Re: [Marxism] What to do about Obama's sellout
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hi Carrol Hope all is well with you comrade. A few friendly questions: When did it last take courage to be loyal to capitalism? My guess is sometime in the 17th Century - no? You are correct as far as I can see about the longevity and enduring nature of Obama's loyalty to capitalism. So it is formally wrong to accuse him of selling out. But why the stench of betrayal, and treachery that hangs upon his every word? Why the sense of shame and embarrassment one increasingly feels at the sight of his very face? Something has been sold out. Could it be the hope of a better world (change we can believe in) that he so carefully cultivated? comradely regards Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do about Obama's sellout
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What to do about Obama's sellout You can't sell out what you have never been part of. This question is bizarre. Obama has made it clear from his first day in politics that his loyalty was to capitalism. He has pursued that loyalty with intelligence, vigor, and courage. He has never "sold out" capitalism. Carrol Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do about Obama's sellout
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I hope you sent this to the list. I thought your analyses reminded me of the days I distributed the People's Tribune and i credit their center with the best theoretical ed group study ive enjoyed I taught from the big blue intro at u of ala til Reagan. I don't spend as much time as I used to a cp comrade once said, organizing among workers who belong to unions to take the most progressive step the people can take at the time". Actually the comrade who said that Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net On Dec 8, 2010, at 2:36 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > > >>> What progressives need to do about Obama's sellout > > What you think is a progressive program for change was only an attempt to > head off real change during the Great Depression. > > After the stunning insult by the Messiah, no doubt progressives are feeling > a bit bewildered and frustrated. There is an easy answer for this: Admit > you are wrong and get it right this time. You are still immersed in the > make-believe world of the 1930s, but life has moved on. > > The GOP and the Democratic Party mainstream are kicking your butt because > they have dumped all their baggage from that period.<< > > > Reply > > Obama is not the Messiah and those voting for him did not understand him as > such. Really. > > Obama's "sell out" means he campaigned on a program of relief to the > American people and to use government as a solution to economic crisis. The > voting section of the American people voted for Obama because they believed > he > was a better choice than McCain and relief was possible and it is. > > The system cannot be fixed, but if the working class understood such we > would not have to have this conversation. In fact the workers would already > be > class conscious and we would be in the first stage of economic/political > communism. The question posed is "the art of the agitation" and where you > choose to engage people in your various contact points. For propaganda and > agitation I use a communist press, communist pamphlets and books in my daily > life activity, rather than confine myself or make on line chat - (important > for ones individual growth), my main political contribution. I suggest > using the Peoples Tribune and Rally Comrades, but you might like other > communist newspapers. I use these because they are not sectarian. > > > II. > > Organize real people is the answer to confront Obama's sellouts. One must > met people as individuals "at their current level of understanding." Join a > group fighting for a single payer health care system or working within the > electoral arena pushing government to make specific concessions to the > working class masses. Screaming about the ills of capital and how all minion > of > the ruling class work for the system will get you no where in a union > meeting, health care forum or demonstration against the local energy > provider. > Teaching people how to fight and understand what they are fighting for is > the art of agitation. Endless pontification about the Democrats being the > party of slaveholder is not agitation or even communist propaganda when it > is > devoid of sharing the experience of striving and fighting together. Get > popular communist literature into their hands, even if it means writing it > yourself. > > I do not confuse agitation, which means engagement and sharing the > experience of striving and fighting together for something as group activity > pressuring government or an employer, with propaganda. Both intermingle but > are > not the same. Propaganda is the role of the communist communist literature > and study circles. > > III. > > I agree, the epoch - (and I do not know what is hard to understand in the > word "epoch") of industrialism, industrial organization of labor, > industrial time frames, industrial models of social life and industrial > everything, as it arose out of manufacture and heavy manufacturing as a > system, and > took shape; specifically the electro-mechanical process as foundation and > cutting edge of the technology regime, is long gone and has given way to a > post industrial revolution. > > Society is undergoing an evolutionary leap from one mode of production to > another based on a post industrial revolution in the means of production. > What inaugurates the leap is revolution in the means of production rather > than political revolution as the so-call
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_a_New_Workers'_Party where that project was at in 2004/2005 Mark Lause wrote: > What is "the embryo of a campaign"? > > Is there a Bullshit Brain Trust somewhere making up these new terms? > Because, if there is, I think I'd like to work there. I can come up > with some really funny and meaningless words myself.. > > ML > > > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/bhaskar.sunkara%40gmail.com > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
martin writes: > On Sep 7, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > >> The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the >> organization you're advocating. > > Does this thread ever resolve the question? Too early to tell. ;) -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
What is "the embryo of a campaign"? Is there a Bullshit Brain Trust somewhere making up these new terms? Because, if there is, I think I'd like to work there. I can come up with some really funny and meaningless words myself.. ML YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
On Sep 8, 2009, at 6:33 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Sounds almost impossible. At > the very least we need the embryo of a campaign for something like > this. One day :) We need Pogo. (perhaps 'we are the embryo') martin YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
Of course not. But I don't think I got any objections to the broad ideas I laid out (regurgitating the ideas of others of course). How to get those building micro-sects or pallin' around with BHO to get together and agree to a common program? Sounds almost impossible. At the very least we need the embryo of a campaign for something like this. One day :) martin wrote: > On Sep 7, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > > >> The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the >> organization you're advocating. >> > > Does this thread ever resolve the question? > > martin > > > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/bhaskar.sunkara%40gmail.com > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
On Sep 7, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the > organization you're advocating. Does this thread ever resolve the question? martin YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
Good for you, then. My mistake on 2008. The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the organization you're advocating. ML YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do?
To activists in the US it should be painfully obvious to them that there is no hope for coalition building. It is either the Democrats or something outside of power. I don't understand all the talk about die Linke etc. It is kind of a waste of time. There will never be a coalition govenment between the left and center in the US. This has its negative and positive attributes but we need not spill a bunch of ink discussing why parlamentary coalitions fail. The negative of this is that good activists get pulled foolishly into the Democratic party only to be beaten down. As the old saying goes "the Democratic party is where social movements go to die". Hopefully the very recent past will convince most that this is no road for us to take. The positive attributes of the deformed politics of the US is that a true workers party could theoretically build a movement without having to govern and thereby avoid the pitfalls of bourgeois democracy. Now, such a party has not materialized but it could and it offers the best hope in the US IMO. It is this specificity of US politics which opens up the possiblity to transcend the old debate and to create the oppurtunity to do both party type organizing and the 'patient' strategy, that one of the articles Bhuskar posted puts forward, within one mass movement. Brad YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts]
Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > The same could be said of the Greens, except that primary campaign would > be irrelevant. The Greens are dead, mostly the result of tail-ending the Democrats. > > But what is the Democratic Party? Certainly it's largely neoliberal, > bourgeois to > say the least-- perhaps the world's second most enthusiastic major > capitalist party. > But is there not open primaries? Can a party without dues and with open > primaries even be called a party? Btw, you need to clean up your email. These "stepladder" effects are strictly verboten. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts]
The same could be said of the Greens, except that primary campaign would be irrelevant. But what is the Democratic Party? Certainly it's largely neoliberal, bourgeois to say the least-- perhaps the world's second most enthusiastic major capitalist party. But is there not open primaries? Can a party without dues and with open primaries even be called a party? Such an electoral campaign would be important logical step at some point. An open, democratic, Marxist organization is obviously the more important and immediate task. Not that creating a viable party of opposition is *likely* to work, but I don't see how it's *possible* through the tactics that have been dominate on the American left. Louis Proyect: Anybody who runs as a Democrat is unlikely to have "openly Marxist" views. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts]
Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Maybe it's the naivety of youth, but I don't see why such an organization > couldn't openly run candidates in Democratic primaries on an openly > Marxist, oppositional platform for the sake of not a fantasy to "transform" > or "push the Democrats left", but to reach out to progressive forces that > are unfortunately held up in the Democratic camp? (Whether we like it or > not they are there.) Anybody who runs as a Democrat is unlikely to have "openly Marxist" views. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts]
I honestly don't think that our energies should be put toward electoral efforts by third parties. But there is no doubt that in the long-term a "party of the working class" is an absolutely necessity. Now I'm largely paraphrasing Larhs Lih and Mike Macnair, but such a party would need to be both a vanguard and a mass party. Kautsky (somewhat infamously) stated the need of the vanguard of the working class and intellectuals to bring the "good news" of socialism to workers, a mass party at the same time, because the party of the working class should be democratic, open and must clearly articulate its real platform (no modern Trotskyist hide-behind-a-front-group nonsense). The early SPD, which Lenin adapted to Russian circumstances (extreme state repression, illegality) modeled and the Bolsheviks around, pioneered rallies, petitions, all things we take for granted this adapted to the 21st century is an excellent model. In addition to simple trade unions, workers' clubs, community organizations, where all created on an openly working class, socialist basis. The Black Panther Party's efforts (free breakfasts, community centers, etc) is a more contemporary example of something similar to this. Basically it would take a mass workers' movement, combined with the "merger" of the socialist goal with a large chunk of that movement to build a principled *party of opposition* (one that does not aspire to ever manage the capitalist state or enter into coalition with capitalist forces). I don't think there is much hope in Green Party or Labor Party venture. This isn't even to mention that due to restrictive electoral laws the 3rd party venture is nearly impossible in the United States. For now building the embryo of a broad Marxist organization would be a good start. Maybe it's the naivety of youth, but I don't see why such an organization couldn't openly run candidates in Democratic primaries on an openly Marxist, oppositional platform for the sake of not a fantasy to "transform" or "push the Democrats left", but to reach out to progressive forces that are unfortunately held up in the Democratic camp? (Whether we like it or not they are there.) *recommended:* http://radicalebooks.blogspot.com/2009/07/revolutionary-strategy-by-mike-mcnair.html http://theactivist.org/blog/the-current-relevance-of-an-old-debate http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/index.htm I'm about to start up the BBQ, and I have no time to proof read this. (and I haven't put my contacts in yet.) Apologizes, Bhaskar On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Hunter Gray wrote: > > But, given the obvious dashing of hopes via the Obama administration and > its spectacular downward spiral in conjunction with mounting crises on > virtually every front, this general model, with a social justice > constituency much, much broader than Labor alone, might now serve as a > meaningful approach. If it can develop and maintain some genuinely > visionary radical positions and, somehow, overcome the oft lack of > inter-union solidarity, endemic Leftist bickering, the problem of some > liberal timidity, ego trips -- and other obstacles including co-opting > efforts by the Democratic "establishment," it just might emerge as a potent, > highly constructive force. 'Way down the pike, who knows what could develop > from it in a realistic third-party sense? > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts]
This is geared toward a discussion of sorts on RBB. And it isn't my Labor day -- but it'll do as a handle for this: Most of us are aware that third party efforts in this country, since the days of Debs and the pre-WW1 Socialist Party, have borne no fruit in the sense of really mass support. They have, in many cases, generated creative ideas and their activists have often been important forces in building constructive dissent and, in the case of the Left, achieving many significant victories in many grassroots social justice pursuits. They do provide alternatives for those who, in good conscience, cannot support either of the two major parties. But, bluntly, they haven't gotten to first base in meaningful political victories and achieving -- for better or worse, depending on the nature of the particular party -- systemic change. And, lately, they've just been very minor shadows. [Individual members continue to make activist contributions.] In 1991, a number of labor activists, including the late Tony Mazzocchi, Secretary-Treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union [now called PACE and tied, at least somewhat, to the Steelworkers union -- launched Labor Party Advocates. Though some long range hopes focused vaguely on a third party, the organization -- supported by some international unions, a range of local unions, and individuals [I was a member for years] -- saw its immediate role as hard-hitting advocacy, with an especial focus on the Democratic Party. But, in the end, a paucity of real solidarity in the union world and the corrosive effects of superficial Clinton "reforms" saw Labor Party Advocates fail to catch real fire, and it gradually faded. But, given the obvious dashing of hopes via the Obama administration and its spectacular downward spiral in conjunction with mounting crises on virtually every front, this general model, with a social justice constituency much, much broader than Labor alone, might now serve as a meaningful approach. If it can develop and maintain some genuinely visionary radical positions and, somehow, overcome the oft lack of inter-union solidarity, endemic Leftist bickering, the problem of some liberal timidity, ego trips -- and other obstacles including co-opting efforts by the Democratic "establishment," it just might emerge as a potent, highly constructive force. 'Way down the pike, who knows what could develop from it in a realistic third-party sense? Solidarity, Hunter [Hunter Bear] HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm [The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm See Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer: http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm [Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009] And see Personal Narrative: http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
