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Walter Daum wrote
Really what? That’s a neat little article by Lenin, concisely dissecting
the U.S. bourgeois parties of his day. It doesn’t say anything about
tactically voting for one of them to stop the other, but I assume he was
against, as was Debs. He doesn’t suggest that the Dems were a lesser
evil than the Repubs, or vice versa. Lenin had equally strong
denunciations of the bourgeois parties of his own country, Russia, and
there, under specific circumstances, he advocated a defensive vote for
Cadet candidates to stop the Black Hundreds from taking office. So
where’s the principle of *never* voting for a bourgeois candidate?--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The principle of *never* voting for a bourgeois candidate may be beside
the point.
What of the people who called and knocked on doors and posted signs and
generally busted ass and spent much enthusiasm in support of Bernie -
whatever the intent or effect? What if in substantial numbers they
decide that, if Biden doesn't buy the program that they worked so hard
for, he doesn't buy their votes either? What if they they decide that
Biden is part of the problem, another messenger boy fronting for the
implacable enemy. And voting for the lesser evil has invariably left us
further from our goal of working class emancipation. Are they going to
somehow listen up and follow your advice, and put defeat of Trump up
front as you advocate (or is it just this tiny choir of ex-Trots that
you address)?
So long as the preponderance who vote are not buying into even a mild
reform program in their interests and are timorous about the
consequences, who apparently comprise in their numbers older,
self-indulgent, pro-military, xenophobic members of the middle class in
the US (the 20% that follows on after the 1% because they still
visualize the benefits to them of the power of US capital - and who vote
in line with that interest) how then do we bring about change? By, in
our ineffectual numbers, joining them?
CBS conducted an exit poll after one of the recent primaries, in which
one of the questions asked was would you prefer a candidate who a)
reflects the policies of Obama, b) is more liberal, c) is more
conservative? The reported answers were a) 49%, b) 37%, and c) 14%. And
that's just the Democrats.
--
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