There are several issues being discussed here. 1. Is it appropriate for Marxists to support the largest imperialist party in the world. 2. Is it appropriate for us to give that party advice? 3. What is the source of the crisis in the two party system? 3. JR's slanders.
I think it is a sad fact that a very large proportion of those who consider themselves Marxists in the United States of America are in the Democratic Party. For that reason, we must consider this an appropriate topic to discuss. Why they are there is a very interesting topic, and may even be the most important political issue we can discuss. They are in the Democratic Party because they support the current Constitutional two party regime in the United States. Why do they support it? Because they think it allows for struggles which can win changes. Women and black people have won the right to vote, unions are now legal, and capitalism is regulated (more or less). Moreover, the last time the regime was changed, it was the result of a devastating civil war. Of course, a mass reformist socialist and working class party is a theoretical possibility within the current regime, but it is not a real possibility. The Constitution plus the election laws, plus the entire supporting cast of the state including the bourgeois press and the two imperialist parties, guarantee that it is not a real possibility. Formation of such a party, which would be a practical possibility if the reformist socialists wanted to do it today, would cause an irreparable crisis of the regime even greater than that of 1860. Of course, revolutionaries, the minority among Marxists on this list, in the United States, and globally, SHOULD not be in the business of giving advice to imperialist political parties about how to win elections. Mark B. is correct about this. Nevertheless, we should discuss the advice that reformists are giving the imperialists. Kamala Harris certainly would be more likely to win the elections than Biden is, and any number of Democratic Party politicians would, too. But would they change Biden's reactionary support for Israel's genocidal war against Palestine? Would they change his horrific immigration policy, borrowed almost whole cloth from Trump? What about Biden's oil and environmental policies? I think the source of the crisis is deep within the system. The constitutional regime is two hundred years old. It was designed to do several things: mobilize poor white men to help crush the indigenous people of North America, protect the system of slavery and keep the enslaved enslaved, and fight against other imperial states whenever the merchants and slaveowners considered it necessary. It was never democratic, but to the extent that Democratic rights were included within its system of checks and balances, it was always within those limits. Democratic rights were expanded, thanks to the struggles of black people who had been enslaved, to the struggles of women, to the struggles of organized labor., and most recently to the great upheaval of the 1960's centered in the ghetto rebellions and the resistance of youth to US imperialism's war against Vietnam. Those democratic changes have become incompatible with the needs of the ruling class which has split in two on the issue. One faction wants to preserve and protect the two party regime, but adjust it to make it work better for capitalist imperialism. It is cognizant of its need to maintain military superiority around the world, and therefore of its necessity to be able to mobilize the masses for big and small wars. That faction resides in the Democratic Party alongside of the reformist left. it is current led by Joe Biden. The other faction wants a much more complete makeover. They want to replace all of the government regulatory agencies with the courts, with the final say being in the hands of the Supreme Court. In fact, they have already accomplished this goal in theory by way of the Chevron decision. They want to radically increase the already substantial power of the president. In fact they have already done this by giving the president immunity from prosecution. They want to eliminate or reduce democratic rights from the right of a woman to control her own body to the right to vote. In fact, they have already done some of this. This faction resides in the Republican Party. We have to defend democratic rights, but we do not have to defend the capitalist state or its two parties to do so. Women did not win the right to vote by voting, and neither did black people. Slaves did not win their freedom through the ballot box, they won it through struggle up to and including civil war. JR's slanders have usually been calculated to stay on this list. He does owe Mark B. an apology. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31004): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31004 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/106994799/21656 -=-=- 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. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
