The arguments Michael criticizes are not straw targets at all but I have been encountering them over and over again ever since Sanders entered the campaign. In very concrete terms Sanders is a serious obstacle to any attempts to build mass movements of opposition to the current policies of Austerity & Imperialism. He is doing much more damage to leftist politics than Trump in the white house could do.
In 1988 I was on Jackson's delegate slate in this congressional district; Jan & I were members of LRS, and that was why Jackson's last speech of the primary campaign was delivered here in Bloomington/Normal Illionois: LRS controleed Jackson's speaking schedule. Jackson was far to the left of Sanders (at least verbally), but LRS did not gain a single member from that campaign; in fct, to this day I believe the illusion (or delusory) hopes generated by that campaign, along with the exhaustion created by electoral activity, was the primary cause of the collapse of LRS a year or so later. For 80 years the idiotic hope of pushing the DP left has been the death of all mass political action, beginning with the CPUSA and the CIO. Carrol -----Original Message----- From: pen-l-boun...@lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:pen-l-boun...@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of raghu Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 3:25 PM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] New Blog Post: Bernie Sanders' "Political Revolution" On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Michael Yates <mikedjya...@msn.com> wrote: Some say that those of us who don't actively support the Sanders' campaign are "ultra-leftists." I disagree. And for the record, I am not and have never been a Trotskyist! Though I have friends who are and were. cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2016/02/29/bernie-sanders-political-revolution/ Hi Michael, I usually much enjoy and agree with your blogs, but this time, I am afraid, I find you arguing with strawmen far too much. Is the Sanders’ phenomenon a radical movement? If not, will it soon give rise to one? There are reasons to be skeptical. Fair enough, but you are setting the bar ridiculously high here. If any political activity must constitute a radical movement in order for it to be worthwhile at all, this is an argument for paralysis basically. I think you need to argue against a more reasonable bar: is the Sanders campaign meaningfully advancing the prospects for a radical movement? The answer to that surely has to be Yes. Second, all campaigns are now driven by television and social media, both of which devote little time to the serious analysis that might educate us. They feed the public sound bites, over and over, ad nauseam. This is way too cynical. What you say above is true of cable and network TV, but social media?? And I am not even sure about the relevance to the Sanders campaign. However, might it not be just as reasonable to argue that dedicated activists within the working class, through years of hard and tireless efforts had already built militant, albeit not radical organizations, and it has been these that have energized the Sanders’ campaign and not the other way around? Does it matter which is cause, and which effect? And does it have to be either/or? Surely the more reasonable guess would be that there is a little bit of both? won’t the new recruits be spending their time for the foreseeable future trying to win converts to the election cause? When exactly will the movement building begin? Don't you think you have a very narrow conception of what constitutes "movement building"? Also, aren't you begging the question here by making assertions without evidence about everyone "spending their time for the foreseeable future" on the "election cause" which is taken to be intrinsically inimical to this thing called "movement building"? Why is anything different this time around? Yes, Sanders is a better choice for president than Hillary Clinton. Didn't you just answer your own question there? But he is running as a Democrat, as part of a party that is rotten from top to bottom. True, but why is this an indictment of Sanders? The DP happens to the gateway to the left 50% of the US public. The gatekeepers are corrupt, but they are not omnipotent. Indeed one of the great services that the Sanders campaign has performed is to bring a spotlight to just how corrupt the DP elites are. If Sanders and those who support him were serious about building a radical movement, they would use his campaign to engage in a parallel crusade of critical education. [...] If Sanders and his “Sandernistas” wanted a “political revolution,” they would use his campaign to begin the long, arduous process of radical education. There would be teach-ins and public meetings in towns large and small. No political event, no protest, no rally would be fail to have an educational component. Sanders’ talking points could be used to deepen understanding, by asking questions and pushing the discussions toward fundamental causes. And connections between inequality and a host of other problems, including the environmental catastrophes that are raining down upon us and threaten the viability of human life itself, could be made. Funny you should say that, because that's exactly what Sanders and many of his supporters claim to be doing. Maybe your real complaint is that they are not doing it very well. Fair enough, but that's very different from saying that the Sanders campaign should be ignored or opposed. -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
