"Jump" probably brings up the wrong image. We didn't get in the mess
we're in in one mighty leap. We slid slowly over many generations.
But always we edged toward a more beneficial position for the Empire's
Ruling Class.
We, the socialists among us, are far too few in number, and far too
removed from the Power Center, to seize control of our government in
event of a violent revolution. I'm very opposed to violent
revolutions. History demonstrates over and over that such eruptions
end up in totalitarianism. Besides, I'm not in agreement that the
folks on that original list are part of the problem. We might better
view them as "persons in transition, leaning toward Progressiveness".
Carl Jarvis
On 6/9/20, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:
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-celebrities-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.
Related Articles
The “New Normal” and Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine May 11, 2020 By MARTY
GOODMAN Today only 51.3% of American adults have jobs – the lowest
number
on record, lower than the Great Depression. We have passed 80,000
coronavirus deaths.
Should Progressives Work in the Democratic Party?
April 14, 2020
Here we reprint part of a 1959 debate between a revolutionary socialist
and a social democrat. George Breitman, a member of the 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
