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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[Marxism] On Magical Thinking VS Sober Analysis of the Ocasio-Cortez Victory in NY | Black Agenda Report

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://blackagendareport.com/magical-thinking-vs-sober-analysis-ocasio-cortez-victory-ny
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Re: [Marxism] Sure We Can Elect The Occasional Democrat Progressive. Then What? | Black Agenda Report

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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From what I've seen the occasional progressives are from small districts
that are easy to undermine or ignore or gerrymander out of existence (Pete
Stark, Dennis Kucinich, etc). The real victory wasn't her winning but
pushing out Crowley.

On Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 8:32 PM Greg McDonald via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Good article by Dixon, but let’s look at what this one individual has
> accomplished in the space of what, 3 or 4 days? She’s made the tv circuit
> and spoken eloquently about her political stance. Most important, she
> articulated the demand to abolish ICE, which has been picked up by
> protesters all across the country. Pretty successful pushback IMO.
>
> Greg
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Re: [Marxism] Sure We Can Elect The Occasional Democrat Progressive. Then What? | Black Agenda Report

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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Excellent article - O - C is the exception. My point yesterday was on how
to deal with the exception by avoiding either ignoring it or treating it as
the rule.

On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 8:30 PM, Greg McDonald via Marxism

>
> Good article by Dixon, but let’s look at what this one individual has
> accomplished in the space of what, 3 or 4 days? She’s made the tv circuit
> and spoken eloquently about her political stance. Most important, she
> articulated the demand to abolish ICE, which has been picked up by
> protesters all across the country. Pretty successful pushback IMO.
>
>
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[Marxism] Chris Harman: Democrats are different (October 1984)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The scale of the collapse is often not understood by socialists in 
Europe. After all, they say, we urge a vote for Labour in elections, so 
why should American socialists not urge a vote for the Democrats?


But there are very important differences between the Democratic Party 
and the European Socialist and Labour Parties.


The Labour Party is a product of the working class movement – albeit a 
product that is ingrained through and through with the commitment of 
union bureaucrats and careerist politicians to operating within 
capitalism even if this means defending it against the pressure of rank 
and file workers. And so the struggles of workers and the arguments 
these give rise to find an echo, however muffled and distorted, within 
the party. Elections find 99 percent of the capitalist class ranged 
against the Labour Party, and almost all workers with any sort of 
elementary class consciousness ranged behind it. Socialists cannot avoid 
having to take sides on such occasions. We have to relate to the 
aspirations of rank and file Labour Party members, even while trying to 
build a separate party of our own.


The Democratic Party is a very different sort of party. It developed in 
the nineteenth century as an alliance of very different social groups 
that had only one thing in common – resentment at the growing political 
dominance of Northern industrialists. While the Republican Party united 
industrialists and ‘native born’ farmers behind a policy of capitalist 
development based on free wage labour, the Democratic Party gained 
support from both the northern urban poor (especially immigrant groups 
like the Irish, Italians, and East European Jews) and the Southern 
plantation owners. So at the time of the Civil War in the early 1860s it 
stood for ‘state rights’ and the toleration of slavery, and right up to 
the early 1960s it was the party of ‘Jim Crow’ segregation in the South.



full: https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1984/10/usdems.htm
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Re: [Marxism] Sure We Can Elect The Occasional Democrat Progressive. Then What? | Black Agenda Report

[Greg McDonald via Marxism]

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Good article by Dixon, but let’s look at what this one individual has
accomplished in the space of what, 3 or 4 days? She’s made the tv circuit
and spoken eloquently about her political stance. Most important, she
articulated the demand to abolish ICE, which has been picked up by
protesters all across the country. Pretty successful pushback IMO.

Greg
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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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[Marxism] Sure We Can Elect The Occasional Democrat Progressive. Then What? | Black Agenda Report

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Bruce Dixon.

https://blackagendareport.com/sure-we-can-elect-occasional-democrat-progressive-then-what
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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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[Marxism] Where there’s a will there’s a way | Interview with Wol-san Liem | Navid Shomali | The Morning Star

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/where-theres-will-theres-way


Sent from my iPhone
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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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[Marxism] June 30 immigrant rights events in U.S/ ("Families Belong Together")

[Alan Ginsberg via Marxism]

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listing of events at
https://act.moveon.org/event/families-belong-together/?source=FBTsite622

Note: It seems that anyone can "create" an event that will be listed. A
week or so ago, there were listings for numerous, simultaneous events in
Manhattan. Most of those have disappeared from the listings. So a listed
"event" might not occur.

For people in New York City, there will be a march from Foley Square to
Brooklyn; listed started time is 10AM. According to this newspaper article:

The End Family Separation NYC Rally and March will begin at Foley Square in
Manhattan at 10:30 a.m. Protesters are expected to march through Manhattan
and across the Brooklyn Bridge before rallying in Cadman Plaza around 11:45
a.m.

https://www.amny.com/news/politics/nyc-protest-family-separation-1.19502596
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[Marxism] The Socialists That Could - June 28, 2018 - SF Weekly

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On San Francisco DSA.

http://www.sfweekly.com/news/the-socialists-that-could/
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[Marxism] Exclusive: Accused Annapolis shooter had deep, dark links to the alt-right | Salon.com

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.salon.com/2018/06/30/exclusive-accused-annapolis-shooter-had-deep-dark-links-to-the-alt-right/
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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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