While the Republicans undergo an identity crisis, Bernie Sanders has revealed that a shockingly large number of Americans think another world is possible.
Bernie Sanders addresses a crowd in Portland, Oregon
The 2016 election has highlighted deep ideological divides across the country and presented some very encouraging signs for communists. The media script for the 2016 primaries featured Hillary Clinton as a lock for the Democrats while Republican voters chose between party hacks with identical positions on policy. While the Republicans have unmasked themselves as unashamed xenophobic hate mongers, what is occurring overall in the election cycle is not only surprising, but is in many ways encouraging. In this article I will try to look at the state of US politics right now and what it means for us as libertarian communists.
First off, let me start with the Republicans. The Republican base has revolted against the Party elite over what they see as an unwillingness by establishment politicians to stand firm to Republican values. Additionally, Republican voters harbor an increasingly volatile resentment of both the government and society itself. To this end the base has aligned themselves with the campaigns of Texas senator Ted Cruz and businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump.
Both candidates are despised by the Party elite who regard them as unelectable, insulting, and damaging to the Republican party brand. In 2013, the government shut down for weeks after Cruz spearheaded a refusal by the Republican congress to ratify President Obama’s budget. The shutdown was a national embarrassment to the Republican party establishment, and Cruz was held responsible. At a time when Republican politicians are voting with uniformity, Cruz also became an unlikely opponent of free trade agreements and subsidies for ethanol production. While a senator, Cruz further angered Republican politicians through unprofessional conduct in Congress, reportedly embarrassing his colleagues with long rants about their unwillingness to push for more right wing policies.
Cruz has run afoul of the Republican Party establishment for other reasons as well. Cruz has surrounded himself with conspiracy theorists such as Frank Gaffney who Cruz recently appointed as one of his top national security advisers. Gaffney recently warned in an interview about, "a coming together of... Islamists — Islamic supremacists if you will, the Muslim Brotherhood — and Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements and sort of anarchists and other assorted radicals on the left" who are "joining forces" to create a "very violent prospect, in fact a revolutionary one." Following the Brussels attacks Cruz stated that he thinks police should "patrol and secure" "Muslim neighborhoods" across the country. Cruz has racked up an impressive array of extreme right wing elements who most mainstream Republicans try to distance themselves from. For instance Cruz has been enjoying the support of pundit Glenn Beck who famously accused Barack Obama of being a "racist" with a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” Beck, a Mormon, has recently spoken at several Cruz rallies passionately telling the audience that God wants them to vote for Cruz in order to fulfill a prophecy that is written in the Book of Mormon. Cruz has also received the support of right wing pastor Kevin Swanson, who recently said the leaders of the Girl Scouts should be executed for their support of LGBT rights.
Despite his support from the radical religious right Cruz will certainly lose to the obvious Republican front runner, Donald Trump. Trump began his campaign by doing what he always does, drawing attention to himself with crude jokes and political incorrectness. By doing so, he appealed to Republicans and Independents who hate the political establishment and politicians in general. His crass remarks during the debates were like a breath of fresh air to voters whose lives are not reflected by the wholesome charms of traditional Republican candidates such as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. By transporting his crude witticisms from reality TV to the comparatively restrained tone of the presidential race, Trump was able to sell himself as a genuine political outsider who would refuse to cow to the pressures of the liberal interest groups that control Washington.
The popularity of Trump and Cruz can be traced to the most serious issues affecting the Republican Party voter base today. The Republican base is made up mostly of middle aged whites. As a recent groundbreaking study has shown, “The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014.” The decline in life expectancy seems to be due to an increase in suicides, alcoholism, and substance abuse. This group of voters sees their lives getting worse each year, and they feel, correctly, as though the media and the political establishment are not addressing the issues that are important to them. In desperation they are seeking out candidates to “make America great again,” or, in other words, start making their life expectancy go up again, instead of down. It should be no wonder then, that one-time Republican front runner Ben Carson opened up the February 25th Republican debates by proclaiming, “our nation is heading off the abyss of destruction.” Noam Chomsky presciently commented that Trump’s rise represented the, “breakdown of society.” Indeed, the Party elite is aghast at how well their efforts at politicizing religion and racism have succeeded. Much of the blame for this current situation may not lie with the Party elite itself, but rather with the Koch brothers who have tried for decades to foment insurgency within the Party in an effort to create a militant grassroots movement. The current situation bears many similarities to the sudden rise of the Tea Party 7 years ago.
Whatever the case, it has now gotten to a point where the elite can no longer control the base and the veneer of respectability that the Republican Party tries to command can longer be maintained. This election cycle almost certainly signals a major turning point for the party. The Party will have to decide whether or not to embrace its new identity as an openly racist populist party, or to try, by means of a figurative coup at the convention, to sabotage the campaigns of Trump and Cruz in favor of the more respectable John Kasich.
Against all odds, Sanders makes it far into the primary
Perhaps of more interest to communists is the revolt taking place on the other end of the political spectrum amongst the Democratic Party base. The Democratic Party primary was supposed to be an easy win for centrist Hillary Clinton. Her politics of quietly pushing the Democratic Party to the right has been key in shaping the current identity of the party as a representative of fiscally conservative and socially liberal Wall Street. As I’ve written about before, Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA, she supported the escalation of the war on drugs, she supported the dismantling of the welfare system, she voted for the Iraq war and was the leading US figure in the 2011 Libyan intervention. Her entire professional career, from her time as a lawyer representing Tysons Foods and Wal-Mart, to her support of the military coup in Honduras has been characterized by a series of right wing policies that have pushed back against all forms of government protection for the world’s poor.
Sanders, for his part, is about as far as you can get to the left while still being an American politician. He describes himself as a democratic socialist. He openly supports expanding Medicare to not only all US citizens, but undocumented citizens as well. He supports raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour. He wants to kick start the economy with massive investments into renewable energy. He is opposed to the war on drugs and wants to curb the powers of the police. He opposed NAFTA, he opposed the Iraq war, and he has supported treatment and prevention rather than policing as a more appropriate reaction to drug abuse.
Given the fact that Sanders regularly points out that the media is owned by large corporations and/or billionaires such as Jeff Bezos (Washington Post) and Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp), the corporate media’s reaction to his campaign has been predictably over the top negative. At first the goal was to try and simply ignore his candidacy. However, after tying Clinton in Iowa and receiving increasingly high poll numbers, the media went into attack mode. Two well-known incidents in particular highlighted the media’s frenzied panic over Sanders’ continued success. One well-known incident came in a single 16-hour period between March 6th and March 7th, when the Jeff Bezos owned Washington Post ran 16 negative Bernie Sanders articles while publishing 0 positive ones. Another well-known incident of the media trying to sabotage Sanders came from the New York Times in a March 15th article about Sanders’ record of pushing for progressive policies in the Senate. The article originally was somewhat favorable to Sanders, and although it described him as the “liberal mirror image of the Tea-Party”, it also made note of how as a senator he, “secured money for dairy farmers and community health centers, blocked banks from hiring foreign workers and reined in the Federal Reserve.” The Sanders campaign even linked to the article on their website. However, after the Sanders campaign linked to the article, a number of mysterious edits to the article were made. First of all, the title had been changed from Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years Through Legislative Side Doors to Via Legislative Doors, Bernie Sanders Won Modest Victories. Next, a quote from a Sanders adviser saying, “it has been a very successful strategy” was deleted and replaced with the following two paragraphs
But in his presidential campaign Mr. Sanders is trying to scale up those kinds of proposals as a national agenda, and there is little to draw from his small-ball legislative approach to suggest that he could succeed.
Mr. Sanders is suddenly promising not just a few stars here and there, but the moon and a good part of the sun, from free college tuition paid for with giant tax hikes to a huge increase in government health care, which has made even liberal Democrats skeptical.
As Matt Taibbi wrote in Rolling Stone,
There were other changes...The salutary line about Sanders being an ‘effective, albeit modest legislator’ – a key passage that in the original article directly contradicted the Clinton-camp contention that Sanders can't ‘get things done’ – is now followed by a sort of disclaimer:
‘He has enacted his agenda piece by piece, in politically digestible chunks with few sweeping legislative achievements in a quarter-century in Congress’…Worse, the line about ‘tacking on amendments to larger bills that scratch his particular policy itches’ has now, absurdly, been rewritten to read:‘…tacking on amendments to larger bills to succeed at the margins.’
The list of media efforts to sabotage the Sanders campaign are legion, and too numerous to document here, but these are the two most well-known incidents.
Despite all of the odds stacked against him, Sanders is surviving in the race far longer than anyone expected. A recent Bloomberg poll of democrats show that he Clinton are tied for support nationally. It is still conceivable for him to win a majority of the delegates in the nomination process, but he will have to rack up major upsets in upcoming states in order to do this. His victory in the race is not inconceivable, however it is unlikely.
What does the Sanders phenomenon mean for communists?
The Democratic Party nomination process has highlighted the fact that a very substantial portion of the population has views about how society should be run that are far to the left of both political parties. The question is what does this mean for libertarian communists and how do we relate to this progressive movement? Our major talking point on the Sanders election campaign should be; why do we need politics? For example, why should someone who is working two full time jobs in order to survive wait for the majority of Americans to vote for a politician who will address this issue? Direct action outside of the political parties solves this issue without needing to enter into the corporate media dominated circus of the election process. We do not need to wait for the government to protect us or give us rights, we should take them through organizing and direct action.
It should also be pointed out that Sanders simply does not go far enough. I agree that Sanders’ policies would improve the world. However, were we put on this earth to spend each day working in a cubicle, at a checkout counter, in a warehouse, just so various companies can out compete each other on the marketplace? What kind of life is that? Can’t we envision something better?
For now, the Sanders campaign has shown that people are open to the idea of another world. Let’s organize and take it.
Comments
You make good points however
You make good points however there are still lots of questions. l would think actually the first one would be serious action to counter the right-wing, xenophobic, racists and relgious sentiments that it seems a lot of working class people have as a reaction to their situation. Let's say that there is a movement with lots of criticism to the type of capitalism you have now and social democracy has become popular with some quarter of the population. First, this is still social democracy, which is not exactly anti-capitalist, nor is it anti-state - but admittedly, for Americans this is probably as left as they can expect to see in mainstream politics. l do believe that part of these people can be radicalized towards more libertarian ideas, especially as they will be confronted by obvious fact that voting and the American "democratic" system is a sham. Of course this situation should be used to make some push ahead for the libertarian movement. However, beyond that, there is still the situation that working class frustrations tend to go in other directions and if that is not addressed in any way, at the very best there are decades of political polarization and, most likely, and intensely disgusting future American political establishment ahead.
Respectfully, I don't think
Respectfully, I don't think Sanders has shown that people are open to "another world." He's shown that people are open to a very slight rejiggering of this world. Let's fight with Bernie for higher wages -- but don't talk about abolishing wage slavery. Let's get big money out of the capitalist state's elections -- so that the capitalist state can get back to safeguarding capitalism more "fairly." Etc.
It's interesting that some radicals see grand significance in Bernie, while many to the center of the far-right and far-left on the bourgeois political spectrum can only yawn. Hence the Cato Institute's Marian Tupy writing in the Atlantic:
Unsurprisingly, for Tupy, a right-libertarian, Bernie is a bona fide non-capitalist simply because he advocates higher taxes. Many leftists agree. Hence Robert Reich:
The same sentiment goes for Ted Rall, who nicely summarizes what Sanders really aims for :
So -- pretty much every defender of capitalist society yawns at Bernie's "socialism," but we're getting psyched up? Are we really that desperate for any sign of a change in our fortunes?
Quote: First, this is still
Social democracy is "not exactly anti-capitalist?" Is it even anti-capitalist a little? In 1914 social democracy finally and definitively betrayed the working class. In 1918 it did everything it could to drown the class in blood. And 100 years later we're cheering on the resurgence of a variant that is even less ostensibly radical?
I agree with your sentiment -- that Sanders is no radical -- but disagree with the hint that we should be heartened because people are increasingly open to a certain set of capitalist policies. I think that if we are revolutionaries at all, we must break with the idea that we exist on the same continuum -- just further out -- than the left. We want two completely different things. Reform is not a prelude to revolution. The left's success is not ours.
Apart from the terminological confusion, Sanders and his movement have nothing to do with socialism. If one of his followers is confronted by an equally confused right-winger who wants to rant about socialism, nine times out of ten you can expect the Sandersista to counter lamely with some line about highways or fire engines being examples of socialism.
I don't see any particular value in Sanders's campaign. To the extent that people will be disillusioned by his nomination being blocked by the Democratic party machine, their belief in democracy will be reinforced: "next time we just have to be more involved in the process!" or "we need to set up a third party!"
Interesting. I was just
Interesting. I was just reading an article on this topic and the author made the point that it n the 70's and to a lesser extent, the 80's, baby boomers were about 50% pro-socialism. But to them it meant significant amount of state ownership of business, along soviet lines. . Nowadays tho, this generation views socialism not as state run enterprise, but as a welfare state, and we view state ownership quite negatively. Of course, these surveys always assume socialism= state ownership, but at least the author acknowledged that a welfare state isn't really Socialism.
I think the big factor here is coming of age during the recession. A lot of us either view state benefits(food stamps and Medicaid) very favorably as we had to survive on them to extent or have had friends, family and so on, survive on them at some point. Ditto unemployment. And the stock market crash basically destroyed our faith in the free markets.
Schalken, l agree with you
Schalken, l agree with you that social democracy is nothing to recommend. And l am quite critical of those who act like it is something desirable or those who are all hyped up to vote. That said, my point was that perhaps a certain part of those people could be swayed - given the fact that electoral democracy is a sham, especially in the US with all the party/corporate interests. There is just a lot of disillusionment and it would be good if people managed to channel some part of that in a more anti-statist and anti-capitalist direction.
The Trump-Sanders duality
The Trump-Sanders duality reveals, as Soapy pointed out, an ideological divide. And not only that but this is also a fissure in the political machinery. I believe Soapy's conclusion is that this opening up is where we sow our seeds. Sanders is in a sense just as much a spectacle as Donald Trump, but in reverse.
Quote: I agree with your
I don't know schalken, I think you're conflating two things here. One is the history, legacy, and ideological use of social democracy. The other is what the Sanders campaign reveals about the shifting political sensibilities of, in particular, young Americans.
Should we have a criticism of Sanders by virtue of him being a politician? Of course. Should we have criticisms of both his tepid social democracy and his campaign's understanding of how we achieve social democratic reforms? Of course we should.
That said, huge swaths of Americans are supporting a self-declared "socialist". That wouldn't have happened 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or even 4 years ago. However flawed that term may be or however flawed their understanding of that term may be, there is clearly something deeper going on here.
Here, I think there's a good possibility you're right:
On the other hand, I think becoming disillusioned with statist, social democratic solutions is a stage a lot of people are going to pass through first if we're ever going to achieve a mass revolutionary movement. Personally - and given here that no one is endorsing Sanders or his campaign - I think having a cautiously optimist approach to what the Sanders campaign may signal is pretty reasonable.
I think the radical left and
I think the radical left and the reformist left feed off each other, and the fortunes for both are linked in ways many of us don't like to admit. It's hard to imagine a radical left significantly emerging in a place and time where the reformist left is more or less marginalized. If someone has an example of this, I'd like to hear it.
I see no connection of any
I see no connection of any substance here. Sanders socialism(lol) is more likely to act as a brake on people's desire for meaningful change. The idea that a difference can only be made through the ballot box is once again reinforced.
Sanders is either a cynical, deceitful piece of shit or a deluded fool. Either way, fuck him. Where does he get off with his theft of the word 'socialism? Surely he can't be stupid enough to really believe that this is what he promotes? Just a marketing buzz word to these fucking charlatans. He can call it socialism as many times as he likes but then I once repeatedly called a turd a banana, when I took a bite of it though, it still tasted like shit.
Sanders and Corbyn are an obstacle of false hope of massive proportions. Their rise should not give hope to libcoms - we really should know better.
Quote: I think the radical
Totally, and history confirms this, yes. You don't get left communism without social democracy.
This might be an aside, but a lot of ppl forget that Marx's theory and practice emerged from Chartism- not English political economy and German philosophy alone(so study Chartism more and value form less folks). Chartism and the mutual aid type organizations and so on fueled the labor movement and this context truly made radicalism possible in theory and in practice. It doesn't always have to work precisely like that, but it pretty much always has.
Quote: You don't get left
This seems to be suggesting that reformist parties mechanically spawn more radical elements. But isn't the reverse also true? Sure, maybe the chartists informed Marx, but it's not as if Chartism led to communism. Marx was a late-comer to communism. Babeuf 50 years earlier prefigured him. Somebody called Ludwig Gall supposedly advocated ideas that were very similar to Marx, a full decade or two before Chartism and Marx came onto the scene. Maybe it was these first (modern, conscious) communists who awakened Chartist reformism?
Or perhaps a better way to think of it is that when the class is in action, a certain segment always lags behind, looks to reforms, and a certain segment always finds more clarity and identifies revolution as the way forward. Encouraging the reformist segment as a way to bolster the revolutionary element seems odd. Especially when that laggard section isn't even part of the class, as in the case of Sanders and the Democrats...
schalken wrote: Encouraging
schalken
No one's saying this though. What's being said is that when you've lived your whole life in a country where believing in socialism was akin to being a satanist, the fact that so many people are willing to get behind a self-declared socialist (no matter how different their definition is from ours) is an interesting phenomenon, perhaps one that even signals a positive change in the general political culture.
Also, I disagree with the whole 'how dare he use the word socialism' thing. It's not 'our word' anymore than 'communism' or 'anarchism' or 'feminism' or any other words.. words have contested meanings, the point is to make your definition the most appealing..
Quote: Also, I disagree with
Yes, within reasonable peramiters but come on Ed, to say that capitalism is socialism is just fucking daft. I wouldn't call a wheel square, I wouldn't say the sea is a bit dry and these people shouldn't say that the capitalism of Corbyn, Sanders etc is socialism. There's got to be limits FFS! Defense of this usage of language beyond reasonable limits supports further muddying of already extremely murky waters.
As to ''you don't get left
As to ''you don't get left communism without social democracy'' let's not get our periods of history too mixed up and be clear that the European Social Democracy pre World War One represented something very different from it's evolution into what it represents today. Then there was still a debate (valid or not) about reform or revolution towards something we might still recognise as socialism or communism. Today as some have said here 'Social Democracy' is at best just an attempt at regulating capitalism.
Noah, I hope you don't mind
Noah, I hope you don't mind if I pick this apart a bit...
Of course, ideologically, that's the role of social democracy. No one's disputing that, but that also not what people find interesting about/see potential in Sanders' campaign, either.
So, maybe yes. On the other hand, let's say Sanders wins the presidency. He's gonna come up short and the experience of being in power will moderate him. That's a given. That means "progressives" will have experienced two presidents in a row that they were super-hyped about, only to be disappointed both times. I think that may make a larger segments of the working class open to an anti-electoral message.
The thing is, though, is that he does represent a very real thread of "socialism" that has a long history in the workers' movement. I mean, even the Communist Manifesto, the initial demands set forth are basically social democratic.
I think maybe where we've seen a change is that in the past the reformist believed we could "reform capitalism out of existence", modern social democrats see the reforms themselves as the end goal. But social democracy and social democratic reforms have, arguably, throughout much of history, been a larger part of the socialist movement than full-scale, revolutionary socialism.
Picking at is most welcome. I
Picking at is most welcome. I should say that I know this thread is about Sanders but being in the UK and subject to the deification of Corbyn I haven't really studied the U.S. situation. Therefore I have assumed a very close parallel between the 2 cases. If I'm mistaken in this then I put my hands up even though I do think my points must still have some value.
Firstly, the let down factor - I'll pull age rank on you here as I've seen every single election since I took notice as a kid in the seventies that the government of any colour has ALWAYS failed to deliver on its manifesto. Do voters then jump ship and go to another party? Mostly no. Do they see the futility of their choice and start to consider another form of politics? Not a fucking chance. Most commonly, especially with Labour, they will stick to their usual preference and just keep slinging blame at the opposing party. The current orgy of liberal Tory bashing is a case in point - this great frothing group wank acts to fill in the glaring hole in their position, namely the record of Labour in government since it's formation. Mostly a question about this will be met with a deafening silence. At best, the hilarious argument of 'it will be different this time' is all you'll get. The liberal left say they have waited for a long time for someone like Corbyn. Well, when he fails to deliver I see no reason to believe the waiting will stop and a rise in radicalism will ensue.
As far as the word socialism is concerned, even if a partial nationalisation of industry and services is socialist,(which actually I don't accept, surely the very lightest form of true socialism is total nationalisation?), then can the term socialism be applied to a party who's Marxist(LMFAO) chancellor in waiting says(and these quotes are verbatim);
'We are the party of business'
'We are an entrepreneurial party'
Using neo-liberal catch phrases doesn't line up with socialism any more than Anarcho capitalism does with communism.
Maybe I'm cranky and frustrated because of the sea of mindless adoration of Sanders and Corbyn that I'm currently drowning in? Or maybe I'm rightly enraged by the highjacking of genuine change for the nefarious ends of a section of the ruling class that happens to be wearing a caring smile at the moment.
Noah Fence wrote: Firstly,
Noah Fence
The parties have responded to complaints about not keeping promises in their manifestoes. They make a lot fewer of them and make sure they don't have any criteria attached to judge them successful.
I'm pretty sure I read an analysis a whle back on how few promises were now in manifestoes.
You could draw parallels with
You could draw parallels with Corbyn and Sanders, but I think Corbyn is a lot further to the left from what I've seen.
The reason we can see a
The reason we can see a candidate like Sanders who dare to claim to be socialist is that American workers have less illusion that before. Thus, we need to welcome the situation. We can even support Sanders here and there to make some good ideas that previously were “prohibited” to spread. We, libertarian communists, should also acknowledge that as long as we are socially not effective, reformists take the lead and lead people to nowhere.
Juan Conatz wrote: You could
Juan Conatz
Yes, definitely but that is standard with UK/US politics. Even the most right-wing politicians here are to the left of most of the left-wing politicians in the US, just because of the different political/economic climate/balance of class forces.
Quote: The reason we can see
Well, people often simply want what reformists offer- reform. This isn't going "nowhere," it's going towards reforms and concessions from Capital. They may or may not be successfull, but this is what animates ppl. Things like universal, single payer healthcare, and high minimum wages and financial regulation. Bernie's socialism is popular because those policy choices are popular.
You can argue reforms go nowhere, but that's basically saying it's not going to where you want it to go- communism. For Sanders supporters the reforms are the destination- not communism; people think that would be going "nowhere". I don't want to chastize, but look at it from the average person's perspective, either communism is a vague and fantastical fairy tale land(even i get this impression fom many leftist quarters, especially communizers) or its Mao and the USSR. Not appealing choices.
Oh and I'd add that socialism
Oh and I'd add that socialism was popular when it fought for reforms and argued for a grand vision of communism's "sometime in the future". Clearly, in hindsight we see lots of mistakes in that. But hindsight is 20/20.... Social democracy really had no plan or vision for revolution when the time came to act, but it doesn't change the fact that the socialist movement was only relevant when it fought for reforms on the day-to-day.
noslavery wrote: The reason
noslavery
In a word, no. I may be a clumsy thinker but to me it's very simple. Sanders and a Corbyn are our class enemies. To support them in any way is misleading, collaborative an treacherous. I will not breathe oxygen into the lungs of this delusional mass hysteria.
Class collaboration? What is
Class collaboration? What is that? Politics is not a battlefield any longer, it's a spectacle, a collective television-dream! There's no sense in believing or not believing in it, it's made out of cloud cotton! Shape those clouds as you wish! Is there a giant cloud upon the horizon, a starry-eyed old Jew with a bottle of syrup in his pocket? Yes- and isn't he a pretty cloud, a pretty dream! Though I'm not sure what it all means. Oh no, now what is happening? It's raining! My heavens! The dream is changing, once more! New clouds brew upon the horizon! I will stuff my pack with as much of this cloud while it's still there for picking, but I must continue upon my journey, towards THE MOUNTAIN.
Juan, any ideas on how the
Juan, any ideas on how the radicals and reformists are linked? I'm sympathetic to kingzog's point that you don't get left communism, etc. without social democracy. They failed and that helped shed light on better methods (but now basically dead ends).
And to the point about not conflating modern day socdems with the past; it was reading Kautsky that convinced Debs to become a socialist (alongside reading Marx), wasn't it? The Class Struggle and the Erfurt program can serve as pretty good points of departure for discussion about what socialist politics might look like, hope to accomplish.
I'm trying really, really
I'm trying really, really hard to ignore of of this, which is actually impossible but I am trying but I saw this - Angela Davis saying that a new left party is needed.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/28/angela_davis_on_the_fascist_appeal
Just thought I'd post it up because someone mentioned the ubiquitous call for a new party.
Pennoid wrote: Juan, any
Pennoid
I don't have any real thought out opinions on this. It just seems hard to imagine a radical or revolutionary left emerging in a time and place where the reformist left is marginalized or nonexistent. If the latter doesn't exist, it seems the radical right is more likely to grow than anything. I think you see this in the U.S. with the white working class and the 'Patriot' movement. But where radical or revolutionary left has emerged and grown, it was alongside a reformist left. I don't think this is an argument to grow the reformist left, but instead maybe realize it as indicator of opportunities and shifts in the class.
Is this like somebody's high
Is this like somebody's high school paper or something?
Winstanley wrote: Is this
Winstanley
I mean, quite clearly it's a libcom blog, but so what if it was?
Quote: Firstly, the let down
Fair enough.
That said, I do think there are slight differences between the US and the UK on this issue. Old Labour was avowedly "socialist" and "socialism" was never the sort of dirty word in the UK that it was/is in the US. I think a massive generational shift in the acceptance of the word/support of the idea (however the hell it's interpreted!) means something - but maybe you're right in questioning my optimism in what it may mean.
In any case, we're still left with the problem in what to do with these mostly young, many newly-politicized Sanders supporters. I tend to think engaging them in non-electoral areas (protests, getting them along to direct actions, workplace stuff) is a pretty good place to start and may give us a bit more of an "in" when Sander/social democracy inevitably comes up short.
Juan Conatz wrote: Pennoid
Juan Conatz
honestly i think with how far things got pulled to the left post-crisis and with Occupy/BLM made way for more broad shitty socdem politics to be possible or conceivable... these things made socialism not a dirty word anymore... not Bernie
klas batalo (sorry forgot i was in i & a account)
Good point Klas. I should
Good point Klas.
I should say, I think frank, honest, programmatic politics is what we can take from (a period) of Socdem history. They obviously betrayed that/ made serious errors, I'd like to look into more.
But I see no problem with a Socialist Party full stop. I will say I'm not convinced by trotskyist transitional programs, or Stalinist entryism, or going to bat for Dems. There are serious flaws to the U.S. political system that keep it insulated from working class parties.
That said, I'd be interested in a discussion about Party strategy, perhaps on another thread. But I'm wondering, if anarchists are cool with a political org, my understanding of the opposition to electoralism (even to city council, state legislature, national legislature) is that
1) It can't deliver *at all*
2) That is, it's gains made by "anti-anarchist" means (not direct action; action by the state) or
3) That it fosters a "someone else will do it on my behalf" attitude.
1) strikes me as false, patently, 2) has some merit, but I think could be argued against, with a properly elaborated electoral strategy and party structure, and the fact that a member-funded party *requires* the same kind of organizing of unions etc. to turn out voters, canvass and win and 3) seems to have an anti-technical division of labor argument lurking behind it.
Sorry if derail.
Pennoid - could you explain
Pennoid - could you explain your comment on point 3 please? I really don't know what that means. Thanks.
Penn, aren't the main
Penn, aren't the main objections....?
a) the state is an inherently oppressive, hierarchical institution
b) the role of the state is to ensure the continued functioning of capitalism/the protection of national capital
c) if any individual or party enters government, they take on a position of authority, become managers of capital, and therefore become part of the ruling class.
Noah- by technical division I
Noah- by technical division I mean a division of labor socially along lines that produce productive results; increases in output per human working hour. This is only possible if some people spend their working time on one task. It's not an inherently bad thing.
Chilli- thanks for raising more objections.
I think a) is vague. How? Why? What is the capitalist state? Further I think it's similar to my argument 2 but only with more buzzwords. Like is it oppressive to violently coerce slaveholders? Of course not.
B) is sort of begging the question; I don't really disagree with this being the long trend especially post WWII but I don't actually think it's a given that people who get into a city council or legislature will necessarily be forced to capitulate. On the other hand, if by managing national capital, you mean managing the production process in an area and social life generally then that's exactly what the working class should aspire to do; of course if you mean manage the social relationships, I can understand the apprehension.
C) Again, they don't become managers of capital directly. They become managers of the state, depending on their position. And I guess I'm interested in breaking down the legal imperatives etc. That force people to act in one way or the other. This touches on electoral strategy; is it for propaganda? Is it for reforms that clear the way for class unionism? Are the elected accountable to party members? What laws make that difficult to implement in the U.S.? What election rules? Etc.
Pennoid wrote: Why? What is
Pennoid
Well, the modern state was developed alongside the development of capitalism, wasn't it? I think coercion can sometimes be used to protect freedom, but centralized political bodies tend to concentrate power in opposition to individuals. Then again, a communist state is what I've been lusting after in the depths of my heart.
I think it is easy to forget
I think it is easy to forget that every American election (especially since 1991) is about the future of world imperialism. So, what is actually being put before American proletarians, in terms of campaign promises, demagogy etc. is a good American style show concealing the invariable direction about militarism. Senders in that respect is no critic of militarism. This article from WSWS is pretty good on Sander's telling silence about American foreign policy:
As for Bernie Sanders, he has said virtually nothing about war or foreign policy, aside from criticizing Clinton for supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On his campaign web site, “war and peace” is relegated to the 25th of 28 issues in the election. He calls the 2003 invasion “the worst foreign policy blunder in modern US history.” The invasion of Iraq was, according to Sanders, not a crime, but a strategic mistake from the standpoint of the interests of the American ruling class.
He proclaims that “as President and Commander-in-Chief, I will defend this nation, its people, and America’s vital strategic interests, but I will do it responsibly.” He boasts of having voted for war in the Balkans in 1999 and in Afghanistan in 2001. He has supported the Obama administration’s drone strikes, denounced Russia, and insisted that the US maintain the largest military in the world.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/03/31/pers-m31.html
All reformisms Sanders pretend to stand for are null and void as long as he doesn't challenge militarism, which is the main enemy of the American proletarians.
Beyond that it is actually really a hopeful sign that socialism is no more a boogeyman for the American working youth. It is up to us to figure out what can be done with this positive sign.
However, I think the real rebellion is surfacing in the republican party. . Nauseating rise of Trump (to the leadership ? that is yet to be seen) seems to me to be something beyond an election show. If it is, it is like a joke that is over-repeated and exaggerated to the point of absurdity after it reverberated an embarrassing silence when it is first told. That is not really a decent performance. Instead, I think Trump is the expression of a real collapse of the RP, a disintegration of the American right, a surfacing of its repressed extremes. The wild marginalized American rightist is literally crushing the polite party. Why the American ruling class is retreating to the DP as the only party standing while leaving the RP to the crazies? Maybe, it is losing its ideological self-confidence, especially after post-2008 crisis and post-Occupy political context that crushed the remainders of american style liberalism. And maybe some American capitalists are losing their patience with the post-WWII elite consensus on the superficial ideological unity, when it comes to questions like race, democracy etc. I don't know, but it seems to be like a mixture of both.
Quote: I think a) is vague.
This has already been touched on a by a subsequent poster, but the issue isn't just the capitalist state, but the state, an institution which came about a result of class society.
This is why I mentioned functioning of capitalism which, as you point out, can mean coercing both the exploiters and the exploited. I mean, isn't this the critique of social democracy? I mean, sure, it places limits (and, indeed, sometimes coercive limits) on capital. In part it does this in response to class struggles; in part it does this to absorb some of the conflict inherent to capitalist society.
The thing is, though, it won't be managed by the class. It will be managed by (or in the very, very best scenario, through) elected politicians/state functionaries.
Yeah, the social relationship.
I mean, yes and no. I mean, far more than making laws, the role of local, state, and federal politicians is to budget money. And while it might not be classic M-C-M', the reality is that that money is used, in large part, to pay state workers.
And even if we decide it's still an indirect relationship, capitalism is fundamentally a class relationship and those state managers are just as important to the management of capitalism as the owners of capital and workplace managers.
One thing I was thinking
One thing I was thinking about with the Sanders campaign came from something I saw someone say on Facebook: "We live in Minnesota, we already live under Sanders".
For sure some truth to that. In MN, the Republican Party has long been in the minority if not irrelevant. The Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, while long ago having pushed out its far left, is still to the left of most state Democratic Parties. We've long had a state-run health care system (Minnesota Care), that provides cheap to free insurance, based on income. The governor, a 'tax the rich' billionaire basically told the GOP to go fuck themselves in 2011 in a showdown over the budget that led to a 2-week government shutdown. He put the majority of the state's revenue surplus into education. The union rate here is higher than the national rate. I could go on and on. If there's anywhere in the U.S. that could be compared to a modern social democracy, it is Minnesota.
However, Minnesota has massive racial disparities. There has been protests and occupations on and off for months over the police killing of an unarmed black man. There is vicious anti-Somali racism in the suburbs and more rural areas. Gentrification is happening at a rapid pace in Minneapolis.
Is my life here in Minnesota better and easier here than in Iowa? Sure. Is there more of an opening for radical politics here than other places in the Midwest? Possibly. Is it significant? I don't think so.
Juan, same thing in Sweden.
Juan, same thing in Sweden. Massive welfare state. Lots of refugees, especially now. They take on average 10 years to get jobs, and are basically so marginalized in Swedish society, they are hostile to it and the areas they live in, public housing, are "no-go zones" for police. So social democracy isnt really cutting it.
Here in Seattle, the East African refugees(be interesting to compare it to Minneapolis' situation) have a slightly easier time finding jobs, as the US has more low wage jobs than sweden, but currently they have a huge gang and crime problem and are just not integrated into society, even tho many are 2nd generation now.
kingzog wrote: they are
kingzog
that's a great april fool's post
Haha! I knew someone would
Haha! I knew someone would get it!
Chili, I'm still not seeing
Chili, I'm still not seeing how this is an argument to *not* run in elections full stop.
I got to emphasize, I'm not here trying to take the pages straight from the contemporary Socdem playbook, I'm trying to take a step back and look at institutional and social imperatives that deaden the electoral process to use for communists, and how they could be fought and reversed.
Communists have to run society. We have to deal with "taking social power" what I think Syndicalistcat sometimes poses as "constituting a polity" or establishing a social or political order. Clearly the Bernstein strategy (by definition) has nothing to do with revolution. So I'm not advocating that.
Is it conceivable that a member-funded political party could have a legislative/parliamentary fraction that is kept accountable via a programmatic politics, recall-ability etc. ?
I'm thinking here, partly, of this piece by Kautsky http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1081/origins-of-democratic-centralism/ and the general strategy of the second international to use parliament and elections to prepare and organize the working class to take power, alongside unions, street actions etc.
gram negative wrote: kingzog
gram negative
Kingzog description fits the prevailing media narrative in sweden. The police claim certain areas to be no go zones for them as they occasionally get attacked by the kids as they go there. They are also claiming some areas lost to organised crime.
The swedish labour market is hugely discriminatory against immigrants and the big cities are amongst the most geographically/racially segregated in europe.
Of course the police is the police and they have their own agenda with the information they put out. Using terms like no go areas is hugely exaggerated and rubbish. People without first hand experience actually believe the media garbage. Despite an incredible retreat of services and support from the Stockholm "suburbs" they are generally quite good places to live for families.
I hope everyone on libcom agrees that "social democracy isnt really cutting it." but read some residue of scandi-nostalgia above. That stuff has to end.
Yeah I read that and thought
Yeah I read that and thought "what crap".
I live in what is supposed to be one of those police no go area public housing hell holes in England. I am the only all-white household on my landing (oh, the horror). All the neighbours talk to me and help me with minor neighbourly things, like charging up my phone when I exploded all the sockets trying to do a repair. The Algerian lady on the block opposite makes me fantastic food, homemade bread, pastries, everything, and forgives me for taking ages to bring the tupperwares back.
"Not integrated into society" who says what's integrated? Who says what's society?
Pennoid's post April 2n'd
Pennoid's post April 2n'd needs a separate thread really though they could look up some of the old spgb materials from yester-year where they mulled over the unlikely prospect of a genuine 'revolutionary' political party getting a handful of their 'mandated' members elected to Parliaments, given their early Kautsky influences. Not convinced by their arguments personally.
Quote: Is it conceivable that
Penn, sorry I never responded to your last post.
I think there's a few things going on in what we've discussed on this thread. One is a critique of social democracy, which I think we share. One is a critique of the party form as expressed by capitalist parties and Leninist parties, which again I think we share. Another is the ability for legitimate working class organizations to participate in the state. I think we agree that the working class does/will need to learn to wield societal power, however I just don't see any amount of well-intentioned accountability measure overcoming problems that inevitably occur from achieving state power.
Cooked, I don't think youre
Cooked, I don't think youre being honest, or you are, frankly, deluded. There are numerous stories and videos of migrants riotting, throwing stones, so on. I expect there will be more. Regardless of the motive or reason, or perhaps even a justification it is happening.
What's more, violent crime, and sexual crime has skyrocketed; there was a case of a 10 year old boy being raped even, the police had to reseque him from a mob. In some jurisdictions, they segregate buses so that children are not put in harm's way- evidence of this is freely available on the net.
Point is, these are facts we simply cannot dismiss. The migrants come from very patriarchical societies which never experienced a feminist movement, or really any liberal movent at all- again, this is the reality we must face.. And if we don't respond, then the working class will turn hard right. That's the simply truth.
kingzog wrote: Cooked, I
kingzog
Whats the fuck are you on about!?! You need to get your info from other sources. Secondly you missed my point which was to show the complete failure of social democracy whilst still disagreeing with the sensationalist media narrative. You however turned out to be so far off the rails I'm lost for words.
Don't vote! How's that for an
Don't vote!
How's that for an anarchist perspective?
Agree with Cooked. From
Agree with Cooked. From reading Kingzog's posts lately, I get the impression he'll be doing that classic old Trotskyite to neo-conservative move...
I'm not a troskyite. I'm not
I'm not a troskyite.
I'm not going to get indignant, but, can we truly deny the evidence of an ongoing sexual assault crisis in Europe perpetrated by the migrants? Can we deny it all together? Is any level tolerable? Do they get a pass because they aren't white? Do the lives and well being of the women assaulted matter at all? Is it off limits to discuss the political implications or do we simply stick out heads in the sandM
....obviously social
....obviously social democracy has failed. But do we blame social democracy for rape? It's insane to me how the left goes on and on about western rape culture but then in the face of this.....we go silent. That's a capitualtion and a very dangerous one indeed.
I think the alarmist stuff
I think the alarmist stuff about migrants and sexual assualt is more or less racist scapegoating. I haven't seen any evidence from non-far right sources that migrants committ sexual assualt at a greater rate than the general population. Reminds me of Trump's remarks about Mexicans or the historical KKK scare tactic of saying that free black men would go wild on the street and attack white women.
I am wondering if Kingzog is
I am wondering if Kingzog is an ironic name.
There is a huge amount of hyperbole of the rapes supposedly committed by immigrants, it turns out when you have the right perpetrators and the right victims the police will believe rape reports.
Alarmist? Over 500 women
Alarmist? Over 500 women reported sexual assaults in Germany from Migrants. Is the right wing media playing this up? Well yeah. But local news sources and police reports are the primary sources. Look it up guys. But most importantly, believe women!
Do they "only" commit rape at the same rate as others? Idk, do you know how common rape was in Sweden before mass immigration? Did you know it's now up there with South Africa? Dare to look at Germany? You best believe this really is happening. Just because it doesn't fit your narrative doesn't mean it's not true. 75 percent of the migrants are young men, not families or children for women. Most arent even from Syria Look it up.
Also, they are bringing sectarian strife with them. Recently Kurds and Turks attacked each other in the streets- in Sweden I believe. These are not isolated incidents. And just because only the right wing media are reporting them doesn't mean the victims aren't real.
Seriously, I really don't
Seriously, I really don't understand why the left is unable to grapple with this- everyone in Europe knows about it. People all over the US, regular ppl I talk to even, are learning about it too. If the left denies it, then we really look like pieces of you-know-what. Especially considering how the left is supposedly against rape culture. I'm sorry, but grow a backbone ppl.
Left wing pundits in Germany and Sweden have regressed into victim blaming. I kid you not. Please, dong stoop to that level, that'll be the collapse of the left and the capitualtion to the right. Mark my words.
You kinda post like Donald
You kinda post like Donald Trump speaks. Even the content is borderline similar.
Are you going to provide some evidence of what I asked before? If it is so well known, it should be easy to find.
You have hands. Use Google.
You have hands. Use Google.
Nah, you're the one coming to
Nah, you're the one coming to a libertarian communist board with far-right narratives. Provide the evidence or shut up.
But if you really can't be
But if you really can't be bothered:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3247831/Rape-child-abuse-rife-overcrowded-asylum-centres-huge-surge-migrants-pushes-Germany-s-services-breaking-point-claim-womens-rights-groups-politicians.html
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/cologne-is-every-day-europes-rape-epidemic/news-story/e2e618e17ad4400b5ed65045e65e141d
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden
We also know, for a fact, that most rapes go unreported for obvious reasons. It's likely much worse than reported.
And we know western countries like to cover up this sort of thing:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
The fact is, this is undeniable and it is a major problem. The fact is, these men come from brutal societies where sexual abuse and misogyny are way above the western norm. This is why they have intensive integration classes about women's rights for these immigrants. To point this out isn't racist, but to deny it is to excuse rape culture at its worst.
I know you guys think you're
I know you guys think you're on the right side and have the good, moral/ethical high ground, however, I think you can't really see what's actually happening here. I know most of you don't have kids -don't have daughters. For most childless people, not all, but a lot, they have this myopia; they don't have "skin in the game", they don't have to really,
think about the future, about consequences. That sounds condescending, I know, but if you really thought in those terms, you'd understand why lots of people are very concerned about the violence, rape, assaults and so on
of the migrants have brought with them. If you had a daughter, you'd look at this very differently, especially a young daughter who will grow up amidst all this...
Imagine what the father and mother of this 10 year old victim think:
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/10/07/charges-mpls-man-accused-of-raping-10-year-old-girl/
Or the parents of the10 year old boy in Vienna raped by an Iraqi migrant:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/belgium-afghan-migrant-16-rapes-worker-asylum-centre-1545057
The issue is the societies the migrant
come from. Pakistan, for instance, according to human rights watch has a gang rape every 1-2 hours and 70-90percent of women face some form of domestic abuse.
And you wonder why Trump or the Sweden Democrats or Marine Le Pen are increasingly popular? Its quite obvious. But the real question for us is, how does the radical left respond? Because so far I think the denial and downplaying isn't working.
kingzog wrote: But if you
kingzog
It is customary for someone making a claim to provide evidence for said claim so climb down off your high horse your deceased Albanian majesty.
PARENTS FOR REACTIONARY
PARENTS FOR REACTIONARY POLITICS 2016!
kingzog wrote: The issue is
kingzog
Well if crude statistics are your thing, in the country your profile says you come from, the gang rape rate is once every 30 mins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_rape#United_States
So apply your bullshit arguments to yourself: Why are you ignoring the American rape crisis, why can't you really see what's happening here...denial...downplaying...etc.
Does it occur to you that if you fucked off all your racist nonsense you might realise rape is a abhorrently widespread, indeed global problem? Then maybe you could consider why rapes by migrants are getting such publicity when the general modus operandi of our society is to ignore rape culture entirely?
first, kingzog, i'd
first, kingzog, i'd definitely agree that the middle east and north africa have huge (and complex and varied) issues with patriarchy and mosogyny; however, the west is also guilty of this as well.
everything that you have said about migrants, however, is completely garbage anti-immigrant nonsense, that also happens to not be true.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19592372
that article states that sweden's high rape rate is due to a high level of reporting - an issue in many countries, including western ones, and the definition used for what constitutes sexual assault, which is very broad. i'm sure that you will dismiss this as just more propaganda hiding the truth. that claim doesn't even pass the smell test and would go against the foundational principles of hierarhical society, which are predicated on the repression of minority groups. have you been to the US? if there was an epidemic of sexual assualt tied solely to immigrants, it would be blasting from every media source.
http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:H20EY7e_fu0J:scholar.google.com/+baldwin+edwards+crime&hl=en&as_sdt=0,9&as_vis=1
this paper describes myths surrounding migrants in greece, which has a much higher proportion of migrants than sweden. surprise! migrants are not any more likely to commit violent crimes or sexual assaults, but do commit crimes against property, commit forgeries, and beg more often - i wonder why that is????????? also, migrants are treated more repressively by the state. the paper concludes with the baffling idea that issue of crime with migrants is due to their marginalization and poverty.
also, i don't know how you can be a communist or anarchist and take part in this kind of cultural scapegoating - it is contradictory to any sort of prefigurative politics and condones the state's repression of minority groups. what would you like to be done in response to this issue? police repression? the enforcement of borders that support the power of individual national capital? deportation? my city in the US has a big problem with street harrassment and has many colleges, which i'm sure you know have high rates of sexual assault - should we deport all of those people to wherever they came from? what about the vast majority of rapes that are carried out by men who know the woman involved - send them back from whence they came? why aren't you saying that?
i also find the european concerns over immigration to be hilarious, because european immigration to my parents' places of origin led to the extermination of over 90% of the indigenous populations, rape as a tool of war and terror on a mass scale, the imposition of slavery and plantation economies and on an on an on... but i guess that was in the past so it is different?
finally, yr weird concern trolling about yr daughter almost smacks of parody - i mean, can you get any more patriarchical than worrying about the control of "your female's" sexual activity?
Fwiw on Rotherham, the
Fwiw on Rotherham, the obscured part of the scandal was that several cops were colluding with the gang - who were apparently local gangsters/drug dealers as well as kidnapping/grooming/abusing kids - including accessing the Police National Database to feed them intelligence, and tipping them off about investigations.
Somehow the cops managed to spin their collusion with organised crime and abuse as 'we'd have nicked 'em if it wasn't for political correctness making brown people untouchable', and the line's been parotted by everyone from the fash to Zizek (an ever-shrinking distance between those though tbf).
Unfortunately, institutionalised abuse and cover-ups are a British tradition up to the highest level. As for the left not talking about/responding to e.g. the Cologne assaults, this is another Breitbart talking point, and false. As usual, feminists are organising around sexual violence (e.g. #ausnahmslos/#noexcuses), and people are ignoring them to pen a hundred 'where are the feminists now??111' dogwhistle pieces.
Without commenting on the
Without commenting on the substance of this very real debate, I just want to point out that this would seem to have fuckall to do with the u.s. primaries. Different thread highly recommended.
Kingzog this is really
Kingzog this is really pissing me off. This shit should not stand on libcom. (sorry for the offtopic but can't remain unanwered)
You are arguing with anectodal evidence from anti-immigration sources and fantasizing about who you are talking to. I have a daughter and I live in a suburb of Stockholm (Stockholm is segregated so that most immigrants live in the suburbs) My building has about 30% foreign born adults.
I'm not fucking afraid for my daughters well being due to immigrants!
Gram I actually think sweden has considerably larger per capita immigrant population than Greece. Perhaps the recent horrors have completely turned the stats over but I doubt it.
Cooked wrote: Gram I
Cooked
you are right that sweden has a much higher number of migrants, but this graph:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Share_of_non-nationals_in_the_resident_population,_1_January_2014_%28%25%29_YB15.png
says the proportion is similar, with greece having slightly more, and more who are not from other EU states. this is 2014, so this may be out of date with 2015
mods - do yall want to move these posts?
Please move discussion of
Please move discussion of migrants and sexual violence to this thread.
Fitting that a thread about
Fitting that a thread about the US elections has revealed that Donald Trump posts on libcom in his spare time.
To me the 2016 primaries
To me the 2016 primaries indicate a strong anti-establishment sentiment on both sides of the political spectrum that points to U.S. citizens recognizing that the current system is no longer tenable to the majority of voters. As a U.S. radical, I can say from experience that some of our major social movements like OWS are much more diverse politically than what I have seen in Europe. We had many people from the Libertarian right involved in this movement as well as a range of people on the left spanning from progressive Democrats to Anarchists, Communists, Socialists, and their many mixtures. I think the possibility for something like Libertarian Socialism can therefore happen in movements like OWS that employ direct democratic methods to form ideology. A left/right coalition of libertarian and socialists utilizing direct democracy to form ideologies could very well lead to a libertarian socialist platform on the streets with large numbers. There are a lot more libertarians and socialists in the U.S. than people think and if they could meet halfway there would be huge numbers of people. One issue is that they are mostly right libertarians and social democrats typically. However, a mixture of their ideas through direct democracy could result in the birth of a libertarian socialist movement. We have anarchists, libertarian communists, and autonomists who are very active in movements, they just don't have large enough numbers overall. By bringing libertarians and social democrats (who have much larger numbers) into the fold; the political processes employed by these movements would likely result in a libertarian socialist ideal of some sort through consensus driven compromise and we would have enough numbers for meaningful revolution.
More confused bollox about
More confused bollox about cooperation with social democrats.
Quote: Marx was a late-comer
To be fair communism was being practiced in ancient Iran via Mazdak way before all of these western theorists. Also Lao Tzu in China.
Quote: More confused bollox
Judging by your use of the word bollox, you don't live in the States. Our movements are already filled with all sorts of people on the left and the libertarian right, so cooperation has ALWAYS existed. If you want to build a real direct democratic movement, anyone can show up and participate. This means in the States, particularly with OWS, that this includes all of the aforementioned. If you actually think revolution is going to happen without cooperation from large groups of people, and not just self satisfying insular groups of radicals, you are living in a fantasy world. When us anarchists, communists, and socialists organized OWS and setup the means to participate in general assemblies that ANYONE could participate in, lots of different types of people came and were exposed to new political processes and ideas. You can't build meaningful change hanging around like minded people and being exclusionary. If you want to actually have a society that works, you have to include the people within it and not just the one's you agree with. I'm not saying cooperate with social democrats in the election system, I'm saying creating general assemblies and working groups that are open to anyone interested in participating and the processes of consensus driven compromise will lean toward a libertarian socialist mixture based on the participants. This is EXACTLY what happened in Occupy. Do you think all those people were Anarchists and Communists? Fuck no. There were social democrats, socialists, libertarians, progressive democrats, and countless other anti-establishment groups and individuals. By having processes that were open to everyone we built a huge movement all over the country based on libertarian and socialist values while exposing huge numbers of people to the ideas and processes that encompass it. I'm tired of these fundamentalist radicals who take no account for context or effective strategy.
Yes, i'm a flippin' Brit, but
Yes, i'm a flippin' Brit, but what you say is exactly the same steaming pile of shit that we're getting over here with the Corbynistas and Momentum.This is just Col.. Sanders Refried Social Democracy, same as Syriza, same as Podemos, etc
This is not an effective strategy this is a way to demobilisation, cooption, recuperation and demoralisation. And OK,baloney!
Battlescarred was maybe a bit
Battlescarred was maybe a bit direct there but, as someone who's lived on both sides of the Atlantic, the sentiment is spot on.
We don't need to somehow find common ground within the left or within the generally politicized part of the population. We need to build class confidence and class power. That's done in our own workplaces and communities - not by attempting to create more activists or somehow (?????) stealing activists from the right and statist parties to create some sort of mass anarchist consensus.
autonomist wrote: If you
autonomist
I think we can agree that this is not what anyone thinks.
What you are proposing is to try to build a mass movement by including people who have fundamental disagreements on pretty much everything. The reason why battlescarred's response was exasperated is because he's seen it happen a lot (he's given recent examples but he could have easily gone back further and mentioned dozens more) He is of the beliefe, as are most people here, that you cannot build a political movement when people do not agree on anything except a fairly nebulous common enemy, for example the repeated failure of the tea party to build a real movement, as an oppositional pressure movement they have forced a move to the right, but have consistently collapsed into infighting.
What you are suggesting will not work. A strike or other movement can politicise people and show them how communism can work to an extent, but that is showing communists ideals within a shared struggle, if you want to mount a shared, political struggle with people who disagree then you will fail because they disagree on what to do and how to do it.
Jef, you said it beautifully.
Jef, you said it beautifully.