Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/13/18 7:08 PM, Jason wrote:


I might do that at some point, but I want to be clear that is not an 
alternative--it is an evasion. It is you evading backing up your claims, 
explicit and implicit, that there is some kind of obvious tradition that 
revolutionary socialists don't vote for liberals (or however one prefers 
to phrase it).


-Jason Hicks


I am actually working on a longish article about all this, including 
very relevant material from August Nimtz's book on Lenin's electoral 
strategy. And stop telling me I am being evasive because I don't answer 
your questions to your satisfaction. That is just a cheap demagogic 
trick that won't work, especially on Marxmail where most people have a 
visceral hatred for the Democratic Party.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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> Let me propose an alternative. Why don't you write a 2000-3000 word
> article defending support for the Democratic Party and post it to the list?


I might do that at some point, but I want to be clear that is not an
alternative--it is an evasion. It is you evading backing up your claims,
explicit and implicit, that there is some kind of obvious tradition that
revolutionary socialists don't vote for liberals (or however one prefers to
phrase it).

-Jason Hicks
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/4/18 7:30 PM, Jason via Marxism wrote:


You continue to evoke their authority against me without yet having
produced a single substantive reference to back up your position.


Let me propose an alternative. Why don't you write a 2000-3000 word 
article defending support for the Democratic Party and post it to the 
list? I have made all the points I want to make both in messages to the 
list and on my blog. Even though I think your ideas are not that 
different from Gus Hall's and Michael Harrington's, you obviously feel 
the need to convince people on this list who are fairly inoculated 
against both the CP and the DSA, at least on the electoral front. Say 
your piece and then let's move on to other things.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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Louis, you call my references "obscure" and "Talmudic" then blithely say
that those who advocate what I'm saying "have likely never read Lenin,
Trotsky or Rosa Luxemburg," ignoring my references to those and related
thinkers.

You continue to evoke their authority against me without yet having
produced a single substantive reference to back up your position. Perhaps
I'm wrong--perhaps it's there. Then show me. But when you dismiss my actual
references with your hand waving to their tradition without backing it up,
you are engaging in confirmation bias and not reasoned discussion.

Similarly, you cannot possibly have enough knowledge to call me "a
case-hardened reformist". It might work to help you from examining
conflicting evidence but it doesn't help the discussion and you cannot
demonstrate that to be the case.

-Jason Hicks
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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You didn't read my previous posts, Dennis Brasky? I made clear who I think
does have that power and how they could use it. If you disagree, then what
do you propose? And what do others propose? Or will this discussion remain
on the general or historical level?

On Tue, Jul 3, 2018, 5:07 PM Dennis Brasky  wrote:

> How can anyone be "concrete" about a process that is far beyond the powers
> of anyone on this list to influence? Were there such discussions here about
> how to create a movement of resistance to killer cops "here and now" or did
> we have to react to BLM? Ditto Me#Too.
>
> The far left in the US is in no position to create anything of substance.
> All we can hope to do is react in a sane way to positive developments.
>
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 6:27 PM, John Reimann via Marxism
>
>>
>> What has been in short supply is a concrete discussion
>> on exactly how, through what concrete steps, the building of a mass
>> working
>> class party can be started here and now.
>>
>>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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How can anyone be "concrete" about a process that is far beyond the powers
of anyone on this list to influence? Were there such discussions here about
how to create a movement of resistance to killer cops "here and now" or did
we have to react to BLM? Ditto Me#Too.

The far left in the US is in no position to create anything of substance.
All we can hope to do is react in a sane way to positive developments.

On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 6:27 PM, John Reimann via Marxism

>
> What has been in short supply is a concrete discussion
> on exactly how, through what concrete steps, the building of a mass working
> class party can be started here and now.
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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So, far we have had on this discussion comments ranging from what Lenin
said about the British Labour Party to the role of Al Shanker and Irving
Howe during the 1968 NYC teachers strike (which I also remember well,
having been involved in the high school student movement that came about
partly as a result). What has been in short supply is a concrete discussion
on exactly how, through what concrete steps, the building of a mass working
class party can be started here and now. (I'm assuming that none of the
commentators disagrees with that longer term goal.) Nor, based on that,
whether supporting some Democrats is compatible with that.

I have put forward my views on that, but with a lack of response,
especially from those who think socialists should support Ocasio-Cortez. If
they agree that a mass working class party is needed in the US, then they
should explain what they think are the steps towards that goal and how
those steps are compatible with supporting Ocasio-Cortez and, by extension,
other representatives of the "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party.

John Reimann
PS. I went to a few Green Party meetings here in the East Bay area shortly
after the presidential elections. My experience led me to conclude that, at
least here in this area, they are totally hopeless.
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/2/18 7:33 PM, Jason via Marxism wrote:

It wasn't just the Dutch and the main condition was universal suffrage in
this case but there were a range of conditions and considerations involved
in other cases throughout the Second International. Also, while you're glib
about the suffrage question, I think there is a power small-d democratic
argument to made for socialists voting for the Democratic Party simply on
democratic grounds given that various kinds of voter suppression affect the
Democratic Party vote more so and purposively so.


You keep coming up with these obscure references to Second International 
parties voting for liberals, with Lenin supposedly agreeing with you, 
Carl Davidson et al based on a single article from 1912 that is the 
calling card of Maoists like Mike Ely and people moving headlong into 
the Democratic Party like Pham Binh. Lenin wrote 100,000 words at least 
attacking the idea of voting for the Cadets and you come up with the 
same single article I've seen referenced by everybody calling themselves 
a Marxist or a socialist that favors an "inside-outside" strategy. On 
top of that you come up with an even more obscure reference to the Dutch 
social democracy in 1905. It's like this. If you want to ring doorbells 
for the Democratic Party, there's no need to be like an attorney digging 
through law books to dig up a precedent. Do you honestly think that 
anybody reading your emails will become converted to the Democratic 
Party because of a single article by Lenin that supposedly makes him 
identical to Martov?


With 1500 subscribers to Marxmail, I doubt that there are 20 that would 
want to waste their time under any circumstances to volunteer for a 
DSA-backed candidate. Coming up with these Talmudic references would be 
the last thing in the world to convince someone to become the 2018 
equivalent of Eugene McCarthy volunteers from 50 years ago. The people 
who ring doorbells and think of themselves as "Democratic Socialists" 
have likely never read Lenin, Trotsky or Rosa Luxemburg.





For the rest of your email, you read a lot into the phrase "liberal
workers’ government" as a reason to dismiss Lenin's arguments on the
British Labor Party (which you have still not addressed directly in any
substantive way). Further, this reference is misleading since your
reference is incomplete. As John Riddell
https://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/a-workers-government-as-a-step-toward-socialism/
documents, that version did not include the amendment that the first two
types listed were "illusory" and were "in reality hidden coalition
governments between the bourgeoisie and antirevolutionary workers’
leaders".


I think what I wrote is crystal clear. When the Comintern referred to 
"bourgeois" parties in the 1922 article I cited, it was talking about 
the Democratic Party in the USA, the Liberal Party in England, not the 
Labour Party. It advocated the election or revolutionary seizure of 
power by an alliance of Communists and Social Democrats. You could 
understand why it was moving in this direction since a year later this 
was what nearly happened in Germany, if it wasn't for the stupidity of 
the German CP. A Social Democrat named Erich Zeigner, who was the 
governor of the state of Saxony, became convinced of the need to 
organize an uprising co-led by the CP and the SP. As Werner Angress 
points out in his great history of the German CP between 1919 and 1925, 
Zeigner called for expropriation of the capitalist class, arming of the 
workers and a proletarian dictatorship. In other words, there was zero 
differences between him and the CP on the goal but the uprising was 
stillborn because the CP had its head up its ass. So if things had not 
gotten so bollixed up, this would have led to a workers government. This 
is exactly what was needed. How anybody could twist the words of the 
1922 Comintern article favoring such a strategy into ringing doorbells 
for the Democratic Party is beyond belief.





Also, you still have not demonstrated that this is a "Menshevik electoral
strategy" I'm talking about since it also reflects Bolshevik strategy and
that of  Luxemburg and others.



How do you expect me or anybody else to convince you of anything? You 
are a case-hardened reformist.


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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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Also, at the beginning of this thread John R wrote:
"Regarding what Lenin said and how he saw the British LP: Lenin was in the
habit of phrasing things very sharply, maybe even too sharply at times. I
suspect that was because he was guarding so strongly against any tendency
to fall into reformism."

I would suggest its a dangerous habit to discount evidence that goes
against one's worldview. Perhaps Lenin was bending the stick in calling the
Labor Party a "thoroughly bourgeois party" (and note: I just quoted that
phrase, but it was a whole speech on it and there are other references too)
but if so, then find for me
1) where he argued that the Labor Party was a working-class party, and
2) where he based his arguments on working in and voting for it on that
point.

And again, this isn't to say "Lenin said X and so X is right" but that if
comrades are going to argue "Y" and cite Lenin as an authority and call my
strategy "Menshevik" or whatever, they should be able to produce some
evidence or just openly say "Lenin was wrong, Luxemburg was wrong, I am
proposing something new and different."

-Jason Hicks
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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On Mon, Jul 2, 2018 at 10:35 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> So, 113 years ago, the left-wing of the Dutch social democracy said it was
> acceptable to vote for liberal candidates but only on the basis that they
> were for universal suffrage. When universal suffrage in the USA is
> abolished and we return to voting based on property rights, I too will vote
> for any liberal who supports a return to universal suffrage.
>

It wasn't just the Dutch and the main condition was universal suffrage in
this case but there were a range of conditions and considerations involved
in other cases throughout the Second International. Also, while you're glib
about the suffrage question, I think there is a power small-d democratic
argument to made for socialists voting for the Democratic Party simply on
democratic grounds given that various kinds of voter suppression affect the
Democratic Party vote more so and purposively so.

For the rest of your email, you read a lot into the phrase "liberal
workers’ government" as a reason to dismiss Lenin's arguments on the
British Labor Party (which you have still not addressed directly in any
substantive way). Further, this reference is misleading since your
reference is incomplete. As John Riddell
https://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/a-workers-government-as-a-step-toward-socialism/
documents, that version did not include the amendment that the first two
types listed were "illusory" and were "in reality hidden coalition
governments between the bourgeoisie and antirevolutionary workers’
leaders".

And so when you cite "The first two types of workers’ governments (the
workers’ and peasants’ and the social-democratic/Communist governments)
fall short of representing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but are
still an important starting-point for the winning of this dictatorship" you
miss that while it says "first two" it specifies types three and four in
the list (perhaps because the process of amendment wasn't finalized),
leaving out the first "liberal workers' government" which refers to the
Labor Parties and on which your case rests.

And so re: "So funny that someone so bent on proving Lenin was in favor of
Menshevik electoral strategy would cite something he wrote in 1920 that
reflected ultraleft thinking in the Kremlin.", are you saying Lenin was
actually ultraleft in 1920 on the British Labor Party? If so, I'd like to
see an argument as to why.

Also, you still have not demonstrated that this is a "Menshevik electoral
strategy" I'm talking about since it also reflects Bolshevik strategy and
that of  Luxemburg and others.

-Jason Hicks
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Regarding the liberal wing of the Democrats, Jason writes: "Since the point
isn't to "support" that wing [and I think a lot of the problems in these
discussions trace back to ambiguous words like "support" (Jason's
brackets)] but first of all to recognize the fact that millions of people
that would be the base of a mass socialist party vote forDemocrats out of
fear of the alternative, so if your premise for building that party is to
first convince them they should never vote for Democrats ever, you'll get
just where you've gotten: nowhere. If you recognize that people want
something better than the Democrats but also want to stop Republicans from
becoming more powerful, and so you offer to build with them something
better while voting for Democrats against Republicans when you can't get
your own candidates elected without 'spoiling,' then you have a premise
millions of people are actually looking for right now."

I think a large part of the problem is that comrades are thinking in too
general terms; they are not thinking about what are the concrete steps that
can and should be taken now towards building a mass working class party. I
have made a suggestion time and again: That DSA can and should run its own
candidates as working class representatives for *local* office. I emphasize
"local" because at that level if they concentrated their forces they would
put on a credible campaign, one that would register on the radar screen of
millions of workers and one that could possibly actually win. Here in
Oakland, for example, that is doubly so since we have ranked choice voting.
That means that even if a worker didn't think the DSA candidate could win,
they could vote for her/him as #1 and vote for the liberal they thought
could win as #2 choice.

So why doesn't DSA do that? Yes, it *IS* a matter of "supporting" the
liberal wing of the Democrats. How can they - or anybody else for that
matter - run a candidate who, for example, takes  up the issue of housing
and gentrification (which is huge here) and shows concretely (by revealing
the major donors) that the liberal Democrats who are running against
her/him are agents of the real estate developers? How can they do that and
make the links between that fact and the role of this wing of the Democrats
in general and go from there to explaining that both parties are the
parties of the real estate developers and the other owners of capital and,
also, explain the role of the *entire* liberal wing of the Democrats,
explain that our campaign is part of an effort to build an alternative to
this party, including this wing... How can they do that but at the same
time say, "but in the case of X and Y and Z (you fill in the blanks --
Ocasio-Perez and Jovanka Beckles, for example) I make an exception. These
individual members of this wing of the Democrats are not representatives of
big business and workers should support them?

If you do that, then you are open to the question: *"Really? Then how about
this other one and that other one? And furthermore, if you think these
candidates can represent workers, then since we already have this wing of
this established party, wouldn't it be much better to get more such
candidates running in this wing?"* There simply is no answer to that.

Which is why there never has been a serious, ground-level effort to start
to build an alternative to the Democrats while supporting "some" Democrats
at the same time. It's been advocated over and over again but never, ever
done. What is it they say about repeating the same thing and expecting a
different outcome?

And, no, I'm not advocating repeating the same thing; what I'm advocating
is taking a first step that has never been taken at least in my lifetime.

John Reimann
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/2/18 9:31 AM, Jason wrote:
The revisionist strategy was that they left "electors free to vote for 
any liberal candidate they liked" versus the left strategy of 1) having 
conditions [such as that the liberals were for universal suffrage] and 
2) it being a party decision and a question of discipline.


As that passage says: "The left, like the left in other parties, did not 
refuse, during the course of the elections, to support liberal 
candidates who took a stand in favour of universal suffrage against 
property-based electoral rights." Rosa Luxemburg supported this 
explicitly (see The Letters Of Rosa Luxemburg, pages 185-7).


So, 113 years ago, the left-wing of the Dutch social democracy said it 
was acceptable to vote for liberal candidates but only on the basis that 
they were for universal suffrage. When universal suffrage in the USA is 
abolished and we return to voting based on property rights, I too will 
vote for any liberal who supports a return to universal suffrage.



So the left strategy was that socialists were *under discipline* to vote 
for *certain* liberals. The revisionist strategy was that socialists 
were "free" to vote for any liberal, some of whom did not support 
universal suffrage.


And on your other email about the British Labor Party: again, feel free 
to engage with Lenin's argument here: 
https://www.communist-party.org.uk/76-m-l-education/1933-lenin-on-labour-speech-on-affiliation-to-the-british-labour-party.html. 



It is generally a mistake to quote Lenin chapter and verse, especially 
when you can find statements that are contradictory. In 1922, just two 
years after the one you refer to above that characterizes Labour as 
"bourgeois", you can read the Communist recommendation of the workers 
government that was a departure from the ultraleft past. Keep in mind 
that the Comintern was deeply involved with the disastrous March Action 
in Germany that literally acted on the premise that Social Democratic 
workers were counter-revolutionary. It was the blow to German Communism 
that compelled a different road, incorporated in the United Front that 
Paul Levi fought for, and the workers government that was an extension 
of the United Front.


All you need to do is read Theses on Comintern Tactics from 1922 
(https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/4th-congress/tactics.htm) 
to a different take on the Second International and Labour:


"In place of a bourgeois/social-democratic coalition, whether open or 
disguised, Communists propose a united front involving all workers, and 
a coalition of all workers’ parties around economic and political 
issues, which will fight and finally overthrow bourgeois power. 
Following a united struggle of all workers against the bourgeoisie, the 
entire state apparatus must pass into the hands of a workers’ 
government, so strengthening the position of power held by the working 
class."


also:

"The first two types of workers’ governments (the workers’ and peasants’ 
and the social-democratic/Communist governments) fall short of 
representing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but are still an 
important starting-point for the winning of this dictatorship."


Get it? Workers parties? That meant the Communists AND those parties 
that the idiotic ultraleftists operating under Bela Kun's putschist 
conceptions considered "bourgeois" just two years earlier.


So funny that someone so bent on proving Lenin was in favor of Menshevik 
electoral strategy would cite something he wrote in 1920 that reflected 
ultraleft thinking in the Kremlin. Maybe, not so funny.








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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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The revisionist strategy was that they left "electors free to vote for any
liberal candidate they liked" versus the left strategy of 1) having
conditions [such as that the liberals were for universal suffrage] and 2)
it being a party decision and a question of discipline.

As that passage says: "The left, like the left in other parties, did not
refuse, during the course of the elections, to support liberal candidates
who took a stand in favour of universal suffrage against property-based
electoral rights." Rosa Luxemburg supported this explicitly (see The
Letters Of Rosa Luxemburg, pages 185-7).

So the left strategy was that socialists were *under discipline* to vote
for *certain* liberals. The revisionist strategy was that socialists were
"free" to vote for any liberal, some of whom did not support universal
suffrage.

And on your other email about the British Labor Party: again, feel free to
engage with Lenin's argument here:
https://www.communist-party.org.uk/76-m-l-education/1933-lenin-on-labour-speech-on-affiliation-to-the-british-labour-party.html
.

-Jason

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 6:57 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> On 7/1/18 6:23 PM, Jason wrote:
>
>>
>> Second, that's hardly my sole argument, given I gave other references to
>> revolutionaries in the Second International supporting voting for liberal
>> bourgeois parties. One can also see this in Shorske’s history and I can
>> provide other references if needed.
>>
>
> Look, your reference was to a Dutch party that, like Lenin's, was divided
> over supporting bourgeois candidates. You simply found the Dutch equivalent
> of the Mensheviks who backed the Dutch equivalent of the Cadets. Didn't you
> understand that I would track down the reference? You are trying to
> invalidate my claim that voting for liberals is a revision of Marxism by
> referring to an author who describes exactly that strategy as revisionist?
> Ridiculous.
>
> ---
>
> http://www.left-dis.nl/uk/dutchleft.pdf
>
> Although it was completely isolated, the Marxist minority [in other words,
> the Dutch equivalent of the Bolsheviks] didn’t capitulate and resolutely
> carried on fighting. From 1905 to 1907, the Marxist current found itself
> confronted with a vigorous counter-offensive by the revisionists. The
> parliamentary fraction, which was the real leadership of the party, went
> further and further in collaborating with the bourgeoisie. In 1905, during
> the elections for the provincial states, the revisionists raised the
> question of supporting the liberals against the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij
> (‘Anti-Revolutionary Party’ – ARP) government of Abraham Kuyper, which had
> broken the transport strike. The left, like the left in other parties, did
> not refuse, during the course of the elections, to support liberal
> candidates who took a stand in favour of universal suffrage against
> property-based electoral rights. It had adopted a resolution in this sense
> during the 1905 Hague Congress: “[the Party] declares that during the
> elections it will only support candidates who stand for the urgent
> introduction of universal suffrage”.
>
> But for the Marxists, there could be no question of turning this tactical
> and temporary support into a principle. Contrary to what Troelstra wished,
> it was not at all a matter of calling workers to vote for “liberals of any
> stripe”, even if they were anti-clerical. From a class standpoint, the
> fight was not against a particular capitalist party but against capitalism
> as a totality. In order to avoid being mixed up with the petty bourgeois
> and small peasant elements, the workers had to be clear about their real
> identity. As Pannekoek, Gorter and Van Ravesteyn wrote it, in a booklet –
> ‘The Founding of the SDP’ – distributed to the German social democrat press
> to explain the scission of 1909: “On every occasion the party must show the
> workers that their enemies sit on the left side of parliament just as much
> as on the right...”.
>
> But instead of respecting the resolutions of the Congress, the party
> leadership, the parliamentary fraction and the socialist daily Het Volk
> left socialist electors free to vote for any liberal candidate they liked.
> Although firm on positions which had been classical ones within the
> workers’ movement, the Marxists found themselves isolated from the working
> masses. Troelstra played on this as much as he could. There were, however,
> reactions within the party.
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 6:23 PM, Jason wrote:


Second, that's hardly my sole argument, given I gave other references to 
revolutionaries in the Second International supporting voting for 
liberal bourgeois parties. One can also see this in Shorske’s history 
and I can provide other references if needed.


Look, your reference was to a Dutch party that, like Lenin's, was 
divided over supporting bourgeois candidates. You simply found the Dutch 
equivalent of the Mensheviks who backed the Dutch equivalent of the 
Cadets. Didn't you understand that I would track down the reference? You 
are trying to invalidate my claim that voting for liberals is a revision 
of Marxism by referring to an author who describes exactly that strategy 
as revisionist? Ridiculous.


---

http://www.left-dis.nl/uk/dutchleft.pdf

Although it was completely isolated, the Marxist minority [in other 
words, the Dutch equivalent of the Bolsheviks] didn’t capitulate and 
resolutely carried on fighting. From 1905 to 1907, the Marxist current 
found itself confronted with a vigorous counter-offensive by the 
revisionists. The parliamentary fraction, which was the real leadership 
of the party, went further and further in collaborating with the 
bourgeoisie. In 1905, during the elections for the provincial states, 
the revisionists raised the question of supporting the liberals against 
the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (‘Anti-Revolutionary Party’ – ARP) 
government of Abraham Kuyper, which had broken the transport strike. The 
left, like the left in other parties, did not refuse, during the course 
of the elections, to support liberal candidates who took a stand in 
favour of universal suffrage against property-based electoral rights. It 
had adopted a resolution in this sense during the 1905 Hague Congress: 
“[the Party] declares that during the elections it will only support 
candidates who stand for the urgent introduction of universal suffrage”.


But for the Marxists, there could be no question of turning this 
tactical and temporary support into a principle. Contrary to what 
Troelstra wished, it was not at all a matter of calling workers to vote 
for “liberals of any stripe”, even if they were anti-clerical. From a 
class standpoint, the fight was not against a particular capitalist 
party but against capitalism as a totality. In order to avoid being 
mixed up with the petty bourgeois and small peasant elements, the 
workers had to be clear about their real identity. As Pannekoek, Gorter 
and Van Ravesteyn wrote it, in a booklet – ‘The Founding of the SDP’ – 
distributed to the German social democrat press to explain the scission 
of 1909: “On every occasion the party must show the workers that their 
enemies sit on the left side of parliament just as much as on the right...”.


But instead of respecting the resolutions of the Congress, the party 
leadership, the parliamentary fraction and the socialist daily Het Volk 
left socialist electors free to vote for any liberal candidate they 
liked. Although firm on positions which had been classical ones within 
the workers’ movement, the Marxists found themselves isolated from the 
working masses. Troelstra played on this as much as he could. There 
were, however, reactions within the party.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 6:23 PM, Jason wrote:


I don't see how it's a "sleight of hand" and I do not equate them. 
You're however welcome to engage with Lenin's argument that was based on 
considering the BLP to be a bourgeois party and still engaging in it and 
voting for it.




So all parties except small radical parties in the world are bourgeois? 
Like the NDP and Trudeau's Liberal Party are both bourgeois? Allende's 
Popular Front and Pinochet? Mitterand's SP and Le Pen's National Front?


The British Labour Party came into existence because workers fought to 
bring it into existence to defend their wages and working conditions. 
The Democratic Party, one of the longest running capitalist parties in 
the world, came into existence as the political instrument of the 
agrarian gentry. There was a direct lineage between slave-owner Thomas 
Jefferson to Andrew Jackson to Jefferson Davis.


Not only did Andrew Jackson defend slavery, he also carried out a 
genocidal Indian removal in order to allow the cotton plantations to use 
tribal lands.


Lenin denounced British Labour because it was opportunist. He also used 
the same language to denounce Leon Trotsky and the Mensheviks. He also 
denounced the German social democracy whose governor in Saxony became a 
key ally in the misbegotten revolutionary bid of 1923. Inside the left, 
you have family quarrels like these all the time. That anybody can 
equate British Labour with the Democratic Party in the USA just shows a 
stubborn adherence to the sort of opportunism Lenin fought his entire 
life. Then again, we are again talking about just another family quarrel.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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LP: "That's because of your sleight of hand equation between the Democratic
Party and the British Labour Party."

I don't see how it's a "sleight of hand" and I do not equate them. You're
however welcome to engage with Lenin's argument that was based on
considering the BLP to be a bourgeois party and still engaging in it and
voting for it.

Second, that's hardly my sole argument, given I gave other references to
revolutionaries in the Second International supporting voting for liberal
bourgeois parties. One can also see this in Shorske’s history and I can
provide other references if needed.

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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cast my first vote in 1964 --- yes, I apologize for not mentioning 1964, I
thought Goldwater was a potential war monger (but I dont' think I thought
he was a fascist -- just in bed with the Southern racists).

Let me be clear -- DEMOCRATS may have played the "fear of ultra-right
policies" every election since 1948 (but mostly they ran against Herbert
Hoover till about 1972) --- but I am talking about leftists ---Old age
addles the memory (this memory) but I am convinced that aside from 2004 and
2016, the "fear of fascism" argument was NOT prevalent on the left --- (buy
maybe I am engaging in selective memory -- it happens!)

1972 -- McGovern was going to end the War in Vietnam - leftists supported
him for that positive reason

1976 -- leftists didn't give a shit --

1980 --- were leftists yelling that Reagan was a fascist?

1984 -- Maybe -- based on some right-wing policies of the first Reagan
administration

1988 -- don't remember leftists saying Bush was a fascist

1992 -- ditto

1996 --- leftists couldn't stand Clinton

2000 -- already mentioned that one

2004 --- the "ayatollahs" of the religious right with their "God, Gays and
Guns" campaigns didn start to scare lots of people

2008 -- optimistic "takes" on Obama

2012 -- ditto

2016 -- Trump and incipient fascist

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 6:04 PM, Mark Lause  wrote:

> Nothing done by Bush was done without active Democratic collusion.
>
> Don't rely on your member to go back past 2004.  Talk to someone who was
> around at the time or read a book.  The threat on the Right argument has
> been absolutely central to the Democratic strategy for decades.  God knows,
> it's not as though they even bother to promise us much any more in terms of
> new policies.
>
> On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 5:54 PM, Michael Meeropol 
> wrote:
>
>> MAYBE in 2004 --- I don't remember worries about incipient fascism before
>> that --- (maybe 1984??)
>>
>> in 2000 virtually the entire left argued that a vote for Gore was
>> worthless ...most of us didn't think Bush would be as bad as he turned out
>> to be ...
>>
>> It is possible that Bush's policies in office spooked a lot of lefties
>> into wanting to get into bed with liberals --- I confess I'm guilty ---
>> hence the fears expressed in 2004 and the (now ridiculous) enthusiasm for
>> Obama in 2008 
>>
>> But anyone with eyes and ears in 2016 should have seen fascism coming in
>> the person of Trump and his coalition ...
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Mark Lause  wrote:
>>
>>> We've heard this "true danger of fascism" argument every election in my
>>> lifetime.
>>>
>>> Aside from his record-level miserable character, Trump's been able to be
>>> as awful as he has been precisely because the Democrats have been
>>>
>>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Nothing done by Bush was done without active Democratic collusion.

Don't rely on your member to go back past 2004.  Talk to someone who was
around at the time or read a book.  The threat on the Right argument has
been absolutely central to the Democratic strategy for decades.  God knows,
it's not as though they even bother to promise us much any more in terms of
new policies.

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 5:54 PM, Michael Meeropol  wrote:

> MAYBE in 2004 --- I don't remember worries about incipient fascism before
> that --- (maybe 1984??)
>
> in 2000 virtually the entire left argued that a vote for Gore was
> worthless ...most of us didn't think Bush would be as bad as he turned out
> to be ...
>
> It is possible that Bush's policies in office spooked a lot of lefties
> into wanting to get into bed with liberals --- I confess I'm guilty ---
> hence the fears expressed in 2004 and the (now ridiculous) enthusiasm for
> Obama in 2008 
>
> But anyone with eyes and ears in 2016 should have seen fascism coming in
> the person of Trump and his coalition ...
>
> On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Mark Lause  wrote:
>
>> We've heard this "true danger of fascism" argument every election in my
>> lifetime.
>>
>> Aside from his record-level miserable character, Trump's been able to be
>> as awful as he has been precisely because the Democrats have been
>>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 5:51 PM, Jason via Marxism wrote:

However, I do think I have shown that such a position
is consistent with the revolutionary socialist/Marxist tradition and that
the idea that this is a break from "socialist electoral thinking at least
until the rise of the Popular Front" is false.


That's because of your sleight of hand equation between the Democratic 
Party and the British Labour Party. That is not consistent with Marxism 
but the political acrobatics of Gus Hall, Carl Davidson, et al. It 
always ends up with the same tired references to the 1912 stuff about 
Cadets and electors, Lenin's article on ultraleftism, Marx's support for 
Lincoln, etc. I've heard it 10,000 times.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Tristan Sloughter via Marxism]

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I've waffled. With no working class party and our absurd party and voting 
system, what is someone like Ocasio-Cortez to do? Since there was a Democratic 
primary I take it that the other option would be attempting to run as an 
independent in the general?

An issue I hope we will learn more about when Ocasio-Crotez is in office is how 
fundraising is done. I don't remember the article but I recall reading a 
detailed account of a congress person's day and that it is mostly calling 
donors or going to fundraisers.

The question then is whether or not the person I'm voting for will be doing 
that or refuse, which then means the Democratic party would oppose them, but 
how different would that be from being an independent?

We do need to win over the DSA to dedicate to building a working class party, 
but I don't know that today getting people elected as Democrats will actually 
harm this effort, which has a very long ways to go (hell, it isn't even the 
current DSA's plan), but does potentially lay groundwork through increasing our 
reach.

It is going to be a fight to make a complete break from the Democrats and I 
don't know that the conditions are right yet to make it the highest priority. 
It should

Tristan
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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MAYBE in 2004 --- I don't remember worries about incipient fascism before
that --- (maybe 1984??)

in 2000 virtually the entire left argued that a vote for Gore was worthless
...most of us didn't think Bush would be as bad as he turned out to be ...

It is possible that Bush's policies in office spooked a lot of lefties into
wanting to get into bed with liberals --- I confess I'm guilty --- hence
the fears expressed in 2004 and the (now ridiculous) enthusiasm for Obama
in 2008 

But anyone with eyes and ears in 2016 should have seen fascism coming in
the person of Trump and his coalition ...

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Mark Lause  wrote:

> We've heard this "true danger of fascism" argument every election in my
> lifetime.
>
> Aside from his record-level miserable character, Trump's been able to be
> as awful as he has been precisely because the Democrats have been
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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LP: "You might think that you have come up with new excuses for voting for
DP candidates but you are only trying to reinvent the wheel."

To be clear, I am not claiming to have presented a full argument here for
why I think a socialist strategy should at times include running as and
voting for Democrats. However, I do think I have shown that such a position
is consistent with the revolutionary socialist/Marxist tradition and that
the idea that this is a break from "socialist electoral thinking at least
until the rise of the Popular Front" is false.

Re: John saying "please explain where and when any political force has ever
done both - concretely organize for a mass working class party while
supporting some Democrats."

Whether it's been done in this country in regard to the Democrats or not,
see my other emails to the list that it was the practice of the
revolutionary wing of the Second International including the Bolsheviks to
"concretely organize for a mass working class party while supporting some
[liberal/bourgeois politicians]".

re: "how can DSA and representatives of DSA clearly and concretely explain
this when they are supporting candidates of that wing of the Democrats at
the same time?"

This requires a more extended discussion than I'll give it here but I don't
think it's that hard. Since the point isn't to "support" that wing [and I
think a lot of the problems in these discussions trace back to ambiguous
words like "support"] but first of all to recognize the fact that millions
of people that would be the base of a mass socialist party vote for
Democrats out of fear of the alternative, so if your premise for building
that party is to first convince them they should never vote for Democrats
ever, you'll get just where you've gotten: nowhere. If you recognize that
people want something better than the Democrats but also want to stop
Republicans from becoming more powerful, and so you offer to build with
them something better while voting for Democrats against Republicans when
you can't get your own candidates elected without 'spoiling,' then you have
a premise millions of people are actually looking for right now.

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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 We've heard this "true danger of fascism" argument every election in my
lifetime.

Aside from his record-level miserable character, Trump's been able to be as
awful as he has been precisely because the Democrats have been playing dead
for decades.

All this current hoo-haa about the Supreme Court is taking place because
the Democrats under Obama didn't fill the seat they had open.  True, they
asked, but the Republicans said no, so . . . .

But all of this comes from the central Democratic strategy, which they've
pursued religiously for the last 30-40 years.  Indeed, the only Democratic
strategy . . . .

ML
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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And I remain the "skunk at the picnic" arguing that even when there is a
"left" alternative (Jill Stein last Presidential election -- numerous left
candidates in Senate and House races this Fall) when there is a true danger
of fascism --- (Hillary might have been TERRIBLE but the Supreme Court
would not have killed public sector unions nor be poised to reverse Roe is
she had won  ) the lesser of two evils rule applies   if Dems do
not take at least the HOUSE, Trump will be in a position to solidify his
position, remake the Supreme Court even more --- and fill those detention
centers ---

I know lots of people disagree but the demonization of the Social Democrats
as "social fascists" by the German CP helped pave the way for Hitler in
Germany ---

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Dennis Brasky via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Concretely, in this November's election between O - C and her Republican
> opponent with no independent of the Democrats working class candidate or
> party in existence, do we maintain a Never Vote Democrat position??
>
> I seem to recall Louis a few weeks ago stating that he was going to make an
> exception to his lifelong stance and either vote for or donate (I forget)
> to a local Democrat's campaign - (he didn't name the candidate).
>
> As long as we carefully explain that there are rare exceptions to the rule,
> I don't think that it's unprincipled to vote for an O - C WHEN THERE IS NO
> LEFT ALTERNATIVE. Of course, opportunists will find many "exceptions" but
> who said that revolutionary politics is simple?
>
> On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 2:19 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> >> Yeah, Marx made some points about the "spoiler" problem:
> >
> > Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers
> > must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge
> > their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party
> > standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty
> > phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates
> > will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the
> chance
> > of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the
> > proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party
> > will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more
> > important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few
> > reactionaries in the representative body.
> >
> > https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-
> > league/1850-ad1.htm
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Well, sometimes doing what we have to do requires us to learn how to handle
rattlesnakes.

We have to be clear that these efforts--exceptions or not--are going to
slam right into that usual Democratic brick wall.  And we have to be honest
with those engaged in such campaigns.

But to dismiss the many tens thousands of people who call themselves
socialists and are misplacing their hopes in such thins as "liberals" or
"merely Democratic voters" strikes me as seriously mistaken.  I would
regard them as comrades engaged on a mistaken course.

And what they're doing is unleashing a process that will have a dynamic of
its own, that will work immensely to our benefit.

ML
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 4:09 PM, Dennis Brasky wrote:


I seem to recall Louis a few weeks ago stating that he was going to make 
an exception to his lifelong stance and either vote for or donate (I 
forget) to a local Democrat's campaign - (he didn't name the candidate).




Yes, I donated $50 to the Syriah-American Mohamed Khairullah's campaign 
to be re-elected in Prospect Park, New Jersey, a town of less than 6000 
people--mainly because he uses his office to raise support for people in 
desperate need, including refugees. And I'd do it again. But I'd rather 
handle a rattlesnake than vote for any DSA-backed candidates running as 
Democrats.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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I have put forward a line of reasoning that I have yet to see anybody take
up. To repeat:

DSA could start by running its own candidates as working class
representatives for local office. Those candidates could link up the local
issues with the fact that the local Democratic politicians are
representatives of big business, in particular (as is often the case) the
real estate developers. In many if not most cases, these local Democrats
are from the liberal/"progressive" wing of the Democratic Party. In this
way, it can be shown that the entire party represents the owners of capital
and the "progressive" wing is simply the bait for the trap. That means that
wing entirely.

But how can DSA and representatives of DSA clearly and concretely explain
this when they are supporting candidates of that wing of the Democrats at
the same time? How? Please, I'd like somebody to explain that to me,
because in my mind the facts speak for themselves. DSA is proving in action
that they cannot and will not do that.

Please explain the flaw in this line of reasoning. And please explain where
and when any political force has ever done both - concretely organize for a
mass working class party while supporting some Democrats.

John Reimann

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 10:23 AM, Jason  wrote:

> "is Jason trying to say that there's no difference between a working class
> party, or the British Labour Party, and the Democratic Party?"
>
>
> No, I am not trying to say that. What I am saying is those differences
> can’t predetermine like a a cookie-cutter our tactics and strategy.
>
>
> As I said [clumsily]: “[the class-basis of a party] did not tie down
> [Lenin’s] thinking from considering a range of tactical and strategic
> options--including working within and voting for--in relationship to other
> parties, including bourgeois ones.”
>
>
> Everything John R. and others have written recently re: the Democratic
> Party does point to why we need to build a different political organization
> than the Democratic Party, but what I see is a conflation of that larger
> task with the idea that position then determines, without any further
> analysis, how one votes in any or all elections.
>
>
> -Jason
>



-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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Concretely, in this November's election between O - C and her Republican
opponent with no independent of the Democrats working class candidate or
party in existence, do we maintain a Never Vote Democrat position??

I seem to recall Louis a few weeks ago stating that he was going to make an
exception to his lifelong stance and either vote for or donate (I forget)
to a local Democrat's campaign - (he didn't name the candidate).

As long as we carefully explain that there are rare exceptions to the rule,
I don't think that it's unprincipled to vote for an O - C WHEN THERE IS NO
LEFT ALTERNATIVE. Of course, opportunists will find many "exceptions" but
who said that revolutionary politics is simple?

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 2:19 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
>> Yeah, Marx made some points about the "spoiler" problem:
>
> Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers
> must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge
> their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party
> standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty
> phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates
> will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance
> of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the
> proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party
> will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more
> important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few
> reactionaries in the representative body.
>
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-
> league/1850-ad1.htm
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 3:30 PM, Jason wrote:


Do shout about the evils of the Democratic Party--I do. But recognize 
that that is not a strategy--and it is certainly not an "ABC" of 
socialism to mistake a catalogue of evils for a guide to strategy.


-Jason



Jason, I am old enough to have heard the same arguments from people in 
the DuBois Clubs 50 years ago. You might think that you have come up 
with new excuses for voting for DP candidates but you are only trying to 
reinvent the wheel.



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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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LP: "I would not vote for any candidate who belonged to a party that..."

When Lenin supported voting for and working within the British Labor Party,
he did so knowing and critiquing the history of its pro-imperialist and
reactionary leadership. What Trotsky once said on doing so seems relevant (
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/xx/ilp.htm):

“It is argued that the Labour Party already stands exposed by its past
deeds in power and its present reactionary platform. For example, by its
decision at Brighton. For us – yes! But not for the masses, the eight
millions who voted Labour. It is a great danger for revolutionists to
attach too much importance to conference decisions. We use such evidence in
our propaganda – but it cannot be presented beyond the power of our own
press. One cannot shout louder than the strength of his own throat.”

Do shout about the evils of the Democratic Party--I do. But recognize that
that is not a strategy--and it is certainly not an "ABC" of socialism to
mistake a catalogue of evils for a guide to strategy.

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Jason via Marxism]

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None of the below backs up your implication that Marx was against
considering the spoiler problem as a real problem. And the Bismarck example
cuts against your line of argument, since Lasalle's conciliation was indeed
opposed by Marxists in the Second International--by their practice of
voting for Bismark's liberal opponents if they stood for universal suffrage.

-Jason

On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 2:58 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> On 7/1/18 2:47 PM, Jason wrote:
>
>> Marx's statement is not a general position on the "spoiler" problem. It
>> even specifies that that was a case which could result in the "presence of
>> a few reactionaries", i.e. he could've said, "Don't let the 'spoiler'
>> problem but the sole or ultimate determinate." Fine and good.
>>
>> Even more, this was during a revolution and he says: "If the forces of
>> democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the
>> very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have
>> been destroyed", i.e. not our situation at all.
>>
>
> Except that Marx was talking not about events happening *during* a
> revolution but afterwards when a "democratic party" has taken power. He was
> actually anticipating the rise of Bismarck that bamboozled many on the
> left, including Lassalle. Bismarck was the Obama of his day, with all sorts
> of reforms to keep the workers placated except that Bismarck's health plan
> was a lot better than Obama's.
>
>
>> Further, in terms of "spoiling," Nimtz and others record how the 'Marx
>> party' in the US intervened in 1864 to convince Fremont to withdraw his
>> candidacy to avoid spoiling the election leading to Lincoln's defeat.
>> Perhaps Marx knew nothing of this and would've opposed this--but I'm
>> doubtful on both counts and would disagree with him if he had.
>>
>
> I find references to Marx and Lincoln fairly pointless. If Marx supported
> a Republican because he waged a revolutionary war against chattel slavery,
> I will be the first Marxist to support a Democratic president's war against
> wage slavery.
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 3:12 PM, Jason via Marxism wrote:

Let us as you say, not base our approach on chapter and verse and instead
consider the situation Debs was in, which was fairly unique among countries
with elections and a socialist left at that time, where you had two parties
agree to a counterrevolutionary outcome to end Reconstruction, and further,
the Democrats from their founding had been the more reactionary party, and
yet--due to the particular history of the US and plantation slavery--they
were the party that would feign to be more pro-"working class" and
pro-union and thereby by-and-large ended up absorbing the initial attempts
at reform or working class parties. Debs in my estimation was reacting,
appropriately, to that history.

I do not think that is the situation we are in today.


Probably not but I would not vote for any candidate who belonged to a 
party that dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that used 
chemical and biological weapons in Korea, that invaded Vietnam, toppled 
a democratically elected president in the Dominican Republic through a 
coup backed by the Marines, that terminated Aid to the Families of 
Dependent Children, and that has backed Predator drone attacks on 
Muslims across the planet.


I don't give a shit if I remain unrepentantly the last Marxist in the 
USA and Bhaskar Sunkara becomes the Secretary of State in Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez's cabinet in 2024. I'll be dead by then but certainly 
expect a revolutionary movement to have developed that understands the 
ABC's of socialism.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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"If you see voting for Democrats as a tactical question, you are breaking
with socialist electoral thinking at least until the rise of the Popular
Front. For all the homage paid by Sanders, Jacobin and the DSA to Eugene V.
Debs, his entire political career was devoted to running *against* the two
parties of capitalism."

If one wants to apply Debs's politics like a cookie-cutter, I am indeed
breaking with it. I am not breaking with "socialist electoral thinking" in
general for sure given that it wasn't the position of socialists in general
nor of the revolutionary, Marxist wing in particular, to never-vote for
capitalist parties.

Let us as you say, not base our approach on chapter and verse and instead
consider the situation Debs was in, which was fairly unique among countries
with elections and a socialist left at that time, where you had two parties
agree to a counterrevolutionary outcome to end Reconstruction, and further,
the Democrats from their founding had been the more reactionary party, and
yet--due to the particular history of the US and plantation slavery--they
were the party that would feign to be more pro-"working class" and
pro-union and thereby by-and-large ended up absorbing the initial attempts
at reform or working class parties. Debs in my estimation was reacting,
appropriately, to that history.

I do not think that is the situation we are in today.

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 2:47 PM, Jason wrote:
Marx's statement is not a general position on the "spoiler" problem. It 
even specifies that that was a case which could result in the "presence 
of a few reactionaries", i.e. he could've said, "Don't let the 'spoiler' 
problem but the sole or ultimate determinate." Fine and good.


Even more, this was during a revolution and he says: "If the forces of 
democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from 
the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will 
already have been destroyed", i.e. not our situation at all.


Except that Marx was talking not about events happening *during* a 
revolution but afterwards when a "democratic party" has taken power. He 
was actually anticipating the rise of Bismarck that bamboozled many on 
the left, including Lassalle. Bismarck was the Obama of his day, with 
all sorts of reforms to keep the workers placated except that Bismarck's 
health plan was a lot better than Obama's.




Further, in terms of "spoiling," Nimtz and others record how the 'Marx 
party' in the US intervened in 1864 to convince Fremont to withdraw his 
candidacy to avoid spoiling the election leading to Lincoln's defeat. 
Perhaps Marx knew nothing of this and would've opposed this--but I'm 
doubtful on both counts and would disagree with him if he had.


I find references to Marx and Lincoln fairly pointless. If Marx 
supported a Republican because he waged a revolutionary war against 
chattel slavery, I will be the first Marxist to support a Democratic 
president's war against wage slavery.


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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

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Marx's statement is not a general position on the "spoiler" problem. It
even specifies that that was a case which could result in the "presence of
a few reactionaries", i.e. he could've said, "Don't let the 'spoiler'
problem but the sole or ultimate determinate." Fine and good.

Even more, this was during a revolution and he says: "If the forces of
democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the
very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have
been destroyed", i.e. not our situation at all.

Further, in terms of "spoiling," Nimtz and others record how the 'Marx
party' in the US intervened in 1864 to convince Fremont to withdraw his
candidacy to avoid spoiling the election leading to Lincoln's defeat.
Perhaps Marx knew nothing of this and would've opposed this--but I'm
doubtful on both counts and would disagree with him if he had.

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 1:55 PM, Jason via Marxism wrote:

We don't have electors but we do have the 'spoiler' problem and
particularly with Trump in office, a left that intervenes in elections in a
way that ignores the possibility of empowering a Trump-ist Republican Party
is a left that will be isolated from the millions it needs to reach and
rightfully so.


Yeah, Marx made some points about the "spoiler" problem:

Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers 
must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to 
gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and 
party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the 
empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ 
candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of 
reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final 
analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the 
proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is 
infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the 
presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Jason via Marxism]

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Right, it was "It was only about an agreement on electors"--and the
political basis for that agreement was meant to prevent votes for the
Bolsheviks from ending up 'spoiling' certain electoral outcomes by throwing
a seat to a reactionary party from a "counterrevolutionary" but liberal
party.

We don't have electors but we do have the 'spoiler' problem and
particularly with Trump in office, a left that intervenes in elections in a
way that ignores the possibility of empowering a Trump-ist Republican Party
is a left that will be isolated from the millions it needs to reach and
rightfully so.

However, we also do not have truly membership based electoral parties with
internal discipline, which means the left can use the Democratic Party
ballot without any built-in mechanism to require them to "sell-out."
Rather, the mechanism of accountability is primarily who controls their
ability to be re-elected, which today means who controls the "ground
game"--the canvassing--and the left and far left are in a better position
to do that than the moneyed centers of traditional Democratic Party power.

This doesn't mean there won't be a million pressures to conform or flip or
what have you, but just pointing to the existence of such pressures solves
nothing and carried to its logical end means adopting the stance of the
'ultra-left' of the Third Congress and after who refused to run anyone at
all because of the "pressures" of parliamentarianism, since those pressures
would exist, just in a different way, for someone elected on a different
ballot line.

Further, the Bolsheviks and electors example is just one such example. It
was the standard practice of the Second International, including its left
wing, to use a range of tactical and strategic judgements in the second
round of elections. Philippe Bourrinet, historian of the 'ultra-left',
summarized this when writing about the left split in Holland:

"The left, like the left in other parties, did not refuse, during the
course of the elections, to support liberal candidates who took a stand in
favour of universal suffrage against property-based electoral rights."

I agree Lenin was against "blocs" in some general sense: maintain the
separate organization and program and criticize and point out the
limitations of the other parties, yes (and plenty of those who supported
Sanders did not do this), but again, that did not rule out voting for such
parties or even working within them if one had freedom of criticism and
organization (as they did in the Labor Party and as the DSA has today in
relationship to the Democratic Party in a different way).

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 1:23 PM, Jason via Marxism wrote:


Everything John R. and others have written recently re: the Democratic
Party does point to why we need to build a different political organization
than the Democratic Party, but what I see is a conflation of that larger
task with the idea that position then determines, without any further
analysis, how one votes in any or all elections.


Of course it does. If you see voting for Democrats as a tactical 
question, you are breaking with socialist electoral thinking at least 
until the rise of the Popular Front. For all the homage paid by Sanders, 
Jacobin and the DSA to Eugene V. Debs, his entire political career was 
devoted to running *against* the two parties of capitalism.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[Jason via Marxism]

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"is Jason trying to say that there's no difference between a working class
party, or the British Labour Party, and the Democratic Party?"


No, I am not trying to say that. What I am saying is those differences
can’t predetermine like a a cookie-cutter our tactics and strategy.


As I said [clumsily]: “[the class-basis of a party] did not tie down
[Lenin’s] thinking from considering a range of tactical and strategic
options--including working within and voting for--in relationship to other
parties, including bourgeois ones.”


Everything John R. and others have written recently re: the Democratic
Party does point to why we need to build a different political organization
than the Democratic Party, but what I see is a conflation of that larger
task with the idea that position then determines, without any further
analysis, how one votes in any or all elections.


-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/1/18 1:07 PM, Jason wrote:


Of course I didn’t meant to imply he ignored or we should ignore the 
relationships of various parties to various class forces, but even 
there, Lenin did not use the “clear class line” to refuse any electoral 
support or relationship, as one can see from the 1912 conference 
resolution he worked on and supported 
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/6thconf/efd.htm 
), 
which called for “exposing the counter-revolutionary views of the 
bourgeois liberals (headed by the Cadet Party)” while still saying in 
specific circumstances an “agreement must be concluded to share the 
seats” with them.




This is not the first time I've heard about this 1912 stuff. Mike Ely 
brought it up when he was still running the Kasama Project to refute my 
claim that Lenin opposed blocs with the Cadets. I heard it again from 
Pham Binh on his way to becoming the most gung-ho Sanderista on the planet.


Here's my explanation of what Lenin was actually saying. It was only 
about an agreement on electors, not on supporting the Cadets in the way 
that people try to justify a vote for Bernie Sanders or any of these DSA 
candidates running as Democrats.


https://louisproyect.org/2010/09/30/did-the-bolsheviks-form-blocs-with-the-cadets/ 


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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Jason via Marxism]

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LP: “Instead of relying solely on "Ultraleftism, an Infantile Disorder",
you need to read Lenin's extensive writings about Russian political
parties. He drew a clear class line between the Cadets and so-called
petty-bourgeois parties like the SR’s.”


Of course I didn’t meant to imply he ignored or we should ignore the
relationships of various parties to various class forces, but even there,
Lenin did not use the “clear class line” to refuse any electoral support or
relationship, as one can see from the 1912 conference resolution he worked
on and supported (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/
6thconf/efd.htm), which called for “exposing the counter-revolutionary
views of the bourgeois liberals (headed by the Cadet Party)” while still
saying in specific circumstances an “agreement must be concluded to share
the seats” with them.


And of course we have to orient ourselves based on reflection and analysis,
not proof-texting, which is why I said: “One can make an argument for this
idea of voting or working with based solely on the class-basis of parties
and ignoring everything else, but it should at least be made with the
awareness that this isn't what Lenin argued”.


However true “The Democratic Party has been a dead-end for the left” may be
as a summary statement, it is not a guide to tactical and strategic
questions IMO. In my judgement, just as much as opportunism toward the
Democrats has been a dead end, the far left’s general refusal to even
consider the kind of tactics and strategy reflects in the 1912 resolution
above for instance has isolated it and empowered those opportunists.


-Jason

On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 5:39 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> On 6/30/18 9:27 AM, Jason wrote:
>
>>
>> One can make an argument for this idea of voting or working with based
>> solely on the class-basis of parties and ignoring everything else, but it
>> should at least be made with the awareness that this isn't what Lenin
>> argued and I haven't seen anyone do that: he was for the CP working in and
>> voting for the British Labor Party and he thought that party was a
>> bourgeois party.
>>
>
> Instead of relying solely on "Ultraleftism, an Infantile Disorder", you
> need to read Lenin's extensive writings about Russian political parties. He
> drew a clear class line between the Cadets and so-called petty-bourgeois
> parties like the SR's.
>
> In terms of Labour and the Social Democratic parties, it is a mistake to
> overemphasize the stuff about supporting them like a rope supports a
> hanging man. Keep in mind that around the same time, the Comintern was
> developing theories of the workers government and the united front that
> stressed the common goals of the Communists and socialists.
>
> Finally, we have to develop our own understanding of the Democratic Party
> and not cite Lenin chapter and verse. It was probably a mistake for me to
> give that impression since as most of you know, I regard the creation of
> the Comintern to be a disaster.
>
> The Democratic Party has been a dead-end for the left. Every time there is
> a new surge of support for some charismatic figure, the left ends up
> holding the bag. Jason is probably too young to remember the Jackson
> campaign but I was in CISPES in the early 80s when it capitulated totally
> to his campaign. Everything hinged on his campaign that was far more
> inspiring than Bernie Sanders's frankly. The Maoists and the Marcyites went
> full-tilt boogie for both Jackson and Harold Washington in Chicago. Within
> a few years, they were distant memories.
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected (Jason)

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Regarding what Lenin said and how he saw the British LP: Lenin was in the
habit of phrasing things very sharply, maybe even too sharply at times. I
suspect that was because he was guarding so strongly against any tendency
to fall into reformism. In any case, is Jason trying to say that there's no
difference between a working class party, or the British Labour Party, and
the Democratic Party?

Here's the difference: When the British coal miners were out on strike in
the early 1980s, in one region after another they turned to the local LP
branches and those branches mobilized support for them - both money and
also mobilized people for the picket lines. That was a natural development.

In 1999, 2,000 carpenters conducted a wildcat strike in the SF Bay area
against a poor contract that the leadership was shoving down our throats. I
was the chairman of the strike committee that organized that strike. It
would have seemed absolutely weird, a total disconnect, if I or anybody
else had even suggested going to the local Democratic Party or any local
Democrats for help.

The difference, then, is this: When workers rise up, what organizations do
they tend to turn to? What organizations are in their traditions? Which
were developed out of the struggle of workers of the past? In the US, it is
not and never has been the Democratic Party. Yes, workers voted for FDR in
the 1930s, but the most advanced sectors moved time and again to build a
working class alternative - a labor party. It was only the role of the
bureaucrats, starting with John L. Lewis, and of the Communist Party that
prevented a Labor Party from developing at that point. And it is the mass
working class parties that serve as the collective memory of the working
class. It is through these parties that the traditions of the class
struggle are best carried. In fact, it is exactly because of the betrayals
of these parties' leaderships that they have been so weakened and, as a
result, those traditions are so weak.

And today in the US?

Today the Democratic Party serves to obscure that collective memory. It
serves to blur the class divisions. And the "progressive"/liberal wing of
the Democratic Party plays a decisive role in that process.

John Reimann
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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Louis Proyect says that "Fidel Castro started out as a bourgeois politician".

It is true that Castro was a member of the bourgeois Cuban Peoples Party, and 
was chosen as a candidate for that party in the 1952 elections, which were 
never held because of Batista's coup.

But Castro was not simply a "bourgeois politician".  He was the leader of a 
radical current within the CPP.

He later explained his thinking at that time as follows:

"I saw that the Cuban communists were isolated due to the pervasive atmosphere 
of imperialism, McCarthyism and reactionary politics. No matter what they did 
they remained isolated …

"So, I worked out a strategy for carrying out a deep social revolution — but 
gradually, by stages …

"I realised that the masses were decisive, that the masses were extremely angry 
and discontented. They did not understand the social essence of the problem; 
they were confused. They attributed unemployment, poverty, and the lack of 
schools, hospitals, job opportunities and housing — almost everything — to 
administrative corruption, embezzlement and the perversity of the politicians.

"The Cuban Peoples Party had harnessed much of that discontent, but they did 
not particularly blame the capitalist system and imperialism for it …

"The people were confused, but they were also desperate and able to fight … The 
people had to be led along the road of revolution by stages, step by step, 
until they achieved full political consciousness and confidence in their future.

"I worked out all these ideas by reading and studying Cuban history, the Cuban 
personality and distinguishing characteristics, and Marxism."

(Interview with Frei Betto, cited in Fidel: My Early Years, Ocean Press, 
Melbourne, 2005, p. 155-157)

Castro later established the July 26 Movement, which fought for democracy and 
radical social reform, but was not explicitly socialist.

It was only several years after the overthrow of Batista that the Cuban 
Communist Party was established through the merger of the July 26 Movement, PSP 
and Revolutionary Directorate.

See:  http://links.org.au/node/1451

The conclusion I would draw from this is that we should not be too schematic 
about party building methods.  I am not proposing to give any advice to US 
comrades on what they should do.

Chris Slee


From: Marxism  on behalf of Louis Proyect 
via Marxism 
Sent: Saturday, 30 June 2018 1:04:39 PM
To: Chris Slee
Subject: Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

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On 6/29/18 10:49 PM, Nick Fredman wrote:
>
> But it seems to me that it’s the exactly the absence of an NDP or Labor
> Party that has meant the US Democrats have absorbed the functions that
> such parties play in other capitalist countries.

Well, look. In this hemisphere, there are no labor parties or socialist
parties of any significance outside of the NDP in Canada. I don't have
the time nor the energy to explain how that happened. I should add that
there was one in Chile but it got destroyed after Pinochet.

The USA, like all these other countries to its south, has two major
bourgeois parties--one liberal and one conservative. Nicaragua was a
prime example. Even Sandino was a partisan of the Liberal Party. Cuba
had the same deal. Fidel Castro started out as a bourgeois politician.
What made Fidel Castro and Carlos Fonseca stand out was their defiant
break with the Liberal/Conservative hegemonic system.

In the USA, we had someone like that. His name was Malcolm X and they
killed him because of his intransigence. If you want to run as a
Democrat, just do the left a favor and stop calling yourself a socialist.


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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 6/30/18 9:27 AM, Jason wrote:


One can make an argument for this idea of voting or working with based 
solely on the class-basis of parties and ignoring everything else, but 
it should at least be made with the awareness that this isn't what Lenin 
argued and I haven't seen anyone do that: he was for the CP working in 
and voting for the British Labor Party and he thought that party was a 
bourgeois party.


Instead of relying solely on "Ultraleftism, an Infantile Disorder", you 
need to read Lenin's extensive writings about Russian political parties. 
He drew a clear class line between the Cadets and so-called 
petty-bourgeois parties like the SR's.


In terms of Labour and the Social Democratic parties, it is a mistake to 
overemphasize the stuff about supporting them like a rope supports a 
hanging man. Keep in mind that around the same time, the Comintern was 
developing theories of the workers government and the united front that 
stressed the common goals of the Communists and socialists.


Finally, we have to develop our own understanding of the Democratic 
Party and not cite Lenin chapter and verse. It was probably a mistake 
for me to give that impression since as most of you know, I regard the 
creation of the Comintern to be a disaster.


The Democratic Party has been a dead-end for the left. Every time there 
is a new surge of support for some charismatic figure, the left ends up 
holding the bag. Jason is probably too young to remember the Jackson 
campaign but I was in CISPES in the early 80s when it capitulated 
totally to his campaign. Everything hinged on his campaign that was far 
more inspiring than Bernie Sanders's frankly. The Maoists and the 
Marcyites went full-tilt boogie for both Jackson and Harold Washington 
in Chicago. Within a few years, they were distant memories.





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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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So that's how we explain to people why we are abstaining from supporting an
exception to the rule like O - C - "the contradiction is too great" - i.e.
- our purity is of utmost importance!

Again - the political landscape is barren in terms of an organized left
presence. There is NO incipient leftist/labor/social-democratic formation
that can present a meaningful alternative to the two corporate parties.
That void and the horrors of Trumpism are producing candidates who for the
most part employ leftist rhetoric, to be cast aside if they get elected. In
terms of O - C, we'll have to wait and see where her campaign goes.

On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 8:59 AM, John Reimann via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> How can we explain all this, how can we call for independent, working class
> candidates - even at the local level - candidates who link up the local
> issues with this necessity for a working class party - while at the same
> time supporting some Democrats, ANY Democrats? The contradiction is too
> great. DSA is proving in the realm of action that it cannot be done.
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Jason via Marxism]

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"The key difference between a reformist Labor Party and the Democratic
Party is based on class."

There is a shibboleth in the Trotskyist movement that this is from Lenin,
but it's not actually what Lenin argued. He said "the Labour Party is a
thoroughly bourgeois party" (
https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/2nd-congress/ch13.htm
-- and this is just one example). There's a history to arguing that a
"bourgeois labor party" is a party based on the workers but with bourgeois
leadership and that that was Lenin's concept. However, as one can see
reading this https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm
,
in context the term Lenin used was “bourgeois Labor Party”, i.e. “the Labor
Party is a bourgeois party” (note the capitalization--which can be
inconsistent in various editions but again, in context this becomes clear).

One can make an argument for this idea of voting or working with based
solely on the class-basis of parties and ignoring everything else, but it
should at least be made with the awareness that this isn't what Lenin
argued and I haven't seen anyone do that: he was for the CP working in and
voting for the British Labor Party and he thought that party was a
bourgeois party. For Lenin, the class-basis did matter in that that was why
he urged the building of a separate working-class political organization,
but it did not tie down his thinking from considering a range of tactical
and strategic options--including working within and voting for--in
relationship to other parties, including bourgeois ones.

-Jason
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Two different aspects of the question of support or otherwise for
Ocasio-Cortez have been raised:

First is whether or not she will "stray" from her program. In other words,
capitulate. In the first place, her program itself is rather vague. But
anyway, that's not so much the point since even if she were to be more
concrete about a program for jobs and housing for all, for Medicare for
all, and for support for Palestine, there's no way she will accomplish any
of that through the Democratic Party.

But in any case, the main point is that what's really key is building an
independent movement of, by and for the working class. When that starts to
happen, and only then, will we start to see reforms as a by product.

We all know what that means - the beginnings of the development of a
working class party. We should not see such a party as being simply an
electoral vehicle. Look at the Republicans and Democrats. They organize the
capitalist class and advocate the views of that class to the rest of
society. They also tend to gather the most conscious elements of their
class to help lead the rest of their class. That's what a working class
party would do for its class. Of course, there are some huge differences
also, partly stemming from the fact that the working class is the majority,
or at least a large plurality and it represents the interests of the
overwhelming majority.

Another difference is that the working class cannot capture the capitalist
state, so some of its methods must differ from those of the capitalist
class. These include strikes, mass demonstrations, and defiance of the
state.

Finally, since the working class is the oppressed class, it tends to be
less conscious than the capitalist class. The creation of a working class
party would gather together all the most conscious and fearless elements
within our class. It would mean a huge increase in their influence in the
rest of the class and also a huge leap in their/our own consciousness.

Even the very beginnings of a mass working class party will not be built
according to some "blueprint" (as Ackerman put it); it will develop out of
an elemental movement, you could even say a vomiting up of all the old crap
that we're fed every day.

Anybody who says there's no difference between the Republicans and the
Democrats - even before Trump took over the Republicans - simply doesn't
know what they're talking about. The two parties play different roles. The
key task of the Democrats is to side-track any tendency for a working class
party to develop. In this task, the liberal/"progressive" wing is
absolutely essential. It is indispensable. There may be some very honest
and sincere individuals within that wing. Ocasio-Cortez may be one of them.
It doesn't matter. In this period, when the working class hardly exists as
a political force in the US, when everything cries out for even just the
beginnings of the development of a working class party, and when the
liberal/"progressive" wing of the Democrats is such a powerful magnet, I
think real socialists have to be really vigilant in resisting the pull of
the Democrats.

How can we explain all this, how can we call for independent, working class
candidates - even at the local level - candidates who link up the local
issues with this necessity for a working class party - while at the same
time supporting some Democrats, ANY Democrats? The contradiction is too
great. DSA is proving in the realm of action that it cannot be done.

John Reimann
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that "It's time we acknowledge that not all
Democrats are the same."

She says this at 1:20 into her 2 minute basic campaign video "The Courage
to Change:"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq3QXIVR0bs

On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 8:49 PM, Nick Fredman via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> On Sat, 30 Jun 2018 at 9:34 am, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > The key difference between a reformist Labor Party and the Democratic
> > Party is based on class. For example, socialists have had a tactical
> > orientation to the NDP in Canada for decades now but none have oriented
> > to the Liberal Party. Unless we can distinguish between a bourgeois
> > party and a reformist social democratic or labor party, we are missing
> > the class criterion.
>
>
> But it seems to me that it’s the exactly the absence of an NDP or Labor
> Party that has meant the US Democrats have absorbed the functions that such
> parties play in other capitalist countries. In UK terms it’s like the right
> and centre of Labour fused with the Lib Dems (a not inconceivable lineup).
> That the majority of workers especially organised workers and activists
> orient to the US Democrats in a very similar way to the way such layers
> orient to the ALP (and some extent to the Greens who have captured a big
> chunk of white collar section of the working class), people you presumably
> want to get a hearing among, is the reason campaigns such as Ocasio-Cortez
> are a consideration st all.
>
> The concrete difference it seems to me is that in the US the structure and
> function of the Democrats makes it possible for such campaigns to put
> forward a clear pro-working class and activist platform, clearly opposed to
> the leadership. Which is currently inconceivable via the ALP and very
> limited via the Australian Greens (including by their explicit proscription
> of organised socialists). The concrete national-historical difference
> between UK Labour and the ALP is that in the former it’s been possible for
> a class struggle current to seize the leadership and some of the
> structures, win near majority support and involve new layers in activity:
> this is even more inconceivable via the ALP. Reciting abstract categories
> isn’t much help without looking at the actual dynamics in each different
> national arena of the class struggle.
>
>
>
> >
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 6/29/18 10:49 PM, Nick Fredman wrote:


But it seems to me that it’s the exactly the absence of an NDP or Labor 
Party that has meant the US Democrats have absorbed the functions that 
such parties play in other capitalist countries.


Well, look. In this hemisphere, there are no labor parties or socialist 
parties of any significance outside of the NDP in Canada. I don't have 
the time nor the energy to explain how that happened. I should add that 
there was one in Chile but it got destroyed after Pinochet.


The USA, like all these other countries to its south, has two major 
bourgeois parties--one liberal and one conservative. Nicaragua was a 
prime example. Even Sandino was a partisan of the Liberal Party. Cuba 
had the same deal. Fidel Castro started out as a bourgeois politician. 
What made Fidel Castro and Carlos Fonseca stand out was their defiant 
break with the Liberal/Conservative hegemonic system.


In the USA, we had someone like that. His name was Malcolm X and they 
killed him because of his intransigence. If you want to run as a 
Democrat, just do the left a favor and stop calling yourself a socialist.



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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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On Sat, 30 Jun 2018 at 9:34 am, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> The key difference between a reformist Labor Party and the Democratic
> Party is based on class. For example, socialists have had a tactical
> orientation to the NDP in Canada for decades now but none have oriented
> to the Liberal Party. Unless we can distinguish between a bourgeois
> party and a reformist social democratic or labor party, we are missing
> the class criterion.


But it seems to me that it’s the exactly the absence of an NDP or Labor
Party that has meant the US Democrats have absorbed the functions that such
parties play in other capitalist countries. In UK terms it’s like the right
and centre of Labour fused with the Lib Dems (a not inconceivable lineup).
That the majority of workers especially organised workers and activists
orient to the US Democrats in a very similar way to the way such layers
orient to the ALP (and some extent to the Greens who have captured a big
chunk of white collar section of the working class), people you presumably
want to get a hearing among, is the reason campaigns such as Ocasio-Cortez
are a consideration st all.

The concrete difference it seems to me is that in the US the structure and
function of the Democrats makes it possible for such campaigns to put
forward a clear pro-working class and activist platform, clearly opposed to
the leadership. Which is currently inconceivable via the ALP and very
limited via the Australian Greens (including by their explicit proscription
of organised socialists). The concrete national-historical difference
between UK Labour and the ALP is that in the former it’s been possible for
a class struggle current to seize the leadership and some of the
structures, win near majority support and involve new layers in activity:
this is even more inconceivable via the ALP. Reciting abstract categories
isn’t much help without looking at the actual dynamics in each different
national arena of the class struggle.



>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 6/29/18 7:14 PM, Nick Fredman via Marxism wrote


While I don’t want to judge electoral tactics for US socialists from the
outside, it is curious to read from Australia statements that Ocasio-Cortez
and others are absolutely tied to the Democrat machine and definitely bound
to be coopted, when the Democrats have nothing like the party discipline of
our Labor Party or even of the Greens. And though Labor is much more of a
proper membership organisation that the Democrats with formsl affiliation
of unions, the discipline strictly imposed on representatives and
candidates has only the most attenuated connection to the party and union
membership, and is directly controlled by privileged parliamentary and
union bureaucracies with close ties to corporate donors.



The key difference between a reformist Labor Party and the Democratic 
Party is based on class. For example, socialists have had a tactical 
orientation to the NDP in Canada for decades now but none have oriented 
to the Liberal Party. Unless we can distinguish between a bourgeois 
party and a reformist social democratic or labor party, we are missing 
the all-important class criterion.

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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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While I don’t want to judge electoral tactics for US socialists from the
outside, it is curious to read from Australia statements that Ocasio-Cortez
and others are absolutely tied to the Democrat machine and definitely bound
to be coopted, when the Democrats have nothing like the party discipline of
our Labor Party or even of the Greens. And though Labor is much more of a
proper membership organisation that the Democrats with formsl affiliation
of unions, the discipline strictly imposed on representatives and
candidates has only the most attenuated connection to the party and union
membership, and is directly controlled by privileged parliamentary and
union bureaucracies with close ties to corporate donors.

Not a single ALP representative at the federal and state level, or any
candidate in the internal party “pre-selection” votes has put forward in
recent memory anything like the clear working class platform of
Ocasio-Cortez, or anything remotely like the clear attack on the
pro-corporate leadership of the avowed progressive party (and the internal
pre-selections, mainly about dividing up jobs between factions rather than
policy, c.f. public primaries, are another big difference in context). Any
straying from the bipartisan policy of torturing asylum seekers in
concentration camps is now particularly stomped on.

The Greens have similar positions on paper and some Greens candidates
approach Ocasio-Cortez in emphasising a class position and the need for
mass action, but this is very inconsistent and not widely associated with
the Greens. The Greens leadership also has taken to imposing party
discipline on the left harder not least on any straying from the pathetic
official position on Israel-Palestine.

Just saying that whatever the potential of increasing illusions in some
that the Democrats as such are a vehicle of change, these “hostile
takeover” type campaigns by the DSA and otherd seem to have more potential
for promoting socialist politics and struggle than intervention in other
centre-left parties in other bourgeois electoral systems (the UK being
another story again, a Labour with more extant activist structures and
socialist tradition).

On Sat, 30 Jun 2018 at 6:34 am, A.R. G via Marxism <
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>
> I think the most likely direction if/when she clinches the Congressional
> seat will be similar to Ro Khanna. I doubt she will stray. The question is
> how much influence she will have.
>
> Amith R. Gupta
>
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:59 PM, Dennis Brasky via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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I think the most likely direction if/when she clinches the Congressional
seat will be similar to Ro Khanna. I doubt she will stray. The question is
how much influence she will have.

Amith R. Gupta

On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:59 PM, Dennis Brasky via Marxism <
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>
> I have loyally followed this line for just about a half century but today,
> when there is only a microscopic organizational left presence, including
> even the barely visible electoral campaigns of the SWP in the 1960s and
> 70s, today, when the activists we want to talk to and work with are
> campaigning for someone not afraid to use the term socialism, not afraid to
> support the Palestinians, not afraid to take on immigrant bashers and
> killer cops - what do we tell these activists when they ask for our support
> - "when you're ready to split from the Democrats, come see us"???
>
> If O-C's campaign winds up moving away from these positions and towards
> "the center" in order to be "pragmatic", then the answer of course is to
> denounce it. If her campaign does not "moderate" its positions (and because
> of the demographics of her district in terms of slight support for
> Republicans, she may not feel obliged to), what then? Do we keep quiet
> about it and just vote for her? If so, can we be accused of "talking the
> talk but not walking the walk"?Do we work to support the campaign that we
> might be willing to vote for? Just asking.
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 1:25 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
> >
> > But one thing is sure: We cannot effectively campaign for and actually
> > take the necessary and possible steps
> > towards a working class party if we support ANY Democrats at the same
> > time. DSA is proving that (in the negative) every day.
> >
> > John Reimann
> >
> >
> _
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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I have loyally followed this line for just about a half century but today,
when there is only a microscopic organizational left presence, including
even the barely visible electoral campaigns of the SWP in the 1960s and
70s, today, when the activists we want to talk to and work with are
campaigning for someone not afraid to use the term socialism, not afraid to
support the Palestinians, not afraid to take on immigrant bashers and
killer cops - what do we tell these activists when they ask for our support
- "when you're ready to split from the Democrats, come see us"???

If O-C's campaign winds up moving away from these positions and towards
"the center" in order to be "pragmatic", then the answer of course is to
denounce it. If her campaign does not "moderate" its positions (and because
of the demographics of her district in terms of slight support for
Republicans, she may not feel obliged to), what then? Do we keep quiet
about it and just vote for her? If so, can we be accused of "talking the
talk but not walking the walk"?Do we work to support the campaign that we
might be willing to vote for? Just asking.


On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 1:25 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
>
> But one thing is sure: We cannot effectively campaign for and actually
> take the necessary and possible steps
> towards a working class party if we support ANY Democrats at the same
> time. DSA is proving that (in the negative) every day.
>
> John Reimann
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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In the first place, had Sanders gotten elected, it would have changed
things, just as having Trump elected has done so. So, that's not the point
to me; Since we are all presumably Marxists on this list, and since Marxism
means seeing politics in terms of class struggle, I hope we can agree that
the point is: "how can the working class start to assert itself as an
independent force in society?"

If Mark is saying that the working class has to learn through experience,
that's a given. But the experience of having liberal Democrats in office
does not necessarily lead to the working class building a party of its own.
I think there are two factors:

In the first place, the creation of a working class party is not like
building a brick house - putting one brick on top of another. It's a
dynamic process and, especially in the United States, it involves
mobilization of tens, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of workers out
in the streets and in the work places, fighting for their interests. In
other words, it requires workers seeing before their own eyes their
collective power.

That was what happened back in the 1930s, and the result was, despite the
popularity of FDR among millions of workers, a strong tide towards the
building of a working class party. Which brings me to the second point:
That tide was held back, was defeated by the combined effort of the
Communist Party and the union leadership.

In other words, there needs to be some force present that can explain and
point to the next necessary step in the working class movement. As
socialists, we should be part of that force. But we cannot be, we cannot
play that role, if we don't anticipate the problems that are arising, if we
don't explain the processes as they unfold.

Yes, we can't just keep repeating ad nauseum "workers party workers party";
we also have to propose the concrete steps that are necessary and possible.
I believe that includes DSA running independent candidates at the local
level, as I explained in my article. But one thing is sure: We cannot
effectively campaign for and actually take the necessary and possible steps
towards a working class party if we support ANY Democrats at the same time.
DSA is proving that (in the negative) every day.

John Reimann

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 7:04 PM, Mark Lause  wrote:

> This was a very big victory.  And an essential art of the process . . . .
>
> Putting her into the U.S. Congress as a Democrat will no more change
> things than electing Bernie Sanders president as one would have changed
> things.  There are a certain number of people in the American working class
> who understand this--larger than most of you would say, but still
> microscopic compared to the working class in general.
>
> The vast majority of the working class that are not entirely warped by
> reactionary prejudices, racism, sexism, jingoism, etc. believe that change
> can be effected through the Democratic party.  This idea is full of crap
> and will never really work, though efforts to do this may have ripples that
> move things far beyond the intentions of those making them.
>
> The problem is that the masses of workers interested in serious change
> will not learn this lesson by our repeating what we have been saying for
> decades.  They're going to have to learn this for themselves.  Given that,
> the movement is simply going to have to go through a process of trial and
> error with these things.  This is not going to be like Bernie Sanders,
> whose campaign actually offered us nothing particularly new in terms of the
> Democratic experience and did nothing in terms of the problems of being and
> having a socialist in office under the Democratic label.
>
> Her election and her experience--and the obstacles the Democrats will
> throw her direction--will enter into the material, concrete experience of
> the DSA.  Like I said, it's save them a lot of time if they'd just move
> independently.  But those that we'd be able to convince with words have
> been convinced.
>
> There is now emerging a very broad current that's trying to build a
> movement and learn from the experience.  Our job is not going to be an easy
> one.  But this is part of the process that will educate by experience many
> more than can be educated by our words.
>
> Comradely,
> Mark L.
>
>
>


-- 
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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 This was a very big victory.  And an essential art of the process . . . .

Putting her into the U.S. Congress as a Democrat will no more change things
than electing Bernie Sanders president as one would have changed things.
There are a certain number of people in the American working class who
understand this--larger than most of you would say, but still microscopic
compared to the working class in general.

The vast majority of the working class that are not entirely warped by
reactionary prejudices, racism, sexism, jingoism, etc. believe that change
can be effected through the Democratic party.  This idea is full of crap
and will never really work, though efforts to do this may have ripples that
move things far beyond the intentions of those making them.

The problem is that the masses of workers interested in serious change will
not learn this lesson by our repeating what we have been saying for
decades.  They're going to have to learn this for themselves.  Given that,
the movement is simply going to have to go through a process of trial and
error with these things.  This is not going to be like Bernie Sanders,
whose campaign actually offered us nothing particularly new in terms of the
Democratic experience and did nothing in terms of the problems of being and
having a socialist in office under the Democratic label.

Her election and her experience--and the obstacles the Democrats will throw
her direction--will enter into the material, concrete experience of the
DSA.  Like I said, it's save them a lot of time if they'd just move
independently.  But those that we'd be able to convince with words have
been convinced.

There is now emerging a very broad current that's trying to build a
movement and learn from the experience.  Our job is not going to be an easy
one.  But this is part of the process that will educate by experience many
more than can be educated by our words.

Comradely,
Mark L.
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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The momentum of anybody involved in politics must be taken into account.
Or, put another way, one's program, one's past. That is what has a huge
impact in determining what direction one will take in the future.

Ocasio-Cortez ran as a Democrat. She clearly proposed that the future is
through the Democratic Party. Her involvement in DSA does not lead her away
from the Democratic Party; on the contrary, it helps bind her to that party
since DSA is controlled by those who believe in working within the
Democrats. Even if it weren't, we have to recognize that when she gets to
congress, she'll be forming all sorts of connections. In a thousand
different ways, she'll be edged closer and closer to the Party.

The Democratic Party operates as a powerful pole of attraction in
"progressive" politics. Unless one has a clear base built around opposing
this pole, one will get pulled ever more into its orbit. And that is doubly
true for an elected official such as Ocasio-Cortez.

This is not a "formal" question. As we try to explain in the article, the
absence of a mass working class political party in many ways defines the
present political situation in the US today. Filling this vacuum is the #1
task for the present period. The election of people like Ocasio-Cortez
actually makes that task more difficult, not less.

As for the individual issues, from environmental to Palestinian rights to
strengthening the unions - the Democratic Party will not be a vehicle for
any of those. Trying to do so through building the "progressive" wing of
the Democrats is like chasing the end of a rainbow.

John Reimann

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 11:37 AM, A.R. G  wrote:

> It seems like the primary problem described in the article is formal, not
> substantive. That is, that OC will not be able to make these changes
> because she is running as a Democrat.
>
> A genuine question: What difference does it make if she isn't dependent on
> the Democratic Party structure? She is clearly depending on the wider Left
> and indeed she has been publicly attacked by the Democrat Establishment at
> every step of the way, from Pelosi to Gillibrand and others. The people who
> are actually propping up her campaign are DSA members, not the Democrats.
> So why does it matter?
>
> In Bernie's case, the reason it ended up mattering is because he still
> needed the party establishment to clinch the primary, and they not only
> used the superdelegate system to undermine his abilities, but also had the
> DNC undermine his campaign at every stage. OC has already gotten past those
> restrictions as far as a Congressional seat is concerned.
>
> If she were running for President I might share your pessimism but she is
> running for a Congressional seat. If other challengers surface in other
> parts of the country they can form an opposition bloc that will prevent the
> Establishment Democrats from continuing to make concessions to Trump. If
> they need a party to provide infrastructure then DSA will still be there
> and is likely going to grow as a result of these kinds of upsets.
>
> Amith R. Gupta
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 2:31 PM, John Reimann <1999wild...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It depends on what you mean by "legit". For those of us who see politics
>> in class terms (which is to say, those of us who are Marxists), the real
>> issue is the development of a mass working class political party - as
>> explained in the article. Ocasio-Cortez's election will not lead in that
>> direction.
>>
>> John
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 11:03 AM, A.R. G  wrote:
>>
>>> Great interview
>>> 
>>> by Glenn Greenwald with Ocasio-Cortez prior to her amazing success. Note
>>> also that she is willing to defend Palestine
>>> 
>>> so you know she's legit (hooray!).
>>>
>>> Amith R. Gupta
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 1:49 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
>>> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>>>
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 The Wall St. Journal editors didn’t mince their words: “Republicans are
 chortling after Tuesday’s primary defeat of New York Democratic
 Congressional baron Joseph 

Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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It seems like the primary problem described in the article is formal, not
substantive. That is, that OC will not be able to make these changes
because she is running as a Democrat.

A genuine question: What difference does it make if she isn't dependent on
the Democratic Party structure? She is clearly depending on the wider Left
and indeed she has been publicly attacked by the Democrat Establishment at
every step of the way, from Pelosi to Gillibrand and others. The people who
are actually propping up her campaign are DSA members, not the Democrats.
So why does it matter?

In Bernie's case, the reason it ended up mattering is because he still
needed the party establishment to clinch the primary, and they not only
used the superdelegate system to undermine his abilities, but also had the
DNC undermine his campaign at every stage. OC has already gotten past those
restrictions as far as a Congressional seat is concerned.

If she were running for President I might share your pessimism but she is
running for a Congressional seat. If other challengers surface in other
parts of the country they can form an opposition bloc that will prevent the
Establishment Democrats from continuing to make concessions to Trump. If
they need a party to provide infrastructure then DSA will still be there
and is likely going to grow as a result of these kinds of upsets.

Amith R. Gupta

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 2:31 PM, John Reimann <1999wild...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It depends on what you mean by "legit". For those of us who see politics
> in class terms (which is to say, those of us who are Marxists), the real
> issue is the development of a mass working class political party - as
> explained in the article. Ocasio-Cortez's election will not lead in that
> direction.
>
> John
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 11:03 AM, A.R. G  wrote:
>
>> Great interview
>> 
>> by Glenn Greenwald with Ocasio-Cortez prior to her amazing success. Note
>> also that she is willing to defend Palestine
>> 
>> so you know she's legit (hooray!).
>>
>> Amith R. Gupta
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 1:49 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
>> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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>>> *
>>>
>>>
>>> The Wall St. Journal editors didn’t mince their words: “Republicans are
>>> chortling after Tuesday’s primary defeat of New York Democratic
>>> Congressional baron Joseph Crowley by Sandernista Alexandria
>>> Ocasio-Cortez,
>>> but they might want to hold the Schadenfreude [pleasure from somebody
>>> else’s misfortune],” they wrote
>>>
>>> What does the election of DSA member Ocasio-Cortez mean? What does it
>>> show
>>> about the mood in the US? How will it affect the Democratic Party. And,
>>> most important of all: Does this provide a way forward for the working
>>> class?
>>>
>>> see:
>>> https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/06/28/alexandria-ocasio-co
>>> rtez-elected-what-does-it-mean/
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>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
> Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
> Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] DSA member Ocasio-Cortez elected

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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It depends on what you mean by "legit". For those of us who see politics in
class terms (which is to say, those of us who are Marxists), the real issue
is the development of a mass working class political party - as explained
in the article. Ocasio-Cortez's election will not lead in that direction.

John

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 11:03 AM, A.R. G  wrote:

> Great interview
> 
> by Glenn Greenwald with Ocasio-Cortez prior to her amazing success. Note
> also that she is willing to defend Palestine
> 
> so you know she's legit (hooray!).
>
> Amith R. Gupta
>
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 1:49 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
>>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
>> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
>> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
>> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
>> *
>>
>>
>> The Wall St. Journal editors didn’t mince their words: “Republicans are
>> chortling after Tuesday’s primary defeat of New York Democratic
>> Congressional baron Joseph Crowley by Sandernista Alexandria
>> Ocasio-Cortez,
>> but they might want to hold the Schadenfreude [pleasure from somebody
>> else’s misfortune],” they wrote
>>
>> What does the election of DSA member Ocasio-Cortez mean? What does it show
>> about the mood in the US? How will it affect the Democratic Party. And,
>> most important of all: Does this provide a way forward for the working
>> class?
>>
>> see:
>> https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/06/28/alexandria-ocasio-co
>> rtez-elected-what-does-it-mean/
>> _
>> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
>> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
>> ions/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com
>
>
>


-- 
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