Fact: Any candidate, regardless of Party affiliation, will not,
repeat, WILL NOT head up a political revolution, if elected president.
Reason: The USA is not a Republic. It is not a Democracy. The USA is
a Corporate Capitalist Empire. An Oligarchy.
Second Fact: Revolutions do not start at the top.
Reason: A revolution is, "an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough
replacement of an established government or political system by the
people governed".
Although a revolution might begin from within, by the uprising of the
military or a coup by a strongman and his supporters, usually
military, nonetheless, we normally think of a revolution as a people's
uprising. And that ain't going to happen, even if Bernie were
elected. Capitalism is the bugaboo. As long as Capitalism reigns,
there can be no compromise.
So I am back to why I will vote for Sanders in the primary, and Stein
in the general election. My reasoning, such as it is, goes like this:
I am a spectator. The "team", the American Corporate Capitalist
Empire, is on the field of play. The old quarterback is tiring and
there needs to be a replacement. Several quarterbacks are trotted out
in front of the Fans, who are expected to cheer for the one they like
best. The winner of the popular cheering is sent into the game. But
nothing about the game changes. The game goes on as usual, and if
that quarterback can't move the ball, he is replaced with the next, in
hopes that he will turn the tide. But none of the quarterbacks will
dare try something out of left field. They have all been thoroughly
schooled in the fundamentals of the game. They know all of the rules.
I can either cheer for my favorite quarterback or I can go off and
start my own team. Sure, there are other struggling little teams
around. But they will never be allowed to play on the Center Field.
I know full well that no matter what I do, I will not own a piece of
this team. But if I want to be a fan, I'll pause long enough to cheer
for one quarterback or another.
Meanwhile, I can make a difference down here in the trenches. I can
do my best to help folks understand that unless they are among the 1%,
they do not have a team in this fight. When enough of us understand
that we have no representation, and the "Law of the Land" is not on
the books for us, then perhaps we can begin talking about putting our
own team on Center Field.
"Preacher" Carl Jarvis
On 5/13/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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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Socialist Action sponsors election debates
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