important part. Your words right before estate that only organizing a group that acts is a revolutionary act, while organizing a group that doesn’t is not. This makes it clear that the organization part, from your words, is only revolutionary if it acts at a later date. Part of my point is that it is the action itself that is revolutionary and not the organizing up at least until the point where the action happens. And therefore ,if the action itself is what counts, it doesn’t necessarily matter who carries it out.

I am not making that argument at all. I saying that until action has taken place that effects a reaction, everything until that point is not revolutionary action. I never said it doesn’t matter, or that it isn’t necessary, just that making your backpack for a hike is not hiking, as necessary as it might be.

The second part, which you keep dodging is that any action “fitting the context of a revolutionary movement” can be labeled revolutionary even if carried out by a person outside of a revolutionary organization.

This is why I tried, unsuccessfully, to get you to define your words.

So you can only define the organization as revolutionary after something else has happened? The creation and organization of two identical groups can be revolutionary or not depending on if they down the line act on something?

Even if it is the same action that a revolutionary committee would dictate?

And please define what you mean by revolutionary struggle. I don’t want to make assumptions.

There are many reasons why a group might fail to act and fizzle out. I am just saying that without that action, the existence of the group and the discussions are not revolutionary.

So, from your words and trying to summarize what you have been saying:

• A revolutionary action can only happen if directed by an organized group with very clear political theory behind them.
• The act of organizing is revolutionary in itself even if completely open and legal.
• A person outside organized groups and with no deep political knowledge cannot commit a revolutionary act, even if it is the same act that a politically organized group would have carried out.

Do I have that correctly? Please tell me if I got any of those points wrong.