" Getting ahead " in capitalist America much like a pact with the devil

One reason , I am sure, the Providence Journal , dropped COMMENTS ( " Join the Conversation " ) was that pernicious " socialism " - was winning the war of ideas. Again and again you will see capitalism extolled by smugly comfortable people with a very atrophied social conscience . Deep down they think the world in which they are on top simple must be the best of all possible words. Only sinister trouble makers will deny it ?

              The old " beatnik " in me. observed long ago that " getting ahead " in capitalist America comes very close to making a pact with the devil. The cult of CONFORMITY turns decent people into soul dead idiots.

                  The Ginsberg poem " Howl " summed it up. Less poetic but quite eloquent and inspiring " The Communist Manifesto " ( read Leon Trotsky's essay " The 90th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto " ) .

[ I assume you saw the July 21 Providence Journal editorial conflating free markets with free speech and bemoaning the perception among young people "that capitalism is a brutal system that helps the rich feast on the poor, disdains compassion, creates enormous inequalities in wealth and oppresses minorities." , John Marion, World Socialist Web Site  ]     Radical Ron's reply above...

GoLocalProv | More Staff Reductions at Projo and Big Price Increase ...

www.golocalprov.com/business/more-staff-reductions-at-projo-and-big-price-increase

 

Jul 11, 2018 - This comes along with a double-digit price increase this past week. De facto, less reporting and a more expensive newspaper. The Providence ...



LEON TROTSKY SPEAKS

[It is hard to believe that the centennial of the Manifesto of the Communist Party is only ten years away! This pamphlet, displaying greater genius than any other in world literature, astounds us even today by its freshness. Its most important sections appear to have been written yesterday. Assuredly, the young authors (Marx was twenty-nine, Engels twenty-seven) were able to look further into the future than anyone before them, and perhaps than anyone since them.

As early as their joint preface to the edition of 1872, Marx and Engels declared that despite the fact that certain secondary passages in the Manifesto were antiquated, they felt that they no longer had any right to alter the original text inasmuch as the Manifesto had already become a historical document, during the intervening period of twenty-five years. Sixty-five additional years have elapsed since that time. Isolated passages in the Manifesto have receded still further into the past. We shall try to establish succinctly in this preface both those ideas in the Manifesto which retain their full force today and those which require important alteration or amplification.

1. The materialist conception of history, discovered by Marx only a short while before and applied with consummate skill in the Manifesto, has completely withstood the test of events and the blows of hostile criticism. It constitutes today one of the most precious instruments of human thought. All other interpretations of the historical process have lost all scientific meaning. We can state with certainty that it is impossible in our time to be not only a revolutionary militant but even a literate observer in politics without assimilating the materialist interpretation of history.]