Didn’t move the goalposts. You posited that an assassination by an individual cannot be a revolutionary action and I disagree. That is a more general case than I started with.
His assassination still wasn’t random, but very specific for his goals and could have sparked further movement as was clear by the absolute panic by private insurers in the aftermath.
I never said that assassination can never be revolutionary. Individual, disconnected action is adventurist, and has never delivered regime change like you posit. Luigi’s assassination was not revolutionary either. The fact that none of what you said could happen did happen is because it wasn’t actually a revolutionary action, and your understanding of revolution is flawed.
So, from your words and trying to summarize what you have been saying:
A revolutionary action can only happen if directed by an organized group with very clear political theory behind them.
The act of organizing is revolutionary in itself even if completely open and legal.
A person outside organized groups and with no deep political knowledge cannot commit a revolutionary act, even if it is the same act that a politically organized group would have carried out.
Do I have that correctly? Please tell me if I got any of those points wrong.
Revolutionary action is action that advances the revolutionary struggle. A random individual acting alone is not advancing the revololutionary struggle.
You are trying to make the argument that the group planning doesn’t matter, the action does. I am telling you that assassination can only ever be revolutionary if it fits in the context of a revolutionary movement, and isn’t just sporadic violence. Lenin went over this a century ago and it’s still nearly the same.
I am not making that argument at all. I saying that until action has taken place that effects a reaction, everything until that point is not revolutionary action. I never said it doesn’t matter, or that it isn’t necessary, just that making your backpack for a hike is not hiking, as necessary as it might be.
The second part, which you keep dodging is that any action “fitting the context of a revolutionary movement” can be labeled revolutionary even if carried out by a person outside of a revolutionary organization.
This is why I tried, unsuccessfully, to get you to define your words.
But we have to return to the original context of this, which is that you declared that only Luigi was revolutionary, and that existing revolutionary organizations that are preparing the basis for successful revolution are not. Luigi assassinating a CEO did absolutely nothing. It gained no worker power, which exists only in the form of organizing. Organizing is the means by which the working class can wield its strength against the capitalist class. A random act of assassination, disconnected from revolutionary practice, does nothing to organize the working class or weaken the capitalist state.
You claim you’ve been unsuccessful in getting me to define my words, but I’ve been tremendously clear. You’re constantly shifting the goalposts and trying to avoid the very critical point that you said organizing is not revolutionary and that random assassination is.
I have never shifted a goalpost in this conversation. In fact, my original point is made regardless of the example you are focusing on, which is that no revolutionary actions are happening right now and therefore OP’s hate on an pretty undefined but huge set of people is completely hypocritical and counterproductive.
Now for the example I put. Luigi’s action is not revolutionary in the context of a complete regime change, but it can be taken as such within the private healthcare context. Sitting on the front in a bus didn’t change the US government, but it was revolutionary in the civil rights context. Now if you disagree that a revolutionary act can happen at all outside a complete regime change, that’s another topic.
Didn’t move the goalposts. You posited that an assassination by an individual cannot be a revolutionary action and I disagree. That is a more general case than I started with.
His assassination still wasn’t random, but very specific for his goals and could have sparked further movement as was clear by the absolute panic by private insurers in the aftermath.
I never said that assassination can never be revolutionary. Individual, disconnected action is adventurist, and has never delivered regime change like you posit. Luigi’s assassination was not revolutionary either. The fact that none of what you said could happen did happen is because it wasn’t actually a revolutionary action, and your understanding of revolution is flawed.
So, from your words and trying to summarize what you have been saying:
Do I have that correctly? Please tell me if I got any of those points wrong.
Revolutionary action is action that advances the revolutionary struggle. A random individual acting alone is not advancing the revololutionary struggle.
Even if it is the same action that a revolutionary committee would dictate?
And please define what you mean by revolutionary struggle. I don’t want to make assumptions.
You are trying to make the argument that the group planning doesn’t matter, the action does. I am telling you that assassination can only ever be revolutionary if it fits in the context of a revolutionary movement, and isn’t just sporadic violence. Lenin went over this a century ago and it’s still nearly the same.
I am not making that argument at all. I saying that until action has taken place that effects a reaction, everything until that point is not revolutionary action. I never said it doesn’t matter, or that it isn’t necessary, just that making your backpack for a hike is not hiking, as necessary as it might be.
The second part, which you keep dodging is that any action “fitting the context of a revolutionary movement” can be labeled revolutionary even if carried out by a person outside of a revolutionary organization.
This is why I tried, unsuccessfully, to get you to define your words.
But we have to return to the original context of this, which is that you declared that only Luigi was revolutionary, and that existing revolutionary organizations that are preparing the basis for successful revolution are not. Luigi assassinating a CEO did absolutely nothing. It gained no worker power, which exists only in the form of organizing. Organizing is the means by which the working class can wield its strength against the capitalist class. A random act of assassination, disconnected from revolutionary practice, does nothing to organize the working class or weaken the capitalist state.
You claim you’ve been unsuccessful in getting me to define my words, but I’ve been tremendously clear. You’re constantly shifting the goalposts and trying to avoid the very critical point that you said organizing is not revolutionary and that random assassination is.
I have never shifted a goalpost in this conversation. In fact, my original point is made regardless of the example you are focusing on, which is that no revolutionary actions are happening right now and therefore OP’s hate on an pretty undefined but huge set of people is completely hypocritical and counterproductive.
Now for the example I put. Luigi’s action is not revolutionary in the context of a complete regime change, but it can be taken as such within the private healthcare context. Sitting on the front in a bus didn’t change the US government, but it was revolutionary in the civil rights context. Now if you disagree that a revolutionary act can happen at all outside a complete regime change, that’s another topic.