Re: [Marxism] Camejo to speak at CCNY

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Feldman wrote:
> This might sound pretty simple but what exactly are we arguing about
> here? Nader and Camejo are for capitalism. We are against it. Just
> because Camejo WAS  a marxist at one point doesn't mean anything. What
> if David Horrowitz ran for president, would we be discussing his work
> when he was a marxist or exposing him for what he really is? Don't get
> me wrong, I think all the reformist stuff Camejo was doing in the 60's
> 70's whenever is really great but from a principaled standpoint it's
> clear that the Nader/Camejo ticket is not working or claiming to
> represent the interests of the working class first and foremost and
> furthermore are not espousing anything even semi-revolutionary.

I think that Steve Gabosch, Michael Feldman and Joe/October1917 are
missing the importance of the Nader campaigns. They are looking for
socialist and working-class themes when their real importance has more
to do with *democracy*.

To start with, we need to remind ourselves what Lenin said when he was
trying to give an example of how a vanguard functions. In "What is to be
Done," he writes:

"Why is there not a single political event in Germany that does not add
to the authority and prestige of the Social-Democracy? Because
Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of all the others in
furnishing the most revolutionary appraisal of every given event and in
championing every protest against tyranny...It intervenes in every
sphere and in every question of social and political life; in the matter
of Wilhelm's refusal to endorse a bourgeois progressive as city mayor
(our Economists have not managed to educate the Germans to the
understanding that such an act is, in fact, a compromise with
liberalism!); in the matter of the law against 'obscene' publications
and pictures; in the matter of governmental influence on the election of
professors, etc., etc."

You'll note that Lenin did not cite trade union struggles. He even goes
so far as to state that it is important for a vanguard party to oppose
the Kaiser's *refusal to endorse a bourgeois progressive as city mayor*.

In the USA today, the main obstacle to the radical movement is the
Democratic Party. Our class and its allies in their majority identify
with the Bill Clintons of the world. One of the sharpest chapters in the
St. Clair/Cockburn book that I am preparing for a Swans review deals
with Bill Clinton as the country's "first Black president." It is an
utter scandal that this pig has earned this kind of reputation
for--believe it or not--playing a saxophone, being promiscuous, and
renting office space in Harlem.

The United States is probably the only advanced capitalist country in
the world that is ruled by a single party. In reality, it is inaccurate
to refer to it as a 2-party system. There is one bourgeois party with
two public factions as we used to put it in the Trotskyist movement.
There is enough evidence of this to choke a horse. Democrat Zell Miller
gives a keynote speech to the Republican Party convention. Bill Clinton
announces that the Democrats are all "Eisenhower Republicans" nowadays.
Of course, the Republicans show little evidence of returning the favor.
The last time they shifted left was under Nixon, who was obviously
responding to pressure from mass actions and not displaying a change of
heart.

Foreign and domestic policy are basically decided in advance by closed
circles dominated by investment banks, oil companies,
telecommunications, etc. who dole out money without prejudice to the
donkey and the elephant.

Ralph Nader runs because he is appalled by this situation. He called
attention to it in the 1950s, when as a young lawyer (or law
student--I'm not sure) he wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review
attacking the 2-party system in the USA. His goal is obviously not to
overthrow capitalism, but to allow the masses to challenge corporate
rule by running candidates who are not beholden to Goldman-Sachs and
company. The Greens held out this promise but caved in under pressure.
Nader, to his everlasting credit, did not. This is far more imporant
than any empty verbal gestures about the need to establish the
dictatorship of the proletariat.




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