Eddie Liger ACP Convention Speech: Civilize the Mind & Make Savage the Body

[Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Applause] hello everybody thank you for the greeting my name's Eddie liger as John said I'm a local wrestling coach in my area um and trying to make the Olympics right now while also being an executive board member of the American Communist party and I'm extremely excited to be here today extremely excited to see all your faces from all over the country um it feels like this has been a long time coming and and it's great to see something really starting to to take shape so today I want to talk about character because I think that on the individual level uh character is what politics really comes down to what kind of character do you have and how do you live your life dayto day uh when my father completed the Iron Man race in Madison Wisconsin which is a 2.4 mile swim2 M bike and then a marathon a 26.2 mile run we made shirts for him that had an Aristotle quote on the back saying we are what we repeatedly do Excellence then is not an act but a habit because who we are as people our character can be distilled down to our actions our daily actions our repeated actions what do we spend our time and energy doing how do we interact with the people around us do we allow ourselves to be surrounded by negative people who tear us down these things shape who you are and affect how you're perceived the very fact that you are in this room today says something about your character as an individual as an American every media religious and cultural institution in your life has probably told you not to be a communist they have told you again and again that Humanity has reached the end of history and that anybody who suggests radically changing our social system is either an idiot or a psychopath but this is a lie and in reality anyone with a heart and a brain should want to see a radical change in our existing system but it's a lie that able to implant in a lot of people's minds through sheer repetition and if you are in this room today it means that you had the intelligence to realize that you were being lied to and more importantly the courage to stand up and do something about it you had the backbone to stand up and say no I'm not going to let you trap my family in dead and send my taxes to mass murder children then expect me to sit on my butt and take it I'm not going to believe what the media tells me about Syria Libya Ukraine Palestine just a decade after they lied a little more than a decade after they lied us into the Iraq war with false information that was based on torture I'm not okay with spending 40 plus hours a week being exploited by some Wall Street shareholder and not even getting to see my children or future children grow up because I'm too busy getting ripped off by some rich guy who doesn't work at all and to the people who are selling us this system because it allows them to live in luxury off the backs of everyone else we are not buying it any anymore we see through you we have studied your lives we have studied your system and we know exactly how you exploit us you can read the upcoming party Journal if you want to learn more about it we will gladly take your money it takes a strong character to stand against ruling class lies especially over the last 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union which gave the American and imperialist capitalist propagandists an example to point to and show the failures of so ISM as if industrializing your country massively expanding healthare access providing Universal daycare and 56 days of maternity leave giving people more vacation time increasing literacy rates from 35 to 100% And defeating the Nazis can now be considered a failure because gorbachov sold off the Russian economy to Wall Street and established a Russian Pizza Hut this is one of the many reasons I have so much respect for Michael parenti a great American Marxist thinker because even after the fall of the Soviet Union when everybody was telling him that socialism has failed he continued to defend existing socialism and provide Americans with real Marxist historical analysis in many ways sewing the seeds for what we see today and I'm sure many people in this crowd have been inspired by the work of parenti who had to be very lonely throughout the the last 30 years but we see the fruits of his effort today um but parenti talked a lot about how capitalism tries to erode our character as individuals it tries to get us to prioritize naked self-interest and callous cash payment as Carl Mark says in the manifesto above our fellow man above our own communities as well as how it strips people of purpose and induces them with depression and Social isolation we see this everywhere in our society in our schools in our neighborhoods but parenti as well as heroic figures like Chay gavara who I try my best to model my own life after not only believed in fighting capitalism through Collective struggle but also in how we go about our lives they encouraged us to stimulate oops dropped my mic one sec they encouraged us to stimulate our minds with reading instead of spending every free hour playing video games or watching television to reject the highly processed food that we are marketed every day and try to treat our own bodies with respect by feeding at nutritious fuel I have a workout plan that I've been sending to different chapters and I'm working on a nutrition plan as well as I read through the work of communist nutrition scientist Ray Pete I'm glad you're you're glad to hear that you're all excited about that because the ruling class does its very best to make us feel depressed and hopeless they want us to embrace system is broken to feel that there's nothing they can do about it anyways and so all they should do is Chase short-term sensory pleasures and material wealth until they eventually die the system relies upon eroding the character of intelligent individuals and making sure they don't become fighting individuals but Communists are those individuals of unshakable character who have the heart to feel for their community that is being exploited by the system the mind to deconstruct the system and come to understand how it works the spirit to stand up against the ruling class bullies who own every media outlet and the body that they can set to work in the struggle to revolutionize this system Although our bodies can vary greatly and I'm not saying you have to have a six-pack to contribute okay you have to have an eight pack this isn't PSL step it [Applause] up the truth is that it is possible to change this capitalist system and this was proven for the first time signed by the Bolsheviks of Russia and a man who truly embodied the ideal character of a communist named Vladimir Lenin a man with an iron will who refused to cower in front of the ruling class bullies that killed his brother even before a successful Marxist revolution had proved the correctness of marxist revolutionary theory and practice but Lenin had simply studied to the point where he couldn't be lied to while he continued to gather High character and competent dedicated people around him he openly lambasted those in Russia who said that revolu was impossible and in the end it was proven that he was correct and that he had the most correct analysis of Russian society and the Russian working class because he was untainted by the propaganda of the ruling class which was able to turn so many previously great revolutionaries like Carl kowsky off the proper path lenon wouldn't allow himself to be bullied out of fighting for what he knew was right or thinking things that he knew to be correct he simply dismantled the ruling class arguments one by one and continued to work diligently until the Russian revolution had become a material reality that could no longer be the nine and it's this kind of spirit that we need to embody as Communists as we go forward in America and look to combat the years of McCarthyism and Red Scare propaganda that have been injected into our working class by the ruling class which is really one of the only major disadvantages that we have here in America over other countries but at the same time we also have advantages and and advantages over our historical heroes of the past like Lenin such as advanced means of communication and social media today which is one of the gravediggers of capitalism that capitalism itself creates which we can then use as a tool to transform the system I mentioned earlier that I try to model my own life after Chay gavara the famed revolutionary leader of the the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel Castro and I've studied him oh sorry and one might think that all of the marxists in Cuba at the time were huge fans of Chay they all loved Chay this man who came came to Cuba to fight for the Cuban people even though he was Argentinian because he believed in this United Pan-American people this person who spent all day reading Theory teaching other people Theory educating himself about Marxism this man who would go run around the escomb mountains with a weed backpack while he was training for the revolution but there was an academic class of self-identified marxists in the capital city of Havana Cuba who hated chavara they viewed him as adventuristic for believing that the Cuban could be organized he didn't think or they didn't think that the peasants could constitute a powerful enough political force to overthrow the dictatorship and the plantation economy many of these dogmatic academic marxists believe that Cuba had to first pass through capitalism before they could achieve socialism as if societal Evolution and progress happen in a linear line now this academic class or does this academic class of self-described marxist sound familiar to anyone it's important to acknowledge that these kinds of pseudo leftists that we are dealing with today have existed everywhere and our heroes had to deal with them as well today I understand why lennin spent so much time arguing with other left-wingers which was something that perplexed me when I first started reading it similar to lennin CH gavara refused to be bullied by the Cuban academics and the correctness of his revolutionary theory was proven in practice as the majority of peasants enthusiastically supported the overthrow of the Batista regime and the plantation owners who had worked the peasants like slaves but if you spend too much time worrying about what the academics think you won't be able to reach the working people who are actually eager for revolution because it's the only way to escape their material conditions whereas a lot of academics are already living in relative material Comfort some people have attributed a FCO theory of Revolution to chavara or fiso which is one of those Concepts that he never explicitly named uh but which was attributed to him by later students of his work and it draws upon his theoretical work such as gorilla Warfare written in 1960 and posits that a small group of High character individuals could inspire a much larger group of people to revolutionary struggle by demonstrating their competence and commitment the story of almost every Communist party in an existing socialist country is the story of a small and extremely High character group of individuals who are surrounded by recers propagandists and Liars however through working diligently they are eventually able to win the support of the people and grow the movement into a massive revolutionary Uprising in 1905 or in 1905 Russia the bolic party was incredibly small and after the failed 1905 Revolution the situation got even worse it took until 1912 for Lenin to reconstitute the party and until 1917 for them to become a leading Force among the Russian workers and a lot of the Russian soldiers as well when the famous Grandma yacht set sail for the Sierra Maestra mountains to launch the Cuban Revolution it carried just 80 W revolutionaries however after they were ambushed by Batista's forces um who who had learned their location through an intelligence leak all but 12 of the Cuban revolutionaries were killed or captured these 12 Communists included Chay gavara cilo Sian fuos and ra Raul and Fidel Castro and this was the group that then mobilized the Cuban peasants to overthrow the us back puppet government and transform the structure of their society forever so the Cuban Revolution literally started with 12 hungry dudes in the mountains 12 dudes who were starving in the mountains were able to mobilize and Inspire the people to Revolution and yet we have people who will tell us that we're too small or that we're we don't have enough people to really make a difference but this is just how it starts more people will join as we demonstrate our competence and our character and win over the working class through our actions rather than just pandering so think about the situation that our revolutionary Heroes of the past found themselves in and compare it to our conditions today here in America we are not the largest group ever but I truly believe that we are building the same kind of organizations that Chay and Lennon were at the beginning of High character dedicated individuals who can unite the political struggle that this country desperately needs in 1902 Lennon said we are Marching In a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path firmly holding each other by the hand we are surrounded on all sides by enemies and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire we have combined by a freely adopted decision for the purpose of fighting the enemy and not of retreating into the neighboring Marsh the inhabitants of which from the very outset have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation I don't think any quote more accurately describes our situation today since we made the decision to form the American Communist party and distinguish ourselves from the pseudo communist American political parties who have chosen the path of conciliation and abandon Marxism from all angles we are being attacked by Wreckers smear merchants and those who wish we would just shut up about class struggle already and focus on the culture War distractions that have been designed by the ruling class but let us not become self- congratulatory yet because so far we have proved very little and all of the hardest work is still in front of us each and every one of you as an individual need needs to understand that now your choices and your actions your words everything that you do reflects back upon the party and back upon your comrades this was something my father and high also high school wrestling coach which was not always fun but great man this is something that he tried to hammer into into the heads of me and my teammates and it was one of the lessons that I had the hardest time accepting because especially under this economic system most of the time it's easy here to just do what you want to not sacrifice for the collective and do whatever you want to do as an individual but to be frank with you guys as Communists today in America in the situation that we are in we do not have a choice we must accept this principle we must train ourselves to take the collective into account when we take action I don't get to go blackout drinking every weekend and try not to worry about who I pissed off the next morning when I wake up because the stakes are too high and my actions now reflect on you all I'm responsible to everyone in this room to my own Community to my future children and to my future children who might inherit a literal hellscape if we don't start getting things done very soon when you have people who want to destroy your reputation and the reputation of the group that you are a part of you simply can't give them free ammo by being undisciplined and frankly degenerate although I know some people think that's a fascist word to me it just means treating yourself others and your environment with respect rather than trashing them because you feel likeing doing it at the time when people are coming for your head you must live beyond reproach otherwise you give them free ammo to come at you with and I'm not telling you guys that you can't have fun I'm having fun right now everybody who is at the midwestern marks Airbnb and Dearborn knows that we had fun you can talk to my college wrestling teammates they'll tell you that I had too much fun but that's off limits and I'm trying to get that put in the Constitution they're all Sworn to Silence but to be honest with you all winning is fun too and this is one of the things that I learned in wrestling once I started staying disciplined and denying myself some short-term Pleasures that might prevent me and my team from achieving long-term goals I actually started to have more fun because it's more fulfilling to achieve something in the longterm that requires discipline and hard work with a group of people who you truly care about than it is to enjoy every short-term pleasure that you can while always seeming to come up short of your long-term goals or maybe never even beginning the process of chasing them nobody is perfect that my comrade Carlos gito has written a wonderful book about the failures of trying to maintain Some Kind of Perfect Purity all we can do is our best but now is the time to look inward as an individual and ask yourself am I doing everything I can are there obvious changes that I can make to my life and my daily habits that will lead to more positive outcomes for my party or my country and Community by extension am I spending at least a little time each week reading Marxist theory so I can stimulate my own mind and sharpen my torical skills for the next time I'm in a political discussion with a coworker or Community member after all lenon told us the three keys to Revolution are read read read another almost unbelievably High character communist of History ma Tong told us to civilize the mind and make Savage the body because there is a dialectic that exists between discipline and freedom discipline gives us the freedom to control our own minds control our own actions right liberal freedom is just the freedom to live without discipline freedom for the individual to consume and exploit others freely but no freedom to actually live a fulfilling life in connection with your community which is what every human craves that's what this system strips from us in M study on physical education where he says to civilize the mind and make Savage the body he posits that the physical and mental discipline or physical and mental discipline are inextricably connected the healthier our bodies are the more mental energy we will have something which has been confirmed and explained in much more detail by the aforementioned communist nutrition scientist Ray Pete I once had a coach who would tell me that if you're being a piece of crap in one area of your life it will inevitably start to seep into other areas of your life now that coach was an alcoholic and that seeped into his uh that was a joke that seeped into that seeped into his other areas of life and he was eventually fired as a wrestling coach but he was correct he was correct that if you're you're messing up in one area we'll seep into other areas the party is only as strong as its weakest link and we all have an obligation to each other to hold that chain strong when the CIA or the Massad infiltrate organizations they target those who they feel to be of weak character and they manipulate them to turn them against the party we've already seen this happens uh some ways they tear High character individuals out of the American left leaving only self-righteous virtue signaling leftists who look down on the working class and they are hated by the working class class in turn so the onus is on us not only to rebuild the American communist movement but to restore our reputation in the eyes of the American working class the ruling class would prefer that you live your entire life going to work being exploited and then coming home to consume short-term Pleasures like booze porn and pot until the day you Keel over and die but the ACP is a party of a new type which draws from the legacy of past Heroes like Henry Winston who said no I will not live like that I will not do what you say I will put the collect above myself I will sacrifice for the good of my community I will live a disciplined lifestyle and I will not become a passive and submissive peon who lives only to consume while you drown my community and my family in dead and murder babies with my taxes I will not I would rather die a better world is possible I do believe in humanity and I will not be gaslit by genocidal psychos who accumulated their wealth through giving people loans to buy necessary Goods like housing than charging them interest you're you're a scammer you're a parasite you're a liar and I will stand with the workers no matter how much you cry about it or how many of us you try to hurt for speaking truth to power in the words of CH Gabara it is not our fault that reality is Marxist and reality is Marxist my friends capitalism is not an eternal or Universal economic system that can never be overthrown or improved just like slavery and feudalism before it were not despite what the ideologues of those eras tried to tell us the divine right Kings was once thought to be Universal and eternal as well but it's going to take a very high character group of dedicated individuals to get that done I believe that group is the ACP which is why I'm very proud to be standing in front of you today let us each do our best to live up to this Monumental historical task that we have inherited I am willing to fight for this country so long as you all are willing to fight with me thank you

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