Into Election Mudslides or Revolutionary Pole At a Distance
Posted by Mike E on October 29, 2010
Covered by a mudslide
Nando’s first post “They Expect Us to Eat Shit” was engaged by Tellnolies (TNL) in a detailed comment. Here is Nando’s reply.
“How many times do we hear that the vote for Congress is a “referendum on Obama”? Why can’t we say: No, it is a referendum on Afghanistan, on Guantanamo, on the last 100 ICE raids, on the payoff of the Banks, on the official opposition to gay marriage, on the federal insistence on prosecuting marijuana in California?
“Why isn’t this election a referendum on the FBI raids on antiwar activists in the Midwest? Why can’t we say that, in a thousand discussions that we here are collectively involved in? And why do you believe that only the “already convinced” will hear us?”
by Nando Sims
TNL writes:
“What makes Kasama so valuable is that it is a place where ideas — theory, strategy, analysis — get argued out in a more serious way than elsewhere on the left, that it demands more of revolutionaries than indignation.”
There is, as several people point out, a burning question about what, precisely and collectively, radical people should do. Yes. But there is a somewhat separate debate over whether to be radical at all. We don’t have to fully answer that first question to weighing in on the second one.
Pointing out that we live in an empire that is savaging the world is not mere “indignation,” it is an important insight of theory and analysis, and a key starting point precisely for strategy.
And what we face, over and over, is a call for electoral tactics without revolutionary strategy. In other words, we are to act like any other “disaffected” group — lend our support and make our demands on the Democratic Party, as they (a ruling class party) make their governmental policies.
Opposing that is not mere “indignation” — but doesn’t it deserve indignation, when we can list outrages and brutalities of our time (abuse of immigrants, multiple colonial wars, unleashed covert ops, shameless CIA prisons, foreclosure of the people and rescue of the banks, ceding the Oil Spill henhouse to the BP fox….) and point out that this was called “Change you can believe in“?
If Kasama is a place for “ideas — theory, strategy, analysis” — shouldn’t we also take a moment to put words and agitational models at the disposal of readers who are arguing over this day after day, right now? Aren’t those ideas too?
And if you don’t like my agitational model, why not propose another one?
TNL writes:
“I agree with the view that our task is to take the little we have and to use it to build a revolutionary movement. I am in agreement that we can’t allow bi-annual election cycles and the attendant panics about their results to distract us from this critical task.”
That is an important agreement — with implications. The opening days of a new movement needs “thisness” on display. It is the time for basics, and the gathering of forces attracted by those basics.
There are times (as movements succeed) where there are nuances and compromises at the edges, or in the act. But you can’t build a new movement on the tactics of endless self-dispersal.
TNL writes:
“I agree that the rise of a revolutionary left is likely to be accompanied by a resurgence of the racist right. It does not follow however that the resurgence of the racist right will generate a revival of revolutionary forces. And thats why the suggestion that it doesn’t matter sounds hollow to people. Tea Party victories will mean more SB1070s and the like. Might that spark a counter-offensive? Sure, but most likely in the form of a re-energized push to elect Dems in 2012. And round and round we go.
Here is my core argument:
1) There are some moments in history (relatively rare, highly exceptional ones) where a revolutionary movement may want to focus on blocking the decisive power grab by a deathsquad coalition. Hitler was such a rolling deathsquad, and the communists in 1933 Germany might have benefited by having a few more years of maneuver room to make their own grab.
2) But most countries have a semi-permanent growling rightwing chorus — that wanders in and out of influence without directly contending for overal power– and we cannot make their mere existence and obvious ugliness become a semi-permanent argument for cowering behind the liberals.
The issue seen by pro-Obama progressives
The plans made by “Progresssives for Obama” are not for alliance with the liberal grassroots (which we all support), they are for subordination to the liberal ruling class.
They are a recipe for an indentured servitude (to be regularly renewed). And they are promoted (year after year) by the same tricks we should make everyone familiar with (exaggeration of the Right, disappearing of the liberal crimes, announcement of urgent-urgent-urgent short term legislation, illusions about left pressure on the system, underestimating how their strategy weakens any radical left…)
3) If you don’t have real forces to throw into a fray, it is unwise to train your embryonic core forces in dispersal and kow-towing.
Yes, someday, a growling left might adopt subtle tactics (serving its own advancement!) in some future bourgeois electoral season. But even seeing the Obama vote as a “referendum on white supremacy” (which was one sliver of the situation) didn’t require dispersing our own core forces into their electoral door-to-door efforts (which could not possibly be done under our independent banners, with our politics, in a way that didn’t set people up for Obama blues.)
4) Carl asked not long ago “what should we have done then” in the electoral season — as if we are required (at this point, and at every point) to participate somehow, right now, in every political event.
In fact, all my political life, the periodic bourgeois electoral seasons have been a time when radical openings have been (temporarily but almost completely) covered over by a thick sudden mudslide of bourgeois politics. We (the largest left we) have tried (in a dozen different ways) to rise above that muck — to call for boycott, by running communist candidates, by participating in third parties, by running anti-candidates, by trying to time militant mass movement actions in the midst of electioneering) — and the truth is that the two party juggernaut has simply held the stage for those months, and reduced everything else to the shadows.
I actually don’t think we need to attempt to grab some spotlight at those moments when it is least advantageous for independent politics. Because, realistically speaking, even the most favorable and radical sections of the people are (temporarily at least) just not able to hear anything but the lesser evil argument.
The very least we have to do is make it clear, to ourselves and those with half-an-ear, why we communists cannot legitimized the Democratic Party — why even its McGoverns or Obamas in power will be the directors of war machinery and great crimes.
Bourgeois politics runs the people through years of utter passivity and weeks of intense indoctrination. And our communist political busy-seasons are a kind of anti-schedule to that. AT LEAST, until that day where we have gathered a critical mass with enough gravity to warp and intrude during their main electoral events.
Out of Normal White Noise: The Making of a Profound Political Divergence
TNL writes:
“There is an element here of know-nothingism in relation to what happens in the electoral arena that is frankly maddening. The “mutual exposure filling the airwaves” is not going to disrupt “this system’s hypnotic daily buzz.” Rather it is part of the buzz. If we want exposure, we need to do it and not in a half-cocked way.”
I want to take some time to think through what you are raising. But let me start by breaking down my own initial views.
It is not true that bourgeois collisions are always self-healing. Certainly their intentions are to contain popular thoughts — but often the people are dragged into motion by larger events and clashes (within the system) and then find themselves unwilling to remain contained.
Radical and revolutionary movements are built upon “profound political divergences” (Lenin’s term), that emerge (objectively) from within the preexisting stabilities, but which are restless and deeply disruptive.
People sometimes get pulled out of their mooring — and they are, in large numbers, up for grabs and potentially dangerous to the system. Black youth in 1968, for example. The working class in Germinale France. Demobilized soldiers of Russia’s World War 1 cities. The gutter wiseguys of Weimar Germany.
Let me give one current example (among many possible historical ones):
An Unfinished Road Ahead of the Undocumented
Capitalism has pulled tens of millions of people out of Mexico and Central America — and profitably exploited them (at the edges of survival), in part by keeping them illegal. At the level of enterprises it is brilliantly profitable. At the level of society, it is highly disruptive. At the level of the people, it is insufferable.
At one point, it was bourgeois politics that drew millions of undocumented workers into movement. It was the Catholic Church that organized many of the first May Day marches. It was local DJs (often for progressive motives, sometimes with city politicians involved) who reached out to the multitudes. There were trade union operatives (in part acting as Democratic Party ward workers) who saw votes and office at the end of the process. But the workers themselves (and their children) responded because they were at the point of wanting an end to the outrages.
The waters are stirred by forces beyond us
But having conjured this up (like the Sorceror’s Apprentice), these same forces have a great deal of trouble stuffing it all into the bag labeled “comprehensive immigrant reform.” Any “reform” that can pass congress threatens to be so odious and military that few on the street will see it as a reform. The one place the Democrats and Republicans agree is the escalating roundups and border militarization — and they are exposed by their mutual rhetoric to the many who are watching. Even the Dream Act gets shot in the ribs — while the two parties compete over who is the most intolerant of “law breaking.”
When people are awakened, when they have a particular faultline grievance they are pursuing, there are times when the “mutual exposure filling the airwaves” (and the very terms of it) are startling and instructive. Sometimes it is like hearing your kidnappers debate where to dispose of your body.
I’m saying, luckily, the exposures that tear at the “buzz” do not (as you say) always have to start from us. Sometimes there is a “Pentagon Papers,” or a Watergate scandal, or the hypocrisies of a Minnesota bathroom, or a Republican Constitutionalist unfamiliar with the First Amendment, or an Obama escalating the second war, or a Kent state massacre — and our work is to build upon the self-exposure that their workings have done.
Rebel Mexican workers at a massive Catholic service, North Carolina
We cannot, and will not, garner a radical upsurge by “building one” (day by day, neighborhood by neighborhood, through “kleinarbeit” the invisible micro-organizing over micro-issues). We need to organize (and jump start a serious work of revolutionary organizing), but it needs to be the organizing of radical disaffection as it emerges out of the buzz of normalcy. That can’t be done by just each getting a job at your local factory and organizing a union there, or by becoming part of a local Democratic ward and uniting with people’s fears of Sarah Palin.
TNL writes:
“Rants about the criminality of the imperialist Dems are not serious exposure. They get a rise from the already convinced and an eye-roll from the rest.”
I don’t agree — because in your scenario there is no middle ground to address, no waverers, no confused people, no one in motion. There is simply “the already convinced” and the “never gonna be convinced.”
But i see a different terrain.
I see a left that is locked in an utterly social democratic strategy that many have simply breathed in from the surrounding air. There is an assumed (and often unarticulated) strategy of being the “left wing of the possible” pending some future day when something else becomes possible.
And this is quite simply the logic of bourgeois Democratic Party politics (and its appeal to its “left constituency.”)
Many of “the rest” are not hearing any politics beyond how to use Cuomo to prevent Paldino (which is precisely the talking points of the Democrats). And we can speak to them, especially if we do so in an organized way. (“Unite the advanced to influence the intermediate and isolate the backward” — in this case, within the radical circles themselves)
If This is a Referendum I Choose “No”
How many times do we hear that the vote for Congress is a “referendum on Obama”?
Why can’t we say: No, it is a referendum on Afghanistan, on Guantanamo, on the last 100 ICE raids, on the payoff of the Banks, on the official opposition to gay marriage, on the federal insistence on prosecuting marijuana in California?
Why isn’t this election a referendum on the FBI raids on FRSO (FB) in the Midwest?
Why can’t we say that? And why do you believe that only the “already convinced” would hear us?
If you want an antiwar movement, and its core rally behind the party of door-kicking Eric Holder, what chances of an antiwar movement do you have? Can’t we make that argument (including to the antiwar movement itself)? Why not?
And if our forces (however big or small they are) spend this month fixated on Paladino, or that anti-wackjob mini-Sarah in Delaware, or (gawd) saving Harry-fucking-Reid…. What happens if Israel and the U.S. attack Iran at Christmas?
Do we comfort ourselves saying, “At least Rand Paul doesn’t speak for Kentucky.”
Is Our Politics-At-Distance Born Exhausted?
TNL writes:
“They are in this sense not qualitatively different from the waving of the Tea Party voodoo doll in our faces. They are just as trapped in an exhausted discourse as Fletcher’s piece, even if they tell a couple additional truths.”
Perhaps, my discourse is an exhausted one, and i don’t know it yet. I’m open to be instructed and corrected.
But (pending that) I think think this discourse can be biting and effective — precisely now when people’s hopes have been so crudely betrayed. Gay people. Immigrants. The antiwar forces who supported Obama (above all, from the beginning!) because only he was sure to end the wars and Guantanamo. Black kids who just wanted a moment of respect. Can’t we speak to that?
Isn’t that why any classic con man has to shift focus (hoping the crowd doesn’t notice). “Forget my arguments from yesterday, here are my arguments for today.”
There are ways (as I said above) that speaking in the last days of any national election is shouting in a wind tunnel – it is hard to be heard (at least under the current conditions, amid multi-million dollar mind-numbing attack ads).
But it is not impossible — because each of us lives and works surrounded by progressive and radical people who are utterly confused at this moment.
But even if we were just “talking to ourselves” (assuming for the moment that was literally true), there is value in being clear if only to ourselves — because it is always true, that being revolutionary is always a controversial stand within a revolutionary movement, just as being truly against the war remains a controversial stand within the antiwar movement.
That is the nature of it, it is always a fight against the dominant logic — including within our own gathered forces.
The Split Republicans and the Angry Old Whiteman
TNL writes:
“What we need is a serious revolutionary analysis of what the rise of the Tea Party actually represents, how it changes the terrain and what that means for those of us looking for a solution outside this system. To suggest that its rise is just part of the ebb and flow of normal politics in the U.S. is to abdicate this responsibility.”
Of course we need an analysis of this rise — including because so many people just see it as a revitalization of the Republicans (rather than an important split among them).
The Democratic Party is congenitally split between the left-progressive grassroots base and its imperialist center. But the Republican Right has seen a string of Republican presidents who did not end abortion, who did not radically cut social programs, who did not launch a crusade for a monoculture white Christian America.
The fact is that the far right has a hard core base, and is hated by a majority when they show their ugly faces. It is both an engine of reserve of oppression, and a disruptor of their stable administration. (Thought experiment: If David Duke had succeeded in his 1989 race for governor of Louisiana, would it simply have produced a widened fascist penumbra….or….)
It has always been clear that if you take ten million American homeowners to the brink of bankruptcy — the political fallout would be wholesale madness. Among those obviously-diverse millions, the process suddenly drags some of the most self-absorbed, informed and mean-spirited people (blinking and angry) into the public arena. And no one should be surprised that the first force to get some organization out of this is a bellowing “what about me!” white Americanism.
“What happens to a dream deferred?” Well, if it is the mainstream American dream of white suburbanites, it produces the Tea Party.
TNL writes:
“This system is in serious trouble. The financial crisis has not been resolved. The exposure of wholesale fraud in the mortgage industry threatens to push the whole thing back off the cliff. The climate crisis is deepening. The war in Afghanistan is going south for the US. Obama was elected in large part because the system needed him to shore up its legitimacy among huge sections of the populace that were becoming potentially restive. He has in many respects accomplished this, at least domestically, at least so far”
I agree they are in serious trouble. And I don’t agree that they have “shored up” anything. I think that rarely have these parties and these figures been so generally discredited. And the efforts of leftists to actively restore minimum credibility and support (to the Democrats among their own base) is exactly wrong.
TNL writes:
There is a sense in which Fletcher is correct that the real failure has not been of Obama but of the popular social forces that rallied to elect him to remain mobilized after the elections. Of course Obama’s mission from day one was precisely to prevent that from occurring, to lower the expectations that he raised and to convince people to be content with the symbolic dimensions and occasional minor reforms. In this sense Obama’s presidency has been a big success.
Yes, the “popular social forces” were never going to maintain independent social mobilization, precisely because it was all done (tightly tightly tightly) under the control of the Democratic Party, and without the existence of any defiantly-radical self-consciously independent program or structure. That is the history of the Jesse Jackson presidential campaigns (which was not a high point but a sad low point of the Left). The entry into the Democratic Party has been the destruction moment of pre-existing left organization — its atomization and recombination (as if a space ship entered a black hole).
“Next time we fly into that black hole, lets try to keep the ship together.”
Sure, let’s just try it again, over and over, forever.
I’m not saying we should “organize a boycott” every election season. You are right that this doesn’t work, and is also not heard (broadly, by the people who would be needed for a real boycott) under present conditions.
I’m just saying we should “decide our duty and do it well” — we should pick our work (which is NOT electoral) and do it, and not be diverted every time the Democrats are in danger of losing the House. And (of course) every election is permanently posed as a life-and-death crisis of liberty (by both sides!) — and we should let the air out of their hype (like we have been letting air out of some communist hype).
Outside, At A Distance
TNL writes:
“What is maddening in Nando’s piece is that it doesn’t really propose anything to achieve that independence either.”
I am fighting for the space for that discussion. but I reject that I have to explain how to maintain “independence” within their electoral framework. At our level of strength and clarity, we cannot. We can only do so on the outside.
I am also arguing that we need to “unite the advanced to win over the intermediate.” Those who want to (over and over) disperse the advanced to “become one with” the intermediate, will never have anything.
We need to focus on those organizing projects that have the potential for uniting radical (i.e. undigestable) currents with potential for future broad influence — i.e. that are speaking to deep oppressions that neither party will (at their heights) be willing to touch.
Slavery was just such a faultline before the first civil war — it was driving everything, but even Lincoln did not dare to call for its abolition when he ran.
I believe the just demands of the undocumented for equality (of language, culture and status) and simple legal amnesty may be one (of several) faultlines for period ahead (and these are, of course, inherently non-voters whose core demands are generally not even acknowledged as just by the Democrats.
I think it is nuts to get worked up by the talking points of the Democrats, that portrays them as a haven of temporary sanity in a storm of bigoted nutbags. If we don’t clearly see who raided the antiwar activists, who bombs Afghanistan funerals, who props up Israel, who is rounding up the immigrants — and only see one sliver (the pig Paladino mumbling that gay people are disgusting) — we are not sharing any full picture of a system.
There may be a coming civil war — certainly the “cultural warriors” of our enemy want to fight for a white Christian capitalist America.
But a communist entry into that contest starts with the creation of a revolutionary pole within that, not hiring ourselves out like Germanic mercenaries to the liberal legions of Rome.
Clarity Through Conflict
TNL writes:
“Our tired arguments over electoralism are driven by the power that the system derives from the electoral process. And until we confront this power seriously, by which I mean seriously analyze and not just denounce, our efforts to build a revolutionary movement will remain impotent.”
These “arguments” are not tiresome to me. I think they need to be reproduced (literally broadcast) a hundred times. I am hoping to model how others (reading this) could be discussing things. Such arguments need to be held with hundreds and thousands of people who are torn — quite radical in their hopes, but undistinguished from liberals in their actions.
The fact that we don’t resolve these arguments here is not a problem (at all, for me), I don’t expect a resolution with (for example) Bill Fletcher or Carl. I just want to create some clarity — so that their forces carry out their line, but we generate some forces who are clear enough to carry out an opposed line.
TNL writes:
“There can be no serious revolutionary movement in the US without a rupture within the Democratic Party. I’ve argued elsewhere that this will require organized activity within the Democratic Party to constitute an explicitly radical anti-capitalist pole and to sharpen always present contradictions between the leadership and the base of the party, as well as outside it. Whether we have the capacity to meaningfully undertake such work right now is a legitimate question, but what we do have the capacity to do at least in a primitive manner, is to seriously analyze what is happening in the electoral arena, not from the essentially liberal perspective that many folks like Fletcher have taken, but from a revolutionary one. The difference between these I maintain is NOT mainly one of whether they justify voting or not, but rather how they draw links between the processes taking place now and the possibilities for revolution.”
This is one of the most important parts of our discussion — and it is (as you note) quite different from what Fletcher proposes.
But let me make an analogy: Revolutionary miltary victory requires that some of the enemy troops “come over” — individuals always defect, but in crucial moments, enemy armies start to crumble and whole units “come over.” It is true, victory doesn’t happen without it.
But the prerequisite for any “coming over” is the pre-existence of a revolutionary pole (that is distinct, self standing, with its own bone and sinew).
Without the sharp contention between two poles no one comes over. The field is not defined and polarized.
We don’t bring over enemy troops by sending our cadre to West Point or boot camp at the beginning. And when the “coming over” starts — there will be plenty of their cadre willing to facilitate it (and go through real transformation themselves).
We don’t shatter the Democrats by becoming Democrats. First we have to become communists of a new reconceived kind, with some clarity, distinctiveness and bite. We have to have “thisness” before we can disperse some of us to swim in the most complicated and murky waters.
RW Harvey said
Nando writes:
This should be the subject of a pamphlet; this is where revolution and psychology begin to mix with alchemical potential. Bravo!
Carl Davidson said
If we didn’t organize on our own platform and didn’t build own own organizations, both different from the Dems, in these electoral efforts, you might have a point. But we do put out our our platform and we do build our own groups, and thus gain strength.
You can boycott or abstain, as you like. I think it’s self-marginalizing to do so, but that’s your business. If you have a better approach building both revolutionary and mass organizations, we’ll learn soon enough. Put up a blog and report yours progress to us. I’m all ears.
annoyed said
[personal attack removed. argue substance.]
Green Red said
On Obama – the president with a half brother in Africa who had another wife added to his “Heram”, and some say had a family relation with previous president vice president empire i only say what a friend – an “Afro American” friend told me.
This Republican had made so much shit that only a Negro can clean it. Positive he does well, it’s his job, negative he does, no resolution for imperialist capitalism crisis, that is all his fault too! bad black nothing close to Martin Luther King or, Malcolm X for that matter.
But regarding having a black as the last Joker in election i can only say that there are women jokers too and I’ll get to that next time i get a chance from work. Just remember this:
Why Rice was Bush’s justifier?
What was progressive for Republican candidate to have a vice president woman and, another woman who did not complain a bit about her husband’s faithlessness in marriage (I wish Anita Hill could slam her face too!)
Why New Alliance Party and Workers World Party had one thing in common in their candidates that was Black Woman?
There are more Aces. Woman, black, Wasn’t Margaret Thacher a woman? Don’t we have a woman in Germany right regime and all that?
Obama is just a collateral damage piece of capitalist system. woman – man – straight – gay – black – yellow – brown – whatever, we need revolution against the system. But as a black president?
I prefer Oreo Cookie.
Mehrdad Komeleh said
I am not green red,but as a friend of his could not resist the temptation to add a few words of mine; …..the system is in great crisis; in reality we are facing a depression, ….if only they could utter the word….economically the country is awash in a mess; banking crisis; TARP already paid, back fired; lending mismanagemet and continuation of real estate crisis (read melting point); persistence of unemployment ; officially 10 percent ; unofficially close to 20 percent; in this environment, rabid racism raises its ugly head in the form of libertarianism, and “tea-bagging”; fear of immigrants soon to dislodge numerical superiority of the white population has wrecked havoc , and the results are for the next few decades predictable. Rise of hard right (Republicans) versus the xenophobic right (tea baggers)….continued dominance and monopolization of the country, and of course right now there is no more shame in contributing to financial campaigns of the friends of corporate America…..limits on finance contributions have been lifted..this is the only country to my knowledge where these things happen so blatantly in the daylight.
Obama has been used once and I doubt he has much use for the establishment once his term is over. He supposedly stemmed the free fall and has apparently outlived his usefulness.
Time for new names and figures and the GRAND OLD GAME…..stay tuned
Mike E said
Green-Red: When dealing with matters of race, it is best to be clear. Your allusions like those to “Negro” or “harems” in your first two sentences seem offensive. At best you seem indifferent to the danger of misunderstanding. You may intend sarcasm and mockery of rightwing charges, but those intentions are unclear — in fact I don’t know what most of your comment means — or is intended to say. Be much clearer.
maninsuburbs said
Nando writes:
The emotionalism of Nando’s piece “They expect us to eat shit” is worth considering. In “Into Election Mudslides” Nando argues that his agitational model has a pedagogical purpose.
But what does this style teach?
Nando’s piece, if I read it right, is directed at revolutionaries and progressives who advocate working in the electoral arena and voting Democrat when there are no viable alternatives.
Nando opposes these tactics.
That is reasonable enough.
But the tone of the piece, the emotionalism of it, which Nando suggests is inseparable from its content treats Bill Fletcher and others who hold similar views as enemies.
There is an unstated strategic assumption here. During the Bolshevik’s “third period” the line that the Social Democrats were in fact Social Fascists and were worse than the Nazis was advanced.
this is a strategy since it is an argument about friends and allies.
Nando is wittingly or unwittingly advancing a similar strategy and this strategy is taken up in many comments where Bill Fletcher is called a “liar” and a “deceiver.”
Is this a conscious strategy or is it just spontaneously emerging from the emotionalism? I don’t know. But in the comments that follow the initial piece Nando assumes the posture of a ideological bully.
In initial comments responding to TNL Nando writes:
All the “don’t imply” this and “don’t imply” thats without any example, evidence, or argument supplied to explain why TNL’s assertions or “implications” are wrong. This hyper dogmatic posture that attempts to short circuit criticism strikes me as intellectual bullying and reminiscent of the worst features of “democratic centralism.”
Perhaps this is not the intention but, the piece definitely has a strategy to treat people like Fletcher as enemies when they could just as easily be construed as allies with whom there are disagreements around electoral politics but with whom there are lots of areas of unity like opposition to the war.
Dave Palmer said
Up until now, Kasama has been characterized by a generally thoughtful approach and respectful treatment of ideological opponents. Mike in particular has been a champion of this, supporting, for example, engagement with — rather than denunciation of — the “anti-anti-imperialist” Platypus group. The idea seems to be that reasoned debate is better than angry rhetoric.
“They expect us to eat shit” represents a sharp change from this. The profanity in the title and throughout the piece is a strong indicator of its lack of reasoned arguments. Instead it is a childish emotional rant, pure and simple. Participation in bourgeois elections should be opposed because anyone who supports it is a “liar,” “deceiver,” and “part of the problem.” And they should “fuck off.”
Mike has been asked multiple times in multiple ways by multiple people what gives him the moral high ground from which to hurl this level of invective at others. What is his alternative?
The best he has been able to come up with is that “we should embrace ‘thisness.’”
Which doesn’t, in the end, sound all that different from Carl’s Zen Buddhism.
This is a disappointing departure from the tone which has characterized discussion on Kasama in the past, and it is particularly disappointing to see it coming from the person who (until now) has been the greatest exponent of a reasoned tone.
Dave Palmer said
By the way, speaking of Zen Buddhism, here are a couple of koans:
Revolutionary communism is to bourgeois democracy as pole is to _______
A. Eggplant
B. Hieronymous Bosch
C. Mudslide
D. Albuquerque
Marxism is to dogmatism as ecosystem is to _______
A. Tuberculosis
B. Layer cake
C. Antifreeze
D. Transubstantiation
redflags said
Dave, I have to say I’ve had more than a few of my own comments hidden for personal attacks instead of substantive ideas. And over time I’ve been won to an understanding that we need to deal with ideas to transform others and ourselves instead of making people into object lessons.
That said, the basic pitch of the Democrat Party is indeed “eat shit”, including the strangest attacks on progressive supporters of the President. To point this out in simple terms is not a departure from norms of discussion — it is a description of exactly what the Dems now promise.
Case in point, NY’s next governor will be Andrew Cuomo. His only public position of note is his announced plan to wage war on labor unions and pensions. So, it’s not just “eat shit” but “let your grandmother eat shit.”
I respect the intention of your post, but I think you confuse Mike’s characterization of the ruling party’s general pitch with a personal attack. It doesn’t muddy the waters, but clarifies the basic issue.
If Obama is willing to lose an election rather than deliver a single substantive pay-off to the millions who not only voted for him, but worked on his behalf… then shouldn’t we say so? Don’t we have a responsibility?
Carl Davidson said
Once again, Obama is not on the ballot this round. But here in PA, we have a Tea Party/GPO rightist vs a Clinton liberal running for Senate, and it matter to us that the Teabagger lose. We also have two local union guys–one a steelworker, the other a pipefitter, –running against the Tea Party candidates for two statehouse seats. So we’re working against Toomey and for the other two. As for our Blue Dog Altmire, he’s on his own, as far as we’re concerned. Mainly, we work to build the size and strength of our own PDA group while using these tactics.
In other words, start by looking at the options concretely, then work to build the options that can make for better choices in the future. Thoughout it all project your own platform.
Otto said
Is it really so bad to vote AGAINST a local Teabagger and not necessarily endorse a Democrat. In Kansas local elections we have some real scumbags running for Republicans.We don’t expect any progressive change from the Democrats. We haven’t been disappointed because some of us never expected them to do us any real favors. But there are some despicable people who run for office and don’t deserve it. We can always vote for a third party just to oppose some bozo who clearly doesn’t care what happens to working people with crack-pot ideas.
I don’t think voting is counter-revolutionary as long as the voter understands this is not really the answer to societies problems.
artemi0 said
I live in Pennsylvania as well and have been following the senate race with some interest. Election year TV advertising- while lowest common denomenator- reveals a lot. Here is an ad by the Clinton liberal campaign against the Tea Party candidate in the race Carl refers to above.
Carl Davidson said
That’s why you have to put out your own independent line, as we do in PDA, especially when you’re voting AGAINST one candidate on a ‘lesser evil’ basis. We also oppose Stestak on the wars, but in that case, he’s no different from Toomey. Still, given the range of differences between the two, it’s pretty much a no brainer. Again, the main point is to build your organization’s strengthen by engaging in these efforts, so we can accumulate the forces to eventually run our own candidates, who’ll have a decent shot at taking office.
louisproyect said
That’s why you have to put out your own independent line, as we do in PDA, especially when you’re voting AGAINST one candidate on a ‘lesser evil’ basis. We also oppose Stestak on the wars, but in that case, he’s no different from Toomey. Still, given the range of differences between the two, it’s pretty much a no brainer. Again, the main point is to build your organization’s strengthen by engaging in these efforts, so we can accumulate the forces to eventually run our own candidates, who’ll have a decent shot at taking office.
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Is this the same PDA that has the spineless Dennis Kucinich on its board? Who caved in to Obama on health care and to Kerry on the war in Iraq? The same PDA that has Medea Benjamin, who stabbed the Green Party in the back before settling in nicely into the DP? The same PDA that includes John Conyers, who had impeachment activists, including Cindy Sheehan, arrested?
I think the likelihood that this outfit is the embryo of a new left party in the same way that the Lincoln wing of the Whigs became the Republican Party is a sick joke. All of the people on the PDA board strike me as sclerotic encrustations on the body politic who would be deeply resistant to a genuine challenge to the 2-party system.
artemi0 said
To be fair- Pat Toomey’s campaign is running ad’s accusing Joe Sestak of being a “job killer” and are accusing this Clinton liberal of representing the interest’s of millionairs and billionaires.
While both campaign ad’s are lowest common denominator-, ironically they are both correct. Both canditates kill jobs, and represent the interests of the wealthy and the ruling class. The base appeal of both campaigns are all but identical, to the point of mirroring one another.
This is significant- it reveals a popular sentiment- a general distrust of the wealthy. This sentiment exist’s (on both left and right of the mainstream political spectrum). The question is how do we coming from a radical and revolutionary perspective tap into that? I am not opposed on principle to a strategy that involves tactics which have a component of engaging in some fashion of electoral politics to do so. No such strategy exists or has been articulated as of right now. Dialouge here may lead to it and might inform a future strategy, and the conversation is worth having.
On another note- the Tea Party (and Glen Beck and the likes) insist that they are independant of the Republican Party. Pat Toomey is a well established figure within the Republican Party, and also a Tea Party candidate. In other words- while the Tea Party movement is a groundswell which is dissatisfied with some aspects of the Republican Party- they are not in fact divorced from it and are a cutting edge component of it. Carl insist’s that the PDA is independent of the Democratic Party. I for one am extremely skeptical about this claim. I would even argue that the PDA is a component of the Democratic Party. The capital “D” in the three letter abbreviation and it’s subsequent definition “Democrat” speaks for itself. If it doesen’t here, Carl will and does.
To put things in very provacative terms; The Tea Party claims to be independant of the Republicans- they are not, and they lead that party more to the right. PDA claims to be independant of the Democrats, they are not and have far less influence in the DP and have not and will not lead that party to the left.
The Democratic Senetorial Campaign (ad posted above) & PDA have at least one thing in common- they both are campaigning for Joe Sestak. I visit PDA’s website a few times each month. Admittedly am not a regular and do not follow posts there in any regular way. Am unaware of any criticism PDA or the local group Carl is involved with that criticises this horriable ad. Is there one?
I have my own criticism’s with the ad’s and the entire campaign. It’s extremely narrow and nationalist. It is not confined to the 30 second TV ad broadcast ad nauseam either. It includeds (fossil) Arlen Spector making multiple public appearances claiming Pat Toomey is being financed by “chinese communist’s”. Is this really the basis we should actively seek to mobilize people to vote and participate in politics around?
Here in PA- I characterize things a little differtly than Carl. We have a Tea Party GOP rightest who represents the interests of billionairs VS. a Navy Admiral who has broken almost every promise he made to progressive’s last mid term electiion, coincidentally also representing the interests of billionaires.
Carl suggest’s that we look at the options. I agree that we should, and we really should look at the options.
There is a choice here. Do you want 6? or would you prefer a half dozen?
Carl Davidson said
PDA is organizationally and financially independent of the Democratic Party. It has its own platform, some of which overlaps with the Dem platform, but much does not. It has a range of views within it, and with any number of ongoing debates. If you like, check out its site, http://pdamerica.org In Congress, it works with the Progressive Caucus, and opposes the Blue Dogs.
I don’t know if that particular ad has been criticized by us; check out http://beavercountyblue.org But we have no problem criticizing any Democrat, especially Blue Dogs and DLC types.
Finally, despite Proyect, we do like Dennis Kucinich. We got him on the presidential ballot here. He was actually our first choice. Kucinich is rather popular with a wide range of rank-and-file workers around here as well. And we like Medea Benjamin and the work she does with Code Pink and Global Exchange, too. If you can’t see these two people as allies, despite differences, you’re in an alternate universe from us.
sed said
When it comes to US electioneering, American nationalist demagoguery and imperial chauvinism are the stock and trade.
They ultimately boil down to coded racist appeals about how “foreigners are stealing our jobs” or “illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs.”
Both Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans are guilty of this.
This season’s political campaign ads have demonstrated this in spades–so much so that some people are even having contests to choose the most racist political ad of the season, or spoof existing ones!
Cuéntame: Award Winner for Most Racist Ad 2010
http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2010/10/29/cuentame-racist-ad/
Announcing The “Evil Chinese Professor” Meme-Off
http://www.reappropriate.com/2010/10/25/announcing-the-evil-chinese-professor-meme-off/
What’s even more comical, however, is how the so-called American Left (sic) will offer the most pathetically contrived rationalizations for supporting the Democratic Party–even as they mouth radical sounding verbiage about supporting communism, socialism, and most laughably, workers’ internationalism.
This type of doublespeak is not that surprising though.
Behind its political mask, the (imperial) American Left is but the left wing of the American Empire.