By A. Shaw

“It’ll take an army to change Washington,” says Bernie Sanders.
After all, Washington has its own army which is huge, vicious, well-trained, armed with state of the art political weapons, savage, and experienced in all forms of political struggle.
Long ago, Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto adopted a military analogy for political struggle.
They argued that the working class must be armed with “weapons” of a political nature.
“The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons ‘the modern working class’ the proletarians,” the Communist Manifesto says.
So, in other words, the workers wield political weapons that the bourgeoisie forges. So, the workers get these weapons from the bourgeoisie. In our situation today, the DP, one of two old bourgeois parties in the USA, politically represents the bourgeoisie which still today forges political weapons, used in the art of political campaigning.
Let’s look at another reference in the Communist Manifesto to political weapons.
“The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all times with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie,”  the Manifesto says.
Waging many political struggles, the bourgeoisie appeals to the proletariat for help. Thus, the bourgeoisie drags the proletariat into the political arena. The bourgeoisie. therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.
Clearly, the weapons are of a type suitable for the political arena.
Clearly, the weapons are “elements of political and general education.”
Anarchist and other leftist crackpots argue that the “weapons” are cannon balls, atomic bombs, sharp knifes, lethal biological agents, clubs, jet fighters, tanks, etc., etc., and etc.
These droppings left by anarchists and crackpots are not worthy of comment.
When we look at political revolution happening under democratic conditions from the point of view of cause and effect, we see cause as a unity and struggle between necessary and sufficient conditions
We see the proletariat as the necessary condition for a proletarian revolution. By necessary condition we mean a condition which by its absence stops the effect [revolution] from happening. In other words, the effect — i.e., the revolution — never happens when the necessary condition [the proletariat] isn’t, in some significant way, present.
But the mere presence of the necessary condition [the proletariat] does not guarantee that the effect [the revolution] happens. All we can expect when the necessary condition alone is present is that effect will either happen or it won’t happen.
The effect always happens upon the union or unity of necessary [the proletariat] and sufficient [the weapons] conditions.
So, the effect doesn’t happen in the solitary presence of the sufficient condition [the weapons]  — that is, absent the necessary condition.
Again, cause and effect works only within a given range or field or certain limits, outside of these limits something else goes on. In our case, this range or field or limits is the existence of a democratic state, such as the current U.S. regime. We should be mindful that in March 2009 former US Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said “U.S. democracy is degenerating into a dictatorship.” Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Al Gore have said  things that are very similar to O’Connor’s remark.
If we don’t watch out, we may lose our field.
Historically, leaders of the working class and the rest of the masses have tried to substitute bullshit for weapons, as understood in the Marxist sense as “elements of political and general education” suitable for use in the political area. For over two centuries, the leaders of the working class in the USA have experimented with every type of bullshit, but bullshit regardless of its type doesn’t  produce revolution.
Rather, bullshit suppresses revolution.
Under democratic conditions, the proletariat, not just the failed “leaders” of the proletariat,” wants “weapons”– that is, wants to know how to win elections. The leaders alone can’t be trusted with the weapons. The proletariat itself must have them.
Let us never again forget the first step by the working class, as we have so far forgotten for 200 years
“The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy,” the Communist Manifesto says.
Without weapons, in the Marxist sense, the working class can’t be “raised.”
Without weapons the working class cannot “win the battle for democracy.”
Without weapons we can’t take even the “first step.”
Where are those damn weapons?
The army waits.