Well, if you do not advocate for the public ownership and democratic
control of the means of production you simply are not a socialist. You
are no more a real socialist than an apple is an orange and it does not
matter how much you call that apple an orange it will never be a real
orange.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 6/9/2020 9:40 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
This reminds me of when one kind of Christian says to a Christian from a different branch
or sect, "The problem is, you do not belong to the true church". Will the real
socialists please stand up? If you're not a member of the true and real socialist
organization, then you are a pseudo socialist or a Capitalist in a Socialist disguise
like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Or, if you're black, how dare you form a new movement
called Black Lives Matter when everyone knows that the National Association of Colored
People has been in existence for decades, fighting the good fight?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 9:23 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Bernie Sanders, Naomi Klein and More
Launch “Progressive International”
In my opinion we are not going to jump from where we are today to socialism at
all if we keep putting the jumping in the hands of the very people who are
opposed to jumping. That is like going to the meat market to get a vegetarian
meal.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 6/9/2020 6:55 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
In my opinion, we're not going to jump from where we are today, to
socialism. It will take a transition, a step by step to a more
progressive government. The problem seems to be that once we put a
person like Barack Obama in office, we act as if that's all it takes.
And now we have Joe Biden. And we will choose between a cunning fool
and a buffoon.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/9/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Somehow I just don't seem to understand how it is the pragmatic way
to effect social change when you support the candidates who are
opposed to social change.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense
of wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is,
those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos
centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of
superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those
with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos,
even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 6/9/2020 12:59 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I think that this is a naive analysis of the intellectual and
political spokesman whom the author is criticizing. People like
Sanders are not supporting Biden because they support the Corporate
Democrats or even Capitalism, they are doing so because they
believe, (whether or not one agrees with them), that this is the
pragmatic, most effective way to effect social change at this point.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 11:07 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Bernie Sanders, Naomi Klein and More
Launch “Progressive International”
Bernie Sanders, Naomi Klein and More Launch “Progressive International”
https://socialistaction.org/2020/06/08/climate-and-social-democrat-c
elebrities-launch-progressive-international/
June 8, 2020
By GARY PORTER
On May 10, climate activists, social democrats, anti-imperialists,
left-wing commentators and critics launched a new international project.
In September, the sponsors will meet for the inaugural Summit of the
Progressive International (PI) in Reykjavik, Iceland. It will be
hosted by the Prime Minister of Iceland and the Left Green Movement.
This new project occurs in the context of a raging viral pandemic,
economic depression, an escalating nuclear arms race, and rapid
global warming that puts humanity on the verge of catastrophe.
Billionaires force workers back to work, without protection from
COVID-19, by cutting financial support. “Essential” workers who, it
turns out, are often low-paid racialized workers, sicken and die, as
unemployment skyrockets. Hospitals, stripped by 40 years of
neo-liberal cuts, cannot handle the sick. Imperialist drones, bombs,
brutal economic sanctions and assassinations by special forces never stop.
The contradictions and crises of capitalism multiply and magnify
like gaping wounds, leaving open sores across the landscape.
Witnessing all of this, billions of people are desperate to find a
way out, including those who are forming the Progressive International.
But the list of 64 members of the PI Council posted on its website
does not include radicalizing youth, the poor or very many workers.
Most are intellectuals and professional politicians. The rise of
authoritarian governments, violence, anti intellectualism, hostility
to science and experts, and the decline of civilized discourse,
strand these intellectuals and parliamentary figures in darkness and
fear. None of them look to the power of mobilized workers and
farmers, or even consider that a serious possibility. PI appears as
an effort to bolster resistance to the tide of crude ignorance,
chaos and destruction represented by Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Erdogan,
Duterte, et al.
Who are these people? From Canada, there is author Naomi Klein of
The Leap Manifesto and Green New Deal fame, together with her
media-savvy partner Avi Lewis. While supporting the BDS movement
against apartheid Israel and for a green transformation of society,
including the elimination of inequality and the creation of ‘more
democratic’ state institutions, Klein and Lewis offer no clear analysis of
class society.
They stipulate no clear commitment to fighting for workers’ power,
to replace the capitalist state, and to institute workers’ control
of the means of production in order to meet human needs, rather than
deliver profits to billionaires. NDP MP Niki Ashton, another council
member from Canada, holds similar views, though she is somewhat
clearer on the importance and potential power of the unions.
The biggest names from United States are Bernie Sanders from the
capitalist Democratic Party, now a Joe Biden campaigner, and Noam
Chomsky, a long-time critic of the imperialist role of America in
the world, who happens also to be a Democratic Party-Joe Biden supporter.
Yannis Varoufakis, a former Finance Minister for the Greek social
democratic SYRIZA government, is a member of the Council. To this
add a long list of ministers and legislators from across Latin
America, Europe and Africa. They profess to be on the side of
workers and oppressed peoples, but their record is one of
neo-liberalism and support for global corporations and capitalist
state institutions. Liberal and social democratic journalists and
cultural figures round out the 64-member council.
The PI has no program at this stage. Presumably, that will be
considered at the conference in Iceland.
Where will they stand on the rule of profit over human need? Where
will they stand on imperialist economic and military domination of
the third world and indigenous peoples around the world for the
purpose of super exploitation and robbing them of their resources?
Where will they stand on the need to establish workers’ power and
build a new workers’ state based on the complete destruction of the
legislative, legal, bureaucratic and repressive apparatus of the capitalist
state.
Are they reformers of capitalism, albeit perhaps radical reformers,
or supporters of the end of exploitation by a worker-led
revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the struggle for
socialism? In the end, do they support capitalism or workers’ power?
The record of the individuals involved is not encouraging.
The idea of PI was born in December 2018, when the Democracy in
Europe Movement and the Sanders Institute in the US issued a call
proclaiming “it is time for progressives of the world to unite.”
On the launch of the group Monday, May 10, Chomsky in an interview
with the Guardian said that the urgency created by the COVID-19
crisis has caused a deepening of economic inequalities and the rise
of the far-right.
So, as autocratic neo-liberalism represents one way, “the other way
is to try to dismantle the structures, the institutional structures
that have been created; that have led to very ugly consequences for
much of the population of much of the world, [and] are the source of this
pandemic.”
The activities of the PI initiative are erected on three pillars:
the movement aimed to forge a global network; the Blueprint to
develop a policy for a progressive international order; and the Wire
which offers a communication service to the world’s progressive forces.
Its stated objectives are “to promote the union, coordination and
mobilization of activists, associations, unions, and social
movements in the face of the advance of authoritarianism.” They say
they aspire to a “democratic, decolonized, egalitarian, liberated,
united, sustainable, ecological, peaceful, post-capitalist, prosperous and
plural” world.
This compendium of liberal and social democratic values serves as
its programmatic foundation.
What do we know about these people?
Fernando Haddad, the Brazilian PT´s presidential candidate, former
Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa and former Bolivian vice
president Álvaro García Linera, were all part of “progressive
governments.” None of them produced fundamental change in their
countries´ economic and social structures, which continued to be
capitalist and dependent, with extremely high rates of poverty, a
growing deterioration of everything public and a retreat concerning
workers´ fundamental rights. This led to their demise, and opened
the door for right-wingers like Jair Bolsonaro, Lenin Moreno and
Jeanine Áñez to come to power in their countries. Some of them
declare themselves defenders of the welfare state and claim to
defend public health, but when they governed, they weakened public
health care to pay external debt to the imperialists. Rather than
defend ecology, they maintained extractive and polluting models of production
to guarantee extraordinary profits to corporations.
Alicia Castro, union leader of the bureaucratic Argentine CGT and
ex-Congresswoman of the Alianza, brought de la Rúa to power. That
government killed dozens of grassroots activists during its downfall.
The same can be said of Bernie Sanders, who generated great
expectations by speaking of socialism in the heart of the empire and
raising popular proposals, like universal health insurance in a
country where you can die without medical attention if you don´t
have money. His recent support for Joe Biden, a candidate for the US
economic establishment, a racist and misogynist leader of the
imperialist Democratic Party, completes his record, for the second
time as a Judas goat who leads his young followers to the camp of
blood-drenched capitalist politicians.
So, what are the odds that Progressive International will advocate
an end to usurious debts to foreign capital, the nationalization of
banks and resources, and to put foreign trade under social control,
to reverse privatizations, carry out significant agrarian reforms,
or impose permanent progressive taxes on the wealthy? Isn’t that
what an international party on the side of the working class ought
to do? But the record of most of these people shows that they are
defenders of the private property of businesses and banks, that
their model of liberty is the farce of bourgeois democracy, which
they propose to broaden just a bit, at most. They want to put a
human face on the capitalist system, which it is impossible to
humanize, and which is becoming ever more brutal.
Perhaps the rapidly deepening multiple crises of capitalism will
push some of these leaders to the left, toward understanding that
the problem is capitalism, and that workers’ power is the first step to a
solution.
That would be a welcome and very positive development.
But this group is not composed of young militants. As a group they
are mature, entrenched, established figures with developed views and
many years of experience. That experience, for the most part, is
professing policies to reform the most exploitative, oppressive and
brutal aspects of capitalism. When in government, they accepted the
burdens of indebtedness, the primacy of profit over human needs, and
the duty of exacting neoliberal cutbacks.
Revolutionary socialists already know the source of all our
existential crises is the capitalist system, and that the only force
on earth capable of overthrowing capitalism is the organized, class
conscious working class. Only an educated and experienced
revolutionary party, with deep roots in the workers’ movement, will
be capable of focussing the uprising of the workers, when it comes,
against the instruments of state power. We also know that the
struggle is international in scope – it is a war against imperialism on a
global scale.
The Progressive International is not the distillation of these vital
lessons. It is born from the failed and utterly diversionary effort
to reform capitalism, to salvage it from its death agony. The PI may
foster some interesting debates, but its basic mission is dead on arrival.
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Should Progressives Work in the Democratic Party?
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Here we reprint part of a 1959 debate between a revolutionary
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Socialist Workers Party and longtime editor of The Militant newspaper, argued
the No side.
The Demise of Bernie Sanders
April 9, 2020
By JEFF MACKLER Author’s note: This article was written three weeks
before Bernie Sanders’ April 7 withdrawal from the Democratic Party primary
race.
I see no reason to change a word.
--
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense
of wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is,
those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos
centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of
superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those
with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos,
even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
