I don't know the percentages, but these fast food workers and Wallmart
employees and other workers are working side by side with the
socialists. They get to know them personally. Sometimes there is some
amount of separation, but that is often rectified. I remember one female
comrade talking to me about actually having friends outside the
movement. She had been working in the national office for years and then
she was assigned to enter the UMW. She got a job in a coal mine and she
loved actually making friends for the first time in years with people
who were not immersed in the movement. That gets you known much better
than just being covered in the bourgeois news media. I remember when
Andrew Pulley ran for president. Of course his candidacy was totally
blacked out in the bourgeois press and nationally he won considerably
less than one percent of the vote, but there were a number of precincts
in Chicago where he polled over ninety-five percent. That was where he
had lived and worked as a steel worker. It should be remembered that
party members are not a separate elite working on behalf of the working
class. They are part of it and their interests are no different from the
interests of their fellow workers.
On 9/22/2015 10:34 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
It's true. These socialist candidates and socialist parties aren't covered
in the mainstream press at all. That's why no one knows about them. The
question is, how many poor and working people read the socialist material
which talks about them. What percentage of fast food workers or Wal-Mart
employees or Amazon warehouse employees or home health aides or janitors, or
lawn maintenance crew workers, etc. read socialist literature. That's who
the working class is these days. The cops surely don't read socialist
material, nor members of the military. Retail store workers? tempt workers?
We have virtually no factory workers. But of all those people, who reads
socialist literature? What we do have is a very powerful mainstream media
and if you want change, that's who you have to deal with. That's the real
world, ugly as it is.
So how will these people get elected?
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: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 9:56 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: What It Means to Be a Socialist
Gloria La Riva is the presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and
Liberation. She has been a leading member of that party since its founding
and was very prominent in the Workers World Party before that.
I probably will not be voting for her. I have too many differences with the
PSL. Its still early, though, and there will be other candidates announcing.
It's just that Gloria looks best right now. You do not have to be one of the
anointed to have heard of her nor to have a good handle on her politics.
What you do have to do, though, is to not get all of your political
information from sources that deliberately ignore her. If you get your
political news from only the mainstream bourgeois news outlets or from the
bourgeois liberal sources from which you get most of the articles you post
then you will not have heard of her. As for the Green Party, well, there are
some people who have infiltrated it and call themselves watermelons. That
is, they claim to be green on the outside and red on the inside. One
prominent one is Peter Camejo. He was the Socialist Workers Party candidate
for president in 1976. The last I heard of him he was a stock broker. It
seems to be rather ironic that he can call himself red on the inside in that
case, but that was what he was calling himself. Also the last I heard of him
he had contracted cancer. I don't know what the outcome of that has been.
Anyway, the Green Party does not have a working class perspective itself.
Even if there are some true watermelons in it - and if there are I think
they are making a mistake - they are only cooperating with a party with a
bourgeois class perspective. It has no perspective at all of eradicating
capitalism and no perspective of putting the working class in power. If the
entire working class along with the unions joined and supported the Green
Party it would still be controlled by bourgeois liberals. In fact, the power
base of the Green party would likely at least start drifting to the right if
faced with what they would regard as rabble in their midst. It is the same
as herding the working class into the Democrat party. It is just asking for
co-optation and the subordination of workers struggles. Independent action
is what is needed. Class collaboration has always brought about working
class defeat. In an independent labor party the working class would be
acting in its own interests. At least they would if they did not let class
collaborationist bureaucrats take it over like in the major unions. Of
course you might say that there is no independent labor party for the
workers to join right now and the Green Party is here right now. Well, that
is just a way to ensure that there won't be an independent labor party in
the future.
On 9/22/2015 9:25 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
He probably never heard of her. I haven't. Why would anyone vote for areally large group and then organized?
completely unknown quantity, just a name endorsed by a party? She
might not even be on the ballot in his state. That's my point. You
have to be one of the anointed to know about these people. Wouldn't it
be better if all of the people who were unhappy with the corporate
Democrats and had similar views on needed changes, got together in a
And since the Green Party already is able to get their candidate onpolitically correct?
the ballot in many states and has more resources and more recognition,
why not all join together in that party? So what if they're not
They're close enough at least make a stab at changing things.
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: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 8:03 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: What It Means to Be a Socialist
Have you considered Gloria La Riva?
On 9/22/2015 3:58 PM, Bob Hachey wrote:
Hi Miriam,decision.
All good points. I do wonder though if folks like Sanders and FDR
make it easier for the ruling class to remain in control as Hedges
suggests. No doubt, they've both made life better for lots of low
income folks. If, somehow, sanders is on the final ballot for
president, I still may be tempted to vote for Jill Stein. That may be
a decision made in the voting booth. Let's hope I get to make such a
Bob
