The Big Picture: Revolution

The exchange with Michael Neumann about One- versus Two-state solutions to the Palestine/Israel conflict (on my blog at http://spritzlerj.blogspot.com/2007/05/one-state-is-not-snake-oil-reply-to.html ) has inspired others to add their comments and I encourage you to read them and add your own if you wish.


As became clear by the conclusion of the exchange, the only thing that can realistically end the oppression of Palestinians is a fundamental social revolution against capitalist inequality in all of Palestine. Short of this, the capitalist ruling class of Israel will remain in power and continue to oppress both ordinary Palestinian and ordinary Jewish people. They will either continue to use the racist/paranoid ideology of Zionism that has served them so well in turning Jews against non-Jews to destroy working class solidarity, or, if that ever becomes an unworkable strategy of elite social control (as happened in the case of apartheid in South Africa as a result of ordinary people around the world denouncing it as racist and demanding sanctions against South Africa) then they will use some other means of carrying out the oppression (as the capitalist class has done so effectively in post-apartheid South Africa.)



Likewise, the only thing that can realistically stop the United States or the U.K. or Australia etc. from supporting the Israeli Zionist ruling class is a social revolution in those countries, because the capitalist rulers of those nations consider support for Israel to be an integral part of their own social control strategies.



Fortunately, revolution against capitalist elites is possible. It is possible for reasons that transcend the Palestine/Israel conflict and the specifics of Zionism. It is possible because most ordinary people, no matter what their nationality or race or religion, want a more equal and democratic and mutually supportive world--the opposite of what the capitalist elites want, which is a world based on inequality and fake (or overtly anti-) democracy in which people are pitted against each other.



Ordinary people, if left to themselves, would make the kind of world they really want. This is precisely why the elites don't leave people to themselves and instead spread lies, carry out false flag violent atrocities, wage bloody wars and create artificial economic insecurity to turn ordinary people against each other: Zionism is only one of the sharpest examples of such vicious manipulation of people.



Despite everything capitalist elites do to attack and discourage it, ordinary people try to shape the world by their values in everyday ways that are often not dramatic or visible (and sometimes in ways that are.) The Palestinians, for example, resist Zionism every minute of the day by just living their lives in Palestine and not leaving their homes, as the Zionists want them to do. And let us not forget what completely shut down the entire nation of Israel for seven days in December of 1997. It was the Israeli working class, fighting their real enemy--the Israeli ruling class--despite their paranoia and fear of Palestinians.



Building a revolutionary movement of ordinary people against the capitalist ruling elites is not easy, but it is possible. It is possible because it is, objectively, what most people want, and to the extent that people understand the truth about their lives, then it is what they want subjectively as well.



We need, therefore, to put the goal of a revolution front and center.



Until we do this, most people will continue to be quite justified in feeling hopeless that any real change for the better is possible. And when people feel hopeless like that, they seem to be apathetic because they don't get involved in trying to change things with anything like the passion and energy that can only come from hope. But apathy means not caring, and people DO care. Apathy is not the reason people don't fight as hard as we would like them to. Hopelessness is the reason.



There is nothing one can do to make somebody who doesn't care start caring. There is no cure for apathy. But there is a cure for hopelessness. The cure is to let people know that they are not alone: not alone in feeling that the problem is so big that only a revolution can solve it, and not alone in wanting the world to be the opposite of what our ruling classes want it to be. The cure for hopelessness is also to let people know that there is an organized revolutionary movement that aims to win on a large scale, and for real, what people want so very much--to turn the world upside down.



This is what needs to be done.



Who wants to do it?



Let's discuss this now.