[Marxism] Nobody's waiting for nothing because capitalism's moving us along!

[Bonnie Weinstein <giobon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark, you keep saying that you have "corrected me" several times about the
support--underhanded or otherwise--the Greens show toward the Democrats and
yet time and again by others as well as me--and even out of your own mouth
in reference to the Fulani "fusion strategy" crowd in the Greens--it has
been shown that they do support voting for Democrats when push comes to
shove, i.e., if there is a chance that by voting for the Greens the
Democrats will loose to the Republicans they recede from the competition in
that area. I call this support for Democrats.

The whole point is that such a strategy is massive fraud perpetrated upon
the working class throughout the world by this underhanded strategy of
support to the lesser-evil bourgeois party if it seems to be loosing. It is
the same thing as saying, "well, the Democrats are better than the
Republicans" when nothing can be further from the truth.

It makes no difference if there are liberals, bleeding hearts, "good guys"
who claim they will make the party better--more compassionate--because the
party itself represents the despots. It's owned lock, stock and barrel by
them. And all those liberals and bleeding hearts and "good guys" still
support the party, remain in the party and still try to get people to vote
for the party candidates, i.e., support the Democrats.

Look, during the last days of the independent women's liberation
movement--before NOW became a 501c3 non-profit group tied to corporate
funds--those that helped to turn NOW into a corporate non-profit, were
fighting for the demand to allow women into the military in full capacity
with men. 

They claimed that women in the military would inevitably lead to a "kinder
and gentler" military. Well, I think little Lindy England holding onto her
dog leash tied to a prisoner at Abu Ghraib dispels this myth.

Being determines consciousness. If you are a leader of a bourgeois party
then no matter how you vote in that party or in congress or in the senate or
in the state assembly or in city government, what you say to your
constituency, if you remain in the war party while it is committing such
heinous crimes around the world and at home, then the blood is on your hands
just as thick and drenched.

If you dismisses the "fusion strategy" of the Greens that encourages votes
for those very blood-bathed candidates; if you dismiss the words of the
leadership of the Greens--Media's statement of "working like hell to get the
Democrats elected"--and dismisses their whole "non-confrontational" attitude
toward the Democrats because "they would be better than Republicans" or
whoever, then it is you who are floating down that great river of denial,
not me.

The Democratic Party is a war party, has been a war party and will always be
a war party in a never-ending war against the entire working class and in
defense of their own class, their greed, their wealth and their power--in
defense of the capitalist class and its economic system of oppression. If
you are against those things then you should advocate, above all, that no
one throw away their vote on anyone from their party or on anyone who would
yield to them!

See, a party based on the ranks of the working class--a real, democratically
organize labor party based upon the ranks of workers both organized and
unorganized and that acts on behalf of the interests of the working class
will inevitably be in diametric opposition to the interests of capitalism
and all the capitalist parties--that's the basic premise of Marxism.

To top-off your denial, you state that the Greens are, "the largest
progressive mass insurgency in our lifetime."

How old are you, Mark? Were you alive during the anti-Vietnam war movement,
the women's movement, the civil rights and Black Nationalist movements? How
can you call the Greens a "mass insurgency?"

O.K., if you are still in your twenties or thirties perhaps you don't know
what a mass insurgency looks like, or, even, what a mass movement looks like
so I guess you can be excused--that is if you are still that young that you
don't remember the massive outpouring of protest and activism that pails the
movement of today. 

We got the Civil Rights Amendment granting equal rights for Blacks and an
end to Jim Crow; equal pay for equal work for women; we got women's right to
choose; we stopped the war in Vietnam and brought the troops home within
days; we opened daycare centers in the public schools; we ended the draft;
workers won great pay, health and retirement packages that allowed them to
obtain the "American Dream"--all the things that are falling to pieces today
were gained as a result of massive independent action by Blacks, women, and
workers. Anything gained was gained by the mass movements of workers in
their own defense in some shape or form independent of the capitalist class
and their Parties and in opposition, in fact, to them.

Organized labor is down from around 33 percent of the workforce to around 7
percent of the workforce today! We are just beginning to feel the
repercussions from the two and multi-tiered contracts that the youth of
today now face. This is a class war of the wealthy against the
workers--because their profits come off our backs! Like the very land stolen
from the Native Americans, the wealth gained from Black, Chinese and other
slaves before us; and the surfs and chattel slaves and the peasants of the
kingdoms or the slaves of the priests and Pharos and the churches--the
wealthy would have nothing without the profits they gained off the forced
labor and servitude of the masses.

Capitalism is the last vestige of the domination of a tiny wealthy minority
over the overwhelming masses--the majority of humanity. It is a system
symbolized by the pyramid that used to sit on the dollar bill with the
all-seeing eye floating untouchable and above the rest. But without its mass
base of support the pyramid would topple to the ground.

We, the working class of the world, are the movers and shakers; the life
givers and the creators; caretakers and makers and builders and
keepers--they are the vampires that feed off us.

In any case, you need to get off that river and get back onto the shores of
reality.

The Greens are neither socialist, based upon the working class, controlled
by the working class or in any way representative of the working class. They
are a group of left-liberals and, to my own sorrow, some ex-socialists, like
Peter Camejo, who was my hero during the early pre-Barnsian years in the SWP
and YSA. He was fiery, young and energetic--a powerful speaker and creative
explainer of socialism. He deserves credit for those years. I hope he is
well.

In order for a party to be independent it must be independent of the
capitalist class--independent of the class that is oppressing them. They can
be unsure of where they are going--as long as they are going along the path
in defense of the entire working class and of the planet.

If they remain independent of the capitalist class and true to their own
best interests as a whole, they will inevitably be lead to socialism and
true communism and an end, finally, to the profit driven system of
capitalism--the primal enemy of all humanity and the enemy of the planet
itself--of life itself.

I like to re-read the Communist Manifesto from time to time--it always kind
of anchors me to my class consciousness.

There is a basic dynamic at work here. If workers act in their own self
interests and in their own defense they will be acting in the interests of
all of humanity and the world. It's as simple as that.

But if you are not clear about whose interests you should support--if you
rationalize support to one enemy as opposed to another--you are still
supporting the enemy of humanity. Pretending that one is better than the
other is the life-long, centuries-long game they perpetuate. That, and
"divide and conquer" are their most powerful tools.

The only antidote to the deadly poison of capitalism is if workers unite in
their own interests--unite to defend the weakest among us; to view an attack
against one as an attack against all; to create a society of equality
justice and freedom for all; where human needs come before profit; a society
designed to give to each individual according to their needs and wants and
collectively benefit from each individual according to their own talents and
abilities that they can develop to the fullest in a free and open society;
so that each are able to contribute substantially back to society. Ending
capitalism, ending the profit motive will allow all of this. And all of it
is on the line--the class line.

We want to live in peace. We want our children and ourselves to be able to
develop to our full potential as human beings. We want good, quality
housing, the highest quality education that includes the exploration of our
world, of beauty and nature in addition to learning intellectual
disciplines. We want a clean environment and a replenishing planet. We, too,
want to enjoy life and explore our own interests throughout our lives.

With a democratic, rationally planned socialist society we can make steady
progress toward those goals. I believe this. I believe that we can create a
paradise on this earth if we act together and in our own interests and
disarm the capitalist despots and disarm their wealth as well and put it to
work to solve these human problems that lead to conflict and war and brutal
competition for crumbs while the wealthy sip martini's on the rock (a
martini poured over a diamond instead of a cube of ice--for more about such
luxuries afforded to the ruling class, check out the article "Richistan" by
Paul Craig Roberts, August 2, 2007. You can find it at Counterpunch.)

Money for Human Needs Not War! That's what we must choose in unity and
solidarity with one another--and that automatically goes against the
interests of the capitalist class. That's the other side of the dynamic of
class struggle. Fighting for our needs, whether we know it or realize it or
not, automatically puts us on the side that is against the interests of the
capitalists who are trying to squeeze us for every drop of blood we have
making us, automatically, their enemy. We don't have a choice in the matter
unless we unite and make the choice together because only together can we
choose to fight for our rights and win--saving ourselves and the world.

--Bonnie Weinstein, Socialist Viewpoint magazine

On 9/2/07 3:35 PM, "Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> One of us is definitely in denial, so let's find out which of us it is....
> 
> You say the GPUS supports Democrats.  Those of us actually involved in the
> GPUS insist that this is not true.  It is up to you to sustain your claim.
> 
> A party takes official positions and makes nominations, so show me the
> nomination of a Democratic candidate or a resolution calling for such a
> nomination.  All this stuff is available to you on the internet.
> 
> Indeed, the Fulani crowd in New York advocates a very traditional kind of
> dead-end "fusion strategy" with the Democrats and it's all over their
> material.  This is because there's no point in taking a position like that
> and keeping it secret, is there?
> 
> So you say the GPUS takes positions that those of us involved in it say it
> does not....   The party's documents, nominations and proceedings a matter
> of the public record and posted on the website.
> 
> Quoting Medea Benjamin or any individuals is not only NOT TO THE POINT, but
> represents A FLAGRANT MISDIRECTION.  (Certainly, I could quote Socialist
> Party saying much the same thing.)  If what you say is true, you have access
> to what you need to prove it.
> 
> One other observation....
> 
> Your consistent conflation of the Nader-Camejo campaign with the GPUS (on
> which you have also been corrected several times) seems to me to be the best
> measure you could provide of your utter disinterest in the realities and
> fate of the largest progressive mass insurgency in our lifetime....
> 
> Solidarity!
> Mark L.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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