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I don't know why people think that Bernie Sanders would be a revolutionary president. Has he been a revolutionary senator for the last fourteen years? a revolutionary congressman for the sixteen years before that? I have loosely followed Bernie's political activities since the 1970s; they have become totally electoral and appropriately circumspect. Bernie has focused on becoming a successful career politician of now nearly forty years. He now has a well developed careful populist rhetoric - not the systemic socialist criticism of the capitalist system that i first heard from him. Is supporting Bernie's election campaign an endorsement of electoral politics as the most effective way to work for fundamental social change? What if for the last four years Senator Bernie Sanders had made his priority putting time, energy and resources into building a mass movement for single-payer healthcare? What could Senator Sander's first-order commitment have done for Healthcare-Now! (healthcare-now.org), the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer (laborforsinglepayer.org), Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org) and Health Over Profit for Everyone ( healthoverprofit.org)? Will movement building or Bernie Sander's personal electoral success turn out to be more decisive in ever achieving a single-payer healthcare system? On Tue, Mar 3, 2020 at 9:57 PM MM via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > The sad history of the left is littered with this kind of > misrepresentation and false dichotomy. I didn’t for a moment espouse the > DSA / Jacobin line; not in the least. But maybe Lou needs a cheap foil to > vent against. > > Anyone who thinks a second Trump term affords a better opportunity to > “draw clear class lines” than would a Sanders presidency is a delusional > and dangerous accellerationist. The serious tactical question is how to > take advantage of the space a Sanders presidency would afford, under either > of the scenarios I mentioned, to draw those “clear class lines” and build > the forces necessary for more radical change. That requires political > education, among other things, and political education that doesn’t connect > with people’s concrete struggles is sectarian cultism. > > You want people to fight against the system? Give them healthcare and get > the debt burden that’s giving them anxiety attacks off their fucking backs. > Then tell them there’s more where that came from, including a future for > their children, but only if they’re willing to fight like hell for it. And > tell them to hold onto each other for dear life because it’s going to be > harder than anything they’ve ever done — harder than anything they’ve ever > imagined. And there’s homework — lots of homework. But hell, we got Bernie > elected despite everything they threw at us, so maybe we can win the rest > of it after all. Let’s give it our best shot, and if nothing else let’s go > out swinging. > > That’s what you tell them, or something like that, if you’re interested in > “resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.” Leadership doesn’t just > have an opinion or an analysis; it has a voice. Find that voice. Be that > voice. > > _________________________________________________________ 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
