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

[Mark Lause <markalause@xxxxxxxxx>]

Gary MacLennan wrote: "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.  . . .  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."

Again, I would so love to state my position rather than have others
state it for me, though Gary always comes closer that Sartesian who
makes a sport of excreting his misrepresentations into a pit and
wrestling with them.  (To each his own, of course.)

Calls to unity and sacrifice BS are part of the inaugural rhetoric all
the time and I wouldn't read anything into much of anything in an
inaugural address.  There are many more serious things about what's
actually been done in Washington that should concern us more.  I
suggest that as EVENTS march on, things will become more clear than
all of the gab on all of the email lists can make them.

I've never thought or said "no one is listening," but I don't see the
point of the continual drumbeat over this on the Marxism List.  It
seems to me that this is either preaching to the choir or regaling
those who aren't really listening now.

And it's increasingly evident that the list includes some genuine
supporters of Obama, so I have to ask the obvious question about the
merits of email discussions in dissuading them.  I tried several times
in the course of the campaign to coax the many Obama supporters on the
list to have that discussion, but very few decided to have it.  Some
of us made what I thought were unanswerably good arguments about not
voting Democratic.  But they didn't even persuade members of the
Marxism List.   So what's to be accomplished by having a bunch of
radicals bitch at each about how bourgeois the president?  It does
give some participants a chance to argue over who gets to describe the
president as really bourgeois as opposed to the other participants who
see him as just a bourgeois...

Still, I'd suggest that there are illusions and there are illusions.
Almost all of my neighbors, coworkers, students and old friends have
voted for Obama.  Except for the very young, there are really almost
no full blown True Believers.  Most evaluated what they saw as
realistic options and went with what they thought to be the least
objectionable.  That's not my formula--and I tried to dissuade
them--but that's where they decided to go.

In the process, the 2008 election marked a break with what had gone
before.  Notwithstanding the hallucinations--and the deliberate,
conscious slanders of some of the participants in this discussion--I
have never argued that this marks a break from capitalism or bourgeois
politics.  But this tells us nothing.  And the list doesn't seem to
what to get beyond that understanding.

"Marxists" who've identified the victor of an American presidential
election a bourgeois politician have very successfully managed to find
their ass with both hands.  Congratulations.  However, if you don't
carry the analysis a little deeper, you're not only unlikely to do
well as a Marxist but you are headed directly for a Darwin Award...
And I think the American movement already has a whole shelf full of
those....

As I've argued all through the campaign and beyond, Obama does
represent a difference.  This isn't a question of political support
but materialist analysis. Setting aside the question of race, section,
rhetoric, let's consider it only in terms of the sales pitch the
bourgeoisie is giving us.  THAT alone means we have an administration
far more favorable to some reforms we would like to see.

Of course, taking advantage of this requires getting away from the
keyboard from time to time and staggering away from the bar stool into
the sunlight.  Even given our pathetic numbers, there are things we
could be DOING right now.  However, the priorities here seem to be
evident if you start looking past the mountain of material on Obama
for stuff on the March antiwar demonstrations or on the fight over
foreclosures.

The fact is that only those kinds of activities can practically bring
to bear in the wider society what little weight we have.

ML

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