1. Marxism has been fundamental in understanding, and in making people understand how, in the modern world, every change of habit and of opinion (that has become hegemonic) always has a bottom structural root. If one does not understand how to situate the problem with respect to the mechanisms of distribution of the economy and of power (most often coincident), one ends up losing sight of the only sphere where the causally decisive levers can be moved.

2. To this must be added the fact that the generational distribution of political consciousness has followed a downward curve. This is a historically unprecedented fact. Until recently, young people were part of the fighting ranks, universities were always niches of protest. The question is: what happened?

3. To get a clue, it is interesting to note what issues activism is focused-on today. Namely: a) on an environmentalism focused on climate change; b) on issues of identity, violence and gender equality; c) on food practices (veganism, synthetic and insect meat; and d) on appeals to human rights in a very selective version. But, on the other hand: There can and does exist: a) an authentic structural environmentalism; b) a historical-structural awareness of the sexual division of labor; c) a correct analysis of the exploitation of nature; and d) a political consciousness in the application of human rights. But none of this is largely part of the current political activism that is rigorously sanitized of its structural implications. (Keep in mind the role of the media apparatus and of school and university indoctrination on this…).

4. The new system of control provides places where it is possible to engage in fake revolutions with cardboard swords, where real power plays its games. This construction process creates artificial fences without structural anchorage. Today, these carefully castrated political agendas spread and make their strident voice heard, which are echoed with benevolence and are finally blessed by the spokesmen of power.

5. Ergo, forgetting what the real levers of power are, activists devote themselves, body and soul, to rather moralizing actions. This infantilization of the historical-political analysis renders any activism fatally impotent when the world is examined as if the distribution of moral adjectives were at its center. Too much energy and passion are invested in carefully delimited fields (you end up taking the shape of the boot that tramples you –so you suffer less… but you jump with bloodshot eyes if somebody uses a frowned-upon gender pronoun…). Aha! And while all this is happening, and it happens a lot,these activists are furiously fighting among themselves…. (all from A. Zhok, Historia de una Involución: De la Política Estructural al Moralismo Histérico)

However, the power of the working class is greater! (Susan Rosenthal)

6. ^^The power of the capitalist class lies in their control over social institutions including the legal system, the courts, the police, health facilities and the media. Workers are the vast majority, and nothing moves without their effort. Stopping work stops the flow of profit. While union officials vigorously object to the loss of public services, they refuse to organize the class power of workers to make governments reverse course. They are committed to bargaining with the business class, not challenging their rule. Instead, they launch toothless public-mobilization campaigns. So, instead of leading class rebellions,(i) they pin their hopes on electing a labor-friendly government that will pass pro-labor laws, meaning, making capitalism work in their favor. These are safe strategies for union officials. Lobbying campaigns make it appear that they are fighting for workers’ rights, without challenging the social order that violates those rights. To build a fighting labor movement that can win real improvements, workers must be willing to challenge the existing order, including defying anti-worker laws. All-out support means public and private sector workers supporting each others’ strikes.

(i): The defense of big capital promotes confusion and propaganda, to such an extent that it has made the class struggle disappear as if it did not exist. (Louis Casado) The elite and the political class continue to make pacts and believe that by agreeing among themselves they can have legitimacy. (Revista Primera Piedra)

7. Public mobilization campaigns are based on the false assumption that politicians will respond, that is, if enough people pressure them to do so. When such campaigns fail, blame is directed at a presumably uncaring or apathetic public. Discouraged people need a real win, not more campaigns that raise their hopes and deliver defeat. (S. Rosenthal)

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
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Postscript/Marginalia
—You do not, in fact, have to choose between imperialisms. The correct choice is to detest and resist any that impinges on human rights, with emphasis placed on resisting your own state’s aggression, since you stand the greatest chance of success against something being justified in your name. (Spencer Ackerman)
—The so-called new fascism does not necessarily have to be the same as the traditional fascism; nor is it the same in every country. But its essential outlines are there, as a constant threat, as a risk not to be forgotten… Its ideas and social practices are similar to those of the Axis in WW II: Master race theories, xenophobia and similar forms of discrimination against ethnic minorities (also to justify aggression against other countries) and, in general, extensive limitations or even cancellation of the liberal principles of the bourgeois social order and their replacement by forms of extreme dictatorship. It should come as no surprise that the forces of the new fascism now have a not inconsiderable electoral representation that has allowed them to bring the extreme Right into government. (Juan Diego Garcia)