Re: [Marxism] Enough already with the empty rhetoric

["chegitz guevara" <absynthe@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Mark Lause <markalause@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> cheglitz,
>
> I appreciate your belated answer.  It sounds to me that the reality is
> pretty much as it looks from outside, that the SP has no conscious
> policy of promoting united socialist tickets.  I'd applaud any
> initiative on the part of the SP precisely because I see it as the
> most logical pole of attraction to perform this function.

No, we do not have an explicit policy of trying to promote a united
ticket, but we did try to talk to the other parties about doing it.
Hopefully we'll try again in 2010, 2112, until we get some willingness
on the part of the other organizations to try it out. I have
absolutely no expectation tht either the SEP or SWP will every
cooperate, at least not while Barnes and his companion in the SWP and
David North in the SEP are still alive. Nor do I expect the WWP to
come around anytime soon. PSL, probably sooner.

> I am still confused as to the SP's failure to support McKinney.  If
> you endorse Greens from time to time, even though they're not
> explicitly socialist, then we are agreed that she is not a "bourgeois
> candidate," as you earlier implied.  Moreover, ,some of your members,
> as you say, wanted to endorse McKinney.  The old SP in the days of
> Debs regularly held a national referendum within the party to make
> decisions between conventions.

No, our policy is to support those running explicitly socialist
campagins. Those that won't even mention socialism are not supposed to
be endorsed. McKinney fails that simple test right there, as she's not
*any* kind of socialist.

Furthermore, I am not in agreement that she is not a bourgeois
candidate. She supports private property and the market. She may
oppose particular chosen forms of bourgeois rule, i.e. corporations,
as does Nader, but abolishing corporations won't abolish capitalism,
wage slavery, etc. It would be like claiming someone was anti-slavery
because they opposed the use of slaves everywhere except in the cotton
fields. That wouldn't be antislavery, and she isn't anti-capitalist
for opposing corporate rule. If she's not anti-capitalist, she serves
the class rule of the bourgeoisie, which makes her a bourgeois
candidate. Besides, from statements she made in Fort Lauderdale, it
seems to me she's a Demo-Green. She sees the Greens as a means to put
pressure on the Democrats, not as an alternative.

> That was a Socialist Party with tens of thousands of members, no
> internet, no email.  Isn't it better to correct an ill-conceived
> position than to plead that the organization is a prisoner of its own
> by-laws?

That was in an era when the party was a movement. Most of the hard
core activists, as you know, ended up leaving and founding the CP.
The Norman Thomas era changed the party, for the worse I would argue.
We have a mechanism for overturning the results of the convention.
Three locals have to ask for a referendum and then 2/3rds of the
members of the party must return ballots. Well, probably 2/3rds of our
members are just dues paying members. No referendum can get passed
because 2/3rds of the membership won't even return their mail ballots.

It's not just a hold over from the old days. The majority of the
members of the party in Florida who've joined since I was elected
Secretary don't ever bother to return an email, so up to meetings, or
even want to be contacted. They just want to pay their dues and be
left alone. We have a state convention in less then two weeks, and I
haven't received a single RSVP. So, no referendum is gonna get passed.

> ML.

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