Re: [Marxism] Supporting Obama should not lead to expulsion

[Gary MacLennan <gary.maclennan1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walter will of course be back if he wants to.  There is no Siberia here.   I
have been off the list and came back after I had stopped sulking. To be
frank I will welcome his return.  That is not to say that I do not think he
was being provocative.  I suspect Walter realises that too.

But Greg's argument around this is specious.  Millions of Americans are
clinging in desperation to Obama.  Millions of Americans also have faith in
capitalism.  All true but that does not mean we should peddle pro-illusions
in capitalist b.s. or in the latest and slickest salesman.  Once we hear the
phrase "unity and sacrifice" we should know enough history to reach for the
chuck bucket.

And I absolutely dare the Obamaphiliacs to address this point.  Of course
they won't.  There will be not a cheep from Joaquin, Mark, Charles about the
meaning of unity or sacrifice. When a bourgeois politician comes out with
that phrase it does not matter that his black, it would not matter if he was
an out gay.  Neither would it mater if it were a woman.  Unity and sacrifice
mean only suffering and death for the working class..  I repeat there will
not be a word about that from those who want us to march under the banner of
"Change we can believe in"

Except perhaps Mark will say he agrees with me and then he will say no one
is listening so we should not say it.

Now there have been some changes with the arrival of Obama.  He has loosened
up the stem cell business.  He has also according to the New Scientist
assembled the smartest team of scientist ever.

Should we roll over because of this?

Or should we accord greater importance to the 400 children slaughtered in
Gaza?  Obama has not mentioned them at all.  they do not figure in the great
"Yes We Can".  The Palestinian dead (and living) are not part of the "Change
we can believe in".

I will not speak for Lou but I think that as a Jew he is deeply outraged at
the massacres that are being done in his name.

But Walter pushes all this to the background and focuses instead on the
crumbs that might be being held out to Cuba.  He is quite entitled to think
they are important, but he is not entitled to suggest that we should be
grateful or that is all we can hope for or dare I say it all we can demand.

I have said it time after time.  We have to keep up the pressure on Barack
Obama.  If we lie back like a dog that is having its tummy stroked then we
will be treated like dogs.  But if we make it clear that we want more than
windy rhetoric then there is some kind of chance we might get a little more.

Our job as revolutionaries, and I make no apologies for using that word
despite Joaquin's acerbic witticisms, is not to sow or allow others to sow
illusions in capitalism.

Obama has been the main man in town since the election.  That is the
political truth that no amount of bourgeois legalism about "only one
president at a time" can hide and already the dead are many.

Unfortunately they will be a lot more - before the working class of America
wakes up.

regards

Gary
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