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On 8/29/18 6:20 PM, Fred Murphy wrote:
FYI, Neal Meyer, cited in this article, is a leading figure in the new
DSA tendency Socialist Call - the ones who republished the Peter Camejo
speech Lou posted about elsewhere.
I got faked out by them posting a talk by Peter. I discussed Meyer last
month as it happens:
If you want some help understanding democratic-socialism, you might want
to consult Neal Mayer’s “What is Democratic Socialism” in (where else?)
Jacobin. Mayer is on the DSA’s Citywide Leadership Committee and
obviously qualified to speak for the spanking New Left.
He proposes a “Democratic Road to Socialism” that is different from the
one conceived by “our friends on the socialist left”, in other words the
people Ben Judah describes as being into “commodified ironic Soviet
kitsch”. Speaking for the DSA (and likely the Jacobin editorial board),
Mayer writes: “We reject strategies that transplant paths from Russia in
1917 or Cuba in 1959 to the United States today, as if we could win
socialism by storming the White House and tossing Donald Trump out on
the front lawn.”
Oh, I see. Remind me not to write any more articles about winning
socialism by storming the White House and tossing Donald Trump out on
the front lawn.” I must have gotten such a silly idea from reading too
much CLR James. I mean, for fuck’s sake, anybody writing such drivel
understands about as much as Cuba in 1959 as I do about particle
physics. Fidel Castro got started as a bourgeois politician just like
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and only became a guerrilla after realizing
that electoral politics in Cuba was a con game. Unlike most people
seeking comfortable careers as professional politicians, Fidel Castro
cared about the suffering of the Cuban people even if he didn’t live up
to Sam Farber’s lofty standards.
Like most DSA’ers, Mayer sees work in the Democratic Party as a tactical
question to be decided pragmatically:
"To begin with, Sanders rose through an established party. Though
political parties have suffered a profound degree of delegitimation,
this has not sidelined them; their continuing economic and social impact
ensure their continuing relevance. That they were nevertheless weakened
gave individuals like Sanders who were not tainted with being part of
the party establishment the advantage of operating inside these parties
while retaining their branding as outsiders (this was also true of
Corbyn in the Labour Party and Trump re the Republicans).
"Had Sanders run as an independent, without the on-the-ground resources
of the Democratic machine and the profile of running as a Democrat, it
was highly unlikely — as he well knew — that his campaign would have had
anywhere near the impact it did, just as attempts to form a left party
outside the British Labour Party have generally and quickly faded. For
all the discrediting of political parties, party politics remains a
central site for being taken seriously. Starting a new party from
scratch is something else and presents formidable difficulties."
Obviously, this is just another way of saying what Ben Judah said:
“Now—even more so since the success of Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez—millennial socialist activists are convinced that the
hollow establishment parties that their forerunners disdained are
instruments ripe for the taking.”
full: https://louisproyect.org/2018/07/26/bring-back-communism/
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