That Jean Valjean would have been a Republican if he lived in the USA today. Why? "Because he pulled himself up by his boot straps to become a wealthy business man."

I swear...... righties' minds must be wired differently!

Class annihilation, warfare implies the ability to fight back and many of us do not. My cynicism on this has exploded to the heights it was when I was a idealistic teen, take from the rich to give to the poor, all the rich. I was a member of the Communist party back then, I started to embrace free market as I got older, and now I see that no one gives a shit anyway about anyone else.

Now if we can just get you into some CLASSIC Marxism, a la Trotsky!

Seriously though, I was very left and flirting with Marxism and Trotskyism during my college days and really never left it as a socio-political-economic philosophy. However, I never joined any groups and spent 30 years as a "salon revolutionary" arguing amongst the like minded that a socialist revolution was what was needed, but going no further into advocacy. Now in my old age, I've actually joined a group and am actively advocating classic Marxism, including revolution. Better late than never I hope. In addition, the capitalist system during this later stage is proving Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky more and more every day.

I also agree that it's not a class war until we fight back. Until then it's just class massacre.

as it is a process for me, one which mostly required getting to a point of being fed up . I have one sticking point and that is the State. I actually work for the state. The problem is I abhor state-ism. I do not think it serves the people but subjugates. How do we reach a form of governance that is the people and not an oligarchy. Our supposed democracy is really an Oligarchy as it is. In this regard I start to wonder if I am more of an anarchist. I have not read enough and will follow your suggestions. What I do not want is to trade one form of slavery for another. How do we keep that from happening?

the bureaucratization of the party and the replacement of capitalism with a bureaucracy, represented by the state, that was no better than the capitalists. I actually see some similarities between some of the classic ideas of Marx as interpreted by Trotsky and anarchism. Yes it IS a democratic centralist system with a vanguard, but the vanguard needs to be a bottom up affair. That's where the democratic/anarchism part comes in. Of course the difference comes AFTER the policies are set by democratic vote. THEN everyone in the party needs to be on board with the majority. You can always bring it up again and try to convince a majority of the party as to the correctness of your position, but until you do, it's the discipline of the group that needs to hold.

My recommendation would be to start with Trotsky's bio written in 1929 titled "My Life" then read the Deutcher (sp?) "Prophet" trilogy, then take it off from there. Trotsky was a VERY prolific writer and wrote on almost every subject that touched on the class war. He's easy to find. Also most far left groups out there nowdays are Trotskyist in orientation, so there's a lot of interpretative material too. But I'd start with the source and make up your own mind.

Gee ...rich people in our government. What could go wrong??? Moral people would give back to the society that helped make them well off.

It was said once, in our country you are innocent until proven broken. No truer words.