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> Bernie Sanders went on demonstrations in the early 1960s, but then took a 50-year break until 2014.So he skipped the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women’s movement and the other critical social movements of his generation.Now he supports working people, but thinks its ok to bomb them in other countries.And he’s for democracy, but he supports monarchies and Israeli apartheid.He’s for government transparency, but wants Snowden to stand trial.He’s independent, but has always supported the corporate Democratic Party candidates.He’s against police violence, but thinks the police are a socialist institution.He voted against the Iraq War, but then voted to fund it.He’s battling the Washington establishment, but he’s a lifelong professional politician.He’s against Hillary Clinton, but has pledged to support her after she wins the primary.He’s a democratic socialist, but assures us he will not threaten capitalism.And he has proclaimed that his vote in Iowa was the beginning of a Political Revolution...So - he’s getting movement activists off the streets and signing them up to strengthen the Democratic Party, a party that destroys progressive movements, so he can lead the revolution that will end Democratic Party politics, in order to move to a kind of socialism that preserves capitalism? I'll be honest, I've never completely understood this line of reasoning. The guy is running in the elections of the American empire. Obviously he's not a revolutionary. But participating in a 4-year ritual and being "pulled off the streets" are quite different things. It is in the nature of capitalism and its institutions to attempt to co-opt resistance movements. Any movement worth supporting will be able to survive Bernie Sanders. But more importantly, how can anyone deny that having a Bernie Sanders on stage challenging the Clinton aristocracy, its decades of Zionist/neocon warmongering, neoliberal economic planning, and chardonnay liberalism is not opening doors for us? Bernie is not a Communist or a socialist and his credentials fail to deliver what we want, but prior to Bernie it was almost impossible to have the discussion at all. The problem with these kinds of assessments of mainstream political candidates is that they are applying the measure we use as advocates, socialists, and so on to the way we measure establishment representatives. There should be a different calculus, namely whether or not Bernie's running will open doors for us. In the event of a Hillary presidency the mere fact is that Bernie-like candidates, whether they are members of the Democratic Party or not, will force HRC to have to address her left flank (AKA us) and has made it clear exactly how large that flank is. Moreover, whoever he endorses in the event that he loses (something that isn't completely decided yet depending on how much he can capitalize on the Iowa "coin toss victory" and the debate performance), the simple fact is he injected "the war on the billionaire class" into mainstream discussion. I am not personally a fan of lesser-evilism. Lesser evilism is stupid, as it ignores that within undemocratic elections, the issue isn't whether A is a better candidate than B, the issue is whether A's differences from B are outweighed by his/her similarities from B. I don't think anyone can deny that Bernie's similarities with HRC are limited given the vast differences they have in policy. Hence, Bernie is worth a vote even if it is essentially a protest vote. We need to divide the ruling institutions and their representatives while consolidating revolutionary causes. Bernie performs the former role even though he would be a complete flop if his function were the latter. For the purposes of the latter, we need to organize in ways that will be highly functional after the election regardless of who wins. *That *is how we make sure "left-liberals" aren't "pulled off the streets" for Bernie. When Bernie's campaign dies (if it does) we can still gather the remnants. My $0.02. - Amith On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 2:45 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > By "shunning" I wasn't suggesting that united front actions were > impermissible with them. Granted, I didn't define who, how and when to shun > them. > What I meant was that on the level of political analysis, we have the duty > to tell Socialist Action to stop supporting genocidal maniacs, and to > educate potential recruits to SA about their bankruptcy. And to open a > dialogue about what a principled antiwar/solidarity movement could look > like. > > On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 2:39 PM, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote: > > > On 2/5/16 2:31 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: > > > >> Good for Mike A.! > >> Both in general, and for this in particular: > >> "... those who support, directly or indirectly, butchers like Assad and > >> Putin should be shunned." > >> (This would mean, by the way, shunning Socialist Action... ) > >> See his book at: > >> > >> > http://www.amazon.com/Insurgent-Images-Agitprop-Murals-Alewitz/dp/1583670343 > >> > > > > Shunning is problematic. > > > > I don't think that Syria can be a litmus test for left unity even though > > the positions adopted, for example, by the Alan Woods sect are ghastly. > > > > For example, if there was a protest against fascists in Britain, you can > > expect this sect, CounterFire, and other pro-Russian leftists to be > > involved in the organizing. It, of course, is their contradiction that > the > > fascists are likely to agree more with Alan Woods than with them on > Putin. > > > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
