[Marxism] A letter to a Marxmail subscriber

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sky Keyes-Vogt 


My understanding of the slogan "the Dem Party is a graveyard for
social
movements" is that it refers to the fact that Dems try to steer the
masses
away from mass action in the streets to electoral voting booth
strategies,
i.e. that they COUNTERPOSE voting against mass action.  

^^^
CB: The main purpose of mass action in the "streets", like Civil Rights
Sit-in demonstrations at Dixie lunch counters, or a Sit-down strike in
Flint, is to change the government's actions and laws. The actions in
the streets in the 30's, like the Ford Hunger March, resulted in the DP
under Roosevelt legalizing unions, establishing unemployment insurance,
WPA, Social Security, welfare aid etc.  In other words, the workers'
action in the streets attained its aims, including especially electing
people or influencing elected people who will change the law. Let me
repeat that: change the law. 

Similarly, the Civil Rights demos in the streets succeeded in changing
a segregationist elected Senator to lead, as President,  the passing of
a whole slew of civil rights laws , i.e. fulfilling the Civil Rights
Movements' street demos purpose.

The counterpose issue is something of a diversion from the purpose of
the street demos in this historical factual context. The street demos
don't have the aim of staying in the streets and somehow running society
from the streets. The street demos are extraordinary actions, a form of
demand,  meant to change the conduct in the halls of government ,
including especially by voting.  Government conduct won't change based
on large numbers of people at a street demonstration unless the
officials expect an impact at the polls from the demos.

^^^^^

Thus, they help kill
mass social movements by spouting the lie that the voting booth is the
only
place where change happens.

^^^
CB: This is sort of left demogogy.  There were big changes
substantially fulfilling the Civil Rights Movement's anti-Jim Crow goals
accomplished by Johnson and the Democratic Congress.  The lie of
omission is failure to say this when discussing the history of the
actions of the DP in the last 75 years.

The failure of the DP in the last 60 years has been  its anti-Sovietism
and anti-Communism, Cold Warrioring, not in its domestic conduct, New
Deal/Great Society.

^^^^^

Do others have a different perspective regarding what this slogan
implies?
It seemed pretty clear to me that the Dem party doesn't sustain and
grow
social movements, it co-opts them and neutralizes them so that they
don't
pose a fundamental threat to the system.

^^^^^
CB: This is an intellectual "cooption" of these so-called social
movements by radical leftists in the sense that masses of subjects in
these movements don't have as a goal to fundamentally threaten the
system. They don't have revolutionary consciousness or purpose. The DP
doesn't cause them to have this limited, reform purpose. They have the
limited , reform purpose on their own. It's not demonstrated that "left
alone" by the DP these social movements would "turn into" revolutionary
movements. That is a radical left projection onto them. It is US left
sour grapes and envy.



The facts are pretty undeniable. The Democratic Party has led in
winning major reforms which "reforms" are the goals of social movements.


The fact that these reform victories have a seeming and speculated
effect of preventing these social movements from in someway flowing into
revolutionary change is only considered by leftists of the many types.
Even if this is true, it is substituting the left's ideas for those in
the minds of the mass participants in the social movements.  It is
inherently paternalistic.  And more, given that the left has not
delivered on a revolutionary movement, the left can't turn its nose up
at the DP and the limited victories of the various social movements. So,
basically, the position that the DP has not and cannot do any good,
political good is flat out wrong, contradicted by the facts of recent US
history. Materialists, scientists can't ignore important facts.  

The DP has done great wrong and harm, as well, especially in the Cold
War and foreign colonialist imperialist and anti-Soviet militarism and
war and threat of war. And with Clintonism it has fallen to a real low
for recent history. 

^^^^^

Without intending to be sectarian in any way, I must ask: is the view
held
by CB about the Dems common among Marxists?  and would CB's view of the
Dems
be considered to be close to the view held by the American CP, i.e.
serve to
justify support for the Dem candidate in president elections?

In Solidarity,

Sky Keyes




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