Much has happened since the last edition of Lockerian Times. Firstly, my computer died and I got a new one. My ISP shut off my television, and then sent a new box. And the Revolution lives on.
Now, I thought I'd be writing this on the 1st of March. However, my computer ran out of luck and I stopped saving documents. Had I written that, I'd have written it in a way I'd cringe at now. The time I got down to writing it was closer to the Ides. I wrote it on my work computer, and that edition sadly didn't survive the night. It was about the events at that Trump rally in Chicago. Now I'm here and ready to write again.
I've got a couple of projects I'm working on, and they will mostly be surprises. I'm going to miss the opportunities this break allowed and life broke up so strangely.
Still, I got in a scuffle a few days ago that interested me.
As folks know, I'm a democratic socialist, social libertarian, anarchist, whatever. I'm practically berned to a crisp after supporting Bernie Sanders since he launched his presidential bid – I'll always remember my first time voting for him, my first vote, and the first vote much of my folks have ever cast for a Democrat. I bleed the wrong kind of red for a hick from sweet Georgie. And I know that in hearing this, a lot of people are going to get a bad feeling about me.
They've got different reasons for all that nonsense. Conservatives think I'm a freeloader who wants free shit, or that I'm incredibly naive to trust racial minorities as if they are human beings. I laugh about it, but my grandmother told me I'd may as well have thrown the ten dollars I donated after Iowa into the fire. Some commies think I'm naive for casting a vote, and Third Worldists in particular have the view that my socialist tendencies are part of my inherent privilege within the western class structure. Free shit for me, as long as Africa gets fucked.
In talking to one of my comrade boys, we went over all our usual talking points which he forgets he's told me before. We discussed the Soviet Union and he talked for a while about the benefits of their system, in which he claimed the will of the people was met sufficiently through the local Soviets (he reasoned this with a wikipedia article about Soviets and their role in the Russian Civil War). Now, I pointed out that inaccuracy, but it was overclouded when we soon came to the matter of arguing over gulags and their role in the Soviet economy. While we both agreed that the US prison system is currently much worse than were the gulags, I posed that the gulag program was a crime against humanity. That made my boy become like a 9-11 truther in moments.
He went on in length about how naive I am to believe Nazi propaganda, despite that the true extent gulag system and the huge underground slave economy of the Soviet Union was brought to the public eye by the 1973 book Gulag Archipelago. The prisoners were mostly murderers, rapists, or the former bourgeois, so naturally a decent human being would enslave them and force them to extract valuable resources from Siberia. Plus, he said, the gulag system only held about 100,000 people instead of the millions from western sources. And it wasn't such a wide part of the economy. Why would the liberation of humanity run on grade-A mass slavery?
And hell, invading countries in order to overthrow their government isn't such a mistake if you think you're doing it for democracy. That's only run down Afghanistan the price of being invaded by both world superpowers of the 20th century and then mismanaged in their hands. No biggie. And it's only cost countless countries in Asia, Africa, and South America their democratically-elected governments. This would include the prized regime of the first elected Marxist in the history of South America, Chilean President Salvador Allende.
Constantly throughout the exchange, we either agreed on an issue or he attacked me as being brainwashed by high school education. He attacked me for using my high school history class as evidence of gulags, although I had never done such a thing. What I had actually posted was a page from the Russian human rights association Memorial, but he dismissed this as the introduction to a high school history course and upon correction as a CIA funded hitjob on the Soviet Union. So it was agree to disagree.
Our second topic of the night was modern-day imperialism. In this aspect, he's basically a Third Worldist. I have no problem with that, but I kind of feel it's an excuse for sitting on your ass and still getting to complain about stuff. I asked him what he thought of reformism, which he clearly didn't like too much. He questioned it on this count: why would a system rooted in oppression ever abolish itself? and reasoned that only a rebellion of third worlders can handle the job of liberation.
The answer I furthered was one of a spiritual awakening. A popular movement against the profit motive, much like the Revolution we find ourselves in today. Now, at reading this, he started flipping tables. He called this idea naive bullshit and me the most ridiculous person he'd ever debated. He mocked that my method of change relies on superstition. But hell, he says plenty of stuff. I've said that this spiritual awakening is not far off: through appeals, progress has been made against the terrible effects of imperialism. Under the Leahy law, first introduced in 1997, the US government is restricted from providing military aid to foreign military units which violate human rights. In a more recent example, the US banned imports made through slave labor. But one may also just look at everyone who's ever been an asshole and stopped themselves.
Now, all those things should have happened earlier. But they are concrete and feasible change, the likes of which only exist because people have fought for them. My boy and I had a disagreement at this point over how capitalism comes to exist. I said that the state creates capitalism because of its benefits, while he said that capitalism creates the state, acting as he often does as though I just said the most outrageous thing. Now, this may seem a chicken and egg thing, but it is a matter of great concern. If the state is simply being manipulated by the profit motive, much can be done about that. People can rise up. Get spiritually awakened and shit. But in his world, massive displays of violence are paramount. Partially in the words of a great friend and legend of mine, Zulu has to westernize and get Machine Guns if man is to have any hope of getting off the vidya and taking control of his own life.
He thought I was the biggest lunatic in the world, and I was blocked shortly afterwards. RIP in peace to our sacrosanct love.
Hopefully people can be awakened. I've seen people changed, and I've changed a lot from back in the day. Virtue and grace are a big part of my ideology. But sometimes, I still find myself arguing why waking up is such an important thing at all.
John Lockers
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