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"But that Sanders poses as a socialist and projects a sort of crude and erratic
class divide -- in the context of the US Presidential Game Show : that has
to be very significant. That has to be a plus because, despite what ever his
preferences, Sanders unleashes and inspires forces that may later find him,and
his party allegiance, wanting. What happens 'if'/when he backs Clinton? Where
does that momentum and frustration go? It won't default to a bunch of wannabe
'we-told-you-so' outfits who did not go through the Sanders experience with
them. It will instead be demoralised. And the promise fades because the 'real'
socialists could not harness it."
I would say, Dave, that your points are really an argument that would give many
leftists in the U.S. a justification to support Sanders, much like a similar
argument made it palatable for otherwise skeptical people of color--and some
leftists--to support Obama in 2008 (and only less so in 2012). I believe that
what is remarkable about this "up-ante'd" posing of a "socialist" running for
a capitalist party is NOT that it "unleashes and inspires forces that may later
find him . . . wanting" (THAT is the trap), but the reason behind this event;
namely that the economic crisis created by the capitalists and the political
bankruptcy of their TWIN parties has resulted in growing disaffection with
capitalism and openness (openly so) to ideas that are both truly socialist and
the phony "socialism" propounded by Sanders and, now, some of those "wannabe"
outfits trying to ride the coattails of this "Sanders experience".
It is indeed remarkable that there are more people looking to socialist ideas.
But that yearning for socialist ideas is an argument actually to BE socialist,
to Explain socialism for what it truly IS and for veritable socialists engage
larger numbers of interested youth and the oppressed that "crude and erratic
class divide" by showing WHERE that divide actually is, between the interests
of the working and oppressed masses and that of the liberal wing of the ruling
classes on the one hand and, as well, against the pessimism and frustration
emanating from the disaffected privileged and reactionary elements among the
classes that represent the fascist alternative.
Now is the time to be clear ("patiently explain") about the lessons and
devastating results inherent in what has up to now only been an esoteric notion
(for the masses) of "lesser-evil politics". Now is the time to present truly
anti-capitalist, "socialist", or independent-of-the-capitalist-parties
alternative to the Twin Pillars of Continued War, Repression, Environmental
Devastation, and Economic Disaster that are the Democratic and Republican
Parties. Supporting a (supposed) radical to "build a people's movement" within
the capitalist parties is exactly the wrong thing to do and does nothing to
"unleash and inspire" social forces that have already become inspired and
already at least partially unleashed by their/our own reaction to the ongoing
capitalist drive toward barbarism. It is not Sanders that unleashing or
inspiring anything, but only reflecting the very real potential for actually
building a "people's movement" and "political revolution" against the
capitalist parties an
d their failed policies. Indeed, the liberal capitalists may not have seen
the potential for drawing the masses back into their lesser-evil trap, but it
is plainly clear that supporting that attraction is likely a great opportunity
for creating that very "demoralisation" that would come of the Sanders campaign
and--to be very clear--even his potential victory if it comes to that!
A Sanders presidency would do the same for all the working masses that the
Obama victory did for the Black and Brown communities, a descendant spiral into
continued and acquiescent misery at the hands of our murderous rulers with a
"socialist" at the helm. Rather than building momentum for change we would see
more economic devastation, more suppression of democratic rights, and continued
war and militarization of communities with effect that even "radicals" would be
giving such outcomes their tacit endorsement at worst or weakened credibility
in trying to counter it at best. The masses may actually learn from such an
experience, but they will be doing so with an even more moribund
"revolutionary" current flailing away in the wake of the demoralising "flood"
that entrapped the "socialists" to bring Sanders to power. And, such an outcome
would be the result of a "victory" and not the more likely "defeat" of the
Sanders campaign to run capitalism for the capitalists.
Revolutionaries must be MORE than Marxists today, We Must Be Intransigent
Defenders of the "FAITH"; Faith in the masses to learn from the experience of
lesser evilism, faith in the ever-growing realisation that it is THEY/WE who
must put destiny on OUR shoulders and not yet another snake-oil salesman
masquerading as "socialist" messiah. And revolutionaries must renew our faith
in the masses, especially the true working class--all those Black, Brown,
Women, and Youth--struggling to work, live, not die at the hands of a failed
healthcare system, and not be made ignorant by a failed system of education
that seeks to falsify our intelligence. We actual socialists can make a
difference, right now. We must pass the test of our own faith, our own true
belief that a capitalist representative is a capitalist representative is a
capitalist representative regardless his purported and phony marker as
"socialist".
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