Shane writes:
So there is a "fascist" menace in America comparable, even in the
slightest, to Hitler in 1931? And Obama leads a "working class party?" Come on! ====================================== There is no fascist menace in America comparable, even in the slightest, to Hitler in 1931, and I've consistently argued against those who have suggested as such on this and other lists. There is, however, a large contingent of non-fascist right-wing reactionaries within the ruling and working classes who have energetically mobilized to block reforms demanded by the left, and I think Julio is right in proposing the left should not stand aloof from these struggles - particularly when they are today the only social struggles being waged, the socialist movement effectively having disappeared from the historical stage.
I also agree that Obama leads a bourgeois liberal party, not a working class one, as we understand the distinction. Whether to include bourgeois liberal parties in coalitions against the right or to organize independently of the liberals was a controversial subject within the workers' movement, with Trotskyists like yourself the most prominent exponents of the latter position. But even the Trotskyists, as I recall, never suggested that the workers', while organizing independently of the liberal parties, should concentrate their attacks on the leaders of those parties rather than participating in a common defence against reactionary mobs or armies - a notion which you introduced into the discussion and which makes little sense to me. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
