[Marxism] Eric Blanc: The Ballot and the Break (the case of the Mn. Farmer-Labor Party).

[John Obrien via Marxism]

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Dennis,


The murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht by police under the Germany Social 
Democrat leadership - remains appalling and

an example of the treachery against our class by those Social Democrats in 
power.  Your observations about the large social

democracy groups of being no help to stop the fascists then in Europe from 
coming to power, are also sadly correct.  So,how

do we go forward now with historic defeats by all left political currents and 
not alone the social democrats?


I want to point out that I only joined DSA after their August 2017 national 
convention when they voted to disassociate

from the Second International, reflecting significant political changes in DSA 
than that group held before 2017.   It is

easy to critique long after events are held.   I say this because I still have 
much respect for Leon Trotsky, but not for some

who call themselves followers of Trotsky. The cult of personality is a problem 
for anyone who views things scientifically

and not with a religious closed mind.


While I was told in 1967 by the U. S. SWP, that they were expelled from the SPA 
only for their views (in the "French Turn"),

I later learned a much different and more politically objective history, than 
one faction's views and opportunistic gains,

over the need for a united anti-Stalinist left.  In 1936, the Socialist Party 
of America was engaged in factional struggle

with the "Old Guard" (Morris Hillquit and other older age leaders) against the 
younger Norman Thomas led "Militants",

more around generational than ideological differences, that then the Norman 
Thomas wing won.  Negotiations between

the Norman Thomas wing and the Workers Party (later to be the U. S. SWP), led 
to the Workers Party members then

welcomed into SPA membership. The Workers Party held similar views with the 
Thomas led faction, on opposition to

Stalinism and on labor union activism and favorable support of the CIO with 
industrial unionism over the then narrow

orientation of the AFL craft unions and business unionism approach.  The 
Workers Party (SWP) also shared with the

pacifist led Thomas SPA wing, opposition to the U. S. government taking steps 
towards militarization and war.


The Norman Thomas "Militant" faction of the SPA was comprised of three wings: 
the "Altmanite" (led by Jack Altman)

which was the right wing faction, the "Clarity" (led by Gus Tyler) and the 
"Appeal" left faction that the Workers Party (SWP)

was with.  There was also the "Constructive" faction based mainly in the U. S. 
Midwest (led by Dan Hoan).


The "Socialist Appeal" faction (led by James Canon) held their own separate 
organizational gathering in Chicago in

February 1937 prior to the planned March 1937 SPA National Convention, also 
held in Chicago. Because of the fiery

speech by James Burnham then with the Workers Party (who later moved 
politically right and founded the National

Review magazine) who focused his verbal attacks on the other SPA wings, rather 
than the capitalists at the Feb. 1937

Chicago "Socialist Appeal" faction gathering , it allowed the "Altmanite" 
faction to push for immediate expulsion of the

Workers Party (SWP) members.  But the Thomas wing  then refused to expel the 
Workers Party at the next month's

SPA national convention.  This as a result of a meeting between Norman Thomas 
and James Canon and the other factions

where it was agreed that no efforts would be made to expel, But the agreements 
and understandings made at that

meeting were soon violated.


Recognizing that the "Clarity" faction had decided to stand with the 
"Altmanites" against the "Appeal" faction, Leon Trotsky

himself suggested to James Canon, to provoke a split from the SPA with focus on 
disagreements over Spain.  At a meeting

of the "Appeal" group National Action Committee in June 1937, they voted to 
again publish their faction's newspaper

Socialist Appeal, that was one of several faction's newspapers disbanded at the 
March SPA national convention in an

effort to tone down factionalism and disunity.  The Socialist Appeal newspaper 
contained open attacks on the American

Labor Party and its endorsed candidates  which incited the other SPA factions 
and allowed the Altmanites faction to

win expulsion of the local Workers Party (SWP), at a August 9, 1937 SPA New 
York City Local Central Committee meeting .

Wholesale expulsions then took place nationally in the SPA.  Jack Altman, the 
SPA New York City Local Secretary (leader)

declared the Trotskyists were expelled for attempting to undermine the 
Socialist Party of America, their open refusing to

abide by the decisions of the SPA National 

[Marxism] Fwd: Charlottesville: Where's the $200, 000 the DSA raised? | USA News | Al Jazeera

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Whoever finds out should then look into all that money Jill Stein 
received for researching 2016 election fraud.


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/charlottesville-20-dsa-raised-171204165738796.html
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[Marxism] Imperialism draining the Third World of trillions of dollars

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/imperialism-draining-the-third-world-of-trillions-of-dollars/
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[Marxism] UK politics -long post sorry

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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It would seem that things are coming to a head in the UK.  The negotiations 
over leaving the EU are at a delicate stage.  Yet the ruling Tory government 
would appear to be making a thorough hash of the negotiations.

There has been bluster and wild rhetoric from the Tories about “No deal is 
better than a bad deal”, but the reality is that life outside the European 
Union will be very tough, especially for the many millions who voted to leave.

That is not to say that remaining within the EU was an easy option. The EU had 
been given a ruthless neoliberal character and there definitely was a left case 
for leaving. Just look at what they did to Greece for instance. And of course 
there was the disastrous situation where there was monetary but no fiscal union.

However, the UK did have its own currency and in many ways had the best deal 
available because of that.

But this is not the sole focus of my post.  As everyone knows the Tories cling 
to power thanks to the support of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern 
Ireland.  Richard Seymour has a brilliant post on Patreon about that party and 
I can add nothing to that.  But I will say that I was astonished that the 
Tories agreed to a deal that would have seen Northern Ireland remain in the 
union in terms of customs so that there would be no hard border between the 
Norther and the South of Ireland.

That deal makes sense, of course. But the politics of the DUP are not based on 
sense - not at all.  They are fuelled by a religious, colonial and racist 
hatred of what they perceive as the Indigenous population of Northern  and 
Southern Ireland - the Irish. 

Always in the DUP imaginary, they are a besieged minority - the last outpost of 
the British Empire who could get over run at any moment by the natives. That is 
why every week end they stand outside the Belfast City Hall waving the Union 
Jack and the flag of Israel.

It is also why they said “no” to the deal May had worked out and it is why they 
enforced her public humiliation.  The Unionist slogans “This we will maintain, 
Not an inch, No surrender and Ulster says No” are part of the cultural DNA of 
the Ulster Loyalist community. How could the Tories not know that a DUP veto 
was coming?  Have they stopped teaching history at Eton and Rugby?

We are at a juncture now when quite clearly the Tory Party cannot satisfy the 
needs of British capitalism nor the needs of the UK state, never mind the needs 
of the people of the UK.  So we have  a massive crisis of legitimation on the 
political and economic fronts.

Murdoch and the other Press Barons refuse to acknowledge this crisis of course. 
They are like the Bourbons learning and forgetting nothing. But their monopoly 
over communication has been challenged by the growth of the social media and 
that is an essential part of why they cannot command when they feel most 
threatened.

In the mean time it is just now being recognised that Corbyn has manoeuvred 
most skilfully around the whole leaving the EU affair. He ran a low key 
campaign during the EU referendum and avoided appearing on platforms with 
Tories or with the execrable Tony Blair.  He was challenged for the leadership 
because of this.  But he had kept his political base intact and saw off the 
challenge from the racist United Kingdom  Independence Party. 

He avoided talking of Brexit during the election and concentrated instead on 
breaking from the neoliberal consensus that Blair has signed the Labour Party 
up to.   As a consequence, he got 3 million lost voters to return to Labour, 
and he is now the only political leader who is in a position to deliver a deal 
on Brexit that will not destroy the British economy.

Caste consciousness is very strong in the UK still and when people hear the 
accent of Eton, Rugby etc many feel still that they are listening to their 
betters. But Theresa May has assembled such a pack of clowns and incompetents 
that even caste consciousness may not be able to save her government.

 My favourite quote from Marx  has never seemed more relevant to me.  Writing 
to Lasalle in 1858 he said

“All in all the present period is pleasant. History is evidently bracing itself 
to take a new start, and the signs of decomposition everywhere are delightful 
for every mind not bent upon the conservation of things as they are.” 

Comradely 

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Eric Blanc: The Ballot and the Break (the case of the Mn. Farmer-Labor Party).

[John Obrien via Marxism]

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Dennis,


The murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht by police under the Germany Social 
Democrat leadership - remains appalling and

an example of the treachery against our class by those Social Democrats who 
care more or influenced by the capitalists

and those in power, than the working class and those challenging capitalism and 
wrong.


I want to point out that I only joined DSA after their August 2017 national 
convention when they voted to disassociate

from the Second International, reflecting significant political changes in DSA 
than that group held before 2017.And it is

easy to critique after events and the period of time taken in and not having a 
direct personal involvement in, to state one's

views of mistakes, when more is later known about decisions with less then 
known and what other forces were capable

of doing.  I say this because I still have much respect for Leon Trotsky, but 
not for many who call themselves followers of.

The cult of personality is a problem for anyone who views things scientifically 
and not with a religious closed mind.


While I was told by the U. S. SWP that they were expelled for their views 
around the French Turn, I later read and

learned a much different and more politically objective history than one 
faction's views to justify and promote that

faction over the need for a united anti-Stalinist left.  In 1936, the Socialist 
Party of America was engaged in factional

struggle with the "Old Guard" (Morris Hillquit and other older age leaders) 
against the Norman Thomas led "Militants",

more around generational than ideological differences, that the Norman Thomas 
wing won.  Negotiations between

the Norman Thomas wing and the Workers Party (later to be the U. S. SWP), led 
to the Workers Party members then

welcomed into SPA membership. The Workers Party held similar views with the 
Thomas led faction, on opposition to

Stalinism and on labor union activism and favorable support of the CIO with 
industrial unionism over the then narrow

orientation of the AFL craft unions and business unionism approach.  The 
Workers Party (SWP) also shared with the

pacifist led Thomas SPA wing, opposition to the U. S. government taking steps 
towards militarization and war.


Note: this is another discussion than this on the reasons for the Workers Party 
(SWP) expulsion in 1938 from the SPA,

 and on what is now fully known about Nazi Germany's development then of the 
atom bomb.  Real events should affect

historical decisions and later hindsight review of, unless one is thinking 
religious and cult like and not logical and scientific.


The Norman Thomas "Militant" faction of the SPA was comprised of three wings: 
the "Altmanite" (led by Jack Altman)

which was the right wing faction, the "Clarity" (led by Gus Tyler) and the 
"Appeal" left faction that the Workers Party (SWP)

was with.  There was also the "Constructive" faction based mainly in the U. S. 
Midwest (led by Dan Hoan).


The "Socialist Appeal" faction (led by James Canon) held their own separate 
organizational gathering in Chicago in

February 1937 prior to the planned March 1937 SPA National Convention also held 
in Chicago. Because of the fiery

speech by James Burnham then with the Workers Party (and later who moved to the 
extreme right wing and founded

the National Review magazine still today publishing pro-capitalist views) who 
focused his verbal attacks on the other

SPA wings rather than the capitalists at the Feb. 1937 Chicago "Socialist 
Appeal" faction gathering , it allowed

the "Altmanite" faction to push for immediate expulsion of the Workers Party 
(SWP) members but the Thomas wing

refused to expel the Workers Party at the next month's SPA national convention. 
 This as a result of a meeting between

Norman Thomas and James Canon and the other factions where it was agreed that 
no efforts would be made to expel,

But the agreements and understandings made at that meeting were soon violated.


Recognizing that the "Clarity" faction had decided to stand with the 
"Altmanites" and the Thomas group, Leon Trotsky

himself suggested to James Canon to provoke a split from the SPA with focus on 
disagreements over Spain.  At a meeting

of the "Appeal" group National Action Committee in June 1937 they voted to 
again publish their faction's newspaper

Socialist Appeal, that was one of several faction's newspapers disbanded at the 
March SPA national convention in an

effort to tone down factionalism and disunity.  The Socialist Appeal newspaper 
contained open attacks on the American

Labor Party and its endorsed candidates  which incited the other SPA factions 
and allowed the 

[Marxism] No Wonder Millennials Hate Capitalism

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times Op-Ed, Dec. 4 2017
No Wonder Millennials Hate Capitalism
by Michelle Goldberg

On a Friday night last month, I moderated a debate in Manhattan about 
whether we should scrap capitalism. It was organized by the socialist 
magazine Jacobin; defending capitalism were editors from the libertarian 
publication Reason. Tickets for all available 450 seats sold out in a 
day. So Jacobin moved it to a venue that holds around twice as many. The 
extra tickets sold out in eight hours.


When I arrived, people were lined up for blocks; walking to the door, I 
felt like I was on the guest list at an underground nightclub. Most 
attendees appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, part of a generation that 
is uniquely suspicious of capitalism, a system most of their elders take 
for granted.


The anti-Communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was alarmed 
to find in a recent survey that 44 percent of millennials would prefer 
to live in a socialist country, compared with 42 percent who want to 
live under capitalism. For older Americans, the collapse of Communism 
made it seem as though there was no possible alternative to capitalism. 
But given the increasingly oligarchic nature of our economy, it’s not 
surprising that for many young people, capitalism looks like the god 
that failed.


Nowhere is that clearer than in the wretched tax bill passed by the 
Senate in the early hours of Saturday morning, which would make the rich 
richer and the poor poorer. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy 
Center, the bill directs the largest tax cuts as a share of income to 
the top 5 percent of taxpayers. By 2027, taxes on the lowest earners 
would go up.


Millennials, a generation maligned as entitled whiners, would be 
particularly hard hit. As Ronald Brownstein argued in The Atlantic, the 
rich people who would benefit from the measures passed by the House and 
the Senate tend to be older (and whiter) than the population at large. 
Younger people would foot the bill, either through higher taxes, 
diminished public services or both. They stand to inherit an even more 
stratified society than the one they were born into.


Here’s one example. The Senate bill offers a tax break for parents whose 
children attend private school. But it cuts deductions for state and 
local taxes, which could make it harder to fund the public schools where 
the vast majority of millennials will send their kids.


There is no coherent economic rationale for what Republicans are doing. 
Academic economists are basically unanimous that the Republican tax plan 
would increase America’s deficit, which Republicans used to pretend to 
care about. With unemployment low, many experts say the economy doesn’t 
need a stimulus. The tax cuts are likely to increase the trade deficit, 
which President Trump purportedly wants to reduce. Republicans often say 
they want to simplify the tax code, but as the accountant Tony Nitti 
argues in Forbes, the tax bill would make much of it more complex.


How to explain this smash-and-grab legislative looting, which violates 
all principles of economic prudence? Part of it is simple greed, but 
there’s also an ideology at work, one that sees the rich as more 
productive and deserving than others. Louise Linton, the wife of 
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, spelled it out on her Instagram feed 
in August, responding to an Oregon mother who had the audacity to 
criticize Linton’s use of a government plane: “Lololol. Have you given 
more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual 
earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country?”


Lest you think that’s just the sputtering of a modern Marie-Antoinette 
with poor grammar, consider what Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of 
Iowa, told The Des Moines Register about the need to repeal the estate 
tax, which falls only on heirs of multimillionaires and billionaires. “I 
think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are 
investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny 
they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,” he said. By this 
logic, Linton, or Trump’s children, are more socially useful than anyone 
irresponsible enough to live paycheck to paycheck.


Not to be outdone, the next day, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of 
Utah, argued that Congress still hasn’t reauthorized the Children’s 
Health Insurance Program, which he helped create and still claims to 
support, because “we don’t have money anymore.” He went on to rant 
against the poor: “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and 
billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help 
themselves — won’t 

[Marxism] Fwd: Can socialism be advanced by running in Democratic Party primaries? A reply to Eric Blanc | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Yesterday Eric Blanc stepped outside of his “April Theses was not a 
break from Old Bolshevism” comfort zone and wrote an article for Jacobin 
titled “The Ballot and the Break”. The title of the article evoked 
Malcolm X’s 1964 double-barrel blast at the two-party system titled “The 
Ballot or the Bullet” but that speech was in marked contrast to Blanc’s 
argument that socialists can run in Democratic Party primaries to their 
own advantage, something he calls a “dirty break”. By contrast, Malcolm 
X and many Marxist dinosaurs like me call for a “clean break” from the 
two-party system.


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2017/12/05/can-socialism-be-advanced-by-running-in-democratic-party-primaries-a-reply-to-eric-blanc/

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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[DW via Marxism]

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Forwarded from from an associate, a revolutionary Marxist and Medical
Doctor.
--David Walters

This paper (from the link posted by Louis P.)  has "junk science / quack
medicine" stamped in red all over it, for a number of reasons.

1. Overwhelmingly and most important, first off, we see absolutely *no*
presentation of measurements of I131 (iodine 131) or other alleged exposure
levels by people in the region to anything this radiation-hysteria-monger
might claim is a causative agent here.

No  evidence is actually presented.  And presentation of an exposure dose,
and comparison of it to what we know from past experience can and cannot
cause disease, is a critical aspect of any legitimate paper on a subject
like this.  The absence of this is a *huge* red flag that informs the
reader this is *Junk Science*, done to deceitfully promote a particular
ideology adhered to on faith by the author.  This is *not* the work of an
intellectually honest individual.  This is not an application of scientific
method.

2. The second dramatic indication that this is Junk Science, is encountered
when one reads in this paper the following citation:

"The statistical aberration of increased cancer rates should be a concern
to us all,” said Peter Schwartz, a Rockland County businessman diagnosed
with thyroid cancer in 1986. "After Fukushima, it finally occurred to me
that my thyroid cancer was connected to Indian Point.”

Medical / epidemiological papers that attempt to support their content by
citing *single* case studies and invoke the *conviction* of the
superstitious individual as evidence of the statistical association they
are trying to establish (to say nothing of a cause and effect
relationship!) are pretty near always the result of a partisan writing who
has  no interest at all in finding out what is going on, and is interested
*only* in "proving" the theory he or she believes on faith and wants to
promote.   This is a sleazy effort to appeal to those not educated in
science and medicine, and thus ignorant of what is and isn't important to
proving such contentions.

3. The author writes "Little is known of thyroid cancer".  Well... little
is known of most things in medicine... the whole reality of
scientific-based, evidence based medicine is a very new thing in human
history.  For the most part, it began in 1944 with the wide availability of
penicillin, so it's well under a century old.  That said, we *do* have a
lot of experience with exposures to I131, the only radioactive agent
specifically known to have the potential to cause thyroid cancer.  We have
experience with it both in accidental situations (Chernobyl) and in
situations where people are *deliberately* exposed to it (in the thousands
of people treated with I131 for thyroid nodules, including cancer).

So it IS known what doses of exposure are and are not associated with no
chance, a very tiny chance, and a higher chance of causing thyroid cancer.
But the author doesn't want to go into that, because such information as
what doses people encountered and what doses are known to be entirely
harmless would show what deceitful crap his paper is.

4. Note that the estimate of number of thyroid cancers from nuclear testing
he cites is a *theoretical estimate*, not something based on actual real
world observation or measurement.   And given the period of time from which
that estimate dates, it virtually certainly was made employing as
theoretical model LNT (Linear Non Threshold) hypothesis of radiation
effects on humans.  A theoretical model now known to be grossly false, and
known to be promoted by scientists who it has been proven deliberately
faked their data for ideological reasons.  It's a model that gives results
of sensitivity of humans to ill medical effects of radiation that are 100
to 1000 times greater than an honest and accurate model based on study and
evidence shows.

5. After the Fukushima melt downs, the Japanese went to great lengths to
look for an increase in thyroid cancer in children, which they were told
could be the result of I131 release from the three nuclear disasters
there.Hysteria was raised over utterly totally 100% false claims and
significant physical harm done to children as a result.  Here's why:

(a) Methods used to search for nodules in children's thyroids were far more
advanced and sensitive than any used in previous studies of incidence of
such in children in the region.  Also, a larger fraction of children were
examined... the new surveys were far more thorough and extensive than the
old ones from which the old, comparison data was obtained.  So *of course*
the result of the new studies was that more thyroid 

[Marxism] Fwd: How Dollar General Became Rural America's Store of Choice

[Michael Yates via Marxism]

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We began to see this in our travels across the US quite a few years ago. Dollar 
General stores have been proliferating in small towns everywhere. You know when 
you see one that people in the area are close to the margin economically. And 
you see too the relentless capital accumulation that drives the system.
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[Marxism] Fwd: cvs aetna

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Another case of healthcare objective socialization, this time by
centralization of pharmacy/retail/in-out patient clinics/insurance etc.
-- Forwarded message --
From: Andrew Pollack 
Date: Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 9:19 AM
Subject: cvs aetna
To: Andrew Pollack 


http://crain.d1.sc.omtrdc.net/b/ss/crainmodernhealth/1/H.25.4--
NS/0" height="1" width="1" border="0" />
[image: Modern Healthcare] CVS and Aetna
seek community-based care model in giant healthcare deal By Shelby
Livingston   |
December 4, 2017Through their $69 billion deal, CVS Health and Aetna are
swinging an axe at the traditional ways in which patients access healthcare
in hopes of building a new kind of model that's lower cost and more
convenient for the consumer. At the center of this strategy is what's
commonly called the new front door to healthcare: the walk-in clinic, and
CVS has nearly 10,000 of them.

Late Sunday, pharmacy chain and benefit manager CVS and insurer Aetna
announced what would be the largest healthcare transaction[1]

to date, if approved by regulators and shareholders. The companies agreed
that CVS will take over Aetna, with the No. 3 U.S. health insurer becoming
a standalone unit inside the pharmacy giant.

On Monday, the companies laid out their vision [2]
for how the
combined entity could reshape healthcare. The picture they painted is one
where retail healthcare clinics play a greater role in patient care,
becoming both the entry point and navigators of the system.

The companies want to make the retail clinics "a place where people want to
go because they get better help, they get a lower cost product and they get
navigated through the system over time, so we can eliminate prior
authorizations, we can set up appointments too, all those sorts of things,"
Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini explained Monday during a conference call with
investors to discuss the deal.

Because the storefront pharmacies and Minute Clinics are embedded in local
communities[3]

and have become places that Americans frequent, CVS CEO Larry Merlo said
the combined company will be better able to manage patients with chronic
diseases, who may see their primary care doctor only three or four times a
year. Patients with chronic diseases represent the lion's share of
healthcare spending.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 86% of the
nation's $2.7 trillion annual [4]
healthcare costs go
to patients with chronic and mental health conditions.

"We're in the community, we're seeing those patients, we're becoming part
of their daily lives and routines. We can get them on that care plan, help
them achieve their best health and at the same time, reduce the cost of
care that we're incurring today," Merlo said.

He also said the combined company could invest in existing retail clinics
to expand clinical services to make this vision a reality. Perhaps Minute
Clinic services will expand to include blood draws, or CVS could station
nutritionists in its stores, he said.

"We know there's a solution there in terms of being a complement to the
physician and the medical team for those patients," he said.

For this reason, the deal could be a good thing for patients, observers
say. "This brings Aetna out closer to the consumer, and with CVS' retail
strategy and Aetna's membership, it's a way to really expedite the movement
away from reactive inpatient care to proactive retail and in-home care,"
said David Gregory, healthcare consulting practice leader at advisory firm
Baker Tilly.

Already, insurers and self-insured employers have been steering patients [5]
toward
lower cost care settings. Even hospitals have been opening retail clinics
to capture patients and pull them into their systems. The cost of care at a
retail clinic is much lower than in a doctor's office, and evidence has
shown that the care quality is equal.

For instance, a 2014 study[6]  published in the American Journal
of Managed Care and conducted by researchers from the CVS Health Research
Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital found that minor ailments
treated in retail clinics inside CVS pharmacies received care that 

Re: [Marxism] Eric Blanc: The Ballot and the Break (the case of the Mn. Farmer-Labor Party).

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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I'm not so certain that the "French turn" - entering the social democratic
parties in the 1930s when they got an influx of young people new to radical
politics and turned off by the ultraleftism of the Comintern' s "third
period" - was a "sectarian mistake." Trotskyists in Spain refused to enter
the Spanish social-democracy, so the Stalinists did and became a major
force on the Left. The SWP entered the SP in 1936 - at the invitation of
that party's leadership - and recruited its youth wing. The Trotskyists
didn't split from the SP - they were expelled, a bureaucratic
organizational maneuver to prevent them from politically winning over more
of their ranks.

John asks - "How did the workers in France, the United States or elsewhere
benefit with these weakened social democrat groups facing the fascists?"
Let him answer - how did the workers of Germany in the late 1920s/early
1930s "benefit" from a strong Social-Democratic Party (SPD)? How did the
working class of Europe "benefit" from their strong and
unchallenged-from-the-left social-democrats between the years 1914 and
1918??? Social Democracy after WW1 was not some new organization that
sprang onto the scene without a thought-out program. It was a hardened
counter-revolutionary force. If Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and all
those German leftists murdered by rightists *supported by the SPD* in 1919
were here, they'd testify to that!

On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 2:45 AM, John Obrien via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> I recently joined DSA.  We do not need a "French Turn"  That was a
> sectarian destructive tactic that resulted in
> only harming any needed effort for a large united left. This is an example
> of bad education promoted in the US SWP to justify their wrong approach
> that we often see being done by other more recent groups such as the
> U. S. Sparticist League.
>
>
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[Marxism] Fwd: Is a Controversial Nuclear Plant to Blame for Soaring Thyroid Cancer Rates in New York? | Alternet

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.alternet.org/environment/indian-point-nuclear-plant-blame-soaring-thyroid-cancer-rates-new-york
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