On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 3:20 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote:
> http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=12386 Wow, good for the North Star! It is worth reproducing the article text here: -------------------------------------snip I’m sick of my fellow socialists who decry presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders for being insufficiently left-wing. In doing so, they appear completely detached from political reality and to value purity over progress. Far more than any third-party candidate, whether they be from the Green Party or some fading socialist sect, Sanders is getting our issues on the table before a national audience. If supporting his candidacy is lesser-evilism, it’s the kind socialists have to accept in order to have any sort of relevancy, at least for now. Many of Sanders left-wing critics, and here I mean those unwilling to critically support the campaign, have specific policy disagreements with the senator. For instance, they don’t like his position on Israel. In Socialist Worker, Ashley Smith wrote, Sanders is a “Zionist who supports Israel consistently, even after its escalation of the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.” Similarly, many leftists don’t think Sanders is socialist enough, wishing he was more than a European-style social democrat. But in the absence of a plausible alternative to the senator’s left, these reservations often look like moralistic hand-washing. Working people have bills to pay, and lack time to wait for a perfect vessel for a class-conscious campaign. Many other left-wing critics say they approve of Sanders on the issues, but his choice to run as a Democrat eliminates him from consideration. This objection seems to rest on the idea that by running as a Democrat, Sanders and his supporters will catch corporate cooties. Never mind that, by running in a bourgeois party, he’s reaching infinitely more people than he would otherwise, and reversing decades worth of Cold War associations between socialism and the Soviet Union. Let’s not pretend that socialists haven’t run on the Democratic Party ticket before. For instance, Upton Sinclair, the muckraking journalist behind “The Jungle,” ran for the governorship of California as a Democrat after two unsuccessful bid for congress as a Socialist Party candidate. He lost as a Democrat as well, but it was a far more successful campaign. “The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label,” Sinclair said, explaining his tactics. “Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to ‘End Poverty in California’ I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.” That said, it must be pointed out that, while running as a Democrat, Sanders continues to openly describe himself as a socialist. This election represents a significant testing ground for American socialists. It will demonstrate the degree to which we value political purity or actual progress. Don’t be one of the hand washers, waiting for the perfect class warrior, who, at least at the moment, doesn’t exist or stand a chance. As imperfect as he might be, Sanders is far and away our best hope. So let’s roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.
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