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I think it is important to argue that the Democratic Party is a bourgeois party. I'd hope that that was self evident. But then, the dynamic behind the Sanders' campaign and its platform thrust cannot be ignored. It is no good tut tutting and preaching purity. Same here in Australia with both the Coalition ...and the Australian Labor Party, which Lenin called 'a liberal bourgeois party'. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/jun/13.htm BOTH bourgeois parties. I think the problem is -- and many Bernie adherents aren't clarifying this point -- that there is a difference between a set (as in chronic) orientation towards the Democrats (like a strategy as was the CPUSA's approach) and a tactical orientation. I think you can characterise the challenge presented by Canada's New Democratic Party similarly. Even 'social democratic' parties are/were(if they still exist) 'liberal bourgeois' or 'bourgeois workers parties' -- but they still have been places for struggle, but only in various political contexts. It is not principle but tactics that should rule. I would not touch the ALP here in Australia with a 10 foot barge pole, but during the period 1971-75 inside the party there was an axis of struggle that could not be ignored. Ditto Bernie or the British Labour Party today. ...and tomorrow is another day. By the late 80s when the Australian Communist Party suicided and buried its corpse inside the party, the ALP was definitely neoliberalism personified and the CPA served as left cover for a major capitalist project. The problem lies, of course, in the threat that membership of these formations may function as an infection and your once-upon-a-time socialist activist morphs into a bourgeois apparatchik. Loyalty can be a perverse master. dave riley _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
