So which party is the writer talking about? I assumed it was SWP. The writer is
critical of several socialist parties.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
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Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 3:19 PM
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Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Sanders, socialism and the U.S. left in crisis
This article did not even mention the SWP and it was written by the national
secretary of Socialist Action.
On 5/13/2016 11:57 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
First, assuming that NPR's reporting on the Sanders campaign is accurate is,
I think, an error.
Second, although the ultimate result may be that many Sanders supporters,
vote for Clinton, having listened carefully to what Ssanders does and does
not say, I don't believe that, that has been his plan or his reason for
running. It seems apparent to me that he has run in order to reform the
Democratic Party, to move it to the left and to attempt to force it to
represent the interests of working people. He's stayed within the Democratic
Party because he felt he'd have a better chance of being heard by more people
and thus, influencing them.
Third, using labels can be misleading. I am not sure that the Green Party is
a pro Capitalist party, although many of its members may not be adherants to
socialist theory. And I'm not sure that all of the people who say they favor
socialism or identify themselves as socialists, know what the word means. It
seems to me that it's much more productive to focus on the actions of parties
and individuals and on the effects of these actions.
Fourth: Ralph Nader isn't the Green Party. I know he has an impressive
history of social action. However, I've been listening to his interviews on
Democracy Now for several years now and there's something very strange and
stilted about his communication. I have this feeling that his functioning is
somehow impaired.
The point of the article seems to be that the SWP is the only virtuous and
true socialist party. Everyone else has been corrupted in some way.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 11:05 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Sanders, socialism and the U.S. left in crisis
https://socialistaction.org/2016/05/12/may-2016-sanderssanders-sociamay-2016-sanderslism-and-the-u-s-left-in-crisis/
Sanders, socialism and the U.S. left in crisis
/ 18 hours ago
May 2016 Sanders
By JEFF MACKLER
U.S. primary election math pundits are now calculating that Bernie Sanders
cannot win the Democratic Party presidential primary contest.
His impending demise, and indeed his Democratic Party candidacy itself, has
sparked a wide-ranging discussion and debate in the U.S. socialist movement,
and in broader circles, that reveals an extraordinary level of confusion and
disarray. The spectacle of most U.S. socialist organizations’ supporting, in
one form or another, an open Democrat is a sure sign of a left in crisis.
Including 53.5 percent that he won on May 3 in Indiana and his 51.4 percent
in West Virginia, in which he actually lost ground in his race with Hillary
Clinton, Sanders now needs more than 65 percent of all remaining pledged
delegates for a pledged convention majority and 82 percent of all remaining
delegates—including super-delegates. The latter have been handpicked by the
Democratic Party hierarchy and pledged long ago to vote for Clinton. Any
illusion that these lifelong professional ruling-class politicians will
accede to the “popular will” and shift to Sanders is absurd. But promoting
this illusion is Sanders’ current bait-and-switch tactic.
It is not the math of the matter, however, that motivates Sanders to “fight
on.” He clearly explained his views in a recent KQED National Public Radio
(NPR) interview: “I think we are perpetuating the political revolution by
significantly increasing the level of political activity that we’re seeing in
this country. I think it is good for the United States of America and good
for the Democratic Party to have a vigorous debate, to engage people in the
political process” (emphasis added).
NPR reported that by staying in the race, Sanders believes he is “energizing
voters” and, therefore, “boosting the Democratic Party to victory in
November.” He contended that Democrats do well and Republicans do poorly when
turnout is high. “So I’m going to do everything I can to stimulate political
discourse in this country and get young people, working people, involved in
the political process.”
Following four primary contest losses to Hillary Clinton in late April,
Sanders insisted that even if he lost the nomination he would fight for his
delegates to have substantial convention representation on the Democratic
Party’s “Platform Committee,” where party leaders supposedly would hammer out
the program to be implemented should Clinton win. Only the most naïve in
politics believe that ruling-class policies are decided by a handful of
delegates cloistered in the backrooms of party conventions. Sadly, however,
most of the U.S. socialist left believe that the Sanders campaign represents
some sort of “political revolution”
that merits their support—in one form or another. We shall review this almost
bewildering phenomenon shortly.
Sanders, despite his protestations to the contrary, has been a welcome
addition to the periodically orchestrated “lesser evil” sham employed by
ruling-class leaders and their ever calculating and sophisticated think
tanks. They know full well that capitalist elections are essential to
maintaining the myth of democracy, on the one hand, and to dissipating the
anger and hatred at its inherently anti-working class, racist, and sexist
policies into safe electoral channels, on the other.
Well before Sanders proclaimed his “democratic socialism,” national polls—the
Pew polls of three years ago, for example—indicated that socialism was on the
minds of millions. In a recent Pew poll, 49 percent of youth 30 years old and
under preferred socialism over capitalism.
Three years ago, the figure was 46 percent who preferred capitalism over
socialism. The figures for the Black population as a whole were higher, with
a significant majority, 55 percent, preferring socialism—in their view a more
egalitarian and less predatory society, in which human solidarity and social
welfare trump the greed of the elite one percent.
Sanders is undoubtedly correct in recognizing his role in the past year as
attempting to bolster the credibility of the Democratic Party. He has
consciously taken the assignment of demonstrating that “dissident”
ideas, or perhaps better, “dissident” rhetoric—as with his frequently touted
expression, “political revolution”—is acceptable terminology inside this
tried and true ruling-class institution, the nation’s infamous “graveyard of
social movements.”
Hillary Clinton and her advisers understand shell game politics just as well,
as demonstrated by their efforts to remake one of capitalism’s most heinous
warmongers and racist apologists into the feminist, humanist, anti-racist,
and environmentally concerned politician they are projecting as Clinton’s
campaign image today. As we go to press [May 11] a nervous Clinton has moved
another step to the “left,” according to the New York Times, by embracing in
part Sanders’ single-payer “Medicare for all” proposal.
Political discontent rising in U.S. population
In due time, we will all “feel the Bern,” or better, witness the “fizzle,”
when Sanders, as promised, stumps the nation hustling votes on Clinton’s
behalf to save the nation from the “greater evil”—Donald Trump. Step one in
the current two-stage “lesser-evil” game was Sanders’
shepherding growing and undeniable anti-capitalist sentiments back into the
Democratic Party. Step two now includes Sanders’ making every effort to do
the same with those who have been hornswoggled into his orbit but might yet
decide to quit the electoral shell game in disgust with the thought of voting
for Clinton.
The fact that capitalism’s media pundits felt compelled to lend an air of
legitimacy to Sanders’ fake socialism is an indication of the questioning
nature of our times and the deep discontent that is percolating in the
consciousness of working people.
A New York Times/CBS News poll last November indicated that some 56 percent
of registered Democrats who were questioned said they felt positive about
socialism as a governing philosophy. Twenty-nine percent had a negative view.
This, in itself, goes a long way in explaining why Clinton, and in fact, most
Republican Party candidates, largely refrained from the red-baiting tirades
that have been the usual stock-in-trade of capitalist politics. Attacking
Sanders as a socialist might well have the effect of advancing his
credibility, not to mention socialism’s!
In time, when the inevitable and broad-ranging fightback takes shape in forms
truly independent of and against the twin parties of capital and its liberal
“third-party” middle-class-based variants like the Green Party, working
people will find genuine political avenues and mass organizations of struggle
to express their disgust at capitalist austerity and social regression. This
combination of renewed and massive mobilizations in the streets, in
reinvigorated and democratically led union fightbacks, and in anti-racist,
anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, and pro-environment struggles will undoubtedly
find an expression in the political arena.
But this magnificent and longed for “music of the future,” based on the
deeply felt rejection of the system of two capitalist parties, to be
effective—to mark a clean and qualitative break with the endless variations
of “lesser evilism” that are consciously presented by the most sophisticated
practitioners of capitalist politics—can only be grounded on the foundation
of working-class independence. The desire for political “independence,”
however vague this term might be, is today gaining ground in the United
States. A full 43 percent of the electorate, according to a recent Gallop
Poll, is registered as Independent, with Democratic Party registration at 32
percent, and Republican Party registered voters at 23 percent.
These facts alone explain why in states like New York, where registered
independents are excluded in the primary process, Hillary Clinton’s margin of
victory over Sanders was quite significant. In states with an “open primary,”
that is, where “independent” voters can participate, Sanders is expected to
win a substantial, but still insufficient majority, as in the June 7
California primary.
Of course, none of these registered voter statistics tell the full story
since some 51 million voters, about 25 percent of the eligible electorate,
are not registered. Further, the actual percentage of all eligible voters who
vote stands at 55 percent! The vast majority of non-voters are Black, Latino,
and youth more generally, many of whom are consciously excluded due to
reactionary legislation or are disillusioned with the entire electoral
charade.
U.S. left collapses before Sanders
There is no doubt that Sanders’ “political revolution” and
“anti-establishment” rhetoric, not to mention his self-proclaimed “democratic
socialism,” has captured the imagination of and spiked interest in the
current primary contests as well as in socialist ideas more generally.
Indeed, this is precisely and, again, the consciously orchestrated Sanders
project; the U.S. ruling class and its pundits are more than capable of
appealing to the best instincts and highest aspirations of working people for
a better life for all in order to once again lure them into their
life-extinguishing anaconda-like institutional clutches.
Tragically, many of those who claim to know better—those who seriously
consider themselves socialists—have been active partisans, if not
enthusiastic advocates, of today’s ruling-class-promoted Bernie Sanders brand
of lesser-evilism.
Among these socialists, and perhaps the most prominent, is Sanders’
supporter in the primary contests, Kshama Sawant, and her Socialist
Alternative party. Sawant is a two-time winner in recent Seattle city-council
election contests, where she ran as an open socialist and against the
Democratic Party machine. Socialist Action hailed Socialist Alternative’s
Seattle campaigns, and the associated Socialist Alternative city council run
by Ty Moore in Minneapolis. Socialist Action enthusiastically participated in
these campaigns, contributed financially, organized public fund-raising
forums, went door-to-door, and otherwise widely publicized this inspiring
socialist effort.
This is not to say that we were not aware that Socialist Alternative
originally sought, unsuccessfully, to organize these campaigns as joint
efforts with the pro-capitalist Green Party. But Green Party leaders rejected
these overtures, leaving Socialist Alternative with a critical decision as to
how to proceed. To their credit, they took the high road in working-class
politics and ran as socialists, but their penchant for the middle-class Green
Party was never far from their perspectives.
Today, that high road, the road to independent socialist working-class
politics against the Democratic Party, has been abandoned, with Socialist
Alternative and Sawant actually campaigning for Sanders in all the Democratic
Party primary contests.
In an article published in the May 4 issue of CounterPunch, Sawant gives an
explanation for phase two of their electoral strategy. She writes:
“To endorse Hillary, even with a more progressive platform, would be the
opposite of political revolution and would abandon all the vital energy and
momentum we have built over this historic past year. We simply can’t afford
to make this mistake. That’s why I have launched a petition calling on Bernie
Sanders to run all the way to November as an independent, and to use his
campaign as a launch pad for a new political party of the 99%.”
Sawant immediately continues: “If Bernie’s only concern is that running
independently could open the door to a President Trump, then why could he not
at least campaign in the 40+ states where it’s generally clear the Democratic
or Republican candidate will win? Even in this way, while not putting his
name on the ballot in the 5-10 closely contested ‘swing states,’ he could
still run an historic campaign if linked to building a new party” (emphasis
in original).
But Sawant’s “new party” in this case is, again, the middle-class,
pro-capitalist Green Party, which has regularly urged its supporters to vote
Democrat in “swing states” or simply declined to seek ballot status in these
“contested states.” Sawant’s petition calls on Sanders to run on the same
ticket as the Green Party’s presumptive presidential candidate, Jill
Stein—perhaps to replace Stein on the ballot with Sanders.
Here it is important to remind readers that the terms “independent” and
“third party” are not always clear. There are several “third parties”
today, ranging from extreme right-wing expressions of capitalist politics
like the Libertarians and the Constitutional Party to liberal, reformist
Democratic Party-oriented outfits like the Working Families Party, to the
pro-capitalist Green Party.
In the case of the Green Party, let me remind readers that Green Party
presidential candidate Ralph Nader achieved ballot status in six states via
heinous agreements with Patrick Buchanan’s incipient fascist Reform Party.
Nader ran on the Reform Party’s ballot line in return for making reactionary
statements limiting the right of women to abortion and restricting immigrants
from entering the country. (See Nader’s June 21, 2004, interview with Patrick
Buchanan in the American Conservative.)
None of these “third parties” are independent of and against the fundamental
capitalist politics of the Democrats and Republicans. Or, to be precise, none
seek to organize the working class to replace the capitalist system with a
socialist one—in which the private ownership and control of the nation’s
banks, corporations, and wealth is ended, and the vast majority, the 99
percent, act to reorganize society for the common good. None are based on,
financed, and controlled by working-class organizations like trade unions or
other democratic mass working-class organizations. None, as a matter of class
principle, reject voting for capitalist parties. Indeed, in local elections,
as well as national, Greens routinely endorse “progressive” Democrats, and in
races where the Republican is a bit too overtly reactionary, “not so
progressive Democrats.”
Asking Bernie Sanders, a lifelong capitalist politician with a 98 percent
Democratic Party voting record, to run as a candidate independent of and
against the party he has assiduously supported for his entire career is like
asking the proverbial leopard to change its spots. Or better, it’s akin to
yet again playing politics in the ruling class’ institutional party ballpark.
Today, much of the socialist left has made this choice; some, like the
Communist Party and Democratic Socialists of America, have habitually
supported Democrats for many decades. The CP today supports Clinton, while
the DSA supports Sanders—that is, until Sanders drops out.
Solidarity and the International Socialist Organization call on Sanders to
run for the presidency as an “independent” or as the Green Party candidate.
The Workers International League also speaks favorably of an “independent”
campaign by Sanders. Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and
Liberation, both of which have called for votes for left-sounding Democrats
in the past, including Jesse Jackson, are fielding their own presidential
candidates this time around, but nevertheless have called for Democratic
Party primary votes for Sanders.
Keenly aware of the rapidly growing interest in socialist ideas generated by
capitalism’s deepening crises and sparked by the Sanders campaign, Socialist
Action branches across the country have sponsored a series of well-attended
public debates where most of the above socialist organizations, as well as
representatives from the Labor for Bennie campaign, shared the platform for
fruitful exchanges. While the “lesser evil” syndrome was undoubtedly at work
in the presentations of these socialist groups, we were heartened to see that
the Marxist-grounded revolutionary socialist ideas of Socialist Action were
well received and that our proud party, a consistent participant and advocate
of independent mass-action united-front mobilizations against all aspects of
capitalist racism and plunder, won new members to the cause of socialist
revolution.
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May 12, 2016 in Elections, Uncategorized. Tags: Democrats, Kshama Sawant,
Sanders
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