Re: [Marxism] Can Bernie Sanders Make the Democratic Party a Democratic Party? | The Indypendent
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. * Abstractions, rhetoric, campaign promises, sales pitches, etc.--however seriously intended or reasonable--are not strategies. Strategies are how we can concretely get from where we are to where we want to be. Those who can't clearly identify a mechanism for change, can't offer a real strategy for how to use that mechanism. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Can Bernie Sanders Make the Democratic Party a Democratic Party? | The Indypendent
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. * On 2/26/2020 1:03 PM, Mark Lause via Marxism wrote: ... The former suggests something for which nobody . . . NOBODY . . . has ever been able to identify a means and a strategy. I have a recollection from when I worked at the Institute for Policy Studies in 1988, that Robert Borosage did have such a strategy, and for awhile (about this time into the 1988 primaries) there was a sense it could be accomplished by Jesse Jackson. As is the case now, the central question posed - e.g. by another Jackson advisor, Vicente Navarro - was whether single-payer health insurance was the sort of issue that would break the oligarchs' and neoliberals' hold. I'm sure in places like /Monthly Review /you could find this argument from 1988. Cheers, Patrick _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Can Bernie Sanders Make the Democratic Party a Democratic Party? | The Indypendent
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. * Positing a remaking of the Democratic Party is not the same as suggesting a vote for this or that candidate, which might be worth discussing. The former suggests something for which nobody . . . NOBODY . . . has ever been able to identify a means and a strategy. There exists no mechanism for citizens to remake the party. Those who talk about an "inside-outside strategy" don't really have either, but they can't even pretend to be "inside" of it. The Democratic party has no members among the citizenry, just voters . . . or, most accurately, consumers. It has no membership meetings, but merely mass consumer satisfaction surveys. Turn on the TV and take a serious gander at the selection process in these parodies of "debate." (Bloomberg wasn't wrong when he referred to himself and other Democratic contenders as "contestants.") It is a mechanism for frustrating anyone expecting a clear discussion of conflicting policies, much less underlying ideas and values. It is exactly what it looks like: a process for corporate capitalism to select a spokesman deemed to be the most likeable and credible. The local TV station is auditioning for who we'd like to see on the air as the next weatherman, but is that even a tiny step towards the kind of democracy we need to build is one that gets us control over the factors effecting the stability of the climate? Can we move towards a more environmentally friendly mode of transportation by choosing between which fossil-fuel based machine you want to buy? If I am mistaken in this thinking, I would ask anyone who wants to remake the Democratic Party to identify the mechanism for doing this? You have to do that before we can begin to discuss a strategy. Cheers, Mark L. PS: None of this is not to say that the Left has done well pursuing an independent course, but that's a different set of questions. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Can Bernie Sanders Make the Democratic Party a Democratic Party? | The Indypendent
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 short answer is "NO". Just as Corbyn failed to make the British Labour Party a democratic party Sanders will fail at any attempt to democractise the Democrats. That is not to say though that there are not real positives around his campaign. comradely Gary On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 10:55 AM Louis Proyect 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. > * > > Ex-ISOer Danny Katch joins Todd Chretien, Paul Le Blanc, > Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Alan Maass, and Paul Heideman in a Road to > Damascus conversion to the Democratic Party. > > > https://indypendent.org/2020/02/can-bernie-sanders-make-the-democratic-party-a-democratic-party/ > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com > _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
