Anti-Capitalist Meetup: The Revolutionary Class Of The Future

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The desire for revolution lives at the beating heart of anti-capitalism. There may be differing visions of how that revolution will be conducted and on exactly whose terms the new-born society will be ruled, but in the end our mission is to overturn the power of Capital and remake the world for the benefit of the masses.

Orthodox Marxism tells us that the revolution will be conducted by the proletariat, the class that is forced to sell its labor for wages, especially industrial labor. The division between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was long thought of as clear cut.

Young Marx.jpgAs Marx noted in The Communist Manifesto:

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

Is this division still so clear? Is there still a proletariat, or at least a functional equivalent?

There can be no doubt we are still mostly wage-earners packing on surplus value for the benefit of the bourgeoisie; if anything, more so now than at any time since the mid-Twentieth Century zenith of the labor movement. Industrial employment in the United States has shrunk so dramatically over the last four decades that the ruined industrial towns of the Midwest and Northeast are legendary, even mythical, places that serve as settings for tales of working class hopelessness, like porn for the bourgeoisie.

What heavy industry and manufacturing remained in the United States largely moved where wages are low and labor is docile. The evisceration of industrial employment, the taming of labor, and stagnant (or lower) constant-dollar wages have eliminated what we knew as the proletariat.

Instead of an identifiable and coherent working class with a discernible level of class consciousness and revolutionary potential, we have a prominent and ever growing precariat.

Anti-Capitalist Meetup writer Audrey Charbonneau described the precariat neatly in her recent diary Three Premises for New Socialism:

...as capitalism has advanced into its neoliberal era, class in a Marxist sense has changed as financialization and fiat currency have become the driving engines of economic activity and work has gradually declined, producing new conditions for the proletariat where debt plays a uniquely predominant, almost feudal, role in economic exchange and the lumpenproletariat is naturalized and incapable of being differentiated from proletariat when examining the course of a proletariat life.
Where does the disappearance of the classically defined proletariat leave us? If it no longer exists, who will conduct the revolution against the rule of Capital in its absence?

Here I turn to an extract from Chapter 5 of Lenin’s The State and Revolution (1917):Lenin addressing a crowd in 1917.jpg

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich - that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the "petty" - supposedly petty - details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for "paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., - we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

Even a century later, this still an excellent depiction of the sham democracy we find ourselves in across the capitalist world. Not only are we still neck deep in the sewer of bourgeois democracy, we are, in my opinion, approaching it’s nadir. The functional death of the labor movement and the disappearance of any ideological rival to capitalist social and economic control (that rivalry with communist dictatorships having spurred some compromise with some segments of labor) has allowed finance capital and its clients (political figures, the petty bourgeoisie, intellectual hired labor, i.e. lawyers, accountants, scientists, engineers, etc.) to bring us closer than ever to a time where another inevitable crisis of capitalism can be effectively addressed by a contemporary revolutionary class.

Certainly we can expect nothing like a revolution now, as the US population is only just beginning to awaken to the notion that maybe we can return to some version of the capitalism-preserving New Deal that began its harrowing—and thoroughly engineered—decline some decades ago. (It is a sad illustration of our time that such a notion, a return to that relatively tame set of compromises that kept Capital firmly in control, is thought of in liberal quarters as a revolution.) But this Welfare State Capitalist attempt at “revolution” will fail to thwart the retrenchment of capitalist power just as surely as the previous post-Depression attempt did.

How do we know? The history of capitalism is replete with examples of its astounding ability to weave and feint in the face of opposition while later bobbing back into place. We have seen it very clearly in the United States during the last several decades, where despite the development of a welfare state unprecedented in its history, the richest, most powerful society that ever existed just barely managed to keep Social Security off the neoliberal bargaining table during the most recent crisis under liberal President Obama, not to mention the shameless and highly successful assault on the safety under liberal President Bill Clinton, whose unapologetically neoliberal spouse is poised to claim the nomination of that same liberal party.

Our hope against this re-consolidation is supposed to lie in a reformer whose goal is to win power and lead a movement to remove corruption from politics and rule in favor of the people by way of a mildly social democratic (small s/small d) program. Given the laser focus of capital on preserving its power, this trend, while encouraging, is destined to meet the same fate as the original New Deal version met when wages and productivity were uncoupled from one another in the 1970’s.

Rosa Luxemburg makes this plain in Reform or Revolution (1900), her decisive response to Eduard Bernstein and the folly of mistaking Social Democracy for a safer, tidier form of revolution:rosa-luxemburg-1907.jpg

It is contrary to history to represent work for reforms as a long-drawn out revolution and revolution as a condensed series of reforms. A social transformation and a legislative reform do not differ according to their duration but according to their content. The secret of historic change through the utilization of political power resides precisely in the transformation of simple quantitative modification into a new quality, or to speak more concretely, in the passage of an historic period from one given form of society to another.

That is why people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal.

Given all this, who will make up the revolutionary class-to-be, and what events will inspire it? Historical Materialism (not to mention simple pattern recognition) teaches us that the capitalist system contains the seeds of its own destruction. Not only is neoliberalism no exception, I believe it is accelerating the process. The determination of the Democratic party elite (and of course the business interests that sustain it) to maintain neoliberal control are the sun and the rain that will make revolt necessary.

Observe two growing crises facing the people of the United States, debt and climate change. The first, massive debt, especially student loan debt, is a weight around the necks of the working and middle classes. Personal debt has grown immensely as economic opportunity has shriveled, driven by the need of the owning class to redress its declining return on domestic capital and its refusal to forego profits so wages are adequate to a secure middle class life.

Education, once thought to be the main line from poverty or working class status to the middle class, has become so expensive that it weighs down former students for decades, sometimes sucking up as much income as a mortgage. Even meager Social Security benefits aren’t immune. The lowest Social Security benefit, well under $1000 per month, can be diminished by 15% for those too poor to pay voluntarily. Neoliberal economics, while promising to make us all freer and richer, will do nothing but aggravate the crisis. The people can’t pay it and the rich will refuse to be taxed.

Enter the millennial generation: they will be deeply in debt, with aging parents and college age children, poised to take demographic center stage as the forces now in control strive to preserve the system that enriches and protects itself.

What does the ruling class do? If the decades since the anti-New Deal resurgence are any guide, it continues to encourage vulgar spectacle as the default form of political debate while keeping that “debate” within very limited parameters of political acceptability. It further consolidates control of the media to police those limits. The already unprecedented scope and penetration of state surveillance will grow and increase the criminalization of protest. Our government has already placed organizations like the Quakers and the Occupy movement under surveillance (while right wing terrorists somehow slip through the cracks) while coordinating tightly with Big Business, as with Wall Street during Occupy. A body that presents a real threat to capitalist economics, like the Black Panthers, who organized and fed thousands in Chicago in the 60’s, would be criminalized and its leaders murdered like Fred Hampton was by the FBI and Chicago police.

And that’s just domestically. Threat to business interests abroad are dealt with mercilessly, like when dictators such as Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi refuse to stay bought, including the latter’s initiative to leave the petrodollar; an alternative is economic subversion leading to violence, like the coups and attempted coups that have existed in Latin America until the present administration.

Will Millennials even be given the opportunity for reform?

The history of Capital tells us with certainty that it will not, unless the threat to Capital is so severe that the losses that would occur under violent domestic conflict would reduce profits significantly and permanently.

Capital never gives up.

Likewise the crisis of climate change. The human migrations under climate change will make the current refugee crisis look like child’s play. Within the US, many millions of people will need to be moved and capital investment will be threatened, thus preserved at whatever cost necessary. Massive and expensive engineering projects—which are opportunities for massive profits—will become overwhelming necessities completely apart from issues like national “security” in the face of global turmoil.

Will the ruling class relax its control, give away its profits, and seek cooperative solutions to these and other crises? Or will it use every tool at its disposal to tighten its grip and preserve—increase--it’s profits?

Until we see significant signs that the ruling class is willing to sacrifice profit for the benefit of humanity, the answer is the latter.

The potential revolutionary class of the future will be everyone alive in twenty to fifty years who is not a member of the ruling class. Who among them is most ready to turn from normative (i.e., ruling class) politics is my next subject.

Cross posted to GOS

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Then a young Marx. He was only 30 when the Manifesto was published.

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“If there is no justice for the people, may there be no peace for the government.”

Bollox Ref's picture

Works for me.

People/companies can make money, but within regulations. The Scandinavian model. Taxation and production that actually benefits the population and industry.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Thanks for stopping in.

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“If there is no justice for the people, may there be no peace for the government.”

Would it be a form of capitalism if?

There was a guaranteed income.
There were very taxing responsibilities put on the biggest corporations.
There were eased regulations for TRUE small Mom n Pop businesses.
Tight control and protection of the commons, including wilderness, fresh water, and waterways and water bodies
Government steps in to create food security via organic locally grown food, ending agribusiness and factory farming
Government uses jobs programs to keep infrastructure and environment healthy

But you could still get rich if you invented something or just out-hustled people under fair rules.

I know what I suggest is a fantasy, but is it called socialism or just regulated compassionate capitalism? Just wondering.

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GradySeasons
"The nightlife ain't no good life, but it's my life."

GreyWolf's picture

From where I stand I see cooperation as the key, and I ran across this essay from a very thoughtful professor that I believe begins to address your question:

What might a cooperative economy look like?

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Gerrit's picture

demand," and all that. Lots to ponder here. TY.

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.

What many readers here don't agree with is that my emotions (gut feeling, because I can't tell you which facts I've lived or seen have how much weight or what facts I've overlooked), tell me that this election is the last chance people in the United States have to right some internal wrongs without a lot of gunfire and bloodshed, all of which will come on very quickly should the elections go as the MSM is predicting (wrongly I hope).

Be well.

I'm truly truly tired, JT. Truly tired. Worn out, in fact.

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******************************

Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%

Bisbonian's picture

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Unless the likely nominees are very different people from who they say they are and their successors come from a dramatically different pool than politicians come from at present. Since no one is allowed near the levers of power without loyalty to capital, I am not optimistic about that.

Not that the violence you describe would necessarily happen during the next four years, but ultimately, yes, unless the people who currently own and run our economic system have an unexpected change of heart, circumstances for nearly everyone will become harder and the options for redress slimmer.

The guns and bloodshed won't be coming from our side, but theirs. The only path is civil disobedience so massive and implacable that it makes the ruling class fear for their long term prospects. Power gives up nothing unless it has to.

That's why, as encouraging as the Sanders phenomenon is, it is nothing like a long term fix, unless the current ruling class is unique in history.

I'm betting it isn't.

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“If there is no justice for the people, may there be no peace for the government.”

Lenzabi's picture

Based on what is needed, the Sanders campaign/Presidency is not the fix, but the start, but after his time, we will need to have a new breed of people take their place in his stead once he leaves the stage. BUT there needs to be a start or we will see an end, Dystopia is not on our horizon it is here! The bastards took 1984 not as the cautionary tale it was supposed to be, but as some sick primer as they adopted things from that story and decided that would work for their idea of world control. the corporate MSM even now is the proto-thought police, telling us what to think, like, hate, fear, buy. Advertisement is effective due to the use by ad-companies of psychologists, crafting messages that burrow into the minds of the masses, hence why when we see numbers showing Bernie defeating the rethuglican candidates, people still say they think Hillary is more electable when clearly she is not. The Corporatization of the world is taking place, they are working ways to replace the power from Governance from the sovereign nations to themselves so that they are the leaders effectively, and give the illusions of the government so that someone can be the patsy when we rise up.

And our nation fell for it, from 9/11 to citizens United, to this crazy Primary, this is a fight for the very soul not of the Democratic Party, but the Nation itself.

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

..is where I dream... literally dream... night after night.

I'm in a strange health loop, a lot of pain and some pain med; but there are a lot of other health jabs of my own making over a lifetime of hard living that make it difficult to breathe and stay active. That plus advancing age, and being on Medicare and SS and a VERY SMALL and rapidly shrinking savings, though house is paid for I live in fear of dying in my car, homeless.

And A LIFETIME of reading journals on science and the environment published for the lay person who has had some educatinon beyond high school as it now exists in the US (IMEO significantly dumbed down)

All the above, plus what I see of the weather and remember of weather (which is something I noticed and talked about with friends or family much of my life every damned day of my life) going back to early childhood adds to my sense of impending catastrophe. Add to that things we've done to murder the planet, and Fukushima is first on that list because so far it cannot be stopped or controlled so we IGNORE IT (which may be end-game)

The sum total is in flux -- I see a nation who's youngest legal voters are waking up to horror and alarm and strongly in this camp, but the REST of the nation needs to wake up and see that the oligarchy MUST BE FORCED to cough up its hoard and THEN we ALL need to share it out fairly and as wisely as possible. And this should have happened a DECADE ago, and we can't wait for it to happen a decade down the road. We need a horrific wakeup call Got any ideas, JT?

IMOAI the MASSIVE and RAPID change requires two things... 1) those who are still comfy need to WAKE UP IN HORROR.. (and that includes some folks here who may not bother with what I'm saying, because it isn't *fact-loaded* and not heavily fact-structured).
2) the oligarchs MUST be coerced if they won't give up what they do not need AND what is taken from them MUST be used the most wisely possible to stem global catastrophe OR failing that, to prepare us to surbive it strongly and with our bodies of technical knowledge and our capabiliy to create and see beauty deeply ingreained in all of us. That requires education and SPECIFIC technical advances in rapid succession.

And that takes A SHITLOAD of money that is being hoarded and wasted right now.

If what I write seems weird to you, please attribute it to some very strong dreams born of horror and realization...and a lot of alone time to think, and very little Teevee news right now.

I've been a bit strange most of my life, but mostly I have been disappointingly (to my late family members who thought they'd brought forth some kind of renaissance female savior) ordinary. Lately things have begun to shift. It may be old age and that I'm about to croak.. or maybe I'm seeing a 'true" thing. I have no idea. It probably would have been better if I hadn't written this, but it felt like the time to let it out.

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******************************

Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%

Lenzabi's picture

Similar boat, my introduction let's folks know my situation similar to yours Fentress, pain, disability/medicare. My seeing the patterns of dystopia and distortion, I will have to do my own observations and write some essays that may strike folks as odd as I do come from an odd mindset that started well before the disability as this meat-shell of mine started to fall apart(I could have sworn I kept the warranty somewhere!)

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

Hillbilly Dem's picture

This election (read Bernie) may be America's last best chance. I'm not willing to put percentages on it but here's what I think. If Hillary or Cruz get elected, we're in the shit. By "we" I mean America as we know it. If it's Cruz, it will go faster than with Hillary. But both bode poorly. Whether it will be by gunfire and bloodshed, I can't figure out. But I think it will be bad.

To my own way of thinking, Trump might not be as bad as many of us believe him to be. I really believe that he is to the left of Hillary, and therefore most Repubs, on many issues. He could be reasonable once in office (but I'd never want to take that chance). I don't hold out any hope for Cruz, Hillary or Kasich.

If not Bernie, it could go sour. Fast. There's a discontent out there. It's everywhere. The middle and lower class have been getting fucked since the day Reagan was sworn in for his first term. TPTB are oblivious. Pols, the media, the rich. Most of them have no idea that this simmering pot could blow at any time. As we are sometimes reminded "The French aristocracy didn't see it coming either."

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"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

thrownstone's picture

I will go.

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

TheOtherMaven's picture

Saves me the trouble of sneak-peeking at the orange cesspool. Biggrin

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

ny brit expat's picture

It has taken us a bit of time to come to grips with the site's tech but we will x-post. Glad to see you!

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"Hegel noticed somewhere that all great world history facts and people so to speak twice occur. He forgot to add: the one time as tragedy, the other time as farce" Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte."

RantingRooster's picture

is, how will this revolution that Trotsky as advocated for, ever gain critical mass and two, what is the "vision" afterward? I'm not sure revolution is even possible within the US because we are sooo inculcated to believe nothing else is possible. We must accept that there is no alternative. (TINA) The vast majority of Americans are suffering from a form of of mass Stockholm Syndrome, help perpetrated and supported by our media.

Why do we not have national strikes, that shut down big business and send a very clear message, we are not going to fucking take in the ass, without lube anymore? (My butt hurts) We're too afraid of losing what little we actually have. We're afraid of being arrested and thrown into jail, and heaven forbid you're not white if that happens.

If we protest, we are crushed by violent oppression. At what point do we actually start fighting back? If we look at the reasons stated in our own declaration of independence, it pales in comparison to crimes being committed by our own government today. At what point do we finally declare the status quo must change or we burn it the fuck down?

What leverage do we actually have to help foster positive change, without a direct threat of turning over the apple cart? We have a "constitutional" professor as president who has not only trashed our constitution, he has thrown it out the window. (Kill list Tuesdays anyone?) At what point do we get to make an citizen's arrest of the corrupt / criminals at the highest levels of our government and industry?

Feudalism is alive and well and making a great come back. The fact that Walmart is America's largest employer, and many of it's employees are forced to seek government assistance to be able to exist, should be a glaring sign post to a dystopian future.

The billionaire class is quite insulated from our unwashed selves and their indifference to human suffering on a massive scale is quite evident. Only when their lively hood is threaten, with extinction, will they begin to realize, we are fucking serious. Almost all revolutions through out history have one central, key factor, mass public discontent. We have that now, but that sediment has not been galvanized into revolutionary action, like say when Thomas Paine wrote and published Common Sense.

Where is the new Thomas Paine of today? Who can spell it out in common language and make it so crystal clear that no one with a couple of functioning brain cell can reasonably deny the truth like it was spelled out in Common Sense?

PS: Thanks MrJayTee for posting the Anti-Capitalist Meet-Up over here in the Big Blue Ocean! A most excellent essay!

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

thanatokephaloides's picture

And I, too, daresay you're correct, all the non-rich will be the revolutionary class of the next revolution. I don't want it to be through large-scale violence; but I must say I fear exactly that. And also that anyone else in America who doesn't fear things getting ugly needs his/her head examined. There are limits as to how far Capital can go before that happens, and if we're not there yet, we're damn close.

Sad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Aardvark's picture

it is much more effective to destabilize and frighten your opponent than to harm her.

Non-violent organization, based on deep, carefully thought-through principles and rapid reaction to events on the ground, sustained over a long period of time, is the most effective manner of frightening the elites.
I believe in this, and I believe that the reason is based in human evolution. It is ingrained in our nature to expect violence in confrontation. Acting in a way which short-circuits this expectation, consistently, with a clear message and massive support over time, disorients those who rely on this murderous instinct for survival.

I believe this tactic is especially pertinent to the United States, a nation built on genocide and racial slavery.

I understand the argument that the elites use all manner of force. However, I believe too that their use of force has undermined their position significantly. I think the number of supporters of Senator Sanders reflects in part that erosion of trust and a rejection of the status quo.
That being said, the US public is hardly well organized, and many are still too frightened to participate in any resistance. I do not think that we have seen the power of non-violent resistance since the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980s in the US. However, given the changes in communication, perhaps aspects of this model are no longer necessary.

This approach takes massive participation to implement. That is precisely what the elites have been attempting to make impossible, through dividing us, primarily through consumerism and the lure of becoming "one of them."

Their reality is not true. It is not absolute. It takes a little while to see that we control, within certain limits, much of our reality. It takes massive participation in order to carry out that idea.

Whatever your plans may be, whatever your ideology may be, to me the only viable modus of implementation is non-violent resistance. I admit this is a doctrine, a belief, if you will, for which there are arguments in its favor and arguments against. I believe the preponderance of the philosophical, ethical, political, and historical evidence weigh significantly in its favor.

I will never surrender to anyone or anything my thoughts, my dreams, my desires for justice, for freedom, for creativity and for an alternative to dehumanizing values. "They" have lost me. I have been backing out of participation in their ridiculous and cynical game, bit by bit, because that is all I can do. Not a revolution, not courageous, but real to me and to those who know me.

Let me tell you an anecdote. I am going to lose in the coming months a brother who through his example showed me that an alternative life is possible. I will not give details to preserve his anonymity - and mine. He was not famous, but courageous in a day-to-day way, fighting and using civil disobedience and sometimes a little vandalism to break through the fog of misinformation in our society and speak the truth. That he dies is not important. It isn't really important what he did. What is important is that he showed it can be done. It is up to me to figure out how to do that in my life and to help organize others to do the same.

Whether or not there is a god, we are all the more bound to the cause of justice and to love one another, no matter how right I am and no matter how wrong and foolish all of you may be. Whether or not there is a final judgment, we must strive for justice. There is no greater love than the love we share with one another.

Peace and love be with you, reader.

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